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CIA bought an encryption company and used it to spy on clients and countries - edu https://www.businessinsider.com/cia-secretly-bought-encryption-company-crypto-ag-spy-countries-report-2020-2 ====== ekimekim Original Washington Post article discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22297963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22297963) ------ cryptos The same could happen with Threema. As much as I like and want to trust Threema, but the story could be repeated, even if I think, that it is not used by governments or military large-scale. Essentially every closed source crypto application isn't trustworthy. Same is true for operating systems. ~~~ bangboombang Exactly my first thought. I like Threema and one of the reasons I was an early adopter is that the founder worked on m0n0wall before, an OSS firewall that I used for a long time, in contrast to it being just some guy I never heard of. It made me accept the closed source nature. Another big factor was that I indeed consider Switzerland to be a more trustworthy/neutral party in general when it comes to global politics, but this obviously doesn't have to apply to every single individual in that country. ~~~ _-___________-_ Why use Threema when there are alternatives that are not closed-source? You had to begin to use Threema, which presumably carries the same difficulty as beginning to use something which isn't as questionable. ~~~ mmPzf A big plus for me was the option of using it without mapping the user account to a phone number, something that e.g. Signal doesn't allow. ------ fit2rule The free world needs to realise that no matter what systems of enormous value to the world we build, others will attempt to usurp that power for their own needs. It happens with all technology. The reason is, all technology can be weaponised. Some simple facts .. The institutions covered by Crypto AG's technology products, were attempting to maintain their own secrecy. They were, thus, usurped by their own technology - and the CIA merely exploited this fact. This case with the CIA directly addresses the lynchpin in the military- industrial-surveillance states' armour - the ability to keep secrets. From a certain perspective, one might say that .. the Vaticans .. inability to keep secrets is a blessing and a curse. This is also true of many of the other clients. Would that we had access to all the things the CIA knows, as a world people, mmm.. These groups weaponised their own technology, against themselves, by using it to keep secrets. It also happens to be the spooks' biggest weakness too: the light of truth melts any and all justification for these peoples existence, and it whither them. Let us try a thought experiment: If the Vatican applied its vast resources to providing a "Peoples Internet" a la Starlink, instead of using its billions to hide heinous secrets, would the technology of communication have been so easily weaponised? All secrets are weapons, because you cannot have a secret without technology - and all technology can be weaponised. So this is a foot-bullet on the part of Crypto AG, the Vatican et al., and a big win for the CIA - because it means these institutions will now be making _more_ commitment, alas not less - to the keeping of secrets. ------ jo-m A lot of this has been known for 25 years: [https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-9088423.html](https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-9088423.html) ------ lallysingh Is this why US export encryption had to be 40 bits? To push countries to a vendor that was compromised? ------ jokoon Is the leak coming from wikileaks? I've heard Assange will soon go to trial. I was still wondering about that "dead's man switch", although I'm not sure it will activate if he get convicted. ~~~ _-___________-_ I read about this quite a while ago, and while it's a revelation, it doesn't seem big enough to be Assange's dead man's switch. Most people are just going to shrug at this. ~~~ fit2rule I have heard it from the crypto cognoscenti circles I know, that this is the calm before the storm and that there will be many, many more leaks to come during the actual trial period. The idea is to point out to the world that Julian isn't the only leaker. This terrifies the spook establishment, and they are therefore preparing for their own campaign of controlled releases, designed to dull the general publics' appetite for the subject. I mean, this is all conjecture and hearsay, but it sure is an interesting time to be watching the show. I do believe we are seeing a cyberwar, like legitimately, underneath all the battle reports ..	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
ZURB Tavern - jacobwg http://zurb.com/tavern ====== pepsi By the name, I thought that this was going to be a MUD.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Passive solar glass home: watching the sun move - kirstendirksen http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/passive-solar-glass-home-watching-sun-move/ ====== jbrun If you are keen on this, see Amory Lovins talk on buildings: Short version: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvmHJNeif24> Long Version: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5txQlEI7bc&feature=chann...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5txQlEI7bc&feature=channel) ------ electromagnetic Rather impressive, but genuinely simple. He maximized sunlight in the winter while minimising it in the summer and increased the buildings connection to the earth below frost level where the ground stays a constant 14C/57F year round. ------ timmaah My dad built the house I grew up in like this in the mid 70's. Big south facing windows with large overhang. Brick wall sucks up the heat for the night. Our greenhouse had huge 20ft high cylinders filled with dyed black water. Worked great. What happened in the 80s and 90s to make this not as popular? ~~~ kirstendirksen Passive solar used to be the way everyone built... at least before way back with the Ancient Greeks and Chinese. But when we stopped relying on sun for energy, most of us stopped building this way. I would guess passive solar gained popularity in the seventies due to more attention to energy conservation (oil crisis and all) and then when oil got cheap again, it wasn't so trendy. Hope that's not that case now. Though cheap oil and global warming aside, I'd still prefer to live in a home heated by the sun and cooled by the earth. AC gives me a headache and I much prefer the feel of sun through a window than the blast of central heating. ------ kjell Earthships are worth a look for anyone who wonders why the average modern house is so wasteful.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google SSL Search - jamesbkel http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=173733&hl=en ====== wladimir This was available for quite a while already, though in beta/labs. I'm not sure what is new. ~~~ JonnieCache Yeah, it doesn't seem any different to how its been in the past year. The _beta_ sigil is still under the logo. I wish theyd put the links to maps and images back in, maybe with some visual warning that theyre not encrypted. I have SSL search as the default search in chrome, and I hate having to manually jump back to normal google to do image searches. While we're here, don't forget SSL wikipedia! <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Main_Page> ~~~ mike-cardwell If you're using the HTTPS-Everywhere Firefox addon (1), or the HTTPS- Everywhere Squid redirector (2), you don't need to know/remember about the SSL versions of Wikipedia or Google. You're just sent there by default. 1.) <https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere> 2.) <https://github.com/mikecardwell/perl-HTTPSEverywhere> ------ mahrain Been using this for a year now, there's also a hack to use it in the Chrome bar by entering a custom search engine. Very handy and works nice. Only miss is that I can't immediately click through to image searches, they're only available over unsecured HTTP. ~~~ lobster_johnson Unfortunately, you lose autocompletion (other than history autocompletion) when you use something other than the built-in Google search. ------ nodata Good, but to make this truly useful we need a really simple way to specify which country-specific google search engine we would like results from. ------ jamaicahest DuckDuckGo has been using this for many months, when you use the !g bang ~~~ rlpb Really? It doesn't seem to do it for me. Do you have some setting set somewhere? ------ lini Anyone that has the HTTPS everywhere extension (Firefox) is already using the SSL search in Google. As others noted it has been in beta for quite a long time and is missing some features like the image search or the doodles on the homepage. ------ buster Also, if you want to browse on SSL whereever possible: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/flcpelgcagfhfoegek...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/flcpelgcagfhfoegekianiofphddckof) Love this Extension! ------ RyanKearney The only thing I dislike about this is it hides the refer, screwing up my analytics. I'd have to completely convert all of my sites to HTTPS only to be able to make use of the additional headers for analytical purposes. Not really a big deal I guess, but kind of unnecessary to have to purchase wildcard certs if you have many sub domains. ~~~ dspillett The free certs from <http://www.startssl.com/> are apparently accepted by most browsers these days (the exception being IE6/7 users on XP who have not downloaded the optional CA cert updates): <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startssl#StartSSL> I've not used their cert for anything yet (I plan to test them on some personal sites when I get chance, before using them elsewhere), and wildcard certs are not free (but they do seem relatively cheap), but it might be worth looking into for someone in your position. ~~~ thepsi I've used them for a few personal sites and projects with no complaints. The fee for wildcard certs (~60USD) is a one-off to verify your identity - usually via a quick phone call to confirm details from your official documents. Once that's complete, you can generate as many certs as you need (incl. wildcards and Subject Alternative Name) from their control panel, subject to jumping through the usual hoops to prove that you have control of each domain. ~~~ RyanKearney I do use StartSSL but the problem just comes from having multiple sub domains. I get IPv4 addresses for $0.50/mo/each but I'd rather not setup each subdomain on its own dedicated IP for the sakes of using free SSL certs. ~~~ dspillett You don't need multiple IPv4 addresses to make use of a wild-card (or other multi-name) certificate. A wildcard certificate will verify any matching domain so you could have many sub-domains of the same domain (using a single certificate for *.domain.tld) on one address and browsers would not complain. Also you could run the distinct (sub)domains on different ports on the same address, though this is perhaps less useful. Also, with SNI you can use many single-name certificates on one address (and all on the same port) using SNI. Unfortunately there are a number of significant client combinations that won't play nice with this (most notably, if you can't guess, IE on Windows XP): <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication#Support> ~~~ RyanKearney I know that. I'm saying I don't want to have to pay for a wildcard certificate since you can get free certs for individual domains. The alternative for me purchasing a wildcard domain would be to get many different single domain certs for free and assign each one to a different IP address.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Copper - Data analysis toolkit for python - dfrodriguez143 http://pypi.python.org/pypi?:action=display&name=copper&version=0.0.2 ====== johncoogan Looks awesome, always love seeing my favorite tools wrapped up in new ways. Thanks a lot for posting. Quick note, since PyPi doesn't seem to parse markdown, the more information link to GitHub is malformed. I believe the plain link will hyperlink automatically. (See <http://scrible.com/s/2acQ2> for details). Thanks again for the package.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
We are starting WebKit modularization - robin_reala http://markmail.org/thread/fkiibwrwv3xporxx ====== dhx _> We hope this will make it much easier to develop vendor-specific features._ DRM[1]? Flash/"ActiveX 2012"[2]? We've seen a great deal of recent discussion about the harm vendor-specific CSS properties[3] and X- prefixed application protocol header fields[4] are causing. No two parties can agree on proposals for the HTML specification. Microsoft, Google, Apple and Mozilla all tend to disagree and we're stuck with vendor-specific browser features. These are not good signs for the health of the Web. [1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620432> [2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620537> [3] [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www- style/2012Feb/0998.h...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www- style/2012Feb/0998.html) [4] <http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-appsawg-xdash-03>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Communication blackout is forcing young entrepreneurs out of Kashmir - amrrs https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/in-a-land-without-internet-how-the-communication-blackout-is-forcing-young-entrepreneurs-out-of-kashmir-valley/article30219792.ece ====== amrrs For some context on Internet Shutdown: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20701204](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20701204)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Namecoin - rfreytag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin ====== JacobAldridge At the risk of hijacking yet another cryptocurrency thread, this is an opportunity to note how valuable I believe HN to be when it highlights primary sources. Secondary sources - whether it's lazy journalism, blog-jacking, or Wikipedia, engages us here in a discussion already framed through another person's or group of people's editorial eyes. Is there no better overview of Namecoin than its Wikipedia page? ~~~ bachback [http://namecoin.info](http://namecoin.info) This is where it started: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790.0) satoshi's comment on the matter, posted 4 days before he left the forum. "I think it would be possible for BitDNS to be a completely separate network and separate block chain, yet share CPU power with Bitcoin. The only overlap is to make it so miners can search for proof-of-work for both networks simultaneously. The networks wouldn't need any coordination. Miners would subscribe to both networks in parallel. They would scan SHA such that if they get a hit, they potentially solve both at once. A solution may be for just one of the networks if one network has a lower difficulty. I think an external miner could call getwork on both programs and combine the work. Maybe call Bitcoin, get work from it, hand it to BitDNS getwork to combine into a combined work. Instead of fragmentation, networks share and augment each other's total CPU power. This would solve the problem that if there are multiple networks, they are a danger to each other if the available CPU power gangs up on one. Instead, all networks in the world would share combined CPU power, increasing the total strength. It would make it easier for small networks to get started by tapping into a ready base of miners." "@dtvan: all 3 excellent points. 1) IP records don't need to be in the chain, just do registrar function not DNS. And CA problem solved, neat. 2) Pick one TLD, .web +1. 3) Expiration and significant renewal costs, very important." ~~~ baddox JacobAldridge asked whether there is a better overview of Namecoin than it's Wikipedia page. Having read the Wikipedia page and the Namecoin homepage you linked, I can confidently say that the former is a much more detailed and informative overview. ~~~ bachback strangely enough there are a million people who know about this project and 1-2 actually participate. it's a wiki and opensource project, so everyone in the world is free to contribute. same with bitcoin. roughly 5 active developers at the moment, working mostly in their spare time. ~~~ wcoenen Look at the list of contributors at the end of the release notes of the upcoming 0.9.0 release of the bitcoin reference client[1]. Or look at the activity of other projects, e.g. the bitcoinj google group[2]. There's a lot more than 5 people working on bitcoin. [1] [https://bitcoin.org/bin/0.9.0/test/README.txt](https://bitcoin.org/bin/0.9.0/test/README.txt) [2] [https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!forum/bitcoinj](https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!forum/bitcoinj) ~~~ bachback the number of people contributing is extremely small compared to the people who know about it/make money of it/are enthusiastic about it/could contribute. There is not a deep bench of developers. Many open issues which don't get solved because the 3-4 main devs (laanjw, sipa, gavin) are to busy. look at coinbase: they get rich of it, take 1% fees and add nothing back whatsoever. ------ Sanddancer I like the idea of namecoin -- uncensorability is pretty cool from a technological standpoint -- however the other flaws of bitcoin make me wary of basing any sort of serious DNS replacement on it. Given that there's no plans to increase the number of namecoins in circulation, and that creating a domain by its very definition destroys namecoins, that 50nmc cost to buy a domain becomes increasingly expensive over time as people buy namecoins, peoples' wallets get lost, fraud occurs, etc. I'd be more interested if they did something like dogecoin and reated some sort of inflationary method to counteract this, so that we don't end up with the same mess DNS is in, only with slightly different bad actors. ~~~ walden42 Namecoin is not controlled by anyone in particular. If it grows in demand and people want the inflationary feature (or anything else), it will be implemented by the network. ~~~ bachback no, money supply is fixed. changing money supply like doge did is possible, but risks destroying the network. ~~~ kushti Money supply is fixed but prices for database record insertion/update could be changed painlessly. ~~~ sillysaurus3 If the money supply is fixed, then people will have a harder time acquiring namecoin after all the namecoin is generated. People will have to buy it, and since it's a scarce resource, it may become extremely expensive. Especially if namecoin exploded in popularity. I suppose if it becomes expensive then the namecoin admins could lower the cost of database inserts/updates. But it seems like that would prompt the price per namecoin to rise accordingly, because the value of namecoin is a single database insert or update. ------ thefreeman I'm confused as to why this is suddenly at the top of HN? Were people not aware of one of the original "alt" cryptocurrencies? ~~~ bachback silicon valley found out about it. several tweets of major figures last week. ~~~ based2 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7401999](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7401999) ------ al2o3cr "On October 15, 2013, a major flaw in the namecoin protocol was revealed by the Kraken exchange COO, Michael Grønager. The exploit allowed any user to freely steal any domain from any other user.[34] A temporary fix was deployed which prevents fraudulent name transactions from affecting the name database without requiring miner intervention, and a long-term fix which rejects blocks containing such transactions is scheduled for block 150,000 if a majority of miners upgrade.[35]" Well, I'm sure stoked that we're building the future infrastructure of the Net on something that we're pretty sure doesn't have a ginormous security hole _anymore_... ------ FredericJ If you don't know about Namecoin here are too additional ressources you might want to check out: "OkTurtles + DNSChain" (working Namecoin + DNS implementation): [http://okturtles.com/](http://okturtles.com/) and "Providing better confidentiality and authentication on the Internet using Namecoin and MinimaLT" : [https://github.com/FredericJacobs/safeweb/blob/master/paper....](https://github.com/FredericJacobs/safeweb/blob/master/paper.pdf?raw=true) ------ bachback There are currently 1-2 developers working on Namecoin (mostly Khan, another core developer died recently). Namecoin itself has quite a few issues. The design is only the beginning. ~~~ appleflaxen Can you elaborate on the issues you allude to? The "criticism" section on wikipedia is pretty thin. ~~~ bachback well, at the moment there is not much reason to use the system. if you register a ".bit" then you have to get your users to install complicated software and in the end what you are getting is very similar to ".com". There are major benefits, which are not explored yet. rolling out a world wide nameservice is not trivial. at the moment it's not even used by the underground. onename.io is the first application I have seen. ------ teach This article has more citations per sentence than anything I have ever seen on Wikipedia. ~~~ jebus989 Citation spam is usually an attempt to prevent article deletion, especially pertinent as it's been deleted [0] and merged into bitcoin [1] in the past. [0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Namecoin) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Namecoin_$2nd_nomination$) ------ jabgrabdthrow I'm working on an alternative to namecoin with the following features: * Profitable (what? profitable cryptocurrency? what?) * Powerful disincentives for squatting * Lots of funding for the project, which means we can actually push towards critical-mass adoption More will be available at domains.bitshares.org within ~2 weeks. ~~~ rictic Count me as interested. I've been trying to think of a distributed solution to squatting and fraud but I've had very little luck coming up with anything workable. ------ rumcajz I don't get why it doesn't use bitcoin's block chain. That would give it a strong existing infrastructure of users, miners etc. This way it is on its own. ~~~ aaron-lebo The Bitcoin devs don't really want the blockchain used for non-financial transactions. If makes sense if you think about it. The current BTC blockchain is gigabytes of data. Add text information to every transaction and you are adding even more bloat. ~~~ baddox Do you have a source for that claim? The official Bitcoin wiki certainly talks about non-financial uses of Bitcoin, and Script obviously makes such uses possible. ~~~ aaron-lebo Well, I remember reading something like that once, so it must be true. ;) In all seriousness, I did some Googling and the closest I can find is this: "One final reason is that Satoshi was opposed to putting non-Bitcoin related data into the main chain. As creator of the system, his opinion should carry a lot of weight with anyone serious about extending it." [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Alternative_chain](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Alternative_chain) I realize that is close to being useless, but I can't find the direct post in question by Satoshi that it is referencing. I seem to recall it not being Satoshi, however, but one of the current devs that I read a similar sentiment from. But again, I don't have any direct links. I apologize. ------ kushti I'm interesting in developing services on top of Namecoin / other p2p more- than-currencies (MasterCoin/Ethereum?). Please mail me (kushtech [at] yahoo (dot) com) if you want to discuss related things or join me. I'm Scala/Java/etc developer myself / entrepreneur also in past and future. ~~~ iterationx You might be interested in learning about Twister, decentralized microblogging (twitter) [http://twister.net.co/](http://twister.net.co/) ~~~ thisiswrong I can't believe how potentially disruptive Twister is! Haha and I love its system of mining for promoted tweets. As I have always said, bitcoin (the invention) means the end of FB, Twitter, and all similar centralized corporate entities. ------ mm0 keep pumping it op ------ RexRollman "Namecoin is a cryptocurrency which also acts as an alternative, decentralized DNS" So, finally, a cryptocurrency which serves a purpose aside from filling up HN's article listing. Cool. ~~~ atmosx The bitcoin protocol is an extremely important advancement as it solved the double spending[1] problem and can be used for all sorts of interesting community and business applications. Especially for systems used by organizations (e.g. DNS) that need to be public, uncensored and accessible from everyone (institutions, countries and individuals). Here are just a few ideas: [http://www.convalesco.org/#31](http://www.convalesco.org/#31) [1] [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Double- spending](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Double-spending)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Last of the Neanderthals - robg http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2008/10/neanderthals/hall-text ====== biohacker42 <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=306927> ~~~ robg Cool man, thanks. Usually I'd delete the dupe, but in this case I'd rather have the unpaginated version in my personal archive.