Impossible Burgers’ key, bloody ingredient gets long awaited nod from FDA - rbanffy
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/ingredient-that-makes-meatless-impossible-burgers-meaty-finally-accepted-by-fda/
======
melq
I know this is a stupid thing to get upset about, but it annoys me SO MUCH
that they refer to it as something that 'bleeds'. Real burgers don't bleed!
Nor do steaks, or any other cut of beef you might purchase at the grocery. The
red, translucent juices that come out of a burger or steak are red for the
same reason the meat itself is red: myoglobin. Not blood.

~~~
smnrchrds
English is not my first language, so I always assumed blood and bleeding refer
to any red liquid. I mean, we talk about blood oranges [0] and bleeding trees
[1] and no one assumes there is any real blood involved.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_orange](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_orange)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corymbia_opaca](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corymbia_opaca)

~~~
spuz
That's true, but when you are talking about meat, it's usually safe to assume
'bleed' means to 'bleed blood'.

~~~
drb91
When people refer to a “bloody steak”, they aren’t implying the red liquid is
actually blood.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I would guess that most people are, just as most people who refer to menstrual
blood intend to imply that it is actually blood.

Is menstrual blood actually blood? That's not a question with a definitive
answer; it is obviously different from the normal kind of blood you'd find in
blood vessels, but it's also fundamentally similar. "Blood" is not an
elemental or even homogeneous substance, so it can be hard to say that
something isn't blood.

But most people who refer to something as "blood" have never given it a
minute's thought. If you cut meat and get a thick red liquid, of course that's
blood. Where else would blood come from?

------
rcdmd
They're baking up soy hemoglobin in yeast and purifying it to add to non-meat
burgers. This is particularly neat considering how complex the human heme
synthetic pathway is. I suspect even in soy, it's more than just producing a
"pre-(a-)"protein-- you'd have to make a few other enzymes along the heme
synthetic pathway and provide an environment conducive to them working.

It does make me wonder, why soy? Corn and rice hemoglobins, unlike soy
hemoglobin, are basically ubiquitous in our diet as far as I know. I suppose
soy hemoglobin may be more meat-like or easier to produce.

~~~
bluejekyll
I’m not an expert, but I know that soy is used as a nitrogen replacing plant
during crop rotation. So it’s possible that the cost of soy is lower than rice
or corn, as it’s an off cycle replenishing plant.

Jan 2018 cost per ton: Soy: 405 Corn: 155 Rice: 442

Well! There goes that idea! Is the US corn subsidy the reason it’s so much
cheaper?

~~~
credit_guy
Maybe a part of the price difference can be explained by the fact that corn
(maize) uses the C4 photosynthesis vs the less efficient C3 used by soy and
rice.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4_carbon_fixation#Plants_th...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4_carbon_fixation#Plants_that_use_C4_carbon_fixation)

------
clankfan
I've had several impossible burgers and they completely live up to the hype.
They taste very good indeed. But I have noticed a slight uptick in anxiety
after eating them, maybe 30 mins after or so. This anxiety comes out of the
blue, the first few burgers I had, I had zero health or safety thoughts in my
mind that might have precipitated the anxiety. Interested if anyone else has
had a similar experience.

~~~
askaboutit
The problem with trying to replace meat. Is the unknowns about why we survived
as carnivores for thousands upon thousands of years and our current obsession
to suddenly play god with a food supply.

We don’t know what we don’t know. And impossible doesn’t know why there would
be side effects. Or they do and you’ll not know.

Buy grass fed organic meat and eat less of it. We already eat too much.

~~~
fcarraldo
I think Buddhists would disagree that humanity has survived solely as
carnivores for thousands of years. Plenty of other cultures have existed on
solely vegetarian/vegan diets as well, throughout history. Peasants within
meat-eating cultures also did not always have frequent access to meat, and
thus ate primarily vegetarian, or perhaps pescatarian. The idea that humans
have always eaten meat and that it’s an essential part of the human diet is a
myth.

~~~
gorilla_fight
What are these cultures which existed solely on vegan diets? Honest question,
I searched but couldn't find the answer, there was a response on Quora which
mentioned some Buddhists are vegan by default, and some Hindus and Essene
Christians are vegetarian, but she "wasn't aware of any 100% vegan cultures."

I can understand vegetarian cultures surviving, since they can acquire
essential nutrients through the animal products found in diary, but would be
intrigued to find a vegan (plant-based only) culture. Was there perhaps one in
the distant past or ?

~~~
ppseafield
You used to be able to acquire B12 from crops because some of the natural
bacteria flora contained the cyanobacteria that make it. Modern farming's use
of industrial pesticides means we can't use that as a source anymore.

The Jain's diet is largely plant-based. It allows for dairy, but only in the
case that the cows aren't hurt as part of the process.

[http://www.jainfoodie.com/jain-food-
restrictions/](http://www.jainfoodie.com/jain-food-restrictions/)

------
rzimmerman
Interestingly the concern from the FDA was not whether or not soy
leghemoglobin is safe generally, but whether or not it’s a potential allergen.
Given that chemically equivalent ingredients are found in all kinds of food
already, it’s a shame this got held up so long in a process that a lot of food
additives skip entirely. But I’m happy that really solid beef alternatives are
starting to become available.

------
teaneedz
It is delicious. If it gets more folks to give up a regular burger, all the
better.

The place I eat mine from cooks it just right. Yum.

------
maxxxxx
I don't get the point of having a veggie burger bleed. I tried an Impossible
Burger a while ago and didn't find it that great. It doesn't taste like real
meat and is just an average veggie burger. I think it's more of a gimmick.

~~~
jlawson
The goal isn't just to have a "veggie burger bleed", it's to replicate the
experience of eating meat.

Perhaps they have failed so far (according to your taste test), but the goal
is valid. If someone can find a way to make a product near-indistinguishable
from meat without raising and killing animals, it would be a _massive_ victory
for the environment (meat production is CO2-intensive), for the cause of
bringing decent food to poor people, and for reducing animal suffering.

It may be one of the most underrated technological efforts happening right now
IMO.

~~~
maxxxxx
I think for that purpose it's better to work on lab-grown meat. Making veggies
taste like meat seems misguided to me. Either eat real veggies or eat real
meat.

~~~
astura
What about the people who gave up meat for health reasons?

There is a market for this, just because you aren't in the target market
doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

~~~
wolco
Processed foods generally are not healthy for you. Marketing is making this
product appear healthy. There is a large market for processed foods and this
product seems novel and has a decent taste so I could understand it's
popularity.

------
bodhibyte
I ate a couple of the Impossible Sliders from White Castle a couple of months
ago. They definitely smell and taste more beef-like than any other plant-based
burger.

I had read about their effort to produce heme in the lab. This article [1] is
interesting as it identifies that Impossible Foods has engineered the
methylotrophic yeast, Pichia Pastoris [2], to produce Soy Leghemoglobin
Protein.

1\.
[http://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/3FNzWrRdPanXheUdTigx/full](http://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/3FNzWrRdPanXheUdTigx/full)

2\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pichia_pastoris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pichia_pastoris)

------
vagab0nd
If I don't eat meat for a couple days, I start feeling tired and hungry all
the time. So for me the problem is not the taste of the meat, but rather how
it makes my body functional.

I haven't tried the Impossible Burger. Does it solve this problem?

------
pmoriarty
It'll be interesting to see what effect this stuff has on people after 20
years of use.

Until then, I'm not touching it. There are plenty of other tasty meat
substitutes out there with more tried-and-true ingredients.

~~~
cosmojg
It's an analog of hemoglobin. What kinds of dangers can it possibly pose?

~~~
peterlk
I can't tell if you're joking or not. Smoking used to be considered healthy,
leeches were healthy, letting blood was how you got over sickness, drinking a
mercury-based concoction was once thought to be an elixir of immortality.
Maybe coffee is good, maybe it's bad. Maybe wine is good, maybe it's bad. How
often are diets shown to not do the things they are supposed to? Humans are
wrong about nutrition (and health) a lot. Saying that this is definitely not
dangerous seems rather arrogant. With that said, we do the things that seem
like the best idea at the time with the knowledge we have, and this does seem
pretty safe.

Personally, I'm going to keep eating meat, but I'm kind of old-fashioned

~~~
tjr225
Are you seriously comparing smoking and bloodletting to a veggie burger? What
sort of insanity is this

Maybe HN has jumped ship and I need to simply move on.

~~~
glenneroo
Generalizing the sanity of an entire platform based on one post that you
personally find shocking seems a bit extreme, don't you think?

~~~
tjr225
On the contrary! These sort of absurd reductions of logic from people with no
business pretending to be experts(e.g. comparing a veggie burger to smoking or
blood letting) appear to be very much par for the course here.

------
MilnerRoute
If you're in the East Bay, they serve Impossible Burger at the Oakland
Coliseum's in-stadium restaurant, the East Side Club.

------
jameslk
Meat substitutes seem symptomatic of overpopulation (i.e. animal agriculture
wasn't much of a problem in the past millennia). With potential food and water
shortages or regulatory pressures in the future, perhaps the outcome will be
meat substitutes feeding the masses while only the wealthy will be able to
afford real meat.

------
whatsstolat
Now we need to make quinoa that tastes like the real thing, using beef.

------
ebbv
A restaurant near me started serving impossible burgers a couple weeks ago.
Since I have gout I am always trying beef and pork replacements.

Impossible burger’s patty is on par with a McDonald’s quarter pounder. Which
is a reasonable accomplishment. It’s acceptable and enjoyable as a cheap
burger. But it is not gonna fool anyone who really enjoys a good burger.

Which would be fine if people would stop overhyping it.

