'Back to the Mac' Official Apple Livestream - <AUTHOR> http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1010qwoeiuryfg/event/index.html

<comment><USER2> Re: the Air... Man, Apple has balls.

The 11.6" is interesting, note it's 720p exactly (1366x768). Note also he said he sees it as the "future of the macbook", and the future of the macbook has no obviously removable/upgradable HDD (it's like RAM on the motherboard, so maybe it will somehow be upgradable).

People who didn't like Apple products yesterday aren't going to like them today either, but it's interesting stuff...

edit:

Flash storage ranges from 64 gigs to 256 gigs (depending on size/choices).

<comment><USER3> I _really_ (honestly) can't wait to see how they do in the market, because the prices are so steep compared to the metrics that other people look at when shopping for laptops (display size, storage, speed). I don't even think Apple is gouging here; the unibody construction and flash storage are both pretty expensive.

So, Apple is pretty much saying, "Yeah, price, we're really not gonna compete on that" ... if that ends up working out well for them, that could be an interesting signal to other companies.

<comment><USER4> Apple is growing Mac sales at significantly higher rates than the rest of the PC market. Apple has been competitive with others on prices for about 20 years.

Apple doesn't compete on the low end of the market. The people who think Apple is expensive are the people who compare an ATOM internet pad to a Macbook Pro and think they are both the same value because they are both "laptops".

<comment><USER3> Well, shit, I had no idea that I compared Atom "internet pad"s to Macbook Pros that way.

Thanks for the valuable insight!

Bah, commenting on HN is a complete waste of time anymore.

<comment><USER4> It totally is. You express anything that goes against the rigid leftist freetard ideology and you get voted down and people start putting words in your mouth, like you just did. (If you read my actual post, I never said you said that.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Multi-touch gestures, App store, home screens, full-screen apps, auto save, auto resume apps when launched.

As long as the App Store isn't the only way to put software on my Mac, sounds like a great idea to me.

<comment><USER6> _As long as the App Store isn't the only way to put software on my Mac, sounds like a great idea to me._

That will be in Lion + 1. Gotta warm the users up to it, first.

<comment><USER4> People assume apple wants absolute control. They don't. They want absolutely great user experiences. Personal Computers are a different category from mobile devices. Apple keeps your mobile device safe, but lets you browse any website you want, because the damage is minimal. On your computer, apple lets you do whatever you want.

<comment><USER6> _Apple keeps your mobile device safe_

Which sounds like a pretty good selling point for future Macs, no?

<comment><USER4> They are a different class of product. I would not be surprised for apple to allow a parental control to lock a given mac down to just appstore apps. This is a nice feature.

Since steve jobs explicitly said this is not going to be the only way to install software, all this speculation is dishonest.

The funny thing is, he shouldn't have had to say that. You should know apple well enough (Rather than listen to the nonsense from the nondevelopers who are bosting page views by bashing apple) to know that apple would never force people to only buy mac software via the appstore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Finally, a plus/maximize button that does something I want it to.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow, there's going to be a Mac app store.

EDIT: Looks more or less like iTunes. No word on the submission or approval process. Steve said something (can't remember what exactly) that indicated that this wasn't going to be the only way to get apps.

<comment><USER9> So basically it looks like it's going to be a package manager on a unix-like system with a pretty front end and review from people I don't care about.

<comment><USER10> On that note, I am interested to see how long it takes for open source projects to get onto the Apple sanctioned store, but also for someone to create a clone of it (like Cydia, somewhat)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Oh look, a netbook.

But 1.4G? Really? I love how they keep saying "fast processor" in the presentation, where "fast processor" is apparently two steps backwards in CPU technology. :-) The GPU is decent, however.

Is it me, or does anyone else see the point? I hope this isn't the "future of notebooks", because that future would seem to be anemic performance.

<comment><USER12> I don't care about speed as long as I don't notice it. What the MBA has is probably enough for the vast majority of users, only the RAM seems weak to me.

<comment><USER11> You're going to notice 1.4G. Anyone who has taken more than 1000 photos and has put them in iphoto is going to notice 1.4G, or actually tried to _use_ garageband is going to notice 1.4G.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> <http://live.gizmodo.com/>

flash stream.

</comment><comment><USER14> Since getting a macbook, I've found the window management in OS X to be terribly confusing (Xmonad is easier to understand IMO), so I'm looking forward to seeing how the new window management features work. Hopefully this will solve my gripes.

<comment><USER15> _Xmonad is easier to understand IMO_

Ooh, that's harsh, but I feel your pain. If you like tiling, though, you may want to check this out (although I don't use it): <http://www.mizage.com/divvy/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I keep thinking Apple (2000- present) is like The Beatles of my time. A streak of brilliance that will never be duplicated.

<comment><USER17> I think that comparison flatters The Beatles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Who all is providing a liveblog?

Some of us are in public places w/o headphones, I'd prefer to read it than to watch it.

<comment><USER19> [http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/20/live-from-apples-back- to-...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/20/live-from-apples-back-to-the-mac- event/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> [http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/20/apple-to-livestream- todays-...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/20/apple-to-livestream-todays-event- to-apple-devices- only/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29)

Apple says "Safari on Snow Leopard or IOS 3 or above only." There's a link there on how to get it on other computers.

</comment><comment><USER21> Doesn't seem to work for me in Chrome, works fine in Webkit/Safari. Here's the direct URL: <http://qthttp.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1010qwoeiuryfg/sl.m3u8>

<comment><USER22> Heh, I tried Chrome for the last event and got the same "check back later" message and though it was too busy. I didn't even see the 'Streaming video requires Safari 4 or 5 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Safari on iOS 3 or later' message.

Would a Flash fallback kill them ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Spec on the Air are up: <http://www.apple.com/macbookair/specs.html>

Factory upgradable processors, SSD, and memory (to 4GB).

</comment><comment><USER2> Facetime on OSX is expected but huge.

<comment><USER24> I don't really get it. Why is this a big deal?

<comment><USER2> Because every Mac laptop and iMac for the past ~3 (?) years has shipped with a built-in camera.

edit: To be clear, "huge" is relative, it's a big deal for the potential legitimacy of Facetime since the potential user base just grew quite a bit.

<comment><USER24> But iChat has already done video conferencing on macs for some time, right? (Not to mention skype.) So this is different because it can also connect to iPhones, provided the iPhone user is on WiFi. Doesn't seem too useful to me.

Now, if they announced that Facetime would work over the cell network, at least that would be something new.

<comment><USER2> > _So this is different because it can also connect to iPhones (...)_

That's exactly why I think it's a big deal.

There are already techs/apps/whatever that let people video chat and video chat with phones, but Apple has a pretty good track record at exposing this kind of thing in a way such that non-techies actually use it.

<comment><USER24> Video chat with people who have new iPhones and are connected to WiFi is a thing lots of people want to do?

<comment><USER2> I'm speaking in terms of FaceTime as a feature of the iPhone. As an iChat/OSX feature it is not remarkable, but as a iPhone 4 feature, you now have a significant pool of people you can now video chat with that you couldn't before (through Facetime).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> My notes (from a UI/iOS guy's view): [http://sahillavingia.com/blog/2010/10/20/notes-from- apples-b...](http://sahillavingia.com/blog/2010/10/20/notes-from-apples-back- to-the-mac-keynote/)

</comment><comment><USER26> No word on Lion having a new Finder app. It is once of the main reasons I prefer Windows over Mac.

As an aside, the Mac App store is actually one of the ideas I applied to YC with. Guess that has no hope now.

<comment><USER27> They just re-wrote the Finder for Snow Leopard, so that was a bit of an unlikely wish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It will be interesting to see if these 10.7 multitouch features work on my 3 1/2 year old Macbook Pro. Recent multitouch feature additions haven't worked, so I'm not terribly hopeful.

<comment><USER29> pretty sure multitouch requires hardware support. The last gen non-unibody MBP is the oldest model to support most multitouch gestures (more than just two finger scrolling, which has been around for at least 4 years)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> App store in 90 days. Submissions accepted starting in November.

<comment><USER31> Yeah. I'd write a longer comment, but I now have a hard deadline to get my Mac app finished. Thank you Apple!

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Has always worked for me on the iPad. Funny, how that works out.

