Urql: a GraphQL client library - <AUTHOR> https://formidable.com/blog/2019/urql-2019/ <comment><USER2> I really like the simplicity of the core library and this approach of starting from a simple core and building on top of it with the same primitive for extensibility as the one you offer to users.

Apollo has also been moving in this direction with composable links, but in a zig-zaggy way since it's still got some baggage from its days as a monolithic library, and recent decisions to move local state management into core seems to be backtracking from that effort somewhat, so it's great to see some competition in this area that really approaches extensibility as a first class citizen rather than an afterthought.

With that said, I'd love to see an officially supported normalizing cache implementation as well, in addition to the simple document cache Urql currently provides as a default:

[https://formidable.com/open-source/urql/docs/basics/#code- cl...](https://formidable.com/open-source/urql/docs/basics/#code- classlanguage-textcacheexchangecode)

Apollo and Relay's normalizing cache helps ensure a single source of truth for every piece of server data, which is incredibly valuable for non-trivial apps that have the same pieces of data fetched in multiple places that would otherwise have to be manually kept in sync, which anyone who has ever tried to do so can tell you is generally extremely tedious, error prone, and likely a frequent contributor to user-facing bugs. That to me is by far the most compelling value prop of GraphQL clients like Apollo and Relay. It'd be great if I didn't have to choose between automatic normalization and a more flexible extensibility model (fwiw, I'd choose the former).

<comment><USER3> Cheers! I'm happy to say that a normalising cache is indeed in progress and we're planning to finish it soon [https://github.com/kitten/urql](https://github.com/kitten/urql) exchange- graphcache

We've got the cache itself done but are just figuring out the API for its customisability in terms of cache resolvers and such

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have been playing around with urql on a project for a couple of months now, mainly due to the small bundle size. Urql is 7.5kB min+gzip, where Apollo and Relay add ~30kB min+gzip!

Great to see Formidable investing further in it, I am very excited to see first class extensibility.

<comment><USER5> > Urql is 7.5kB min+gzip, where Apollo and Relay add ~30kB min+gzip!

How is that 22.5kB making any difference? Unless you are working on a project that will be used on very slow connections I see no point in choosing a library basing on such small difference in size. And if you really are targeting those slow connections then maybe going SPA is not the best choice?

<comment><USER6> From recent bundle audits of e-commerce sites built with React, less than 20% of the code was actual custom site code and the remaining 80% was from dependencies.

If the bundle size is 550kb min/gzipped, that's 110kb of app code, and 440kb of dependencies. Some of the largest dependencies in a recent audit were: moment (60kb), swiper (32kb), lodash (24kb), react-select (26kb), raven.js (12kb), polyfills (25kb), mobile-detect (15kb), and then a bunch of smaller dependencies that made up the remaining 300kb.

Using this performance budget calculator you can quickly see how each 25kb of JS adds ~.3s to your TTI on a mobile phone:

[https://perf-budget-calculator.firebaseapp.com/](https://perf-budget- calculator.firebaseapp.com/)

If developers shop around for smaller alternatives of each dependency, then they can cut their load times pretty drastically.

<comment><USER7> Fixating on package size alone is missing the forest for the trees. A good library can massively reduce your application size and pay for itself many times over.

For example, Relay removes the need for a lot of Flux and network request boilerplate. Going beyond that, it can collapse serial network fetches down into one request, massively speeding up page loads.

(This doesn't apply to moment, that library is just designed in a brain dead way).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is also the new GraphQL integration into mobx-state-tree that was just announced last week by the author of mobx, you can check it here [https://github.com/mobxjs/mst-gql](https://github.com/mobxjs/mst-gql)

<comment><USER9> > this project closes the gap between GraphQL and mobx-state-tree as state > management solutions. GraphQL is very transport oriented, while MST is great > for client side state management. GraphQL clients like apollo do support > some form of client-side state, but that is still quite cumbersome compared > to the full model driven power unlocked by MST, where local actions, > reactive views, and MobX optimized rendering model be used.

MST and GraphQL together does sound like a pretty serious win

<comment><USER8> It is pretty cool indeed, you can watch his presentation of the project here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq2M00vghqY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq2M00vghqY) (disclosure, I organize this conf).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> GraphQL is amazing. Building an API and then playing around with it in GraphiQl is really a exciting experience.

I've played with Relay (relay-modern looks great, but when I needed to pick a graphql client it hadn't been released yet). Apollo is frustrating: it's big and complicated and obsessed with stuff that I don't want (link-state and a bunch of product up-sells).

I'm glad urql is getting some more attention and I'll definitely give it a spin.

<comment><USER11> What is GraphQL like in production at scale? It seems like a neat concept but how do traditional web technologies like edge caching work?

<comment><USER12> It tips it all on it's head. It's generally a POST request and so doesn't cache at alls (you can configure it with a long GET request). All caching is done client side but at object level, including not requesting fields that you might have already requested previously on other calls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> urql's great, and the maintainers are super helpful and friendly. I've been using it on a project for a couple months now. Very straightforward and plays well with TypeScript. My one criticism is that it doesn't quite do enough in some cases, but I haven't spent the time to learn much about exchanges. As the ecosystem grows, I see this problem going away.

<comment> huy-nguyen I'm also interested in exploring exchanges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Excited to see some competition for Apollo. Apollo may do lots of things but exactly what and why and how remains a mystery to me. Apollo just feels needlessly large, opaque, and inadequately documented to me. Reading about urql, the combination of minimalist architecture with first class support for React hooks sounds like just what I'd been hoping would emerge.

<comment><USER14> Hi from Apollo! We appreciate your honest feedback. Part of my team (Developer Experience) is responsible for our documentation. What features are inadequately documented? We'd like to fix that for you if we can.

<comment><USER9> The issue is not that there is a simple feature that's inadequately documented. It's that I have no high level understanding of what all the pieces are and how they fit together. Tell me exactly what I'm getting from Apollo that I don't get from fetch. Tell me what caching does, when, how, and how to invalidate it. Tell me about links and middleware. This is a very complex batteries included technology. I don't even feel like I understand where the batteries go, much less what they are doing for me, I'm just copying and pasting code that others have used into my projects and hoping I have about the right amount of stuff included.

Your customer didn't write all the Apollo code. The docs feel like they are written with the assumption that we understand the architecture and goals as well as you do and we just want to do some simple task with it to get started. I fear however that this is fundamentally not a docs problem. It feels like a problem where the Apollo devs didn't start by asking "how can I build something that will be easy for 3rd party devs to use and understand", they started with "oooh that would be cool". Urql feels like it started with a very simple and clear conceptual foundation that provides a clear roadmap for how and where more complex features get attached.

If you can reduce Apollo down to a clear and simple framework in the docs that actually covers everything that it does, then you're golden. I suspect however that the underlying architectural simplicity that would be required for you to do this doesn't actually exist. If it does, you face a docs problem, if it doesn't, then docs are just a bandaid.

<comment><USER15> You can't invalidate the cache in Apollo. You have to clear all items, or update a specific part to a new value.

It's not a simple key value cache, but a graph of values, which makes invalidation more complex but still in my opinion that is a huge oversight.

Hopefully an Apollo dev can give us some insight here: why is the cache a requirement? Why is it threaded into every bit of code? I've seen so many bugs from the cache, and I know there is a technical reason it has to be part of the core codebase, but I have forgotten why.

<comment><USER14> The normalized cache is the one of the main value props of Apollo Client. It optimizes reads, automatically updates queries without a refetch for some mutations, supports optimistic updates, and can also return partial data for large queries. If you don't need a cache, then you can use fetch, graphql- request, or even Apollo Link to fire off a simple GraphQL request. You also don't have to use our cache implementation (apollo-cache-inmemory) with Apollo Client. There are other implementations that make different tradeoffs.

For what it's worth, we are rearchitecting parts of the cache to support invalidation and garbage collection for Apollo Client 3.0. The only reason why we don't have it yet is because it's a tough problem to solve - one mutation could invalidate an infinite amount of queries. We're committed to solving this soon though because we know the community really wants it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I _really like_ the implementation with hooks. I experimented with a similar pattern on top of Apollo on a side project. Going to play with urql today! Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER17> This is refreshing upon first glance. The Apollo Client docs are such a mess.