------
alrs
Make a zero-carbohydrate meat substitute, and I'm interested. Otherwise, no.

~~~
gorilla_fight
> Make a zero-carbohydrate meat substitute, and I'm interested. Otherwise, no.

This is a good point, one reason many people (including me) have been eating
more meat lately is to reduce their carbohydrate consumption after research
has found many of the negative effects of a high-carbohydrate diet.

The Impossible Burger's complete ingredient list, from their website:

Water, Textured Wheat Protein, Coconut Oil, Potato Protein, Natural Flavors,
2% or less of: Leghemoglobin (Soy), Yeast Extract, Salt, Konjac Gum, Xanthan
Gum, Soy Protein Isolate, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Thiamin (Vitamin B1), Zinc,
Niacin, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12 Contains: Soy, Wheat

The very first ingredient besides water is "wheat", a grain known for numerous
side effects, one of the only foods with its own disease (celic disease,
gluten sensitivity), high levels of anti-nutrients (phytic acid, inhibiting
mineral absorption). Granted, it is the "protein" part of wheat, but from the
nutritional facts on the Impossible Burger's zendesk support site we can see
it has 5 grams total carbohydrate, total sugars <1g, including added sugars <1
g.

Five grams may not sound like much, but it all adds up. The general
recommendation for inducing ketosis if you're into that is less than 20 grams
(ignoring the recent "Dietary carbohydrate intake and mortality: a prospective
cohort study" study which scandalously considered 200 grams "low carb"). A
hamburger bun has about 23 grams, so eating one of these burger patties in a
hamburger with a bun and/or other condiments will easily kick one out of the
low-carbohydrate diet classification, if that's one's goal.

For comparison, on a personal note, today I've eaten zero carbs at least by my
measurements (supposedly real meat has "some" carbs, but I haven't found any
measurable quantity anywhere, data sources commonly list it as 0g - but would
be interested in more precise data if anyone has it). Not an untypical day for
me. 0% carbs, 60% fat, 40% protein (this high protein:fat ratio is unusual for
me, due to the lean meat I unfortunately was stuck with this time, but I
usually strive to eat much higher fat content. Always lowering the
carbohydrates.) As primarily a meat-eater, or at least an eater of animal
products, it is much easier to strive for the low-carbohydrate way of eating.

------
twblalock
I'm not a vegetarian, but if I was one, I would hope to have the good taste
not to pretend I am eating meat when I am not.

There are excellent vegetarian culinary traditions in the world. India stands
out as a country with amazing regional vegetarian cuisines that celebrate
their ingredients and don't pretend to be something they are not. In the
United States, vegetarians eat fake meat.

~~~
mc32
I wouldn't be too upset. There are a few traditions of Buddhism that attempt
to make plant derived substances approach the texture and taste of a few
animal proteins[1, 2]. They do a pretty good job of it.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cuisine#Ingredients](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cuisine#Ingredients)

[2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_analogue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_analogue)

~~~
tekromancr
And they tend to do a damn good job. There is a brand called May Wah that
makes incredible fake meats. I have no issues eating meat, but some times I
crave May Wah nuggets.

------
askaboutit
I wouldn’t trust anything the FDA approves after watching the Netflix series
on how it is simply a big Pharma publishing house now.

It’s so reliant on company money that it can’t do its duty to protect the
people it is supposed to protect.

~~~
Nasrudith
That doesn't make any sense as a reason to distrust at all. They /have/ to go
to the FDA to get it approved if they plan on being legitimate medicine. That
would be like saying that you can't trust drug testing labs to report honestly
because they depend on the patients for blood and urine samples.

~~~
askaboutit
Have you watched the documentary or read about the pivot to profit from
companies over profit from government spending?

The problem isn’t the FDA it’s the government cutting its budget. In such an
obvious way that they want business to be able to do what they want. It’s
gotten worse under Trump.


JQuery » jQuery UI v1.5 Released, Focus on Consistent API and Effects - bomberstudios
http://jquery.com/blog/2008/06/09/jquery-ui-v15-released-focus-on-consistent-api-and-effects/
======
axod
# $(”div”).draggable() creates a draggable

# $(”div”).draggable(”destroy”) destroys it

Am I missing something here, or is that an extremely ugly design choice?
Passing strings into functions to specify what function you want? eugh

~~~
simonw
I think they ended up having to do that because of jQuery's chaining support.
Most of jQuery's functionality lives in a single namespace (jQuery.fn) which
means you can chain method calls together like this:

jQuery('div:first').addClass('hello').text('Hello
World').draggable().css('color', 'red');

If a plugin needs three or four methods, that's three or four extra functions
on the one object - which ends up looking quite ugly:

jQuery('blah').draggable({options}).destroyDraggable()

The message passing idiom lets them add just one method to the jQuery.fn
namespace that can cover a full range of different actions. I think it's a
pretty clever pragmatic solution.

~~~
axod
I still don't like it in terms of taste. I guess one question would be how
does it handle a typo in the string.

If you call a.destroooooy() then you'll get a js error, but if you call
a.execute("destroooooy")...

~~~
DougBTX
They'll both be run-time errors, hopefully they throw an exception.

------
JimEngland
I haven't had the chance to use jQuery, how does it compare to other
JavaScript libraries such as MooTools or Prototype?

~~~
simonw
One big difference is that both Prototype and mooTools make modifications to
the built-in types (extra Array methods etc). jQuery (and Dojo and YUI)
explicitly avoids doing this for compatibility reasons. It's no coincidence
that mooTools and Prototype are the only two big libraries that can't co-exist
on a single page.

The interesting thing about jQuery is its focus - it almost exclusively works
to improve the interaction between JavaScript and HTML. DOM manipulation is
more convenient in jQuery than any other library, and the other library
features build on top of that core ideal.

mooTools and Prototype attempt to make improvements to the JavaScript
language. jQuery tends to play along with the language - it supports a
functional style of programming using lots of closures (while you can avoid
them if you really want to I find jQuery code with closures flows really
well).

~~~
jamongkad
It's the abundant use of Closures is what brought me to jQuery in the first
place. Like you I favor this approach

$('div').draggable().create({Object hash}).draggableDestroy();

It may look awkward at first but I think it will a result into a new win in
the long run. I'm having alot of trouble downloading the new library for some
reason but can you do something like this?

$('div').draggable().create({Object hash},function(){ alert(Object Creation
confirmed}; ).draggableDestroy();

I think the ability to launch a callback function on the creation of a object
could open oppurtunities for better UI feel and responsiveness.


Zenbar: The Fastest Smartphone App Switcher Concept on the Planet. - shawndumas
http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/2/3719600/zenbar-the-fastest-smartphone-app-switcher-concept-on-the-planet
======
mustafakidd
I really like this - swiping up from the bottom on either side would also be
nice. Maybe sort them in reverse when pulling the bar up from the bottom vs.
from the top. LRU vs MRU...?

Anyway, love the concept overall.


FBI overstated forensic hair matches in nearly all trials before 2000 - protomyth
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic-hair-matches-in-nearly-all-criminal-trials-for-decades/2015/04/18/39c8d8c6-e515-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html
======
MCRed
A few years ago I remember reading reports of the FBI forensic labs doing much
worse-- taking evidence from the crime scene and contaminating evidence taken
from the accused with it so that it would produce a "match" and the like. It
was a big scandal.

In fact over the past 20 years I've heard this story at least a dozen times--
where crime "labs" at different levels of government and in different states
(eg: state labs, federal lagbs, etc) were caught doing this.

And when it happens, that isn't enough to get people to be able to appeal
unless they have evidence the lab did it in their specific case.

One of the problems of our system is that the criminal system is lacks checks
and balances. The judges, prosecutors, police all work for the government.
They all have the same interests-- they all report to people who want to look
"tough on crime".

Since the police immediately take over crime scenes and collect the evidence
and then get the evidence analyzed, they have a lot of power to be corrupt in
the interest of more convictions-- and the consequences are negligible for
being caught.

Whose going to try a dirty cop? You can shoot a guy in the back on video and
never get put on trial for it in this country. (I left Texas when a cop gunned
down an unarmed black kid who was on his knees crawling away from him...
shooting him multiple times in the back... on my college campus. The cop lost
his job and then joined the police force in a suburb. No charges were filed.
Apparently a black kid crawling away was "threatening" to the white cop. Alas,
I moved to a liberal state and was then myself the victim state corruption-
though fortunately, the damage was only $3k to a lawyer.)

This is why I think any evidence submitted in court needs to come from an
independant lab, done in a double blind way, and with several audit cases sent
to that lab regularly (eg: taking dna from people not involved in crimes and
send it in as if it was part of an investigation and see if they are
fabricating evidence.)

The idea that the government is independant and objective is to me, now that
I'm older and have seen these scandals over the years, laughable.

Every time it happens everyone acts like its' a rare thing.

It's not.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
I think, the problem is similar to the trouble we have with judges in our
country. One judge recently said something that really put a very shady light
on many of his colleagues. I regret, that I don't remember it exactly, what he
said.

The trouble in my opinion with some judges in my country and with the police
in some countries is, that everybody just assumes, that because they work for
law enforcement, they have a high level of integrity. But when you look how
they are educated, the subject "integrity" is not even touched (I even don't
think, that it is taught in law schools).

In my country, when somebody is already a judge, there is nearly no chance at
all, that this person will be held accountable for misjudging. I think, not
even the highest courts can replace a judge that repeatedly and knowingly is
bending the law. At least I don't know of any case at all where a judge was
punished or even replaced. And don't think, that all judgments are correct in
my country.

In my opinion, when there is one thing to be learned from history, it is that
any person can err and even the best meaning persons can change into dictators
over time depending on situations.

~~~
MCRed
Yes, and having travelled extensively and lived in Mexico and Chile, my
experience tells me that while the USA has failed to have adequate checks and
balances, other countries often have even less. I loved both of those
countries, but I wouldn't really feel safe in Mexico, and I didn't feel fully
safe in Chile. I think the Carabineros of chile are taught integrity and are
mostly above reproach, however, and so I hold Chile out as a good example of
doing it right. But even still, none of these countries have enough checks and
balances.

I think the problem is there's a magical thing that happens to people when
they think about government.

They somehow think it's ok for government to do things that individuals
cannot. And once you give a group of people that magical power, it's easy to
forget that they are people.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
When I was younger, I thought that the western countries (US and Western
Europe) are better (off) than other countries like South America or Asia,
because they have much less corruption than those countries.

Today I am differentiating much more and I must admit that I am not knowing,
why we are better of as for example South American countries. Of course, they
have a high level of corruption, but when you look deeper, you will see, that
we in Europe have also much corruption. The main difference: While in many
South America countries everybody knows about the corruption, for example in
Germany corruption is much much more covered -- but it exists, maybe even in
the same degree as in South American countries. It is just covered much more.
What makes me worry is, that while the normal police-men in Germany may have
integrity, the normal top-politician seems to have none left. I can give no
name of a top politician today, where I would assume, that he is not
influenced or even bribed by some groups.

I think, that this gives a really bad signal to all the people in this nation.
Many say: "Why should I pay taxes, for those crooked people?" And I must
admit, that this is a strong argument in these times.

