The nightmare that colleges face this fall - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/05/will-college-campuses-reopen/611794/ <comment><USER2> The spread of Covid-19 appears to be heavily dependent on individuals who are "super-spreaders" and on "super-spreading events". For example, the guy who was involved in horse-racing at Yonkers, the choir practice in Washington, the conference at Boston.

So a simple model where each case results in R new infections doesn't capture this at all. Instead, networks of infection appear to be like other social networks where some nodes are much more highly connected than other nodes.

The task that colleges face is to ensure that students with large social networks don't infect their contacts and to ensure that large events conducive to infection don't happen. Otherwise, no amount of wiping doorknobs and fogging classrooms with disinfectant will be effective.

<comment><USER3> Relevant exploration of these ideas: [https://www.smbc- comics.com/comic/social](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/social)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe this is a perfect opportunity to cut costs and make college more affordable in the process. Higher education is getting quite expensive and I believe these costs should be rationalized. If you take the average cost of some higher end schools (say 150k) and look at the opportunity cost of investing that in the stock market for 40 years. That's about 15x return (7% for 40 years). Thats $2.25M at retirement. Probably better than most end up with, no?

<comment><USER5> Kind of apples to oranges. Take the difference in salary between a college graduate and a high school graduate over those 40 years. Factor in inflation. Invest _that_ at a 7% return. I'm sure it will easily dwarf $2.25M.

Why don't people have millions invested by the time they retire? Because no matter how much money people make (up to a certain point, depending on the person), they spend it. If you give the average high school graduate $150K and tell them to invest it for 40 years, I pretty much guarantee that it will be gone long before the 40 years are up.

To be fair, I don't have millions invested and I'm scarily close to retirement. So I'm not trying to be critical of others ;-)

<comment><USER6> I know people who retired as millionaires on a lower middle class salary doing just that - living below their means, and regularly investing the difference.

It does work.

But if you spent all your income, you'll never have money.

<comment> t-writescode I suspect all you can argue nowadays is that it _did_ work. With housing costs increasing faster than inflation, forcing people to spend money on rent instead, which has no investment potential, I don't think it still works.

<comment><USER7> Your own house isn't an investment because you always need to live somewhere. Investments are things you can spend like index funds and bonds.

<comment><USER8> > Your own house isn't an investment because you always need to live somewhere

Ehhh, yes and no. Plenty of people who bought nice-ish houses in the Bay Area in the '70s and '80s sold them in 2014-2018 and retired outside the bay with a nice extra pile of cash.

You need housing, but you don't need a crazy expensive house in a crazy expensive area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I get why this is bad for universities. For students though, the solution seems simple: take a gap year if you're just about to start, or a semester off if you're already in school. Gap years are tremendously valuable life experiences that for some reason Americans don't like, but that is really popular among Europeans. The value of university is primarily in the social bonds it forms and life experiences it provides (and the piece of paper you get at the end, for some). The education part itself is rarely applicable to real life anyways. What's the point of overpaying to slave over online classes and a compromised experience? Just wait it out…

<comment><USER10> and do what for 4-6 months? get a job in a labor market that has suddenly gone belly up? travel abroad to places that won't take you?

<comment><USER11> Play video games, watch Netflix, intermixed with PornHub, become obese, depressed, and addicted to some substance, even if purely out of boredom.

Then, after all this, forget why you even wanted to go to college.

Sounds like a plan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Am I wrong to say that K-8 education faces a similar sort of problem, except that college students likely live with other college students, whereas kids are far more likely to live with family with older folk?

Why should colleges be expected to be safer than K-8? Why must they resort to impromptu web solutions?

Also, if there's a consensus on risk and response, shouldn't that be coordinated at a central level instead of institutions each making their own calls?

<comment><USER13> At least in many (most) schools in the US K-8 education is pretty worthless. As a parent I would be just fine with my kids skipping a grade (uhm, zoom-ing through one, that is).

College though is a real education, and I want it to be face to face. I (and them) accept the risk, based on what is known today. My 2c.

<comment><USER14> I think it's easy to forget how hard learning is after you have already mastered something.

You'd be surprised all the things you learn k-8.

If you ask a current PhD student how hard things are and then wait 10 years and ask how hard their PhD was you will get totally different answers.

<comment> barry-cotter K-8 is primary school, right? Its value is mostly not in education. If it was it would look very different. Mastery based learning would be the norm, not unknown. Spaced repetition would be incorporated everywhere so what was taught was retained. There would be no social advancement.

The school system is enormously wasteful of time. It takes about 40 hours to teach a nine year old to read English and about the same time to cover the primary school Math curriculum with a 12 year old.

If we took Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development seriously we wouldn't spend _so much time_ teaching children things they'll pick up tens of times faster in three years. I don't know what primary school would look like if we cared about children learning but it wouldn't look much like the current system.

<comment><USER15> I am just a parent of two K-8 children so not entirely up to speed on the latest theory and practice of ZPD. But when I first read about this before my first was born I understood ZPD to be "empathetic tutoring" which seems increasingly difficult to execute correctly when student:teacher ratios exceed 4:1, and ideally 1-1 for maximum benefit.

ZPD works, but nobody has been able to implement this at-scale, let alone in the K-8 public school system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The teaching facility that I work, just a few days before the lock down it was business as usual. We all knew that we were supposed to distance, but how? The cafe was chock full of students, the libraries full to bursting. All lectures full. Tiny corridoors, limited parking, 20 busses full of students....

And we ALL knew it was crazy.

We can't magic up new buildings, or new classrooms or lecture halls. We lecture 20+ students in rooms that seat .... wait for it .... 20(ish) students. I have no idea how to social distance in there.

Half students in? How do I teach half a class, then the other half? Do they magic up a second Monday for me to teach in? And half students, they are still less than 2m apart.

Outside? Teaching IT and coding? Huh?

Exams?

Busses?

The car park?

Older / elderly lecturers - especially those in management. What do with they then?

A fair few of our students are nurses so they know the risks and are happy to inform everyone.

I think we'll open and just hope for the best. Some people are going to get sick and there's not much we can do to avoid it. Unless we stop education for a year.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am throughly horrified at the difference between the approaches of American and European schools. Most European schools have already moved fall semester online while American schools are scrambling to preserve their tuitions.

I mean, just compare their _priorities_.

<comment><USER18> Many American schools have little choice. If they lose a substantial fraction of their students (especially rich international students) for a year, they may very well have to close, or at least decimate their programs.

<comment><USER19> Let it be. Lay off admins, restructure their loans, Stop building new buildings, lower costs, and use their endowments to fund the difference. And get rid of some programs

<comment><USER18> That'd be okay with me. The reality is, though, that rich donors call the shots. Nothing happens without their say-so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > revenue-generating sports.

I always laugh when I see this.

If you shut down all sports, all but something like the 5 top sports universities (and I think I'm being generous--if I remember correctly only UT- Austin is _demonstrably_ profitable) would see a net profit--sometimes significantly so since the coaches are often some of the highest paid employees.

<comment><USER21> I think your comment is directionally correct, but...

1\. This article from 2015 ([http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media- center/news/athlet...](http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media- center/news/athletics-departments-make-more-they-spend-still-minority)) puts it at 24. That sounds closer to correct to me.

2\. There are substantial knock-on effects for university donations during big years that are not counted in the profit or loss of an athletic department. These benefits are spread wide throughout the NCAA. Winning a championship (even league rather than NCAA), beating a rival, or just making the NCAA tourney in basketball can be a boost.

3\. Sustained excellence can change the face of a university in ways that money cannot. The best recent example is the change of the student body at Alabama during Saban's tenure.

Just some ideas that go beyond sports revenue dollars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Could this bring reform to university administration, pay, tenure, and the general bloat that most universities have to carry?

<comment><USER23> No, because the admin is the "management" and it will squeeze everyone else- students, profs, staff- before itself. Hence eg schools ceasing contributions to faculty retirement plans, and no consequences for management creating a model that is so incredibly revenue sensitive.

<comment><USER24> > because the admin is the "management" and it will squeeze everyone else

I participate in the research side of universities in various ways and this is exactly how it happens. The bureaucracy is absolutely the enemy when trying to get research done or preventing some arsehole in management from removing a useful service.

I am currently trying to get hired as a research assistant (basically a vague title covering people who do research as part of a lab but without the ambitions of an academic) and lab heads will routinely try to source talent in a way that avoids the official university hiring policy. They do this because the official way is slow, stupid, and gets administration people involved who just get in the way. Not only that, they deal with plenty of university administration already, and they think it is mostly useless or needlessly complicated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Schools are screwed, this is just the perfect storm. Go spend $35yr on a middling state school or top 10 online program for $20k. Pretty sure the cachet of top 10 schools will make it an easy decision. They have tons of brand potential to unleash.

<comment><USER26> Yep. Thousands of schools are going to close down in the next decade unless they get a bailout. The elite schools will be just fine, this will all happen at 2nd and 3rd rate schools. No one is paying those prices for a severely reduced experience unless the brand is incredibly strong.

<comment><USER19> Most students I've met have no idea how their loans work or what APR is, so I'm sure they'll keep paying. It's sad but true

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> People who take courses which are online will be entering the workforce with a devalued degree. Employers already frown when presented with online courses but now the whole period will be like so. This whole period of online education is troubling as kids educated during this period will be disadvantaged academically and socially.