<comment><USER14> Hi from Apollo! My team (Developer Experience) is responsible for making sure you can find what you need in the docs. What improvements would you like to see?

<comment><USER17> A more consistent documentation experience. A lot of code examples import various modules, but those modules have no documentation. For example: Docs > Client > Apollo Link mentions `graphql-tools` and schema stitching, with a link to read more. Clicking that link takes you to a page that says it's deprecated, and then links to a blog post about why.

Another example: Is `apollo-link-state` deprecated? The docs for `apollo-link- state` don't mention that, but the Local state management page in Apollo Client sure says it is.

<comment><USER18> Similar to the deprecation issue, a number of Links still say "under active development" or similar pre-release "warnings" in their GitHub READMEs but that isn't reflected in the documentation site, making it tough to figure out what is considered stable and what isn't without jumping back and forth between GitHub and the documentation site, and there's still questions of whether or not perhaps the README warnings are stale. It would also maybe be great to have something of a roadmap of when those links might be considered "production ready" especially if the documentation site is already recommending them as project solutions.

The example to mind is last time I was trying to do something (a few months back) `apollo-link-rest` was highly recommended in the documentation as a potential solution, but yet visiting the GitHub for it seemed to be saying the exact opposite that it wasn't ready yet and was filled with massive API shifts and bugs/issues to iron out before "production ready".

<comment><USER17> Indeed. It boils down to having no trust in the documentation because of the conflicting messages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Excited to try this out! Also glad to see Apollo getting some more competition. I made a side project last year with the Apollo ecosystem, it confused the hell out of me.

</comment><comment><USER20> Most of graphql client library is non-lazy on url part. In my apps, i use a lazy apollo client API interface though:

const data = useQuery(url, graphql_query, variables)

The point here is that, the ApolloClient is lazily constructed and reused only when the hook is called.

I don't know why Graphql must be used with non-lazy url instead.

More than that, you don't need a Provider, because the apollo-client is reused between the calls.

</comment><comment><USER21> Fun, I don't know Typescript (and barely remember JavaScript!) but maybe I'll try to add automatic persisted queries compatible with the apollo-link syntax [https://github.com/apollographql/apollo-link-persisted- queri...](https://github.com/apollographql/apollo-link-persisted- queries#protocol)

</comment><comment><USER22> We use Urql and are loving it at Thread. Nice and lightweight, easy to use, easy to build our own infrastructure around.

</comment><comment><USER23> Does it typecheck queries for you based on the schema, and generate a response type for TypeScript?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, but you can do something like this: [https://formidable.com/blog/2019/strong- typing/](https://formidable.com/blog/2019/strong-typing/)

<comment><USER23> Oh cool, they have a package for urql: [https://graphql-code- generator.com/docs/plugins/typescript-u...](https://graphql-code- generator.com/docs/plugins/typescript-urql)

I might try it out once it supports the new hooks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> are you supposed to say urql like "Urkel"?

<comment><USER25> I clicked the article link just because I was expecting to see this guy: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Urkel#/media/File:Steve_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Urkel#/media/File:Steve_Urkel.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> really interesting, but i took a look at the docs, and they 100% look like urql is only compatible with react. Can I use urql with Vue.js, or would I just be inviting misery upon myself if i tried?

<comment><USER27> we've been using apollo with vue.js (and typescript!) with a django-graphene backend and we've been having zero problems.

honestly, it's my favorite stack nowadays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This library is also quite minimal: [https://github.com/f/graphql.js](https://github.com/f/graphql.js)

</comment><comment><USER26> their Exchange architecture reminds me of the Plug framework used by Phoenix on Elixir.

</comment><comment><USER29> They also support abort fetch request :) :) :)

</comment><comment><USER30> Glorious</comment>


Eight years today (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2012/03/eight-years-today.html <comment><USER2> "Man surprised me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."

― James J. Lachard

<comment><USER3> Wonderful quote. Reminds me I should just go home and rest instead of staying back late to get more things done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >Eight years since Steve died. I keep looking for meaning, but all I've found so far is that in order to be at peace with the present, we must be at peace with the past, because the present is a product of the past. Accept. Accept. Accept. Learn to love the present moment. What happened, happened. It's difficult to understand the big picture when our lives are mere brush strokes on the canvas of reality. Trusting that it all fits together to form something beautiful is the purest form of faith. Anything else is a dangerous distraction. No contracts with God, no expectations of reward, just trust.

Beautifully written ...

</comment><comment><USER5> For me, it was a book on stoicism ("A Guide to the Good Life — The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy" by William B Irvine) that showed me that, while it's not possible to avoid the inevitable pains and losses — just semi-regular thoughts about it, imagining the world where the losses have already happened, allows immense enjoyment and appreciation of the current moments.

Also, as an unexpected bonus, the book showed that philosophy shouldn't neccesarily be only theoretical high-brow word games, it can be a pleasant and highly practical experience as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> I found this article a couple of years ago, probably here on HN, and it helped me through a dark time.

I find myself coming back to it very often, or sharing it with others.

I found a lot of peace with this quote:

> I keep looking for meaning, but all I've found so far is that in order to be > at peace with the present, we must be at peace with the past, because the > present is a product of the past. Accept. Accept. Accept. Learn to love the > present moment. What happened, happened.

</comment><comment><USER7> Honestly the best thing I've read today.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. It's a weird thing to focus on given the topic of the article, but his writing is surprisingly good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Beautiful read.

> I keep looking for meaning, but all I've found so far is that in order to be > at peace with the present, we must be at peace with the past, because the > present is a product of the past. Accept. Accept. Accept. Learn to love the > present moment.

Sometimes it helps me to remember that the present is literally the only thing that exists. Looking too much into the past produces guilt; too much into the future, anxiety. I hope in this new world we're building with all the great technology, we put a stronger emphasis on learning contentment which can only come from accepting the present in all its myriad forms.

</comment><comment><USER10> Been having a rough couple of days at work. This is very touching and very uplifting. Thanks for sharing

</comment><comment><USER11> > Those who push only for the sake of some future reward, or to avoid failure, > very often burn out, sometimes tragically.

How does one not become complacent after reading this? I am confused. On one hand people pull all nighters doing mundane things as doing customer support because you are the founder, and you have to do it (and endanger their health and maybe life). And on the other hand this.

<comment><USER12> Embrace the process of doing something, not just the product. Become an entrepreneur because you enjoy discovering business models, learning new things, and solving peoples' problems. Become an engineer because you like tinkering with technology. Become a writer because you want to explore new ideas, or a doctor because you like saving lives and dealing with the human body.

If you find you're doing something _only_ for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it's time to re-examine whether you should be doing it at all. Staying power usually requires that you derive some meaning from the actual activity itself, that the day-to-day of it gives your life purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thanks for sharing. Before clicking through, I thought this was going to be the story of inventing gmail.

</comment><comment><USER14> Thanks for posting, Paul.

<comment><USER15> 2012.

Yes, it's very moving. Hopefully, enough so that people will donate to pancreatic cancer research. It's a cancer that kills most people, and yet we do little research.

Steve Jobs and Randy Pausch also left this world way too young:

[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/)

<comment><USER16> Thanks for including Randy Pausch. His 'Last Lecture' is highly recommended for those who haven't seen it. It can be found in melling's link above or directly here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> (2012)

</comment><comment><USER18> A beautiful reminder of the relativity of it all.

Paul's closing remarks remind me of a bit that the late Bill Hicks used to sign off with:

"The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace."

<comment><USER19> >Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world

The reality for now is someone has to protect the pacifists. It is hard to believe that ISIS exists in the modern world. They are so depraved that they make the Nazis look like good guys.

<comment><USER20> You have to see ISIS for what it is. They are teenagers in tin shacks and caves with yesterdays cell phones. If you legitimately fear them you are misguided. They exist to push you, you make you buy into the current status quo. Who are they up against? The most powerful and technologically advanced military ever in the history of the world. That military spends more than the next 5 largest ones combined. Its like Urkel vs Bruce Lee. They don't stand a chance. Sure they might blow up a shopping center or two, but the fact is law enforcement kills more people in than ISIS ever did.