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Four Reasons Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums - SQL2219 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-07-16/four-reasons-taxpayers-should-never-subsidize-stadiums ====== masonic [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18832975](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18832975) 600+ points	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Sustainable Feedback - sklivvz1971 https://sklivvz.com/posts/sustainable-feedback ====== lrkwz Non vedo l'ora di leggere la prossima puntata :-)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Easiest method for multiplying numbers - mquaes http://mathema-tricks.blogspot.com/2011/12/method-for-multiplying-numbers-where.html ====== thomc These kind of tricks are pretty handy, and I don't know why I wasn't taught them back in school, growing up in the calculator generation. My father could do all kinds of math in his head, which was just as well since he was a mathematician, but couldn't explain how he did it, he just "knew" the answer. I taught myself some tricks after the fact, the rest is just practice I think. Some examples: Multiply any two digit number by 11 easily: Using 62 as an example. Separate the two digits (6__2). Notice the gap between them Add 6 and 2 together (6+2=8) Put the resulting 8 in the gap to get the answer: 682, 62x11=682. If the result of the addition > 9, put the least significant digit in the gap and carry the most significant digit. This can be expanded to multiply any number by 11 in your head. Even really easy/obvious tricks are useful, e.g: To quickly multiply any number by 5, divide the number in two and then multiply it by 10. Very quick to do in your head.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A $277 million navigational error - uvdiv http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/world/asia/us-navy-to-scrap-vessel-stuck-on-philippine-reef.html ====== uvdiv _[US Navy Rear Adm. Jonathan] White's message states, "initial review of navigation data indicates an error in the location of Tubbataha Reef" on the digital map._ <http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=71553>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Wikipedia - Thank You for stopping SOPA - justhw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CongressLookup?new=yes ====== carlsednaoui Yesterday's blackout was simply incredible. When I woke up and saw all of the sites that were protesting I got chills down my spine.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
CSS Tools – Mega Collection - ayushunibrain https://github.com/abhiprojectz/CSS-Generator ====== ayushunibrain Css generator is a mega collection of awesome css tools!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
SpaceX Launch: Starlink 12 [video] - cjnicholls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j4xR7LMCGY ====== codeulike Everyone is commenting saying how mundane it has become to see the landings. Hence you might enjoy this official SpaceX Blooper reel from 2017 that shows the numerous spectacular failures that they worked through. Innovation is a type of gamble. People forget that. "SpaceX: How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ) (and regular reminder that these things are 12-storey high explosive tubes) ~~~ skvark If the Falcon 9 landings feel mundane, I would recommend to follow Starship development. Starship SN6 might do a 150 meter hop later today: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky5l9ZxsG9M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky5l9ZxsG9M) ------ mabbo The true beauty of SpaceX is that they've made landing their boosters boring (almost). This makes their competitors throwing them away seem stupid. It also shows how clever it was to livestream so much of what they do. So many people have seen a rocket booster land. Children today will hear that ULA doesn't land their boosters and ask "why not?". ~~~ imglorp Let's talk about the "why not" for a second. The incumbents have 200 years of collective head start over SpaceX, which started from scratch in 2002. They had 18 years to use that advantage to beat everyone else to reusable space access while remaining in the cherry procurement positions. Instead, they mismanaged, wrecked their quality culture, and lobbied for more handouts. Unable to compete on merit, schedule,or price, ULA is reduced to buying another congressman, who's implying SpaceX is a security threat via the China card. [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense- national-s...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national- security/elon-musks-spacex-nasa-contracts-threatened-over-tesla-china-ties) ~~~ tenpies > Unable to compete on merit, schedule,or price, ULA is reduced to buying > another congressman, who's implying SpaceX is a security threat via the > China card. That's quite the leap, although I can see your logic. Ultimately Musk should have seen this coming because it's obvious. He's tied a huge amount of his net worth to the favour of the CCP and involved himself with a program of national importance to a country that is at odds with the CCP. What's worst, Musk has zero respect for any sort of arms length separation between his companies, so it's almost guaranteed that the CCP has some level of access to SpaceX IP as they expand their grasp on Tesla through Shanghai. This was all easily avoidable if Musk didn't insist on thinking that if he didn't personally come up with the idea, the idea must be idiotic. ~~~ asfasfasf12 So if I fall your logic correctly then Boeing, which is part of ULA, is also in CCP's pockets. They produce planes there, a lot. Just one example. ~~~ nickik This. Embracing level of argument. Lets ignore the fact also that the US had a 50+ year standing relationship with China and it encouraged its companies to work there, including China in the WTO and so on. ------ bronco21016 It really is quite incredible how _boring_ this has become. I was chatting with a friend who used to follow all of this stuff closely with me at the beginning of the landing attempts. He wasn’t tuning in this morning (US east coast) because he didn’t find it exciting without the almost 50/50 chance the Stage 1 booster would RUD on landing. Starhopper 150M hop window opened today. Hoping to see some action there as that seems to be the new hotbed of SpaceX excitement. Not that I wish for a RUD but it’s far more likely to see something crazy on these early experiments making it more fun to watch. ~~~ waynenilsen Last hop there was no RUD but the raptor did quite a job to the launch mount it was definitely entertaining if not unexpected. ~~~ danw1979 The “small fire” around the raptor engine pipework also added to the tension, even though we knew it was a success by the time we had that footage. It definitely had that prototype feel to it. ------ shantara An interesting detail mentioned during the webcast was that SpaceX have already performed initial testing of inter-satellite links on a pair of Starlink satellites. ~~~ dzhiurgis Was that laser or radio links? ~~~ shantara The commentator called them "space lasers" on stream ------ ttul I love that the presenter is a female engineer. How inspiring this must be for millions of girls around the world. Hopefully it encourages more girls to take on engineering to help provide a better balance of gender in the field. ~~~ vardump So is SpaceX President & COO Gwynne Shotwell. You might be interested in her TEDx talk: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THQPNDNulVc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THQPNDNulVc) ------ erwinh Thats becoming one massive constellation [https://space- search.io/?search=starlink](https://space-search.io/?search=starlink) ~~~ krick Is it even possible to take them down without scattering debris all over the orbit later on? Also, is orbit considered to be a free real estate? Does the first one to call dibs just take it or what? It's sure slowly getting a bit crowded over there. ~~~ jccooper They already deorbit Starlink sats regularly. The "prototype" birds from the first launch are being decommissioned. SpaceX could hit a button (well, run a script, probably) and Starlink would disappear within 2-4 weeks. Earth orbit is kinda first-come, first-served, though there is some coordination for GEO and large constellations via FCC and the ITU. It's really not particularly crowded. Starlink in particular basically occupies only one orbital shell at the moment, and not a particularly popular one, though it'll eventually have three or so. ~~~ moralestapia >SpaceX could hit a button (well, run a script, probably) and Starlink would disappear within 2-4 weeks. Make me wonder what kind of security is in place to prevent a bad actor from doing that. Is there some 'field' of CS that deals with this? I would love to read about it. ------ stemc43 I've had so many outages this month with Cox. Can't wait for this project to start rolling out to consumers. ~~~ chasd00 my wife and i are looking at property in the mountains of SE Oklahoma. I'm hoping starlink comes online in the next 2-3 years. ------ cowmix They nailed the landing of the booster and I yawned. Amazing. ------ ape4 At 9:33 she says "100 Megabytes/second". Probably megabits/second. Still cool. ~~~ bryanlarsen Eric Berger confirmed with SpaceX that it is 100 megabits. [https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/spacex- launches-12th...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/spacex- launches-12th-starlink-mission-says-users-getting-100-mbps-downloads) ------ jguimont What will be the speed of the internet down and up link when fully operational? The video said 100Mbps at low latency. Do they expect more afterward? ------ perilunar The satellite deployment seemed a bit wonky at the end of the video. Like they were tangled. Hope it went ok. ~~~ _Microft SpaceX hosts said during earlier launches that these satellites are built to be able to bump into each other after payload separation. SpaceX chose to stack the satellites on top of each other to save mass and volume that a larger payload adapter would have required. The stacked satellites are held together by 'tension rods' which are released to let them separate. In today's launch, you can actually see a rod being released [0]. Normally they lose the video feed around that time. They separate relatively easily because the second stage spins up to 'throw' them out. It didn't look worse than during other launches. [https://www.starlink.com/](https://www.starlink.com/) has an image carousel with renders of the satellites and the stack if someone wants to have a closer look. [0] [https://youtu.be/_j4xR7LMCGY?t=1780](https://youtu.be/_j4xR7LMCGY?t=1780) ------ manuelabeledo So, what about upload speeds?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: IMDB for YouTubers - smhtyazdi http://www.rshiv.org/ ====== anigbrowl This is a badly needed thing but there is no way I am signing up when you don't even have a screenshot. Put something together first. ~~~ smhtyazdi Thanks, for your comment. I started to add some titles. Here you can find a simple one. [http://www.rshiv.org/profile.php?u=vitalyzdtv](http://www.rshiv.org/profile.php?u=vitalyzdtv) ~~~ anigbrowl That's good. I really think you need to build it up a bit before launching, though. As someone who works in media, nobody likes the job of entering all the credits into IMDB, but someone has to do it because it's a good marketing tool. Right now this looks like an idea more than a product, but there is definitely a need. ------ padho I like the idea but you have to work on your site and put content on it ~~~ smhtyazdi Thanks for your comment. This not like IMDB where everything has to be reviewed first. Here, Video owner (channel owner) is responsible for giving credit to other youtubers for his/her video. Here is a sample: [http://www.rshiv.org/title.php?v=oFMsqrG9RWg](http://www.rshiv.org/title.php?v=oFMsqrG9RWg)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
MicroServices as a service - mohameddev http://stackhut.com/ ====== mohameddev Looks promising to have the ability to access your code as an API, I cannot wait to test it. Check it up	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Microsoft's little-screen, big-screen interactive future - clbrook http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57572163-75/microsofts-little-screen-big-screen-interactive-future/ ====== clbrook Reminds me of Corning's day of glass videos: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Kubernetes 1.13 – What's New? - vthallam https://k8s.co.in/blog/kubernetes-1-13-whats-new/ ====== ggm IPv6 inside would be nice.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Coders Programming Themselves Out of a Job - xcubic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/agents-of-automation/568795?single_page=true ====== eindiran Duplicate of: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18120322](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18120322) ------ IronWolve Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Secrets of BackType's (YC S08) Data Engineers - omakase http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/01/secrets-of-backtypes-data-engineers.php ====== blantonl This illustrates that a staff of _three_ highly skilled innovative engineers can bring to market an innovative solution. Jeeze, these guys developed their own _database_ and _language_ to accomplish their objectives. Others might take 10 million in funding, already be focused on the 2nd round, all the while not focused on delivering first. You have to get there, before you can get there. Congrats to the BackType team. ------ fookyong I would be more interested in hearing the results/reasoning of their recent introduction of a paywall. Seems the business model pivoted slightly. e.g. [http://backtweets.com/search?q=yongfook.com%2Fall-about- litt...](http://backtweets.com/search?q=yongfook.com%2Fall-about- littlecosm&ref=p1) anything beyond the last few weeks, you need to pay $100/month. ~~~ konsl The results in BackTweets haven't actually changed, we're just showing an upgrade button above them. What was free continues to be free. ------ mrchess I'm surprised they are still 3 engineers. They have been posting jobs for almost a year now and still haven't hired anyone, yet they keep saying in blogs and the job section they want to hire. I understanding waiting for the "best" yet at the same time you're growing a custom stack that requires specific skill sets and I imagine as time goes on it only gets harder. I mean, slow hiring is good too but at some point you need to give in and grow so that your employees can join in on your projects and grow with the company! ~~~ nathanmarz We've recently added two very talented interns to our team: <http://tech.backtype.com/welcome-jason-christopher> ~~~ chanri Are you looking for full-time engineers? ~~~ nathanmarz Yes, we are. <http://www.backtype.com/jobs> ------ ehsanul This reminds me of that post by the ex-Facebook manager, who said that tools are top priority. This article really brings it home for me. However, despite their purported effectiveness as engineers, I'm not sure what Backtype is really doing. I generally see them just below an article, in place of comments, with a long list of useless tweets referring to the article (usually of the form "article title - bit.ly/shortened". That's probably not doing them too much good for marketing, unless you think any publicity is good publicity. ~~~ konsl What you're seeing is Disqus' Reactions feature, which we help power. Part of our business is data services, which companies like Disqus, Bitly, The New York Times, SlideShare, etc use. Our own product is a marketing intelligence platform; essentially, it provides analytics for social media marketing programs so brands understand what's working, what isn't and how to improve.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
These genetically modified cyborg dragonflies could perform ‘guided pollination’ - preetish https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/25/these-genetically-modified-cyborg-dragonflies-could-perform-guided-pollination/ ====== LordWinstanley >>we can make enough of them fast enough to counter the disappearance of honeybees Black Mirror Series 03 "Hated in the Nation" [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5709236/?ref_=ttep_ep6](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5709236/?ref_=ttep_ep6) ------ whatnotests This is amazing, even if it's a bit far-off. My question is whether this can be streamlined and the little bots can be re- used enough to cover their expense, and we can make enough of them fast enough to counter the disappearance of honeybees.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Wssdl – WireShark-Specific Dissector Language - Snaipe https://github.com/diacritic/wssdl ====== rwmj Interesting, but surprising they didn't look at how Erlang bit syntax works. [http://erlang.org/doc/programming_examples/bit_syntax.html](http://erlang.org/doc/programming_examples/bit_syntax.html) It's considerably more flexible, much more elegant, and (in Erlang) battle- tested. I wrote an Erlang-inspired version of bitstrings for OCaml: [https://people.redhat.com/~rjones/bitstring/html/Bitstring.h...](https://people.redhat.com/~rjones/bitstring/html/Bitstring.html) ~~~ Snaipe This is because wssdl is still within the boundaries of the lua grammar: the file you provide is still lua, so you have to abide by its rule. I experimented with a key/value approach on the syntax itself (something like `{ src_port = u16 }` or `{ src_port = 16 }`), which was nicer, but the problem was that, in lua, table literals are unordered. The current approach uses the method syntax (`a:b()`) as a nice workaround, but this mandates the use of parenthesis after the type and other specifiers. This is fine though since a lot of the provided types are parameterized (e.g. `bytes(n)` which takes a number of octets) ------ sigill Great idea! I have always felt that the Wireshark Lua bindings are not ready- to-use enough. They feel like the ugly stepchild of Wireshark. In the last dissector I wrote, which was about 1000 lines of Lua, I built a very limited structure definition parser, not completely unlike wssdl. I did it to cut down on the repetitive code needed parse the structures: Typically I parse every field twice: Once to add it to the dissection tree and once to get its value as a Lua-held variable. I'll definitely be using wssdl in my next dissector! ------ dexwiz Naming consideration, WSDL is already a very common name for XML API description files. ------ problems Interesting alternative if you're looking for something for your own tools: [http://kaitai.io/](http://kaitai.io/) ------ ris Hooray does this mean the end of embarrassing Wireshark vulnerabilities? ------ ythl What does GPL3 license mean in the context of Wssdl? That if I write a dissector with it then it has to be open sourced? ~~~ Snaipe This means that if you distribute your dissector, you have to make your sources available. This is nothing new though: all wireshark plugins must be GPL, since the API itself they rely on is GPL. ~~~ bch _v3_ means that if it's used (even over a network) by somebody, they can request the code, versus GPLv2 (Wireshark license), which says if you distribute binaries of Wireshark or software based on it, you must provide the source. The difference is that you could theoretically provide a web interface to a GPLv2 project and not need to supply the source, but if you provide such an interface to GPLv3 software, you could receive a request for the code. EDIT: _I 'm not entirely correct_ There are _provisions_ for the network situation ("ASP (application service provider) loophole") I described, but I looks like it's not necessarily the default mode. See [0][1]. [0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License) ~~~ Manozco Nop The 'over the network' stuff is AGPL	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Uber Picks Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi as New CEO - nbmh https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/technology/dara-khosrowshahi-uber-ceo.html?mcubz=0 ====== mwnivek Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15113613](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15113613)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Is Your Webapp in an App Store? - sabat ====== stephenou It is not 100% related but I have a premium whiteboard application on Chrome Web Store for $3.99. The volume is relatively small in comparison to folks at Apple App Store, I assume it's because many people barely know about Chrome Web Store yet. My sales figures: <http://ohboard.com/blog/10-sales- in-2-weeks/> Though, I suggest you adding your web app to Chrome Web Store since it will not take you more than few hours and it will bring you users straight. ------ jeffepp Shopify = Well worth it. A significant amount of new signups come from Shopify. Great support & communication. Google Enterprise = Not worth it, whatsoever. The process is horrible (it took quite a while to understand the issues for denial because of the template answers). Definitely a - ROI for us. Feel free to email me for more details.. ------ sabat Are you marketing your webapp in an app store (Google Chrome, Mozilla)? What are your results, lessons learned, and how has your experience been? Is it worth it, and should the rest of us consider doing this?