<comment><USER28> If everyone in a 2 year period is disadvantaged in the same way, that disadvantage becomes the new normal.

<comment><USER27> Only for those directly exposed to it. Others not so much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Thinking back to my university experience - if you told me that I was going to be doing it in front of a screen, I'd have taken a gap year.

If I'd already paid and you refused to refund me, I'd use that gap year to travel to campus, administrators' homes, the lot, and let everyone know that you've stolen enormous amounts of money from hundreds of thousands.

Teenage me has a hell of a lot of energy, health, and time on their hands.

It's so ridiculous an idea as to be absurd. Do you want social breakdown? This is how you get mass riots.

Reading what's facing the US at the moment (I'm British) I honestly worry about whether there will be some sort of military standoff if the government doesn't step up _now_ and put together a coherent plan for the nation.

There are tens of millions unemployed, graduates are entering an economy that's essentially been deleted, and new students are having the knife twisted in them before they've even started.

People need _hope_. I'm angry on behalf of you guys.

<comment> seph-reed War has been highly likely imminent since Crimea, but only overwhelmingly so (imo) since Hong Kong. I strongly feel there will be war. China and Russia both are invading other countries already. The US is splitting at the seams (likely with some bot help from the two former groups).

Ever since Hong Kong, I've been extra attentive and appreciative of the fact that this may be as close to peace as we will ever see the world again.

This. Right now. This may be as close to peace as we will ever see again.

Never-the-less, I have the utmost hope for project Earth, with or without humans.

<comment><USER14> Eh I doubt it - I think people are just anxious cause we're all cooped up but give it a year or two and people will settle back down. Coronavirus seems to have brought out the worst of the media and the internet but the real world isn't so different than it was.

<comment><USER30> Here's the thing... it really doesn't take much to set off a tinder box. Tensions are high, people are anxious, and there is a lot of pent up unrest. We are definitely at a potential flash point.

So yea, I sort of agree, but I definitely also think the danger is higher than it seems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This week I went to a gym that just recently opened up. While attendance was way down (I'd say ~1/3 of usual) there were still a good amount of people there, and I was the _only_ person, besides staff, wearing a mask.

At this point I see another explosion of coronavirus cases as just math. I mean, it's like stamping out most of a fire so you're left with only a few burning embers, so you say "Great, time to reopen, lets dump these giant bags of dry leaves onto these embers."

Yes, many (most?) people are still staying home where I live, but for many places that have opened up I see zero change in behavior - there were some viral videos last weekend of packed bars and events. I contrast that with other places (like Germany) that actually appear to have a plan in place of how they will be able to open up safely. AFAICT our plan in the US appears to be "thoughts and prayers".

<comment><USER32> I would say I've almost felt a degree of peer pressure to not stay home after the stay at home order lifts here. Even though I really am not comfortable with the measures everyone has taken here.

I agree I think a second wave is imminent.

<comment><USER33> My wife and I planned to ride the local rails-to-trail bike path today. We pulled up to the main lot and even the overflow parking was full. Tried the entry point 5 miles up trail and it was just as packed. At that point, we decided to head home.

Technically, reopening phase 1 doesn't begin until Monday here.

<comment><USER34> The lockdown orders imposed on many beaches and parks were totally counterproductive because people ended up more concentrated in the few recreational areas that remained open. At least they're getting some exercise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "If I'm a leader," McClure told me, "I better be prepared to have a really good explanation for why it is that I brought people back to campus—understanding the risks—if somebody falls ill and dies."

I feel like that needs to be WHEN not IF. It's not an easy decision and I'm glad I'm not in any position to make it. But certainly, it's when, not if.

</comment><comment><USER36> I've been waiting patiently for the other shoe to drop on college tuition for more than a decade now. I still have another ten years until I'm in the thick of it again myself.

Unfortunately history so far has shown that tuition is surprisingly immune to what I would consider severe shocks to the rest of the economy. So I watch in shock as the price continues to skyrocket...

</comment><comment><USER37> A related thread from earlier today: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349713](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349713)

</comment><comment><USER38> Everyone already knows the answer which is that the most adaptable schools will generate new revenue streams offering more online degrees. It's stupid to assume that all students are willing to take the risk to show up in person when there isn't even a vaccine. Most schools are scared about the money they're going to lose yet they're forgetting how much they could make if they just decided to be more adaptable and flexible.

</comment><comment><USER39> The chance of a college kid dying from coronavirus is exceedingly small. If they aren't sick in some special way (severe diabetes, HIV), then why are we even worried? Isn't this just an easy way to let the virus pass through a huge chunk of the population while they are away from their older, more vulnerable family members?

<comment><USER40> This is a USA-specific problem, but a lot of students are too poor to have health insurance. Getting covid for these young people would ruin their life permanently at a very young age.

<comment><USER41> Is this common for universities across the US?

The university I went to (USC) required that all students had to either submit proof of insurance or pay additional fees as part of their tuition to join the university's health plan. Not having health insurance was not an option if you wanted to enroll.

(This was about 15 years ago, though I just checked and they still have this policy.)</comment></comment></comment>


NASA: EM Drive really does work - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencealert.com/leaked-nasa-paper-shows-the-impossible-em-drive-really-does-work <comment><USER2> I'm a researcher working in propulsion technologies at NASA. For what it's worth, the "Eagleworks" guys at JSC are basically doing their own thing that, as far as I can tell, is outside of any peer review process. For the life of me I can't imagine a team at one of the research centers (GRC, LaRC, ARC, GSFC, JPL) getting away with that.

I'm guessing that they're running off of resources from center-level micro seedling funding.

On one hand, the effort is probably costing next to nothing in terms of FTE and procurement. On the other hand, they're giving the public warp-drive level expectations, when the agency can barely afford to keep the lights on for a manned spaceflight program.

</comment><comment><USER3> This must mean we are on the verge of a paradigm shift in physics to explain this wizard free energy bull-shit then.

<comment><USER4> As far as i understand it, there no free energy being claimed i.e. they still need to power the drive.

What's being claimed is a drive that creates thrust without a reaction (in the Newtonian sense). If true, from a physics point of view, this is huge. Less clear about its immediate practical implications other than it may make a useful thruster for spacecraft.

To put it in its historical context, its hardly unprecedented that we pass the bounds where Newtonian physics is an adequate model. It's definitely not the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine.

<comment><USER5> Energy-momentum conservation is more fundamental than Newtonian physics. It's part of the structure of spacetime.

[http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/05/the-female- mathematic...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/05/the-female- mathematician-who-changed-the-course-of-physics-but-couldnt-get-a-job/)

<comment><USER4> There's possibly another, more subtle, interpretation.

It may be that the structure of spacetime does not necessarily exhibit this conservation. However, all scientifically observable phenomenon must, by definition, exhibit space, time and rotational invariants. Otherwise they can't be scientifically observable i.e. by repeatable experiments.

From Noether's theorem, this means that the scientifically observable phenomena must exhibit at least energy, momentum and angular momentum conservation. Either in the laws that govern the phenomena or the consequences of a, potentially violating, law that do conserve.

It's an interesting take on the duality, at least it is to me.

<comment><USER5> I think there are some interesting ideas here, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At this point, if the prototypes that are being tested in space really do produce useful thrust, I couldn't care less what the physics behind it are.

Propellantless propulsion would be a HUGE boon for space travel.

</comment><comment><USER7> A few years ago, before this news of the EM Drive started to appear, I was contacted by a friend who wanted to introduce me to an "inventor".

This young inventor that had not taken any courses in physics, but believed that he had invented a mechanical inertial drive mechanism that worked with rotating wheels and moving rods and weights. He was looking for investors to fund the construction of the mechanism. I tried to explain that _conservation of momentum_ meant that his "drive" could not generate any net motion, but he never accepted my assessment; he kept asking me to explain in detail why this or that force combined with a rotating pair or arms wouldn't propel a vehicle forward. I told him that the laws of Newtonian physics would have to be tossed out if his invention indeed worked; he responded by saying that this is how scientific revolutions happened.

It was all quite frustrating for both of us and reminded me of seeing a report on a national news program (NBC) perhaps twenty years ago of a farmer in the US that had inventing a perpetual motion machine. They showed the complex machine turning a wheel in the farmer's barn. The reporter was quite excited by the possibility that this would be the answer to unlimited energy. Seriously!

Now there is this EM Drive, of which I am naturally skeptical, and no one seems to be able to explain the experimental results. It's ironic.

</comment><comment><USER8> "But the team does acknowledge that more research is needed to eliminate the possibility that thermal expansion could be somehow skewing the results."

So maybe it doesn't really work? I don't see anything substantially new in this article that the EM Drive community didn't already know.

<comment><USER9> It's another resounding "meh!" as far as measurement goes. And publishing in a low-impact engineering journal is a bit of a warning flag when they're proposing exotic new physics.

Prediction: When it's actually published, it's going to be torn apart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It would require impressive evidence in order to disprove conservation of momentum.

</comment><comment><USER11> Forgive me if I'm being obtuse, but can't someone just put am EM drive in space and see if it goes?

<comment><USER9> Lightsail (which uses regular physics) is doing that, launching a breadbox sail and a second proximity measuring cubesat along with it.

So there's the challenge of building the space-rated devices, with all the testing. It's got to have independent power, have a set of tests defining "it goes" and not, and you've got to consider that LEO isn't really space, it's freefall in a gravity well and magnetic field with tenuous atmosphere. And it's expensive!

