An Ambitious Plan for Putting Kickstarter Out of Business - KenjiCrosland
http://www.mrteacup.org/post/an-ambitious-plan-for-putting-kickstarter-out-of-business.html

======
thegrossman
Kickstarter is nothing more than a web hosting company? Pardon?

I recently raised more than $38k from Kickstarter. There is absolutely no
doubt in my mind that I wouldn't have been able to raise nearly that amount by
throwing up a website and going it alone.

Here are some stats (for this project:
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jackadam/dark-sky-
hyperl...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jackadam/dark-sky-hyperlocal-
weather-prediction-and-visuali))

1) 32.26% of our funds came from visitors who found our page through the
Kickstarter newsletter.

2) In total, 56% of funds came from visitors finding us via other Kickstarter
pages (their home page, category sections, etc).

3) 44% were referred to from external sources.

But here's the thing: the external links were primarily due to the publicity
we got from Kickstarter's promotional efforts. We got mentioned on Wired, Fast
Company, the New York Times, and CNN.com -- not because we reached out to
them, but because of the large number of people talking about us after finding
us on the Kickstarter site itself.

In the end, Kickstarter enabled us to raise tens of thousands of dollars and
in return took a measly 5%.

------
brador
It's called a marketplace. They bring people with "stuff" together with people
with "money". That's the business concept, not production, not advertising,
not selling webspace for 4 pages as this article suggests.

Is it a scam? no, not directly. The scam "sellers" on kickstarter take
6-months to a year to be found out, at which point, few people care if they
get their product or not, and since their is always the implicit understanding
that some of the kickstarter projects will not deliver, few complain.

Hence, yeah, kickstarters customer base is ripe for a good scamming and you'll
likely never be called on it. Free money.

------
tomwalsham
a) Trusted space for collecting backed pledges. Try doing that with PayPal and
see how quickly you get shut down.

b) Well branded name with first-mover advantage which brings higher CTR on
social campaigns.

c) Centralization of PR - contacts with traditional media which increase
chance of mainstream coverage.

d) Volume of curated content makes it interesting to third-party developers,
increasing 'virality' (see Twitter's media-in-post for any posted KickStarter
link.

...

I could go on. It's pretty easy to build the same strawman argument against
many businesses by focusing on a weakly analogous service and conveniently
ignoring the laundry list of benefits. The whole 'socially interesting causes
shouldn't be for-profit' argument is completely unsupported and drowned in
pseudo-intellectual non-sequitur, which incidentally appears to be the raison
d'être for this blog.

Name me another form of fundraising for arbitrary projects which doesn't
require giving up significant equity at such an early stage. If you want a
real target for a poorly-balanced funding arrangement maybe take aim at
Dragon's Den. People who KickStart their projects are fully aware of what
they're giving up for their seed capital - 5% of cash and no equity. Sounds
pretty damn good to me.

~~~
sp332
A) is a thin wrapper around Amazon Payments.

B) gives KS an advantage in the market. But as the article mentions, it
doesn't justify gouging your customers just because you can.

D) Is "curating" content really worth 5%? Would you pay e.g. HN 5% for 6 weeks
for linking to your site?

~~~
tomwalsham
I hardly see it as gouging customers when they are happily, voluntarily
entering into the agreement with full awareness of the terms and alternatives.

All of these poor souls were perfectly capable of setting up
'bobsdiyproject.org' and attempting to get popular support. Individuals trying
to do this would have fixed up-front costs for developing all the 'little'
stuff that KS does, zero access to an existing base of people interesting in
paying, and no access to mainstream media to promote their idea.

The curation aspect is a large part of what creates value in KickStarter. The
notion of 'SelfStarter' proposed in the blog completely misses the benefits to
the community provided by centralised screening. If any and all projects were
approved it would be chock full of scammers and opportunists with poor ideas -
the SNR would be so low as to drive interest away.

Would I pay 5% of all cash raised specifically from HN members donating
through a 6-week link to my project with no money upfront? Yes, absolutely.
Zero-risk, $0 down traffic which only pays out if you hit your own projected
goals?

Is Etsy a scam? Is eBay a scam? I'd say KickStarter has more favourable terms
than these (still valuable) sites as they require money upfront regardless of
the success of your listing.

~~~
sp332
_I hardly see it as gouging customers when they are happily, voluntarily
entering into the agreement with full awareness of the terms and
alternatives._

This seems like the exact same defense the banks were using when they were
foreclosing on homeowners. Of course such behavior is "allowed" by a free
market. The question is: is this behavior morally defensible?

------
nhangen
Kickstarter is awesome. It helped bring light to this newly born industry in a
way never been done before, and it's been responsible for scores of people
being able to raise money to build really incredible things.

But then you have the people on the other side - those that might have raised
10, 20, 50, or even 80% that didn't meet their mark, and did all of that work
for nothing. At the end of the day, the only thing they have left is a dead
dream, and a burned out list of supporters.

I imagine it would be incredibly heartbreaking to walk away with nothing after
a failed campaign.

On the money side, yes it's expensive, but that's not what I didn't like about
it. My beef with Kickstarter is that I don't want to fill out an application
and wait weeks before getting approved. I also don't want to send all of the
SEO benefit to them.

Yes, I agree they should curate their marketplace, but it does filter out a
lot of worthy projects.

I wanted to be able to raise money for a variety of projects, each in my own
way and in my own time. I worked with my co-founder to build IgnitionDeck
(<http://ignitiondeck.com>) to be able to do that.

It's actually doing pretty well, which I don't think would have happened
without Kickstarter's popularity. In many ways, I view them as the MySpace of
crowdfunding. It will certainly be interesting to see how they adapt and
evolve as people get burned out from crowdfunding...or will they?

------
sp332
If you thought the first part was just wrong or ignorant, you really should
keep reading all the way to the bottom.

------
joelgrus
It's sort of hard to take seriously an article that lists the "benefits" of
Kickstarter without including "the ability to solicit and collect pledges".

------
forgottenpaswrd
I don't want to feed the troll, someone that calls kickstarter a web host
company could not even discern between hosting web pages and videos.

It's only six orders of magnitude...

I won't lose more time with this, hats off for what the kickstarter guys had
done. One of the good things in a free society is being able to choose who you
want to help and who you don't.

------
erable
One has to wonder that, services and technologies comparison aside, perhaps
there's something appealing about the Kickstarter brand/community.
Contributing to a random website out in the wild vs. contributing in an
environment where there's a critical mass are _very_ different. Whether or not
the value is extracted from being a part of Kickstarter depends on many more
variables than the article choses to mention. Perhaps a viable alternative
would be a similar product but with a more de-centralized approach (ie. a
mechanism placed on individual sites but with a recognizably safe community &
brand).

------
k0mplex
That was the most beautifully typeset rant I've ever read

~~~
partoa
I hadn't noticed the typeset :D....

------
swalsh
Does anyone know if Kick starter subtracts credit card fees from their 5%, or
is that an additional fee?

~~~
Aqua_Geek
Kickstarter takes 5%. Amazon takes another 3-5% for payment processing.

[http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/creating%20a%20project#F...](http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/creating%20a%20project#Fees)


Show HN: MakerUpdates.com – Highlighting your favorite makers milestones - scottatmu
https://www.makerupdates.com
======
scottatmu
Lets call this a soft launch as I'm still working on adding more milestones to
the website.

So far, what do you think?


They Don't Make Computer Manuals Like They Used To - blasdel
http://www.ironicsans.com/2010/02/they_dont_make_computer_manual.html
======
blasdel
It's like he's _why's godfather or something: "The Ancestral Territorial
Imperatives of the Trumpeter Swan"


Kogan Violating GPL - Benjamin_Dobell
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=46737250
Kogan refuse to supply source code for GPL licensed software running on Kogan branded Android devices.
======
belorn
Noted a few other things:

Their manual/documentations has no mentioning of BSD licensed software. While
its possible that bsd license is included in paper form with the devices with
reference to each software package, it is unlikely. As such, 99% sure that
Kogan is violating BSD licensed software too.

Kogan is aware that they are using open source software
([http://www.kogan.com/uk/newsroom/kogan-
releases-119-android-...](http://www.kogan.com/uk/newsroom/kogan-
releases-119-android-tablet-55/)), as is indicated by their press releases. As
such, if an infringement is found, it likely to be seen as intentionally and
willingly regarding that product.

Otherwise, it seems as a common misunderstanding by Kogan in _how_ one provide
source code to users. Its not very complicated, but hand waving users towards
Google is not enough. Had the kernel been gplv3, then they could just given
the user a link, but since the kernel is gplv2, the options are either a
written offer for minimum 3 years or to include the source code alongside the
binaries. GPLv3 changed the license text regarding source distribution because
they did not want to still live in 1990s.

Kernel drivers however are a separate issue as the primary author of the
kernel (Linus) has given explicit permission to produce "some form" of drivers
without having to follow the license. For most people, that is enough safety
against lawsuits, even if copyright do not care who is the primary author, and
gives equal copyright rights to each author of a project.

