More details on MAINWAY and MARINA - brown9-2
http://theweek.com/article/index/245694/minimize-this
======
jdp23
_Individually analyzing each incoming email is impossible. So the NSA
automates the minimization procedures as much as it can. Based on dynamic link
analyses done by computers, scores are assigned to emails and associated
profiles inside the system. Every bit of data associated with an email address
that might belong to a U.S. person "updates" the score. Analysts can query the
system for individual names, and email addresses, and even subject lines. They
can add, if they want, the place and time that the email was collected, too.
If the "score" associated with the email indicates that there is a 51 percent
chance or higher that it belongs to a person overseas, the analyst can start
monitoring content right away and not do anything further. If that score is
less than 51 percent, the analyst can, if directed by a superior, start to
access the content, if it's available, but the large team of lawyers the NSA
has will be instantly notified, and a FISA order will be sought._

As I interpret this:

1) analysts are able to access email metadata without a specific court order
or warrant

2) analysts are able to access email content without a court order or if
there's a 51%+ chance it's a non-US person

3) analysts with the approval of supervisors are initially able to access
anybody's email content without a court order, although the FISA court then
has to approve it

~~~
jdp23
Julian Sanchez has some thoughts on this at [1]:

 _Legally speaking, the analysts don’t have carte blanche. In other words,
this isn’t “warrantless wiretapping” so much as “general warrant wiretapping.”
They can’t just tap any old call or read any old e-mail they strikes them as
“suspicious.” They’ve got to be flagging content for interception because they
believe it’s covered by a particular §702 authorization, and observe whatever
“targeting procedures” the FISA Court has established for the relevant
authorization...._

 _None of that would be too surprising in principle: That’s the whole point of
§702! It means analysts get discretion to decide what particular accounts fall
under a very broad order. A key question, of course, is just what the checks
in the process are. Can an analyst technically (if not legally) plug in any
selector to start collecting on and just start getting material? Does anyone
check their work before call and e-mail content starts flowing in? How closely
are their error rates checked after it does? Again, legally, they don’t have a
blank check, but it’s the details of the system architecture that determine
whether you’d be able to tell the difference in practice._

[1] [http://www.juliansanchez.com/2013/06/15/nadler-and-
mueller-o...](http://www.juliansanchez.com/2013/06/15/nadler-and-mueller-on-
analysts-getting-call-and-e-mail-content/)

~~~
tptacek
Julian Sanchez has been doing great work covering this stuff. I think the
evidence strongly suggests the answer to his question about analysts
"[plugging] in any selector and start collecting on and just strt getting
material" is no:

* Google and Yahoo have categorically denied that it's so

* The Guardian has released a follow-up story recategorizing the NSA's access

* The full court order linked by the NYT in the Yahoo FISA case shows the court having to demand Yahoo turn over material, which wouldn't have been necessary if NSA had direct access

~~~
discostrings
Jump to conclusions much? Perhaps they can't pull user data at will from
Google and Yahoo without a bit of legal process and human intervention at the
company. I imagine we'll find out soon. But that only applies to Prism.

It looks like email they catch on the wire, which is probably their main
source of email, as well as phone calls, may well be fair game for the "plug
in any selector...".

~~~
tptacek
I'm not sure what conclusion your comment suggests I've jumped to.

~~~
discostrings
You've jumped to the conclusion that if user profiles that haven't yet been
delivered through Prism can't be reached with "plug in any selector..." that
"plug in any selector..." has been debunked.

However, it appears that in the telephone and over-the-wire email interception
programs, "plug in any selector" is quite possible.

~~~
tptacek
I'm only interested in and commenting on email and Google/Facebook's supposed
(but false) entanglement with NSA. I'm right there with you on the over-the-
wire stuff.

~~~
discostrings
I realize you're interested in defending these companies' involvement. That's
fine when it's on topic.

However, you've just replied to an article and comments that focus on the
content that's being intercepted outside of Prism. You don't even mention in
your comment that what you're saying applies only to Prism. I know you're
sensitive to the Google-bashing, but that's not going on here. It's important
we discuss the other aspects of this story and not get too caught up on Prism
until we have all the details.

~~~
tptacek
If you reread the Julian Sanchez quote above, you'll see I'm responding to it.

(You're right that the Sanchez piece this is taken from concerns itself
primarily with telephonic surveillance; I take your point. Thanks.)

------
captn3m0
>If the "score" associated with the email indicates that there is a 51 percent
chance or higher that it belongs to a person overseas, the analyst can start
monitoring content right away and not do anything further.

