Ask HN: Please Critique my Startup, Slidingboxes.com - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
Quick personal background: My name is Ziad Hilal, I've been working full time for 2 years as a web developer for an interactive agency. Before this job I had started a company called "Subdreamer" which I ran for 7 years until I sold it. Unfortunately the next project I started afterwards didn't do well and I burned through my savings which is why I'm now working for someone else.
Getting a job was hard for me because deep down I've always been more of an entrepreneur than developer. I do well in my job, I've been promoted to senior developer, received raises, and enjoyed the projects. However, I never felt satisfied because at the end of the day I was working for someone else, following someone else's dream.
Starting a personal project while working full time is extremely difficult. By the time I'm finished with my job I'm usually too tired to do any further work. But it's definitely possible and that's what I've been doing on the weekends for the past year and a half. All those weekends add up and I'm finally finished with my project.
It's called "Sliding Boxes" and is a portfolio website for creative professionals: http://www.slidingboxes.com/
It's a freemium SAAS model (using Stripe to process payments). I'm aware there's a lot of competition in the portfolio websites department. The goal was to create something that looked really great (single page application, lots of JS) and worked well on tablets as well. Here's a portfolio example: http://lucalagreca.slidingboxes.com/
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I'm a huge fan of Hacker News, have been reading this site for years and it has always inspired me to keep on pushing forward.
Thanks, Ziad Hilal <comment><USER2> I don't think you're emphasizing what you think are your biggest advantages over others.

Your main screenshot is static, which means it looks as basic as any carbonmade/etc. portfolio site already out there: boxes on a screen. Since your page customization is fairly low compared to your competitors, you're all in with this sliding design, and you need to put it in front of everyone in a big way.

Does HTML5 mean anything to non-developer types? I'm not sure that everyone associates HTML5 with "works on all devices". Does your target market know multi-device display is a problem (and is it a problem with your competitors?) If not, you need to explain why you have something better to offer.

Also, personally, the Steve Jobs-esq language (i.e., "Show off your work in the most incredible way.") is a little off-putting, especially if all one can see up-front is static boxes on a screen.

<comment><USER3> Agree with you, sir. I'm not the target market, but I'm not entirely sure how this application differentiates itself against the bigger names in the space (namely Carbonmade). I'd be interested to hear what the OP says.

<comment><AUTHOR> Carbonmade is plain and basic. And while I tend to believe that less is more, the only real customization they offer is allowing their artists to select between 2 different background colors.

With Sliding Boxes, my goal is to offer artists a more beautiful and customizable canvas for their work. Boxes on the portfolio's front page slide to reveal other artwork. And because it's built as a one page application, page transitions are sublime: <http://lucalagreca.slidingboxes.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks great! I have little experience in this market, but regarding plans/pricing:

1\. 5 projects seems like a lot of projects for a "Free" plan

2\. Nothing differentiates "Basic" from "Pro" other than numbers. Google analytics and custom backgrounds / white labeling seem like "Pro" features to me.

3\. Pro should cost more, and possibly just include "Unlimited" images (if someone actually ends up abusing this, that might be a good problem to have).

<comment><USER5> I agree with raising the prices. If you feel worried that Sliding Boxes 'is not worth it,' remember that pricing can be highly psychological. When I see something that is $7/month, I don't think of something that is of great quality. That's a coffee and a half (at Starbucks). There are many different opinions on this subject, but your site seems pretty great so far.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say my biggest competitor is Carbon Made, they charge $12/per month and also have a free plan which gives 5 projects and 35 images. Being new to the market, I thought it would be a good idea to offer a better looking product for a few bucks cheaper. An incentive for their customers to make the switch.

<comment><USER6> This is a great idea in my opinion. Every time someone posts a project here everyone says "CHARGE MORE!". I think I remember people telling some guy with a jQuery plugin for giving website walk throughs to charge like $20 a month or something.

Your logic and pricing seems sound as long as its enough to sustain the company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks good, performs well, I like it. I'm not your target market so I don't know how much "advice" I could offer though. Pimping "HTML5 Technology" seems weird to me but that's no big deal. The only thing I thought of was that you might put up an annual payment option.

</comment><comment><USER8> You might want to update the "Create an amazing portfolio" to "Amazing Portfolio for Artists" or something like that. You mention "made for artists" a little below but i think it should be in the main tagline.

</comment><comment><USER8> clickable <http://www.slidingboxes.com/></comment>


BBC voice assistant will learn regional accents. Beta released. - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52891155 <comment><USER2> [Suggestion irrelevant now – thanks!]

<comment><AUTHOR> Done.</comment></comment>


A discussion about the breaking of the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-breaking-of-the-internet-3d4d2a83aa4d <comment><USER3> Not sure why kik thought this post would make them look better. While "Bob's" choice of words is soft and creepy-friendly, his request wasn't. The npm escalation after Azer gave what they wanted, a price for "the hassle" of changing the project name, really shows what they really wanted is the name for cheap. They might say "unreasonable", but it really means "unreasonable to us".

It also shows they don't know how to negotiate at all, but that's tangential. You don't escalate to threat and then let the other side anchor the price.

And while if I was Azer I would have renamed the project (because someone else has a trademark on it), if I was kik I wouldn't pretend that bringing lawyers and being unable to negotiate is "a polite request", because imaginarily "I don't mean to be a dick"

<comment><USER4> > It also shows they don't know how to negotiate at all, but that's > tangential.

They tried to. But how do you negotiate with a guy that doesn't want to negotiate and calls you a dick?

<comment><USER5> Don't know where you see that fantasy? In the chain that kik published (probably the one that they thought made them look the best - mind you), I saw a load of passive aggressive/weasel words. Where's the offer?

If I call you up and bug you to do something for me (a stranger mind you); then it is up to me to come right out and explain the value proposition. Not hem and haw, dancing here and there - hoping that you will just drop to your knees, just because. And then when you don't - I can then get mad and threaten you? What world do you want to live in? That one sounds insane to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is ludicrous.

> "hahah, you're actually being a dick. so, fuck you. don't e-mail me back."

This is the developer the community gathered behind? Not only is that incredibly unprofessional (to say the least), kik is a registered trademark.

And - I've said this before, but I will repeat it here - unpublishing all your modules from npm ("liberating") is such a selfish and childish move, especially when so many people depend on your modules. That's the behavior of a preschooler. That's not "power to the people," as Azer put it in his original post. That's just an attempt to show that Azer has the power to bring chaos to the ecosystem.

People are so quick to jump to the defense of someone who is having their "freedom" suppressed, without knowledge of the situation.

<comment><USER7> Since when do people have to be 100% professional in all their dealings 24 hours everyday in order to be in the right?

<comment><USER8> Maybe not professional at all times, but what about polite?

<comment><USER9> I think threatening someone with lawyers is exactly what it sounds like: a threat. This is not polite behavior even if the text was written in a polite manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Am I the only one that doesn't have a problem with Azer here? So what if he wasn't super professional. He's got a guy invoking "lawyers will come and mess with you if you don't do this for us." That same guy then goes to npm afterwards and says "please, Azer wont do what we want."

I'd be a little pissed too.

<comment><USER10> I agree with you. Azer's response was pretty normal and understandable considering the circumstances. I too would be extremely annoyed if a corporate lawyer threatened me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Under close reading, I can't help but wonder if this was all just a big misunderstanding. What sticks out to me is this line from the third email:

       ... if you actually release an open source project called kik, our trademark lawyers ...

But that makes no sense! The "open source project" Azer is talking about is already out in the open[1]. "Actually release" is an extremely weird way to talk about that, right?

That makes me wonder if when Bob saw "Sorry, I'm building an open source project with that name", he read, "There is a larger project called 'kik' I'm working on, maybe including a web site, marketing materials, other developers, SEO..." That would raise a flag, right?

So he tries to point out, quite reasonably, that they'd really have no choice but to try to protect their trademark in that case. They'd have to go after the domain name, the Twitter handle, anything else that was confusing consumers about what "kik" refers to. Wouldn't it be easier for everyone to change the name _before all that stuff is launched_?

But of course Azer doesn't have plans for any of that, and he didn't pick up on the hint, so what he hears is "Contrary to our claim to be friendly, we're planning to get our lawyers involved to shut down your npm module." And his response is, understandably though maybe not rationally, "Fuck you."

And here we are.

[1] [https://github.com/azer/kik](https://github.com/azer/kik)

<comment><USER12> What makes me wonder is that nobody mentions the fact that they'd have a really hard time to fight for the 3-letter word "kik". A quick search in the USPTO's Tess database or WIPO's ROMARIN shows that there are way too many registrations under this name to make protection of a word mark likely (disclaimer: I'm very far from being a trademark expert, just interested in all the shenanigans some companies try to play under the name of patent/copyright/trademark laws).

