Google deleted whocalled.us for "Pure Spam" and replaced it with spam - <AUTHOR> In November Google completely removed whocalled.us from their search results.
It was the first site of its kind, created in 2005 for crowdsourced info about telemarketing numbers. There were scripts for people to utilize in their VoIP boxes, and it was a good honest site.
Google has been trying to weed out telephone spam in their results, and for some reason they deleted the original instead of the useless empty shell sites that spam every possible telephone number combination.
If I search "whocalled.us" on Google now I see #1 the Google+ page for the site, and #2 a WordPress spam page. They deleted whocalled.us with a "Pure Spam" manual action, and literally replaced it with pure spam.
whocalled.us has never used spam tactics. That is why copycats quickly beat it in terms of traffic. The first competitor used spammy SEO techniques, and is often the #1 result now for telephone number searches.
I've been making websites since before Google existed, and it feels like my ways are going extinct. Prior to this "Pure Spam" removal, there was a partial action for unnatural links. I was shocked that a search engine sent me a notice that my website would be penalized unless I contacted other websites to have them remove links to my site. Remove links? That is the whole point of the web!
It included some suggestions of "spam" sites with links to mine, and when I clicked one I saw someone's personal blog with some links to their favorite sites. I don't know what world this is, where a search engine tells a webmaster they need to contact a small-time blog owner to have them remove a link recommending your site, but it's not mine.
To me this is still the World Wide Web, where little guys like me can play on the same field as global giants. But in reality, this is Google's game now, and when they kick you off their field, there's not much to do but sulk and go home. <comment><USER3> Your sitemap contains about 1 million URLs. When I look at [http://whocalled.us/lookup/2104495665](http://whocalled.us/lookup/2104495665) I see hardly information other than the phone number itself. And Google Adsense advertising. Most of the pages look exactly the same. The ones linked on the homepage contain profanity. The category pages, e.g. [http://whocalled.us/lookup/sanantonio](http://whocalled.us/lookup/sanantonio) are just lists of numbers.

From the outside it looks like a typical content database where every entry is a page with advertising. I can imagine those are no longer in the new Google algorithm's favor. What makes you think your website deserves to be listed on

The usual process to get Google employees to reconsider indexing the website again is called a reconsideration request [https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35843?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35843?hl=en)

"I've been making websites since before Google existed, and it feels like my ways are going extinct."

Yes I think creating content databases and giving every piece of information a URL and adding untargeted Adsense is no longer a business. Spammers (not whocalled.us) have been misusing that SEO tactic for too long.

<comment><USER4> > giving every piece of information a URL

Wasn't that supposed to be the whole purpose of URL?

<comment><USER5> This kind of website does not have a URL for every piece of information: it has a public URL for every potential piece of information, and it expects those to show up in search results. This would be similar to having every combination of words show up in your search results as a blank page on Wikipedia that you can edit to add content. When I use Google to find content, I want to find actual content, not ten billion placeholders: if the site doesn't have information on a particular phone number it should return a 404, not a 200, and not be indexed; there should then be a way to submit information into the database (actual information, not something totally useless like "reported") that then creates that URL. From the home page (which hopefully at this point has high page rank for being a non-spammy resource) they then should link to a list of "updates", which will be seen to change often, and the links on the other end of those will also change often, so Google will pick up new content quickly and efficiently. Yes: I realize that these websites are trying to rely on the search query as their discovery tool to get people to add content, and so doing this "harms" them, but if every one of them does this it becomes a useless discovery tool anyway (as the page of results is just pages and pages of these placeholders); imagine if every wiki did this: chaos.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which website? whocalled.us does not generate or list any URL that does not have information. Empty pages were never indexed by Google.

If you search Google for a random telephone number you will see a ton of empty sites who list every possible number. whocalled.us has _never_ done that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sorry to hear this. I always like whocalled.us. I thought it a useful service. I used to Google strange numbers I didn't recognize that called my cell phone (until I just started ignoring them all together). I didn't really care who gave me an answer, but among all the copycat sites that quickly popped up, I came to recognize whocalled.us as a legitimate source of the info I was looking for. It seemed the most active and least spammy of its class.

Was it perhaps the target of some of the sleazy blackhat SEO tactics that have been discussed elsewhere on this site?

</comment><comment><USER7> I can't speak to why they've penalized you, but it sounds similar to what they did with RapGenius. Rap Genius would pay others to link to them to help increase their pagerank. Google caught wind of it, and penalized them for gaming the system.

[http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2321516/rap-genius- no-...](http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2321516/rap-genius-no-seo- genius-lyric-site-fails-to-recover-traffic-after-google-penalty)

I'm not sure why they think you've done the same - but that's likely why they are blaming you for the links others have created to your site. I agree - <USER2> you did nothing to encourage those links to be created, it's difficult to see how you should be responsible for their removal, but hopefully the article I've linked will give you more context as to what Google is probably trying to weed out from their search results in order to help you get it resolved.

<comment><USER8> It's not just payment. Google also considers an unnatural link profile as evidence of spammy actions.

This is perhaps reasonable in isolation and in most cases. But it certainly raises the possibility of negative SEO, where you point large numbers of spam links to a competitor's site in order to blacklist them with Google.

See this for example: [http://moz.com/blog/a-startling-case-study-of-manual- penalti...](http://moz.com/blog/a-startling-case-study-of-manual-penalties- and-negative-seo)

I run a site that has received a few tens of thousands of visitors. I checked webmaster tools. I have a bunch of spam links from btclush.com, marqueefy.com and some russian sites. I can't actually find the linking pages, btclush.com itself is blank and all content is on subdomains.

It's not clear to me what I, a small webmaster, should be doing about this. I'm hoping these sites send spam links to almost every site – in that case presumably google is aware that site owners are not at fault.

I don't have the time to contact spam sites to tell them not to link to me or to disavow all these links. Note that the composition of the spam links changes. The last time I checked different spam sites were linking to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If I had to guess, they are probably going to introduce a similar service to their Google Voice service soon (e.g. a 'spam' filter that auto directs/categorizes > voice mail).

Too many ppl I know get spammed by recruiters because they once made a mistake of putting their real contact phone number on a resume for a major jobs board.

</comment><comment><USER10> One huge aspect of the problem is that the browser developers are in bed with the search engines. Whatever you type in the address bar, it will be redirected to Google or Bing.

I would almost go so far as to say browsers and search engines are killing the web. It's no longer a web.

People will tell you to not depend on the search engines. But what do you do now when you are blocked? Start advertising on AdWords? LOL!

My advice is to build a community. Get people involved with your site, make them return often.

<comment><USER11> > I would almost go so far as to say browsers and search engines are killing > the web. It's no longer a web.

How do you want people to find things on the web if not via search engine? Do you want to go back to the days of the "Web Ring?" Or are people supposed to crowd source their search via their social graph on Facebook?

<comment><USER10> I have nothing against search engines. What I'm concerned about is that many people do not use links or addresses, they just search!

When people no longer use addresses to access stuff, the web will be broken.

Crowd sourced search is actually not a bad idea! Most things are still discovered through mouth-to-mouth and sites like HN. Search engines has a long way to go before they can actually make better suggestions then humans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a side note, thank you for creating that site. My phone number was sold some time ago and I regularly get telemarketers calling me and a quick google search of any unknown number would find your site and let me make the determination to answer or not.

</comment><comment><USER13> I have been receiving spam calls recently despite being on the national do not call register. Thanks to google, I wasn aware of this resource until today.

There is no defense against Google's actions here other than to acknowledge that they make mistakes and need to take more responsibility given the power they hold.

If they don't become more transparent about appealing these mistakes, eventually we as a society should develop a legal recourse. There simply isn't enough competition in search to enable these kinds of errors to be corrected through market mechanisms.

</comment><comment><USER14> Suppose 100 top spam sites all had a portion of some top legitimate content site (like NYT). Wouldn't this lower the ranking of the legitimate site?

Ignoring other factors like number of incoming links--which for whocalled.us is probably a low number (why would anyone link to it?)--it seems like spam could (temporarily at least) pull down the others somewhat especially once any results can make it to the first page and get some clicks. In fact if there are 10 spam sites that link to each other or use some slimy affiliates they might get better listings.

I use services "like" whocalled.us all the time, usually for nearly every incoming number I don't recognize, before answering. I've seen whocalled.us and used it before, others equally often. I've noted a couple times (and even bookmarked I think) "this site seems less spammy than the others), but I don't remember which.

If there were some way to differentiate yourself from the others... allow people to register themselves as not telemarketers, or a business listing, or say who you are? I don't see how to verify or prevent abuse. I'm sure you've thought about this much more than me.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure what your site is about. Looking at it right now, nothing really is stated about the numbers who called. It's a lot of empty fields and "unknown"s.

I can't see why Google would penalize you like this unless you have been suspected of doing dirty work.

</comment><comment><USER16> Essentially, this is the way that Google sets the standard for acceptable web content.

It's subjective, it's vague, and sometimes unfair but that's the burden they have to bear. Defining the "quality" of a web page for a search has become as important a factor to web search as any other.

But "search quality" is a leaky abstraction like any other. When someone looks up a random phone number that just called them, they aren't looking for a blog post about it. They're looking for a very small amount of information.

Let's imagine we're determining the quality of a web page as a search result. Say we're looking for the combatants of the Second Boer War, so our query is "second boer war combatants". Now, if we had a page that listed only and exactly the names of those combatants, that would seem to be the "answer" we're looking for. But wait, isn't it better to see a page about the Second Boer War which has a lot of other information about the conflict? Or a page about the military history of the most notable combatant? Or even a table of major historical conflicts with their combatants?

