Oculus Go - <AUTHOR> https://www.oculus.com/go/ <comment><USER2> The key thing about Oculus Go that is entirely missing from their website is that it only allows 3dof in the movement tracking. It's just like cardboard/daydream/gear. Unlike all the tethered VR headsets that do full 6dof.

In my opinion this isn't VR at all. It's a glorified 360 degree viewer. Personally I think it's pretty deceptive of Oculus to market this like it's a full VR heatset when it's very much not. If you are interested in VR for the immersion or the experiences, avoid this. Get something with full positional 6dof tracking.

<comment><USER3> Pfffffft.

Windows Mixed Reality headsets are so much better than this.

<comment><USER4> The two really aren't comparable.

Windows Mixed Reality requires an entire PC attached to it. The whole point of this is that for $199, you get everything you need to start using it, no cellphone or (expensive) PC tether.

Whether there's a market for such a device I'm not so sure, but there's no doubt Windows Mixed Reality/Rift/Vive et al have relatively huge cost barriers to entry vs simpler VR devices like this.

<comment><USER5> There are already standalone Windows MR devices with 6dof. HoloLens has also had 6dof for years. Vive has a stand-alone 6dof as well, but it's only in China so far.

<comment><USER6> Could you link to a standalone Windows MR device with 6dof?

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I was wrong about that. I was thinking of Lenovo Solo, but that is Google Daydream-based. However MR does not inherently require a detached PC. HoloLens _is_ a PC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sorta self-promotion (but not really), but I made a spreadsheet comparing the specs of phone VR, standalone, and desktop computing headsets here: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10c2iIQL0EcDIWuVEx0Zs...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10c2iIQL0EcDIWuVEx0Zsnv-F19t4QETVyCTpwSdEnHc/edit?usp=sharing)

<comment><USER8> Could you add the windows MR ones? They are all pretty similar except the samsung one:

[https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/store/collections/vrandmixed...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/store/collections/vrandmixedrealityheadsets)

And they are pretty cheap when on sale at around $225

<comment><USER9> I bought mine for $200. Really impressed so far. Much more convenient to set up than a vive and works about as well in my experience.

<comment><USER10> The controller tracking is noticeably worse, but given that it's less than half the price, it's not bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not to hijack the achievements of Oculus, but there is also a project to bring Linux to standalone VR headsets: [https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula](https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula)

Get an Oculus Go for now. But show SimulaVR some love for the future :]

</comment><comment><USER12> Rift Owner here.

Mmmmmm. That's some nice looking hardware. Not appearing like you had a medical device strapped to your face was one of my driving decisions for picking the Rift over the Vive. And the simple straps and soft touch fabrics look really nice and comfortable here.

But I have yet to find any lasting appeal to the "low-end" VR experiences. It really gives a poor impression of what the tech is capable of and walk away with a "gimmicky" feeling.

<comment><USER13> It's great for watching movies on an airplane. None of the games have done anything for me, but the movies are cool.

<comment><USER14> Watching TV on an airplane is the #1 reason I would buy a VR headset. The in- seat screen UIs are atrocious and they tend to only have ~4 or so episodes of any given show. Unfortunately, the Oculus Go's battery life is only about 2 hours according to the Ars Technica review[1]. Some planes have AC outlets, but YMMV.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/05/oculus-go-review- the-...](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/05/oculus-go-review-the-wireless- vr-future-begins-today-for-only-199/)

<comment><USER7> For the record, the upcoming Lenovo Mirage Solo headset has a 4000 mAh battery and (purportedly) 10-hour battery life. Of course, it is double the price of the Oculus Go.

<comment><USER15> it looks like it is available now: [https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/tablets/virtual-reality-and- sm...](https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/tablets/virtual-reality-and-smart- devices/virtual-and-augmented-reality/lenovo-mirage-solo/Mirage- Solo/p/ZZIRZRHVR01)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow, that webpage sucks. What are the specs?

<comment><USER17> Here's the important info from a review

> Unlike the Oculus Santa Cruz, the Oculus Go doesn't include full motion > controllers or futuristic inside-out tracking technology, which lets users > walk around rooms with no external cameras. It allows you to rotate your > head, but not lean or walk around. You can move its small controller like a > laser pointer, but not fully mimic a virtual hand. It's got basically the > same features as Samsung and Oculus' Gear VR, but as a dedicated piece of > hardware, not a combination of smartphone and plastic shell.

So basically it's another one of those "turn your smartphone into VR" without needing the smartphone.

<comment><USER18> > futuristic inside-out tracking technology, which lets users walk around > rooms with no external cameras.

Perpetuating the myth that 6DOF head tracking is for "walking around the room".

It's not. Even small head movements reveal parallax and without that VR isn't anywhere near as convincing an illusion.

6DOF is pretty much a base requirement for immersive VR.

<comment><USER19> Daydream, and I assume Gear but I don't know for sure, has that slight parallax by using a neck approximation and head pitch and roll.

<comment><USER20> Gear does have a head model, you can tell really easily in pretty much every Gear/Go game by looking at parallax differences between near and far objects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Bought an S7 on the cheap recently to see if its 2K screen (2560x1440, so possibly the same as this?) would be good enough to watch films on, was okay but nowhere near what I'd like. Unless that's severely misrepresentative, I'll be keeping away from deeper VR experiences until they're at a stronger level (please prove me wrong!)

<comment><USER12> The fun and immersiveness does not come from the screen quality, but from your ability to navigate and interact with a virtual space. If I could convince you that you are walking on the surface of Mars, you wouldn't complain that I gave you a smudged visor.

Until the mobile experiences have a quality 6dof and motion controls, they have almost no appeal to me.

<comment><USER22> Luke from Linus Tech Tips indicated that 3dof "VR" might be damaging VR as a whole, as it gives people an unrealistically awful impression of what VR has to offer. This is in contrast to what I originally thought of Cardboard+co: low barrier of entry teasers. After repeatedly hearing that VR isn't special from people who have only used these low-end devices I've been forced to agree with Luke.

These platforms should drop the VR moniker - they are 360 stereoscopic ten day wonders and little more.

<comment><USER23> The assumption you make here is that they'd think otherwise if they had used a 6dof headset which doesn't really seem to ring true for me. There are lots of Rifts and Vives lying unused in people's homes and in general 6dof VR hasn't taken the world by storm either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The Verge review [1] has more specs:

> Its screen is a 5.5-inch display with a 2560 x 1440 resolution (1280 x 1440 > per eye). It's based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 821 processor from 2016...

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/1/17306458/oculus-go- standal...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/1/17306458/oculus-go-standalone- vr-headset-review)

<comment><USER25> Given the comparisons to Gear VR, does anyone know if this is running Android under the hood?

<comment><USER14> It is. The Ars Technica review[1] is pretty thorough.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/05/oculus-go-review- the-...](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/05/oculus-go-review-the-wireless- vr-future-begins-today-for-only-199/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Okay, so I just picked one of these up and tried it out for half an hour or so. It is nothing less than a game changer. The screen quality is phenomenal, it's super comfortable, and it Just Works (TM). I have a Rift and PSVR and previously had both Rift DKs; this will get infinitely more use. Being untethered means I can sit on my couch, lay in bed, or sit on a plane and experience great VR.

My wife tried it for 10 minutes and already wants one of her own. This thing is priced to sell and just a great piece of tech. Can't wait to start developing for it!

<comment><USER27> > This thing is priced to sell

My gut feeling is that they are selling each unit at cost, or even at a loss, just to dominate the market. It's not like Facebook can't afford it.

<comment><USER26> Yep, I'd nearly bet on it. That SoC alone is what, $40? Screen closer to (or even over) $100, given how high-end it is. That leaves very little room for RAM, flash, controller, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if they will notice an uptick in bounce rate for Firefox 59.0.3 users, primarily because it seems to crash the tab. The Ars Technica review linked by 'portmanteafu provided great information.

<comment><USER29> Can you share a Firefox crash ID from your about:crashes page? I see some bad flickering when I scroll with Firefox 59.0.3 on Windows 10, but I haven't been able to reproduce a crash yet.

<comment><USER29> This crash was caused by an internet security program called Palo Alto Networks' Cytool Traps that injects its DLL into Firefox's process and attempts to intercept and analyze network traffic. Here's the Firefox bug report:

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1458377](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1458377)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wish this page worked on Firefox Quantum :(

(can't scroll past the buy / watch video buttons)

<comment><USER31> Yeah, it's super glitchy/laggy on FF. Unbelievable that Oculus (Facebook) didn't test their page on FF.

To be honest, I kinda hate this kind of website where you scroll and the content changes.

<comment><USER32> My instinct is to agree with you.

On the other hand, it's a way of giving a dynamic introduction like you might achieve with a video but putting the speed of navigation through it into the control of the user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I am most excited not by gaming on this device, but by the prospect of experiencing the VR film content that is premiering at Sundance/Tribeca/SxSW. VR has a rich and diverse future, current clunkiness aside.

I'm sure there are cheaper ways of tuning in, but something about a polished name brand product appeals to me more than a smartphone-on-the-face cardboard approach.

</comment><comment><USER34> Does anybody know what data Facebook harvests related to one's usage of their Oculus VR devices?

</comment><comment><USER35> Ordered, can't wait. Will be nice to have a VR option that doesn't require burning battery or overheating my phone (OG Pixel). I built my last gaming PC to minimum-Oculus-VR specs, but never got around to buying the headset. Glad I waited.