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Toki Pona - ColinWright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona ====== anonymfus Conlang Critic is a fan of this language: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLn6LC1RpAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLn6LC1RpAo) I highly recommend watching all episodes of their show if you like an idea of short text based video essays about constructed languages: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuYLhuXt4HrQqnfSceITm...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuYLhuXt4HrQqnfSceITmv6T_drx1hN84) ~~~ lifthrasiir I second this. If you are new to the series, the recent Lingwa de Planeta episode [1] contains a good introduction to conlangs and especially international auxiliary languages in general. [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi1-ZWiqjD8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi1-ZWiqjD8) ------ schoen Maybe dang or some other public-spirited person could find some of the earlier toki pona threads from HN so people could see some of the earlier discussions? I know I've participated in quite a few of them because I know toki pona well and had various random things to comment on each time it was brought up here. :-) Edit: I guess the majority of these threads can be found with [https://hn.algolia.com/?q=toki+pona](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=toki+pona) (including the recent one on a custom homemade computer with a native toki pona input and display, a project which was then described by its inventor exclusively in toki pona). ~~~ 6510 thanks ------ bovermyer The really interesting thing about Toki Pona is that it's meant to force you to think about the meaning of your words in a positive light. ~~~ 9nGQluzmnq3M Claiming that language limits what you can imagine is the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and it's been pretty thoroughly debunked: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity) ~~~ quotemstr Not everyone agrees that it's been "debunked". There's a lot of motivated reasoning in linguistics. ~~~ canjobear You can read about the experiments yourself. Strong Sapir-Whorf (the idea that language determines thought) is DOA. Weak Sapir-Whorf (language has some influence on thought) has ok evidence. ------ stanislavb An idea: If one learns to express himself in Toki Pona, would it be possible to communicate "freely" with natives by simply learning the equivalent vocabulary (120 words) of any other language? ------ codezero Learning the vocabulary is easy, but because the vocabulary is so small, it does become quite difficult to construct meaningful sentences following rules that are very local to a few words, which ultimately spans many words. Most often, it seems, like any language, a ton of the context becomes implied, so it’s super tricky. It’s still a fun weekend or multi weekend exercise in exploring languages though. ------ senorsmile A couple of years ago Memrise had a 48 hour challenge to learn it with a bunch of other people, and to try to speak at the end. I did quite terribly (as usual). Nevertheless, it was a fun challenge. ------ dang [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22689959](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22689959) See also [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Toki%20Pona%20comments%3E3&sort=byDate&type=story) ------ strogonoff Invented languages are overwhelmingly boring in their likeness to English, Spanish and other Western languages. What if we tried to create, say, a language with a logographic written system that is pure WYSIWYM (as opposed to “what you see is how you pronounce”) _and_ synthetic to boot? Make it use vocal cords differently. Instead of borrowing around, use a random seed in generating a minimum set of unique basic “native” words according to language rules and build on top of that (borrowing for meanings outside of that set). This could be so much more fun! ~~~ justinpombrio > Invented languages are overwhelmingly boring in their likeness to English, > Spanish and other Western languages. Toki Pona is not like English, Spanish, or other Western languages. It has no singular/plural distinction. It has no past/present/future tense. Its pronouns have no gender. All of its phonemes are present in almost all languages (this is on purpose). The way it forms questions is not like Enlgish (I don't know of any language that it's similar to). Its word order is subject-verb-object, like most languages. [EDIT: not most, only 42%] The only thing its taken from English, as far as I've seen, is a bunch of vocabulary. Though honestly its sounds are so limited that sometimes you can't recognize which English word a Toki Pona word came from. > What if we tried to create, say, a language with a logographic written > system that is pure WYSIWYM (as opposed to “what you see is how you > pronounce”) and synthetic to boot? I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I'll just leave this link here... [https://omniglot.com/conscripts/conlangs.htm](https://omniglot.com/conscripts/conlangs.htm) > Instead of borrowing around, use a random seed in generating a minimum set > of unique basic “native” words according to language rules and build on top > of that Lojban does this. ~~~ schoen > The way it forms questions is not like Enlgish (I don't know of any language > that it's similar to). The "x ala x" pattern is directly modeled on the Chinese "x不x" (and "有没有") pattern, including the answer ("x" / "x ala" in toki pona, "x" / "不x" in Chinese). I think Sonja has mentioned this explicitly somewhere. For example, in Chinese I think you can ask "你可不可" 'you can not can?' with the possible answers "可" 'can' and "不可" 'cannot'. This corresponds directly to toki pona's "sina ken ala ken?" 'you can not can?' with the answers "ken" 'can' and "ken ala" 'cannot'. There's also the "anu seme?" pattern which is similar to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_question](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_question) phenomenon in a number of languages; the one that I find it most similar to is German, with the "oder?" tags. [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oder#Particle](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oder#Particle) I understand the "oder?" to have a connotation of 'or _what_?' (like "are you coming or what?"), in which case "kommst du, oder?" should correspond literally to toki pona's "sina kama anu seme?" 'you come or what?'. ------ stewbrew Does the title comply with HN rules? BTW to use an artificial language to understand real life is like asking a Catholic priest for marriage advice. ~~~ ColinWright The original title was carefully chosen, extracted from the pages themselves, to ensure that HN readers would have an idea of what it was supposed to be about, and not just a pair of random words. As such, I thought it did comply, and was helpful. Clearly the mods disagreed. ------ HeavenBanned I really love how body parts are consolidated so smartly. "noka" meaning thigh, shin and foot is just brilliant. ~~~ gliese1337 You might like Russian, then. ~~~ therein Care to elaborate? Genuinely curious. ~~~ gliese1337 Russian also has a single word for the entire lower limb, leg and foot included: "noga". Also a single word for the combined arm and hand: "ruka".	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
HumanPredictions – Bootstrapping a SaaS app to $18k/mo in under a year - csallen https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/humanpredictions?utm_source=hacker-news&utm_campaign=interview-promotion&utm_medium=social ====== hiou He basically gets a spot in the family business which he uses as a launchpad to creating a SaaS product. Come on, this title is so far off from reality. No problem with what he did and it sounds like he does a great job, but let's at least keep the titles from indiehackers somewhat accurate. It gives a lot of people thinking about starting their own company really unrealistic expectations. ~~~ gregorymichael As someone who has known Elliot from the Chicago scene for the last ~10 years, I have to push back on this. Elliot hustled his ass off doing his own thing, working recruiting for Groupon, working as one of the founding employees of DevBootcamp Chicago to get graduates gigs (and doing so with great success), and then back to his own recruiting before launching Human Predictions based on feedback from his clients and experiences. He became, at least in my circles, the most trusted recruiter amongst developers. Many thought of him as more of an "agent" than a recruiter. Someone you could grab coffee with every six months who'd keep you in mind if the perfect gig came up. I referred friends to him all the time without concern that he'd spam them, hard-sell them, put them in whatever spot that was open just to reap the commission. He's always had the developer's interest in mind first and foremost. I understand the sentiment that these stories can sometimes over-simplify the journey. Yes, he had the privilege of learning the family business at a young age. But it's not as if "having a dad that does X" makes it a trivial effort to launch a SaaS that does X. In Elliot's case, there was at least ten years of self-motivated hustle in-between. ~~~ hiou Absolutely agree with you and my apologies if my comment made it out to sound like I felt like he did not work for what he has accomplished. _> No problem with what he did and it sounds like he does a great job_ My comment was about the indiehackers title and link. It seems to be a pretty common occurrence for that site to greatly exaggerate the 0 to $X and this article is unfortunately no exception. Much respect to Elliot for all he has accomplished. ~~~ csallen IH founder here. Why do you think the title is exaggerated? He did start his business less than one year ago. Of course, any business depends on the skillset and knowledge that its founders started to build previous to its founding, but how do you put a start date on that? To build a company, you need business skills, a network, money, programming knowledge... for that you probably need professional experience... for that you need the ability to read and write... etc. Where do you draw the line? Everything always depends on what came before it. People get this. They aren't naive enough to believe that founders are born on day 1 of their companies with no previous life experience or knowledge of the world. I agree it's dishonest to refer to a 5-year-old business as "an overnight success" as often happens, but how exactly is it misleading to call a 1-year old-business a 1-year-old business? ------ kpwagner Wow! Maybe just me, hearing about a company bootstrapping to success instead of raising large rounds of financing is all the more inspiring. ~~~ dave_sullivan 80% of the inc 500, the fastest growing private companies, haven't raised outside capital. ~~~ thenaturalist Do you have a source for that? ~~~ dave_sullivan Some inc article I saw on HN with Sam Altman talking about how important startups are to the economy, couldn't find exact one. ~~~ gexla Here is a link to the HN discussion to the article I assume you are thinking about. The wording was a bit different, which may have been why you didn't find it. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12625642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12625642) ~~~ dave_sullivan That's the one. The exact quote: > Only twenty per cent of the Inc. 500, the five hundred fastest-growing > private companies, raised outside funding. ------ 0xmohit The underlying assumption seems to be that everyone uses LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter. While it would be largely true, not _everyone_ uses those. What would your tool say about them? ~~~ dpick Unfortunately because we are just looking at public data online (including Github, StackOverflow, and Meetup) if people don't use those services (or contribute to open source) we won't discover them or be able to a make a prediction about their likeliness to leave. ~~~ 0xmohit Maybe you should start looking at Keybase [0] too. It might help you link personal websites, github, twitter, ... [0] [https://keybase.io/](https://keybase.io/) ~~~ dpick Thanks! We do actually use Keybase for discovering social accounts as well. ------ shostack I noticed the UTM tags you had on this link. How is Hacker News performing as part of your interview promotion? ~~~ csallen Just started using UTM query params a few days ago, so I'll have more data when I write my monthly review for November! But in October, direct links from HN accounted for around half of my total traffic. More details here: [https://goo.gl/FMxdpc](https://goo.gl/FMxdpc). ------ dpick Hey everyone, I'm the CTO and Co-Founder of HumanPredictions happy to answer any questions anyone has about the article or the company in general! ~~~ garysieling I'm curious if you've received feedback from software developers on what the experience is like being recruiting with your tool. The agency spam approach you mention is irritating, but I would imagine that if you're correctly predicting when someone is looking to jump that would be less of a problem. ~~~ dpick We actually do have a significantly better response from developers both because they're being reached out to at the right time, but also because a lot of our users are CTO's and Engineering managers who by the fact that they are technical can have a much better conversation with prospects. ~~~ garysieling Cool, that makes sense. I think a big part of the spam problem is mass template emails, so if your customers are emailing people directly it would be much better. ~~~ dpick Completely agree, one of our core goals from the beginning of HumanPredictions has been to kill mass template emails. ------ hueving Would it be possible for a dev to see their own prediction (to prove ownership maybe leverage oauth of one of the sites: github, linkedin, etc)? ~~~ dpick We don't currently support that through the application, but it is on our roadmap and something we very much want to build. For now though if you reach out to me at [email protected] I'd be happy to let you know what our current prediction for you is. ------ vsloo Great story and many great lessons. Being "intentional about the people you work with" is a great piece of advice and one that we usually like to stress too when talking to aspiring entrepreneurs. We wrote about some of this too in a previous HN thread [https://betterthansure.com/answer-hn-growing-a-side- project-...](https://betterthansure.com/answer-hn-growing-a-side- project-30f17f6a10da#.ntvqg0q7z). ------ desireco42 This is really cool idea, I like how it uses data to predict behavior. I have few recruiters that always hit me around the time when I get a little more free. They don't have this tool, just their spidey sense, but I bet they would like something like this. ~~~ 0xmohit I heard of such tools a couple of years back. So I'm sure those exist. How well do those work if an entirely different issue. ~~~ desireco42 Well, if people use twitter, github etc, they will be findable and their trace can be used to predict if they are 'jumping ship'. It is common to start blogging around the time you are looking to change work for example. ------ soheil Sounds like very similar to my start up NetIn[1] We also look at public profile updates and other signals to tell if a candidate is on the move. We also got to HN frontpage last night for our candidate job portal[2]. If there are people who would like to talk about what we've accomplished so far feel free to reach me at [email protected] [1] [https://netin.co](https://netin.co) [2] [https://netin.co/candidates](https://netin.co/candidates) ------ philip1209 It's great to hear about your success! For discussion's purposes, it's worth pointing out that there is a venture- funded company that is doing the same thing (but with a big data science team): [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/entelo](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/entelo) ------ iamleppert Now just let me come up with a product I can sell to developers that camouflages them to this product by simulating activity on these sites... I wonder what their next line of business is at this company...selling this data to current employers to see when their employee is about to jump ship? ------ gizmo This type of data mining of personal information feels kind of icky to me. ------ k2xl I wrote a similar tool for recruiters (only analyzes LinkedIn profiles that you are viewing). Mine is significantly cheaper at $9 per month: [https://recap.work](https://recap.work) ~~~ 0xmohit Your site redirects (301) from HTTPS to HTTP!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Famed mathematician claims proof of 160-year-old Riemann hypothesis - thomasahle https://www.newscientist.com/article/2180406 ====== ColinWright There is significant scepticism[0][1] surrounding this, and many, many submissions: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18044050](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18044050) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042687) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042513) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042116](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042116) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041616](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041616) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18038790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18038790) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036367) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18032207](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18032207) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029551) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029459](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029459) ============================================= [0] [https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/9hl35w/sir_michael_at...](https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/9hl35w/sir_michael_atiyah_announced_a_proof_of_the/e6cxbin/) [1] [https://mathoverflow.net/questions/311062/sir-michael- atiyah...](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/311062/sir-michael-atiyahs- conference-on-the-riemann-hypothesis)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Linear Algebra and Applications: An Inquiry-Based Approach - henning https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=books ====== jcranmer Pedagogically, the challenge to teaching linear algebra is that you start with "here's systems of linear equations, we can put them into matrices and now here's row operations to solve them," and you end up with "now matrices are actually representations of linear operators on vector spaces, let's analyze the properties of this specific operator." Usually, this is also coupled with a reluctance to actually discuss vector spaces, since the meat of it involves abstract algebra, which usually comes after linear algebra. Failing to tackle this challenge appropriately can leave students confused about properties that seem apparently random (trace and determinant are big offenders here), or textbooks bringing something up only to never mention it again (null space is often an example here). On top of this, there is also the multiple notation problem (admittedly, not as bad as calculus, where there are too many notations for derivative) and the minor issue that many of the algorithms taught in the book aren't used in practice because of numerical stability issues. It has been so long since I've taken linear algebra, and I've taken abstract algebra courses since then, that I can't really compare this book to the approach that I learned. Skimming the book, the thing that jumps out the most to me is that LU factorization and determinants are shoved surprisingly late in the book [1], and eigenvalues are "previewed" quite early. I'm not sure that's a good approach: LU factorization is important because backsolving the L and U matrices is more numerically stable (and sparser, when you're dealing with sparse matrices) than the inverse matrix, and it works even if your matrix isn't square. Furthermore, determinants tie in better to row operations, and their weird application with Cramer's rule is another way to solve a set of linear equations: you don't want to introduce Cramer's rule months after you finished treating matrices as stepping stones to solving linear equations. The book does cover vector spaces, although in a bit of a dance around not covering abstract algebra. I'm not sure it's an effective introduction of vector spaces, although it could well suffice to ease the pedagogical trap mentioned earlier. On the other hand, if it's going to dive that far into vector spaces, it would probably be helpful to have some more sections on matrices over fields that aren't real numbers (i.e., complex numbers (make sure to mention conjugate transpose and Hermitian matrices!), rational numbers, and finite fields). [1] Strassen's algorithm for matrix multiplication is described before LU factorization, to give you an idea of how weird the ordering ends up being. ~~~ tonyarkles I went through EE and CS. EE we started using matrices exactly how you describe it: here’s a system of linear equations, here’s how you write them in matrix form, here’s how you invert them to solve the original system. Turn the crank, answer pops out. I had my trusty HP49G, and I could solve linear systems all day. Then in CS I took a computer graphics course and it was rotation and translation matrices all day every day. Then there was a digital communications course where we touched on orthogonal basis functions, and some matrix voodoo related to that and how to get orthogonal vectors out of the mess. And then finally I took the required CS linear algebra course offered by the math department, where we started from scratch. Here’s a vector (psh, I know vectors!), here’s a vector space (hmmm this is new), and building the rest of it up from there. I _really_ wish that had come earlier on, but I was very very happy to finally have a bit of a theoretical understanding of how these tools I’d been using actually worked. ~~~ jammygit I feel like my university only taught calculation, not theory, when it came to linear algebra. It’s like the equivalent of a “12 hacks to rotate a matrix” article. The theoretical books I find however give no explanation for the definitions etc, ie, WHY are the dot/cross products defined the way they are. It’s as though they feel matrixes are natural phenomenon that you should just memorize the properties of, which is also nonsense. The entire field is defined by such terrible books. I’d love to be wrong though if somebody has a recommendation ------ faizshah Along these lines, my stats professor recommended a really nice book that offers a case studies based approach for grad level stats: [http://www.statisticalsleuth.com/](http://www.statisticalsleuth.com/) I've been going through it by implementing the solutions in jupyter notebooks. They have the datasets and code in R so it's easy to work with and work out the solutions. ~~~ dmitryminkovsky Thank you for the recommendation. ------ Vaslo The fact that it doesn’t start with some unreadable mathematical notation that is just the author trying to show how smart they are give me hope. Looks like a really good introductory source just skimming the first few chapters. ------ anjc I haven't gone through this yet but I really like the idea of each new concept being described in the context of a useful application. Thanks OP ------ ch Cool. I want to try and work through this text, just to assess how useful it is. The approach is an interesting one. Looks like this will have to become a weekly goal. Maybe one chapter a week? Seems possible. ------ zhamisen Hopefully this topology book will be in the same style: [https://bookstore.ams.org/text-58](https://bookstore.ams.org/text-58) ------ melvinroest I have no clue how this is having 52 votes and no comments on it. How am I supposed to know this is a good book? I'll highlight the goals of this book as it explains more about the title. > We place an emphasis on active learning and on developing students’ > intuition through their investigation of examples. For us, active learning > involves students – they are DOING something instead of being passive > learners. I found this goal the most interesting. > To help students understand that mathematics is not done as it is often > presented. We expect students to experiment through examples, make > conjectures, and then refine their conjectures. We believe it is important > for students to learn that definitions and theorems don’t pop up completely > formed in the minds of most mathematicians, but are the result of much > thought and work ~~~ marktangotango The reason I upvoted was with intent to review later. I personally found that after two semesters of linear and a BS Mathematics I didn’t know jack about linear algebra. I came to the conclusion that I should’ve studied physics or engineering if I’d wanted to actually learn how to use it! ~~~ josinalvo for this use case, I use favorite rather than the upvote	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Whatever happened to Gallium-Arsenide? - rbanffy https://www.quora.com/Whatever-happened-to-Gallium-Arsenide-Why-did-the-need-for-GaAs-go-away-What-technology-solved-the-problem-it-was-supposed-to-address?share=1 ====== gaspoweredcat Thank you for this, i remember reading about it back when single core chips were hitting absurd temps (if memory serves the headlines were something like "top end p4 produces more heat per mm2 than a thermo nuclear power plant") before they managed to find another way there was much talk of GaAs just for fun id love to see what a GaAs Bitcoin mining ASIC could do but i seriously doubt anyone will be producing one of them	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Worse Than China? U.S. Government Wants To Censor Search Engines And Browsers - sdizdar http://act.demandprogress.org/act/protectip_docs/?source=fb ====== jgershen This article, like the headline, is light on facts and high on sensationalism. However, the bill (full text available at [1]) does look pretty ugly. [1] [http://leahy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BillText- PROTECTIPAct....](http://leahy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BillText- PROTECTIPAct.pdf) ------ bluedanieru We need a new constitution. ~~~ HedgeMage The Constitution is fine; the government's habit of ignoring it is the problem. EDIT: The Constitution is fine; our habit of letting the government ignore it is the problem.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