Basically, although it would seem like a precise "answer page" is the best, there are a lot of other factors. The most popular kind of search results are often Wikipedia pages, so people seem to want that level of information on a subject. People sometimes search for something as a way to get to something else. The nature of the web indicates that pages with links to further information are more useful than those without them. And of course, as untrustworthy sites proliferate, the more well-compiled, organized and correlated information is on a page, the more reliable it is.

So ultimately, I feel like it's inevitable. As search has improved, Google has to make these kind of choices, in a quantifiable way, about the nature of a quality search result. And that ends up, in the tools-make-us stage of the web we're in, shaping the envelope of what web content is popular, even in some way acceptable. In turn, the web becomes easier for Google users to use by becoming easier for Google to index and search effectively.

But this is the more painful reality, as I also know. You get pushed out of the Google results not by sites with better information, not by sites that are more relevant, but by sites which seem like they can play the "Google game" better because they have the resources and profit motive to put together good metrics for the myriad signals that make you rise in the ranks.

</comment><comment><USER17> In my opinion you have been extremely fortunate to have made it this long before getting smacked down. Continue for _my opinion_ which is pretty harsh:

1\. Almost all of your pages probably have no content

You've got 1.9M+ calls. Some numbers like 2145627653 have multiple calls but none of them provide anything new. Others like 4802550681 have 1 or more calls but no information other than city + state which is available on like every phone now. Others have no calls, no information at all.

2\. As a result, almost all search users probably bounce, immediately

People want to know who is calling them, right now. They have like 6 seconds before the caller hangs up so they need to know - when they realize there is no information they are going to bail. They are also going to be pissed off that the top result on Google is asking them for information rather than giving it to them.

3\. Your traffic is probably almost exclusively from search

Again I'm guessing here but I can't imagine that you are getting more than 5-10% of your traffic from sources outside of people searching for information on a phone number. That says to me that people don't think there is a reason to come back.

Yeah, you were first, but who cares? Your site sat around pissing off search engine users (including me) for a decade and still looks like the MVP it was in 2006. You may not be actively spamming the web but your website is passively spamming Google. Those other guys might be worse but who cares? That doesn't change the other facts and their punishment will likely come soon. That argument doesn't get you off the hook with Google.

If you want to get back on top you're going to need a better offering than effectively being the first result on Google and a comments system.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a couple million phone calls reported, but there's less than a million telephone number pages for Google to index. There's 63 thousand numbers with more than 1 comment, 195 thousand with at least 1. If the problem is that the caller ID name with date of call is not rich enough data for Google, then I can limit the sitemap to only pages with textual comments. But Google is not saying that, or that they will reinclude it if I do that. They're not saying anything except that the site is using illicit practices.

Prior to Google removing whocalled.us, it accounted for 68% of traffic. 15% was direct, 6% Yahoo, 4.6% Bing. The fact that it is an extension of search, and not primarily a website people want to return to does not in any way demote its value to people. I do not visit Wikipedia directly, but I still want it in my search results.

If the time of this kind of site is over, then great, remove them all. Why pick on whocalled.us?

<comment><USER17> My guess? Because you were first. I wouldn't be surprised if the others are gone soon.

Side note, searching on your site pulls up a slightly different domain for me. Is that on purpose?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think other sites are interfacing with whocalled.us through the HTML. I see it listed on sites like Spokeo where it shows comments, and I don't think they're using the API. Plus the site code is old, and people tend to dislike it when you mess with how their site works.

So I made whocalld.us as a place to write a new interface from scratch that uses the same database. That is where I added fulltext indexing for search. Previously the search box on whocalled.us used Google Site Search. But I want to remove Google services, so rather than add fulltext search to whocalled.us, I pointed it to whocalld.us for now.

I figured if I could rewrite the site to be better, then people would allow me to replace whocalled.us with that one.

I thought maybe that's why Googlebot detected whocalled.us as spam, if it saw duplicate text on whocalld.us. But I tried things like denying Googlebot access to whocalld.us with robots.txt, and setting noindex in meta tags, but nothing helped. If that were the issue then a person could see I own both sites during the reconsideration request, and either remove the "Pure Spam" penalty or provide some clue as to how I should fix it. Besides, if that was enough to get my site removed, then what's stopping malicious people from doing the same to other sites?

Either way, I should have the freedom to fork my own website to recode it if I want without having to worry about the Google police. I don't build websites for Google, so if this is how things work, I'll have to find a way to thrive on the web without Google's help. We did it before, and we can do it again.

The other domain, whocalld.us, is also deleted as "Pure Spam" too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Create an android app that automatically sends telemarketers to voice mail?

<comment><USER19> Spam calls are a much larger problem in China. If only we had Xiaomi's spam filtering features in the phone's UI. "MIUI users can label an incoming call as spam by tapping a button, if enough people do it all MIUI users will see the number as spam."[1]

1\. [http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/12/liveblog-xiaomi-explains- it...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/12/liveblog-xiaomi-explains-itself-to- silicon-valley/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am almost sure this is a machine learning fail on Google's side. Your site probably matches some spammy profile and they just treat their algorithms as objective truth beyond certain threshold. I think we should all get used to this broken AI everywhere for the next 20 years...

</comment><comment><USER21> You probably didn't spend enough on AdWords.

</comment><comment><USER22> There is very little meaningful content on your site, which makes it hard to see how it is different from the spam sites.

</comment><comment><USER23> Google hires people from the top universities. People with 4.0 GPAs. People who go through strenuous interviews where they are asked questions such as "how would you move the pyramids of Egypt."

You live in their world. This is their world. Assume that they did something right, and you did something wrong.</comment>


Ask HN: Good podcasts for developers - <AUTHOR>

I remember seeing a thread way back about good podcasts for developers to keep up to date and in the loop. Now I commute 4 hours a day 5 days a week and burn through all the podcasts I know about in a couple days. Are there any developer focused podcasts that you listen to?
Here are the ones I listen to already:
Tech Zing,TWiST, Bikeshed, Giant Robots, NodeUp, Developers Tea, Shop Talk, Coder Radio, Linux For The Rest of Us, JavaScript Jabber <comment><USER2> Software Engineering Radio is an enjoyable one. [1] However they don't publish as frequently as the others might.

[1]: [http://www.se-radio.net/](http://www.se-radio.net/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Security Now, Hansel minutes, Changelog</comment>


1 + 1 (pat. pending) — Mathematics, Software and Free Speech - <AUTHOR> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110426051819346

<comment><USER3> I love Groklaw 99% of the time, and this is one case where the article doesn't make any sense to me. Sure, at the most abstract level, software is math and math is speech. But "First Amendment issues resulting from exclusive rights granted to the exercise of mathematical speech"???

The fact that running a piece of software is predictable (the same program runs the same way with the same inputs), is not a strong argument. A machine (with physical gears) will perform the same function when run in the exact same conditions. Just because one is an analog machine and one is a digital machine doesn't change the concept of invention: making something new from existing parts.

<comment><USER4> The predominant claim is that _the machine has already been invented_ , and a new input to the existing machine should not be patentable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very long winded article that doesn't really do a good job of laying out a case against software patents. Despite its length, the article doesn't address the core false dichotomy: software is both an encoding of a pure mathematical entity _and_ the input to a machine that actually does stuff. Just beating us over the head with "software is mathematics/speech" for 50 pages doesn't address the real issue which is that it isn't _just_ mathematics/speech.

</comment><comment><USER6> TLDR: There's no way to tldr this, it's a pretty awesome essay. It's possibly the most extensive and elaborate essay I've ever read on an actual web page instead of a PDF or journal. Basically the author says:

 _"This article provides a detailed factual explanation of why software is mathematics, complete with the references in mathematical and computer science literature. It also includes a detailed factual explanation of why mathematics is speech, complete once again with references._ "

The implication being that if software is mathematics (and/or speech), it can't be patented. IANAL but I've suspected that a clear and elaborate delineation of the equivalence of software and math/logic has been one big things missing in this debate, and its absence has allowed patent trolls to prosper much more than they would have otherwise.

Does anyone know of any other efforts like this to show software == math == logic?

<comment><USER7> You began with "there's no way to tldr this" then moved on with "Basically the author says" and sumarised it?

<comment><USER8> The obvious meaning to me is "Here's a summary. But no summary could really do justice to this article. You should read it."

<comment><USER6> Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ultimately any physical interaction can be abstracted into math - ultimately, in precisely the same way as software being executed by a computing system. I keep coming back to a recognition of every argument against software patents ultimately reducing to an argument against the concept of patents in general.

<comment><USER10> > Ultimately any physical interaction can be abstracted into math - > ultimately, in precisely the same way as software being executed by a > computing system.

I agree on this point.

> I keep coming back to a recognition of every argument against software > patents ultimately reducing to an argument against the concept of patents in > general.

But I completely disagree on this one.

I think the 'software is math' argument is not convincing against patents (and I have a background in mathematics, so you would think I would like such an argument ;). But there are plenty of other excellent arguments against __software __patents in particular, that are not valid against other kinds of patents.

Patents make sense when progress is fairly slow, people read patents, and patents are granted for actual innovation. Then you do want to award a patent for the rare actual invention - it helps speed progress!. These 3 conditions used to be true, more or less, for patents in general. But today none of them are true for software patents:

1\. Progress is ridiculously fast. The entire industry changes in just a few years. And patents last for decades!

2\. Software engineers do not read patents. Both because there is no actual benefit to doing so, and because legal counsel always says "do not read patents."

