Ask HN: Learning material for basic level knowledge about Docker, AWS and NoSQL - <AUTHOR> I will have an interview next week for an iOS role where the company representative said that I will be expected to know basic stuff about Docker, AWS and NoSQL databases. Being an iOS dev, I don't know much about these. What should one know to cover "basic" stuff? What materials would you recommend for learning about these? <comment> jonathan-kosgei Docker 1\. What containers, images, image repositories are and how to create them 2\. How to write a simple Dockerfile and build it into an image 3\. Launching multiple containers with docker-compose 4\. Basic docker commands, starting, deleting containers, listing running containers, checking container logs, exec'ing into a container, deleting images, running daemonized containers etc

AWS 1\. Creating an ec2 instance 2\. Writing a lambda function 3\. s3

This is very non-exhaustive but would cover the very basic. Good luck!

For Nosql try writing something simple with redis, look at mongodb etc

</comment><comment><USER2> It makes sense that you don't know much about this stuff as an iOS dev. But it's reasonable to expect you to have at least basic knowledge of major technologies adjacent to iOS dev. After all, your iOS apps will likely communicate with systems built on these technologies. Certainly it's necessary to have at least a passing familiarity with them.

Therefore, if you feel weak during the interview when asked about one of these technologies, you should defer to speaking about your experience interacting with it as an iOS dev. For example, speak about a backend API you had to interact with, and how the queries it allowed you to make impacted your iOS architecture. Talk about JSON, relations, indexes, etc. Challenges you faced, problems you discovered, lessons you learned. Make it relevant to both iOS and whatever technology the interviewer is asking about.

It's never a bad idea to tell a story.

<comment><AUTHOR> Makes sense, actually reading through this I was reminded of a few stories that I would be able to tell. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Regarding docker:

0\. Understand the use-case: What's the point of using docker for dev, production, etc. Read about the 12-factor app by Heroku.

1\. Make sure you understand why ppl use init systems vs launching multiple processes inside a container

2\. Why ppl use a container vs a VM

3\. Can you run windows on a docker daemon running on linux host? If yet how? If not why? Can you run a linux container on a mac host? If not why? If "yes" how?

4\. Make sure you understand the different network drivers (host, bridge, overlay, etc.) and what they do

3\. Know what are orchestration tools (swarm, kubernetes, mesos, rancher, etc). Why do we use them, what problems do they solve? I'm guessing that this is out of the scope of the interview, if it's not, make sure you understand how to solve: Service discovery (consul, etcd, build-in), Traffic routing (mesh network, port mapping, etc.) and Persistency (EBS volumes via rexray plugin or cloudstor, other tech.). Try to design a fully automated deployment cycle, basic steps should be: deploy, test on push (Jenkins/Drone/other CI tools), run on staging (ab/qa testing?), then push into production (git branching models?!).

Regarding AWS:

1\. AWS is a shit-show in the sense that there is _too much_ to know, from an admin perspective. Companies use just a subset, but which one?! Usually people will about the following: EC2 instances (basic types, like T, M, I, etc.). Storage options for throughput (EBS volumes types: io1, gp2, st1, sc1). When to use which one.

2\. S3, storage options and types. I will serve you better if you understand what AZ and Regions are and how they are spread geographically. If you have time to dive into "Object Lifecycle Management" which involves Glacier, would be nice. Also make sure you understand the "s3 read-after-write consistency" model, which is different for writes and deletes.

3\. Take a look at RDS offerings vs DynamoDB (See NoSQL bellow).

4\. Other services to look at: ElasticCache, Route53, CloudFormation, Lambda, IAM.

Regarding NoSQL:

1\. What RDS (SQL databases) / NoSQL (dynamodb) does AWS offer and which one offers what. It's a bit too much for an entry level question but Aurora vs MySQL AWS Offering could be a tricky question, very AWS specific.

2\. I've wrote a high-level MySQL vs NoSQL overview here: [https://www.convalesco.org/articles/2016/11/10/a-quick- overv...](https://www.convalesco.org/articles/2016/11/10/a-quick-overview-sql- vs-nosql.html) \- you can start from there and deep-dive into NoSQL databases. A good way to approach databases is in terms of the CAP theorem and what it offers[1]. It's a triangle, you can pick "2" or choose a spot anywhere in between. The choice usually depends on a variety of facts (e.g. do you value more Consistency, Availability or Partition Tolerance?). Each DB (e.g. MongoDB vs DynamoDB) have specific characteristics. I'd say that it's best to _study_ at least 2 of them and then try to understand what each offering gives and why. Also makes sure you take a look at Redis. I'd argue the the other most famous and widely used NoSQL is ElasticSearch but ppl doesn't think (for some reason) about ES when talking about NoSQL... I've noticed that they usually when they talk about NoSQL they usually talk about MongoDB, DynamoDB, Cassandra and Couchbase (the order is random although Mongo is probably the most widely used). From an admin POV you should know how replication works, what happens if the master or slave goes down, how master election/quorum is achieved, etc. It's different and tricky for each DB... I'm not sure if it's worth diving into details, maybe watch a few videos on youtube and take notes. The important thing to know is that in a "master/slave" setup usually you scale-out through master -> slave replication, by scaling out _reads_ not _writes_. You need master-master replication, but then you introduce another set of problems (consistency vs availability, etc.)

That's not an exhaustive list of course, but you get the point.

Good luck & stay strong!

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow really detailed answer! It looks like I'll be using this as a blueprint while studying, thanks so much for taking the time!</comment></comment>


In a turnabout, police are the good guys in post-quake Haiti - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012904144_pf.html <comment><USER2> If a 7.0 magnitude quake hit Maricopa County, AZ, and a sizable percentage of the local population was buried alive, the otherwise abominable cops there might act like human beings, too, under the watchful eyes of the rest of the world. From TFA:

"The foreigners need to understand the earthquake did the same thing to the police it did to the population," said Antoine Franck, an officer on duty at the Champ du Mars park. "My house fell down. I lost everything. Everyone's house fell down. My dear brother's house fell down, and he is dead under there. Every policeman has dead family."

When will we realize that when it comes to government, at any level, there are no "good guys" or "bad guys"? There are only people, acting in their own interest, as broad or as narrow as that may be. Sometimes -- more often when we find ourselves in a national crisis -- we will act with compassion towards one another.

All other things being equal, though, give a man a uniform, a loaded gun, the security of the "blue wall of silence", and a judicial system inclined to take him at his word no matter what (or worse, no effective judicial system at all, as is the case in many countries), and you might as well just have gang rule.

It's great that the people with the "official" capacity to exercise force in Haiti have opted to look out for their countrymen, rather than loot and pillage. But let's not assume (one way or the other!) that, had there been no disaster, they would be acting so nobly.

</comment><comment><USER3> _the once notoriously corrupt Haitian National Police have been doing their jobs and are keeping something approaching law and order in a capital of chaos._

Blah blah. [http://eastdallasblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/01/dallas...](http://eastdallasblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/01/dallas- business-man-helping-at.html)</comment>


Internet trolling as a hybrid warfare tool: case Latvia - <AUTHOR> http://www.stratcomcoe.org/internet-trolling-hybrid-warfare-tool-case-latvia-0 <comment><AUTHOR> At 93 pages this is a comprehensive look at government sponsored Internet trolling.

Page 61 lists some types of trolls they found.

> 2\. Bikini troll

> – this troll expresses an oversimplified world view in a brief and/ or naïve > manner. The troll was nicknamed Bikini because of the profile picture used – > a young girl in a bikini (but, after more deeply analysing the source of > these trolls' messages, the authors found actual posters to be very > masculine with macho profile pictures who obviously felt the Bikini profile > worked better in comments). The Bikini troll is more adaptive to the > internet environment and thus hard to recognise – only the content can > reveal it is trolling. And this content is simple – it contains one question > and one suggestion – "Surely it is not only Russia that is bad? The world > doesn't work like that – maybe we should look…" and then it returns to the > "blame the US" motive. Other recognition patterns should be looked for in > terms of content (see end of the chapter for more on recognition patterns). > The Bikini troll, despite its primitive messages, does in fact influence a > large part of the internet community, as was proven in the focus groups.

It's a long read, but I recommend it because it's fascinating to see how much effort goes into trolling.</comment>


How do I start with these stuffs? - <AUTHOR>

I am a 22 yrs computer engineering student and have really cool interest in programming. But yet haven't done anything more than college little crappy projects. I need some guide if you guys could provide how I could start with. I have like 10's of ideas on my mind through which I think I can make real money and reach somewhere recognizable. I think my self as an entrepreneur in making. I am little familiar with stuffs like php/mysql, html/css, c/c++, CMS like wordpress, OOP concepts but not very much. May be I want to go on the web stuffs, and definitely I am an opensource lover. I would be really glad to see some  suggestions. <comment><USER2> Find an existing open source project and fix some bugs. That will give you experience in larger projects, communication, reading documentation, understanding frameworks, using source control, debugging, reading code, and possibly in dark corners of your chosen language.

Then do it again, and again. You will earn respect in the community, and experience that is otherwise hard to obtain.

You can do that quickly, too. It's the fastest way to learn, and you'll be well placed to take that one burning idea that you can't ignore and make it a reality.

If you want to make a mirror for a 6" reflecting telecope, conventional wisdom and experience says it's fastest first to make a 4", then the 6". The experience gained in the smaller exercise far outweighs the time taken.

