Robotic submarine snaps images at foundation of Antarctic glacier - <AUTHOR> https://cos.gatech.edu/news/robotic-submarine-snaps-first-ever-images-foundation-notorious-antarctic-glacier <comment><USER2> Very cool stuff. I wonder what they use for the wireless connection.

<comment><USER3> Usually auv means no cables, and rov means tethered, but they describe their unit as auv/rov.

So not sure of this specific setup, but for most auvs there are hipap integrated acoustical modems with limited transmit / receive rates, for critical status messages and a control link. Everything else is held on hdd until it surfaces.

[https://www.kongsberg.com/maritime/products/Acoustics- Positi...](https://www.kongsberg.com/maritime/products/Acoustics-Positioning- and-Communication/)

In the event of a comm disconnect, it probably has a limited amount of instructions to continue carrying out (like surveying to the end of the current grid line) and then holding for a limited amount of time before aborting to the surface. If a connection can be re-established, it continues. It's also possible to have navigation connectivity without 2 way comms, so there are different abort scenarios possible.

If it aborts to surface, then you've got amplified wifi, sat phone, and even an eprb type beacon.

<comment><USER4> Abort to surface seems non-trivial in a situation where you're hella deep under a thicc ice shelf. I wonder what sort of failsafes they've got in place to handle that particular situation.

<comment><USER5> You are right that abort to surface is non-trivial.

I didn't work on Icefin, but I did write the comms-lost procedure (among many other things) on a previous ROV/AUV that was deployed in Antarctica to go under the Ross ice shelf. Britney Schmidt (one of the investigators quoted in the article) was the PI of the grant for that project as well.

Our AUV was deployed through a hole drilled in the sea ice and controlled via a fiber optic cable. It was used as an ROV in most circumstances, although we could preprogram an entire mission to be carried out autonomously. In the event of the cable breaking the submersible had to navigate via dead reckoning to get back within range of the acoustic beacon at the deployment spot. The AUV would follow the acoustic beacon until it was within visual range of a flashing led rod and then use computer vision to guide the AUV into docking on that rod so it could be recovered.

If an error occurred under sea ice then we could surface and bring out heavy equipment to drill a new hole to recover, but the ice shelf was too thick to drill through. We did have a magnetic beacon on the AUV that helped with location if we needed to recover after a failure under sea ice.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


[New Quantifind Data] Is Amazon Losing #CyberMonday? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.quantifind.com/cyber-monday <comment><USER2> Interesting, but am I missing something or is that just a lot of fancy branding to say "We looked at twitter data"?

Still, good to know REI is doing well as I do like that overpriced store. But I also wonder how important it is for people to talk about Amazon. At this point they may very well be so ubiquitous that people know to go there.</comment>


The 'Netflix' model of car ownership is on the rise - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/01/forget-leasing-or-buying-a-car-these-companies-let-you-subscribe.html <comment><USER2> This is also called "renting a car". I permanently rent a car from Enterprise. They have a different price bracket if you pay monthly. I happen to pay for the full damage waiver, but if you don't get that (which is more comparable to these services) then the result seems very similar. (I just realized someone else left a comment like this, but I think the damage waiver part of it is very relevant.)

<comment><USER3> What do you pay per month?

<comment><USER4> You can have a corporate account with Enterprise and get a big discount on regular consumer rates.

I have no idea how much he pays but it's possible that the rate compares favourably with any other way of funding a vehicle?

Bear in mind, Enterprise's margin is (put, simply) the difference between what they pay for a vehicle and what they later sell it for.

Now try and think of an organisation who can compete with Enterprise on this basis, there can't be many other the manufacturer himself?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We've been using GoGet for the past 10 years as our primary family car and our average spend is (checks YNAB) $162.50 per month. That includes hiring a car for a week at Christmas & Easter for road trips. GoGet also pays Petrol so we literally only have to pay tolls on top of that cost.

Admittedly we live within a 5 minute walk of a train station that goes straight to not just our jobs but also our son's school. But still. Not a bad deal.

GoGet isn't in the driveway like the article, but there are 3 cars within a 5 minute walk and larger cars within 10. (We can go from a Yaris to do the shopping to a long wheelbase van for Ikea or a 10 person people mover for the holidays).

</comment><comment><USER6> Any car rental place will offer you a monthly rate. Long term rental not really a new thing. Possibly they can be price competitive with that, though. You'd have to comparison shop.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe the app thing and less hassle? Presumably these new companies are well funded and can offer better deals initially and may be willing not to nickle and dime customers. Grow at all costs first...

<comment><USER6> Sure, maybe. But the tone of the article was that they had invented a new business model, which is obviously wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the article, it is unclear whether the average montly loan cost is up because of price increases or a different mix of cars (more suvs less compact) in a good economy.

</comment><comment><USER8> Leasing is the correct term</comment>


GateMate FPGA - <AUTHOR> https://www.colognechip.com/programmable-logic/gatemate/ <comment><USER2> Pmod on the evaluation board is a nice touch. Any idea of a unit price of said board? Also I can't seem to find any information on the tooling, does it have it's own place and route solution and does it slot in with any existing tools?</comment>


Aloha Editor: an awesome HTML5 browser based editor - <AUTHOR> http://aloha-editor.com/ <comment><USER2> I found a more detailed look at Aloha on Slideshare: [http://www.slideshare.net/draftkraft/aloha-editor- contentedi...](http://www.slideshare.net/draftkraft/aloha-editor- contenteditable-useable)

In particular, there are some screenshots which show table editing, insertion of images, and what appears to be navigation and forms as well. My favourite, though, is on page 37, where it looks like some user-defined paragraph classes ("info" and "alert") have been included in the formatting toolbar -- it looks _really_ slick!

There's at least one other project which is trying to make editing web content better: <http://www.wymeditor.org/>

I recall reading that, due to the way that WYMeditor makes the HTML structure explicity (while still keeping it relatively end-user-friendly), it tends to encourage users to produce "nice" HTML -- simply because poorly-structured HTML looks ugly in WYMeditor. :)

But wow, Aloha looks absolutely beautiful! The sooner FCKeditor and tinyMCE die, the better off we'll all be.

<comment><USER3> CKEditor and TinyMCE have solved a very difficult problem in extremely elegant ways; their developers deserve more respect than wishing their projects death.

<comment><USER2> Both of those editors rely on the contentEditable support of the browser to power the actual editing, and browsers have traditionally done a very poor job at producing valid HTML. They make attempts at "post-validation" and "attribute scrubbing", but these are at best makeup on a gorilla. I certainly wouldn't call their solutions elegant.

Having worked on numerous content management systems in the past, one of our biggest issues was trying to "lock down" the WYSIWYG editor so as to minimize the chances that clients could inadvertently break the layout when editing. It was a huge pain point for us, and I lost count of the number of times I had to go in and fix broken pages.

I'm very glad to see that the state of the art in HTML editing is moving forward, and it's well past time for CKEditor and TinyMCE to be put to pasture, IMHO.

<comment><USER4> Same problem here: the one feature that all these editors lack is the ability to restrict what kind of formatting that the users can create.

In a system I've created for a client, some users are allowed to use e.g. bold and italic, but most users aren't (because they would go overboard and make every other word bold). Post-scrubbing the edited html often breaks the editing experience, and browsers have lot's of bugs in contenteditable.

<comment><USER5> Hi all, we try to address this issues (bugs of the browsers and functionally to restrict to defined formatting) with Aloha Editor. For ex. we have more than 80 unit tests for the ENTER button. One of those is hitting the ENTER in a H1 Tag. The current is a release in an early development state and we want to focus on reliability and basic functionality (be able to write without errors) in first step.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On the insert tab, all I see is Table, but I can't seem to find inserting images, editing hyperlinks, bullet points.

Also, Firefox keeps asking me if I want to kill an unresponsive script, so wondering what that is...

And what is the aGPL? If I include a link to the js file on my webapp, do I have to open source all my code? I really don't get what all these different licenses mean.

<comment><USER7> AGPL's a version of the GPL that considers "running a modified version as a webapp" equivalent to what counts as "distribution" with the normal GPL. The goal is that if, say, Amazon AGPL'd their EC2 infrastructure, and you created an improved version that you then put online as your own cloud provider, you'd have to release your improvements. The normal GPL wouldn't require that, because running a service off code isn't considered "distribution" of the code (the code itself never leaves your servers). People who use the AGPL, though, want semantics roughly equivalent to what the GPL got you with fat-client apps: if someone made and sold a modified version of your GPL'd offline word processor, for example, they'd have to GPL the modifications.

Not sure it makes any difference with .js code, though, because in that case the code _is_ being distributed, so the normal GPL would already apply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Much of the functionality they mention can be done with other Editors. We've used edit-in-place for the past several years, even with things like CKEditor. There's nothing that forces you to need to do a page-reload to load CKEditor or other editors, rather you need an omniscient wrapper that can deal with it. For example, we use edit-in-place all the time with CKEditor, but of course we created a NOLOH wrapper for it.

A live example of instantiating and changing CKEditors: <http://www.noloh.com/Demos/CKEditor/Example/index.php>

Code for example: [http://github.com/noloh/CKEditor/blob/master/Example/index.p...](http://github.com/noloh/CKEditor/blob/master/Example/index.php)

From there, it's easy to create an Edit-In-Place object using CKEditor: <http://noloh.diffpaste.com/#/667/>, then wherever you would like edit-in- place functionality you simply instantiate an EditRegion.

