Corrode: C to Rust translator written in Haskell - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode <comment><USER2> Absolutely blown away by the detail of the documentation. The main logic of this project is in a literate haskell file you can easily read on GitHub.

[https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode/blob/master/src/Langua...](https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode/blob/master/src/Language/Rust/Corrode/C.md)

I wonder how readable is to someone who isn't experienced in Haskell. To me reads like a breeze, but I have a project using the exact same parsing library so maybe that puts me at an advantage.

The language-c library he uses is an excellent one, it's a fully spec compliant C parser that's well maintained. I've based my C compiler on it and I haven't encountered any C code it couldn't parse yet. One time I upgraded to a new OSX and Apple added some stupid thing to their headers that broke the parser and a fix was merged within days. This means it takes away the entire headache of parsing C leaving just the actual compiling.

<comment><USER3> By "some stupid thing to their headers" are you referring to nullability annotations? I'm not sure what else Apple would have added to pure C headers (as opposed to obj-c) any time in the past few years.

<comment><USER4> It was possibly even a Apple added their blocks extension to C and Obj-C, I remember this verifying some issues for Haskell tool which parsed C.

<comment><USER3> That was many years ago. I was assuming tinco was referring to something more recent. Besides, AFAIK, every usage of blocks in Apple's headers is guarded by an #if check to make sure blocks are supported, so compilers that don't support blocks won't even see them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was curious about how this worked so I looked into the source a little (even though Haskell isn't exactly my cup of tea), and WOW... This is just amazing. The most important part of the source is highly educative literate haskell:

[https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode/blob/master/src/Langua...](https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode/blob/master/src/Language/Rust/Corrode/C.md)

<comment><USER6> That's an incredibly brilliant idea, there's some serious craftsmanship going on in that source file.

Kinda taking Rust's doc unit tests format to a whole new level.

<comment><USER7> Rust should have a literate source format - with how much the community focuses on documentation, this would be an excellent addition.

<comment><USER8> [https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/26097](https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/issues/26097)

<comment><USER9> With the literate style, code is prefixed and comments are raw. So, instead of:

        -- foo is a function
        foo :: String -> String

It's

        foo is a function
        > foo :: String -> String

<comment><USER10> Literate programming is more than that. It is encouraged to order things such that they make sense to the reader, not to the compiler. You can give names to chunks of code and later glue them all together in a different order.

My tool of choice for this is Emacs org-mode with noweb support. The source file is "tangled" (i.e. individual chunks of code are glued back together in a specified order) to create the source for the compiler to process.

Haskell itself has only limited support for literate programming. Most importantly it lacks the ability to reorder chunks of code. (noweb or org-mode babel can be used with Haskell, of course.)

<comment><USER11> There's little need to reorder Haskell code because you can define things in any order.

The literate programming tangle process mainly exists to remove Pascal's order restrictions.

<comment><USER10> Reordering is still useful in Haskell. Just two examples for order dependent things in Haskell: top-level Template Haskell splicing; imports and GHC feature comments.

It can be nice to have a single document explaining the whole project, producing individual source files upon tangling. For this approach you need control over order and target files. "Literate Haskell" is hardly more than a reversal of the meaning of comments and code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is the coolest thing I've seen on HN in a long time, and useful to boot. Hopefully this will be a very big help to people moving over to Rust from C for its safety and type-checking. In general I don't support rewrites because, as many experienced programmers have pointed out, rewrites often make many of the same mistakes as the program they're rewriting. But transpilation allows us to keep the code with all the fixes to those mistakes.

In theory I'm a big supporter of Rust. I strongly feel that we should be using stronger-typed languages than C for developing security-critical applications, and from the outside, it looks like Rust solves a lot of my criticisms of C without giving up any benefits of C. A transition over to Rust could be a big win for security and reliability of many systems.

However, I'm reluctant to devote time to learning Rust primarily because it's not supported by GCC (or any other GPL compiler that I know of). I hope the next cool thing that that the Rust community does is to continue the work done by Philip Herron[1] on a Rust front-end for GCC. I know the classic response to this is, "Do it yourself!" but there are too many other areas of Open Source that are higher priorities for me, so sadly this will have to be done by someone else if it happens at all.

[1] [https://github.com/redbrain/gccrs](https://github.com/redbrain/gccrs)

<comment><USER13> I'm curious why you have an issue with the mostly-MIT licensed main Rust compiler. Could you explain?

<comment><USER12> I'm hesitant to build on a platform that could be appropriated by corporate interests. An example of this is the way Apple has appropriated BSD for MacOS. The BSD code is still open, but the tooling and funding comes from Apple to an extent which allows Apple to determine the direction to some extent.

I have no problem with MIT for smaller tools, but the compiler is too foundational a dependency to take risks on, and it needs better protections-- protections which are afforded by the GPL and the FSF's funding of GNU projects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is probably the most "Hacker News" thing I've ever seen.

<comment><USER15> We won't reach peak HN until somebody writes an ARC to Node.js transpiler in Haskell.

<comment><USER16> Maybe it's me having confirmation bias, but the transpiler "market" seems to favor Haskell heavily. "...in Haskell" almost seems superfluous anymore when talking about implementations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I do get that Haskell is useful to be taken as a tool for these kind of code transformations (at least I have seen quite a few of those) but I am always a bit surprised that people would start such a project in a language that has -per se- nothing to do with either the source or the target language. I know, I know, it doesn't always have to be this way, but I am very much of the opinion that everytime good tools in an ecosystem are written in the language in said ecosystem you get a lot more (and meaningful) contributions.

Best examples: rake (and everything in the ruby ecosystem basically), the amount of people touching ruby c code is very small compared to all the 'standard tools', or cargo.

<comment><USER18> > I do get that Haskell is useful to be taken as a tool for these kind of code > transformations (at least I have seen quite a few of those) but I am always > a bit surprised that people would start such a project in a language that > has -per se- nothing to do with either the source or the target language.

The author explained this in a blog post[0]: Haskell has a very complete C parser library with a nice API[1] which the author already knows, Rust doesn't; furthermore since one of the project's goal is to be as syntax- directed as possible the translator is straightforward and should be understandable with very little understanding of Haskell (which can be bootstrapped from understanding Rust)

[0] [http://jamey.thesharps.us/2016/07/translating-c-to-rust- and-...](http://jamey.thesharps.us/2016/07/translating-c-to-rust-and-how-you- can.html)

[1] [http://hackage.haskell.org/package/language-c](http://hackage.haskell.org/package/language-c)

<comment><USER17> Thanks, I had overlooked that explanation.

My -general- point still stands, appaently Haskell is very good at this and the people undertaking these projects choose to value this over ease of contribution :) (says someone who just doesn't come to terms with Haskell)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thea author wanted me to drop a link to his blog post on contributing: [http://jamey.thesharps.us/2016/07/translating-c-to-rust- and-...](http://jamey.thesharps.us/2016/07/translating-c-to-rust-and-how-you- can.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> as many "transpilers" / compilers, whatever you might name them, it lacks example input output.

I want to see how my new rust code base looks light, does it compile with some heuritics, or just 1:1 C to rust primitives?

<comment><USER9> Here you go. It didn't like my stdio.h. Apparently enums and unions aren't supported, but:

        extern int printf(char *, ...);

        int main(int argc, char argv[]) {
            printf("Hello, world!\n");
            return 0;
        }

Was turned into:

        extern {
            fn printf(arg1 : *mut u8, ...) -> i32;
        }
        #[no_mangle]
        pub unsafe fn main(mut argc : i32, mut argv : *mut u8) -> i32 {
            printf(b"Hello, world!\n\0".as_ptr() as (*mut u8));
            0i32
        }

edit: Also worth noting, it removes all comments. I believe this to be a limitation of language-c [1]

[1] [https://hackage.haskell.org/package/language-c](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/language-c)

<comment><USER20> Shouldn't a C `int` be converted to Rust's `isize`. I think that captures the spirit better.

<comment><USER21> Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it seems like Corrode misses some other chances to use idiomatic Rust:

1\. Rust fn:main doesn't need to return something.

2\. The arguments to main aren't mutated, so Rust doesn't need to declare them as mutable.

3\. Ditto for the argument to printf.

Anyone know how easy it is to recognize and code for such cases in the transpiler?

Edit: It looks like they might have opposite design goals [1]: "Corrode aims to produce Rust source code which behaves exactly the same way that the original C source behaved, if the input is free of undefined and implementation-defined behavior. ... If a programmer went to the trouble to put something in, I want it in the translated output; if it's not necessary, we can let the Rust compiler warn about it." (Edit2: cleaned up and numbered)

[1] [https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode#design- principles](https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode#design-principles)

<comment><USER12> I think that keeping an exact one-to-one mapping makes this tool a lot more useful. There's no telling what code depends on C idioms that would be broken by using a Rust idiom instead. Generating 100% equivalent code means that programmers can make intelligent decisions about when to switch over to Rust idioms as they continue developing the program.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, once you've got equivalent Rust, the rest is just optimization that should probably be implemented in the Rust compiler. No reason to put that stuff in the niche transpiler.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Missed the chance to name it "Crust."

<comment><USER8> There are already several projects called crust, including [https://crates.io/crates/crust](https://crates.io/crates/crust)

<comment><USER24> Well then it could be `CRusHT` - C to Rust Haskell Translator

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Has anyone tried it on some real-world codebases? How about kernel code? It would be very exciting to improve real-world crash safety and security by e.g. converting popular drivers quickly and automatically, followed by a manual pass applying safer Rust semantics.

<comment><USER8> The README explicitly states that this is far too early for real programs. It doesn't come close to supporting all of C yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Time to start sending PRs [1], :P

[1] [https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=language%3Ac](https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=language%3Ac)

<comment><USER8> I would hope that when this project is far enough along to feasibly do such a thing, that people don't. It's really rude.

