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Using Perl 6 Grammars: Decompressing Zelda 3 GFX - leejo http://blogs.perl.org/users/sylvain_colinet/2019/01/mis-using-perl-6-grammars-decompressing-zelda-3-gfx.html ====== pornel Perl grammars look awesome. There's a parser for Rust that allows parsing is somewhat similar style: [https://github.com/Geal/gif.rs/blob/master/src/parser.rs](https://github.com/Geal/gif.rs/blob/master/src/parser.rs) ~~~ zokier nom is neat, but wouldn't pest be closer to P6 grammars [https://crates.io/crates/pest](https://crates.io/crates/pest) ------ grimman Perhaps it's a bit silly, but it amused me that this line: "<a byte that contains an header>" made me ask whether the author was French. A very quick search for his name comes up with predominantly French (language, at least) results, so I'm comfortable enough leaving it at that. ------ arayh For those wondering, the japanese text means "sword" and is an unused sprite in the Link to the Past. Source: [https://tcrf.net/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_A_Link_to_the_Past#Swo...](https://tcrf.net/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_A_Link_to_the_Past#Sword_Text) ------ AdmiralAsshat Is A Link to the Past officially known as "Zelda 3" in any region? I remember having a guide for ALttP back in the day where a Nintendo representative emphatically stated that ALttP is _not_ Zelda 3, as it is a prequel and does not feature the same Link that is present in Zelda's I and II. ~~~ grawprog Yeah according to this [https://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/Zelda_III](https://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/Zelda_III) The actual Zelda 3 was in development for the NES then cancelled. ~~~ arayh I think the Zelda 3 (NES) prototype is largely considered a hoax, as far as I can tell, but this page does reference a Zelda 3 for the SNES that was scrapped and some of its ideas were repurposed for Link to the Past. [https://zelda.gamepedia.com/Community:Zelda_III_Cartridge_Ho...](https://zelda.gamepedia.com/Community:Zelda_III_Cartridge_Hoax) ~~~ grawprog Ah yeah...I kinda took the picture with a grain of salt. I assumed even if it had existed it wouldn't have gotten that far. The link you posted makes more sense though. ------ saagarjha I wonder what the data compression ratio is for this encoding. ~~~ tyingq Unless I'm missing something, it doesn't appear be that great in this case. The image is supposed to be a 128x32x3bpp image, so that's 12,288 bits / 1536 bytes, plus whatever overhead for the image format. The article says the compressed data is 1500 bytes. So, er, not much compression. The png file on the page of the same data is 741 bytes. An uncompressed 4-bit bmp of the same data is 2250 bytes. ~~~ jandrese Wow, that's a "why bother" level of compression. I guess the SNES didn't have a lot of CPU cycles left over to run a decompression algorithm, but even a simple deflate seems like it would have greatly outperformed this custom solution. I guess the big advantage is that this seems to have zero memory overhead. ~~~ tyingq Could just be this particular image, or that I'm missing something else.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Android Studio 1.0 released - rilut https://sites.google.com/a/android.com/tools/recent/androidstudio10released ====== ademar111190 the post on official blog: [http://android- developers.blogspot.com.br/2014/12/android-st...](http://android- developers.blogspot.com.br/2014/12/android-studio-10.html) ------ ademar111190 great!!! like my friend says, now is missing just the java 8 :) ~~~ needusername Is Java 7 already supported? I don't mean the syntax I mean invokedynamic, java.lang.invoke, new filesystem API, …. ~~~ ademar111190 Yes it is supported, but java 8 has strong improvements like lambdas and closure and default methods in interfaces, and the java 8 is still unsupported :( ~~~ needusername Really? Lambdas require exactly 0 vm support beyond invokedynamic which is already present in Java 7. The official documentation [http://developer.android.com/reference/packages.html](http://developer.android.com/reference/packages.html) lists one of the invokedynamic (java.lang.invoke) nor file system (java.nio.file) packages so I assume they are missing. What little documentation I could find suggests that there is only source compatibility for 1.7 [http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build- system/user-gui...](http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build-system/user- guide#TOC-Using-sourceCompatibility-1.7) with actual invokedynamic VM-support missing.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: JavaScript snippet to highlight new posts - whichdan Hi all. I wanted an easy way to highlight new posts, without basing it on the last time I visited a page. The snippet is as follows, if any of you folks would like to use it:<p><pre><code> /** * Usage: highlight('newpost', 3, 'hours'); * * This will add the class 'newpost' to any post made within * the past 3 hours. This includes, for example: * * 3 hours ago * 45 minutes ago * 22 seconds ago / function highlight(className, number, type) { var types = ['second', 'seconds', 'minute', 'minutes', 'hour', 'hours', 'day', 'days']; // Types are inclusive, so if we filtered to 'minutes', then // we always want posts that were made 'seconds' ago. types = types.slice(0, types.indexOf(type) + 1); // Any link with 'item?id' is assumed to be a timestamp. var posts = document.querySelectorAll('a[href="item?id"]'); // Loop through the number of posts, since we need to access // each post using NodeList#item. for(var i = 0; i < posts.length; i++) { var post = posts.item(i); try { // The leftmost integer. var label_number = parseInt(post.innerHTML.match(/^\d+/)); // The label (a value that maps up to the types array). var label_type = post.innerHTML.match(/^\d+ (.+?) ago$/)[1]; } catch(e) { // If either of the matches fail, it's due to an // irrelevant link. continue; } // Continue if the label is out of bounds. // For instance, 'days' when filtering by 'minutes'. if(types.indexOf(label_type) === -1) continue; // Continue if the label type matches, but the number // is larger than what we're filtering for. if(type === label_type && label_number > number) continue; // td > div > span > a post.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode.className += ' ' + className; } }</code></pre> ====== tzm Thanks for sharing. Here's a bookmarklet that injects a custom style: javascript:void%20function(){function%20e(e,t,a){var%20n=%22.%22+e+'{%20padding- left:%2030px;background- image:%20url(%22[http://www.fasttrackcalltaxi.co.in/ft_clickyourtaxi/App_Imag...](http://www.fasttrackcalltaxi.co.in/ft_clickyourtaxi/App_Images/new_icon.gif%22\);%20background- repeat:%20no- repeat;%20}',c=document.head\|\|document.getElementsByTagName$%22head%22$\[0\],d=document.createElement$%22style%22$;d.type=%22text/css%22,d.styleSheet%3Fd.styleSheet.cssText=n:d.appendChild$document.createTextNode\(n$)),c.appendChild(d);var%20o=[%22second%22,%22seconds%22,%22minute%22,%22minutes%22,%22hour%22,%22hours%22,%22day%22,%22days%22];o=o.slice(0,o.indexOf(a)+1);for(var%20r=document.querySelectorAll('a[href*=%22item%3Fid%22]'),i=0;i%3Cr.length;i++){var%20s=r.item(i);try{var%20l=parseInt(s.innerHTML.match(/^\d+/)),u=s.innerHTML.match(/^\d+%20(.+%3F)%20ago$/)[1]}catch(m){continue}-1!==o.indexOf(u)%26%26(a===u%26%26l%3Et\|\|(s.parentNode.className+=%22%20%22+e))}}e(%22newpost%22,3,%22hours%22)}(); Screenshot: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/tz-www- misc/hn.highlighter.2015-02-...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/tz-www- misc/hn.highlighter.2015-02-15+19_28_22.gif)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
My nephew brought home a menacing maths problem - fjmubeen https://medium.com/@fjmubeen/my-nephew-brought-home-this-menacing-maths-problem-e8bbba30e5cb#.gywzjj8kv ====== StavrosK > He ultimately could not bring himself to accept that a solution does not > exist — this is not how his mathematical world operates. I don't understand this. There _is_ a solution, that the problem is unsolvable. It's as much a solution as finding a valid permutation would have been. It just sounds like his nephew hadn't yet learned that proving unsolvability means solving the problem. ~~~ maxander But that's not how "math," as taught to and perceived by middle schoolers, works; as far as they've likely _ever seen_ , a math problem is a question for which there exists an answer in the form of a sequence of arithmetical operations and a final number or equality. I doubt these students even recognized the concept of a "proof" in this situation- at best, they simply "saw" that it was impossible. But that "seeing" is simply a piece of everyday human reasoning, not the wholly different things that they associate with math classes and happy math teachers, so of course they feel like something is missing. It does sound like the teacher had a good idea- probably it was _precisely_ to get students out of this notion that every math problem has the simple kind of answer they're used to. But it also sounds like the lesson wasn't taught with attention commensurate with its profundity- its easy to forget that these ideas which are so fundamental for _us_ are still alien to most grade- schoolers (or for that matter, many high-school graduates.) ~~~ StavrosK I believe you are exactly correct. ------ shmageggy The proof is the best answer, but the problem is small enough that you could enumerate the answers on a computer almost instantly. If the proof wasn't convincing enough for someone, this would be easier than manually messing with it. In python: [https://gist.github.com/ovolve/77e336ab05fda2aa25ebce8a33677...](https://gist.github.com/ovolve/77e336ab05fda2aa25ebce8a33677679) ------ graycat The teacher misstated the problem. The problem should have asked _find a solution or show that there can be no solution_. Or _prove or disprove_. Now the student knows that, really, all problems in math are of the form _prove or disprove_ unless the statement is to _prove_ in which case it is misleading to have the claim false. But, in texts, there can be errors, and a student needs to know that. In college, I was reading a book on group theory and could not confirm a statement in the book. Some hours went by, and I couldn't get it. Eventually we found a counterexample and concluded that the book had an error. Actually, it was just an error in typography, a _typo_. Later, on a Ph.D. qualifying exam, I struggled too long with a problem and got a failing grade. Yup, the problem asked for a proof, but the claim was false. There was a typo. I appealed, got an oral makeup exam in front of several profs, some angry, and ended with a "High Pass". IIRC, Halmos, _Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces_ just states that all the exercises are of the form _prove or disprove_. He goes on to say, "then discuss such changes in the hypotheses and/or conclusions that will make the true ones false and the false ones true". At one point one course, for some early homework, my submission was that nearly all the exercises were false -- I'd found that the claims failed on the empty set! Given that the course started out with such sloppy work, I dropped it. Net, really, in general in practice in math, all the statements, due to errors, typos, or whatever, have to be regarded as of the form _prove or disprove_. ------ justifier i'd agree with the teacher that this is the most 'mathy' way of getting a kid to do a multi problem worksheet i think it would have been kinder to to do 123 and 900 while also offering the possibility of choosing that it is impossible to achieve i also disagree with the op's tactic of 'proving' this this attempt to do less work to show the impossibility of the problem furthers the math education fallacy that numbers are material stead an abstraction his method would falter in any other base in research this reasoning is great at limiting a problem's scope but is useless as evidence in a proof, for instance: primes must end in 1,3,7, or 9, but to say any number ending in those digits is prime is clearly false..also 2,5 :p i like the question the teacher offered but i think it is more appropriate in the math education i have been touting as the necessary future: teach the student to write a program that builds every possible iteration, adds them, then sorts the sums, then search for your desired value learning math and programming together it's long time to free our thoughts from rote arithmetic so we can think about larger implications and further abstractions more readily i find it difficult to accept that the teacher truly just moved on without discussing this problem, that reads more as an excuse to write this post, but if it is true that is a ridiculous failure on the part of the teacher also, offer kids real open questions stead some trick question, when i was in school i used to say to my math teachers 'why should i do these problems? you already know the answers' they treated me like a jerk, now that mindset is how i direct my research ------ DrScump Perhaps there _is_ a solution in a number system other than base 10. (I'm too lazy to pursue such a proof out of simple curiosity.) From the problem statement, you _know_ that 0 and 9 exist, so that eliminates binary through Base 9. But perhaps this hints at a more broad question: can 9000 be arrived at in _any_ numeric base (> 10)? ~~~ tzs The sum of digits argument generalizes to all bases. Let the base be b. Then the sum of the unit column digits must be b. The sum of the b's column digits must be b-1, as must be the sum of the b^2's column digits. Finally, the sum of the b^3's column digits must be 8. That gives us a total sum of all the digits of 3b+6. Summing rows instead of columns gives us 1+2+3+4 in each row, and there are 4 rows, so that's a total of 40. Thus, we must have 3b+6 = 40. That has no solution in integers. ------ skierscott Whenever I've seen similar problems in real analysis, the wording of the question always leaves no solution as a possibility. "True or false? Can 1234 be rearranged such that...". ------ ktRolster Teacher gave the kids an impossible problem. Poor kids, I guess. ~~~ ferrari8608 In theory, it should have been a pretty good exercise for the kids. Where the teacher screwed up was not following up with it as the author said. It could have been a great opportunity, but it seems to me the teacher blew that. ------ jack9 The closest I can get is 9004 3124 3124 1432 1324	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
We do not pay to keep our messages perpetually in Slack and it’s intentional - hrishikesh1990 https://content.remote.tools/what-we-learnt-from-our-chat-with-gitlab ====== hrishikesh1990 We had a blast talking to Darren from GitLab. There was a lot we learnt about GitLab on why it participates so strongly in the narrative of remote working, how it tackles remote working difficulties, inputs on how companies can turn the remote switch on, and so on. Quite interestingly, we reckoned GitLab being a strong and loud advocate of remote work is for social good, but also seems to be an important narrative for its IPO.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Apple: Magic Accessories - davidbarker http://www.apple.com/magic-accessories/ ====== buster Scroll down to the mouse gestures and the first thing you see is someone slowly demonstrating the unbelievable feature of a right click on a mouse. With the index finger. Awesome. Edit: There it is: [https://www.apple.com/media/us/accessories/2015/e137bcd8-687...](https://www.apple.com/media/us/accessories/2015/e137bcd8-6875-11e5-9d70-feff819cdc9f/magic_mouse/click/split_files/large/large_1.split.mp4) I could watch this masterpiece all day. ~~~ stephenr I don't understand how people on a site called _HackerNews_ still somehow aren't aware of what features apple products have, while still feeling obligated to post comments based on their own assumed/misinformed views about the features they believe aren't there. Every mouse Apple have shipped for the last decade has supported "Secondary Click", and honestly after using a _multitouch_ mouse for about the last 4 years, I don't understand how anyone would use anything else. ~~~ coldpie I've got one of those button-less trackpads on my work Mac laptop. I can't fucking stand it. The clicking just kinda gradually stops working about halfway up, like the bottom half is clickable and then it slowly fades to a non-clickable surface as you move up. So you have to keep track of where your finger is to know if you can click. Click-and-drag when you realise you've run out of trackpad space to keep dragging is a mind-bending experience. What's fucking wrong with buttons? ~~~ stephenr The trackpads on Apple laptops _prior to the new force touch models_ are physically clickable only at the bottom because the top edge is basically fixed in place (as the hinge for the whole thing). I don't see how this is any worse than separate buttons - you'd still have the same physically clickable area then (the bottom bit) but you'd have _less_ space to drag the cursor around. Seriously though, turn on tap-to-click. Never worry about physically clicking it again. > What's fucking wrong with buttons? A multi-touch surface such as the MagicMouse or Trackpad on a recent Apple laptop is so ridiculously more customisable than a mere one or two or even three physical buttons + regular trackpad. Taps, with 1-4 fingers. Swipes in 4 directions with 1-4 fingers. Swipe from the sides. Pinch/Spread with 2 fingers. Pinch/Spread with thumb and several fingers. Rotate. Seriously, this is just what's available _out of the box with OS X_ , before you look at third-party software to track even more gestures on touch (trackpad/mouse) surfaces. Edit: clarified that pre-force-touch trackpads are top-hinged. ~~~ coldpie > I don't see how this is any worse than separate buttons - you'd still have > the same physically clickable area then (the bottom bit) but you'd have less > space to drag the cursor around. Sure, but with physical buttons I know if I'm on a physical button. With this thing, sometimes clicking just doesn't work because I'm too far up and I have to move my finger down to where it's magically clickable again. > Seriously, this is just what's available out of the box with OS X I dunno, I don't use any of that stuff. I do 90% of my work from the Terminal. I drag windows, scroll, and select text (ugh) and that's about it. For my use case, this thing is no improvement over buttons and often a detriment. ~~~ stephenr > I drag windows, scroll, and select text All of which is easier _because_ of multitouch. Two-finger drag to scroll. Three-finger drag to do anything that's normally click+drag. Doesn't matter where your fingers are on the trackpad, or which direction you need to move, and you can briefly lift your fingers and resume a 3-finger drag. ------ Splines Bringing the laptop interface to the desktop? Not interested. The desktop is the one place where I don't need wireless, I don't care how big, old, or ugly looking my hardware is, and what I bought 10 years ago still works perfectly fine today. The Magic Keyboard seems designed for using it from the couch. Any other use case seems better served with a "normal" keyboard. ~~~ coldpie Amen. I actually built up a stash of the old-style Microsoft ergonomic keyboards shortly before they stopped building them. I cycle through them only when I spill water on them; that is their Achilles heel. I give them Viking funerals. ~~~ togusa Same with cheap cherry G83s for me. I widlarize mine though :) ------ xd1936 Now we have to deal with battery degradation. AAs can be replaced; Sealed-in Lithium Ion batteries degrade over time. A very Apple move, to change to hardware with more planned obsolescence. ~~~ arbitrage What's the expected lifetime of a mouse, and what's the expected useable lifetime of a li-ion battery? Yes, it will degrade over time, but you'll continue to get use out of it. I'd peg both at about 4-5 years at this point. It's not apple that's implementing planned obsolescence. It's the entire industry, and it's defacto obsolescence. Or would you still expect to be using your microsoft ball mouse from 1999 today? ~~~ togusa Seriously a Logitech wireless mouse costs £8 here in the UK at the moment. It takes one AA battery a year for me and lasts about 3-4 years before the buttons stop working. So not the entire industry. As a side note I have a working Microsoft optical mouse from 1999 that was used for 7 years and is still fine. ~~~ unprepare If its still fine, why did you buy the logitech? ~~~ togusa Bought a new desk and the cable was too short. ------ nicpottier Rechargeable is kind of nice, but a lightning cable? I thought we were all going to start standardizing on USB type-C? ~~~ chrisBob The lightning port to charge all of your devices is interesting. I kind of like the idea that the phone charger you have laying around anyway[0] can be used to charge all of your battery powered devices. The new Siri Remote for Apple TV has the same thing, and it surprised me at first, but it actually makes sense to do that rather than a USB connection for most of their customers. I agree they don't have it quite figured out though. The Apple TV developer kits came with two cables: You get a lightning cable to charge the remote and a USB type-C cable to connect to the Apple TV itself. [0] I think its safe to assume that the average person buying an Apple keyboard also has an iPhone in their pocket. ------ IkmoIkmo My thoughts: \- Nothing unexpected really. When they did force touch on the Macbooks, we all knew it'd be coming to the phone and wireless trackpad, too. \- The lack of force touch on the magic mouse means developers are less inclined to create any essential force touch functionality into their software as a substantial number of their users this generation of hardware may just have the non-force touch mouse only. Not a really big deal (tons of old Macs without force touch around anyway), but if they'd been able to put force touch into every magic mouse too then you'd be able to create software that relies on force touch in a few years. \- Trackpad feels a tiiiiny bit too large now. Not a big deal, a little redundant area is somehow comfortable and its for a desktop environment anyway. But just look at the pinch gestures, the hand in the video is shown pinching to full stretch and there's still area left to stretch even further. \- Can still see a lot of people complain about the mouse's ergonomics. At what price, is it really? We've got plenty of great mice to choose from. The notion there are fewer moving parts is an interesting design choice, but it's not exactly important in the way it is for say an internal combustion vs electric engine where you see differences in wear and tear and such. In my experience the lifetime of all my mice has been ridiculously. It's certainly a nice looking design, but a higher elevation fits better in my hand and there are plenty of mice that offer that, offer wireless, offer swiping gestures and rechargeable batteries. Anyway, the tl;dr overal takeaway is that these upgrades make a lot of sense and I'd be more than happy to upgrade as an existing MM/TP user, but I'm not enticed to switch if I wasn't a MM1 / TP1 user to begin with. Question to you all btw, have you seen anyone putting force touch into their software on a mac? I've literally used it 0 times in the past 6 months mostly because I don't use safari, but I don't see any developers jump in to provide any functionality, either yet. ------ chiph > Apple Magic Mouse 2 has a new internal structure with fewer moving parts. It had like .. 1 moving part before - the switch when you depressed it. ~~~ pdpi And the battery compartment. And the power switch (which I expect it does still have). ~~~ chiph I'll argue that the battery lid isn't a moving part since it doesn't move in regular use. But I'll agree that the power switch could be one. The new mouse is probably smarter about entering sleep mode and doesn't have a switch (guessing here). So that's 2 moving parts gone. ~~~ pdpi I guess my Logitech G710 has me so used to piss poor battery performance that the battery compartment seems to me to be very much a moving part that gets moved on a regular basis. ------ usaphp Magic Trackpad 2 is a must buy for me, ever since I bought a new MBP with new touchpad that allows to click anywhere on a surface - I can't get used to old way of clicking only at the bottom of a trackpad, I want to click anywhere now and with consistent pressure ------ TomSawyer It's kind of a bummer that the new keyboard ($100) doesn't have a backlight while still keeping the eject button. ~~~ dnissley And still no black keys option :( ------ dot yay, finally rechargeable! i'm actually excited about the new trackpad. i have some kind of a weird sensation whenever i use a silver trackpad, a sort of tingle in my fingers. this doesn't happen on the magic mouse's white surface... anybody know what i'm talking about? my friends think i'm crazy. ~~~ k8tte i recognize this. i've been using only the apple trackpad for about 3 years now, and the "sensation" you describe was persistent for the first several weeks / months. the interaction by using the tip of your fingers is a bit wierd at first, but now i could never go back. trackpad is very superior to a mouse, at least for non-gaming stuff, like coding & browsing the webs ------ hatsunearu I personally find the force touch trackpad really spooky. It clicks in when I exert force, which is fine, and if I reduce the force without moving my finger, it clicks out, which is also fine. When I click and drag across the trackpad, the click out force point changes; it clicks when my finger leaves my trackpad, not when my finger removes the force on the trackpad. That hysteresis makes my brain hurt. ~~~ shade23 I didn't realize this till you put it up.But does this have any effect on your workflow? ~~~ hatsunearu Well I use a trackball and an external keyboard so it doesn't really matter. My personal laptops don't have force touch trackpads so it's a non-issue for me. ------ rebootthesystem You know what is far more eco-friendly than not having to replace batteries on keyboards, mice and touchpads? Cables. Lithium-ion batteries are not necessarily clean to manufacture. And, eventually these things are going to end-up in a landfill somewhere. I truly don't understand this push to de-cable keyboards, mice and touchpads that will be attached to something on your desk. Every single one of our workstations, Mac or PC, has cabled keyboards and trackballs. I can't remember one single instance --in decades and hundreds of workstations-- of anyone, including myself, expressing any degree of inconvenience or any problem whatsoever related to cabled input devices. The way I see it, adding batteries --of any kind-- to a device that could very reasonably be plugged in and forgotten about is the exact opposite of eco friendly. The funny part you still have to have cables laying around because there will be a monthly two hour charging ritual --times N devices. At least with disposable batteries one could pop in new batteries and get going. Now, if you forget to charge, you'll have to attach the cable for a couple of hours. My guess is eventually people are going to leave the keyboard and touchpad plugged-in, again negating the reasoning for both non-eco-friendly lithium-ion batteries and wireless. This is a design choice made purely for design and presented with a very twisted justification of eco-friendliness when, in reality, the opposite is true. Outside of a few corner cases cabled devices would do just as well and be far more eco-friendly by a long shot. There are many articles out there on the issues surrounding the production of lithium-ion chemistry cells. Of course, as with anything on the web, it is important to understand the interests and bias behind who publishes the article and why. With that, I grabbed a couple to post the links here. I leave it to the reader to explore further. [http://phys.org/news/2014-10-li-ion-batteries-toxic- halogens...](http://phys.org/news/2014-10-li-ion-batteries-toxic-halogens- environmentally.html) [http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/01/19/tesla- motor...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/01/19/tesla-motors-dirty- little-secret-is-a-major-proble.aspx) ------ mrweasel >This solid but lighter build, along with an optimized foot design, results in a smooth, superior glide with less resistance. That's exactly my issue with the mouse. It glides to easily. The touch is pretty much useless because I end up moving the mouse instead. I'm probably holding it wrong. While I love the current trackpad, I'm not sure that I really believe that much in force touch, it seems like a very undiscoverable interface design. Some people are still struggling with single vs. double click, I don't feel that it helps them that they now also have to think about how hard they press. ------ iMark The new trackpad certainly stands out in terms of pricing. £109 vs £65 for the new mouse. ~~~ togusa Ouch! As a comparison point paid £7.99 for my Logitech wireless mouse from Curry's. There's not that much extra value in it. ~~~ hollerith I paid about $15 for a Microsoft Mouse 3500, which tracks my shiny desk surface (1960s linoleum) whereas according to internet reviews, the Apple Magic Mouse (older version) will not track a shiny or transparent surface. ~~~ togusa Yep. I actually had the last magic mouse and it nips your fingers on the sides as well. ------ ape4 Is a cable for your keyboard really that bad. Its mean a perfect connection and no recharging. ~~~ Corrado Well, the newer Macs have limited USB ports so you have to either do a lot of switching around, or have a USB hub on your desk. Now you have 3 or 4 cords laying around which look ugly and, worse, usually end up getting hung up on my mouse and causing me to rearrange stuff. It's not the end of the world, but I really, really enjoy my wireless keyboard/trackpad and am looking forward to getting the new ones (at least the trackpad 2). ------ pilif For years now I have a TrackMan Wheel by Logitech, but it's starting to slowly dissolve after years of continuous use. Unfortunately, they don't make that one any more - only its successor which is wireless for some inexplicable reason (you don't move a trackball around - why do you care about wires?). As such I'm on the lookout for a replacement. I've tried the old Apple Trackpad, but it doesn't feel as comfortable as the trackball - likely because it has a way too steep angle for me - also it is in need of constant battery replacement which just doesn't make sense for a stationary object on the table. Maybe the new trackpad is a solution for this: The angle looks less steep and it can presumably be used in wired mode or at least it doesn't need new batteries as it comes with a rechargeable one. I'm used to Force Touch from a 15" retina macbook pro and I like it very much on that machine, so that's probably ok. Really looking forward to trying this one out :-) ~~~ pilsetnieks Or you could upgrade to a full-on trackball. I've been using Logitech Trackman Marbles for the past 8 years or so but a few months ago I upgraded to a Kensington Slimblade which is amazing. ------ joosters No force touch on the magic mouse? That's surprising, it seems like an ideal candidate for the feature. ------ joeblau Ascetically, these look very good. As a developer who spends a lot of time typing, I prefer using a keyboard with mechanical switches so I use a Das Keyboard. That being said, for my Mac Mini build server that is connected to my TV, these would make an excellent addition. ------ Sidnicious The built-in batteries feel like a step back. If you use the current crop of mice and keyboards with rechargeable AAs, you get the same benefits but can swap to a full set in seconds and recharge the old ones at your leisure. ------ felixthehat I hope they're not phasing out the numeric keypad versions! I love typing on those. Never understood why Apple didn't make a wireless version with a keypad either. ~~~ wlesieutre It looks that way. No more Apple keyboards for me, I need those for Blender's view shortcuts. ~~~ felixthehat Exactly my use case too! Blender is unusable without. In case you'd not seen there's a cool iOS app which replicates Blender's keypad functions - great when you're on a Macbook or similar: [https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/blender- keypad/id430784289?m...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/blender- keypad/id430784289?mt=8) ~~~ wlesieutre You can get a lot of it from the Pie Menus addon. Holding q pops up a menu, you push the cursor slightly toward the one you want and release the key: [http://i.imgur.com/zDdbrER.png](http://i.imgur.com/zDdbrER.png) It's what I use on my laptop, but I still prefer the keypad when I can have a full keyboard. ------ icedchai I wish Apple would make a mechanical keyboard. Those flat keyboards are fine for laptops. For a desktop, I want something substantial. ~~~ steeef They do! [http://deskthority.net/wiki/Apple_Extended_Keyboard_II](http://deskthority.net/wiki/Apple_Extended_Keyboard_II) It'd be neat to see an update, but it's not going to happen. Mechanical keyboards are a niche product. ~~~ icedchai Thanks for the link. I remember that from the 90's. I personally can't stand Apple's keyboards, laptop or desktop. I'm probably in the minority, but preferred the non-chicklet keyboards on the old (before 2008-ish) MacBook Pros ... ------ bonaldi The way they talk about the new keyboard makes it sound like the MacBook keyboard, which I really can't get on with. ~~~ Killswitch The small keyboards without the numberpad have always been pretty on par with a MacBook keyboard. Which is why I love them so much. Before I went all Mac, I had trouble going from a regular keyboard to a laptop keyboard. Always missing where keys are and that. Once I went Mac with the keyboards almost exactly the same, I don't even notice it anymore. ------ mathgeek I'm not a huge fan of the form factors on Apple's external input devices to begin with, and now that I can't just swap out the batteries and have an instant full charge while on the go... no thanks. ------ _superposition_ Its a sad day when a wireless mouse and keyboard make it to number 3 on HN. ------ Spooky23 Reading between the lines here, does this mean that a mouse interface will finally be available for iPad? It would be awesome to have a mouse for Citrix/VMWare terminal access. ~~~ alsetmusic I assume you're referring to the Lightning to USB connection. Pics on the website show Lightning ports on the accessories, so the other end would be USB. This wouldn't connect an iPad and a Magic Mouse. ------ FLGMwt Haven't we learned that the inward incline isn't the way to go? Or is it marginal enough in this case to be aesthetic? ------ dangerlibrary In the section for the magic trackpad, there is a little animated gif showing how a two-finger swipe animates sliding webpages (presumably emulating "back" and "forward" buttons). The animation in the browser is choppy and there is a visible delay/mismatch between the swipe and the response. Apple's marketing can't even doctor a gif properly. ~~~ stephenr What are you talking about? It's smooth in the animation, just as it is in reality doing the same thing on a previous-gen magic mouse or MBP trackpad). Are you confusing the snap at the end with "choppiness"?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Learn Relay – A comprehensive introduction to Relay and GraphQL - schickling https://learnrelay.org/ ====== robinricard Disclaimer: I'm a contributor to Apollo [0], an alternative client to Relay. This is a great initiative! I remember struggling to learn Relay, I love it though, used it in some toy apps and will use it in some upcoming projects that I have. However I have a few issues with Relay: the main one is that it overall discourages people from starting with GraphQL. From creating a Relay- compliant GraphQL server to adding it to your app, Relay forces you to _good_ conventions that, unfortunately, requires you to learn about its concepts and makes it super difficult to ramp up fast. For anyone interested in working with Relay and GraphQL in general, I would advise you to start first with just learning GraphQL, without Relay and its constraints. You'll see that much of the issues you may have with GraphQL may come from actually trying to comply to Relay. Once you are okay with GraphQL, then, you can move to learning Relay. Finally, I want to insist on the fact that GraphQL is just a specified language that can be consumed by any client you need/want. Relay is made by Facebook, for Facebook, which is a cool thing but may be a bit too much for your simple app or may not be adapted if you are migrating a legacy app to GraphQL (which was my case). That's why you should take a look to alternative clients as well (Apollo [0] for instance ;-) )! [0] [http://dev.apollodata.com/](http://dev.apollodata.com/) ~~~ schickling Thanks Robin! I've love what you guys are doing at Apollo! I've just answered a similar question below, so I'll just copy the most important bits here as well: One important thing to note here, is that Relay and Apollo are taking different approaches. Relay provides a great framework which works excellent for a lot of use cases and provides the most convenient and robust solution for that. In some cases you want to "break out" of that framework and be more in control how data is fetched or mutated. In that case Apollo is a fantastic choice as well. Especially in combination with Redux. Fun fact: We're actually using both - Relay AND Apollo - in our dashboard at Graphcool. Feel free to take a look at the source here: [https://github.com/graphcool/dashboard](https://github.com/graphcool/dashboard) On a side note: We're already working on a similar project but focussed on Apollo. If you're interested in getting involved, we're still looking for collaborators: [https://github.com/learnapollo](https://github.com/learnapollo) ~~~ robinricard Your dashboard seems like an interesting approach for taking the best of both worlds! learnapollo seems awesome too! I think that Apollo would benefit from this kind of documentation. You should definitely come and send a link on the Apollo's slack! In general Graphcool is a great idea if you want to start fast with GraphQL (with any client). ------ sorenbs Hey! We found it to be very difficult to get started with Relay. At Graphcool we are building the dashboard, a core component of our product with Relay, so we had to become experts. Now we have turned this into (what we hope to be) a compelling getting started tutorial. We would love to get some feedback, and if you have any questions about Relay or GraphQL in general I'm happy to answer. :) ------ Jungberg Looks like a really well made introduction. I have been considering Relay for a while now. Will try it out. I especially like that I get a real GraphQL server to play around with. Thanks! ~~~ morgante You might also want to consider Apollo. [0] It's a really well-made GraphQL client that I found easier to use than Relay. [0] [http://dev.apollodata.com/react/](http://dev.apollodata.com/react/) ~~~ schickling Very good point, morgante! One important thing to note here, is that Relay and Apollo are taking different approaches. Relay provides a great framework which works excellent for a lot of use cases and provides the most convenient and robust solution for that. In some cases you want to "break out" of that framework and be more in control how data is fetched or mutated. In that case Apollo is a fantastic choice as well. Especially in combination with Redux. Fun fact: We're actually using both - Relay AND Apollo - in our dashboard at Graphcool. Feel free to take a look at the source here: [https://github.com/graphcool/dashboard](https://github.com/graphcool/dashboard) On a side note: We're already working on a similar project but focussed on Apollo. If you're interested in getting involved, we're still looking for collaborators: [https://github.com/learnapollo](https://github.com/learnapollo) ------ tiglionabbit I'll read this when I get the chance. Perhaps I'll give Relay another chance. I also found Relay a nightmare to understand. Everything is overcomplicated and messy, which is probably why they're talking about Relay 2.0 already. I was a bit frustrated when I found that this blog post was the most helpful piece of information I could find on Relay, and it tells you to just use FIELDS_CHANGE everywhere and ignore the rest of the mutation config features: [http://blog.pathgather.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to- relay-m...](http://blog.pathgather.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-relay- mutations) . Some things that make Relay frustrating: * Pointless restrictions on what you're allowed to do at the "root" require you to do everything under a "viewer" subnode instead. * Relay "Routers" are completely pointless and should be removed. * Mutation configs are totally confusing, and they're tightly coupled to the server-side implementation of the mutation. We have a compile step where the client inspects the schema that was generated by the server. Why can't we generate the mutation configs as well? I know there's probably not enough declarative information readily available, but there should be. * Relay mutations are only allowed to have one input field and one output field in the GraphQL definition. This is a pointless incompatibility between Relay and non-Relay GraphQL endpoints. Falcor also exists, and is much simpler, though it has its upsides and downsides: * You're not allowed to pass any arguments other than the standard from/to pagination arguments. Want to implement faceted search? Too bad. It's "Not a querying language", for some reason. * It has something called "calls" which are basically the same thing as Relay's mutations but you have a little less control over how cache invalidation is handled than you do with mutation configs. There's no RANGE_ADD, for example. To add/remove items in a list you have to invalidate the entire list. Maybe that's OK though? But it sure is annoying if you're trying to move an item from one list to another on the client side and don't need to wait for the server to catch up. * No built-in support for optimistic updates yet. One thing I see in common between React and Falcor is they are both rather complex ways to collaborate with yourself while ignoring events from the outside world. In other words, it's a lot of work to not have pubsub. I guess this is because pubsub doesn't scale? But in the mean time, I'm tempted to play around with Horizon instead. ~~~ djmashko2 Have you checked out Apollo Client? It's an alternative to Relay that works with all GraphQL servers and brings in a lot of the simplicity of Falcor: [http://dev.apollodata.com/](http://dev.apollodata.com/) It includes features like optimistic UI, easy ways to invalidate cache after mutations, arbitrary pagination models, and more. (Disclaimer: I work on Apollo) ~~~ tiglionabbit I haven't. Maybe I will some time. My conclusion after struggling with Relay, though, was that there's a lot of complexity in GraphQL that I don't understand as well. Fortunately, this guide links to a tutorial on that too: [https://learngraphql.com/basics/introduction](https://learngraphql.com/basics/introduction) ~~~ morgante I'm 100% with you on Relay being overcomplicated. My first project with it involved a lot of set up and the other frontend developer completely gave up on learning Relay entirely. In contrast, for a newer project I used Apollo and was up and running in no time at all. It's very easy to reason about, but also gives you great React integrations. ------ scottmf Awesome. Do you have anything regarding server implementation? ~~~ schickling Thanks for your feedback scottmf! We're mostly working with frontend developers and trying to simplify their workflows as much as possible. One of the first and most important steps are great learning resources. That's why we're focussing for now on frontend technologies such as Relay, Apollo, ... We'd be more than happy to share some insights on what we've learned while building Graphcool. The best way going forward will be following our blog: [https://blog.graph.cool/](https://blog.graph.cool/) Also, feel free to join our Slack in case you have any questions: [https://slack.graph.cool/](https://slack.graph.cool/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
ComiXology Security Breach - domrdy https://www.comixology.com/ This is the email I received:<p>Dear Comics Reader,<p>In the course of a recent review and upgrade of our security infrastructure, we determined that an unauthorized individual accessed a database of ours that contained usernames, email addresses, and cryptographically protected passwords.<p>Payment account information is not stored on our servers.<p>Even though we store our passwords in protected form, as a precautionary measure we are requiring all users to change their passwords on the comiXology platform and recommend that you promptly change your password on any other website where you use the same or a similar password. You can reset your comiXology.com password here.<p>We have taken additional steps to strengthen our security procedures and systems, and we will continue to implement improvements on an ongoing basis.<p>Please note that we will never ask you for personal or account information in an e-mail, so exercise caution if you receive emails that ask for personal information or direct you to a site where you are asked to provide personal information.<p>We apologize for the inconvenience. If you have any questions, please contact us by sending an email to [email protected]<p>Sincerely,<p>ComiXology ====== domrdy Dear Comics Reader, In the course of a recent review and upgrade of our security infrastructure, we determined that an unauthorized individual accessed a database of ours that contained usernames, email addresses, and cryptographically protected passwords. Payment account information is not stored on our servers. Even though we store our passwords in protected form, as a precautionary measure we are requiring all users to change their passwords on the comiXology platform and recommend that you promptly change your password on any other website where you use the same or a similar password. You can reset your comiXology.com password here. We have taken additional steps to strengthen our security procedures and systems, and we will continue to implement improvements on an ongoing basis. Please note that we will never ask you for personal or account information in an e-mail, so exercise caution if you receive emails that ask for personal information or direct you to a site where you are asked to provide personal information. We apologize for the inconvenience. If you have any questions, please contact us by sending an email to [email protected] Sincerely, ComiXology	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Topics in Advanced Data Structures [pdf] - htiek http://web.stanford.edu/class/cs166/handouts/100%20Suggested%20Final%20Project%20Topics.pdf ====== jhayward I was going to roll my eyes about stuff no one will ever hear of, much less use in their day job, but there are some really relevant structures here. Finger trees, cache-oblivious structures, R-trees, etc., just to name a couple from a random page or two. The "why they're worth studying" summaries are gold. Thanks! ~~~ bhaavan A doctor has to mostly always treat common cold, and influenza. But that's no excuse for her / him to not know the purpose of the left pulmonary vein. The more basics they know, the better doctors they are. Sorry if this analogy is a bit extreme, but I want to make a point. ~~~ jhayward I think a more apt analogy would be if you would disqualify doctors who don't know the nucleotide sequence of the genes that code for the cytochrome p450 enzyme process from treating your cold or flu. The left pulmonary veins are gross anatomy, akin to knowing what an 'if' statement is. Knowing the current state of the art in determining a minimum complexity for an operation on an obscure tree implementation is deep domain knowledge used by only a few specialists. ------ Insanity The material seems to be for this course: [http://web.stanford.edu/class/cs166/](http://web.stanford.edu/class/cs166/) There are more slides and info on that site :) ~~~ copperx It's a pity there are no video lectures. Are there lectures out there for a similar algorithms class? ~~~ reubenmorais MIT 6.851 Advanced Data Structures, Spring 2012: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP61hsJNdULdu...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP61hsJNdULdudlRL493b-XZf) ~~~ jbn I took that class that year, one of the best classes I ever took. A ton of work, too. ------ amelius > Traditional data structures assume a single-threaded execution model and > break if multiple operations canbe performed at once. (Just imagine how > awful it would be if you tried to access a splay tree with multiplethreads.) > Can you design data structures that work safely in a parallel model – or, > better yet, take maxi-mum advantage of parallelism? In many cases, the > answer is yes, but the data structures look nothing liketheir single- > threaded counterparts. Makes me wonder which data structures have "parallel" versions besides the two mentioned. ~~~ dominotw would all of scala's default( immutable) datastructures fit the bill? ~~~ dominotw I was just curious. Not sure why this is downvoted. ------ bogdanoff_2 This kind of stuff fascinates me. General software engineering seems comparatively boring. I was considering going back to university to do a phd in cs and this is making me realize that research in algorithms/data structure would actually be viable (still lots of stuff to discover). Does anyone here know what it is like doing research in these areas? Any general advice? ~~~ xtracto I've got a PhD in CS, and these structures fascinate me as well. The Bloomier Filter reads amazing. Unfortunately, day to day job has almost nothing to do with these algorithms, but mainly software architecture and maintainability. I think the majority of these algorithms are not really something you will find implementing in day to day work. And at most I can see myself using a library with one of those. Even if you do research, it will have to be very focused on data structures and algorithms to really get deep into some of these. Still, very enjoyable. ~~~ sterlind Just today I finished implementing radix heaps in C# to optimize some of my Dijkstras.. When I googled I saw zero implementations in C#, so I may be the first to write it. It worked well, giving me 3x speedup in practice over DAry heap and very low GC pressure, fortunate as my process was exceeding 256GB ram. Rolling your own data structures is pretty vital if you're working on algorithms. ------ lame88 Does anyone in their work find that they are able to employ data structures like this, and if so, what do you work on? I've almost always had to delegate all my state to a database using default indexes, etc., which is productive, yet a little disappointing, because I'm always applying my brain power instead toward more mundane tasks. ~~~ petschge I do plasma simulations and recently had the problem of finding the distance to the nearest neighbor for every of the particles in the simulation. Doing that naively is O(n^2) and took hours even for small test problems. Building an R-tree once and using if for nearest-neighbor look-ups brought that down to 5 minutes. libspatialindex lacks documentation, but worked really nicely. The rtree interface in python is much friendlier. ~~~ arman_ashrafian I’m taking Advanced Data Structures at UCSD right now and our first assignment was making a K-D Tree and an efficient KNN Classifier. It was surprisingly simple and the efficiency between the KD Tree and brute force implementation was quite drastic. If you only build the tree once and do no insertions what is the benefit of an R-Tree vs KDTree? ~~~ petschge I actually do plan to update the tree as I insert additional particles in locations where the distance to the nearest neighbor is large. ------ sidcool I love learning Algorithms and Data Structures. The issue is that I don't get to use these frequently, not even basic DS. Most of what I need exists in the language or some framework, and if I am to implement it from scratch, I am sure I will do worse. The only time I really use this knowledge is during interviews. ~~~ collyw I (did) feel excatly the same. Now after working for 17 years I realize that I barely ever use this stuff, and when asked this stuff in an interview I do a lot worse than I did straight out of university. I am however a lot better software engineer than I was then. ------ collinmanderson I'm surprised no one mentioned the "Crazy Good Chocolate Pop Tarts" algorithm. That one took my by surprise :) [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51952511_De- amortiz...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51952511_De- amortizing_Binary_Search_Trees) Hilarious ------ lichtenberger Hm, where else are Lowest Common Ancestors in tree-structures useful? Storing for instance ORDPATH/DeweyIDs allows to simply check for a common prefix (they are hierarchical node labels). I think maybe for locking in a storage system with multiple read/write transactions or to determine which of two given nodes is the firs one in preorder, which is useful for XQuery/XPath processing (to determine the so caslled document order). Can anyone think of other usages? Or for having hierarchical node labels in trees? ~~~ htiek You can use lowest common ancestor queries in conjunction with suffix trees to solve a lot of interesting string problems. For example, take two indices within a string, find their corresponding suffixes in the suffix tree, and then take their LCA. That gives you an internal node corresponding to the longest string that appears starting at both indices (this is called their "longest common extension.") You can use this as a subroutine in a bunch of genomics applications. ~~~ lichtenberger Thanks, great use case and I have to say I have to read about genomics... :-) ------ bondant Does anyone know books which explore in depth recent development in advanced data structure (or just not well known advanced data structure) ? ------ beeforpork The list is great, but unfortunately has no pointers to documentation. I find nothing online for some of the topics. Where can I find the description and discussion of 'ravel trees'? ~~~ nestorD They also caught my eyes. I finally found a paper here (the correct denomination seems to be RAVL tree) : [http://sidsen.azurewebsites.net/papers/ravl-trees- journal.pd...](http://sidsen.azurewebsites.net/papers/ravl-trees-journal.pdf) ~~~ beeforpork Super, thanks for being better at searching! (The name makes more sense this way.) :-) ------ winrid This is awesome, thank you! Used nested R-Trees in a personal project recently (sharded in memory spacial db for a game) which is not something I thought I'd ever have to do. ------ vaibhavsagar My favourite somewhat obscure data structure that I didn't see on the list: Hash Array Mapped Tries. ------ criddell What font are they using? I find it very unpleasant to read on a 4k screen set to 125% scale. Or maybe it's Firefox. ~~~ criddell I loaded the page on Chrome and the text is definitely heavier (and more readable) but also less sharp. ------ hasahmed Where can I learn more about ravel trees? ~~~ sus_007 From one of the comments on this thread. [http://sidsen.azurewebsites.net/papers/ravl-trees- journal.pd...](http://sidsen.azurewebsites.net/papers/ravl-trees-journal.pdf) ------ mountainofdeath Great! More fodder for interview questions /s. ~~~ twoquestions That's probably it, any use of these algorithms in business software would need to be justified for the increased training your fresh-out-of-school replacement would need to maintain this. ------ pizza This is quite cool, thanks. ------ panbabybaby nice sharing !! ------ maimeowmeow Please provide the solutions in git repo. Thanks. ~~~ inetsee Paraphrasing (almost every) math book: "Solutions are left as an exercise for the reader."	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