3\. A huge amount of patents are granted every year, and the quality is very low. We constantly hear about ridiculous patents being granted and enforced. (And yes, I know that headlines and Slashdot summaries are misleading - <USER2> need to read the claims. But even when you __do __read those claims, in most cases the ridiculous patents are still ridiculous.)

So I am against software patents, as they are harmful to the industry in their current form. That is more than enough of a reason, regardless of whether software is math or not (it is). Whereas, patents in general may still be useful in other fields, and my arguments against software patents are not relevant to them.

<comment><USER9> You've articulated this position about as well as I've seen it put.

I'm far from an unbiased party on these issues. I've been thinking a lot on how they should be analyzed. There certainly have been quality issues, and it's vital that patents serve their intended purpose of nurturing and protecting innovation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand why the author needs to bring FOSS into the discussion. The same argument could be made for regular patents in as much as someone could invent something like a way to make water potable, and then a charity wants to mass-produce them and give them to poor people in Africa, and the patent would prevent that. See pharmaceutical patents for a similar thing.

There are other arguments as to why it interacts with FOSS software (patent minefields etc) that affect regular software developers too, so there isn't a need to separate FOSS from regular software development. Those aspects should be the focus, not on the harm to the public.

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't see why it matters if software is math or not.

If the goal of the patent system is to encourage innovation and patenting software or math accomplishes it, then patent it. If not, don't patent it.

The real difference is in how it's used and created. Generally speaking everyone uses math, so if you could patent it you'd slow innovation for everyone. If you're patenting algorithms that take a few days to create and they can be applied across many domains, you're slowing innovation. Today this applies to math and software. It will soon apply to engineering physical objects as 3D printers, nanotech, etc.. will make it easier and faster. Basically if innovation in a field is easy enough, patents will slow it down and should not apply.

Obviously programmers want software to be special but if it was, the patent system would be less consistent than it currently is. If you want software to make sense in the patent system, just redesign the whole thing.

<comment><USER11> The problem is that math isn't "invented", it's "discovered". Hence why it's traditionally been un-patentable.

<comment><USER12> These sound like silly distinctions. I'm sure lawyers have good rhetoric to back themselves up but maintaining the pace of innovation should be prioritized above their greatest arguments. If there was an opportunity to redesign the patent system, some sort of economic framework should be used instead of the legal one.

<comment><USER11> Well there is a fundamental difference between the two. The light bulb was invented, was lightning was discovered. It already existed, and was merely discovered. It was discovered that there are are infinite primes. It was discovered that f'(x) = 2x when f(x) = x^2. It was discovered that when p is prime, (a * x) === b mod p, x is unique mod p (unless a=0, or something else). Eventually you get to things like cryptography where you can apply some simple things that were discovered into a process, and come up with encryption.

If you go back to mathematics and consider (Newton's method)[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtons_method>], that seems like it might have been invented, but it's derived from a series of discoveries, and hence is considered a discovery rather than an invention. If you used the Newton-Rhapson method to calculate the zero of a function in code somewhere, you should feel safe that it's not protected by a patent (not to mention it was discovered ages ago).

Since computer science is applied mathematics, and mathematics are discovered rather than invented, it makes sense that it should be protected as well. I'm not the best at explaining things, but hopefully you can understand the difference.

<comment><USER12> It was discovered that light has some weak magnetic properties, then an actual experiment was done that discovered these magnetic properties were strong enough to generate useful amounts of electricity. Patents were issued.

This is just semantic wordplay. I bet the legal literature is the same way. Even if we somehow fit these clunky classifications to reality, we would be no closer to designing a sensible patent system.

<comment><USER11> Were the patents issued for using that form of electricity, or rather for the contraption built to harness that electricity?

<comment><USER12> Don't know. They haven't built a practical contraption yet, hopefully it's some piece of their experimental setup, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's math. After all, they do issue patents for what some describe as "8th grade algebra" in software.

Don't worry, I understand the semantic distinction when the case is clear cut. Lead is a discovery, lead pipes are an invention. Addition is a discovery, arabic numerals are an invention. (by today's standards)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> See also, this episode of Dinosaur Comics:

<http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=353>

"Any series of 1s and 0s can be converted (quite easily) into a regular number! So, for instance, your favorite song is contained—quite literally—in one single, 4 million digit number."</comment>


Modsy – Home design using 3D rendering - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/29/modsy-brings-the-virtual-when-designing-reality/ <comment><USER2> Very interesting. I often kill time browsing through photos on houzz.com. There are also user discussion forums (formerly gardenweb.com I think) that talk about all sorts of home topics like house design, plumbers, etc.

I then think of computer build discussions[1] for gaming or AutoCAD work that insert links from pcpartpicker.com. Notice how pcpartpicker urls enables posters to easily dissect each others' "what if?" component choices.

It seems like a website could really combine the enthusiasm of the houzz/pinterest crowd with the deeper integration of a pcpartpicker.com. Instead of the "green tags"[2] on houzz being someone else's choice (and hence an unchangeable "ad"), the green tags would be picked by the user of a particular 3D generated model. The "green tags" could also be choices crowdsourced from others including freelance interior designers.

[1][http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1988274/good- computer...](http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1988274/good-computer- autocad.html)

[2]example: [http://www.houzz.com/photos/30526217/Black-Is-The-New- Farmho...](http://www.houzz.com/photos/30526217/Black-Is-The-New-Farmhouse- farmhouse-dining-room-san-francisco)

</comment><comment><USER3> _The service works like this: The homeowner takes several pictures of the space they want to decorate — ideally a photo from each of the room's corners. Then, these photos are uploaded to Modsy after which the homeowner takes a style quiz about their likes and dislikes. This takes about 5 minutes and basically involves clicking on photos. Then Modsy takes over. About 48 hours later, the results are delivered._

 _Modsy uses a technique called point cloud reconstruction. This is the easy part, Tellerman says explaining the whole process is similar to a film pipeline with a preproduction, production and post production. The homeowner provides the service with the necessary media. The company then puts it through its rendering systems that reconstructions the room in a 3D space and then a system plugs in furnishings per the homeowner's style direction._

What what?? I thought 2d to 3d reconstruction was an ongoing computer vision problem? This talks like it is solved.

<comment><USER4> Just getting a "floor plan" or empty room is much easier. But yes, it's an active area of research in Computer Vision / Graphics. Later on in the article it says "90% automated" and that things are checked. That'll be good enough to make this cost feasible.

Disclaimer: I'm related to one of the founders (but I don't work there).

<comment><USER3> Yea that makes more sense. Pretty cool use of the current state of the tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a cool idea but seems like it will be difficult to get paying customers at $40 a pop. The value is there, but people are not used to paying this way.

I wonder if instead revenue could be extracted from purchases made based on the renderings, or via other partnerships.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, seems like bringing the showroom into your house would be a great way to sell furniture and accessories. Make this a platform for retailers and manufacturers!

<comment><USER4> Watch this space ;)

<comment><USER6> Ping me as soon as it's near. If I'm a maker of design objects for the home, I want to license the 3D capture/rendering engine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is coming just in time. I moved into my new place nearly 6 months ago (more than double the square footage) and the place is still sitting mostly empty because I haven't had the time to do anything about it. Really interested to try this out.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very nice idea! Figuring out what furniture works in what space is such a pain... I for one welcome our new robot/AI furnishing overlords.

</comment><comment><USER6> Killer app for VR+interior decorators. Regular people may not pay for a VR headset, but bringing this gear to help you visualize the work would be huge.

Even better, for architects doing new home construction.

</comment><comment><USER9> I tried to create an MVP in a similar vein a while back, except instead of doing the whole 3D rendering route, I tested with Photoshoppers from ODesk with instructions to select products from a few well-known sellers of furniture/decor.

What caused me to give up at the time was in my initial tests with friends and family I found that the big problem is the cost of iterations quickly outpaces the price paid if the customer is not happy with what is presented. Often people have no idea what they want--they just can say "yeah, this looks nice, but I'll know it when I see it."

Even if they have a large library of pre-rendered products, there is still the cost of the time for the designer to pick things that work and place them. In theory you might be able to get this down low enough with machine learning to suggest products based on other happy customers with similar preferences and I'm curious if that is the direction you're leaning in to have fully automated recommendations.

There are other competing services out there that provide much less cool "mood board" style selections, and that is their attempt to get the price low by not wasting any time with trying to show it in context with the room. They also seem to charge ~$300.

Would love to know how you guys are addressing the issue of iterations as I didn't see that mentioned anywhere. Do you have a "happy customer guarantee?" If I pay $30-$40 and receive designs I'm really unhappy with, how do you guys handle that?

Congrats on what looks like an awesome product with some serious technology behind it. If this works as presented it will blow the competition out of the water, and if you can come up with a way to reduce the cost sufficiently, I think a lot of people would be very interested in getting great design suggestions they can easily visualize for a very low price.

Signed-up for the beta and will be filling out the style quiz with my wife tonight. I would LOVE to be bumped up in the list to help beta this as we are both super stressed about how to fill several rooms in our home and fill an empty wall in our living room. There's only so many crappy Pinterest publisher-spam links I can click on or insanely overpriced purchasable products on Houzz I can pass over before I want to throw my iPad against the wall.

Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER10> Pretty cool stuff. Good luck with this venture!