Edit: Even worse, they don't seem to have a word mark registered. It's a design plus words mark (so basically, they protected their logo, not the word "kik"). [http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4805:1rt...](http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4805:1rtlwo.3.14)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > We're sorry for creating any impression that this was anything more than a > polite request.

This is some truly epic weasel-wording, surely. It is literally impossible to read "our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that" as not being "anything more than a polite request". That's not how language _works_.

Maybe you mean to say that you regret explicitly threatening Azer with the full force of your lawyers?

<comment><USER14> It isn't a threat though, the company has no choice but to enforce their trademark when they see it infringed. Otherwise they lose the right to that trademark. That's the mess trademark law is in, fail to enforce it once, and that will risk any future trademark action.

<comment><USER15> If they were honestly worried about trademark, they would have asked him to put a 'Not affiliated with Kik interactive, inc.' in his readme. His project is still on Github.

They weren't worried about trademarks, they wanted the NPM package name.

<comment><USER8> Which, perhaps, could have been arranged, were not for the childish responses?

<comment><USER13> No, Azer's wish was to be left alone to continue to use kik for the open source project he created.

<comment><USER16> He offered it to them for $30k according to that medium post. Thats something

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd have a really hard time saying with a straight face that the _Bob Stratton (Mar 11, 11:26)_ message was in keeping with it being nothing more than a polite request.

I guess I think the expectations of the dev aren't very realistic either, but I don't see what the goal of this post is, the messages pasted onto it don't paint the picture that the first part of the post tries to say exists.

<comment><USER18> The second Bob Stratton response (the one implying that lawyers will rain fire and brimstone down on Azer if he does not comply) was so far from a "polite request" that it implies something is wrong with Mike Roberts understanding of "polite" for him to say what he did.

What Mike Roberts should have done, upon seeing Bob Stratton's second email, is walked over to Bob's office/cube/desk/where-ever and had a very long heart- to-heart talk with Bob about his incredibly poor handling of the situation.

<comment><USER17> The language is amiable enough, it just isn't in any way a request, it's a statement that they believe their trademark is being infringed and that they will enforce it.

<comment><USER18> It is a overt threat of lawyers attacking if he does not comply.

Nothing "amiable" about it. It is a threat, pure and simple.

<comment><USER19> It's not unreasonable by any means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Funny how there are two sides of a story. Azer's representation of his message 'hahah, you're actually being a dick. so, fuck you. don't e-mail me back.' as 'My answer was "no"' is disingenuous.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, I don't know. Azer was very rude, and yes, the Kik guy was very polite. However, if you strip away the tone of the messages, it pretty much boils down to this:

"We want this name. Will you sell it to us?"

 _" No"_

"We are going to take this name by force if we have to. Will you sell it to us?"

 _" No"_

"What would it take for you to sell it to us?"

 _" 30,000"_

"NPM, give us this name or we bring in lawyers and use legal force."

<comment><USER19> I'm no lawyer, but if Kik's assertion of 'because you have to enforce trademarks or you lose them' is true then I understand their actions - that's just the world we live in.

It was decent of the Kik guys to try and amicably sort it out before calling in the lawyers given the situation, though admittedly it's also cheaper for them this way. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect confusion between Kik's product and Azer's node module - the names are identical. NPM's stance is kind of covered by their policy[0], point 3.

[0] [https://www.npmjs.com/policies/disputes#description](https://www.npmjs.com/policies/disputes#description)

<comment><USER21> _I 'm no lawyer, but if Kik's assertion of 'because you have to enforce trademarks or you lose them' is true then I understand their actions - that's just the world we live in._

To which I say:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/4bnrn4/a_discu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/4bnrn4/a_discussion_about_the_breaking_of_the_internet/d1aw3d7)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> When they asked the question, _Is there nothing we can do for you that would compensate you for the hassle of changing the name?_ , what was a reasonable response?

>> Yeah, you can buy it for $30.000 for the hassle of giving up with my pet project for bunch of corporate dicks

Obviously that wasn't the correct response. What should he have asked for, that Kik would have complied with?

"Send me a loaded MacBook Pro"

"I'll take $250 Starbucks gift card"

?

<comment><USER23> probably leaving the "corporate dicks" part off would have been enough. Maybe the don't fork over the $30k but they'd probably have made an offer at least. Calling them "a bunch of corporate dicks" at the end makes it clear you're just throwing out what you think is a high enough number to tell them to fuck off.

<comment><USER24> That's a negotiating strategy. Not calling them dicks, but when someone pressures you to make the first offer and you don't know what ballpark you're in, toss out a really high number and see what happens. In this case the response was thinly-veiled legal threats.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > I found out about this problem like a lot of you, when our builds started > failing because we use the extremely helpful JSCS. Through a long chain of > dependencies, JSCS relied on firstname.lastname@example.com, which was removed by the author > yesterday. Our team was confused at the time as well.

I love the irony on this

<comment><USER26> They forgot that internet does not run on law but on good will of capable people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think Azer should have just said no, waited for npm to force the rename/removal and then pulled all of the repo's. To me, this thread reeks of corporate damage control.

Also it should be stated that mproberts spent the last 6 years ladder climbing at Kik and I can understand that this likely feels like his baby.

But Kik's self-entitlement in this case is abhorrent. The package has existed for years and imposing themselves on the developer the way they did is sad, but not surprising given the current patent/trademark climate.

It's clear that npm has also done some cleaning, they've gone and tried to remove all evidence of the kik npm package being available in the first place. Even the single "kik" page on npmjs.com has been removed from the Wayback Machine. Talk about thorough.

<comment><USER28> It is not removed from the Wayback Machine. It was never in the Wayback Machine.

<comment><USER27> Ah, I stand corrected. Cheers Greg.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So Kik's point is essentially: "We were really polite about threatening Azer"

</comment><comment><USER30> It's sad to see someone behave so poorly over something like this.

But I can't blame his anger for "breaking the Internet." The blame for that goes squarely on npm, who allow unpublishing of modules.

What if you... couldn't do that?

<comment><USER31> Most other packaging systems use an owner/name model for package naming, which would have prevented the entire debacle.

<comment><USER30> Really? Which ones? I've only every worked with ones that allow you to register particular names, except for Vim and how it downloads packages from GitHub.

<comment><USER32> I know Meteor pushed all of their package management to a namespaced system: [https://atmospherejs.com/](https://atmospherejs.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wow, pretty rude response by Azer. I get being anti-corporate and all, but there are human beings involved here. A more polite response might have gone a long way.

kik could have named it something like 'kik-api' or use a private namespace ('@kik/api'), but it seems like Azer just goaded them into a legal course of action.

<comment><USER15> Yes, there are human beings involved here. The sort that contact you out of the blue and tell you "I don't want to be a dick", and then threaten to have "our trademark lawyers [...] banging on your door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that ".

And you think Azer is the one being rude?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I think it's important to note that none of this was Kik's fault, really. Kik isn't the first company to send a trademark email to an open source project, and likely won't be the last. This merely shone a light on an area of NPM that was problematic.

The resulting behavior and side effects in NPM is unfortunate, but I'm pretty glad it happened so that it'll hopefully get addressed.

<comment><USER35> Yes. It's not Kik's fault.

Yes. I'm glad that we have a moment when we can try to discuss and influence how this problem will be addressed.

But... (maybe I'm reading this wrong) what, exactly, is problematic with NPM?

@thedz, I'm not really picking on you, but the words you've used have made it clear to me that there is an assumption underlying this issue that's pretty common. The assumption that this conflict is a problem with NPM, i.e., with open-source.

Is that really true? And if it is, should it be?

Let's hypothesize that for the most part the "corporate world" and the "open source community" keep to themselves, have their own concerns, and don't conflict. -- When they do conflict, why does anyone assume that corporation should get its way, that their concerns are more legitimate?

It's as though we believe that, unless you get paid for something you do/make, it's not yours and you don't have any rights to it. We should think about that. And then we should look at the thing that Kik did to try and draw Azer into their world (onto their turf): they offered to pay him for it. They tried to to transmute something he was doing for free into something that belongs to the world of money.

I agree that it's not Kik's fault. They're just a company. Or rather, "it" is just a company. You can't expect it to act like a person. -- But this just hammers home the point that I'm trying to make, that these are really and truly different worlds colliding. Its not a big thing vs. a small thing. Its two different kinds of things. And we can't just default and use the terms and ways of the bigger thing to decide how to mediate the conflict. That's not right. That lazy. At best. Really it's just cowardly. A failure to think. A failure to believe that anything has meaning.

(Turns out there's a whole phenomenon studied in historiography (that's the academic discipline that studies how history is made) about how when two parties go to war, it is inevitably perceived through the lens of power and technology, -- specifically that the side with better technology is in the "right". Hm.)

In this context, it's uncanny that the discussion has centered around "who was polite" and "how much money". That's not really what this whole conflict is about. It's about whether we value a person's labor, and whether we're willing to devalue it if a company says "jump".