<comment><USER36> If your PC has the specs to handle the Rift you're doing yourself a disservice not to buy one at the new reduced price.

I bought one on a whim and expected it to be interesting but I was completely blown away and use it almost every night.

The Go isn't really the same experience because it doesn't track head position or hand position.

<comment><USER35> $399 is great, but I'm going to have to sell a bunch of stuff to pay for the Go as it is.. cancer med and oncologist visit copays suck :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've been wanting to buy an HTC Vive for a long time. The thing is, I don't have a desktop PC, so I've just postponed and postponed the purchase. Is this thing better than a google cardboard is it more or less the same?

Watching reviews it looks like it's mostly "experiences" and not much different from a cardboard.

<comment><USER2> If you are considering a Vive, you should probably avoid this. It's only 3dof, unlike the Vive's 6dof. In my opinion this isn't VR at all. It's a glorified 360 degree viewer. See my other comment in this thread.

(Disclaimer: Vive owner)

</comment></comment><comment> et-al Anyone know if FB is selling these at a loss to gain marketshare? $199 USD for the 32GB version is a welcoming price for mainstream acceptance.

<comment><USER38> I always wonder with these things why the big jump in price for memory - what's the bom difference? Is the 32gb just the 64gb one with half the memory crippled?

It's £5 for the cheapest possible 32gb sdcard, about £12 retail for one I'd expect to work well. So presumably the memory is quite a small part of the cost difference -- there seems so much other tech in there, a quarter of the price can't be just memory.

School me oh gurus; is this just price differentiation?

<comment> et-al The jump from 32GB and 64GB is definitely price differentiation. But $50 for more memory on an expensive toy isn't that bad either (or maybe Apple has conditioned me to think this way).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> 3DOF, right? No positional tracking?

<comment><USER40> Correct. It's Gear VR space - I guess the objective is to have a device that sits between the high end (Rift/Vive) space, and the low end (Gear/Cardboard) space.

That said, I can't see high end users adopting downwards - and for low end users, it's not much of a step upwards (still no positional tracking, which is kinda a watershed point for VR experiences), and is an additional device, when they can accomplish largely the same thing with a cellphone and gear VR setup.

I suppose that leaves new adopters as the market, but with a lower entry point than Rift - but it's going to be a watered down experience and could undermine their high end sales too.

Honestly, I'm not sure I understand what the strategy is here.

<comment><USER39> I'm pretty sure I get it -

It's an up-scale gift.

All those times you've walked into Best Buy, and you've seen the WALL of crappy VR? Well, this will be the undisputed king of all of them.

I'm seriously considering one for airplanes. I'd definitely want to use my noise-cancelling headphones instead, though. "also includes a 3.5mm headphone jack" So that's good.

It'll be lighter than one phone-based ones, too, I bet. Less fidgeting, trying to get your phone in and out. Don't get distracted when you get an IM from your friend, wrecking your view for a minute. Auto-brightness isn't on, messing with you.

And it's a walled garden. Oculus IS the store. That's good for them. So, they may sell these at a loss, and still come out ahead.

The smart move is to buy one and only use the free apps, or the stuff you really, really know you want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> As if Go as word wasn't already too much overloaded.

<comment><USER42> At least Disney isn't pushing go.com as hard anymore.. That's a start? ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> They have enough location data to show UK pricing (I am in the UK), but when I ask about where I can trial a headset they silently fail and show me somewhere on the east coast of the USA.

</comment><comment><USER44> Carmack was quite excited about the Go during his talks.

</comment><comment><USER45> It looks like Xiaomi made more in 4 months than Oculus stuff in last 4 years.

[https://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-go-update-announcing- our-...](https://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-go-update-announcing-our- partnership-with-xiaomi-and-qualcomm-at-ces/)

</comment><comment><USER46> There are some images mid-page that move when I move my phone. However, they move in the opposite direction I'd expect them to move. When I move left, it looks as though I'm looking right (and vice versa). Is my brain being tricked here?

</comment><comment><USER47> Supposedly better optics to deal with screen door effect and a higher resolution per-eye but I couldn't find any information on FOV per eye. What is Oculus Go's overall pixel density?

</comment><comment><USER48> Can you replace the lenses?

My desktop Rift's lenses are all scratched from normal use (people with glasses used it, etc.).

I couldn't imagine having a "on the go" device with lens that you can't replace.

<comment><USER49> It says there are prescription inserts on the website

<comment><USER50> No, it's only a plastic spacer to leave extra room for your eye glasses.

<comment><USER51> Scroll down. They are most definitely selling inserts for lenses.

<comment><USER50> I stand corrected! In my defense, their website is a mess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I wish someone sold a cheap but good quality VR set with dispay + HDMI driver board to be hooked up with Raspberry Pi. Go seems ideal if it just had HDMI port.

<comment><USER53> The Raspberry Pi's HDMI can't drive more than 1080p 60hz. The resolution on the Oculus Go for comparison is 2560x1440 72hz.

<comment><USER52> Technically it can drive up to 3840x2160 at 24 Hz if overclocked, but the video decoder is limited to 1080p, limiting practical use cases. But you are right, 1080p screen would be better fit (for even cheaper price). I'm currently using OSVR HDK (the original version), but that thing is pricey for what it is.

[https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/3966](https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/3966)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I have a Daydream VR headset from Google and these two are a lot like design- wise. Competition on comfort design could be a good thing in my opinion.

<comment><USER55> I just want to be able to make money as a dev, AND have a wide selection of software available. I still think Valve is going to win in this arena down the line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Would this work for emulating multiple screens for my PC? Has anyone tried it with existing hardware, can you for example program with it?

<comment><USER57> You "can". I have not tried programming, but I have tried reading.

Resolution is poor, so text display doesn't look great. Not horrible, just not great. However, if you secretly wanted to program using a movie theater display, I guess that would work. I think that's how it would feel like.

The thing is, other than having a gigantic (perceived) display, what's the advantage? We'll still be manipulating text – and you'll have to touch type, because you won't be able to see the keyboard.

We need a lightable-like VR experience before that makes sense.

For watching movies it works. Depending on the person it may be uncomfortable after a while. If you are ok with it, then it is actually nice. The software is not yet there though, the ones I've tried just emulate a movie theater. If/when you can project 3D movies, then it will be great.

<comment><USER58> Can I use it to e.g. play games on another device, like a PS4?

I thought the PS VR headset would be perfect for this. Unfortunately it requires to be connected by wires which is frustrating. Something like this, but tailored to PS4 would be awesome.

<comment><USER59> The latencies involved would make you barf in matter of minutes. Streaming over wired ethernet is already barely adequate for action games and VR requires significantly lower latency to feel good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Nice, but is there a virtual monitor app available, so I can work on one giant monitor or several monitors at once?

<comment><USER61> Try Bigscreen or Virtual Desktop

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I dont want VR unless it and it's software is foss. Is the hdk2 my only option?

</comment><comment><USER63> I unfortunately cannot use this as I'm concerned about living in a Facebook panoptician (seriously).

* living being narrowly defined as interacting with a/the world via an immersive virtual reality.

</comment><comment><USER64> Is this running Android or not, what is the OS?

<comment><USER31> Android Nougat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Can it be used with Blocks?

<comment><USER66> No, Blocks especially requires 6DoF. Can probably view Blocks stuff though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Oh wow.. that page was terrible, couldn't even stand waiting for it to load.

</comment><comment><USER68> No comments yet on how this is almost exactly the Google Daydream viewer with a builtin phone?

<comment><USER69> That's exactly what this is and has always been advertised as being. It's even software compatible with the Gear VR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> yeah, nah, I'm gonna pass on that.

why would you take a vr setup from the living room and "mobilize" it. what idiot is going to take his oculus go with him on the go ?

this platform is going to be restricted to low quality titles/products

to be fair this is going to be a lot more affordable than a real vr setup but IMO this is the wrong way to introduce vr to the masses

now vr is going to have this 2005-10 facebook game-esque connotation to it, which is anything but ideal

opinions ?

<comment><USER71> If smartphones are any indication, VR on the go will happen eventually, without a doubt. If it's not this model that popularizes it, it will be some other model.

 _what idiot is going to take his oculus go with him on the go?_

I really think you are underestimating people here</comment></comment>


Linux Air Combat – extended fork of GL-117 flight simulator game [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtxzmTTW_xc <comment><AUTHOR> > _LINUX Air Combat is a new, free, open-source combat flight simulator for > LINUX, which places the operator inside the virtual cockpit of a simulated, > historic, World War II warplane. As of this publication in December of 2019, > development is complete and this is the first "production" version. This > narrated video clip demonstrates a "solo" network mission versus four other > players in "replay bot" mode, meaning that the other players had flown an > attack mission previously and all of their maneuvers were pre-recorded. This > is exactly the kind of mission activity that new online players can expect > if they are the only live human player participating in a network mission. > (If another human player joins during one of these missions, he replaces one > of the "bots".) I was flying a Vought F4u "Corsair" fighter aircraft versus > those replay bots._

Further details are available at the main LAC homepage.[0]

LAC downloads hosted on SourceForge.[1]

[0] [https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirComb...](https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirCombat.htm)

[1] [https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxaircombat/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxaircombat/)</comment>


GCHQ Code Cracking Challenge to recruit code breakers - <AUTHOR> http://www.canyoucrackit.co.uk/

<comment><USER2> Here's a handy typed in version of the image on the site:

Left hand side:

      eb04afc2 bfa381ec 0cfec175 f931c0ba d0c1ca08 8a1c0c8a
      fec175e8 e95c0000 005c583d 41414141 753b5a89 d189e689
      d189df29 cf31c031 8a14068a 341e8834 8a1c168a 1730da88
      d8fec0cd 809090e8

Right hand side:

      00010000 31c9880c efbeadde 02040c00 3c04881c 04883c0c
      0089e381 c3040000 7543583d 42424242 df29cff3 a489de89
      db31d2fe c0021c06 0688141e 00f230f6 17474975 de31db89
      9dffffff 41414141

There are lots of interesting features in this.

