Apple Forces Recyclers to Shred All iPhones and Macbooks - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks <comment><USER2> One day I entered in one of the labs in a previous company and found a few piles of "old" macbooks pro ready to trash. I would say easily around 500' They seemed quite new to me so I asked if I could get a bunch and reuse parts to make a working one.

They told me I could get all I wanted. So I took 10. I arrived home and all of them were functional after formating and reinstalling. My family and friends got very happy with seminew laptops for free.

I guess is not only about recycling or shredding, is as well about giving a second, third or fourth life to our goods... And lets be honest. Recycling is a very wasteful process. If we want to be eco friendly we should consume less, thats the only way.

<comment><USER3> Well apparently not all people want to be eco friendly.

Most people I know would rather buy a new low/mid range product than a used/refurbished device that was high end when it was released. It's mind boggling - you'd rather get a creaky piece of shit locked down cheap NEW laptop than a high quality business grade used one, because... it hasn't been used before?

I believe that if a device was gently used and hasn't failed, the chance of it failing after 1-2 years is actually lower than with a new one. I don't know if it's true, but it's been my experience.

But then again, my relationship with tools is weird - if I get them, I clean and rebuild them, so they're mine. No one else gets to use them. They're almost like pets. And I don't care how many people used them before me...

<comment><USER4> > It's mind boggling - you'd rather get a creaky piece of shit locked down > cheap NEW laptop than a high quality business grade used one, because...

Yes but not only that, for laptops it comes down to priorities. I know plenty of people who are better served with Chromebook with 8 hour battery life than a refurb high end one with 2 h battery.

> I believe that if a device was gently used and hasn't failed, the chance of > it failing after 1-2 years is actually lower than with a new one. I don't > know if it's true, but it's been my experience.

True for some devices and not true for others.

> They're almost like pets. And I don't care how many people used them before > me...

It's unhealthy to think about tools that way, off course rebuilding your tools increases their emotional value. If your rebuilds of tools are good, not very custom and things are not expensive, try to give them away to friends and family, it usually increases your satisfaction, lowers materialistic attachment and can make you more creative.

<comment><USER5> If I give away my tools, I can't use them any more without borrowing them back. If I _keep_ my tools, I can make all manner of things to give away, or not, just as I choose. The buddha might not approve, but the buddha is dead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Note this seems to be not about independent recyclers that Apple forced to shred their products. It's rather companies that Apple specifically hired to shred products that were returned to Apple, and Apple didn't want to refurbish.

While it's still a waste, it's not as outrageous as I first thought.

</comment><comment><USER7> Old Apple parts are worth quite a bit. If yours is broken, part-it out. Even a Macbook Air.

I was able to part-out my old Macbook air (with broken battery and power adapter) and put toward the proceeds and ~US$200 toward the latest's model:

Apple just has that tight control over its parts pre- and post- use.

<comment><USER8> Where do you sell an older Mac at a good price?

<comment><USER9> Ebay, I've never had any trouble disposing of old computers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I might be missing something, but seems to me like the products are still recycled, but as raw materials, not as full devices.

This makes sense, given data is almost certainly bound to be present on phones etc.

Maybe there's a more nuanced way to do this, but this doesn't seem all that bad.

OTOH, having these phones go through a refurb program and selling them probably involves a fair amount or resource use as well.

<comment><USER11> Forcing recyclers to shred perfectly fine phone components makes sense because data is bound to be present 'etc'.

My "Hacker" "News" moment of the day.

<comment><USER12> Who said they are "perfectly fine"?

Also, it's not up to you, the costumer decided to deliver the device for recycling and not for scrap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> People are acting like they're shredding last year's iPhone models. Apple products have great resell value and they're passed on as hand-me-downs often. If something got back to Apple, chances are reusing parts is not plausible. Not much you can harvest from an iPhone 3G other than the raw materials.

<comment><USER14> I'd always assumed that iPhones would have a high resale value too, but I find that they are surprisingly cheap. You can pick up iPhone 4S phones for £50 [0].

Then compare iPhone 5S (£120) [1] vs Samsung Galaxy S5 (£130 - 140) [2].

I really don't understand why. Perhaps there's just more people that want to buy second hand android phones.

[0]: [http://second-handphones.com/all- handsets.html?manufacturer=...](http://second-handphones.com/all- handsets.html?manufacturer=29&model=359)

[1]: [http://second-handphones.com/all- handsets.html?manufacturer=...](http://second-handphones.com/all- handsets.html?manufacturer=29&model=362)

[2]: [http://second-handphones.com/all- handsets.html?manufacturer=...](http://second-handphones.com/all- handsets.html?manufacturer=3&model=420)

<comment><USER15> Why would you expect a 6 year old phone (the 4S) to have any sort of resale value? That's incredibly old in phone years.

The Galaxy S5 was released half a year after the iPhone 5S, which might explain the price difference.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I still have my old 4S. I don't use it because it's unusably slow, and I wouldn't pay £50 (or the equivalent in real money) for one today.

Pity. My SE feels cheap and light by comparison, and its materials don't hold up nearly as well. I don't like that, but given the strictly limited lifespan that smartphones seem to have, I suppose it's really quite apropos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It may sound odd, but this is standard practice in most "recycling" environments. When you recycle an aluminium can it doesn't get refilled. It gets melted into new aluminium. Even if the can is perfectly good and could be sanitized, to ensure constant quality it is best to start anew from the fundamental ingredients. Seeing a macbook shredded looks horrible, but if those bits are being properly recycled into new components then I can see apple's point. Rebuilding from the ground up is probably much easier than picking and testing every little component to ensure quality.

If you own a car, it has steel parts. Some of that steel is recycled metal from old cars. We consider it new. But would you be willing to pay the same price for a car with a chassis harvested from an older car? What level of testing would be needed for you to pay the same price as the car with a chassis built anew? If that testing costs more than a couple hundred, the logical thing is to melt.

<comment><USER17> Old cars are often used to source parts for the repair of other cars. It's common practice, which has persisted without any major problems.

Likewise, 3rd-party repair shops will often harvest parts from old phones, to replace parts in phones they are repairing. Picking and testing components doesn't appear to be a problem for them. Their customers seem to have no issue with recycled parts being used to repair their phones.

If there is demand for recycled parts, and they can be reused while still ensuring quality, what is the problem?

<comment><USER16> But apple doesn't want to sell used or refurbished phones, only shiny new ones.

<comment><USER18> It's none of Apple's business what people are doing with their phones after they bought them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A majority of comments here seem to think that literally millions of units of electronics are being shredded wastefully, instead of more meaningfully re- used. Ok, great! This is HN! Where are the calls to start a company to leverage this near-infinite supply of valuable trash through economically productive re-use? Should be very profitable, right?

Another distinct possibility is that the proportion of valuable items in this stream is too small to warrant their recovery. There are already tons of people that refurb and sell computers. It's a small market, and increasing the supply by 100x (or whatever the multiple of "wasted" recycling opportunities is) would likely distort that market into total collapse.

<comment><USER20> I take it you're being facetious. The referenced article discusses some of the contractual language that Apple uses to hinder re-use, and they aren't the only ones. The real risk of course are unscrupulous vendors who sell as 'new' things they have recovered either on Ebay or Amazon which turns around and bites the original manufacturer because the customer complains their parts are bad.

Having dealt with many of the major recycling centers in the bay area, and the resellers, and the various people in between, the maze of laws and contracts make unwinding this nearly impractical in most cases. It is pretty amazing when someone is willing to sneak a $250,000 mini-computer to you out the back of the building because the corporate "requirements" are that a perfectly serviced and operating machine be sent to shredding rather than do anything else.

Of course you really can't make a business off their largess but a number of important computer systems were saved in similar ways.