<comment><USER9> Totally agree, it was a joke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > Partial automation for migrating legacy code that was implemented in C. > (This tool does not fully automate the job because its output is only as > safe as the input was; you should clean up the output afterward to use Rust > features and idioms where appropriate.)

This was my immediate concern. Is there any chance this tool can produce anything close to clean, safe, idiomatic, rust code?

<comment><USER27> > Is there any chance this tool can produce anything close to clean, safe, > idiomatic, rust code?

That is generally not possible, unless the C code only uses specific patterns known by the converter tool. That's very unlikely, considering that people write C code to be 'quick' and usually use all kinds of tricks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> That's an impressive use of literate programming. By coincidence, I had just read this post by John D. Cook "Literate programming: presenting code in human order" [http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2016/07/06/literate- programmin...](http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2016/07/06/literate-programming- presenting-code-in-human-order/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Here we have it gentlemen: HN bingo.

</comment><comment><USER30> I wonder if there would be any point in using this to fuzz the Rust compiler.

On the one hand, you could use CSmith with a C compiler as a convenient oracle, but on the other you would only be covering a very limited subset of e.g. the type system.

</comment><comment><USER31> The name "Corrode" doesn't seem very positive given the purpose of this program...

<comment><USER32> Rust is a type of corrosion.

<comment><USER31> Ah very true. I interpret it as (from Googles define) "destroy or weaken (something) gradually." i.e. destroy/weaken the C code into Rust... Maybe it's just me, though.

<comment><USER33> Exactly, _Corrode_ makes C code _rusty_!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The code has a lot of special cases. Could these be eliminated using machine translation techniques?

</comment><comment><USER35> I understand the world play, but perhaps it's a misunderstanding of Rusts name origin ? [https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/27jvdt/internet_archa...](https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/27jvdt/internet_archaeology_the_definitive_endall_source/) It's after a fungus [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_(fungus)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_\(fungus\))

<comment><USER36> Oh great, I can't wait to hear this "well, actually"[1] for the rest of my life.

[1] [https://www.recurse.com/manual#sub-sec-social- rules](https://www.recurse.com/manual#sub-sec-social-rules)

<comment><USER37> I was going to downvote you for a snarky response (I felt the reply explaining that Rust also has iron/oxidation references was a better response)...

... but that's a _really_ good link that you provided. I've never read that before & it's a great resource for thinking about how to behave socially as a programmer. While I don't agree with all of it, I love their "don't pile-on" and "don't bring negativity from outside" approach. (Plus I'm guilty of the 'feigning surprise' rule.)

+1 for the really excellent link.

<comment><USER38> Why are they talking specifically about _feigning_ surprise? Isn't the effect the same even if you're honestly surprised?

<comment><USER37> I think the effect is the same. But that's also why I liked the link - I'm sometimes honestly surprised, or seeking clarification (eg "So you really haven't heard of the Playstation 4.5 & Playstation VR? But I thought you were a PS4 gamer?"). But by expressing it as _feigning_ surprise, I understand that the other person feels I'm belittling or mocking them, even if that wasn't my intent.

For me at least, it was a better explanation than XKCD 1053: [https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's too bad this is written in Haskell. I don't have anything against Haskell, it is just not as popular a language as others.[1] Any ANTLR target language would have been a solid choice.[2] This way more of the community could contribute. This is an invaluable tool if we're truly going to see a shift from C (or C++) to Rust.

[1] [http://pypl.github.io/PYPL.html](http://pypl.github.io/PYPL.html)

[2] [http://www.antlr.org/download.html](http://www.antlr.org/download.html)

<comment><USER8> The author told me that one of the reasons he chose Haskell was that there was already great tooling around working with C source code: [https://hackage.haskell.org/package/language-c](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/language-c)

<comment><USER18> In fact they have explicitly documented it: [http://jamey.thesharps.us/2016/07/translating-c-to-rust- and-...](http://jamey.thesharps.us/2016/07/translating-c-to-rust-and-how-you- can.html)

> The only reason I wrote Corrode in Haskell is because I couldn't find a > complete enough C parser for Rust, and I was already familiar with the > language-c parser for Haskell.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Nanogallery2 – a JavaScript library for high quality image galleries - Kris-BB https://nanogallery2.nanostudio.org <comment> Kris-BB What do you think about this library? any feedback is welcome!</comment>


Square Debuts Monthly Pricing Option For Small Businesses With Zero Swiping Fees - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/16/square-debuts-monthly-pricing-option-for-small-businesses-drops-swiping-fees/

<comment><USER2> Break even point is $120,000 of transactions per year, if I'm doing my math correctly.

<comment><USER3> Which is almost nothing if you're any sort of business.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but it leaves a fairly small sweet spot. $120k through $250k you're saving money, but anywhere outside that you're paying the 2.75% transaction fee (or higher, if you're on this new plan and running less than $120k worth).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This mainly means that small businesses get a lower rate (1.32%) on their first $250k in sales. Meanwhile, it builds up good will and is great press. Seems like a sensibile move from Square.

</comment><comment><USER5> It would be nice if square automatically chose the cheaper option.

So I pay per swipe until I reach $275 in fees. After that, it holds steady until I reach the next point.</comment>


An itch I scratched: SnoozeTil - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jgc.org/2013/03/an-itch-i-scratched-snoozetil.html

<comment><USER2> For the command line inclined, I stumbled upon a gem the other day

<http://superuser.com/a/483464>

describes a function _sleep_until_ , which will wait until a certain time to execute following commands. It's great for ad-hoc delayed execution.</comment>


Ask HN: Inverse of SendGrid.com - <AUTHOR>

SendGrid replaces _outbound_ email infrastructure.  I'm interested in something similar for _inbound_ email.  The key is that I need to be able to create and delete accounts through a simple API.  The use case is that I want to setup emails as an intake to my app.  The emails will only ever be read by machines, so a full-featured hosted email solution is not necessary.  Rackspace offers a $2/mailbox per month solution.  A per/inbox price is probably not viable.  Something with (nearly) unlimited accounts where you pay more for more storage is much preferred.<p>(Why don't I just setup my own box?  A slick cloud service could potentially get me going much quicker.) <comment><USER2> SendGrid also has their Parse API which handles parsing inbound email.

<http://wiki.sendgrid.com/doku.php?id=parse_api></comment>


Man Has Memory Span of a Few Seconds - Terrifying/Fascinating - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/24/070924fa_fact_sacks

<comment><USER2> Clive's state of mind is perhaps the most tortured existence I can imagine.

</comment><comment><USER3> new article - old story; i could be wrong but i think that i've already seen this on reddit a long time ago.

Honestly I think reddit is where this story belongs too

<comment><USER4> I see more and more sneering references to reddit here lately. I wonder if this will turn into a cliche some day.

<comment><USER5> Reddit contains lots of sneering references to Digg. There is probably an elevated place somewhere that contains lots of sneering references to hacker news. But people like you and med don't know that place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Man Has Memory Span of a Few Seconds"

We have a term for this where I work: manager.</comment>


Show HN: The returns of $10k invested using the "Permanent Portfolio" - <AUTHOR> https://elviovicosa.com/permanent-portfolio/ <comment><USER2> It's cool! How can we know the exact Portfolio used for this calculations?

<comment><AUTHOR> On the bottom-right corner, you can find the symbols and their distributions.</comment></comment>


What If Fighting Climate Change Is as Easy as Giving Up Meat? - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/jonathan-safran-foer-vegan-before-six-climate-change-food-culture.html <comment><USER2> He says: _refraining from consuming animal products, argues Foer, is one of the most significant actions individuals can take to help prevent global warming, along with driving less, flying less, and having fewer children._

But, Agricultural production makes up 9% of our greenhouse gas emissions.[1]

The largest categories are: \- Transportation: 29% \- Electricity: 28% \- Industry: 22% \- Commercial and Residential: 12% \- Ag: 9%

As for individual action on climate change am I the only one feeling like things are so focused on beef production when, looking at the grand scheme of things you should start biking everywhere you go, quit taking flights across the country, put some solar panels on your roof and stop buying stuff you throw away?

Wouldn't each of those actions have, potentially, a far bigger impact on climate change than just beef reduction?

[1][https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas- emis...](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions)

<comment><USER3> Not to poke holes here but that link shows agricultural emissions with animal manure [aka feces] (14% of the 9%) and livestock ruminants [aka farts and other digestive processes] (~33% of the 9%). So, about 47% of that 9% is directly related to livestock with the remainder actually being from farming related to food.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you believe that the millions of plains bison that roamed the grasslands of North America led to topsoil reduction... you'd be wrong. Industrial feedlot and processing plant meat production is _nothing_ like meat should/can be raised. You just don't know it; you've been decieved.

If you believe that children raised and mentored by loving parents, training them to "move the needle" beyond what their parents were able to accomplish is a net negative to humanity and the biosphere... you'd be wrong. Sad little oppressed kids being primarily deceived by their "peers" and generally ignored by parents/teachers isn't education. You just don't know it; you've been deceived.

I'll deny the hateful, screeching, dark, negative dialectic of the climate apocalypsists all day long... because it's wrong. 7 billion humans caring for their family lands _can_ repair the planet; 7 billion downtrodden subjects of liberty- and wealth-robbing tyrant governments; not so much.

As for me and my house, we'll put on our hardhats and break out our engineering skills, and push back against the selfish, nihilistic "totalitarian impulse" of the ignorant elitists, sending ranting little girls to the UN in an attempt to deny us the ability and capacity to do the R&D that _actually_ improves our planet.

Let the down-voting begin... Don't be deceived, though; the smugly superior, soft-handed, flabby chattering political class who are ready, willing and able to sacrifice you to accomplish their little totalitarian redistribution schemes won't shed a tear when the time comes to march you up to the chopping block or execution wall.

Its only then that it'll dawn on you: they said they were loving and accepting of us, but they actually hated us. Your neighbors, however, love you and need you: exactly the opposite of what we've all been deceived into believing.

