This has already been flagged for some unstated reason...
Unlike come of the other comments, as a non-programmer, I really like this. The code seems so easy to follow and tweak. I'm already getting some ideas on how I can expand on this in terms of coupling the easy english syntax to the underlying linux commands in order to display both outputs (so that newbie command-line users see what's happening behind the scenes). A few other things pop to mind but need to spend some time on the code.
In fact, I think an app like this could probably be even more useful with additional comments embedded in the source - as a learning tool. It's this kind of easy to follow code that gets people excited about programming (especially when they can tweak it right away). It's a program that works very well for what it does, doesn't need documentation except for commenting the code.
The newws.py, for example, is a little difficult to follow right away (and modify for entry-level programmers, non-programmers like myself). Commenting here would have been nice:)
I personally would love to see more apps/code like this but maybe HN isn't the place for this:-( I understand why, it's not a criticism on any deficiency here - as the audience is much more advanced.
Another commenter mentioned that much of the code was taken from a tutorial [0], so it might be worth checking that out :) It goes step by step with commented code and explanations.
Thanks for the link. I looked over the code on the main page only (did not delve deeper) and honestly... it's like night and day. The code by sukeesh is as easy to follow and modify as a simple scripting language. Truly a work of art:)
I've come across similar code that I've been able to immediately cannibalize for personal use on my system. The last time was a script that displayed colored quotes whenever I opened the terminal. Learned an awful lot about coloring text output, randomizing the text and a bit about arrays because it was easy to follow and the app was complete and useful to me. As opposed to learning by snippets.
The tutorial code at pythonspot.com... not terribly friendly I'm afraid (without a detailed tutorial):-( I can understand how an advanced programmer can see logical similarities but the actual code itself scared me away.lol Sorta' like writing the same program: one in rexx and another in bash.
> Device and information insecurity, overzealous surveillance by governments — these are real concerns that call for real attention.
I'm looking forward to The NY Time's Zeynep Tufekci's real discussion about Operating Systems that spy on us, collect our data and share that data; tracking across the internet; lack of security updates on phones; a tie-in with PRISM (allowing the NSA unfettered access to company databases) and anything else her top-notch "security researchers" turn up.
Maybe she can add a few words about the lack of oversight, transparency and accountability our tech & phone companies enjoy for the privilege of cooperating with certain government agencies. Let's get your "sources" to add a few words about backroom deals that circumvent The Constitution and the laws of this land too. It's a big topic with many players.
Be careful though, Mrs Tufekci. This kind of real news will get you into hot water with your masters.
I'm sure she'll get to it after another hit-piece on Wikileaks for actually bringing this discussion to the table instead of trying to kill it. That is, once she gets over her political biases (which are sprinkled throughout the article) and does some real journalism.
Security and Privacy are issues that need "real attention" and not something that gets tacked on at the end of an article and forgotten.
I'll restate what the article actually said, since some people seem to have missed it. She writes that Wikileaks characterized Signal and WhatsApp as being useless for secure communication; that this is not the case; and that the media reported this uncritically.
Rather than raise questions about Tufekci, I think it's more important to ask why Wikileaks is now trying to spread FUD about some of the best tools that we have.
In this connection, she's particularly concerned that misreporting the nature of attacks, (edit:) or reporting them without context, will cause people to make bad security decisions. That issue is raised in reporting on these tools just as it was raised in the WhatsApp reporting, and it's the focus of her editorial here.
I don't think Tufekci wants people to refrain from talking about the terrible state of information security in general, or about how we could improve it. (While she also dislikes Wikileaks in general, which is very apparent in this editorial and slightly complicates the point, I don't think she means to suggest that we shouldn't know or talk about these capabilities or how to respond to them.)
This isn't news because we've known for ages and ages that governments do evil things, known for ages. None of the evils listed are new or that interesting. Nothing to see here.
