Rails Rumble finalists announced - Vote for the best 48-hour micro-app - <AUTHOR> http://blog.railsrumble.com/2009/8/27/the-final-round

<comment><USER3> Most teams started with overall scores in the 4s from the expert judges, and now are all in the 2s and 3s. Seems like a bit of a PR game right now. The more unbiased votes we can get the better. Go vote!

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the judges were mostly nice and gentle, and they had to back up their votes with comments. The public voting round isn't going to grant any leniency, since if someone doesn't like something, they'll just 1111 it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Most of the web designs look great! How did everyone manage to put together such sharp looking sites?

I'll just tell myself they had designers so I don't feel to badly about my design skills (i'm a programmer) :)

<comment><USER6> Many teams did have a designer or somebody with some web design chops - <USER2> don't feel too bad.

Smart move, too. For a rapid development competition like the Rails Rumble, a good first impression goes a long way.

<comment><USER7> Absolutely true. I did a solo project, and not only did my site suffer from my poor design, but design sucked up an inordinate amount of time because I'm so much slower at it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> congrats to all the finalists! It's amazing what has been done in 48 hours.

</comment><comment><USER9> Lazeroids is an awesome idea, but it doesn't work in Chrome (asteroids have trails) and I find the frame-rate is consistently pretty low.

Love the sound and music though.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the compliment! We do have some hacky code that gets chrome to work, but we're not sure why we need it. Googling around you don't hear other people facing the problems we are.

We built <http://lazeroids.com> in 48 hours for the <http://railsrumble.com/> programming contest. Since we didn't have a lot of time, we didn't get to much performance optimization. There's a ton of low hanging fruit in that area that we'll deploy after the contest voting ends on Sunday. (You can't make changes during the contest, only during the 48 hour weekend competition).

<comment><USER9> Just tried lazeroids on Chrome again. Vast improvements! No trails. Great frame-rate. Very responsive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Please help vote. Rating some of the apps at the bottom of the list and solo apps will be extra helpful! Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yeah! Rumble! Yeah!</comment>


Senator: Mark Zuckerberg should face "the possibility of a prison term" - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/senator-mark-zuckerberg-should-face-the-possibility-of-a-prison-term/ <comment><USER2> > Section 230 was fairly uncontroversial in the 1990s and 2000s. When the > Internet was new and not yet ubiquitous, most people thought it made sense > to shield Internet platforms from lawsuits over online content.

> But in the last decade, the Internet has become pervasive, and the downsides > of unfettered online communication have become more obvious.

What is are the newly "obvious downsides of unfettered online communication" referring to? An event? A study? A documented rise in violent crime? What?

This seems like a euphemism of some sort.

<comment><USER3> People having naughty opinions, mostly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To be honest if anyone is getting jail time I think the current and past CEOs of Equifax should be at the head of the line - probably hang them instead of jail them. The surviving CEOs of Walmart a close second since they have killed entire towns for decades. Ocwen a third since fines don't bother Ocwen. Next up all the big bank CEOs probably need ten days of "scared straight". Then get to Zuck, except send him to Arizona and make him build the wall everyday - call it security training.

<comment><USER5> Be careful what you say or you might start to believe it. There is absolutely no reason to hang the CEOs of Equifax. Not even close.

<comment><USER4> Thunderdome?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> online harrassment is more than just distasteful speech. for lack of a well thought out description- it's a malignant process with intent to harm; and it goes beyond a locker room style joke. There are people that go to great effort to harrass someone in a way that is weapon like, as the psychic wounds can be lasting profound and even fatal for some.

The first amendment protected speech that some are worried may be moderated away is very different from such things as stalking or doxxing.

I believe the Z is smart enough to know the difference, and really needs some time out.

</comment><comment><USER7> The "repeatedly lied to the American people about privacy," is a little rich coming from the Government in light of the Snowden revelations.</comment>


EFF Politely Asks PTO to Stop Issuing So Many Crappy Software Patents - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/04/eff-politely-asks-pto-stop-issuing-so-many-crappy-software-patents

<comment><USER2> I have filed a patent. It is a hardware invention, but generally would be implemented in software.

Keep in mind that for a patent to be granted the invention must be:

1) Non-obvious to someone skilled in the art. 2) Novel (ie. not done before).

Patent attorneys and patent offices seem to only use a test for novelty. They tell me that if an invention is obvious, then somebody would have done it before. They have no specific test for non-obviousness apart from demonstrating prior art. They seemingly have no ability to refuse a patent by just claiming that it is obvious. To them, lack of prior art is evidence of non-obviousness.

It is as if they live in another world, where the only inventions and ideas possible are the ones previously patented.

I can only assume that this has come about because a test for non-obviousness is subjective. It's easier for an examiner to let it through and lets the courts sort out the mess later, at our expense.

It seems to me that this is the root cause of ridiculous patents. In technology, we're moving too quickly for this. We need a better solution.

<comment><USER3> > They tell me that if an invention is obvious, then somebody would have done > it before.

So it either already exists, or makes sense to be patented?

This truly boggles the mind.

Then again - does it really? If you are a patent lawyer, your job depends on there being lots of patents. The definition "anything that hasn't been patented should be" seems to be the logical extreme to serve that equation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> PTO is never going to stop issuing crappy patents. There is a huge conflict of interest there.

It's easy. Every time someone files a patent, the PTO gains the filing fees. If they don't check too much, people file a lot and they win a lot. If they check, it means first more cost for them, then less patent filed hence less money.