You want to end ISIS? Sorry there isn't a quick way to do so. Build a school for women in one of the countries they inhabit, protect it with drones and soldiers, build power plants, and give them internet connections. Change the culture, not at the end of a gun but with sandwiches for their hungry, water for their thirsty, and knowledge for their curious. Do this everywhere we are invited, and then do it in the places we are not. Then in a few generations took a look the world you have created, I promise you it will be a better one.

<comment><USER21> > You have to see ISIS for what it is. They are teenagers in tin shacks and > caves with yesterdays cell phones.

Similar things were said about the Viet Cong, except for the cellphones. The Mijahideen defeated the Soviet Union and arguably lead to it's demise. The US got kicked out of Lebanon and Somalia. I happen to think that won't happen with ISIS, mainly due to the oil but also because the West has allies nearby in the region, or at least people we can work with such as the Kurds, Shia Iraqis and Turkey. Still, being high tech and spending big doesn't guarantee victory.

ISIS may not be an existential threat to the USA, sure, but they're doing a lot of damage to a lot of people and it looks like they will continue to do so for quite some time to come.

<comment><USER20> The VC were defending their homes, as were the Mujahideen for the most part. They work because they have some popular support. Women of the village make them dinner and clean their clothes. You have to put them in a untenable position. Make them attack solders around the UN truck handing out bottled water and medical care to children, then the power plant supplying the village, then the school. Be the good guy. Eventually the villagers supporting them will want a better life for their daughters and sons and will no longer do so. You will win their hearts and minds. A military or diplomatic victory isn't required, a cultural one is.

Data like this puts the real threat of ISIS in perspective: [http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/06/how-scared-of- terroris...](http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/06/how-scared-of-terrorism- should)

<comment><USER21> I'm sure those statistics are very comforting to the Yazidis.

You're quite right about tactics. They need to be contained militarily, but they won't be defeated that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can't remember a time where the finality of death and the pointlessness of life hasn't struck me. I can't remember a day past the age of 16 where I didn't think about the fact that everyone I know, literally every single thing I've ever experienced will die, or wither away.

Even the sun. One of the most powerful entities my mind can possibly comprehend. The entire reason for everything we know. The source of nearly every tiny bit of energy we consume. It's temporary. It'll be gone one day and when it is, it'll be like it was never there.

Accepting these things is one of the most terrifying, difficult, powerful and freeing things I've done. It's very powerful to be able to step back and assess my situation in the context of "will this matter in 50 years when I'm on my deathbed?" In so many difficult decisions, it's made the answer clear: "in 50 years, will I remember feeling good because I took my parents' advice and didn't move and didn't upset them? Or will I look back with regret on the opportunity I didn't take across the country."

I really like this article. It's very important to remember that everything we think is so strong and foundational can go away in the blink of an eye.

<comment><USER23> IMO, looking at things from a 50+ year perspective is like trying to calculate a score on life. It just seems to miss the point. IMO, you're better off doing things based on how they improve your life on a random day in the next 50 years.

Consider, becoming a doctor may allow you to take some great vacations and be content that you helped people on your death bed, but those are just a few days so you need to consider the day to day life as a doctor not just the highlights.

<comment><USER24> On a contrary note, someone famous said that it's better to set you life's goal as a very hard problem and chip away at it. Every decade you will see the progress you made and will keep you focused. The argument is that if you keep short achievable goals then there is a transition period between goals which are tough and perhaps in hindsight it may look like a sail in the wind.

A very comprehensible example for me is Don Knuth. A part of his drive is his ambition to finish the series of books.

Having said so, there is no panacea and I think it very well depends on how one's system is wired.

<comment><USER23> That's kind of like saying "don't get cancer" it's true that avoiding cancer is a good idea, but it's not really under your control.

Another way of putting it is if you talk to lottery winners you're getting a very biased viewpoint.

<comment><USER24> The premise is that the goal is sufficiently hard and the reward is the incremental advancements. If at the end, the goal is achieved, it's simply cherry on top. If the goal is not achieved due to unforeseen circumstances, it doesn't mean that the life was purposeless as you can very well see the progress made by tracking incremental achievements.

As I said before, its all down to wiring.

Also given the advancements in medicine and increase in life expectancies, I think the chances are a lot many people will live to 60+ so planning life for the worst case may not be optimal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Eight years ago, more than three years ago today.</comment>


Beetailer (YC W11) Helps Online Retailers Set Up Shop On Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/20/beetailer-helps-online-retailers-set-up-shop-on-facebook/

<comment><USER2> From the article...

> Beetailer allows retailers to launch time-limited, Facebook-specific > promotions, including prizes and discounts for fans who like, comment, ...

From <http://developers.facebook.com/policy/>

> You must not incentivize users to use (or gate content behind the use of) > Facebook social channels, or imply that an incentive is directly tied to the > use of our channels.

Or are comments and likes not considered social channels?

<comment><USER3> I've never read that policy, but what's interesting is virtually every brand on Facebook uses "Like gating" (you have to Like the page before seeing the real content) for contests and promos. Either that doesn't fall under that policy, or Facebook just doesn't care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is it just me or does that Bont logo look a little like the HTML5 logo? <http://www.w3.org/html/logo/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Is that Chicago on the homepage? Brings me right back to my Mac Plus days.

</comment><comment><USER6> (YC Winter 2011)</comment>


Satellite Photos Reveal Extent of Damage from Iranian Strike on Air Base in Iraq - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2020/01/08/794517031/satellite-photos-reveal-extent-of-damage-at-al-assad-air-base <comment><USER2> Iran wants this to end, which is why they didn't target areas that would cause a lot of loss of life. Iran is in no position to engage the US in protracted skirmishes, if the US hits its refineries, etc, Iran is hosed. The memes of WW3 occurring are absurd even for Twitter.

<comment><USER3> This isn't a one-sided stand down. If the US attacks Iran blatantly, sleeper cells around the world would probably be activated. At least this is what it seems they signalled.

<comment><USER2> Sorry but this is complete fiction. Sleeper cells around the world? This is Iran, a struggling government not Mission Impossible. There's nothing Iran could or would do that the US doesn't do to itself via mass shootings, wildfires, shitty government policies, etc.

If Iran did anything like a terrorist attack on US soil, it would open the door for the US to completely devastate Iran through bombings, etc, and that's not what the Iranian government wants. What they did was probably the smartest thing they could do, which is show explosions on their TVs so say they attacked back, but incur no loss of life to escalate things.

<comment><USER3> 1) Iran isn't a small country. The cost to carpet bomb every square km of Iran would be enormous. Afghanistan is a nickel candy by comparison.

2) Iran has connections with Hezbollah and god knows who else. I would not dismiss the possibility.

3) There are enough people all over the world who would be incensed enough at the US to self radicalize.

<comment><USER2> 1) Why on Earth would you carpet bomb every square km of Iran? You attack their infrastructure and their economy. That's about as simplistic as it gets. Carpet bombing the entire country is absurd. If you're old enough to remember the second Iraq War, the level of bombs dropped on Iraq was insane.

2) Iran is Hezbollah. They're basically the same thing.

3) If Iran attacked the US with their fictional "sleeper cells", the world would be completely on the US side. This is why Iran didn't kill a single US soldier in their attacks yesterday.

<comment><USER3> 1) Because it's not enough. See Iraq. How many trillions are you ready to pay for the privilege of another quagmire?

2) ok not sure I was implying different.

3) you missed the point. If the US attacked disproportionately, it is highly unlikely that the USA would have the support of the world. At this point it would be expected for them to retaliate through any means available. Did you see the accuracy of their rocket? It destroyed a specific building at the base. The reason there were no casualties was because Iran told Iraq (who told us) that they were going to attack. No one wants an escalation.

<comment><USER2> 1) what are you talking about? The US has no desire to occupy Iran. They would devastate the economy by mass bombing of the infrastructure, and then encourage a new US-friendly leader to lead a coup over the current government. Then they would come in with US companies and have them get paid to fix the infrastructure back. Have you not been paying attention?

2) saying that Iran has connections with the Hezbollah is like saying Trump has connections to the Republicans. Iran IS Hezbollah. There's a difference.

