China's 'Thought Transformation' Camps [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-48667221/inside-china-s-thought-transformation-camps <comment><USER2> This is a concentration camp - they are collecting millions of specific groups of people and concentrating them. From the little information available: They are initially tortured and then brainwashed for several years, until _possibly_ being released. The reason for doing this is for a crime they are supposed to commit in the future.

Add this to: the removal of religious symbols replaced with pictures of their president, the forced ownership of Hong Kong (who have a false democracy) and Taiwan, the debt traps in African nations, the artificial islands in the South China Sea (where they regularly threaten to blow US ships and planes up in international waters), the large amount of debt bought by China after the 2008 financial crisis, the monitoring and/or controlling of University students whilst overseas, meddling in foreign politics (e.g. NZ and Australia), cyber attacks (>80% of attacks on my servers come from China), ignoring international trade sanctions against North Korea (whose state backed hackers it trains) and Iran - the list goes on.

China also has the largest active military. Is this where we're heading?

</comment><comment><USER3> I am an American, here is what I am going to do.

There's currently an USTR tariff review session happening right now in Washington. A bunch of companies are protesting against tariffs on China, saying they can't live without China. Some of these companies are:

\- Best buy

\- American Apparel

\- Kenneth Col

\- iRobot

\- Roku

\- Element Electronics

\- Hallmark Cards

I will not buy from these companies for the rest of my life, as well as any other companies that have products that are 'made in China'. These companies must have heard about the concentration camps, and possible organ harvesting/slave labor in those camps, and choose not to divest away. These companies are horrendous actors who choose freely to prop up a regime like his.

<comment><USER4> > I will not buy from these companies for the rest of my life, as well as any > other companies that have products that are 'made in China'.

Good luck with that. I hope you don't need any technology in your life since nearly all modern computing components are made in China. The only way to avoid Chinese imports is to live on a homestead and make everything yourself.

<comment><USER5> Good point. I'd like to find an article on phones with the least amount of, or no, Chinese parts. Anybody have anything like this on hand? Otherwise, I'll start researching and put an article together.

Similarly, I'd like to do the same for Laptops. Toshiba, Fujitsu, Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp may not come with "made in China" labels, but components will be Chinese.

I've been googling a bit and surprisingly am not coming up with pure non- Chinese machines. Given that some people believe China puts spyware on devices at the hardware level this surprises me - surely there's hyper-paranoid out there, or people selling to the hyper-paranoid market?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Our goal is to take a person who's on the edge of committing a crime and return them to normal society as a law abiding citizen"

Even the official party line is horrifying. Shows just how out of touch they are with the Western world if they think this message will be well interpreted.

<comment><USER5> > Shows just how out of touch they are with the Western world if they think > this message will be well interpreted.

They aren't interested in being aligned with Western values - why would they be? Freedom and democracy run perfectly contrary to their goals. I've had very in depth philosophical debates with Party members.

Democracy - why would we leave the decisions to the people? The people don't know what's best for them, and they make bad decisions that lead to things like Brexit. Democracy is inefficient. FEMA can't adequately respond to disasters like the strong-arm of the Party can.

Freedom of Information - this is too scary for the people. The people shouldn't have to deal with so much confusing information. Look at Fake News and how scary the media is. It creates confusion and mistrust in the government. That isn't good. The people don't want freedom of information.

I unequivocally disagree with these arguments but these are the beliefs of the Party.

<comment><USER7> My take on it: Democracy is necessary and good. It can be inefficient when times are good, but it is the most efficient way to right the ship when things are bad...also unilateral actions may appear efficient, but there will be lots of stakeholders that get hurt by those unilateral actions.

Consensus takes time, and is susceptible to all sorts of poor arguments and one-liners, but when the people are suffering, I can think of no better way to peacefully overthrow the ruling body than by democratic elections.

<comment><USER8> I'd argue that democracy doesn't matter nearly as much as constitutional freedoms of assembly, speech (to a certain degree), independent press, ect. China still fears protest/revolution and will work in such a way that benefits their population in order to prevent uprisings and civil unrest.

Add on the fact that the vast majority of issues that we view as democratic victories in the US, were more than anything, driven by direct action or initial change at the local level (a level which is democratic in china). Where in the cases where major change happened in a different way, it happened through the Judiciary which is also not democratic.

Add on the fact that many of the direct democratic measures in the US tend to be destructive (prop 13, voting against any tax increase even if necessary over the long term), and there becomes a reason why a political system with a single party, namely a party with a largely unified political goal, is preferable.

I'd also question when in US history (or elsewhere) has there ever been a time where democratic elections peacefully overthrew the ruling body. Usually there is significant continuity from administration to administration, where any serious political change happens due to outside direct action.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Call them what they are: Concentration camps.

<comment><USER10> The term "concentration camp" has an extremely negative connotation though due to Nazi Germany. China isn't gassing and cremating people. They are helping minorities integrate into Chinese society via ethically questionable means.

<comment><USER11> Concentration camps are not necessarily death camps. They are prisons for specific political, social, or ethnic groups--this seems to qualify.

Even the phrase "concentration camp" is a bit of a euphemism. A better phrase might be a "political prison".

And yes it has a negative connotation, because it is a bad thing.

<comment><USER12> The same kind of terminology debate comes up when people use "third world" to mean "developing countries" and, when corrected, they just declare the meaning changed. So if that's how we're supposed to roll then why wouldn't the same logic apply here?

<comment><USER13> I thought "third world" was an informal and occasionally derogatory synonym for "developing countries". Is that not the case?

<comment><USER14> Originally not. The meaning as it existed during the Cold War was "block- free".

USA/NATO were the First World. USSR/Warsaw Pact was the Second World. Everyone else was Third World.

That definition includes countries like Switzerland, which sounds very strange today, because the meaning has changed to precisely the one you have in mind.

<comment><USER11> The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact meant the old definition was a bit meaningless, hence the shift in connotation where "First World" is a glorious modern stable democracy and "Third World" is "shithole."

That said, "developing country" isn't necessarily the most precise phrase either, since many of those countries are either keeping the status quo or are actively decaying due to environmental disaster, war, famine, etc... Also, when you say "developing country" what a lot of people still heard is "shithole". Still, it's the preferred phrase and the inherent optimism built into it does count for a little.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can powerful nation states that commit atrocities against populations of humans be over thrown peacefully? That is to say, without a war?

What will it take to have China removed from the UN? Or, is it better that they are represented so that these issues can be raised and resolved in a peaceful manner?

<comment><USER16> England let a lot of its colonies go peacefully, I don't know if that counts.

<comment><USER17> >> England let a lot of its colonies go peacefully,

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

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston- church...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-churchill- policies-contributed-to-1943-bengal-famine-study)

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

The protesters were peaceful. The English oppressors were violent.

<comment><USER18> They didn't say all of their colonies. Some were let go relatively peacefully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Somehow it's comforting to see how laughably bad China is at propaganda.

<comment><USER20> What isn't a laughing matter is how we excuse all our favorite tech companies to continue manufacturing there.

<comment><USER7> For a long time we excused China in the hope that integration of our economies would lift China towards Democracy and respect for human rights. We/It failed. For all the things I disagree with Trump about, the trade war is not. I hope the tariffs are increased over time so that the supply chain begins to exclude China. There are other countries that will do it for almost as cheap, and do not abuse the U.S.'s good will so thoroughly.

<comment><USER21> IMO, the hope that trade and economics would bring democracy to China was delusional from the start. It's the same sort of flag-waving idiocy that assumed toppling Saddam would turn Iraq into the Middle Eastern equivalent of post-war Japan. The US has basically permanently nerfed its own global hegemony barely 2 decades after defeating its only major adversary (the Soviet Union), all because of the idealistic aspirations of flag-waving ideologues that triumphed over pragmatic realists and cynics.

<comment><USER7> You are probably right, but I think that there was an idea that empowering (by money) a broad swath of Chines citizens would naturally lead to increases in their political power, hence a nation that would lean toward democratic tendencies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you visit some real high schools in China, you'd find they are not very different from these camps. Curfews, political classes, and compulsory attendance are commonplace.

These facilities are not built to treat ethnic minorities in the most brutal way, but reflections of an authoritarian society.

<comment><USER23> Compulsory attendance to political classes or high-school in general? Second one doesn't seem that bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > "The sound of thoughts being transformed echos late into the night"

Kind of a haunting last line from the video. They make them repeat the same formulas, presumably praises to the party, over and over, endlessly.

I have always wondered how effective that is and if some end up internalizing it and are actually brainwashed. I have recited many of those in the Soviet Union. Learned poems praising Lenin and the workers and whatnot but never believed a bit of it. How do officials test that their methods are working? "Will you follow the party's commandments?". How many would say "no" knowing they are buying themselves another yeah in the camps.

</comment><comment><USER25> Enumerating candidate PR spin Camps that were likely rejected: (Just add camps for full effect)

>Cultural Enrichment >Sensibility Rectification >Behavior Rectification >Sentiment Realignment >Sentiment Engineering

>Fundamental reconstruction of basic societal interaction loop by way of teaching subordinazation of individual sentiment to collective will/norms >Happy >Reeducation >Sequestration >Organ Donor >U.N. Tribunal No-go >What >People Tranformation >Cultural Isolation >Cultural Indoctrination >Cultural Reorientation >Internment >Help, I'm trapped in a CCP PR Dept

Feel free to add your own.

