Rate my startup: Gantto, easy to present Gantt charts on the web - <AUTHOR> http://www.gantto.com

<comment><USER2> 1) If you have collapsed a rollup and it contains tasks with precedents for other tasks, then the rollup needs to have the lines added.

2) If you collapse a rollup, it should still be draggable in time (left and right) and this should move all tasks within the rollup as one thing. The first task seems to have that functionality, but that's not intuitive.

3) Why can't you drag up and down since you have move up and move down?

4) On the date picker... DD, WW, MM, QQ, YY, ALL... but where is financial year? Or rather... custom iterations (fortnights, financial year, reporting segment, etc).

5) If I stuck this on a web page... could I give it data somehow? Could I provide it with some XML (since I note you allow save in that format) via JavaScript?

6) Colours... but yeah you're getting to that. The templates... they're kinda ugly but you've got the right idea and people will want to fit them to their own company scheme.

7) Your zoom buttons need a "Return to default".

8) It's got to be said... but you really need to allow XML import from MS Project files.

9) Keyboard shortcuts. Think of the power users... they should be able to create tasks with the simplicity of moving through Excel... this is what your competition is. So they need to tab to go right (rather than next active control in the tab order) and return should go down to the next row.

Those are some starters :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for taking the time to test drive. We are saving these comments and will use them to drive our next set of features and feature improvements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's flash-based. I would have skipped the link if I had known.

My corporate desktop does not include flash. Surely corporate users are part of the core audience for Gantt charts?

<comment><USER4> To provide the opposite anecdote: my corporate desktops have always had Flash, if nothing else but to allow Flash video tutorials, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Your demo is ugly (Sorry, had to say it), but it works and I like the fact that you can pan around by clicking anywhere. That is not obvious however and might need a hint somewhere. The custom scrollbar is not intuitive because of the coloring, I kept thinking the track was the slider and vice-versa. After playing a bit more with it I discovered you have color themes. DEFINITELY use one of those by default. The grayscale theme is super boring and completely opposite of your goal which I believe is to "show off" your project schedule.

I think you should be able to pan by dragging the chart header (the months/years).

Turn on alternating columns in the demo. Also use the square or round corners but not the one in the middle.

Also the task tree could stand to be widened a bit by default, it looks weird that in your demo you start off with a bunch of tasks only showing halfway.

Expand/Collapse should be a single button, the icon of which changes to indicate state.

When you do a snapshot it is not clear what the output file is going to be I just got a file called "chart" - is that an Image? Is it a MS Project file?

I'm not sure you want to use the full blow "File/Edit/Format/View/Help" menu. It blends in too much with the chrome of the browser window and you would probably be better served (in terms of UI/UX) by using standard icons for the most commonly used items. Also add contrast to that menu/toolbar (Still talking only about file/edit/etc...) so that it doesn't blend with browser chrome so much.

The units on the "Zoom tool" in the bottom right corner are not obvious to me (the P and W)

Otherwise its looking really good. Keep at it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the comments, we will definitely be using these to drive the next set of feature developments.

Just FYI, the snapshot is a .png screenshot and we can definitely clarify that better. There is also a saveAs which saves in our own format and ultimately will save to each of the various PM formats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Probably just a coincidence, but -

<http://gantto.com/>

<http://preceden.com/>

<comment><USER7> Preceden's my work and if their design was based on mine, I don't mind at all. I tend to base my initial designs on sites that look aesthetically pleasing to me and then adjust it over time to be my own. The dark blue header, for example, was inspired by <http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/>. I'm sure they're doing something similar.

Site looks great though--wish you guys the best.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind wishes! We looked all over the place for inspiration for our site. Though the resemblence here is just a coincidence, clearly we like your style.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 100% flash? No thanks. Good luck though.

<comment><USER9> What do you have against flash as far as this tool is concerned? How and how much would having such a tool but entirely in HTML5 influence your buying decision?

<comment><USER10> Flash apps tend to crash a lot.

Although some HTML apps have this problem too, Flash is invariably laggy.

Flash doesn't work well on Linux, and many of the people in my world run Linux desktops. (And some won't run proprietary software on principle.)

The UI of Flash apps is always some homegrown awfulness that tries hard but is never as intuitive or responsive as native UI, and not even as good as web browser controls.

With Flash apps, printing usually doesn't work as you expect.

You can't save the page.

Flash apps don't really exist on the web. Even if you give each Flash app its own URL, that just means you re-download the same framework over and over again and then load the data.

It is cumbersome (for instance) to bookmark, or bookmark a particular view, or to link directly to other content, or to have a task expand to show an iframe of other content on the web. Some advanced HTML apps have similar difficulties in practice, but Flash apps have these issues in principle.

None of my existing web browser plugins work well with Flash content. For example, some people have spellcheck built into their browsers; now they can't use that when entering data. Even something as simple as cut and paste sometimes doesn't work quite right.

<comment><USER11> No, Flash apps only tend to crash on Linux and it is slow on Macs. So ignore that 0.1% of the paying online Gannt chart user market and you'll be fine.

Flash works great on Windows, and unlike HTML5 it works in IE6 which is what your market is still probably running on their corporate network.

No flaming intended, btw. I have a PC, Mac and a Linux netbook running right now on my desk. Chrome tabs die all the time in Linux when running Flash and my Mac beachballs sometimes running large swfs. My PC browsers (FF and IE) have never puked once over Flash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks pretty good, I should have a chance to properly try it out when another project starts up for me in a few weeks.

One minor issue: the horizontal zoom is a little counterintuitive.

The + button increases the number of weeks shown, effectively zooming out. The reverse for -.

Not a major issue, but it could throw someone off, especially because the vertical zoom behaves in a standard + to zoom in and - to zoom out fashion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point, I think we can reverse the horizontal Zoom and hardly anyone would be annoyed. We would love to hear about your experience and take your suggestions for improvement when you get to your next project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really realy minor, and not related to my personal distate of flash, but while your the tool loaded, the loader bar filled in from left to right as any loader would, but when it filled up, a second "loader" began to fill in from left to right.

Basically, when the first "loader" filled up to 100% and I expected to see the page, I was a put off by the second unexpected loader.

</comment><comment><USER14> The menu within the application looks perilously close to the browser UI — For example, users could easily click the back button when trying to open the file menu.

Screenshot: <http://screencast.com/t/NTVhYzA0>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the screen shot. This is a great point we had not thought through all the way yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Video looks decent enough. I would see this as a difficult feature to get people to know about. Preparing Gantt charts for presentations seems to be a niche enough market (project managers, IT consultants, managers, etc?) that you might have trouble getting them to adopt this tool. Certainly would be very difficult to get them to pay money for it.

Seems more like a feature you'd expect from a web-based project management software than something stand-alone. Is that your intention here? License the technology/tools to a service like that?

<comment><USER15> Is your video demo hosted on YouTube? I couldn't load it and my company blocks YouTube. If you are targetting the corporate market consider hosting the video on Vimeo or some other less-popular video sharing site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We are hosting on YouTube which is likely the problem. We will consider hosting on another site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ok you can import from all the current tools but what about exporting to them?

This can give people the confident that I can work on this on my own but when I send the file to somebody I can send them in a format that they know (also, good for trials, I will try it but what if I don't like it, I will have to redo all the stuff in my fave s/w again)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great point. We currently import from MS Proj but we don't yet fully export. I agree with you that it would lower the friction to starting up if it was guaranteed painless to transition back or work with other tools. This feature is on our near term roadmap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm sure some people on HN would find this app useful, but how on earth has this submission garnered 39 votes in 22 minutes?

