Is growth in the financial sector good for the economy? - <AUTHOR> https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/07/is-growth-in-the-financial-sector-good-for-the-economy/ <comment><USER2> It's a bit unclear to me how the authors establish the direction of causality. Isn't it an equally valid interpretation that low productivity industries with lots of collateral cause the financial sector to grow?

The one paper they cite which isn't paywalled uses a rather flawed methodology: [http://www.bis.org/publ/work381.pdf](http://www.bis.org/publ/work381.pdf)

The same methodology also shows that too many doctors, telephones and or R&D technicians inhibits growth: [http://www.iie.com/publications/pb/pb15-9.pdf](http://www.iie.com/publications/pb/pb15-9.pdf)

The reason is that if you try to fit a quadratic regression to an S-curve, you'll come up with a downward sloping parabola (if the data points live near the right side of the S, if they live near the left you'll get an upward sloping one). That's simply a limitation of quadratic regression. Oops.

</comment><comment><USER3> > see Reinhart and Rogoff 2010

Isn't that the famous study which turned out to be [edit: almost] completely wrong because of errors in the excel formulas? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_in_a_Time_of_Debt#Metho...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_in_a_Time_of_Debt#Methodological_flaws)

<comment><USER4> Entirely wrong? No. But the reported effect was somewhat exaggerated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Our hypothesis is that it arises because finance tends to favour relatively low productivity industries as such industries usually own assets that are relatively easy to pledge as collateral."

My alternative hypothesis would be brain drain from production R&D into finances.

<comment><USER6> Both hypothesises can be true. Nothing complex is ever caused by one factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Since it's no longer a Free Market, might as well go with a planned economy - now that supercomputers allow for actual real-time planning.

<comment><USER8> There never was a Free Market. I second the idea of revisiting central planning with tools capable of doing proper optimization at scale.

<comment><USER9> I would recommend looking to nature for patterns. Large networks of loosely interdependent organisms work best. Once one species (e.g. humans) become too dominant the whole system begins to fall apart.

There is no central planning in nature. It could be argued that central planning is an unnatural state. A far more robust solution would be to focus on having an economy made up of many small/medium size organizations and individual makers. Currently our economy with our "too big to fail" institutions is very fragile, as single points of failure can have catastrophic global effects. It would be much more healthy to eliminate the possibility of devastating single points of failure.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure about appeal to nature here; biology seems rather centralized in a lot of aspects. An organism may be made of many cells, but each of those cells have a specific function. Kidney cells do not compute, and brain cells do not contract to pump blood. When a cell starts doing whatever is best for it locally, we call that "cancer". Centralized management arises naturally whenever there's a need for efficiency. So while there's a lot of distribution going on, I wouldn't say centralization is unnatural. It seems common enough on many different scales.

<comment><USER9> The body as you have described it is one node (an organization in my example) in the wider network. For that node to function it needs to have all of its components working in unison but if the node fails other nodes can adapt and the system keeps on chugging.

<comment><USER8> This layering of central and distributed seems common on all levels. If you go up from your example, you have an ecosystem that needs to work in unison. But if it fails, there are always other planets...

<comment><USER9> Yes this occurred to me too. Very interesting. At what layer is the economy at naturally?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The State Of Railway e-Ticketing In India - <AUTHOR> http://mindprince.blogspot.com/2011/10/state-of-railway-e-ticketing-in-india.html

<comment><USER2> I just spent 6 months in India, which included a 12,000km circumnavigation of the country by rail. A team of 20 of us, half rail enthusiasts, half travellers and entrepreneurs, spent 2 weeks on Indian trains venturing to the country's most Western, Northern, Eastern and Southern points (in that order). We travelled a little in unreserved and Sleeper class, but mostly 3AC and 2AC. It was by far my favourite travel experience ever (after travelling extensively across 6 continents).

The Indian rail and ticketing systems are chaos personified. As a traveller post-India, I love the adventure of just trying to buy a ticket from a station. (Quick tip: stand wide, shoulders broad, with ticket form in hand blocking access to the hole in the ticketing window so others can't push through.) But, thinking back as an Indian-rail newbie, my goodness!

As an entrepreneur on a trip like this (full of industry experts), I couldn't help but see business opportunities. When I say experts, I mean guys that can recite the Indian rail timetable (approx. the size of the Yellow Pages) without missing a beat. They're also the guys that dominate the popular India rail forum called IndiaMike.com. The depth of their knowledge was staggering. When someone like me meets people like them, we can't help but plot and conspire.

From a business perspective, the problem with building an Indian Rail startup was getting access to the rail information. We had grand plans and certainly the expertise, but then came the stories of bureaucracy. Forget publicly accessible APIs, the IRCTC would apparently only give access through bribes. A couple of people I spoke with talked of requests for US$40k. (Dinner and expensive champagne is one thing, but $40k is on another planet.)

So why compete with Cleartrip, et al? Well, they're just not intuitive or efficient. They're actually a pain in the ass. We envisaged something like Hipmunk for Indian train travel. But rather than being satisfied with just better design, we saw an opportunity to bring Indian rail travel to the average foreign traveller. Of course, the last thing the Indian rail system needs is more passengers, but it felt such a shame that most people would never experience India the way we did.

In the end there were just too many hurdles. For starters, you can't book foreign tourist allocated seats over the internet (despite bribes and access to APIs). You can't even book them at most stations. Then there are issues with IndRail passes and availability. You can book tickets 90 days out, but the volume of ticket sales in India is mind-blowing. If someone wants to travel cross-country next month, sometimes they'll buy 5 different days and just cancel the 4 extra as they get closer to the day. The cancellation fee is so low that it makes sense. So in a country with 1.1 billion people, imagine people booking multiple tickets to provide flexibility. This is why there's such an insane last minute frenzy.

I still think there's an opportunity here, but the data needs to be made accessible. In my opinion, this kind of openness requires structural and cultural change in government. I hate to say it, but don't hold your breath.

All of that said, I highly recommend travel by Indian rail to anyone. We were a mixed group of Brits, Americans, Canadians, Australians, etc and were treated more warmly than anywhere on the planet. Of course there were a couple of "incidents" (e.g. breast groping), but hanging out the door a speeding Indian locomotive in the middle of nowhere is something everyone should experience.

If you're a foreigner wanting to book Indian train tickets with minimum fuss, I've written a detailed guide here: <http://globetrooper.com/notes/plan-book- train-trip-india/>

</comment><comment><USER3> No rant on the Indian Railway system is complete without mentioning the disaster that is the 'Thatkal' quota booking at 8 in the morning.

Years ago when I was one of the few people among friends and family that had good internet and a credit card, I used to book a lot of tickets for others. Out of frustration, I wrote a simple python script that automated the process of booking tickets at 8 in the morning.

It would log you in, fill in the passenger details, payment mode etc.. and boot you into a browser for the final bank transaction screen. It was fast because it wouldn't actually wait to download the html screens before submitting the data. It would scrape the main page's date and sync itself with it to submit the booking exactly at 8am. I was able to finish a booking in less than 30sec.

After spending a few days prodding their system to make this hack work, I learned just what a mess their backend was.

They have a form variable called 'clickCount' which they increment and pass around on every page. This is how they 'detect' that you clicked a link twice and helpfully log you out.

Their validation and actual processing of passenger genders is case- insensitive - they accept either 'M' or 'm'. However the final ticket printout you get will show all passengers as female unless the gender you sent in was in upper case (curiously though the actual official print out pasted on the train when travelling contains correct genders - I have no idea why).

I presume many people had similar scripts to what I had and so eventually in an attempt to circumvent it, they introduced captchas. Turns out the captchas didn't actually work.

I know this because my script continued to work for a long time and only a few months after they introduced captchas (when I visited the website the normal way to make a booking) did I even know they introduced it. I can only presume that if you didn't actually submit the 'captcha' form variable then they didn't bother to validate it. So the irony was that the people booking tickets the normal way suffered while the rest of us working around the system were rewarded.

Finally they realized this at some point and threw in the towel and just banned quick booking altogether from 8-9 because they couldn't figure out any other way to actually solve this problem. So yeah, I'm probably part of the reason that happened (though by no means the only one who did this type of hackery,I'm sure).

<comment><USER4> I believe the captcha was introduced because travel agents were using VB based software to automatically book tickets at 8 am using IRCTC.

For the life of me I don't get why IRCTC doesn't use some good load balancing and improve performance of their mainframe.

<comment><USER5> For one, they are not IT majors in webspace, they are a travel firm. For a company like Indian railways, they have more important things to do like the safety of trains and ensure better travel experience than just concentrate on making the online user experience better.

<comment><USER6> FYI the website is not developed and maintained by Indian Railways. It's outsourced to an IT services provider. As far as I recall, TCS, which is an IT Major, currently has the contract. All the Indian Railways needs to do is have a couple of competent people, who can supervise the project to ensure quality.

