Ask HN: Do pure math grads make better software engineers than CS grads? - <AUTHOR> What has been your experience in this regard? <comment><USER2> In my experience even a CS degree is not a very good predictor of how good a software engineer someone is, I've met recent CS grads who could not build a stable piece of software to save their lives. Past experience building actual software however is generally a good indicator.

With that said this question really has no answer, some math grads are better, some CS grads are better and some beauty school dropouts are better.. as with anything that requires learning and applying a skill those who work harder or are blessed with a talent in the subject tend to be more successful.

</comment><comment><USER3> My experience says that asking questions that have no answer is the surest route to suffering.

Of course there are better math major programmers than CS major programmers, just as there are better CS programmers than math major programmers. It goes without saying that asking a question which has multiple truths as answers is equivalent to asking a question with no answer. It would then beg to ask the question, "Why are you asking questions with no answer?".

My advice is to ask a better question next time!

<comment><USER4> Do dogs or cats make better pets?

I prefer farm mechanics and philosophers to cs grad when it comes to software.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like me. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My experience is that what you did at university (or whatever else you did to get your first programming gig) is far less important than what you did afterwards.

I have met many programmers. I have met many new grads. Of the new grads that I have met who learned programming at school, I don't think I have ever met one that was a good programmer right out of the gate. Certainly many can code and make things work. None of them are good enough for me to look at their code and have it influence me in a positive way.

That's not to say that I haven't met good, young programmers. It's just that all of the ones I've met had been programming regularly for 10 years or so before they went to university... Some of them didn't go to university at all.

I should say as well that I have never met a really good programmer that has less than about 10 years of coding experience, either. I've met lots and lots and lots of people with less experience who _thought_ they were great programmers, but that's different, isn't it?

So, from my perspective the answer to the question is "No". Working with great people and devoting yourself to improving makes better software engineers than either doing a math or CS degree in university.

<comment><USER6> I suspect a lot of 21-year-old CS grads think they're great programmers.

And a lot of 25-year old professionals with 4 years of experience in the software industry wonder what they were thinking at 21, now that they know how you really build software.

And a lot of 30+ year-old professionals wonder how a 25-year-old who had so little experience after working on just one or two different projects for only a couple of years each could possibly have believed they were such an expert.

I wonder what 50-year-old me will one day think of 30-year-old me. I have concluded that I will probably think I was ignorant and naïve back then, and that this feeling that everything you did a long time ago was terrible is called being alive. :-)

<comment><USER7> I'm close to that age, and try to always be growing and improving.

I don't look back at 30yo me with disdain. I do find all of normal programmming pretty mundane and cookie cutter. Design this way or that way, pick your trade offs, investigate gotchas, think about what this code will be like in 10 years (most stuff I write has a long life, I don't do web stuff), trade off robust design with get it out the door, and so on. No biggie.

I get my challenges now with new domains - computer vision, computation, math, etc - stuff that requires reading research papers. It's fun. There is always a universe of things you won't know, you just need the humility to understand that, and I think by 30 or so most of us figure that out. If you don't you are pretty bull headed, as the compiler will tell you 1,000 times a day that you don't really know something if you don't. Most people get the clue after awhile ;)

<comment><USER8> > (most stuff I write has a long life,

Facebook is 11 years old now; Google is 17, and I'd bet there's a line of code _somewhere_ in both of them somewhere there that hasn't been touched in 10 years.

> I don't do web stuff)

Feel free to pigeonhole yourself like that, but I've learned not to overlook large swaths of industry because it's not 'serious'.

 _Reading_ research papers? Both Google and Facebook have been _writing_ research papers in many areas, including Computer Vision. As you point out, you need humility to take the time to understand what's come before you, but you also need the hubris to say "we can do better". In the case of FaceNet (Google) or DeepFace (Facebook), _much_ better than state of the art a few years ago.

<comment><USER9> _" Feel free to pigeonhole yourself like that, but I've learned not to overlook large swaths of industry because it's not 'serious'."_

He never said that web programming wasn't serious. He just said he doesn't do work in that area. I'm sure there are lots of areas of computing that the average web programmer "doesn't do" either, like kernel hacking or embedded systems or computer vision.

 _" Reading research papers? Both Google and Facebook have been writing research papers in many areas, including Computer Vision."_

I'm not sure what your point is. Reading research papers is how you learn what's the state of the art in any field of research (ask any PhD student). If computer vision is a new domain for him, he has to begin by reading, not writing. Even the people who write research papers read many more papers than they write.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nope.

Pure math people are significantly worse devs in their first jobs. Significantly. Why? They just don't have the language or training so you can't really give direction that assumes anything. And interns are raw enough anyway, this lack of shared language hurts.

My experience is based off of interns though. I'm sure given 2-5 years, it will depend on the person/continuous learning, blah blah rather than what courses they took in college.

Now, another aspect of the question seems to be: are pure math grads smarter than cs grads?

Nope again. Put a pure math and CS guy in the room together and I'm sure either could flummox the other with arcane jargon/an exercise. We choose what to do in college based on our interests at that time rather than only basic ability. I have CS, Stats, and Math degrees from college and I didn't notice any difference in raw mental horse power or work ethic or work load amongst those 3 majors.

Aside: there was a marked difference in work load when comparing my engineering/math/stat classes and my econ minor classes though: weekly assignments for econ took 30 mins before class whereas cs/math assignments easily took a whole day or two of the week each.

Aside2: And no, you can't generally say philosophy or physics grads make better software devs too.

</comment><comment><USER11> As a pure maths grad, I had to spend a lot of time learning things on my own before I could become marketable hacker. Fresh out of my degree, I had no clear idea of how to do real software development. I think I was able to learn a thing or two, but sometimes I still wish I could have learned about things like networking, database design, and compiler theory in a formal classroom setting. I have seen people say how useless a CS degree is for doing real work, but it seems to me that it offers many benefits that are not easily replaced by self study or a maths degree.

</comment><comment><USER6> I studied maths for my undergraduate degree, then did a postgraduate diploma in CS[1]. These days, I make software.

The maths background was helpful for developing logical reasoning, rigorous arguments, and working with abstractions.

Studying CS exposed me to a wider range of computing ideas than I'd encountered before, from formal models underlying relational databases to functional and logic programming. It also provided some basic but useful general knowledge about things like data structures, algorithms and complexity along the way.

I'm glad I studied both areas during my academic career, but for me neither is "better" than the other for someone starting out in the software industry. They just prioritise different skills and mindsets and provide different background knowledge, so each gives a different kind of head start.

I wouldn't say either course taught me anything of great value about software engineering specifically, if we're talking about the processes and tools used to actually design and build production software here. I think SE is more of a vocational/industrial field, and I wouldn't necessarily expect a new grad in either math or CS to have much experience in, or even awareness of, the kinds of issues that come up in practice.

[1] Very roughly speaking, the diploma course was a one-year conversion course for people with a technical but not CS background, which included the same kinds of topics you'd study in the first couple of years of an undergraduate CS course. Sadly, I don't know of anywhere that offers a similar course any more.

</comment><comment><USER12> There are probably some cases where the answer is yes, because a math major who is now a software engineer has had to put in the extra effort to learn the computer science, and the computer science major never needed to do quite as much practice working with abstractions.

Most people who go into software without a CS degree learn the practical side of things quite well out of necessity. I expect math majors are more likely than most to pick up the theoretical side even when self-taught, since the level of math involved is what makes it difficult for most people.

But regardless of the greater level of self-teaching, the math major is unlikely to have had as good a survey of CS ideas as the CS major.

Edit: I agree with everyone else who says that major in school isn't a very good predictor of software engineering ability. This is just my opinion on the direction of the small part that does come from major is.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not employed as a programmer _per se_ , so I see it from the other side. I was also a math major in college, and as a student, my only exposure to CS would have been a single obligatory course in programming. Fortunately, I programmed as a hobby. Most of my classmates took the course and then promptly forgot most of its content.

So, pick any _random_ math major and any _random_ CS major, and at the very least, the CS major has a better chance of having the foundations needed to become a good programmer.

On the other hand, pick math and CS majors from among the ones who have actually shown enough interest in programming to steer their careers in that direction... now the gap is potentially much smaller.

Now compare math and CS majors who have worked for 10 years in software development...

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't think education is a great indicator of intelligence in the first place. Some people are really smart and an education can bring them to a next level but there are also people who are just good at remembering stuff. These people pass all the educational tests designed to test their "intelligence" but they're actually just tested on their memory capabilities. To me, intelligence is creative problem solving, not memorizing information. However, if you have both, that would be a great advantage.

To the question, Math is an exact science. Building software is a creative architectural and design process. My guess is that Math can be very helpful on a algorithmic level but not so much on an software application level.