As a non-US citizen, this hits me hard. Basically, the NSA can read all my
emails without a single warrant, if I'm reading this correctly. Is my
interpretation correct?

~~~
samastur
Yes. It's one of few things nobody has disputed.

------
discostrings
The 51% determination is one of the most ridiculous aspects of this.

1) 51% is a very low bar to meet

2) How detailed could this confidence algorithm be?

If a message is intercepted from overseas, and no other data is know, is there
automatically at least 51% confidence that it is from a non-U.S. person? I'm
sure other factors go into the calculation, but whatever factors they are, I'm
sure a lot of American data is being sucked into this thing.

Given not only that Americans travel, but that VPNs are common, I find it very
difficult to see how the NSA could be justified in conducting this sort of
program within their "foreign-only" mandate.


Chasing Returns - DanielH
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/chasing-returns.html

======
alexwestholm
I think part of what's so scary about institutional investors failing to
understand the means by which their investments produce returns is that their
very job is to act as a proxy for those that don't understand the investments.
That is to say, part of their job is to mediate between investors who lack the
ability to understand that they're chasing pipe dreams and the investment
opportunities they're after in order to ensure that the investment doesn't
implode. Sounds like the guy with 40 years on Wall St. gets this. Sounds like
many of the banks didn't.

------
mkramlich
I think part of the reason there's a current boom in demand for startup
investments is that returns elsewhere, like interest on simple savings
accounts, are essentially zero, at least in the US. Add to this the fact that
for software-centric startups so many of the costs have dropped (including
developers, if you go with offshore devs.) Plus add to this all the good free
info being shared on the web about startups and investment. It all adds up. I
think most of those factors won't go away, except the near zero interest rates
on savings.

------
cletus
In the wake of the dotcom crash the Fed was forced to lower the cash rate to
1%. Cheap and easy money was a huge contributing factor in creating the
subprime disaster.

Now the rate is 0%. This can end no other way than badly.

The words "too big to fail" should send a chill down your spine. Wall street
as it stands now has absolutely no aversion to risk because if everything goes
pear-shaped the Fed will probably bail them out.

I call this welfare for investment bankers. And it's a terrible, terrible
idea.

Anyway, back to VC, we already see the early signs of a bubble: a system awash
with cash, high seed valuations, some fairly dubious enterprises being funded,
etc.

We all know how this song ends. At some point the house of cards will
fall.some companies, VCs and investors will go under. Money will tighten up.
Some real businesses will get caught in the crossfire and die. Valuations will
go down. Companies won't get funding as a result (we've already seen this with
companies seeking funding with 2007/2008 valuations; Mark Suster has written
about this).

Oh and the other consequence of that collapse is that it will be a great time
to start a business as talent will be much cheaper.

~~~
j_baker
"We all know how this song ends. At some point the house of cards will fall."

You know, both vigilance and long-term thinking are admirable traits. But
don't you think it's a bit premature to become gloomy about the next
recession? I mean, our economy hasn't really started to recover from the last
one.

Besides this, I doubt the financial markets had this level of introspection
before the housing collapse. Most banks regarded subprime mortgages as a sure
thing and were largely caught unaware (even if they were unaware because they
ignored the facts). Don't assume that a collapse is inevitable. A bubble
doesn't grow if investors don't let it. So there's a good chance that a
collapse will either be averted or won't be that bad.

~~~
cletus
If history has taught us anything it's that cycles ofboom and bust are
inevitable. The lengths of e cycles varies. The degree of the booms and busts
varies. Bu the cycle is constant.

It's a fundamental part of human psychology: markets are riven by fear and
greed. They overbuy on greed and oversell on fear. There's your cycle.

I'm not predicting the next recession other tbqnthere will be one but guarani
more prophetic than saying "it will rain eventually".

The problem is that governments tend to make these things worse and more
frequent. Letting banks fail would be q good first step to weeding out the bad
participants.

We may not be put of recession but the Internet/VC cycle is closer to the peak
(IMHO) than you might otherwise think.

------
JSig
The federal reserve has everybody speculating with %0 interest rates. I
suggest they raise interest rates! This will be a good thing as it will
encourage capital formation.

~~~
tomjen3
The US government has a large debt, as does most of its population. While your
solution is entirely correct, I doubt that there is that many who are
interested in actually implementing it.

It isn't all bad though: siliconvalley may just ride the secession out,
protected by a nice bouble. It sure beats unemployment:)


Lawmaker Says Snowden Leaks Will Cost Country 'Billions To Repair' - aet
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/05/272151126/lawmaker-say-snowden-leaks-will-cost-country-billions-to-repair
======
officialjunk
lost me at "repair" ...


RIP Medical Debt: Nonprofit buying and forgiving medical debt in the U.S. - _bxg1
https://ripmedicaldebt.org
======
dencodev
It's really depressing we live in a world where this is a thing people need.


Linux File Security Training at the ACLU - linuxmag
http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7772
======
pasbesoin
_Access Control List University (ACLU)_

I wondered what the heck the American Civil Liberties Union was doing
publicizing Linux security (who knows, it might not be a bad idea).

~~~
ilkhd2
Yeah, indeed. To teach people how to protect their data...


The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java - computerlab
https://federalnewsradio.com/tom-temin-commentary/2018/01/irs-clutches-its-modernization-holy-grail/
======
TimJYoung
Wow, what a cool project to work on: working out the logic flows in
_assembler_ and breaking them out so that they can be translated into a
higher-level language.

I've always thought that this type of government work should be open to bids
from _anyone_. If the government is worried about trojans, malware, etc., then
they can easily hire an auditor to audit the code and vouch for its
authenticity. The fact that only very large, well-connected corporations get a
crack at these types of problems is insane and a complete waste of taxpayer
money.

~~~
jacquesm
The big trick is the proposal itself. Writing that is only possible if you are
already tied in at all kinds of levels. I've seen some of these tenders up
close, the companies that land the deals submit phone book sized proposals to
tenders that are officially open but actually closed unless you are in a very
select circle already. It's not uncommon for the proposal writer to then pass
on the actual work to a whole slew of subcontractors at substantially lower
rates.

~~~
ryanmarsh
Are you saying this is how contracts are awarded on FedBiz Ops?

I know a handful of small players, myself included who have won IT contracts
with the gov't and it is not at all like you stated.