PoC \|\| GTFO Episode 9 [pdf] - ewams http://ewams.net/pocorgtfo/pocorgtfo09.pdf ====== ewams PASTOR MANUL LAPHROAIG'S tabernacle choir SINGS REVERENT ELEGIES of the SECOND CRYPTO WAR: 9:2 A Sermon on Newton and Turing 9:3 Globalstar Satellite Communications 9:4 Keenly Spraying the Kernel Pools 9:5 The Second Underhanded Crypto Contest 9:6 Cross VM Communications 9:7 Antivirus Tumors 9:8 A Recipe for TCP/IPA 9:9 Mischief with AX.25 and APRS 9:10 Napravi i ti Raˇcunar „Galaksija“ 9:11 Root Rights are a Grrl’s Best Friend! 9:12 What If You Could Listen to This PDF? 9:13 Oona’s Puzzle Corner!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bitcoin is up 125 Percent in 2019 - TechFinder https://medium.com/futuresin/bitcoin-is-up-125-percent-in-2019-358cdf08ab8e ====== mimixco These stories are so misleading. _Up_ only means something in relation to when you bought. Everyone bought at different prices and some people are very "up" while others are decidedly down. ~~~ dead_mall The title ignored the first few months of sideways, but still is not wrong. The 3-Monthly change for Bitcoin is up 120%+, so anyone who bought during the beginning of the year & hodl'd is up more than the title says	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Canonical Redirect Pitfalls with HTTP Strict Transport Security (2010) - diafygi https://coderrr.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/canonical-redirect-pitfalls-with-http-strict-transport-security-and-some-solutions/ ====== jusob It looks like all the problems raised would be solved by using the option includeSubDomains in the HSTS header on paypal.com	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Retire Python 2 - arunc https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/RetirePython2 ====== president Looks like they will still provide a legacy python27 package	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ransomware attack 'not designed to make money', researchers claim - rbanffy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/28/notpetya-ransomware-attack-ukraine-russia ====== Animats It made maybe $10,000, from the Bitcoin tracker. As for damage, Maersk container terminals worldwide are still shut down on the truck side, not accepting containers for shipment. Maersk is so down that their web sites with status info aren't being updated to show that they're down.[1] Their Twitter feed has general statements.[2] The only good info seems to come from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is telling truckers not to come to Maersk's terminal today, Wednesday.[3] Understand what this means. The biggest container ports in the US and Europe have been down for two days. There's no announced re-opening date yet. Nobody else seems to have been visibly hit as hard as Maersk, other than the Kiev subway fare collection system. [1] [http://www.apmterminals.com/en/operations/north- america/port...](http://www.apmterminals.com/en/operations/north-america/port- elizabeth/about-us/status-update-report) [2] [https://twitter.com/Maersk](https://twitter.com/Maersk) [3] [http://btt.paalerts.com/recentmessages.aspx](http://btt.paalerts.com/recentmessages.aspx) ~~~ pmoriarty Hopefully this will lead to less complacency, and an increased interest in and more funding for security. In the long run, hopefully infrastructure like this will become more hardened and less susceptible to such attacks. ------ INTPenis Yes tech sites are now advising people not to pay because their mail provider has already shut down their account. But how many average users read tech sites? I wouldn't discount monetary motives just because their method of handling payments is dodgy. As long as that bitcoin ID is up it will be used. It's not exactly in their interest to be honest here. [https://blockchain.info/address/1Mz7153HMuxXTuR2R1t78mGSdzaA...](https://blockchain.info/address/1Mz7153HMuxXTuR2R1t78mGSdzaAtNbBWX) ~~~ swiley If I where to bother committing a crime I'd want a lot more than that. ~~~ INTPenis I equate these guys with spammers so from that perspective I'm not surprised. Simplest explanation is often the right one. ------ apo The article provides no evidence for the claim made in the title. Even if it were to do so, the article leaves the dangling question of why bother to include the ransom component at all. ~~~ qb45 You need to do something destructive to study the scale of real world disruption resulting from such offensive and to motivate victims to report infections. They could probably go with the old-school _format c:_ , but ransomware seems to be all the rage nowadays. ------ BoiledCabbage I posted this same suspicion yesterday. ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14646881](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14646881)) Russia is "range testing" its weapons in Ukraine. The West and particularly the US should be _very_ worried about this. The sanctions against Russia are dictating its policy and they have shown a willingness to escalate beyond what's been considered "appropriate" in the past. I'll say it again here, a country will be made to surrender its policy due to crippling cyber-attacks. As has been shown in the past a western country will only fight a war as long as the citizens support it. When people are harmed and dying due to hospital shut downs, inaccessible banks, power companies offline, airplanes grounded and food shipping stalled - politicians will feel their arms have been twisted horribly but will concede. How well would Washington, DC function for weeks or longer without electrical power? What Russia is preparing for is the equivalent of bombing cities until surrender (not the direct death, but the punish the population to cause surrender method). As far as I know, there are no international laws around it. Best case is all sides escalate cyber-weapon "strength" to unthinkable levels and we enter a new cold-war standoff. But again, the nuke mutually assured destruction only could happen after nukes had been proven to be crippling... The West needs to take this threat _very_ seriously, or we'll soon find ourselves at the wrong end of the barrel of a new weapon. ~~~ fnovd I'm surprised to see even people on this site downplaying how worrisome these attacks are. The ability to shut down an enemy's computer systems remotely is an awesome power, and will only become more impactful as we rely more and more on computer systems in our everyday lives. Forget space: the internet is the next frontier. A group of enemy soldiers shutting down a hospital would be met with outrage and military backlash. A group of hackers shutting down fifty hospitals is met with jokes about outdated operating systems and derision towards IT directors. At what point do we stop treating these like annoyances of a strange new world and start treating them like what they are: targeted, military-grade attacks. The whole world can see how woefully unprepared the West is for attacks of this nature and the attackers are only going to grow more bold. The more intertwined tech is with the military, the more powerful the cyber- warfare paradigm becomes. ~~~ Mizza A thing you two aren't considering is the that US and the UK are the world leaders on the offensive side of this same technology, "we" just do a (slightly) better job of keeping this stuff contained. Raytheon, BAE, etc. all have cyber weapons development divisions and obviously GCHQ and NSA do their own internal development. The west's policy of "proportional response" will apply to cyber attacks as well. Not that this is an excuse for having unpatched systems or not designing for the catastrophe scenario, but we should remember that this is a two-way street. ~~~ fnovd >A thing you two aren't considering is the that US and the UK are the world leaders on the offensive side of this same technology Exactly, on the _offensive_ side. I'm not particularly concerned about our ability to retaliate proportionally. But what good is a deterrent if it fails to deter attackers? Our defensive capabilities are clearly lacking, as these past few attacks have shown. ------ spurlock The single point of failure was the posteo.de[1] account. Surely doing business over this kind of channel was doomed to fail. Infosec Twitter is alight with conspiracy theories that receiving money was the least of the attacker's concerns. I too believe that they just wanted to cause damage and piss people off in Ukraine, using the ransom functionality of the software as a front. BTW: Instead of using email, what should they be using to offer support and arrange payment? Some sort of encrypted instant messenger system? [1]: [https://posteo.de/en/blog/info-on-the-petrwrappetya- ransomwa...](https://posteo.de/en/blog/info-on-the-petrwrappetya-ransomware- email-account-in-question-already-blocked-since-midday)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Make reports from your pull requests with Shipping Report - dereke https://shippingreport.com/ ====== dereke Hi one of the developers here. We've found this a really good way to share progress with our clients. It would be great to get some HN feedback! ~~~ brudgers \+ I'd probably go ahead and move "How it works" to the landing page. It's an important question for the target market. Maybe more important than the list of features in terms of content (if so, put it higher up the page) because the features emerge from how it works. \+ On my laptop the Hero image takes _all_ of the screen height. It contains almost no useful information. In part because the image of the report is a lorem ipsum. Showing actual output would start to answer my most important question, "what the hell is it?"...the other two important questions are "why should I care?" and "how does it work?". \+ The "elevator pitch" lacks clarity and sizzle: Communicate project progress from developer activity with just a few clicks Maybe something like "Quick progress reports from Github commits"...though I am just guessing at the Github part, maybe it's Trello, maybe it's something else. Back to the "How does it work?" Good luck. ~~~ dereke Thank you that is really useful feedback!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ada Programming on Slackware Linux - Tsiolkovsky http://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2012/01/08/ada-programming-on-slackware/ ====== jmilkbal Developing in Ada is one of the best ways to go. For being proven for 30 years, more projects should launch new Projects in Ada catching bugs as early in development as possible. For many of my projects, I find that if the code compiles 9 times out of 10 it works as intended (barring stupid logic errors by humans).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why don’t you smile more? Assertive women in the workforce - CodeLikeAGirl https://code.likeagirl.io/why-dont-you-smile-more-assertive-women-in-the-workforce-53adfc01ffc3 ====== pmp301 Thank you for sharing. Especially on a Monday	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
ONLamp.com -- An Introduction to Erlang - charzom http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2007/09/13/introduction-to-erlang.html ====== arete Joe Armstrong's thesis "Making reliable distributed systems in the presence of software errors" (<http://www.sics.se/~joe/thesis/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf>) is a really excellent introduction to Erlang and the ideas behind it. I'd recommend that, along with "Programming Erlang", to anyone interested in learning Erlang or in simply becoming a better programmer. ------ falsestprophet I am learning Common Lisp recreationally to familiarize myself with functional programming using Mr. Graham's books (they are fantastic by the way). But Lisp does not seem to be in favor in industry. I do however hear a lot about OCaml and Erlang. Which of the three do you recommend I focus on? I am leaning towards Erlang now. It seems to be a network programmer's wet dream. ~~~ AF Just get a basic knowledge of each of them. CL is pretty special and has features you just won't find in most other languages (macros, interactive error-handling, generic functions), and raw speed (SBCL). OCaml...I hear discussion about it, but personally having evaluated it, I don't know what kind of a future it has (I really doubt it will ever be a 'big' thing). It has some real cruft around the edges, and I can see Haskell or Scala picking up real momentum before OCaml ever does. Erlang: learn it. It is a simple language and as a programmer you'll probably find it very interesting. Also if you haven't done much functional programming, Erlang will push you into it. Erlang obviously has an advantage when it comes to parallel processing, but we'll have to see whether the string support ever gets better, whether it gets more mainstream libraries, and whether the complete lack of objects is an issue for adoption. Right now I think Erlang is being hyped a little prematurely, but that might change if other languages can't adapt adequately to multi-core programming. ~~~ pc _interactive error-handling_ It's pretty good, but the Lisp world has stagnated, and you'll find equivalent (and better stuff) in other environments, like Squeak. ------ chwolfe Nice intro. If you haven't picked up "Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World" by Joe Armstrong, I can not recommend it enough. One of the few programming books that you look forward to reading. ------ davidw Erlang is a good example of "crossing the chasm" in a programming language ([http://welton.it/articles/programming_language_economics.htm...](http://welton.it/articles/programming_language_economics.html)) - despite many other shortcomings, it is great for distributed environments, and for its concurrency model. This is enough to give it a boost into the 'big time', if they play their cards right. ------ khoerling Ahh, it feels great to see Erlang getting press. It's a, "funny little language" that has a whole lot to offer and even more to teach! Joe Armstrong's book is brilliant because it seems to be the only one not written in boring-professor-speak. ------ johnrob Hopefully one day we will find our silver bullet. With the number of languages/platforms getting touted these days, we are certainly looking hard for it :) ~~~ simpleenigma I'm not sure that we will ever find the one silver bullet. IMO, you need to choose the right tool for the job and sometimes that means leaving your favorite programming language behind for a project or two. Speaking as an Erlang advocate it is great for communications and concurrency, but the string processing leaves a lot to be desired. It is good enough, but if you are doing text manipulation as your primary task Erlang may not be right for you ... But if you are working on communications technologies, you really need to look into it ...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Keas can understand probability, a trait only seen before in apes and humans - clouddrover https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-03-04/nz-kea-parrot-understand-probabilities/12018464 ====== db48x They'll also steal anything that isn't nailed down. Wheelbarrows, plump helmet roasts, you name it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Investigating the Galaxy Nexus LTE Signal Issue - johno215 http://www.anandtech.com/show/5254/investigating-the-galaxy-nexus-lte-signal-issue ====== johno215 "I would not be surprised to see Google make a change to its signal strength to bars mapping for LTE and placebo away an issue that never really existed to begin with." As an engineer it grates on my sanity when people compare engineering measures (such as the number of bars) when the measures are computed with different assumptions. It happens all the time when the technical meets the non- technical.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
“Flattening the Curve” is a deadly delusion - senderista https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-deadly-delusion-eea324fe9727 ====== jshevek > _They suggest that currently, the medical system can deal with a large > fraction (like maybe 2 /3, 1/2 or 1/3) of the cases, but if we implement > some mitigation measures, we can get the infections per day down to a level > we can deal with._ I never took it this way. I always thought the point was "slowing down the disease saves some lives, even if the same number of people eventually get infected." That's it. Nothing more. > _They mean to tell you that we can get away without severe lockdowns as we > are currently observing them in China and Italy. Instead, we let the > infection burn through the entire population, until we have herd immunity > (at 40% to 70%), and just space out the infections over a longer timespan._ The diagram says nothing about lockdowns. The diagram doesn't promise us we will fully flatten the curve, but demonstrates the life savings benefits of flattening as much as we can. In my opinion, we should also prepare for temporary lockdowns. ------ benmaraschino Unfortunately, this is a really bad analysis, because, for one, the author assumes in his model that the total number of infections won't change as the result of greater social distancing. But distancing will have an effect on the number of infections, and this effect is in fact quite substantial. For example, the results of this model suggest a ~80% reduction in total infection burden with a 50% reduction in the rate of transmission, and nearly 95% with a 75% reduction: [https://twitter.com/IDMOD_ORG/status/1237881591784865793](https://twitter.com/IDMOD_ORG/status/1237881591784865793) ~~~ viraptor And even IF the number of infections didn't change and we spread the infections over 2x time rather than 1x, it will literally save lives. Once you have that outcome available with a relatively small effort... why wouldn't you do it? ------ robocat Fairly dumb... 1\. Flattening the curve obviously improves the situation (even if it doesn’t solve it), 2\. Containment would have to last as long as the curve might last: just not practical, 3\. Look to Taiwan: so far they _are_ successfully dealing with the emergency the best out of any country. That said, as much delay as we can get at beginning of the curve is excellent: we want as much time as we can get for our scientists and health systems to discover mitigations, to build up relevant industrial capacity, and to build out health systems support. A lot of lives can be saved with a few lucky discoveries. ~~~ jshevek > _Flattening the curve obviously improves the situation (even if it doesn’t > solve it)_ Yes. The criticism feels like Nirvana fallacy to me. Let's aspire to flatten the curve, it will make everything less bad, even if we don't fully succeed. ------ aaron695 It's right about the curve memes being wrong, but I don't like the conclusion. I've seen estimations of 5 years to flatten the curve for a few countries. And I've yet to see hospitals capacity drop over winter, they are seasonal. Add to this there is only so long the operations they are delaying can be delayed. And I've yet to see the hospitals capacity drop as the staff gets destroyed. The curves are giving a false sense of security and downplaying the large effects of dragging this out, flattening or containing. ------ mytailorisrich Flattening the curve is what everyone is trying to do and it obviously helps. The issue is that for example the UK have said that they want to flatten the curve to protect the health services while also wanting to build herd immunity rapidly, perhaps by the end of the year. These are mutually exclusive. Either drastic measures are taken to flatten the curve a lot, or the health services will collapse and many people in serious condition won't receive any treatment at all.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Finish Weekend ATL - Oompa http://highgroove.com/articles/2012/04/30/finish-weekend-atl.html ====== vanstee Perfect timing right after Start Atlanta a week ago. ~~~ avolcano Wow, I just googled this and I'm really bummed that I missed it. Looks like it never got submitted to Hacker News for some reason, that's a shame. ~~~ iwasakabukiman It was great. I went and we managed to get a minimum viable product out of it. ------ ansgri At first thought this was something about weekend project using Active Template Library, and how that would be weird... ------ avolcano If anyone here has been to a past Finish Weekend, or a similar event, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. I'm thinking about going, and would like to know what other peoples' experiences were like. ~~~ AdamFernandez I went to the first one in Holland, MI, and it was a great experience. I met a lot of cool people. Everyone was there to help you finish projects that you had started. There were hackers, designers, and even some lawyers that specialize in incorporating startups. It was just a good way to get advice, and actual help with code if you were unable to figure something out yourself. You don't have to finish something, but the weekend offers you the resources to make it happen if you want. ------ jsherer Awesome to see more of these types of things coming to our great city :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Quotesy – Memorable Quotes from Movies and TV Shows - swissRF https://itunes.apple.com/app/id995278698 ====== swissRF Quotesy (Free, iOS) brings the most memorable quotes from your favorite movies and TV shows to your mobile device. Discover, revisit or save your favorite quotes. • Features the best curated collection of memorable, funny, awesome, cute, geeky, philosophical quotes from the best movies and TV shows • Get bored no more, Quotesy brings amazing new content everyday to kill time and cheer you up! • Like quotes to build your awesome collection to revisit later or share with your friends • Share quote images and GIFs with friends or quote the text in your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Email, Pinterest, Instagram and even more. • Download the pics from Quotesy and share the awesomeness with your friends And much much more… ------ praveendiwakar Nice app. Good times when you are bored. Quotes from movies, tv series is good idea. I hope you will add something to search quotes or browse them via genres. :) ------ sdiw This looks good. How are you going to scale your database? ~~~ swissRF Thanks. The current version only has manually curated content, but we are planning for user submitted content (but still with a curation layer on top to maintain content quality) in future versions.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Scotland's Decision - andrewaylett http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_8699/index.html ====== tim333 While I tend not to be too impressed by UK politicians I'm quite proud that the government is able to say to Scotland, OK have a vote and go independent or not. So many of the world problems seem to have been caused by governments taking the opposite view and saying it's mine all mine. See Ukraine and about 1000+ other examples. ~~~ asuffield This referendum is not binding in any sense. The government in Westminster will make the decision, and it will not be made by the current government (there isn't enough time before the general election). If the next government is formed of different people, then under British sovereignty traditions it will feel no obligation to pay any attention to the referendum run by its predecessor. In practical terms: if Labour gets into power in 2015 then Scottish independence will not happen regardless of the outcome of this referendum, because Scottish independence would eliminate Labour as a political force in the UK (Tories would win all UK elections, SNP would win all Scottish elections). It's not over yet. ~~~ tomp > Tories would win all UK elections If this would happen, I'm pretty sure some or other power-hungry fractions of the party would try to make a new party, so you'd again have two (or more) competing. ~~~ asuffield I would not be surprised by seeing a Tory split (into the nationalist and libertarian factions), but it would take years - there's a lot of money holding the two halves of their party together. I wouldn't like this outcome much though - it would mean Cameron was the representative of the "nicer party" in British politics. ------ nmeofthestate In the latest opinion poll from the most No-friendly pollster[1] 'Yes' is ahead in all age groups apart from the over 60s, where No is way ahead. If there is a No vote it seems likely to have been won by the old. This backs up the narrative from this article that Britishness is dying out in Scotland (of course, pensioners have also been frightened by scary stories about their pensions, and tend to be more small-c conservative, so it's not entirely an identity thing) [1] YouGov. Different polling companies appear to have different systematic errors in their results, meaning that polls are spread fairly widely. This particular polling company has until recently been showing large leads for No. In their most recent poll the lead had been cut down to 6%, reflecting a feeling 'on the ground' that there's a genuine shift happening. Personally I am still totally unsure what result we'll get in two weeks (two weeks!) ~~~ pidg The SNP probably brought in voting for 16 and 17 year olds on the basis that it might counter the strong 'No' vote in the 60+ group. However, that group is fairly equally split (45% Yes/44% No). I reckon they underestimated how strongly popular culture, which is focused on London, influences the 16/17 age group. ~~~ cstross I will note that reducing the voting age to 16 in general elections is probably on the cards for the UK as a whole after the next general election: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21178379](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk- politics-21178379) ------ andrewaylett I appreciate the politics may not impact many here, but I enjoyed the (by now fairly common, I suppose) design and the information being presented seems to me to be a good background to the current state of affairs. ~~~ Semaphor > but I enjoyed the (by now fairly common, I suppose) design The opposite for me, I had to use Clearly (restyling extension for easier reading) to remove all their distracting and annoying, erratically moving backgrounds (especially together with the semi transparent text background, if it was opaque at least). The article itself was a great read though. ~~~ thedrbrian On my iPad Air the text is massive(as with most "mobile" websites) and an inch on each side of the screen is wasted with empty space. Maybe I've got funny eyesight. ------ brortao It's really exciting to follow this referendum, even if purely from a democratic perspective (out of the last 68 years, Scotland has voted Conservative for 6 years, but has had Conservative governments for 38 of those years). The No campaign has a difficult job, because it's not easy to sell the status quo - but they've essentially resorted to fearmongering, and it looks like people are starting to see the lack of substance. I think that theweebluebook.com presents the argument for independence quite well. ~~~ bruceboughton >> out of the last 68 years, Scotland has voted Conservative 6 times, but has had Conservative governments for 38 of those years Do you mean that Scotland has voted Conservative in 6 general elections? If so, with a maximum of 5 years between elections, they voted for a Conservative govt for up to 30years of those 38. That's quite a misleading way to represent that statistic isn't it? ~~~ nmeofthestate On this page you can see graphical representation of Scottish and UK voting patterns, and how 'subtracting' Scottish votes would have affected UK results (in fact, very little): [http://theweebluebook.com/principles-and- politics.php](http://theweebluebook.com/principles-and-politics.php) ~~~ bruceboughton This does not address my comment. Is the 6 times: 6 parliaments or 6 years? Is the 68: 68 parliaments or 68 years? Are units being mixed for exaggeration? ~~~ hughmcg In both the unit is years. However, the figure of 6 is incorrect as I assume it refers to the fact that in 1951 the Conservatives (at the time the Unionist and National Liberal and Conservative parties in Scotland) got the same number of seats as Labour in Scotland. If we count this, the correct figure is 8 of 68 years. ------ imurray Here's a dump of some other insights into the referendum: Betfair's probability of a majority yes vote (NOT a poll of fraction who will vote yes) over time: [http://uk.sportsiteexweb.betfair.com/betting/LoadRunnerInfoC...](http://uk.sportsiteexweb.betfair.com/betting/LoadRunnerInfoChartAction.do?marketId=110033387&selectionId=5334892&logarithmic=true) The University of Edinburgh has a guide to the debate: [http://www.futureukandscotland.ac.uk/guidetothedebate](http://www.futureukandscotland.ac.uk/guidetothedebate) It also has a MOOC(!) [https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/indyref/](https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/indyref/) ------ philh > For 15 years the Scottish Parliament has been a fiscally lopsided > institution. The money comes from a block grant from the UK Treasury. > Westminster decides how much tax we all pay and how much government there > should be in relation to the economy but not how it’s spent. > You can see why there’s little room in the Scottish national discourse for a > party that says “vote for us and we’ll cut your taxes; vote for us and we’ll > make government smaller”. I'm not sure how this follows. Can someone clarify? ~~~ majc2 Scotland's parliament does have tax varying powers but has never used them . So, it takes the block grant from the Westminster parliament and decides how to spend it through something called the Barnett formula. Scotland is essentially a socialist country (and socialist isn't a dirty word here). There is a sense of fair play and looking after the poorest in society - a party that would propose a tax cut for a smaller gov. wouldn't do well in the popular vote in Scotland. Does that help? ~~~ __chrismc It's worth pointing out that the only variance it can make under the existing powers is to _raise_ income taxes - this is why it's never been used. Doing so would be political suicide and see a population drain as those able to would quickly move "next door" to an England with lower taxes. The Barnett formula determines the size of the block grant, not the spending of it. The Scottish Government spends the grant according to its priorities. At the moment these include: free healthcare (including prescriptions), free higher education, and free care for the elderly. ~~~ DanBC > free healthcare (including prescriptions), For people not in the UK: people in England pay for each item on a prescription. The charge is currently £8.05 per item. You can get discounts if you need multiple items. There are a bunch of exemptions - people with a thyroid problem for example - which mean that about 90% of items are free. [https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nhs-charges-from- april-20...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nhs-charges-from-april-2014) ~~~ majc2 It should also be pointed out that its not entirely a one way street - for example England has the excellent Cancer Drug Fund, which Scotland doesn't. [http://www.scotsman.com/news/health/scottish-cancer- patients...](http://www.scotsman.com/news/health/scottish-cancer-patients- denied-medicine-fund-1-3117297) ~~~ matthewmacleod I would strongly disagree with the CDF being "excellent" – it's basically money cut from other NHS budgets and repurposed for expensive individual cancer therapies. At the very least, an expansion and improvement of the existing equivalent system in Scotland (individual treatment request) would offer a better solution for the need to fund individual specific treatments that haven't been widely approved. ------ matthewmacleod This is a very good background on the wider causes of this referendum taking place – nice to see. It's going to be very interesting to see what happens to the UK post- referendum, regardless of what way the vote goes. ------ PaulRobinson The worst outcome is increasingly looking like what will actually materialise: a narrow margin. It doesn't matter who wins, if either side does not win with at least 60% of the electorate, it's going to undermine their position going forward. We could see Referendum v2.0 in 2-10 years, quite easily. Nobody on either side wants that, but it's starting to feel inevitable. ~~~ fidotron Indeed. I can't see the rest of the country being happy with a limbo that ends up giving Scotland ever more powers in order to prevent a by then meaningless "No" in the next round while they all live in statusquoville. Combined with the apparent rise of UKIP the situation is all looking to be a bit of a mess. The SNP may have successfully engineered the divisive conditions that the Parti Quebecois never quite managed, with the PQ example being that the uncertainty is almost more damaging than what is being debated. ------ chrisweekly Tangent to the Decision per se: that article is a really beautiful presentation, to my eyes. The implementation isn't perfect -- e.g., there's a bunch of low-hanging WPO fruit -- but on a good browser (Chrome 37 / OSX 10.9.4 / 1920x1200) and a fast connection, the UX is fantastic. IMHO. :) ------ 2color I'm curious, what view does BBC generally express on the matter? ~~~ gambiting BBC cannot express any view on that matter. It's bipartisan and will only report facts. ~~~ tankenmate Actually it is not bipartisan; it is required to be neutral, regardless how how many political parties (or political / economic ideologies) there are. ~~~ gambiting Alright, that's what I actually meant when I said bipartisan - that it does not support any parties by definition. I know, wrong word.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Reasons of Arnold-Chiari I, Idiopathic Syringomyelia, Idiopathic Scoliosis - creker Hello, I know that this site is for technical things. But doctors community is so closed and not friendly). I deciced to ask question here. Maybe someone has the experience or can give some usefull info.<p>There is institute in Barcelona which concludes that the reason of the diseases: Arnold-Chiari Syndrome Type I, Idiopathic Syringomyelia , Idiopathic Scoliosis, disc protrusions and herniations and others is abnormally tense Filum Terminale. The description on their site: https://institutchiaribcn.com/en/diseases-we-treat/filum-disease/<p>They suggests the surgery to cut filum terminale in the coccyx region. This relax tension and stop progress your disease.<p>The problem is that the traditional approach for Arnold Chiari 1, for example, is decompression surgery in the occiput. Most "traditional" doctors say that approach in Barcelona does not work, they just make money. But cannot give 100% proof that it does not work. Many Barcelona's pacients report that after their surgery have good improvements and quality of life. It's hard to find where the truth.<p>Is it possible that tension of filum terminale can (hypothetically)causes , for example , scoliosys or disc damages, or chiari 1?<p>In site they write that the first person who gives attention on relationship between tension and scoliosis was McKenzie, a neurosurgeon from Toronto. If that is true why future investigation was not prolonged in Canada or USA and were just forgotten.<p>Now I found McKenzie article and am trying to read and understand it. The article http://www.boneandjoint.org.uk/content/jbjsbr/31-B/2/162.full.pdf<p>Any info or your expirience in such diseases or expirience in Barca will very usefull.<p>Thanks. ====== steve90 Tethered cord is a recognised cause of scoliosis and we check for it on all MR scans of this region. I'm not aware of it causing some of the other things you list in your post. Where are you based? If you are able to see a reputable neurosurgeon in any first world city locally I would be tempted to just take their advice. ~~~ creker Thank you for answer. They (insitute in Barcelona) differs "Tethered cord" disease and "tension of filum terminale". They created the new name "Filum Disease" which includes chiari, scoliosys, etc. The link [https://institutchiaribcn.com/en/diseases-we-treat/filum- dis...](https://institutchiaribcn.com/en/diseases-we-treat/filum-disease/) They insist that the reason of, for example, scoliosis is namely "tension of filum terminale", _not_ tethered cord. I am from Russia. I met with the best doctors (neurologists, neurosurgeons) specialized on Chiari 1, Syrongomieliya. Much of them does not belive in Barcelona method. But several сautiously say that sometimes the method can help - one our doctor reports reduction of cyst of syringomyelia. Unfortunately, the community of doctors is not so open for public debates and exchange of the experience as for ex. IT :) The changes in treatment methods are so slow (. Mistrust to each other stops progress in the studying of these diseases.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Subject lines: Amazon's lessons on discounts and frontloading - waterlesscloud http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/iland/2009/09/subject-lines-amazons-lessons-on.html ====== richardburton _"[Incidentally, since the analysis was done, I'm getting more emails from Amazon.co.uk that lead with my name: "Mark Brownlow: Save up to 70% on..."]"_ Using somebody's name has got to be a pretty smart tactic. I always hear my name in a crowded, noisy bar. Similarly, I always feel that it's _my_ name when I'm reading something with it in.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Investigating fraudulent clicks in Google Adwords - ph0rque https://medium.com/@nesovok/investigating-fraudulent-clicks-in-google-adwords-f3c42da0ad62#.5h74rv3k5 ====== chasebank My company spends hundreds of thousands of dollars every month with Adwords, soon to be in the millions. My business partner and I have spent many nights discussing whether or not we should try and build another company with the sole intent of solving Adwords fraud. It exists on an enormous scale. If someone already has, please send me a PM and we'll happily be a customer. ~~~ somedangedname > solving Adwords fraud Automatically identifying + submitting refund requests for invalid clicks? Or are there other problems that you face as an advertiser that need to be solved? ------ tyingq I had a similar experience in a specific retail niche. Even after lots of tweaking, Adwords was a huge net negative ROI. Others are still paying for ads in the niche though. Makes me curious if they've solved the issue, or are just unaware they are wasting money.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Keras as a simplified interface to TensorFlow - viksit http://blog.keras.io/keras-as-a-simplified-interface-to-tensorflow-tutorial.html ====== farizrahman4u cool!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Linus: People take me much too seriously, I can't say stupid crap anymore - donatj https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-people-take-me-much-too-seriously-i-cant-say-stupid-crap-anymore/ ====== stirfrykitty I for one despise the political correctness that has occurred/is occurring in the current online communities. Anything and everything can and will be misconstrued to suit the needs of the "offended". Offense is taken, not given. I am sick and tired of the entire SJW mindset that has permeated the WWW and development circles. What was "innocent" a few years ago is now grounds for doxxing, shutting down of accounts, getting people fired, you name it. It seems that "tolerance" is only tolerated if it is agreed with. Voltaire comes to mind here. I never thought Linus was in bad form. His project, his rules. Ditto Theo de Raadt, who I think is a great project leader. I've heard him speak more than once, and he is a very nice guy. Like most leaders of tough projects, these guys endure massive amounts of BS from BS artists, and they need to be able to trounce the idiots and expose them. I have a feeling the majority of people would disagree with me anymore, but then again, my mindset and attitude were largely set by the military long ago, so I like strong leaders who don't brook BS. ~~~ agentultra I despise the anti-SJW stance. I think it's about time loud-mouth, offensive people think twice before speaking. You used to have the power to offend whomever you wanted and now you don't. We haven't lost anything as a society and have gained so much more: the people who used to bear the brunt of such bullish behavior can finally have a voice in addition to yours. That's a good thing. You're imagining shadows on the wall coming to get you if you think that there are people literally waiting for you to say something to take your job away. Meanwhile the people who are picked on do have people doxxing them, emailing them grotesque photos and death threats, showing up at their houses, etc. I would bet a good sum of money that you've never had to deal with any of that. Maybe you should check yourself. Learn some non-violent communication. Empathize with other people. If we're all kind to one another what is it we need to be afraid of exactly? ~~~ dsfyu404ed Keep that straw-man away from the fire lest he burn. You are intentionally misinterpreting the GP's comment or at least seem to be from my interpretation. Nobody is annoyed that they can't sprinkle legitimate criticism with personal attacks. That was never considered normal or ok though it may have been tolerated in some contexts. People are annoyed that any direct criticism can be construed as a personal attack. ~~~ manicdee GGP’s comment is that he can’t keep doing the things he used to do like calling foolish behaviour “retarded”, slapping the female members of the seam on the butt in place of the high-five his male colleagues get, or asking female colleagues out on dates. The people most upset about being called out by “SJWs” are the ones whose behaviour is most problematic and exclusionary. ------ munchbunny This is a concept that any leader needs to take to heart. If you want your words to be taken seriously, you can't simultaneously expect people to always intuit when you do not mean your words seriously. Since humor often carries some grain of truth, you have to be careful that your people don't interpret the wrong grain of truth. I've seen this several times where a CEO cracks a joke and the employees take it the wrong way, then culture changes weirdly and nobody realizes that it was a miscommunication over a joke. ------ js2 This zdnet piece doesn't add anything, besides ads, to the Linux Journal interview which was discussed here yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19559970](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19559970) ------ true_tuna When I was a child I thought as a child and I spoke as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things. ~~~ ricardobeat It’s nice of you to proclaim superior morals and character, but there is an underlying story of modern media, society and political correctness that is relevant here. ~~~ mj_olnir They weren't proclaiming superior morals, rather quoting a rather relevant portion of (what a quick Google search determines as) the Christian Bible. I won't comment on the second half but it only toxifies conversation to assume the worst in others. ~~~ ricardobeat > it only toxifies conversation to assume the worst in others Isn't that what the parent comment did? That's the only reason I commented - i.e. implying that not being serious equals being childish. Quote or not. ------ beering Sorry Linus, you can't both be BDFL of the world's most popular OS and be able to "stupid crap". Given the choice between the two, I think it's good he's taking some time to work on the "stupid crap" part. ~~~ gridlockd > Sorry Linus, you can't both be BDFL of the world's most popular OS and be > able to "stupid crap". Yes you can. He has been BDFL for the "most popular" OS for the _vast majority_ of its lifetime while occasionally saying "stupid crap". Who is to say it hurt Linux in any significant way? Frankly, if you're one of these tone-policing developers (not gonna name names) then _I_ don't want you on the Linux project. Linux is too important to be engulfed in this anglo-centric culture war that is going on right now. ------ village-idiot Success comes with its own punishments. The consequences of prestige and power is that you have to guard your words more carefully, because more people are paying attention. ------ sascha_sl Don't read the comments... don't read the comments... ------ tomohawk This illustrates the folly of rule/law keeping. You can make all of the codes of conduct you want, but what they really serve to do is enhance the power of the rule makers rather make any real progress. Real leadership is expressed through relationships, not rules. Linus apologized because he cared about those relationships. He changed his behavior to enhance those relationships and encourage new ones. ------ _bxg1 The irony in this headline is strong ~~~ _bxg1 For context: in another part of the interview he lamented the fact that every opinion he shares becomes a news headline	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Matt Groening’s Disenchantment lacks magic of Netflix’s other animated originals - Tomte https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/7/17661852/disenchantment-review-netflix-bojack-horseman-big-mouth-animated-originals-comparison ====== mmel I watched one the other day called "final space". I don't think it had much magic either.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Night Watch [pdf] - lamflam https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf ====== GFischer James Mickens is very funny :) He had some really cool posts at Microsoft Research, which have sadly been deleted (originally for Usenix magazine too). [https://web.archive.org/web/20150208050249/http://research.m...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150208050249/http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/people/mickens) (see the bottom for the link to the good stuff) Funny stuff: [https://web.archive.org/web/20150714155945/http://research.m...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150714155945/http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/people/mickens/nestofhornets.pdf) [https://web.archive.org/web/20150706121547/http://research.m...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150706121547/http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/people/mickens/theslowwinter.pdf) ------ daveloyall Makes ya think, don't it?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Anatomy of the Great Adderall Drought - pier0 http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/2/16/anatomy-of-the-great-adderall-drought ====== alexhaefner I find this absolutely startling: "It’s well known that many college students use Adderall to give themselves an extra edge for getting work done whether they’re prescribed or not ... Furthermore, a 2009 study on non-medical use (defined as use of a prescription drug without a doctor’s order) of Adderall among full-time college students showed that subjects aged 18 to 22 were twice as likely as their counterparts, who were not full-time college students, to have used Adderall." Along with: "Stephanie Lee found her freshman year of college unusually difficult. She had trouble adjusting to the levels of stress she encountered." And: "Without Adderall, you might feel bored by your math homework or unable to focus on the multiple steps needed to reach a solution, but on Adderall you might literally feel like you’re in love with math." So many people are taking this drug to deal with the fact that they cannot handle the type of work, or the stress. I find it fascinating that people have come to assume that the problem is with them because they find the work uninteresting, or they find school stressful, and not because that is how the systems (colleges) and the work (math, science) are designed. Instead of telling people how they are not designed properly for the work, perhaps we should take some time to reflect on how the work is repetitive and not creative, and not fulfilling, and that is perhaps the issue. Note: I do think math and science and intellectual work can be creative when at a high level. But at a learning level you're treated more like a machine designed to learn and repeat. I was recently chatting with another student about how classes here are just becoming increasingly demanding. In looking at computer science classes as an example, the complexity of even the basic computer science classes has grown with time, and nothing has been removed. Every one of our professors expects us to spend 10-15 hours per week just on their class. And it's obviously not possible. Instead of trying to find ways to optimize time, people are trying to optimize their minds to be something that is not creative, but rather very much like a machine. College is not designed around passionate work, it is designed to be a grind on you and force you to do a lot of work you hate. Every four months you take all the previous work you did and throw it out and start over. How is any part of that designed to be gratifying? I don't necessarily share entirely positive views of college. It's an institution designed to meld and mold people to fit into our economic model. I have spent some time thinking about this trend and have come to the conclusion that it could be a real damage to creativity and individuality when you can medicate your mind into a machine. ~~~ DanBC I'm also surprised that they're taking adderall for an off-label use, when there's not much research supporting that use, and that they're not taking anti-anxiety medication (diazepam, lorazepam, etc (but addictive potential is worrying)) or taking a known placebo such as homeopathic tablets. Why aren't dealers pushing homeopathic pills as "street adderall"? ~~~ danneu Because Adderall is cheap, easy to get, amphetamine works, and it's worlds different from things that are not amphetamine (homeopathic pills?!). ~~~ DanBC > _easy to get_ In response to something titled _"the drought"_ ? > _amphetamine works, and it's worlds different from things that are not > amphetamine (homeopathic pills?!)