</comment><comment><USER14> Great, Quicktime. If only it were available in a more open format, like Flash.

<comment><USER33> ffmpeg supports Apple's live streaming format which _is_ open.

<comment><USER34> As for a player, I believe there is support for it in the VLC nightlies.

<comment><USER35> Just tried it, it doesn't have support in it.

<comment><USER36> It works, for me, in mplayer:

mplayer <http://qthttp.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1010qwoeiuryfg/sl.m3u8></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to make viral startups with analytics - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mixpanel.com/2009/02/how-to-make-viral-startups-with-analytics/

<comment><USER2> One thing to note is that on a large/complicated site, you can have 10's or 100's of possible engagement loops(what most people call this) which this metric applies to. The article tends to talk about optimizing a single loop. The most common engagement loop, I've seen, is making users confirm their email address.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's somewhat true but if you think about it, every site really does have a single loop. Users that come, users that invite other users (any mechanism), users who respond.

You can still think of it as an aggregated loop of all the flows you have that add to your viral distribution. Aggregate all functions for X, Y, and Z and that's your site's total viral factor.</comment></comment>


Why Most Men Aren't Man Enough to Handle Web Porn - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/12/26/why-we-should-limit-internet-pornography/ <comment><USER2> _Furthermore, pornography weakens our tolerance for the kind of boredom which is vital to give our minds the space in which good ideas can emerge, the sort of creative boredom we experience in a bath or on a long train journey._

There are far more trivial things than pornography that seem to be having that effect, like e-mail, mobile phones, Twitter or Facebook (HN? ;-)).

Some people can't go more than a minute or two in a waiting room, train, or commercial break without hitting up their boredom reliever of choice. I have to work hard at that temptation myself. I'd stick Twitter way higher on my list than pornography on my list of things that have become time-wasting addictions.. and, indeed, seem to do my best brainstorming when walking, driving, or otherwise doing things where I _can't_ lean on those crutches.

Maybe the solution is not simply less pornography, but more of those baths and long train journeys ;-)

</comment><comment><USER3> As with all proposals to limit the freedom of speech:

1) It's not just the right of the people who speaks to be heard. Your own right to hear and be exposed is as much at stake. Every time you silence someone you make yourself a prisoner of your own actions.

2) Who's going to determine what speech is harmful? Who determines what uncomfortable things you might read, see, hear? Who is eloquent enough to decide for you? Who relieves you from the responsibility of being exposed to minority viewpoints?

There's a pernicious sexism that runs through this entire article. Do women not have sexual thoughts? Why is "man enough" used to mean "strong enough"?

</comment><comment><USER4> > _The secular world has no problems with bikinis and sexual provocation of > all kinds because, among other reasons, it does not believe that sexuality > and beauty have the potential to exert a momentous power over us._

Or maybe the secular world has no problem with those things because it believes that we are strong enough to overcome the power they hold over us, without a priest hiding those things away behind a curtain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's exactly what the author is saying. But believing something, doesn't make it true. In this case, the question is whether or not these things that our brain isn't fit to cope with do really have more power over us than we think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Somewhat OT but author's Twitter feed[1] is remarkably good.

[1] <https://twitter.com/alaindebotton>

</comment><comment><USER6> This was great until he started confusing sex with porn.</comment>


Alabama blocked a man from voting because he owed $4 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/27/alabama-voting-rights-alfonzo-tucker <comment><USER2> He owed $5,670.57, but most of it was the kind of debt that isn't supposed to prevent you from voting. Could be a screwup, could be a subtle screw-you to poor people. In the first case the racial bias here is that black people don't always have the clout to get this kind of technical screw-up changed. Good for him for going to the media to fix it.

Or maybe the policy was read that way purposely without regard for the poor/undeserving. I don't want to be too trusting.

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't really matter how much he owed, and for what reason. Believe it or not, my country has a poll stations even in prisons and psychiatric hospitals, because every citizen has a right to vote.

EDIT: no, not babies. Every citizen over 18 years old. Point is: no one can be stripped of this right.

<comment><USER4> Even babies? (To illustrate the extreme end of the spectrum.)

<comment><USER5> Not sure why he's downvoted. It's reasonable to question whether 18 years old is the correct voting restriction.

<comment><USER6> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_age](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_age)

The lowest voting age globally is 16, a quick search found this. Asking if babies can vote is being facetious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Racially biased system? Was he fined $4 for being black?

<comment><USER8> The criminal justice system in this country is racially biased. Any fines which prevent voting rights based off of a racially biased system will also reflect that racial bias.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ckickbait title. He wasn't disenfranchised because he "owed $4" (or any given amount); he was disenfranchised _because he is a felon_ who had not made restitution.

His state, to its credit, _provides a path to reenfranchisement_ simply by repaying his victims; he just hadn't completed that process.

</comment><comment><USER10> 4 dollar democracy. It is all a show to get people to pay their taxes. I have noticed a pattern in all the versions of the human experiment. The man says give me your money because than I will do X. After some time X is not relevant or mentioned by the man himself and because the man now has a gigantic cashflow he also has the means to defend what he think is his share of everything.</comment>


Porsche won't use Android Auto because Google wants too much information - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/10/06/porsche-wont-use-android-auto-because-google-wants-too-much-information/ <comment><USER2> And risk detection of more "emission scandal" like issues? :-)

<comment><USER3> Porsche, Audi and Daimler are amongst the diesel engine manifacturers who are able to build proper engines for the right price and don't need to cheat. VW most important goal is to cut prices, not to build good engines.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: how to get back after epic fail. - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN folks,
first, here's the background: in 2007, with friends, we watched a lot of Korean Starcraft games on Youtube. And we became fan of this guy: http://www.youtube.com/user/KlazartSC. He basically commentates the match in English because we can't understand Korean. But he eventually retired because it takes too much time to download the source video from Youtube, cast, record, synchronize manually, encode and put it back on Youtube. So, we came with an idea: create a nice service that does all these tasks easily and full web. We did it! I've actually, talked about it in NH and TechCrunch France also covered us.
BUT, it's a fail. lol. The feedbacks we received we're all pretty good BUT no one really uses it.
Marketing fail. We had the wrong target. We wanted to target the video game players but they were looking for Ustream, Livestream or JustinTV live video synchronization which we can't do because their API don't have stuffs like Timestamp. What we could do is synchronize with Youtube video but people prefer to use offline tools to do their "VOD cast" because they are not afraid of doing hard-job and spending hours and hours to do something "perfect".
eLive is meant to help people to cast easily and quickly, not meant to be a Adobe Premier online :/
So we are now thinking about re-positioning our service. Actually, eLive could be used for many applications such as singing Karaoke or giving a lecture or just doing an interactive video/audio podcast, alone or with friends.
Do you have any idea, guys? Have you ever failed in doing something but eventually succeed in re-doing it in another way? Thanks about that ;) <comment><USER2> >Have you ever failed in doing something but eventually succeed in re-doing it in another way?

Sure, that's called "pivoting".

Also, from the fact that you got coverage on TechCrunch France, I'd guess you're French. Being a fellow Frenchman myself, I know that failure isn't usually as well tolerated in France as it is in the US.

You talk about "Epic Failure". Chill out. You seem to have identified the reasons why your project didn't suceed. That's great. Now it's time to move on and try to pivot. There's nothing wrong in failling, really :)

(Also, it reminds me of a quote I once heard in a start-up conference: "Try and fail, but don't fail to try.")

Good luck

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't get hooked on the term "fail." Continuously evolve your product (Seesmic comes to mind, among countless others) - and never give up.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why not convert it into a community-powered video translation site (and possibly add subtitling capabilities- allow users to enter text to display at bottom)? Also, why not market the kids and teenagers that want to do MST3000-like overdubbing? ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Science_Theater_3000> )

You might have trouble getting people to pay for it, but maybe you could convert to a non-profit if the goal was to provide tools to help the blind, the deaf, or to translate important works.

A big problem I see with the site now is that there is nothing on the front page that says what it does. You can't expect it to be content driven before people understand what it is or why they should be adding content. Also, how and where were you marketing it? Web apps aren't like the game from the the movie "Field of Dreams". If you build it, people only come if they know that their work will not be wasted. You should have the app say that it will reupload the edited video to Youtube, Vimeo, etc., and that its purpose is just simple Saas video editing for translation (and perhaps subtitling).