Now, what happens to them, when they accept bogus patents ? Answer : nothing. The PTO is simply not accountable for that.

No surprise they have no incentive to do their work properly.

<comment><USER5> Government agencies don't really work like that. The PTO doesn't get to give itself raises based on profits. The PTO's behavior is based on legislation, court interpretation and a small sliver of their own interpretation after the direction they receive from those more powerful government bodies. Last year there were about 577,000 patent applications [1] at $180 each for a little over $100M in revenue. That's fantastic if you're most companies, but just a tiny portion of the federal budget.

The current patent situation is a failure of the federal government to understand and legislate contemporary technology, not a misalignment of incentives.

1\. <http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.htm>

<comment><USER6> While I agree that there is a failure to understand contemporary technology, I also think the incentives given patent examiners are misaligned. They're rewarded for applications processed; they're not graded on the number of bad patents they reject.

A patent is a deal we, the people of the US, make with an inventor: add significantly to the sum total of our technical knowledge, and in exchange, we'll give you a time-limited monopoly on the technique you invented. The problem is that there isn't anyone unambiguously charged with making sure this is a good deal for us: that the knowledge we're getting is worth the price we're paying. It's technically the PTO's responsibility, and they do make some effort, but the incentives given patent examiners don't encourage them to be hard-nosed about it.

Currently, I don't think patents about to be granted are reviewed by the examiners' supervisors or anything like that. Seems to me there should be an internal committee that reviews every patent about to be granted by junior examiners, and an occasional one of those about to be granted by senior examiners, to verify its quality. Repeatedly approving applications that then get rejected by this committee should slow an examiner's promotion progress.

<comment><USER7> But right now, there isn't even a way to get a patent revoked in a court because of obviousness or triviality. Prior art is basically the only way to attack a patent.

It's the entire system that is built around the assumption that 'obviousness' is too difficult to measure objectively, and that protection is vastly more important than anything else, so we should always err on the side of protection when laying the boundary of what should be patentable and what not. In other words, better to have 1000 bad patents than running the risk of having 1 idea that should be patentable being rejected by accident.

No thought is given to the enormous damage this does to our industry.

<comment><USER8> i suppose obviousness could be 'tested' for if the end result of the patent can be deduced by only looking at the end result and not reading any of the patent filing.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I've had this thought too. Have a panel of engineers who get to see a description of the problem the invention supposedly solves, but get no information about how it solves it. If any of them come up with the same idea within a couple of days, it was obvious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> While the patent system seems broken as far as software patents go, some of EFF's corrections (in <https://defendinnovation.org/>) are problematic. This includes "Avoid liability if they arrive independently" (what happens if the general news about a company doing X profitably is enough to let you work out an algorithm independently, the company doing X still wants to protect the effort it spent to figure out X when it wasn't clear it would be profitable) or "can't collect millions if the patent represented a tiny fraction of the product" (what if it is a small piece of code in millions of lines, but without it there would be no product?).

Also, the patent system should be modified to allow some way to handle customer discovery. Something like a single provisional filing fee allows you to file many iterative documents repetitively (with MVP source code perhaps) and those later provide a basis for priority date if proof is supplied they were customer-tested.

<comment><USER10> If just knowing that it's possible is all it takes to be able to independently reproduce an invention, then it shouldn't have been patentable in the first place. That's pretty close to being the exact definition of the "non- obviousness" criteria the USPTO is supposed to apply.

<comment><USER9> No I don't think that's exact.

If you need to know that it's possible in order to make it, then it is non- obvious.

Maybe the algorithm is obvious, ie, to do X you need to do steps 1, 2, and 3, but X itself, the basic functional creation that employs the algorithm, is not obvious.

Swipe-to-unlock, the basic algorithm, how to implement it is pretty clear. But matching and researching which gesture works with which functionality, to the degrees customers find it natural took effort and time, and it produced a creation that was not obvious before that research.

Besides, if this is already part of the current rules, why do we need to amend the rules for it? Just enforce the rules better.

<comment><USER10> The wikipedia page about the non-obviousness test [1] says:

"The purpose of the inventive step, or non-obviousness, requirement is to avoid granting patents for inventions which only follow from "normal product design and development", ..."

What you described for swipe-to-unlock is very much the normal product design and development process, so doesn't (well, _shouldn't_) qualify it for patent protection.

And yes, I agree: the rules DO need to be enforced better.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non- obviousn...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obviousness)

<comment><USER9> That wikipedia page quotes an article by John Barton that argues that the criteria for obviousness should be restricted. The particular quote you cite is from the section where Barton explains his proposed criteria, rather than the current criteria. The full sentence reads: "Only research beyond that done as part of normal product design and development should be rewarded with a patent. Routine redesign should not be enough, for there is no need for monopolies as an incentive for such research." [1] The word _should_ is key, it is what Barton thinks _should_ be the case, even if it isn't today.

In fact, the law as described by Barton in the earlier section of his paper shows that the non-obviousness criterion was deliberately weakened over time, specifically when the Patent Act was passed in 1952 that eliminated a requirement for a "flash of creative genius."

Anyway, I am not a law expert. I am an entrepreneur. My interest is to be able to invent without fear that after I invented and researched and showed that some form of product was viable, some large company (Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc) or a competitor or any other group would then replicate it, claiming to have arrived at the product independently. The bottom line is that it wouldn't foster innovation, it would hinder it. I would have no incentive under the patent system to go to investors and secure funds to do research if in the small chance that the research is fruitful, I will not be able to protect it.

