How the Å came to be - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@frodefrodefrode/put-a-ring-on-it-part-i-18531066c896 <comment><USER2> Not to take away from Scandinavian orthographic history, but I still can't forgive the thrifty Caxton for using a "y" to supplant thorn [þ] and eth [ð]in orthography. I don't care about the aesh, or the transformation of wynn or yogh, but I wish we didn't have to write a digraph for both the "th" sounds.

<comment><USER3> Usage of <y> (and <th> for that matter) in place of <þ> predates Caxton's press. An example of a scribe substituting <y> for <þ> in manuscript can be seen at [1], a legal document in an English chancery hand from c. 1445. The use of <th> was already very common in the Middle English period, with <þ> (or later <y>) retaining use only in sigla (common scribal abbreviations). See [2], a page of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ from the Ellesmere manuscript (c. 1410) for example.

In fact, many (most?) of the works printed by Caxton himself actually _do_ feature a distinct <þ> glyph, though it is limited in use to sigla (it never appears without a superscript <e> for <þe>, <t> for <þat>, …). His first printed English work [3], printed c. 1473 while he was still stationed at Bruges in what is now Belgium, has a distinct <þ>; his later works printed at his own press in London do also, such as [4] (which is printed c. 1480 in the typeface characteristic of his press).

For some related discussion, see [5].

That said, I share your dismay that we no longer have a <þ> (or, honestly, an <ð> or a <ȝ>, though [ð] and [θ] are allophones and the <gh> once represented by <ȝ> is now often silent). I just wouldn't be so quick to blame Caxton.

———

[1]: [http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/scripts/examples/chancery6...](http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/scripts/examples/chancery6.htm)

[2]: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Ellesmer...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Ellesmere_Manuscript_Knight_Portrait.jpg)

[3]: [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi- bin/displayPhoto.pl?path=/service/...](http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi- bin/displayPhoto.pl?path=/service/rbc/rbc0001/2004/2004rosen1211&topImages=0009r.jpg)

[4]: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Brut_Chr...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Brut_Chronicle.jpg)

[5]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15678583](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15678583)

<comment><USER2> Hey awesome information, thanks. I was a while ago I had read about that theory in some book about old English.

Looks like the custom existed before Caxton but the printing press exacerbated it and pretty much put an end to the vacillation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If only Apple and Google engineers would understand that it's almost impossible to mistype A and Å on a qwerty-keyboard, it would be awesome.

<comment><USER5> The thing that I miss the most on iOS (don't know if this is the case with Android as well) is for the OS and apps to just remember which language I last used when communicating with a given person. Just because I recently wrote a message to my Danish girlfriend doesn't mean I want the Danish keyboard instead of the English one when I go to write a message to my Canadian friend. Seriously, is nobody at Apple bilingual? How they've managed to release 11 versions of iOS and never implemented something as simple and useful as this is beyond me...

<comment><USER6> Honestly I'd probably be fine with a combined Swedish & English keyboard for most of my daily interactions (also Swede's in general and in the tech sector in particular mix in a lot of english).

However being half dane close to the german border and with a interest in language I do occasionally use other languages as well which results in me having 6 more active keyboards, and while I mostly toggle between Swedish, English and some occasional emoji it's quite a hassle to shift though half a dozen keyboards every other time.

<comment><USER7> Interested to hear what solution would be better for you. I live in Sweden and while I don't speak Swedish everyone I work with basically does as you describe, the keyboard toggle between English/Swedish keyboards.

Frankly because I work with Danes and Swedes all the time it's usually enough to hold down A and O when I need to type å, ö, ø, etc. but I usually don't type in those languages. It's mostly for locations and the occasional translation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting article. Undoubtedly, some of the earliest uses of the letter were lost in Tre Kronor, where Sweden kept its national archives until the castle burned down in the late 17th century.

</comment><comment><USER9> > Norwegian and Danish aa was finally officially replaced by the Swedish å — > in 1917 and 1948, respectively.

I guess that explains why both Norwegian and Danish has "å" as the last letter in the alphabet, whereas in Swedish "å" is the third from the last letter (name sorting beware!).

Consequently the expression "the Alpha and the Omega" (from the beginning to the end) is "från A till Ö" in Swedish and "från A till Å" in Norwegian and Danish(?).

<comment><USER10> I can see from your posting history that you are Swedish, so know this better than I, but I went to [https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_och_Omega](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_och_Omega) and from what I can make out Sweden uses "A och O", not "från A till Ö".

FWIW, [https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_og_omega](https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_og_omega) says it's "A og Å" for Norwegian while [https://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_og_omega](https://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_og_omega) uses "frå A til Å" for Nynorsk. I assume this is like how in English we can write both (say) "The A to Z of Photography" and "Photography from A to Z".

Perhaps Swedish uses both "A och O" _and_ "från A till Ö"? A DuckDuckGo search for both phrases supports that conjecture, in that both return plenty of Swedish pages.

<comment><USER9> Correct, in Swedish you have both, though they differ a bit how you would use them. I think your English example covers it good.

First we have "från A till Ö", or the older form "från A till O", meaning the same as in the other languages, like all of it, from beginning to end, like a register or a list.

The other one, "A och O" is used as you wrote, the example form the Wikipedia article is good, "Balans är A och O, när man går på lina" roughly "Balance is key when tightrope walking".

I never heard anyone saying "A och Ö". For me it sounds really silly saying "Balans är A och Ö, när man går på lina", but apparently some do

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22a%20och%20%C3...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22a%20och%20%C3%B6%22)

However you rarely hear anyone using the older form "från A till O" today.

Norwegian, oh in my first post I spelled it wrong, it should be "fra A til Å" in bokmål. Sorry for that.

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fra%20a%20til%20...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fra%20a%20til%20%C3%A5)

Spelling is a bit confusing when dealing with svenska, nynorsk, bokmål & danska at the same time.

Danish and Norweigan seems to use "A og O"

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22a%20og%20o%22](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22a%20og%20o%22)

and "A og Å"

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22a%20og%20%C3%...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22a%20og%20%C3%A5%22)

Edit: sorry for using Google links instead of DuckDuckGo. Got problems with DDG when searching for "A og Å", got too many false hits, in Norwegian (and Danish?) you can write "å" instead of "og" for "and". In Swedish you would write "o" instead of "och".

Edit 2:

Some search results from runeberg.org (Similar as Google Books)

"från A till Ö" [https://www.google.se/search?q=%22fr%C3%A5n+a+till+%C3%B6%22...](https://www.google.se/search?q=%22fr%C3%A5n+a+till+%C3%B6%22+%2Bsite:runeberg.org)

"från A till O" [https://www.google.se/search?q=%22fr%C3%A5n+a+till+o%22+%2Bs...](https://www.google.se/search?q=%22fr%C3%A5n+a+till+o%22+%2Bsite:runeberg.org)

"A och O" [https://www.google.se/search?q=%22a+och+o%22+%2Bsite:runeber...](https://www.google.se/search?q=%22a+och+o%22+%2Bsite:runeberg.org)

"A och Ö" only false hits [https://www.google.se/search?q=%22a+och+%C3%B6%22+%2Bsite:ru...](https://www.google.se/search?q=%22a+och+%C3%B6%22+%2Bsite:runeberg.org)

Edit 3: Maybe "Balance is everything when tightrope walking" is a better translation.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the clarification!

I think I have a joke.

If "å" means "a river, a creek, a big stream" ([https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A5#Noun_4](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A5#Noun_4) ) and "ö" means "island" ([https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%B6#Noun](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%B6#Noun) ) then "Från Å Till Ö" might be a story about someone who paddles a canoe down a river to camp on one of the river islands.

Or rather, only the last 3/29ths of the story.

<comment><USER9> You should read Swedish poet Gustaf Fröding!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_Fr%C3%B6ding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_Fr%C3%B6ding)

He is considered by some of the greatest poets of all time in Sweden. He experimented a lot with his language in the poems he wrote, often with dialects and local expressions.

"Coincidentally" he came from a province called Värmland. Värmland neighbors with Norway to the west. Dialect of Värmland (värmländska) has a close relationship with Norwegian.

Swedes find that people from Värmland speaks with happy upbeat at the end of the sentence (intonation), just like how Swedes hear Norwegians.

Many of the greatest writers & poets in Sweden originate from Värmland.

Anyway, Fröding has a poem called "Dumt fôlk" (Dumb people)

[https://sv.wikisource.org/wiki/Dumt_f%C3%B4lk](https://sv.wikisource.org/wiki/Dumt_f%C3%B4lk)

He is walking about a Sunday morning and meets an other man that asks for directions to the vicarage, and one part of the direction uses funny dialect twist, the man will arrive to a stream where "Å i åa ä e ö" \- and in the stream there is an island. The man doesn't understand a word of it and leaves.

woman reading the poem [https://youtu.be/UP_mwiOY7C8](https://youtu.be/UP_mwiOY7C8)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is excellent. I've run into all these different forms of umlauts in various old Scandinavian and German manuscripts. I concluded that, yes, they are indeed just umlauts, so if transcribing in latin Script (for German anyway), use an umlaut. The grammar made that clear enough.

But I never knew the typographical history as to why there are so many different forms. So very cool that we can trace the lineage to specific printers.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is any Slovak speaker able to comment on the excerpt from the article below? Equating the Czech "ů" and the Slovak "ô" sounds wrong to me but my experience with Slovak is very limited.

