Google Map Mashups are About to Get a Lot Better - <AUTHOR> http://www.41latitude.com/post/626468005/google-maps-map-styles

<comment><USER2> CloudMade have been offering this based on top of OpenStreetMap for quite a while (over a year I think) - I imagine the competition there was one of the principle drivers behind adding this feature to Google Maps. There was a panel on mapping at SxSW 2009 with representatives from OpenStreetMap and Google Maps and the OSM presentations were much, much more impressive thanks to this kind of feature. I'm not surprised Google felt the need to catch up.

If you want complete control over your maps, check out Tile Drawer - <http://tiledrawer.com/> \- it lets you define your own map styles using a Cascadenik stylesheet, then run your own EC2 instance that will render and serve custom tiles for a specific area using those custom styles (and OpenStreetMap data).

</comment><comment><USER3> It's been interesting to watch the Google Maps API as it rode from "The Coolest thing EVER" in 2004 to the non-issue status it holds today.

Back in the day, companies were getting tens of millions in funding to build apps where users could place pins on a map. That says a lot about the hype surrounding it, since that's essentially the app you got when you pasted their sample code into your IDE and hooked it up to a database.

Today, it's just expected that any application you build will have a GMaps implementation somewhere in it, but it's just old-hat. I actually run one of those GMaps-based startups from back in the day, and I haven't kept up on the latest API changes for years.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been looking for a no-impact Javascript-API black-and-white map ever since I started putting heat maps on them, and this is (typically for the Maps API team) way more powerful. My favorite announcement of the week for my startup.

</comment><comment><USER5> Kind of cool, but I think it's actually a mistake to customize an important map much - showing a person a google map lets them know exactly what it is immediately, and they can jump right in. Showing them a Google map that doesn't look like a Google map seems like you could make minor gains in usability in one way, but you're paying a large learnability penalty in the other. Overall, if it's a business project, you'd better have a damn good reason for it.

<comment><USER6> On the flip side to that, many people nowadays use google maps to show things unrelated to navigation.

When you're trying to pinpoint locations that aren't street addresses, or show large area overlays, all that extraneous information is distracting, and works against usability.

It'll also be great to finally be able to show a map that's not jarringly obviously from a third party provider. (I'm totally cool with the small google logo/copyrights, but the color scheme just screams 'outside embed').

<comment><USER5> Yeah, there are definitely cases when it makes sense, but I think that the majority of times when people think it's a good idea to make something look custom, it's actually not when looked at from a usability perspective.

I realize that I'm in the minority about this when I look around and see most of my competitors customizing the look of their markers, etc, but I think they just make it worse most of the time. This is granting much more power in that department.

I'm happy for the power, I just vehemently disagree that this is going to make map mashups much better overall.

I don't think "outside embed" is a bad thing when viewed from the eyes of the user - it's comforting familiarity for many. Making it seem custom is just an ego trip.</comment></comment></comment>


Star-nix: web2py hosting service - <AUTHOR> http://www.star-nix.com/34/the-first-web2py-enabled-hosting-service/

<comment><USER2> Anyone else click the link only to be disappointed that this is not hosting for aaronsw's <http://webpy.org> framework?

<comment><AUTHOR> web2py and web.py are completely different animals, but they both eat pythons.</comment></comment>


Xkcd: 4.5 Degrees - <AUTHOR> https://xkcd.com/1379/ <comment><USER2> What would Earth's climate look like in a few centuries without anthropogenic warming?

[https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ContentFeature/GlobalWarmi...](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ContentFeature/GlobalWarming/images/epica_temperature.png)

I've seen no compelling argument as to why an ice age would be preferable to warming.

<comment><USER3> Have you ever lived somewhere that's hot all year round?

Heat greatly reduces productivity.

[https://epic.uchicago.edu/news/hot-temperatures-decrease- wor...](https://epic.uchicago.edu/news/hot-temperatures-decrease-worker- productivity-economic-output/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's one theory. Some others are that there is more disease in the warmer areas or that since early agricultural/domestication took place further north it gave those communities a head start

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://xkcd.com/1732/](https://xkcd.com/1732/)

This one featuring Earth's temperature timeline for the past 20,000 years is quite enlightening too.

<comment><USER2> Yes, it makes clear that before industrialization began global temperatures were in decline and we were starting to enter the next ice age.</comment></comment>


Need legal advice - <AUTHOR>

i was an employee in a startup.  i was one of the original founders but my partner found an investor first, so i ended up on the low end of the totem pole.  the problem these idiots made deals amongst each other, then left me to deal with an unpaid bill, for the company, that they, the partners - while I was away dealing with a brother dying in critical care, they let the bill somehow end up in my name - personally.  so i have to pay off this bill-it has already gone to civil trial, in my name and the investor who created the bill were sued as a unit.  the investor, named Paul, is an attorney, i am not.  i made $33,000 in 3 years creating this startup.  Paul makes 6 figures and is a tax attorney.  i have no money, they wont give me a reference because they let me get sued, and i have to figure out what to do next.  is there any where to go to find help to fight this.? <comment><USER2> Obviously, you need to lawyer up.

Since you don't say where you live, the only real advice is to check the yellow pages. See if "Legal Aid" is available.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Michael</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you run away from a cofounder? - <AUTHOR>

I started working with 2 other guys (founder B and C, with A being myself) March of 2012 on an idea that was originally B's. It took us a while but we realized C is a type of guy who just likes the idea of considering himself a "founder" but was not ready to put in any kind of hardwork. We stopped working with C around August, cut off all communications and took away his access to code and the common file/docs repository. We have added tons of code since then, pivoted couple of times (although our current idea is very much identifiable with the original), did some door-to-door sales and talked to customers and iterated on defining the product. His contribution has been insignificant in comparison: a few meetings leading to some design decisions, about 1% of all code (and that is not being used currently), little bit of IP that we are not using currently - that is about it.<p>All of a sudden, this guy wakes up and contacts us saying he wants to outsource development to some friend of his in India and wants to move this forward. I have moved on since then - my other co-founder B stepped back due to personal reasons and has given me his consent to move forward. I have found another co-founder I'm in talks with and just when things were beginning to roll, I hear from the long-forgotten C. What makes it difficult (or easy?) is we never registered as a formal company nor did we file any provisional patent. The IP is pretty thin and it is arguable whether there is anything patentable there. I fully understand it's all about execution and I have no issues with his  running away with the idea and trying to do something - as long as he does not bother me now or later. How can I cut away from this guy  cleanly? Would really appreciate any advice you guys may have. <comment><USER2> _Before_ you do what soneca said, consult a reputable, good lawyer with experience in IP/cofounder issues (not a cheap random lawyer). Tell your lawyer everything, your whole story. Don't leave out any detail. _Tell your lawyer what you plan to say to cofounder C_ (i.e. the dialogue soneca suggests you should have), but before having that dialogue ask the lawyer if you should go ahead, and ask the lawyer if there's anything specific you should say, and anything specific you should avoid saying. _Do not talk to cofounder C without consulting a lawyer first. You don't want your words to be used against you in the future._

I am not a lawyer, which is why it is imperative that you do consult a lawyer before proceeding in _any way_.

Right now, since you aren't successful, you don't seem to have anything to lose. But if you guys do gain traction, this problem could come back to bite you if left unaddressed.

</comment><comment><USER3> There was a solution that you could have used there at the beginning: dialogue.

You should had talked to C and made a clear and objective rupture with him. Not just sneak out, cut communications and access.

But still there is one solution that you can use now: dialogue.

Just call him, said you made of mistake of not doing it sooner and explaining that you two are both clearly on different paths and that you can't see yourself working with him on this project anymore. Explain that you should have had a conversation back then, but now you are trying to fix it and make everything clear. And say that you don't mind him going forward with the same idea by himself. So you will just have to negotiate some things, as company's name, this thin IP you said and stuff. And so it is.

Basic lack of dialogue like this should be only plot resources for chick flicks, not real life issues.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you everyone for your thoughts. Although I didn't communicate the first time, as soneca points out, I did realize I needed to. I sent him a note letting him know that things are not working out and I would like to move forward. I have not heard back from him. I didn't want to get into a "dialogue" until I had a good idea about what he can do or what he is entitled to legally (and morally, according to you guys) and what I should and should not be saying. I have two specific questions where more opinions would help:

1\. Without being a legally registered company ever and no IP filed, is this still a valid legal issue worth consulting a lawyer?

2\. According to you, what is C entitled to (on moral grounds, what is fair)?

</comment><comment><USER4> Are you sure he's trying to muscle in at the last minute or maybe he's just shooting the breeze after months of silence?

Run. That's what you want anyway.

Say and that you've moved on to bigger and better things, which you are, and that even B has moved on as well. It was fun while it lasted, but ABC is no more.

I'm not entirely sure if lawering up will mend relationships, but it's the least painful way to complete a breakup. The idea was originally thought up by B, and B has given your authority to move on. That by default makes it simpler and since you were never formally a "company", this makes it almost a non- issue. But if he causes too much noise, that's your alternative.

</comment><comment><USER5> Get a lawyer. Yes, no one likes to pay for lawyering, but situations like these require professionals.