3) I'm not sure what you're arguing at this point. I said the same thing. Iran doesn't want an escalation because they know they can't win. If they caused any US deaths, it would lead to escalating destruction of Iran. You were the one that said "sleeper cells" around the world would start conducting terrorist campaigns or something. But that's absurd and would never happen because if they did, the US would make Iran pay and they would have the support of the world. Obviously dropping a nuke on Iran is out of the question, as is destroying cultural sites, but if these "sleeper cells" killed Americans, you could expect massive damage to Iranian infrastructure that they wouldn't be able to recover from in a timely manner.

<comment><USER3> If Iran feels threatened that they would be at the brink of destruction, i.e., with a disproportionate attack by the US, look to active operations in allied countries.

Don't get caught up in specific words like sleeper cells or terrorism. I have no more information than you. I just know if I don't have a nuclear bomb, I need a nuclear option and I expect today's press conference by Iran with the flags of all the groups they support was a signal of the threat.

Perhaps you personally profited from the Iraq war, but US taxpayers footed a bill in the trillions to keep that going. People died. It isn't a game of Civ.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> These images are CC-BY-SA, but I don't see a similar mark on the NPR article. Is that a CC violation?

Edit: Thank you, Planet Labs, for making them CC-BY-SA!

<comment><USER5> It's only a CC violation if it doesn't fall under the "news reporting" fair use exemption.

<comment><USER6> If it costs NPR nothing to include the mark, and doing so does not interfere with their fair use, then do they have a moral obligation to do so, regardless of whether the law permits its exclusion or not?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> it's wild that there are enough high resolution commercial satellites flying that these took less than a day to capture (i.e. how long it took for one of Planet's swarm to be in position).

</comment><comment><USER8> I thought all US satellite companies had a strict set of rules regard where they could and could not point their satellites. E.g., Dick Cheny's house was off limits to Google Earth in the 2000's.

</comment><comment><USER9> It really does look more like a show of force than an effort to kill. That's some pretty impressive accuracy by the Iranians. Those were not random impacts.

<comment><USER10> They sure did show those empty tents what for.

<comment><USER3> Just FYI, there was backchannelling specifying the target of the attack would be said empty tents. At least that's the rumor mill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> OT -

My analysis is Iran's attacking a US base directly and ensuring of no US casualty was its best strategic option to avoid war.

1 - Iran had to save face domestically and regionally so had to attack.

2 - Most importantly, Iran had to immediately attack. With the calculation that many types of false flags or attacks against US personal by other entities would instantly be attributed to it.

A - Their foreign minister Zarif, made it clear that Iran will retaliate "direct and promotional" and not through any proxies, which was the same message signal by their Supreme leader[0]

B - After the attack ended, Zarif made it clear Iran is done with their retaliations[1]. So to avoid being blamed for any further attack that may take place in future date against US forces or interests.

Iran calculus probably was to avoid a high likely hood of attacks possibly orchestrated by Saudis or other entities (who benefit from a Us-Iran escalations) disguised as Iranian.

Having quickly retaliated, ensuring no US casualty and made it clear they're done, they're closing the door for getting blamed for false flags and trying to avoid additional escalations against US.

This signals a very rational and calculating player who doesn't want to escalate against US.

The question is how much US media would now push the narrative of crossing "red line" and forcing Trump to take escalatory military action.

One can even argue even this article uses a language like, _" Iranian missile strike has caused extensive damage"_ and *"...show hangars and buildings hit hard by a barrage of Iranian missiles" to set the stage for US to take re- retaliatory steps.

[0] [http://archive.is/tqv8M](http://archive.is/tqv8M)

[1] [https://www.newsweek.com/iran-says-it-has-concluded-its- resp...](https://www.newsweek.com/iran-says-it-has-concluded-its-response-us- strike-does-not-seek-escalation-1480956)

<comment><USER12> Iran was communicating with the US to ensure there was no loss of life while giving Iran the ability to save face.

Back channels are important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does the Ain al-Assad air base not have some type of anti missile/air defense? I tried to find out this information but I could not find anything off hand.

<comment><USER14> Not against medium/long-range ballistic missiles.

<comment><USER15> For someone who doesn't know anything about this subject matter, can you explain why? I mean, is it a technical or legal limitation? Maybe a practical, statistical or strategic decision?

<comment><USER14> Technical. They come in substantially faster and more vertically than cruise missiles.

<comment><USER16> Do you know which missiles were used? I haven't seen that information anywhere.

<comment><USER14> I don't think that's been made public.

Some speculation on possibilities in [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense- national-s...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national- security/iran-used-missiles-on-us-bases-to-save-face-after-us-killed- soleimani).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Are these Iranian missiles supposed to be extremely accurate or is the lack of deaths pure luck ?

<comment><USER18> I dont think Iran wanted to kill any Americans. They knew that this strike helped them save face. Killing soldiers would have risked an escalation. The US also did not try to stop the missiles to allow the slap in in the face to happen. The US wanted to let them save face.

<comment><USER19> We also had advanced warning, as did the Iraqis. They even knew the timing. I'm sure we moved troops out of harms way. Iran's not just going to lob some missiles into a foreign country without first telling them, because they (Iraq) weren't the target. We picked up on that chatter and/or the host country informed us after they knew.

<comment><USER12> Back channels are important.

<comment><USER18> 100%

back channels are very effective and should be embraced in business and politics

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Alternative link, eg for those that dislike that hard-to-navigate-"your choice"-of-npr: [https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your- military/2020/01/08/...](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your- military/2020/01/08/see-the-damage-at-al-asad-airbase-following-iranian- missile-strike/)

The pics are from Planet Labs, but PL does not have anything on their blog about it.

edit: I'm surprised how little damage each hit inflicted. Purpose more to say "we struck the US" rather than actually do damage, I suppose.

<comment><USER21>
      > I'm surprised how little damage each hit inflicted. Purpose
      > more to say "we struck the US" rather than actually do damage, I suppose.

I highly suspect that these missiles had no warhead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> For a minute I thought the helicopters on the ground were poorly-photoshopped impact marks...

</comment><comment><USER23> Don't we have anti missile weapons or something like Israel's Iron Dome?

<comment><USER24> Lockheed makes a mobile system called THAAD. I doubt there were any deployed in Iraq, and the effectiveness of these are dubious. The Russians put the S400 in Syria and it has performed well enough. These act more like a deterrent than an actual viable defensive grid.

<comment><USER25> THAAD ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_De...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_Defense)) is a bit of a big deal in Huntsville. I'm kind of surprised it's not deployed in the Middle East, although I suppose it wouldn't be much of a deterrent if it isn't shown to work better than it did in testing.</comment></comment></comment>


Hackers expose flaw in Apple iPad, iPhone software - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/06/us-apple-hackers-idUSTRE76577420110706 <comment><USER2> "Can jailbreaking make my device less secure?

By itself, jailbreaking does not make you vulnerable. However, a common mistake for jailbreakers is to install OpenSSH but forget to change the passwords for root and mobile; this lets anyone log into your device over the Internet. If you install OpenSSH, remember to change the password!"

\-- <http://www.jailbreakme.com/#moreinfo></comment>


Why Men Think Plant-Based Meat Will Turn Them into Women - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/why-men-are-afraid-soy-will-turn-them-women/605968/ <comment><USER2> Boy... there are kinks all over the world, but the USA-based ones are somewhat very intriguing!

</comment><comment><USER3> Didnt read the article but i dont think that.</comment>


Hiding in plain sight: activists don camouflage to beat Met surveillance - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/01/privacy-campaigners-dazzle-camouflage-met-police-surveillance <comment><USER2> Trying to stop nuclear proliferation by wearing hazmat suits.</comment>


Doctor Who goes back in time to beat TV pirates - <AUTHOR> http://paidcontent.org/2012/08/29/doctor-who-goes-back-in-time-to-beat-tv-pirates/ <comment><USER2> It's good to see both the BBC and ABC being level headed about this.

Serving your paying customers and enticing pirates towards being paying customers is how ALL rights holders should behave.

It's been all stick and no carrot for so long.

<comment><USER3> ABC wouldn't be able to do this if they were not a public broadcaster. Advertisers would be furious.

<comment><USER2> Couldn't they just ran the adverts in the stream?