</comment><comment><USER26> _" What will it take to have China removed from the UN?"_

Until Taiwan can be _reinstated_ at the UN, I don't think your question will have a satisfactory answer.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why does China insist on using 1984 as a playbook, rather than a cautionary tale?

<comment><USER28> Aren't we going towards a technological omni-surveillance state? Aren't we going towards ubiquitous screens that monitor us while we get all of our information from them? Haven't we already had "2 minutes hate" with people screaming at the sky? Don't we already have a class of elite technocrats who create media for a proletariat they look down upon, kaleidoscopically recombining and rehashing old stories? Don't we already have Julias and the civic league she belongs to?

Why does the world of 2019 keep using 1984 as a playbook?

<comment><USER29> Not "1984", of course, but "Brave New World".

[https://biblioklept.org/2013/06/08/huxley-vs-orwell-the- webc...](https://biblioklept.org/2013/06/08/huxley-vs-orwell-the-webcomic-2/)

<comment><USER27> I agree Huxley was a bit closer (at least with regards to the West), depicting a "soft tyranny" rather than the "harsh tyranny" of 1984.

<comment><USER28> Whether it's soft or harsh depends on your POV. Inner and outer party members might well say "soft."

[https://www.wired.com/story/how-silicon-valley-fuels-an- info...](https://www.wired.com/story/how-silicon-valley-fuels-an-informal- caste-system/)

The West is still indeed much better than other parts of the world. However, the West is supposed to be better qualitatively, not just quantitatively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can we stop arguing on the terminology and whether other countries do bad stuff as well and just agree that this is something we should condemn.

It may be difficult or even impossible for the rest of the world to stop it, but it shouldn't be so hard to come to a consensus that this is wrong.

Edit: this just dropped off the front page from #4 to #34 in a few minutes while another article about China selling US dollars with far fewer upvotes and comments from around the same time is still at #2. Can we get an explanation for why this happened?

Edit: It's now almost off the 2nd page at #52 in under an hour.

<comment><USER30> A moderator downweighted the thread the same way we downweight any topic that has been highly repeated, especially when it is highly repeated and also highly politicized and provocative.

I know that sounds tendentious when you feel strongly about a story, but you have to remember what HN exists for. We're optimizing for one thing: intellectual curiosity. If you take that statement literally, which you should, then it will be obvious what the moderation call is here. Curiosity is incompatible with repetition and rage, however justified the rage. Actually, justified rage is even worse for curiosity; it crowds it out for longer. This doesn't mean the story is unimportant—quite the contrary.

More on this for anyone who wants it: [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20optimiz&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER18> I understand that you're optimizing for curiosity, but I feel that on some issues that this goal should take a backseat. For instance, I don't think that optimizing for curiosity would be a particularly convincing defense for a popular science type magazine that refused to publish letters to the editor/articles related to the situation in Germany in the early 1930s.

Nevertheless, I understand that this is a subjective issue--there is room for argument on whether allowing such discussions here would have any real world benefit anyway, so thank you very much for the transparency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> These camps are clear evidence that the Honk Kong Democracy Protesters, inheritors of the Umbrella protests, need our whole hearted support.

</comment><comment><USER31> They're also harvesting their organs!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China)

<comment><USER32> big if true!

unfortunately the Falun Gong is an insane cult and not a very reliable source of information

RationalWiki has a big __citations-packed __section on their claims of organ harvesting in China:

[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Falun_Gong#Victims_of_Organ_Ha...](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Falun_Gong#Victims_of_Organ_Harvesting)

I hope after the Iraq "incubator smashing" fiasco, and "WMD"s, Americans apply some skepticism towards claims that their geopolitical adversaries act like fantastical TV show villains.

\---

edit, bc can't reply because I'm massively getting flagged and downvoted across all my posts

here's me addressing claims that nobody has challenged the Matas report:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilgour–Matas_report](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilgour–Matas_report)

> The report, based on circumstantial evidence, concluded that "there has > been, and continues today to be, large-scale organ seizures from unwilling > Falun Gong practitioners."[2] China has consistently denied the > allegations.[3][4]

then

> The initial report received a mixed reception. In the US, a Congressional > Research Service report by Thomas Lum stated that the Kilgour–Matas report > relied largely on logical inference, without bringing forth new or > independently obtained testimony; the credibility of much of the key > evidence was said to be questionable.[5]

<comment><USER33> Falun Gong being a weird culty organization (they absolutely are) doesn't mean China _isn 't_ abusing them, which they are, or that they're not harvesting their organs, which they may well be.

"China is harvesting organs from detainees, tribunal concludes. Victims include imprisoned followers of Falun Gong movement, China Tribunal says"

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/17/china-is- harve...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/17/china-is-harvesting- organs-from-detainees-uk-tribunal-concludes)

> An independent tribunal sitting in London has concluded that the killing of > detainees in China for organ transplants is continuing, and victims include > imprisoned followers of the Falun Gong movement.

> The China Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, who was a prosecutor at > the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said in a > unanimous determination at the end of its hearings it was "certain that > Falun Gong as a source - probably the principal source - of organs for > forced organ harvesting".

<comment><USER34> Falun Gong claims they could cure any cancers. If you believe them, cancer patients could save a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> My metaphor for China is in this timeline, the Chinese Nazis won and now you see the results of a stable Chinese-Nazi dictatorship.

</comment><comment><USER36> Concentration camps

</comment><comment><USER37> I think the better parallel is not with the Nazi concentration camps where the goal was to methodically eradicate people, but rather American conversion therapy camps where they try to "convert" gay kids to straight.

<comment><USER38> Not all of the Nazi concentration camps served as extermination camps.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Where is terrorism coming from? Why they attack USA? What about domestic terrorism? What are the USA's solutions?

<comment><USER39> > What are the USA's solutions?

Definitely not concentration camps. Not since WW2 anyways.

<comment><USER34> Not on American soil, I believe more accurately.

<comment><USER39> Prisons are a bit different from concentration camps. One has people accused of doing the deed, the other has people who are friends, family or somewhat remotely connected with those doing the deed. As a mainly British invention (rounding up the Boers during wars in colonial South Africa), the past time America bothered with something like that was the Japanese internment camps during WW2.

<comment><USER34> So what are the USA's solutions anyway?

<comment><USER39> Policing the populous? It isn't rocket science, something like the kunming train station knife stabbing would have been seen as a heinous criminal act rather than a reason to intern many people of a particular ethnicity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I think many of us wouldn't mind the capability to Transform the Thoughts of large segments of our society...

<comment><USER29> Humans are generally prone to this, alas.

A great essay on the topic: [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can- tolerate-anythin...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate- anything-except-the-outgroup/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> How about Guantanamo? Is that a concentration camp? And what about those border facilities detaining immigrants? What's happening inside there? Why eliminating terrorism justifies bombarding a country most of innocent civilians? Our views are always biased by what we think is right. However there's no absolute right or wrong, only stories planted in our minds.

<comment><USER42> People at the border facilities are encouraged to leave back to their home country and to use the US Immigration system properly.

I don't know much about Guantanamo. Who is currently held there? I've read they recently expanded the facilities but I'm not aware of new arrivals.

<comment><USER34> Guantanamo will be used as the detention facility for illegal immigrants pretty soon based on the news.

<comment><USER43> Reference?

<comment><USER34> US immigration officials looking at housing migrant children at Guantánamo Bay, report says

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us- politic...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us- politics/guantanamo-bay-migrant-children-us-immigration-trump- border-a8883511.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's wild to me that americans point at China for this when they:

1) routinely bomb muslims to death, destroying entire nations, I guess gesturing towards vague notions that being murdered is better than being brainwashed

2) have their own immigrant concentration camps, going as far as to reuse the same infrastructure for japanese internment camps ([https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics- news/migrant-...](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/migrant- children-internment-camp-fort-sill-847183/))

the main difference is that the victims of abuse in China are Chinese citizens, whereas americans draw their borders in such a way that their victims live in their "backyard" and not america proper.

American exceptionalism is alive and well!

edit: lol I'm a lily-white Canadian, for all of those claiming China is somehow "my side".

also, the completely reflexive, kneejerk way in which posters deploy accusations of "whataboutism" to avoid any critical assessment of what they're witnessing, is truly spectacular.

<comment><USER44> This piece isn't about Americans or their reactions to this horrible situation.

<comment><USER32> so? I find it interesting to point out the double standard

I'm hardly the first Canadian to notice the insane ramp-up in anti-China sentiment from our American neighbours, especially given the stark contrast with the royal treatment given to the genocidal regime in Saudi Arabia.

Dismembered journalists, decapitated feminists and democratic activist teenagers, famine in Yemen, Senate voted to stop the war and Trump vetoed it... and yet HN is all China every day.

China isn't the only country that looks a lot like 1984 from the outside peering in.

<comment><USER5> Where do you see a double standard applied?

<comment><USER32> The way the US deals with Saudi Arabia vs. the way it deals with China.

