Show HN: Browse recently expired, pronounceable domain names (Part II) - <AUTHOR> https://decentdrops.com <comment><AUTHOR> Ha. So here it goes I guess, I've been working on this pretty consistently for too long now (backend mainly).

Inspiration for the project was based off one I made over half a decade ago. And I gratefully got recognized on HN for it! I saw (my) username that posted it, tried a few of my go-to password 's, and boom, I still got it :)

Here was the thread for a trip down memory lane [https://web.archive.org/web/20160322215116/https://news.ycom...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160322215116/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9025800)

And the new one is called DecentDrops.com - Would have totally used DomainInferno again but looks like some squatter had it, hey that's what I get for neglecting I guess. Still not sure why.. Updated daily. Sorry I'm bad about rambling and don't want to do a (bigger) wall of text but if you've got questions shoot em!

<comment><USER2> That thread still works! [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9025800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9025800).

I didn't see any differences with the archive.org page. It would be interesting if there were some.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As recently expired names, you should be aware that they may suffer an array of detriments.

Notably:

"Pinned" security properties like recursive HSTS may apply until they expire. Even if _you_ have only ever operated [http://clown- photos.example.com/](http://clown-photos.example.com/) and never [https://clown-photos.example.com/](https://clown-photos.example.com/) the previous owner of example.com could have set policy saying all names are HTTPS-only.

Certificates issued in the Web PKI as much as three years ago for names in these domains may still exist and be valid. In principle some of them might even not be in CT logs. As new owner you are entitled to have those certificates revoked, but to do that you first need to know they exist.

Adverse user permissions decisions apply indefinitely. If the previous owner spewed notifications, or had unsolicited video content the resulting adverse decisions by users survive the change of ownership. (The other side of this applies too, if you buy a popular cat video sharing site, you're going to inherit lots of "allow autoplay" type permissions) but that's something you'd probably explicitly plan for rather than being a surprise.

White and black lists maintained by third parties may impact you. Whether that's a DNS blacklist that means some PiHoles block your whole site because the previous owner was an advertising network, or a spam blacklist that ensures your newsletter is never seen by its subscribers, that could be a real problem. Some list maintainers are very responsive, others not so much.

Speaking of lists, the domain could be on the PSL. Again you can ask to be removed (or indeed added if your planned use would mean the domain should be on the PSL and isn't). But if you don't realise the domain is PSL listed, you'll be astonished that it's impossible to get a Let's Encrypt certificate for *.example.com, or that cookies and frames and other origin-restricted stuff doesn't work as you expect.

<comment><USER4> > Speaking of lists, the domain could be on the PSL.

Public Suffix List for those like me who might not have all the latest TLAs memorized.

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Suffix_List](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Suffix_List)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You know, someone needs to make an Iron Chef styled reality TV show where teams of web developers are each handed a random recently-expired domain name and challenged to make a viable service that fits that domain.

<comment><USER6> You joke, but I know people who hunt to acquire domain names first, and then come up with business ideas based on them. Putting it bluntly, I feel that this is an astoundingly misguided way to operate business ventures, and, so far, the market seems to agree.

<comment><USER7> > business ideas based on them.

Were any of those converted into an actual business?

<comment><USER8> I believe VidaliaOnions.com was born from buying the domain first.

@searchbound on twitter is the owner. It's his thing to acquire a premium domain first then develop it.

<comment><USER7> > I believe VidaliaOnions.com was born from buying the domain first.

I had come across the Vidalia onions post on HN but missed that bit. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If anyone's wondering why the results started looking a tad more strange (and higher rate of unavailable domains on the list), it's because todays list was just processed over the course of the past. ~20min. Have some jobs spread out a little to be nice to the server and inconsistencies.

For the next who knows maybe hour or so, from this minute actually, you'll probably notice a few more than average domains one the list are already taken. Don't worry i've got my best robot people on it

</comment><comment><USER9> This is neat. After browsing for several pages, I'm yet to find something that is a decent name.

In a similar space, I really like [https://park.io](https://park.io)

<comment><USER10> Surprising. I just purchased couple that I found there. My rule for a domain is that needs to be easy to pronounce, preferably it's not a real word, doesn't have many Google results for the name, doesn't contain w/v, i/y and h.

So for instance snuno doesn't mean anything, 5 letters, easy to pronounce in all language, people don't get confused when you pronounce it. The name eventually becomes associated with whatever you put in.

After I saw Mt.Gox taking off, I realized, that the name is challenge only initially. People will figure it out once they think there is value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> R.I.P. cryingbitches.com, gone before I even knew her

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh now that's decent!! Which one of you picked it up. I'll pay top dollar!

<comment><USER12> Hello, very cool site. Nicely done. I have a few questions for you about some domains I've had for a long time. Please contact me via email at my username on gmail if you have a moment. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I remember seeing a hacker talk about picking these domains up and setting up an MX record to collect emails meant for the past registrar. .. Including 2FA and passwords resets if I recall correctly..

</comment><comment><USER14> Thanks for this, found a diamond in the rough.

Good on you for restricting people from sending "4" or less for the character count; I'd probably hide that too and use that for my own needs in your position, though it only raises the barrier from opportunistic searchers to people with a mild amount of curl/grep knowledge.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't own a single one nore have tried but I understand many would. Honestly I did that 100% because they're simply always taken by bots on the spot. It'd be a waste of space on the site/cluttering the feeds. Our process is muchhhh slower around the clock as we check all domains and delete any no longer avail, again to keep the lists tidy, it'd only get everyone's hopes up just to have them let down. I can guarantee it

<comment><USER15> If I did want a 4 letter domain, how would I get one? Is the best way to pony up a few grand for one? I plugged a few into a domain-name service and some were available for as little as $3k...

5 letters, however, $8.99!

<comment><USER16> Check out Dropcatch.com, Namejet and GoDaddy Auctions. You can get a decent 4L com for under $1000 if you're patient. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but generally speaking you're going to get a much, much better name by spending $100-1000 at auction then by handregging. There are bots and people trawling through pending delete lists catching anything good before it becomes available.

<comment><USER17> Domain resellers are trouble but I wonder how lucrative actually domain reselling is considering lots of people are doing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thanks for the service! I found a decent 4-letter that I can use as a pseudonym for political blogging now ;) Grade A!

</comment><comment><USER19> a) Really awesomely cool!

b) Kinda sad to read all those names and think that someone once thought, 'hey, this could be my baby.' Sure, I imagine a bunch of them were just hoovered up by domain squatters, but at least a few of them are failed sites, right? … right?

<comment><USER20> Certainly a bit sad. I cannot read those domains without imagining what the story behind them was.

Justinandsam.com is just heartbreaking.

<comment><USER21> Why is it heartbreaking? Think positive. Probably just a domain used for a wedding registry and RSVPs leading up to the event and then no longer needed after the big day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hmm what business could be built around havecheesewilltravel.com?

<comment><USER23> Grassroots artisan cheese distribution?

<comment><USER22> I like it! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Really impressive, and de-motivating for me! :) I was working on something similar as a side project. The only information that was not easy to get, because it was not delivered with every DNS request, is the "expiration date". How did you manage to get it? Or even more interestingly: Are you willing to give some insights, how you realised it?

</comment><comment><USER25> Anyone have recommendations for a nice and easy, "no BS" site for selling a domain? Or even some "we'll (try to) sell it for you and take a commission" type of place?

I've got _one_ domain that I think I could actually sell for a decent price, but I just really don't wanna deal with it...

<comment><USER26> Sedo is by far the easiest. Just list your domains and it's painless. I've sold well over $100k worth of domains via Sedo over the years with zero hiccups, despite their somewhat clunky website - can't say the same about other marketplaces.

<comment><USER27> If you don't mind me asking, what are some of the top domains that you have sold on Sedo?

<comment><USER26> Combinations of (something)cloud.com did well, by companies wanting to start their own cloud services for their industry. Not branded / trademark terms, just normal words combined with cloud dot com. I'm sure that trend is winding down but there's always a next big thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> After browsing the list for a bit, I really wish I had a use for haterade.org

</comment><comment><USER21> Nice site! Just from a UX perspective, I'd advise against a modal dialog within a second of landing on the page. Consider a dismissible header for the introduction instead.

</comment><comment><USER29> I have sem.fyi available and several other nice 2-3 letter .fyi domains at [https://rad.fyi](https://rad.fyi)

</comment><comment><USER30> ButtholeDragon.com

</comment><comment><USER31> Useful service, congrats on the launch. Do 4 character domains basically never drop or why is the minimum length 5?

<comment><USER32> There's at least one 4-character domain in the results (easier to find when you set max to 4), `xuci.org`. So they do drop.

<comment><USER33> If you squint your...ears it almost sounds like "sushi.org". Not bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is it possible to add a column with the Page Rank or Domain Authority of the particular domain?

<comment><AUTHOR> You know I briefly looked in to it because I'm not dumb I understand it'd make this unstoppable, but there's very few options with very high prices. You never know with what the future holds but yeah, not cheap. Definitely doable though.

The good thing about 'our' filtering is that it would take down the number of daily requests to their API, but still...a. lot. I wouldn't say it's out of the question even remotely, I have the funds but am cautious with my finances/investments. But you're right and I should definitely give it some serious though..

<comment><USER5> That strikes me as a good option for a future "professional" tier of the website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is great, but most of these don't seem that pronounceable to me.

</comment><comment><USER36> knotso.com seems like a very clever name for a knot-tying instruction site or game. I'm not going to make one though. Anyone keen to?

</comment><comment><USER37> Awesome.

I just registered (majorsportsapparelmaker)golf.com

And yes, they make golf shoes and apparel.

So that's fun.