<comment><USER5> Hi asnyder, the difference between Aloha Editor and others is, that you can make any element in the HTML DOM like H1-H6, DIVs, P, SPAN, etc. directly editable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like the idea, but you can't even insert a link with the editor. I assume it is just an oversight because it would make perfect sense to have an insert link button right next to the insert table button. Kind of a large omission though, especially if you are claiming HTML WYSIWYG. (And what about images?)

<comment><USER5> Hi timmfin, you are right. We don't have a working link example yet. This is because of the concept we'd like to follow editing content. We don't want to handle link's as special elements. A link is A tag but the rest is like any other tag in a HTML document with the need to edit the SRC attribute. It also makes sense to enable Users to edit other elements like ABBR, CITE, etc. and a lot more specially when it comes to semantic annotation of content. Therefore we want to put a special attention to the editing of attributes like the SRC attribute of the A tag. I hope we can come up with that soon.

The same thing when it comes to insert any image or even other resources like automatic list from databases, slideshows, flash videos and the more. We are experimenting with a "block" concept which enables the user to insert non editable blocks like the above and handle their content. Still you will need to write an plugin to the resource source of your choice.

Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Very slow for me in Chrome 5 on OS X. Seems like it needs some major polishing before it's ready.

<comment><USER11> It's causing Safari 5 to hang and pop 'slow script' warnings.

<comment><USER12> The demo is actually pretty fast <http://aloha-editor.com/demos/960-fluid- demo/>

I think it's a front page script that's causing the slowness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hmm. Not particularly impressive thus far. Here were my first two impressions:

\- Tried the link last night several times, and the server never responded.

\- Tried again today, it came up, I selected some text and clicked "Heading". The whole document turned bold. Hit Ctrl+Z and nothing happened.

Left.

Stuff like this is all about first impressions. These guys managed to screw that up for me twice. It's like Joel Spolsky said about premature exposure: "Now you've got two problems: your thing sucks, and everybody knows it."

<comment><USER5> Hi,

@1 thanks you for your feedback with the server. Actually we have a problem with the backup in the night (MEZ) on the server we cannot solve easily. I'll have to switch to another host with the website.

@2 Heading works on the paragraph and makes a H1-6 element around the paragraph. This behavior is like in MS Word if you did not select 1 or more characters. The resulting style depends on the CSS. Maybe our demos do not point that out clearly. You should have a look at the resulting source code after some formatting.

And yes, we still have some problems. Specially with tables. But I think it's better to give others a chance to review and feedback in an early stage so we can react on the feedback. Thank you.

br haymo

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It looks like it doesn't work on the iPad: I can't get a cursor to appear.

That could be because contenteditable doesn't work on iOS (but you can style a textarea any way you want).

</comment><comment><USER15> Direct link to one of the demo pages <http://aloha-editor.com/demos/960-fluid- demo/>

</comment><comment><USER16> There doesn't seem to be an obvious way of deleting or editing tables after inserting one.

<comment><USER5> Thank you. We had the feedback several times. Deleting all rows or cols deletes a table. I admit - not the best solution. Will try to improve that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks like it's been HN'd. My connections are timing out.

</comment><comment><USER18> www.ltsun.com has been around longer than Aloha.</comment>


Nvidia is rallying after rocking its CES keynote - <AUTHOR> http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nvidia-stock-price-rallying-after-rocking-its-ces-keynote-2018-1-1012670418 <comment><USER2> > The platform allows users to run high-end video games on Nvidia's machines, > and stream the game to any computer with minimal lag. The idea is that users > will be able to play games on their computers, even if they aren't wielding > the latest graphics card and processor.

So, OnLive again? I think I'll pass..

</comment><comment><USER3> Surprising that they went for the "Uber partnership" move. Launching their own cryptocurrency or a new machine learning initiative would be fashionable moves much more naturally aligned with their products.</comment>


A New Release Process for Ubuntu? - <AUTHOR> http://netsplit.com/2011/09/08/new-ubuntu-release-process/

<comment><USER2> _And you land the quarter-complete feature in the first release, replacing the older stable feature._

Aha!</comment>


My Blogging Stack in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://christianfei.com/posts/2019-10-27-my-blogging-stack-in-2020/ <comment><USER2> What is the recommended "stack" to replace Wordpress for non-technical users? Seems like there should be an Electron app that allows for client-side composition and archival with the option of publishing static site files and multiple authors staying in sync with each other through a really simple API ties to a SQLite database. Does this really not exist yet?

<comment><USER3> Non-technical users just want Squarespace! Or hosted WordPress or any other CMS where they don't need to worry about whether the site is static or dynamic. They don't care about the technical details, and they barely about performance unless it's particularly egregious.</comment></comment>


The Paradox of Universal Basic Income - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/the-paradox-of-universal-basic-income/ <comment><USER2> Given the fear about automation's effect on job availability, why is no one talking about basic needs automation? If we can develop machines to serve french fries at McDonalds, certainly there can be some initiatives to automate the production of food/water/shelter/clothing/etc.

If through automation we drive down the cost of staying alive to virtually nil, then we would alleviate much of the consternation about UBI feasibility. But maybe I'm missing something.

<comment><USER3> Most of the things you listed are basically automated already.

<comment><USER4> Which is why, as automation keeps taking jobs away, even the people at the bottom are better off, since even though they're forced into ever lower paying jobs, what they can buy with this money enables to them to have a better quality of life than before.

I.e. if Uber switches to self driving cars, and all the previous drivers are forced into lower paying menial jobs, even them may be able to start affording to use the lowest tier of Uber's service in the future.</comment></comment></comment>


What Do Men Think It Means to Be a Man? - <AUTHOR> https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-do-men-think-it-means-to-be-a-man/ <comment><USER2> Many non-white men who would rather not be put in the same group as women in debate(s) about equality.</comment>


Google Voice finds a rival in 3jam - <AUTHOR> http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-10300243-12.html <comment><USER2> FYI:

"3jam beta costs $4.99 with a 12-month subscription, but price is indirectly proportional to commitment. A three-month bundle costs $5.99, and you'll pay $8.99 for one month. The charge won't include texting rates, which 3jam will tack on for $5 to $20 per month."

<comment><USER3> I thought this was odd. I think they meant to say $4.99 per month with a 12 month contract, etc.

I will stick to Google Voice, which is free.</comment></comment>


How to handle Hacker News feedback on your beloved app - <AUTHOR> http://hrishimittal.com/post/52291881111/how-to-handle-hacker-news-feedback-on-your-beloved-app <comment><USER2> I disagree with the advice to "focus on the positive feedback". You will already have an unrealistically optimistic view of your app, because it's your baby. Your purpose in showing it to HN (or any other audience) is to get a more accurate picture of both their positive aspects and their shortcomings. If you focus only on positive feedback, you get validation, but you don't find out how to improve.

Research has found that novices disproportionately seek positive feedback, whereas experts seek negative feedback[0]. Would you rather be more like a novice, or more like an expert?

Doyen of entrepreneurs, Elon Musk, also advices entrepreneurial wannabes to seek negative feedback[1]:

"Always seek negative feedback, even though it can be mentally painful. They won't always be right, but I find the single biggest error people make is to ignore constructive, negative feedback."

[0] [http://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/sf2559/files/2011/08/FF_JCR_F...](http://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/sf2559/files/2011/08/FF_JCR_Feedback.pdf)

[1] [http://news.investors.com/management-leaders-in- success/0821...](http://news.investors.com/management-leaders-in- success/082112-622935-elon-musk-launched-spacex-tesla.htm?p=full)

<comment><USER3> Upvoted.

After some thought I felt that it'd be nice to not let any 'Show HN posts' pass through without some sort of criticism and/or value assessment. Give it a domain-ban, if the post deserves it... but don't let it get away without the Mordor's eye.

Quite often we see some really nice pieces of work dropping off the new-page with just 1/2 votes. Later the same page pops up to the front with better timing or sort. And also sometimes not so great pieces of work pop up on the front page simply because of timing, clout and other factors - call it kismet, not karma.

I personally try to vote projects off the new page, to support ones which are good, but probably not many HN'ers waylay (I could be totally wrong on this assumption though) the new submissions page.

Here is what I think that could be done:

All show HN: posts be given a round of review/criticism. Let there be some extra weight, extra time and also heavier penalty during the charged life of such a post. A separate tab like Ask HN: perhaps?

<comment><USER4> There already exists an Ask HN tab that aggregates the Ask HN and Show HN posts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was just thinking about this today. Funny enough, the stuff HN says usually comes up when I talk to people while I'm out or talking to customers. They have the same concerns, but HN will just tell you up front, whereas most people just won't say anything. Would you rather know what people are thinking, or not know anything at all?

I'd say you should just focus on answering people's questions/criticisms as long as they aren't trolling. I did a Show HN today, and while a lot of it was critical, I think most of it was valid: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5828480> \- we also got some great suggestions on parts that were confusing.

We require Facebook, we have a credit card with up front payment. This is literally as bad as it gets, in terms of HN standards. And we got plenty of people who paid us money up front and Facebook connected (some people are paying us $200 and giving us access to a lot of Facebook information and they've never met us before). When you're dealing with money and identity, I think you should address people's concerns and take it seriously. Difficult to sweep that stuff under the rug and pretend like it's not a big deal to take someone's money or identity and use it in some way.

I'd say expect that HN will be critical, as will most people. At least HN is telling you. Most people won't care enough to take time and comment.

Reminds me of a quote that I really like: "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." - Eli Wiesel

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points, Jared. My post veers a bit on the negative side, but I just wanted to address the things that are demoralising to people putting up stuff for feedback. You've been around a long time building and shipping stuff, so you probably have a thick skin.