I hope their aren't "pay $50 to get your post to the top of HN" services cropping up...

<comment><USER16> Checkout this thing I made posts are generally popular at HN... coz they cater to all the startup and hacker mentality.

<comment><USER17> Sure, but they rarely go to #1 and I've never seen one leap frog a pg article as quickly as this one did. Could be perfectly normal, but it just seemed anomalous to me.

Maybe Flash-based gantt charts are the new hotness. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As an alternate to expanding a task group, you might consider a drill down that just shows the sub-tasks. In the video you were able to make them fit, but that not be the case for a more complex projects.

From both marketing and SEO perspectives, I wouldn't limit the product overview to a video. You should add a page with screen shots, features, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good thoughts, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wait... hasn't this idea come and gone about 10 times in the last 10 years. I remember when I begged 37 signals to add this as a small feature about 4 years ago and they laughed it off. Also, some of the text in the biographies seem a bit exaggerated.

<comment><AUTHOR> We agree it is strange that this idea has not been done by now. We keep expecting that we will find it around the corner, but so far it has not actually shown up. Basecamp is a great product for many elements of managing projects, but I feel it still falls short on the visualization end of things. They look to pretty openly support 3rd party extensions and they are on our road-map of data to visualize.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Not sure about overall feature sets, but if Gantt charts are all you want, try out redmine (<http://www.redmine.org/>). It's an open-source issue-tracker that has Gantt charts out of the box.

</comment><comment><USER21> In my browser at work (IE7) on a 1024x768 resolution, your feedback button on the left covers your tagline (specifically the words 'easily,' 'automatically,' and 'effective.')

<comment><AUTHOR> Good catch, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just an suggestion.

If you made this as Atlassian Confluence Plugin AND/OR Atlassian JIRA Plugin -> We'd ve more than willing to buy into your idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great feedback. Thank you. I honestly have no idea what it would take to accomplish this but we will start looking into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> You'll want to be able to embed these easily in other pages, with very simple tags and url's, much like youtube. Does it do that?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a really good idea that seems to resonate with a lot of people. We can not do this yet, but it will be one of our top features to get to work on. Thank you for the comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This looks pretty slick, but 1) out of those who uses Gantt charts, who would actually use this and 2) who uses Gantt charts in the first place?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) Our hypothesis is that those who use Gantt charts and want to present them either to executives (more status and summary) or to a team (more details and dependencies) and are sick of strange screen shots or hand-drawing outcomes in powerpoint. 2) There are several different scenarios where Gantt charts are helpful. A typical example might be when one wants to model dependencies to figure out what the optimal order of execution might be or what the critical path might be. Another example is if one wants to set a target date and work backward in time to figure out when a decision or task has to be finalized. 3)We used them all the time in medical device, less so developing this software product with a small team...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> searching youtube for "gantto" yields nothing. you have to search for "ganttointro".

</comment><comment><USER26> Gantto sounds "Ghetto".</comment>


Atomic Bomb: Decision – Target Committee, May 10-11, 1945 - <AUTHOR> http://www.dannen.com/decision/targets.html <comment><USER2> I went to Hiroshima about 15 years ago with my ex-wife when we toured Japan (she is Japanese).

I was struck by a few details I'd never heard before growing up in the US:

1) The center of the detonation was a hospital. It's unlikely they tried to hit the hospital, but the fact remains it was 'ground zero'.

2) A good portion of the hospital's metal frame was still standing and was a focal point of a monument; grass was growing and generally speaking it didn't match up with what I expected to see as 'ground zero' (aka a crater, nothing growing, nothing standing).

3) No active US President has ever visited Hiroshima or the museum there dedicated to the atomic bombings; Carter visited after he was no longer president.

If you have a chance to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum it's well worth a visit. Quite humbling.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_Peace_Memorial_Museu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_Peace_Memorial_Museum)

<comment><USER3> > 3) No active US President has ever visited Hiroshima or the museum there > dedicated to the atomic bombings; Carter visited after he was no longer > president.

To add to that, Japanese leaders aren't so keen on visiting the Pearl Harbor site either. Though their emperor has now spent a visit there: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/4918516...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/4918516/Japanese- emperor-to-visit-Pearl-Harbor-for-first-time-since-war.html) Neither country has come up with a formal apology.

<comment><USER4> Considering all the bad things Japan did during their wars, it seems strange that you would bring up Pearl Harbor as an equivalent of Hiroshima. Pearl Harbor was a major military target and almost all casualties there were military (only ~100 civilians). All in all, the attack seems like a legitimate military action in every other way, but for the fact there wasn't a formal declaration of war first (at least as far as I know; I haven't studied the pacific war that much).

<comment><USER5> That likely was unintentional. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Japan...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Japanese_declaration_of_war):

 _" The attack took place before any formal declaration of war was made by Japan, but this was not Admiral Yamamoto's intention. He originally stipulated that the attack should not commence until thirty minutes after Japan had informed the United States that peace negotiations were at an end.[citation needed] The Japanese tried to uphold the conventions of war while still achieving surprise, but the attack began before the notice could be delivered."_

on the other hand, making the schedule that tight increases the risk that your message doesn't get delivered in time.

<comment><USER6> From what I have read the declaration of war took longer to decode at the Japanese Embassy then was expected, and thus was delivered late.

<comment><USER5> Yes, that's the next sentence on that Wikipedia page. However, it also says the message wasn't that clearly a declaration of war, and adds:

 _" In 1999, however, Takeo Iguchi, a professor of law and international relations at International Christian University in Tokyo, discovered documents that pointed to a vigorous debate inside the government over how, and indeed whether, to notify Washington of Japan's intention to break off negotiations and start a war, including a December 7 entry in the war diary saying, "our deceptive diplomacy is steadily proceeding toward success." Of this, Iguchi said, "The diary shows that the army and navy did not want to give any proper declaration of war, or indeed prior notice even of the termination of negotiations ... and they clearly prevailed."_

I don't see how one can conclude that "clearly prevailed". The message apparently wasn't 100% clear, but there was a message.

Wikipedia also says the U.S. had broken the code used to encrypt that message. That makes it unlikely that there was a second super-secret message "make sure the next message arrives late"

(Of course, this is all playing historian from a single Wikipedia page, the occasional TV program, and a tiny bit of other reading over the years)

<comment><USER6> The problem with Japanese is that it possible to talk all day and say nothing of substance, its the perfect language for bullshitters (and politicians).

Even a simple sentences can be translated to have may different meanings. This came up again when the Americans had trouble translating the statements the Japanese made after the Hiroshima bombing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > It was agreed that psychological factors in the target selection were of > great importance. Two aspects of this are (1) obtaining the greatest > psychological effect against Japan and (2) making the initial use > sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be > internationally recognized when publicity on it is released.

Nice when people are honest enough about their own terrorism. (Like "shock and awe".)

<comment><USER8> I think terror bombing was unquestionably terrorism but I'd disagree about shock and awe. That is just trying to break the enemy armed forces moral with quick overwhelming strength. The cavalry charge of the modern war.

