Catalan separatists have tooled up with decentralized app for civil disobedience - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/17/catalan-separatists-have-tooled-up-with-a-decentralized-app-for-civil-disobedience/ <comment><USER2> > Behind the scenes — where unknown administrators are accessing its data and > devising and managing protest actions to distribute via the app — there may > be an entirely centralized view of available human protest resources. But > it's not clear what the other side of the platform looks like. Our source > was unable to show it to us or articulate what it looks like.

It doesn't seem as decentralized as advertised. The authorities just have to coerce some of the admins and they have a very nice view of what is going on in the movement in real-time.

<comment><USER3> The authorities _are_ the admins. Everybody knows Torra is behind the protests.

<comment><USER4> Torra is the Catalan premier isn't he? But the one to worry about is the Spanish PM. Even the Catalan authorities are subject to their anti-democratic, anti rule-of-law authoritarian whim and fancy: Some are living in exile and others are living in prison for work they did will Catalan authorities.

<comment><USER5> > to their anti-democratic, anti rule-of-law authoritarian whim and fancy

From whom?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems to have a central point of failure.

Not really uncensorable after all.

And not even open sourced.

If the government takes over the admins many people will be in trouble.

</comment><comment><USER7> Recently spent a couple of weeks in Barcelona. I love the culture there. The passion of the Catalan people is impressive.

</comment><comment><USER8> Spanish police has begun seizure of the web site distributing the app [https://app.tsunamidemocratic.cat/](https://app.tsunamidemocratic.cat/)

</comment><comment><USER9> There's any interesting spectrum of tools could rub the powers that be the wrong way all the way to all out rebellion.

That being said maybe this app is just well-marketed groupware.

</comment><comment><USER10> Very cool. I'm curious to see how this compares to SSB.

<comment><USER11> This is not a protocol and it's not decentralised at all. Only the admins can control the app and its users.

It's not related to Scuttlebutt at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> TLDR: Everyone seems to be assuming that there's a single point of failure, and someone gets to see all the information. I would definitely _not_ build the thing like that if I was the one doing it.

There's not much information about how the application works. What we know is:

\- The app _seems_ to use a RetroShare network behind-the-scenes [1].

\- RetroShare is a decentralized, serverless, peer-to-peer, meshed, distributed network. When you join you generate a pgp key for yourself and then add "friends" by grabbing their public keys.

\- The app needs to be activated through a QR generated from another person's app who's already in.

\- The app monitors your location and only shows you close-by actions.

What I would like to confirm:

\- Whether the QR is the same for everyone, the same for every person sharing it, or generated on a by-share basis

\- Whether RetroShare is actually used or not.

Assumptions I make:

\- There's a non-trivial organization behind this

\- The organizers do not want to be discovered, and want to have as much "plausible deniability" as possible (they are risking jail time)

Given all the above, here's how I would build this application:

\- Create 3 (or 5) "root" keys. The very top people in the org get those.

\- When you join the network (by scanning someone's QR), you join the RetroShare network, but also get the root keys id's.

\- The app is now ready to handle some message types from the root keys:

1\. STOP. Accepted when signed by any of the active root keys. The app stops sending messages.

2\. ADD_ZONE. Accepted when signed by a majority of the root keys. Adds a new zone (a geographical bounding box) along with the public key of the zone's commander (someone who can organize stuff in that area).

3\. REMOVE_ZONE. Accepted when signed by at least two root keys. Removes a zone because it either has no activity or has been compromised.

\- During normal operation, the app tracks the currently active zones and the corresponding zone-masters. It monitors your location, and if you are within a zone it sends "in-zone" notifications to the zone-master.

\- The zone-master collects such notifications and sends direct messages to people in their zone when an action is to take place.

As I see it, this would be the simplest setup to accomplish the organizations' goals without much possibility for compromise. As soon as a zone is compromized it can be nuked, and the whole thing can be nuked quickly if some root is compromised too.

You could then start refining this basic idea with extra functionalities. For instance:

\- Add/remove root keys to avoid having to nuke everything if a root gets compromised.

\- Get the app to send "in-zone" messages to random zones from time to time and then filter received actions according to actual location. This would prevent the organizers (or someone who gets to observe the traffic) from inferring the users' real location.

[1] [https://retroshare.cc/](https://retroshare.cc/)

</comment><comment> t-away-123568 I have trouble with first world separatist/independence movements (Quebec, Scotland, Basque, Catalan, etc) where it seems there is little real present day issue other than what seems from the outside to be historical grievance and ego.

<comment><USER13> Does it matter? If a locally grouped majority wants to seperate from a bigger structure they should be allowed to, everything else is evil.

<comment><USER14> What majority? In Catalonia less than 50% of people want independence. It just so happens that the minority is louder.

<comment><USER15> Catalans did a referendum for independence. The Yes won by 90%. But the referendum was not legal according to the Spanish law. The spanish won't allow a legal referendum because they now there is a majority who want independence.

<comment><USER5> > Catalans did a referendum for independence.

No, Catalans didn't did a referendum, Catalan Government did on illegal referendum

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There won't be peace on Earth until people give up on the idea that they have the right to coerce other people into political relationships.

<comment><USER17> We (USA) fought a war over that. The "if we agreed to stay together then we have to stay together" side won.

<comment><USER18> The Civil War was _not_ about some kind of ideal of decentralization and certainly was not about today's pining for city-states. It was mostly about slavery, with some esoteric political theory tacked on to the Confederate Constitution to save face.

<comment><USER19> It was about only allowing white labor in the west.

It was about the Lincoln winning without any representation from the south.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn resigns - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2012/04/10/best-buy-ceo-brian-dunn-resigns/ <comment><USER3> Uh-oh, this seems to be the beginning of the end for BB: once you get into this looking for a good CEO candidate thing, things generally do not go back up, e.g. Yahoo, Motorola.

BB's problems are myriad, but to me a single problem stands out clearly, and it's not Amazon's competition: It's the hapless nature of their store associates:

i) In BB stores, when you walk in it's always hard to find an associate.

ii) When you do find them, they tend to be starry-eyed young guys who know next to nothing about the products and usually resort to random searching of the aisles, which of course you could have done yourself.

iii) When they need to check for product info, e.g. "Do you have it in stock"", "Does this work with that?" They have to _walk back_ to a computer screen on their desk and check using the browser, which of course you could have done _much faster_ on your phone.

It's hard to create a low-paid task force that's also knowledgeable about the intricacies of tons of electronic products. So the solution is to use in-store tablets with a helper app running on them. In other words, go to an Apple store, observe for 15 minutes, come back and replicate. BB already has great inventory APIs, coming up with a very useful v1.0 shouldn't be hard.

<comment><USER4> That isn't a problem at all for me. In fact I prefer to be left alone by sales people. I always know more about what I'm getting than they do, and like to take time weighing the options.

My problem with them is that they have phased out a lot of non-store brand hardware (Dynex and Rocketfish are their store-brands) and put ridiculous markup on everything. Then they essentially scam you with marked up store brand crap or Monster Cable/Monster Power, then push silly Service Plans on you, and in some cases try and charge you for "calibration" or "optimization".

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "I have enjoyed every one of my 28 years with this company, and I leave it > today in position for a strong future. I am proud of my fellow employees and > I wish them the best," Dunn said, _double-checking his parachute as he > prepared to leap from the burning airplane_.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if Ron Johnson (the guy behind the Apple retail concept) could have turned around Best Buy, had BBY picked him up instead of JC Penney.

The Apple store philosophy seems to be "We think most people will be delighted with our products. But if we can't make you a happier person for buying this product, we're just wasting your time trying to sell it to you, and making it less likely you'll want to come back when we _do_ offer a product you might enjoy."

Meanwhile every shopping experience I've had at Best Buy tells me their philosophy is "You need _x_ , but we'll convince you to buy _y_ , and we'll try our hardest to pack in a high margin accessory bundle too. So buy it and get out, so I can move on to the next sucker. Oh, and you had better be buying a service plan on that."