~~~
jacquesm
Small contracts are an entirely different matter. Try bagging something >> $1M
or defense related.

I've worked for the government on small jobs here in the EU a couple of times,
as long as you stay below a certain amount you can bypass a ton of
requirements. But once you go above that threshold the number of players drops
very rapidly and there is no escaping the formal process.

If you are capable of selling large contracts to the US Federal Government
without having to submit a typical bid proposal then you are in a very
fortunate position, but the people that I know that have done this in the past
have all worked on stuff that either required their fairly unique skills or
they were working on extremely small contracts (< $250K).

~~~
woobar
Here is one of the two young entrepreneurs (19 and 23 years old) that secured
~$300M DoD contract. So obviously, it is not as bad. ;)

In 2005, Packouz (23 years old at the time) joined Efraim Diveroli (19 years
old at the time) in Diveroli's arms company AEY Inc. By the end of 2006, the
company had won 149 contracts worth around $10.5 million.[1] In early 2007,
AEY secured a nearly $300 million U.S. government contract to supply the
Afghan Army with 100 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, millions of rounds
for SVD Dragunov sniper rifles, aviation rockets and other munitions

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

EDIT: added quote from Wikipedia

~~~
epmaybe
since nobody mentioned already, there is an enjoyable film that was recently
made about these two individuals called "War Dogs".

~~~
charlesdm
I was about to say the same -- great movie!

------
TheSoftwareGuy
Java seems like a good choice for the IRS. There are legions and legions of
programmers well versed in Java, since its among the most commonly used
programming languages to introduce programming at universities. This means the
IRS should be able to focus its hiring on "People who know tax law and can use
Java" instead of "Java experts that know enough tax law to be dangerous".

Its not the flashiest language, but I think its the right choice for them.

~~~
warrenm
What makes you think the developers have to "know tax law"?

It might be a peripheral plus for an applicant, but it's more important they
are a competent programmer.

"Tax law" changes constantly - you truly cannot _reasonably_ expect a
developer to "know tax law" __and __be a competent programmer.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
"Know tax law" in the context of a software developer I would interpret as
understanding the core concepts and terminology involved in tax law, not
knowing all the intricacies involved in every single piece of tax law. They
need to be able to understand the specific pieces of tax law that they are
working on with the help of an actual expert without too much friction; they
don't have to be actual experts on tax law.

------
chx
What this article implies is not entirely correct: this codebase is not S/370
assembly, oh no. It's IBM 7074! Check also the reports which said the Master
File age was over 55 years -- the S/370 is too new for that.

[https://books.google.ca/books?id=3iEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA88&lpg=PA...](https://books.google.ca/books?id=3iEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=%22IBM+7074%22+%22irs%22&source=bl&ots=A_DZmgVBL7&sig=2cAXb5oG_JypmSU_jCa5fqbPqaY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjpvuvM2qbZAhVGwWMKHdbXA0YQ6AEINjAD#v=onepage&q=%22IBM%207074%22%20%22irs%22&f=false)

~~~
lobster_johnson
There was an interesting article/HN story a year ago about the government
working Java into an ancient IBM 7074 system: [https://thenewstack.io/happens-
use-java-1960-ibm-mainframe/](https://thenewstack.io/happens-use-
java-1960-ibm-mainframe/)

HN discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13464675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13464675)

------
mooneater
> Converting assembler code won’t be such a simple input-output matter [as
> turning a dog into a sausage and back again as shown in the linked b/w film]

Actually this is the best analogy I could possibly imagine.

------
CryoLogic
Funny how it's always the same companies producing code for the government
based on political relationships - but the outcome of government software is
always so bad.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Political relationships aren't the entire problem. You have to be a BigCo with
an established relationship with the government to be able to comply with the
rules and lobby for a contract that favors you.

If anyone could land a contract just because a senator owed them a favor you'd
see a lot more diversity in who the government does business with.

------
AlexCoventry
It sounds like the effort might have been a step in the right direction, but
hardly a solution in its own right. The result would be a literal case of the
aphorism "You can write assembly in any language."

The translation would have some minor benefits: interop with java libraries
would be nice, it could help to plug the system into better infrastructure
like a modern testing framework, and it might run a little more securely. (I
wonder whether you could craft a tax return to crash this system.) But it
wouldn't have magically produced readable modern java code.

~~~
fwip
If you can separate areas of functionality, you can upgrade it piece-by-piece.
So while it starts off as 98% inscrutable assembly-in-Java, you transform it
over time until it's only 2%. Ideally, backed with strong tests and fuzzing.

~~~
AlexCoventry
Absolutely, but it's a long way from a solution.

------
codemusings
One has to wonder whether it really makes sense to port instead of taking a
look at the workflow and simply implement it from scratch.

~~~
nicolaslem
I maintain a code base written by others and I fight this feeling all the
time.

If (re)writing software has taught me anything is that sentences that start
with "simply" or "just" actually mean that you don't fully understand the
problem.

~~~
dajohnson89
To be fair, there's a tendency to fight starting from scratch, on the
(arguably incorrect) assumption that starting over introduces higher risk, and
greater time & cost.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
IMO, all-at-once rewrites are almost never a good option. Ship of Theseus
style rewrites where every component eventually gets replaced but there is
never a hard dividing line between old product and new product can be a good
idea.

------
zitterbewegung
The best argument to new development is working code. I assume that they can't
hire people to upgrade or maintain Maniframe software anymore.