<comment><USER7> I don't know if TCS still have contract but this company is <http://www.broadvision.com/en/customers_aeroxchange.php> part of it. When I tried to get PNR status, I once got this error,

javax.servlet.jsp.JspException: No bean found for attribute key historyDetails and rest of the stack trace. From stacktrace, they are using struts and broadvision's some customized servlet container, most likely tomcat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The whole point of having such a weird system is to make it "difficult" for you to book a ticket. Think about the "common man" standing in a queue for 4-8 hrs trying to book that ticket when you could ideally book using your coolest newest gadget in seconds. Now that would cause a riot at the railway station booth. In Indian you never have enough resources available for the 1.3 billion people. So everything is rationed, including the online train tickets. It's like the IIT's or IIM's conducting the world's toughest entrance examinations only to select a statistically insignificant 1% of the applicants. Great Indian politics demands badly run government services. Private services are still banned in a number of areas including private universities, public transportation, power, Aeronautics ....

<comment><USER9> Actually much of the sectors that you have mentioned have been deregulated:

1\. Private Universities: No. But there are tons of private institutes under universities.

2\. Public Transport: Trains no. Buses - in most parts of the country (eg. Madhya Pradesh)

3\. Power: Tata Power, Reliance etc. Coal mining is the part that has not been privatized, AFAIR.

4\. Aeronautics: No, but airtravel yes. Secondly, the aeronautics industry and research in India is still at a very nascent stage - so I am not sure if it really hurts the economy/society.

<comment><USER10> Privatization is not deregulation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _Every day from 23:30 to 0:30 the server is down for maintenance. Seriously, every day? Their server needs maintenance every fucking day? Which technology are they using?_

A mainframe that does batch processing at night.

<comment><USER12> They use OpenVMS on Alpha it seems. Look at this: [http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/brochures/indiarr/indiarr....](http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/brochures/indiarr/indiarr.pdf) I don't think HP is winning any customers here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The IRCTC website was frequently cited as an example of "what not to do" during the training phase in my company.

Cleartrip on the other hand is a shining example of stuff done right. It's one of the friendliest websites I have ever used. Don't have an account? No problem. You can still go ahead and book a ticket, Cleartrip will drop a gentle reminder to set your password to create an account, _after_ you have booked your ticket. Forgot your password? Again, no problem. Cleartrip will allow you to go ahead with the booking, and send the link to reset your password to your email.

<comment><USER9> Wait, ClearTrip is actually pretty pathetic in terms of the UI. Try MakeMyTrip - it is _way_ better.

<comment><USER6> This might be just a personal preference, but I find Cleartrip's UI to be far superior to any of its competitors. Btw, I just remembered another good example of Cleartrip "getting it". I was trying to book a hotel. And due to messed up internet connection it didn't go through. I think I attempted to book the same hotel twice or thrice. This was after midnight. The very next morning I get a call from Cleartrip enquiring if I was facing any issues with their website, and offering to do the booking over the phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like how @dcurtis approached a similar problem with his open letter containing a redesign of the horrific aa.com website:

<http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_american_airlines.html>

I'm not sure how effective such an approach would be considering it's much harder to get Indian organizations (especially a Government one, oh boy) to respond to feedback of the people, but it's definitely worth a try.

As some of us know, Anna Hazare and his stellar campaign against corrupt politicians in India is an inspiration to get Governments to act.

<comment><USER14> It didn't even work that well on this side of the ocean - if I recall correctly when this redesign first hit the web HN ripped dcurtis a new one.

Without addressing the Indian trains issue at all, there's a common mistake designers make that particularly annoys me - which is that "clean looking" is often conflated with "usable". As much as we hate to accept it, there is a _lot_ of data out there that indicate many _extremely_ busy looking, messy looking websites out there work very, very well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I survived backpacking in India using <http://www.cleartrip.com/trains> for all train reservations.

<comment><USER16> Seconded. There are multiple third party apps/sites which provides almost all these functionalities. But my only gripe is that there is no public api im aware of. You need to put in a request for aceess to train schedules/routes and other details and i assume you need to pay for that. Or the only option left is scrapping their site which is against TOS and illegal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oh boy that reminds me of all my similar experience with IRCTC. If I need to book a ticket for a busy weekend, I get my friends at various other locations to try and book the same. We all stay on conference call and when one person books it, others stop trying. Usually tickets open for booking at 8:00 am and the server is literally dead for the next 1 hour.

</comment><comment><USER18> Well, let's just hope that they don't do it like they did in Finland. Good luck! 1\. [http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/domestic- news/general/167...](http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/domestic- news/general/16782-part-of-finnish-railways-ticketing-system-tested-in-india- paper-.html) 2\. <http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?17,2578324>

</comment><comment><USER19> Clearly the solution is to offshore the job to the US.

</comment><comment><USER20> The reason is; people who can influence a change (bureaucrats, politicians, businessmen etc) use intermediaries (agents) to get things done. They never experience the pain of the "common" people. All government services are like this.

</comment><comment><USER21> It is so funny, that I've been unlucky with 90% of my cleartrip train ticket bookings. No I did not mean, failure to book. But it is that, I end up cancelling those tickets! LOL.

IMO, IRCTC UI with its "just-ok"user experience, has almost all the options readily available. Whereas, Cleartrip does not. Cleartrip tries to keep things simple here, but I guess it does not work good for certain areas like Cancelling the ticket, or filing for TDR etc. Often it takes extra clicks to refine my train searches.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's the same experience most of the indian railway travelers have faced (including me) and so i have put my 2 cent by creating this website which helps travelers to track their ticket status on mobile/email. site: <http://www.railpnrstatus.com>

I think as a HN reader you should also think in those line and give ur 2 cents by improving the system.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is the state of the English language edition, forget about the it in local language with translator's laziness there actually no word of the local language used instead the English is just transliterated in the local script. It might be possible to learn English the same day and read it rather than trying to read in the local language.

<comment><USER24> Not sure why you are downvoted here. This is a valid point and it is true that much of the web content/computer generated content that is available in local language is obtained using transliteration. Also much worse is that many of the English words are written in local language as is, where as the actual need is to translate that word to local language and use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think Transport For London used to be more protective of its data, but ironically budget cuts meant govt departments like TFL realised they can get much better leverage by opening up to third-party apps. The creative power of constraints.

</comment><comment><USER26> I believe it is interesting and relevant but I'd be more sympathetic to the author if he hadn't disabled the ability to go back to HN after I read it. WTF?

</comment><comment><USER27> Why cant they hire ONE decent programmer who can come up with a good design !!

<comment><USER5> Son, It aint easy to scale up a system like that. "ONE" programmer within a small timescale can never achieve something as scalable as that all by "himself". I have been using IRCTC since its inception and I see it the user experience is constantly evolving. Let the product evolve.

<comment><USER27> Well.. True that ONE programmer cant scale. But we are not talking here just about scaling. The way the current site works, I doubt if any one with a decent programming experience is working on it. The current site is clearly not user friendly. Takes huge efforts to book a simple ticket and if you havent experienced being logged out constantly now and then, just cos you did some thing wrong, I refuse to believe anyone sane is working on the other side of the website !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> sounds like you could hack around much of that with a firefox / chrome extension.

</comment><comment><USER29> The more interesting and useful thing about this rant is that companies have come in and done something about this problem and started making money doing so. Historically you could avoid the lines at Indian railways by using offline travel agents who charged their commission. A few venture-backed* companies have brought that model into the 21st century - IRCTC sucks, so they put a pretty interface on it that doesn't suck and charge 10-20 rupees (25-50 US cents!) extra per booking:

<http://www.cleartrip.com/trains>, <http://www.makemytrip.com/railways>, <http://www.yatra.com/trains.html>

Solve a problem like the Indian Government (IRCTC is a government undertaking) like this and you'll have lots of takers for 10-20 rupees. They offer a better user interface, saved payment details, a consolidated place for air & rail bookings and better customer support.

*Cleartrip is funded by Kleiner Perkins, Ram Sriram, and Concur. MakeMyTrip by several top asian funds, and Yatra by Norwest Venture Partners and Intel Capital

<comment><USER30> But the dumb government has stopped them from providing full fledged service. These other sites cannot book "tatkal tickets" from 8:00 - 9:00 AM, after which there would be no useful tickets anyway. The least Indian Railways can do is to fully deregulate. So, right now IRCTC is monopoly and that explains why it is like it is.

<comment><USER31> 8-9 Tatkal booking is not allowed in irctc also.

<comment><USER32> Its not allowed only for Agents, as there have been past incidents when mass booking is done by agents and normal customers don't get any tickets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Frankly, I am shocked to see why this story is trending on HN. A college student ranting about the biggest railways booking system ? really ?

<comment><USER34> Why the hate? Its an interesting read. Thinking about and discussing awful systems like this can help in figuribg out how to better make non-awful systems.

And why exactly is it relavant that he is a college student?

<comment><USER33> Awful system ? yes, but a massively scaled. think about the scale of the system. One single backend is serving kiosks at thousands of railway stations, lakhs of booking counters and several agent terminals. True that there are downtimes and slowness - but consider this system as a classic usecase and study of how massive a system can be. The student who wrote this rant just talks about the downsides and how bad the whole system is. I would appreciate a few ideas on how he in his great might would do to fix this massive system. Are there any constructive ideas in this article ? do we learn from this article ? It is very easy to rant about everything...if you don't like my views and downvote my comment, you are free to do so.

<comment><USER34> Awful is still awful :) And from that description it is a truly awful system. And saying "if your so great why don't you fix it yourself" is a really stupid response to criticism. Why be so defensive about a bad system, YOU didn't write it, right?

