Great geek documentaries for a Saturday evening - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Dont forget:

\- Forbin project ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project>

\- E-Money with Cringely ~ <http://www.pbs.org/opb/electricmoney>

\- Nerds 2.0.1: with Cringely ~ <http://www.pbs.org/opb/>

\- NerdTV: Cringely interviews ... ~ <http://www.pbs.org/nerdtv/>

\- Doug Englebart Mother of all Demos ~ <http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2005/06/doug_englebart_.html>

\- More Doug Englebart ~ <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8734787622017763097>

SEEN

\- Startup.com: 9/10: How things get all messed up b/w friends in startups, 'lets get to work'.

\- Revolution OS: 8/10: Nerdy interviews with the GNU, Linux & Free software movement. Worth it to see Bruce Perens hair & Eric Raymonds _'we are your worst nightmare'_ speech to an MS exec in a lift.

\- Pirates of Silicon Valley ~ 8/10: Very funny take on Gates, Woz & Jobs <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122>

\- The Triumph of the Nerds ~ 7.5/10: Cringley doing his stuff with web1.0 startups. Great to see Joe Kraus with Excite ~ <http://www.pbs.org/nerds>

\- Apollo 13; 7/10: Brings back memories of my childhood & Apollo missions. Not long after I got this on DVD I got to see Jack Schmitt talk (last man on the moon). Best bit was on how they handled the complexity.

\- The Fog of War ~ 7/10: Robert McNamara, how smart people can get fooled <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War>

\- Walking with Dinosaurs: 7/10: Ok

\- E-Dreams: 6.5/10: Dark, gritty and how did they get all that money?

\- Project Aardvark ~ 6/10: Uneventful, nerdy guys building co-pilot ~ <http://www.copilot.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Documentaries for geeks or about geeks? The ones about geeks will probably be really boring. They'll leave out both the technical stuff and the potentially actionable war stories. "Revolution OS", for instance, was a well-crafted film, but pretty dull if you read Slashdot.

Branch out a bit. Off the top of my head:

"The Pleasure of Finding Things Out": Richard Feynman talks. (Danny Hillis pops up for a bit.)

"The Fog of War": a smart, reflective person discusses how he presided over a huge disaster.

"Lost in La Mancha": Terry Gilliam takes a bunch of risks to get a movie started and doesn't make it.

"Around Cape Horn": Captain Irving Johnson describes sailing around the Horn on one of the last windjammers.

"Walking with Dinosaurs": Woo! Dinosaurs!

"Apollo 13" is not an actual documentary, of course, but it's fun and reasonably faithful for a big-budget movie.

<comment><USER4> I just watched Revolution OS. Really enjoyed it. Indeed it is somewhat of old news to many of us, but it is also nice to see the faces and personalities driving the GNU, Linux, and FOSS movement as a whole.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Triumph of the Nerds <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115398/>

Revolution OS <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308808/>

Startup.com <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Nerds 2.0.1 on Google Video, downloadable: <http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=nerds+2.0.1>

Triumph of the Nerds was on there previously... meanwhile, just Google for torrents.

</comment><comment><USER6> Edreams - it tracks the rise and fall of KOZMO.COM, honestly a great great movie, you can even watch it online for free at cinemanow.

Definitely check this one out.

</comment><comment><USER7> Project Aardvark? (I haven't seen this since I'm outside the US but it looks good)

<comment><USER8> My friends and I were all in agreement Project Aardvark was ruined by the horrible music. All in all, I wish they would have focused more on the tech stuff instead of their living environments and math behind jumping to a nearby building. Paul makes a guest appearance though cooking chili if I remember correctly. It's worth watching but warned of the music...

<comment><USER7> You can buy the soundtrack album :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pirates of Silicon Valley - Google Video

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7941901498664355924>

</comment><comment><USER9> Pirates of Silicon Valley ofcourse :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Any BBC Horizon documentary, esp The Great Robot Race one.</comment>


Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html <comment><USER2> this was worth it just for the photos themselves. As a European, I find the struggles of your intellectuals echoing what happens here in a very strange, distorted way. Or is it us echoing you?</comment>


I'll pay you $5 to test my software - <AUTHOR> FIRST: If this is against the guidelines, I am sorry in advance.
I'm writing budgeting software with Electron to replace the web-based solutions that I've used in the past (Mint, EveryDollar). I don't like the thought of saving my budget on some application/server that I do not own. I wanted to get away from these companies possibly selling my data (because I don't read the terms and conditions fully) and another data-breach where the whole internet now knows I go to Noodles and Company too often.
To that end, this budgeting software is completely offline. All the data is stored in a .json file contained within the app. This data can be protected by a passphrase so it sits encrypted at-rest on the file system. Oh, I forgot my passphrase, can I just reset it so I can resume using the app? No. There's no backdoor there; I have to delete all of my data to use the app again. Suffice to say, it's secure enough that I'm comfortable using it for my personal use.
It's features are basic now, but I'm adding more features like the ability to filter categories alphabetically and adding a page for future goals and reports - because I know I want these myself.
I'd like to give this away for free, because I've been very blessed in life and I think everyone should have the ability to manage their budgets without a cost associated with it. The problem I'm having is getting the word out, so I've decided to post here offering to PAY YOU $5 to test this software. (I don't have infinite money, though, but I hope to give away $100-$200 in amazon gift cards). If you are interested, please go to the Github page (https://github.com/reZach/my-budget) and download the windows binary (no mac binaries yet) and try it out. If you aren't comfortable with that, clone the repo and run it locally. Give your thoughts/opinions on the Slack channel and message me in Slack ('zachary' is the user name) an email I can send you your abraham lincoln ($5) amazon gift card :) <comment><USER2> 500 and it's a deal</comment>


Ask HN: Is it unprofessional to have emojis in your CTA button? - <AUTHOR> I am looking to improve the CTA buttons by adding emojis. I also have "corporate" websites on my list I was wondering what is the general view about button-emojis.<p>Thank you! <comment><USER2> I don't think it would be unprofessional in every circumstance. It really comes down to knowing who will be interacting with your CTA, how it fits with the brand behind it, and the perception of the industry that the CTA is operating in.

I tend to judge the use of emojis based on age of demographic and the scale of traditional to non-traditional industry and err on the side of caution.

You will most likely not lose a lot by not using emojis, even with an audience that likes them, but could potentially lose by using them with and audience that does not like them.</comment>


Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis <comment><USER2> I use this occasionally, it works okay.

I have to say though, with the introduction of the GGC, and all of the improvements to the JS runtime recently in Firefox, that it has gotten much faster.

Electrolysis should bring "smoothness" to the entire UI as one site should not be able to halt the UI thread for the rest of the browser any more.

</comment><comment><USER3> I feel like people stealth copy links from my comments sometimes.

Maybe I am just paranoid, lol

Anyway, I'll add this:

[http://arewee10syet.com/](http://arewee10syet.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Confirmed: I did find the wiki page through your comment and thought it would be a great submission.

You are not paranoid if they are really watching you :D

<comment><USER3> Yeah don't feel bad, someone else did it to my Chrome runs Android apps submission the other day too.

I've got more useless points than I know what to do with so no problem with others having some.

ps. I think a better title that might not get mod-changed would be _" Mozilla: Electrolysis"_

<comment><AUTHOR> Title updated :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I tried it myself. Most of the bugs that are there explained in that wiki page aren't really occurring (I guess they were fixed in the meantime), but I noticed creating and destroying new tabs was much much slower, and that made me disable it.

<comment><USER5> e10s engineer here.

There are certainly some performance things to iron out. Right now, we're just trying to make the base browser functions work properly, and then we'll start tackling the performance problems.

<comment><USER4> I know ;)

I'm looking forward to Electrolysis, since having only one process is what makes me use Chrome: the renderer hangs a lot, especially with complex pages (such as TweetDeck for me), and when that happens, the whole browser hangs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> WARNING! If you run Firefox Nightly to test Electrolysis (e10s), you should not share your e10s-enabled user profile with other Firefox release channels: Aurora, Beta, or Release! The Nightly channel has many e10s bug fixes that are not fixed in Aurora, Beta, or Release.

</comment><comment> jude- I'm really glad Mozilla has been working on this. A lot of comments here talk about UI responsiveness being the key benefit, but another huge win is that it limits the damage a browser zero-day can do. With this model, a compromised tab will no longer be able to directly read the contents of other tabs, since the other tabs live in separate address spaces.