~~~
Dylan16807
So if I'm reading you right, they are in full compliance of the improved GPL
terms that don't apply in this case.

Meaning their noncompliance is an accident of history, not a violation of the
spirit of the license.

In that case, I don't see why anyone should care.

------
tzs
This could be a bit more subtle than it might first appear. Most countries
have in their copyright something that allows an entity that has a lawfully
made and lawfully obtained physical object that they obtained from someone
else to resell that particular object without violating copyright.

This is why used bookstores can exist legally.

This is also why when you buy a Samsung TV from Best Buy, and want the GPL
code, you have to ask Samsung rather than Best Buy. Best Buy did distribute
the TV (and thus the binary software contained therein) to you, but since that
distribution did not require permission of the copyright owner Best Buy has no
GPL obligation.

Note that this works for Best Buy because they are essentially receiving
copies of the software and then just passing those copies through to their
customers, in a one to one manner. If Best Buy were modifying the code in the
TV, of if they were copying the code into other TVs (say copying the code from
a high end TV model to a lower end model to enable premium features), then
they would no longer be operating in a one to one pass through fashion, and
would need permission of the copyright owner--and then WOULD have GPL
obligations and you would turn to Best Buy for the code to your television.

Now suppose some OEM makes a generic TV platform. It consists of the guts of
the TV (display, power supply, electronics, and firmware), ready to be put in
to a case. A company like Kogan or Best Buy that wants a house brand TV can
buy the guts from the OEM, put it into a case they have someone else make for
them that has their name on it, and sell it as their own.

Suppose also that the firmware consists of a minimal Linux system, configured
to automatically start a shell running as user 'tv' after boot, and the
startup scripts for the 'tv' user start a minimal X server, and then run
~/tvapp, which just puts up a minimal TV GUI that lets you change channels and
adjust the volume.

The company buying these and rebranding them (who I shall call "the store") as
their own writes their own version of tvapp that puts up a full featured GUI
that allows for control of all the TV features (or they license a full
featured tvapp from someone else and just replace the graphics and modify the
text so it looks like it is theirs).

If the OEM that made the generic TV guts was careful, all modifications the
store makes consist of just replacing ~/tvapp. They do not do anything that
would create a derivative work of any of the open source code that the OEM
used, and that code is just passed through from the OEM to the consumer one to
one with no copying, and the net result is that the store does not end up with
any obligation to provide anyone with copies of the source to the open source
code in their TV.

Applying this to the present case, the big question then is just what is Kogan
doing to produce their branded phones and tablets and TVs? Are they dealing
with an OEM like the hypothetical one I described above, and just adding user
mode applications to a generic system that is being treated as a black box? If
so, then they in fact not be violating any licenses, and it would be the OEM
that people need to turn to for their copies of the source.

On the other hand, if they were doing something like getting generic devices
from one OEM, and taking firmware that got from a contractor, and installing
copies of that firmware into the OEM devices, and the contractor used open
source in that firmware, then Kogan would be responsible for providing the
source code. In this case, they are making copies, not just passing on copies
they received one for one to their customers.

Based on a quick (and perhaps imperfect) read of the article, I was not able
to tell which of the above best describes what Kogan is doing. Do we know?

~~~
tzs
(Adding this as a self-reply rather than incorporating it into the above,
because it is not directly relevant but interesting enough to maybe be worth
discussing)

Suppose Kogan does in fact fall into the case where they are just modifying
separate user applications and are just passing the GPL binaries they receive
from the OEM on to their customers unmodified one to one, and so in fact do
not have a GPL obligation (since they are not doing anything that requires
permission of the copyright owner).

So you track down that OEM (which could be hard...) and ask for the source.

The OEM was smart when they decided to use GPL software. They read and
understood the license, and learned that they basically have two choices when
it comes to providing source.

1\. When they distribute GPL binaries to someone, they can accompany the
binaries with the corresponding source, or

2\. The can distribute the binaries without source, but make the source
available to anyone who asks.

Being sensible, they do not want to deal with the hassle that option #2 can
be, and go with #1. Every single TV guts box they ship to a Best Buy or a
Kogan is accompanied by a CD-ROM containing the complete source for every bit
of software in the TV.

This completely satisfies the OEMs GPL requirement to provide source. They can
legitimately tell you to go talk to Best Buy or Kogan or whoever's name is one
front of your TV.

The end result is that you end up with a bunch of GPL code sitting in your
living room--and NOBODY is obligated to provide you with a copy of the source
code!

~~~
tzs
(Might as well add one more interesting little copyright twist that might have
some interesting consequences for free software, and that has been almost
completely overlooked)

In the US, there is a very interesting thing in copyright called the
termination right. It probably won't have much affect on software (it is
mostly a music and book thing), but there is a remote chance it could be
significant in some cases.

The termination right was meant to address the situation where you have a
young artist who produces a great work when they are early enough in their
career that they are unknown and have almost no bargaining power, and the
artist ends up making very little money from the work--it is the music company
or book publishers that signs them that ends up making a ton of money.

What the termination right does, basically, is 35 years after the artist
signed away their copyrights to the music company or book publisher, the
artist is given a window in which they can take back the copyright. They can
then negotiate a new deal with the publishers, with much better terms now that
they are an established artist instead of an unknown kid.

You might expect publishers would be smart, and include in their contracts
with new young artists that the artist agrees not to invoke the termination
right when it vests. Congress was smart enough to realize that publishers
would do that, and so made it so that you cannot contract away your
termination right.

As I said, this is generally irrelevant for software. First, termination
rights do not apply to works for hire. Almost all closed source software is
written as a work for hire, I suspect. So, as amusing as it would be for some
retired COBOL programmer to reclaim copyright on some major bank's ancient but
still in service mainframe software, it probably is not going to happen.

Second, not much software survives 35 years. Even if something does not
officially get replaced or retired, over 35 years it will usually accumulate
enough piecemeal rewrites that nothing is left of the original--not even as a
derivative work.

Still, with open source, we now have a lot of code in wide use that was NOT
work for hire. Could there be fragments of open source projects that actually
make it through 35 years intact, and make the termination right actually
relevant?

~~~
belorn
Correct. The termination clauses has an interesting - if somewhat unlikely -
effect on software.

FLOSS software which depend on the ability to distribute new copies could have
their license terminated after the 35 years, given that said software still
existed in large enough volume to qualify for copyright status. The first
thing I can think of would be the TCP/IP stack that was created in BSD, that
if terminated could cause some serious problems for Apple and other OS that
depend on that code.

------
thejosh
no fucking shit.

Kogan is as shady as they come, they rebrand cheap chinese hardware with their
own firmware, rebrand hardware with a Kogan sticker and once you restore it
you're back to the manufacturers firmware.

They do have to abide by Australian consumer laws though, which is always a
plus.

------
nucleardog
Didn't have much better luck with HTC.

"Hey, you only have the source for Android 1.5 for this phone on your website
- can you please provide me the source for the Android 1.6 binaries you
released."

"The only source available is that on our website."

"Okay, but under the terms of the GPL (which covers some of the code released
as part of that binary), you must provide source code on request. You have the
binary on your site and no associated source code. Please either provide the
source code or a direct link to where it exists on your website."

"We only provide the source code on our website. Stop contacting us and have a
nice day."

I mean, they did make an effort in releasing _most_ of the source code, so
they're by no means at the level of this company, however they're still in
violation.

Cool story bro, I know. Just really irked me.

------
blueblob
Sorry for the naievety, but it's not just modules that are inserted into the
kernel that provide the support that they need (I am not a systems/kernel
programmer)? And in that case, could they license the modules separately?

~~~
Xylakant
Sort of a grey area, but given that binary drivers exist for video cards they
could at least cite a precedent.

~~~
Argorak
I don't know about how this is done currently, but isn't that the reason why
those drivers often don't ship installed but have to be installed by user
request?


Updated Ask HN Archive - michaelfairley
http://remembersaurus.com/askhn.html

======
RiderOfGiraffes
This is brilliant, but didn't I see it submitted just a day or so ago? And yet
I've looked, and not found it.

Regardless, I've added it to my ante-pre-alpha "Great Articles" project.

Thank you.

------
adrianwaj
A "back to top" would be helpful.

Or, I'm not a big fan of vertical static menus, but because the page is so
large, using something like:
[http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/omnislide/index.ht...](http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/omnislide/index.htm)
<http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/staticmenu3.htm>

------
epi0Bauqu
Thank you for picking up the torch!

~~~
jacquesm
Maybe you could link to the new list from the old one too?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
I will.

------
jacquesm
Great work! Maybe you could ask Gabriel for permission to merge the lists ?