That will all take a lot of bench testing. So the project needs access to shielded, vacuum rated facilities, and so on. Testing satellite engine concepts with a 2D model (effectively a huge air hockey table) is also common. This would all be done to both build the satellite and to prove the concept. So they need to do the bench work first.

<comment><USER6> > it's freefall in a gravity well

Bit of a nitpick, but this is true of any object in "space", at least on sub- galactic scales. If it wasn't in freefall around Earth, it would be in freefall around the Sun, and if not that, the Milky Way.

You are correct about the magnetic field and magnetosphere however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The paper the article links to is from 2015. There is no new information here.</comment>


In Fermat's Library, No Margin Is Too Narrow - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/in-fermats-library-no-margin-is-too-narrow <comment><USER2> A website for annotating and discussing research papers. I am quite surprised that this project hadn't existed already. It seems to be an obvious use of collective mind of the Internet. Research papers can often be difficult to understand and I had always wanted a way where it was something was clarified in a simple language or platform where questions about it could be asked.

<comment><USER3> But it seems the discussion is highly redacted and the papers that are up for discussion are chosen by a panel.

So, as I understand it, it's not like you can ask questions about a random paper you are currently reading, and ask the community for help.

<comment><USER4> > it's not like you can ask questions about a random paper you are currently > reading

In the early days of the web, I remember a service that allowed you to comment on any page on the web. I think it used frames. It embedded the page you were looking at into a frame and allowed anyone to comment in the margins -- it looked a lot like Fermat's Library. Unfortunately I can't remember what the service or start-up was called.

I thought it was a great idea and very democratizing. You could comment on a newspaper article even if they didn't allow commenting. You could comment on Coca-Cola's page or anywhere on the web. What killed it wasn't spam, advertising, trolling, or inane YouTube-style comments. Certainly those would have been problems to deal with if the service got really popular.

What killed it was copyright. Some company sued them out of existence because they were ostensibly violating copyright by embedding someone else's page.

<comment><USER5> Sidewiki was another approach, I don't _think_ copyright killed it. A bit of googling shows something pretty similar though: [https://epiverse.co/](https://epiverse.co/)

Close one door, and three plugin frameworks shall open, I guess.

<comment><USER3> > Close one door, and three plugin frameworks shall open, I guess.

Yeah, but that means three standards, and thus dilution of the usefulness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how crowdsourced paper reading can change peer review. For sure, we need experts to tell the quality of a paper. But most interesting papers coming out of Arxiv got read by experts anyway.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is actually really cool, I just subscribed. I'd like it if we could subscribe to subtopics or any papers that have been tagged with specific topics. For instance, I'd like to subscribe to CS papers. I think we might lose some of the crowd sourcing power if that was done too soon, but otherwise it could be very interesting.

Also, the shirts in the store are cool.

</comment><comment><USER8> From their website: "Our goal is to make papers more open and accessible and to foster discussions around their content."

Does anyone have an understanding of the copyright issues involved here? Do they have (or have to have) permissions from arxiv and the journals to reproduce these papers?

</comment><comment><USER9> It would be nice to cross-reference with only open science links as well for understanding key principles elsewhere. Nice initiative.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm surprised they don't have a mobile app yet. I'm also jealous since I thought of this idea 5 years ago but did nothing with it!

Great service.

</comment><comment><USER11> Seems to be overloaded atm.</comment>


Moving From Backbone To React - <AUTHOR> http://usepropeller.com/blog/posts/from-backbone-to-react/

<comment><USER2> [http://i.imgur.com/Xhs5jOC.png](http://i.imgur.com/Xhs5jOC.png)

I was really excited about react, until I heard the loss of #id selectors. To me this comes off as extremely dirty, since this limits your actual CSS (id's are useful for layout-based static elements (#big-logo), or containers for similar layers (#modals)). QA departments that test web apps also love #id selectors, since they don't have to waste their lives unwinding proper nested selector syntax, which is brittle anyways. Otherwise react seems like a perfect complement to Backbone. I ended up using Backbone.Marionette, which is a lot of boilerplate but solves the nesting problem in a flexible and thought- out way.

I assume React wants to optimize its subqueries for instant DOM lookup (I believe they calculate the ID based on ancestry, and ID-based lookups are O(1)). Why not use a better technique like maintain your own lookup hash, and store data on the actual JS objects representing each DOM element. I prefer not to cringe anytime I look at my markup :(

<comment><USER3> This is one of our top priorities and we're hoping to have it fixed by the next release.

While I don't know all the subtleties of your use case, I've found that by simply swapping your IDs with class selectors this hasn't been a problem either for Selenium or for CSS. It's pretty straightforward to convert an existing codebase with codemod: [https://github.com/facebook/codemod](https://github.com/facebook/codemod)

If you're still curious about React, feel free to drop us a line at [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/reactjs](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/reactjs) with any questions or concerns you might have. Thanks for giving React a shot.

<comment><USER2> Peter,

First of all, can't tell you how awesome it feels to get a response from someone working on the library.

Your fix won't work for me unfortunately, changing id's to classes in your CSS inherently changes the "weight" of the selectors, which can cause the wrong CSS rules to be applied (especially if you have old rules hanging around from iterating on your interface a couple times).

Another thing that you guys might have missed about why writing IDs are shitty: They pollute window's namespace. If I have an element with id "narc", then window.narc returns that element. Which can lead to confusing JS situations.

Anyways, glad to hear you guys are moving ahead and improving your library! I will try it out again in a few months, love the work so far.

<comment><USER3> Hey there!

Thanks for the kind words. We actually recently (yesterday? 2 days ago?) landed a change that uses a data-reactid attribute instead of taking over ID. So problem solved! It will be in our next public release in early July.

Wanted to acknowledge a few other things too:

Changing the specificity sucks so YMMV with switching to classes. I prefer to use only classes because it's a bit easier to reason about specificity IMO. Also, we like to think of _all_ components as reusable, so IDs don't make sense.

But I totally hear you about integrating with a legacy codebase, so I'm really glad that we're now using data-reactid instead of id.

As far as polluting the window namespace, we actually prefaced our IDs with "." so you can't accidentally reference them and we're unlikely to clobber anything you'd reference.

But again none of this matters anymore since we stopped using IDs, but wanted to vindicate your concerns :)

<comment><USER2> Yay! Awesome news! Will have to reevaluate it at the end of july. Thanks again for your team's great work on pushing a polished open source framework.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just spent the full day moving an Angular admin to React and so far, my initial optimism has died down a bit.

Yes, Angular has more concepts to learn (most of which you already know if you've used any complex framework), and custom directives are a mine-field of changing one property at a time until everything finally works, BUT, once everything's working in Angular, maintenance & updates within the existing architecture is quite simple.

So far with React, I've married Backbone.Router + RequireJS + React successfully, but it certainly feels like I'm still writing lots of boilerplate. That is partially RequireJS' fault (I've never cared for the bloat), and the other part how messy my views end up by rewriting much of Angular's "filter"s and "ng-" directives.

<comment><USER5> Can you give some examples of filters and ng-directives that you had to rewrite? I found that most of them can easily be translated with underscore functions.

<comment><USER4> Re-implementing 'filter' & 'orderBy' (especially when reversing) were great examples of extremely common functionality that I eventually abstracted out into React's "Mixins".

So, to rephrase, Angular (much like Dojo did over a half-decade ago) gets you 90% there while Backbone (and to a less degree React) puts some of the boilerplate burden back on you.

I'm still doing a re-factor trying to figure out the optimal way of using React (we're talking in IRC now!), so I'm not done with it yet! :)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Had anyone already had to deal with the GDPR fines / abuse? - <AUTHOR> Recently there was a fair amount of concerns about GDPR being a harbinger of doom for smaller companies and fears of user abusing GDPR requests or other companies using GDPR as a tool for taking down competitors.<p>Had anyone on HN had experience with people / companies / institutions abusing GDPR? <comment><USER3> I've had trolls whom I had banned from online forums attempting to use GDPR as a tool for trolling me (with the chore of gathering all data, but I already had an API that did this). And then attempting to use it to gut forums by claiming several identities and requesting deletion of all comments (try and imagine HN if comments by patio11 were deleted throughout).

On the forums I run email is the only identifying property and in my case the trolls (2 of them I think) were unable to sign in as the users in question, so I have refused to recognise the request (and then had the threats of legal action... but what else can one do if someone cannot prove their identity?).

<comment><USER4> I was wondering about a catch 22 where someone misbehaves, then gets banned, cites GDPR and demands their data be deleted (they can do that right?) ....and signs up again later with the same data.... wash rinse repeat....

<comment><USER5> You can keep storing an identifier (like email address) without any problems if you have a reason (like to blacklist them)

<comment><USER6> IANAL. I think you can't store raw email without user consent. It is personal data one wants to be forgotten. However you can keep pseudonymised data [0] [1]. E.g. just keep MD5/SHA hash of the email string.

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

[1] [https://www.protegrity.com/pseudonymization-vs- anonymization...](https://www.protegrity.com/pseudonymization-vs- anonymization-help-gdpr/)

<comment><USER7> Your right to be forgotten is not absolute, but instead balanced against the business's interests: you can process personal data without consent when you have a legitimate interest in doing so. Recital 47 of the GDPR states: "the processing of personal data strictly necessary for the purposes of preventing fraud also constitutes a legitimate interest of the data controller concerned". Storing a hash is likely a better practice for mitigating the damage of a data breach, though you have to _process_ the raw email to get and compare hashes either way.