And the disciplined way in which people here rationalize that status quo.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: If you had to setup an offshore corporation in a few days - <AUTHOR> Where would you do it?
And who would you choose to do so through?
I have been working on a BitMex trading bot for over a year straight now and was just about to put rubber to road in a few days here...
I just noticed last night that the Ontario Securities Commission has contacted BitMex and as of Sept 1st no new trades will be allowed on BitMex by residents of Ontario.
That is a problem for me as I am a resident of Ontario.
So my question is pretty simple... where would you register a corporation for these purposes?
I don't need banking or anything other than a corporate identity I don't think, as all of the transactions will be done through the blockchain.
I just need some papers essentially that declare me the sole chairman of a corporation outside on Ontario somewhere in a jurisdiction that does not prevent it's residents or companies from engaging with trading on BitMex.
To any doubters out there... Yes, the bot is profitable and it makes financial sense for me to take this plunge.
Thank you for reading. <comment><USER2> I cannot stress this enough: talk to a lawyer.

Do not ask HN how to structure an organization to evade local regulations.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not evading any local regulations, BitMex is.

The Ontario Securities Commission trying to keep Ontario residents safe by not allowing them to trade on exchanges that have not been regulated by them.

I was already in violation of the OSCs wishes prior to BitMex banning the use of my account from inside of Ontario.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> uk, £15, couple of hours. done.

<comment><USER4> Assuming the previous poster was referring to setting up a UK LTD company, you'd need a UK address [0]. If you can get an accommodation address in UK, the process is pretty straightforward; fill in an online form and pay your £12. They'll even accept PayPal! [1]

[0] [https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/company- address...](https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/company-address?step- by-step-nav=37e4c035-b25c-4289-b85c-c6d36d11a763)

[1] [https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/register- your-c...](https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/register-your- company?step-by-step-nav=37e4c035-b25c-4289-b85c-c6d36d11a763)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've purchased an address from registeredaddress.co.uk and should have it by Tuesday, fingers crossed!</comment></comment></comment>


Sage: Can There be a Viable Free Open Source Alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica, and Matlab? - <AUTHOR> http://sagemath.blogspot.com/2008/05/can-there-be-viable-free-open-source.html

<comment><USER2> I'd like to see a suite made for a normal, popular interpreted language, like Python. I'd like to see it server side, built in a cloud, to have the computing power I need. Compiling is no longer a problem for me, but boy can a huge matrix routine take a long time. I'd also like subscription AI tools.

There is clearly an opportunity here for a 37Signals style company to provide a Python tool or in browser that connects to the cloud and other services. Someone please make it.

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks like a huge deal, and I'm surprised this isn't already in the Debian/Ubuntu repositories. Especially since it's GPL (not clear from sagemath.org, took some digging to confirm) and most of the base packages are in Debian. I did find this: <http://wiki.sagemath.org/DebianSAGE>

Still, I'm shocked that this has gone under the radar for so long. Is this par for the course for academics -- creating something impressive and waiting years before publicizing it? Regardless, I will certainly make a point of evangelizing Sage when I go back to school this fall.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty sweet. My roommates and I couldn't have made it through school without the pirated copies of Matlab floating around.

<comment><USER5> Don't do this, really. The Mathworks has a great product and offers tremendous support, training, etc. Beyond that they have always been extremely reasonable in their licensing, e.g. letting me run the Mac version on my laptop at home and the Linux version when I'm at work. There is a student version which costs you less than a lot of textbooks. If you want free then try Sage, R, Octave, etc. Don't ripoff a good company.

<comment><USER6> Students getting accustomed to using mathworks is far more valuable than the cost of the student version fee. If he goes on to encourage his future employer to get the business licenses/support then this will absolutely dwarf what a whole school full of paying students would bring in.

Also note that in the majority of schools you have already payed to use mathworks (through tuition) if you are in any engineering program. I don't know why it would be so much more ethical to pay twice...

So, if you want to support mathworks/photoshop/etc then you should encourage broke students to get it on their home computers by any means possible. Many of these companies practice this strategy. Thus ends my pricing hypothesis.

<comment><USER5> Can you mention a company whose official strategy is to have their software pirated by one group of users under the theory that they will make it up with increased legitimate sales? Yes, companies love having students using their software which is why they give huge discounts on the fees.

Paying tuition does not mean that have "paid to use" Matlab unless your institution has actually bought licenses for you to do so. If you are saying, "We were using a floating license paid for by the university and therefore did not need to purchase an additional license." Okay, fine. If you are arguing that because the physics department bought two licenses for lab machines that you somehow have the right to pirate copies without a license then you are mistaken.

Bottom line: I support the good guys, the companies that respect me and help me to do the best work I can. The Mathworks is one of those companies, in my experience.

<comment><USER7> Bill Gates doesn't support piracy, but if it's going to be pirated it might as well be Microsoft software: "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

<http://www.news.com/2100-1023-212942.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> octave is pretty good

<comment><USER8> and the nice thing about Octave is that it's largely Matlab-compatible, so all your knowledge of programming Matlab doesn't go wasted.

<comment><USER9> A few years ago, I was doing research work with MatLab and there were tons of licensing issues at the university I was working with. I suggested we abandon MatLab and adopt Octave only to receive responses such as:

"It's open source software, which means it's largely unfinished and you can't guarantee that all the math routines are actually doing the right thing."

I eventually had to give in because my advisor was getting annoyed (and his grant was paying my rent), but the point is that it's unfortunate that _more_ really intelligent people don't contribute to Octave, verify it's correctness and talk it up. Please don't misconstrue my statement as saying "the people working on Octave aren't really intelligent," but having the support of _lots_ of really intelligent people is the only way that it's going to make any significant impact on the scientific research community.

<comment><USER10> "It's open source software, which means it's largely unfinished and you can't guarantee that all the math routines are actually doing the right thing."

Um... I think you have a better chance of guaranteeing a routine works when you can inspect what it's actually doing below the hood. Something like MATLAB is based completely on trust (albeit, deservedly).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sage goes in every field?</comment>


Developers are from Mars, Designers from Venus – A question of metaphors - <AUTHOR> http://000fff.org/developers-are-from-mars-designers-from-venus-a-question-of-metaphors/

<comment><USER2> I don't agree with the statement "... there's probably no two groups of people who understand each other less than designers and developers". I never had problems with the designers working with me. All it takes for both parties is patience, mutual respect, communication and accepting that they're professionals at what they do and I'm a professional at what I do. It's simple as that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Then you are one of those developers I refer to in the end of the essay :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm a front-end developer, so I get to experience this battleground every day. I expect my designers to come up with stuff that's going to work well for UX, and I expect the back-end developers to code in a maintainable and performant way. Meanwhile I sit in the middle as a buffer and tie everything together.

Really, it just comes down to respect.

<comment><USER4> It does, but it also (in my experience) comes down to those "in the middle" working hard to better educate designers and back-end developers about the kind of thing you need from them (whether that's a design that can actually be implemented in HTML, or ensuring that HTTP semantics are correctly preserved by application code).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> " _Designers are from Venus and developers are from Mars. And they won't ever really understand each other._ "

Utter nonsense. Or maybe it's true at giant enterprise silos more than startups and that's why I shy away from large corporate work. People at startups are a different breed than those at large companies, regardless of job role, and have to be interdisciplinary rather than divisive. That's the thrust of my talk tonight - Designers vs Product Managers - who's more important at startups?

<http://ixdasf.ning.com/events/product-management-vs-design>

<comment><AUTHOR> Wouldn't it be fair if you included what I write after that?

"A few though have chosen to set differences aside and are working on building diplomatic relationships."

<comment><USER5> No, because you're just extending an olive branch after the inflammatory attention-grabbing part. You lost me at the divisive generalization, even if I personally fall into the camp of "designers who can program".

<comment><AUTHOR> What's wrong with generalizations?

Startups are the exception not the rule. I have been in agencies for 15 years now that is what I have seen.

What are you basing your rejection of what I write on?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ketamine Could Soon Be Used to Treat Suicidal Ideation - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-05/ketamine-could-soon-be-used-to-treat-suicidal-ideation <comment><USER2> A loved one went through a few rounds of Ketamine IV at a recently opened clinic. It was about $400 a treatment, not covered by insurance, but administered by credentialed professionals.

The experience was a bit like a dialysis clinic, where there are a bunch of beds in a room, tatami screens between the beds, and where a huge 2" diameter syringe dosing pump eases a tiny amount of Ket in the line over 15 minutes.

Aside from the expense, it didn't particularly help my loved one's condition. She said it felt more like it just got her high, and not the kind of high you want. Maybe if they used a stronger dose, but those cost more as I recall.

I feel there are at least three treatments one should try before Ketamine, for PTSD/Anxiety/Depression/Suicidal Ideation.

• EMDR. So successful it's amazing that it's not standard fare in counseling and therapy.

• Neurofeedback. The literature is equivocal at best, but the anecdata is very strong.

• LSD. As our nation struggles with medical marijuana still living on schedule I, LSD similarly inhabits schedule I (where the government knows better than your doctor about there being no possible medical benefit). Studies show LSD is over 10x as successful in curing alcoholism as AA.

<comment><USER3> I have some experience with Ketamine ... the one I can share is when the hospital administered it via IV to put my dislocated shoulder back in place.

It was wild and would certainly NOT be my choice for a sedative in that situation. It hit fast and at first I felt high, doctors faces started to "melt", then a huge black abyss was in front of me and I felt like I was falling head first into it.

I started yelling "no, no!" because it was a very uncomfortable feeling.

