Ask HN: What software would you pay for right now? - tixocloud
Looking for some ideas on what to build for small-medium sized businesses/startups.
======
krmmalik
1.Better automated webinar software. The existing solutions are good feature
wise but the UX's are awful. This space needs some serious innovation.

2\. Customer journey automation tools. Autopilot is really good but its good
to see competition in this area

3\. Something that makes the burden of making data more accurate at the
logging end better to report to business intelligence tools

4\. Something that allows me to leverage my knowledge expertise as a
consultant and better helps me deploy group coaching and accountability. Again
there's some software out there for this already but nothing I like

6\. Most important. A really good CRM. I've tried soooooooo many. Not a single
silver bullet solution. Can't believe it given its 2016.

~~~
tixocloud
Wow. Many ideas and all of them seem really good.

For 6, what's the biggest problem will all the CRMs out there these days? What
makes you cringe?

2\. is something that I did think about but am unsure about the market for the
tool. I'd also like to learn more about 1. and 4. in greater detail.

3\. I know how you feel - I've been in BI and logging data accuracy is just a
pain. You'll also have to balance to make sure that the UX is not affected by
having all these logging events.

~~~
krmmalik
Glad you like :)

For 6, all the tools despite promising minimal data entry don't actually
deliver on their promise (at least not in my experience) and don't play as
nice with other tools as they could. Customer journey automation is a growing
market and CRM systems are not paying that area enough attention. It's not
that they need to build something that can address automation itself -- they
just need to play nice , very nice, with other tools.

For number 1 check out Stealth Seminar and EverWebinar. They're the two best
in the business which says a lot.

For 4. What else would you like to know? What kind of detail would you like me
to share?

~~~
tixocloud
Thanks. Would love to discuss with you further about 6 .. and the customer
journey automation piece. Maybe something we could collaborate together.

Would love to know what's out there for 4.

~~~
krmmalik
Happy to chat further and happy to collaborate in some way, but you should
know I'm not a coder/developer. I don't have any skills -- coding or otherwise
-- that would help in building anything. I'm good for collaborating with in
terms of domain research. I.e. what are the challenges users are facing and
what is or isn't a good solution.

I'm on twitter @khurammalik

------
rgovind
I would pay for a way to manage my google search results. I sometimes go to
10th page on google, I make extra effort to avoid some websites and I keep
expanding my search words. If I search for Donald trump now and two minutes
later I search for "Donal Trump, Hillary comment", I don't want to see the
results I got from my first search query. Either google should have a way of
not showing these results or some 'note taking chrome addon' can remove those
results for me.

For what it is worth, sometimes my search string is as follows (India
related). As you can see, I am searching for narendra modi minus major news
sites. narendra modi -timesofindia -ndtv -ibnlive -thehindu -Firstpost
-facebook -indianexpress -hindustantimes -news -indiatimes

~~~
tixocloud
What it sounds like you're describing is a way to filter out certain websites?

~~~
rgovind
Yes. But the list to be filtered varies with the query I make.

~~~
tixocloud
Sounds like an idea that the Google Search PM should pick up on :)

~~~
rgovind
Yes. But I am not going to hold my breath about it.

------
muzani
A portal where small companies could apply for bespoke enterprise technical
projects, without the hassle of bribing officials or writing long tenders.

~~~
tixocloud
Would it be something like a job board for small companies? I've been in a
consulting firm and I'm still trying to understand whether a portal would help
solve that issue.

~~~
muzani
Sorry, I meant for something like government projects and huge companies like
banks.

Because a lot of them have nowhere to list. The process is not fair, and in
developing countries, people exploit this. Usually one person has the power to
recommend and significantly affect the decision. That one person tends to get
a lot of free lunches and free phones.

The lack of competition also leads to overinflated prices on the buyer's end
and over promising on the seller's end. If the average applicant offered to
Project A for $1,000,000 in 4 months, and suddenly company 13 offers to do it
for $400,000 in 1 month, something sticks out.

If there were only 1-4 applicants, as usually happens for this situation, the
shady inexperienced one will not stick out so much. As a result, a lot of
these companies take these jobs and get burned, which damages the industry as
a whole.

~~~
tixocloud
I can see it working for governments but for private banks, not sure. Even in
Canada, we see a lot of value placed on business relationships and even though
there's plenty of transparency, many times there are things that get swept
under.

However, in Canada, we do have a system like that for government projects so
it could definitely be a step in the right direction. Especially for
developing countries.

------
sharemywin
I had a pretty good idea that I thought would be good to sell to small-medium
businesses but I realized I'm not a sales person and so I "pivoted" to a
business that only required the skills I had. Just don't want you to fall into
the trap I was in. If you or a partner don't want to spend all the time
calling on businesses I would find something else to go after. my 2 cents.

~~~
tixocloud
Thanks for the tip. It's definitely a concern of mine. If you don't mind me
asking, how did you pivot to a business that only required the skills you had?

------
miguelrochefort
I would pay for one app/service that does 80% of what all other apps/services
do.

One app which I can use to sell things, buy things, send messages, review
things, control things, get notifications, track my health, learn things, etc.

This doesn't seem like something that would be too hard to do, considering
that all apps pretty much do the same things. But that would make people's
life so much better.

~~~
prmph
I think this is a major challenge facing software technology now. Seems to be
related to my question at:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10883322](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10883322)

One way to solve this is to create a modular super-app for which developers
can write components. This is much more than just the idea of plug-ins or
extensions, because the super-app will be built from the ground up, and at
various layers, to be highly modular, which almost every aspect being
replaceable with user-chosen components. Also, the basic structure of the app
and the its extension points cannot be changed unless by majority vote of
registered users.

For example, imagine a task super-app. The user should be able to choose from
various competing workflows, UIs, or 3rd-party integrations. These components
could be purchased outright from a gallery, subscribed to, or paid per use. So
if I have a little idea about how to improve todo lists, I don't have to build
an entire app from scratch to do it, I can just define a UI flow.

~~~
insoluble
> One way to solve this is to create a modular super-app for which developers
> can write components

I am pretty sure they call this an operating system. Moreover, most operating
systems do provide built-in or pre-installed functionality, such as for
scheduling, messenging, and note-taking.

~~~
prmph
Ok, but most consumers have no stomach to go mucking around with OS
components. The modularity of OSs is at too technical a level. And most third-
party apps are trying to solve slightly different issues, with lots of overlap
in functionality. There are no well-defined, standardized extensibility points
are needed

In any case, if I were to write an app for any OS, I still have to think about
authentication, UI, storage, etc. There is no tight environment where I can
just submit a more performant file sorting algorithm, for example, and be paid
by users who choose to use that in the OS. That is the idea.

------
humbleMouse
I would pay for a stripped down better designed version of soundcloud that was
targeted for music producers and djs to share samples.

~~~
askafriend
Can you explain the problem that you have that something like a stripped down
SoundCloud would solve?

What are your thoughts on bandcamp?

~~~
humbleMouse
I am a triathalon biker and also go to the gym multiple times per week. As
such, I always have my phone strapped to my arm. Soundcloud's interface for
liking/saving songs is basically unusable with my phone strapped to my arm.
The whole mobile app is a complete piece of shit in terms of UX desgin and
usability. As a producer, there is not even a button to click to access a list
of my own tracks I have posted on soundcloud! I test mixes on different
speakers all the time and it is a major headache to have to search for your
own damn song on soundcloud just to be able to find it!!! I should be able to
click a button called "my tracks" and see a list of all my tracks I have
uploaded instantly.

Also, soundcloud is just unreliable in general. Even on my laptop with fiber
internet I find myself running into ajax calls that timeout. I always have to
refresh the page and whatnot to get songs to play.

I could honestly write a small book about all the things I hate about
soundcloud. Now that they have ads I really hope that a small competitor
steals their pie. If I didn't have to work a silly enterprise job 9-5 I would
just write a new platform myself....

A stripped down version of soundcloud would include:

no stupid animations when I click any buttons.

no 100 ajax calls every time I load a page.

a mobile interface that didnt suck - and had an easy button for getting to "my
tracks".

A page that showed a history of every song I have ever played in chronological
order so I could go back and find things I missed.

Smaller album art for each song (ie. more songs displayed per screen space
unit).

No ads.

No fullscreen play/next buttons on mobile - screws me up all the time while
biking/running/driving. The buttons are too big.

As for bandcamp - I don't use it. The few times I have used it have been fine
though.

TLDR: I think soundcloud is the best source for finding new artists and music,
but the platform from a UX and technical standpoint is shitty.

------
alok-g
I am always struggling to find good educational games for kids. Something like
[http://betterexplained.com/](http://betterexplained.com/), but for younger
kids (mine is currently ~8 years), would be great.

------
thiht
A Linux desktop environment that:

* works as well as Windows or OSX _out of the box_

* is beautiful and usable

It just doesn't exist at the moment unfortunately, but I'm confident PapyrOS,
Pantheon or Cinnamon will come to solve this soon.

~~~
aspirin
Elementary OS gets pretty close:
[https://elementary.io/](https://elementary.io/)

------
OhSoHumble
I would pay for a service that allows me to view an aggregate of all the board
game meetups in my area.

In fact, I've started a project to make that a reality.

~~~
afarrell
I'd be interested in seeing that once you're done

------
kliao
YouTube offline mode

~~~
angryasian
If you sign up for youtube red you can download videos.
[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6308116?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6308116?hl=en)

------
eecks
A cheaper but as useful dropbox

~~~
banterfoil
Do you find that the prices are too expensive? I have always thought that
their prices were quite reasonable

~~~
eecks
9.99 a month makes me consider dropping it but something like 6.99 would be
lovely.

~~~
nstart
Does amazon cloud drive @5 per month fit the bill? Not sure if the experience
matches your expectations.

------
tmaly
google analytics with automated filtering of referral spam

~~~
pcmaffey
I'm consistently amazed that Google doesn't do this already.