[1] Draft version of Barton's article: <http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/bhhall/ipconf/Barton901.pdf>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sadly the way things appear to work nowadays unless you politely ask enough law makers with enough large checks attached to your polite requests, little happens.

<comment><USER12> You mean bribe?

<comment> alive-or-not You mean lobbying? ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. You can lead a corporate horse to water but you'll have to give it hundreds of thousands of dollars to make it drink. Everyone has been wanting the PTO to change the patent system, but it's most likely not going to happen (if it ever does) for a very long time.

<comment><USER14> Isn't it good that the PTO resists pressure from either group? I mean, the only part which would have influence on how they work is the entity above PTO, whichever that one is (Supreme Court/DOJ/?).

<comment><USER13> It's both good and bad. It seems no matter how many people complain or companies like Google come forward and try and change things by kicking their feet around and causing a scene, nothing changes. The fact the system is such a mess and changing even the slightest part of the entire patent process would undoubtedly spawn more legal action than you could imagine from big and small companies alike who make their money off of obscure patents. When it comes to politics money talks, maybe someone should start a lobbyist website where people can crowd-source funds to lobby Government to get things changed? A Kickstarter for government lobbying to benefit the people.

<comment><USER15> > A Kickstarter for government lobbying to benefit the people.

That's actually a great idea--it's basically a petition with a donation required to sign (thus making it into something that actually has autonomous power, rather than some names on papper.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One reason that software patents are so crappy is that the patent bar actively filters out the people who would be most knowledgeable about mathematics and algorithms.

The problem is that algorithms and math are not considered patentable. The guidelines for membership in the patent bar specifically exclude mathematics coursework as a valid educational background. The reasoning, I believe, is that abstract laws should not be patented.

However, with the rise of software patents, we clearly are allowing algorithms and mathematics to be patented. However, the patent bar actually specifically excludes the background that would be most useful in evaluating these patents.

It makes sense if you think of the patent system as a cartel. By allowing math to be patented, you expand your domain. By denying people with a mathematics background to sit for the patent bar, you restrict your competition.

Sometimes, when you're confused by a bad policy, just ask yourself: what would a person with no morals, plenty of power, and a single minded desire to enrich himself do? Usually, that will explain the policy.

</comment><comment><USER17> I suspect that even if they allowed submitting code then it will probably not be mandated which language be used and we will likely get something like obfuscated javascript or Brainfuck or god forbid obfuscated Brainfuck (if that is not redundant) in the patent.

Documented code would be a great step forward if we decide we have to keep patents around because at least your money is buying source code in some form.

<comment><USER18> How does that differ from Copyright? Copyright already protects the actual source code. So, companies should rely on copyright and trade secrets to protect their secret sauce, not patents.

I read a patent application the other day that basic said that someone with a knowledge of the field would be able to reproduce the invention using the patent as a guide. The application was 50+ pages long and I couldn't get past about 10 of then without dying a little inside.

<comment><USER19> I've read a number of software patents and I would definitely not be able to reproduce the invention using just the information in the patent. Rather, I'd have to take the described functional claims and build something that does what it says. So they're almost fully functional.

The code should be included to uphold the spirit of the patent. A patent is a temporary monopoly granted in return for telling everyone how your invention works. If all you do is enumerate what your invention does in your claims, you haven't described how it works, and if the patent is granted, you've effectively only described any implementation of your idea, which is a huge problem.

Providing source code narrows the patent to AN implementation of an idea, and to experts in the field, actually explains in a common language (not legalese) exactly how it works.

Have a read of the brief the EFF put together for the PTO. It's somewhat readable, even for an engineer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Where is the PTO located? Can some local HNer just, apply for a job there? I think interested technical parties should try to "infiltrate" the organization to get more information and be able to answer some of the questions that just keep getting asked in every forum ad-nauseum and maybe do a reddit AMA or something.

<comment><USER21> Hi, I'm a patent examiner. I won't apologize for the agency, we have more than our share of problems, but I also think we get more than our share of criticism for bad patents.

The PTO simply has no ability to change patent law. We apply it as it's written by Congress and interpreted by the courts. A few points on the law without getting into criticism of the agency (you can get easily find that elsewhere):

1\. The burden on patent applicants is too low. There's a presumption that a patent will issue as soon as it's filed. The patent examiner has to prove that whatever is claimed was obvious, didn't work, wouldn't work, etc. If the patent examiner can't meet that burden, the patent issues. The patent applicant doesn't have to tell us about the state of the art prior to the "invention", what the improvement is, or why it deserves a patent.

2\. As discussed upthread, the obviousness standards are too low. If you can't find evidence that each and every aspect of a claim was in the prior art, you have to allow the patent. Even then, a patent attorney can attack the rejection if the different prior art documents wouldn't fit well together. As an examiner, you can't simply say that something would have been obvious, with no supporting evidence. If you try to make such a rejection, the patent attorney will appeal your rejection, you'll get reversed on appeal and the patent will issue anyway.

3\. The process naturally skews towards patent applicants. Most (nearly all) patent applicants have an attorney who is fighting 100% for as broad a patent as possible. The examiner is supposed to be a neutral arbiter who applies the law in an evenhanded fashion. There's no party fighting for the public, pushing back hard against the patent attorney. It's like a courtroom where only one side of the story is presented.

You can find a lot commentary/criticsm of the patent examination process online BTW, but not generally on the tech sites - look more towards legal/academic literature.

(Speaking on my own behalf, not the agency's)

<comment><USER22> For a hacker trying to find data suggesting the PTO and possibly some patent agents are not performing due diligence, where would you propose we start?