._ I would love to see placebo controlled trials for this particular use case (students needing a bit of help to concentrate). ------ AJ007 I'm against drug prohibition. I'm also against telling people they have a medical disorder and need to take a recreational drug for it. And damn right Adderall is a recreational drug, it makes stuff that is boring fun. I've also watched people working while using it, they are easily distracted and then focus 100% of their attention on the distraction. Makes for a good illusion of productivity. ~~~ phillmv I think a lot of people, for either environment or genetic reasons, just have crappy brain chemistry for succeeding in our modern, deep-focus oriented world. Back in the day, you work on the farm, you chat with people, you do your regular business. You didn't have to sit still in a large box for 70% of the day, and so it wasn't such a big deal if you were a little "light headed". I have a wee cousin who has ADHD and she's a problem child from hell. We know this 'cos her father was also a problem child from hell. She literally has an immense problem sitting still. Once she takes her meds though… it's hard to describe the feeling I had when I realized she had spent the last half an hour quietly colouring a book. So yeah. Some people pop it to do all nighters; for a lot of other people it's necessary in order for them to achieve the neuronormativity expected of them in say, an office job or 12 years of mandatory schooling. ~~~ jonhendry "in order for them to achieve the neuronormativity expected of them in say, an office job or 12 years of mandatory schooling." And there are a lot of fields a person might want to enter, entirely on their own initiative (not teacher-imposed), that inherently require you to spend a lot of time doing 'boring' or repetitive things. And if you don't, you'll fail. Or give up painting/piano/whatever early out of frustration. ------ noonespecial One of the greatest coups corporatism can pull in modern times is to get a patent on something and then get the government to mandate its use and restrict all substitutes. Its 100%, grade A, screw society, corporate win. ~~~ kristopolous I'm curious as to the pricing structure in less corporatist countries, especially in places with public health care where (unlike the US), the government has the legal right to bargain prices and doesn't just satisfy any arbitrary price set by a manufacturer. ~~~ anigbrowl It's flatter, but patients are given their medicine and told to take it rather than being invited to select from a menu. Pharmaceutical companies don't advertise direct to the public and doctors make all the decisions about which version of a drug patients should be taking, based on the clinical outcome (eg whether the side effects of a generic are well-tolerated or problematic). In the US you have to be a lot more knowledgeable about what you're taking and the information is much more available, so in that sense the patient has more control, and arguably more freedom; on the other hand most of us are not doctors and spending time becoming expert on the finer points of your meds is perhaps like becoming an expert on the difference between Coke and Pepsi - you may strongly prefer one over the other, but is it really making any difference to your nutritional outcome? In other countries the win for the drug companies is predictability; the government will negotiate far more aggressively but will then contract to purchase a certain amount for the next x years, providing the drug companies with a predictable revenue stream. Where public healthcare is the norm, the government also absorbs a lot of the insurance/liability costs; if a drug is approved for sale but later turns out to have problematic side-effects, the government will compensate or support the affected patients, on the theory that since it approved the medicine for sale it accepted the potential risks as well. Obviously, there are exceptions, such as if a manufacturer had data on clinical risks that it concealed to get approval, but those cases are a minority. ------ refurb Another great example of a gov't regulation that isn't in sync with the marketplace. If you are a company that produces product A and product B, and the gov't says you can only produce a limited amount of A+B, why wouldn't you automatically shift all of your production to the product with the highest profit margin. This is economics 101! ~~~ pyre Assuming that Shire has a patent on Vyvanse, then this is more like limit production of A+B and create product C that is more expensive and has an artificial monopoly (patent). This will then drive everyone that needs products A or B to your new product C. Profit! ~~~ refurb I didn't get a sense from reading the article that Shire is limiting production of their branded amphetamine salts. However, you do have a point in that having more patients on a branded therapy makes a move to Vyvanse more likely. ~~~ pyre I was going off of this: Luckily, Shire had magically possessed enough amphetamines from their DEA quota to produce plenty of their new ADHD medication, Vyvanse. In fact, Shire doubled its third quarter profits from 2010 to 2011, with most of that increase resulting from Vyvanse sales. During this time, coinciding nicely with the Adderall shortage, Shire hiked the price of Vyvanse. ------ Game_Ender The government centrally controls the production of narcotics, and people are wondering why there are shortages? It is obvious the purpose of their central control is not working, people who need the drug can't get it, and people who want to "abuse" it are still able to acquire the drug. I doubt we will see the sane solution of just stopping control on the production of these drugs. ~~~ jrockway Technically, "narcotic" means "opiate" (or more generally, a sleep-inducing drug), which Adderall is not. I think you meant "schedule II controlled substance", or something. ~~~ ahupp The legal and medical definitions of narcotic are not the same, unfortunately. ------ phren0logy This article ignores an important point about Vyvanse. It's a pro-drug: it's metabolized into one of the components of Adderall, but at a constant rate. That means you can't crush and snort it (well, you can, but the constant rate of conversion does not change). As such, it has less abuse potential than Adderall XR (though not zero abuse potential). In states like Florida where there has been more scrutiny on prescription of controlled substances, these details can be important. ------ mindcreek I live in Turkey and I am using concerta for about 5 years now, if you have ADHD the drug calms you and makes focusing and completing tasks easy, it also unfortunately makes you immune to coffee no matter how much coffee you drink, you can still drink more :). When somone without ADHD uses the drug it causes tachycardia, high blood pressure, restlessness and sometimes paranoia, not all of them though, it migth be a recreational drug to someone but I need it to function in my daily life and I'm not using it to have fun in any way, I had periods ( at most 6 months) which, I had not taken any concerta of methylphenidate derivative and results were not good for my productivity. It is also a type II controlled substance here in Turkey You are prescribed one pill for one day and you cannot have more even if you want to, but we dont have any quotas on the precursors and drug use in Turkey is very low considering Europe and US. ~~~ kristopolous How much money is a 30 day supply? ~~~ mindcreek 85$ ------ NegativeOne Yet again the government tramples it's citizens freedom and desires and tells THEM how to live. Doesn't matter if this drug helps countless people across the country function in their day-to-day. ------ vvpan Have any of you been diagnosed with ADHD? How dose it get diagnosed? I am really wondering how much is known about this ailment. ~~~ tweak2live Attention deficit is a conduct disorder, which means that its diagnosis relies entirely on assessment of patient's behavioural patterns. Since it's next to impossible to keep a patient under 24/7 observation, secondary sources have to be used. In most cases, the diagnostic process reduces to an "intake session" interview with a patient and a few multiple-choice diagnostic questionnaires. So an AD* diagnosis is trivial to hack. Moreover, it's impossible to design a diagnostic process that's not easily hackable because, ultimately, everything will boil down to a subjective assessment of patient's behaviour, i.e. a "doctor's call". Furthermore, the more you restrict prescriptions and tighten the diagnostic criteria, the more you increase the risk of denying medication to "legitimate" sufferers. Since the guiding philosophy of the medical community prioritizes "helping people" over "prescription security", the problem of how to keep people from getting "illegitimate" prescriptions is ultimately intractable. ------ funkah What a scam. People don't even understand how these drugs work in the first place, and now the government, insurance, and pharm industries combine to screw people out of the things they're convinced they need for their brains to work. Gross.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Krugman on the Climate Change Conspiracy - onlyafly http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html?em ====== jswinghammer I'll never understand why those who argue that there's such a serious problem with climate change also seem to not want to debate the topic much. If this is just a matter of science then shouldn't the facts speak loudly enough that those who argue to the contrary wouldn't have much to say at all? And why all the pressure to force through this issue through Congress without proper time for review? Weren't Democrats mad about it when Bush did that for the Patriot Act? I think they were correct in this objection but now they don't seem to mind as much. I don't know if Krugman is right or wrong about climate change but one thing is pretty clear to me: If you're arguing about science using words like treason and betrayal is out of line. I'd be interested to know if someone who believes that global warming is something that requires our immediate attention can explain why arguing against it so dangerous. ~~~ Retric _seem to not want to debate the topic much_ Let's say you are a pilot in an airplane at 30,000 feet and the fuel gage reads 20 minutes from empty. For how long are you willing to debate with your copilot that we need to declare an emergency and land right now? What if the gage is just broken and you think you have 20 minutes of fuel left? At some point people that feel there is a problem will want to act. And the global worming debate is 20+ years old. PS: "IPCC First Assessment Report 1990" The panel was established in 1988. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific intergovernmental body[1][2] tasked to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_First_Assessment_Report> ~~~ nazgulnarsil right, but immediate death isn't on the line. a decrease in our standard of living over the next 50 years is on the line. since spending billions of dollars decreases our standard of living as well there is a valid debate: which course decreases our standard of living less? ~~~ Retric You can also slow boil a lobster without causing them to react. The trick is to react soon enough that the change is minor without over reacting and that's hard. I would propose a ~1% carbon fuel tax which funds wind farms which are then sold on the open market. You end up with a huge change at a small cost. Option 2, create an semi independent government agency like the post office which takes 1 billion and builds wind / solar / hydro power plants. Use the "profit" of electricity sold to build more power plants and let exponential growth take off. This depends on the expected rate of return and could be accelerated with some debt financing. In 20 years we may find it was pointless but we will have built infrastructure which is useful. Compared to a 2,980 billion dollar annual federal budget you can get a lot done with a change that's hard for most people to notice. ~~~ nazgulnarsil how do we know what infrastructure will be useful in 20 years? we have a solution now, nuclear, we're just too stupid to actually use it. ~~~ Retric _what infrastructure will be useful in 20 years_ I expect we will still have wind in 20 years and using infrastructure to turn wind into electricity seems obvious. The other real advantages to wind farms is you get energy sooner and it is simpler to scale exponentially. AKA 1billion wind farm = 50 mil profit and next year you have 1.05 billion wind farm which makes a 5.25 million profit so you now have a 1.125 billion wind farm next year... You can do similar things with debt financing, but that's higher risk. Not to mention a smaller Not In My Back Yard problem. I consider oil mostly a done deal, we are going to burn most of the cheep oil because it's just so useful. But there is far more coal luckily it's far simpler to replace coal power plants than oil in cars / boats. We are also close to the tipping point where the free market is going to switch to wind on it's own, because it's cheaper. ~~~ nazgulnarsil if "green" energy was profitable why would you need to subsidize it? people would do it voluntarily. ~~~ Retric The profit from "green" energy needs to exceed the interest on the loan it takes to build it. Today the loans are still slightly more costly than the profit. It's like 5.9% profit vs 6% cost of a loan. The math get's complex as you need to take into account inflation, the rate of depreciation of your assets, and taxes. This magnifies the amount of wind farm you can build today. If you had a billion and wanted to donate it to "clean energy" then you could get a loan for 5 billion in wind farms and use your billion to make up the difference. By the time the loan was paid off you would still have some money, but far less than if you had invested it well. If on the other hand you a billion dollars and built a wind farm without borrowing money then you can keep expanding indefinitely. You would still have less profit but there would be little risk. PS: With subsidy it is profitable today which is why we are building so many wind farms, but that's just the government handing out money. ------ pjkundert > Climate change poses a clear and present danger to our way of life. How can > anyone justify failing to act? Virtually complete predictive failure over the better part of the last decade. How can anyone justify acting? ~~~ SamAtt For the most part I agree with you. But I'm a big believer in "better safe than sorry" and in that spirit I'd like to see some sensible change. The problem with an extreme position like "the world is going to end" is it makes those who don't agree with you instinctively jump to the opposite extreme. The truth is the United States had been steadily making progress on reducing our impact on the planet all the way through the Clinton administration. It was only when the Global Warming nuts popped up that the Conservative side felt the need to throw on the brakes. Now we have two irrational extreme's competing against each other. ~~~ TrevorJ I think the likelihood that one of our 'solutions' creates a greater problem than we had in the first place needs to be factored into the risk/reward analysis. ------ hvs Krugman should take his own words to heart when it comes to economics. But if you watched the debate on Friday, you didn’t see people who’ve thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don’t like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they’ve decided not to believe in it — and they’ll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial. This exactly describes the way he treats any free-market argument. ~~~ gabrielroth If that's true, you should have no problem posting an example rather than just asserting. ------ rmason Krugman can't be taken seriously. To call opponents "deniers" is to immediately concede a rational discussion. I heard the hysterical arguments in college back in the early seventies about global cooling. This group is no more legimate, but much savvier politically. ------ TriinT Krugman is a _dismal scientist_ (a.k.a. economist), not a _real_ scientist. His pedantry and demagogy are too much to bear. He can't even predict the effects of economic policy and now he's trying to predict the weather? What next? Contrary to popular belief, the ice caps are not shriking all the time. Sure, they were shrinking really fast some years ago, and everyone went hysterical because of the rising sea levels and drowning polar bears. But when the ice caps started growing again, no one said a thing. If that isn't cherry-picking, I don't know what is. ~~~ quoderat Your data is wrong. Did you even bother to check? [http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic_thinice.htm...](http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic_thinice.html) "Until recently, the majority of Arctic sea ice survived at least one summer and often several. But things have changed dramatically, according to a team of University of Colorado, Boulder, scientists led by Charles Fowler. Thin seasonal ice -- ice that melts and re-freezes every year -- makes up about 70 percent of the Arctic sea ice in wintertime, up from 40 to 50 percent in the 1980s and 1990s. Thicker ice, which survives two or more years, now comprises just 10 percent of wintertime ice cover, down from 30 to 40 percent. According to researchers from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., the maximum sea ice extent for 2008-09, reached on Feb. 28, was 5.85 million square miles. That is 278,000 square miles less than the average extent for 1979 to 2000." And yep, parts (but only parts) of the Antarctic ice cap are growing -- but guess why? Warmer air creating more snowfall. You people are hopeless. Data, facts, evidence -- none of it sways you. It's like some religion. ~~~ TriinT Funny, but the data I had told a rather different story. Gonna look for the URLs to back it up and I will be right back. _"None of it sways you"_ -> please spare me of your attacks. They don't add anything to the discussion and they only weaken your point. ~~~ mlinsey Why are your attacks on Krugman more constructive than the GP's attacks on you? Because Krugman isn't posting here? ~~~ TriinT Because Krugman is intellectually dishonest and because he's a public figure. His opinions shape the thoughts of the population. Nobody reads my opinions. Thank goodness I am no public figure. If you're going to address the public, you should be honest. Krugman is an economist. He constantly sells half-baked, hand-waving arguments as absolute truths. And this is not because he's a "liberal". The same happens with all the "conservative" economists who also write dishonest articles. Economics is hard. Very hard. An "expert" who tells the public he does not know will be frowned upon. But that's the point: experts don't know everything, and should not claim to know more than they do. Greenspan himself wrote that when he ran the Fed sometimes they were completely "lost" and made decisions based more on gut-feeling than solid economic theory. Greenspan is pretty much retired now, so he can afford to be frank. Krugman still has a career, so he can't afford that. ~~~ DanielBMarkham _An "expert" who tells the public he does not know will be frowned upon. But that's the point: experts don't know everything, and should not claim to know more than they do._ This is the tension in science. You take all of that schooling, and for what? To admit you're as stumped as everybody else? I mean seriously, when is the last time you saw a science show where they basically said "Beats me"? Instead it's all upbeat and glossed over. The way we sell science and actual state of science are two completely different things. ~~~ TriinT Science shows are entertainment, mostly. Their goal is to promote Science, and I think they do their job well. I have had the priviledge of working with some truly top-notch scientists. A common trait among them is how honest they were on the limitations of their knowledge. They were not afraid to say they were wrong, or that they didn't know. This was in their academic environment. I don't know if they would be that honest when addressing the public. The average person would probably not be able to understand how's it possible that an illustrious professor has spent his entire career studying elementary particles and is still baffled by them. That is due to the fact that the average person does not know what deep knowledge is, and does not need to know.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Study shows that U.S. is best equipped to handle pandemics - mmhsieh https://www.ghsindex.org ====== robocat What a gorgeous example of false analysis - typically lists like this fail (especially if they weigh all items equally). There are multiple Asian countries that are handling this wayyyy better (no economic shutdown, virus transmission under better control) and the US somehow should overtake them and be “the best”? I predict that even China will do better than the US, and they had the least forewarning of all countries. I think at some point soon the US will need to bring out the military to lock down road travel (prevent epicentres from spreading), along with other tracking measures. How everyone reacts to that will be interesting... Unless someone comes up with a miracle cure within the next month or so! ------ mullingitover Looking at that map, it has different sections. Under Health > Healthcare access, the US is Least Prepared. Also, the ongoing failure in capacity for testing in the US puts to lie the idea that this country was in any way prepared. I have a feeling this study is going to look worse and worse in hindsight.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Google Chrome browser tab locks up if page title contains apostrophe - dctoedt I've searched for answers about this any number of times but never found anything responsive.<p>SCENARIO: I use Google Chrome to open a page whose title has an apostrophe in it.<p>RESULT: The tab locks up completely -- can't use the back button, can't refresh, can't scroll, can't anything except click the X to kill the tab.<p>Any idea what's going on here? ====== VMG For people trying to replicate this <http://goo.gl/ExRch> (single quote ') <http://goo.gl/c9p1v> (backtick `) Neither have any problems here (ArchLinux Chromium 12.0.742.112) ------ glasner It has to be an extension that is parsing every page you visit.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Pentagon Says It Will Not Bomb Iranian Art Sites - ughitsaaron https://news.artnet.com/art-world/pentagon-trump-iran-cultural-sites-1747071 ====== aerodog they'll just bomb sites with innocent human beings instead. phew, i was worried for a second they'd commit war crimes! ------ pavlov Just two weeks before the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the target for the second bomb wasn't going to be Nagasaki's industrial zone but instead Kyoto, a city of immense cultural value. Henry Stimson, the U.S. Secretary of War, had visited Kyoto several times including his honeymoon. He lobbied directly with the President to save Kyoto. _" The military didn't want it removed so it kept putting Kyoto back on the list until late July but Stimson went directly to President Truman."_ [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33755182](https://www.bbc.com/news/world- asia-33755182) Iran has many sites as important as Kyoto. I'm 99.9% sure there's nobody in the Trump administration who went to Iran for their honeymoon, however... ------ intsunny Off-topic for HN, but disgusting that any "leader" would ever recommend such. ------ rhombocombus That this is even a thing that needs to be said is a ghastly reflection of where we are as a species and a country. ~~~ mam2 this is not the worst humanity has done though ------ henvic How the Pentagon plan to control what crimes their thugs commit overseas, so far away from home? ------ ddgflorida No one would expect them to. The US is not the Taliban. ~~~ krapp I would. I remember reading a Quora question about why New Yorkers hate Donald Trump[0], and one of the comments resonated with me when it described him as a thuggish hustler who doesn't know he's a thuggish hustler, the kind of guy who would "drop a ceiling in the Sistene Chapel." You can't make any claims about the integrity of the American military when it's being run by someone without integrity. If the Library of Alexandria existed today, Trump as Commander in Chief would probably have it burned to the ground just to spite academia. [0][https://www.quora.com/Why-do-residents-of-New-York-City- vehe...](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-residents-of-New-York-City-vehemently- dislike-Donald-Trump) ------ earlINmeyerkeg Can someone explain to me how bombing Iran benefits the US financially? I mean this is on HN so does that mean they have some Shia AI that we can benefit from? ~~~ henvic Statism in all of its vestments (like militarism) is not about benefiting citizens (of the USA or anywhere else) but about benefiting groups of interests of powerful people that gravitate around the state apparatus. Democracy isn't liberty, and these so-called wars aren't wars but massacres sponsored by the state benefiting only a few companies sometimes referred to as "the military complex" in spite of the rest of society. [https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/83](https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/83) War as Spoliation [https://mises.org/library/war- spoliation](https://mises.org/library/war-spoliation) ------ LyndsySimon Intuitively, I think there are several audiences at play here, each of which is reading something different into Trump's threat. For context, here is what he said: > Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge > for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an > American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he > had killed over his lifetime, including recently.... > ....hundreds of Iranian protesters. He was already attacking our Embassy, > and preparing for additional hits in other locations. Iran has been nothing > but problems for many years. Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran > strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have..... > ....targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken > by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the > Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST > AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats! The first audience for this is obviously Trump himself. If I ask myself what he's trying to accomplish here, and I believe that he's trying to intimidate Iran into backing off, at least for the moment. He's telegraphing that there is a strike plan already prepared and that it's something that Iran _really_ doesn't want to happen. In my opinion, Trump is very nuanced - almost machiavellian, in fact - in his overall strategies but is very straightforward in his communication. If he'd wanted Iran to believe that he would order the destruction of cultural sites, he was have said it plainly. The mention of "culture" is the last in a series of descriptors, not the central point. Also consider that Iran is a theocracy. As a result, presumably any attack on the Iranian government would target religious sites implicitly: there is no clear dividing line between "the government of Iran" and "Islam in Iran". Given that the government of Iran is the second audience, it seems that what he's saying is that his threat applies to government leadership instead of solely military targets. Trump's domestic opponents are another audience, and have different biases. They seem to expect Trump to act aggressively and in a way ignorant of both the status quo and international law. I get why they are interpreting "important to [...] the Iranian culture" as "Iranian cultural sites", but that strikes me as a particularly uncharitable reading. This creep in what was actually said versus what has been interpreted as having been meant continues; the article linked is from an art-centric site. It uses "heritage sites" in the headline, and "heritage sites" aren't mentioned at all in Trump's tweets. Further, the article quotes art directors, and then explicitly calls out Persepolis as have been "in all likelihood" "spared thanks to the backlash against Trump's threat." _Persepolis_. In fact, none of the heritage sites listed seem like they would have ever been on a strike list in the first place. I acknowledge that I don't share the biases of the article's author, but it doesn't seem at all reasonable to assume that ancient ruins are what were referenced in Trump's tweets. On the other hand, if my reading of Trump's intentions are accurate it would be unwise for Iranian leadership to be holding their press conferences in the Masjed-e Jāme’ in Isfahan or using the Shushtar hydraulic system as a convenient place to store centrifuges. It's unlawful (and immoral) to target a heritage site because it's a heritage site, but if the enemy attempts to use the site as a shield that's another story entirely. ------ weberc2 What are the Tweets in question. artnet.com keeps paraphrasing and quoting other tweets, but I can't find the actual Tweets that threaten to bomb art/cultural sites. Can someone please link me to them? EDIT: Why am I downvoted? This question isn't rhetorical. Did I miss something obvious in TFA? ~~~ LyndsySimon Here you go: [https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12135939757325271...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213593975732527112)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why are universities teaching this stuff? Stata, Java, no SQL - seamusabshere http://seamusabshere.github.io/2020/06/12/why-are-universities-teaching-this-stuff ====== beezle I took an RDBMS class to complete a comp sci minor back in the dark ages.. 1984ish. Agree at some level it should be taught. Disagree on the Java thing - its use is very wide spread outside of academia. Rust? Not so much, maybe one day. It would be appropriate to have electives in things such as Lisp or C and perhaps one or the other should be part of what is necessary for a major. Not sure I would hold Middlebury up quite so high, especially in comp. sci where they certainly do not have a long track record. Poster is located in Burlington so perhaps local bias and of course name rep.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Reversing the Smarter Coffee Machine Protocol to Make Coffee Using the Terminal - evilsocket https://www.evilsocket.net/2016/10/09/IoCOFFEE-Reversing-the-Smarter-Coffee-IoT-machine-protocol-to-make-coffee-using-terminal/#.V_pNmOrep1Y.hackernews ====== timthorn Good work, although already done: [http://adenforshaw.com/smarter-coffee- machine-raspberry-pi-i...](http://adenforshaw.com/smarter-coffee-machine- raspberry-pi-iot-coffeetime/) ~~~ evilsocket ooooops, I didn't see that ... anyway, mine looks more complete so it wasn't 100% wasted time :D ~~~ timthorn An afternoon spent reverse engineering is never wasted time... ~~~ evilsocket absolutely! :D	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Using gpg-agent Effectively - eklitzke https://eklitzke.org/using-gpg-agent-effectively ====== phyzome I just started using gpg-agent recently [1] when I had to figure out how to store secrets in Ansible's Vault without entering the vault passphrase every time. Here's the guide I used: [https://blog.erincall.com/p/using-pgp-to-encrypt-the- ansible...](https://blog.erincall.com/p/using-pgp-to-encrypt-the-ansible- vault) It works really well! I open a terminal, use ssh-agent to get access to the master SSH key, and do my Ansible stuff, which then uses gpg-agent to access the Vault. I basically end up with a terminal session with elevated privileges. [1] other than Emacs's built-in support for working with encrypted files, I guess ------ jfkw This is very informative, thanks. While I haven't investigated the additional benefits of running gpg-agent as a service as you've shown here, I did want to mention Keychain [0] which has been great for managing ssh-agent and gpg-agent for console use. [0] [https://www.funtoo.org/Keychain](https://www.funtoo.org/Keychain)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Best way to learn the CS background I missed by not going to school? - brandoncordell I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask if it's not I apologize. This is my first post to HN.<p>Background: Basically I've been a developer for almost four years now. I started as a front-end developer writing HTML/CSS/JS, but quickly moved to the back-end writing PHP. Before now I've considered myself a decent developer, but lately I've been feeling burnt out and have been looking to move to a position that would make me happier. I've been looking at Ruby/Rails positions on the various job boards and I really feel like I don't have enough CS knowledge to land any of these positions. I'm feeling more and more like a copy and paste PHP developer. I mean, how can I get a job that is asking for engineers to apply? I really got a punch in the face when I read through a post on Stack Overflow about lesser known data structures like Ropes, and Bloom Filters, and Skip Lists. I have ZERO understanding of this kind of stuff and I think it's going to hold me back in my career.<p>What's the best way to learn all the stuff I missed by not going to school? Are there CS books or technical papers that are pretty much required reading for CS students? Should I take some open courses on the web from places like MIT or Stanford?<p>I can't live my life as a jr. PHP programmer... I'm feeling burnt out as it is, working on the same enterprise app for an employer that won't embrace open source or even new technology!<p>Help me hacker news, you're my only hope. ====== choochootrain Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs <http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html> It is one of the classic CS textbooks still used by Berkeley (CS61A) and MIT (not sure) intro CS courses. Its not trivial stuff. While it wont teach you obscure data structures like ropes, it will expose you to a wide variety of topics including but not limited to: functional programming, lambda calculus, OOP, logic programming, client/server programming, non deterministic programming, streams as data, the meta-circular evaluator, lazy evaluation, and concurrency. I had a fairly strong CS background before taking CS61A at Berkeley, but this book (thanks to Scheme) taught me how beautiful computer science can be. Now working in Java is a complete turn off ;) ~~~ brandoncordell Thanks choochoo! That's something like I was looking for! How's the book for someone with no formal CS background? Is it something I can just into now, or should I use another book as a stepping stone. ------ bo_Olean From next time write the code yourself and minimize the copy/pasting habit as much as you can. Using a good IDE helps control the copy/pasting habit to some extent. Start here, follow the topics you have not tried yet: <http://www.tuxradar.com/practicalphp> _What's the best way to learn all the stuff I missed by not going to school?_ _how can I get a job that is asking for engineers to apply?_ You need skills that those engineers have. You don't need to go to school to master the data structures and algorithms, for reference there are bunch of university resources available, and there are lot of implemented code for us to checkout. Refer links others have suggested here. Give some time to learn these advance topics. Edit: added few lines ~~~ brandoncordell Thanks for your reply. When I said copy and paste PHP developer, I didn't mean I literally copy and paste. I don't think I've copy/pasted code in my work for a few years, except for a few times I just needed to get working code into a prototype. I meant it more as, trying to get work in Ruby, or Objective-C makes me feel lesser of a developer, as IF I was a copy and paste coder. ------ Jacquass12321 Others already recommended great books, but I think it might be helpful to clarify one thing. I'm extremely pleased with the breadth and depth of my undergrad education; I'd never encountered ropes, bloom lists, or skip lists. These are all concepts for very specific subsets of problems, so if you were just worried that you hadn't heard of them, don't be. If on the other hand you looked up their implementations and still didn't understand how they worked and couldn't compare them with more mundane structures then most definitely pursue the resources listed in this topic. ------ thornkin When I did this I looked at the books necessary for a CS degree from the University of Washington (but it could have been anywhere) and I read them. Nowadays it is easier. A lots of CS classes are online now. Berkeley and Stanford both have full classes in podcast format. MIT has OpenCourseWare which contains the notes and homeworks. The short of it though is to study the same stuff. There is a lot that a CS background will fill in for you which you won't tend to learn on the job. ------ mbrzuzy Why not trying googleing around for information on the topics. You don't necessarily need school to learn. ------ helwr [http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-learner-friendly- reso...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-learner-friendly-resources- for-learning-about-algorithms) ------ mnemonicsloth Shoot me an email and we can talk about it. I'm working on a related problem right now, so we might be able to help each other out. Address is in my profile. ------ Jasitis <http://cslibrary.stanford.edu/> ------ drivebyacct2 If you have experience as a PHP programmer and only as a PHP programmer, AND you feel like you are a copy-paste PHP programmer... you need to program more. Plain and simple. Take on different projects. Use new different tools, just for the sake of having to learn something new or use a new framework or a new data structure or architecture, etc. ~~~ brandoncordell I only have professional experience in PHP and Perl. I've learning/using in my personal projects Ruby, Python, Objective-C/Cocoa, and Java. I'm trying to learn the basics of a new language every week for 6 months. Then I'm going to focus on the ones I like best and dedicate a few months to learning the ins and outs of each language. Thanks for your reply!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Presenting unexpected futuristic solution to client - waliurjs I'm in talks with a client who is asking me to build a software solution for his company. They have a preconceived idea of the software (that I'll build for them) which is very ancient way of doing things. But I have a far advanced solution that is being adopted around the world and it will change they way they work in very awesome way.<p>Trouble is, I think they'll be scared away from the new ideas and reject it altogether.<p>Question: Have any of you ever been in to my situation? What did you do and what outcome did that bring?<p>Thanks in advance. Waliur ====== sponno Probably some really simple sales advice. Don't try and sell the product/solution to the customer. Sell the customer to the product. That means show the customer that their immediate needs can be easily meet by your product. That's it. They dont need your full solution yet.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bitrise launches ASMR video tutorial series (YouTube playlist) - thebtrtm https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbKJc0NMPDrCv91fpEy_sOWzPhKzgYUuQ ====== moneytide1 The high frequencies of a whisper makes it ironically louder and more piercing than speaking with at least a little vocal cord vibration... especially with amplification. I was trying to listen on phone speakers so I'm likely not realizing the intended effect. Seems like the ASMR relaxing tone could be achieved by speaking at a gentle pace, but delivering a wider arrange of frequencies with throat muscles instead of exclusively breath. ~~~ dx87 Yeah, in the military they told us that if you are trying to hide, whispering is louder and easier to distinguish than regular speech. What they recommended was exhaling until you didn't have much air in your lungs, then talking normally. ------ thebtrtm Some background info: [https://blog.bitrise.io/asmr-mobile-technology-video- tutoria...](https://blog.bitrise.io/asmr-mobile-technology-video-tutorials) ------ RichardHeart I think the venn diagram sold me on the April foolsiness.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Post about past aka java 8 pills - made2591 https://made2591.github.io/posts/java-8-pills ====== brudgers The way to 'show' a blog post to HN is as a regular submission. "Show HN" is for things the user has made that the community can "play with or try out". It's an interesting read, but the title is misleading because of how articles get classified.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Octotree: GitHub Code Tree on Steroids - ausjke https://www.octotree.io/ ====== Etheryte This is probably the first time I remember seeing a paid browser extension in these days — good job if it's actually making revenue, since you're competing with free! ~~~ ausjke I used it briefly and did not realize this needs payment, indeed it has free and premium versions, it seems the free version is good enough for most cases. [https://www.octotree.io/pricing](https://www.octotree.io/pricing) I did find this is very useful and have not found any alternatives, I want to port this to gitea actually	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: A really simple way to write BDD tests with NUnit - RokitSalad https://github.com/RokitSalad/Helpful.BDD ====== thom Years ago when I did .NET stuff, I had a framework that implemented Given, When, Then and And as properties on a 'Scenario' test superclass that just returned this. I then created 'Steps' files that grouped relevant extension methods together with names describing a step in a BDD example. That allowed tests like these: [Test] public void ShouldDisplayBar() { Given.AFooWithId(1); And.ABarWithText("Baz"); When.TheUserGoesTo("/food/show/1"); Then.TheyShouldSee("Baz"); } The nice thing being you get nice intellisense and easy reusability and refactoring with the steps. All that said, BDD isn't just changing the names of arrange, act and assert, it's more about coming up with a common language that lets you work as a team to describe examples of your system's behaviour. And the chances are, if you're just doing it one of these ways that is focused purely on code and syntax, you're not involving customers anyway. ------ RokitSalad It can be installed from nuget - Helpful.BDD	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
John Gruber on the “Auteur Theory of Design” from Macworld 2009 - anderzole http://www.edibleapple.com/john-gruber-on-the-auteur-theory-of-design-from-macworld-2009/ ====== aditya So, then the question becomes... how do you develop good taste? Is it even something that's developable at all? And, also there's a gap between having good taste and being able to make products that reflect it. Ira Glass touches upon it here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hidvElQ0xE> And so does _why, <http://favstar.fm/users/_why/status/881768089> So, perhaps the answer (translated to web products) is, just keep releasing a bunch of work, keep trying to understand your market and keep learning from the work you're putting out to make future work better. Not quite sure this is the right answer, though. ------ Groxx Ack. All real content is in a 16-minute video from MacWorld 2009, and no transcription. I don't typically want to wade through that much time to get to the meat of what's said. Anyone know of a transcript? ~~~ cookingrobot Watched it - it was ok. Nice relaxing tone/pace. He basically argues that if one person is in charge (has final cut), the product will be as good as their taste. If no one is in charge and decisions are made by consensus / bureaucracy, then the result will be as bad as the worst persons taste. The test for whether you really have final cut is whether you'd get to release something that is crazy and no one else agrees with. Ex. the ending of the Sopranos. His advice is that if you don't have official final cut, but you know that you're right about something, you can "take" final cut by making your way the only viable option. Ex. Hitchcock planned meticulously and only filmed enough footage to make exactly the movie he wanted, with nothing extra that the studio could use to edit it and make it worse.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Looking to rent a bullet for that Leh Ladakh trip perhaps? Try Rideindia - ravimevcha http://www.nextbigwhat.com/rent-bullet-on-rideindia-297/ ====== ravimevcha easiest way to get motorcycle on rent for your next bike trip.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How do you learn and improve yourself as an experienced developer? - Schulmacher How do you learn and improve yourself as an experienced developer? I'm talking about constantly learning any topic that helps you professionally.<p>I've seen this topic covered superficially by a thousand times, but never by real developers talking from their real habits. And I've seen that many devs start feeling overwhelmed by information and that they are left behind, without taking any action. It may be a relevant discussion. So<p>Do you actually learn constantly new stuff related to your profession, from your own initiative? (Every programmer likes to say they continuously learn, but just a few from the ones I've met really do)<p>Are you doing it in an organised/ planned manner? If yes, what's your structure? (i.e. you might have fixed intervals of time in your calendar when you force yourself to learn or you may just do it when you find some free time at your job)<p>How do you find motivation? Especially if you already have a good salary, you already are good enough in your field, etc.<p>How are you choosing what to improve/ what to learn? Do you evaluate and prioritise the topics in any way<p>And any other related idea/ experience you have, please share and let's discuss it ====== Schulmacher Personally, I have tried multiple times to develop learning habits. But I always fail (yes, the literature on this topic hasn't helped me) Why am I focusing on this? I am really passionate about all the new technologies that appear. I know that from a logical point of view, you shouldn't try to get on every trend, but I really want to get out of my comfort zone and learn a lot of new stuff ------ nickmose Real problem is motivation. Try to find a better job? Then we need to push our self for constantly learning.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
They brought wolves to Yellowstone and that changed it - palakchokshi http://theshrug.com/they-brought-wolves-to-yellowstone-but-they-had-no-idea-this-would-be-the-result-2/ ====== dalke [http://warnercnr.colostate.edu/ess-news-and-events/news- head...](http://warnercnr.colostate.edu/ess-news-and-events/news- headlines/935-conservationists-crying-wolf-new-study-shows-yellowstone-s- ecosystem-dynamics-more-complex-than-trophic-cascade) "Our results contribute to a growing body of evidence showing that changes in growth of woody deciduous plants following the reintroduction of wolves cannot be explained by the trophic cascade model alone"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Survey of popular Node.js packages reveals credential leaks - fapjacks https://github.com/ChALkeR/notes/blob/master/Do-not-underestimate-credentials-leaks.md ====== seldo Many thanks to ChALkeR for responsibly disclosing this to npm and giving us time to notify people and clean up as much as possible. We were very busy, and ChALkeR was incredibly patient with us :-) In response to this disclosure, we have set up a continuously-running scanner for credential leakages of various kinds. It's not foolproof, but it's made things a lot better. We'll be writing a proper blog post about this at some point, but we've been really busy! ------ cortesi I published a tiny script that makes mass grabbing of files from Github easy ([https://github.com/cortesi/ghrabber](https://github.com/cortesi/ghrabber)), and wrote about some of the interesting things one could find with it. For example, there are hundreds of complete browser profiles on Github, including cookies, browsing history, etc: [http://corte.si/posts/hacks/github- browserstate](http://corte.si/posts/hacks/github-browserstate) I've also written about some less security critical things, like shell history ([http://corte.si/posts/hacks/github- shhistory](http://corte.si/posts/hacks/github-shhistory)) custom aspell dictionaries ([http://corte.si/posts/hacks/github- spellingdicts](http://corte.si/posts/hacks/github-spellingdicts)), and seeing if one could come up with ideas for command-line tools by looking at common pipe chains from shell histories ([http://corte.si/posts/hacks/github- pipechains](http://corte.si/posts/hacks/github-pipechains)). I've held back on some of the more damaging leaks that are easy to exploit en- masse with a tool like this (some are discussed in the linked post, but there are many more), because there's just no way to counteract this effectively without co-operation from Github. I've reported this to Github with concrete suggestions for improving things, but have never received a response. ~~~ brbsix If looking at the common pipe chains from shell histories tells me anything, it is that people are not very familiar with the tools at their disposal. Just look at some of these chains: ps \| grep cat \| grep find \| grep find \| xargs grep \| wc ls \| grep echo \| grep grep \| grep The legitimate uses for those pipe chains (while they do exist) are few and far between... A particularly odd one on the list was `type \| head`. Does anyone know the purpose of this? ~~~ electroly This isn't "shell golf". This idea that we _shouldn 't_ use small focused tools in a chain, but rather we should find as many arcane arguments and switches as we can to shorten the chain, is contraindicated by the Unix philosophy. I don't know why this nitpick comes up so often. There are many "human factor" reasons why a longer chain with simpler commands is desirable. ~~~ brbsix Is it really so arcane to `grep PATTERN FILE` or `grep PATTERN` <kbd>Alt .</kbd> (if the previous command was `cat FILE`)? Is it also arcane to `pgrep PATTERN` instead of `ps aux \| grep PATTERN`? Is it also arcane to `egrep 'PATTERN\|PATTERN'` instead of `grep PATTERN \| grep PATTERN`? Personally I prefer the "correctness" of this sort of approach, but the tools are just a means to an end and understandably people have varying preferences. Ironically "legitimate" was probably not an accurate choice of words. ~~~ zwp > `egrep 'PATTERN\|PATTERN'` instead of `grep PATTERN \| grep PATTERN` Oops? Ironically (assuming two distinct values of PATTERN) I think you just answered your own question. (They are different: first is disjunction of patterns, second is conjunction). Your point has merit for scripts (performance) but for data exploration at the prompt it's almost always irrelevant: the simplicity of pipe composition outweighs anything else. ~~~ brbsix Whoops you've got me there. Yes for that example, the grep alternative is not very elegant. Anyways I wasn't making an argument against composition, just particular types of composition (such as useless use of cat, parsing ls, grepping ps) for which there are side-effects or there is a simpler or more appropriate alternative. ------ tjholowaychuk I'm sure I've done this in the past haha, the npm workflow isn't great at times in this regard. If you have something (to test etc) that is not checked into Git, but still in the directory, it can still make its way into a publish. That's definitely what I'd advise people to be most careful of, use npm-link and use credentials elsewhere etc. Koa I'm curious of, I've seen almost every pull-request go in there, anyway nice post. ~~~ doublerebel Npm package "irish-pub" has definitely saved my ass a few times. (It shows a dry run of "npm publish".) ------ mofle There's an easy way to prevent credential leakage when publishing to npm => Explicitly list the files to include in the package through the `files` property in package.json. Docs: [https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package.json#files](https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package.json#files) Example: [https://github.com/sindresorhus/got/blob/2f5d5ba94d625802880...](https://github.com/sindresorhus/got/blob/2f5d5ba94d625802880b3c793c3c1aa7798d0533/package.json#L29-L31) ~~~ Killswitch I have taken to this route. It also clears out the cruft to bring dependency directory size down. Your module doesn't need .editorconfig or README.md and other stuff to run, remove it from the published stuff. ------ gedrap One of the things that worries me about nodejs is the huge chain of dependencies. I'm not an expert on these things so it would be amazing if someone could correct me if I'm wrong. It's enough for one of the packages down the line to break compatibility and don't change the version correctly (i.e. bump up major version number bit), or have a slightly too loose version requirements and everything breaks down the line. Ok, if something gets broken it's relatively easy to notice given the test coverage is good enough. However, it's much much harder when it comes to security breaches (like the one described in the linked article), you might not notice it for a long long time. Anecdotal data but I tried to teach the interns to use yeoman when they were working on a small angularjs project and it just didn't work, because some dependency somewhere was broken. Happened to me as well and the solution was to try to update it a few days later (should have opened an issue, I know). I'm using npm shrinkwrap to avoid surprises but still.. It just doesn't feel right. I shouldn't be risking to break the project just by updating the dependencies, unless I've decided to update one of the dependencies to a new major version. ~~~ eloisant Yes, you should use npm shrinkwrap. It baffles me that automatically update your dependencies is considering the right thing to do. Practically that means that you can push a semicolon fix, your CI server will fetch a different (newer) version of a dependency and break something completely unrelated. ~~~ Killswitch > It baffles me that automatically update your dependencies is considering the > right thing to do. The idea is to rely on semver. If you do ~1.3.4 in your dependency then if that dependency follows semver properly, you'll get 1.3.5 if it's out, and your stuff will still work, but you're getting bug fixes and patches without having to keep an eye on the sometimes hundreds of dependencies. Luckily tools like greenkeeper.io are around now. The drawback is many people don't follow semver, so I opt to appending --save- exact to all npm installs (actually have npm config set save-exact true) ~~~ gedrap Exactly. In ideal world, semver would solve this issue really easily (probably not completely but to a large extent). However, there are so many dependencies in a typical nodejs project that I have hard time trusting that devs will follow semvar :) ------ fapjacks I actually found out about this because the guy that created this project contacted me with respect to a package I had uploaded that contained my .npmrc. I was totally blown away, as I'd just followed instructions for creating an npm package I found online. When he contacted me -- prior to publishing this work, which leaves me in awe of his coolness -- panic ran through my veins, because I'm usually paranoid about this kind of thing. Through talking with him, I discovered that I'd published my .npmrc inadvertently, and I got pretty mad at npm that it was even possible. When the npm people contacted me (I'm assuming they had acted on ChALkeR's contacting them), they were very receptive to the obvious feedback of checking for this kind of thing when publishing. ~~~ qubyte It really depends what's in the .npmrc. For example, you might have one containing only a setting to use absolute versions when installing packages and saving them. It's also worth noting that it's a good idea (although I always forget) to use the files field of package.json to act as a whitelist. Edit: the author notes that these are excluded by npm anyway these days. The documentation does not reflect this. ~~~ ChALkeR [https://github.com/npm/npm/releases/tag/v2.14.1](https://github.com/npm/npm/releases/tag/v2.14.1) > npm will no longer include .npmrc when packing tarballs. ~~~ qubyte Thanks! I just took a quick look at [https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package.json](https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package.json) If I remember in the morning, I'll send them a PR to update their docs. ~~~ ChALkeR It's listed here: [https://docs.npmjs.com/misc/developers#keeping-files-out- of-...](https://docs.npmjs.com/misc/developers#keeping-files-out-of-your- package) ------ OSButler "Please, don't re-use the same password to «fool» the robot while restoring your password — this will result in your account being vulnerable. Yes, several people have done that." Wow, this is the scariest part. You already have your details leaked, get notified about it and still decide that resetting the token/login to the original value would be the best thing to do. ~~~ yAnonymous Exposing these developers would be reasonable, so people can avoid their software. ------ 0x0 Github and bitbucket etc really should offer an opt-out scan-on-push service that looks for the most common mistakes and reject the push with an URL explaining what's going on in the server echo. ~~~ voltagex_ I wonder what kind of load that'd place on Github's Git daemons, though? Might be difficult to do for free. ~~~ ddbennett No too much load, really. We (Bitbucket) already have pre-receive hooks for a handful of other things. The trick would be defining the rules properly to have a reasonably low false negative rate while avoiding work inhibiting false positives (or allow for a mechanism to override it with, say, a force push). Of course, 93% of our repositories are private so this feature may not be exceedingly useful to our customers vs other things we could be spending our time on. Edit: I shouldn't have said not useful, rather, comparatively there may be more value in us pursuing other work first. E.g., provide a mechanism for 3rd party pre-receive hooks via our add-on system. ~~~ voltagex_ Interesting to see that percentage of repos is private. Is BitBucket separate from Atlassian? Are you hiring? ;) ~~~ ddbennett We're very focused on professional teams working on private projects -- but you can't see that because they're all private. Bitbucket is sort of like an iceberg: 1. you can only see a small percentage of the of the total mass; 2. it is blue. Yes, we're part of Atlassian and we're hiring in San Francisco. ~~~ voltagex_ Can't afford to move to SFO unfortunately - any plans to expand remote work? ------ TazeTSchnitzel What worries me is that this is possible at all. npm stores npmjs.org credentials in a repository-local dotfile, and this is how packages are submitted?! PHP's package repository, Packagist, doesn't have this problem because it's in the browser. You never enter or store any credentials on the command-line, you click a button on the Packagist site and it tracks your already-published GitHub repository. ~~~ driverdan Like most dotfiles it starts in the current directory and works its way up. Unless npm as changed, the default location for .npmrc is your home directory. You have to actively store the file in the repo. ~~~ deadowl This is what I'm not understanding about this. How in the world do you make the mistake of storing credential files in a repo? And this seems to be beyond people not making template files for configs. Then again, I don't know anything about NodeJS packaging. ------ bahmutov While the author is down on automatic file name scans, I see nothing wrong in using tools to catch easy mistakes. How many people do regular code / package reviews? Did not think so. I recommend: \- [https://github.com/jandre/safe- commit-hook](https://github.com/jandre/safe-commit-hook) \- my fork of the above for NPM js workflow [https://github.com/bahmutov/ban-sensitive- files](https://github.com/bahmutov/ban-sensitive-files) \- NPM checklist that includes sensitive file reviews [https://github.com/bahmutov/npm-module- checklist](https://github.com/bahmutov/npm-module-checklist) Finally, if GitHub can automate some of the simple checks, so can we, for different tools and environments of course. ------ mrmondo A reminder that while you shouldn't rely on them, tools like [https://github.com/jandre/safe-commit-hook](https://github.com/jandre/safe- commit-hook) can help protect you from mistakenly committing secrets to git repositories. ~~~ ChALkeR Sigh… Yet another mention of an automatic tool. I guess that I will update the Q/A section to reflect my opinion on such automatic tools. Edit: done. ~~~ kuschku To everyone downvoting: ChALkeR is the author of the linked document. ------ zachlatta Has anyone looked into leaked credentials in images on the Docker Hub? I can't count how many times I've forgotten to add .env to my .dockerignore file before building. ------ givehimagun Title is a bit misleading. Actual content title is 'Do not underestimate credentials leaks.' The article states that many popular Node.js packages have had leaks (in the past). Also, this article was not the source of many of these leaks (example: bower's github oauth token was expired by github itself when it was posted to the website). ~~~ ChALkeR While it was not me who posted this to the Hacker News (so don't blame me for the title here), I can assure you that all mentioned credentials were active at the time when I found them. ~~~ voltagex_ Hey, are you accepting pull requests for spelling/grammar? ~~~ ChALkeR For spelling/grammar — yes. ------ inikulin [Shameless plug] Just released the tool that helps avoid logs leak on npm publish: [https://github.com/inikulin/publish- please](https://github.com/inikulin/publish-please) ------ dblooman Are there any tools that can scan all the users of an org for such credential leaks? ~~~ ChALkeR You should not trust automatic tools to do that. They will inevitably be subject to both false negatives and false positives, and will most probably just give you a false sense of security but will not protect you from the actual leak. You should better review stuff that you publish. That includes commit review, package contents review before publishing them, config files review, logs review before sharing them. If you have an org — it would better to educate your devs more and make each commit go through an independent review. Also, don't forget about checking package contents. ~~~ BinaryIdiot While you should do everything you said I don't see the harm in an extra safety net where an automated tool may catch something you miss. Automated tools won't be as good as s human but humans are not perfect either and are bound to make a mistake; if there are tools that can assist I'm all for it. ~~~ joepie91_ The problem is the false sense of security. The idea that "something is better than nothing" does _not_ necessarily hold true in security, and additional layers can _weaken_ your security rather than strengthen it. ~~~ BinaryIdiot I don't think sanity checks are a form of false sense of security. Ideally the way you develop software those types of credentials would never even be in your project but maybe you're testing something and they're temporarily in there (because we've all done that); a warning could let you know you're about to screw up. Naturally anyone can become dependent on anything designed to assist them. I'm not really passionated about either direction really. ------ callumlocke It would be nice if there was an interactive publish option, something like `npm publish --confirm`, which would print a list of the files to be uploaded and wait for you to type "y" to confirm. ------ frik Have other languages with package managers a similar problem? (Ruby, Lua, Go, Python, PHP, etc) ~~~ raesene4 Ruby will but it's an API key not creds directly. Python probably will, IIRC it's not auto-created but is general pratice to put creds in a dot file for PyPI. Go doesn't really have a widely used package manager in that sense, people use github repos (and go get) from what I've seen. Not too sure about PHP and Lua... ------ z3t4 I wonder how many does code review on node packages, have an apparmor profile on node etc?