Then again, if you can't turn the place around by making it a place where people actually want to shop and reflect favorably upon their experiences, then maybe the big box electronics concept is just falling out of favor altogether.

<comment><USER7> Can you find a company that is replicable anywhere in the world at the scale of Apple/Best Buy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> All my Apple products have been purchased from Best Buy (except iPad 3 which I had engraved), why? Because of the Reward Visa that I have with BB. But I dread buying Apple products everytime I go to BB – you never find someone that's free, I'd have to hunt down employees or stand next to one as they helped other customers (which took up to 30 minutes once) and wait for my turn. And after telling them what I exactly want, they'd disappear for 15 minutes in the backroom, only to come out with the wrong model, another 15 minutes before they tell me they don't have it in stock.

It's a horrible buying experience but I endure it for points (especially when one spends thousands of dollars, it can really rack up). It's the only reason why Best Buy still gets my money.

(If Apple had their own Loyalty/Reward kind of program on top of their customer service, it'd be so full of win.)

<comment><USER9> Amazon has a Visa rewards card, sells Apple products, and won't even charge you tax.

<comment><USER10> Which means you need to remember to declare it on your tax returns. Seems more convenient to the buyer to charge it at the time of purchase, no? :)

<comment><USER9> I will cede the moral high ground if you can honestly declare that you have done so for every purchase you have ever made online. Ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is my rant about Best Buy: Coming from a technical family (my dad being an IT director) at a small age I was dissecting computers and fixing them back. I love computers and that's what lead me into web dev. I'm still very technical in this area and I'd say I'm a pretty good hardware and software fixer.

That being said, when I go into BB it saddens me to see how they up-sell ignorant people. It bothers me so much. I'll be inline behind someone and they'll offer an initial setup and cleaning of your new PC for $75+ and I'm thinking to myself I could do this in 20 minutes and I'd do it for a lot less. Installing memory is way more than it should be. Backing up and restoring, etc, all relatively simple things they charge so much for.

And without the "geek squad" prices, their hardware prices are just high. Best Buy is for ignorant consumers who don't know about computers or geeks that need something asap and cave to pay the difference.

There needs to be a chain like this that doesn't screw people over, that has excellent customer service and doesn't continue to BS people about things that they really don't need. There's a business model to be had with treating people right.

<comment><USER12> > That being said, when I go into BB it saddens me to see how they up-sell > ignorant people. It bothers me so much. I'll be inline behind someone and > they'll offer an initial setup and cleaning of your new PC for $75+ and I'm > thinking to myself I could do this in 20 minutes and I'd do it for a lot > less. Installing memory is way more than it should be. Backing up and > restoring, etc, all relatively simple things they charge so much for.

The same argument can be made for cars(oh boy, a car analogy!). It's much cheaper to change your own oil yet people still go to oil change shops and pay a ton of money for it.

The reasons are ignorance(not knowing how to do it yourself) and convenience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd be hard pressed to blame the CEO for the all of the ills that plague Best Buy, though I have to give the man credit for knowing when to step aside. After 28 years with the company I'd say he deserves a rest.

The problems that exist with the company, I think, mostly stem from the pool from which they have to select their work force. It's hard to keep up any sort of reputable service when you get so big. Saying that, Apple seems to be doing okay..

<comment><USER14> The problems start at corporate HQ. I worked there as a contractor for a few years. Getting anything done there is a huge political struggle. When I was there, at least, B&M and dotcom were two separate concerns, often with conflicting goals. Product was off doing its own thing. Everybody there seemed to forget they were all playing for the same team.

I routinely worked with MBA's from supposedly reputable schools who could put excel spreadsheets together, but couldn't interpret the results. Most full- timers spend their days in meetings while contractors do the real work. When I finally left, they offered me a few plush full time positions, in which I would have vague responsibilities and ill-defined deliverables. No thanks, I told them.

Everybody there felt pretty smug when they were kicking Circuit City's ass. Now the shoe's on the other foot.

<comment><USER15> I can back you up on this. I also worked at corporate as a contracter on the dotcom team and it was a total circus. After outsourcing the work for their website for so many years, the entire site was a disaster. Not to mention the "business" side was running on waterfall while our team was trying to do agile. Worse? Mangers on both sides knew it and did nothing about it - <USER2> was just considered "normal" there.

I pulled the plug after only 8 months - it was crazy what was going on there. Afterwards, a few of my friends who also did short stints there were amazed I lasted that long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I purchase from Best Buy because of the no-interest deals they have with their credit cards. It's convenient when I want something now, and know that I'll have an extra few injections of extra cash coming in the next couple of months to support it.

Regarding customer service, I had a great experience at a Chicago store. I just bought the 11" Air and decided it was too small for me, so I took it back with the intention of upgrading to the 13". I was waiting in line to exchange, when they noticed I was exchanging a MacBook and they whisked me off to a separate area to complete the exchange, saving me about 15 minutes of waiting time.

With regards to pushing their warranty's, I think they asked me once and then let it go.

I agree that some of their stuff is overpriced, and they could improve their sales workflow with tablets or whatever, but my experiences don't reflect the negative ones I'm reading about here.

</comment><comment><USER17> This type of business is bound to change as technology evolves. It used to be people would get the good information from Circuit City and then go across the street to Best Buy for better prices. And now Circuit City is gone.

Somewhere down the line Best Buy started over charging for services that aren't necessary. My primary example of this is that they offer to come calibrate your new HDTV for $500 upon purchase. You can order the same software they are using off of amazon for $12. Another thing is their price on cables. They just rip you off and smile in your face. Its annoying. Geeks like to shop at tech stores, you know? These sorts of practices force us to purchase things online.

I just think somewhere down the line Best Buy quit putting the customer first and just like the rest of the comments, this seems like the beginning of the end.

<comment><USER18> This seems to be very dependent on the people and store locations. We just bought a $2k HDTV, and weren't pressured in to warranty, weren't upsold on any services like that, and they delivered, installed and configured it for free.

re: cables - every retail store rips you off. go to target, walmart, radio shack - they all have $20 cables that you can get online for $5. I've had other geeks laugh at me when I complain about cable pricing. "Dude, just get it online!". Well... when I need a cable, I need a cable. I don't want to preemptively buy 5-6 cheap ones online (however cheap they are) on the offchance that I'll need one of them later.

<comment><USER12> I wonder if that's due to the profit margins on the big-ticket items(like an HDTV) being so low that they have to make it up on the accessories.

<comment><USER18> maybe, and maybe, because we bought a more expensive one, there was no call/pressure to upsell? they'd already hit a profit min for that sale? still, I'm not even sure we were offered an extended warranty. Well... maybe. been a few months now - can't remember.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Maybe it's just me, but I think a lot of the things that drew people to Best Buy at one point - powerful computers, big TVs, customized theater setups, rows of DVDs - have gradually gone from sexy to culturally irrelevant (still a profitable niche, quite possibly) in the last 15 years. They've become the workmanlike, unsexy appliance showfloors they put out of business by the early 00's.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, it's like, aside from layout, Walmart offers the same stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Speaking as a Minnesota native, this is just all kinds of sad. Believe it or not, Best Buy used to be a more or less local chain that was known for their _customer service_ and that inspired all kinds of customer loyalty. They were like the Fry's of the Midwest, except that it was usually possible to get useful technical information out of the employees.

</comment><comment><USER22> > INNEAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The board

Is INNEAPOLIS a place or did they really misspell the companies head quarters location.

A quick search shows their head quarters are in Minnesota so it looks like they did. Or possibly it's shoddy reporting by the website who cut and pasted the press release?

<comment><USER23> Yeah, they're based out of Minneapolis. Probably a copy/paste error somewhere and they missed the first letter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wouldn't it be something if Radio Shack outlasted Best Buy and Circuit City both.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's going to be harder and harder to operate businesses that rely on the ignorance of their customers to achieve their margin goals. The last time I was in BB, I was trying to pick up a Roku box. After upselling me by being out of stock on the heavily advertised cheaper model, the sales person tried to sell me a connector cable that cost more than the box itself. Nice!

