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The first ever accurate molecular simulation with quantum computing by Google - gri3v3r
http://www.sciencealert.com/google-s-quantum-computer-is-helping-us-understand-quantum-physics
======
selimthegrim
dupe:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12132700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12132700)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why did Quora choose Python for its development - Alex9762
http://www.quora.com/Quora-Infrastructure/Why-did-Quora-choose-Python-for-its-development
======
waiterZen
Python is good choice
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Postmortem from getting kicked out of college for hacking - getbackto
https://medium.com/@wololodev/fdd85b99e0c5?hnattempt=2
======
lun4r
The encryption method is a simple XOR cypher. It uses the key
"581fad87738939".
<?php function encryptSID2($sid) { return dechex(0x58 ^ $sid{0}) . dechex(0x1f
^ $sid{1}) . dechex(0xad ^ $sid{2}) . dechex(0x87 ^ $sid{3}) . dechex(0x73 ^
$sid{4}) . dechex(0x89 ^ $sid{5}) . dechex(0x39 ^ $sid{6}); } ?>
------
JoshTheGeek
?hnattempt=2 is the query string of the URL...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Norwegian lawyer had visa withdrawn after private chat with client on Facebook - Deestan
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vg.no%2Fnyheter%2Finnenriks%2Fartikkel.php%3Fartid%3D10104089&act=url
======
belorn
Be you a lawyer talking privileged to a client, a priest talking privileged to
a follower, a hot-line worker talking privileged to someone thinking about
suicide, or a social service person talking to a child who been sexually
assaulted, every ones communication is equally collected.
This is after all the result of ubiquitous surveillance. When people learn
about it, the reaction is very simple. people stop talking. They do not call
the lawyer. They don't call the priest. The person thinking about suicide
won't call the hot-line, and the sexually assaulted child will stay quiet in
fear of people finding out. After Germany introduced their ubiquitous
surveillance law, this was exactly what the statistics ended up showing. I
wonder, while hoping not, if the same result will happen in the US too after
the current wave of news.
~~~
nikatwork
Bizarrely, this whole scenario is very similar to the privacy issues explored
in Brunner's 1975 book "The Shockwave Rider"[1].
Perhaps, as in the book, we need to setup an independent encrypted
communication service where people can vent their frustrations at pervasive
surveillance.
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider)
~~~
Zigurd
Never mind PRISM. The week before the PRISM leaks, the news was full of hack
attacks by state actors against US business and government targets. Why are we
emailing and talking in the clear? That's just dumb.
Moreover, the toothpaste can't be put back in the tube. Short of
transformative change in government, how do we know there isn't another PRISM
at another TLA?
The only way to restore confidence in communications is to secure them against
all attacks.
~~~
fnordfnordfnord
You're right, but I'd still like to see us make a giant collective bowel
movement on the spilled toothpaste, and generally make it so undesirable for a
government agency to use the toothpaste that they'll only do so when no other
alternative exists, or only when it's actually very important to do so.
------
Vivtek
Ah. This one is actually kind of credible.
But if the client was already accused of terrorism, then this monitoring was
on his end, and surely covered by a specific warrant. So this isn't
(presumably) the kind of massive data hoovering that is the primary concern;
every country does this kind of thing. (Back when I was running Despammed.com
I'd get requests from various LEOs - one came with a real live subpoena for
information related to an identity theft ring, and one was from Italian
authorities pursuing an insult to Mary.)
Where it gets to be a concern is revoking a guy's visa because he's defending
a terror suspect.
~~~
drrotmos
I know this isn't an opinion shared by the current US administration, but
having a fair trial for one's crimes is a human right. It's a right guaranteed
by articles 10 and 11 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Part of having a fair trial includes having legal representation, and the
ability to communicate with your legal council in confidence.
Eavesdropping on privileged lawyer-client conversations, regardless of
legality is outrageously indecent and _should_ be illegal. Revoking a lawyer's
visa because he is representing a particular client is equally outrageous,
especially due to the chilling effects it causes upon the legal community
making it much more difficult for suspects of serious crimes to find good
legal representation.
~~~
rayiner
It's not the view of any administration. The client was Norwegian-Chilean.
Foreigners not in the US don't have A right to counsel (which is the
constitutional basis of attorney client privilege in the US).
And I'd argue that's the way it should be. Every time courts declare something
unconstitutional, they use up limited political capital. I don't think
defending the "human rights" of non Americans is a valid use of that political
capital.
~~~
meepmorp
> Foreigners not in the US don't have A right to counsel (which is the
> constitutional basis of attorney client privilege in the US).
Do you have a cite for this? I know that there's no right to counsel in civil
trials, and this includes immigration courts (say in a deportation hearing),
but thought that criminal trials do guarantee right to counsel regardless of
citizenship.
Edit: sorry, I misread what you wrote. It's totally reasonable and doesn't
deserve downvotes.
FWIW, web searching does seem to indicate that there's no explicit
constitutional basis for attorney client privilege, and that it's just
provided for by US (and often, state) law.
~~~
DannyBee
Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228 (holding that noncitizens charged
with crimes are protected by the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments)
Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698 ((concurrence arguing that
noncitizens are protected by the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments)
Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266
Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 161
etc. The only holding otherwise is the 4th amendment one of a number of
appeals courts.
~~~
meepmorp
Thanks. I kind of assumed that those protections extended to non-citizens, but
it's nice to have actual case law.
------
anologwintermut
I'm shocked, shocked to find that the NSA is spying on a foreign terror
suspect in a foreign country communicating with another foreign person.*
Actually, I am shocked. Why'd the lawyer use Facebook for privileged
communication? Why does the NSA care about someone who posted a threatening
video in Norway? Hint: they don't. If they looked, it's probably because
Norwegian Intelligence asked them to.( Which might well be a huge legal
problem, for Norway)
In fact, it seems there is little evidence that any of this happened. Marking
messages as spam does not seem like something the NSA would do and as to
denying him entry into the US: if US gov is in the habit of denying visa's to
those who represent a foreign terror suspect, they didn't need Facebook to
establish that.
*Note, attorney client privilege doesn't apply to cases completely out of US jurisdiction with lawyers who are not lawyers in the US
~~~
polemic
It's hard to say without knowing what was said, but the fact that his visa was
withdrawn on the basis of a conversation between a laywer and his client is
alarming.
In other words: did the US government consider him a threat, or was it a
tactic to infringe the alleged terrorist's right to a fair trial? If the
latter, then it's an abuse of surveillance privileges.
~~~
spinlock
It would be alarming if a lawyer and his client were using facebook for
privileged communications. That's your first hint you need a new lawyer. If
they can't understand Facebook's TOS they can't possibly defend you.
But, seriously, these are foreign nationals. We've had a longstanding
distinction between foreign and domestic surveillance. Think of it this way,
would you really want to need permission from Pakistan to surveil Osama bin
Laden? He was an enemy of the USA and he was being harbored by Pakistan.
Different rules apply in that case than in a domestic case.
~~~
cmircea
Horrible example. In the case of Osama the US could have broken each and every
law in Pakistan and nobody would give a shit.
This is about a suspect, at best. Not the world's most wanted terrorist.
------
vidarh
Here's a rough/quick manual translation:
\---
Private Facebook-correspondance between John Christian Elden and a client
charged with terror offenses was monitored by American security services
(NSA), the lawyer claims.
Elden was discussing scheduling of the case with the Norwegian-Chilean client
(20), who was charged with publishing a video where he threatened Norwegian
officials and the royal family. Elden says that he has documentation that it
was American authorities that were snooping on his Facebook-profile, TV2
writes.
\- That we as Norwegians are under surveillance by American authorities, I am
not particularly happy about. It is uncomfortable to know that someone
continuously reads what you write at communicate with other persons via what
one believes is a closed channel, says the lawyer.
The messages of the person in question got deleted on an ongoing basis, and in
the chat-log they are now marked as "identified as offensive or marked as
spam". Four days after the conversation, the well known lawyers visa was
withdrawn.
Elden says his client wished to show up in court, but that he no longer is
able to contact him after the Facebook-profile was deleted.
Facebook is one of the websites mentioned in The Guardian and Washington Posts
revelations of NSAs surveillance of foreign citizens in the PRISM project.
Ministor of Justice Grete Faremo has sent a request to the US, where the
justice department requests a clarification about whether or not Norwegian
citizens have been under surveillance.
\---
The main thing to note is that the bit about the deleted Facebook profile was
unclear in the machine translation. It appears quite clear in the original
article that the reason his communication with his client ceased was that the
client used Facebook as his only communications-channel with his lawyer, and
so the deleted Facebook profile means Elden is _unable_ to communicate with
his client.
It is not made clear whether he suspects or claims that American authorities
caused the profile to get deleted too, or if the client got spooked by the
deleted messages.
------
Deestan
Summary: Lawyer conversing with client accused of terrorism, via private
Facebook messages. Client's messages suddenly deleted as "spam", and 4 days
later the lawyer was notified that his US Visa had been revoked.
~~~
smartician
In other words: A Norwegian lawyer notices something weird going on with his
private Facebook messages, and four days after this, his visa gets revoked.
Later, after reading about PRISM in the morning newspaper, he's convinced that
the NSA has been spying on him.
It's obvious! After all, spy rule #1 is "make sure your subject knows he's
being spied on by marking his messages as 'infringing or spam'". And it's
totally impossible that the visa thing coincided with this.
~~~
einhverfr
Twice in my life I have noticed things that made me wonder. The first time I
currently think was in my imagination. This time I am not so sure. I am
noticing for example a cell phone whose battery level drops when connected to
the charger and not in airplane mode. Google chat messages apparently long
delayed. That this started after the Snowden leak makes it even more
suspicious to me. I am an American citizen residing abroad.
I could just be seeing things that aren't there. However as a vocal opponent
of this sort of surveillance, it would make sense that I would be caught up in
some sort of filter especially as the hunt for Snowden continues.
(So note: If you are listening I think you might be. I am a patriot, as I
believe Snowden is. I have not provided any active assistance for him, but I
applaud those who do. My wife thinks I am too political but at some point my
loyalty to my country, the United States, compels me to stand up to this sort
of thing.)
~~~
Filligree
Battery levels will drop when connected to the charger - because of code in
the battery controller. It's bad for the battery to stay at 100% for any
amount of time, so the controller will cycle it in the 95-100% area. Smarter
controllers will hide what they're doing.
Google chat messages can be delayed for any number of reasons, ranging from
internal glitches to "Your network connectivity was bad at the precise moment
the message was attempted to be delivered, thrice, and it retries at
exponentially longer intervals."
~~~
einhverfr
But go from 5% to 0%? I am used to glitches but there are oddities here that
are either hardware issues (battery discharging while low and connected to the
charger), network issues. This is beyond what I am used to. Again, I could be
connecting the dots incorrectly but I would not be surprised if I am right :-P
------
woof
* The lawyer John Christian Elden defends several terror suspects, including Arfan Bhatti (now arrested in Pakistan) who was charged for terror planning agains the US embassy in Norway several years ago.
* He disucussed a court meeting with another client on Facebook, it was not a attorney–client privileged discussion. Elden was briefed by the FBI on their e-surveilence in 2005 (with a group from Norwegian Justice dept.) so he probably has a good grasp on how private Facebook really is.
* His US Visa was revoked four days after the conversation, the US embassy in Norway cites "Homeland Security"
* Eldens comments gives the impression that he believes he's automaticly flagged, while still beeing a friend of the US.
More facts:
[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&tl=en&u=ht...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagbladet.no%2F2013%2F06%2F11%2Fnyheter%2Finnenriks%2Fovervakning%2Fusa%2F27658066%2F)
------
werid
This lawyer is a known figure in Norway and not some guy looking for his
fifteen minutes of fame. He has defended people on terrorism charges in Norway
before, and gotten them acquitted on those charges (while other lesser charges
still stuck).
On his twitter, he claims that the US embassy doesn't know why his visa was
revoked, only that "Homeland security's computers" are telling them it's
revoked.
This is then connected to NSA leak by journalists. He is still waiting for a
proper explanation from the US embassy.
------
Zimahl
Isn't the NSA supposed to be for foreign intelligence only? I don't find it
shocking that the US would track the messages of an accused terrorist. What I
find funny is that a lawyer used Facebook for privileged communication.
------
einhverfr
Just remember, if you ever want to visit the US and you are not an American,
you must be much more supportive of American foreign policies than most
Americans are!
------
tropicalmug
Isn't this a bigger deal than just monitoring supposedly private Facebook
communications? This would also violate attorney-client privilege too, right?
EDIT: This is just naïveté on my part.
~~~
saraid216
Why would the not-an-American-citizen lawyer speaking to a not-an-American-
citizen have attorney-client privilege from the perspective of an American
governmental organization?
Edited to add: It's remarkably difficult to quickly find information about
attorney-client privilege in settings other than US, UK, Canada, and
Australia. I found a brief mention that the privilege does not apply to in-
house counsel in the EU, and that Brazil breaches it with a court order, but
that's all. I'd hope I could find more given some more time, but I need to get
back to work.
~~~
anaptdemise
Ha. Also, what kind of attorney would have the kind of conversation covered
under attorney client privileges on Facebook, PM or otherwise?
~~~
nullc
The same kind that run third party provided spyware on their personal
computers in order to take exams in law school.
(In other words: Practically all newly minted attorneys in the US)
There is no education in law school in the US at least on responsible data
handling, and— in fact— schools often direct students to behave irresponsibly
with respect to data security.
~~~
andreyf
_The same kind that run third party provided spyware on their personal
computers in order to take exams in law school._
Do you have a specific case in mind?
_schools often direct students to behave irresponsibly with respect to data
security_
Why would they do that? Reference?
~~~
nullc
Sure, the practice is ubiquitous
Example software and policies are things like:
[http://www.exam4.com/](http://www.exam4.com/) (used by Harvard, George
Washington, etc)
[http://www.law.wisc.edu/help/for_students/securexam/](http://www.law.wisc.edu/help/for_students/securexam/)
[http://www.law.columbia.edu/academics/registrar/Laptop_Exams](http://www.law.columbia.edu/academics/registrar/Laptop_Exams)
[https://www.law.umich.edu/currentstudents/registration/exams...](https://www.law.umich.edu/currentstudents/registration/exams/Pages/default.aspx)
Most (all?) schools offer students the ability to take their exams on paper,
but doing so is a substantial competitive disadvantage because examinations
are usually timed and writing on paper is much slower, students are marked
down for legibility and copy-editing noise, etc.
I don't have a citation studying it— but by all appearances it's only a small
minority of students that opt out of using their laptops. ("Most Stanford Law
School students take their examinations on laptops")
IIRC the California bar exam now also uses one of these spyware exam packages.
I'm mostly amused that we have a whole information-security critical
profession who is nearly required to behave negligently wrt information
security from day one. :P
~~~
andreyf
Wow, no kidding. Why the heck could it need "Administrator level account
permissions" (both on OSX and Windows [1])? I guess you could run it in a VM
and wipe it afterwards.
1\.
[https://www.examsoft.com/dotnet/Default.aspx?f=mtlaw](https://www.examsoft.com/dotnet/Default.aspx?f=mtlaw)
~~~
nullc
You're prohibited from running it in a VM, and at least some law schools have
the students sign some form under penalty of the school ethical code yadda
yadda that you won't do that.
(And then— some students do it anyways, because thats the only way to use it
on their otherwise non-supported system or because of some other
incompatibility. And nothing comes of it... I guess until something does.
Better not make too many enemies)
~~~
andreyf
A friend in law school to explained that this software is used for in-
classroom exams and prevents any other programs from being used while a
student is taking the exam, as well as saving all the work incrementally (in
case the computer crashes).
It's certainly not the most secure thing to do, but they need to focus on
studying law, not securing systems. I imagine that when lawyers are working on
cases, they might end up using more secure devices than their old college
laptops.
------
etchalon
This story reeks. None of it makes any sense (the messages were marked as
SPAM?).
I'm filing this under the same rubric mentally as all those tea party lunies
who suddenly swore their legitimate, random audit was caused by their
membership in the Tea Party.
~~~
Filligree
Elden is a top-flight defence lawyer. He's not any good with computers
(clearly..), but I'm sure he told the truth as he understands it.
------
platz
Two Facebook articles on foreign privacy events in one day? Where were these
reports before Snowden hit the news cycle?
~~~
stackedmidgets
Before that, you'd be voted down and hollered at because there would be little
credibility for it among common idiots. This has been the case for years,
because a lot of the information about the NSA published by journalists was
built on anonymous sourcing. Now, there's more documentary evidence available
to support it, so the US government no longer enjoys the benefit of ignorant
doubt.
Now, these stories can gain traction.
~~~
untog
Conversely, these stories were previously ignored because of a lack of
supporting evidence. Now that US surveillance is a talked about topic, these
stories are gaining traction without people going through the critical thought
processes they otherwise would have.