</comment><comment><USER6> Depends on how much was put in writing between you and him. No one cares if you're poor. Once you get rich - suddenly half of the world appeared to become your "forgotten" partners claiming a pie.</comment>


iOS, the Future of macOS, Freedom, Security and Privacy (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/iosecure/357e724811fe04167332ef54e736670d <comment><USER2> A thread from 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16776887](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16776887)

</comment><comment><USER3> What is the alternative?

</comment><comment><USER4> (2017) i guess

> the state and details of disk encryption on both OSes is slightly unclear, > but hopefully will become clearer when iOS 10.3 is released.

</comment><comment><USER5> The article was written in 2017. Can you please add (2017) to its HN title?

<comment><USER2> Yes. Also, the submitted title broke the site guidelines, which ask: " _Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don 't editorialize._" (Submitted title was "Insecure and Hostile Future of iOS by a Security Researcher")

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> sorry, the original title was long for char limit and the post talked more about iOS than others so I edited it.

Will keep in mind not to do that again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Needs a (2016)</comment>


Better YCombinator news with y pipes (filter links + fetch each page) - <AUTHOR> http://pipes.yahoo.com/lunatech/hackernews

    * filters outs posts which have words like "Ask (HN|YC|PG)", links to techcrunch.com and other noise
    * fetches the pages linked to in each of the post.
 <comment><USER2> I think you've filtered out some of the best stuff, I personally really like all the ask stuff.

Having one image of the site being linked too on the left with the content on the right or something might make it easier to skim the content, and right now you have a bunch of html mark-up in the content which of course makes it difficult to read.

The number of votes and comments I think is also key.

<comment><USER3> Me too. I don't mind the crunch stuff being out but I enjoy the Ask stuff more than probably anything.

Also, trying to make this more like digg (with previews and taglines) does not help. I prefer the old reddit style that HN has today (and I don't prefer the new reddit style of reddit).

<comment><AUTHOR> @ScottWhigham , I fetch the entire page into the rss. The main idea was to be able to read the linked sites from my rss reader itself instead of clicking and going to the websites indivdually.

<comment><USER3> That's a great idea - dunno why I didn't think of that. Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I personally like the ask stuff.

I like the pipes idea alot though, can see it's use.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to read the "Ask *" topics, but I did not see too much in it (your mileage may vary :-) ), hence I am filtering it.

Y! pipes allows you to clone pipes, feel free to clone and change the rules to suit your needs.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Auto-Scroll News Ticker for the Second Screen - <AUTHOR> http://www.uptopnews.com/ <comment><USER2> This idea immediately makes me think of Tweetdeck which __sounds __neat until you 're working on something and are constantly distracted with new items popping into the comment stream. Maybe I'm just getting old but I would prefer a good weekly summary of the news: allow plenty of time for meaningless ephemera to be filtered out and just tell me what happened that's relevant. While technology moves fast, even JavaScript doesn't move so fast that checking in weekly will leave you hopelessly behind.

<comment><AUTHOR> Initially I tried to get the users to summarize articles, users can actually send their own summaries on every article already (when you click on +more on the card). It would start with a robot summary and people would correct it or extend important points to it. But that only works if I have users :) And then a weekly summary would be easy to achieve.

<comment><USER3> I like the idea of user curated summaries much more, the scrolling is a bit distracting. Short news articles are surely attractive, if they are summarized by the community and the community checks if the summary is unbiased I might use that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Bias and long articles are the reason I added the summaries, I think if a summary extracts the most important points the bias and the fluff around it could get removed. Maybe this solves the bias problem.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gentle reminder that being detained at a border is far from a minor hassle - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/wtfuk-73009d5623b4 <comment><AUTHOR> > "People have been asking me what happened when I didn't show up to give my > talk on the Web Animations API at Smashing Oxford."

As we submit to present at tech conference abroad and invite others to come to our country to present, we should be aware of situations like Rachel exprienced.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Her post title, "WTFUK" isn't desciptive, so I submitted with her Tweet title - [https://mobile.twitter.com/rachelnabors/status/8257718818484...](https://mobile.twitter.com/rachelnabors/status/825771881848467457)

</comment><comment><USER2> previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876453) (8 months ago, 321 comments)

<comment><USER3> It still seems particularly relevant given events over the weekend.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Fellow bootstrapped start-ups - How did you market to the masses? - <AUTHOR>

I launched my start-up about a month ago and have been fortunate to have some great tech press but am not sure how to break out into the masses.  How do you get your app/product/service in front of joe and jane public when your marketing budget is next to nill?
Thanks in advance for your help.
For reference, here is a little blurb about what we do:
The Wisdom of Others - An app for making personalized quote books filled with the practical advice, useful wisdom and favorite quotes of family and friends.
Link: www.TheWisdomofOthers.com <comment><USER2> A few (rather obvious) tips.

\- SEO - make sure your site can be found by certain keywords. A lot of traffic can be driven from Google. Maybe focus on "quotes of wisdom" or something. Recently there was a website on HN discussing how to monetize his site - 80% of his traffic came from Google. You need SEO. There is a great guide on the SEOmoz website.

\- Blog content - write some really good content that is useful for people who don't use your product. First of all, it helps with overall SEO, second of all it will help with referrals that bring customers that actually do want to use it. This shouldn't be hard given you are a winsdom-sharing based site. Find some inspirational stories etc. etc.

\- Partnerships - try to get some partnerships with similar companies or companies where you can help one another. Ex: look for a partnerships with a virtual book design site or something.

These are just a few off the top of my head. Best of luck

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the perfect kind of product, which can benefit from a meme app like threewords.me or thathigh.com. Make an app through which people can share some quotes (funny, inspirational, etc) which has a viral loop built-in. Get some buzz going and instead of showing someone else's ads, sell your own product.

You need to jazz up your homepage a bit more. Show an example book. This should be on your homepage, not hidden behind 5 clicks - <https://www.thewisdomofothers.com/book-examples#/page/1>.

Mine twitter for quotes and have a live feed running on your homepage.

This is a user generated content product. You need to leverage that. Make all content free and public and just sell the hardcover book.

Your pricing looks way too complicated. I'd say, have one single price so that it's an easy impulse purchase.

</comment><comment><USER4> What really helped us:

1) Content marketing. Write blog articles _consistently_ and promote them to a relevant audience. Forums are usually the best place to share your articles.

2) SEO. Get the basics down (friendly URLs, titles and descriptions, h1/h2/h3 tags, etc.), and try to get quality backlinks. Work on long-tail keywords. Blogging consistently also helps with SEO.

3) PR. Keep working on PR; get stories from small to big blogs and news websites. It's a neat way of getting backlinks too.

4) Hanging out on forums where your customers hang out and display your expertise. Don't spam; contribute genuinely. Hopefully people will be intrigued enough that they check your company out.

</comment><comment><USER5> I went to your site and my toolbar has a gizmo that tells me things like PR (google's page rank) & Alexa ranking - the 'ranking' on your page indicates "Private" which tells me that you may be blocking your site from the search engines. You might want to take a look at that!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the heads-up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> in the same boat my start up is boodhii.org</comment>


Samsung could have bought Android first - <AUTHOR> http://www.phonearena.com/news/Did-you-know-Samsung-could-buy-Android-first-but-laughed-it-out-of-court_id52685 <comment><USER3> Sounds like Samsung made the exact right move then. They let google eat all the cost of launching and maintaing the OS, and they just sell hardware. They're the only company other than Apple making money off smartphones, so while it's fun to use hindsight to make fun of Samsung's missed opportunity, they're actually doing okay from this.

<comment><USER4> Google makes plenty of profits out of smartphones. They just don't make it from selling hardware. But a big part of their revenue comes from mobile (they do not tell you what part, unfortunately) and android is very profitable for them as it assures them access to that revenue without having to pay traffic acquisition costs.

<comment><USER5> And critically keeps them from being locked out of the mobile market by a dominate Samsung / Apple / Microsoft / whomever / combination of. Which is exactly what it was meant to accomplish and why Google was willing to destroy their relationship with Apple to move forward with Android. People like to claim Google doesn't make money with Android, which is a very shallow conclusion: if they had been locked out of the mobile market, it could have buried the company entirely, stranding their future on a languishing desktop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Speaking as a European, one thing I love about Americans is the understanding of how fast business moves. I've had conversations with people way above my "level" treat me like an equal. I believe this has to do with the fact that they realize that in two years, I could be in a completely different position (granted, there are other, less cynical factors as well). In Europe, talking to the CEO of a big company is much more likely to leave you feeling like a peasant addressing royalty in ancient times. I don't have the experience to back this up but I believe it's like this and worse in many Asian countries.

It's related to the concept of Power Distance by Geert Hofstede ([http://geert-hofstede.com/dimensions.html](http://geert- hofstede.com/dimensions.html)), but it's not exactly that. Denmark, where I am from, has extremely low power distance (even lower than the US: [http://geert- hofstede.com/denmark.html](http://geert-hofstede.com/denmark.html)) which means your seniors will treat you like and equal but in a polite sort of way. There isn't the sense of you-might-be-in-my-shoes-tomorrow or at least that's how it feels to me.