It's an analogy, and it has flaws, but it contains a lesson.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am very glad that you replied. What ever you have explained above sounds to be really good to start with. Thank you. I will try my best.</comment></comment>


Copylead, Prospecting gone fast, easy and FUN - <AUTHOR> http://www.copylead.com <comment><AUTHOR> Copylead helps sales teams, salesmen, business developers to save leads from Social networks to Salesforce CRM instantly.

The problem is that prospecting means too much data entry and that itself is really boring and wastes a lots of valuable sales time, Copylead made it quick, easy & FUN.

With Copylead data entry is no longer a pain, one click to save leads to Salesforce. All your lead information are immediately sent to Salesforce CRM, including email, phone, company and exclusively profile photo.

Copylead works with the most popular social networks; LinkedIn, Twitter, Gmail, Facebook and AngelList. More to come soon...

Copylead will make it 10 times faster and cost effective for you to get leads from social networks.

</comment><comment><USER2> I think copylead it will be one of happiest news for saloperons ad all who do prospecting, it really helps to optimize your time on copy past and focus only on what that matter for tham collectting prospects</comment>


Show HN: Remote Development Environment for Teams - <AUTHOR> https://imperius.launchaco.com <comment><USER2> How is this different from codeanywhere ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. Codeanywhere is more like a remote IDE that let you connect to an existing development environment. Imperius spins up the development environment of your team in one click from cloud. You can use any tool including Codeanywhere to connect to Imperius and start coding :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You misspelt "Environment" once and "Imperius" twice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Fixed it. We wasted a lot of time on landing page while building our last product. This time we decided we will built it quickly made the landing page in under an hour. I knew we messed up somewhere. Also we are super sleepy at this point :)

<comment><USER3> I can imagine. Good luck and goodnight!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Redesigned: Escherpad, a collaborative math and code notebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.escherpad.com/signup?referral=yangge1987
<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you all for your comment! We redesigned the landing page and added a short video of the app in action.

Do you think this is something useful, or something that you would use yourself? Please let us know!</comment>


AIG Implodes: The Two Cows Version - <AUTHOR> http://clusterstock.alleyinsider.com/2009/2/aig-implodes-the-two-cows-version <comment><USER2> This is not accurate, though. AIG's problem is not owning cows, it is insurance. Let me try.

Bob has two cows, each worth $100.

Jane buys one cow from Bob, paying him no money down and borrowing $100 from the bank. She says she'll pay the bank back with milk money, or refinance when the cow becomes worth $120 in two years. The bank, sensibly, is worried about the cow dying, so they take out a life insurance policy on the cow.

Now as it turns out, the cow is sickly so ordinarily a life insurance policy would cost a lot of money. So rather than insuring one cow, the bank buys insurance on an entire herd of cows at the same time. They're all sickly cows. Oh well, no worries. If the cows are insured by a healthy company there is no way the bank can lose.

Then the bank gets a bright idea: rather than holding the deed to the cow on their book, they securitize the loan revenues from the entire herd, which are contingent on the milk flowing from still living cows BUT insured by a reputable insurance company. So even though these cows are two steps from death's door why, the security is fairly safe. To make it totally safe, they divide it up into different tranches.

There is an AA tranch, which is the best sickly cows. Then a BB tranch, which is the second best cows. Then another tranch, which is cows who are laying down and leaking polychromatic pus. And they're all insured.

But selling that last tranch is pretty difficult, so the bank gathers up several copies of that tranch from multiple herds, makes a synthetic herd out of it, and then among the almost-dying sickly cows there are most-healthy-but- still-almost dying "AA"s again. Yay! Sales. This lets them lend out more money to more people to buy sickly cows, the rights to whose loans they securitize and sell, etc. They make tons of money doing this.

Now why on earth is AIG selling insurance to this bank?! Because they look at their death rates for cows table, which is for the usual mix of QUITE HEALTHY COWS and sickly cows (not herds of sickly cows, and not synthetic herds of the sickest of sickly cows), and decided "cows don't die much, so selling insurance on them is pretty much a can't lose proposition". So they set their rates on cow insurance very freaking low: $1 to insure $100 of cow for a year, no problem!

Then somebody comes up to AIG and says "Hey, you're selling the bank insurance on cows they don't even really own, since they're selling the cow loans off". AIG says "Yep, pretty much." Customer says "So you're essentially taking bets that cows don't die." Yep, pretty much. "I don't own a cow, but I'd like to bet that that there cow dies anyhow. Will you take me up on it?"

 _And AIG does_.

Then people start buying and selling these bets on the life of cows TOTALLY UNCONNECTED TO THE COWS THEMSELVES, because they make oodles of money on transactions. There are notional trillions involved in cow-death bets, because every time they are sold rather than being transferred there is generated one "that cow lives" and "that cow dies" contract. It gets really complicated, but it is all safe, because all the cows are ultimately insured by AIG, and AIG is safe because cows don't die.

Cows die. And then all the people in the system who bet on cows dying go to AIG and say "Hey, I paid you $1 insurance premiums to insure $100 worth of cow. Approximately one billion dollars worth of cow just died. OK, fair's fair: pay me $100 billion."

BOOM. AIG threatens to topple. And then all the people who owned loans-on- dying-but-safe-because-they-are-insured cows now suddenly only loans-on-dying- cows. Whoops, make that loans-on-dead-cows.

1) Hard to milk a dead cow.

2) Hard to sell a dead diseased cow in this market since there is a whole lot of dead cow meat suddenly available (and much of it doesn't have polychromatic pus).

3) You've sold the notional rights to the repayment on the dead cow loan so many times you're not even sure who has standing to repo the actual dead, rotting carcass. Meanwhile it decays more every day, further losing notional value. You have to come clean and say "The dead carcass which I can't even identify as mine is worthless" but if you do your firm will probably collapse because you own an awful lot of loans-on-dead-cow because they looked like something of a deal at the time.

BOOM. Financial crisis.

</comment><comment><USER3> Complicated things are hard to explain in a readily accessible fashion; I've seen that ability called "genius".

What most nongenius explainers do is make up a different and less complicated story, which is not actually true, and explain that instead.

Decoherence is too complicated? Make up some other story about "quantum physics" and explain that instead.

Nonstandard models of Peano Arithmetic are too complicated? Make up some other story about Godel's Theorem and explain that instead.

The best one-line explanation of the financial crisis that I ever heard was as follows: "Mere stupidity is never enough; people have to pile stupidity on stupidity on stupidity."

Reality is a lot more complicated than this.

</comment><comment><USER4> What's worth noting is that if the bank did nothing with its cows, its net worth would have still moved from 200 down to 4. To some degree, we are all to blame because our society is what allowed cows to become so expensive. Everyone who bought a cow wanted to believe (and profit from) the myth.

[edit] In real life terms: anyone who promoted the idea that renting is a waste of money is an accomplice to this bubble.

<comment><USER5> Isn't renting still a waste of money? I thought only a small minority of people are literally under water on their mortgages.

Housing certainly seems like a bad _investment_ , but so is a car, and leasing is still a ripoff.

<comment><USER6> "Waste of money" is a loaded term, especially when considered in the context of necessities. If you reword it as "quality of investment" and "could your money have been put to better use spent on something else (or saved and not spent at all)", then it's a little easier to discuss and compare.

The assumption with buying vs renting is that your money isn't "working" for you when you rent. When you buy, your mortgage payments are going to build equity, and the logic used is that it is a "forced savings plan" compared to renting, where once you pay your rent, you'll never see that money again. The inverse, which is implied, is that you will actually see the money you pay for the mortgage at some time in the future. As everyone found out, that's not necessarily the case.

In my case, I lost money on the sale of my house, for various reasons (economy, improvements, agent fees, taxes, buying to live in it vs buying it as an investment, some of which were under my control, some of which were not), such that I would have been better off renting the whole time. I, personally, lost about $10k. Had I rented in the neighborhood instead, the savings would have been even more drastic because I wouldn't have needed to spend so much, per month, on housing, despite being able to live in the same area and have the same amenities.

The real value in buying a house though was that I learned exactly what it means to own a house and exactly what is important to you (in my case, location is much more important than size), which I don't think you can learn any other way. There really needs to be a perfect storm of positive variables, in the last few years especially, to make money on owning a house. My home buying years have not, and will not, be marked by such an increase in demand and rise in prices that the sale price offsets all the other, financial and emotional, costs.

I joke about setting a personal requirement of 80% down on the next home I purchase, if I ever purchase another.

<comment><USER7> Owning a home long-term after the adjustment will be a great investment in the US, I imagine. The US is a debtor nation. The debt can be paid off by printing currency (perhaps gradually). This will cause inflation as more dollars chase the same amount of goods and services. Your mortgage debt dollar amount remains the same, but gets paid off with new, cheaper bills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The problem with this analogy is that the world of finance does not map directly to physical goods or how a person would handle a real world asset they own (as opposed to abusing other people's assets).

Let walk through the first couple of sentences:

>> "John Paulson borrows one cow so he can sell it for $100. He gives you $10 as collateral."

No one in their right mind lets someone walk away with a $100 cow for a $10 deposit. If you are a car rental company, you don't force the borrower to deposit the full price of the car, but you make up for this risk in volume across many car deposits and you have insurance and the backup of public crime fighting organizations. If you have a single page contract for "you borrow my cow and give it back later, here's a $10 deposit" you have none of this.