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How Gender and Race Affect Police Interactions - connorpjennings http://www.hallwaymathlete.com/2016/06/how-gender-and-race-affect-police.html ====== tzs The order of the categories in the stacked bar graphs not being the same as the order in the legend for said graphs is irksome.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Seeking HN Input: Fastlayer - an HTTP accelerator for the cloud - jjoe http://fastlayer.com ====== jjoe In brief: <http://www.fastlayer.com> * Appliance-like software that can run on as small as a VM * Dynamic & static object caching with Varnish Cache * API for demand provisioning * Goes well with cloud deployments (faster switching / less latency) * Memory-based pricing structure * Early beta * Builds on successful release of the Varnish plugin for cPanel and DirectAdmin (<http://www.unixy.net/varnish>)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Secret Dots from Printer Outed NSA Leaker - banku_brougham http://blog.erratasec.com/2017/06/how-intercept-outed-reality-winner.html?m=1 ====== NamTaf The arrest warrant says nothing about printer dots, actually. It says that once they saw it was printed (per the Intercept showing them a copy to confirm its legitimacy) they simply looked at who'd printed the original document. Upon looking into the desk computers of those 6 people, she was the only person who'd had email contact with the Intercept. They didn't even need the yellow dots. She literally emailed the Intercept from her work email and was one of a trivial number of people who'd printed it in the first place. ~~~ retox Does this strike anyone else as suspicious? To my mind she's either incompetent or she intended to become a martyr. ~~~ kibwen Third possibility: that she suspected she'd be caught regardless, and decided that releasing this specific information publicly was more important than her personal freedom. Fourth possibility: that the NSA did use the forensic marks in question to identify her, and fabricated a parallel construction in order to avoid acknowledging the existence of said marks. (But still, most likely this is Hanlon's Razor. What's there to be suspicious about?) ~~~ pilsetnieks > order to avoid acknowledging the existence of said marks Not likely. It's been common knowledge for a long time. ~~~ Larrikin The reporting on this everywhere besides tech sites has completely left this part out. Its not common knowledge to a lot of people. ~~~ pilsetnieks Do you mean tracking dots in general? They've been mentioned in mainstream media, it's just that nobody cares. [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/technology/personaltech/24...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/technology/personaltech/24askk-001.html) [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2005/10...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2005/10/18/AR2005101801663.html) ~~~ pessimizer That they were in two articles 10 years ago is not evidence either that it's common knowledge or that no one cares. They have their own wikipedia article. ------ jacquesm This is a really nice bit from TFA: "FBI special agent Justin Garrick told a federal court that Winner – a cross- fit fan who graduated high school in 2011 and was in the US Air Force apparently as a linguist – confessed to reading and printing out the document, despite having no permission to do so. " So, she joined the company 3 months prior, and it was 'permission' rather than enforced access rights that they relied on for new trainees not to color outside of the lines. It's not about 'permission', it is all about 'capabilities'. ~~~ netsharc It's the same with the NSA's excuse.. "Yes we gather Americans' communications, but there are rules against agents listening to that!". Or Facebook apps, "Yes apps can see your name, dob, email and your friends list, but they are not allowed to abuse this information"... Thanks, I feel secure now. ~~~ wbl People could break your door and rob but don't. Punishment and deterrence work in real life. ~~~ jacquesm Well, you did start with the assumption the door would be locked. If you left it open that would be the rough equivalent of what happened here. ~~~ AnimalMuppet I once went around and taped a note to about 50 doors in my neighborhood. As I recall, two of them opened at my touch - they weren't securely latched. At that point, it didn't matter if they were locked. ------ FatalLogic According to the FBI arrest affidavit, only six people printed that document, and she emailed The Intercept from her own work computer. So she would have been identified even if she or The Intercept had the sense to remove or alter the DocuColor dots. "The U.S. Government Agency conducted an internal audit to determine who accessed the intelligence reporting since its publication. The U.S. Government Agency determined that six individuals printed this reporting. WINNER was one of these six individuals. A further audit of the six individuals' desk computers revealed that WINNER had e-mail contact with the News Outlet. The audit did not reveal that any of the other individuals had e-mail contact with the News Outlet" ~~~ kibwen Not that that makes it any less concerning that The Intercept forgot to scrub the dots, unless the email in question contained instructions along the lines of "lol dont worry bout opsec i dont care if i get caught kthx <3 <3". ~~~ ckastner From The Intercept's "how to pass on tips" page [1]: > _We’ve taken steps to make sure that people can leak to us as safely as > possible. Our newsroom is staffed by reporters who have extensive experience > working with whistleblowers, as well as some of the world’s foremost > internet security specialists. Our pioneering use of the SecureDrop platform > enables you to communicate with our reporters and send documents to us > anonymously._ I think it's _shocking_ that nobody at The Intercept was aware of the yellow dots, or other metadata (eg printer-specific output artifacts) that might facilitate the revelation of the anonymous source. This is so careless of them that I'm led to believe that they don't have a formal scrubbing step at all. Of course, I might be biased a bit here because I dislike Greenwald so much for how he handled the Snowden leaks. The risks Snowden took and the sacrifices he made are incomparable, but "it took Greenwald several more months and help from experts before he could learn relatively basic tools like PGP encryption." [1] [https://theintercept.com/leak/](https://theintercept.com/leak/) [2] [https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/edward-snowden-gpg-for- journ...](https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/edward-snowden-gpg-for-journalists- video-nsa-glenn-greenwald/) Edit: I think it's shocking because assisting whistleblowers and protecting their anonymity seems central to The Intercept (which I believe is commendable), so they, of all people, should know better -- if not _best_. ~~~ dredmorbius Despite my criticisms of other comments of yours, this is an extremely cogent point. _The Intercept_ should, nay, _must_ have policies, procedures, and checks in place to prevent foul-ups of this nature. And must also produce a post-mortem on this incident. Screw-ups happen. _Repeated_ screw-ups show a systemic failure. ------ gszathmari I have submitted a PR to 'pdf-redact-tools' tonight. The new feature removes the yellow printer dots by converting the document to black and white: [https://github.com/firstlookmedia/pdf-redact- tools/pull/23](https://github.com/firstlookmedia/pdf-redact-tools/pull/23) ~~~ qb45 Are you very damn sure that it works and doesn't just convert them into #fefefe dots? ~~~ arfar But #fefefe isn't black or white? I presume the commenter specifically didn't say greyscale. EDIT- checked the source: It looks like imagemagick's 'threshold' [0] command is being used, so everything is max/min/black/white: [https://github.com/firstlookmedia/pdf-redact- tools/pull/23/c...](https://github.com/firstlookmedia/pdf-redact- tools/pull/23/commits/e5e110f4f52bae58a5538c8b99f272050e99f506#diff-3bdc5abf0a60ad14fab98eb6df02c7a6R88) [0] [https://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line- options.php#...](https://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line- options.php#threshold) ------ e2e8 The arstechnica article[1] reports, based on the FBI document, that the NSA determined who leaked the info by finding creases in the documents provided to them for authentication by the Intercept demonstrating that they were leaked by being printed out. [1] [https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/06/leaked-nsa- report-s...](https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/06/leaked-nsa-report-says- russians-tried-to-hack-state-election-officials/) ~~~ RachelF The Register (as usual) has great coverage of this: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/06/contractor_leaked_r...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/06/contractor_leaked_russians_hacking_election_systems/) It turns out REALITY WINNER isn't an NSA exploit – it's her real name ~~~ qubex In reality winner lost against the NSA. ~~~ jacquesm But first the NSA lost against her. ------ jagermo I don't get it. These kind of dots are not news, they have been around for ages, the EFF cracked the code in 2005 ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_steganography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_steganography)) Why did no one at the intercept check for them? Its trivial and they have to know about this kind of stuff? ~~~ LeifCarrotson I don't want to sound like a tinfoil hat wearer, but there's a lot of trivial data that a leaker could/should guard against. Multi-layer PDFs and their metadata. Microsoft Office metadata. Photograph EXIF data. Tracking cookies. File access logging. Print job logging. Printer microdot steganography. Traffic and license plate cameras. Cell tower connections logs. Email headers. Windows event logs. Many of these can be circumvented through the use of tech like VPNs, Tor, or GPG, and through careful behavior such as scrubbing metadata and the use of burner phones/laptops, cash, and public internet connections. And we're not even getting to the level of wireless carrier, home ISP, or NSA web activity tracking, NSA Tor exploitation, or zero-day exploits. Furthermore, this assumes that the documents themselves are not themselves subject to punctuation, word replacement, typesetting, or other content steganography. Should The Intercept be responsible for ensuring that its sources adhere to safe leaking behaviors? They probably should, at some level. But what if - as I'm reading here - The Intercept got an email from [email protected], subject "NSA Report on Russia Spearphishing.pdf", body "Hey, I was browsing some stuff out of curiosity in our SCIF and thought this study might be useful to you. I printed it off and smuggled it out in my purse, then scanned it and attached it to this email. Please publish it so the American people can know what's really going on. Hope this helps! -- Reality". There's not really any point to worrying about printer steganography, protecting your IP address, or GPG at that point. ~~~ flavio81 Your assessment is totally correct. Steganography can be put everywhere. Perhaps the Free Software Foundation can take advantage of these cases for pushing for more use of open source, non-fingerprinted software. OR for enforcing fingerprinting! (It can help with fighting against corrupt governments) ------ russdill Or more accurately, the Intercept either though ineptitude or malice burned their source. ~~~ 1024core I would call it criminal ineptitude. They (the Intercept) are playing in a dangerous game, and they should be extra careful about such things. After all the drama about smashed hard drives, Greenwald's BF being detained in London, etc. etc. you'd think they'd know better. I'm not in the security business, and even I knew about the dots (and circles in the $20 bills). It's been on HN several times: [http://goo.gl/h1kqbu](http://goo.gl/h1kqbu) So, shame on you, Intercept. Your callous disregard for your sources is now going to send one to prison for a looong time. ------ Simulacra "Yes, this code the government forces into our printers is a violation of our 3rd Amendment rights" FYI: The 3rd Amendment reads as follows: "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law." I don't see the connection. Why does this violate our 3rd amendment rights? ~~~ orangecat One could argue that the "spirit" of the 3rd Amendment is that the government cannot compel you to use your own resources for their benefit on an ongoing basis. It's a stretch, but possibly no more so than other interpretations of the Constitution that courts have made. ~~~ Simulacra Good point, but in this case I don't know if it's quite reaching the level of compelling. Maybe co-opting? I imagine the government uses us in many, many ways for their own gain that we may not know of. Perhaps a better connection might be the 1st Amendments implied right to freedom of association. ------ rl3 > _To fix this yellow-dot problem, use a black-and-white printer, black-and- > white scanner, or convert to black-and-white with an image editor._ I'm not convinced that would be sufficient, especially the latter option. Also this is the NSA. If they're smart, they have backup fingerprinting that isn't publicly known. ~~~ cnvogel Yes, b/w converting is not sufficient. Once printed, the yellow dots are hard to remove. [http://imgur.com/a/kLovh](http://imgur.com/a/kLovh) And even when you mask them out so that they are no longer visible in the "all white" (paper) background, e.g. by messing with the white/black point of the image there's still the possibility that they could be recovered with correlation methods in grey areas where they aren't visible to the naked eye or just by increasing the contrast. ~~~ thaumasiotes Why would there be grey in a thresholded image? The entire point of the transform is that it maps everything above a certain threshold to pure white and everything else to pure black. They didn't say "convert to greyscale". ~~~ cnvogel > They didn't say "convert to greyscale". Very good point. But even then, assume that one page of a leaked document contains a large picture with areas around the thrshold value: With the agency being able to recreate a perfect replica of the initially scanned paper version, but without yellow dots, it might be possible to extract the (very few) bits necessary to boil it down to a single printer serial number by statistical methods. ~~~ davidsong Hmm, okay, so we reduce to black and white, add some warp and noise and then reduce the size so that the text is only just readable. ...and they focus on adding fonts of multiple sizes so it can't be shrunk without losing information. ~~~ thaumasiotes Reduce to black and white, and proofread for dots. If they're still there, they will be easy to see, since you only have two colors. You can white out an image that came out looking like a test pattern. ------ yborg So this is the "extraordinary law enforcement effort" Rosenstein referred to. Check printer logs, send FBI to leaker's house. This will certainly make anybody thinking of leaking to the Intercept think twice. ~~~ fapjacks I'm not sure how to say this, but I've been in a position to see what the US government considers some of its most valuable technical resources. More than a decade ago, a very specific breach of security happened in a specific place, operated by "a company". That organization sent in a team of people from D.C. for five days that specifically were "extraordinarily good" at their jobs in order to analyze the machines where this breach happened. All three of these folks were stumped _for three days_ by deleted browser cookies on a Windows machine, no kidding. I was originally one of a handful of suspects, but hearing about their ineptitude was _so fucking infuriating_ that I wouldn't keep quiet. Eventually, one of the people in power in that place (who was on my side) convinced the "crack forensics team" to hear me out. So I met with them and discussed the plan, and then I walked them through installing a stupid FOSS utility for recovering deleted browser cache and cookies, and they were able to extract a URL, account name, and timestamp from the cookies on the machine which then let them pull up the right footage from the security camera, and catch the criminal responsible. The person in charge of the whole thing offered me a job (which I did not take). Ever since that day, whenever I hear something like "extraordinary law enforcement effort" I think about those _stupid_ contractors and how I could have somehow suffered legal problems because of them. I absolutely _do not_ trust the US government's claims about its own technical capabilities. I mean obviously not everyone working for the government is an ID-10-T, but here is supposedly one of the best technical teams this organization has to offer, and they can't even get this really basic shit right. And not just "can't get it right" but consider the ramifications of their being wrong! Amazing, and eye-opening, and frightening. ~~~ cafard Quite. The US government employs contractors more or less on the Charlie Sheen principle: it pays them to go away. There are some really sharp people employed by contractors, and some others that are just billed as if they were. ------ Jonnax With all the talk of scanning in black and white, photocopying, taking a photo with a camera or retyping as means to get around the printer dots. Why not use OCR? ~~~ DanBC NSA uses punctuation and typos to steganographically insert source information. ~~~ dredmorbius Do you happen to have a source on that? ------ bsenftner What did she reveal? That's what's important. Everything is focusing on how she was caught. Nice distraction. ~~~ dredmorbius Specifics of Russian activities, methods, and US intelligence awareness of same, all of which are relevant. The fact of the arrest strongly suggests the documents themselves are accurate. If they don't reflect actual Russian _activity_ , they appear to reflect US _intelligence_ of such activity. If accurate, the documents corroborate a general pattern of activity of election manipulation carried on from at _least_ June of 2016 through November, which would be highly significant. There is circumstantial evidence of vote tampering in at least North Carolina, based on unexpected vote-tally convergence differences based on precinct size (I'm not entirely sold on the story, though it seems to have some legs): [http://www.votesleuth.org/north- carolina-2016-overview/](http://www.votesleuth.org/north- carolina-2016-overview/) At a larger scale, this highlights weakensses in multiple elements of liberal democratic institutions, mechanisms, communications, and media, as well as, quite possibly, political bodies and individuals. Arguments which have been in large part theoretical of risks of voting machines, email, and end-to-end encryption are now looking to be substantial, actual, and potentially existential threats. That's some prime meat in my register. ------ rwmj Can someone explain the reference to the Third Amendment at the end of the article? Looking on Wikipedia, the 3rd Amendment is something to do with quartering soldiers in private homes. ~~~ _jal The theory is that by pressuring printer makers in to making all printed documents trackable, the printer is an agent of the state quartered in your home to spy on you. A theory that isn't going to satisfy many people. It is interesting, though, to ponder what would have happened at various points in history, had $state_actor at the time had access to this tech. ------ reacweb For privacy purpose, we should have free (open source) printers. ~~~ lb1lf #1 feature should be allowing the insertion of microdot patterns of your choice. Whenever I hear of dubious 'features' like this, I dream of seeing them backfire on one of their supporters. Say, next time there's a leak, the microdots show the source to be a printer in the White House. If nothing else, it would make it trivial for the defense of a real leaker to show that forging the pattern is a very real possibility. ~~~ SmellyGeekBoy Are these not forge-able now with modified firmware? Seems like this should be a very real possibility. ------ mrb I remember a HN thread years ago on these yellow dots watermarks, where an employee at a printer manufacturer said there was no indication this was ever used by law enforcement to track who printed what because, for one, the team who implemented the watermarking never documented or taught anyone how to decode these watermarks. Well, here we are today with this NSA story. I think it's possible that US-based printer manufacturers implemented watermarking _on special request_ from the NSA. That would also explain why the printer manufacturer employees never needed to teach anyone how to decode them. It wasn't their specs in the first place. ------ rdtsc As someone else pointed out already there is no evidence the dots were used. Only 6 people viewed the document and she was the one who printed it. Then they found logs of her emailing it from her work computer. ------ bgribble So there are definitely printer dots in the posted images, but how do we know they are from a printer at NSA? They could be from a printer at The Intercept, a public copy and print shop, or anywhere else, intentionally left in as a red herring. Of course, as others have posted, she doesn't appear to have tried hard to cover her tracks at NSA so that doesn't seem too likely. But stating that she accidentally left in the printer dots is assuming several facts not in evidence. ~~~ NoGravitas The printer dots include the serial number of the printer. So _we_ don't know if they are definitely from a printer at the NSA, surely the NSA does. ------ danso tl;dr: the dots may have exposed metadata of the printing, but from what we know officially, NSA's internal access control system was all that was needed to argue probable cause against Reality Winner. So the dots don't look good in terms of The Intercept's opsec, but from what we know from the Justice Department's affidavit [0] and the search warrant [1], those dots were likely inconsequential as evidence compared to the audit trail that Winner left when she accessed and printed the file. It's not unreasonable to believe that the NSA and its contractors can track access activity by user, post-Snowden; I mean, it's a feature built into states' DMV systems, which is how cops get busted in the occasional scandal of unauthorized lookup of citizen info [2]. The warrant and affidavit allude to such a system when describing the audit that was done as soon as the NSA was made aware (because the Intercept reached out to them) that the document was out in the wild. At that point, it doesn't seem hard to query their own logs to find all users who accessed and/or printed out the document. Unfortunately for Winner, it seems that very few (1 in 6) NSA employees printed out the document, and I'm sure it didn't help that her background (former Air Force, fluent in several Middle Eastern languages) would indicate that her job did not require her to have a physical copy of this particular document. The affidavit and warrant mention "physical" metadata that they say supports their case, but it's all circumstantial 1\. The documents show evidence of creases/folding, which indicates that someone had to secret it out physically (i.e. they printed it first) from the NSA. But that folding/creasing could come from the reporters printing out their own copies of the document. 2\. The affidavit says that of the 6 employees to have had printed out the document, Winner was the only one to have email contact with The intercept. But the warrant specifies that this email contact occurred using her private GMail address in _March_ , and it was limited to 2 emails: her subscribing the The Intercept podcast, and a confirmation email. i.e. she didn't use email (that we know of) to talk to the Intercept. There's no mention of the yellow dots, which, sure, we could argue that the NSA is just keeping that bit of tradecraft secret. But keep in mind that the NSA started their investigation last week, with the FBI interviewing Winner just a few days ago (on a Saturday no less). The other key point is that, according to the warrant, the Intercept journalist sent along the leaked documents to a NSA source for confirmation _using a smartphone_ , i.e. they texted smartphone photos of the documents. It seems possible that that kind of ad hoc scanning would make the yellow dots illegible, depending on how much care was taken to photograph the documents. At any rate, it's kind of irrelevant. Assuming Winner used her own NSA credentials to peruse the system, the access control logs were all that were needed to out her as fast as the NSA and FBI were able to. However, it's worth noting that if the NSA had been clueless until the Intercept's published report, the actual published document apparently did reveal the yellow dots. This means that if even if Winner were one of many NSA employees to print out the documents, the yellow-dot timestamp would greatly help in narrowing the list of suspects. So, it's wrong to say the Intercept outed her, because we don't know what would've happened in an alternative reality in which the NSA didn't start its investigation until after seeing the published report. It is OK, probably, to speculate that the Intercept was sloppy in handling the documents...but that's not what led to Winner being outed so quickly. [0] [https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-government- contractor...](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-government-contractor- georgia-charged-removing-and-mailing-classified-materials-news) [1] [http://blog.erratasec.com/2017/06/how-intercept-outed- realit...](http://blog.erratasec.com/2017/06/how-intercept-outed-reality- winner.html#.WTYT4hPyvUI) [2] [https://apnews.com/699236946e3140659fff8a2362e16f43/ap- acros...](https://apnews.com/699236946e3140659fff8a2362e16f43/ap-across-us- police-officers-abuse-confidential-databases) ~~~ shabbyfinal > There's no mention of the yellow dots, which, sure, we could argue that the > NSA is just keeping that bit of tradecraft secret Printers have been using microdots since the 90's; their use isn't secret. And the NSA would use other forms of forensic fingerprinting. For example, there's some kerning variation in that document, which could easily be another form of steganography. There are numerous other textual/grammar variations they could use to watermark a document. ~~~ zumu > the NSA would use other forms of forensic fingerprinting This is what I'm betting on. The 'creases' story may have some truth to it, but I suspect its primary goal is to take over the narrative and distract from the actual methods of identify the leak. ------ coldtea Arresting the leaker is part of making this seem legit leaking? ------ basicplus2 Convert the white background to yellow ~~~ rasz dont print, make a picture of the screen with old camera bought in a car sale town away. ~~~ londons_explore If I were the NSA, I'd have a modified graphics driver which overlays pseudorandom very faint grey dots over the screen at all times. A 254 254 254 pixel hidden amongst all while pixels isn't visible, yet thousands of them across a page will encode significant amounts of information, even in the face of quite severe image compression and low quality. The dots could be based on the computer, currently logged in user, and timestamp. Then later, if any screenshot or screen photo is leaked, you can decode the dots to identify the source. ~~~ cthalupa You think that they would even be picked up when you take a picture with a camera? Between the external camera, and then compression, I don't think that the 254 254 254 pixels are going to make it into the final image. They might not even make it into the initial picture - screen backlighting consistency, etc, is going to wreak havoc on that from the start, before we even get into sensor noise, etc on the camera, any smudges on the lens, all before it even gets saved a jpg ~~~ londons_explore There's an amazing way of encoding data called "gold codes". By having enough pixels like this, you can correlate the image with the expected pattern, and successfully extract data even though no individual pixel is visible. It's used in GPS transmissions to allow decoding signals considerably weaker than the background noise. Because the receiver is aware what the signal should look like, it can extract it despite all the noise by averaging across all the samples. It _does_ require perfect alignment though, which might be tricky considering camera lens warping, etc. ------ qq66 Something smells fishy here. How did the Intercept maintain enough opsec to stay in contact with Snowden (who would have dropped them like a hot potato if they didn't seem competent) and then do this, with the same general staff in place? ~~~ stevenwoo From what I learned in Citizenfour, Snowden had to walk his contacts Laura Poitras(Citizenfour maker)/The Intercept through all the steps needed before he would communicate with them, and this latest person mistakenly trusted The Intercept with the original paper document (instead of passing it through a b/w filter, second step as recommended by the link). ~~~ netsharc I believe you're wrong... Before they even meet, Snowden asked Greenwald to set-up PGP/GPG so they can securely talk/he can tell them what he has, Greenwald didn't manage to do that/ignored this "anonymous person", Snowden found that Laura had a GPG key, and knew Greenwald, so he asked her to help him set that up. This all happened pre-Intercept, Greenwald was working for The Guardian at that time. Despite his technical ineptitude, Greenwald was the only journalist Snowden trusted with the info, he didn't go to NYTimes after the NYT delayed a story about surveillance during the Bush admin until after Bush's reelection, he was afraid the NYT would just go straight to the government before publication, asking "So is this story legit?"...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
FotoBlog is a simple app to share your blogpost in a form of a photo - marjann http://fotoblog.me/ ====== shiggerino What is there to discuss? ~~~ marjann Just wanted to share a hobby project.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Russia’s Plan to Crack Tor Crumbles - T-A http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-22/russia-s-plan-to-crack-tor-crumbles ====== secfirstmd Massive Tor fan here but trying to think about this subject from a bad guy point of view... Sometimes I think Russia is probably less likely to have the capability to have long term success at a technical method of attacking/blocking a tool such as Tor, then it would have at an attack on the people who maintain it. Ultimately most of it is still maintained by a relatively small group of [awesome!] people. From my experience of training NGOs/journalists etc there is a global increase in such clever methods of disruption being used by bad adversaries. A sophisticated "gloves off" human intelligence operation to disrupt, deny and delegitimise the small group responsible for it would probably be a more cost effective and successful operation - and would probably play into Russia's strengths. I realise that some in UK and elsewhere have done this to some extent but I think Russia would probably capable of taking these efforts much, much further. ~~~ themattbook Noob here. Upon reading the original bounty, which stated the purpose was "to study the possibility of obtaining technical information on users and users' equipment of Tor anonymous network..." Could it be possible that Russia's intentions with Tor are purely ethical? Perhaps verifying it's integrity or seeing with their own eyes the benefits before investing? ~~~ secfirstmd Really really doubt it. I would lean much more towards the Russian government wanting to be able to demask Tor users. ~~~ themattbook You're probably right. After thinking about it, why would Russia even bother unless it was to obtain something they didn't already have. So the next question is, why abandon the efforts? ~~~ schoen One thing to keep in mind when reading about government efforts to attack security software is that one part of the government may not have access to, or even know about, the capabilities of another part of the government. Or even capabilities of people within the same agency! ~~~ secfirstmd One hand not talking to the other = Every government ever... :) ~~~ themattbook Duly noted! It all makes sense now. :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Which really famous people do we have on here? - chunkyslink There must be some really famous founders / engineers / programmers hanging out on here.<p>If you know of anyone or are that person please let us all know. Don't be shy !<p>Let us know what you've done / do and why you are well known :)<p>I would really like to learn from you and it would be great to follow your usernames.<p>Thanks ====== lambdom I don't think that is really important. I'm sure you can learn a lot by reading comments and always trying to analyze it, might it be a famous or not author. ~~~ chunkyslink Obviously it was just me who thought this would be a good idea. :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The 1 Dead Giveaway That an Employee Is About to Quit, According to Science - jrs235 http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/the-1-dead-giveaway-that-an-employee-is-about-to-quit-according-to-science.html ====== greenyoda Most of these symptoms are also consistent with an employee who has problems in their life outside of work: clinical depression, ongoing divorce proceedings, caring for a chronically ill parent or child, etc. If you come to work every day physically and/or emotionally drained, you're not going to care very much about the "mission of the organization". ------ googletazer "4\. They have been less interested in pleasing their manager than usual." Thats not why people come to work. Terrible article ~~~ nmgsd From the article:"But take a closer look at that list and you can quickly see that all of these various behaviors could be described by one simple, everyday phrase: You're in trouble if your employee starts phoning it in." This may be pretty obvious but it's not quite the terrible analysis of relying on just #4.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
NVidia's FastPhotoStyle: Fast, Photorealistic Style Transfer - indescions_2018 https://github.com/NVIDIA/FastPhotoStyle ====== Oras I'm literally playing with now and first impression is its not processing photos as shown in README file. I might be doing something wrong but I am just following installation steps with docker. Its running fine but results are not as expected.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why Science Needs Metaphysics - dnetesn http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/why-science-needs-metaphysics ====== draaglom It's a shame that philosophy has gained such a poor reputation in certain circles. I mean, it's understandable: the extent of most people's interaction with philosophy is with cartesian-style "but can we even know we exist??" navel- gazing -- or worse, with the intentionally obscure bits of continental philosophy. Because of this reputation, many (the majority of?) scientifically-minded people view it as a binary choice: you're either a good empiricist or you're one of those damn poststructuralist lit-crit people from the humanities department. IMHO: people who hold this mindset risk missing out on a powerful tool for their mental toolbox. ~~~ Retric Step 1: Name a single piece of information* gained from philosophy that is not currently debated. This is why people look down on philosophy. While people might pretend to disagree with this, I would take the complete lack of counter examples as agreement. PS: And because debate about word choice is so popular, _information: facts provided or learned about something or someone._ ~~~ foldr One neat result in metaphysics is the discovery that there can't be a property for every predicate, since this gives rise to analogs of Russel's paradox. (Does the property of being a non-self-exemplifying property exemplify itself?) ~~~ dkural This is a result in logic, a branch of mathematics. Logic, as practiced inside mathematics, is far more advanced than what's practiced inside philosophy departments. Something like more than 95% logic professors inside philosophy departments cannot competently explain anything in logic after Godel & Tarski. ~~~ drdeca It seems to me that there is no clear break between logic and philosophy? Nor between logic and mathematics. There is also the idea that part of why philosophy is dismissed is because people tend to take results and say that the result isn't really part of philosophy. Could this be because their idea of philosophy is that it has no results, so any results they are shown are concluded to be not part of philosophy? ------ jules The argument is the same as some religious use: science can't explain everything, therefore we need religion. The counterargument is the same too: while science can't explain everything, religion and metaphysics explain nothing. The other inconvenient fact is that lots of things that were previously thought to be not explainable by science have since been explained by science. Science will continue to nibble at religion and metaphysics and the religious and meta-physicists will continue to move the goalposts. ~~~ camelNotation That's one of the key points of the article. You can't reasonably extrapolate that the goalposts will always move. Just because science is able to discern more than we expected in the past and will continue to do so in the future, doesn't provide us with any concrete reason to trust that its eventual scope is equivalent to the full breadth and depth of potential understanding. In fact, quite the contrary since the great virtue of science is that its scope is limited to empirical, quantifiable truths. You can avoid that uncomfortable question by proclaiming empirical reality to be the only reality, but that's a metaphysical claim with no greater merit than its opposite. ~~~ nerd_stuff For anybody who studies science that isn't an uncomfortable question and it's over century old at this point. The last time the field of science had a high level of certainty that it would solve everything ever was probably the late 1800's. I dealt with this question in high school physics, it's really no big deal. When you get to a point where all you can do is make a "metaphysical claim with no greater merit than its opposite" you go find something better to do with your time. ------ shasta Summary: Philosopher believes philosophy is important. Next we ask this expert on extraterrestrial life whether extraterrestrial life exists. ~~~ jevgeni Summary: Non-fibbler disparages fibbling. ------ snake_plissken This article reminds me of my first two years in college when I was studying physics and taking some philosophy courses. The professors and the department chair eventually found out who the science kids were and then vehemently tried to recruit us into double majoring, or at least minoring in philosophy. And then a few of the kids from philosophy came over to the physics side to take some classes and some of them got minors/double majors. I never did get that minor, but those philosophy classes were some of the best I took over the 4 years. The sciences and the philosophies are incredibly intertwined and to argue otherwise or dismiss philosophy as useless is just being lazy. While in many ways they are different, fundamentally they are identical. We are seeking a better understanding and explanation of the world we live in. ------ brianclements Like many subjects in recent times (last 50 years or so), they've gotten really entrenched and dusty because they're afraid to go beyond their well defined borders (and then get more difficult to teach and make industry out of). IHO, from a bigger anthropological viewpoint, philosophy and religion are extremely rich areas of idea prototyping. They came first. They are based on intuition and are good-faith efforts to understand our world. Science came later and was much better at it. What needs to happen culturally is that people need to all be philosophers, they need to have a reverence toward the sacred and toward the cultures that hold it dear. However, they can't let religion, or philosophy, prematurely cut off in their minds what the realm of science can embody. There are long lists of famous scientists that did this, and even they were proven too quick to place arbitrary limits on science and prescribe "everything else" as religion, or metaphysics. To me, philosophy/religion/metaphysics are all "pre-physics" in a way. Intuitions without proofs...yet. The intuitions of many individuals, over many centuries, however seemingly incorrect scientifically, aren't completely worthless. It's like saying art is worthless. They may not explain mechanically how something behaves, but they offer insight and new ways of thinking, which are really at the core of how to truly understand something difficult. ------ matthferguson are the four fundamental forces not already "metaphysics" ? such is the position of both philosophy and common language , great tools for cooperation and ethics , but subjective semantic arguments are most certainly dead ends when observing and determining the most probable reality. ------ petewailes TL;DR: Man who's devoted his life to woolly thinking, thinks about things in a woolly fashion. Note 1 "If we are embedded in a reality that can be beyond our reach, how can we hope to achieve any knowledge at all? Perhaps Kant was right, and what we think we know may simply reflect the categories of the human mind. We can perhaps only deal with things as they appear to us. How things are in themselves may forever be beyond our grasp. Alternatively, the reality that we seek to understand may not even be subject to rational understanding. It may be sufficiently chaotic and disordered to be unintelligible." Note 2 "There is such a thing as scientific progress, and it happens through systematic trial and error or, in Karl Popper’s terminology, conjecture and refutation. A "scientific realist" has to be wary, though, about how such realism is defined. A realism that makes reality what contemporary science says it is links reality logically to the human minds of the present day. Science is then just a human product, rooted in time and place. Bringing in future science - or ideal science \- may sound more plausible, but even then there is a distinction between science reflecting (or corresponding to) the nature of reality and it being simply a human construction." That's the problem with the article, and a lot of Trigg's ideas. He assumes that "science is done by people", "people are flawed", ergo "the output of science is flawed". Which is obviously false, like saying science done by people who speak different languages would express itself differently. However you analyse the structure of an atom is irrelevant to its structure: it is what it is. Sine qua non. There's something which is an atom, whatever you call it and however you discover it. The postulate that "the universe my not be ultimately understandable" should only be taken as a priori at the point where it appears that that is in fact the case. Which it doesn't. (Don't confuse this as a dismissal of uncertainty - that certainly exists, but even that lack of certainty can be expressed in certain terms and understood). Editing for clarity: By "the output of science is flawed" \- I phrased this poorly. I don't mean that the interpretation of results is flawed, which it obviously can be. See phlogiston, early models of the solar system and so on. Rather, I meant that he seems to imply that the nature of what's being studied can change given the human looking at it and their understanding. Which isn't correct. Whether you understand how the solar system works or not makes no impact on what it's doing or why it's doing it. I'd have been more accurate to say "the eventual output of the scientific process, upon where it has arrived at the correct answer, is flawed". ~~~ vinceguidry > He assumes that "science is done by people", "people are flawed", ergo "the > output of science is flawed". What's so wrong about this? It seems so obvious it should be uncontroversial. The first several dozen scientific hypotheses to explain any given phenomenon are all bound to be very very wrong. Even the big-t Theories have to be adjusted many many times before and after they start to get referred to as such. We have no idea what's true until long after the fact. Many respected scientists of the early 1900s believed in and contributed to the science of eugenics. Scientists we still respect today for their contributions to other fields. > Which is obviously false, like saying science done by people who speak > different languages would express itself differently. Again, why the scornful dismissal? The scientific establishment of the West differs in many ways from the establishment in the East. Not just language, but culture also produces differences. We managed to collaborate with the Soviets to do space missions, but it took an awful lot of work to do it. Medicine can have some very striking differences. ~~~ petewailes Because those differences are a reflection in differences of understanding, not of how the underlying system being studied actually works. Whether or not you say that the sky being blue is because of light and the composition of the atmosphere and the current weather, or because the Sky God made it that way has nothing to do with the actual reason why. It's solely a reflection of your explanation. It is how it is for a reason, and that reason doesn't change because your explanation does. ------ jackmaney > Can Science Explains Everything [ _cringe_ _cringe_ _twitch_ ] ------ debacle > Can Science Explains Everything Yes. Edit: I think a scary number of you guys are conflating the process of science with our current observational model. Quantum theory is the product of science, it's not science itself. ~~~ bottled_poe This is a strange belief to hold, considering we can prove this not to be the case with pure logic. Suppose we observe that when A happens, B occurs. This does not imply that A causes B. In fact, we can _never_ confirm that A causes B, regardless of how closely we measure the reaction. 'Preposterous!' I hear you say on the other end of the intertubes.. but alas, it is true. Beyond the realm of reality and hubris we might observe that in fact X causes Y, and that A is simply an observable effect of X. Similarly, B is just an effect of Y. If you really want to explode that mind, think about how broadly this concept can be applied. ~~~ snarfy This is a flawed argument. Nothing can be proven in that sense. We cannot even prove that 1 = 1. I cannot prove the sun will rise tomorrow, but there is a high probability it will. ~~~ knodi123 I had a professor in college who, when challenged with that kind of "but we can't _knoooowwwww_ " argument, would reply "Alright, you are correct. But for the sake of not being an insufferable twit, let us assume that 1 = 1 and move on..."	