I should add, cryptically, that there's more to the challenge, I believe, than simply meets the eye.

      42424242 32000000 c291d8f1 6d70203a ab67c29a 0bc4c291
      fbc7660f fccdccb4 02fad777 b45438ab 1f0ee38e d30deb99
      c3c293fe d12b1b11 c611efc8 ca2f

<comment><USER3> If you're a bit stuck try pasting:

eb 04 af c2 bf a3 81 ec 0c fe c1 75 f9 31 c0 ba d0 c1 ca 08 8a 1c 0c 8a fe c1 75 e8 e9 5c 00 00 00 5c 58 3d 41 41 41 41 75 3b 5a 89 d1 89 e6 89 d1 89 df 29 cf 31 c0 31 8a 14 06 8a 34 1e 88 34 8a 1c 16 8a 17 30 da 88 d8 fe c0 cd 80 90 90 e8 00 01 00 00 31 c9 88 0c ef be ad de 02 04 0c 00 3c 04 88 1c 04 88 3c 0c 00 89 e3 81 c3 04 00 00 75 43 58 3d 42 42 42 42 df 29 cf f3 a4 89 de 89 db 31 d2 fe c0 02 1c 06 06 88 14 1e 00 f2 30 f6 17 47 49 75 de 31 db 89 9d ff ff ff 41 41 41 41

into either:

<http://www.onlinedisassembler.com/>

or

<http://pyms86.appspot.com/desasm_hex>

<comment><USER4> eb 04 af c2 bf a3 81 ec 0c fe c1 75 f9 31 c0 ba d0 c1 ca 08 8a 1c 0c 8a fe c1 75 e8 e9 5c 00 00 00 5c 58 3d 41 41 41 41 75 3b 5a 89 d1 89 e6 89 d1 89 df 29 cf 31 c0 31 8a 14 06 8a 34 1e 88 34 8a 1c 16 8a 17 30 da 88 d8 fe c0 cd 80 90 90 e8 00 01 00 00 31 c9 88 0c ef be ad de 02 04 0c 00 3c 04 88 1c 04 88 3c 0c 00 89 e3 81 c3 04 00 00 75 43 58 3d 42 42 42 42 df 29 cf f3 a4 89 de 89 db 31 d2 fe c0 02 1c 06 06 88 14 1e 00 f2 30 f6 17 47 49 75 de 31 db 89 9d ff ff ff 41 41 41 41

<comment><USER5> what is this ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you submit the correct solution, do you get put on a list of "dangerously computer competent" people?

</comment><comment><USER7> I remember them having a puzzle on their website about 11 years ago when I was still living in England, almost like a scavenger hunt with different smaller puzzles. The answer was an email address to send your CV. Unfortunately being Canadian I wasn't eligible.

</comment><comment><USER8> The American equivalent of the GCHQ, NSA, frequently holds competitions on a website called TopCoder (<http://topcoder.com>).

Usually, they've have a recruitment officer in the lobby of the TopCoder chat room. Very interesting competitions of varying skill levels.

</comment><comment><USER9> [Cryptic spoilers]

The first stage seems pretty luck based - you either recognize it pretty quickly as the type of code it is, or you're stuck there for days trying every interpretation you can think of. It doesn't help that a portion of the code is deceptively hidden :/

"stage 2 of 3", however, looks quite fun :)

</comment><comment><USER10> (Partial) solution? <http://twitter.com/badeip> <http://pastebin.com/pJmZYbMy> <http://pastebin.com/cqzbkw4H>

<comment> brown9-2 Could anyone translate these into English for the non C speakers?

<comment><USER11> All it does is allocate a block of memory, write data to it, fix it up a little, and then execute it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> maybe mips?

""" 0x00000010 d0c1ca08 j 0x32b0740 0x00000014 8a1c0c8a lwl t4,7306(s0) 0x00000018 fec175e8 swc2 $21,-15874(v1) 0x0000001c e95c0000 0x5ce9 0x00000020 005c583d 0x3d585c00 0x00000024 41414141 0x41414141 0x00000028 753b5a89 lwl k0,15221(t2) 0x0000002c d189e689 lwl a2,-30255(t7) 0x00000030 d189df29 slti ra,t6,-30255 0x00000034 cf31c031 andi zero,t6,0x31cf 0x00000038 8a14068a lwl a2,5258(s0) 0x0000003c 341e8834 ori t0,a0,0x1e34 0x00000040 8a1c168a lwl s6,7306(s0) 0x00000044 1730da88 lwl k0,12311(a2) 0x00000048 d8fec0cd lwc3 $0,-296(t6) 0x0000004c 809090e8 swc2 $16,-28544(a0) 0x00000050 00010000 sll zero,zero,0x4 0x00000054 31c9880c jal 0x22324c4 0x00000058 efbeadde ld t5,-16657(s5) 0x0000005c 02040c00 srl zero,t4,0x10 0x00000060 3c04881c 0x1c88043c 0x00000064 04883c0c jal 0xf22010 0x00000068 0089e381 lb v1,-30464(t7) 0x0000006c c3040000 sra zero,zero,0x13 0x00000070 7543583d 0x3d584375 0x00000074 42424242 c0 0x424242 0x00000078 df29cff3 scd t7,10719(s8) 0x0000007c a489de89 lwl s8,-30300(t6) 0x00000080 db31d2fe sd s2,12763(s6) 0x00000084 c0021c06 0x61c02c0 0x00000088 0688141e 0x1e148806 0x0000008c 00f230f6 sdc1 $f16,-3584(s1) 0x00000090 17474975 jalx 0x5251c5d 0x00000094 de31db89 lwl k1,12766(t6) 0x00000098 9dffffff sd ra,-99(ra) 0x0000009c 41414141 0x41414141 """

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The BBC have and good article about it: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15968878>

</comment><comment><USER13> Here's the Australian equivalent:

      https://plus.google.com/103685227755333384561/posts/VasNhJpVFA4

Although not as tough as GCHQs

</comment><comment><USER14> [hint] Don't forget to look in the image itself

<comment><USER15> especially the comment field...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> why not crack the site directly

<comment><USER17> Commit a criminal offence against a website created for a technically competent government agency?</comment></comment>


State College, PA (Penn State) Hacker News Meetup - <AUTHOR>

Is there anyone else from State College that reads Hacker News? Would you like to have a meetup? I'd love to meet up with others and be social. <comment><USER2> Penn Stater here! I've thought of organizing something like this for some time. I know a few of you Penn Staters are regulars on HN.

Lets do this sometime next weekend.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! Unfortunately, I'll be out of the country from Nov 21 - Nov 30. I'm willing to do something during the week next week to get the ball rolling though. All of my evenings are pretty much free this upcoming week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd love to do this. Too bad I won't be at Penn State until the Spring.

</comment><comment><USER4> Any PSU Beaver Alumni on here @State College? :)</comment>


A Guide to Recording 660FPS Video on a $6 Raspberry Pi Camera - <AUTHOR> http://blog.robertelder.org/recording-660-fps-on-raspberry-pi-camera/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi Everyone,

I do have it already linked in the article, but I should point out that the work I did is based upon the work of (at least) several other key individuals:

A lot of the low-level sensor interaction code is found in:

[https://github.com/Hermann-SW/fork-raspiraw](https://github.com/Hermann- SW/fork-raspiraw)

Also, check out his web site with lots of other high speed camera hacking stuff:

[https://stamm-wilbrandt.de/en/Raspberry_camera.html](https://stamm- wilbrandt.de/en/Raspberry_camera.html)

The original fork of raspiraw is (I think) found here:

[https://github.com/6by9/raspiraw](https://github.com/6by9/raspiraw)

And the code for converting RAW images into standard formats uses dcraw:

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

I didn't personally write much code to put this together. I would say that my contribution here was mainly to pull together some impressive work done by others that wasn't getting much attention and market it well. Hopefully some of you get ideas and push this even further.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for posting your work! I'd like to see if I can get much more (if any) out of a Pi 4 which has more memory bandwidth and up to 2-4x more RAM than the 3 B+ it seems you tested with! Have you tried a 4 yet?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't yet. It was actually quite a bit if work to get these videos recorded and document/test the process. I suspect there is tons of low-hanging fruit left in terms of improvements that could be made. Hopefully the steps I documented will be reproducible enough that others can make improvements and create even more impressive demos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is amazing. These framerates are 1/10th of what a cursory google search says I can get out of a top of the line high-speed camera, but for probably 1/100th the price. You could make so many awesome instructional videos with a tool like this.