" As for the letter ů, as used in the Czech Republic, the story is a similar one to the Swedish. In the sixteenth century, the pronunciation of /uo/ changed to /uː/, prompting a need to reflect this in written Czech. Reformationists with close ties to Germany brought the Early New High German ů with them and used it in the influential translation of the Czech Bible kralická. (The closely related Slovakian language writes the same sound with an ô after Martin Hattala's 1852 grammar.) "

<comment><USER13> ů and ú are pronounced the same in czech /u:/ \- the only difference is grammar. There are very obscure rules as when to to write ů or ú (wheter it's in the middle of the word, end of the word, exclamations etc...)

Slovak language also has ú and to my ears it's pronounced the same as in czech. ô is pronounced /uo/. It might be that the pronunciation has changed in czech language during hundreds of years. Same is the case of ä in slovak that used to have different pronunciation to a regular e but after many years (people being lazy) it is just being pronounced as a regular e.

So if we talk about pronunciation used these days then ů and ô are not pronounced the same at all.

I'm no historian/linguist. Born in slovakia studied in czech republic

<comment><USER12> Cool - so the ů/ú difference in Czech I was aware of (or at least I roughly understood it to be related to its position in the word).

But I understand now - the origin is shared, but they're definitely pronounced differently nowadays.

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd be curious to see some of the sources for the latter statements about modern adoption of å in non-northern languages.

I am familiar with the Italian ones mentioned, and afaik they don't have official transcription rules, they have always been almost exclusively oral languages. In my experience , whenever a transcription was required (usually in an entertainment context, since they were never official languages), people would just make it up as they went along.

As such, I wouldn't give too much weight to this or that random source using a weird northern-European letter to try and legitimise their arbitrary transcription; but if there is a convincing argument against this position, I'd love to see it.

</comment><comment><USER15> On 6 June 1523, Gustav Vasa was elected king of Sweden. Swedes celebrate this date as "Svenska flaggans dag"

I doubt even 10% know when this occurs, or why.

<comment><USER16> As a Swede I can agree that it seems few of us know why that date was chosen. However, I'm surprised you think it's uncommon to know which day of the year it is.

<comment><USER17> It doesn't help that there are two competing stories for why the date is chosen. The other story I've heard is that it was due to the Swedish 'constitution' being signed on that date in 1808.

<comment><USER9> Instrument of Government of both 1809 and of 1974 was signed on the sixth of June.

I'm not sure if the 1809 date was picked on purpose but the 1974 date was. Sixth of June has special place in Swedish history.

Glad it isn't sixth of January.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> And here I thought the Lanteans invented it. I need to rewatch this Stargate documentary.

<comment><USER19> It's always funny to see "STARGÅTE", the Norwegian space puzzle [1]. Also, for more confusing uses of umlauts/diacritics, see the Wikipedia article on "Röck Döts" [2].

[1] [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/g%C3%A5te](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/g%C3%A5te)

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

<comment><USER10> The KIA car company logo bugs me in a similar way. I read it as Kappa Iota Lambda.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Oh, this is about the history of calligraphy, typography, alphabets and character sets surrounding the (swedish) letter (which resembles an) " _A_ " with a ring (non)diacritic, and not about the _ångström_ as a unit of measurement.

EDIT: People are vehement about the status of this particular character, and that doesn't change the fact that I expected an article about a unit of measurement.

      (yes, I understand that disagreement is
       afoot, but it has nothing to do with
       what I originally came here for)

<comment><USER21> I think that a Swede would disagree with you that this is an A with a ˚ diacritic; Å is seen here as a seperate letter and granted its own place in the alphabet: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85#Place_in_alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85#Place_in_alphabet)

<comment><USER22> "Ä" is worse, it can be three completely different things depending on language.

In for example Swedish, it's a distinct letter of the alphabet, representing a distinct vowel.

In German, it's the letter "A" with an umlaut mark, which is not a distinct letter of the alphabet, but it is a distinct vowel.

And in French, it's the letter "A" with a diaresis mark, which neither makes it a distinct letter of the alphabet, nor a distinct vowel, it's just a mark that signifies that two adjacent vowels should not be pronounced as a diphtong.

<comment><USER23> > In German, it's the letter "A" with an umlaut mark, which is not a distinct > letter of the alphabet, but it is a distinct vowel.

The umlauts are distinct letters of the German alphabet. The English Wikipedia says so but still lists them as _special characters_ which is confusing at best. The German Wikipedia just lists the umlauts as ordinary characters.

>German uses three letter-diacritic combinations (Ä/ä, Ö/ö, Ü/ü) using the umlaut and one ligature (ß (called Eszett (sz) or scharfes S, sharp s)) which are officially considered distinct letters of the alphabet.[1]

I believe there are just two cases:

\- _A umlaut_ : German, Swedish, etc.

\- _A with diaeresis_ : French, Catalan, etc.

It is important to distinguish both cases because they differ at least in collation and typography.

In a German dictionary _A with diaeresis_ should be _always_ treated like an A, while _A umlaut_ should be treated according to the different collation standards that exist in German. In a German font the dots are closer to the letter than in a French font.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography#Alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography#Alphabet)

<comment><USER24> Confusingly, there are two different collation standards when treating German umlauts: One for lists of names and one for everything else.

When reciting the alphabet German school kids don't add the umlauts (at least I didn't – I don't think that has changed in the last decades) and if you ask someone how many letters the alphabet has they will answer "26" without hesitation while in Sweden they are treated as distinct characters of the alphabet in every sense.

<comment><USER23> > Confusingly, there are two different collation standards when treating > German umlauts: One for lists of names and one for everything else.

Yes, this alone is confusing. My point is that it is even more complicated because strictly the standard only applies to umlauts but not to letters with diaeresis. Unicode offers a way to treat these two cases differently utilizing the combining grapheme joiner (CGJ).

>> _The CGJ can also be used in German, for example, to distinguish in sorting between "ü" in the meaning of u-umlaut, which is the more common case and often sorted like <u,e>, and "ü" in the meaning u-diaeresis, which is comparatively rare and sorted like "u" with a secondary key weight._ [1, page 850]

> When reciting the alphabet German school kids don't add the umlauts (at > least I didn't – I don't think that has changed in the last decades) and if > you ask someone how many letters the alphabet has they will answer "26" > without hesitation while in Sweden they are treated as distinct characters > of the alphabet in every sense.

You have a point here and maybe the English Wikipedia isn't so wrong in listing them as special characters. Being special doesn't make _A umlaut_ a funky A though. It still is a letter in it's own right.

[1] Unicode Standard 10.0: [http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode10.0.0/UnicodeStandar...](http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode10.0.0/UnicodeStandard-10.0.pdf)

<comment><USER25> For what it worth, Dutch has "ij", which could be a letter, or diphthong, or two unrelated letters (in words borrowed from French, for example), and could also be written as "ij", or as "ÿ", or even "y".

There is no dedicated key on computer keyboard for it, but you are supposed to remember it's a unit when capitalizing, for example IJmuiden.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_(digraph)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_\(digraph\))</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? - <AUTHOR> 3 founders (one of them is techie) wants me to join as a first employee to do coding, no salary, just equity. How much should I ask for?<p>Some say since I don't get a salary I should get the same share they take, or very close. Is this realistic? <comment><USER2> I don't remember who I'm quoting, but I think it is instructive: "There is a word for a technical employee who works for equity rather than salary. It is: 'co-founder.'" (And if not co-founder, a close runner-up is probably "fool.")

<comment><USER3> True but it really depends on how important the technical aspect (at least in the coding sense) is in relation to what the others are doing (or are capable of doing).

For example, I have a client today whose founders are guys having ultra-strong backgrounds in devising enterprise solutions, with major high-level contacts in the relevant market and reasonable prospects of parlaying all this into what eventually may become a $1B+ company. A "technical employee" could reasonably be thought of as "first employee," as opposed to "founder," in this type of case and could make a rational decision to take a whirl with equity instead of salary. It all depends on the nature of the opportunity and the credibility of the founders (I don't deny, though, that there can be a high risk of taking a sucker-bet in routine cases where equity-only offers of this type are made).

<comment><USER4> Yeah ... but their "ultra-strong backgrounds" and "major high-level contacts" aren't worth jack if the company's product(s) don't work.

(Well, they still might make some money off of them before they get caught out, but that sort of fraud, inadvertent as it might be, is not something you want to be associated with.)

The "technical employee" is a necessary (but not sufficient) part of their potential success, and getting the technology right is a lot harder than non- techies realize.

The biggest problem here, especially today, is that there are so many hungry people on the streets looking for work that your negotiating position isn't strong. On the other hand, if these non-techie founders truly are savvy they'll know there's not exactly a surplus of really good people to choose from....

My bottom line is that when non-technical founders devalue technical employees they also tend to devalue all the technical things that are needed to make the venture successful, and that that's a very bad environment in which to work.

<comment><USER3> In the case I mention, the lead founder was CTO of a multi-B company for over a decade (indeed, had been a key player in helping build it to that level) - he is technically savvy but just not doing that aspect of the work (at least at the detail level) in this company as he drives it. I don't think it is an issue of devaluing technical people (at least in honest situations) but just a matter of weighing relative contributions for a particular venture. Technical is not _always_ foremost in what distinguishes a particular business model for success.