<comment><USER36> > But... (maybe I'm reading this wrong) what, exactly, is problematic with > NPM?

I think the problem is that people should not (except in rare circumstances) be able to just remove packages. They should be immutable and have versions associated with them so that your builds are reproducible.

Sure I think that in some cases you should be able to have them removed like if there is a security vulnerability or something but I don't think some guy being upset should be sufficient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That whole thing is crazy, but what sickens me the most in this article is this part:

> Isaac: In this case, we believe that most users who would come across a kik > package, would reasonably expect it to be related to kik.com. In this > context, transferring ownership of these two package names achieves that > goal.

How is that remotely a reason? Is a .com domain a trademark now?

</comment><comment><USER37> A trademark is not required to be defended against any and all usages.

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does- not...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require- companies-tirelessly-censor-internet)

</comment><comment><USER38> A character string like "kik" should not be trademarkeable, period.

It's an obvious spelling play on a common dictionary word in standard English, of ancient origin. Should "thru" and "nite" be trademark names?

And it's just too darn short.

<comment><USER39> I think it's entirely reasonable. Trademarks are not like copyrights or patents - they don't have to be novel ideas or anything, and they don't do very much. Trademarks exist to protect a brand, and that's it. For example, "Subway" is a perfectly normal, historical word, and it hurts no one for Subway Sandwiches to have a trademark on it; I can talk about it here with impunity, I can write novels about subways, I can even start a business called "Subway" as long as I don't sell sandwiches. Seems okay to me.

More broadly, if you don't allow English words or spelling plays on English words, what's left to allow? Chinese? Line noise?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> You can say Kik was a dick, but they were actually super nice about it. They own the name kik in world trademark offices (this is a long and expensive process), they, under law, would be considered a famous mark and get the highest trademark protections, and they wanted to release a package called kik. If they didn't get Azer to change it, they would lose their entire trademark (it seems silly, but true).

I actually have received a nasty Trademark C&D in the past from NY attorneys (I live in Canada), and being told by our lawyers that it's actually on the "friendly" side of C&Ds they've seen. So what Kik did, and not get lawyers involved was actually the best way to handle it. Just look at the C&D and convo between Pair and Pair on TechCrunch.

Azer was actually the one being a dick, responding with "fuck you". You wouldn't expect someone to name an npm package called Disney or Apple or Microsoft or Intel.

Side note: if Kik were really being dicks, they could have sued Azer and forced him to appear in court, and Azer would likely lose. Also, kik also has a unique spelling and Kik owns Kik.com, it makes it harder for Azer to argue "look at square" (where square is too generic of a word). Trademarks are weird, and unless you're a trademark lawyer or been sued, they may come across as stupid, but they really aren't.

</comment><comment><USER5> Kik (the company) are some shady ass m/f'ers. Yet the open source programmer is getting all of the lashes for telling them off? "He could of used a more grown up tone...???"

Also - NPM really dropped the ball. Shows how little they care about the developers that make them relevant in the first place.

Lastly - at the end of the day Azer's holding a big bag of jack....And has had his work effectively stolen (I'm referring to left-pad). How does this incentivize anyone to put their work in this resource going forward?

Azer is the hero of this story - make no mistake. He refused to make way for a big corporation, his only mistake was trusting that his choice of software host would have his back. Shame on npm and shame on kik.

</comment><comment><USER41> Curiously the "square" package linked by Azer has been removed (by npm or the contributor ? ).

I would be curious of how many package are being affected by these ripples and will end up being removed/renamed.

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/square](https://www.npmjs.com/package/square).

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PL8U_6...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PL8U_6u5TIAJ:https://www.npmjs.com/package/square+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=jp)

<comment><USER42> Has it? Still there for me,

does come with this warning though:

This project is discontinued, better compilers (i.e. gulp.js for instance) are around and should be used. Use at your own risk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> kik actually looks worse after this post. So, they kept bringing up the L-word (lawyer), when they clearly know they don't have a case. Basically, they really are dicks.

</comment><comment><USER44> Definitely could have been handled better on both sides. Kik should have just bluntly offered $N (where $N was however much it was worth to avoid bringing in lawyers) and bluntly offered it up front. Hinting around like "is there something we could do for you" seems disingenuous.

</comment><comment><USER45> Like threats on your well-being and earnings is not "being a dick".

None of us should be subject to such behavior no matter how many trademarks, patents, consumers or money they have.

They should name their package kik/dick-kik so it "won't be confused" with other packages. Ever.

</comment><comment><USER46> Ok, I know some people like the openness presented here by Kik and don't like Azer's response, but I just wanted to point this out from the perspective of a teacher who works with children from kindergarten to the 9th grade. If you get a short response like this as the first reply:

> Sorry, I'm building an open source project with that name.

This indicates that the person feels an emotional attachment to the name. Also, since the response is short and to the point, it is clear that they don't see any logical reason to give in. When responding to this, you __need __to use empathy (honestly, something severely lacking in a lot of these types of conflicts in the programming world). So rather than responding with this:

> We don't mean to be a dick about it, but it's a registered Trademark in most > countries around the world and if you actually release an open source > project called kik, our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your > door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that — and we'd have no > choice but to do all that because you have to enforce trademarks or you lose > them.

A good, proper response would have been something that:

1\. Explains that Kik is their company's name and why not being able to use it would put them in a hard spot. Yes, it would be reiterating the point from the first email, but objectively, that first email wasn't exactly clear. No company links, no explanation of what this "important" package is, etc. __NEVER __expect someone that you are asking a favor from to go out of their way to figure out what you are saying. That 's your responsibility.

2\. Don't mention trademarks or lawyering up. That's a power play and all teachers know that you don't need to wield the authority stick most of the time. With something like this, it's worse because you are threatening a person's livelyhood. If that's your go to response, you will 100% get instantly shut out both emotionally and logically. Expect compromise to end right there.

3\. When asking for a favor, cause this is a favor, and trying to compromise, don't ask them what they want. They obviously want the package name. For those of you who have been in salary negotiations before, this should ring a bell. This is a power play by Kik to give up as little as possible for what they want. __Kik __is the one asking a favor. Say the word __favor __. Make it known that __Azer __would be doing a good thing by compromising and helping you out. Make the first offer. Give Azer something to think about and go from there.

Having seen Kik's initial attempts at communication, I can now 100% understand Azer's response. It's the obvious result. Immature? Overblown? Honestly, this is pretty much par for the course with most humans no matter the age. Some of us are just better at stopping and taking a moment to think before replying. On the internet where you cannot see who you are talking to? There is even less of a barrier.

I can make a lot of parallels to teaching and working with children, but I think what I wrote should be clear enough. Kik is in the wrong here and really needs to apologize for their actions - to the community and to Azer - <USER2> should put in some effort to helping NPM fix this fiasco.

</comment><comment><USER47> I find it quite masterful the way Bob introduces a certain level of language with his opening sentence: (quote) "We don't mean to be a dick about it". Azer totally takes the bait and the rest of the email exchange descends into reusing that word a lot, quite rude really. So glad I managed to avoid to have to code in the mess that is the Javascript ecosystem so far. Oops I got to start on an Angular project soon :-p

</comment><comment><USER48> They do have Azer's consent to publish the mails he wrote, right?

</comment><comment><USER49> Here is Azer's side of the story: [https://medium.com/@azerbike/i-ve-just- liberated-my-modules-...](https://medium.com/@azerbike/i-ve-just-liberated-my- modules-9045c06be67c#.tvwbzt249)

</comment><comment><USER50> If he changed the name as they asked, would that make it I findable ("break the Internet")? (Sorry, don't know how nam works.)

<comment><USER50> Edit: Meant to say, if he changed the name, would it make it _unfindable_?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I am really, heartily sick of people saying "X broke the Internet".

The World Wide Web is but a subset of the Internet. It's one of systems that comprises it.

</comment><comment><USER52> I recently published some thoughts around the whole kik-developer controversy (before this official response): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11346987](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11346987)

I'm still going through these emails, but I will give Kik credit for at least being polite about the whole thing - I criticized them in my post earlier about not representing the Canadian tech industry well through their legal action haha</comment>


The Facebook - Amazon comparison - <AUTHOR> http://www.eugenewei.com/2012/8/18/the-facebook-amazon-comparison

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing, that was an interesting read. I agree that comparing the two isn't really viable given the different set of circumstances that each faced (location, competition, investor atmosphere, etc).</comment>


Hubris : A Trojan Horse for Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://fp-syd.googlegroups.com/web/haskell-hubris.pdf

<comment><USER2> _Provably safe at compile time_

Is this true? I was under the impression that the Haskell standard didn't formally specify its type semantics. Do works like <http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~mpj/thih/> "count" (i.e., is it the canonical reason we presume Haskell's type system is provably sound)? Honest question.

</comment><comment><USER3> So it's a way to call Haskell from Ruby? Where does the Trojan horse come in? Presentations don't work so well with just the slides.