------
elbenshira
Awesome stuff. Did you write a script to find all the Ask HN posts?

~~~
michaelfairley
I used a couple of different script for all of this. The first intelligently
crawled HN, trying to minimize the amount of total hits to the server while
still grabbing every post. It also dumped most of its internal state to file
every few seconds, allowing me to kill and restart it at my convenience and to
easily grab only the new posts when I update the archive.

The second took each post on HN (all of which were saved to disk), found those
that were ask posts, and then generated a document with the title of the post,
the score and number of comments it received (allowing to me rule out looking
at 90% of posts, as they had < 3 comments on average), and markdown ready for
copy/pasting into the final document.

------
js4all
I like it, thanks.


Fewer premature babies born since Covid-19 lockdown - breitling
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/fewer-premature-preterm-babies-born-during-pandemic-calgary-around-the-world-1.5665089
======
tomerico
Let's not ignore the possibility that the reduction in pre-term birth could be
due to women receiving less pre-natal screening, leading to conditions that
would warrant immediate induction going undetected. In fact, data collected
from a hospital in the UK indicates a 4X increase in the incidence of
stillbirth.

From:
[https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/934056](https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/934056)
edit: Non-paywalled: [https://outline.com/MZUPk3](https://outline.com/MZUPk3)

> The incidence of stillbirth was significantly higher during the pandemic
> period (16 of 1,718 births; 9.31 per 1,000 births) than the prepandemic
> period (four of 1,681 births; 2.38 per 1,000), a difference of 6.93
> stillbirths per 1,000 births.

A hypothesis put forth by the authors on why this is:

> they say the uptick in stillbirths may be due to indirect effects such as a
> reluctance to go to the hospital when needed (such as in the case of reduced
> fetal movements), fear of contracting COVID-19, or not wanting to further
> burden the National Health Service. Changes in obstetric services may also
> have played a role.

~~~
irjustin
Interesting, is the data there to show COVID infections of stillbirth? Can
that account for at least some of them to offset?

~~~
dahfizz
Considering only 0.4% of the UK population has gotten covid ( 300,000 cases /
68,000,000 population) I would say it's incredibly tenuous to blame the 400%
stillbirths increase on covid infections.

------
nostromo
Heart attacks are similarly down 40-60%.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/well/live/coronavirus-
doc...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/well/live/coronavirus-doctors-
hospitals-emergency-care-heart-attack-stroke.html)

And cancer diagnoses are down by half.

[https://youtu.be/TWF8KLKy-I0](https://youtu.be/TWF8KLKy-I0)

Of course, no, they aren’t down, it’s just that people that absolutely should
be going to the hospital aren’t and they’re endangering their lives trying to
avoid COVID-19.

Could something similar be at play here?

I laughed out loud when they suggested that this is a “low stress” time to be
pregnant. All indicators show the opposite.

~~~
colordrops
So you're saying people are just pushing through heart attacks then going
about their business?

~~~
nostromo
That’s exactly what the NYTimes piece I linked to postulates:

“The most concerning possible explanation is that people stay home and suffer
rather than risk coming to the hospital and getting infected with coronavirus.
This theory suggests that Covid-19 has instilled fear of face-to-face medical
care. As a result, many people with urgent health problems may be opting to
remain at home rather than call for help. And when they do finally seek
medical attention, it is often only after their condition has worsened.
Doctors from Hong Kong reported an increase in patients coming to the hospital
late in the course of their heart attack, when treatment is less likely to be
lifesaving.”

------
moralestapia
Air pollution is something to be taken _very_ seriously,

Regarding that (and since we are hackers here), I bought myself one of these
last year:

[https://m5stack.com/products/pm-2-5-sensor-usb-power-
sht20](https://m5stack.com/products/pm-2-5-sensor-usb-power-sht20)

Pretty affordable and it works really well, readings match another device I
have which was much more costly.

Since then I turn it on from time to time, I live in an apartment near a
highway, I am impressed by:

How much air quality changes between days, during the day and depending on
whether there's traffic or not,

how much it changes due to household activities (cooking, cleaning).

and how it changes when someone is smoking, even outside of my unit.

Thanks to this I have developed a routine of opening/closing windows at
certain times that allows me to improve the average air quality inside my
place. If I had the time (and some actuators) I could probably automate that,
that would be cool yeah :D.

I highly recommend getting one of these or a similar sensor. Also, I'm looking
to find something similar but capable of measuring CO and CO2, if anyone knows
let me know.

~~~
rckoepke
> I highly recommend getting one of these or a similar sensor. Also, I'm
> looking to find something similar but capable of measuring CO and CO2, if
> anyone knows let me know.

I have some suggestions for bare boards/chips that you can program yourself
and run your own self-hosted IoT cloud over WiFi.

CO: $8 [0] + [1] and very very easy. Great place to start, but these sensors
have a reputation for being somewhat garbage (see downthread discussion for
more detail). I wouldn't use it as an emergency carbon monoxide alarm but
it'll do sensitive measurements (10 to 500ppm), even if it's not accurate and
I'd guess not particularly repeatable over time. There are more expensive ones
available which may be more reputable. Just need an arduino or any other micro
controller. I personally like [2] because it has built-in WiFi but still very
cheap. I run a basic web server on them that exposes the data to
Prometheus/Grafana. See [3].

CO2[4]: $60 here and you'll want a $10-20 ESP32 or ESP8266 to go with it.
Arduino libraries are already written for it and the Arduion IDE has good
support for ESP32 so I doubt it would be much work at all to test on / port to
ESP32 and fix any porting bugs when they pop up. Alternatively if you feel
like writing the interface from scratch you can go down the $40 for equivalent
parts from Arrow, DigiKey, or Mouser. Honestly - interfacing with these things
is generally not complicated at all as long as there aren't hardware bugs or
undocumented behavior.

tVOC: $20 here[5] It looks like your PM 2.5 sensor does not also measure total
VOC, so this could be handy. For a very scientific breakdown of how a metal-
oxide detecting chip can be used to calculate VOC's, see the following[6].
Thankfully, there is free firmware supplied by sparkfun which does all the
heavy lifting, but whenever you're using a chip cross-purposes its good to
double-check the math and science.

I personally combine these kinds of sensors with the WiFi-enabled ESP8266 or
ESP32 microcontrollers, which make for ~$20+ USB-flash drive sized sensors I
can litter around the apartment/outside. I like controlling my own cloud,
because I can't stand how Nest only provided 7 days of historical data, or
reliance on cloud servers for things like itead.cc / EWeLink apps. It's
stupidly simple to set up Prometheus and Grafana to self-host your own cloud.
See mine here[7]

If anyone decides to go this route and gets stuck anywhere, feel free to ping
me. Email in profile.

0: (CO sensor)
[https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9403](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9403)

1: (Board for easy soldering/mounting)
[https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8891](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8891)

2: (Cheap ESP32) [https://www.microcenter.com/product/613822/inland-
esp32-wroo...](https://www.microcenter.com/product/613822/inland-
esp32-wroom-32d-module)

3: (HTTP server running on $10 microcontroller)
[http://esp32.rosskoepke.com/](http://esp32.rosskoepke.com/)

4: (CO2 sensor)
[https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15112](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15112)

5: (MOx sensor which is programmed to output tVOC -- I would not trust the CO2
though)
[https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14193](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14193)

6:
[https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/12/1441/2019/amt-12-1441...](https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/12/1441/2019/amt-12-1441-2019.html)

7: [http://grafana.rosskoepke.com:3000/d/MrL-NKnMz/ross-home-
off...](http://grafana.rosskoepke.com:3000/d/MrL-NKnMz/ross-home-
office?orgId=1&refresh=5s&from=1595306888709&to=1595911688709)

~~~
durkie
for what it's worth, i wouldn't trust any sensor in the form of the sparkfun
CO sensor (link 0 in your comment) -- there was a fellow in denmark who did a
ton of research with these sensors to create an electronic nose that exploited
their huge lack of sensitivity. most of them are sensitive to a huge range of
gases beyond what they are ostensibly labeled for, so he would drive them at
different voltages and could basically get fingerprints of various substances:
the nose could smell the difference between different types of olive oils or
detect different spices. they are also very finicky to changes in temperature
/ humidity.

~~~
rckoepke
Oh, I completely agree. Particularly the ones for various flammable gases.
I've tested some of them in a lab and found them lacking for scientific
analytic data collection, although I still found use for them as binary
"presence" sensors to provide additional leak-point monitoring. I wouldn't
recommend using them to meet safety requirements; I only used them to go above
and beyond the minimum safety measures. I found they worked well enough to
alert humans "hey this fitting might be coming loose" well before a whole-room
LEL monitor on the wall noticed anything.

I'd love to see that Danish fellow's research to get a sense for how terrible
the non-flammable gas sensors are as well.

I might have suggested a more expensive/reputable sensor but as I remarked in
another reply -- it's my opinion that any solid-state gas sensor should
probably be verified and calibrated against reference gas compositions. Let me
know if I'm mistaken though! I just find it difficult to trust any
manufacturer's datasheet claims.

I also tried to state in my original post that the CO sensor shouldn't be used
in a safety-critical application. But I'll make another note to make sure
people read these down-thread discussions so they're not mislead.