<comment><USER4> Hopefully that means you could keep some data like an email address that is key to creating an account to prevent abuses or duplication or other things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well, in France yes already (and the links are in French, basically the first one is about a basic hack where you could change the id of the user in the URL of the current page to get others users' invoices -no comment-, and the second one because the users could not decide what cookies could be stored on their computers, they did not offer any choice eg through a CMP or something else)

Optical Center : 250 k€

[https://www.clubic.com/rgpd/actualite-844065-sanction- rgpd-p...](https://www.clubic.com/rgpd/actualite-844065-sanction-rgpd-premier- degat-250-000-optical-center.html)

Challenges.fr : 25 k€

[https://www.legalis.net/actualite/le-conseil-detat- confirme-...](https://www.legalis.net/actualite/le-conseil-detat-confirme-la- sanction-de-challenges-fr-pour-ses-cookies/)

<comment><USER9> Users always can decide what cookies can be stored on their computers - <USER2> is braindead on this issue.

<comment><USER10> They can't. It may be technically possible, but users can't. Even for power users it's a pain in the ass.

<comment><USER11> Yes, they can. You are simply wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Drone.io nearly immediately received the Nightmare GDPR letter and closed its Discourse forum to avoid the overhead that providing a forum for an open source tool now causes.

It instead moved to a much less useful Reddit subthread.

<comment><USER13> Discourse is exactly the kind of thing the GDPR is aimed at.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean?

<comment><USER13> [https://www.discourse.org/privacy](https://www.discourse.org/privacy)

They collect data about you from every website that you visit that uses Discourse. They share it with a lot of other organisations, including Google analytics.

Do you just want to trust them, pinky promise, they they aren't (for instance) compiling a record of all your comments on Internet forums, and sending them to job recruiters and HR?

<comment><USER14> No, they don't collect data from Discourse installs when you host them yourself.

> CDCK sets only its own privacy practices, not the privacy practices of CDCK > customers or others who host Discourse forums for themselves or others. You > should ask all of those involved in administering and hosting Discourse > forums that you use for information about their privacy practices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some shady web development agency sent spam emails to several smaller websites, pretending to be local Data Protection Authority. Email mentions complaints received from users and lists some fake fines. They went so far as buying custom domain and redirecting it to actual website of Data Protection Authority. Later, they contact website owners trying to sell their services.

</comment><comment><USER16> Given how many sites blatantly ignore or violate GDPR (no opt-out, etc) I'd say there doesn't seem to be any enforcement. At the moment, GDPR is just scare-mongering but in the end is just as useless as the previous privacy directives. I wish this would change but I'm not holding my breath for it.

> Had anyone on HN had experience with people / companies / institutions > abusing GDPR?

Any site that gives you a consent box with the bullshit tracking enabled by default, or that lets you know they use cookies with no way to opt-out. Per GDPR tracking should be _opt-in_ so even pre-ticked checkboxes aren't allowed.

The only site that I've seen do this right is Quartz. They have a simple modal "we use tracking for X and Y", do you want to allow or deny?</comment>


Study links Paleo diet to heart disease - <AUTHOR> https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/study-links-paleo-diet-to-heart-disease/news-story/2ccc7b71c7d42ec3162f94621d4fc2b6 <comment><AUTHOR> It looks like people on a Paleo diet have double the amount of TMAO produced in their gut when compared to the general population.

TMAO is a marker that is linked to heart disease and colorectal cancer. It's a marker meaning that it might not be the cause, instead, it could be just a side product.

What is funny is that if you feed meat to people who haven't eaten it in a long time, they don't produce TMAO. This is because their gut no longer has the meat-eating bacteria that produce TMAO.

It's gut bacteria that produce this substance by consuming the meat, and not our body.</comment>


Ask HN: Is this result validation of my product? - <AUTHOR> Hello,
In the past three weeks I have launched three landing pages. Two based around watches, which didn't really get anywhere.
The third was www.oysteralerts.com which I built and launched on Tuesday. After posting to HN, IndieHacker, Product Hunt and a WhatsApp group I am in, I have 11 pre-registrations along with a handful of those people commenting about how useful this is! A PH employee has even reached out and wants to feature this on the front page.
What has excited me most is the PH feedback and random people from the internet signing up.
Is this enough to show validation of my product? Right now I am thinking to ditch the other two ideas and roll with this for the moment.
Thanks <comment><USER2> To really test those ideas you'd be better off engaging with people who are obsessed with watches or saving money, there are probably communities dedicated to those things, sites where you submit startups for feedback are not a good substitute.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree but it seems difficult. I am not really involved in many communities and most don't like to be spammed with links.

My other idea [https://www.chronodaq.com](https://www.chronodaq.com) is a private marketplace for professional watch dealers, like a stock exchange. It is ultra difficult to speak to that domain as it is a conservative business. I ultimately need to ask people about their business process for sourcing, trading and valuing watches which is somewhat proprietary.

I'm kind of stumped on how to get real validation on that one to be honest. There are proven businesses for diamonds such as polygon.net but I need to talk to people.

Oyster Alerts is easy and has the most engagement now so I think that is going to be my focus and get an MVP out the door.</comment></comment>


British firm hopes to replace cellphone batteries with hydrogen fuel cells - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/11818151/Revealed-the-first-hydrogen-powered-battery-that-will-charge-your-Apple-iPhone-for-a-week.html

<comment><USER2> Finally! It took so long to build a decent battery to match the current hardware, I hope it will be worth the wait.

<comment><USER3> Solid-state lithium-ion battery could be widely adopted instead, very safe even if it's burn in the fire.</comment></comment>


Uber orders 24,000 Volvo XC90s for driverless fleet - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/20/uber-orders-24000-volvo-xc90s-for-driverless-fleet/ <comment><USER2> Call me pessimistic, but "purchase 24,000 of its XC90 SUVs between 2019 and 2021 to form a [Uber] fleet of autonomous vehicles" sounds rather unrealistic and more like an over optimistic marketing story to me. I know, a lot of good engineers are working on it and automatic vision, sensors and AI are improving constantly. Nevertheless, the Uber use case IMHO requires a solution for the most difficult level of autonomous driving - urban traffic. And without any kind of driver/ safety person/ driver awareness. For 2019 I could imagine autonomous Uber on preselected highway routes, but not in inner city during rush hour with hundreds of people chaotically crossing the street during heavy rain.</comment>


PayPal and zero-dollar invoice spam - <AUTHOR> http://www.troyhunt.com/2016/01/paypal-and-zero-dollar-invoice-spam.html <comment><USER2> PayPal employee here (and I'm hiring Node.js developers :P ).

I actually got two of these messages while I was out for the holiday break. I don't work on the team that handles invoicing; but, I (among others) made them aware of this issue and they are definitely working on a fix.

The challenge, of course, is that there are plenty of legitimate reasons for sending $0 invoices and we don't want to artificially make our product worse for our many legitimate customers by going too far in trying to stop this spam.

<comment><USER3> Genuine question: What are the legitimate uses of $0 invoices? The only thing I can think of is a product that usually costs money (and thus has an invoice workflow), but has been marked as free for some promotion.

<comment><USER4> In the case of periodic invoicing but you haven't crossed into the billable threshold.

Let's say you get 2 hrs of support per month free, after that it costs $100. If you don't use the full 2 hrs, you'd get a $0 invoice - but there may still be detail and record of work performed (which you would want)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On one hand I hate spammers and their ilk. On the other hand, I have to congratulate them on finding a neat hack around spam filters which is technically not breaking false claimant laws . The simple fix is to disable $0.00 invoices as any actual invoice for services not rendered is fraud.

<comment><USER6> It can, however, be useful to get invoices for purchases that were discounted down to $0.00. At the startup I'm with we often give new customers a $0.00 trial rate, but they still want invoices so their billing department can keep track. Of course, this billing system isn't using PayPal, but just a thought.

<comment><USER7> Not invoices per se, but if you buy something on eBay using only eBay gift cards, it processes as a PayPal "transaction" of $0.00. I've got a bunch of those in my email, always interesting to see "You sent a payment of $0.00 USD to X".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All of these approaches are used to take advantage of the email deliverability rates of large reputable companies that send lots of email. Paypal is a new one, but Hotmail and Facebook have in the past been used for similar things. With Hotmail, you could define a custom "I've changed my email address" message, which would contain your spam message, and then it would send it to up to 5,000 "contacts" for you with near-100% deliverability. Some people automated this, and with that they were able send millions of messages per day. I haven't looked recently, but Facebook's "invite friends" feature has been used similarly in the past.

</comment><comment><USER9> > @AskPayPal: I recommend deleting that tweet, it has your personal info

> @troyhunt: It has my email address – I get email by sharing it with people > who might want to send me email!

This is golden. Hilariously incompetent tech support trying to make someone delete the tweet complaining about their spam.

<comment><USER10> It's probably earnest. An amazingly large number of people think that making your personal e-mail address public is somehow unwise.

<comment><USER11> I mean, it does slightly increase your rate of spam. I have a private email that I only give out to RL people that has never received a spam message.

<comment><USER12> Wow I love this idea! Can't believe I haven't thought of it

<comment> sean-duffy Having a 'spam email' that you use to sign up for stuff and a separate one for non-automated communication only is definitely a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Has PayPal just not tried to fix anything or add features other than a CSS refresh in, like, ever?