This of course assumes a compromised tab can't go on to compromise the browser kernel (i.e. the process that manages tabs and shared tab state) or trick the kernel into giving it unauthorized data from other tabs. However, formally verifying that a kernel implementation prevents this is feasible in practice [1].

[1] [http://goto.ucsd.edu/quark/](http://goto.ucsd.edu/quark/)

<comment><USER7> > With this model, a compromised tab will no longer be able to directly read > the contents of other tabs, since the other tabs live in separate address > spaces.

... assuming those tabs are cross-origin.

> This of course assumes a compromised tab can't go on to compromise the > browser kernel

Also assumes that a compromised tab can't go on to compromise the _OS_ kernel.

<comment> jude- > ... assuming those tabs are cross-origin.

Not sure why this has to be a condition. Perhaps tabs loading pages from the same origin will both have read/write access to some shared data in the browser kernel (like the site's cookies), but they still run in separate address spaces regardless. A compromised tab won't be able to directly access another tab's RAM, as is the case with single-process browsers.

> Also assumes that a compromised tab can't go on to compromise the OS kernel.

Very true. However, my argument was that a multi-process model limits (but obviously does not eliminate) the impact of zero-days. In the single process model, the attacker could compromise _any_ tab and have all tab state available with no additional effort. In the multi-process model, the attacker would have to compromise the right tab, compromise a different tab and trick the browser kernel to performing the requisite operations, or somehow bypass the OS's memory protection. Each of these require more work than before.

<comment><USER7> > Not sure why this has to be a condition.

Because they can share JavaScript objects.

<comment> jude- Sure, tabs can load static assets from a read-only cache instead of re- fetching everything from the origin (be it an in-browser cache run by the browser kernel, or a Web cache somewhere between you and the origin). But surely, the tabs run private instances of the layout engine and javascript VM when they _process_ the page, no? When would it ever make sense for multiple tabs to directly access each other's runtime state?

<comment><USER7> > But surely, the tabs run private instances of the layout engine and > javascript VM when they process the page, no?

No.

For example, you can get direct access to another tab's "window" object in this way, as long as it's same-origin: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/window.open...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/window.opener)

> When would it ever make sense for multiple tabs to directly access each > other's runtime state?

For Web compatibility.

<comment> jude- I'm not sure that your example prevents the implementation of per-tab javascript VMs. Wouldn't the browser be designed such that its kernel mediated all tab-to-tab runtime state queries? Then, tabs wouldn't directly access each other's state, and the kernel would interpose security policies (such as same- origin-only requests) between tabs regardless of a tab's behavior. To keep this arrangement transparent to programmers, the tab's javascript VM would map access to shared state (like a window's opener) onto the appropriate call to the kernel, obviating the need for direct inter-tab memory access while preserving compatibility.

<comment><USER8> Layout and compositing need to be cross-origin; the Web implicitly allows cross-origin resource loads; and (as was raised above by pcwalton) browsing contexts like windows and frames need to function as if they're running on the same thread and can potentially be shared. All of that is to say that all of the potentially shared state makes it extremely difficult to bind a web origin to a process for security purposes. It's a hard enough problem that a team of Chrome engineers has been working on it for a few years, and are only now approaching an alpha implementation.* And that's many years after Chrome was entirely multi-process with sandboxed web renderer processes.

* [http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/site-iso...](http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/site-isolation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was wondering about the benefits of this. Supposedly having tabs in different processes should improve performance of the browser in general, as slow running scripts in one tab process won't slow down the main UI process. I have come across this problem before, including the whole browser freezing from some slow JS. But does this need to be done with separate processes? Surely running tabs in a different thread to the UI should solve this issue too?

I'm a bit concerned about the effect this could have on RAM usage and plugin compatibility - the linked wiki page already lists two plugins that I can't live without (NoScript and Tree Style Tabs) as being incompatible. Hopefully that will be fixed before this becomes default in a release.

<comment><USER10> Part of it is probably that browsers use so much shared global data that it is easier to just make another process. There are also fault isolation and security benefits you get from splitting the web content into a process that can have a tighter sandbox policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I got the option to enable this the last time my Nightly installation was updated. It's been working well so far, but plugins are leaving a lot to be desired. On OS X Yosemite, full screen flash video will make the entire browser crash with the tab. On OS X Mavericks, it looks like the native Firefox PDF viewer is no longer available, and the adobe plugin was not working at all in its place.

I'm excited about e10s though, I think this is definitely the right way to go for all browsers!

</comment><comment><USER12> "Electrolysis" finally works? Several years ago, Mozilla gave up on it. This is progress.

Now the question is how tightly locked down the page processes are. Can they access files? Or is all file and persistent state access via some separate process? Done right, each page process should execute in a jail, lacking the privileges to alter external files or persistent state.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a main reason I don't use Chrome. Since each tab is running under a sep process, there is no easy way to tell how much total memory is being used. Despite all the improvements, Firefox still has some pretty bad memory leaks and often runs over a gig of memory with just 5 or 6 tabs open. If they go this route, mem leaks will be harder to spot.

<comment><USER14> > _This is a main reason I don 't use Chrome. Since each tab is running under > a sep process, there is no easy way to tell how much total memory is being > used._

Seeing "how much memory is being used" is a major use case for you using a browser?

If a browsers works fast and doesn't leak memory, one shouldn't care how much memory exactly is used.

<comment><USER13> > If a browsers works fast and doesn't leak memory, one shouldn't care how > much memory exactly is used.

That's a big assumption. Realistically speaking, there's only FF, Safari, and Chrome. FF leaks like crazy (sometimes on it's own but sometimes it could be a plugin). Safari doesn't support all the plugins I use and Chrome may but I'm don't like their dev console layout. And if you don't see how much mem is being used, you have no way of telling if a newly installed plugin just caused a memory leak (unless it just totally prevents you from using the browser).

<comment><USER14> Here's an idea: don't install plugins. They are mostly irrelevant to browsing.

<comment><USER13> I only use plugins that are relevant to my browsing. ABP, Boomerang, Buffer, DownThemAll, Firebug, NoScript, Wallaby...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Realistically Speaking, I think this is still at least another 6 months to 1 year away from moving to Aurora or Beta Channel.

<comment><USER16> I think we'll see it in Aurora sooner than 6 months. Care to wager?

<comment><USER17> Looking forward to it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is there a "Ctrl+tab" extension that works properly with this?

<comment><USER6> There is an undocumented about:config pref "browser.ctrlTab.previews" that enables a tab preview switcher. The switcher works with e10s, but not the tab previews. You can watch e10s bug 863512 for more info:

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=863512](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=863512)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> After versioning, functionality and UI they now copy sandbox-mode from the Chromium project. I don't think there's much time left before you won't be able to make the distinction between Firefox and Chromium anymore.

<comment><USER20> You mean that Chrome copied IE's sandboxing?

<comment><USER21> From what I've heard from both Google and MS people, Chrome had it first, it's just IE announced it (and shipped it in a beta) first. Alternatively, if you don't want to trust word of mouth — there's no way the Chrome team did their entire sandboxing implementation in the five months between IE announcing it and the announcement of Chrome, it's just too much work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yay, now firefox can waste just as much memory as Chrome. Guess 1GB for the whole browser wasn't enough; they had to go for ~100MB/tab.

Got to keep up with Chrome after all.</s>

If I use chrome for normal browsing (I don't normally because its feature set is poor, customisability is a dirty words, and I don't like the privacy risk), it can rapidly slurp 4GB or more of memory (with perhaps two key addons, adblock and DoNotTrackMe). Even firefox at its worst rarely if ever goes over 1.5GB, even with very heavy customisation and plenty of privacy/adblocking/etc addons.

>Performance would improve because the browser UI would not be affected by poor performance of content code (be it layout or JavaScript).

What about by the overhead from task switching hundreds of processes and mapping all the memory when each one takes up 50MB or more?

<comment><USER23> Be aware that Adblock Plus for Chrome increases significantly RAM usage for each open tab.

uBlock author has extensive benchmarks about this issue.

[https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block- vs.-ABP:-...](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block- vs.-ABP:-efficiency-compared)

<comment><USER22> Whichever one it is for chrome I have, it isn't ABP, it's a generic named Adblock. I don't use ABP due to the developer accepting money to whitelist google adverts.