</comment><comment><USER5> > I think the best thing that we could possibly do is simply require meat to > cost what it actually costs. The price is heavily subsidized for the factory > farm industry, mostly to corn and grain, but also through not requiring any > environmental regulation.

This is the meat of it for me.

What I don't understand is that most activists seem to push the "regulation" angle, when perhaps the simplest solution is to just stop artificially reducing the cost of meat. If we simply stopped subsidizing dairy, corn, and other agriculture products and instituted a tax on methane pollution (start small and work our way up to an estimate of the damage it causes), we'd see a decline in demand for animal products. Or maybe we'll see some innovation in reducing the impact of raising meat products (I saw something somewhat recently about decreasing methane production for cattle by adjusting diet).

But no, we have this weird conflict between "climate change believers" and "climate change deniers", and both want to use government to force their will in different ways. It's weird because simply making things cost what they cost to produce would do more to help fix climate change than all of the bickering on both sides. This should be an area that liberals and conservatives can agree on: less government involvement in business is a conservative taking point, and ending agricultural subsidies is a liberal talking point, so why aren't we doing it? Let's cut oil subsidies as well while we're at it.

<comment><USER6> If we "just" internalized all the externalities then rich people would still eat meat, still drive, still fly, etc. while many people would have to give up those things. It might make inequality much more visible. There's also a moral angle that even "bad" people could "automatically" become green without having to change their minds about anything.

<comment><USER7> I already see that happening in places like new york and california. The most trendy resturants are the ones that flunt the green image, and charge you as much or more to be seen there as for the food.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you incorporate your web apps or register them as trademarks? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,
Let's say I have a company that has a portfolio of web apps like 37signals, do I need to incorporate every single app that I develop? Can I just register them as trademarks that belong to my company?
In other words, is it preferable to incorporate each web app as a distinct company/subsidiary, owned by my "main company" or is it better to just register them individually as trademarks that belong to my company?
What are the advantages/disadvantages?
thank you. <comment><USER2> From the 37signals.com footer:

 _The names and logos for Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and 37signals are registered trademarks of 37signals, LLC. The names and logos for Campfire, Ta- da List, Sortfolio, and Writeboard are trademarks of 37signals, LLC._

</comment><comment><USER3> Not speaking here as a legal expert or anything of that nature, but I can't think of a reason why you would make a different company for each app; there would be no need. Disadvantages there include lots of fees, paperwork, and headache.

<comment><USER4> If one app is particularly likely to invite trouble (e.g. Apple might sue your pants off), it might be a good idea to incorporate them separately so that even if that app goes bankrupt, all your other apps can completely ignore the blow. IANAL, but I know of companies that do such things for precisely this reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you are a company that makes apps, you should trademark those apps under your company's name. That's the most obvious and elegant way to do things.

If you're looking to separate a specific app from your company, whether to branch it out as a second company, to separate assets or to sell it off entirely, I would incorporate the app and trademark under that entity.

The advantage of the first is its simplicity. A disadvantage would be, like chc said, if you're sued, all of your eggs are in one basket of liability.

The advantage of the second would be legally separated liability. The disadvantage is paperwork and fees.</comment>


Android antipiracy cracked, Google says devs used it wrong - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/08/google-cracked-android-anti-piracy-system-used-wrong-by-devs.ars

<comment><USER2> No, Google said the devs could have done more to protect themselves. They used the code Google provided as an example and that code didn't do the job.

Nowhere do they say the system is uncrackable if you do it 'right'. Instead, they say the cracking job can be made more difficult.

And it's a good thing, too, because it's about impossible to create and uncrackable DRM and they'd be lying to say otherwise.</comment>


I am very saddened to announce that I am quitting Tor - <AUTHOR> https://shiromarieke.github.io/tor <comment><USER2> What we're doing in tech right now is extremely dangerous. We're mixing political correctness over fact finding (i.e. what she said as first shoot then ask) with technical competency.

Remember when we shot Brendan Eich and replaced him with a marketing dude and then wondered why Firefox is suddenly driven by marketing decisions?

The boundaries are pretty(I say pretty, because even here countries opinions differ) clear on what physical rape is, but the boundaries on what is considered harassment in a global world are EXTREMELY blurry. Don't ever forget that.

And before you start shouting that I'm defending Jake, I'm not, I don't even like the guy.

<comment><USER3> Don't be ridiculous. Eich couldn't be CEO if _for no other reason_ than that he didn't have a narrative ready for when people brought up his donation to a controversial cause. Seriously basic PR, and he wasn't up for it. No CEO.

It's the same reason Yarvin can't run a technical organization -- not because he's not technically competent (he isn't, but that's a different conversation), but because he can't help himself from flaunting his violent racism and undermining whatever it is that he's involved in. If he could manage to turn off his bigotry faucet, _maybe_ he could be trusted to run an actual project. Probably not.

Don't blame an increasingly inclusive and considerate culture for the continued incompetence of a bigoted few. It's not hard to do good technical work, but apparently it's quite difficult for these particular white men to manage without funding/advocating/practicing bigotry and sexism. That's on them, and every time you feel oppressed by "political correctness" a dozen or more people are feeling like they can participate safely for the first time.

<comment><USER4> > Don't blame an increasingly inclusive and considerate culture for the > continued incompetence of a bigoted few.

Don't confuse political correctness with tolerance. You might feel its more inclusive, but everyone still has a bias, even if its unconscious.

I'll think less of you if you believe in a religion, but I won't treat you differently outwardly for it.

EDIT: Also, I'm old school. I might not agree with you, but I will protect your right to free speech to the death, no matter how abhorrent it is (again, I do not have to agree with you to protect your rights). We are judged how we defend other's rights when we're in violent disagreement with them.

<comment><USER3> I feel like we might be talking past each other -- conscious vs. unconscious bias is a complex issue worth discussing, but is only tangentially related to complaints about political correctness, which are all demands not for free speech, but for consequence-free speech.

I am also intensely pro-free speech. As a concrete example, I am in favor of the right of people to discuss their displeasure with someone's (freely!) stated views, and to use that speech to encourage organizations to not give a platform to views they find abhorrent.

<comment><USER4> I don't think we are. My thesis is simple: everyone is biased, and we all need to tolerate each other. You can have your views, as long as your decisions are transparent when scrutinized by others to ensure your views (which others might consider abhorrent) did not come into play.

You don't want to take the pitchforks from one group, and hand them to the other.

<comment><USER3> Hrm. The idea that an arbitrary decision could be scrutinized in isolation to determine the amount of bias that went into it is... optimistic at best. Realistically it's willfully naive, and practically it serves to preserve the status quo of bias in the workplace and in society.

You talk pretty big ("I will protect your right to free speech to the death"!), but it's quite clear that you wont't actually defend anyone's right to free speech (unless they're discussing their own bigotry, in which case apparently we aren't permitted to freely speak against them).

EDIT: A simpler way to put it might be that the decisions you make regarding whose free speech you defend are obviously colored by your own unconscious bias.

<comment><USER4> > Realistically it's willfully naive, and practically it serves to preserve > the status quo of bias in the workplace and in society.

It's willfully naive to think that witch hunts will remove the bias you seek to remove.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If anyone could take the time to break down what this is about and why it's significant for those like me who are very out of the loop I'm sure we'd appreciate it.

<comment><USER6> I found this Wired article: [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiWnu6j5cbOAhVCxmMKHfvjC5IQFggeMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2F2016%2F06%2Ftor- developer-jacob-appelbaum-resigns-amid-sex-abuse- claims%2F&usg=AFQjCNHQFG5mkMDPLt05o461PoHVVwTq6Q&sig2=hEH0dZmdcNv4WAznNbF6lw)

Basically, multiple women accused Jake Applebaum, a big shot in the Tor community, of sexually assaulting them, and his ex-girlfriend (the OP) was made into a pariah for defending him. For what it's worth, if the accusations are true, it's not improbable that he would've refrained from being an ass to his ex-girlfriend. Brock Turner, the Stanford rapist, has a female friend who wrote a moving testimony to what a great friend he was.

<comment><USER7> > it's not improbable that he would've refrained from being an ass to his ex- > girlfriend

That's not what she says: "Still, I do have a weird feeling about many of these stories because they contain facts I know are wrong"

Remember that time a couple people accused Appelbaum of sexually harrassing a woman, and then she said that's not what happened at all? Yeah.

The sad thing is that I'm fairly confident that most of the stories are true. But they're mixed in with some real garbage from people who hate Jake for weird reasons, which makes them _seem_ less credible. Awful tactics.

<comment><USER6> I'm responding to the part in her email where she said Jake was a great guy who had always treated her right.

<comment><USER8> You misrepresented it as a basis for her position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't know if it's just me, but it seems like there is a bit of a trend lately to embellish or distort problems that can otherwise stand on their own as they are for reasons that seem anywhere from unclear to shortsighted to unnecessary.

</comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me of the 4ds: Disrupt, Degrade, Deny, Destroy

</comment><comment><USER11> I read the whole drama bomb which could be a high school aged spat as easily as the adults involved in the Tor project, but this stood out:

>To be clear I believe Jake has hurt people (which he has admitted himself) and didn't respect people's boundaries. I do not believe he is a rapist or a harasser and I am wondering what the people who started this campaign are trying to achieve.

Admitting he's abusive and ignores boundaries while at the same time saying that behavior isn't harassing or rape is some Grade A dissonance. There wasn't some conspiracy. This woman even admits the guy hurts people and disrespects boundaries. The fact she doesn't have specific details about a rape or other harassment is irrelevant.

She knows the guy has hurt others, and then thinks there is a campaign allied against him?

I'd want any person like _she_ describes removed from any communities I belong to, and not surprised the Tor Project decided the same.

<comment><USER12> Hurting someone and being abusive are not the same. It also doesn't specify they he ignored _physical_ boundaries (could he have been too clingy?)