------
dzink
Here is entirely anecdotal speculation as to why this is happening
(credentials - mom of two). In the late stages of pregnancy the uterus starts
preparing for birth by doing Braxton hicks contractions. The uterus flexes its
muscles. They get stronger and physically push the baby down like a ping pong
ball coming out of a balloon. BH contractions are also like clock ticks to
pregnancy, the closer you get to delivery the more frequent and stronger they
get. If you get dehydrated, they accelerate. If you get stressed out or
exhausted, they accelerate. If you skip a meal, they accelerate. Late stage
pregnancy mothers legitimately need less physical strain and more opportunity
to take care of their bodies or the baby comes early. Keeping the same active
pace of work for a few weeks in the third trimester can cost years of
additional effort and suffering as a premature baby may accrue permanent
damage. Remote work allows for your body to rest while your brains can work at
full speed for longer. It is challenging to make “remote“ work right now, but
for my part, I’m constantly prototyping and brainstorming ways to make the
experience better. We can do so much more in our lifetimes if reduce the
dangerous commutes.

~~~
tasogare
> Late stage pregnancy mothers legitimately need less physical strain and more
> opportunity to take care of their bodies or the baby comes early. Keeping
> the same active pace of work for a few weeks in the third trimester can cost
> years of additional effort and suffering as a premature baby may accrue
> permanent damage.

You are rediscovering why in traditional societies woman stop working when
getting pregnant. This is not a plot by the so-called patriarchy but something
that have been intuitively understood by humanity for millennia: woman need
lot of rest before and after the baby is born.

~~~
motakraxxer
The plot by patriarchy is not asking women to stop working during the third
trimester. The plot is to ignore those needs and punish women who stop working
by not paying them maternity leave or holding their pregnancy against them
when they come back to the workforce.

~~~
stanfordkid
I think we need to move past the genderization of capitalism (an abstract
force) into "patriarchy" \-- Capitalism has no interest in gender, age, or
pretty much anything relating to human qualities. The trending force for
capitalism is to have humans automated away -- let alone be given free money
to have a baby.

I actually find the notion of "patriarchy" incredibly sexist -- were not men
the canaries in the coalmine -- the original victims -- for the dehumanization
of capitalism?

I happen to support capitalism as a means of production -- but it should be
understood as an abstract, inhuman force like an optimization algorithm.
"Patriarchy" is a red herring.

~~~
ben_w
> I actually find the notion of "patriarchy" incredibly sexist -- were not men
> the canaries in the coalmine -- the original victims -- for the
> dehumanization of capitalism?

Given that women didn’t have a vote when the Industrial Age made coal mining
into a primary power source, and given that marriage was seen as making the
concept of rape logically impossible until 1992 in the UK [0], I disagree.

Separately, I would argue that while capitalism will exploit such prejudices,
I don’t think it is the origin of them.

[0] obvious trigger warning applies:
[http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1991/12.html](http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1991/12.html)

~~~
nearbuy
> Given that women didn’t have a vote when the Industrial Age made coal mining
> into a primary power source, and given that marriage was seen as making the
> concept of rape logically impossible until 1992 in the UK [0], I disagree.

I'm not following how this relates to the comment you're replying to. Are you
saying that women are the original victims of capitalism? Or that capitalism
was created by men? Or something else?

~~~
ben_w
I’m denying the claim “were not men the canaries in the coalmine -- the
original victims -- for the dehumanization of capitalism?”

Lots of men had their humanity disregarded, but women were treated worse, and
that legacy continued for a very long time.

These issues still exist in some places, based on what I’ve seen reported by
trans people who transition so successfully that people who knew them before
the transition mistook them for their own opposite gendered siblings and
treated them differently in accordance with gender stereotypes rather than by
merit.

~~~
nearbuy
Those examples don't contradict the claim you're denying. The claim wasn't
"men had it worse than women". It was that capitalism originally hurt men
(coal miners, specifically). The commenter was arguing that capitalism is not
a plot by the patriarchy devised to oppress women. To contradict their claim,
you need an example of capitalism originally victimizing women.

I doubt anyone here would disagree that women have suffered more from sexism.

Incidentally, and unrelated to that point, you chose oddly mild examples of
bad treatment of women. I'd much rather live in a society where I couldn't
vote or charge my spouse with rape than be a coal miner and suffer from black
lung and be in significant danger of dying in a workplace accident. You could
have gone with the awful treatment of women under the Taliban, to name one
example.

~~~
ben_w
Noted, and thanks for keeping it polite. :)

I find your preferences shocking, considering when childbirth anaesthetic was
invented, when abortions and woman-centric contraceptives became commonplace,
and when the idea of doctors washing their hands between autopsies and the
maternity ward became common sense rather than being treated as an insult.

I really couldn’t use the Taliban. They’re (1) modern day and (2) primarily a
theocracy.

~~~
nearbuy
I think we're just interpreting how the hypothetical choice works differently.
You're right, I wouldn't want to live in the 18th or 19th century at all. But
I'd prefer to not be able to vote (in isolation of other factors) to being a
coal miner (in isolation of other factors).

------
elevenoh
Potential upstream causes:

"One is social distancing, which may have cut down on the amount of general
infection from contact with others.

Another is less air pollution, from fewer cars being on the roads."

I'd love to see increased incentive for cities to act hastily on reducing
<pm2.5 air pollution. Talk about a covert inequality exacerbator.

~~~
stevenwoo
It’s possible one of the worst long term pollution problems is from tire wear
which is not addressed by cleaner running vehicles, so there’s multiple
avenues to address there but most solutions only address the fuel/exhaust, was
a hacker news story earlier this year.

~~~
peter5878
The contribution of tire and brake pad wear is really quite low compared to
other sources of air pollution.

From Evangeliou et al. (2020), Atmospheric transport is a major pathway of
microplastics to remote regions, page 3:

"Surface concentrations of tire wear particles (TWPs) range between a few
ng.m−3 and 20 ng.m−3 for PM2.5 and up to 50 ng.m−3 for PM10 (Supplementary
Movie 1). Brake wear particle (BWP) surface concentrations reach 50 ng.m−3 at
maximum (Supplementary Movie 1). The highest concentrations were calculated
for eastern USA, Europe and South-eastern Asia. All concentrations (TWPs 0.4
μg.m−3 for PM2.5, 1.8 μg.m−3 for PM10; BWPs 0.8 μg.m−3 for PM2.5, 1.4 μg.m−3
for PM10) were far below air quality limits for PM (annual mean 10 μg.m−3 for
PM2.5, double for PM10) and lower than typical black carbon (BC)
concentrations in remote regions."

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17201-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17201-9)

~~~
swsieber
But the type of pollution does matter. An important question is does it have a
greater impact. And given the studies linking health to distance from the
freeway, I think that question needs further investigation.

~~~
novok
Electrics have less brake wear and probably more tire wear due to weight
increases.

------
ulrikrasmussen
Here's a study from Denmark showing a 90% drop in the rate of extremely
premature births (gestational age below 28 weeks - the HN article talks about
32 weeks, so the drops cannot be directly compared):

[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.22.20109793v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.22.20109793v1)

------
jb775
My guesses (in order of likelihood):

1) More sleep, and easier to respect their circadian rhythm

2) Reduced un-conscious stress levels related to: the comfort of being at home
in a safe place...the comfort of knowing they won't go into labor early while
far from home and around non-family members...the comfort of knowing they're
eliminating unforeseen risks that come with venturing out into the world

3) Significant reduction of non-natural movements/processes such as: getting
in/out of car, sitting in stiff desk chair all day, work-schedule dependent
restroom use, commuting related stress

4.) Reduced air pollution

------
spenczar5
> "By staying home, a pregnant woman may have less stress from commuting and
> from work, and that might have helped them," Alshaikh said.

Ah yes, I'm sure my 7-months-pregnant wife would agree that this has been a
lovely, low-stress time. Wouldn't have it any other way.

~~~
anoncareer0212
You seem to be dunking on them for making a qualitative judgement, but they
made a comparative one.

~~~
klyrs
I think spenczar5's reaction is fairly understandable in the context. Live in
close quarters with somebody in their 7th month of pregnancy and 5th month of
lockdown and we'll see if your goto reflex is to explain further.

There's a need for a lot of sensitivity in this conversation. It's easy for us
to armchair-expert this to death... that isn't necessarily a good thing.