I agree that it's better to get some critical feedback than none, but _only if it's on-topic_. A lot of times, I see Show HN posts derailed by comments on stuff that doesn't even matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are entire books written on pricing. I recommend _Strategy and Tactics of Pricing_. It's a short, focused textbook and very illuminating. I reviewed it last year[1].

Remember: all passionate arguments about technology are close to being total irrelevancies in the face of the leverage good pricing gives you.

Rails vs Node, Ember vs Angular, ConfusingName vs PuntasmicNomenclature: these arguments have _next to zero influence over your profitability and cashflow_.

It is a lever you will not get to pull very often, so you might as well take a little time to think about it.

[1] [http://chester.id.au/2012/09/12/review-the-strategy-and- tact...](http://chester.id.au/2012/09/12/review-the-strategy-and-tactics-of- pricing/)

</comment><comment><USER7> My version of those points would be:

1\. Provide a demo option if login's required To avoid asking for people to use features like facebook connect upfront allow them to use a demo version of the app. This gives them a chance to have a play with the app before committing to it / exposing their identity. That's particularly useful for HN audience who will pop to your site in order to give you feedback, but also useful to potential users who want to understand more about what your site is than they read on the blurb on the front page.

2\. Read all feedback and decide what's relevant Ignoring feedback on particular subject areas just creates a blind spot. Read all feedback and use your own judgement to determine if the person has a point or not. They may be wrong, you may be wrong - but at least if you read the feedback you'll have considered things you may not have previously.

3\. Focus on the constructive feedback. Pay more attention to comments which give a problem coupled with a solution - those pointing out issues with no suggestions are more likely to be ranting (~generalisation) whilst those singing your praises aren't giving you anything to improve what you've put out there (though a few such comments are always nice to soothe the ego after reading some of the harsher posts).

4\. Look for common themes in advice. If lots of people are giving the same advice (e.g. I wouldn't pay $100 for this up front, but I would pay $10 a month) consider what they're suggesting - whereas if one person's ranting that something's too expensive you can probably ignore it. As with all advice it's about using your judgement rather than ignoring the advice outright because it's about xyz.

5\. Avoid asking for a credit card upfront Same as #1 - provide a demo option which avoids the need for a credit card / perhaps give a first month free option to allow use of the product without card details. If someone from HN goes to check out your app and give you feedback, you shouldn't charge them for their advice. If a potential user can't play with the app before paying for it (or trusting you with their details having seen no more than the front page) they'll also be less likely to join.

</comment><comment><USER8> My take on Hacker News feedback is don't ask people for feedback full stop. This place used to be great for getting valuable feedback and you still get decent feedback from some, but this place has become so negative that people will nitpick and call you out on the smallest things.

Case in point was a submission from a few days ago called Unsplash (<http://unsplash.com>) a guy gives away ten free high quality images you can use for anything every ten days. The first ten images were geared towards startups of his Macbook, iPhone and iPad. There were some, "Thank you, nice work"'s and then there were people complaining about it breaching Apple style guidelines because the phone wasn't face on, etc.

Take any feedback from this place with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER9> IIRC, that submitter ridiculed stock photos harshly in the original title and so that's why people reacted with negativeness and also, the points about Apples logo not being eligible for unapproved advertising is actuallynNi e to know

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In the rare times when I've submitted something (that I've made) to HN, whether it be a small project or just a blog post, I kind of relish criticism. I don't think what I've created is all that great, in the scheme of things, but the fact that I put energy into it and think it's worth notifying the public means that at least at the subconscious level, I'm confident that what I've made has _some_ merit.

So hearing praise is nice...I greatly appreciate it that people take the time out of their busy days (or HN browsing, and what have you) to check out the link and then take the time to say something positive...but the substance of the praise isn't usually constructive, because if I've done something good enough to praise, then theoretically, it's _natural_ that people like it for the same reasons that I had for even making it.

But criticism...well, I usually self-critique pretty hard, but I don't think you can ever impartially critique yourself. When people rail on the shortcomings that I _know_ exist, even just putting up a defense or an explanation is valuable to me, because I may have underestimated critical flaws...but if my judgment was right, it's still a useful critical process to re-examine those assumptions.

And of course, the gold standard is when you get criticism for things you didn't even realize were problems...and that's immensely helpful. To use that cliche saying, what's worse than harsh criticism is being ignored. And I think it's much easier to psychologically motivate yourself in times of criticism than it is to persevere when no one cares even enough to troll you.

And one last thought...the anonymous nature of the Internet does make it easy for strangers to flame each other. But the other side of the coin is that the personal nature of face-to-face contact often stifles much needed constructive criticism. Maybe HN's level of constructive-to-trolling criticism isn't perfect, but it's one of the better places to get free, useful analysis of your work by likeminded people.

</comment><comment><USER11> > If you don't have a signup method other than Facebook, for the love of God, > don't put your app on HN until you add it. HN hates Facebook with a passion, > and using only FB connect will make sure you don't get any useful feedback > on the actual app.

it's not only because of hate, but because people who use facebook not necessarily want to share access to their profile to every random app.

</comment><comment><USER12> _3\. Focus on the positive feedback.

Figure out what people do like about your app and drill down. Remember, your aim is not to please everyone. Your aim is to just find some people who love your product, however crappy it may be._

The extreme example of this, however, is that you end up building your product for one person. I mean that's an obvious failure mode, and in practice you'd certainly hope to get more users than that, but at some point you've got to decide what market you're going after beyond just, 'The people who like your product just as it is.'

Ideally everyone would like your product. That's rarely going to happen, I suspect, because people have different needs for most things - but generally the thing with the more general appeal seems likely to win unless your thing is worth an incredible amount to the few who like it.

</comment><comment><USER13> HN is great for getting exposure, provided you find the value of the exposure & feedback worth the cost of collecting & processing it. The author's point "Unless you're selling something for which HN is going to be the main target market ( _shudder_ )..." is good to keep in mind regarding all HN feedback, not just pricing.

The feedback you should pay most attention to is that from your actual target market. Heck, _most_ products in existence that generate tens of millions of dollars per year in sales would be flogged mercilessly if posted to HN with a request for feedback.

Screw all that. Go find actual customers and use their feedback to figure out how to meet actual needs sufficiently to make some kind of transaction happen. And if your target market is HN, then may God have mercy on your soul.

</comment><comment><USER14> Good idea for a post, I bet there will be some good advice that surfaces here on the topic.

I think you are slightly off on the FB comment though. > _HN hates Facebook with a passion, and using only FB connect will make sure you don't get any useful feedback on the actual app._

Actually, HN hates when developers use FB as the only method of signing in. I haven't complained about it, but agree with HN on this topic. Two things magnify the hate: 1) No discernible advantage of using FB for the user. 2) Asking for permissions which the user does not understand why you are asking.

\+ People complain about too many share buttons.

</comment><comment><USER15> My suggestion: Simply ask for comments on the aspects that you want feedback for. Tell the readership, "I'm particularly interested in people's thoughts on X, Y, Z" If you don't value or want feedback on design or pricing tell the readership: "The design and pricing information are in flux, so don't waste too much time critiquing those"

If you post an app. I _will_ spend my time critiquing the design and it would be annoying to do that, only to have my comments jettisoned out of hand.

</comment><comment><USER16> Sounds like anything else in life:

1) People are cheap.

2) Bikeshedding.

Dunno why folks like to single out HN (or any other geek commenting venues). A lot of people wandering by are thinking the same things HN commenters are - people who are cheap or people who nitpick the easy-to-spot visual stuff... they just don't have an easy and convenient venue to talk about that. When you open yourself to feedback more directly by posting to a place like HN, all that silent junk becomes vocal. Happens the same anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting thing about the price is that usually I see many comments (for very early products) saying the prices are fine or should be higher.

<comment><USER18> I was just going to post the same, I don't remember many "I want it but only if you lower your price" but instead tons of "raise your price, damn it!" (and not only from patio11).

Ok maybe some says "I won't buy it because I can do the same in a cheaper way" but those won't buy your service/product either way

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> so basically avoid any criticism, push hand to your ears and start chanting LALALAALLALALALA? why even ask for feedback you are not willing to take criticism? I agree HN sometime can be harsh, but I think this actually reflects how the "world" will feel like about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> It might help to actually read my article, otherwise you're saying exactly the kind of stuff I'm telling people to ignore. Others in this thread have made the same point I think you're trying to make in a much more civil and agreeable manner.

<comment><USER20> Ah, very clever to test the GP.

You criticized him seeking to gauge whether or not he would properly ignore your negative feedback.

Well played, sir.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> In my experience a nice way to handle HN feedback (or for that matter f/b from anywhere) is to take it all home "as is". Then look at it later, say after a few hours or days or weeks. That depends on how sore the embarrassment was.

One way to help yourself here is to remember the Reid Hoffman's quote:

" _If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late._ "

I believe calmness and coolness of another time can reveal so much about what people were trying to communicate early on. There is so much to learn about your product/messaging that could have been, and that's where _negatively coated_ feedback comes in handy. Call it shameless or thick skinned but be prepared for all sorts of feedback.

</comment><comment><USER21> If you rewire the brain to reframe criticism and rejection as positive, ala Rejection Therapy[1], you'll learn more from each experience, and any negative aspects will be "water off a duck's back" as the saying goes.

In fact, getting rejected feels like a win now. It feels like accomplishment and relief.