<comment><USER21> You can't use it for anything and the only value is in hoping they randomly decide to contact you and ask to buy it (you can't approach them because that is extortion of trademarked property) rather than going through the courts.

<comment><USER30> You can make a "brand name golf sucks" blog.</comment></comment></comment>


Tesla Doesn't Burn Fuel, It Burns Cash - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-burns-cash/ <comment><USER2> Innovation is expensive. All innovative efforts burn tons of cash until they don't. Nothing new is ever profitable until it reaches a certain critical mass of optimization and adoption.

Arguments of this form amount to arguments that we should never do anything new.</comment>


Rails developers showing love for Heroku - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2008/03/24/rails-developers-showing-love-for-heroku/

<comment><USER2> Heroku has a revision system as of the last update. You can also edit on local machines via a gem that synchs up to Heroku, though I haven't tried this. You can also snapshot your app at any point and export for additional backup. I've been satisfied with what I have now.

For a brand new hacker, Heroku lets you spend more time learning rails and building your idea and no time with system admin. Depending on what you want to learn first, that might be a good thing. You can always pull it out later with an export and part ways.

</comment><comment><USER3> "For the first time, you can use any interface to edit a Rails application directly on the web, rather than rewriting the code offline, then uploading it to your host."

This seems super cool, especially for rapid prototyping, but does Heroku support any source control? I would be pretty nervous about updating a live application on the fly like that, having made some incredibly stupid changes to live code in my younger days (and that involved three steps, as opposed to one).

<comment><USER4> My thoughts exactly. The heroku website doesn't seem to answer that question, but <http://www.urlfan.com/local/heroku/68765816.html> says:

"Whenever you save a file, any updates are automatically deployed and appear on your website."

Ideally, heroku would support revision control and have the ability to run multiple versions on different urls, at least testing and live.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a brand new hacker who's learning ruby/rails to develop my first web app. I haven't yet gotten to the point of deployment (or even thinking about deployment). For someone like me, what are the pros and cons of using Heroku versus a traditional host? I've got lots of time and am eager to learn, but with so many different pieces to the startup puzzle, I'm wondering where exactly to best allocate it.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is the only hacker-focused startup that I've seen from YCombinator that I really understand the market for. I consider it most likely to succeed among the hacker-focused startups. It exists in a growing market niche (rails developers) and solves a crucial problem (easy rails deployment).

<comment><USER7> In what way is this "hacker-focused"?

Wouldn't hackers be miore comfortable with a local, highly customized development set-up; scp, ssh , etc. + assorted tools for deployment; and want to use their own revision control system?</comment></comment>


RISC-V formal spec public review - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/riscv/ISA_Formal_Spec_Public_Review/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> Well, this is progress.

I wonder how many counterparts to delay slots, stack windows, conditional moves, and other embarrassments we are inadvertently enshrining. There's nothing like hindsight to make you facepalm. (The crypto extension is my bet ATM for most-likely-to-embarrass. But that's without reading it.)

The only way to approach this project sensibly is to assume every single FPGA produced after some near future point will have at least one, and more typically dozens of RISC-V cores scattered around like the multipliers you see in them now, just to try to be competitive.

Personally, I am banking my enthusiasm for when the Bitmanip extension goes in.

<comment><USER3> What's wrong with conditional moves? They're good for mispredictable branches, although I liked them better on PPC which had 8 condition/flags registers instead of just 1.

<comment><USER2> Conditional moves depend on state left over from the last instruction. But when you want to re-order your instructions to keep all your functional units busy, keeping the conditional moves right makes a big mess. They're fine as micro-ops after you've scheduled them all, but are lousy at the ISA level.

Intel and AMD make it work by throwing another 10,000 or 100,000 transistors at it.

It is better to let macro-op fusion hardware identify opportunities to convert a branch-over-move sequence, all by itself. RISC-V is supposed to be all about powerful macro-op fusion.

Clang is really aggressive about generating cmovs. On Gcc you can still use (x & -c) expressions to get nicely pipelined conditional expressions, but Clang stomps them all to cmovs.

Cmov is one of the methods to mitigate Spectre because Intel refuses to speculate loads in them. So, cmov from memory pessimizes your code in cases where you aren't worried what might be sharing your cache.

<comment><USER4> Isn't cmov just a normal instruction with 3 source operands?

Or do you mean that the problem is having 3 instead of 2 source operands?

Or that one of the operands is the flag register on x86-like architecture? (but you can just use a normal register being nonzero)

<comment><USER5> Having 3 input operands is definitely an issue. In the Alpha EV6 architecture, it was decided only 2 inputs are supported, so a CMOV would need to be split into two actual instructions, the first of which setting the 65th bit of one of the operands to the result of the test and the other selecting the correct output. Thus, CMOV had 2 cycles latency and still required extra hardware resources to implement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is over.

> The Public Review period is: March 29, 2019 through May 13, 2019

</comment><comment><USER7> How easy is it to do bigint arithmetic in RISC-V?

<comment><USER8> It has perfectly good add and multiply instructions, so uh easy? What at an ISA level would make it hard?

<comment><USER2> Connecting from one word to the next. Do you have to do 32-bit multiplications so as to retain the high half of the result, or does a 64-bit multiply deliver the high 64 bits of the result somewhere?

Also there is stuff about the carry from 64-bit addition.

(Substitute 16 and 32, for 32-bit units.)

<comment><USER8> There are instructions to get the top half of a multiply, and a suggested ordering so that the chip can deliver both halves with only one calculation.

There's no carry flag but I'd say it's still easy to work around that.

<comment><USER9> Specifically, I think the "sltu" (set if less than, unsigned) instruction is useful for carries. When you add two unsigned integers, the result is smaller than the inputs if and only if an overflow occurred.

      ; a1:a0 * a2 --> a5:a4:a3
      ; using t0 as temp reg
      mulhu a5, a1, a2
      mulu  a4, a1, a2
      mulhu t0, a0, a2
      mulu  a3, a0, a2
      add   a4, a4, t0
      ; carry a 1 or a 0, overwriting t0
      sltu  t0, a4, t0
      add   a5, a5, t0

(edit: switched a1 and a0 for consistency)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Documents Suggest CitiMortgage and Wells Fargo Also Commit Foreclosure Fraud - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/credit/robo-signing-scandal-spreads-documents-show-citi-and-wells-also/19657686/ <comment><USER2> Not at all impressed, e.g. the author is defining "ceased to exist" in a way that doesn't take into account how a company is liquidated.

There are certainly big problems here, but I don't see the author finding real ones.</comment>


Why i am bit disappointed with canonical? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pault.ag/post/5313553484/why-im-a-bit-disappointed-with-canonical

<comment><USER2> sagarun: the title is a statement, not a question; it didn't need a question mark.

/pedant</comment>


Mint.com in 2010 - Is it Safe? - <AUTHOR> http://www.jasonowens.com/mint-com-in-2010-is-it-safe/

<comment><USER2> The Fox News trope in the opening line sets the tone that this is not journalism, but an opinion piece.

> "To date _there have been_ security concerns and questions identified around > mint.com."

Journalism should avoid using "there have been" or "some say"; such phrases signal that what comes next will be an unattributed pot shot.

The first attack is on the zip code requirement. "Presumably this means Mint.com ... will not be able to effectively send you email and text alerts."

On the contrary, this FUD statement was preceded by an attributed statement from Mint: "Mint.com requires your Zip code ... to determine the time zone in order to send timely alerts." If you don't give them the right time zone, your alerts will be no less effective, you just might find them more inconveniently timed.

As for the more complex assertion about categorization, that's because business names are local. A business named "Scissors" might be a tailor in my zip, and a salon in yours. Of course it will be hard to correctly categorize when the locale is unknown.

Interestingly, when I reached the end of the article, I saw this reason was clearly provided by the employee, but not mentioned in the article.

Mint wrote that the ZIP "allows the Service to provide you with accurate automated categorization of your spending by improving our ability to identify merchants both nationally and locally."

<comment><USER3> [http://www.cracked.com/article_18458_6-subtle-ways-news- medi...](http://www.cracked.com/article_18458_6-subtle-ways-news-media- disguises-bullshit-as-fact.html?cliffsnotes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm sorry, but this entire article sounds like FUD. I could point out various parts I had issues with, but the bit that bothered me the most was the title of the section "Recommendations to Improve Mint.com's Security Posture". I might be naive here, but can someone please point out the valid points raised in this article that actually make Mint.com 'weak' when it comes to security?

<comment><USER5> Disclosure: I own a competitor to Mint.

I agree that most of the article is FUD, though the author does have some valid points in the "Security Posture" section (e.g. Mint ought to validate your email address before they depend on it for recovering an account).

The author suggests the use of challenge questions; I think on the surface that sounds like a great idea, but most challenge questions can be guessed based on what friends/family know or what a person writes online, and the testing I did with user-provided questions showed that users will write obvious questions or even write a question with an answer that is the question itself.

I'm surprised that the author didn't write more about _who_ has access to the information. I think that's a very valid question regarding their security and privacy. Additionally, while their data-retention policies seem reasonable (backups and aggregate data), some guidance as to how long those backups are kept and what aggregate data is collected would be informative.

In short: the article is a good attempt to review Mint's security policies, but I think the author should have done a little bit more investigation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ya know... after all that, I actually think I would feel _better_ about the site. It's a half-decent breakdown, though FUD-heavy (especially U and D), and lots of parts of it point out _significantly_ better practices than my banks currently employ.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for the comments. If you're interested and want to help make the article better there's a follow-up posting incorporating some of the feedback. Thanks

<http://www.jasonowens.com/follow-up-to-is-mint-com-safe/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone know a good Mint alternative for the UK?</comment>


Australian coal power plant is being reopened for blockchain mining - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/australian-coal-power-plant-reopened-blockchain-bitcoin-applications/ <comment><USER2> As an Australian, I can only apologise for this fucking disgrace.