~~~
cosmie
Working code is king, but in the IRS's case it's a very expensive king.

A huge amount of fraud happens by exploiting a timing attack against the batch
processing architecture of the existing process. The system only has
visibility into data from previous batches, it's blind to what's been done
during the the currently processing batch. One exploitable artifact of this is
that if you try to claim someone as a dependent (and potentially get child tax
credits, EIC, etc) and they've already been claimed in a previous batch, your
return will get rightfully rejected. But if multiple returns claim that person
in the same batch, and they haven't been claimed in a previous batch, they'll
all get accepted. The IRS will catch it after the fact, but by that point
they've already paid out the fraudulent returns. If it's something like a
misunderstanding between spouses on who claims a kid, it's likely they'll
straighten it out and get their money back. If it's outright fraud, then
they'll probably be out that money completely (plus investigative costs).

That's just one example, but there are billions of dollars worth of fraud that
happens every year which could be prevented by migrating the IRS systems from
offline batch processing to an online/real-time transactional architecture.

~~~
warrenm
Their batch processing is definitely an interesting case, as it how it
processes failures (had them as a customer of mine a couple years back where I
was working on improving their responses to failed jobs (and accelerating the
time between reruns)).

------
jimrandomh
> Wang was working under streamlined critical pay authority the agency has had
> since its landmark 1998 restructuring. It gave the IRS 40 slots under which
> it could pay temporary, full-time employees higher than GS rates. Former
> Commissioner John Koskinen pointed out Congress did not re-up this authority
> in 2013, despite his entreaties to former Congressman Jason Chaffetz’s
> Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

> He says he applied to become a GS-15 or Senior Executive Service member so
> he could see through the assembler-to-Java project. But his approval didn’t
> come through until a week before his employment authority expired. By then
> he’d accepted another job.

(GS-15 is $103k-$134k.
[https://www.federalpay.org/gs/2017/GS-15](https://www.federalpay.org/gs/2017/GS-15))

So, basically: the IRS can't fix its software because it can't pay market
rates for software engineers. It can't pay market rates for software engineers
not because it lacks the budget for it, but because Congress won't let them.
This is how it ends up with huge armies of bureaucrats doing things that could
be easily automated.

~~~
abtinf
The actual federal pay schedules are here: [https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-
oversight/pay-leave/salaries...](https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-
oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2018/general-schedule/)

The GS-15 range for the DC area is $135k-164k. For federal government
employees, salary only represents about half of their total compensation,
which includes a lifetime inflation adjusted pension and medical benefits.

~~~
jelling
...and any sizable employer offers healthcare and a 401(k). So at best you
could say they're betting on an inflation-adjusted pension? That's not going
to sell many candidates.

~~~
soVeryTired
I'm not from the US, but I'm guessing a 401(k) pension scheme is defined
contribution: you pay in cash in a tax advantaged way, and the risk that the
pension scheme loses money or doesn't make enough of a return to support you
in retirement is borne by you.

I'm also guessing that the government's pension scheme is defined benefit: the
risk that the scheme loses money is borne by the government, and you get your
pre-determined payout unless the government goes bankrupt.

Defined contribution pensions are typically much more valuable, since they can
obviate the need to save for retirement (or at least part of that need).

In the UK, it's extremely competitive to become a civil servant despite the
mediocre pay. The reason is security, both in your job and in retirement.

~~~
arglebarnacle
Yes that's right, but you've got the terms reversed. Defined contribution is
the one where you bear the risk, and defined benefit is where the government
bears the risk.

~~~
gbacon
A _portion_ of the risk. PBGC pays out at a significant discount.

------
throwa32582657
I’m sorry but this seems like a fool’s errand. Perhaps Jian Wang is a genius
that figured out a way to map IBM 360 assembly to Java that would map to the
JVM. Maybe he’s brilliant or maybe his efforts are overhyped by this news
piece. It seems that a direct mapping from 360 to the JVM might have made more
sense. I suggest that you go look at Rick Hickey’s Clojure code to see how
that might look.

Government IT is rife with corruption and incompetence. I have worked for a
number of agencies and worked in federal government for many years. Projects
are often steered in the direction of contractors and federal employees that
benefit from technologies. This is often done to bias incumbent legacy
stakeholders and technologies that benefit the federal employees and the
contractors that collude to control the systems for their own gains. I have
seen the sleaziest contractors enrich themselves at SV IPO levels.

Then came 18F, the hipster government IT revolution. As a senior developer,
and maybe I am just some cranky old developer, but the thought of being vetted
by this douchebag, fuckin blows my mind: [https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/04/08/day-
in-the-life-of-talent-man...](https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/04/08/day-in-the-life-
of-talent-manager/)

Yep, most government and corporate IT is fucked.

------
jmclnx
Well, I guess once the system is rewritten, we will not get our refunds until
3 years later.

I wonder if I get 2x by expected refund the IRS can come at me to claim the
extra amount :)

~~~
tytytytytytytyt
Wow, that joke would have been hilarious back in 2000.

------
monksy
Just imagine if this new system was converted to groovy or scala. That would
be pretty amazing.