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Heartography – Translating emotions into photographs - weitzj http://heartography.nikon-asia.com ====== weitzj video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a6fd- wvIdw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a6fd-wvIdw)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Scientists discover asthma's potential root cause and a novel treatment - denzil_correa http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/96649-researchers-hugely-exciting-asthma-discovery ====== long Link to the paper, "Calcium-sensing receptor antagonists abrogate airway hyperresponsiveness and inflammation in allergic asthma": [http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/7/284/284ra60](http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/7/284/284ra60) Abstract: _Airway hyperresponsiveness and inflammation are fundamental hallmarks of allergic asthma that are accompanied by increases in certain polycations, such as eosinophil cationic protein. Levels of these cations in body fluids correlate with asthma severity. We show that polycations and elevated extracellular calcium activate the human recombinant and native calcium- sensing receptor (CaSR), leading to intracellular calcium mobilization, cyclic adenosine monophosphate breakdown, and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphorylation in airway smooth muscle (ASM) cells. These effects can be prevented by CaSR antagonists, termed calcilytics. Moreover, asthmatic patients and allergen-sensitized mice expressed more CaSR in ASMs than did their healthy counterparts. Indeed, polycations induced hyperreactivity in mouse bronchi, and this effect was prevented by calcilytics and absent in mice with CaSR ablation from ASM. Calcilytics also reduced airway hyperresponsiveness and inflammation in allergen-sensitized mice in vivo. These data show that a functional CaSR is up-regulated in asthmatic ASM and targeted by locally produced polycations to induce hyperresponsiveness and inflammation. Thus, calcilytics may represent effective asthma therapeutics._ ------ lifeisstillgood Tl;Dr - calcium receptors in the lungs are linked to allergic asthma - and a class of drugs developed for osteoporosis appears effective in preventing the allergic reaction from being triggered. (Edit : in in vitro tests, and models) Which given the shit I have poured into my lungs for twenty years is probably a nice thing to hear. What is not a nice thing to hear is how a small but plucky university (ranked fifth in UK) is struggling so much for cash they have to put out press releases mentioning lack of funding - twice. That's not something I notice when MIT announces a breakthrough. We could double our science budget (5bn) and not really notice it among the debt repayments and welfare bills and wasted infrastructure projects. ------ phkahler Cured mine. I've told this before, but I take Magnesium (250mg) and Iodine (1-2mg) every day. This has "cured" my asthma. I put that in quotes because as someone pointed out there is no recognized cure, and I have not stopped, so I don't know if the condition would return. But it beats the heck out of inhaled steroids. Going on 1 year with no meds and no problems - PFT says lungs function above average. Of course YMMV, but why not try it? ~~~ silencio Because maybe you're personally just lucky and not having any symptoms for whatever reason? And because "just try it" can do real harm? My anecdote for you: both of those are in the prenatal vitamins I take and have been taking for a while.... along with singulair, dulera, and my rescue inhaler. No positive change here. ~~~ phkahler Because my PFT showed the lungs of an 84 year old (twice my age) prior to treatment. Then after giving up treatment for self treatment for a while I had it done again and have lung function above average. Also, my decision was not on a whim, it was based on research. And finally, your prenatal vitamins do not contain much iodine - it should be milligrams, not micrograms (yep, I know about how much you're getting). In this case, just try it should not do any harm. 250mg of magnesium is not a big deal. My doctor said iodine can screw up your thyroid - that's an old medical myth, but I've had mine checked a few times and the levels are very much in range. So I stand by "just try it" along with YMMV because not everyones condition is the same. ~~~ DrJosiah That "old medical myth" has studies as recent as 2011/2012 showing that consumption of over 400 micrograms/daily of Iodine can cause subclinical hypothroidism [1]. That study needs to be confirmed, but given current recommended consumption in the 150-300 micrograms/daily range, recommending the consumption of 4x recommended levels or more as "should not do any harm" is strictly bad advice. I'm stoked for you that you seem to have managed to treat your asthma problems with two mineral supplements, but please try to cite your research before trying to give medical advice. [1] [http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2011/12/26/ajcn.111....](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2011/12/26/ajcn.111.028001.abstract) ------ tokenadult This is news about a preliminary animal model and in vitro tissue study, not news about a clinical trial with human patients. From the Cardiff University press release (not usually a good source for a medical story): "The team used mouse models of asthma and human airway tissue from asthmatic and non-asthmatic people to reach their findings." "If we can prove that calcilytics are safe when administered directly to the lung in people, then in five years we could be in a position to treat patients and potentially stop asthma from happening in the first place," added Professor Riccardi." Do I need to add emphasis to the words "if" and "safe" and "could be" and "potentially" here, or is that already apparent to everyone? I care about finding effective asthma prevention and treatment, as I have close relatives who have asthma, but this isn't the news I have been waiting for, not yet. It will be wonderful if other researchers are able to replicate these preliminary findings and if findings about this receptor in human tissues helps lead to development of an effective asthma treatment, but that is not a sure outcome from this news, alas. ~~~ robbiep It sounds like they want to give everyone that thinks they could get asthma this drug on a regular basis, and then claim the non-asthmatics as successes. ------ walterbell Do calcilytics increase or decrease calcium in the patient? [http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/NPS_Pharmaceuticals_%28NPSP%2...](http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/NPS_Pharmaceuticals_%28NPSP%29/Calcilytics) says: _" Calcilytics are small, orally active molecules licensed to GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for development and eventual sale. They act on calcium receptors to cause brief increases in plasma levels of parathyroid hormone in order to stimulate the growth of bone, which might be beneficial in the treatment of osteoporosis. "_ ~~~ trhway >They act on calcium receptors to cause brief increases in plasma levels of parathyroid hormone in order to stimulate the growth of bone, which might be beneficial in the treatment of osteoporosis. From what i read here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parathyroid_hormone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parathyroid_hormone) the release of PTH causes release of calcium from bones into blood, it also causes increased absorption of calcium from intestine. So one can see how osteoporosis situation may become better or worse depending on a lot of other factors. Anyway googling "asthma and calcium" brings articles as old as '83, so there seems to be long established connection as Ca ions regulate muscle contractions. ------ ajuc Great, I wonder if this is also cause of related Cron's disease and Colitis ulcerosa. ------ mrbill _" a class of drugs developed for osteoporosis appears effective in preventing the allergic reaction from being triggered."_ ... am I the only one who thought "surely someone taking this drug for osteoporosis also has asthma? See if it's helped." ~~~ robbiep You develop asthma as a child. Old people have osteoperosis. It sounds like this drug is meant to prevent it developing so the patient populations don't really fit ~~~ Mifuyuu I beg to differ; you don't have to be old to get osteoporosis. Likewise, you can develop asthma at a later age. IANAMD but I work at a medical centre, deal directly with patients and medical staff and have come across a few such instances. ------ refurb From the abstract: _Thus, calcilytics may represent effective asthma therapeutics_ That's the real story. Keep in mind this mechanism is for _allergic_ asthma, that's about ~1/2 (?) of all asthma patients? ~~~ dogma1138 No, non-allergic (intrinsic) Asthma is a fancy name for a "panic attack" besides that the other causes of non-allergic asthma are commonly various infections, in any case non-allergic is not a chronic condition. Chronic Asthma or "Allergic" Asthma an auto immune disease in which the immune system triggers a violent response which causes the airways to pretty much close up, which is the actual Asthma you hear about when people say "I got Asthma". While the symptoms of both Asthmas are quiet similar, the treatment is very different. Yes if you go to the hospital due to a very bad panic attack or have a bad respiratory infection they might put you on a vapaorator which is also used to treat actual severe Asthma attacks but besides that there's nothing much in common in form of treatment, nor should there be because the causes of that Asthma are either psychological or environmental which are quite easy to fix. ~~~ philjohn There's another cause of asthma, apart from allergic and intrinsic, I know, because a lot of my early asthma attacks were caused by it. I had acid reflux, which was tracked down as one of the causes - once I started taking a drug (Prepulsid/Cisapride) to strengthen the muscles by the stomach, a lot of my attacks subsided. I still suffer from allergies, and get the occasional attack, so it wasn't the only cause. Professor Casimir in Belgium is probably the reason I'm still alive - and has done a lot of amazing research into Asthma and Allergies. Need to look him up and see if he's still practising actually. ------ minthd A detailed criticsm/explanation of this is here: "Not OP's fault, but the headline and the story itself are extremely inaccurate. This post should be labelled "misleading." The story's deck says: "Scientists at Cardiff University and Kings College London have found out what causes asthma and how to switch it off " This is not true. The researchers found a pathway that can trigger some parts of asthma, but the researchers do not claim that this is the cause of asthma. Most asthma researchers now believe that the disease has probably many different causes, all leading to a similar set of symptoms. In the story itself, the reporter writes "...researchers at Cardiff University and Kings College London identified which cells cause the airways to narrow when triggered by irritants like pollution." This as well is not true. The researchers looked at airway smooth muscle cells, but it was already known that these cells are responsible for the constriction seen in asthma. What this team did discover is a type of receptor in these cells that can trigger this constriction. "Crucially, drugs already exist which can deactivate the cells. They are known as calcilytics and are used to treat people with osteoporosis. " These aren't drugs, because none of them have been approved by any government agency. And they definitely haven't been prescribed by any doctor to treat osteoporosis. In fact, many have been abandoned as possible treatments for osteoporosis. Also they don't deactivate the smooth muscle cells. They deactivate the receptors in those cells. Finally, the claim that asthma could be cured in five years is extremely problematic. First, even if these molecules get approved as asthma drugs, they would not cure the disease. People would still have asthma. They'd just have a new medication they'd take to prevent symptoms such as wheezing and breathing problems. And, going back to what I wrote above, this is probably not going to treat all asthmatics because there isn't a singular root cause of the disease. And the biggest issue here, and what the story leaves out, is that study, in part, involved studies of a mouse model of allergic asthma--one type of the disease. Mouse models are great for pointing in a direction, but they are not people. And for asthma, mouse models don't have the greatest success rate in finding drug leads. So until there are clinical data on these compounds, it is way too early to call these treatments for asthma. And definitely not cures. Again, this isn't OP's fault, but this story is extremely misleading. " [http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/33kucg/asthma_drug_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/33kucg/asthma_drug_that_can_prevent_patients_from_ever/cqm1jcg) ------ Kluny This article is weak. Here is more information: [http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/96649-researchers- hugely-...](http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/96649-researchers-hugely- exciting-asthma-discovery) ~~~ denzil_correa Thanks. I would request the mods to edit the link submitted. ~~~ dang Ok, url changed from [http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-east- wales-32418080](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-32418080).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Hurting For Cash, Online Porn Tries New Tricks - uladzislau http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/17/276897125/hurting-for-cash-online-porn-tries-new-tricks ====== beloch Porn has long been at the forefront of internet technology, driving next-gen solutions that eventually trickle down to many other sectors. However, when faced with declining sales due to privacy fears, Kink (and many other sites) are shrugging off privacy concerns in order to make a buck off of invasive advertising ("Honey, why am I seeing so many ads for condoms and nipple clamps today?"). Talk about self-destructive business practices! North American society is _far_ too prudish about sex; especially sex that isn't deemed "mainstream". BDSM themes in particular have long been used by Hollywood to characterize particularly vile antagonists. Mainstream sexual mores are becoming less parochial, but not nearly fast enough to alleviate privacy concerns for most people. Acworth really ought to take this a _lot_ more seriously. His attitude ranks up there with the Sony exec's who figured rootkits were a good idea! It really is a recipe for disaster when pirated goods carry fewer risks than legitimately purchased goods! ~~~ broolstoryco >when faced with declining sales due to privacy fears thats where bitcoin comes in ~~~ saurik To verify, you mean by ruining any idea of privacy by making all transactions public? (It isn't clear if you are actually saying that bitcoin would increase the privacy experienced in this situation.) ~~~ pgsandstrom You wouldn't have to make a payment from "JOHN DOES ACCOUNT" to "PERVERTED PORN ACCOUNT". You could easily set up several wallets in the middle, obfuscation the transaction and gaining deniability. However, beware! If your wife is an paranoid data scientist, she could still find circumstantial evidence for your porn subscription. ~~~ saurik So, if you aren't going through a remixer (which is the point at which my paranoid data scientist friends point out "that doesn't even really help, at least in the long run, if not even in the short run"; and it isn't like any normal user is going to be doing this) the obfuscated wallet approach isn't really helping you much, if nothing else due to timing correlations. Even then, most normal people (the kind of people who are likely going to run into this problem most often) aren't going to understand how to do anything other than use the default features encoded into their wallet software (which are remarkably deterministic in function, almost never obfuscates the change making the middle steps trivially transparent, and generally don't provide any control over which transactions will accidentally cluster). Bitcoin is simply not trying to solve this problem: there are things bitcoin claims to solve, and things bitcoin succeeds in solving (whether on purpose or as a side effect), but "I want my transactions private" was never one of them. While it would be awesome if it were true, not all things related to payments are made better by bitcoin :/. It also must be pointed out that you aren't just dealing with your spouse at this point: you are dealing with everyone who might possibly care; maybe your pastor is a "paranoid data scientist", or maybe the noisy person across the street has taken up statistical correlation and inference as a new hobby. Maybe someone makes a new service that helps companies screen employees, and one of the things it does is scan the blockchain using some really epic algorithm coming up with some kind of bogus (and questionably-legal) "morality score" (I bring this up as there already have been companies constructed to do this for data on Facebook). The transaction record of bitcoin is out there for everyone to datamine, and if you make a mistake the record will still be there and still be public years from now. There might even be new techniques (whether bitcoin-specific, or generally in the fields of statistics or machine learning) that will make this data more transparent in the future. The defense model for "I don't want people I deal with to know about my porn addiction" of bitcoin vs. even a normal credit card does not come out very strong. ~~~ pgsandstrom Those are good objections. I guess the only safe way of dealing with bitcoins is to get money into a wallet without in any way associating it with your real life persona, which could be very tricky. And after that never ever use your wallet to pay a service that is assigned to your real name. Are there any good resources to read up on how the remixers work, and why they cant be relied upon? ~~~ saurik I do not have any resources related to that; the summary (as I vaguely remember the arguments) came down to evidence being accumulated due to reasonable caps on fees and delays (if giving your money to the remixer occasionally ate 99% of the money and occasionally made it hold onto the money for a year, you are no longer in a position to effectively utilize it) combined with correlations on repeated transactions. To be clear, though, my argument was simply to move the "data scientist" line from "wallet obfuscation" (for which I then provided more concrete issues) to "remixers", and then to point out that normal people (the kind of person who didn't solve the underlying problem long ago using prepaid credit cards ;P) aren't using remixers and are unlikely to begin using remixers (as they probably aren't even using the more useful forms of wallet obfuscation: they are probably relying on what their wallet software is doing by default). ------ hmsimha > Acworth says no one has to worry about personal data getting sold to outside > advertisers. "I shouldn't think anyone would really be interested in that. > Who would want to buy data pertaining to whether somebody likes bondage or > spanking?" Hmm.. how about the same kinds of people who build websites that display mugshot information, but allow you to pay a fee to have yours removed. ~~~ nwh Porn habits on one side of the table, real name pulled from the credit card used to pay for it on the other. $50 and this all disappears from the internet! ------ bambax > We're suffering what happened to the music industry a while back Not really. Songs or artists are not perfect substitutes to one another; if you want to listen to a specific song from a specific artist, you'll be looking for that song and in most cases another song won't do. Therefore, if it was possible to make this song absolutely unavailable via illegal means, you'd have a very strong incentive to buy it. Porn videos are mostly perfect substitutes to one another (in their respective broad specialty; a gay sex video isn't a substitute to a straight sex video, but a nurse video is a substitute to a teacher-student one). Therefore, in order to make people pay for porn, the porn industry would have to make _all_ free porn videos disappear, which is impossible. It would seem they're in much direr straits than the music industry. ~~~ YokoZar Don't be so sure. Some porn stars are brands unto themselves, and go on stripping tours not dissimilar from musician's concerts. Perhaps it's only a matter of time till we see pornography crowdfunding. ~~~ rickenharp Pornography crowdfunding already exists: [http://offbeatr.com/](http://offbeatr.com/) ~~~ bambax Excellent! The logo is a little reminiscent of Ted ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637725/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637725/)), is this on purpose? Their fees are sky-high (30% of money collected) and the FAQ is not written in very good English, so I'd be rather weary of using them, but the idea is great! ------ awalton Given where we are (hacker news) I'm astounded the first response to this article wasn't "Use bitcoins!" since that's exactly the type of thing that it is best at. Then all you need to do is start explaining bitcoin to your significant other just long enough for their eyes to go glassy, begging you to stop. ~~~ lightcatcher Paying for porn with bitcoin puts all of your porn purchases on a public ledger. I don't think too many people want that. ~~~ awalton Let's be serious here, laundering a bitcoin is as easy as trading it at an exchange for another one. Getting a wallet is as easy as generating a new one. There's no permanent record that person X had bitcoin Y, just which wallets it passed through along the way. If your significant other works for a Three Letter Agency, then maybe it's possible they could reverse the network connection logs to the exchanges, dig through their databases and prove that you were the one who owned the coin that bought that porn. Maybe. But given how little the FBI has done with the cache of bitcash they seized, I doubt it. So admittedly, it's not as clean as a cash business... but neither is the sex industry. ~~~ hmsimha All true, but who needs to launder bitcoin to keep a transaction hidden from their significant other, unless their SO is well-versed in the technology behind bitcoin AND really likes to snoop. In that case, an easier and more likely point of failure is a session logger/keylogger on one's porn-browsing device ------ easy_rider Also people who actually end up paying for porn, will end up seeing the same stuff they can watch for free. The big porn clips get their watermarks removed, chopped up, re-watermarked, and spammed on tube sites to compete with all other parties who are doing the exact same thing: Rip, re-watermark, re-distribute. No one can really complain, because everyone is doing the same.. Sure you could buy some "unique content" from time to time. Costs around $750 a video, shipped from Prague, Czech Republic. But there's not much value in that, because other people will just rip, re-watermark, re-distribute :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Do I adjust freelance rate due to fact client will be patenting product? - callmeed I recently took on a small freelance programming gig for a fixed bid. I sent over a boilerplate work agreement and, before he signed it, the client informed me that they plan to patent the software I build and needed to pull a couple clauses from the agreement.<p>I don't really mind modifying the agreement but my main questions is: <i>should this fact have any effect on what I charge?</i> ====== btilly 1\. If you have a choice, don't add to the patent mess by letting your work be patented. Been there, done that, you don't want to. 2\. Assuming you ignore #1, if you're replaceable, the fact that it will be patented does not change the work that you do, and should not change your up front bid. _BUT_ make sure that the contract specifies that you get paid a nice hourly rate for everything that you have to do related to the patent application, defending it, etc. That is extra work, whose quantity you cannot estimate, which you might find yourself required to do at an unexpected point several years in the future. It should be clear to both parties that patent- related work is NOT part of the fixed bid. (Having to go to court to testify about your patent becomes that much worse if you're not being paid for it.) ------ auctiontheory Theoretically you want to charge right up to your client's "willingness to pay." If they think it's valuable enough to patent, they possibly are willing to pay a lot for it. That's the argument for charging more. On the other hand, we don't know how unique your skills are. If they could easily replace you with another developer, they're not going to be willing to pay you much more than the going rate for your skills, no matter how valuable the end product may be to them. I forget how it works with patents, but doesn't the name of the actual creator (i.e. you) get listed on the patent, even if it is a contract job? A lawyer could confirm. Or check out the relevant Nolo Press book. ------ sharemywin Why would you risk alienating a client and possibly losing the project? If you "don't really mind modifiying the aggrement" ~~~ callmeed What I meant by "I don't mind modifying it" is that he isn't asking to pull any sections that put me at risk (like a limitation of liability). If the patent is issued, one can assume the product and patent are worth more and he could license the technology to other companies.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Engineering Behind Twitter’s New Search Experience - phiggy http://engineering.twitter.com/2011/05/engineering-behind-twitters-new-search.html ====== rajeshvaya good stuff	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Chinese media model - subsonico https://china-underground.com/2019/03/26/chinese-media-model/ ====== taneq I'm always amused by the indignation expressed by people when some nation other than their own is shown to be using their resources to to exert international influence. The British Empire did. The USSR did. The United States does. Of course China does too. ~~~ happytoexplain I can't even begin to relate to this point of view. Why does everything have to be side-taking, where nobody is allowed to be accused of anything if somebody else, now or in the past, has committed even just the same genre of crime? And why the smug "amused" line? To me, it's all terribly demoralizing. ~~~ coldtea > _I can 't even begin to relate to this point of view. Why does everything > have to be side-taking, where nobody is allowed to be accused of anything if > somebody else, now or in the past, has committed even just the same genre of > crime?_ Because when you criticize one side, you are side-taking. And everything you say or write is used to justify global politics (and is primed to do just that). There's no "impartiality" when you single out one side to criticize. Either put it in context, or make a statement criticizing all parties doing the same. It's not really difficult to study and learn about things, and put them in perspective, instead of singling out a party as some unique "evil". And it is doubly insulting to countries and peoples who have suffered your version of doing the same thing to see you point out others and demand their heads for it. It's adding hypocrisy to injury. > _To me, it 's all terribly demoralizing._ To me people making accusations only for others, and neglecting their side's serious complicity in the same thing, is not only terribly demoralizing, not only hypocritical, but also strategic. The 60s anti-culture movement could simultaneously criticize USSR, the Prague invasion, etc AND Uncle Sam and Vietnam. Not just in their media, even in a single song oftentimes. Now it's 1000 articles criticizing one side as uniquely evil with not even a whisper of own actions, and 10 giving the internal perspective. Not exactly balanced (talking about foreign politics here. In internal politics, I guess it's more like "Hurray for the democrats/republicans establishment ideas, down with Trump" what passes for criticism of both democrat/republicans and Trump). (And anybody attempting to correct that is hit with the thought-stopping accusation of "whataboutism") ~~~ PavlovsCat > There's no "impartiality" when you single out one side to criticize. This "singling out" is a fabrication though, and that's the problem here. > people making accusations only for others Again, who's doing that? You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore the people who don't. You dodge the strongest interpretation in favor of a weaker position that is conjured before anyone even shows up who is actually holding it. > neglecting their side's serious complicity in the same thing Same here, just because some people are doing that, doesn't mean all do. Either way, even the hypocrisy of that hypothetical person doing that would be utterly dwarved by the monstrosity of the atrocities the reaction to which is diluted by games such as this. ~~~ coldtea > _Again, who 's doing that? You use the people who do that as fig leaf to > ignore the people who don't. You dodge the strongest interpretation in favor > of a weaker position that is conjured before anyone even shows up who is > actually holding it._ You can read a forum or a media outlet for days, and you'll see single one- sided mentions 90% of the time, with no context, and with hypocritical framing as if it's only one side doing it. And I remember times when they weren't doing so, where coverage was not so one sided, and where people (e.g. 60s and 70s media, influenced by people looking for wider truths, and looking into alternative media and counter-culture) would be critical of all sides, and offer more perspective. > _Same here, just because some people are doing that, doesn 't mean all do._ I don't care for all, I care for what most do. Especially most media. It's of little comfort if most of the people do X and some conscientious minority doesn't. The noise of what most do still prevails and informs public opinion and policy. ~~~ PavlovsCat > You can read a forum or a media outlet for days In other words, nobody is doing it here, in this context. > And I remember times when they weren't doing so, where coverage was not so > one sided, and where people (e.g. 60s and 70s media, influenced by people > looking for wider truths, and looking into alternative media and counter- > culture) would be critical of all sides, and offer more perspective. You call it "more perspective", I call it dilution and spam. It could be attached to any discussion, and it doesn't tell us anything new. All the hallmarks of comments that end up flagged and admonished by people piling on, if the context is different. That's the only interesting data here. > I don't care for all, I care for what most do. As I said, "You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore the people who don't." > It's of little comfort if most of the people do X and some conscientious > minority doesn't. That doesn't change what you and the comment you found so spot on are doing, which is not responding to the actual article, or any actual comment. Does "but the US is doing it too" provide comfort to anyone? Nope. So the argument that X doesn't provide comfort falls flat in light of nothing else providing said "comfort" either, whatever that would even mean in concrete terms. ~~~ coldtea > _You call it "more perspective", I call it dilution and spam. It could be > attached to any discussion, and it doesn't tell us anything new._ It wouldn't tell someone "anything new" presumed they already knew their side was doing the same shit. Most don't. And being predominantly told about the evil others doing it (in accordance with whatever the current enemy/ally du jour is, and which agenda is to be pushed at any time), doesn't make them any favors. That's the actual noise. > _As I said, "You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore the people > who don't."_ No, I'm interested in actual outcomes, and those have to do with frequency of something being done. You can find some people doing the right thing at every point in history and on every matter. Their existence doesn't make it less of a problem -- as long as the majority (or a big enough segment, or those with more power) are not doing the right thing. I'm not sure what the "fig leaf" accusation is supposed to settle. If someone speaks about e.g. tourist's polluting a national park, would you go and tell them "there are some people who don't throw garbage when they visit there", as if that somehow makes the problem go away? And you'd be mad at them when insisting the problem exists, because they "use those that do as a fig leaf to hide those that don't"? > _That doesn 't change what you and the comment you found so spot on are > doing, which is not responding to the actual article_ That's called "agency". As an individual, I don't have to respond to the way something is phrased and stick to that like an automaton. Nor is it always to the detriment of the discussion not sticking to the narrow scope something was presented in. Especially in politics (this is not a technical matter). ~~~ PavlovsCat > That's called "agency". As an individual, I don't have to respond to the way > something is phrased and stick to that like an automaton. Speaking of that, I think I already have wasted more time on this tripe than I can justify. ------ justforfunhere I think Internet has become the easiest way to spread propoganda. China is not the only one doing this. It's so easy to spread ideas using Internet these days, that almost all business, political and social entities around the world are involved in the spreading whatever ideas they deem worthy. The bigger entities are able to spread them more effectively which is expected. Internet may eventually turn out to be a bigger monster for modern human civilization than other threats in the past like World Wars and Cold War. ~~~ jbob2000 Easy to spread but easy to ignore. The internet cheapened communications to the point where propaganda has about the same worth as cat memes. ~~~ yorwba You can only ignore the propaganda if you recognize it as such. Western audiences don't really have the background knowledge to evaluate what they read, and Western media tend to focus on the foreign policy of their country as it relates to China. The two highest-quality (in terms of professionalism and level of detail) English news sources reporting on China are [https://scmp.com](https://scmp.com) and [http://sixthtone.com](http://sixthtone.com) . The South China Morning Post has somewhat retained their independence, but Sixth Tone is a government- backed propaganda outlet, existing only to counter negative reporting on Chinese politics with news in other domains. Someone reading a lifestyle article on Sixth Tone isn't easily going to realize that they're reading propaganda unless it's pointed out to them. ------ phoe-krk Mirror: [https://web.archive.org/web/20190326103055/https://china- und...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190326103055/https://china- underground.com/2019/03/26/chinese-media-model/) ------ sovietmudkipz Speaking of propaganda, can we talk about how good the movies Wolf Warrior and Wolf Warrior 2 is? Both films feature Chinese military protagonists and both films feature western villains. These films remind me of Rambo even including the jingoistic pro-nation-of- origin message. I think the international market accepted Rambo because they thought USA was cool. I wonder if we will find ourselves consuming “Chinakana” (riff on “Americana”) when we think China is “cool.” ~~~ thejohnconway Rambo isn't pro-USA is it? Surely It's the story of man fucked over by his country, and the opposite of what you're saying? ~~~ yodon The original Rambo film is a remarkably thoughtful study of the challenges Vietnam veterans faced reintegrating into society, including a look inside PTSD (the book even more so than the film... the book was commonly included in high school history and civics courses in the decade after it was written). The sequels, which are the films best remembered today, were of course nothing but pure adrenaline rides with nothing to recommend them, but don't taint the original film with the sins of its sequels. Even the portrayal of the "evil" small town sheriff Rambo battles is remarkably interesting and nuanced. Yes, it's still a popcorn film, but it's one of the most thoughtful and intelligent action films you're likely to find (there is much more than meets the eye in Sylvester Stallone, writer of both the original Rambo script and the Rocky script). ------ yorwba This seems to be blog spam of [https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/en_rapport_chine_web_fin...](https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/en_rapport_chine_web_final.pdf) I thought they at least did some work to summarize the report, but even the text of the "Summary" section is lifted directly from the foreword. ------ 317070 I cannot access this website (from London). I get "Web server is down" and ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT. Since people are upvoting and commenting, can someone share this article? ~~~ tasnimreza Same here, from Sweden can't access ~~~ parmesan I'm accessing it from Sweden. ------ peter_retief Well the site is down for me, sort of seems to support the gist of the articles title (Got 521 error - Web site down), can ping the domain. Would "they" really bring down a site that is critical of "them" or is it coincidental? ------ IntelAMDVia Moderators: Why was this submission removed from the front page as soon as it started to gain traction? The risk of nationalistic flame wars needs to be weighed against important discussion potential. But the submission is interesting enough even if the comments are disabled. Is there any statistics on changes to Hacker News censorship since Sam Altman's China strategy was announced? ~~~ yorwba Stories gaining traction in the form of comments affects the ranking negatively if it's not upvoted at the same tame. It indicates that people are more interested in voicing their opinion than whatever the submission had to say. If you disagree with that reasoning and want to see lively discussions anyway, you should probably browse [https://news.ycombinator.com/active](https://news.ycombinator.com/active) instead of or in addition to the traditional front page. We've also had plenty of China-related flame wars stay on the front page for longer, so I don't think you can accuse the moderators of applying a double standard compared to other political topics. [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=China&dateRange=pastWeek](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=China&dateRange=pastWeek) ~~~ IntelAMDVia Was the removal from the front page algorithmic or a manual step by moderators? The lack of transparency with the soft censorship is alarming, particularly given YC's financial conflict of interest. ~~~ yorwba Since the article title is different now, I assume a moderator looked at it at some point. IIRC, they check all instances of the flame war detector firing, to prevent false positives. In this case, they probably didn't find the comments salvageable. On the other hand, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19493033](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19493033) is currently on the front page after previously disappearing, so the mods seem to have intervened in that case.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Birth Control As A Service - jaldoretta http://www.readytogroove.com/ ====== jaldoretta For everyone wondering about this method, it's called the sympto-thermal method and is _not_ the same as the rhythm method. Planned Parenthood lists it as 99.6% effective with perfect use. See the "What is the Sympto-thermal Method" section in the link below: [http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth- control...](http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth- control/fertility-awareness-4217.htm) ~~~ jthacker The 99.6% effectiveness statistic comes from the planned parenthood website and I'm assuming they quoted it from this study since they do not cite their source [http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/5/1310.short](http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/5/1310.short) 99.6% is the method-effectiveness (i.e. the efficacy if used properly) or 0.4 unintended pregnancies per 100 "women years" (13 cycles) Other interesting results from the study: \- the method-effectiveness rate found for this method is comparable to oral contraceptive \- 9.2% stopped using the method due to dissatisfaction \- Couples that had intercourse during the fertile period had an increased pregnancy rate of 7.5% \- This study was done in European countries and the pregnancy rate was lower than similar studies performed in developing countries ------ servowire Albeit a great app, this method is less reliable than having proper birth control at hand. I see mentions of "But it's 1.8% failure rate!" \- thing about Cumulative Probability is, that is a pretty high number of failure after about 10 years. After 10 years you have a Cumulative Probability: P(X = 1) of about 15% of getting pregnant. If you don't want to be a dad/mom - use a condom. Or go double dutch. ~~~ burgeralarm Fortunately, probabilities for birth control methods aren't presented in this way. Generally, when an organization like Planned Parenthood says that the symptothermal method is 99.6% effective, what they really mean is: "Of 100 couples who use the symptothermal method correctly for one year, 0.4 (fewer than one) will have a pregnancy." (Source: [http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth- control...](http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth- control/fertility-awareness-4217.htm)) So after about 100 years of using this method, you've got a .4% chance of becoming pregnant. Seems like decent odds to me. ~~~ IanCal > So after about 100 years of using this method, you've got a .4% chance of > becoming pregnant. Seems like decent odds to me. No, after _one_ year you've got a 0.4% chance of being pregnant. Assuming this stays steady over 100 years, you'd have a 33% chance of being pregnant (1 - (0.996 ^ 100)) Their maths for a 1.8% failure rate over 10 years is right, it's about 15%. ------ dbla I'm a little bit confused. The title mentions birth control but the website is talking mostly about fertility. Is this a tool to help women get pregnant or prevent pregnancy? ~~~ MaxGabriel Apparently both. On this page [http://www.readytogroove.com/app/](http://www.readytogroove.com/app/), it explains how you can learn which days you are or are not fertile. Is this really a reliable birth control method though? ~~~ nsxwolf This is Fertility Awareness / Natural Family Planning[1], branded in a way that will be more palatable to a secular Silicon Valley audience. My wife and I use NFP. This is actually the slickest app I've ever seen. It's pretty reliable if you want to use it for birth control, provided the woman has at least somewhat regular cycles. Even with irregular cycles, there's useful information that can be gleaned from cervical mucus and basal body temperature. It's probably not for people who absolutely cannot tolerate one or two "surprise" children, but it will at least prevent you from becoming the Duggars if that's not your thing. [1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_family_planning](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_family_planning) ~~~ ntaso Sorry to say so, but you're wrong about two things: 1\. A women doesn't have to have a regular cycle for this method to be safe. Why? Because if the cycle is irregular, the cycle cannot be evaluated / charted and you have to assume fertility. 2\. The method is as safe as the pill. The risk for getting "surprise children" is the same as with the pill. ~~~ nsxwolf For your objection to (1), you'd be right if we were talking about the rhythm method, but we aren't. There are other signs of impending fertility that can be tracked. ------ bsimpson Misleading title. It's a fertility tracking app. There are dozens of those. When I see "{physical thing} as a service", I expect some sort of monthly fulfillment service, like Dollar Shave Club. ~~~ ChuckMcM Agreed on the title, there is an old joke, "Question: What do you call people who are using the rhythm method for birth control? Answer: Parents." As a fertility timer to help people maximize their chance of conception though I think it is probably a useful tool. ~~~ ntaso Scroll all the way down in the comments here, that joke has been told before and downvoted for its unrelatedness. This app is based on the symptothermal method, not the rhythm method. ~~~ ChuckMcM Fair enough. Various folks seem to put it slightly above the rhythm method in practice [an example [1]] and pretty much less effective than any mechanical system [2]. The original joke was a statement on the variability of trying to gauge the internal state of the system versus mechanically disarming the system. And in that analysis it still holds. Nothing is quite so impresses as a natural system that has evolved through selective pressure to be effective in so many adverse situations. [1] [http://www.fertility.com.au/Docs/Contraception/Contraception...](http://www.fertility.com.au/Docs/Contraception/Contraception%20Success%20Rates.pdf) [2] [http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/UnintendedPregnancy/PD...](http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/UnintendedPregnancy/PDF/Contraceptive_methods_508.pdf) ~~~ ntaso Please check this long-term study: [http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/5/1310.short](http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/5/1310.short) It's as effective as the pill. But you're right that it doesn't provide birth control during the fertile days. It depends on how you define birth control. Is it something that enables you to have sex during fertile days or is it something that enables you to know more about your fertility? So, seen in the first way, the sympto-thermal method is just a method for observing natural processes. Nothing that prevents pregnancy during the fertile window. If you want mechanical birth control, there are really only three reversible options: condoms, IUD, diaphragm. Everything else that's reliable is based on hormones. In that light, I think it's a good idea to use the sympto-thermal method to be at least 50% less dependant on other mechanical tools. ------ burkesquires The app looks great. Does it work for the Creighton Model ([http://www.creightonmodel.com](http://www.creightonmodel.com)) as well? Also, you may want to get added to this list: [http://contraception.about.com/od/naturalmethods/tp/fertilit...](http://contraception.about.com/od/naturalmethods/tp/fertility_apps.htm) ~~~ jaldoretta I suppose you could technically use the Creighton Model with our app, though it's not the method we provide educational info for. ------ kvnn > Upgrade your account to practice natural and effective birth control, get > pregnant easily, or take control of your reproductive health. "Get pregnant easily" is not something you should be advertising. There are tons of reasons why someone can have trouble getting pregnant that are completely external to your app. Just a heads up. ~~~ jaldoretta Yes, very true. Perhaps the wording should be revisited. Thanks for the feedback! ------ wehadfun Is there anyway boyfriends can get access to this? ~~~ tvirelli Yeah! Would be great if it synced so that I could get a "Go" or "No Go" signal! ~~~ herbig Go or no go where? Am I missing something? ~~~ rkuykendall-com The app is designed to provide birth control by letting you know when have sex, or when to not have sex. He was asking for a companion app without all the management, just the current status. ------ upofadown After having read the HN headline I had an impression of someone hiring someone else to carry a bucket of water around during dates... ------ moeffju This doesn’t seem to be available in any of the worldwide stores except the US store. Is a worldwide release coming? ------ ntaso Kudos to you, it's alway great so see people talking about natural birth control methods without mentioning _God_ or _religion_ in the same sentence. It's virtually impossible to find good resources about the sympto-thermal method in English without landing on a very Christian-oriented website. But I'm wondering: What's the business model you have? I'm asking, because I'm in the same space. Mostly in Germany, but I also have an app for the English-speaking population: [http://mynfp.net/](http://mynfp.net/) It costs 5.99$ and it's certainly nothing I can live from alone. However, the app is just an "appendix" to my SaaS business which is the same thing, but bigger and better, which generates revenue to be sunstainable in the long term. ~~~ nsxwolf You can't find secular versions of NFP because the hormonal birth control and sterilization industry created what they felt was the perfect no muss, no fuss solution, and couldn't imagine why anyone but the "religious crazies" could possibly want an alternative to it. You can thank the religious people for continuing to develop the science over the decades when the world went absolutely bananas for the pill. ~~~ sounds So if I'm understanding you right, industry as a whole chose a method which though it has benefits also has drawbacks – so much so that they ignored research? And it was religious people who continued fundamental research? Very interesting! And not what I've seen in other cases. I'm happy to have my stereotypes challenged. ~~~ ntaso He's at least partly right. Most studies in this area are directly or indirectly sponsored by the church. This doesn't make the sympto-thermal method a religious thing and the studies are still scientific, but the church was one of the few who gave financial aid. Thing is, the method can be done on a piece of paper. So far, not many people had commercial interest in further research. The few who had, used their finances to build birth-control monitors (a piece of hardware) and tied their studies to their specific products. So, yeah, the church definitely put money in it whereas not many corporations or investors did. ------ jpollock Seriously, rhythm method is not effective birth control (24% failure rate/year). Please don't rely on it! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_birth_control_met...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_birth_control_methods#Comparison_table) ~~~ jaldoretta See the "What is the Sympto-Thermal Method" section: [http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth- control...](http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth- control/fertility-awareness-4217.htm) EDIT: posted the wrong link before...sorry =) ------ dsr_ Q: What do you call a woman who depends on the rhythm method for birth control? A: A mother. As a tool to help you get pregnant, awesome, kudos, very well done. Promoting it for birth control? Not very clever. [http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth- control...](http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth- control/birth-control-effectiveness-chart-22710.htm) ~~~ jaldoretta It's a common misconception that the method our app relies on is the same as the rhythm method, which it is NOT. The rhythm method _predicts_ fertility based on cycle length, which is a really BAD idea. The sympto-thermal method pinpoints the fertile window using scientifically-backed signs of fertility. Planned Parenthood lists an effectiveness of 99.6% (see the "What is the Sympto-thermal Method" section: [http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health- topics/birth-control...](http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth- control/fertility-awareness-4217.htm) ~~~ dsr_ I apologize for conflating the rhythm method and the sympto-thermal method. It's still a bad idea for most people. All from the same Planned Parenthood site: Twenty-four out of every 100 couples who use fertility awareness-based methods each year will have a pregnancy if they don't always use the method correctly or consistently. whereas: Vasectomy is the most effective birth control for men. It is nearly 100 percent effective. and Less than 1 out of 100 women will get pregnant each year if they use an IUD. \--- I want to control my systems. I have many choices: Puppet, Chef, cfengine, writing my own system... you're offering me a system that requires maintenance every single day, I can't pay someone else to do it for me, and if I screw up, it's 76% likely that I won't have unintended consequences. But there are a bunch of other systems on the market where I configure them once and they work for years without attention, and even systems where I just have to be picky when I'm conducting operations, not every single day. ~~~ wayward The 24% failure rate cited by Planned Parenthood includes ALL couples who claimed to be using fertility awareness, from those who had taken classes and were using a modern method, to those who were just guessing. IIRC, over 80% of the couples were not properly trained in a modern method of fertility awareness. Not surprisingly, they had very high pregnancy rates. Someone did the math (can't find the article) and figured untrained users had about a 28% pregnancy rate while trained users had a 7% pregnancy rate. (80 * .28 + 20 * .07) = 23.8 The 7% pregnancy rate is comparable to the real-world use of the Pill. As for your system analogy, if your automated system was a significant resource hog or ran the risk of corruption of data or crashing the system, would you use it? You focus on efficacy without factoring in side effects.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How does Google get data from ReCAPTCHA yet it knows if I'm wrong? - aerovistae If it asks me to label all street signs, the common understanding is that I'm labeling data for their ML algorithms.<p>But if they're counting on me to label it, then how does it already know if I miss a tile? It seems to already have the data labeled, so what's the point? ====== nostrademons IIUC they mix known data in with unknown data. If you get a lot of the known data wrong, they throw out your answer and make you answer the CAPTCHA again. If you get the known data right, they assume that your answers on the unknown data are correct and use that to label them, then start adding them in as the known data for other people. They might also show the same images to multiple people and see if they give the same answers - if so, it's probably correct and can be labeled, if not throw them out and make them answer the CAPTCHA again. ------ cimmanom It mixes knowns and unknowns. It only judges you based on the knowns. They probably require some minimum level of consensus to determine knowns as well. For instance NYPL’s “building inspector” crowdsourcing program accepts a piece of data as verified if it’s been checked by 3 or more participants and at least 75% of them are in agreement. If 75% hasn’t been reached, it will keep showing it to more participants until it is. ------ dangerface When they still did the text captcha they asked for two words the first was known and the second unknown. You could opt out of their data collection by just giving the first word. For the images I assume its something similar. ------ sfcguyus Its sampled together with other people. If all of them provided the wrong information, you could label something else as a traffic light or whatever.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Dust cloud sparked explosion in primitive life on Earth, say scientists - jajag https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/sep/18/dust-cloud-sparked-explosion-in-primitive-life-on-earth-say-scientists ====== sword_smith I thought this would be about the Cambrian Explosion but that is 541m years ago, and this alleged asteroid blew up 466m years ago according to the article. Both periods, The Cambrian Explosion and the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) are periods with strong biological radiation as can be seen on the 1st graph here: [https://www.fossilhunters.xyz/fossil- classification/images/1...](https://www.fossilhunters.xyz/fossil- classification/images/1273_191_314-climate-greenhouse-icehouse-devonian.jpg) The Cambrian Explosion is replaced by the 'Cambrian Plateau' (not a canonical name), and the GOBE comes after. The Ordovician animals were the first to evolve jaws (in Gnathostomata/jawed vertebrates). This happened about 462m years ago, so perhaps we can thank a 93 mile asteroid that blew up 466m years ago for our ability to chew? They found a pretty interesting dataset, it seems, relating various isotopes. It's a pitty the article don't go into details on the chemical signature that convinced the scientists that leftovers of an asteroid rained down on Earth. ------ baq the path from the beginning of time to being able to understand it is nothing short of amazing. the amount of things that happened to allow homo sapiens to evolve is staggering. does anybody keep an up-to-date list of drake equation coefficients? ~~~ jcims I know this isn't the right way to think of it but it does attest somewhat to the rarity. If every atom of the universe (1e82) was a specialized computer that was able to create a trillion universally unique combinations of a 200 base pair strand of DNA per second (1e12/second) , and you had them all working on this task from the beginning of known time (4.4e17 seconds), you would have discovered approximately .0000002% of the possible combinations (4.4e111/4^200). It's a little difficult to get a straightforward answer but the simplest organism I'm finding right now has 160,000 base pairs in their DNA. ~~~ java-man The simplest molecule (dimer, actually) that has self-replication and evolution has a complexity of about 170 nucleic acid bases [0] It is entirely probable, in my opinion, that this is how life originated on Earth in a shallow pool or volcanic vent - essentially primordial PCR machines. [0] [https://www.pnas.org/content/99/20/12733.short](https://www.pnas.org/content/99/20/12733.short) ~~~ jcims Nice. Also added a new term to the existential quiver, autocatalytic. ------ marmadukester39 Wonder if any of that sparked biodiversity was due to panspermia	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Team productivity hack: Todo list as IM status - markchristian Last week, I came up with a weird trick that's actually catching on inside of my office, so I thought I'd share it with HN. It's pretty simple: keep your TODO list in your IM status message field.<p>I mean it: this should be <i>your</i> primary TODO list, always up to date and in roughly the right order. Whatever you're working on should be at the top. Here's my TODO list: http://img.skitch.com/20100712-nkc6q1syeimrci8d56b8c9dyy4.png<p>I started doing this as a coping mechanism to let people know how much stuff had fallen on my plate and to make sure they knew I hadn't forgotten about their requests, but it ended up being very helpful for us to know what everyone is working on.<p>Try it out and let me know what you think. ====== evanrmurphy Sounds great for team productivity (as you suggested), probably less good if you're working alone.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Things developers “love” hearing from non-technical managers - alexcircei https://waydev.co/the-impact-of-git-on-software-development/ ====== qohen This guy has 2 blogspams that he's been posting over the last 12 hours or so to HN, one about things developers 'love' to hear from management and the other about git. (They're blogspams because the posts are from 2 other sites. His posts are basically excerpts of those posts (which he does provide links to at the end of his own) ). basically quotes excerpts from the actual posts from Hackernoon and another site -- he does provide the actual links -- and posts links to his here). ------ sp332 You have the wrong title for this article. ~~~ russianator Was that a parody of the parody?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