~~~
droopyEyelids
I think there is a big slice of perspective you're missing here.

Yes, at the higher levels of power everything is dirty.

However, you have to look at what the consequences of that are, how it
manifests in a society, and how far it spreads.

And in Germany, it works pretty well. Yes, enormous government projects don't
always go to the most capable or efficient. Yes, big business owners
contribute to politicians, avoid taxes, and erect legal obstacles to
competition that would benefit society. However, the society basically works.
The corruption is not interfering with basic services to the people. A
journalist can write what she wants without fear of physical reprisal.
Individual property rights are by-and-large respected. School teachers
actually benefit the children. Police officers don't operate as a tax force on
their own behalf. Thats not the case in every country.

So while I agree with you that even the 'best' countries still have a very
real battle to maintain integrity, there is absolutely a spectrum and largely,
North America and Western Europe are near the top of it.

~~~
tmp123459
I think North America is corrupt beyond any help. Look at the deep state they
do horrible things and no one cares. And there is no freedom of expression,
even as i write this im afraid. The cia infects people with sifilis has
torture concentration camps all over the world where they imprision people
without a trial and inflict upon them all kinds of sick and perverted
tortures. They traffic drugs and control criminal organizations in sveral
countries, they are the top dogs in the underworld. They persecute journalists
they hire some to decieve the public. They are really toxic and deceithfull.
Not to mention the wars they go in foreign countries and kill thousands if not
millions and destroy any trace of civilization. They a destructive force. =(

------
dmurray
How does this not get all FBI testimony thrown out by judges? If there is an
organisation who pays its employees to lie in court, and they are known to
suffer no ill consequences for lying, all of those employees' testimony should
be considered worthless.

~~~
themartorana
I fear that even with this gross miscarriage of justice over decades, people
may not be granted a retrial. It's the entire reason the Innocence Project
exists.

[http://www.innocenceproject.org/free-innocent/improve-the-
la...](http://www.innocenceproject.org/free-innocent/improve-the-law/fact-
sheets/access-to-post-conviction-dna-testing)

I've never understood how the possibility of new evidence doesn't immediately
reopen a case (in general). I thought we wanted real, actual, blind justice
based only on facts and absolutely nothing else. It turns out it is rarely
that simple.

~~~
MCRed
All people have an agenda. Their agenda generally favors themselves in some
way or another.

We, as the potential victims of injustice want a real, actual, scientific,
blind justice system that presumes innocence and requires proof beyond a
reasonable doubt, checked by a jury that can nullify laws, and the like.

Politicians want to be "tough on crime" so they appoint judges and prosecutors
who get convictions. Judges want to be re-elected because they are "tough on
crime" (in places where judges are elected) Prosecutors want to have a
successful career so they will do anything they can get away with to get a
conviction. The police want to have the case be off their hands and to be
"closed" so that their stats look good because it's good for their career
because the Mayor wants to be "tough on crime" and so the police find the
first plausible suspect and try to build a case.

All these organizations are in cahoots, literally, and so no prosecutor is
going to indict a judge or cop unless they absolutely have to.

So long as the public can be lead to believe they live in a society with the
"rule of law" not the "rule of man" then nothing more needs to be done. And
the public is very gullible! (Especially when you control the schools and you
raise them to be gullible.)

IT's not that these people are evil. ITs that they are self interested.

The founding fathers attempted to put in checks and balances and they did a
damn good job.

But over the past 200 years, they have been systematically eroded.

~~~
wongarsu
But there are far more potential victims of injustice than politicians, judges
etc. Since we're talking about a democracy here, it should be possible for
this majority to create an environment where the selfish interests of
politicians and judges align with the need to protect innocents. Yet this same
democracy creates an environment where protecting innocents puts officials at
a disadvantage.

Things are clearly very backwards.

------
mikeash
I'm constantly amazed at how terrible criminal forensic science seems to be.
Everything except DNA matching appears to be no better than voodoo, and even
the DNA stuff is tricky. Is there something about this particular field that
attracts charlatans and incompetents? Is it purely a motivational problem,
wherein the people who pay for these results are more interested in a
conviction and don't care if it's right?

~~~
realusername
I've worked a bit on fingerprint recognition devices (using various vendor
SDKs) and people clearly overestimate the accuracy of these kind of devices.
The majority can be fooled with a fingerprint made by melting gummy bear with
some tape to gather the fingerprint. Creating fake fingerprints is really easy
and cheap. I'm also not mentioning the crappy firmware these devices are
generally equipped with, everything close to metal seems to have really low
quality firmwares, most of the time, you need to compensate on your side for
some unfixable problems in the firmware.

The main problem is TV I guess, for the average guy, these kind of
technologies are completely infallible and people tend to forget that just
like anything else, it's just an indicator that can be fooled / misinterpreted
/ badly gathered.

~~~
gaius
Yes it's a bit tinfoil-hat but when you look at shows like CSI and 24, you
couldn't imagine a better propaganda campaign that "evidence is infallible and
torture is OK".

~~~
mml
I've been of the opinion that shows of that nature are a pretty transparent
attempt at gas lighting the populous into feeling as though such behaviors and
practices are acceptable, desirable & necessary.

I'll go polish my tinfoil hat now.

------
fiatmoney
The fact that the matching process is not double-blind indicates that it is
_designed_ to be corrupt.

~~~
polymatter
Not being double-blind makes it cheaper. Hence takes less budget, lower taxes,
everybody cheers.

Anybody proposing to make it double-blind is going to need to find the money,
either from other departments or by raising taxes. Without a chorus of public
support behind them, this is a very hard sell. And easily reversed after the
next election.

------
malandrew
They really oughta have a "blind" approach to testing forensic evidence where
samples are prepared by other forensic professionals to be sufficiently
similar but not matches and real matches, neither of which are from a real
trial. The forensic examiners should never know when they have evidence from a
real trial.

~~~
pdkl95
Just call it a variation of the well-known "line up" that everybody already
understands.

------
mwsherman
Legal arguments, like most things in life, reward narrative over truth.
“Truth” is an unbelievably high bar to pass – even basic ideas like confidence
level are beyond the understanding of the legal system.

“Beyond a reasonable doubt” is actually a decent epistemic standard. The
problem is that juries and judges are not exposed to the information that
would lead to reasonable doubt in these cases.

So basic epistemology already makes bad outcomes likely. Add the incentives
(political, organizational) in cases like these, and terrible things happen.

~~~
smsm42
The problem is the incentives go to one side (winning the case) without a
counterbalance incentive (being not punished for misconduct). If police
misconduct such as perjury and fraud routinely led to grave consequences for
the person doing it, the balance of the incentives would be closer to what it
needs to be. But the Blue Wall[1] and general reluctance of the justice system
to punish their own, prevents it from happening. Even when the fraud is
discovered, the perpetrators frequently are not sanctioned in any way, the
worst that happens is that convictions get thrown out, but that does not
create counter-incentive. Thus, no balance.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence)

------
late2part
Again we see that our law enforcement branch is overreaching, acting in error,
and effectively breaking the law. What penalty is appropriate for this? How do
we rebuild our country to stop this? I believe the answer is to hold the
perpetrators responsible. Easy to say, but we need financial and jail times
far beyond the pain these people cause. We need to root out this corruption,
whether it's intentional or negligent.

~~~
o0-0o
I posit white collar crime should carry more severe penalties than blue collar
crime.

~~~
nitrogen
This is an interesting perspective with which I am currently inclined to
disagree. Could you provide more rationale to justify the idea that nonviolent
crimes should be punished more severely than violent crimes?

~~~
eropple
I'm not that poster, but people with more power should be held to account more
strictly for abusing it. While there are noteworthy exceptions, violent crimes
are (generally speaking) low-leverage crimes that rarely impact more than a
handful of people, whereas the ramifications of even something as "non-
violent" as this sort of fraud can be significantly more harmful to much
bigger groups of people.

(I am also of the opinion that corporate protections are largely bullshit and
that executives and boards should be civilly and criminally liable for
wrongdoings perpetuated by their companies. Probably the only way to make them
act decently.)

~~~
smsm42
These things are very hard to compare. If one steals $10 from every person in
the US, he stole 3 bln. dollars. That's huge. However, mostly nobody's life
has been seriously, permanently and unrecoverably affected - at least
excepting some really untypical random occurrences. If one robs one family of
all their possessions, or causes one person be permanently disabled, or dead,
that is very grave permanent and unreparable consequences, even though it is
for one or few persons only. Humanist morals dictates the latter is worse than
the former, so should be punished harder. Of course, in real cases it all gets
mixed and unclear, especially when also question of intent comes into
discussion.

~~~
ebrenes
You're really sweeping under the rug a lot of people who would be impacted by
having $10 taken away.

I am certain >0 people would have checks bounce, payments declined, fees
imposed on them. For many people $10 can be the difference between being able
to afford rent, payment of utilities or other items that could cascade into
affecting their life significantly. The poor are really susceptible to these
type of accidents

Also, about 60 million of the US population are below the age of 14 (which
given you got 3 bln dollars from $10, I'm assuming you're taking the whole
~318 million population), that means many minors just lost $10 that to them
would likely be more money than they ever had or be a significant amount of
money.

And that doesn't even go into other aspects of the theft, like the effects
nationwide on everyone having money taken away from them. The erosion of
confidence in the safety of their money.

I posit to you a likely scenario of what you described. Imagine if everyone
citizen in the US were issued a government mandated ID with an associated
federally insured bank account. Now, the whole scenario becomes viable, where
a hacker could steal $10 from every citizen in the U.S.

Now, that would first create a huge debacle. It would most likely cause an
immediate loss of trust in the online marketplace, cost probably billions of
dollars in getting it fixed. It would end many people's careers, most likely
lead to companies getting fined, economic stagnation depending on a cascade
effect from a loss of confidence in markets. It's hardly a victimless crime.

Sure, we could keep diminishing the amount to something ridiculous till we're
maybe talking about stealing 1 cent. Which would still be a fairly juicy pay
off of 3 million, and that would erase away many of my points or at least
reduce their incidence significantly. I'm sure some people would miss payments
or have other inconveniences affect them. Likewise, the theft would have
repercussions on many people's lives.

Even if I were to take the magical scenario of someone who magically made 1
cent disappear from everyone's wallet/bank account. That would still cause
great impact and damage. "Are there more people like him with such magical
powers?"

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you have to look at the final magnitude
not just the token value of the damage done per capita. And also look at the
damage done by having affected so many people simultaneously.