Second is the use of the term "borrow". If I loan you a cow and you return a different cow, this may not be acceptable to the lender. This is not "borrowing".

>> "You buy your neighbors cow for $100, which you finance by taking out a $90 loan from the bank and use John's $10 to make up the rest."

ok, full stop!!! No bank operating correctly will give you a loan against a cow that you have already loaned to someone else. This is the root of why people use the term "ponzi scam" in reference to such transactions.

>> "You brag to everyone about your financial health. You have assets--two cows you own, plus one Paulson owes you--worth $300, and liabilities of just $100."

Sorry, there are still only two cows in this story. This is not software where you can magically copy a cow.

And so goes the problems with analogies like this.

Don't get me wrong. The blog author writes it well and gives a peak at the absurdity of the financial system. Unfortunately, the financial system is so absurd that there are no useful metaphor against real world goods.

<comment><USER9> > Sorry, there are still only two cows in this story.

> This is not software where you can magically copy a cow.

huh? Aren't there three? I had two, lent one and borrowed another from my neighbor.

You actually quoted that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> is it me, or is the cows example more confusing than what really happened?

</comment><comment><USER11> There is no mystery here. If your asset base consist of two cows worth around $200 and the price fall to $4, your are in bad shape regardless of how you structured it.

<comment><USER12> There's a substantial difference between having a net worth of $4 and having a net worth of ($84).</comment></comment>


Venture Capitalist Says "War" on the Rich Is Like Nazi Germany's War on the Jews - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/venture-capitalist-says-war-on-the-rich-is-like-nazi-germanys-war-on-the-jews/283347/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> This is from 2014 and he died yesterday.</comment>


Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-12333-the-reagan-rule-that-lets-the-nsa-spy-on-americans/2014/07/18/93d2ac22-0b93-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html <comment><USER2> > But the White House counsel's office told me that no, that wasn't true. I > was instructed to amend the line, making a general reference to "our laws > and policies," rather than our intelligence practices. I did.

And this is how we got to where we are. It has nothing to do with the advancement of technology, technology only increased their power to the point where they couldn't be easily ignored anymore. It is the absence of law. Or, at least law as we understand it from a civillian perspective. It is power that comes only from the executive branch and is monitored only by the upper tiers of power, not by typical political oversight.

Spies operate in a different moral and legal environment than civilians are used to, which makes it hard to understand when daylight is shone on them. But this near duality of interpretation has been the case in modern society since the 1950-60s. Or maybe even earlier.

Anyone who grew up reading cold war spy novels or autobiographies from that era is well aware of this hierarchy.

<comment><USER3> As Mao said, political power flows from the barrel of a gun. American autocrats aren't much different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this is a good article, but I am often frustrated by discussions on digital privacy having such limited scope. It should be an international debate with a focus on international laws, or we are all in denial about what is at stake for the individual. This is bigger than Americans talking about American law that targets Americans.

I know many of you probably rolled your eyes at the mention of international law, but an individual's privacy on the Internet is an international problem (regardless of how effective you think international law is).

On the Internet, we are citizens of the world. We are all exploited at the horrible intersection of localized law, globalized technology and 20th century geography. Idealistically, the sooner that we realize two of those elements should be superseded, the better.

<comment><USER5> I agree with you in principle (I'm not an American), but I think the practicality is a little hard to enforce.

If, for example, the US discover China violating the privacy of US citizens - are they going to start dropping bombs? Attempting to place trade restrictions? You kind of need everyone to agree to the same laws, and particular ways to address failure to adhere to those laws. Not an easy problem, but one I hope can be solved.

<comment><USER6> What's even worse is that we are not only talking about the privacy laws targeted at corporations - who alone have proven to be difficult, see the discussions between the EU and the US - but about privacy laws targeted against intelligence services. And governments are especially stubborn that those should remain secret and unrestricted...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I feel like we're getting a little lost in the weeds here with all the references to paperwork. While I'm certain that everything in this article is on the level, whether it's part of the Patriot Act or Executive Order 12333 is a bit arcane. NSA was recording all overseas calls long before Reagan. During the Cold War and the subsequent War on Terror, the US has basically let the spy agencies run rampant.

And that's the structural problem: there is no system of checks and balances. Here we have members of the legislative branch saying they have no idea what's in various orders and are unable to provide oversight. This is their job! We have the executive branch cutting out the judicial branch in matters involving the Fourth Amendment. Once again, this is the court's job. The executive has nothing to do with anything here.

Both other branches of government are free at any time to step in and take control. The Congress can shut off funding, hold public hearings, and start sending people to jail. The courts can enjoin various agencies to put a stop to onerous activities. We have all sorts of constitutional levers. Nobody seems to want to use any of them.

And so, if the other two branches of our government are going to check-out of doing their job, the executive and hte intelligence agencies will happily step in and make up their own rules and systems of accountability. What we seem to have created is not a system safeguarding the constitution; rather we've created a system where nobody can be individually accountable if anything goes wrong. Everybody has a little bit work to do that on paper appears to make sense. But when you add it all up it doesn't do what it's supposed to do: defend our way of life while protecting us from those who wish to do us harm.

If the other branches of government would get in the game, we might have a chance of straightening this all out. But I don't see that happening any time soon.

</comment><comment><USER8> > _some intelligence practices remain so secret, even from members of > Congress, that there is no opportunity for our democracy to change them._

This should never happen. Period. Who makes the decision that the people's representatives no longer have the authority to oversee what the people's government is doing? And, when this happens, whose interests are being served?

At a minimum, there should be some group in Congress with the clearance required to be privy to _all_ activities. Anything less and we are, effectively, institutionalizing a dangerous discretionary approach to Constitutional protections and relegating the integrtity of our freedoms to the hope that other Snowdens will sacrifice and step forward to "break the law" should the need arise.

Not a good look for democracy.

<comment><USER9> > At a minimum, there should be some group in Congress with the clearance > required to be privy to all activities.

There are - in particular, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and Judicial Committees. In fact, with regards to certain programs, the NSA has given briefings open to the entire Congress. The problem is that half of Congress doesn't bother to show up.

[https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/305765-senators-skip- cla...](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/305765-senators-skip-classified- briefing-on-nsa-snooping-to-catch-flights-home)

[http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/patriot-act-architect-cries- foul-...](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/patriot-act-architect-cries-foul-nsa- progr)

[http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/06/06/jim-sensenbrenners- hors...](http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/06/06/jim-sensenbrenners-horseshit- claims-of-innocence/)

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/harry-reid- nsa_n_34...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/harry-reid- nsa_n_3423393.html?utm_hp_ref=politics)

<comment><USER8> Yet, this article states that some practices remain secret, even from Congress. Do you know why there is inconsistency between this claim and the claim you're making?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Without any legal barriers to such collection, U.S. persons must > increasingly rely on the affected companies to implement security measures > to keep their communications private.

I kind of despair when I read such statements. How is a company like Google supposed to protect against an attacker that has legal access to parts of their network, actively researches zero day exploits, bribes or subpoenas employees to work with them and bugs their hardware when it is sent via mail.

The only thing we could do on the technological side would be to re- decentralize our communications with added end-to-end encryption. While I'm a huge fan of that, I don't see it happening anytime soon given the ever increasing cloud computing hype. The usability of some services would also certainly take a hit. And even then our metadata will remain public.

What is really necessary is a huge cultural shift in the executive branches of our governments. Not just some small reform but a powerful independent investigation board to uncover what the agencies are allowed to do, believe to be allowed to do and actually do.

<comment><USER10> > _How is a company like Google supposed to protect against an attacker that > has legal access to parts of their network, actively researches zero day > exploits, bribes or subpoenas employees to work with them and bugs their > hardware when it is sent via mail._

The same way they would defend you against a mafia-run state while you are traveling. You have to assume the the government is a hostile party, and has nation-state resources and police powers to apply to the task of taking your data. Even if we can get the NSA's activities under control, you won't be able to do that with all governments in all nations.

Web-of-trust, open secure client software, and strong encryption all work. We should help this along by steering the NSA's resources toward defending American people and enterprises from state-actor attacks, but the bottom line is: trust nobody.</comment></comment>


U.S. considering closing its embassy in Cuba after mysterious sonic attack - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-considering-closing-its-embassy-in-cuba/2017/09/17/e032b3e1-f167-4010-8147-39dbe33edf35_story.html?utm_term=.9c208e8db8dc <comment><USER2> Gee, is there really anybody who believes all this nonsense?

Typical imperialist games. An economy opens up, and all kind of US interests flow in, trying to create markets and chip away at what might prevent said interests to realize profits.

Now some folks went too far and dialed some nobs to far to the right and friendly fire got people hurt. But those folks can't be held accountable for all kinds of reasons shady and otherwise.

Everybody knows it. Nobody in Cuba gives a damn, I hope.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm, an interesting pullback. Usually the US is pretty persistent in remaining in even the most dangerous places. I actually turned down a state department job because of the dangerous placements.

Additionally, it isn't clear who is doing this attack, it could be:

1) The cuban government

2) A foreign government

3) a non governmental actor, cuban or non cuban, paid or unpaid.</comment>


Dear Drupal, Happy Birthday - and thank you - <AUTHOR> http://codesorcery.net/2009/01/15/happy-eighth-birthday-drupal <comment><AUTHOR> I remember using Drupal constantly when I was primarily a freelance web developer - its fantastic.

