The dark side of Dubai - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html <comment><USER4> Why anyone would relocate to a country living in the dark ages with Medieval laws is beyond me. Commit adultry? Go to prison. Eat a poppy-seed bagel in another airport on your way to Dubai and leave a seed on your shirt? Same thing.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7234786.stm>

<comment><USER5> Although your comment is extreme, many people moved there to make lots of money and live like kings. Which they did.

Edit: Not sure why I'm being downmodded; all I did was answer the parent's question.

<comment> brown9-2 They moved to Dubai to participate (willingly or unwillingly) in a bubble, basically.

<comment><USER5> Is that a bad thing (on a per-person level)? Again, many people made out great.

<comment> brown9-2 Well I guess that comes down to a moral choice.

Would you be okay with "making out great" and becoming rich if it meant that other people had to work in 130 degree heat for 18 hours a day in order to build the buildings you live and work in, and had their wages withheld and passport confiscated by their employer?

Would you think that you had made a bad choice?

<comment><USER5> That is exactly the question I am asking. If someone gave you (and I don't mean you in particular) the chance to make all this money with minimal effort on your part, are you so sure you'd turn it down?

To answer this question regarding myself, I don't know. For example, I wear clothes and shoes that are obviously made using horrible labour in third-world countries. Also, what are the people who already live there supposed to do? Halt their lives and livelihoods and move out?

All I'm calling for with my comments is more restraint when it comes to the 'holier than thou' comments. It's too easy to express casual outrage and condemnation on the internet.

<comment><USER6> No offense, but the conditions that these workers are in seem _a lot_ worse than anything you could have inside a factory in China.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 The more I read about Dubai's "debt is illegal" policy, the more counter- productive it seems.

If you lose your job, the employer has to notify the bank. The bank freezes your accounts and you are prevented from leaving the country. Thus, you are left with absolutely zero way to ever pay off your debt.

What's the proper economics term for this? Something along the lines of a self-fulfilling negative spiral.

<comment><USER6> Europe did it back in the day. If you were a debtor you were thrown in debtors' prison until you paid off your debt... but you can't earn any money while you are in debtors' prison... Catch-22. I'm assuming that it's meant as a deterrent to try and prevent people from getting into debt in the first place. Not that it's a very good (or humane) idea though.

<comment><USER7> The mafia will just kill you. That makes even less sense since they have to spend money on a hitman.

<comment><USER6> I imagine that loan sharks must just extort people for money by terrorizing them with physical violence much more often than they actually kill anyone. Otherwise their lending practices would cause them to lose money hand over fist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've spent a bit of time in Dubai. It's not quite what the author makes it out to be.

I've heard about the abuses - there are some and it's horrible - but it's not indicative of the way most people are running their businesses in Dubai.

A mentor of mine from England headed up a project management firm there. The workers under him made 20-40 times what they could make back home in South Asia, in places where the malnourishment/literally-starving-to-death rate is sometimes 30%.

An acquaintance of mine who worked in Dubai had a Chinese girlfriend who was a stewardess on Emirates Airlines. Emirates is pretty incredible in that they pay the same amounts to their staff regardless of country of origin - <USER2> all airlines and cruiselines pay much less to people from China, the Philippines, etc, than they would to someone from France or Australia. Emirates pays everyone the same. The acquaintence's Chinese girlfriend bought one _house_ every couple months back in her home province in China on her wages. Her family was becoming incredibly wealthy.

A company taking someone's passport and changing their contract is really horrible fraud, a horrific crime. But that's an indictment of the whole society - this kind of nonsense happens in the West too. Take South Korea and the United States - a common story is a girl gets promised high paid waitressing/hostessing job, gets sold into slavery. This is a terrible thing, and should be stopped - but does that mean that United States is running on slave labor? No. A few bad people is not an indictment of an entire society.

For a lot of very poor people, Dubai helped pull their families out of poverty. The did some amazing things there. Those things won't be mentioned in a piece like this. People who would be living on subsistence farming in China build houses and manage property after working in Dubai. People from Sri Lanka, India, and Eastern Europe can support their whole families and save money after working there for a couple years, in places where there is no opportunity and everyone is literally starving to death.

The author doesn't care about the good. The opinion piece was written before doing any research or interviews, the research and interviews were set to tell the story. There's some bad stuff there? Oh yeah, absolutely. There's bad stuff in the USA too. And England. And everywhere. There's also a hell of a lot of good that's happening there, that wasn't mentioned.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. But after reading that article, I just don't believe your personal experience is indicative of what's going on in Dubai. You're the one who sounds out of touch.

Have you even gone to interview the workers slaving away to do construction on Dubai's skyscrapers as the author of this article did? Have you seen where they live? Did you interview any of the people who had their passports taken away?

This was a throughly researched article, while your experience amounts to just your friend's project management firm and an acquaintance's girlfriend. Maybe project managers have it good in Dubai, but how does their experience compare to the rest of Dubai's workforce?

And what about the water quality problems they're having after dumping their sewage in the sea? What about the lack of freedom of speech addressed in the article? Or the fact that being gay in Dubai is illegal? Or the threats of Islamic radicalism? Or the impact of the falling oil prices and Dubai's debt economy?

There's so much in this article you seem to dismiss with a wave of the hand by saying other countries have their problems too. They certainly do, but that doesn't excuse or explain what's going on in Dubai.

<comment><USER8> > Sorry. But after reading that article, I just don't believe your personal > experience is indicative of what's going on in Dubai. You're the one who > sounds out of touch.

I want to put this down in a way to further the conversation. "But after reading that article, I just don't believe..." - that statement. You read a news article - I've read many too - and you feel educated enough to make a judgment on my personal experiences including very upper class people, Western skilled workers, and some poor people who were maids, sanitation people, etc. After reading a news article, you feel confident to make a judgment that someone else's firsthand experiences are not indicative of how things actually are, and that the person is out of touch.

> There's so much in this article you seem to dismiss with a wave of the hand > by saying other countries have their problems too.

No. That's not it at all.

I don't think people realize how bad poverty is. So when you read that someone worked 12 hours in terrible conditions for $800/month, that sounds incredibly horrible. But people don't realize that when a meal at a cafe costs 22 cents, a bus ride costs 11 cents, a giant bag of rice costs less than a dollar - well, then $800 goes a long way. I've spent time in third world countries. Most people who get righteous when a story likes this comes out, haven't. $800 goes a long way in the third world.

Some people pulled themselves out of poverty by working in Dubai. I'm not talking about the up and up people. Some poor people pulled themselves out of poverty in Dubai. Bad things also happened there, but good things happened too. That doesn't dismiss some terrible things, but the article ignores some people who literally turned their lives around there.

<comment><AUTHOR>
      > > Sorry. But after reading that article, I just don't believe your
      > > personal experience is  indicative of what's going  on in Dubai.
      > > You're the one who sounds out of touch.
      >
      > I want to put this down in a way to further the conversation. "But
      > after  reading  that article,  I  just  don't believe..."  -  that
      > statement. You read a news article -  I've read many too - and you
      > feel educated enough to make a judgment on my personal experiences
      > including very  upper class  people, Western skilled  workers, and
      > some poor  people who  were maids,  sanitation people,  etc. After
      > reading a news article, you feel confident to make a judgment that
      > someone  else's firsthand  experiences are  not indicative  of how
      > things actually are, and that the person is out of touch.

It was more a judgement of your description of your personal experience than the experience itself. Clearly, no one has access to your personal experience, so they can't judge it directly. But we can judge what you tell us (compared to what the author of "The dark side of Dubai" article tells about his personal experience).

      > > Have you  even gone to  interview the  workers slaving away  to do
      > > construction on Dubai's skyscrapers as  the author of this article
      > > did?
      >
      > Yes.
      >
      > > Have you seen where they live?
      >
      > Yes.

Then why didn't you mention it? Why did you start going off about how good project managers and stewardeses have it in Dubai instead of talking about the people interviewed in the article: the workers slaving away building the skyscrapers and the people who've had their passports taken away? Do you dispute the accuracy of what the author of the article has written about them?

      > I  don't think  people realize  how bad  poverty is.  So when  you
      > read  that someone  worked  12 hours  in  terrible conditions  for
      > $800/month,  that sounds  incredibly  horrible.  But people  don't
      > realize that  when a meal  at a cafe costs  11 cents, $800  goes a
      > long way.  I've spent time  in third world countries.  Most people
      > who get righteous when a story likes this comes out, haven't. $800
      > goes a long way in the third world.

First, the article mentioned people were making £90 ($147) a month, not $800 a month. Second, Dubai is not a third world country, so I really doubt the workers are spending 11 cents a meal. According to [http://www.expatforum.com/articles/cost-of-living/cost-of- li...](http://www.expatforum.com/articles/cost-of-living/cost-of-living-in- dubai.html)

 _"An individual expatriate will spend around 500 euro on food and other grocery items every month. Costs of food products are especially high... Water is generally expensive all across the country... Dubai relies mostly on imported food and drinks, which explains why they are also more expensive."_

The monthly cost of food of 500 Euro is about $750, more than 5 times the monthly wage mentioned in the article. Of course, the typical slave worker probably isn't going to be eating food that's as expensive as that of your typical Western expat, but I doubt they'd survive on $10 of food a month, which is what three 11 cent meals a day totaled over a month would amount to.