~~~
smsm42
I think you overestimating it - there are not a lot of people that have bank
accounts with payments coming out of them that keep balances below $10. Most
of people that are poor enough so that $10 is a real issue for them would not
even have a bank account.

> $10 that to them would likely be more money than they ever had

I have hard time to believe for most 14-year-olds $10 would be "more money
that they ever had", in this day and age. For 5 year old, sure. But typical 14
year old not ever having a price of two sandwiches in Subway (or one in a
fancier place, or a meal in a relatively cheap restaurant)? I don't believe
it.

> I'm sure some people would miss payments or have other inconveniences affect
> them.

Like lots of people that had the balance of exactly 1 cent and had their rent
payment of exactly 1 cent coming in. That doesn't sound ridiculous at all :)

I think you're reaching here. That's not the point anyway - the point is that
these things are not just numbers, and are not directly comparable and
workable using simple arithmetics.

------
researcher88
Reminded me of George Carlin's last standup special, where he said "it's part
of their [cops'] job to commit perjury whenever it helps the state's case":

[https://youtu.be/jgxyCudDiM4](https://youtu.be/jgxyCudDiM4)

------
datashovel
This only reinforces my perspective that even highest levels of law
enforcement need to be operating in a fully transparent way.

------
asveikau
The headline is inaccurate. The article says more than 20 years preceding the
year 2000. They are not precise about what more than 20 years means, but I
read that as late 1970s to 2000. From the headline and HN title it would seem
like it starts from the beginning of time.

Edit: I see now that the hn title matches the wapo headline, changing to
reflect that. Still a bad headline.

------
endymi0n
I'm thinking about how much their incentivization might have influenced them.
One fundamental difference between German and Anglo-American law is the
prosecuter's task, as mandated by law. In the US it is to get as many
convictions as possible (guilty or not). In Germany, the law wants a
prosecutor to "find out the truth and use all evidence against AND also for a
defendant".

Methinks the former case is one of the driving forces behind the "Bazaar"
mentality.

------
smegel
I wonder if partial DNA "matching" will one day be the hair strand analysis of
our time.

------
Illniyar
I did not understand from the article what "overstated" means.

Was it a partial match that they described as 100% accurate? did they hide the
statistical probabilities? was the evidence faked?

------
augustocallejas
This is a great short documentary on the history of hair analysis at the FBI:

[http://www.retroreport.org/video/how-dna-changed-the-
world-o...](http://www.retroreport.org/video/how-dna-changed-the-world-of-
forensics/)

------
r00fus
Justice needs a meta-moderation function.

~~~
smtucker
It does have one. But the situation has to be very bad for enough people to be
willing invoke it.

~~~
ChristianBundy
Am I missing something, or are you talking about a violent revolution?

~~~
smtddr
I don't know about a _" violent revolution"_, but I'm very skeptical of fixing
a broken system while working within the rules of said system.

~~~
AnkhMorporkian
It's been done successfully many times in many countries. Look at Britain for
example. Say what you will of the problems they have now, but they're
undoubtedly better off than when they were under the thumb of the monarchy and
the aristocracy. Gradual changes in the law punctuated by occasional serious
strides forward led to a near complete abandonment of the previous system.

------
brohoolio
Am I the only one who wonders what this costs each time something like this
happens?

~~~
datashovel
If you mean the cost in terms of trust citizens have in these institutions,
then certainly I think the answer is no.


Ask HN: What do you think about Alibaba Cloud? How does it compare to the big 3? - mike_aarons
======
dizzydiz
I’d be surprised if it ever has meaningful impact in the Western world because
of company policies/ban lists. You can bet with 100% certainty that the CCP
calls the shots.

But on the flip side, for the most part the big 3 can’t sell into China so it
can have a commanding lead.

Its growing at over 60% per year in a far less competitive environment than
the big 3. Tencent (mostly focused on gaming) is also competing there.

Full disclosure: I invested in BABA today because of the above.

~~~
mike_aarons
Very interesting, thanks!


Ask HN: Why has Google kept Android and Chrome OS separate? - panabee

the separation of chrome os and android puzzled me for a long time. why not merge the two and concentrate resources on a single os? now i suspect they kept the two apart because they serve different purposes. chrome os is designed to reduce the cash microsoft generates from windows -- specifically from desktops and laptops -- much as google apps reduces the cash from office. android is meant to ensure no proprietary operating system dominates on mobile devices. keeping the two divided allows them to focus on their respective objectives more effectively.<p>anyone have different theories?
======
dragonwriter
Android is (and was when ChromeOS was first released) a fairly mature (though
still rapidly evolving, because the mobile OS space isn't a stationary target)
mobile OS with well-established marketshare.

ChromeOS is a longer-term, higher-risk, more ambitious OS effort (the all-web
OS Google has always wanted) with a fairly niche (by comparison to Android)
current market. There's no real compelling reason to tie them together yet. A
gradual, eventual convergence makes sense, but that's over a fairly long term.

------
wmf
The actual reason is just that they're separate on the org chart.

~~~
panabee
not according to this breakdown of the google management team:
[http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/](http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/).
even if true, they could combine them on the org chart as well.

~~~
mcintyre1994
That changed very recently - I think Sundar Pichai was announced as taking
over Android (from Andy Rubin) at I/O this year.

~~~
panabee
true, but an org chart is a reflection of strategic priorities -- not the
source.


The Lotus Eaters (2013) - benbreen
http://mikejay.net/the-lotus-eaters/
======
harry8
Pretty sure Odysseus did listen to the Sirens, lashed to the mast while his
crew stopped their ears with beeswax. Contrary to what is reported in this
article.

Getting something as basic as a detail from literature wrong when you're using
it to make your point puts everything else in the article in a shadow of doubt
for me. Can I believe what he's saying about kava when he hasn't got basic
reading comprehension down? I'm probably being harsh, the detail probably
doesn't matter. Or is it a "No yellow m&m's" in the rock band rider as a
telltale for "do these guys take care about detail?"

~~~
mannykannot
Are you referring to Van Halen's _brown_ M&M rider?

~~~
harry8
Maybe, I've heard the story with just about every 80s glam metal band and
every m&m color. Maybe one or more of such stories is true?

------
slowmovintarget
>> The lotos is a drug, but it stands for something more: the refusal to
engage with the world of progress and economic productivity, and [the refusal]
to maintain a society in readiness for war.

The short version: Hippies gonna hip'.

The Lotus Eaters in their various emergent forms throughout history are the
other side of the pendulum from hard work and endeavor taken to extreme.

There should be a balance that doesn't require completely giving up.

~~~
news_to_me
> There should be a balance that doesn't require completely giving up.

I think beyond this, there should be a spectrum of engagement that anyone can
choose from - maybe working crazy salaryman hours, maybe living on a
subsistence reservation, but more likely something in-between, at various
levels. It's important for a person to be able to choose how ambitious they
want to be, and I find that the options are lacking in my society.

I guess my take-away is, I wish I could more easily opt to work, say, 30
hr/week for 75% of my salary and benefits. It seems like my only choice is to
work 40 hrs, take a lesser hourly job, or go freelance/startup which entails a
lot of personal overhead.

~~~
chris_st
You might try looking around, for another company which does what you do now.
I did 32-hour weeks for about nine years, both at a small company (~ 850
people) and the comparative behemoth I work for now (~ 90,000 people).


Reliance Jio is world’s largest startup with USD22.65B investment - govind201
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/reliance-jio-is-worlds-largest-startup-with-rs-150000-crore-investment-mukesh-ambani/articleshow/51613248.cms
======
namratapatil
Wouldn't we rather discuss real startups that are not funded by conglomerates.

I came across this startup called Agatsa and here's their story.

It started off as a search for an easy to use ECG device, that required no
help from a medical technician, led these two engineers to develop one
themselves.

This led to the launch of a pocket-able heart monitoring device that is able
to compute and provide an in depth analysis of ECG reports when a person
places his/her thumbs on the device. All it takes is 15 seconds! This device
is validated by more than 500 doctors and is known to be 98% accurate.

Pretty fascinating right? Watch the video to learn more!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIXFQaKL_F0?=hn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIXFQaKL_F0?=hn)

In case you would like to they have a fund raising link as well.

------
vr3690
Mukesh Ambani really needs to go look at a dictionary and figure out the
definition of a startup. You really cannot call one side project of a huge
corporation like Reliance a startup.

------
0x006A
Reliance Industries, one of the largest holding companies in India, starts a
new venture to launch a new LTE mobile network. What makes this a startup?

------
amalantony06
This is clickbait title. In what sense of the word is Reliance Jio a startup?
It's a division of a big co.


Freshplayerplugin – Powered by Chromium's Pepper Flash Player - forlorn
https://github.com/i-rinat/freshplayerplugin
======
sandGorgon
This does NOT support DRM content (like Hbo Go,etc). However the version in
ChromeOS does. Google and Adobe have refused to include DRM support in general
Linux.

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=245999#c...](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=245999#c4)

~~~
i-rinat
"This" does; browser part is supported. To make it work, you'll need to get
libpepflashplayer.so file from Chromebook, as only version from ChromeOS have
DRM code compiled in.

------
suprjami
Can we please just let Flash die already?

~~~
JohnTHaller
Having flash die for video has mostly already happened and is a good thing.

Having flash die for websites (like small restaurant sites) has mostly already
happened and is a good thing.

Having flash die for games would be a bad thing. There are hundreds of
thousands of games on the web that are written in Flash that are a lot of fun
for millions of folks to play. Just because you can't play them on your mobile
device is no reason for the rest of us to lose access to them on our PCs. And,
no, most of them will not be converted to HTML5 because they were written
years ago and the author has long since moved on.