<comment><USER2> I still use it. Once you've optimized your code you get very fast results, and it's possible to iterate extremely quickly.

It's not good for everything, but what it's good for, it's great at.</comment></comment>


Vue Lazy Image Loading - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/subotkevic/vue-lazy-image-loading <comment><USER2> Just in time - in the middle of building out an image intensive Vue app.

For the record, Vue has been an absolute dream to work with and major props to the creators.

<comment><USER3> Ditto for me. I'm a full year into using it for my startup and it's been a real benefit for our business. I was really skeptical of whether or not I needed an SPA for our product, but now I'm really glad that's the route I went.

One thing I've done that might be the reason I'm so happy with Vue is that I haven't tried to manage state on the client. There's more overhead on page transitions certain actions, but it does seem to limit my exposure to WTF style bugs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome work. I'm a vue novice,and I wanted something similar to this a while back and found something that worked for my needs in the bootstrap+vue project[1] since I was already using that, but this might have fit my needs just as well. I'm sure I would have opted for something like this if I wasn't already using the larger bootstrap component tie-in project.

1: [https://bootstrap-vue.js.org/docs/components/image#lazy- load...](https://bootstrap-vue.js.org/docs/components/image#lazy-loaded- images)

</comment><comment><USER5> Am I the only one who really dislike lazy load?

I want the image to be there, not to load when I scroll down. It should only lazy load images that is 2 screen below my current view.

</comment><comment><USER6> Please don't do this. Users should never require JavaScript to be enabled to view text or images.

<comment><USER7> Vue is used a lot for a single-page application which automatically requires JavaScript.

<comment><USER8> Nuxt.js uses Vue.js to create static html that doesn't require javascript in the end-user. If this library is well made should provide a fallback to load the images synchronously.

<comment><USER9> Or you just use a regular <img> tag for server-rendered content? Am I missing something?

<comment><USER10> If Ihave a product listing page with a lot of images on it, I want to load the images above the fold first. Once those are loaded, I can load the rest.

<comment><USER11> Isn't it how browsers work on general? They would try to download resources as they appear in HTML, but they would not do this over more than reasonable number of concurrent connections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Been looking for something like this. Thank you very much for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER13> demo?</comment>


'Distracted boyfriend meme' is sexist, rules Swedish advertising watchdog - <AUTHOR> https://www.thelocal.se/20180925/distracted-boyfriend-meme-is-sexist-rules-swedens-advertising-ombudsman <comment><USER2> It's not sexist neither against men or against women. There are tons of cases of both men and woman having extra marital affairs or cheating. Depicting a situation which is realistic to occur does not have to imply that all woman or all men are anything. If I take a picture of my SO making a sandwich I'm not somehow trying to make implicit assertions about the maternal patriarchy. If that was the case every single picture of overweight men or overweight woman would be "sexist" because they somehow imply everyone of that gender is overweight.

<comment><USER3> > extra marital affairs or cheating

That's not a situation shown in the picture.

I find it annoying that it pretends that man are solely focussed on appearance, as if there's no mind or thought in men.

<comment><USER4> I find it annoying that people pretend the image is about men and not just one man who is about to get a clip over the ear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> People get upset about relatively unimportant things. I'm pretty sure sexism exists and is bad, but this is just... not it. It's a dumb meme, that's all.

<comment><USER6> It's not really up to you or me to dictate what other people think though, or what they feel is important to them, so the fact you think it's a dumb meme isn't relevant. That's why we have courts.

<comment><USER7> Courts shouldn't be wasting their time on this. If courts spent time on every single thing people complained about, nothing important would get done.

<comment><USER6> That's why we have levels of courts and people whose job it is to decide whether or not a case has merit based on arguments brought by interested parties. We can't say something is a waste of time just by looking at it. We can't see the nuance at the heart of every matter.

Again, it's not for you or me to dictate what is _actually_ important. Not important _to you_ is not the same as being objectively unimportant.

<comment><USER8> Courts shouldn't have so many resources that they should be looking at things like that

for one thing, a use of a meme doesn't infringe on anyone's rights

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Watchdog groups should only exist for a short period of time and for a specific purpose. If it is open ended, it will inevitable arrive at an extreme.

In a sexist society, if I was paying you to find sexism against women, you'd be able to find obvious examples of it. But as society changes and societal sexism against women disappears, what are you left to do? You still have to find examples of sexism to justify your job. Imagine in your quarterly report, you tell your boss there is no more sexism. Well then, your boss might think, well why is your position need any more? But you like your job and the easy paycheck. So you are now incentivized to see sexism where none exists.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you have not been in war for 200+ years, you can focus on real serious things...

<comment><USER11> Well, in a way, the fact that this is a _problem_ in 2018 really shows how good our lives are, that we can focus on that kind of ridiculous non-issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hurray, this is such a sexist meme against men, glad they recognize that.

<comment><USER11> Except they didn't (I guess you forgot to add /S ^^)

<comment><USER12> Oh sorry, didn't read the article and jumped to conclusions :-(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The meme may or may not be sexist on it's own, there are good arguments on both side.

When used as part of a job ad? Very different consideration.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm pleased to see that what the people are really concerned about, as defined by this page's popular articles section, is: Swedish road covered in herring after elk accident

</comment><comment><USER15> This story is what, one week old now? Why are talking about it again?

</comment><comment><USER16> Yeah it is, but against men, what the hell?

</comment><comment><USER11> Why am I not surprised that they somehow managed to turn it around to be sexist towards women? I'm honestly surprised that it was even considered to also be sexist towards men. Either way, this seems like an overreaction. I don't know anybody who I believe would be offended by that meme, so I don't see a need to make a big deal out of that.

EDIT: I wrote the above after reading just the first paragraph. After reading just two more, I have to correct myself: I am disgusted at what the article paints as the most common reaction, that the meme is mostly sexist towards women.

B __ __ __t! There 's so many ways in which that's just a grotesque misrepresentation, most importantly that the man is clearly the "bad guy" in the situation.

EDIT 2:

The article quotes the company in question:

"Everyone who follows the internet and meme culture knows how the meme is used and interpreted. [Whether someone is a] man, woman or neutral gender is often irrelevant in this context. We are an internet company and are conversant in this, as are those who would look for a job with us, so we turned to that target group [...] If we should be punished for anything, it's for using an old and tired meme."

It's interesting to see their perspective on things. The sentiment that in the internet it gender is "irrelevant" is ironically the less sexist view of the two, and the fact that they used the chance to state that they are interested in employing people who share that idea was probably a really good idea. It seems like they are showing a giant middle finger to both those who attack them for made up reasons and actual sexists. Brilliant. (Though arguable, the accusations that the meme is sexist towards women is also rather sexist, in that it completely ignores/accepts the image that men are dumb and only act based on their sex drive, have no respect at all for their partners and are the gender that is more likely to cheat)

<comment><USER17> This is pretty unsurprising, as we're talking about Sweden here. This is the country that stopped gender quotas got universities once they reached 60% women and started getting sued by women who were rejected by programs in favor of ostensibly equally-qualified men. Though it doesn't mesh well with my personal ethics/philosophy, I'm not a die-hard opponent of identity-based tweaks to merit-based systems and think that support in some situations is at least defensible. But Ive seen little to indicate that there's any pretense of intellectual honesty or moral consistency in Sweden's approach to gender politics, beyond simply a special interest group throwing their weight around.

<comment><USER11> It makes me wonder though, what is this even about? Nobody can possibly profit from this directly, so is it to show how much political power _a certain movement_ has?

Regardless of what it is, this is just mean and unjust. People are being essentially punished for crimes they didn't commit.</comment></comment></comment>


Asus working on Kinect laptop, compatible with Windows 8 - <AUTHOR> http://www.winbeta.org/news/asus-working-kinect-laptop-compatible-windows-8 <comment><USER2> So the panopticon gains new eyes... Is it just me that covers my laptop's webcam during use? (I use tape+microfiber so I can use the webcam by unpeeling for the rare times I need it)

<comment><USER3> No. You're not the only one and, contrary to what detractors will say, it's far from paranoid. As an example- a friend of mine was wondering why it would occasionally catch his webcam light flash. I dug around and found Prey installed, clearly taking shots at regular intervals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> ASUS is a direct licensee from PrimeSense for their depth sensing technology for the ASUS Xtion/Xtion Pro. I wonder whether there's a difference between that hardware and the Kinect-branded system that's going into this laptop.

[http://us.estore.asus.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=3...](http://us.estore.asus.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=3397)

<comment><USER5> The Xtion is depth sensing only - a Kinect branded sensor would likely have both RGB and depth, like the other Kinects.

<comment><USER4> The Xtion Pro Live for $200 is depth, RGB, and audio. The Xtion Pro for $150 is depth only.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kinect would work well on large multi-display systems. I think the laptop is too small of a device for the motion capture to be effective.

<comment><USER5> The new Kinect hardware has a "near mode" and there's been discussions of adding upper body skeleton tracking, as well as gesture recognition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone have any insight to why the article says the Kinect for Windows will be $250 vs the $150 regular prices of Kinect for the XBox?

<comment><USER8> Because MS subsidizes the Kinect for XBox and makes back that money whenever the buyer buys Kinect games. MS gets no such cut of Windows programs that's why the real hardware cost is reflected.

<comment><USER5> MS also has to fund the Kinect SDK team and Microsoft Research that develops new applications for the Kinect.