<comment><USER4> Sign up and do the style quiz, Brian! Margarita will surely bump you forward in the queue ;)

<comment><USER11> I loved the quiz, and would love a bump in the queue as well. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Ace Hotel x Clinton Foundation x Tumblr x Jawbone Codeathon in NYC Tomorrow - <AUTHOR> http://codeathon.splashthat.com

<comment> o0-0o Anyone in NYC want to form a group with me? I'm a fairly solid designer, comfy with Debian.</comment>


Google now treats .io as a gccTLD - <AUTHOR> http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1347922 <comment><USER2> 260 days ago I posted a webapp I made on HN, listing all of the available remaining .io domains in order of most common words -- with 2, 3, 4, and 5 letter columns. It was completely free, but it got one upvote I think? The site is currently down, but if there's interest I can put it back online.

<comment><USER3> It's tough to get traction on HN for certain things. Also, if you think about it people don't want other people to know what domain names are available "just in case".

There are currently 26 three letter words/common acronyms left. List available here for a small fee <http://andio.herokuapp.com>

<comment><USER4> That's lame - $20 for this list? What's the likelihood one can actually register one of the 3 letter domains for a typical reg fee and not some huge cost?

<comment><USER5> Here is one list of short .io names:

[https://iwantmyname.com/blog/2012/05/100-shockingly-short- io...](https://iwantmyname.com/blog/2012/05/100-shockingly-short-io-domain- names-available-today.html)

and here is another:

are.io bow.io cot.io cry.io dew.io dip.io dye.io ear.io egg.io fee.io fry.io had.io hem.io hid.io hut.io jug.io lid.io lie.io lip.io men.io mop.io mow.io oar.io ore.io pit.io rag.io ray.io rib.io rid.io rot.io sod.io toe.io tow.io tug.io was.io won.io yaw.io

I did not bother to verify availability.

<comment><USER6> This is from a few minutes ago: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5663917>

<comment><USER7> Ha you beat me to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Did you know their rules state: "No .IO domain may be used, directly or indirectly, for any purpose that is sexual or pornographic or that is against the statutory laws of any Nation."?

The laws of ANY nation?! I founded a UGC .io startup in 2007 (we were the biggest .io site for quite a while), and while we never had any trouble, I find that clause worrisome.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't know how to feel about this. I've commented many times before, warning others about the .io domain and the consequences they'll face with ranking on Google. Now that won't be a problem. But let's face it, .io will never be as 'accepted' as .com by Billy Customer, and now squatters have a reason to go buying them all up, so good luck grabbing one for a techie startup or niche.

<comment><USER10> It requires something about the way we conduct ourselves to change, at least.

I remember reading about how Japanese advertizers would use Google queries in ads instead of URLs - and we in the West did little to improve on that with QR codes - so it's possible that there's a place for .io somewhere. I just think it'd be a really bad idea to use them interchangeably with .com domains.

I guess the same can be said of .co domains, which look like typos to the average person, when they aren't used as shorturls.

<comment><USER11> > _I remember reading about how Japanese advertizers would use Google queries > in ads instead of URLs_

That's happened in the UK as well, though (in my experience) more often with video adverts (e.g. movie trailers) than print advertising. It began with stuff like "AOL Keyword: harry potter" (was it "keyword"? can't remember, was definitely AOL), and mostly died after that, but have seen it with Google a few times.

And on the flip side, you seem to suggest that QR codes are a western thing - actually they were invented in Japan, and are much bigger in Asia than over here.

<comment><USER12> I see "Internet Search: 'model xyz'" in a lot of car ads. Easier to remember than a URL and shows off how good your SEO is ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sort of surprised .ly is missing. Maybe related to the conflict over there, because it was/is pretty widely used by startups

<comment><USER14> I thought that as well.

Also, I can't think of any .ms sites yet that is listed there. Even a google seasrch of site:.ms doesn't seem to show up anything that sticks out... maybe a few music related sites using it as the 'music' tld?

<comment><USER15> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ms#Usage>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> nic.io must be tickled pink. Queue the land grab!

In other words, I'm not sure this is a good thing or sets a good precedent. I understand the rationale as they're just reacting to what the industry is doing (I'm looking at you GH) but I imagine we'll see more of this in the future.

I say all this as a (legitimate) .io domain holder.

Somewhere there is a bailiwick just waiting for the crafting community to jump all over it.

<comment><USER17> I'm interested in your relation to the territories, if you don't mind me asking?

<comment><USER16> I meant that I have a domain name that I'm using for a legitimate service that I purchased knowing that it wasn't a gccTLD. My "legitimate" comment was specifically related to the influx of squatters we're about to see in this space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wow, someone at Google finally successfully championed the cause! Thanks to whoever you are if you're reading this.

</comment><comment><USER19> May I know what does it do to be in the gccTLD list? Does it changes something for those website?

<comment><USER20> It means that Google will treat it as a worldwide website, as opposed to being country-specific. This means that .io domains are more likely to show up in US search results, and will no longer be given priority in "the British Indian Ocean Territory"[1]

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io>

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've always thought the .io is much better than .co .co seems too much like a miss-spelling of .com

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm surprised nobody has pointed out that this is not an official announcement from Google. It is merely an updated KB page.

Google is treating .io as gccTLD for at least 6 months.

<comment><USER23> Where did you get "6 months" from?

<comment><USER22> I own .IO domain and I was able to set it as gccTLD in Google Webmasters Tool for at least last 6 months (but not when I registered it more than 2 years ago).

Not to mention my .io domain ranks quite well for my keywords across all national google front-ends for quite some time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What's the attraction of the .io domain? Seeing it crop up in many places and I'm not sure what the significance is.

<comment><USER25> In addition to the "techiness" of io, a lot of the draw has been availability. They've been going at $50/yr for a while, which has kept the squatters away. Last time I looked, there were a plethora of three-letter English words available.

I jumped in in 2009, and basically had my pick of 2-letter domains.

<comment><USER3> There are less than 40 three letter word domains names available now. <http://andio.herokuapp.com>

<comment><USER25> $20 for the results of bash one-liner? (by my count there are far more than 40 left)

        for i in `egrep '^[a-z]{3}$' /usr/share/dict/words`
        do
          whois $i.io | grep -q '\- Available' && echo $i.io
        done

Heck, there's still a few two-letter .io domains left

        for i in {a..z}{a..z}.io
        do
          whois $i | grep -q '\- Available' && echo $i
        done

        iz.io
        jy.io
        kf.io
        kq.io
        lq.io
        qf.io
        qg.io
        qj.io
        qo.io
        qs.io
        qy.io
        uj.io
        yd.io
        yl.io
        yz.io

But, yeah, I agree, .io choices are getting a little thinner than they used to be.

<comment><USER3> Yes, $20 for you is too much, but there are lots of people who have no idea how to do a bash one-liner (me being one of them actually).

I worked on this project a while back and posted the list for free for over a year, not sure why it's a sin to charge money for it now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I hope prices stay "high"; maybe $55+/yr is enough to keep the domain squatters in check to some extent.

<comment><USER27> .io prices are coming down rather quickly. Gandi.net sells them for $40 apiece, and I wouldn't be surprised if it became available for half of that with some sort of promotion. I'm waiting to grab one when that happens.

<comment><USER28> Damnit, I just paid $72 three seconds ago, before reading the comments.

<comment><USER29> I paid close to $100 about a year ago... though renewal will be less...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Excellent. I'm prepping to launch <http://rss.io> and worried that the .io domain would kind of kill its discoverability in search results. Really happy to see this, as I'm sure many others are, too, who are using .io domains the same way.

Maybe people will want to take tele.io and newsies.io off my hands now (half kidding but seriously, email if you're interested :)).

<comment><USER3> Great domain name and I love the header on the site. Love that you are willing to put this out there with placeholder text still in place. Why not right!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Wow! They actually listened. Who would have thought..

</comment><comment><USER32> Google, .im is missing from the list. Should have been treated almost equally to '.me'.. and .me got it's gTLD status right from the start.

<comment><USER33> I can't think of anything that uses .im, what am I forgetting?

<comment><USER34> <http://www.pidgin.im> and <http://www.adium.im>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm amazed at how fast this was done, seems like only weeks ago several people suggested this.

<comment><USER36> It probably helped that every Github Pages site started going to username.github.io. I'd imagine a variety of repositories became harder to find, which'd be noticeable at Google HQ.

<comment> mh- Based on their reluctance to put Google Code out of its misery, its sometimes hard to believe they might be aware. :)

<comment><USER37> It's a good thing they don't "put Google Code out of it's misery". There are millions of sites using jQuery hosted on Google Code.

<comment><USER36> I doubt [https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.0.0/jquery.mi...](https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.0.0/jquery.min.js) would go away if Google Code did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think it would be better if google would let webmasters just tell them if you want them to treat your domain as gccTLD or not. I had some cool ideas for .mx, but if they want to treat it as Mexico-only, then what's the point of buying one?

</comment><comment><USER39> Maybe I finally do something with my .io domain (or the countless .com domains I have registered)!

My .io has been hosted on GAE since the start. I wish GAE would support naked domains. <http://www.macch.io/>

<comment><USER40> Actually you can direct macch.io to www.macch.io. Iremember doing it for one of my domain which was hosted on AppEngine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm curious how the average consumer (non-tech audience) views a .io domain.

I'm planning to build a consumer facing site and use .io as it's an easy way to get a decently good domain, but I don't want to scare people off with the domain.

<comment><USER42> I've been using it for jobboard.io for around 8 months and have only had one customer ask me about it. To be fair I don't know how many people are NOT using me because they don't get the domain and are simply moving on. In the long run I don't think it's an issue as most people CNAME their own custom domain for their job boards anyways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Interesting. Years ago I wanted to do a side project and ended up acquiring the "words.io" domain name. I was also able to snag the wordsio.com as well to avoid some confusion.

Maybe this will get me to actually do something with it.