Both ITV 1/2/3/4 (UK advert supported channels) and Channel 4 (public remit but supported by adverts) advertise before, during and after the stream. I don't know if they are regulated but the frequency and length of adverts it seem about the same as the broadcast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Finally, someone gets it! Some people will always pirate, but I honestly believe a lot of people would rather use legal means (even if they pay a reasonable amount). It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I can only hope that more TV shows come to Australia this way. The whole "let's broadcast the show in AU after the season already ended in the US" is such a huge pain and most definitely encourages piracy.

<comment><USER5> The only real reason I have for considering pirating something is that "it isn't available in my country for months after it's aired elsewhere", so this is great news.

Why on earth should I wait months before I can see it? I'm sure there's a reason advertisers do this but I don't see it.

<comment><USER6> I want a lot of things, but sometimes I just have to wait. I feel like piracy has spawned an entire generation that feels the same way you do: entitled.

I sell books as a side-business and I see it with college students especially. They demand things to be exactly their way or they threaten to complain or send me nasty emails.

<comment><USER7> I feel like copyright has spawned an entire generation that feels even more entitled than the pirates. Our copyrights are an allowance from society because people feel it is to their benefit to do us a small favor. They are not handed down to me from the Almighty because I'm so awesome for having banged together a Ruby stick and a C stick.

If we want to talk about natural rights, demanding that somebody not view my work until a week later than somebody else just because I feel like making them wait is some of the most absurd entitlement I've ever heard of. Can you imagine a painter standing outside an art gallery stopping Australians from entering? What would you think of that guy?

(This isn't meant as a "Up wit da piratez" screed or whatever. I'm just saying, the more control we exert through our copyrights, the less right I feel we have to call anybody else entitled, because the things we can force people to do through copyright are just ridiculously audacious from a perspective of natural rights.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems ridiculous... BBC America is airing this seasons opener on the same day as BBC1 in the UK! ([http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/doctor-who- to-retu...](http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/doctor-who-to-return-to- bbc-america-on-september-1))

So why do we have convoluted workarounds in Australia if another ex-colony gets it fine?

<comment><USER9> Time zones.

BBC America can show it on the same day as BBC1, and it's a few hours later.

If ABC was to show it on the same day as BBC1, it would be several hours earlier. This might merely be embarrassing for the BBC, or it might cause a political row in the UK. "Why are TV licence fee payers paying for the new series of Doctor Who to be shown in Australia before it's shown in the UK?" "Brits paid for Doctor Who to be made, so Brits should get to see it first" etc.

<comment><USER10> It doesn't explain why it's shown a week later though. Why don't they just show it the day after?

<comment><USER11> I'm guessing because it will go out on Saturday in the UK and they want it to be in the same slot elsewhere in the world.

The reality is that the loss of a relatively small number of people who'll watch online ahead of it's screening on TV is a small price to pay for the better viewing figures they'll get on a Saturday evening over a Sunday.

I think they're to be commended for doing this - it's what we keep saying, make it available legally and most people will use that in preference to torrents and other more questionable mechanisms.

<comment><USER8> I disagree. This isn't just a tv show, it's a culture. For the fans who are willing to pirate, a week is ETERNITY. A week means avoiding Facebook and social media, avoiding forums and fan sites and blogs who will all be happily discussing the new developments.

And the worst part is, when you finally see it: you have no one to talk to! The world already discussed, spent a week fanboying out about the episode! They'll spend the week discussing yet-another new episode, while you hide trying to discuss a week-old episode without learning new spoilers.

It keeps you a week behind the world on discussion and prevents you from being able to use any fan media during an active season without having big plot points spoiled.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure I understand your point - they're making it legally available via their website as soon as it's available world wide, they're just not putting it on TV until 6 days later. There's no need to avoid anything or pirate or whatever.

Even if that weren't the case, I don't know about the rest of the world but in the UK, at least since the Russell Davis reboot, Doctor Who is mass market.

Yes the people you're talking about exist, but they're not the majority, they're not even that big a minority (though they're very vocal). A network is always going to go where the money is and that's with the largest number of people.

<comment><USER8> They're making it available in Australia one week after the release date in the UK and America. This is because of time zones and a desire to ensure the show launches on a Saturday.

Thus, Australians have to endure an entire week of UK/US discussion before they can see an episode.

I imagine many fans will continue to pirate.

<comment><USER9> Sorry, I don't understand.

Why will Australian fans continue to pirate now that the show will be available legitimately on ABC's website 50 minutes after UK transmission?

Yes, watching it on a PC/tablet/phone is not the same as watching it on a TV, but pirated versions suffer from this as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would love to see this, but as I live in Germany, I'm pretty sure I'll not be greeted by the episode or even a video player but a "not a available in your country" message.

Anyway, BBC probably already knows they could make a fortune if they offered a season for £9 on iTunes (or something like that) with no delay, so I'm not gonna call them about it.

<comment><USER13> Same here (also Germany). Worse yet, even if a german broadcaster was offering it, chances are you would only be able to get it dubbed in Germany without the option to switch to the original language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Brilliant: "The fact that it is happening is indicative that as broadcasters we are not meeting demand for a segment of the population."

</comment><comment><USER15> "Piracy is wrong, as you are denying someone their rights and income for their intellectual property."

What a bunch of complete hypocrites. The only reason the show still exists is because of piracy, because the idiots at the BBC managed to most of the old episodes. So without pirates supplying the BBC and the general public with their copies of the old episodes, the show literally couldn't exist today.

<comment><USER16> Only most of the first and second doctors' runs were lost. Alot of the missing episodes that were recovered came from overseas broadcasters. The BBC always had the complete runs of the other five doctors - over 22 years of television.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here in Canada the channel called Showcase airs their popular new sci-fi time travel cop show called Continuum soon after it airs.

It takes a while though because Canada is so big, six time zones, only after it airs on the west coast plus a delay while they upload it which pretty much means the next day.

Even with that and the delay to put up it's on thepiratebay.org about half an hour after it airs, a good 12 hours before it's officially put on Showcase's website. But Showcase does IP restrict viewers to Canada only, I don't agree with such regional restrictions.

</comment><comment><USER18> I haven't watched Doctor Who since we left Austria and no longer get BBC via cable. I hadn't seen the new Doctor. Kind of a shock: wow, that guy's young. How is he as The Doctor?

<comment><USER19> Originally I thought I didn't like him, but in actuality he's a fantastic doctor and a nice deviation from the Tennant/Edelsson mix. I found the writing in the last season of the show to be abysmal, though. Didn't feel like Doctor Who at all.

<comment><USER20> Completely agree with you on Matt Smith. I hated him at first, but I think I just wanted more Tennant. After clearing my head and going back in, he's now _my Doctor_.

(Although I disagree with you on last season. It didn't feel like traditional Doctor Who, but I really liked the direction, and although Season 5 was much better end-to-end, Season 6 had some of my favorite episodes.)

<comment><USER19> Season 6 just really felt like they said "Lets try and target our demographics." There was a lot less science, it was much more earth-centric, and the level of hand-waving was obscene.

<comment><USER21> It was earth-centric due to budget cuts, so that wasn't really under their control.

<comment><USER19> Wasn't aware of that. Still kind of sucked for the viewer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Now if only that would happen here in the US. I simply don't understand why I should have to pay to get something the next day when I could get it for free minutes after it airs.

</comment><comment><USER23> So, the Max Headroom hacker will be the villain?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_broadcast_signal_i...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_broadcast_signal_intrusion)

</comment><comment><USER24> Giving people what they want - to combat piracy! An innovative strategy.

</comment><comment><USER25> "Piracy is wrong" morally sure, but economically I don't know. It's a complicated question, and without actual numbers the arguments for or against are totally meaningless.

<comment><USER26> I'm still waiting to be convinced on morally wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I hate to be ungrateful but I'd like to see HD versions next time - in a lot of Australian broadcast areas there aren't any HD stations over the air any more.

</comment><comment><USER28> > Piracy is wrong, as you are denying someone their rights and income for > their intellectual property

Already paid for it with my licence fee. I'll do what I want.

