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billme

823 karma · joined May 14, 2020

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billme··on U.S. Should Open America’s Doors to Hong Kong’s Citizens
Here’s a recent, though very limited, example of Germany giving asylum for Hong Kong independence activists in 2019 - with China’s public response at the time:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-germany-hongkong/ch...

billme··on U.S. Should Open America’s Doors to Hong Kong’s Citizens
Add the UK to that list too.
billme··on The Day AppGet Died
>> “I haven't updated the original article since I'm not sure what the etiquette for updating a highly shared article is.”

Adding “UPDATE:(date)text” either in the footer - with a brief dip in the header saying there’s an updated in the footer is an easy way to accomplish this.

billme··on Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy
There are a lot of “shadow” voters on HN. One might speculate there’s voting rings, but given HN doesn’t allow a given user’s voting history to be public, impossible to audit it to look dark patterns, puppet masters, etc.
billme··on YouTube actively deletes anti CCP comments
Is there any reason to believe YouTube and not the users posting the comments, channel owner, etc - are not the ones deleting the comments?
billme··on Risk Assessment and Prioritization for Startups
This blog post from the author of the linked presentation is better online presentation of their ideas:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23310400

billme··on How to write a programming book
First, congratulations, thanks for publishing, thanks for sharing your experience!

Second, yes, maybe I was not clear, my advice relates to the average author on a simple straightforward method of write a book that reduces the odds of it not being of use of the audience it seeks.

Lastly, might be wrong, but it appears:

(A) at least on Amazon, your book appears to be rank in the top 20,000 of all books;

(B) you appear to have published a singular book;

(C) as you say, yourself, it does not make enough for someone to live in a major city;

(D) writing books is not your primary means of income;

—- to me, what I hearing does not conflict at all with my analysis and your example, to me is survivor bias: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

——

Writing multiple best selling books year after year is VERY hard to do as a means of income. There are much easier ways to earn an income and share what you know. If someone wants to do that, awesome, though I do not have advice for doing that, nor do I know of anyone else that does; that would result in publishing 1+ successful books a year. My advice is just no nonsense take on being reducing odds of book being useful, which for the average author is much more of a challenge.

billme··on NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program
Curious as well, dragonwriter clearly has deep understanding of US law.
billme··on NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program
All that act does is say the US will not cooperate. My statement still holds true, ICC has not given the any immunity for ignorance of the law for war crimes.
billme··on NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program
>> “due to the general principal that the only case where ignorance of the law is an excuse under criminal law is when the mistake of law results from reasonable reliance on guidance from officials responsible for enforcing the law”

Request for relevant citation(s).

billme··on BaseSAFE: Baseband SAnitized Fuzzing Through Emulation
For those unfamiliar with the two most important terms covered in this paper, they are fuzzing [1] & baseband processor [2]:

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

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

billme··on NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program
As it relates to torture, war crimes apply regardless of if a party believed they were acting legally.

As for the case you cited, it was a civil suit, therefore ruling only covers civil law, not criminal. That said, does not protect "the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law". [1]

All Presidents are fully aware by law their powers are limited, no reasonable official would claim otherwise. No reasonable person or official would claim their actions were legal, hence why they knowingly hid them from FISA & Congress.

[1] Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986).

billme··on NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program
>> “legally the president and anyone acting under his command are immune from prosecution if they acted according to legal guidance from the white house council“

Source? As far as I am able to tell, this is false; as in it is not that they are immune from prosecution, but that prosecution has never occurred.

Clearly, if war crimes were ever brought, regardless of the laws, commands, etc - it would have not resulted in being immune from prosecution.

billme··on NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program
Supreme Court has ruled on the executive branches limited legal authority, even during war time, via “Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer” (1952):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngstown_Sheet_%26_Tube_Co...

That being, “The President did not have the inherent authority to seize private property in the absence of either specifically enumerated authority under Article Two of the Constitution or statutory authority conferred on him by Congress.”

My rewording, “The President [does] not have the inherent authority to [do anything] in the absence of either specifically enumerated authority under Article Two of the Constitution or statutory authority conferred on [them] by Congress.”

—

Question then is did Constitution or Congress authorize this, directly or indirectly prior to or retroactively after the fact?

billme··on NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program
Supreme Court has ruled on the executive branches limited legal authority, even during war time:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngstown_Sheet_%26_Tube_Co...

That being, “The President did not have the inherent authority to seize private property in the absence of either specifically enumerated authority under Article Two of the Constitution or statutory authority conferred on him by Congress.”