~~~
_asummers
Are people writing new non-Jenkins Groovy code in 2018? What's the use case?
Legitimately curious. My experience with Groovy is always frustration and I
liken it to the Coffeescript of Java.

~~~
derherrf
We use it for an embedded DSL to describe business logic quite successfully.
Easily extendable via categories and embeds naturally in a larger JVM
application.

And there is Gradle.

~~~
_asummers
Totally forgot about Gradle. Fair enough!

------
rnestler
> Assembler is like Shakespearean English. It’s dated. A shrinking number of
> people can deal with it. But it’s also elegant and highly functional.

What is considered elegant and functional about assembly?

~~~
whataretensors
> Assembler is like Shakespearean English.

Author has no idea what assembler is.

~~~
coldacid
Yeah, it's more like the individual phonemes that make up each word of every
statement.

~~~
archgoon
That, or instructions for controlling tongue positions and vocal chords.

~~~
Izkata
Ah, but with how English has shifted over the centuries, the necessary domain
knowledge has slowly been disappearing. Shakespeare's plays now and then [0]
are slightly different (and back then, dirtier) because of it. (Jump to 2:30
for an explanation and example, then at 7:58 is the dirty pun that doesn't
exist in modern pronunciation.)

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s)

------
hnaccy
If you machine translate assembler to Java won't you still end up with
confusing code?

~~~
zmonx
Yes, very much so.

In addition, some of the automated translators I have seen also apply
automated refactoring: They tend to merge similar sections of code and
minimize the delta (similar to _diff_ ) that is factored out. This can create
a maintenance problem especially in the context of a system like the IRS's,
where presumably the code that performs calculations for different _years_ or
other periods (legislations etc.) is similar but not identical, but must be
retained as fully as possible to reliably perform calculations that are
subject to earlier regulations.

Such portions of code should be kept distinct, but an automated conversion may
conflate them, and it may require additional and error-prone fiddling to
enforce the separation.

------
monocasa
> in theory, there’s no way to translate assembler code. They way it runs is
> not how it reads

Wat?

~~~
slededit
If you do crazy "tricks" to get the space down like self modifying code or
jumping into data then it won't run how it reads. It's a lot easier to do this
in assembly because data and code aren't distinct.

~~~
tzs
On the other hands, there are some "tricks" that someone trying to duplicate
that functionality in a higher level language can do, too.

For example, our computers nowadays are much faster and have much more memory.
So suppose you have some long, tricky section of assembly code that you know
computers some sort of function of a single 32-bit input.

You could simply run that section, in a simulator, with all possible 32-bit
inputs and make a table of the results. Then instead of trying to understand
what is going on by following the convoluted assembly, your task is to
implement the function given by that table. With the function in table form
you can do things like look for sections that are linear, or constant, of
follow other common patterns.

Hopefully you can get some idea from context in the assembly code what, at a
high level, the function is doing, and that should further help you see
patterns in the table.

~~~
slededit
At that point you might as well embed an emulator with a facility to call
to/from plain java code. Then you could gradually move things over as needed.

------
gregoriol
It's quite simple actually: just make very long names for everything, instead
of very short ones.

------
nice_byte
> assembler

> elegant

> functional

Good one, mate

------
crb002
Or rewrite it in LLVM.

------
CyberDildonics
Java? Hope they don't need an unsigned byte.

~~~
jnordwick
Working with a mix of signed and unsigned in java is a nightmare.

------
nvahalik
Sounds like a great reason to simplify our tax system!

~~~
topspin
I wonder how many "jobs" depend on the complexity of the byzantine US tax
system.

~~~
s73v3r_
I'd say at least 40% of those at Intuit, for starters.

------
test6554
I feel like if the IRS had a software provider that was privatized, this would
not be an issue.


TaskRabbit Confirms Layoffs As It Realigns To Focus On Mobile And Enterprise  - JimWillTri
http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/08/taskrabbit-confirms-layoffs-as-it-realigns-to-focus-on-mobile-and-enterprise/
======
temphn
Taskrabbit is a great idea and very useful. Here are a few things they could
improve:

1) Take a page from Exec and do flat-rate pricing in different verticals (e.g.
$25/hour for Exec Errands). Doing a price auction every time is too time
consuming, but that's the UI default at the moment.

2) The refocus on mobile/realtime (like Exec) is also good.

3) Figure out a way to incentivize people to do more transactions through the
site. Once you meet a good service provider, right now there's an incentive to
do all future interactions outside the site.

4) Re: enterprise refocus: do some sales calls with all the admin assistants
of VC funds and funded startups in the Valley. Set up a bulk enterprise
account for $Xk per month and have them go crazy assembling Ikea furniture.

Taskrabbit is a great concept and really should succeed with some tweaking.

------
jareau
I think collaborative consumption companies changing their business to focus
on a specific niche or vertical is quite common. Getable (fka Rentcycle) did
it. Zaarly did it.

I'm head of sales at balancedpayments.com, a payments company that works with
online marketplaces, so I interact with dozens of marketplace founders in a
given week, and in my opinion the true P2P/collaborative consumption movement
is a few years away.

[1]

~~~
2pasc
The problem of Taskrabbit is that they could not be associated with one clear
repeatable need that people had, which lead to a sub par experience for almost
all use cases.

Most marketplaces in this space are pretty "directed" by the Company
(Postmates: deliver food, Instacart: delivery grocery, Lyft: deliver people
with car, HomeJoy: deliver cleaning ladies).