<comment><USER4> Which brings me to this Gedankenexperiment: If you buy/build 10 of the raspberry pi based high speed cameras and run them in parallel and could make sure each camera sees the same (we don't consider details here for the time being), is it possible to merge the videos in order to reach the frame rate of a "top of the line high-speed camera"? I could imagine two scenarios:

      1. Start recording with time delay. Probably requires
         excellent clock synchronisation, a real time kernel,
         reliable/comparable hardware (gatter timings differ at
         small timescales). If this works, this would provide a
         high quality equidistand framerate.

      or

      2. Start recording randomly, synchronize by time or
         with an video event, and merge the frames. This will
         result in a stochastic distribution of frame rates. The
         usefulness of such a movie depends on what it is
         supposed to be used for (thinking of scientific usage).
            Will probably not give nice slow-mo movies. But
         here comes the catch: With interpolation, the shortest
         reachable frame rate dictates the quality of this
         "superposition camera". How many cheap cameras do we
         need to archieve, on average, the top line high speed
         camera?

I leave the questions open for friends of Gedankenexperiments ;-)

<comment><USER5> That's a good question, I'm wondering though, if the shutter speed on commercial high speed cameras is faster, but I could be wrong?

"A Phantom camera he uses goes up to a maximum of 1000 fps in 4K — an exposure time of 1/2000 sec with a 180° shutter speed — and the image starts looking pretty dark on the screen."

I'm just trying to find what shutter speed you can get with the Pi camera.

Edit: Just having a little play:

./raspiraw -eus 500 -md 7 -t 1000 -ts tstamps.csv -hd0 hd0.32k -h 64 --vinc 1F --fps 660 -r "380A,0040;3802,78;3806,0603" -sr 1 -o /dev/shm/out.%04d.raw 2>/dev/null

500 microsecond exposure (1/2000 seconds) seems to run.

<comment><USER6> > I'm just trying to find what shutter speed you can get with the Pi camera.

You can reduce the shutter time nearly arbitrarily, as long as you increase light intensity. I did place fast rotating propeller just above a 5000lm led, and did two 9us long flashes. See this image on how bright the two blades of propeller look, at both captured locations (the rest is dark, image was taken inside a closed cardbox, without flash everything was just black): [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Hermann- SW/Raspberry_v1_ca...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Hermann- SW/Raspberry_v1_camera_global_external_shutter/master/res/two.HWsync.3.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > processor registers on the image sensor are set so that raw data is sent > continuously (to be processed later)

Very slick.

Make me wonder what crazy high-speed imaging hacks might be possible with a top-of-the-line sensor used in iPhone/Pixel phones.

<comment><USER8> The Samsung Galaxy S9 & S10 can record short bursts of 960fps video at 720p out of the box. I'd imagine a hack could extract similar numbers from the pixel and iPhone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The demo videos don't have a good black level.

Is this processing method perhaps not using a correct dark image, or not correctly subtracting off the shaded calibration rows on the sensor?

If thats the case, it's probably screwing with the gamma conversion, making it look even worse.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, I didn't do any black level/gamma adjustments. I just used the first values that would produce what looked like a fairly high-quality result with ffmpeg and dcraw. There is probably tons of low hanging fruit to improve these results from someone who really knows what the're doing in terms of image processing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow. Never thought about this approach to leveraging RAM for cameras. Awesome guide!

Can anybody chime in regarding the resolution limit (640x64) -- If this is for memory reasons, could we pick alternate values such as 200x200 as long as the total pixel count is the same?

<comment><USER11> I think you're stuck with the oddball aspect ratio. Part of the CMOS readout process is done an entire line at a time, and there just isn't a way to increase the speed this much without dropping most of the lines. Actual high- speed cameras have similar limitations at the higher speeds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I read through, and I didn't find a reason that the resolution is 640x64@660 other than that is what was input into the raspiraw program.

Could this record at a higher resolution?

<comment><USER13> Many image sensors have a 'windowed readout' function that lets you throw away lots of pixels' data, in exchange for a higher framerate.

So for example, a sensor that 1920px × 1080px × 30fps has the ability to output 62,208,000 px/second - and with the same ADC and MIPI bus, halving the number of pixels can double the number of frames per second.

You'll note this article's demo, 640px × 65px × 660fps = 27,456,000 px/second. So you might plausibly get it a bit larger - maybe 640×120 - but you're not going to get HD resolution at this framerate using this hardware.

(Obviously, there's also questions like exposure time and light levels so it's not quite as simple as I just made it sound)

<comment><USER14> I'm mostly confused by the low vertical resolution. Would something like 320x240 work?

<comment><USER9> This depends on the design of the sensor.

Basic sensors effectively have one analogue to digital convertor (ADC) per column of pixels. That would mean that if you wanted to reduce the horizontal resolution, you would be disabling some ADC's, which in turn would reduce how many pixels can be converted per second, giving you no benefit.

<comment><USER15> Would it be possible to buy a second camera and wire up its ADCs to the sensors on the first camera and then read the next set of vertical pixels? Effectively doubling the vertical resolution?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> if you put the sensor on a really fast step motor, you can pivot the sensor a tiny bit in two dimensions, to get way more resolution out of it, at a loss of framerate, and you'll need to do some post processing.

something like this: [https://chriseyrewalker.com/the-hi-res-mode-of-the- olympus-o...](https://chriseyrewalker.com/the-hi-res-mode-of-the-olympus-om-d- e-m1-mark-ii/)

<comment><USER17> The scrolljacking on that site makes it unusable

<comment><USER18> Literally unusable. I found that reader mode works fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Resolution: 640x64

<comment><USER20> Then get 10 Pi's to get 640x640?

<comment><USER21> 6400x640?

<comment><USER22> Nope, that's a 100 pies...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What was the lighting setup like for the demo videos? Did you do any processing to reduce flicker?

I get a lot of flickering from CFL and incandescent bulbs in my 240 FPS videos, though I've had better results with some LEDs. Considering how much light I've needed for good videos at 240 FPS, I'd imagine the lighting requirements at 660-1000 are fairly immense.

<comment><AUTHOR> Usually, I would try to wait until evening when the sunlight shines directly into my apartment. Firlming under a 60 watt lamp was still quite dark. I didn't do any experiments with post-processing to reduce flicker, but I know there some advanced video editors do provide such features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Are there any cameras at a higher price with better stats, but still lower than $2k for a used Chronos 1.4GP/s? I wouldn't mind buying a $1k camera to get 720p 1000+ fps.

<comment><USER11> There are a handful of flagship smartphones that cost under a grand and technically support 960fps at 720p - the Samsung Galaxy S9, Note 9 and S10, along with Sony's Xperia XZ series. They come with a bunch of caveats including very limited recording time of less than half a second. A number of other smartphones advertise 960fps but fake it using software interpolation.

The Chronos 1.4 is very aggressively priced for what it offers, even if it does cost several grand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> 1107 fps on the V2 IMX219 camera. I wonder how fast or how large of a frame it could do on a Pi4 or odroid (article mentions the 640x64 frame is limited by memory bandwidth).

<comment><USER6> You can do 640x64@665fps with v1 camera, and 640x128@667fps with v2 camera: [https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=2125...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=212518&p=1310445#p1320034)

In tools directory you can use *_s tools to get double FOV vertically while keeping the framerate. So you can get 640x128_s@665fps/640x256_s@667fps for v1/v2 camera.

There real limit for v2 camera is 1007fps, with can be achieved with 640x75 or 640x150_s tools. You can reduce vertical resolution below 75, but you will not get more than 1007fps (if you find out how to raise that limit, please shout! Deal for raspiraw high framerate capturing basically is "halve vertical resolution and get double framerate").

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Everything is doable if you have detailed description of the sensor. Do you know any sensor to get a better resolution with comparable frame rate and detailed specs?

Can RAM limits be improved with a simple compression?

<comment><USER27> He did his testing on a raspberry pi 3 which means only 1GB of LPDDR2.

I'd love to see how the RAM limits improve with 4GB LPDDR4, especially with usb 3.0 and real ethernet....

<comment><USER26> Camera interface is not via USB on Raspberry Pi. There's a lot of redundancy in high frame rate, so the best way to improve memory footprint is compression.

<comment><USER28> At high framerate, there isn't much time to do any type of fancy compression. 660fps means you have 1.5 milliseconds to process the image. The bandwidth will roughly max out between 50 Megabytes/s or 432Mbit/s. LPDDR2 (on the RPi3) can do 800 Transfers are second, at a maxmium transfer size of 4kb, maxing out almost all of your memory bandwidth already.

So you literally do not have the memory bandwidth to do compression while also capturing a good 640x64x32/660 Video.

If you have an RPi4, you get LPDDR4, the memory bandwidth now allows for compression, _IF_ the CPU can handle that throughput (which it likely can't since the RPi4 chokes on such large bandwidths easily).

<comment><USER29> Ram speed is not the issue, camera interface is limited to 120MB/s, ram bandwidth is >2GB/s on pee3, 4GB/s on pee4.

<comment><USER28> If you want to compress the frames, RAM bandwidth will be an issue.

<comment><USER29> Compressing 640x64@660 takes exactly the same amount of work as compressing 1280x720@30. You could even use hardware h.264 encoder as long as you can debayer raw 10bit in software fast enough (or convince Broadcom employee 6by9 to make internal Videocore firmware debayering resolution agnostic, its already fast enough keeping up with twice the amount of data when using camera in 1920x1080@25 mode).

But you dont even need fancy compression, at those framerates things change really slowly so simple delta encoding on raw data will do wonders.

<comment><USER28> Compressing 660fps in real time is a much different task than 30 frames per second, notably because your latency budget is a lot lower. At 30fps you have 33ms to load the frame, compress it and send it off to the destination, at 660fps you have 1.5ms for the same task, which does not necessarily get exponentially faster with lowered resolution.