My rewording, “The President [does] not have the inherent authority to [do anything] in the absence of either specifically enumerated authority under Article Two of the Constitution or statutory authority conferred on [them] by Congress.”

billme··on NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program
Neither the contents of your comment, nor that of the document on Wikipedia appear to substantiate the claims you have made. Please cite any relevant documents, laws, etc - that support your claims as directly as possible; for example, document link, page number, subheading, paragraph, etc.

As is, your comment to me is worth less than having said nothing at all — as it requires time to read your comment, link, and the responses critical of it.

billme··on NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program
>> “Cheney ordered that Stellarwind be concealed from the judges of the FISA Court and from members of the intelligence committees in Congress.”

(a) Anyone able to expand on the author’s source for this; (b) what if any US legal guidance at the time enabled this; (c) and if anything between now and then has changed legally.

billme··on How to write a programming book
>> “conventional tech publishers make no sense economically” [...] “It is possible to make decent money from writing technical books if you self publish and build an audience yourself.“

Do you have an example of an author doing this? (Meaning all they do is self-publish books and have disclosed financials.)

billme··on How to write a programming book
Love the idea of a book based on spaces repetition, but wish they had a better way to get a sense of what you’re getting yourself into, since as far as I am able to tell there’s no:

- estimate of reading time - level of knowledge - way to link deeper content

billme··on How to write a programming book
Preselling good, since sending cash is a lot better signal of interest than handing over email, SMS, etc.

That said, you would need to have a quantifiable definition of done and likely be a good idea to account for absolute failure in case something comes up an “done” is never accomplished. Until it is “done” likely be good idea to escrow the funds, but then you run into issue like paying taxes, transaction fees, etc.

billme··on Back of the envelope estimation hacks
>> “ Also, converting between hourly and salaried, you can roughly use 40 hrs/week * 50 weeks/year = 2,000 hours/year.”

Even better, take just take an hourly rate, 2x it, add three zeros = annual salary; literally takes seconds to do once you know 2000 hours per year is the assumed hours worked per year.

billme··on Researchers achieve optical data transmission speed of 44.2 terabits per second
Cost of swapping the amplifiers, not just the end-points, makes sense as an issue. Thanks!

As for it being “only more compact” not a capacity increase, for a comparable single coherent optical fiber line, are existing fibers filled to capacity due to the limits of tech, economies, physics, etc. - if physics, then I assume all fibers are at capacity, right?

billme··on Researchers achieve optical data transmission speed of 44.2 terabits per second
Given the cost of laying fiber lines across the ocean and this tech (appears) to double the capacity of an existing line, why would there not be a push to get this into use, what am I missing?
billme··on How to write a programming book
Generally speaking, books as a format make no sense. I have seen the financial records for number of popular tech book authors — and numbers related to them having published, for example: products, services, consulting & speaker fees, etc. If the author is trying, they make way more money from the numbers related to them publishing than the book sales.

If you like writing long form tech guides, do yourself and your audience a favor, figure out how to publish your materials for free digitally and grow an audience you have direct one-on-one access to, then allow people to order paper versions if that’s what they prefer.

Then, writing a book becomes easy: grow audience, provide an outline, get feedback, write more, write testable code, get more feedback, etc.

Anything you write (as in subsection) should have a timestamp of when it was: written, rewritten, last reviewed, test, environment tested, etc.

billme··on FBI cannot even look at your phone lock screen without a warrant, rules judge
>> “ We are going to end up with some really weird law if we leave all of this up to the supreme court.“

That’s a pretty bold claim, one which I am not aware of any examples of. High courts of any meaningful definition of such, regardless of country, if truly a legal court with fair rules, generally produce much clearly rules than those create by: general public, elected officials, professional governments employees, interest groups, private parties, etc.

For example, take a few mins, even hours, try drafting what to you would be fair, clear, complete, stand the test of time, etc. — then post it somewhere online, post in to HN, and comment here you have. I’ll review it, post my review online.

billme··on FBI cannot even look at your phone lock screen without a warrant, rules judge
This ruling has no impact on the laws related to border searches.
billme··on FBI cannot even look at your phone lock screen without a warrant, rules judge
Correct, unless you give your phone to a third-party - for example, to get repaired:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/geek-squads-relationsh...

billme··on FBI cannot even look at your phone lock screen without a warrant, rules judge
Previous answer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23270816
billme··on FBI cannot even look at your phone lock screen without a warrant, rules judge
(Duplicate) - prior comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23269835

billme··on China to Allow State-Security Agents to Police Hong Kong
Prior recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23259455
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