How many patent agents are there employed by PTO? Are they all full time?

<comment><USER20> This is a great effort to make a public repository of due diligence: <http://patents.stackexchange.com/>

I wonder to what degree examiners use this before granting a patent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Won't this just allow the incumbents to threaten others with their crappy software patents, while making it harder for new entrants to acquire enough of their own crappy software patents to defend themselves?

A pretty good argument has been made that we should just legislate that developing, distributing, or running a program on generally used computing hardware does not constitute patent infringement.[1] Why not just do that?

[1] [http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/richard-stallman- softwa...](http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/richard-stallman-software- patents/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Let's publicize who the actual people reviewing the patents are, some personal accountability for the patents someone issues or approves could be powerful. I'd like to understand the KPI's of the PTO, are there patent agents issuing patents faster than possible? Robo signing? Are there incentives for an agent to issue more patents to keep organization wide throughput high? Where can I get Open Data related to the PTO?

</comment><comment><USER24> Is there a way to explain to other people (non software developers) how bad it can be to issue patents for obvious things? So that their voting power will be directed in the right direction.

</comment><comment><USER25> Tell Congress to eliminate the incentives for Examiners to issue quotas of patents.

</comment><comment><USER26> Seems pretty reasonable...

</comment><comment><USER27> Is there anything a layperson can do to help?

</comment><comment><USER28> The more and crappier the better, since it discredits and bogs down an intrinsically broken system, which we can only hope would lead to its demise.</comment>


What America would look like if it guaranteed everyone a job - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/6/16036942/job-guarantee-explained <comment><USER2> According to Wikipedia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemploym...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate)) the five countries with the least unemployment are Qatar, Cambodia, Belarus, Thailand, and Laos. Which one of those should America look more like?</comment>


Legion of lobotomized unices - <AUTHOR> https://czep.net/17/legion-of-lobotomized-unices.html <comment><USER2> I only caught the tail end of this era, but kinda miss it too. We had a network on campus where servers had names, you'd know where to go for movies, porn, music etc.. We also ran an uptime 'contest' of sorts, I remember the top position was in 1530~ days at some point.

However, with the complexity of modern runtime environments; the ridiculous availability requirements & and crappiness of lots of software, it simply is not sustainable to not automate. I mean, it's all fun and games, but once you are running 500 servers in 3 DC's with a 3 man team, there simply isn't time to fix things most of the time. On the other hand, we did not need docker etc to keep that all running nicely.

That being said, I am not sure containers are truly an improvement.</comment>


Review my side project: www.recreationparks.net - <AUTHOR> http://www.recreationparks.net

<comment><USER2> Finally a HN project that isn't about technology or social networking but rather something more refreshing, nature. I browsed through the site for about 10 minutes and here is what I think. Please do not feel I am being critical for the sake of being critical. I am an avid kayaker and love camping, hiking, and exploring in federal and state parks around the US South East. Every Friday night, I'm online looking for my next destination. I would love to have a 1-stop-shop to find where to go next.

1\. Competition - <http://www.floridastateparks.org/> \- This is my current favorite parks site and the official source for Florida State Parks. I love most of the features on this site and despite plain-jane design, it's very well developed. I am a kayaker and this site lets me find the parks at which I can go kayaking. However, it does not have an advanced search where I can say "parks with +kayaking, <100 miles from zipcode 33708, +picnic tables" or something similar. If you had a similar search for entire US, that would be wonderful. You already seem to have a lot of the data.

2\. Localization - most people want to look for places around their hometown. You have a great start by using ip-location to find my local parks. However, presenting a plain list of 50 parks around my county doesn't help much. You need to tell me what I can do where, easily. While this: [http://www.floridastateparks.org/FindaPark.cfm?dist=Southwes...](http://www.floridastateparks.org/FindaPark.cfm?dist=Southwest) may seem messy, it is better than no activity information because last thing I want to do is end up driving 3 hours to find there is no kayak launch at a park despite the proximity to a river.

3\. The front page should have at least one "featured" local park with pics + text. Thay would definitely entice me to give this random park a second look. You can tally up the searches or popular pages for each county/state to determine how to automatically feature a park.

4\. State list needs to have names and not just abbreviations.

5\. "Related Google Search results" is pretty useless for pages like: [http://www.recreationparks.net/FL/seminole/lower-wekiva- rive...](http://www.recreationparks.net/FL/seminole/lower-wekiva-river- preserve-state-park-sanford) \- at least to me. It takes up valuable center- screen space. I understand this is an easy way to provide a link to the official site of a park but it doesn't always work and seems very cluttered. I would rather see 'key' park activities or Flickr pics there. Or a featured comment by a user.

6\. Can you classify/filter by types of parks? I would rather not see baseball parks and only focus on state parks while someone else would rather see sports parks but not nature parks. Too many parks spoil the google map view. Would be much better to fine-tune the kind of parks that I am interested in. You could have a toggle bar in the header area with: Show "nature parks", "wildlife preserves", "sports parks" and enable all of them by default. If I make a change, save it in a cookie/session and apply it to all the search results. I know this kind of feature is easy and works because I made it for sched.org and users loved it.

7\. In addition to type for each park, give each park a type-icon. So it's easier to identify and put it in every place the park is mentioned.

8\. A few dream features I have are distance-based. Sort the county list based on the distance from my home county. Sort the search results based on the distance too. Allow me to easily set my home zipcode. Save that in a cookie/session and use that for every page.