<comment><USER7> We can read about the "shock and awe" doctrine, because such concepts are carefully developed ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_awe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_awe)):

 _" Shutting the country down would entail both the physical destruction of appropriate infrastructure and the shutdown and control of the flow of all vital information and associated commerce so rapidly as to achieve a level of national shock akin to the effect that dropping nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese. "_

 _" The second example is 'Hiroshima and Nagasaki' noted earlier. The intent here is to impose a regime of Shock and Awe through delivery of instant, nearly incomprehensible levels of massive destruction directed at influencing society writ large, meaning its leadership and public, rather than targeting directly against military or strategic objectives even with relatively few numbers or systems. The employment of this capability against society and its values, called 'counter-value' in the nuclear deterrent jargon, is massively destructive strikes directly at the public will of the adversary to resist and, ideally or theoretically, would instantly or quickly incapacitate that will over the space of a few hours or days."_

(Disclaimer: I read those quotes in the original context, to guard against taking them out of context. But I haven't read the whole thing.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Quite tangential from the content - at the start is "Its transcription and formatting as an e-text, however, is copyright 1995-1998"

I thought that Feist v. Rural Telephone (1991) established that 'sweat of the brow doctrine' was not grounds for copyright. Should I assume that the person who claimed copyright here was incorrect in making the claim?

<comment><USER10> Feist established that there has to be creativity in something for it to be copyrightable. The level of creativity required is not very high. The Court said:

       To be sure, the requisite level of creativity is
       extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice.
       The vast majority of works make the grade quite easily,
       as they possess some creative spark, "no matter how crude,
       humble or obvious" it might be.

They also use the phrase "modicum of creativity" to describe the necessary creative level.

Formatting can have sufficient creativity to qualify for copyright. Such copyright will only cover the formatting, not the underlying text. If someone were to take just the text, and format it themselves (by hand or by script), that _should_ be OK.

Taking his exact e-text formatting? I don't know. Without comparing the originals to his version, I have no idea if his formatting was obvious and mechanical, or if it required creativity.

<comment><USER9> Well that was pleasantly easy to find - a copy of the original is at [http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/6.pdf](http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/6.pdf) .

I personally don't think there's creativity in this expression.

If there is, then the flip side is that I change the format even slightly then it's also creative, and the underlying facts are not covered under copyright.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was slightly curious that Von Neumann appeared at this meeting. The Wikipedia page about him has some more information[0]. Most notably, it states that:

        Von Neumann oversaw computations related to the expected size of the bomb blasts,
        estimated death tolls, and the distance above the ground at which the bombs
        should be detonated for optimum shock wave propagation and thus maximum effect.
        The cultural capital Kyoto, which had been spared the firebombing inflicted
        upon militarily significant target cities like Tokyo in World War II, was
        von Neumann's first choice, a selection seconded by Manhattan Project leader
        General Leslie Groves.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Nuclear_weapo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Nuclear_weapons)

<comment><USER12> Turing's Cathedral covers von Neumann's wartime work, the IAS machine and the purpose for which it was built, and many other aspects of his life.

[http://www.amazon.com/Turings-Cathedral-Origins-Digital- Univ...](http://www.amazon.com/Turings-Cathedral-Origins-Digital- Universe/dp/1400075998/ref=sr_1_1)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My dad, who is still alive, was an officer on Okinawa during WWII. He still has interesting recollections about the war there and the end of the war. They were all issued gas masks right after the the atom bomb was dropped because of the fear of escalation to chemical weapons. After hostilities ceased, he had an opportunity to fly over and see Hiroshima with a handful of other Marines.

As I get older I realize that I don't remember everything he told me about that time very well anymore. A friend suggested that I hire someone to go visit with him every week and and help him record his still quite vivid memories: the great depression, growing up in the dust bowl, traveling around the country with hobos on trains before the war, WWII, the civil rights movement, and more.

</comment><comment><USER14> No mention of Nagasaki.

<comment><USER15> I noticed the same thing. According to Wikipedia:

On May 30, Stimson asked Groves to remove Kyoto from the target list, but Groves pointed to its military and industrial significance.[73] Stimson then approached President Harry S. Truman about the matter. Truman agreed with Stimson, and Kyoto was temporarily removed from the target list.[74] Groves attempted to restore Kyoto to the target list in July, but Stimson remained adamant.[75][76] On July 25, Nagasaki was put on the target list in place of Kyoto.[76] Orders for the attack were issued to General Carl Spaatz on July 25 under the signature of General Thomas T. Handy, the acting Chief of Staff, since Marshall was at the Potsdam Conference with Truman.[77] That day, Truman noted in his diary that:

"This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital [Kyoto] or the new [Tokyo]. He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one.[78]"

Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Choice_of_targets)

<comment><USER16> > This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have > told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and > soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children.

I find this very ironic ..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This decision is covered in extensive detail in Making of the Atomic Bomb.

It was deliberated extensively, in a time before governments had lawyers at every target committee. One of the generals, LeMay, said there was no way to avoid bombing civilians because the Japanese had "deintegrated" their industry (his comment was that after bombing a civilian area, they noticed every house had a drill press still standing after everything else burnt down).

Nagasaki, by the way, was a last-minute addition due to weather at the planned target for the second bomb.

</comment><comment><USER18> Why would salt water ingress cause a nuclear reaction in Little Man?

Also it seems like this was the scariest of the two 'gadgets' to fly with; those emergency procedures (removing gunpowder!) seem like they probably wouldn't have much chance of success in a real flight emergency.

</comment><comment><USER19> Under section 5. Gadget Jettisoning and Landing: "This operation will inevitably involve some risks to the base and to the other aircraft parked on the field."

That has to be one of the most true statements ever to be written.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, no kidding.

On the other hand, the story of the plane is quite funny in terms of details (see wikipedia). The second gas tank couldn't be refilled, and the armed bomb couldn't be moved to another plane, so they took off with a half functionnng device. As famous, the winds drew the smokes over the first target, so they diverted to another one, and a third one, Nagasaki.

They actually had to save gas while flying. They had to land on another military stripe on an island. For some reason (I think the stripe was too short because they were on the wrong landing place, because of the fuel, because of the disabled tank) they didn't have enough lengh to land, so the pilots had to stand straight on the brakes. Quite circomvoluted for the most important bomb in the XXth century.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have seen a lot of WW-II movies with almost all sorts of stories/plots, but can't find anything on atomic bombing, does anyone know why ?

<comment><USER21> The BBC Oppenheimer miniseries is probably the best I've watched on it, though it's not just about the atomic bomb in WW2. I've also seen the "Fat Man and Little Boy" film mentioned by another poster. The later was ok, but it's sort of fictionalized and the Oppenheimer series covers the same events far more accurately and at much greater length.

BBC also had a documentary series on nuclear weapons and espionage that was pretty good.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppenheimer_(miniseries)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppenheimer_\(miniseries\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Secrets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Secrets)</comment></comment>


Ranking the Pain of Stinging Insects, from 'Caustic' to 'Blinding' - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-colorful-pain-index-of-the-stinging-ants-bees-and-wasps-around-the-world <comment><USER2> The little moving bugs on the page are a nice touch.</comment>


Can You Live A Year On Virtual Currency? Dibspace's Founder Will Find Out - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/16/can-you-live-a-year-on-virtual-currency-dibspaces-founder-will-find-out/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm the co-founder of the aforementioned company. Feel free to hit me up if you have any questions.</comment>


Cat Living in the Menubar - <AUTHOR> http://kyomesuke.com/runcat/index.html <comment><USER2> It's weird that most of the page is dedicated to the custom icon feature. I'd move most of the explanation to a secondary page. Perhaps left only one screenshot here, and use the empty space for gifs to show how the cat changes the speed at different use levels.