<comment><USER33> Well, its beneath me to respond to an ignorant and snide remark. I think the level of language on HN has gone down a lot

<comment><USER34> Oh come on, your originally comment was a nasty little dig at someone for writing up their experiences and a suggestion that they don't count because they're "just a college student". You made that comment from a new account so you either are new here (in which case, what's with the complaining about the discussion going down hill?) or you where not prepared to stand behind your comment so used a throw-away account.

I have no idea why you consider the Indian internet rail booking system a subject above criticism, it just seems bizarre.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This post imho is attracting way too much attention than it actually deserves. Well IRCTC is the least of the worries about Indian Railways. Well, the technology they seem to be using is not the best around, but considering their financial and time limitations, they are trying to put out the best they can.

Best service certainly comes at a greater cost(yes, monetarily) which the govt is in no luxury to afford and IMHO, they certainly are trying to put out the best they can. (Just look at the figures the internet majors spend on scaling up and you'd understand.)

Convenience charges : You sir have to realize that because of IRCTC you need not waste fuel, stand in huge queues etc. and thus you have to appreciate that part and pay up the nominal amount. I think they should charge the convenience charges at least for the next few years, may be because the employees still have to be paid and can not be asked to quit their jobs even if you do not go to the reservation counter.

I do accept that Indian Railways being a govt. organization as expected is corrupt and is not efficient etc, but well its not all that bad.

<comment><USER27> This post is attracting way too much attention just for the simple reason that so many people are pissed off at the service. I refuse to believe that lack of money is the cause for all this. For all that we know, more than half of funds are being eaten by politicians.

<comment><USER35> why are blaming "Politicians" for bad UI ...</comment></comment></comment>


AT&T iPad Hacker's Real Crime Was Embarrassing the Wrong People - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/att-ipad-hacker-when-embarassment-becomes-a-crime

<comment><AUTHOR> This was mentioned a few days ago:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5096764>

but didn't get much traction. Whichever/whatever side you might come down on in it, it seems worthy of attention/discussion in this current timeframe and context (Swartz).

So, I don't need any associated karma (e.g. going back to the earlier HN thread), but I'd welcome a discussion.</comment>


Ask HN: What's your favorite site for hacking on things other than computers? - <AUTHOR>

a few of mine:
apartment design / DIY - http://apartmenttherapy.com
working on my car - http://altimas.net
all around randomness - http://lifehacker.com <comment><USER2> Technological:

-Compilation of "Best How-To and DIY Sites" from PC Magazine (includes Instructables, WikiHow, Expert Village, WonderHowTo, etc.) - <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2347650,00.asp>

-DIY from Popular Science - <http://www.popsci.com/diy>

-"Type of Skills Everyone Should Know" (originally "100 Skills Every Men Should Know") from Popular Mechanics - [http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/how_to/4284709....](http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/how_to/4284709.html)

-"64 Things Every Geek Should Know" - [http://laptoplogic.com/resources/64-things-every-geek-should...](http://laptoplogic.com/resources/64-things-every-geek-should-know)

Intangible/"Lifehacks":

-How to do better socially - <http://www.succeedsocially.com/>

-Productivity section of Lifehacker - <http://lifehacker.com/tag/productivity/?refId=0>

-Studying strategies - <http://www.studygs.net/>

Financial:

-Mint.com's blog - <http://www.mint.com/blog/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Hack a Day: <http://hackaday.com/> (for random electronics projects)

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/>

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://ladyada.net/make/> especially the x0xb0x

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://fantasticcontraption.com/> for hacking... uh... contraptions.

Be warned though, it's crack.

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://instructables.com>

</comment><comment><USER8> <http://www.motherearthnews.com/> <\-- diy farming/homesteading

<http://www.drivendaily.info/> <\-- cars

<http://thereifixedit.com/> <\-- ugly kludges

</comment><comment><USER9> As mentioned instructables.com I heard they were experimenting with a pay wall, but I haven't been on there in a while. hack ikea <http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/> found some good stuff here: <http://www.wikihow.com/Main-Page> Upcycling: [https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/tetani/upcycleart/htmls/proj...](https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/tetani/upcycleart/htmls/projects.html) kinda cheesy <http://forum.doityourself.com/>

knowing how things work: <http://www.howstuffworks.com/>

Ready made forums are good but down a lot: <http://www.readymademag.com/forums/>

</comment><comment><USER10> <http://www.cnczone.com>

</comment><comment><USER11> Basically I like to hack on money

<http://www.getrichslowly.com> <http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com> <http://www.budgetpulse.com>

but I will be starting to hack in internal designs also, because want to buy an apartment ;)

</comment><comment><USER12> <http://www.calnewport.com/blog/>

Very well written blog for "Zen" like study hacks.

</comment><comment><USER9> Also,

<http://diy.alltop.com/>

And a compilation: <http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tutorial_sites.php>

</comment><comment><USER13> Making stuff: <http://blog.makezine.com> Broad range of hardware & electronics hacks.

</comment><comment><USER14> sparkfun.com -- General electronics

homeshopmachinist.com -- Metalwork and machining

makezine.com/blog -- just making stuff in general

candlepowerforums.com -- LED lighting

I describe myself as "just an engineer." I learn whatever tools I need to get a job done, so I don't distinguish much between software, electrical, mechanical, etc.

</comment><comment><USER15> What do you mean... "other" things? :-)

</comment><comment><USER16> <http://createdigitalmusic.com/>

</comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone have any good resources for amateur/hobbyist hacking biotech?

<comment><USER18> <http://diybio.org/>

Unfortunately, so far seems to be more talk than real projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> sorry if i am repeating, but

<http://lifehacker.com>

</comment><comment><USER20> finance.google.com

i like to hack money :)

</comment><comment> onreact-com <http://www.hackyourself.org/> :-)

<http://www.theyesmen.org/> reality hackers.

<http://www.rhizome.org/> technology + art

<comment><USER10> The yesmen are hilarious, I just watched their movie about a month ago.

How about that "management suit"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> make blog, don't remember url

<comment><USER22> <http://lmgtfy.com/?q=make+blog></comment></comment>


Australia swelters in record-breaking heatwave - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2018-12-australia-swelters-record-breaking-heatwave.html <comment><USER2> I'm so glad most industry groups and politicians have agreed there's no global warming. This is obviously just a fluke year.</comment>


Ask HN: Hiking 48 States in 3 Months for Parkinson's – what would you document? - <AUTHOR>

Quick backstory:
This summer I will be traveling to every state in the US on behalf of the Michael J. Fox foundation to help raise $1mm for Parkinson's research.
My college friend, Sam Fox, is really the one pioneering this fundraising effort (2 years ago he ran from Canada to Mexico on the Pacific Crest Trail to raise money and awareness for Parkinson's). Every state we visit we have one goal, to hike/climb to the highest peak (between peaks we will be driving/biking). From 14,505ft at California's Mt. Whitney to 345ft at Florida's Britton Hill, we will be hiking alongside anyone who would like to join us and support our fundraising effort for Parkinson's research. If you're interested, you can read more about it here: http://goo.gl/pJlgTp.
What would you document?
Besides a blog or video of the daily/weekly events (which will be done regardless), I've been stuck on what additionally I can do to document this experience. Have an idea of 'Same but Different' i.e. documenting the same object in every different location, and observing how it changes (taking a picture of a gas station in every state) - but am not fully convinced this will yield interesting results. Another idea I'm considering is to interview an individual I meet in every state.
Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong? Should I be more open to different types of experiences, rather than looking for ones specifically? I do believe that discovery/creations/insight do not happen serendipitously, which is why I'd like to have prepared some methodology to how I capture my experiences in each state.
What would you do?
Ideas, feedback, advice... anything would be helpful!
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Hi,

I saw Sam Fox at his talk at SXSW 2013, and I'm a highpointer myself (been to about 17 of the high points of the 50 states), and I'm not sure what would really make it that interesting. It's a pretty obscure little hobby, and there's not much to see at a lot of the highpoints.

I think you should probably be open to various experiences along the way - rather than try and force something to happen. At most of the highpoints, there really aren't any people around, and there's not really a lot of drama involved in getting to the flat ones like Florida and Delaware :)

Happy to help out in any way I can.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jeff - Yeah, 'forcing' something to happen is definitely not the right way to go about documenting an experience like this. So perhaps a nice in- between method, such as leveraging research methods that design researchers use, like ethnography's, to search for meaning after the fact.</comment></comment>


The Math Gift Myth - <AUTHOR> http://devlinsangle.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-math-gift-myth.html <comment><USER2> I realized in my math undergraduate studies that mathematicians have merely "sat" with the material longer. Sure, some people seem to click with certain topics reliably faster than average (even than their apparent peers). But ultimately solving a problem comes easier the more problems you have solved. If a geometry problem obscurely relies on some trick involving a right triangle then someone who knows more about triangles will solve it faster.

There's also a caustic societal problem involved. People will declare themselves bad at math and stop trying. There is no bad or good at math. There is only persistence.

<comment><USER3> I agree. I recently read the book, "A Mind for Numbers" which also agrees with you. Math is abstract and people struggle with that (often giving up), but I don't believe it is inherently more difficult than other complex things we train our brains to do. It's a matter of creating new neural pathways through study and time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The statements in the article, even if true, in no way motivate the claim in the title (and the text).

"In other words, all my experience in mathematics tells me I do not have an absolute ability limit. Nor, I am sure, do you. Mathematical proficiency is indeed a spectrum."