Examples include Kinect Fusion (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quGhaggn3cQ>) and the Holodesk (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHL5tJ9ja_w>).</comment></comment></comment>


How Snapchat is Missing Out on $1.5M in Revenue Each Day - <AUTHOR> http://blog.namomedia.com/post/76243407158/how-snapchat-is-missing-out-on-1-5m-in-revenue-each <comment><USER3> Monetizing a social user base is a great strategy for making millions of dollars. But Snapchat is clearly aiming at _billions_ , or they wouldn't have turned down the multi-billion dollar offers they've already received. Facebook has little to fear from social apps with millions in revenue... so why were they willing to pay so much for a zero-revenue company? And why are VCs ponying up tens of millions in funding for a zero-revenue product? The potential revenue from these dinky little solutions suggested here won't even break even for the VC.

No, they have something much bigger and better up their sleeves. Leaving a few million on the table now in the interest of potential billions later is a very good trade.

Personally, I think the world is ready for a footprint-free social app - <USER2> just photos, but threaded conversation and what not. Like Facebook, only without anything for employers to troll and exes to stalk. I think they could literally beat Facebook. That's worth a lot of waiting and risk.

<comment><USER4> Well, they're not talking about leaving a million on the table, they're talking about leaving a million and a half on the table every single day ("if only they'd use our product!"). The figure they come up with is a half a billion dollars, which is a much larger number than you're giving credit to here.

<comment><USER3> That's assuming not-wildly-optimistic assumptions within a self-serving analysis. Dial that back to $100M rather than half a billion, and it's no longer a tremendously appealing option.

Facebook's per-user revenue for US users was $4.19 as of last October (with far smaller amounts for non-US users). And that's with years of experience, rich targeting based on multi-year social data mining, and the ability to embed several ad impressions per pageview. Is Snapchat likely to hit that high mark? Not in the short term, for sure.

<comment><USER5> > Facebook's per-user revenue for US users was $4.19 as of last October

Revenue per user over what time period?

<comment><USER6> That's over one quarter.

The data is from their 10-Q: [http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA- NJ5DZ/2956973952...](http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA- NJ5DZ/2956973952x0xS1326801-13-31/1326801/filing.pdf)

$832MM revenue from US & Canada, with 199 million users = $4.18

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Turning on ads" is not a magic monetization panacea for an established startup because you _will_ lose users in protest. And there are more than enough replacements for Snapchat for those users to go to.

<comment><USER8> Which apps are Snapchat replacements? Which ones have an existing userbase?

<comment><USER9> Instagram. They have direct picture messaging that's very Snapchat like.

<comment><USER8> They only share the same high-level concept. The execution and actual use-case is very different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This should be titled: How Snapchat is missing out on destroying its "cool" factor by poorly monetizing an app that people can and will easily switch away from if you annoy them.

</comment><comment><USER11> Silly question: What the hell is SnapChat? I feel like Cave Man living under rocks. I looked up SnapChat's website and there is hardly any info or encouragement why I should use this thing. It totally smells like Instagram which also I never used and know no one who uses it _to date_. I guess I'm just not cool.

<comment><USER12> Instagram has 150 Million MAUs. The fact that you don't know anyone who uses it says a lot more about you than it does about them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Are we sure the fill rate would be 100%? There isn't an infinite supply of ads waiting to be displayed.

<comment><USER14> Exactly. Many ad companies fill less than 10% of ads outside of the US. Possible that's accounted for in their $1.50 CPM, but they also may be estimating quite optimistically, considering Snapchat would add a huge amount of volume to any advertising company, especially a small one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> From experience, I'm always wary of ad sales folks giving "conservative estimates". This assumes a standard CTR that may not apply based on the medium based on user base, actual interaction rates (assuming that Snapchat users are more tech-savvy and less likely to interact with ads), etc. Interesting, but I'd guess fairly misleading from an actual numbers standpoint, considering it's in Namo's best interests to inflate the numbers for PR purposes.

</comment><comment><USER15> I, personally, won't sit through a 30 second TV ad to see a 10 second (at most!) video from a friend.

</comment><comment><USER16> What is wrong with the sort of thing that whatsapp do? a small fee (~€1) a year.

If they could make it payable via some easy method (SMS?) then people would willingly pay a small fee for the use of snapchat. Sure people would go "Bah Humbug! Snapchat want me to pay a €1" but they have a very strong userbase, one that is extremely active. In the long run, I think their user base would prefer a one off payment than being inundated with advertising.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've always thought the best way for Snapchat to monetize would be to offer you one more glance at a photo if you watch an ad first. They could even make it opt-in on the photo-sharer's side. Give them a small percentage of the revenue generated by that advertisement to encourage opting-in, and also spur continued use of the service.

</comment><comment><USER18> Even if this is true, this assumes that the snapchat user base will remain stable. I've yet to see a substantial argument of why snapchat isn't just another fad. Does anyone else have this concern or am I just being pessimistic?

</comment><comment><USER19> I have ads in snapchat right now and it isn't very intrusive.

<comment><USER20> I don't have any ads in mine. Are there screenshots of what those look like right now?

<comment><USER19> You shouldn't have any ads... ;)

Edit: Here is a screenshot: [http://i.imgur.com/QWYVFFq.png](http://i.imgur.com/QWYVFFq.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Better idea: allow users to pay to "keep" the snaps for a bit more longer.

<comment><USER22> Even better idea: after those users pay, offer the _senders_ an option to pay to delete them sooner.

Repeat, until the cops show up. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> _For Snapchat, monetizing with 320x50 banners or full-screen interstitials would degrade their user experience and deliver a serious hit to their brand._

Not really. They already have Evan Spiegel (Valleywag him) as their CEO. People who care about quality are not going to use it. "A serious hit to [the] brand" is a non-threat. What brand?

<comment><USER24> Quick - name the CEO and ethical position of your preferred gas company, toothpaste supplier, and shoe manufacturer?

For the long term, and I don't know anything about Spiegel or Snapchat so I'm just taking your comment at face value, you are right about the negative impact a poor CEO can have. For a short-term hit to the brand, I would suggest most users neither know nor care.

The impact of the CEO over time will come from within (loss of good staff, failure to respond to market shifts etc) not external branding - as long as he doesn't go shooting elephants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why is everything bold?

<comment><USER25> This is a serious question. I find it hard to read.

But thanks for the downvotes anyway.</comment></comment>


The Planned Obsolescence of Old Coders - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/ctrl-alt-delete-the-planned-obsolescence-of-old-coders-9c5f440ee68?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTmpnMVpqYzVNV05pTVdFeiIsInQiOiJGQ3c2TlphUmZLZERXZDI0ZFNiT2hkaTdpTVJcL3NrSWNicFVGVGI5c3VMMFJtaW1hMkRmMHFydU5pQXBpbkl3c1IwMko4WkR6amMxVTFyVG5LVlpwKzZBd2kxTzluM1pibkpyb1pTZ2poS0RtZ3ErZU1XU2lpT3BIRHN1Mmw1ankifQ%3D%3D <comment><USER2> Was already posted 1 week ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19339544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19339544)

</comment><comment><USER3> I turned 40 this year. In the last few years I've tried tech lead, Scrum Master and architect roles. While I do enjoy being able to lead, mentor and do work that can make other developers' lives better, I was drawn back to programming.

So here I am at 40, having a blast writing C# and TypeScript, still constantly learning new things. Work life balance has changed a little as I have kids, but I can't see myself doing anything else for the forseeable future.

Programming is an amazing profession

<comment><USER4> 43 this year. Spent last 8 years as a manager now back to being a developer and enjoying it. Yes I liked mentoring people and making decisions. I never entirely left coding I still spent about 20% of my time on code.

If I were to put one reason down why I don't mind being a coder I think being a manager can be mentally exhausting. You need to remain positive for your reports even if you don't agree with decisions made higher up. Too many things are not really in your control but you are responsible for them. Maybe that was just my experience. I hated letting my team down.

<comment><USER5> > I think being a manager can be mentally exhausting.

I was thinking of management as a way to escape downsides of working as a programmer. For ex.: a responsibility for bugs that I put in product, failure to deliver on time, rush to finish before deadline and all other stuff that burns me out.

<comment><USER4> There is some truth to what you are saying but that's not the complete picture to being a manager. You might shed some responsibilities but you pick up a whole lot more. The comment in this thread describes it better than I described being a manager [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19407800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19407800)

You need to ask yourself how much you like mentoring people, spending time in meetings, playing the politics ... because those are the roles you pick up. Managers still have to explain why bugs are in the system even though they didn't write any code. I honestly think some people are wired for being managers and some are not. Trouble is some companies pay managers more and let them run riot with over developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I work as a cloud architect and still code, but the overwhelming perception people have from "senior" roles and people (which are often conflated) is that we are expected to be doing management, planning and presentations rather than knowing how stuff actually works at a fairly low level.

It is especially bad when you have to deal with CIOs/technical managers one day and developer/data scientist teams the next day, because both have entirely opposite perceptions of what "competence" is.

If you code or are seen coding a significant portion of your time (even for POCs), the prevalent bias (largely from customers, but I've had peers act the same way before figuring out who I was) is that you're someplace at the bottom of the food chain. As a result, I largely stopped coding on-site at customers and only bring out "the goods" when I am doing training/mentoring/reviews with technical teams.