Then there's the debt that the slave workers get in to to just have the opportunity to work in Dubai. The article quotes it as £2,300 ($3,772), which would take 25 months to work off at the $147 per month salary, if we don't count the cost of living in Dubai (which would make repaying the debt even harder).

Finally, there are the dangerous work conditions, physical violence, and the non-payment and delay of salaries that the article mentions, which would literally put the workers' lives in jeopardy. That doesn't exactly sound like the opportunity of a lifetime, even for someone coming from the third world.

      > Some people pulled themselves out  of poverty by working in Dubai.
      > I'm  not talking  about the  up and  up people.  Some poor  people
      > pulled  themselves  out  of  poverty in  Dubai.  Bad  things  also
      > happened there, but good things happened too. That doesn't dismiss
      > some  terrible things,  but the  article ignores  some people  who
      > literally turned their lives around there.

There will always be exceptional people who can overcome some of the worst adversities. This article wasn't about them. That's true. The author chose to mostly focus on the less exceptional, and more representative people in Dubai, and nothing you've said has proven the author of this article did anything less than a stellar job at researching and describing his chosen subject.

<comment><USER8> I understand where you're at and I respect it - bad things happened in Dubai and should be addressed. When I came in and commented, there were lots of sentiment against Dubai. Heck, there's "Fuck Dubai" comment at +12 right now. So I knew pretty well that if I offered a perspective that the article isn't representative of everything happening there, there's a good chance it wouldn't be well-received. The reception's actually been a little more positive than I imagined it would be.

So why do I write it? Well, after traveling a lot of the world, I don't think it's so simple and black and white. Some horrific stuff happened in Dubai? Yes. Mark it down. Don't forget it. Work to change it. But does that make the place completely morally bankrupt? I don't believe so. A lot of lives have been saved and aided greatly there. This is of course not simple, black and white, with us or against us, good or evil type thinking. Bad stuff happened there. Good stuff happened there. The article didn't mention any good stuff and made it seem like it was all really bad stuff. So I offered my own experiences.

But is there bad stuff there? Oh yeah. And let's not forget that. Someone gets promised a 500 euro salary, then gets paid only 90 euros? Wow, that's criminal and sickening. The people that did that should have very bad things happen to them. But yet, I'll still write in that I know firsthand people who had their lives changed their, including unskilled laborers that made a hell of a lot of money. I've done a bit of blue collar manual labor in my life. It's not enjoyable, it's hard, but it pays very well for unskilled labor. There was some of that happening in Dubai, and it offered a lot of opportunities that helped a lot of people.

I knew a girl and her sister who were Sri Lanka, whose parents came to Dubai as basically house servants. I'm not sure what the father did - <USER3> landscaping? - the mother was a maid. But their daughters were able to go to decent schools and were on their way out of poverty. There's stories like that too. The article paints Dubai as a hell hole filled with callous people, blinded to human suffering by their own greed. Yes there were bad things there, that ought to be changed. But the world is not simple, black and white, good and evil, with us or against us. A lot of good happened there too.

You seem like a nice and considerate person, and I think you and I are fundamentally on the same page. I came in to voice an opinion that seemed like it would be unpopular, because it seemed worth it for people to think about. Cheers and thanks for having a conversation with me.

<comment><USER9> Thank you, Lionhearted, for gently bringing some maturity and perspective to this thread. Dubai is an amazing and special place, not to be dismissed lightly and put into some prefab category.

A friend is working there now. He loves Dubai because it rewards hard work. He finds the pace faster than in the US. More buildings going up, more vision, more investment, and less red tape.

I hope that whatever economic problems Dubai has will soon be resolved. And I trust that over time Dubai will solve some of the problems which annoyed this author.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What about that Abu Dhabi story about a Sheikh Issa torturing a grain merchant on tape. I'll stay out of countries ruled by royals. [http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/05/09/uae.torture/index....](http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/05/09/uae.torture/index.html)

Edit: Wikipedia shows that sheikh can be an honorific Arab term and I meant a royal or monarch.

</comment><comment><USER11> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=550719>

</comment><comment><USER12> A recent re-appraisal based on the idea that loads of journalists were bitching too much about it: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/29/dubai-world- dese...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/29/dubai-world-desert-gulf- investors)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's good to hear a different view from someone with a "yachtsman friend", who appreciates the "affordable domestic help" in Dubai, and "salves his conscience by giving a bigger tip to the Asian waiter or Indian taxi driver".

<comment><USER13> Please note the context of self-deprecation that accompanies the quote about the tips. The writer is admitting to his own frivolity here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Duly noted, as are his attempts to trivialize the plight of the slaves upon who's backs Dubai was built.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is no surprise. If you build a whole investment empire based solely on the value of housing, those cheap bricks you build turn against you one day.

No social investments, no technology, just plain luxury and housing. Have you seen that artificial palm drawn on the sea? For me, that symbolizes how artificial things were in Dubai, and good old karma gave them what they deserved.

<comment><USER15> I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling schadenfreude at Dubai's current predicament. I, at least, feel vindicated that good old common sense appears to have trumped wild disconnection from reality caused by wealth.

More proof that no country can survive without producing any of tangible value.

<comment><USER16> Hopefully this poetic justice will engulf the Web 2.0 startup economy too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is from April, btw.

<comment><USER18> As someone who read it in April, I'm glad it's still being shared.

<comment><USER19> Agreed, but I'd like to see it brought up to date with the current financial crises. I wonder if things are better or worse now that all projects are brought to a hold, these real estate companies are going bankrupt. Will they allow these immigrants to return to their homes, or continue to enforce the debts of passage?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I believe I saw a documentary or special on Discovery (I think) about the building of the Burj Al Arab. They hired in a fancy designer to decorate the interior, and the Sheik or whoever was in charge, in all his vast knowledge, complained about the design being too bland and apparently forced her to redesign it.

I hate it when people who don't know what they are doing have a lot of power, and worse when they start telling people who _do_ know what they're doing how to do it.

</comment><comment><USER21> This was already submitted when it was published back in the spring: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=550719>

</comment><comment><USER22> Joi Ito has another view on this:

<http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2009/04/15/followup-to-my.html>

</comment><comment><USER23> While these are truly horrible stories, it has to be noted that you cannot just explain them with some racist reference to arabs. This is just the logical conclusion of certain free market policies without regard for human rights and human well being.

In fact for every horrible story you read about in this article there is a politician in the US trying to bring that story to America. If you enact tort reform, reform the bankruptcy laws, remove worker protections and minimum wage laws, and remove environmental regulations, you will get exactly the same type of outcome as you are getting in Dubai.

<comment><USER24> There's a balance. Too few protections or too many are destabilizing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have a hard time believing this about Australians:

"...Madam made me work from 6am to 1am every day, with no day off. I was exhausted and pleaded for a break, but they just shouted: 'You came here to work, not sleep!' Then one day I just couldn't go on, and Madam beat me. She beat me with her fists and kicked me. "

</comment><comment><USER26> I heard Arab nations treat _non-muslims_ as _non-humans_

</comment><comment><USER27> Does nobody learn about thermodynamics in school any more? It's not like an economic system is not susceptible to the same laws that govern any other physical system. If some people are living like kings then there must be others that are living like slaves.

<comment><USER27> What the hell man? What's with the downvotes.

<comment><USER28> Economics is not physics, and quality of life is not a zero sum game.

<comment><USER27> It certainly is. My original point still stands. Nothing is created out of nothing and quality of life is related to existence of various goods that are governed by physical and economic rules. So if some people have too much then others don't have enough.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Goes All In With Github, You Should Too With Your API - <AUTHOR> http://www.apievangelist.com/2013/01/24/google-goes-all-in-with-github-and-you-should-too-with-your-api/ <comment><USER2> Google hosting stuff on Github and not on Google Code? Is that because of the easier forking? Is this the first sign of Google abandoning its own open source project hosting?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the success and features of Github is getting undeniable. There is a social graph emerging that doesn't exist anywhere else.</comment></comment>


Swinbox – Dashboard your inbox - <AUTHOR> http://www.swinbox.com <comment><AUTHOR> Swinbox is a smart inbox, coupled with a powerful task management tool designed to facilitate team work</comment>


Windows 95 OS as an Electron App for Windows 10, MacOS, and Linux - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/felixrieseberg/windows95/releases/tag/v2.0.0 <comment><USER2> Now Windows95 is consuming more than 4GB RAM.

</comment><comment><USER2> Batteries included?</comment>


Nissan.com (is not owned by Nissan the car company) - <AUTHOR> https://nissan.com/ <comment><USER2> Uzi Nissan just died of COVID19. It will be interesting to see if his relatives stick to his principals, and hold onto the web site in memory of him, or make millions and sell to Nissan.

I hope they hold on.

I predict someone will eventually sell, though. Principled people are few and far between.

[https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/uzi-nissan- who...](https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/uzi-nissan-who-beat- nissan-dies-covid)

<comment><USER3> It kind of paints a dark picture. The family unit used to be like a person who never died. Wealth, ideas, skills, values all would be passed down and developed over time. Now the corporations can outlive us, they can wait. Our families are weaker than the corporations. That scares me.

<comment><USER4> Many people find corporations more democratic than an aristocracy. I'd rather have AMZN on NASDAQ than have Lord Bezos become a trillionaire.