~~~
erulabs
I mean, "armchair quarterback" doesn't really apply to posing a hypothesis,
does it?

~~~
klyrs
I didn't say quarterback, did I? For all that HN loves to rip on studies with
small sample sets or sketchy statistics, or worse, deriding people sharing
their experiences as anecdotal, this community is sure fond of positing
alternative hypotheses with zero evidence.

------
wrnr
Interesting, their is also a big difference of % premature births between rich
countries up to a factor of 3:
[https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1471-...](https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1471-0528.14273)

------
jonathanlydall
I have some anecdotal experience here which is not in the same trend.

Our baby was born 10 weeks premature on the 4 June, although her being
premature seemed to be entirely unrelated to COVID-19. I'm happy to say
they've been doing super well and we expect them to come home this week.

Although not related to prematureness, of interest in regards to pregnancy and
COVID-19 was that the gynaecologist mentioned during pregnancy that they had
anecdotally noticed that during our lockdown here babies in utero were on
average noticeably bigger than usual. They supposed that it might be related
to moms on average being more relaxed due to not needing to do things like
stressful work commutes.

Our baby was quite a bit bigger than average for their maturity which was
quite fortunate given how early they arrived.

------
aaron695
> By staying home, a pregnant woman may have less stress from commuting and
> from work

Classically in Psychology the stress of planning a holiday is more than the
stress of the death of a loved one.

This might now be considered wrong (?), but you are taught this because stress
is not what the average person thinks it is.

That said, shopping and going out is now really stressful, it's an ongoing
changing conditions we are not used to, so surely they mean physical stress,
but not sure why they did not say that?

Is it because you can't politically say if women rest at home when pregnant
it's better for the baby?

------
DoreenMichele
_Another is less air pollution, from fewer cars being on the roads.

"This might actually help because studies in the past showed that air
pollution actually increases the risk for preterm birth," Alshaikh said._

One takeaway that doesn't involve arguing about the so-called Patriarchy and
what not: Let's just try to lower pollution rates generally. It's good for
everyone, including but not limited to pregnant women.

------
ThomPete
My son was born 10 weeks (started having issues 14 weeks) too early. One of
the primary reasons he was born that early was that my wifes Cervical was
expanding too fast. The remedy lay down don't move.

A simple explanation could simply be that by people having stayed at home they
are less likely to be physically active and stressed.

I'll bet you that's the primary reason.

------
a0-prw
A similar thing has been reported in Denmark ("big fall in extremely premature
births").

[https://www.tvmidtvest.dk/coronavirus/stort-fald-i-
ekstremt-...](https://www.tvmidtvest.dk/coronavirus/stort-fald-i-ekstremt-
tidligt-foedte-boern-under-coronanedlukningen)

------
mensetmanusman
Hospitals furloughing workers and fewer premature babies are definitely
outcomes I did not expect.

------
feralimal
Nevermind the 3 causes they are looking at.

I think that this is very likely due to removal/lessening of the impact of
doctors on what is a natural process. If doctors are less involved, things
take their natural course without problems.

Let's not forget, that the third largest cause of death (higher than covid) is
iatrogenic death: [https://www.globalresearch.ca/drug-induced-iatrogenic-
disord...](https://www.globalresearch.ca/drug-induced-iatrogenic-disorders-
the-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-us-and-britain/5626283)

There is, in fact, a strong case to be made for closing doctors, hospitals,
etc down, in order to increase the populations health!

EDIT - I don't know why my comment is being downvoted. I think I'm making a
rational, reasonable argument! If you disagree, no problem! But perhaps state
why you think what I'm suggesting is wrong.

------
learnstats2
'Don't give birth during a plague' is reasonable as a biological imperative.

------
desktopninja
I theorize its because the "pace of (modern) life" has slowed down.

------
jariel
The stress of non-cummuting may have been offset by the stress of 'OMG there's
a pandemic' \- a more existential kind of things.

The Scientologists have some very aggressive rules about 'quiet' around baby
and birth, rather extremist, but I think there is something to it.

Even in the womb, we are picking up information - imagine all the noise,
hormones, moving around etc. we get from pre-birth to age 1.

I wonder if we should head out to the countryside 3 months before and after.

It would be powerful to see more research into this, because the results could
be revelatory not just in relation to birth, but in other life activities.

Edit: I'm not suggesting there's any 'Science' in 'Scientology', rather, it's
an expansive and odd cult with just a ton on out-of-the-box thinking, a lot of
it initiated way back when treatment of mental illness was actually draconian
(ie lobotomies, arbitrary detention, brutal treatment) and there are often
'kernels of truth' in some of these things. The 'quiet during and around
birthing' always struck me as something actually rational in a way. Not
scientific either but Glenn Gould attributed his musical genius to the fact
his mother would play softly while he was still the womb (thus he's literally
been playing 'before he was born') and I don't think it's unreasonable at all
to think 'maybe there is something to it'. Early childhood events have
incredible impact on our lives. I think of it like 'the time when the kernel
code is established' and things gone wayward at that level cause
idiosyncrasies for the rest of one's life.

~~~
Viliam1234
I am pretty sure most people don't remember whether someone said something
during their birth. Generally, people remember very little from their first
years. For a child below 5 years, if you talk about something that happened a
year ago, from their perspective it never happened (unless you remind them of
the thing repeatedly, in which case they actually remember your repetition,
not the original event). Also, the babies themselves contribute some of the
noise.

The "something is to it" part is probably that you shouldn't play loud metal
music in the hospital. Which probably no one does anyway. But being afraid to
say a word... that's just superstition.

~~~
jariel
"whether someone said something during their birth. Generally, people remember
very little from their first years"

You're missing the context here. Babies don't understand speech, so it's not
like words are going to matter.

And this has nothing to do with 'memories'.

Loud noises, unnatural humming sounds like vehicles, the constancy of it all -
is highly unnatural.

The possibility that hormones can alter our development is implied in the
article, it's not entirely unreasonable that other stressors can affect us as
well.

We were 'designed' to come into a very quiet world (granted, it was a rugged
place) but it was audibly very quiet.

Since all of us - adults, children, react in a variety of ways to sound
(stressing, soothing etc.) I suggest that audio, in the very earliest phases
of one's life can possibly be a stressor.


Would you propose with a diamond grown in a lab? - rezist808
http://qz.com/630512/would-you-propose-with-a-diamond-grown-in-a-lab/
======
exabrial
Yes? Diamonds aren't a rare rock anyway though, amazes me they are so
expensive

------
mizchief2
Won't marry a woman who would want to waste money on a shiny rock.

~~~
seanp2k2
I wish you good luck in finding a spouse. It's not about the shiny rock, it's
about the financial commitment to a symbol of your enduring love, or
something.

~~~
Joof
There has to be something way more awesome than a diamond ring that costs a
bundle.

I'm probably fucked; I don't like hanging on to stuff as momentos. That goes
double for expensive momentos. Triple if it breaks some societal norm.

My college had a class ring that was kind of a big deal. College buddies
pester me years later about when I'm going to get mine. They teased the guy
who got silver instead of gold (seriously).

Never. Why do I want a $1000 reminder of something I already have? It's also a
huge psychological ploy to get people to rep the school and donate whether or
not it deserves it.

I guess buying an expensive ring could make somebody think of me constantly.
I'd vastly prefer to have some crazy experience or donate to something we care
about and buy a regular priced ring to use as a social symbol.


The internet is broken. Starting from scratch, here's how I'd fix it - thegeomaster
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/internet-broken-starting-from-scratch-heres-how-id-fix-isaacson
======
jstewartmobile
Leave it to the CEO of CNN to suggest "fixing" the internet by making it as
subservient to power as the traditional mainstream media.


Court: Violating a site’s terms of service isn’t criminal hacking - LinuxBender
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/court-violating-a-sites-terms-of-service-isnt-criminal-hacking/
======
phkahler
"Criminalizing terms-of-service violations risks turning each website into its
own criminal jurisdiction and each webmaster into his own legislature," Bates
wrote.

IMO that is the most important part of the ruling. You cant have criminal
penalties and then delegate the definition of the crime to each website.

Lying or breaking TOS is different than hacking. You are granted access by the
site, and it's no different than the access they grant every other user.

~~~
alasdair_
>You cant have criminal penalties and then delegate the definition of the
crime to each website.

How does this differ from criminal trespass, where each landowner can define
permitted use versus trespassing however they wish?

~~~
Dylan16807
The only criminal act in trespassing is coming back _after_ being banned.
Whatever you did to _get_ banned is not a criminal issue.

And as far as I know trespassing bans have to be a manual blacklist or
whitelist. You can't define some arbitrarily complex behavior that makes you
into a trespasser. Maybe I'm wrong on that?

~~~
throwaway17_17
That would depend on the jurisdiction. Typically in the US, most states define
two separate criminal statutes for each situation:

1) Criminal Tresspassing - typically defined as the entering the property of
another without express permission from the owner (this tends to include
intruding via drone these days)

2) Remaining or Reentry after forbidden - which is for those cases where entry
was permitted, but the owner subsequently revoked that permission.

~~~
alasdair_
>this tends to include intruding via drone these days

Can you elaborate on this point? There are a LOT of FAA rules and federal laws
that allow aircraft to fly over your property without your permission. I could
see the argument for a ground-based device or perhaps an extremely low-flying
drone but not for general drone use.

Of course, there are other laws (like requiring line of sight, not flying over
humans or livestock, etc.) that are probably broken by anyone flying a typical
non-commercial light drone over someone else's property at a level low enough
to be annoying.

~~~
throwaway17_17
I happen to have this handy from a Motion:

Laws traditionally related to state and local police power – including land
use, zoning, privacy, trespass, and law enforcement operations – generally are
not subject to federal regulation. Skysign International, Inc. v. City and
County of Honolulu, 276 F.3d 1109, 1115 (9th Cir. 2002). State and Local
Regulation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Fact Sheet Federal Aviation
Administration Office of the Chief Counsel, 2015.