For Students Accused of Campus Rape, Legal Victories Win Back Rights - ourmandave
http://www.npr.org/2015/10/15/446083439/for-students-accused-of-campus-rape-legal-victories-win-back-rights
======
supdog
"Legal" victories win back rights but don't cure the harm.


Amplify the OSS community with data - iopeak
https://asyncy.com/blog/oss-community
======
iopeak
Would be a pleasure to hear your feedback and questions. We have a bold
mission, but sometimes big dreams come true. Our in-app Intercom chat is a
good place to drop us a line <3


Ask HN: How do you stay in shape? - aphextron
I've found that any time I'm employed full time, I'll inevitably gain 20-30 pounds. Sitting all day and eating out for lunch adds up quick. What's worse is after a full day + 1 hour commute each way there's no time or energy left to exercise. How do you avoid this?
======
deanstag
I was late to the game, but the last few years have been a steady progress for
me.

I am not someone who can stick to a routine for really long. I am trying to
build that skill and I admire those who do that. Building the habit is the
best!

Now, things that have worked for me. \- The 7 Min Workout on weeks when I
absolutely have no motivation to spend 1-2 hours at the gym was what I started
with. Doing it in the mornings has worked out better. Because mustering up the
motivation to do it in the evenings is much much harder. \- Note that just one
set of 7-min is not enough and you should atleast build it up to 3-4
repetitions to make it worthwhile. \- Once I got comfortable with a few of the
exercises, I switched them with a few kettlebell exercises like swing, turkish
kettlebell etc.

I realize time is a factor with your commute, but if you can, the time you set
apart will be worth it.

\- Group classes worked a long way. Crossfit/Crossfit like intense classes of
one hour. The group dynamic helped me push a lot more than I would have
otherwise \- Stronglifts 5x5 - This is what I stick with now. Strength
Training has given me huge improvements with just the few simple exercises.

~~~
pfarrell
Morning exercise was a game changer for me, too.

------
pfarrell
As much as I can, trying to make each of the following goals and being honest
with myself that I will fail occasionally, but won’t have to give up
everything if I do.

Walking over lunch hour and then eating at my desk. Tracking steps and
striving to break 10k daily. Small sugar/junk food snacks less than 1x weekly.
Cut down on alcohol. No eating after 7 pm. Get 10 hours of sleep every night.
Drink lots of water. Apples and almonds for snacks. Have a scale and track
your weight.

Like learning to play music, keeping your weight down is an investment in your
future happiness.


Unexplored Areas in Data Compression - ingve
https://medium.com/@duhroach/unexplored-areas-in-data-compression-c256f70ba0c7
======
AidanChurch818
`Entropy is a broken measurement. The fact that [0,1,2,3] and [0,3,1,2] have
the same entropy value is annoying...' This is incorrect. There is no concept
of entropy for a specific finite sequence; entropy is a property of random
variables. Assuming a finite string is generated (i.i.d.) from a random
source, then one way to estimate its entropy is using the histogram but this
is not always optimal. Also several other parts of the article are over-
simplified or incorrect.

~~~
nabla9
1\. Entropy is a broken measurement

2\. This is incorrect

3\. There is no concept of entropy for a specific finite sequence

Do you see what you did there? Entropy is limited concept if you want to
advance compression beyond certain limit.

General note: There is tendency of commentators to nit-pick blog posts as if
being in debate where the goal is to win. It would be more valuable if we
would read the article and try to interpret the intended meaning behind them
favorably. Of course there are parts that are over-simplified or incorrect.
This is just writing in the blog, not fully thought out edited and peer
reviewed writing.

~~~
gajomi
While I agree with your general comments about the attitude we should have in
evaluating/commenting on blog post I have to disagree with the specific
critique of the above comment. The favorable interpretation of the article is
that the OP understands the basic definition of entropy but didn't realize
that it could be extended to other models that account for permutation
symmetry. But if you have read about any authoritative accounts of information
entropy (Shannon's 1948 expository article, which discusses permutation
invariance, is an example) you would be aware that it is more generally
applicable.

Entropy is a famous concept, but it is also a famously misunderstood concept,
and misunderstood frequently enough that I think we should err on the side of
being charitable to the critics as long as their commentary is technically
sound and focused. The OP could have probably done without last two sentences.
Nevertheless, I would like to think that the article could have been greatly
improved or possibly avoided entirely if the auothor had consulted
AidanChurch818.

------
beagle3
I have a compression issue much closer to my heart that is not being properly
addresses: AES-256 encrypted plaintext files. Seriously! If you just figure
out the 256-bit key, it would compress well with any compressor - there's a
_huge_ class of files which would only need 256 additional bits! Why isn't
there any advance on this front? /s

Entropy is not a broken measurement - in fact, it's the perfect measurement
(proof: Shannon's source coding theorem and its converse), its only downside
is that it is only defined with respect to a model.

If you measure it on the output of one model (permutations) with respect to
another model (i.i.d) then, duh, it's wrong. And general permutations are so
rare, that they might bug the author but there's no incentive to consider
them. Non general permutations - e.g., addition-modulo permutations, often ARE
reasonably well compressed by markov/tree/fsmx model algorithms and their
delta counterparts. (And they're still too rare to consider on their own).

Kolmogorov complexity is interesting, but it is too vast and complicated to
consider as a whole (proof: equivalence of computing Chaitin's omega to the
halting problem), other than as a very useful reasoning device. Therefore,
like with the halting problem, we focus on specific subsets that seem
interesting.

Frankly, this rant reads like "But I don't understand why they don't yet have
a car that runs on water". Compression is math, and it's a part of math we
understand quite well. BWT, for example, is an amazing algorithm - but if you
take a step back, it's just an efficient implementation of a compression
scheme that was known before. (IIRC, the last gap in understanding the
equivalence was closed by Effros et al in 2002)

~~~
raverbashing
Well, that's why you compress then encrypt first

Entropy is a good measurement _but it 's not the goal_. The goal is a smaller
file size

Yeah, I guess that for 'generic compression' the advances are going to be slow
and few. Without any knowledge of the type of file it's only bytes so you have
to work with that. Also disk space and network speeds are getting cheaper, so
what might have needed compression in the past might not need today (even
though compression got much cheaper)

~~~
detaro
> Well, that's why you compress then encrypt first

Just be careful of CRIME-style attacks...

~~~
pella
wiki: "CRIME ("Compression Ratio Info-leak Made Easy") is a security exploit
against secret web cookies over connections using the HTTPS and SPDY protocols
that also use data compression."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRIME](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRIME)

------
Arnt
There's a great big unexplored area: Optimising the expression.

I had a hack back in the previous millenium that improved on .tar.gz,
compatibly. I think it used find, but the current expression would be:

      tar zcf $(file **/*(.) | sort -T: -k2 | cut -d: -f1)

The use of file is a bit of a hack, but the idea is good: let the compressor
compress all of the source code together, without being distracted by
dissimilar files. Ditto for other types.

Compressing a byte stream is not the same as compressing the data. Reordering
a tar file doesn't change the meaning, and IMO the big, big gap in compression
research is to identify such expression transformations.

Compression algorithms regard the input as god-given, but in reality much
input can be reordered or otherwise transformed. The order of the files in a
.tar could be reordered if the compressor could say anything about what's
beneficial; the order of glyphs in a font could be reordered too. That sort of
communication between the compression subsystem and the data source could be a
very fruitful area of research.

~~~
jacquesm
Now that's a clever trick. I just tried it on a random subdirectory here (a
website source) and it actually made the resulting file _larger_ so it may not
always work but the idea makes sense. Wonder why it does not work in this
case.

~~~
Arnt
Zlib and most others use dictionaries; the dictionary is adjusted as
compression (and decompression) proceeds. When the input data type changes
drastically, continuing with the formerly well-adjusted dictionary can
actually be worse than issuing a flush and starting from scratch.

I saw the same thing happen during the work on RFC 4978 (IMAP compression),
which is why that RFC recommends issuing a flush before and after large
attachments. A compression state based on typical IMAP chatter isn't good for
compressing a random attachment, and one based on the attachment isn't good
for compressing the IMAP chatter.

------
Animats
And that's all for lossless compression. For lossy compression, there are lots
of unexplored areas.

I still like the FrameFree approach to video compression. Motion estimation
decomposes sequences of images into a set of layers which move and morph, much
like the way 2D movies are converted to pseudo-3D. This is hard, but can be
done, and there are several software packages for it, of varying quality.
Decompression is done by morphing each layer between keyframes, warping a
texture-mapped mesh in a GPU. Decompression can be done to any frame rate,
including ones much higher than the original. This approach is often used to
generate ultra-slow motion.

(FrameFree was demonstrated around 2006, but the company behind it, Kerner
Optical, went bust for unrelated reasons.)

~~~
sigterm
How is this different from motion estimate in HEVC?

~~~
Animats
It's not block-oriented. Image components are meshes, and they're filled with
textures. Between frames, the meshes change position and shape, and the
textures dissolve. It's a full morph.[1][2]

This got to the demo stage, and there were a plug-in and an SDK around 2008.
The playback side worked fine, but the compression side was really slow at the
time.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHHfNZFuM0g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHHfNZFuM0g)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBfss0AaNaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBfss0AaNaU)

------
alex_hirner
Interestingly, all envogue tech of today like ML and Bitcoin converge around
this topic. In essence, PoW is just (partly) figuring out the seed of a RNG,
which in return is compression at its finest.