</comment><comment><USER15> One area I've seen math and programming interplay is quantitative finance, i.e., quant-developers attached to trading desks in Wall Street. In this microcosm, the people I see rise up in the world are those who started off with solid finance theory skills (which is applied math), who then taught themselves programming to be just good enough to implement their ideas. This seems doable.

The reverse OTOH seems more challenging. I've seen many CS graduates who tried to self-study their Black-Scholes, but rarely do they achieve anything more than a superficial understanding of the underlying theory.

[I'd except HFT from the above. That specialty seems to reward programming skills more than math skills.]

<comment><USER16> Not a facetious but serious question, but what theoretical part of Black- Scholes is really important for a options trader's everyday trading?

I'm a programmer by trade but I trade options on the side. A long time ago, I read Hull's and Sinclair's derivation of BSM line by line. Nowadays, I totally forget all the math except the intuition as it relates to the greeks and base all my trading on those.

Talking as a non-professional, I found the math of BSM to be helpful for me to understand better the option greeks and the model's limitations (assumption of smoothness, doesn't take into account volatility simile's).

But not sure how the theory can really help me hedge better, come up with better implied volatility as compared to the current open source plug n' chug frameworks that computes Black-Scholes pricing (e.g., QuantLib).

Options trading is a hobby of mine and I'd love to hear a pro's take on these. Thanks!

<comment><USER17> The BSM will give you all the things that you know intuitively about options. Gamma is high ATM front month, Vega is higher with time, theta accelerates as you near expiry, and so on.

In everyday terms, BSM vols are also what's used to talk about what the price IS. So even if you're using a fancy model, to talk to someone else about it you pull out the BSM vol and tell him that way.

What will help you hedge better is finding a way for your surface to fit what actually happens when the market moves. It isn't an exact thing; many traders ask for a little more or a little less floating skew from their quant guy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If by pure math you mean not even a CS minor, then no, not out the gate.

But majoring in math is (or should be) a sign you actually enjoy math. That's important for a few domains like computer graphics and data science/machine learning.

I think most CS majors are good at math, but that doesn't mean they enjoy it. Furthermore, there is a _huge_ gap between getting good grades in math and actually _understanding_ it. For most coding jobs, that's OK.

The workaround is simple: get a graduate degree. If you get a CS PhD (maybe an MS) specializing in a math-heavy domain, you'll end up with the fundamentals and domain knowledge you need. For many positions, it could be a requirement.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think one can become a better software engineer only by working your way up to be better in software engineering.

Doesn't matter that much (to a certain degree) if you are the CS Master, Math Wiz or the Alchemist, you have to program, program and program to become a better software engineer.

It's true that studying CS will give you the privilege of understanding some pretty darn complicated concepts that you wouldn't actually read in your free time.

And the same for studying Math, picking up all the good logic and proper way of writing your algorithms.

But again, the only way to become a better software engineer is to do software engineering.

</comment><comment><USER20> In my experience, maths grads can be really good at very specialised engineering problems like digital signal processing. Beyond that though they tend to produce poorly structured code that will be difficult to maintain. If their problem requires a sizeable amount of code and they have no experience with software engineering best practices then it's best to pair them up with someone that has.

</comment><comment><USER21> Better how so?

Faster? Math grads might be able to use some mathematical trick to dramatically speed up the code.

Better modularity? Version control? Tests? Experience with SDKs?

<comment><USER10> Nope.

What math trick? You mean knowledge like how caches work? Or, how to spot n^2 solutions that could become n? Or, dynamic programming? Or, linear optimization?

Unless you are doing something math specific(in which case you should have someone with more math knowledge than a new grad who can spot these. My first internship had a math phd in the team just for that reason), you will fare much better with your CS grad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Advice to employers: Interview both and pick the one that seems smarter. (or a better "cultural fit" or whatever other stupid metric you use)

Advice to students: Pick the area that interests you more. If you plan on pursuing a software career, pick at least a minor in CS.

</comment><comment><USER23> As someone graduating next week with an undergrad degree in CS and a minor in math, I don't think I'd be a very good software engineer with just a math degree, but I'm definitely a better software engineer because of my math background.

</comment><comment><USER24> A pure math grad knows nothing about software engineering, while a CS grad should know some things.

By your logic a pure physics grad would be an even better software engineer, as physics is even more "low-level".

<comment><USER25> [https://xkcd.com/435/](https://xkcd.com/435/)

How would Physics be more low-level than mathematics?

<comment><USER24> In an applied sense. But you are definitely right in general!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> No, what makes you good at software engineering is experience, determination and knowledge. How you achieve any of the above does not matter, especially if you consistently work on improving yourself.

</comment><comment><USER27> Neither. Experience makes better software engineers.

</comment><comment><USER28> Software engineers? Hell no. Programmers? Maybe if you add Latex in the list of programming languages.

A mathematichian who knows some code

</comment><comment><USER29> Of course not

</comment><comment><USER30> it depends on what you'll be engeneering

</comment><comment><USER31> No.

</comment><comment><USER32> No. What prompted this question?

</comment><comment><USER33> Sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER34> No.

</comment><comment><USER35> Your education in school has nothing to do with your efficacy as a software developer or engineer. There are so many other variables that have nothing to do with how much you know or how fast you are. Soft skills are way more important.</comment>


Visual.ly's infographics are not designed for the Internet: For Web, Not Walls - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jasecooper.com/post/7611726455/for-web-not-walls

<comment><USER2> Totally agree, and I share your hope that, in time, visual.ly will showcase interactive infographics as well. The vast, vast majority of internet infographics today are full of chartjunk and other eyecandy that doesn't really convey useful information. There _is_ something to be said for eyecandy bringing people into the space where they can engage with the data, but I hope we'll see more stuff like Tangle (<http://worrydream.com/#!/Tangle>) and less like the likbaity charts that are so popular right now.

</comment><comment><USER3> When I look at an infographic, I don't want pieces of it hidden. I want it to tell me the story. I don't want it to be headlines of a story, and have to interact to get the whole thing.

While I don't doubt there's some call for that, I can't see that being desirable in most use cases.

<comment><AUTHOR> 100% agree.

A bunch of CSS3 animations whizzing around the page is the last thing we need. (Though it's likely to happen as people go crazy with new capabilities).

But with a bit of constraint these can be used to add value, simply the difference between good and bad design.

Simple HTML markup with a bit of CSS position would be a huge step up from flat jpegs, particularly as far as type is concerned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The best infographics still come from the graphics desks of papers like NYTimes, WashPo and the FT. These shops have done a good job of not only creating great print graphics but also interactive online work.

If you are ever looking for inspiration or best practices, these papers are the place to go, not CoolInfographics.com or wherever else.</comment>


Ask HN: Secure and Private alternatives to Facebook - <AUTHOR> What are the more secure version of facebook social communication site which can be used across the world with strict data privacy rules and also has features to keep people interactive. <comment><USER2> Protonmail</comment>


Ask HN: Could I get some help getting unused computers? - <AUTHOR> Hello, I'm building in Mali (West Africa) a sort ou hacker factory where people can come to learn coding and solve problems or just work on their own project. It's called "Les ateliers du Sud" which would translate to something like "The south factory". I need help to find computers. You can email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you want more info. Thanks. <comment><USER2> I don't know If exactly I Understand what you are talking about but I reckon the so called central Hackaz would be able to do something in respect to what you craving to have . I used them once for a different Project Sequence but they said they can do anything that is linked with penetration testing/Hacking. So, " firstname.lastname@example.com " is their email contact and hopefully they might be of help to you Sir . They Also except Payment after your work is done . Goodluck

</comment><comment><USER3> First i was recommended to use this one [http://topspying.com/mspy/](http://topspying.com/mspy/) . Could you give any tips or advise something?

</comment><comment><USER4> would you be willing to pay for shipping?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, thanks for your interest. Where should it be shipped from?

<comment><USER4> Ohio, US.</comment></comment></comment>


Escape from System D, episode VI: freedom in sight - <AUTHOR> https://davmac.wordpress.com/2019/12/18/escape-from-system-d-episode-vi-freedom-in-sight/ <comment><USER2> As someone who has been using Linux full time on servers/desktops/laptops/embedded devices and any other computing device I've had since 1998:

Systemd is such an awesome improvement over everything that came before it. It benefits me on a daily basis. The power and ease of configuring services is so far beyond sysinit (and let's be honest, most of us weren't able to write our own init scripts back then and were resorting to stuff like rc.local or inittab anyway which were inadequate solutions).

Timers are generally better than cron. I love that systemd does all the stuff I used to have to do on my own like balancing when jobs run and preventing DST issues.

I like journalctl. I know it bothers some people that the logs are stored in some kind of binary format but the practical difference of journalctl is that logs are easier to filter in a variety of ways.

Anyway, I think making a init system would be a fun hobby too, but the world is a better place because of systemd and I am sick of the belly-aching about it.