<comment><USER29> You have exactly as much time as at 30fps at 22x higher resolution. You dont need to constantly reuse the same 52KB buffer. Data comes at a steady snail 35MB/s pace. Pee 3 should even be able to save it on USB2 HDD in real time with no compression.

<comment><USER6> Really? USB2 is 300Mbps for PI3 ethernet over USB2, is it faster with hdd? I ask because snail 35MB/s is 280Mbps.

<comment><USER29> replied here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20658147](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20658147)

last time I tried USB 2.0 hdd on pee3 did 35MB/s on the dot

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Very cool. Can this camera also be hacked for amplified sensor reading for night vision? Infrared or UV photography? Long exposure photography?

<comment><USER6> Yes, there are NoIR versions of v1 camera, they just miss the infrared filter normal cameras have (around 9$ on aliexpress.com). And there are 12$ versions of v1 camera with (hardware) IR-cut filter, depending on photo sensor on camera IR filter is enabled at day, and removed at night.

<comment><USER6> I was wrong, the 9$ are for NoIR camera with M12 lens mount and lens. I just ordered 4 new NoIR cameras for 2.84$(!) including shipping! [https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32946093276.html](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32946093276.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Could you stream the frames over 10G LAN to record longer videos?

<comment><USER6> There is no Pi with 10G ethernet. New Pi4 has only Gigabit ethernet, Pi 3B+ has Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0 (maximum throughput 300 Mbps).

The idea is interesting, did some calculation. For v1 camera capturing 640xH frames can be done at framerate "42755/H+13". Lets forget about the 13. raspiraw transfers raw10 Bayer data, that is 640xHx1.25 bytes, with maximal framerate that gives 42755x640x1.25=34204000 bytes/s=261Mbit/s(!).

So you definitely need Gigabit ethernet of the Pi4, not sure whether Pi4 can actually stream out 261Mbit without losing stuff though ...

Just asked on Raspberry networking forum (261Mbps for v1, 464Mbps for v2): [https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2482...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=248254)

<comment><USER31> So it's feasible for Pi4?

<comment><USER6> No answer on the networking forum yet. I cannot try because I don't have a Pi4 yet. It seems possible. An easy test would be to test whether this command will work on Pi4:

raspividyuv -md 7 -w 640 -h 480 -t 0 -fps 90 -o - | nc someIp somePort

and on someIp server service listeing on somePort just storing the data received. Because yuv has 12bits/pixel which is a bit more than the 10bit/pixel of raw Bayer, the command produces a 316Mbps stream of data for v1 camera (732Mbps for v2 camera when recording with "-fps 180"). For testing the service on someIp can be as easy as:

nc -l somePort > foobar

<comment><USER29> You should be fine with RPi3B+ internal gigabit NIC

[https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=2085...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=208512&start=50#p1293094)

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo iperf3 -c XXX.XXX.X.XXX

[ 4] 0.00-1.00 sec 37.9 MBytes 318 Mbits/sec 0 257 KBytes

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> very impressive.</comment>


Privacy Review: North Dakota's Contact Tracing App 'Care19' leaks data to Google - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jumboprivacy.com/jumbo-privacy-review-north-dakota-s-contact-tracing-app.html <comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr: The Care19 app [1] leaks advertising ID and/or location data to Foursquare and Google [2]

'The Care19 privacy policy indicates that "Your data is identified by an anonymous code." We were able to validate that the app, indeed, uses an anonymous code (in the format of US-84825167-5 or something similar). However, our research has found that the anonymous code was transmitted to:

'Foursquare, along with the phone's Advertising Identifier.

'Bugfender, along with the phone's Name (probably including your first name)'

'Our research also shows that Google (via Firebase) also receives the IDFA.'

[1] [https://ndresponse.gov/covid-19-resources/care19](https://ndresponse.gov/covid-19-resources/care19)

In the news:

[https://www.fastcompany.com/90508044/north-dakotas- covid-19-...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90508044/north-dakotas-covid-19-app- has-been-sending-data-to-foursquare-and-google)

Original title lacked context. It was:

Jumbo Privacy Review: North Dakota's Contact Tracing App</comment>


Automakers Race to Get Ahead of Silicon Valley on Car-Sharing - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/technology/automakers-race-to-get-ahead-of-silicon-valley-on-car-sharing.html <comment><USER2> and they probably will (in my opinion). The thing is that Ford, or GM, or whoever can buy a mostly competent company and then roll out vehicle after vehicle. Plus, the automakers understand how to build, design, and fix vehicles. Does Uber? Does Waymo? I think that is why both Google and Apple dropped their actual vehicle building. It's too hard.

<comment><USER3> > Ford, or GM, or whoever can buy a mostly competent company and then roll out > vehicle after vehicle

Those manufacturers have perverse incentives in this game.

GM, especially, was a forerunner in "planned obsolescence"[1], which was how they grew by taking advantage of perverse incentives in the early days of car manufacturing.

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

<comment><USER4> What are they? Planned obsolescence, in the face of worldwide competition and better than ever reliability data, is no longer a workable strategy.</comment></comment></comment>


An Easier Way to Find Better Gifts - <AUTHOR> http://www.sugarpixels.com

<comment><USER2> xgibbousx, if this is something you've built yourself, then submit it as a "Show HN: ..." text post since otherwise it kinda looks like spam.</comment>


Stock Google Keyboard now available on Google Play - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.latin <comment><USER2> "This app is incompatible with all of your devices." "This item cannot be installed in your device's country."

Does anyone know why would they set a geographical restriction to this?.. At first I thought it could be lack of language support but it says "Dictionaries for 26 languages" in the feature list..

<comment><USER3> What region are you in? I'm in the Netherlands and it says the same thing for me. It makes absolutely no sense.

Not that I'd want to install this keyboard, as my phone has CyanogenMod on it, which comes with the thing in the first place. (And that makes it even weirder; the keyboard works like a charm.)</comment></comment>


Missing body found on Saddleworth Moor identified - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-38757699 <comment><USER2> This looks like a local police article. Is there some context to make this "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"?

<comment><USER3> This:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-e8c6cbab- da44-4a3c-8...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-e8c6cbab- da44-4a3c-8f9b-c4fccd53dd24)

<comment><USER2> Thanks. Weird enough.

The link is in the middle of the article, but I must have ignored it because it looks like the links to unrelated stories that are popular now in newspaper pages.</comment></comment></comment>


Iwata's programming skills averted Super Smash Bros. Melee launch delay - <AUTHOR> http://www.nintendo-insider.com/2014/12/28/iwatas-programming-skills-averted-super-smash-bros-melee-launch-delay/

<comment><USER2> Let the guy rest in peace. This is not about improving your startup.

<comment><AUTHOR> I doubt he would object to people learning about what an awesome programmer he was. Not sure what this has to do with startups...

<comment><USER2> You changed the subject :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course I did. It was too preachy so I changed it. And then a mod changed it again.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How-to generate thumbnails for Office documents using Cloudinary and Aspose - <AUTHOR> http://cloudinary.com/blog/how_to_generate_thumbnails_for_office_documents_using_cloudinary_and_aspose

<comment><AUTHOR> This post explains how to programmatically create image thumbnails from Word, Powerpoint and Excel documents, using Cloudinary's image management platform and its new Aspose add-on. Sample code included for PHP, Ruby on Rails, .Net, Node.js, jQuery and other frameworks.

</comment><comment><USER2> Useful!</comment>


Cisco enters new era after John Chambers steps down - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2015/07/27/cisco-john-chambers-chuck-robbins/

<comment><USER2> No mention of Snowden and NSA's mass surveillance and the impact on Cisco earnings? I'm guessing Robbins would rather not discuss that.

<comment><USER3> Was there any? People need infrastructure at the same rate, even if that infrastructure is being surveilled , and there's no reason to believe their competitors aren't equally on the take.

<comment><USER4> There is no evidence that Cisco was "on the take." Snowden's documents revealed that their shipments were being intercepted and bugged without their knowledge. Cisco then set up a program to evade interception. [http://m.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/18/want_to_dodge_nsa_supp...](http://m.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/18/want_to_dodge_nsa_supply_chain_taps_ask_cisco_for_a_dead_drop/)</comment></comment></comment>


37signals report card - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/reportcard

<comment><USER2> The specifics of the data are not important here. 37s has a real knack for creating a continuous stream of positive buzz using status updates like these in addition to their blog posts. It's less about their average customer rating or whatever increasing by 3% this year, and more about knowing the company is still alive and doing well with a good product and happy customers. What's particularly smart is that, excluding their books, their articles and reports aren't long or comprehensive, but have the minimal amount of information to offer enough value to keep them relevant and in a positive light -- like when you kick your feet periodically in water to stay afloat. It's not easy by any means. I think it's quite clever.

<comment><USER3> It's also a marketing moat because it raises questions for customers when competitors don't have similar report cards -- what are they hiding? The low- pressure copy and honest voice are a big help, too. Very clever indeed.

<comment><USER4> I think transparency is a huge competitive advantage. And like you said, it works great as a marketing tool AND as a tool for accountability. There are several ways you can do this but probably the easiest is to just sign up for a service like Pingdom (which is great b/c it injects a 3rd party measurement into the equation) then use their status page tool. We did ours using a twitter widget, pingdom's status page, and some CSS, and I think it turned out OK: <http://www.getadministrate.com/status/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am not sure if average page load times are a good way of measuring site performance. I wish they published numbers like median, 75th percentile and 95 percentile load times.

Please see here for why average is not a good metric. <http://zedshaw.com/essays/programmer_stats.html>

It is especially dangerous for 37signals to do this because a large percentage of web developers look up to them for best practices.