Thus, the author has a point in saying "Basically, once we’re done w/
statistics, we’re done. But this mentality may be one of our biggest faults".
Even seemingly random data can be represented by incredibly short descriptions
(as in MDL). I'm fascinated by compression since I was a child hacking in x86
assembler.

------
willvarfar
I was expecting this to be an ignorant rant by someone not steeped in the art,
and was all ready to puff my chest out and correct someone saying something
wrong on the Internet, but actually this is pretty spot on instead ;)

People interested in data compression may like to browse the
[http://encode.ru](http://encode.ru) forums, where the experts hang out.

------
JoachimS
Good questions. Especially where all BWT-cousins are. An amazing algorithm
that should have spawned more research and variants by now.

------
js8
Not sure if this is good place to ask, but is there some Unix utility to
presort files, based on content, to feed them into tar or zip in correct order
so they would compress better by virtue of being similar?

I think it would be very useful if tar or zip could do that automatically, and
it seems like low-hanging fruit in compression.

Actually, thinking about it, the tool could later in more general fashion
rearrange the content _inside_ the files. So it would map each file into
blocks of similar characteristics that would then be compressed in correct
order across files.

~~~
castratikron
I think what you're describing is called the knapsack problem, so I'd guess
the answer is no. The best you could do is randomly order the files and
compress them, and do that a few times and pick the best ordering.

~~~
gwern
You can do much better than that: you can use summaries or hashes to get a
short version of each file and then compare the hashes for similarity. (Much
like using perceptual hashes to find similar images.) A tool that does this is
'binsort'. It's O(N^2) IIRC, because of all the pairwise comparisons, but it's
usable for up to a few hundred or thousand files.

------
rdtsc
Wonder if BWT can be improved (i.e. make it sort better) with a help of extra
additional information. So it is not a choice of all (complete sort) or pure
BWT but something in between. Maybe group things a bit better (close to a
sorted order) but needed a little map/error-correction/otherthing..? to help
it decode.

Idea came from seeing Kolmogorov right under BWT's section. Maybe the extra
information is a small FSM in a compact representation that works before or
after BWT.

Another useful thing in practice is ability to quickly recognize already
compressed data. There are enough encoded images, sound and are already fairly
compress. Outer compressor can be quicker if it quickly detects that.

------
faleidel
I tried to add 1 to the first byte of a file, 2 to the second, 3 to the
third... and see how it effect the compression rate.

On a small text file that could normally be compressed by 71% the modified
file only got 16%.

~~~
rasz_pl
Now try it other way around. Compress with 7zip first, then XOR with known
randomness and try compressing again. There is a random number generator X out
there for data Y that will let you produce low entropy this way.

------
techdragon
In my childhood I had the wishful idea that some sort of "1d" fractal could
compress huge amounts of data based on much shorter inputs. Assuming the
inputs to the fractal could be computed effectively, which I was fairly sure
could only be done by brute force which was never going to be useful.

~~~
roywiggins
It has been tried with images:

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

------
espeed
I have started to converge on this space from a different perspective --
thinking about how to design a graph database in terms of discrete topology,
which has led me to thinking in terms of the holographic principle: "the
description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a boundary to
the region". Specifically, I have been exploring how to use shape to
succinctly and uniquely define an object/relation in terms of the composition
of its constituent parts in a way that enables fast decomposition back into
its constituent parts.

For example, picture a spatial structure resulting from a the prime
decomposition
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_factorization#Prime_de...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_factorization#Prime_decomposition))
of all the positive 64 bit integers [0 to 2^63-1]. In this space, the prime
numbers are the base of this discrete topology. Picture the trees resulting
from all the decompositions, with the roots jutting up into space like peaks
in a mountain range. This gives the numbers shape and provides a foundation to
anchor more abstract objects representations.

To further illustrate the point, we could define a discrete topology with each
unicode character
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode#Code_point_planes_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode#Code_point_planes_and_blocks))
as a base element. Now define an algorithm to decompose strings into its
constituent parts. Similarly, we could do the same thing with dates and time,
decomposing them into trees, and likewise with geo coordinates in space. Or,
we could map all of these structures onto a tree of its binary representation.

Now with these discrete elements as anchor points existing in multiple
dimensions, define relations betweens them, and use the elements and relations
to compose higher-level objects.

For example, in a property graph
([https://github.com/tinkerpop/gremlin/wiki/Defining-a-
Propert...](https://github.com/tinkerpop/gremlin/wiki/Defining-a-Property-
Graph)), each vertex can contain key/value attributes, and traditionally when
adding a new vertex, a vertex ID is assigned using a sequence generator. Edges
are composed of two vertices, a label, optional key/value properties, and an
edge ID is commonly assigned using a sequence generator. Each vertex and edge
is traditionally stored as a row in the database, and traversing the graph is
a process that begins with looking up the "start vertex", looking up its
outgoing edges, traversing the outgoing edges to the incoming vertices, and
continuing this process while using constraints to direct the traversal and
filter out vertices and paths. For large graphs distributed across multiple
machines, finding optimal ways to partition the graph across multiple machines
is a challenge.

What if instead of identifying each vertex and edge by a meaningless integer,
we uniquely define each vertex and edge by a compact representation of its
constituent parts, like the cells of a body compose to form a person?

For example, consider the key/value properties in a vertex, such as:

      {type: "person", handle: "espeed", location: "Dallas, TX", age: 38, updated: 20151205112207}

...using our discrete topology, each key/value pair is uniquely represented as
a point in space, and the set of points are grouped together in a cell.
Multiple cells compose together to form a cell complex
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CW_complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CW_complex)).
When the set points are in general position, there exists a unique Delaunay
triangulation
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaunay_triangulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaunay_triangulation)).

Use Delaunay triangulation to encode a unique ID for each vertex, and then use
the resulting vertex IDs, label, orientation, and optional key/value
properties to compose edges. Edges then compose together to form a graph.

Here's the question I'm exploring: Can we encode a graph in such a way that
traversing the graph is reduced to a geometric algorithm?

------
TlDrBot
Summary: Kolmogorov complexity for compression is completely unexplored.

       Orig wordcount: 1325
       TlDr wordcount: 7
       Saved: 99.47%

~~~
asdfzxc
But is it lossless?

~~~
logicallee
yes! (by definition)

------
zigo3
middle out?


Show HN: Movienr - Discover Movies You Will Actually Enjoy - Made with Meteor - ccan
http://www.movienr.com

======
Udo
I quite like it!

My criticism is that after a while movies that I already marked as "liked"
still appear in the Discover tab. By the same token, simplify the 5 different
ratings modes into at most 3:

      - liked it
      - dislike(d) it
      - put it on the "to watch" list

The rationale for this being that I'm not going to rate all the things I
watched with 0-10 stars, and if I heart an entry that should train the filter
and it should imply that I already watched it.

I get that you want as much data as possible about who watched and liked what,
but if it's tedious to provide all that detail people won't do it.

------
js7
Does it just show everyone the same stuff? Or is it personalised to my
ratings?


New Device May Revolutionize Computer Memory - atularora
http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wmsfranzondfg/
======
joshrule
original paper:
[http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/MC.2010....](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/MC.2010.366)


Five charged with felonies for tweeting or retweeting a cop’s photo - ryanwatkins
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/08/five-charged-with-felonies-for-tweeting-or-retweeting-a-cops-photo/
======
klyrs
> Update (~4pm ET): Mid-afternoon on Friday, August 7, the Essex County
> Prosecutor's Office dropped its cyber harassment charges against all five
> defendants, the Asbury Park Press reports. These charges stemmed from an
> incident involving a Tweet attempting to identify a New Jersey police
> officer. Our original story on the situation appears unchanged below.

Sometimes a little publicity is all the defense you need.

------
spinny
"If anyone knows who this bitch is throw his info under this tweet." \- it's
not just "tweeting a cop's photo"

~~~
klyrs
True, it's not just a photo; it's also a request to identify a police officer,
which has legitimate purposes.

Unless you think that calling a police officer a bitch is a felony.

~~~
MaximumYComb
Worded as such it does appear threatening. If someone tweeted that about me I
would feel worried about my personal safety and that of my family. The law
specifically states that placing a reasonable person in fear for their safety
via online communications is a crime.

If you're going to request personal information for a legitimate reason then
you should word it in a non threatening manner.

~~~
kn0where
IRL, cops behave far more threateningly than calling someone a “bitch” on
Twitter, and yet they don’t get charged.

------
echlebek
I hope they get good lawyers and tell the prosecutors to pound sand. What a
sick joke.