9\. Contact info - this will be difficult for you but as a user, I want the phone number for any park I am looking at to make sure the river is in navigable condition or to find the parking rates. If you can bring in more information like that into one system, wonderful. If not, figure out a way to link to each park's official site. I would love to know the park hours, entrance fees etc. on your site but I can dig in given the park's official site. If I have to go to Google to find that, I might as well go to other sites like <http://www.floridastateparks.org/wekiwasprings/default.cfm> that have a lot more information already.

10\. Great work so far. Like I said above, do not think I am being critical just to be critical. Me and my friends at <http://www.clubkayak.com/greenwave/default.asp> would love more resources for parks around the nation. However, given existing valuable sites like <http://www.floridastateparks.org/wekiwasprings/default.cfm> you have quite a challenge to become our favorite destination. I have only listed Florida- centric links but I can assure you most states have their own recreation park guides and that is what people use. Trying to be a central destination for something that very local is not an easy task. You can accomplish it successfully, if you become a better, easier-to-navigate resource than the local sites.

I understand a lot of your site information will come from users/volunteers so hopefully with time, the value of your content will appreciate. Till then, you will have to get some of that data yourself (hopefully you will pursue legal, moral methods - e.g. NO SCRAPING). You have a long way to go and best of luck with it all.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you chose a state, say CA, a page that shows all the parks in California appears. The page is rather long and it takes some time to load. My browser actually wanted to stop the script. Maybe you can first show all the counties in CA and then the parks in a specific county.

Besides searching for a park near you, it might be interesting to search for a park near you that has a certain activity, say rock climbing.

<comment><USER4> Same issue for me, FF3 wanted to kill the script when loading CA.

MA was fine but the list was smaller .. maybe pagination?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks guys, I will fix this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I could see this being useful someday soon...

I'm not a fan of the big popup of state abbrevs. First, because some state abbrevs aren't immediately obvious to me (MD and ME I have to stop and think about). Second, because mine is always way at the bottom. (Then I get a mostly-alphabetical list, again sorted by county name.) I wish it would just show me a map and let me click where I am, even just the simplest USA.jpeg with an imagemap to pick a state.

If I type "wa" in the box and click "search", I get the standard Rails "something went wrong" page.

If I type "washington" in the box, I get a bunch of "Washington, DC" parks, followed by a bunch of parks with "Washington" in their name. I admit my forefathers didn't pick the most creative name for my state, but it would be nice if it was a little more forgiving, and show me some Washington parks when I search for "washington".

I can't find either of the parks I usually visit, nor a way to add a new entry. I guess that's version 2. I'd also like to be able to search by what features a park has, which is probably also version 2 (after users have had time to vote!).

</comment><comment><USER6> i'm in iceland.. tried to find a park here.. didn't find any.. so i'm of no use to you,

good luck anyways!

</comment><comment><USER7> I like the site quite a bit. It is very functional and serves a good, specific purpose. The search appears to work well, which is nice.

Something to consider, though not trivial, would be tracking local websites to note events at the different parks. Also, an easy thing to mash in would be weather with regard to outdoor activities.

Nice job!

<comment><AUTHOR> It does have weather, but I think I will move it up in the interface.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd like to get everyone's thoughts about this project. I'd also love to know about other data sources that I should mash into this. I think there is value in exposing public data sources in a structured ways, plus, you know, it'd be cool if the AdSense went somewhere.

<comment><USER8> Hey Tectonic, I just sent you a note via Iteration Labs. We've got a bunch of park reviews you could drop in, and we're looking for a launch partner for a new consumer ratings API. Let me know if you want to talk.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is anyone with IE having issues?

<comment><USER9> doesn't everyone using IE have issues? zing

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Your IP detection showed parks over 80 miles from my actual location. For these cases, have the radius be much larger, or have the Google Map show locations surrounding the target area.

</comment><comment><USER10> Dude, the very first thing I did, was press the first button I saw (the search button).

"The page you were looking for doesn't exist."

Needs a little more testing

</comment><comment><USER11> The voting was confusing. I saw a list of things and a checkbox and assumed that a checkbox meant that that park has that item. Maybe have "yes" and "no" instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, good suggestion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Under Park Activities, there's no mention of playing fields, tennis courts, etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks great! What are you using to geotarget?

</comment><comment><USER14> 502 Bad Gateway

dead for me...?

</comment><comment><USER15> It's down right now. 502 gateway.

</comment><comment><USER16> Great site! Simple idea, simple design. I like it.

Having said that, the "Google Search" looks messy -- a lot of word-wrapping going on. Some better way to display that?

Also it seems like you can easily run into _lots_ of data sources with something like this. You might end up using a device like a tab. Just a thought.

Some of the links didn't give me any information (YouTube videos in the area) until I clicked on the link. I shouldn't have to click to find out the answer is "nothing here". That's probably impossible to do, but users are like that.

Finally the weather forecast could've used some icons. Seems like people expect icons with weather information.

Just my two cents. Keep up the good work. Awesome idea! A little more tweaking and some SEO work, right?

</comment><comment><USER17> Serves a purpose. Simple as that. Good job.</comment>


Make Your MacBook Pro, Again - <AUTHOR> https://www.owcdigital.com/DEC/ <comment><USER2> I'm starting to see quite a few brands co-opting the President-elect's signature slogan like they have here. This baffles me. On the one hand, yes, it's a slogan that pretty much every (at least) American knows and is familiar with. On the other hand, there's some very significant portion of the population that is very viscerally offended (at the least) by the President- elect. So to jump on that wagon, you risk very strongly offending and alienating a large portion of the population along a line that has nothing to do with whether or not they'd be you consumer...but with which way their political beliefs fall.