Generally there is often more value to the manufacturer that they _not_ be recycled and so we end up with these sorts of contracts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Will repair MacBooks for food, but for the love of god don't shred them. Just give them out at high schools or college grads. They can learn a thing or two & save BUX in the process.

<comment><USER22> There are also a number of charitable organizations trying to bring computation into underserved international communities (eg. [http://www.reneal.org/](http://www.reneal.org/)). Please consider donating used hardware; it can have a tremendous impact on communities whose schools have (at best!) a single computer for hundreds of students.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's pretty frustrating to read about older tech going to waste, instead of trying to find a new home. I imagine that there's a lot of people that'd be perfectly fine with slightly older tech, especially when the alternative is nothing.

A few years back I had an online friend working at a tech recycling center, he offered to send me a slightly used laptop he'd picked up (I think it was a Thinkpad T40p?), only requesting that I pay for shipping. Even if it was a few years "outdated" by then, after installing Ubuntu it was more than enough to get me through a few years of college.

He also sent a couple smartphones, which I gave away to friends and family who were in tight spots. And even managed to get me another laptop for an underclassman whose previous laptop died out and wasn't able to afford fixing or replacing it at the time.

Heck, I sometimes like getting access to older tech devices too, just because it lets me try out new things. For example, among the smartphones I received there was an HTC HD2, which I believe has been one of the most hackable smartphones ever.

<comment><USER24> Those old thinkpads are brilliant, by the way. I also use an old one with a new SSD. Works like a brand new laptop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's not totally clear to me that shreding older models of MacBooks isn't the environmental sound thing to do.

Laptops have become massively more efficient and consume significantly less electricity. It some cases it must be better to take them out of use and replace them with more efficient modern replacements.

<comment><USER11> > At some point

And instead of letting the market decide when a laptop is bound for replacement, let's force people to destroy it. Of course! Makes perfect sense! Apple is doing this because newer laptops are more energy efficient! How great of Apple! Such environment, so wow!

<comment><USER26> The market has decided.

Case 1: it was a perfectly functioning computer but the owner wanted something new. They could hand it down, donate it directly to a charity, or sell it through a company like Gazelle.

I don't think I've gotten rid of a single computer in 10 years. I have 4 pre 2009 computers that I know are still in good use after installing a fresh copy of Windows 7 on them (thanks to an MSDN license). One of those four is a 2006 era Core Duo Mac Mini. The 2008 era Core 2 Duo is being used now as a Plex Server.

Case 2: they were returned to Apple under warranty, Apple cleaned them up and sold them refurbished. Apple has been selling refurbished devices for over 10 years.

Case 3: they weren't worth selling or refurbishing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have found 10 fully-functional MacBook Pros (2009-2012) in my building's electronic recycling bin. I imagine that's fairly common.

One of those (MacBook Pro 2012 13" Core i7 2.9GHz 8GB RAM) became my main computer. It's sad to think it would have been shredded had I not saved it.

<comment><USER28> My laptops for the last 7 years now have all been ones I found in the trash or recycling bins. I've had two macbooks, and HP with an i7, and a decent Acer.

The stuff people trash is mind boggling, it's like they lose all powers of rational thought when it comes to valuing used electronics. A few hours of effort for $250+ on Ebay? Nah, trash it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Perhaps I am jaded a bit on Apple, just a little, but this sounds like they want to control the entire lifecycle of their products. They want to design, manufacturer, sell, repair, and recycle. This seems basic vertical integration 101.

</comment><comment><USER30> For people who don't understand that: In countries outside USA/western world we reuse things and repair things if they are still usable.

Shredding ALWAYS and calling your company GREEN is a LIE (to the Earth and customers) and PR joke @Apple.

<comment><USER31> If it's usable, why would you recycle it? You can sell used devices. Apple even sells refurbished ones themselves. The only reason to actually recycle it is if it's broken, or so old that nobody wants it anymore.

The problem with taking stuff that's sent for recycling and harvesting it for parts instead is that's a huge quality issue. Usable devices should be re- used; if it's being recycled, there must be a reason. And unless you're going to do an exhaustive quality assurance pass on every single component of the device, you shouldn't be reselling it to other people. And doing a full quality assurance pass on every single component is not something that recyclers can really do. Apple doesn't want its users to end up with devices that have faulty parts, and the only real way to do that is to require the recyclers to actually destroy the devices instead of salvaging them.

Also, I find it really strange that the article expressly mentions that hard drives are shredded. _Of course_ they're shredded! You don't want any risk at all of someone else recovering data off of those things. Plus the whole quality issue as mentioned above.

<comment><USER32> > If it's usable, why would you recycle it? You can sell used devices. Apple > even sells refurbished ones themselves. The only reason to actually recycle > it is if it's broken, or so old that nobody wants it anymore.

Because reselling old electronics involves finding buyers, which is not a zero-effort endeavor. Or maybe you're a company that is replacing a fleet of devices with upgraded models, and it will literally cost you more money in paid staff time to sell it than it will to just hand it off to a recycler.

> And unless you're going to do an exhaustive quality assurance pass on every > single component of the device, you shouldn't be reselling it to other > people.

Why not? Plenty of people buy old cars that haven't undergone an exhaustive QA pass. They run fine; some people even repair them themselves.

<comment><USER26> _Because reselling old electronics involves finding buyers, which is not a zero-effort endeavor. Or maybe you 're a company that is replacing a fleet of devices with upgraded models, and it will literally cost you more money in paid staff time to sell it than it will to just hand it off to a recycler._

Gazelle makes that real easy.

As far as used cars, some of the major metro areas require you to get an emissions test to renew your tag. If the check engine light comes on or the OBD signals certain errors you can't renew.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I wonder how many others also have such strong negative reactions to this sort of mass destruction. It is hard to explain the feeling, but regardless of the product or manufacturer, seeing something which most certainly took a lot of effort to design and create brutally pulverised almost makes me want to cry.

On the other hand, maybe a lot of other people love seeing things destroyed, as evidenced by the popularity of shredder videos on YouTube, or maybe it's interesting in the same way as car crashes and other disasters.

<comment><USER34> The article's conflation of things being broken down into their component parts and recycled, vs things being "destroyed", is maddening and tendentious. Try not to fall for it.

<comment><USER35> The topic and language of the article makes it sound like the author, or the entity who commissioned the article to be written, stands to benefit financially from resold parts or refurbishing. The tone is too strong for something that is not a big deal, except to those who are in the business of profiting from the reuse/resale of hardware components.

Follow the money. "Won't someone think of the environment" is often a smokescreen used by those looking to seek policy changes for their own financial gain. Reading this article does not have me envisioning environmental motivations; I get the vibe of a lobbyist-like group pushing an agenda with their own financial incentive in mind.

<comment><USER36> There is an energy deficit creating workable electronics from raw materials, but that can be covered by a large flow of retail currency through an efficient sales and supply chain.

There is an energy surplus remaining after small profits have been extracted from many repurposed waste materials, especially workable electronics. Not much retail currency available, only wholesale but at least it's surplus.

However the "market" is balanced to the extreme disadvantage of the reuse/resale operators, and it looks like Koebler has been reporting things from that type of source:

Right-to-Repair [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/there-are- now-11-...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/there-are- now-11-states-considering-bills-to-protect-your-right-to-repair-electronics)

Financial incentive is not always a bad thing, especially when there's no real greed, just pursuit of excellent business opportunity instead.

Plus financial incentive is not always driven by the desire for financial gains, sometimes more so the prevention of financial losses. From the poor soul who's desperate for his gear to be fixed cheap by the neighborhood hobbyist who only needs an online factory repair manual, to the corporation that invested heavily in tonnes[0] of top-dollar goods truly having 2x or 3x workable lifetimes, they would both benefit by participating in a smaller purchase-to-resale differential that would naturally exist if the secondary market was allowed to thrive with encouragement.

