U.S. looking at banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-china-pompeo/pompeo-says-u-s-looking-at-banning-chinese-social-media-apps-including-tiktok-fox-idUSKBN2480DF <comment><USER3> It is absolutely foolish for any country other than China to allow TikTok within their borders.

You might fairly ask whether or not it is equally foolish for non-US countries to use US services. I think that is also a reasonable question, and deserves reflection.

<comment><USER4> I'm not from the USA, but if I can choose if the USA, or China gets my data, I will choose the USA everytime.

Sure, America does a lot of shady stuff, but the situation in China is just way worse in pretty much every way imaginable.

<comment><USER5> Yes, although you're more likely to be extradited from most of the West to the US than to China. So if you're a dissident against the US you may be safer using Chinese technologies.

<comment><USER6> What does this even mean? Being a dissident is allowed in the US going by google's definition. What's not allowed is stealing a bunch of shit and then giving it away to foreign nations like Snowden did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What would it mean to "ban" an app? Would they force Apple and Google not to distribute it? Would they set up a national firewall?

<comment><USER8> Just ask the app stores to ban them. The US couldn't do anything more sophisticated right now, and that would solve most of their concerns.

<comment><USER9> Has there been any precedence of US banning an app/website without some clear violation of law?

<comment><USER10> This is a national security issue.

<comment><USER11> To be crude, I don't think someone in China seeing my TikTok videos is a national security issue.

This interference with the free market is about politics, not security.

<comment><USER12> > I don't think someone in China seeing my TikTok videos

Leaving aside mechanisms and policies, this is _not_ about seeing videos, this is about the invasive amount of information TikTok collects from devices it runs on.

<comment><USER11> I don't think someone in China getting my GPS history, or my browsing history, or my mother's phone number is a national security issue, either.

<comment><USER13> Yours? Probably not.

But it isn't about you. We already know that social media can be, and is, used to track details by nation states on all sorts of things, from the movement of individuals of interest, as well as things such as estimating the population of military bases, discovering military operations, etc.

A foreign government having access to all of that data for a huge portion of the population is 100% a national security risk.

<comment><USER11> Then ban military people from using it, problem solved.

This level of paranoia looks more like the Soviet Union[1] than it does like a free country.

[1] Where you couldn't even buy a map, because heaven forbid, foreign spies might use them to compromise... National security. They might learn the distances between the army base, and the hospital, and then who knows what diabolical plot they may hatch?

<comment><USER14> If I'm not mistaken the US Military has already banned the use of TikTok.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> All this will do is validate that banning each other's social media apps is a legitimate thing to do, all you need is sufficient justification.

The usual reason for tit-for-tat trade restrictions is to punish the original restrictions and try to coerce the other side back to a free trade position. That can't happen in this case, the CCP will never allow foreign social media in China, so it would end up with a permanent mutual ban.

Either we believe that freedom of communication is a paramount principle that should be protected, or we don't and we think it's ok to interfere with it for 'national interest' reasons. Our national interest reasons might differ from theirs, but we'd still be validating that banning social media is an acceptable step to take depending on the circumstances. I realise this poses a problem because letting Chinese social media into our markets creates risks but if they operate in our markets they have to follow our laws and our standards. Playing the game their way by their rules is a losing strategy. We need to get a lot more creative on this.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is such cancer. I didn't expect that trade wars and centralized app stores would lead to this, but here we are.

Think back to 1999-- could you imagine if China had made Napster, the USA would block your access to download and use it? We would all just laugh at how easy it would be to get around it

<comment><USER17> Sure, but with Napster I mostly get movies and songs I want, for free. Viruses too, sure.

With TikTok I get bad choreography.

I don't see a lot of people trying to get around firewalls for that.

<comment><USER18> That's... actually an interesting thought experiment.

Let's say the US "bans" TikTok. Younger users around the country then install various VPN clients and learn a bit about security. This in turns leads to an overall more environment for US security services to perform mass surveillance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Well China has banned FB Twitter, Google etc. a decade ago

<comment><USER20> Many countries have banned some or more services (especially uber and the like received many bans). But even if others didn't, it seems like a very weak argument to me.

<comment><USER21> Very few countries have banned to the extent of what the CCP did, walling off completely their internet. The CCP can't complain to get a taste of their own medicine here.

<comment><USER20> > Very few countries have banned to the extent of what the CCP did

That's true, but the start of "they block our apps we should block all of them" seems to weirdly be china, but the argument is usually presented as a general obvious conclusion. I am very much in favor of banning apps that violate local laws and unfortunately that's what china does. So it's more the laws I don't like, not the ban in general. But this prevents me from accepting those bans (edit: banning them because they are chinese) in my (non-us) country.

> The CCP can't complain to get a taste of their own medicine here.

Sure they can. Everyone regularly complains about receiving their own medicine, including china and the us. But that's not the point.

The point is holding yourself, your nation and other nations to your actual standards, not to some arbitrary standards of others. I want my government to enact regulation that benefits the citizens, such as privacy regulations, and enforce it, I don't want them to use nebulous national security regulation to do whatever they want.

If possible, it should be clear what the requirements are so people can fulfil it. I really dislike arbitrarily enforceable laws where possibly everyone is in violation.

<comment><USER21> > If possible, it should be clear what the requirements are so people can > fulfil it. I really dislike arbitrarily enforceable laws where possibly > everyone is in violation.

I do agree with that, these kind of retaliation laws have to be codified and be precised. But that's not something uncommon outside of tech, countries will implement trade sanctions if they also face trade sanctions from other markets. Banning apps owned by the CCP seems a fair approach regarding on how they behave.

<comment><USER22> Does this hurt the CCP? No. It only hurts ByteDance and its investors , which are mostly private entities; while the CCP gets to gloat that look told you, they are no better than us.

<comment><USER21> There's no independent large private company in China right now anyways, ByteDance is controlled by the CCP just like any other large Chinese company (tech or not).

And decisions like this do help to hurt the CCP, it reduces the reach of Chinese tech companies.

<comment><USER22> The CCP high officials don't really care about anyone but their own relatives and cronies, while your assumption is mostly right as in the cases like Alibaba and Tencent, ByteDance isn't exactly like them, it has a kind of autonomy and internationalization those companies wouldn't dare to dream of. ByteDance isn't as beholden to the party as those two since it's a startup capitalized on the app economy, it's growth is organic, didn't rely on government policies and protection.

In fact ByteDance already has blockbuster app killed by Chinese authorities.

<comment><USER21> All the large companies are used for diplomatic purpose internationally by the CCP, ByteDance being that successful won't escape it. Basically they will have two solutions, either move out of China or obey the CCP like the other ones, there's no option to be independent in China.

And as the private investors, well, they will soon learn how the CCP works...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is more of the protectionism/mercantilism/nationalism stuff. Sure, there's a B-story for it but it's all seated in revanchist nationalism and a tropish "suspicious foreigners" framing.

If someone made a villainous fu manchu character people would rightly protest it as intolerable. Yet when we actually instrument official government policy based on the same sentiments that the character is based on nobody even reaches for the pearls to clutch.

Once again, fiction and symbols are somehow more important to the political imagination than material reality.

<comment><USER24> > If someone made a villainous fu manchu character people would rightly > protest it as intolerable.

Asian stereotypes in media is pretty well tolerated.

<comment><USER23> it's been toned down enormously. Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's as Mr Yunioshi for instance ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb3gdUrIC4Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb3gdUrIC4Q)) this used to be common. The Flintstones, for instance [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ8lGDLARME](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ8lGDLARME) ... it was bad ... really bad.

If something like this was made today and the people somehow ended up in court over it, I'd probably think "well, they saw that coming"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This sounds like a protectionist move from the United States, than anything else.

TikTok appears to be the first China technology media company, that can actually make a dent in the universe.

It wasn't WeChat from Tencent. Nor anything from Alibaba; I don't think they're in the media space. Nor search from Baidu. Nor Sina Weibo for tweets.

I can't think of any other Chinese media company, that can actually make an impact, on the world, just yet.

Perhaps the USA government is trying to kill this fledgling company, while it's still small. It still hasn't reached the prevalence of Facebook or YouTube or Twitter yet.

The funny thing is, for a while, TikTok was trying to discourage political content. Just stick to fun dance moves. They tried to tell their users to keep that vile political stuff to Twitter and Facebook; and then, they got criticized for censorship. LOL.

</comment><comment><USER26> The CCP bans so many apps, websites and other western technology, so this seems like a reasonable action just on that alone.

And given how bad TikTok is with user data (mostly minors too), I don't see how banning it would be a bad thing.

There will be American or western clones within days that replace it.