[1] <http://rejectiontherapy.com>

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm going to link this once more because I think it's pertinent - [http://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2013/06/02/hacker-news- isnt...](http://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2013/06/02/hacker-news-isnt-a- support-group/)

And once again a post that is deeply dismissive of HN (basically "don't listen to anything but hurrah's, and they're all cheap bastards anyways". Well if you're going to butter us up first...), posted to HN.

There are a growing contingent of "positivity-only" champions who seem to misunderstand the point of Show HNs. Is this some sort of generational thing? Some sort of side-effect of the positive-feedback experiment?

<comment><USER16> Yeah, I don't get the "positivity only" thing. Obviously criticism should be polite and friendly and encouraging of the good parts, but you see a problem and you're being asked for feedback, you should say it.

I mean, has anybody ever been to an artist critique at an educational institution? _artists_. Seriously, the group of people with the worst reputation for being wishy-washy and aimless? They're freaking merciless in critique, and this is accepted as normal, because it's understood that this is healthy for your craft.</comment></comment>


Mikhail Baryshnikov's new "anti-ballet" - <AUTHOR> http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/12/01/the-resurrection-of-joseph-brodsky/ <comment><USER2> I started studying ballet at the age of three and continued through high school. I eventually stopped to pursue other sports and academic interests, but I grew up rather alone as a young boy with an immense appreciation for — borderline obsession with — Mikhail Baryshnikov.

I vividly remember sharing in elementary school that Baryshnikov was my idol, while others talked of Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson, but it was usually just a source of ridicule, which I was used to. I'm in my thirties now and have always felt saddened by not having the chance to watch him perform as he retired about the age I started appreciating the greats in ballet. I ultimately married a (now retired) ballet dancer and we share the love for the art, though she more closely follows the female performers, understandably.

I have to share that I always felt a bit embittered when friends who watched Sex and the City would talk about his character because they never knew who he really was – one of the greatest male ballet dancers to walk this earth. I will say, though, that I got a kick out of getting a chance to tell them. As an adult, my former life as a dancer is far more appreciated, especially when we'd go out to a club, and most certainly after I met my wife.

I'm really excited to hear about this performance and I want to thank you for sharing. I will find a way to go, just to see him in the flesh.

<comment><USER3> One of my nephews started ballet (I think he was 6 at the time), but gave it up after only about a year. I was a bit disappointed- male ballet dancers are seriously impressive guys!- but he still likes dance, so that's something. I always like finding things like this that help validate those interests, to work against the negative stereotypes of male dancers that pervade most American youth culture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No clue why this showed up on HN but it's welcome. Most HN readers probably know Baryshnikov, a titanically gifted dancer who defected from the then- Soviet Union in the 1970s. Soviet ballet was matchless technically but hidebound. He was a free thinker, so, yeah... that didn't work. He flourished in the West. I think he's also an underrated actor, administrator (hey, that means a lot in the art world) and choreographer. This dance is about his friendship with Joseph Brodsky.

Brodsky was a poet with something of the same background, also a Soviet defector. To my mind he is one of the greatest poets in English of the 20th century; like Nabokov he was extraordinarily gifted in more than one language. He in his mid 50s about 20 years ago. I imagine this is one of the more interesting of Baryshnikov's works because they seemed like two birds of a feather. I miss Brodsky terribly and I didn't even know him. Baryshnikov at 67 probably has some dance magic left in him for this performance.

<comment><USER5> > No clue why this showed up on HN but it's welcome

And that's why it showed up...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can someone point out a video of Baryshnikov's dance that is so impressive? Perhaps it's a lack of training or interest in dance, but I just looked at a few videos on Youtube, and none of them seem all that amazing, just consisting of what seem like standard ballet moves.

</comment><comment><USER7> Very happy we got to see him perform a brief experimental work in 1998. Movement that would be brushed off as a special effect if kids saw it today. Seeing it live was astonishing.

</comment><comment><USER8> Although your significant other might complain you don't like, nor get the ballet; deep down inside they don't really care. And if given a choice--the're glade you don't know all the ballet trivia, and wear a black turtleneck.

Source: last girlfriend. She had other gripes about my character, but my ballet appreciation, or lack of, was not one of them.

<comment><USER4> Thing about Baryshnikov was that he was so good, you didn't have to like ballet to be floored by his performances.

Some people don't like museums. I think that's largely because they haven't been to a great one, like the Met in New York or the Louvre. The second-raters (like everything in Los Angeles, for example, and I say this as a proud former Angeleno, actually are boring. Misha was like that in ballet.

I don't watch ballet anymore either, because I haven't seen anyone else like him in his prime.

Source: Not a ballet fan before, or after, Baryshinikov at his best</comment></comment>


Security Analysis of India's Electronic Voting Machines (2010) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/evm-ccs10.pdf <comment><USER2> For a related discussion see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10076919](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10076919)</comment>


You can now host HipChat internally - <AUTHOR> https://www.hipchat.com/server

<comment><USER2> $1800 for 12 months with a max of 25 users is a bit steep. Also, this was launched in January already: [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2015/01/hipchat_server/](http://blogs.atlassian.com/2015/01/hipchat_server/)

</comment><comment><USER3> cool :)</comment>


Playing with JSON in Postgres - <AUTHOR> http://devblog.avdi.org/2014/01/31/playing-with-json-in-postgres/ <comment><USER2> Cool. Little snippets like this are why I love postgres.</comment>


Bracing for the Vanilla Boom - <AUTHOR> https://www.sapiens.org/culture/madagascar-vanilla-boom/ <comment><USER2> This is a pretty fascinating article even though it is frustratingly superficial. It seems like there are a bunch of different threads here that would benefit from exploration; the behavioral economics thread; the anthropology thread, the climate change thread ( notice how weather has changed the price repeatedly in the article ), and the producer/consumer disjunction thread. Maybe the author should do some more fieldwork and turn it into a book.

The Malagasy vanilla farmers behavior in the face of a windfall is not that different from many Americans actions in similar circumstances from what I've seen. People with a sudden access of money will often splurge on bizarre displays of wealth, sports cars and motorcycles, fancy clothing they rarely wear; etc. Often not because they have a long-held desire for the toys they are buying but because they have a cultural template of what wealth and success should look like that they are trying to act out.

<comment><USER3> > People with a sudden access of money will often splurge on bizarre displays > of wealth, sports cars and motorcycles, fancy clothing they rarely wear; > etc. Often not because they have a long-held desire for the toys they are > buying but because they have a cultural template of what wealth and success > should look like that they are trying to act out.

It's astounding that many people still aren't self-aware enough to realize this and take appropriate action when they gain a lot of wealth. Seems like common and easily accessible knowledge at this point. I suspect it's a form of evolutionary wealth redistribution that's built in to the human genome.

<comment><USER4> > It's astounding that many people still aren't self-aware enough to realize > this and take appropriate action when they gain a lot of wealth.

Who says they're not self-aware?

The article explicitly mentions it's unsafe to take the large amounts of cash traveling, which it notes "are usually a day's trek away". It's not uncommon for developing-world banks to be untrustworthy, as well.

Spending it instead of having it stolen or being murdered for it might be the right approach here.

<comment><USER5> Wouldn't lavishly spending it still be an issue as you're likely to stand out / be targeted?

Let alone that stealing stuff might not be as convenient as cash, but still desirable...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It actually makes tons of sense to invest in non-cash goods to trade later when there's a bust. But no matter what form your profits are in, the big risk in Madagascar (besides the cyclones) seems to be the gangs. Drivers regularly get murdered driving across territories controlled by gangs. There's really not much law enforcement to speak of and the country is insanely poor, considering all this vanilla commerce.

The vanilla trade often takes advantage of the people living in vulnerable communities and doesn't pay a living wage. If we all want ethical access to quality vanilla, we need to start asking buyers to start sourcing certified fair trade (or better) vanilla, and to work to improve the fair trade system.

<comment><USER7> >The vanilla trade often takes advantage of the people living in vulnerable communities and doesn't pay a living wage. If we all want ethical access to quality vanilla, we need to start asking buyers to start sourcing certified fair trade (or better) vanilla, and to work to improve the fair trade system.

How will that help if the problem is gangs?

<comment> dan-robertson If it pays better to work in the legal vanilla trade than the dangerous work of being in a gang, people will typically not choose to be in a gang.

<comment><USER8> I'd argue that it is just like drugs; you can make a lot more working the street than in a cubical. That's why some do it in the first place, the risk of prison time doesn't matter, because when you get out, you'd still have more money than if you worked in a cubical.

<comment><USER9> Most people selling drugs make around minimum wage in the US. What makes it attractive is you don't pay taxes, a small percentage get rich, and most people have few options.

I would assume the most gang members in Madagascar are making even less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> To me this means vanilla prices are being manipulated.

If the farmers themself are not demanding so much money, then who is? Someone is artificially restricting supply, or inflating prices.

Wonder how long it will go on before it crashes....

<comment> barry-cotter If you want to manipulate a market that big you'd better have very deep pockets or be willing to take a very large loss. It's easy to drive up the price of something, buy lots of it. It's easy to drop the price of something, sell down your stockpile. The only way to make money by buying lots of something and then selling loads of it later is by successfully predicting that future demand will be higher than current demand.

<comment><USER11> Or buy most of crop that is the right size for market demand. Will people pay 5p more for a chocolate bar instead of going without, for sure. So, buy all the chocolate. If there's no one else to buy from and you have no morals then you've won.

I think someone did this with a large portion (several tenths) of the [European?] cocoa bean supply.

<comment> barry-cotter That's really, really difficult. You're relying on no one else figuring out what you're doing and exploiting that knowledge.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday)

Silver Thursday was an event that occurred in the United States in the silver commodity markets on Thursday, March 27, 1980, following the Hunt brothers' attempt at cornering the silver market. A subsequent steep fall in silver prices led to panic on commodity and futures exchanges.