There is no real news about BB's business model in this announcement. A more interesting question is what remaining verticals are relatively untouched by transparency and fact-based marketing?

</comment><comment><USER26> BB isn't going away, it'll just be forced to change. Change it's atrocious cust. service, adopt some technology and probably close a ton of stores. Not to mention have more competitive pricing. Now I'm not at all a fan of BB. But I think BB will survive in some form because there are still many people who still like to have things instantly and see/try physically. There's still a segment out there, like the older generation that still need to go somewhere for 'advice' and get hands on goods.

<comment><USER27> The same could be said about buying books and renting videos, but Borders and Blockbusters are both on their way out. I agree with the other comments that this is the beginning of the end for BB.

We are in an era where online businesses are starting to have a real impact on brick and mortar stores.

<comment><USER28> _The same could be said about buying books and renting videos, but Borders and Blockbusters are both on their way out._

Until someone figures out a way to stream me a SATA cable that I'm missing for a new computer build I'm putting together on a Saturday, I think that Best Buy will be able to hang on for quite a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Dunn has been there for 28 years. He started as a sales associate an become CEO in 2009--truly a remarkable career progression. Dunn may not have caused Best Buy's mess, but he was promoted by the same people that oversaw it.

</comment><comment><USER30> I hope they frisk him at the door on the way out and double-check his receipts.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wonder what would happen if Geek Squad's Robert Stephens was promoted up.

<comment><USER32> Robert Stephen's left BBY last month

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I parted ways with Best Buy last month and the writing has been on the wall about Brian for months. Lackluster vision, missed opportunities to capitalize on growth combined with soft performance meant this was all but certain.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your preferred RSS reading experience? - <AUTHOR> Coming from the dicussion on "RSS is undead"[1], and also in a quite a few other discussions I've seen on HN, RSS seems pretty popular with this crowd.<p>(I'm also personally thinking about getting back into RSS)<p>[1]:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16785335 <comment><USER2> I like web-based readers, because that's just what I'm used to. I like things extremely simple, with a few extra features. For instance, I just want to see my feeds right away when I go there in a nice big list, not a constant stream of articles. I do use folders for my feeds. I'd like an RSS reader to provide some kind of filtering and an easy subscribe bookmarklet, but that's pretty much it for the extra features.</comment>


Broadcasting from Deep Space, a Mysterious Series of Radio Signals - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/science/radio-bursts-universe-astronomy.html <comment><USER2> Found this article to be a little more substantial: [https://www.seti.org/new- fast-radio-burster-why-excitement](https://www.seti.org/new-fast-radio- burster-why-excitement)

This bit is particularly interesting:

 _But you can safely bet that aliens are not the cause of FRBs. Why? The bursters are seen all over the sky, that's why. The same sort of signal is coming from galaxies that are generally separated by billions of light-years. So how could aliens organize so much of the universe to engage in broadcasting the same sort of signal?_

<comment><USER3> I've long held an unsupported belief that life anywhere in any form would "converge" upon only a few interesting things left to do after having mastered rearranging atoms and forces in any configuration they desire.

Not only is there likely an ideal, optimized way of sending information long distances, I suspect there also a very limited number of things a matrioshka brain would care to broadcast or receive, like the values of some fundamental constant.

Saying "hi" for fun to other civilizations isn't even something we do on our own planet with our own people. We only talk to people for specific reasons, even if we're unaware of those reasons. We'll go out of our way to avoid a homeless person's greeting rather than risk learning something about/from him.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps the life forms with long-term success have learned that it is not prudent to broadcast your location; the smaller the chance of other civilisations knowing about your existence the better.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, because living your entire existence in hiding, and instantly annihilating anyone else you come across just in case, is totally a worthwhile way to exist. Do you win if your civ makes it as far as the iron star era?

<comment><USER6> What do you mean by 'worthwhile'? And what would worthwhile be to an alien?

For all we know, the universe is jam packed full of Predator-like aliens who are the dominant species on their planet specifically because their society is built around dominating everything they can.

<comment><USER5> Well that is a fair point, we only have one example of a species capable of building civilizations to work from. It seems unlikely, however, that we are going to end up being particularly unique in that class.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've read several times about this signal, but none of the stories come with an audio signal or any kind of data, no matter how raw or processed or cleaned up.

But there are plenty of sources for the Wow signal, for example.

Do scientists keep this kind of data secret nowadays?

<comment><USER8> Here is the first paper (from 2007) reporting a fast radio burst of extragalactic origin: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/0709.4301](https://arxiv.org/pdf/0709.4301)

See page 12.

Since then there have been many papers about FRBs. Typically you can find them on arxiv.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bit of a coincidence that this article was also posted here regarding the loop quantum gravity prediction of black hole to white hole transitions, which is one theoretical explanation: [https://physics.aps.org/articles/v11/127](https://physics.aps.org/articles/v11/127)

>Models suggest that several observed astrophysical phenomena could be related to the black-to-white-hole transition [8]. Among these are fast radio bursts (FRBs) and certain high-energy cosmic rays

However, since this particular FRB case is one that repeats (most of them are one-time events), I'm wondering if this theory still applies. Black holes seem like too "clean" of an object to have diverse behavior.

</comment><comment><USER10> As they say on PBS SpaceTime "It's never aliens."

</comment><comment><USER8> There was an interview with Shriharsh Tendulkar of the CHIME team (experiment mentioned in the article) on the Event Horizon youtube channel: [https://youtu.be/7JIXhDQ38zk](https://youtu.be/7JIXhDQ38zk)

</comment><comment><USER11> > pops of low-frequency radiation, emitting more energy than the sun does in a > day

That's an insane amount of energy.

<comment><USER12> That's an insane amount of energy to waste if you're trying to do something useful with it.

Which implies that the energy being used is even more insanely huge and these massive bursts are the relatively trivial overspill, or that it's a natural phenomenon which doesn't care about efficiency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just because scientists can't understand something doesn't make it "mysterious."

<comment><USER14> Hmm. What would be a better definition for "mysterious," if not "something not understood?"

<comment><USER15> I think a common distinction is that a mystery is something that isn't just unknown, but something that's not possible to be known. Beyond human ability to know. It's used in religious contexts.</comment></comment></comment>


Tampa Airport: Moving magnetic poles forces runway changes - <AUTHOR> http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/archives/234696.asp <comment><USER2> What isn't mentioned in all this, is that the runways were slightly east of true north in the first place. Please see the FAA diagram on wikipedia... <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/KTPA-FAA.pdf>

If probably didn't take that much more magnetic north change to prompt the need to relabel the runways.

<comment><USER3> The runways are labelled rounded to the next 10deg so if a runway is 154.9 and the magnetic pole moves 0.2 deg you go from runway 15L to runway 16L

Alternately you could move the runway a bit

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've heard, although I can't find confirmation of it at the moment, that this has happened on occasion at airports in Alaska where, being much closer to the pole, the heading to magnetic north is changing more rapidly.

<comment><USER5> The rate of change of magnetic north varies wildly around the world, not based on latitude. See this fabulous .gif on Wikipedia

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_Magnetic_Field_Decli...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_Magnetic_Field_Declination_from_1590_to_1990.gif)

<comment><USER6> That's fascinating - I always thought it was based on latitude - basically the difference in angle between the north pole and the magnetic north pole.

Still though, even in that animation, Tampa seems pretty stable over time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Couldn't they label the runways relative to geographic north rather than magnetic north?

<comment><USER8> Imagine you're flying the landing pattern in a cloud. You just flew through a thermal boundary so your battery jostled and lost voltage for a split second, resetting your electronics that require a >5 minute reboot and config time. How do you determine geographic north?

<comment><USER9> And whatever you do, don't forget your manual compass deviation rules: accelerate north, decelerate south

Trivia note: I believe the standard compass is called a "whiskey compass". Not sure why. Probably because if that's all the nav gear you got working you'll probably be using copious quantities of whiskey after landing. (Actually if memory serves I believe the early compasses floated in whiskey. No doubt this practice did not last very long. I think they use kerosene now)

<comment><USER10> The explanation I have read is that it is a "wet compass" (a ball floating in liquid), which was abbreviated "W compass", which is pronounced "whiskey compass" in the NATO phonetic alphabet that pilots use. I doubt whiskey was ever used to fill them, since even water would have worked better in terms of cost, transparency, evaporation, or boiling point.