Can I reverse the animation?

What about a spinning icon? Just add one icon and the program will spin it automatically. Perhaps a wheel, windmill, spiral, ying-yang, ...

Perhaps the paying version can include some additional icons?

The custom icon use the alpha channel, but I guess most people is more use to the grayscale. Have you tested this with non technical people?

The text has some errors / strange use of words. For example

> You can register Self-made Runner. *

> * This function is a fee-charging content.

I could try to provide a better version, but I make a lot of mistakes in English, so you'd better get someone else with more knowledge.</comment>


Michel Foucault in Death Valley: A Boom Interview with Simeon Wade - <AUTHOR> https://boomcalifornia.com/2017/09/10/michel-foucault-in-death-valley-a-boom-interview-with-simeon-wade/ <comment><USER2> "We went to Zabriskie Point to see Venus appear. Michael placed speakers all around us, as no one else was there, and we listened to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf sing Richard Strauss's, Four Last Songs. I saw tears in Foucault's eyes. We went into one of the hollows and laid on our backs, like James Turrell's volcano,[1] and watched Venus come forth and the stars come out later. We stayed at Zabriskie Point for about ten hours. Michael also played Charles Ives's, Three Places in New England, and Stockhausen's Kontakte, along with some Chopin…."

That sounds like a fantastic evening even without the LSD.

The referenced [1] link to Roden Crater doesn't work for me, presumably due to the www. But [http://rodencrater.com](http://rodencrater.com) works fine.

</comment><comment><USER3> First hand account of that apocryphal story about Foucault dropping acid in the California desert. That first photograph, though. Looks like the cover of an Aldous Huxley novel or an issue of Omni Magazine ;)

Here's the paragraph from Logigue de sens where extolls the virtues of a successful trip:

"One can easily see how LSD inverts relations between ill humour, stupidity and thought; no sooner has it short-circuited the suzerainty of categories than it tears away the ground from its indifference and reduces to nothing the glum mimicry of stupidity; not only does it reveal this whole univocal and a-catagorical mass to be rainbow-coloured, mobile, asymmetrical, decentered, spiraloid and resonating; it makes it swarm constantly with event-fantasies; sliding across this surface, which is at once punctiform and immensely vibratory, thought, freed from its catatonic chrysalis, has always contemplated the infinite equivalence which has become an acute event and a sumptuously adorned repetition."

<comment><USER4> That paragraph certainly is hard to read. Sounds like something a high school student with a thesaurus might produce.

<comment><USER5> A lot of those terms read evocative, but are actually technical terms in Deleuze's philosophy (and that of his predecessors).

Deleuze is hard to understand because joining his world takes work. He's very precise.

I don't even know why Deleuze is being connected to Foucault here. Those two helped market each other and had _one_ political project in common (something re: abuse of power in prisons; but even Sartre was involved in this cause celèbre). But Foucault was a globe-trotter pleasure-seeker who got AIDS in the saunas of San Francisco and supported the Ayatollah's revolution. Deleuze on the other hand came from an ultra-conservative catholic background, was married only once to the mom of his kids, hated travel and probably never left France, and by all accounts was a great dad and husband.

Whenever Deleuze writes about drugs in extension, he preaches prudence -- it's a particular example in the wider concept framework of deterritorialization and the "body without organs". Hardcore masochists (yes, there's quite some sexual moralism in Deleuze) and drug addicts are those who do it too much, without the proper prudence and understanding.

<comment><USER6> > Deleuze is hard to understand because joining his world takes work. He's > very precise.

That's a tautology-- "Deleuze is hard to understand" is a restatement of "joining his world takes work." The question is-- why does it take so much work?

<comment><USER5> Philosophy is difficult because it tries not to rely on common knowledge and common sense. So it's difficult to access.

<comment><USER6> That's not a necessary property of philosophical writing, as evidenced by the writing of Hume, Locke, Descartes, Peter Singer, and many others.

<comment><USER5> Sometimes it's easier to fill in the blanks with commonsense ideas, yes. Much philosophy is deliberately obscure precisely to _avoid_ that.

Deleuze (or Leibniz, Nietzsche, Heidegger...) are not out to persuade you of any particularly easily-digestible position. Their whole project is to make you _think_.

Thinking is not comfortable, I know.

<comment><USER6> > Deleuze (or Leibniz, Nietzsche, Heidegger...) are not out to persuade you of > any particularly easily-digestible position.

I'm not asking about the writing of Neitzshe, Heidegger, nor Leibniz.

There was a claim that Deleuze's writing is difficult, which I assume to have meant _on top_ of the normal difficulties of working out the cogency of philosophical arguments. Otherwise the response would have been "philosophy is difficult," rather than referring specifically to "Deleuze's world."

<comment><USER5> Well, Deleuze uses words that sound exciting and already have commonsense language connotations (rhizomes! lines of flight! war machines!). This has the effect of attracting intellectually curious persons but also putting some intellectually mature people off.

Then, Deleuze is misused a lot. But so is quantum theory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> really wierd, most of my exposure to foucault is indirect.

this debate with chomsky on human nature is interesting [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8)</comment>


Cosmo: A free Metro-inspired theme for Bootstrap - <AUTHOR> http://news.bootswatch.com/post/36588968129/cosmo-a-free-metro-inspired-theme-for-bootstrap <comment><USER2> It is a nice looking theme but it has the same problem that Metro has: there isn't anything indicating what is clickable and what is not.

<comment><USER3> Any tile should be clickable in a Windows 8 Application. The problem is that it looks like Metro but it doesn't respect its guidelines.

<comment><USER4> Yeah. In Metro, it's fairly obvious what's clickable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a link to demo in there <http://bootswatch.com/cosmo/>

I like the look, and will definitely be using it in internal projects and prototypes.

I found it a bit hard to read super light gray on somewhat light gray or plain white background(quotations, dropdown). I think a little more contrast is required. The default button, especially when used on similar colored background(forms), has the same issue.

I understand they are going for the metro look, but adding a drop shadow to actionable items(buttons) while the not-clickable items remain flat(alert; element not clickable but the cross) will help mitigate some end-user confusion.

</comment><comment><USER6> Say what you will about Windows 8 / MSFT, but this is a damn fine-looking theme.

</comment><comment><USER7> I love bootswatch and would happily pay $5-$10 a month for regular swatches like this uploaded every few days / week, I'm not a designer nor do I want to spend time trying to be, bootstrap + bootswatch give me the ability to get something up ,running and looking pretty damn good very quickly.

<comment><USER8> I agree. wrapbootstrap is going in this direction, but they seem to have had the same ~dozen themes since they started out. I'd love for more really talented designers to create bootstrap themes -- non-designers are hungry for them. I'm particularly interested in bootstrap themes that make good use of creative typographic elements.

A subscription service would be very interesting, and if it were a reputable designer, I'd sign up in a second.

<comment><USER9> My biggest complaint about WarpBootstrap is that few if any themes have *.less support. This makes is much hard to use themes except as is. It also makes upgrading bootstrap more of a pain in the ass.

Having some sort of git integration would also make upgrading the theme and bootstrap itself easier too.