<comment><USER4> I think the idea is, it's a way to sneak Haskell in to environments that otherwise wouldn't use them.

<comment><USER5> yep, that was the idea. (Well, that, and I'm hoping that once Ruby hackers try Haskell, they'll be forever corrupted by the Functional side of the force.)</comment></comment></comment>


ASK HN: What are the most effective tips to deal with Twitter addiction? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> 1\. Change your password, logout.

2\. Uninstall the Twitter client from your phone.

<comment><AUTHOR> I still somehow crawled back to forgot password after some days.</comment></comment>


NES classic 'Punch-Out' has an Easter egg that went undiscovered for 29 years - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2016/04/11/punch-out-has-an-easter-egg-that-went-undiscovered-for-29-years <comment><USER2> Well, 'undiscovered' means nobody can find a reference to it on google. My cousin noticed this around 1989, I very clearly remember him yelling at me when I did it wrong. He didn't bother to put a dated reference to it on the internet at the time...

<comment><USER3> Haha! Yeah, I'd bet money that this has been found by dozens, if not hundreds of people independently over the years. The entire trick to winning the game (as my ridiculously-talented ex-roommate once taught me) is to watch carefully for subtle timing cues and use them to punch at the correct moment - if you do it right, you can win very consistently. So people have been scouring the pixels for these kind of cues since the game first came out!

<comment><USER4> You can even do it [without sight]([https://youtu.be/CvzIb53Lcno](https://youtu.be/CvzIb53Lcno)). And yeah, TAS'ers, speedrunners and others have been analyzing these games bit by bit (literally) for years. I'd be surprised if this hadn't been found before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If anybody remembers "PlayFun" by Tom7 ([http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/mario/](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/mario/)), which learns playing NES games by locally trying to optimize a bunch of objective functions based on lexicographical ordering of the bytes of the NES Ram. That system probably would've found the easter egg, because it can look into the future to find the best moves. Tom7 did try Punch-Out, but his AI- player lost the game before reaching the bosses mentioned in the easter egg: [https://youtu.be/YGJHR9Ovszs?t=4m39s](https://youtu.be/YGJHR9Ovszs?t=4m39s)

<comment><USER5> The easter egg isn't the fact that there's a moment when you can knock out your opponent with one hit, that was already known. The easter egg is the small visual cue in the background that indicates when to punch. I assume that this program would learn when to punch, but if it's running the simulation forward to figure it out then it would just be doing it because it works, not because of a visual cue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So the ducking head tell is supposed to be an Easter egg? Doesn't really fit the definition in my mind. Or am I misunderstanding?

Hard to believe nobody noticed this in the last ~30 years.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, this definitely seems like a wrong use of the word easter egg to me, and I'm trying hard not to let it bother me.

<comment><USER8> Wikipedia's definition:

>An Easter egg is an intentional inside joke, hidden message, or feature in an interactive work such as a computer program, video game or DVD menu screen.

The headbobbing, the camera flashing etc. are hidden hints/messages from the programmer to the player, so I'd say the term fits

<comment><USER9> Except it isn't hidden.

<comment><USER8> A non-hidden message would be "PUNCH NOW", not some guy in the background nodding

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why couldnt someone just reverse engineer the source code? It seems to me conditional jumps would be a good start and maybe work backwards from things that look like auto wins.

I doubt the team had the budget or bytes to obfuscate the bytecode.

<comment><USER11> I'm not going to look at the code, but this guy's head-bob animation does occupy a privileged position early in the sprite table:

[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6821374/Screen%20Shot%20...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6821374/Screen%20Shot%202016-04-13%20at%205.13.44%20PM.png)

Of course if that makes it a hint, then it suggests the sprite right next to it (the guy on the right side of the audience with glasses) is also some kind of clue... does anybody know that one?

<comment><USER11> Found it... it's a clue for Super Macho Man:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcJneBFV9cI&t=32m33s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcJneBFV9cI&t=32m33s)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this is just a coincidence. There's probably co-incident timings that cause his duck motion to happen at the same time as the punch.

<comment><USER13> It happens at the same time you need to throw a punch in order to land it on the boss, not at the same time the boss is about to throw a punch. It's not periodic, so the idea that the displayed behavior is mere coincidence is implausible at best.

<comment><USER14> I think what gburt is trying to say is that the timings for the head-bob and the boss's vulnerability are probably driven by the same RNG results, and thus are coincidental rather than intentional. This doesn't imply that they don't always align 100%, only that the developers may not have put purposeful thought into their coincidental timings.

<comment><USER15> But these are super punches by the boss that may knock the player out in one hit, so it isn't a common punch for the boss to use. If I remember correctly, the timing and number of times the super punch is used is loosely based on how well you are doing. I remember feeling that if you are winning handily the super punches come out sooner and more often.

I would suppose an easy test is to go the full round without attacking the boss and see if that spectator does the head nod at any point other than during the super punch.

<comment><USER16> That would not disprove what Zikes is proposing. Zikes (and gburt, and myself) are saying that it's possible the two actions are _coincidentally_ linked. We are not arguing they are not linked, just that the fact they are linked does not necessarily mean they were intentionally linked by the developer. We all agree on the events in the game, we're talking about intent. The only way to know would be to ask the developer.

<comment><USER17> This doesn't take all that much speculation.

[http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/04/decades-later-a-new- mi...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/04/decades-later-a-new-mike-tysons- punch-out-easter-egg-has-been-found/)

The developers are quoted halfway down the page as having included the timing cues for opponents intentionally.

We (the gaming community) have known this since 2009 when that interview came out, so it's kind of amusing that people are making tech-based arguments trying to debunk a cultural fact they aren't familiar with. It _could_ have been an unintentional artifact of the PRNG, sure, but it isn't. At the very least it was intentionally not removed.

If nothing else, those cues probably helped QA quite a bit.

<comment><USER12> I agree now that it is not likely to have been a mere coincidence of RNGs or timings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In the coin-op arcade Punch Out the opponents eyes flashed yellow just before they threw a punch (or started a sequence). That's also true in the last Wii version.

I don't know if there are any tells for when to throw the knock-out blow.

</comment><comment><USER19> This reminds me of a couple years back, when an entire sidequest was discovered in Final Fantasy IX (thirteen years after the fact!):

[http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/28/obscure-final-fantasy- ix-...](http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/28/obscure-final-fantasy-ix-sidequest- uncovered-and-detailed/)

<comment><USER20> What's amazing about that is that they brought back the 8^2 curse of extinction.

In 1993, Squaresoft used to send out ads to people on their mailing lists (I was one of those people). One of their little mailings included a comment about a curse in Final Fantasy II for the SNES: if you do an action 64 times, it will trigger a reboot of your game, and your save file will be lost. They never told what the action was, but they were admant on the number of times it needs to be done.

t haven't found this info anywhere. If I'm the only one that knows it, it makes me sad. Hopefully, more find it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Great nostalgia! Sort of reminds me of the incessant photo flashes during the fight with Mike Tyson when he is about to punch you (speaking of which I never got to fight white Mike, I only beat the original).

If I recall correctly there are a ton of visual cues in punch-out.

I found Punch-Out and Contra to both be eventually easy games. There is very little randomness and luckily the controls are very good. I remember taking a bet in college of beating contra (w/o thirty lives) after not playing. Replaying was like riding a bike.

Compare this to the ridiculous difficulty of broken games like Top Gun or the worse game every made AD&D for NES (seriously check out how f@#$ awful that game is).

<comment><USER22> I'm pretty sure I heard the phrase, "there's no way you can beat Contra without the cheat code" in college as well.

<comment><USER23> I knew that was garbage when I would use the cheat and would routinely finish the game with more than 30 lives.

After I realized that, I just stopped using it.

<comment><USER21> Yeah once you get the Spray Gun or whatever the S gun is called you are pretty much golden.

Really the challenge is playing at the same time with some one else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So it's just a quick-time event with intentionally the worst UI ever.

</comment><comment><USER25> There's a baseball legend that a MLB team used to light up a certain light bulb on a sign/scoreboard in their stadium to tip off the pitch their batter was about to face.

</comment><comment><USER26> Punch-Out was really well designed. It was also incredibly hard. I finally beat it in college, and I still feel proud of that accomplishment.

</comment><comment><USER27> Who's read "Ready Player One"? Cause that's all I'm seeing here. Also, can't wait for the movie!

</comment><comment><USER28> This is probably just a coincidence.

NTSC runs at a framerate of about 30fps. PAL runs at 25fps. I have not worked on an 8-bit console. But if I were to, I would probably run a simulation/AI tick every 6 frames.

By coincidence, some background animation is going to coincide with some gameplay event.