<comment><USER11> I suspect it would have been freezing point that was most important, and whiskey was a readily available source of low freezing point liquid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The lesson here is to use names that don't carry content/meaning. A name is a pointer.

<comment><USER13> Except that the essential description of a runway is its direction. It would be a lot more painful if you had to look up the direction of every runway.

<comment><USER14> Exactly.

Two conversations: #1 "Which runway should I land on?" "Runway Charlie." "Which one is that?" "The one on heading 180 deg."

#2 "Which runway should I land on?" "Runway 18."</comment></comment></comment>


CrunchBase: Now With Maps, Advanced Search, Jobs, And Milestones - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/22/crunchbase-now-with-maps-advanced-search-jobs-and-milestones/

<comment><USER2> My launching of <http://www.startupwarrior.com> got pretty shadowed by this, but I think I have the better visualization.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Now all we need is an API...</comment>


Handel and the Bank of England - <AUTHOR> https://bankunderground.co.uk/2019/11/08/handel-and-the-bank-of-england/ <comment><USER2> I never thought of financial logs as an angle for history, very interesting.

Funny to think that in the future this might be done with the default-public Venmo transaction feeds. "Here we see Handel paid his friend with the message ";)". The meaning is unknown."

</comment><comment><USER3> Handel's 'Alcina', which he wrote in 1735 while slowly drawing down the cash he'd got by selling his annuities, is on at Glyndebourne next year:

[https://www.glyndebourne.com/events/alcina/](https://www.glyndebourne.com/events/alcina/)

I gave this recording from Vienna a listen:

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

You'd probably have to pay me £200 to sit through the whole thing.</comment>


Hanukkah and Thanksgiving: A once in eternity overlap - <AUTHOR> https://sites.google.com/site/mizrahijonathan/home/ThanksgivingAndHanukkah

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought this was interesting. I have not checked any of his work, but he writes as if he knows what he is talking about.</comment>


Ask HN: What should I read to understand computer networking? - <AUTHOR> I'm a data scientist, and I run into a number of networking-related frustrations periodically, which typically revolve around the interactions between two or more of the below:
- our corporate VPN/proxy - SSL certificates - AWS - docker
I have some amateur knowledge of networking stuff, but I feel like I struggle to get around these problems, and when I do, my "solutions" are just cobbled together based on bits of what seems to have worked before. I don't know how to systematically debug a problem, other than trying to CURL stuff with different options and seeing what works and what doesn't.
And sometimes I'll find some solution by Google, but even if it works, I'll feel a sense of ignorance rather than clarity. E.g., I was trying to route Docker traffic through Charles proxy, and naively set 127.0.0.1 as the proxy address. My Docker container thought this referred to itself and thus had no internet access. I solved it with a network alias [1], but I hadn't even realized that was possible, and I still have no idea how it works, or what it "looks like" from the perspective inside the container and on my host OS.
This makes me feel like I could benefit from more formal knowledge of networking.
Can anybody recommend a course, book, or set of tools for improving at this, generally?
[1] https://www.bonusbits.com/wiki/HowTo:Setup_Docker_Container_to_Use_Charles_Proxy_on_macOS <comment><USER2> Well, you have experienced first hand that the Docker's idea that people working with network should not need to understand network is dumb.

Start with old and venerable LARTC (Linux Advanced Routing & Traffic Control HOWTO). TCP/IP hasn't changed all that much since it was written and last updated, even with the advent of Docker.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have felt exactly this pain and toyed with the idea of writing a book on it, mostly to learn networking myself.

There's such a divide between network engineers and everyone else, maybe because most network knowledge is gained in the field and it's pretty hard to get the experience without being in the networking corps.

<comment><USER2> > There's such a divide between network engineers and everyone else,

Only between network engineers and programmers. Sysadmins are not that far from netadmins, and they have no such problems.

> maybe because most network knowledge is gained in the field and it's pretty > hard to get the experience without being in the networking corps.

No, not really. That's only because programmers are reluctant to learn from administrators, OS, network, or otherwise. Admins have quite a lot of material about networking, and on different levels, too, and the field is quite simple if you don't reach the point of coordinating with everybody else (BGP, autonomous systems, things like that).</comment></comment>


The Meta-Marketing of 'The Lego Movie' - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/magazine/the-brilliant-unnerving-meta-marketing-of-the-lego-movie.html <comment><USER2> This paragraph from the article represents all that I feel about the rise of anti-marketing marketing, but couldn't articulate:

> _It's a counterintuitive sleight of hand: By acknowledging that their > central message is unbelievable or at least exaggerated, the branding > masterminds gain our trust and bolster our faith in the brand. Will Ferrell, > for example, promoted "Anchorman II" and Dodge at the same time by appearing > on talk shows as Ron Burgundy and declaring that Dodge's cars were > "terrible." Dodge sales spiked. (Ferrell also voices President Business.) In > New Zealand, Burger King ran YouTube ads of two guys eating Burger King > while complaining about YouTube ads. Nearly every Super Bowl ad this year > referred to the fact that it was a Super Bowl ad. The brand — and the TV ad, > the movie and the fictional spokesman — is hyperaware of its own > fictionality and thus earns the right to simultaneously denigrate and > elevate itself as divine._

<comment><USER3> This is the exact problem I have with shows like Jon Stewart and Colbert: when they can make you laugh at all the corrupt shenanigans in politics and government; it diffuses the actual need to do anything about it. It creates a false sense of superiority in the viewers whereby they think "I'm so smart to recognize how corrupt the government is! Ha ha" and then people go on about their lives not changing anything because anger has now become nil via humor.

<comment><USER4> It's not just the inaction, I despise the subtler shenanigans, which is the tremendous influence of using humor to establish truth or falsehood. "Well it's funny and I'm hilariously entertained, so their message must be true!"

Humor is a great wrapper for the sour pill of deception. At first our conscience might reflect on the acidity, but given enough exposure, eventually the mind will heartily consume the sour pill as if it was the sweet truth all along.

We're firmly at a point in society where truth is not often established by a hard and uncomfortable examination of facts, but whether or not we _feel_ comfortable and entertained by whatever thoughts are presented before our minds. Feelings rule supreme over facts in this country, by far.

Does it make me feel good? / Does it make me feel bad? / Do what makes you happy. -- Just a few of the feeling-oriented mantras society uses for decision making.

<comment><USER3> Some years ago I wrote up a pretty lengthy piece about how emotional manipulation is the core of all television ___programming_ __\-- I think it was on Kuro5hin.. but I can 't seem to find it any more....

Humans who are (intentionally) not taught how to think critically are easily manipulated via their emotions.

Anyone who thinks that there is not a war on your conscious, fought through your pavlovian emotional responses has not been paying close enough attention to the world around them.

<comment><USER4> _Humans ... are easily manipulated via their emotions._

Definitely agree, probably easier to shorten it to that. We all have our blindspots where we're easily influenced, there's just too much daily data and information we vacuum up to even consciously process it all. Hopefully I didn't make myself out as somehow excluded from that aforementioned "society"

Our own personal _" McDonald's of the Soul"_ as Jim Gaffigan says in his stand up.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YDTfEhChgw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YDTfEhChgw)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds as if she started from the premise that corporations that earn millions (or billions? don't know) can never be good, then scrambled for evidence throughout the piece. Is there any reason to assume that LEGO is really evil? I for one am thankful for it's existence, because my kid is having a lot of fun with it.

Also, apparently LEGO is being held responsible for girls liking pink now. (Hint: pink is not the problem - girls want to signal they are girls, and by random chance pink got selected as a predominant signal).