<comment><USER24> If you don't like that behavior, you probably wouldn't like Ablock's either: [https://palant.de/2014/07/29/which-is-better-adblock-or- adbl...](https://palant.de/2014/07/29/which-is-better-adblock-or-adblock-plus)

(Admittedly the author is biased towards ABP. My biases: former Adblock user, former ABP user, current Adblock Edge and µblock user.)

<comment><USER22> Thanks. Probably going to evaluate [http://alternativeto.net/software/ublock/](http://alternativeto.net/software/ublock/) instead next time I have to use chrome.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Kevin Mitnick Is Still Breaking into Computers - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2015/03/26/why-kevin-mitnick-the-worlds-most-notorious-hacker-is-still-breaking-into-computers/ <comment><USER4> I really enjoyed Ghost in the Wires (basically Mitnick's bio). I had first read Takedown by Tsutomo Shimomura which told of Mitnick's pursuit by the guy who ended up help to catch him. "Wires" was the other side - what Mitnick did when he was on the run - and his side of how he was finally caught. Really interesting stuff. It was like the Rashomon effect[1].

[http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wires-Adventures-Worlds- Wanted/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wires-Adventures-Worlds- Wanted/dp/1441793755)

[http://www.amazon.com/Takedown-Pursuit-Capture-Americas- Comp...](http://www.amazon.com/Takedown-Pursuit-Capture-Americas- Computer/dp/0786889136)

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

<comment><USER5> Someone gave me Takedown to read because they knew I worked in IT. That book made me dislike Tsutomu Shimomura immensely.

<comment><USER6> > That book made me dislike Tsutomu Shimomura immensely.

Why?

<comment><USER5> The book made him seem very arrogant. Even though I knew how it ended I was still barracking for Mitnick because Shimomura was so annoying.

<comment><USER7> Kevin's side of the story has been told by him, by Littman in 'The Fugitive Game' and by Eric Corley. Any reasonably broad-minded person who wants to see the law deal evenhandedly with the accused can find places in these accounts to sympathize with Kevin.

'Takedown' is AFAICT the extent of what TS wants to say about the matter. We can presume he comes off in it the way he wanted to come off.

Though I do wonder about the tone of the book, and if John Markoff had more than a little influence on how the story was told, and what details were kept in or left out, and how the persons at the focus of the true-crime narrative being presented were portrayed.

I felt while reading Takedown that maybe, for some reason, there were details being elided that readers interested in a careful piece of investigative journalism might appreciate-especially if they had a deeper understanding of the technology than the mass NYT audience. Maybe someday someone will take that up.

<comment><USER5> I also wondered how much John Markoff influenced the tone of the book. I have a feeling it would have been more enjoyable in TSs own words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _"The most effective way to carry out an attack is to get the client — a person — to do something stupid," he said. "_

I created a startup and a significant patented technology in the multifactor authentication space (now owned by Equifax). The main goal at the time of its creation wasn't to prevent dangerously stupid/naive human actions - <USER2> turned out to be impossible - but rather to nullify the potential consequences of them. As engineers we have a responsibility to design systems in ways that minimize the effects of human error.

It seems that Kevin has made a career out of pointing out systems that don't embrace this design principle. I suspect he will be very busy for a long time.

<comment><USER9> How do you reconcile patenting (effectively closing off a solution to everyone else) with your goal of minimizing human error?

<comment><USER8> You're obviously anti-patent, but the answer to your question is that I was trying to build a business. If you ever sit down with potential investors or acquirers, two of the most common questions you will hear are these: "What barriers to entry are there for your competitors?" and "What assets do you have?". A patent is both of these things.

Whatever your feelings on the subject, as the system stands today, patents are valuable and necessary for many technology businesses. Google, Apple, Samsung, etc. all have thousands of patents.

<comment><USER10> I don't think the question asked makes the asker anti-patent.

In your comment, you wrote: _As engineers we have a responsibility to design systems in ways that minimize the effects of human error._

That's more than a little didactic and preachy. It looks to me like you're trying to tell everyone that they have a moral duty to design systems in particular ways. That's well and good, another design principle for all of us to observe. But you also write that you got a patent on an idea or method of how to actually implement that design principle. It makes it seem like you've got a profit motive for prescribing the design principle: you've got a patent on the way to implement that principle. We've got a moral obligation to implement that principle, hence we should pay you (or your assignee) for the idea.

The question isn't anti-patent, it just gets at the motive for prescribing such a design principle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article is interesting. He isn't world famous because of his skill, he was world famous because he was caught. Being famous does not make you a good hacker, the best hackers will never be known.

I would be surprised if any pen testing group didn't have a 100% success rate. When you hire a pen tester or contract it out, the amount of information you get is absurd (but prioritized by severity).

Has a pen tester ever found a system that didn't have a vulnerability?

<comment><USER12> Kevin is well known for his skills, mostly as a social engineer. I'd argue that he's one of if not the best at it.

He became famous when he was on the run from the FBI for a few years. This was one of my favorite stories: [http://news.softpedia.com/news/Watch-Kevin- Mitnick-Explainin...](http://news.softpedia.com/news/Watch-Kevin-Mitnick- Explaining-How-He-Used-to-Troll-the-FBI-401959.shtml)

A lot of people don't know the history around him because it happened years ago. If you were following him at the time or if you've read his "ghost in the wires" book you'd see why he he's rightfully famous.

<comment><USER13> For some reason the video is missing from that post.

<comment><USER12> Here is it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn3O8XD1z0w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn3O8XD1z0w)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Doing social engineering / penetration testing for a living sounds like a great gig. I've been day dreaming about working for or starting a company like that. Didn't realize it was a booming industry for companies that also do physical penetration which is normally going to be the weakest link.

<comment><USER15> Depends on your definition of "great". If you are really good at it there are a lot of things that might give you prolonged periods of stress. I'd pick a comparatively more boring career any time.

Things that can happen:

\- you manage to break some stuff during pen test that nobody expects and learn things that make you become a liability for that company

\- you might learn some things about company whose stock price can drasticaly change and you will need to answer questions to SEC (or a similar institiution)

\- if you are really good, it's quite possible that government agencies will try to recruit you, and if you say YES, it's a one way street.

\- you may learn some things about world you wish you never learned about, and you wouldn't be able to watch the world with the same eyes ever again - <USER3> if you wish you could

<comment><USER16> > if you are really good, it's quite possible that government agencies will > try to recruit you, and if you say YES, it's a one way street.

This is the most terrifying item on your list. Saying no, however, is generally the best way to avoid such a one-way street ;)

<comment><USER17> It really isn't a one way street. People of people come from TLA and go on to work in the private industry as information security consultants. I have many friends that have taken this path.

<comment><USER16> Yup. In fact, that's more or less what I have done. I think by one-way street OP meant _foreign_ governments as opposed to U.S. governments, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article doesn't seem to mention that penetration testing in general is a booming business, and there are many firms out there with the same success rate. Neither Mitnick nor his company are special in any way.

<comment><USER19> As someone who runs a security consultancy, I can agree. Strangely, the article seems to frame even Mitnick's admission that he's nothing special in a mysterious light:

 _> And here's probably the most interesting fact: Mitnick and his constantly changing team of speciality hackers have a 100 percent success rate. That's no legend. "It's not even bragging," he said. "It's just a fact."_

Yes, me too. Same with almost every attack crew worth their salt. It's possible to be protected from known vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, and it's even possible to train your employees to never perform dangerous actions or disclose sensitive information... but it's very, very difficult.

The best defense, really, is just making your attack surface as small as possible.

<comment><USER20> I've always been curious how one applies as a social engineer or hybrid SE and tech guy for a security consultancy. It seems like something that I'd really enjoy doing (having never done it and also not having particular great people skills). I don't know how the business works at all but I'd love to be a plant at some company (or a fake customer) to test their security from the inside.

It's not something you can easily learn on your own (I'd guess).

Since I worked in ERP I'd also be pretty interested in security testing business software. I can see a myriad of issues both technically but also on a human and for lack of a better word "process exploitation" level.

If anyone has suggestions on writing a job application without any actual security testing skills I'd be interested in hearing them. Basically all I can think of is "I know some technology and can program, I have some business background (specifically ERP), I think I'm a quick learner and I'd probably work for very little assuming increased salary as I get more valuable"...sounds like something I'd instantly put in the trash if it hit my desk though :P

<comment><USER21> Same here, as in being interested in the field.