<comment><USER2> Update: take this news with a grain of salt. It smells like nothing more than a statement of intent at this point, from a group who clearly have no experience of running a power station but who probably have an excellent PR department.

Newcastle Herald: [http://www.theherald.com.au/story/5335192/latest-twist-in- th...](http://www.theherald.com.au/story/5335192/latest-twist-in-the-curious- tale-of-redbank/)

<comment><USER3> yeah, its stark raving lunacy bollocks.

dickheads trying to make a name for themselves. it'll never get off the ground.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My kneejerk reaction is fury, but actually reading the article suggests another reaction should dominate, namely disinterest.

 _According to a spokesperson from Hunter Energy, it expects roughly 5% of the energy from the power plant will be used for blockchain related processes._

Ironically, it's just a coal plant reopening with a touch of Blockchain hype, but really has almost nothing to do With Blockchain tech. At this point I wouldn't be shocked to find "Blockchain enabled!" on peanut butter.

<comment><USER5> Actually, it may not be too many years before peanut butter, breakfast cereals, and many items found in grocery stores have a "blockchain certified" logo and QR code, or something along those lines. One of the interesting non- currency applications of blockchain tech is "track and trace" for the food and beverage industries: you could scan the code (with an appropriate app, of course) and find a complete history of transport and processing steps for every ingredient in a food/bev product, all the way back to the farms.

<comment><USER2> I'll build you this today with a "database".

<comment><USER5> It's difficult, because a network of suppliers and processors can go very deep and involve a great number of branches: a batch (or "lot") of red peppers from a farm could be split up and shipped, via various shippers, to a variety of manufacturers for quite different purposes. Getting everyone coordinated to use a central database is... difficult. Instead big market movers (think Walmart, Kroger, et al.) can say: "look, if you want to do business with us, then you and all your suppliers and their processors and suppliers in turn, and so on, need to transact lot and batch numbers and related info into this distributed ledger thingy, which we will all be a part of running [think industry-specific Hyperledger (or similar) application, not _the_ Bitcoin or Ethereum blockhains _per se_ ]. The data transacted has to conform to certain ISO standards. If the data's not there, all the way back to origin, we'll stop doing business with you. You have 5 years to get ready. Get started."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is why needed the carbon tax.

</comment><comment><USER7> > According to a spokesperson from Hunter Energy, it expects roughly 5% of the > energy from the power plant will be used for blockchain related processes.

clickbait nonsense

<comment><USER8> > Once the power plant is reopened (expected to be completed within 12 > months), it will offer wholesale or "pre-grid" power prices to blockchain > companies

Doesn't seem like nonsense.

<comment><USER7> it will offer that to everyone, including blockchain companies</comment></comment></comment>


Samsung Expected to Earn $4B More Making iPhone X Parts Than Galaxy S8 Parts - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/73ssux/samsung_expected_to_earn_4b_more_making_iphone_x/ <comment><AUTHOR> qwertyuiop</comment>


Leak of Intel Materials: 20GB of Secret Documents and Files on the Network - <AUTHOR> https://utopia.fans/security/leak-of-intel-materials-of-secret-documents-and-files-on-the-network/ <comment><AUTHOR> Seems like none of the media giants can stand hacking attacks</comment>


How to sell a scoop of ice cream for $60,000 - <AUTHOR> http://kburke.org/kevin/60k_ice_cream_scoop/

<comment><USER2> This is cute, but fwiw, I've been to the top of Kilimanjaro, and eating ice cream was about the last thing I wanted to do at the time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even if no one does it though it's probably still worth it for the anchor value - you get anchored high and then a $5 scoop doesn't seem so unreasonable.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Logo feedback for new sports site needed - <AUTHOR> https://99designs.co.uk/logo-design/vote-uvcck8

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Guys,

I'm working on a new website in my spare time, the basic premise is the below...

Hustle.IO

Hustle aim is to bring sportspeople together, whether it be finding a new running group, a team looking for some new football players or a husband looking for a tennis match to avoid the wife talking about 50 shades of Gray by the pool on holiday, Hustle's aim is to get people off the couch!.

Hustle IO's Background

Hustle was born out of a need I found myself and others in more and more frequently, when I wanted to play Tennis or Soccer there just wasn't any of my usual mates available, I'd resorted to posting on Facebook but it clearly just made me look like a bit desperate.

It was clear it was happening on the flip side, with teams turning up for soccer matches a man or two short having exhausted all avenues and bribes available, there was a clear demand to help people out.

What I need from you (I'll buy you a beer...if your in London!)

I have commissioned designers to create hustle.io's logo and branding, I've been working on this with them over the past week and have got to some final designs, it will only take two minutes but if you could rate the designs on the following link I would really appreciate it!...

<https://99designs.co.uk/logo-design/vote-uvcck8>

Thanks

<comment><USER2> Feedback sent, not sure how you pick a winner though My comments will be useful I hope.

But I will say the current winner #89 looks like a logo that would be more suited to a energy drink/bar.

If you could do a logo like #141 with just one letter S and the other two Hustles as a cross centeralised upon that single S union Jack style then that would be my winner.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I get what you mean, someone else pointed to a simpler design and smaller logo as well, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think that when you're designing a logo, you need to have a clear silhouette. Right now it looks like a fancy header for a header of a section of a website, not a logo. Look at Pepsi, Coke, Apple, Toyota, YCombinator - - all of them have really clear outlines that are unmistakable. The runner in the H is a reasonable idea, but it makes the H look distorted when really small.

So, I don't really like any of the logos.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, if no one likes them its back to the drawing board (literally!). Thankfully I have two more days of design amends to be made so taking on everyones advice is crucial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The only one that's remotely scalable is #135 even though you'll a) lose the runner really quick and b) he looks tired. The runner in #89 better defines "hustle", but his movement would likely ruin the flow if he was positioned on #135.

Also, putting a runner on there sends a message immediately about who your intended audience is. If it was just a typeface that insinuated effort/movement, that might be better than trying to put clipart in there that could throw people off about the purpose of your service, which isn't just funneled to runners.. particularly with the success of technologies already devoted to them like Nike+.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For anyone that is interested, the feedback received (thanks!) has been handed over and the output poll for final designs is here -

<https://99designs.co.uk/logo-design/vote-o42osm>

Any additional votes / feedback would be great

</comment><comment><USER5> There are two that look like "Rustle" and one that looks like "Hostle". As for the ones with the toppled 's', the toppling looks awkward against the 't' and is crying out for much more refinement.

Also, is this really Hacker News? Flagged.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why would it not be hacker news?, Im working on a new website, coding it, designing it and the bit I have outsourced I wanted feedback on.

I think flagging it is a bit childish to be frank.

<comment><USER5> Do I need to explain? You're soliciting opinion about some random logo. This isn't even remotely relevant to the subject matter of Hacker News.

You could call skydiving or tennis 'a bit childish' if you like, but that doesn't make it thus.

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree, quite frankly I don't care for your explanation even if you were to offer it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Please Return Me - Recover your Lost Stuff - <AUTHOR>

Please review my startup Please Return Me.
http://pleasereturn.me
Please Return Me is a service which helps recover your lost stuff.
We provide attractive labels (in 6 colors) which you place on your valuables like cell phones, wallets, keys, etc...
Gallery: http://pleasereturn.me/gallery
If you ever lose your stuff, we charge $30 for recovery and a minimum $20 reward for the finder.
<comment></comment><comment>--
We are giving labels away for free locally to try and collect data on returns and registrations. Our labels are available online for just $4.99 per sheet. Each sheet has it's own unique serial number registered to you.
If you have any marketing ideas, we'd love to hear those too. Please review!
Thank you HN! </comment><comment><USER2> I don't know what I would put the labels right now but if I think of something I would definitely use the service.

2 things: 1) Do returners have any knowledge of the reward value before they send it off? I can see it going two ways - someone not sending something in because of the value of the item vs reward or users trying to get away with the minimum payment of $50 because the other person doesn't know how much the reward will be.

Still, if someone had a sticker on something like this I'd probably return it regardless of the reward.

2) Typo on order page. "the'll hold up. "

I love the design of the stickers.

I could see an expansion being tamper proof stickers for an extra fee. Yours are laminated, but I might want something (for corporate assets or something) that can't be removed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your feedback.

1\. About the reward; the returner does not know what the reward will be, however we do mention that there is a minimum $20 reward.

The business is built around the idea that the general public is good. They generally want to return someone's lost stuff. What we've found so far is that the label just makes the process possible, and painless.

That's why we have the "Good Karma" badge :)

2\. Thanks, I have fixed the typo.

3\. About the expansion with tamper proof stickers, that's certainly a possibility. We haven't done much corporate business yet, so we're not sure the demand for that sort of thing. Our early customers have mostly been individuals.

Thanks again for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome. I love the idea. It's very likely I'll be signing up soon. What do the different colors of the stickers mean? If nothing, you should let people know that the colors mean nothing. Also, on the order screen (that's right, I already tried to order) the boxes are filled with php error messages. Gotta love php.

[edit] I just told my cofounder about this. He bought labels immediately. He also had the php errors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, I fixed the PHP error.

The colors don't mean anything, just personal preference- not unlike iPod nanos.

We shipped out the labels your cofounder bought earlier today.

What is your business out of curiosity?

<comment><USER3> I let Matt know to be expecting his labels shortly. We're a marketplace for dinner parties. Think the Airbnb model applied to dining instead of lodging.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very nice, when you can show me a prototype I'll be happy to give you some feedback.

I think AirBnB was spamming craigslist when they first started, and now their customers are doing it for them. Craigslist is free advertising. (Just a thought)

<comment><USER3> He got the sheets. He liked the personal touch of hand-writing a thank you on the receipt. Nice touch. Things like that mean a lot early on. Keep it up.