<comment><USER6> I don't see that she stated outright or even implied that LEGO was evil, as such. Just an overpriced, indifferent corporate empire with brilliant, unnerving meta-marketing. I would say that meta-marketing is the focus of the article, with the LEGO movie merely being the centerpiece. And I'm really not sure where you got "apparently LEGO is being held responsible for girls liking pink now" \- the only reference to pink was a quote from the movie in question.

<comment><USER7> > "Overpriced"

Legos are priced at what people are willing to pay for them. If they were overpriced they would not sell and there would be no Legos. Maybe you are suggesting that Legos should be cheaper because the material cost do not justify the prices you see, well again, Legos are priced at what they sell at and clearly people have voted with their wallets and have said that Legos are worth greater than the sum of their parts. It would be a disservice to Lego's investors to price them in accordance with the wishes of people who think everything should be accessible to everyone. For-profit companies should responsibly capture all the value they can.

<comment><USER8> All hail the global superintelligence known as Market. From Him all purpose and justification floweth. There need be no other.

<comment><USER7> No, there are clearly real problems with market based economies and issues of social responsibility. Selling plastic block toys, for which there are cheap enough alternatives, doesn't really seem to fit in this picture though.

<comment><USER8> Your original comment basically just stated the same tautology four different ways, as if it were the last word on the matter. Besides judging the large- scale results of the system (eg your reference to 'social responsibility'), we're also entitled to judge the small-scale details vis-a-vis our own heuristics, even when they are at odds with a market's state.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure I understand what your point is. I explained why Legos are not overpriced, and made some probably unnecessary judgement statements about why people would call it overpriced. I didn't say Legos are not overpriced because they are not overpriced, I said they're not overpriced because their products are selling. Where is the tautology?

<comment><USER8> Your original comment is basically just different ways of saying that Legos are priced appropriately because Legos are selling, and Legos are selling because they're priced appropriately. While this is the extent of the analysis in terms of simple market mechanics, your main point seems to be to insist that the _only_ way to judge pricing is how the market responds. This is in fact trivially wrong because any market is in fact a sum of individual actors who each form their own judgment.

The net effect of your comment is to further confuse the distinction between what is expedient/existing and what is _right_ , and to discourage people from developing an independent sense of the latter (in the same vein as "might makes right" and "technological determinism").

<comment><USER7> > "and Legos are selling because they're priced appropriately"

Nope never said that, show me where I said this.

<comment><USER8> It's a basic tenet of consensual transactions, which you allude to:

> _people have voted with their wallets and have said that Legos are worth > greater than the sum of their parts_

Also,

> _Legos are priced at what they sell at_ "

If you're taking issue that it's not a direct iron-clad "tautology", then please insert whatever less-stringent term you please that indicates circular reasoning by which a process supposedly justifies itself.

<comment><USER7> > people have voted with their wallets and have said that Legos are worth > greater than the sum of their parts

That's half a quote. The point you misquoted was very specific, regarding Legos being priced higher than their material costs works, because people value Legos for more than the plastic they're made with. That's not a tautology, that's a simple observation. This is without a doubt the worst conversation I've ever had about Legos.

<comment><USER8> I said "allude to", which still applies to your whole quote.

This "conversation" has been terrible because you've been nitpicking for seemingly its own sake, while completely ignoring any substance of what I've said.

<comment><USER7> No it doesn't apply, and thus the substance of whatever you've said doesn't appeal to me. It fails a heuristic of mine I'll call "throws out false accusations after misrepresenting what I've said".

<comment><USER8> If you don't believe that a product's price effects its sales, then you could have simply stated this several comments back, rather than role-playing a computer by placing critical importance on the _form_ of my saying why I assumed you agreed with that widely-held belief. Then we could have actually talked about the actual non-meta issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article reminded me of how much things have changed since I was a child. I had a yellow Lego castle. There were no movie tie-ins. It was the archetypal medieval castle, enough to thrill the imagination. Then I thought of another childhood thrill: tinkering around on an Apple II+. In this case the transformation is even more obvious. What used to be a company that produced hobbyist equipment that booted into a BASIC programming language REPL now has deep ties to the entertainment industry and produces locked-down consumer devices.

<comment><USER10> You have to remember that Lego has two parallel businesses:

Box of bricks - the only thing they were when we were kids.

Models - when we were kids models required xacto knives and volatile glue. They don't make those models any more (at least they don't sell them in Target like they used to). Lego has taken over the modeling market, and I think in net their model products are superior.

You can still buy boxes of bricks, I do frequently for my Lego obsessed son. Unfortunately, in some respects, Lego is now more a modeling company than a box of bricks company. In other respects, I've seen it argued that the transition is the only thing that has kept Lego from shutting down, so the models enable boxes of bricks to still be sold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> tl;dr: the author thinks the movie is about corporations and seeks for meta- buzzwords

The beginning of the movie (until the escape) is more of a double-reference to _1984_ and _A Brave New World_. What comes next emphasizes more on the philosophy of Lego construction: combining and inventing instead of following the instructions. At no point in the movie the means of productions and the society based consumption are questioned. There is not even one clear reference to liberalism/communism (or such). Some satires do critic specific things (Starbucks), but that's it.

If you are looking for a hidden marketing message in a movie named "The Lego Movie", you probably have time to waste. I may sound a little aggressive but I was unnerved by the fact that the author consider plain activities as hiking or cooking as necessarily better than creative ones (well, maybe I do not identify sarcasm). I really don't get how playing with games from Lego can be such a bad thing: it's just a game, you are not locking them in some corporation's golden prison.

<comment><USER12> > I was unnerved by the fact that the author consider plain activities as > hiking or cooking as necessarily better than creative ones

Cooking involves just as much creativity as Lego, it's a useful skill, and it's not governed by one massive corporate entity. "Better" is a subjective word, but those are some nice qualities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Overpriced" \- I'd like to see someone attempt to compete with LEGO on their terms. Mega Bloks don't cut it because they're not the same quality.

So build a new 'LEGO' company, build the bricks to the same quality standards as original LEGO does, and let's see if you can beat their price.

<comment><USER14> Lego is not over priced.

In the mid 90s, I worked for a toy design startup making plastic parts. Think "Lego + N-scale trains". (It flopped.)

At the time, there were two awesome toy makers, with two very different strategies. Lego was open about their manufacturing, but would hide their designs. PlayMobile was very guarded about their manufacturing, but would happily preview the designs.

Methinks Lego deterred competition by showing just how hard it was to compete on quality, PlayMobile competed by making plastic parts more cost effectively than anyone else.

We play tested everything we could. Made me a toy snob. Sad, I know. Little Tikes and Duplo are the best bang for the buck for their target age group. I snear at Brio, Tonka, MegaBlocks, and many others.

<comment><USER15> My son has lots of LEGO and the occasional little set from some other sources. It's sad - most of the "inferior" bricks stand out like sore thumbs. You can spot individual bricks in a sea of LEGO from a decent distance because of the difference in quality of edges etc.

The only Lego-compatible brand I've come across approaching them in quality are Kre-O.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I could be totally wrong but I think she dislikes herself more than LEGO. She too easily gives in to simple marketing to do things she feels she should not be doing, she buys things she shouldn't be buying, and doesn't the spend the kind of time with her kids she feels would be best. LEGO is a scapegoat for her own perceived failings with her kids.

I bet her kids would disagree. After all, they are just kids playing with kid toys.

I saw the LEGO movie, I thought it was really good. It's a good story about being yourself, being creative, and standing up for what you feel is right. I saw the movie with my children and none of us felt the need to suddenly go buy LEGOs afterwards. We didn't see the movie as a big infomercial, it's just a movie for gosh sakes. An enjoyable one at that.

Every movie that resulted in retail items selling big was not necessarily intended to be an infomercial. And the movies that were? So what?

As for her complaint about the girl sets not having fire fighters, why not buy the sets that have fire fighters? If she only buys the sets supposedly made only for girls then who is at fault with that?

<comment><USER17> Advertising affects you, whether you like to admit it or not. To steal a line from the movie, "you are not the special" (sorry couldn't resist).

It wasn't "just a movie". The affect may be subtle, subconscious, or non- obvious, but it is undeniably there.