<comment><USER7> As an American, I've had both experiences.

One job I had, I was hired by the owner of a multi-million dollar a year company at his kitchen table with his wife and their kids were making a racket upstairs playing. He was always approachable and a friendly guy. One of the best jobs I ever had.

Years later he sold the company to some venture capitalist outfit out of Boston (I think it was Boston) that had hopes of expanding the business he created. Everybody at the top of that thing acted as if they were more special than anyone else in the room (including some high level people) not realizing they were just that somewhat interesting white speck on top of chicken shit.

Once it became clear there was no interest in continuing the successful path of the previous owner, I left. Something like 75% of my department (including some high level people) thought the same and left as well. I put in my notice to my boss a day after he had put in his notice. That was a fun final two weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _" The year is 2005. There are no smartphones"_

In Europe, we had Nokia Communicator smartphones since 1996. They had web browsers, and you could install apps. They never took the market by storm like the iPhone, but they were smartphones allright.

<comment><USER8> Also the Japanese had very advanced mobile networks from very early on, so I assume there were some pretty smart devices (for their time) much before smartphones got popular in the USA.

<comment> at-fates-hands As far as I know, they had 3G networks way back in 2001. They were the harbinger of profit for carriers here in the US. I remember the carriers were not enthusiastic about putting billions into upgrading their networks to support the faster speeds unless there was some way to monetize it.

Thankfully, when news started coming in that NTT DoCoMo was making tons of cash off of data streaming and text messaging, then the carriers were all in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, this is a related rant that's been brewing . . .

Historical revisionism is a wonderful thing, apparently. Reviewing where Android was when it launched, a good few years after these events, and you can only conclude Samsung were 100% right. Android had a slow VM (far slower than the others already in the market) very high system requirements, and represented a whole new incompatible ecosystem.

Much of the world had moved on to J2ME's MIDP 2.0, with Japan and the US the notable exceptions with i-mode and Qualcomm's C based Brew platform respectively. As later happened with Android the fragmentation problems of J2ME were greatly exaggerated by a whole mini industry of companies reliant on the illusion. J2ME certainly had problems, but if you were delivering more than 100 different builds (I'm aware of groups pushing 1000) then you were completely and absolutely insane. It might sound like creating 100 different builds would be a big problem, but the differences were really fairly trivial, and not much worse than Android today which primarily benefits from most of the OS having been written by one group, except for the driver layers, whereas previously a lot more was on the OEM.

I'm a fairly loud proponent of the merits of Android, but what is even more widely ignored is that J2ME was in many ways superior to it, most obviously in the way it handled application permissions. For those that have dug into the platform it's amazingly clear that without the iPhone coming along and spurring Google on to greater things Android would have been a complete non- event at launch, especially with the dire performance of the early devices. The concern for Android developers today is that now Google have done just enough to edge out the iPhone in the market (though not in terms of developer experience, thanks to the giant incoherent mess of an API) they're leaving the platform to stagnate. Perversely the best thing for Android devs right now would be if Apple or MS produce an absolutely killer version of their respective OS's forcing Google to invest where it's needed to stay in contention.

So I certainly wouldn't rate Samsung as a software outfit, they're notably terrible, but Google have caught many of the old MS diseases, especially when it comes to doing only enough to destroy competitors and then leaving it hanging. If you compare the iOS and Android APIs you can't escape the conclusion that the iOS team have pride in their work, and the Android team are constantly having to make excuses for what a rush they were in. Both groups drove the other to greater heights, but the impact both eventually had in the market is only thanks to the other having driven them to get there.

<comment><USER10> Out of genuine curiosity, in what respects do you think Google is allowing Android to "stagnate"?

<comment><USER9> A few large areas:

Data storage

The SQLite API is a mess (you end up with SQL polluting a frightening amount of code once you start using it), along with associated content providers and the way this stuff attaches to views. This is particularly noticeable around the MediaStore, which is one of the truly horrendously fragmented areas of the system. If I had more faith in the future of the platform this is what I'd attack first as the potential for improvement for developers and end users is immense.

UI framework

The very core of the layout algorithm (where it traverses the views for information) is about as wrong as it can be while still appearing to function. Using styling or animations results in a horrifying explosion of xml files edited by the slowest xml editor in existence. They need a decent MVC UI system (the Cocoa killer feature), not this hacked together mess. Whoever came up with Fragments does deserve a medal though.

General API cleanup

The API has inconsistent naming and code style throughout. A lot of it is clearly the work of people more comfortable in C or C++ writing Java for the first time, but there are packages where NIH syndrome seems to have occurred between different groups of the Android core team. One of the NS* API features is even thoughTheNamesAreSoLongJavaCantCompete at least they understand the benefit of consistency, whereas in Android every package feels unique. J2ME was superior to Android in this respect, and the people designing it also knew when to use primitives and when to use objects. Android uses too many objects for things like touch events, resulting in far too big a load on the eternally inadequate garbage collector.

Permissions

They need to actually launch the feature whereby you can install an app but deny it permission for particular operations. I suspect once they proxy ad stuff through Play Services they'll try to switch this on, as if they did it right now 90% of the noise would be ad supported app devs complaining users are disabling their network connections.

Finally, relatedly, the documentation is horrific. It's quite common to find references in examples to methods that don't exist (and the examples written in yet another bizarre coding style), or magic details are referred to but not demonstrated or explained. I have got more useful info by reading the source for the system itself. If you go and read the source for a project like DashClock any reasonable developer goes and cries in a corner. That's PHP4 style development, not the way you preserve sanity over a long period of time.

At least the storage and UI could be added in a compatibility library, so the fragmentation argument wouldn't apply. Kitkat has added superficial improvements for some areas, but again it's just enough to allow users to not notice the gaps with iOS, while leaving many Android devs spending a disproportionate amount of time adding stupid hacks to paper over the inadequacies of the platform.

<comment><USER11> I developed for Android a few years ago (I don't do it any more), and I didn't find the documentation "horrific." There is JavaDoc for pretty much everything. Like anything else, there are a few dark corners, but mostly there are people discussing them online, so you can figure it out.

I didn't use the SQLite API, but isn't the point of that API to "pollute" your code with SQL? I might be misunderstanding your complaint here-- do you believe the API shouldn't exist at all? Or that it's overused? It seems like there are a few cases where SQL is exactly what you need-- like building a finance program or something.

With regard to the UI: I always saw the Layout classes as the View, the Activity as the Controller, and the Model as the classes that implemented the application itself. If anything, the big complaint people had seemed to be that Android was _too_ structured, that it required you to do _too much_ work before seeing anything on the screen. I agree that the XML files often seemed clunky, but at least you could vertically center a text box without magic, something that's apparently very difficult and unintuitive with HTML. Android also planned ahead for different screen sizes and form factors. The real "hack" (in the bad sense) is what Apple had to do when they made the iPad-- to run iPhone apps with doubled, blocky pixels to preserve the aspect ratio.

Speaking of the "eternally inadequate GC", Android's GC has gotten better over time. MUCH better. I remember back in the 1.0 days 100 ms pauses were common. Now, the average is less than a tenth of that. The UI is still not as responsive as iOS, but it's getting there. I see no reason why the GC couldn't improve even more, with top people at Google working on it.

With regard to the permissions thing: I agree with you here. It would really be nice to give users the ability to deny certain permissions to apps. As you mention, they probably don't do this because they don't want to destroy the business model of ad-supported apps that use the network. Hopefully some kind of solution can be reached here.

I never actually developed for J2ME, but I knew a few folks who did, and they hated it. I remember tales of being stuck with Java circa 1.4 (no generics), ancient libraries, and even... ugh... Swing. I'm not that familiar with J2ME, so again, maybe it improved later on? Also, do you really think that delivering "100 different builds" (your words) is an easy thing for a company to do? With Android, I only need to deliver one build, and I have a store that can do most of the work for me. I think you are looking at the past through some seriously rose-tinted glasses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Android would have become a Samsung proprietary technology either merged with Bada or replacing it. It would be completely irrelevant today.

</comment><comment><USER13> Google actually had and more importantly could hire the army of engineers. I think Samsung was correct

<comment><USER14> I disagree. Going to Google was good for _Android,_ but not good for Samsung.

While it is not clear that Android under Samsung would have become big (likely not), it would have been an effective blocking move for Samsung, delaying and possibly thwarting Google's dominance in the smartphone market. Samsung had an opportunity to control Android (and possibly kill it). Instead, Android went to Google who built it into a major powerhouse... and now (a) Samsung is heavily dependent on that powerhouse and (b) has very little control over that powerhouse.

<comment><USER15> Samsung could have bought and suffocated Android, but it's not obvious that they could have killed the movement towards and open platform(1). It's not like the idea of an open smartphone OS was unique or even new at the time. I don't think Android as it stood in 2005 was something Google could not have re-built from scratch in a few month if they decided it was the way to go - <USER2> other words, wasn't it more of an aquihire?

1: Let's skip the discussion as to whether Android is _actually_ free and open source and instead remember how much _more_ open Android is compared to what was before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It does not gratify my intellectual curiosity.