<comment><USER3> I agree that systemd gets way more hate than it deserves, but it has continual problems on Arch Linux. Wherever you try to shutdown without logging out first, systemd says "a stop job is running for user manager...", then waits 90 seconds. The issue keeps getting fixed, then resurfacing. People with this same problem are all over the internet.

<comment><USER4> In my experience, that happens when a user process is ignoring the SIGTERM signal (ie, a word process or browser wanting user confirmation before shutting down).

Generally, I personally don't mind it and I set the timeout to 30 seconds, which helps.

There is probably no good solution unless systemd starts to send SIGKILL instead of SIGTERM to kill without questioning why, but that would break everything else.

<comment><USER5> Just to play devil's advocate: _prior_ to systemd, nobody had this problem. In 20 years of Unices I can't remember a single time when I couldn't shut down my machine because a user process was ignoring SIGTERM (or really, because a user process was doing _something_ ). I'm not sure what "everything else" there is to break...

I actually enjoy the extra flexibility that I get out of being able to tell systemd how to terminate processes. On the systems I'm _building_. But it's something that could certainly be improved. It works right for my use case (embedded systems) but I hate it when it does it on my laptop or my home machine.

The whole interface around it is silly. It tells you that a job is running, but it doesn't tell you what that job is, what that process is, and unless you enable the debug shell, there's no way to check it or kill that process either. All you get to is stare at the thing counting down from 90, and in some cases when it reaches 0, it starts counting down again instead of rebooting.

<comment><USER4> Well, before it wasn't a problem, largely because the init system just murdered everything that didn't drop dead when told to (ie, your desktop apps will be SIGTERM'd along with the X Server). Systemd certainly takes a more safe approach.

Atleast in my experience, systemd certainly tells you what is hanging. The issue with "timer reset" is that some service that is hanging is also blocking some other service from shutting down (either because the hanging service depends on it or the blocked service needs to be shut down after the hanging service). Old Init systems didn't care either, if the system was to shut down, it just killed in order of runlevel so stuff like "The database was corrupted because init forcibly killed the NFS mount too early" was certainly possible.

<comment><USER5> Edit: first and foremost -- sorry, I went on a trip down the memory lane because you mentioned NFS and I forgot to mention the most important point.

That message, and this approach, is 100% inconsequential, and it doesn't make anything safer. IIRC, last time I checked, virtually none of the distributions enable the systemd debug shell. If you see that message, you can't stop the application manually. Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn't work, either, and if systemd can't recover from that state -- which, depending on what's actually happening and on the configuration, it sometimes can't -- all you get to do is press the reset button anyway.

If an application is hung for a _legitimate_ reason, like, there's unsaved work, you can't go back and save it anyway. All you can do is wait for 30 seconds for the system to reboot and lose the data anyway (just 30 seconds later).

That aside, I've debugged my fair share of corruption, back when journaling filesystems were new and NFS was way worse than it is today. I don't want to go back to those days, either, and I'm glad to have a safety switch for sensitive setups, or for misbehaving/legacy applications.

But no one has a problem with _that_. People have a problem when they don't have anything mounted over NFS (that, by the way, is also something that occasionally caused systemd to hang at one point) and _still_ can't reboot their machine.

It's not like we had to wait until 2010 to figure out that init systems need to handle these things carefully. Nobody compares this behaviour with the golden age of Ultrix and says oh, right, thank God for this, it's a minor inconvenience but at least my files are safe. Everybody compares this with what's available on every other platform that's popular today, not in 1996 -- namely a "Force reboot" button that reboots your machine and virtually never results in data loss.

<comment><USER6> > it doesn't make anything safer

Why does a program given SIGTERM not quit? Is it because 1) it's still busy desperately trying to save something large and unusual or over a network, 2) it's antisocial and ignores SIGTERM, or 3) it's hung for some permanent reason?

It's hard to tell from the outside.

Most of the time it's the second or third, but the behavior occasionally saves data in the first case.

<comment><USER5> I mean... yes, in theory that would be the case but that's really not what's happening in this particular case.

(Edit: First _est_ of all, actually, more often than not it's actually 4) the program is waiting for a user's confirmation, or requires some user action to exit, but if you see that message, you can't do it anymore.)

First of all, not being able to distinguish between these three cases is precisely what makes virtually everyone who's seen this a couple of time hit the reset button as soon as they see it. That doesn't save any data.

Second, if a program is really busy desperately trying to save something large and unusual over a network _and you see that message_ , there's a good chance it won't be able to save anything anyway. The network is usually down by that time, for example.

There's also no way for a program to signal that it's done. If, indeed, a program needed one more second to write everything, it's cool, but you still get to wait 29 more seconds.

And finally, processes ignoring SIGTERM is really just one of the reasons why this happens.

I think all of us in the FOSS community should be more charitable when discussing these things. systemd is a big step ahead but it's not like we had to wait until 2010 to figure out that init systems have to tread carefully during shutdown to avoid data corruption.

Also, people who read HN usually understand that killing processes can cause data corruption under some circumstances. Just sayin'.

<comment><USER4> >First of all, not being able to distinguish between these three cases is precisely what makes virtually everyone who's seen this a couple of time hit the reset button as soon as they see it. That doesn't save any data.

It saves data if you don't mash the reset button at first sight

>Second, if a program is really busy desperately trying to save something large and unusual over a network and you see that message, there's a good chance it won't be able to save anything anyway. The network is usually down by that time, for example.

Systemd won't bring down the network until all services that depends on the network have been stopped. The desktop environment doesn't unless the home directory is a NFS mount.

>There's also no way for a program to signal that it's done. If, indeed, a program needed one more second to write everything, it's cool, but you still get to wait 29 more seconds.

A program running as a service can override the timeout in it's unit file.

>And finally, processes ignoring SIGTERM is really just one of the reasons why this happens.

Correct, processes who ignore SIGTERM are the real problem, processes that take a long time are a secondary culprit. But systemd can't do much if the devs of software refuse to read documentation on signals when writing handlers for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The lack of "monoculture" (whether systemd or something else - which the author says is a good thing) is the reason Linux software distribution is still a shit-show and every single distro has their own, incompatible way of doing things so you can't just provide a single binary and get on with your day like you can with Windows or Mac.

Systemd might have its flaws but I'm so grateful that a service/unit file will work on pretty much any distro and that my knowledge of it will serve me on pretty much any modern Linux system, as opposed to years ago where every distro had their own unique way of managing services.

<comment><USER8> This is especially true since any init system which sets out to "escape from systemd" will eventually end up doing everything that systemd does, at which point it will be as complex as systemd.

HOWEVER - the Linux world has lived with these problems for ages and I deem it also a strength. You can switch around components, mix and match and it will mostly work. You can run KDE apps on GNOME no problemo. I think this is something we should consider a positive. If we can unify around a common service file language, we can swap out service managers easy.

<comment><USER9> > You can run KDE apps on GNOME no problemo.

well you can also run KDE apps on windows and macOS so it would be quite the shit show if they did not run on GNOME :-)...

<comment><USER8> That's ... a good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10>
      Dinit has been booting my own system for a long while, and other than a
      few hiccups on odd occasions it's been quite reliable.

      Ok, compared to Systemd it lacks some features. It doesn't know anything
      about Cgroups, the boot manager, filesystem mounts, dynamic users or
      binary logging. For day-to-day use on my personal desktop system, none
      of this matters, but then, I'm running a desktop based on Fluxbox and
      not much else; if I was trying to run Gnome, I'd rather expect that some
      things might not work quite as intended (on the other hand, maybe I
      could Elogind and it would all work fine… I've not tried, yet).

      On the plus side, compared to Systemd's binary at 1.5mb, Dinit weighs in
      at only 123kb. It's much smaller, but fundamentally almost as powerful,
      in my own opinion, as the former.

I applaud the OP for writing a new init system, and in light of that, the few paragraphs above serve as a good counterpoint to everyone writing how systemd does too much, is doing everything etc. In the past several years it really has been insufferable to be in the vicinity of any discussion related to systemd/init systems.

</comment><comment><USER11> For anyone looking for an out, but wants to keep using linux... Gentoo. You can even use it with systemd. It's all about choice.

Follow the handbook, it's worth it. Once that gets too tedious, checkout [https://github.com/jakeogh/sendgentoo](https://github.com/jakeogh/sendgentoo)

<comment><USER12> There are many distributions without systemd. Voidlinux and slackware have rolling releases and are very clean, for example.

<comment><USER11> That's the point. Gentoo isnt one of those. You can use it with systemd, it's supported.

Slackware(1993!) has been around longer than Gentoo(2000), but USE flags, slots, _choice_ and control over the compilation stack are pretty nice. NixOS's package manager and portage hopefully merge sometime in the future. I havent tried Void.