Neither of these options are provably false.
------
XorNot
Ok can anyone who reads Norwegian actually translate this properly? Because
the Google translation certainly doesn't capture the nuance, and their are
some notable inconsistencies in it - namely, why is someone's lawyer "no
longer in contact now that their Facebook profile has been deleted".
------
deshmane
what I am curious about in this and similar stories is whether the officials
actually carry out due diligence in making sure the profile actually belongs
to the person in question. after all, anybody can get an email and spoof a
profile.
------
gcb0
This is the same a lawyer sending private information via a post-card. Plain
irresponsible.
But then again, which layer knows how to send PGP'ed emails?
------
brown9-2
Worth noting that the lawyer says he has evidence but has not presented it,
and until then it's just his word.
------
mariuolo
Just tell me what kind idiot would use Facebook for a private conversation.
~~~
vidarh
Who are you talking about? Elden or his client? The article implies Facebook
was Elden's only way of reaching his client, so the "idiot" appears to have
been the client. If the client is not very technical it is not unreasonable to
assume the client felt Facebook was easier for him to use to communicate
covertly with Elden and didn't want to give out a phone number or other
details.
~~~
mariuolo
Either. Facebook retains forever anything done or written on their platform
and that's a well known fact.
Why anyone would use it for anything remotely confidential, is beyond me.
------
ttrreeww
This is the generation in which freedom was lost.
~~~
hughes
Or perhaps the generation in which freedom is to be reclaimed? It's too early
to tell.
~~~
TillE
It's extraordinarily difficult not to be pessimistic when you see the abuses
initiated by one party continued and expanded by the other, after bleating on
about their supposed opposition to such programs.
I'm convinced that the Democratic Party is the biggest roadblock to
accomplishing meaningful change in the US. It exemplifies the mushy,
frightened middle in the worst possible way, and should be reviled by anyone
with principles.
For example: [http://www.people-
press.org/files/2013/06/6-10-13-4.png](http://www.people-
press.org/files/2013/06/6-10-13-4.png)
~~~
nikster
It's hard to see any difference between Democrats and Republicans at this
point. The entire system needs to be thrown out.
I remember Ralph Nader was once asked why he is running for president when his
candidacy might take away crucial votes from the Democrats and let the
Republicans win; Wouldn't it be better if the lesser of two evils won? His
answer: The difference between the Republics and Democrats is "the difference
between Humpty and Dumpty".
At the time, I didn't agree with him. But when I see what's going on now; how
the Obama administration is basically run by the CIA and US big business; then
I have to think of this quote and how right he was.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Make a Computer Operating System - hitr
https://github.com/SamyPesse/How-to-Make-a-Computer-Operating-System
======
joelg
Another great free OS resource is MIT's 6.828: Operating System Engineering.
"This course studies fundamental design and implementation ideas in the
engineering of operating systems. Lectures are based on a study of UNIX and
research papers. Topics include virtual memory, threads, context switches,
kernels, interrupts, system calls, interprocess communication, coordination,
and the interaction between software and hardware. Individual laboratory
assignments involve implementation of a small operating system in C, with some
x86 assembly."
Lecture notes from 2012: [https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-
and-compu...](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-
science/6-828-operating-system-engineering-fall-2012/)
Video lectures from 2014:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDRHsNauoxk&list=PLfciLKR3Sg...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDRHsNauoxk&list=PLfciLKR3SgqNJKKIKUliWoNBBH1VHL3AP)
------
Jeaye
Note that this book is half-finished and work on it has been discontinued (as
of 2 years ago). If you want a good resource on OSdev, start here:
[http://wiki.osdev.org/Main_Page](http://wiki.osdev.org/Main_Page)
~~~
dreta
Got another great resource here
[http://www.brokenthorn.com/Resources/](http://www.brokenthorn.com/Resources/)
------
OJFord
> Chapter-1
> Chapter-2
> ...
> Chapter-8
> chapter9
Aaargh!!
------
k_sze
I wish people would stop teaching C/C++. I want a book that teaches writing OS
using Rust.
~~~
pkaye
And what is a good book on writing an OS using Rust?
~~~
dbaupp
There's [http://intermezzos.github.io/](http://intermezzos.github.io/)
~~~
steveklabnik
Maintainer here! We actually have more developed than the tutorial lets on; at
Rust Belt Rust next week, we're running a six-hour class, so focus has been on
material for that, rather than on writing more book chapters. I hope to get
them out afterwards, though.
There's also some open PRs with more functionality too! Basically, check out
the kernel repo if you finish the book and want more :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
For sale: an Enigma machine - epo
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=5370959&sid=5d471a41-553e-4a2d-b9ee-cf27e36133b8
======
Robin_Message
Also, the next lot is even more exciting: Some offprints of Turing's papers
and manuscripts, formed by Prof. Maxwell Newman, guide price _300 to 500
thousand pounds!_ Apparently these are extremely rare; none have appeared in
auction for 35 years!
[http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=sal...](http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&pos=10&intObjectID=5370960&sid=5d471a41-553e-4a2d-b9ee-
cf27e36133b8)
~~~
KoZeN
[http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=sal...](http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&pos=5&intObjectID=5370965&sid=5d471a41-553e-4a2d-b9ee-
cf27e36133b8)
I'm surprised this hadn't had more attention here!
_APPLE-1 -- Personal Computer. An Apple-1 motherboard, number 82, printed
label to reverse, with a few slightly later additions including a 6502
microprocessor, labeled R6502P R6502-11 8145, printed circuit board with 4
rows A-D and columns 1-18, three capacitors, heatsink, cassette board
connector, 8K bytes of RAM, keyboard interface, firmware in PROMS, low-profile
sockets on all integrated circuits, video terminal, breadboard area with
slightly later connector, with later soldering, wires and electrical tape to
reverse, printed to obverse Apple Computer 1 Palo Alto. Ca. Copyright 1976_
~~~
asmithmd1
Wow! a the Apple-1 is estimated to go for £100,000 - £150,000
I wonder if there are any artifacts from todays companies that we should be
grabbing up
~~~
asmithmd1
Now I see why - it comes with the optional cassette interface and BASIC on a
tape :)
Seriously it is an exceptional artifact: original invoice (Salesperson:
STEVEN) and a typed note from Steven Jobs explaining how to hook-up a TV and
keyboard:
[http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/ZoomImage.aspx?image=/lot...](http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/ZoomImage.aspx?image=/lotfinderimages/D53709/d5370965)
------
user24
I hope a museum gets it, but I think it will probably go for much more than
the estimate.
By the way, any UK HNers should definitely try to get down to the museum at
Bletchley park and the national computing museum. Geek heaven :)
edit: wow, they also have the first published ENIAC patents:
[http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=sal...](http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=5370963&sid=b1077a41-474f-47b4-8f48-25f5c24fca97)
~~~
shrikant
Visitors might want to be a bit patient on the guided tour - largely seems a
waste of time initially, with the guide talking a lot about the history of the
land/park itself, and the WW2/code-breaking info being somewhat superficial.
Then he takes you into the National Museum of Computing and demonstrates the
machines, and sometimes lets you touch and feel as well - awesome! The guided
tour ends on quite the high!
~~~
user24
depends on the guide I guess, I've been there about 4 times (used to live just
down the road, and the ticket is for a whole year!) and took the tour twice,
the code-breaking content wasn't highly technical, but it was covered in a
decent amount of depth I felt.
Riddle from the tour: What must you add to nine to get six? (and no, it's not
-3)
~~~
user24
replying in case someone years from now reads this:
Gur nafjre vf f. avar va ebzna ahzrenyf vf vk, nqq na f naq lbh trg fvk ;)
------
cromulent
One day, I'd like to have a library like Jay Walker's to add this to. He's
even got a Sputnik in there, along with his Enigma.
[http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-10/ff_walker...](http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-10/ff_walker?currentPage=all)
------
wgrover
Bay Area folks who've read down this far, you'll absolutely love the Computer
History Museum, <http://www.computerhistory.org>
------
Luc
That would look nice on the living room cupboard, but you can't beat this one
for glamour: <http://www.tatjavanvark.nl/tvv1/pht10.html>
Perhaps someone here will be able to decrypt that encoded Haiku...
------
pbhjpbhj
I was interested in the many manuscripts in that sale. I wonder if Google
would buy them, scan them and resell them ... they could buy through a third
party/anonymous bid and only release the scanned copy after the resale to
avoid a negative effect on price.
------
ljf
Amazing piece of kit that would be great to own - but what would /you/ do with
one?
~~~
brk
You could probably gut it and put an Arduino inside of it that played MP3's.
~~~
astine
With all due respect, wouldn't that be a little like upholstering your couch
with the Bayeux Tapestry? While the Enigma machine isn't exactly one of a
kind, it is quite rare and has a great deal of historical significance.
~~~
brk
Sorry, I had a feeling the sarcasm in my initial post wouldn't fully come
through :)
I probably should have gone with the steampunk-themed comment I was originally
planning.
------
tomjen3
30-50k pounds. Shit thats a high price.
~~~
user24
You think? I wouldn't have been surprised to see it fetch twice the high
estimate. It's got appeal to people interested in:
Computing
Codes/Ciphers
WW2
That's pretty broad appeal. I mean even if it was only of interest to Turing
fans that's still a huge market, and Turing fans are only a small subset of
those larger markets.
Just my opinion, I've no idea if these things come up fairly often or not.
~~~
tomjen3
It may still fetch more, but honestly that doesn't change that it is a very
large amount of money.
~~~
shabda
> that it is a very large amount of money.
Compared to what?
People pay 100K$ for rocks which have no intrintrinsic value.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Extinct Startups Tees - signaler
http://extinctstartups.com/
======
pstevesy
Clever. I'd like to see an Enron or Compaq tee.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A wiki for anecdotal or useless informations - lawyearsdw
http://www.bt-wiki.net/Main_Page
======
ende
How is this different from Wikipedia ?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
IRS SSL problems - heyyeverybody
https://sa.www4.irs.gov/irfof-efp/start.do;jsessionid=vNun6wfS+l+xKLt39TSDaOfF
======
heyyeverybody
It appears to only give you a warning when using Windows, Chrome, and on a
desktop. Says they are using SHA1 and RSA.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Searching For Online Video's Holy Grail - myoung8
http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/04/technology/kirkpatritck_iamplify.fortune/index.htm?section=money_latest
Guesses on what happens when you get people from Random House and McKinsey running a company, plus a CTO from Accenture?
======
myoung8
Guesses on what happens when you get people from Random House and McKinsey
running a company, plus a CTO from Accenture?
~~~
xirium
@0% affiliate fees on US$100 niche videos sounds really good. However, if the
management doesn't understand their market then you'd be a fool to associate
with this venture.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google's Project Zero researcher discovers “major” security issue in LastPass - aloukissas
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/lastpass-hack-security-problem-password-manager-a7658806.html
======
sp332
Previous discussion
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13960097](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13960097)
------
kakarot
If you use online password management for anything security-critical then
you're a fool. It pains me to see Lastpass so readily trusted even by the HN
community.
~~~
thraway2016
Agreed. A combination of cryptsetup luksOpen foobar && mount foobar && vim
foobar/passwords.txt has always worked fine.
I suspect it has to do with the modernist fetish of convenience. Not having
all your data synchronized to all devices at all times is apparently a fate
worse than death.
~~~
CobrastanJorji
I started using LastPass because I found that for all but my bank, Google, and
Amazon passwords, I was using the same password on every other page. I've
found that it's really great to just let LastPass pick a lengthy password for
every new site I join and know that I'll still be able to log into it later
from my phone or my laptop or my desktop without problem.
I get that it's got some serious security holes, but it's better than not
using it, because if I don't use it then I'm just gonna start repeating the
same username and password across sites again.
The enemy I'm fighting is my own laziness. I'm not choosing between "use
LastPass" and "lock my passwords in an encrypted fileystem." I'm choosing
between "use LastPass" and "use the same password everywhere," and LastPass is
better than that.
------
ry_ry
So if they want 2fa enabled and users to avoid browser plugins it
inadvertantly suggests a vector to start looking at.
At a guess, an API vuln that issues a token of some description?
------
astrodust
LastPass tire fire continues to spread.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twins’ Facebook Fight Rages On - donohoe
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/business/31twins.html?_r=1&src=twr
======
strlen
The fact that this travesty continues (and how it is portrayed in the media)
shows what society still thinks of as a proper place for geeks like
Zuckerberg[1]: to implement some business guy's vision. The message is loud
and clear: "you may be smart, you may go to the same schools as we do, but you
are an inferior being." Our skills are thought of as a commodity, that we can
implement a site like Craigslist, Amazon or Facebook (in its modern
incarnation) in a weekend: it's as if the idea is the hard part.
This applies not only to Zuckberg, but also to the employees at Facebook who
have been busy working nights and weekends building, scaling out and
monetizing the site. Apparently, however, society thinks nothing of a wealth
transfer from the workers to the privileged elite (i.e., the twins).
I'll be the first to say: even if the allegations are true, fuck these
jocks[1]: everybody and their mother had a "social network for X" idea; the
idea wasn't unique, turning it into an a product users love was.
[1] It's popular to portray Zuck as some PHP script kiddie, but that's not the
case. He's written a Winamp plugin in high school, for which Microsoft offered
him a $1mm bonus if he signed on as a full time employee (forgoing Harvard).
His initial technology choices may be disagreeable, but he's still one of us.
[2] <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10016183-36.html>
~~~
alexgartrell
Fuck these jocks
So maybe I'm being a little oversensitive here, but attitudes like this toward
athletes are total bullshit. I'm going to go out on an egotistical limb here
and say that I'm a pretty fucking competent coder, but before I was I was a
pretty decent Football player. Don't make this an "us vs. them" thing, because
that's a false dichotomy if I've ever heard one.
~~~
strlen
No, you're not oversensitive here. I am. I regret putting that comment in.
It's a visceral, emotional gut reaction. Nonetheless, I'll leave it there:
editing it out would be Orwellian.
However, there's an interesting point: they spent their time perfecting their
rowing skills to an olympic level, that's where their passion lays. It's
difficult to be an olympic rower and a top notch hacker at the same time: it's
one thing to dabble in both, it's another to master one.
I work out for at least an hour 5-6 days a week, but I'm not an athlete. The
hours I have to spend to become proficient at programming don't leave time for
equal amount of hours (10,000 according to Gladwell) to be spent on sport.
Winklevii made their choices, Zuck made his.
~~~
fingerprinter
Going on a HUGE side tangent here b/c working out, fitness and overall health
is a huge passion of mine...
people don't know how to workout....and people don't know what an 'athlete'
does when they workout. I've been around professional and collegiate athletes
for quite some time and I think most people would be amazed to see how little
they actually workout.
The basic thought the past 20 years was 'more is better' when it comes to the
body; more working out is better than less working out. What we are learning
and something good trainers and athletes have known for some time is that the
amount of working out takes a huge backseat to doing the right kind of working
out at the right intensity level.
It is more mythos created by the sports industry when we hear that someone is
'in the gym' 10 hours a day. This might be accurate, but the time they are
actually working out is minimal (or, rather, it should be if they value their
asset aka body).
Now, to someone like you working out 5-6 days a week for (guessing) an
hour...I guarantee that if I changed your routine and intensity levels you
would become an athlete you never dreamed you could be. I could probably do it
in literally half the time as well.
I'll leave you with this...which do you think is more effective as a workout:
60 minutes on the treadmill or elliptical or 10 minutes of sprinting intervals
@ 75 max effort? Did you know you can get one of the best and hardest workouts
of your life if you just did 5 minutes of Tabata style kettlebell swings (20
seconds swings, 10 sec break for 5 minutes)?
Knowing the body and being able to hack the body are so foreign to most folks
they literally have no idea what it means to workout like an athlete.
~~~
moultano
Have a good resource on "tabata style kettleball swings?"
~~~
fingerprinter
The technical name is 'Tabata Protocol' and google is your friend here. Also,
YouTube is awesome for finding good workouts if you know the right search
terms.
To get you started, this is a good video.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtgRcqaOqDo>
Just note that you should be going much, much harder (more intense) than she
is doing. Remember, 20 seconds all out, 10 seconds rest. You can also vary the
intensity by weight of KB and not just speed. I use a 53 pound KB for single
arm swings and a 70 pound for double arm swings (at the gym...don't have a 70
for the home yet).
If you have a tough time counting 20 seconds and 10 seconds, the GymBoss timer
(<http://www.gymboss.com/> ), available on Amazon is a great way to time.
Some quick articles on tabata: [http://www.thefitnessmonster.com/2010/02/hiit-
for-fat-loss-t...](http://www.thefitnessmonster.com/2010/02/hiit-for-fat-loss-
tabata-protocol.html)
[http://ezinearticles.com/?Kettlebell-Tabata-Workout---
Swings...](http://ezinearticles.com/?Kettlebell-Tabata-Workout---Swings-For-
Rapid-Fat-Loss&id=3772838)
You can do anything in a tabata fashion. For instance, you can sprint, you can
do an exercise bike if you have some issues running (I'm rehabbing an Achilles
tear so I stick to KB, swimming and some variants I'll talk about in a minute)
or anything you can do for 20 seconds.