</comment><comment><USER27> This would be a good moment for the EU to reassess it's dependency on American apps like Whatsapp.

If even the US starts openly blocking apps because they think it would be better for a local competitor to fill this part of the market it should be a wakeup call for the EU.

</comment><comment><USER28> Tencent owns 40% of Epic Games ... shall we ban Fortnite as well then and make all the kids play Minecraft since it is wholly owned by a US company ???.

<comment><USER29> I think yes. If china is isolating itself from the internet, its only fair to not allow china to participate in the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you view digital contents as industrial goods, the internet today which allows apps, services to flow around the world without much burden (e.g. tariff, import control) is already a miracle. It's no surprise of countries to start building "customs" on the internet and that may become a trend considering the deglobalization happening these years.

</comment><comment><USER31> Did anyone analyze the traffic sent out by this app and found something not- nice?

<comment><USER32> Yes, [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok- lawsuit/tiktok...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok- lawsuit/tiktok-accused-in-california-lawsuit-of-sending-user-data-to-china- idUSKBN1Y708Q)

<comment><USER33> This report lack a lot of technical information. What counts as "personal information"? What did they send exactly? Is sending app analytics count as personal information? Why don't you hold American software companies to the same level of rigor?

Case in point, almost all apps on my Android phone snoops on my "personal information"; Google literally knows where I am all the time; Facebook SDK snoops on the apps I use, and justify the collection of the data with "better personalization of services"; WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) vacuuming contacts off my phone; LinkedIn snoops on my clipboard etc.

<comment><USER34> Made a (very) brief scan of the filing. The notable personal information mentioned: phone/social network contacts, MAC, IMEI, IMSI, device serial #, browsing history, cookies, "metadata", location. Pretty par for the course. (I'm not sure "browsing history" and "cookies" is correct, at least on Android versions after KitKat.) I believe you'd need to give permission for most (all?) of these before you download the app, or when you run it the first time.

The filing also makes these claims regarding video uploads:

>Once TikTok users click the "next" button, but before they click either the "save" or "post" buttons, their videos are transferred from their devices to the following domain owned and controlled by Defendants: [...]

Not very damning.

\---

In the end, the concern is solely that the Chinese government may have access to the data, or may be able to upload exploits to users. This may be a reasonable fear. But people need to stop pretending TikTok's data collection is somehow worse than that of any other data-hoarding apps (Snapchat, Facebook, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Are super-platforms such as FAANG and BATH(Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei) Army, Navy, Air Forces, & Marines proxies on the digital layer?

It certainly seems like the world is bifurcating between FAANG and BATH for that reason.

</comment><comment><USER36> How would this be implemented?

Delisting from AppStore? Or ask ISP to ban tiktok domains? Or both?

<comment><USER37> In India they did both.

<comment><USER29> Citation Needed

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How much money is an American teenager or user, making from TikTok?

Is TikTok doing revenue sharing with the content creator?

If so, then this ban is just going to smack these American end users in the face.

</comment><comment><USER38> I like Chinese tiktok "for you" recommendation than YouTube's recommended. Tiktoks reco is like yeah I will watch that, most of the time I am like thanks. Keep recommending like this. Youtube is like, algorithm thinks it has figured me but it's sort of showing me the same old videos like it's new. I will throw my data to China.

<comment><USER39> Why should someone expressing their honest feeling get downvoted? Just because it looks like his sympathetic with the "evil" Chinese?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> So it is not ok for a foreign app the spy on its user but it's perfectly ok for Google and co to do so? Anyone remember what Uber did with their app and tracking users? What about the king of tracking, facebook?

<comment><USER41> There's a quite a large difference between Google spying and China spying. When Google "spies", users get more relevant ads. When China spies, people get into "Vocational Education and Training Centers" and other bad things happen.

Chinese spying is like 10000 times worse in practice.

But in theory, when dealing in absolutes, there is no difference, both are spies.

<comment><USER27> Let's be honest: Google has been known to be in bed with the NSA and other agencies as well. It's very disingenuous to pretend Google only serves you ads but has no relations to the US national intelligence community but Chinese apps do.

<comment><USER42> the difference is that the US is using spying to stop people from doing illegal things. China is using spying to silence/monitor anyone who disagrees with it's government.

Yes, both countries are definitely spying on people via social media apps. But what they're using it for is different.

<comment><USER27> Both governments use spying to stop people from doing things _they made illegal_ in their countries.

I'm not here to argue the Chinese government is better than the US one. It's absolutely and unquestionably worse.

But from a perspective in Europe they're both foreign governments that I have no say in and that are not here for my best interest.

<comment><USER43> If you really have European interests at heart, you would be banning both American and Chinese apps to give room for your incumbents to rise.

<comment><USER27> I've made that argument a few hours ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23755863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23755863)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Even a stopped clock's right at least once a day.

</comment><comment><USER45> Trump administration banning an app that has allowed for worldwide social mobilization against him? No way.

</comment><comment><USER46> Zoom, WeChat too

</comment><comment><USER47> You can hear the 8 minute Pompeo interview here:

[https://www.foxnews.com/media/mike-pompeo-tik-tok-china- comm...](https://www.foxnews.com/media/mike-pompeo-tik-tok-china-communist- social-media-spying-fox-ingraham)

Covering a wide range of topics. Mostly it sounded like Pompeo getting ready for the upcoming election.

</comment><comment><USER48> Will US abolish all other Chinese digital presence including Alibaba etc?

<comment><USER49> The US government almost certainly doesn't have the power to do that. (It's not tremendously clear how they'd even be able to ban Tiktok; they'd have a hard time getting Apple and Google to take it off the app store and an impossible time convincing Internet providers to block it.)

<comment><USER50> Since the beginning of the "tensions" with China people keep pushing the same key: "the government cannot do this, they don't have the authority, the constitution blah". And every time they have been proven wrong, as Trump has established travel bans, restricted visas, put people in concentration camps, imposed tariffs, and who knows what they will do next. People that keep pretending that freedoms are not eroding are just exercising wishful thinking.

<comment><USER51> >Trump has ... put people in concentration camps

Am I missing something here? What are you referencing? I'm not sure I understand.

<comment><USER52> ICE detention camps, presumably.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Welcome to dictatorship. Government will now start to ban all kinds of apps they don't want.

<comment><USER53> If some apps coming from other countries are riddled with spyware, is that dictatorship or common sense?

<comment><USER41> It is kind of dictatorship. US could achieve the same effect without banning, eg by forcing stores to display warnings to users about where their data and what data is being send. That would be a reasonable compromise between freedom and safety.

<comment><USER54> It's like saying we should allow unregulated fentanyl sales on the streets as long as drug dealers provide a disclaimer to the addicted.

<comment><USER55> Many would argue that yes most definitely we should allow sales of any drugs people want to consume.

Personally I have no problem with people killing themselves with fentanyl, meth or whatever. Knock yourself out. State resources are better spent doing other things. US drug war caused more misery then drugs and most of the police issues are directly related to laws on drugs they are told to enforce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> core-questions So this is how it's going to happen - with every country banning each other's social media apps, we will enter into a future of digital borders, limited speech, and broken international relations. All in the name of making sure people don't dare think some wrongthink.

<comment><USER56> I think the issue has nothing to do with it being Chinese, but with the extent at which it swallows up data on Americans. Why even bother sending spies to another country and making plans for infiltration when you can get them to download a full spying suite under the guise of social media?

The problem is this opens a whole new can of worms regarding Facebook and other American social media. Other countries are equally justified in banning them for the same reason.

<comment><USER57> >I think the issue has nothing to do with it being Chinese, but with the extent at which it swallows up data on Americans

But it's A-ok when NSA powered/hijacked/collaborated U.S. social media companies do the same to the rest of the world?

I'm pretty sure PRISM didn't just get dismantled after Snowden.

>Why even bother sending spies to another country and making plans for infiltration when you can get them to download a full spying suite under the guise of social media?

Because espionage involves more than just digging up information that is _voluntarily_ put out on social media? I mean if you upload the blueprint of a stealth fighter onto TikTok/Dropbox/Instagram/whatever the fault is yours don't you think?

<comment><USER9> This is just classic whataboutism. You should be careful of all of these companies as well. But you can't really equate the rule of law in both the countries in good faith.

I really doubt criticism of Covid-19 handling lands you in jail in US. [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/worl...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/world/asia/china- detains-xu-zhangrun-critic.amp.html)

<comment><USER58> >But you can't really equate the rule of law in both the countries in good faith

Yes you can't because Americans aren't subject to Chinese law. What do you think is going to happen, the CCP send their best assassin over to get you because they didn't like your cat video?