Lyft is a good example of a P2P system that worked when everybody before them
failed because Zimride "directed" the marketplace when all previous tentative
where about "grab people on your way to work".

~~~
rbucks
Great point. As co-founder of Scripted, I whole-heartedly agree.

I think Leah is great -- I've never met her but have heard and read good
things. However it's hard to be one size fits all anymore. Craigslist and
oDesk may be the last two marketplace leaders without single focus.

~~~
2pasc
Indeed, especially in the era of mobile which tend to focus on remote control
solutions to problems. I like Scripted a lot - funny that you work with Paul
B. also ;-)

------
everettForth
Maybe the new people can make an iPhone app that doesn't crash every time I
try to use it, and lets me message people who bid on tasks?

The web version works fine, but the mobile version has serious issues.

I'm almost certain that whatever they're doing, this is an example of where a
v2.0 rewrite makes sense.

------
inthewoods
I think it is pretty tough to see how this works on a such a low-margin
service - in order to reach scale, they need to do a massive education of the
ordinary consumer. Huge costs. Looks to me like they raised their money on
that vision, but have found that $30m actually doesn't get you that far.

So it looks to me like they're shifting to the B2B side - which is smart but
also difficult given the competition in that space. oDesk has been shifting
their model away from the 10% commission on small account model to a more
enterprise sale - I expect TaskRabbit to move that way as well.

~~~
krilnon
As an oDesk intern… is it really a shift so much as an expansion? It seems
like we still do plenty of work on "small" accounts.

~~~
inthewoods
Good point - it is likely an expansion - I would ask this: what is management
saying is the focus for this year? Enterprise or small accounts? My guess
would they would say "Small accounts are still important and our core, but the
enterprise is where our next stage of growth will come from." The reality is
that small accounts don't provide the same kind of reoccurring revenue that
VCs and Wall Street likes to see. And to grow beyond a certain point, you have
to have a massive number of small accounts and acquisition to make up for the
churn. Large enterprises, by contrast, are a longer sales cycle but more
predictable revenue and generally, in my experience, lower churn.

------
dr_
Hope they are able to grow their consumer service. I've found it tremendously
useful. I used it when I proposed to my girlfriend, to hire talent. I also
used it to pick up something very important from Jfk airport that I had left
on my flight. If you use if for the right reasons, it's a magnificent tool.

------
callmeed
I think their move to business is really smart. The times I've used it was to
get data for small MVP projects (eg to get happy hour menus from several SF
restaurants) and it was awesome for that.

I never like their consumer model—but if they could become the "LinkedIn for
temp workers", I think it could be a hit.

------
mattbarrie
The problem with taskrabbit is there is no global liquidity in the
marketplace, so you need to boil the ocean building local micromarkets. Too
much can go wrong with local jobs so you need deep touch in checking IDs,
background checks and so forth. It's the opposite of Freelancer.com (my
company).

------
nedwin
Remember when TaskRabbit launched followed by a hundred clones?

~~~
danso
I actually have a hard time thinking of clones in this space (not counting
general freelance sites like odesk and fiverr)...who was TaskRabbit's biggest
competitor (not counting Zaarly, which also pivoted)

~~~
sdhull
www.taskisland.com [http://taskpandas.com/](http://taskpandas.com/)
[https://sortedlocal.com/](https://sortedlocal.com/) etc... there are lots

~~~
smartwater
Those 3 wouldn't even be considered competitors. All have an Alexa higher than
1 million, so they are barely known. Depending on how long they've been
around, one might say they've failed.

~~~
jpursey
Hi, I'm one of the Founders of Sorted
([https://sortedlocal.com](https://sortedlocal.com))

Firstly, Alexa data isn't fresh, I'm pretty sure it's up to 3 months old...3
months ago we weren't live.

The UK isn't as receptive to task marketplaces as the US, hence why nobody is
really killing it over here, but times are changing and traction is starting
to come through.

We started out as a clone to the original Zaarly, but realised that the data
was screaming at us to do something different.

Sorted is now a profile driven marketplace, our Sorters (task do-ers) create
profiles and Customers simply search what they want, so a cleaner near
postcode x. They browse profiles and request the Sorter, payments still run
through the platform.

It opens up a lot more marketing opportunities by leveraging the Sorter base,
and the model is being pretty well received in the UK.

We launched and MVP about 2 months ago learnt from the data, iterated and
launched another version about 2 weeks ago, we've gone from 800 users on the
Zaarly model to 15,000 on the search model, and we're optimising the funnel as
we speak.

I assure you, we have not failed, we're a very young business and it's a steep
learning curve, but the UK is a tough nut to crack.

------
piratebroadcast
I make good money on TaskRabbit. I hope it doesn;t move too far away for a
"Regular guy" like me to make use of it...

~~~
aarondf
what kind of stuff do you normally do? what is "good money" in terms of USD?

~~~
piratebroadcast
I do mostly engineering, and by that I mean I may do anything from backing up
someones data to assembling Ikea furniture at an office in Midtown. I bring in
sometimes $600 extra a month for meeting cool people and doing shit I
generally like doing anyway.