<comment><USER5> Your second sentence, what's the difference?

Isn't he likely going to be the next trillionaire anyway, with or without the title of Lord?

<comment><USER6> Also is there some magical step once you're a trillionaire? Surely at this point it doesn't make a difference anymore exactly how rich the guy is.

<comment><USER2> Nope. There are classes among the ultrawealthy too:

* Lower-class ultrawealthy have billions on paper, but no liquidity. Think of a founder sitting on a pre-IPO unicorn.

* Jeff Bezos is lower-middle-class ultrawealthy. He has wealth, but he can't use it, since it's locked up in Amazon. If he sold it all, Amazon stock would collapse.

* Bill Gates is middle-class rich. He has "free" wealth which he can do with as he pleases.

* Upper-class wealthy have wealth in political structures (think Saudi princes for a visible example, or low-key formerly noble European families who hold massive amounts of land). Their wealth is now structured so it can survive economic collapses, wars, and so on, and they can command real power through global political influence.

It's really about how much you can use your wealth for power and influence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the 90s, I worked for a web firm that did the Nissan Motors USA customer- facing web sites. The management at Nissan USA were always sure we'd be switching to the nissan.com domain "any day now." It was impressive how much firepower they expended on Uzi Nissan, and how he was able to fight and hold on by a thread. I secretly sympathized with him, although professionally I had to pretend that the "nissanusa.com" domain was an abomination.

<comment><USER8> The 90s and the days of running websites on Silicon Graphics.

There seemingly was some sort of lessen learned since Z.com was acquired more easily before the relaunch of the Z. Though the domain seems to have since been sold to another company.

<comment><USER9> I could have sworn that single letter domain names were not allowed and that all domains must be at least two letters (for .com anyway).

Turns out that a few single letter domains were grandfathered in. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second- level_dom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second-level_domain)

I'm glad to be one of the lucky 10,000 today!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nissan tried to sue Uzi Nissan, the owner of the domain, for cyber-squatting and lost...[1]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_v._Nissan_Comput...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_v._Nissan_Computer)

<comment><USER11> I believe Ford sued the owner of volvoguy.com and won.

<comment><USER12> I suspect, though that the owner of volvoguy.com wasn't named Joe Volvoguy. It also appears that volvoguy.com is currently a Chinese language website (which Google says simply tells me that service is not available in my area). On the other hand, Ford hasn't owned Volvo in years and the current owners are a Chinese holding company so who knows? (And Volvo Cars, formerly owned by Ford and now Geely Holding Corp, is not to be confused with the publicly traded AB Volvo which makes heavy trucks and which owned Volvo Cars before selling that division to Ford.)

<comment><USER13> Yes, big difference between swedishbrickguy.com and volvoguy.com.

Up here in the People's Republic of Kanuckistan, Canadian Tire even won a case with someone over crappytire.com. I thought that was heinous, personally, but INAL, so I am biting my tongue and not claiming that the judge erred in law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sadly the owner of the domain passed away from Covid-19.

See: [https://www.gofundme.com/f/Uzi-Nissan](https://www.gofundme.com/f/Uzi- Nissan)

<comment><USER15> Sitting on the Nissan domain, almost certainly valued at much more than the $50k they're seeking, it seems out of place to be cyber-panhandling

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm amazed that Nissan Motors didn't eventually get the domain. Normally with sufficient $$$, you can bleed a smaller opponent dry in court.

My company had something similar happen to us. We were taken to the Federal Court of Australia by a Florida based educational hardware company in part over a domain.

The Australian domain we had, was purchased prior to their registration of Australian trademarks and incorporation of their company.

<comment><USER17> What was the outcome? Is it possible to mention the educational hardware company?

<comment><USER16> We no longer own a domain that we previously legitimately owned.

I won't mention the complainant's name, however, you gotta respect their (lawful evil?) tactics.

Taking a previously open-source product manufactured by (the awesome) SparkFun Electronics, "un-open-sourcing" the product, and moving the manufacturing away from the USA to China.

When SparkFun ceased manufacturing the product, the result was that schools in my region are now charged more for this line of products. The complainant's restrictions in their reseller agreements also prevent resellers from selling any competing products.

The complainant trademarked the name of the open-source hardware and obtained a second trademark (in the quoted category below[1]). I am not a lawyer, but it could mean that anyone commercially teaching (hear deriving income directly or indirectly) or creating educational content that incorporates the trademarked term could potentially be violating the trademark.

[1] "Conducting workshops and seminars in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education; developing education lesson plans for others in the field of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education; educational services, namely, conducting informal programs in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, using on-line activities and interactive exhibits, and printable materials distributed therewith"

<comment><USER18> I also have to respect your chaotic neutral tactics by posting their trademark wording in its entirety, hence guaranteeing they're the first search hit for that phrase.

<comment><USER19> First and only when I tried.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love how crappy this website is. :D . No, not minimalistic, or old school. Just crappy, with terrible usability. :D

<comment><USER21> It was from the days where people self hosted and used to put up a websites for fun

<comment><USER22> It's a shame there are no more people putting up fun websites anywhere. /s

<comment><USER23> Oh, they are, but they're drowned out by "look at this create-react-app hackathon project I made! VCs pls give me a series A thx". Alas, the web is now a profit engine first.

<comment><USER24> A create-react-app hackathon project is absolutely a valid instance of "putting up websites for fun."

<comment><USER25> I agree with you. I believe that having fun is subjective. I've actually done both things mentioned for fun. I also had the bonus fun of learning a new thing to boot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This story represents everything that's wrong with domains.

On one hand, you have someone with absolutely no use for the the name holding out against an entity that everyone in the world would assume has ownership of it.

On the other hand, you have a company that tried to strong arm the small domain owner in court.

<comment><USER27> > On one hand, you have someone with absolutely no use for the the name

How sure are you that they have absolutely no use for the name? If he gets his email and runs family email accounts at firstname.lastname@example.com, that's a valid use for the domain, IMO.

</comment></comment><comment> rising-sky Different circumstance but reminds me of the battle Microsoft had with Mike Rowe over mikerowesoft.com [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft)

mikerowesoft.com still redirects to microsoft.com

</comment><comment><USER28> This is the story as I read it the other day:

[https://jalopnik.com/uzi-nissan-internet-domain-owner-who- fo...](https://jalopnik.com/uzi-nissan-internet-domain-owner-who-fought- nissan-in-1844535615)

</comment><comment><USER29> This reminds me of the story of the pair of twins that own twins.com who refused to sell it to Major League Baseball and the Minnesota Twins.

[https://grantland.com/features/the-website-mlb-couldnt- buy/](https://grantland.com/features/the-website-mlb-couldnt-buy/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I remember reading the story by the domain owner how nissan tried to screw him with law suit. This is pretty old case and I wonder why it popped up to the top: [https://www.digest.com/Big_Story.php](https://www.digest.com/Big_Story.php)

<comment><USER21> > FEBRUARY - 2008, Ruling on Attorneys' Fees and Final Judgment. The court has > issued a Ruling[1] addressing these remaining issues:

1\. Nissan Motor is NOT entitled to attorneys' fees.

2\. Nissan Computer is entitled to cost under rule 68.

The court ordered NMC to pay $58,000 as cost under rule 68, this is less than 2% of what the cost was to defend this case.

[1] Ruling: [https://www.digest.com/images/FinalJudgment2008.pdf](https://www.digest.com/images/FinalJudgment2008.pdf)

<comment><USER9> >this is less than 2% of what the cost was to defend this case

Which is ridiculous. The whole point of a legal system is to ensure that even the weak can exist without being bullied by the strong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you go to nissanusa.com now, they're selling a Sentra with the tag 'Refuse to compromise'.

<comment><USER31> what's your point?

<comment><USER30> It's an amusing reflection on both Nissan and Uzi's sticking to their positions.

<comment><USER31> when did they start this promotion?

<comment><USER30> Mate, it's clearly not directly related and I suggest you don't read too much in to my comment. It's just a bit of fun.

<comment><USER31> Thats fine... But it would be really screwed up if it was related at all

<comment><USER30> OK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Nissan is also a river in southern Sweden running through the city of Halmstad.

I assume that name is older than the car company.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_(river)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_\(river\))

<comment><USER12> Japanese companies often have long and convoluted histories (Nintendo was founded in the 19th century as a maker of playing cards and at various times sold food and was a taxi company). Nissan was founded in 1928 as an offshoot of a mining company and until the Japanese real estate crash of the early 1990s was primarily a real estate company which also made cars. But yes, the river name is still probably older than the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This reminds me of the steam.com domain - for the longest time I've wondered what the relationship is like between the owner and Valve Corporation...

It used to have an actual page, it looks like it's just a registered domain now with a page that times out.

</comment><comment><USER34> This feels like the web equivalent of an Edith Macefield house.

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

</comment><comment><USER35> This brings a smile to my face. You don't always need "F __* you" in order to say "F __* you".

I nearly want to collocate a server with them, just for the heck of it (see their "services" page).

</comment><comment><USER36> I once saw a license plate frame of a car dealership called "Nissani Brothers". It was not on a Nissan. Somehow I figured they might rather be selling Nissans.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've always liked this story and have been periodically checking the domain for many years. I recall reading the site updates as it was unfolding. Sad he died.