You've got more to fear from the FBI trying to get into your iphone if they suspect you of a crime than a foreign government that doesn't have any jurisdiction over you.

this is just plain old populism and sinophobia and has nothing to do with privacy

<comment><USER13> >Yes you can't because Americans aren't subject to Chinese law.

China certainly disagrees with you. Just look at the new Hong Kong NSL - <USER2> claims jurisdiction over every person on earth for offenses defined to vaguely as to be meaningless. This obviously has horrific effects for the people in Hong Kong - protesters are already being threatened as being national security threats for having a protest where they did nothing but stand still and hold up white paper - but also chilling effects for anyone who might ever visit Hong Kong, the PRC, or any country friendly with or afraid of the PRC, especially if they have an extradition treaty.

The law had been used to ban pro-democracy books and arrest democracy activists in Hong Kong within a week of its passing. Piss off the PRC enough and go on a trip to Thailand, and you might end up in a Chinese prison for the rest of your life, because article 38 covers any action by any person, no matter where they are and wether or not it was legal where they were. It was illegal in Hong Kong, so you're fair game if you're ever within their legal net.

While the FBI has more power over me day to day, I am not afraid of them arresting me for being a proponent of free speech or democracy. If I was someone who traveled more frequently in those previously mentioned countries, I certainly would be.

<comment><USER58> Hong Kong is part of China. Obviously going to China when you're a well known dissident is playing with fire. But I don't see what that has to do with banning apps from the app store for regular US users? This isn't actually news. Their are currently European and American citizens under arrest in Turkey, or Saudi Arabia say, has the US taken any Turkish apps from the app store?

Or for that matter has the US currently banned any Russian apps, probably the most notorious country when it comes to cyber-attacks on the US and arresting if not even killing dissidents?

It's a total non-sequitur, it's got nothing to do with security. It's an appeal to the increasingly rabid American population to deflect from covid or the general state of the country. It's the new 9/11\. Just start accusing China of random things and hope everything else goes away.

<comment><USER13> >Hong Kong is part of China. Obviously going to China when you're a well known dissident is playing with fire.

Up until VERY recently, you would have zero reason to fear being a political dissident in Hong Kong. That's kind of what these protests have been about.

For the NSL in specific, the problem is that it's no longer just a 'You can get disappeared in China', but a 'You can get disappeared in a significant portion of Asia on China's behest', because there is now a law that applies to you, even if you're an American citizen, and China has extradition treaties and huge amounts of power to exert political pressure on other countries.

Two months ago, if I was a vocal critic of the PRC, I could travel to Thailand without concern. Today, I cannot.

My point was primarily about your comment of "what is the prc gonna do send assassins?" \- being on the PRC's bad side is dangerous in ways that might not be readily apparent, unless you plan to just never travel to many countries.

As for whether or not the app could be a national security threat, we already know social media apps can be used for all sorts of intelligence gathering purposes. Outside of the obvious, social media GPS data has been used to track specific people via interactions with others, even if their phone was not "compromised", it has been used to estimate the number of soldiers stationed at military bases, and it has been used to detect training and other military operations. Not exactly the sort of data you want to hand over to a foreign country.

<comment><USER58> TikToks data isn't being handed over to a foreign country as they've gone to pretty big pains to separate the Chinese business, which is actually on an entirely distinct app, to the tiktok service precisely for that reason.

And hilariously enough in that GPS case, if I remember correctly the two offenders were Strava and Fitbit, which are American companies, who happened to just throw that information out to the public.

If you're concerned about the safety of Americans the point from the first post still stands, you're more likely to have your elections undermined by Facebook and CA than by the CCP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I wish EU would done some with WeChat

nobody cares really about TikTok, it's childish thing, but amount of data WeChat harvest is ridiculous and it honestly stops Chinese abroad from integrating with locals, if they keep communicating again just with Chinese within WeChat. if they were forced to use proper international apps with E2E encryption they could discuss whatever they want without sacrifing privacy

I see it here, you have local Chinese living in EU still talking in WeChat groups under control of Chinese government which knows every word they talk</comment>


The connections in autistic brains are idiosyncratic and individualized - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/01/the-connections-in-autistic-brains-are-idiosyncratic-and-individualized/

<comment><USER2> Here ([http://www.haaretz.com/life/science- medicine/1.624782](http://www.haaretz.com/life/science-medicine/1.624782)) is another study, incidentally also from an Israeli university, where they find no anatomical differences between autistic and non-autistic ones. It can't be both -- one of them must be wrong.

<comment><USER3> Anatomical differences are macro-scale, while connective topological differences are very micro. The article mentions that the connective differences are not associated with anatomical differences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just because you are different, or "more individualized", doesn't mean it's good. You don't see cancer patients with unusual tumor called "individualized". Same here.

"Individualization" can mean that the person is not adjusted to the surrounding people because of some defect in brain's response to other people, for example.</comment>


Redox OS Crash Challenge - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/redox-os/redox/issues/1136 <comment><USER2> Rust being advertised as a safe language (which is true) got so much into the user's heads that they think if they write it in Rust it's safe and crash free by default. There are plenty of security/safety bugs that aren't about dereferencing a null or accessing invalid ptr.

No cynicism intended, just an observation from what I see around.

<comment><USER3> > Rust being advertised as a safe language (which is true) got so much into > the user's heads that they think if they write it in Rust it's safe and > crash free by default. There are plenty of security/safety bugs that aren't > about dereferencing a null or accessing invalid ptr.

> No cynicism intended, just an observation from what I see around.

The difference is what happens when a bug is encountered. If it is caught and panicked upon, then that is safe predictible behavior that cannot be exploited into something like privilege escallation.

<comment><USER4> I remember when all the same arguments were made about Java, which led people to ignore the possibility of memory leakage and privilege escalation, even though both those things are common problems with idiomatic Java.

For instance:

Swing recommends you register callbacks all over the place, but those cause otherwise dereferenced windows to stay live from the GC's perspective (this is a general problem with the callback pattern, not swing).

Java serialization surfaces all sorts of private methods to outside processes via the reflection APIs, which is even easier to exploit than arbitrary memory stomping in C.

Practically everything can throw a null pointer exception, and all generics code can throw ClassCastExceptions. Writing all the error handling logic for this is at least as hard as restricting yourself to a memory-safe subset of C++ templates. If you miss an error handling case, an attacker can use that to escalate up to increasingly high level invariant violations in your code.

Basic things like "final" have ill-defined semantics with multithreaded code (final fields can change value, even without reflection).

I don't know Rust well enough to know which classes of these bugs it has (and I doubt the Rust community really does either—-it took the Java world a decade to notice some issues like the above).

With the exception of the "final" problems, I think fixing any of the things I listed reduces to solving the halting problem, or giving up on using turing complete languages.

This makes me skeptical of many claims coming from Rust proponents at the moment.

<comment><USER5> > I don't know Rust well

That is one problem and i don't want to attack you. This is something Rust needs to work on! Rust is indeed a relatively hard language to learn and understand and it is not really clear from the beginning nor in the intermediate level if its worth the effort. I can only speak from an empirical standpoint. Time showed – to me and maybe i am the only one – that i have fewer bugs in general, especially in the late stage of development. Rust tends to feel a little viscid in the beginning but it catches up later where you don't try to find a race condition in a 100k cloc Program. Rust has a good way to reason about your program especially in a multi threaded environment. And this is where Rust is fundamentally different of what we – as programmers – have experienced in the wild. Yes there are many efforts in academia and research languages but non of them are used outside.

Rust does nothing new or has concepts that are not strongly researched in academia. Rust is trying to bring those findings into the wild.

In Rust practically nothing can throw null pointer exceptions or class cast exceptions. Rust don't let you express ill-defined semantics with multi threaded code – you can't have data races.

And this implies – of course – that the set of programs that you can write in safe Rust is smaller than in C/C++/Java/C# ... you can't possibly write programs with data races or dangling pointers / null pointers. Thus making like 60% of all CVE's (i pulled this number out my ____) impossible to write.

Rust can't prevent you from making logical errors but it can help you preventing various categories of bugs we see in the wild exactly now.

Rust has many problems of its own kind, but none of the ones you listed above. immaturity in its ecosystem due to its short lifetime, steep learning curve and many more. But it can deliver very well in certain disciplines today.

<comment><USER6> Do you recommend any resources to learn rust?

<comment><USER7> The official rust book [1] is a great place to start. So are the exercism tutorials [2]

[1] [https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/)

[2] [http://exercism.io/languages/rust/about](http://exercism.io/languages/rust/about)

<comment><USER8> Version 1 or 2 of the rust book?