<comment><USER14> They acquired Venmo, which was pretty big for adding users to their ecosystem. They've kept it pretty quiet and have not tried to link the brands together, which probably says something about the current state of Paypal's brand.

<comment><USER15> Braintree as well, which has a site and api that work very well. PayPal's on the other hand...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not mentioned in the article, but paypal allows you to send a single invoice to up to 100 different email addresses with a single click.

It also allows a 1-click way to email anyone that "hasn't paid" with an update.

<comment><USER17> I haven't checked, but are you able to send invoices via API?

<comment><USER16> [https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/invoicing/IntroInv...](https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/invoicing/IntroInvoiceAPI/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder what the reasoning is that PayPal allows you to 'send' someone $0.00?

I'm not really surprised at how terrible the support via Twitter is. I almost never use chat/email support these days with any large company-because of how useless it has become.

<comment><USER19> I've received invoices for $0.00 when receiving promotional items for projects I was a part of. Comes right in the shipping box, and I'm assuming it's an accounting requirement.

<comment><USER20> Yes, it is. Their inventory changed but they did not gain any revenue from it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why would you put a clickable link to the spam website on your blog though?

<comment><USER22> If you're so interested in typing in spam links you might as well search up something like "cheap electronics online" in Google and start clicking around page 10.

<comment><USER22> Sorry about being a bit rude in this comment. I didn't mean to sound so sarcastic and I didn't mean to refer to you specifically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> For a PayPal employee to post here and say he made a team aware and they are working on this it's utterly laughable.

There was a post here on hn over two years ago for the same issue which was top post and generated a lot of news.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6526481](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6526481)

It is obviously very well known to them for years but they continue to do it

<comment><USER24> Obviously well known?

Guy at PayPal sees post, tells a technical person about it, said person forgets about it. Suddenly PayPal doesn't know about it anymore.

Or a person wants to work on fixing this but a manager says no, because there are other priorities.

Or a person starts working on this, quits, and it gets lost among the things they were working on.

It's so easy for things to get lost in a company, even with all the bug trackers in the world.

<comment><USER25> Isn't this what support case systems and bug tracking software was meant to do - to track non-closed issues?

<comment><USER24> yeah, I agree, but I think a lot of us work in similar situations, where bug tracking exists, but there's such inundation of bugs that we can lose track of some.

I guess I have sympathy for the PayPal team in this case. They're working on an extremely large product, with a huge user-base. I would imagine it would be very easy for bugs like this to fall through the cracks even with a "process" in place

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> You can send invoices to people to get paypal to show their name to you and connect names to emails

<comment><USER27> I can also do that with DirectDebit (ACH for you yanks) transactions in the UK for example; brute force branch sort code and account numbers and when you "transfer money" (you can do 1p, or even cancel the transaction once the TUN code has been generated iirc) you get the name associated with the account.

There isn't much you can do about it, detecting an abuse of an invoicing system and locally blocking it is much preferable to the other potential outcome of not knowing or being able to confirm where the hell did that invoice actually went.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've been getting the same emails for a while now. I sent to paypal through email and got no response. I also added on a topic I thought was relevant on their forum, and a guy there said he reported it and got a less automatic response than I did.

[https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Access-and- security/Gett...](https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Access-and- security/Getting-Spam-Invoices/td-p/352294)

I haven't got more messages lately, so I'm guessing they managed it already.

</comment><comment><USER29> I saw the same sort of thing a few years ago with Google Calendar invite spam. If I remember correctly, I'd even get a meeting reminder with the spam message.

</comment><comment><USER30> If we were ever to reach singularity, it would be partly thanks to the motivation created by the spammers.

</comment><comment><USER31> I read the title and thought of spamming zero dollar gift on Minecraft!

</comment><comment><USER32> Horrible PayPal customer service. This person should not be allowed on their Twitter account.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is brilliant :)</comment>


Gmail Share Button - <AUTHOR> http://www.gmailsharebutton.com/

<comment><USER2> Why? Why would anybody but a spammer share a website to the entire contact address?</comment>


Ask HN: Should I be afraid of the JVM? - <AUTHOR> I've been looking to expand my programming language knowledge and have my eye looking towards Scala and Kotlin.
However, both of them run on the JVM, and the Java part sort of puts me off, since I make a conscious decision to not learn Java at the moment, due to a complex ecosystem that would take me a long time to enter.
Is this little feeling I have founded? I mean, I think that at some point I'll be debugging something and will hit some place where I have to interact with some Java code and will be totally powerless. Does it even make any sense? <comment><USER2> What you're feeling is nervousness at learning something new. It's big and scary and overwhelming, yes... but if it's not scary or hard you're probably not learning!

What you need to do is learn how to learn _just enough_ to get things done. Then you can learn new technologies and be OK with hitting the point of "oh shit now what", because you know that you can make it through. I haven't written any Ruby, nor do I know, but I was able to submit patches to a Ruby project (Sinatra) and package up some Ruby software.

So yes, you'll have to hit Java eventually. And when you do it'll be scary. But that's OK, because that means you're _learning_.

More about scariness in learning here: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/04/17/learning-without- a-m...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/04/17/learning-without-a-mentor/)

</comment><comment><USER3> You can't operate on the JVM without being able to understand what's happening on the JVM. Being "afraid" of it is pointless. It's like any other technology built on top of another, e.g., you still have to know ES5 to work with ES6, because things go wrong.

"Powerless"? Java, because (for the most part) is fairly static and banal, is relatively straight-forward to understand compared to Scala.</comment>


How a razor revolutionised the way we pay for stuff - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39132802 <comment> m-i-l Not mentioned in the article - apparently Gillette had a hand in suppressing stainless steel razor blades: "Gillette, which held a patent on stainless blades, presumably knew that any gain for them in market share would be overwhelmed by the dramatic reduction in the size of the market" [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_Sword](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_Sword)</comment>


Apple releases new Covid-19 app and website based on CDC guidance - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/03/apple-releases-new-covid-19-app-and-website-based-on-CDC-guidance/ <comment><USER2> Apple has likely spO2 data as well as heart rate data form millions of Apple Watch users that can be used to partially diagnose this infection.

The watch is capable of measuring spO2 even if it's not displaying the information and even if it's no 100% accurate drops over a large enough time period combined with elevated heart rate would indicate a respiratory infection.

Whilst I agree that the data isn't useful for most individuals releasing it to authorities around the world after anonymization would likely be quite valuable.

I might have had a mild infection don't know if it was COVID-19 but it was A respiratory infection for sure.

Myself and my girlfriend were sick she had a fever I barely registered above normal we had coughs, sore throat I still can't smell smoked salmon and she has stomach issues too.

It's pretty much all gone now but one thing for sure we both had pretty high resting heart rate, as high as 110 during the worst of it.

My normal awake resting rate is around 65, it's still around 80 despite all symptoms going away and trying to do some pushups today I realized that I'm extremely weak despite not feeling bad.

I usually do 5 sets of 20 pushups (controller, full range of motion) with a 50lbs resistance band today I felt myself gasping for air after 8-10.

<comment><USER3> I was under the impression that Apple Health is designed so that Apple itself doesn't have access to this data, even in aggregate. Is that not the case?

<comment><USER4> That's the case. The only way that they would get this is through a research study with explicit consent/opt-in.

<comment><USER2> With the current legal limitations yes, but even with an opt-in they likely would get enough data to be valuable to researchers especially if people also opt-in to share location data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Contact tracing [1] is difficult in the middle of a pandemic from a cost- benefit standpoint.

[1]: [https://www.who.int/features/qa/contact- tracing/en/](https://www.who.int/features/qa/contact-tracing/en/)

But if we succeed with strong enough measures to suppress COVID-19 within a few months, contact tracing will be critical to reduce the risk of rebound as we reopen our society.

I propose that Apple and Google together gets a head start on contact tracing. Singapore released the TraceTogether app (Android, iOS) for its citizens, but ideally we could have a tool deployed by default in Android and iOS. Does anyone know if Google and Apple are working on this?

(Apple's Find My solution — with public keys broadcast and collected whether phone/GPS is on/off — might contain the right building blocks for contact tracing. But I'd leave it to top engineers at Apple and Google to build a better solution than what I can come up with alone.)

<comment><USER6> > Does anyone know if Google and Apple are working on this?

It would probably illegal to create an app for contact tracing. E.g. it's legal for Apple to have an iPhone app called Reminders, but if they were marketing it as a tool to help people to remember to take their medication then that would be illegal because it hasn't undergone testing to prove that it increases medication adherence or whatever. That's why the FDA banned doctors from using checklists to remind them to wash their hands before surgery.

<comment><USER7> The FDA did not ban doctors from using checklists.

They shut down a specific _study_ of checklists that _didn 't get informed consent_.

This article asserts that that was the wrong call, but your claim that the FDA has banned them is incorrect. [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/opinion/30gawande.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/opinion/30gawande.html)

<comment><USER6> OK fair, I misremembered exactly what happened.

I'm still not convinced a contact tracing app would be legal though, given that it could lead people to seek medical attention who might not otherwise need or benefit from it. Didn't Apple talk about how they needed to work with the FDA to get their ECG functionality approved?

<comment><USER7> An ECG is obviously a medical device.

A contact tracing app is far less obviously in that category. It _might_ be, but it might fall under various exemptions, with the right disclaimers.