------
UweSchmidt
Who is really reading a site's terms of service, or EULAs etc.? We mandate
food companies to clearly label items with standardized, readable and compact
information, but software companies can confront users with text that could
only ever be interpreted by bored lawyers. The idea that this could be
'binding', let alone leading to a 'crime', is silly to me.

~~~
orthecreedence
> Who is really reading a site's terms of service, or EULAs etc.?

I do. I make a point to take the first five to six hours of every working day
reviewing the ToS for each website I'm projected to visit that day.

I diff the text against known past versions and if there are significant
enough changes to any particular ToS, I stop using that site until I can sit
down in-person with my $550/hr lawyer (usually I only do this once or twice a
week) and review the changes to make sure I'm clear of all liabilities for my
projected use-cases. Once I get the go-ahead, I resume access to that website.

Overall the process only takes on average 30 hours a week, and the costs are
around $2000/week. It's worth it though, I wouldn't want to break any rules
set by private land owners (whether virtual or not).

~~~
vbezhenar
Will your lawyer be accountable if you would break some rule because of his
error? Did you sign any papers about his accountability? Were those papers
reviewed by independent lawyers?

------
ds
Feels like this is going to create some headaches for prosecuting CFAA cases
if the verdict stands.

I suspect the definition of 'unauthorized access' will need to be more clearly
defined since I know many cases in the past relied around users doing shit
that was unauthorized by the TOS.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
> I suspect the definition of 'unauthorized access' will need to be more
> clearly defined

I've been saying this for years! For reasons unrelated to TOS rulings, too.

A little bit of background...

In 2011, I was charged with _unauthorized access to a protected computer_. The
website in question (Infragard Tampa Bay, run by the FBI through a company
called Sylint) was running an older version of DotNetNuke that had a 2008
vulnerability.

The nature of the vulnerability was as follows: If you accessed a specific URL
which required no authorization, you could upload files to the server and
presumably execute them. (I say presumably, because I didn't.)

I wanted to fight the charge because I never exceeded "authorized access" by
using a publicly accessible web form on the public Internet, and the CFAA's
terms were vague.

* The website was publicly accessible, without needing authorization

* The file upload form was publicly accessible, without needing authorization

* The folder that files were uploaded to was publicly accessible, without needing authorization

* All of my conduct was authorized by the software they ran on the public Internet, and therefore the _unauthorized access_ I was accused of never actually occurred

My overworked public defender didn't have any fight in him. The EFF wouldn't
help either (the person I talked to didn't see the significance of this CFAA
ambiguity for civil rights). I grew up in a poor family and couldn't afford
legal counsel, so I ended up pleading guilty, which has _totally fucked my
life up_ ever since. (It really doesn't get better, even 8-9 years later.)

> since I know many cases in the past relied around users doing shit that was
> unauthorized by the TOS.

Good. I hope this becomes a precedent that frustrates prosecutors and helps
defense cases in appeals court.

~~~
google234123
Just because something is connected to the public internet doesn't mean that
you can hack it. Most homes are accessible from public roads, that doesn't
mean you are allowed to climb through any open window that you see.

You used a vulnerability to hack into some server associated with the FBI, I
don't see any ambiguity here.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
> Just because something is connected to the public internet doesn't mean that
> you can hack it.

I never said or implied that.

All I said is, because all of my conduct involved publicly accessible
components of their web application, I never exceeded authorized access.

Which means that the CFAA's clause about "unauthorized access" _in particular_
does not apply, since none of my packets exceeded or bypassed an
authentication or authorization control on their web app.

> Most homes are accessible from public roads, that doesn't mean you are
> allowed to climb through any open window that you see.

A better analogy is knocking on someone's door, only to discover it swings
open, then walking away. And then getting charged with breaking and entering
for their failure to shut their door, and then paying for damages for leaving
a muddy footprint on their exterior welcome mat.

> You used a vulnerability to hack into some server associated with the FBI, I
> don't see any ambiguity here.

I won't argue that I'm fully without blame.

The mistake I made during all of this was, upon discovering they were running
an outdated version of DotNetNuke (right click > view source; not exactly
something I had to go out of my way to detect), I panicked. And to assuage my
own anxiety, I tested the file upload to confirm that it was real.

That was the mistake that let them prosecute me at all. And it's a mistake I
have learned from:

In the years since, I have never sent a packet with security implications to
another network even for projects with a public bug bounty. I constrained
myself henceforth to reviewing source code and reverse engineering, since that
doesn't involve sending packets over a network and invoking a law that was
written before the concept of a public network existed. (And that law being
problematic is my entire point in this discussion, not appealing for amnesty
in the opinions of HN users. Anyone who decides to hate me won't be the
first.)

Even if I knew not to do that then, I still would have informed them of their
vulnerability as soon as it was discovered. Because that was the right thing
to do.

~~~
MaximumYComb
Is obfuscation a type of authorisation? If you knowingly exploited a
vulnerability to access a non-standard URL then it's pretty obvious you
shouldn't have been there. This isn't you navigating to a websites home page,
the information I've found reads the following for CVE-2008-6541:

>Access Complexity Medium (The access conditions are somewhat specialized.
Some preconditions must be satistified to exploit)

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
> Is obfuscation a type of authorisation?

No.

And even if you tried to argue that, the exploit was public on exploit-db for
years, and therefore the expected security from the broken obfuscation is zero
bits; so in this case, it would not count.

More pertinent:

> Authentication Not required (Authentication is not required to exploit the
> vulnerability.)

------
peter_d_sherman
Here's an interesting legal question:

If you use the public internet to go to a public website's landing page, by
doing that, do you automatically accept a website's Terms Of Service
(contract)?

I would argue no, because the social custom is that public-facing websites are
intended to be accessed by the public, and until and unless they explicitly
accept a contract (such as a Terms Of Service agreement), there is no
contract...

Now... I could be wrong.

In fact, lawyers could argue that there is a social contract, an implied
contract (they do this with Negligence claims) even before there is a written
contract...

So, I'd be interested in arguments, both for and against, with respect to the
presence or absence of a contract, either express or implied...

(We can all agree that if a website creates a pop-up or page which says "By
using this site, you accept the terms of service", and if you click "Agree",
you agreed (well, unless you do not have the capacity to do so, or other
factors apply... <g>)... that's _not_ what I'm soliciting arguments for
here...)

~~~
Spivak
At minimum I think most people would agree that the "default ToS" probably
would cover malicious actions and unintended access in both directions.

~~~
peter_d_sherman
My question is not about what the default ToS covers or doesn't cover, my
question is about when/where/how/if -- someone on the Internet accepts a
ToS...

And it's not really a question.

It's a solicitation of opinions.

To understand what I'm asking for, you must have an understanding of Contract
Law.

That is, what is a contract, when are they accepted, how are they accepted,
etc.

OK, now given those understandings, apply that to a public website.

How does/would someone in the public accept a public website's ToS, _other
than_ clicking "I agree", when presented by a page or requester saying "Do you
agree to accept this website's ToS?".

Does it happen?

If so, why so?

If not, why not?

I'm looking for compelling arguments, both for and against, both pro and
con...

------
microdrum
The right decision.

And why would it be? Why should private actors be able to invent new criminal
liabilities simply by publishing various terms of service?

Spotify: "If you listen to The Jackson 5 on our streaming service from a
location in Ohio on a Tuesday, that is a violation of our Terms of Service."

Federal judge: "You heard the man. Off to jail!"

~~~
duxup
Distantly reminds me of the "annoy" website (I forget the exact URL) that was
created as a sort of protest of some legislation in the early days of the
internet that referenced "annoying" someone (I forget the exact language).

~~~
perl4ever
Some system that I use at work prohibits "mischievous" use in the banner.

~~~
duxup
Man I wonder what happened to cause that term to be selected.

------
cl0rkster
TOS is too vague a term and too broad to cover the complexities that proper
legislation in the matter would require. Not to mention, I can write anything
I want in my TOS, but you can't enforce illegal terms. People know bad action
like they know porn when they see it.

------
kingbirdy
Worth noting this is only a district court ruling, and as the article notes
there are a number of conflicting circuit court rulings on the issue. Until a
case makes it to the Supreme Court, it's not safe to take this as a given
nationally.

------
sprite
How does this correlate to for example accessing a 3rd party API that has some
sort of protection, for example an API key or request signature algorithm.
Would those be considered a 'password'?

------
tyiworld
Yikes

------
101404
"US court" _

~~~
LinuxBender
_updated title_

~~~
LinuxBender
It was changed back to the original title.

~~~
dang
It's a well-known US publication. Readers are smart enough to figure these
things out, and it's best not to get too punctilious.

~~~
LinuxBender
Completely understand. Ty Dang.

------
ipnon
This really begs the question: what is?