Porsche makes more VW stock available to desperate short-sellers

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/oct/29/vw- volkswag...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/oct/29/vw-volkswagen- short-selling)

<comment><USER11> It seems that the Hunts were nobbled, the changes to the rules they were trading under, the federal reserve instructing banks not to lend them money, etc.?

[http://web.pdx.edu/~jjackson/HuntSilver.html](http://web.pdx.edu/~jjackson/HuntSilver.html) is a useful synopsis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems like a system of phone money transfer (something like M-Pesa) would be pretty helpful there.

<comment><USER13> The problem I suspect is that the local banking system isn't super great, needing enough money to buy a smart phone in order to accept payment seems risky.

<comment><USER14> M-Pesa doesn't need smartphones. Most farmers probably are already using _dumb_ feature phones.

<comment><USER13> Neat!

But does it require a bank account (which was my main concern)? Per [http://www.afd.fr/en/developing-mobile-banking- madagascar](http://www.afd.fr/en/developing-mobile-banking-madagascar) only 5% of Malagasy had access to a bank account in 2014.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure it requires a bank account. People can go by the same stall they bought their sim card from and put money on their account. One of the benefits is that it brings people into the financial system that otherwise don't have access.

<comment><USER13> People have access to the financial system by virtue of having actual currency.

The question is how you move physical currency out of a payment system, if you don't have actual access to a bank. Essentially if you have "money" in any kind of non-cashable form you can't use it to buy anything. So being paid electronically in an environment where most people you interact with only accept cash/goods is essentially the same as not having money.

The ability to put money into any kind of electronic payment system is, if anything, less important than the ability to withdraw it, especially if you're in an environment that is still dominated by cash payments.

<comment><USER14> Most cell phone connections in developing world are prepaid. There is a well established system of vendors who accept currency and credit your phone airtime balance. M-Pesa leverages the same system by turning them into banking agents. You can deposit and withdraw funds by visiting your neighborhood grocer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I cook at home and, for comparison, I usually buy vanilla at Penzey's. A large bottle of vanilla cost $28, maybe less, and it lasts me a year or so. A month ago, I went for a new bottle and it was listed at $50.

<comment><USER17> I'm getting near the end of the half-pound of Mexican vanilla I bought just before prices went totally nuts (that packet of beans cost me $55). Not sure what I'm going to do when I run out.

One factor not mentioned in the article is the increased demand from industrial users. Food processors having been trying to replace artificial flavors with natural, and there isn't enough vanilla to go around. Global production is actually quite small, compared to say coffee or chocolate. And it seems unnecessary. Synthetic vanillin is identical to real vanillin. Admittedly, it lacks the additional secondary flavor chemicals that make real vanilla tastier, but does that really matter to Jell-O pudding?

<comment><USER18> Consumers enjoy patting themselves on the back by feeding their children all natural food. As absurd as it is the "natural" label carries a lot of weight with suburban soccer moms (and probably others as well)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Its common to see this hot money concept in a lot of farming. I cant tell you how many farmers I know who have no money in drought seasons, but they bought a Mercedes in the good years.

<comment><USER20> Yes for sure - or 80k+ pickup trucks…

<comment><USER21> ... or a downpayment on a new Deere...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a super neat article.

I do wonder if some of the big asset purchases (the motorbike example) are also to act as a non-bank money store? Much easier to lock up a bike than a pile of money, etc.

<comment><USER22> This makes a lot of sense and seems obvious, actually. I'm surprised the author didn't make that connection, especially while pointing out that sometimes the fancy motorbike would be owned by an old Grandpa who had no intention of riding it, and rather spent all day polishing it (that is, trying to mitigate depreciation).

<comment><USER13> Not as fun an article? Or at least maybe they didn't think it was?

I think the entire thing was interesting and could have stood on its own, but maybe that conceit provided a thread to tie the article together?

Also, in response to the M-Pesa comment, I did a quick googling, and it looks like as of 2014 only 5% of Malagasy had a bank account at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Seems to me like the farmers need to form a futures market to even out the boom and bust cycles.

</comment><comment><USER24> Funny to see this article. It's been years since I had to buy vanilla extract at the store. Today I had to get some and was shocked to pay $13 for 2 oz. I don't remember it being so expensive but now I know why.

</comment><comment><USER25> The NYT covered this topic in late August 2018: [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/30/world/africa/...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/30/world/africa/madagascar- vanilla.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> I expected this to be about World Of Warcraft Vanilla ... I probably need to get a life :-)

</comment><comment><USER27> Unstated in all this lavish spending is that there must be some very successful merchants taking advantage of other people's poor spending habits. Someone is shipping all that stuff out to them.

</comment><comment><USER28> A lot of libertarian and capitalist faith in the market relies on individuals having the _capacity_ for "private property".

This is (in part) an example of how that thinking breaks down as that assumption breaks down.

If enough people cannot have private property, can the market function as desired by those who believe in it?

<comment><USER7> There's not really an alternative though. If the country lacks the ability to implement a "small government" system like libertarianism, then it definitely can't implement a "big government" system like communism.

</comment></comment><comment> swingline-747 Isn't most vanillin created as a byproduct of the paper industry?

Also, I hope the prices of the real stuff goes down, at least for a few months.

<comment><USER29> I'm actually surprised by how good the wood pulp version tastes. Unless I'm buying straight up vanilla ice cream, I don't mind the wood pulp version of vanilla at all. If it's vanilla with stuff mixed into it, I won't really be able to tell the difference.

<comment><USER30> It's my understanding that modern "imitation" vanilla is chemically identical to the natural stuff. Even so, I buy the regular...

<comment> stone-monkey I read in an article that real vanilla only matters for applications that don't involve high heat, as the other flavors in a real vanilla bean get cooked out. Imitation is just as good for most purposes.

Just remembered, it was a food lab article:

[https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/taste-test-is- better-...](https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/taste-test-is-better- vanilla-extract-worth-the-price.html)

Food lab is my go to for food related articles interesting details behind the science and process of cooking.

<comment><USER31> Reading the article, they talk a lot about the alcohol cooking away leaving you tasting less alcohol in the product. Now my question is, where do I buy vanilla that comes in 35% alcohol solution? I can only ever remember seeing dry vanilla.

<comment><USER32> Amazon or many supermarkets?

[https://www.amazon.com/McCormick-Natural-Vanilla-Extract- Glu...](https://www.amazon.com/McCormick-Natural-Vanilla-Extract-Gluten- Free/dp/B005MIWPGC/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I love the concept behind the chameleon pasted with money.

Though I do feel a bit sorry for the chameleon. It probably wasn't too impressed.</comment>


Ask HN: Get into computer security - <AUTHOR> I've got a month free to do what all I want. I really want to dive into computer security. I already know the basics. What would you suggest I should do? <comment><USER2> Go play some CTFs! [https://microcorruption.com](https://microcorruption.com) is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER3> OSCP certification: [https://www.offensive-security.com/information-security- trai...](https://www.offensive-security.com/information-security- training/penetration-testing-training-kali-linux/)

The lab is a lot of fun.

<comment><USER4> I'm unsure why you're being downvoted. This is (one of) the best answers given the OP's question.

The course is comprehensive and relatively inexpensive, although I recommend 90 days of lab time for the full effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://cryptopals.com](http://cryptopals.com)

</comment><comment><USER6> Hound 'tptacek to take you under his wing.

Alternately: [http://www.amazon.com/lm/R2EN4JTQOCHNBA/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_view...](http://www.amazon.com/lm/R2EN4JTQOCHNBA/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_view?ie=UTF8&lm_bb=)

He (or Matasano?) also has an article somewhere outlining roughly what steps you need to take from programmer -> security expert, but it wasn't easily googleable.

</comment><comment><USER7> I maintain (curate, really) a list of resources on Github. Most of the content on the list was suggested by other folks in the community: [https://github.com/paragonie/awesome- appsec](https://github.com/paragonie/awesome-appsec)

</comment><comment><USER8> Checkout [https://pentesterlab.com/bootcamp](https://pentesterlab.com/bootcamp) and/or [https://pentesterlab.com/exercises](https://pentesterlab.com/exercises)

</comment><comment><USER9> You can practice CTF challenges at [https://backdoor.sdslabs.co/](https://backdoor.sdslabs.co/) :)

</comment><comment><USER10> What area of security interests you and what do you mean by "I already know all of the basics?"

<comment><AUTHOR> I know about web security(SQL, XSS). Am comfortable with tools like DirBuster, sqlmap, ripping git from web, etc. I am comfortable with networking concepts like HTTP, TCP, UDP, IP. Have knowledge about IP Spoofing, packet sniffing, syn flooding. By knowledge I mean I know the internals as well, not just how to do them using tools. Regarding binary I can overflow a buffer by modifying return addresses, see stack using format string vulnerability, etc. But this only at a simple level. Have experienced with tools like gdb, objdump, IDA pro, etc.</comment></comment>


Phishing Site Found on a Sony Server - <AUTHOR> http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002160.html <comment><USER2> Much of the Fortune 500 is one intern away from this happening. They have large web surface areas. Say you're a large bank, not like a Bank of Canada, but a bank kind of like that. You operate in a hundred different lines of business. Some twenty-something guy with a degree in business in your wealth management group figures out that it takes six months to get a new site spun up through IT versus like ten minutes to upload Wordpress on one of the servers that they had lying around from a promotion two years ago.