Cornering the consumers into a pure retail-to-scrap scenario (with a support lifetime limit for backup) does appear to be more of a major institutional policy effort disadvantageous to consumers, compared with the Right-to-Repair operators who appear dedicated to removing as much gear as possible from the retail-to-scrap cycle and preventing future resources from being tied up within it. Consumers would theoretically benefit the stronger the right to repair.

Even when there is not much financial benefit either way, at least the environment might suffer less.

I agree, it must be a big deal.

[0] Metric

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Perhaps Apple might not want used goods flowing to India (and China?) any longer as they want to begin production there and better control prices (and profits) in the market?

Each iteration of their phones and laptops tends to last a little longer as even a year or two old iPhone that has been kept in a nice case could be an effectively new product for the next person after a battery upgrade.

</comment><comment><USER38> > MacBook hard drives can be removed and replaced.

This is not entirely true. The flash drive on the 2015 and 2016 Retina MacBooks are "soldered to the logic board" according to iFixit [1], [2]. What happens to the soldered-in flash drives if a logic board from one of these MacBooks fails and is swapped out by Apple under, say, AppleCare? is it desoldered and removed from the logic board, or does the entire MacBook logic board get shredded in one fell swoop?

[1] [https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+Macbook+2015+Teardown...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+Macbook+2015+Teardown/39841)

[2] [https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+MacBook+2016+Teardown...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+MacBook+2016+Teardown/62149)

</comment><comment><USER36> Well a company having maximum respect for the environment would mandate a policy of maximum reuse, maximum parts harvesting, and sustainable resale channels.

On a foundation of well-built long-lasting easily-repairable product.

Only shredding the remainder of parts which could not possibly have their usefulness extended by anyone.

Especially if there was any toxicity or energy waste in the original manufacturing process.

It can be seen that the independent repairers and parts harvesters are probably performing in a more environmentally responsible way than the manufactuer. Especially from an energy balance point of view.

And on a scale that's overwhelming, the repairers need relatively stronger rights toward overcoming any imbalance in their disfavor.

A very strong manufacturer can afford to expend energy removing a vast parts resource from circulation, denying repairers a much larger multiple of available energy savings instead.

Whenever shredding has higher priority than reuse, it could be a sign of greed or other misguided management efforts taking precedence over opportunities provided by true leadership in engineering optimization. Besides having priority over the environment in any or all locations.

Who knows what other entities might also be contracting with eWaste haulers to destroy rather than resuse as many tonnes of working W7 & W8 PC's about now as a modern salvo in their maximum-waste-declaration strategy, or to further an agenda of removing all machines not having a processor with a remote management engine.

From another angle it's not unlike a nation minting and shredding its own currency for its subjects as it sees fit, to control its value relative to other established currencies, with only secondary regard for the environment if that.

Hmm, except it's mostly not their own currency they're shredding.

Which brings us to the relative environmental cost of different underlying currencies after all . . .

When you really follow the money.

</comment><comment><USER39> From a security standpoint this makes sense. Remember GCHQ destroying the guardian laptops?

There is potentially more data on these devices than is stored on _just_ the hard-drives.

[https://theintercept.com/2015/08/26/way-gchq-obliterated- gua...](https://theintercept.com/2015/08/26/way-gchq-obliterated-guardians- laptops-revealed-intended/)

[https://media.ccc.de/v/camp2015-6799-how_to_destroy_a_laptop...](https://media.ccc.de/v/camp2015-6799-how_to_destroy_a_laptop_with_top_secrets#video&t=3507)

</comment><comment><USER40> Does anybody follow the "Liam" Apple robots referred to in the article? Interesting tech, I wonder what an open source take-things-apart bot would look like. Download recipes and documents and end up with a pile of parts?

More on Liam: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/instead-of-a- recy...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/instead-of-a-recycling- robot-apple-should-sell-screwdrivers-that-open-iphones)

</comment><comment><USER41> If Apple replaced my non-working iPhone or laptop I would _absolutely_ want that peice of hardware shredded when it left my hands. And you should too! The reality is that it's probably not cost effective for them to pull out the storage and destroy the data in a reasonable way.

However now that the apfs file system and secure enclave all but guarantee my data will not be recovered I'm okay with it being recycled.

</comment><comment><USER42> Well this is crappy, Apple. Don't you know that reuse is way better for the environment than recycling? Maybe we should point this out to them the next time they claim to care about the environment. Uh, nope, folks, you just care about the perception you care about the environment.

</comment><comment><USER43> Kind of off topic, but: I've been trying to shred iphones and macbooks for a while now for my art. (Much like in "will it blend") I intend to work with the shredded metal/dust as a pigment. Does anyone have any pointers how to _actually_ shred these devices?

<comment><USER44> Maybe you could shred into small chunks first and then use a ball mill with heavy and hard media. Would be _very_ time consuming and expensive and the result would be toxic, of course.

<comment><USER45> Note to be careful with the grinding media too, as you really don't want sparking in a chamber filled with aluminum powder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> then shenzen is antipod to apple way? this 11 days ago here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989)

</comment><comment><USER47> All those devices have user data on flash or hard disk that could be recovered. I'm glad they're shredding them.

<comment><USER33> A counterargument and something to ponder: we may have lost a huge amount of history, if centuries ago people always destroyed their stone tablets/parchments/etc. thoroughly after using them.

<comment><USER48> I don't think it really matters in this case since flash degrades much faster than stone tablets.

Also, I think stone tablets would be more akin to tax records or census data or great works rather than every day life of someone.

<comment><USER33> Stone tablets are more rugged than other media, but others have survived; here's an example someone else posted recently:

[https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval- time...](https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval-times/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> "Rare earth" metals aren't rare. Just sayin.

</comment><comment><USER50> Sounds wasteful

</comment><comment><USER51> How Apple is known as an environmentally conscious company

      while [[ 1 == 1 ]]; do
        1. Make products near impossible to repair.
        2. Do not allow parts to be available for purchase for repair.
        3. Brick product if repaired.
        4. Advertise like hexx that Apple is a environmentally conscious company.
      done

<comment><USER52> What really bugs me about this is the hypocrisy.

E.g. take Al Gore, self styled environmentalist, and author of books like _An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It_. He's on the Apple Board of Directors and has been on it for many many years. He's willing to take their money, but he's also willing to look the other way when it comes to actual environmentalism, rather than the appearance thereof.

<comment><USER47> How is this environmental hypocrisy? The shredding is being done by _recyclers_.

<comment><USER52> The article claims that Apple _forces_ recyclers to do the shredding.

Read some iFixit teardowns of Apple products. Apple goes out of their way to make their computers very hard to repair. The environmental cost to repair a computer that is only a few years old is insignificant compared to building a new one. But that wouldn't help Apple's sales, would it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Anyone still remember the video of a recycling machine Apple showed off at WWDC a few years back? Turns out it was all PR

<comment><USER54> I checked, the video[1] does not say that the components are being re-used. It talks about the materials.

At some point there was some articles about how the e-waste ends up in poor countries where human labor is cheap and workers rights non-existent. Manually separating the valuable materials creates then huge health risks for those people. [2]

I don't see the "Liam" as useless PR. I believe it is quite valuable if companies are actually thinking how they can automatically dissemble the devices they have produced.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35VtY- PEPj0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35VtY-PEPj0) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_ZttK3PuM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_ZttK3PuM)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> These devices are sold by the users to Apple for recycling, Apple can't do anything with them besides recycling.

Nothing to see here, conspiracy theorists.

</comment><comment><USER55> I've never bought an Apple product in my life. This article makes me feel good about that decision.

<comment><USER26> So I assume you buy Android phones from companies that don't keep their devices updated with the latest OS basically forcing you to buy a new phone if you want the latest OS/security patches.

Apple has traditional supported iOS devices for at least 3-4 years with OS updates.

My old first generation iPad 2010 can still get older versions of current apps from the App Store.