Then as I was coming to the entire room was warped, with echoing voices and laughter.

I'll pass on that, not sure how that would help with depression. It would have to be a VERY small dose.

<comment><USER4> According to what I can find they were using a dosage of 0.5 mg per kg in this study, but dosages can be as high as 1 to 4.5 mg/kg when used as an anesthetic.

I had the same dose for the same reason, it was very disturbing. Apparently the doctor said it was normal for patients to scream that much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Side note: I really like the photographic style of this article, particularly the man standing on a brick column as though on a building about to jump off, but perhaps instead standing strong having learned to cope with his negative emotions. The dark motif overall is a nice counterpoint to the ultimately uplifting, persevering tone of the article.

<comment><USER6> I guess the photo was shot on wet plate!? The large format lens DoF and the high contrast makes the scene scenery looks dramatic. Very well done.

<comment><USER7> I was intrigued and found out more about the photographer. He was a trained photographer (worked under Annie Leibovitz) and lectured photography in the 90s. Got his medical degree in 2004 and seems like he's coming back to photos. [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/contributors/a/photograph...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/contributors/a/photographer- max-aguilera-hellweg/) [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/01/max- agui...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/01/max-aguilera- hellweg-left-photography-medicine-could-he-do-it-again/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm very much concerned that rather than traditional psychotherapy where a person has to confront the issues and trauma of their life we're moving towards the idea that if you drug someone enough they won't commit suicide. I should also point out that the anecdote given makes reference to Prozac, a prescription drug which some users have claimed has caused their suicidal ideation.

<comment><USER9> Sorry, but this bizarre. Psychotherapy is just one tool in the toolbox against treating mental illnesses. If there is evidence this drug helps treating mental illnesses, what's the reason not to use it? This is not some alternative medicine that is offered instead of or in addition to scientific practice. This is part of the usual treatment that involves psychotherapy, if it's useful. There is nothing inherently bad with drugs; you don't hesitate to use drugs when your liver chemistry breaks, why hesitate it when your brain chemistry breaks?

<comment><USER8> You don't use a nuke if you only need to kill one guy. I'm not against it being used but we need to be careful, we don't want another opiod crisis.

<comment><USER9> I think opioids are in a very special spot. There are very few drugs that are as intensely addictive and as harmful as opioids and are used in medical profession. In particular, ketamine is nowhere near as addictive or harmful as opioids. Your point is valid, we should be careful, but we should also recognize the special status of opioids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ketamine treatments are pretty expensive at a clinic. If you wanted regular Ketamine doses for depression (maybe like 1 a month?), I would just buy some online and insufflate it. Safer than a needle and just as effective.

PS: Chronic Ketamine use destroys your urinary tract (I know people that wet the bed every night from too much of the stuff). Also, it might cause brain damage, but no one is really sure.

<comment><USER11> > I would just buy some online and insufflate it. Safer than a needle and just > as effective.

You're advocating buying a black market substance online and then snorting it as the safer option?

<comment><USER10> Are you saying that buying a black market substance and injecting it would be the safer option?

<comment><USER11> No, I'd suggest using a clinic.

<comment><USER10> If you read my comment. I'm suggesting that you don't inject ketamine and instead you should snort it. I'm not suggesting that snorting black market ketamine is safer than a clinic.

Though, ketamine is pretty damn safe, and it's rarely adulterated on the black market. In powder form, it forms crystals so it's hard to fake.

A priori, you can always say that something regulated is more safe than something not. But if you're a savvy consumer, you can significantly mitigate or eliminate that risk.

<comment><USER11> So in this case this has nothing to do with treating suicidal ideation and instead strictly for recreational consumption?

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. I didn't say anything about doing it for recreational consumption.

I'm suggesting that if you can't afford a Ketamine clinic: a) Ketamine is generally unadulterated on the black market b) if it is adulterated you can often tell c) unless a professional is administering it, you probably want to snort it and finally d) snorting Ketamine should have roughly the same effects (anti-depressant or otherwise) as injecting it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> (Pardon the throwaway; I try to keep my medical history private!)

I started monthly ketamine treatment about 3 years ago for treatment resistant depression. It has helped me immensely. It costs me $375 per infusion.

I tried 1-3 drugs from every class of antidepressant (and a few other types) before ketamine and had limited results. Ketamine, however, has been a godsend.

If anyone has any questions about the treatment, the drug, its effects on me, or anything else, feel free to ask.

<comment><USER13> Is the dose administered during these sessions high enough to cause hallucinogenic effects?

Could you describe what your depressive symptoms were like before/after treatment?

How many sessions did it take before you saw improvement?

Also, any personal insight on why it was so effective for you? Do you think it helped you view circumstances in your life in a different way (the way other hallucinogens like LSD might)?

<comment><USER12> > Is the dose administered during these sessions high enough to cause > hallucinogenic effects?

Yes. It isn't effective unless you get well into a hallucinogenic state. The antidepressant effect seems to be maximized by setting the dose such that you are fairly "out there", but not so far out there that you get scared, or pass out. (Ketamine is used all the time as anesthesia for surgery, and they give you a much larger dose than is used in depression treatment, because past a certain dose, you just immediately zonk out 100%. Good ketamine therapy for depression is achieved by feathering the dose between the two extremes of zero effect and passing out.)

Hallucination means a lot of different things, but with ketamine it's pretty specific. It's not the kind of hallucination where you're looking around the room you're in and see things that don't exist. With ketamine you basically disconnect from the world you're in at the moment and go somewhere else entirely, in your own head. You will often not ingest input from your eyes, even if they're open. What goes on inside someone's head at this point varies wildly, I could tell you what it's like for me but not sure how much interest there is in that. I will say though that music has a profound impact on what goes on in my head during an infusion, and is a fun way of customizing the ketamine experience. I particularly love using my AirPods for this, because there are no wires and especially under ketamine, it feels like the sound is coming from inside your head, as opposed to feeling like you're wearing headphones.

> Could you describe what your depressive symptoms were like before/after > treatment?

My depression manifest itself in extreme anhedonia, and after my 3rd infusion, I played, and enjoyed playing, a video game again, for the first time in over a year. Also, at that point in my life (3 years ago) I was going through a lot of difficult personal life problems, and dealing with those problems went from "completely insurmountable" before, to "this is shitty but I can figure it out" after.

In other words, it helped me deal with my life and enjoy things again, but it didn't turn me into someone who will never experience sadness again. It doesn't mean you'll never have a bad day again, but it does mean you'll be able to handle those bad days a lot better.

> How many sessions did it take before you saw improvement?

The way my doctor recommended starting ketamine treatment was to have 6 doses over the course of 2 weeks (m/w/f, m/w/f), and then after that "as needed", which for me turned out to be every 4 weeks. It was after the 3rd dose in my initial course of 6 that I noticed a significant effect.

> Also, any personal insight on why it was so effective for you? Do you think > it helped you view circumstances in your life in a different way (the way > other hallucinogens like LSD might)?

I can answer this in two parts.

First, one reason it is effective for me is because I don't take any other drugs that conflict with ketamine. Regular benzodiazepine use, or opiate use, or lamictal (this list is not exhaustive) significantly impact the effectiveness of the treatment. Lamictal completely kills the effectiveness. I had just started on lamictal treatment a month prior to discovering ketamine treatment, and had to come off it for 10 days before starting. Same with benzos.

Second, and this is just my personal theory about my own experience, I think one thing ketamine does that helps me is to get my mind out of ruts. The experience of ego death, or near ego death, that I get with ketamine feels like a complete reset for the problems my brain was relentlessly focusing on before. Afterwards, I still care about those problems, but obsessing over the negative parts of my life abates significantly. I would say that before, my focus on the negative vs positive was quite lopsided to the negative, to the point that I rarely noticed / felt the positives. Whereas now, the two are much more balanced. I still lean a bit towards the negative, but just a bit.

One more personal anecdote: Before ketamine, I was dating a lot, but almost out of desperation because of how extremely lonely I felt, rather than because I was being thoughtful/intentional/patient about finding a great partner. The ladies I dated picked up on this quite easily, and it lead to a lot of negative outcomes. And each negative outcome felt like the world ending, which made things worse. A few months after starting ketamine I tried dating again, and it went so much better. I wasn't as desperate, and I took the time to figure out who I was and what I really wanted, and what I offered. It still took a while before I found the right partner for me, about one year after starting ketamine treatments, but we're happily married!

<comment><USER12> One more thing I'd like to add, my mother has a very similar kind of depression as I do, and ketamine was not effective for her at all. She was on a fairly high, regular dose of opiate medication, and also she's in her mid 50s. Doc said that it doesn't work as well sometimes, for older people. But we couldn't say for sure if it was her age or the opiates, and getting her off the opiates wasn't an option for her unfortunately.

<comment><USER14> Thank you for your comment. I can't really relate, but it does sound very interesting and potentially useful to many others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> FYI - Kaiser Permanente is running some ketamine in clinics in California. If your insurance is Kaiser, this might be a low-cost option.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've never used ketamine, but I did take hallucinogenic doses of dextromethorphan (DXM, a dissociative hallucinogen, the same class of drugs as ketamine) a few times in college. I have mild depression, and for several days to a week after each DXM trip, I felt very energized and creative, with all of my depressive symptoms gone. I'm not surprised that ketamine helps depression in some people. I sometimes consider microdosing DXM for depression and also general productivity.