<comment><USER6> More numbers == harder to read. The point is not to give an accurate picture (as someone else pointed out, they certainly have more detailed internal metrics). The point is to make potential customers feel that their apps are fast and responsive. Hard numbers make that sound plausible. More detailed numbers would make the point diffuse and confusing.

<comment><USER5> I am not sure if either of us can accurately say what is the point "they" are trying to make. The point I was trying to make is that a large number of developers who look at 37signals for technical leadership could be dangerously misled into using average as a performance metric.

Leaving aside the technical issues even from a customer point of view using average to measure performance is pernicious. There are scenarios where the average remains the same while almost half their customers are experiencing load times that have doubled. What should the report card say in that case?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> " _92% gave us the highest Customer Service rating._ "

This seems somewhat disingenuous, considering that the rating scale was only out of three, and the "highest" level is used to show any satisfaction whatsoever. Their copy implies some sort of rigor to their rating process, and suggests that the "highest rating" is somehow significant and indicative of inordinate quality, as would be implied by a five or ten out of ten. A three out of three when the bottom two ratings indicate dissatisfaction or displeasure isn't really saying much. I'd think that it's fair to assume that the majority of most customer bases like the product in some way. A more realistic description would be to say that "92% of our customers were pleased with our service."

It's like saying that 92% of students in a pass/fail class earned the highest grade. It might technically be correct, but it doesn't mean anything.

</comment><comment><USER8> While there has not been much downtime, I have noticed a big spike in their Twitter account apologising for some bug or other.

In fact, for last month or so, every second and third day, I see a tweet from them in my timeline saying "Sorry for disruption in ________service of <product>"!

</comment><comment><USER9> They continue to be a great example of a company that tries to communicate when something is an issue (or is going great).

It seems like the critics of which metrics are highlighted are missing the point... the average person who uses their products or plans to sees a company who is willing to communicate how they are doing.

If you need to dig into more detailed stats, they're not doing a good job with how their service performs. The whole point of their services is so that you don't need to worry about those things :o)

</comment><comment><USER10> I think one useful metric to track would be similar to the stock market's "52-week high." As an end user, comparing to the last month isn't very useful. But knowing, is this the top mark they've had in the last 12 months? That provides richer context.

</comment><comment><USER11> At <https://starthq.com> we are working on producing similar report cards for all the web apps out there. For the web app developers out there: is there any other information that you would like listed?

</comment><comment><USER12> Good to see a mix of quantitative and qualitative measurements in there. While uptime and customer satisfaction are probably correlated, there are probably more factors influencing the latter.

</comment><comment><USER13> They're making a bigger deal about their company than their products. Am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER14> I thought this might be a survey or request for users to fill-out a report card, not an informational page. We tried Basecamp once. It seemed like an expensive implementation of something we could easily setup ourselves. Not sure why everyone is so 'ga-ga' for 37signals...

<comment><USER15> It's much easier to run your own Basecamp than pay $20/mo for it.

All you have to do is:

\- maintain your own server

\- design the interface

\- write the code

\- test the code

\- fix bugs on a regular basis

And that all easily costs less than $20/mo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Which NMS is tracking these numbers?

</comment><comment><USER17> That paperclip annoys me too much to read the page.

<comment><USER18> That's true. Looks so much better without that background.

<comment><USER17> Can't they remove it? Then we can all pretend it's a postit note.</comment></comment></comment>


China sells minorities into 'forced labour' to benefit Apple, Foxconn, others - <AUTHOR> https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/306909-report-china-sells-minorities-into-forced-labor-to-benefit-apple-foxconn-others <comment><AUTHOR> > The paper, by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, doesn't use the > term "slavery," preferring to rely instead on the euphemism...

This is pretty essential reading</comment>


Show HN: Voice controlled 2048 - <AUTHOR> http://rumple.github.io/2048voice

<comment><AUTHOR> Did it just to join the bandwagon. Click on the mic and give voice commands. Anything with "up", "down", "left" and "right" moves the pieces. "Restart" restarts the game.</comment>


Early Measurements of Intel's 3DXPoint Persistent Memory DIMMs - <AUTHOR> https://www.sigarch.org/early-measurements-of-intels-3dxpoint-persistent-memory-dimms/ <comment><USER2> A little disappointed that there is no comparison with an nvme ssd.</comment>


Apple removes the battery-remaining estimate from macOS 10.12.2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.macworld.com/article/3149732/macs/apple-macos-sierra-update-macbook-pro-battery-life.html <comment><USER2> In the last 6 months or so I have found the battery life time indicator to be really inaccurate whereas I have found it to be as accurate as you could expect such a measurement to be. I'm not sure what the culprit is but in that time frame I have switched from a Macbook Air to a Macbook Pro, as well as upgraded to Sierra.

One thing I have noticed is that Finder seems to randomly begin running at 100% CPU for long periods of time as of late and I can't understand why.

<comment><USER2> I can't seem to edit my parent comment, but I meant to say that I _previously_ found the countdown time to be as "accurate as you would expect the time to be" _6 months ago_ when I was using a Macbook Air and the previous version of macOS.

<comment><USER3> I wish I'd read the edit sooner. The original comment gave me a headache and I kept reading it over and over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh thats nice. One useful feature less that could make me angry. Its like the facebook bubble only see stuff that makes you smile, until it is to late

<comment><USER5> You miss the point, they want you to do more mental maths :)

<comment><USER4> Oh thanks for that, i knew apple just wants the best for me ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A good move for the organization strategically. But as a user this doesn't make me too happy. I'd rather I see how much time my battery would suffice.

</comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone knows how can we do ball park calculation to estimate battery- remaining time using inbuilt Activity Monitor app?

</comment><comment><USER8> see also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13169060](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13169060)

</comment><comment><USER9> I program using eclipse and get all day battery life. I think the battery life issue is overhyped.

<comment><USER10> Brand new account with half its comments praising the new MBP... sure ok chief. How much does one get paid for this type of work nowadays?

<comment><USER11> Somehow I doubt a part of Apple's strategy is to pay shills to sell for them. There are plenty of fanboys (and fangirls) already doing that for free, and I think you'd be laughed out of the board room for bringing up such a strategy.

<s> Besides, everybody knows the only shills on HN are from nation-states. </s>

<comment><USER4> Where does this trust for apple come from? At this point it is safe to assume that every marketing agency does this as disaster recovery strategie.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Love bitbucket? Hate manual FTP deployment? Use DeployPal - <AUTHOR> https://bitbucket.org/logicry/deploypal

<comment><USER2> (Thinking outloud) Wow, I'm an ass. This would have to work with github for me to use it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Handy tool. Write readme file...</comment>


Types Considered Harmful - <AUTHOR> http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2828

<comment><USER2> semi off-topic: Prof. Pierce's research group created the Unison bi- directional file synchronizer and open-sourced it. It's a really useful tool that I use literally every single day to keep my files synchronized. Think of it as a predecessor to dropbox, without the UI polish ;)

<http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/>

<comment><USER3> Additional interesting fact, unison is written in ocaml. Very cool to see interesting systemsy software written in a functional programming language. I'm very excited to peruse it later.

<comment><USER4> Unison also hasn't been updated at all since the original authors stopped working on it, as far as I can tell. It's only one data point, but it does suggest a downside of using ocaml for open source software...

<comment><USER5> Projects not receiving much love after the original authors give it up isn't unique to projects written in ocaml.

<comment><USER6> But the probability of discontinuing a project is higher when the language is a less popular one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The project he's working on, <http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~harmony/>, is one I've been half-paying-attention to for a while.

In particular something like this will (I think) be a perfect substrate for refactoring parsers, semantic diff tools, and other neat stuff...

<comment><USER8> Yes, it's exciting problem. I think it's good he's articulated it.

Yet in ways, this paper seems like a confession that he's reached something of a brick wall with the problem.

If you look at the bidirectional link, <http://lambda-the- ultimate.org/node/1526>, he goes over a series of partial solutions before discussing his (very general) approach. I suspect that a workable system might be better through putting together all the classes of partial-but-well-behaved solutions rather than attempting a fully general solution.

Another thing that interests me is bidirectional code that operates on itself.

<comment><USER7> > Yet in ways, this paper seems like a confession that he's reached something > of a brick wall with the problem.

If "the problem" is that of providing accurate, fully static types for this type of transform, then of course yes. ;)

I think the end result is improved (easier to learn and more flexible) for consciously relaxing that goal, however.

(Edit to muse: I think 'relaxing' is a far more intelligent & interesting approach to overly-ambitious goals, as opposed to 'abandoning'.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The author, Benjamin Pierce, also wrote the book _Types and Programming Languages_ , among others.

His website: <http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/>

</comment><comment><USER9> _Do we want languages where a PhD is required to understand the library documentation?

two PhDs for Haskell_

This presentation is so lighthearted... I realy like it.

<comment><USER10> The "You need a PHD to understand Haskell" slur is so bloody ridiculous. I certainly didn't have a problem with it, and I haven't even finished my degree yet! On a more general note, I find the idea that a programming language can be "too smart" troubling. Is the solution to have dumber programming languages then?

<comment><USER11> There is a very big difference between "too smart" and "too complicated". I think Haskell is dangerously close to the former category while C++ is firmly in the second. I appreciate "smart" for many tasks, but sometimes the operational semantics become important (e.g. it's performance-sensitive) and then you have to understand the stack at a pretty deep level and it can be awfully confusing why a tiny source-level change makes a big performance or space difference.