<comment><USER9> Author here. 2 is much better. And it's almost done; we're mostly in editing and bikeshedding the opening paragraph.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Related: the Changelog podcast did a really good interview with the developer[1]. It's pretty long but worth the listen IMO.

[1]: [https://changelog.com/podcast/280](https://changelog.com/podcast/280)

<comment><USER11> I listened to this last night; it's great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd rather trust something with a formal proof, such as seL4.

[https://sel4.systems](https://sel4.systems)

<comment><USER9> It's being worked on! part of libstd was formally verified, as well. Lots of more work to be done though. [http://plv.mpi- sws.org/rustbelt/](http://plv.mpi-sws.org/rustbelt/) was even just presented at POPL!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This was the output I got when I followed the instructions from the book: - what should I have seen? Can you suggest what I can do to make it work?

      (venv3.5) root@ubuntu-s-1vcpu-1gb-nyc1-01:~# qemu-system-x86_64 -serial mon:stdio -d cpu_reset -d guest_errors -smp 4 -m 1024 -s -machine q35 -device ich9-intel-hda -device hda-duplex -net nic,model=e1000 -net user -device nec-usb-xhci,id=xhci -device usb-tablet,bus=xhci.0 -enable-kvm -cpu host -drive file=redox_0.3.4.bin,format=raw  -nographic
      pulseaudio: pa_context_connect() failed
      pulseaudio: Reason: Connection refused
      pulseaudio: Failed to initialize PA contextaudio: Could not init `pa' audio driver
      ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
      ALSA lib conf.c:4292:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
      ALSA lib conf.c:4292:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
      ALSA lib conf.c:4292:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib conf.c:4771:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
      alsa: Could not initialize DAC
      alsa: Failed to open `default':
      alsa: Reason: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
      ALSA lib conf.c:4292:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
      ALSA lib conf.c:4292:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
      ALSA lib conf.c:4292:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib conf.c:4771:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
      alsa: Could not initialize DAC
      alsa: Failed to open `default':
      alsa: Reason: No such file or directory
      audio: Failed to create voice `dac'
      ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
      ALSA lib conf.c:4292:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
      ALSA lib conf.c:4292:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
      ALSA lib conf.c:4292:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib conf.c:4771:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
      alsa: Could not initialize ADC
      alsa: Failed to open `default':
      alsa: Reason: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
      ALSA lib conf.c:4292:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
      ALSA lib conf.c:4292:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
      ALSA lib conf.c:4292:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib conf.c:4771:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
      ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
      alsa: Could not initialize ADC
      alsa: Failed to open `default':
      alsa: Reason: No such file or directory
      audio: Failed to create voice `adc'
      qemu-system-x86_64: terminating on signal 15 from pid 8287
      (venv3.5) root@ubuntu-s-1vcpu-1gb-nyc1-01:~#

<comment><USER14> Remove some of the extra options from the list, like the ich9-intel-hda device probably can't be run on your machine.</comment></comment>


Is the inflationary universe a scientific theory? - <AUTHOR> http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/10/is-inflationary-universe-scientific.html <comment><USER2> This is generally a really good interview with Penrose - Additionally, there are a few spots scattered through it where he specifically talks about why he has come around to Inflation as a reasonable theory.

Sir Roger Penrose: What We All Need to Know About Physics [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNqnbELDO5A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNqnbELDO5A)

</comment><comment><USER3> I really cringed at the title and explanation on the subsequent article, even though it presents good information.

Rigorously speaking a theory is a body of established scientific knowledge, in which case is classically defined to be a set of propositions that describe phenomena and has proved to be the case for some measure of accuracy via experimentation.

So the theory of inflation was never a theory in this sense, just an hypothesis that seems to hold some water, more akin to a conjecture. 'Theory' in this case, and in most of human interaction, being used for practical purposes to signal that we're talking about something scientists take seriously and waste time upon.

That's not a problem for me, just an annoyance when people use the term in a more serious and controversial manner without understanding this distinction.

<comment><USER4> The salient quality of a theory, or a scientific hypothesis if you prefer, is that it can be tested, at least in principle. I am not a physicist, but it seems like, at least in principle, there's a way to falsify the inflation hypothesis, even though we might not be able to practically carry it out.

Personally, I'm a fan of Penrose's idea that what appears as inflation is instead the infinite limit of a previous universe, and that there's no big bang at all: just an endless stream of infinitely expanding universes.

> _" The group's fight against inflation isn't news."_

Oh! What an unfortunate turn of phrase for someone to use to describe their topic. If even the reporter doesn't think this is newsworthy, why are they writing about it?

<comment><USER5> >> "The group's fight against inflation isn't news."

> Oh! What an unfortunate turn of phrase for someone to use to describe their > topic. If even the reporter doesn't think this is newsworthy, why are they > writing about it?

I think the author of the article is german (I'm german too) and this sentence is maybe a "false friend". What she most likely meant is that the groups goals are already well known.

<comment><USER6> The phrase is used in English to convey the same meaning, as well. The GP is probably being intentionally dense for some effect that eludes me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Chiba-City The ease of repeating a calculation against a data set or recording such a dataset from instrument readings is not exactly the same repetition of a lab or factory recipe outcome. Science concerns data collected and copied yesterday. Tekne concerns repeatable outcomes reproduced tomorrow. Distinctions between the endless feast of science and endless labors of tekne are pretty clear.</comment>


Patent Reform 2013: Pending Bills - <AUTHOR> http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/10/patent-reform-2013-pending-bills.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Only one or two bills seem to get talked about much here. The submitted article summarizes several more that are being considered by Congress.

<comment><USER2> Heh, never expected to see patentlyo on here. Upvoted purely by instinct!

For those who've never visited that site, it's a highly regarded blog that covers all kind of patent issues in all kinds of areas. It does get a bit esoteric for non-legal folk, but even for us it's worth reading the introduction to each article just to get an idea of the patent situation in other industries. (You may soon realize that it's not all that different from ours.)

To get back on topic for this submission, it's a good quick read, again if only to get an idea of the patent issues other industries grapple with. For instance, "PARTS Act (S.780)" hints at some dissatisfaction in the auto industry.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do You Use an Ad Server? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
For my startup, we are looking to use an ad server to manage the ads on our website. We are currently looking into OpenX and some other adservers but frankly we are noobs on the subject. So I am interested to hear your opinions on the matter.
Do you have any experience or recommandation to share ? (positives and negative ones)
Thank you very much! <comment><USER2> OpenX hasn't innovated in a long time. 99% of their resources have gone into their paid service.

They have a lax security culture.

We've migrated towards DFP. <http://www.google.com/dfp/info/sb/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you I didnt know that Google had an ad server !!

<comment><USER3> DFP for Small Business is what was formerly known as Google Ad Manager. The first 90MM non-AdSense monthly impressions are free, and then you have to pay. To clarify, say you have 200 MM monthly pageviews, and you serve 3 ad impressions per page. You would have 600 MM ad impressions. Say that Google serves AdSense ads to 2/3rds of these ad impressions, leaving you with 200 MM non-AdSense monthly impressions. You'd be over the 90 MM quota and you'd have to pay a hosting fee of around 2 cents per thousand impressions (impressions, not pageviews).

A newish self-service site to check out is <http://www.isocket.com>. They charge a fixed fee (and don't take a percent of revenues).

<comment><USER4> John, Founder/CEO of isocket here - thanks for the mention Bobby!

@bjonathan - confused... why would you want the DFP limit to change if the limit is already above what you'd need each month (thus being free to you)? Or do you mean you're hoping your traffic grows to the point you pay ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To be honest, I'd just go with <http://buysellads.com/>. They're incredibly helpful and their platform is very usable. Pretty awesome startup.

<comment><USER5> Would love justification on the downvote. They mention they're noobs on the topic, and this is very noob friendly.</comment></comment>


Sweet Alert for Bootstrap – Blends nicely with any Bootstrap based project - <AUTHOR> http://lipis.github.io/bootstrap-sweetalert/ <comment><USER2> I agree this does look sweet, however this is not a replacement for alert. window.alert() is a blocking function, it prevents further code to be interpreted while the alert or prompt is open.

<comment><USER3> Sweet Alert came up before and people made this same pedantic and unimaginative addition -- I honestly think this comment serves only to let everyone know that the commenter understands the Javascript execution model. That the thread stops while a native alert is shown is not quite a bug, but I'd argue not a desired feature either.

But given that window.alert has (apparently) two functions:

\- Display a message to a user

\- Block javascipt execution until a button is pressed

This is a great replacement for those who are using it for #1, which in my experience, is probably >99% of its usage in the wild. If you're using window.alert to, say, synchronize the beginning of an event with a user click this probably will work just fine too. If you need the world to stop until a button is pressed, I'd sooner guess that your application is written poorly.