</comment><comment><USER44> Mark this day next year to check for good expired .io domain names :-)

<comment><USER41> +~3 months for the grace period to expire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Would really like to see this happen with .ly domains too.

</comment><comment><USER46> That's great! I'm guessing that a lot more startups are going to use a .io domain now since there are a lot of good domain names available.

</comment><comment><USER6> Currently available as-of-this-moment 3-letter .io domain names:

<http://pastie.org/7809651>

<comment><USER47> I just bought a 2 letter .io.

At the time of this comment, there are only 2 left.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is pretty cool, I have been a huge fan of .io domain names for a long time. I even tried (unsuccessfully) to sell a, checked daily, list of the available three letter domain names for $19. There are currently 40 three letter word domain names left, there are a couple common acronyms like CST.io that are available too.

If interested <http://andio.herokuapp.com>

EDIT: was.io and mph.io have been purchased since posting this comment, now 38 left.

<comment><USER48> I was shocked to see 'hey.io' was just bought today.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, there are some really interesting words that have been available way longer than I thought they would be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Is there any way to register an io domain without your address and phone number showing up in the whois information?

<comment><USER50> Try gandi.net. They offer free whois privacy with registration and their prices on .io domains are VERY good. One thing you will have to do is let your credit card company know about the transaction as the charge will come from France and will be flagged as fraudulent (at least that was my experience with AMEX).

<comment><USER49> Thanks, gandi looks nice. However, their domain privacy page doesn't mention anything about .io domains. Does anyone know if they offer whois privacy with .io domains as well?

<comment><USER51> I use Gandi for a load of domains (they're great!) and have just bought an io one through them but sadly there isn't much whois privacy apart from hiding your email address. Name, postal address and telephone are all visible. I think this might be a .io requirement though since Gandi offer whois protection for free. You just enable it on your contact record and any domain linked to that contact will then use Gandi's data rather than yours. Depending on the tld this means either everything is masked apart from the owner's name (e.g. for .com or .net) or only certain fields are (as determined by the various registries and each one's policy on hiding real owner info).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> This has inspired me to buy another .by domain, just on the offchance...

</comment><comment><USER53> Hmm.. might be a good time to put my translation.io domain to good use.

</comment><comment><USER54> What will the SEO effects of this be to existing .io site?

<comment><USER16> I imagine that the previous localization results for .io will be scrapped. This means that .io domains will now rank as high as .com/.net etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Thank you Google!

</comment><comment><USER56> Hipsters win

</comment><comment><USER57> so what?

</comment><comment><USER3> You can buy the list of 30 remaining three letter words/common acronyms for $19: <http://andio.herokuapp.com>

I'm sure you could do this yourself but why waste $19 of your time :)

There were 40 left about 2 hours ago, so far these domains have been purchased in the last 2 hours: was.io, mph.io, lie.io, avg.io, cum.io, ear.io, era.io, hwy.io, shy.io, sox.io</comment>


Ask HN: Is writing down things on paper an easier way to memorize? - <AUTHOR>

I am on my 20s and I find myself comfortabler taking notes on paper (i.e. handwriting) rather than on a computer/iPad - of course taking away the distractions that a device may have. Is anyone out there in the same situation? <comment><USER2> Yes. When writing on the paper, I feel more focused about the note's content and handwriting is normally slower then typing so it stays on top of my mind for longer. And, well, paper doesn't have notifications and etc.

So I am taking the most important notes on a small whiteboard (about 20 inches wide), so I can put it on my knees and etc and it acts like a large reusable sheet of paper which won't get lost :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I am maintaining a journal for to-do tasks since a month after it was suggested here on HN [1]. I found this better than writing in an app.

I miss the notes I take on the tablet since every writing is on a new view. I don't have this problem with a book.

[1] [http://bulletjournal.com/](http://bulletjournal.com/)</comment>


Uber poaches 40 people from 'partner' Carnegie Mellon - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-uber-a-friend-or-foe-of-carnegie-mellon-in-robotics-2015-05-31-14103924

<comment><USER2> "40 people voluntarily leave CMU to join Uber"</comment>


Khan Academy 2018 Annual Report: 8B Minutes - <AUTHOR> https://khanacademyannualreport.org/leveling-the-playing-field/ <comment><USER2> Slightly off-topic, but I can not recommend Khan Academy highly enough. Between the directed learning and the helpful videos, I am working to improve my kids understanding of maths and usually don't lose my temper. Prior to that, it was a frustrating exercise for everyone involved.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd love to see the minutes spent map per capita.

As is it would be largely impacted by population. [https://xkcd.com/1138/](https://xkcd.com/1138/)</comment>


What Hilary and I -and Ricardo- got wrong about trade; and Trump got dead right - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@russellirvinjohnston/what-hilary-and-i-and-ricardo-got-wrong-about-trade-and-trump-got-dead-right-688cab9e1e11#.dx4b0s1ra <comment><USER2> This is excellent. Someone who gets it and isn't afraid to admit he was wrong. Bravo. "Nonetheless, I offer to all those who voted for Trump, my sincerest apologies. Too late, I know. Most Presidential candidates should have had reversing free trade as their first principle, but only one did."

</comment><comment><USER3> The election result was real feedback from the people. I hope the tech people don't ignore this and think about creating stuff that will help the 'forgotten'.

</comment><comment><USER4> Who is "Hilary"?</comment>


Show HN: Command-line JSON processing tool - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/antonmedv/fx <comment><USER2> I think the interactive mode is a really neat feature. Looks like this tool fx was likely inspired a bit by jq [1] which is a great library as well. Mainly the dot identity syntax made me think fx might have gotten inspiration from jq. fx definitely seems more approachable to current JS developers than jq. Overall great job on the library!

[1]: [https://stedolan.github.io/jq/](https://stedolan.github.io/jq/)

</comment><comment><USER3> The links at the bottom are all interesting. Specially jl[1], which uses a functional, Haskell-like language.

The wrong one is the link to jid, which has a very poor language that claims to be like jq, but actually is just dot syntax and nothing else. jiq[2], my fork, has real jq underneath, so may be better, although it has some rough edges waiting to be polished.

[1]: [https://github.com/chrisdone/jl](https://github.com/chrisdone/jl) [2]: [https://github.com/fiatjaf/jiq](https://github.com/fiatjaf/jiq)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's kinda odd to write imperative expressions like for-loops all in one line without brackets, also the necessity of 'this'. I guess these are the downsides of using a Javascript-like language.

</comment><comment><USER4> I was about to write this off as a jq clone but it is MUCH more that than! Looks pretty cool, I've installed it for the next time I work with JSON in the CLI.</comment>


New WikiLeaks dump: The CIA built Thunderbolt exploit, implants to target Macs - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/03/new-wikileaks-dump-the-cia-built-thunderbolt-exploit-implants-to-target-macs/ <comment><USER2> Why are there no chinese or russian leaks? Not trying to start a flamewar, just general curious.

There are russian dissenters and chinese dissenters, thus they should exist even within there secret agencys.

<comment><USER3> Panama papers. Pretty good example.

UBS tax evasion leak. Another great example.

China economic data. A continuous open secret.

That's just off the top of my head.</comment></comment>


Alternatives to HipChat - <AUTHOR>

Are there any alternatives to HipChat? In particular, I'm looking for lightweight chat clients that support both individual and group chats, and that have a simple user interface. It'd also be nice to have a native client for Mac <comment><USER2> I use [https://github.com/kandanapp/kandan](https://github.com/kandanapp/kandan) at the office with my team. Easy to roll on a free Heroku instance and the pricetag is hard to beat.

</comment><comment><USER3> We just started using Slack, which I've been enjoying quite a bit: [https://slack.com/](https://slack.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> We've been experimenting with unison.com. \- easy sign-up. \- no charge for outside vendors/clients/contractors brought into chats. \- multi-threaded rooms (vs. one long chat).

Web-based with native iPhone and Android clients (no native iPad client, which would be nice). Fairly simple web interface. Good feedback and integration into notifications.

</comment><comment><USER5> Check out [http://hackerchat.im](http://hackerchat.im)

It offers anonymous chat, a console in the chat box, the option to use wget to pull up websites within the chat, pull up xkcd's by simply typing xkcd {xkcdNumber}, and other cool stuff like that.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wish the Stack Exchange folks would open source their chat app and/or provide as a service alongside Trello (perhaps with the same payment model). We use HipChat here, it's ok, but SE chat is pretty awesome.

</comment><comment><USER7> We've been using [https://www.flowdock.com/](https://www.flowdock.com/) recommend it highly

</comment><comment><USER8> Checkout [https://hall.com/](https://hall.com/) its super slick</comment>


Introducing Android Instant Apps - <AUTHOR> http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2016/05/android-instant-apps-evolving-apps.html <comment><USER2> By far the coolest thing announced today. This could honestly be revolutionary for how apps are used in the future.</comment>


Pressy, the customizable Android button, raises $300k in 3 days. - <AUTHOR> http://www.coordinato.com/blog/pressy-customizable-android-button-raises-over-300k-3-days-kickstarter-44-days-remain/

<comment><AUTHOR> They got some great press upon launch. TC, Gizmodo, Pcmag, Time, engadget, etc. When it rains, it pours. Way to go. Most of the money is likely to go towards manufacturing, I hope their business model let's them make a healthy profit as well. Does anyone think it would be a good business idea to join their API for $1,000?

</comment><comment><USER2> This is actually very inspiring.

A simple idea (hard to execute/manufacture), and people went crazy for it.