Sometimes I pretty much know what assembly I want and it's much easier to make a C compiler produce it than to get GHC to produce it.

<comment><USER12> I agree that it is hard to get GHC produce the assembly you want, but I think this is unfair to "blame" GHC for this. In my eyes Haskell is mostly a high- level language and if you worry about the assembler produced I think we have left high-level language territory and it might easier to just write C and use the FFI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What's a good introduction to contracts? I'd like to know how a basic contract system works and which extensions are there? What's the relation between contracts and assert?

<comment><USER14> Provided that to you, a "good introduction" is something with a lambda- calculus extension and a reduction semantics, the 2002 paper by Findler and Felleisen[1] is a good read.

1\. [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.11....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.11.4081&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

<comment><USER13> Thanks, that is exactly what I meant :)

I also found this one quite interesting: <http://www.cs.brown.edu/~arjun/public/poly-contracts.pdf>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> With respect to very precise type systems, and coupling between program structure and types, one of the reason mathematics is so powerful is its flexibility

I actually have trouble with mathematics, because it is so flexible. For example, equality of sets A and B is typically shown by saying that every element of A is in B, and every element in B is in A. _Why on earth do they do that? Why not just say they're the same??!_

One advantage is it gives you the flexibility to demonstrate the first limb using one technique, and the second limb with a completely unrelated approach. I saw one example of showing equivalence of language defined by a class of grammars, and a language defined by constraints over sequences. You could even use a constructive and a non-constructive proof for each half.

It's a way of subdividing that is decoupled.

</comment><comment><USER16> Obligatory:

"Considered Harmful" Essays Considered Harmful <http://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html>

</comment><comment><USER10> Benjamin Pierce considered troll.</comment>


Go routines vs. C threads - <AUTHOR> https://syslog.ravelin.com/goroutine-shoot-out-e47585bebc1f <comment><USER2> Not really an apples-to-apples comparison. It would have been nice to at least _mention_ the possibility of goroutine starvation.

Here's the best overview of goroutine scheduling I've come across so far: [https://morsmachine.dk/go-scheduler](https://morsmachine.dk/go-scheduler)</comment>


A Working Programmer's Guide to Type-Indexed Values - <AUTHOR> http://ocaml.janestreet.com/?q=node/37

<comment><USER2> A neat trick, but---as one of the commenters points out---manual dictionary passing is a bit much. I would love Haskell, but for laziness...</comment>


Twenty Reasons to Believe Oswald Acted Alone - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1596 <comment><USER2> A few years back I bought a Carcano, the rifle used in the JFK assassination. I had always remembered every year some "firearms expert" being trotted out and claiming that there was no way that shot could have been made.

I don't think I could reliably make that shot, but a really good shooter could. It is actually a pretty accurate rifle. It is really unreliable though (although that might be just because it is from WW2). So whenever the TV tries to tell you something about firearms, just remember that most news reporters haven't been near anything more powerful than a NERF gun in their entire lives.

An interesting little bit of trivia. Mussolini was a really hard-core atheist, to the point where he even tried to get rid of the Christian year system. And I don't mean just trying to replace BC/AD with BCE/CE, he restarted the calendar at the date in which he took power in Italy. Mine was stamped "1941 XIX", 19 years by Mussolini's count.

<comment><USER3> An interesting little bit of trivia: in Taiwan the years are still counted since the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party took power in China in 1911, making this year year 102, for example. Oh, and of course they mix it with the "western" years too. So e.g. my birth year of 1980 is occasionally written on documents as 1980, as 80, as 69. Hilarity ensues.

The parallel with Mussolini (ie. being far right as well) is not lost on me, though. Food for thought.

<comment><USER4> As your Emacs will show you (Meta-x calendar, then p f), the French Republic used a calendar beginning with the revolution. It would be hard to describe the First Republic as "far right".

And I noticed on co-worker's diploma that Syracuse University gives the year both AD and from the founding of the republic--but whether counting that from independence or from the constitution I don't remember.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have also experienced this conspiracy bug. It was when I was young and "fake moon landing" was on the rise. What put an end to my belief it was staged was a simple fact that there are mirrors on the moon for anyone to check for reflection. Yet all the conspiracy theories conveniently left this fact out.

</comment><comment><USER6> Marc Ambinder's "How I figured out that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK" ([http://theweek.com/article/index/253249/my-journey-to- unbeli...](http://theweek.com/article/index/253249/my-journey-to-unbelief)) is worth a read as well.</comment>


Ask HN: Interview shows that you watch/listen - <AUTHOR>

Hello guys. I would like to know what are the shows with interviews that you guys like listen/watch
www.mixergy.com I think is a no-brainer option.
I also listen to www.therisetothetop.com and http://www.beyondthepedway.com/ . <comment><USER2> Mixergy by Andrew Warner

</comment><comment><USER3> Mixergy, of course, and I sometimes listen to TechZing as well.</comment>


Why I refuse to feel sorry for torrenting Game of Thrones - <AUTHOR> http://m.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/why-i-refuse-to-feel-sorry-for-pirating-game-of-thrones-20160428-gohqzi.html <comment><USER2> The real problem is this entitlement mentality that if something is not offered to you, you have the right to just take it.

Torrenting of Game of Thrones most likely doesn't hurt the show's profits. It's one of the most popular shows on television today and HBO relies on subscription fees instead of advertising dollars.

This isn't the case for a less popular show. Shared shows don't show up as tracked views and can and will affect real things like ratings and if a show gets picked up the next year.

The end result of this will be product placement right in the show, so sharing it will only help make money for the show creator. It's very similar to all of the people using Ad block: eventually, companies will have to resort to articles and content being one big advertisement.

</comment><comment><USER3> Always fun to watch people try and justify breaking the law. "I wanted to pay!" Okay. But they didn't want to sell it to you. It sucks, yes, but it's their content to do with as they please.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wrote something similar a while ago: [https://shruubi.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/australia-doesnt- ha...](https://shruubi.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/australia-doesnt-have-a- piracy-problem-it-has-a-content-access-problem/)

TL;DR - Australia suffers from the sin of not being America when it comes to media content-access, where providers seemingly don't care about our money and the only way to get access is through an overpriced service run by a monopoly.

</comment><comment><USER5> this article was originally from a gawker site. keep that in mind when reading.</comment>


How to Say Nothing in 500 Words - <AUTHOR> http://www3.baylor.edu/~Jesse_Airaudi/nothingwords.html <comment><USER2> I HATE padded text. Length constraints kill the quality of many student, academic, and professional writings.

In the last 10 years of my education, I routinely submitted works less than 80% of the required length and still received A grades. Most instructors are reasonable enough to know that high quality work does not need to meet arbitrary constraints.

I wish educators would stop providing length constraints, even when students request them. Unnecessary verbosity should be punished, not rewarded. Succinct, precise, unambiguous, and accurate writing needs to be encouraged.

<comment><USER3> _I routinely submitted works less than 80% of the required length and still received A grades. Most instructors are reasonable enough to know that high quality work does not need to meet arbitrary constraints._

That works great in cases where the instructors are allowed to think for themselves, not so well otherwise. In Florida we had this law called the Gordon Rule which states that all students are required to write 24,000 words worth of essay text over the course of their college education. They don't literally track how many words students write on an individual basis, but rather designate certain courses as 2,000, 4,000, or 6,000 word courses. Professors are then held strictly accountable for truth-in-advertising. They're required to check every student's word-count, and to flunk any student who goes one word under the quota.

<comment><USER4> The Gordon rule is not nearly that restrictive. Gordon rule courses re structured so that students will have a lot of writing assignments. No one is getting flunked for writing 5,999 words. The idea is to force students to take courses that require a lot of writing.

The rule is actually not a terrible idea in the first place. Its basically a response to a larger than you'd expect number of florida university graduates not being able to pass the CLAST (a re-hashing of the SAT). There's a similar requirement that all students must take a certain number of math classses.

<comment><USER3> _No one is getting flunked for writing 5,999 words._

I graduated from the University of Florida. YMMV, but my instructors in Gordon Rule courses were quite diligent/paranoid about making sure students met the word quota. I never heard of a student actually getting flunked for being slightly under, but that's because the instructors made sure that they didn't turn in an under-quota paper in the first place -- even if it meant just padding the extra space with repetition of "Gordon Rule sucks." (Ok, so you couldn't be _quite_ that blatant, but not far off)

Edit: UF was in the middle of a reaccreditation audit while I was there. Maybe the situation is less bad the rest of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems like people are missing the point.

"But if you aim higher, you must work differently. Instead of stuffing your sentences with straw, you must try steadily to get rid of the padding, to make your sentences lean and tough. If you are really working at it, your first draft will greatly exceed the required total, and then you will work it down."

Then the 500 words becomes a constraint rather than a goal, and constraints make for great writing.

And that's how the limits were originally intended.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure how I feel about this. Nobody really cares about the subjects of English 101 essays. On the one hand, if you're a good writer, you can write 500 words about anything; even if you don't care about it. On the other hand, anyone can write something good if they _do_ care about it. So I'm wondering why college courses assign assignments that nobody wants to do.

Do they want people to become good writers by writing about irrelevant subjects? Sounds like a great way to make sure people never get good at writing.

(I was always bad at writing in school. Now I get a significant income from having written a book. Not sure what this says about anything, but if I ever meet my high school/college English teachers, I will mention it to them. ;)

</comment><comment><USER7> Amateur stuff. Learn how to say nothing in 70,000 words, and you've got yourself a PhD.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, really, I can do 500 words in 15 minutes with 4 internet citations and a book. Any topic... You don't make it as far in college while doing as little work as I have if you write for meaning.