~~~
david-given
<cough> HomestarRunner </cough>

~~~
JohnTHaller
Teen Girl Squad (and the intro for non-flash devices):
[http://imgur.com/gallery/jXnYLQB](http://imgur.com/gallery/jXnYLQB)

~~~
sp332
Wow, that really isn't as funny without audio.

~~~
JohnTHaller
It is if you've watched it already, since you can't look at it without hearing
the Strongbad-being-a-female-teenager voice in your head.

------
digi_owl
Given that npapi flash clearly works on Linux, i really do wonder why Adobe is
not providing a straight download of it anywhere.

------
josteink
Looks interesting. Have anyone here tried it and seen how well it works?

IMO in any state it can't be much worse than the current NPAPI does in X11, so
I'm interested in anything which can be used to get better FF Video
performance.

~~~
Elhana
Crashes occasionally, but npapi crashed for me as well. Main advantage is that
you get new flash version, that some games require to run.

~~~
i-rinat
> Crashes occasionally

Looks like Mozilla decided to ditch Flash, and now Firefox 40 sometimes hangs
completely due to some odd interlocking with plugin-container process.

> Main advantage

... is that accelerated rendering is used where NPAPI Flash was afraid to use
it. For example, for transparent plugin instances.

It comes with a price, though. There are more rendering issues, because
unusual graphics paths are used.

------
Aardwolf
I tried Flash with pipelight (iirc) in Firefox once. It worked mostly well,
but I noticed two bugs:

-full screen simply plain didn't work, required restarting X to make computer usable again. This was my reason for uninstalling it again.

-opening a file dialog didn't work. E.g. try the export function of "ClickerHeroes".

Do these things work with this implementation? Or is it similar to pipelight?

Thanks!

~~~
i-rinat
Hanging on going to full screen is surely not an application fault, it's
something with either X server or a video driver.

File dialogs should work, for both loading and saving files.

------
nly
Always irked me how Adobe are supporting NPAPI on Windows but not Linux. They
support Linux. They support NPAPI. They support x86 and x64. All 3 together?
Nope.


Secure Strings in Javascript - juanpablo
http://google-caja.googlecode.com/svn/changes/mikesamuel/string-interpolation-29-Jan-2008/trunk/src/js/com/google/caja/interp/index.html

======
bartman
Does anybody know a library like this for PHP or do I need to start coding?

At the moment my best practice is to use a printf-like function to do escaping
for me, it suffers the problems described in the article though.

------
juanpablo
Very specific but a must-read for advanced javascript coders


Trump Will Get Power to Send Unblockable Mass Text Messages to All Americans - wslh
http://m.slashdot.org/story/319427
======
Neliquat
Did we not already have that ability? This just feels like another 'here is
another thing trump, like every other president, has access to'. I get it. His
tweets are often in bad taste, and now it might be 'unblockable'! But a timely
public communication medium might be a great idea used in the correct
circumstances. This all just comes off as alarmist to me.

------
MrZongle2
#MoreTrumpHysteria


If you gaze into nil, nil gazes also into you - colin_jack
http://robots.thoughtbot.com/post/8181879506/if-you-gaze-into-nil-nil-gazes-also-into-you?

======
ColinWright
Here's the discussion from when this was submitted a week ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2818723>

~~~
colin_jack
Ahhh thanks, I've got used to just submitting as I knew it usually handles the
fact something has already been submitted gracefully. Will start double
checking.


Uber meltdown shows its time for Silicon Valley to stop worshipping founders - champagnepapi
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/14/uber-meltdown-silicon-valley-founder-worship-must-end.html
======
redm
"Silicon Valley worships founders. The conventional wisdom is that companies
lose their spirit and competitive edge when they sideline founders and bring
in adult supervision."

I don't think this is fair. Silicon Valley worships founders who build
insanely useful, helpful, or amazing products. No one is standing up for, now
or in the past when Uber has been caught doing sketchy things.


How to Be a Better Entrepreneur in the Next 30 Minutes - jasonlbaptiste
http://www.quicksprout.com/2009/05/25/how-to-be-a-better-entrepreneur-in-the-next-30-minutes/
======
mjnaus
Here is how to Be a Better Entrepreneur RIGHT NOW... don't read link bait
fluff like this and get to WORK!

~~~
webtickle
When I think of link bait, I think of sites that go after Digg and not really
Hacker News. Hacker News is an awesome resource (better than digg imho), but
if you get to the top I don't think you get too many links out of it.

------
fuzzmeister
"putting up motivational posters"

Seriously?

~~~
dcurtis
As stupid and cliche as this sounds, it's kind of right. I have this quote up,
and every time I look at it, I get a boost:

"Get action. Do things; be sane, don't fritter away your time; create, act,
take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action."

-theodore roosevelt

~~~
Dobbs
I have:

"Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We _keep moving
forward_ , opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and
curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."

-Walt Disney

~~~
dcurtis
I have a Disney quote too:

"I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment. I am never satisfied
with my work. I resent the limitations of my own imagination."

WALT DISNEY

------
nreece
_It doesn’t have to be an innovative business that solves a pain in the market
place; it just has to be a business that can turn a healthy profit every
year._

On the contrary, a business must solve a pain the market place, to become
profitable and healthy.

~~~
ispivey
But his example, a plumbing business, both solves a pain in the marketplace
(people need their pipes fixed and plumbing installed) and is not at all
innovative.

------
zackattack
Smart guy and he gets to the point - great article and thanks for posting.

~~~
zackattack
Okay, so I decided my short term goal is to be making $35/day.

Explained: $500/mo apt + $350/mo food + $200/mo entertainment = $12,600/yr =
$35/day

I also have a long term goal to be making $835/day. :)

I want to come up with an idea for a business that could be making $35/day
reasonably quickly, but also have the potential to eventually scale up to
$835/day.

I order to make $35/day, I need to create something that can do 7 sales of a
$5/(month)/profit product every day.


Concurrent JavaScript – Introduction - andreicon
https://medium.com/@voodooattack/multi-threaded-javascript-introduction-faba95d3bd06#.uhnr579hm
======
bsou
Potentially similar discussion
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11477314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11477314)


Ask HN: Good Resources for Data Engineering - fargo
I am looking for some example case studies/exercises in order to learn play with some libraries, is there a book or website you can recommend?
======
iso1337
kleppmann’s book: designing data-intensive applications.

It’s very well written, but maybe doesn’t have as much in the way of
exercises.

~~~
fargo
Thanks for the excellent recommendation, I have been through kleppmann's book
and it's a must for anyone who wants to be serious about data engineering (or
whatever it's called these days). I am looking however for something more
practical and less technical, maybe something like projecteuler or cracking
the cracking the coding interview but for data

~~~
iso1337
IMHO data eng is too niche and new for that kind of content. But I would love
to see if there is anything out there like that.

Is the goal here to get through system design interviews or something like
that? You can check out pramp.com if so.

If it’s for learning, then reading some of the original Google papers behind a
lot of the big data technologies has been very rewarding for me. You could try
reimplementing the paxos algorithm for example.

~~~
fargo
I am a bit rusty with spark and I have a practical interview where I will be
given various datasets to extract insights from them.


Tech Community Group Hacker Hideout names costume party "Hackers & Hookers" - phwd
https://www.eventbrite.com/event/8938393977/

======
lbarrow
ValleyWag pretty much nailed it:

"Beer. Dance floor. Shot bar. Food truck. Girls." Nerds. Obliviousness. Poor
judgment. Skewed cultural views. Social regression. Bros. MySQL. Crushing it.
A party atmosphere combined with everything that makes the rest of the world
hate you, Silicon Valley: this party is not smart."

[http://valleywag.gawker.com/hackers-and-hookers-startup-
part...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/hackers-and-hookers-startup-party-is-
techs-new-worst-1450909234/@sambiddle)

------
jordo37
Man, what the hell. This is despicable but also just dumb - someone already
got in trouble for this exact same stuff last year and there was media
coverage.

At least when lame-o's come up with new forms of misogyny it advances the
conversation forward, this is just a rehash.

------
genevievemp
Can I debut my 'uber for sex' startup there? #whoresmakeitwork

------
ogghead
Buncha pathetic bros. I think they believe this pitch will actually entice
female humanoids to attend.

If this mysogynist debacle comes to pass, I would love to see pictures. Bro-
dudes are always funny.

------
calibraxis
At least they're honest about misogyny. Some people see no significant
difference between renting machines and females, to carry out commands.

------
geetee
so what.

edit: seriously. that's the response this commands. no capitalization
included.

------
noname123
Awesome. This is like the "Pimps & Hoes" party back in college. But you know
the reality of these parties, the golden rule of engineering applies here,
80/20 rule - meaning the gender ratio and probability of odds/goods are good.

Oh and before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, let's not get worked up
about stupid names in tech events and work on real gender equality in concrete
substantive programs.

~~~
ogghead
"Oh and before anyone gets their panties in a bunch..."

I assume that was meant to be ironic, because otherwise, um...

~~~
noname123
It's alright haha. Irony intended. I knew the response which is just people
being PC without actually offering any substantive change. Tbh, I'd rather be
openly sexist than to be socially liberal and closet sexist.


ICE switches from RIM to Apple - DigitalBoB12
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/22/iphone-becomes-mobile-device-of-choice-for-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement/

======
sheikhimran1
RIM is so going down!


Fooling the masses with performance results on parallel computers (2010) - jsnell
https://blogs.fau.de/hager/archives/5260
======
mpweiher
One of my favorites of these is only showing the speedup..."scales linearly",
without comparing to a non-parallel baseline. First time I saw this was with
Clik, which reported linear scaling. I was impressed, until I found out that
the parallel version was 6x slower on a single CPU than the sequential
version.

Similar with a SPJ talk on parallel Haskell (can't find it right now). Big
claims about this being the One True Way, and then required four cores to
match C sequential case. Hmmm.

UPDATE:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWSZ4c9yqW8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWSZ4c9yqW8)
around the 1h 10min mark. Four cores to match sequential C (previously had
written six, was wrong)

~~~
adrianN
See also "Scalability! But at What COST?"
[https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/hotos15/hotos...](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/hotos15/hotos15-paper-
mcsherry.pdf)

~~~
mpweiher
Ahh, yes, the Configuration that Outperforms a Single Thread. I think this
should be a standard + required measurement.

------
Athas
How come reviewers let this stuff pass in papers? While some of the issues are
subtle (inventing more work or mangling the algorithm), some of the graph-
based tricks are pretty obvious.

------
wcrichton
This reminds me of my favorite paper: "Scalability! But at what COST?"