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, thanks about this one. And yeah, definitely, I should put somewhere telling what it does.

<comment><USER5> As a user, it seems that the main purpose of this site is to consume videos posted by someone. The "Cast now" button tells me nothing. I hope I don't appear too negative, but I think you have missed a lot of potential users. It's little that tells me that this is something other than "break.com" for games.

<comment><AUTHOR> oh? really? Thanks about this one, I never thought about it but you raised a good point. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It sounds like a cool product. So I suppose you could also do just subtitles?

Maybe the need for voice translations does not emerge that often, because in most cases, if you are interested in a certain field, you either know the language already, or it is really niche. For example IT conference talks - most people would already speak English, even if they are not native speakers.

However, not being a native speaker of English myself, at times I would wish for subtitles because some speakers are hard to understand.

Karaoke is also REALLY big, I should think.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are actually repositioning eLive as eDole: the first social Karaoke webservice. Imagine: you just have the largest music catalog for cover songs EVER : Youtube :D And the subtitles thing is definitely a good point. Thanks so much folks !

<comment><USER7> Perhaps you could take it one step further from karaoke and put an American Idol spin on it. Competitions, prizes, Internet fame. If you could somehow pull in a celebrity partner or sponsor, this could become an even greater possibility.

<comment><AUTHOR> LOL, this is what we talked just an hour ago with my CTO! I'm happy one of you guys raised this up, makes me more confident :) eDole or eDol is a good name :p

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well, you could start with adding some more info about what the site actually does on the homepage. Looking at it, I'm at a loss what to do. You're probably losing a lot of potential users because of that. Just give them a couple of sentences on what they can do and what you can help them achieve.

Like others noted, subtitles sound like a major opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER9> Step one: Ask HN, not NH!

<comment><AUTHOR> mea culpa. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Suggest you add link to site.

</comment><comment><USER11> link to their website: <http://elive.pro></comment>


Guns, Extremism, and Escalation: Behind the Far-Right's "counter-resistance" - <AUTHOR> https://washingtonspectator.org/trump-guns-extremism-perlstein/ <comment><USER2> what does this have to do with Tech or start-ups?</comment>


My.Netscape Being Re-Born as Web 2.0 Personalized Homepage - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mynetscape_20.php <comment><USER2> '... Netvibes is a reprise of My.Netscape ...'

dave winer has not missed the significance of this ~ http://stories.scripting.com/2007/03/06/pointOfView.html</comment>


Why It's a Bad Idea to Tell Students Words Are Violence - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/07/why-its-a-bad-idea-to-tell-students-words-are-violence/533970/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> If you like the ideas in this article, you should check out the authors' organization at heterodoxacademy.org</comment>


2 Uber Managers Detained in France Over Low-Cost Service - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/uber-managers-detained-france-low-cost-service-32100044

<comment><USER2> That's nice: they will have time to (finally) explain to our government what's the difference between Uber and Uber-X services versus Uber-Pop when offered by unlicenced (for private hires) drivers. And we can hope that at least here they are safer than in the streets of Paris</comment>


Goodnight Dune - <AUTHOR> http://goodnightdune.com

<comment><USER2> I will start reading this to my son this week.

He's four months, that's not too old to start, is it?

</comment><comment><USER3> That's kind of weirdly awesome.

<comment><USER4> That pretty much describes the Dune series...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would love to see the illustrations broken up into PNGs and subtly transitioned when scrolled into view.

<comment><USER6> I would love to buy hardcover book for my future child.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not as cool as the original, which had a rabbit fishing for rabbits, and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon inside the picture of the three little bears sitting on chairs.

</comment><comment><USER8> I guess I just don't understand

<comment><USER9> its based on a very famous childrens book [http://withgoodreasonradio.org/2013/03/mindful- children/](http://withgoodreasonradio.org/2013/03/mindful-children/) for some reason the book is _very_ effective with children and getting them to sleeep

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is amazing, I donated :)</comment>


Ask HN: So why am I still robocalled? - <AUTHOR> It's 2019, the do not call list was created in 1991. I get about 25 robocalls per day. <comment><USER2> Most of them are referred to as willful violators. To them, less than 1% of people will chase them down, so the risk is worth it.

What do most of us do? Block the numbers, install apps to block them, yell at them, curse their name, not pick up.

Consequently, if you can find out who they are as AnimalMuppet rightly indicated, you can make them pay YOU. Personally, I've collected nearly $4,000 generated from carefully drafted letters to the violators. I am sending off a demand for another settlement payment soon, I just haven't had the time to schlep on down to the post office.

The money represents an out of court settlement. It works. They would rather pay you and have you shut up, than you drag them into court. USUALLY, you have them dead to rights and the process of discovery should you go to court would reveal they did in fact call you.

It's an investment of your time, you have to take the call and convince the salesperson they are about to make a sale. Usually you can get the info if they think they are going to make a sale. I feign interest in what they are selling. Some of them are really good and won't give up any information because they understand the risk of doing so. I've had both experienced and non-experienced reps on my phone.

Funny thing is, I get less calls now. They've practically stopped at least for one vertical - auto warranties. I suspect I may be blacklisted or they somehow share information with each other, because there is a very high probability that if you call me, your company will be writing me a check.

I am happy to divulge more information, my friend has written an Ebook on the subject in detail complete with template letters and is a complete "how to" guide on collecting money from the robocallers. It's extremely satisfying. Only cost $47.

<comment><USER3> How do you identify the caller?

All of the robo calls are I get are clearly from spoofed numbers; they spoof my area code from a previous location, but are clearly targeting people in SF, e.g. tax scams on foreign workers, stuff I can't understand in Chinese. Everyone I know gets spam with similar spoofing.

If you'll only tell me for $47, color me skeptical. :)

<comment><USER2> It's simple, you ask them who they are. The ones that are not based out of the US you cannot collect from.

I got a call from Florida. Picked it up. Pretended to be interested. They coughed it up 45 minutes into the call after pretending to want to check their BBB page. I hate to give away all the info from the Ebook. Everyone is skeptical. Myself included. I paid him the money because he put forth the effort to put the information together, and he's my friend, I trust him. It's paid off, clearly.

<comment><USER2> Not sure why I am being downvoted. How else do you expect to extract information out of someone who doesn't want to tell you who they are necessarily? Think about it logically. I really don't know why I bother trying to explain it actually. I'll just keep continuing to cash checks in my spare time, and you skeptics can continue to get calls.

<comment><USER4> Because you're advertising a paid ebook instead of being helpful?

<comment><USER2> I gave some helpful tips. Everyone expects me to go into excruciating detail for free. Cheap skates. Bums.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Foreign countries aren't subject to US phone laws. Anyone making any call in or to the US can just lie about their caller ID, and the phone company forwards that lie to you.

</comment><comment><USER6> 1\. Last I heard, the office responsible for DNC enforcement had literally 4 staff members. The chances of getting caught and punished by the government are minuscule.

2\. The rise of IP telephony has made it cost effective to run call centers and bot farms overseas to target the US, making it hard to get jurisdiction over violators.

3\. IP telephony also makes it easy to cloak the source of calls, making them hard to trace.

4\. Phone companies have been dragging their heels on implementing a validation method for caller ID, which makes number-based blacklists useless.

</comment><comment><USER7> Because nobody goes to jail for violating the do not call list.

People _do_ get fined... but you have to find them first.

<comment><USER8> …and the fines have to be big enough to matter, otherwise the occasional fine is just one more line of overhead in the project budget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because of how Telecom works, robocallers can put whatever originating number they want in the SIP header. This will eventually come to your phone, usually as a number in the same NPA-NXX (area code, first 3) to trick you to pick it up.

Carriers that originate a call can know if their customer doing so owns the number, but all the other carriers along the many hops it may take,have no way of verifying that one of the previous carriers owns that number.

The solution is a combination of the Stir/Shaken implementation and the proof of ownership for telephone numbers that the FCC is starting to ask carriers to implement.

Anyways, because people can fake the orig number, and SS7 is massive, it's nearly impossible to track down violators like this, given a number.

</comment><comment><USER10> I have started telling people that I need to whitelist them in order for me to take a call from them. If I have to expect call from someone new (e.g. need to expect callback from some vendor, etc.) usually by asking "what number should I expect a call from?" \-- usually they are fine answering that question, but if they won't or can't, I demand call back number that I can actually call, in response to voice mail.