On the other hand though, I've had something like 10+ customer service jobs, along with formal education, a tried-and-true love of technology...and a deviant / mischevious streak wider than the Gulf of Mexico. Oh, also acting lessons...People are kind of my specialty...

To me, working customer service is very much a social engineering training ground. How? Little to no actual authority, frequently hostile / challenging engagements, and limited tools and techniques by which a solution or conclusion can be reached. There's a significant advantage to out-thinking one or more customers, staying just ahead of them thought process wise, which seems to align with turning the coin around.

One of the other things I learned through both customer service and in my white collar career(s) is how to dress for success. Self-presentation is one of the most important parts to get people to let down their defenses. Technicians look tech-y, consultants look business-y, security people project a certain firmness...well, anyway, that's been my experience as both service provider and dealing with people in power. I've always used my learned perspectives for good.

At the end of the day, it's absolutely amazing the results that one can get with a pleasant, persistent attitude, good appearance, and some patience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "I still had access to their network so I left a copy of the report on his PC's desktop," Mitnick said. "It was more secure to do it that way than email it. He thought that was a nice touch."

And that, folks, is what we call class.

</comment><comment><USER23> Kevin Mitnick still owes me $500.

</comment><comment><USER24> Why indeed...my off-the-cuff guess for why is for obscene piles of cash and some minor ego gratification?

After reading the interesting article, I commend him for the creativity and sheer audacity of his social and sometimes-technical exploits.

He is, obviously, a very smart and talented individual...my hat's off to him for not allowing a prison stint to wreck a very lucrative career.

That was perhaps his best hack of all.

[edits]

</comment><comment><USER16> Honestly, without Kevin Mitnick and the like, I wouldn't be a computer scientist nor a specialist in computer security. He (and other hackers covered by the media of the '90s) brought awareness to the common American of this field right when I was at an impressionable age.

</comment><comment><USER25> 1\. hire a tv celebrity that all the hacking he ever did was write checks with fake signatures.

2\. pay him a large sum to test your flawed security

3\. ???

4\. CTO get's a huge bonus for impenetrable security. 90's celebrity get's a fat check (with his name on it, for a change)

</comment><comment><USER26> How about an article on why real hackers are still breaking into Kevin Mitnick's personal computers?

<comment><USER27> You could submit such articles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> From wikipedia:

"In 1999, Mitnick pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud, two counts of computer fraud and one count of illegally intercepting a wire communication,...

He was sentenced to 46 months in prison plus 22 months for violating the terms of his 1989 supervised release sentence for computer fraud."

I would have SERIOUS trust issues with a company run by a convicted hacker.

<comment><USER29> Seems like that would be a good credential for a computer security consultant to have

<comment><USER28> By that line of thinking, I can't wait for Bernie Madoff to get out and start another hedge fund. o_O

<comment><USER30> Or to start a company to help people AVOID scams maybe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is bullshit.

Linus Torvalds is a more well-known hacker, for instance.

Hacking is not only about criminal social engineering practices. Mostly, it's not about that.

<comment><USER32> More well-known to whom? Most non-technical people I know have never heard of Linus Torvalds, or Linux. Kevin Mitnick is a name that has been in the media in much more prominent positions. As far as the "hacking" vs "cracking" debate, that fight has been lost for many years.

<comment><USER33> You really think non-technical people actually know the name Kevin Mitnick? I'm a 'technical person' and this is the first I've ever heard of him.

<comment><USER32> Again, anecdotal evidence on my part suggests that he's more widely known than Linus Torvalds. I have no solid data to back that up.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why More and More Designers are Switching to Fireworks - <AUTHOR> http://uxmovement.com/wireframes/why-more-and-more-designers-are-switching-to-fireworks/ <comment><USER2> Interesting article. My current way of developing wordpress themes is way to time consuming, so I'm always on the lookout for better ways to streamline things.</comment>


Use Lifehacker with old layout - <AUTHOR> http://uk.lifehacker.com/

<comment><USER2> When Lifehacker changed their layout, I stopped using it. It even broke my Flipboard. It's a fantastic site that I used almost every day, but now it's just hard. I hope they'll work out the UX soon.</comment>


Innovation to fight the pandemic – Hands-free handle made of recycled plastic - <AUTHOR> https://www.fortum.com/media/2020/04/new-finnish-innovation-fight-pandemic-hands-free-handle-made-recycled-plastic <comment><USER2> Or, you know, install motion-detection door openers that require no touching at all (helpful for amputees that might not have arms...).</comment>


The problem with third-party delivery platforms - <AUTHOR> https://lifehacker.com/its-time-to-order-directly-from-restaurants-again-1843199079 <comment><USER4> People forget that the reason these services showed up in the first place was that ordering from restaurants was an absolute mess. Most of them don't have websites, and if they do it likely doesn't work on phones. Menus are outdated or non-existent. Few of them have online ordering systems. There is no way to securely share credit card info. Phones are always busy. There is no way to know their hours, whether they deliver in your area, how long they will take. No way to easily customize or track your order. Delivery is slow and unpredictable (if they even offer it).

As the article itself states, restaurants don't like using these services but support them regardless, because the alternative is _no orders_.

<comment><USER5> There is a local Thai restaurant that, for years, has had what I consider the best system available for takeout and delivery. The first time I called for delivery, they took down my address and cc info. Now, anytime I call after, they know me by the caller ID and already have all my information available.

It is easier to call and place an order than most any app or website for follow-up orders at least.

This should be a standard feature of any restaurant ordering system.

<comment><USER6> Do they also have a pass-code or some keyword to ask you each time you make the order?

<comment><USER5> They might ask for last 4 digits of the CC. But also, if you changed addresses, I would imagine they would reverify your cc info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why is this article dodging the question of whether the restaurants are making or losing money due to food delivery apps?

> We didn't have a choice, we caved. Revenue from these platforms made a > difference for our business

Ok, I assume it's a positive difference...

> even more aware of the amount of money that we get withdrawn from our > account just to have our name on their site.

Wait, so you're losing money? I don't get it.

I hardly ever use any of these apps because the mark-up is insane, and it's rarely quicker than just picking the food up myself. I also don't trust any of them after the doordash tipping fiasco. And, I have no doubt that choosing to order from the restaurant directly means more money for the restaurant.

But, either the apps are bringing in more sales than the restaurants can drum up on their own, and it's therefore mutually beneficial, OR the restaurants are losing money on every app sale, in which case they should pull out. Am I wrong?

<comment><USER8> > _But, either the apps are bringing in more sales than the restaurants can > drum up on their own, and it 's therefore mutually beneficial, OR the > restaurants are losing money on every app sale, in which case they should > pull out. Am I wrong?_

You're not wrong, but you're missing some of the nuance to how the relationship has evolved.

Even if there's a benefit, a service like Grubhub can easily become parasitic as they grab more of the market. It's getting to the point that you'll get basically zero delivery orders if you try to go your own way and hire your own delivery drivers, and expect people to use your website or -- god forbid -- call you on the phone to place orders.

People very often to use these apps to figure out what they want to order. The other way around ("hey, I really want Bob's Pizza tonight, lemme open up Grubhub and see if they're on there") is becoming less and less common.

So restaurants are forced to be on these platforms to get any takeout business at all, but find that they have to work twice (or more) as hard to make up for all the fees the platform charges. And the platform can get away with it, because they've squeezed out the option of self-delivery for most places.

> _I hardly ever use any of these apps because the mark-up is insane, and it > 's rarely quicker than just picking the food up myself._

I wish there were more people like you, but it seems like you're a dying breed.

<comment><USER9> Exactly, think of these apps as more of a lead generation service, or a search engine even, and being on their platform, even losing money, is akin to taking out search engine ads. Sure, perhaps the first few times people you lose money, but you might gain more long term by having repeat customers, who may even order directly once they see how much they spend in service fees at the end of the receipt. I know I definitely have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We've been ordering from one of the best fine dining restaurants in our town. Before the pandemic they were dine-in only.

They advertise their regular menu + specials on FB. To order, you send a text in the afternoon with your order + pickup time between 5pm and 8pm, in 15 minute blocks. The restaurant calls you a few minutes later to confirm and take your card.