<comment><USER4> " _Technical is not_ always _foremost in what distinguishes a particular business model for success._ "

Indeed, and if you're a disciple of Clayton _The Innovator's Dilemma_ Christensen the technology itself often isn't what's so innovative as the use to which you put it.

But it still has to work ^_^. At least in this case we can have serious confidence that the once and future CTO will make sure it does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is where vesting schedules are everyone's friend.

I generally think that you should get a grant for the same number of shares that the three founders do, but if everyone's on a vesting schedule, they'll still own more than you for the next four years from today. After that, you'll all be on the same economics.

Here's the idea: let's say the three of them founded the company 9 months ago and they all have 100 shares each. You should get 100 shares as well, but let's put everyone on a vesting schedule that says you get 2.08% of your shares vested for every month served. So the three founders should get credit for nine months of service and 18.75% of their shares should immediately vest (as of the day you join) while you're at 0% vested. At month 48 after the company was founded, the three founders are fully vested while you're 81.25% vested. At month 48 after you joined the company, you're 100% vested and are on the same economics as the three founders.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think this is very realistic.

No salary is a big no go for me. This is something I could only do with close friends that I have known for years.

Think about it this way: If those 3 guys really believe somehow in their project, they should be able to find some money to give you as a minimal salary.

If they expect you to take a high risk (not getting any money) they should give you a high reward if everything goes well. To pay someone means that you take the risk that she does not produce any value, but you win the most if she does.

</comment><comment><USER7> If they don't pay for your living expenses I would classify you as a co- founder, not as an employee. The share you get should correspond to how much you contribute and how much they have done already. Anything from 15%-35% can be reasonable, but it very much depends.

The real questions are:

a) can you afford to take this risk? Can you take the risk financially and qua opportunity cost?

b) do you think all three other founders have valuable skills?

c) are the other founders smart and willing to work hard?

d) do you think they have common sense?

e) do you get a say in the way the company is run, or are you expected to shut up and code?

f) do you trust the other founders not screw you over? Are you absolutely sure they're trustworthy?

g) do the founders get along great with each other and with you? Are they mentally stable?

If you can't answer these questions with a confident YES! you should probably pass on the opportunity. If you have no doubt that other founders are going to accomplish great things, and if you're willing to take a risk, don't worry about having 5% less equity than you'd like to have. A 15% share in a great company is a lot better than a 35% share in a flaming train wreck.

Oh, and get things in writing, just in case.

<comment><USER4> In practice "get things in writing" doesn't help unless it's simply to memorialize the agreement. If your partners act in bad faith it just gives you (additional) grounds to sue ... and in this case they aren't exactly ensuring you have the money to sue. So unless the venture becomes so successful that you can get a lawyer on contingency....

<comment><USER7> > memorialize the agreement

Absolutely, that's the primary reason. It also clears up unnecessary misunderstandings. (E.g. one party may assume preferred stock, while the other founders will assume common stock.)

<comment><USER4> Very true ... it hadn't occurred to me since due to my family's business dealings I'd absorbed that by the time I was making agreements.

Putting it down on paper forces a minimal level of clarity and detail, and gives all the parties concerned several chances to get it right, enumerate and specify details such as the above, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As an employee, you don't work for no salary, period.

As a cofounder, you should get a significant share of the business (around the same % as the others have).

<comment><USER9> How does one technically get a "share of the business"? What does this mean? What paperwork is involved?

<comment><USER10> You'd be issued stock options giving you the ability to buy the company's stock at a very low price. These typically vest over time so that you can't just take the equity and quit. The paperwork is a bunch of legal forms. Have a startup lawyer look things over to keep yourself covered.

<comment><USER9> Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. Thanks for the reply.

What about if it's not a public company? That is, 2 or 3 people and an LLC?

<comment><USER8> It depends on what country you live in... you'll have to research the incorporation laws of the country you specifically live in.

In the UK, you can just decide how many shares the company has, and sell them for whatever amount per share you decide - that way you split the company between several founders. Of course, if you want more complicated stuff, like vesting, you'll probably want to speak to a solicitor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If two of you are doing coding, what are the two other guys doing? What kind of value are they adding? Negotiate the equity based on the value you think you add.

I wouldn't even consider joining that kind of startup, I think 4 people is not manageable if everyone is working just for equity.

</comment><comment><USER12> How far along is the company? What's your current status, do you need the money? How much do you believe in the product? What % of the workload is going to fall on you, and how much do they need your skillset? How do their resources look (money, time, etc)?

There's a lot of things you'll need to explain before being able to get a good response. i.e. If the product is from scratch and there are little resources, there's no reason you shouldn't get close to or even founders equity, but if they already have a product with traction it's a completely different story.

</comment><comment><USER13> 3 founders, only 1 of which a technical person?

Don't waste your time.

<comment><USER14> if one is designer, one is developer and one is product/marketing that's a good match I think.

<comment><USER15> This is a good match, especially if the designer is willing to get their hands dirty in the code, or go out and do sales, at least a little. Otherwise, I think designers will be sitting on their thumbs a lot once most of the initial design is in place.

That's not to say I don't value what they do, just that it seems their work is mostly front-loaded. Once you're launched and the design is fairly stable, the designer needs to be willing to switch hats and pick up slack where they can.

<comment><USER14> I think that a designer can design as much as a developer can develop on a product. The best designs are the ones that are iterated and iterated upon. A designers work is never done, etc.

All founders should switch hats! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would not do this. Several years ago, an investor was putting together a team and offered me 30% salary and some equity - with a 1 year commitment to see if the business would fly. Because the business plan seemed so good, I was going to go for it but then promptly backed out when I was asked to forgo salary for slightly more equity.

If you are not a full-on partner, then require some salary.

</comment><comment><USER17> Read the equity equation if you haven't already done so: <http://www.paulgraham.com/equity.html>

</comment><comment><USER18> > How much should I ask for?

More than you can get. (Unfortunately, biz folk respect folks who play games.)

It comes down to alternatives, yours and theirs.

You shouldn't join if you've got better alternatives. They shouldn't pay you (salary, equity) more than it would cost them to get "good enough" from someone else.

If they don't get you to sign on, what are their alternatives?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Everyone -- thanks a lot for all the answers and insights. That helped. To give you more details, since some are curious, they are just beginning, about a month or two. There is some code but its not more then 5-10% of what is needed for public beta.

One other advice I got is to strive to stay with ~3-4% after all dilutions, which should be estimated as being diluted 1/3 for three times. so to stay with 3% i should start with 10.5% (->6.9% => 4.6% => 3%).

One other detail I didn't mention is that they want me to keep my day job (me salary paying job i currently have), until the first round (seed money). Currently the three of them also keep their day job, so we are all kind of equal on that aspect.

Regarding the founders abilities, they have design/biz dev/ceo experience.

</comment><comment><USER19> Have they done any work before? If not, getting the same share seems fair enough.

</comment><comment><USER4> You should get "a lot", but unless they're just beginning and you're very close to effectively being a partner rather than an employee, the same or very close isn't realistic.

Be sure to do your due diligence on their character.

</comment><comment><USER20> Unless they have a ton of the product already built, I agree with everyone here - you're a founder.

If they had a product up and running or even with customers, then you have to give some consideration.

The "idea" itself is worthless. Its all about the execution - and as a no- salary, techie - its going to be your job to help that happen.

</comment><comment><USER21> employees never make money in a startup, unless the company becomes Google size.

Let's say they give you 10% equity.

And let's be realistic. Even if the company succeeds, can the company become a 20 million dollar company in 5 years? 10 million? 5 million? 2 million? Or is it more likely to just be a $500K/yr business?

So if you pass the hurdle of failure, which has an insane rate on the web...how much would you really be making realistically?

Just remember to always include opportunity costs in your calculations. Is the risk justified, when you can make $450-500K in those 5 years, just being a regular coder.

<comment><USER22> Great advice.

In your calculations just remember though that salary and equity are taxed quite differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> a) how far along are they? (just starting, coded some stuff, beta ready,etc.?)

b) do you think there will be minimal money in the company at _some point_ soon?

c) is this a product you really want to see built? In other words: if they were two of your buddies, you were having a drink late one night, would you say to them when the idea came up: "wow this is a great idea, id like to help be a part of it".

</comment><comment><USER24> You will be bargaining. Ask for a big share to begin with, possibly _more_ than a quarter of the equity.

</comment><comment><USER25> 25%

</comment><comment><USER26> 25%, of course.</comment>


Show HN: I started a food podcast - <AUTHOR> http://www.returntosoil.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> If you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it!

<comment><USER2> I love the idea, and kudos to you for creating this!

Some feedback: 1\. Your enunciation sounds a little mushy, by which I mean your words seem to slightly blur together.

2\. The questions don't seem to be connected. This is fine for a normal conversation, but in a podcast, it comes off as a bit disjointed. There's a lack of narrative to the whole thing. What's the purpose of the podcast? Is it to talk about food? About being a small food entrepreneur? What's the story here and why should I care?

3\. When you talk at the beginning and end of the podcast (not during the interview), there's a certain false rhythm to the way you speak. It sounds like someone delivering a news report, which doesn't match the intimacy of audio or a podcast.

4\. Music would be nice.

5\. Some editing would be nice. It was nice to hear an unbroken interview, but _in this case_ , I think it'd be better with some voice over explaining certain things so the interviewee doesn't have to. Maybe some background about the chocolate store. The state of the union re: chocolate. Something to break the monotony of just an interview.