EDIT: I'm learning Rails right now and doing Tasks to bring money in while I
learn... It would be so rad to work for them as a Rails dev one day. Circle of
life, man.

~~~
enko
> engineering, and by that I mean I may do anything from backing up someones
> data to assembling Ikea furniture

I thought I'd heard pretty much every creative interpretation of the word
"engineering" possible but have to admit - you got me with the IKEA furniture
assembly.


11:57 – A short virtual reality horror film made for Oculus Rift - pmcpinto
http://1157.pm/
======
eliasdelatorre
I downloaded it for Windows. It has a mp4 file inside the zip. I was able to
watch it using VLC on Ubuntu. Despite being a 360° image all cramped on a
square screen it was still pretty scary =P

~~~
ohwhen
Cool, thanks for the feedback :)

------
aleyan
Ran the Mac OS version on Yosemite with 0.4.2 version of the Oculus SDK on a
DK2.

Loved it. Awesome job. Feels like a haunted house that moves around you
instead of you moving through it. Very immersive. Will show this off to other
people.

IPD was kind of weird though. I felt like a giant in the dungeon. What kind of
camera setup did you use to film this, and how far apart were the cameras?

Also, I did not feel the 3D sound, though the issue may have been with my ears
or me not paying attention to it. I will retry again later tonight and report
on the results.

~~~
ohwhen
So the camera setup was a fairly standard 6 GoPro rig (Freedom Rig).
Unfortunately we didn't have the budget for the 3D VR GoPro rig (needing 12
GoPro's).

Would love to hear your feedback on the sound, as audio was a big focus for us
on this production

------
foobarqux
Has the adult film industry developed anything with Oculus? I would have
expected them to be early adopters.

~~~
prawn
There are these guys: [http://oculusrealporn.com/](http://oculusrealporn.com/)

Not going to pretend I haven't tried it out of curiosity, along with the usual
Rift demos.

It's quite immersive but there's no getting past the fact that you have a big
mask strapped to your head. However, trying it, you can see how once the Rift
is more popular and less bulky, and the providers in this space can justify
investing a bit more, it will take off.

Just as interesting will be new types of cinema-style experiences and short
films, hopefully!

------
aresant
If you download on a PC you should also:

a) Use VR Player
[https://vrplayer.codeplex.com/](https://vrplayer.codeplex.com/) or equiv.

b) Set to dome projection

c) Set to barrel distortion

~~~
ohwhen
thanks for the tips :)

------
togilvie
This was cool - very scary!

One suggestion: On my first view, I ended up looking "backwards" for ~75% of
the movie. I might have hit something at the beginning, but my forward-facing
orientation couldn't see any of the action and there weren't any visual cues
to tell me that if I turned around there were things happening until late in
the movie. May be one of those weird things that VR needs to handle
differently.

Excited to see more!

PS - I have a mac and DK2 but it's brand new, so could have been user error.

~~~
anigbrowl
This actually strikes me as the #1 limiting factor for this technology and
interactive fiction in general. A good story depends very much on causality.
If the viewer in a virtual environment can get stuck in the corner (ie failing
to direct attention/activity to key narrative elements) then the basic options
are to a) move the viewer along automatically, as in some videogames or b)
wait for the viewer to get un-stuck and pick up the story again. Unfortunately
the first approach ends up more as a ride than an interactive experience,
while the second baldy undermines the suspension of disbelief.

This is not to say there's no way to do it - if you establish the basic
narrative grammar early you can certainly tell an interactive story, but
probably at the cost of limiting complexity. The most effective examples I can
think of are from ThatGameCompany, especially Journey.

------
mrt0mat0
hey, i would love to see this work for google cardboard (i'm too poor for rift
;) - i see there's a get notified when it comes to mobile, but i can't click
it.

~~~
ohwhen
Yes, we're actively working on getting a mobile version out, we expect to have
an Android version this week, and iOS shortly after (obviously pending app
store approval as well). If you shoot us an email at press@1157.pm we'll let
you know when you can download it.

------
vr-freak
First you need to setup VR Player as follows:
[http://www.vrcircle.com/post/how-to-watch-movies-on-the-
ocul...](http://www.vrcircle.com/post/how-to-watch-movies-on-the-oculus-rift-
development-kit-2-dk2)

In VR Player, I found the best options were as follows:

Media Menu Option, Format: Mono, Projection: Sphere, Effects: None,

Device Menu Option, Layout: Side By Side, Distortion: Barrel, Tracker: Oculus
Rift DK2,

------
ohwhen
We've updated the copy to make it a little more clear what version to
download. This is a little side project we've done besides our regular day job
so every piece of feedback is helpful, thanks :)

------
CephalopodMD
Will this work with Google cardboard? Occulus is great, but I'd like to use my
$25 digital viewfinder instead if possible.

~~~
ohwhen
Yes, we're actively working on getting the Android version up and running so
people with Google cardboard can view it as well (and any other VR cardboard
ofcourse)

Shoot us an email at press@1157.pm and we'll let you know when it's ready
(hopefully this week)

~~~
andybak
Isn't it as simple as uploading it to Youtube or similar and telling people to
use any Cardboard (etc) aware video player?

~~~
CephalopodMD
You could watch a static video, but head motion would not be tracked in that
configuration. They probably recorded with some sort of non standard fish-eye
lens, so no video player will exist that could achieve the desired effect. A
bunch of transformations have to be done to make the video work with cardboard
(source, I have developed a quick demo with cardboard and OpenGL before).

~~~
andybak
There's multiple video players for Android that take 'oculus' style side-by-
side video and allow you to watch it with head tracking. OK - the inter-eye
distance and distortion<>lens mapping might not be 100% but it mostly works.

------
hauget
does it require dk2 or will it work with dk1?

------
AdmiralAsshat
Typo in the submission title: "Oulus"

~~~
dang
Thanks! Fixed.