<comment><USER29> 60fps and 50fps interlaced respectively. NES games ran at 60fps. There is some randomness to when Honda's window opens and the background animation always happens in sync

<comment><USER30> NES games ran at 60fps progressive (240p). This is a mode in which the CRT does not alter the scanline position each field.</comment></comment></comment>


Ycombinator - <AUTHOR>

im from india can i apply for ycombinator <comment><USER2> Yes. Click the "Apply" link at the bottom of the page.</comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with a negative SEO campaign? - <AUTHOR>

Hey all, I'd be really appreciative of any advice the HN community has in dealing with a negative SEO campaign against our site's blog (blog.stylekick.com). Whoever is hitting us is using multiple registrars in multiple geographies. Right now my options are to reach out to individual registrars, or use Google's disavow tool. The campaign seems to be ongoing - so I'm not sure if the disavow tool is our best bet. <comment><USER2> Don't bother disavowing...start a new site. People get hung up on the disavow process, but it is rarely effective in my experience. I'd also NegSEO them back...why would you just let them wail away on your site without fighting back? A dose of their own medicine will teach them to not mess with you again.

</comment><comment><USER3> God I hate negative SEO... I hope everything works out man.</comment>


Walt Mossberg (WSJ) loves Xobni - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121746305769798993.html?mod=technology_columns_featured_lsc

<comment><USER2> I love it as well but I had to ditch it. I'm anxiously awaiting the words "dramatically improved Outlook start up time" on their blog.

<comment><USER3> really? It's not noticeably slower for me.

<comment><USER2> The older beta was fine for me as well. Over time it slowly got slower and eventually got to the point where I had to wait two minutes for Outlook to open. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I have five accounts in Outlook? PC is decent enough at 3ghz with 2gb of ram. I miss xobni but it had to go.

<comment><USER4> Why do you close outlook...?

<comment><USER5> To save resources?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congratulations guys! Incredible review from a tough critic...

</comment><comment><USER7> Forgive me if this question has been asked countless times already, but is Xobni going to be available for anything besides Outlook?

<comment><USER8> Does anything else suck as badly as outlook?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Congrats to Xobni on the great publicity. Was this in the print version as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> It comes out in print tomorrow in the WSJ</comment></comment>


Getting Started with Swift on Linux - <AUTHOR> https://www.twilio.com//blog/2015/12/getting-started-with-swift-on-linux.html <comment><USER2> That sentence makes about as much sense as "immolation training on an atheist club".</comment>


Gawker Traffic Drops Significantly After Redesign - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/gawker-redesign-2011-4

<comment><USER2> It's not clear to me what Gawker Media was thinking with this redesign. I now see a page with two scroll bars, one being the main one and then a secondary scroll bar with a collection of random topics. I go to Gizmodo and I see the main articles being about air traffic controllers falling asleep and something about Libyan rebels fighting Qaddafi (why would I go to Gizmodo for this news?)

I understand the desire to move away from the existing format that most blogs use, but Gawker has taken a huge step backward here. Forget what the traffic measurements are, I personally have stopped going to their sites and so have a few others I know.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think Denton yearns to escape the dreaded blog format which feels a bit old these days. It's an uphill battle because users are so use to that format, yet I feel it's a war worth fighting even if Gawker didn't win this battle. Right now Dave Winer is talking about the need to reinvent the blog and I think he's on the right track (you also see a similar thing going on at sbnation which will be getting into tech). If you're looking for an opportunity don't assume that wordpress or even tumblr have to dominate the world (this was the mistake that movable type made).

</comment><comment><USER4> Does Quantcast properly measure traffic for the newly ajaxified design?</comment>


Show a disabled button or no button, if the user is not authorized to do action? - <AUTHOR> https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/120848/should-i-have-a-disabled-button-or-no-button-at-all-if-the-user-doesnt-have-su <comment><USER2> What should be communicated by the existence of a disabled button, if it is more features in your application that you can purchase or easily access by doing some action then show it. If it is something you just cannot do and will not be allowed to do in the current situation for some reason then don't show it.

When you show it animate its appearance the first time.

If your user has given you money that will allow the disabled functionality to be enabled give them the opportunity of visiting a page where they can see all the neat new options they purchased.</comment>


Does Google's PageRank algorithm scale? (Presented at Microsoft Research) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~dvd03/Documents/DoesPageRankScale.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> For more details, the corresponding paper may be found at: <http://tinyurl.com/ksbobg></comment>


Voice - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/09/voice.html

<comment><USER2> If _I_ put animated confetti on my myspace page, I'm laughed at. Tumblr does it and it's a 'voice'. Hrmm...

<comment><USER3> There is a difference between a real celebration and whoring up your myspace page.

<comment><USER4> I think mgkimsal was making a joke.

<comment><USER3> Like I didn't know that. Sometimes internet, sometimes...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Having style is knowing when confetti is "Voice" versus "Clutter."

Great small companies have more room to have Voice. It is very hard for large companies to have it. Or the larger they get, the more they worry about offending someone. Tumbler can have Voice. So can Tech Crunch. Hard for Wal- mart to have Voice.

</comment><comment><USER6> In its earlier days, Facebook had many hidden messages inside its app. See <http://mashable.com/2007/09/10/facebook-easter-eggs>.

That said--and without having much other context for Fred Wilson's idea of "voice"--having fun with a company's homepage may work for some organizations and not for others.

(And specifically regarding milestones, Facebook has deliberately taken a much humbler public approach. Let's see what happens when they hit a billion users.)

</comment><comment><USER7> Note: There's a big difference between voice and cliche. Voice is not being a bunch of rockstar, ninja, pivoting hackers who reach out to people.

</comment><comment><USER8> Facebook used to have a distinctively irreverent voice ("I don't even know what a quail looks like"). It's slowly been whittled away as they've gotten huge.

Google, on the other hand, maintains their voice but keeps it out of the main flow - think doodles or bidding Pi billion dollars. So it's not just a function of size.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Personality" would probably be a more obvious word for it (although I guess "voice" is specifically personality expressed through product rather than through company actions).

</comment><comment><USER10> Who cares how many posts are porn and how many post images that are copyrighted, right? That's the YouTube model that got them $1.6b :)

<comment><USER11> It's all or nothing though, either you have these sites which are free to upload and try and clean up after later on or you have everything has to be moderated which is completely unsustainable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _That's voice._

Is it just me, or did he manage to attract a particularly disgusting set of sycophants dribbling all over the comments?

Possibly even worse than the f_c_book stench now emanating from comments on most any TechCrunch topic ...

<comment><USER13> "particularly disgusting set of sycophants"

Yes but it's typical.

sycophant seems to be the norm for the comments at avc.com On this particular post I wouldn't call them particularly disgusting though. I've seen much worse. And in general any disagreement with his thoughts are very nicely said. You rarely see anything snarky or mean spirited.

People are hoping to get some of the pixie dust. I don't think this is really different than the halo that surrounds any successful person.

In the movie "Born Rich" by Jamie Johnson, Ivana Trump was interviewed (it took place 2003). She was surprised by all the people that wanted to be friends with her and treated her nicely. She said something like "I mean I don't have any money my parents do". That's the halo.

<comment><USER12> > it's typical.

... of the "real id" effect, under democratic conditions. The people who earn their living elsewhere don't care to risk it telling the truth, so you get the sycophants showing up trying to lick brownie points ...

Which just goes to show the Vivek Gundrota ( _real name_ , not the spurious _Vic_ he sports) Google+ policy is dumb. And why the whole 'social' Google should be taken out and shot.</comment></comment></comment>


Hacker erases entire season's worth of "Zodiac Island" - <AUTHOR> http://tv.yahoo.com/news/article/tv-news.en.reuters.com/tv-news.en.reuters.com-20110331-us_zodiac

<comment><USER2> He was not a "Hacker" he was a disgruntled ex admin with a freaking login!

That requires information, not skill.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup. Title courtesy Yahoo via way of Reuters</comment></comment>


Context.IO 2.0 API - New features Pull email data into your app - <AUTHOR> http://blog.context.io/2012/05/new-additions-to-context-io-2-0/

<comment><USER2> We at streak.com use contextIO and have to say its pretty awesome. I'm ecstatic I don't need to know how IMAP works.

Their dev support is top notch - highly recommend.

<comment><USER2> Also worth mentioning that their API test console is awesome. Anyone making an API should take a look at their console - super easy to test different calls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Absolutely loved contextIO when we built our Email Analytics feature at Wishery - great API, and great dev support.

<comment><AUTHOR> we love wishery!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congrats to the Context.IO team!</comment>


Indiscriminate surveillance at MIT – Logging of card access data at CSAIL - <AUTHOR> http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N37/stallman.html

<comment><USER2> I didn't read the by line and assumed it was written by an optimistic undergrad. Then at the end I saw "By Richard Stallman". I must say I'm in awe of Mr Stallmans optimism and never give up attitude.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is absolutely the right of a private property owner to control and monitor access to its property.