I think Airbnb is an idea to which craigslist can easily add value. Basically people were on CL looking for a place to stay or listing their place for rent so it was easy for abnb to step in and show their use case. Unfortunately people aren't typically on CL advertising their dinner party or looking for one to attend. That's not to say that CL can't be used to our advantage in some way, it just looks a little different.

We're rapidly developing the product now and will be rolling it out to our signed up chefs first so they can get their accounts created before official launch. We'll probably make a temporary back-door entrance for a "Show HN" post to get some feedback. If you want, email me and I'll keep you in the loop as we roll it out.

[edit] email is "dave" at my startup's domain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Changes are -> Chances are, in the paragraph below on your website.

We have a proven 75% recovery rate for valuables which is pretty darn good. Changes are, you're going to lose something valuable eventually.

No one is perfect. (Not even you! :)

</comment><comment><USER5> very cool idea. the logistics around setting up the shipment from founder to owner must be a big pain on your end! but overall i love the idea and will check it out. do you guys offer your services in canada as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, anywhere in the World.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://PleaseReturn.Me></comment>


Microsoft Calling. Anyone There? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/technology/05soft.html

<comment><USER2> While this is an important and useful viewpoint, there's some basic journalism failure here:

" _But Microsoft stumbled as it took longer than expected to create a new product with the [Danger] technology._ "

Given that as far as we can tell Danger was bought for i's IP portfolio first and warm bodies a distant second, and Pink/Kin used _no_ Danger technology (unless the author's use of technology is so loose as to include technique/architecture), to the point one of the "official" causes of failure is a claimed 18 month schedule slip due to abandoning Danger's NetBSD based OS for Windows CE, the author would have done a lot better by either not opining on something they knew nothing about _or_ spending the half-hour on the net required to get a basic background and learn the conventional wisdom.</comment>


Just Launched: Pushing Beyond: Weekly Interviews with Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.pushingbeyond.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> A new friend of mine in Atlanta just launched his newest company, Pushing Beyond. He's traveling around the country to interview entrepreneurs and business leaders and will be posting a new video every week.

On a side note, not all of the spots are filled yet. If you might be interested in talking about your successes, or know someone who would, either contact him through his site or let me know and I'll help you two get in touch.</comment>


Things Employees Really Need to Hear From You - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/10-things-employees-desperately-want-to-hear.html

<comment><USER2> "What do you think?" is just wasting my time/effort to answer you, since you'll either tell me its ill-considered or say something nice but not use/act on what i say anyway. just tell me what you want done, i'll do it, don't provoke me with that "What do you think?" nonsense.</comment>


The End of the Anthropocene: E. O. Wilson at 85 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2015/01/05/eo-wilson-end-of-the-anthropocene/

<comment><USER2> Worst. Ads. Ever.

<comment><USER3> > _All of these ants are born physically destined for their careers. There is > no uncertainty. Ant societies look very much like human societies, except > that all of it happens without the awkwardness of conscious thought or > emotions._

Someone included "careers" in that sentence without a trace of irony? At least Benjamin Bratton covers such "post-anthropocene" (posthuman) topics in more depth, [http://www.e-flux.com/journal/some-trace-effects-of-the- post...](http://www.e-flux.com/journal/some-trace-effects-of-the-post- anthropocene-on-accelerationist-geopolitical-aesthetics/)</comment></comment>


After Eich resigns, conservatives slam Mozilla–and call for boycott - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/after-eich-firing-conservatives-slam-mozilla-and-call-for-boycott/

<comment><USER2> Here is the _Simplified English_ on what has happened until now, for those who did not follow:

\- There is a class with an X number of students

\- Among those students are B. Eich and L. Joe

\- During a class meeting, the class starts to discuss what they should get for launch: apples, or apples and oranges

\- Eich said that the launch should be apples, Joe wanted the chance to choice between apples and oranges

\- The choice has fallen on apples only

\- On the next week, this has been changed, now it's apples or oranges

\- On the following week, Eich becomes the head of the Mathematics Study Group

\- In said group, students are present from both sides

\- Joe asks his friends to boycott the study group, claiming that Eich is not fitting for the task because he hates oranges

\- Few group members ask Eich to leave. Most say that the claims neither it is related to maths, nor does it disturb them

\- Next day, Eich leaves the Math group to protect his fellow number-lovers

\- Apple-only students start to boycott the maths group for outing Eich

Oh, and before any of you claim that marriage rights are not on the same level as choosing a fruit, I'd like to remind you that: a.) this is to show reactions of persons and groups, not about the topic of argument, and b.) eating is one of the most elemental need of _any_ living human.

</comment><comment><USER3> FWIW mozilla is a huge supporter of open and free access to the internet, as well as consumer privacy. They have also launched something recently, IIRC it was a privacy product. (probably to the benefit of the consumer and the OSS community, and probably free as well).

We should fight this, especially in a post-Snowden world.

The reason? All it takes for this guy to lose his job and "conservatives" to boycott his million dollar company was an attack on his reputation, screenshotted from a website, of a political campaign donation. Very classic "Smear-campaign attack" practiced by TPB for centuries.

Did Mozilla support the "HTTPS everything" as well?</comment>


You don't change the world with a marginally better mousetrap - <AUTHOR> http://slashstar.com/blogs/tim/archive/2008/07/30/you-don-t-change-the-world-with-a-marginally-better-mousetrap.aspx

<comment><USER2> You can change the world with something only marginally better in markets that are less competitive and less well-established than general internet search... unfortunately cuil chose search.

Facebook is a marginally better mousetrap, Wordpress and Movable Type are marginally better mousetraps...They just happened to enter markets where the other options were not the greatest.

Marginally better can also be accomplished by simply removing a feature or two... 37signals, Twitter

<comment><USER3> I think you can be a marginally better mousetrap if the ones that already exist aren't quite "good enough". If there's a need for a better one, and you fill that need, there might be success if you play your cards right.

In an arena without a need for a better mousetrap though you are going up against already established competition, because they are already "good enough". People rarely go looking for better when they have good enough. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I think you're right on that distinction, and I guess I sort of internalized that. As Seth discusses to in the linked article, things don't become "iconic" without at least being "good enough" in that category - so if you're saying you're the "next" something, they're probably at least good enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes you do. Think about it. Was the object we know as "The mouse trap" the first tool used to kill mice? I doubt it. It simply was better than the current solutions. Sure, I know that being 'marginally better' isn't going to guarantee success, especially in a competitive market, but slight improvements can lead to widespread successes.

</comment><comment><USER5> True. Dvorak still hasn't caught on.</comment>


The Big Mac Index (2008 edition) - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11784836&CFID=14438064&CFTOKEN=92499891

<comment><USER2> Impressive... in Argentina 3 local pesos buy 1 dollar, however we are almost equal in the Big Mac Index? (even we are in the good side of the bar) What is that supposed to mean? Big Macs are very cheap here? Or is there any economical meaning for that too?

Edit: ah, not cheaper, but more expensive, because of the inflation. I see...</comment>


Show HN: Hacker News Made Visual, and Summarized  - <AUTHOR> http://plexidigest.com/hackernews

<comment><AUTHOR> Plexi is an NLP engine that does summarization as just one of its tricks. We are also using image processing to detect objects in the pictures so we can make the preview images uniform. (if a story doesn't have an opengraph image you don't get a preview [copyright reasons])

We have our own solution to "Readability", our own sentence segmentation solution, our own summarization technology, and if you use the find related you can see how we apply this to search as well.

Shortly we will have a SIRI/Cortana competitor (the beta is out for Windows Phone, and Android is coming soon)

Our company plans to compete in the first Xprize for giving a TED presentation generated by AI.

-Brandon Wirtz CTO Plexi</comment>


Android architecture built on RxJava - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tehmou/rx-android-architecture

<comment><USER2> Thanks for creating this project. I'm working through RxJava on Android currently, so this project provides an excellent learning resource.</comment>


Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/19/us-dropbox-funding-idUSBRE9AI01R20131119 <comment><USER2> "Dropbox, which is increasingly competing with Microsoft and Google as well as fellow startup Box in the fast-growing field of cloud storage,"

This implicitly (if not explicitly) reverses the actuality, which is really:

"Dropbox, which is increasingly facing competition from Microsoft and Google as well as fellow startup Box in the fast-growing field of cloud storage,"

They do a better job later on with, "Those features come at a time large rivals like Microsoft and Amazon Inc are muscling into cloud-storage, a strategic weapon in an era of widespread mobile computing."

<comment><USER3> Since you're nitpicking, I'll just point out that both formulations actually have the same meaning. There's nothing (not even an implication) in the first quoted sentence that suggests that Dropbox is younger than its competitors.

'Competing with' and 'facing competition from' are exact equivalents.

<comment><USER4> I read "facing competition from" as being the incumbent and getting a challenge.

And "Competing with" all are on equal basis.

<comment><USER5> Do you have any numbers to suggest that Dropbox usage is higher than Google or Microsoft or iCloud?

<comment><USER4> No ... I was just commenting on the linguistic part whether the two phrases mean the same. I moderately don't give a frak about the services due to my irrational, passionate and relentless hatred for everything cloud related. (I love the underlying technologies, I just hate the feudal model of a foreign service holding your data hostage)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every time I see Dropbox on the front page of HN I think about this[1] all over again…

1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

<comment><USER7> "The only problem is that you have to install something."

<comment><USER8> Eh. I don't use Dropbox, in part because of exactly that. I passed over Spotify for the same reason. Given feature parity, I will choose a browser- based solution over one that requires me to install some random binary blob every time.

<comment><USER9> Spotify has since come out with a web player [1] if you are still interested.