------
sillysaurus3
Requires OS X Yosemite. If you've chosen not to upgrade, for example because
you value your privacy and disagree with Apple's recent data collection
policies which are enabled by default in Yosemite, then you won't be able to
run this.

I don't understand why. As far as I know, there's no such thing as an
executable that requires Windows 8. Or, if there is, then no one would think
of excluding those who are running Windows 7. So why exclude those who are
running older OS X versions? Are there any legitimate technical reasons for
this decision?

It would be cool if you could watch this on Youtube. I know you won't get the
same experience as if you had a Rift, but there are hundreds of thousands of
people who would love to watch a reaction video of someone experiencing it,
along with seeing their perspective.

EDIT: Okay, this was a dumb thing to say. It came across as a complaint, but
really I was just trying to ask a question. Sorry.

~~~
ohwhen
Hi,

I'm one of the makers. I run Mavericks and can run the Mac app (that has 3D
sound), but you will need to hold down Control when opening the app (its in
the README).

If you still can't run it, you can download the PC version (which is just the
regular movie file) and use any Oculus Rift compatible player (though you
won't have 3D sound unfortunately).

~~~
sillysaurus3
Cool, thanks! What sort of libraries are used for crossplatform 3D sound
nowadays? FMOD used to be the gold standard for this. I'm wondering if it's
still sufficient, or if that's changed. Thanks for your time!

EDIT: Oh, I see. The PC version is just an MP4 file. Neat hack. I wonder if
there are any video formats which embed 3D sound...

EDIT2: Hmm, just to let you know, it seems the mp4 file is somehow corrupt:
[http://i.imgur.com/Zn44nvJ.png](http://i.imgur.com/Zn44nvJ.png) It plays, but
only one frame every five seconds or so are showing up. I'll try redownloading
it.

~~~
JonnieCache
What is 3D sound in this context? At the end of the day you've got however
many channel to work with, and that's it. You can do lots of fancy phase
trickery to make things sound like they're going up and down on the Z axis,
but it's still delivered in stereo or 5.1 or whatever.

When I think of 3D sound I think of stuff like ircam spat[0] but that just
outputs normal audio like anything else.

[0]
[http://www.fluxhome.com/products/plug_ins/ircam_spat-v3](http://www.fluxhome.com/products/plug_ins/ircam_spat-v3)

~~~
bencoder
3d sound in this context means when you turn your head the sound remains in
the same '3d' position(so if the sound was coming from the side and you turn
to face it, it now sound like it's coming from ahead), which is important for
vr (with headphones). This isn't really possible with a prerecorded video file
unless you have a clever player that can do the 3d transformations from the
original sound channels, but I'm not aware of any that can do this yet

~~~
JonnieCache
I suppose this would be pretty difficult with "live" recorded sound. Stereo
microphone arrays are a complex business already, AFAIK there's no audio
equivalent of the 360 degree cameras they use for recording VR. Microphones
simply cannot be made as directional as speakers.

However with a multichannel surround sound recording, panning/fading the
tracks dynamically according to head movements is trivial, all games do this.
So I guess you would want a file format that placed all the channels in 3D
space over time. That's the kind of thing the spat software I linked in the
above post does, except it's also doing cutting edge acoustic modelling and so
forth. It needs a hefty computer.

~~~
ohwhen
Absolutely true what you're saying. That's why we didn't use live audio for
this, but all the sounds were made by a sound studio and placed in a virtual
room around a head. We just didn't have the budget to record binaural audio,
so we're faking it, till we making it :)


Why everyone should learn to drive - akhilrex
http://akhil.me/2013/why-everyone-should-learn-to-drive
======
claudius
The logic of this seems to be that driving has certain properties, these
properties are worthwhile to experience and hence everybody has to learn how
to drive.

What a silly idea.

While it is certainly true that driving might have these properties – I can’t
really comment, as I don’t own a license, much less a car – but assuming that
the only way to experience ‘accidents happen’ is by driving a car is rather
strange. This especially holds since the idea that ‘accidents happen’ is a
good experience is only remotely sensible _because_ accidents not only happen
in car traffic but basically everywhere else in life, too!

The same holds for the rest of the paragraphs: You have to plan irrespective
of your mode of transportation (and of course outside of transportation, too),
you have to replace the items in your possession after a certain time, be they
socks, jeans, notebooks, washing machines or cars and of course you need
safeguards outside a car, too.

To me, this article reads as if the author was unsatisfied with the original
assessment that a car provides independence (which, of course, is not true: a
car actually decreases your independence as you always have to return to it
after a hike, for example) and tried to prop it up with equally unsatisfying
extras.


The European Atrocity You Never Heard About - cs702
http://chronicle.com/article/The-European-Atrocity-You/132123

======
cafard
Speak for yourself, Chronicle. The broad outlines of the Prussian
displacements were in my 11th grade world history text. The NY Times has dealt
with the case of Silesia within the last 10 years, and there were books about
the displacements from Bohemia not that long ago either.

I will say also that it is seldom that anyone comes out of a war with clean
hands, which is all the more reason for hesitating to start one.