We didnt need to have the init system debate, it was never a possibility that Gentoo would be monoinit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm a Gentoo user and your problems with "systemd" look quaint to me. I mean I've heard about such a thing as "systemd" that turns Linux into Lindows, but I've no idea why anyone would use it when an awesome Linux (a real one, not Lindows) is within reach...

<comment><USER14> You know Lindows used to be the name of a Linux distribution whose main focus was trying to look like windows and offering some compatibility with windows through wine?

It was still a Linux distribution and back then, no one had ever thought of systemd.

Saying using systemd turns Linux into Lindows just shows how ignorant you are of linux history, of that "systemd" thing you've just heard of and of what makes Linux and Windows different.

Being a Gentoo user doesn't make one into a Linux guru. In fact, starting your comment by stating you're a Gentoo user as if it will give more weight to what follows is just plain arrogant. It shows that you're definitely _not_ a linux guru, what distribution you use/have used don't matter at all for that.

I feel for Gentoo users, people like you make them look bad.

<comment><USER15> Lindows, Corel Linux, yes those were the days...</comment></comment></comment>


Tesla delivers a record number of vehicles during the first quarter 2017 ~25,000 - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2017/04/02/tesla-deliverie-q1-quarter-2017/ <comment><USER2> Much of the gains are coming from a huge increase in the (more expensive) Model X deliveries.

        2016 Q1 model S: 12,420
        2017 Q1 model S: 13,450

        2016 Q1 model X:  2,400
        2017 Q1 model X: 11,550

For guidance, Tesla wrote in their 2016 Q4 letter (dated Feb 22, 2017):

> We expect to deliver 47,000 to 50,000 Model S and Model X vehicles combined > in the first half of 2017

So they're on track.

<comment><USER3> I would assume ahead of track as they should have more capacity this quarter

<comment><USER2> Delivery numbers may become slightly compromised as the existing infrastructure (not just assembly but the whole pipeline of getting them to customers) is routed to include Model 3 deliveries.

This may make Q2 slightly worse than Q1, making them miss the projections, even if it makes Q3 really great! Situations like this may be why they've been including the "in transit for next Quarter" numbers so often.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Regarding the price of TSLA, perhaps someone can help: If Tesla were to somehow sell 500,000 Model 3's in 2018, and make a net profit of 15% on each $35,000 car (very high, the auto industry majors make ~5%), and somehow had all the capital necessary paid for, and no financing or other costs they would earn:

500,000 * $5,250 = $2.6 BB in profit

With ~160 MM shares outstanding that's an EPS of ~$16.

At $270/share, that's a P/E of ~17 -- cheap, but not incredibly so.

In other words, if everything goes perfectly, buying shares now would be "sort of cheap", equivalent to a ~6% return. Obviously, the shares have a lot of risk.

This is practically best-case. So how do you justify buying at these levels, with the risks involved? You can't say "growth" without modelling it. Do you expect TSLA to sell a million cars a year, or more with these types of margins? Where will the earnings come from?

<comment><USER2> I've been holding Tesla for a long time. Currently I'm more optimistic about the company than when I bought it, which seemed fairly risky when I bought it.

I think the room for growth and market expansion (Important Electric Things and energy future) is very large. I think trying to compute how the math will get there is a mistake, short of making sure that they are not going to run out of money.

Being long technology stocks is a strange game. If you're long IBM or AAPL right now, you're more or less betting that the future is going to look _pretty much the same._ It's almost a misnomer to call them technology stocks.

There are only a handful of public companies you can bet on (Tesla and Amazon are probably the most obvious) that are really _betting big_ on the future. The dividends of these will be unknown.

Think about it this way: If you did your same math, could you have expected or predicted Amazon's AWS success? If you want to bet on the future, you have to make sure the company isn't going bankrupt, then you have to look more to the processes that the company produces, moreso than the [current] products.

<comment><USER4> > _I think trying to compute how the math will get there is a mistake_

I think the exact opposite; buying stocks without knowing how much you are paying for profit is a mistake.

> _It 's almost a misnomer to call them technology stocks._

10 years ago Apple revolutionized the tech industry with a cell phone. Now they aren't a tech company?

> _If you did your same math, could you have expected or predicted Amazon 's > AWS success?_

Do you think the people behind AWS didn't model the potential cloud services market, and were taken by surprise by the success?

I'm not saying it's easy, but being tricky is no reason to ignore using what data we have.

<comment><USER2> > Do you think the people behind AWS didn't model the potential cloud services > market, and were taken by surprise by the success?

Yes.

The project was born out of Bezo's edict early on in the creation of Amazon that everything the company does internally must be able to be turned into a service. Almost every analyst in 2006 was against the idea and Bezos admitted it would not be a forseeable revenue stream:

> Stifel Nicolaus & Co. (SF ) analyst Scott W. Devitt notes: "There's not > going to be any economic return from any of these projects for the > foreseeable future." Bezos himself admits as much. ... "We think it's going > to be a very meaningful business for us one day," he says. "What we've > historically seen is that the seeds we plant can take anywhere from three, > five, seven years."

From this 2006 story: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2006-11-12/jeff- bezo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2006-11-12/jeff-bezos-risky- bet)

In 2011(or 2010?) AWS revenue was still listed in the "Other" column on their 10K, even though it was by then their #1 area of growth.

So yes, I think the scale of the success surprised them. It certainly surprised analysts who think like you do, nearly all of which expected AWS to be something between a hobby and a folly (read the Bloomberg article).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> MightySignal | Full Stack Engineer | San Francisco, CA | [https://mightysignal.com](https://mightysignal.com)

MightySignal | Frontend Engineer | San Francisco, CA | [https://mightysignal.com](https://mightysignal.com)

MightySignal unearths and analyzes hard to find data in the world of mobile, and we're looking for engineers to join our growing team. Backend engineers here are free to explore daily and work on a variety of problems including reverse engineering, data discovery and analysis, and more. Frontend engineers own the whole process of designing and building the interfaces for our customers to absorb and make sense of our data. We're a small team and each person has a major role in guiding the future of our infrastructure and company. We're hoping to find people who share in our adventurous spirit.

For a small taste of what we do, check out our free iOS and Android SDK reports: [https://mightysignal.com/top-ios-sdks](https://mightysignal.com/top- ios-sdks)

If you're interested, please reach out to osman at mightysignal dot com

</comment><comment><USER6> .

<comment><USER7> Are VW sales increasing 69% YOY too? Do their cars have an ASP of about $100,000?

Apples and bananas.</comment></comment>


Stockton, CA Tested Universal Basic Income. Here's How Recipients Spent It - <AUTHOR> https://fortune.com/2019/10/03/universal-basic-income-stockton/ <comment><USER2> >Plus, he said previous studies have shown people don't spend the money on frivolous things.

Serious question that I've had for a while: how can anyone actually say this about money, in any domain? It seems like because money is fungible, it would be useless to try to say where a particular $500 went unless it was the only money the participants spent that month. How does research like this account for that?

<comment><USER3> You withdrew some money from an ATM last night, right? Thinking it was from your salary? Actually that was drug money.

The bank isn't useless, because it keeps track of how much money it receives and hands out, and from whom. So even if you got a note that has been in some drug smuggler's hands, the bank isn't useless.

The researchers do much the same, except with less precision. The bank has full insight into who deposits, transfers and withdraws, the researchers only partial insight into the income and spending of the research subjects. But they can estimate how good their insight is and take steps to improve it. Their results are as precise as their insight is complete. Their results won't be as precise as your bank statement, but they can be precise enough to be useful. After all, the researches can set the terms their experiment so as to get enough data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the data, 12%+ either didn't want to work or were working part time. I'm all for helping people in need, but not when I have to spend my hard earned money on someone that doesn't want to earn their way.

Serious Question: is there a reason why this percentage isn't given a public service job in return for this "basic income"? My first though is to let them help their community and in return they are assisted financially rather than just giving out free money.

<comment><USER5> Serious question, why should anyone _have_ to work?

It's easy to imagine an alternate reality where UBI is a thing and working is optional.

I think there's a legitimate case to be made that freeing people from labor should be societal goal.

<comment><USER6> IIRC people dont do well without work (much of our identity is tied up in working) . Of course you can argue that could change if society changes. But individuals who find themselves without work (due to rapid wealth changes, or losing work) often find themselves depressed

<comment><USER5> I always hear about identity being tied to work, but I wonder if that's been tested in recent years. Pre-internet, sure, that makes sense. But now that you can do literally anything you want as long as you have the free time to learn it, and you can be instantly connected to like-minded groups. I'm not so sure that work is the source of identity that people think it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > But 40% of the money has been withdrawn as cash, making it harder for > researchers to know how it was used.

So 40% of it could have been spent on vices and they're just "Trusting" them and then reporting it as evidence?