Of course, don't take any medical advice from anonymous online posts.

</comment><comment><USER17> IV ketamine is already being used to treat depression. Its about $500 per treatment.

<comment><USER18> Yes and I believe that nasal administration is either under FDA review or active development.

Edit: For anyone suffering from suicidal ideation, I recommend trying lithium (in close consultation with your doctor).

<comment><USER19> Lithium was the only drug that helped me. Two weeks on it and the ideations were gone. Of course it also requires monthly blood tests, and for me being nauseous every morning but the positive effects did stay after I discontinued.

<comment><USER18> At least in my case, I didn't need to continue with the monthly blood work once my optimum level was found. Also I fortunately never experienced the nausea you mention but did experience tremors occasionally at the beginning, when trying to find the right level. Too high and they would begin to manifest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is the incidence of suicide lower among regular ketamine users?

<comment><USER12> There is a gigantic difference in patient outcome between clinical ketamine use and recreational ketamine use. For a variety of reasons: careful dose control, having an actual doctor involved, etc. But the biggest one is the antidepressant effects of ketamine only really happen when it's administered via IV drip over a course of 45 minutes. The most common use of recreational ketamine is inhaling it, the effects come up too fast and go away too fast for the antidepressive effects to occur.

<comment><USER21> Insufflation is the word you're looking for.

That's also untrue. IM, and IV are most faster come offs then insufflation or eating it. Though eating ketamine sucks for the amount you need.

What is true about IV is you can control the amount that actually gets taken in much better.

<comment><USER12> > What is true about IV is you can control the amount that actually gets taken > in much better.

I agree 100% with this. Furthermore, being able to carefully control the dose and duration is paramount in getting the effects to last as long as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is J&J's S-ketamime NOT racemic ketamin

Racmic is better

<comment><USER23> The literature points to R-ketamine, on it's own, appearing to have stronger antidepressant effect, with less of the disassociative effects.

AFAICT, it's not patentable, so nobody would pay for the trials.

<comment><USER22> This is very true . R-ketamine holds most of the benefit but some of the metabolites of s-ketamine also do contribute to the positive effects .

Regarding patents . It is possible to patent an ROA method just like what j&j did with s-ket

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I thought Ketamine was considered a rape-drug and thus prohibited.

<comment><USER25> Not even remotely. You're thinking of GHB.

<comment><USER26> Which, incidentally, also has perfectly legitimate medical uses - treatment of narcolepsy, anesthesia, etc.

<comment><USER27> As do cocaine, MDMA, shrooms, ...

Science might be finally gaining the upper hand in the drug war against political forces which won the public opinion battle back in the 70s. It's much harder to convince the public drugs r bad if 95% of the "hard" drugs have medical uses.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A kids' cartoon led to invasive raccoons in Japan - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/-how-a-kids-cartoon-created-a-real_life-invasive-army <comment><USER2> I like the different (evolving) related titles:

How a Kids' Cartoon Created a Real-Life Invasive Army POSTED BY JASON G. GOLDMAN ON SEP 18, 2013 [http://m.nautil.us/blog/how-a-kids-cartoon-created- an-real_l...](http://m.nautil.us/blog/how-a-kids-cartoon-created-an-real_life- invasive-army)

Rascal: The Raccoon That Ate Japan BY ERIC GRUNDHAUSER AUGUST 29, 2014 [http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rascal-the-raccoon- that...](http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rascal-the-raccoon-that-ate- japan)

RASCAL'S SECRET PLAN: THE RACCOON INVASION OF JAPAN NOVEMBER 21, 2014 • 2105 WORDS WRITTEN BY MATTHEW MACEWAN • ART BY AYA FRANCISCO [https://www.tofugu.com/japan/raccoons-in- japan/](https://www.tofugu.com/japan/raccoons-in-japan/)

The Children's Book That Caused Japan's Raccoon Problem By Laura Clark SMITHSONIAN.COM MARCH 16, 2015 [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart- news/childrens-book-behi...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart- news/childrens-book-behind-japans-raccoon-problem-180954577/)

</comment><comment><USER3> An entire article on Japan, racoons, anime, and even a note on the native tanuki, yet not one mention of the excellent Ghibli anime, Pom Poko.

For some reason, this charming Miyazaki (edit - Takahata, not Miyazaki! thanks for the catch) work has not been widely marketed in the West, which is a shame as it is as enjoyable and fun as the more famous ones like Spirited Away or Porco Rosso.

<comment><USER4> Pom Poko is a Ghibli movie, yes, but it was directed by Isao Takahata, not Miyazaki.

I can aunderstand why it's not been marketed as much; it's pretty long-winded and it deals with Japanese stories and folklore that are foreign to the general western audience.

<comment><USER5> _> it deals with Japanese stories and folklore that are foreign to the general western audience._

That is also true of Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro... a lot of other Ghibli productions that _did_ get lots of exposure.

I think the issue with that particular movie is that (IIRC) is a bit heavy on the ecological agenda, overall is not great (funny here and there though) and I don't think it was ever dubbed. The subtitles I've seen floating around are pretty terrible.

Someone should put together a Takahata retrospective with good subtitles.

<comment><USER6> Doesn't Pom Poko involve raccoons with magical testicles? That kind of storyline is basically unmarketable to children in the prude US!

<comment><USER7> The English dubs refer to them as 'magic raccoon pouches', and I never knew any better until I saw this thread :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a Radiolab podcast about Guadeloupean raccoons, where they're considered almost sacred even though they're as pesky as in the US. I found the locals discussing their attitude to the incredulity of the Radiolab hosts quite amusing.

[http://www.radiolab.org/story/stanger- paradise/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/stanger-paradise/)

<comment><USER9> Oh, there's lots of places in the world that consider raccoons sacred. Just look at how my city reacted to the death of one: [https://imgur.com/gallery/h9LRo](https://imgur.com/gallery/h9LRo)

<comment><USER8> Very funny. I love when people come together in ways like this.

I think our equivalent in Australia would be the possum, often finding its way into your roof cavity, dying and stinking the place out. They make some ghastly growling noises at night (as do koalas).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Raccoons have since proliferated in Japan, where they have no natural predators"

well to be honest, there really isn't predators for them here in Pennsylvania either. Owls 'may' grab a really young one, but honestly cars probably kill way more

<comment><USER11> Cars may be enough to stabilize raccoon population. They are territorial. Young ones either replace an older one, or get pushed out of established territories and end up wandering the road (no-raccoons-land). So cars are serving as 'failed raccoon euthenasia'.

<comment><USER12> >They are territorial.

You're not kidding. When I bought my house it had sat empty for a couple of years and a family of raccoons had added it to their territory. Closing up vents helped, but once a year or so they'd return and try again. I'm just guessing but I think the mothers would still try to work the metal grating out of the vents when they were pregnant.

I didn't really want to kill them and frankly trapping them seemed like a lot of work, plus they had fleas and potentially carry rabies, not to mention possibly having a parasite in their feces. I didn't want to hurt them and I didn't really want to get near them. As with most anything else you can buy the solution on the internet: puma pee. A liberal sprinkling of the foul smelling stuff ran off me, my wife and the raccoons. We can't smell it any more but apparently the raccoons can because they haven't returned.

<comment><USER10> don't forget ticks w/ lime disease

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Similar problem in reverse is the explosive growth of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallopia_japonica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallopia_japonica) all over Europe's forests and gardens. The plant is nearly unkillable and thus extremely expensive to get rid of. Here in Switzerland, dirt contaminated with its roots is counted as a hazardous waste that you need to take extra precaution for transit and disposal.

Thankfully by now we've learned to be more careful with importing non- indigenous species.

<comment><USER14> I'm imagining the only good way for soil to recover from it is burning, and even that might not be enough. What a nuisance.

<comment><USER15> Using the soil as feedstock for a microbial bioreactor might also be "safe."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Now is probably a good time to start eradicating them, since they're still relatively small in population. The risks are pretty high for an animal like this.

I hear they're also pretty good eating. Enough meat to make them worth butchering, and they apparently taste something like the dark meat off a chicken (quite greasy, but also excellent for frying).

Maybe a recipe book is the kind of public outreach required.

</comment><comment> jim-jim-jim That's neat. Over the years I've heard multiple Japanese people refer to raccoons as "rascal" and I had no idea why.

</comment><comment><USER16> From the trailer to the anime, I can see why kids would think racoons would be cute pets:

[http://youtu.be/2YMH5ntJEZ0](http://youtu.be/2YMH5ntJEZ0)

<comment><USER17> This must have been an expensive production. They even got native English speakers to sing part of the OP, which is rare even today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Lots of examples like this, e.g. marbled crayfish started as aquarium pets and now they can be found in wild on 3 continents (even on Madagascar).

</comment><comment><USER19> That's a lot like deer in the US after Bambi. They used to be a nuisance. Now we think they are cute. If you live in a place with enough of them you may start to realize they are a nuisance.

<comment><USER20> They are a nuisance because humans killed off all of their natural predators. We only have ourselves to thank for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I guessed this from the plot. I'd heard about this from a raccoon documentary on PBS.

</comment><comment><USER22> TLDR: Japan's now full of raccoons because an anime (Araiguma Rasukaru) made them look like fun to keep as pets, until you have to let them go into the wild because they're getting too aggressive.