I'll even make circuits for Tabata workouts. This is a great one that gets you
quite exhausted and will boost your metabolism sky high as well...
2-4 rounds, 20 seconds of each exercise in order, 10 second in between
exercises.
Pushup - you can do any type: traditional, military, diamond, plyo. Even vary
it up in the different rounds. KB swings - See previous Burpees -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MGljX4bbps> Air Squats or Jack/Power Squats*
- <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1FpWEfJW1s> \-
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEwitPuU0Xg&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEwitPuU0Xg&feature=related)
Plank crunch (or variants) - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31SbKgmHcmw>
Once done...take a 10 second break and start over again going for 2-4 total
rounds. If you do 2 rounds, that is 5 total minutes for working out. 4 Rounds
is 10 minutes. This is very, very tough (honestly) and sometimes I have a hard
time doing all 10 minutes w/ full intensity.
------
narrator
Moral of the story folks. Be very careful about people you go into business
with. If you smell a hint of "douche" or especially narcissism, just walk
away.
------
snprbob86
Now that I'm working on a proper startup -- raising money, building a product,
hiring a team, making deals, acquiring customers... I feel a renewed deep
respect for people who _actually make things_. No amount of hearing "the idea
isn't as important as the execution", no amount of startup culture
indoctrination can really prepare you for doing it yourself.
Building something that people want is just so much harder than anyone could
possibly imagine until they try it. I don't think any typical judge could
possibly understand. If they did, a case about "he stole the idea" would be
instantly thrown out with prejudice. The idea is so unbelievably
inconsequential in the scope of skill, determination, and heart needed to
succeed.
Even if Zuck mislead these guys into thinking he was building this exact
product for them and on their time, I don't think they are entitled to
anything. Even if the Harvard Connection was the most popular social network
and Zuckerberg was hired as a 10th engineer and left and build Facebook to
compete. I don't think they'd be entitled to a dime. Love him or hate him,
Zuckerberg built an incredible business with a stellar team in a remarkably
short time period. Luck was involved, but this was no accident.
------
edanm
It still amazes me how different my perception is on starting successful
businesses, versus most other people.
I mean, there's the whole "the idea is not the important part" slogan, which
is true to at least some degree, which seems completely lost on the twins.
And take this quote: _When asked if they could have turned ConnectU into a
site with hundreds of millions of users, like Mr. Zuckerberg did with
Facebook, the twins replied in unison, “Absolutely.”_
Seriously, have you ever heard anyone who would say that they could
_absolutely_ succeed with _any startup_? The optimistic chances of success for
any startup aren't huge, what makes them think they would absolutely succeed?
Moreover, they're not talking about the kind of success that YC is happy with,
or even the kind of success that VCs are happy with. They're talking about the
kind of success of a once-in-a-decade company.
Lastly, I've worked on my own startup for almost the past year. It's been a
year of attempts, false starts, "pivots", eventually throwing out some ideas
altogether and starting from new. From what I understand, after the Winkelvoss
twins approached Zuck, less than 2 months passed before he went and released
Facebook. 2 months, to me, seems like such a tiny, inconsequential amount of
time when you're talking about starting a startup.
Any way you look at it, from the facts as I understand them, this just seems
like 3 people who have no idea what they're talking about, trying to squeeze
money out of someone successful just because they can.
------
kylelibra
This is getting to the point of embarrassing. It is time to give it a rest.
------
naner
[http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/...](http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/business/31twins.html)
------
bl4k
It seems you can't be successful, especially in tech/web, without a dozen
people hanging onto your coattails claiming that you stole the idea or that
you were lucky.
MySpace were written off as lucky spammers, Zuck a theif, Bill Gates stole MS-
DOS, etc. etc.
~~~
pyre
Bill Gates stole MS-DOS? So far as I know, he _bought_ DOS to license to IBM.
There's a difference between being a skillful hacker and being a shrewd
businessman. Claiming that someone isn't a skillful hacker doesn't mean they
are completely without brains/skills/etc.
MySpace were 'lucky' in that people latched on to their horrible interface
because it had features that they wanted (to put music, videos, media on their
'homepage'). People could have easily rejected the interface despite yearning
for the features.
Zuckerberg isn't necessarily a thief, but he certainly should have covered his
ass a lot better with contracts and such. Though, with the amount of money
that's on the line, there would be people coming out of the woodwork no matter
how airtight of a contract they had.
> It seems you can't be successful, especially in tech/web,
It's the "I thought of that too, so where's my money" syndrome. "I thought of
The Clapper first! I should be the one making money!"
~~~
bl4k
I didn't say I agree with it - I said that is what you hear a lot of.
Zuck and Bill deserve absolute credit for their successes.
------
blantonl
It is pretty clear what is driving this - attorney's fees. The attorneys can
conjure up all kinds of (remote) scenarios for additional, potential,
settlements now that they had the taste of the previous settlement.
~~~
edanm
Their original attorneys were fired, not paid, and had to go to court to force
the Winkelvosses to pay them their attorney fees. The Winkelvosses withheld
the money due to their claims of their lawyer's incompetence.
------
smokey221
If Zuckerberg was a more likable guy like Leo Laporte or Kevin Rose I'd feel
sympathy for him. The Winklewosses might be tools but Zuckerberg is hardly
more sympathetic.
~~~
younata
Never met Zuck, but, I have far more respect for him than I do for the
Winklewosses.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Someone Just Found an Embeddable Google +1 Button - It Works - Jsarokin
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/31/omg-someone-just-found-an-embeddable-google-1-button-%E2%80%93-and-it-works/
======
trotsky
Good job keeping up your journalistic standards in your headlines, TC.
~~~
robinwauters
I read somewhere that the more braincells one has, the easier it is for a
person to recognize sarcasm.
~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Sarcasm is _awesome!_
------
aw3c2
Direct link:
[http://www.yvoschaap.com/weblog/the_google_1_button_discover...](http://www.yvoschaap.com/weblog/the_google_1_button_discovered)
------
ck2
Ah so here it is
[https://madrelease.google.com/_/doodad/button?url=http://new...](https://madrelease.google.com/_/doodad/button?url=http://news.ycombinator.com&height=100)
[https://ssl.gstatic.com/s2/oz/images/stars/po/ESAPv1/buttonS...](https://ssl.gstatic.com/s2/oz/images/stars/po/ESAPv1/buttonSprite.png)
Ugh so now we are going to see those everywhere.
Google basically will now be able to track you across every last site, even if
they don't use analytics or adsense.
One more thing for adblock I guess.
~~~
tonfa
My guess would be that the number of sites having a +1 button and not using
analytics is __very __small.
------
jcapote
ZOMG!!!
------
zachahack
All those poor single people..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: My first iOS game released - jason_slack
My first iOS game is released. It took me 2 weekends to develop and 9 day approval time.<p>Here are a few promo codes. If you take a promo code, can you please also leave a review?<p>Happy to answer any questions. An update is already being prepared for iPhone support as well as a more major update that adds difficulty adjustments and a "dreaded" twist :-)<p>The Game: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pop-corn/id905859076?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4<p>Promo Codes:<p>F79LRP4JNWT4<p>X94XXNNW77E3<p>PEWJ77FHTME7<p>9PHN99RLLE6W
======
chrisBob
The game was interesting, but I have a few critiques:
1) The first thing I checked was to see if it was multitouch, and I was
disappointed. I should be able to tap kernels with as many fingers as I have
(or 11, whichever is smaller).
2) It is not obvious when a round will end. One lasted 41 seconds. Another
lasted 44. There are not instructions, and I can't tell after playing a few
rounds.
3) I would recommend giving your contact info either in the app description or
on your webpage. If I can't find contact info then I am likely to complain
about bugs via an app review because that is the only method you gave me.
4) Please give some visual feedback for which kernel is about to pop. Some are
different colors, but there is no apparent reason as they are all the same
type.
5) You only see the opening menu the first time you play the game. There is no
way to get back to the menu after a round only a exit button which exited the
whole app. That is possibly a bug and it just crashed.
6) After one of the rounds I didn't get any menu and had to force quit the app
to play again.
7) If you exit the game (ie. with the home button) it does not stop the clock,
and then it shows a large time when you resume and finish the round.
8) The splash screen flashes up for a fraction of a second. The recommended
method is to have a splash screen that looks mostly like the menu screen, but
maybe without the buttons, so that the launch looks smoother.
~~~
jason_slack
Could you tell me which model IPad you have?
Thank you for the feedback! I'll go over each of these with a fine tooth comb.
I have a 1.1 version that addresses a few of these concerns already.
1\. Good idea on multitouch
2\. The round ends when you have 125+ kernels on the screen
3\. I'll update both today
4\. The time each kernel pops is generated at random. I think you are right,
feedback is important.
5\. Its not a bug. I did it on purpose :-) Well my logic behind it was you
either want to replay or quit. Getting back to the main menu right now felt
weird since the only options are Play and About.
6\. I'll look into this.
7\. You are right, I have this fixed in the next build.
8\. I'll look into this. I used other games I was playing as an example and
they all seemed to have a different launch image and main menu, etc.
~~~
chrisBob
Its a 4th generation iPad.
1) depending on how you wrote this, it could be easy to implement. The easiest
way would be to have each kernel be its own view, and then a touch makes it
disappear. Then each view handles one touch each, but the result is a better
experience.
5) This is the only app I have seen with an exit button. I did not even know
that there was code to do this since there is a nice hardware button that does
the same thing.
8) The splash screen makes more sense if there is a longer loading time. One
option would be to have another view that is the same image and then hold it
for 1-2 seconds. I have seen some apps do this.
~~~
jason_slack
1\. Each corn kernel has its own event listeners on it. I'll debug this. I
actually (as well as my wife and son) tended to play it with 1 finger. Thanks
for demonstrating another method of play.
8\. Good idea.
~~~
chrisBob
It is interesting to find out how other people play your games. I had one
where I knew to just touch and hold, but when other people swiped repeatedly
it showed a problem that I would have never seen on my own.
~~~
jason_slack
Just FYI There is a 1.1 update waiting for approval and I am submitting a
1.1.1 that utilizes full multi-touch. What a difference it makes in the game
play....
------
tjosten
As far as I remember, customers who used a Promotion Code to buy something
from the (Mac) App store are not able to leave a review for the app.
~~~
chrisBob
I used the first promo code, and I can confirm that you can't leave a review
if you use a code.
~~~
jason_slack
I had no idea this was the case. Thanks for trying to leave feedback though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scalable C – Writing Large-Scale Distributed C - ingve
https://hintjens.gitbooks.io/scalable-c/content/preface.html
======
jasode
_> The more C++ you know the worse you become at working with others. First,
because your particular dialects of C++ tend to isolate you._
So why is using something non-standard and non-universal like <czmq.h> not
perceived as a "dialect" of C?[1] Any non-trivial source codebase beyond _"
printf("hello world")"_ will be a "dialect" of the programmer(s). When looking
at the C source files of Linux kernel, Redis, and SQLite, etc, the syntax
patterns, helper macros, string manipulations, etc do not look the same.
Also the author's example of,
for (i = List.begin (); i != List.end (); ++i)
cout << *i << " ";
is not the same semantics as:
char *fruit = (char *) zlist_first (list);
while (fruit) {
printf ("%s ", fruit);
fruit = (char *) zlist_next (list);
}
The C++ loop is multithread safe. The C version is not. For the zlist_next()
to work, the "list" data structure needs to maintain mutable state in between
subsequent calls. (Think of how something like strtok() works by mutating the
string).
[1]possibly because Pieter Hintjens is the programmer & CEO behind ZeroMQ and
czmq.h. Therefore, it doesn't feel like a dialect to him?
~~~
PieterH
CZMQ is a library of around 30K lines of code. The Scalable C book is in many
ways a guide to using that library in real projects.
Of course every programmer develops their own dialects, just as every writer
has their own voice. C is however a small language and if you stay away from
weird macro magic, any well-written C code is mutually intelligible to other C
programmers. Whereas with C++, dialects can have so little overlap they are
not mutually intelligible.
FWIW neither of the fragments is safe if you are sharing state between
threads. In practice we do _not_ share objects between threads, and each
object holds its own state, and thus our C code is 100% thread safe and
reentrant.
~~~
jasode
_> The Scalable C book is in many ways a guide to using that library in real
projects._
I'm not criticizing the book or czmq. I'm sure it's a fine library. I just
found your characterizations of C++ to be strange.
For example: " _> , any well-written C code is mutually intelligible to other
C programmers._"
If you're going to qualify C code with " _well-written_ " to help make your
point then can't the same qualification be applied to C++? If so, it means you
believe that there is " _well-written C++ code_ " that is simultaneously
unintelligible to other programmers. In your opinion, what would be an example
of that? (E.g. If you can point to github of unintelligible but well-written
C++ source code.)
And your other statement: _> , because your particular dialects of C++ tend to
isolate you._
I don't know if CryEngine and Unreal game engines are well-written C++ but
they seem attract developers. There's also the scuba diving app[1] written in
C++ that also has Linus (who you already know hates C++) modifying the source
code. I contend there are bigger factors than C++ dialects causing isolation.
The C++ _ABI_ may be more isolating than the C _ABI_ because of C++ name
mangling incompatibilities. But I don't see how the C++ dialects (of well-
written code) are isolating.
[1][https://github.com/torvalds/subsurface](https://github.com/torvalds/subsurface)
~~~
PieterH
Since you ask, I'll admit it: I enjoy trolling C++ users because the language
has so often thought of itself as superior to C. Beating on the language
always gets lots of discussion going, which is fun. I've nothing against the
language, or any other language, as such. Good tools, in the hands of good
developers.
~~~
unscaled
I find it the other way around. It's usually C hackers who tend to describe
C++ as the devil incarnate. C++ developers tend to be more pragmatic - we'd
happily write in C if necessary, we just find it limited. And since C++ is
almost a superset of C, there's rarely any need to use it.
------
SFjulie1
Exactly the kind of code I make.
I use C for performance.... as an extension for python that have a GC and a
GIL. But more than never, I first use numpy (fortran) because it is dazzling
fast and has specialized tricks of digital signal processing availables
(ifft). And I do C after the profiler says to do so. When needed. If needed.
Most of the dynamic data structure (message sent with zmq) the config, the
parsing are better handled in python.
And since I do as much sloc / day in C and python ...
(1 python loc = 6 C loc)
I code 6 times faster.
And I don't have the headeaches of the dependency management
I am totally okay with C, but when doing distributed system more often than
never you also multi-threading. And C is not builtin for thread safety, it is
harder.
So I C some masochisms at work here.
And I am pretty sure I am not the only coder thinking this book is full of
pedantism and of advices not to be followed and it is empty.
How did such a poor news made it to the top?
~~~
vidarh
> more often than never you also multi-threading
This is a Windows-ism that's crept into Unix-likes over the years, and it's
not a good trend. Just don't do it. Especially since sharing direct access to
state makes it harder to decouple components to scale them further. This book
specifically argues to pass state via IPC for a reason.
> And I am pretty sure I am not the only coder thinking this book is full of
> pedantism and of advices not to be followed and it is empty.
Maybe, but iMatix has been a successful company for more than two decades, and
delivered impressive open source applications (e.g. Xitami web server) and
code-generation tools (Libero ec.) as well as cross-plaform utility libraries
for C (SFL etc.) already two decades ago, and have gone on to develop large-
scale C-based distribued systems and in the process developed things like AMQ
and 0MQ that's been incredibly successful, so I for one tend to at least pay
careful attention as they actually do have a track record.
~~~
SFjulie1
I know a lot of successful companies with products that are notoriously poorly
coded : \- "security software"; \- "game industry"; \- "car industry";
And if you read correctly I think the biggest issue is TIME is MONEY.
What are the advantages of using techniques that:
\- are expensive (productivity is constant in sloc whatever the language);
\- are notoriously a systemic risks given their domain of work and is hard to
audit;
\- that can be smoothly achieved by upgrading a faster to build architecture
in a scripting language ;
They may have bigger balls of steels than me doing it in C and be the best
programmers in the world. My question is business oriented: what is the
economic rationale of a full C solution from start?
~~~
ArkyBeagle
Beats me.
I know that if I had a large enough project and had to add people, I have a
dozen people in my Rolodex who speak 'C' at the expert level and that they
will perform. But depending on the problem domain, that might mean C++ or it
might mean Python or something else.
But given the level of hostility the language inspires, I have to wonder. To
wit "bigger balls of steel" and "best programmers in the world." Both
sentiments are quite foreign to the sorts of environments I've worked in, I
assure you.