You won't remember the OpenSSL options, so here's bash shortcuts for everything - mikemaccana https://certsimple.com/blog/openssl-shortcuts ====== atoponce On the one hand, this is really quite good. I'm always interested in making my time at the command line more efficient. If I put this in my shell's config, and remember the function names, I'm golden. On the other hand, I've learned more from continuing to read the manpages than probably anything else. And the OpenSSL commands that I use frequently, such as connecting to a site with TLS, or checking a certificate chain, can now be easily recalled from memory, and I feel I'm better off for it, especially if I'm at a terminal where my OpenSSL functions might not be installed. ------ atoponce Encrypting files should probably include a salt-per-file, otherwise the same file contents will produce the same ciphertext when the same passphrase is provided. function openssl-encrypt() { openssl enc -aes-256-cbc -salt -in "${1}" -out "${2}" } ------ blakesterz This is great. Now I just need to remember the shortcuts! I have such a giant collection of bash short cuts in my .bashrc and other dotfiles that I can't seem to remember ANY of them and end up just typing everything out in the end :-) ------ gt99 function openssl-key-to-pin() { openssl rsa -in "${1}" -outform der -pubout \| openssl dgst -sha256 -binary \| openssl enc -base64 } function openssl-website-to-pin() { openssl s_client -connect ${1}:443 \| openssl x509 -pubkey -noout \| openssl rsa -pubin -outform der \| openssl dgst -sha256 -binary \| openssl enc -base64 } ~~~ nailer Awesome - for HPKP? ~~~ gt99 Yup, exactly. :) Would probably be more verbose if named: openssl-key-to-hpkp-pin openssl-website-to-hpkp-pin ~~~ nailer Added and credited :-) ~~~ gt99 Thanks! And thanks for the article! Lots of great shortcuts, they all made it to my .bashrc ;)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Entrepreneurs: Do One Thing Every Day That Scares You - feint http://feint.me/articles/entrepreneurs-do-one-thing-every-day-that-scares-you ====== rorymarinich _But whats more incredible about this is the change in attitude it has brought about. I’m starting to see through the irrational fears that I have (and everyone else does too) and doors are starting to get opened left and right._ Well said! We are bound to the patterns we create in our own life. Everything we know and do we fit into systems, so that we can understand and process the information we've got. The problem with this is that while these patterns help us they simultaneously _limit_ us, so that if we are not consciously aware of those patterns we find it hard to escape them. Look at anybody who's made anything worthwhile and you'll notice that they always made it by consciously looking at what limited them and defying those limits. I just read a series of interviews with Stanley Kubrick, the legendary director of 2001 and The Shining; one thing that emerged every time he talked about film was that there was no extraordinary leap of genius that led to his masterpieces. He simply made sure to look at what he was limiting himself to and then, time and time again, do things that forced him into new areas. This isn't just advice for entrepreneurs. It's advice for anybody who wants to truly appreciate what life's capable of, experience the truly sublime moments that make all the other moments worth it. (But I guess the difference is that entrepreneurs, and all makers, really, are striving to create new things which will help other people break out of their own patterns. And what a joyful career that is!) ------ cryptoz "But trust me on the sunscreen." ------ warbee Still getting started, something that I had always "ignored" (not necessarily scared me) was using my own day-job money to hire someone. I always figured, "make a logo? Sure, I can do that." As an aspiring hacker, I was always certain I could learn that skill enough to do something productive. Then I hit a brickwall in my current project. I found a problem that I could not overcome with internet savvy-ness. The only solution I could come up with was to try and hire someone to do it. Needless to say--and saving the learnings from my experience into a different post--it was a great experience, almost addictive. I just set up a contract with one of the online freelance websites, and waited for the end result to come in. ------ nodata Okay. # rm -rf /	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Lyft vs. Uber: A Tale of Two S-1’s - andrewfong https://benjamintseng.com/2019/04/lyft-vs-uber-a-tale-of-two-s-1s/ ====== raiyu Looks like Uber is better on every metric, total volume, growth, revenue, the only area they are behind is margin where they are taking less from their drivers than Lyft is. While Uber looks healthier especially given it's size, Lyft's reception after the IPO was quite negative, with the stock falling 30% immediately in the days that followed. Even with better economics and larger scale the larger question looms, which is how do these businesses turn profitable. Are they subsidizing a market and creating it by charging less, or will they reach a certain scale and be able to cut back on certain expenses which will give them profitability. I don't think Amazon is a fair comparison here, because they were investing in infrastructure, building out global logistics, which is different from Uber and Lyft. They should be much more profitable because they don't have to invest in that. They don't know warehouses and logistics, and everything else that e-commerce required. Also in the case of Amazon the supposed profits would be reinvested in the business with large CapEx spend, here it seems that the negative margins are being spent on sales and marketing, which isn't the same as what Amazon was doing when it was treading in the negative for a decade. ~~~ shubhamjain According to Aswath Damodaran [1], Professor at NYU and an expert at valuing companies, if he had to invest between Uber and Lyft, he will choose the latter. Who are we kidding? Uber, already a gigantic loss machine, continues to invest in loss-making ventures like Food Delivery and E-Scooters. Uber has spread itself to so many areas and markets that I can't see how it'll ever be profitable without making huge cutbacks. The volume and growth are of little significance when they are failing miserably to contain their losses. Compounding it is the fact that there's nothing sticky about any of their business ventures. Customers will choose the cheapest option, so they can never go beyond a certain range of prices. Even if Uber does become profitable, I highly doubt it ever will join the leagues of Apple, Google or Facebook. [1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0wky8yyjuM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0wky8yyjuM) ~~~ bmmayer1 Yes, a so-called 'expert in valuing companies' who doesn't do any actual investing himself. ~~~ danjac I don't know anything about the man or his success record, but as an academic he may not wish to be accused of conflict of interest by promoting companies where he has a personal financial stake. ~~~ argonaut Academics (pure academics) don't have a good track record predicting valuations/prices, period. The people who _actually_ have the ability or to predict valuations/prices (better than the market) are busy making millions, if not billions, of dollars, and they most certainly aren't going to tell _you_ about their predictions/models. If they do, it's after they've already invested or shorted the asset. ~~~ chumali This isn't quite true and you've pretty much identified the reason why. Academics are not investors and their objective isn't to profit but to publish their research. Academics identify a pattern that generates superior risk-adjusted returns and then publish their findings - this then leads to the anomaly disappearing as investors trade away the alpha. [0] The track record of an academic can therefore only be meaningfully discussed in terms of how well their model performs in back-testing. Saying they don't have a good track record misses this point. Perhaps there are successful academic investors who achieve alpha and don't publish their research, however they wouldn't show up in any meta analysis. [0] [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3054718](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3054718) ~~~ lotsofpulp Why would someone publish money making information rather than make the money for themselves? ~~~ sah2ed > _Why would someone publish money making information rather than make the > money for themselves?_ Perhaps because they _enjoy_ academia far more than money making? Some people like Grigori Perelman [0] are just not interested in money or fame, or both. 0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman) ~~~ lotsofpulp I’m not aware of Perelman publishing a “a pattern that generates superior risk-adjusted returns". That type of information is worth millions, and there are many investment firms offering very lucrative positions to those that can identify a pattern that generates superior risk-adjusted returns. Outside of very rare outliers, it doesn’t seem reasonable to assume that information that will generate outsized returns will be publicly available. ------ kaycebasques My buddy works for a law firm and was telling me that they often represent technology companies when they IPO. It turns out there’s an intense amount of research that goes into the S-1 process. The law firm makes a huge spreadsheet, with each row representing a sentence from the S-1, along with evidence supporting the truth of that sentence. They do this because, if the price goes down after the IPO, there’s inevitably a lawsuit, and the company needs to justify everything it said in the IPO. ~~~ toomuchtodo Could be a fun startup idea: NLP for securities legal action against IPOs for investors. ~~~ jjeaff Good luck getting VCs to fund something that fights against their primary source of return. ~~~ rongenre It'll have to be a lifestyle business /s ------ ohadron This comparison is very flawed as it fails to recognise a major difference: the two companies work in very different markets. Lyft is only active in the US while Uber is spread in many different countries. Unit economics look totally different in NYC, Cairo, and Rio. ~~~ jpatokal I'm not so sure about that. Yes, the baseline numbers will be very different, but the _economics_ of ride share are pretty much the same anywhere: there's an existing market price for taxis, which is more or less inflated everywhere due to regulation and inefficiency, and Uber/Lyft/whoever can provide a similar or better service at a profit... except that there's competition fueled by a bonfire of VC money pushing the margin deep into the red. ~~~ ohadron Think about factors such as: cost of vehicle ownership, cost of fuel, minimum wage, social policies, unemployment, public transport infrastructure, population density, specific ride sharing regulation, traffic congestion. All of these directly effect the unit economics of ride sharing. ~~~ jpatokal You're missing my point. All those factors are real, but they set the unit economics of _taxi service_ , which in turn sets the baseline for Uber/Lyft pricing. So if the market price for taxi service in a city is X, already accounting for all those factors, Uber/Lyft should be able to deliver the same or better service for (say) 0.9X, again accounting for the factors but adding in efficiency gains from bypassing parasitical taxi medallion owners, not needing dedicated vehicles, having much easier ordering, etc. There will be some variance in how big that factor is (eg. NYC's $1 million medallions gave Uber a really juicy margin to exploit), but overall, if a city can sustain taxi service, it should be able to sustain Uber/Lyft too. ~~~ stcredzero _overall, if a city can sustain taxi service, it should be able to sustain Uber /Lyft too_ So if a city wants to kill Uber/Lyft, all they need to do is to attack the rideshare margins directly. (Not that they really should. Uber/Lyft is probably a civic good.) ------ tedsanders These 'per driver' stats are not worth comparing when one company operates globally and the other operates in US+Canada. Nothing can really be concluded from them. ~~~ cavisne The non US markets would be expected to mostly drag down Uber's numbers though, for the most part they are significantly better. Its surprising that Uber didnt at least break out US vs non-US markets, maybe the story isnt really that good. ------ clairity the buried lede is lyft's opex spike right before their ipo. typically you'd try to subdue expenses to make the profitability numbers look better, unless you have other problems to fix that you can spend your way out of. (taking these graphs as truth) lyft's gross margins were flagging, so it seems they goosed gross margins with opex, like marketing (likely promos) and better customer service (e.g., refunds). they spent their way to higher gross margins so they could look better than uber for ipo. but as the rest of the analysis points out, lyft is seriously behind uber in the race to overall profitability despite higher per ride take rates. they're still a risky investment in comparison. ------ gumby I can see some of these stats in action. Where I live (Bay Area) Lyft is always more expensive (I typically check them both), sometimes by a _lot_. While in Manhattan I find Lyft cheaper about a third of the time. So no surprise I take more uber rides. I have more incentive to stick with Uber now I’ve read this as the drivers make more (and typically the same driver does both anyway) ~~~ linkregister Drivers use Lyft for a reason; they may have a greater bonus payment that balances out the higher commission to Lyft. As a rider, you should use whichever platform will get you to your destination the soonest and for the least amount of money. ~~~ alehul > Drivers use Lyft for a reason; they may have a greater bonus payment that > balances out the higher commission to Lyft Drivers use Lyft because riders use Lyft, and it's better to drive for either at a given time than neither. It doesn't mean Lyft pays equally or higher. ------ thisisit It is entirely possible for two companies to be the same but also different in how they see their market and revenues. So, without having a deeper understanding of reading financials, comparisons drawn solely based on numbers are flawed. For example, Uber says: > We derive our revenue principally from service fees paid by our Driver and > restaurant partners for the use of our platform in connection with our > Ridesharing products and Uber Eats offering provided by our partners to end- > users. Our sole performance obligation in the transaction is to connect > partners with end-users to facilitate the completion of a successful > Ridesharing trip or Uber Eats meal delivery. _Because end-users access our > platform for free and we have no performance obligation to end-users, end- > users are not our customers._ By making this distinction, Uber might be on a path of trying to maximize it's driver/restaurant unit economics and not on the per user metric. While Lyft also thinks of drivers as their end customer but doesn't clarify the position of end-users like Uber: > We provide a service to drivers to complete a successful transportation > service for riders. This service includes on-demand lead generation that > assists drivers to find, receive and fulfill on-demand requests from riders > seeking transportation services and related collection activities using our > Lyft platform. _As a result, our single performance obligation in the > transaction is to connect drivers with riders to facilitate the completion > of a successful transportation service for riders._ ~~~ username223 > Because end-users access our platform for free and we have no performance > obligation to end-users, end-users are not our customers. That's some bracing cynicism there. So their business plan is to keep paying their taxi drivers less (with VC money), or providing worse service, until they figure out self-driving cars or run out of money? ~~~ creddit It's actually the opposite. You're misunderstanding "end-users" and projecting your inherent bias against Uber. Once I explain what it _actually_ means, you'll probably project it again but here you're just doing so incorrectly :) "End-users" as defined here are actually the riders/"eaters" of Uber. Uber is saying these people are not their customers because they are just providing access to drivers/restaurants+delivery people with their platform. What Uber is saying is that driver/restaurants/devliery people are independently selling their products/services on Uber as a platform and that end-users (riders/eaters/consumers) are simply given free access. ------ lettergram Calling it now, Uber has several large loans coming due in 2021 and 2022. I suspect we will see the bankruptcy proceedings around that time. They may survive, not strapped with the debt, perhaps they’ll be profitable. Aka they will just have debt restructuring. Regardless, that’s when I suspect the bankruptcy will occur. ~~~ baby this is wishful thinking, Uber is everywhere and too big to fail. It might be hard to see if you don't travel much outside the US. On the other hand, I don't know anyone outside the US who knows Lyft. ~~~ willhslade How is Uber, a company that has never made money, and has competitors in every market in taxi cabs, too big to fail? TBTF refers to banks, not side investments from SoftBank and Saudi Arabia. ------ rsuelzer From the drivers I know, they much prefer to drive for Lyft. Almost entirely because they say Lyft riders leave much larger tips and Uber drivers tip much less if at all. ------ sandstrom Interesting! This heading sounds off "Despite Pocketing More, Lyft Loses More per User". Shouldn't that be "Uber loses more…"? ~~~ zone411 The profit per monthly active user and the profit per ride graphs both show Lyft losing more. ------ nabla9 When the business matures, the margins in the TNC business will be razor thin. There will be local competitors in every city. There will be pure software companies that build TNC apps and sell operating services. Maybe Vuitton, Apple, Waymo, Herz, Hilton, Star Alliance, Oneworld etc. also have their own mobility service provider networks. Say 4 billion people, 1% of them do ride-hailing of some kind, every one of them has five ride sharing apps and they pay $0.20 per day for each. That's $15B in revenue total for all those involved. ------ judge2020 They both got the stock ticker that matches the company name, but could that be a bad thing? eg. If you google "lyft" it brings up the company and an Ad to drive for lyft, so to see the stock price (in G) you have to type "nasdaq:lyft". ~~~ booleandilemma I’d say overall it’s a good thing, because you can say the ticker and people will know what company you’re talking about. Try that with Boeing, Intel, or Starbucks. Who cares what Google shows.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Are Your Donations to EFF Triggering Bank Fraud Protection Measures? - wlj HSBC (UK) has erroneously blocked my monthly donations to the EFF on the basis of "fraud protection" for 2 consecutive months now and I'm wondering whether this is a more widespread issue.<p>Also, is there any good reason why the EFF would be triggering this type of transaction block with banks? ====== cjbprime Donations to charity in general often cause credit cards to be blocked -- my wife and I do this thing[1] where we give large amounts to multiple charities on the same day each year, and last year it took a couple days to get all the charges to be successful and cards unblocked. I think the idea is that credit card thieves use charitable donations to figure out whether they have a valid card, so they're considered especially suspicious[2]. [1]: [http://blog.printf.net/articles/2012/11/27/celebrating- seven...](http://blog.printf.net/articles/2012/11/27/celebrating-seven-years- with-seven-percent/) [2]: [http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/070607-credit-card- thi...](http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/070607-credit-card-thieves.html) ~~~ thejteam This is true. I've had donations to Heifer delayed by credit cards before. I've heard is is pretty common. ------ gustoffen In case you didn't know, the EFF takes bitcoin donations now. ~~~ cyphunk and depending on your route in bitcoin may cause just as much scrutiny on your financial endpoints. ------ andrewcooke i haven't had problems, but do it annually (i can't remember how, but i would guess it's credit card). i am in chile.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Logitech’s Adaptive Gaming Kit Finishes What Xbox’s XAC Started - sohkamyung https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/11/logitechs-100-adaptive-gaming-kit-finishes-what-xboxs-xac-started/ ====== falcolas I am not significantly disabled in any way, and I can think of quite a few usecases for non-traditional controllers that act like traditional controllers. Please, bring us more, Logitech and Microsoft.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What's Wrong with 19 Year Old Developers - unfoldedorigami http://mattballdesign.com/blog/2008/02/20/the-forgotten-delicious/ ====== daniel-cussen He could have made the text a little bigger, but he has a point about guys our age having trouble sticking to things. Of course, the implication is to make less ambitious projects that will get completed within attention span. ------ kajecounterhack I'm 17, and I agree wholeheartedly. I think I've started at least 7 or 8 projects but have yet to follow through with any of them. I also believe that another reason for that is that when you're young, you dream a lot about many things. Yeaaah. Then theres the "life" factor... (geek = no life? not necessarily true) but really there isn't an unlimited quantity of daylight hours to code. Rather, there is an unlimited quantity of nighttime hours. ------ zaidf There is nothing wrong with starting many projects. If anything, that IS a major strength of a good hacker! The harder question is when do you know which project to run with? That might have as much to do with luck and maturity. Zuckerberg almost dropped the facebook; youtube guys had very poor response to first version of youtube but they kept going. ------ cellis I was once a 19 year old dev... i turn 21 next month :( ... on the flip side, i'm finally sticking to _one_ project.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
School-Sanctioned Mid-18th-Century Hazing Rituals at Harvard - smacktoward http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/09/02/history_of_harvard_customs_hazing_rituals_of_the_school_in_the_18th_century.html ====== SocksCanClose Agree. Besides, point by point (from the article) 1\. No freshmen wearing hats on the quad. -- This is a classic stylistic indicator of manhood. By telling Freshmen to not wear their hats, it's a way of identifying them to their peers as new students. 2\. Taking off one's hat when passing a senior student. -- This isn't about subservience, it's about creating an atmosphere of collegiality. It's why in the military junior ranking personnel salute senior ranking personnel: because saying hello is a great way to create common bonds of friendship and fealty, and because you need some sort of rule of who should say hello first. 3\. "No Freshman should be saucy... or speak to a Senior with his hat on." Again -- this is anachronistic. But only insofar as wearing a hat while talking to someone was a sign of higher social status. Harvard is raising men to serve in the public sphere, and deference (or at least its outer edifice) is important to get ahead. 4\. + 5. (same as above -- just good manners) 6\. Privacy. Similar to 3, 4&5. 7\. ???? No idea what this means -- though these seem to be ranks of some kind given the linguistics. Perhaps these are "Freshman" "Sophomore" "Junior" "Senior" and then "Professor" in 19th century student lingo? 8\. This is a great lesson for anybody. When asked to do something, do it quickly and efficiently. Wish I could teach my peers this skill! 9\. This is the 19th century version of digital privacy. 10\. This is just basic standardization for executing code. They're just telling everybody what phrases indicate the end of the command. 11., 12. 13. - more good manners. Freshmen seem to essentially be social media tools. Want to play a sport on the green? Send out an invite (i.e. Freshman) to get your friends. What would you prefer, that they get a slave to do it? If it's a Freshman, at least they can rationalize it by saying they're simply investing in a system which has a 3-1 ROI (i.e. for the next three years they'll be able to utilize the same system to their own benefit). 14\. This is a good rule for kids who are likely to be a little wild. It's like forcing people to log in to Facebook in order to comment -- the thought will always be there that at any given time someone might come in and see what you're doing. Also good training for public life. Getting used to public scrutiny. ... ------ keep2carry20 Hazing? More like good manners.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What do you think about a NLP for spanish language blog? - mfalcon I'm a software engineer from Buenos Aires, Argentina. We use spanish as our primary language and I've been working on several applications with the help of different NLP features.<p>I've been thinking about launching a blog with practical examples and code that I use and I'd like to know if you think it'll be interesting to write an english version. To make myself clear, I'm talking about building a NLP for spanish blog written in English, so the question is, for the people here on HN who are on this industry, are you interested on applying NLP for the spanish language or are you mainly interested in the english branch? ====== gus_massa [Hi from Argentina too!] I think it will be interesting, in particular if you discuss the additional problems that appear in Spanish. For example: non ascii characters, declination of adjectives by gender, more declination of verbs, ??? These problems may appear in other languages as German, French, ... so the material may be interesting for anyone trying to do a localized version of a tool in other languages. ------ Eridrus I'd definitely be interested in reading about how NLP for Spanish compares to NLP for English, particularly since I don't speak Spanish :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Clojure multi-methods - puredanger http://tech.puredanger.com/2010/08/21/clojure-multi-methods/ ====== barrkel I would actually object to describing Clojure's multimethods as being multimethods, especially in the CLOS sense of the term. Clojure's multimethods are more like a clumsy, dynamic version of functional pattern matching, with a classification predicate applied to the arguments to select the target method. In this sense, it's the programmer - the supplier of the dispatching function - who has the job of doing the dispatching. This trickiness of this dispatching is probably the motivation behind the CLOS language feature, but Clojure foists it on the developer. What would more normally be described as multimethods is the dynamic equivalent of a static language's implementation of overload resolution. Overload resolution has subtle semantics in languages that support it, and is surprisingly difficult to get right, as it has competing design forces: the flagging of ambiguity, versus inferring what the user - the customer - wants. There are two steps in both overload resolution and multimethod dispatch: discovery of the set of applicable methods, and then the sorting of those methods by how specific they are to the argument types. Every parameter type in the winning method needs to be as specific, or more specific, for that argument type, than every other method's parameter type. The single most specific method, if any, is chosen. (The OO case of inheritance is just a special case of specificity.) There may be no applicable methods, in which case it's a simple error. But the case of ambiguity is fraught with difficulties, because users generally prefer their code to do what they mean, and inferring that from what they say - the methods they declare - can be difficult. Suppose your language supports implicit conversions of values to supertypes, or to supported interfaces. Overload resolution forces you to specify a priority here - which method to prefer in the case where the relevant parameter type is alternately one or the other - or to produce an error - i.e. telling the customer that they're wrong. Bring other language features, like user-defined conversions, variant types, untyped parameters, multiple inheritance, etc., and you can can quickly find yourself in a mess. ~~~ puredanger Clojure actually does support (multiple, open) type hierarchies (with preferences) for dispatching on type. This example just doesn't use them. Lots more info here: <http://clojure.org/multimethods> Another solution is provided in Clojure 1.2's protocols which are similar but different: <http://clojure.org/protocols> ~~~ barrkel Ah, I see. I had thought that a single dispatcher value was required; but I see that a list of them is acceptable, and Clojure then uses the more regular means on _that_ , rather the original list of arguments. Then, the point of the dispatching function - which is what it's called in the Clojure docs - is rather a classifier function, rather than dispatcher. ------ puredanger Make sure to check out the followup to this article re Perl 6: [http://blogs.perl.org/users/tyler_curtis/2010/08/age- discrim...](http://blogs.perl.org/users/tyler_curtis/2010/08/age- discrimination-in-perl-6-using-subsets-and-multiple-dispatch.html) and the HN discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1624027> ------ puredanger And this follow-up in Python: [http://codeblog.dhananjaynene.com/2010/08/clojure-style- mult...](http://codeblog.dhananjaynene.com/2010/08/clojure-style-multi- methods-in-python/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Any good email reminder startups? - ajaimk Hey,<p>I'm in need to a tool that will be able to automate sending a reminder to about 200 people 24 hours before each deadline. We usually have 3 or 4 a week.<p>Is there any startup doing this? Know of any good websites?<p>Thanks ====== Serene \- <http://www.youbookin.com/> (online appointment scheduling) \- <https://etacts.com/> (mass messaging to multiple contacts) \- <http://snoozester.com/> (scheduled telephone reminders) \- <http://www.fyiremindme.com/> (automated reminders) \- <http://www.logicalware.com> (Mailmanager by Logicalware) \- <http://www.spyvo.com/> \- <http://mailmelater.com/> ------ aj Why not use Google Calendar? Or perhaps <http://rememberthemilk.com>? ------ jmonegro Backpack (<http://www.backpackit.com>) ------ medianama Mailchimp	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
See the Twitter 'bots swarm – can technology solve this problem? - ColinWright https://twitter.com/rsnous/status/1002778364443176960 ====== ColinWright Clearly triggered by the word "evolution" this tweet has a huge number of replies that are clearly from 'bots. Surely twitter can start to solve this problem? It can't be hard to set up "honeypots" to lure 'bots and effectively hell-ban them, so since it would appear easy then either: * It's harder than it seems, or; * Twitter doesn't care. Will this problem finally kill off Twitter? Perhaps no one will really care ...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why I am working on Artificial General Intelligence - chegra https://medium.com/career-pathing/5c73c0865969 ====== orionblastar My sister and I are working on a problem like that: [https://medium.com/p/3fdccaab0956](https://medium.com/p/3fdccaab0956) I believe the term is Artificial Genuine Intelligence so that it can pass a Turning test. Not too long ago I made an alpha test in PHP/MYSQL using a Thesaurus and released the code on Github. We are working on a specific plan on how to solve this problem. Modeled after how the human brain should work, verses how the human brain fails to get genuine intelligence with most people and ends up with general intelligence instead. It is important to note the difference. For example we are trying to set up a conscience (ignore my sister's poor spelling in her medium post) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience) that filters out bad thoughts that may harm someone. We are trying to use logic, reason, and critical thinking but haven't yet devised any data structures or algorithms for those yet. We use Artificial Genuine Intelligence from here: [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/00016918699...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0001691869900213) Artificial General Intelligence is the sort of AI that won't pass a Turning test. We use general intelligence and genuine intelligence from neuroscience and psychology. Most people don't know the difference. ------ bjterry > It is a technology risk. This means that if I solve it, I wouldn’t have to > worry about finding customers. VCs like technology risk. This is wrong (with all due respect to Steve Blank in his video, I don't really disagree with that video in context). Technology VCs hate technology risk. Biotech can get funded with 10-15 year lag times because the market risk is so lopsidedly low with patents, very concrete information on disease incidence rates, and solid metrics on what likely drug prices can be, among other factors. Technology VCs would call his AGI a "science project" and dismiss it. The only reason he can _sort of_ make this statement is that he's assuming that the technology risk is gone when he says "if I solve it," but that doesn't mean that they don't hate technology risk. Even if he were successful in building an AGI there would still be market risk because if he can get it done, what's the probability that Google or IBM won't have beaten him to the punch (a VC might say)? The reason this is a confusion is because "technology risk" and "market risk" are not anchored to any particular value, they are relative to the speakers norms, and so each of these parties is anchoring them differently. When Steve Blank is talking about technology risk, he's not talking about high technology risk as in building AGI hard, he's talking about "can we build an enterprise software that automatically handles some highly complex business process that we aren't QUITE sure is automatable." ------ eli_gottlieb AGI is a very _weird_ field, in that approximately half the practitioners are getting experimental results, half are getting formal mathematical results, and half are complete crackpots outside their own field of Narrow AI expertise. These attributes can even appear in _the same person_ , though Ray Kurzweil and Google are famous for seeming more crackpot-y than many for essentially claiming that a sufficiently large deep-learning or neural-network algorithm will at some point develop sapience ;-). Which is obviously wrong. Everyone knows it will develop sapience _and then develop a fetish for small office implements and destroy humanity._ Ok, to be serious, the guys who are actually doing Real Research into this sort of thing are, IMHO, Juergen Schmidhuber and Marcus Hutter. They are getting formal results in what they call the "new formal science" of "Universal Artificial Intelligence", and their insights into UAI are then leading them back to insights into Narrow AI and Machine Learning. Notice how they keep producing publications in reputable journals, keep getting awards for their papers, and keep getting major research grants? That's called _results_ , and it's what shows they're onto something. They actually wrote a textbook on the subject, but it is, unfortunately, well beyond my level of background knowledge right now. I would recommend it, however, to anyone who thinks that AGI is going to be as cheap and easy as throwing lots and lots of machines into a single gigantic machine-learning cluster. On the upside, their algorithms can play a game of Pac-Man. Someone ought to enter them in a Procedural Super Mario competition. But overall, the old dream of "Strong AI" is not a matter of just coming up with the One True Algorithm and crossing the finishing line to victory. Even for the researchers smart enough to see the eventual shape of the finished product, there are lots of intermediate steps still to be solved -- even though we now have a better idea of what they are than before. ~~~ orionblastar Thank you eli_gottlieb, do you have a link to where to buy their book and a link to their website? My AGI project is stalled and this level of AI is beyond my understanding right now, and I have to find a better source to read. I've been using an old AI book from Radio Shack that my father-in-law gave me just before he died in 2002. I think it was designed for the Tandy 1000 series and BASIC or Prolog that he used to have but I have been trying to convert it to different programming languages. The problem is my wife cleaned up my stuff and I cannot find it anymore. I think this was it: [http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Artificial- Intelligence-...](http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Artificial-Intelligence- Radio-Shack/dp/B000IXKVC6) but I am not 100% sure so I have been guessing. I got sick and became disabled in 2002, and then my father-in-law died of cancer while I was in a hospital almost dying myself. I wanted to finish the AI project he wanted me to do for him, but I've been sick and in way over my head. ~~~ eli_gottlieb My disclaimer is: I am NOT an AI researcher. I don't have the mathematical background _yet_. As to Schmidhuber and Hutter, Google them. This is their book: [http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Artificial-Intelligence- Algo...](http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Artificial-Intelligence-Algorithmic- Probability/dp/3642060528/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1380727984&sr=8-2) If you can't understand the math in that book, then you are basically not going to do better at the Formal UAI field than the crackpots have done for decades. I mean no disrespect, but nobody has actually discovered an _easier to understand_ theory of UAI that gets equivalently good results. A book from 1986 is definitely obsolete, and definitely applies to Narrow AI rather than AGI. The General/Universal AI field in its modern form dates to roughly the early-mid 2000s (2003ish is when AIXI was published in the _Journal of Machine Learning_ and they got their own conference in 2005... which was kinda crackpotish). On the other hand, to be encouraging rather than discouraging, one of the things about the AI/Machine Learning field is that you can discover far less than "ahaha, talking robots now!" and still have a useful discovery. A* Heuristic Search was a useful discovery that powers a _huge_ fraction of modern video-game AI, even though it will never take over the world. For instance, I read a blog post yesterday about writing improved "rock paper scissors" bots and came up with a nice little model of strategic "I know you know I know" Sicilian Reasoning that I scrawled out into a Reddit post. ------ yankoff Have you developed a specific plan to tackle this problem? ;) ------ cwbrandsma For how many generations have we said that Artificial General Intelligence will be "solved in our lifetime". Seems like it is alway a couple of decades away. But, if the definition is narrowed, there might be parts of the field that can be solved. ~~~ ggchappell > For how many generations have we said that Artificial General Intelligence > will be "solved in our lifetime". Ah, but it isn't the same "we". 60 years ago, I guess your basic computing researcher thought human-level AI was just around the corner. And why not? Suddenly there was this wonderful machine that could do amazing feats of reasoning and computation in an eyeblink. And computers were constantly being improved; who knew what they would be capable of in a few more years. Nowadays, it's mainly Ray Kurzweil and a few others like him. And ... well, they're basically _paid_ to say it. I could get a group of 1000 people together and give them a speech about how 2040 will be much like today, except for cooler phones, more expensive gas, and faster pizza delivery, and they'll all be bored and go home disappointed. Get Ray K. in front of the same group telling them the future is going to be _indescribably_ _different_ , and they're interested. Some people do write-ups on the speech. It gets discussed. It's something you hear about. And Ray K. is the one who gets invitations to other speaking engagements. In short, when you hear that super-AI is on the horizon, remember that, however far-fetched that might be, this is an _interesting_ thought. The idea that it's a long way off, is not nearly so catchy. (See also memes, etc.) ~~~ orionblastar It is a matter of building data structures and algorithms to teach a computer the meaning of words, and then use logic of how those words fit together along with parts of speech. Then make ones for logic, reason, critical thinking, and then a conscience to screen out any bad 'thoughts' (Yes you have to make a data structure for thoughts and algorithms for them as well and then a conscience function to determine if they are good or evil, like 'slice loaf of bread' is good 'slice finger off person' is evil.) All I've been able to do is use a Thesaurus to paraphrase words at random. This Artificial genuine Intelligence will need a Thesaurus database to keep track of words and words that are like them for fuzzy logic comparisons. [https://github.com/orionblastar/blastarparaphrase](https://github.com/orionblastar/blastarparaphrase) My PHP/MYSQL code is just an alpha test proof of concept and I need help with it as it just does random replacements. Someone I know has made some AI chatbots with Ruby and Python etc over here: [http://subbot.org/](http://subbot.org/) They too need work, but the source code is open and you can look at it and contact the developer. ~~~ eli_gottlieb _It is a matter of building data structures and algorithms to teach a computer the meaning of words, and then use logic of how those words fit together along with parts of speech. Then make ones for logic, reason, critical thinking, and then a conscience to screen out any bad 'thoughts' (Yes you have to make a data structure for thoughts and algorithms for them as well and then a conscience function to determine if they are good or evil, like 'slice loaf of bread' is good 'slice finger off person' is evil.)_ This describes something an AGI would be able to do. This is nowhere near an accurate definition of an AGI. I'm about to write a top-level comment on this subject pointing to the actual current science on the subject, so go read ;-).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Google+ for Google Apps / GMail - ajessup http://www.noosbox.com ====== ajessup Do you feel the 'group' method of sharing conversations (as presented in this app) is a better way of sharing information across a team than the Google Circles method? I would worry that in a workplace setting, people wouldn't be sufficiently motivated to set-up and use circles effectively. ------ shib71 Interesting app, but comparing it to Google+ is a bit of a stretch.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Animal-rights activists wreak havoc in Milan laboratory - ananyob http://www.nature.com/news/animal-rights-activists-wreak-havoc-in-milan-laboratory-1.12847 ====== ananyob "Some of the mice they removed were delicate mutants and immunosuppressed ‘nude’ mice, which die very quickly outside controlled environments" Sheesh	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
GitLab integration for Netlify – Netlify - webbuddy ====== riffic Found this link via Google: [https://www.netlify.com/blog/2016/07/13/gitlab- integration-f...](https://www.netlify.com/blog/2016/07/13/gitlab-integration- for-netlify/) ------ cugrande ?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Windows Terminal (Preview) - hbcondo714 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/windows-terminal-preview/9n0dx20hk701 ====== moocowtruck is there non app store download? ~~~ hbcondo714 Their Github page lists only one download link to the Windows Store but you could build it too [https://github.com/microsoft/terminal](https://github.com/microsoft/terminal)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products - benryon https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-scooped-up-data-from-its-own-sellers-to-launch-competing-products-11587650015 ====== nateburke About 10 years ago I met the head of IT for B&H cameras in NYC. Among many things, he was in charge of the hosting for their online store. After he complained about dealing with physical servers, I asked him if he had ever considered using AWS ec2 for the website, and he replied that his boss refused because he believed that Amazon would pull data on B&H products and use it to compete more effectively. I'm not sure that Amazon would be able to pierce the veil of the hypervisor like that, but his instincts were in the correct direction. ~~~ throwaway_aws Throwaway account for obvious reasons. In the past, AWS has used the data from third party hosted services on AWS to build a similar service and in fact start poaching their customers. Source: I used to be at AWS and know the PM & his manager who built a service this way. I was hired on that team. ~~~ throwaway_aws As for talking to journalists, I didn't leave with any ill will and don't want to complicate my life. I personally know a friend who got involved with journalists... his past employer came to know about it, sued him... and he became almost unemployable in the valley. Edit: fixed a typo ~~~ movedx > ... his past employer came to know about it, sued him... and he became > almost unemployable in the valley. You might have a family to protect. A home to maintain, etc. I understand. It's scary. But the world doesn't and cannot change for the better if we let corporations bully us into silence. The world will and does change when brave individuals, with the support of society, stand up and blow the whistle. ~~~ throwlaplace Lol exactly what support will you be providing? Will you contribute to paying this person's salary for the next 10 years? I wish people would quit with the empty platitudes and the rhetoric. ~~~ movedx Your comment reminds me of the kind seen from Russian bots. Everything about what you said matches the algos I've seen. Very interesting. But yes, I would be happy to contribute to a support fund to support such individuals. ~~~ throwlaplace lol yea right now people that call you out on your meaningless blather are russian bots haha >But yes, I would be happy to contribute to a support fund to support such individuals. cool you can start by donating to absolutely any charity in need right now. ------ theturtletalks This is the exact reason why Shopify grew rapidly. Sellers knew they needed a platform where they own the data and could abstract the operations outside of Amazon seller dashboard. People also forget that Amazon doesn't have to pay to advertise its own products, but 3rd party sellers do. This immediately puts you at a disadvantage if you want your product at the top since you pay seller commission and advertising fees to Amazon. Next time you want to buy something from Amazon, I would encourage you to find the seller's website directly or find them on eBay. eBay charges less seller fees and is not in the business of selling products directly. ~~~ alaskamiller With Shopify you don't pay ~20% sales commission to Amazon per se, but you sure as heck will end up paying for that if not more to Facebook. Where by FB has no direct incentive, yet. It could be a FB Marketplace PM team someone has already copied Shopify outright and is just waiting for the right time to roll that out to all FB user worldwide. With Amazon Marketplace the strategy has always been to convert customers off that platform into your own. Most top listings in most niches/categories are priced for break even inclusive of the multitudes of keyword PPC campaigns they're running with the hope that you leave a review and that you actually pay attention to the little postcard that comes inside the package asking you to register your email address. Both games suck tbh. ~~~ Guest42 Does amazon allow seller sites to have lower prices? ~~~ coryrc Just sell a "variant" ------ CodeCube So many comments about, "doesn't everyone know they do this?", and "everyone does this!" I say there should be an explicit difference between "running a platform", and "selling on a platform", and never should the two meet. By "platform" here, and in the context of selling stuff online or IRL, I mainly mean that the store should never compete with their suppliers ... it's madness and unethical. If everyone can get a piece of the pie, it makes for a healthier ecosystem. We should _want_ the rising tide to lift more than one boat. And yes, I believe this should be regulated at the policy level. This of course has implications for other forms of "platforms", such as operating systems, APIs, and clouds; but I'll leave those discussions for another time ;) ~~~ entee The major question I don’t have a good answer to is, “Why is this different than brick and mortar store brands like Safeway signature?” Surely a part of is is placement, but Safeway could put own brand ketchup at the same level (and I think sometimes does) as Heinz and still wouldn’t sell the same volume. Amazon is clearly getting a big advantage here, I’m just curious about what the underlying dynamics are that allow them to be so much more successful in their context than it seems store brands are in other contexts. ~~~ snowwrestler The difference is that Safeway does not have any other _sellers_ on their shelves. Safeway buys inventory at wholesale and sells it at retail. Everything that is sold in Safeway was intentionally selected by Safeway to be there. If you see a product on a Safeway shelf, the company that makes that product already got paid--by Safeway. If Safeway puts a generic ibuprofen bottle next to a bottle of Advil, that's fine with Advil because Advil already got paid! Safeway is assuming the risk that those bottles of Advil might not sell because everyone buys the generic. Amazon is different--they sell things themselves, but they also offer to run a logistics platform for other folks selling things. Folks who use this platform _believe_ (are led to believe) that they are going to direct to consumers, NOT selling wholesale to Amazon. Amazon purports to be a neutral infrastructure provider, like UPS or Verizon. Now, you can say that these folks are naive for believing Amazon about their neutrality, but it is what Amazon said! Many of these companies would never have used Amazon for logistics in the first place if Amazon had said "we are going to use all your data to copy your products and go direct-to-consumer ourselves with our copies, including placing them above yours in search results." Who would take that deal? ~~~ granzymes I don't see as big of a distinction between Safeway and Amazon. The demand for pain medication is relatively constant, so if sales of Safeway's generic ibuprofen increase it will come at the expense of Advil because Safeway will start buying fewer units. The harm is one step removed but is still there. I think a better argument would be the scale of the data collected by Amazon vs physical stores. But on the other hand, Safeway has an online store where they can collect the same information and if they are anything like Walmart then they also already have startlingly detailed insight into the supply chains and logistics of their suppliers that surely rivals what Amazon sees if you use their warehousing service. I don't think it makes sense to draw a clear distinction between Amazon generics and Safeway/Walmart generics. It seems like a fuzzy line at best. ~~~ ooobit2 Maybe. One distinction I want to argue is placement: Amazon always places the Amazon Choice options at the top of the search and product listings. They also always include them in the "Popular, Editor's Picks, Highest Rated, etc." box that appears in the middle of most pages on the site. This would be like you walking into Safeway for a bag of sugar, and as soon as you turn down the aisle, there's an employee telling you everyone buys the Safeway brand Sugar or an advertisement with three boxes showing Safeway's as the Most Popular option, and two others next to it. Where this gets real distinct is in delivery: Amazon is currently purging its warehouses of stock from thousands of vendors so it can keep stock of Amazon- brand and big box brand alternatives to those same products. (See: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-28/amazon- is...