[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6753/959eed800e9fad9e330daa...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6753/959eed800e9fad9e330daae43f81b7a48017.pdf)

------
amelius
It should mention: ignoring Amdahl's law, [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl's_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl's_law)

~~~
Athas
Amdahl's Law is easy to misapply on both sides of the fence. If what you care
about is mostly weak scaling (using larger machines to solve larger problems),
the Law is not as harsh as it appears at first glance, as in many cases the
parallel fraction increases as the workload does.

------
paulmd
> Stunt 9: Boast massive speedups with accelerators!

> Always compare the fully parallel accelerator code with a sequential
> (single-core) CPU version.

> Be sure to rush ahead to the next slide before anyone dares to ask why you
> don’t use a single GPGPU “core” to make the comparison even more “well-
> defined.”

> Accelerate only the kernels that are easily portable and report only their
> performance. Amdahl’s Law and communication overhead will be nothing but
> smoke and mirrors!

I disagree with this one. The baseline for a parallel program is always the
best single-threaded program you can write (which usually means with
OpenMP/threading removed to reduce overhead).

The goal of writing parallel programs is to increase the degree of parallelism
that a program exposes, _even if the total running time of the program
increases_ (i.e. time spent over all cores, not time-per-core). You know going
into it that adding synchronization is going to slow you down - even in
standard parallel-CPU programs (OpenMP).

Effective GPU parallelization works the same way. For example, you might use
counter-based RNGs that are really too slow to be used on CPUs (at least, in
the days before AES-NI), but on GPUs math is often "free" because the program
is bandwidth limited. Or you might choose to re-compute data in memory rather
if possible rather than storing it in memory and costing RAM and bandwidth.
You are "wasting cycles" deliberately, to expose a greater degree of
parallelism/reduce contention to increase overall program performance.

So running the program on a single GPU core is just as stupid as benchmarking
an OpenMP program on a single core - again, we literally know going into it
that the single-threaded programs are usually most efficient in terms of total
cycles expended, that's not really what we're trying to measure here.

In the text, the author then pivots to "well GPUs have more cores/memory
bandwidth!", which is also rather myopic and dismissive of the actual
challenges of GPGPU programming. Exploiting that bandwidth is not easy on a
processor with massive latency and <100 bytes of SRAM per core to spread
between cache, shared memory, and constant pointers across many threads, not
to mention the problems of thread divergence, etc.

I do agree that communication overhead needs to be taken into account and
total program time is what really counts. This is (IMO) a strong argument for
either porting your entire program to run on the GPU, or an absolutely minimal
set, so that you minimize communication overhead. The distinction I'm drawing
here is the latter is something like GPU-accelerated database searching, where
you are not going to store actual rows on the GPU, but just DB indexes that
you search and copy target IDs back to the host system.

Either way you approach it, _your data set needs to live on the GPU as much as
possible_ , which means minimizing the number of times and amount that it gets
copied to-and-fro and incurs communication bottlenecks/latency. In turn - this
means absolutely brutal minimization of the program state to reduce memory
consumption, because fitting a larger problem into the GPU will usually
increase total speedups (for a well-written program).

~~~
scott_s
I'm with you, and I had a similar reaction. But on thinking about it, I think
he was mostly arguing about how to frame the performance improvement. See my
comment elsewhere in the thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13696514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13696514)


Maemo 6 looks even more interesting - kasunh
http://www.slashgear.com/maemo-6-to-get-multitouch-gestures-with-qt-4-6-0955593/

======
mildweed
Good that more devices are getting multi-touch.

That being said, this device is not a game changer. Its a mee-too. Which is
great. It'll force the innovators to innovate more.

~~~
zokier
Maemo 6 isn't a device, its a platform or operating system. And my estimate is
that first devices for M6 are announced in 2010Q4, so lot of things can happen
before that.

~~~
kasunh
I think Maemo 6 would be announced much sooner than that. It is very like that
it would be announced in the maemo summit scheduled on october this year in
Amsterdam.

------
runwicked
Finally, a worthy competitor to the iphone OS.

~~~
kasunh
A very good competitor I must add. Full linux experience, Multiple
customizable desktops, Multitasking.

~~~
rimantas
_Full linux experience_

Sounds scary.

~~~
wmf
It even includes anonymous troll developers (look at the video).


Heroku down for production and staging apps - julioademar
https://status.heroku.com/incidents/554

======
julioademar
I still dream of the day they'll let us set up different availability zones.
Not that I'm sure this wouldn't occur, mind you.

~~~
sync
Dynos already run in different availability zones:
[https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/production-
check](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/production-check)

You can take that a step further by running dynos in the European (eu-west-1)
region:
[https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/regions](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/regions)

~~~
julioademar
That's still in Beta though.

~~~
kxu
I'm running a production webapp since May on the Heroku EU region, not a
scratch since then. It's a Beta suited for production apps since February:

"Beta Testers,

Heroku Europe is ready to begin running your production apps!

Create an app in the region:

        $ heroku create --region eu

Then add add-ons, deploy, and scale as usual. Please note we're still adding
capacity in this area, so contact us if you expect to run more than 30 dynos
or do more than 500 reqs/second on any app in Europe.

As always, private betas should be considered confidential. Please don’t
tweet, blog, or talk about this feature publicly until we announce it
ourselves.

Documentation:
[https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/regions](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/regions)
Questions & feedback: eu-beta@heroku.com

Best,

The Heroku Team"

~~~
richardwhiuk
"Please don’t tweet, blog, or talk about this feature publicly until we
announce it ourselves." \- but commenting on Hacker News is fine :p

~~~
bjeanes
It's no longer a private beta...

[https://blog.heroku.com/archives/2013/4/24/europe-
region](https://blog.heroku.com/archives/2013/4/24/europe-region)

------
crashoverdrive
I'd be curious to see the numbers of how often Heroku pushes code to
production, and also how often those pushes break the build.

~~~
julioademar
Well, it may not be their fault:
[http://status.aws.amazon.com/](http://status.aws.amazon.com/)

~~~
crashoverdrive
Sorry, what I meant was that I wasn't suggesting it was their fault, I was
merely reminded of my own curiosity of wanting to build a better product but
not wanting to break what a ton of customers are using and paying a lot of
money for

------
webbruce
Yeah, seems to be Amazon, not Heroku this time.

~~~
chubot
Note from last time:
[https://status.heroku.com/incidents/151](https://status.heroku.com/incidents/151)

"This post will reference the AWS services that we use behind the scenes so
that we can be very specific. Note that although we will be discussing various
AWS service failures, we don't blame them for what our customers experienced
in any way. _Heroku takes 100% of the responsibility for the downtime
affecting our customers last week._ "

In other words, they shouldn't be exposing AWS outages to users (although as
as long as they use a single cloud provider that's impossible to avoid in
general.)


What's Inside Red Bull - fogus
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/15-07/st_redbull
======
woodall
The official RedBull site has a list of ingredients for all product lines[1].
I am fond of the sugar-free version myself, although it can't be any better
for you.

[1] [http://www.redbull.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Products/Red-
Bull...](http://www.redbull.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Products/Red-Bull-Energy-
Drink-021242751115866)


Show HN: JsonTree, a 3.53kb JavaScript tool for generating html trees from JSON - MaxLeiter
https://maxleiter.github.io/jsonTree/
======
brockwhittaker
You should consider removing all the other functions from the global scope,
especially because they have relatively generic names like "generateTree",
"toArray", "depth", and "toggleClass".

Consider using an actual class or a closure perhaps?

~~~
MaxLeiter
Wrapped in a closure, thanks!

------
Cheezmeister
Thanks for sharing! I see your 3.5k and raise (lower?) you 1.6k

[https://github.com/cheezmeister/kapok](https://github.com/cheezmeister/kapok)

[I think it does most of what yours
does]([https://github.com/Cheezmeister/kapok/blob/master/tst/kapok....](https://github.com/Cheezmeister/kapok/blob/master/tst/kapok.spec.coffee))
(EDIT: Nope, missing URL loading and XSS cleaning!)

~~~
MaxLeiter
Yours is much cleaner code though; this was my first venture in javascript
(and really programming) when I wrote it and am planning on refactoring it
soon(tm). Great work with Kapok, the demo page is well done.

------
kc10
I didn't realize it's a tree until I clicked it. Changing the buttons to + and
- signs might help.

~~~
tomatsu
I'm using ⊞ and ⊟ for that.

~~~
timfletcher
I was confused too. It looks like an bulleted list in Chrome.

~~~
ibgib
I think its cool, but def the bullets threw me. Maybe an example of the
customized styling would be good.

------
edko
I noticed that your json2html function assigns the same id (top) to all non-
leaf tree nodes. You might want to fix that.

------
ComputerGuru
This doesn't work in Safari on iOS. Values don't show up, no tree.

------
foota
I definitely expected this to be like a JSON serialization format for HTMl.

------
Lorin
Neat, but generated tree isn't keyboard accessible.

~~~
MaxLeiter
keyboard accessible? are most html trees?

~~~
simonw
They definitely should be, for accessibility reasons and because it's not that
difficult to support.

Here's an example of a tree widget that can be navigated by keyboard:
[https://www.jstree.com/docs/html/](https://www.jstree.com/docs/html/)

~~~
EdSharkey
I'm not a fan of javascript being used for the clicky handlers, even if the
element being clicked is a natural clicky element like an anchor tag.

It's much better to rely on a toggle like input type=checkbox and CSS to
visualize tree expand and collapse based on checkbox states than to install
click handlers in javascript. I suspect you could make such an arrangement
more accessible and keyboard navigable as well (via grouping.)

Javascript should only be used to dynamically load/unload subtrees on click in
the case of especially huge or costly trees.

------
kyriakos
The menu on the linked page does not work on mobile because the fork me banner
is overlayed on top on it.

~~~
MaxLeiter
Removed the banner - thanks

------
frik
Doesn't work on mobile browser.

------
WhitneyLand
Doesn't work on mobile? (iOS)


Netflix Makes Amends For Outage - jameshicks
http://www.infotainmentnews.net/2011/03/23/netflix-makes-amends-for-outage/#axzz1HMGY73Gm
======
lorax
Wow, 3%. At $7.99 a month, your credit will be 24 cents.