<comment><USER10> I'm interested to hear more of your thoughts on git integration so I shot you an email. Just a heads up. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like Metro but for one thing...

...the buttons aren't apparently clickable. I embrace the shift away from excessive skeuomorphism as much as anybody but failing to provide affordances is inexcusable.

</comment><comment><USER12>
       * { border-radius: 0 !important; }

<comment><USER13> I sense a little sarcasm in your otherwise short and great comment, but let me tell you, rounded borders _can_ be abused and combined with more intensive border colors, they can be downright frustrating to look at.

I personally found that a border radius of 1-3 pixels is usually a nice touch, but anything more than that should be added carefully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> related is Metro UI:

<http://metroui.org.ua/>

It is a complete CSS+Javascsript library to apply the Metro design and theme to a web app and includes things like icons, etc.

It is very popular amongst Microsoft web developers and looks really good.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is it just me, or do elements of it remind anyone of the latest gmail / google groups etc. interface?

<comment><USER16> My first thought was also that it's reminiscent of Google's UI elements. I think BootMetro does a better job (<http://aozora.github.com/bootmetro/>)

<comment><USER17> Windows Phone debuted in February of 2010, the Kennedization process didn't start until summer 11. Google's redesign was more influenced by Metro than the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One of the fewer beautiful Bootstrap Themes.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's interesting that people are still calling it "Metro", even after Microsoft was told to stop (because of a trademark issue). Microsoft stopped, but the rest of the world didn't, apparently. I know I didn't. It's a great name.

Can the company that went after Microsoft (Metro AG) go after other people besides Microsoft?

[http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/2/3215039/microsoft-metro- nam...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/2/3215039/microsoft-metro-name-dispute- developers)

</comment><comment><USER20> I like it, but the dropdown menus look strangely out of place.

</comment><comment><USER21> Sweet, going flat will reduce the gradient bloat that's currently in the default Bootstrap css.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's beautiful. For better readability on the demo page, I recommend the following:

section { margin-top: 60px; }

</comment><comment><USER23> You know when we built [PDFzen](<https://pdfzen.com>), we used Bootstrap and made it Metro-esque. I wish we'd have had something like this for the homepage. It certainly would've sped things up.

</comment><comment><USER24> Its only me? or i´m the only one here to think that Metro UI is corny like the 80´s ? i think that as time goes by, people will be ashamed of using this as they were ashamed about their hair style in their pictures from the 80´s :)

<comment><USER25> I think I feel the opposite. In general I think that simple-looking designs hold up over time better than more elaborate (can I still say skeumorphic?) ones.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, not really sure where they parent comment is coming from considering Metro draws inspiration from timeless design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Very nice! I've been waiting for something like this. There are other metro themes for bootstrap, but they're a bit over the top and try to replicate the metro GUI on the PC/tablet.

</comment><comment><USER28> I love this bootstrap Metro theme <http://wrapbootstrap.com/preview/WB0HT4KX4>

<comment><USER29> Okay, that actually looks like Metro.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Probably the best Bootstrap theme yet. This is also why Bootswatch some kind of "favourite" button so people can store the best themes for later use.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't understand why everyone loves and wants to emulate the metro look so much. I find metro to be really really ugly. Am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER32> It's good but It doesn't look like Metro. Infact, it looks similar to Google's Web apps UI (Gmail, Gcal, etc).

</comment><comment><USER26> Looks great! Although, why does the search box have rounded corners?

</comment><comment><USER33> Nice. I been looking for something like this: clean and simple...

</comment><comment><USER34> Funny enough, the form elements look better on Win8/IE10

</comment><comment><USER35> I love the look - reminds me of spongebob squarepants.

</comment><comment><USER36> Info is a purple button and a blue alert/badge/label.

</comment><comment><USER37> is it just me, or just the border radius has been removed ?

</comment><comment><USER38> Looking good! :-)

</comment><comment><USER39> color not bold enough, anyway, it's good.

</comment><comment><USER40> Not all that Metroy, as someone who spent all summer straight immersed in Metro.

Also, I wish Foundation would get 1% of the attention Bootstrap does. Once you figure out how to get past their docs-light into the full docs, I've found it to be FAR faster to work with than Bootstrap.

<comment><USER41> It will get the attention if it is a better product. There is no nefarious reason why Bootstrap is getting more attention than most other HTML/CSS scaffolds.

<comment><USER42> Oh i don't know, the 800lbs gorilla that is twitter? Inertia? Laziness? Crowd mentality? I don't know why people think life/business is always a meritocracy. It usually isn't.

<comment><USER43> I tried Foundation coming from Bootstrap and found that Bootstrap was much easier to use. Foundation did not have simple documentation and configuration was complicated.

<comment><USER40> >configuration was complicated

Okay, you got me. Huh?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I like it. I like it a lot, very stylish work.

</comment><comment><USER45> This style is what Bootstrap should have been from the start. Well done.</comment>


TSA Reportedly Demands To Inspect Man's Luggage For Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/28/tsa-reportedly-demands-to-inspect-mans-luggage-for-bitcoin/

<comment><USER2> If you read the blog post Techcrunch is summarising, you will find out:

1) The man is an anarchism/zero-government advocate. 2) He was wearing a provocative t-shirt featuring B52s and a slogan "Bitcoin not bombs." 3) He was nervous, difficult and antagonistic throughout the entire security process. 4) His backpack was full of metal lapel pins emblazoned with the Bitcoin logo.

This could be titled instead as: "TSA scrutinises erratic, apparently mentally-unstable anarchism activist to ensure he is not going to blow up a plane." The bitcoin thing is just a red herring, they suspected him and were casting around for different leads to see if they could get something out of him.

Honestly, there's no point in getting so upset and hostile going through airport security. Fixating on how your freedom is being desecrated or something like that is just going to get your back up and make everything worse.

<comment><USER3> What a load of shit. Just because he's an anarchist does not mean he's a threat to anybody - nor do any of the other facts you point out. And nothing about any of those facts justifies calling him "mentally unstable". You may not agree with his politics, but that hardly justifies character assassination, if not outright libel.

"Oh noes, fear the lapel pins!!!!!"

<comment><USER2> Firstly, I didn't call him mentally unstable. I suggested that, from another perspective (i.e. not the perspective of a stridently anti-government activist), he might be perceived as potentially being mentally unstable.

Secondly, all of these characteristics are red flags in a screening operation. No, they don't necessarily mean that he is a threat. But they do warrant closer inspection. Inspection that, from his account, seemed to provoke him to further erratic behaviour. And it's the job of security apparatuses to pay attention to people who act strangely.

This anti-TSA shit is ridiculous. So much of it revolves around ridiculing ordinary people without that much education working a fairly poorly-paid job. Like mocking people for not understanding how Bitcoin works.

America asked for better protection after 9/11, and they got it. Now they're bitching because they don't like it? Why is this so hard to understand? Do you want a security apparatus that tries its best to make sure dangerous people don't board planes, or do you want a security apparatus that waves any old person onboard?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with All-or-nothing mindset? - <AUTHOR> I've have this mindset when I'm trying to solve a problem when working on a hobby project.
When I encounter a problem, I _must_ output code at peak efficiency and optimization or it just isn't worth it.
If I'm working on a project at work (or at school) time constraints / teammates counterbalance my tendency to lose much time working and/or thinking too much for a little problem that should be solved in a relatively short time.
However, since in hobby projects I don't have such constraints, I lose too much time researching optimal ways to solve a problem and not get any work done. Eventually I lose interest not having got much work done.
Does anyone have experience dealing with this mindset? <comment><USER2> Ah, a question I can answer.