6\. Enthusiasm. This is sort of related to #3, but I don't get the feeling that you're excited about visiting this chocolatier (though I'm sure you are). Put some oomph into the voice and make me care like you do.

Sorry for listing only negative points; I really did like the podcast and learned some interesting things. Definitely has potential.

Looking forward to more!

disclaimer: I'm not an expert, I just listen to a lot of podcasts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'm going to be at a farm next Monday so I will definitely put your points into consideration.</comment></comment></comment>


FTC Says It Has an Open Non-Public Probe on Facebook Practices - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-26/ftc-says-it-has-an-open-non-public-probe-on-facebook-practices <comment><USER2> I'm sure the investigation will find egregious privacy violations, fine Facebook some minuscule amount relative to it's market cap and revenue, and then immediately waive the fine if "they promise not to do it again." And then seal the details of the inquiry from public scrutiny. That seems to be the way these things are typically handled by the US government.

</comment><comment><USER3> Receiving a 404 on the link.

<comment><USER3> Link is working now. If could delete/edit the above comment I would.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Gmail's new Compose ruined my e-mail writing. What's a good client? - <AUTHOR> They changed the UI again. I set a default "full screen" but that didn't take in replies.
Experienced cognitive dissonance when I tried to find out how to make reply full screen so I could bullet point.
I need a better mail platform. DIY maybe?
I have my e-mail on a bunch of distributed business cards. I could forward from Gmail to my new address. <comment><USER3> _I set a default "full screen" but that didn't take in replies._

That is one of my biggest grievances with the new Gmail UI as well. But there are so many other annoyances and so many little things that just don't work, I'm surprised that they pushed it out at all, let alone imposed it on everybody. It's a usability train wreck.

Even though it would be a major pain to switch, I'm seriously thinking about it.

<comment><USER4> Wasn't too much of a pain for me. I hate the new Gmail (and the direction Google has gone since G+)... have switched to Fastmail (with my own domain) and haven't regretted it for a second.

Told all the people I could think of that my email address has changed, then diverted my Gmail to my new email to catch any stragglers for a while, which I tell when I notice a diverted mail.

<comment><USER3> What are the main differences/annoyances you've noticed with Fastmail?

Do you happen to know if they support "undo send"? i.e. where you can configure a 30-second delay before the email is actually sent, so if you think of something right after you hit 'send' you can edit it. That happens to me a lot, so I like that feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You could keep your same email address, but switch to using a real mail client instead of Gmail's web interface. Head to [https://support.google.com/mail/troubleshooter/1668960?rd=1#...](https://support.google.com/mail/troubleshooter/1668960?rd=1#ts=1665018) for detailed instructions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Woo this looks exciting. Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've gotten stuck - I use ActiveInbox for assigning labels to emails - <USER2> way I can group them into mini projects and todos. It's really good - but I don't know of a real client that supports gmail labels - if anyone does please holler - my life drips by waiting for JavaScript to run.

<comment><USER7> ActiveInbox is really the best thing to happen to my Gmail account. I love it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sparrow ([http://sprw.me/](http://sprw.me/)) is still my primary client even though there will be no future updates for it.

I've also heard good things about Airmail ([http://airmailapp.com/](http://airmailapp.com/)).

</comment><comment><USER9> What about the "Basic HTML" view?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> See also, lol. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6280933](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6280933)

</comment><comment><USER10> Thunderbird, mail.app.

<comment><USER11> OS X Mail is surprisingly usable. I used to use Postbox before I got my first MacBook and I loved that. Think Thunderbird, with a prettier UI, some extra features, and not free.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Hide your number behind the url. Beta - <AUTHOR> https://goandcall.me <comment><USER2> Interesting, but how does it actually work on the user side?

Does it work on Desktop or Mobile? Does it use the normal phone system (why not display a number then?), or does it use a VOIP app, or does it work from the browser?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello! From any modern browser whether from mobile device or desktop.</comment></comment>


Can anyone help review our redesign? thoughts? - <AUTHOR>

voike.com we have changed our design in order to get better conversion rates... thanks jj <comment><USER2> Terrible. Your logo is slightly pixelated, your photos are all disproportionate. No hover states on your links and buttons. The search box positioning is awkward. Your frontpage uses more images with text in them than actual text that search engines can pick up on. The colors, spacing, and font sizes on <http://voike.com/news_feeds> are all not user friendly or clear, the page doesnt even tell me what its there for.</comment>


Ask HN: Any affordable deep learning cloud service for practicing/experimenting? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Crestle ([https://www.crestle.com/](https://www.crestle.com/)): \+ super quick to setup \+ free trial no CC required o underlying GPUs are ok \- more expensive than others

Google Colab ([https://colab.research.google.com/](https://colab.research.google.com/)): \+ Free \+ Works as a plugin within Google Drive \- Very limited hardware \- Integration with data storage could be easier

I'm going to try Gradient as well. Paperspace has very competitive pricing and their new service seems to hit the nail in terms of ease of use vs control of settings. Any chance @dkobran has a coupon code to take it for a spin? :)

<comment><USER3> There are referral codes floating all over the internet ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Colab from Google is worth a look: [https://www.kdnuggets.com/2018/02/fast-ai- lesson-1-google-co...](https://www.kdnuggets.com/2018/02/fast-ai- lesson-1-google-colab-free-gpu.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> We just launched Vectordash! ([http://vectordash.com](http://vectordash.com)) Someone mentioned us earlier too - the fundamental idea behind it is that gradient descent should not be expensive and compute costs should never be the limiting factor in deep learning. Our GPU instances cost 5x less than AWS because we want _everyone_ to be able to make progress in deep learning regardless of their budget.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've heard Floydhub is good too. [https://www.floydhub.com/pricing](https://www.floydhub.com/pricing)

</comment><comment><USER7> Recently there was a hacker news post about using gpus in mining rigs as gpu instances to perform deep learning.

[https://vectordash.com/](https://vectordash.com/)

It seemed like a really cool idea. And the instances were pretty cheap.

Note: I am not sure if they solved the "verification of solution" problem yet.

</comment><comment><USER3> Paperspace Cofounder here. We just launched Gradient, a really simple and affordable DL platform: [https://paperspace.com/gradient](https://paperspace.com/gradient) Feel free to ping me with any questions.

<comment><USER8> I really liked Paperspace Core.

Had to cancel my subscription because my daughter was born and I knew I won't have free nights to hack until 2019.

<comment><USER9> Here's someone who knows exactly what he's getting into.

Took me months to realize that I wouldn't get back to fun hacking for years. (Thought I'd only be out for a couple months)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I mostly use floydhub for its ease of use.

Colab from google lets you train over GPUs for upto 12 hours for free, However it takes a while to setting things up esp pytorch and I'm not a fan of the UI.

</comment><comment><USER11> How about Google Cloud's Cloud Machine Learning Engine? They even provide 300$ free credits on registration.

<comment><USER12> This, currently using them. Works great. They do request you to deposit around 75 dollars to make sure you aren't a fraud that is going to mine 300 dollars worth of bitcoins. The 75 dollars aren't gone, and to be honest its worth the money !

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Colab if you're beginner</comment>


Americans are abandoning wired home Internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/04/18/new-data-americans-are-abandoning-wired-home-internet/ <comment><USER2> On the contrary, is it possibly more that wired home internet is abandoning Americans?

Cell data plans actually have competition, whereas wired plan prices have been stagnant and typically most Americans have at most two choices for wired internet access.

There's also various sorts of reverse incentives in play for both carriers and consumers. For instance, wired providers long ago lost the fight to charge per amount of data transferred, whereas cell data plans can still get away with it and in general make a lot of money with it. Thus there are a lot of interesting "deals" and plans being offered to consumers in that space.

Wired access incentives for consumers, for better or more likely for worse, are anchored to the dying phone and cable industries as the internet itself subsumes them both. Wired providers desperately need new business models, or to go fully municipal public utility (or some combination or hybrid of both), and for now there's not enough competition to force that to happen any time soon and not enough incentive for municipal commissions or federal regulations to sort anything out either.</comment>


So, leboncoin.fr doesn't like my email alert webapp - <AUTHOR> http://lebonmail.com/courrier_lebonmail.com.pdf <comment><USER2> Almost incredible.

An extract (translated to English): "no hyperlink TO [our site] can be done without prior agreement". I hope they're suing Google too :)

<comment><USER3> I'm ashamed to be french when I see this kind of horse shit. The internet is not compatible with their TOS.

<comment><USER4> Why are all the French so ashamed to be French all the time?

I've seen Frenchmen ashamed to be French when a Le Pen won something somewhere. I've seen Frenchmen ashamed to be French when an anti piracy group pirates a logo. I've seen Frenchmen ashamed to be French when some president felt the need to compensate for something by blowing up a nuclear bomb in the pacific.

Somehow, anecdotally, being ashamed to be born somewhere is a particularly French phenomenon. Why?

France has all the above things, but also a great healthcare system, nice people, a somewhat functional democracy, and many other great things.

There's 60 million Frenchmen. Are you going to be ashamed every time one of them does something wrong? Do you expect them to be ashamed every time you do something wrong?

Instead of shame, maybe it would be more constructive to organize and do something about it. The ivory tower of the French political elite is notorious, but not unsurmountable.

<comment><USER5> Americans are ashamed of being American, Australians are ashamed of being Australian, the French are ashamed of being French.