We see this kind of article every now and then and they do not bring anything but couldas/shouldas/wouldas.

</comment><comment><USER17> Google should have been developing high-quality phones in conjunction with developing Android. I thought perhaps this was the point of buying Motorola (albeit late to the party), though it seems it didn't play out that way; They're going for the being the platform and sourcing the technology from multiple vendors.

<comment><USER18> Google's forays into hardware and phones have been covered and analyzed elsewhere, and the main takeaway I got is that they tried to do phones with the typical Google-ish mindset combining a "build it and they will come" mentality with zero customer support. And it didn't work too well, probably because people have different attitudes to fancy smartphones that cost money than they do to free email. :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> But could Samsung have made Android this big?

<comment><USER20> Going by what they achieved with Bada, I'd say no. To me it became obvious rather quickly after the iPhone started taking off that the only way to beat it as a platform was to create another platform that's supported by _multiple_ OEMs, and not just one, because no single OEM could've become more popular than Apple using their own OS.

<comment><USER9> Nokia or Sony could have done it, if they weren't being run by idiots. The hardware was very close, but Symbian had been off in a land developing stuff for their own amusement with no connection to end users for too long.

Some of the software written behind closed doors on Sony hardware in around 2006 looked a lot like a modern games console UI. The problem was the US was largely an incompatible market (brew) so you had to pay for this stuff just with Europe, so it remained a niche.

The modern mobile industry view of history is hilariously US centric, when until 2007 it was one of the moat backwards markets around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Samsung could release a Galaxy S5 with TouchWiz on Tizen (Bada v3) and the average consumer would buy it. At least in Europe they buy smartphones with the Samsung logo, not because it comes with Android. Though there was some license agreement between Google and Samsung in the same week as Google sold Motorola, so this may not happen.

</comment><comment><USER22> What does this have to do with court? The article says this was in a board room not a courtroom.

</comment><comment><USER23> It probably goes without saying, but here it is:

If Samsung had acquired Android, none of us today would own an Android smartphone.

</comment><comment><USER24> You can't change one part of history and everything else remains the same: In the early days the single and only reason Android had any hope at all was that it was the concerted push of a dozen+ once major manufacturers in the face of what was an obvious oncoming Apple hegemony. Google could be the fair player that brought them together precisely because they weren't in hardware, and offered the data side that the others didn't have. And even then Android went through a two year or so period where it was incredibly perilous, and is surprising it didn't perish.

Had Samsung bought Android it would have been a footnote in history. If I had to guess we'd be looking at a 90s-Microsoft-like dominance of smartphones by Apple.</comment>


How I made our company's website top#14 growing in the publishing industry (Oct) - <AUTHOR>

How I made our company's website top#14 growing in the publishing industry (Oct 2013). I was hired as the marketing manager at an online publishing company to make the website more visible (SEO) and with more Unique Visitors. My education: MBA My experience: 9 years in Management (5 yrs in Marketing and Marketing Analysis) Obviously, if you want to get consistent real visitors, it will take some time. Even if you get lucky to be in the top list of Hacker News or Reddit or... for a while, it is still a temporary improvement which won't do any good for a company. On the other hand, all the partners at the company were considering to enter a new market since their investment were almost gone! So I had no money to spend (on ads or promotions), no time to incrementally implement some basic steps, and no support from other websites to help us. First, I made a mistake!! I spent 10$ for a Gag (fiverr) to get more semi-real visitors out of my own pocket, knowing that it might buy me some time to implement more long-term strategies. It turned out that one of our sponsors that had access to our Google Analytics has found out about it and left us in 1 week. Also, the gag didn't really change any important metrics on our website. Then, I did this in summary: <comment><AUTHOR> (1) I cleaned the website from minor and major issues like deleting links that were not working properly, deleting any plugin that was too much for our readers, used simple URLs for each article, set up all SEO metrics including Focus keywords and SEO description (even alt. description for pictures) even for articles from 6 months ago. (2) Asked all our 60 authors to use their Google Plus ID in our profiles and change their Google Plus profile under "contributor" section to get Google Authorship for all of them (which only 30% of them did that) (3) Did an overall analysis everyday to get Trending Topics from Google Trends and also alternative words for each hot topic and asked the Content Manager to replace some words from the published contents based on my daily analysis.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> (4) Did a competitor analysis every week to find market benchmarks and check if any growth in our number of visitors was caused by the Market itself. This segmentation helped us to know which article is "really" getting more traffic because of its content. (which the #1 article by this analysis turned out to be about Bitcoins, just FYI) Then we asked our authors who wrote those top articles to continue their topics...

(5) Based on the Competitive Analysis every week, I emailed several websites (mostly startups) to partner with us (I only emailed companies with our range of Alexa Web Ranking) with a customized email and a unique strategy with each one of them. (with each analysis, I found out what they are looking for and how we can help them). Then started to set up win-win contracts (informal) with them that was basically going to help us both grow our business. In 3 months, I found about 20 Partners. (6) Asked all partners to use BackLinks and also favorite our tweets or even retweet them to their own audience. Also asked them to write for us as a guest writer and promote their own articles via our website. In return, we would publish them and promote them ourselves. (7) using proper @s for our Twitter Audience and potential followers to personally suggest them some articles. Some times without even including any weblink to get their attention that we are not spams. (8) Responded to any interaction in all our Social Media account the moment they appeared in my notification bar. Except for 5-6 hours per day that I was sleeping. And this is my achievements: - Alexa Ranking improved 310% in the first month. (United States rankings) - We appeared in the 2nd page in Google Search Engine for our 3 focus keywords after 2 months (we were not even in the first 5 pages) - <USER2> Klout score went up from 40 to 60 - We got 400 real followers in twitter in 2 months which their response rate is 10%. (The other 1600 followers that has followed us before I joined have a response rate of 0.4%. - we got 20 partners and backlinks everyday - we got 2 new sponsors - .... We got Microsoft and SAP as our partner!! (MS VCs) And now people who knew I was responsible for this are asking me to work for them!</comment>


Germany's economy - Modell Deutschland über alles - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21552579

<comment><USER2> This headline is an insult to me as a German.

It is a forbidden part of our national anthem, which translates to "Germany above everything else". It is illegal to sing this part as it is connected to the crimes committed in WW2.

"Its native population is shrinking and ageing fast, and the country does not welcome immigrants."

First they use nazi version of our national anthem in the headline, then they declare us as racists... great journalism.

<comment><USER3> This is incorrect. The anthem is not Nazi, it is from a poem by Hoffman von Fallersleben, one of the early German democrats. Far from being illegal, the first two stanzas are simply not sung during official occasions and are not (no longer, up to 1991 they were) part of the national anthem. I'm German too and I find this kind of thin-skinnedness a bit embarassing and is not substantiated by the article. Otherwise the article is kind of boring, though it points out some key areas: middle-class not only in terms of individuals, but also in terms of companies, integrating organized labor, the vocational training system. Of these I find the last most interesting, most overlooked, most anachronistic, and factually I'm not quite sure if it actually works all that well (i.e. I believe other countries could improve a lot on the system).

When talking about Germany as a great economic system one must not forget that Germany is nothing more than the economic center of the EU. As a whole, the EU is in economic trouble, and Germany is a part of that trouble.

Also, current prosperity, like the current boom in technology, is largely due to the fact that there aren't that many other places to invest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> this article is embarrassing in every way shape and form.</comment>


Inside Major League Baseball's "Hypothesis Machine" (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/04/03/inside-major-league-baseballs-hypothesis-machine/

<comment><USER2> Interesting article, but I wish it had been written by someone with a stronger background in baseball analytics. For example, it talks about including Gold Glove statistics. The problem is that there isn't neces a strong correlation between actual defensive skills and Gold Glove Awards. Plus, defensive metrics are very difficult.

But this is an interesting project.</comment>


Ask HN: How to become a driver of climatic and social change? - <AUTHOR> Dear HackerNews,
I am in a rut and don't know which step to take.
My background is liberal arts in Polish literature and history. I have got a baccalaureaute in these and am pursing a master's degree, having once wanted to become a diplomat or a curator.
While initially single-minded in my passion, in recent years I have become more invested in a variety of social issues: social inequalities (regional, racial, religious), helping domestic violence victims, improving education and securing humanitarian aid. Among those, climate change and combating it have become my primary field of interest.
I might not make a good biologist or an engineer, but I have shown promise in activism. I have co-founded and run a local youth organization. I have participated in a UN HRC session (3 weeks), as well as in last year's UN Climate Change Conference in Poland, thanks to an NGO with which I collaborated: thus I know of that work environment. I also have partial command of law. In light of these, I would not mind becoming an ecological activist, or for my career to have elements of that.
Problem is, I am lost. I feel that I don't know what is out there, nor do I have anyone to ask for directions.
In particular, I am at a loss in these areas:
1. What are the ways in which one can make a meaningful impact (realistically, not idealistically)?
2. What background is needed to get involved in that? I am ready to return to university. Which schools or majors are the most suitable?
3. What people do you know who are involved whom I can ask or whose impressive example I could follow?
4. Which people or institutions can I ask for further guidance?
All input and opinion appreciated. Assume all country, language, money requirements met.
Background information: 25 years old, female, Polish. Lives in Zürich. Knows Polish, English, French, Italian. Fledgling interest in data science.
Best regards, Marta Szameto <email@example.com> <comment><USER2> Marta, You're looking outside yourself for too many answers.