</comment><comment><USER7> Discussion posted around the same time as this thread with 70 comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153063](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153063)</comment>


The spread of low-credibility content by social bots - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06930-7 <comment><USER2> I have been feeling depressed for a few days pondering the general credibility crisis that prevales over human communications as of late.

The spread of low quality content or plain disinformation is just an aspect of the problem. We have those who stand to gain from, politically or financially from influencing the global conversation to their advantage, and we've seen an endless parade of examples, that have elevated Astroturfing and manipulative deceit from a curiosity into an exact science and art form: Cambridge analytica, Facebook and their HR firm, Bannon and Breitbart, the Russian troll farms, twitterbots and fake profiles, the inexplicable fact that FB knows and tells advertisers exactly how many times their ad was shown and bills them accordingly, but they need to develop new technology to figure out exactly how this very same features were used to needle in an election, sow discord and amplify animosity.

OTOH I can read and hear all sorts of opinions from all kinds of experts on every field who I no longer trust, since I don't know if they are using their audience for profit and ever so subtly change the perception of those who listen: it puzzles me to no end that nowdays Microsoft is considered open source's best new friend, the same Microsoft that no more than 15 years ago was covertly funding SCO's Lawsuits vs Linux.

I feel like advertising has seemed to the very fabric of human communications, not to better humanity but for the short term gain and selfish goals of a few who can afford such services.

The internet used to be an Electronic Frontier where everybody could be who they really were and speak their minds. Now it's a poisoned cesspit where everybody lies about everything and those who do it better get to sell you stuff. <//3

<comment><USER3> I've made this point before; there are 5 PR people for every reporter in the US.

[https://muckrack.com/blog/2016/04/14/america-now-has- nearly-...](https://muckrack.com/blog/2016/04/14/america-now-has-nearly-5-pr- people-for-every-reporter-double-the-rate-from-a-decade-ago)

That and the fact that various parts of the 'expert class' has largely discredited itself; from the replication crisis to the death of physics as a field .... we don't need to blame bots; the trust level is low.

<comment><USER4> > _there are 5 PR people for every reporter in the US..._

And the PR people are, in general, far better paid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The assumptions are:

1) third party fact-checkers (eg. snopes) are credible and reliable.

2) the third party "Botometer" (machine-learning model) is valid and was trained on an accurately classified corpus.

This type of study always relies on the elevation of someone's subjective assessment (eg. "this account is a bot/human", "this fact-checker is honest") to the status of objective truth.

It is a serious weakness when studying subjects loaded with political consequence, wherein well-resourced stakeholders are constantly attempting to shape competing narratives by any means available to them.

<comment><USER6> EDIT: just to be clear, I think it's important to note that Nature and these authors likely have a bias towards what they consider more truthful news and that will be reflected in their choices of material and tools for this study.

>2) the third party "Botometer" (machine-learning model) is valid and was trained on an accurately classified corpus.

For anyone curious enough to follow up on how effective their "botometer" tool was, the methods section [0] details what they used and links to said tools. The language used is simple enough for most people to follow. I am not great at following their statistics, but the botometer seems to be at least decently accurate. Certainly, figure 2d seems pretty convincing to me for validating the botometer.

>1) third party fact-checkers (eg. snopes) are credible and reliable.

The methods section talks about how their model works with Onion articles. The great thing about The Onion is that it is a perfect positive control i.e it is always false. The authors state the following in the methods section:

>Many low-credibility sources label their content as satirical, and viral satire is sometimes mistaken for real news. For these reasons, satire sites are not excluded from the list of low-credibility sources. However, our findings are robust with respect to this choice. The Onion is the satirical source with the highest total volume of shares. We repeated our analyses of most viral articles (e.g., Fig. 3a) with articles from theonion.com excluded and the results were not affected.

0\. [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06930-7#Sec8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06930-7#Sec8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the massively successful clickbait junk/fake news purveyors like Taboola and Outbrain are equally damaging because they are openly publishing garbage on the sites people visit to read 'news' and form opinions

</comment><comment><USER8> Wiping out the bots would absolutely destroy the user counts of most social networks, so it's just not going to happen.

On the other end, there are a lot of formerly credible sources of information that have stepped in it badly and repeatedly, and tarnished their aura of authority. The fourth estate is looking more and more bought and paid for, and the academy has their own issues there, not to mention a mother of a reproducibility problem.

<comment><USER9> What % are bots?

<comment><USER8> With Twitter and Instagram, it feels like there are more bots than real people. Facebook, I'm less sure of, but with as many random friend requests as I get from unknown "people" with half-baked profiles and no connections, it's happening there too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > curbing social bots may be an effective strategy for mitigating the spread > of online misinformation.

Why not turn them off entirely? The least of self regulation these popular social media companies can do for humans.

<comment><USER11> Not all social media bots are malicious. And not all social media bots are posting content from low credibility sources.

<comment><USER12> > Not all social media bots are malicious. And not all social media bots are > posting content from low credibility sources.

The collateral damage from banning them all may be worth it, if they're a major means for pushing low credibility content and disinformation.

<comment><USER13> Eliminating all the internet bots would be the mundane real life first step of the Butlerian Jihad of the Dune universe. In the stories, they eliminate all machine computers in order to prevent AIs destroying society, and go back to human computers.

The idea that AIs (broadly defined to include simple bots) are net more trouble than they are worth has been kicked around in literature forever. It's fun to live in the age where we get to wrestle with it in practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Shameless self-promotion: I wrote down some thoughts a while ago about this: [https://www.notion.so/The-Hyperreality-of-Big-Data- ae0aebb35...](https://www.notion.so/The-Hyperreality-of-Big-Data- ae0aebb358c34d8a9b01eb61d3b77b48)

It almost feels like the only solution (for one aspect of the problem) is for the "good guys" to outmeme the "bad guys". But of course, that's much, much, much easier said than done.

<comment><USER15> This is a very good short term option, that I hope others have been working on. My personal actions have been to encourage my family member to stop using social media, point them to top quality content producers like Joe Rogan & redlettermedia. And most importantly, I help them to calm down, the information available is exhausting, but the world around us isn't changing that fast, I remind them to use that as a reference, talk to people I person, get involved in local politics, take a nature walk, life is short.

<comment><USER16> Is Joe Rogan truly the highest quality content producer? I've seen/heard some of his content, it's quite diffuse wrt information density. Do I really want to listen to 2.5 hour podcast to get what I can in 30 minutes from other podcasters? I also heard him asking Neil deGrasse Tyson about whether the moon landing was faked with a lot of skepticism in his voice...

<comment><USER15> I think hes a quality content source at the very least. You can usually find an abridged or best of for the most interesting podcasts. And you can reliably fall down to a complete unedited interview to get more balanced observation 9f his or guests opinions. He sticks out to me as one of my most interesting and he shares similar levels of openness and drive for the truth compared to the other independent producers I am aware of it frequent. There are other quality producers that do better jobs at interviewing different niches.

The truth is always changing, entertaining controversial hypotheses is reinforcing or exposing the truth. As my awareness, research, observational and social skills have expanded, so too has my worldview. If it we represent a worldview as a polygon, where each time you accept a new story into your worldview you add that point as a new vertex to your shape. What happens as you validate and accept more points outside your ahapn? Your total perimeter likely increases is length, ever increasing the total number of potentially mysterious stories available to you. The larger your worldview, the larger set of "what ifs" become available to you, "what ifs" produce larger impacts requiring larger and larger changes to your worldview. If you dont entertain the what ifs and discuss potentially impactful what ipfs, the more cataclysmic the potential change you'll have to make.

He likely asked In jest, but I feel it was probably healthily for Niel to retell the facts for himself as it was for Joe to entertain the unlikely idea, but incredibly impactful the story is if it's not the whole truth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It strikes me as somewhat ironic that Nature would public this given that they recently tweeted:

> Editorial: The US Department of Health and Human Services proposes to > establish a legal definition of whether someone is male or female based on > the genitals they are born with. This proposal has no foundation in science > and should be abandoned. [1]

That last sentence just absolutely boggles the mind and I'm not entirely sure how this journal retains any semblance of reputation when its editorial board is so clearly willing to put ideology over science.

\---

[1] [https://twitter.com/nature/status/1064694083090812928](https://twitter.com/nature/status/1064694083090812928)

<comment><USER18> It doesn't 'boggle' my mind. It would be helpful, I suppose, if you could explain how the last sentence shows they are 'so clearly willing to put ideology over science' \- nothing could be less clear to me, although I'm far from expert. Otherwise it will seem like that's precisely what you're doing yourself, which I suspect is why you've been heavily downvoted.

<comment><USER19> The last sentence shows that they, Nature, are seriously suggesting that there is something wrong with defining sex based on observable sexual characteristics. This shows they are willing to put ideology over science: the only reason to suggest such a thing is ideology.