Disclaimer: I really enjoyed the movie also.

<comment><USER16> I would say more that it more influences than affects.

But realizing that influence goes a long way in denying it. If the movie was made for that specific purpose then I would have to say I am the special because as I said elsewhere, I don't feel the need to purchase LEGOs after seeing the movie.

I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one. After all, my children who saw the movie have not started asking for LEGOs.

But it was a fun movie, wasn't it?

<comment><USER17> I would say influencing is one way of affecting. Marketing and branding are far more than simply converting purchases. Despite me trying to remain self- aware, I undoubtedly have stronger positive mental associations for Lego related things after watching the movie. I would be surprised if you didn't also, regardless of your lack of intent to purchase :)

And it was most definitely quite fun, both on a surface level and for sparking discussions like these. They did quite an impressive job.

<comment><USER16> Well, I guess I can't necessarily disagree since your explanation requires admitting things that cannot be proven. I can say that I don't "feel" more inclined to purchase LEGOs, movie or not, then before. I see lots of the Ninjago show on Netflix because my daughter likes it, but I don't buy them that often and she doesn't ask for them.

I guess I would say that any positive mental associations I have is for the entertainment factor as I liked the movie and the Ninjago show. It certainly hasn't resulted in a positive enough influence to make purchases. That's the focus of my comments, that the article that started this discussion seems off to me because it suggests that the LEGO movie is just a huge branding effort to convince people they must buy LEGOs. Your comments are much softer than that viewpoint so I think I'd be more agreeable to your viewpoint than the article's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Isn't "meta" the keyword of the 21st century? I remember reading articles about "meta modernism" being the thing we're in right now (after modernism, post modernism and post post modernism)- everywhere from art to culture to, as this article points out, advertising.

I'm waiting for a plane to take off right now and can't dig up articles, but maybe a more knowledgeable HN'er can fill in for me.

<comment><USER19> "meta" in art and literature was more of a 20th century thing, even an early 20th thing (as you can see in the work of the Avant-gardes) and you can find a lot of earlier examples, at least in literature, maybe most notably through books that experimented with diegesis.

I think it's just coming back in fashion in ways that are both a lot more naive (in their content and their approach) and more sophisticated (in their forms and that of the subcultures that they use as a substrate) than what the 20th saw.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Fraking books. I'm sure we all feel the guilt of letting our kids read books too early. Fiction, non-fiction, magazine, and _gasp_ graphic novels. And the movie tie-ins, the fantasy worlds, the sci-fi realms. I knew as soon as I shared _A Wrinkle in Time_ it was all over. Now they're reading everything and deep diving into over-consumption. Star Wars fiction, biographies, current events, and even internet sites.

Fiction is the worse. All the best books get made into movies that my boys _have_ to see. Sometimes I wish I never picked up a book and instead took them on hikes and taught them to shoot guns.

 _(That 's about the point I gave up reading...)_

</comment><comment><USER21> Haven't seen the movie, don't watch TV so missed the marketing, but I have to say that Lego would have to do something SERIOUSLY wrong to cancel out the sum total of my positive childhood memories of their brand and product.

I mean, goddamn, I almost want to have a kid just so I can justify buying more Legos.

</comment><comment><USER22> Lego is what made me into a programmer, the idea of using my imagination to create things followed me into adulthood. I still remember old WWDC lunches where Apple supplied each table with a random collection of lego to create something and then displayed all of them (I think it was a contest). A room full of programmers hacking on lego using not just the pieces but anything handy including uneaten food and implements was pretty amazing.

</comment><comment><USER23> Meta-marketing strategies aren't new, but the LEGO movie is a brilliant example.

David Foster Wallace covered the topic in his essay, "E unibus pluram":

[http://www.thefreelibrary.com/E+unibus+pluram%3A+television+...](http://www.thefreelibrary.com/E+unibus+pluram%3A+television+and+U.S.+fiction.-a013952319)

> You can find successful television ads that mock TV-ad conventions almost > anywhere you look, from Settlemeyer's Federal Express and Wendy's spots, > with their wizened, sped-up burlesques of commercial characters, to those > hip Doritos splices of commercial spokesmen and campy old clips of Beaver > and Mr. Ed.

> Plus you can see this tactic of heaping scorn on pretensions to those old > commercial virtues of authority and sincerity - thus (1) shielding the > heaper of scorn from scorn and (2) congratulating the patron of scorn for > rising above the mass of people who still fall for outmoded pretensions - > employed to serious advantage on many of the television programs the > commercials support. Show after show, for years now, has been either a self- > acknowledged blank, visual, postmodern allusion- and attitude-fest,

</comment><comment><USER24> Lego, not Legos. That is all.

<comment><USER25> "Legos" always sounded weird to me. Interestingly enough, LEGO used to have this on their site:

"The word LEGO is a brand name, and is very special to all of us in the LEGO Group Companies. We would sincerely like your help in keeping it special. Please always refer to our products as "LEGO bricks or toys" and not "LEGOS." By doing so, you will be helping to protect and preserve a brand of which we are very proud, and that stands for quality the world over. Thank you!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The idea that a legitimately great movie can't be based on a product doesn't make any sense to me. My reigning, hardly ever challenged, favorite movie of all time was based on a line of toys, and could have been called an advertisement. But if so it was an ad with a huge all-star cast, one of the greatest wall-to-wall soundtracks ever arranged, action unrelenting in its cadence, an epic reveal, and a great script with dozens of memorable one- liners. The fact that it was part of a larger mini-storm of culture that included selling toys... means what? Now I have to find room somewhere in my top 5 for The Lego Movie, because it was that good. What do I care that it was about a well-known toy? Why would I care whether it was good or bad for the line of toys? Why would I care whether the toy company influenced the script at all, when the script is that good?

<comment><USER27> Do tell what the movie is.

I like the original transformers movie, great dialogue and outstanding jap. animation.

<comment><USER26> That's the one.

<comment><USER27> Awesome! I won't lie, it's my favorite movie too (perhaps there is a support group for us somewhere?). I also got a kick out of transformers prime. The megatron-starscream interactions were always hilarious.

SPOILER BELOW

And as someone who recently built a 4x8 table with a full sheet of plywood to build legos with my 4 year old son, I got a huge kick out of the end of the lego movie. It had some surprisingly dark scenes, but I didn't notice the product placement - but then again, legos were/are my favorite toy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why do people here sympathize with this movie? It starts out as an amusing corporate satire, but if you really follow the plot, it is disturbing on numerous levels:

\- the consistent message provided by the hero, is that it's okay to be a cog in the machine \- the only save-the-day solution provided by the hero is to "follow instructions" \- all the creatives (the master builders) are captured and tortured \- Emmit saves the day by martyring himself in some bizarre Christian allegory where he ends up in the "real" world \- the psychopathic manager-type tyrant who rules the world and wants to freeze everyone is declared okay and special at the end

<comment><USER29> The psychopathic manager-type tyrant is brought over to the side of good when he _changes_ his behavior due to a realization that he is hurting people with his actions. He becomes less selfish and more empathetic. He is not redeemed by believing in the power of a savior; if anything, it's a Buddhist tale, not a Christian one.

Also, Emmett is a cog who learns to be an individual. Two paths to the same goal, one from the enslaved worker and one from the slave-master.

<comment><USER30> Your point about faith in a savior being important to a Christian allegory is apt, but...

> if anything, it's a Buddhist tale, not a Christian one

I don't know why any philosophy (religious or otherwise) should get dibs on the "it's better when people care about each other" message.

<comment><USER31> The one which doesn't try to, should. Bokononism maybe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Remarkably, the Lego Movie is PG. I used this as the excuse to keep my wife from taking the kids. I'm a huge fan of the toys, less so of the advertising. I used Legos as building blocks to teach the kids letters. They build trucks, castles, and learn to count with them. I've even been to Legoland, which is great for kids.

To the point of the original post, it's just the branding and consumerism that's over the top. I can't wait for them to replace all the Lego Movie ads at the bus stops and train stations.