So you've Upgrade to Snow Leopard? Post Dev Feedback Here - whalesalad

Those developing on the mac generally have lots of added libraries and tools... like Fink or MacPorts, different Python or Ruby versions, etc..
In my case, I don't use the base install of Apache and run my own, with mod_wsgi. I also run my own build of MySQL. Because of things like this, I tend to shy away from all of the automated crap (such as the migration tools, and upgrading a point release rather than a fresh install) and I don't think i'm alone. I upgraded my older Macbook Pro to Leopard by formatting and installing fresh, then manually moving data.
Because Snow Leopard is a smaller release and more of a glorified patch or service-pack if you will, I am wondering if I really need to do this. I'd love to get feedback from all the Mac hackers out there who have upgrade to Snow Leopard. What kind of problems have you noticed, if any?
======
GreggW
I just told my wife, "The next time I want to be an early adopter, just hit me
until I fall to the ground and stay there."

I have a bilateral hand disability, and the program I DEPEND on, MacSpeech
Dictate, doesn't work under Snow Leopard. I had refused to pay an extra $55
for features that should have been there in the first place, but now I have
to. Furthermore, the UPDATE ISN'T DOWNLOADABLE (they mail it to you, for $10
to $90 extra, based on how fast you want it). And the final insult is that
it's not clear the new version will even work until they (not an especially
responsive company, of course) release a Snow Leopard update that may be
delayed by "several minor functional and cosmetic issues" they want to add!

I'm hosed for at least a week, maybe longer. I'm 55 years old, the very
definition of a gentle, responsible person, and this is the first time I've
flamed IN MY LIFE. But I've got to say this:

I HATE MACSPEECH, THEIR BUSINESS PRACTICES, THEIR INSANELY BRAIN-DEAD DESIGN
AND USABILITY DECISIONS, AND THEIR TOTAL DISREGARD OF INFORMED (former 10-year
technical Apple employee) FEEDBACK BY SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY USES AND DEPENDS ON
THEIR PRODUCT EVERY DAY.

Even though it hurts my hands to type this, it was WORTH IT.

I could go on...but that's it, basically. And not a single exclamation mark or
#$@%&* expletive, either.

------
makecheck
I've noticed no real compatibility problems so far, and I just upgraded my
Leopard machine. (Still took an hour, and I didn't even opt to install Xcode
3.2 yet.)

A somewhat odd and annoying change is that /usr/bin no longer contains a
number of common tools that are technically developer tools. For instance,
there is no /usr/bin/make or /usr/bin/xcodebuild; one must instead look in
/Developer/usr/bin.

Both Python 2.5.4 and 2.6.1 are in /usr/bin, and it's handy to have both.

~~~
duskwuff
/usr/bin/make _et. al._ will probably reappear once you install XCode 3.2.

~~~
makecheck
Ah, that's good to know. Though I (still) have Xcode 3.1 installed, I was
surprised it would just delete the /usr/bin stuff.

------
shabble
Has anyone tested SIMBL plugins such as Visor (
<http://github.com/darwin/visor/tree/master> ) with it? I ended up twiddling
my thumbs for a while when some security updates broke it previously (10.5.3,
I think?) and would like to check the same doesn't happen.

------
scribesa
MyTV/x does not work with Snow Leopard because Eskape Labs is not issuing any
update after 10.4 VMware version 1 is not compatible with Snow Leopard. I lost
data. I reinstalled Tiger and I lost everything on iTunes. For me, Snow
Leopard is a sad experience.

------
ryanmcgrath
Biggest thing that annoys me is that, yet again, like when Leopard first went
out, there's no way to modify the colors in the OS X terminal.

Seriously, why on earth does Apple have such a problem with this small
feature? It boggles the mind.

~~~
makecheck
Which colors do you mean? The Preferences window is used to modify background
and text, etc.

Although I admit, the requirement to create preference sets (or modify the
default) in order to change a single window, is irritating. That's why I use
MacTelnet instead. :)

~~~
ryanmcgrath
Font colors, syntax highlighting.

~~~
makecheck
The syntax highlighting feature might be relying on the 16/256 basic colors
(a.k.a. ANSI colors).

I have not tried this, but I dug up a hack that someone has done to add an
ANSI colors editor to Terminal:

[http://ciaranwal.sh/2007/11/01/customising-colours-in-
leopar...](http://ciaranwal.sh/2007/11/01/customising-colours-in-leopard-
terminal)

MacTelnet has an ANSI colors editor built-in.

~~~
andreyf
_I dug up a hack that someone has done to add an ANSI colors editor to
Terminal_

Right. That doesn't work in Snow Leopard. That's what OP meant.

------
kevinherron
Eclipse and Wireshark (X11) both seem to be working fine for me.

Xcode+iPhone SDK works still, unsurprisingly...

Xcode uses a new font called Menlo by default now. It's anti-aliased and looks
nice.

------
randrews
Carbon Emacs works fine. Ruby works fine, although some gems that have native
extensions needed reinstalling.

X11 seems to be totally broken though. The Gimp and Crossover both don't work
at all.

------
andreyf
Upgrading broke my apache/mod_wsgi setup (says Premature end of script
headers: django.wsgi), still debugging, although I'm not the best at fixing
these things :-/

------
xfi155
Safari Flash-Plugin using 15%+ CPU continuous, unexpectedly crashed during
session.

Firefox behaving well


Facebook accused of gagging debate - chris_wot
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/facebook-accused-of-gagging-samesex-debate/news-story/d6278508f67d8cfc5ee5efe5147ff378
======
chris_wot
My main concern here is that someone was monitoring John Dickson's wall. It
may have been accidentally deleted, but did it get flagged? How did it come to
the attention of Facebook admins?


How to See a Supernova This Weekend From Your Backyard - wicknicks
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/09/how-to-spot-a-supernova/
======
japaget
This supernova has been hyped lately but is not something a casual observer
will find to be particularly exciting. It is best seen with a telescope and
will appear as a faint dot of light. The brightness will be magnitude 10 or
11, or about 100 times fainter than what the unaided eye can see in dark skies
far from city lights. For more information, see

[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingbl...](http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingblog/128430288.html)

or

[http://washedoutastronomy.com/content/another-urban-
supernov...](http://washedoutastronomy.com/content/another-urban-
supernova?page=1)

or

[http://www.dailycalifornian.org/how-to-spot-new-supernova-
in...](http://www.dailycalifornian.org/how-to-spot-new-supernova-in-nearby-
galaxy-space-com/)

------
mturmon
People might be interested to know that this story is indicative of a sea
change in astronomy. It has become apparent that there is a lot of variability
in the nighttime sky, and we now have the technical means to discover lots of
new things.

One major factor in this change has been the advent of wide-angle surveys,
that repeat often enough to find variable sources like SN's, blazars,
asteroids, lensing events, etc., while they're still interesting. The Palomar
Transient Factory (<http://www.astro.caltech.edu/ptf/>) is the one mentioned
in the article, but there are many others. They _automatically_ detect and
post events in a standard XML format for anyone (including robotic telescopes)
to scoop up (e.g., <http://www.skyalert.org/events/all/2/>).

One of the largest, LSST, is now being designed, and its data volume will
prove to be a huge engineering/computer science challenge
(<http://www.lsst.org/lsst/science/petascale>).

There's a sophisticated and multifaceted image processing pipeline to detect
the changes in sources, to automatically extract photometric parameters, and
to pass these parameters on to a classifier to separate the events into types
of interest to various communities (the SN folks could care less about
asteroids).

~~~
Retric
In a funny way it seems like Astronomy is catching up to particle physics.
Once you add automation there becomes far to many data points to do anything
but compare a model with outside events and look for discrepancy's that
suggest either all models are wrong or one model is more accurate than other
related models.

~~~
mturmon
There's definitely a parallel in the data demands of, say, LHC and LSST.

Besides automation, another key thing is the element of time. It means there's
scientific value in re-surveying the sky. Ever since gamma ray bursts, the
time scale has been shrinking.

------
JacobAldridge
Hours, and 21 million years, after it happened.

~~~
mainguy
Yeah, I thought that was a little misleading also.

~~~
Natsu
Why would you find it misleading to use our reference frame instead of the
star's? There is no absolute "when" but a different time for each observer.

------
cletus
Reading things like this always brings me back to the Fermi Paradox [1]. There
are _lots_ of stars in our galaxy. Our observation of many nearby planetary
systems and our understanding of the chemistry of life suggests life should be
_relatively_ common but we've seen no evidence of it.

While life (on Earth) is at times incredibly resilient it's also really
fragile. A supernova such as this must essentially sterilize space for light
years around it and it bathes its neighbourhood in gamma radiation. Did this
kill off some nascent civilization? Supernovas seem to be relatively rare
(compared to the number of stars) but think: over _billions_ of years what are
the odds that such a thing--or something equally as deadly such as an asteroid
or comet impact-- _won't_ happen?

Space in incomprehensibly vast. The energy required to travel to even the
nearest star systems seems... prohibitive.

I'm inclined to think that there are also simply too many of us on this
planet, a problem that we'll either correct or will be corrected for us as
resources start to run out in the next century or two [2].

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox>

[2]: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY>

------
jacques_chester
Step 1: Move your backyard to the Northern Hemisphere.

------
thedjpetersen
Visually will the explosion appear any different than looking at a star with
the naked eye?

~~~
hvasishth
At the moment, not really. In several hundred years it might become a nebula
when it will look very different with a telescope. For example look up crab
nebula.

------
artursapek
Now I wish even more that I were back at school in Providence, the Brown
observatory is open to the public. This would be a good humbling beginning to
the school year.


Why It’s a Good Thing People Are Shallow (and 13 Ways to Exploit It) - epi0Bauqu
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/shallow-people/
======
quanticle
I disagree with a lot of the points made in the article. For example, the
"raise your rates", and "put yourself out of reach" suggestions would be
suicide for anyone targeting the mobile application space. There, the majority
of users are only willing to pay a nominal cost to get their app. Raise your
price above a dollar or two, and you're sunk.


Why there are no viruses for OS X - crocus
http://www.silvermac.com/2008/why-there-are-no-viruses-for-osx/
======
gaius
This article is complete nonsense. NT was designed from the ground up as a
"real" operating system by Dave Cutler, the man responsible for VMS, a which
has a well-deserved reputation as a rock-solid OS. Unix having networking
built in from the start (even tho', umm, it actually didn't) didn't stop many
exploits against Sendmail for example. Windows has a registry doesn't mean
anything either; so does AIX to all intents and purposes...

The vulnerability of Windows is more cultural than technological. The reason
it's easy to attack Outlook is that MS _intended_ it to be easily scriptable
so you could build workflow applications on top of Exchange/Outlook (to
compete with Lotus Notes). It didn't occur to them that anyone would abuse
this.

Was that naive of them? Perhaps. But then again, no more naive than the Unix
approach of root being the absolute superuser; in NT you can create files that
the superuser can backup to tape but not read themselves, which is very
necessary in many scenarios. It's interesting to note that many Unixen have
adopted ACLs and privilege separation; NT certain didn't invent these, but it
did bring them into the mainstream.