~~~
SFjulie1
Sorry for you then. Living in such a boring world, and what a disdain-full
answer that makes my point.
I have add my share of conferences technical or about FOSS. And I met peoples
with a _lot of_ passion ... and code delivered. You probably use their
software daily.
I have been using more than 13 langages ranking from C to forth, matlab, vhdl,
spice, python, perl and php.
There are definitively cultures associated with languages and beliefs.
Perl community is thinking coding is like speaking/writing a foreign language;
Ruby about you IQ and technical skills are totally correlated with how nice
your apple laptop looks like and how expensive it is. They are our hipsters
(troll);
Python secretly hides a sect hating braces and everything that looks like C
and believe C coder can't make safe thread code, malloc, correct string
handling. And they hate braces.
for c++ coder referring to linus torvalds rant would be the spirit.
Java coder believe in the utltimate safe portable VM and the power of GoF. And
think people look the wrong way;
Haskell thinks of themselves as alchemists loving to use obscure terms coined
by an hallucinated metaphyscian priest that said ET must exists and that no
one will notice. They still laugh of their ultimate joke;
And C coders think that only them are the pure programmer, the only one that
can see the matrix between the purity of abstraction and the undetermination
of hardware/norms due to the imperfection of the humans. But, with their
discipline that is above the norm (no noob accepted) they can fight the God of
Entropy
FORTRAN coder think that computers are a pain and would just like to have
exact figures much more than nice looking interface and wonder when a correct
intuitive language will appear (<\--- My sect)
They appear maybe because for each language comes a practical field of use and
that one computer language cannot fill all the needs.
The need for correction and exactitude in science conflicts with the "ease of
use" of numbers.
The need for having cheap workforce conflicts with efficient cheap to maintain
code;
The need for preventing embezzlement (origin of SQL) conflicts with creative
accountability;
At one moment, at my opinion C is like a middle age corporation. Trying to
promote a one best way of CS that always boil down to C.
C community maybe "professional" as opposed to "enthusiasts". But I think it
does not always serve them.
And I do not think that recognizing Computer Science is a peaceful uniform
land, but an arena full of organic entities in conflicts with logical distinct
rationalities for the same resources.
In short, I have the write to mock other cultures.
~~~
ArkyBeagle
Nicely put. Very nicely put.
I don't know how you came up with "disdainful"; it's more sort of sad and
weary as I read it now. After all, I started with "Beats me" \- such a
decision would have to be very local. The first rule of 'C' is "don't use 'C'"
these days... the people I know _DON 'T_ swagger; that was my point.
The "professionals" vs. "enthusiasts" divide is extremely interesting in all
fields of endeavor. I'm definitely on the "professional" side.
I... don't think 'C' programmers are "above any norm"; they just sort of know
where the rocks are right under the surface of the water. It's more difficult
to explain than to do. If a bunch of people misrepresent themselves as ...
badass because they sling 'C', I can't help that. The appropriate mentality
for it is one of caution. I specifically called that out here...
It also matters less because coding a system is roughly 5-10% of the actual
cost of most deployed systems. Language matters much less than mechanism.
Meanwhile, the worst horrors are inflicted using systems like SAP.
Don't feel _too_ sorry for me; I use at least three language systems every
day, and have messed with ... dozens ( all resulting in deployed code at some
level) , including graphical CASE tools.
------
halayli
This looks like it's coming from someone who doesn't know C++ well and is just
coming up with reasons to fit their bias. The fact that he/she didn't mention
any disadvantage to the C code written beside verbosity makes it clear.
For one, it's easy to forget to call zlist_destroy. Who owns what in C can get
very complicated and you can run into dangling pointers. At least in the C++
version you can manage ownership easier in their case.
I am not defending one language over the other, I use them both and have
experienced the advantages and disadvantages of each.
What's being shown in this book is not how typically you create link-lists.
man queue(3) to see how it's generally done.
The C++ for-loop is not how you typically iterate over a list , again the
author decided to show a bad example to confirm their bias:
for (const auto& i : List)
cout << i << " ";
~~~
unscaled
More likely, someone who hasn't programmed C++ in the last 10 years.
Forgetting auto, and using the cumbersome 3-part for loop with iterator
boilerplate when you only need value shows age. Initializing the list is also
easier now, with initializer lists syntax, so you could just do:
list<string> lst = { "tomato", "grape", "apple", "orange"};
and cut another 4 lines, making the C++ line count half of C version. Not a
negligible difference, as the author claims.
------
nickpsecurity
Nice work in progress, Peter. Look forward to seeing more of it given your
prior work. I light how you preempt many C-related counterpoints with model-
driven development that generates C. Done excellently by iMatix and many
others. I'm especially interested in how you'll apply that to distributed C.
------
petke
I'm a cpp programmer who recently spent a week learning zeromq to replace
named pipes in a project. By the end I was disappointed by the cpp language
bindings as they only cover the low level library. Had I known from the start
I probably would have looked elsewhere. Its a shame cpp is ignored in much of
the open source community in favor of c. If nothing else Cpp after all is a
safer c.
~~~
dschiptsov
http://250bpm.com/blog:4
http://250bpm.com/blog:8
~~~
petke
Yes I read those before. I didn't find them convincing. Intrusive lists is an
anti pattern that you can also do in cpp if you want. Getting rid of
exceptions doesn't mean you get rid of errors. It just means you can more
easily ignore errors and continue running a corrupted program. But the big
picture though is that cpp I a safer language. A core library might be written
in c for whatever reason. But its good to provide a wrapper in a safer
language for users to use.
------
neikos
> _/ /Solution: make /usr/local writeable.//_
> _This is a brutal and effective solution, the best kind of solution_
I... uhm, what?
> _Solution: grab the latest CZMQ git master from github._
No, you do not want to run your software off of master, and the fact that
Master doesn't always build (because of errors) should be a fringe occurrence
with CI now being free/cheap and highly flexible.
~~~
michaelmior
I'm not sure about CZMQ, but I assume what you eat is that you don't want to
run code from a development branch that's rapidly changing. That's not
necessarily what master is in all projects. The master branch is sometimes
used as the latest stable release.
~~~
neikos
True, I forgot about that aspect. However in this case that doesn't apply
either as a stable branch should always compile.
------
lukaslalinsky
It's funny how this centered around ZeroMQ, which is written in C++.
~~~
geocar
This might be part of the reason:
* [http://250bpm.com/blog:4](http://250bpm.com/blog:4)
* [http://250bpm.com/blog:8](http://250bpm.com/blog:8)
~~~
jeremyjh
Which are weak arguments that point more to the author's dissatisfaction with
the architecture of libzmq than with problems in C++ language. This was
discussed previously here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3953434](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3953434)
------
vidarh
Github repository:
[https://github.com/hintjens/scalable-c](https://github.com/hintjens/scalable-c)
------
tom_mellior
I'd be interested in this if it were nearing completion. I think structuring
the book around problem-solution pairs is a nice technique. But it would be a
much better read if fewer irrelevant statements of opinion were strewn in.
Also, a lot of the bizarre statements of irrelevant "fact" should be checked,
for example:
> In the Old Times, creating a repository was days, weeks of work.
I can't begin to comprehend what this may mean. "svn create" (or whatever it
was called) was always instantaneous. Setting your project up for network
access took longer because you had to read docs and write a config file, but
the same is true for Git.
> Optimizing compilers (...) may remove assertions.
Bullshit. Using NDEBUG removes assertions, and yes, this indeed means that
assertions must be side-effect free. But an optimizing compiler? No. If that
actually happened for calls to impure functions (and no, it really doesn't
happen), it would be a major compiler bug.
> a nasty reminder of the old days when computers stored data and code on
> different kinds of rust, and languages enforced that
Code and data do live in different places in memory; nowadays more than ever,
for reasons of security. C's original "declarations before statements" rule
(the context here) was simply because it makes it much simpler to write a
primitive single-pass compiler.
> The standard C library often puts destination arguments first, which is a
> hangover from assembly language. MOV X, Y.
... or maybe it's an analogy with assignment statements, X = Y?
Note that three out of these four examples are just irrelevant opinions, so
they should be removed from the text even if they weren't factually false.
~~~
PieterH
Creating an svn repo was fast, yet you could not use it without a dedicated
server, DNS configuration, security configuration, firewall configuration,
etc. etc. If this was your only job, sure, a few hours' work. For the rest of
us, begging a sysadmin or spending days learning the details.
Whereas with git it's literally "git init ." or clicking on Github.com and
we're ready to roll.
I do appreciate the fact checking, and you're welcome to send me more
comments. Errors of fact don't survive the editorial process, one hopes.
Opinions, that's a different story.
~~~
tom_mellior
> with git it's literally "git init ."
That doesn't magically give you a shared, network-accessible repository with
all the correct access controls.
> or clicking on Github.com
SourceForge has existed since 1999, and after a click you have always been
ready to roll.
> and you're welcome to send me more comments
But I probably won't if your strategy is "spread misinformation first, then
make others work to point out mistakes, then defend an indefensible position,
then maybe change it". That's not how communities are built. That's what you
yourself criticize in the section on merging strategies...
------
bluejekyll
> then you know where C stops working, as a language.
He actually makes a really strong argument against using C right in the first
two paragraphs.
C is a dangerous language. Assembly is even more dangerous. There are
languages that compile to close the same speed and are systems oriented with 0
overhead.
I'm truly curious, if you're working on a new project would you pick C? Or
would you reach for something that's going to reduce the bugs that inevitably
come from writing even 10 lines of C?
~~~
chris11
What languages would you personally pick over C?
~~~
bluejekyll
Rust, no debate.
------
signa11
this seems to be still it is early nascent stage, with a complete toc missing,
most likely, in the works. caveat emptor.
~~~
PieterH
Yes, indeed. I've updated the book title on Gitbooks to make this clear. I'm
writing and publishing the book piece by piece, to get feedback early on in
the process.
------
magicmu
I know the basics of C, but stopped short of getting deep into threading and
concurrency since it seems like Go and Rust handle that in a more efficient
way (although there's no way I would use Rust in production yet). Are there
any advantages to using C/C++ for a new large-scale project?
~~~
steveklabnik
Just for curiosity's sake, what specifically would make you not use Rust in
production yet?
~~~
OopsCriticality
Not OP but from the perspective of the industrial side: no track record, no
formal standard, changes too fast, incomplete documentation, doesn't have an
extensive commercial and supporting ecosystem (e.g. Parasoft, Java Path
Finder), limited pool of experienced programmers with embedded and regulated
environment experience. Arguably, it falls under the heading of "too new".
I'd prefer to deal with known knowns rather than the known unknowns or _gasp_
unknown unknowns of something new. It's a very conservative position, but it's
borne out of the expense associated with mistakes and corrections of.
~~~
steveklabnik
Cool thanks! I'm trying to figure out what blockers are so we can prioritize
things; a lot of these are very reasonable, but not immediately actionable
things for me. Sounds good. :)
~~~
OopsCriticality
Sorry I can't offer anything more specific and actionable; I guess comparing
Rust to a fine wine, something that must be aged to reach full potential, will
have to do :)
~~~
steveklabnik
Hehe, no need to be sorry. It's one of the best answers, actually: it means
that there aren't any fires, it's just about playing the long game and letting
time pass. I prefer that. :)
------
_pmf_
> While C lends itself to building libraries, it has no consistent API model.
What language has? Wouldn't this require first class modules (which few
systems have; JS' hacked together solution is obviously not to be considered a
true solution)?
~~~
vog
OCaml has a typesystem in which modules are first-class citizens, just like
functions. They have a clear separation between interface (they call it
"signatures") and implementation. The compiler enforces that you can only
write against the interface, making modules with the same interface really
exchangeable. The modules are also parametrizable (they call such modules
"functors").
[http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-
ocaml/moduleexamples.ht...](http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-
ocaml/moduleexamples.html)
[https://realworldocaml.org/v1/en/html/functors.html](https://realworldocaml.org/v1/en/html/functors.html)
[https://realworldocaml.org/v1/en/html/first-class-
modules.ht...](https://realworldocaml.org/v1/en/html/first-class-modules.html)
~~~
tom_mellior
That's all true, but it doesn't mean that OCaml has a "consistent API model",
whatever that may mean. Unless "provide a fold and a map for all datatypes",
which I guess is consistent across most APIs, is a "model".
------
doodpants
So far I've only read the Preface and part of Chapter 1. What bugs me is this:
> * Write portable code that runs on all platforms.
Ok, good plan.
> * An operating system you are comfortable with. Linux will give you the best
> results. OS/X [sic] and Windows are usable if you have no choice.
So... results vary by platform? And then after the "hello world" example:
> And you should see that familiar Hello, World printed on your console. If
> you are using OS/X [sic] or Windows, it won't be this easy. I'll repeat my
> advice to install Linux.
Funny, this example works just fine for me on OS X. You do realize OS X is a
Unix-like system, right?
> Having said that, remember this rule:
> Linux is the native environment for C development.
Gee, I wonder how people like Dennis Ritchie ever managed to write C code
before Linux came along?
------
jheriko
those three points in the bullet list near the start all seem to miss the mark
for me.
------
fizixer
Love it.
I dream of the day when all current system-level fads bite the dust, replaced
by new fads, while C is still running as the system layer. (hint: just like it
is happening today with the 90s fad called C++, replaced by fads like Go,
Rust, D).
~~~
dunerocks
lol? C++ is hardly a "fad"!
~~~
kev009
Well, IMHO it was, and C was too (google books magazines from 80s and 90s).
The people left using both languages are usually doing so deliberately rather
than because it is trendy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why computer programmers need to stop calling themselves engineers already - gukov
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-computer-programmers-need-to-stop-calling-themselves-engineers-already-2015-11
======
DrScump
Original article posted days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10513371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10513371)
------
mohaine
I've got to call bullshit on this one. Sure SOME engineers need
certifications, but most do not. Pretty much just the ones that build
buildings/bridges here in the US. I've got 2 engineering degrees(CE/EE) and
when I got out college, I took the first half of the PE exam (need to take the
second part after 5 years in the field to be a PE) but the only reason I took
it is because it is almost impossible to pass after you leave college since it
covers the entire field, not just your specialty. It was a "Better off safe"
sorta thing. All my professors basically said an EE/CE will never need a PE
but you never know...
That said the term Engineer is definitely watered down, but this has been the
case at least as long as "Custodial Engineer" has been a term.
------
sotojuan
I would welcome an ABET accreditation for software engineering with open
hands. It would get rid of the whole debate on what Computer Science degrees
should teach.
------
wmat
I'm pretty sure all Engineers in Canada get to wear the iron ring, including
Software Engineers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Robert Scoble: I didn’t sexually harass women as I lacked power over them - briandear
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/robert-scoble-i-didnt-sexually-harass-women-as-i-lacked-power-over-them/?comments=1
======
ColinWright
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Robert%20Scoble&sort=byDate&da...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Robert%20Scoble&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Programmers Are Hipster Librarians - throwaway344
http://omniref.com/blog/blog/2014/09/19/programmers-are-hipster-librarians/
======
dalke
For comments, see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8341158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8341158)
from 6 hours ago.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What happened to flutter? - sourabh86
There is this awesome app at flutterapp.com, I have been using this since some time now, but there have been no updates to it since they were acquired by Google. I thought now there might be frequent releases and many more supported gestures, but nope nothing! Anyone knows what happened?
======
dotcoma
This? ;-)
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?f&v=BeLZCy-
_m3s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?f&v=BeLZCy-_m3s)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ireland Lacrosse sacrifice place in 'Medicine Game' tournament for greater good - bryanrasmussen
https://www.rte.ie/sport/other-sport/2020/0905/1163463-iroquois-nationals-lacrosse-ireland-world-games/
======
chrisbennet
Reminds me of Jack Sock vs. Lleyton Hewitt act of sportsmanship:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvhLq09FaZg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvhLq09FaZg)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Kaminsky, Mitnick pwned on Black Hat eve - madair
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/29/kaminsky_hacked/
======
jacquesm
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=730664>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tom Scott: How the First Ever Telecoms Scam Worked [video] - lifthrasiir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPeVsniB7b0
======
lifthrasiir
I'm not a fan of video-first contents, but I'm linking to Tom Scott because he
commissioned various source materials and their translations just for this
video as it turned out that all existing English sources varied in details. I
love this amount of dedication.
(If you simply don't like videos, Wikipedia gives a reasonable article:
[https://www.inc.com/magazine/19990915/13554.html](https://www.inc.com/magazine/19990915/13554.html))
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Self-Driving Cars May One Day Face Decision of Who to Save or Kill - jaequery
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/driving-cars-day-face-decision-save-kill/story?id=40072003
======
jaequery
"Would you get into an automated self-driving vehicle, knowing that in the
event of an accident, it might sacrifice your life if it meant saving the
lives of 10 other people?"
Interesting dilemma.