It's a pretty common thing across every culture where people attribute the bad things that happen around them to the geography or culture when in reality, there are crappy drivers all over the world.

<comment><USER4> Might be just me, but I've never seen Americans be ashamed of being American in situations like these. Their standard reaction seems to be "boo! call your representative!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This post is confusing both because I do not speak French and because the caffeine hasn't kicked in yet, so I read that as LeBron Coin. Which doesn't seem all that bad for a gimmicky crypto currency, honestly.

<comment><AUTHOR> So there's this website that's the 7th in france according to Alexa ([http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/FR](http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/FR)) It's the craigslist of france. They don't have email alerts so I built a web app that does just that.

Then they noticed the traffic from my server (I guess) and blocked my IP from scraping their site, making the app basically useless, so I just forgot about it.

Now they are telling that I'm using their trademark in a way that can make users confuse my service with theirs, that according to their TOS I can't event link to their website without authorization (am I even bound by their TOS if I don't use their website?) and so on and so forth.

It was just a side project for me, so I don't mind dropping it.

The source code is on Github though if anyone is interested ([https://github.com/jfoucher/lebonmail](https://github.com/jfoucher/lebonmail))

<comment><USER7> Use proxies.

<comment><USER8> That's a bad idea - doing that shows intent to circumvent an intended block.

See the last notable case "Craigslist v. 3Taps": [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#No...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#Notable_cases_and_decisions_referring_to_the_Act)

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure if this is applicable to French/European law.

Nevertheless: If somebody doesn't want you to scrape, don't do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In brief , Craiglist french website version known as "leboncoin.fr" sent a letter to the author of "lebonmail.fr" a website that uses leboncoin.fr API to send its users a daily email alerts of items to be sold on "leboncoin.fr". The letter ask the author to stop using the service provided by leboncoin.fr immediately .

<comment><USER3> There is no official API for Leboncoin, neither alert option, explaining the creation of the op website.

<comment><USER10> Yes there is no official API , basically the tool scrap HTML website content, I don't know if that is legal or illegal according to EU laws. but its like scrapping Google search result, and I remember that it was illegal in the US law.

I think leboncoin.fr has the right to ask him to stop the service. but they also have to offer an API to the developers who seek to tweak the service .

<comment><USER11> They have to? I don't think so...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Next time build a browser extension or a mobile app.

This way the traffic comes from all your users, not one single IP address and you have a better chance to stay off the radar.

</comment><comment><USER13> Scraping is clearly covered by robots.txt, one of the earliest conventions on the web. In their case ([http://www.leboncoin.fr/robots.txt](http://www.leboncoin.fr/robots.txt)) they allow the spiders from most commercial search engine, but disallow all others.

I think it's a terrible idea from Schibsted (the Norwegian owners of the company) to react like this; but then again, lawyers...

</comment><comment><USER14> Leboncoin is so badly made it's a joke, and they completely monopolize the market. I'm raging just thinking I'm gonna have to use it to look for an apartment and sell my furniture in Bordeaux those next months. Makes me want to build a competition.

<comment><USER3> Salut confrère Bordelais! The thing is that with 24 M+ listings and a free basic service, no one will ever be able to compete. Maybe alternatives would be possible if limited to a specific area.

The weak spot of leboncoin is that you need to pay a stranger before getting your stuff. There is a non negligible portion of scam.

If you want a hand...

<comment><USER15> Hello Bordeaux, Ici Rennes.

LeBonCoin spent like 2M€ in adwords the year they started. I've seen them grow like crazy. I really doubt someone can compete head to head with them today. That would need to be very disruptive or very niche.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> to sum up the author of the news and recipient of the mail cannot read french correctly.

It is a cease and desist letter on the use of a name «lebonXXX.fr» that in all due respect seem is a clear parasitism of a registred brand: it bears a similar name, it is related to the activity of the original site. And le boncoin.fr is registered @ l'INPI (national registration office of brands).

In PI law, the infringement is about the confusion that results in the brand aka reputation and not on the use of an external API.

It does not mean I support leboncoin, because I could not care less. @ least I don't appreciate people misleading others based on fake victimisation.

Cher jonathan: en matière de droit «nul ne peut se prévaloir de ses propres turpitudes»

<comment><USER3> You have a point, but even if the author rebranded his website, he would still violate the TOS when providing direct links to listings (and maybe when scraping the website but this is not clearly forbidden in the TOS). The discussion is mostly about this (I think).

<comment><USER16> This would be another infraction :)

And the author is misdirecting the readers by providing a document not related to the claim he makes (TOS infringement vs «droit des marques» infringement).

EDIT/PS «nul ne peut se prévaloir de ses propres turpitudes» means that you cannot prevail your self of any wrongs if it is initially resulting from you not respecting the law. For instance if you build your company on a clearly fraudulent base (parasitism), you cannot claim for any reparation if you are shut down because it is a clear consequence of your actions. As a result, for the lawyer «faisceau de présomption valant preuve» his credibility in front of any juridiction would be voided.

<comment><USER3> This other infraction is also clearly mentionned in the lawyer letter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> they did the same thing to lebitcoin.fr last year

[http://www.numerama.com/magazine/26352-le-bon-coin- demande-a...](http://www.numerama.com/magazine/26352-le-bon-coin-demande-a- lebitcoin-de-cesser-son-activite.html)

<comment><USER18> It's interesting to see that they allow [http://www.site- annonce.fr](http://www.site-annonce.fr) to use their ads.

I think there is a lack of a geolocalisation service on the lbc website.

I know that [http://www.spothers.com/fr/](http://www.spothers.com/fr/) is working on it. A umpteenth tentative to beat lbc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Correct me if I am wrong, but maybe one way to look at the CFAA or situations like this one is that every website has the right to deny access to any particular user.

This can be done via firewall ruleset but also via cease and desist letter.

That seems reasonable.

But... for this type of approach to make sense with respect to a website that wants as much traffic as posssible, we have to make certain assumptions.

One assumption is that few if any users will automate their usage.

If hundreds of people began to write their own "apps" to automate how they use this website, then the lawyers would have a more serious problem that they might not be able to solve.

The website operators might have to reconsider their access model.

Could they move to a subscription-only service?

Could they use a whitelist of IP address blocks?

Could they still be competitive if they began to move away from open access?

In my opinion, the practicality of the cease and desist letter approach to website access (anyone can access except if we tell you to stop) is reliant on expected patterns of usage.

When kids learn how to program in school, should that day ever come, then they will learn how to automate. They wil be able to write their own "apps".

Will cease and desist letters and the judicial system be fully automated at that point? (The evolution of the DMCA comes to mind.)

The RIAA and others have tried to sue large groups of users all at once and it did not achieve anything except bad PR. Could website operators bring proceedings against large numbers of users and succeed?

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone care to explain, to the non-french-speaking crowd, exactly what leboncoin is? And what the letter says?

<comment><USER3> This is our craiglist. And they also have the craiglist of many other countries. The website op made crawls leboncoin and other websites to look for specific items for people. The letter mentions both the use of a "closely" related name and the linking of listings as in violation of the TOS.

<comment><USER20> Thanks!

That's, fairly crazy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hi Johnathan, they deliberately don't want to provide email alerts or even a decent search because that would break their rather excellent business models (users spend hours browsing pages of listing rather than searching which drives page views and ads impressions). They killed a site similar to yours a few years ago (leboncoinrss or something along the lines I believe). I wouldn't try to base a business on something which hijack the user experience they have created. On my spare time I'm scrapping their site to do some data analysis and so far despite the traffic I generate no problem. Let me know if you want to discuss that.

</comment><comment><USER21> Hello,

I am now building some kind of (read) API to the website.

The work is in progress, and on a restricted area (one country) I am able to index all pages in near real time (near...).

Maybe someone of you may be interested into some info or collaboration ?

Here is my email jhin2g9e8o2ik7j at jetable dot org

Bye Lbr

<comment><USER18> I have mailed you

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> leboncoin.fr is known for developing all necessary tools internally. So... they should hire this guy, that's all! losers...</comment>


Show HN: DICOM Medical Image Parser in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/suyashkumar/dicom <comment><USER2> Note that an 'image' for DICOM software can mean many things, from a collection of slices through a volume from an MRI scan to x-rays and ultrasound along with a whole pile of annotation and other meta data. DICOM is fairly complex and a good reference implementation of a parser in any language is a fantastic gift _if_ it will be maintained long term.

Is there anything known about the reason for a fork rather than contributing back to the original?

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, DICOM is a beast of a spec. Dicomtk is a solid reference implementation in C++ imo, but a bit difficult to work with sometimes.

The goal here is to have a featured implementation in Go that's easy to work with as a library and easy to iterate on and add new features on top of. This library unpacks most standard elements and metadata inside the dicom, in addition to multiple image frames that may be stored in the dicom in a variety of formats. More utils for normalizing and working with these images are coming soon! Also will be looking forward to dumping the dicom data into protocol buffers (that I also helped generate at github.com/gradienthealth/dicom-protos).

As for the forking--I did a lot of work on the parent fork (which isn't maintained anymore) and decided to introduce a lot of API breaking changes and opinionated new features on my actively maintained fork so decided to move ahead with a hard fork (with all the git history and credit maintained). You can see the original author's blessing here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/bnu47l/high_perform...](https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/bnu47l/high_performance_dicom_medical_image_parser_in/en9hp6h?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)

<comment><USER2> Super, thank you for the detailed answer. I'll be sure to point a couple of companies to your repository, they may be able to contribute in various ways.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course, and sweet thanks! Open to ideas and contribs as well!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I use this and it's great!