I also have surreal conversations with recruiters every now and then. Those who find me via GitHub expect me to be 20 years younger, and those who find me via LinkedIn... let me rephrase that, the ones who find me via LinkedIn are, on average, mostly clueless about technical skills, so age is not a factor there.

It depresses me to no end to realize that our entire industry does not use experience as a yardstick and to see startups recruit young developers and technically clueless management, especially when demand for good developers is going through the roof, and young developers often need the kind of technical mentoring more experienced hires can bring to the table.

<comment><USER7> Are you me? Wish I could upvote a dozen times.

Free startup idea: map people on LinkedIn to the types of roles they're aspiring to based on skills, experience, activity, etc. Especially those with more than 5-10 years experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've hired engineers in their 40s and 50s at a startup where I was the 25 year old CTO founder. Now I'm turning 40 and my most recent title was CEO. Some of the best ICs I've worked with were later in their career. And not only are they good engineers, you can expect them to talk to customers, to prioritize what matters for the business, and to be circumspect about technology choices.

There is definitely ageism in tech.

One thing that I think drives it is that it takes a while to figure out if a programmer is really capable. There are a lot of not very good programmers. When I interview someone with 2 years professional experience I need to be looking for potential. When I interview someone. When I interview someone with 25 years professional experience, I can be looking at results and experiences. I've hired one engineer who was leaving after 15+ years at IBM. He was great and had done a lot of things. I've hired another senior engineer who was bailing after 2-3 years at IBM, and he complained that everyone keeps their heads down and it was too easy to hide. And I've interviewed several former IBM lifers who I decided not to hire because they were the ones keeping their heads down and hiding, having had minimal impact and with limited experience making real technical decisions. Even if you are "age" blind, experience gives you a lot more to judge, and often to judge harshly.

It's not just IBM. I can say the same about Cisco, HP, and the Mathworks. Probably any large engineering organization. And I am starting to see it in candidates leaving Amazon.

There are career trajectories available to developers which can seem safe, but lead to dead ends. Working on safe boring things in a large organization is one. Being a reluctant middle manager is another.

</comment><comment><USER9> > Proven engineers who occupy the most senior roles should be deployed to > solve the hardest problems on the most critical projects. Their roles should > emphasize technical leadership through writing, speaking, and mentoring.

Isn't this the issue? There are only so many spots for engineers who can be paid to pontificate on the "hardest problems". And those super-senior engineers need to be absolutely top of their game to be considered for this role, which means weeding out 99% of weaker engineers. Unlike other jobs, being older and having more years of experience does not mean you are the most qualified to solve hard problems.

Ageism is a real thing in tech but imagining that we can hire all the old engineers to be elite architects is no different than the current situation.

Also, the proposal for unions in tech at the end came out of nowhere. I don't think the author should conflate the problem of ageism with unionizing all the programmers. Ageism is something most people will agree is bad whereas the subject of unionizing is completely different. Not sure how laying people off by seniority in the union will make companies more innovative and effective. But that's why the author should make a second post about their views on that and not conflate the two issues.

</comment><comment><USER10> You don't HAVE to be an employee, that is only one choice among several possible ways to live.

As a senior developer, you can make some in-demand software an sell it, there are tons of developers making a living of selling a software product.

Another alternative is to develop a Sass product for a given niche. With tools like Amazon AWS, Google Cloud or Firebase it's easier than ever.

Contracting is also an alternative, as it removes the burden from the employer for paying more money for firing a 50 year old than a 25 year old, as in a lot of countries severance packages must take in consideration the age by law.

Its also a very well paid profession, if you start contracting early, early retirement is a viable option, plus using the money to develop another business.

Here is a career path: start as an employee junior developer, but move to contracting as soon as possible. This will give you a financial surplus that you might need later in life. After a couple of years contracting, think of creating your own business.

Companies want cheap labour willing to work extremely long hours, so they prefer younger people, it's not going to change.

But there are valid alternatives, and today more than ever.

</comment><comment><USER11> While I don't doubt ageism is a real factor in tech, this article conflated a bunch of stuff:

\- the first woman was called a "mom" and basically drummed out of the industry to academia. That seems like sexism is the more pernicious aspect

\- especially when you consider the next example is a guy who was discriminated against at one big name company, but also found a role

\- then we get into IBM lifers having trouble moving into new roles after IBM downsized. The downsizing at IBM was inherently ageist, but their subsequent struggles in the job market could have a lot of contributing factors - a whole career at a single company doesn't set you up for success in interviewing, at the very least.

\- finally we have the "how will my career develop" issue, which isn't ageism? Outside of management, higher-level IC roles inherently have "squishy" aspects - you're making hard, long-term investments and the payoff takes years in some cases. You can't administer a test to say "this person is a principal engineer and this one is a staff engineer", and complaining that the categories are arbitrary is kind of silly - they're created arbitrarily so you can feel like you're advancing even though the substance of your work is largely the same because you chose to keep doing IC stuff

<comment><USER12> Discrimination is rarely about "one thing". That's why the concept of intersectional identity exists, and how the various components of who you are (age, race, gender, parental status, etc) get weaponized against you. The more marks against you, the more discrimination you will run into.

Agree about the difficulties in assessing technical talent though. Once tech talent surpasses the ability of their manager to understand what they do, career progression stops. So it largely becomes about tenure / seniority instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is something I've always struggled to understand...

Forget tech for a second. In any job type, isn't it a pyramid. There are lots of junior roles, slightly fewer senior roles, fewer again manager roles, only a few senior manager roles etc. Isn't that just a natural part of any team's makeup. You only need one leader for a team of 5-10 people, etc. I've witnessed this team structure at every single company I've worked for (and as a contractor for 10 years, that is a lot), if you want to progress up to the next level there are always fewer jobs available.

Doesn't that mean that as you get older, competition for the job at a seniority that matches your age become increasingly difficult. The number of people doesn't change.

Not everyone can progress up the ladder when the ladder narrows as you go.

This isn't ageism is it? It's just the natural lower demand for more senior people.

And I guess what follows from this is the people who fail to move up, and try to stay at their current level are then also competing with the people below them who are trying to move up.

<comment><USER14> The ageism comes in when employers prefer younger people because of "trajectory" and "potential", since as you note, most of those young people will not show trajectory or useable-to-the-employer potential.

What's not ageism is that employers refuse to pay higher wages for people with years of experience that the employer decides are not more useful than the lower experience of younger/newer people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Standing up now on my soapbox as I am, the vast majority of problems I've come across in a couple of decades and a half-dozen different employers did not require incredible programming skill or knowledge. When things went bad, they went bad because of lack of design, ignoring quality mechanisms (such as testing and reviews), inter-personal problems, poor planning, inadequate allowance made for training, and so on. Almost never for pure programming reasons.

The ability to prevent or fix all these often comes with experience. I'm good at programming, but I can't ignore that I have the most beneficial effects on the bottom line when I'm making sure the team is functioning smoothly, when I'm helping the less-experienced understand some of the rough edges of the programming language, when I'm politely but firmly (and weeks ahead of disaster) telling the project manager that course correction is needed, when I'm requesting (and these days, winning) time and budget for training, and so on.

If I was some kind of super-genius software engineer, working on truly hard problems, I'd be more valuable to the company writing code all day, but I'm simply not and the majority of companies (in my experience) are really not doing anything very special in code. I do still write code, I do hand myself the problems that I can see require thought and experience and so on [0], but the contribution I make beyond banging out code, based on years of experience and the skills I've developed beyond the purely technical - is far more valuable to the company.

[0] While making sure that the less-experienced get tasks that stretch them but will not demoralise them, which is itself a tricky thing; I have to keep tabs on those, balancing their educational struggle with it against the need for it to be done and the need to keep them happy and motivated - if an insecure junior software dev has three or four car-crashes in a row, you can lose them forever.

</comment><comment><USER16> Mid-50s programmer here. I have some advice for younger coders.

When I was in my 20s, an older programmer gave me thoughts about moving into management. He had tried it, and came back to programming. He said "The problem with being a manager is that they nip at you from the top, and they nip at you from the bottom." Meaning that you not only still had a boss, but you also had people below you that you had to keep pleased, too.

Fun fact: Senior-level programmers are often paid more than their managers. (At least in the companies I've worked for.)

I plan to program 'till retirement. I read plenty and seek out new challenges. With the advent of containerization, K8s, serverless I think there is plenty to learn for the remainder of my work time. I don't fear a younger generation will absorb it all any faster than I will, there's just too much to master.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have been coding since 1977, but I have only had one job where coding was about 15% of my working tasks. I see coding as a tool, and have used in all of my jobs. Now, I use TaskJuggler and track my projects using it. I write desktop utilities in J for my engineering issues. I write small apps in Frink, C, J (switching to Dyalog APL), F# or Python to assist me, and sometimes other engineers (not software, mechanical, civil, marine, entertainment engineering) at my current job. I have even used Racket with Rosetta to do some generative geometry for a challenging structural job. I script Rhino3D, FreeCAD, Blender3D, and AutoCAD. I love coding, so I get to play at work and at home with it - it is not my main task at work. I read old and new, highly academic books on coding. Early on I made the comparison of coding full time to the word processors of the 70s and 80s. People talked about how if you learned WordPerfect you could make so much money. Then it happened in the late 90s early 2000s with "website creators". I have made sites for some small companies in ColdFusion, ASP, and plain HTML/CSS/JS. People took training, and at first made decent salaries, and then they became a commodity when salaries equalized with market forces of a large labor pool. I see a somewhat similar phenomenon going on with the basic coder today, especially front end or even full stack developers. ML/AI and data science is the latest refuge to at least allow coders to expand into statistics and mathematics with evolutionary algorithms, neural networks, etc. I was reading about neural networks, fuzzy logic, and genetic programming, since 1988. I am so glad I didn't pursue it as a job. I might have liked pursuing it academically, but I probably would have wound up in a related job. In other words, you're not just a coder, and I say that not disparagingly, but as what I see as a return to what coding was when it started - a cool tool to be used for your tasks at hand. There are those who truly want to code 24/7, and I see why, and can empathize with why they stay a programmer and don't move on to middle management. I may have chosen that path. I am glad I didn't because I have many other interests that I pursued through the many jobs in many fields I have had, and coding is always a tool in my pocket.