This is a clunky process, but that's fine - they're new at this, and I'd rather them get the max amount of the sale than have fees drained by third- party apps.

But it occurs to me that we've missed an opportunity in North America (and maybe elsewhere?) to build a platform that works like WeChat, where you could conduct this simple menu-selections-payment transaction, perhaps with some chat in between, using a ubiquitous interface.

Same scenario with booking a hair appointment, paying for small home services, etc. There is an interaction that includes chat, scheduling, possibly invoicing and payment, but this can involve up to one app per activity.

The channel is the unifying abstraction, it should own the entire interaction, including presenting the few widgets that are required to implement the workflow. I know that most chat apps have some variant of this capability, but the landscape is totally balkanized.

A corollary of this approach is that payment and workflow widgets should be commodified and thus extract a minimal amount from the transaction.

We have many apps per category, each with a special-purpose channel. We should have one channel with many possible simple interactions that can be delivered through it.

<comment><USER11> Take your card? By phone? Isn't that one of the problem. I don't want to give my cc details over phone. 3rd party app does provide some value and that's why they are in business. They also provide an infrastructure for delivery which people keep forgetting about.

<comment><USER12> That ("card by phone") is a problem of trust. Whatever happened to that concept? I've given away my CC details probably hundreds of times in the pre- internet era (travel agencies, hotels, phone-order, etc.), because I had the details of and trust for the opposite end. That trust is increased through a platform provider is a fallacy imo. The only two times I experienced dodgy charges to my CC that needed refund were because of database leaks/breaches. Go figure ;)

<comment><USER13> Surely you recognize that this is anecdotal evidence, though? Are you suggesting that people are less likely to experience CC fraud if they give out their information to each vendor instead of using a central mediator like PayPal? The reason we used to give that information out so readily in the past was a combination of not knowing better and not having better methods, and it allowed for _a lot_ of low-level financial crime, despite the fact that you were lucky enough not to experience it yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> All it takes I one deviously altruistic group of hackers to build an online delivery market maker that links couriers to restaurants, and all of the GrubHubs and Deliveroos would collapse.

I feel like a lot of the work in something like Deliveroo is marketing, dispute resolution, money and payment management, inventory / menu tools (and transcription?).

If everyone paid cash, restaurants typed in their own menus, and left marketing to some other third party, is the rest just craigslist-for-food? "1995 ... written in Perl".

I'm hesitant of coming off as "this could be built in a weekend" but the reason why most things cannot be built in a weekend is because they are the publicly visible front of a machine designed to be worth $1bn through analytics, marketing, ad tech revenue, content moderation etc. Drop all that and the front end is much simpler.

<comment><USER15> 'I feel like a lot of the work in something like Deliveroo is...'

You forgot 'delivery'. Many people don't mind paying an extra $10+ to have someone else pick up their takeout meal.

<comment><USER14> Sorry to not be clearer: when I talk about market making I meant for the restaurants to be put in touch with delivery people so they can negotiate that themselves, off app, rather than having Deliveroo involved in the process.

It's not a very coherent idea other than the usual "crush the rent seekers! [Deliveroo]" I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I feel like what's often overlooked is how much so many of these delivery services have lost money over the past few years.

UberEats is more popular than ever, but it's not even close to helping Uber as a company avoid mass layoffs in the coming weeks. The UberEats division was losing hundreds of millions of dollars last year. Likewise with DoorDash.

Restaurants complain about the fees which is fair but they've failed to mention how much money and time they would've spent on hiring multiple drivers to fulfill orders as well as a digital system to allow people to place orders online. By all means, if these apps suck, then hire your own drivers like restaurants have done in previous decades. Furthermore, platforms like this apps allow restaurants to be far more visible than if they just used their social media presence.

IMO, the biggest flaw with restaurant delivery is that it's hugely inefficient. You can't optimize it like UPS/Fedex can with packages, and people don't buy as much in one go as you would with a grocer. So companies like UberEats need these fees to allow them to actual remain viable and so that they can keep spending on things like development, marketing/sales, etc. Like it or not, delivery is expensive.

<comment><USER8> I think the issue is more that _predictable, timely_ delivery is expensive.

When I was growing up we'd get pizza delivery from a local pizza shop. Depending on the day of the week and the time we'd call, our pizza could arrive in a half hour or two hours. Sure, a part of the was the capacity of the kitchen, but a big part was also their delivery capacity. They had two guys each driving a car. They could batch deliveries to some extent so each driver would drop off more than one before returning to the restaurant, but while that gave them better throughput, it gave them worse latency.

Meanwhile, with Grubhub, Postmates, etc., you have a fleet of always-ready drivers -- effectively an unlimited number -- who are ready to take a single order, go pick it up as soon as it's ready, and deliver it directly to you. That's terribly inefficient on a per-driver basis, but it's great for the customer.

I personally don't mind the variability in timing in the old system all that much. Sure, there are some times when I really want food _now_ (but even then, the fastest deliveries on these platforms is usually around 45 minutes), but for the most part I don't care if it's going to take another 30-60 minutes. But a _lot_ of people really do value the speed, and, more importantly the predictability. If you want to eat at 6pm and know that the delivery time is nearly always 45-60 minutes, you can pretty much eat at 6pm. If the delivery times vary from 30 to 120 minutes, you order at 5pm and live with eating anywhere between 5:30 and 7:00. Yeah, this is seriously a "first world problem", but plenty of people have gotten addicted to the predictability and seamlessness of it all.

It's really unfortunate, because at the end of the day it means we value convenience over the health of our local businesses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The reason I don't order from restaurants directly is because I usually don't know what I want to eat, and those third party ordering services give me more insight as a consumer as to what's available to me and at what price. They also use payment processors that I'm already using and have a more browsable and legible menu with consistent layout across other restaurants.

Oftentimes the difference isn't between ordering through a third party and directly from the business, but ordering takeout at all.

There's too much benefit to me as a consumer to using third party services over ordering directly from businesses. You don't have a right to more of my money because someone else created value that you couldn't or wouldn't.

<comment><USER12> So the "too much" benefit you are talking about is aiu basically a) "consistent layout" b) "payment processors"? Isn"t that just a single digit improvement in terms of convenience (aka the laziness factor ;) In terms of "insight as a consumer", it is the other way around where I live. Third party platforms almost always have only a stripped down menu available, because restaurants adapt and improve for meals that can be processed quickly and/or prepared in bulk in order to not pay up towards individual/labor intensive food on those platforms. I switched back to order by phone and pay at the door a long time ago to get the true value out of the restaurants and not a platform, which's value prop is to be a man in the middle with a web front end.

<comment><USER17> I wouldn't know about most of the restaurants in my area without these third parties. That's the insight I'm talking about.

Like I said. The alternative is not me getting better service or product or whatever. It's buying from them at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If there is one new iOS API I would like to see in response to COVID-19, it would be direct integration with restaurants. It isn't just a win for restaurants, it's a win for users too. Right now I can't figure out which platform or website I use to reach a particular place. Sometimes I want to search by item, so it would be good to index menus too. Throw in one touch Apple Pay, notifications to know when to leave your house to pickup the food, even a Siri shortcut so I can order my favorite dish easily again.

I don't want these things to show up in aggregators. I want it built into the OS. With a couple of voice commands or taps I can be on my way.

I do feel like this will come. Apple has started an Apple connect program with some gyms. I feel they will do the same with restaurants. I've heard rumors about native applets that will load from QR codes. I can easily see "Apple Connect" certifications on restaurant windows and counter tops that lets you load the restaurant app quickly and easily, discovering it exactly where you use it.

Far fetched maybe! But I can dream.

<comment><USER11> Apple is not a "not for profit" company. Don't forget if it's free then you are the product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is an example of one bad thing about our convenience culture or expectation of infinite choice, delivered immediately.

It allows the middleman (who legitimately did some service by making so many restaurant choices available) to insert himself into every transaction, turn themselves the one you have a relationship with, and extract margins from the actual provider of the main service who becomes a commodity.

Ordinarily I would buy the theoretical point that certainly a service is being performed. But given the evidence and tactics about _how much service is being performed versus being charged for_ \-- that places like Grubhub/other platforms extract 20% commissions and put out their own phone numbers to masquerade as the restaurant's -- I would be glad to see them die a painful death as a result of this crisis.