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-28/amazon-is-poised-to- unleash-long-feared-purge-of-small-suppliers)) So, the Safeway equivalent of this would be you going down the sugar aisle and finding exactly 1 or 2 bags of competing brands with a note that says, "Hurry! Almost out!", and each bag has 10lb. anchor attached to it. But there's 100 bags of Safeway sugar, and there's a line of employees offering to carry it through the store for you do you don't hurt your terribly sore shoulders... How would you feel if a Safeway associate slapped a tracking device on you when you walked in the door, and then didn't tell you they were recording everything you thought while you were working your way through the store? That's how Amazon.com works. Oh, and if Safeway could just look at your other recent thoughts and know you fapped about 20 minutes before you walked in the door? That's also Amazon. ~~~ sharmi Another issue. At Safeway, Heinz ketchup is the real deal. No duplicates. Amazon, on the other hand, has allowed duplicates, cheap reproductions and false reviews to proliferate. Now the only way you are assured a product is what it says is if it is an amazon brand. ------ sacks2k I saw this happening a decade ago, but I had no real proof. I had a profitable Amazon store in 2010. I found niche products that Amazon didn't sell. As soon as I started getting traction on any one product, Amazon would start undercutting me, and my sales would drop to almost zero over the course of a couple of weeks. I had near 100% feedback and I had a single customer complaint that I sold them the wrong product. Within a few minutes of me receiving this claim, my account was suspended. I had no chance to rectify the situation. No amount of calling or emailing Amazon could get me in front of someone that could help me. All responses were an automated rejection. This was a rough time for me as it was my only form of income and Amazon held almost $30,000 of my money for 3 months. I ended up having to close my business and move on, though I did eventually get all of my money back. I've built multiple successful businesses since then and Amazon has recently had many business reps try to get me to sign up with a business account, because we purchase lots of items on Amazon/month. I always try to get them to re-investigate my old seller account and our email correspondence stops shortly after this. It's crazy to me that after 10 years and in a completely different industry, I still can't open a seller account. It taught me a valuable lesson not to build my entire business on someone else's platform. It only gives them more control over you and they will most likely use your customers, data, and more resources to out-compete you, if you get too big. Twitter has also done this to their app developers. My wife runs a small business on Etsy and it's just as bad. They make random code changes, which bumps listings up or down and you suddenly have no orders for weeks at a time. What's even scarier is if a handful of companies run everything we use online. Will I suddenly not be able to get a home loan for a decade because of an account closure? ~~~ econcon Same happens to us but we split sales to Shopify. Any idea if Shopify does same? It seems their ambitions keeps growing, they started charging percentage of revenue instead of flat subscription. ~~~ TimSchumann I've had this thought as well, and certainly there seems to be nothing preventing them from going down that road. Though at least with Shopify, it's theoretically easier to move your website to another platform/service or just roll your own. I'd say that you're basically at their mercy with regards to the charging a percentage of revenue though. I mean, that's how all card processors work. By default I trust Shopify more than Amazon, and in both instances your business is essentially succeeding 'at their pleasure' so to speak. So I thought on it for a minute. I think the main difference comes down to individuals in the business and culture. I'd elaborate more but I'm not sure I want to write that much speculative crap on the internet this morning, and I should get something productive done with my day. EDIT: Also just realized, that if you look at my spending habits, they 100% imply I trust Amazon more than Shopify. ------ MichaelApproved The solution isn't hoping the free market would solve this with a competing platform. The solution is to create regulations & laws that prevent this behavior. You're either a platform/retailer or you're a manufacturer. You don't get to be both because we see the perverse incentive that happens when it's allowed. ~~~ chairmanwow1 What really is the issue? That Amazon is leveraging its success to be successful? It's unfair that Amazon is able to see that a product category is doing well so it invests its own money into manufacturing a product to sell through its site? Do you really think that if Amazon couldn't use the data from its own site that it wouldn't procure it elsewhere? Before any product is developed there is extensive market research done to get an idea of how much money this product could make. Anyone can and does do this, why should Amazon be punished that its data collection mechanism is cheaper than others? ~~~ munificent Vertical monopolies are anti-competitive. It works like this: 1\. Amazon clones independent manufacturer's product. 2\. Amazon strangles manufacturer because they can promote their own product more and have lower overhead because they control the entire chain. 3\. Competitor dies. 4\. Amazon has no competition on this product. 5\. They raise prices and/or lower quality. 6\. Consumers pay more for a shittier product. ~~~ toohotatopic You forget the other big competitors. Sun pushed OpenOffice to cut MS's profits from Office Google and MS are pushing into the Cloud to reduce Amazon's influence Amazon is creating its own ad network and offering Twitch to reign in Google Walmart is slowly creating its own global online shopping platform to compete with Amazon Should Amazon ever have no competitor, monopoly regulations would kick in. But usually, all the other big players will make sure that Amazon has enough competition to not be invincible. It's not fun for small players, but they obviously don't care enough to organize and take their products off Amazon. Btw, Amazon does not necessarily have less overhead due to Price's law: [1] >The square root of the number of people in a domain do 50% of the work. Should Amazon expand into every business, they would be so huge that all their efficiencies and more would be eaten up by the overhead. [1][https://brainlid.org/general/2017/11/28/price- law.html](https://brainlid.org/general/2017/11/28/price-law.html) ~~~ MiroF Price's law is of questionable empirical validity, it's more like a useful guideline/urban legend. On the other hand, there is substantial economic research demonstrating the harms of monopolies, including vertical ones. I'm a bit confused. Are you claiming that because of Price's law, Amazon doesn't actually benefit from it's monopoly position? ~~~ toohotatopic Almost. I think that Amazon cannot hold a monopoly position in all markets because its size would be so big that a smaller competitor could compete. As a consequence, there will be an optimal size where Amazon is serving many markets, most likely the most profitable ones, thus massively benefiting [ * ], but they leave every other market open. Depending on the future, this is not necessarily a bad position because low interest rates could seed plenty of startups which means that competitors could operate below break even points. The question is: will Amazon ever reach that position or will its competitors make sure that all its profitable markets will dry up and its growth will be limited? [] Actually, not Amazon is profiting because the value of that dominant position would be priced into Amazon shares in advance. Amazon would just execute its dominant position that its investors had foreseen. ------ whoisjuan Stating the obvious I guess. All retailers do this and create their own white- label brands to squeeze profit from well-performing categories. Target, for instance, is very upfront about it and they have like a gazillion white-label brands that compete in hundreds of categories, which makes it very gray for the customer. Does anyone really think that any retailer launches a competing product in a category without looking at all their supplier data? If you want distribution you risk this. The only way to avoid it, it's to do direct to consumer or having a product that is extremely hard to copy. ~~~ thoraway1010 This is totally false - the number of retailers who have testified before congress that they don't use seller data to compete against sellers - and then who go ahead and do just that is basically zero. Additionally, most other retailers actually BUY the third parties products and take the risk of promoting and selling it. On Amazon third parties take the inventory and many other risks and may have to pay amazon to promote their product. The story here is that amazon has testified it does not do something, has supposedly the "highest ethical principals" \- yet goes ahead and does exactly that which it said it doesn't do. Do that not matter to you from a trust / credibility perspective? ~~~ dd36 How would Amazon not use sales data of comparable products to evaluate the launch of a new white label product? ~~~ archgoon Amazon agrees that what is being reported goes against their policies. '"However, we strictly prohibit our employees from using nonpublic, seller- specific data to determine which private label products to launch." Amazon said employees using such data to inform private-label decisions in the way the Journal described would violate its policies, and that the company has launched an internal investigation.' ~~~ sokoloff That carefully phrased language could be technically accurate but still allow them to use seller-agnostic information about the market for batteries or speaker wire to decide to launch Amazon Basics batteries or speaker wire. (Which by the way, I’m totally fine with, because there’s no reasonable way to prove you’re not doing it and any brick-and-mortar retailer is almost surely doing it as well.) ~~~ t0mas88 It's also ethically fair game to base your decisions to launch a product on the amount of consumer interest the category gets. Everyone does that. What they promise not to do is take a look at seller specific data. That makes sense because it won't get them much extra compared to looking at categories, and the sellers ethically claim it's their data. ~~~ thoraway1010 Actually - as the article described, they DO spend a lot of time looking at SPECIFIC seller data for unique products because it gives them LOTS extra that category details don't provide. ~~~ dang Could you please stop using allcaps like this? This is in the site guidelines: _Please don 't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized._ [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). ------ Operyl I thought this was common knowledge. Don’t the chains like Walmart do the exact same things? ~~~ sct202 It's a little bit different because Amazon claims to be a marketplace at the same time as curating its own specific product offering. It would be kind of like if a mall required all transactions from independent stores in the mall to go thru the malls servers and then the mall started its own product lines to sell based on that data. ~~~ ThrowawayR2 Walmart has had their own marketplace for a while. For example, I can order a HP DL360 Gen10 from a third-party seller on Walmart's site right now. ------ Tiktaalik The key difference between what Amazon does and Costco/Walmart etc does, is that regular retail takes the risk of buying the product to resell, prior to gathering data and considering whether to clone it. Amazon is able to snoop on all the sales data without any risk. ~~~ acwan93 We sell an ERP catered to distributors and many do sell on Amazon. I’ve always wondered why on earth they would continue to sell on a platform that’s constantly gathering their selling data, or even inventory if they’re going FBA, and eventually try to undercut them if their products sell well. Their response is usually “I’m making enough money now, why worry about later?” or “our product category is too niche for Amazon to enter.” It seems like that kind of reasoning makes sense for traditional retailers like Costco/Walmart/Macy’s etc., but not Amazon where Amazon virtually has no risk in listing a product. ~~~ toasterlovin When your customers say that their product is too niche, they're probably right in a lot of cases. The argument that Amazon can enter every niche and cater to every consumer want is essentially saying that planned economies can actually function. But they can't. Amazon is skimming the highest volume product categories and that's it. They couldn't manage the complexity of branching out into every single long tail product. ~~~ PaulDavisThe1st Not highest volume. Highest gross profit (volume margin). And how would you ever know either of these two (volume, margin) if you were an arbitrary 3rd party? Amazon doesn't need to branch out into every single long tail product to cause severe disruption to a retail sector that is often predicated on low single digit margins. ~~~ econcon How does Amazon know margin? Amazon know volume, Amazon goes to suppliers on alibaba and gives them the quantity they require and then Amazon figures out what margin they'll be making if they sell it at the same or lower price than the original seller. ~~~ PaulDavisThe1st If you can't see volume, you can't estimate profit, and you can't differentiate which products are worth considering as a primary seller. Start with volume as a suggestion of which products to investigate for purchase price with sellers. If you can get the "right" price with the "appropriate" volume, start selling the product direct. Also, at Amazon scale, you can estimate margin by looking at price variation over time and throwing in some well tested assumptions. ~~~ toasterlovin > Also, at Amazon scale, you can estimate margin by looking at price variation > over time and throwing in some well tested assumptions. You really can't. You have to do research and modeling to figure out margins. There are probably half a dozen factors that determine a product's margin. ------ tcarn Amazon makes life so hard for their suppliers it doesn't even surprise me. I once shipped a box of 10 laptops to sell on FBA (retail value ~$10k) and UPS showed the box as delivered, Amazon checked in the units and showed them available for sale on the website. Then 24 hours later all of them got removed saying I sent the inaccurate quantity in the box and none where now available for sale. The laptops disappeared and I had to do an insurance claim with UPS. Amazon's support was horrible and made me never want to sell with them again. Lots of stories like mine on the Amazon subreddit. ~~~ a_wild_dandan Subreddits tend to wildly misrepresent reality due to survivorship bias. People generally don't post or noodle through such communities when things are going well. That's not to say there isn't a significant supplier issue -- just be aware of the company you keep. I often forget to be critical of the bubbles I inhabit. In any case, I do wonder if Amazon's treatment of folk like you would improve considerably if Amazon had competition. It seems they can push you around because there are no consequences to pay. ~~~ sacks2k "Subreddits tend to wildly misrepresent reality due to survivorship bias" I disagree. If Amazon had great customer service, there wouldn't be a large volume of people complaining. "In any case, I do wonder if Amazon's treatment of folk like you would improve considerably if Amazon had competitio" I agree with you here. The only two marketplaces that actually get traffic are Ebay and Amazon. I've tried them all over the years and the rest combined don't even come close. ~~~ arkades > If Amazon had great customer service, there wouldn't be a large volume of > people complaining. Volume of complainers is an absolute number. Customer service can only reduce the proportion of complainers. If you have 50 complainers on 100 customers, bad customer service. If you have 50 complainers on 1,000,000 customers, good customer service. You can conclude nearly nothing based on the absolute number of complainers in isolation. ------ viahoptop What is the difference between this and the store brands at supermarkets? ~~~ theturtletalks This is different that Costco selling their own brand vodka or toilet paper because buyers can see those items side by side when shopping. Amazon has their products on the top every time and if 3rd party sellers want to be next to them, they have to pay for ads. Amazon doesn't pay for its own ads so they can effectively hide their competition. ~~~ dathinab I believe amazone should pay for their own advertisement to well themsell and prices should be transparent (amazone has to pay them self what other would have to pay), _because then they would still need to pay tax_ for this. At least in countries where taxes are not very low this could make the situation slightly better. Through not that much better tbh. ~~~ hnick Yes this sounds like an antitrust situation to me (I know they are not technically a monopoly but different countries have different takes on these laws so it's worth considering why they exist). A phone wholesaler with a retail business will be broken up since it is a problem for their other retail customers. This is quite similar where Amazon is acting as both the provider and a retail customer competing against their other retail (marketplace business) customers, with a number of advantages. Having them forced to provide services at arm's length, at published costs, with audited public books and no inside information would level the playing field. They probably already account for advertising "spend" internally anyway if they're smart, since as another poster alluded they miss out on PPC when someone clicks on an Amazon product so need to know what it cost them. ------ so_tired Important line from the article > a practice at odds with the company’s stated policies... > .. as stated to congress ~~~ SlowRobotAhead You want to start a discussion about company stated policies and how each person feels they do or do not live up to them? That could go on for quite awhile! edit: it was mostly a joke, calm down. ~~~ salawat You're either missing the point or strawmanning, I'm not sure which. In speaking with Congress, they're stating to everyone that they are there to act as a platform for third parties. They're a "pass-thru" service. That implies that while metadata may be being collected, you shouldn't be looking at it, as it isn't "yours". It would be like a cloud provider going into business undercutting their client's because they weren't savvy enough to encrypt their business records. Or the post office going through your B2B mailings, figuring out your footprint, them becoming a competitor. You have one job. That's it. Once you start abusing your access to your seller's transaction data to figure out where to or whether to diversify into their vertical, there is a fundamental breach of trust, and a very reasonable case to be made in having exploited something you shouldn't be. That's the Hobbesian Leviathan for you; you don't need all those little businesses anyway! ------ archgoon So this seems to be getting drowned out a bit; but the core issue here is _not_ that Amazon is creating their own labels to compete with seller's products. It's that they've publicly stated, including to congress, that they don't use non-public, seller specific data to compete with them; and now former employees are claiming that's a lie. Amazon agrees that, as claimed, this is a problem. 'Amazon said employees using such data to inform private-label decisions in the way the Journal described would violate its policies, and that the company has launched an internal investigation.' ------ sharkweek I’m not an Amazon fan boy, but _I am_ a Costco fan boy, and they do the same thing, so I don’t really think I can be too upset about this. Retail is ruthless. ~~~ RyJones I've lived in Kirkland, Washington, off and on since 1994. It's amazing how many people all over the world know of Kirkland from Costco branding. For a log time the reddit tag line[0] was "We're more than Costco!" [0]: [https://old.reddit.com/r/Kirkland/](https://old.reddit.com/r/Kirkland/) ~~~ sharkweek Same actually! Grew up in Juanita from ‘89-‘03 then went to UW and have stayed in Seattle proper mostly since. I always thought it was funny, as a young kid, that my city’s name was on all sorts of products, not making the connection. ~~~ RyJones Nice. My youngest was born in Juanita at our apartment! I like the area well enough, obviously, to start a reddit about it. ------ throwaway5752 There is going to be a coordinated attack on Amazon ahead of the US presidential election and it will have valid information and misinformation. The WSJ will no doubt be involved. Question why and when old news is being dredged up. For example, is Amazon any worse than Wal-mart or Oracle or any other number of companies out there? If something is not contemporaneous news, then why is being being used at the point in time you are reading it? What is the motivation of the group pushing that information? Sometimes that is the even bigger story. ------ Cactus2018 Quick link to AmazonBasics [https://www.amazon.com/s?rh=p_89%3AAmazonBasics](https://www.amazon.com/s?rh=p_89%3AAmazonBasics) I am happy to buy these products over generics because of the higher quality. Batteries, paper shredders, water filters, electronics accessories, household supplies, office products... ~~~ matteuan AmazonBasics is just one of Amazon's brands. Take a look here: [https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-owns-these-brands- lis...](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-owns-these-brands- list-2018-7?r=DE&IR=T#buttoned-down-mens-clothing-11) ~~~ Cactus2018 "Amazon owns more than 80 private-label brands" ! ------ repiret _every_ major retailer has store brands, and I fully expect they all use their sales data to inform their generic products business, and all of their suppliers expect that too. As a consumer, I like that Amazon is upfront about what products come from their brand. Good luck browsing through the plumbing and electrical fixtures at Home Depot or Lowes and figuring out what crappy store brand stuff and whats not. ~~~ PaulDavisThe1st (1) it's not just about generic products. Amazon uses the same approach to decide what non-generic products it should become a direct seller of, potentially (and normally) negatively impacting 3rd party sellers. (2) HD and Lowes have almost no generic/store brand stuff at all. There are a few exceptions, and they likely do represent fairly profitable sections of their overall business. The main ones I am aware of: lighting, ceiling fans, toilets/sinks, flooring. That leaves huge sections of these stores without generics. ~~~ repiret (1) You don't think HD and Lowes and Safeway and Walmart and every big retailer doesn't use their sales data to decide which products to try to disintermediate distributors and other middle-men in the supply chain? (2) I'll concede HD and Lowes have a lot of departments without store brands [1], but raise you the local grocery store, which doesn't. [1]: The pattern I see is that the stuff marketed mostly to contractors is less likely to be infected with crappy store brands than the stuff marked mostly to DIY'ers. I suspect its in part because pros will learn whats quality and whats crap a lot faster than DIYers, because the latter only buy a ceiling fan or whatever once a decade. ~~~ PaulDavisThe1st Amazon has done a lot more than you describe. Their marketplace has been a major online venue for _retailers_ not just manufacturers and distributors. Companies (typically small) that focused on small niches (e.g. triathlon equipment). Amazon has siphoned off the best-sellers and high margin items from these sellers, making their businesses somewhere between less profitable and completely unviable. The model here is not "Safeway and Walmart and every big retailer [ using their sales data]". It's more akin to the flagship store in a mall actually owning the mall, and requiring that all customers check out via their registers. Every other vendor in the mall surrenders all their sales data to the flagship, which it uses to decide how to use its own internal spaces to sell with higher volume and/or profit. The own-brand stuff that Amazon is doing is dubious, but sure, I agree that many large retailers do it. Most large retailers do not operate 3rd party retail marketplaces, however, where they can siphon sales data from largely unsuspecting 3rd party retailers. ------ sh1ps Up front disclaimer: this is my own personal conspiracy theory with no objective proof. I have quite a few pieces of anecdotal evidence to support this, but anecdotal is anecdotal. Looking through the comments, everyone is talking about Amazon.com purchases, but the much quieter, arguably more valuable move on Amazon's part would be to do this via AWS. If you're running your entire system on AWS, Amazon immediately knows what kind of scale you're currently running. Depending on the type of product, they can pretty easily ballpark what your profit margin is based on your pricing model and all the metrics they have on your application (which is basically everything). The application of this data could be used for acquisition targets, deciding which products to build into AWS, ongoing competitive analysis when they do build those competing products... ~~~ crazygringo This doesn't pass the smell test for me at all. First, Amazon has no idea whether you run your whole business on AWS or only 5% of it. Second, different businesses have such vastly different computing requirements, which make up drastically different percentages of budgets, that there is virtually no signal here to figure out profits. You're going to be _far_ better off just looking at publicly available data -- funding, employees, pricing on the website -- and having a business analyst put them together. ------ dunkelheit Wow, lots of comments stating that it was common knowledge, but some fact doesn't become common knowledge simply because everyone knows it. Everyone should also know that everyone knows it and know that everyone knows that etc. which only becomes true after the article is published. The situation is materially different - this is illustrated e.g. by the famous 'island with a blue eyed population' puzzle: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_knowledge_(logic)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_knowledge_$logic$) In this case one of consequences could be that previously during negotiations with Amazon suppliers couldn't effectively use the fact that Amazon would scoop them (even if both parties knew that it was true), and now they can. ~~~ jader201 > Wow, lots of comments stating that it was common knowledge, but some fact > doesn't become common knowledge simply because everyone knows it. Common knowledge: something that many or most people know. [https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/common%20knowledg...](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/common%20knowledge) ~~~ dunkelheit Sure, not going to quibble about word choice. The point is that many comments are like "so what, everybody knew this", but there _is_ a material difference between "everybody knows" and "everybody knows that everybody knows". ------ jadeddrag Is this any different than what other stores do with their own store brands? ~~~ mywittyname Because it amounts to IP theft. It's one thing to see that unbleached toilet paper is selling well, and getting a supplier to sell you a store brand version. But it's completely different to see that a particular office stand is selling very well, determine that it has a 20% margin, and have someone build an identical product which you sell 5% margin. If you look at many Amazon Basics products, they are clear ripoffs of existing products. To the point where they are indistinguishable from the images. I was looking for a Lodge braisier just yesterday and saw that AB produced an identical product, down to the unique blue color Lodge uses in their enamel. I guess you could go through the trouble of suing Amazon, assuming you had the resources. But then you'd be booted from the platform and they'd still be selling your knockoffs for years. I think it's fine if Amazon sees that cast iron cookware is selling well and decides to enter that market. What's not fine is to blatantly steal the design of the best selling product in a category, then make your ripoff more visible on your site. At least make an _attempt_ to differentiate the product. ~~~ ThrowawayR2 > " _It 's one thing to see that unbleached toilet paper is selling well, and > getting a supplier to sell you a store brand version. But it's completely > different to see that a particular office stand is selling very well, > determine that it has a 20% margin, and have someone build an identical > product which you sell 5% margin._" Those two sound like the exact same thing to me. There is no real difference. It even happens between electronics manufacturers; you'll see a company noticing a competitor's product is successful, dissecting it to figure out the manufacturing costs and estimated margin, and tailoring its product line to provide a competitive product. (Aside from all that, I though HNers didn't believe in IP?) ~~~ mywittyname Well, you can patent or trademark designs. And our legal system protects the holder of those patents and trademarks for good reason. Amazon is able to leverage their position in the market to abuse suppliers and get away with illegal behavior because the suppliers lack the resources to fight Amazon. There's a difference between a clean room design that takes inspiration from a product and an identical copy. I can write and perform a song in the style of The Beatles, but I cannot write and perform "Hey Jude" without paying royalties. ------ kregasaurusrex Oftentimes this is done to circumvent paying patent license fees- for example if a patented component in a BOM would cost 75 cents per unit from the manufacturer, and the in-house team found a way to perform the equivalent function for 15 cents then it would instantly allow your product to undercut the competition. In Amazon's case, all it takes is a query to find high margin items in which knockoffs can be made and self-promoted to eventually outrank sales of the original item. ~~~ jacobr1 Another approach ... they could also identify which products either have wide- supplier diversity for the same thing (commodities) or narrow supplier density with many branded variants (OEM suppliers). In either case, they can go direct to the manufacturer without ANY innovation, slap the label on, and cut out the middle-man/sub-retailer costs. I think Amazon, in particular, has a team analyzing these factors as input into their sourcing (on top of general considerations like margin). ------ acwan93 Sometimes I wonder if Shopify’s long-term plan is to do something like this. It's probably the leading direct-to-consumer platform out there right now, it’s touted sometimes as the anti-Amazon. The leading D2C brands I’ve seen are on there (Allbirds, Atoms, Untuckit) as well as random drop shippers. Shopify is also expanding into a fulfillment network too: [https://www.shopify.com/fulfillment](https://www.shopify.com/fulfillment) ~~~ toasterlovin I think they _want_ to do something like this. The problem is that Shopify has zero traction with consumers. Until they solve the problem of getting consumers to search for products on their platform, they'll have no success. That's a tall mountain to climb. ~~~ acwan93 Yeah I mean, the brands themselves have generated a lot of buzz. But the average consumer still doesn’t know what Shopify is. ------ mensetmanusman Based on how much Amazon will grow during this pandemic, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are cut up by government to reduce their power to destroy any competitor. ~~~ oehpr has there been any antitrust activity in the united states recently? Like... past 10 years? Particularly given the current administrations disposition, I think pinning your hopes to anti-trust is like financially planning around lottery tickets. ~~~ JumpCrisscross > _has there been any antitrust activity in the united states recently?_ Yes, lots [1][2]. (I count fourteen cases year to date.) [1] [https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases- proceedings/terms/217](https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases- proceedings/terms/217) [2] [https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/terms/217](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/terms/217) ~~~ oehpr I mean, no one's concerned amazon is going to merge with someone, my god I hope the FTC would block that. But I think the grand parent comment and I are talking about breaking up gigantic pre-existing monopolies. Not any general activity that can be categorized under "anti-trust" ------ hn_throwaway_99 All the platforms do this. Many of the big online travel agencies (booking.com, expedia, etc.) are some of the biggest buyers of AdWords (or at least were before coronavirus), spending billions on Google. Last fall Expedia's stock tanked (again, before all the coronavirus stuff) because Google's search results started including the ability to go through directly to booking sites without going to an OTA. ------ sharemywin why marketplaces are able to compete with their sellers is beyond me. ~~~ dec0dedab0de Why sellers would use a market place that is obviously going to compete with them is beyond me. ~~~ 542458 Because for any individual seller there’s a heavy short/medium term advantage to using the marketplace in the form of dramatically increased reach and simplified logistics. ------ olivermarks Anti trust and anti monopoly oversight is urgently needed. Amazon is growing like a rapidy mutating weed on coronapocalypse fallout and the centralization is rapidly getting out of control imo. [https://slopeofhope.com/2020/04/locking-in-amazon- gains.html](https://slopeofhope.com/2020/04/locking-in-amazon-gains.html) ------ jwiley I worked for a small health products reseller around 2008 that had stores on Amazon, Yahoo (when that was a thing) and other marketplaces. It was well- known that any exclusive distribution deals between the health products reseller and manufacturers had a very short life: if the product was profitable Amazon would go around the reseller, negotiate a better deal, and sell it themselves. Fast forward to today, and companies that are direct competitors with Amazon (like Netflix) are completely committed to AWS. Amazon is watching, learning, and evolving from every piece of data they can get their hands on. What better way to learn about your business model than to watch them being tested and deployed on their infrastructure? I'm not specifically pro or anti Amazon...but I find it surprising the C-suite of most organizations seems content to think of AWS as a separate business un- related to the business that is actively trying to corner the market they are competing in. ------ wintermutestwin How long until the headline is: "google datamined your emails to detect and squash disruption to its business models?" ~~~ sneak Does this count? [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/26/gmail- hiding...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/26/gmail-hiding- bernie-sanders-emails-google-inbox-sorting-consequences-2020) ------ 8bitsrule Ethically, I don't see how this is much different from hiring someone at the lowest possible wage, then using the hours and vital years of their lives to enrich oneself. In the end, one either cares as much about the welfare of those in one's employ, or just uses them as tools in some Pyrrhic victory. ------ yesplorer Is there any Business to Consumer intermediary/platform that doesn't do this? All big retailers (Walmart, Costco, etc) Apple Google Amazon. Once you sell or distribute through a marketplace where they also sell or offer products to the same audience, expect the best ideas to be copied by the platform owners. That's one of the downside retailers have to deal with. ------ ironfootnz Like any soft vendor on the marketplace, They launch products of their own based on the others. It reminds me one of the post I've seen here [https://www.inc.com/sonya- mann/aws-startups-conflict.html](https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/aws-startups- conflict.html) ------ neonate [https://archive.md/7cdD3](https://archive.md/7cdD3) ------ bigbossman This is not only obvious, it's Amazon's explicit strategy to have their own products listed alongside 3rd party products. It's been that way ever since they made the then-controversial decision to launch a 3rd party marketplace business in 1999 to compete vs eBay. ~~~ PaulDavisThe1st The competition with eBay started before 1999, and 3rd party sellers was not a major part of the strategy nor was it really concerned with eBay (which is 1999 was literally NOTHING but an auction site). Amazon had its own "auctions" site in the late 1990s which many people forget even existed (it's one of the few things that Amazon tried and failed at). Bezos knew that eBay was a problem as soon as they emerged, and worried that Amazon would never compete effectively against them. In many senses, he was right. How do I know this? I worked with Bezos in the legendary "garage" in Bellevue, WA. ------ kbos87 The fact that Amazon can argue they don’t do this with a straight face tells me that they have no fear of regulators and feel confident they can get away with just lying about it. Any observant Whole Foods shopper can see this happening over the arc of weeks and months. New products from small brands show up on the shelves at Whole Foods. If they sell quickly, it’s only a matter of time before a Whole 365 knock off shows up in the exact same spot on the shelf with similar packaging and a lower price. The predecessor brand is relegated to a low visibility location nearby, and eventually disappears altogether. They don’t even try to hide this practice, they just say they don’t do it. ------ animalCrax0rz Given Amazon's willingness to spy on their business customers (traffic data in this case), should I be worried to deploy code on AWS that has high IP value in source code form (JS, Python, etc) or bytecode (Java/C#, which can be easily decompiled). I ask this because I noticed on AWS EC2 the default behavior is that Amazon produces the private/public key pair (as opposed to having the user add their SSH public key) so if they wish, they can access any code I deploy. Let's say I make a product on AWS that competes with a current or future product of AWS itself, and let's say it gets a ton of traffic, should I be worried? Should I be using only native binaries? (C/C++, Go, Rust, etc) ?? ------ johnnyballgame Amazon is a cesspool of scammers now. I created a listing for a physical book. I have yet to send a single book out to anyone and there are already two sellers trying to sell the book on the listing I created. And one is listed as a "collectible"! ~~~ riazrizvi Not sure I understand. Are you saying you are the author of a new book, you haven't sold any copies yet, you created a listing for your book and people are offering to sell it as a collectible (presumably as an arbitrage where they'd fulfill on your book)? Or did you create a new listing for someone else's book, that others might credibly own already? ~~~ johnnyballgame Author of a brand new book no one has any copies of yet. ~~~ riazrizvi Hmmm, why not jack up the price of yours and immediately buy one from the scammer, just as an experiment? ------ Aissen This type of practice right there is why there will always be a place for at least one cloud competitor. No company that is slightly invested in retail (directly or indirectly) want to increase Amazon's profitability by paying AWS. ------ rkagerer _Amazon draws a distinction between the data of an individual third-party seller and what it calls aggregated data, which it defines as the data of products with two or more sellers_ Oh, definitely. Two sellers is "aggregated". ------ Upvoter33 Any seller will do this, it is natural. Watch how WholeFoods for years has replaced successful independent brands with "365" competitors. Any seller will act this way; only regulation will prevent it. ~~~ SlowRobotAhead Regulation would not prevent Whole Foods and “some independent company” sharing data and producing these white label products to be sold exclusively at Whole Foods. This very easily defeated regulation is a perfect example why they aren’t a silver bullet. Throwing your hands up and saying “just make government fix everything” isn’t realistic, there is overhead and cost and bad precedent in that. ------ erentz This reinforces the belief I have that antitrust regulation of online companies needs to force them to pick between being a platform or being a store (or publisher), but they're not allowed to be both. ------ JoeAltmaier Of course they do. Like everybody else. Who doesn't do market research? ~~~ michaelt Some companies foster cordial relationships with their partners by staying strictly in their lane. For example, ARM licenses CPU core designs to chip manufacturers, but they don't make their own chips, as doing so would turn their customers into their competitors. Businesses like contract manufacturers are similar - Foxconn wouldn't start making their own smartphone. Of course, not every company takes that approach. ~~~ aguyfromnb > _Some companies foster cordial relationships with their partners by staying > strictly in their lane._ That happens to be ARM's business model at the moment. It isn't guaranteed to be their model tomorrow, nor are they doing it be friends with partners. ------ crusader76 "Amazon.com Inc. employees have used data about independent sellers on the company’s platform to develop competing products" Don't brick and mortar stores do this too? Not sure how popular "own brand" products are in America but in Europe grocery stores will sell "own brand" produce at cheaper prices. How do grocery stores choose what products to sell under their own brand, surely this is based on how well certain products are selling? ------ downrightmike Didn't anyone read Brad Stone's book? This is Amazon's play. Jewelry was one category they had trouble making work, but many other categories fell to them. They did it with Diapers.com and really everyone they wanted to acquire. And really the only thing keeping the regulators off of them is that it doesn't harm the consumer because prices are kept low. That's really the only test for antitrust cases to proceed because of a slippery slope. ------ Spooky23 I wonder if issues like this combined with the COVID crisis will impact customer and supplier behavior? For me, Amazon has been a shitshow for the last month. For in-stock product, they project delivery for Memorial Day and deliver in 24 hours, or promise prime and deliver not-so-much. Other retailers seem to be fine. Target, NewEgg, Walmart, etc seem to be fine. Small online retail seem to be fine. I wonder that their awful practices are biting them now... once they hit a bump the whole system jams up. ------ zitterbewegung From what I have gathered at various user group meetings Scraping online web prices is pretty much done by everyone in the industry to provide for competitive pricing. It looks like Amazon took this up a notch. On the other hand at least for Amazon's first party products you don't have to worry about them being counterfeit and I haven't had a bad experience with what I have bought from them (HDMI cords). ------ sharemywin I guess they just cut their affiliate commissions too. ~~~ mtnGoat ebay did too. :( i know a number of people that derive decent income from those affiliate channels that are scrambling right about now. ------ econcon As someone who sells on Amazon India, we made huge money on Amazon India. Our process is rather simple. Buy 100 units of some new promising product from Alibaba, list it on Amazon. Work on our marketing copy. If it sells well, optimize packaging and sales copy, increase price and order 1000 units. Then rise and repeat. You'll be suprized how low is the competition on Amazon India and how high is the volume. It seems local sellers are clueless for now. ------ mtnGoat so did a lot of retailers. Walmart, Target, REI, every major grocery chain, etc. have all done it. IMHO, this is just business as usual, not sure why it's worth pointing out that Amazon did it when others have been doing the same for years. Direct to Consumer is the way of the future, only way to protect your brand, sales numbers, and other proprietary infos. ------ dchyrdvh At the same time, Amazon makes its corporate employees sign non-competes and actually sues former employees from time to time. ------ awad A point that I have not seen mentioned while skimming through the comments is that the relationships between traditional retailers and their brands is one of buyer <> wholesaler (in simple terms, I understand there are complexities here) and that in itself is different from Amazon Marketplace (as compared to sold by Amazon.com). ------ ChuckMcM The obligatory, "I'm shocked I tell you, shocked!" but unlike say the "Kirkland" brand at CostCo, this is more like UPS using the data it has on what is being delivered to peoples houses to start stocking their trucks with things people order often[1]. [1] Maybe the next step after food trucks is "mini-mart" trucks. ~~~ WrtCdEvrydy Mini-mart trucks used to be a thing with ice cream trucks a while ago... they use to sell laser pointers. ~~~ ChuckMcM Good comparison, except in this case it would be like, "Hey we've been delivering USB chargers to all of your neighbors, why not get one from the van here, same quality, lower price and you get it right now? How about it?" ------ thunkshift1 This was banned by india in december. It got a lot of press about ‘uncertainty’ when that happened. [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/05/amazon-how-india- ecommerce-l...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/05/amazon-how-india-ecommerce- law-will-affect-the-retailer.html?new) ------ mlcrypto Invent and Simplify Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here." As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time. ------ saadalem Those were the dirtiest business tactics of Amazon Nobody can beat Amazon’s margin. Amazon “invites” you to sell on their marketplace. You hustle. You innovate. You test the market. You risk your time and money. Until FINALLY you nail it! After weeks or months of hard work you finally find the right product at the right price… SUCCESS! You start making money! Everything is amazing… But “someone” has been watching you! The “owner” of YOUR customers has been collecting ALL your data. Watching your progress, your growth, your competitors, your margins, your shipping costs, etc. THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING! Amazon will copy your product. Add their private label “Amazon Basics” to it. Sell it at an unbeatable price. Attach FREE Amazon Prime shipping to it. Position the exposure of their product on their website better than yours. In a matter of days, you will be OUT of business! THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN AMAZON MARKETPLACE! ~~~ Tostino It's almost like there should probably be some oversight on one of the most powerful entities on the planet to stop these anti-competitive practices. ~~~ missedthecue Is it really in the spirit of anti competitive laws if the consumer wins? This is more like one business owner (FBA seller) trying to sic the authorities on their competition (Amazon Basics) in order to keep a competitive advantage. This seems more anti competitive than what Amazon is doing ~~~ Ensorceled Yes. Anti-monopoly laws are about overall society health, not just consumer protection. Having only a few large companies controlling large segments has massive negative effects on suppliers, employee wages, etc. etc. ~~~ xyzzyz You might wish that this was the case, but in the US, the anti-trust law doesn't work this way. The law doesn't prohibit monopoly by itself. Monopolization is only prohibited if it restrains trade, or if the monopoly position was improperly gained. If Amazon attains monopoly position through superior products, innovation, or business acumen, it is very much legal in the US[1]. I think it's hard to argue that Amazon undercutting the participants in its marketplace is restraining the trade: the complaint here is, as I understand it, that through better knowledge of the market, and better integrated and more efficient platform, it is able to offer same or better products at lower prices. I can't see how it restrains the trade, according to how FTC understands it. It would only be illegal if Amazon did sold these products below their own costs, and then planned to recoup the losses by raising the price after the competition is gone. I haven't seen any evidence that this is what's going on. [1] - [https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition- guidance/guide-a...](https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition- guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined) ~~~ Ensorceled Obtaining a monopoly via legal means is irrelevant if there is then monopolization, the examples given in this thread of "product tying" via Amazon Prime, essential facilities denial via superseding with their own products, and predatory pricing via not having to pay platform fees are all restraining trade. Whether these could be sufficiently proved is a whole other matter. ~~~ xyzzyz > the examples given in this thread of "product tying" via Amazon Prime, > essential facilities denial via superseding with their own products, and > predatory pricing via not having to pay platform fees are all restraining > trade. If you don't trade on Amazon's platform, you're not affected by any of these. You might as well complain about Safeway's (or whatever grocery chain operates in your area) anti-competitive practices, because Safeway will also do product tying via membership card, rewards and coupons, deny you facilities to put your products on their shelves, and won't pay carrying fees for its own store brand products. Sure, it might be much harder for you to compete with Amazon if you can't use its platform, but then the argument is that the Amazon is too competitive, not anti-competitive, and that is in fact legal (and a boon for customers). ------ Ididntdothis I am believing more and more that these big companies are really bad for the economy and size should be discouraged. In the short run they can be very efficient and create cheap products for consumers but this comes at the cost of killing innovation that may come from smaller players. ------ outside1234 They are doing this with AWS as well. ~~~ DenisM Any details you can share? ------ c3534l I've heard about these kinds of practices anecdotally. We really need some anti-trust action in the US. We have these laws that give the federal government a lot of power to force companies to play fair, but we don't use them because of politics. ------ csunbird It is actually illegal in EU, I wonder the implications of these actions for them. ~~~ malandrew Learn from US businesses and launch same white label product in Europe. This avoids running afoul of taking advantage of any data on European Amazon sellers. ------ rhacker Same thing happens on Etsy. You work hard, get your product out there. You are successful. Then, 100 people copy you. And you tank. And copyright, trademark, and patent laws all fail you miserably. ------ brentis Years ago I said amzn should buy shopify or another vendor, host it and get transaction revenue for those anti-amzn. Would have been huge. Similar to how people use insta thinking its not FB. ------ DLA Target and probably other physical retailers do the same exact thing. Bring a product line in. See how it sells. Replace that with a white label brand they own once data proves a winner. ------ coolswan In long-run, I predict that sellers de-listing because of this and moving elsewhere will have not been worth whatever money it is they will make as a seller on their own platform. ------ WFHRenaissance Good. Once Amazon has gobbled up all competition, we can have one reliable place to buy every thing we'll ever need. All detractors are impeding on the approach of utopia. ~~~ acka Let's call those happy customers the Eloi, and call the Amazon employees (who are by then manufacturing everything) the Morlocks. See where this is going? I for one don't want to be living in that timeline. ------ kevinthew This is probably illegal via antitrust law -- it's inherently anticompetitive -- and just hasn't been tested. Another example of Amazon being an unethical company. ------ throwaway55554 Don't grocery stores do this with own-labeled items? ~~~ ProAm Grocery stores dont prevent you from selling your product elsewhere for cheaper. ~~~ DenisM Does Amazon? Any details you can share? ~~~ ProAm Yes amazon does, its widely reported. ~~~ DenisM Not anymore I guess? [https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/11/tech/amazon-price- stipulation...