Two weeks later, foo.notbankofcanada.com now hosts a phishing site.

<comment><USER3> This is entirely IT's fault, though. Why did they allow a rogue server on to the production farm in the first place? Why did the idiot have access to them?

While the blame should still be entirely on the idiot, it's still IT's job to make sure that the production environment is secure and functioning. They should have as much control of the environment as possible to ensure that they can ensure that. If they are unable to do that, then they are simply not doing their job right, and should be pushing management for more resources or training.

<comment><USER2> Without addressing whose fault it is, let's just say that in the last ten years _one hundred thousand different people_ have worked for Bank of Not Canada. They run the spectrum from "Could give talks at Black Hat" to "Could possibly be allowed to put on a hat without killing themselves, if carefully supervised at all stages of haberdashery."

All it takes is one guy screwing up one decision on his worst day six years ago.

<comment><USER4> I agree entirely, and I like your spectrum, however...

"A haberdasher is a person who sells small articles for sewing, such as buttons, ribbons, zips, and other notions" [1]

A hatmaker is a "milliner".

I know that these two ancient and noble professions are frequently confused in modern English speech, but it's rather like saying "designer" when you mean "developer"...

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am so glad I am not upper management at Sony right now... heads must be rolling.

Regardless of whether or not Sony can make it out of all this intact and actually fix the underlying problems in both their architecture and philosophy; I think companies will forever take user-privacy and user-rights a bit more seriously.

<comment><USER6> Well this level of incompetence cannot just be blamed on the upper management. It looks very bad for the devs and IT people at Sony too.

<comment><USER7> It can always be blamed on upper management. It's ultimately their responsibility to ensure that the company is employing competent people.

<comment><USER8> My former manager told me once: "When my employees do a good job, it is their success. When my employees do a bad job, it's my failure."

<comment><USER9> The world needs more managers like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I realized the other day that once about 10 years ago I got a Sony Vaio laptop. It was horribly designed garbage. It's no surprise that Sony is having all these security problems considering how sloppy the engineering was on the Vaio.

<comment><USER11> Sure, that makes lots of sense. If they're bad at one thing, they're probably bad at another, totally unrelated, thing.

<comment><USER12> I feel as though you're being sarcastic but I'm not sure I understand why. Profound organizational mediocrity is very rarely confined to a single scope of operations, in my experience.

<comment><USER13> That's ad hominem. (Or "ad _companem_ "?)

<comment><USER14> I think I'd go with _ad negotium_. Otherwise, I agree.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Where to Live If You Want the Highest Salary and Disposable Income - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-20/send-your-cvs-to-san-francisco-as-zurich-toppled-in-city-survey <comment><USER2> It seems like the data isn't that accurate, if you look at Software Developers salaries on: [https://swissdevjobs.ch/jobs/All/Zurich](https://swissdevjobs.ch/jobs/All/Zurich) (and account for 25% taxes) you would end up with ~6800 USD.

And Software Developers in Zurich earn around the average salary: [https://www.payscale.com/research/CH/Job=Software_Engineer/S...](https://www.payscale.com/research/CH/Job=Software_Engineer/Salary/8d55ae7f/Zurich)

</comment><comment><USER3> They mention renting an apartment and then another chart is about:

"Based on cab rides, dinner/lunch for two at a pub or diner, soft drinks, two movie tickets and a couple of beers"

This seems a bit haphazard.</comment>


Memo to Roger Ebert: Chess is art.  It has a Muse. - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca%C3%AFssa

<comment><AUTHOR> Modulo some trivial semantics. The canonical nine muses didn't get sorted out from the Fates, Graces, Furies, Naiads, Dryads, and so on for a long time.

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

<comment><USER2> I've often wondered what level of belief people actually had in ancient deities. Were there people who honestly believed in the existence of all these gods in the same way that the Pope believes in his god? Or perhaps people believed in the major gods (Zeus etc) while being a bit iffier on the personified concepts in the same way that Christians nowadays might believe in God and Jesus but perhaps be a little iffy on the distinction between angels, archangels and seraphim?</comment></comment>


Using LOC DNS records for mailing address - <AUTHOR> Why is there no standard for using LOC DNS records to store the mailing address for companies? It would be really convenient to be able to send a letter to company.tld and let DNS resolution get it to the right address. Sub-records could be used for branch offices. <comment><USER2> I like that idea on so many levels right now! I want to talk to you, what's your email?

</comment><comment><USER2> Here I am, find me! IN LOC 42 50 23.798 N 78 46 27.126 W 192m 10m 100m 10m</comment>


Show HN: CSS Scan – Instantly check or copy computed CSS from any element - <AUTHOR> http://guivr.github.io/cssscan <comment><AUTHOR> Hello Hacker News! Creator here, happy to answer any questions! :)

I decided to build CSS Scan to get computed styles with no hassle and in real- time. It's faster than using browsers' Developer Tools and give all of the styles in the shorthand way, this means no messy CSS or styles being overwritten. You can also copy to clipboard by just clicking on it.

P.S.: Of course this is only for use cases you want to have an overall vision of the styles; it's far from being a full alternative to Inspect Element.

It took me 50 hours and 17 minutes to develop. Inspired by @levelsio I recorded all the development and made a speed video. If you want to check it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtsNNXpXcYs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtsNNXpXcYs)

<comment><USER2> You should check out that link on a mobile device. I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking at. There's no links and just a "buy" button.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, geuis. I'll look into that

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Isn't this literally getComputedStyle[1]? Chrome devtools already has a 'computed' section which shows the same thing. What additional functionality does this provide that I'm missing?

[1] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Window/getC...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Window/getComputedStyle)

<comment><AUTHOR> Not identical, just similar. getComputedStyle gets the default styling of the browser too, and also some properties that are used just for rendering.

Besides that, you'd have to use the console for each element you want. With CSS Scan you just have to hover it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great tool! I'd like to see you keep going with this. Quick feedback: it would be useful to copy the entire ruleset, including the selector and brackets (as an option). Further if you can reach into source via document.stylesheets, grab the selectors from source (as another option).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! I have good news! Just updated the app. Now you can copy the selector name! If you use Chrome, the extension will update itself. On Firefox, I'll implement auto-update functionality tomorrow. More updates to come!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks super useful but I don't want to buy before I try. The landing page says "for the price you want", but the product page has a 1.99+ and I can't enter less than that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks! You can actually try if you're on a desktop. There's a Demo button to test it :)

<comment><USER6> I don't see a demo button, where is it?

Edit: I see it now, the browser window has to be wide enough and not zoomed in, otherwise the page goes into mobile view and the button disappears.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really GREAT! The timing is perfect, I have to rewrite a whole bunch of CSS for a project and now I can easily pick and choose what I want to port over to the new layout.

Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> That's nice to hear, Globz! I hope you enjoy it =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Anyone from Chrome/FF/Safari teams willing to implement this functionality into the default dev tools? It's __super handy __.

</comment><comment><USER9> Can you share anything about how many sales you've made? I'm curious how willing developers are to pay for tools like this. I'm working on selling a Chrome extension as well so I'd be super interested in learning more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey seanwilson, I actually made a lot more sales than I expected. $500 Revenue so far. 167 sales :) I'm also planning to write an article, I'll update stats on twitter (@gvrizzo)

<comment><USER9> By the way, how does the Gumroad integration and license checking work? You get the extension files to download on purchase?

I'm integrating Paddle for payments into my extension. It requires you to implement user accounts or license keys yourself though.

<comment><USER10> What are you currently doing to handle licensing outside of Paddle? I'm guessing you're building an Electron app?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've used a similar tool[1] before to convert all styles of an element to inline styles in order to copy it into a more isolated setting for testing, and it worked pretty well for me. There were a lot of manual steps for me to do this though, so CSS Scan seems like a pretty nice "one click" alternative.

[1]: [https://www.npmjs.com/package/computed-style-to-inline- style](https://www.npmjs.com/package/computed-style-to-inline-style)

</comment><comment><USER12> This is a great tool. I hate inspecting element to check computed css properties to troubleshoot issues for our clients. Definitely worth a shot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the support!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This looks great! Though it seems funny to charge for a tool that makes it easier to copy other people's code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! :) Yeah, but you can use it for yourself too, just to check your styles or to study the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This looks super useful! Is it also able to grab media queries and other styles that may not be applied at the current time (like style based on a parent class that gets added later to trigger an animation)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It grabs the current media query only :)

</comment></comment><comment> King-Aaron This is great. I've been looking for a good way to be able to identify between active styles and legacy css that seems to build up over time, and this is a pretty neat way to do it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you liked it! Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is it possible you can show a partial grid?

e.g. there's so many boxes inside of boxes.

It would be nice if say within the `body` tag, you show items that are at most 1,2,3,4 levels deep at most.

</comment><comment><USER16> I bought it! I looked into trying to do this myself and got stuck.

Also interested to hear how the sales go, I think charging a little money for it is a great idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks andre! :) The sales went pretty well! I'll share some stats on my twitter @gvrizzo tomorrow. Also already shared some numbers on a reply here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is really cool.

Is there any way you can add the option to turn the CSS into React inline styles?

</comment><comment><USER18> I bought it - it's cheaper than a coffee and Saves me time!

</comment><comment><USER19> If we buy, do we get future updates?

<comment><USER20> He's asking for 3 bucks. Does that really matter?

<comment><USER19> Yes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is basically an advertisement.