This used to be a huge problem for me, but it's become much less of an issue. It's a bit weird, but I think what helped the most was that I really got into the concept of "thin-slicing" as my default approach at work: "what is the least amount of work I can do that gets me closer to where I want to go?". I'm really ruthless with it now, like

\- do I need to design my whole db schema right away? hell no, I need one table

\- do I really even need the db layer to get to prove out what I'm trying to see? actually no, I don't

\- do I need a UI? yes, but I only really need these elements, I don't need auth, I don't need X, I don't need Y, I only need Z.

It's really easy to fall into trying to optimize multiple things at the same time and thinking about second and third-order consequences of choices that you make. My new ethos, as bad as it sounds, is "focus on making something shitty. when i've got something shitty, then i'll make it less shitty" and repeat as needed - the compounding effect of "less shitty" is "eventually awesome". That doesn't always fly at work, but it's IMO the best way to get things done. I'd say 9 times out of 10, you learn so much more from making the shit thing than you do prematurely optimizing something in your head.

</comment><comment><USER3> One thing I've found incredibly powerful over time is sussing what "Good Enough" looks like in the context of whatever task I'm dealing with. I just can't overstate how much Good Enough is important. It saves you doing extra work, and from doing redundant work, and from getting forever stuck on one thing so you can't move on to the next.

The other thing to mention is that there's a false dichotomy between quantity and quality. Quantity is the only way to get to quality. At elite levels, improvements happen because you change how you do things. But to even get to that point, a lot of quantity work has to happen.

In other words, your gut is telling you that super-optimising is making you better, but it's not.

</comment><comment><USER4> All the time.

I think it's honestly a kind of mental creative hangup, like procrastination. Many times procrastination, all-or-nothing, and a feeling of the worst that can possibly happen will happen can easily derail me.

What's helped me is first admitting that these coping mechanisms might not be helping. Sometimes, they are useful, for example, in not spending huge amounts of money on a random idea that may or may not be feasible. But if it is a simple decision with small impact to your life, realize that. Realize the stakes are low, and the amount of time you are putting into it is higher than it merits.

Next what helps me is timeboxing. Just do it. To make this more fun, I think of it as a challenge. Can I code something in an hour, or before a movie is done, etc.

Experience has taught me what you worry about is rarely what gets you anyway. It's what you don't know might happen that gets you.

Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER5> <not sarcasm>Get a dart board. Then throw darts 100 times in a row. This will force you to confront the reality of imperfection. If you are sufficiently compulsive you will have taken the first steps towards a new hobby. Perhaps that is what you really need. Or not. Darts are fun anyway. Good luck.</not sarcasm>

</comment><comment><USER6> I have a tendency to do this sometimes. For me it helps to reframe the problem to a target spec. For example if I was making a 2D game I might get carried away with batching and atlasing things until I could draw tens of thousands of sprites rather than actually working on the game. Instead, if I write down somewhere: the game will have a maximum of 2-300 monsters on screen at any time, thus the engine target is 500 monsters at 60 fps. Then I have a clear pass/fail for the task, if I can draw 500 monsters then I'm done, even if I'm doing it in a dumb or brute force way.

Also, recognize that you might be drawn to working on problems you know how to solve and drawn away from problems you're not sure about. If you're good at optimizing code but not sure about handling player movement or whatever, you could be feeling the pull to do the thing you're good at.

</comment><comment><USER7> I was recommended "The Gifts of Imperfection" by Brene Brown for this problem. As self-help books go it's decidedly light on woo.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's useful for me to think about what I'm trying to accomplish.

Am I trying to learn something new? Am I trying to get something out quickly?

If you start out with the latter as the goal implement a naive solution with a TODO to come back to. If what you release starts gaining traction and you want to continue to work on it you'll come back to your TODO.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've struggled with this a lot as well. I think the solution is to work backwards, get automated deployment working first so there's nothing stopping you from shipping, then work from master to force you to ship small changes without getting stuck on never ending feature branches.

</comment><comment><USER10> As you become more expert, you will largely write the best code the first time.

You will also realize that the best software starts small, or as a fast toy to start with.

When you see a debate over 10x developers, that's between people who are not.</comment>


An Artificial Intelligence Developed Its Own Non-Human Language - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/artificial-intelligence-develops-its-own-non-human-language/530436/?single_page=true <comment><AUTHOR> _Facebook designed chatbots to negotiate with one another, the bots made up their own way of communicating._

This is The Atlantic's take on the paper, previously discussed on HN as: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14554101](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14554101)</comment>


Ingenious Low-Cost Tilt Detection System (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/a/9FMo38g <comment><USER2> Some considerations: these packages have a very strong adhesive on the back which is hard to remove without damaging the package or surface; they have unique serial numbers (barcoded on newer versions under the bubble packaging) so that they can't be easily replaced; and the balls are glass, not metal, so they can't be pushed around by a magnet. It's overall a pretty ingenious system.

Another one is the Tip'n'tell system, which uses fine coloured sand and clear tape to detect tipping in one direction. I once saw one of these affixed to the side of a large autoclave which had been shipped to our university. There's a whole series of these shipping indicators, for detecting acceleration (shock), temperature (too hot/too cold), and pressure.

<comment><USER3> I am always amazed at the lengths distribution warehouse workers will go to tamper with these vs. just not tipping the shipment. I've actually seen boxes of replacement stickers on the back of a forklift during a tour. I once had a shipment come in with TiltWatches on it and someone had slid pins through the plastic right above the balls to hold them in place. I now check for holes on these.

IF you are shipping something that really needs to be rejected if tipped, cover the stickers with a panel, shipping manifest, etc. Make sure the receiver knows to remove the covering and check before signing for the package.

Those Tip'n'tells double as great makeshift earthquake sensors. [https://i.imgur.com/v83aNzV.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/v83aNzV.jpg)

<comment><USER4> Absolutely. Receiver popping a panel to show the _other_ set of tip'n'tells can get some great expressions.

But if the shippers are serious, and use to moving 6-7 figure equipment around, they'll expect it.

<comment><USER5> But how do you prove these indicators weren't triggered _before_ shipping?

<comment><USER3> I usually do a walk around with a camera in the back of the truck before we button everything up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those who didn't quite get this on the first glance:

This isn't a low-fi analog sensor used for taking novel measurements of things. It's meant to be affixed to packages to determine if they were mishandled during shipment. If a package was dropped or overturned, the ball bearings will fall out of place and (presumably) be almost impossible to return to their original positions.

Pretty cool.

<comment><USER7> > and (presumably) be almost impossible to return to their original positions

Unless they have fixed them, the bearings are metallic and can be reset with a magnet. (I had to do this a few times when I bumped the thing putting it on)

<comment><USER8> This is why you stick them on the inside of your package, as well as the outside.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's a pretty serious problem indicated in the first comment:

"These are a ripoff. I ordered an entire case of these and every single one of them was already used when they arrived in the mail."

I think that comment was intend to be funny, but it does point out a serious problem: how do you ship these things to the end-user without triggering them?

<comment><USER10> Addressed below [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22469900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22469900)

<comment><USER9> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My last employer used these when shipping robots. I don't know which was better: being able to show mis-shipment, or the deterrent effect of these highly-visible stickers.