My comment isn't meant to be a judgement call on whether or not doing this is normalizing something distasteful...it's simply meant to point out that OWC like many other brands may be shooting themselves in the foot over a lazy and reactionary marketing gimmick.

<comment><USER3> _On the other hand, there 's some very significant portion of the population that is very viscerally offended (at the least) by the President-elect._

And some subset of that sub-population that has no sense of humor left.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps. But to ignore them is to be tone-deaf for the sake of a marketing gimmick.

<comment><USER3> You know, co-opting a phrase is also a valid means of parody. If you are so "triggered" by phrase structure that you have no sense of humor left, then the terrorists have won! ;)

<comment><USER4> No, they can't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Despite there being no info on this page, judging by the sheer size of this thing (it looks bigger than the whole MBP), I would hope that it has eGPU, storage, battery, etc. Shit it's big enough to have a DVD drive from the looks of it.

If it doesn't have all that, I can't fathom what they could even put in all that empty space. Maybe it's only thick around the perimeter? It gets shallow in the middle?

<comment><USER6> Anandtech has a picture of the bottom of it. It appears to be solid throughout. It also appears that this system bolts onto bottom of MBP using longer screws that fit into the factory screw holes. From the full article[0]:

"To install the OWC DEC, users will not have to open up their MacBook Pro, only remove Apple's screws and screw the DEC on to the bottom of the machine."

[0] [http://www.anandtech.com/show/11033/owc-previews-dec- addon-f...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/11033/owc-previews-dec-addon-for- macbook-pro)

<comment><USER7> Is it supposed to have that slightly different cast to the aluminum? I almost wish they'd make it an entirely different color or material (black polycarbonate ?) if that's how it's going to look.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Precision CNC milled from aircraft grade aluminum to 1 /1000ths of an inch tolerance_

There's some marketing hype there, I think 0.001" precision is standard for CNC machining with aluminum. All it's effectively saying is that the product is CNC-machined aluminum. Having said that, a CNC-machined aluminum enclosure is really great (as any MacBook owner can tell you) and it is more expensive to produce than injection moulded plastic.

In terms of machining precision on its own, relatively impressive precision would be somewhere around 0.0001" (one ten-thousands of inch) precision. But that would be complete overkill for this kind of product.

Apple is one of the world's largest (if not _the largest_ ) users of CNC machining. There are some great write-ups online about this that I can't find right now.

</comment><comment><USER9> According to the images, this will only work with the MacBook Pro with TouchID as the connection between the computer and the base seems to be via the USB-C port on the right side, something that does not exists in the non-TouchID version. I hope there is a cable or something that I can extend to connect the base to the USB-C ports on the left side because that is the computer that I have.

I really miss the RJ45 connector. Since I bought this computer I have complained about inconsistent Internet speeds as the router — which is placed behind the computer — delivers only 60% of its real connection because it is consumed over WiFi. I am forced to restart the router every hour or so just to get the miserable 10Mbps that I pay.

I was already prepared to buy one of those accessories for the Mac that people hate so much, just to get a stable Internet connection because WiFi seems to be broken, even at less than 20cm from the router. I hope that this "base" does not weights as much as it looks. I assume it will also include a (replaceable) SSD and — maybe? — an extra battery.

I wonder if this thing can be lifted without a separation from the computer on the left side.

Edit #1: To add more to the story, I have a Raspberry Pi directly connected to the router with a script that runs every 30 minutes, the script measures the Internet speed and reports back to me, every time the speed is lower than 5Mb I get a notification to reboot the router, that is my "setup". I wish I could change the router, but somehow the ISP restricts the delivery of the service to the device that they provide, and they are not willing to change it for a new one because — according to their statistics — the 10Mb are being delivered (which is true, except via WiFi).

Edit #2: I live in a country where there is no Apple Genius bar, so it is difficult — if not impossible — to me to get assistance on this matter from them. I will do what others have suggested, will replace the router and see what happens. Thanks.

Edit #3: Thanks @heavymark I meant 10Mbps instead of 10MB

Edit #4: On a side note, this will be funny to carry in an airport specially if you come from a country known for drug trafficking. People have tried to smuggle drugs on the back of computer screens with less space than that and still get caught, now imagine an skeptical officer checking a computer with this base.

<comment><USER10> You have a brand-new Macbook Pro but a router that can't deliver 10Mbps for more than an hour at a time?

<comment><USER11> I believe the author wrote "10MB" rather than "10Mbps". 10MB would equate to 80Mbps I think right? Unless he meant to right 10Mbps?

<comment><USER9> Sorry, yes, I meant 10Mbps (I will edit my comment)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it a battery? Is it more ports?

That page says nothing.

<comment><USER13> This curiously lacks displayport and hdmi.

<comment><USER14> Licensing maybe?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> more information: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/11033/owc-previews-dec- addon-f...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/11033/owc-previews-dec-addon-for- macbook-pro)

</comment><comment><USER16> It speaks volumes that a manufacturer has to step in and deliver the product the consumers want and Apple is incapable of delivering.

<comment><USER17> I think the real test is how many of those who complained that they would be happier if Apple had just made it thicker and included all the ports would actually buy something like this. (And also if they are more than a very, very tiny minority)

<comment><USER18> Exactly. It will be interesting to see how something like this sells.