</comment><comment> Seb-C I did not expect to see a site (legitimately) using an HTML 3.2 DOCTYPE in 2020.

</comment><comment><USER38> That site just looks like he's holding out for more money.

<comment><USER39> It's been 20 years. I don't think he's bluffing for more money.

<comment><USER40> He held out until he passed away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> neither is Square.com owned by Square.

<comment><USER22> Square the software company that makes games? Or Square the software company that makes payment processing?

<comment><USER41> square the software company uses square enix domain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Their only purpose seems to be to occupy this domain to counter Nissan the car company. Their own actual business doesn't look that remarkable or even successful. It has eclipsed the purpose of existence almost.

Maybe time to declare this isn't worth the trouble in life, and there are better things to spend effort on? What are you winning? Sell, and make a buck while you can. There isn't much principled fight to be gained here, is there?

<comment> jagged-chisel > Their only purpose seems to be to occupy this domain to counter Nissan the > car company.

It's the guy's name. He registered the domain 5 years before Nissan Motor Company showed interest. He seems to have started businesses further and further from "automobiles" so that he wouldn't have a trademark dispute with the car company.

> Their own actual business doesn't look that remarkable or even successful.

Is that the measure by which someone should keep their property?

<comment><USER24> It's lots of people's names, of course. I don't agree that domains should be redistributed based continuously purely on "what's the biggest company with this name," but I also don't like how much momentum you get just from being interested in the web in the 90s and picking up the juicy domain names. I don't have a great solution, but I don't think the status quo does a great job of allocating domain names with either economic efficiency or with user- friendliness in mind. Of course, one could certainly argue that domain names are much less important now that most people get their content either directly from the massive media/social networking websites or indirectly from Google searches.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Mongoaudit – CLI tool for auditing and pentesting MongoDB servers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/stampery/mongoaudit <comment><AUTHOR> Stampery's CTO and Mongoaudit project lead here! Our reasons to launch this product:

Companies of all sizes use MongoDB, Stampery included. Why? It's schema-less, fast, scalable. We all love its deep query-ability.

But it's no secret that MongoDB pays more attention to scalability, performance and ease of use than to security. There are quite a few holes in its default configuration settings.

This, combined with lazy admins and devs led to what the press has dubbed the MongoDB apocalypse. More than 25,000 MongoDB instances were targeted by hackers. Information was encrypted and money was asked for the decryption keys. In some cases information was wiped with no way to recover it.

Mongoaudit tackles this problem and more. It not only detects misconfigurations, known vulnerabilities and bugs. It also gives advice on how to fix problems and recommends best security practices.

Among other tests, it checks if: \+ MongoDB listens on a port different to default one \+ MongoDB HTTP status interface is disabled \+ TLS/SSL encryption is enabled \+ Authentication is enabled \+ SCRAM-SHA-1 authentication method is enabled \+ Server-side Javascript is forbidden \+ Roles granted to the user only permit CRUD operations \+ The user has permissions over a single database \+ The server is vulnerable to a dozen of different known security bugs

Once the tests are run Mongoaudit can either display a basic report on screen or send a detailed one via email. This personalized report links to a series of guides on how to fix every specific issue and how to harden the targeted MongoDB deployment.

We have also published the Mongoaudit guides in our Medium publications— be sure to check them: [https://medium.com/mongoaudit](https://medium.com/mongoaudit)

Feedback is more than welcome!!!

</comment><comment><USER2> I love the tool! Didn't know my MongoDB server had 3 vulnerabilities. PS: I love that they implemented Material Design on command line LOL</comment>


Japan raises nuclear crisis alert level to that of Chernobyl - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42542906/ns/world_news-asiapacific/

<comment><USER2> Worth noting: "The rating reflects the initial severity of the crisis not the current situation which has seen radiation levels drop dramatically."</comment>


Code Re-use With Abstract Classes - <AUTHOR> http://www.idevforfun.com/index.php/2012/01/13/code-re-use-with-abstract-classes/

<comment><USER2> I think the saddest thing i'll read all day is this quote from the top paragraph...

"An often overlooked feature of C# (and OO programming in general) is the use of abstract classes to maximise code re-use."

Excuse me while I go weep for the poor folk for whom this applies</comment>


Show HN: Instant documentation site for Github projects - <AUTHOR> http://documentup.com/

<comment><USER2> One nice thing about GitHub and Bitbucket's focus on the project's README is that more software projects are providing a good, instantly-readable summary of their project in the README instead of making you have to go elsewhere to find out what it's all about and how to get started.

One not-so-nice thing about GitHub and Bitbucket's focus on the project's README is that I have noticed several projects that dump _all_ their project's documentation into the README and the examples instead of having proper narrative and API documentation.

<comment><USER3> I prefer all-encompassing READMEs over incomplete scattered documentation.

<comment><USER4> I think all-in-one-README works well for some things, but some of our projects at work would result in HUUUGE readme files. Not so pleasant if those were a single file. We have started using gollum-site[1] for our stuff that grows beyond a medium size length.

The single-long-readme length issue appears to be alleviated by the nav construction in documentup though. Pretty slick.

<https://github.com/dreverri/gollum-site>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is pretty cool and I know non-javascript users (besides some screen readers) aren't as common but you've gotta give _something_ to people w/o JS, even if it's just "Please turn on javascript. Read text version here a:github.com/user/project/README.md" or something. I understand modern web apps not always degrading but this is almost 100% flat text, there should be some way to serve all users.

Looks nice tho!!

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. Noted here: <https://github.com/jeromegn/DocumentUp/issues/2>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you're looking for a more mature service, particularly if you're already using Sphinx, checkout <http://readthedocs.org/> which includes nice things like full text search, PDF generation, versioning, etc. and supports other hosting sites and version control systems.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I needed it for one of my projects and so I whipped up this simple documentation generator. It takes your README.md and turns it into an easier to navigate documentation site. Meant to be used on a gh-pages branch.

There's still much to do. This is an MVP.

<comment><USER7> this is good.. have you shown it to the github guys and gals yet?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't. Just having some fun, built this to hone my front-end skills and because I needed it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are you considering adding SmartyPants to the formatting? Then again, SmartyPants takes options for which kind of formatting you want to use, and, at least in the Python version, I never go with the default one, so it's probably useless to me without the ability to specify my specific formatting.

I really hope this gets a lot of attention; it's one of the best things I have seen on Hacker News in months, and I'm surprised we haven't even hit triple- digit karma for it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Heard about this on Twitter, and in under 3 minutes had this: <http://samuelclay.github.com/NewsBlur>. Gorgeous and very easy to install. Kudos!

</comment><comment><USER10> Great project, easy to install, beautiful presentation. Why limiting to GH pages though? I would love to use it with my markdown documentation, but my project is not on github.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking of adding an option to Bring Your Own Markdown. This has a few implications that I need to code for though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Cool, but the menu gets in your way when you zoom on iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER5> Oh, also, what do you mean by "deep linking"? I'm not sure what you'd deep- link to... is anything loaded dynamically?

<comment><AUTHOR> I mean, being able to link to a specific point (like a H2 or H3) in the README and have the page actually scroll there. Right now I don't think it works (or at least it's completely untested.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why doesn't github just do this themselves

</comment><comment><USER13> This would be great if it had a reliable style sheet.

This one, however, breaks on iOS, for example.

May I recommend BS2?</comment>


Ask HN: Is this true? - <AUTHOR>

We were in the process of hiring a CTO. One of our programmers suggested that server guys are not normally good coders; and programmers are not normally good server guys. He suggested that, in general, the fields have bifurcated and it is uncommon to find people who excel in both domains. Would you say this is true? mostly true? or BS? <comment><USER2> Likely this sounds petty and glib, but I have yet to meet a programmer who had the kind of administrative sense that makes a 'good server guy.' The politics surrounding change management and policy enforcement require technology administrators to have at least one foot firmly planted in reality. This doesn't keep server people from being proficient coders, but it suggests there's an upper limit. And, from personal experience, since I switched from full time admin to (mostly) full time programming, most days I couldn't tell you what day it is. It really feels like a personality shift due to less demand for administrivia and more demand for creativity. Four years ago, I knew the location of nearly every object in our home, all the bills were paid on time, all of my socks were matched up and we had a meal plan. Suffice to say, I've started wearing mismatched socks and the bills get paid when someone calls. Much to my delight, the world has not come to an end. Maybe I'll live longer, too.

</comment><comment><USER3> I spent the first part of my career as a "server guy" (along with networks). I ran tech at a popular ISP in Chicago called EnterAct.

I spent the next part of my career as a developer, first at a security company, then at a streaming multicast company I founded, then at a network managment company.

I spent the next part of my career as an almost full-time security researcher for hire, with a pronounced focus on high-end enterprise technology (SAN, WAN compression, replication, database, storage).

Looking at it from all three angles, I'd say: there's definitely something to this. Being a programmer gave me insight into how systems worked. Being a security researcher gave me _even more_ insight (I had projects that were literally months spent reverse engineering equipment firmware and building protocol test suites).

I'm confident that after all this "insight", I knew more about how, say, iSCSI worked than _any SAN administrator in Chicago_.

So, how would I have done as a manager of a SAN array? Terribly!