~~~
allenbrunson
windows NT may have been "designed from the ground up as a 'real' operating
system," but then Microsoft went and added a bunch of stuff to it that's
necessary to run old Windows 3.0 apps. So all that hardening doesn't count for
much.

~~~
rbanffy
NT could be made really solid and really secure.

The main problems here are the deep hooks into the OS that Windows Explorer
and Internet Explorer (and all software that requires parts of both to
function) had built into them.

The other problem is that far too much of the system runs as "system". I read
this has improved a lot in the 2003 and 2008 server editions. But most of it
was improved by having additional software bolted on top of the holes instead
of just getting rid of them.

~~~
tptacek
What absolute nonsense. Microsoft has spent more money on source code audit,
software pentesting, and SDLC than any other four of the top 10 ISVs combined.
All they _do_ is find and remove holes.

Find one credible professional security person --- almost all of whom run OSX
and Linux, by the way --- that thinks you're right, and MSFT is just bolting
security on.

~~~
thwarted
A "professional security person" running OSX or Linux would seem to say
something about the security of Windows and how Microsoft practices security,
or at least the perception of it.

~~~
tptacek
How is that anything other than a superficial cheap shot? I don't like to
_use_ Windows, but I respect the work that goes into securing it.

~~~
thwarted
I'm just pointing out an oddity in your choice to point out what security
professionals use. There would have been nothing odd if you had decided not to
list their OS choices.

~~~
tptacek
It's definitely a lot more fun to code security tools on Unix than on Windows
--- though I'm having a lot of luck with Ruby on Windows for debugging and
anti-reversing work.

You're right, it is odd. But it's not a testament to Windows security. If
security is what counted, we'd be using Linux or FreeBSD. We're not; we're
using an OS that ships with SUIDs that run commands as root for you. We use it
because we like it.

~~~
Tamerlin
No, we'd be using MVS, VMS, Nonstop, and their competition, not UNIX or Linux
if security were important enough to us... or at least those of us who are
well-informed enough to know the difference.

------
pmjordan
How about:

(osx market share) * (percentage of clueless osx users)

is much, much smaller than

(windows market share) * (percentage of clueless windows users)

Each of those factors individually might not make OSX sufficiently
uninteresting, but in combination it's probably just not worth it.

Once that ratio drops below ~1:10 we might start seeing more OSX malware.

I don't know enough about OSX internals to judge on its technical security
precautions, but beyond a certain point, the user becomes the weakest link. I
think that even Windows has crossed that stage by now. Remote exploits are
becoming rare, and even browser exploits increasingly require _some_ user
interaction.

~~~
ashleyw
I did some tests on XP a few years ago, to see how bad it was. I ran no anti-
virus, no firewall, no anti-spyware, nothing. Used the system carefully for
over 4 months with no problems. Web browsing, web development and bittorrent.
Normal stuff.

So I can safely say, while windows has its downfalls, I think 90% of the time
the problem is down to the end user.

(though obviously its a nice extra layer of protection)

------
st3fan
It is complete nonsense indeed. There is not technical reason for virussen not
to exist.

1\. Most if not all Mac users are in the admin group. Meaning they (or a virus
or trojan running under their account) can modify for example
/Applications/Mail.app without _any_ warnings.

2\. Mac users, like Windows users, download and run both legal and illegal
software. They also love to share software.

3\. Infecting UNIX binaries is extremely simple. Proof of concept virus can
probably be written in two pages of C.

This cocktail of user behaviour and a easily exploitable system makes it
extremely easy to spread virusses or trojans.

Why it is not happening? No idea. It could very well be market share.

------
tptacek
Wrong.

1\. OS X is a single-user operating environment. More importantly, anything
you or a virus cares about bears your UID.

2\. The clock on software security started with 8LGM in 1994, not with the
advent of networking.

3\. IE bears approximately the same relationship to Win32 as WebKit bears to
OS X.

4\. Almost every OS X user runs in group "Admin". See reason 1.

5\. Microsoft's "backwards compatibility mantra" bears the same relationship
to Win32 security as the Carbon libraries do with Apple security, and many
Apple developers came to Unix directly from OS9. Google "chargen ARDAgent".

6\. What Windows calls a "registry" Apple calls "Library/Application Support"
"Library/Preferences". Both are tree structured opaque configuration
repositories. Google "chargen input managers".

7\. Google "Vista UAC". People hate this feature, and it doesn't work.

The reason there are _fewer_ viruses on OS X than there are on Windows is that
you will make far more money targeting the large market than the big one. What
rational malware author would ever target OS X?

Signed,

A Linux convert to OS X.

~~~
Zev
While users might be able to authenticate as root, the accounts dont run as
root.

      zs-macbook-pro:~ Zach$ touch foo.bar
      zs-macbook-pro:~ Zach$ ls -la foo.bar
      -rw-r--r--  1 Zee  staff  0 Jul 20 18:32 foo.bar

vs

      zs-macbook-pro:~ Zach$ sudo touch bar.foo
      # normally it asks for password here. I used sudo earlier to rm -rf
      # something in /usr/local so it didn't ask this time.>
      zs-macbook-pro:~ Zach$ ls -la bar.foo
      -rw-r--r--  1 root  staff  0 Jul 20 18:36 bar.foo

~~~
tptacek
No, they're just in ALL=(ALL) sudoers. You're right; it's not NOPASSWD by
default. Until very recently, that was trivially evadable with InputManagers.

Not that it matters. I don't want to perpetuate the myth that root really
helps you against malware. If you can bind a socket, you can propagate. If you
can read a file I own, you can get my bank account and mail. Game over.

It is just very hard to secure a desktop OS against its own users.

------
hs
I seriously don't think market share has anything to do with security

if popularity is the main reason, then how come the more popular unix servers,
are more secure than their windows-based counterparts?

why unix better? by obscurity? absolutely not (i reiterate unix are more
popular, powering huge sites) better knowledge/use strong passwords? nope
don't think so better admin? maybe better product? absolutely ... ssh,
encription, randomization (swap, memory, etc)

my conclusion: unix is more secure due to its bottom-up iterate-often
development model yielding better product (more secure, more powerful, etc)

~~~
tptacek
Remote login to Windows is encrypted.

SSL and generic encryption primitives are built in to Windows, and the
libraries that implement them (schannel, etc) have been audited by people who
have, among other things, published RSA breaks.

Microsoft pioneered randomization. OS X just recently attempted to introduce
ASLR, as a catch-up measure to Microsoft, and failed badly.

The evidence you've presented is easily refuted, and so your arguments won't
carry.

~~~
hs
Well the fact they're easily refuted shows how much i use windows in daily
bases (almost 0%)

my guess (based on rumors) is that even though ms implements those security
measures, she leaves some weaknesses open intentionally (sony rootkit came to
mind)

actually i was thinking more about OpenBSD instead of OSX and clump them
together as unix

but you haven't refuted my main point: if popularity plays a role THAT much,
then why unix servers (more popular, more secure, more powerful, more
damaging) are less compromised?

~~~
tptacek
Thanks for being candid.

Well, let's turn that around. In the years from 1995 through 1998, Windows
security was black magic both to defenders _and_ attackers --- Win32 attacks
didn't really mainstream until Solar Designer and Matt Conover broke the story
on how to exploit overflows in the heap.

During the same time period, Unix systems --- and particularly SunOS/Solaris
--- were _positively riddled_ with trivially exploitable stack overflows.
Number of Solaris worms and viruses during that time period? _Zero_.

I'm sort of digressing, but, can you come up with a logic that explains why OS
X virus scarcity is about the intrinsic security of OS X and still describes
the '90s?

I don't think malware prevalance has much to do with intrinsic OS security at
all.

Also: smart not to lump OS X in with other Unixes. OS X has a very different,
much more difficult challenge to deal with than server Linux.

------
Tamerlin
UNIX was designed for collaboration rather than security. The permissions, the
(originally) open password file, sticky bits... it was full of security holes.
Big ones. The engineers closed those holes after the fact when the internet
started opening UNIX machines to the outside world.

NT actually has an enormous edge on security because of its roots in VMS
rather than in UNIX, since as gaius pointed out, VMS places far more of an
emphasis on security than UNIX did until the internet made it necessary.

------
sdurkin
Virus's require critical density in order to spread.

The same way the flu runs rampant through crowded urban areas today, viruses
only spread quickly when there's enough computers for them to infect.

The lack of standard issue malware is probably due to better (although not
perfect) security, and lack of economic incentives due to lower market share.

------
pmorici
It's just a function of OSX market share. I'm sure they same crap will appear
for OSX at the point where it becomes criminally profitable to do so.

~~~
allenbrunson
personally, i don't think so.

<http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/broken_windows>

~~~
pmorici
I think that article only goes so support my assertion. He is basically saying
that the reason there is none is because people that use MACs don't put up
with it. Well eventually when MAC starts making in-roads in the lower end of
the market it's like a bunch of criminals moving into the neighborhood.

Maybe it's a little harder to write malware for the MAC maybe not but there
will be a point when the additional difficulty doesn't out weigh the profit
that could be gained and at that point people will focus more effort on it.
It's just like the energy problem people didn't get really serious about it
until oil got really expensive.

Not to mention that there is all sorts of stuff in the /Library folder and it
might as well be as good a place to hide as the registry.

~~~
allenbrunson
you might be onto something there.

gruber wrote that essay in 2004. in those days, it seemed like the mac would
always be the niche computer for special snowflakes. now it's more popular
than anyone could have imagined. so it seems entirely likely that the platform
will eventually get its share of uninformed, indifferent users.