Except my tour de force Persecution of Atheists in America paper (10 pages); that's the only thing good thing I've written in college.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In my opinion, the writing style used to pad papers about college football are used by a majority of bloggers. That is my opinion.

<comment><USER10> You'd think these fluffy participles could be picked out (or just removed) by a program similar to a grammar checker. I might pay good money for such a "concise-izer."

<comment><USER9> conciseizr.com -- new YCombinator winter entry. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just love it that the baylor.edu webserver is Netscape-Enterprise 4.1. Don't mess with a classic.

<comment><USER11> Tragically, the dark side appears to be now dominating...

      [root@jira ~]# telnet www.baylor.edu 80
      Trying 188.8.131.52...
      Connected to www.baylor.edu (188.8.131.52).
      Escape character is '^]'.
      GET /index.htm
      HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
      Date: Sat, 02 May 2009 09:05:09 GMT
      Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Touché.

</comment><comment><USER13> The yellow background on that site makes my eyes burn.</comment>


Why Entrepreneurs Should Not Buy Homes  - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/24/entrepreneurs-should-not-buy-homes/

<comment><USER2> For many people, the real return on buying a house is owning the house, not the increase in value of the property. Where I live housing is fairly inexpensive and I can't think if of any other similarly sized investment that is guaranteed to cover my cost of housing for the rest of my life.

(edit: typo)

</comment><comment><USER3> In the introduction, the author mentions that 1) he had a lot of problems selling his first home and 2) the story of his second home is so painful that he doesn't want to write about it. After reading that, it's hard not to take the rest of the article with a huge grain of salt. There are a few good points about home ownership requiring a lot of cash and limiting your mobility, but most of the points are very questionable: the tax deduction is NOT microscopic, maintenance does NOT have to be a huge issue (depending on the house), you will NOT spend all of your time working on the house (again, depending on the house), and so on.

Entrepreneurs, specifically, can do clever things with houses. For example, if you can afford the down payment, there are many places where you can buy a 4 bedroom house, rent out 2-3 of the bedrooms and have a net profit every month (especially with the current interest rates.)

<comment><USER4> > rent out 2-3 of the bedrooms

... thus further limiting your options should you wish/need to liquidate your investment or just plain move...

<comment><USER5> why so?

In most countries I lived on, you can evict renters with at most 1 month of notice. Plus, some people actually prefer to buy estate which is already rented (specially with long-term contracts)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So basically is instead of making a downpayment for a house, invest in a business, and get a much better return.

The difference is the risk involved in those decisions, since a house is kind of a guaranteed investment.

<comment><USER7> Kind of... except when it's not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Rent. People will argue that the price of the mortgage, maintenance taxes, etc is all baked into the price of rent. Sometimes this is true. But usually not. And often maintenance and taxes will go up faster than your rent."

Citation needed.

If I pay $2000 per month * 12 and get 0 equity, vs paying $2000 * 12 + 2000 and get some percentage of that in equity, and deduct some from my taxes, something tells me if I get past the initial up front costs, and my time horizon for moving is > 5 years, owning a home probably isn't a bad call.

<comment><USER9> > pay $2000 per month * 12 and get 0 equity, vs paying $2000 * 12 + 2000 and > get some percentage of that in equity

In many/most markets, renting a place costs less per month than owning it. Spending an equivalent amount on rent vs. total home ownership overhead typically will mean that the renter ends up in a much nicer place. So the math would typically look something like this:

> pay $1200 per month * 12 and get $11,600 in investable cash, vs paying $2000 > * 12 + 2000 and get some percentage of that in equity risk.

FWIW, I've owned homes in two states and taxes have increased every year without fail, even when housing crashed.

<comment><USER3> The buy:rent ratio varies a lot from place to place. In a few markets, like New York, buying is definitely way more expensive than renting. On the opposite end of the spectrum, in a place like Vegas or Miami, your rent will be significantly more than your mortgage payment.

I think a buy-to-rent ratio of about 15 (i.e. 15 years rent = purchase price) is about where buying and renting break even. If you live in a place with a lower ratio, your mortgage payment would be less than the rent on the equivalent place; if you live in a place with a higher ratio, you can get a nicer place for the same monthly amount by renting. <http://explore.trulia.com/datavis/rentvsbuy/Q2-2011/>

<comment><USER10> "On the opposite end of the spectrum, in a place like Vegas or Miami, your rent will be significantly less than your mortgage payment."

I think you meant to say significantly more.

<comment><USER3> Fixed. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Buying home is not for everyone but renting is NOT always better. It's better when you only need a studio or 1 bedroom but once you have a family and children, renting a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment make no financial sense. In San Francisco, I'm looking at $1000 more in rent going from a 1 bedroom to a 2 bedroom and can expect that to continue going up.

If you buy smart (i.e. not at the top end of your budget) with the intention to pay off your mortgage (not sell/buy every 3-7 years), you're in a far better position then someone who still has ~1/3 of their monthly income still going out the door. Even if you don't pay off your mortgage, you have the possibility to refinance, reducing your monthly nut making it far easier to survive as an entrepreneur.</comment>


I worked on this comic for four years–why I'm giving it away free - <AUTHOR>

The short answer, to not stall the chance of helping someone.
I started on a pre algebra math comic for kids some years back. I got it published and launched it just recently, sales have been bleak.
I guess that's what happens with no relevant personal connections, and no familiarity with marketing and distribution.
But that doesn't change my desire to aid a child in learning math or a parent or teacher in trying to teach it.
So, I decided for the month of February, I'd make  an eBook version and give it away. Downloads, on the other hand, have been plenty.
And honestly, I'm happy just knowing there are people out there who find my creation useful.
Maybe youre a parent with preteens, or you know of someone who could use this comic.
Here's your invite.
It can be found at https://payhip.com/b/74lz. If you enjoy it, let me know. <comment><USER2> Hi man, thanks for sharing.

One suggestion: The PDF preview should be about a Solution, i.e.: solve a basic problem.

The current preview shows just some illustrations, but, when he clicks to see the preview, the visitor still has No idea about wheter the book will be of any help to his kids/grandsons/alumns.

my 2c.

<comment><USER3> Has to be record timing to forget your password in two hours.

Really appreciate the tip. My idea with that preview was for it to be a bit of a cliffhanger, and leave the viewer wondering what happens next (and in turn, download the eBook).

But perhaps your suggestion is the better approach. Thanks a lot.

<comment><USER2> 6 more things:

1.- Preview button:

The button is almost invisible, it needs to stand out a lot more, needs to contrast with the blue

.

2.- the font choice

 _Maybe people don 't like the font?_

The font is hard to read, not friendly, gets tiring.

The best font for reading printed matter: Serifs (i.e. Garamond, Gentium)

The best font for online reading: Sans Serifs (Helvetica, Arial, etc)

You need to make font samples: print the same page 6 times, each one using a different font, like this: [http://webstyleguide.com/wsg3/figures/8-typography/8-9-commo...](http://webstyleguide.com/wsg3/figures/8-typography/8-9-common- fonts.jpg)

. .

3.- Did you use inDesign?

The margins are too wide in my opinion, too much whitespace

.

4.- Show 2 or more PDFs:

 _Maybe people need more proof to convince themselves?_

i.e.: Sum example PDF preview, Multiplication example PDF preview etc

.

5.- File size

 _Maybe people think the file it 's too big?_

InDesign and also Adobe Acrobat have an optimize setting.

.

6.- Testimonials:

 _Maybe people need social proof to convince themselves?_

Testimonials are great social proof.

. .

P.S.: use a post-it! P.S.: I'm a designer btw

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are a series of math texts called Beast Academy that are comic book format. There is a lot of enthusiasm for them on some homeschool forums, so those might be places to try to drum up interest.

<comment><USER3> Great idea. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe you can still get some donations by some other means

(I've heard of Patreon, or PayPal Donate buttons)

The "pay what you like" might end up working in your favor :)

I think there were some trials where a "suggested" amount worked best (I don't know how you're getting paid, but there must be an administrative overhead).

<comment><USER3> Hey. Thanks a lot, never heard of Patreon. I'll check it out. The "pay what you like" hasn't worked too well so far, roughly 100 downloads and one donation. But I'll keep pushing. :-)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Nearish, My latest web app - a map-based Facebook group chat - <AUTHOR> http://nearish.com/#San_Francisco

<comment><AUTHOR> Nearish lets you roam around a map and chat with other Facebook users nearby. It uses node.js on the backend and jQuery on the frontend. I wrote it in about a month and a half... my understanding of Javascript has improved a ton! Any feedback is appreciated :)

</comment><comment><USER2> I wish it already knew where I was. This is possible by IP geo-location.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, it should do that, but the URL I linked to is <http://nearish.com/#San_Francisco> , which the page automatically routes to San Francisco.

Visiting <http://nearish.com> should geolocate you via IP. I use the MaxMind geolocation database to do this locally in node.js on the backend using node.js's native extensions. I actually made this into a library that's available here: <https://github.com/joevennix/GeoIP-js></comment></comment>


A timeless Bootstrap theme built for the modern web - <AUTHOR> http://code.divshot.com/geo-bootstrap/ <comment><USER2> Man! That brought me right back to 1996

</comment><comment><USER3> Back in old days was just one js file, one html file and one css file. ROMFL</comment>