The things that actually matter in administration --- understanding the processes that need to be in place to make changes, understanding what kinds of changes will occur, understanding what's a typical kind of failure that will just take a couple hours to diagnose versus what kinds of problems mean that your vendor is putting engineers on an airplane --- those things you learn by being in the operational/engineering role.

To excel in the operational/engineering role, you need to dedicate yourself to the things that matter for that role, and not allow yourself to get distracted by shiny things. Developers and researchers: prone to distraction by shiny things!

What I don't think is true is that strong tech people are predisposed to one of these roles or the other. Could I be a strong ops/engineering person again? I think so. But I know I can't do it while I'm doing this job.

</comment><comment><USER4> At a certain point you're talking about SANs, FibreChannel routers, HVAC systems, UPS, virtualization, etc etc, and keeping up to date on all of this knowledge is a job in itself. So a guy spending most of his time doing "big IT" sysadmin stuff might not have the time to become a really great programmer.

That being said, I know plenty sysadmins that have gone on to become great programmers. And truly great programmers tend to love computers, both software and hardware.

Larry and Sergey were apparently also server guys: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/bsmif/3465464623/>

<comment><USER5> Nah, Larry and Sergey were entrepreneurs, which meant they did whatever they had to to keep their idea alive. Which often included hardware design, sysadmin, algorithms, infrastructure, graphic design, accounting, investor relations and marketing. They sucked at most of it, but they were "good enough" to turn their idea into a multi-hundred-billion-$ company.

Those corkboard servers you show, BTW, were removed from service in a hurry once the fire marshal found out they were building servers out of _corkboard_.

<comment><USER4> Sure, but the point is that in the beginning, they were arguably great at developing software _and_ building a server farm that worked. My main point was that until you hit the "enterprise" server stuff, you have the capacity to be both a good server guy and programmer.

Above a certain point, there are so many technologies you need to know that people need to specialize.

<comment><USER6> In 99% of cases going with an ex-enterprise sysadmin for your CTO for a early- medium stage startup is a horrible idea. Sysadmin needs are significantly smaller than programming/engineering needs until you get to a really big scale. So, while either is probably OK if they are overall smart and good at tech management, my advice is go for someone with experience managing programmers vs. someone with experience managing sys admins if you have to choose. Ideally you get someone who has been CTO at a startup before and has experience bridging this particular gap.

The third aspect of this is management. Someone who has been in management for 10 years is not going to be a spectacular programmer or sysadmin because they simply wont be up to date, but they've got a solid tech background and great managerial skills. These tend to be better later hires, but could be right as well depending on your situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Mostly true. Tautologically because programmers specialize in programming and server guys specialize in running servers. Different problem domains with different ways of thinking, tools, problems. And we are talking about real programmers and real sysadmins and not some young hobbyists, I guess.

<comment><USER8> I think this is a pretty good characterization of my friend -- he's a great coder, but I think he will always be a better sysadmin. Not because of some innate sysadmin trait, but because he likes it better. You always put more effort into what you like more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> True. It's about specialization. You could also ask if programmers make good database administrators. Highly capable/experienced programmers that develop for the Web (like many on HN) will have some level of knowledge of all facets of the network computing experience, including how routers and browsers work. However, their primary focus and highest area of knowledge should be programming, hence their title.

An analogy might be basketball. Growing up you learn to just get the ball in the hoop, but those that turn professional specialize in a certain position. Very few can play all five positions quite well (like Magic Johnson).

</comment><comment><USER10> No offence but you why are you calling the position CTO if he is expected to code and do sysadmin work. Why not simply call him/her an engineer?

Just curios on the choice of title.

<comment><USER11> do you seriously think a non-coder can effectively choose good coders?

do you really think a non-sysadmin can effectively choose good SysAdmins?

I mean, there is enough overlap between the fields that a good sysadmin can usually tell if a programmer is completely BSing, and a good progrogrammer (well, a C systems programmer) can usually tell if a SysAdmin is completely worthless, but I wouldn't trust anyone who was 'pure management' to detect either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think that's BS. While I'm not a professional as either, I do both and enjoy both – I didn't have the resources to hire my own sysadmin, but now I've found that I enjoy it. I think to enjoy doing either requires many of the same qualities: problem solving, patience, innovation, curiosity and vigilance.

Then again, there are jaded "specialists" who don't dein to dabble in the "other" field, I'm sure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point about them drawing on the same qualities. Makes sense.

<comment><USER13> You can enjoy both, but sometimes, and mainly due to lack of extra hours on the clock. The focus needs to be maintained on often divergent set of problems.

Not all programmers are very familiar with hardware issues, or dependent on their area of programming expertise on network design.

I also found that many programmers are oriented towards creating new features, while administrators focus on running established tools at maximum efficiency.

While drawing on the same set of qualities, the interpretation of them can diverge.

Some people posses both sensibilities and the mind space to treat both disciplines well in environments and projects that scale. They are not common.

<comment><USER11> maximum efficiency, bah! a good sysadmin is focused on keeping shit from breaking. If that means putting up an active-active redundant system where you really only need the capacity of one system, so be it.

Those of us who get paged when the shit hits the fan tend to be pretty careful of breaking things; and quite often, we work on systems where relatively short downtimes can lead to losses greater than our yearly salaries.

That said, all the best SysAdmins have at least some background in C and _NIX systems programming, and nearly all_ NIX systems programmers are also pretty good SysAdmins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When you don't expect much at the start, one person can do programming or sysadmin job first - if you're just hosting your own page without any special features. If you get to the situation where you have many servers to take care of (5+ let's say), then sysadmin simply becomes a full-time position that needs someone experienced with this environment. Someone who's mainly a programmer may not have enough real-world experience to deal with the potential problems, or might not know where to look for solutions. If you require quality, you'll need specialists at some stage.

Splitting the roles is also practical. At some point you may have a project deadline coming soon, when suddenly (for example) network fails - do you really want to send experienced programmers on a trip to the datacenter in that case?

Really, it's a question of how big you are and how much time does your infrastructure need...

<comment><USER11> I pretty much agree, though really, a programmer who cares enough can carry you well past 5 servers. A good SysAdmin can handle a ridiculous number of servers; I've worked places with north of 10K servers per SysAdmin. (of course, here the hardware monkey and the SysAdmin job was split; you need more hardware people than that, unless you are outsourcing your hardware to amazon or the like. )

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> That certainly used to be true for the most part. The lines have started to blur:

[http://jedi.be/blog/2010/02/12/what-is-this-devops-thing- any...](http://jedi.be/blog/2010/02/12/what-is-this-devops-thing-anyway/)

</comment><comment><USER16> As someone who self-identifies as both a systems guy and a programmer, I'm continuously surprised by how many sysadmins don't read any C code and by how many programmers can't effectively configure Apache, to give two examples. I really don't think I'd be as effective at my job as I am if I didn't have both backgrounds, didn't do both regularly, and haven't held positions where I'm expected to do both. Often times, it becomes institutionalized to have the developers "throw their finished products over the wall" to the systems team. I've found this doesn't result in a good environment, rarely do the programmers know about the deployment environment, and systems people don't get a chance to provide input on issues of scalability and maintenance.

One guy who was an early mentor of mine in systems work actually hates doing it, and prefers to program exclusively. I didn't know this when I was under him, I credited him with helping me get to where I am today but he'll hear none of it.

I do think it's true that is is rare to find people who do work effectively in both domains, or even like to. There is a sort of closed mindedness on each side toward the other -- come on guys, we're all engineers! I've had technical and non-technical people alike be surprised at where I can contribute (a memorable one is someone in the accounting department at an old job who was forced to admin a machine back in the day being surprised that I could code, and more recent one is someone being surprised that I was able to successfully contribute to dealing with IE layout issues -- in both cases it's been like "but you're a systems guy, you can't do X", because they've only ever known me to be in that role "officially").

</comment><comment><USER17> True. While many programmers seem to think they can also do server stuff, as a 15 year veteran "server guy", I can say that I've rarely, if ever, seen a programmer who makes a good server guy. The things you need to focus on are just too different.

Programmers tend to focus on the very small details and seem to only look at the short term question of "if something is possible to accomplish". A server guy needs to think about the big-picture, with a focus on not only if something is possible, but the impact of a particular approach on the rest of the infrastructure and the long-term maintenance cost of any given action.

<comment><USER18> The contrast that you describe between the state of spirit of sysadmins vs. programmers seems to mean that programmers do not need to consider impact on the rest of the architecture and the long-term maintenance cost of any given code change.

The programmer you are describing are a kind of programmer who makes lousy programs. I've read enough of those programs to say: they are not pretty -- they do not work well in large scale -- and they cost a LOT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I mostly agree with that. Probably because I consider myself a good programmer and am perfectly fine to delegate all sysadmin stuff.

I think the point is they are distinctly different skillsets. Programming is very different from setting up and maintaining systems. There's a tiny bit of crossover, but not all that much.

Sysadmins do need a basic sense for coding, however they tend use different technologies than the one people generally use to write web applications (though maybe they'll release Bash on Rails sometime soon)

</comment><comment><USER20> I've found that the best sys-admins know enough programming to automate their jobs and debug application issues. They don't have to be the greatest programmers, but they're fantastic debuggers.

The best programmers know all the system settings, services, and behaviors that can affect their apps and thus have to know the underlying system.

I have yet to meet a truly great programmer who didn't thoroughly understand the system he was running, or a fantastic sys-admin who wasn't a pretty good programmer.