</comment><comment><USER19> If only they were doing this when Doctor Who still had good writing.</comment>


Ask HN: Could Google create a Covid-19 risk score for locations? - <AUTHOR> When searching for a business on Google, the results will usually include how busy the location is historically and currently. It will also include the average amount of time a person spends at the location. I assume this data is collected from mobile devices somehow.
My question is, couldn't Google take the number of unique visitors and the average amount of time each spends at a location (maybe even the local infection rate) and calculate a risk score that you could view before visiting the location?
I can see why Google would not want to label customers as high risk, but I think this information would be helpful for the public. <comment><USER2> That's brilliant but very tough to implement from legal perspective.</comment>


What you need to do deep learning - <AUTHOR> http://www.fast.ai/2017/11/16/what-you-need/ <comment><USER2> This article is super interesting. It says that in production you won't need a GPU but from what I understood DeepMind uses 2 TPUs to run their AlphaGo Zero program and Tesla has a Nvidia Drive PX2. Is that correct or do they only use the CPU to run their programs?</comment>


Show HN: Get Press for Your Startup - <AUTHOR> https://MeanSheep.com <comment><AUTHOR> Would love to hear your thoughts</comment>


CrunchPad Litigation Imminent - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/04/crunchpad-litigation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)&utm_content=Google+Reader

<comment><USER2> Kinda ironic for a Techcrunch product fiasco to become fodder for its own articles.

Is the crunchpad dead?

<comment><USER3> No, it's just pining for the fjords.

<comment><USER2> I had to look that up. [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pining+for+th...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pining+for+the+fjords)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> These kinds of issues are very common in hardware; electronics (pure IC), devices, batteries, any kind of physical good with an outsourced manufacturer.

Partner / Supplier diligence is just as important as a good idea. Techcrunch is hurting their ability to find future partners in the way they are handling this, regardless of who is at fault.

<comment><USER5> Reputation evolved to solve this problem. I wonder if there's a way of implementing a (better) feedback system.

<comment><USER4> Interesting. Hadn't thought about it previously, but a global version of Yelp focused on supply chain partners and their production facilities would be very valuable. You'd need to start with a narrow vertical (textiles, wire-bonding, nonwovens, automation equipment, etc.), but it could be a very useful software fix to a broader problem.

<comment><USER2> mfg.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _There is just no way to argue that TechCrunch is not the joint owner of all intellectual property of the CrunchPad, and outright owner of the CrunchPad trademark._

The trademark for "CrunchPad" was filed on November 17, 2009. It's registered under Interserve, Inc. doing business as TechCrunch (apologies if the link goes dead - sometimes they use weird sessions on USPTO.gov):

[http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4002:t9...](http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4002:t9m119.2.1)

<comment><USER7> They may have some claim to use the word "crunch" since all of their websites have this in the name.

<comment><USER8> "Interserve, Inc. doing business as TechCrunch" - the phrase "doing business as" (aka "dba") is a legal term, technically known as an assumed name. This means TechCrunch _is_ Interserve and thus owns the trademark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Actually, I am interested to know how much does it cost to get a hardware PROTOTYPE built. Say, if I have a really cool idea about a new 3g device , how much would it cost me to get it prototyped - what happens to the intellectual property rights in that case. Is it shared ownership or do I own all IP ?

Anybody have any idea about pricepoints...

<comment><USER8> I don't have much experience, but I'll throw out some guesses to prime the pump. The CrunchPad is a _very_ non-trivial design, there is probably a couple million invested either as real money or contributed effort ("IP").

a) Cost of a prototype... it depends. :-) Your hypothetical is badly underspecified.

In the boat owner world, we use a unit known as a Boat Unit of Cost (BUC) which is typically defined as $1000 ($100 if you are cheap like me, $1,000,000 if you are Larry Ellison <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison#Sailing> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_%28yacht%29>).

Lets define a "Prototype Unit of Cost" (PUC) to be $100,000.

Designing the hardware (schematic, mechanical) if you don't do it yourself.

      1.0 PUC for a starting point for design to schematic capture.
      0.5 PUC for a simple layout.
      0.5 PUC for mechanical design.

Software, assuming you are using open source (say porting U-Boot and a Debian- based linux distribution to your device). If you add custom application software on top of this, you will add 1-10 more PUCs.

      1.0 PUC (linux boots and runs well)

Fabbing a 1-4 layer board is pretty cheap for prototype quantities, a couple hundred to a few thousand dollars. This is probably your cheapest purchase. :-/

      0.1 PUC

If you are using small surface mount parts (i.e. need to use automated machines to place parts), it costs a LOT for the first unit, but the next 10,000 are pretty cheap. If you promise to build large quantities, the assembly outfit will build the first few prototypes at a fairly reasonable price. If you stiff them and don't go to production, well, that probably only happens once. Ever.

      1.0 PUC.  Maybe less, likely more.

If you need a custom or semi-custom enclosure, $$$ (my crystal ball has no experience, and it will be heavily dependent on what the enclosure is).

      0.1 - 1.0 PUC

If you need FCC/CE/UL certification (i.e. not a hobbyist device), add a lot more. Again, my crystal ball is inexperienced, say...

      1.0 PUC assuming passing the first time (perhaps with some minor mods).

So, having said all that, my gut feel is:

* Hobbyist device... $1,000..$10,000

* "Collection of already certified modules" simple commercial device, mostly self-designed... $100,000..$500,000.

* Outsourced design, software, with a more integrated design (less buying of pre-certified modules)... $500,000..$5,000,000

b) You own all the IP that you paid to have developed. The legal doctrine that covers this is "work for hire." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire> (Disclaimer: IANAL, you _always_ want _your_ lawyer to CYA for you on this!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I look forward to learning the other side of this fiasco.

<comment><USER5> _Chandra also forwarded an internal email from one of his shareholders. My favorite part of the email: "We still acknowledge that Arrington and TechCrunch bring some value to your business endeavor…If he agrees to our terms, we would have Arrington assume the role of visionary/evangelist/marketing head and Fusion Garage would acquire the rights to use the Crunchpad brand and name. Personally, I don't think the name is all that important but you seem to be somewhat attached to the name."_

I just don't see how you could possibly spin that. It's clearly out of the blue & they're clearly trying to push TechCrunch out.

<comment><USER11> Something's sketchy. Wouldn't the TechCrunch lawyer have referred to a contract covering their partnership arrangement? The letter by the lawyer is pure scare tactics. It does not point to any specific violation of a written contract anywhere. Was there even a Letter of Intent signed by TechCrunch and these folks? If not, that's just amateur hour over there.

<comment><USER6> You raise a very good question. Was there a legally binding contract/agreement between both parties, or was it done "on a handshake" without really having a solid legal backing?

<comment><USER12> It does mention breach of contract several times. but not what contract... perhaps they're trying to imply a contract/rely on oral contract?

does anyone know if there's precedent showing how a court would react to the publication of letters and emails concerning a legal rift and running up to proceedings - will courts look favourably on that at all?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of Hearst running the headline, "How do you like the Journal's War?" taking credit for the Spanish-American war.

</comment><comment><USER14> I wonder what kind of problems TechCrunch is going to face suing a company in Singapore... The laws in Singapore might be very different and Fusion Garage might be favorable since it's a local company. At best they can sue distributors of CrunchPad in USA, but Fusion Garage could just target Asia and Europe.

</comment><comment><USER15> well it was inevitable...and I wish them luck.

But suing someone in another country seems like an impossible proposition. It's one of the inherent risks of offshoring, if the other person screws you over, you really don't have any real recourse.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not a lawyer but is it not possible that if a lawsuit proceeds, TechCrunch's own inaccurate, often speculative, bordering on drama queen news posts could work against them? A lawyer could paint TechCrunch as the kind of entity that blows everything out of proportion, including their involvement in this project. Surely the lawyer could dig up some TechCrunch stories spewing inaccurate rumours and speculation as proof. Seeing as how it would be a civil case, this sort of evidence could surely be brought up could it not?

<comment><USER16> you're right, you are not a lawyer

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I must have missed the part in the article where Arrington says why I should care about this publicity stunt.

<comment><USER7> I think we've passed the point for publicity stunt speculation. There's enough blood spilled that this couldn't have been the intent.

<comment><USER17> Fair enough. Replace "publicity stunt" with "drama". Stuff being leaked and shady things happening are not new things to happen on TechCrunch by any means.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Who cares? really. Lets not give Techcrunch so much attention for some vaporware.</comment>


Ask HN: Why are you using recruiters for recruitment? - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to understand why companies seem to use recruiters exclusively.  I've worked for small to medium sized global companies, that have always offered a way around using recruiters (careers page etc), or not used them at all.<p>Looking through LinkedIn and various other job sites, there appears to be little way to apply for some of the jobs there, but through a recruiter.  Do technical recruiters really offer value for money over a standard HR department filtering applications? <comment><USER2> One advantage of recruiters is that it allows "illegal filtering". You can give the recruiter instructions "No candidates over 40 years old!", and then it's almost impossible to prove that you did something illegal.