That's what startups are all about!</comment>


Bukanir streams movies from torrents. App written in Go - <AUTHOR> Bukanir streams movies from bittorrent magnet links
- Watch movies and TV shows on your Android or desktop devices
 - Many languages to choose for subtitles
 - Ads free and free as in Freedom
New in version 2.3:
- Desktop app is rewritten in Go (Qt5)
 - Added eztv search provider
 - Search by genre
 - Updated ijkplayer (FFmpeg v3.1) and libtorrent-rasterbar (v1.0.10)
App is available on https://bukanir.com . Source is on https://github.com/gen2brain/bukanir .
In this version desktop app is rewritten in Go (it was in Python) and now uses Qt5 bindings for Go (https://github.com/therecipe/qt). Windows binary is statically compiled in Linux via mingw, Linux binary is semi static (Qt, libtorrent and libmpv are compiled in binary).
Android version uses gomobile/gobind library and native interface. <comment><USER2> what about a full static build for linux? i had to use musl libc for latest static builds, glibc does not support it for political reasons.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it is possible because of the libGL and libasound, those will not work in static build, and possibly udev. This way it is actually more portable, without static libstdc++ and only standard libs dinamically linked.</comment></comment>


Old Spice Sales Double With YouTube Campaign - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/07/27/old-spice-sales/?utm_source=feedburner <comment><USER2> So who here purchased Old Spice or had it purchased for them (which was the original aim of the campaign by all accounts) post Old Spice Guy? I know I've considered checking it out but my aftershave purchase cycle is pretty long (years?).

<comment><USER3> The Old Spice brand is on more than just aftershave. The real question is how much more brand awareness did Old Spice acquire because of this campaign, and how much did this campaign change the brand image from "something you remember your dad using" to "something that you'd consider buying for yourself."</comment></comment>


Ask HN: what can I do about a newspaper that plagiarized my blog? - <AUTHOR>

Yesterday, an NYC-area newspaper lifted some original research off my website, and when I contacted them requesting attribution (i.e. a link) they responded in a pretty unprofessional way... publicly... on their newspaper...
So, the truth is, it's a silly matter of Petite Lap Giraffes.  If you've been following the DirecTV viral advertisements, maybe you've seen the Russian guy with the tiny giraffe.  I blogged about this last week, and it's been a ton of fun.  ...but I had a really negative interaction with LongIslandPress.com today, and I wrote about that too:
http://iandennismiller.com/blog/2011/03/total-bummer-longislandpress-com-plagiarism-and-coverup/
It's so silly I hardly want to waste any time on it.  At the same time, their actions were so blatant and contemptuous that I almost feel like an injustice has been committed...  So my question is: what can be done about a newspaper that factually lies about something, steals your work, and is kindof mean about refusing to provide attribution? <comment><USER2> First of all, I'm going to burst your bubble a little bit: This is not generally considered plagiarism. Plagiarism has a specific meaning both in the law and in the field of journalism, and using facts gleaned from a source is not exactly the same thing, whether or not you cite that source.

Newspapers rip off facts all the time. That practice has been the bread and butter of news gathering since it became a real profession. Overhear a couple of city councilmen talking about "the mayor's prostitute" and then clam up when they see you? Take that fact, go find a willing source (we'll call him Bob) to tell you what you already know, and then publish a story saying Bob told you the mayor hired a prostitute. Where you originally heard the information silently disappears into the ether. You feel honest because you went through the trouble of uncovering the information — you were just helped along by the fact that you already knew it.

However, they are still being shady dicks here, and ripping off stories wholesale is a bit beyond the pale. You're generally expected to cite some source for your info, and you shouldn't deliberately hide sources unless you're protecting somebody. In this case, it is clear that they are intentionally hiding the fact that they ripped off your blog post — the stock photo bit pretty much cinches it (they don't know how to re-discover that bit of information!), and that's why they removed the paragraph.

There is no overriding body to report them to. That only really makes sense in a field where there is some authoritative group or groups — to publish a newspaper, the only place you need to get an OK from is your pocketbook. Think of it like a really expensive, environmentally unfriendly blog.

So what can you do? The same thing you'd do if a marginally famous blog ripped you off without attribution — make noise. Raise a stink in their peer group. Hopefully, some of them will enjoy beating up their competitor for lacking ethics and appreciate the chance to tout their own superiority.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, this is exactly what I needed to hear. Thanks, chc!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link:

[http://iandennismiller.com/blog/2011/03/total-bummer- longisl...](http://iandennismiller.com/blog/2011/03/total-bummer- longislandpress-com-plagiarism-and-coverup/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Sure, maybe they are mean for not giving you attribution. You are right and they are wrong. But it looks like you've got your pound of flesh now. Why not just move on?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll be honest: I was going to leave it like that until they posted their last update (the one at 4:23pm in my post). It actually pissed me off at that point, and I started thinking: "hey! This is a freaking newspaper! What else are they going to lie about?"

So I kindof have this grudge now, and I can even couch it in a sort of righteousness... as in, "they're destroying our trust in the whole enterprise of journalism" and whatnot.

So, I guess I don't want to move on because I want to see if there's anyone watching over this. For example: newspapers need to have their circulation audited by some third party. I'm wondering if there's an ethics group consisting of journalists who sortof watch out for things like this.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well, here's an update:

<http://slashdot.org/>

:)

</comment><comment><USER4> Not sure what you can do - but I just wrote a letter to the editor.

</comment><comment><USER5> Simple. Sue.

<comment><USER6> Sue them for what? As far as I can tell, there's no copyright violation here.

edit: worth pointing out, I think what they did was unethical, but not illegal.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's kindof where I am... it was unethical, but I don't really know what is illegal about what they did.

However, I want to believe the courts aren't the only place where something like this gets sorted out. When someone does something unethical, there is usually some group that will hear about it. Academics are somewhat self- policing, and all sorts of ethical issues result in some form of justice being meted out. Journalists seem like they're in the same boat, but journalism isn't my domain of expertise...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If your copyright notice is in place, then Burn'em they've got cash for... Bigtime media feels they can walk over any & everybody...so (WTF) Burn'em.</comment>


In Singapore, Quarantine Comes with Sea View, Room Service - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-28/in-singapore-quarantine-comes-with-a-sea-view-and-room-service <comment><USER2> I'm in Singapore

That girl got lucky. Most people end up in a cheap service apartment. You get assigned something and have no choice. I have a few friends who are currently in less luxurious accomodations

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it just me or does this kinda sound like an advertisement for the tourist industry? Call me cynical.

I mean yeah people are being put up in hotels because it makes sense.

<comment><USER4> Or maybe the government just cares for its residents. Getting stuck in a room for 2 weeks is not easy. Govt is just trying to make it more tolerable.

<comment><USER5> Its one way the Singapore government is helping the tourism industry. No tourists are allowed in, there are many empty rooms.

<comment><USER6> This. They also housed 100+k Malaysian commuters locked out of JB when the causeway was closed in local hotels.

Win win win for workers, employers and the country

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In Australia a similar scheme (almost exactly the same by the look of it) has recently been implemented.

Needless to say, people complained about being confined to their 4 or 5 star hotel room.

I understand the boredom, but people had a week to get back to Australia after the government recommended it, and it seems a decent trade off between individual freedoms and killing people. For context, in Australia over 50% of the current covid-19 cases are from people returning from overseas[1]

[1] [https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel- coronavir...](https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel- coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and- case-numbers) (scroll down or search for "acquired overseas")

<comment><USER8> The government keeps repeating the claim that most cases have been acquired overseas, but testing criteria in every state explicitly only include people who have returned from overseas or have had known contact with a confirmed case (up until a few days ago when it was very slightly broadened). The stats reflect the testing criteria, not the true distribution here.

<comment><USER7> Whilst it's a common complaint that the testing criteria isn't wide enough, Australia is testing more than most countries (3rd in the world per population at the end of last week), and there are limited numbers of the tests available.

There's also not much evidence that significant numbers of cases are being missed.

Outside NSW there is hardly any community transmission from unknown sources (probably less than 50 cases in the whole country). We'd see that if we were missing cases.

In NSW the criteria was expanded as soon as there was evidence of wider community transmission. Victoria started random testing this week too.

IMHO this was a reasonable trade-off between limited test availability and risk.

I'd also note that there are 1.5 blood (antibody) tests being rolled out this week across Australia. That should give us insights into anything that has been missed.

<comment><USER9> They've been getting broader testing underway and are employing it where there seem to be community breakouts, but I have to agree with your parent poster. There has been community transmission, so stressing so strongly that travelers are the vector lead to complacency.

The messaging was bad. If you tell people over and over that it's only the travelers (but you only test the travelers) and downplay the community aspect then you're misrepresenting the risk.

People were, until very recently, continuing to host wine and dinner parties so long as no recent travelers were present. With travelers who arrived the day before the mandatory quarantine came into effect treated as being safe to invite.

People aren't rational in these situations, you can't give them such an easy mental shortcut or they'll take it every time.

Many Australians were coming home from countries with broader (at the time) testing, more extensive contact tracing and still fewer cases than Australia, but the community's eye was still being actively trained on _them specifically_ , and not simply _people_ as the primary vector.

<comment><USER7> I don't think anyone has said "it's only travellers".

But yes, they absolutely present the biggest risk. Until March 23 (I think? Something like that) every single local transmission in Australia had been traced back to a traveller or a connection to one.

The OP said "The stats reflect the testing criteria, not the true distribution here" and my argument is that actually the stats are probably pretty accurate and given how well tracing has worked and the limits on the number of tests available the criteria was pretty reasonable.

<comment><USER9> Sorry, you're right. The messaging was that it's primarily the travelers.