To me, that is like saying, "come on, it's murder. We've had murder since Cain killed Abel. Wikileaks attempt to expose such an ancient crime isn't news. Now look what Kanye said..."
There is a huge difference between a hacker being able to read your encrypted messages, vs a hacker being able to read your encrypted messages if they have malware on your phone.
Conflating the two is dangerous, people will stop using Signal if they think it's insecure. She's right to call out Wikileaks for lying about this stuff, and at no point in the article does she imply the governments actions are acceptable either.
So you are saying that it was ok for Wikileaks to misrepresent the material it was releasing because the mainstream media has been saying for years that the government is spying on us.
If the argument is this tweet is misleading, this 14 words of content, a link and a hashtag. If that requires a 5,000+ character response to show how, I'm cool with that argument. I really am. I can see how it is misleading.
Equally, if you can read into those 14 words something misleading, I think a non-misleading interpretation is equally valid. In which case, the argument "the 14 words set the wrong agenda it's no big deal" is a little less compelling, and reads exactly like what I wrote. But what do I know? We are all free to disagree.
This is standard operating procedure at propaganda outlets like NYT/Washington Post Et Al. It's called "burying the lead". When the crux of an issue is buried as a footnote in the last paragraph.
The controlled media will quibble over symantics of a Tweet and ignore the shocking truth that innumerous government agencies can aquire blackmail on anyone they want at any time without even breaking the law; and if they fear a journalist or leaker sufficiently, cause a high speed car or plane crash to get rid of them.
> This is standard operating procedure at propaganda outlets like NYT/Washington Post Et Al.
It's an opinion piece. It's literally right there in the title that you should expect someone to be expressing an opinion, not engaging in objective reporting.
This kind of real news will get you into hot water with your masters.
And which masters would those be, Mr. Rodriguez? Perhaps you're unaware of the background, Mr. Rodriguez, but everything I've seen from her and a lot of other people who know and care about security have been laying into mainstream news media for quite a while over their reckless and breathless inaccurate reporting on security and encryption, and pointing out that media outlets are going to get people killed by turning them away from secure options and toward things that major governments can crack and spy on.
But acknowledging that wouldn't let you spout creepy and condescending comments like the one I'm replying to, now would it, Mr. Rodriguez? So I can see why you didn't go there.
I can appreciate comments on HN that counter the prevailing wisdom or even question if something is a conspiracy or not with some (at least circumstantial) evidence and without being too leading but hrodriguez's comment just reads like any other creepy, angry and nasty conspiracy theorist's vitriol. I don't know if it violates any guidelines but I hope we make this kind of comment style unwelcome on HN. There's entire communities dedicated to this style of discussion they can participate in.
Agreed. A main purpose of propaganda is not to persuade people, but to create enough noise that intelligent discussion is impossible. That seems to be working, to some degree, on HN.
When someone insists on that style of writing at someone, complete with the "Mrs Tufekci" bit, I just mentally read it in the voice of Hugo Weaving from The Matrix.
Lovely machine but I personally can't stomach the 16:9 aspect ratio. This usually limits my options when it comes to hardware. Wish Dell came out with similar but sporting a 3:2 or 16:10 screen (with Linux support).
That was my (ir-)rationale in 2010, too, and I went with a 14" notebook then (HP). Big mistake, the 14"/16:10 displays available in mainstream machines are stuck in the past and absolute crap vs. modern 13"/16:9 displays (except for Apple's?).
As a hardcore terminal/vi person, I can assure you my 2016 XPS 13" works wonderfully for me. I had a chance to compare it next to a ThinkPad Carbon (I believe) in a retail shop that had both on display, and the ThinkPad's display, while in a lovely machine, doesn't hold a candle to that of the XPS.
(However! I'd like Lenovo to keep producing notebooks with good Pro keyboards for my next purchase)
I use a 21:9 screen and can definitely report that it does not suck. I can now stack 4 snippets of 84 column wide code across my screen instead of one.