<comment><USER56> Only when those apps haven't been pulled. Try and buy some of those apps from a fresh account. Not possible. One can literally not install GoodReader on an Ipad1 at this point.

<comment><USER26> Yes the app creator can pull an app or not allow older versions to be downloaded.

In my case, I came across my old iPad recently, reset it and was able to install Hulu, Netflix, Crackle, Google Drive, Plex, Spotify,and the CW app

Edit:

I was also able to download Apple's productivity apps -Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

<comment><USER56> You are lucky.

There is a neat workaround for getting old apps onto an old IPad. 1) you can gift from one ipad to another, 2) you can install the older app if you have bought the newer version but it wouldn't install. I did this for a friend who bought an ipad but couldn't get Goodreader (no longer recommend) to install because they pulled the version that works on IPad1.

I think companies should be required to release the encryption keys or provide a way to install software on devices that are EoL. So many IPads got "recycled" that could have been put to better use.

I think Goodreader could do the world a great service by selling a version that installs on first gen IPads, they make pretty good budget ereaders for pdf content.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


MRuby-Zest: A Scriptable Audio GUI Framework - <AUTHOR> http://log.fundamental-code.com/2018/06/16/mruby-zest.html <comment><USER2> Author of the framework here. It looks like this was submitted about 4 minutes or so before I tried submitting it as a Show HN.</comment>


Seems that a significant part of HN about dealing with depression? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure Lexapro saved my life. No one knows about it though, I'd be seen as unstable and unreliable.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are not careful with work/life balance, the hustle of working in the startup world can easily get you down. Also the high rate of failure in the startup world contributes. A startup founder/employee that is working 80 hour weeks has every right to be depressed.

A mentor had a slogan that I try to model my life after : Faith, Fitness, Family, Finance and Balance!

</comment><comment><USER4> A significant part of _the world_ is dealing with depression. HN is merely a place where discussing such things, particularly in a pragmatic way, is something you can do (mostly) without ridicule or worry about stigma.</comment>


Realtime Twitter User Coverage of Inauguration - <AUTHOR> http://www.dcmap.us <comment><AUTHOR> Follow the beginning of the end of America with this cool site a friend built that builds and places user photos on Twitter of the national mall. Built on python, running an AWS lambda, integrated with Twitter & Mapbox - the code is up at for anyone interested [https://github.com/duane9/dcmap.us](https://github.com/duane9/dcmap.us).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Going to try to plan to put this up in a screen at work today</comment>


Show HN: asyncblock - Node.js async flow control built on fibers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/scriby/asyncblock

<comment><USER2> Impressive work.. Next time I work with node I'll keep this in mind. One thing that would be nice is the ability to chain blocks. I can't think of a example at the moment but didn't see any examples that showed if this is possible already or is that the purpose of .defer()?

<comment><AUTHOR> Chaining blocks works, for instance something like:

var queryResult = getDatabase().sync(). getCollection().sync(). fetch({ query }).sync();

Assuming all those are asynchronous operations.

Chaining wouldn't work with .defer() right now. It only supports syntax like "var x = something().defer()".</comment></comment>


On the Deceptions of Advertising - <AUTHOR> http://www.thebookoflife.org/adverts-know-what-we-need-they-just-refuse-to-sell-it-to-us/

<comment><USER2> Interesting article to propose for Hacker News: it's essentially pointing out unrepairable lies at the heart of the best advertisements. Hacker News readers aren't totally in favor of advertising, but there's a general slightly warm feeling about them.

It is rare to read an article that talks openly about someting other than very obvious falsehoods in ads, and this article does the rare thing. It talks about deceptions at the ver core of "lifestyle" ads.</comment>


Twitter shuts down Fame for unspecified ToS violation - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/12/2944982/twitter-shuts-down-fame-tos-violation

<comment><USER2> The Twitter documentation forbids mass following and mass unfollowing. Spam of course is the main reason for this - not just blatant spam but people who follow hundreds of accounts to generate "is now following you" emails, and periodically purge people who didn't follow back. Still, Fame is entirely opt- in so it's not really clear to me what they didn't like about it.

Two guesses:

1\. it triggered or messed with automatic spam prevention heuristics.

2\. it's all fun and games until Fame tries to monetize the mass following, and they wanted preempt that.

</comment><comment><USER3> "This is one of the great tensions of the web era we are living in and increasingly so as the open web grows. We actually don't violate any particular rule, it was simply an arbitrary decision that we aren't aligned with the spirit of what they want."

I found this quote interesting, particular the phrase "open web". A single site like Twitter, which can arbitrarily shut down accounts based on alleged TOS violations, seems very distinct from a truly open, federated web.

<comment><USER4> > a truly open, federated web.

Keep in mind, we're talking about a _single_ website (among many) with a _proprietary_ , non-open, non-free codebase, so the contrast shouldn't be surprising.

If we were talking about a similar-but-open-source service like Identi.ca, this would play out _very_ differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's the difference between this and a real person retweeting what the winner says?

<comment><USER6> Nothing. I suggested in a comment on the first story about @fame that they ought to just retweet whatever the winner tweets for a day. It is the same thing but better for all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Twitter has informed us that we are violating the spirit of their TOS."

"We actually don't violate any particular rule, it was simply an arbitrary decision that we aren't aligned with the spirit of what they want."

Keep it classy!</comment>


Ask HN: Just published my 9th book (first novel) - Should I keep my day job? - <AUTHOR>

Book is called Camp Handiba (wheelchairs, native American folklore, and summer camp) and available for Kindle here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004S2KR5O or Nook/Nook Color here: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ean=2940012188496<p>Reviews good, bad or otherwise appreciated :-) <comment><USER2> "Should I keep my day job?"

Yes. In my experience if you don't know deep in your heart that what you are doing is what you should be doing, then maintaining gainful employment until you can find that passion is recommended.

edit: I shouldn't type in the morning.

<comment><AUTHOR> I certainly enjoy writing, but my wife and kids are somewhat persistent about a stable income. So it's more a question of whether some neutral third parties think I'm good enough at this that I could someday earn a living at it, or if I should be doing more games instead - such as this one: <http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/479926>

<comment><USER2> "... but my wife and kids are somewhat persistent about a stable income."

I completely get this, I've got 2 kids in college, ouch! The 'joke' is that if you have to ask the question 'Should I keep my day job?' then the answer is always 'yes'. The reasoning behind this is pretty straight forward, the difference between practitioner and artist is that the practitioner does it because it interests them and an artist does it because they can't conceive of any better use for their time.

One way you would know you were passionate about writing books would be that you had moved back into your parents house with your family. That is an action where your passion is expressed by what you do, you sacrifice things that you might buy, or comforts you might enjoy, with a stable income because you are so passionate about your writing that doing it is all you can think of.

People with this kind of passion that try to get "day jobs" often get fired because they are constantly 'not present' at work, instead they are thinking about their next novel, researching it, creating characters, exploring viewpoints, "Oh wait, we had a staff meeting at 10, I'm sorry it totally left my mind!" Happens a lot to people who can't help but be what they are.