~~~
quickthrower2
Yes and can they sue for this too? Not sure how it works but this does sound
it is like creating unfair stress for people to have to now defend themselves
because they retweeted something or expressed an opinion on twitter.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences, in most of the
jurisdictions harassment is a crime and its for the courts to decide.

~~~
quickthrower2
Thats the question. Is this harassment? Is the retweet harassment?

------
zxcvbn4038
“People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should afraid
of their people”

[https://nypost.com/2020/08/07/nypd-backs-down-from-bust-
of-c...](https://nypost.com/2020/08/07/nypd-backs-down-from-bust-of-cop-
assault-suspect-sources/)

------
aspenmayer
The behavior of these cops is deplorable.


Is this DFW line a run on sentence? - agbell
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/66063/is-this-dfw-line-a-run-on-sentence

======
agbell
I love the stack exchange sites, but I find they can be very hostile to
newcomers.


And so I'm giving up the Mozilla project -  Jamie Zawinski (1999) - Andrew-Dufresne
http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html
======
asadotzler
Lots of things on the Internet can move quickly but browsers are not Internet
software the way that Google or Facebook are. Browsers are still desktop
software and things don't move as quickly there thanks to slow PC upgrade
cycles and the absolute dominance that software like Windows, Office, and
Internet Explorer had a decade ago. Turning that massive ship took longer than
many imagined but it is happening.

Jamie gave the open source Mozilla project about a year and a half, including
the months of pre-source release preparation (and I think that's being
generous.) Brendan Eich and Mitchell Baker didn't give up so easily and
thirteen-plus years later they're still giving all they've got to make sure
that Mozilla continues to be successful in promoting choice, opportunity, and
participation on the Web.

Some things are worth fighting for and I believe that the Web is one of those
things. I'm proud to work with some of the founding members of mozilla.org and
think it's a phenomenal thing that such talented people are willing to commit
their professional lives to the Mozilla mission when there were and still are
far sexier opportunities available to all of them.

~~~
lovamova
When Firefox 1.0 came out, it was one of the lightest browsers available on
the market. What happened until version 4.0? Even the latest Firefox beta is
one of the slowest browser available. I’m not talking about the JavaScript
engine, I’m talking about the user experience of your product.

~~~
glenjamin
I'd say that in the 10 or so years since firefox 1.0, the average computing
power and requirements of the firefox user have shifted enough that the
goalposts have moved.

Firefox 1.0's USP at a time when browsers were bloated was its lack of bloat.
IMO thats less of an issue now.

~~~
petsos
I'm sorry but this mentality is everything that is wrong with software
development. How is bloat not an issue now? We expect that hardware is getting
better and better, but it is ok for software to become worse and worse just
because it can sort of get away with it?

In this case Firefox has even managed to outperform Moore's law. It managed to
become slower in a faster rate than computers get faster.

~~~
glenjamin
"Worse" in this case is subjective. Perhaps firefox today is objectively not
as good for me (as a developer) as it was at 1.0.

My argument is that I'm not necessarily the main target demographic any more,
Firefox 3.6 is fast enough and has the features that Joe average wants.

------
diego
I interviewed at Netscape shortly after they announced they would release the
browser as open source (June '98, ended up going to Inktomi). I remember being
very excited about this, and downloading the source when it first became
available. I found out that my (decent) desktop machine was not powerful
enough to compile it. When I found a machine that could compile it, it took
about 8 hours.

No surprise that it remained a Netscape project for so long.

~~~
daimyoyo
"When I found a machine that could compile it, it took about 8 hours."

Thank you. It never occurred to me that you need a lot more processing power
to compile code than you do to run the software you're creating. You just
saved me a lot of heartache in a few months once it's time to start compiling.
I love HN.

/srsly

~~~
Simucal
This isn't always the case. It is highly dependent on the language, the
compiler used, the size of the code-base and many other factors.

Most of the small to medium sized project I have worked on compile in what
seems like an instant.

However, I work on a medium-to-large code-base at work and it takes around 8
minutes to compile on our build server and around 12-15 minutes on my dev
machine. Even these speeds seem tremendously slow to me. I can't imagine being
a developer on a huge C++ project and having to wait tremendously long build
times. When your compile times aren't near instant it really changes how you
program. That feed back loop of code-compile-run-repeat becomes more like
code-double check code-code some more-compile-surf the web-run-repeat.

~~~
rayval
Ideally, you should not be in this situation where you have to compile large
amounts of code to go through the code-test-debug cycle.

Even in a large project, there should be subysystems that a developer owns and
works on that can be partitioned or isolated from the rest, and execute within
a test harness on a dev machine -- a harness that feeds the subsystem inputs
and records outputs.

Successful projects either begin with or evolve to a state where they have the
architecture, the toolset, the process and the culture to allow devs to enjoy
a fast code/debug cycle.

~~~
Andrew-Dufresne
Besides subsystems, tools like make and nmake utility can also reduce the
compile time.

 _Make figures out automatically which files it needs to update, based on
which source files have changed. It also automatically determines the proper
order for updating files, in case one non-source file depends on another non-
source file. As a result, if you change a few source files and then run Make,
it does not need to recompile all of your program. It updates only those non-
source files that depend directly or indirectly on the source files that you
changed._

~~~
voxcogitatio
Yes, but large projects often need to use recursive makefiles, which are
notoriously flaky at detecting what has changed (if anything).

~~~
drothlis
No project _needs_ to use recursive make.

"Recursive make considered harmful":
<http://miller.emu.id.au/pmiller/books/rmch/>

------
Isofarro
Excellent documentary on YouTube covering the year long open-sourcing of
Mozilla, right up to the point of jwz leaving Netscape.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u404SLJj7ig>

(via codinghorror: [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/01/lived-fast-died-
you...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/01/lived-fast-died-young-left-a-
tired-corpse.html) )

~~~
Andrew-Dufresne
Code Rush can downloaded from <http://clickmovement.org/content/code-rush-
download>

Other links for unused footage and annotated version:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Rush#External_links>

------
thought_alarm
5 short years later, mozilla.org shipped a product that was finally ready for
prime time.

~~~
asadotzler
And today that product is used by more than 400 million people around the
world -- far more users than Netscape ever had.

~~~
seldo
Specifically, it was Phoenix (aka Firebird, aka Firefox) that made that
happen: a version of Mozilla that threw out everything but the browser,
including the mail client that jwz considered essential. It made it smaller to
download and faster to run, but most importantly it made it faster to _write_
: they could ship improvements to Firefox way faster than they could to
Mozilla, simply because there was so much less of it.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Yup. A classic example of minimum viable product (although for phoenix far
more than minimum). Phoenix was a breath of fresh air back then. Mozilla was
as bloated and cumbersome as Netscape ever was, but Phoenix was fast,
streamlined, and a joy to use.

The turning point was when the RSA patent expired and Phoenix could fully
support SSL out of the box without any wonky add-ons. At that point there was
no longer a good reason not to use Phoenix/Fire{bird,fox} and it started
gaining huge amounts of momentum.

~~~
yuhong
The RSA patent expired back in _2000_.

------
nickpp
"you can divide our industry into two kinds of people: those who want to go
work for a company to make it successful, and those who want to go work for a
successful company"

Awesome insight. Absolutely breathtaking. Explains so much of what happens at
larger companies.

------
DEinspanjer
That was a good post and I had forgotten about it over the years.

It prompted me to write up some of my own thoughts on the current day Mozilla
Community: <http://daniele.livejournal.com/80677.html>


Votecastr real time election day data - binarymax
http://votecastr.us/
======
binarymax
There isn't any data yet, but they started capturing at 08:00-5.

------
statictype
Is there some kind of API for this?

~~~
binarymax
From what I've seen, Slate and Vice have exclusives on the data - so probably
no. But if it is successful and the company can stick around until the next
election, perhaps they will consider syndication of some kind.


Ask HN: Semi-technical co-founder? - ParameterOne
What would you call a guy that knows hows things work and can ask for specific things to get done but can't write a lick of code?  Non-tech or semi-tech?
======
otoburb
Three off-the-cuff options based on your vague description:

1) Designer

2) Marketer

3) Management Consultant

Taking a step back, it feels like this question is being asked without a clear
understanding of the underlying "why". Could you elaborate further?

~~~
ParameterOne
Just trying to find out where the tipping point might be between technical and
non-profit technical....And if there is a middle ground between the two.

------
hsikka
Could you give an example of asking for specific things to get done? I think
that the level of specificity and clarification of dependencies there makes
the difference.

~~~
ParameterOne
Probably more like "On the title, we'll probably have to prevent clicks on it
to improve UX"

And not "Use css pseudo elements :after to provide the correct bookmarklet
title."


Tiller: Dynamic configs generated from (Consul|Vault|Zookeeper|HTTP|etc) - orangepenguin
https://github.com/markround/tiller
======
orangepenguin
Not my project, but I use it. It has helped me containerize older apps that
are config file dependent. Helps bridge the gap without requiring a full
refactor of the legacy application.


Whistle-based login using HTML5 audio - shuma
http://popdevelop.com/mmhw/
blogg post: http://popdevelop.com/2013/11/whistle-based-login-using-html5-audio/
======
jarnix
That's totally useless :(


Cable and Sat TV companies lost over 670,000 customers last quarter - marklabedz
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/cut-your-cable-tv-bill-by-cutting-the-cable-2012-08-15?mod=e2tw
======
curtismch
Certainly no surprise. In the 10 years I've been married we have never paid
for cable. Just never been worth our money to get 100 channels we don't want
to see for 2 we do. They simply no longer have a good value proposition.


Crank up your Productivity with these 11 Mac apps - rickdronkers
http://rickdronkers.com/post/40338237583/crank-up-your-productivity-with-these-11-mac-apps

======
richo
> Internet marketing blahblah, (Web)technology blahblah, Lifehacking &
> Productivity blahblah, Entrepreneurship & Business blahblah.

I love how this literally is distilled down to <buzzword> blah blah blah.