~~~
goda90
Breaking past security systems. So like scraping publicly facing data might
violate TOS, but you can't call it hacking. Using exploits to get the password
hashes would be criminal hacking.

~~~
ds
Its really not that clear and we will need to wait for the courts to figure
out what means what.

For instance this: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/18/at-
and-t-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/18/at-and-t-hacker-
jailed-ipad-email)

All they did was "scrape publicly facing data"


PythonJS now faster than CPython - tyrion
http://pythonjs.blogspot.com/2014/05/pythonjs-now-faster-than-cpython.html
======
chubot
Can it run real programs (i.e. not benchmarks)?

If so I will be impressed. Glancing over the code, it looks pretty short, and
I can imagine benchmarks will run, but not real programs.

[https://github.com/PythonJS/PythonJS/blob/master/pythonjs/py...](https://github.com/PythonJS/PythonJS/blob/master/pythonjs/pythonjs.py)

It's true that most programs don't use all the dynamism of Python, but they
probably depend on something that does (e.g. Django). Python is more dynamic
than JavaScript, in that it has __getattr__, __setattr__, __getitem__, etc.

If not, it's not fair to compare it to PyPy... PyPy actually runs arbitrary
Python programs.

~~~
belandrew
> Python is more dynamic than JavaScript, in that it has __getattr__,
> __setattr__, __getitem__, etc.

No, it's not. You can do equivalents to all of those in Javascript. Javascript
objects are all mutable with a few exceptions. They are just maps of
properties, very similar to Python's. Properties can be added or changed at
runtime.

For example, setattr(obj, item, value) in python is basically just obj[item] =
value in js.

~~~
pygy_
__getattr__ and friends allow to customize the getters and setters.

JavaScript is in the process of getting similar capabilities with Harmony
proxies, but the spec has yet to be finalized:
[http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=harmony:direct_proxie...](http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=harmony:direct_proxies)

~~~
jonpacker
I'm slightly confused by your wording but I think the functionality you're
referring to is already available via Object.defineProperty's "get" and "set"
options: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Object/defineProperty)

~~~
pygy_
Object.defineProperty allows to overload get/set for a single key at a time.

Harmony proxies catch everything, and really overload the getter/setter
mechanism.

------
JeremyBanks
I also wrote an interpreter, and it's 500x faster than CPython or PyPy.

(As it happens, my interpreter can only run a single fixed program, but I'm
not worried: most people won't read past the headline when I announce it.)

~~~
coldtea
> _I also wrote an interpreter, and it 's 500x faster than CPython or PyPy_

That's great!

Even if your new interpreter doesn't run all the code that's out there it can
serve as a base for further work, it's a nice proof of concept and it's just
plain cool hacking. It certainly beats all those people merely posting snarky
comments on project announcements.

> _(As it happens, my interpreter can only run a single fixed program, but I
> 'm not worried: most people won't read past the headline when I announce
> it.)_

With sarcasm off now, yeah?

They worked on something and they are enthusiastic about the results they get.
Perhaps they want to oversell them, in a headline. So what? If people "won't
read past the headline" then they also won't be using this PythonJS. So no
harm done to them.

At worst, you'll be lured to read an interesting article. And if you have any
understanding of compilers/interpreters at all, you'll know before the end of
it who real-world-usable it would be or not.

~~~
zobzu
This kind of thinking generally hurts more than it does good. Large amounts of
people will register it in their memory as CPython bad, PythonJS, or really,
anything else good.

Don't know why, don't know why it's FUD, etc. Next time when they get a
choice, they'll bash CPython. Not figuring why everyone uses CPython probably.

And you're encouraging that. Probably just thinking it puts you on a higher
pedestal or something of the sort. I think its pretty shitty.

~~~
lucian1900
Well, CPython is embarrassingly slow.

The damaging thing is claiming things like PythonJS are implementations of
Python, when they merely share syntax and some semantics. They might be fast,
but that's not very relevant.

Runtimes like PyPy is where we should be looking, since they implement the
full Python language _and_ are fast.

~~~
mjolk
>Well, CPython is embarrassingly slow.

Compared to what? Please be specific in your definition of "slow."

>Runtimes like PyPy is where we should be looking, since they implement the
full Python language and are fast.

Why should 'we' be looking to PyPy? Have you run a non-trivial application
with pypy (v. standard cpy) and found it to be significantly faster?

Even if your code would benefit from JIT, and your code is compatible for
running on PyPy, does it benefit more from a compiler switch than CPython +
Pandas?

~~~
lucian1900
CPython is very slow at various things that are common, like function calls
and attribute lookup. There is no good reason for this and few runtimes are
quite this slow. This sort of overhead adds up and is often annoying to deal
with.

Yes, I have run non-trivial applications on PyPy and they were significantly
faster. Its only downside is libraries that depend on CPython extensions, but
there are few of those left.

Pandas doesn't do much for removing function call overhead. I don't
necessarily have large mathematical datasets, I just want my web service to be
easier to write, by not having to care about what CPython is terribly slow at.

~~~
mjolk
Interesting. Did you profile your code to see where your hot spots were?
Whenever I've run web-services on PyPy and got a nice little speed bump, I've
found that I could have also made small changes to optimize and get near the
same result.

~~~
lucian1900
Yes, the slow bits are often part of complex validation, directly proportional
to the number of function calls. Sometimes in arbitrary computation, but that
is not so common.

I could've manually inlined lots of functions to avoid the overhead on
CPython, but I'd have a horrible code base. On PyPy I can simply not care
about this aspect, just like in most other languages.

------
chuckup
The other interesting and recent "Python in the browser" project is
RapydScript -
[https://github.com/atsepkov/RapydScript](https://github.com/atsepkov/RapydScript)

Unlike PythonJS, it does not have the goal of being 100% Python compatible,
but instead takes the CoffeeScript approach. So, like Coffeescript, you get
(mostly) clean Javascript output, no huge library dependency, runs nearly as
fast as Javascript, etc.

Check out the "ants" demo -
[http://salvatore.pythonanywhere.com/RapydBox/default/editor](http://salvatore.pythonanywhere.com/RapydBox/default/editor)

I've been playing around with both PythonJS and Rapydscript, and I like both.
Different goals. PythonJS can output to Lua, too - so there's the whole Python
in LuaJIT angle which could be very interesting as it matures.

~~~
amirouche
Still, it's written in JavaScript. Not aiming full compatibility is not only
humility. They can't do it.

------
WizKid
According to the footnote he tested with pypy 1.9. There was just a post here
a day or two ago that pypy 2.3.1 was release. Seems like one should at least
use the latest version when testing. Pypy 1.9 was release 2 years ago.

~~~
srean
Yes, but am quite happy and impressed to see how well Pypy is holding up.

Something that I have learned about reading benchmarks is to pay attention to
who is coming consistently second. Usually that is the most informative part
of a benchmark.

------
rch
This just translates Python syntax into JavaScript, assuming a direct
translation is possible.

Neat, but a more compelling post would compare with CoffeeScript and check
build times, high-level syntax, and features like generators, list
comprehensions, itertools, functools, and so on.

Edit: why the downvote? Am I incorrect about something? If so, I'm genuinely
curious to know what I'm overlooking here.

Edit 2: I went over to the github page and it is in fact a 'transpiler',
though it can run self-hosted in node, and the features list includes both
list comprehensions and yield (i.e. generator functions). It looks like the
itertools and functools libraries aren't supported yet, but doing so really
wouldn't be too difficult. CoffeeScript is a direct output option too.

~~~
Pacabel
Don't worry about the downvotes. Things have gotten pretty bad around here
lately, especially after the whole "downvote if you disagree" policy was
encouraged.

A lot of totally correct and perfectly valid commentary ends up getting
downvoted these days, often with no attempt made to explain why. It's
particularly likely to happen when members of the Mozilla, JavaScript or Rust
communities are involved. They're particularly sensitive to anything that
might contradict their beliefs, and apparently they're particularly eager to
downvote, for whatever reason.

These days, many of us have started to read all of the downvoted comments.
Aside from occasional spam, they're often among the most insightful comments
in any given thread.

~~~
dbaupp
_> often with no attempt made to explain why. It's particularly likely to
happen when members of the Mozilla, JavaScript or Rust communities are
involved_

Your repetitive comments about Rust's instability almost always receive a lot
of feedback about why they are incorrect and/or invalid.

~~~
Pacabel
The Rust mis-votings are quite absurd.

In no way can Rust be considered "stable". The most recent version is 0.10
(that is, it's still very pre-1.0), it's undergoing significant breaking
changes on an ongoing basis, and even its home page warns that "Rust is a
work-in-progress and may do anything it likes up to and including eating your
laundry."

Anyone who points out that Rust is just not stable yet is absolutely correct.
Anyone who points out that it's looking unlikely that it will be stable before
the promised end-of-2014 deadline for 1.0 is also correct.

It doesn't matter who points out these facts, or how many times they do so.
The facts are still facts, and whoever expresses them is totally correct.

My suspicion is that the inappropriate downvoting is just immaturity on the
part of the Rust developers. I realize that it can hurt to face valid
criticism of one's work, but an important part of being a professional adult
is to consider such criticism rationally, and to learn how to improve based
upon it. Engaging in censorship of facts, however, completely contradicts with
self-improvement.

It renders the voting system useless when it's incorrectly used to censor
others, due to a lack of emotional control on the part of the person misusing
the system.

It's one thing to downvote blatant commercial spam that has no inherent value.
It's harmful to downvote perfectly legitimate commentary that you may just
happen to disagree with, however.