My feeling is that the quarantines definitely should have gone ahead, but in justifying them to the public the govt. seemed to place a little too much emphasis, such that people interpreted (as they do, in a crisis) _most significant_ risk as _only risk_.

<comment><USER7> I think the government had a bunch of libertarians in their ear complaining about "infringing on our freedom" to lock people in an enforced quarantine.

This sounds ridiculous, but I know someone who said "This is a nightmare! Australia has taken away all freedoms" in response to the announcement.

In that context (and I can well believe the LNP would have people like this) I think the emphasis on "the forced quarantine is limited to travellers" makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This kind of publicity is good for tourism . I guess when the pandemic is over tourists will be rushing to Singapore with a vengeance.

</comment><comment><USER11> So rich people, who were traveling around the world, are being provided luxurious isolation facilities by the government, while the poor, who didn't venture out of their country, will have to now practice "social distancing" mostly on their own cost. Off course these are sensible actions to take in the current time, but this just feels weird.

<comment><USER2> If you're going to make ridiculous and nonsensical political jabs like this at least be slightly informed.

1) There is no lockdown / shelter-in-place / quarantine in Singapore. Normal residents can go about their daily lives as usual, with a few restrictions for crowd control and a lot of temperature checks.

2) Being stuck in a hotel room for two weeks, no matter how luxurious, is a lot less pleasant than being able to carry on with your life as usual.

3) This is done because returnees from the US and UK pose a high risk to Singaporean, and if they are quarantined at home with family that risks spreading it to family and then into society.

Writing this from a cafe by the river in Singapore, not locked into my apt. It's a beautiful day today with lots of people walking around.

<comment><USER12> The quality of governance in Singapore makes even a spoiled dutch man like me jealous.

Would be even cooler if they found a way to maximize personal liberties too (referring to the freedom of expression, religion and sexuality). It's hard to see why it couldn't just embrace those. I doubt these freedoms are the gateway drug to democracy they fear it is.

<comment><USER2> You're pretty free in terms of expression, religion, and sexuality here. In fact, it's probably one of the most sexually liberal places in Asia. Hell, prostitution is even legal here.

You do need to follow the rules though or face incredibly harsh punishments for any crimes (including drugs etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like stories about how Singaporeans are doing well because unlike with Scandinavian countries the woodwork-crawlers can't use the muddy and dark- implications heavy "homogenous population" argument.

<comment><USER14> Instead they can point to how well fascism works!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Mothereffinanimatedgif - <AUTHOR> http://mothereffinganimatedgif.com/

<comment><USER2> Conceived of, developed, designed, and launched in 24 hours: <https://github.com/paulirish/lazyweb-requests/issues/53>

Tech: HTML5 drag n drop, FileReader, a[download], GIF encoding on the client, BlobBuilder, postMessage, <input type=range> (with Firefox polyfill), appcache, transforms, etc. Oh! and the aforementioned * { box-sizing : border- box; }

<comment><USER3> This is inspiring, a client side tool like this to compose press-kits would be nice for media O.o

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whenever I have to drop images on a webpage see something happen, I close the tab.

I don't have a bunch of images lying around that have the right size and that I'd feel comfortable sharing.

<comment><USER2> It's all clientside, so there's no risk here of sharing. But it's cool, hombre.

Here's what someone else just made with it <http://twitpic.com/8kyup2>

<comment><USER4> I can't know that the files aren't transferred somewhere without thoroughly inspecting the source and it isn't obvious from the page that this is an offline app.

Thanks for the example. It would be great if the page itself linked to some demonstrations.

<comment><USER5> It has (now) the following in the top bar: "Drag + Drop, Client-side, Animated GIF Creator"

<comment><USER6> Ah, yeah, so now it's totally safe because it says so right there on the page.

The points raised in higher-up comments are still relevant... It's impossible to know for sure exactly what will happen with my images that I Drag n Drop.

Of course, for a 24 hour effort, it's great. But this is the 80/20 rule at play. The first 80% was the "easy" bit. Now you have to create some demoes, tutorials, earn user trust, etc.

I don't have a lot of need for animated GIFs personally, but this seems like a neat little tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just fyi:

uses filereader. There is a bad (crashing) memory leak in Chrome.

Bug report here: [http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=114548...](http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=114548&thanks=114548&ts=1329369049)

Beware if you intend to use filreader to read many large files. Allocated mem never gets released.

Spent 2 days getting a html5 client side image resizer/uploader only to hit this killer bug.

Had to use Flash in the end, which by the way performs like a demon on binary data.

<comment><USER2> Just threw your bug report over to our FileReader engineer. Thx for filing!

<comment><USER7> No worries. I was v. disappointed when I had to fall back on flash for resizing. Felt great having client side image resize and upload (with progress) without using flash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The 24-hour conception to launch is more impressive than the end-result, which is still pretty damned impressive.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why is Safari not supported?

<comment><USER2> no FileReader support in Safari 5.1, which is used to enable the drag 'n drop image reading. A "Nightly WebKit" build (which is basically Nightly Safari) works though.

Behind the scenes, I'm alpha-testing a new API for mapping feature detects to browsers, so you can say what features you need and get an automated response for what browsers they'll work in. (Another lazyweb project actually): <https://github.com/paulirish/lazyweb-requests/issues/39>

<comment><USER10> How about Firefox 9.0.1? It works for me in Chromium, but in Firefox the dropped image doesn't even appear on the deck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very cool. But you need to fix it for transparent gifs; they just stack on top of each other and need to clear the previous.

</comment><comment><USER12> pretty neat -- way to step up 'team behind lazyweb-request#53'

tested it out with whatever I had handy: Mother Effing Mountain Lion <http://i.imgur.com/oRFRA.gif>

</comment><comment><USER13> No Opera support :(

</comment><comment><USER14> Seriously, that's awesome.</comment>


Show HN: DC Red Line Metro with Accurate Track Layout - <AUTHOR> https://contractdesign.github.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> This web page shows the real-time location of the trains in Washington DC's Red Line. It can be helpful to know when/where a delay is occurring and if the trains are single-tracking.

This is my first foray into web programming, so I'm interested in any feedback you might have.

</comment><comment><USER2> Love this, as a semi-frequent DC commuter (I live out by Shady Grove)

It'd be helpful if you put what each thing does (what each pipe is equivalent too, the red, which way is to Shady Grove vs to Glenmont)

Thanks for sharing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like it needs a legend -- thanks for the suggestion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very cool, how did you build it?</comment>


Where did Swedish schooling go wrong? - <AUTHOR> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/09/swedish-schooling-go-wrong.html <comment><USER2> Johan Wennström, one of the authors, has at least two more papers on the subject:

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3241983](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3241983)

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3047110](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3047110)

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3061765](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3061765)

One might get the impression he has a bit of an axe to grind. Then again, I was a teacher at a Swedish university for one year (and loved doing it in general), and I might actually be biased to think he has, because I have to admit that the abstracts did have me nodding in agreement.

(Apologies for the low-effort comment - I'll try reading them in detail after some coffee, but this is a bit too heavy before breakfast)

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't new or the fault of immigrants - I went to Sweden almost 20 years ago and almost every young person I came into contact with was an introvert average-to-pretty looking Smiths fan who was depressed or extrovert very attractive dance/pop fan who was depreseed/worried about not being taken seriously whilst taking their art shots on their retro camera.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pisa winners in science: Singapore, Japan, Estonia, Taiwan, Finland.

Sweden is somewhere around 30, bravely competing with countries like USA, France, Russia and Spain.

Brief visit to Tallinn might solve this mystery, instead finding some minute errors in schooling system design. :-)

</comment><comment><USER5> I have read only about half of the paper. It is written in a very compelling style, though I get the impression that the authors have an axe to grind.

However, to play the devil's advocate for a bit, standardized tests such as PISA and TIMSS are taken as uncontested measure for the quality of an education system. If you believe in the _social constructionist_ view (as presented in the paper), then obviously you would reject such tests as a valid measure just as you reject them when used in education. Clearly, an education system that is _not_ focused - and excuse the simplification - on making students learn a defined, common set of facts, is never going to do well on tests. You could argue that this is by design, because the real goal of education is to (?) make students question the "social construct"(?)[0]

The question at this point would then be whether Swedish students are doing well on other dimensions - are they competitive on the labor market, do they live happy lives?

To make it clear where I am standing: I believe that in order to question anything intelligently, you need a strong and broad base of facts to base your criticism on. I do not think there is a way around memorizing at least for part of the subjects. I benefit at this point of my life of basic knowledge in many areas that I _had_ to study during my education and had no interest or inclination for - I would never have chosen for example to study the basics of civil or contract law, which was a mandatory part of my somewhat quantitative BSc course, but the concepts I learned were very helpful in practice when dealing with employers, landlords, banks, etc.

I think to ask children to find their own interests and "question things critically" \- which I guess boils down to expressing individual likes and dislikes if arguing based on facts is not part of it - at that young age deprives them of learning about the structure and rules of society, and about the choices you have available. How do you know you are interested in biology if you have not seen it somewhat in depth?

[0] Making this up; it is not clear to me if the social constructivist' take on education makes even the basic promise of preparing students for life, whereas in traditional fact-based education the promise is clear: learn facts that will help you at work and in life.

</comment><comment><USER6> Immigration is a huge elephant in the room here. Sweden has admitted an enormous number of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa. If you don't correct for that, your results will be meaningless.

<comment><USER2> Well, to (again) speak as someone who was teaching at a Swedish university for a while - in fact, in Malmö, _supposedly_ the "Detroit/Chicago of Sweden" (depends on who you ask; it's a stupid exaggeration either way), and full of immigrants, I have a simple request : _please stop spreading this bullshit._ Being from a foreign country creates its problems, but has very, _very_ little to do with the issues raised here.