Seriously though, couple of decent suggestions.

~~~
rickdronkers
Yeah, you have to be honest right ;). I'm a internet marketeer that rolled
into the entrepreneur-role at a web-tech startup. In my spare time i like to
read about lifehacking and productivity.

Could put drinking beer and barbecuing on there as well, but I like to just
exercise those activities, not blog about them.


SSH Keys on GitHub - MichaelTieso
https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=filename%3Aid_rsa&type=Code&ref=searchresults

======
Guyag
Personal favourite
[https://github.com/valeriangalliat/dotfiles/blob/b227cf9b252...](https://github.com/valeriangalliat/dotfiles/blob/b227cf9b252f3c8c43a776bc20e1f1b5d0acfc13/src/ssh/id_rsa)

------
akerl_
I feel like this gets posted every other month or so. I appreciate the
awareness, but it doesn't seem like there's much new discussion or debate to
have on the matter: folks continue to be a bit more careless with credentials
than they ought to be / don't think about what pushing something to a public
site means / etc, it would rock if GitHub was more proactive about messaging
affected users, it sucks that it's hard to safeguard against this via
technical means.

If anything, I'd love to see somebody do a blog post instead about how they
started scraping these results and/or the commit data firehose and messaging
users who posted credentials

~~~
herge
Wasn't that the point of lulzsec?

~~~
peterwwillis
_Ian Paul of PC World wrote that, "As its name suggests, LulzSec claims to be
interested in mocking and embarrassing companies by exposing security flaws
rather than stealing data for criminal purposes."[16]_ \--
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LulzSec](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LulzSec)

------
mosburger
Hmmph. I just found a bunch of free AWS keys by searching for amazon.yml, too.

What is the best way to share things like API keys among a team of developers,
anyway? I'm surprised this hasn't been solved already (perhaps it has and I
just don't know about it). I know you can share passwords with tools like
LastPass and 1Password, and I suppose you could use those for API keys as
well?

It'd be nice if you could, e.g., include a gem in a Rails project, get a
single key/password/token from one of the team members on that project, and
use that w/ a third party API to set all the requisite API keys for all the
third party services used on a project. You could also rotate the master
password when team members leave the group.

~~~
Couto
I'm not sure if there are other ways, better or not... but blackbox[1] can be
used to store secrets.

And it might be possible to achieve some success with git filters[2], at least
to avoid pushing secrets into the repository.

Still... just my two cents, I'm not exactly a pro-user of those two features

[1]([https://github.com/StackExchange/blackbox](https://github.com/StackExchange/blackbox))

[2]([https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6557467/can-git-
ignore-a...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6557467/can-git-ignore-a-
specific-line))

~~~
michaelmior
If you decide to take the git filters approach, git-crypt[0] is a good choice.

[0] [https://github.com/AGWA/git-crypt](https://github.com/AGWA/git-crypt)

------
daenney
I see your SSH keys and raise you a .netrc:
[https://github.com/search?p=1&q=filename%3Anetrc&ref=searchr...](https://github.com/search?p=1&q=filename%3Anetrc&ref=searchresults&type=Code&utf8=)

------
bagels
Does Github have a responsibility to help people out with this kind of thing?
What do you all think?

~~~
grhmc
No. There are valid cases to upload SSH keys and other certificates or
secrets. Preventing it would be annoying, and near impossible to be very
effective.

Just my $0.02.

~~~
jethro_tell
I agree with you, but I can't imagine a use case for a secret that's not
secret.

~~~
mikegirouard
I believe Vagrant uses (or previously used) an insecure, public keypair[0] to
keep things simple.

Aside from things like that, I can't see it being a _common_ use case.

[0]:
[https://github.com/mitchellh/vagrant/tree/master/keys](https://github.com/mitchellh/vagrant/tree/master/keys)

------
jnevill
You can search out private GPG keys as well, which is crazy-bananas.
[https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=filename%3Aasc+BE...](https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=filename%3Aasc+BEGIN+PGP+PRIVATE+KEY+BLOCK&type=Code&ref=searchresults)

~~~
Kenji
So much for no forward secrecy :D

------
avinassh
And if you want to get the public key also:

[https://github.com/<username>.keys](https://github.com/<username>.keys)

ex.: [https://github.com/avinassh.keys](https://github.com/avinassh.keys)

~~~
bradleyland
No need. You can recover the public key from a private key using ssh-keygen's
'y' option:

-y This option will read a private OpenSSH format file and print an OpenSSH public key to stdout.

For example:

ssh-keygen -y -f id_rsa > id_rsa.pub

------
geographomics
Looks like they've blocked it now. Searching via Google still works though:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agithub.com+inurl%3Aid...](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agithub.com+inurl%3Aid_rsa)

~~~
peterwwillis
id_rsa is being blocked right now, but id_dsa and id_ecdsa still work.

~~~
iamroot
adding wildcards works as well, eg: id_rsa?

------
orbjuice
They have blocked the search for private keys (id_rsa) but they still need to
block the search for public keys (id_rsa.pub); they're usually stored together
anyway. I just did this search.

~~~
netik
I don't think they've blocked it. I can still search on id_rsa without issue.

However, The majority of the keys I'm seeing are either encrypted, test
fixtures, or otherwise. There are many unencrypted keys available, though!

It's still surprising that people continue to check in private keys. No one
learns.

------
H2CO3
Update: This is no longer working:
[https://imgur.com/uT1fCRT](https://imgur.com/uT1fCRT)

~~~
iamroot
adding wildcards works, eg: id_rsa?

------
allworknoplay
This is matching both "id" and "rsa" individually as well, so not all results
are actually files with id_rsa in the name.

Example:
[https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=filename%3Aid_rsa...](https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=filename%3Aid_rsa+whatever&type=Code&ref=searchresults)

------
adelevie
I'd love to see an open source project around scanning the GitHub API and
subscribing to alerts for your org's repos.

------
xiata
People always forget about the other keys...

filename:id_ed25519 filename:id_rsa filename:id_dsa filename:id_ecdsa


A man who is ageing too fast - imartin2k
https://mosaicscience.com/man-who-aging-fast-werner-syndrome-japan-epigenome-epigenetics
======
RichardHeart
Summary of pro death arguments, one of which I've seen in this thread
(immortal tyrants.)

      Fairness
          Only rich people will get it. (No tech has ever done this.)
          Better to give money to the poor than science. (family, city, state, nation, has proven local investment beats foreign.)
      Bad for society
          Dead people make more room for new, other people. (consider going first.)
          Run out of resources (live people discover/extract/renew better than dead or nonexistent)
          Overpopulation (colonize the seas, solar system, or have a war.)
                Stop having kids
                Worse wars (nukes are more dangerous than having your first 220 year old person in 2136)
          Dictators never die (they die all the time and rarely of age)
          Old people are expensive (50% of your lifetime medical cost occur in your final year. Delay is profitable.)
          Old people suck.  (death is an inferior cure to robustness.)
      Bad for individual
          You'll get bored. (your memory isn't that good, or your boredom isn't age related)
          You'll have to watch your loved ones die. (so you prefer they watch you?)
          You'll live forever in a terrible state. (longevity requires robustness.)
          Against gods will (not if he disallows suicide, then it is required.)
          People will force you to live forever (They already try to do that.)

Do you think less people make progress faster? What's your target level of
depriving life of existence? How do you plan to keep mankind robust from
extinction events on a single planet? You might just need more people. What do
you think our technology would look like if we had 10x less people for the
last 100 years?

More people make more progress faster. Aren’t you glad your parents didn't
decide the world would be prettier or work better without you in it? If great
minds like Einstein, Bell, Tesla, Da Vinci etc., were still alive and
productive today, the world would be a better place. You're literally asking
for others to die out of your fear. The burden should be higher. Have courage.
If living longer comes with too many disadvantages, we'll know 100 years from
now and decide then.

Man up, save your family, save yourself.

P.S. Curing aging isn't immortality. You die at 600 on average by accident,
and if the parade of imaginary horrible things comes true, even earlier.

~~~
danieltillett
Often wondered why deathism is so popular and I have come to conclusion it is
a protective mechanism against disappointment. People really don’t want to
age, but they don’t think anything can be done so they come up with all sorts
of reasons it is good.

~~~
memling
> Often wondered why deathism is so popular and I have come to conclusion it
> is a protective mechanism against disappointment. People really don’t want
> to age, but they don’t think anything can be done so they come up with all
> sorts of reasons it is good.

One reason—not one I necessarily endorse, but a possibility—might be a
conviction that people really aren't very good, deep down. Perhaps its cousin
conviction that I'm not really all that good deep down.

Put another way, it may be rooted not in a protective mechanism about
disappointment as much as a persuasion about human nature.

------
dyeje
I really like the random blocks forming around the highlights effect.

~~~
hombre_fatal
I came here to say the same thing. Not overused, but unique and a cute take on
"mosaic" branding.

------
zan2434
This is unbelievably sad. What a tragic existence.

      Beneath, his skin is raw, revealing red ulcers caused by his disease. “Itai,” he says. It hurts. Then he smiles. “Gambatte,” he says – I will endure.

------
xvector
I hope I live to see the day when we humans can die on our own terms rather
than it being forced upon us.

~~~
ASalazarMX
It would be cool, but I fear some world leaders (be it politics, economy,
science, etc.) would never want to die, stagnating the status quo for
centuries until they die from accidents.

~~~
taneq
"Humans should only die on their own terms... except for the most influential
people, who shouldn't live longer than I say they should." Hmm.

~~~
nitwit005
"Dictator for life" is definitely less of an issue than "Dictator for
eternity".

------
ausbah
I hope the time is soon that we have some way of detecting and, hopefully,
fixing generic abberations like this in embryos (or even among those diagnosed
when they are older), anyone having to endure this is truly heartbreaking.