------
yehosef
Or with less sugar coating - "Robots will decide who to kill"
------
boznz
I wouldn't want to write the if..then statement for that decision..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Have a Happy Christmas - vinnyglennon
======
harianus
You too
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
First app for audio transcription base on your mobile and speech recognition - comprobot
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/agile-dictation-audio-file/id979463309?mt=8
======
comprobot
It is a first app to let people convert the wav, mp3 which more than 3 minutes
to text!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
RE42927: System and method for obtaining and using location specific information - caf
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=RE42,927.PN.&OS=PN/RE42,927&RS=PN/RE42,927
======
caf
Reading through the claims, the requirements for a "beacon" suggest that this
_doesn't_ read on geolocation by IP address. I'm not sure about geolocation by
triangulation from towers that don't specifically transmit information
intended to identify a location.
(As always, read the claims, not the abstract).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Commercial Satellite Imagery Business Model Is Broken - jofer
https://medium.com/@joemorrison/the-commercial-satellite-imagery-business-model-is-broken-6f0e437ec29d
======
aurizon
Cube sats are about to shake this business up. In the past the cost of entry
was very high = few entrants, that went to fewer by predatory pricing against
any new entrants. The old birds are complex beasts that operate across many
spectral bands and are task commanded. The Cubes will be single band small
units with large lenses and larger sensors. They will accumulate and send data
to a ground based cloud and as time goes by will cover the earth in all bands
and in all seasons - all of which will be saleable at a price that will make
the old commercial monopolists to crap their pants. I am sure they will lobby
to limit these cubes, but many are immune to pressure. They might well agree
to no military base imagery. A trip to the planetlabs web site does show that
a huge acquisitive beurocracy lurks therein as there is zero mention of any
sort of fee structure = high fees IMHO, it is not the solution for all mankind
that cube sats might bring. Their videos seem to be staffed by summer
students??
~~~
campchase
Planet has hundreds of cube sats in orbit already. Low and medium resolution
data is not suitable for most commercial use cases. The only way to get high
res data is from big lenses = big satellites = big costs. I agree that cubes
sats are exciting especially for non-optical use cases like blanketing the
earth with internet or GPS-RO or Synthetic Aperture Radar. But they are not a
game-changer for visible-spectrum earth observation data in my opinion.
~~~
aurizon
Yes, but a crack in the monopoly edifice has appeared. It is true - the large
lenses rule - for now. I anticipate larger sensors, coupled with Cassegrain
reflectors(which are far lighter than glass and fold to shrink the path and
can fold even more for launch - unfolding on cue) will soon be flying and will
begin the cube sat's climb towards parity with the big boys as the weight
saving will enable their implementation in cube sats. This will make the big
boys fight back via access and price relaxations. I hope the cube sats people
stay independant and do not make common cause with the big boys? Better and
lower power SARs and control electronics are emerging to run within the
smaller power budget of the cubes.
~~~
campchase
Interesting, I’m unfamiliar with Cassegrain reflectors.
~~~
aurizon
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassegrain_reflector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassegrain_reflector)
------
randyzwitch
The selling model sounds strangely like the car buying model. Pre-COVID, even
the suggestion that the total price of a car be listed on the car was viewed
as idealistic nonsense. Only until a pandemic broke out, did car dealers admit
"you're right, we could always sell you a car online"
~~~
campchase
I sympathize. I sell stuff without a price tag all the time--it's the trap of
having large, high-paying customers and trying to lean down to serve small
customers. They're incompatible sales motions, and the effort to set up an
entirely independent, second distribution model is very expensive and time
consuming so it doesn't seem worth investing in.
------
PaulHoule
So many problems with this post.
It's on Medium (not sure if Medium was broken but I wish it was -- if you are
posting on Medium everybody knows you are a dog.)
Scatological language: there are better words than "shitty" to describe your
experience.
Missing the point: to many users the value of satellite imagery is that they
have it and that 'competitors' do not. In the case of the US Govt they don't
want unfriendly military organizations to have it, if it is somebody like the
Bridgewater hedge fund they might want to know the occupancy of the parking
lot at every Wal-Mart in America, but it's only valuable to them if nobody
else knows it.
~~~
campchase
Thanks for your feedback, Paul! To your points:
1\. Medium is crappy, agreed. I would prefer to use Ghost and might do that in
the future. They say on the internet, no one knows you're a dog, but I guess
you are the exception to the rule.
2\. Use of scatological language is kind of my specialty. I mean, shit!
3\. You say I'm missing the point and then go on to make two points that don't
really address the argument I made. Maybe you are the the one that missed the
point. But what do I know, I'm just a dog that likes shit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Innovative technology for better decision-making - hpereira
http://www.d-sight.com
======
deniseadeva
Interesting indeed! Useful insights.
------
juanp
Very interesting technology :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
C64 Keyboard Prototype - erickhill
http://www.breadbox64.com/blog/c64-keyboard-prototype/
======
vardump
Keyboard is pretty amazing for C64 preservation efforts. Perhaps lessons
learned could be applied to other same era systems.
There's one part in C64 that's becoming more and more rare — the amazing SID
sound chip.
I wonder whether it'd be possible to have production runs of truly new 6581
and/or 8580 SID chips. Does someone still have the old masks?
Other chips you could emulate with an FPGA. But SID is partially analog, so
it's special. Some say no two SIDs sound the same.
Btw, recent C64 music demo playing off 1 MB Ocean style (= ROM) cartridge (not
REU):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qxxnJVU4jQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qxxnJVU4jQ)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYAf_awh5XA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYAf_awh5XA)
Yes, it's real. Not particularly good example of SID though, but still
impressive for 1982/83 technology.
But this one does show off SID; C64 "Cubase", realtime DSP (timestretch,
low/high pass filter, distortion, etc.) pretty amazing:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4GWheE4Gkw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4GWheE4Gkw)
~~~
monocasa
> Does someone still have the old masks?
You can probably reverse the masks with a microscope with a little elbow
grease. Not trivial by any means, but doable by someone in a garage as a
hobby.
The real question, does a fab that can work with that process still exist?
~~~
jdswain
There’s an ongoing effort to understand the SID here
[http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4150](http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4150)
Lots of interesting analog chip level stuff, it’s all new to me as I’ve only
dealt with things at the digital level, but very interesting to see how the
fabrication technology works in an analog way..
------
ChickeNES
Those acrylic backing plates are going to crack at some point. The author
should look into aluminum composite panel (Dibond is one brand name). It's a
sheet of HDPE plastic sandwiched between two thin layers of aluminum, and is
much stiffer and stronger than acrylic of the same thickness.
------
beamatronic
As a kid all I ever wanted from any computer was this:
Set pixel (x,y) to color (r,g,b)
I wish today’s kids had this with as little overhead as possible
~~~
egeozcan
var canvas = document.getElementById('canvas');
var ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');
ctx.fillStyle = `rgb(${r}, ${g}, ${b})`;
ctx.fillRect(x, y, 1, 1);
I say it's pretty close.
~~~
codeflo
It's pretty amazing to me that in 2018, the way we pass colors to a modern
graphics API is to build a string with comma separated list of the individual
components _encoded in decimal_.
And then people wonder why computers feel slower than they did 15 years ago.
~~~
egeozcan
Legacy APIs for DOM are hard to get rid of, which the Canvas API is based on.
There is some progress though:
[https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/03/cssom](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/03/cssom)
------
pault
Those keycaps are gorgeous. If someone could manage to get those manufactured
I guarantee they would fetch upwards of $150/set on a site like massdrop.
~~~
xenomachina
I wonder how much it would cost to get custom keycaps made today with double-
shot top and front legends.
~~~
pault
Ask signature plastics!
[http://www.solutionsinplastic.com/](http://www.solutionsinplastic.com/)
~~~
xenomachina
It just occurred to me that using the Commodore logo probably adds to the
cost, as you'd have to license it from the company that owns the trademark.
(The C64 Mini avoids using the logo, presumably for this reason.)
~~~
pault
There's a set called SA Retro[1] that used the C64 logo; no idea if it was
cleared or not.
[1]: [https://www.geekzone.fr/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Minila-
Ai...](https://www.geekzone.fr/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Minila-Air-SA-
Retro-1.jpg)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: My Android App - Quotes - europa
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quotes.app
======
zethus
You should consider grabbing the 4.0 UI Kit
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A programmable controller for connected devices (YC S13) - twald
https://medium.com/@senic/developing-for-the-nuimo-controller-7292becfacff
======
gyuriy
Wonderful!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Samsung Announces TecTiles, Brings Programmable NFC Tags to the Masses - kul
http://www.droid-life.com/2012/06/12/samsung-announces-tectiles-brings-programmable-nfc-tags-to-the-masses/
======
sturmeh
... or you could get them here: <http://www.tagstand.com/> for a third of the
price and use an app that ties in with the existing profile infrastructure
like tasker.
~~~
kul
thanks. kul from Tagstand here. Submitted this to see what HN had to say.
We've been working on NFC Task Launcher
([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jwsoft.nfc...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jwsoft.nfcactionlauncher))
for a while now, which is similar to this Samsung app.
~~~
ben1040
This tool is great. I have an NFC sticker on my nightstand lamp now so when I
trigger it, my ringer/notification volume goes to zero, alarm volume goes way
up, and I set an alarm to wake up the following morning.
I used to be really sloppy at muting the phone at night and this cures that.
My wife is a light sleeper and I can now make sure I am not waking her up at
stupid o'clock in the morning when I get an email overnight.
I bought a bunch more tags from Tagstand and I am looking forward to finding
more stuff to do with them.
------
51Cards
Simple use... two of these by the door would make my life easier.
Going out: turn off WiFi, turn on GPS, Bluetooth, turn up the ringer volume
and screen brightness, etc.
Coming in: do the reverse.
Of course I can make it even easier with On{X} and trigger the same on
detection of my home WiFi network (other than turning off WiFi of course)
~~~
gojomo
When you lose the home Wifi signal, do the 'going out' actions (including turn
off Wifi). When GPS tells you you're back home, do the 'coming in' actions
(including Wifi back on). Seems even smoother than NFC touchpoints.
~~~
__alexs
That requires running GPS a lot. Better to just look for certain sets of cell
towers. Llama does this on Android already.
~~~
coob
iOS does this with Location reminders. Not editing system settings, but you
can geofence like this.
------
zheng
Its things like this that will hopefully continue the push of automation in
general society. We as hackers have long seen the power in automation, but the
general public sees a computer as something that is powerful, but adds
complexity to their life. Apple does a great job at fighting this image that
technology == complexity, and that's part of why they are successful, IMHO. I
just can't wait until the real wave of automation hits the general market with
force.
------
roel_v
Are these things rfid under another name? If so, what rfid tech do they use? I
have an rfid tag implanted in my hand that I'd love to find a use for in this
context :)
~~~
a-stjohn
As I understand it, NFC is similar to RFID, but RFID provides one-way
communication, while NFC provides two-way communication. Someone please
correct me if I'm wrong.
------
vannevar
How is this different from handing your unlocked phone to a stranger and
telling them to have at it?
------
miahi
The price ($3 each) is huge. Passive RFID tags usually cost less than $0.15.
------
stevejabs
Doesn't ICS out-of-the-box support the majority of what this app is trying to
accomplish?
~~~
omarseyal
Yeah, you could say that. Lots of the features are simply writing uris that
trigger intents. That said, they're selling passive tags for $3 each. The user
who buys that is likely not going to know how that placing a uri on a tag is
easy and free...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PSA: InSight Mars probe is landing in about 8 hours - huhtenberg
https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/
======
huhtenberg
InSight mission homepage -
[https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/](https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/)
Wikipedia page -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InSight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InSight)
Mission Control live stream -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGD_YF64Nwk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGD_YF64Nwk)
(in ~7 hours from now)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hikikomori - networked
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori
======
jawerty
Anyone interested in this phenomenon should check out the anime "Welcome to
the NHK."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Best find-a-cofounder sites? - fjabre
Any consensus on the best sites to find technical cofounders?<p>I've looked around a bit and most of these sites seem very young and/or don't have a lot of a traffic..<p>Any suggestions?
======
nickfromseattle
HN Cofounder Wishlist -
[https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgCvDTyBjHdOdDFfMEN...](https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgCvDTyBjHdOdDFfMENqeWVGNVFxTXdnaDZBRkd0cUE&hl=en#gid=9)
reddit.com/r/cityname
------
smiler
Post a comment on this post with a rough idea (and preferred technology) and
contact info. If anyone is interested they'll e-mail you.
------
geekytenny
github.com ....and you get to see what they have been up to!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Backdoor SOPA -- CISPA - K_O_G_I
http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/cispa/?akid=1306.1076593.HixRPH&rd=1&t=2
======
kylemaxwell
Totally false. There are no blocking provisions __whatsoever __in CISPA, no
one has any right to the information from ISPs or any other provider or
organization, and it does not supercede other provisions. ("The phrase
"notwithstanding..." is boilerplate language that is not interpreted by the
courts the way a layman might.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Codota AI Pair Programmer - whadar
https://www.codota.com/
======
addcn
What are people's impression of these kinds of tools?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The creator of CoffeeScript actually merged my pull request to fix coffee steam - elwell
https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/pull/3193
======
elwell
day was made.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The NSA named one of its top-secret programs Skynet - milesf
https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/9/8577515/nsa-skynet-program-is-real
======
tux
"Google: Rise of the Machines" @
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1QB9DW_0kM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1QB9DW_0kM)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NAT Tunneling Without a Third-Party - devbug
http://samy.pl/pwnat/
======
Gys
Earlier (6 years ago!) discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1224905](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1224905)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NSA mathematician shares from-the-trenches view of agency's activities. - ohjeez
http://www.zdnet.com/nsa-cryptanalyst-we-too-are-americans-7000020689/?utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer
======
bediger4000
In case "devx's" succint comment isn't clear...
That NSA mathematician writes: _Do I, as an American, have any concerns about
whether the NSA is illegally or surreptitiously targeting or tracking the
communications of other Americans?_
How would you know? Based on everything that your organization has
declassified and released, the NSA keeps its knowledge compartmentalized.
Maybe what you say is true for your compartment, but not for any other. You're
also not supposed to even ask about other mathematician's compartments, right?
Again, how would you know?
Also, Mr Mathematician, you've got a legal obligation, complete with
penalties, to not give out any information. You're legally obligated to lie,
according to Clapper. Why should we believe you?
------
devx
Bullshit. Everything he said.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Donnfelker/android-bootstrap · GitHub - Kittynana
https://github.com/donnfelker/android-bootstrap
======
Kittynana
This basically wraps a bunch of useful libraries for android.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN/PG: Leaderboard acting strange? - johns
This morning I was about 100 short of the leaderboard and made two submissions that got me about 60 points. A minute ago I was 95th and the 100th spot was at 3900 but now I'm 98th with the last spot at 4072. Any idea what's up with the fluctuating numbers?
======
pg
I just restarted the server. Users are lazily loaded, so the leaderboard will
look odd for a brief period after a restart.
~~~
ivankirigin
The 'submitted' link on the profile basically doesn't work
<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=pg>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=ivankirigin>
I suppose it is related to the lazy loading?
~~~
pg
Yes, items are lazily loaded too. Responses to http requests get killed after
30 sec, so if the server has to load too much stuff to satisfy a request, it
will die first.
It's always been this way. After the server has been running for a bit it
stops being a problem.
~~~
ivankirigin
Perhaps you should hide features that are likely going to be unavailable if
the server recently restarted.
No need to send users down a rabbit hole, and certainly no need to waste the
cycles on your machine.
~~~
icey
Or limit it to far fewer results. I click the submissions link pretty
frequently from my own profile as an easy way to check up on conversations on
threads I've started. Now I feel kind of bad for doing it that way.
------
lincolnq
I'd be interested to see what fraction of the leaderboard users' karma comes
from comments vs. stories.
------
bdfh42
And you care bacause?
~~~
johns
Pure curiosity of how it works. That's all. I don't really care either way
where I rank.