<comment><USER3> Aha!

BTW, are you the FSK of "FSK's Guide to Reality"? If so, please count me in as a huge fan.

<comment><USER2> Yes. My blog moved to "realfreemarket.org" now. I've been falling behind on posting lately, but getting back into it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A lot of the best people a company wants to hire are the people who are happily employed, whose employer wants to keep them, and need to be talked into applying - especially if a candidate might be in a different city and would need to relocate, etc.

Even if someone is already applying for jobs, if your resume goes through a recruiter, they can talk you into at least interviewing at a place you otherwise might not, which gives the company a chance to sell themselves to you (for instance, there are a lot of extremely talented and exciting teams and projects in otherwise boring companies that you might not be aware of).

A recruiter can often do some level of assessing candidates before their resume gets to an engineering manager, saving a LOT of time for someone who's already very busy.

On some level, it's the idea of outsourcing things that someone else can do better. If you find someone who can bring in great candidates for interviews better than you can, why wouldn't you hire them, so you get better results and can focus on what you do better?

</comment><comment><USER5> One reason not mentioned already is that HR does not have the technical expertise to understand if someone is a good candidate. Also HR may be busy with other responsibilities.

Finally, many positions are difficult to fill especially if the company isn't well-known in technical circles. The easiest way to get candidates is to go through recruiters

<comment><USER6> > One reason not mentioned already is that HR does not have the technical > expertise to understand if someone is a good candidate

This may be true, but it's often doubly true for recruiters. The best recruiters I've spoken to admit that they know very little about the subject.

No matter what, the candidate always has to be judged by someone who does have the required expertise, which means someone who's not HR or a recruiter.

I'm no fan of recruiters, but the good news here is that recruiters who have the exclusive right to offer candidates to a company, tend to be the better ones: not too expensive, not getting in the way too much, contracts without non-compete clause (because they have this exclusive deal anyway), and they really try to add some real value, because otherwise they might lose this exclusivity deal.

The real problem are the recruiters who try to get in front of those exclusive recruiters: they take the job descriptions from the exclusive recruiters and spread those all over the place, including in our mailbox. They have a much higher rate, often taking $10 off our hourly rate (for freelancers at least), insist on non-compete clauses that limit your job opportunities later, and try to make as much money with as little work as possible by simply shoveling piles of CVs towards anyone who might be looking. And they get in the way of communication between candidate and company, though that effect is unintentional.

<comment> atom-morgan > The best recruiters I've spoken to admit that they know very little about > the subject.

From my own experiences, this is very true. Some didn't know the difference between JavaScript and Eclipse which made me very skeptical about their ability to assess my skillset.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The jobs on the job boards are the ones that cannot be filled by referrals, career pages, etc...It's really a last resort.

If you post a job to a semi popular job board, you get a glut of CVs, most of which are completely irrelevant. You hire a recruiter to protect you from that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can understand the case for hiring a recruiter for a small business (what I would consider less than 50 employees), where a HR department might not be a permanent fixture. But when I see recruiters for Fortune 500/50 etc companies, I do wonder what's going on there.

<comment><USER7> It is not any less of an issue for bigger companies. They have proportionally more positions open.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> network. their whole value is they (and their contacts) know more talented people than you (and your contacts). if they don't, then you're paying for a glorified scheduler / Linkedin message sender.</comment>


LinkedIn Down - <AUTHOR> http://www.linkedin.com/#en

<comment><USER2> With respect, should HN really be about posting every time a site (as opposed to a major service provider) goes down? This isn't really useful information.

</comment><comment><USER3> So, LinkedIn down. Reddit currently down too. Also StumbleUpon, Yelp. Also down early today Heroku, Netflix, Instagram, Rapportive, Pinterest ...

Not a good day for the Internet.

Are these all EC2 issues ? Leap second issues ?

<comment><USER4> All this leap second stuff reminds me of Y2K, except its actually happening and actually taking the internet down...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Let's not post when sites go down, even if it is a large site.

</comment><comment><USER6> Reddit is showing its emergency maintenance page sporadically, I wonder if the root cause is the same.

</comment><comment><USER7> Leap second for sure</comment>


Michael Burry of 'The Big Short' Slams Virus Lockdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-07/michael-burry-slams-virus-lockdowns-in-controversial-tweetstorm <comment><USER2> > "Universal stay-at-home is the most devastating economic force in modern > history"

Pursuing perpetual economic growth, combined with externalizing costs where possible, on a finite planet beats its devastation by far.

Among other things, that growth and externalizing costs led to factory farming and encroaching into wildlife territory that have caused pandemics to increase in recent decades. Not limiting that growth -- at least limiting the number of animals we pack together -- will create more pandemics. Limiting it won't solve everything but it will decrease a lot of problems, including pandemics.

Why pandemics will keep increasing: [https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and- the-environment/episo...](https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the- environment/episodes/318-why-pandemics-will-keep-increasing-and-how-we-can- revers)

</comment><comment><USER3> If we are lucky, and there is a miracle, the mortality rate will be < 0.2%. Even more of a miracle and the R0 is ~6 and most people are asymptomatic.

However, we could still be on course for a second wave, like 1919, then we are totally fucked.

But we don't know, and really didn't know when europe went into lockdown. It looked like the mortality was ~7% which would have been devastating.

I have yet to see any double blind study that suggests _any_ drug makes an impact. Barring vitamin D, but thats a metastudy, and also its too late for most people (you need a month.)

In short, he asking us to make a massive gamble.

Yes, the poor are suffering, but helicoptering money is a piece of piss compared to re-building a community. if the US had decent unemployment insurance, like germany, then unemployment would be 10% of what it is now.

<comment><USER4> > if the US had decent unemployment insurance, like germany, then unemployment > would be 10% of what it is now.

I'm not sure I understand how better UI reduces unemployment.

But more importantly unemployment only captures half the problem. Businesses are not designed to go into hibernation. If asked you to hold your breath for two hours, it's gonna be tough for you to start breathing again when I give the all clear.

<comment><USER5> All those are man made problem and have solution. Our system is not designed to be paused, but can be changed to do so. To pause the spread of a virus is much harder.

<comment><USER6> Do you have an idea on how to implement a pause function into the economy? We live with the flue, but actually a pause could help there too to stop the spread in the season.

Who pushes the pause button? How do the businesses agree on pushing their pause button at the same time?

Should there be a pausing fund? Paid in by all businesses that make business overseas?

I find this interesting. Reminds me a little bit on traffic jams. If cars were automated, all cars could start/stop at the same time.

<comment><USER7> We have a pause function, it is when governments issue public health and safety orders.

The people that push the pause button are elected governments,

There is a pausing fund, it is taxes and government borrowing through the national debt.

<comment><USER6> I agree. But did not consider it as a solution. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It reminds me the often quoted story of the paperclip maximiser. This powerful AI set up by a factory to improve its production of paperclips. Its objective function is solely to maximise the number of paperclips produced. So it does a great job at it, then becomes out of control, starts consuming all resources on earth to produce more paperclips, and once it has destroyed earth, goes on to take over the universe to produce paperclips.

I feel a lot of the scientific advisors to governments are "covid19 death minimisers", solely focusing on people dying from this virus at the expense of any other consideration, like the effect of elective procedures being postponed indefinitely, tens of millions of families in hardship, economic collapse, etc.

<comment><USER9> i feel like i'm taking crazy pills whenever i read these "consider the economic casualties".

can you please tell me what the projections re economic casualties (ie people that die from e.g. starvation/privation post covid19) are for literally any other first world nation? my distinct impression is that only in the US are we being forced to choose between people dying from covid or people dying from poverty as a result of covid. shouldn't that tell you something about how we're approaching this problem in and of itself!?!

<comment><USER8> I don't think we are going to settle the debate utilitarianism vs kantianism in this thread but I'll try at least to defend one side.