Just live life and have experiences with the thought that "I'm going to let life teach me about myself". You don't need more schooling but you do need to put in work at hobbies, a job (you don't need to love the first thing that comes around. There's always another job), personal relationships on all levels (friendly, acquaintance and intimate).

If the above is too ethereal for you, find solace that everyone's lost at 25 (and many are beyond that). You just don't have enough time in to LIFE. Keep doing things until you find the VERY FEW that cause you to find yourself.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> This may be a good starting point:

[https://80000hours.org/](https://80000hours.org/)

<comment><USER4> I strongly second this- its a well-studied and well-resourced organization that has spent most of a decade investigating the precise kind of question you're asking (namely, how one can best position oneself in life to have a positive impact on the world.)

In particular, they're very clear that there are a large number of possible areas to aim at that all offer the chance to make a big difference, and that there are a wide range of skillsets that can be applied in various ways (you don't have to go back to school and become an engineer.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Its great that you want to be a force of betterment in the world. There are many different kinds of ecological activists, but whats important is that you become the one where your daily life consists of activities you enjoy. Otherwise, you will get burned out soon.

The most straightforward way is to look up NGOs (others have posted links) and try to see if you can get a job with the one that seems exciting to you. Change is always brought about by acting in groups, so joining or creating an organization is the best way.

My answer to your question 1 is as follows. You are probably too small to make meaningful impact on a global scale - no one is. This is a task for governments. But you can make impact on a local scale. People often forget that there are many many things you can do at the city level to create sustainable living patterns. You can join or create organizations that are trying to fix your local problems. One interesting thing that someone with your background could do is to use art to drive social change. I know a excellent organization in my city that does community theater activities to educate and impact people, and you can definitely see the positive effect they have in the communities and areas they work in.

</comment><comment><USER6> Have you looked at:

[https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=330&langId=en](https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=330&langId=en)

[https://www.wango.org/resources.aspx?section=ngodir](https://www.wango.org/resources.aspx?section=ngodir)

[https://www.ongood.ngo/info/resources/25-must-follow-ngos- in...](https://www.ongood.ngo/info/resources/25-must-follow-ngos-in-europe)

</comment><comment><USER7> Be the change you want to see. You can only control your own actions. There's no futility in that.

Look towards yourself instead of institutions.

[http://thetaoteching.com/taoteching17.html](http://thetaoteching.com/taoteching17.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Marta, I need to be blunt here. And I realize that sometimes being direct with a female these days is politically incorrect. So be it.

Your background is such that you are far more likely to be used by climate change zealots. Which means you are likely to unwittingly engage in spreading lies and non-solutions.

If you really want to help humanity in some of these domains you have to have enough of a scientific background to be able to understand the subject well as well as to separate science from religion.

The good news is: You can acquire this knowledge. If you are serious about this, shift your focus towards studying science. The rest should follow naturally due to your passion.

</comment><comment><USER9> FIRST ACTION: Obstacles, identify everything that is standing in the way.

Obstacles become the raw material for achieving your goals.

ON this subject, Dan Sullivan is brilliant > [https://www.33voices.com/interviews/the-way-to-defeat- your-o...](https://www.33voices.com/interviews/the-way-to-defeat-your- obstacles)

</comment><comment><USER10> Here is a startup incubator that focuses on activist companies. Maybe one of their startups would be a good place to work?

[https://www.highergroundlabs.com/about- us](https://www.highergroundlabs.com/about-us)

You could also consider running for office. There are several organizations now helping novices run for public office from local level to national.

</comment><comment><USER11> Climatic, there is nothing you can do. The vast majority of pollution comes from corporations, not individuals. Try to rally a change in laws, but don't focus your efforts on changing individual people's habits, it's a drop in the bucket.

<comment><USER12> I understand the sentiment, but there is still a lot an individual could do. Use green energy, fly less, etc. These things all create relevant market pressures.

For example: five years ago it was hard to find more than a single vegan meal option at any given London food place. Fast forward to today, and tons of places have dedicated vegan menus or multiple choices, because of the increase in people willing to pay for them.

I'm not saying it's a silver bullet, but these things do count, and sometimes changes driven by economic pressures happen very quickly.

<comment><USER13> Do you honestly believe it is possible to solve this from the consumer side? We can't even make people stop eating themselves to death! You might get a small fraction to consume less but that wont save the environment. "Every little bit counts", no it really doesn't, it might buy us a few years and let the rest pollute even more before things are so bad that we start enforcing laws to stop them but ultimately those laws will be there, so all you achieved was making life a bit cushier for people who don't care.

<comment><USER12> No, on its own these things aren't a solution, but collectively we are able to add to pressures on businesses to adapt their behaviours.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rogue AI game - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/5yvl4o/i_finished_my_game_liberation_circuit_rogue_ai/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is just too much fun. I'm a big fan of the RTS genre anyway and ok, this weekend is toast I can tell already.</comment>


Depression isn't about being sad all the time - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/03/depression-doesnt-make-you-sad-all-the-time

<comment><USER2> When I was slipping into the beginning of my own bipolar-type schizoaffective disorder, i was quite bitingly sarcastic. I don't think I appeared sad to other people, or depressed, but other people sometimes found my sarcasm quite annoying.

"Melancholia" is a section from my essay "Living with Schizoaffective Disorder": [http://www.warplife.com/mdc/books/schizoaffective- disorder/m...](http://www.warplife.com/mdc/books/schizoaffective- disorder/melancholia.html)</comment>


Hacker News is now more mobile friendly - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/eZYheZh.jpg

<comment><USER2> Yes, it's the return of

      <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, target-densitydpi=medium-dpi">

which we've tested many times before and found wanting:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7985687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7985687)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7330107](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7330107)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6253835](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6253835)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6253403](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6253403)

We tried it again tonight and it seems to work better now. Not sure what changed.

We're going to try leaving this on for a while and see how you all like it. Perhaps we'll do a poll in a day or two.

Edit: even if we do leave it on, this is just a stopgap. The real fix will involve completely different markup. We're working on that.

<comment><USER3> Seems good to me on Android stock Chrome browser. Nice improvement. Thumbs up.

<comment><USER4> Looks much better on my Nexus 4 (Android 5.0) running Firefox. The font size is as perfect as I could want--any smaller would be troublesome--and the consistent size is especially appreciated. Thanks!

However, the left and right margins on the main and Newest pages are too wide in portrait mode. They look okay in landscape, but could be narrower. I would suggest just using the browser defaults.

Thanks for all your efforts!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is horrible... :/. I use Hacker News as essentially my only website I use, and I use it constantly on mobile. Key information is now on random lines, often with linebreaks between things like "45 comments". It is no longer possible to zoom out to see a comment you are typing: the viewport is just broken entirely on edit pages (and it seems on many pages: the user settings page is also now largely unusable). That menu bar is just painful. What was wrong with it before?

<comment><USER6> If you used it before, you would probably be aware of the need to scroll to follow a single headline. What mobile OS/browser are you using?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you read HN on an iOS device check out [http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/](http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/)

Hands down the best way to read HN mobile

</comment><comment><USER8> It is such a huge relief for me. I read HN mainly on my phone and it has always been a painful experience to manually zoom in for each page. I can't wait for a truly optimized stylesheet but this is great in the meantime.

</comment><comment><USER9> Well, the fonts are bigger. But I would quarrel with some/all of the layout choices. Overall it's a wash.

</comment><comment><USER10> It was fine before already if you are using a browser with nice reflow. I am not sure what exactly changed but the front-page now seems to have extra padding on the sides making it annoyingly narrow. Same for /threads. /item pages are still their good old self.

</comment><comment> grey-area The header is broken on iPad I'm afraid for certain longer usernames when logged in.

</comment><comment><USER11> All I get is "Basic Web is unable to make a secure connection at this time" on my Kindle DX, if anyone knows a workaround it would be helpful.</comment>


I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/23/spoken-word-poet-suli-breaks-exam-result-video_n_3137035.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

<comment><AUTHOR> It's hard to believe it's taken this long for something like this to come around and gain some popularity in the mainstream. It echoes so much of what is wrong with education, and perhaps implicitly, what is so right with the Tech industry, where testing is no longer the most important factor played into hiring.</comment>


Girl unaware all her pictures are sent to journalist - <AUTHOR> http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagensit.no%2Farticle2596740.ece <comment><USER2> I'm experiencing something that is obviously dumb users.

i have a first.last@gmail address and my name is very common. So i bet others had to use less desirable gmail addresses.

Since google started to aggressively push for adding alternative email and/or phone number, dumb users that initially wanted my email address entered it as their "alternate email" not understanding it's for password recovery only.

I clicked the "not me" link in more than 20 confirmation emails, but google probably never used that to better inform the dumb users.

Now my gmail account is a cesspool of emails intended for other people, site registration confirmation for idiots with same first/last name but a different middle name... And there's no spam algorithm that can fight that!