<comment><USER20> > The last sentence shows that they, Nature, are seriously suggesting that > there is something wrong with defining sex based on observable sexual > characteristics

No. They are suggesting that there is something wrong with defining it based on just one particular observable characteristic.

There are numerous characteristics in humans that come in two forms or varieties, one generally associated with males and one generally with females. Many people end up with some characteristics of the form generally associated with males and with some characteristics generally associated with females.

For example, there is a response in the hypothalamus to the pheromone androstadienone that is different in males and females, and can be recognized on an MRI scan.

Another example is how "male" and "female" brains perform visual and spatial memory tasks, such as imagining how a shape would look when rotated. Males generally are better at this than females, and brain scans show that when doing this task males are using different parts of the brain than females use --male brains approach this task differently than do female brains.

Some people with male genitals have female androstadienone response and female visual and spatial processing, and some people with female genitals have male androstadienone response and male visual and spatial processing. In particular, studies have found that transgender people are often this way, with their brain having the responses of the gender they identify as rather than the gender their genitals suggest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Successful low-credibility sources are heavily supported by social bots. These results suggest that curbing social bots may be an effective strategy for mitigating the spread of online misinformation."

No, really?

Sorry - go ahead and vote me down. I couldn't resist. Sometimes science uncovers facts that seem obvious.

</comment><comment><USER9> Stuff like this is scary. Check out this video about the caravan and migrants climbing the border wall. Strangely edited. Presented as breaking news. Music as though it's a suspenseful movie. Yet looking at the comments everyone seems to be buying into it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GuuNzR_AZg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GuuNzR_AZg)

It has 2M+ views in just a few days.

<comment><USER22> Neither the comments nor the view count are necessarily legit; both can be created by bot traffic.</comment></comment>


Is this website real? -- Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center - <AUTHOR> http://www.netc.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This website seems very misleading and sensationalist, but I can't quite put my finger on why. I'm hoping others can point something out for me

<comment><USER2> The site looks like it is probably real, but Bible quotes don't typically help your credibility:

>Be careful about the knowledge you will receive about radiation and the effects on our planet, my heart is heavy with sorrow for my children and the next generation that must deal with our failures. Warning from the Bible: Now as for you, Daniel, roll up your scroll and seal your words until the time of the end. Many will rush around, while knowledge increases. (Daniel 12:4) For with much wisdom there is much sorrow; the more someone adds to knowledge, the more someone adds to grief. (Ecclesiastes 1:18)</comment></comment>


We'll be live streaming our new website build from 9:30PM GMT / 1:30PM PDT today - <AUTHOR> http://www.40degreesnorth.co.uk/streaming/

<comment><AUTHOR> We're just getting set up - let us know you're in there so that we know we're not broadcasting to thin air!</comment>


Microsoft security tools nuking Chrome browser - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/microsoft-security-tools-nuking-chrome-browser/9515 <comment><USER2> On September 30th, 2011, an incorrect detection for PWS:Win32/Zbot was identified. On September 30th, 2011, Microsoft released an update that addresses the issue. Signature versions 1.113.672.0 and higher include this update. [http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Threat/Encyclopedia...](http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Threat/Encyclopedia/Entry.aspx?name=PWS:Win32/Zbot&threatid=2147598479)

<comment> _--_----_--_ case closed?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The sad reality is that a modern app like Chrome does look a lot like malware. It does a bunch of crazy things you might not expect a regular piece of software to do - manipulating file permissions and spawning large groups of processes, installing into a rather obscure part of the user's appdata folder instead of into program files, downloading arbitrary payloads from the internet and then using those payloads to modify executables on the user's machine...

It's always unpleasant when you get flagged by a virus scanner. Antivirus vendors basically ignore you unless enough of your customers complain to get their signature database updated. Hopefully in this case, since it's a high- profile application (Chrome), Microsoft will address the problem quickly.

<comment><USER4> I'm going to guess that this is also partially a consequence of Chrome's update strategy - presumably Microsoft has a bank of machines with commonly installed software that they regression test malware updates with - but Chrome is updating so frequently and 'transparently' (i.e. different than most commonly installed software) that Microsoft's test framework wasn't prepared to deal with it, and chrome 11 or 9 or whatever is still passing with flying colors while 14 is getting zapped in the real world.

<comment><USER5> The delta based in-place patching technique that chrome uses to update itself probably looks really fishy from the outside as well.

<comment><USER6> Chrome does not update the running exe - it makes a new copy in another directory. Then the launcher checks for latest directory and runs that.

Existing executables are not modified. Only created and deleted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How do these malware-signature-matching mechanisms work? What are the odds that Chrome produces the same matchable-characteristics as Zeus malware? I don't want to leap to the conclusion that something fishy is going on here.

<comment><USER8> With some of the more advanced things like NaCl, it wouldn't surprise me at all if some of the functionality looked the same, or even had quite a similar purpose.

We don't know if the malware signature is on bits that do bad things, or just bits that had been unique to Zeus until now.

Edit: Also, some people are reporting no problems. It could be that those Chrome instances really were infected. We don't know where they got the download for Chrome from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Doesn't code signing give any advantage to Chrome? If an executable and all its dependent libraries are signed by trusted party MSE ought to be able to lower its aggression level a bit. How likely is that a Google signed Chrome exe could be injected or rewritten with malicious code without invalidating the signature? That coupled with some white listing and these type of things should never happen.

<comment><USER10> I don't think that's a good idea. At least not in general. Signing only proves the identity of whoever signed it. It doesn't say whether the signers infrastructure was infected at the time between compiling and signing.

Granted. Google is probably safe. But can you tell that for every thirdparty vendor who has a code signing certificate (they are quite easy to get)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That should be "nuked", the issue was fixed in under an hour this morning.

</comment><comment><USER12> This happened to me today. MSE does give the choice of what action to take, I figured better safe than sorry. I'll reinstall once it gets straightened out.

</comment><comment><USER13> Oh dear. No matter what the reality of the situation Microsoft ends up looking really terrible here.

<comment><USER11> No they don't. This happens all the time with various anti-virus software. Modern software is complex.

If it didn't get fixed promptly (it was fixed almost immediately), that's where looking terrible starts.

For what it's worth, I run MSE & Chrome (2 run the beta, 1 runs release) on all 3 of my Windows 7 computers and none of them have flagged Chrome so far, so people's mileage may vary.

<comment><USER14> Doesn't look terrible to you, but just wait, sometime today I'll get an email from my mom with a link to a news story about how "microsoft was automatically uninstalling chrome."

<comment><USER15> Wrong. "That chrome thing you installed was really a virus! I'm going back to the blue internet button, that worked better"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's the same problem with iTunes on the windows platform. When you sync your iOS device to your computer it requires so much personal information (e.g music, movies, photos, contacts) that this process looks fishy. Windows is rarely ever ok with this. Seems no different with Chrome.

<comment><USER7> [iOS5]...to the iCloud!...[/iOS5]

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> When you have a list of constantly-updated virus signatures being matched against a set of constantly-updated program binaries, this sort of thing seems like only a matter of time...

</comment><comment><USER18> I just reinstalled Windows 7 with Chrome on my desktop PC last night. It will be interesting to see what happens when I get home today.

<comment><USER19> The virus definition that caused this has been long pulled. Nothing will happen.</comment></comment>


A programming language cannot be better without being unintuitive - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.raganwald.com/2008/01/programming-language-cannot-be-better.html

<comment><USER2> > In Defence of (0/:l)(_+_) in Scala

I didn't know Scala had ASCII porn... :-|

</comment><comment><USER3> On the other hand, being unintuitive doesn't mean a language is better, either.</comment>


Paul Manafort and Richard Gates Indictment [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.justice.gov/file/1007271/download <comment><USER2> The language of the indictment is surprisingly legible (and blunt). This is a welcome change in how legalese is usually used as obfuscation, or possibly in anticipation of the many journalists and non-lawyers who would want to read it.

<comment><USER3> This HN submission was flagkilled; I _vouched_ for it due to this reason.

Even though there is a political backdrop behind the investigation, there is still a newsworthy process to the law-and-order of a special investigation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting that there is nothing here related to the campaign - just some money laundering with Ukraine. Some would argue its outside the relevance of what the special prosecutor was hired for (Russian interference in the election).

Im guessing these charges are designed to scare Manafort into giving up the bigger fish.

<comment> FLUX-YOU Is this the only time they can file indictments? If not, they may have additional charges in the works. I imagine they would have told the judge "this is all we're planning to file" if they didn't have any other investigative work going on, right?

<comment><USER5> At this point they have been indicted and charges have been filed (the link this post points to). The steps for an investigation are very straightforward[0], and so now that we're past the charging process, if separate charges are found, it will result in another trial. I think it's pretty rare for simultaneous trials to be going on though, just based on anecdotal experience. It makes sense that prosecutors would want to wait to see the outcome of the first trial before issuing more charges.