~~~
dbaupp
It has been demonstrated time and time again why your comments are either
incorrect, or a mischaracterisation of the situation.

~~~
Pacabel
It's clear that Rust isn't stable yet, and won't be for a long time. It's
impossible for me or anyone else to be incorrect when we point out that very
real fact.

If you feel the need to vote down perfectly legitimate comments merely
expressing a truth that you dislike, so be it. I can't stop you, and the
others you've chosen to target can't stop you, either. However, reality will
be reality, regardless of the voting. Rust will still remain unstable no
matter how many down arrows you click.

~~~
dbaupp
The problem is not saying that Rust is currently unstable, it is you taking
the leap to saying that Rust will never be stable.

~~~
Pacabel
Well, the trend so far has been a serious lack of language and library
stability, and there's very little to suggest that the situation will change
any time soon.

Stability isn't something that happens overnight. It takes a lot of
discipline, and this discipline has to be ingrained within the very project
itself. I don't see this as the case with Rust.

~~~
kibwen
If you were following Rust at all you would know that they are aggressively
rejecting requests for new features in order to produce a stable release, and
have five full-time developers working on clearing release blockers.

------
millstone
Python has bignums by default. I was curious how PythonJS implemented bignums,
so I tried it, and the answer is: it doesn't. It just uses ordinary JavaScript
doubles.

This is a critical difference that ought to be called out, especially in the
"add" micro-benchmark, which is measuring two very different things in the two
implementations.

~~~
bretthartshorn
PythonJS has support for 64bit integers using the Long.js library. You just
need to type your variable as "long". Numbers larger than 64bits could also be
supported with another library and simple modifications to the translator.

[http://pythonjs.blogspot.com/2014/06/64bit-integer-long-
type...](http://pythonjs.blogspot.com/2014/06/64bit-integer-long-type.html)

------
vomitcuddle
If this project gains more traction, maybe it will get more people interested
in Dart. (which is essentially javascript with a standard library reimagined
for the things people are using javascript for today: async APIs, stream
processing, mapreduce, webapps, etc.)

~~~
shadowmint
Nothing wrong with Dart (other than lack luster adoption) but I'm not sure a
surge in interest of people using it as a dropin backend for compile-to-
javasvript targets is really going to drive the sort of developer adoption
you'd really be looking for.

------
spullara
Near as I can tell, because CPythong is so tied to native code at every turn,
none of the other VMs have any real chance of success without bridging to
them.

~~~
Shish2k
Nice to see I'm not the only one who has a habit of accidentally adding a "g"
on the end of "python". Still no idea _why_ that happens though...

------
zorbo
Ah yes, the old X is faster than Y pointless nonsense. Let's ask the basic
questions that always come to mind:

\- Does X do all or at least most that Y does?

\- Are the benchmarks sane? I.e. not the pointless arithmetic fibonacci that
nobody really uses, but the useful stuff such as regexps etc.

------
pfraze
Python in the browser would be pretty fun. Congrats on the speed improvements.

------
anilshanbhag
PyPy uses JIT to generate optimized code during runtime. As many comments
noted, PythonJS may not support all Python features but still don't understand
why PyPy performing worse than PythonJS.

~~~
amirouche
You know JIT? I mean does it scale to run the JIT in the browser? I will say
maybe. All people that do compiler stuff I asked the question think that it's
not.

------
SnowLprd
The comparisons to PyPy would be much more meaningful if they weren't based on
a version of PyPy that's _over two years old_ : PyPy 1.9 was released in 2012.

~~~
bretthartshorn
I've posted updated benchmarks with the latest PyPy 2.3.1
[http://pythonjs.blogspot.com/2014/06/pythonjs-faster-than-
cp...](http://pythonjs.blogspot.com/2014/06/pythonjs-faster-than-cpython-
part2.html)

------
pandler
I'd be interested to see how it stacks up against other python-to-js
converters in terms of both speed and supported python features.

------
coherentpony
It'd be interesting to see a comparison with CPython with the 'numpy' backend
using a vectorised code.

~~~
bretthartshorn
Here is a new benchmark testing PythonJS using SIMD vectorized code in the
DartVM vs CPython with NumPy. [http://pythonjs.blogspot.com/2014/06/pythonjs-
simd-vectors.h...](http://pythonjs.blogspot.com/2014/06/pythonjs-simd-
vectors.html)

------
zzleeper
Nitpick: vertical text is really hard to read, sp if the image is compressed
like that. Next time please use some bars instead of columns!

Asides from that, this looks quite promising!

------
bayesianhorse
PythonJS might win importance if there was a framework to build webapps with
it. Otherwise it's only a curiosity...


Show HN: Request your college application with comments from admissions - tommygibbons46
http://ferpaAccess.com
======
bojo
Lack of any information about what is going on with this webpage does not make
me feel confident about putting my information in there.

~~~
tommygibbons46
That's great feedback bojo, what type of information would you like? I've been
using it mostly with friends, so figured I would keep it barebones

~~~
unholygoat
It'd be nice to see an example of what is sent (before it's actually sent) as
well as resource links to how it's possible (i.e. Family Educational Rights
and Privacy Act info).

------
kidcoder
My University (fairly large, big 10) isn't listed, despite all our satellite
campuses being there.


The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' - tpatke
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18419691

======
ajuc
Would be nice to mention the whole effort, not only Turing. Like the fact that
Poles were reading Enigma encrypted messages before the WW2, and send all
information they aquired to France and Great Brittain.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma#Pol...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma#Polish_breakthrough)

I mean - Turing was brilliant, but why everybody only tell the story from the
middle ?

~~~
m0nty
I have always felt that Tommy Flowers' incredible contribution (i.e. building
the first electronic, programmable computer) is all-too-frequently overlooked.
I suppose it just makes a better story to talk about a lone genius rather than
a group of collaborators.

~~~
monk_the_dog
I recently learned about Tommy Flowers and Colossus from this book:
[http://www.amazon.com/Colossus-secrets-Bletchley-code-
breaki...](http://www.amazon.com/Colossus-secrets-Bletchley-code-breaking-
computers/dp/0199578141/ref=sr_1_5) The British kept Colossus secret for a too
long and Flowers did not get enough credit (and von Neumann seems to get too
much). BTW, I do recommend the above book. But we warned that it's a
collection of essays by different authors so it can be uneven reading.

~~~
m0nty
Thanks, I'll take a look at the book. Sometimes essays are fine because you
can cherry-pick the good ones.

------
rmc
It's a shame that even now, Alan Turing, since he was gay, wouldn't be allowed
to get married in the UK.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
The UK Government just finished accepting entries for a consultation on plans
to allow same-sex (as well as transgender marriage) in England and Wales, and
the Scottish Government is also running a consultation.

~~~
rmc
Yes, and it's very encouraging. Especially seeing Cameroon, a Conservative
Prime Minister say "I support gay marriage _because_ I'm a conservative".
Thankfully things are changing. The people's attitudes are changing.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Cameron, not Cameroon (although that's also a valid last name ;)

But yes, indeed, it is good to see things changing. And cross-party support,
with the exception of the Euroskeptics.

------
dsirijus
If this article piqued your interest, be sure to read Cryptonomicon by Neal
Stephenson.

~~~
davidw
Speaking of which, I recently read this:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LW5JL2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LW5JL2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=dedasys-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005LW5JL2)

Which is about WWII in the Pacific, up to the battle of Midway. He talks about
the code breaking efforts in Hawaii, and I immediately recognized one of the
minor characters from Cryptonimicon - the guy in charge of the cryptanalysis
efforts - who was apparently a bit eccentric, and not big on military
formalities. I didn't realize that the character in the book was based on
someone real.

It's a very well written book, and I'd highly recommend it, as well, as, of
course, Cryptonimicon.

Edit - here's a link that talks about him some:

<http://www.worldwar2history.info/Midway/mission.html>

~~~
sophacles
Several other characters in that book are also based on real people, albeit
living (at time of writing anwyay) ones, so names and some details were
changed, as well as adding some more speculation. For example the character
Earl Comstock was pretty much Robert McNamara. A lot of the people in the 90's
timeline seem to be based on real people Stephenson wrote about in his factual
articles. (particularly the ones about cable laying in the pacific).


Ask HN: Installing Linux on a Mac. Fedora or Ubuntu? - webmasterraj
======
LarryMade2
Ive found ubuntu to be the most painless route, usually a resolution to a
driver issue is a google search away.

The best path is to pro-actively google your model Macintosh with Ubuntu
(version number) and another with Fedora (version number) and see what pops up
in compatibility issues and resolutions. Really, its pretty much that easy to
figure out.

------
bsg75
Also interested in this, mainly to know which ships with drivers that don't
require too many driver shenanigans.

Xubuntu "looks nicer", but Fedora is more familiar to us CentOS users on the
server side.