trobertson

Yesterday, they loved the guy. Say what you will about the deal, but Facebook has generated a lot of negativity in a lot of people. Not only did the Kickstarted future of VR sell out, they sold to Facebook. That subreddit has interpreted it as follows:

    The dream is real, take my money! (during Kickstarter)

    Shatter the dream.

    Take a dump on the scattered pieces.

They are not happy.

With regards to your first paragraph, we have plenty of money to spend on defense. The USA is expected to spend around 1.2 trillion dollars on defense in 2014 [0]. The problem, is that most of that spending is overseas "defense", and very little of it is used to secure critical domestic infrastructure. Like our energy grids, our roads and highways, etc.

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[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

> with threaded comments, it's very difficult to follow a discussion as it develops

I actually completely disagree with this. Threads allow for a single point of interest to spawn multiple straight-line conversations, where each thread pertains to a different facet of the original topic. Whereas a single thread conversation (like a forum) only allows for a single thread of conversation, and divergent conversations are all mixed up in the same thread.

With Reddit (but not HN), the ability to collapse threads makes it even easier to only follow the particular conversations you are interested in. Collapse the ones you don't care about (like pun threads, etc.), and read the important stuff. With a single thread, you have to scan every single comment, including the junk and the stuff you don't care about. Not to mention the whole "Page 1 [2] 3 ... 389" deal that single threaded conversations get into.

You mention chronological order being important, and most threaded sites (but not HN) have the ability to sort threads by chronological order, which gives the same single threaded "top level" of comments.

I agree with you that HN can be a chore to read, though. I think it would be massively improved were it to have a built in thread collapsing mechanism. It definitely has the least feature of threaded conversations that I've seen.

Popcap is owned by EA, who is well known for being heavy handed with their studios. EA happens to really like the IAP model.

> competition tends to benefit the consumer

In regulated markets. After all, things like anti-cartel laws are regulations, and we absolutely do need those.

I'm not sure how useful that canary is going to be, though. Secure transfer of large files is a powerful tool for many people, including unsavory types like child porn distributors. I expect and encourage the government to investigate things like that, and those lawful, ethical investigations are going to bump the counter, making a lot of people think "The NSA is all up in our filez!".

The common term "bitrot" suggests otherwise

Haskell's GHC is working on it [1]. It's not primetime (not even close, really), but it does work with modified libraries and compiling to llvm.

There is also Intel Lab's HRC (Haskell Research Compiler) that does have SIMD capabilities [2]. Unfortunately, there isn't a public release of HRC yet.

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[1]: https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/SIMD

[2]: http://dorchard.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/automatic-simd-vect...

There are several libraries that do distinguish between strict and lazy types. containers [1], for example, separates strict Maps and IntMaps.

That said, introducing new syntax to annotate strictness is far more troublesome than separating strict types from lazy types at the module level, where switching between the two is a comment away:

       import qualified Data.Map        as M
    -- import qualified Data.Map.Strict as M

Introducing syntax would make switching between the two far more painful.

[1]: https://hackage.haskell.org/package/containers

> How is 'm >>= f' pronounced?

How do you pronounce '4 + 5'? It's easy, because you don't try to pronounce '+', you pronounce 'plus'. With '>>=', there are a few names that all mean the same thing.

There are two primary names, 'bind' and 'chain', and a description 'feed':

bind (the result of) m to (the input of) f

chain (the result of) m into f

feed m to f

There are probably a couple more things that can be said, in different contexts, but these three cover the majority use case.

Certifiably false.

USA imprisons ~6x more of its citizens than China does [1], as a matter of percentage. Considering that the USA has ~1/4 the population of China [2], we can determine that the USA has more people in prisons than China, by a factor of roughly 1.5 USA prisoners per 1 Chinese prisoner.

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[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio...

I would recommend 'Concepts of Modern Mathematics' [1], by Ian Stewart. It has some very nice illustrations and humor, and reminds me of 'Learn You A Haskell For Great Good' (though I believe CoMM came out before LYaH). It's a wonderful preview of a variety of topics, and is intended to introduce someone with a poor math background to some of the different fields of math.

From the Amazon description:

In this charming volume, a noted English mathematician uses humor and anecdote to illuminate the concepts underlying "new math": groups, sets, subsets, topology, Boolean algebra, and other subjects. No advanced mathematical background is needed to follow thought-provoking discussions of such topics as functions, symmetry, axiomatics, counting, topology, hyperspace, linear algebra, and more. 200 illustrations.