<comment><USER13> > Hurting someone and being abusive are not the same.

Disrespecting boundaries and being abusive _are_ the same. _What_ boundaries differentiates between emotional and physical abuse, and in some cases between whether the abuse is merely an ethical issue or actually a legal issue, as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why is this "flagged"?

</comment><comment><USER15> this crypto-drama is giving me nausea</comment>


How Not to Sort by Average Rating - <AUTHOR> http://evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating.html

<comment><USER2> This was submitted four months ago. See the previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3792627></comment>


Facebook debuts AI tool to tackle revenge porn - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-debuts-ai-tool-to-tackle-revenge-porn/ <comment><USER2> It amazes me that so many people do this stuff and think so little about the consequences.

Personally, I'm glad my wife and I were in the generation before this became a thing.</comment>


Show HN: A Dynamic CSS Compiler for WordPress - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/askupasoftware/wp-dynamic-css <comment><USER2> Wow. Based on an initial review this looks amazing. Congratulations! This could come in handy for future projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Your feedback is important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting project and congratulations.

Seems like a simpler version of scssphp (and associated WP plugins based on it).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! scssphp as a fully blown SCSS compiler. It's much slower, and not intended for real time compilation on every page load. wp-dynamic-css on the other hand is lightweight and fast, and is perfect for generating stylesheets based on dynamic user data on the fly.</comment></comment>


Some Indie Facebook Developers Pulling In Over $700,000 A Month - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/06/some-indie-facebook-developers-pulling-in-over-700000-a-month/ <comment><USER2> I'll bet $100 this story is complete bullshit. It's in techcrunch's interest to publish "get rich quick" stories when in actuality the real story is "starve." I should know.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure how common it is for apps to be making that much, but I know one of the top apps is pulling in $5,000+ a day, and it's by an individual developer.

I was making around $150 a day from an app with 100,000 monthly active (90% were CPA ads with the rest being socialmedia), and there are a fair amount with over 5 million monthly.

<comment><USER4> I agree. I totally understand ojbyrne's scepticism, but after a number of conversations in the last couple months I don't have any trouble believing TechCrunch's claim. The question is whether the money is sustainable.

<comment><USER5> Does it matter if the money is sustainable? I only ask because there is a good chance that the cost to develop the app is much less than 500k. I would take a month of that kind of revenue and parlay it into capital for another venture if it stopped suddenly.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I absolutely agree. That's the attitude I see in developers. The apps that make money are often not very complex, so it's worth the effort even if the party doesn't last forever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some burger joints do the same, but I think I'll stick to not starting my own burger joint.

<comment><USER4> True, but if an burger joint run by one person started making that much money within several months of being conceived, I'd be at least a little bit interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The headline is quite misleading, suggesting a single "developer/hacker/coder/programmer" can make $700K a month. The reality is that they don't even name the firm that they reference as bringing in that 700k...

</comment><comment><USER8> Let's all run to that side of the boat because that's where the fish are biting.

</comment><comment><USER9> Potentially huge scalable rewards. I think nir said it well in the 'scalable vs non-scalable career thread':

"I realize how fortunate we are to work in software. It's one of very few fields where you can make a decent non-scalable income while at the same time (sometimes via the same actual product) being exposed to potentially huge scalable rewards."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=506039></comment>


So you want my job: Name Consultant - <AUTHOR> http://artofmanliness.com/2009/10/07/so-you-want-my-job-name-consultant/ <comment><USER2> After we raised our series A, the new investor insisted we change our name. The old name kind of sucked. We discussed it as a team for months - it was a pure time-sink, never getting to agreement, so looked into hiring a naming agent - I thought it would be like $1000, a full day workshop, beanbags, hit the bong...... I contacted a namer and it was like $45k....WTF....$45k for a fucking name. I tried haggling, and she brought her fee down to $15k, but this would be for a list of 10 names.

Fuck that! I pushed through my favorite name and moved on.

<comment><USER3> these type of prices are common in the old world of business.

I know a non-profit, that paid $30,000 for a logo and a tagline, and thought they got an awesome deal, since the going rate is like $150,000.

<comment><USER4> That's an OK number since it likely covers more than _just_ a logo and a tagline, but rather a full brand, positioning and identity definition.

But $15K for a name alone is an overkill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Seems like an interesting field - specialised, yet creative, and demanding core business skills as well.

Just one thing - surely he put Network Solutions in there as a red herring trap for young players? Why, oh why would you name check URL availability with a provider notorious for squatting?

</comment><comment><USER5> The bay area seems the nation's capital of naming consultants, too. Here's an old article from Salon about some of the agencies:

[http://www.salon.com/media/col/shal/1999/11/30/naming/print....](http://www.salon.com/media/col/shal/1999/11/30/naming/print.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great article - thanks. Naming is all over the news down under at the moment because one of our most beloved brands - Vegemite - just released a new product and called it 'iSnack 2.0'

Truly a name chosen by a committee only because nobody hated it ... nobody except the consumer.

<comment><USER6> I still think it may have been all a joke made by someone who had never tried one before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Coming up with the right name for a variable or a function can easily become the most difficult part of my day. I always wanted to open variable and function names consultancy.

<comment><USER8> if you get stuck, just do the objective c thing: aInt, anArray, aXMLFile, etc. Still fairly generic, but still useful and easy to read (vs single letter variables or random things. Worse comes to worse, you can also just make a sentence out of it.

<comment><USER4> I sometimes have a problem coming up with variable names of the same length so that they would align nicely in a struct declaration :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _I didn't have to listen to people in market research groups ramble on and on about their ATM usage or what kind of features they wanted in a mobile phone._

</comment><comment><USER10> Seriously, if this is the kind of thing you're outsourcing, you have major creative problems.</comment>


India police arrest 'world's cheapest smartphone' firm boss - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-39074037 <comment><AUTHOR> In other news, the phone looks like a possible scam: [http://www.androidauthority.com/4-dollar- freedom-251-smartph...](http://www.androidauthority.com/4-dollar- freedom-251-smartphone-sketchy-674506/)</comment>


Ask HN: What do you call this style of front-end design? - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone,
What do you call this kind of front-end designing?
http://www.polygon.com/a/xbox-one-review# https://www.apple.com/30-years/
(where scrolling unveils the content/photos/text)
Thanks!
- K. <comment><USER2> I've seen it called a couple things, but many people refer to it as a "curtain" effect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Very helpful.

<comment><USER2> Quick and dirty, and the image-sizing could be improved, but here's a proof-of concept on one way to accomplish it.

[http://jsfiddle.net/4EYh4/](http://jsfiddle.net/4EYh4/)</comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: If I ran Twitter, this would be my business model. - <AUTHOR>

I may be crazy for doing this post and may be missing something very obvious, but I can't help feeling Twitter itself doesn't realize how big a part it can play in social discovery.
These days, most of the information you come across is through your social network and this will only increase. The articles you read through HN or Reddit or those new FB Open Graph Media Apps.
But Twitter has always been the best at spreading news fast. It literally feels like wildfire. And yet, they have made no effort to monetize this aspect. I see Twitter as this micro publishing tool for anyone with an account. People with a lot of followers,  especially celebrities get paid huge amounts for certain tweets promoting products. But why does it matter how many followers you have? If i was Twitter I'd be applying the Google Adwords mixed with an Affiliate program model.
People could pick and choose ads they wanna feature within their tweets or for those who don't websites could link your twitter account to every time you tweet one of their articles, and just like a Google Adwords ad, you would get paid for any one who clicked your tweet and linked back to the website. This is what Dropbox does in a Referral program way where you have your unique link and every time someone signs up you get additional free space.
This is true Klout, because that is the most important information to a brand. Today, anyone can become a referrer of information, you don't even need a website anymore, and Twitter should really look at linking the referrers to media websites or big brands or SME's that work with Google. They should treat each individual account as Google treats a publisher with a website. Instead of brands doing Google Ads, i think they would much rather compensate real people doing it in real time within their sphere of influence. Today, if Paul Graham tweets something with a link, lots of people will click it, so why shouldn't he be compensated for that?
But What do I know? <comment><USER2> You are missing so many things very obvious that I don't even know where to start.

1\. Twitter is already doing ads, and they are not sharing revenue with their users. 2\. Why would Twitter share revenue with users when they don't need to? 3\. There have been a handful of companies that tried to do something like what you described. 4\. Letting users generate revenue messes with the value of the network itself.

... and a ton more reasons.

<comment><AUTHOR> Google used to do ads and then stared sharing revenue with Publishers. Would love to know more about the other companies doing what I described and why they have not worked.</comment></comment>


German cows cause methane blast in Rasdorf - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25922514

<comment><USER2> Headline should be "humans putting too many cows in one shed cause methane blast".</comment>


Test load speed of your pages and identify trouble spots with Visual Round Trip Analyser - <AUTHOR> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd188562.aspx?pr=blog

<comment><USER2> Dupe :) <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=349078>

<comment><AUTHOR> oops :-(</comment></comment>


Python 3.7.0rc1 and 3.6.6rc1 are now available - <AUTHOR> https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2018-June/153882.html <comment><USER2> A nano-feature I kept complaining about on the list got in 3.7, datetime.fromisoformat :-D

[https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/datetime.html#datetime.d...](https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/datetime.html#datetime.date.fromisoformat)

Turns out iso 8601 is a lot larger spec than people realize. "Perfect is the enemy of the good," prevented this function's inclusion for almost a decade, sigh. This one handles the majority usecase and can be extended later, if need be.

<comment><USER3> You are the nano-hero the Python community deserves right now.

