Hacker News Reader

epoxyhockeyon FBI Kept Demanding Email Records Despite DOJ Saying It Needed a Warrant

FTFY: It would just be replaced with a new shiny organization having no name

..the kicker being that the organization probably already exists

epoxyhockeyon ‘Operation Tulip’ Takes Prosecutors Offline for Google Tax Raid

we worked with computers, but pretty much only with word processing

The article title sounds like a sensational excuse for an otherwise technologically unsavvy group of tax agency workers.

epoxyhockeyon I went to the hospital to give birth and tested positive for meth

Agreed! Even in the article, the woman needed an emergency c-section.

epoxyhockeyon Evidence suggests that brain activity shifts to increase wisdom as we age

And, doubly unfortunate that most believe that they are wise, whether or not they are.

epoxyhockeyon Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

The government is taking a very active role at developing startup "infrastructure"

Could you elaborate on this statement? Are you referring to financing of startups, or more? Thank you for the offer to answer questions!

epoxyhockeyon Bay Area attracts the most startups – but NYC, Boston, and LA are catching up

The x/y axis labels are flipped on the trends in exit volume graph.

epoxyhockeyon FBI Harassment

If the FBI comes knocking on your door, you have already been tagged, and likely thoroughly investigated for something bad. Or more simply put: There is no good reason for the FBI to pay you a visit. She has every right to be "paranoid."

epoxyhockeyon Medical error is third biggest cause of death in the US, experts say

the surgeon makes a medical error, and the patient dies on the table has he died of medical error or cancer?

Medical error. Just because the patient was going to die sooner than later, does not erase the fact that a medical error was committed.

Quality of life is a completely different topic, in my opinion, and I am sure we would find more common ground in that discussion.

epoxyhockeyon Show HN: passgo, a command line password manager written in go

Very nice. I like the key feature being that your encrypted vault can be publicly posted. In a team environment, does it make sense to share the master password with all team members? Or is passgo designed for just the individual in mind?

I have been looking at https://www.vaultproject.io for team credential storage and sharing.

epoxyhockeyon The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

Housing affordability is a nation-wide problem. Since the housing bust of 2007, little new housing stock has been added, save for oil & gas boomtowns of Texas and North Dakota.

We are all now competing for limited housing in most every major metropolitan area.

The solution is for every city to build more housing, not just SF. Unfortunately, new housing starts have only recovered to 1993 levels. http://www.macrotrends.net/1314/housing-starts-historical-ch...

epoxyhockeyon Stanford researchers show fracking's impact to drinking water sources

A timely posting as Oklahoma experienced a M4.2 earthquake last night, also attributed to fracking activities. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009–16_Oklahoma_earthquake_...

epoxyhockeyon America’s airlines are introducing a class below economy

Plus fingerprints and the benefit of being entered into another government database.

There is also no guarantee that the precheck line will be open at the airport for the time you visit.

epoxyhockeyon Just Landed Is Shutting Down

Exactly. The business is worth 5-figures, easily.

epoxyhockeyon The Other Children of Silicon Valley

I think there are a few things that were implied by OP's comment:

- they would prefer that the children be taken care of by the spouse versus a 3rd party

- if the cost of childcare were to equal or exceed the full income of the lesser-paid parent, it would be preferable for that parent to spend their time taking care of the children and removing the cost of childcare in the process

- neither parent would be able to work part-time in their current job positions, which would address your question of split duty

epoxyhockeyon My Experience With the Great Firewall of China

I'm just curious.. Could you cite some legitimate reasons for why an entity would like to block VPN traffic?

epoxyhockeyon GE will move headquarters to Boston

I'm looking forwards the the smart people [...]

I'm not sure that a corporate headquarters is going to bring the kind of people you're assuming that it will bring into Boston.