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[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Modern-Mathematics-Dover-Book...

On page 100 of the actual documents [1], the refusal was not based on chain-of-evidence concerns, but that by using the solution proposed by Levison, the FBI would not have real-time access to the data:

    The e-mail again confirmed that Lavabit is capable of providing the means for the FBI to 
    install the pen-trap device and obtain the requested information in an unencrypted form. 
    AUSA[censored] replied to Mr. Levison's e-mail that same day, explaining that the 
    proposal was inadequate because, among other things, it did not provide for real-time 
    transmission of results...

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[1]: http://cryptome.org/2013/10/lavabit-orders.pdf

This is an inaccurate account of events. If you read the actual documents [1], you can see that the FBI had exactly 2 demands: A pen register device, attached to his servers; and his SSL private key. That is the sum total of what they wanted: complete, near-real-time access to all of Lavabit's data. A physical device to copy the server traffic and send it to the FBI, and the SSL key, to decrypt that traffic.

The stated use of these two things was to get information concerning a single person, but they never wanted just that information. On page 100, Levison states that he can manage to get the information the FBI is looking for, without providing the FBI with Lavabit's encryption keys. Someone (AUSA[censored]) says that the proposed solution does not satisfy the subpoenas and court orders, because it would not provide real-time access to the data.

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[1]: http://cryptome.org/2013/10/lavabit-orders.pdf

I think the US government is engaging in a massive overreach, and I think that other countries have an opportunity to develop sane data protection laws. Normally, when you want data on one person, you get a warrant for data on that person. The US government, however, has decided that the rational move is to demand indiscriminate access to the records and communications of over 400,000 Lavabit customers.

Yeah no prob. I'm particularly interested in Lavabit's story, because I'm looking to get off of Gmail and get some degree of privacy. But with how this is going, it looks like I'm going to have to wait for a non-USA company to start a similar service (I'm broke and in the USA, so I'm not in a position to start one myself).

I'm reading/skimming through this now, and most of the beginning exhibits repeat a lot of stuff. Also, IANAL, so I may be interpreting some of this incorrectly.

On the PDF's page 51, there begins a record of a court proceeding, deliberating what, exactly, the government is looking for in these proceedings. They discuss the coverage that the FBI thinks its pen register needs. Of note is that Levison was not opposed to the pen register (which, to my understanding, would provide the FBI with all encrypted traffic going through Lavabit's servers), he was opposed only to providing the encryption keys, which Levison asserts would provide the FBI the ability to decrypt all traffic, and not just the traffic of the aforementioned SUBJECT, (read: probably Snowden).

The judge appears to not be a rubber-stamp entity, which is nice, as shown on pages 58-59.

Page 60, Levison states that all the gov needed to do to install the pen register, was set up an appointment with him. But, again, he would not provide any keys.

Ha. On page 61, the court explicitly says that all requests for oversight and monitoring will be denied:

    MR. LEVISON : I guess while I'm here in regards to the pen register,
        would it be possible to request some sort of external audit to
        ensure that your orders are followed to the letter in terms of
        the information collected and preserved?
    THE COURT : No. The law provides for those things, and any other
        additional or extra monitoring you might want or think is
        appropriate will be denied, if that's what you' re requesting.

On page 100, Levison states that he can manage to get the information the FBI is looking for, without providing the FBI with Lavabit's encryption keys. Someone (AUSA[censored]) says that the proposed solution does not satisfy the subpoenas and court orders, because it would not provide real-time access to the data.

On page 107-108, the court has this to say about a loss of trust from Lavabit's customers, in the event that Lavabit hands over its SSL keys: "Any resulting loss of customer "trust" is not an "unreasonable" burden"

Starting on page 121, there is a court discussion about "a motion to quash the requirement of Lavabit to produce its encryption keys and the motion to unseal and lift the nondisclosure requirements of Mr. Levison."

Page 126, the court on the government's "right to information". Within the bounds of a criminal investigation, this position seems correct, but they are still requesting a key that would decrypt the communications of about 400,000 customers. Within that context, it seems like overreach.

    THE COURT : I can understand why the system was set up, 
        but I think the government is -- government's clearly entitled 
        to the information that they're seeking, and just because 
        you-all have set up a system that makes that difficult, that 
        doesn't in any way lessen the government's right to receive that 
        information just as they would from any telephone company or any 
        other e-mail source that could provide it easily. Whether 
        it's -- in other words, the difficulty or the ease in obtaining 
        the information doesn't have anything to do with whether or not 
        the government's lawfully entitled to the information.