~~~
bdfh42
I believe you...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Worst practices in ad design on iOS - xonder
http://www.pocketnext.com/stories/the-hard-sell/?utm_campaign=jason&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter
======
elicymet
I agree with near everything in the article, but think even interstitial ads
prove disruptive in a way that I can't get behind. I don't begrudge a game
provider for the use of ads, but think that unobtrusive banner space to be the
most acceptable. Oddly I feel like it goes a long way when ad providers use
language like "thank our sponsors" and have some self-awareness; it's easy to
tell when they've been suckered in by an ad provider to use all their most
annoying API's. Integration of ads that reward you for either clicking or
looking at them are also an interesting idea.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Create a minimal Wiki in Python+Django in 15 minutes (screencast) - danielha
http://www.silverstripesoftware.com/blog/archives/27
======
danielha
This supplements lucks' submission on creating a Wiki with Python+TurboGears
(http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=1981)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Quickly enable popups that support any HTML - madprops
https://madprops.github.io/Msg/
======
davchana
Nice one. Starred :)
Also opened two issues..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
DadHacker » Blog Archive » Dead Newt - marcus
http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1120
======
plaes
Ha.. another trick to try out...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Building a visual language for the 99% - apz
http://occupydesign.org/
======
rick888
Otherwise known as propaganda.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microsoft Azure IoT Hub - dstaheli
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/iot-hub/
======
nielsbot
I totally read this as "Azure Hot Tub"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Taking PHP Seriously - throwaway-hn123
https://slack.engineering/taking-php-seriously-cf7a60065329#.28p8bbfkj
======
samuellb
Duplicate of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12702845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12702845)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Collection Pipeline - chillax
http://martinfowler.com/articles/collection-pipeline/
======
rikkus
Half my code looks like this, these days:
return products
.Where(p => p.Type == ProductType.Bean)
.OrderBy(p => p.Group)
.ThenBy(p => p.Name)
.Select(p => p.Name)
;
Sometimes I'll write it like this:
return from p in Products
where p.ProductType == ProductType.Bean
orderby ... etc.
Everything's a query, or a sh pipeline, or...
One of the nice things about this idiom is that it's supported all over the
place, so you can write similar code in many different languages, for many
different platforms.
~~~
balakk
Here's where F# shines - you could write your query like:
products |> Seq.filter(fun a -> a.Type = ProductType.Bean) |> Seq.sortBy(fun a
-> a.Group, a.Name) |> Seq.map(fun a -> a.Name)
It doesn't save a lot of lines here, but the big difference is this: suddenly
you aren't constrained by the syntax of the single Linq query. So you want an
additional filter,join,merge happening in between? No problem!
~~~
virtualwhys
Pretty noisy.
Instead of:
products |> Seq.filter(fun a -> a.foo =...)
In another language you can do:
products.filter(_.foo =...)
Those `|> Seq...(fun a ->` all over the place look Java-ish ;-)
~~~
CmonDev
They had to deal with the OCAML baggage instead of starting from scratch.
------
CoffeeDregs
I've generally appreciated Fowler's work on cataloging software patterns (and
based my MBA thesis on doing something similar for organizational design), but
I find this post a bit puzzling. Having spent a bunch of time with Haskell 6-7
years ago, the treatment of functions such as these was much more rigorous and
generalized (e.g.
[http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/The_Functor_class](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/The_Functor_class)).
However the items this time are generic collection types
themselves - where an OO collection pipeline would use objects,
a functional language would use a hashmap.
Again, I'm a bit confused (though I might have missed some context).
Functional languages tend to be much more generic so that a "collection
pipeline" or map can operate over a wide range of types.
I'm reasonably certain that I'm missing some critical point, but I'm not sure
about what?
~~~
sparkie
> cataloging software patterns
Otherwise known as inventing new terms for old concepts. Please stop doing
this Mr Fowler! The programmer's glossary is already full of redundancy. Just
stick to the language everyone else is using (ie, the language that was used
by whoever wrote the original research papers in the given topics)
~~~
Dewie
But, we need to rename things like Functor to Mappable and Monad to Bindable
because everything has to be a vaguely relatable (even if possibly misleading)
adjective, damnit.
------
jgrodziski
I would have liked to have seen Martin Fowler mentioned the parallelism and
state implication of the unix pipeline, somewhat limited (see
[http://www.quora.com/Parallel-Computing/Do-pipelined-unix-
co...](http://www.quora.com/Parallel-Computing/Do-pipelined-unix-commands-run-
faster-on-multicore)) but this is for me a very profond way of looking at this
kind of pattern: whether you finish completely your processing on the data
structure or you emit the result downstream as soon as you have finished
processing one element.
Stream is for me the fundamental nature of the unix pipeline, and this is
rarely met in programming language (channels to the rescue like in Clojure and
Go). The Java Streams seems to work this way with the distinction between
stateless and stateful processing element
([http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/stream/pa...](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/stream/package-
summary.html)).
------
platz
Not really a mention of whether these 'chained' methods should be returning a
new collection, mutating an existing collection, or returning something
completely different.
Would expect to at least see some kind of discussion on this here - otherwise
_every_ method call is a "pipeline"
~~~
munificent
From the article:
> ...returns a collection of only those articles for which the lambda resolves
> as true.
> Like select it returns a new collection so I can continue the pipeline...
> ...return a collection of records.
> Each operation takes a collection as an input and emits another collection
> (expect the last operation, which may be a terminal that emits a single
> value).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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65 Accomplished Writers and Marketers Reveal Their Secrets to Productivity - stickhandle
http://www.focusalot.com/blog/accomplished-writers/
======
robertaoliu
thanks for posting our article =D - rob from focusalot
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How can a robot express emotion without a face? - hhm
http://www.robotworldnews.com/100390.php
======
naish
R2-D2
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to create a natural baseline in CSS - joecritch
http://joecritchley.svbtle.com/bring-back-the-baseline
======
dancecodes
very cool,
thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
My First Facebook App - I Want One - djworth
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2389878632
This app provides you and your friends the ability to vote on different Amazon.com products. You can add products via an Amazon Search or an Amazon Wish List.<p>Please feel free to check out the app and provide feedback.<p>Thanks!
======
djworth
I entered the text below into the text field on the submission form but I
guess that only works for posts where the link is blank.
This app provides you and your friends the ability to vote on different
Amazon.com products. You can add products via an Amazon Search or an Amazon
Wish List.
Please feel free to check out the app and provide feedback.
Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Programmer's Calculator - gregorymichael
https://www.embeddedrelated.com/showarticle/1061.php
======
kazinator
POSIX syntax, entered into BusyBox shell (not even Bash or anything), running
__on__ an ARM embedded system:
# echo $(( (0x0110 << 14) & 0xDEADBEEF ))
262144
# printf "%x\n" 262144
40000
Now let's make a calculator REPL out of these:
# while read expression ; do eval "result=\$(( $expression ))"; printf "dec = %d, hex = %x\n" $result $result ; done
2 + 2
dec = 4, hex = 4
a=3
dec = 3, hex = 3
b=4
dec = 4, hex = 4
a + b
dec = 7, hex = 7
(a + b) << 3
dec = 56, hex = 38
[Ctrl-D][Enter]
#
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Masscan: Scan the entire Internet in under 5 minutes - pmoriarty
https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan
======
yzzxy
There's a great talk from Defcon 22 on using Massscan for security research:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOWexFaRylM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOWexFaRylM)
------
ianremsen
Note: your ISP and third-parties probably won't like this very much.
------
NelsonMinar
This is a hell of a piece of engineering. Really fun to read the README, a
custom TCP/IP stack is genius.
~~~
Zaheer
Indeed. I was quite impressed by his solution for randomly iterating through
the IP space. I've had use cases before for randomly iterating through a space
while ensuring to hit every space and they've never been quite as efficient in
space/time complexity as his.
[[https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan#randomization](https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan#randomization)]
~~~
chii
can you elaborate on what/how one would randomly iterate a space? i imagine
it's like trying to draw a space filling curve on the place (for spaces with 2
components, such as a coordinate)
~~~
Zaheer
My terminology was off, I more-so meant range rather than space.
------
sirwolfgang
Title should be updated to include that this system scans only via IPv4. Doing
such a thing with IPv6 would be a little more surprising. (7.9228163e+28 times
more difficult)
~~~
dsl
There is a false assumption that IPv6 will make mass scanning like this
impossible. In reality you just need to be more clever about it. (Remember way
back when people used "needle in a haystack" security for dial-up systems,
because nobody would ever have the resources to call every phone number in an
area code?)
Link-local multicast (the replacement for ARP) allows tools like alive6 to
very easily enumerate all live v6 addresses on a network. So once a spear
phishing attack is sucessful, you can still scan the entire internal network.
Google hacks like "site:ipv6.*" and passive DNS monitoring allow you to easily
separate used vs allocated/announced subnets on remote networks. IPv6 breaks
in strange ways when you firewall ICMPv6, so ping scanning a subnet has become
much easier.
There was also a great talk (i'll try to dig it up) that talked about
predictable patterns in DHCPv6 implementations, so you can cut down v6 to a
near v4 search space.
The best part of all is that very few security products on the market really
support IPv6 correctly, so I suspect we will see more advanced attacks being
possible because of IPv6 in the coming years than things being stopped.
~~~
pixl97
>There is a false assumption that IPv6 will make mass scanning like this
impossible.
Well, this is an IPv4 brute force search, so technically a IPv6 brute force
search is still impossible.
You are correct though, no one is going scan something that is 99% empty by
brute force.
------
twolfson
"It's the program that scanned the Internet in less than twelve parsecs."
~~~
colinbartlett
From the README:
"Note that it'll only melt your own network. It randomizes the target IP
addresses so that it shouldn't overwhelm any distant network."
------
jwcrux
Here's [1] an example of using Masscan to scan the IPv4 space for shellshock.
[1] [http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/09/bash-shellshock-scan-of-
in...](http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/09/bash-shellshock-scan-of-
internet.html)
------
gear54rus
I might have missed it while reading the README, but can someone ELI5 why do
we need to randomize our scans?
Can't we just go scan one-after-another IP address? Is this because such scan
can easily be detected by ISP?
~~~
anti-thought
Think of the internet like a tree, where the root is you and all other IPs are
the leaves at the end. IPs close together tend to share more path of the tree
as you attempt to reach them from the root. If you are sending an overwhelming
amount of packets in one direction for too long, you have a higher chance of
harming nodes (i.e. routers) along that path. Randomizing your end goal on the
tree, by definition, equally spreads the packet spray accross the tree.
This is how they can claim: "... it'll only melt your own network. It
randomizes the target IP addresses so that it shouldn't overwhelm any distant
network."
Note "shouldn't", this was probably added due, in part, through use-case. If I
were not scanning the whole Internet, and instead just scan a small section.
Masscan has less of a space to randomize through, which means the tree is
smaller and the shared paths are more frequent.
------
pvnick
How likely is this to be used for anti-piracy efforts? I don't hear much about
en masse copyright enforcement these days, but it seems like the ability to
quickly scan large IP ranges would allow one to periodically (every couple
minutes or so) obtain a list of every single seeded file in the US, at least
for the people not using a VPN.
~~~
Scaevolus
That's not how torrents work. You can't connect to a port on a seeder and get
a list of torrents it's seeding. Even for trackers, you have to request a
specific URL to get a (partial) list of available seeders.
~~~
sanxiyn
On the other hand, it is easy to crawl DHT. "Crawling BitTorrent DHTs for Fun
and Profit" (2010) says "We find that we can establish a search engine with
over one million torrents in under two hours using a single desktop PC".
------
pvaldes
Sorry if I seem naive but, is this even legal? ...
~~~
gcommer
I am not a lawyer, but as long as your local laws do not prohibit you from
pinging a given IPv4 address, then I can't imagine any issues. Being
technically legal doens't mean you won't step on some toes though. Everyone
who runs full internet scans has reported getting lots of exclusion requests,
(baseless) legal threats, and even retaliatory DDoS attacks coming back at
their source IPs.
Massscan ships with an exclude list which you would do well to utilize:
[https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan/blob/master/dat...](https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan/blob/master/data/exclude.conf)
If you try to run an internet wide massscan without this list, it will stop
you and give you a warning about how to use the list. You then either manually
override the warning, or use the list.
~~~
ahelwer
Some interesting emails are transcribed in the comments of that exclusion
list. I liked the one from General Dynamics.
------
curiously
what are ip port scanners commonly used for?
------
sigmonsays
great.. now everyone can easily find out if my ssh port is open...
~~~
hobs
Everyone already does, and is trying to login right now. Check your logs.
------
cmdrfred
Intresting...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
US pushing local cops to stay mum on surveillance - ser_ocelot
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CENSORING_SURVEILLANCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-06-12-14-47-09
======
bediger4000
Does anybody else get the feeling that there's still quite a bit left of the
warrantless, dragnet surveillance rabbit hole?
I keep wondering when the next really big thing will drop - like evidence of
industrial espionage by the NSA on behalf of some specific company, or a list
of targeted organizations that includes things like the Red Cross, or IEEE.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pioneer spacecrafts' anomalous acceleration solved - cpeterso
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/bruce-betts/3459.html
======
ColinWright
Submitted a few days ago with a small amount of discussion and context:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3865881>
The story has been discussed many times:
[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=title%3Apio...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=title%3Apioneer+anomaly&sortby=create_ts+desc&start=0)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The five “Next Big Things” in open source - SD Times: Software Development News - hendler
http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=35058&print=true
======
zhiel
I'm so appalled by the design of this site that I'm not going to read this,
although the topic is interesting...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Europe heatwave: record high of 45C (113F) expected in France - ForHackernews
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/25/highs-of-45c-expected-in-france-as-heatwave-scorches-europe
======
pier25
This is the video that opened my eyes on climate change 7 years ago:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pznsPkJy2x8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pznsPkJy2x8)
It's amazing to think that humanity is still mostly clueless about what is
going to happen.
------
dv_dt
Ironic given the EU has just missed passing a zero carbon 2050 pledge.
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/20/eu-
leade...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/20/eu-leaders-to-
spar-over-zero-carbon-pledge-for-2050)
~~~
chewz
Well in Central Europe climate is getting pleasantly mediterranian. People
spend hollidays in the country instead of going to Spain. Agriculture is
booming.
I do not miss cold rainy summers of my youth.
~~~
ForHackernews
Will you miss not having your country swamped with hundreds of thousands of
climate refugees? Because they're coming.
------
billconan
this terrifies me
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Discussing Tradeoffs of TLS 1.3 (via Colm MacCárthaigh on Twitter) - evv
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/978430840198742016.html
======
evv
Prior discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16666057](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16666057)
What a contentious issue! I'm curious to see who will end up swallowing the
cost of this, because it sounds like 0-rtt poses a direct tradeoff between the
expense of application developers and leaf nodes like CloudFlare.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Recommendo – Get personalized recommendations from the people you trust - BenJammin81
https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/recommendo/id932405753?mt=8
======
BenJammin81
Free mobile recommendation app turning your friends into your remote eyes and
ears on the hunt for great brands, products and events.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Promiscuous Cookies and Their Impending Death via the SameSite Policy - kkm
https://www.troyhunt.com/promiscuous-cookies-and-their-impending-death-via-the-samesite-policy/
======
AndrewDucker
Firefox is planning likewise:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1604212](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1604212)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
High Energy Electron Confinement in a Magnetic Cusp Configuration - kristianp
http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.0133
======
kristianp
Discussion on talk-polywell.org here: [http://talk-
polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5425](http://talk-
polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5425)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Coding for Entrepreneurs – Learn to Code and Build Real Projects Step by Step - Osiris30
https://www.codingforentrepreneurs.com/
======
eble
Thanks for practical youtube videos
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I Put In 5 Miles at the Office: Walking Workstations - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/health/nutrition/18fitness.html?ref=fashion
======
michael_dorfman
Has anyone here actually tried this? It sounds interesting, but I'd sure like
to suss it out further before making the investment...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Urban heat island - onetimemanytime
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island
======
gavia1
London is regularly 3-4° warmer than the towns and village that border the M25
ring road. You can genuinely feel the difference when you take a train into
the city and vice versa.
~~~
quickthrower2
Is that allowing for the time difference between when you get on and get off
the train affecting the temperature?
~~~
gavia1
Absolutely. If you so wish you can take the train at noon and get off at 12:30
where any temperature difference due to the sun should be minimal.
~~~
majewsky
Not terribly relevant to your point, but: Noon is actually a time in the day
where it is still getting warmer. Temperature usually peaks around 16:00 or
17:00 in the summer.
Example:
[http://wetterstationen.meteomedia.de/?station=104870&wahl=vo...](http://wetterstationen.meteomedia.de/?station=104870&wahl=vorhersage)
(the forecast diagram for my local weather station)
~~~
onetimemanytime
any idea why? The ground starts releasing accumulated energy or what?
~~~
gavia1
It probably reaches saturation at that time of day where it can no longer
absorb anymore heat.
------
Uhhrrr
From the article: 'If the urban heat island theory is correct then instruments
should have recorded a bigger temperature rise for calm nights than for windy
ones, because wind blows excess heat away from cities and away from the
measuring instruments. There was no difference between the calm and windy
nights, and one study said that "we show that, globally, temperatures over
land have risen as much on windy nights as on calm nights, indicating that the
observed overall warming is not a consequence of urban development."'
This is really surprising to me. Not least because, on a sunny day, SF can go
from pleasant to brutal as soon as a breeze kicks up.
------
Albertchrist
Not only in US. This is applicable to all the major cities in the world.
------
ccheath
isn't this also (at least partly) why cities are less likely to be affected by
tornadoes?
~~~
eesmith
Quoting the link:
> Research has been done in a few areas suggesting that metropolitan areas are
> less susceptible to weak tornadoes due to the turbulent mixing caused by the
> warmth of the urban heat island.