I also get the whole self confidence thing too, the need for some external validation that you're making the right choice, Etc. But there is only one real measure, and its not opinion, its how widely you are read. How many people relate to your stories? Does it change their life? Does it give them an insight they didn't have? Does it entertain them? I worked as an intern for Jerry Pournelle for a while, not name dropping, just citing the source, he called this understanding of how your writing affected your readers "finding your voice." He helped me understand I was a programmer, not a science fiction writer :-)

My experience is that nobody can tell you what you should be doing, only your heart can tell you what you should be doing. And by listening to it, and doing it, you will be happy. And of course you will not be wondering if you should be doing something else :-)</comment></comment></comment>


New sensors will scoop up 'big data' on Chicago - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-big-data-chicago-20140621,0,3075626.story

<comment><USER2> This is great. Louisville, KY has a similar initiative going on at [http://instituteforhealthyairwaterandsoil.org](http://instituteforhealthyairwaterandsoil.org) and written about at [http://www.courier- journal.com/story/tech/science/environmen...](http://www.courier- journal.com/story/tech/science/environment/2014/04/26/air-quality-eggs- louisville/8174967/)

Disclosure: I'm technical lead for the Louisville project's community data portal component

</comment><comment><USER3> _Watch_Dogs_ in real life. And that's how ctOS starts.</comment>


Quicken Online to Shut Down Next Year, Users Moved to Mint - Mint - Lifehacker - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5397772/quicken-online-to-shut-down-next-year-users-moved-to-mint <comment><USER2> I was shocked by this news and think it is a bold move by Intuit. How often do you see the company purchased become the brand and not just absorbed into the existing brand?

Well played.</comment>


University friends: By chance or by design? - open-source-ux https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46430204 <comment><AUTHOR> I guess this article is just about the UK. I don't know how it works over there, but at my school in the US, the residence halls vary pretty widely in price, and so the factor that _really_ decides where you live is how much you can afford.

I'm also an RA, and to put this in the nicest way possible, let's just say there doesn't seem to be a housing agenda with the specific goal of creating diverse communities (IYKYK).

Again, I don't really know how it works in the UK, but at least at my school, I'd say it's definitely "by chance."

<comment><USER2> > at my school in the US, the residence halls vary pretty widely in price

interesting, would you mind sharing what kind of school you went to? I attended a private liberal arts school and a medium-sized state university and both charged a flat rate for housing. there was basically a lottery weighted by seniority and disciplinary record to get into the best dorms.

<comment><USER3> Dorms varied in price like this when I went to MIT about a decade ago. I presumed it was due to the variation in building age/quality as well as amenities offered (such as dining hall etc).

<comment><USER4> Harvard College's housing is pretty variable yet they don't charge different rates. I've heard of schools having apartments for rent that varied (ones that have little housing) but never different rates for dorm housing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A better title would be "A Summary of Responses to Freedom of Information Requests About Student Housing Policies". There is no survey (scientific or informal) of students to find how or if these policies affect the friendships that they form and keep long-term and there is no comparison to whether the intent of these policies is realized or if students tend to circumvent these social integration attempts. In fact, there is not a single piece of information in the article that was contributed by a student (Unless the VP of NUS, who is quoted once, is a student). I think the title is intended to stoke irrational fear of institutions controlling lives in unseen and potentially uncomfortable ways. If you read the news looking for reasons to justify your xenophobia and/or distrust of education, this headline is exactly what you hope to see. The only thing to fear here is lazy writing and the author's use of "freshers".

<comment><USER6> The 'better' title contains no information on what those housing policies are, while the original seems quite accurate - the universities explicitly tried to affect who people socialize with/befriend. Why should the BBC downplay this, just because they lack a study on whether the attempts were successful?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems to me with the giant interweb companies knowing _everything_ about everyone this would be an area they would excel at.

Group the people who are similar enough, so there won't be excessive drama, yet from different enough backgrounds so they can expand their horizons.

After the semester I spent in the dorms I'm glad I'm not still in prison due the one roomate (out of four) who was just incompatible with everyone else which almost lead to his defenestration on more than one occasion.

<comment><USER8> I'm sure what you experienced was nothing like actual prison.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In Slovakia and Czech republic it is common to select dorm and room in an online registration process (click war as we call it). If you want to live with your friends, you all select the same room. If not, you leave blank space and some stranger registers to your room. There are well known party dorms, quiet dorms, close-to-school dorms etc, but students decide where to live and who to share room with.

</comment><comment><USER10> My wife and I met when she moved in 3 doors down at Warwick; I know of a few other similar relationships, and many relationships formed in the sports teams.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup, libramatic.com - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for some feedback on our startup, http://www.libramatic.com/ so we can improve our user experience and improve our product in general. <comment><USER2> I've written library programs previously for work... Though this is more a personal library system which does not meed as much detail... but here are some suggestions.

Web access is good (I don't have an iPhone... most of my friends have androids if they have a smartphone. :)

Make the checkout ID the barcode or a barcode... So you can scan the book, this could be different than the ISBN. Also a tool to create self-generated barcode labels for items that don't have any barcodes (I preferred 1.75 x .5" labels... I used TCPDF to make em, told folks to print the label sheets with "scaling off", no printer/label alignment woes then.) With barcodes you can enter the patron first, then rapid scan each item to check out, or when checking in just scan in the items.

You use patron number to checkout should have a facility to search by name... as mentioned get the checkout person's credentials once and then check out the items till done.

Book info is sparse, if you have over 30 books you want to have some search properties and categorization. Maybe tags so you can do searches to locate your vampire western novels... :-) Also if you ware having friends access your library is there some public facing url they can use to browse the owner's library on-line?

Item location, when you get into the several hundred you should have a field for filing location - Dewey decimal is one (though I don't like it myself) give am a 10 or 12 character field and some ideas on how to categorize thier library (i.e. never describe a specific location 3rd shelf, instead, say cookbooks...)...

I would put button on checkout to temporarily adjust loan duration, most friends might get the normal 14 days, other might need more (or less)

Checkout record/reciept, so people have a copy of what they borrowed... or so patrons can sign that they borrowed stuff and lender could take em to small claims if they don't return (some private collections are pretty costly).. if you get into value, purchase/replacement cost.

A general limitless notes field for both for patrons and items would always be welcome... (this would be only viewable by the owner, not in the public search thing I was mentioning previously)

Patron contact info - so you can shoot of an email or call them. If email maybe add a facility to auto-generate a past due notice.

That's it off the top of my head. Nice start.

</comment><comment><USER3> My first thoughts:

\- It looks _really_ great. I'm not super familiar with the interfaces that librarians have to use, but I can't imagine it looks or feels as nice as this. When the kinks are worked out, I can definitely see this being great.

\- Upon first login, I'm REALLY confused. This first dashboard is way overwhelming. Perhaps a tutorial on first run, or don't show the widgets unless there's some data.

\- There should definitely be a way to import books. There may be a standard library format, if not use CSV. Almost all libraries will already have a system that does this. The only way you will convince them to change is if the migration process is easy.

\- The rows in the catalog view widget seem to get big enough to fill the widget. When you don't have many books, it looks weird. Probably better to set these as a fixed height.

\- Make the entire row for a book clickable. The whole row gets a cursor icon, but only clicking the text takes me to the next page.

\- Deep linking doesn't work

\- When I add a book manually, the ID doesn't seem to stick. I entered "22222", and now I can't find that anywhere.

\- CoverSwish is really cheesy. Technology for the sake of technology.

\- There seems to be an image field on books, but I can't find where to upload an image

\- The whole app is _really_ slow. Currently I'm hung and can't get back in. I guess I'll end my review here.

</comment><comment><USER4> First, don't trust us, we are hackers. It looks like you're selling to librarians, so go ask some of them. They are generally very nice and super awesome.

Second, consider adding a 1-line elevator pitch under your tagline. "Online Library Management System" is a good start but it is a bit vague - library of what? Managing how? Try to write a 1-sentence phrase, packed with specific language, directly addressing the pain point(s) and how you are solving them. Something like some of the text in your About/FAQ sections.

Third, the cover-swish feature is neat, but the "COVERSWISH" title is hard to grok on first glance. Consider a plain easy-to-parse title.

Fourth, your "Detailed Book Information" section does not show very detailed information.

Overall pretty slick, but again I am not a librarian and their worldview is different enough from ours that I recommend you spend lots of time with them. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> It's a bit slow to load but the use of colour is good and layout is clean.