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/11/tech/amazon-price- stipulations/index.html) ~~~ ProAm Interesting, looks like it took the FTC starting an investigation for this to stop. ------ xibalba This is completely unconscionable. I've reached the tipping point in my opinion of Amazon re: antitrust. Set the dogs loose on these bastards. ------ fuddle They also get free advertising, while every merchant has to pay $1+ cost per click on the Amazon advertising network to advertise the same product. ------ DonnyV Is anyone really shocked by this? Number 1 rule when building a business. Never build one on someone else's platform. Never ends well. ------ samstave Not related to this particular story, but: You are transparent. I see plans within plans. We are coming after you. And if you on HN, reddit etc? understand this, either join or be fearful. ------ ngoel36 Is this any different than Walmart selling Great Value products, or Google putting its Flights module first on the search results page? ------ marcrosoft Of course they did, and what’s wrong with it? Regular brick and mortar grocery stores do the same thing. It’s called private label. ------ ivan_ah Paywall bypass [http://archive.is/7cdD3](http://archive.is/7cdD3) ------ davesque This has been happening for years. I personally remember hearing people complain about it as far back as 2010 or 2011. ------ lisamillercool Amazon is the worst company when it comes to ethics. They don't even pay taxes. Horrible company. ------ jankyxenon This is not that different from smartphone OS makes building functions from popular apps into the OS ------ woranl Jeff Bezos has once said, “Your margin is my opportunity”. Well... don’t said he didn’t warn you. ------ echan00 The title of the article says it all. I mean what do you expect? This is just business. ------ perfectstorm isn't this what Costco, Walmart are doing? I thought this is pretty common in the retail world - i.e to cut out the middle man and price it just below the name brand so people buy the store brand because it's cheaper. ------ g8oz Relevant to this: Lina Khan's influential analysis - "Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox" [https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust- parado...](https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox) ------ jsdwarf And? Every supermarket chain does this... First they look for good-selling brand products in their assortment, then they launch a very similar product under their own house brand following the "80% of the quality for 50% of the price" principle ------ yalogin This is not something unique to Amazon. Everyone does it. Costco, Target and even smaller ones do it. However the problem and scale is magnified because Amazon has a monopoly on online shopping so given their volume they can always undercut everyone else. ------ tjholowaychuk They've been doing this for ages, it's nothing new haha ------ Giorgi Is this surprising though? Bank owners do this all the time ------ econcon Who knows if Shopify employees are not doing it privately!? ------ jacknews no shit we're in the era of 'all out competition', rules be damned look at China ------ edtruji That’s the reason Walmart use Azure Cloud and Not AWS. ------ stevemadere Surprise Surprise. So did HEB, Safeway, etc. ------ shabuta Isn’t this what Walgreens, CVS or even Costco do? It’s called capitalism. When you want to invest, build and grow the channel then you can do the same. Not totally sure why people think this is unfair. ~~~ rosywoozlechan Well, there are antitrust laws, aren't there. So it's not that straight forward. ------ api Apple does this with apps too. ------ MagnumPIG Breaking news: Amazon is evil ------ MisterBastahrd How Wal-Mart of them. ------ vinniejames "its own sellers" aka its own data, why the surprise here? ------ xmly Why is this news? ------ AtomicOrbital If true this is Crony Capitalism at its finest ... I almost think a competitor planted operatives inside Amazon to pull this off - Pure Evil ------ fishingisfun nothing new. Read the book about it and it mentions this process on virtually all the categories they list for selling ~~~ dredmorbius What book? ------ vadasambar Am I the only one who could not access the article because it sits behind a paywall? ------ dmtroyer duh. ------ cocktailpeanuts Thanks for the enlightening insight, captain obvious. Every single platform company, whether online or offline, does this. Apple does this with their appstore. Microsoft did this with their windows platform. Every retail or grocery store does this by developing their own native brand that blatantly copy existing products but with a bit lower quality and lower price. Is this good or bad? Well this is how the vendors are forced to innovate, and that's good for the consumers! If we just all become social justice warriors and shame all these platform companies to do nothing because their products shouldn't hurt others like a bunch of communists, then it is US, the consumers, who lose from this. And even these social justice warriors, at the end of the day, are all consumers. I also find it weird how they say Amazon "scooped up data", when all that data has been on Amazon's own server all along, voluntarily. ~~~ mthoms Important line from the article > a practice at odds with the company’s stated policies... > .. as stated to congress (per the comment of user "so_tired" above) ------ SlowRobotAhead Hmm, I see a lot of people here mad and arguing for regulation to stop Amazon from making their own white label products, but it seems like selective outrage. When the discussion is about censorship online (demonetizing, blocking people who they don’t like but have done nothing against explicitly stated rules, banning anyone critical of the WHO) the argument often becomes “They’re a private business, they can do whatever they like and you don’t need to use them”. How is the solution if you don’t like what Amazon is doing with white label products (that almost all major retailer does) to just not use Amazon? Even if you consider Amazon a monopoly, they don’t prevent the name brand product from being sold there. If they did it would be a similar issue. This really seems like a Rorschach test for a political ideology.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Richard Stallman: "I Wished I Had Killed Myself" - Sandman http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2010/04/richard-stallman-i-wished-i-had-killed.html ====== doki_pen The comments in the blog talk about arrogance and how someone else would have done what RMS did if he didn't exist. They also complain that him being a "nutjob" has actually done harm to freedom. This line of thinking is dead wrong. It takes someone precisely like RMS to stand for his ideal and dedicate his life to what he believes. I, personally, feel a great debt to the man. ~~~ _delirium The "someone else would have done it" seems particularly unlikely to me, at least at the time. If you were to list significant bodies of free software that were released between the FSF's founding in 1983 and the Linux kernel's release in 1991, they're almost all GNU projects. The one significant exception I can think of is the X consortium's decision in 1986 to freely license X. And the stuff that started to be released starting in the early-90s pretty much without exception built on GNU stuff (even all the free BSDs still grudgingly include GNU code, despite 10 years of actively reducing their reliance on it). ~~~ apotheon "Good enough" is the enemy of "perfect". What do you think would happen to FreeBSD if GCC vanished tomorrow? Hint: It would probably suddenly finish incorporating some other, more freely licensed, compiler into its base system. ~~~ SwellJoe The question is not what would happen tomorrow...the question is what would have happened has RMS never existed. I think there's a pretty compelling case to be made that FreeBSD would have never happened; or at least, it would be a very different beastie. I don't agree with RMS on all things, but he was absolutely instrumental in making our free software world what it is today, and just because you have differing beliefs about what a "free" license really is doesn't mean you should discount what he did for _your_ favorite OS. ~~~ dnsworks _The question is not what would happen tomorrow...the question is what would have happened has RMS never existed._ My hope is that if RMS hadn't existed, somebody who wasn't a creepy, bearded hippy would have been the spokesperson for free software.. Hopefully somebody more balanced who didn't work himself into a tizzy over whether to call it "GNU/Linux or Linux" .. ~~~ loup-vaillant The creepy, bearded, unbalanced hippy is what you see when you judge Stallman with a glance. His words, on the other hand, are unusually balanced and reasonable. In his essays and conferences, he wields them with extreme care, showing he fully understand their power. Hence his insistence over GNU/Linux. It boils down to being aware of the origins of the system you are using: how it came into existence, and why. The answer, of course lies in the mouth of the original author. In the case of GNU/Linux, the name of the system directly influences which guru we are going to listen to (Linus or Richard). This is very important, because the two men have very different political opinions. Plus, as far as I know, GNU is bigger than Linux, in probably everything. Especially at the beginning of Linux. So the legitimate name of the entire system may well be "GNU". Unfortunately, the GNU system became popular largely thanks to the Linux kernel, and people started to use the wrong name for the entire system. Really, "GNU/Linux" is a reasonable compromise. ~~~ SwellJoe One doesn't even have to agree to use the term "GNU/Linux", in order to have some respect for the man who made a huge impact on a community and culture we all benefit from. We owe him a great deal of respect. That doesn't mean we have to use the exact same language he uses. I don't call Linux "GNU/Linux", for example, but I would never hurl insults at the man who made so much of this possible. Humans have a strong sense of "other" and since RMS has decided to be so other-ly from mainstream society, he gets a lot of flack. That judging is a failing of the people doing the judging; weak egos attack others to try to make themselves feel better. RMS is following his beliefs, completely and without reservation, which is something few of us have the guts or gumption to do. I respect him for that, even while disagreeing with him on a few things (like the name GNU/Linux). ------ patrickgzill An appropriate quote from George Bernard Shaw: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man." ------ JCThoughtscream I don't see Stallman's statement as to whether his birth had a good impact on the world or not as necessarily arrogant. Arguably, that's a question everybody needs to or ends up asking themselves: on balance, has my existence been a positive one? While there might've been an open software advocate without Stallman, it can't be seriously said that the world would've been better off without Stallman's advocacy. And thus, on balance, the world's better off with Stallman than without. ------ dzlobin I'm glad he lived, and I'm thankful for his contributions. But holy shit, he makes me sad everytime I see him or read about him. This guy needs to cheer up. ~~~ Herring He's about the worst PR possible for free software. I like his code & I mostly drink the kool aid, I do, but he really needs to let Eben Moglen do the talking.. ------ ars He needs to get married and have a kid. He doesn't want to because he thinks it's too easy, but he's still a human. ~~~ dasht He is on record as not wanting to have a kid because in his view the planet is over-populated. Also, I don't fully understand (due to lack of inquiry into it) his view of marriage but I'm fairly certain that "thinks it's too easy" is not accurate. ~~~ jimmyjim <http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/bos/533096562.html> I'm not 100% sure if that was put up by him, but I've been told that it was. ~~~ jongraehl Let's assume that's his post. I'd think Stallman would have no problem finding an interested woman, provided he emphasized his fame rather than a self-described lack of "success". All the people grabbing cheap cool points by dumping on the man are ultimately making it harder for him to get a date, and that's just needlessly cruel. ~~~ dgabriel His fame is very subjective. He's not famous in a way that is attractive to the average woman, hence his difficulty in finding an ideal mate. I would presume that _if_ Stallman has romantic troubles, it's due to something other than people dumping on him. ~~~ jimmyjames You think he's not finding a woman because he's not famous in a way that's attractive to women? Hilarious. How about this: he has a very arrogant personality, the ego the size of a blimp and it's just impossible to have a conversation with him unless you agree with every single word he says. ~~~ dgabriel I don't think that at all. I was responding to a post that claimed RMS should use his fame to attract women. I doubt that will work for a number of obvious reasons. ------ derwiki Seems to me that without the programmers who went the commercial route (Gates et al), computers wouldn't be as widely used and his impact wouldn't be as big. Or that someone else wouldn't have stepped up in his absence. And statements like those quoted in the article seem just a wee bit overdramatic. ~~~ rbanffy > programmers who went the commercial route (Gates et al) It's a false dichotomy. There is no need to imprison (as Stallman would say) the user and disrespect his rights (at least to use, understand, improve) in order to be commercial. What "Gates et al" have done is to bind their users through the software they use to manage their lives and jobs, ensuring long- term prosperity through technological dependency. The folks at Red Hat, Canonical and MindTouch (just to name a few I have in my head right now) are every bit as serious as Microsoft when it comes to be commercial and to be paid for their work. The main difference being they show much more consideration towards their users and customers. ~~~ chc Red Hat, Canonical and MindTouch combined have not had as much impact on computing as Apple or Microsoft alone. I was going to qualify that, but no, I think it's pretty unequivocal. Also, your selection of companies seems a bit deceptive. These companies' profit strategies are very narrowly focused on the one market where it's possible to make money with free software — and even that isn't really making money from the software. You have to be in a market where people will pay through the nose for support contracts, because the software itself isn't making much money. The one real exception I can think of is Mozilla, which makes decent money off of Firefox. Otherwise, unfortunately, it does generally seem to be necessary to bind the users enough to make them pay you for the software. (That's not a sarcastic "unfortunately" — I do think it would be great if I could reasonably sell free software as profitably as non-free software, but I don't see any evidence that it's feasible.) ~~~ rbanffy > Red Hat, Canonical and MindTouch combined have not had as much impact on > computing as Apple or Microsoft alone. Wouldn't that be a question of time and business model? Apple is a hardware company and both were around when the PC (not the IBM one) was invented. > isn't really making money from the software It's very hard to directly make money from software sales if you grant your customers the right to share it. Software companies make money out of the scarcity of software ("You want Windows? Ask Microsoft"). Free software is naturally abundant. It's possible, but not easy, to make your users pay directly for it. And Mozilla can't ask users to pay for it. Not only because it's infinitely abundant (anyone can give you one) but Microsoft's IE comes bundled in the OS most Firefox users run. Opera does that and look at their market share. ~~~ chc And that is why it is generally necessary to "imprison" (as Stallman would say) the user. Otherwise you're making a product that won't make money. There are a few markets where you might find a connected business to recoup the money you spent on software, but it's not a general business model for development. That's what I was getting at: It's hard to be rewarded for free software, so there really is a dichotomy between free and commercial software. It's not just Jobs and friends being dicks and restricting customers. ~~~ rbanffy > you're making a product that won't make money No. You are only making software that doesn't usually get sold. Most of it isn't, but you can custom-develop - building upon piles of other free software - and then license it under a free license to your client who chooses whether to share it (always under a free license) or not. Free software can be sold. I know this because I did it a lot. > It's hard to be rewarded for free software OTOH, it's much cheaper and easier to develop it. With closed software, you have to invent your own wheels. With free and open-source software, you are free to use the ramjet engines other people have developed. ~~~ chc Again, you're outlining a highly specialized business plan for custom development — not a general principle for making money with FOSS. If I freely license my next game, I'll lose my shirt. If I create an awesome, game- changing productivity suite and GPL it, I'll lose my shirt. If I do anything outside of some very tiny niches, I'll lose my shirt. There are a few small areas where FOSS is as commercially viable as anything else, and you'll notice those are also generally the areas where it seems to be most mature. You can't generalize those tiny areas and say that making open-source software in general is a reliable income source. ~~~ rbanffy It's not possible to make a business out of selling goods that are infinitely abundant. Free software is one such thing. Making open-source is not a direct income driver and, apart from very limited niches, will never be, but, nevertheless, it allows a business to have full control of its technology stack. Company A builds a great game using a closed-source library built by company B and company C builds another great game using, say, an LGPL library. When the underlying platform changes, breaking both libraries, company C is not subject to whatever the strategy of company B is and, therefore, can be first to market with a new, compatible, version. This is a hypothetical situation, of course, but illustrates one important thing about free software - most people don't really make it: they use it and, from time to time, and, if and when the need arises, add a little improvement here or a fix there. Its strength lies in the sheer number of people that give a little hand, scratching one another's itch. ------ flipper I for one am very glad RMS existed to write emacs and save us all from vi. ~~~ apu I'm glad RMS existed to write emacs and give vi users someone to look down on ;-) ~~~ flipper Something that emacs and vi users can agree about then - we're both glad that RMS wrote emacs! ~~~ iambvk you have a point ;) ~~~ apotheon Is this where we all sing kumbayah together? ------ johngalt Either computers would be useless novelties or they would be mainstream and lose the hacker/counterculture status. Those are the only two options. There is no way that every person on earth was going to care about source code. Progress is still progress even if it's not what you want. There is plenty of fun to be had still in technology, just don't get married to a philosophy. I learned that the hardway. In the early days I ran a BBS. When the Internet became mainstream I remember thinking "how do I compete?" I redoubled my efforts: upgrading modems, adding drives/door games, increasing my software library, etc.... All the time thinking "where's the 'community feel' on the Inet?" By the late 90s I realized the problem was me and not the world. ~~~ r0s _Either computers would be useless novelties or they would be mainstream and lose the hacker/counterculture status. Those are the only two options._ Maybe you don't look at your cell phone or nintendoDS and think "hmm, there must be some way to run irc on this thing". Maybe you don't care anymore, but there are huge communities who do. Maybe the spirit of openness is fundamental to the tools themselves? ------ donaq _Sure, in his absence others may have stepped up to the job, but in this world, he did. We can sit and imagine all we want that with a different leader, FOSS would be better. But, that doesn't change the fact that we have him to thank for so very much._ From the comments on the OP's blog. :) ------ Osmose I know very little about Stallman beyond his role in the GNU Project. What pain is he referring to that makes him wish that he had never been born? The loss of hacker culture? ~~~ fnid2 I'm wondering too. He has a kind of "Woe is me" attitude, but all I know of him is that he eats his toe skin in front of his audience. I also don't know if his existence has had a net positive effect. Free software he advocates is used to power robots, missiles, and other weapons that kill many people. It has also taken money from developers who write good software and shifted it to middlemen who sell services for free code, which limits the viability of writing code and the financial options for hackers to put a roof over their heads and food in their mouths. If you really want to help hackers and keep the hacker culture alive, teach the world that software has value and is worth paying for. ------ apotheon Stallman's hubris is shocking -- and I'm not talking about his claim that the world is a better place for him having lived. I'm talking about this line of shit: > I’m the last survivor of a dead culture. ~~~ jf That quote makes a lot more sense when taken in context. It's from the 1983 epilogue to Hackers. In 1983, there was no "free software" as we have today. No FSF, no EFF, no Creative Commons. Additionally, Stallman's interview is at the end of a book about the guys who started "hacker culture". These guys did some amazing stuff: they physically modified one of their computers to add new machine instructions, wrote editors, compilers and games from scratch, etc, etc. Then they made their code available for free. When I read that quote in the book, I interpreted it as Stallman expressing sadness over the loss of hacker culture. ~~~ ErrantX I think that is what apotheon means! Hacker culture is far from dead; it is alive and well, just different. It's just him being stuck in the "glorious past" (nothing really wrong with that) and assuming that hackers should be working with computers on that sort of level. Things move on; if we still had to do all that computing wouldn't have moved on very fast :P I heartily disagree that the culture is materially different - it's just spread out a bit more (instead of being on the university campus' etc.) ~~~ apotheon Hacker culture not only _is_ alive and well -- it _was_ alive and well through those years, too. It was just less visible, and since Stallman was moving through different circles, it wouldn't have felt as much to him like it was all clustered around his immediate vicinity. It is to some extent in human nature to assume that what's happening around someone is what's happening everywhere -- but that's really no excuse for declaring himself the last of his breed as he did. In fact, I'd say that the rise of the cypherpunks was a stronger resurgence in the hacker culture tide than Stallman's generation, and actually far more committed to freedom in an essential sense. The fact things change doesn't mean the good stuff has all died off. I think we're a lot better off for the modern state of hacker culture than if there was still the kind of hacker culture that existed Way Back When. Concepts of freedom, inquiry, and improvement that are central to a hacker culture have become more refined and encompassing than they were in those early days, which is pretty much what happens with everything that sees long-term success; it starts out less well-defined, and feeling more "special" because of its rarefied nature, then grows more widespread, better defined, and more generally applicable, thanks to the efforts of people who pick up where a previous generation left off to add their own efforts to the continuing evolution of the movement. Far from being the last of his breed, he went from being an early visionary to a late relic, from what I can see. I might not have used such harsh terms for it, but his own statements about being the last of his kind pretty much completes the picture of Stallman as a dinosaur who has died and is too stubbornly attached to his own illusions to realize it. Yeah, the culture isn't materially different. It has simply continued developing. If it had remained exactly the same as it was for Stallman's early peers, that wouldn't have been success. It would have been stagnation. He should learn to take a cue from people like Ken Thompson, who has managed to remain relevant and continue to contribute fresh new ideas to the state of general purpose operating system design all these years. Yes, advocates for freedom in our software development model are of critical importance; I'm not arguing otherwise. I think, though, that Stallman's apparent idea that such advocacy should focus on trying to recapture a communal sharing model that worked for a very small number of people who mostly knew each other, at least peripherally, is naive at best. Furthermore, the way Thompson and his spiritual descendants lead by example does almost as much for effective advocacy as the actual advocates (e.g., Bruce Perens and Theo de Raadt, to name a couple out of many -- who are, unlike Stallman, well-known for being currently contributing developers as well as advocates, thus lending credence to their statements even when they're abrasive in the extreme as de Raadt can sometimes be). Looking at things with a critical eye, Stallman is the only guy I can think of who is granted so much relevance as both a developer and an advocate for freedom in software use and development whose achievements are always described in the past tense. ------ tomkinstinch The linked article [1] is worth reading. 1\. <http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_hackers/all/1> ------ j_baker "This "pain" that Stallman says he has endured makes his decision to champion tirelessly freedom and free software for all these decades all the more remarkable." Alright, I realize this might be a bad statement to make on this subject... but seriously? He's a free software advocate. It's not like he's Ghandi going on a hunger strike or Martin Luther King Jr going to jail over his beliefs. ~~~ astrec Stallman agrees with you: _"I hesitate to exaggerate the importance of this little puddle of freedom," he says. "Because the more well known and conventional areas of working for freedom and a better society are tremendously important. I wouldn't say that free software is as important as they are. It's the responsibility I undertook, because it dropped in my lap and I saw a way I could do something about it. But, for example, to end police brutality, to end the war on drugs, to end the kinds of racism we still have, to help everyone have a comfortable life, to protect the rights of people who do abortions, to protect us from theocracy, these are tremendously important issues, far more important than what I do. I just wish I knew how to do something about them."_ \- Free As In Freedom by Sam Williams (p66 or p73 depending on version). ------ jimmyjames I think that a great free open source leader has already been born but he committed suicide, so instead, now we have Stallman. ------ jawn After reading this I felt a deep sense of pity for RMS. Even if he was only referring to his perceived lack of belonging, openly fantasizing about suicide is not the sign of someone in a healthy emotional state. I hope very much that he has grown past this point his life. ------ petercooper It's a real shame that inventor of the time machine, Leo Schultz, travelled back in time from 2042 and killed himself as a child. We'll never have a time machine now :-(	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Weekend project: LeaveYourEmail widget for your startup - snitko http://leaveyouremail.com ====== liamk Good idea! The registration page should really be encrypted though. I'd also work on refining the design of the home page. ~~~ snitko Thank you. Yeah, there's work to do, you're right. I just needed this asap for my own purposes. At least it works right away and I hope it proves useful to somebody already.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The state of netbooting Raspberry Pis - alexellisuk https://blog.alexellis.io/the-state-of-netbooting-raspberry-pi/ ====== geerlingguy Not to mention the onboard LAN is over the USB connection, but is topped off at 100 Mbps, so no high-throughput uses will work over the network. Alternative SBCs have started adding onboard eMMC, USB 3.0, and GigE; while they’re still not desktop PCs, having faster IO makes tinkering so much less annoying (for many applications). I hope if anything, the next Pi has Gigabit. ~~~ mschuster91 Given that many people use RPi as base for home entertainment systems... I'd prefer GigE and one or two SATA ports. ~~~ api There are boards with all that. The fastest low-cost networking board right now (that I can find) is the espressobin, built around the Marvell Armada chipset. It's got three full- duplex GigE ports that can actually run as such as well as pci-E and SATA. Unfortunately it's oriented toward routers and stuff so it lacks HDMI, so no good for home entertainment. ~~~ mschuster91 > There are boards with all that. Problem with these: I can never be sure what level of acceleration for video playback is supported - and in what quality. The Pi is pretty rock solid in that department. Also, the Pi has by far the biggest community and extensive documentation, and I can rely on there still being Pis available in years, compared to the Chinese outfits where no one knows how long they'll stay in market. ~~~ heegemcgee Concur. I've played with the ODroid C2, Beaglebone Black, and the three "full flavor" Raspberry Pi models. The RasPis have, far and away, the best supportability. The ODroids are great _when they work_ \- love that GigE, but they aren't maintaining an OS distribution with the same care and man-power that Raspbian is getting. ------ mirceal this is a bit misleading in that it's not necessarily about netbooting (which per linked article just works). As someone who's played with raspberry pi's on "real" networks I can tell you that netbooting one is not as reliable as you think. It may work on a small home network, but once you have 50+ devices tftp-ing something will show it's limits. The firmware that netboots is also not as reliable as one would think. If it fails it just hangs. A proper netboot/PXE client will retry forever. The approach I followed was to build a minimum ramdisk image which I've placed on the SD card. When that starts, it creates a in-memory file system and downloads the actual image to this file system. The SD card is in read-only mode after that. ~~~ ChuckMcM I don't disagree, it reads a bit like submarine marketing for the clustering hardware. But the difficulty in net booting is for the Pi1 or Pi2. On the Pi 3 it "just works." That said, net booting used to be a thing. When I joined Sun Microsystems in 1986 it was all about the 'diskless workstation.' At the time was the brand new Sun 3/50. ~~~ mirceal point was that it does not just work on a pi 3 if you put it in a real-life environment. also, net booting is still a thing, but not for the diskless scenario :) ------ znpy The real issue with raspberry pis is that ethernet is actually on the usb2 controller, so it's capped at 80mbps afaik, and it's also shared with other usb storage. I hope raspberry pi 4 has gigabit ethernet and netbooting becomes a first class function. ~~~ blacksmith_tb And/or a usb3 controller to tie networking to... ------ revelation Netbooting is one of these problems that turns out to be much more difficult than it's inherent complexity warrants. Setting up DHCP and TFTP doesn't cause a full psychosis yet, but then we enter the "no win zone" of NFS and filesystems. One of the persistent frustrations with any sort of Linux filesystem is that their makers feel you would only ever want to use them with a full-blown Linux kernel, too. No libext, the only userland tool you get is a bunch of 10000 LoC C monsters that an autoconf behemoth ensures can only be built on a modern Linux glibc system. When at the end of the day we are talking about an abstraction that should work perfectly fine with just read(), write() and seek(). My ideal "netbooting" setup is a faux SD card that translates block IO to UDP packets on a GBit link and has a little software on my computer reading/writing from a binary blob. I can still mount it if theres something mountable in the blob. Being a SD card it solves the other big problem with netbooting, which is that it's not transparent. The bootloader needs to know it's netbooting. The kernel needs to have support for NFS. init needs to know you are netbooting to mount the differently-named FS. And then when a service decides on startup to reset the network connection (hello Android), you're still fucked. ~~~ kardianos If you haven't seen it, try out the all-in-one tool: [https://github.com/google/netboot](https://github.com/google/netboot) go get go.universe.tf/netboot/cmd/pixiecore It is completly self contained. The user just provides it with a linux kernel image and the initrd image. ~~~ revelation That's a very good start, if you install a DHCP server on Linux they usually assume it's because you trying to run a federated thousand machine network, not just to stub some initial config values, and so the complexity matches that expectation.. But the biggest pain point remains the whole NFS mess. I'm not sure you can even do something like SELinux over NFS, and even if you could, you still need to configure the right _host computer permissions and attributes_ only for stuff to match on the _netbooting machine_. ~~~ kardianos Netboot is most effective when the system is a minimal system and is configuration driven, see tinycore linux or CoreOS container linux with ignition. NFS is a mess. So design your solutions to not need it. I see no reason why the pixieboot solution isn't something capable of scaling to thousands of machines on a network. ~~~ revelation I mean, we are in agreement. There are just systems like mobile SoC running platforms like Android where you desperately want some sort of network booting scheme for development because you are constantly rebuilding parts of the software, where the storage options for the part are highly constrained, slow and unreliable (like the RPi) and the performance and architecture necessitate cross-building. ------ Improvotter I'm pretty curious about using RPis for a Kubernetes Cluster. Is there a benefit to using a RPi cluster compared to a simple server or is this purely for research purposes? ~~~ bendews Depending on the amount of nodes you’re wanting, it usually is better to just grab an Intel NUC and virtualise. Much smaller than a RPi cluster and much more powerful.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The SF housing market is a joke - julien_c https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/reb/4339607018.html ====== jack-r-abbit This is the house on Google Streetview: [https://www.google.com/maps/@37.720003,-122.392886,3a,75y,15...](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.720003,-122.392886,3a,75y,15.07h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s6vOMsykLmYBUHZ2c7ttQug!2e0) And listed on Zillow: [http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1122-Hollister-Ave- San-Fra...](http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1122-Hollister-Ave-San- Francisco-CA-94124/15154551_zpid/) It was last sold in 1997 for $50k. It was listed several times between 2009 and 2012 from $499K to $589K. It never sold. Looks like they've given it a fresh coat of paint between the streetview image and the Craigslist photo. Zillow estimates it is worth $386k. And similar houses in the area are also listed at a similar price. I would say that this Craiglist seller is a little high on the price. ------ ttctciyf London, 2012, garage, 500,000 GBP : [http://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Parking- mad-...](http://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Parking-mad-Garage- thats-for-sale-at-over-500k) ------ dayjah what.. I don't even... <_<	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask YC: best other hacker news sites? - anette I follow hacker news and new mogul... Craving more! Suggestions? What are the best other sites? ====== ieatpaste There used to be a thread, but I can't find it, but here's the academic hacker news: <http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~ad/news/>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Tardigrades may have survived spacecraft crashing on moon - sorokod https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/06/tardigrades-may-have-survived-spacecraft-crashing-on-moon ====== sorokod TIL: _Apollo astronauts left behind their own microbes in the 96 bags of human waste_	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Any Brisbane Based Hackers? - ctrand Hello HNers,<p>I was just wondering if there are any other Brisbane (Australia) Hackers out there?<p>I am co-founder of a Brisbane based startup and I am wondering if there is any community presence here as my business partner and I would love to share successes, lament difficulties and learn as much as possible from likeminded people.<p>Reply to this and let me know!<p>Thanks,<p>Carl ====== eoinmcc Working in a startup at the iLab incubator in Toowong. Some interesting companies in here. There's a good meetup that meets here also, Upstarta, if you looking to chat about startups etc... <http://www.meetup.com/upstarta- brisbane-qld/> ~~~ ctrand Hey mate, I have heard about iLab before but it fell off my radar for some reason. How helpful have you found it? Do you need to give anything in return for the services they offer? I just saw that meetup group today too! ~~~ eoinmcc My company is just a "tenant" (just rent space), so we don't get the full incubator experience. However, the full iLab experience seems to be good for 1-2 man operations who are lacking areas of expertise - business expertise in particular. They'll set you up with a mentor that will help with writing business plans, discussing grant options, that sort of thing. They hold monthly CEO lunches, where they bring in a "successful" CEO to pick their brains. "Do you need to give anything in return for the services they offer?" - except for cold hard cash (not sure of the pricing), not so much. They have virtual membership, which allows you to attend the lunches and sets you up with a mentor. No desk space though. Do you attend any meetups around Brisbane? I've just taken over organizing the CocoaHeads one recently, always on the look-out for new recruits :) ~~~ ctrand "1-2 man operations who are lacking areas of expertise" Wow, you hit the nail on the head there! That sounds like something my startup COULD benefit from, but I am wary of the cold hard cash bit as we don't have any :D The virtual mentor thing could be good as my business partner and I are both from technical backgrounds and are business noobs. Also I have as of yet not attended any meetups, but I plan to! One of the reasons I started this thread I suppose... ------ josephcooney I'm based in sunny Brisbane. I mostly do consulting, but I'm trying to launch a product in my spare time. ~~~ ctrand Cool! How is that working out for you? I had to quit my job before any real progress was made on my venture. My site has been live for a couple months now and is starting to get consistent and increasing levels of visitors thanks to riding the long tail :D Very exciting! ~~~ josephcooney I'm working on a windows desktop app (so I'm a bit of a contrarian to begin with). I think my biggest problem is that I keep adding features and polish, instead of jumping in and working on SEO & marketing. ~~~ zizee We've been learning recently that we should have started building relationships with bloggers, media and potential customers a long time ago. I say "learned recently" but we really knew it all along as it is such oft repeated advice in the startup world. Unfortunately we kept putting it off because developing the product felt a lot more tangible and progress came easily. The same cannot be said for building meaningful relationships that can be used as a launchpad come launch day. So, my advice (which echoes so many other voices around HN): start writing about the space you are in. Start building real relationships with bloggers. Start a mailing list to collect email addresses. Start joining forums that are in your domain and build a rep. These things take a while to cultivate and you want to be able to harvest at launch. As for SEO, get the basics sorted (domain registration, keyword heavy landing page etc), but don't spend too much time on it. The real SEO power comes from getting quality links. These only come when you have those relationships with bloggers etc pumping. Goodluck with the launch! -James (Carlo's partner in crime) (edited for typos)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Minimalist Beauty of a Renaissance-Era Geometry Book - misnamed http://hyperallergic.com/176036/the-minimalist-beauty-of-a-renaissance-era-geometry-book/ ====== jwtadvice These are the sorts of forms that fill the empty spaces in my notes for work and school. Getting the shading and proportions exactly right is an exercise of both aesthetics and calculative reasoning, and so I find it's uniquely delightful. ~~~ contingencies Half seriously, have you considered a career as a GPU interface? Architecture and engineering offices frequently employ them under titles such as ''rendering technician''. ------ edgarvaldes There is some beauty in the progression of the shapes. Something that feels organic and mechanic at the same time. ------ santaclaus If it weren't for the yellowish tinge in the figures these could totally pass for images in a contemporary geometry processing paper. (He drew soft shadows!) ------ twirlip I believe Janmitzer would have loved playing with Mathematica ~~~ contingencies I was thinking Solidworks, or Povray. Basically anything exploring constructive solid geometry. ------ miloshadzic What is "minimalist" about this book? ~~~ theoh From the text of the article: "Jamnitzer’s studies possess a captivating artistic merit. With the manipulation, repetition, and layering of basic shapes, they seem like distant precursors to Minimalism and its concerns." '60 Minimalism in sculpture, that is. e.g. Tony Smith, or Gego. To be honest, the author seems to be talking more about a more recent idea of minimal sculpture, like polyhedra made out of wire. A google image search for "minimal geometric sculpture" (no quotes in the search) will show a lot of that work. ~~~ miloshadzic Thank's for the reply, I didn't know about Tony Smith. ------ JoeDaDude A casual glance shows pictures reminiscent of fractal solids. ------ coolgeek > Popular > 1. The Minimalist Beauty of a Renaissance-Era Geometry Book > 2. Have a Creepy Little Christmas with These Unsettling Victorian Cards > 3. Artist Targeted by #Pizzagate Conspiracy Theory Speaks > 4. The Accidental Social Media Artist Who Can’t Stop Falling > 5. The Masterful, Unsettling Work of a Female Cuban Printmaker Somebody's got a talent for writing clickbaity titles - and I mean that as a compliment. They're compelling, yet much more subtle than the typical BuzzFeed or listicle piece ------ kazinator Very nice Lambert shading plus rudimentary shadow map. ------ rotten This is before printing presses could produce images or diagrams - so they all had to be hand drawn in each copy. ~~~ xtiansimon _"...hand drawn in each copy."_ ?? Printed engraving[1] was available contemporay with the publishing of this book (1568). What do you mean? [1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engraving](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engraving) ------ Philip_with1L Nothing, really.. It's not detailed, textured, shaded, intricate.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Criterion – A new C unit testing framework - Snaipe https://github.com/Snaipe/Criterion ====== Snaipe Developer here, I would be happy to answer any question that you have. If you have any suggestions/criticism, I would gladly hear it!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Programming Is - A New Short Book - thecombjelly http://thintz.com/programming-is ====== kasharoo Programming Is - never having to say you're sorry.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why isn't there any free sublime text (non electron) alternative? - xstartup Yea, completely free one! ====== tuananh \- google xi-editor: [https://github.com/google/xi- editor](https://github.com/google/xi-editor) \- textmate: [https://github.com/textmate/textmate](https://github.com/textmate/textmate) \- lime text: [https://github.com/limetext/backend](https://github.com/limetext/backend) ------ dragonwriter There are a number of free extensible programmer's editors that provide alternatives to Sublime Text that are not Electron based. (Emacs, Vim, Light Table, and others.) What, in particular, are you missing? ~~~ croo Others including: Kate, Gedit, Geany, Nodepad++ ------ brianjking What about Visual Studio Code? [https://code.visualstudio.com/](https://code.visualstudio.com/) I haven't used it in a while, however, it was good when I did use it and seems to be improving all the time with a healthy set of extensions [https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/VSCode](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/VSCode) similar to Sublime Text's Package manager. ~~~ purple-dragon Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't VS Code Electron-based? ~~~ brianjking Oops, I guess it is. From what I recall it wasn't nearly as much of a resource hog as Atom was though. ~~~ purple-dragon That's been my experience as well. ------ theknarf Notepad++ has existed for 14 years. Just searching text editors gives tons of alternatives. I'm certain I could find at least a 100 free / open-source ones, not to mention IDEs like Eclipse. ~~~ guilhas Win7 64, alot of bug lately. Crashing, slower start. Maybe because of plugins, but still. I use it, but have notepad3 as default.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
It’s Official: Meebo Raises $25 Million From Jafco, Time Warner and KTB - kyro http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/30/its-official-meebo-raises-25-million-from-jafco-time-warner-and-ktb/ ====== CapnObvious For Meebo to really monetize all their traffic they'll have to start extracting information from conversations. Google and Facebook already do this to an occasionally creepy effect, notice the content of your talk/messages and your ads are often identical. They'd be better off providing this demographic information to a third party advertiser than trying to sell anything on their own platform. I love Meebo, and use it every day, but there's no way I'm going to click an ad in an IM window. As soon as AIM started throwing ads up I ditched their client and went with GAIM(pidgin now), I'd do the same thing with Meebo if they started plastering crap blinking ringtone ads all over. ------ mpc How could you monetize something like Meebo? Virtual goods...advertising? ~~~ dbreunig They have a rich platform that is network and context agnostic. If they earn a strong position in the IM world, they will have a plethora of ways to leverage their position: business services (thing online support for consumer facing companies), branded experiences, and yes, advertising. I think they're well on their way to have a firm position in the space. They've got a great product and Time Warner is investing, which is tellingly great for Meebo / tellingly ominous for AOL.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
As ‘Slither.io’ Goes Viral, Game’s Creator Scrambles to Keep Up - personjerry http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-slither-io-goes-viral-games-creator-scrambles-to-keep-up-1466195058 ====== mabbo It's such a simple, wonderful game. There's a few key details that I think distill it into a masterpiece. 1\. A three year old could learn to play in minutes. Simple to learn, harder to master. 2\. Your best runs last the longest, so as a fraction of your overall time played your better ones are the biggest portion. You remember winning a lot of the time. 3\. It's absolutely pure animal player vs player. There is no chat, no real teams, no organization, just outplaying one another. I hope future game makers learn from this. ~~~ TTPrograms It has some major issues unfortunately, including massive input lag and frequent latency spikes. This makes most deaths that occur feel very random, rather than the result of skilled play. These issues were around months ago, so I'm not sure it's simply the result of any recent virality referenced in this article. ~~~ syngrog66 lag/latency most likely due to combination of high/increasing traffic plus imperfect arch/code. but traffic is a Very Good Problem to have for a game, especially if his revenue comes from advertising, and is passive. if I were him I'd focus first on identifying & fixing his bottlenecks, and consult a cheatsheet list like this to see if he's overlooked anything: [http://synisma.neocities.org/perf_scale_cheatsheet.pdf](http://synisma.neocities.org/perf_scale_cheatsheet.pdf) ------ boulos I'm curious how much traffic he's sending (it doesn't sound bandwidth intensive): > Mr. Howse spent weeks finding server space in regions where demand bubbled > up. He is trying to save money by avoiding cloud services from the likes of > Amazon Inc. or Alphabet Inc. “It’s incredibly expensive because of the > amount of bandwidth this game uses,” he said. [Edit with more quotes] > Three months ago, Steven Howse struggled to pay rent. Now, the 32-year-old > developer is trying to keep his hit videogame running smoothly as it pulls > in more than $100,000 in revenue daily. > “Slither.io” is profitable, Mr. Howse said. He pays about $15,000 monthly > for online-hosting services, and shares revenue with Apple Inc. and Google. So $3M/month in revenue on $15k/month in hosting ;). I'm sure much of the $100k/day is recent and likely a fad, but I guess I'm surprised that he's apparently spent weeks trying to get capacity while his revenue is skyrocketing "just" to keep his bandwidth bill down. (It seems like all the networking would be effectively player state back and forth, not assets). Disclosure: I work at Google on Cloud. ~~~ vthallam >I'm sure much of the $100k/day is recent This is probably the reason and the unexpected scale. Initially as a broke(referring to part where struggled to pay rent) 32 year old developer, you don't want to share spend a lot on AWS/GCP. If the revenue stream is consistent, I'm sure, he is going to move to either of the platforms. So much less headache that way. ~~~ ebsalberto Wrong. He isn't even running on cloud anyway. For this type of workload, bare- metal is 10 times a better option, both in terms of performance and costs. ~~~ mullen The "problem" this dev is having is what AWS was built for. He could get his OS of choice, customize it with his server software, then copy the AMI to various regions, spin up dedicated instances as he needed them, use what he needed in various regions and direct players to their closest server. Turn on and turn off servers as need arises and they are close to players. After his game settles down to predictable traffic, he can move to some bare cost ISP. He would not have to call anyone and within a hour or so he could have a game that gave a much better experience. What kills a flavor of the month game like this is being laggy and having an awful experience. The only thing I think would be an issue is the bandwidth charges. I wonder why his game creates so much traffic? ------ urza I would like to read something like this [https://hookrace.net/blog/ddnet- evolution-architecture-techn...](https://hookrace.net/blog/ddnet-evolution- architecture-technology/) from slither.io creator(s) About their infrastructure, sw, hw architecture.. revenue model.. etc.. could be very interesting read ------ arca_vorago "To make money, Mr. Howse relied on advertising. Players can spend $3.99 to remove ads that appear when a player loses. He doesn’t sell virtual currency or power-ups, surprising given how vital in-app purchases are to mobile gaming. Most users put up with the ads, he said." As a person who is working on a game project on the side (that I have been neglecting recently due to time pressures), I find this double revenue model very interesting. So the game is free to play, but with ads upon death, of which he gets less than a penny. "Those ads drop less than a penny in Mr. Howse’s pocket each time a player sees one. But with an average of 460 million fails a day" So he is making mad revenue just off the ads, and then the percentage of players who pay add up too... all while providing an entertaining game that people like. While I have always hated ads in game, I have a feeling this is going to be the main model for the next few years given the dominance of advertising. It saddens me that novel content creators don't get as rewarded for pure exchange of product (here is game, here is money), but I can't really say I blame them for starting to adopt this model, and to be frank it is making me reconsider my traditional approach of pay once. ~~~ hesdeadjim I am 100% sure all his revenue is from ads. Every free product we've released in 7 years, including Paper Toss with 100 mil+ downloads, has made next to nothing from a "no-ads" in-app purchase. Full screen incentivized video ads however are worth a lot now with companies like Supercell spending millions a day on them. ~~~ laydros I figured no one made money off the in-app purchase because so few vendors even give the option anymore. I make a living off software development myself, and I love the "pay to remove ads" model. I play a game a while with ads to decide if I like it, then I pay a couple of bucks. It's like a demo to me. And ads drive me nuts. ------ gortok WSJ reading tip: if you type the title into Google, you can click that link and read the WSJ article for free. ~~~ maxerickson There's a link to that search on each HN discussion page, it's the "web" link under the story link. ~~~ personjerry Wow, I've never noticed that. That should be highlighted or something. Actually maybe there should be a tutorial to HN. ~~~ curiousgal I think it's better to find it on your own. It gives you a mild euphoria. Like when I found out what _noprocrast_ was for. ------ curiousgal It's basically Tron meets Agar.io ~~~ syngrog66 this indie game designer's perspective: almost all new/modern "hit" computer games are just a revival of the mechanics/elements of some previous hit game. sometimes with little tweaks, always with a different superficial skin. very rare that a new hit game is truly novel. ------ blatant Warning: Pay-walled a article. ~~~ breadtk Mirror: [https://archive.is/RiGJD](https://archive.is/RiGJD) ------ mavhc I played it for a little while, but it's too easy to die, I'd prefer it if you rapidly shrank while touching another snake, giving you a few seconds to turn out of they way. Was popular with my students for a few days, but they're back to agar.io now ------ Xeiliex If by viral you mean stealth promoted on youtube followed by blatant AD's staring those youtubers, then yes this is viral. The only accomplishment here is that someone figured out how to make serious cash from multiplayer snake. ~~~ d23 So it's still a major accomplishment? And he's even more cunning by doing it purposefully? ~~~ lawpoop I don't think OP is saying it's not an accomplishment, just not that it was a viral accomplishment. ------ ascendantlogic At the risk of sounding naive, nothing jumped out at me as to how he's making revenue. What am I missing? ~~~ irongloves Every time you lose (you hit a snake) you are showed a full screen ad. And you lose a lot during a 30-min play time. Multiply that for millions of players every day. EDIT: The WSJ article mentions an average of 460 million game losts a day (which means about 460 million ad impressions a day...you know, some of us have adblockers on android) ------ Swennemans I expected to be a Firebase based app. Seems like a good match. ------ srtjstjsj This is a submarine ad, not a real story about scaling. ------ urza Could someone paste the text somewhere please? ~~~ curiousgal [http://i.imgur.com/Kfg1spC.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/Kfg1spC.jpg)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }

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