[1] [https://play.spotify.com/](https://play.spotify.com/)

<comment><USER10> Neat, but I hope they don't drop their Linux client, it really is nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The problem I see is dropbox as a service becoming a commodity as competition in the sector ramps up. Apple is making a big push on cloud with airdrop and icloud, Tencent is offering 10tb storage.

It's heating up and it's gonna be hard to maintain a viable USP.

<comment><USER12> I don't think this is true at all. There are huge network effects because of folder sharing. I've gotten at least a dozen people to sign up for Dropbox over the years this way. It was tough at first, but the adoption rate is sufficiently high now that in a group of 5, there may be only one person who hasn't got an account already. And when they're the odd one out, the peer pressure to sign up is so great that it forces even the latest of late adopters to give in.

Apple is irrelevant because they're not cross platform, and no one will trust their data to a Chinese company, particularly the businesses that actually pay for Dropbox.

<comment><USER13> I agree there are big network effects to sharing folders and that is a big push to sign up. Paying is a different story however. If you are a casual non- business user, sharing photos or the occasional document (e.g., Grandparent use case) then even the annoying space restrictions won't move you to pay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Dropbox tallied $116 million in sales last year, more than doubling its $46 million in revenue in 2011. The year before, it nearly quadrupled sales from $12 million."

[http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303...](http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303985504579206763922615986-lMyQjAxMTAzMDEwOTExNDkyWj)

<comment><USER15> i m flabbergasted at the amount of money there is in this service (and related ones) - is it really that useful? I had a dropbox account since the early days, and i have hardly put any use into it.

What do people actually use it for? Share files? Backup solution?

<comment><USER16> Dropbox has been a game-changer for me.

Maybe your interactions with technical people are different, or you don't share much between computers and devices?

Here's what's changed for me:

* 1:1 collaborations with people

* m:m collaborations within groups

* Me and my web servers are so, SO in sync :-)

* Sharing downloadable links to files and folders with people.

* Also: photo sharing because sharing a link to a folder of photos auto-galleries it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Will the use the funds raised to finally optimize their CPU-hungry client, so that it doesn't cut my battery life by 30%?

I'm worried about Dropbox. Worried that they concentrate on adding features (photo syncing?) instead of caring about their loyal paying business customers, who mostly want the software to Just Work and Work Well.

<comment><USER18> The dropbox client only uses a fraction of the CPU of every other cloud syncing client I've tried, and even most simple menubar utilities. Do you know of one that uses less CPU? I'm genuinely curious.

<comment><USER19> BitTorrent Sync is more lightweight.

<comment><USER18> Really? With both sitting idle on Mavericks right now, BitTorrent Sync is using 1.4% of CPU, Dropbox 0.1. Energy Impact 4.1, and 0.1 respectively. And BTSync is managing 5MB with no more than 3 peers, while Dropbox is keeping eyes over 36GB. That's pretty consistent with what I've always seen from them. Maybe the windows client is better optimized?

I wish this wasn't the case because I would love to switch to something free and distributed, as it is I disable BTSync unless I'm plugged in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Recently, more of my software has added Dropbox as an option for synchronizing its data between devices - but I'm hesitant to do so. It seems like Dropbox lacks the necessary access-control granularity. If your FTP client, and a chat program, and a password manager all decide they need read/write access to your dropbox, doesn't that open up attack-vectors across completely unrelated applications and services in ways that previously may have been isolated and sandboxed?

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm curious to know what the plans are to keep driving revenue. Obviously very impressive numbers, but it looks like YoY top line growth looks slow: less than 100% [$116->$200M+]. It leaves one scratching their head as to how Dropbox gets to something like $1B/year under its current business model and later justify something like a 20B public market cap. That would take a something billion users with roughly the same conversion rate. They would need the same base of users as Facebook, but with a huge percentage of them actually paying money, while facing intense competition by players who demonstrate they are willing to lose billions of dollars a year to compete in new markets.

One obvious answer is Dropbox for businesses, but it remains to be seen how well they actually compete in that space. Fined tunes permissions/controls. Integrations. Enterprisey things. They all become more necessary at higher price points. I wonder if Box is in a position to improve their existing sync client faster than Dropbox is to add all those features/controls yet keep their core simplicity.

<comment><USER22> I haven't started paying, yet. Last year, I bought an HTC phone that gave me a bunch of space (20 gigs?) free for two years. I have 27.5gb and I am using 5.75 of it today. My account will either drop back down to 7.5 or I'll start paying to keep it. At my current rate of usage, I'll certainly be using some of the free space by then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Seems a bit like setting an anchor for a buyout. I have a feeling a 4 billion offer by Google/MS/Amazon would be accepted very quickly even if it was very little cash/all stock.

Maybe my sense is very wrong but it seems like a decent time to get bought out timing wise.

<comment><USER24> Google or Microsoft won't buy them. They're hedging their bet that this technology will be a commodity soon (Google Drive and SkyDrive). It doesn't really fit in Amazon's universe. They already told Apple to screw (albeit only at 800M). I think that Drew is a True Believer, where he thinks there is tremendous growth potential in this space. And hell, anything's possible. Who would have thought that such a simple idea, done extremely well, would have such potential.

<comment><USER25> Not sure if you are aware of it, but Amazon has a share in this space too, Amazon Cloud Drive[1]

[1]- [http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=cd_def/186-4662895...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=cd_def/186-4662895-8664732?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0&docId=1000828861)

<comment><USER24> Aah you're correct; I had forgotten about that. I suppose syncing all someone's Amazon-related files makes sense in a way. Kindle, MP3 purchases, etc. I may be wrong, but I don't think Dropbox has a technology which is Earth-shatteringly better than than its competitors, although I agree it is the best in the space. And heck, if Amazon bought them, they'd lose all that sweet sweet revenue from Dropbox ^_^.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> That's a lot of money! Do they seek it because they can or because they need it?

</comment><comment><USER26> During the Dublin Web Summit (two weeks ago) Drew Heuston stated that Dropbox hadn't touched the previous funds they had raised. I wonder why the need to raise the money at this point?

<comment><USER4> A) Some real expansion B) You generate insane amounts of free marketing and get a check at the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> You can value it at $8 billion, but that doesn't rule out that someone just overpaid for it. They did get a great deal on advertising

</comment><comment><USER28> Why? Because they can get it at a favorable valuation?

<comment><USER29> Yeah, it's like leaving money on the table I suppose.</comment></comment>


Coovents - A Simple Way to Share Events via the Web or Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.coovents.com All the sites I was visiting were top-down structures. They would tell me what was going on. I couldn't add to the discussion or easily create an event. Wouldn't it be great to create a service that allows people to easily add and share events? This strategy is bottom-up, and is fundamentally what makes Coovents unique. Collectively, the people on the streets have a better idea of what is going on than any single source. I created a service that can potentiality harness their information and make it shareable.<p>For more Coovents info, check out: http://www.SoUrban.net/Coovents-A-Simple-Way-to-Share-Events <comment><USER2> Another sweet site in this same vein is <http://mobaganda.com>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> yea, mobaganda is cool, super easy to use, but coovents and mobaganda are very different. coovents is a way to advertise your event, mobaganda helps you manage your event.</comment>


Code, code, coffee, repeat. And win €2500 Join our out-of-the-box hackathon - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/lexymayko/code-code-code-coffee-repeat-and-win-2500-join-our-out-of-the-box-fintech-hackathon-556i <comment><USER2> Can I do coffee _first?_</comment>


Amateur Radio on the International Space Station - <AUTHOR> http://www.ariss.org/ <comment><USER2> Finally, the moment I've been waiting for, amateur radio on the top of hackernews. :)

It's also worth mentioning we've got a lot of amateur radio satellites in orbit[0], and more coming, including a geosynchronous satellite launching sometime in March (Es'hail 2)[1].

Some are very easy to get into with just an HT (or two for full-duplex).[2]

[0] [http://www.amsat.org/status/](http://www.amsat.org/status/)

[1] [https://amsat-uk.org/tag/eshail-2/](https://amsat-uk.org/tag/eshail-2/)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJrA62t141s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJrA62t141s)

<comment><USER3> Hey!! No kidding! One of my goals for this year is to finally get my call sign. I've been on the verge the past two years, but things with work kept coming up. This year however, this year it's gonna happen.

<comment><USER4> There are plenty of really good apps on the android app store at least. They'll just feed you the questions and correct your answers. Took about 1 wk of semi serious use to pass technician and another week to get general and extra together (though I work in a related field, YMMV)

<comment><USER5> Skip the apps, just go to hamstudy.org and then add it to your homescreen instead of as a tab.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll toss in that reddit has one of the better ham radio communities without the nonsense old man drama of other sites..

[http://reddit.com/r/amateurradio](http://reddit.com/r/amateurradio)

73, N3LGA

<comment><USER7> Though not as entertaining as 7.200 MHz. KD4HSO

<comment><USER8> What's on 7.2? I rarely listen to HF.

<comment><USER7> A couple of lids, trying there hardest to get fined by the FCC by trolling hams. I have an SDR here:

[http://184.108.40.206:8073/](http://18.104.22.168:8073/)

<comment><USER9> Wow. I just used your SDR (totally cool). What I am hearing right now is simply horrific (LSB brings it in loud and clear). If these guys have tickets, the FCC needs to pull them.

<comment><USER7> They do, at least one of them does. It's a daily occurrence. As long as it stays at 7.200 MHz, I suppose it's just entertainment. FCC enforcement (as long as you don't interface with emergency comms) is pretty much non-existent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you want to use a communication system that will work if the Cell towers, local internet, and the phone system are offline get an Amateur Radio Licence.

If you want to talk to some random person in Australia using a system which routes your radio through the internet get an Amateur radio Licence.

If you want to help out in a disaster then get an Amateur radio licence.