</comment><comment><USER21> While a good server admin or a good programmer with (relevant) generalist skills and people skills can succeed as a CTO, you need a CTO that knows your market and your goals and your organization and your customers, and that can quickly determine what works and what doesn't.

While a CTO is solving today's problems with today's shiny and with shiny duct tape, you also need a CTO that can identify and can hold both your short term and your broader and longer-term organizational goals in sharp focus. You need a CTO that establishes clear goals and measurements and trends, and a CTO that can then push, pull, poke, suggest, prod, cattle-prod or ego-stroke toward those organizational goals. And you need a CTO that adapts.

If a server admin or a programmer has the requisite adaptability and people skills and technology skills and presentation skills and has an indefatigable focus on making your market, hire him. Or her. But you're not selecting for and not hiring for server admin or programming skills here.

You want somebody with the technological skills of and the focus of the Borg.

</comment><comment><USER22> It depends on what you mean by "good" programmers or "good" server guys. Up to a certain point, yes, there are plenty of people that can do both well enough to get most jobs done.

However: unless the guy you're hiring happens to be an active developer for the operating system that you're expecting to him to admin, then there's a pretty low chance that he could be considered an _expert_ in both fields. Each field is just too deep and broad, and requires too much time to maintain current knowledge in.

A programmer can probably figure out a particular sysadmin problem, and a good sysadmin can probably figure out a decent approach to a programming problem, but while they're figuring it out, you're paying them and potentially also paying for downtime or a slower development process.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm a Linux Syadmin. I build large student computer laboratories, build, configure, and maintain servers, with bits of desktop support thrown in there. I'm not a strong programmer. Sure, I've made a few iPhone applications and do a little bit of bash scripting, but I don't have the time in my job to maintain the skills that an excellent programmer would have. When I've spent a few weeks programming I get better, but when we don't have time to maintain that skill, I can lose it pretty quickly.

I've worked with some amazing python programmers and without using it day in and out there's no way I could have the in depth knowledge of all the python libraries like they do, so compared to them I'm pretty useless.

</comment><comment><USER24> Are you hiring a CTO or a sysadmin?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, we ended up hiring a person already. I was just intrigued by the thought that server guys are usually not good programmers and vice versa. What do you think?

<comment><USER24> It's a matter of temperament rather than technical skill. Some people like to really get their teeth stuck into a problem and work on it for years at a time. Some people like to execute one discrete task and move onto the next. Both could be equally good at writing code and configuring operating systems. But one will be happier as a programmer and one will be happier as a sysadmin. They might even produce the same number of lines of code a year, one a single 10,000 line program and the other a hundred hundred-line scripts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Programming is about problem solving. A good portion of system administration is also problem solving. I know several programmers who are excellent system administrators, and a couple of sysadmins who are OK programmers (but they don't really enjoy it). Personally I'm more interested in programming but I've definitely jumped into the sysadmin role on occasion to help solve problems the regular sysadmins were struggling with.

</comment><comment><USER26> In general? No. No to tue, no to mostly true, no to BS. Programmers are not necessarily good coders, and sysadmins aren't necessarily good administrators. Instead of worry about that validity of the generalization, what do you want out of your CTO? What unfilled role in the team are you trying to fill?

</comment><comment><USER27> I think it's worth realizing that it's tribal behavior as much as anything else. Corporate fiefdoms develop. Staff protect their turf. In my opinion many people are unaware of the likeliness that this is the result of evolutionary biology.

That said, the value of some level of specialization clear. We have to commit a lot of energy to the things we will become really good at. However that doesn't come without problems. In the scientific community there is concern that it's becoming harder to do cross-discipline research.

While we must accept specialization for practical reasons, and realize that there are also social and biological factors, there is value in encouraging cross-disciplinary experience, _especially in leadership positions_.

The programmers may like to critique the potential CTO as not as good a programmer as them, and the sysadmins may do the same. But I sorta think you want a CTO who can see the forest for the trees.

(Cue criticisms of dumb CTOs....Now! ;-)

</comment><comment><USER28> I didn't read your question. Just came here to say that if you want me to read your post, you need to write something a little more descriptive in your submission title than "is this true", or "look at this", or any other such non-content.

</comment><comment><USER29> True IMHO. Get a server guy, that's where the rubber meets the road. Ultimately your business succeeds or fails on whether your service is secure abd available.

</comment><comment><USER30> Programmers should be required to have been "server guys" because they would have a better appreciation for building in logging, management, and other troubleshooting aids. The sysadmin doesn't have the benefit of the debugger when something goes wrong in production. The more information you make available (on demand or as a matter of course) the fast production issues will be resolved.

</comment><comment><USER31> BS</comment>


Why attackers can't take down Amazon.com  - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/09/technology/amazon_wikileaks_attack/

<comment><USER2> Suffice it to say that amazon.com receive a _lot_ of traffic from ordinary customers. In comparison, the traffic from even a group as large as 4chan wanting to take down the site is, well, less.</comment>


NASA's Voyager 2 sends back its first signal from interstellar space - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/nov/04/nasa-voyager-2-sends-back-first-signal-from-interstellar-space <comment><USER2> But how long until it gains sentience? (Sorry...not sorry...read 17776 if you haven't already) [0]

[0] [https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football](https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football)

<comment><USER3> That was pretty cool! althought it freaked me out a bit at first...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if there is any potential direct observation possible of them from humans after the radio becomes too weak. Could we build a laser powerful enough to get a reflect back that we could measure, with some kind of incredibly large reflector/receiver? I doubt they have 'reflectors' back. Did you know they put reflectors on the moon that we still use for laser 'range finding' today.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting quote: "...they will continue on their trajectories long after they fall silent. "The two Voyagers will outlast Earth," said Kurth."

The Earth will be totally fried and maybe even vaporized in about 5 billion years from now when the sun swells up.

By the way, I couldn't find a date on that article. Anyone? I suspect it may not be fresh.

<comment><USER3> It says "Mon 4 Nov 2019 16.04 GMT"

<comment><USER5> Okay, I see it now. Thanks! If one uses a "wide" screen, it shifts to the left side and resembles a navigation link to _another_ article. There's a UI design lesson there: don't do that.</comment></comment></comment>


Google's Dominance Is No Longer a Sure Thing - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-dominance-is-no-longer-a-sure-thing-11559427954 <comment><USER2> To some degree this is probably wishful thinking, but I feel the growing contempt for Google's dismal stance on privacy (eg recent changes to Chrome) may eventually harm their market share. This is especially true if it turns out that personalized ads have less value than thought. For me, the change in perception was certainly the reasom to switch from full on Google disciple to deleting my accounts.

I argue this has certainly affected facebook already.

Then again, lots of wishful thinking, i admit.

<comment><USER3> Removing an API that let's any extension peep at every single request you make is many things, but I don't see how it's "a dismal stance on privacy". FWIW it's how Safari does it, and everyone always cheers Apple for their stance on privacy, but then Google does it it's suddenly a dismal stance...

<comment><USER2> Apple has equally gotten a lot of pushback for the adblocker. Safari's approach is clearly inferior and has a lot of the same problems - compared to uBlock Origin. When Apple blocked alternative approaches, everyone here on hackernews was suspecting its because Apple's move into the ad business. I think no one applauded Apple for trying to control what ads can be blocked. I strongly suspect that Safari is much more vulnerable to tracking and anti-ad- blocker scripts. Certainly if they come from Apple. I don't use it for that reason. So no, this is not a distinction.

but Google also logs everything on phones and basically sells access to that data. And every week they find new ways to pull a fast one on users who thought they had disabled these "features". That's why Google is hated more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Today was the first day the quality of Google search results pushed me to another search company (duck duck go). I was trying to find info on the Virginia Beach shooting. And every query I tried brought the exact same results. 'Virginia Beach shooting reddit' brought no reddit, only the same ~6 news sources. I wasn't even in a personalized algorithm bubble (using an anonymous browser). The propaganda potential of Google seems to be actualizing rapidly (or maybe just my cognizance of it).

<comment><USER5> The reason they did this was fear of attack from the media. You can find dozens of articles saying how Google & Facebook are "promoting the alt-right", the end result being mainstream media sources more promoted than ever. Go figure.

You can see the same thing on YouTube.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a company Google can be very hard to work with.

A few months ago a few different software packages all were erroneously flagged as malicious by Chrome, which then was picked up by Firefox. Bunches of small vendors had nothing, there was no clear appeal process, there was no one at Google to reach out to.

All there was, was a link to a message board staffed by volunteers, not Google employees.

<comment><USER7> The lack of meaningful support is a huge gap in our scale-at-all-costs and automate-everything tech culture.

<comment><USER6> It is just frustrating because the entire business relies on downloads/sales. And with a flip of an algorithm you are shut out of 80% of desktop market share.

Not only that, if I Was presented with the message, I would be hesitant to ever come back to that site, the reputational damage is lasting for the user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [http://archive.is/XGaPs](http://archive.is/XGaPs)

<comment><USER9> Heads up for 188.8.131.52 users, archive.is DNS servers answer with bad address, so you won't be able to view this page.

<comment><USER10> This isnt true, you just get redirected to archive.fo

<comment><USER9> It's[0] known[1] issue[2].