Of course it's a spectrum, and sure practice helps anyone. But that in no way implies that there is no such thing as a "math gift". In fact, the spectrum presupposes that some people are on the most advanced part of it. They are the ones with the gift. The ones on the other end don't have the gift. They may have other gifts, and they may be productive members of society nonetheless, but they don't have the math gift.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I mean, it's self-evident that people with exceptionally high general intelligence are ~100% of people who advance mathematics. I don't understand why people want to think otherwise, fooling themselves isn't going to raise their IQ.

Edit: I neglected to mention conscientiousness, which would be the other half of the puzzle. there are plenty of geniuses who will nonetheless never put themselves to work.

<comment><USER6> If some form of anxiety and the ability to cope with it are major factors in affecting one's potential ability to do math, then in theory anyone could benefit from learning to cope with anxiety and to persist in mathematical study. The idea certainly rings true with my experience.

> it's self-evident that people with exceptionally high general intelligence > are ~100% of people who advance mathematics.

Counterargument: anyone who advances mathematics will be considered of exceptionally high intelligence. Mathematicians like Gödel were known for being very eccentric and many might not consider them of exceptionally high _general_ intelligence. Whether that is an accurate assessment, I doubt you or I could say with any authority.

EDIT (post-replies): Replies to this have descended into technical terminology from cognitive science, so I must remove myself from this discussion as I lack the required education [clearance?] to participate at the expected level. Nevertheless, without some objective way of measuring the psychometric "g-factor" of mathematicians throughout history up to now, I don't see this as particularly useful in addressing the issue of aptitude of the "~100% of people who advance mathematics". If you could point to any data sets on psychometric g-factors among practicing mathematicians (particularly, alongside values from the general population), that would lend some credence to what you say. The idea is very provocative.

<comment><USER5> I neglected to mention conscientiousness, which would be the other half of the puzzle. There are plenty of geniuses who will nonetheless never put themselves to work. Intelligence can't make you productive all alone. Which is why I said it the way I did, because otherwise I would imply that they are mathematicians because they are intelligent, where I was trying to say that in order to advance mathematics, you essentially have to be very intelligent.

That said...

> _Counterargument: anyone who advances mathematics will be considered of > exceptionally high intelligence._

I'm referring to the psychometric _g factor_ type of intelligence. Not the "I know a real smart gal" type. _g_ is shockingly consistent, measurable, and clearly an important part of many human behaviours.

Intelligence is a very specific thing, people can be exceptionally good at things without being exceptionally intelligent, but people can not be exceptionally intelligent merely by being exceptional at something.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Proposed Texas Bullet Train Will Give Airlines Serious Competition - <AUTHOR> https://futurism.com/proposed-texas-bullet-train-will-give-airlines-serious-competition/ <comment><USER2> We should be building high speed rail every where. Electric planes are not very feasible with current technology, but electric trains are.

<comment><USER3> Last mile problem. Only like 10 US cities have good public transit within the cities. Driving still wins in many high speed rail cases vs a fast train and expensive cabs or uber to get around.

<comment><USER4> How is that any different than an Airport?

<comment><USER5> The infrastructure between airports is more flexible and has lower upfront costs making it more accessible to private enterprises.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple's Secrets Revealed During Trial - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443687504577567421840745452.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories <comment><USER2> _Mr. Forstall said he invented a patent for double-tapping on Web pages because as he had been using a prototype of the iPhone to surf the web, he realized he was spending a lot of time pinching and zooming the page to fit text perfectly on the screen.

"I realized I have this incredibly powerful device, why can't it figure out the right size for me?" he said. So, he challenged his team to make the software automatically size the text into the center of the screen when he double-tapped around a webpage."_

This is why we're in such a sad state with regard to software patents. This guy genuinely believes that he " _invented_ " something. And that it should be patentable.

Of course, anybody who has actually built anything knows that what he actually did was "decide how something should work". You do this dozens of times when putting out a new product, and it's not in any way a big deal. Certainly not something you should call "inventing", and absolutely not something that you should consider patenting.

It's just one of thousands of design decisions you make. It's just sad to watch people who don't understand that making things worse for everybody.

<comment><USER3> I think double-tap-to-zoom is a perfect example of something that should be patentable. It's a huge improvement over existing systems that often used a zoom box you would position with cursor keys. To work properly it has to take into account the major design elements on a web page and make intelligent choices based on the user's tap target. Web browsing before double-tap-to-zoom and multi-touch zoom was a nightmare. These two features reinvented web browsing on small displays. This was clearly one of the killer features of the original iPhone.

<comment><USER4> > To work properly it has to take into account the major design elements on a > web page and make intelligent choices based on the user's tap target.

And that is what should be patentable, if anything at all should be patentable. The algorithm to account for design elements and make intelligent choices.

Not "tap twice to zoom".

<comment><USER5> In theory, patents exist to cover ideas which are hard to think up, but obvious once you've seen them. Double-tap fits this description perfectly.

I am against patents in general. But this is perfectly in line with past hardware patents. For example compare to 1950s radios where the volume control was also the on/off switch. Pull it out, and the radio was on, push it in, it was off, and it remembered the volume that you wanted. That button design was patented.

I don't see a difference in kind on that patent and the double-click patent.

<comment><USER6> I'd wager anybody with a little work, when told "Don't add another interaction point to this radio" or "Try to find some way of cutting down on distinct inputs" would stumble upon the radio knob solution given a little time.

This isn't art--even a cursory exploration of the solution space with vague constraints should get you there.

<comment><USER7> I've been trying to think up a practical way to use that very test as the barometer for patentability. Announce the problem that has been solved, and let the public submit solutions. If any of them are close to what is in the prospective patent, the patent shouldn't be granted.

<comment><USER8> It's tough though, because often the inventive thing is framing the problem correctly, or even identifying that there is a problem to be solved here. By assuming that, you're in danger of a hindsight bias.

<comment><USER7> Patents were never intended to grant monopolies over a given problem. If you're solving a problem that no one else has solved before, people will try to solve it once they use your product. I don't think granting monopolies over a problem space helps society. Quite the contrary.

<comment><USER8> > Patents were never intended to grant monopolies over a given problem.

Well I didn't say that they were... but I'm not sure I agree with your statement anyway. Do you have any evidence that that isn't what they were intended for?

<comment><USER7> I don't have any evidence. It just doesn't make sense to grant monopolies on a problem. It would harm innovation rather than help it. We'd have one medicine to treat each ailment, for instance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [ In cross-examination, Mr. Forstall said Eddy Cue, now head of Apple's Internet services efforts, had used a 7-inch Samsung tablet for a time, and sent an email to Chief Executive Tim Cook that he believed "there will be a 7-inch market and we should do one." ]

Sounds like everybody came up with similar, unprotectable stuff, with great inspiration from each other. Not guilty. Next case!

<comment><USER10> Exactly. That's how competition is born. Sure you shouldn't be able to copy a product to a point where it's very easy to confuse the 2, but anything besides that should be allowed. "Similar" products are how markets are built. Competition by default means that one company's product is more similar than different to another company's product, in a given market for a certain type of product. And the differences are just "competitive advantages".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _Mr. Forstall also told the court that his team consisted of 1,000 people who directly reported to him._

This smells like utter bullshit. This isn't a shipyard, but designers and engineers - and they're all _direct_ reports?

<comment><USER12> Does team imply that they must be direct reports and not have a single layer of managers? With a single layer, each manager (including Forstall) would have just 34 people to manage directly. That's somewhat the same as a teacher handling a big high school class.

<comment><USER13> Team might not imply that, but:

 _1,000 people who directly reported to him_

certainly does.

<comment><USER14> I bet they did. I bet there were times where he went directly to staff and said, "I want you to concentrate on this" or "Now refine this" -- "and then come show it to me."

<comment><USER13> I understand what you mean, but that's certainly not the conventional definition of 'reporting to someone.'

<comment><USER14> I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is there anyone approaching the patent problem from another angle? Say by trying to _productize_ research on prior art discovery? Or anything that would help patent officers become more productive (as in any of: do more without loss in quality in equal time or the same with increased quality in equal time or do more better in less time)?

Sure a human will vastly outperform the state of the art algorithm on any one patent but when talking about thousands of applications week in week out and increasing, some kind of automation to filter the cruft would be useful. Surely as bad as things are now, the worst that could happen is no effect? Would certainly be a better application of machine learning than classifying the mood of movie ratings or calculating social media "klout".

<comment><USER16> There are companies that do prior art searches (usually, but not always associated with existing legal practices, I believe).

As for the patent office being more productive... At least on the subject of prior art, they don't want to be. After all, they're paid by the patent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Double tap to Zoom patent? Lol, that sounds completely pathetic. I thought about that by myself in a couple of days after starting to browse the web with a mobile that wasn't from apple. Now i understand why it's so easy to create virtual monopolies. You don't have to be particularly smart, just the first average joe to come up with a simple idea, then just stifle natural progress with dumb laws to make some guys rich. In not a too distant future, people will look back at this society and be genuinely mesmerized at how retarded people were.

</comment><comment><USER18> Isn't a trial supposed to be public anyway?

Sure, most trials are only de facto public since most of the public cannot access trials and only court decisions get published. If Apple really wanted to avoid to disclose these 'secrets', it could have filed a respective motion AFAIK.