<comment><USER11> There are lots of interesting hobbyist/hacker/maker projects as well, like the sdr chips, HF kits like uBitX, and FaradayRF. One of my coworkers has his license to track model rockets with a small transmitter that sends GPS telemetry. Lots of cool stuff!

<comment><USER12> I (Amateur Extra) ordered a BitX40 and about a month later they announced the uBitX... so I've ordered one of those, and not only going to hack the firmware and do some upgrades but also learn about 3D printing to make a case :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Amateur Radio Licensing at [http://www.arrl.org/getting- licensed](http://www.arrl.org/getting-licensed) for those interested. You'll need it if you want to attempt to contact the ISS.

<comment><USER14> I haven't made contact with ISS, or many contacts at yet, but getting a Technicians license and getting on the airwaves really pretty straightforward.

I studied for maybe 2-3 weeks (a chapter a day) and paid $15 to take the test back in October, 2 weeks later I was in the FCC database and made my first check-in on the Alaska Morning NET[0] via a local repeater on a $60 triband handheld[1].

Now I'm looking to develop these skills and put them to use with my local emergency response teams in Portland, OR.

The Basic Earthquake Emergency Communication Node (BEECN)[2] program is specifically about aiding in emergency service coordination in the event of the a major earthquake in our area, and the Neighborhood Emergency Teams (NETs, our local CERT) also utilizing ham radio for emergency service coordination in the event of a communication breakdown.

I definitely encourage anyone with interest in these subjects to get a license.

Hope to eventually make contact with some HNers, till then - 73, KI7QXO

[0] [http://arcticserver.com/alaskamorningnetmain1/](http://arcticserver.com/alaskamorningnetmain1/)

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/BTECH-UV-5X3-Watt-Tri-Band- Radio/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/BTECH-UV-5X3-Watt-Tri-Band- Radio/dp/B01J2W4JUI/)

[2] [https://www.portlandoregon.gov/pbem/59630](https://www.portlandoregon.gov/pbem/59630)

<comment><USER15> It's not so easy in some other countries unfortunately. Here in the UK, it'd cost me the equivalent of about $80 and require an effectively mandatory in- person training course that's rather inconvenient too, just for the most basic license. More advanced licenses are even more expensive and annoying to get.

<comment><USER14> Wow, now that I did not realize... do you know the reasoning behind making it so difficult?

<comment><USER16> Hard to say. At one time you could turn up and sit a City & Guilds exam, of course to become a bonafide amateur you had to pass the Morse test, but they've relaxed that now. I went from UK Foundation licence to Full licence in about a year, not difficult from a technical point of view as I was working on 500kW broadcast transmitters at the time. The questions about the arcane rules and regulations were probably the hardest. UK amateur radio is quite set in its ways, the average age of UK amateurs is probably around 60. Some of it probably stems from elitism and from some of the UK history of radio piracy.

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

[http://www.laughingpoliceman.com/amateur_radio.htm](http://www.laughingpoliceman.com/amateur_radio.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This reminds me of Dinah in 'Seveneves' by Neal Stephenson, communicating with her father from the ISS.

<comment><USER18> Yes, this is similar. Source: Am Dinan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I got a technician's license last year. But since hand held Ham radios are so cheap these days, it's a great idea to buy one and learn how to use the national simplex frequencies and your local repeaters. In the case of a real emergency, the FCC allows you to use a Ham radio without a license.

The BaoFeng UV-82 is a great starting point for less than $30.

<comment><USER20> What's the policy of listening on these devices without participating (no license)?

<comment><USER21> For the most part you can listen to anything. There are exceptions for things like cell phones, but since analog cell phones are dead you are unlikely to stumble on something you can't listen to.

Be careful though, some cheap radios make it easy to accidentally transmit. A tiny burst of static when you turn it on is a transmission for which you need a license - and some radios are almost that easy to transmit.

Best is to get a license, then when your cheap radio sends a message at least you are legal to do that. Or get an expensive radio that doesn't have those quirks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anybody interested in this might want to check out EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) communication: point an antenna at the moon, bounce a signal off of it, and coordinate with someone back on Earth to receive it.

More details here: [http://www.moonbouncers.org/](http://www.moonbouncers.org/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I used to work in the room right below the ARISS base station at NASA Goddard. It's an incredibly cool project and I'm so glad to see it getting some attention!

While ARISS usually schedules contacts between astronauts and people on the ground, perhaps the coolest part is that the astronauts can actually talk to anyone, any time, via the ham radio equipment on ISS. If this is something that interests you, you should give it a try! I'd be curious to know how responsive they are.

</comment><comment><USER24> Challenge: they have WiFi on the ISS. Pick up the signal from earth and tell me what SSIDs they use.

</comment><comment><USER25> From time to time I have heard people talking to the space station as it passes overhead on my 2 meter handheld.

Sometimes the radio on the space station is connected to an APRS repeater which will repeat packets. With a very modest home station (a 2 meter radio marketed for use in a car and an omnidirectional antenna) I have communicated with stations 1000 miles away.

To really have a talk w/ people on the space station you really do want a better station, at the very least a directional Yagi with a rotator.

</comment><comment><USER26> > A key development is the Multi-Voltage Power Supply (MVPS), which interfaces > with multiple electric outlet connection types on ISS

So here we have the supposed pinnacle of human achievement and international cooperation, and they can't even agree on a common electrical plug and voltage?

Excuse me while I go and cry in my beer..

<comment><USER27> It's often referred to as "two space stations flying in close proximity". One Russian, one American. 28VDC on the Russian side, 124VDC on the American.

Rumour has it that there's bolts with imperial thread on one end and metric on the other holding them together in the middle..

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> My university's amateur radio club had a large collection of QSL cards to go through. Really cool how widespread its use was; but it also shows how far reaching an ubiquitous the internet has become. Most of these were from pre-1970 and came from all over the world.

I got my technician's level license by using the 'Ham Radio Study' android app which does a good job reinforcing the concepts taught in the ARRL manual. The test banks for each level are all publicly posted and have a rotation of about 3 years for each level.

Edit: Meant to type QSL, not QST.

<comment><USER29> I still get an envelope with QSL cards from all over the world every few months. It's still fun to see the pictures and to appreciate the tangible "foreignness" of the cards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> You might want to check out the most recent ARISS contact as recorded by the SatNOGS Network of satellite ground stations.

[https://community.libre.space/t/ariss-contact-vilniaus- jono-...](https://community.libre.space/t/ariss-contact-vilniaus-jono- basanaviciaus-gymnasium-together-with-vilniaus-jono-basanaviciaus- progymnasium-vilnius-lithuania-direct-via-ly1bwb/1698)

</comment><comment><USER31> I have been trying to years to raise someone at the ISS on ham radio without success. Even on the EchoLink. Anyone have tips for what I might be missing here?

<comment><USER32> Are you talking about using the repeater on the ISS, or contacting one of the astronauts on the ISS?

Contacting one of the astronauts is fairly difficult, as they have no particular scheduled time where they listen it. It just happens to be luck-of- the-draw.

As far as using the repeater, I think most of the radios are stowed. [http://www.ariss.org/current-status-of-iss- stations.html](http://www.ariss.org/current-status-of-iss-stations.html)

I've never heard of the EchoLink connection to the ISS... Do you have details on that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Amateur radio needs more love here. Upgraded to my Extra license last night!

<comment><USER34> Congrats, OM! (or YL as the case may be ;->)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Amateur satellite radio is extremely fun. There has never been a better time to get into it, with cheap $20 handheld radios and a dual band antenna system with a bit of gain, you can get in with regularity on any of the new Fox1 transponders.

Hope to hear you guys on the air! DE W9NLS

</comment><comment><USER35> "A key development is the Multi-Voltage Power Supply (MVPS), which interfaces with multiple electric outlet connection types on ISS and provides a multitude of power output capabilities for our current and future ARISS operations and amateur radio experimentation. It will also allow our Ham Video system to have a dedicated power outlet, eliminating the outlet sharing we have now, which shuts down Ham Video at times."

Looks like quite a feat to qualify a spacecraft power supply!

Question for hams: since USB Power Delivery can supply 20V at 5A, might USB serve as a standardized power source for radio amplifiers? How "clean" is the power?

<comment><USER36> >since USB Power Delivery can supply 20V at 5A, might USB serve as a standardized power source for radio amplifiers?

Probably not. A typical amateur transceiver draws about 300W on transmit, which massively exceeds the 100W limit of USB Power Delivery. A linear amplifier running at the American legal limit will draw as much as 3.5kW.

The de-facto standard for mobile equipment is 13.8v DC +/\- 10%, which allows for operation on standard lead-acid batteries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Reminded me of "Before Mars" from National Geographic: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPuTlZYDbh4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPuTlZYDbh4)

</comment><comment><USER38> I just want to remind everyone that it only costs $10-$15 to get a license. You can generally take multiple tests in one day, so you could get a technician's and general in one day. Not too much use to get an extra.

The tests are pretty easy and I'd expect most people on this site can get the technician without studying. Test questions are from a pool and you can do practice tests here[1]

[1] [http://aa9pw.com/radio/](http://aa9pw.com/radio/)

<comment><USER39> And you only have to do those tests once. You can renew every 10 years in perpetuity.

I got mine at a HAM fest I went to with my dad 12 years ago. I hadn't studied. It's fairly basic things about radio and legal things like 'can you use amateur radio for business?' (no).

\- KD8ECA :)

<comment><USER40> Seriously? On my technician practice exams, I aced the physics stuff ("What's the wavelength of a 7.255MHz signal?" "Let's see, the speed of light divided by 7,255,000 is...") but the FCC regs part was an utter black box. "What's the maximum permitted power on a 20m frequency?" A lot of that was sheer memorization.