One thing that would be helpful (and perhaps it's already included and I just haven't seen it?) is a set of functions to make the parsed image appropriate for display.

Right now, the raw pixel values are given. To turn this into an image, you have to determine the word size (e.g., 16 bits), then interpret the results in the context of the window and center values from the metadata. For my current batch of images, for example, unless I do postprocessing, the images just look black.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Indeed, right now if you're opening a DICOM with Native PixelData the API gives you the raw PixelData without manipulating (normalizing) it. This is so that you can apply WindowWith and WindowCenter settings to your choosing, should you want to (and sometimes, there are multiple window withs and centers to choose from in the metadata).

I recently introduced a CommonFrame interface that wraps both Native pixel data and encapsulated pixel data that gives you a clean Go stdlib image.Image to use for post processing (no matter the underlying data). Introducing some options to this that allows setting of window width and level would also make sense!

<comment><USER3> Exciting! I'll have to take a look at the new interface. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This ([https://github.com/suyashkumar/dicom](https://github.com/suyashkumar/dicom)) ... is a fork of this ([https://github.com/gradienthealth/dicom](https://github.com/gradienthealth/dicom)) ... which is a fork of this ([https://github.com/gillesdemey/go- dicom](https://github.com/gillesdemey/go-dicom)) ... which inturn depends on other open sources ([https://github.com/ivmartel/dwv/](https://github.com/ivmartel/dwv/) and [https://github.com/cornerstonejs/dicomParser](https://github.com/cornerstonejs/dicomParser))

I always wonder, what happens to an upstream source if one of the downstream guy loses interest.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice library! Added here [https://github.com/kakoni/awesome- healthcare](https://github.com/kakoni/awesome-healthcare)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So I may be working with DICOMs in the very near future and know nothing about them. This seems like it will be helpful to me. Where can I learn more about the format and how to use it?

<comment><USER7> Full disclosure: I am the CEO of Innolitics, a development firm that specializes in medical imaging applications.

The most authoritative source on DICOM is the free standard:

[https://www.dicomstandard.org/current/](https://www.dicomstandard.org/current/)

It is not particularly easy to read and thus not a great starting place.

The DICOM forum is a good place to ask questions:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.protocols.dicom](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.protocols.dicom)

David Clunie, a very nice guy and the editor of the DICOM standard, is active on this forum. He also has is own website that has many other links:

[https://www.dclunie.com](https://www.dclunie.com)

If you are interested in parsing or generating DICOM files, our DICOM standard browser is a great resource:

[https://dicom.innolitics.com/ciods](https://dicom.innolitics.com/ciods)

I also wrote a very brief article about DICOM, which was meant to be the first in a series of articles, but alas I have been to busy to continue them:

[https://innolitics.com/articles/dicom-i-facilitating- interop...](https://innolitics.com/articles/dicom-i-facilitating- interoperability/)

Oh, and here is a pretty good blog about DICOM:

[http://dicomiseasy.blogspot.com](http://dicomiseasy.blogspot.com)

Checkout his "DICOM Tutorial" in the sidebar.

If you have any particular questions about DICOM, message me and I would be happy to try and answer them.

<comment><USER8> I've used the Innolitics standard browser in the past and can attest to this browser as a very helpful reference. Of the options available, this has been the most pleasant to work with while also linking to the spec. for that occasional deep dive.

<comment><USER7> Thank you for the kind words! We appreciate it, and it is nice to hear that people find it to be useful.

We just added a new feature yesterday---it is a new tab that allows you to analyze a DICOM file within the browser, see the values it contains, and easily cross check the tags with the standard. Any feedback would be welcome.

Here is a screenshot of the DICOM file analysis feature in action:

[https://innolitics.com/img/dicom-file- upload.png](https://innolitics.com/img/dicom-file-upload.png)

Edit: make it clear the files are not uploaded to any server, but stay within the browser

<comment><AUTHOR> Great work as always!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I work with DICOM pretty regularly and it's cool to see new implementations of parsers popping up. I've recently been toying with an implementation in rust with a goal of eventually compiling to web assembly. I've not learned golang but exploring this implementation is a fun experience since having recently been digging into the dicom standard.

<comment><USER10> Go v1.11+ compiles to WebAssembly [https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/WebAssembly](https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/WebAssembly)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if most of these older standards could be replaced by new standards that use SQLite as the Application File Format [0], making life easier for everyone.

[0] [https://www.sqlite.org/appfileformat.html](https://www.sqlite.org/appfileformat.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Cool! I haven't worked in the medical field in a while but it's always nice to see more DICOM libraries.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Totally open to suggestions or contribs!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, kudos to them - I tried to write a Dicom parser many years ago (trying to look at an mri) and just gave up. The standard seemed to be one of those obtuse "standards" that just defined wrappers around proprietary blobs

</comment><comment><USER14> What does "parsing" mean in the context of images?</comment>


CHIP-8 in Common Lisp: The CPU - <AUTHOR> http://stevelosh.com/blog/2016/12/chip8-cpu/ <comment><USER2> I believe this suffers, as do several other CHIP-8 emulators I've seen, from the early mis-documentation of the SHR and SHL instructions. Forgive me if I am reading this incorrectly; I am not used to Lisp:

        (define-instruction op-shr (_ r _ _) ;; SHR
          (setf (values (register r) flag)
                 (>>_8 (register r))))
        (define-instruction op-shl (_ r _ _) ;; SHL
          (setf (values (register r) flag)
                (<<_8 (register r))))

Since there is only one reg argument, it seems these are shifting the source register in place. It should put the shifted value of the source register into the target register (8XY6: VX <\- VY>>1) This was recently clarified in an exchange on the retrocomputing forum [1].

[1] [https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/rcacosmac/conversations/...](https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/rcacosmac/conversations/messages/328)

<comment><USER3> Your analysis looks correct.

FWIW:

        (setf (values X Y) Z)

is roughly equivalent to the Python:

        (X, Y) = Z

So

        (setf (values (register r) flag)
              (<<_8 (register r)))

might be idiomatically in python:

        (registers[r], flag) = leftShift8(registers[r])

And in any event is using the same register "r" as both source and destination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is awesome! A couple of days ago, I'd asked an asinine comment[0] about building a NES emulator & someone had suggested to start with a CHIP-8 emulator first. For someone who's looking to write the same in Clojure, I'm super glad that Steve wrote this guide!

0 - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13145864](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13145864)

</comment><comment><USER5> CHIP-8 is pretty fun! Here's one I made in JavaScript w/ debugger: [http://greatcodeclub.github.io/chip8/](http://greatcodeclub.github.io/chip8/)

Code: [https://github.com/greatcodeclub/chip8](https://github.com/greatcodeclub/chip8)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is very neat, but he's right that some won't like the unhygienic variable definitions in the with-chip macro. ;) If I were to do this in Scheme, I'd use a "parameter" called 'current-chip' (think of it like a dynamically scoped variable) and write getter/setter procedures that operate on the current chip. This way everything would remain hygienic. I guess it's just another example of the usual difference in software design between CL and Scheme programmers.

I'm excited to see this blog series develop to the point where there is graphical output.

<comment><USER7> Lack of macro hygiene is just peachy keen among Scheme programmers as long as you are explicit about which identifier bindings can leak into, or out of, the macro definition from the macro call site.

Scheme standards before R6RS[0] were a rough consensus on which language features everyone could agree on as useful additions. That's why only syntax- rules made the cut, not because Scheme programmers object to the ability to break hygiene. Implementors disagreed on which mechanism for breaking hygiene was most "correct", so none made the cut and unhygienic macros weren't standardized.

[0] R6RS, in a break from Scheme tradition, adopted a systemd-esque "come up with a standard for these needed features, any standard, and everybody else needs to fall in line whether or not they like it" approach.

<comment><USER6> >Lack of macro hygiene is just peachy keen among Scheme programmers as long as you are explicit about which identifier bindings can leak into, or out of, the macro definition from the macro call site.

I haven't encountered a single case where I didn't prefer hygiene over an unhygienic solution.