</comment><comment><USER19> My Chromebook can't cope with this site, does anyone have a link to the printable version (or a pastebin)?

<comment><USER20> Interesting, what exactly happens in your chromebook?

Anyway, pastebinned:

<http://pastebin.com/Ff2vQWRh>

<comment><USER19> >what exactly happens in your chromebook?

Parallel processors running perpendicular today.

>Anyway, pastebinned:

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone know why the judge didn't allow "inspired by Sony" evidence?

<comment><USER22> Probably because it's hard to prove, it can become a big and arguably irrelevant distraction, and it opens up the possibility for an endless line of "this was inspired by that" from both sides. It's not too difficult to argue that everything was inspired by everything else all the way back to the stone age. The crux of this case is the question of whether Samsung has been copying Apple. Whether Apple copied someone else is arguably irrelevant. Sony can sue Apple themselves if they really think that's true.

I do understand that Apple may very well have lifted ideas from Sony and others and I have to admit that it is a valid argument. I'm only speculating as to why the judge decided not to admit the "inspired by Sony" evidence. In my eyes I can see my reasoning as being realistic though I'm not sure if it's right or wrong.

As an aside, and really, beyond the scope of the law, if you look at this from a human perspective and ignore the black and white aspects of the law, I think it's pretty obvious that Samsung has been imitating Apple's designs. Forget who worked on touch screens first and forget who first created a brick style phone with the same kind of interface because I really think that's irrelevant. Lots of phones look and function like the iPhone and the iPhone looks and functions like lots of other phones but what's really important here are the details of the design and not the generalities. If you look at Samsung's phones that came out after the iPhone you see what seems to be an attempt to piggyback off the iPhones success and maybe even confuse consumers into buying the wrong phone or making them think, as they often do, "it's basically the same thing". The minor details of Samsung's phones and tablets like the middle "home" button, the radius of the corners, the thickness, and even their packaging are so similar that if you took the logos off the phones and/or boxes its easy for even an informed consumer to mistake the two from ten feet away. I've seen tons of touchscreen phones both close up ans far away and most of the time it's not difficult at all to tell an iPhone apart from the others despite the similarities they all share (that's even without my glasses on). But if you take the Samsung phones and tablets in question and compare only those then it's quite easy to not be able to tell the difference until you're actually close enough to hold it up to your face. Legally, that's probably not important but practically that's the real issue. Even if Samsung had come out with touchscreen phones in a style like the iPhone ten years before Apple it shouldn't matter because Samsung began making what really look like clones of the iPhone only after Apple put the iPhone out.

I know if I argued this in court I'd be on shaky ground but I'm not arguing the legalities. I'm looking at this through the eyes of a real person. Touch screens, sing button or multi-button, rounded corners, etc. don't matter. When you see a copy of something else, you know it. I think whether Apple wins or loses the case it doesn't matter nor will it settle the argument. People who have seen the phones and tablets in question all know and see what happened and with so many touchscreen devices out there that are obviously very easy to differentiate from the iDevices, it can't be a coincidence that two companies were working on designs so similar right down to the tiniest details at around the same time. I think Occam's Razor applies here. The simplest explanation is that lots of companies were working on similar designs around the same time but when Apple's took off Samsung purposely started designing their devices to look like Apple's to piggy-back off their success. The result? Moms who always buy the wrong thing bought a Samsung phone or tablet as Christmas gifts because "they're basically the same thing, right?" and Apple sued Samsung.

<comment><USER16> And looking at this from the eyes of another real person:

At various times over the past several years, Apple has sued Nokia, HTC, Motorola and Samsung, plus several smaller companies over a wide variety of smartphones and tablets using many of the same design and user interface patents. This isn't about Apple being offended by copying. This is about Apple using the legal system to attack their competition. Note that many of the patents involved (like "data detection" and "universal search") date back to Macintosh user interface features from years (sometimes more than a decade) before the iPhone.

Sadly, I expect the judge wouldn't allow it, but I'd love to see the Samsung lawyer show the jury the whole gallery of devices (from all vendors) that Apple has sued over using these patents. That would make what is going on much clearer.

<comment><USER22> Well, no, it seems like you're looking at it legally. You're totally right on a lot of points (maybe all of them, I haven't looked into verifying them all). Apple is very much using the legal system to squash competitors and that's shady. I'm not denying that. What I'm arguing is really outside the scope of this trial and the law. I'm saying that the allegations that Samsung has purposely copying Apple designs in _some_ of its phones and tablets is obvious. Samsung makes a lot of touch screen phones. Most of those phones, like most touch screen phones made by anyone look very similar to each other. They're all pretty much the same basic design. But then there's a subset of Samsung's phones that so closely resemble the iPhone that even the most casual of observers has to wonder if it wasn't on purpose rather than coincidence. I think it's pretty safe to rule out coincidence in this case.

Apple's patent abuse and legal shenanigans aside, there's a handful of Samsung phones and tablets that just couldn't have come out looking like almost perfect clones of the iPhone and iPad by accident. Apple is being an asshole. But they're right that Samsung copied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I want to know who came up with the Anchor Points idea for Copy/Paste. I had an idea like that back when I was using PalmOS. Whenever I needed to copy stuff that flowed past a single screen, it was hell trying to do that. I'd invariably under or over-shoot. Had I been able to set a start point and move to an end point and have it all selected, that would have been marvelous. I wish I had done a post about it way back when. I would have been Prior Art.

<comment><USER23> That's how X terminal emulators work. You click with the left mouse at the start point, click with the right mouse at the end point. Not so different.

<comment><USER14> Never used X or emacs (I know, shocking, right?), so did not know they also did that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> They are most probably not giving away any important secrets that were previously unknown. This is a calculated move, and Apple at some level believes that most of what is being released is either (1) known by the competitors or (2) irrelevant for the future generations of their products.</comment>


Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/10/29/23084403/programmer-tim-clemans-resigns-from-police-department-over-turf-battle <comment><USER4> As a programmer, this seems like this is almost entirely Clemans fault. Good grief: you can't just walk into a mission-critical, _production_ environment and start deploying crap, even if the dispatchers like it.

Yelling at your boss who rightly pulled the plug on that stunt is hardly justified. Whether or not it's a firing offense depends on a lot of things the article doesn't tell us, but..

This is really not the "idealistic and pure-hearted lowly programmer" vs "corrupt and overly political, turf-controlling police culture" it makes it out to be.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure that the author of the post would understand enough to provide any evidence that Clemans deployed anything in an unsafe or inappropriate manner. Maybe he just deployed a webapp that the people in the communications center could access. The post is so light on details that I can't discern that he did anything wrong.

<comment><USER6> > Maybe he just deployed a webapp that the people in the communications center > could access...

I can hardly thing of a single bit of code that should be deployed in such a literal life-and-death environment, which shouldn't go through FULL REVIEW.

Maybe it's a small webapp that gives a bit more information -- which leads dispatchers in the wrong direction one out of ten times. Maybe his "highlighting the most critical calls" was highlighting the wrong ones. Maybe he solved a minor problem only, but took up dispatchers' time in training.

<comment><USER7> Clemens is in the comment thread. It seems like the system he wrote read out of the 911 call database and displayed all the active calls. Then highlighted calls based on keywords so the head dispatcher could more easily see high priority calls ( crimes in progress ? ).

This seems very safe. The captain in question is just protecting his turf. Even if he saw the benefit he would never admit it because it wasn't his idea.

<comment><USER8> How is that very safe? Presumably were looking at this unreviewed web app instead of what they were looking at before.

<comment><USER9> How about all the important calls they let languish because of the bide- shedders interfering? How is that safe?

Can the naysayers be sued by the family of some kid who died because dispatchers weren't allowed to evaluate a new tool because change scares some people? (No, of course not. And that's why there are so many bikeshedders.)

<comment><USER10> Bikeshedding is when leaders ignore complex & core questions to focus on trivial ones that are easier to understand. The tools that dispatchers use to handle incoming called doesn't sound like a trivial question.

<comment><USER9> The core of bikeshedding is continued nitpicking at the trivial by those who can't understand or don't know enough to grasp the its actual significance. And it's not just leaders.

Certainly change would be bad if the programmer in question blidnly modified existing systems. But I don't see any of the reactionaries asking that - <USER2> just assume the worst and go off on how unsafe it might have been.

But a new webapp bundling data from other systems into a new view? It shouldn't be any problem at all. The professionals on the phones are the very ones who would have to evaluate the information it returned so there's no way around letting them use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From the limited context of the article, Clemans sounds very talented and helpful but "blowing up, yelling, and cursing" when someone dismisses the helpfulness of a project is not an ideal way to change a culture.

<comment><USER12> It seems pretty clear that the captain wasn't dismissing the helpfulness but rather dismissing Clemans' authority to deploy the project.

It's a power play, and Clemans' disdain for rigid power structures clearly contributed to the friction between him and the SPD administration.

EDIT: the captain's response is not unwarranted at all. Emergency response call centers are a critical public resource and he is ultimately in charge of them.

<comment><USER13> What is worse, it is not even clear that the captain is entirely wrong here.

If Clemans screwed up, he had the potential to have 911 calls be routed to /dev/null. If he succeeded, the department became more efficient. However the 911 system is already working "well enough". Therefore in terms of outside perception any win will be small, and disasters could be huge.