I understand not everyone can do this (especially for business expecting inbound calls) but at least for personal numbers, I really want to see the social norm shifting to "have the caller on a whitelist or they are ignored."

</comment><comment> BA4gDY-cqjsEPWn Same reason Google/Facebook doesn't fix ad fraud. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER11> Recent podcast episode from the show Reply All about this: [https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/135-the-robocall- conun...](https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/135-the-robocall-conundrum)

</comment><comment><USER12> An alternative approach: I NEVER answer calls that don't have a user-ID that I know (or a number I recognize). IMO, any legit business, charity, whatever will use that advantage.

Picking up, just saying hello, that's a 'real number'. They'll be back.

In some cases, the same (no-ID) number will call several times over a period of days. I add the number to my blacklist and the phone might ring _once_.

As time goes by, the volume of this type of call drops away to one or two a day.

</comment><comment><USER13> Surprisingly I've had the number of robocalls go down since I started politely answering them. I'm never rude but ask for ridiculous things like negative interest rates on my credit card. I never hear from them again whereas before I'd keep getting the same call.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is why I use 2nd Line. the voice quality is shit but its free so.</comment>


Ending the Drug War Would Unleash the Therapeutic Potential of Psychedelics - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/5295544/war-on-drugs-ptsd-mdma-rick-doblin/ <comment><USER2> The value that designer arylcyclohexylamines (3-MeO-PCP, 4-HO-PCP, 3-MeO-PCE, 4-HO-PCE, O-PCE, deschloroketamine, and 2F-deschloroketamine) have added to my life is immeasurable in terms of challenging my preconceptions on reality, the reliability of my senses, and the possibilities of my mind.

Tryptamines, phenethylamines, and lysergamides, on the other hand, do very little for me, even at extremely high doses.

</comment><comment><USER3> I believe that with the advent of acid, we discovered a new way to think, and it has to do with piecing together new thoughts in your mind. Why is it that people think it's so evil ? What is it about it that scares people so deeply, even the guy that invented it, what is it ? Because they're afraid that there's more to reality than they have confronted. That there are doors that they're afraid to go in, and they don't want us to go in there either, because if we go in we might learn something that they don't know. And that makes us a little out of their control.

\--Ken Kesey

</comment><comment><USER4> This guy: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesh_Baba](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesh_Baba)

Always said that you shouldn't use psychadelics (including marijuana) until age 50 but if you'd already nade the mistake if starting early then you should at least do it properly. He for example refused to smoke with people that slouched or had shallow breathing.

I think it'd be clever to allow psychadelics (recreationally) for people aged 50+ to start with. Slowly it'd become a better understood thing and the age limit could go down.

<comment><USER5> fuck that. the radical personality changes that can arise with psychedelics make them a great tool for younger people. anecdotally, I took shrooms my freshman year of college and had my life goals, desires, etc completely inverted (in a good way, from my perspective).

psychedelics are great for older people too, but I see no benefit in introducing an arbitrary age limit. Not to mention the fact that young people would still do them anyway...</comment></comment>


I'm Learning Ruby On Rails Because I'm Weak-Willed And Stupid - <AUTHOR> http://www.flatplanetmedia.com/im-learning-ruby-on-rails-because-im-weak-willed-and-stupid.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Not to start a flame war, but I've always sort of thought of ruby on rails as kinda faddish. What's the reason to use it over php/mysql/javascript?</comment>


Horns are growing on young people's skulls, possibly due to phone use - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/20/horns-are-growing-young-peoples-skulls-phone-use-is-blame-research-suggests <comment><USER2> I've always known that so-called "smartphones" are instruments of the devil. Anything containing such immoral temptations is a blight on the world and now we have a whole generation of horned satan-spawn as a result.

This is why I only check hacker news on a desktop pc.

<comment><USER3> I hope you're using TempleOS and not some satanic operating system

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish they didn't use the word "horns" because this is probably going to cause some Christians to freak out.

<comment><USER5> I also wish they didn't use horns, but not for the same reason. My main objection is that this looks to be an elongation of the external occipital protuberance, which is a part of every normal human skull. So kids aren't "developing horns," instead their bodies are adapting to the stresses involved with looking down for hours on end.

Also, this isn't a bad thing, it's how our bodies work. Kids who do gymnastics or swim a lot have bodies that develop differently in response to those stresses.

<comment><USER6> > this looks to be an elongation of the external occipital protuberance

Good call, that's exactly what they are. They buried all the actual science at the end of the article.

" _The effect — known as enlarged external occipital protuberance — used to be so uncommon, Sayers said, that one of its early observers, toward the end of the 19th century, objected to its title, arguing that there was no real protrusion._ "

<comment><USER5> > arguing that there was no real protrusion."

I guess we found a technological solution to this problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So this is a physical reaction to changes in musculoskeletal habits which result in muscular, bone and ligament change in response as phone usage alters the position of the skull which induces new stresses the body adapts to.

I could be worse. At least it's not a response to radiation.

<comment><AUTHOR> "It could be worse."

Yes, it always could be:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AFf0ysgNiM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AFf0ysgNiM)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this being posted to Hacker News so we can laugh at it? Are we that much in need of entertainment?</comment>


Human eye may be able to detect quantum entanglement - <AUTHOR> http://arxivblog.com/?p=1230 <comment><USER2> _Could it be that Gisin thinks there is more to entanglement than meets the eye?_

Ooooh, I love the smell of a cheap, cheap joke in the morning :-)

Regarding the actual question, I think this is a case of garnering publicity (and attached funding) rather than of needing eyes to test entanglement. Instruments have served as adequate "observers" for some time now as far as I know, so I don't think there are any philosophical implications to having a human observer as opposed to any other kind of observer.

</comment><comment><USER3> interesting details:

[http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/see_a_photon.h...](http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/see_a_photon.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> While I'm sure that a human eye counts as an observer for purposes of collapsing quantum wavefunctions, I'm pretty sure that an inert brick of clay is, too.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's asking me for a password and snubbing me when I don't have one.

<comment><USER6> You can read it through google's cache: [http://22.214.171.124/search?q=cache:EP3z1pmfq1EJ:arxivblog.c...](http://18.104.22.168/search?q=cache:EP3z1pmfq1EJ:arxivblog.com/+the+physics+arXiv+blog&hl=it&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=safari) "Human eye could detect spooky action at a distance".</comment></comment>


Welcome to the public AS/400 - <AUTHOR> http://pub1.de <comment><USER2> If you're into operating systems design I defiantly recommend buying and reading through [http://www.amazon.com/Fortress-Rochester-Inside-Story- iSerie...](http://www.amazon.com/Fortress-Rochester-Inside-Story- iSeries/dp/1583040838).

The i OS is very different than UNIX and this book was quite enlightening to me. Some of the stuff done is quite visionary. The hardware micro-architecture has fundamentally changed four times, but the upper OS and users doesn't care.

<comment><USER3> That looks great, too bad it's currently $80 used! I really enjoyed Soltis' more formal "Inside the AS/400"[1], available for a mere 77¢!

[1] [http://smile.amazon.com/Inside-AS-400-Frank- Soltis/dp/188241...](http://smile.amazon.com/Inside-AS-400-Frank- Soltis/dp/1882419669/)

<comment><USER4> According to one of the reviews, it's the same book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm happy to see this. I'm only in my 20s so I haven't grown up with mainframe computing in my life, but I did get to use both an AS/400 and z/OS about 5 years ago. I've been tweeting and emailing into the dark asking IBM to just provide a free VM of one of these so I can at least play around and learn about them more. I was just getting into assembly on one when I lost access.

<comment><USER6> You mean like this?

[http://www.hercules-390.org/](http://www.hercules-390.org/)

EDIT: Sorry, that's a link to an OS/390 VM, _not_ AS/400\. That was how I originally read your post, that you wanted a z/OS VM to play with. But, it's a useful link nonetheless ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well this brings back memories. I took an AS/400 class in college (local tech school) since that was the only way to learn SQL back then; none of the other CIS classes offered database programming. The class was geared towards prepping the student for working at one of two companies in the area that hired AS/400 programmers, so it was very narrowly focused to their needs.