[0] [https://www.justice.gov/usao/justice-101/steps-federal- crimi...](https://www.justice.gov/usao/justice-101/steps-federal-criminal- process)

<comment><USER6> > so now that we're past the charging process, if separate charges are found, > it will result in another trial.

No, a superceding indictment can be filed to add, remove, or update charges. The page you linked to has a good general introduction to the process, but you are mistaken to conclude from it that once an indictment is filed it cannot be altered, and that a separate parallel track would need to be opened up for new charges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> as a ukrainian that (mostly) lived through political perturbations in Ukraine during 2003-2013, where connection between ex-president Yanukovich and Manafort was widely known, it is almost baffling to now see connection between Trump and Manafort. one would imagine somebody running for president of the US would have been more careful picking his team.

when scam perpetrators and con artists get indicted, reasonable people stay away from them or their future endeavors. Trump/Manafort for _me_ is the best indication that the political campaign was full of shady business.

<comment><USER8> > one would imagine somebody running for president of the US would have been > more careful picking his team.

This guy had his fingers in a lot of pies. Ukraine, Angolan rebels, Somalia. He was also advising Reagan, GW Bush and Bob Dole's campaigns.

Good thing they got him. Less corruption the better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there a legal/technical reason that Justice scanned the paper copy and uploaded that as opposed to uploading the original digital file?

<comment><USER10> I imagine it's because of the handwritten signatures at the end of the pdf.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why did this get flagged?

<comment><USER12> The simple reason is that enough HN members flagged it to trigger the "[flagged]" tag. The deeper reason as to _why_ HN members flagged it is tougher to answer as it involves speculation. I think it's likely because (a) it's off-topic per the guidelines given that it's pretty much pure politics and using the guidelines' heuristic of "if they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic", this meets it; and (b) topics of this nature, regardless of their importance are very rarely constructively discussed on HN. That's not to say it's not worth discussing; some forums (virtual and otherwise) are better suited for productive discussion of a particular topic than others. HN members often flag such submissions even if they believe the topic is important for just this reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The only reason for Trump to have ever hired Paul Manafort as his campaign manager was to collude with Russia.

<comment><USER14> Unsubstantiated claims like this pull the entire discussion down.

<comment><USER15> Why did paul go to Russia before the election? It's not like an outlandish claim considering we are discussing this on the thread about the guys indictment.

<comment><USER14> What point do you intend on making with this comment? Surely the burden of proof is on the claimant? If you have evidence that Trump hired Manafort strictly to collude with Russia, you may want to present it to Mueller's special investigation unit.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Watch Out for Google Glasses - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestreet.com/story/11850432/1/watch-out-for-google-glasses.html

<comment><USER2> I was just shaking my head through the little bit of that that I read.

" My Google Glasses might display the social security number,"

... Is that a feature that google is rolling out? How would that information get into your glasses?

"Public places will have to come up with new policies. "

They already have policies on recording if they're worried about it, and people always have recording devices on their premises (cell phones).

" You can just hear the panic buttons after the first pictures from people cheating in school or filming in the locker room are released on YouTube."

Man, that's going to be so crazy because right now I can't find ANY videos from inside class rooms.

This article had a really good chance to talk about behavioral changes that will take place when you feel like you're constantly being recorded. For instance, I hate the sound of my recorded voice so when someone is around with these, I'll probably be less outspoken. Instead, they went for sensationalist crap like social security numbers, schools and banks.

<comment><USER3> "right now I can't find ANY videos from inside class rooms."

Seriously? Then you're not looking very hard.

Actually there are many videos posted to Youtube of interactions between students and teachers, some of whom were apparently deliberately provoked by the students expressly for the purpose of recording and posting online.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd_cO1jZT8Q>

<comment><USER4> The statement you quoted was sarcasm, meant to convey that the article is proposing something not revolutionary at all.

<comment><USER2> Yes, exactly. Forgot my <sarcasm> tags.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What happens if you wear Google Glasses to a McDonalds in France? I've been wondering this ever since I read about the assault on Steven Mann:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2175062/EyeTap- augme...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2175062/EyeTap-augmented- reality-pioneer-Steve-Mann-assaulted-Paris-McDonalds-employees.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> The article also missed the other gotcha on the books which is to sell use someone's picture in advertising you need a model release form. So that puts Google into somewhat murky legal water if they intend to sell advertising based on pictures of people captured by the glasses.

And that's before the Government subpoenas the feed from the camera and turns you into a walking CCTV. Orwell would have been so proud of Google...

<comment><USER7> Actually i'm curious now that every car will soon have its own black box how if this technology becomes ubiquitous what the law enforcement agencies start asking for.

As cool as google glasses are, imagine they become "effectively needed" as a technology. Then it becomes almost a foregone conclusion that law enforcement will want access to it. While I can imagine bad outcomes, what about things like alibis and so forth? We always touch on the bad uses of technology, but for once can we approach this from the opposite direction? Along the lines of the Russian meteorite, lots of video was captured by chance due to dashboard cameras meant for stopping fraud. Lets imagine a society that has equal access to everyone elses google glasses streams. While I can imagine a dystopia, I can also imagine some rather interesting societal developments from it as well.

I'm thinking along the lines of a short story I read a while back where everyone had their upper vertebra removed and some tech installed that would record everything a person saw/did literally and everyone else could know when other people looked at their own data and when. Aka, ooh i need to call bob, but lets see what he's up to first because I don't want to interrupt him, oh he's with susan at a good restaurant, guess it can wait. I think this technology could have great uses as much as it could have bad. I only expect bad use from our government and police forces, but that is more because they always want more access. But the converse is think about crowds, we could start identifying agent provocateurs, and mass recording and uploading bad acts. These are as much an agent for change in the system as they are for oppression not?

Thoughts? I'm just rambling now and need to shut up, if you read this far I owe you one beer. :)

<comment><USER8> Internet access and cell phones have become effectively needed technology, and so far appear to have been a net benefit. The internet increased the amount of shared data, cell phones increased the sharing and consumption (in the case of smart phones) of data, and Glass will increase the generation of data. What benefits can that extra data have?

Email me if you ever make it to Boulder and I will collect the beer. ;)

<comment><USER7> Heh will do, in Raleigh atm though so no go for that area atm. :)

Was just trying to look at the idea of ubiquitous technology from the positive side of things. I love conspiracy theories but I just get the nagging feeling that we're over worrying about downsides to this specific situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this article is focused around a fundamental change of user behavior that I don't see happening. The glass to be is a phone replacement, where the same rules and concerns about phone usage are projected onto the glass. Are we going to wear them in class? Do we allow students to wear earbuds in class?

</comment><comment><USER10> The least they could do is get the name of the product correct.

</comment><comment><USER11> Irrelevant to the article: Why am I seeing with so much more frequency articles with one headline, where the title bar is something completely different?

</comment><comment><USER12> This article is beyond terrible.

</comment><comment> Aco- oh my god is this satire, i can't stop laughing

</comment><comment><USER13> time to start the side business of masks, hoodies, and face paints.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm excited about Glass but this article is atrocious. The first sentence made my roll my eyes and groan.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, pulled straight out of a content farmer's ass.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is spacebar still Page Down in browsers - <AUTHOR>

Pardon my ignorance, but spacebar was next page on msdos systems while enter was next line, that still hasn't made much sense to me since we had PgDown key on keyboard. I always use PgDown and PgUp keys in browsers. When i want to pause videos (they have to be in focus in order to pause) i get the same result as if i pressed PgDown. I've got used to using spacebar as "space" in text editors and pause in video players. The question is what made developers do this? Kiosks? EDIT: Shouldn't there be a standard that defines keybinds in apps? End users do get confused- <comment><USER2> * Not every keyboard has Page Up/Down keys. As an application designer you can't rely on their presence.

* The spacebar is the largest key. For an application, it makes sense to attach commonly used functionality to this key. For media players this is pause/play. For web browsers this is "scroll down a page", as you'll need to scroll down when viewing pretty much any web page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually your answer makes the most sense. But It's confusing for the most users (people ARE the creatures of habits after all) I'm a business owner and customers asked me: "Why i can't do the same thing i do in VLC player!?" So i was curious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Those uses of space/enter date back to pagers such as "more" long before DOS. In browsers, it's a conveniently huge target to use for one of the most frequent operations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I'm 28 years old i never used pagers. What made it stick except being a huge target? EDIT: Being a huge target does not sound as a best explanation to me.

<comment><USER3> The earliest pagers had only one function, to page through text, and they would advance a full page when you hit any key. Space being the biggest key on the keyboard, people would commonly hit space to advance. As pagers became more sophisticated and grew additional functions (see [http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/less.1.html](http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man1/less.1.html) for an example), such as search, line-based motion, horizontal motion, backward motion, multiple files, and so on, "press any key to advance by a page" became "press space to advance by a page" to make room for other keys. (PgDn was typically a much smaller and further-flung target, on keyboards where it existed at all.)