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks good. Website is a bit slow though</comment>


Ghost in the Shell Original Soundtrack mystery - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@firasd/the-biggest-hollywood-mystery-of-2017-is-being-questioned-online-and-ignored-by-mass-media-2d800106934c <comment><USER2> The original title of the page is "The biggest Hollywood mystery of 2017 is being questioned online, and ignored by mass media". Let that help you decide if it is worth a click or not.

</comment><comment><USER3> For a second I thought it was about the Japanese movie soundtrack. Excellent compositions from Kenji Kawai by the way. Who cares about the Hollywood mediocre movie that came out recently?

<comment><USER4> Absolutely. I listen to the original Kenji Kawai GITS soundtrack often and it never seems to lose its haunting beauty.

The new movie disappointed in all ways including the music.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The movie is already out? I'm a little sceptical by such a heavy named remake. We already had an awesome anime movie and an interesting tv show. It's often too much to ask for a remake with real actors to be good as well.

So, if it is already in the cinema and not a success, why make such a fuss about something like the OST? It's not a big deal in itself.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not the first mistake the studio made with this film.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have some sympathy for Paramount in this. First the social-justice types went after them for not casting an Asian lead, then the critic reviews were unkind, then it really under-performed at the box office, and now people are upset about the music not being released… Some marketing exec over there is probably like "I don't want to hear about GITS anymore, ever!"

<comment><USER7> No sympathy whatsoever. They kinda inverted the main plot.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

What they made: A (slightly technophobic) very human and involentary cyborg fighting for humanity and letting the equally human anti-hero die to keep on fighting for the human race against digitalization and greedy other humans. Also: strange human trafficking sob-story.

What it was: The first cyborg without any human tissue remaining fighting for justice and falling in love with the genderless anti-hero who is first machine gaining conciousness. They fall in love, unite in death, are reborn as a child and are the first thing far beyond humanity: a human soul and AI hybrid, the first life-form beeing native to the physical and the digital world. Also a loveletter to technology.

<comment><USER8> Other than the "love", you've hit exactly on why I dislike the movie.

I don't care who they cast or recast if they would just get the point of the story, but western media has no concept of how to do a proper narrative about identity and can't accept any story involving technology that isn't bemoaning it and "exposing" how dangerous it is to us and society as a whole.

In other words, western media becomes a drooling idiot when discussing either of these topics.

<comment><USER9> > ...western media has no concept of how to do a proper narrative about > identity...

I must be misunderstanding your complaint, because it seems that everyone's favorite metaplot is about identity these days. Off the top of my head:

\- Frozen: choosing own future and identity over what was given you

\- Dark Knight: projecting an inaccurate identity to protect people

\- Zootopia: overcoming prejudice by breaking glass ceilings

\- The Crown: how to manage contradictory identities (head of church, head of state), overcoming prejudice

Especially on the nose:

\- Westworld: I don't want to get into too many plot details, but there are absolutely questions of identity, both for humans and for artificially intelligent machines.

<comment><USER8> Just because it's their favorite, doesn't mean they do it well. Some of your examples are perfect for a surface look at identity. They focus on how our concept of identity affects our day to day life and how we can manipulate that to help or hurt. Others, like Frozen, really have little to nothing to do with identity and instead are that tired plot of "figuring out who I am" which, yeah that's kind of what identity is but it's not really looking at the concept of identity.

But that's not what GitS is about.

I'm referring to a more philosophical approach, even an abstract one. GitS specifically is looks at identity as a malleable thing. To a "western audience", in the original film, The Major is no longer The Major at the end. Or at least, they'd be reassured by her familiar voice and reassure themselves that it really is still her and they haven't lost their protagonist. "Well, she sounds the same and seems to act the same, must be the same person."

This is again a very surface look at identity. I'm not saying this is bad subject material or even wrong, but it gets very old when every movie throws in you face how deep and interesting they are because they're about "identity" when really they're just about "stuff people do in situations" or applying a rigid concept of identity to some character's struggles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this to try to prod some bloggers/writers to look into this, as this puzzle is being pondered on the internet but not 'breaking through' to the larger media. My title (Biggest Hollywood mystery of the year) is not hyperbolic, it's literally true. The abrupt silence from people and companies involved in this is very strange, and in the context of the fan campaign to get it released, would make fertile ground for an enterprising journalist.

<comment><USER10> I'm really struggling to believe there are people out there dying to get the soundtrack. I'm afraid this entry in the franchise will go the way of the matrix sequels. And if your question is "what matrix sequels?", well, that's my point.

<comment><USER11> You're confusing the movie and the music. There are a lot of terrible movies with great soundtracks (Phantom Menace, for instance). Both Clint Mansell and Lorne Bale are highly-regarded and talented composers, with many soundtracks under their belts - and plenty of fans. I haven't seen the movie but I've heard some of the soundtrack and it saddens me that it isn't available.

Soundtracks to movies, TV shows, and video games are an extremely popular genre, it's just one that goes unnoticed. Same thing with Classical music - arguably there are many, many people who enjoy listening to Classical music and can't wait to buy the latest album by their favorite orchestra. Just because there aren't billboard signs, music festivals, or Spotify music promotions doesn't mean it's not a genre that's of interest to many people.

Sure, the movie had a lot of problems, but that doesn't mean people aren't interested in the soundtrack. Phantom Menace is awful for many different reasons, but it's one of my favorite movie scores.

<comment><USER12> I remember loving the soundtrack the Queen of the Damned, it was completely arranged by Jonathan Davis and had a lot of big names on it. The movie was a travesty and an insult to Anne Rice's work, but then there was this awesome soundtrack (if you were a fan of that type of music).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand why stories like this even get shared?

It's hardly a mystery, much less the biggest mystery of 2017.

The movie flopped, was an embarrassment to the studio, licensing the songs used in the film for distribution was probably a gamble they didn't feel worth it.

Crap, article simple.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is about the original score, not songs in the movie. If it's such an embarrassment to the studio why would they not just ignore the score, and let it be uploaded to iTunes as scheduled (including pre-orders and cover art)--instead of abruptly putting a hold on it? You are just speculating and that's my point, an entertainment reporter who knows how to dig into these things needs to look into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm listening to an album release related to the film; "Ghost in the Shell (Music Inspired by the Motion Picture)". So they've released something, just not the Clint Mansell OST.</comment>


Ruby VM in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://ejohn.org/blog/ruby-vm-in-javascript/

<comment><USER2> Haha. Right when I saw the post title, I jokingly thought "it prolly runs faster than real Ruby..." Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's also RubyJS: [http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby- talk/...](http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/233882)

A tool to convert a subset of Ruby into JavaScript.

I saw Michael's talk at RubyConf 2007; the video is probably up on the confreaks site. Really neat stuff.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pretty neat... but I'm disappointed that the compilation is done server-side. An entirely in-browser solution would be so much cooler ;)

<comment><USER5> "An entirely in-browser solution would be so much cooler"

... and slower.

<comment><USER4> Of course. But I see it as a neat proof of concept rather than something practical (even after reading the comments at the link), so I don't see speed as an issue... may as well go all the way ;)

I AM also curious how much slower it would be, since this version is faster than regular Ruby. I suspect the size of the JS files would be a bigger issue than the speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I saw this a while back. But I never gotten around to try it out. If I'm not mistaken does this mean I can write JavaScript in Ruby?

<comment><USER7> Yes, just include HotRuby.js and write <script type="text/ruby"> puts "wow".uppercase();</script>

Amazing what javascript has been able to do.

<comment><USER6> Fascinating...but I've read you need to upgrade to Ruby 1.9 cuz the code is parsed by it?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Inspirational money making web apps made by hackers. - <AUTHOR> Please post money making web apps that you know of, like 37signals stack, dabble etc. That
1. were made by single hackers (or verry small teams)
2. make money
If possible add a short description. <comment><USER2> I've made three:

<http://www.boostcam.com> \- Built it in a weekend a couple of years ago. costs next to nothing to run and makes money on adsense.