He is not the one who has been give the authority to make this kind of risk decision. The captain is. If Clemans screwed up, the captain would be the one getting fired. Keeping the captain out of the loop is irresponsible. It doesn't matter that it worked. It doesn't matter how good the system is. You need to work with stakeholders, and not behind their backs.

However Clemans seems like the kind of person who can never understand this point.

<comment><USER7> Clememns is in the comments explaining how the system worked. He just reads the current calls out of a database and displays them with some highlighting. There is no write.

<comment><USER14> Not only that but from his other comments, the problem wasn't this particular system, but similar projects going forward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The software doesn't highlight calls it highlights messages with keywords. This was asked for by a dispatcher who said during emergencies it's hard to spot the important messages. This particular dispatcher's job was to monitor all of the other dispatchers and ensure that calls were prioritized correctly. The software itself did not do the dispatchers job for them. Calls are prioritized before the Chief Dispatcher typically sees them. There are calls the Chief Dispatchers are supposed to know about but are always notified of. This software was a tool to help keep the Chief Dispatchers in the loop. They dictated which keywords they wanted to use.

The meeting was scheduled by the director of IT at the time, a former Amazon VP who left two weeks after this incident, about how to allow me to continue developing apps like this. He was trying to put structure about it. The Captain wanted none of it.

<comment><USER16> What kind of messages? What kind of highlighting? What's a specific use case you were targeting? (I'm sure there was one! I just see too many of us speculating about it.)

<comment><USER17> The messages were by dispatchers. I'll give you an example, shortly after the center was no longer allowed to the app, someone called 911 and claimed his car had been shot. A dispatcher put it down as rock hit the car. A higher up told me that had my app been in used the Chief Dispatcher would have been alerted because they all had keywords for shot, shooting, etc. This is the only tool to see all messages for everything at once. I even asked them if they would like to hide messages and they said no.

<comment><USER18> Hey, sorry to derail, but I've been meaning to get back in touch with you, totally weird to see you here. Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com and I'll explain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Seattle (for city council, mayor elections, school board hires) seems to have a history of bringing in "outsiders" who are used to throwing stones at the process, who then (surprise surprise!) fail when trying to work within the process. (Edit: This is indicative of the people themselves, but also of that horribly over-inclusive beast dubbed the "Seattle Process").

<comment><USER20> Because employers love hiring people for the purposes of berating them until they blow up, then firing them when they realize they screwed up and try to play ball.

That is a very perverse theory that can be disproved by another techie who has lasted there longer than 6 months.

It appears the programmer failed to realize how srructured and protocol driven the SPD is, #1, and #2, his tact was atrocious, which is probably what got him fired.

It's happened to me and to the best of us, failure to gauge the pulse of the environment... He seems very talented, however just a really poor fit for SPD. He will be much happier elsewhere.

edit for Azkar: then that's what I call a poor fit, without blaming myself or the employer.

<comment><USER15> I was not fired and they asked me to say. But I was too unhappy and going crazy.

<comment><USER20> I believe you. I've had it both ways - where I resigned...and when I was fired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Unfortunately, policing culture is very territorial and operates at extreme levels of testosterone fueled territory marking.

A tech-nerd (with possibly some autistic traits from the descriptions) is never going to get along in that environment without someone seriously watching over them. And whoever that is, will have some serious work to do in order to get the best for the department.

Cops are trained to push peoples buttons and make them lose control. Tim seems to have not seen the play coming and was fairly easily sideswiped before he even got far off the ground.

It sounds like SPD are not up to the job - even though someone at least seemed to be in the right direction when they hired Tim in the first place. If they had been able to follow through with the right support, SPD could have been an incredibly awesome exemplar of Policing and tech done right. To me, it sounds like there are serious management problems with the department - <USER3> situation would never have happened if people were properly competent.

Sadly, in my own experience, Policing and tech are never done terribly well. It always ends up with the snoopers and intrusive abusers gaining more ground and the things which really help keep people safer and more secure being thrown in the ditch or run over completely.

<comment><USER22> "Cops are trained to push peoples buttons and make them lose control"

They are? I could see why, say, detectives interviewing a suspect might use that approach to try to get them to say something incriminating, but for regular cops I would think their job is made much easier if the people they interact with are calm.

<comment><USER23> That is not in their own interest though, the incentives aren't aligned with the stated mission. Consider job security, advancement and cop culture.

<comment><USER24> That's a very cynical view of police.

<comment><USER25>
      That's a very accurate view of most police.

Fixed it for you.

<comment><USER26> Yes and it is for a good reason. Earlier today in New Jersey:

> A jury yesterday found Spolizino, 37, not guilty of death by auto and > leaving the scene of a fatal accident in the death of 24-year-old Stephen > Clifford on April 19, 2013. An aggravated manslaughter charge had been > tossed earlier by the judge.

[http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/10/acquitted_jersey_...](http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/10/acquitted_jersey_city_cop_remaining_on_modified_du.html)

> Authorities said Spolizino was driving 60 miles per hour -- 35 MPH over the > speed limit -- when his vehicle struck Clifford on Kennedy Boulevard. The > state argued Spolizino caused Clifford's death through the recklessness of > the speed at which he was driving.

> The jury disagreed.

> Video showed the pickup continue north on Kennedy Boulevard where it went > through a red light at Montgomery Street before pulling over.

> The video then showed the pickup go into reverse and back up to Montgomery, > the officer quickly dialed 911 and a witness said he saw the officer at the > scene of the crash within five to 10 minutes of the impact.

> During the trial, Garrigan noted that Clifford was crossing against the > green, implying that Clifford bore some of the responsibility. He also noted > that speeding on Kennedy Boulevard is common.

[http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/10/jersey_city_polic...](http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/10/jersey_city_police_officer_michael_spolizino_not_g.html#incart_2box_hudson)

I don't have any insight into the case in particular but I really doubt the outcome would have been the same if the person driving were not a police officer.

In other news, the NJ police had choice words for Tarantino.

> The New Jersey State Policeman's Benevolent Association has become the > latest police organization to call for a boycott of Quentin Tarantino's > films, following the director's participation in an anti-police brutality > march in New York last weekend.

[...]

>"Quentin Tarantino needs to understand that as a public figure his voice is one that people listen to," Colligan's statement continued. "He has an obligation to be more responsible. This is not a movie, this is real life where police officers lives are impacted by his words."

[http://www.ew.com/article/2015/10/30/new-jersey-police- quent...](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/10/30/new-jersey-police-quentin- tarantino-boycott) (sorry for quoting ew, you don't have to click the link)

You know what impacts police officers' credibility more than a director's words? The benches of police officers that filled up in solidarity of a police officer who doesn't deny that he was behind the wheel of a car in a hit and run case driving 60 miles per hour on a 35 miles per hour area. Would any of the police officers be there if it was... I don't know... an undocumented immigrant without a license or an out of state driver or anyone who was not a police officer?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have to say...I'm very impressed that he lasted that long. And I think credit has to be given to both Clemans and the Seattle PD...Clemans, obviously, for putting his skill and ingenuity toward the public good. But also, to the police for not only being open to change, but willingly bringing in someone who so openly antagonized them. Given the amount of political ego in most police organizations...6 months of collaboration is pretty astonishing.

Even if the Seattle PD were at fault, the onus is on them to either adopt or ignore what Tim has done for them...sometimes the attention and public scrutiny is enough to change things, so I wouldn't see Tim's departure as the end of it. It doesn't have to be be, at least, and hopefully other Seattle civic hackers have been inspired by his work.

</comment><comment><USER28> Also in the Seattle Times[0], an interesting quote, apparently by Clemans:

        "Basically, it all went to hell," said Clemans, describing his
        relationship with the department. "The problem is [the department]
        wants to use technology, but it wants to have vendors who build
        these large systems that cost a lot of money and are hard to implement.

        I want things to go fast and I've been working with people
        who realize government moves slowly."

It seems Clemans got frustrated by the inefficiencies of bureaucracy, and the department got fed up with his disruptive attitude.

[0][http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/spd-tech-officer- re...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/spd-tech-officer-resigns- resumes-public-records-requests/)

<comment><USER17> The department didn't get rid of me. They tried to keep me from resigning.

<comment><USER28> Fair enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Let's talk about some of the things he did. The highlighting of the most important calls seems useful, but the article also mentioned he developed "blurring of anything that moves in police footage". What is the benefit of this?

<comment><USER30> It's for privacy. Before this feature, the SPD had someone manually blur out faces to protect privacy. The burden this placed on police resources was a large factor in why they didn't want to or couldn't comply with public records requests.

<comment><USER29> hmm, I thought arrest was public....That makes sense now about the privacy. Thank you for clarifying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Don't get it. This whole thing could have been solved in a 5 minute review with folks. Maybe they want more than just that 1 feature?

Either way, installing _any_ software, even those that only do a read (how does he even know that that's all it did?) to a mission critical piece must always be vetted, end of story. Heck, even a _read_ could take down the system if it did lots of JOINs a slower DB, etc.

Just because you can get something running doesn't mean you're a systems engineer.

</comment><comment><USER32> Wish I was even half as smart and half as brave as him, wow

</comment><comment><USER33> "I'm gonna PDR the shit out of you!" is probably my favorite part of that whole article.