I have to say, that was a simultaneously challenging and frustrating experience. It soured me on being a programmer of any sort, and I ended up shifting to network administration as a field of study. I'm glad I did.

All that said, this seems like a generous and handy service for those who need it.

</comment><comment><USER8> There is still great pay if you are an AS/400 guru. About 3 years ago I interviewed for a job where I would be maintaining code which was running on an AS/400 running in System 36 emulation mode. The code had been certified by the government for a 50 year contract. The 3 previous employees had all died. Which didn't make me anxious to take the job, but the pay was $450k a year. And with job security through 2030 it had some appeal. But what do you do after?

"I have experience with 50 year old software" is kind of like the resumes people send me saying they know Office XP and Word Perfect.

Sure if you can fix the things nobody else can you can charge top dollar, but eventually the last of those things come out of service.

<comment><USER9> In 2006, Gartner estimated there were still 180 billion lines of COBOL code running in production [1].

I don't believe a significant proportion will have been retired since.

Languages never die - they just keep running...

[1] [http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9004821/Cobol_The_New...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9004821/Cobol_The_New_Latin)

<comment><USER8> RPG has a significantly lower install base, and I would say it is mostly dead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how long it will take for someone to get QSYSOPR privs and invoke pwrdwnsys *immed ?

</comment><comment><USER11> If anyone is looking for some good discussion about mainframes, there was a lot of good content that came out in this thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4446880](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4446880)

</comment><comment><USER12> RZKH welcomes all friends and people interested in AS400. It's always the same situation - when they come from the unixoid world - they are confused. But you should stay on the path and learn some bit about AS400 (or IBM i as they are called now). It's the only commercially used 128Bit operating system with high level security and low level problems :)

Have fun, Holger

</comment><comment><USER13> Wow no idea why someone would need that, I have to work with an AS/400 and let me tell you it's no fun !

<comment><USER14> I worked on AS/400 for quite a while. Really enjoyed it.

Updating old RPG terminal based code to Java web based stuff was interesting. Simple CRUD interfaces port easily.

And once you're running Java stuff on OS/400 it's also easy to port to the linux environment. And from there is just an argument over databases to bye- bye proprietary hardware.

<comment><USER13> That's my experience too, it's mostly basic CRUD interfaces. People say it's fast but that's because it gives you the most barebones user-hostile interface you could have.

The company paid IBM $100k to upgrade a single server and this shit is locked with licences for cores and memory. It's not even that fast.

The problem is they are too deep in it now but this shit needs to die.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We used one of these at my old job, well the IMB iSeries but the database was started in the early 80s. Fun times, all the employees where still on green screen when I was there (2011-2012). We started to move everyone to a web application that accessed the AS/400 data.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ugh, i remember working on an AS 400 at school. I hated that and if i'm not mistaking, there wasn't support no more, when we had to learn it :-s

I suppose those jobs earn well (think of AS 400 as watching the Matrix in code (black screen, green letters) and Neo is losing the fight )

<comment><USER17> No, they don't, because it's a buyer's market.

(My dad is an AS/400 programmer. There's a lot of competition and not much work.)

<comment><USER18> It depends. If you have only traditional RPG/400 etc experience there are 10 programmers for each job, yes. But, in this marketplace, if you have experience with (traditional) RPG but also modern techniques like OO, Java, etc, you have lots of work for the coming decennia i assure you. These systems don't disappear, but they do have to be "modernized" and refitted to accommodate the changing environment. There is demand for it, but business do not know it's a modern system for which you can build modern software. The traditional RPG programmer will say something like "well XML and web services etc is too difficult, let's just use CSV and FTP like always". These days it's called "IBM i" and you can do about anything with it, there's even a port of node.js for example. It also has a binary compatible AIX subsystem which integrates with the rest. You can even call it (from a programmer's standpoint) - and it officially is - a UNIX system (POSIX compliant that is). Etc. When you see a green screen you see old software, not an old system that only supports green screens. And there are still more than 100.000 individual customers/companies using this system. And lots and lots of old RPG code, which only grows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Excellent, now I have somewhere to try out tetris for the AS/400

</comment><comment><USER20> So, 2048 on AS/400?

</comment><comment><USER21> Can someone give a guided tour to something cool that shows how different AS/400 is from a Unix machine?

<comment><USER22> One of the more unique aspects of the AS/400 is the single level store. I haven't ever used it, but the general idea is that it does away with the file system in exchange for a single, flat address space. This simplifies the programming model.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single- level_store](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-level_store)

The AS/400 also runs something like bytecode, rather than directly on the hardware. This has given IBM the flexibility to change the underlying architecture in fairly radical ways. (new CPU ISAs, etc.)

Historically, the AS/400 has some significance to IBM beyond the fact that it's been a commercial success. After IBM did so well with the System/360, they started work on the next big thing: IBM Future System. The idea was that FS was something only IBM could do, because only IBM had the research budget and staff to pull it off. As these things often go, FS didn't achieve its grander goals, but it did spin off several technologies that IBM did commercialize. In addition to several System/370 processors, the Future System work also ultimately resulted in the AS/400.

<comment><USER23> To be specific, the IBM Future System project was a failure, but the System/38 was one of the outcomes. Later the S/38 was renamed AS/400.

<comment><USER4> AS/400 descended from S/38, but is not the same. In particular the System/38 architecture had capability-based addressing¹ — essentially, you can perform a particular kind of access if and only if your pointer contains the necessary permission.

¹Levy, Henry M. (1984). _Capability-based computer systems_. [http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~levy/capabook/index.html](http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~levy/capabook/index.html) Chapter 8 covers the IBM System/38.

<comment><USER23> "in June 1988, IBM announced the results of Silverlake as the Application System/400, or AS/400\. In many ways, the box was a repackaging of the System/38, with some left over Fort Knox parts,"

 _Brian Kelly was an IBM Midrange Systems Engineer for 30 years, and has spent nearly a decade as a System i5 consultant based in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He is also author of thirty AS /400, iSeries, and System i5 books and he serves as an assistant professor at Marywood University, which uses the OS/400 and i5/OS platform and teaches courses in the box as well._ [http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh040708-story05.html](http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh040708-story05.html)

My point was that the S/38 used some of the detritus from Fort Knox not, directly, the AS/400.

Quite a lot of work went into the AS/400 so it wasn't just a renamed S/38, but any discussion of the AS/400 should recognize its origins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The company I work for still uses an AS/400\. I hate it.

<comment><USER25> I spent about a week as an AS/400 operator in-training (they hired me for an available IT position while they worked on getting the real position created). Training was basically a list of "press 3 at 10pm; press Z at 10:02pm; wait 15 minutes".</comment></comment>


How Command Line Parameters Are Parsed (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://daviddeley.com/autohotkey/parameters/parameters.htm <comment><USER2> A thread from 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14486757](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14486757)

</comment><comment><USER3> Missing discussion of globbing which is also extra work on Windows.

</comment><comment><USER4> Original from 2009, although updated since.</comment>


NetCAT: Practical Cache Attacks from the Network - <AUTHOR> https://www.vusec.net/projects/netcat/ <comment><USER2> They could have picked a name that wasn't already used.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, now lots of vendors will have to explain that netcat is not NetCAT and that its okay to have netcat on their *nix distro.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How many internet-connected microphones are near you at this moment?  - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> 1\. My mobile phone. Due to my habit of bodging desktops together out of whatever parts I happen to have lying around, the machine I'm currently working on doesn't actually have a microphone connected. Or, for that matter, case screws.

My webcam is disconnected thanks to an abortive attempt to couple it to a mini-projector to hack up a projected keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER3> It'd be nice to state the intention of the question or elaborate it a little.

Also, add "Ask HN:" in the beginning please.

<comment><AUTHOR> Added to the title. Thanks.

There's no specific intent to the question other than curiosity about the topic. It's inspired by the recent NSA news but I didn't intend conversation to be limited to that.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. That's the reason I asked about it. I have stopped reading or at least have not read or heard about any latest NSA news. So, I have no clue whatsoever.

I think I vaguely knew it was about privacy but was not sure why was the question being posed about the number of microphones. So, now I am curious about the story!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Two. One logitech G35 attached to a PC running Windows and one laptop internal microphone.