[0] [https://community.cloudflare.com/t/archive-is- error-1001/182...](https://community.cloudflare.com/t/archive-is- error-1001/18227/14)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317)

[2] [https://twitter.com/archiveis/status/1018691421182791680](https://twitter.com/archiveis/status/1018691421182791680)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Rupert Murdoch has had it out for Google for the last 5 years and the WSJ is the vanguard of his effort.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=rupert+murdoch+google](https://www.google.com/search?q=rupert+murdoch+google)

</comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like pr when Google is under antitrust investigation

</comment><comment><USER13> Other than the clickbait headline, does this paywalled article add anything not covered in previous discussions of the antitrust investigation of Google?

<comment><USER14> Suggestions that Google's position in the marketplace was already slipping due to competition.

> Yet recent developments have demonstrated that even Google isn't > invulnerable. Alphabet's most recent quarterly results showed a > significant—and surprising—slowdown in Google's ad business.

They suggest Amazon is eating into the advert industry, and it's hurting Google in a big way, and that AWS and Azure are burning them on the cloud front.

> And Google trails both Amazon and Microsoft by a wide margin in the fast- > growing market for cloud computing services.

<comment><USER15> "showed a significant—and surprising—slowdown in Google's ad business."

Cleverly written by the WSJ to be misleading. It was actually a slowdown in the _growth_ of their ad revenue. They still made more $ than previous period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I personally think google's inability to move past the their search and advertising business model is because of their workforce and the incentives to get promoted within the company. Blind hiring of programmers based on algorithmic questions and blind promotion of people for launching new and often poorly designed products has crippled the company.

<comment><USER17> I don't think the hiring process is the reason for Google's inability to gain market share in the cloud market. Google's hiring process has ensured that the quality bar has been very high. They have unique offerings like spanner, which other clouds are simply not anywhere near of. Their failure in cloud is mostly because the inability to sell primarily, and secondly maybe because of their support being not as good as other clouds. But both are specific classes of directions taken by their leadership.

<comment><USER18> That's my take, too. Google is good at designing and building software systems. They are also just fine at running them. Where they tend to have trouble is sales and customer support. I expect that's a product of where they had their biggest success: in help-yourself ad sales. I makes perfect sense that an organization would double down on its strengths.

<comment><USER19> I think it goes even a little deeper than that: "help yourself" can be scaled to a level of profitability that is objectively impossible to reach once you put humans in the loop. I don't think that Google is interested in diluting their existing high profitability activities with lower profitability, so whenever they enter a new market like cloud computing they effectively limit themselves to the subset of that market that is open to absence of human support. Just like on the other end of the scale, Oracle is limiting themselves to the subset of their market that will gladly pay extra for the privilege of getting overrun by salespersons.

edit: in other words, I think Google would rather have a highly profitable slice of the market than dominate it and have all the gains eaten up by a greedy sales org.

<comment><USER17> I think all companies would want to "have a highly profitable slice of the market than dominate it", since it ensures higher profits and frees you from monopoly accusations, but only few have managed to work it in a good way (e.g, Apple). In most markets where Google succeeded, they ended up being dominant.

<comment><USER20> Apple didn't do that by reducing cost. They have hundreds of physical retail stores where they hire people directly (not contractors). They did it by offering a product that people were willing to pay a premium for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Could someone please post a link to a non-paywalled article?

<comment><USER22> Here in HN you have to fight to read a WSJ article. WSJ articles are pure quality, and for you normal human, to lay eyes on that supreme piece of journalism, clicking "web" and playing with the referrer is not enough.

Jokes aside, can't bypass the paywall either.

<comment><USER23> Does the web link work for anybody? Hasn't worked for me in a long time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Google who inspired me to create then invited me out to demo and spit in my face SUCKS!

I met/was invited by many other huge tech companies who similarly no deal was made but they were respectful and professional unlike arrogant/ignorant Google! They have a history of doing this to those dreamers they inspired to create.

Glad to see they are on the hot seat and I seldom use Google search anymore! All my friends/peers/family/etc members know what I mean when I say I DDG(ed) instead Googled it. Some start using DDG too cause they say Google sucks too!!!

I wish I could get away from their other services!

<comment><USER25> In what way did they "spit in your face"? Sounds like an interesting story.

<comment><USER24> See my comment to this story in which an MIT student went for an interview with them in which she declined their offer yet google went ahead and patented her work. I met with those same scuzbags myself and back her story up.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929)

Wonder why my comment here is being downvoted? It is relevant to what Google is today ....run by arrogance and ignorance that's catching up them!!</comment></comment></comment>


Conkeror: Web Browsing the Emacs Way - <AUTHOR> http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2010/12/conkeror-web-browsing-emacs-way.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I was just listening to the episode of Mostly Lazy where Phil Hagelberg is interviewed [1]. It's filled with great thoughts and he mentioned that he's been using this browser since 2006, so I figured I'd give it a shot. It's got a learning curve, but so far it seems worth it.

[1] [http://mostlylazy.com/2012/09/21/episode-8-phil-hagelberg- em...](http://mostlylazy.com/2012/09/21/episode-8-phil-hagelberg-empowering- userspace-in-heroku-leiningen-and-emacs/)</comment>


Scientific Speed Reading - <AUTHOR> http://fourhourworkweek.com/2009/07/30/speed-reading-and-accelerated-learning/ <comment><USER2> Besides time, what other benefits do you get from speed reading?</comment>


Finally...Unsend emails - <AUTHOR> https://www.sendpluto.com/?r=W5YLs

<comment><USER2> Essentially, this means "we're not sending the e-mail message, just a link to our webpage." Yaaay, so happy to give them a copy of my mails. NOT.

And "patent pending"? How is this even patentable, when there's 20+ years of prior art in every webmail system _ever_ created?

"A recipient can still screenshot emails, print them, or otherwise permanently store them if they expend additional effort." \- I like my received e-mails searchable (v.useful!) and stored locally (so that they don't disappear suddenly, when the service provider decides to clean up, or the sender decides to weasel out of what they wrote), thankyouverymuch.

</comment><comment><USER3> omg! magic! how? some sort of iframe thing?

<comment><USER2> Looks like an iframe.</comment></comment>


Prediction versus Accommodation - <AUTHOR> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prediction-accommodation/ <comment><USER2> "In early philosophical literature, a 'prediction' was considered to be an empirical consequence of a theory that had not yet been verified at the time the theory was constructed—an 'accommodation' was one that had."

Just in case you want to know what you are clicking on, it's about an hour's wandering through philosophical discussion on the above.</comment>


Security researcher Charlie Miller booted from Apple Developer Program - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-57320190-248/apple-boots-security-guru-who-exposed-iphone-exploit/ <comment><USER2> It's a bad move for apple. A good relationship with the community of security researchers is crucial - they're talented folks and their research results grab headlines. It takes just a tiny amount of corporate humility and public thanks to win their respect, and in return get goodwill. Treating the community badly will get ensure the next guy won't even try to cooperate.

Over the last several years, Microsoft's MSRC has balanced this very well. Google has done well recently, too. Lots of clued-in people in both places.

<comment><USER3> I'd agree more if he didn't submit — and get approved — a _working exploit_ in their store. Without telling them about it.

Edit: Now, I don't disagree that just banning him from the program isn't a great idea, and that pulling the app and having someone from the security team send him an email isn't a better one. But it's hard to say this that a bad move on Apple's part.

<comment><USER4> So how do you prove that it's possible to get this kind of exploit into the store unless you submit it to the store?

<comment><USER5> So how do you prove the DDoS vector exists unless you DDoS someone's site?

How do you prove the SQL injection vector exists unless you take over someone's site?

etc., etc.

This was far from a harmless proof-of-concept app, and "I just wanted to prove I could" isn't sufficient justification for it.

<comment><USER6> Since he has control over pricing, couldn't he submit with a free price tag, and change it to something insanely high once accepted. That way no sane person would buy it, and he'd still prove his point. He _had_ to submit an app and get it in for this to work ofcourse, otherwise this was a moot point. And it's a good wakeup call to everyone. Security awewareness helps sometimes unfortunately when you make a splash.

<comment><USER7>
      > .. otherwise this was a mute point.

"moot". Pretty please, the word is "moot."

Otherwise, while I think you've got a point (he could have used pricing to ensure no one ran his app), that isn't the issue here. The disclosure is. No one is contending he did something evil with his code, it's that Apple is mad about his code and disclosure. I don't think making it unlikely to be purchased would have helped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's rude when according to the article he withheld details of the exploit to give Apple time to fix the bug, but the decision is understandable since he did violate the developer agreement. I'm not so sure about "interfering with Apple's software and services" but his activites seem to be covered under "hiding features from [Apple] when submitting them."

<comment><USER9> Putting the exploit in the App Store isn't particularly polite either and doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than generating some publicity for the researcher. It'd be different if he believed Apple wasn't going to fix it or that the exploit was being used or was about to be used in malicious apps - but he doesn't claim that was his motivation.

<comment><USER10> Except that how else is he supposed to _prove_ that it works other than actually demonstrating it with a real app on the real App Store?

<comment><USER9> It seems he was pretty sure it was going to work - there's nothing magical about the App Store, he'd found a way to get around the code signing checks. I'm sure that once the vulnerability was fixed, he'd get credit. It's just that this sort of thing won't get you in forbes.