<comment><USER22> HN has a pretty strong history of people posting their/other's projects, commercial or otherwise and getting feedback. So in a way, every Show HN is an advertisement. I don't believe this should be discouraged. I personally find the Show HN posts far more interesting and closer to HN roots than the typical tech/political news that dominates the front page these days.</comment></comment>


Did Human Evolution Include a Semi-Aquatic Phase? - <AUTHOR> https://www.the-scientist.com/reading-frames/did-human-evolution-include-a-semi-aquatic-phase--67306 <comment><USER2> TL; DR: No.

<comment><USER3> Did you actually read the article? I did. The closest to an answer we can get right now is 47% of studied Neanderthal skulls have exostoses, called "surfer's ear" in modern humans. This and a number of other characteristics humans share with only with aquatic mammalia lead the researchers to justify ancient humans and/or relatives spent large quantities of time in the water. Does your definition of a proposed "aquatic ape" look like a mermaid?</comment></comment>


Liquid Death sells water - <AUTHOR> https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/nation-and-world/liquid-death-sells-water-to-tech-bros-who-are-too-cool-for-alcohol-20190507 <comment><USER3> > he had raised an additional $1.6 million for his canned-water startup

It's always blowing my mind that smart/rich people invest time/energy/money in such useless ventures. On one hand everyone knows we're fucking the planet big time with mindless production/consumption, on the other hand you can spend $21.99 on 6L of water, in alu cans ... sweet sweet ""progress"" I guess.

<comment><USER4> "It's always blowing my mind that smart/rich people invest time/energy/money in such useless ventures"

Consider that they are trying to make money, and from that premise, they are not 'useless ventures'.

All food products are commodities: even cola, energy drinks.

Coca Cola, RedBull are by far and away brands more than they are 'good products'.

Evian water sells for 30% more than unbranded water, that's the power of brand.

From a certain perspective, of course it's useless, because it's just branded water obviously, it's in a way offensive to our sensibilities ... but it's smart.

The brand is pretty good. It's a little risky but it almost makes sense.

In restaurants, they charge you more for branded water, and they make you feel like a dolt for drinking 'tap water'. They make a lot of money selling it.

This is the 'bar' equivalent: you can drink 'tap water' like a broke school kid or have a can of 'liquid death' while your bros drink up. Then you don't look like 'sissy' (or choose your own term if that offends the sensibilities). Obviously it's ridiculous, but that's what consumerism is.

I saw this in the news yesterday and immediately flagged it to my marketing friends. It's not a stupid idea.

<comment><USER5> So you're saying if I can make money doing something, then it is both ethical and smart?

<comment><USER4> I didn't say that.

We all agree it's kind of dumb, pragmatically.

Mostly what I'm trying to do is convey to some commenters here what seems to be a common lack of understanding in tech (maybe a good thing) as to how and why people buy goods and services.

When one understand this, one understands why it's a 'good' business plan.

Also - we - all of us - are woefully unaware of how poignant and powerful all of this is. It works on all of us and 100% of the consumer goods we buy - <USER2> even many 'tech goods' are brand and aspirationaly oriented.

Tech is full of ridiculous fads and memes; when I go to tech conferences we play a game of 'count the allbirds' (shoes) as kind of a joke.

But even for actual tech products: Google, FB, Snapchat, Apple (obviously), MS, to some extent Twitter - those are heavy brands, even if they weren't derived from a bunch of marketing people ... 'Do No Evil' ended up being an important lynchpin of Google branding efforts. Way way back in about the year 2000, Google was running ads on NPR and their ethos and manner was presented ultimately as quite different than other tech companies. It was part of their messaging, however authentic.

So - no, I would not want to do this business, I would not want to support it, and I hope I never buy this ridiculous water. But I know my snowboarding brother and his friends will ...

<comment><USER5> If you start with the assumption that 100% of purchases are aspirational, it is no surprise that you reach this conclusion. But I will seriously question that assumption, simply because there are many other reasons to purchase a product. The vast majority of purchases I make are decided by distribution, not marketing. You seem to be measuring things in such a way as to never see the difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of [http://www.mtv.com/news/1887953/monster-tour- water/](http://www.mtv.com/news/1887953/monster-tour-water/), which X-games athletes use as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> Props to the author for trying to generate clicks through false controversy, but the attempt falls flat. They keep mentioning how this product is a form of toxic masculinity or part of a boys' club, even comparing it to other products clearly marketed to men. But _this_ product is only marketed to straight-edge punk or metal people, which is not in any way exclusively male. I'm kind of embarrassed for the author, as what they're implying (only men can be straight-edge or punk) is so obviously sexist. I actually know more women than men that are into skulls and death imagery, and more women who don't drink or smoke.

<comment><USER8> 100% agreed. The author doesn't even provide direct examples of this product's ads or marketing materials.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why is this weird? You can buy water in glass bottles, plastic bottles and paper containers around the world. Why not in a can with a cool logo/slogan?

<comment><USER10> Because what sort of weird thing do you have to have going on in your brain that you want your water to be edgy / cringey?

Plus you can't re-seal cans.

<comment><USER11> On the other hand if they're going to drink a can of something, it might as well be plain water. Much healthier and more environmentally friendly than pretty much anything else you could put in it.

<comment><USER10> I mean beer is slowly killing us so is technically pretty good for the environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> To figure back in High School I did a business project for selling "Dehydrated Water". I guess I was about 20 years too early...

<comment><USER11> One of my favourite Mike Reid radio adverts - Hones John's instant Ice. Just add water, and put it in the freezer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Too cool? I sense some judgement here. As someone who had never enjoyed alcohol and technically a tech bro, my rejection to alcohol is nothing about the image it presents, just I didn't like the drink. Is this weird?

<comment><USER14> Have you seen a picture of the product? The judgement has nothing to do with people being teetotal. The product is marketed at people who want to look like their drinking Some kind of 'radical' beer.

<comment><USER15> Lots of energy drinks come in similar cans, it isn't just the beers.

<comment><USER14> But this isn't beer. It's water marketed as beer. That's the hook.

Anyway, the posters point was that they thought the tite was looking down on non-drinkers. I think they were ust looking down on this product.

<comment><USER15> Right, my point is that it is probably being marketed alongside Monster and the like more that it is being marketed alongside beer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I like how the author is mad about _water_ while canned beer which is produced consumed in much larger quantities is totally fine. Getting beer-drinkers to switch to water via marketing would be a huge win and it's an effort that should be applauded.

</comment><comment><USER17> Ugh.

"Private browsing detected. In order to continue browsing The Gazette in private mode please login".

> Inspect element: delete

</comment><comment><USER18> No worse than Voss, Fiji, or Mountain Valley Spring. Looks like they're going to sell it for similar prices, too. Article title is a bit inflammatory, but there's massively overpriced spring water out there already.

</comment><comment><USER19> Once I got past the black screen that forces me to disable my ad block, I then get presented with a survey I have to take in order to be able to read the article.

No thanks.

<comment><USER20> You may find BehindTheOverlay extension useful.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/behindtheoverlay/l...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/behindtheoverlay/ljipkdpcjbmhkdjjmbbaggebcednbbme) / [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/behind_the_ov...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/behind_the_overlay/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You have stuff like Voss which is water in a fancy bottle. So why not this?

<comment><USER22> Because water is cheap, easily purified and abundant. Only gullible people (affluent or misguided) consume it as a luxury good.

<comment><USER4> You consume branded aspirational products essentially every day.

Almost all consumer products have integrated aspirational messaging that induces you (and I mean you, me, everyone else) to pay significantly more then we would otherwise.

Most people's clothing, for example, goes far beyond cost/utility/comfort.

The 'gullible' people are those who think they are not susceptible to this, and don't act on these impulses.

Almost thinks they are not susceptible to marketing, and almost everyone actually is.

<comment><USER22> Who's claiming marketing immunity? There's status signaling, and there's gullibility. Wearing quality shoes that also look nice is worth paying extra, but paying extra for the packaging of water indistinguishable from that of a cheap filter is plain gullibility.

Buying designer tap water might be status signaling, but it's just because the other gullible people consider it a status signal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Almost like boxed water.

</comment><comment><USER8> The product comes off as a little silly to me and it's probably not the best idea, but there's no need for the writer to get all SJW about it.

<comment><USER24> "no need to get all SJW about it"

I cannot express how much I detest this phrase or the similarly vile German equivalent 'Gutmensch'. Turning the good impetus or empathy into something negative is just evil. One should really rethink the use of the term.

Not to say the 'toxic masculinity' is not a terrible term as well since it can easily be misunderstood as (any) masculinity being toxic -- not just exaggerated, testosterone-overcharged masculinity.

<comment><USER25> It can easily be "misunderstood" by people arguing in bad faith, but that's true of any term; "toxic masculinity" remains a useful phrase for referring to a particular set of beliefs and behaviours.

<comment><USER26> As is "Social Justice Warrior". Both terms were created to identify certain behaviors and categorize them in a negative light. You can't praise one while condemning the other.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


New battery could change world, one house at a time - <AUTHOR> http://www.heraldextra.com/news/article_b0372fd8-3f3c-11de-ac77-001cc4c002e0.html <comment><USER3> I don't believe a word of it. These kinds of announcements tend to show up every few months, and none ever make it to market.

"There are a handful of small hurdles yet to cross in the science, but nobody seems terribly concerned."

If they were so "small" they would be solved. No, they are massive hurdles, and they have no clue what to do, so they put out a press release hoping for more money.

Plus solid sodium in your house? Talk about a fire hazard. You have an external fire which melts the casing, you dump water to put it out - <USER2> fireball.

<comment><USER4> This isn't complete pie-in-the-sky stuff. NaS batteries have been around for decades (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaS_battery>) and in fact Ford was building EVs with them in the late 90's.