<http://www.sproutvideo.com> \- SaaS video hosting platform that I built with a partner (I coded everything and he's the business man) in a couple of weeks. We've got a lot of paying customers already.

<http://www.physicalfix.com> \- Fitness web app that I've been building with another partner (Again, I'm the coder and he's the talent) for a couple of years and just launched. Taking a little time to get tracking but doesn't cost much to run and has a few paying customers already.

None of them make me enough money to work on them full-time yet but it's a nice supplement to my day job salary.

<comment><USER3> What kind of video player are you using in the video hosting platform? I want to sell finance courses as screencasts but i am having huge problem with video hosting platform. All the html5 players i have seen are crap. Vimeo is good but it does not support commercial hosting.On the other hand Viddler is AMAZING. Their video player is amazing and the streaming is quite good as well but i am ready ready to pay $100 per month in the start. The only option i have is screencast.com. What do you recommend?

<comment><USER2> We use a flash player and 'fall forward' to html5 when flash is unavailable. We do this because most people do have flash installed and this covers about 99% of the use cases. In the case that flash is not available, we fall back to the default html5 player of the browser and currently don't use any custom chrome of our own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.github.com> seems wildly profitable and was created by a team of 3 hackers, afaik.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.bingocardcreator.com> \- made by HNer patio11, here's his (amazingly interesting and useful) blog: <http://www.kalzumeus.com/>

<comment><USER6> I'll elaborate to answer what I think are the questions behind the question, since I answered them a hundred times in the last three days at the Business of Software conference and one more time won't kill me:

a) It makes bingo cards for elementary schoolteachers, which is one very specific problem a large group of people know they have, is close to trivial technically to solve, and for which almost all solutions suck. This makes it very achievable for one guy to tackle as a hobby project. (It eventually got to the point where full-time employment was my poor paying quirky hobby project.)

b) The business, as distinct from the application, works because over the course of four years I became very good at organic SEO and metrics-based optimization. These are broadly applicable skills in software (and marketing generally). Surprisingly few people can do them well.

c) No, I do not see myself being the bingo guy for forever. If you wanted to address a similarly small niche yourself, I would say it is a wonderful learning opportunity and has been lifechanging for me. I wouldn't recommend starting with bingo cards for elementary schoolteachers, because if you are capable of beating me at it your skillset is worth a heck of a lot more money than can ever be extracted from that market for that problem, but virtually any developer can find something similar and learn enough to make it work. The amount you learn from having your own experimental laboratory is better than grad school, and you get paid to study. I wouldn't particularly recommend that route if you take money from investors. Two models, vastly different lifestyles, pick your favorite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> <http://appshopper.com> \- I contracted out the design, some of the backend code. I coded the rest and tied it together. Since then, have hired a programmer to handle maintenance, new features. pays his salary + makes a profit.

<comment><USER8> Cool. How does it work? How does it make money?

<comment><USER7> ads + affiliate referrals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> <http://lighthouseapp.com> — Bug tracking app created by 2 people. Used by businesses big and small, as well as some popular open-source projects (like Ruby on Rails)

<http://tenderapp.com> — Customer support app created by 2 people (out of necessity when Lighthouse started getting big).

Both apps are by ENTP. We have 2 programmers & 3 designers now and are working on redesigns for both Lighthouse & Tender. We actually just released a sneak peak yesterday: <http://hoth.entp.com/2010/10/5/sneak-peek-tender-admin-2-0>

<comment><USER10> Oh boy, I _love_ Lighthouse (worked for Bluenotion over the summer). Pure joy to use!

<comment><USER11> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> <http://anynewbooks.com> is made by me and it's already bringing in some revenue. Not serious money yet (hundreds not thousands of dollars), mind you, but it has been profitable from day one and growing relatively fast.

<comment><USER13> I've been using this since you mentioned it a couple of weeks ago on HN. I like it. Can I offer a couple of suggestions?

1\. The first thing I go looking for is a synopsis. Amazon isn't always good at this, you should try to incorporate this somehow. (I realize the difficulty with email)

2\. On your "staff pick" could you do a bit of a review?

3\. Canada. Give me some Canada options eh! (I know, I know, bigger market etc etc)

Keep up the nice work... I will buy books from this.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for being an anynewbooker, and for the feedback.

> The first thing I go looking for is a synopsis. Amazon isn't always good at > this, you should try to incorporate this somehow.

Unfortunately, I tried this one week and it didn't work. The emails ended up being very long, the click through fell down, and I received a few emails of complaints from people who liked the more compact email without descriptions, because they didn't feel obligated to read the whole thing.

It's possible that I may make this an option in the future, but at the moment I'm dealing with other items on the todo list.

> On your "staff pick" could you do a bit of a review?

This is a very valid suggestion and it will probably be implemented soon enough. I think even a one liner saying why it's our pick would help.

> Canada. Give me some Canada options eh! (I know, I know, bigger market etc > etc)

I added this feature this week: [http://blog.anynewbooks.com/2010/10/new- feature-for-internat...](http://blog.anynewbooks.com/2010/10/new-feature-for- international-readers.html) BTW, I'm in Canada myself. :)

> Keep up the nice work... I will buy books from this.

Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> <http://10MinuteMail.com> was written by me as a learning exercise. It's profitable and low maintenance.

<comment><USER15> Out of curiosity, when did you launch the site? Did you do any marketing or was it natural growth? I ask because the temporary inbox market seems pretty saturated already.

<comment><USER14> I launched it in November of 2006. The temp inbox market had several players in it already, and if I'd actually looked around at all I wouldn't have built it:) But it was just something to learn Seam and scratch my own itch, so I didn't even check to see if there was already a product in the space, much less several.

I didn't do any marketing, just mentioned it to a couple of friends. Apparently those friends know some crazy people because in ~24 hours it was on the front page of Digg, Slashdot, and Yahoo Tech.

Since that initial spike of traffic, and the settle-out afterward, it's been growing slowly but steadily ever since.

<comment><USER16> 10minutemail.com is cool. Thank you. But recently it has not been working for me. Are websites catching on and blacklisting 10minutemail domains? Anyway to counter that?

<comment><USER14> By not working you mean sites won't let you register with e-mail addresses ending in lhsdv.com? Or that they do, but there's some issue with 10MinuteMail.com itself that doesn't show you the e-mail? If it's the former, then not much I can do, other than rotating domains every few months, which I do. If it's the latter, email me with an example and I'll try to fix it. firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER17> Maybe you can have people donate their junk domains that they bought out of whim. I'm sure every HN reader probably have a few dozen domains that they let expire every year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> <http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/> \- by HNer paraschopra is arguably the best A/B split testing tool available. It was developed without any outside funding, by an extremely small team (1-3), and it is making decent amounts of money AFAIK.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for posting this Niyaz. Yep, it is a specific niche tool developed by me (but have tiny part-time team now) and is making decent money, which I expect to grow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> <http://www.w3counter.com> \- developed and operated by myself, profitable since 2006 - real-time web stats, which I've been offering since before Google Analytics and such existed, tracking all activity on over 50k websites

<http://www.w3roi.com> \- developed and operated by myself, profitable since 2009 - real-time conversion tracking for online advertising

</comment><comment><USER21> I made <http://nicetranslator.com> in Nov. 2008.

Probably 2 weeks of work all said but by far my biggest success in terms of sheer numbers.

It makes money to help pay bills now via AdSense and is totally hands off.

Actually, given our analytics, I think that it's really underperforming monetarily. My partner and I have largely moved onto other things, but if anyone out there loves to do that kind of stuff, maybe we can work something out?

<comment><USER22> Wow. That works really well - hilarious results for a few lines from 'The Wire' translated to Hindi.