I have a Surface Book and I will vouch for how awesome the 3:2 display is. I agree that 16:9 is a bit disappointing. It's the lingering dominion of HD televisions converging on computing. I am glad that some companies are re-asserting the unique needs of computing and adjusting monitors accordingly.
This hasn't been true since the Retina screens came out. One of the reasons I was sad to "upgrade" to the new MBP from my 2012 model was losing the 16:10 display.
Untrue - my MBPr has a bunch of display options, most of them are native 16:10. You may want to hold off on the upgrade for other reasons, but display ratio shouldn't be one of them.
You'd be surprised how quickly you get used to it. It's definitely a compromise, but you're trading vertical resolution for stability and compactness. Ever try using a 3:2 laptop on an airplane these days? It's not fun...
I still see no reason why they couldn't reboot the project and agree with his thinking here: "Create a mid-range tablet ... Carve out a niche in developed markets first ... Firefox OS was actually five years too early!"
I always thought they were trying to put a ChromeOS competitor on a phone when it actually belonged on laptops, tablets and 2-in-1s (to start). I would have been very interested in a device running an extension-rich privacy-respecting browser, using open tech, focused on education and as a device to develop for.
It's essentially Mozilla's mission statement made into physical form. Dealing with corporate interests, as the article suggests, forced Mozilla to diverge from their base (end-users). It was a learning experience, that was all.
I don't actually expect the project to be revived and that's a real shame given the hostility of the alternatives (not including Linux, etal) available to (the rest of) us.
I'd argue the same thinking could have been applied--perhaps moreso--to Palm/HP's webOS, which was thrusting in the same direction as mid-range tablet OS with the Touchpad, and into a desktop-capable OS (demonstrated in early state) before its EOL.
Plenty of parallels between the two OSes, down to some of the personnel who bailed to Firefox OS from HP.
The very idea is insane. I think we need to do a better job of fighting the divisive forces attempting to destroy this country, led by a domestic terrorist like George Soros.
The site itself seems to be run by children[1]. This is where HN news is coming from now?
/rant/ So another hit piece on someone that supports Trump. This is the new left-wing extremist strategy... ie, destroy powerful voices fighting to safeguard our country and improve American lives. The Mainstream Media wants to be taken seriously with this tactic. Never heard of cnsnews.com either. Went through it and it's rather right-wing conventional. Nothing like this over-the-top ranting lunacy of an "article" disguised as journalism.
The author made sure to paint another Trump supporter in a bad light by using words like antisemitic, islamophobic, scary, brainwashing, disrupting the MSM, extremist sites, creepy, propaganda, amplify particular political narratives, playing to emotions. These words and many others have become their divisive talking points. I was surprised that I didn't see Hitler, Fascist, Racist and Sexist too. It's laughable if they weren't so transparently vulgar.
There's also stuff about tracking and usage habits but not a word about Google, Facebook, Twitter, George Soros (and his countless disruptive sites) and the REAL power (the MSM) - all engaged in extremist misrepresentation, censorship, outright lies, news coverups, blacklisted topics, paid rioters, banning users, manipulation of trending topics, physical assaults on the public by paid thugs. He mud-slings terms like "ethical regulations" in regard to Mercer when the real power has been documented to have long crossed the line and hold the details of our lives in their data-sharing databases with NO accountability.
He segues into "playing the victim". The privileged elite that has long held the reins of manipulating public opinion is (laughably) the victim now. The MSM, which has engaged in massive coverups to support their candidate, that has used fear-mongering through misinformation, that holds ALL the keys and power is now the victim. I would borrow the following from the race-baiting left... "check you privilege at the door", in response.
I started off as a fairly objective person during the political process. I liked Bernie, grew to despise Hillary and her divisive rhetoric (and noted how often the MSM media blacklisted explosive stories about this corrupt politician who was selling our country away, piece by piece). I wasn't even a Trump supporter and NEVER visited anything right-wing. I was long sold on the idea that the right-wing was racist. I got ALL my news from the MSM. They betrayed my trust and continue to do so daily. The author has learned nothing.