HN Being Fair - unimpressive https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=%22to+be+fair%22 ====== niggler To be fair, "to be fair" is a common phrase that many of us use in face-to- face conversation ~~~ unimpressive It is, I just find these little quirks in language fascinating.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
8 Steps Two CS majors Took to Becoming Powerful Speakers - ciscoriordan http://bases.stanford.edu/2010/04/07/8-steps-two-cs-majors-took-to-becoming-powerful-speakers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+stanfordbases+%28StanfordBASES%29&utm_content=Google+Reader ====== ciscoriordan Copy and paste job since it's down: from Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES) by wesleyleung As two guys who love to code, we have noticed a not-too-exciting stereotype floating around our fields of study: CS majors are poor speakers who have traded their interpersonal relationship and communication skills for technical expertise. This label is unfortunate because on the whole, CS majors truly do indeed publicly speak worse than those in other fuzzier fields. To break out of this stereotype and reach our full potentials, we decided yesterday to participate in some Speaker Training 101 to improve our public speaking skills, because, to be blunt, CS Majors who speak well do better than CS majors who don’t speak well. Here are some useful tips we took away from the training: 1\. Silence is powerful. It might sound ironic, but the most powerful speakers are those who can employ pauses in their words. During short bouts of mental hiccups, everyone will want to fill gaps in their speech with the two most spoken words in the English language. Yeah, that’s right: “Umm…” or “err…” Avoid these. Be conscious of your umms and errs. See if you can catch yourself in the act and replace them with some thoughtful, contemplative silence. You’ll be surprised. 2\. Use your hands. Using your hands to emphasize key points or to articulate what you need to say is extremely effective. Don’t let them hang limp at your sides, hiding uselessly in your pockets, or tucked away behind the podium. You have them for a reason. Be lively and energetic! 3\. Don’t touch the podium! People may not think about this at all, but their natural instinct is to grab whatever is in front of them while they are speaking. On-stage, people will psychologically want to seek some sort of security. Remember that stand-up comedian who kept fiddling with his microphone? Or maybe that nervous speaker who appeared to be humping the podium. Neither took tip #3 into account. Be confident, poised, and keep your hands off the podium! 4\. Listen to your introducer. As the main event, everyone will naturally have their attention on you. Show some courtesy and give your introducer your undivided attention. The audience will naturally follow you. When the introducer gives you the stage, don’t just start speaking and talk over him. Ease your way into your speech and set the pace for your audience. It can be as simple as “Thank you [name] for introducing me tonight…” 5\. Interact with the audience. Reality check: who are you speaking to? Your audience. They are here to learn from you, so it’s best to know your audience and involve them in your speech. For example, this can be accomplished by doing simple tasks such as asking questions — “raise your hand if…” Follow tip #5, and you’ll keep the audience refreshed and engaged. 6\. Pull yourself out of a tailspin. During the speaker training, I choked up during my improv and forgot the name of an organization I was supposed to describe. After five seconds of misery, the name came back to me and I made my recovery by graciously and humorously accepting the fact I made my mistake. Surprisingly, the audience felt that this contributed to the power of the speech. Apparently some speakers even plan out things to fail during their speech so they could similarly pull themselves out of a tailspin. This tactic is supposed to connect the audience to the speaker and create this bond because the speaker becomes more human, down-to-earth, and on the same plane as the audience. 7\. Don’t hold back your energy. For unknown reasons, many equate speaking with less energy to increased technical expertise. That actually doesn’t make you look more sophisticated, that just makes you look like a poor speaker. Release that energy and don’t hold back! Capture your audience’s attention with all the power you have to make your speech more effective. 8\. Critique yourself and have others critique you. This may seem self-explanatory, but when you are practicing your speech, take turns with others to point out positives and negatives in your speech. When addressing your own negatives, see if your audience agrees with you. Surprisingly, audiences may not notice a lot of your mistakes. What feels like hours of mess-ups on your part are actually unnoticeable seconds for your audience. Keep running drills immediately afterward to incorporate the constructive criticism. Our public speaking is nowhere near perfect, but we recognize it as a valuable skill to have and hope to improve in it quickly. Try out these small tips, and you’ll be surprised at the difference it’ll make. Most of the world fears public speaking more than death. Master these tips and you will absolutely amaze. It’s the first step to being able to throw an event that will make a 2nd year Stanford GSB student jealous. Ambitious? No problem. ~~~ sjf That's all good advice, but I don't think it gets to the heart of most speakers' problem, which is simply fear. Clutching the podium, speaking too quickly, blanking - these are all side effects of nervousness. I don't think the solution is as simple as 'stop doing that', controlling unconscious behaviour under pressure is difficult. Unfortunately I don't know the secret to great public speaking, but I suspect no. 8, practice and critique, should actually be top of the list. It is the only thing I've found which helps. ------ mmorris If you're interested in becoming a better speaker you should check out a local chapter of Toast Masters. Despite the name, it's more about speeches than about toasts. <http://www.toastmasters.org/> ~~~ dpritchett I just joined the local chapter at my office in hopes of hedging my technical skills with a better set of social / presentation skills. The cost to join was about $60 up front and another $30-40 for each six months thereafter. I have enjoyed all three meetings I've attended thus far. Speaking makes me nervous, so I figure working through it will be good for me. ------ cpg HN'd? "Error establishing a database connection" How do you say slashdotted for HN? :) ~~~ strooltz yeah - it's down for me as well. anyone have a mirror?? ------ swombat Powerful speakers? Like, 200W each? Recognised speakers, perhaps? Famous? Effective? I know it's just a quibble, but it really seems to me that "Powerful" is not the adjective you want here. That said, I can't read the article, since the site is down, so who knows, maybe Powerful is a really clever pun that I'm not getting.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
90% of software developers work outside Silicon Valley - douche http://qz.com/729293/90-of-software-developers-work-outside-silicon-valley/?imm_mid=0e5d09&cmp=em-prog-na-na-newsltr_20160716 ====== ratfacemcgee >90% of the world lives outside the United States ~~~ brudgers I agree the submission could use a title change. ------ sunstone Gotta be true. I imagine quite a few of them work in China, not to mention India.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Pikini just launched – App to find your friends' bikini pictures automatically - mosselman https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pikinis/id715969584?utm_source=Launch+%28wave+13%29&utm_campaign=b3a794a37b-Launch+email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_aa9fcb934b-b3a794a37b-79962533 ====== jaegerpicker Jesus, and people in this industry STILL fight the idea that it's an incredibly gross and sexist environment. This is what we can achieve with some of the greatest technologies that humanity has created, really!? ~~~ mosselman As it says on the app page "Pikinis is for everyone – men or women, straight, gay, or bi-sexual, human or vampire!". You are making it about sexism; surely shows in what types of categories you think about people. Also, phones are not the greatest technology. Medicine is the greatest and even that is debatable. All other technology is just aimed at killing each other and shallow fun. ~~~ jaegerpicker Right, that's why all of the pictures as of women in the Apple store, it's sold as a bikini search app (which is very much mostly a women's swimsuit), and there is no overbearing culture of sexism in tech? None of those things matter, is that really what you are trying to say? And yes internet equipped devices and the sum total of most human knowledge at your finger tips is CLEARLY one of the greatest if not the greatest advancement(s) for human kind. It enhances and makes possible nearly every other branch of human discovery possible. Because you are shallow in your use of it does not mean the tech is aimed at shallow fun. ------ FroshKiller I like how the link you submitted appears to have come from a "please please please let me know when this app launches" mailing list. That's not a good look. ~~~ mosselman I see. Posting it here to begin with was a classy move, but using the link is what makes it a bad look? ~~~ FroshKiller Well, understand that the context matters. It's definitely something worth discussing! But whether it's a good look or a bad look depends on the discovery. If you'd found it from, say, Jezebel's critical preview versus a heck-yeah-sign-me-up announcement list, your audience could take it differently. :) ------ geophile The TV series Silicon Valley has proven eerily prescient. First Weissman scores turn out to be real, and now Nip Alert comes to life. ~~~ jaegerpicker I know it's one of the things that makes that show pretty awesome, and makes me pretty sure that it can be a long running show. A SHIT-TON of spoof worthy material.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Page of HN links - kgermino http://hnlists.pen.io/ ====== kgermino I wrote this up after the earlier discussion at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2496527> It's nothing fancy, but I figure it might be a nice reference. Let me know if there is any pages/links you want added.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Science for the very young? - timwiseman My son is just about to turn 5 and I am looking for "science experiments" or projects we can do together to help get him interested (and give me an excuse to do some of them).<p>Any suggestions, especially on a budget? ====== zoba I think anything that "looks cool" will be good for getting a kid interested in science. Once you've got him/her hooked, then you can start on the actual scientific method. To that end, science things that look cool: Cymatics: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iXY2BE1S8Q> Ferrofluid: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpBxCnHU8Ao> <http://www.gaussboys.com/ndfeb-magnets/FerroFluid25> Non Newtonian Liquids: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5SGiwS5L6I> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XQ97XHjVw> Microcontrollers: [http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=211799...](http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2117994) (maybe not the best for a 5 year old, but in a couple years) Make a Speaker for cheap (haven't done this one myself): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m8fbnShPcw> Electromagnets: <http://education.jlab.org/qa/electromagnet.html> Finally, one project I did with my little brother that I thought was cool. I got a frequency analyzer for my computer ( <http://www.relisoft.com/Freeware/freq.html>) and then filled glass cups with varying amounts of liquid. Then we ran our fingers around the lip of the glass to get it to "sing" and measured the frequency. We were able to come up with a function for X amount of liquid gives you X frequency. I thought this was great because: it was really appealing to my brother (he was 10 or so at the time) because all kids like making cups make noise, we got to do scientific method (hypothesis being more water in the glass) will make a lower frequency, I got to teach him about graphing, how to get a forumla for a line on a graph, and finally we could use that line to predict things to see if we were right. ------ sga You could have a lot of fun with an inexpensive microscope (look at a number of different materials, bugs, etc..) or even a set of magnifying glasses. Get your hands on some polarizers, play with the affect of one and your ability to look into bodies of water (pool, lake, etc) show him that if you cross the polarizers you can't see through. Couple the polarizers to the microscope and do some polarization microscopy. You could also play with prisms and look at the dispersion of light. Lots of good optics stuff out there. I would highly recommend staying away from lasers until he's older. You might also consider doing some crystallization experiments (google "crystal projects for kids"). ------ Aron Throw some pepper on a bowl of water, and touch it with a soaped finger. ------ blender Also Baking Soda + Vinegar, add some red food coloring for lava effect ~~~ timwiseman Great suggestion. First one we did. He loves it. If you add a drop of dish soap it gets more bubbly and looks more like lava. ------ zck Show him videos on youtube of various science experiments or lectures. When he seems interested in an idea, work with him to create an experiment, find the items, and perform it. ------ aheilbut That photosensitive paper that lets you make 'photographs' of objects (like leaves and rocks) was pretty fun. ------ aheilbut Get him one of those one-volume kids' science encyclopedias to carry around. ------ aheilbut You'd have to build it, but how about model rockets? ------ blender Diet Coke + Mentos	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
New Clients for Recruiting - poornimaemani i am a looking for new US clients where me and my team can work with ====== Colegno We need more information about you and your team	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Evercookie used by NSA to track TOR users across browsers - grhmc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evercookie ====== sp332 That edit was made a year ago. It's not news. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evercookie&diff=5...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evercookie&diff=577190307&oldid=568209885)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Unplanned Freefall? Some Survival Tips - Tomte http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/carkeet.html ====== sfeng > 120 divided by 5 = 24. Not bad! 24 mph is only a bit faster than the speed > at which experienced parachutists land. This is of course being a little silly, but it does get the physics wrong. Your energy is proportional to the square of your speed, so you have 25x more energy to dissipate at 120 mph, not 5x. Even if your five point landing was perfect, each of the five 'hits' is the equivalent of a landing at just under 60 mph, not 24. ~~~ andrewla My intuition rings false on this -- I don't think this is right. In a vacuum, ignoring the rocket equation (that is, assuming ejected reaction mass is negligible compared to projectile mass), the energy required to produce the 120 -> 96 mph change is the same as that required to go from 24 -> 0\. This works out in conservation of energy because the ejected mass has kinetic energy of its own. In the case of you landing, I don't think energy balance is the way to look at it; each of the collisions that slows you down will transfer some energy to the ground. In terms of force, the force is dependent only on the acceleration, so it comes down to how long each impact lasts. If each "bounce" or "thud" lasts the same amount of time (I don't know if this is realistic) then each one will transfer 1/5th of the force, as the article says. ~~~ Retric Your intuition is wrong. Potential energy is linear with height. AKA it takes the same energy to climb from floor 1 to 2 as 2 to 3. Gravity is 32 feet per second per second aka you gain speed over time. In a vacuum 0 to 32 feet per second takes 1 second, 32 to 64 feet per second takes 1 seconds, 64 to 96 takes 1 second etc. However, in the first second you fall 16 feet. in the next second you fall 38 feet because you where falling at the start of that second. Thus, it takes more energy to increase your speed. PS: What's confusing about rockets, is your fuel has momentum. So, when use it your consuming the energy it took to get that fuel up to speed with you. Further, at low speed most of the energy goes into the exhaust not the rocket. ~~~ babyrainbow >However, in the first second you fall 16 feet. in the next second you fall 38 feet because you where falling at the start of that second. Thus, it takes more energy to increase your speed... Doesn't make sense. Care to explain? Are you saying it takes less energy to take an object from 0 to 10m/s than it requires to take it from 10m/s to 20m/s? ~~~ hughes That's exactly correct. Consider the equation for kinetic energy: E = 1/2 mv^2 The energy to go from 0-10 m/s is the difference in this value (for 1kg e.g.): dE = E1 - E0 = 1/2(10^2) - 1/2(0^2) = 50J To go from 10m/s to 20m/s: dE = E2 - E1 = 1/2(20^2) - 1/2(10^2) = 200 - 50 = 150J In fact by solving for velocity you can figure out what happens if you put another 50J into your object that's already going 10m/s: v = sqrt(2E) = sqrt(200) = 14.1m/s When you double the energy, you only get 1.4 times the speed. ------ wyldfire I recall the advice of Jack Handey [1] [2]: > “If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe > you'll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free > dummy.” [1] [http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/](http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Handey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Handey) ~~~ khazhou SENATOR Jack Handey ~~~ dandelany ..? Jack Handey != Al Franken ~~~ ChillyWater Without checking the interweb, isn't Stuart Smalley == Al Franken? ~~~ maxerickson Al Franken - Real person, writer and cast member on SNL, Senator. Stuart Smalley - Character played by Al Franken. Jack Handey - Real person, writer on SNL, did Deep Thoughts voiceovers. ------ johngalt > 120 divided by 5 = 24. Not bad! 24 mph is only a bit faster than the speed > at which experienced parachutists land. Better yet, just put your hands in front of you and land on all ten fingers. Then it's only 12mph. /s In reality your entire body is moving at 120mph, so you can't divide the forces in this manner. This a PSI problem. Total inertia distributed over a given area. And the results are much less favorable. ~~~ tempestn As sfeng describes in another comment, the math isn't right, but the concept does make sense. It doesn't negate what you're saying either though; the 5 point landing is basically a way of distributing the force over as much area as possible. (You can't accomplish the same thing by just landing on your side, because the mass of your body isn't evenly distributed across the surface that would contact the ground.) It does manage to distribute the force over time a bit too, which is also beneficial, but a less significant effect. ------ nolanpro Excellent read. Just a few more pointers from personal experience. When over water, "pencil" your body, feet first, at the very last second. Molecules of atmosphere, which are your friend at 120mph, are not so much when they are of water. Also the author didn't mention my favorite survivor Juliane Koepcke. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliane_Koepcke](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliane_Koepcke) ~~~ ParrotyError I've never been on the offshore survival course where they teach you how to jump off an oil platform into the sea and survive, but allegedly they tell you to cover your mouth firmly with the palm of your hand and pinch your nostrils closed tight between your thumb and fingers. Apparently when you hit the cold water your natural reaction is to breath in. Also, you must prevent water being forced up your nostrils and damaging your brain etc. ~~~ siphor I tried this on a ~60ft cliff jump and punched myself in the eye. Also got the wind knocked out of me ~~~ scythe Maybe use your elbow? It's not a perfect cover, but it's impossible to hit yourself. ~~~ MaxfordAndSons I can't help but think this would get your shoulder dislocated or lats torn. ------ justifier > The perfectly tiered Norfolk Island pine is a natural safety net When I was child I used have fun by climbing to the top of conifers behind our house to sit on the highest branch and just slide down Each successive tiered limb would catch the bend on the ones above and I would slide down perfectly fine ~~~ komali2 Children genuinely are constantly trying to find unique ways to kill themselves. ------ kolbe Speed skiers go over 150mph, versus 120 for a flat-oriented free falling person. It's conceivable that orienting yourself to slide down a groomed black diamond ski run could be a winning strategy, too. ~~~ bitL Maybe you should target a steep avalanche terrain with fresh snow. Not only you have a hell of a ride while falling down, you get to enjoy a ride in a snowy feather all the way down the valley! Don't forget to mount your GoPro while boarding! ~~~ iamatworknow >Don't forget to mount your GoPro while boarding! Man, I wonder if we're going to end up seeing someone's free fall smartphone video someday. Not everyone is going to read this article and be prepared to survive like we now are, so what if they decide to use those couple of minutes falling to try to record a message to their loved ones? The audio would be blown out but I don't see why the camera wouldn't continue working. That would be quite disturbing to watch. ~~~ komali2 Potentially NSFW / terrifying videos: Multiple gopros record an in-air collision of skydiving planes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6hqMnsLFY&list=FLR2K9vyQEB...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6hqMnsLFY&list=FLR2K9vyQEBb4qUyunijtBHg&index=3&t=2s) Tangled chute: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciIjdvNo65s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciIjdvNo65s) I can't find it but I've seen two more videos of people who have survived near freefall after parachuting accidents. One became a paraplegic IIRC. ------ joegosse Interesting that the overall advice here is "Don't Panic" Also interesting that having a towel could be incredibly useful in this situation. ~~~ geophile Since we're quoting Doug Adams: “The Guide says there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” ------ cromulent Somewhat relevant: [http://topgunbase.ws/i-flew-my-wingsuit-into-trees-and- woke-...](http://topgunbase.ws/i-flew-my-wingsuit-into-trees-and-woke-up-in-a- hospital/) ~~~ jacquesm Ouch. Nice move for Americans to fly in France where healthcare is affordable. If you did this in the US as a tourist you'd likely be broke for the rest of your life. ~~~ Arizhel Make sure to go back to your home country as fast as possible, and then just ignore the bills. They'll have a very difficult time collecting on a debt in a foreign country. Don't come back to the US as a tourist after that. This reminds me of college, where sometimes the police would come looking for students who were foreign nationals, because they had gotten credit cards and then racked up huge balances buying stuff, but didn't bother paying the bill. When the creditors tried to have them served, it turned out they had already graduated and left the country. Good luck getting some guy in Indonesia to pay off his US credit card balance. What were these creditors thinking? ~~~ camus2 > Make sure to go back to your home country as fast as possible, and then just > ignore the bills. They'll have a very difficult time collecting on a debt in > a foreign country. Don't come back to the US as a tourist after that. Actually if you have a credit card, you might have a travel insurance as well. So no need to ignore the bills. And in France it's not like in US where the first thing they ask you is the name of your insurance company, even if you're bleeding to death. ~~~ Arizhel >And in France it's not like in US where the first thing they ask you is the name of your insurance company, even if you're bleeding to death. I was talking about a scenario where a tourist to the US goes to a US hospital and racks up a lot of medical bills. ~~~ camus2 Sure, but it goes both ways, a tourists NEEDS an health insurance to travel to US. I'm pretty sure it's necessary even for those who benefit from the VISA waver program. ------ delegate My personal philosophy admits the fact that this life might just be a training camp for another life. Hence, all the information learned in this one will be useful at some point in this or another life. Now I don't know what to do with this information .. I don't want to need it.. And then if fate really leads me to fall from a plane, I will definetely remember this article which will seem infinitely funnier in mid flight. Heck if I don't hit the ground laughing my ass off ! ~~~ 0xdeadbeefbabe > My personal philosophy admits the fact that this life might just be a > training camp for another life. Makes me wonder if annihilation is possible in the future life, but not this one. ~~~ simonh If you live N lives then the chance that this is the first is 1/N. I don't know about you, but I don't remember anything from any previous lives, so it seems to me there's a (N-1)/N chance you don't get to remember anything from previous lives anyway. ~~~ leggomylibro It could be a question of soul distribution, though; if you can only have one ghost in each machine, and there's the potential for a spacefaring civilization to expand to many, many planets in the future, then it's possible that the 50 or so billion people who have lived since humanity's birth represent only a sliver of a fraction of the total number of souls needed to staff a well-stocked universe. So we could potentially be heavily weighted towards most people being on their first go-around if we have the potential to make it that far and souls or selves or whatever are actually scarce enough to be re-used. ~~~ iamatworknow No. All of the reality as we know it is just a software bug, with the fix request sitting in some junior developer's project management system. They just haven't gotten around to submitting a pull request yet. ------ sizzzzlerz A man jumps off a 20 story building. As he passes an open window on the 6th floor, people on the floor hear him exclaim "so far, so good!". ~~~ komali2 I don't get it ~~~ _cereal I suppose it's a quote from La Haine (1995) [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/) > Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each > floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good... so far so > good... so far so good. How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land! ~~~ _raul I remember hearing it from Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven when I was a kid [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7GP3l5znc8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7GP3l5znc8) ------ JoeDaDude Ages ago (early 1980s) I read a magazine article about the minds' adaptation when falling. The article posited that the brain kicks into high gear and time subjectively slows down for the faller, enabling them to take action to save themselves. The article had several first-hand accounts of people who had fallen off cliffs, wagons, and the like, and one skydiver who survived impact by landing in a muddy ditch. The article was especially interesting since I was a skydiver at the time and all of us jumpers could relate to the feelings described. Not only that, but the one skydiver interviewed had jumped at our drop zone and was known by most of us. Sadly, I can't remember where the article appeared. I think it was Smithsonian Magazine but I have been unable to locate a reference online. If anyone else locates it, please post. ~~~ jimmaswell I remember reading about some experiments done on this where the result was that the subjects just remembered the experience in more detail, and didn't actually experience time slower. Something about looking at something that changed just slightly faster than the maximum speed someone can normally see changes in something, while freefalling. ~~~ komali2 That makes sense - high adrenaline causing extremely high resolution for memory write, but later the playback speed on a read is the same, so it seems slower when really it's just more detailed / takes up more tape. ------ owenversteeg I've written a longer, more detailed comment in this thread, but long things are hard to remember so I decided to condense my advice into a paragraph: Falling from a plane, you have a minute to land after waking up. You can move laterally 2 miles by controlling your body. That gives you 13 sq miles to land. In this order, aim for: snow, swamp, glass skylights, large bushy trees (but not redwoods.) Water is almost guaranteed death. Stay "flat" until right before impact, and move to a standing position. Relax and go completely limp. If you follow this advice your odds are good. My more detailed comment, with sources/numbers, is here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13840660](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13840660) ~~~ JoshTriplett Glass skylights, really? Not disputing it, but what's your reasoning? Slowing you down while still breaking before you do? Also, regarding water: while I've heard the standard comment that hitting water can be as bad as hitting concrete, that seems like it would apply more if you have a larger surface area. Divers can dive from 35+ meters, and hit at 60+ mph, without any injury at all. If you are capable of aiming and landing feet-first and remaining as streamlined as possible, would water still be a fatal option? ~~~ owenversteeg Yeah, glass is actually one of your better bets. Two of the 5-15 survivors of free fall incidents fell through glass roofs. You can read more here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee) The problem is that you're hitting water at 120mph. A 60mph impact of a 50kg person is 35kJ; a 120mph impact of a 50kg person is 150kJ. That's 4.5 times the energy. I'd almost certainly choose water (with a streamlined, pencil dive profile) over concrete, but that doesn't mean it's not going to be far more fatal than any other options. ~~~ marvy Nitpick: doubling the speed should merely quadruple the energy, 4.5x is too much. ------ tobtoh Reading this article brought back memories when I was getting training to go solo skydiving. The first day was all theory and drills in the classroom. In all my years at school, university lectures, and work-related training workshops, that one day of skydiving class remains the only time in my life when I was 100% completely focussed, awake and attentive for every subject. ------ dahart Having jumped out of many airplanes, I've thought about this and how to survive on occasion. But temperatures at 35k are often like -50 degrees. At 500mph decelerating down to 100mph, it seems like there's a good chance you could become a human snowflake long before you hit the ground. :P ~~~ amorphid A friend of mine once said that if you keep your lips puckered up, and force yourself to breathe through a tiny hole, you increase the air pressure in your mouth and lungs, which is useful at a high altitude. I don't have a thought at this moment how to test this as I sit hear at sea level. Any idea if this is true, or partially true? I didn't see anything about this in a quick Google search. ~~~ avian Seems doubtful this would have any significant effect. You can only create about 0.1 bar of overpressure with your lungs on exhale. ------ okreallywtf I had always heard that being unconscious was the key to surviving an extremely long fall (relaxed body doesn't tear itself apart on impact). I can't find the story of a boy who was picked up by a tornado who was tossed out from hundreds of feet and survived without any injuries, it was attributed (in the show I was watching) to his having passed out and that his body was relaxed. ~~~ bbcbasic I've seen someone fall off a cliff (30m I guess?) and survive. He was drunk. ~~~ justinclift Injuries? ------ ChuckMcM I wonder if you could grab the center aisle life raft on the way out. If you could keep it under you after inflating it, not only would it provide more surface area and so a slower terminal velocity but it would also absorb energy when you hit by popping and create a wider deceleration profile so limiting the g-force of the impact. ~~~ knodi123 If you're supernaturally calm and skilled, it will also give you more steerability. You might even be so lucky as to be able to aim for a stand of pine! ~~~ justinclift Or an angled snowbank. :D ------ achikin As a skydiver I would admit that the content of this article is a time-wasting bullshit. Here is a real world scenario: 1) you'll knock out either because of lack of oxygen or because of a violent spin 2) you'll freeze to death 3) you won't be able to position yourself properly or fly in a particular direction because of lack of training, so you'll hit the ground at a random place so hard that you'll die. What I would do is flip to my back not to shock myself with the view of the earth coming at 120mph, relax and wait. Towel huh. The speed difference is so big, that you'll never see a towel, that happened to fall off the same airplane as you. There was a case in Russia not so long ago when a cameraman, who happened to be a very experienced skydiver, fell off a helicopter. He managed to drive himself towards a pond but died immediately because of water impact. The hit was so hard that his jumping suit was almost stripped off his body. ------ leot One thing I've been curious about for a while: would it be possible to survive free fall into water if equipped with a sufficiently long spike-shaped "base"? The sharp part of the spike, which would probably have to be 100+ ft long, would be oriented so that as it entered the water it would displace more and more water, reducing the g-forces experienced by the spike, and you atop it. A few improbable things would need to also hold: 1) Spike would need to stay straight as it entered the water. 2) Spike should not significantly increase terminal velocity, at least not for most of the descent I think (?) it's doable, but would be fun to see the physics worked out. E.g., how long should the spike be? What should be its shape? How could it be kept maneuvered into the right orientation for entering the water without significantly increasing terminal velocity? ~~~ rdruxn I always been curious about surfactants and whether you could throw some underneath yourself in a free fall to break up the surface tension in a splash landing. ~~~ avar Then today's your lucky day. Mythbusters did a bit on exactly this, i.e. if you're holding a hammer and about to fall into water, whether throwing it ahead of you will break the surface tension and save your life: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCSQExxWulU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCSQExxWulU) ------ khazhou This is very useful information. They should have this guidesheet in every airline seat back. ~~~ tempestn I'm sure that would go over really well. ------ Cofike I kind of want to free fall to test this out now. I feel kind of prepared. ------ kabdib I worked on a hardware product that shipped for the Xbox 360, and it had an accelerometer. I wanted to add a game achievement for "30 seconds of free fall". Achievable on something like the Vomit Comet. Going for 5 minutes of free-fall would have required something like a rocket. Nobody liked either of my ideas :-) ------ gweinberg I'm sorry to be the voice of gloom and doom, but this was the money quote for me: "Thirty feet is the cutoff for fatality in a fall. That is, most who fall from thirty feet or higher die" Holy crap, only thirty feet? We are all going to die. ------ owenversteeg Well-written but a bit light on information. I thought about this a while back when I had the chance to try free-falling in an indoor wind tunnel. You can control four variables: your speed, your landing position, your landing orientation, and your muscles. \- Increase your surface area as much as you can, that's your only way to slow down. Best case scenario you'll find a parachute, put it on, and slow down to 25mph or so; worst case, you'll manage to point yourself in a bullet shape and hit 200 mph. Realistically you'll go into a "flat" position and sail along around 120mph. \- Make yourself "flat" until you're about to land, then position yourself such that you land feet first. \- You can move, as the site said, about 2 miles horizontally falling from 15,000 feet: aim for trees, a heap of soil, or snow if possible. If you know the area, aim for any buildings with a large glass skylight - that's saved two known freefallers [0]. \- Relax your muscles as much as you can. This can greatly improve your odds. By "greatly improve your odds" I am not kidding: this is almost definitely the single best thing you can do, and being fully relaxed can make you half as likely to die. [1] There's also a very good possibility you're not at 35,000 feet. For example: \- You fall off the Burj Khalifa, 830 meters high. You'll fall for about 20 seconds, the last 5 or so near terminal velocity. Use your body to move and aim for the trees near the base of the tower - you've got enough time to make it, easily. \- You fall off a very tall building, ~500 meters or so. Same as the Burj Khalifa but you have less time, so think fast. \- You fall off a shorter building. There's no time to maneuver or slow down. With the few seconds you have, point your feet down and relax. If you're over water, your odds are very low. The best option is to go in feet-first like a pencil dive. Remember, you _do_ have an OK chance at survival. Between 5 and 15 people have survived free fall, most of which did not know what to do. From 15,000 feet up, you can land wherever you want inside a 13 square mile area - 2 miles in any direction. That's probably enough to get you to some trees at the very least. You can draw that on a map with this tool [2]. You can seriously improve your odds of survival by following these steps. Landing on snow, or a swamp, or a glass skylight makes your odds quite good. Landing in trees makes your odds OK. Making yourself flat gives you more time, and grabbing onto debris - if you can - can increase your chances of survival by 5 times [3]. Then, simply relaxing can double your chances of survival. Finally, once you've hit the ground - regardless of what you did - there's a decent chance you're still alive, even if you'll die soon. Spend a short amount of time to stop external bleeding, keep your wounds clean and contact emergency services as soon as you can - ultimately, they will know far better than you what to do. [0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee) [1] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.alcohol.2012.08.006](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.alcohol.2012.08.006) [2] [http://obeattie.github.io/gmaps-radius/](http://obeattie.github.io/gmaps- radius/) [3] [http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a5045/434...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a5045/4344036/) ~~~ prodmerc Doesn't surviving any landing guarantee you'll be disabled for life? ~~~ pavel_lishin Vesna suffered a lot of injuries, but recovered completely: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87) > _Vulović continued working for Jat Airways at a desk job following a full > recovery from her injuries._ ------ zw123456 Great read! I must admit, I have thought about this a few times in the past when I was on an airplane and thought what would I do if the plane split in two and thought about some of the things the author mentioned. One more tip, always wear the largest rain coat you can find onto the plane and keep some nylon rope in one of the pockets so you could fashion a parachute on the way down :) ------ nerdponx Fun read. Has anyone actually survived an unplanned free fall like this? ~~~ paulpauper 5 have [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fall_survivors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fall_survivors) ~~~ sulam More than 5. [http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/wreckage.html](http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/wreckage.html) [http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffallers.html](http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffallers.html) ------ intrasight That was a very excellent distraction ------ rodrigocoelho How easy is it to control your body's attitude during a free fall? ~~~ manarth Belly-down is the easiest and most stable attitude, which is why that's the first attitude taught in skydiving. The other common attitudes are head-down vertical, feet-first vertical, "sitting", and back-flying. The first three have a much faster fall-rate than belly-down, and are less stable. Backflying isn't quite such a difference in fall-rate, but is still harder to learn, and less stable. How easy is it to learn? Well, unless you've skydived before, then you get around a minute to learn from scratch. Good luck to that! ------ xenihn Great article, reminds me of the same writing style used by the author of the Rotten Library (which, by the way, is still a great read). ------ mrkgnao > If you have ever tried to keep your head when all about you are losing > theirs because there aren't any around to blame it on you? :) ------ mbostleman [https://youtu.be/IVqqnc6x9pA](https://youtu.be/IVqqnc6x9pA) ------ d33 Just curious, could clothing help you create something like a paradise? For example, a hoodie held by sleeves? ~~~ scythe You need to hold it by at least three points, otherwise it will simply flop upwards like a flag. Your toes can't curl hard enough to hold onto a piece of fabric being pulled by a 120 mph wind, so the only way to make a sail is with your hands and your _teeth_. If you have a button-down, you can hold the corners at your sides to make a shitty wingsuit. I suppose there is a small advantage if you get to put your legs below you ("crumple zone") while still maximizing your cross-sectional area. Most clothing fabrics are worse at stopping airflow than the tight nylon of a parachute, so the drag will be less than a chute of equal size. If you can somehow get it soaking wet it'll be more effective, as the fibers swell and make it less permeable to air; consequently, you might want to stick your shirt in your jeans before you piss yourself. ~~~ d33 That's way beyond insightful, thank you :D Any other ideas on how to get three points? Tying a knot to a belt maybe? I mean we're talking about just a few dozens of second there, right? ------ mediaserf Wow! Glad that I am not the only one that constantly thinks about this when I am on an airplane. ~~~ mirimir I always opt for the last row. ------ hyperliner I have always wondered about this. While this is welcome, I am reading and can feel my blood pressure, stress level, and focus increasing as I read. ------ agentgt I had hard time reading with the formatting of the site even with various "reader" extensions turned on (maybe I'm the only one?). So I looked at the HTML source to figure out why my extensions still couldn't format well... it is 1999 HTML. Tables for paragraphs. Even copy and pasting to a text editor yields pretty terrible results. td { padding: 1em; } Made it somewhat readable for me. Not a criticism but just in case someone has the same problem as me. ~~~ vwcx I remember reading this in 1999 when it first circulated! ------ radressss I am very very sorry to break it to you, but this very poorly thought-out and the writer has no understanding of physics or drag. Look around for items after 20000 feet of freefall? There could be a parachute? Sorry are we all in vacuum or something? Do you think they all fall at the same rate? Yes one can survive a fall at terminal speeds but this is just insane to hope there are any items around you after all that fall. ~~~ nothrabannosir My dear child, 't was in jest. A peculiar one, granted.