In Praise of Inefficiency: A Manifesto - grellas
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704479404575087241182091582.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

======
pw0ncakes
The problem is that we, as a society, _aren't ready_ for the level of
efficiency that technology is making possible. We don't have the values or the
tools to survive a society without certain inefficiencies. The worst example
of this is the tangle of buttfail known as private health insurance. Lobbyists
for those companies are fighting to the death against efficiency and progress
(nationalized health coverage) because, for those firms and their employees,
this is a matter of "life" (employment) and death (layoffs).

In 50 years, only a minority will be able to earn a living on a free labor
market. The current economic model (no basic income; minimum wage on which
it's impossible to live, but that can't be raised to a liveable level without
exacerbating the unemployment problem) cannot survive this change.

~~~
lmkg
> "In 50 years, only a minority will be able to earn a living on a free labor
> market."

Marxist communism was predicated on this assumption, based on the increasing
efficiency of industrialism. It's an interesting idea, but historically the
trend has been that increased efficiency leads to increased production and
increased consumption, not static production and reduced labor. I see no
reason why this would cease to be the case.

~~~
jules
There will come a time where it's pointless for some humans to work because
everything they do machines can do better.

~~~
gojomo
At which point, they will be connected to the ZyngaBook pleasure orbs and
allowed to live the rest of their natural lives in engaging but meaningless
bliss?


Liberouter Combo Cards – FPGA boards focused on network data processing - kerdop
https://www.liberouter.org/technologies/cards/
======
airesQ
There was an article at Ars [1] that explained how Microsoft uses FPGA powered
network cards at Azure.

The idea is to move "network decision making" (load balancing; maybe firewalls
and other assorted stuff) from the CPU to the FPGA, where this kind of thing
can be done faster, and more reliably (e.g. you can have hard timing
constraints on a FPGA).

Guess the other players in this field are pure software switches, which can be
very flexible, but sometimes slow. And ASICs, which are very fast (potentially
faster than FPGAs) but not as flexible.

[1] - [http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-
technology/2016/09/micr...](http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-
technology/2016/09/microsoft-azure-fpga-supercomputer-details/)

~~~
derefr
I always thought the "best-practice" architecture for these sort of high-speed
SDN switches was to have a custom ASIC "data plane" (hard realtime) that can
be signalled from a CPU "control plane" (running something soft realtime like
Erlang.)

Would an FPGA really give advantages over such a setup? I can't imagine it'd
beat the CPU at being a control plane—so it'd mostly have to be that it has a
lower TCO as a data plane than an ASIC. That might be true, if the code in the
data-plane would ever need updates (which, for ASICs, mean new hardware revs.)

~~~
nickpsecurity
Yeah, it would have an advantage: you could deploy it without spending
hundreds of thousands of dollars on ASIC production or prototyping. It's the
main use for FPGA's. They're better so long as unit price is cheaper than
masks and such for ASIC's.

In this case, each customer would have a relatively small number of the
switches where volume doesn't justify an ASIC. Might be enough switches &
customers to justify licensing a FPGA core with development cost spread out
among many customers.

~~~
vvanders
Alternatively you can also re-configure the FPGA for specific loads where ASIC
is always fixed. Downside is of course lower speed and higher power
consumption.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I shouldve mentioned that. Tks for catch. Reconfiguration is huge selling
poinf for them. Gone from HTTP 1 to 1.1 or 2.0? Just upload the new bitstream.
Got a better algorithm or bug fix? Upload new bitstream.

ASIC folks be like, "You gonna neef to bring a soldering iron for that update.
Or buy our latest model." Haha.

------
trapperkeeper79
I saw the page via wayback machine since the site was down at the time. Seems
like a cool academic project. I've been getting into FPGAs personally, with
this exact application in mind.

I've been really stymied by how to process packets in hardware. The obvious
approach seems to be to run an RTOS or even full-fledged linux if your FPGA
has hard IP cores on it. But is there a better way? How much performance would
one lose? I'm also a bit confused about how to communicate on PCI-Express (I'm
a software guy ... so learning about DMA). I have seen soft IP for TCP/IP
stacks but it seems too crazy. I'm doing this as a hobby education project
btw. It has been great fun so far! Wish there were meetups on this topic.

~~~
pjc50
> run an RTOS or even full-fledged linux if your FPGA has hard IP cores on it

Letting the OS touch more than a small percentage of the packets would be a
gross waste of resources. If you want to write a _program_ to process packets,
use a real processor. (Putting an FPGA in a computer and then running a soft
core on the FPGA is even sillier for performance.)

The main reason to use an FPGA for this is to build structures that
effectively encode your firewall or other layer processing rules in tables in
the hardware, so the hardware can make a decision without having to consult
the processor. MPLS and VLAN routing is the obvious case, but you can usually
keep a short IP routing table in there too. Ideally you'd be able to make this
decision early on while recieving a packet so you can start transmitting it
while the last bits are still coming in. What you want to avoid is buffering
("bufferbloat").

~~~
wtallis
> What you want to avoid is buffering ("bufferbloat").

 _Excess_ buffering is a problem, but a little bit is fine unless you're
trying to do high frequency trading. If you don't move packets to an external
DRAM, you're in no danger of having bloated buffers with just the memory on
the FPGA.

Or you could implement an active queue management algorithm to keep your
buffers from inducing too much unnecessary latency even when they are
generously sized. There are a bunch of AQMs out there to pick from, of varying
complexity. And it doesn't seem like there's near enough research into
hardware implementations suitable for use in switches or network co-
processors.

------
theocean154
Working on a pcie card, not 100gbps but hopefully not $10k also:
[https://github.com/theocean154/fpga-
board](https://github.com/theocean154/fpga-board)

------
tyingq
I wondered if an FPGA approach would be worth it now that Intel has their DPDK
approach.

Searched a bit, and found a terrific comparison of doing the same work three
different ways. It compares serving up a Key/Value store using traditional
software, then DPDK, then an FPGA based approach:
[http://www.hoti.org/hoti23/slides/lockwood.pdf](http://www.hoti.org/hoti23/slides/lockwood.pdf)

Skip to slide 22 if you're impatient.

------
douglasfshearer
Amazon announced they were doing network processing in hardware at Re:work
last week [1].

Custom silicon, rather than the FPGA or ASICS they were using when they
started the project in 2012.

They tout not only the freed CPU resources, but lower latencies and increased
security of isolating the networking from the CPUs running hosted VMs.

[https://youtu.be/AyOAjFNPAbA?t=1822](https://youtu.be/AyOAjFNPAbA?t=1822)

------
delinhabit
I can't open the site on my Android phone due to an SSL error. Is it just me,
or there is a problem with the certificate?

~~~
Radio2034
I'm getting a database error. Here's the Google Cache:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UrEvnt...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UrEvntvYCwgJ:https://www.liberouter.org/technologies/cards/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

------
xenophonf
Looks like we hugged them to death. Here's the Wayback Machine's most recently
cached copy of the page:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20160604121207/https://www.libero...](http://web.archive.org/web/20160604121207/https://www.liberouter.org/technologies/cards/)

~~~
lucb1e
Having recently tried to read a lot of old-ish research (10 years maybe,
that's old for malware research), I really appreciate the value of the Wayback
machine / Archive.org team. Donated €15 at some point just to feel a little
better and will decide on another donation later. Was about to post the same
link!

~~~
nickpsecurity
Wayback Machine is so critical it should get public funding. It may already
but stuff should be in the Congressional Budget. Leave control of it where it
is, though.


Japan's fertility rate is rising - MaxQuentero
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/01/07/japans-birth-rate-problem-is-way-worse-than-anyone-imagined/

======
mikeyouse
Noah Smith (Econ professor at SUNY Stony Brook with a background in Japanese)
took umbrage with this article;

[http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/japans-
fertility-...](http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/japans-fertility-
rate-is-rising-and-you.html)

        Except that is not what the graph shows at all. Yes,
        government forecasts are way off (forecasting is hard).
        But for over a decade, the Japanese government has
        been too pessimistic about the fertility rate.

        Just Look. At. The. Graph! Since 2005, the black line
        - the actual fertility rate - has been going up! It is now
        higher than the blue line representing the forecast
        from 2002. It is even higher than the blue like
        representing the forecast for 2008. The graph only
        looks like it goes through 2010, but a quick Google
        shows that the fertility rate is still over 1.4, i.e. higher
        than the 2002, 2006, or 2012 forecasts.

        In other words, Japanese fertility has been surprising on
        the upside for ten years and counting!

~~~
dang
Alright, since the title of the WaPo piece is both misleading and linkbait, we
changed it to Smith's title.

Should we change the URL as well? The rebuttal seems pretty convincing.

~~~
CanSpice
The rebuttal seems pretty convincing if you only look at the graph between
2002 and 2008. You could lop everything off after 1985 and have the same
rebuttal.

The rebuttal would be convincing if he went into detail as to why the
government forecasts are wrong, but he doesn't. He just says "hey they're
wrong" without delving into any of the history of the forecasts, how the
forecasts are made (which would be interesting, because then he could really
say why he thinks they're wrong), what his forecasts might be... But instead,
he just says "hey they're wrong" without anything else.

If anything he's guilty of cherry-picking, which is something we rage against
when climate change denialists do it. Why is this guy convincing while they're
not?

~~~
mikeyouse
I think you're missing some nuance..

The original article's premise was reflected by its title;

"Japan’s birth rate problem is way worse than anyone imagined"

But it's not worse than anyone imagined, at all. It's actually better than
people 'imagined' (i.e. forecast) in 2002, 2008, and 2012. Japan's fertility
rate might be a big issue still, but it's been beating the forecasts for 10
years now.