Turning on more devices would get me another laptop internal mic and the mics in a phone and a tablet.

Both laptops, the tablet, and the phone have 5 or 6 cameras in total. The desktop also has a camera, but it is pointed at a ceiling fan when not in use.

<comment><USER5> _> The desktop also has a camera, but it is pointed at a ceiling fan when not in use._

I'd totally watch that, do you have a link? You could even sweeten the deal by throwing some socks at the fan at random times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 2 mics, 2 cams.

Say if you are running osx, and run the command:

        osascript -e 'set volume input volume 0'

the microphone still seems to be accepting inputs, can anyone else elaborate on why this is?

</comment><comment><USER7> 5 microphones and 5 cameras. Not very pleasant to think about. I used to keep a piece of electrical tape on my laptop's webcam but it looks like it came off, time to put a new one back on.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is it possible that some app installed in my iPhone secretly transmits all my real world conversations while i am talking to people around me? Yes quite possible. Now think about it - What if Apple, Google or NSA had installed a secret code in our phones to spy on us? Scary isn't it?

</comment><comment><USER9> One laptop. Two if oldschool nonsmart phone counts, it is connected to cell tower so I imagine it might count as well.

Wouldnt we see network activity if it was sending any kind of packets? Or could this be dark activity and hidden from normal network monitoring?

</comment><comment><USER10> I have an old headphone that is plugging to the microphone socket of my laptop. So, one down, many more to go. Have not figure out a way to deal with microphone in mobile devices. Suggestions?

<comment><USER11> Uh, wouldn't this be _more_ likely to get a signal? An (analog) headphone is a sort-of, piss-poor microphone in reverse, whereas a naked port doesn't magically pick up sounds from the ether...

<comment><USER10> There are usually two microphones in laptop, plug in one disables the other. I should say two down, more to go.

<comment><USER12> I can't find a source but I remember something on HN a while back about this not being the case with new MBPs. The input device is software-controlled now. If you care to search for it, it had to do with laptop security guidelines for employees of some government agency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is a scary thought. Never thought about it until now. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER14> Four mics, three cameras. Shouldn't this be a poll?

</comment><comment><USER15> 2 -

Phone, webcam.

Can't think of any others I'd have near me off hand.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'd say 10 or more in my vicinity. Im in an office with mobiles, cisco ip phones, laptops and desktops everywhere. If you were talking about this floor... then that figure could easily go into the hundreds O_O !

</comment><comment><USER17> Three.

This may have worked better as a Poll :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Two:

1- SGS3- I9300 [AOSPA] {1 mic; 2 cameras}

2- Dell Inspiron- 1121z [Arch Linux] {1 mic; 1 camera}

I'm expecting a targeted add to sell me plastic camera covers and white noise mic aux ins later on the road because of this post. It's all good.

</comment><comment><USER19> Three. Laptop mic, + a wi-fi connect ipad and iphone.

</comment><comment><USER20> 7 mics and 7 cameras.. in my bed room :(

</comment><comment><USER21> 3 mics. And I'm in the car.

</comment><comment><USER22> zero, actually. Not super intentional. I tend to unplug my speakers and plug in the headset only when I need it. The cell phone is in the other room.

I did like the old days when forward facing cameras had slide shutters on them.

</comment><comment><USER23> 2 microphones, 0 cameras

<comment><USER24> No smartphone?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> 3 mics and 3 cameras...

</comment><comment><USER26> Four, laptop webcam, another webcam, an usb mic and my phone.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why is this question getting up voted and why is it relevant?

</comment><comment><USER28> Four(that I know of):

Kindle Keyboard Two phones Hands-free Bluetooth device

</comment><comment><USER29> Three.

</comment><comment><USER30> One.

</comment><comment><USER31> 4 mics, 4 cameras.

</comment><comment><USER32> zero.

</comment><comment><USER33> Lucius Fox

<comment><USER33> Why is this getting down-voted?

It's simply a Dark Knight reference to Batman's microphone-array self-destruct password.

<comment><USER34> I have one microphone near me, connected to the internet. The technology in the Dark Knight was novel to me. I was already aware of law enforcement remotely arming a mic on a normal cellphone at that time[1]. I am pretty sure fixed lines can be bugged in a similar fashion. As anyone who watched it with an interest in technology, I was fascinated by the pooling of microphones to generate a sonar like map of Gotham.

What struck me recently, as that was a piece of art, there are two possibilities (non-mutually exclusive). That the technology already existed and art was imitating life, or that people were inspired thereafter to create the technology and life was imitating art. Certainly both could be true and I'm willing to entertain a third possibility that noone bothered, but that seems unlikely to me.

[1] [http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html](http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where can under-priviledged students learn to program online for free? - <AUTHOR> Hey folks-
I am putting together a list of websites that can be used to learn / teach / practice coding — or more broadly computer science concepts — with a hands-on approach. Do you have any suggestions?
The goal of this is to find the best websites that can be used to help provide resources to middle / high school students who may have access to a computer, but can't afford to own one themselves.
My main interest is to find sites that are free, approachable, allow someone to create an account to store work / keep track of progress. The site also doesn't necessarily have to use a standard programming language. All alternatives welcome!
So far I have focused on sites that tend towards graphics, since that may be a compelling hook for younger students, but would love to hear as many suggestions as possible. Thanks!
Some example sites:
https://www.shadertoy.com
http://glslsandbox.com
https://www.codecademy.com/learn
https://www.openprocessing.org
http://codepen.io <comment><USER2> [https://www.freecodecamp.com/](https://www.freecodecamp.com/)</comment>


The Differences Between Germany and the United States - <AUTHOR> http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/us-d.html <comment><USER2> The article is interesting even if bits and pieces are out of date. It's nice to see other's viewpoints.

My one complaint about this article, and a lot of articles of the same ilk, is the part where Americans get criticized for not "traveling abroad" and not "seeing foreign countries".

I suspect most american's will travel more MILES than the average european without ever seeing another country. It's far far more expensive for an American to visit other western countries than it is for the average European. We'd absolutely LOVE to be able to fly to France for the price of train ticket from London to Paris. Sadly, the price of oversees airfare is pretty damned high.

I know visiting different states isn't the same as visiting countries but I think people living outside of the U.S. don't understand just how different various U.S. regions are from each other. Really, you might say it's a bit silly to go visiting foreign countries when you haven't even experienced all of the diversity in your own country yet.

<comment><USER3> I once had a conversation with a Frenchman (in France) about how he had berated some poor American girl (also in France) for not knowing that Zurich was in Switzerland. I promptly quizzed him on which states 5 American cities were in, all larger than Zurich. He failed miserably.

The United States is geographically almost as large as the whole of Europe. The closest foreign border to me is Niagara Falls just over 400mi away, and even if I go there, they still speak my native tongue with pretty much the same accent. I don't think there exists any point in Germany that far from another country.

<comment><USER4> _I promptly quizzed him on which states 5 American cities were in, all larger than Zurich._

Who cares about states in a foreign country? In this context the size of the city or state is not of any interest.

<comment><USER5> The point is that knowing that Zurich is in Switzerland is more similar to knowing that Denver is in Colorado than it is to knowing that Denver is in the United States. Presumably the size of the city is interesting because the implicit assumption is that knowing where Zurich is important because Zurich is a big city.

<comment><USER4> My point is that it isn't similar at all, on any level.

A typical foreigner to the US probably knows where some large cities in US are without having the slightest clue about which state many of them reside in.

That is my perception of it.

<comment><USER5> ...Which is why it's so similar to how a typical American probably knows where some large cities in Europe are without having the slightest clue about which country many of them reside in.

<comment><USER4> I'd say that few outside of America could write that sentence.

The difference between two neighbouring countries is a huge deal and apparent (regardless if you are a local or not) where you don't even speak the same language, have the same currency (the euro has of course changed that a bit (in Europe)) and for all practical purposes a complete different sets of laws and culture.

The reason for why many cities are notable is because they are the capitals of different countries. Their identity is based on their country. You can hardly say the same about different states in America ( _to the same extent_ (of course people that live in America have different accents and prejudices for people in other states etc., but to compare that to different countries?)).

<comment><USER6> In America I don't need to travel at all to hear many different languages, experience different cultures, etc. They're all in walking distance in any major city. European mono-cultures need to make nationalistic distinctions, the American multi-culture doesn't.