<comment><USER4> > Sweet Alert came up before and people made this same pedantic and > unimaginative addition

Its presented as a replacement for alert so pointing out that it's not a drop- in replacement seems relevant to me at least. Even if most alert usages can easily be replaced by this (somewhat dubious depending on your definition of "easily"), additional work will still need to be done for many (most?) of them.

Also being able to add a "blocking" call in JavaScript would be a _big deal_, so noting that this does not do so seems like something worth mentioning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Please have "Esc" key cancel\close the dialog box. It is the inherent behavior please do not break it.

<comment><USER6> This seems to working for my. "Esc" closes all the examples. Mac OSX Yosemite - Chrome 38

<comment><USER5> It is working on "Primary", "Info" , "Success" etc examples but not on "basic example", "A title with a text under"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I met the most interesting guy once. He was a professor at Columbia and a consultant for Wall Street, helping design UIs for traders.

He explained how we process and prioritize visual cues -- how, if an element expands equally to the left AND right of our field of vision, it gets highest priority because it resembles an object heading toward our face.

For that reason, he avoided this design for everything except the highest- priority events.

Not crapping on your library -- it looks really nice :) But in general, I think it's worth considering if it's necessary to demand users' attention all over the place. I think information overload isn't solely in the content we consume but how it's presented.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been seeing a few of these libs pop up on HN lately. Apparently there's some sort of need here that people are trying to fill, it's just not clear to me what it is.

There are legitamite suggestions that blocking UI paradigms are bad, but they're very useful at times. I'm not arguing either, as I think each has their place (although I tend to avoid blocking personally if I can)

My real question is why now?

<comment><USER9> Lots of people on HN develop web apps but aren't great designers, and nifty little libraries like this make our work look better than our own design skill would normally allow. I think it's that simple -- they're not being upvoted for any deep reason relating to UX best practices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The way the alert comes in is very annoying.

The homepage doesn't tell me if I can customize the animation.

</comment><comment><USER11> It would be nice if it was possible to select / copy the message in the box. Sometimes you get a message that you want to copy / paste to someone (email, chat, etc) and it's annoying to have to type it out again.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice style, and I appreciate that I can hit Esc to dismiss most of the dialogs, though unfortunately not all of them.

As another commenter said, I do wish that clicking outside of it had the same effect, but that may have more to do with what sites typically abuse these kinds of boxes for ("Alert! Sign up to our..." (no go away)).

One issue I noticed: there's a race condition in the second-to-last example ('...and by passing a parameter, you can execute something else for "Cancel".'), where if you hit escape quickly enough as the box gets launched, the cancellation handler does not run.

<comment><USER13> Re: your second point, on the original Sweet Alert page that this is based on it has this parameter:

allowOutsideClick - If set to true, the user can dismiss the modal by clicking outside it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Isn't this just a modal?

</comment><comment><USER15> This really needs to be added to [http://jsdelivr.com](http://jsdelivr.com) so we can package it in with existing CDN calls.

There seem to be very sparse examples of how to deploy the library properly, only to implement it.

Visually great. Cool how there's the ability to catch responses and work in the same modal further.

<comment><USER9> Anyone can add something to jsDelivr, not just the library author. You can add it yourself if you'd like them to host it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I still don't get why javascript developers put so much effort into a library and don't provide tests for it.

</comment><comment><USER17> I usually find alert libraries boring, but these are really cool -- I particularly enjoy the icon drawing animations.

</comment><comment><USER18> Slight clipping issue [http://imgur.com/TKAk41f](http://imgur.com/TKAk41f)

<comment><USER19> And some alignment problems: [http://imgur.com/a/ZT6ip](http://imgur.com/a/ZT6ip)

Edit: firefox 24.8.0

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> swal("Here's a message!") !== alert("Here's a message!")

Am i wrong or is a replacement not something which replace the original function? (beside the blocking aspect of an alert). Looks beautiful anyway :)

</comment><comment><USER21> Looks cool. I'd like to see [esc] to close dialog. And is it a safe default to have [enter] perform the action especially on warning and danger? (just a thought)

</comment><comment><USER22> This is an eerily similar project to something posted a few weeks ago here. Most notably, the exact same "success" animation.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8420902](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8420902)

[https://github.com/t4t5/sweetalert](https://github.com/t4t5/sweetalert)

<comment><USER19> Third line on the link:

       This is just a clone for Bootstrap of the original SweetAlert.

<comment><USER22> Wow...my eyes must be going.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why would I use this instead of the built-in modals? Seems like it does the same thing.

<comment><USER24> When you want a nice looking off-the-shelf feedback modal with a simple API without depending on Bootstrap JS and the entirety of jQuery.

<comment><USER23> In that case, why would I want a library that is specifically designed to work with Bootstrap?

<comment><USER24> I'm pretty sure this library simply forks SweetAlert to use Bootstrap's markup and Less variables. So it comes out of the box plugging into Bootstrap CSS and your overrides (like, I imagine, a Bootstrap theme from bootswatch.com).

I have a Bootstrap CSS + React app that uses React for everything I'd need Bootstrap JS for. The cost of Bootstrap JS is 9.9kb + 32.5kb (jQuery) = 42.4kb. Meanwhile, SweetAlerts JS weighs 3kb gzipped and comes with a simple API for exactly what I want to do.

<comment><USER23> OK, that makes sense. Not my scenario but I can see the purpose now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Just in time for Halloween! Scary, jarring alerts.

</comment><comment><USER26> Very slick!

</comment><comment><USER27> The icon animations are really slick!</comment>


Is it an accepted behavior on HN to repost a url, say once a week? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a junior developer and just launched my first android app on google play. It's kind of technical (i think) and i was hoping people here, being more technically inclined, would be willing to try it out and help me "reach for the stars" :) I know it says "begging for promotion" all over my face but please don't scorn me for trying. At least tell me whether it's ok to repost, and how often. Thanks. <comment><USER2> Rephrasing what others have said, don't post the same thing repeatedly, and be careful about overt advertising or promotion.

Start a blog. Post about your progress, the work you do, the problems you have, and how you've overcome them. Make sure you say something new, and then post a link to that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would suggest you do a Show HN. From there, reposting the same URL will point to your original post. Further, unless you're not providing something new (technology, approach, milestone, discovery, etc), I'd refrain.

Ultimately, only post things that are interesting.

</comment><comment><USER4> No, but it is ok to have a blog, generate content that is newsworthy about your app, your company, or you other than the same old same old just worded differently, and then post links to that. It says a lot about you that you asked, so I think you'll be fine. Good luck with your app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My suggestion is that you should try to post it in as much tech blogs as possible. I would also recommend you create a site and perhaps blog about your app so you can get traffic.

 _If you keep posting on HN people will get used to it and might simply ignore_

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you everyone for the suggestions. I like the blog idea.</comment>


Radiohead, ZX-Spectrum and many, many old HDD's - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmfHHLfbjNQ

<comment><USER2> WOW! Blown away! Although the video is 2 years old. Thanks for this.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are welcome. I am history addict a bit...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Laid off, taking a gap year before grad school. How should I utilize it? - <AUTHOR> I was planning to go for grad school for data science this year, but have deferred my admission to 2021 given the current COVID-19 situation. Unfortunately, I was laid off a couple of weeks ago. I now have a year before going for grad school, and I'm thinking of taking a gap year. Would this be a good decision career-wise? What should I do to ensure that I get the most out of this time? And, if you took a year off work, what would you do? <comment><USER2> Learn the tools you will be using in data sci grad school, then you can focus on the theory and learn more.

I went to comp sci school and with bash, c++, and Linux under my belt, homework and projects were a breeze.</comment>


Does Uncle Sam really need 1,100 data centers? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/06/uncle-sam-looks-to-data-center-consolidation-for-savings.ars <comment><USER2> As the article points out, the number is an exaggeration, because it includes server closets and rooms under 500 square feet, hardly what we think of data centers. I am skeptical whether this could succeed, because a lot of gov applications are running antiquated software on antiquated hardware, maintained by aged technicians. Moving it would be chaos. Better to have the new data centers to receive new software when it is created.

The article suggests using public data centers like Google or Amazon because they are more secure. I am skeptical because, if someone manages to take out Amazon they can take out the whole government. Perhaps having too many data centers makes us more secure.</comment>


How to explain buffer overflow to a layman - <AUTHOR> http://security.stackexchange.com/q/53878/36538 <comment><USER2> The analogies in the post seem a bit overly complicated to me. Keep it simple.