As for expounding on why the forecasts are wrong, or more substantive articles
about fertility and gender issues in Japan, you'll have to read some of his
previous posts. I'd suggest:

"Time for gaijin to take a second look at Abe's Womenomics" [1] Where he
discusses how the landscape is changing for women to enter the Japanese
workforce and how that might affect birth rates further.

"The Japanese tragedy, causes and consequences"[2] Where he discusses why
forecasts for GDP and growth rates have been notoriously bad in Japan.

I didn't post his original article to serve as a complete and thorough
treatment of the birth rate issue in Japan, but only to counter the original
WaPo article that was pretty misleading.

[1] - [http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/time-for-
gaijin-t...](http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/time-for-gaijin-to-
take-second-look-at.html)

[2] - [http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-japanese-
trag...](http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-japanese-tragedy-or-
lack-thereof.html)

------
eip
Japan, much like the earth, has limited space and resources. So I don't really
think of declining population as a problem.

~~~
Someone1234
It is in practical terms.

There are too many people on earth right now, it is unsustainable and growing.
However in Japan if they have a lot of older people and nobody to do the
actual work society needs (e.g. food, utilities, transport, etc) and or to
take care of those older people, then you'll run into a problem.

The problem for Japan isn't a decline, it is too fast of a decline. If the
decline happened much slower it might be a non-problem.

~~~
MLR
Japan's labour force is proportionally higher than at least that of the UK and
USA, their debt crisis is much more pressing than any labour issues right now.

~~~
throwaway90446
Yes. A debt crisis that the US is walking into almost exactly alike, but a
decade behind. And nobody cares.

------
Someone1234
Is there any reading material that covers WHY this is? Is it actual fertility
issues (i.e. trouble having kids), people having smaller families (e.g. two
people, one baby), people skipping kids entirely, or something else?

~~~
r109
From what I understand, it's the culture. Watch VICE documentaries on Japan's
sex culture. No one wants to have kids when the price of living is high, 80
hour work weeks, both male and female are the work force, and sex is viewed as
a non-romantic "come and go" as you please pass time. Having kids in Japans
high level business/work culture is a tremendous setback. They can't afford
that kind of downtime.

------
pm90
I'm not an economist, but Japan has accumulated a lot of capital. If they
simply invest it well, shouldn't it be able to provide enough income to the
aging population to take care of their needs?

Of course, the economy cannot follow the usual template of growth: more people
producing and accumulating wealth leading to continued prosperity for
everyone. I don't know what the situation is with Immigration, perhaps the
Japanese should consider making it more attractive for immigrants? But I
believe Japanese society is very homogenous and maybe not that accepting of
other cultures as, say, the US.

~~~
mikeash
There are limits to savings and investment.

Ultimately, finance is just a game. A really complicated and extremely useful
game, but money itself is useless. What matters is what people can produce.
Finance is merely what convinces them to put effort into production, and what
convinces them to hand over some of the output to other people.

For an extreme example, consider if they just stopped having babies
altogether. By the time the current crop of newborns reached retirement age,
it wouldn't matter how much money they had saved up. There would simply be
nobody to take care of them.

Ultimately, retirement savings schemes are just a way to address the question
of what proportion of future productive capacity goes towards retirees, and of
how to convince future workers to hand it over. If the pool of future workers
is too small, it doesn't matter how much you save in the meantime.

~~~
jtzhou
If Japan and other aging countries created a sovereign wealth fund funded by
taxes during "boom" times, like Norway has done, then it wouldn't be as
dependent on a pay-as-you-go system. This fund would be held in other
currencies and could be drawn down as necessary to keep the local currency
stable in the absence of exports.

True, much of the domestic economy would be providing care to older people
(and few tangible exports) but distributions from the sovereign wealth fund
would ensure the Japanese still have a high standard of living.

Pay-as-you-go social security systems are the real problem, not low birth
rates.

------
steven777400
I have to disagree with the article's claim that the forecasts have all been
bad. Since 2002 the forecasts have been realistic, although probably not
useful. The more interesting bit is what, if anything, can be made of the
uptick since 2005 in actual birth rates.

------
FootballMuse
> An aging population leaves the country with fewer workers and more
> dependents.

How does a low birth rate create more dependents? If the birth rate was zero,
then there would be no dependent children in 20 years. Increases in the
birthrate would create more dependents in the short-medium term, but would
only create more workers in the medium-long term.

~~~
pixl97
Old people are dependents too, the middle age people take care of them.

------
_random_
Maybe "Japan's birthrate spike consequences are slowly settling down" is a
less scaremongering title?

------
kseistrup
— and so is their mutation rate… ;)

------
shinta42
KARMA from rape of Nanjing. You learned your lesson.

~~~
dang
Comments like this are not welcome on Hacker News.

------
PaulHoule
No wonder why I haven't made it with my wife since I put a Miku Hatsune poster
on the wall.

------
ctdonath
Can't pin down now what I researched a while ago, but do recall that a
replacement rate under 1.4 is unrecoverable - the culture just isn't, and
can't, reproducing fast enough to avoid a complete population implosion.

~~~
debacle
That doesn't even make sense. Any sort of replacement rate is recoverable over
the short term. The replacement rate could be zero for several years and the
population could still recover with vigor.

If you assume an established nation (which Japan is for the most part if you
ignore WWII), the realistic maxima for replacement is about 8%. So you could
sustain population loss for quite a while (which brings down that maxima) and
still recover.

~~~
ctdonath
Could in theory, but how practical? Fertility is limited to a theoretical
maximum of roughly once every 2 years for 30 years (a friend has lived it,
having 15 kids), but the cultural changes to go from sub-1.4 to "recover with
vigor" are drastic; couples living in high-density micro-apartments and
thriving on high technology are a long way from living on a farm (as my friend
had to resort to).

Obviously this isn't a binary issue, so what constitutes "unrecoverable" is
subject to debate - one has to consider what constitutes "cultural collapse"
and, in a highly mobile world population, what other distinct groups will move
to fill the relative void.


Startup docu teaser #02: Steve Huffman (Reddit / Hipmunk) - e_w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjQBbNSlfNo

======
e_w
This is material from a 2h interview with Steve Huffman,
<http://www.hipmunk.com/> It consists of scenes that I probably won't use in
the docu but wanted to share with folks anyway.

Blog about the docu: <http://startup-dna.tumblr.com/> Twitter:
twitter.com/@startup_dna

The docu is about startups, venture capital, programming and education. I'm
bootstrapping this out of my own pocket and it's my first documentary. My
ambition is to make this film as authentic and 3-dimensional as possible. I'm
showing accomplished entrepreneurs and underdogs who just started their
businesses side by side and capture their insights about startups on screen.
If you have ideas for people I should interview and can provide intros as
well, please post their names below so readers can upvote candidates they
would like to see. Feedback is much appreciated. Thank you!

~~~
douglascalhoun
Great work, Ed! Very interesting and informative....

Looking forward to seeing more quality content in the future!

~~~
e_w
Thanks, happy you like it.


Bookmarklet: Reddit-like Collapsible Threads for Hacker News - akirk
http://alexander.kirk.at/2010/02/16/collapsible-threads-for-hacker-news/

======
akirk
It always happens to me that I get lost in long threads on Hacker News that
get started from the highest-ranking comment.

In order to be able to easily view the second-ranking (top-level) comment I
wrote a small bookmarklet to achieve just that. Enjoy :)

~~~
akirk
For your convenience, here is the source code:
[http://alexander.kirk.at/js/hackernews-collapsible-
threads.j...](http://alexander.kirk.at/js/hackernews-collapsible-threads.js)

The bookmarklet first loads jQuery from the Google Ajax libraries, then that
script. Both should be cached by the browser so that upon the next use of the
bookmarklet it should not need to ask a server.

------
Groxx
Very nice. Though it apparently needs a bit of polishing, this is something
I'd love to have on the site, rather than having to use bookmarklets.

Maybe Firefox & Chrome quick plugins to do this automatically? The dev channel
for OSX-Chrome finally accepts plugins.

~~~
akirk
Well, maybe we can get Paul to integrate it into Hacker News :)

------
qeorge
Thanks for making this, collapsing comments is one of reddit's best features.

------
johnfn
Just a little note: I read hacker news from hackerne.ws, and you currently
have it domain restricted to news.ycombinator.com. Not a big deal, but why not
just remove the domain restriction? Seems like more trouble than it's worth.

Other than that, fantastic. I can't believe you made this - I was honestly
thinking to myself earlier today that HN needed a collapse comment link.

~~~
akirk
I saw in the server referrers that people were trying it on other pages where
it has no effect, or might have strange effects, so I think it's good to have
it there to be sure people understand where it's to be used :)

I have added the hackerne.ws domain to the check and also added a no-domain
check bookmarklet to the blog post.

------
ilitirit
I've written a greasemonkey script that does the same thing. Unfortunately the
test page I used didn't have things like downvoted comments and a few edge
cases that caused it to fail. It would be much easier if comments were given a
unique class name or id.

------
pieter
It's a bit buggy if you collaps a child before collapsing the parent, and then
expand the parent again

~~~
akirk
I know, see the "PS" in the blog post. For now, I think it's probably not
worth the trouble fixing that.

~~~
akirk
That bug is now fixed, too.


Ask HN: Please, review my poetry website (Poeticous.com). - poeticous

It is a site for those interested in poetry where people can read poems, analyses, translations, recitations, etc, in English and Spanish. It's also a place to post your own work, if you are a poet.<p>Thanks!!
======
poeticous
<http://www.poeticous.com>


Simple SaaS listing based on your growth stage, pain-points and industry - Ozzie-D
We built toolbase.io to help makers, product managers and digital transformation specialists to find the SaaS tools that would be best for their specific pain points, industry and stage.<p>Start the three-step user journey here. https://toolbase.io
======
Ozzie-D
[https://toolbase.io](https://toolbase.io)


AppStore Developer Payout Hits $50B, July Sets Record, Biggest Month Ever - heshamg
http://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/03/app-store-50-billion-paid-to-developers/
======
sebbean
pokemon go IAP


Multiple ways to compute e in Raku - gbacon
http://blogs.perl.org/users/damian_conway/2019/09/to-compute-a-constant-of-calculusa-treatise-on-multiple-ways.html
======
vvillena
This article is a love letter to both mathematics and programming. It is
awesome to read something and grasp the joy and playfulness of the author. The
maths are explained in a simple way. The programming concepts go from the
straightforward to the delightfully weird (and let't not kid ourselves, Raku
shines the most the weirder things get). And the final result is downright
fun. I love it.