Time to start looking for alternatives.

<comment><USER3> Most of my projects involve a mass-market audience so I get a pretty good view of what average competence looks like. Based on this, I would guess that a significant portion of Americans have a great difficultly reading. Even when you put a big message that says this is not for X, people will continue to do X.

If you run a startup or a company whose audience is early adapters you get a skewed view of the average level of competence of users.

I don't know if things get worse in other countries. However, I would guess that 10-20% of the US population lacks the basic literacy and logic skills to hold a manual job involving anything but repetitive tasks.

<comment><USER4> _However, I would guess that 10-20% of the US population lacks the basic literacy and logic skills to hold a manual job involving anything but repetitive tasks._

~13% when it comes to reading, ~20% when it comes to quantitative tasks.

<http://nces.ed.gov/naal/pdf/2006470_1.pdf>

<comment><USER5> And even besides the people with low IQ, most everyone is only capable of thinking abstractly _some of the time_ \--and even then only after years of cognitive development[1]. System 2 thinking[2] is taxing to the brain (consumes more glucose/oxygen/etc), and is switched out of whenever it's not absolutely necessary.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piagets_theory_of_cognitive_dev...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piagets_theory_of_cognitive_development#Formal_operational_stage)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> tl;dr

A Norwegian girl, living abroad, enabled "auto upload my pictures to Google+" on her phone and for some reason they end up in a Norwegian IT journalists Google+. Everything from full passport details to regular photos are uploaded. The journalist can see Geo location etc as well. Google keep stating it is not possible and the journalist are experiencing problems contacting Google.

<comment><USER7> You do not have to `enable` it, as soon as you add an account to an android phone, photos automatically start syncing.

<comment><USER8> What kind of account? I have my Google account(s) synced up to my Android phone and have a total of 0 photos in my Google+ album.

I have them syncing with DropBox intentionally.

<comment><USER9> Same for me - but I noticed that it suddenly started syncing to Google+ too a few weeks ago (not sure why it started doing this, either there was an update or it was because I logged into Google+ using the default Android Google+ app and it enabled it then). Either way, I wasn't particularly happy about it, though I believe it uploaded them but did not make them public. I turned it off as soon as I noticed as I don't need my photos synced to two places and I already had photos synced to DropBox.

<comment><USER10> > or it was because I logged into Google+ using the default Android Google+ > app and it enabled it then

It asks you if you want the uploads to take place when you first setup the app.

<comment><USER9> Unless its a small, easy-to-miss checkbox, I was only asked to log into my Google Account.

<comment><USER11> it's definitely not small or easy to miss. The whole "instant upload" part is an entire screen outlining what it is with a clear opt-out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just a warning: blurring pixels in sensitive photos like this is often insufficient. Always black out the information instead (and make sure to flatten the image! and not save it as e.g. a pdf with a black bar over it which has actually happened before too)

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/01/how_to_recover...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/01/how_to_recover.html)

<comment><USER13> That would be interesting if they actually deciphered a real blurred picture.

Which they didn't cause it's not possible, I mean, left to reader.

[edit: I put it with the myth you need to erase data on a hard disk randomly multiple times <http://www.nber.org/sys-admin/overwritten-data-gutmann.html> ]

<comment><USER14> Funny how you present your view as fact and then complain about having to put up with myths...

<http://yuzhikov.com/articles/BlurredImagesRestoration2.htm>

<comment><USER13> No, I more commented on the article made a pretty bold statement and then didn't follow it up yet everyone buys into it.

I've never seen it actually shown so that to me makes it dodgy. If it was possible it'd be a pretty cool demo.

(And I assume I don't need to say removing camera blur, the famous photoshop swirls incident etc is not the same.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I guess tech-journalists gets to try out quite a few mobile phones through their work.

Would it not be a reasonable scenario that the journalist got to try a phone and used the Google+ app with his account. Upon returning the phone, it wasn't reset properly before being sold on to another person. So the Google+ app could still be associated with the journalist's account when the phone was sold on.

Update: In this article(<http://www.dagensit.no/tester/article2355417.ece>) the journalist reviews the Sony Xperia S, the very same phone model that the girl uses.

</comment><comment><USER16> I am guessing there is a user Hash Collision.

Google uses hashes for a lot of things. Hash tables are very fast, and great for database look up. In Python if there is a hash collision both entries are compared and resolved by comparison. This is still fast because doing a compare against 4 collisions is still much faster than doing a compare against 1Billion user names.

That said... The odds get to be beyond astronomical. What percentage of people are journalists? I mean if they said someone contacted us to let us know, that would be believable, but "I am a journalist, and this is happening to me" seems a lot less likely.

I'm not ready to side with Google that this is impossible, but even the response from Google doesn't sound like the Google I know. While Google is hard to get a hold of for tech support and resolution of things, if you do get them to respond to a privacy concern they are swift.

With a Teen Girl they would be even swifter. One naked Bathroom pic and they are suddenly in the Child Porn distribution business, knowingly infringing (since they have been told now) on a teen with out her knowledge. That's the kind of thing that an employee goes to jail for, not just gets some big fines.

<comment><USER17> _The odds get to be beyond astronomical_

The odds of winning the lottery are pretty poor too. Yet people win them every day.

<comment><USER18> Let's not hand-wave; the numbers actually matter here. One-in-a-million chances happen every day. One-in-2^128 chances do not. If you're exclusively using a hash for identifying someone, then you'll make sure it's big enough to prevent accidental collisions. This is not expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As much as I love bashing Google over privacy. And as highly probable as I believe the sort of glitch described is likely to occur, two things make me skeptical of this story.

A) That of all the random ways that a bug like this could manifest itself, it happened with a tech journalist on the receiving end.

B) That the author spoke with a live human Googler over a customer service issue in regard to a free service.

The real story here is B not A.

<comment><USER20> > _The real story here is B not A_

I would assume if you're a journalist in the tech industry worth you salt you probably have a Google contact you could call.

<comment><USER19> There is a difference between knowing someone at Google and getting someone at Google to go on the record in regard to a customer service issue with a free product as "spokesperson Cristine Sorensen" is reported to have done.

<comment><USER21> Claims of Brokenness don't get support. Claims of violations of privacy policy and law get support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My wife had a problem with a girl creating a facebook account using a similar email to hers that somehow got her gmail account connected to that facebook account.

There was some account sharing going on, as the girl used that email address to login to her facebook account and all the FB notifications ended up in my wife's inbox.

At first I thought her account was compromised, but it was a secure password, so it seemed to be caused by the only slightly differing email addresses somehow being shared internally by gmail.

Only after activating 2-factor authentication did I manage to prevent that girl from using my wife's gmail account. However, this was followed by a few weeks of constant gmail notifications about a detail/password change request sent to her phone.

</comment><comment><USER23> " _The girl lives on another continent, so it is not just knocking on the door either._ "

from

" _Jenta bor på et annet kontinent, så det er ikke bare å banke på døren heller._ "

Can I assume that is mistranslated since the passport picture shows Norway which is the same country as the journalist?

Separately, DN.no seems to be a business tabloid, 8th largest, in Norway, according to Wikipedia (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagens_N%C3%A6ringsliv>).

<comment><USER24> The translation is correct, so she might be living somewhere else.

On the topic of translation issues, "We" in the first sentence of that paragraph is "Google" in the original which changes the meaning a little.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> For the longest time, I used to receive someone else's e-mails on GMail. Our e-mail addresses were very similar except that mine had periods in it and his apparently didn't. Either that or he really loved signing me up for things.

<comment><USER26> My understanding is that Google strips full stops before comparing email addresses and accounts for equality, which is really annoying when people split their email addresses differently at different times, making them look distinct when they are actually the same.

<comment><USER10> It's really useful to me.

I have a filter for messages to: firstname.lastname@example.com

which marks the message read and moves it out of my inbox.

This is the address I give out to companies whose correspondences I don't care to read generally but don't necessarily want to go directly to the trash.

<comment><USER27> You can also use + suffixes, which allows you to label.the address.

firstname.lastname@example.com for example.

<comment><USER28> Assuming the crappy regex on the form will accept it.. :( It's better now, but I still fail about 20% of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Minor wording point: I think "sensitive" rather than "delicate" pictures is what's meant here, i.e. in the sense of "sensitive documents". (Sensitive/delicate overlap in some of their meanings, but not this one.)

<comment><USER30> I thought the same thing but had assumed this was a Google Translate issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> " Whether you are trying to protect corporate intellectual property or just the privacy of your personal life, the key idea is that you shouldn't underestimate the importance of your disclosures, particularly over time. " [1]

[1] - Conti, Greg (2008-10-10). Googling Security: How Much Does Google Know About You?

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm glad to see a story like this getting some press as I've suspected that I've been dealing with something very similar for years now. Every so often I get an email from Facebook or some other service asking me to confirm a sign up I never made and under a different name, and then afterwards (where it gets strange) I get an email thanking me for confirming. Gmail says no other IPs have logged into my account and there's nothing in my sent folder related to it. I've changed passwords and it still happens. It's almost as if I share an email address with someone but they have a different "account".