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ethical OS and Silicon Valley’s Guilty Conscience - craftsman https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2018/08/24/striving-to-minimize-technical-and-reputational-risks-ethical-os-and-silicon-valleys-guilty-conscience/ ====== shawn This is an excellent time to ask for a counterargument to CGP Grey's stance that immortality should be invented: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY) Suppose there were a technology X which was going to be invented eventually. Suppose also that it's a highly unethical technology, for some definition of unethical. Is it therefore unethical to create X? Note: The constraint is that X _is inevitable_. The only question is who creates it first. And in that context, isn't it at least possible to argue from multiple axes that you should help to create it? The limit case of this argument would be "It's your duty to the society you live in to ensure it has the competitive advantage, not some other society." A less-hostile way to phrase that would be "The first company to invent a technology can then try to _enforce ethics_ onto that technology." That is, if you invent something, it's easier to dictate how it's used than if you didn't. Hence, paradoxically as it may seem, the logical conclusion would _seem_ to be that you should work as hard as you can to invent whatever unethical technology you're worried about -- in the hopes that you can minimize the damage later. If it seems like a technology can't really be controlled (e.g. nuclear weapons), I counter with this: Bitcoin was the implementation of a set of ideas. The exact implementation could have been very different. It could have been inflationary rather than deflationary, for example. The precise choices were very important, because Bitcoin has huge first-mover advantages. And that is often true of the first X to be invented. So, what's the answer? Do we work as hard as we can to invent unethical technologies in order to mitigate their effects, or do we try to suppress or discourage the invention of new technology knowing that some less-"ethical" society will get there first? Or is that a false dichotomy? I'm fascinated by the possible answers. ~~~ jonathanstrange Whoever invents it is responsible for it. You could argue that extremely deadly nerve gas would have been invented _inevitably_ , for instance, but it is still unethical for you to help in its development. Claiming that "someone else would have invented it anyway" is the oldest excuse in the book. _Do we work as hard as we can to invent unethical technologies in order to mitigate their effects, or do we try to suppress or discourage the invention of new technology knowing that some less- "ethical" society will get there first? Or is that a false dichotomy?_ This looks like a false dichotomy to me. If your argument was sound, then e.g. attempting to limit nuclear proliferation would be pointless, since every nation on earth would eventually develop nuclear weapons anyway. I don't think that's true, though, national and international laws with suitable enforcement can prevent unethical technologies. ~~~ shawn Think of a war that shaped the world, and whose outcome is generally agreed to be a positive one: "Good guys vs bad guys, and the good guys won." Suppose nerve gas had been the only way for the "good guys" to win that war. (This isn't a realistic assumption; the point is to examine ethics.) Is it more ethical to employ the nerve gas, or to lose the war? Those being the only two outcomes. ~~~ JohnStrangeII Same guy as before but from different account. Disclaimer: I am an ethicist, although my original AoS was philosophy of language. First of all, there is a whole bunch of contemporary ethicists who would deny that unrealistic scenarios can give us any ethical insight, but let's not enter this debate. There are good and convincing arguments against this view, but let's assume for the sake of the argument that using the nerve gas in your scenario would be the right thing to do. That means that you have shown that there is one hypothetical scenario in which the use of that technology could be considered better than not using it, although its use would still be very bad and horrific. That's not enough to show that the technology is ethical or that its development should be encouraged. I'd argue for the opposite. Your scenario also does not provide any argument against my claim that the person who develops the technology is at least indirectly responsible for its later use. Some technologies should and maybe even need to be suppressed world-wide. This is an important topic if you take into account the pace of technological development. It's entirely thinkable that in the near future - let's say, in a 100 years or so - just about anyone could in theory genetically modify bacteria and viruses to his likings in a basement and for example develop an extremely powerful biological weapon capable of wiping out 90% of mankind. It is obvious that such a technology has to be suppressed and should probably not be developed in this easy-to-use form. I believe what you really want to say is that nation states should develop all those nefarious technologies in order to control their spreading, because someone ("the opponent") will invent and spread them anyway. That's indeed the traditional rationale for MAD and the development of nerve gas, biological weapons, and hydrogen bombs. The problem with this argument is that anybody can use it, the argument appears just as sound to North Korea than to the US, and is leading to a world-wide stockpiling of dangerous technologies. So there must be something wrong with that argument, don't you think so? ~~~ eiieirurjdndjd > That's indeed the traditional rationale for MAD and the development of nerve > gas, biological weapons, and hydrogen bombs. The problem with this argument > is that anybody can use it, the argument appears just as sound to North > Korea than to the US, and is leading to a world-wide stockpiling of > dangerous technologies. But that’s not what happened, right? I mean, it is if you stop reading history just before the first non-proliferation treaties began being implemented. This was almost half a century ago, though, so IMO it doesn’t make sense to stop reading at that point. ~~~ JohnStrangeII I agree. The solution to massive technological threats is mutual entanglement by treaties and international laws that limit or prohibit the development of dangerous technologies. That's my point. ------ lifeisstillgood Many (many) years ago, I was leading business planning for Demon / Thus and as part of our template introduced "Conscience Breakers" \- a section (much like the health and safety planning for school trips i guess) that asked what could go wrong with our products we were about to launch. It seemed a good idea then and still does. it got dropped pretty quick by the higher ups ------ dmead This is great, but can this really be followed by companies that have shareholders and investors? ~~~ forapurpose Could you go into some detail on why it couldn't be followed by them? I know of some different arguments about why it could or couldn't, but I don't know what you are referring to. ~~~ Nasrudith The answer is that publically traded companies face heavy pressure to keep sustained quarterly growth indefinitely and various "activist" investors will insist upon ousting any who stand in the way even if it is better for longterm health not to say lay off experienced engineering staff in a stable industry to inflate quarterly profits (Boeing) when it comes to bite them with electrical fires in their next big plane. ------ jl2718 Most change is bad. Some change is necessary.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ski Resorts Exaggeration of Snowfall Reduced Sharply Because of iPhone App - dean http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122084539&ps=cprs ====== s3graham My Dad used to work for IDRC (www.idrc.ca) and he told me a story about one of his earliest (and happiest) development projects. It's very simple: broadcast actual market price information over radio to farmers in remote rural African areas. In this way, the farmers had enough information to tell the middle man to stuff it when they were offered extremely low (< 1%) of market value for their food. Their wages increased ~10x over the next season. tl;dr: information symmetry is good for the end of the chains (initial producers, end consumers) ~~~ cwan That's a pretty cool program that's evolved with other NGO's using SMS messages to cell phones. The proliferation of mobiles and utility of cheap cell phones has been a massive boost to productivity in rural areas. One of the key market barriers continues to be consistent logistics given the shelf life of agricultural products which means some of these middlemen still have a significant upper hand. ------ anotherpaulg Gentlemen, Let me introduce you to the power of online snowfall telemetry stations. They usually report air temperature, wind speed & direction, precipitation, snow depth and water content in real time on an hour-by-hour basis. Find one or two nearby your local ski hill and study them for a season, comparing them to your in-the-field perceptions of ski conditions. You'll soon be telling your friends about the "8 inches of cold dry powder that's just fallen on soft layer that was laid down last week" and distinguishing that from the "8 inches of heavy wet snow that just fell and then refroze onto the ice layer from last week". For bonus points, take an avalanche safety course in your area. They will introduce you to a wealth of unbiased data sources. Mountain guides use these sources to maintain a deep understanding of the snow pack as it evolves throughout the winter season. In the Seattle area, see <http://www.nwac.us/weatherdata/map/> In the Bay Area, see: [http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel/California/california.ht...](http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel/California/california.html) ------ jpwagner while the measurement may read "inches" it's actually on an arbitrary scale. in other words, to a skier, "14 inches" means _compare-the-conditions-to-the- last-time-you-went-and-we-said-14-inches_. not to mention the obvious fact that measurements done in different places with different methods will differ. ------ fohlin I can't decide if I like it or not, but one commenter really takes the opportunity to promote his website: > I believe "crowdsourcing" is the future of how we'll tap into and retrieve > much of the information we desire, in real-time. We designed our entire web > site/application (liveskiconditions.com) around the fact that people want to > know the current snow conditions [...]. Spam or not? ~~~ hallmark Not spam. His comment and website appear very relevant to the radio program, which talks about real-time information from iPhone users suppressing the ski resorts' false reports (say that five times fast). I would consider it spam if he copied his comment text and pasted it in every NPR summary page that mentioned skiing or snowboarding. ------ elbac What do people consider a fair ski conditions report site? ~~~ blhack twitter seems like it could be useful for this: "At purgatory, snow is AWESOME!" "park city snow is SHIT today!" "ahhh #snowbowl, when are you going to get freaking snow machines already!" etc. etc.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Cicada 3301 challenge: partial solutions [video] - vinchuco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svJF_FoSI9o&t=25s ====== vinchuco Extensive previous discussion [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=cicada%203301&sort=byPopularit...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=cicada%203301&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story) and wiki page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada_3301](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada_3301)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Optimizing Dynamically-Typed Object-Oriented Languages With Polymorphic Inline Caches - qwph http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.36.6379&rep=rep1&type=pdf ====== Hexstream This provides good insight into some of the techniques used to make intuitively slow dynamic operations very fast in practice! ------ markplusplus Good paper, but I wonder how relevant these optimizations are now that modern processors include indirect branch predictors. ------ fuzzy-waffle Sounds similar to <http://psyco.sourceforge.net/> ------ hugh It'd be nice to have a [pdf] warning in the title of this one. ~~~ qwph I don't think I can edit it now. I'd guess it's because it's not a direct link, so it bypassed the pdf logic. Apologies. ~~~ Hexstream Perhaps the submission page could have a PDF checkbox with the default state taken from the PDF autodetection function? This way we could correct the autodetection when it fails. Also it would ensure a uniform title "tagging" style. Now that I think about it we could have radio buttons: Regular, PDF, Movie, Picture.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Evaluating potential co-founders? Try going camping. - jesselamb http://notmylawyer.com/post/745869535/evaluating-potential-co-founders-try-going-camping ====== hnote Vladimir Vysotsky, Song about a friend <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN0YzyUEhbo> Original version, without subtitles <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2xO_FWR1z8> Lyrics at <http://bit.ly/cxpOJd> ~~~ jesselamb Oh wow, I'd never seen that before. I thought about hiking too but I've never been so I don't know what it's like. I also thought about suggesting sailing for a couple weeks, but I was worried about what liability there'd be if some startup team got lost at sea. :) ------ tzs Make sure _all_ the co-founders are on the trip. Anyone remember a Unix workstation company from the early '80s named Callan Data Systems? David Callan was one of three equal founders, so one might wonder how it came the bear just his name. The three founders were all ready to incorporate. All that was holding them up was the name for the company. They were just unable to come to a consensus. After much discussion with no progress, two of the founders went away for a weekend hunting trip. David did not go with them. When they got back, he told them he'd went ahead and filed the papers, and the company was named Callan Data Systems. I believe he told them this was just meant to be temporary so they could move ahead, and it could be changed later once they agreed on the "real" name--but of course they were never able to agree on a "real" name, so it stayed "Callan Data Systems". ~~~ jesselamb Haha. Great point. ------ aarghh I met my wife while on camping trip to the Himalayas. Of the 4 women in the group, 3 married people they met for the first time on that trip. Anecdote, rather than hard data, of course. You could always claim that high-altitude made my wife's decision making suspect - hence she's saddled with me. ~~~ jesselamb Haha. You may have uncovered a whole new industry: extreme dating. ------ smokey_the_bear I've found this also works well for evaluating boyfriends ~~~ jesselamb I bet. I'm glad my wife didn't test me on my camping abilities. She'd probably have left me in the woods. ~~~ pjscott I think the point is more to test your ability to deal with having sucky camping abilities, without turning unpleasant under stress. ~~~ jesselamb Exactly. :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
EU dropped plans for safer pesticides because of TTIP and pressure from US - de_Selby http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/05/eu-dropped-plans-for-safer-pesticides-because-of-ttip-and-pressure-from-us/ ====== tzs See also extensive discussion from 2 days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9587772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9587772) That was a submission from a different publication, though. ~~~ de_Selby Apologies, I completely missed that discussion. ~~~ po No need to apologize, frankly this needs a lot more discussion than it's probably going to get. ------ Maarten88 To me this whole TTIP feels like the US trying to bundle and export their most profitable corporate lobbying results through the corrupt and payed-for US politicians to the EU. Secret negotiations, state-investor dispute, all of this seems organized to help big corporations screw consumers further. I simply hope the whole thing fails, I really don't see the benefit to me. ~~~ mercurial I'm sure the EU corporations are doing their share of lobbying, but I agree that all these trade agreements seem to be tailored for Big Business at the expense of consumers. ~~~ Brakenshire Yes, there's no need to make the US the bad guy. The key point is the way in which a treaty like this puts a whole class of what would once have been domestic legislation beyond the reach of democratic decision-making. Both in the treaties themselves, and their transnational private courts. ~~~ _yosefk Can't a democratic decision be made to get out of the treaty? Also - international obligations in general, by their nature, restrict democratic or any other kind of sovereign decision-making. Decisions such as waging war, defaulting on debt, etc. which are often made by sovereigns illustrate that restrictions on sovereigns aren't necessarily bad. (Not saying that TTIP is a good thing, just that I'm a bit baffled by the framing of the problems with it as a conflict between democracy and corporations or such. I'm even more baffled by the framing of defaulting on sovereign debt as a "democratic right" \- again, regardless of the fact that a country's citizens might have gotten a raw deal because a corrupt government issued debt it shouldn't have, say, because it was bribed and needed liquidity to buy something useless/overpriced from whoever bribed it, etc.) ~~~ pjc50 The lack of a sensible bankruptcy procedure for countries is a serious problem. Individuals can discharge debts in bankruptcy in order to get back on their feet. Companies have at least two different kinds of bankruptcy depending on whether they can be run as a going concern or not. But a FX- denominated debt is potentially an anchor on your country forever. Look at the Argentine "pari passu" fiasco for example. Imposing an unpayable debt on a country that forces poverty on its citizens has a real and serious cost in human life. Wars have been fought over this; it's often argued that the reparations debt imposed on Germany after WW1 was a contributing factor to WW2. ~~~ _yosefk I'm not saying I know what to do about unpayable sovereign debt, just that defaulting on such debt is not a sensible example of a democratic right. "We had a referendum and decided that you can all wipe your asses with our bonds" is probably not the "sensible bankruptcy procedure" that you mention. I did not claim anything beyond that. Why do I think my point was worth making? Because there's a huge amount of issues boiling down to poor coordination between different states today, the nature of today's economy ensures this will become increasingly common, and I think it's worth pointing out that simply insisting on "democratic rights" interpreted as "doing whatever the citizens want, the rest of the world be damned" doesn't really cut it. And this "interference with democracy" theme is really really common these days, I bump into this sort of phrasing every other week. ------ motbob The article uses numbers pretty dishonestly. "[T]the health costs of EDCs to Europe are between £113 billion and £195 billion (between €160 and €277 billion) every year." There is no mention that pesticides/herbicides are a very small percentage of that number. It doesn't matter whether it's "still bad" that it's a small percentage. Arstechnica willingly led me to believe that the impact of pesticides/herbicides was in the hundreds of billions of Euros. These numbers also, notably, came out long after the 2013 negotiations mentioned. What was the scientific consensus on EDCs in 2013? ~~~ Tosh108 Further down the article there's an indirect reference: “I would recommend that pregnant women and children eat organic fruits and vegetables and avoid using plastic containers and canned food, especially in the microwave, because containers are usually treated on the inside with substances and compounds that can leak into the tomato soup and may act as endocrine disruptors,” he said. ------ based2 Chemicals Legislation [http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/chemicals/legislation/ind...](http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/chemicals/legislation/index_en.htm) [http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/european- standards/...](http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/european- standards/harmonised-standards/pesticide-application-equipment/index_en.htm) Measuring REACH and CLP Enforcement - new study Published on: 19/05/2015, Last update: 20/05/2015 [http://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools- databases/newsroom/cf/itemd...](http://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools- databases/newsroom/cf/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=8280&lang=en&title=Measuring- REACH-and-CLP-Enforcement---new-study) src: [https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/eu- monitoring/...](https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/eu- monitoring/dg-environment-explains-delegated-acts-biocides) [http://newsletter.echa.europa.eu/home/-/newsletter/entry/4_1...](http://newsletter.echa.europa.eu/home/-/newsletter/entry/4_12-bjorn- interview;jsessionid=FA3521FA977B29C9D750FBFC67D0605E.live2) ------ tim333 While I'm against the TTIP, the "the health costs of EDCs to Europe are between £113 billion and £195 billion" mentioned in the Ars article seems to be from the Guaridan article "(£113bn-£195bn)" [http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/06/health- co...