~~~
alfiedotwtf
Damian is a magician in the way how he teaches different subjects. His talk on
calculating PI was fun too.

------
MrEldritch
This looks surprisingly neat, honestly. I've never used Perl, let alone Perl
6, but I think I see why people cared about it.

~~~
ianai
Is it officially appropriate to talk about Perl in the past tense?

~~~
lmkg
I think technically yes, because the present tense should be referring to Raku
instead.

~~~
mclehman
Raku is not the direct successor to Perl, active Perl development continues.

------
tzs
Computing e to thousands of decimal places is an interesting exercise for the
mathematically inclined students in a beginning programming class. If you use
the ∑1/n! series you can fairly easily do it even in a language that does not
have built in arbitrary precision or an arbitrary precision library.

Let's say you want to deal with numbers to 1000 decimal places. Pick a base
that is a power of 10, such as 10000. Represent a number as an array of 251
base 10000 digits, with the first item of the array being the integer part,
and the remaining 250 being 250 base 10000 "decimal" digits.

You need two of these arrays. One represents 1/n!, and the other is the
cumulative sum of the series so far.

You need two large precision operations. To go from 1/n! to 1/(n+1)! involves
simply dividing by n+1. As long as we limit n+1 to under 10000, we only have
to handle division with a single digit denominator. Limiting n thusly is not a
problem--it's enough to actually support calculating e to over 35000 decimal
places, so our modest goal of 1000 is no problem.

Implement the division exactly like you would do division by a single digit
with pencil and paper. The only thing you have to worry about is dealing with
carry. You can have intermediate values as large as the carry x the base +
base - 1, and since carry can be as large as base - 1, this means you can have
intermediate values as large as base^2 - 1. Just pick base (10000 in my
example) so that base^2 - 1 doesn't overflow the basic integer type of the
language you are using.

The other large precision operation you need is addition, to accumulate the
result from the division into the sum. Same as with division--just write it
using the same algorithm you would use with pencil and paper. Add digits right
to left, with carry.

By using a base that is a power of 10, it is easy to figure out the base 10
representation of the final result for printing.

------
mhd
This also shows one of the things that Perl was great at in the past:
Personalities. Despite "Just Another Perl Hacker" being a common meme, there
were some people who just stood out. Wall, Schwartz, Christiansen, Conway.

I think this is important for a language and IMHO current Perl can't compete
with that. For a while Ruby had a pretty colorful and productive batch, and of
course Go has some elder statesmen of the industry.

JavaScript... Well, it certainly has a lot of coaches.

------
kvakil
> Maksymilian Piskorowski found that if you happen to have a spare eight 9s,
> you can compute 𝑒 = (9/9 + 9^(-9^9))^(9^(9^9)), which is accurate to a
> little over 369 million decimal places.

Sure, because 9/9 = 1 and if you take x = 9^9^9, you get back (1 + x^(-1))^x,
i.e. the first formula. It's cute, but I don't know if you could call it a
"discovery".

~~~
shakna
You can see the formula Piskorowski used here [0], under "Best Approximations
to e with n Copies of the Digit k". (All formulas marked with "MP").

He did in fact build up (1 + x^(-1))^x to slowly increase the accuracy of the
formula.

[0]
[https://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/mathmagic/0804.html](https://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/mathmagic/0804.html)
(The page may say 2004, but has been actively updated, and has references to
2019.)

------
dbaupp
Why does the Bernoulli formula take exponentially long in the exponent?
Python’s native form (using either an integer or float exponent) and even an
arbitrary percision computation to 1000 decimal digits using mpmath (also with
either an integer or float exponent) are fast even for much larger exponents,
and are accurate.

       >>> import math, timeit
       >>> x = 2**52
       >>> math.e
       2.718281828459045

       >>> (1+1/x)**x
       2.718281828459045
       >>> timeit.timeit(lambda: (1+1/x)**x, number = 10**6) / 10**6
       2.1324560802895575e-07
       >>> timeit.timeit(lambda: (1+1/x)**float(x), number = 10**6) / 10**6
       3.0082468304317444e-07

       >>> from mpmath import mp
       >>> mp.dps = 1000
       >>> (1+1/mp.mpf(x))**x
       mpf(‘2.7182818284590449335703801338125114…’)
       >>> timeit.timeit(lambda: (1+1/mp.mpf(x))**x, number = 10**3) / 10**3
       0.0004724335519131273
       >>> timeit.timeit(lambda: (1+1/mp.mpf(x))**mp.mpf(x), number = 10**3) / 10**3
       0.00047394841397181155

(Times in seconds.)

------
lelf
Also, Eccentric Euler’s one-liner:

      > '𝑒'.uniname
      MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL E
      > say 𝑒
      2.718281828459045

------
nayuki
How to compute e _properly_ , with consideration for error bounds:
[https://www.nayuki.io/page/approximating-eulers-number-
corre...](https://www.nayuki.io/page/approximating-eulers-number-correctly)

------
coolreader18
I can't connect to this page, as Firefox is automatically redirecting me to
the HTTPS version of the page even though it's not supported. I guess I don't
run into this that often given how common HTTPS is, but maybe someone else has
this problem with this site? If you are, have you fixed it before? I've tried
all of the methods mentioned on this[0] page, and I'm on Firefox 70 on Linux
Mint.

[0]: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30532471/firefox-
redirec...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30532471/firefox-redirects-to-
https)

~~~
bigiain
Are you sure it's Firefox doing that? I've got 70.0.1 on macOS and it's
displaying fine (with the red crossed out padlock in the address bar).

You sure you don't have HTTPS-Everywhere or something similar running?

(There's noting in the response headers or html meta tags that look like it'd
be redirecting you too https there...)

------
0db532a0
I am not convinced by the interest charging analogy. It is back to front. The
yearly interest is by definition the total interest that would be paid given
the already agreed charging period. The loan shark does not advertise a 100%
yearly interest (on a single yearly payment) and then suddenly increase his
winnings by cranking up the number of payments. It is then no more a 100%
yearly loan.

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alexeiz
I'd rather there was a single way to do something useful in Raku than multiple
ways to do something completely useless.

~~~
firethief
It sounds like your goals for Raku are incompatible with the aims of the
project, to the extent that making Raku into what you want would be "use
something else" with extra steps.

------
vkizl
Raku = Perl 6, just in case you're wondering.

~~~
bigiain
Sort of.

More like "Raku (nee Perl6)" I think.

It's (now) called Raku, because it isn't really Perl any more - even though it
started out that way. "Perl" is Perl 5 now.

~~~
gpvos
Spiritually, it is very much a kind of Perl, in a more concentrated form.

~~~
bigiain
Oh sure. It used to be Perl. But it's "married out" now and taken a new name,
and is off doing new things.


Multiple Vulnerabilities in IBM Data Risk Manager - Daviey
https://github.com/pedrib/PoC/blob/master/advisories/IBM/ibm_drm/ibm_drm_rce.md
======
reader_1000
The way IBM handles this is pretty bad. No company, especially the ones
selling a security product, should ignore security researchers reports and
feedbacks

Also the bugs described in article are quite surprising since for a IBM-sized
company, you expect them to have solid authentication/authorization framework
which they use for all their products. Is this a acquired product?
Authentication mechanism is very unusual. Why would anyone save a session id
coming from the user? This is more than trusting user input, I think.

Also ../../etc/passwd attack is a kind of vulnerability that almost every
automated vulnerabilty scanner scans.

Most people assume that authenticated pages do not need that much security
precautions however as articles shows, when combined with authentication
bypass vulnerabilities, you basically give keys of your systems to the
attacker.

~~~
osipov
>you expect them to have solid authentication/authorization framework which
they use for all their products

haha

------
teepo
According to IBM this is not even an active product [1]. Although after some
reading it does appear that if a client was still using this solution and was
paying for extended support that IBM would take care of them.

I wonder if the security researcher knows if this is a COTS product. I could
not find it to download, isn't generally available, and appears to be
deprecated by IBMs more cloud centric security solutions

[1][https://www.ibm.com/support/lifecycle/#/details?q45=I355654S...](https://www.ibm.com/support/lifecycle/#/details?q45=I355654S22480A00)

~~~
phonon
Wrong version, newer versions are still supported.

[https://www.ibm.com/support/lifecycle/#/details?q45=U977729P...](https://www.ibm.com/support/lifecycle/#/details?q45=U977729P09903E32)

------
phonon
This appears to be IBM's response.

[https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-data-risk-manager-
vuln...](https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-data-risk-manager-
vulnerabilities)

------
jbob2000
The thing about enterprise services is that they _don 't_ operate in the same
environment as ones on the open internet. So while these vulnerabilities look
bad on their own, they aren't that bad when you stack the enterprise's other
security services and processes on top.