</comment><comment><USER18> Isn't this the old specialization V commoditization roles? If you have skills I can get cheaper (e.g. full stack) then I'll hire cheaper. Specialization has a smaller labor pool to draw from so salaries rise (e.g. cloud).

So that suggests the older you get then differentiations and specialization are king. How does one full stack developer separate themselves from another? If you're an expert in a sought after area then they come to you.

I think college grads eventually get to this where they're now looking over their shoulder to the nextgen and realize they either need an exit strategy or a longevity strategy.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm moving into my later 50s and have been an IC basically my whole career. I'm at a company with a lot of people my age.

I was on the job market a few years ago and the only issue I encountered was salary. I think the problem is when you've been at a place a long time, if they appreciate your work, your annual salary increases will quickly bring you to the top of the market. As time goes on you'll get a few percentages over the basic cost of living which over time really adds up. After 10 years your base pay can be pretty far above the market.

</comment><comment><USER20> I am 57, I still enjoy coding but struggle to work in teams. That is probably more my nature though. My experience as an older developer is that people are openly bigoted about age, that they would never be so open about race, religion or gender.</comment>


The Offline Glass Ensures You Talk, Not Text, At The Bar - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/18/the-offline-glass-ensures-you-talk-not-text-at-the-bar/

<comment><USER2> Simply superb...couldnot stop laughing at it... next time i am in a bar...i should get a glass like this... :)</comment>


Bangladesh claims Covid19 cure, 4 days recovery using a combination of 2 drugs - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/_Oq1PCrmIIo <comment><USER2> Its funny that (1) none of the news articles cite the drugs used (2) There was no controlled study to test the said drugs. This is the reason why no one believes any of this shit.

<comment><AUTHOR> The one in video is ivermectin and doxycycline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> previously posted on this forum in two places, here

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23283826](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23283826)

and here

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279943](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279943)</comment>


My Summer of Snowden - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/edward-snowden-operation-firstfruits/610573/ <comment><USER2> Fascinating article, well worth reading for those who have been following the Snowden story and (US) government surveillance in general.

It's interesting to read about the lengths to which journalists go to maintain proper information security. Layers of encryption, safes for hardware, physical removal of wireless chips, and so on. I'm curious as to whether all of that is anything more than a mild annoyance to the NSA or other major intelligence agencies, but I imagine they can hack into those computers with relative ease. There's just no viable way of preventing tempest attacks against your home or office, of preventing surveillance through vents, and more.

One thing about Snowden specifically, he's understandably careful about protecting the secrecy of his residence, but I'd be really surprised if the US government didn't know where he lives. Snowden lives in Moscow, legally, is known to move around the city, he uses the Internet, he's not just holed up in some cave. Between all the CIA people in Moscow and the NSA's near limitless capabilities, Snowden's whereabouts are almost surely known - he's being kept safe by the fact that Moscow is Moscow.

<comment><USER3> >One thing about Snowden specifically, he's understandably careful about protecting the secrecy of his residence. I'd be really surprised if the US government didn't know where he lives

I agree with that, but it's reasonable to assume other countries would have some interest in him. His international value has likely dropped by now, but I'm sure many agencies wondered what else he might have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >"He resisted questioning about his private life, but he allowed that he missed small things from home. Milkshakes, for one. Why not make your own? Snowden refused to confirm or deny possession of a blender. Like all appliances, blenders have an electrical signature when switched on. He believed that the U.S. government was trying to discover where he lived. He did not wish to offer clues, electromagnetic or otherwise. U.S. intelligence agencies had closely studied electrical emissions when scouting Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan."

This reminds me of one of the discussion threads that was happening here last week [0] where people were speculating about the next generation of spy satellites.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23151301](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23151301)

<comment><USER5> Has anyone got a citation for "U.S. intelligence agencies had closely studied electrical emissions when scouting Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan"

Being very liberal with the truth, using a radio scanner could be classed as "closely studying electrical emissions".

Firstly, to get a blender's electrical signature you'd need to be pretty close to the blender, even along the transmission line. And I think it would be tough to tell one person's blender motor from any other cheap motor powering kitchen gadgetry in the local area.

<comment><USER4> A cursory duckduckgo reveals: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/to-hu...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/to- hunt-osama-bin-laden-satellites-watched-over-abbottabad-pakistan-and-navy- seals/2013/08/29/8d32c1d6-10d5-11e3-b4cb-fd7ce041d814_story.html)

which in turn links to: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/cia-f...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia- flew-stealth-drones-into-pakistan-to-monitor-bin-laden- house/2011/05/13/AF5dW55G_story.html)

Which talks specifically about the RQ-170 Sentinel monitoring electronic transmissions in the area, so it might be conflating the two?

The information about the Sentinel comes out of this leaked black budget: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/black...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and- objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html)

If I recall correctly Bin Laden mostly used couriers to transmit information and didn't use much tech because they were well aware that it would be a huge security risk.

This Intercept article based on leaked internal NSA newsletters has a lot of juicy details: [https://theintercept.com/2015/05/18/snowden-osama-bin- laden-...](https://theintercept.com/2015/05/18/snowden-osama-bin-laden-raid/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > On the Gmail page, a pink alert bar appeared at the top, reading, "Warning: > We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your > account or computer. Protect yourself now."

Fascinating that Google does this. How do they know?

<comment><USER5> They won't tell us according to [https://security.googleblog.com/2012/06/security-warnings- fo...](https://security.googleblog.com/2012/06/security-warnings-for- suspected-state.html)

And I doubt they display this warning any more, it seems like it was a bit of a publicity stunt back in 2012.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The complexity of the amount of security measures a modern day journalist needs to take to manage the digital, physical and operational of themselves and their sources is immense. It's why we built Umbrella App ([https://www.secfirst.org](https://www.secfirst.org), so they could have one simple location, open source, open content that they could quickly reference on a phone.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've quite often seen people claim Russia and/or China had full copies of the Snowden documents, and try to use that to accuse him of being a foreign agent. It's interesting to see a high ranking NSA employee say the journalist were likely the unwitting source.

<comment><USER8> If you're referring to this:

> _" My take is, whatever you guys had was pretty immediately in the hands of > any foreign intelligence service that wanted it," he said, "whether it was > Russians, Chinese, French, the Israelis, the Brits. Between you, Poitras, > and Greenwald, pretty sure you guys can't stand up to a full-fledged nation- > state attempt to exploit your IT. To include not just remote stuff, but > hands-on, sneak-into-your-house-at-night kind of stuff. That's my guess."_

It's unsubstantiated chest thumping. "You're acting irresponsibly because you're vulnerable without our protection, which you don't have because you went against us". It completely brushes aside the idea that if these agencies weren't acting as domestic enemies in the first place, whistleblowers and journalists wouldn't be adversaries.

<comment><USER3> > It completely brushes aside the idea that if these agencies weren't acting > as domestic enemies in the first place, whistleblowers and journalists > wouldn't be adversaries

Even if the NSA wasn't treating them like domestic enemies, all of those other countries would likely want their own copy of the complete leak. And the rest of the article shows other agencies arw probably capable of such acts.

<comment><USER8> The motive is there, but the evidence is not. For all we know, the mysterious device behavior could have been the NSA itself, if only trying to delete any files that were on insecure devices. It obviously could be foreign actors too, but there is nothing in the empty NSA statement to inform that possibility. The best way to view such a statement is simple misdirection / public relations.

<comment><USER3> I'm unsure of what mysterious device behavior you are talking about, and I don't see the point of running such a misdirection years after the fact accomplishes.

My only point was that even the Chinese/Russian copy some people claim exist still wouldn't mean Snowden gave it to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cool story.</comment>


Octopress 3.0 is coming – Octopress - <AUTHOR> http://octopress.org/2015/01/15/octopress-3.0-is-coming/ <comment><USER2> This is from January. Octopress 3.0 is on the street:

[https://github.com/octopress/octopress](https://github.com/octopress/octopress)

Be sure to have a look at the issues page. Nothing major, but there is some good info in there for those migrating from 2.x.</comment>


Open Source 5-Axis CNC mill and plasma cutter - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1091976372/open-source-5-axis-cnc-router-and-plasma-machine-p

<comment><USER3> Unless you have to do some crazy undercuts, you'll never need more than 3 axes. And even if you do, you can flip the part. A good Cam program and some ball endmills will do very complicated 3D machining.

We had a giant 5-axis Thermwood gantry router to make composite tooling - <USER2> think we used the additional axes only once - they are a lot more time consuming to program and can get out of tolerance much easier.