<comment><USER21> That is just someone using your address as their alternate email.

<comment><USER32> I really doubt that, as it doesn't seem like you can put in multiple email addresses when you are first signing up for Facebook (<http://puu.sh/2IP5J.png>). I also don't imagine Facebook continues to email the unverified email addresses after a user has changed their address to pass the verification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Uff! Min paranoia fortalte meg å slå av automatisk opplasting. Jeg er veldig glad jeg gjorde.

<comment><USER34> კარგი გადაწყვეტილებაა.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> slight mistranslation: "...sak som Google ikke kan forklare" means "...that Google can't explain", not "...that I can't explain". (my Norwegian isn't that good, but this kind of sticks out...)

</comment><comment><USER36> Reason #12 why I will not use Google Glass or talk (beyond "hi" and "Yeah, nice weather") to one that has them on. I don't care how much they keep pushing them, they have their agenda, I have mine.

Stuff like this has the potential of ruining lives and relationships.

<comment><USER37> Unwanted sharing is not cool, however when you say-

 _Stuff like this has the potential of ruining lives and relationships._

Do you mean that _truth_ has the potential of ruining lives and relationships?

<comment><USER38> The idea that context-free photos uploaded to the internet (and potentially shared with the public) without the subject's permission somehow represent 'truth' is hilarious.

If they say a picture's worth a thousand words, then it's not much of a leap to apply this quote:

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

How many pictures out of context do you think it would take to ruin the average person's marriage? Destroy their career? Make them a public laughingstock? Not many pictures, if you choose the right ones.

<comment><USER37> The idea that you can misphrase what I actually said so grotesquely is itself "hilarious".

The GP opined that photos ruin lives and relationships. I've yet to hear a scenario where a unwantedly shared photo ruined either a life or relationship where it _wasn't_ that it actually revealed a hidden truth.

<comment><USER39> You're awfully close to a No true Scotsman argument, there. However, if you're interested in damaging photos that aren't secret, you need but take a look at the history of social news. There have been a number of high-profile false allegations with associated vigilantism.

<comment><USER37> I'm nowhere near that fallacy. I am specifically looking for examples to the claim that I questioned (the single example provided to me thus far actually supports exactly what I said).

That the crowd can be stupid (as in the recent Reddit Boston bombing nonsense) has absolutely no relevance to this.

<comment><USER39> So what you're looking for is 1) a photo 2) not depicting a secret 3) publicized unintentionally 4) that ruined a life or relationship 5) without involving mass misunderstanding

Sorry, I can't provide one for you. The documentation on such events is typically kept to a small circulation.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wind energy fact sheet: all that pain for zero gain - <AUTHOR> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/10/saturday-silliness-joshs-wind-energy-fact-sheet-global-wind-power-to-the-nearest-whole-number/ <comment><USER2> 8% overall in Germany, _today_. What the rest of the world does or does not do is not too important, the Germans show that it is possible to get a significant amount of energy from Wind.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Germany>

Sachsen-Anhalt is going to cross the 50% barrier this year or the next, and three other Bundeslaendern will follow right behind.</comment>


Ask HN: Django Admin Suitable For Production? - <AUTHOR>

I'm in the process of rewriting my WordPress blog to use my own custom Python/Django setup.
I'm only a couple of days in and so far I really love Django and Python.
My question is what is your experience with using the Django admin in a real-time production environment.
Am I eventually going to hit a wall with things I can do and be forced to write my own back-end anyway?
So far the admin seems very customizable. I expect most posts to be published through XMLRPC--but other tasks (comment moderation, etc..) will still require a user to login to the back-end.
What is your experience using the Django admin for "real world" solutions?
Is it suitable for large projects or do you quickly run in to limitations you can't get around?
From my basic experience with this, it seems I can customize everything I want in the admin by replacing the admin templates. Have you found this to be sufficient for modifications?
(Note: I have searched extensively for an answer here--but only found ways to customize the admin, no real answers on whether the admin is a good choice in the first place) <comment><USER2> I run a couple dozen Django apps in production. The admin interface is solid, we've only managed to find two or three oddities, mostly related to many-to- many associations. We haven't done much customization, but what we've done has worked out fine.

The worst-case scenario for the Django admin panel is that you end up writing your own admin panel, which is pretty much what you'd end up doing with any other solution anyways.

Blogs make for a nice project, good luck with yours.

</comment><comment><USER3> I suppose it depends on who is going to be using the admin:

* If you're creating a product, and want to give them access to some kind of backend, then I would suggest you write your own.

* If it's just a handful of users, like a blog, then I think it pretty much covers everything.

I wrote a custom backend for one of my products because I wanted to make it dirt easy and fun to use, but at work I just give them access to django-admin.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks guys, I feel much better knowing this shouldn't be an issue.

This isn't for a product--it will be accessed by me and one or two writers.

I'm also looking at using their user system for regular users. Do you see any problems with that?

Thanks

<comment><USER2> No problem, it's set up to be cool for that.</comment></comment>


We got our first 1k users - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@aliasav/how-we-scaled-to-our-first-1000-users-fff4f041005b <comment><USER2> Great execution. How did you conduct your surveys?

<comment><AUTHOR> We started with the questions which are not directing the users. As we had created a group of 1200+ telegram and facebook users it became easy to distribute it to get the relevant responses.</comment></comment>


The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/ <comment><USER2> Two more dumb ideas which ought to be on this list:

1\. "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". The fact is that most eyeballs are useless because they're not capable of seeing the problems. Some bugs simply can't be found unless the person looking for them has particular technical expertise. (Side channel attacks against cryptography is my personal area of interest, and history indicates that at least 99.99% of eyeballs aren't useful when it comes to finding these.)

2\. "There's a theoretical vulnerability, but nobody will be able to exploit it in practice." History is full of "purely theoretical" vulnerabilities which have turned out to be entirely real. This is why mathematicians (or people with mathematical training, at least) tend to do well in the area of computer security: If you can't prove that your code is secure, it probably isn't secure.

<comment><USER3> I think you've mis-interpreted "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow".

When you have more eyeballs on a project, there is a higher chance that some of those eyeballs have the technical expertise necessary to find/fix a bug. For a proprietary/commercial project, the pool of talent available is only what you can afford but for a free/open-source project, the pool of talent available is free abd very very large provided that you can attract it.</comment></comment>


The Art of Insight in Science and Engineering: Mastering Complexity [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-6-011-the-art-of-insight-in-science-and-engineering-mastering-complexity-fall-2014/online-textbook/MITRES_6-011F14_art_insfin.pdf <comment><USER2> Please add a [2014] tag on it. The same book was posted first in 2014 then again 2016. Needless to say, a fantastic read. 2016 - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12459216](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12459216) 2014 - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8654824](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8654824)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry i can't edit anymore.</comment></comment>


MediaWiki running on .NET Core - <AUTHOR> https://www.peachpie.io/2018/02/mediawiki.html <comment><USER2> I love it. I only have a minor gripe with PeachPie - When I edit an application it doesn't auto recompile. I liked you could edit the web.config file and force recompile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Actually, we have this feature planned on our roadmap, it just hasn't been implemented yet.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Non-trivial data intensive angularjs apps - <AUTHOR> Hey,
I'd be really interested in reading the source code for some non-trivial AngularJS apps that dealt with large amounts of data. A lot of the open source applications/tutorials I've come across so far are pretty simple. Build a todo list, build a simple email app etc. I'd really appreciate anyone sharing any examples they had.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Can't really provide my own code, but I will say ng-repeat is heavy and resource intensive, because of the way it handles updates on digest, even though it checks for existing versions with a deep watch, and you probably want to implement pagination (see [http://tech.small- improvements.com/2013/09/10/angularjs-perf...](http://tech.small- improvements.com/2013/09/10/angularjs-performance-with-large-lists/)) or use something like quick-ng-repeat, possibly with server side rendering for the initial page to take advantage of server caching.

</comment><comment><USER3> What do you mean by "large amounts" of data?</comment>


A play on Indian IT offshoring & how it works (rather doesn't) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V-Lchu7aiA

<comment><USER2> Since a lot of HN readers wont make it to New Dehli would you consider sharing the screenplay?</comment>


Leia Organa: A Critical Obituary – you're always being judged - <AUTHOR> https://mobunited.wordpress.com/2016/12/28/leia-organa-a-critical-obituary/ <comment><USER2> Psychiatric medications have a way of making people die before their time.

Carrie Fisher: Bipolar Meds and Heart Disease - [https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/12/carrie-fisher- bipolar-m...](https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/12/carrie-fisher-bipolar-meds- heart-disease/)

They got Robin Williams too.

<comment><USER3> Single-purpose accounts aren't allowed on HN. This one is only posting on mental health issues and you appear to have created it for that purpose. Please don't use HN this way.

Mental health issues are important, of course, and to judge by what you've posted, you have had some significant experiences in this area. But HN is a community. We want people here to participate as individuals, not abstractions or issues.

<comment><USER2> > Single-purpose accounts aren't allowed on HN.