<comment><USER23> But Japan's not really full of raccoons. I've never seen a raccoon in ~4 years here and I've seen 30+ wild tanukis (up to 10 or so could have been the same ones). It also states in the article that Hokkaido has been killing off 2,000 raccoons per year because of the agricultural loss due to raccoons. With that being said I've only seen 2 wild raccoons in America in 25 years so maybe they're just much better at hiding than tanukis.</comment></comment>


The Forgiving User Interface - <AUTHOR> http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/TheForgivingUserInterface.html?HN_20160711 <comment><USER3> I don't understand how the tap mixer can be ambiguous? If I move something to the red I expect it to get 'redder' -> hotter, same for blue/colder.

The case where this does make sense would be if there was some kind of scale or pointer that informs me this should be interpreted as state.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you "move it to the red" then the visible indicator would now be blue - <USER2> some people that would indicate that the temperature should now be that which is associated with blue, _i.e._ it should be cold.

To me this alternative interpretation makes sense, and to me that means it's ambiguous.

<comment><USER4> As I see it in the picture, it's pretty obvious, that the _hole_ moves with the handle. The indicator behind the hole is probably stationary, so moving the handle to the left makes the hole show red. By the way I think it's standard with hot to the left and cold to the right. Edit: He! Maybe there is no hole and the indicator is painted on the handle? If so, I agree.</comment></comment></comment>


Q&A with hackers who say they helped break into Sony's network - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/12/29/a-qa-with-the-hackers-who-say-they-helped-break-in-to-sonys-network/

<comment><USER2> Reading this was painful as hell. They constantly contradict themselves and it makes it quite obvious that they're acting completely spontaneously. It's also pretty clear that based on how they act in public and in interviews, that they're not smart enough to cover their tracks properly and I would put money on them getting caught soon because of it.

</comment><comment><USER3> > I believe we currently control almost 50% of overall Tor network and over > 70% of exit nodes.

This was one of the technical misunderstanding that was made during that "attack", as it assumed all nodes were treated equally. In contrast, the tor network look at attributes such as up-time in order to shape and redirect traffic flows for improved performance. When the network is increased by 70% from newly created nodes, those new nodes only get a small portion of the overall traffic until they have had time to established themselves.

They do say later in the interview that they could had added the nodes slowly over time, but that sounds implausible with a bot network or one paid by stolen CC. Those kind of computers are not known for up-time, especially if they generate a lot of noise.

</comment><comment><USER4> 1.2 terabytes per second. Where do these people get the resources?

<comment><USER5> *terabits

It's a lot, but think about it this way, if the average home connection is say 10 megabits, it only takes a hundred to make a terabit. Some of these botnets command many thousands.

<comment><USER6> No, 100 connections 10 Mbps each would make it 1 Gbps not 1 Tbps.

<comment><USER7> bits, bytes whats the difference.

<comment><USER8> 8 times currently.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Using Facebook Notes to DDoS any website - <AUTHOR> http://chr13.com/2014/04/20/using-facebook-notes-to-ddos-any-website/

<comment><USER2> How on earth did this not make the frontpage. :(

<comment><USER3> It did on lobste.rs (in fact its on the frontpage right now!)

Come over and join the community (invite only - but you can request one pretty easily)</comment></comment>


Republicans hope to overturn internet privacy rules - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/15/republican-plan-to-overturn-isp-privacy-rules/ <comment><USER2> I'd love to hear from some Republican supporters who think this is a good idea. More often than not, the party of "individual rights" is anything but.

I don't mean to start a flame war, but am genuinely curious.

<comment><USER3> This isn't about opposing privacy. There is a reasonable expectation to privacy people have but the privacy laws adapted by the FCC in the past have only been applied to ISPs and not other edge providers, such as Google or Skype. So in short, they are just bad laws.

The regulations placed on ISPs place an undue burden on them but not on other Internet companies. Firstly, this means that users have to understand a lot about the networks they use to understand how privacy laws affect them. Second, it also means that edge providers(Yahoo, Skype, Google) have an unfair advantage. The justification given for this is that ISPs see much more data than edge providers. But this does not appear true and in fact a great deal of personal information and network-usage data appears to be available to other parties besides ISPs. You can search headlines to see that. So it doesn't make sense to single out ISPs for privacy laws but not other Internet companies that have access to user data. Also, it makes the law more complicated regarding user data privacy.

I also want to point out that, in my personal opinion, there is a tendency to view ISPs as malicious actors but not for other edge providers which biases the debate on Internet privacy laws.

<comment><USER4> "..the privacy laws adapted by the FCC in the past have only been applied to ISPs and not other edge providers... So in short, they are just bad laws."

I feel that builds the argument that they should be implemented more widely, not abandoned. Also, ISPs are targeted specifically not because people believe they are malicious actors, but because they are literally the gateway to everything, impacting you just about any time you use the internet. Think how much it would say about you as a person in detailed logs from your service provider.

<comment><USER3> Yes, the argument that they should be widely implemented is definitely implied and valid.

Regarding your analogy, end to end encrypted content is not readable by the ISP, they can see metadata for encrypted content, but not the content itself. Whereas webmail providers can see the content[1]. Another example is Google who run a public DNS server. Another example is Apple keeping all phone numbers[2]. So the data that edge providers have access to(in theory) is fairly significant. I think definitely to be consistent the law has to be an all or nothing kind of thing.

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/04/yahoo-scans-email-for- nsa/](https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/04/yahoo-scans-email-for-nsa/)

[2] [http://www.macworld.com/article/3125570/iphone-ipad/apple- ke...](http://www.macworld.com/article/3125570/iphone-ipad/apple-keeps-track- of-all-the-phone-numbers-you-contact-using-imessage.html)

<comment><USER5> There's a competitive market in online services. FastMail scans only for spam, and you can opt out.[1] Microsoft claims not to use email for ad targeting.[2] Google DNS is a standalone service with a reasonable, detailed privacy policy.[3] iMessage is optional even if you choose to use Apple platforms.

Meanwhile, most US households have only one option for 25+ Mbps Internet service because the FCC dismantled competition among residential ISPs. If ISPs don't want the responsibilities that come with monopoly power, they should stop fighting to preserve it.

[1] [https://www.fastmail.com/about/privacy.html](https://www.fastmail.com/about/privacy.html)

[2] [https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-US/](https://privacy.microsoft.com/en- US/)

[3] [https://developers.google.com/speed/public- dns/privacy](https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Why does anyone think allowing ISPs to collect and operate on customer information with impunity is a good idea for the general public, who often have no alternatives?

<comment><USER6> It's a proxy war in a battle between industry sectors.

> Telecoms unsurprisingly object to the rules. They feel they're subject to > more stringent regulation than many of the websites you visit, and believe > that an opt-in requirement hurts their ability to target you with > personalized ads.

Silicon Valley would similarly chafe at the idea of opt-in requirements before being able to use customer data. You can raise the competition issue, and that's fair to a degree. But I have more realistic choices for say my cell phone plan than I do the search engine I use. And I have every little choice in, e.g., whether or not I send emails to gmail/yahoo/etc. users.

As for why Republicans take up this particular mantle, there is a cynical take and a charitable one. Telecom companies employ hundreds of thousands of people, and are geographically dispersed. Silicon Valley is highly concentrated and doesn't employ that many people. AT&T, for example, has thousands of employees in Tennessee. Google has a few hundred. Does Facebook have any?

IMHO, _everybody_ making Internet infrastructure should be required to get opt-in consent before using private customer information.

<comment><USER7> > But I have more realistic choices for say my cell phone plan than I do the > search engine I use. And I have every little choice in, e.g., whether or not > I send emails to gmail/yahoo/etc. users.

If I don't want to use Google because of their tracking, I can use DuckDuckGo.

If I don't want to use Comcast because of their tracking, my other options are Comcast, Comcast, Comcast, and Comcast. I think you're being a bit disingenuous by focusing on cellular carriers and not mentioning wired broadband providers where we have no competition, no consumer choice, and no market solution to abuses by the service provider.

Your criticism of email is somewhat more fair. While there are alternative services available that you could use, the majority of your contacts are going to choose to fork over all of your information to Google. But if you're _really_ concerned about that, you can find other channels to contact them. That's still a better situation than the ISP market that most Americans are stuck with.

<comment><USER6> Trotting out DDG and Yahoo is kinda like saying satellite and fixed 4G are competition in almost every market. In practice, nobody sees them as real competition. In practice, the markets look quite similar:

Google, [small cliff] Bing, [huge cliff] :: Cable, [small cliff] DSL, [huge cliff].

Also, I am skeptical of this focus on wireline. There are 3x as many wireless broadband subscriptions in the U.S. (more than there are people!) than wired broadband. Wired broadband penetration has actually plateaued and is now shrinking.