Further, this data is actually useful: if something happens, you know who the last people to open the door were. Further, as a grantee of privileged access, you know that. You know you can't just say it must have been one of the 200 others with the common key. So it's more invisible prevention than measurable solving.

This lets administrators be more permissive about delegating access while simultaneously increasing security. For example, I work in a couple of the concert halls on campus. Students have always held keys to interior doors, but University policy was that students could not have unsupervised access to exterior doors, probably for insurance reasons.

This meant that if the boss wanted to leave the hall operational while not present, student staff would have to prop doors open. If the hall was locked, he'd have to drive all the way out to campus even if he didn't need to be there for the event. Now that we have an audit-trail-producing card reader system, administration is fine with granting students card access to exterior doors. We are both more efficient (because we don't waste supervisor time) and more secure (because students can lock doors and reopen them when necessary.)

In the past, when students have gone missing, their last contact was not with humans but with the access control system. It provided better "last known location" data that improved investigations. It can validate alibis (demonstrating that you were at a building across campus) and provide evidence in discipline proceedings (the alleged rapist says he wasn't there that night, but his ID swiped into the dorm a few seconds behind the alleged victim, etc.)

Access control logs introduce truth into otherwise ambiguous situations. It matters less what you think, who you like more, or what you _want_ to be true because there is a record you can check. Whether it's "should we keep the library open later?" or "when exactly did this kid go missing?"

You also almost never _have_ to interact with the access control system unless you hold privileged access as part of a job, research assignment, etc. Students who live off campus and don't study at the libraries can go months without pulling out their IDs. It's not like you need to swipe your card to walk down a public street. But when you are accessing university services, it seems only reasonable that the university gets to know that you're doing so.

<comment><USER4> >Further, this data is actually useful: if something happens, you know who the last people to open the door were. Further, as a grantee of privileged access, you know that. You know you can't just say it must have been one of the 200 others with the common key. So it's more invisible prevention than measurable solving.

That's a big "if", though, and in the article, Stallman points out that MIT isn't able to actually show that it's a realistic reason to encourage this sort of surveillance.

I feel like there's a middle ground here -- for example, card readers could store a hash of an on-card identifier, one that the security staff do _not_ have access to in normal student records. In exceptional circumstances, you could de-blind the logs and see if a single person was in the building at a given time or not, but there wouldn't be surveillance and the logs would be useless in the typical case.

A card swipe doesn't show that you're there, though. As a student I'd lend people my card all the time, as would most people I knew.

<comment><USER3> That defeats the purpose of "The place got trashed last night, who was it?"

However, a lot does depend on how the data is being used. My access pattern is very questionable. I swipe into my workplaces at weird times, sometimes to use the bathroom while coming back to the dorms from a party or something. I try my card on all kinds of doors just to see if they'll open. I've _never_ been questioned about it.

I'm 99% certain that nobody is pulling the logs except in response to incidents.

<comment><USER4> It depends on the school. A university near me has people watching this data or some sort of anomaly detector running over it in real-time to try to catch parties in dorms. I think that's more than a little Orwellian.

Also yes, it eliminates the possibility of dragnet searching. This is by design. Dragnet searches go against the principles on which the United States was founded. If I am not personally suspected of a crime, my data must be sacrosanct or I have been demeaned as an individual. Innocent until proven guilty and unspied-upon until suspected personally.

<comment><USER3> Swiping into a building is the electronic equivalent of signing in on a clipboard held by a security guard. That is hardly spying, and it's _definitely_ not "your data."

If a municipality were to do this with all the private residences under their jurisdiction, sure, that'd be Orwellian, because then it really _is_ your data. In this case it's MIT's data about MIT's facility that happens to have been triggered by you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like an opportunity for some students to do some cool RFID hacking and pool their IDs to obfuscate the logs...

What a great EE/CS project ;)

<comment><USER6> Richard Stallman himself did that:

[http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2008/04/the-shaggy- god/](http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2008/04/the-shaggy-god/)

(the story about the access cards is right at the top)

<comment><USER7> That article is really cool, but...

>The most momentous product of Stallman's genius, Linux, was the first operating system to feature software that was entirely free

Ugh!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _" When the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) moved into Stata in 2004, the MIT administration decided, without consulting the personnel of CSAIL, to make the system log which cards are used to open which doors and when."_

Who owns the building? MIT or the personnel of CSAIL? If the building's owner wants a log of who came in and out of the building is that really something Mr Stallman has the power to object to?

<comment><USER9> Let's take an extreme:

What if MIT were logging who went to the bathroom?

There's clearly no fundamental difference in securing a different part of the building. Does Mr Stallman (or perhaps an employee of the building if he's just a third party) not have a basis to criticize MITs tracking of bathroom habits because he (or they) don't own the building?

In what way is door access different?

<comment><USER8> I don't think we're talking about bathroom hygenic habits here, so let's skip that derail.

Stallman's thesis is "logs have no use". I'm sure the building's owners disagree. Let's think of a possible use-case:

      "Someone stole a laptop from Room 214 over the weekend"

So are the logs useful _now_?

<comment><USER10> Most likely, not very.

Do you honestly think someone who wants to steal a computer will use _their own_ access card?

<comment><USER11> If the area/door is busy, they just might. Or they might tailgate through a door.

Tailgating through doors is a lot harder when everybody knows that the doors log everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Richard Stallman is the man.

<comment><USER13> He's a hardliner on the fringe and a lunatic in many ways, but he serves as an excellent reference point when evaluating policy decisions.

He's pedantic and often unlikable, but we're very lucky to have him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The card logs at the University of Michigan helped catch a thief stealing from a snack kiosk I work at.

[http://www.annarbor.com/news/u-m-graduate-student-whose- plan...](http://www.annarbor.com/news/u-m-graduate-student-whose-plan-helped- catch-a-thief-to-be-honored-for-his-effort/)

It's kind of a weird story. A chemistry PhD student repeatedly climbing over walls to steal candy bars...</comment>


Countries with no property taxes where you REALLY own your home - <AUTHOR> http://nomadcapitalist.com/2014/05/27/countries-with-no-property-taxes-really-home/ <comment><USER2> For the anti tax libertarians, move to free countries, free in that there's little property tax like Bahrain or former countries of Yugoslavia. However, the article is fixated on property taxes, but how about overall tax rates, I saw no discussion of that? And what do you get out of that tax that you pay, say safety and public services. Bahrian, not so great if you have a girlfriend.</comment>


Another Shoe Drops on Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/your-money/hacked-on-facebook-and-seeking-help-the-haggler.html

<comment><USER2> Someone at NYT _must_ have lost some bucks on the IPO...</comment>


Flash to ipad, ipad2, iphone - <AUTHOR> http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/flash-is-coming-to-the-ipad-ipad-2-and-iphone-934133

<comment><USER2> The title is misleading for sure. Flash itself is not coming to iOS at all, just Adobes Wallaby conversion tool...

Plus the author of the article needs some perspective. The second paragraph is immature fluff, i mean is " IN YOUR FACE, FLASH HATERS!" just not completely juvenile?

</comment><comment><USER3> FLA to HTMl5 is not flash in the iphone. Was this written by a 10yr experience flash developer?</comment>


US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/us-citizens-need-visas-to-visit-europe-in-2021/index.html <comment><USER2> The article mixes two seaparate issues:

\- EU is introducing ETIAS, an electronic authorisation system which is pretty much modeled after the US ESTA system (used by visa-free nationals). It will apply to all countries which currently enjoy the visa-free regime with the EU and that includes USA. So, technically it is not a visa, but your details will be pre-checked and it will cost €7 (compared to $14 for US ESTA). Ironically, after Brexit, this requirement will also apply to UK.

\- There is a separate dispute between EU and US, because US imposes visas on five EU states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Romania and Cyprus). According the EU law, all EU countries should be treated equally or otherwise reciprocal measures should apply. There have been calls within the EU to respond tit for tat and impose EU visas on US citizens, if the issue does not get resolved soon.

As an EU citizen, I can just add that I support both initiatives.

<comment><USER3> Tit for tat is a great model in pre-school. The more mature response is to investigate the underlying issues.

Instead of putting your fingers in your ears and yelling "We are EU, you must treat us all the same" there could be some acknowledgement that travelers from those countries are disproportionately overstayers and there is a justifiable reason to need to more closely track them.

If US travelers are overstaying in any particular EU countries, I would expect and appreciate the same measures would be put in place.

Policy should be set based on the reality on the ground and not merely policital fantasy.

If those countries citizens are not in fact disproportionate over-stayers than the US should change their policy and apologize.

EDIT: This short brief [1] seems to imply there's room for improvement on the US side. I don't quite understand why the subjective visa refusal rate is so high for some of these countries when the overstay rate is so low. Unless you argue that the refusals are preventing the overstays, but that is very much unproven.