Let's say I have an empty glass (memory allocation). I know ahead of time that the maximum capacity of that glass is 8 ounces. A buffer overflow is what happens when I overfill that glass. If the amount of water in the glass stays less than 8 ounces, no problem. If it overfills, I don't quite know where it'll go. It might get into something it shouldn't be in (security, program instability, etc).

<comment><USER3> I need 'car analogy' for this butter overflow before I understands it. Please help.

<comment><USER4> Imagine filling your car up with coolant, when you fill it up too much you expect it to fall into the overflow drain, but if you fill it up too fast you can bypass the overflow drain and end up with it making a mess on the engine. You may not know where it will make a mess, sometimes it will end up falling straight through to the ground, or you may end up getting some on your timing belt, but either way, you know you've overfilled your coolant. That's analogous to a buffer overflow.

Now imagine buying 10 gallons of coolant and repeating this experiment until you have a very good idea of exactly how to pour the coolant to make it land on the timing belt, or in other places, and that is a way to think about what happens when a hacker is exploiting a buffer overflow.

:)

<comment><USER3> Excellent analogy! I knew there had to be one!

Next: 'Fatal Bus Error'. Car analogy please!

<comment><USER4> Damn it Theodores, I'm a programmer, not an electrical engineer!

Not a hardware guy but let's see, imagine being in 6th in a six speed, and trying to shift up. That noise you just heard? That's your gear shifter issuing back a 'bus error' that you have no more gears to use.

That's all I got ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You don't need analogies.

A buffer is a place in a computer's memory for storing things, text, numbers, data, whatever.

A buffer overflow is when you try to put more into a buffer than there is room for.

When this happens, some of what you tried to put into the buffer spills over into memory outside the buffer.

This other memory could have important things in it which can get destroyed or changed when a buffer overflow spills into it, causing programmes to behave in strange ways.

<comment><USER6> If told this to my Dad, he'd probably say "buffers don't sound like good ideas then. Why bother? Just put things where there's space in your computer's 'memory'."

<comment><USER7> > _If told this to my Dad, he 'd probably say "buffers don't sound like good > ideas then. Why bother? Just put things where there's space in your > computer's 'memory'."_

The SO post missed out one crucial aspect of computers, they're like blind men. If I were filling up a kettle while sporting a blindfold, I wouldn't know when it is full.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How about:

The sun's burning down. You sit behind a table in the market, your guide dog at your feet, lapping up water from its bowl.

You're selling cool drinks of lemonade to passers by. You have a glass on the edge of the table, above your dog. For £1, you let customers pour lemonade into the glass and take a drink.

Then along comes Mrs Peabody, who hates your dog. She pays you £1 and pours lemonade into your cup. But she keeps on pouring. Because you're blind, you don't see the cup overflowing and the lemonade pouring into your dog's bowl.

After Mrs Peabody goes away, the dog laps up the lemonade and feels sick. You don't know why.

If only you could see enough to make people put the right amount of lemonade in the glass, you'd have been fine.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you want to defend against hijackings, the problem you're trying to solve is one that programmers know well: the buffer overflow attack.

In a buffer overflow attack, someone gives a program much more data than it was expecting. The data is too long for the memory allocated for it and overflows into the memory occupied by the program itself. Suddenly the computer is running the attacker's code.

In a hijacking, the same thing happens to a plane. A plane has two separate spaces, one for the people carried on it, and one for the people who control it. A hijacking happens when passengers overflow into the cockpit from the cabin. What was cargo is now in control. By promoting themselves from data to code, hijackers on September 11th promoted box-cutters into 400,000 lb. incendiary bombs.

</comment><comment><USER10> I made a simple html based visualisation of buffer overflow vulnerabilities. Check at [http://viralpoetry.org/en/gets.html](http://viralpoetry.org/en/gets.html) or [http://viralpoetry.org/en/strcpy.html](http://viralpoetry.org/en/strcpy.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> It is interesting to both read the original request and then see how many replies insist on only explaining a buffer overflow and not answer the complete question about buffer overflow exploits. Many of the example overflows such as the waffle cook make no sense in a discussion of exploits.

"I need to explain A, in order to explain B, but I'm not good at explaining A". "Here's a truly excellent example of explaining A ... which also unfortunately makes it completely impossible to explain B, uh, my bad".

Also, there's a meta exploit to the whole thing where a good question on a SE site didn't get closed or deleted as off topic or inappropriate for the site. Thats the most amazing thing about the whole discussion.

</comment><comment><USER12> Back to the old punch tape:

 _A computer is like a robot, controlled by a roll of toilet-paper covered in stickers. The pattern of stickers controls the robot. You can 't put more than one sticker in a single square.

Let's say I buy a house-keeping robot. The manufacturers left 64 consecutive squares of toilet-paper blank. The manual says I can specify which parts of the house I want cleaned by filling in the blanks with stickers.

If I add more than 64 stickers, this means I covered-up some of the stickers the manufacturers put on. This causes the robot to malfunction. This is called an overflow. If I know the language the stickers are written in, I can intentionally overflow the robot to act in (potentially evil) ways that have nothing to do with cleaning._

</comment><comment><USER13> The top rated answer is extremely complicated.

Real life examples that are considerably easier to understand exist.

However, the easiest way to show a user the problem is to demonstrate the use of the "insert" key on any keyboard. Instead of adding characters, it'll write over existing characters.

I think most users should know about the dreaded insert key from accidentally pressing it. If not, you might need to sit them in front of a computer.

<comment><USER14> Why does any computer have a key which is far more often used for accidental data destruction than any useful purpose? Do the people who make the computer ever bother to ask this question?

Answering my own hypothetical: Mac keyboards (including the full-size 108-key models) don't have an 'insert' key, nor any key that does what you describe.

And sensible languages don't have buffer overflows, either...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would try a scrabble tile holder as the base analogy. Then say in the computer it is a little different, it has spaces for words. If the program expects a 3 letter word (emphasize that the length is an example) and does not check how long the input is, a longer word can fill some of the space for next word.

</comment><comment><USER16> [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/10/21/i_spy_with_my_bastar...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/10/21/i_spy_with_my_bastard)

Looking back at the BOFH it was actually surprisingly educational.

</comment><comment><USER17> With banjo music playing, the chicken truck has gone off the road, through the fence and is now tearing up a cornfield.

Now, here's Conway Twitty...

</comment><comment><USER18> I enjoyed this, thanks! Concise & to the point

</comment><comment><USER19> Be nice to have a site one could go to for layman explanations for common situations.

<comment><USER20> [http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive](http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive) :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not enough whitespace in that answer</comment>


5 Reasons Why College Students Should Start a Company - <AUTHOR> http://areatech51.com/5-reasons-why-college-students-should-start-a-company/ <comment><USER2> #6 - You learn more from starting a company than you do in college...</comment>


PHP, meet elegance. Laravel 3 has arrived. - <AUTHOR> http://laravel.com <comment><USER2> I have used this framework, I have to say, elegant is the correct way to describe it. It is very simple, intuitive and very performant (I think it is faster than CodeIgniter for a helloworld no db call benchmark).

Several limiting factors are there however, the migrations functionality is a bit weak, it supports many databases so you can't really go specifics (ex: changing database engine, it's INNODB by default) The orm is very straightforward, it works but it's slightly too simplistic, I found my self hand code a couple of times.

All in all: A++++ great framework!! will use again!!

</comment><comment><USER3> People seem to spend a lot of time trying to get PHP to be more like Rails, Django, Node/Express, Play and similar, people seem to think it's OK for the entire application to need to be re-initialized on every request (LazyLoading classes) instead of just running the setup once and then handling requests. PHP has it's advantages but why re-invent the wheel using marshmallows?

<comment><USER4> Apparently you have never tried wagon wheels.

 _They are biscuits topped with marshmallow and covered in a chocolate flavoured coating._ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon_Wheels>

<comment><USER3> I'd completely forgotten about those, you've successfully invalidated my metaphor. My A-Level electronics teacher used to get us wagon wheels every time he forgot to review our prep (basically every week)

<comment><USER5> "The biscuit itself is round to represent the wheel of a wagon"

Really? They must have gone through great lengths and a lot of experimentation before they were finally successful in creating that shape.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to succeed at coding bootcamp – 5 tips - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-steps-get-most-out-coding-bootcamp-tom-goldenberg?trk=pulse_spock-articles <comment><USER2> If I have learned anything from going back to school, it's that you have to make opportunities for yourself. Wether you went to a bootcamp or four your university, or something in the middle (I'm at Holberton[1] at the moment), it's all about doing the work and getting your shit out there. Great article.