\- KM6OCD

<comment><USER38> The technician part I was really mostly physics, so it was trivial. I see that on most practice exams (you do need to memorize some of the FCC stuff). When you go for general, that's where I felt that you needed more the memorization. (I tried to do a tech and general test in a single sitting. Missed the general by a point and never bothered going back for it)

\- KK6AWC

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I actually recorded a contact between NASA astronaut Joe Acaba (KE5DAR) and students from Lithuania today as the ISS passed over Germany.

[https://soundcloud.com/lofaldli/ariss- contact-14022018](https://soundcloud.com/lofaldli/ariss-contact-14022018)

73, LB1IH

<comment><USER42> Why can't you hear the Lithuanians?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I can't recommend amateur radio enough to fellow HN readers.

There are so many things to do -- my favorite is HF CW.

<comment><USER43> What is so interesting about amateur radio, besides talking to other people? Could you expand a little bit on this? This is an honest question, as I used to be a licensed user of CB radios but the bad mood of truck drivers and mIRC (internet) led me to leave it eventually.

<comment><USER44> It's applied physics. A study of oscillators, mixers, filters, amplifiers, distributed elements, propagation and algorithms and how to optimize all of these in multiple dimensions. It's community. You can meet interesting people and prepare for and serve during emergencies or experiments. It's travel. You can travel to or contact people in exotic places and have your accomplishments recognized. It's technology. You can create new devices and techniques that perform in ways no one has tried before, or collect and operate vintage machines or the bleeding edge of contemporary gear. It's competition. There are no end of contests across the electromagnetic spectrum using many different protocols and modulation. It's continuity. The ranks of amateur radio are filled with those who earned their living or served their respective nations using similar or sometimes exactly the same skills and equipment.

There was a congressional hearing recently where an ARRL representative was asked why amateur systems function when everything else is down. The answer is simple and compelling; the amateur is the owner, technician and operator of his own station with a deep understanding of every part and what is needed to make it work and how to adapt it. Hard headed self sufficiency. Commercial and broadcast systems die when the backups run out of fuel or the Powers That Be take them away. First responders can't quickly fix or replace their systems when something or someone breaks them. Give amateurs a few watts of power -- by any means available -- and they'll cross oceans or talk to people in space using equipment they can carry at a dead run. It's the last thing that still works when all the other gears strip.

And you are entirely welcome to take part in whatever aspect of it you wish. All you need is a license.

<comment><USER29> > It's applied physics. A study of oscillators, mixers, filters, amplifiers, > distributed elements, propagation and algorithms and how to optimize all of > these in multiple dimensions.

this

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> muttonchop-dev My grandpa was really into amateur radio, he still gets postcards from NASA when he pinged the ISS unannounced.

[https://www.csmonitor.com/1982/1202/120236.html](https://www.csmonitor.com/1982/1202/120236.html)

</comment><comment><USER45> FT8 is a popular low power digital modeling these days for HF. I highly recommend reading the specification!

<comment><USER29> > I highly recommend reading the specification

I agree. It's amazing how well it works. I've played with FT8 and WSPR and communicated with Australia using 500mw (from the midwest USA).

<comment><USER45> My Rpi1 WSPR transmitter was heard once in New Zealand on 30M and it is just the Pi, a filter, a tuner, and a long wire over the roof. Here in central Ohio I routinely get Thunder Bay receiving me with the setup which is wild.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Still saving up for an elecraft rig.

<comment><USER47> I'm about a third of the way building my K2. Really hard to justify the expense of the kit but is the mother of all kits to build and the end result will provide a lot of satisfaction. I've just started testing the first of the boards and was surprised when it just worked (i.e., turned on and no smoke was visible).

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I'm pulling my Baofeng out of storage.</comment>


Artificial Mountains - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/artificial-mountains-slag-heaps-concrete <comment><USER2> When you enter Seoul from the airport by bus, you see a couple of flat-topped hills across the river next to the World Cup soccer stadium. They're about 100 meters tall and just over 2 kilometers from end to end. You wouldn't find anything unusual about them if you weren't used to the Korean landscape -- there are no naturally flat-topped hills around here -- but that's the old garbage dump for this city with a population of 10 million.

They surrounded the garbage with concrete walls to prevent wastewater from leaking into the river, poured a thick layer of soil on top of it, planted trees, and built walkways. Now it's a public park. The underlying garbage still emits methane, which is collected and burned to power the adjacent soccer stadium and other facilities.

We humans made these mountains of crap ourselves. We might not have the budget and/or political will to remove them, but we do have the capacity to make them look significantly less crappy, and perhaps even useful, if we want to.

<comment><USER3> -In Norway, they one-upped that - the (now defunct) Røros copper mines operated for more than 300 years, and the spoil dumps from the processing are quite the sight [0]

Rather than tidying them up, though, they were put on the UNESCO world heritage list. (Along with the rest of the municipality of Røros; the mining museum is well worth a visit if you have an interest in industrial history and happen to find yourself in central Norway for some reason or the other.)

[0] [https://lokalhistoriewiki.no/images/Slagghaugene_p%C3%A5_R%C...](https://lokalhistoriewiki.no/images/Slagghaugene_p%C3%A5_R%C3%B8ros_05.JPG)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Though it's hill-sized not mountain-sized, there is Silbury Hill in England

"The largest artificial mound in Europe, mysterious Silbury Hill compares in height and volume to the roughly contemporary Egyptian pyramids. Probably completed in around 2400 BC, it apparently contains no burial. Though clearly important in itself, its purpose and significance remain unknown."

[https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/silbury- hil...](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/silbury-hill/)

</comment><comment><USER5> > Outsider artist Leonard Knight built Salvation Mountain in Niland, > California out of concrete, sand, and accumulated junk. He used so much > salvaged paint to cover it with brightly colored religious messages that the > county declared the site a "toxic nightmare" due to the amount of lead in > the soil and considered dismantling the mountain and hauling it to a toxic > waste dump.

How does someone get to build such a mountain without anyone taking notice and considering the impact? You need a permit to extend your porch but nobody looks more carefully at someone building such an artificial mountain? I understand that when powerful economic and political interests are concerned some of these worries will be artificially dismissed but this doesn't appear to be one of those cases.

<comment><USER6> Niland is an unincorporated area, so there's no city, and he probably never asked the county for a permit. Without a complaint, the county department won't investigate, they have too much to do. And what asshole goes to make a complaint for artwork.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's nice to see that they (briefly) mention the half-jokingly proposed artificial mountain in the infamously flat Netherlands [1] towards the end of the article.

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

</comment><comment><USER8> On a smaller scale, the highest hill in Berlin is man-made[0](out of leftover rubble) and was recently superseded by another hill which grew because waste was added to it.[1]

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teufelsberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teufelsberg)

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

<comment><USER9> Reminds me of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Testaccio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Testaccio)

"is an artificial mound in Rome composed almost entirely of testae, fragments of broken ancient Roman pottery, nearly all discarded amphorae dating from the time of the Roman Empire"

"It has a circumference of nearly a kilometre (0.6 mi) and stands 35 metres (115 ft) high, though it was probably considerably higher in ancient times."

<comment><USER10> Thank you, that was a great read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you exit Indian Capital New Delhi by Road towards Haryana, somewhere at border you will see two hills with lots of trucks, bulldozers, people working on them on the other side of river. Those hills are entirely made of Garbage from the city. And yes, it stinks in Summer and/or Rains.

</comment><comment><USER12> Recently I was reading about the Aberfan Disaster in Wales. A huge coal spoil heap slipped and destroyed a school in 1966. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster)</comment>


Windows app to get you Let's Encrypt SSL Certificate in less than 4min - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sverrirs.com/2016/03/windows-app-to-automate-ssl-cert.html <comment><USER2> We use this:

[https://github.com/Lone-Coder/letsencrypt-win- simple](https://github.com/Lone-Coder/letsencrypt-win-simple)

Works like an absolute charm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah good mention, didn't know about this tool. Looks very sleek!

I wanted to avoid building a solution to do the whole communication as I was pretty happy with the website functionality. This tool is mostly to enable you to use the website on windows and to automate a lot of the annoying Windows stuff while still retaining the option to use the website or the Let's Encrypt client in a pinch :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why is Windows so neglected by LE?

</comment><comment><USER4> Note that this is dangerous, since gethttpsforfree.com can save your private key and therefore is able to decrypt all content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just chiming in, gethttpsforfree.com does not ever get your private key. Only a certificate signing request that is generated using your private key. There is no such private key risk involved using this site.

<comment><USER5> It seems like a good idea. I think some of the friction is related to the historic decline in the quality and trustworthyness of the free Windows software. In a world where even Java comes with crapware, .exe is a problematic format for many [despite being easy to deploy and get running].

My gut is that the wind is behind open source as the successor to free-ware and shareware in the Windows world. It's certainly becoming the favored alternative when paid developer tools aren't selected.

Good luck.

<comment><USER6> Almost all of the tools I use professionally on Windows are open source.

VS Code, Cygwin, Git, Go, PuTTY, Vagrant, VirtualBox covers 99% of my workflow on Windows.

<comment><USER7> ooc, most if not all of these software are second-class citizens on windows, and would perform much better under linux/bsd (as in OSX). how come you are running windows?

<comment><USER6> I mostly run Linux, but I maintain a Windows machine for the purposes of games / music production etc.

Most of my work is done in Linux, but my laptop runs Windows (hence my use of the phrase "Windows workflow").

I'm completely competent in OSX, and have regularly used it since it's release, but I don't really like it, and don't own a Mac (this choice is purely personal, and I don't hate Mac owners).