I had plenty of problem students, and they were all _Swedish_. The issues have more to do with teachers not being allowed to tell them that they're wrong, to the point where they develop glass jaws and/or a complete lack of respect for their teachers and their own education. They just don't care, because nobody sets boundaries for them or tells them to push themselves to get better at something!

I was almost fired from a _university_ for telling my students that the majority of them did not bother to write down their names, student number, use paragraphs, capital letters at the start of a sentence, or even something as basic as putting dots between sentences in their weekly one-page reports. That they all knew that they wouldn't have made it past the first year of high- school with that kind of attitude. That I could not in good faith accept this from adults who were two years away of having to write their own CV letters. And that therefore any report that did not meet these basic requirements would immediately be sent back with a note "format it properly" until it did (note: I would not even _fail_ them - they would still be graded after the corrections).

This then resulted in a complaint to the higher-ups depicting me as some raging lunatic, and the higher-ups took the side of the complaining students with _extreme_ prejudice, resulting in a near-firing.

If anything, the immigrant students had more fighting spirit than the locals, possibly because they're not pampered.

<comment><USER7> It's totally dishonest to analyze trends in an education system without accounting for immigration and ethnic differences. In the USA, for example, there is plenty to be learned about the education system by taking that into account. If you discover the performance among native Swedes isn't changed, you'll learn the problem isn't simply caused by changes to the Swedish school system.

Something like 20% of Sweden's population is of foreign origin. If the paper doesn't account for this, it's got a problem. The performance of American students in PISA or TMSS by racial breakdown has been well-documented -- blacks and Hispanics drag the average down more than Asians drag it up. And you can find that many comparisons between American states are just the result of Simpson's paradox. So that's something you need to check for when looking at Sweden's performance.

(In the paper you can find good evidence that a big portion of the deterioration is _not_ caused by ethnic makeup. For example, advanced proficiency dropping from 12% to 3% on page 9. But it's not so clear about changes to performance at the bottom end.)

<comment><USER2> You raise very valid points, but the way you address them has a very different ring to it than _" the big elephant in the room is..."_, which is a pretty blatant a dog-whistle for _" the problem is dumb foreigners"_.

Now, I do wish to give the GP the benefit of doubt, but the expression is problematic regardless of intent. My comment was more of a response that implied dog-whistle. Admittedly, it was a bit reactionary because of my own personal experiences surrounding these issues, and the ease of which I have seen people blame things on foreigners without even a hint of self-reflection. But as you mention: the paper suggests these issues are _not_ caused by immigration.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Holy Octocat There's Church Music on GitHub Now - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/05/gregorian_github/

<comment><USER2> My own humble contribution (lots of Bach and other baroque composers):

<https://github.com/ciconia/music></comment>


iPhone Free Software Unlock App - iUnlock - iPhone is finally Free (source code included) - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/exclusive/iphone-free-software-unlock-confirmed-death-star-explodes-298825.php

<comment><USER3> The source is NOT free - although I'm not not sure about their copyright - <USER2> is the dev team?

      iUnlock v42.PROPER -- Copyright 2007 The dev team

      Credits: Daeken, Darkmen, guest184, gray, iZsh, pytey, roxfan, Sam, uns, Zappaz, Zf

      All code, information or data [from now on "data"] available
      from the "iPhone dev team" [1] or any other project linked from
      this or other pages is owned by the creator who created the data.
      The copyright, license right, distribution right and any other
      rights lies with the creator.

      It is prohibitied to use the data without the written agreement
      of the creator. This included using ideas in other projects
      (commercial or not commercial).

      Where data was created by more than 1 creator a written agreement
      from each of the creators has to be obtained.

      Punishment: Monkeys coming out of your ass Bruce Almighty style.</comment>


Venezuela's currency now worth so little shopkeepers weigh vast piles of notes - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuelas-currency-hyper-inflation-oil-crisis-devalued-shop-keepers-weigh-notes-a7443596.html?utm=email <comment><AUTHOR> Found on Reddit: [https://gfycat.com/ZigzagDamagedBarracuda](https://gfycat.com/ZigzagDamagedBarracuda)</comment>


hAzzleJS: fast, faster, fastest, hAzzleJS is here NOW - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hazzlejs/hAzzleJS

<comment><USER2> hAzzleJS are now true to ECMA-5 to 7, and completly supports native Javascript, and polify pre-ECMA 7. [https://github.com/hazzlejs/hAzzleJS](https://github.com/hazzlejs/hAzzleJS)</comment>


Measuring JVM performance - <AUTHOR> http://blog.emptyway.com/2008/04/03/measuring-jvm-performance/

<comment><USER2> Wanted to throw YourKit out there.

It's a great profiler, if you can afford it.

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

Even integrates nicely with IntelliJ.</comment>


Using Haskell's 'newtype' in C - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nelhage.com/2010/10/using-haskells-newtype-in-c/

<comment><USER2> Yes, very nice. What I've learned about C recently is that while the default language and standard library has no type safety and is generally horrible, it has all the tools you need to build something that is type safe and not horrible. And, most of the time, it doesn't even incur a speed hit.

Now I just need to teach the people writing 99% of the C programs I encounter to not do it so horribly :)

<comment><USER3> It only has such tools in so far as you can use macros to translate non- horrific syntax into something intelligible to the type system, which can in turn give meaningful diagnostics. It's still hard to create e.g. even simple value-oriented safe string semantics that don't bleed parentheses all over the screen in function or macro invocations.

<comment><USER4> I think it may be worth mentioning that an excessively passionate romance with macros may backfire at debugging time.

A crash in a code that is created by a macro expanded into a several thousand characters line is quite not easy to explore in gdb.</comment></comment></comment>


Keybase 4.0 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/keybase/client/releases/tag/v4.0.0 <comment><USER2> Keybase is a really cool solution to a problem (or problems?) I don't seem to have.

I've had an account for a while but don't really have any reason to use it.

Seems like they're pivoting towards being a Slack competitor. Maybe if they open sourced the server portion it could be a chat solution that OSS projects can feel okay about using.

<comment><USER3> Keybase is a great way to do company onboarding. Have a new employee setup a Keybase account (if they don't have one already) and now you have a simple and secure way to have conversations and exchange files (e.g. W-4 forms, insurance, etc)

I use it for personal communications too, so it is nice to use the same secure messaging platform for both work and personal and switch back and forth from computer to phone easily. I do wish the server portion and apps were opensource though.

<comment><USER4> Hm...

I wonder now could it be used for corporate secret management. I wouldn't like to use cloud solution for that and on existing on premise solutions do not cover all scenarios I need (on-boarding one of them, or guests).

<comment><USER4> Looks like Keybase Teams is exactly for that:

[https://keybase.io/blog/introducing-keybase- teams](https://keybase.io/blog/introducing-keybase-teams)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Uninstalled because on Windows it registers itself to auto-start on boot no matter what you do. I keep removing it from the autostart places and it keeps registering back.

I get it that they want to get usage telemetry, but it's ridiculous for a security focused app to force itself like that.

[https://github.com/keybase/keybase- issues/issues/2380](https://github.com/keybase/keybase-issues/issues/2380)

[https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/3904](https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/3904)

[https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/5990](https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/5990)

<comment><USER6> They don't seem to prioritize user choice on the linux version either, there's no snap/flatpak available nor a user friendly option to not mount the FUSE filesystem.

[https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/8264](https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/8264)

[https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/9191](https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/9191)

[https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/7846](https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/7846)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Still waiting for 2FA authentication (sigh) ... everyone but Keybase and my bank seems to know how important this is!

<comment><USER8> 2FA is not very helpful if your service relies on encryption for everything (like keybase). It's not possible to use 2FA without another party verifying the authentication code. Keybase could include this (then they would have to verify it), but so far keybase has gone to great lengths to not actually have to hold any secrets for users. They even perform password hashing in the browser instead of on their servers. 2FA would force them to do some processing with secrets on the server side.

Having 2FA with Keybase would be similar to having 2FA with a local password safe like Keepass. Yes, you could implement 2FA. However, you would have to rely on an external service, and if people have your password and can modify the software, they can simply comment out the 2FA check and they can decrypt your password safe.

The entire security model of Keybase is based on having all data encrypted at all times. Adding 2FA would add some false sense of security, which doesn't affect the encrypted data at all.

<comment><USER9> > It's not possible to use 2FA without another party verifying the > authentication code.

That's not true. You can verify the time based codes or do u2f yourself. You don't need a third party for that.

<comment><USER10> Right, but there's no way to cryptographically enforce that. All the totp implementations I've seen are symmetric, with the validating server running the same calculation from the same seed. You could do that locally - but then the seed can be extracted or a client can be patched to just not request the code in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really want to love Keybase but nobody (meaning my wife and friends) will use it because the performance for basic chatting sucks abysmally on mobile (plain text chat works but things like pasting an image don't work, for any wife-acceptable value of work).

This means I haven't wanted to even suggest trialling it at work, so I haven't used the teams feature at all and without that it's basically an encrypted cloud storage mechanism with an interesting Git integration.

        T_T

<comment><USER12> The git integration is indeed something really cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> did anyone figure out what the arrow on the top does?

[https://i.imgur.com/nqGfSCL.png](https://i.imgur.com/nqGfSCL.png)

<comment><USER14> By its looks, it should hide the side bar...

<comment><USER13> except it doesn't, it's actually a back button

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I use it with my friend to share ill... No I mean to share stuff like videos ;-)))</comment>