Order directly from the restaurant, and be sure that's actually what's happening.

</comment><comment><USER20> The problem is, if you order direct from a restaurant which takes orders from one of these platforms, the restaurant prioritizes the platform order, because the platform has reviews and ratings, which directly influences sales.

Your phone order will almost always be considered less important.

</comment><comment><USER21> It seems like this area is ripe for a non-profit, open source platform to help out. What options are out there along these lines?

<comment><USER4> The problem isn't technology but logistics. How are you going to find a large pool of drivers ready to take food instantly from point A to B in the city at little/no cost?

<comment><USER21> Woops, I guess I was thinking more about ordering online and picking up the food myself. I usually just call the restaurants to place my take out order, but tend to prefer places where I can order on their own app or website, pull up and re-order the last thing I got, and then hit submit. Like someone else mentioned, there is a lot of friction with calling and placing an order, explaining the modifications, paying in the store, etc, etc.

I thought this was such a fabulous idea, I bought a domain name for it: [https://inmytown.org/](https://inmytown.org/) As usual, I just haven't done all the other hard work. But, in the old days last year, I thought it would be cool for local shops to have an online presence so that online shoppers could see where to buy stuff and place orders and then pick it up. So, have an e-commerce platform for shops, restaurants, delivery would be great. Try and keep money local instead of shaving 10-20% off of all transactions and sending them to big tech. Does anyone want to help me build this? Totally committed to non-profit and great apps for local companies.

<comment><USER22> you could check this out:

[https://coderealprojects.com/](https://coderealprojects.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just don't call them from the Yelp app:

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwebw/yelp-is- sneakily-r...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwebw/yelp-is-sneakily- replacing-restaurants-phone-numbers-so-grubhub-can-take-a-cut)

</comment><comment><USER24> The middleman nightmare. Everybody wants to capture the middleman, which drains those that deliver value. That can be applied to Airbnb, Ubereats, car dealership, gig economy. These platforms have very low liability regarding labor cost and controls the access to the goods offered. This whole gig economy is putting small businesses and workers in a position where the information asymmetry is so huge that is putting them in constant price pressure, below the reasonable to be worth operating. It's too much competition on small business and workers.

<comment><USER25> Convenience of delivery is a big point of improvement though, which the restaurants never used to compete on before. It's become commonplace to complain about the middle-men like Uber and seamless now, but before they came around the analog services that existed (taxis and restaurant delivery) were so much worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a pizza place up in the Tenderloin (SF) that I occasionally order from (I used to live a couple blocks from them and would walk in all the time). I would order on Grubhub because that was how they were set up to do delivery. (I believe they link to Slice from their website now for delivery.) The delivery person was always someone from the shop itself, not someone who worked for Grubhub. Now I wonder how much GH was skimming off the top, even though they weren't really providing all that much.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've tried this multiple times, but in my experience, there just aren't that many restaurants that allow you to pay without giving a credit card number. That's a non-starter. Yes, I do give my credit card information to some companies, but only when I know said company would be devastated by a breach, and I keep it as limited as possible.

</comment><comment><USER26> For:

      - <USER2>
      - <USER3>
      - Payment services

30% is actually not a lot.

Delivery platforms has economies of scale when it comes to delivery, marketing, payment that the individual restaurant does not have.

Therefore they are (in general) a good deal even for the restaurant. Also their convenience increases the general demand for food services.

</comment><comment><USER27> If you order from delivery service you'll get convinient delivery and commodity food. If you order from restaurant the relationship reverses.

(*)Market is efficient and all theory aside, it matters who owns the customer as the rest of the value chain will be put on a race to the bottom.

</comment><comment><USER28> Then it's time for restaurants to get apps or websites it's easy to order on.

Is there a service provider that doesn't try to be a lead-gen middleman for restaurants? Like a Squarespace or Wix or Shopify but for food stores that do delivery?

</comment><comment><USER22> The biggest problem with the apps is most food isn't really that good delivered.

There's a reason pizza is #1 in delivery.

Once the cheese has cooled down it tastes better.

</comment><comment><USER29> Yes, cutout the parasites.

</comment><comment><USER30> I feel lots of people realize they don't need anymore to order. When do you need to order something? It's either you have a party , people are gathering or you rushing back home from work and don't have time for cooking. Non of this conditions exists anymore. I realize that plastic wrapped food from local restaurant is not as good as I can cook myself. I never cooked a lot before. But this time , you have time for yourself .dont get me wrong I want to help those people , but helping is not ruled by communists rules. Me and many of my friends just don't want to order home even as much as before lockdown. It's not about money it's about time for yourself :) and those money I saved I usually donate.

<comment><USER31> My wife and I have been cooking at home, but last week we both had a busy, long day, and we were exhausted and wanted a good meal. So, for us, the reason we would have ordered takeout before is the same reason we ordered takeout that day.</comment></comment>


What skills learned through playing StarCraft are useful in life? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-skills-learned-through-playing-StarCraft-that-are-useful-in-other-parts-of-life

<comment><USER2> I am ranked 2 in 3v3 Random Gold league.

I think SC let's you learn how to play mind games, one of the ways to win a match is to understand what your opponents will think or do and play against that, surprise them, do something they would not expect.

There was a match where my allies were defeated I was alone and the 3 terran enemies got ready to drop the hammer on me with a bio army ( marines, marauders ), but I defeated all 3 of them with a handful of dark templars, because they were not prepared for that and I knew that because they were too self confident. Winning the game meant that I had to micro my units to their full extend, not letting them have a second to build detectors and jeopardize my plan so this really reinforces the notion that when you have an advantage you need to use that and get a bigger one.

A hard part of the game is that when you see that your tactic fails, you need to switch over to something else. When you have an air fleet and you realize that the enemy has marines, stalkers or any other anti air units, you need to build anti ground units instead and make use of your existing fleet, like attacking the enemy base while their army is busy fighting your second army.

The game also lets you take risks, you can go build cannons next to someone's base, you can quickly strike down a base with reapers, you could destroy a base with void rays or you could frustrate the enemy with mutalisks. These are all high risk, high reward moves, you could win the game in a few minutes, but you could also lose it if the enemy is well prepared for your tactic.

You could take a lot of real life situations and turn them into an SC game. The reason I play it is because it sharpens the mind, makes you think and act fast.

</comment><comment><USER3> I expected this to be pithy and shallow, but there are some good nuggets in here. I'd couch them more as important reminders than life changing advice, but I'm still glad I read this.

One thing I'll add, which is mentioned but not explicitly, is that to perform well in StarCraft II, some players look straight to the pros and try to emulate their strategies without ever perfecting their timings or build orders, which puts them at a huge disadvantage over someone who learns and executes the fundamentals but doesn't have a good understanding of play at the Master League level.

Another thing: cheap tactics and all-in rush strategies have their place and it's possible to win a match with a Zerg Rush, but to place in a competition you really need to have a deeper game plan in place. So while companies like Right Haven might have found some ways to make a quick buck without doing any actual work, they'll get buried in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER4> Gotta build expansions before you can win ;)</comment>


Yahoo Logo ASCII Animation in 462 bytes of C (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.a1k0n.net/2011/06/26/obfuscated-c-yahoo-logo.html <comment><USER2> Speaking of crazy ascii company logo animations, I never got a chance to golf these down, but I made some with color and signed distance field ray marching:

[https://github.com/a1k0n/asciitracing](https://github.com/a1k0n/asciitracing)

<comment><USER3> I think raymarching is an extremely elegant way to make complex scenes fit into a tiny amount of space. These are my favourite articles on raymarching because it shows just how compact they can be - a single mathematical equation:

[http://iquilezles.org/www/articles/distfunctions/distfunctio...](http://iquilezles.org/www/articles/distfunctions/distfunctions.htm)

[http://iquilezles.org/www/articles/raymarchingdf/raymarching...](http://iquilezles.org/www/articles/raymarchingdf/raymarchingdf.htm)

Edit: The description for the "bridge" scene is interesting: "This is a sketch really, but it never got completed, _due to the lack of artistic appealing of the image_." I don't know if it's his extreme humility, but I think it wouldn't be overexaggerating if I said it's one of the _best_ scenes on that page.