<comment><USER7> America's monoculture was actually one of my surprises. I live in London; going to the Bay Area and seeing the monoculture was a bit of a shock. IMO you're far more likely to hear foreign languages (foreign to the country) in Europe than almost anywhere in the US.

<comment><USER8> SF is a bit white and hipster, like the northern half of the country. Try Los Angeles, there are few gringos here, and fewer all the time.

<comment><USER6> SF is far more Hispanic and East Asian than white. In any case, why so racist?

<comment><USER8> Don't confuse statement of fact with racism, a common misconception. I've traveled over the world and liked everyone.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Demographics>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Los_Angeles>

<comment><USER6> "Try Los Angeles, there are few gringos here, and fewer all the time."

I was referring to this statement. And it _is_ a racist statement. It is exactly as racist as saying "Try Illinois, there are few wetbacks there and fewer all the time." These are clear statements by the speaker that the group in question is both undesirable in general and worthwhile to eliminate or distance oneself from, a belief commonly called racism.

With regard to demographics, few of the thousands of undocumented immigrants likely respond to government questionnaires.

<comment><USER8> The trend is cleary described in the link above. The first sentence, "The 1990 United States Census and 2000 United States Census found that non-Hispanic whites were becoming a minority in Los Angeles."

> immigrants likely respond..

Exactly, they are quite underrepresented in the data above, reinforcing the argument. They are in higher concentration the farther south you go.

If you are upset with the word gringo or "fewer..", it was a small attempt at adding levity, perhaps it is a bit flippant.

Your assumptions of my mental state, however, are known psychologically as projection.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps you should ask yourself why you thought it would be funny, rather than psychoanalyze a stranger on the internet.

<comment><USER8> I'm sarcastic in general, and when receiving accusations respond. Of course we could always improve our writing in general. If you don't like your argument critiqued, perhaps you shouldn't do it either?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd like to suggest another reason for large military expenditures that have nothing to do with corruption. The US has the only two-ocean navy, and a very extensive one at that. A lot of the burden of protecting shipping lanes for members of the "global system" is covered by the States. That's really, really expensive.

Of course, that means that countries that don't want to play by US rules (North Korea, Iran, Cuba) get shafted, but it's still a better explanation of the crazy military costs than either fear or corruption.

<comment><USER10> For the record, there are other multi-ocean navies: russia, south africa, australia, canada, and argentina among them. I think that's a pretty small factor compared to the influence of the military industrial complex.

The size of the US navy dwarfs every other country considerably, even when factoring in oceanic boundaries.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_warships_in_service_w...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_warships_in_service_worldwide)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_bordering_on_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_bordering_on_two_or_more_oceans)

<comment><USER11> The parent post doesn't mean the same thing you mean. The USN patrols every major seaway in the world; I sure don't see South Africa doing the same, nor Canada, Australia, The Russian Federation, and definitely not Argentina.

<comment><USER10> If the gp meant that, then the US would have a 4 ocean navy. I'm not arguing the size is the biggest, I'm arguing that the reason it is the biggest is not due to coastlines on two oceans.

<comment><USER11> And the US does have a multi-ocean Navy, divided up into 6 fleets that are assigned to certain oceans/seas. And its size is clearly due to the role it's been assigned by the US government. In fact, reasonable arguments can be made that the USN is too small for what it's been tasked with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> <http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/us-d.html#communism>

      It is not very well known however that Germany saw a much
      more vigilant communism hunt at about the same time. While
      in the US only about a dozen people ever went to prison
      for being Communists, that same number runs in the
      thousands in Germany. The communist party was forbidden by
      the German high court, and party members who continued
      their activities were arrested and sent to prison.

Need we forget that the Stasi of the hostile East German state were right next door?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi>

      The Stasi was headquartered in East Berlin, with an
      extensive complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg and several
      smaller facilities throughout the city. It was widely
      regarded as one of the most effective and repressive
      intelligence and secret police agencies in the world. The
      Stasi motto was "Schild und Schwert der Partei" (Shield
      and Sword of the Party), that is the ruling Socialist
      Unity Party of Germany (SED). Now considered a criminal
      organisation, several Stasi officials were prosecuted for
      their crimes after 1990.

Lest we forget, the GDR was also a vassal of the nuclear-armed Soviet Union, and the KGB was not an imaginary entity. Communism was no joke. See "The Lives of Others" if you want to see what East Germany was like when this guy grew up:

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/>

Incredibly, not a single mention of East Germany or the GDR in this entire document.

<comment><USER13> yeah, reading him feels like he's been totally disconnected from reality or managed to forget the circumstances of that era in Europe, where fighting communism was real not just a propaganda witchhunt. hence my comment before, many of his observations are totally out of context.

<comment><USER14> Hm can you elaborate on that? In the US they teach that McCarthyism was an absurd witchhunt, but it seems to me that the Soviet Union and the US were pretty much just as much enemies as West Germany. Why is it so much different?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> On charity:

 _I see two reasons for these different approaches to charity: first, Americans distrust big organizations and third world governments; they fear that money they donate to global causes will trickle away in bureaucracies somewhere. Second, Germans intuitively don't feel much of a need to help local organizations or schools: "that's the government's job, that's what I pay taxes for."_

I think the main driver for these different approaches is that the German state basically says "in the end we'll help you" while the US says "in the end you're on your own".

The German approach in my opinion does more to alleviate outcast-scale poverty. However, the quality of helping loses because:

a) those who would help mostly help people from other continents since they think that their countrymen are well off anyway

b) those who do help, are put there to help in form of public officers

But even with a strong social-net as in Germany there are still poor people. What happens when a)-people don't care and b)-people just follow orders is that our poors usually never get on their own feet and out of their dependency because their is no one telling them how to help themselves. That's what I mean with quality of helping.

And yes, this article seems very outdated, but to me the subject would still make a promising headline. One thing I observed is that both countries got less different over the years: If you look at the policies regarding the social-net, Europe has tried to become more american (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept>) while the US has tried to become more european ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Health_Care_for_Amer...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Health_Care_for_America_Act)).

<comment><USER16> _The German approach in my opinion does more to alleviate outcast-scale poverty._

I'd be curious how this actually plays out in practice.

In the US, we have a great document called the American Housing Survey. It breaks down what percentage of poor people (and non-poor people) own various goods - e.g., 75% of poor people own a car, 65% own a washing machine and 45% own their home.

<http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf>

Do you know of a similar German document? It would provide some facts to support/dispute your opinion.

<comment><USER17> The key is that the basics are covered (like in most of Europe)

100% of poor people in Germany own a health insurance

0% own a house (you have to use up your own money first)

100% own a washing machine (paid for by the government)

50& own a car (my guess, but you dont really need it in big cities)

<comment><USER18> That's basically true, but simplified. We also have homeless people in Germany, who don't own a washing machine. To get the government welfare, you have to navigate some bureaucracy: it's not hard, but there are still people who can't or don't want to do that.

About the house: If your house is cheap enough, I am not sure whether you have to use it all up completely. (I heard that there's even the possibility under certain circumstances of the government helping you with mortgage payments instead of helping you pay for rent.)

In general, you can live of the government welfare and even raise kids. But you need some skills for that, and they aren't that different from the skills that make for basic employability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Some stuff from what he describes and I know about is either wrong, too subjective, lacks context or very outdated; so I'd rather take it with a grain of salt.

</comment><comment><USER19> Before and during reading I was pretty sure that it is a little biased for one of the countries. The end effect was completely reverse - I can't really choose one country as better right now. So I'd call this article a success.

Jelly donuts rant was a nice touch in the end :) .

</comment><comment><USER20> Good article, but it always bothers me a bit when people talk about Americans generically.

Yes, you can make some generalizations, but the country is huge and there are many distinct cultural zones. Attitudes and behavior vary widely between them.

<comment><USER21> Germany also has a diverse culture, especially because it wasn't a unified state until the end of the 19th century. So the generalization is on both sides.

<comment><USER22> > Germany also has a diverse culture

Compared to what?

Compared to Madison Wisconsin, maybe, compared to all of Wisconsin, probably not, compared to Texas or CA, not a chance. Heck, South San Jose is more diverse.

<comment><USER21> I din't compare anything.