The oldest (text-based) web browsers had a surprising amount in common with pagers, plus the ability to follow links. Graphical web browsers evolved from there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your time (you've made some things clear). What i can't understand from your explanation is: Why isn't backspace a PgUp then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My guess is that because its the biggest and most ergonomic key to access on a keyboard, that it made sense to assign it to the primary UI function on a web browser: to scroll down.

<comment><AUTHOR> That shouldn't be the reasoning behind the key that's just there lying being the 'biggest'.</comment></comment>


Off-Path TCP Exploits: Global Rate Limit Considered Dangerous [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~zhiyunq/pub/sec16_TCP_pure_offpath.pdf <comment><USER2> This is very grave problem that especially affects Tor users.

> In a nutshell, the vulnerability allows a blind off-path attacker to infer > if any two arbitrary hosts on the Internet are communicating using a TCP > connection. Further, if the connection is present, such an off-path attacker > can also infer the TCP sequence numbers in use, from both sides of the > connection; this in turn allows the attacker to cause connection termination > and perform data injection attacks. We illustrate how the attack can be > leveraged to disrupt or degrade the privacy guarantees of an anonymity > network such as Tor, and perform web connection hijacking. Through extensive > experiments, we show that the attack is fast and reliable. On average, it > takes about 40 to 60 seconds to finish and the success rate is 88% to 97%.

> We emphasize that the attack can be carried out by a purely off-path > attacker without running malicious code on the communicating client or > server. This can have serious implications on the security and privacy of > the Internet at large.

The authors say this vulnerability was introduced in RFC 5961 [1], implemented in Linux kernel 3.6 from late 2012. As well as being able to infer if there is an active connection between two arbitrary IPs, a practical DoS attack on Tor connections is demonstrated by injecting reset packets. The attack can also be used to disrupt connections between relay nodes to force traffic through exit nodes controlled by the attacker.

While apparently fixed in kernel 4.7, the vast majority of Tor nodes and Linux endusers are likely to be using older vulnerable versions, as 4.7 was only released July 24 of this year [2].

[1] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5961](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5961)

[2] [https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_4.7](https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_4.7)</comment>


Don't ship something you're not proud of - <AUTHOR> http://sachin.posterous.com/sunk-costs <comment><USER2> Is this the pendulum of 'lean start-up' swinging?</comment>


1,000 attend Foursquare founder's free coding class - <AUTHOR> http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/01/13/launchcodes-free-coding-course-moves-to-bigger-location/

<comment><AUTHOR> Why don't they do this in Silicon Valley -- teaming up with businesses to offer paid (paired-up) apprenticeships to qualified attendees?</comment>


20 Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life - <AUTHOR> http://zenhabits.net/2008/02/20-things-i-wish-i-had-known-when-starting-out-in-life/

<comment><USER2> 21\. Don't let people walk all over you. Chase down the bastard who took your car.

It looks like someone already wrote the inspirational post generator I was working on.

Seriously, though, he says at the end that he wouldn't want to be anywhere other than where he is today, and that he had to make all the above mistakes to arrive there. Which is true imho - I feel the same way. He also says his 18 year old self wouldn't listen. That's also true - this certainly isn't the first time I've seen someone say "don't drink to excess, don't watch too much TV, stay fit, and watch your personal finances." So his conversation with 18-yo-self would be wasted. I'd like to see a list of things he would say to an 18 year old that would actually lead to some change in behavior towards healthier living and a happier life. That would be something I haven't read yet.

<comment><USER3> "I'd like to see a list of things he would say to an 18 year old that would actually lead to some change"

OK, I'll start.

"Anyone who's good at anything knows that there's an inverse correlation between talking about it and being good at it."

(Opps, I almost forgot...)

"Dude."

<comment><USER4> Speaking well instead of performing well will make you twice as likely to be hired by the average Megacorp, Inc. Quality provides satisfaction; appearance provides money.

<comment><USER3> "appearance provides money"

Until it doesn't.

<comment><USER4> Well, you can't be a total phony. There are weighted values applied to skill and appearance in corporate HR. My experience has shown that the weighted value applied to appearance is roughly 2x the value applied to skill. (Assuming that the typical HR person can even measure skill. Most can't.)

<comment><USER3> I suppose you're right about that at Megacorp. Another reason so many of us are starting our own.

<comment><USER4> Just to clarify, I do find your original statement to be absolutely correct: "Anyone who's good at anything knows that there's an inverse correlation between talking about it and being good at it." The reason you have to explicitly say it, though, is that it goes against the grain of human behavior.

Being the type of person who actually does things without wasting time talking about it, I've had to learn the hard way that that's not what hiring managers look for. I would not trade my satisfaction of good work for money, but I've found that by spending a little more time on marketing skills rather than on programming skills, I can greatly improve my income.

<comment><USER3> I offered it because, if I remember correctly, that's about the only advice that would have reached me when I was 18.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One thing that I hadn't fully realized until I was about 30 or so: Your grades and test scores only matter to "the first". That is, your high-school grades and SAT scores only matter to the first college that you enroll in. After about a year or two in college, if you transfer to a different college, they don't care a whit what your high-school grades were. They want to know what your college grades are.

Similarly, your college grades and the name of the college only matters to your first employer. After that, future employers don't care what your college GPA was. They want to know what you've accomplished professionally.

This is not to say you can just slack your way through school. What it does mean, though, is that you shouldn't obsess about your GPA. Channel that academic energy into some actual achievements - not into ultimately meaningless points. In the end, accomplishments are worth much more than grades.

<comment><USER5> Good thing that I relised that before I was in college.

<comment><USER4> I had a gut instinct that this was the case while in school, but then every authority figure in my life was telling me that I could be the valedictorian if only I'd "buckle down and study". It took some distance before I was able to objectively look back and judge who was ultimately right.

Since I've remained good friends with the person who actually became the valedictorian, I've been able to compare notes over time. It turns out that in as little as 5 years after graduation, being the valedictorian doesn't mean squat. Everyone wants to know what you've done lately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've bought tens of self-help/self-discovery books and even read some of them. Of those I've read, I've found lots of commonalities and themes.

The most important theme, in my mind, which is echoed in successful startups and businesses is: _You_ _don't_ _have_ _to_ _get_ _it_ _right_ _,_ _you_ _just_ _have_ _to_ _get_ _it_ _going_ _._ _._ _._ " (as Mike Litman puts it)

<comment><USER7> Which Litman book?

<comment><USER6> Another Litmanism "The name of the game in life is you either have to focus on the process or the reward at any given moment. If you focus on the reward... (procrastination) If you focus on the process, you'll get there"

Litman quotes Bloomberg...

From page 52 (paperback) in his book 'Bloomberg By Bloomberg':

"We made mistakes, of course. Most of them were omissions we didn't think of when we initially wrote the software. We fixed them by doing it over and over, again and again. We do the same today. While our competitors are still sucking their thumbs trying to make the design perfect, we're already on prototype version No. 5.

By the time our rivals are ready with wires and screws, we are on version No. 10. It gets back to planning versus acting. We act from day one; others plan how to plan - for months."

The principle is fundamental. I don't think it was a specific book. I'm on his email list twice - he reiterates the theme a lot.

To elaborate, Litman says it's all about small steps. You need to make a commitment to taking small steps. All of successful business is a compilation of small victories. It's the small steps that make a difference. Most people aren't willing to stay in the game long enough to succeed...

Conversations with Millionaires is a great book because he interviews a really diverse group of successful entrepreneurs.

Personally, I don't always like his rah-rah cheerleading you-can-do-it approach but he shares some valuable insights.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for taking the time to share this info...I didn't even realize he had anything to do with the Bloomberg book.

Litman's "Conversations with Millionaires" book was pimped out by a bunch of people I think are pretty shady, so I had avoided reading it. I'll check it out if I come across it again. Unfortunately, I don't think these types of books would sell without a generous dash of the rah-rah cheerleading stuff.

<comment><USER6> No, Litman did not have anything to do with Bloomberg on Bloomberg. He was quoting Bloomberg (as he). I believe if you can get one idea going forward out of a book, it's more than worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Any comments on the journalling?

<comment><USER6> I've started doing this again. If you're introspective, it's hard to find someone to talk to about your life - Writing your thoughts and feelings down is immensely therapeutic - it's like listening to yourself.

I use a private, password-protected blog (TypePad) and can even use their mobile interface. I find paper diaries can be hard to use as you have to establish a habit, while since most of us are always online in some form - it's easier to journal digitally.

I did do lots of journalling years ago (using a bound paper diary) during a difficult workaholic phase and it is painful to read the self-pity and negativeness of the entries. But, it is good to see how I've changed since then.</comment></comment>