<comment><USER15> Yep wanna not improve SPD fine but I'm going to showcase everything you and your people do. You're be forced to improve once the media gets ahold of the mistakes being made.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Organizational Software is, in essence, bureaucratic automation. And if you try to impose bureaucracy, control, tracking and/or regulaiton inside a deeply "brotherly" organization, you are bound to have issues.</comment>


Show HN: Chrome extension to show eBay seller feedback in search results - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/show-seller-rating-in-eba/gjpcbpcmkpepnempmaeaofdphkihgceo?utm_source=chrome-app-launcher-info-dialog <comment><USER2> Awesomely handy. Thanks!

My one suggestion, would be to add a "view feedback" button to each. Often times, scam accounts will have 100%, because you're unable to leave anything but positive feedback that were in dispute. Happened to me a bunch of times recently, where selling an iPhone, and the user was just winning auctions, and not paying. You couldn't leave negative feedback for a nonpayment. It's insane!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the encouragement and suggestion. I'm on a mobile right now but pretty sure you can just click the link on the number to see the full feedback. Will check to make sure when I get back. thanks

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is a small chrome extension I wrote in less than 2 hours yesterday. The purpose of this extension is to show the eBay seller's feedback directly inside the search results[1].

I needed it because when buying used items it really helps if you look at the feedback and make sure it is at least above 98% (in my experience). Before you had to open each and every listing and see the ratings.

This extension takes the pain away and it also highlights sellers with 100% feedback with green. Again, it's just a quick hack I made for myself but sharing it here in case someone else using eBay finds it useful.

Comments and suggestions are most welcome!

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtcsBQ1cScQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtcsBQ1cScQ)</comment>


Better way to mock HTTP server - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/scalalang2/motty <comment><USER2> There are two other awesome projects which help you mock REST HTTP server:

\- [https://www.getpostman.com/](https://www.getpostman.com/) \- [https://apiary.io/](https://apiary.io/)</comment>


Decrypting Amber Rudd - <AUTHOR> https://ar.al/notes/decrypting-amber-rudd/ <comment><USER2> I'm by no means going to support government attempts to ban encryption, but assuming 100% virtuous purposes (e.g.: counter-terrorism efforts), I can understand why they think this will work. I mean, they think that passing laws on guns and drugs will stop those things.

The fundamental problem is that the government and the public do not understand that powerful encryption will exist forever now. The cat is out of the bag, and the bag has disintegrated. You can't ban the ideas, and you can't stop them from being implemented in the shadows. Even worse for them, there's nothing physical to find. You can't train a dog to sniff out encrypted data. Banning it now only hurts honest uses, like protecting financial transactions and medical records.

<comment><USER3> > You can't train a dog to sniff out encrypted data

?? But you can easily train a computer to. I mean, it's expensive as hell, but if all encryption is either back-doored, banned, or weaker than a newspaper cryptogram, then yeah... sure. Encrypted data is easy to find - it's the data you can't read.

<comment><USER4> No you can't.

The data you can't read is not only encrypted data. Most unencrypted data will be data you can't read, due to there being absurd amounts of file formats and protocols. How do you intend to be able to validate that the content of all, say, CAD and 3D model files is not malicious? How will you deal with new codecs? New network protocols?

Encrypted data is, unless the protocol is severely broken, almost indistinguishable from random data, which without context and knowledge of all file formats and protocols in the world, is indistinguishable from most real, unencrypted data. And not only that, you can hide information in almost any data type. Encrypted content can be hidden in a perfectly normal looking picture or video just fine. Look up steganography.

Encrypted communication cannot be detected in any sane manner.

<comment><USER3> > Most unencrypted data will be data you can't read, due to there being absurd > amounts of file formats and protocols

Well I sure couldn't read it, but the NSA could.

> How will you deal with new codecs? New network protocols?

With a massive staff and constant influx of money. I did say it would be expensive. Still, I think it's within the reach of state-level actors.

> Encrypted data is, unless the protocol is severely broken, almost > indistinguishable from random data, which without context and knowledge of > all file formats and protocols in the world, is indistinguishable from most > real, unencrypted data.

Sure- context is a critical tool. I don't know why you stipulated "without context", though.

> Encrypted content can be hidden in a perfectly normal looking picture or > video just fine. Look up steganography.

UNencrypted data can be hidden in the same way. I know what steganography is, and sure, the art of hiding data is a great way to hide data. Separate issue, though.

> Encrypted communication cannot be detected in any sane manner.

I think the facilities and manpower for detecting unauthorized use of encryption would indeed be insane, from several perspectives. And it would require a bunch of legislative support, too. But WITH legislative support, mandated back doors, ISPs that are cooperative, shitloads of manpower and money.... Yeah, I think it would be possible to detect encrypted traffic. Could a person who hadn't already attracted the attention of the "agencies" choose to hide small amounts of data in an innocuous file? Sure, but they could glue an SD card to a homing pigeon, too. I'm thinking more of PGP, SSL, VPNs, WhatsApp and the like.

<comment><USER4> No amount of staff will be able to predict file formats and protocols before they are designed, and unless file formats and protocols are permitted prior to being "understood" by this hypothetical internet filtering agency, then no new formats or protocols can be formed, or even updated. However, permitting them prior to being understood also mean that arbitrary traffic will be permitted, as long as the formats and protocols mutate faster than they are implemented by the bad guys (the state-level actors you describe).

The only scenario where I can think of a setup where a filtering agency would be able to block "dangerous content", while still permitting legit use, would be one where each and every file format and protocol creation/update would require applying for a permit to the respective agencies in every country where the format is to be used. The absurd bureaucracy this would entail, such as the time it takes for the agency to write some form of verification, would kill most, if not all, innovation. The only innovation I could imagine still living in such an environment would be circumvention efforts.

Furthermore, steganography is not a separate issue. In the hypothetical scenario where this is both possible and the resources for this exercise are present, the entire exercise becomes moot once you realize that you can encode anything as a jpeg or video file with a minimal overhead. Applications would just all implement protocols that exchange JPEG's or MP4's with a small overhead, leading to no traffic being stopped as "unreadable".

And before you ask: Detecting such measures is not possible in the general case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I agree that what the UK government is trying to do is dangerous, wrong and ultimately won't help all that much anyway, this article is so full of hyperbole, bluster and FUD that, even though I know and understand most of the issues, it's honestly hard to take much of it seriously.

I expect exaggeration from Rudd and I expect her to misunderstand how certain things (i.e. encryption and the internet) really work because a) she's a politician b) she's not an encryption expert (that's what advisors are for). I don't really expect the same thing from people should be trying to counter her arguments with facts, explanation and alternative ideas though.

<comment><USER6> Well, I can't say that there's anything obviously wrong with the article.

You should be fearful, uncertain and full of doubt about privacy and democracy if you live in the UK. And those companies really are farming people's data and doing whatever the heck they want with it. And removing the people's access to private communication in the digital age is both stupid and evil.

There's no bluster and hyperbole, just the sad reality.

<comment><USER7> This doesn't seem to get suggested very often, or ever, but maybe we need to keep protesting these developments, and boycott these companies/services who collude with the government to erode our civil liberties. Nobody _has to_ login to facebook, at least not yet...It's only going to get more difficult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone ever wonder which school these people go to to be trained in such a duplicitous way of thinking or do they really believe they are protecting everyone from the terrorists? As the article clearly demonstrates, Amber Rudd conflates the need to monitor and remove _public_ information with the need to monitor everyone's _private_ information.

This sort of "tough love" probably plays well politically with most of the population, who can't really think of a reason they'd like their privacy protected.

I really can't get my head around why all politicians (across the world right now really) converge on the same draconian policies.

<comment><USER9> chapter 5 might be interesting: (whole book is interesting, but it is mainly focused on followers, not leaders) [http://theauthoritarians.org/Downloads/TheAuthoritarians.pdf](http://theauthoritarians.org/Downloads/TheAuthoritarians.pdf)

<comment><USER8> Really interesting read, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I fucking hate everything about the way the world is trending. We need a proper grassroots revolution which throws these idiot ministers in prison for crimes against humanity.

<comment><USER11> As depressing as it may be, I don't really see a way out. The genie is out of the bottle now and any successful revolutionaries will also have an overwhelming urge to use this technology to cement their power.

Benevolent AIs may be an outside possibility. Otherwise, short of nuking ourselves back to the stone age, I think total surveillance societies are here to stay.

<comment><USER10> The revolution could be to get off the internet or to use it only for cat videos, go back to using cash, reconnect with local friends only etc etc

<comment><USER12> CCTV coverage is already high in London, and increasing everywhere. Recognition software (not just facial) is getting quite good.

Cash can mostly be tracked unless you just trade with black/grey market sellers. Adding RFID to notes and mandating readers on cash registers would already be feasible.

Home devices (TVs, DVRs, even fridges[1]) increasingly have microphones and other sensors, so it'll be hard to be sure you're not being recorded even when talking to friends in their living room.

[1] [http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a24616/sa...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a24616/samsung- family-hub-2-voice-controlled-fridge/)

<comment><USER10> Like the story of the 40 thieves, maybe the answer is to hide in plain sight. Throw so much data at them that they can't meaningfully process all of it. Fuck! This subthread is making me angry/ier.