Also, perhaps this win will offset the impending EMC layoffs. It's a good way for a politician to say they are doing something about the state jobs market, even though the package being offered to GE seems very generous and costly.

epoxyhockeyon China stock trading halted early after 7% plunge again

7% crash in their economy

Correction: 7% crash in their stock market.

epoxyhockeyon TSA can now force you to go through body scanners [pdf]

That was the official reason. Though, backscatter x-ray machines were decommissioned in the US shortly after the EU banned their use due to public health reasons.

epoxyhockeyon PostgreSQL 9.5 RC1 Released

Minor note: That's for JSONB (with a 'B') field values.

epoxyhockeyon How D.C. spent $200M over a decade on a streetcar you still can’t ride

IMHO, the turning point several years ago was when Metro went from automated mode to manual mode after having to go from 6 car trains to 8 car trains. Apparently, the automated mode, where the train driver just looks out for anomalies, doesn't have enough precision to handle 8 car trains that consume the entire platform at stations.

Under automated mode, you had consistent threshold breaking and acceleration, door opening times, etc. It was a very smooth ride.

epoxyhockeyon Chasing the Link Between Gut Bacteria and Autism

Thanks for the enlightening reply! It definitely helps to understand what is going on in the mind of a biologist when they encounter a computer scientist.

I think what draws me most to the field of biology, and the prospect of biological computing, is that there are insane uncertainties and super complex pathways; the fact that the same test run 10 times in a biological machine may not yield the same result each time.

My main challenge is in starting a dialog with people in the field. Perhaps I will try communicating in scientific method lingo and see how that fares.

Overall, the feeling I get is that biologists fear the commoditization of their field, and I observe that even the progressive bio startups are still sticking to the (closed) pharmaceutical model of business.

epoxyhockeyon Chasing the Link Between Gut Bacteria and Autism

Academics and professionals do not like to talk to non-professionals. I contacted several microbiologist [...] but none replied

I have also experienced this. Biologists keep their cards very close to their chest and don't seem to be fans of our software culture, let alone the open source software culture. They don't even respond to inquiries.

There is great opportunity for biologists that do open up to the larger community of software engineers.

epoxyhockeyon Ex-NSA Chief’s Cybersecurity Startup Draws Funding

And the results of the background screening subsequently being sent to China via a cyber security breach.

epoxyhockeyon A global movement to ban urban billboards

If like many Washingtonians you never leave NW

At 7th and H NW there are three giant electronic billboards that play sound, not to mention the array of billboards plastered all over the Verizon center.

epoxyhockeyon OPM now says more than five million fingerprints compromised in breaches

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/07/0...

The CIA, largely appears to have been shielded from damage, especially for employees who have never worked at any other agency, officials said.

Evidently, CIA has its own, separate OPM-like entity.

epoxyhockeyon Police: Messages for No. 1 Mafioso Hidden in Sicilian Soil

is there a good reason why burying scraps of paper in soil is inherently better?

That should read: "burying scraps in Sicilian soil"

The messages never travel outside of the country, which may bolster a case that no other country may have jurisdiction in helping to track down the mafia members.

Recent Intel leaks have shown us that every government in the world has their fingers tapping all of the telecom links in the world. When we talk about using farm land as a messaging platform, the playing field is a bit more even.

The government doesn't have cameras hiding under every rock, or soldiers posted every 5 feet across the land. Imaging satellites perhaps may not be able to be tasked full-time for years to monitor all of Sicily to the required resolution for the purposes of finding one man, yet.

Balled-up pieces of paper are very much off-the-grid.

epoxyhockeyon July was Earth’s hottest month in what’s destined to be Earth’s hottest year

Perhaps the scatter chart in the middle of the article may be more scientific and convincing? My household scale is accurate to 1 decimal place, is it hard to believe that the Japan Meteorological Agency is able to measure temperature to 2 decimals and account for margins of error? The scatter chart trend is most convincing.

epoxyhockeyon David Cameron: Twitter and Facebook privacy is unsustainable

physically placing microphones in private residences

Do you keep your cell phone at your bedside table? Do you have access to your baseband source code? The future is already here.

epoxyhockeyon Grace: Graceful restart for Go servers

Also worth a look: https://github.com/fvbock/endless

It allows for graceful restarts after replacing your binary. I'm not sure if that is a feature of grace?