Thanks for letting me know. I will send an email tomorrow.</comment></comment></comment>


Windows 10 LTSB (Long Term Servicing Branch), Explained - <AUTHOR> http://www.howtogeek.com/273824/windows-10-without-the-cruft-windows-10-ltsb-explained/ <comment><USER2> "Windows 10 LTSB omits a lot of the new stuff in Windows 10. It doesn't come with the Windows Store, Cortana, or Microsoft Edge browser. It also omits other Microsoft apps like Calendar, Camera, Clock, Mail, Money, Music, News, OneNote, Sports, and Weather."

This is the Windows for me.. none of the crap, but have to get enterprise.</comment>


Inappropriate TCP Resets Considered Harmful (2002) - <AUTHOR> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3360 <comment><USER2> This should have a [2002] suffix.

A closely related contemporary document, talking about the then-new use of one of the reserved bits for Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN): [http://www.icir.org/floyd/ecn.html](http://www.icir.org/floyd/ecn.html)

<comment><USER3> Came here to say the first line; +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _RFC 793 and RFC 1122 both include Jon Postel 's famous robustness > principle, also from RFC 791: "Be liberal in what you accept, and > conservative in what you send."_

Which is complete nonsense that doesn't justify anything and only casts suspicion on the muddled reasoning.

The correct principle is: _be conservative in what you send, and loudly reject nonconforming, out-of-spec input._

"Be liberal in what you accept" results in situations like some broken piece of HTML, CSS or JavaScript working in seven diffrent ways on seven different browsers.

> _However, the phrasing in RFC 793 does not permit sending resets in response > to TCP packets with a non-zero Reserved field, as is explained in the > section above._

Non-zero in a reserved field that has no meaning now, and should be loudly diagnosed as an error until such a time that it has a meaning. Resetting a connection is a good facsimile of such a diagnostic.

Just like in a C program if you use a name like __foo that is reserved, cows can fly out of your nose; but diagnosing it is better: diagnosing it now, while it has no meaning. Once __foo gets a meaning, it will be too late.

If connections are reset when their machines send packets which infringe on reserved fields, they will quickly learn to fix things so that their machines stop sending that. Then when the time comes, it will be possible to actually assign a use to a previously reserved field.

If everyone uses a reserved field willy-nilly and never gets punished with RST's, it will be difficult to impossible to introduce a standard new use for that field. Hosts receiving the field will not know whether they are getting a genuine request with the new meaning of the field, or whether they are getting garbage which is a continuation of the widespread abuse of the field. And at that time, it will no longer be possible to send a RST due to the ambiguity, right? The time to spew a RST in the face of the offending systems is _today_.

The original meaning of RST is to inform the sender that they are sending data for a connection that doesn't exist. Sending a RST for a nonzero value of a field is a logical extension of this: it's a piece of data destined for something that doesn't exist: namely, the meaning of that field! The bits aren't, ahem, _connecting_ with a meaning. See?

Really, what is the point of a rule that is not _enforced_? If sender are supposed to leave something zero, but nobody checks that and takes any action against nonconforming senders, why document such a requirement at all?

<comment><USER5> A while back I needed to re-implement the wheel, an extremely minimalist routing protocol. I asked my smart friends what to do and one of them helpfully gave me a really good book by a guy that spent about 30 years implementing networking 'stuff'. Reading through it he pointed out that at the bits/bytes level a lot of protocols are broken because of the lack of a version field[1].

If you have proper versioning you can say; for packet format 001, the field foonarg[1:3] must be 000. And if it isn't it must treated as garbage and tossed. If you don't have versioning, you're kinda stuck with a bunch of ad- hock methods. Stuff like the this unused (we hope) bit in this field is never set this way for this format. Or this packet is 87 bytes long thus it must be this format. _head desk_

If you ever have to design binary or even text based data format that needs to be shared add a version field, you'll hate yourself less later.

<comment><USER6> Could you shed some light on which book you are referring to?

<comment><USER5> Digging through my piles of books, it's this one, outdated if you're interested in current stuff.

Interconnections Bridges Switches and Internetworking Protocols by Radia Perlman

[http://www.amazon.com/Interconnections-Bridges-Switches- Inte...](http://www.amazon.com/Interconnections-Bridges-Switches- Internetworking-Protocols/dp/0201634481) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radia_Perlman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radia_Perlman)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Among other things, this specifies dropping of packets with the "evil bit" set.

It sounds like this is not the only use that the reserved fields have been applied to. Zeroing a field is certainly not ideal for the liberal acceptance proscribed by Postel's law.

<comment><USER8> I'm... clearly not parsing any of your statements correctly.

As I read it, _one_ of things the linked IETF BCP document does is to implore authors and configurers of TCP software to ignore and pass through -unchanged- TCP options that they don't understand, rather than to consider them invalid and abort the connection.

Did I misunderstand the linked BCP?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> RFC 793 shouldn't have been so strong as to say that the "reserved field MUST be zero". If I was trying to implement the standard, I would consider such a packet invalid in the same way that a packet with an invalid checksum is invalid. You can't use such strong language and then blame implementations for taking such language seriously.</comment>


Researchers posted light client for ubuntu, docker & explorer for TON blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/copperbits/TON <comment><AUTHOR> Tutorials: HOWTO how to use TON [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7K2nq5lf7I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7K2nq5lf7I) Added build instructions for ubuntu 16.04 [https://github.com/copperbits/TON/blob/master/docs/ubuntu16....](https://github.com/copperbits/TON/blob/master/docs/ubuntu16.04.sh) Packaged lite client into Docker container Launched a beta explorer for test network [https://explorer.test.ton.cryptoprocessing.io/](https://explorer.test.ton.cryptoprocessing.io/)

Discussions in Telergam group: [https://t.me/ton_research](https://t.me/ton_research)</comment>


Canadian Government Hacked - <AUTHOR> http://www.securityweek.com/foreign-cyber-attack-hits-canadian-government

<comment><USER2> Too few high-ranking bureaucrats have a real understanding of technology. Until they learn or cede power to those that do this sort of news will become more commonplace.

The problem is that the incentive just isn't there: a company with sensitive data will either have sufficient security or soon lose any edge in the marketplace, but the government can lose data again and again and nothing happens.</comment>


A list of things that were true on August 27, 2001 - <AUTHOR> http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2010/01/12/older_than/

<comment><USER2> * 911 was an emergency code

* Twitter was something birds did

* A tablet was something a doctor gave you

* Touchscreen meant using a stylus

* We were all excited about part 2 and 3 of the Matrix coming out

* Napster, Gnutella were what was happening. Bittorrent was not yet there

* You were reading slashdot

<comment><USER3> * It was pretty cool that your new phone's number display was not only dot-matrix but could do 4 shades of gray

* Your entire office was full of bulky CRTs and a 15" flat panel cost more than a 21" tube

* Windows XP offered a better user experience than OS X

<comment><USER4> * Every new piece of electronics had an eye-melting blue LED power indicator. This was considered extremely cool at the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm I alone in finding the last one moving? The thought that Pioneer 10 is out there but we can't hear it anymore is sad.

<comment><USER6> Interesting, but we still can hear Voyagers and Voyager 1 is much farther away than Pioneer 10:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_program#Powering_down>

<comment><USER7> I'm more worried about Voyager coming back

<comment><USER3> With a threatening message engraved on it in an exotic, indecipherable alphabet?

<comment><USER8> If it's indecipherable, how do you know it's threatening?

<comment><USER9> Angry eyebrows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd like to see tech/medical breakthrough lists. I try to remember how fast things are changing, but aside from some flashy phones, I'm having trouble feeling in awe of the last decade at the moment. Anyone have any links?

</comment><comment><USER11> "The Petronas Towers were the tallest skyscrapers in the world."

Only if you count unoccupied, decorative spires.

</comment><comment><USER12> So much happened... and only DOW survived almost unchanged

<comment><USER13> I have to say that is a very skewed statement. What the DOW has done in the past ten years to basically end up in the same spot is amazing! Though it is very interesting to note!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There was no hacker news.

(I don't even remember what I would have been doing instead.)

<comment><USER15> Reading slashdot?

<comment><USER16> All the cool kids were on kur5hin :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Things that were true on August 27, 2001,

I wasn't posting silly comments on HN.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Charley, Ivan, Jeanne, Katrina, Dean, and Ike were not names associated with weather."

With the exception of Katrina this is still true.

<comment><USER19> Unless you live or have loved ones who live anywhere near The Gulf Coast, in which case it is very much true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't get it,

This is mostly a list of things that are current now but weren't current then. It makes it sound like 2001 was like today except missing a few things. But I know people filled their days just as fully in those distant days as they do today. What did they fill them with?

I would like to see a list of the _positive_ assumptions people had then that aren't around any more.

<comment><USER21> "But I know people filled their days just as fully in those distant days as they do today. What did they fill them with?"

Yes, they filled their days, but it took longer.</comment></comment>


Does evil exist? Neuroscientists say no. - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_spectator/2011/09/does_evil_exist_neuroscientists_say_no_.single.html

<comment><USER2> What's the metaphysical distractions? Haven't you ever looked into someone's eyes as they're attacking you and seen that they're just trying to hurt you out of base malevolence? You've never just woken up and just felt like destroying something? It's pretty simple.</comment>