It looks like they found an interesting tweak to the technology that might make it suitable for home use. It's possible (likely, even) that it will end up either too expensive or too unreliable to be practical, but it's certainly newsworthy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you combine net metering with time-of-use charges, it might very well be profitable to engage in power arbitrage.

I.e. you buy from the utility when it's cheap and sell it back to them when it's expensive. In this case you'd actually be providing a valuable service.

</comment><comment><USER5> So it costs 3 cents a watt/hour (over the lifetime of the battery--much more than that short-term) to _store_ (not produce) the energy, and that is supposed to be better than the seven cents a watt/hour that the electric company will charge for delivery right to my doorstep? I don't get it.

<comment><USER6> Those are really two different things.

Compare their projected cost with, say, a deep discharge marine battery at $200 for 10 ah, which is 120 watt/hour.

The claimed figures are a huge improvement over what is available today. If they can make this work, it will be a seriously big deal.

There is a long ways to go before that, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Houses with power generation already have an indefinitely-large capacity battery on hand. It's called the grid.

If you produce too much power, you push your extra into the grid. If you don't produce enough, you pull what you need from the grid.

Yes, having local battery storage may allow you to time-shift for pricing reasons.

But it won't help power your home. Either you have enough local power production for that or not. If you do, you'll be a net exporter to the grid. If you don't you'll be a net consumer.

</comment><comment><USER8> How efficient is charging one of these from the grid? Charging the battery at night and using it during the day could help with peak use overloading.

</comment><comment><USER9> Another interesting idea: Even in the absence of home-based electricity generation, the cost of energy varies based on time of day and based on season. In a lot of areas, power used at 6pm is more expensive than power used at 3am. So in cases where this discrepancy is greater than 3 cents/kW-H, it would make sense to have this battery charge up and 3am to handle your evening power usage.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's interesting that many alternative energy related ideas tend to emphasize more localized facilities whilst computing moves to huge centralized data centers.

It gets even more ironic considering that one of the popular examples for the long term trend towards outsourcing/centralization is that auto makers stopped generating their own electricity long ago :-)

<comment><USER11> In both computing and electrical power there's a tension between localization and centralization. As the technology evolves, the relative trade-offs shift. Right now, the rapid development of ever-higher-bandwidth connections tends to favor centralization of computing power (though there's still good reason for a lot of it to be localized in the laptop and cellphone).

With electrical power, the economics have long been mostly in favor of centralization. This started shifting a little with the development of ever- cheaper solar panels, and would shift a lot more were any sort of effective localized power storage possible. And unlike bits, there is a transmission loss for watts.

Though I'm dubious that this technology will ever see the market. When it's for sale to the consumer, then I'll know it's real.

<comment><USER10> If solar panels become cheaper they become cheaper for centralized facilities as well. So how does that change the equation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Transmission and distribution costs of electricity are ~30% of the total cost, so if solar panels become cheap enough, the transmission and distribution costs for centralized facilities will become a large part of the cost. Of course, if we get room temperature semiconductors by that time, those costs will come down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article (very long...) mentioned the price for a battery at $2,000 and did the cost analysis but I didn't see anything on the product's availability. Did I miss it?

<comment><USER13> $2,000 is the projected price, I don' think it is all that close to coming to market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> >California-style rolling blackouts would be history.

"Enron-style" might be more accurate.</comment>


Siri and Her Girls: Why So Many Robot Helpers Are Ladies - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/10/siri-and-her-girls-why-so-many-robot-helpers-are-ladies/246661/

<comment><USER2> > marketers have an easier time finding a universally

> likeable female voice than a male one

This article could have shorter, the rest of it seems to spend half the time explaining why it's ok to discount conflicting evidence and the other half throwing out conjecture on why the premise of sexism might possibly be slightly accurate.

Is it really that weird that different cultures end up with different genders for a friendly, non-judgemental, disembodied and slightly inhuman mechanical voice? How weird would it be if there was no cultural preference? If the preference was always 50.0/50.0? Now _that_ would be unlikely!

There are so many factors here, some of which are, no doubt, cultural stereotypes about gender. Doesn't it seem more likely that the "friendly" and "non-judgemental" part is the stereotype? Even if it's not, since the author makes it clear this is an open question why are all the options twisted into an anti-women stereotype?

> This dovetails with the way stereotypes

> work; our prejudices make us dislike hearing

> a man go about secretarial work

Are you fucking kidding me? That's a stretch for an explanation of why men and women find the women's voice more likeable. Why not the much more likely Loving Mother stereotype? Sure, it's all conjecture and that's fine, but the author has clearly made up her mind that this is sexist and is trying to figure out why. That seems backwards if you are interested in truth.

<comment><USER3> It's link bait, the only truth in link bait is page views.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like how he ignores that the British Siri is male... And even goes so far as to admit he's doing so.

"That's women's work" doesn't really hold up for me. I have never once thought, "I have a question. I'd better go find a woman to ask, because that's women's work." I don't even think that "female" is a helpdesk stereotype. I certainly don't have any expectations when I start looking for a help desk.

Now if he had said that people associate 'friendly' voices with women, and 'competitive' voices with men, that would fall along more typical stereotypes, and I might believe that. Maybe.

<comment><USER5> Also ignored are the facts that some of the most memorable AI voices were male, e.g. HAL and Knight Industries Two Thousand.

<comment><USER6> Federation computers of the Star Trek universe, the Halo (Game) AI, the Andromeda (TV series) AI, SAL (HAL's twin sister from 2010). Lots o' female voices in the fictional AI space.

<comment><USER7> Star Trek's computer voice was Gene Roddenberry's wife. That doesn't sound like a demeaning sexist choice.

I'll give you the others though, especially Cortana from HALO [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Cortana#Criti...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Cortana#Critical_reception)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ignores the #1 reason I use chose the female voice for most electronics. It sounds better and is more clearly understood coming out of under powered speakers at low volume.

</comment><comment><USER9> I remember hearing somewhere that the voice system in fighter planes is female because if a man is at the edge of losing consciousness (as fighter pilots can be during high-g maneuvers because of blood rushing away from their heads towards their legs), the sound of a woman's voice is more likely to keep him conscious.

<comment><USER10> That was my thought as well when I saw the headline. Also this article explains briefly the history of it - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitching_Betty>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've heard anecdotally that the reason computer voices and avatars tend to be women is that people tend to respond better and believe the data more.

The story that was told to me (don't know if it's true, couldn't find a link) was that they did testing on astronauts and they found that the male astronauts tended to disagree more with a male voice. Whereas "the voice of mother" was more likely to be found credible.

Again, I don't know if it's true, but it seemed to make sense to me at the time.

</comment><comment><USER12> At the very beginning of the article, the author claims robots (as opposed to bodiless ai voices). She mentions Rosie as an exception, but I can think of a whole bunch more. The terminator from T3, the sexy robots from Svedka's vodka campaign, even the robot from 1927's metropolis. I think it is worth noting that all of these robots (except for Rosie, of course) fall under the category of sexy robot. But I also think this is pretty clearly a not well thought out article. And I, myself, certainly wouldn't make the claim that all female robots with bodies are sexy after spending all of 30 seconds brainstorming on it... as opposed to the author of the article...

</comment><comment><USER13> Because VoiceOver (Apple's screenreader) uses a female voice. At least if you pick US English as your language. You will get a male voice if you pick British English or French. (Siri uses the same voice as the screenreader. There is only one per language, unlike on the Mac where you can pick from different voices.)

What's the underlying reason for Apple picking a female US English voice for VoiceOver? They probably bought the voice that whoever worked on it liked best and that also worked with the limited resources on the iOS devices.

The default voice for VoiceOver on the Mac is "Alex", a male voice. It sounds much better than the iPhone's voice, probably because a Mac can throw much more resources at voice synthesis. I bet the iPhone would use "Alex" as its US English voice if it had the chops to do so.

All the rest is the author's silly imagination. Go ahead and ask Siri what sex it is.

</comment><comment><USER14> I noticed this a few months ago, when I realized that my phone's Google navigation, all the GPS devices I'd ever used, and most of the text-to-speech I've heard in general, default to a female voice.

Why? I have no idea, but I doubt it's because we have this unconscious desire to "keep women in their place". Could it be rather that men are less likely to "argue" with a female voice than the perceived competition of a male voice? And that some women, in turn, might not like being ordered around by a man's voice while driving? Plus, as another poster mentioned, the higher register of a typical female voice may stand out better against the noise of the road, the engine, etc.

Of course, I could just be fooling myself--maybe subconsciously I just want to keep female voices in these kind of "support" positions. Who knows.

</comment><comment><USER15> An article on this topic deserves one mention of Majel Barrett, doesn't it?

</comment><comment><USER16> Because we like girls more.

<comment><USER17> We being the male-dominated environment in which these robot helpers are developed.

<comment><USER18> _Eagly's research has compiled mountains of data on the stereotypes people have about men and women, which the researchers summarized as "The WAW effect." WAW stands for "Women Are Wonderful." Both men and women hold much more favorable views of women than of men. Almost everybody likes women better than men. I certainly do._ </quote> <http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bollocks. Higher voices are simply easier to hear over urban noise.</comment>


Choosing a machine learning algorithm (Azure ML) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.technet.com/b/machinelearning/archive/2015/05/20/choosing-a-learning-algorithm-in-azure-ml.aspx

<comment><USER2> There's been a flurry of 'machine learning in plain English' posts recently. I think this post does by far the best job of explaining usecases for each algo.</comment>