<comment><USER4> One more crazy thing you can do with raymarching - smoothly twine any shape into any other shape. Take any two signed distance fields, say they're defined by the functions dist0(p) and dist1(p). Then you can do

        dist(p, t) = (1-t)*dist0(p) + t*dist1(p)

T doesn't have to be time-based, it can be space-based, so you have a shape that's a cylinder on the bottom and a large sphere on top and here's a mushroom [https://www.shadertoy.com/view/lsSXWc](https://www.shadertoy.com/view/lsSXWc)

Edit: I have a very strong feeling that in most cases the resulting function isn't a "proper" distance field, but you can still raymarch through it normally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can do super dense mathematical code in the ancient APL programming language[1]. I wonder how even more tiny this program could get at the hands of an APL expert if any still exist.

Here are some complete APL programs[2] to give a flavor of just how dense it can get:

Sum integers from 1 to 100:

      +/ι100

Find all primes from 2 to a given number R:

      (∼R∈R◦.×R)/R←1↓ιR

Play Conway's Game of Life:

      life←{↑1 ⍵∨.∧3 4=+/,¯1 0 1∘.⊖¯1 0 1∘.⌽⊂⍵}

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_%28programming_language%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_%28programming_language%29)

[2] [http://www.vaxman.de/publications/apl_slides.pdf](http://www.vaxman.de/publications/apl_slides.pdf)

<comment><USER6> I've always enjoyed this video of a guy showing how to write Conway's Game of Life in APL, step by step: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My personal favorite is Viznut's classic signature:

        #include <math.h> /* outputs 8 kHz 8-bit unsigned pcm to stdout */
        main(v,i,z,n,u,t){for(v=-1;;)for(n=pow(/* gcc -lm sig.c;./a.out>/dev/dsp */
        1.06,"`cW`g[`cgcg[eYcb^bV^eW^be^bVecb^"[++v&31]+(v&64)/21),i=999;i;putchar(
        128+((8191&u)>i?0:i/8)-((8191&(z+=n))*i-->>16)))u+=v&1?t/2: (t=v&6?t:n/4);}

edit: fixed copy/paste error

<comment><USER2> I am a big fan of viznut also, and took the liberty of translating this into Javascript so we can all hear it without trying to find a /dev/dsp analog (I used ./viznut | sox -t raw -e unsigned -b 8 -r 8000 - -d):

[https://jsbin.com/tazeyoqoci/edit?html,output](https://jsbin.com/tazeyoqoci/edit?html,output)

Amazing work.

<comment><USER2> 48kHz version, sounds slightly better: [https://jsbin.com/zazifecaqe/1/edit?html,output](https://jsbin.com/zazifecaqe/1/edit?html,output)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That's very cool.

You can do something similar using Chrome's console output. There used to be an intro that worked by rendering a canvas as ascii but it's broken in newer Chrome - [http://sandbox.photonstorm.com/console.log/](http://sandbox.photonstorm.com/console.log/) (it may work for other people). I figured out how it works and made a little animation to explore the principle - [http://ooer.com/console/i.html](http://ooer.com/console/i.html) (You'll need to change the height of the console to fit 16 lines of output)

</comment><comment><USER9> Wonder if someone can create a startup to do Obfuscated-C-Code-as-a-service.

<comment><USER10> me too

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Perhaps we should consider replacing line count with something like "parameter weighted statement count" as a measure of software size?

</comment><comment><USER12> if you have some time to kill...

[http://mnml.is/hn/jslinux.jpg](http://mnml.is/hn/jslinux.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER13> I always love these things. "X in Y lines of $language!"

Then you look at it and realize that a "line" is actually 20 different statements minified.

I found jquery implemented in a single line![1]

[1] [https://jquery.com/download/](https://jquery.com/download/)

<comment><USER14> Yes, I don't see how this isn't

> Yahoo Logo ASCII Animation in one line of C (2011)

What's the difference between six lines of C and one line of C?

<comment><USER15> Yeah, I think you have to count a semi-colon as a "line of C" for this to be meaningful. It's still awesome none-the-less.

<comment><USER16>
        for(i=0;i<4;i++)

This is three lines?

<comment><USER17> Actually there are two types of ";", expression-separator (the one you mentioned) and statement-separator (the one parent meant)

The problem with using those for code metrics is that many systems don't require separators, like `if`, `for` and friends

<comment><USER2> FWIW, most of this code is actually contained inside for loop expressions, since you can chain them together with commas and get away without using any braces. Once that's done it's hard to even count "lines".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Maybe it would be better to just specify the length of the source file in bytes, so we don't have these weird arguments about line length.

<comment><USER2> I went ahead and changed the title on my site, because I am also sick of that comment.

<comment><USER19> A little late, but we've followed suit above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Everything is six lines when you have semicolon.</comment>


Scalable Bitmaps (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://ericportis.com/posts/2013/scalables/ <comment> 0-_-0 As far as image encoders go, do we really need 2 parameters to describe compression parameters, _bitrate_ and _resolution_? Why not just have bitrate, where you can decompress an image to an arbitrary resolution because the encoding is not tied to resolution? For example, you could have a representation f(w,x,y) where _x_ and _y_ are the (floating point) pixel coordinates you want to decompress, and _w_ is the compressed image representation. You can of course optimise this so you don't need to run f() as many times as many pixels you want to get out of _w_. With some neural network based codec of the future this should be possible, and I hope image (and video/audio) codecs get there at some point.

</comment><comment> Const-me To avoid that complexity I sometimes use a single image for all devices, with high resolution and relatively high level (=low bitrate, low quality) of jpeg compression.

Modern GUI frameworks and browsers use high-quality GPU-based scalers, downscaling an image on a low-DPI device is almost free and gets rid of JPEG artifacts. On high DPI screens pixel density gets rid of these JPEG artifacts as well, unless using a magnifier, glass or software.

</comment><comment><USER2> Maybe we should also consider using / making a progressive enhancement image format. FLIF for example can be downloaded partially to get part of the fidelity. (Which, unlike other interlacing, increases ~linearly with size.) [https://flif.info/](https://flif.info/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This reminds me of mipmaps in game programming. You include texture in original size, 2 times smaller, 4 times smaller, 8 times smaller, etc.

Graphic card chooses the 2 closest sizes when it has to draw the mipmap and interpolates between them.

It only requires 2 times the memory compared to the original image.</comment>


Ask HN: Favourite books? - <AUTHOR>

I am more specifically looking for business/entrepreneurial books, but marketing, blogging and general tech books are also of interest. What are your favourites?<p>(I have recently read Super Freakanomics, Purple Cow [again], Theo Paphitis' (British entrepreneur) autobiography, Duncan Banatyne's (another British entrepreneur) autobiography also.<p>(Hope this is a valid question allowed here. I know we're all enthused with startups and such.)<p>Thanks in advance. :) <comment><USER2> Linchpin, by Seth Godin. It contains the most food for thought per page of any book I've read recently. Check out some popular quotes from it on [http://kindle.amazon.com/work/linchpin-are-you- indispensable...](http://kindle.amazon.com/work/linchpin-are-you- indispensable-ebook/B002L9Z3S2/B00354Y9ZU) ... it's the 11th most highlighted Kindle book for a reason.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can think negotiations as being important for business/entrepreneurship.

If this interests you, this is one book I have read and am glad I read. It was good enough to open my eyes on certain ways of the business world.

Trump-Style Negotiation: Powerful Strategies and Tactics for Mastering Every Deal by Donald H Ross.

<comment><USER4> i agree, negotiations are critical. i read secrets of power negotiators.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here is my list: * The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) * The Four Steps to the Epiphany * The Responsibility Virus: How Control Freaks, Shrinking Violets-and The Rest Of Us-can Harness The Power Of True Partnership * Inventors Dilemma * Inventors Solution * Radical Leap * Война и мир

</comment><comment><USER6> For business and marketing books and other media, David Maister at <http://davidmaister.com/>

IMHO he's better than Heller, Harvey-Jones, McCormack and even Drucker.

</comment><comment><USER7> Taleb's new book is out at the end of the year, but here's a preview on his site. <http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/aphorisms.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER8> Here's my list for entrepreneurial books: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1021570>

</comment><comment><USER9> Outliers was quite interesting.

I recently read Fermat's Enigma which I would recommend if you have any interest in mathematics and number theory.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm frantically trying to figure out how to justify Ender's Game as a business book so I can mention it here.

</comment><comment><USER4> rework is good.