[https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/device-software- function...](https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/device-software-functions- including-mobile-medical-applications/examples-mobile-apps-are-not-medical- devices)

[https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda- guidan...](https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance- documents/policy-device-software-functions-and-mobile-medical-applications)

> Many software functions are not medical devices (meaning such software > functions do not meet the definition of a device under section 201(h) of the > Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act)), and FDA does not regulate > them as devices. Some software functions may meet the definition of a > medical device, but because they pose a lower risk to the public, FDA > intends to exercise enforcement discretion over these devices (meaning it > will not enforce requirements under the FD&C Act).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Apparently COVID-19 is only a problem in the United States, because I can't download this app from the Canadian App Store. I understand there might be legal issues involved, but it's still a bit of a disappointment.

<comment><USER3> Both the Federal and Provincial governments have comparable self-assessment tools on their websites. This doesn't appear to be much more sophisticated than that:

Here's the Federal self-assessment: [https://ca.thrive.health/covid19/en](https://ca.thrive.health/covid19/en)

Ontario: [https://covid-19.ontario.ca/self- assessment/#q0](https://covid-19.ontario.ca/self-assessment/#q0)

BC: [https://bc.thrive.health/](https://bc.thrive.health/)

<comment> dorian-graph For the UK, this is the most popular one: [https://covid.joinzoe.com/](https://covid.joinzoe.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here in Portugal, 2500+ volunteers are building solutions for the virus. From arranging free housing for medical staff to a self assessment app. If your government is slow to deploy tech solutions, I urge you to unite, bootstrap the project and hand it over to the government as soon as it gets enough traction.

If you want to help Portugal, you can join in [https://tech4covid19.org](https://tech4covid19.org)

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately Apple and Google are banning non-government COVID-19 apps from their app stores. Are you having any luck getting past review?

<comment><USER9> We're using web+sms only solutions to circumvent that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wish the privacy policy linked to a site-specific one, not the generic /legal/privacy.

Perhaps they couldn't get lawyers in time.

Edit: oh, if you start screening there is a site-specific one if you click "Learn more" next to "Your answers will not be shared with Apple or the CDC without your permission."?

[https://www.apple.com/covid19/](https://www.apple.com/covid19/)

</comment><comment><USER12> We need a bluetooth tracker of sorts that can alarm people if they get too close. Only Apple (or privacy focused) companies can do this responsibly, without uploading _any_ data and keeping everything in the secure enclave. Messages over bluetooth are encrypted and simply contain nothing but the proximity data. But there is a problem:

1\. If you're already showing symptoms, you're gonna isolate yourself

2\. Coronavirus spreads during incubation period.

Giving access to contacts is the only way to get traceability even then you meet and greet people who we don't keep in the contacts (Grocery store clerk).

<comment><USER13> No thanks. This is a social problem, not a tech challenge.

<comment><USER12> Singapore is doing it: [https://www.latimes.com/world- nation/story/2020-03-24/corona...](https://www.latimes.com/world- nation/story/2020-03-24/coronavirus-singapore-trace-together)

<comment><USER14> That's for tracing who came in to contact with one another after the fact. It wouldn't stop people coming in to contact, and it's far too late for contact tracing to be effective for Covid-19 now anyway.

<comment><USER15> On the contrary, contact tracing (plus widespread testing) will be necessary in places where outbreaks are eventually brought under control and life slowly starts returning to normal.

Of course, many places will need extensive lockdowns to reach that point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is very similar to [https://CheckForCorona.com](https://CheckForCorona.com)

The team at Luminare ([https://luminaremed.com](https://luminaremed.com)) has been working with epidemiologists and doctors from Harris County and the City of Houston to build out a screening tool to help prioritize public testing. We are doing about ~10k screenings per day and ready to ramp up as more testing becomes available: [https://checkforcorona.com/harris- county](https://checkforcorona.com/harris-county)

We are providing this tool free for any hospital or public health organization that needs it. Please reach out if you have any connections!

</comment><comment><USER17> boring, not much to this. I suppose _another_ avenue to access the same information (how many hundreds of sites telling ppl to social distance for weeks) is fine but the assessment tool is what, a Q&A form using same path as gov sites are already using in Canada, UK etc...open sourced forms too

Shrug apple marketing.

<comment><USER18> A lot of people would love to have an all-in-one app that can assuage fears on what to do next amidst a potential slew of symptoms. You can even tailor it to answer questions for a loved one. Not sure what's so "Apple marketing" about it aside from genuinely caring about people during this time of crisis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why does this need an app? Apart from a web browser, of course.

<comment><USER20> Broader reach, Apple has this as the top story when you tap on the App Store. Plus a smoother/more consistent UI on their own platform. The website works fine on mobile but the app is way better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I, for one, would love to volunteer my health information from my Watch to help - if it's possible that it would help in any way.

</comment><comment><USER22> Still no widespread testing..

</comment><comment><USER23> deleted

<comment><USER24> Unless they were apps from a trusted source, such as an official app from CDC, this is the proper course of action.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Didn't know that Apple was working on this. I'm not a huge Apple fan but they certainly did the right thing by not telling Trump (of whom I'm neither a fan nor a hater) or by having a strong NDA to cover the work so that it couldn't be announced...

<comment><USER26> _they certainly did the right thing by not telling Trump_

At the bottom it reads, "Developed With CDC, The White House, FEMA"

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> They should have picked a credible source of information.

I can't believe I'm typing that about the CDC...

<comment><USER28> What has happened with the CDC that I have missed?

<comment><USER29> Suggesting masks are ineffective protection was a bad start.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Explains why Apple seems to be blocking all other COVID-19 related apps. We're seeing most people in our ecosystem (Ionic) turn to deploying their apps as PWAs in the short term

<comment><USER31> Sure. Apple is after all that free app money from their free app.

It can't possibly be because their app was developed with government guidance and they have no reasonable way to auditing all the 3rd party apps for accuracy and safety in a reasonable timeframe.

<comment><USER30> That's exactly what I mean. In the last few weeks they seemed to be blocking most independent apps that tried to do something similar. Now their official app is out and their stance makes sense. Not sure how you took my comment to be a reference to anything revenue or free related and your sarcastic tone is unwarranted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Its great that US companies are trying to help during times like these, but it feels strange that companies are filling in the gaps left by American government.

Like why do we have a Google website with CDC information and an Apple website with CDC information? Why not have a single place that we send people? It seems like we should have a single, cross platform app/website that is CDC branded versus Company X branded.

<comment><USER33> That's been available for quite some time: [https://www.coronavirus.gov/](https://www.coronavirus.gov/)</comment></comment>


The $12 Gongkai Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3040 <comment><USER3> The big thing is not this phone, it's the chip.

The chip(MT6250) is a processor for feature phones which includes 260 mhz arm7 cpu,8Mbyte of ram , dsp,bluetooth,2.5G and All kinds of IO. It can run games on a touchscreen phone.

And it costs $2 in large volumes. This is much less than many microcontrollers who offer much less capability. And with such performance and memory , it can support much better languages and tools, faster time to market, and more complex systems, for cheap.

Also , this chip uses 2 different silicon pieces(one for processor and one for ram), for very low cost, instead of what we do today: build different stuff on the same silicon piece and compromise performance and cost and development time along the way. This could open the way to a lot of innovation.

<comment><USER4> It's not at all unusual to see separate CPU, RAM and flash memory in products like routers.

The thing is the interfaces between CPU, RAM and flash tend to use a lot of pins - especially if you want them fast and with support for lots of memory. Look at the number of contacts you get on a stick of RAM in a PC.

Lots of pins is acceptable in a product like this which is BGA surface mounted - but for things like Arduino where the pins are 0.1" apart for easy manual working, having the memory and flash on-chip is much more practical :)

<comment><USER3> I'm talking about integrating two pieces of silicon inside a single package.

Of course you can package silicon in different packages, and package them, and assemble them on a pcb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Of course with that fantastic price you get: <http://i.imgur.com/qBes7dk.jpg>

And no, that's not a Blade Runner screencap. That's Beijing.

<comment><USER6> Related to Beijing's air pollution.

Photos: Beijing Blanketed in Smog: [http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2009/11/photos-beijing- blankete...](http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2009/11/photos-beijing-blanketed-in- smog/)

Smog dents Beijing's expat appeal: [http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b29afeae-9dc9-11e2-bea1-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b29afeae-9dc9-11e2-bea1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2TCuj08vL)

<comment><USER7> For people who just want to see the pictures on imgur instead: <http://imgur.com/a/CnXGL>

<comment><USER8> Just came back from Beijing, where the pollution rate was down to 33 at least for couple hours last week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It can be done cheaper, too, and will be, since there is a large user population in Africa/India/etc whose only problem with a $12 phone is that it costs $12 too much. Eventually they'll be cheap enough to put in cereal boxes. (That won't happen, because brightly colored bits of plastic have higher perceived value than crippled phones among people who buy cereal, but they'll still be lifechanging devices in much of the world.)

<comment><USER10> India/Africa spend a huge amount of money on phones. $12 is absolutely no problem. It is less than what they pay now.

<comment><USER11> But isn't texting the favored use? Actually making a call is often impractical with spotty cell coverage.

In the Philippines apparently most folks text. Signal is occasional; text messages eventually get through automatically as you travel around during the day while a call is only possible at those brief times of connectivity.