------
haunter
So every big city pretty much
------
quickthrower2
Sydney is one of those.
~~~
H8crilA
Aren't all cities one of those? Bigger=bigger impact.
~~~
quickthrower2
I think it has quite an effect in the summer because the city is cooled by
being near the ocean but the western suburbs get super hot, so a 10 degree
difference might not be unusual at times, for two places about 30km away.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Random street view - kirchhoff
http://www.mapcrunch.com
======
Muzza
Very cool.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Writing Your Last For-Loop - Beautiful Code - nickb
http://beautifulcode.oreillynet.com/2007/10/writing_your_last_forloop.php
======
cperciva
Before criticizing a language, understand it. In this case, the author can't
even write a for loop correctly:
for(int n = 0; n < size; ++n)
sum += elements [n];
Leaving aside the stylistic question of declaring variables in the middle of a
for statement, and trusting that the author knows that the variable _sum_ will
never overflow and (if he's dealing with floating-point values) that rounding
errors won't matter, the code should still be
for(size_t n = 0; n < size; ++n)
sum += elements [n];
An index to an array should always be declared as _size_t_ , not as _int_.
Otherwise really bad things can happen on systems where size_t is 64 bits but
int is 32 bits.
EDIT: Before someone accuses me of being overly pedantic: I've lost count of
how many security issues I've fixed which have existed because someone used
_int_ where they meant _size_t_ , but it's at least in the double-digits.
~~~
dfranke
Pedantically you're correct, but on what archictecture/compiler is (sizeof
int) != (sizeof size_t), and in what circumstances have you seen this become a
vulnerability? (I'm not trying to be argumentative here; I'm legitimately
curious.)
~~~
brl
I was going to argue against this too because using integers to index loops is
such a huge convention in C and then I realized that he's absolutely right.
On LP64, integers are 32 bits and size_t must be 64 bits (or you could
overflow it with otherwise legal code).
Even when integer and size_t are the same size, using an integer as an array
index is dangerous unless you make sure that it is not negative and can never
become negative.
Here's what easily exploitable code looks like:
void pad_ten(char *array, size_t length) {
if(length < 10) {
error();
return;
}
for(int i = (length - 10); i < length; i++) {
array[i] = doPadding();
}
}
It's exploitable by either choosing a 'length' which becomes negative when
assigned to the integer or choosing a 64 bit 'length' which becomes an
entirely different (and incorrect) value when truncated to an integer.
------
edw519
Sorry, but I have the same reaction to any "programming language" argument, no
matter how eloquent: so what?
90% of your code should either be generated or copied from standard templates.
I've put over 2500 new programs into the library in the past couple of years,
yet I don't remember the last time I wrote a program from scratch.
I, too, am a stickler for details, but I let the compiler (or interpreter) do
its job. Why worry about nanoseconds when I have users running the asylum?
~~~
damon
I would argue a language that is eloquent, concise, and for lack of a fancier
word, pretty, is important. Language features change how you view and approach
a problem. I approach problems much differently in scheme given I have a macro
system than I would in C. I _think_ differently depending on the language.
And it's usually not about performance for me. I like code that looks good and
is dense.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
iTunes Store Japan labels all purchases as Title “” by Artist “null” - kalleboo
https://twitter.com/search?q=itunes%20null&src=typd
======
kalleboo
Anyone who let through a massive Unicode bug into production, you can feel
_slightly_ better now that the world's biggest music retailer broke sales in
their second biggest market...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Confirmed: Amazon RDS Mysql is not vulnerable to the Password Exploit - mark_ellul
https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?messageID=353148
======
mark_ellul
Sorry my last post had a funky char after the URL
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Top 5 Crashes on iOS - andrewmlevy
https://www.apteligent.com/developer-resources/top-5-most-frequent-crashes-on-ios/?partner_code=GDC_hn_top5ios
======
makecheck
The first example’s remedy seems to be wrong.
I am not aware of any reason to test for "nil" in Objective-C, as that remedy
suggests. Sending the "doSomething" message to "nil" should do nothing.
If SIGSEGV does occur for an object, it is probably for the exact opposite
reason: you have a pointer that is NOT "nil" but it refers to something that
has been freed. (Or, the SIGSEGV is not related to objects at all, and is
caused by some other access such as plain C code.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Alfa Data – Analytics Ruins Football - tropianhs
http://www.alfadata.xyz
======
tropianhs
A Football (Soccer) Analytics Portal made in Flask
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The biggest leak of TTIP documents yet: more than 100 confidential papers - rendx
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/3d0ftu/this_is_the_biggest_leak_of_ttip_documents_yet/
======
AndrewGaspar
Proposal to make it easier for US professionals to work in the EU and vice-
versa:
[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2162296-14-10-07-eu-...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2162296-14-10-07-eu-
kom-themenpapier-mobilitat-geschwarzt.html)
------
ExpiredLink
Don't know what "confidential papers" means but TTIP documents are published
regularly (e.g.
[http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1230](http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1230)
) but seemingly not many people are interested in them.
~~~
swombat
From this page:
> The European Commission is negotiating TTIP as openly as possible.
> A final agreement would have 24 chapters, grouped together in 3 parts:
> \- Market access
> \- Regulatory cooperation
> \- Rules
> And as part of our latest transparency initiative, we're publishing:
> \- new 2-page factsheets, in plain language
> \- negotiating texts we've given US negotiators:
> \- - EU textual proposals on parts 2 and 3 of the TTIP – these set out how
> we'd want a final deal to read, line by line
> \- - EU position papers – what we want to achieve in a chapter.
> We will publish further texts as they become available.
> We will make the whole text of the agreement public once negotiations have
> been concluded – well in advance of its signature and ratification.
Sure seems like they're trying to open this up... wonder what the leak is
about then?
~~~
M2Ys4U
Saying that they're trying to open this up is like saying a fat person is on a
diet because they've switched from regular cola to diet cola.
It doesn't make a dent unless they also exercise more and eat less.
------
tomohawk
It is so ridiculous that we allow these people to play masters of the
universe, with little or no accountability or transparency.
We shouldn't settle for scraps.
~~~
andybak
My off-the-cuff reaction is the same as yours but look what happens to
institutions where all negotiation is public: posturing, media tyranny,
corridor diplomacy and a huge gap between public position and any real
opinion.
Transparency has a cost also.
------
stsp
Direct links to documents:
[http://pastebin.com/fA7z2BPi](http://pastebin.com/fA7z2BPi)
(pastebin since HN wouldn't let me post the full link list as a comment)
~~~
13throwaway
Download them all with wget:
wget -O -
"[http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=fA7z2BPi"](http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=fA7z2BPi")
| wge -i -
------
dhimes
TTIP: Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership- a secret deal between US
and EU
~~~
sandstrom
It's correct that much of the details are secret, but I'd stay it's still more
correct to label it as a free-trade agreement than a 'secret deal'.
I think it's insane that negotiations aren't public, and I also disagree with
some of the contents being discussed. But I think it's more objectively
described as a free-trade agreement (in which there are also a lot of good
parts).
~~~
dhimes
That's a fair point, but since we are all pissed off at our governments for
taking liberties with our well-intentioned permission to conduct espionage on
behalf of our well-being, your are extending more benefit-of-the-doubt than a
lot of us are. That's probably to your credit. But I am wary that the 'secret'
stuff has a lot of implications that are only on the edge of what we would
think of as trade agreement- intel sharing and such.
It _could_ , I suppose, be a positive: everybody come clean about the
past(keep that stuff a secret) and then have fair and reasonable limitations
going forward. There was a day when I thought like that... :)
------
Dwolb
Does anyone know credentials of the people negotiating these deals? Are they
well-paid?
If these deals' negotiations have to be secret and since so much is at stake,
I'd hope my government would have the best negotiators, psychologists,
economists, spies, or other personnel that money can buy.
~~~
swombat
Based on ExpiredLink's comment elsewhere in this thread, it doesn't seem like
the deal is secret at all? Here's the EU page on it:
[http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1230](http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1230)
~~~
sandstrom
I some parts are still held secret; this is only the EU-side, I think the US
are still keeping their citizens in the dark; and EU only started publishing
some details after heavy criticism, it should have been transparent from the
beginning.
~~~
kuschku
And the EU side decided that all ISDS trials have to be done at a court that
is staffed with judges from both contract partners and rules in public.
------
gotofritz
Needs a mirror
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Firefox reached 29% share in Europe - rockstar9
http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2008/04/firefox-reached-29-share-in-europe/
======
dualogy
Sometimes you have no choice. Under Linux, for once: I'm loving it, but I
loathe FireFox which is still the only decent browser I've come across there
(but then, I'm only a recent convert = noob in Unixland). Under Windows, my
favourite was Safari, with IE 7 second. But Safari under Wine isn't pretty.
------
kxt
Also, accoring to <http://www.en.rankings.hu/> Firefox 2.x is the most used
web browser version in Hungary. (Although IE6 + IE7 combined are still way
beyond 50%.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple's Swift Programming Language May Be Adopted by Google for Android - Jerry2
http://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/07/google-possibly-adopting-swift-for-android/
======
thevibesman
Discussion on the original source of the story:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11451093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11451093)
------
Grazester
I don't see that happening
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Study of 4chan's Politically Incorrect Forum and Its Effect on the Web - jtanderson
https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.03452
======
internaut
Are the academics involved in the creation of this document aware that they
are, in 4chan parlance, 'raiding'?
So far as I am aware this is not illegal, merely annoying or immoral.
Here's an example of when somebody almost certainly from /pol/ managed to
stage a TED talk.
Sam Hyde's 2070 Paradigm Shift - YouTube
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yFhR1fKWG0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yFhR1fKWG0)
Professional trolling is an ancient internet tradition that is worth
defending. There's a difference between harassment and bringing narcissists
back to earth.
------
dugditches
the board's quality is very bad. lots of racism/shitposting that got /new/
shutdown in the first place.
However it's very useful for breaking news and events if you're able to sift.
'Happenings' are often kept in fast moving threads where people pool together
information rapidly as the threads degrade and vanish.
------
chippy
Chapter eight is refreshing. I hope it makes it into print.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
BitBucket now has voting on issues. - planckscnst
https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/3674/add-ability-to-vote-for-issues-bb-3647
======
planckscnst
Issues for BitBucket itself, sorted by votes.
[https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issues?status=new&status=o...](https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issues?status=new&status=open&sort=-votes)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: A Google chrome extension to add a little bro in your browsing. - swiil
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bro-ifyme/hfpgpmnapkjlmdogaeiimdoplddnokeb?hl=en-US&utm_source=chrome-ntp-launcher&authuser=1
======
DonateKarma
Bro, did you give yourself a 5 star review? Not cool.
------
swiil
I whipped this up in a couple of hours as a fun project.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
In Law Schools, Grades Go Up, Just Like That - dnorris10
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/business/22law.html?&pagewanted=all
======
gaius
_If somebody’s paying $150,000 for a law school degree_
Colleges don't sell degrees, they sell educations - you have to earn the
degree. Or you used to, anyway. Why not skip all the lectures, coursework and
exams and save time?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Impending Demise of the University - nostrademons
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/tapscott09/tapscott09_index.html
======
tokenadult
I thought this looked familiar:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=642478>
| {
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Young entrepreneurs turn a Tweet from Richard Branson into $1 Million - ahlemk
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/young-entrepreneurs-turn-a-tweet-from-richard-branson-into--1-million.html?fb_action_ids=10100137262022753%2C10100137211768463%2C4381961266023%2C10100137295874913%2C10100137272476803&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_ref=type%3Aread%2Cuser%3Ayo7P_jX-MtPx1x1aimvV0XIDiNE%2Ctype%3Aread%2Cuser%3AdNxYkXFY8RDbENFkZ8cz-oFwOPs%2Ctype%3Aread%2Cuser%3A8WxvqIFAUhtDWjtWTnfik46e8fU&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%2210100137262022753%22%3A10151032496944835%2C%2210100137211768463%22%3A10151032496944835%2C%224381961266023%22%3A10150969731529342%2C%2210100137295874913%22%3A10151086246274935%2C%2210100137272476803%22%3A10151906558735416%2C%2210100137271788183%22%3A10151022720879675%7D&code=AQDR1t5ao7gGR4OkAlE4PNTI7gXZAqwr_NpJBcAW67r7qpzIzX-Shkw5R2-sdr3LveO52R9KqKdUUO09s-oICChAi1_bq0aBOa1kI1qUK6LQATQMrCKiiSgXtEkYIyta6mzZqTxUpRL1uXg5KxPVqxP_Ui8FtGq_6h0Vwbx6jCw1NiMXmR4Mlub8IZaenWWpm5A#_=_
======
natrius
From their security page:
_We are very secure and make sure to cover many angles to insure your data
can never be compromised. Many often ask what exactly we do to make the data
so secure. Unfortunately, one of the things that makes the site so secure is
that we do not disclose the exact encryption practices._
I just threw up in my mouth a little.
It's also a bit weird that it's apparently two unrelated products in one.
Pinterest and LastPass: two great tastes that taste great together?
~~~
justauser
This is quite an eye-opener too...
"How secure is MySocialCloud.com? From day one, it has been our goal to
provide the best security on the web. While we don't expose how we keep
MySocialCloud secure (if we told you, it would be unsecured!), we do ensure
that not even our employees are able to see any of your sensitive data."
One of their videos shows a bookmarket so I'm going to presume they're using
that for somekind of encryption clientside with AES???
~~~
tylermenezes
"if we told you, it would be unsecured!" doesn't sound like AES... It sounds
like they're using _entirely_ security through obscurity.
------
AlexMuir
Only managed the first paragraph before the bubble-o-meter went off the
fucking scale.
\- Crap buzzword filled domain name. Check.
\- All encompassing vague idea. Check.
\- Young computer whizzkids. Check.
\- 1 millllion dollars. Check.
~~~
law
Don't forget the obligatory leave-of-absence from NYU.
~~~
wickedchicken
Drop out of college to make a combo Delicious/LastPass!
~~~
adrinavarro
Why the hell would anyone want such thing? The fact that people might use both
things doesn't mean they can go together.
Hell, there is a lot of things you can glue together, but these aren't ones.
~~~
borplk
I'm sick of this social frenzy in web already. Every goddamn website wants me
to share, discover, connect, cloud, blah blah blah...share friends boom
revolutionary idea...why don't we share photos? wow! here...take all my
billions...what if we mix your cloud crap with your passwords? sweet jesus
take all my money. Don't get me wrong, it's good to see people innovate, but
it feels like most (at least those who are being seen) have forgotten about
the true problem solving and innovation and are just mixing services and APIs
together and selling it as yet another revolutionary idea.
------
richardv
This is ridiculous. I actually started reading with a really positive mind,
but Richard Branson is never going to see any of that $1M.
\- Scott... got the idea when his computer crashed and he lost a spreadsheet
containing all his usernames and passwords.
Using this as a story to explain his startup is awful. So, you are running a
tool to manage passwords, where you previously stored everything in a
spreadsheet? This guy obviously knows a lot about security. Where can I sign
up?
~~~
toyg
That's harsh. I have to say, his pitch resonates with the common man more than
you think. How many people keep their passwords in spreadsheets or other
haphazard ways? Zillions. How many stop and think "mh, what's gonna happen if
I lose this spreadsheet"? Not many -- otherwise they wouldn't store passwords
in spreadsheets to begin with. Scott just reminded them that they'll be
screwed at some point, and he's here to help. I expect part of the reasoning
behind Branson's investment is that the man himself (or some of his minions)
must have had the occasional lost-password-crisis here or there.
Clearly, with a bland but fairly descriptive name like MySocialCloud, they are
not targeting paranoid geeks (the ones who worry about details like "who's
running this service?", and would rather use services going by dorky names
with random missing vowels), they are targeting the common man who stores
passwords in spreadsheets. They are scratching an itch they themselves had,
which is often how you validate your own business plan. I don't see why they
should be ridiculed for it.
(This said, the whole post is just planted marketing of the lowest quality.
Hardly HN-worthy, if you ask me.)
~~~
lelele
> Scott just reminded them that they'll be screwed at some point, and he's
> here to help.
Problem is: he doesn't know how to help, yet people are going to trust him
because they don't know better. I'd bet they are going to store their users'
password on an Excel spreadsheet, but they will take care to backup it often
;-)
There is LastPass already, and they are doing a great job. Competition is
good, but why should we support clueless competitors?
That said, I'd bet MySocialCloud.com will succeed. Worse is better, isn't it?
And now they have lots of money.
------
coderdude
There's a lot of over-the-top hating from the peanut gallery in this thread.
I'll balance it out:
What a ride this must have been so far. They're doing a great job getting
their name out there, that's for sure. An investment from Richard Branson and
a co-founder of Photobucket, plus this article in Yahoo Small Business that is
now trending the HN front page. I hope they're able to take this massive
opportunity they've been given and turn it into a successful business.