Possible bug: The 'link' button shows a nice popup but did not generate either of the two promised permalinks in 15 seconds, at which point I left.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> <http://www.weebly.com> \- made by a small team, 2 1/2 hackers if you count myself as 1/2 time :)

we're _very_ profitable.

<comment><USER24> Are you telling me there are only 3 people at Weebly? Now that is very very impressive.

<comment><USER23> Not quite. Chris (cofounder) works 100% on infrastructure, Dan (cofounder) works on finances and product. We have a full-time designer, a full-time analytics person, and a full-time "head of customer satisfaction".

Customer support for 5 million users also takes a bit of time, and we have several part-time support staff that help people with any issues they run in to.

Having said that, both of our full-time developers are amazing and get things done at a pretty incredible pace.

<comment><USER24> That is still well below what I would think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Freckle - <http://letsfreckle.com/> \- made by a very small team, very usability oriented. Came into a tough space, and is now making a ton of money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, I knew this one, I couldn't find it anymore. It's made by some Ruby star guy and Amy Hoy designer.

<comment><USER26> Technically he's a javascript "star guy". Thomas Fuchs, creator of the script.aculo.us library and core contributor to the Prototype library. Both libraries have been a big part of Rails development for years although many people are now moving to jQuery.

<comment><USER27> Yeah, that's true -- I (Amy Hoy) actually have more Ruby fame than Thomas does. But he's more hardcore in reality. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> <http://builtwith.com> \- made for fun not to make money but now its profitable by a team of 1 :)

I think the idea is to not start with the thought "I want to make a web app that makes money" but "I want to make a useful web app that solves a problem" - the money will eventually come if you crack that nut!

</comment><comment><USER29> <http://xpenser.com/> \- Time and Expense tracking via voice/email/sms/IM/twitter/iPhone/Android/...

Made by a small team, doing well.

<comment><USER30> Let me start by saying I love xpenser. But note the following:

"""

Why is Xpenser free? How do you plan to make money?

We'll be introducing premium accounts that'll carry a monthly fee in the near future. The goal is to keep the base product free and charge for longer data retention and other services. """

It's not yet making money, which would disqualify it from the criteria for this Ask HN

<comment><USER29> Thanks for the love :-)

Xpenser for Business is the commercial version of the product for businesses, and it's bringing in a good bit of revenue. At the moment it's by request/invite only, but will be generally available soon. Anyone interested in an invite can send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com .

Users sign up for the free product, like it (or love it it :-) ), and ask to use it in their company. The free product is acting as a very good way of bringing users to our commercial product, so it's remained free.

<comment><USER30> Cool, I'm very happy that you guys are making money!

(For what it's worth, my love is not abstract -- I actually learned something about my spending habits in the mere two weeks of using Xpenser that helped my peace of mind. It's something that makes my life demonstrably better!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> <http://vendder.com> \- made by 2 people with ruby and sinatra. just started but already have some paying users.

<comment><USER12> For a second I thought I was visiting <http://shopify.com>. I think it's a little too close to your competitor look wise.

<comment><USER31> It's true, there some similarities, mainly the color and wording, but in this e-commerce shopping cart business to describe the product we always need the words "shopping cart", "create online store", "sell online"... (at least in english)

<comment><USER10> But hopefully not the same colour scheme and general site layout ?!

<comment><USER32> Honestly speaking, we've put most of our effort on the back-end development. Our landing page is just Wordpress with a modified custom theme. A designer colleague gave us a help on the branding but the same way many banks / big corps use blue in their logo, green is very standard here. If you think you could do better we're happy to be helped ;) cause every Photoshop crop we do take us half of the day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> <http://www.stormpulse.com> \- made by 2 people. Tracks and maps the weather.

</comment><comment><USER34> <http://shelfluv.com> \- Single hacker. just launched about a week ago but making some Amazon affiliate revenue from all the coverage it's getting.

</comment><comment><USER35> Nico Nico Douga is a sort of youtube where users can write comments _on_ the videos (like subtitles). The first version of was supposedly written by a couple of guys.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nico_Nico_Douga>

I have no idea why no one has made an English clone yet. Apart from messy copyright problems and hosting costs (which all youtube clones have anyway), it's practically a guaranteed success.

</comment><comment><USER36> I made <http://isitnormal.com>, which is almost paying the rent now.

</comment><comment><USER37> <http://iWantMyName.com> \- built by 2 1/2 guys over the last two years out of frustration with the domain registrar business practices. we are not hugely profitable yet but we can live off it and work on our own project which is rewarding enough for the moment.

<comment><USER38> Just would like to add that we're completely self-funded and proud of it... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> <http://improffice.com> \- online email transfer / email migration for Gmail/Google Apps.

I built the prototype myself, then my current partner came onboard when the app started making money. He dramatically improved the code and I'm mostly working on the business stuff now.

</comment><comment><USER40> <http://www.eventhq.co.uk>; online event registration/management for the UK/European market. Built by 1 person and bootstrapped through contract work. Still relatively small beer but seeing faster growth now

</comment><comment><USER41> <http://mmo-mumble.com> is my one-man hobby project, and is solidly profitable. The app is really the control panel/management interface/widgets, but obviously the service encompasses more than that.

</comment><comment><USER42> <http://notarycrm.com> \- simple CRM for notaries (and an online directory for SEO-goodness)

<http://www.mailfinch.com> \- on demand direct mail

Built by me and profitable.

</comment><comment><USER22> <http://codeboff.in> is done by me. It's a screening platform for hiring programmers.

I switched on billing just this morning so it hasn't actually made anything yet.

</comment><comment><USER43> <http://www.ratemystudentrental.com> \- student rental housing ratings and reviews; sells private-label housing portal version to colleges and universities.

<http://www.leadnuke.com> \- B2B sales lead generation by monitoring online conversations.

Both built by me. Both make money. Not yet enough to support me full-time. Still consulting to bootstrap.

</comment><comment><USER44> <http://simplemailer.pearachute.com/> \- latest incarnation of a mailing list engine that has had subscribers since 2006. Pays for it's server!

(I feel like we just got Mechanical Turked to an SEO farm, but hey- $GOOG juice!)

</comment><comment><USER45> <http://www.seeyourhotel.com> \- Hotel locator with Google Maps. We (2 guys) did it in 2006 and added some features here and there. It's still making money, but we haven't added to it for more than a year.

<comment><USER46> So its all just affiliate revenue from the hotel bookings?

<comment><USER45> For the revenues yes, it's just affiliate revenue. At first it was a huge job to clean up the data for the locations. Back then about half the hotels had errors in their locations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> <http://www.cupcalculator.com> \- Slightly profitable. Its essentially a static page with some adwords but the ad revenue has more than covered the cost of the domain name and hosting.

</comment><comment><USER48> <http://trackjumper.com> \- A simple bug tracker for freelancers and small software teams. I started last summer, and it's been growing ever since.

</comment><comment><USER49> <http://www.pingbrigade.com/>. Not exactly profitable yet, but brining in some revenue.

<comment><USER50> Thats pretty awesome. Cute logo as well.

It would be great to add some more locations around the world.

If you add monitoring and alerts I would probably pay. Not that much as its already a corwded space, but I think a cheap alternative could get traction.

I wonder if its possible to have a business model of only charging when it alerts you to a site being down? E.g. we just alerted you to a site being down. Donate and we will do it again! Dont donate and I will delay my alerts by 1 hour next time!

<comment><USER49> Thanks for the response. Yes, monitoring is in the works. That is certainly an interesting business model, thanks for suggesting it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This is possibly the most inspiring post on the internet. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER52> www.scriblink.com - made by me and partner in 2006. currently the number one online whiteboard. makes several thousand a month.

<comment><USER53> clicky <http://www.scriblink.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> How about a money-making spell checker?

<comment><USER55> How about a monney-making spell checker. FTFY.

<comment><USER23> not. reddit.</comment></comment></comment>