Hope that makes sense! Sorry for the ambiguity :-)

EDIT: With both KSP and Snow (pretty much the only games I play) having Linux builds, it's really Ableton that keeps me away from a pure Linux experience. Ableton 9 doesn't really run that well under Wine!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Life lessons from an ad man - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html

<comment><USER2> It was clear from his presentation how much of an ad man he is. The delivery of his talk was engaging, funny and still managed to make a strong argument.</comment>


Broken Hardware, Fixes and Hacks Over 8 Years - def- https://hookrace.net/blog/broken-hardware-fixes-hacks-8-years/ <comment><USER3> >"Putting the GPU into an oven and baking it for a while fixed the problem for a few days by resoldering cracked solder points, but then it returned. This is probably related to the switch to lead-free solder in 2006, which is more brittle."

no, no, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Nvidia makes faulty GPU chips for 9 years now (underfill between die and bga carrier package). Starting with G84, up to at least Fermi, EVERY SINGLE GPU will die from thermal stress is used extensively at high temps. This is very well documented in numerous lawsuits that forced Nvidia, DELL, APPLE and other manufacturers to do repeated expensive recalls.

<comment><USER4> People still believe this myth even though "baking" won't fix the problem permanently. If it really was the joints (and baking them would actually do something), then the problem would have gone away. The chips themselves are faulty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The memmap trick is pretty clever, though I wonder what the syntax is to make grub reserve multiple unrelated bytes instead of a 1-byte contiguous 'chunk.'

<comment><USER6> memtest86 can be configured to display address bit patterns that can then be consumed by the Linux kernel as a command line argument: [https://lwn.net/Articles/440319/](https://lwn.net/Articles/440319/)

But in other cases, this can be managed entirely by the BIOS. I know (or rather, think -- didn't boot Linux on a machine with memory problems recently) that some Dell machines will mark bad locations/ranges as reserved in the ACPI memory map if you run the built-in diagnostic tool from the boot menu.

<comment><USER7> I've heard rumors of low prices on high-capacity "bad RAM", but never been able to find anywhere to buy it. Have you investigated this possibility before?

<comment><USER6> Never heard that one before; I don't know much about how problem spots usually develop, so I would be wary about the "stability" of any known faults when using a module like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > 7 case fans

This sounds like too many fans to me. Fans can even have negative side effects on the air flow. Usually you want one flow from the front to the back. In some cases just the PSU fan is enough. You generally only want 120mm fans, as airflow rises faster than noise with size.

<comment><USER9> > You generally only want 120mm fans, as airflow rises faster than noise with > size.

1U servers are evil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Logitech MX518 mouse is quite possibly the best mouse I've ever used, I've had it for almost 8-9 years now still going strong.

<comment><USER11> Ditto. I've got an MX510 (blue) and a MX518 (grey), both are great and although are over a decade old by now are still in regular use (the MX518 is my daily critter on my main machine). Not had a days trouble with either of them.

<comment><USER10> yeah, I'm kinda scared it going to break, i don't abuse them, but still......

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The first post: No, Nay, Never replace with "some old caps". At first, try to determine WHY the caps failed. E.G. Is there something exceedingly hot around, and can you fix it? Second, the best thing to do is take caps with higher Voltage rating, because many manufacturers cut the margin exceedingly close, resulting in premature failiure. Third, due to the heat in the Power supply, rather take Aluminum-Caps, not Tantalum caps. They have the tendency to start burning. Fourth, look at how the caps are arranged. When there are some in Parallel, take normal ones. Else, you must take Low-ESR ones.

<comment><USER13>
      > At first, try to determine WHY the caps failed.

In current consumer gear, 99% of the time the caps failed because they are garbage that comes nowhere near to meeting their supposed specification, in designs where the specifications are already cut to the absolute minimum.

In sufficiently old gear, they failed because they were sitting idle too long, and can probably be reformed.

<comment><USER14> I repair old pinball machines for fun and you pretty much need to replace every capacitor in them due to age - anything over 5-10 years old, even if working, is a time bomb waiting to go off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > _" When you open up hardware you have to be careful about electric shocks. I > never received one, but especially power supply units (PSUs), which were the > broken parts inside of my displays, can store a high amount of energy for a > long time after disconnecting them from power."_

I did some Googling a few months ago on this subject to clear it up for myself and found a bunch of information that strongly suggests the above line of thinking is very very wrong: it's _CRTs_ that store massive amounts of energy for ages - they do this to store energy for future warmups, so the necessary surge of power can partially come from the CRT itself. So this is a design feature.

Most current PSUs have bleed resistors to drain the internal capacitors, and if I understand correctly, the short/very quiet high-pitched squeal you hear when you disconnect a PSU is the high-frequency oscillator circuit rapidly winding down as the charge in the capacitors is drained (I recommend a quiet room/environment to test this). This happens within about a second or so on the low-wattage PSUs that I have here.

If putting a screwdriver across the capacitors in a PSU produces an arc 5 or 10 seconds after that PSU is off, I'd be very very surprised.

The "PSUs KILL" line has been touted by CRT techs, probably from a time when bleed resistors and other safety measures weren't as prevalent. Well, it worked... and now we believe everything's dangerous. I personally feel a lot more confident eg swapping a fan in a PSU - I hear the squeak (in the PSUs I have) and know that it's now safe to work on.

With the above said, if I were tinkering with an unknown PSU, or especially a cheap Chinese OEM supply in a set-top box or similar device, I'd probably poke everything with a big insulated metal stick before I worked on/near it.

Of course, standard disclaimers with this type of info applies - <AUTHOR> do your own research before trusting the above!_

If any engineers/electricians/similar can chime in here and confirm/disagree that would be great.

<comment><USER16> Many PSUs do have bleed resistors, but plenty (especially cheaper ones) will not. More importantly, a damaged PSU may have a non-working bleeder circuit, and you'll only know when you discharge a cap. Hopefully across a resistor, rather than a screwdriver, and very much hopefully not an open wound on your skin.

A CRT stores energy because it acts a a large capacitor. Some better monitors (especially late '90s open cage arcade monitors) had bleed resistors on the anode of the CRT to make servicing safer. It's not actually a ton of energy; the voltage is very high, but that's about it. A charged, unpowered tube will sting, but it's seldom a killer. The flyback transformer will give a potentially lethal shock, though. The anode cap has the thick insulation and is surrounded by aduadag for a reason!

<comment><USER15> I wasn't aware that "plenty" of supplies lack bleeder resistors - and ouch, I didn't consider the case where the unit might be damaged, thanks.

Considering the level of energy stored in the average PSU cap, if I use a decent 5W or 10W resistor, should I hold it in a pair of pliers so I don't get burnt? (I'm guessing I'd definitely need to do that if I use a tiny 1W or 2W.) Also, as someone whose knowledge of electronics is very poor - is a resistor the best thing to use in this instance?

And it makes a lot of sense to put bleed resistors on open cage CRTs - <USER2> types of units are unlikely to frequently power down/back up, so completely discharging the unit isn't an issue. Design win!

I've heard stories about service techs getting bitten by the 70kV HV while testing tubes that were powered up for testing...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very curious what he chose for his new set-up.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you're having fun, it's not wasted time. Otherwise, this would totally be wasted time.

</comment><comment><USER19> great article thanks!

</comment><comment><USER20> unsurprisingly, he uses Gentoo :D very cool in my eyes</comment>


Does PG change his mind about finding startup's idea? - <AUTHOR>

From this 1st article in 2005 and 2nd article in 2012, it seems PG has different idea about a startup's idea.
http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html (What Customers Want) So if you're developing technology for money, you're probably not going to be developing it for people like you.
http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html (Self) The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they're something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. <comment><USER2> I'm working on one of those ideas that nobody realizes are worth doing. All my friends say I lost it. It's also something I can build myself (although it's quite the undertaking, I've been at it for over a year full-time) and it's obviously something I would want to have. I hope to have it released in two or three months.

Thing is, I have zero doubt in my mind that once people have it - they will ask how they lived without it, or better yet, why didn't they think of it.

Or I'm wrong. Either way I love the journey. I wish I had a co-founder, but of all the people I have access to, no one has the vision to see what I see.

<comment><USER3> I've experienced the same "nobody has the vision" thing quite a few times myself, just to go on and see others do it and be quite successful.

I've learned to not say "nobody has the vision", instead I say "I must not have explained it in a way that made it obvious and compelling".

Rather than putting the burden on them to see things your way, keep tweaking your pitch until you're seeing it there's.

There was an interesting experience I had while in an incubator where somebody asked a friend about his company, and he went into a long buzzword filled description of what he was building. The guy who asked was fazed, and didn't understand it. I stepped in and said "the do x,y,z making it better for a,b,c", and the guy got it.

We kept saying we'd do a pitch day where we'd listen to other people pitch our businesses, that way you hear what others are taking away, and you may get better insight into how people are understanding what you're doing, and what THEY think is important about it, rather than what you think is important.

Just thought I'd share that and maybe you could benefit by tweaking your discussions with your friends.</comment></comment>


What Americans know and don't know about science - <AUTHOR> http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/09/10/what-the-public-knows-and-does-not-know-about-science/ <comment><USER2> This is interesting and worthwhile, but I do wonder about some of the questions.

For example, the core-mantle-crust structure of the Earth is fundamental. Everyone ought to know about that. But whether the core is the hottest part? This strikes me as highly non-obvious, even to a relatively knowledgeable person. The article says people were shown a labeled picture; I bet most people just guessed, based on the colors used for the various regions.

And then there is the question about uranium & nuclear energy/weapons. What about plutonium? Sure we can make plutonium from uranium, but then we're getting into subtleties of what "needed" means.

Lastly, it is nice to know the role of Jonas Salk in the development of polio vaccines. But that is more history than science (and a lot of people receive the Sabin vaccine ...). Better questions might address what a vaccine is made from, or roughly how it works.</comment>