<comment><USER8> I don't know about your comparison. Scientifically speaking Google search results and Bing's are nearly identical. And this is born out in the fact that Google's cost of acquiring traffic is going up while their ad CPMs on search are going down. They've been disguising it by increasing ad units on the search pages, oftentimes breaking their own ad placement guidelines. That Google's search is commoditized is the entire reason why Google became Alphabet and has been cleaning house on all their frivolous products. To be clear, Bing doesn't have the brand Google has, but in terms of the actual technical result of the product, it is virtually identical. The other issue with your comparison as approached above, is that comcast and the other ISPs have gov't granted monopolies, and end users cannot move to another carrier. They were granted these in exchange for building out massive cable/broadband networks with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. What happened is that the regulators fell asleep at the wheel or turned a blind eye and almost none of that money was actually spent upgrading the network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Small government"

<comment><USER10> Well, yes, the government would be ever so slightly smaller with this change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sadly engadget is not a reliable source, so there's really nothing to take specifically from this article at face value (not that it said much other than FUD anyway). Lately they've been caught making or repeating way too much fake news related to politics and even entertainment topics.

</comment><comment><USER12> What can we do to stop this?

<comment><USER13> Elect Bernie Sanders.

Other than that, write to your representatives and tell them in no unambiguous language that they are sacrificing liberty for a feeling of security. Remind them that their own internet use could be monitored by their political opponents because once the framework is in place it is far too easy to abuse it.

<comment><USER14> I know you're being facetious, but did Bernie really have a stance on internet privacy? It was pretty clear the main platform he had fleshed out was just economic policy.

<comment><USER13> [http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-privacy-and- digital...](http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-privacy-and-digital- rights/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You literally have no idea what you're talking about.

<comment><USER16> Comments like this aren't allowed on HN regardless of how ignorant someone else is, so please don't post them. When someone is mistaken, show them how (and more importantly, the rest of us) by adding information. If you don't want to do that or don't have time, posting nothing is a fine option too.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13661688](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13661688) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why do people seem so obsessed with privacy on the net?

I mean, I get that privacy is important. I would not like the walls of my house to be transparent, for instance. But that's the thing : they're not, and this law would not change that.

What I mean is that I, for better or worse, make a clear distinction between privacy in the physical word and privacy online. I basically don't consider anything I do online "really" private. The only reason I assume nobody knows what I do there is that I presume nobody cares. And if I really wanted to hide what I'm doing I'd use TOR, GnuPG or something like that.

<comment><USER18> Why do republicans seem so obsessed with making everything shittier instead of making an earnest attempt to fix some of our country's problems?

<comment><USER19> If you actually want to know, each party markets to the grassroots concerns of the people in their audience. After they get in power, what they actually implement is the agenda of their corporate sponsors.

If you want to understand the situation:

1\. Try suppressing your immediate visceral reaction to issues that grassroots Republicans care about. Open your mind, tune into some decent red media, and ask yourself "what if there is some truth in this?"

2\. Avoid being drawn into the groupthink that condones the actions of your own team as altruistic. Open your mind and ask yourself "what if there is some oppressive agenda behind this?"

Unfortunately, you will have to find media from back when Democrats had power. Now that the other team is the aggressor and your team is the opposition, it will be impossible to perceive (your team is now only "fighting the good fight", as they lack power to implement their sponsors' policies). But my message goes equally for the red team as well, reversing the parties.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some new and cool startups being built in Europe? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [https://www.asvglobal.com/](https://www.asvglobal.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't look like neither a startup nor cool :)

<comment><USER2> It is a startup -- still small, growing like crazy -- and if self driving cars are cool, then so is this: it's the exact same thing, but at sea. Wouldn't you want to work on self-driving container ships? (You have to start somewhere..)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> [http://pixyle.com](http://pixyle.com)</comment>


Andreessen Horowitz Returns Slip, According to Internal Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/andreessen-horowitz-returns-slip-according-to-internal-data?pu=hackernewsva0zne&utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=unlock <comment><USER2> Andreessen Horowitz has a very strong spray and pray feel to it relative to other funds in its class (much like YC). Look at how enormous its portfolio page is: [https://a16z.com/portfolio/](https://a16z.com/portfolio/). I bet this list isn't all inclusive, either.

For comparison: Founders Fund has an IRR of ~55%, at ~$1B AUM scale. It tends to invest in fewer companies -- with much higher bar and conviction -- and its portfolio has a much lower failure rate than competing funds (of course failure rate doesn't matter as much for VC returns, but it's still an interesting fact).

I have no connection to FF whatsoever, but have learned a lot from the way they invest and much prefer their model to the spray and pray style (YC, Ron Conway, A16Z, etc).

<comment><USER3> YC (and probably Ron Conway) are apples to oranges with a16z. Spray and pray works when you are looking at 10000x multiples on your best investments. It doesn't when you are deploying billions and don't come near that order of magnitude for your best bets.

<comment><USER2> As far as I know YC doesn't have a single 10,000x investment (i.e., $100B+ exit). Not one. Yet I once listened to a YC video where Michael Seibel (President of YC) discussed some of their stats. He said they've funded over 2,000 companies, and of those have 17 unicorns that are worth ~$100B in aggregate valuation. So that means their hit rate is generously

17/2,000 = 0.85%

Compare to i.e. Jason Calacanis who on his own has a hit rate of better than 1 in 20. Now assuming YC paid $100K per company and gets to keep a blended 1% of the $100B (is that too small?), they've put in about $200M in funding to get back

$100B*1% = $1B

to net roughly $800M in profit for their stakeholders. So they're a 5x fund. But that's really...not that good...(at least it's not world class).

But am I missing something? They've definitely gotten a lot better at picking companies during the Sam Altman era (by, IMO, funding deep tech companies that actually have the chance of 10,000xing), but it'll still take another 5-10 years to really prove that.

Now YC might argue that they're not purely a profit-driven fund. And that's true. But isn't it a bit worrying that after thousands of investments they haven't funded a single $100B+ company? YC has an enormous influence on the startup ecosystem. Is an institution with a 0.85% hit rate really sending us the right lessons?

<comment><USER4> I would be very surprised if Stripe didn't surpass $100B.

<comment><USER5> wait until libra.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, I keep seeing articles comparing S&P 500 return versus the IRR of a VC fund, but none seem to compute "IRR" for the S&P 500. That is, they all seem to assume $1 invested at t=0 in S&P 500 (and I assume total return, so reinvested dividends), and then compare that to venture investing.

Except an $100M fund isn't $100M instantly deployed. The investors are putting probably $20M/yr into it via capital calls. That makes a huge difference in IRR.

This isn't to defend the particular investments or performance of any firm, but it does seem like the reporting is quite poor. Even taking the time to compute a "what if each year you invested 1/5th into the S&P 500" would be a marked improvement. But you definitely don't get to say "The 2010 Andreessen Horowitz fund performed slightly better than investments made in the S&P 500 in the same year" (as the article does).

<comment><USER7> If the fund manager leaves your money sitting around in cash for a few years, that impacts your returns, since you could have put that money to work elsewhere. Including the gradual investment as part of IRR is the correct thing to do.

<comment><USER6> Sorry for not making it clear: they don't _ask_ for the money, until it's "needed". The term of art is "capital call" and while it's possible to call at any time (perhaps you want to make a huge investment and you don't have the cash currently), it's usually somewhat spread out. The "default" behavior is an even-ish set of calls over say a 5-year period for a (nominally) 10-year fund.

<comment><USER8> Isn't the money in some sense tied up if it has to be ready for a capital call? At minimum it should be in some relatively low risk liquid investment. So there is opportunity cost regardless of whether the investor or the fund holds it until it is deployed?

<comment><USER6> Yep, but that's equally true of any IRR calculation (for any IRR, you should compare to the risk-free rate or alternatively some other equal-risk benchmark). As an example, perhaps the real comparison for VC investment should be to having your "capital to be called" in the S&P 500 while waiting for capital calls. Except, as you allude, that's quite risky for "you are required to deliver" (and IIUC, often within days). That makes the easiest assumption some sort of money-market fund or treasury something something.

In any case, the $X in S&P 500 at t=0 versus the _IRR_ of a venture fund is not an apples-to-apples comparison. There are many ways to meet your capital calls, and I suspect that sophisticated investors aren't keeping the cash in their checking account waiting for an email.

<comment><USER8> I agree it isn't apples to apples. I wonder if it is nevertheless the best comparison, though, because they're two fundamentally different beasts.

If I have a lump of cash I need to deploy, I can buy lump sum SPX at t=0. I can't call a VC and say "here's X money, invest it all immediately."

The fairest comparison probably would be lump sum SPX against a blend of VC IRR and money market, converted from one to the other at a typical capital call rate, but as the number of variables increases so do the number of assumptions, and given the low returns on money market funds I don't see how the extra complexity adds much to the story.

Am I missing something?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here are the totals, based on the figures in the post:

10.8% gross for A16Z

14.5% for S&P 500.

Calculation: [https://imgur.com/a/jeFN8fL](https://imgur.com/a/jeFN8fL)

<comment><USER10> Ok. Picking on a firm because it didn't beat the 500 is harsh. Beating the 500 is damn hard. An 500index fund is basically a collection of large monopolies that extract cash.

<comment><USER11> Yes, but then why invest in an actively managed fund at all, as an LP? whole premise is that fund managers can beat an index such as the S&P500 or total market etc.

<comment><USER12> LPs don't invest in funds to beat the market. By the time they are investing in VC they have already have millions in traditional investments like index funds, real estate, etc. VC investments are a high-risk, high-reward play.