Anyway, can this $12 phone text?

<comment><USER12> SMS is a pretty basic part of the GSM standard so, if it didn't support it (assuming it's a GSM phone, of course)

<comment><USER11> But I don't see a keyboard; I doubt its a touch-screen. So no way to enter texts?

<comment><USER13> there's a numeric keypad to enter texts with (press 7 three times to type r, etc)

<comment><USER14> since costs and efficiency are key, do away with lower case at this price point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In many ways the Shanzai / Gongkai way has is a pre-cursor to the world we'll get as more patent intensive countries get past their expiration dates of those patents. And while I'm not convinced there will be a singularity, I am certain that we'll reach a point where enough stuff will be 'free to use' that the number of choices will grow large and the prices will be as commoditized as possible. An important thing to plan for is a recyclable version of the phone such that you can dispose of it safely and the materials can be recovered. Without that we'll just burn through a variety of rare earth elements by mining them, buying/using them, and then returning them to the earth somewhere else :-).

</comment><comment><USER16> It is amazing that we can produce phones and sell them, profitably, at around $10.

Chinese manufacturers can do cheap. Now they just need to do "quality" (which will raise prices a bit) and "innovative". Once they get that cracked they'll take over the world.

From my ignorant uninformed perspective there are some weird cultural things going on. Why does China shovel out very very cheap goods? There are a small number of Chinese companies making quality products for the west, but not many.

There was a photo-article submitted to HN a few days ago. (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5697968>) ([http://m.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/05/chinese-diy- inventi...](http://m.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/05/chinese-diy- inventions/100511/))

It's surprising the number of people making potentially dangerous things by themself out of bits and pieces in their backyard. And seemingly re-inventing a bunch of stuff while they do it. Many of these are the kind of things that would be done by universities (if they didn't care about health and safety).

<comment><USER17> Check out AliExpress. The higher end Chinese phones and tablets are starting to get into iPhone / iPad price range (look at Huawei and XIAOMI phones, for example). You can do cheap, and reasonable, or you can get a huge range of very advanced products that are starting to look very attractive in terms of design and build quality too.

In between there's a large mid range where quality is rapidly improving but the prices stay low.

I got a Star B92M phone, for example. It's a cheap Galaxy S3 clone (same exact dimensions; comes with the same dandelion screensaver; some distributors offers it with a fake Samsung logo....). It's slower. It feels cheaper (the plastic back, for example is a noticeable weakness, and the GPS is a known problem - needs longer antennae). But it's got 1GB RAM, can take 64GB sd card, same 1280x720 resolution, higher resolution (12MP) main camera, dual sims, and generally acts and feels like a relatively high end phone with some minor caveats (try to run 3d stuff, and it's about the same performance as the much older HTC Desire HD, for example, though the Desire HD was much higher end when it was released and the Star trounces it overall performance). I'll stick to that cost range phone because it pays for itself vis-a-vis contract costs for a top end phone in ~6-8 months, and I'm good at breaking stuff...

Now the bar has been raised substantially higher, and there are 1800+ listings for phones with 1920x1080 resolution (in the 5" size range; lots of duplicates of the same models from multiple sellers, though), many of them quad core MTK based phones with 2GB RAM that are now at the very least up around the top of the mid-range segment if not outright challenging the most powerful high end phones yet.

In terms of innovation, you'll start seeing more of it once more of their manufacturers are pushing up against the ceiling set by the current pack leaders like Samsung and Apple. For now they are still busy playing catch-up in most respects.

To some extent we are also seeing different priorities that hides some of the features that these manufacturers put effort into. E.g. dual-sims seems to be pretty much a requirement for mid-range phones and above from the Chinese manufacturers, while you see it relatively rarely in models that are features heavily in the West. You even see 3 and 4 sim phones. A lot of these features may simply not make it to the West to any great extent because they're not what consumers here care about (but I'm in love with having dual sims - <USER2> able to slot in a second sim with cheap data etc. when travelling abroad while still being able to take calls on my standard number is great).

<comment><USER18> I see a lot of reviews lambasting the software on these phones for being incredibly finicky. Are there models with stock android that just work? If so, why isn't some enterprising company importing them, providing QA and customer support and making a killing?

<comment><USER19> I'm writing from such a phone. It has stock Android 4.0 and just works, usually enduring 3 days without recharging.

<comment><USER18> Which phone do you have?

<comment><USER19> A Star 8000 aka MTK6575. Not top of the line, but I got it quite cheaply so I don't complain.

<comment><USER18> interesting, I see they run about $160, but I think the LG L9 is a better deal for $30 more considering the support you get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Bunnie is one of the most interesting people on the internet.

<comment><USER21> I sure hope so, that man inspired me to be the engineer/hardware hacker I am today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sure it's cheap, but not _that_ cheap. Here in Sweden I can walk into a reputable electronics retailer and walk out with a brand new completely unlocked Samsung or Nokia phone, no contract, for $23-27, and that's including $25 sales tax.

<comment><USER22> 25% sales tax not $25

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just a note on the comparison with the arduino: the main selling point of the arduino isn't the features/price ratio, but rather that it's open source hardware. I'm not very deeply involved with the matter, but I think that if you want just "any" programmable micro controller, you can get far more bang for the buck.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have a spare mobile that I bought from a popular British retailer, Carphone Warehouse, for 99p. That was a special offer, but it's still on sale for £4.99. There's no contract attached to it, and you can swap out the SIM card for any one you wish.

It's a Samsung, doesn't do anything fancy, but it calls and texts without a problem, the battery lasts for weeks, and the signal is rock-solid. It's an ideal spare phone. I keep it in the car for emergencies, and take it out to charge it once a week or so. It's so simple that I actually prefer using it to a smartphone!

<comment><USER17> They're still subsidised, so it's not the same thing.

The networks speculate in a certain amount of the sims getting into active use and more than covering the few users that buy them to swap sims.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Amazon sell as Motorola unlocked for $7.99

[http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-C139-Prepaid-Phone- Tracfone/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-C139-Prepaid-Phone- Tracfone/dp/B000F7VBUQ/)

<comment><USER26> It's not sold by Amazon but instead by "Recellulartoo", who advertise themselves as "Recellulartoo is the preeminent seller of used and refurbished cellular phones.". So it might not even be a new unit.

<comment><USER27> TracFone (prepaid cellular service in the USA, owned by America Movil) is pretty much all refurbed phones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> dupe: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5567102>

<comment><USER29> Quoting rom there, to TL;DR'ers:

"Don't just read about the phone itself. Read to/at the end, where Bunnie describes the environment where this phone and things like it are coming to be"

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wish he had gone into more detail regarding how "gongkai" functions, aside from ignoring IP restrictions.

</comment><comment><USER31> For anyone interested, it looks like this is the same phone [http://dx.com/p/mini-i8-super-slim-gsm-card- phone-w-1-0-scre...](http://dx.com/p/mini-i8-super-slim-gsm-card- phone-w-1-0-screen-quad-band-and-single-sim-light-green-138222) . Although, for ~$30, one can get phones that are much more capable [http://dx.com/c/cell- phone-599/cell-phones-511/feature-phone...](http://dx.com/c/cell- phone-599/cell-phones-511/feature-phones-531?sort=price&sortType=asc)

</comment><comment><USER32> 30 USD w/ free shipping on Deal Extreme <http://dx.com/s/super%2bslim%2bgsm.html?category=531>

<comment><USER33> 25 USD w/ free shipping at FocalPrice :) [http://www.focalprice.com/MH0408W/14_Children_Card_Bar_Phone...](http://www.focalprice.com/MH0408W/14_Children_Card_Bar_Phone_White.html)

<comment><USER34> 23 USD at DX and looks better too. [http://dx.com/p/aole-100mini-gsm-bar- phone-w-1-8-lcd-screen-...](http://dx.com/p/aole-100mini-gsm-bar- phone-w-1-8-lcd-screen-quad-band-dual-sim-and-bluetooth-black-silver-203074)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> A new system of IP growing organically is an interesting thing to watch. The western system is so old now that it suffers from a bit of "windows syndrome". The undocumented exploits are as important to it's hackers (trollish actors?) and users as its intended features.

A brand new one growing organically in the digital age could be a fearsome beast if it moves beyond the "knockoff factory for western goods" phase.

</comment><comment><USER36> I wish there were a phone design which let you re-use the screen/etc. but swap out all the baseband with a new module; i.e. equivalent to a "burner" for security, but with the functionality of a smartphone, or at least a nicely built regular phone.

<comment><USER37> Smartphone, tablet, and laptop screens have common ribbon connectors with known pinouts. The hard part is desoldering the screen and finding its pinouts.

<comment><USER17> Speaking from experience, quite a few of the common Chinese tablet and phone models can be disassembled with practically no tools, and you can often detach the touch panel and screen entirely by hand or at most by desoldering the power cable (for the screen - not seen any soldering needed for the touch panel, as it's a common repair). Often the tablet batteries can be detached easily, as well though they're usually entirely internal, and the board can often be lifted out with no tools as well. They're really surprisingly serviceable.

Several of the boards of the devices I've had are exactly the same layout across multiple brands and with easily identifiable connection points for additional connectors etc.

The main limiting factor for doing this is that the touch panel is often the first to go (scratches, getting chipped or smashed totally - I've ruined 3 touch panels so far...), and many of the devices are so cheap they're not worth the hassle to repair vs. upgrading to a newer, better model cheaply.