<comment><USER12> There was an article here a while back about a bike company having lots of trouble with damage during shipping. They changed their packaging so that it appeared that there was a TV in the box and not a bike and the damage claims dropped.

Found it: [https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/25/13048668/vanmoof- shipping...](https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/25/13048668/vanmoof-shipping- damages-dutch-bicycle-design)

<comment><USER13> That's funny! I had heard of this before, but I misremembered it as a TV company printing a bicycle on the box to deter theft. I sort of wonder if that would work now, come to think of it.

<comment><USER14> If a TV company put a bicycle on the box, there would be plenty of shipping damage. The only reason the opposite worked is because people naturally assume a TV is far more fragile than a bicycle.

<comment><USER15> By work, I think they were referring to avoiding thefts, not shipping damage.

<comment><USER14> Yes, perhaps I wasn't clear but I meant that instead of thefts it will become shipping damage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> We bought these and stuck them to some fairly expensive equipment crates when moving our lab. The movers got very annoyed and made us sign so many extra forms and take photographs. The entire move was insured as well,and I doubt they'd have agreed to take these crates otherwise

<comment><USER17> > movers got very annoyed

That speaks volumes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Large expensive equipment (shipped in custom-built pallets) use this. About $3/each to ship a $100+K box. [https://www.amazon.com/Tiltwatch-STWPLUS-Plus- Label-Pack/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Tiltwatch-STWPLUS-Plus-Label- Pack/dp/B00KG4BJN2)

<comment><USER19> How does one acquire these without triggering the tilt alert?

<comment><USER20> You don't, you just flip them all around and jiggle them to reset them. Then you hope nobody does that to your box...

<comment><USER8> If you don't know, don't guess.

<comment><USER20> The ones I used (20 years ago?) worked this way. It's not a guess, it's just outdated. Regardless, my apologies for the inaccuracy.

<comment><USER21> I guess those ones didn't have the 180° sensors on them? With these one it would be pretty much impossible to jiggle both balls into place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is not exactly new technology. I was involved in shipping large, expensive, delicate equipment overseas back in the 1990s and we used tilt indicators extensively. Not exactly the same as these, but very similar. Along with shock- and humidity indicators of course.

</comment><comment><USER14> I guess these are only used for very special applications, since I can't think of any consumer product that wouldn't survive being shipped in any spatial orientation; it's also easier to design packaging that ensures that, rather than add these detectors and deal with the damages. Shock, on the other hand, is far more damaging and harder to protect against.

<comment><USER23> large flatscreen TVs are quite vulnerable when laid sideways (even in the original packaging). the internal components are not designed to support their own weight in this orientation and can damage the screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Unrelated, but this reminds me of John Birges's self-made bomb, which would explode if tilted.

[https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2009/august/a...](https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2009/august/a-byte- out-of-history-harveys-casino-bomb/the-extortion-note)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey%27s_Resort_Hotel_bombin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey%27s_Resort_Hotel_bombing)

</comment><comment><USER25> Couldn't these be triggered by shock/vibrations that make the ball jump to the next slot? At first I thought they were filled with mineral oil or some viscous fluid to prevent this, but it looks like there are holes in the backing material so it's not fluid-tight.

<comment><USER7> Shock and vibration are bad too. You'll usually use tilt sensors with impact sensors: [https://spotsee.io/impact](https://spotsee.io/impact)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Assuming Z axis is "up", you'll need one of these for the X and the Y axis to catch all relevant tilts. It's probably not cost effective or practical to make a 2-dimensional detector, but I imagine you could.

<comment><USER7> I used these when we would ship servers off to edge sites. You end up putting 5 or 6 of them on the box... tilt sensors on two sides, impact sensors, and temperature/moisture to make sure they haven't been left out on tarmac/loading docks. $100 in stickers on a $xx,xxx shipment is an easy justification.

In practice they aren't hard for a motivated person to reset, but they do result in handlers along the way being a bit more careful with your stuff.

<comment><USER2> It's all about raising the bar for mishandling. Sure, if an unethical handling company messes up your shipment they could go at it and try and reset the indicator(s), but they could also just get the job done right and not risk getting sued if the client does detect the tampering. On the other hand, without indicators there's nothing stopping them from pretending they didn't just throw your box around...

<comment><USER27> It also tends to make it rather obvious fraud.

While replacing a sticker is legal, doing so to trick someone into paying you is usually criminal fraud.

Criminal liability is a _far_ bigger leap than normal deceptive business practices.

<comment><USER28> Especially since these stickers (and those like them) have serial numbers, and the sender typically notes the serial numbers in an email or similar when the item is shipped. The effort required to reset one without it being noticed is pretty high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Just curious if anyone knows the price of these? I wonder if an MPU6050 tied to an attiny micro would be cheaper.

Of course part of the value in the posted indicator is the resulting better (less rough) handling of a shipper that sees the monitoring device.

A good example of this phenomenon is the article posted on HN a few months back about bicycle companies shipping their bikes in TV boxes resulting in significantly less damage.

<comment><USER30> They're about $5 each. An electronic solution would probably be similar cost at scale, but ultimately easier to tamper with by hacking it, etc. These have been used for decades and are pretty close to tamper proof.

<comment><USER31> The electronic one could measure some other things, though. Like how long it spent in a tipped-over state, or what time it was tipped over so you know which shipper to blame.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I remember having a toy like this where you had to put multiple balls to different holes by tilting and shaking.

<comment><USER33> It's a similar idea, where the balls start in the 'finished' position, and very little tolerance to being disturbed. Recreating that state would be more trouble than it's worth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> In my experience, the blue/red "Tip-N-Tell" indicator arrow is more common -- and also cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER5> Or just put a glass of water in the box. If the box is wet upon arrival (or looks as if it has been wet), don't accept it.

This is better because with the tilt detection system you will not measure large vertical accelerations, which I suppose in most cases will also spoil the shipped product.

<comment><USER35> I would have to be ink, so you can't just dry the box. But even then they could siphon the ink out and put it back in shortly before delivery.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps add a transparent window over the cardboard?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Can't you just flip the box on its side, so that the label is horizontal, then use static friction and tap it with little inclination like you would do with those maze-ball children games.

To prevent this attack you could use two labels on two vertical orthogonal faces.

</comment><comment><USER37> I love simple and ingenious stuff like this.

Low cost, simple, and effective low tech way to monitor a shipment.

</comment><comment><USER38> Can't you tamper it with acoustic tweezers [1]?

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_tweezers](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_tweezers)

<comment><USER39> Ignoring the fact that delicate lab equipment is rarely found in warehouses....

Acoustic tweezers are usually meant to move much smaller particles (e.g., a cell), rather than big macroscopic things, though I think someone had a system that moved 1mm+ bits of foam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> There are also things similar to this which show if the shipment has been frozen, or un-frozen.

[https://www.scigiene.com/TI0300](https://www.scigiene.com/TI0300)

</comment><comment> jagged-chisel How are these shipped to folks who need to use them? Do they come with reset instructions? Looks like that 180-degree detector would be the worst to reset before applying the sticker.

<comment><USER41> See those holes in the sticker? I imagine the piece of paper you peel off holds pins into place in there, preventing triggering until after the sticker is applied.