<comment><USER33> The Lego movie didn't strike me as hyper-consumerist, and I saw it twice. It mentioned a lot of sets but didn't promote collecting them or anything. I figure a lot of people will download the soundtrack, since it's pop electronica that also works as a hipster-ironic parody of itself.

What I got from the movie was a well-developed cynicism of authority. It wasn't nihilist, but very anarchic. The message I got was: have fun making things, but don't expect anyone else to respect or even understand them.</comment></comment>


Old-School Copywriting Books That Taught Me Everything I Know About Marketing - <AUTHOR> http://insight.io/blog/2010/12/5-old-school-copywriting-books-that-taught-me-everything-i-know-about-marketing/

<comment><USER2> The Eugene Schwartz book is awesome, unfortunately it's out of print. But you can go down to your public library and pick it up if you don't want to buy a used copy for $200. If they don't have it, and you are in a metropolitan area, they can send it out from another branch or a University library. Well worth the effort imho.

<comment><USER3> It's also available on torrent sites.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: In SV, is racial hiring a thing? - <AUTHOR> If a company has many employees ethnically from the Indian subcontinent will they be just as likely to hire a white person, black person or East Asian person?
My feeling is that they would rather hire people from the same ethnic background.
Am I a horrible racist, or is there truth to this (or maybe both for saying something, even if true)?
Equally importantly, is it harder to break into a predominantly white or Asian work culture, if you're not from that background?
Is it possible to say that there is some ethnic group that is more open to hiring outside itself, and some that are less open, based on experience in the valley? <comment><USER2> > Is it possible to say that there is some ethnic group that is more open to > hiring outside itself

The group colloquially known as "not total racists" is what you're looking for. I doubt you'll fit in.

<comment><AUTHOR> If they're only not total racists, as in still partial racists, you're very right, I working fit in. If need zero racists for that.

But if that's what you meant, hm, you might believe that doubt but that's not what happens in my life. And hey, that's not very inclusive of you.

I'd definitely fit in, if it was just about being "not racist". But it's not I guess.

Seems SV still not ready to discuss racial bias in hiring</comment></comment>


Scroll with your mouse on a remote mosh tmux session - <AUTHOR> https://blog.filippo.io/my-remote-shell-session-setup/ <comment><USER2> The syntax in this article doesn't work on recent versions of tmux. The new syntax is simply `set-option -g mouse`.

Also, `mosh` is amazing... it's so great being able to still work on my dev VM from a tethered connection on a public bus.

</comment><comment><USER3> iTerm2 3.0's tmux integrations take a little bit of work to set up locally, but you only have to do that once, and as long as your remote servers have a reasonably recent version of tmux (1.8, I believe), just replace filippo's `mosh HOST -- tmux a` with `ssh HOST -t 'tmux -CC new -A -s main'` (no mosh required).

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, mosh isn't required, except with mosh you get magic roaming, disconnection support, etc. mosh is the best way to do remote shells from a mobile device (laptop, phone, etc).

<comment><USER4> Isn't the 'disconnection support' (and by extension, roaming) one of the big points of tmux? This is one of the reasons why I never bothered with mosh -- I have screen/tmux, what's the point?

<comment><AUTHOR> it saves having to type ssh again :) Plus it's generally faster being UDP, and having predictive echo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just tried Yakuake + mosh + fish; mouse history scrolling just works in default settings.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been trying to get smooth scrolling with the mouse wheel for about a year now with tmux to no avail. The solution presented in this article will give you janky scrolling (as it mentions in the notes).

</comment><comment><USER7> Note that this article is from 2014, which confused me for a moment. I've had this exact setup working for quite a while, using a regular mosh release.</comment>


David Ulevitch: Some thoughts on Google DNS - <AUTHOR> http://blog.opendns.com/2009/12/03/opendns-google-dns/

<comment><USER2> _Third, Google claims that this service is better because it has no ads or redirection. But you have to remember they are also the largest advertising and redirection company on the Internet. To think that Google's DNS service is for the benefit of the Internet would be naive._

In other words: Google's DNS service has no ads or redirections. Ours does. But that doesn't make our service worse, because Google is an ad company.

<comment><USER3> They just do it at a different layer. They do it in the toolbar or chrome. It's no different, plus users can turn it off if they want with us. It's all in users hands.

<comment><USER4> "It's no different"

Actually, it is. Google's DNS has no ads. Yours, by default, does.

Also, FYI, Chrome and the Google toolbar have no ads. It sounds like you have your head in the sand, or are deliberately spreading FUD. I hope it's the former.

<comment><USER5> It just occurred to me that by using DNS without any filters Google is going to take people to domain squatters when someone mistypes a domain name. To get around this users are going to continue to type the domain (or company name) into Google and click on the first link and some of them will click on the _advertising_ link. An "improved" form of DNS _is_ a direct threat to Google's profit.

<comment><USER2> That "improved" form of DNS breaks the DNS. Read what the IAB wrote about it. Think about what it does to things like email. It's just a bad, bad idea.

<comment><USER5> DNS like IPv4 is just a protocol. Creating a new protocol that returns the same IP address as DNS along with a safety score and text description, and a list of alternative domain names with their IP's and safety scores is not a crime against humanity. And hacking the existing DNS protocol to do much the same thing can also be a reasonable thing to do.

<comment><USER2> You understand that NXDOMAIN redirectors are getting copies of cookies, right?

       wwwwwwwwwwwwwww.bankofamerica.com has address 22.214.171.124
       wwwwwwwwwwwwwww.matasano.com has address 126.96.36.199

<comment><USER6> I think that you mean _access to_ cookies. I doubt that Comcast is stealing your Bank of America cookies, but it's troubling that they have access to them. [Not necessarily _my_ cookies, as I'm not on Comcast, and I don't use ISP-provided DNS anyways]

<comment><USER2> That's OpenDNS, not Comcast.

<comment><USER6> IIRC, Comcast was getting into this too. I'm referring to the specific practice of NXDOMAIN redirecting. Not just OpenDNS's practices.

[http://www.semicomplete.com/blog/geekery/comcast-dns- hijack-...](http://www.semicomplete.com/blog/geekery/comcast-dns-hijack- breaks-things.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> * To think that Google's DNS service is for the benefit of the Internet would be naive. *

Google believe that making the internet better benefits them. They largely don't feel they need to monetize every niche there.

</comment><comment><USER8> _To think that Google's DNS service is for the benefit of the Internet would be naive._

I'm not so sure, it is starting to seem like Google has worked out essentially that Revenue = User-Time on Internet. The Chrome project is one example, a better faster internet is in Google's best interest.

<comment><USER9> And, like many of their other projects, they seem to be content to throw their hat in the ring just to keep everyone else honest.

Broken DNS is a threat. But they don't need to answer all DNS requests to protect against it. They just need a non-broken service as a credible threat to keep the other providers from sliding in that direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lots of FUD, not so much useful stuff.

<comment><USER11> Agreed. Responding to competition by trying to scare your users away from the competitor isn't healthy.

<comment><USER12> It's a tactic politicians have successfully used for ages. If it works, you can't blame a company for doing it. They're not in it for the ethics, but for the money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't want "Dashboard controls to manage your experience the way you want for you, your family or your organization". I just want a DNS server that obeys the goddamn protocol.

<comment><USER14> That's your choice of course. If you work in a small school it's easy to block unsuitable sites this way.Another alternative would be the level 3 dns servers, easy to remember, pretty fast and no alteration of records.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> David's 5th point is the most important, at least in my opinion. By Google running DNS, they can potentially collect your complete browsing behavior (since you'll go through their server all the time, not only when you search with them).

<comment><USER16> <http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy.html>

<comment><USER2> Compare to: <http://www.opendns.com/privacy/>

Heh.

<comment><USER17> What's interesting, David links only to OpenDNS policy, but does not provide a link to Google's which would make an easier to compare…

<comment><USER18> Wow - OpenDNS's privavy policy is much worse than Google's!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Well, _First, it's not the same as OpenDNS. When you use Google DNS, you are getting the experience they prescribe._ \--turns out they did not prescribe that, the standards perscribe that. OpenDNS breaks the protocol.