<comment><USER2> *Sung to the tune of "Juke Box Hero" from Foreigner.</comment></comment></comment>


Secret Service confiscates computer of "People Staring at Computers" creator - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/#!/kcimc/status/88956546972778496 <comment><AUTHOR> I guess the secret service is now tasked with tracking down "computer fraud"? - - says Kyle: the warrant was served because the site violated 18 USC section 1030</comment>


Ask HN: Help with our UI - <AUTHOR>

We've tried a few different times, & still trying to get it right. Would love your thoughts on the UI of the "my feeds" section at http://genjuice.com. <comment><USER2> For me personally I like vertical feeds arranged in rows, it helps to visually separate the items in peoples minds. There is long standing association with row = new item, column = data for row item. This goes back even further than computers and into pure mathematics, so it is culturally engrained. Honestly even if you made each box an banner image style rectangle that took up the three positions and kept it the same height, i would probably be more usable that current form. In saying that, design wise it does look nice, but you are going against some pretty engrained HCI and Human Factors.

<comment><AUTHOR> I admit we have not considered the idea of one image per row, and it's definitely worth testing because it gives each content item more space for a stronger excerpt. Thanks for this!</comment></comment>


Wuppertal Suspension Railway - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Suspension_Railway <comment><USER2> The Tokyo area has two suspended monorails. Chiba's [1] is well known. It's a big, heavy-duty system in an urban area. Less known is the Shonan line in Kanagawa Prefecture.[2] It's a single-track system with passing sidings at stations. This line was crammed into a suburban area, and there are lots of turns to get around obstacles. The support columns are in odd places. That's the monorail dream, to be able to put in a system without severe impact on the area. It's worth watching the video to see how that worked out.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOsJrU5XUIw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOsJrU5XUIw) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvgTr37v0EE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvgTr37v0EE)

<comment><USER3> I recommend everyone who's visiting Tokyo to take a trip to Enoshima and use the Shonan Line to get there. Enoshima is a scenic tiny island and there's a long beach. Great in summer, when there are firework festivals.

Japan also has some great non-suspended monorails. For example the one in Kitakyushu (I love the station architecture) or the one in Naha, Okinawa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In the german wikipedia article are some interesting details and stories. Once there was an accident where an elephant travelled with the Schwebebahn and fell in the river Wupper; not kidding.

Also, there is a Simulator for Windows, OS X and the Wii U: [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwebebahn- Simulator_2013](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwebebahn-Simulator_2013)

<comment><USER5> Even the english wikipedia has information about the elephant Tuffi: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuffi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuffi)

<comment><USER6> It's despicable that animals can still be abused anywhere for show and that Wuppertal's tourist department makes money off Tuffi but probably doesn't donate it all to animal causes is the icing on top. Steve-O at least got paid for the abuse and had a choice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I made a side trip to Wuppertal when I visited Köln because I'm a monorail enthusiast.

The system was amazing for its time and its safety per passenger-distance is quite good for rail.

It was full of schoolchildren heading home at a leisurely pace, suspended over the river.

I had forgotten that you have to disembark at the end station so that the cars can be manually pushed onto outbound rail. I got some puzzled looks when I didn't de-train right away.

<comment><USER8> Are you a monorail enthusiast because you think monorails are fun or because you think they genuinely have their place in a transit network? And if so, why?

<comment><USER9> Wuppertal is a basically in a narrow valley surrounded by steep hills (think SF steep). Building a train atop of the river was very space efficient and probably much cheaper than digging a subway on groundwater level. Also it doesn't interfere with other vehicles. Last but not least, the Schwebebahn is just a very enjoyable ride.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The railway is wonderfully featured in Wim Wenders' movie "Pina" (an homage to choreographer Pina Bausch).

<comment><USER11> Recommend this film? Was unaware of it love Wings of Desire

<comment><USER12> It is visually stunning. Though it's basically talking head reminiscing about Pina intercut with clips dancing so not a narrative film.

Also it's on Netflix in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Heh, I was just riding on a train from Hamburg to Frankfurt and passed Wuppertal, looked out the window and saw a suspended upside-down monorail cruising over a river. Googled for 5 minutes before finding this.

</comment><comment><USER14> I wonder why more of these weren't built.

<comment><USER15> I've ridden this - I now know why. The infrastructure required to elevate a hanging rail is immense. In Wuppertal they get away with it with large portions of the track hanging over the local river. Wuppertal doesn't seem to want to give their Schwebebahn up: they are replacing the existing cars soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's more of a Shelbyville idea.</comment>


Email Is Not Broken - <AUTHOR> https://kevq.uk/email-is-not-broken/ <comment><USER3> > Spam is by far the biggest problem

It's not. The biggest problem is big email providers such like Gmail.

<comment><USER4> It is related.

You can't easily run your own mail server because the hurdles you have to overcome to not land in gmails (outlook, etc.) spam folder - or even get delivered at all. DKIM, SPOF, a good IP range.

Then your server itself will be exposed to spam and might make it a lot less fun to use.

The big ones are not playing nice with smaller ones because of spam.

<comment><USER5> I have a couple of dedicated servers in colocation and run my own email server. It's taken more than two years of having all recipients clicking "not spam" and applying to anti-blacklists, ensuring DKIM,SSL Et cetera to actually obtain a decent success rate.

Google, Microsoft really are the destroyers of the internet.

<comment><USER6> That is so true, but for gmail/hotmail try that:

Gmail:

[https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126?hl=en](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126?hl=en)

Hotmail (register as sender):

[https://sender.office.com/](https://sender.office.com/)

And a good spamtest:

[https://www.mail-tester.com/](https://www.mail-tester.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is a small number of things which, I believe, should be done to make email great again:

1\. Deprecate the 7-bit stuff and make UTF-8 the default codepage.

2\. Give up the practice of overquoting (including full text of previous messages into each message - clear message ID and relation tracking is enough).

4\. Ban antivirus etc software signatures - misleading statements saying "the message has been checked by an antivirus".

5\. Standardize the way inline pictures are attached.

6\. Stop prepending countless prefixes like Re:Fwd:RE: in the subject line

7\. Give up the practice of discouraging subject specification omission - <USER2> leads to uninformative, irrelevant and misleading subject fields in many cases when subject changes, is not clearly defined from the beginning or is hard to describe concisely

8\. Standardize supported HTML&CSS subsets.

9\. Add support for MarkDown, AsciiDoc or some other lightweight markup.

10\. Disallow quoting an forwarding of decrypted versions of previously encrypted content by default.

<comment><USER8> > 4\. Ban antivirus etc software signatures - misleading statements saying > "the message has been checked by an antivirus".

Many of those "antivirus companies" are selling usage data that they obtain via pixel tracking. Explaining this to someone who uses such "antivirus" is like explaining the difference between the web and the internet, those users don't want to understand the difference.

<comment><USER7> How to implement the changes I listed is a separate question. A sufficiently influential organisation (like Google, Apple or a consortium of internet service providers) interested to do this could succeed easily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Email is an enormous market with probably thousands of use cases. I share his perspective that email (for the most part) isn't broken FOR ME. B/c the way I use email is pretty straightforward, it's basically another messaging platform for my life. But I have a ton of friends that would kill for better email clients b/c they have different use cases. And instead of killing, they are paying for Superhuman, Hey, Front, etc. I always appreciate a different perspective, that was an insightful read, thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wonder what the chances are that Hey eventually renames the Imbox. I don't think it's going to be a cultural phenomenon and I think they'll probably get tired of writing "Imbox (not a typo)".

<comment><USER11> The direct proximity on a Qwerty and the non-obviousness of the pun makes it a rather odd name of choice. Something more directly different like the "Inbag" (because a "bag" is less personal and office-like than a "box", I guess) would have been a neater name, personally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think it's appropriate for a service that allows you to permanently block senders, to make those senders know they couldn't reach you. It's just like if someone calls you and you never answer the phone, they leave you a message. They assume you got the message. But in this case, you don't. I think there are some things for what you'd like to be notified if someone could not receive your email.

</comment><comment><USER13> Email for interacting with clients (customers) has kind of replaced the phone as the most important channel for businesses.</comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone know any human chat dataset of dating? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You might want to start with the personal ads in Craigslist. It's not quite "normal", but it's a start at least.

<comment><USER3> I think a competition for "world's sketchiest chatbot" is now past due to exist. Even better if we can the contestants talk to each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What for?

<comment><AUTHOR> To train a ML Algo on it.Obviously</comment></comment>


The web has fallen under the influence of a bad crowd - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/333501f2-43d4-11e9-a965-23d669740bfb <comment><USER2> non-paywalled: [https://outline.com/BPZ3Uh](https://outline.com/BPZ3Uh)</comment>


Hi, we're Den - <AUTHOR> https://getden.co.uk/story/ <comment><USER2> "The idea

One night, whilst studying for his GCSEs, Yasser our CEO came up with the idea for Den because he didn't want to get out of bed to turn the light off."