Also, it looks a lot like you never travelled through Germany from north to south. Every piece of Germany has different traditions, dialects and food. I am from a place where I cannot understand people from the next village. Also, all those parts are pretty vocal: I think Germany is the only country that has developed regional Wikipedias (at least Bavaria, Palatinate and Northern Germany).

<comment><USER23> Pennsylvania has one, too: <http://pdc.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsilfaani>

<comment><USER21> Funny. Its a german dialect :). Good catch, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24>
      Americans living abroad are not even allowed to give up
      citizenship to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

That's wrong, along with many other facts in this article.

<comment><USER25> It depends on what "allowed" means. The penalty for doing so exceeds that for many minor crimes: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriation_tax#United_States>

<comment><USER26> Was expatriation a serious problem for the US? It seems a bit of a severe step to take for someone who is already wealthy.

Not to mention it raises the question - if someone renounces their citizenship, what right does the country have to tax them? Doesn't tax come with the right of representation?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've lived in Germany for 5+ years and believe humor to be one of the widest cultural gaps between Germany and the US.

To wit: [http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/what-makes- germ...](http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/what-makes-germans- laugh-not-30-rock/)

<comment><USER28> Disclaimer: I am German and I actually saw and liked 30 Rock (in English) ;-) As for 30 Rock: The problem with English shows on German television is that they are all dubbed. I won't say that they are doing a bad job (c.f. eastern european countries) but sometimes they are missing out puns and jokes which "can't be translated" without losing meaning. In the end this can make a funny TV show unwatchable. On the other hand you will never (as in never ever) see an undubbed show on German television. People are used to watch it in German, so most of them might just never watch it again in either language.

edit: s/Disclaimer/FYI/

<comment><USER29> I'm from OZ, and to be honest, I need the canned laughter when watching US comedy - because the humor is not obvious (eg. Will and Grace- canned laughter when a dog walks across the screen ... Ahh, Americans find that funny... Ok) Now British humor? I get that without canned laughter.

<comment><USER30> I always thought that the "humor" in those American sitcoms was that the thought that they found such events funny.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I hate to sound trivial and to deviate from the conversation, but I would like to draw attention to Finland for a moment and say that the US government should follow suit (for the most part I agree that people in the US have learned to tolerate substandard quality when it comes to many technology services). In Finland, legislation dictates that it is the right of every citizen to have free access to at least a 1Mbps internet connection and by 2015 every household will have a 100Mbps connection. Food for thought: Perhaps if the US followed suit other mobile, banking (and network-reliant fields) would evolve accordingly?

<comment><USER32> But who'd pay for it? We Finns are more than used to paying taxes for everything we do. Even candies(and other sweets, such as soft drinks) have additional taxing.

It's just a matter of different welfare system(if you could say so, it applies well to the cultural differences between European countries - might be a bit of a stretch to compare it to the States... :))

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If you like this, you may be interested in these comparisons of the US and Germany.

[http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom- world/2011/united...](http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom- world/2011/united-states)

[http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom- world/2011/german...](http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom- world/2011/germany)

<http://www.heritage.org/index/country/unitedstates>

<http://www.heritage.org/index/country/germany>

</comment><comment><USER34> Bluetooth headset? Microwaved food debate?

Parts of the text seem to be ten or more years old, while other parts have been updated.

Still, a good read.

</comment><comment><USER35> Seems interesting but with a notable number of mistakes on the US, how much can I trust what is said about Germany? and how much has changed since he moved to the US?

<comment><USER36> Mistakes yes, but I think he got most of the core motifs right (on both the US and German side (I grew up in the latter)). With which points (concerning the US) to you disagree / which points to you find questionable (BRD)?

<comment><USER35> Well writing about high speed trains or lack there of, we have one of the best freight systems in the world, but it makes high speed rail difficult, Europe has gone the other way they have high speed rail focus

ref: <http://www.economist.com/node/16636101>

and this is only one point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The section on American internet access is pretty old. (ISDN?)

<comment><USER38> Apparently all cell phones in the US are analog too.

<comment><USER39> That's probably a misunderstanding based on most US carriers using CDMA rather than GSM (like most of the rest of the world).

<comment><USER38> If by "most" you mean "Verizon and Sprint" versus "AT&T and T-Mobile", that's a curious definition of "most".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> One of the areas where Germany has and always will be different from the US is in their motoring culture.

Drivers license Cost

15 $

1400 EU

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4itwh8C4kn8>

National Max Highway speed

US 65

GERMANY none*

*I know, its not everywhere or all the time, but go once, and its pure bliss, cruising around ~100mph just feels right. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_autobahns#Speed_limits>

<comment><USER39> Don't forget minimum age to get a license: 16 vs. 18, and possibly related, minimum drinking age 21 vs. 16...

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> just glanced though it but most of the stuff regarding Germany is pretty outdated

<comment><USER36> Then again, others are not (e.g. he references the abolishment of compulsory military service in 2011). I think the article is still under constant editing, it's just not possible to catch up with everything at once.

<comment><USER42> This might be true. But a lot of info is clearly biased toward a negative image on Germany, when it comes to the outdated information.

So for example regarding privacy and data that is kept by you ISP - nothing on recent developement to abolish the 6-month periode in germany, as well as nothing on the recent developement in the US.

Just an example, but a lot of this comparison makes Germany look worse than it actually is.

disclaimer: I am from Germany and I really do not like a lot of things, that do go totally wrong here (imho).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> "Many extension cords still come without a third hole for grounding in the US. When you plug things into electrical outlets, you'll often observe cute little sparks. That never happens in Germany."

So in Germany there is no concept of grounding? Why? Also, is there any scientific explanation behind no sparking in Gemany?

<comment><USER26> I think you have it backwards - he's saying that all German extension cords have a third pin for ground.

<comment><USER43> Oh yeah..I got it wrong. So, US doesn't have the concept of grounding? Surprising, but I suppose that does explain the sparks.

<comment><USER44> No, it doesn't. The grounding wire is an equipment ground. It connects to metal cases and other points inside the device that require an earth ground, and not all devices actually require an earth ground. Electrically, though, it does nothing for the cord itself or the outlet.

The sparks are caused by the physical design of the plug and outlet, specifically that US outlets are designed in such a way that you can actually see them. Any mechanical connection between two conductors (outlets, switches, etc.) has the potential to spark if the voltage between them is high enough. Other conductors have nothing to do with this potential.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Read half of it. 70% applies to France vs US as well.

</comment><comment><USER46> Try explaining the conservatives that NYT is the best news paper in the US.

</comment><comment><USER47> "What are they afraid of?"

Have you not been paying attention in the last 50 years? We've made a hell of a lot of enemies, and before that it was communism, and before that it was world wars. Our military is strong because if it wasn't we would be getting attacked constantly. I'm pretty sure that a major reason why there haven't been any substantial terrorist attacks on the US since 9/11 is because our military will FUCK UP ENTIRE COUNTRIES if that happens again. Shit, we got launched into a 6-year war with 2 countries after an independent terrorist group blew up our building. If the KKK went to another country and bombed a building, would that country then attack and occupy us? Absolutely not! Because they can't.

<comment><USER48> > Our military is strong because if it wasn't we would be

> getting attacked constantly

Which is why Sweden, Cabo Verde, Malaysia and Trinidad are getting attacked constantly.

Or maybe the USA gets attacked because it routinely decides to "FUCK UP ENTIRE COUNTRIES" ?

Or even better, why not leave your foreign policy ideology out of a thread about a _cultural/sociological_ article?

I was enjoying it until you ruined it

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> German history and resulting 'cough' freedom gets in the way here. Why not compare USA to Sweden, Holland of France :D

<comment><USER42> Maybe, because he is German, lived here a long time and moved to the US? Maybe, because he has no direct knowledge of Sweden?

Your voice and words, dear gentleman, make you a troll.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> tl;dr but I guess his point is that if you're a kickass German scientist, you don't have to use CSS and make your posts more readable. <3 the attitude!

<comment><USER51> The post contains proper HTML markup. Why would he need to add CSS given that it's just a plain article? It should render perfectly - and in fact it's much more readable than many websites here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> What a bunch of lazy, biased nonsense. There is absolutely nothing of value in that accumulation of words. I am neither for or against either the USA or Germany, but I am for unbiased and accurate assessment.</comment>