<comment><USER8> I'm not a lisp master, so please take the following with a grain of salt:

One case where you'd want unhygienic capture is with anaphoric macros, which introduce a binding (usually named `it` as in english). For example, using an anaphoric if called aif, we can transform:

        (let ((result (big-long-calculation)))
          (if result
              (foo result)))

into:

        (aif (big-long-calculation)
            (foo it))

cf: [http://www.bookshelf.jp/texi/onlisp/onlisp_15.html](http://www.bookshelf.jp/texi/onlisp/onlisp_15.html)

<comment><USER6> Ah yes, that is a use-case. Though, if I were to implement something like that, I would add an extra set of parens around (big-long-calculation) and specify the name to bind the value to:

        (aif (it (big-long-calculation))
          (foo it))

<comment><USER9> Yep, that's how I do it in Scheme myself, though I've called the construct `let-if` :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Okay but can I get a chip-8 emulator written in dcpu-16 assembly running on redstone?</comment>


Ask HN: How do remote workers separate work and personal life contexts at home? - <AUTHOR> Kinda hard to put it in the title, but I'm wondering how remote workers go about separating their work contexts from their personal lives.<p>I'm an advocate for "work stays at work" and I'm wondering how that works with remote work. I don't deny the benefits or remote work, I'm just having a hard time figuring out how you would go about focusing on just work or just life at home. <comment><USER2> I have been working remotely for the past 8 years, here's what worked for me:

\- separate space that is work only (ideally even a co-working space, but there's no decent one available where I live)

\- establishing with SO that when I'm in that space, I'm "not home"

\- have fixed working hours as consistently as possible (besides making your availability more predictable to others, this also helps on other fronts, like:)

\- work slack and gmail notifications set to on only during work hours, _automatically_ off after

\- set working hours in google calendar (others get a warning if they schedule outside those hours)

\- mark lunch in google calendar

\- when "at work", focus only on work, but when work is done, close everything asap -- even if in the middle of something (it might feel like a waste if you're in the zone, but you pay it the next day if you stay late) -- this was hard to get into, especially the guilt part, but going outside immediately e.g. for a walk/cycling, or something that needs some focus from your part, helped with that

\- although my workstation runs 24/7, I open/close all work related programs (IDE, slack, etc) when "arriving" and "leaving" work, it seems to help the mind cope better with the lack of a physical commute

And as a side-note, choosing a company that is 100% remote makes all that at least an order of magnitude easier because people can relate to what you're going through (bonus points if they also have a life outside work)

</comment><comment><USER3> For me, one of the most crucial ways is to have a separate room where I do work. When I'm in my office, the door is closed. Our daughter is instructed not to interrupt me unless she's been told to do so. She leaves me alone to work while she's home.

When I come out the door gets closed again and it's family time.

I realize not everyone has this option, but for us, it's been amazing.

<comment><USER4> Agreed with this. If you don't have a room, it's worth it to rent out a small office somewhere. Or find a co-working space.

<comment><USER5> At this point what's the point of remote working if you're going to commute to an office and put your butt in a chair.

<comment><USER4> You get to control which office to go to. The HQs where I live are about 3-5 hours daily drive, or moving to a slummy place with insane rent.

Coworking spaces have very nice environments and public transport access. Small offices are usually away from other coworkers, but you can find something near a nice restaurant or next to your kid's school.

Also I'm not sure what you mean by putting your butt in a chair. Would you be working lying in a bed at home?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've had successes and failures working four years remotely, so that's my disclaimer. But the key for me has been to have a dedicated space with a dedicated computer for work. If it's easy to work on the couch you'll do it, so try to never work outside your area (if you can). Only work in your work area.

Also, protect your personal time. Do simple things, like mark out your lunch time on your calendar and don't let meetings creep into it—you'll be surprised how much this can help. Stop work at a time like 5pm and propose alternate times when people schedule things after it. People are usually open to moving meetings and may have not considered your stop time. Time zones make this harder as it's hard to keep track of when lunch is for people. Meetings during personal times should be exceptions.

Try to keep work things off your phone, though that's easier said than done with things like Slack or email. They make it too easy to work without feeling like you're working. I'm failing here currently :)

These above are all things you can do as an individual. But I think the success will also depend on your team. If you are the only remote person, it will be harder than if everyone is distributed. You'll need to ask people to write more and act like everyone is remote because you'll miss out. I've found that if you're the only remote person, it helps if your team works from home a day or two a week so they have to work remotely.

To summarize, set clear boundaries and expectations with yourself and your team with how and when you work and try to move your team to be remote-first.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am not full time remote, but work 2-3 days a week from home (yay flexible schedule).

Having a separate space is key for me. It makes a huge different to have a 'work zone' where I can eliminate distractions as much as possible and be focused when working.

The biggest issue for me personally, is setting boundaries with my SO when I am work from home. She works in-office full time, and when I work from home the 'honey do' requests start to leak in. In reality 'checking the fridge to see if we have x' is not a show stopping distraction, but those types of requests pile up and can interrupt the flow of work. I have to remind her a) I can't always respond in a timely manner, or b) be expected to do any little task (if I have time I will, but I shouldn't be guilt-ed if I say no).

The second biggest issue is turning off my brain at the end of the day. When I work in the office the commute home acts as a nice buffer and de-compression time to reset my brain before getting into 'real person' mode. When I work from home I tend to work longer hours and switching over to social mode is tougher.

It terms of setting boundaries with co-workers/bosses - this is mostly a team specific thing. Luckily my manger and their managers all do a good job of not being work-a-holics. Luckily, as a dev you are only ever required to be available outside your set hours if you are designated on-call or support.

</comment><comment><USER8> I used to be 100% remote (about a year). I had a work computer and a personal computer. Once I shutdown my work computer, I'm done with work. Now it's time for personal life.

I also don't try to install any work related stuff on my personal phone like Slack, work emails, etc.

I guess I had a way to draw a hard line in my mind once I "left for work" by closing my work computer.

During non-working hours, I would also leave home and do a lot of stuff outside of the house with other people: eat out, hang out with friends, etc. I'm pretty introverted, but being inside the house all day for several days straight increased my stress levels. It sneaks up on you.

</comment><comment><USER9> Using work computer only for work. But yeah it's hard, I am struggling with this myself.

</comment><comment><USER10> Everyone can have trouble separating "work" and "home". My wife who does research in machine learning / machine classification has a formal office and lab but also "works" almost every evening including weekends while at home. In some sense, even though she has more traditional "on location" job, she has more trouble separating "work" and "home".

I have worked "remotely" for years. Word of caution, while there are upsides, it can be rather lonely. For me this is the biggest hurdle to cross. Anyways, here is how I keep a separation.

1) Worlds do not collide.

First and most importantly, maintain a work specific environment. If you blend private and work use in a location or on a device, then you will never not be at work. Don't use your work phone or laptop for personal use. If you can dedicate a space in your home as on office then great (I realize not everyone can do this) but do not use your personal phone or laptop for company business.

Don't let work electronics invade your home life. Don't use / take them when with your family. Don't use them after dinner. Don't take them to bed with you. Want to play minecraft with your kids, watch a netflix movie, post on facebook, do game dev on the side, write a book, do your taxes.... Get a personal workstation.

Don't use your personal phone number, personal email, personal dropbox, personal github, personal whatever for work related stuff. I know it would be super convenient to just have your employer connect to your personal dropbox or github account. Just don't.

Finally, when you are sick, be sick. When you need to take the afternoon off to take your kid to the dentist, schedule it and take the time off. Don't half ass your health, family or job.

2) Be more "present" than everyone else.

While the first item is really my direct answer to your question, I do have a further recommendation that will help you be successful as a remote employee. Remote workers are invisible. You don't get the informal back channel communications at coffee or the hallway face time with your boss that an on- site employee gets. You must compensate for this.

Set formal hours when you will be available. Clearly and regularly communicate them to your team and your boss. Be the first on the call/standup. Participate via video and look professional. Kids and pets and other home life should not infiltrate your meetings.

Over document your code and issues, comments and feedback. Provide textbook test cases and instructions. Get clarification of tasks and priorities from your boss and team on a daily basis. One on one communication is great, but small group is even better. Under promise and over deliver, not the other way around. Under no circumstances should you "go silent" or be "heads down" for an extended period of time. When asked, all members of your team should be able to explain what you are working on today.

As a remote employee, you must always be reachable during expected hours. Going to make/get a coffee or use the bathroom? Say so in team chat. "Hey, just going to run and get a coffee" dropped in Slack costs nothing. The alternative will eventually be feedback to your boss that "I can never get a hold of that person".

Good luck with your remote work.</comment>


NSRails - Rails + Objective C Framework - <AUTHOR> http://nsrails.com/

<comment><USER2> The objective-c classes that are part of this framework are prefixed with NS which is reserved by Apple. I am not sure why they are using this prefix. Maybe they don't know objective-c very well or they don't care or whatever. I would love to hear a statement from the developer of NSRails what he has to say about that... Are you reading this?

<comment><USER3> I'm with you one this, I don't even know if Apple would approve apps using NS prefix without their consent.

<comment><USER4> Apple does not inspect your source code when an App is submitted. They only inspect the binary and the metadata of an App.

<comment><USER5> Not true, they scan the binary for symbols. I.e. they check for any usage of private api's. I doubt that they will reject an app just because of their usage of NS.. classes, but on the other hand if the NS... class accidentally has the same name of another internal private Apple API, the app will be rejected (Has happened to other developers already).

<comment><USER4> You should be stripping your binary of symbols. (-strip-all, -s)

I used the word "inspect" carefully. Apple is probably looking for calls to private APIs by looking at the addresses of functions called in your binary with the addresses of private APIs.

They are probably looking for method swizzling of Cocoa APIs by looking at the address passed into method_exchangeImplementations, class_replaceMethod, etc.

Looking at the symbols within a binary is probably more effort than it is worth and probably isn't going to be very effective.

<comment><USER6> The names of all of your classes and messages can be found with `strings` anyways, if they did want to reject based on those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looking at the screencast I was surprised to see this macro syntax being allowed (passing an asterisk here means all properties get synced):

      NSRailsSync(*)

Here's what's happening. Ingenious stuff.

      //adding a # before va_args will simply make its contents a cstring
      #define _MAKE_STR(...)	NSRStringFromCString(#__VA_ARGS__)

      //define NSRailsSync to create a method called NSRailsSync, which returns the entire param list
      #define NSRailsSync(...) \
      + (NSString*) NSRailsSync { return _MAKE_STR(__VA_ARGS__); }

<comment><USER8> Clever.