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/06/health-costs- hormone-disrupting-chemicals-150bn-a-year-europe-says-study) that says "Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that interfere with the human hormone system, and can be found in food containers, plastics, furniture, toys, carpeting and cosmetics." no mention of pesticides in their opening bit. I'm guessing the percentage exposure coming from pesticides is very small so the financial figures in the Ars article are misleading. ------ realusername How can you seriously defend the EU to the average European when you see things like this ? This kind of stories are not going to help to reduce the current distrust of everything related to the European union. All this corruption really does a disservice to the EU. ~~~ peteretep Honestly? Because my first thought was "there's no way the EU signed off on this". I challenge anyone to find a stauncher protector of consumer rights in history than the EU... ~~~ andy_ppp This is the strange thing about the EU, it is almost as barmy as the BBC but like them somehow largely manages to do the right thing. It's amazing that most of our politicians believe with a kind of religious faith that big business and the free market is the solution when it seems fairly clear the psychopathic behaviour and the free market has bankrupted government and ruined the economy. Instead of saying let's put in further more stringent regulations the neocons have got more of their policies through. I think this is largely due to an obedient and corporate controlled media. ------ reimertz Do people want TTIP? Nope.([http://goo.gl/FD145h](http://goo.gl/FD145h)) Do people want pesticides? Nope. ([https://goo.gl/AQNdZv](https://goo.gl/AQNdZv)) So what is the problem? ~~~ danbruc _Do people want TTIP? Nope._ That's (sadly) (possibly) not true. I thought it would be scandalous if Europeans didn't want TTIP and they just ignored the people and continued negotiating. But then I found this chart [1] and in almost every country the majority is for a trade agreement. I don't know if the numbers are wrong, if people are uninformed or if they just don't care, but if the numbers are correct then it all is just democratic, the majority wins, whether I or you like it or not. [1] [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/29/is-europe- on...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/29/is-europe-on-board-for- a-new-trade-deal-with-the-u-s/) ~~~ taejo Those survey results show people who are "for a free trade and investment agreement between the EU and the USA" \-- not those who are for _this_ trade agreement; the objections to TTIP are arguably _not about the freedom of trade and investment_. ~~~ minot Exactly. How am I supposed to say whether I like it or not when I don't know what "it" is? Lets leave surprises for company pot luck lunches. Would any elected official dare ask the same about the legislative process? Isn't a trade agreement that sets precedent as legislation the opposite of a participatory democracy? It just makes no sense. How can they have things like TPP and TTIP and still complain about the lack of involvement in politics by ordinary folks? ------ benaston Parliamentary democracies are often deeply flawed and in need of reform. That much is obvious (in the UK at any rate). The problem with the EU is that is is _even less_ democratic and hence less accountable than the pre-existing system of national governments. Furthermore, as this article shows, the EU makes it easier for large companies and trading blocks to pull-off greater subversions and abuses of power via lobbying and corruption, since power is concentrated in a much smaller number of people. The founders and implementors of the EU "project" used the term "ever tighter integration" in their founding documents, where they laid out their vision for a United States of Europe. They even describe how they intended to implement this via a technique called "gradualism". The idea being that big sweeping reforms would be rejected by the individual polities, but that more gradual, subtle changes spread over time could achieve the same effect without the same resitance. And we have seen this in action over the past forty years. A bit like the apochryphal boiling of a frog. The problem is that this is in some sense subversive and in another, presumptious that the EU project is desired and/or sensible. At some point the frog metaphor breaks down and people begin to realize what is happening and what has happened. And in the UK at least, finally, we are beginning to see a debate being held on the desirability of the EU being a _political_ union (rather than the more prosaic free-trade area). ~~~ higherpurpose All democratic republics are in dire need of an overhaul for the 21st century. However, US and UK tend to be worse than many because of the first past the post voting system. ~~~ minot I feel bad for the voters in the UK. LD got trounced in this election but in the previous two elections they had 22 and 23 percentage of votes. In 2010, Conservatives had 47% of the seats with 36 percent of votes. Labor had almost 40% with 29% of the votes. LD had 8% with 23% of votes. Even in 2015, they had 1.2% of seats with 7.9% of votes. If you have almost a quarter of the population voting for you, you'd think you can make things happen. What went wrong with the referendum? What could the YES proponents have done differently? More importantly, has the damage been done? How long do UK nationals have to be quiet about alternative voting now? ~~~ petercooper We already had a referendum about it four years ago - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum,_2011) \- and it was overwhelmingly in favour of the status quo. ~~~ minot I am very convinced that a full proportional representation would be very much better than the status quo. Can we have a referendum again? When would be an optimal time? ------ matternew ``EU plans to regulate hormone-damaging chemicals found in pesticides have been dropped because of threats from the US that this would adversely affect negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)'' They shouldn't drop them, we should regulate freely and be removed from TTIP. Being involved in TTIP isn't a privilege or in any way desirable, it's an undemocratic exercise in futility. So, to me, being ejected is a win-win scenario. ------ ck2 The do-nothing-congress better crash and burn that thing in the House. It's going to be crazy if this is one of the few things they pass this year. ------ PythonicAlpha The problem about "TTIP" and "free trade treaties" is, that they are continuously used to support the interests of big corporations -- and thus, lowering health, environmental and other standards is one of the big targets of those treaties. I lately saw a documentation about the trade treaty of the US with Mexico. They said, that standards where lowered in both countries. Take two or more countries and make today a "free trade treaty" between them, you get the lowest common denominator, since the big corporations are at the head of the table. TTIP starts to reduce standards even _before_ it is signed. ------ cyphunk Collectively the EU bloc represents the larges global economy (18tr GDP). It should be the US forced to accept EU regulations to participate in the EU economy, not the other way around. ~~~ adventured The US economy is about $1.8 trillion larger than the EU economy presently. The EU economy is roughly $15.7 trillion (€14.3 trillion), and hasn't grown in seven years. During that time, the US retook the lead in size and added around ~$2.5 trillion to its GDP. The dollar run in the prior year has also lifted the value of the US economy at the expense of the EU economy, by about ~13%. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union) ~~~ cyphunk thanks for updating my outdated data :) ------ parennoob > EU regulations would have banned 31 pesticides containing endocrine > disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that have been linked to testicular cancer and > male infertility. Obvious criticism of sweeping trade treaties aside, this is another blatant case where the health and well-being of males takes a back seat to political considerations. I'll bet my bottom dollar that if these chemicals caused, say, ovarian cancer, Governments on both sides of the Atlantic would be racing to ban them and get political brownie points. ------ joering2 _Just after the official launch of the TTIP negotiations on 13 June 2013, a US business delegation visited EU officials to demand that the proposed regulations governing EDCs should be thrown out in favour of a further "impact study."_ May I please know the names of those scumbags, or at least how can I find out? I want to know more about those brainacs, perhaps place a few phonecalls, express my disgust. ------ ddon And what can be done now? ~~~ higherpurpose Write to your MEPs. [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html) ------ fleitz Is the EC in charge of the EU? Couldn't they just say no? ~~~ SagelyGuru and they are unelected ~~~ matt4077 Neither are Merkel, Cameron, Tsipras and probably about 50% of the heads of government. I doubt there is a country where the Secretary of Defense is elected. There's nothing wrong with an elected parliament choosing the executive, and the EU actually moved to a more direct election with the 'Spitzenkandidat' system. People still didn't care to vote for the EU parliament. ~~~ benaston Your comment re Merkel, Cameron et al is a strawman: just because the existing system of parliamentary democracy is deeply flawed, it does not follow that another even less democratic system is acceptable. You point out that Cameron (for example) is not directly elected as PM. He does however have to be elected to parliament via a democratic vote. Unlike the European Commission, where commissioners have no democratic mandate to speak of and yet they hold immense power. 34% of those eligible voted in the UK European elections (i.e. for the European Parliament). Your comment re people not caring is overly simplistic. People will not vote for a wide variety of reasons. Only one of which is that they "don't care". Edit: please explain your downvote, so that I may improve my comment or respond. ~~~ babatong >He does however have to be elected to parliament via a democratic vote. Unlike the European Commission, where commissioners have no democratic mandate to speak of and yet they hold immense power. You are incorrect. Since the Lisbon treaty at least, the commission is proposed by the council and then has to be voted on by the parliament. If anything that gives it even more democratic legitimacy than Cameron, as in his case only he himself, not his cabinet is voted on by parliament. You are of course within your right to criticize the parliamentary democratic system within it self. However a claim that the processes by which the commission is put in place are less democratic than the processes by which Cameron or Merkel came to power are just outright false. ~~~ benaston @germanier and @babatong No, you are both wrong. The democratic mandate for EU commissioners is less strong than for directly elected officials. @matt4077 called out that even Cameron is not elected directly as PM, and that is correct. The problems with the existing parliamentary democracy in the UK are well understood. So having a "somewhat undemocratically elected official" Cameron, nominate a person for the commission who has not been directly elected _at all_ by the populous, is less democratic because it is one step further removed from direct election. This is how we have all these "unknown faces" wielding immense power in Brussels - like Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council. The democratically elected European Parliament then vote for the nominees, but at this point the nominees already have less mandate (for reasons given above) than the members of national parliaments (and the EU parliament). And, I might add, more power. This is one of the main problems with the EU as a political union. It is a move away from grass-roots democracy towards a centralized monolith that disenfranchises millions and millions of people. ~~~ germanier You seem to miss that the vote in parliament adds and doesn't remove mandate from the candidates. The MEPs have a very strong opinion on who is a suitable candidate and who isn't. They used their power to refuse candidates and demand others in the past and will do so in the future. By your standards the European Commission has a mandate that is at least as strong as the one of any European country's government. ~~~ benaston Not at all. The question at hand is: do the EU commissioners have a stronger or weaker democratic mandate than national MPs? When considering this question, the vote in the EU parliament is neither here nor there, because the person being voted for by them has not been directly elected by a single member of the public, possibly ever. If a person is directly elected by the people he represents, then he has a stronger mandate than another who has not been directly elected. Mandate gets weaker the farther you are from direct election by the people. ~~~ germanier Comparing commissioners to national members of parliament isn't fair, they are doing completely different jobs. A member of the European parliament is one degree removed from public vote, just as a member of a national parliament. A European commissioner is two degree removed from the public, just like a European head of government. A minister in most member states is three degrees removed. If you don't consider the vote in the EP for commissioners as a real vote because they can't pick their own candidate then it's three degrees removed as the candidates are picked by the heads of governments. In any case I can't see how it's less democratic than the election system of any member state. The commissioners are as far away from the public vote as almost any member of government in the member states. ~~~ benaston Both national MPs and EU commissioners are public officials who form public policy that affects citizens' lives. In that much they are comparable. Both procedurally and in scope of effect there will be differences of course (commissioners are much more powerful, and therfore should be held to a higher level of scrutiny). In any case, similarity of jobs is orthogonal to the narrow question - who has the stronger mandate? Take Person A who via an elected representative would like to effect legislative change in their nation. Who has the stronger mandate to take action? In other words, which representative would be closer to the truth in saying that "they were acting in Person A's name"? 1\. For the sake of argument, let's take the UK Prime Minister. He is voted for by a party consisting of members of the public via an open process to represent a specific platform; is elected directly by a constituency numbering in the low tens of thousands of people who happen to live in a geographical area of the nation under representation. Furthermore, the representative is a widely known public figurehead with a well-known platform meaning that although members of the public in other constituencies cannot affect his election to parliament directly, they can affect the amount of power he wields. The election covers 70 million people. 2\. For an EU Commissioner a shortlist of representatives are chosen _in secret_ by a team of people, each of whom is a proxy, elected via a process similar to (1). One of the shortlist is chosen by a vote from members of a directly elected parliament. The election takes into consideration the views of 3/4 billion people. The EU commissioner shortlist process is secret (and thus open to nefarious influence - go on: tell me this will not happen), the final vote is diluted by the views of an order of magnitude more people, spread over a much greater geographic area (meaning a much wider range of concerns need be taken into consideration), and the commissioner need not have been elected directly by anyone from the population he represents (other than via proxy). Based on this, it is clear that the representative in scenario (1) has a stronger claim to be said to be acting in the name of Person A than the person elected via process (2). The EU is hence less democratic than the institutions is is replacing, and is in some sense democratically regressive. (And this is before any discussion about the differences in the legislative path between Westminster and the EU). ~~~ SagelyGuru I agree. Thank you for the expanded explanation of the reasons behind my above brief comment. I just note in passing with wry bemusement, that my comment that sparked such illuminating discussion apparently deserves only 0 points. ------ sillygoose You know, if EU countries were genuinely concerned about their beloved citizens coming into contact with damaging chemicals, they could warn them on the evening news or something. Hey there Dear Citizens, these products have been found to cause cancer. Please avoid using them, and tell your friends to avoid them too! Best Regards, Your Benevolent, Caring Overlords Do you think that just _might_ have an effect on the companies producing the toxic crap they force on us? "Those naughty companies haven't stopped putting cancer-causing chemicals in their products. You should still boycott them." If they really cared, they could just keep informing the citizenry until they were safe. ~~~ imron Uh-huh, right, because EU governments have editorial control of the evening news, and also have bigger marketing budgets than the companies producing such chemicals. Sure. _If they really cared, they could just keep informing the citizenry until they were safe._ No, if they really cared they would ban or strictly regulate the use of such chemicals. ~~~ sillygoose > _Uh-huh, right, because EU governments have editorial control of the evening > news_ Well yeah, they largely do: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98) But even if they didn't, surely news organizations would co-operate for a noble cause, yes? > _No, if they really cared they would ban or strictly regulate the use of > such chemicals._ Sure, and if they _really cared_ , they could do that even despite the TTIP, or they could reject or re-negotiate the TTIP. There's no way around that, regardless of whether you trust that governments are operating with _our_ best interests at heart. ~~~ imron > But even if they didn't, surely news organizations would co-operate for a > noble cause, yes? As privately run corporations, news organizations go where the money is and I trust them even less than I trust the government. The number of _ignoble_ causes they have cooperated on in the recent past leaves them with a very large credibility gap in my mind. And while the government is not perfect, at least I live in a country where lobbying (aka bribery) is no where near as institutionalised and prevalent as you see in the U.S. So while my government might not always have _my_ best interests at heart, they are definitely more concerned and more trustworthy than a news organisation. ~~~ DanBC Didn't the 911 conspiracy theory video link make you think that maybe it's not worth speaking to silly goose? ~~~ imron To be honest, I didn't even click through to the video. Your point has been noted. ~~~ sillygoose He didn't have a point. He just signaled that he can't think independently. The video is a summary of _what we were told happened_ , through the mainstream media. The story is _absurd_ , which means _it 's not actually true_! That, in turn, means that there was, in fact, a conspiracy! Here's a few videos of an invisible plane hitting a building, which then collapses seemingly on its own: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWorDrTC0Qg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWorDrTC0Qg) .. but it wasn't on its own, of course, because an invisible plane hit it! Feel free to start thinking for yourself any time now. ------ jokoon I hate to say this, and I don't think it's justified, but that's the kind of stuff al-qaeda would fight against. Someday having anti-american opinions might equate with being a terrorist. ~~~ andy_ppp Someday! Funny that you should say this but David Cameron wants us to never be left alone by the state and anti terror laws are regularly used against people who are not terrorists. The police are being militarised and the human rights act is being removed from law here in the UK. Someday looks like tomorrow to me. ------ kokey Opening up trade is bad by default... to those that benefit from the barriers that are in place. I am always suspicious of a lot of emotive campaigning in response to trade agreements that opens up trade. ~~~ msvalkon Did you by chance read the article? This has little to do with opening up trade and much to do with providing ridiculous amount of power to any major corporation. EDIT: Suppose I'm a producer of bottled water from Germany. I bottle a lot of water in California. The Californians vote to move to heavy water rationing and regulation due to the threat of continuous draught. This hurts my business, so should I be allowed, as a corporation, to sue the state of California, have any possible trials and hearings within a closed courtroom and possibly overrule the vote? ~~~ RobertoG Agree, the motivation of all this is, at least, worrisome. You should be allowed, as a corporation, to sue the state of California... in California. But this is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about the creation of new special courtrooms above the laws of California, staffed by people that worked for corporations and when they left the job are going to work for corporations again. If this is not worrisome, you tell me what it is.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Alum Charged With Hacking Into Texas A&M - terpua http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-College-Hacking.html?ex=1346817600&en=2b7a3ceda0264fcf&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss ====== jsjenkins168 I actually know a few people who go to A&M who discovered similar vulnerabilities. A friend gained access to the Windows LAN Manager passwords and cracked them, getting access to login and passwords of the entire freshman Engineering class. On a separate occasion, he noticed a windows folder share on a server which contained the logs for the Engineering departments student portal. The logs contained every login attempt with the login and password stored in plain text! Not kidding. So he told the department system admins and they basically shrugged him off.. Maybe now they've learned their lesson?