I personally don't really think there's anything at all wrong with a bit of harmless, nerdy limelight-seeking to boot, if that's what he was doing. Acting like he was somehow mistreated is what seems a bit iffy.

<comment><USER11> The problem is Apple could claim, "In our app verification process we can ensure such an exploit could never make it to the app store." The only way to test the full-scope of a vulnerability is to test it in a real world scenario, which means keeping it from Apple.

Unfortunately, I know of no other way to do it, unless companies like Apple create security groups that work with people like Charlie and give him an exemption to submit, and not notify other parties at Apple.

<comment><USER9> If that's the problem, it's a different problem. If I'm reading the article right, he did submit the exploit, companies like Apple do have channels to receive and respond to vulnerabilities and to credit people who find and report them. There's nothing in the information released so far on this that suggests he was, in fact, facing such a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> He's got great skills, and NSA training is as good as it gets, but he explicitly violated the rule to not download and run code from a server, to see if the rule would be enforced. They enforced it, just as he'd known they would. There was no point to his doing that other than to get headlines.

<comment><USER13> No, he explicitly violated the rule in order to test the hypothesis that a security hole he'd uncovered would allow unsigned code to be downloaded after release into the app store and run on the device.

The sane response to this would be "Oh, we better fix that. Thanks. We're removing your app BTW." The Apple response was typical of a bureaucracy.

<comment><USER14> The lesson I would take away from this is that Apple should provide a mechanism for security vulnerabilities to be reported officially so that researchers don't have to engage in these sort of dubious activities. Whether they listen to the reports or not is another matter.

Anyway, is there any special reason why reporting via <https://ssl.apple.com/support/security/> won't work?

<comment><USER15> Charlie is one of the founders of the controversial "no more free bugs" movement.

The amount of skill necessary to identify AND exploit bugs is so great that the bug reports themselves have value,far beyond attribution in the patch notesand a T-Shirt. This is especially true when there is in fact a lack market of bad people willing to pay good money for 0 day vulns.

thus, reporting vulns that way doesnt necessarily make sense. Charlie's walking a fine line: He is not a BadGuy, but he also isn't giving away security consulting to companies with 200 billion market capitaliazations. Apple should pay him good money to look at this stuff. Otherwise, its going to be only BadGuys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "I don't think they've ever done this to another researcher. Then again, no researcher has ever looked into the security of their App Store. And after this, I imagine no other ones ever will," Miller said in an e-mail to CNET. "That is the really bad news from their decision."

Take your wrist-slap like a man, sir.

Apparently the grand are also prone to self-aggrandizement. I have a lot of respect for Miller's skills, but he's not the only smart person taking a hard look at App Store security.

<comment><USER17> He's certainly not the only researcher looking at the app store, then again, he needs to play the victim a little bit right now if he wants to get public support. Public support and media attention may very well be his only ticket back into the developer program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apple is extremely binary. You're either with them or you're not. They don't seem to have flexibility and the only punishment is to be banned.

Awful.

<comment><USER19> What Miller did was clearly a violation of the Dev Program Contract that he signed. There is no flexibility indeed when it comes to putting trojans on the store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> As a metanarrative, it's very interesting seeing the conflict between the rules followers and the ethics followers here in this thread.

</comment><comment><USER21> I feel like if this were an Android flaw, I'd see it in the title. Miller was booted from dev for discovering a major flaw in iOS. A hacker can have full access to the phone and personal data by just downloading an app from the App Store. Definitely worth mentioning in the title.

</comment><comment><USER22> There's always this flip-side to reporting security findings. I don't know the details of Charlie Millers exploit, however had he gone through the process of informing the vendor (in this case Apple) and then allowing sufficient time to address the issue, perhaps a showdown could have been avoided (I'm assuming that he hadn't).

People however, also forget that, there are other pressures facing info-sec researchers - such as pressure from management at the company where they work to 'publish' and/or present their findings under the company banner. Often, this irks vendors, because vulnerabilities are used to promote the researcher's (or who they work for) interests.

That said, Microsoft, Google and Facebook have very transparent processes & expectations for submitting vulnerabilities.

</comment><comment><USER23> Anyone has information regarding the actual vulnerability ? That would be very interesting. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER24> Oops. Watch the number of trojans for OS X go up now.

</comment><comment><USER25> Its a walled garden; they can do anything they like. Live with it.

</comment><comment><USER26> The spirit of Steve Jobs lives on.

</comment><comment><USER27> He uploaded malware to the store in violation of his developers agreement. FAIL.

<comment><USER28> Developer agreements are not a security mechanism.

<comment><USER14> And security research does not trump the developer agreement.

The guy submitted a real live exploit to the Joe-User facing App Store. What on earth did he expect would happen?

<comment><USER29> Maybe he expected a "thanks for showing us this vulnerability, we've pulled your app from the store and are working on a fix to the problem", as a sane response would be.

<comment><USER14> Perhaps that is a fair point, but can you imagine the fallout if something like this ever slipped through and was downloaded by an actual user?

It is easy to see why they don't take kindly to this sort of thing.

<comment><USER29> All kinds of nasty things have slipped through to the users. There have been _multiple_ remote root exploits for iOS in the wild for weeks at a time and nobody really cared. There would be no fallout.

I agree that it's easy to see why they don't take kindly to this sort of thing, but it should also be easy to see why they _should_ take kindly to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The Apple is changing preferences, now they don't want to have a more secure soft. IMO Steve Jobs wanted.

</comment><comment><USER31> I come into your party as a guest and what I do is steal all your stuff. If you would be a white hat, you would knock at the door and kindly hint me to the loophole instead of just doing it ...</comment>


PossessedHand (electrically) helps you to learn how to play musical instruments - <AUTHOR> http://lab.rekimoto.org/projects/possessedhand/

<comment><AUTHOR> This had already been posted, but I posted again to reference the original source and comply with the Guidelines.

It's my first post, so please let me know of any mistakes!</comment>


Rule #1: Make a Profit - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ponoko.com/2010/11/16/ten-rules-for-maker-businesses-by-wireds-chris-anderson-%E2%80%94-rule-1/

<comment><USER2> Great post, thanks for reminding me to look at the bigger picture and the sustainability of projects.</comment>


Show HN: Blunt – A CSS framework without all the fluff - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/f-prime/Blunt <comment><USER2> Related projects: [http://tachyons.io](http://tachyons.io)

You can use it without installing any nodejs stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like this. It's like a simpler version of Tailwind CSS.</comment>


Extended Text Mode on the C64 - <AUTHOR> http://imrannazar.com/Extended-Text-Mode-on-the-C64 <comment><USER2> Indeed, my biggest retro-wish for my Nascom 2 is that it had used 64x16 rather than 48x16 (and it would have been zero cost and trivial too). Even better of course 80x25 but that would take twice the memory.

I vaguely recall using a text editing program for the Commodore 64 that used a similar trick to get 80x25, but the 8x3 font was too painful to interpret to use this in practice.</comment>


Dyson announces a robot vacuum cleaner - <AUTHOR> http://www.laggano.com/2014/09/dyson-finally-announces-robot-vacuum.html <comment><USER2> I'd be curious to see how all the sensors hold up after a couple months of regular cleaning. I have an older model Roomba and am blown away by how durable it is. The sensors are extremely primitive and it doesn't have any capabilities to map rooms like newer robotic vacuums, but it manages to do a great job without any dust getting in after months of use.

Granted, I haven't had an opportunity to tear apart newer models, but I'd be really surprised if the more advanced sensors would be much more prone error after a bit of dust gets stuck to them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting that there is an old style drafting board behind Dyson in the video. About a robot "high tech" vacuum cleaner. Hard to believe that company in particular uses a manual drawing process or why anyone would use that as a prop either.

<comment><USER4> Gordon Murray (Designed the McLaren F1 and a lot of top F1 cars) shuns CAD and does most of his work at 1:1 with pen and paper.

<comment><USER5> Gordon Murray is 68. It's more likely about what he is used to than paper being more effective than CAD. Drafting on paper sounds ridiculous to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is other, fairly extensive, discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8267622](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8267622) (also currently on the front page)

<comment> k-mcgrady I would like to see HN start to kill these posts. The previous one was near the top of the front page, linked directly to the product, and was submitted four hours before this causing a large discussion. I guess it's a time consuming thing to police but this article seems to contain nothing more substantial than the original submission - it just causes a fragmented discussion.

<comment><USER6> If enough users flag the post, I believe it drops off the front page. It obviously is not the same as killing a post, but it is probably the most straightfoward method for community moderation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Judging from the brush, it looks like it is designed to clean carpet. Roomba had been designing their robots to clean all types of flooring. I don't think Dyson will be a big threat to Roomba.

</comment><comment><USER8> Does it automatically plug itself in after cleaning the room. And dump the bin into a trash can.

</comment><comment><USER9> Want!

</comment><comment><USER10> Why does it need a brush bar if it is a vacuum cleaner? Seems like marketing lingo to me.

The camera and navigation are an expected improvement, but other than that doesn't look better than my old Roomba clone, it is even missing some features.

<comment><USER11> Brush bars help lift hair off the carpet. They also help lift the carpet pile which some people like.

I'm kind of surprised to read people who don't look after their vacuum cleaner. Whatever brand it is: change the bags (if it uses them); change the filters; occasionally give it a clean.</comment></comment>