E.g. my five month old Chinese phone has 1280x720 screen resolution. Similarly priced phones now tend to be a bit larger (5" vs. 4.7") and come with 1920x1080 screens. I cracked my touch panel recently (by sending the phone flying halfway across the room so I really can't fault the phone - other than a few cracks it's still working fine) and opted to order a new one for ca $40 this time, but had the screen gone too I probably would've shelled out a bit extra and just replaced the phone instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> 14.65$ phone: <http://mobiles.sulekha.com/nokia_1200_mobile.htm>

<comment><USER39> [http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/nokia-launches- its...](http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/nokia-launches-its-cheapest- phone/article4644352.ece)

Nokia 105 will cost 15 euros. That's three pints of beer in a pub over here.

<comment><USER40> MOTO FONE[1] > Nokia 105

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Beware, the first link seems to have been 'click jacked'. It opened a new tab with domain "fxxksheep".replace('xx', 'uc') which my company proxy classified as porn.

<comment><USER42> Are you sure of that, or were you just on fucksheep because of this: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5703758> ?

<comment><USER41> Apologies, I seem to be suffering from a VERY short attention span. False alarm.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Android app with Sans Forgetica - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.grapplo.mightyfonts <comment><AUTHOR> Simple Android app for reading stuff with Sans Forgetica, the memory boosting font from smart folks of RMIT Melbourne University. It supports Open Dyslexic font too, for people with dyslexia. What's your experience with Sans Forgetica? Do you believe it can make any difference? Sorry iOS guys, Android only. You can try official Chrome extension instead.</comment>


Vidly (YC S08) first to launch HD video on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/10/vidly-brings-hd-video-to-twitter/ <comment><USER2> Someone should tell them to upload their encoder; they're apparently about 4 years out of date, which would explain why their video quality is rather subpar for the claim of "HD".

        x264 - core 57 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2005 - http://www.videolan.or
        g/x264.html - options: cabac=0 ref=3 deblock=1:1:1 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=hex subm
        e=5 brdo=0 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=0 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone
        =21,11 chroma_qp_offset=0 threads=12 nr=0 decimate=0 mbaff=0 bframes=2 b_pyramid
        =0 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=3 wpredb=0 bime=0 keyint=60 keyint_min=25 scenecut=
        40(pre) rc=abr bitrate=2000 ratetol=1.0 rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' qcomp=0.60 qpm
        in=10 qpmax=51 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 pb_ratio=1.30

Even Youtube does a better job keeping modern than this; there's no excuse for startups to be using outdated technology.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why don't you elaborate and tell us what exactly is out of date and we'll look into it. We're always open to feedback and you should know that the YC nature is to be constructive and helpful in our community of startups and hackers.

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Your x264 encoding library is quite outdated (read: years). Newer versions are faster, more efficient, and give higher quality output. You can get the latest at <http://git.videolan.org/?p=x264.git;a=summary> .

If you need any assistance, drop by #x264 on Freenode.

I'm always surprised by how video startups--whose most important technical resource is their video conversion system--don't seem to do sufficient research into how it actually works (or for that matter, how _well_ it actually works). This may be because of the assumption expressed in posts like <http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=933713>: that all software is pretty much equal and it doesn't matter what you use or how you use it.

Then again, I can't be too harsh, because you at least used open source tools instead of Flash Media Encoder, so you must be doing something right ;)

<comment><USER3> That's interesting. We do have some very recent versions of x264 installed (Core 67 - 68, depending on environment), but it looks like Mencoder might be using a different library. I'll have to check.

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Yup, that's a classic issue; you can end up accidentally using ancient libraries without even realizing it.

Also, 67-68 isn't particularly recent; the latest "stable" would probably be r1318 aka fe83a906ee aka Core 78. You can try trunk as well, but we're having some miscompilation issues with the latest improvements, so I wouldn't trust it for production use yet.

Another note is to check your settings; a lot of people have all sorts of weird encoding commandlines (you included, given the contents of the string I pasted above) from the days when x264's setting system was baroque and confusing. Now the defaults are good and there's some nice automatic presets that let you easily pick a tradeoff of time vs. quality (see x264 --help), so you don't have to mess with weird options.

<comment><USER4> Do you have a link to a good "getting started" article written for a desktop user? (someone looking to encode nice looking videos, not build an encoding infrastructure)

This seems like an issue with a great deal of nuance, and I'd find such a resource invaluable.

<comment><USER2> For a normal desktop user, you should try one of the many encoding GUIs available.

I'd recommend Staxrip, Ripbot264, or Handbrake; all are relatively simple GUIs built around x264. For Handbrake, make sure you get the latest snapshot (the last release, 0.9.3, is very outdated).

On Linux or Mac, there are fewer options, but Handbrake is still one of them. If you prefer a commandline interface, see [http://rob.opendot.cl/index.php/useful- stuff/ffmpeg-x264-enc...](http://rob.opendot.cl/index.php/useful- stuff/ffmpeg-x264-encoding-guide/) .

Handbrake has a great support channel on Freenode (#handbrake) as well.

<comment><USER4> Thanks. This is an area that I don't keep up with, and it's great to have a recommendation from someone in the know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If there's a sign of a bubble, it's companies building things that already exist, on top of companies that have no business model. Skeptical.

<comment><USER6> The problem with analyzing companies like this is that they don't really admit of a traditional value-based assessment. What is the value proposition of a service like Vidly, really? It shortens the process of posting a video link to Twitter by a few steps. Yes, I'm understating what they do, but when you distill it down to its actual _benefit_ to an end user, that's it.

        Option 1:
            1) Open youtube.com.
            2) Create a youtube account (First time only).
            3) Post video to Youtube.
            4) Open twitter.com, or a Twitter client.
            5) Post a tweet with the Youtube link.

        Option 2:
           1) Open vidly.com (or client?).
           2) Post video and tweet to Twitter.

You've reduced the steps it takes to post a video to Twitter from 5 to 2; big whoop, right? But looking at this alone misses the point. Here's where it gets interesting: given that they're both free, and that users actually know about Option 2, most of them will choose Option 2 without hesitation. Besides that, the relative complexity of using Youtube for this task might have been a barrier for many people who otherwise would've posted videos. When you combine this with good marketing, the vibrant user base of Twitter, and a large mass of people hungry to broadcast videos, big things can happen.

<comment><USER7> crescendo,

Actually YouTube integrates with both Facebook and Twitter now. Go to My Account > Settings > Sharing and you can link your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Once you upload a video, it will automatically update your status for both services.

I use YouTube for my uploads mainly because it's one of the built-in upload options for Android. I believe this is true for the IPhone too.

<comment><AUTHOR> That still remains a barrier to entry to people who are not savvy. Video devices are becoming more and more pervasive, the number of people uploading video will grow, and it needs to be easier.

One of our primary goals is to remove friction. Reduce the number of steps it takes to distribute video to the audiences that matter to you. The ideal number of steps: 1. We're almost there.

Convenience is another goal. People are lazy, I am lazy, and I prefer something that is convenient and does all of the work for me.

Tell your parents to go to Accounts > Settings > etc, and watch their eyes glaze over.

<comment><USER8> But do you really want to build a startup around a feature that a much larger competitor already almost has, and if that feature ever became important (as in people switching to your service instead of youtube), they couldn't make more visible and user-friendly?

Apparently, youtube can already tweet the videos automatically that you uploaded. What will be the shelf-life of that startup then?

Again, humbly sounds to me like a great example of a feature, not a product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can someone explain the rationale behind such a service? Twitter and HD video? I must be showing my age, but what is the point? I'm genuinely curious to understand what kind of company they are trying to build. Do they want to take down youtube?

Someone please spell it out for me.

<comment><USER9> A Twitter-integrated video site. Now displays HD.

<comment><USER8> Do we need one railroad company per town? So now there would be a video site that is twitter-friendly (in HD), another one that is youtube friendly, another one that is voice-mail friendly... How many different video sites can we have?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> For a moment when I read the headline, I thought they were sending videos over Twitter by splitting them into 140-character data segments.

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me know if you can figure that out and we'll implement the feature asap.

<comment><USER10> A transport stream (that is used in digital TV and Blu-Rays amongst other things) segments video/audio into 184 byte payloads. It's not that much different really.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A suggestion for Vidly: please make a video's view count available through the API. I just went with YouTube + bit.ly for a video & twitter related thing I'm doing because I have to have access to the view count.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the suggestion! It will be in the next push, later today.

<comment><USER12> Real-time feature releases, nice work Dan!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Somebody dropped the ball here.

Not only is this possible with a few clicks -- it's already possible with no clicks at all.

It's an entire company devoted to replacing one feature that already works fine on an immensely popular site.

Just set up AutoShare. When you upload a video, you get a tweet (and FB and others get notified as well if you've set it up to cascade)

Where was the value again?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nGsF0YR7NU> (instructions on how to set this up on YouTube)

</comment><comment><USER14> Very impressive. I didn't think it was possible to compress HD videos into 140 bytes.

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't know how popular a service like that is going to be.

I'm doing something similar at the moment - a combination of Twitter client for j2me phones that beside normal twitter functions allows taking photos/videos/audio recordings and a web site to display recorded material.

I've been live for about a month, and surprisingly I'm not seeing many users recording videos. Most would use it as a normal Twitter client, and some maybe will snap a few photos.</comment>