I didn't use the term "economic casualties". An economic crisis causes a huge amount of human suffering on massive scale, hardship on tens if not hundreds of millions of people. And this itself may have its own health consequences, but I think human suffering in all of its forms needs to be considered.

But even if we assigned zero weight to that human suffering, if we go the route of pure "death minimisation", it is not even clear that the economic collapse route is less lethal.

For two reasons: the first is that it is unclear what additional mortality the virus would cause vs a regular year. The median age of a covid19 victim seems to be in the 80s, and almost always (99% based on Italian figures) with some co-morbidity. It is not clear how many would have died within 18 months of something else. The other thing is that economic collapse does cause deaths also, for instance through political unstability. I think it is fair to say that the arab spring was triggered by the economic hardship caused by the 2008 crisis. And I don't know that we would have had a WW2 without the 1929 depression.

<comment><USER9> >The other thing is that economic collapse does cause deaths also

you've completely missed my point: is there any other western nation claiming that what's at stake here is economic collapse (and consequent deaths) or the deaths of the vulnerable to the virus? i think the answer is no (but i don't read german/norwegian/italian newspapers so i might be wrong). only in the united states are we forced to choose one or the other. you should stop to consider why that's the case.

<comment><USER8> I am not sure I understood your post. Are you saying that other western nations do not expect a long lockdown to cause an economic collapse? Or that everyone agrees that an economic collapse is preferable to covid19 deaths?

<comment><USER9> i'm saying that other western nations have welfare policies in place that prevent supposed economic hardship and suffering from a downturn/recession/depression while america does not. simple as that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think he is spot on.

We are drowning in platitudes while people's lives are being ruined. Entrepreneurs and small business owners are seeing their life's work stripped from them by a policy choice served by ass covering politicians and a class of media elites ever willing to promote the post-modern illusion that death is subject to our whims and not the other way around.

<comment><USER7> We are drowning in platitudes while people lives are being lost.

People are having their lives stripped from them by economic policy choices that value unaccountable wealth accumulation combined with rent-seeking and corruption by a group of economic elites ever willing to promote the post- modern illusion that wealth and societal health is due to "job makers" and not the other way around.

If the economy and business cannot survive what is now only 2 months of interruption, then perhaps the economic system needs to be more robust and structurally sound. Deregulation has led to an unaccountable financial "industry" that produces nothing except churn in the name of "liquidity".

After the Great Depression, in addition to the economic stimulus in the US of WW2, the market and banking reforms led to a more proper focus on Main St and not Wall St. That focus needs to return.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> He also publicly claimed that index funds are a bubble fairly recently.

([https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/arti...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-09-04/michael- burry-explains-why-index-funds-are-like-subprime-cdos))

Two thoughts: Maybe bloomberg will interview him whenever they want a somewhat contrarian bearish view? If he made money from short positions now, could it have been for a reason completely unrelated to COVID?

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't think it's crazy to balance the economy with lives lost. Much like how we accept that some people will die in traffic accidents if the speed limit is a certain number.

However it seemed last month that the correct thing to do was to close down. At least so that hospitals were not overwhelmed, causing extra deaths beyond the "natural" amount for this disease and others that people use hospitals to treat. In other words, a non-linear effect on death rates caused by the sudden spike.

Now we're between a rock and a hard place, because while taking a week or two off would be tough but OK for most businesses, taking 4 weeks or 8 weeks off is not simply 4x or 8x as bad. Thus, another, competing, non-linear effect.

We also have the problem that the pandemic is not synchronized, so any area that does manage to keep it down is going to have to keep the border closed towards people from places where it's still going on.

The only solution that seems like a good compromise is to have lots of testing so that people who know they are infected, even ones who don't feel ill, can be quarantined. Also of course generally keep old people away from too much contact with everyone else. But somehow even months after the virus was discovered, the number of people tested anywhere is not really high. I would have thought we'd ramp up production of test kits massively so that everyone who's been near someone positive is tested, plus everyone else is randomly tested.

<comment><USER12> What if we spent $1 trillion on the science of testing and treatment instead of bailing out more congressional darlings? It's not like we don't have the dough.

<comment><USER13> Past a certain point, you can't buy speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You will also note that Dr Burry doesn't live in Italy or NY and has enough money to escape to NZ in a private jet if he turns out to be wrong.

<comment><USER4> As someone who has been sheltering in place in NYC for the past three weeks, what is going on in the news media's portrayal of New York? I've had random acquaintances reach out from abroad and across the country who I haven't talked to in months or years reach out to see 'how we're surviving'. The only people I know who fled New York did so because they owned larger homes which would be more comfortable, rather than a fear of the virus.

You'd also be surprised how hard it is to escape to New Zealand right now.

<comment><USER15> > You'd also be surprised how hard it is to escape to Mew Zealand right now.

Yep, closed to all but citizens and permanent residents - so unless you pulled off a Peter Thiel[1] (sigh), you're shit outta luck at the moment.

[1]: [https://www.nzherald.co.nz/indepth/national/how-peter- thiel-...](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/indepth/national/how-peter-thiel-got- new-zealand-citizenship/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > "It very suddenly reverses the gains of underprivileged groups, kills and > creates drug addicts, beats and terrorizes women and children in violent > now-jobless households, and more. It bleeds deep anguish and suicide."

This sounds the ravings of someone who acted like they saw the hidden gears moving the economy. Now they're frighteningly uncertain, and want to exert their influence to regain their sense of comfortable uncertainty. And in the trade-offs, he's revealing his biases, which is careful to limit to good luck:

> "Vaccines are not coming anytime soon, so natural immunity is the only way > out for now."

But we've heard enough from other people stupid enough to say it out loud-- we're going to lose some % people, but the damage to the economy will be worse --to know what he's alluding to.

Frighteningly uncertain, because if the absolute worst thing happens and everything goes MadMax, it's the wealthiest who will have targets on their backs--October Revolution.

See. I can sound like an A$$, too.

</comment><comment><USER17> If he's so vocal about the virus lockdown destroying lives, why was he never vocal about wars? Wars literally destroy lives and economies. Total destruction.

Gimme a break. He's piping up because he bet on the Russell (which completely went against him earlier this year) and those companies will get punished disproportionately due to the lockdown.

There's way too much emphasis on listening to financial figures when in fact they are just as clueless if not more. Money does not equate to intelligence and wisdom. Be wary of listening to people with a lot to lose.

By the way, his take on passive investing is only half right. There's a reset every quarter. The way to play it is to short single name volatility at earnings.

<comment><USER18> Did you read the article? "He told Bloomberg News last month that he placed a "significant bearish market bet that is working out for now," without providing details except to say it was a trade of a "good size" against indexes."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Those who control capital have decided that the human losses will largely be seen in the working class, who they see as expendable. People will die if the economy is re-opened, for them it's seen as an acceptable loss.

Look at the minority of people protesting the lock down, a large majority are small business owners who want their employees to get back to work.

Corona virus has effectively been a government mandated strike for labor (save "essential workers" at Amazon and the like) the likes of which the capitalist class haven't yet seen.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is there any legitimate study regarding Chloroquine by now? Last thing I heard was that it is useless. Michael Burry sounds like any other right winger by now.

</comment><comment><USER21> If the entire world would just agree that EVERYONE must stay home for two weeks at the same time, the whole thing would effectively be over and done with.

In fact, I've been saying this for over a decade now... We should have a global holiday every ten years doing exactly this, as it would seriously decimate all contagious disease populations.

</comment><comment><USER22> It is particularly ghoulish to accept the death of millions of people, simply because it would be better for the market.

Really, this financial crisis was brewing and on its way, coronavirus or not, because we didn't take the lessons of the 2008 crash to heart. This pandemic was simply the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, but it is very tempting for economists and politicians to place the blame squarely on this scapegoat, so they can continue the cycle of booms and busts, which benefits only those with enough capital to weather the risks and buy in at the bottom of the curve.

If we want to break this destructive cycle, we need to rethink our approach to economics and society: [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674980822](https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674980822)

<comment><USER23> Economic depressions kill people.

<comment><USER22> Then perhaps let's rethink economics into something more sustainable and not plagued by booms and busts and rent-seekers.

As an added benefit, we can make human civilization less harmful to the environment, by reducing our massive overconsumption and focus on sustainability.</comment></comment></comment>