Man, read page 128 and 129. The judge basically says that because it's a criminal case, the 4th Amendment doesn't apply to the data they are requesting (Lavabit's SSL key, which is very emphatically NOT Snowden's data (or, sorry, THE SUBJECT's data)).

What appears to be the now infamous 11 page of 4-point key starts at page 145, as Attachment A. I can't actually verify, from this PDF, that it is text. With the image's resolution, it looks like lines of visual noise. Zooming in, there also appear to be visual artifacts reminiscent of JPG compression.

The establishment rewards those who aid the establishment.

For all these language issues, I generally preface the query with the language name. "Python3 Django", "Haskell Quickcheck", "C++ Boost", etc. It makes things so much easier for the search engine to give me Good Results (tm) when it has that extra bit of context.

Thanks for doing this. My email is in my profile.

Honestly, I would pay for a site that was only hard-core tech articles. Hacker News' guidelines are decent, but are incredibly open. Citing sentence 3 of the guidelines:

    If you had to reduce [what's on topic] to a sentence,
    the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's
    intellectual curiosity.

That's a vast, vast pit of 'anything goes'.

I don't mean to nitpick, but the three parameter form is exactly what you use in day-to-day Haskell programming. You simply let c be the infix (->), and you get (y -> z) -> (x -> y) -> (x -> z). We just tend to think of it as a two parameter form because a lot of the time, you can think of (->) as syntax, as opposed to the type that it is.

So that others don't have to search, it's brony porn, where 'brony' means 'middle-aged man who's obsessed with the "My Little Pony" television show. NSFW, obviously.

Even disregarding the corruption part, his point still stands. Laws are made by people. People are not infallible. People make mistakes. It is therefore obvious that there is potential for bad and unjust laws.

Adding in the corruption part, you can then see that there is potential for laws and policies that are purposefully unjust.

They don't. They don't need to. This idea of a 'patriotic American' is propaganda. A complete and utter fabrication. It's a tool used to divide the American populace into opposing factions: those are patriotic, and those who are enemies of the stats.

It's a remarkably similar tactic to what the Nazi's used [1]. The Nazis attempted (and succeeded) in demonizing anyone who didn't agree with their ideals. That's basically what our politicians are doing: demonizing anyone who is 'not a patriot', 'against national security', 'disagrees with American Exceptionalism'.

Also, to those who will inevitably think 'Godwin's Law': thank you for derailing a legitimate comparison.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_propaganda#Themes

Not to mention Org Mode... but there's about a zero chance of emacs being picked up as 'standard'.

It should be noted that this is from 2008, and last updated in 2009. I'm not a Perl user, so I don't know if the language has changed enough since then to affect the validity of the proof. We also don't know if it holds for Perl 6.

If you use Emacs, you might want to check out Org Mode. It was basically designed to do that kind of stuff. Github also displays .org documents rather well.

> It seems like these people represent exceptions to the rule

Basically this.

I was a gymnast for 18 years (from 2 - 20 years old). Obviously, it wasn't professional level the entire time, but starting a bit before high school, workouts would be 5 or 6 times a week, for 4-5 hours. There was never any weightlifting, only body weight exercises. Those guys you see on TV doing Still Rings, Pommel Horse, etc., they didn't get that strong through weight training. It's just hours and hours of practice and so-called 'endurance' conditioning. I say 'so-called endurance' because most gymnasts that I met were pretty bad endurance wise, judging on ability to run for awhile. A lot of us topped out at a couple of miles, before we needed to walk.

Gymnastics is a sport that isn't assisted by weight training. There are a few exercises that use weights, like wrist therapy using 5-10 pound free weights. But all those physiques you see on TV are just thousands of hours of work, and those hours make for some of the leanest, strongest people.

Here are two videos of some good, professional-level routines:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScgJJDYeqqg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRDzQX6MzHo

You literally can not learn to do that through weightlifting. You cannot gain the strength those two use through weightlifting. It's not because the positions themselves are difficult, those are usually the easy parts to train and practice. It's the transitions between two different positions that is difficult, and cannot be trained by weightlifting. Gymnastics is a dynamic sport, weightlifting is a static exercise. The best that weightlifting can do is make the holds a bit easier, but that isn't really necessary, because those aren't as hard to train as the fluid transitions.

Would you find it unreasonable to have a search warrant on every single American's internet activity? As far as I understand it, that is, in effect, what CISPA proposes.