[1] - [https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2018-01/IB4812....](https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2018-01/IB4812.pdf)

<comment><USER2> Just a few points:

\- Tit-for-tat response is a geopolitical reality. Regardless whether you think it is pre-school model or not, this is what pretty much all countries do, as it is a perfectly rational way (and sometimes even the only way) to defend your interests. By rational I am talking about the Game Theory kind of rational. :)

\- You suggest to look at each EU country individually (just also keep in mind that there are no border controls beetween the EU countries in the Schengen Zone). In such case, should we also look at each US state individually (because they are also not uniform, e.g. some are much poorer than the others)? EU as a whole has much greater weight and leverage. The point I am making here is that it is another geopolitical reality: countries use their weight and, for example, US uses its weight to exert its influence pretty much all over the world. Well, so does the EU in this case, whether the US likes it or not.

\- Your point about the citizens of those countries being disproportionate overstayers is not true. As a matter of fact, the overstay rate of these countries is lower than some of those which are already in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), e.g. compare those fives countries with Spain, Greece, Hungary, etc. So, if there is some kind of threshold they cross, then it should apply to the current VWP countries to, shouldn't it? Please the see offical US Homeland Security report as a reference here:

[https://www.dhs.gov/publication/fiscal- year-2017-entryexit-o...](https://www.dhs.gov/publication/fiscal- year-2017-entryexit-overstay-report)

<comment><USER4> > You suggest to look at each EU country individually (just also keep in mind > that there are no border controls beetween the EU countries in the Schengen > Zone). In such case, should we also look at each US state individually > (because they are also not uniform

US states have no foreign relations. There's no Californian embassy in Sofia, but there is a Bulgarian embassy in Washington. No American travels on a Californian passport, but Bulgarians travel on Bulgarian passports.

If you want foreign countries to treat the EU as a single diplomatic unit, then all the EU member-state embassies should probably be closed and replaced with EU embassies, and all member-state passports should be replaced with generic EU passports.

<comment><USER5> Why? The EU and its member states are free to organize themselves any way they see fit, and states can decide on collective action, see NATO article 5.

<comment><USER4> The US is also free to organize its policies as it sees fit. If the EU really doesn't want the US to treat its member states as diplomatically separate entities, due to treaties the US was not party to, then it should stop holding them out as separate entities and present an unambiguously unified front.

As a practical matter, no country could subject citizens of different EU member states to different visa policies if they all had identical passports. That's exactly the situation with American passports.

<comment><USER5> > The US is also free to organize its policies as it sees fit.

Yep. And then you get disagreements and tit-for-tat. Just don't claim that the US's policies are in some way more legitimate.

> then it should stop holding

Says who? On whose authority? If the US wants its citizens to be treated uniformly, then it shouldn't give out per-state driver's licenses.

<comment><USER4> > Says who? On whose authority?

The authority or reasonableness and practicality.

> If the US wants its citizens to be treated uniformly, then it shouldn't give > out per-state driver's licenses.

It may be news to you, but those aren't travel documents and are nonstandardized to boot. But if you think the EU should wade into that mess, I guess you're entitled to your opinion.

Also, it's probably worth noting treating Americans as citizens of their state and not the US for immigration purposes is totally unprecedented in the modern era of passports. On the other hand, the precedent over the same period has been to treat Europeans as citizens of their member states and not of an undifferentiated EU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is really bad reporting. It isn't just US citizens, click here for a list of the 57 countries that will also require ETIAS in 2021:

[https://etias.com/about-etias/who-needs-etias](https://etias.com/about- etias/who-needs-etias)

It even includes the island of Palau and their population of 20,000 people:

[https://etias.com/about-etias/etias-for-palauan- citizens](https://etias.com/about-etias/etias-for-palauan-citizens)

This has nothing to do specifically with the US.

<comment><USER7> It's funny to see the scam sites launch so quickly, just so they can charge 50 EUR in 2021 for sending in your 7 EUR application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is in response to security concerns for some EU countries, so it's really just a political tit for tat.

"The United States has been in a dispute with the EU's European Parliament and European Commission over visas for Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Romania and Cyprus. Travelers in those five countries are the only EU nations that the US requires to apply for a visa."

<comment><USER9> The EU is acting as a single political body, that's good. The US requires a visa for visiting from the EU, thus the EU requires the same to USA visitors.

<comment><USER10> It's not that good. Now travel for millions of Americans is becoming more of a hassle. This suits the political agenda of the EU because it wants all of Europe to be a single country run by itself and doesn't care about collateral damage along the way or even revels in it (look how big and powerful we are). But in the end it's still just making travel harder for people, despite all their rhetoric about how freedom of movement is one of their "four pillars".

There is no obligation for countries to always get bigger, or for countries to pretend there's no regional variations. ESTA is a pain and stupid and it gives me a worse impression of the USA every time I have to fill it out. There is no reason why the rest of the world should follow suit.

I see nobody else has said it yet, so I will - I hope that after Brexit the UK can drop this ETIAS nonsense and be more welcoming to Americans, even if they don't drop ESTA in response.

<comment><USER11> The reason the rest of the world should follow suit is to pressure the US to drop ESTA. Visa free is visa free - if your country creates additional hassles, expect the other country to respond in kind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> To be honest it very much looks like the US ESTA which is a visa in disguise. This seems like a legitimate reciprocity to the measures the US have taken against Europeans.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is for an electronic travel authorization, which the US, Australia and Canada already require of all visitors. It's simple and takes minutes online, hardly a 'visa.'

<comment><USER12> How do you define a visa then?

<comment><USER14> "An endorsement on a passport indicating that the holder is allowed to enter, leave, or stay for a specified period of time in a country."

A hat and a helmet both protect your head, but you wouldn't call them by the same name.

<comment><USER12> Well, with centralised IT systems, it doesn't need to be a physical sticker on your passport but rather an authorization number associated with your passport number (more secure than relying on someone not faking the sticker). But the vetting process is still there. Fundamentally isn't it the exact same thing (a sort of an electronic helmet)?

<comment><USER14> You asked for a definition, so I looked it up. I'm not advocating a specific opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The elephant in the room is that between the EU and US, there should be no visa at all, ideally some kind of free move zone like the EU is itself (and befriended states like Switzerland)

<comment><USER16> >there should be no visa at all

And why is that?

<comment><USER17> We need people to travel and get different perspectives more and not less. I too often see arguments in political discourse that something could never work, yet I've been to many countries where these things are normal. For example, I want all US citizens to experience a great pic transportation system so that we can elevate the discussion in the US about it. Likewise I want everyone to experience a Japanese city, so that we can have a better discussion about the forever in the US and Japan's zoning system. I want Germans to see that the sky doesn't fall off you get rid off the insane system that requires permission from existing, local stores before you can open your own or just even see how convenient a countdown on a traffic light can be.

We have so much to learn from each other! In fact I wish we could make it mandatory for everyone to have to live a year in a foreign country. It would make the world a much better place.

<comment><USER18> > In fact I wish we could make it mandatory for everyone to have to live a > year in a foreign country.

I get where you're coming from and agree that would be great for America but I really don't want mass migration of Americans to Europe. The number we have is enough. The culture is poisonous and already destroying America (see homelessness, healthcare, government shutdowns, racial conflicts, political divisions), we don't need it spreading here any more than it already is.

If Americans showed any inclination of integrating this might be a different story but I'm surrounded by expats who despite residing in European countries for years haven't learned the language, put their kids in English-speaking schools and otherwise gone about their American lifestyles in European countries without any apparent consideration for the locals (and often go on to complain about how "unwelcoming" the countries they live in are).

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Americans, I don't think they're horrible people and the country certainly has huge achievements. However, the idea of mass (albeit temporary) migration to/from Europe to give "different perspectives" terrifies me, as it feels like it'll largely be in a single direction, at least when it comes to culture.

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately I think you make a good point. I vividly remember how during my most recent Japan visit I'd feel frequently embarrassed for other westerners who were either unwilling out unable to talk quietly in public and especially on trains. It almost physically hurt. Meanwhile I know Asians who've lived on the US since many years and still haven't figured out that it's bad behavior her to make loud chewing noises while eating. Maybe the majority of people just aren't interested in learning alternative ways to live.

It's honestly really hard for me to wrap my head around this, since hardly anything is more interesting to me than learning about other cultures, their different norms etc. It not only opens your eyes to how some things could be better but you also gain a fresh perspective on your own culture and yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> That is a shame. Whenever I would take a long trip that went geographically over the EU, I would usually buy a ticket that had a 8+ hour layover somewhere in the EU and tour around for a little while. I guess I will now have to find another country to take a layover in. Maybe I will start flying British Airway if the UK lets me visit visa free.

</comment><comment><USER7> Ugh, I hope their system avoids some real messes, but unlikely:

1) massive number of scam sites charging tons of money to submit your application (hopefully)

2) doesn't crash on the first day

3) doesn't exempt rich people that come by private plane (unlikely)

4) still allows EU nationals to get into EU with the Canadian or American passports. I'm technically an EU citizen by lineage, but havent bothered to get that passport since I don't even speak the language.