<comment><USER2> "Getting Real", their first book, is great also. Plus, you can read it free online, which makes it a no-brainer if you haven't read it already - <http://gettingreal.37signals.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> try: [http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#t...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#toc72)

</comment><comment><USER12> Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt. On the surface this may seem like a regular (though non-dry and very engaging while not being too long) economics book...but the lessons and perspective it gave me have made me more money than any other book I've ever read.

It changed the way I view the world, and this perspective has let me see so many things that are invisible to nearly everyone else.</comment>


Online Activists: Extremists Hurt Cause - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/online-activists-extremists-hurt-cause-86963.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Just a heads up - Since submitting this at around 730am EST, Politico has changed the article's title (which the submission mirrored).</comment>


How to make your site's footer impossible to reach. - <AUTHOR> http://www.flickr.com/?

<comment><USER2> I was able to get it by pull the scroll bar on the right hand side down all the way. 15 scroll wheels down did it, too.

</comment><comment><USER3> What are you talking about? I reach the footer after pressing PgDn eight times.</comment>


A complete guide to email in Emacs using mu and mu4e - <AUTHOR> http://cachestocaches.com/2017/3/complete-guide-email-emacs-using-mu-and-/ <comment><USER2> I use a similar mu4e setup and it's great. Instead of offlineimap however I use mbsync (née isync) because it's faster when chugging through thousands of emails.</comment>


I got my degree through Email (1997) - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1997/0616/5912084a.html#fcea8175b544 <comment><USER2> So I went to Western Governers University it is an all online school that is a nonprofit founded by a consortium of Governers in the late 90's and it is one of the best things ever.

The entire school is competency based and self paced so if you can prove you know the material either after 1 week in a class or after 3 months. Boom credit given. This was a good send since I was already working in the IT field.

The other huge advantage it gave was that you pay for a 6 month semester and can finish as many courses as you want for a flat rate.

And it wasn't just a skills course I was required to do generals and all that as well.

Really I will never understand doing it the other way with capricious professors, unending busy work, huge loans, living in a crappy apartment next to campus. The list goes on and on. If more schools modeled themselves after WGU the brick and mortar college would be on life support in a generation.

<comment><USER3> The WGU concept is great, but it also only really works for that intended audience of professionals already in the field, sometimes only getting a degree to satisfy some arbitrary requirement (e.g. I knew two people who went to WGU because they worked somewhere that _required_ a masters degree to be any sort of manager - they were already a shoe-in but needed the piece of paper).

In effect, WGU was not there to teach them anything new.

All the negatives of four year college that you mentioned (besides the loans) are all _positives_ for someone just leaving high school.

The on-campus experience of living in a crappy dorm/apartment with peers is a formative social experience that results in lifelong friendships for many college students. The whole point is to live away from parents in a transitional environment. It's just plain fun to live in a dilapidated house with 5 friends.

On-campus college is a good measure of priceless juvenile fun combined with a lot of intermingling with people who aren't necessarily just like you compared to more homogeneous high schools and your parents' own sheltering. I think this is absolutely valuable to expanding your horizons, which also includes studying elective subjects not part of your direct major (for me, that was film history and geology, and I remember those courses more vividly than many of my required engineering courses).

Self-learning is irrelevant to someone with no professional experience. I don't really see how I would have self-learned subjects like differential equations without in-person office hours and lessons with the ability to raise your hand and ask a question. Physical in-person labs in science and electrical engineering were important aspects of my degree, while a liberal arts student might have had an in-person discussion, performance, or live presentation.

I also got access to a physical campus library that blew away the local library in my hometown: seven floors of books in endless subjects, more videos than the local Blockbuster. Maybe that's less relevant in 2020 but the library was also a _destination_ for studying.

I was lucky enough to not end up with significant loans after my four year school (about $12,000). But I think I'd have taken on up to $50,000, heck, maybe $75,000 to get that experience, if the alternative would have been sitting in my bedroom on a computer for four years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish the prefix _cyber-_ would become popular again. "Cybercourses" sounds much more interesting than "online courses"

<comment><USER5> The prefix is pretty popular, but has a negative feeling with it, as it usually comes as either "cyber bullying" or "cyber crime" lately.

<comment><USER6> Well there's a cybertruck now

<comment><USER5> Yes, and part of the bad initial media responses (not regarding the cracked glass of course) were in regard to that name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Strangely, I recently got my degree IN email. I have a bachelors in electronic mail communications. With a minor in instant messaging.

<comment><USER8> What were the more interesting things that it covered? I have a hard time imagining it going beyond what one can find in RFCs.

<comment><USER7> This is a joke, sorry. And apparently a poor one. :-)

<comment><USER8> Well, you know, since there's Social Media degrees nowadays, a degree in E-Mail isn't really that outlandish as it would have been some years ago. :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm a bit sad that the University of Phoenix was used as the example. They just settled for $191 million with the FTC at the end of last year for various scummy practices.</comment>


Drugged artist paints 8600 self-portraits - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-walking-drug-experiment-20120828-24y6r.html <comment><USER2> Don't take these as being accurate portraits of What A Particular Drug Does To You. My experience, as an artist who has dabbled in recreational chemistry, is that you can get a multitude of stylistic effects from a single drug, let alone many different ones.

For instance, THC will SOMETIMES give me a huge boost to my visualization powers, and I can hold enough in my mind at once that I feel like I'm tracing the image instead of drawing it. This doesn't happen all the time, or for the duration of the entire trip. It doesn't even always happen with the same strain.

YMMV, of course. But that's my experience of (far fewer than this guy has done) drugs plus art

</comment><comment><USER3> Lots more of his photos here:

<http://bryanlewissaunders.org/drugs/>

Also, it's worth noting that only a small # of his portraits were painted while "under the influence" (though it sounds as if many were done while medicated).

Though I have experience with but a small fraction of his ... influences? ... his portraits definitely capture bits of the experiences I've shared. Clever.

Setting aside the artistically productive alcoholics and addicts, I assume that this is not the first artist to have _intentionally_ dosed themselves for artistic purposes. Does anyone know of others?

<comment><USER4> It's difficult to evaluate the "intentionally" part (once you know its effects, is it _intentional_?) but absynthe comes to mind for XIX century painters, LSD and heroin for a lot of writers, painters and musicians in XX: Dalí, Parker, Huxley...

<comment><USER5> _absynthe comes to mind for XIX century painters_

If alcohol counts _, then that list includes just about every artist of the past several centuries who isn't either Muslim or Henry Rollins.

_ Which it does, IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is nothing new. Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, also known as Witkacy, was painting portraits of himself and friends under influence of drugs in mid-War Poland. He was actually making a living of it through his Portrayal Company (while at the same time writing ingenious prosaic, poetical and drama works that would make him famous), though most of the bespoke portraits were not drug-influenced, the so-called Type C being reserved for friends and acquaintances and created mostly during parties. Some of these portraits contained cryptic inscriptions next to the author's signature, indicating the influencing substances.

More on Wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Ignacy_Witkiewic...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Ignacy_Witkiewicz)

A sample portrait (with an inscription hinting at alcohol and/or heroin): [http://www.pinakoteka.zascianek.pl/Witkacy/Images/Nena_Stach...](http://www.pinakoteka.zascianek.pl/Witkacy/Images/Nena_Stachurska_2.jpg)

More assorted portraits: [http://images.google.pl/search?tbm=isch&source=hp&bi...](http://images.google.pl/search?tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1280&bih=923&q=portrety+witkacego)

</comment><comment><USER7> Who cares if it's been done before? These are fantastic.

I especially like the DMT one - it's impossible to put an experience like that into words, so he does a fantastic job with the diagram of the head and the orbs and "10x more complex"

</comment><comment><USER8> I find it a shame he's associating various, really clever artistic stlyes, techniques amd works with particular chemicals he's ingested/consumed.

It cheapens his art and is making false equivalences.

<comment><USER9> I don't understand your perspective. He had an experience and painted what he experienced into a self-portrait. "Associating [...] styles" with drugs isn't the same thing. He sees what he sees and he paints it.

I read you as accusing him of insinuating something like "Picasso is Xanax" which isn't the case.

In short, he's neither implying nor creating this association, he's simply putting what he sees on canvas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> fascinating to see this, almost, diary of drug taking. It's incredible how much his style changes from drug to drug.</comment>