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Your Startup’s First Hire: Leading and Learning at the Same Time - ttunguz http://tomtunguz.com/management-and-teaching ====== applecore _Anna Karenina_ is a novel by Tolstoy, not Dostoevsky :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How did you get over your fear of shipping? - fratlas Currently building a web app and feature creep and an intense feeling that the product is worthless (I enjoy using it, but it's niche so hard to user-test) is a daily occurrence. is this normal? ====== rgbrgb Here's an open secret that might make you feel more comfortable: you can launch as many times as you want until people notice. Here's an awful public launch: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13343276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13343276). There's no signup, buttons seem not to work. Nobody's going to care/remember if they try again when the app is more baked in a couple weeks. If you're not sure if your thing is usable, find someone who you can watch use it in person. ~~~ screensquid > If you're not sure if your thing is usable, find someone who you can watch > use it in person. If you can't find someone to use it in person, you can get user experience feedback with a session recording tool. I am the author of such software, which you can find at [http://screensquid.com](http://screensquid.com). ------ CodeWriter23 This may or may not apply to you. Try it on and if it fits, then work to break the chains of bondage. My experience with this syndrome is fueled by a character flaw known as "perfectionism". Being detail-oriented as most good software developers are, it is easy for me to just keep adding more details to the list and crunch them. It's going to make the product better, right? WRONG! This is where I confront my issue. Perfectionism is merely a tool of the ego, engaging various games of self-righteousness, to only one end: giving me that charge that "I'm right". But what works for me, though often right, isn't the point. It's what works for the user. The user is who gives my work life. They use the bits to accomplish tasks, rather than those bits sitting on a DVD on some shelf in my office, dead. So how do I serve my need to be right and have a product that is living and breathing? Only one way. Get it into the hands of users. And be open to their input of the what sucks and what they'd rather have. They don't get to dictate the final form of the product, but they do inform my future decisions. See, the key to being right is learning, and all I learn from the bits resting on my shelf are lessons in organization and expense. To really learn, other people have to be involved. And I need to be open to not just their input, but to experiencing a range of uncomfortable feelings. Let me apologize up front for this brutally honest comment. Since you have problems finding users for your product, chances are it won't be a huge success. Sorry for my brutality. Your project is still valuable. First, it has some value to you, so finish it and use it. But don't be afraid of being wrong in the process. Just tell that bitchy little part of your ego to shut the fuck up, and get your code into the hands of others. As developers we are often way too close to our work and benefit greatly from external feedback. Learning the process will make you a better developer. So like I said at the start, this is my experience. If it might work for you, great. If not, scroll on by, there's a lot of other help here too. I admit what I've said here might be worth less than a nickel. ------ sheraz Include a public URL in your build process from day one. I use dokku for this and simply git push dokku master right after I got push origin master. At any given time those who have the URL can see what I'm doing and ping back with feedback. That, and Show HN her is great. Reddit has /r/startups which I also think is supportive and helpful. ~~~ augustflanagan I completely agree with this. My co-founder had a post[0] on HN yesterday in which he mentioned that our MVP made him cringe. What he didn't mention is that that cringeworthy MVP was public for almost two months before we started showing it to people. It was out there with broken features, placeholder text, etc. That made shippin easy. It was done on day 1 and then we were very motivated to make it actually do something useful since it was already public. [0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13347307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13347307) ------ soneca Normal yes, not much beneficial. I dont have this problem at all (take a look at my long list of Show HN of all kinds, including several very poor half- baked things that I'm not that proud of), so I dont think I can give any empathically useful advice. But I would love to know, what are you building? (Who knows, maybe it does indeed requires a longer gestation period). ~~~ fratlas ML-based social platform where the algorithms learn a user's tastes. Limited to images, it's somewhere between Tumblr/VSCO/Pinterest/IG. It works for me, and my girlfriend loves using it, but the problem is she always wants to export her chosen images back to another platform for posting. I sense it will be a chicken and the egg problem. Was mostly so I could learn how to handle big data (~1B edges) ~~~ NumberCruncher No product survives the first contact with the customer. This already happened to you despite of having only one customer - your girlfriend. If I were you I would be really happy about her wanting to post the chosen images back to an other platform. This means your product would go viral on its own without any help. Think of a fair annual price, triple it and go live. There are many bored people out there with to much money in their pockets. ~~~ fratlas I suppose you are right. At the very least it's an item for the resume. ------ aarondf By shipping. That's not sarcastic or dismissive, it's just the best way I've found to get over the fear of shipping. By simply shipping it. The next time will be easier. And the next, and... etc. ------ Mz You need to find some way to connect with people and get feedback. I wish I knew a better word than _feedback_ because I do not mean that people are necessarily going to engage you in good conversation and say "X is good and Y is bad." That almost never happens, and when it does, the feedback can be terrible and counterproductive. But you need to find some way to get it out there in the wild such that you see how people respond and what they do with it, what gets used and what doesn't. If it isn't resulting in a lynch mob reaction, you need to not view the negative responses in a bad light. You want critique, and that means hearing both what works and what doesn't. You do not want nothing but fan boys, massaging your ego, saying nice things and not mentioning problems at all. So, I don't know what path will work for you in specific. But you need to get some kind of engagement that puts useful information in your hands to inform the development. How people get that varies. But your fear of shipping is because it involves tossing it out there into a giant unknown void with zero idea of how that will go. The antidote to that is getting some engagement so you aren't just flying blind. How people do that is very individual. ------ rsoto That's me for the better part of 2015, having a product that gives me value, that I use every day and yet no one was interested in it (also, it was bleeding a couple hundred a month). What I can tell you is that if your product is too innovative, you'll walk into walls, and that's fine. Most of the people I spoke to didn't get the service, and others seemed interested, but they were just polite. What you have to do is to launch and get out your product to the world, and then find the first customer, even if it's at 10% its price point—it will give you confidence and will validate that your product is valuable. As for the feature creep, I think it will happen always, as each customer has its own view on your product, and since you're the one making it, they will tell you things, some are good ideas, but most of them are not very good, since most don't know what they want. You'll have to find balance. The thing that helped me a lot is being in a big city. I'm from a way smaller place and I've been building stuff for 15+ years, and the big city mindset is way more open than the small city's, as they will use anything, but only once it has been proved. I hope those pieces of advice help you in your journey. If you want to talk a little bit more, my email is in my bio. ------ genbit If you now someone who can/want also use your product, ship early versions to them. Even screenshots. If not, try to find these users, and ship to them :) I think, early fear of shipping is a symptom of uncertainty "will someone need this product?" You should try to find this someone as soon as possible, and get feedback from them. ------ mcmatterson I'm facing the same dilemma with a hardware project of mine ([http://tooner- test.moshozen.com](http://tooner-test.moshozen.com)). In the past month alone, I've been stuck on several things (public name, dealing with constant ID creep, finding a mill that can resaw, among others). Though they're contradictory, it seems that half of the roadblocks get solved through putting them off (and usually thinking of a better solution, or a workaround), and half get solved by #JFDI. 'Shipping' means something much different for hardware projects of course, but nonetheless I think the advice to ship on day one is really foundational. I've always been fond of the idea that 'if something hurts, you need to do it more often'. Make the game about iterating and not shipping. ------ eecks Agile sprints are a good way to get shipping done. Make a backlog of tasks. Set a time for your sprint (2 or 3 weeks). Estimate how long you think the tasks in your backlog will take (don't focus on being 100% correct in your estimates). Include what you can given the sprint time and the estimates. Release at the end of every sprint. Rinse and repeat. ~~~ fratlas That is a good idea. Forces you to really nail down tasks between you and your goal. ------ Huhty Keep getting constant feedback as you build. Understand that there will be a lot of people that your product/service isn't for, which is just fine. Build your audience (with a landing page) now, not after you ship. ------ sh87 This isn't fear of shipping, but fear of failure. Only way I know to overcome this is fail fast -> fail more -> learn -> fail less -> maybe succeed -> repeat. Somehow, you need to get comfortable with not knowing how it will all work and make sure you have given your best. Now best, would not mean the best product but something with the best fit. So it's not a step by step process here. The more and better you try, the more and better you understand the goal and how you may get there. Learn to be just ok with failing and have someone to get you back up on your feet. ------ appleiigs Ship alpha, beta versions. Even the general public knows what a beta version is and know that it's a work in progress. Then add a roadmap where users can see where it's going and look forward to it. ~~~ adventured Interestingly, the beta label that was so common 10 or 12 years ago on new web services, seems to have mostly disappeared. I very rarely see it any longer. One of those cycles where it got very popular, then the backlash about putting it on everything and a negative connotation develops, then people become afraid to use it. ------ kayman I haven't gotten over my fear of shipping. My first product I posted on Hackernews, I got ripped to pieces. (password emailed to user in plain text, no terms and conditions). It was harsh. But it wasn't the end of the world. Manage your expectations. See it as a process. How do you create good stuff? By creating lots of stuff, enjoying the process and some of it will turn out ok, some good, some bad. Like a musician. Just focus on getting better. Your workflows for launching etc. See it as feedback not a definition or critique of you. ------ tom5 I think it is more about paradox instead of fear. a)you want to add enough features to attract/impress potential users. b)you want to ship it, so you can get feedback asap. a) and b) are pulling to opposite directions, hence the paradox. There is no easy solution for this. However, if you change the question to "what do I need to build to test my assumptions (about the market and user)", the answer will be more obvious. ------ iisbum Never really had a problem with shipping things, guess I'm pretty thick skinned, but I try and remember that feedback, good or bad is better than building in a vacuum. ------ bostand By shipping. The are tons of issues that show up only after you have shipped so striving for perfection before shipping is pointless.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Cumulus: A free, open-source replacement for CloudApp that uses your own S3 - nrj https://github.com/nrj/Cumulus ====== mykel242 Sweet!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Booking system for makeup artists and hair stylists - xxxxtj https://www.appearancer.com/start ====== xxxxtj Welcome!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Manchin Demands Federal Regulators Ban Bitcoin - imd23 http://www.manchin.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=237cbd66-6a26-4870-9bcb-20177ae902b0 ====== ColinWright Extensive discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7307299](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7307299)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Accident That Changed My Priorities: One Entrepreneurs Story - johnjlocke http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229735 ====== jacalata Didn't read, too many popovers.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
An Illusion with a Future [pdf] (2004) - dredmorbius https://www.jstor.org/stable/20027925?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents ====== dredmorbius SciHub or LibGen deliver, for those interested.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
URL query parameters and how laxness creates de facto requirements on the web - todsacerdoti https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/web/DeFactoQueryParameters ====== drewcsillag Accepting random stuff like this is in the spirit of the protocols of the internet. Postel’s Law: > Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others (often reworded as "Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept"). Also known as the robustness principle [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle) ------ Tagbert The article doesn’t seem to identify a problem caused by these unexpected parameters. I would think any system that accepts input like this would need to validate the input and reject or ignore invalid input. Where is the problem? I have been known to add a parameter like &x=1 to a page that fails to load properly the first time. It can invalidate an incorrect cache and let the page reload. ------ jbverschoor It’s not laziness. It’s the stupid flexibility of certain protocols, APIs, languages Make things as strict as possible	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
An Instagram star with 2M followers couldn't sell 36 T-shirts - paulpauper https://www.businessinsider.com/instagrammer-arii-2-million-followers-cannot-sell-36-t-shirts-2019-5 ====== emsy Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20063667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20063667) ------ derefr Just because you have followers doesn't mean you have fans. I follow people that post e.g. cat pictures, but I wouldn't buy their merch. I don't even know who these people are, really; their posts are a commodity to me. They're "oh, more cat pictures", not "a new post from [X]!" I found them through the app's recommendations, hit follow, and then never looked into them further. Why would I want to buy anything from them? The edges connecting vertices on social networks have _weights_ , despite the social networks themselves not modelling this. Some people, despite being very "connected" in theory, have a very low aggregate weight of connection; all their connections are barely there. It's like having a million acquaintances and no friends. (And, of course, some percentage of the vertices you're connected to might be deactivated/purchased/bots/etc. But even when that's _not_ true, you still won't make sales on your "personal brand" to mere acquaintances.) ~~~ askafriend This is missing the point entirely. The reason she couldn't sell T-Shirts is because she didn't build a real audience around her. She likely used bots to boost her followers and raise the status of her profile without actually building engagement. People who have built real audiences around themselves using social media are superstars. Casey Neistat and MKBHD can sell tens of thousands of T-Shirts if they wanted to. The only point this makes is that Social Media is a tool. It can be used well or it can be used poorly. ~~~ derefr I saw the point you made in your top-level sibling subthread and acknowledged it in a parenthetical to my post. I was trying to talk about a different situation, which doesn't necessarily apply _to this specific case_ , but rather is interesting to consider _in general_ as a response to the question "why couldn't someone with a million followers on Instagram monetize those followers?" Let me reiterate: there are people with a million social-media subscribers of "real audience", who _still_ could not sell a single T-shirt. [https://chubbycattumbling.tumblr.com/](https://chubbycattumbling.tumblr.com/) and whatever the equivalents of such blogs are on Instagram likely have a million+ subscribers—real people—but also have built _no_ "personal brand", and therefore would generate no interest in products marketed under said personal brand. Casey Neistat and MKBHD aren't superstars because they have millions of followers. They're superstars because they've been marketing their personal brands from the beginning, and so every (real) follower they've gained is _also_ a fan. But this does not apply in every situation. (It _especially_ doesn't apply to corporate social-media outreach, something of interest to the HN crowd: just posting cool stuff your startup made might attract a "real audience" of people who _want that stuff_... but unless you're branding that stuff as _yours_ when you do that, you won't be able to later convert that audience _at all_. That should be obvious to someone who's job is "social-media brand manager"—but it's _not_ obvious to someone who wants to get rich selling merch to Insta followers.) ~~~ askafriend Ah, got it. I think we're actually on the same page then! ------ superasn I think the problem with this is the same problem with email marketing. It doesn't mean that marketing on Instagram doesn't work. I know people who have thousands of subscribers and can't sell $1000 of stuff and then there are people with 1000 subscribers that can sell $50k worth with a single email. It all comes down to the relationship with your list (I guess in this case your followers). If your list trusts you and trust is easy to gain by giving a lot of value + authority, they will buy from you. Think if your best friend tell you to get "X" and he is an expert too then chances are you will try "X" even if doesn't make sense at the moment. On the other hand if a random stranger tells you to do it, you will need a lot of convincing and still you'll be looking for ulterior motives before making that purchase. ~~~ giancarlostoro This makes sense. Back in 2010 I had a strong following on Tumblr and I realized years later I could have easily sold products and made decent cash so many of my followers had a personal connection with me due to chatting on different platforms and getting to know me. But I didnt want to "sell out" so I never shoved ads on my blog or spammed products. That seems to be a thing I see moreso on YouTube and IG anyway. Sure some artists would advertise swag they were selling on Tumblr from time to time but they make awesome art why shouldnt they be allowed to sell swag? Artists got to eat too. ~~~ superasn Yes also selling word has aquired a really bad connotation mainly because of these influencers pushing unnecessary stuff on to their list. But selling can also be giving your list what they signed up for at a price that they will not get anywhere else. Which is also very important to keep niches and not to try and sell dog training videos to a person who signed up for piano lessons (yes poeple can do that) ------ bufferoverflow Fake followers? Looking at her account, I don't get why she'd have so many followers. She isn't good looking, not interesting, her videography and photography is very average. ~~~ wildrhythms Or the audience is simply not invested. Twitch streamers sell merch to a much smaller audience, and probably to the same group of audience who is also subscribed at $5/month. The audience is already invested and want to support the content; do Instagram followers feel like they're supporting the content in the same way? Is a follower count even a good metric to judge audience captivation? Maybe this is a wake up call to marketing agencies that influencers aren't nearly as captive as their follower count suggests. ~~~ orev But that’s the concept of “influencers” — not to sell things directly, but to influence an audience for when they actually do buy something. That is what most advertising aims to do — not to make people get up and go buy the thing immediately. ------ jpmattia When everyone is an influencer, nobody is. ------ rdiddly A lot of ink spilled over this. I expected schadenfreude but really this is just a high schooler making her first tentative baby steps into selling stuff and unsurprisingly failing. My story would've been the same back in the day. A Telemarketing Powerhouse Who Called 2,000 Homes Couldn't Sell 4 Magazine Subscriptions. Difference was, I just quietly went back to college, while she has professional marketers analyzing her every move in Business Insider. I think maybe fuck the internet? Just not for the same reason I thought. ------ cosmodisk I looked at her account on Instagram.First of all I'm surprised she's got so many followers,as there's nothing even remotely interesting in her posts. There's no story I'd follow-in fact there's nothing at all. So no surprise T-Shirt business was a flop. ------ arkitaip Even at a terrible 0.01% conversion rate she would have sold 200 t-shirts. 0.0018% is a rounding error, the quantity you purchase for QA or for handing out at a pr event. Small Twitch streamers with a tenth of her audience sell more t-shirts. ~~~ Mirioron I think it has to do with the fact that twitch streamers tend to be very engaged with their fans. Especially small twitch streamers. They're kind of like "rent-a-friend" except they live based on donations. ~~~ arkitaip Very true. Twitch streamers have really discovered a profound truth about what it means to be in entertainment. ------ floatingatoll I’d love to see someone run a perfectly great influencer Instagram where if you can’t verify a purchase within 28 days you are permanently banned from following them. Not because I think this is healthy, but because I think people will complain loudly and campaign to have them boycotted for demanding proof of their “influencer” status resulting in money spend. I think such a thing would shred the influencer concept to bits, and so all the other influencers would react out of fear for losing access to the “exposure economy” they leveraged their status to create. ~~~ cududa They already do this for access to a “private” account. ------ octosphere Looks like the store is temporarily down: [https://www.erashop.us/](https://www.erashop.us/) My guess is that not enough build-up, or buzz was created, and the initial attempt to sell was forced and random. It's an old tactic you see various startups doing: creating a countdown landing page where the 'mystery' of the product gets people talking. ------ alkibiades this has been happening a long time in hip hop. there’s people with millions of real followers on instagram because of their antics. but when their album comes out they don’t even get 10k sales. ------ takanori What do you think an acceptable conversion rate should be? ~~~ groestl 2000000 × 0.1 (post viewed) × 0.1 (post engaged) × 0.1 (clicked link to shop) × 0.1 (put shirt in shopping cart) × 0.1 (finished payment process) = 20 shirts sold math checks out	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }

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