I'm sorry, but if laziness is the underpinning of Den, then I'm afraid you've lost me as a potential customer. Perhaps consider reimagining your inception story.</comment>


Amazon's Queens HQ Meets Resistance: 'We Will Make It Impossible for Them' - <AUTHOR> http://gothamist.com/2018/11/15/amazon_protest_queens.php <comment><AUTHOR> _But longtime residents of Long Island City are far less optimistic. "It's pure bullshit. They're never going to hire us for these jobs," Raymond Normandeau, a resident of Queensbridge Houses since 1973, told Gothamist. "Only a country bumpkin like de Blasio or Cuomo would believe this shit."_

Indeed.</comment>


Ask PG: What is the patent status of Common Lisp? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious to know if software patents could be used against Common Lisp itself, either in terms of language features, or in compiler technology used in implementations.
Common Lisp itself was funded by the US taxpayer through DARPA, but unfortunately that doesn't necessarily make it public property.
Through funding programs like SBIR, you can get the taxpayer to fund development of your software and software patents for your private corporation, and exploit them as if you'd paid for the research out of pocket---even sell the whole company (patents and all) to offshore buyers.
For all we know, Common Lisp compilers could be vulnerable to patent holders in other countries. What would be interesting is to chart what happens to the all the public-funded technology SBIR has cranked out in its several decades, and see how much of it goes overseas.
It would also be interesting to know if the public funded various parts of CL implementations (especially in university environments), and under what terms.
(A note: I do not yet know if any of the funding for Common Lisp specifically came through SBIR, nor whether the Bayh-Dole act applies to it. But I'm considering a research article on the subject.)
A few relevant links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act
http://www.economist.com/node/5327661?story_id=5327661&no_na_tran=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Business_Innovation_Research <comment><USER2> Common Lisp is mostly over 20 years old and thus any patents would have expired. Advanced compiler or GC techniques could infringe recent patents, but that doesn't have much to do with CL _per se_.</comment>


Apple's iPad Pro reviewed - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3053068/ipad-pro-review <comment><USER2> > Apple, however, rates the Pencil's rechargeable battery for only 12 hours of > use

This sucks. Why not use technology similar to graphics tablets with embedded LCDs: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_tablet#Embedded_LCD_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_tablet#Embedded_LCD_tablets)</comment>


Substituting Google Reader for some IFTTT magic - <AUTHOR> https://thelab.o2.com/2013/03/substituting-google-reader-for-some-ifttt-magic/

<comment><USER2> This is a nice idea, and I love IFTTT, but it doesn't substitute Google Reader for most people. First, as pointed out, it is setup on a per RSS-feed basis. But still, take 50 or 100 feeds and you'll very quickly have a problem over too much information to handle. Google Readers deals with this well, but if you pile it into Pocket, it will be difficult to sort and track your reading, and your normal Pocket saves will be buried below mounds of RSS-articles that you may or may not want to read.

To me, the beauty of Google Reader (and iOS apps like Reeder) is the ability to sift through a lot of incoming information and DEAL with it, e.g. send it to Pocket, Pinboard, Evernote, etc. I'd actually wish Google Reader was even MORE optimized for dealing with large and quick information flows (such as - why can't I feed it Twitter feeds, or any page with/without RSS?). And the reader should do some pre-filtering or guesses on wheter the articles is of interest to me or not.

<comment><USER3> > To me, the beauty of Google Reader (and iOS apps like Reeder) is the ability > to sift through a lot of incoming information and DEAL with it, e.g. send it > to Pocket, Pinboard, Evernote, etc.

Exactly. I skim over 90% of my feed marking as read after glancing at it (for high-volume feeds e.g. "planets" the title is enough to know whether I want to read it or not), read 9% of the incoming content directly in the reader, and send the 1% left either to my browser or to a "read later" service for deferred reading later on. My incoming queue gets handled at once, a few times a day.

Shoving all that into a "read later"? Not going to work.

<comment><USER4> If you "skim over 90%" you might want to just try unsubscribing for a week or two and see if those 10% really matters to you?

<comment><USER5> A large number of my RSS feeds are subscribed exactly for the purpose of skiming. They fall into a couple catagories:

* Sources of headline level knowledge - basically things I note just to keep my brain up on things to search for later should they become relevant. Also useful for the occasional underreported story I'm actually interested in.

* Light reading - there are a ton of comics and blogs that I enjoy for light reading at the bus stop or whatever, enjoyable but really just skimming, or other not-deep forms of reading

* Feeds with occasional _good_ content - basically i don't care about most of these articles, but they provide a gem often enough that I should monitor their content.

And various combinations of these. Product blogs or project blogs are good examples of this. I want to know when the new version is out. I don't care how they solved problem X, but the problem Y writeup may really interest me.

<comment><USER3> Spot-on on all points. Also of note, there are "noisy" pre-aggregated feeds out there which are useful for discovery of new authors or blogs, but have content wildly varying in quality or interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yeah - let's replace one platform we don't control with another we don't control either...

I thought Google Readers would have learned a lesson : don't depend on services that can be yanked from under you on a whim !

</comment><comment><USER7> I discovered IFTTT today and would love to have a use case, I find the tech amazing.

But this might be a bit ineffective. I subscribe to a good amount of feeds, and on a good amount of items I don't read much more than the title... I don't need to be charging up my phone with a bunch of articles I wouldn't read through instapaper.

On a side note: the article mentions reblogging reblogged posts or whatever... is there some sort of loop detection for IFTTT?

<comment><USER8> One of my friends has his Google Reader feeds matched using ifttt to a IM in his GTalk account. So every time a new article arrives at google reader, he gets a ping from email@example.com .

Take a look around at the sample recipes. IFTTT is a super-powerful tool to play around with.

One of my side projects is to hook up ifttt as a webhook service.[1]

[1]: <https://github.com/captn3m0/ifttt-webhook>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is just using ifttt with _one particular RSS Feed_, which does not substitute Google Reader at all.

If there was a way to link up ifttt with a opml, or maybe a way to create a new feed out of OPML, that might work.

</comment><comment><USER9> Oh come on...

>> Password is too long (maximum is 40 characters)

</comment><comment><USER10> moretoitsurely do you reside in Bath Road top floor? Greetings from 2EE51.</comment>


Bypass all corporate Internet filtering at work, without admin rights - <AUTHOR>

DISCLAIMER: Doing this may be against your employer's policies and may lead to discipline and/or termination. Pursue this at your own risk.
Unfortunately, this requires having root on a server that is associated with a .com domain that is not blocked by your corporation's proxy/firewall.
1) Set up your SSH server to listen on port 443.
2) Install corkscrew. If you are on Windows, Cygwin's install has a --no-admin option you can pass from the command line, which will allow you to install it to some local directory. Once you have Cygwin, you can install corkscrew with no problems.
3) Set up ~/.ssh/config to route all outgoing non-local SSH connections over corkscrew to port 443 on your .com.
4) Run an SSH tunnel via corkscrew through your server on port 443.
5) Set up Firefox to use a local SOCKS5 proxy through your tunnel, making sure to check the DNS prefetching checkbox.
6) Browse away.
What is happening here is that the firewall/proxy will not block outgoing HTTP connections to port 443 on a non-blocked domain because they look like a normal web browsing request. Since you are routing SSH over HTTP (using corkscrew) and accessing the default HTTPS port (443), your SSH connection will look like a regular HTTPS request to a website. Since your connection is encrypted, it is undistinguishable from normal web traffic, and it is highly unlikely that it will be blocked unless someone specifically looks into your traffic patterns and is sharp enough to recognize it (nobody has every caught me). None of port blocking, protocol filtering, or DNS filtering will be able to block your internet access (unless you leak DNS queries, which you will not if you use Firefox.)
I believe that this is foolproof and have had 100% success with it so far. If anyone can see any flaws, please comment. Otherwise, considering the plethora of partial solutions I found while establishing this method, I thought I might contribute my final workaround here. <comment><USER2> _" If anyone can see any flaws, please comment."_

If you get caught, you'll probably get fired. If your company is bureaucratic enough to have internet filtering, they'd probably take this kind of unauthorized circumvention of their policies rather seriously.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hence my disclaimer at the top of my post.

However, having been a software engineer at multiple Fortune 500 companies that don't even allow their software engineers local admin rights or relaxed proxy filtering - things that we need to do our jobs - I've had to use this workaround to, well, do my job. Sometimes there's a patch or a workaround for an esoteric bug on someone's private blog that you can't access because it's on a .nl domain and your workplace blocks all .nl domains unless specifically white listed, and it would take you weeks to file and get approved a request to get it white listed.

If you happen to be at a company that doesn't trust you to be on the internet and to administer your own computer, this is one way you can use to access what you need while you look for a better place to be employed. I've found it useful and thought I'd share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why run the risk of getting fired? Just use your smartphone and data plan to get to a blocked website. Most companies don't jam cellphone transmissions, or make you work inside a Faraday cage.

</comment><comment> noir-york Web filters doing deep inspection on the HTTPS traffic should catch this I believe - using a fake cert to decrypt the HTTPS.

<comment><USER4> You'd have to bypass a nasty warning from your browser before this could happen.

<comment><USER5> Not on a company machine that has the root certificate installed, which is standard procedure if you deploy a system like that.

A really good IDS might be able to catch tunneled traffic purely by looking at the traffic patterns, but I don't know how corkscrew works exactly and if such detection is possible without creating too many false alerts.</comment></comment></comment>


Q&A With Mt. Gox's Karpelès: What Went Wrong? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/06/27/qa-with-mt-goxs-karpeles-what-went-wrong/ <comment><USER2> Let me remind everyone that Karpeles is an established liar and a convicted computer fraudster, and will obviously say or do anything at this point to clear his own name.

[http://newslines.org/mt-gox/joins-linux- cyberjoueurs/](http://newslines.org/mt-gox/joins-linux-cyberjoueurs/)

[http://newslines.org/mt-gox/convicted-of-computer- fraud/](http://newslines.org/mt-gox/convicted-of-computer-fraud/)

Again, what ultimately convinced me of Karpeles' character is that he paid his IRC support staff to lie to users. The support staff didn't realize they were being paid to lie, but they were certainly lies. They were being paid to tell users, "Yes, all of your coins are safe and secure" while Karpeles was drafting his Mt. Gox crisis report: [http://www.scribd.com/doc/209050732/MtGox-Situation- Crisis-S...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/209050732/MtGox-Situation-Crisis- Strategy-Draft)

Once Mt. Gox was hacked in the aftermath, a log of their trading activity was leaked. In that log, there's evidence of an Mt. Gox trading bot that had been operating for a long time, buying up bitcoins in order to inflate the price.

[http://willyreport.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/the-willy- report...](http://willyreport.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/the-willy-report-proof- of-massive-fraudulent-trading-activity-at-mt-gox-and-how-it-has-affected-the- price-of-bitcoin/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7796748](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7796748)

At this point, I don't think Mt. Gox or Karpeles deserves any further attention, except as a warning that even the largest Bitcoin exchange can fail, which is why you must store your bitcoins in your own secure wallet, not any third party service.