It will probably still have to loophole if flying into a non-EU country and then driving in.

</comment><comment><USER20> It sounds like this e-visa is good for 3 years... does that mean hypothetically I could go digital nomad in Schengen Area as a US citizen?

<comment><USER21> If you conduct business or "work", you might have to get a separate visa with different terms. EU seems to be pretty strict about "work-permits". There are risks to doing such activities on a regular tourist visa.

<comment><USER20> I was under the impression if you're employed by a US company and simply traveling you're fine. The EU has a pretty strict definition of "working" \- eg checking an email from your boss on vacation in Berlin is technically working.

I think what _would_ run afoul is if you're doing journalism, photography, or something where you're doing the work in th EU, versus firing up a corporate VPN and writing code on a US server for a US company.

(Keep in mind you can do things like go to meetings or attend conferences w/o a special visa in the EU and Canada currently)

I suspect in the long term "digital nomad" visas will become a thing. After all, if someone wants to work in say, Tokyo or Talinn for 2 years in their early 20s, and is willing to pay Japanese or Estonian taxes, that could be a win win. You get someone in a high tax bracket bringing money in, and presumably buying other things (eating out, rent etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When scenario that really has really caused issues in the Canadian system is that they required Canadian permanent residents and Canadian work permit holders to travel with those permits.

They were ineligible for the Canadian ETIAS.

But if they lost their permits while overseas, it could take weeks for a new permit, meanwhile a Canadian passport holder could get a new one in 24hrs.

</comment><comment><USER22> Completely useless response from our incompetent and overpaid European politicians two months before the elections. The world goes in one direction, and what do they do? They really think to increase security by applying these measures against countries like USA, Canada or Mexico... ? I must be living in a parallel universe.

</comment><comment><USER23> Americans are usually extremely lazy about this stuff. I wonder what the effects are going to be on Tourism in Europe.

<comment><USER24> It won't be a problem. It's not like Americans bring any tourist money to the EU.

<comment><USER25> Checking in from Paris, yes they do bring a lot of money.

<comment><USER26> Pretty sure he was being sarcastic.

<comment><USER25> Sorry, yes I noticed he was being sarcastic but just wanted to make it clear for anyone wondering :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> No, no visa will be needed.

The EU is introducing a system equivalent to the US's ESTA. (Most) EU citizens may travel visa-free to the US but must register (and pay) on ESTA.

It will be the same for US citizens to travel to the EU.

<comment><USER28> Both systems are visas. Fact.

<comment><USER27> No, they are not.

ESTA specifically allows people to travel visa-free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> We are witnessing the breakdown of the world order established post WWII. The EU exists because of the US. Its security and trade routes are guaranteed because the US is an ally. No EU country has a military that compares to that of the US, especially in terms of naval power.

Hindering access to the EU may be a minor nuisance on the surface. But its a harbinger of worse things to come and undermines the unprecedented peace and stability we've seen in the world in the last 75 years.

<comment><USER27> The EU exists because of Europeans. The US do not want the EU to be a political power.

The US have had the 20th century, that great for them but it's high time for Europe to recover.

<comment><USER26> You don't see how the Marshall Plan helped at all? That of course, being after that little skirmish of World War 2.

<comment><USER27> The Marshall Plan was the US keeping the Reds at bay.

Peanuts in comparison to the jackpot that WWII was for the US, and it cemented their influence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Preposterous! Central American citizens don't need a visa to visit the United States!

</comment><comment><USER31> This sounds amazing! When I first began traveling, I had to strategically time my time in the Schengen region to not overstay 90 days within a 180 day period. I ended up going to the Balkan region for a few months before circling back into the Schengen at the tail end.

This setup allows for 3-years multi-entry. That's insane! Well done, EU.

<comment><USER32> The 90 days within 180 days period restriction still applies. It's just that you will need a visa now and it will last 3 years whereas you didn't need one before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> So, given that the ETIAS was only for 5 countries of the EU and the EU has reciprocated by enacting a union wide measure that, essentially requires the same thing (in school yard fashion); are we now going to "push back" and require an ESTA for all countries in the EU?

<comment><USER34> Which EU countries do NOT require an ESTA to travel to the US?

<comment><USER33> To my understanding it was only Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Poland and ....shoot, I always forget the 5th one, anyway, I'll edit this when I look it up. That needed one.

<comment><USER34> I believe these countries need real visa. Germany etc. still need ESTA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Will visitors be permitted to stay longer than 90 days per 180 days?

<comment><USER36> No, since the traditional visa waivers are only for stays of up to 90 days originally as well. So you'll still need a visa for longer stays, most likely either a work or student visa.

[https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/etias/](https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/etias/)

> You can enter the Schengen member states for as many times as you want, for > as long as your ETIAS is valid, and you have not stayed more than 90 days in > a 180 days period.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> "The Union said that the ETIAS visa is valid for three years and allows Americans to enter the Schengen Area as many times as necessary."

> if I'm understanding this correctly, it'll make things easier for nomads

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm an EU citizen who enters Europe on a US passport. Will I be forced to pony up money for this?

<comment><USER39> Why would you enter the EU on a US passport if you're an EU citizen?

<comment><USER38> You must enter/exit the USA with a US passport.

<comment><USER11> Yes, that means you must use a US passport when you are leaving a US airport. When you enter at an EU port you you can use whatever passport you want (unless the country you are entering has a specific requirement). I have an old friend that is dual US / UK citizen and both countries require that he use his passport when entering / exiting the country. So he leaves the US using a US passport, and he enters the UK using a UK passport. And vice versa. If you are a dual EU/US citizen you ONLY have to use your US passport when you enter the US, and when you leave (which hardly counts because there is no exit immigration in the US). Once you arrive in the EU use your EU passport to take the fast line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> They have ex ISIS fighters and god knows who else walking freely across EU into countries like Germany & Sweden and they are worried about people across the pond.  In my opinion EU is trying to assert strength to demonstrate to its remaining members that's a viable entity. The union is held together by fragile alliances and Germany can't keep paying the bills for ever. It's only a matter of time the whole thing unravels.

<comment><USER41> Germany has immense social costs for migrants, I don't think this is sustainable. There are also many 'single cases' of unwanted consequences (especially for women). Insofar I agree and think this retaliation is not where the action needs to be (also I'm not aware of a high number of Americans causing issues in Europe). Tit for tat is weak.</comment></comment>


What Is Homomorphic Encryption, and Why Should I Care? (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz/2010/03/18/38566/ <comment><USER2> From performance viewpoint the concept is far from practical right now, and I don't mean practical implementations, I mean the current best theoretical limits for overhead.

Basically the encrypting process itself takes longer than any operation that can be done on the on the cloud. Thus it's better to just run the software without the encryption on the device that would normally contact the cloud itself.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the dream of homomorphic encryption ever being practical (at least for what I would consider practical) is unrealistic.

Let f(x) represent the encryption of x.

I would assume that a practical system has the following properties: * It is possible to compose primitive operators and values to implement a +1 operator (i.e. an operator that adds one to an integer). Call this operator g(x), defined such that g(f(x)) = f(x + 1). * If the value of 1 is leaked (which might, for example, be a literal that is used in a position that is known to the attacker), that shouldn't compromise the entire scheme. * The scheme must provide a way to compare for equality so variable-length algorithms are possible. Define a function h such that h(f(x), f(y)) is true iff x = y.

By our assumptions, the attacker knows f(1). They can compute f(i + 1) = g(f(i)), and so they can compute as many small integers as they want. Suppose they have an unknown value u, that they know is a small integer, but they don't know which one. They can test h(u, i) for each i up to some limit to find the value of u. Hence, the encryption scheme is insecure.

<comment><USER4> What you're missing is that the result of h(f(x), f(y)) is itself encrypted. They can't tell whether it's true or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's a more recent and super simple introduction to the concept: [https://www.cryptologie.net/article/278/homomorphic- encrypti...](https://www.cryptologie.net/article/278/homomorphic-encryption- part-1/)</comment>


Bitcoin and developing nations - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/21/the-bitcoin-experiment/

<comment><AUTHOR> _"…but the developing world is another matter. Consider Zimbabwe, recently plagued by hyperinflation so rampant that when I was last there prices doubled every few weeks and gasoline could only be purchased on the black market with hard currency. They've since given up and simply adopted foreign currency wholesale. Meanwhile, mobile electronic payments are taking off in a big way all over sub-Saharan Africa. It isn't much of a stretch to imagine Zimbabwe in ten years' time—or a whole group of developing nations with a history of crippling inflation—adopting a new currency that is independent, incorruptible, and anti-inflationary by design"_

I think using Bitcoin in countries like Zimbabwe would be a great idea since they have a huge problem with hyperinflation there, money becoming worthless in days or even hours.</comment>