I have a feeling that it will fill a niche, but not be a hugely popular option with most MBP users. Folks can whine about the lack of ports, but in a few years USB-C devices will be quite common and reliable.

For something like ethernet, I'd honestly rather "haul" a small dongle around.

<comment><USER19> That thing does look like it suffers for having an Ethernet port, because it has to be taller to accommodate it. I would similarly rather have an Ethernet dongle than a much thicker laptop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This seems a little more appropriate to me: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hypershop/hyperdrivetm-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hypershop/hyperdrivetm- compact-thunderbolt-3-usb-c-hub-for-m)

<comment> gm-conspiracy Seems like an accident waiting to happen.

Would the connectors shear off into the ports, or bend the ports as the connectors are bend away?

<comment><USER21> I have a mini hub like that for the Surface Pro.

I definitely wouldn't leave it on when transporting my Surface for the reasons you describe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A permanently attached docking station. This is not going to sell like hotcakes.

However, what if computers ended up being made and sold like very expensive cars? You know how it goes, a standard brand new Mercedes G-Wagon/Range Rover won't do, that is just the donor vehicle that gets transformed with more cylinders, even bigger wheels and lots more leather.

Why aren't the people who go for that sort of display of opulent wealth not getting visibly pimped computers such as this one? A few more ports, a bigger battery, some quality to the machined ports, with that people will think I am pro. A bit like getting a Porsche and swapping all the panels out for carbon fibre, bigger wheel arches and a roll cage.

<comment><USER23> I lol'ed. I agree that it is more of a niche application for sure. I also agree with the further conclusion that making it removable would have made it more useful.

Like someone else mentioned, I also didn't see HDMI.

I think I heard the 'whammy' sound play...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This idea is great, but it'd be cool if they offered the same form factor except putting a giant battery in there instead of more storage. I think people would be more willing to carry this around if it effectively doubled their battery life.

<comment><USER21> Based on the photos alone (who knows what the final product will be) -- there's only one USB-C connector.

If it was going to have a battery, wouldn't it make sense to put another USB-C connector in the base?

Seems weird to use the Mac to charge a battery in the base and then suck power back from said battery through the same single USB-C connection.

<comment><USER24> What's so weird about it? There's a massive business of external batteries in the mobile space that do effectively the same thing. What does Mophie know that OWC doesn't?

<comment><USER21> Doesn't the mophie have its own charging port?

I think it's weird because the external battery would need to know to only charge when the host Macbook Pro is charging, otherwise it's draining the Macbook Pro's battery to backup the battery it's draining.

<comment><USER24> What's stopping OWC from including a charging port that does just this while sending a message to the MBP that it's plugged in? That's effectively what all those external batteries do. We're discussing a theoretical change to a device that isn't on the market yet.

<comment><USER21> >> What's stopping OWC from including a charging port that does just this while sending a message to the MBP that it's plugged in?

Nothing is. But it would be _weird_ to do so with the base having only one USB-C port. The more common expectation is that there would be a pass-through USB-C port.

>> That's effectively what all those external batteries do.

I've always been under the assumption that all the external batteries have their own circuitry to take power from its incoming port and send power (either passing through AC or from its battery) to the outgoing port when the host device demands it. I was not aware that the outgoing port on all those external batteries also got power from the host devices, so I guess I learned something today.

>> We're discussing a theoretical change to a device that isn't on the market yet.

Going back to my original comment, I just made an observation that it would be weird for the product ---as shown in the photos--- to use that one port to charge itself and to charge the Mac. Most products I know use a pass through. That's it. I did not suggest a theoretical change to the device.

\--edit - by "charge itself" I mean in the case where it did have a battery

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How much weight it adds to the laptop? Does it increase battery life? It obviously not gonna increase RAM, likely increase SSDs because OWC sell them... It looks terrible tbh. How is this better than using dongles?

I saw the MBP 2016. I was very happy and went and bought a old MBP 2015 with retina at a discounted rate... I'm a happy camper and lousy early adopter.

<comment><USER26> > How is this better than using dongles?

In every possible way, by not being a bunch of dongles?

It slips into most laptop carriers, it's instant to set up and tear down, it has a constant arrangement so I can get used to where a connection is, it keeps sensitive stuff like M.2 PCBs and 2.5" drives nicely enclosed, it keeps my desk organized and clear of clutter...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Unless this has a decent eGPU instead of 2 year old technology it's still not "pro"

</comment><comment><USER28> The panel gaps on the sides look about the same size as a tray-load DVD/Blu- ray drive would be. So I wonder if the new SD card slot & USB ports are modules that could be swapped for optical drives, additional SSD storage, batteries, etc.

<comment><USER6> Those gaps are actually just material milled away so the product doesn't block the vents on either side of the bottom MBP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The ethernet port seems a bit close to the 2 USB Type-C ports. I wonder if the USB Type-C ports will still be able to support a flash drive (the thicker ones anyway) while being wired in.

</comment><comment><USER13> This clunky contraption reminds me of the "Ultrabase", a sort of mobile docking station for the Thinkpad X220 and earlier -- only those offered way more connection options.