<comment> jagged-chisel I hadn't realized those were holes. Makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> See the video [https://spotsee.io/tilt/tiltwatch- plus](https://spotsee.io/tilt/tiltwatch-plus)

</comment><comment><USER43> Video of the device working: [https://youtu.be/y0cohIWAbpA](https://youtu.be/y0cohIWAbpA)

tl;dr: it sticks to a package and has a tamper proof mechanisim to detect if it was inclined.

</comment><comment><USER44> It is clever, yes, but also something that has been used in the shipping and logistics industry for decades. So more "standard" than "ingenious".

<comment><USER45> Ingenious means clever, and the fact that it's not a novelty doesn't make it any less ingenious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Unfortunately it's quite difficult to prove _who_ tilted the devices in a court of law.

<comment><USER47> In the chain of custody that is shipment, though, it IS easy to check for violated detectors before accepting custody of the package, and refusing to accept responsibility for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Looks like to reset it you lay it flat and roll the balls to the small indentations.

<comment><USER49> More than one sticker in different planes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I imagine that you could bypass this system by resetting glass ball positions manually with the use of high-power acoustic grippers combined with additional manual tilting of the package.</comment>


Show HN: The Moderator Guru MVP - <AUTHOR> https://moderator-guru.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi Hacker News!

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Die Gedanken Sind Frei - <AUTHOR> http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/ <comment><AUTHOR> This talk explains some of the motivations of free software, and it's relation to the sharing of knowledge and ideas. I'm prompted to post it after reading some of the comments about Knuth's view of software patents.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this. A truly inspiring speech given by someone whose life is rooted in an awareness of history and whose actions today seek to serve those who will come next. An impressive man.</comment></comment>


Wave of spending tightens China's grip on renewable energy - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/37844fa4-d344-11e6-9341-7393bb2e1b51 <comment><USER2> Anyone can make a solar panel just like anyone can build a wind turbine just like anyone can build a sterling engine, just like anyone can build hydroelectric dams or solar furnaces. China does not have a "grip" on renewable energy - having a grip on something usually means excluding others from having that thing. China is not preventing anyone from building up their sources of renewable energy. The Financial Times should learn to choose their words better to communicate facts.</comment>


Trump Says He's Approved Oracle Deal for U.S. TikTok Operations - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-19/trump-says-he-s-approved-oracle-deal-for-u-s-tiktok-operations <comment><USER2> Isn't Ellison a big financial supporter of Trump's campaign?

<comment><USER3> Yup. It's pure nepotism and fealty, including the requirement to pay a tribute that can be held up by the "leader" in his own honor, similar to the museums in North Korea where they show off gifts from foreign countries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Honestly, I personally think that this is a pretty impressive strategic move on Trump's part. I mean considering the strong precedence it sets for future Chinese web app developers who intend to market their products internationally. I also think it's important to note that this is us just leveling the playing field in the sense that when we try to market our products there, we have to essentially do the same thing and build a special version just for them that the CCP can monitor and censor at will.

With Oracle being in charge of all the backend operations in the US and being a 10% shareholder I can feel confident that they will ensure that the CCP won't have the ability to just pick up a phone and gain access to all of our WeChat information.

But with all that being said, I still have a problem with the idea of any Government having the ability to access our private conversations willy, nilly and without any real oversight over the NSA to ensure their investigations are legit and not spying for profit.

That's why we need to start demanding that end to end encryption becomes an option we can at least pay for the option to use on all of the major social apps we use like FB, Twitter, etc.

Idk, at first I thought Trump was probably overstepping his "conservative" position by trying to step in and regulate the free market in a way where he is now "picking winners and losers", rather than letting the consumers being the ones who get to make this decision (which is something I passionately believe Government should never empower itself to do).

But then after looking into the situation a little deeper, I saw that they actually have two seperate versions of TikTok. One called Douyin which is specifically for Chinese users and then TikTok which is for everybody else.

After realizing that they were already operating from a walled off garden that keeps their people seperated from us and vice versa, I started to see very little point in having both apps operate from China.

<comment><USER5> I don't think it's a great strategic move. It is the US government saying people can't use a tool that facilitates expression of our 1st amendment rights because of how the tool's owner uses & shares data.

Objections to how data is used can be solved by law, with needing to do it by fiat of the Executive Branch. If we don't like how data is going to be used, make laws the dictate the desired restrictions. Then use the rule of law, not the rule of man. Formal legal processes, not vague appeals to national security, would guide any determination on breaches of those laws & appropriate escalating penalties. It would also have the benefit of not escalating a user data issue into a major geo-political incident.

<comment><USER6> Chinese-owned companies have no right to withhold data from the state.

China National Intelligence Law

Article 7: Any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law, and keep the secrets of the national intelligence work known to the public. The State protects individuals and organizations that support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work

[https://cs.brown.edu/courses/csci1800/sources/2017_PRC_Natio...](https://cs.brown.edu/courses/csci1800/sources/2017_PRC_NationalIntelligenceLaw.pdf)

<comment><USER7> I'm amazed you could say this without mentioning that US companies, too, have no right to withhold data from the state.

We have irrefutable gag orders which force compliance with the NSA [1].

FISA warrants are a joke, a rubber stamp at best. Only every 12 in about 33,000 are denied [2].

[1]: [https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security- letters](https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters)

[2]: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intell...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court#FISA_warrants)

<comment><USER6> Two crucial differences: 1) Chinese law can be used to coerce _indivudusls_ (including presumably tech company execs) to spy for the state. That is illegal under US law. And uf you're a Chinese student abroad, good luck saying no to the Public Security tity Office when asked to spy on other students.

2) US law, however evilly applied, requires a modicum of specificity and a fig leaf of justification. China law has no such need and can appropriate at scale to its bureaucratic desire (e.g, all IP addresses in Washington, D.C.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Trump said the new company will be hiring at least 25,000 people and making a $5 billion contribution to a fund dedicated to education for Americans. "That's their contribution that I've been asking for," he said."

\- [https://www.fox5ny.com/news/trump-gives-blessing-to- proposed...](https://www.fox5ny.com/news/trump-gives-blessing-to-proposed- tiktok-deal-with-oracle-walmart)

</comment><comment><USER9> \- 25,000 jobs.

\- $5billion Educational fund.

\- 20% ownership by Oracle and Walmart.

\- Access to codebase by Oracle.

\- Opportunity for Oracle and Walmart to increase stake by further 20% pre- IPO.

\- New HQ in Texas, US.

I know that people in the US likes to criticize Trump a lot but he sure has his merits and this is one of them.

<comment><USER7> Merits including forcibly nationalizing foreign IP under vague "national security" concerns?

Today it's TikTok, tomorrow it will be Telegram.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was really elated to hear TikTok was going to be banned. It is honestly terrible for culture...

<comment><USER11> Starts with dance videos, Figures our your preferences pretty quickly and I have found it very educational, the short format really cuts to the chase, It has prompted me to learn new techniques in cooking, woodwork, stretching... positive overall!

<comment><USER12> I agree, it seems benign besides the surveillance.

<comment><USER11> Could you expand on this? Does the app have more surveillance/data gathering than other? Genuinely curious, feeling naive

<comment><USER7> It does not. Spreading conspiracy is exciting and makes people feel smart. If you use Frida to bypass cert pinning and see what's sent, TikTok doesn't collect anything of note in the realm of social media.

Google (and the NSA by extension, via PRISM) has magnitudes more information on you.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>