<comment><USER13> Individual VC investments are a high-risk, high reward play, but for an LP, investments in large baskets of VC investments via VC funds are ideally intended to collect an uncorrelated risk premium. The idea isn't to simply to beat the SP500, its to diversify, and thus improve risk adjusted returns, of their broader investment portfolio.

For large institutional LP's like pension funds, endowments, charities, etc, they need steady smooth returns that they can draw upon year after year to fund their beneficiaries. In particular a down year really hurts them since they will have to draw down on their principal. This is a very different risk calculus to an individual saving for retirement who can stomach 30-40 years of stock market volatility with a good probability of having enough money at the end of their career.

So rather than chucking the bulk of their fund in to the asset with the highest expected returns as an individual might, these institutional investors buy a big basket of very different return streams (i.e. as uncorrelated as possible) to smooth out the bumps in each one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article is absurd. It says the 2011 fund return rate is 12%, which isn't spectacular. That's the whole point of the article.

Except the 2011 fund includes stakes in Airbnb and Stripe, two massive companies that have yet to go public.

So, sure, at the moment the returns aren't awe inspiring. But give I can't imagine anyone at AH is losing sleep over the long-term success of that fund.

<comment><USER8> Those positions are still being valued according to some internal measure at AH, I think. So they should be factored in already.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Saw there was some interest around this piece on HN last week so I went ahead and unlocked it.

<comment><USER15> thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The previous thread was [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20985687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20985687), but since the article is readable now, we won't mark this one a dupe.

</comment><comment><USER17> What are the "Parallel" funds? And why do they much better returns than the main funds?

<comment><USER18> Parallel funds tend to be funds that are used to double down into winners.

<comment><USER17> Those are "opportunity funds". "Parallel Funds" normally are funds that invest at the same time and in the same fund percentage as the main fund. These are often setup as a way to group together LPs; for example you may have a main US fund and one in the Caymans that's for foreign investors. They function as a "Fund Family" and because they make the same investments at the same percentages, they normally have the same returns.

Looking at the SEC filing for Pinterest, you can see this is the case for a16z. Fund III and Parallel Fund III invested in the same rounds, always at the same proportion:

[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1503674/000114420419...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1503674/000114420419020119/xslF345X02/tv519076_3.xml)

What's not clear given this, is why the parallel fund has much better returns. It may have to do with how the fees are structured.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for the clarification

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Poor investments can contribute to a fund's weak performance, but so can decisions to put too little money into startups that ultimately turn into smashes."

I'd guess the problem is the opposite. Too much money into startups that fail.

VC is hard now because there's so much money chasing startups. The valuations they're getting are absurd. When you pay twice as much, your hit gives you have the return and your failure twice the loss. VC has been a pretty poor investment historically, and the high valuations now are really hurting.

</comment><comment><USER20> Compare that to the returns from the top-performing funds from 2007-2015: [https://mobile.twitter.com/zavaindar/status/1159660549615116...](https://mobile.twitter.com/zavaindar/status/1159660549615116294)

Note that this data is from preqin and doesn't include all funds, just those that self report or have LPs who publish returns of funds they invested in

</comment><comment><USER21> Why anyone invests in any VC fund, when you can do better in the stock market with an index fund, at much less risk, is beyond me...

<comment><USER22> Perhaps, but we don't really know how much risk many of those VC funds are actually taking. With liquid, publicly-traded stocks we can sort of use variability of returns as a proxy for risk. But there's no equivalent good way to really quantify VC fund risk. Sure you can do risk modeling but it's just an educated guess.

<comment><USER23> > _there 's no equivalent good way to really quantify VC fund risk_

Distribution of returns. Longitudinal volatility is a (good) proxy for this.

<comment><USER22> Not enough data points, too much noise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So when the economy is booming they do as good as S&P. I wonder how they'd compare in a recession. S&P:4% and VCs:?

</comment><comment><USER25> Over the long-term it's hard to beat mr market. That's why buffet made a bet with the hedge fund manager.

</comment><comment><USER26> What kind of slip did they return?

<comment><USER27> I, too, read this headline quite literally. It sounds like they could have returned something they bought on Amazon.

<comment><USER6> Yes, because they failed to use a possessive here. The headline should have been "Andreessen Horowitz's Returns Slip". Then we'd parse Returns as a noun rather than a possible verb.</comment></comment></comment>


Ansistrano – Ansible role to deploy apps in a Capistrano style - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ansistrano/deploy <comment><USER2> I'm not much of a "crapistrano" fan. I do admit it filled a necessary void at the time... With that said, the role itself is well written Ansible.

Tests[1][2] could be improved by molecule[3].

[1] [https://github.com/ansistrano/deploy/blob/master/.travis.yml](https://github.com/ansistrano/deploy/blob/master/.travis.yml) [2] [https://github.com/ansistrano/deploy/tree/master/test](https://github.com/ansistrano/deploy/tree/master/test) [3] [https://molecule.readthedocs.io](https://molecule.readthedocs.io)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've never used Capistrano, but it looks like this is basically the `deploy_helper` module, plus automatically obtaining the code to deploy from git/rsync/whatever, plus pre- and post- hooks?

<comment><USER4> Looks like. We've got something similar that we put together for our packages two years ago, but never got cleaned up enough to make it general.

This and our code were written pre-Ansible 2.0, and `deploy_helper` was released with 2.0.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Taskfort – Self-Hostable Project Management / Kanban Tool - <AUTHOR> https://www.taskfort.com

<comment><AUTHOR> This will be my last submission to hackernews with Taskfort (the last submission did not receive too much attention). Taskfort is a self-hostable kanban tool with real-time collaboration courtesy of socket.io. My target audience is anyone who wants to have complete control over their data, wants to be more organized and can't rely on 3rd party web services. Licenses start at $35 / user for personal licenses. This includes a full year of support and upgrades. Once you purchase the license you will have full access to the source-code. Features on the roadmap are, making the mobile apps, and having AD + SAML integration. If you want to test out the full features before purchasing, you can create a free online account: www.taskfort.com

If you have any questions, let me know!

 __edit: __Also as an aside, I 've submitted my first application to YC. Show your support, if you want to see more applications like this in the future :)

<comment><USER2> Tim, before I decide to sign up: what's unique about taskfort.com?

<comment><AUTHOR> The main selling point is we respect your privacy. We don't want you to be tied down to the service. It feels like a lot of self-hosted solutions are being left in the dust to these modern web-apps at the expense of getting their customer data being sold. We never want that to be the case with Taskfort. I really hope there will be more self-hosted services that can keep up with modern browser technology, I will do my part in trying to iterate as fast as I can.

<comment><USER3> Not sure hiding the source code is a good idea. Check out how Ghost did it, they have a very similar approach.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean by hiding the source code? Once you have a license, nothing in the source will be hidden.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Tim,

Some suggestions:

1\. I'd take pains to break out the pricing as per year (I had assumed per month looking at your homepage)

2\. The body font on the homepage is too light - hard to read

3\. The "download + install" seems like you're trying to define a niche where Trello, etc. can't reach but you don't use the phrase I most closely associate with that on your homepage "on premise".

4\. Would be really nice to see a demo

<comment><USER5> Hey Michael,

Thanks for the taking the time to give constructive feedback. I will try to make it more clear that the licenses are on a per-year basis, as well as visibly making the text on the homepage more clear. I have heard the term "on premise", and I agree I should use a more common phrase. I will update the language / terms later tonight. That will make it more official.

How do you think I should make it clear that you can create a free online account to test out the software yourself, or would you prefer a video?

<comment><USER4> You should make it much, much simpler to try out. Ideally hack it to where it's a single click to log in as some demo user.

Right now you're asking for 9 pieces of information before you even let people see what / how it looks.

Another thought, you could let people do a one-click deploy to Heroku from a private repo or something to make it less burdensome to roll out. This is sort of a middle step between on premise and full automated.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is very good advice. I will work on creating a 1-click demo account. I have the developer board up for anyone to see, but having the demo account will transition users using the software faster vs creating an account. I like the heroku deploy idea. I'm actually working on setting up cloud-formation scripts so you can launch w/ Chef + EC2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am sure this isn't intentional, but when trying to purchase a license for TaskFort, I noticed that clicking just about anywhere in the form (in the # of licenses field, next to the Purchase button, etc) caused the "Auto-Renew" checkbox to toggle on and off.

Your product looks great, but that's one hell of a way to turn people off from trusting/paying you.

My experience was on Windows 7 64-bit, Firefox 32.0.3.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I will address that when I get out of work. I specifically even left the auto-renew box unchecked to be respectful. I will add this to the kanban board of major things to address! My apologies:

[https://www.taskfort.com/view/10](https://www.taskfort.com/view/10) added to the backlog

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the quick acknowledgement! That board is great - it shows that you're dogfooding the product while serving as an example workflow for the those unfamiliar with kanban.

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem anstar! I have updated the page, I was able to reproduce the issue and have moved the auto-renew box down so now it doesn't select the auto-renew when pressing down on the form.. That's the short-term fix, longer term fix I'll look into implementing later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So if I sign up, I get the source code, then it will be me installing it from the code and I'll get support. Are the installation instructions available once you create an account?

<comment><AUTHOR> You have to purchase a license to get the source code. But yes, there are step by step docs to install Taskfort [Right now it's only Debian instructions but in the future I'll target RHEL and other OS's].

If you want, I can install it for you later tonight when I'm free.</comment></comment>