"/rant/ So another hit piece on someone that supports Trump. This is the new left-wing extremist strategy... ie, destroy powerful voices fighting to safeguard our country and improve American lives. "
They haven't safeguarded anything. The last time Republicans were in control of the military-intelligence complex led to wars on false pretenses that killed more Americans and foreigners than 9/11. The cost was hundreds of billions of dollars with estimates of several trillion in long-term liability. Money that could've been spent on education, healthcare, infrastructure improvements, business subsidies... anything with provable benefit to Americans' lives. ISIS formed as a direct result the Iraq war as predicted those of us protesting. They killed even more people. The local surveillance then failed to spot a guy in Boston spewing out hate speech online and visiting red flag countries... the ideal case for mass surveillance.
So, conservative policies previously led to the murder of thousands of Americans, maiming of thousands more, more terrorists in Middle East, tons of tax dollars lost w/ no gain to average voter, and some defense CEO's getting richer. That's not safeguarding our country. That's an active threat to it. It will be interesting to see whether history repeats given the new Republican President is quite different from priors. More like a knockoff of Silvia Berlusconi in Italy given all the campaign stunts/claims on top of corrupt, business dealings.
> Professor Valter Longo, from the University of Southern California, explained "Our conclusion is that by pushing the mice into an extreme state and then bringing them back - by starving them and then feeding them again - the cells in the pancreas are triggered to use some kind of developmental reprogramming that rebuilds the part of the organ that's no longer functioning."[1]
Feast and famine diet may restore insulin production in diabetes:
It's funny how articles showing Americans in a bad light, vis-a-vis immigrants, always pop up here on HN. The insinuation that this is the result of our President is always the underlying theme. It isn't about some random crackpot - as it should be.
The misrepresentative and inflammatory title should be enough to have flagged this long ago.
It doesn't matter that the manipulative and lying media, as well as the George Soros funded domestic terrorist groups have created problems by misrepresenting the immigration issue.
I can post 15 articles right now showing immigrants or foreign-born in a bad light. That would be stupid (much like this article) unless the behavior is associated with undermining The United States and it's people.
It's just more race-baiting from manipulative activists attempting to usurp another website and undermine this country in the process. Growing up in the Bronx, I could provide lots of examples of "reverse" (whatever this is) racism. Another pointless endeavor aimed solely at dividing us as Americans.
As a community here at HN, we should do better than to continue to allow these types of slanted, racist, politically-driven articles from gaining a foothold.
Muchas Gracias, Amigos y Amigas! Que pasen un buen dia! That is all.
Actually we are constantly shown immigrants and brown people in a bad light, so I find it interesting that you see it at devisive when it's actually the truth. Of course it seems inflammatory, but he shot random people for being brown, and some Americans get all bench out of shape. It's as if there's a different standard when the perp is white rather than other. The story of the black kids assaulting the white guy in Chicago was a massive story, but I bet you didn't comment on that one...
Unlike come of the other comments, as a non-programmer, I really like this. The code seems so easy to follow and tweak. I'm already getting some ideas on how I can expand on this in terms of coupling the easy english syntax to the underlying linux commands in order to display both outputs (so that newbie command-line users see what's happening behind the scenes). A few other things pop to mind but need to spend some time on the code.
In fact, I think an app like this could probably be even more useful with additional comments embedded in the source - as a learning tool. It's this kind of easy to follow code that gets people excited about programming (especially when they can tweak it right away). It's a program that works very well for what it does, doesn't need documentation except for commenting the code.
The newws.py, for example, is a little difficult to follow right away (and modify for entry-level programmers, non-programmers like myself). Commenting here would have been nice:)
I personally would love to see more apps/code like this but maybe HN isn't the place for this:-( I understand why, it's not a criticism on any deficiency here - as the audience is much more advanced.