 _Second, it means that Google realizes that DNS is a critical piece of our Internet's infrastructure and that it's of strategic importance to help people safely and reliably navigate the Internet._ \-- This is not very astonishing, as it is pretty much the definition of what DNS is.

 _Third, Google claims that this service is better because it has no ads or redirection._ \-- And that is because ads and redirection are nonstandard, broken behavior.

 _Fourth, it means that Google is bringing awareness to a wide audience that there is a choice when it comes to DNS and that users don't have to settle for what their ISP provides._ \-- And they don't have to settle for broken behavior that other services provide.

 _Fifth, it's not clear that Internet users really want Google to keep control over so much more of their Internet experience than they do already_ \-- If more control means correct behavior, then they might think so.

</comment><comment><USER20> The fine-grained control is a plus for openDNS.

Second, from the stories that seem to pop up, google's achilles heel is it's customer service. OpenDNS might be able to do better.

<comment><USER6> Using their DNS server shouldn't require much user input. Nonetheless, most people use their ISP's DNS servers, and let me tell you that Comcast support will _always_ tell you that your computer is at fault if there is a DNS issue. Google is entering a domain where poor customer service is the norm.

Edit: just realized the pun... totally unintended, but funny to see an 'Easter Egg' of sorts hidden from you in your own post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A couple of questions:

Hasn't google tried to acquire OpenDns? It's a no brainer!

Has been any contact between the two companies?

The scenario of google (or any company) controling internet traffic is not a nice one :(

<comment><USER22> Why bother trying to acquire them when there is nothing technically difficult about what opendns is doing and when google has more resources and technical expertise to bring to bear on the problem? What exactly would you expect opendns to bring to the table other than a trademark and a somewhat controversial reputation?

To be honest I am somewhat surprised that opendns has lasted as long as they have, but I expected the attack to come from the akamai/cdn direction rather than directly from google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think what makes me nervous about it is that I can't even control my _own_ sites any more if I use Google's DNS, and get the "mysterious Google lockout with no recourse".

<comment><USER24> That makes no sense at all. How would using Google DNS remove your control of your own domain? Google DNS is just a resolver, it's not an authoritative DNS. If you were "locked out" for some reason you could just go back to using your ISP dns servers. Where's the problem?

<comment><USER23> Err... sorry - let's chalk that up to flu leftovers in my head. I was thinking of a Google DNS service for one's own domains ala EveryDNS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Take the FUD point of view if you want. I don't see it. When a giant enters your market, this is a great way to react. No dismissal of their impact, validation that you created a market, desire to keep on competing, and ultimately, positioning positioning positioning of your competitive differentiators... I applaud David for his post and I think we can all learn.</comment>


How did you bootstap your personal discipline? - <AUTHOR> For commenters who get things done.
Were you just raised right? Was it an event? Did you read a particularly inspiring book? Podcast? Subliminal tape? Was it an uncle, an aunt, a teacher? A movie? A pop song? A undefinable thirst for try-fail cycles?
It's most likely an ongoing process, but I thought I'd ask to help improve my own process. <comment><USER2> Watch this motivational playlist on Youtube. It will get you back on your feet and focused to change the world. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26U_seo0a1g&list=PLYzEWmEmHy...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26U_seo0a1g&list=PLYzEWmEmHyL-8LfXf5PkTzFiIggMWrDZD)

</comment><comment><USER3> GTD.

I can't understand why GTD is not anymore trendy (at least in HN) once it is the most efficient system I ever used. Since I implemented it, my life changed and I not even thought of going back. If you ever get curious about GTD, besides reading the original book ( _Get Things Done_ by David Allen) you can have a look at my implementation: [https://github.com/we-build-dreams/hamster- gtd](https://github.com/we-build-dreams/hamster-gtd) , might be a good starting point.

<comment><USER4> GTD isn't suited well for creative, deep work where you can't possibly determine what the next action is.

If you'd like to read more about it: [http://calnewport.com/blog/](http://calnewport.com/blog/)

That being said, whatever floats your boat ;-)

<comment><USER3> I don't use GTD to take control of present moment actions (listing every small action would be a waste of time that is better spent 'determining what the next action is'), I use it mostly to not forget delayed important tasks. As I grow old and grow in responsabilities I easily forget stuff and I don't want to be worried about it.

I think GTD is a system that must be adapted to your particular work and personality. You can't use it out-of-the-box, that's why I recomend my implementation only as a starting point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Meditation, fasting, cleaning / organizing, exercise. Never intended to do it old school, but that is how it turned out, interestingly enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> Where did that path begin? What inspired you to do that? I assume you didn't wake up one day with a plan to execute, 'de novo' as it were.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having a short-term target to achieve a long-term goal, and not worrying too much about what's in the middle. I decided I needed to do more (screen) writing last year, I was annoyed that I had not written much in the previous few years and was feeling age creeping up on me. But although I've written several short and feature-length screenplays, it had always been an exhausting all-or-nothing process rather than a steady sustainable output.

So I thought to myself that if I only wrote one page a day, I would have 365 pages at the end of a year, which was a lot of material even if it did not assure any single project being complete. One page a day is not a scary target, even if one is feeling creatively empty it's still possible to crank out a page of something bad. So if I really had no ideas I'd pick some random idea like 'car chase' and force myself to just start writing a bout a car chase without worrying about why it was taking place - maybe I would be able to recycle it later for some project that actually required a car chase, or if not at least I would have some experience of how to write that. The key point here was to do some work every day without necessarily having a grand overall vision in one's head of what needs to be done - because you could wait ages for that to come, and the longer you wait the less inspired you feel. So if you're programming and you don't have an idea for your project, you can still find things to do - comment one of your other projects although that's very tedious, or implement quicksort in a language you haven't used before, or whatever. If you're a painter and you don't have an idea for a picture, fill up pages in your sketchbook with studies of your laundry basket or something.

(Incidentally, I also threw a few $ at a new piece of software that had fewer features than my existing word processor but a nicer UI. Don't blame your tools for your problems, but don't use tools you don't like.)

The key point here which took me years to learn, is not to worry about the larger picture. Even if at the end of the year I had 365 one-page fragments that didn't connect together, that in itself would be interesting. _Needing a big idea to feel motivated is a trap._ You cannot coast along on a wave of intellectual excitement all the time; all waves break and if you rely on the wave then you're like a surfer who can't swim. So on days when you don't have a good idea of what to do, do something shitty.

The first month was horrible. Agonizing. After a couple of weeks I started adapting a short story I liked in order to get _some_ sense of progress and offset the misery of staring into a creative void every time I sat down. That helped, somewhat. Then one day I read something interesting (on HN in fact), jotted down a single sentence about it because it sounded like it would make a good story, and went off to play with the dog. 10 weeks alter, I have the 3rd draft of a feature film. When I got stuck I'd work on the story adaptation I mentioned earlier, and if I got really stuck I'd write commercials for imaginary products and services (some of which will get recycled into a comedy project). Accepting the need to just 'start over' every day has been a big part of that. Even if I wrote 10 pages yesterday, I still have to crank one out today and it might be crap. Oh well.

<comment><USER7> Hey, thank you very much for your post!! I'm struggling with the same problem, I desperately want to write(funny short sci-fi stories), but my mind has been blank for weeks.

I really needed to read something like this. I don't know if it will help, but it is definitely the advice I needed to hear, maybe it will push me in the right direction.

<comment><USER6> You're welcome! Drop me a line, by all means.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You won't get anywhere if you aren't moving your feet.

<comment><AUTHOR> While that's good advice, it doesn't answer my lead or my explanatory text.

<comment><USER8> Apologies. I'll explain my quote some more.

It was a moment of clarity when realizing that I wouldn't get anywhere if I wasn't moving.

My motivation for self-improvement and self-discipline comes from my desire to move. When I am not happy or content with where I am, that's a sign I need to get moving. If I don't move - I'll be stuck where I'm unhappy. Right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah yes, that makes more sense. Thank you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>