EDIT: Also, Mt. Gox lost at most 386 bitcoins to malleability: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7482451](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7482451)

<comment><USER3> The willy report was quickly debunked as being FUD.

Those bots were just the dark pool bots that larger players paid Mt Gox to buy large amounts of Bitcoin on a drip feed system over time so as not to spook the markets.

<comment><USER4> > The willy report was quickly debunked as being FUD.

Could you expand on this? I'm really interested.

<comment><USER5> The sort of bot he's describing would be designed to mask large purchases and prevent them from sucking all liquidity out of the market temporarily or spiking prices.

Let's say I want to buy 500 BTC at $1000 (to make the math easy). I wire Mt Gox half a million bucks, and try to buy up 500 BTC all at once. This moves the market massively because that's a sizable chunk of existing sell orders. To prevent this, I could instead buy a few BTC a minute for the next couple of hours and I wouldn't drastically shock prices or be as notable. Prices would still move upwards (because more demand in the network) but they wouldn't spike. Or Mt Gox could keep a floating reserve, I could pay a free to lock in the price and move the money around internally to Mt Gox, and they replenish that reserve a few BTC at a time (taking on price risk if their reserve is depleted when prices are high, but making profits if they wait to refill that reserve until prices are in a trough).

Note that I have no evidence this is the case, I'm just trying to explain what he claimed was the cause.

<comment><USER6> This kind of stuff certainly happens in the capital markets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Q: Why didn't you hire experienced professionals? A: We tried, but we didn't have money and also often they turned us down. A former Financial Services Agency bureaucrat approached us once last year, but he declined our offer at the end."

I'm pretty sure what happened here is a professional was interested in helping out, got a look at the books and ran.

<comment><USER8> Someone somewhere is thanking his stars that he had the sense to run, and didn't get caught up in this criminal prosecution.

<comment><USER9> I regretfully can't tell you the context, but suffice it to say the following was once said in Tokyo: "I do not want to be one of the 100 closest gaijin to that office when shit goes down." (The Japanese immigration agency is occasionally - oh wait they still have my renewal form at the office? - zealous in their execution of their statutory duty to remove undesirable foreigners from Japan.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For me the underlying question is still: was he initially just incredibly incompetent, or always a scam using incompetence as a cover?

Even in the case of just pure incompetence, there was a failure of ethics/law in how problems were handled, but if it was just incompetence fundamentally, bringing in a good partner early on might have saved it.

<comment><USER10> At the limit, I'm not sure those two are distinguishable.

There was a story a while back about a law firm that discovered its escrow account was empty, even though it should have had millions in it. Turns out a legal secretary had gotten caught up in a Nigerian scam. She started out sending a small amount of her own money. They'd tell her they just needed a little more and then she'd get it all back plus a lot more. As she got deeper in trouble, at some point she started "borrowing" from her employer. Incompetence led to pressure that created ethical failure.

My guess (as uninformed as anybody's) is that Karpeles started out merely incompetent and with underdeveloped ethics. As he got in deeper, he just focused on trying to stay out of trouble in the short term. That led to massive snowballing of problems. His very modest helpings of competence and ethical backbone were quickly overrun, demoted in priority to the same level as getting enough niacin in his diet. The best liars I know aren't people who know that they're lying; they're people who focus on saying what you want to hear while ignoring entirely what the truth might be.

For those unfamiliar with the Dunning-Kruger effect, it also seems relevant here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)

<comment><USER11> Seems likely, any references that support your theory? Many people on /r/bitcoin and such places seemed to think that he outright stole it, but could be pure speculation (I didn't follow the story, don't take my word for it).

<comment><USER12> This is because embezzlement is rampant in the Bitcoin space, e.g.: Inputs.io, TradeFortress, MyBitcoin, Silk Road 2.0, GBL, I could go on. Embezzlement, as in you get "hacked", oops, we lost everyone's money, everyone move along, nothing to see here.

Anyone who thinks Mark Karpeles isn't guilty of embezzlement at a minimum - MINIMUM - just isn't viewing the situation in light of the massive amounts of operator fraud that have historically taken place, not to mention copious amounts of evidence suggesting Mark Karpeles' talking points have been entirely fabricated from the beginning. Remember, he stole over a _billion_ dollars: 850,000 * 1200. He only relinquished control of 200,000 of those 850,000 after being called out on it by the community. At this point the legal system is the least of Karpeles' worries.

<comment><USER13> Why would he want to be a laughingstock digital billionaire under police scrutiny in bankruptcy court when he's already a successful business owner with tens of millions? It really doesn't make sense that he up and decided to steal them. If he did it he'll die having spent less of his stolen fortune than he would have spent of his legitimate fortune.

Seems a lot more likely he's an idiot who got in over his head.

<comment><USER12> Sorry, but your line of thinking takes for granted that criminality doesn't pay. On the contrary. Having a hidden fortune is more valuable than having a pubilc fortune, objectively in that you pay less taxes and forego frivilous lawsuits and subjectively in that you can walk around less paranoid of kidnappings. Second of all, there's no way to stop Karpeles from mixing his coins. People who don't have much experience using Bitcoin are often operating in the PayPal model, where it takes a trusted third party to spend your money and even if not, the other person is known. In the Bitcoin space, there is no trusted third party, and if your coins are mixed and you and the other person are behind Tor, there's effectively no identifiable information involved in the transaction.

Embezzling Bitcoins is the perfect crime. As has been mentioned already, Karpeles has a history of computer fraud, so embezzling digital money would be right up his alley. He had the means, motive and opportunity to do so. When you consider the rampant embezzlement in a historical context ... it's pretty much case closed. Your argument boils down to "this time it's different". Also, laughing stock digital billionaire? Sorry but there's no such thing as a laughing stock billionaire. I'd take a billion knowing it would make me the "laughing stock" of the world, and so would anyone with a brain.

If the community hadn't called Karpeles out on using transaction malleability as a fictional excuse for losing 850,000 BTC, and we had all believed Karpeles, he would in all likelihood be looking at Japanese bankruptcy court followed by a lifetime of traveling the world with a hidden fortune rivaling Satoshi's.

<comment><USER14> If embezzling Bitcoins was the _perfect_ crime, there wouldn't be an active police investigation.

<comment><USER12> There isn't an active police investigation, not in Japan at least. In Japan, there are bankruptcy proceedings scheduled, and absolutely no police investigation into embezzlement that anyone knows of.

A court requested Karpeles appear in Texas to face possible charges for criminal wrongdoing, but again, this was only after he had been called out by the wider Bitcoin community for fabricating excuses. FYI: Karpeles turned down the offer.

Fact is embezzling Bitcoin has unquestionably _been_ the perfect crime for everyone who has attempted it. Karpeles made copious amounts of errors on his way to embezzling coins, and there's still people out there like yourself that would allow him to get away with it. Imagine if he had been anonymous. Imagine if he hadn't used the transaction malleability excuse. Imagine if the MtGox private database hadn't been leaked. Imagine if there were no investigative reporters in the wider Bitcoin community! Again, if that were the case, which thankfully it has not been the case, Karpeles would be looking at simple Japanese bankruptcy proceedings followed by a lifetime of world travel with a hidden fortune rivaling Satoshi's.

<comment><USER14> > A: The police are investigating the case so I won't be able to say much. But > if asked, I'm willing to show any bitcoin entrepreneurs how I did it wrong, > so they won't repeat the same mistake.

Is this part of the interview a lie then? I'm seriously asking, I don't know and you seem to have some information as to this aspect. It seems like a silly thing to lie about in an interview though.

 _there 's still people out there like yourself that would allow him to get away with it_

I'm not sure what you are talking about, but you seem to be projecting some argument on to me that I haven't made. I was simply calling out a bit of hyperbole.

 _Imagine if the MtGox private database hadn 't been leaked. Imagine if there were no investigative reporters in the wider Bitcoin community! Again, if that were the case, which thankfully it has not been the case..._

Exactly, there's quite a bit of scrutiny and investigation at this point. Hardly what I would call the perfect crime.

Also, aren't these bitcoins traceable to wherever they are eventually used? Is it really that good of a crime when a) you'll forever face public scrutiny (to varying degrees) by people with a vested interest in recovering the money, b) may have an investigation as to your conduct, and c) your stolen money is forever traceable?

<comment><USER12> That part of the interview alludes to Karpeles claiming he was "physically attacked" causing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses no doubt.

I only meant to imply that many have read this WSJ interview without any historical context.

At this point, there may be scrutiny, but just a few months ago, people all over the place were claiming the US government must've seized MtGox's funds. If you look at @magicaltux's twitter feed, he even tried to fan flames on that government conspiracy theory in the same tweet where he began fabricating the excuse of being "physically attacked".

To anyone who hasn't been following the MtGox fiasco since mid-2013, which is when MtGox first started having "liquidity issues", it may very well seem like Karpeles has been charged with fraud. No, that isn't the case. Karpeles has been screaming "Transaction malleability" (BS), "US government stole it" (BS), and now "Physical attacker stole it". The Bitcoin community actually went along with each of Karpeles excuses, but public opinion has just recently began to spell out FRAUD, loudly and repeatedly. There is still no criminal investigation of Karpeles for fraud, just a lot of loud people screaming it on the Internet, because it is obvious and because it has happened so many times before in the Bitcoin space.

The truth is, Bitcoins aren't traceable if you know what you're doing over Tor. Anonymous spending is very much possible. Running a Bitcoin exchange with a proprietary database and large shared wallet with thousands upon thousands of BTC in it, is actually the perfect vehicle for coin mixing and I would be shocked if Karpeles didn't mix in personal BTC withdrawals over his years of running MtGox. It's really simple, transfer BTC into an exchange account with fake or no identifiable info attached to the account, wait a bit, and withdraw fresh coins. With judicious use of Tor, you have fresh new coins, and the original coins are tumbled around a gigantic shared wallet. There's just no practical way of linking BTC addresses to your identity if you know what you're doing.