------
elmuchoprez
Regardless of whether this is a good idea or not, to say they "turned a tweet
into $1 million" is a bit of a reach.
They saw a tweet advertising an event which Branson would be at, borrowed
several thousands of dollars from their parents to attend the event, and used
that opportunity to get an email address that was capable of reaching Richard
Branson, which they used over a period of time to develop some sort of
relationship with him and another (Murdoch), and through a series of pitches
both in person and remote, they secured initial funding.
~~~
mkramlich
... in a time when investors are desperately seeking anything to throw their
money at that will get good returns. And it's hard to find software engineers.
And, especially to less sophisticated investors, they just know "social" and
"cloud" are the hot hot thing so they want to park some bets in something with
those words involved. Thus... MySocialCloud.com
------
jakeonthemove
I just checked out the service and I don't understand what's with the hate?
It's a Pinterest/Delicious/LastPass mashup, and while I would not trust them
with my passwords (they really should rephrase that explanation, or give a
real overview of their security measures), there are plenty of people who will
(my parents still store their passwords in simple text files :-)).
If they add RSS-reader functionality, I can actually see myself using the site
as a home page!
I believe it's got potential - they'll have to work hard on the marketing and
keeping even or ahead of the competition, though...
------
gilrain
...and so we told Richard, "Hey, just sign up for LastPass!" He was so
grateful, he gave us a million dollars.
------
calydon
This reads like there is something missing from the story. They already had an
office and a 9 person team, but they needed to borrow $4k from their parents
to meet Branson?
------
SagelyGuru
What a ridiculous country. It is OK to lend them $1M but illegal to offer them
a cocktail?
------
mkramlich
Wow. This has both bubble and disaster written all over it. May things go much
better than that for them, though, of course. But it reads more like a parody
or a list of warning signs than an article about a real new business.
------
jbranchaud
Here's a better venture idea based on the experience, "Scott... got the idea
when his computer crashed and he lost a spreadsheet containing all his
usernames and passwords."
How about designing computers that crash when users try to store usernames and
passwords on them. Users will eventually learn to stop doing that.
~~~
natrius
There's nothing wrong with storing usernames and passwords. There is something
wrong with storing them in a spreadsheet.
------
yaix
> he got the idea when his computer crashed and he lost a spreadsheet
> containing all his usernames and passwords.
Sounds like a good idea to entrust him with all your passwords then.
------
tkahn6
The more I see things like this, the more I believe I have no idea how the
world works.
~~~
codgercoder
It just reinforces my feeling that it's easier for simple, bad ideas to get
funding than complicated, good ones. Modulo the reporting, of course.
~~~
waterlesscloud
Your last sentence is probably the most insightful on the thread. We really
have no idea what actually happened.
------
kasahmed
Great story
------
waldemarb
This startup app stores your encrypted passwords on DropBox:
<http://passboxapp.com/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Designing Fast and Programmable Routers [pdf] - lainon
http://web.mit.edu/anirudh/www/anirudh_dissertation.pdf
======
cottonseed
Free association: Good talk by Sonja Keserovic (Facebook) from Strange Loop on
their programmable network switch infrastructure:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfWd-
Utcgo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfWd-Utcgo)
edit: I thought this was exciting stuff. Where else can you find teams
straddling the hardware/software boundary?
------
agnivade
This is great stuff. Are there any currently available programmable routers in
the market ?
| {
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Chris Lattner to Lead SiFive Platform Engineering Team - gok
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200127005141/en/Google-Tesla-Engineer-Chris-Lattner-Lead-SiFive
======
dang
Comments moved to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22159963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22159963),
which is currently on the front page and was posted a bit earlier.
------
nochance
Related: [https://www.sifive.com/blog/with-sifive-we-can-change-the-
wo...](https://www.sifive.com/blog/with-sifive-we-can-change-the-world)
| {
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Flappy48 by Broxxar - asharpe
http://broxxar.itch.io/flappy48
======
a_c
The gravity is a bit weird yet the idea is awesome. Blending the most played
games together. Nice.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN: Is Stripe going to ban Onlyfans for processing adult content payments? - solaarphunk
Seems like onlyfans is primarily in the adult content business, however, they appear to use stripe to process payments. Most card processors have clauses against supporting this type of activity, but it appears that Stripe is probably making a ton of money, given the growth of Onlyfans.
======
RickS
This was asked recently:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24291790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24291790)
Relevant answer:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24294801](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24294801)
TLDR: onlyfans uses multiple payment processors, and presumably shuffles
customers to different ones based on risk. The adult payments likely don't go
through stripe.
~~~
leerob
OnlyFans might have just gotten bit by this. A popular celebrity joined
OnlyFans [1], created a bunch of turnover (chargebacks), and some policies
changed.
[1]: [https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/sex-workers-
bl...](https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/sex-workers-blame-bella-
thorne-changes-onlyfans-harm-their-income-n1238810)
| {
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Steve Wozniak's First Dance on "Dancing with the Stars" - zeedotme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoiGJMZjs0o&eurl=http://thenextweb.com/#
======
coglethorpe
OK, I'll admit to watching The Woz dance. I think he moved pretty well for a
big guy, but the judges didn't agree with me.
It was great to hear him go on about how he's used to digital things and how
dance is analog, all while his dance partner's eyes glazed over. He's lost 30
pounds while practicing for the competition, so even if he loses the
competition right away, he's got that going for him.
It's also great to see Woz, who apparently doesn't need the money, doing it
just for fun. He stands out from some of the other "celebrities" who really
are just desperate for a paycheck. It was obvious he was having a blast and
his dance partner said he was the nicest man she's ever met.
| {
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Predict the Output Challenge in C#, part 3 - bursurk
http://www.volatileread.com/Wiki/Index?id=2092
======
koyote
These are quite good and definitely result in quite surprising output in some
cases.
I would have liked the descriptions/answers to be a bit more detailed though.
For example, why is the static constructor called only after the instance
constructor (in part 2)? As far as I can see in the docs, this should not be
the case?
~~~
bursurk
static constructor does get called first. The problem is in this line: static
readonly Singleton _instance = new Singleton();
The static variable depends on the instance. So static gets called first and
starts running, but before it could call the Console.WriteLine, instance of
Singleton gets created due to the above line and hence the instance
constructor.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Säkkijärven polkka - luu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A4kkij%C3%A4rven_polkka#Military_use
======
Ndymium
The English Wikipedia page, to me, seems to suggest that the record was played
to explode the mines in a controlled fashion. In fact, according to Finnish
Wikipedia, it was used to scramble the Soviet radio signals to prevent the
mines from exploding, and there was a sort of radio war going on for a while.
This is the specific record that apparently was used:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZx1zl_sVTI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZx1zl_sVTI)
~~~
ashtonkem
The English page does say “jamming”, but I too originally read it as if they
were trying to detonate them prematurely.
------
tgsovlerkhgsel
When I read "mine", I thought of anti-personnel landmines and was confused why
you'd want to radio-trigger those.
These were demolition charges designed to destroy objects like bridges.
According to [https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-the-Finnish-army-
used-...](https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-the-Finnish-army-used-the-
song-S%C3%A4kkij%C3%A4rven-Polkka-to-prevent-the-detonation-of-Soviet-radio-
controlled-mines-during-the-recapture-of-Viipuri-in-the-Continuation-
War/answer/Alexander-Denisov-9), there were a total of 25 such mines hidden,
with each containing hundreds to thousands of kilograms of explosives.
[https://www.standingwellback.com/russian-ww2-radio-
controlle...](https://www.standingwellback.com/russian-ww2-radio-controlled-
explosive-device/) is also worth a read.
------
Legogris
Another Finnish polka more known through Internet culture[0] is Ievan polka:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yh9i0PAjck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yh9i0PAjck)
I remember having the original Flash clip on loop on for entire days back
when.
[0]: Leekspin:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-N1yJyrQRY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-N1yJyrQRY)
~~~
krebs_liebhaber
The Finns contributed more to early Internet culture than we give them credit
for. They invented IRC, and about half of the weirder memes on 4chan.
~~~
saq
And Linux
~~~
vsipuli
And Git (kind of, although that happened after Linus moved away from Finland)
~~~
Eyght
MySQL in the same vein.
~~~
welfare
MySQL is actually of Swedish origin.
~~~
cfinnberg
Well, at least Michael Widenius, the most visible head of MySQL and one of two
cofounders, is finnish. He also created the MySQL's fork MariaDB. Both names
came from Michael's daughters My and Maria.
------
Pandabob
As a finn, I did not expect to see this on the front page of HN. Ever.
But did not know about the military use of the song. Very interesting.
~~~
stevekemp
As somebody who moved to Finland, and hasn't learned too much Finnish, I was
just pleased I recognized the language and the words themselves!
Interesting read though, regardless.
------
9nGQluzmnq3M
Sakkijarven polkka is (well, was) also famous as one of standard Nokia
ringtones:
[https://youtu.be/UYSdiQl8BQY?t=54](https://youtu.be/UYSdiQl8BQY?t=54)
------
alkonaut
Interesting. This is basically an early version of the phone bomb where you
get a burner phone and just call the number of the sim card to blow it up.
Being able to pull that off in the 40's was impressive.
Hard to say what use it has though? Normally a "mine" is something that is
triggered by an event such as a person or vehicle passing. Setting one off
remotely or on a timer isn't useful.
If the mines were used to rig specific infastructure such as railways or
bridges then I can see the use (blow specific bridges at specific points in
time, without having to send saboteurs). I remember practicing bridge
destruction in the army using dozens of tank mines, simply because they were
readily available and easily handled explosives.
~~~
doikor
These were "mines" used to blow up bridges, roads and railroads. The bigger
ones had thousands of kg of explosives. So more like remote demolition over
radio. Idea being that you could destroy the critical infrastructure after
retreating from the area and if you had vision on it when someone was on it
like the first one that killed a couple officers (killed a major who was the
chief lawyer for the Finnish General Staff)
Modern equivalent would be cellphone bombs in roads in Afghanistan/Iraq.
------
elgfare
Wikipedia articles are quickly becoming my favorite type of HN link.
------
leo150
Eurobeat remix:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxx5p8KnZ3w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxx5p8KnZ3w)
------
tryauuum
> These mines were set off when a three-note chord was played on the frequency
> the radio was tuned to, causing three tuning forks (of which each mine had a
> unique combination) to vibrate at once.
so, ehm, what was the soviets' plan? to blow them all at once when the city
would be taken by finns?
russian wikipedia page says the plan was to blow them periodically. But it
doesn't make much sense, how would the soviets control which mines to blow?
hard to imagine they would be aiming radio signal somehow
~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
Each mine could be set to a different combination of three trigger
frequencies. There weren't many of them in place (I'll write another top-level
comment about this - edit:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23089418](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23089418)).
~~~
kmill
Adding to that, even just six frequencies to choose from would let you have
twenty distinct targets. (Six choose three.)
------
swebs
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMszu_VgMfY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMszu_VgMfY)
~~~
michalu
Nice song. Finnish language is part of the Uralic group of languages Finno-
Ugric spoken by Hungarians and Estonians too.
These languages don't belong to Indo-Iranian group like every other language
in Europe.
I like to speculate the language came to northern Europe with Huns who,
according to Procopius (I believe it was him) controlled Scandinavia too and
there are many sagas of Norsemen fighting Huns there, such as Hlöðskviða.
The modern Finns show Nordic genetic, yet the language is Uralic and perhaps
the first Finns were only the ruling class as it was often the case with Huns.
Obviously, there are other more widely accepted theories.
~~~
vesinisa
Sorry but that is quack. Replace "Finnish" with "Aryan" and it's almost
directly from the 1930s Nazi occultism book.
~~~
swebs
>Aryan language is part of the Uralic group of languages Finno-Ugric spoken by
Hungarians and Estonians too.
???
~~~
vesinisa
No, I mean more generally terms like "Nordic genetics" and proposing fringe
linguistic and ethnic theories about modern nationalities.
~~~
michalu
I'm sorry to ruin your imaginations but genetics, linguistics and history are
real sciences concerned with tangible facts. Unlike some political theories
with no right to claim credibility other than calling themselves "modern."
Aryan (term I didn't use) simply means Iranian, regardless of whether nazis
abused the term or not. You may find it useful to know that.
~~~
philangist
I do agree with your more general point but I think we shouldn't dismiss
changes in usages of words over time. Aryan doesn't simply mean Iranian in a
modern western context, just like the swastika isn't just a sign from Buddhism
or Hinduism. Both have strong associations with one of the most defining wars
of the 20th century and the genocidal regime that started said war. That can't
be easily ignored.
~~~
ganzuul
The Black Death killed a hundred million.
Blood flows like a river.
------
afandian
If you're unfamiliar with Finnish traditional music, they have some great
polkas. Frigg are good fun.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77lw3hp9q7M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77lw3hp9q7M)
~~~
drran
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yh9i0PAjck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yh9i0PAjck)
~~~
afandian
THAT polka.
------
bjowen
... hey! [https://youtu.be/q98Y86jfXaY](https://youtu.be/q98Y86jfXaY)
------
paweladamczuk
This reminded me about the Ride of the Valkyries scene in Apocalypse Now.
~~~
CHB0403085482
I guess you haven't heard the action-scene version of Sakkijarven polkka on a
kantele;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1PAy4JZfrE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1PAy4JZfrE)
Bonus violin edition by Linda Lampenius;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Skam8GUUU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Skam8GUUU)
| {
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Show HN: FAS – C distributed Real-Time graphical audio synthesizer server - onirom
https://github.com/grz0zrg/fas
======
person_of_color
<3 for C
| {
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Pirate Bay Takes Over Distribution of Censored 3D Printable Gun - mnazim
https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-takes-over-distribution-of-censored-3d-printable-gun-130510/
======
ColinWright
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5686403>
| {
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This typeface could help dyslexics read - jonathanehrlich
http://www.dezeen.com/2014/11/09/christian-boer-dyslexie-typeface-dyslexia-easier-reading-istanbul-design-biennial-2014/
======
davelnewton
Oh like
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5671568](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5671568)?
| {
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Robinhood (backed by a16z) started offering free equity trading platform - ivom2gi
https://www.robinhood.io/
======
salient
Will this work only for Americans? Is there a minimum deposit amount?
| {
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A Teenager’s View on Social Media - dpflan
https://medium.com/backchannel/a-teenagers-view-on-social-media-1df945c09ac6#.tgc3a48px
======
greenyoda
Note: This article is from a year ago.
Original discussion on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8851902](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8851902)
A response to the article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8874411](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8874411)
~~~
dpflan
Thanks, didn't do enough due diligence; searching for the URL yielded no
results as it appears to do an exact match.
The URL after the # appears to change on each GET of the article:
[https://medium.com/backchannel/a-teenagers-view-on-social-
me...](https://medium.com/backchannel/a-teenagers-view-on-social-
media-1df945c09ac6#.xbnp9xwza)
~~~
greenyoda
It's actually OK to repost an article after a year if it hasn't had
significant discussion in the last year. However, it's customary to put the
year in parentheses after the title if it's an old article so that people know
it's something they may have read before.
I was mainly pointing out the earlier discussions because they could be of
interest to someone reading the article.
| {
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Making Sense of Complexity - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/weekinreview/02segal.html?ref=weekinreview
======
Gibbon
Is it just me or do others get peeved when the words complex and complicated
are used interchangeably?
To me they mean very different things:
A complicated problem is one that is difficult to understand. A complex
problem is one composed of many distinct parts.
A complex problem could also be very complicated, but a complicated problem
may not or may not be complex at all depending on the situation.
~~~
johnm
Indeed. Most people use "complex" when they really mean "complicated".
| {
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Simple, safe, and fund anonymous chat - adamlieb
http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/18/reveal-chat-for-ios-helps-you-build-real-social-connections-via-anonymous-chat/?ncid=twittersocialshare
======
schars1
awesome app
| {
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7 YC startups find success in the heartland - kochb
https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/09/7-yc-startups-find-success-in-the-heartland/
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sharemywin
A lot of products I think find initial traction and then flop because SV is a
shitty test city.
[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1137953...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113795356)
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Police Force Suspect to Unlock Phone with Face ID - kposehn
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/face-recognition-iphone-unlock-police-force/572353/?single_page=true
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jshevek
Since the FBI got a warrant and were responding to allegations of a sexual
assault, I can respect the argument for doing this in these circumstances.
Though I don't like that the difference in the way the law treats passcodes vs
biometrics may weaken privacy rights.
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Jeff Dean Endorses New AI Powered Healthcare Platform - jmarty
https://plus.google.com/+JeffDean/posts/V1LeP3Pnhrt?sfc=true
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dbdriscoll
Mike Ng is excelllent
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kevin_lin0
jeff dean + healthcare + AI....makes sense
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talliehuang
WHAT
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r_allen023
god has spoken
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Subsets and Splits