<comment><AUTHOR> Although its true that a 3-Axis can do a lot more than people expect with some creative thought, there is a reason 5 (and higher) axis machines exist. For some tasks they can be essential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this would appeal to many more people if it were a machine the size of a Taig or Sherline. Although some of the concepts are transferable, there will be a lot of issues in building something this size which would not be relevant to a smaller machine.

Are there really that many people with the kind of space for this and the items it produces who want to build their own 5 axis mill?

I also wonder how many people need the parts produced by a 5 axis machine with its enormously greater hardware and software complexity. In most cases you could design what you need to be built on a 3 axis machine and assemble it. For under $2000, you can have a lot of fun by buying/assembling a Taig CNC mill with a 4th axis. 2 1/2D and 3D raster software is not crazy expensive or complicated.

<comment><USER5> Something of this size and cost is perfect for many local hackerspaces to build and operate.

<comment><USER4> That makes sense. But I still have to wonder how many projects need the extra 1 or 2 axes. Any examples?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You'd be surprised how much more you can find to do with simultaneous 5 axis, not to mention how much it can decrease machining time . . . you can use a relatively huge cutting tool and still get a great finish. \--Cheers!

</comment><comment><USER7> Can someone who understands this space well tell me where something like RepRap (<http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page>) compares to this, conceptually?

<comment><AUTHOR> The central difference is whether the process is by addition or subtraction. 3d printers, like the reprap, add material (for example melted plastic) to make an object. A router on the other hand removes material from an object until it is the required shape. As a result you can use many materials (like wood) that cannot be easily broken up into smaller parts and reassembled.</comment></comment>


The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin - <AUTHOR> https://thepiratebay.se/blog/222 <comment><USER2> I don't support illegal activity, but I believe this is a quest of freedom, not for getting stuff free as in free beer.

<comment><USER3> Why don't you support illegal activity?

<comment><USER4> I'm not the OP, but here is my opinion. As a rule of thumb I don't support illegal activities. Why would I? Most of the laws I agree with, like no murder/rape/robbery. However some laws I'm against. Like the public drinking ban in Norway, why can't I have a beer by the lake?

And on the topic of media industries vs. file sharing. I haven't really made up my mind. Especially after the media industry brought tanks and fighter jets to a knife fight.

<comment><USER5> There are _so many_ laws, I don't know how you could possibly say in an informed manner that you agree with most of them.

Making ethical decisions is easy for the majority of us, but our knowledge of the law is universally poor. I don't see why we should factor the law into discussions of ethics; it doesn't do anything to simplify the discussion.

<comment><USER6> > There are so many laws, I don't know how you could possibly say in an > informed manner that you agree with most of them.

Oh, come on now. You can be informed on the ones that matter to you the most, and the ones which are most commonly broken, which says a lot about the society you live in. It's not that hard.

> I don't see why we should factor the law into discussions of ethics

Because laws, in many or most cases, reflect the moral or ethical views of a large number of people, or at least they did at the time they were passed. The fact that laws survived the lawmaking process at all means we should consider the thoughts that went into their creation. I'm not saying you should read every word of every statute. But a nation's laws are in many ways reflections of its cultural ethics.

<comment><USER5> The laws that "matter most" reflect ethics which are "no brainers". _"Don't steal"_ , _"don't kill"_ , _"don't rape"_ , etc.

These are ethical concepts that are _easy_ to understand without resorting to consulting the law. The law in these cases is just an imperfect encoding of these obvious ethics. For the sake of governing, they work decently. However using them in an ethical discussion is using them for a purpose that they were not designed. There are _so many_ better sources that we can look to in order to facilitate discussion.

Trying to use laws as a vehicle to discuss ethics is like examining Cheese Wiz to learn about dairy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For the people, who can't access the direct site, here is the text of the blog:

<http://pastebin.com/DQLYkTnL>

<comment><USER8> Or just go to: <http://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/blog>

(proxy operated by the UK Pirate Party)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> At least in some countries... In the UK we have: <http://cl.ly/image/3m2C40432q0u>

<comment><USER10> Yep, in Belgium you get: <http://imgur.com/7qAwh>

I'm surprised - I wonder if it's the same thing in other EU countries?

<comment><USER11> The Netherlands as well.

<comment><USER10> Then I believe Luxembourg blocks it, too...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I need a recording of this, I can't read it with the proper cadence.

<comment><USER13> This is N.W.A. - 100 miles and running

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGUbgPYIrU4>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> HTTP proxy for people who got TPB blocked: <http://thepiratebay.se.ipv4.sixxs.org/blog/222>

</comment><comment><USER15> Proxy <http://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/blog/222>

</comment><comment><USER16> Yes, I cannot believe that those guys are still running. Amazing.

<comment><USER8> The things that's truly amazing is just how inept the attempts at getting them blocked are.

In the UK, the big ISPs initially at least blocked only a single IP, so TPB have changed IPs a few times. Each time to a new IP in the /24 network block _registered to them_. Why the entire /24 didn't get blocked in the first case is beyond me.

Not that it'd have helped given the massive number of proxies, but it doesn't look like they were even trying.

<comment><USER17> It makes perfect sense. ISPs don't want to block their customers, so they do the least they could get away with doing.

<comment><USER8> It's not the ISPs behaviour I find strangest, though, but that the rights organizations have not asked for even marginally more effective measures, such as even asking to have all IPs owned by The Pirate Bay blocked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thank God for the renegades, and the lives they lead Far ahead of their time

Without the renegades, Lord knows where we'd be When it comes to heroes, Renegades are mine

They railed against the crown, Another rag tag band Declaring Independence

They laid their bodies down, won a bloody war, And liberty for their descendents

Thanks to the renegades, we're free today

Thanks to the renegades, we're free today

Thank god for the renegades, and the lives they lead Far ahead of their time

Without the renegades, Lord knows where we'd be

When it comes to heroes, Renegades are mine

Where are the renegades in the world today?

Who are the renegades in the world today?

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPgo9aHnqHI>

And I am strangely impelled to add this link:

[http://pt.scribd.com/doc/3230/Robert-Crumb-The-Religious- Exp...](http://pt.scribd.com/doc/3230/Robert-Crumb-The-Religious-Experience- of-Philip-K-Dick)

The Empire Never Ended!

</comment><comment><USER19> i poste the same fucking shit 8 hours ago and NO VOTES, <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4525973> WTF?

<comment><USER20> That's 6am PST.(where silicon valley is) Not a lot of people are up at that time here reading hacker news. Also, the new page tends to get overrun with new items quite quickly and sometimes an article does not get steam.

But frankly your tone is not one that many here care for so please refrain. Also, please refrain from meta commentary; it's just noise.</comment></comment>


Using Raspberry Pi for CCTV with Zoneminder - <AUTHOR> http://blog.snapdragon.cc/using-raspberry-pi-for-cctv-with-zoneminder/ <comment><USER2> Cool! I have an idea to create door intercom using raspberrypie, webcam, speaker and mic. When somebody presses the door bell a SMS is sent to the owner. User can launch the mobile app to see who is at the door and communicate with the person.</comment>


If you had a magic button on your phone that could do anything what would it do? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Teleport me through time and space.

On a more serious note, I think you're probably trying to do customer development, and trying to modify the question people tell you to ask "If you had a magic wand, what would you improve to solve your problem?"

This can be a useful question if you're already talking about a pretty well defined problem space. So, for example, if you were talking about how people deal with all the photos they take on their phones, the magic wand question might yield you things like "I want an easy way to back them up online".

But the way you're asking it is so open ended that you're essentially saying "What app do you want that doesn't exist", which tends to yield nonsense because there's not a concrete enough frame of reference.

</comment><comment><USER3> Turn it into a real computer -- i.e. materialize a keyboard, decent-sized monitor, and ethernet port out of the aether.

</comment><comment><USER4> Put it into self destruction mode, explodes within 30 seconds.

</comment><comment><USER5> cigarette lighter

</comment><comment><USER6> extend my light saber ... on my iSaber

<comment><USER7> [http://www.iphoneappscool.com/invisible-viagra-natural- viagr...](http://www.iphoneappscool.com/invisible-viagra-natural-viagra- alternative-for-iphoneipad/)</comment></comment>


Why I won't be using airbnb again - <AUTHOR> http://romerotron3000.com/a-renters-perspective-on-the-bad-of-airbnb

<comment><USER2> This is one example. Airbnb isn't actually renting the place out to you (the landlord is).

They discourage 2-way communication because what will end up happening is that the user will try to make a deal outside of Airbnb, get screwed, and then come crying to Airbnb for recourse (and it will make them look bad and discourage future customers).

They also want to keep their clients.

</comment><comment><USER3> 'paulhauggis' is dead-on re: why the policy is set the way it is. However, I think the key takeaway is the lack of customer service, not the service itself. Nobody likes being told their stupid, and nobody likes being ripped off.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds almost exactly like finding apartments in New York. I especially love the 2 bedroom part. In NYC, they love to make 1 bedrooms into 2 by putting up a bookshelf or a temporary wall. I've been going through the apartment hunting nonsense, including using Airbnb and it's been a nightmare. On Airbnb, you can't just "book," it seems like it requires an exchange of messages before you can get a "yes."

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand their need to preserve revenue but it seems rather heavy handed to discourage 2-way communication so much.</comment></comment>