 _"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it."_

Seeing the recent evolutions, I thought Rails people learned that magic in code leads to debugging unhappiness.

<comment><USER7> I think that quote is about _complex_ code.

We tend to look at macros as dangerous, but this is a pretty clean usage of macros, it's basically a function that turns the arguments into a string. Simple and easy to debug. Don't you think?

Edit: Discussion about that quote: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1103299/help-me- understan...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1103299/help-me-understand- this-brian-kernighan-quote)

<comment><USER8> It's a simple macro that makes you write code that looks like a syntax error, and I don't like that (<http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/05/code- smells.html>).

Especially since without the macro you'd just need to write two characters more or, even better, a clearly named constant, like _kNSRAllProperties_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are there any Javascript libraries that do this same thing? I know backbone.js does, but I am not looking for a full MVC stack.

<comment><USER9> Actually found this: <https://github.com/benpickles/js-model>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Did you know that the Dutch rail company is called NS or is that just a coincindence?

<comment><USER11> NS is the NeXTSTEP class prefix in ObjC, I doubt they're doing anything more than copying that. They shouldn't.

<comment><USER12> Actually, NX is the NeXTSTEP class prefix.

The NS classes were introduced as part of OPENSTEP, which leads some people to suggest that NS = NeXT + Sun.

<comment><USER13> > The NS classes were introduced as part of OPENSTEP

This is incorrect - the NS prefix was introduced in NEXTSTEP along with EOF.

<http://i.imgur.com/MUkXk.png></comment></comment></comment></comment>


RELAY: Static Race Detection on Millions of Lines of Code - <AUTHOR> http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~jvoung/race/ <comment><USER2> Interesting work, but I wish they had put a date on it. The fact that they were working with the 2.6.15 kernel suggests that the work is old now. Certainly you will find few bugs that are fixable in the current kernel by looking at 2.6.15!

My suspicion is that this work is abandoned at this point, which is too bad. The last release tarball is over four years old... We could really use better static analysis tools, but so much of this stuff never seems to escape academia.

<comment><USER3> This was presented at ESEC/FSE 2007, which took place in September, 2007 [1]

1: [http://www.idt.mdh.se/esec-fse-2007/](http://www.idt.mdh.se/esec- fse-2007/)</comment></comment>


Insecam: Large Directory of Unsecure Cameras - <AUTHOR> http://www.insecam.org <comment><USER2> Wow.. This certainly goes to show, the more "secure" you try to make things, the easier they'll try to make it and ruin your security.

www.insecam.org/en/view/386702/ \- Somebody's RSA keyfob with automatic button presser.

<comment><USER3> Wow.... wtf? I'm guessing someone just dropped the camera on a desk without realizing it was on... but still... holy cow...

Edit: I guess you are right. It does seem a bit improbable that you would get such a good reading on the numbers. Definitely scary as fuck...

<comment><USER4> No, this was probably intentional. When there is security, especially corporate mandated, people will find a way to work around it to gain efficiency.

<comment><USER5> Microsoft makes me/us do 2FA ~5-20 times a day, doesn't support U2F and implements 2FA in a way that forces you to type a PIN into the phone rather than the other way around (massive phishing hole they don't seem to care about - sometimes I'll be flooded with 2FA prompts and have _no idea which ones were initiated by me or by an attacker_ ).

I've joked about writing an app on my phone that would just auto-respond to all the 2FA prompts with my PIN, and have been told that other people actually tried to (or did) implement such an application.

Meanwhile I was at a Googler's place a year ago and watched him tap a U2F device on the side of his laptop to complete the second factor. Sigh.

<comment><USER6> _in a way that forces you to type a PIN into the phone rather than the other way around_

Could you explain more what you mean by this? Presumably it's not typing a phone into a PIN...?

<comment><USER5> What closeparen said. Normally the phone gives you the PIN and you type it into the application you just signed into. Gives you some amount of assurance that the second-factor is going to the desired party.

Instead, MS's 2FA send a notification to your phone where you type in a static, pre-defined PIN. There is no way of knowing what actor or application triggered the 2FA request.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well someone have started to hack these camera to display a message to the owners: [http://www.insecam.org/en/view/402371/](http://www.insecam.org/en/view/402371/) In case it get's fixed this one now says "everone can watch your home, reset the camera" "reset your cam and use a password next time !"

</comment><comment><USER8> Puppies! [http://www.insecam.org/en/view/245507/](http://www.insecam.org/en/view/245507/)

<comment><USER9> Awwww so cuuuutee, Wait those are mine! ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I stopped when seeing that the 3rd canadian camera on the list was in someone's living room. I dont want my ip showing up on thier router's logs when they contact police after noticing all the traffic. I really hope they dont have kids in front of that camera.

An open door is not an invitation to trespass, especially when it has obviously been left open in error.

<comment><USER3> Not sure if the door analogy works here.

I can't think of a better analogy, but what if I had a Polaroid camera and go around taking pictures in my property and then throwing those pictures away on the street. If a stranger picks up one (or several) of those pictures, would you consider that trespassing as well?

I'm not saying I am for or against this, but it's definitely a tricky subject. Obviously part of that trickiness is because complex tools (for the general populace) are being sold as simple tools, and so people who buy them have no idea what they are capable of or what is the proper way of using them (securing them with a password, etc).

<comment><USER11> The case might turn on whether the owners of the camera suffer damage (which here means basically "how upset do the owners of the camera get) and whether a _reasonable person_ would feel they'd been invited to watch this particular camera _by the owners of the camera_.

That's a lot of uncertainty to shoulder just for the joy of looking at someone's incidentally public camera feed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> A feed to watch an An Altair 8800 computer?

[http://www.insecam.org/en/view/376032/](http://www.insecam.org/en/view/376032/)

This is...puzzling...

Edit: Ah... it says "You can play Zork and Ladder on this computer and watch as the LED flashes !"

</comment><comment><USER12> This is a hack I build with some friends based on that list: [http://surveillance.life/](http://surveillance.life/)

<comment><USER13> It's times like these that I wish MS hadn't axed "Active Desktop" from their newer oses.

Back then you could make an html file with one frame or iframe and point it to a website like this or embed a flash stream.

You could just embed this website and have random webcams as background and your icons and everything else would still work normally on top of your new "background".

Eventually the embedded IE would crash and you'd press F5 and it would fix itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This seems like a very inconvenient way to store your car collection [http://www.insecam.org/en/view/374821/](http://www.insecam.org/en/view/374821/)

<comment><USER15> It's that Jay Lenos collection?

<comment><USER16> His cars (all of them?) in the burbank airport.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There was a similar site, who's name I cannot remember, that was up for a year as a infosec experiment around 2011, 2012. The neat feature about that one was the ability to put in a zip code and see all of the unsecured cameras in that area.

</comment><comment><USER18> Here is a very weird one. Anyone want to take a guess as to what this is?

[http://www.insecam.org/en/view/168715/](http://www.insecam.org/en/view/168715/)

<comment><USER19> This is the actual feed: [http://126.96.36.199/mjpg/video.mjpg?COUNTER](http://126.96.36.199/mjpg/video.mjpg?COUNTER) (site just shows "No" for me on your link)

That's a Foucault pendulum.

The pendulum on that feed belongs to the geophysical institute of the university of munich.

Eg. [https://www.geophysik.uni-muenchen.de/outreach/foucault- pend...](https://www.geophysik.uni-muenchen.de/outreach/foucault-pendulum/das- foucaultsche-pendel?set_language=de)

<comment><USER20> Definitely my favourite! :)

[http://126.96.36.199/view/viewer_index.shtml?id=1362](http://18.104.22.168/view/viewer_index.shtml?id=1362)

And this link lets you change the "feed profile"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I sell and install security systems as a side-gig (fell into it and its high margin/low effort sale). People demand easy to remember passwords. Ive tried to somehow get them to use better passwords but they always call me to change it. I still try to get them to use a strong password, though.

<comment><USER22> I'm curious which systems you prefer. I have an irrational aversion to paying a subscription fee, but it seems to take some effort to set up Motion or Zoneminder with recording and mobile alerting, and ease of use lags behind cloud services.

Oh, and cheaper cameras support only mjpeg, which makes live viewing high- bandwidth.

What software/hardware do you use?

<comment><USER21> I sell commercial-level stuff. Cant remember the brand from memory. A friend who is in the security business (he works with factories and similar sized clientele) sources them for me. He is the expert. I merely sell and install it. I lack any real interest in this market and mostly easily sell them because other installers are really shady. No real marketing or sales effort. People just call me and I name the price. It pays to treat people well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is this because of unsecure credentials? If so, would it be OK for someone to change those credentials?

<comment><USER24> Probably not legally these days (CFAA and all) but sadly, insecam is viewed as sort of the "bush league" of messing with unsecured cameras.

See: [http://8ch.net/ipcam/index.html](http://8ch.net/ipcam/index.html)

for how people use Shodan and other tools to do some fairly shady things. It's like grey hat at best (find these things and move them around/leave messages to secure your cams) and serious invasion of privacy at worst (people trading caps of women undressing, people having sex, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not surprisingly, some of the locations are incorrect. A camera listed as being in British Columbia[0] is actually located in Quebec[1].

      [0]http://www.insecam.org/en/view/392890/
      [1]https://goo.gl/bG4sxk</comment>