[1] [https://www.holbertonschool.com](https://www.holbertonschool.com)</comment>


Ask HN: What things to buy from Amazon with free $150 gift? - <AUTHOR> This might be irrelevant to HN, but...
I recently got a gift code worth $150 on Amazon.com.
Are there anything that's absolutely necessary to spend this on Amazon? (Books, tech-related stuff) <comment><USER2> of course, heres an essential bit of life tech:

[https://www.amazon.com/Buckingham-Travel-Compact-Folding- Eas...](https://www.amazon.com/Buckingham-Travel-Compact-Folding- Easywipe/dp/B006GPIWE4/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1545125101&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=buckingham+easywipe&psc=1&smid=A1FWOUQKTW1YXU)

</comment><comment><USER3> Do you have an electric pressure cooker?

</comment><comment><USER4> Sell it on a gift card exchange?</comment>


Russian Scientists drill into Multi-million Year old Lake - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/science-environment-16907998

<comment><USER2> I've been following this for a while and I'm dead curious about what they'll find there. It's sad that the well is only a few cm wide (and so deep), making it almost impossible to discover big organisms (fish maybe? Nessie? who knows ...), but even micro-organisms developed totally different to what we know would mean loads to us. It's like exploring a lake on another planet.

Discovering organisms very similar to what we already knew though... that would mean that life on different planets might be very similar to what we see on Earth.

</comment><comment><USER3> This gives me an idea for a movie! Those poor Swedes.

</comment><comment><USER4> Did these people not see The Thing?!? We're fucked.</comment>


MH370 assumed to have crashed with no survivors, says Malaysia Airlines - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/24/mh370-chinese-plane-spots-white-objects-live-updates <comment><USER2> Would be interested in hearing what data they've collected that pushed them to make that declaration. Everything I've heard so far this morning is that there is mounting evidence, but nothing concrete.

Given the length of time the families (and the rest of the world) have been left hanging, I certainly hope there is slam-dunk evidence that this is the case, and that amendments and alterations won't be forthcoming.

<comment><USER3> From the statement:

 _Inmarsat, the UK company that provided the satellite data which indicated the northern and southern corridors, has been performing further calculations on the data. Using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort, they have been able to shed more light on MH370's flight path. Based on their new analysis, Inmarsat and the AAIB have concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor, and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth._

Looks like the data was there all along but unextracted.

<comment><USER4> Inmarsat data tracks the Rolls Royce engines.

The data they have isn't position or direction, it is a set of metrics that report on engine performance and conditions.

They never had positional information, except by virtue of the timing signals for those data points to their satellite. Which is how they originally determined the arc shaped corridor.

They must have been able to cross-reference this signal with another satellite (or source) to say with certainty that the plane went down the Southern corridor.

I would be surprised if this was cross-referenced with one of their own satellites given that they could have done that a week ago. I'd speculate that they were supplied with access to some other source that had received the signals, and were able to use that to triangulate the position.

<comment><USER5> > They never had positional information, except by virtue of the timing > signals for those data points to their satellite.

Does anyone have any more insight in to this? Was the protocol a one-way ping, or a ping-pong exchange? Previous reports have inferred that the data from the hourly pings were incredibly basic. Obviously timing signal propagation is the basis for GPS, but is it normal or even feasible to collect millisecond or microsecond transmission timings for engineering data fed via satellites like the ones operated by Inmarsat? What other variables would have been used for ranging?

1 millisecond at the speed of light is close to 300km.

<comment><USER6> I thought the distance measurement was derived from received signal strength.

edit: Other's have said that they are using Doppler shift.

<comment><USER7> This story from Telegraph is scanty in details. But it also mentions Doppler effect. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10719304/How- Brit...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10719304/How-British- satellite-company-Inmarsat-tracked-down-MH370.html)

<comment><USER5> > These pings from the satellite – along with assumptions about the plane's > speed – helped Australia and the US National Transportation Safety Board to > narrow down the search area to just 3 per cent of the southern corridor on > 18 March

So it looks like the announcement today is actually old news.

In any case, it's not entirely clear to me how the Doppler effect would distinguish between northerly and southerly passage.

<comment><USER8> Maybe it could be used to establish whether the airplane is getting closer to or getting further away from a satellite? Maybe even the relative speed?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Today's announcement is simply the inevitable switch from "Search and Rescue" to a "Recovery" effort. It's been 2 weeks, someone had to make the call that the possibility of finding people alive has diminished to the point beyond hope.

As a "Recovery" effort, the pace will continue, but they will no longer risk lives to find the wreckage.

<comment><USER10> Reason would dictate that if the plane had truly landed somewhere, it would have been found by now. Wild theories of said plane flying under some other similar plane to avoid radar detection would have been figured out already and would have not caused us to go on any wild goose chases in the Indian Ocean.

We all wanted that plane to be safe and sound.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does anybody really believe anything else at this point? I don't see how it could have done anything but crashed somewhere, and we just don't know where or why yet.

If it landed safely, or even semi-safely somewhere, I don't see how there could be people still alive after this much time, but haven't managed to find some way to contact somebody.

I don't think much of any of the hijacking theories either. Okay, maybe it was an attempted hijacking and something went wrong, leading to the crash, but I can't see it having landed somewhere for later use, as some people seem to be speculating. Anybody who has access to a runway to safely land and take off again such a large jet, and who can afford enough fuel to get it in the air again and can actually get that fuel to it without somebody taking notice, plus make enough changes and file appropriate flight plans to fly it anywhere, surely has enough resources to just buy their own jet instead of using some wacky plan to hijack a fully loaded passenger airliner, thus drawing the full attention of the world.

</comment><comment><USER12> You could assume with a high probability it crashed for 2 reasons: #1 noone came out with hostage demands (imagine cost of keeping alive and fed 250 people, for 3 weeks), or claimed terrorist responsibility. #2. NSA has a multitude of sophisticated satellites in the space (recently they lunch a new one that costed over a billion of dollars! -- payload: top secret) and its been known on the record that technologically less developed countries like Russia could spy and listen on foreign countries via satellites in late 70s, some 40 years ago. NSA knew from minute one what happened with this plane. The "problem" is that revealing to the public that the plane crashed and where it is buried has sadly no value and does not come close to over-weighing the benefit of keeping secret that they can see everything around the world up to a minute. If you would have a def con raised, all military personnel pulled back for duty, then it would be smart to assume the plane went to Afghanistan, or somewhere else where it could be re-branded into a nuclear missile, or something. Since there was nothing like this happening, there was no explanation other than it crashed and everyone is dead.

</comment><comment><USER13> On CNN a representative from Inmarsat stated that airlines could track direction and speed tomorrow. Airlines simply need to enable the service, which is relatively cheap.

Considering how cheap this service is, shouldn't it become mandatory? Then the question becomes, how do you board a 777 at 600 mph and land it if the crew becomes incapacitated?

<comment><USER14> It's easy in retrospect to say that that should be mandatory, but how often does something like this happen? I bet there are a lot of cheap things we could do to mitigate extremely unlikely tragedies.

<comment><USER13> I am not looking back, I am looking forward. If it only costs $10/flight, shouldn't it be mandatory? Air France 447 happened 5 years ago.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447)

So, we're talking about more than once per decade.

<comment><USER15> It only took a couple of days to find where the Air France 447 crashed despite its location. Moreover, I doubt either accident would have been prevented or people would have been rescued if the precise location of the crash was known sooner.

There is some value in knowing early where an accident occurred, but that is rarely a problem. How much is it worth to fix it for the few cases that happen in the middle of nowhere?

<comment><USER13> Your statement is inaccurate:

"While Brazilian Navy authorities were able to remove the first major wreckage and two bodies from the sea within five days of the accident, initial investigation was hampered because the aircraft's black boxes were not recovered from the ocean floor until May 2011, nearly two years later"

If they knew where the plane went down, it wouldn't have taken 2 years to find the flight data recorders. The "pingers" on the recorders lasted for about 30 days, which should be plenty of time, if you know where to look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The world's a big place and we really don't have it all figured out. Simple explanations are probably the correct one. I do wonder how many flights daily could be drummed up by weird trivia if they were put under this much scrutiny.

So, how long until the 24-hour news networks switch to stories that have big ramifications instead of this interesting, but not very (world wise) impactful event?

<comment><USER17> Asking the news networks to stop talking about what is, in fact, a massively intriguing (albeit tragic) mystery is like asking water not to be wet.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, I know I'm shouting at the rain, but I would love to actually see 24 news ignore the Casey's[1] and mention but not fixate on the M370s. I guess the whole idea of what actually affects people is just lost in the shuffle.

1) I don't care how tragic, it was a local story

<comment><USER18> I just wish the quantity of coverage was somehow related to the quantity of information available.

Yes, it's a fascinating event and I can see why they want to talk about it.