<comment><USER13> [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ICCNCIDC](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ICCNCIDC)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube (Google/Alphabet, Inc) have formed > the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism and Amber Rudd is asking them > to quietly drop end-to-end encryption from their products. You should not > believe a single word any of those companies tells you about end-to-end > encryption or privacy on their platforms ever again.

and

> she reveals that she has created the Global Internet Forum to Counter > Terrorism with Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube (Google/Alphabet, > Inc.) and asked them to remove end-to-end encryption from their products > (remember that Facebook makes WhatsApp) without telling anyone.

This wording implies that these big tech companies would silently, without anyone noticing, drop or compromise their E2E encryption. Is this something they could do? I'd expect such a change to be noticeable in both the clients they distribute and the network traffic they generate by people in the infosec industry.

Can anyone with a deeper understanding of the matter chime in?

<comment><USER15> It's plausible that they could just compromise the security, intentionally, without telling anyone (and without anyone being able to easily tell).

I think what's more likely, at least in the case of WhatsApp, is that they would just not make an announcement when they remove E2E encryption entirely. The security community would certainly complain, and long-term, the traffic they are currently getting from parties of any interest would move somewhere else. But in the short term, it would compromise the security of a substantial number of their target users. It's plausible that, without a public announcement, many 'nefarious' users would continue to use it for a few months.

<comment><USER16> I'm more worried about a trigger-able mode of whatsapp that silently disables E2E encryption on a specific phone. The only way to figure this out is to catch the app in the act.

It seems possible that WhatsApp could be persuaded by the government to implement such technology.

<comment><USER15> Something that does concern me about WhatsApp is that backups of messages (by default, it seems, put on Google Drive on Android) are not encrypted. I'm not really sure why. There's not a compelling reason that I can think of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "You're more at risk dying from falling out of bed than you are from terrorism?". I have no argument with the rest of the piece but this (true) statistic is an irrelevance given that there are terrorists who had they possession of nuclear options (literal or otherwise) would not hesitate to use them (planned with or without electronic communication). In this context, assessing risks like this is fatuous given the absence of required information. That doesn't mean that an insurance company might not perform the calculation for an individual but they have different goals from government.

<comment><AUTHOR> While it's a relevant point, the risk (in a probability * cost sense, to address your point about terrorists using a nuclear/radiological weapon were one available) of terrorism has to be addressed somehow or you're cherry picking one from a number of extremely rare but potentially catastrophic events to worry about. We're not spending trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on a War on Giant Asteroids, for example.

<comment><USER13> The War on Giant Asteroids is unwinnable. That's why we should instead fund the War on Giant Asteroids Piloted by Dinosaurs. We kicked their asses 6,000 years ago, we can do it again!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So, is she threatening or bribing the tech companies? Otherwise, I can't see why they would take any notice.

<comment><USER19> My guess is that she's arse-covering. She wants to be seen 'doing something' and so that if there's an incident she can then point and say "I told them but they didn't listen"

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Unfortunately, since there are more people who don't have a grasp on the ramifications of what she's proposing that those that do, there'll be more people that buy into this dangerous spin, than those that don't. She'll pull it off, just like the Snooper's Charter.

<comment><USER21> I honestly don't think so, the UK isn't important enough globally for WhatsApp to risk losing everything - look at what happened with them in Brazil, which is a larger WhatsApp market by a good bit.

A lot of this stuff feels like a vindication of how Indians make fun of Brits: foot stamping, bureaucratic, and out of touch with a world that has largely passed them by.

<comment><USER22> > A lot of this stuff feels like a vindication of how Indians make fun of > Brits: foot stamping, bureaucratic, and out of touch with a world that has > largely passed them by.

If there ever was bigger case of people in glass houses should not throw stones, I've yet to see it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> How do I "stock up" on strong encryption in anticipation of it being banned eventually? Should I buy routers and hardware with strong hardware level encryption in them? Should I acquire and backup the software (vpn, public key toolchains etc)?

</comment><comment><USER24> Decryption of common people's ideas/thoughts is only the first step of moderating them by the govt. in future! Terrorism is an easy & irrefutable excuse.

</comment><comment><USER25> Its yet another Home Secretary being (to put it very very politely) extremely disingenuous with the UK public. It would be laughable if it wasnt so sad.

</comment><comment><USER25> I agree with the articles author. Things conveniently "slip through the net" always, even when the perpetrator was "known to the authorities" and they think the answer to this is not fixing whats wrong with the Brit Security Services but increasing surveillance on EVERYBODY? Something stinks, it does not make proportionate sense.

As an example, Drunk Drivers kill more people per year than terrorism, But no one in the UK talks about surveilling everyone to prevent drink driving.</comment>


How to Sleep Well? - <AUTHOR> http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/howto.html

<comment><USER2> I agree 100% on this: Only use your bed for sleeping Refrain from using your bed to watch TV, pay bills, do work or reading. So when you go to bed your body knows it is time to sleep. Sex is the only exception.</comment>


70,000 ATMs to support cardless cash withdrawal via Touch ID - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2016/07/15/cardless-withdrawls-touch-id-70k-atms/ <comment><USER2> So now you don't even need your credit/debit card to be stolen for you to lose money while walking on the street.</comment>


Is yours one of the 257 startups rejected by TechCrunch Battlefield Australia? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Is it possible to see the list, would be interested to see whats happening in Australia.</comment>


Underwater stock options flooding Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/everybody-s-underwater-in-silicon-valley

<comment><USER2> "I would probably lean toward [repricing] if it would help keep employees."

Yeah, as if those employees have anywhere to go.

<comment><USER3> If you're good, there are plenty of opportunities in the Valley.

<comment><USER4> I agree. It just takes a lot of time and patience, as the job market cooled off a lot. Also employers have a lot more choice now, so they can be picky.

I think the days where fresh grads could get 90k are gone. Back to sanity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Employee: Why are my stock options now worthless? Bossman: It's the economy, we're taking a big hit, out of our control ...sorry. Employee: Sure it is.</comment>


Spilling the Beans on RTK - <AUTHOR> http://deepsouthrobotics.com/2017/04/20/spilling-the-beans-on-rtk/ <comment><USER2> RTK is changing the world -- this is an introduction.

Disclosure: I'm the author.</comment>


The Strange Origins of TrueCrypt - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-strange-origins-of-truecrypt-isiss-favored-encryption-tool <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11381625](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11381625)

</comment><comment><USER3> TrueCrypt isn't open source, it was freeware with the source available.

<comment><USER4> It also wasn't free software, which is more important than if it was "open source".

<comment><USER5> To be fair, Open Source is a well-defined term: [https://opensource.org/osd- annotated](https://opensource.org/osd-annotated)

<comment><USER4> "open source" is a well-defined term, but there's no logic behind the definition (there's no reason why those 10 and only those 10 rules are necessary for it to be "open source"). Free software has 4 very well-reasoned rules that once you accept the 10 rules of "open source" fall out (as well as a few others that aren't in the OSD).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Latest bot/virus affecting Facebook chat (link given), how does it work? - <AUTHOR>

This link http://www6.megafilehd.com/files/p.php?id7532-Picture58.JPEG WARNING: It is a virus/trojan/whatever. Some of my friends were infected yesterday by this. It keeps sending the same link through chat messages from the infected person's account, once the person downloads, extracts the zip and runs the jpeg file. I suspect some click jacking, but I haven't tried it out so far.  I am wondering how this works, any idea? <comment><USER2> this virus read clients facebook cookie via integration to internet browser. then, with javascript, it will command the internet browser to do click-event and send it to active friend-list using j-query included in facebook page. as standard, it send to fiendlist of infected computer as link you get. <http://dfgen.com>. best regards

</comment><comment><USER3>
       curl: (6) Couldn't resolve host 'www6.megafilehd.com'

I think it's gone again.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes its gone</comment></comment>


VirtualBox Local Web Development Servers - The Right Way - <AUTHOR> http://michaelhallsmoore.com/blog/Running-A-Local-Web-Development-Environment-With-VirtualBox

<comment><AUTHOR> Just so you know, a comment was left on the blog by Felix, who suggested using Vagrant (<http://vagrantup.com/>) in order to automate the process I outlined in the post.

Definitely a lot quicker.

</comment><comment><USER2> nice article! the only thing i question is why not just use local (not virtualised) versions of the servers. you say that you have all the cpu and ram ressources when the virtual guests are off. but if you use a local apache/nginx or iis you don´t have the overhead of a complete operating system. and of course you can turn the servers on and off.

but nevertheless, i like articles on how to work more efficiently!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

For me, it is more about the convenience of not having to shutdown IIS, Apache, Nginx, etc. every time the host operating system boots.

Further, since I am using a Windows host machine for most of my development, it is impossible to fully replicate the server setup on that OS - hence the virtualisation.</comment></comment>


Facebook's "like"-button: using it can be a crime when used on forbidden posts - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-likes-anti-semitic-posts-110000182.html <comment><USER2> Just wait until they make this retroactive, flag every post you may have "liked" as a teen and now jail you as an adult.

Can't wait for thought crime to be a thing.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> > _Using Facebook Inc.'s "like" or "share" button to distribute right-wing or > anti-semitic material could be a crime if the information ends up being > circulated to a third party, Switzerland's top court ruled._

> _The Swiss Federal Court upheld a fine imposed on a man for "repeated > defamation" by a Zurich court, ruling that "activating both 'like' and > 'share' buttons in Facebook can improve visibility and thereby contribute to > the dissemination within the social network of marked content._</comment>