<comment><USER14> _The Bitcoin community actually went along with each of Karpeles excuses_

I haven't been following the bitcoin community reaction, but from what I remember reading here, most people seemed VERY critical of his explanations of what happened.

 _The truth is, Bitcoins aren 't traceable if you know what you're doing over Tor_

Do you mind explaining this a bit? My understanding is that there's a trail of all transactions (transfers, I guess) of a bitcoin, so there's some tracking of the history of the funds. If it's a matter of mixing small amounts into larger shared wallets, it seems like what's needed (if it doesn't already exist) is a curated list of known bad bitcoins. If there was a public service to check whether the source bitcoin is blacklisted (or what percentage it's blacklisted, if mixed into a larger wallet), then sites accepting bitcoin trasnfers could make decisions on whether to accept it or not. This obviously would only work if a) people were willing to accept this list as bad, b) doing the legwork of tracking the history of a coin back isn't too computationally expensive, c) it was adopted soon, before the coins got too mixed in and how "bad" they are is diluted. It's then in your best interest to reject bad coins because it taints your wallet.

But maybe I've got a few assumptions in there that are completely bunk. I'm mostly an outsider to this.

In any case, the fact that bitcoin has a trail built in seems like it offers numerous ways to reduce the attractiveness of stealing them by making them harder to convert into goods and currency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think there's definitely some sort of reality distortion field in Mark's head - that or the interview's been heavily edited.

Thankfully I never had any money in MtGox, but comments like "I learned a lot, but I lost a lot" and "I always worried about 'What if all the bitcoins were gone?'" really make me think he never did and still doesn't understand that he was responsible for half a billion dollars of other people's money.

I just don't comprehend his attitude. He's posting pictures of kittens on twitter. It's just... odd.

<comment><USER16> Even his own mother seems to think so.

 _"(Mark's) communication at a personal level is catastrophic. It's always been difficult to get him to speak. We tried to get him to be more extrovert"_

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/21/us-bitcoin- mtgox-k...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/21/us-bitcoin-mtgox- karpeles-mother-idUSBREA3K01J20140421)

She does believe her son is honest. I imagine most mothers might be slightly biased towards that judgment.

I think we will be finding out more information about what actually happened at Mt. Gox for years to come.

Who has the rights to the movie?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Did anyone look at the site for that other company he was talking about?

On its about page, it says:

"""

Tibanne Co. Ltd. is a Tokyo, Japan-based corporation founded in 2009 by Mark Karpeles, a young technopreneur with more than 15 years experience in software development, network administration and business development. Mark is well- versed in multiple programming languages, has a strong background in network security, and is well-known in the tech community.

Tibanne specializes in web hosting, application development and system management. We are currently engaged in the research and development of new and existing services to produce innovative solutions for our clients.

Our team is comprised of talented Japanese and international staff hailing from many countries, disciplines and specializations.

"""

What the fuck? What is wrong with this guy... I gotta admire his shameless self-promotion. I'd be hiding under a rock if I were him, not banking on my ruined reputation for my other company.

I wonder what else there is to this story

<comment><USER18> _a young technopreneur with more than 15 years experience_

I can't decide if I'm more annoyed by a) being both "young" plus having "15 years experience", or b) "technopreneur."

<comment><USER19> What's wrong with a? In another two and a half years I'll have 15 years of programming experience and still be well below the average age on this site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > We tried, but we didn't have money and also often they turned us down. A > former Financial Services Agency bureaucrat approached us once last year, > but he declined our offer at the end.

This is disturbing. For an organisation that promoted itself as a focal point for Bitcoin trading, claiming to be the largest, what does this mean for the other exchanges and services out there? Are they all running on just hopes and dreams?

Overall this article is quite light and it would have been nice to see more questions asked. It seemed rather softball. Like where were the questions about his falsifying of his employment history? How did he go from running a gaming service (not Magic, but Ragnarok Online) to running a currency exchange?

These questions should be asked and they should be asked in a hardball sort of fashion.

<comment><USER21> _Are they all running on just hopes and dreams?_

Well, yeah. Being the "biggest" puts you in a good spot to ride out the growth of bitcoin, but bitcoin is currently tiny. All the exchanges are tiny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> _Q: Why didn't you hire experienced professionals? A: We tried, but we didn't have money [...]_

Says the CEO of a company that 'lost' $500MM worth of bitcoins.

I think the mere fact that he's still not in prison suggests that he retained at least enough of the 'lost' coins to bribe a few people...

<comment><USER23> I'm not sure I follow you. The money that they lost (scare quotes or not) was not theirs, it was their users'. It's not like they could use it to hire someone.

<comment><USER22> In 2013 MtGox collected on average $150k USD in transaction fees. Per day.

On peak days, such as 1st December 2013, MtGox collected up to $1.3MM USD in fees.

That is money they could have used to hire someone.

Karpeles claim of 'we had no money' is not just laughable. It's an open slap in the face of everyone who lost money to MtGox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would love to hear Karpeles explain or deny the "Willy" bot theory, because for me it's still a bit of mystery whether it was an attack or a built-in attempt to dig his company out of a hole.

</comment><comment><USER25> _Q: What were your mistakes? A: Security._

I still can't wrap my head around how someone decides to do a startup around bitcoin and doesn't make security their first priority from the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER26> > Right now, it is so easy to use it for illegal activities, such as money > laundering

Hmmm. Freudian slip?

</comment><comment><USER27> What went wrong? "They trusted me with their bitcoins."

</comment><comment><USER28> so did he take all the bitcoins for himself?

</comment><comment><USER29> Well there was a complication during his birth that caused extended oxygen deprivation, and he'll never be quite right his entire life. Then people gave him millions worth of their savings. That's what went wrong.

I actually happen to think doing interviews with him, struggling to explain the unexplainable is quite pointless. It's cruel entertainment. It's like asking a baby why are those pants pooped.

<comment><USER30> Are you creating multiple throwaways _just_ to troll users on this site? [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mantraxC](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mantraxC) [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=mantraxB](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=mantraxB)

<comment><USER29> Oh come on, I have _one_ post that's been substantially negatively modded and the little nerd detectives are coming out of their basements to shower me with their investigation insights.

Yes, Sherlock, I have a few accounts, but I do it because the site is so coded that it's easier to make new accounts than to remember my passwords. So sue me.

Why aren't _you_ creating throwaway accounts. Are you here for the achievement badges? Building a legacy? To leave your children one day or something.

I happen to think points are earned so they can be wasted from time to time. It keeps life in balance.

The purpose of me posting is so I can say what I want to say, I don't care about the scores. Most often they're positive, from time to time they're negative. So be it.

And if I wanted to create throwaway accounts, I wouldn't do so with _the same name and easily identifiable suffix_ , so you can then nag me about it, genius.

Those previous accounts all have a positive score, by the way. But since for the first time ever, I was coerced into a rant, I guess this one's a first. I've _never_ went off topic on NewsHackers. You made me do it, so congratulations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "I wish I had five of me..."

So that the train wreck would have been 5x as bad?</comment>


ACLU suing US over law that could let software discriminate by race or gender - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/29/aclu-sues-justice-department-software-discrimination <comment><USER2> Good luck with winning that lawsuit. Overturning that law would literally make hacking for profit a free for all.

It would be ironic if the ACLU were to be hacked, just to show why the law is in place.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are suggesting, maybe, that there is no more hacking for profit any more..?

Corporations have always had a lot of sway in writing laws, but this is ludicrous - corporate policies have effectively become law.

<comment><USER2> Obviously not suggesting that.

The law in question is "No unauthorized access or entry to computer systems"...

<comment><AUTHOR> You know a lot of corporations that give authorized access when they screw up? Every scandal or expose is a result of unauthorized access.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Steve Jobs or Bill Gates: Who Will Be Remembered 50 Years from Now? - <AUTHOR> http://techland.time.com/2012/07/02/steve-jobs-or-bill-gates-who-will-be-remembered-50-years-from-now/

<comment><USER2> Trick question. Answer: neither</comment>


Ask HN: Is it me or does this captcha suck balls? Can't decipher  - <AUTHOR> https://www.elance.com/php/landing/main/forgotUsername.php

<comment><USER2> captcha sucks !</comment>


Chimps and the Zen of Falling Water - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/chimps-and-the-zen-of-falling-water

<comment><USER2> it's motion without action, sound without content.

that might just be soothing in general</comment>


Scala actors for the enterprise: Akka framework - <AUTHOR> http://blog.xebia.com/2009/10/22/scala-actors-for-the-enterprise-introducing-the-akka-framework/

<comment><USER2> The next generation enterprise system (the next JBoss if you want to go for it) \- JVM based \- distributed multicore 2-3 nodes => 32 - 96 or more cores \- pluggable/dynamic/module substrate OSGI - Felix, Karaf \- Components written in Scala \-- w liberal use of Actors, some STM as well \- Paxos based node coordination and eventual data consistency \- The majority if not all data in memory, check pointed on SSD. \- Cluster of N nodes survives failures and keeps on chugging. 2F + 1 = N

Akka starts down this path

RRacine</comment>


Ping rabbitmq cluster when load balanced by haproxy - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@shreyagarwal/ping-rabbitmq-cluster-when-load-balanced-by-haproxy-2ceec03ad35b#.kpw0f4tm4 <comment><USER2> Or you could just use 'aliveness-test' via the HTTP API: [http://hg.rabbitmq.com/rabbitmq-management/raw- file/rabbitmq...](http://hg.rabbitmq.com/rabbitmq-management/raw- file/rabbitmq_v3_3_4/priv/www/api/index.html) (scroll to the bottom)

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies if I did not understand your comment. This is for AMQP connection. The problem was not the availability of rabbitMq node but keep alive of amqp connection.</comment></comment>