But once you've covered all available facts (which in the case of MH370 does not take long, and that was especially true in the days immediately afterwards) then it's time to stop and talk about something else for a while.

<comment><USER19> Cable-news is a broken product. Circa, on the other hand, has been phenomenal at reporting factual updates related to this story. I strongly recommend it for following news stories of interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> One aspect of the 'infographic' has me puzzled. The search area inset (small box) is way south. It has two lines that say projected flight path. But the flight path is way north. Should the lines in the inset box blowup say 'debris field flow?)

</comment><comment><USER21> There is still the possibility that the plane belly landed and the survivors are floating around in life rafts. It doesn't follow that because the flight terminated in the indian ocean, it crashed.

</comment><comment><USER22> this announcement makes Malay government's unrealistic well known. Good job Malay Gov~

</comment><comment><USER23> 2 weeks. no wreckage. only people talking. as time is ticking they just get desperate to tell something. anything. i won't believe a damn thing.

they don't have a shred of a clue. there's only future profit to be secured.

edit: yeah, c'mon. give me downvotes, idiots.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm more intrigued by the reaction of the families. Is this a normal reaction from Chinese families?

<comment><USER25> Outrageously cold and immature to imply that the family members are overreacting and worse to imply that it might be related to their ethnicity. They've been given false hope for two weeks. I cannot begin to imagine the emotional torture they've had to endure.

<comment><USER26> Why wouldn't you expect how one outwardly reacts to a tragedy to be affected by one's culture and society? You are reading way more into his comment than he intended.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Occam's razor.

"Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected"

No signals = Mid-air explosion.

Hijacking, abduction, bermuda triangle, parallel universe, bitcoin theft, patent stealing, or whatever stupid conspiracy theory people wanted to believe never passed the test of Occam.

<comment><USER28> Mid-air explosions actually have a very significant radar signature, called 'bloom', as the debris field expands.

If your theory is that the aircraft exploded somewhere between Malaysia and Vietnam then it would have appeared as a rapidly-increasing radar return even on civilian radars.

 _Source: personal anecdote from ex-mil radar operator, who also noted that it was possible to track the larger pieces of debris from the target drones and direct the following-up missiles towards them_

<comment><USER29> Mid-air aircraft explosions also have a very significant IR signature, which will show up on missile warning satellite observations. TWA-800 did, for example.</comment></comment></comment>


I am on the Kill List. This is what it feels like to be hunted by drones - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/i-am-on-the-us-kill-list-this-is-what-it-feels-like-to-be-hunted-by-drones-a6980141.html <comment><USER2> Something not discussed often enough is the rank incompetence of, well, humans. People everywhere, at every level, are simply not very good at their jobs, including experienced "experts".

This is just one reason why it's insane to trust the government to carry out extrajudicial killings on people who, at the very least, pose no immediate threat. Both the selection of targets and the actual killing are prone to errors which have horrific consequences.

<comment><USER3> > This is just one reason why it's insane to trust the government to carry out > extrajudicial killings on people who, at the very least, pose no immediate > threat.

Pose no immediate threat to who? To the government doing the killing? True (but see Paris and Brussels for counterexamples).

Pose no immediate threat to humans? Absolutely they pose a threat.

<comment><USER4> For me it isn't a question as to whether or not this specific man poses a threat and is worthy of death, it is an issue of how he is being judged to be a threat, and judged worthy of death.

The drone powered war is a system in which an organization on the other end of a robot is acting as judge, jury, and executioner, with no way to appeal for recourse or even open a dialog, and this organization also has a history of extreme inaccuracy (which they try to hide under the guise of national security).

I see drone usage as just as reprehensible as the terrorism attacks carried out in Paris and Brussels, in that in both cases innocent civilians are dying and afraid of dying.

<comment><USER5> The drone program is turning into judge dread minus the megacities and motorcycles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> read this story and realize who the real terrorist is. Even if this man was a member of the taliban does that give anyone the right to make his children afraid to sleep in their bed at night?

this whole situation reminds me of the ending of I Am Legend where the protagonist realizes he has become the terror in the night that all children are afraid of. In an effort to combat terrorism the US has become the worlds largest and most aggressive terrorists. Committing more acts of violence against civilians in one week than all other terrorists in the past decade

<comment><USER7> Yea, it does. You go live under the threat of Taliban, Hamas, ISIS, etc.

Sorry but you keep ignoring the people who the Taliban threaten the most aren't just Americans.

<comment><USER8> Are you saying innocent children should pay for the transgressions of others?

<comment><USER9> Implicitly, that person is. But what that comment really says is, "if my government tells me they need my taxes so that we shall kill instead of being killed, that is a decision I am prepared to support."

Anyone who pays US taxes and doesn't do their utmost to stop these murders implicitly holds this belief, in my eyes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> After reading The Drone Papers (fascinating reporting done by The Intercept) I can certainly believe all of this. I hope it's true and I hope this man can have his story told (and more importantly, believed) as far up as possible.

[https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/](https://theintercept.com/drone- papers/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Killing civilians is war crime. Israel is hunted for 1/100th of this, even if they are doing everything to prevent hurting innocents, and terrorists are deliberately using civilian building to strike from.

</comment><comment><USER12> This sounds pretty extreme. I would love to know both sides of this story. Without independent objective data I can't tell if this is a desperate plea for help from a lucky individual wrongfully sentenced to death without trial, surrounded by innocent victims also killed, or if this is anti-drone propaganda. But I would like to know.

<comment><USER13> It should be the standard that every controversial story comes with 2 sides of the coin plus the bonus 3rd side (coin lands standing). If the Internet thought me one thing it's to never judge based on a one sided story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Even the fact how often he widnessed drone attacks is simply mind blowing. Poor guy :/

</comment><comment><USER15> If he is advised of something then the UK government should start him and try him on a court of law. If found innocent then he should be freed. If guilty he just send his sentence.

Either way, the US needs to stop it's robotic war, which it quietly wages "on our behalf" but without our direct knowledge. They assume that out of sight is out of mind, but in reality, their actions breed hate and distrust of the US and it's allies. It is a hate that prolongs the "war against terror", lines the pockets of the military industrial complex and wastes tax payers money.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7443-the_price_of_dissent](https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7443-the_price_of_dissent)

Everyone should see this talk. Hatred tends to evolve into many types of nasty tactic; this isn't limited to drone strikes, and it isn't limited to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"Muslims are the canaries in the mine."

</comment><comment><USER17> Truth or not, it is either way a good propaganda.

</comment><comment><USER18> Even if the drone attacks somehow only killed those fighting against Western interests they would still be evil. That's the reason that we didn't like the people with the Deathstar in that movie.</comment>


A brief history of Stephen Hawking: A legacy of paradox - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2053929-a-brief-history-of-stephen-hawking-a-legacy-of-paradox/ <comment><USER2> I don't remember reading this before (in the Penrose obituary), that is that he discovered Hawking radiation when trying to prove that it didn't exist:

> Bekenstein realised this was key to the entropy problem. Every time a black > hole swallows matter, its entropy appears to be lost, and at the same time, > its event horizon grows. So, Bekenstein suggested, what if – to preserve the > second law – the area of the horizon is itself a measure of entropy?

> Hawking immediately disliked the idea and was angry that his own work had > been used in support of a concept so flawed. With entropy comes heat, but > the black hole couldn't be radiating heat – nothing can escape its pull of > gravity. During a break from the lectures, Hawking got together with > colleagues Brandon Carter, who also studied under Sciama, and James Bardeen, > of the University of Washington, and confronted Bekenstein.

> The disagreement bothered Bekenstein. "These three were senior people. I was > just out of my PhD. You worry whether you are just stupid and these guys > know the truth," he recalls.

> Back in Cambridge, Hawking set out to prove Bekenstein wrong. Instead, he > discovered the precise form of the mathematical relationship between entropy > and the black hole's horizon. Rather than destroying the idea, he had > confirmed it. It was Hawking's greatest breakthrough.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Black holes were a subject ripe for investigation in the early 1970s. > Although Karl Schwarzschild had found such objects lurking in the equations > of general relativity back in 1915, theoreticians viewed them as mere > mathematical anomalies and were reluctant to believe they could actually > exist.

Can someone recommend some books to learn these equations? I'm fascinated by the fact that an object can be found in an equation before it's observed.

<comment><USER4> > I'm fascinated by the fact that an object can be found in an equation before > it's observed

The same is true of antimatter. Paul Dirac deduced its existence from the Dirac equation before it was discovered experimentally.

<comment><USER5> Neutrinos were predicted based on observations of other particles before observed.

Same with Pluto.

The speed of light being constant isn't a particle but emerged from Maxwell's equations.</comment></comment></comment>