</comment><comment><USER30> Too much space for just a few extra ports. If they are smart enough, they should add a built-in bluray player and perhaps a couple decent speakers.</comment>


Node.js Foundation to Add Express as an Incubator Project - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@nodejs/node-js-foundation-to-add-express-as-an-incubator-project-225fa3008f70#.t35efzcso <comment><USER2> Poor choice, as there are far better frameworks that were conceived as an evolution of Express. This just seems like an attempt to save Express.</comment>


AMA HN: I launched my profitable startup one year ago today. - <AUTHOR>

On August 1, 2010, my startup, http://SproutVideo.com, had it's first full day of public operations. I've learned a lot in the last year and would like to share my experience with you. Ask away!<p>p.s. I figured I'd give doing an AMA a shot on HN, but if it's the wrong place for it I'll move it to anyasq.com or somewhere else. <comment><USER2> What is your infrastructure like? AWS? shared hosting? self hosted?

Are you using any interesting solutions for storage of the video?

Are you using any interesting solutions for streaming the video?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just about everything is on AWS. I use EC2 for the servers, S3 for storage, CloudFront for streaming, Route53 for DNS, SQS for messaging, and CloudWatch for monitoring. So, there are no real interesting solutions for the storage or streaming of video unless you consider S3 and CloudFront interesting.

<comment><USER3> What is your estimated combined monthly bill for all those AWS services?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can you please talk about the economics of doing a video based small startup?

I have a couple of ideas that would involve users uploading large video files and me having to store them at least temporarily.

I don't yet know if this is a show stopper for what would be a on the cheap side project.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are pretty much three major costs to consider when it comes to video online. They are storage, delivery and encoding.

Storage is pretty cheap. S3 starts at $0.14 per GB for the first TB and then drops to $0.125 for the next 50TB and so on. There might be some cheaper cloud storage options out there. If you don't need the durability that S3 provides, you can use their reduced redundancy option which is like 40% cheaper. There are other cloud storage provides out there worth considering like Rackspace's Cloud Files, although I think S3 is the cheapest. CDNs also often include their own storage so that might also be something to consider. You might be able to get a good rate if you committed to a minimum storage and bandwidth package. If you wanted, you could even go the route of building your own storage units ([http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/07/20/petabytes-on-a- budget-v...](http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/07/20/petabytes-on-a- budget-v2-0revealing-more-secrets/)) which presents it's own pros and cons.

Delivery also isn't that expensive. CloudFront, for instance, charges $0.12/GB for the first 10TB and $0.08/Gb for the next 40TB. If you're streaming over 10TB per month, you can start to get discounts by committing to monthly minimums. Again, there are other providers out there, such as limelight and akamai, but as far as I can tell, they don't publish their prices. That usually means you probably need upfront commitments with them. Because of that, there is probably a lot of room to negotiate the price of bandwidth. Delivery will most likely be your highest cost just because of the volume unless you don't plan to be streaming that much video.

Lastly there is encoding. Encoding can either be done by yourself on your own serves or through one of the many providers online. Doing it yourself takes a bunch of time to figure out all of the quirks of all of the different video and audio codecs and containers. It's not a fun process, but ultimately, if you can get it right, it might be cheaper. There are a bunch of transcoding services out there. They have different pricing models so you'll want to make sure that the model fits your use case. For instance, Zencoder charges for the minutes of output video created but something like Encoding.com charge by GB (Combined input and output file sizes). If you're dealing with a lot of short, but really large, videos, the Zencoder model would fit better. If your files are small, but really long, (like webinars) the Encoding.com model might work better.

<comment><USER4> Thanks very much! So it sounds like from every aspect the cost scales fairly smoothly from zero on up, is that right?

If that's the case then it makes life easy as from day 1 you can pass the entire cost onto the customer in your pricing. Has that been your experience?

<comment><AUTHOR> As long as you pass on all of the costs onto the user, it works out pretty well and you should never lose any money on a customer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> NYC is different than the Bay area with respect to moonlighting/IP-ownership issues when you have a full-time job and you do projects. Did you clear this with your employer, were you in a contract that didn't have restrictions, did you hope for the best, etc. ? Thanks for sharing!

<comment><AUTHOR> I had talked it over with both my manager and CEO. I just took a look at my employment agreement and there was an attached Proprietary Information and Inventions Agreement. In it, it states that the company shall own all right, title and interest in and to all Inventions which arise out of research or other activity conducted by, for or under the direction of the Company, or which are useful with or relate directly or indirectly to any "Company Interest". While that is somewhat broad, the work I did was neither for nor under the direction of my old company so I'm fairly certain it doesn't fall under that agreement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> How did you determine this was a service businesses needed? It appears to me they could do it all on any number of other well known video hosting services.

<comment><AUTHOR> Related to this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2832961>

I used to work for a company that offered a very similar service which had many paying customers who validated the idea. The company was acquired, but not that particular business unit. We essentially stepped in and took over that unit so the customers would not be left out in the cold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do you have collaborators ? Did you take care of everything or did you outsource some tasks to freelancers (for instance, design, etc.) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I had (well still sort of do, but that's a whole other story) a co-founder for the first couple of months. He's a non-technical person, so he didn't contribute any code. He mostly contributed with product guidance and some design / UX stuff.

Our site is based on a combination of two template we bought and we outsourced our logo design to oDesk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How long did you wait until you quit your job? Where did the idea come from? Did you outsource the web design?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wound up quitting my job about midway through October 2010 because customer support was beginning to require too much of my time.

The idea was in no way original, but came out of an opportunity to both prevent hundres of people from losing their videos when my old company was sold to SnapFish and make a bit of money. See: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2833008>

The web design came from a combination of two templates that we bought. I'm currently talking to a designer about redesigning everything so it doesn't feel so much like a template site and does a better job of showcasing the product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How long from first line of code to launch? And what were your expenses for that time?

In other words, what was the bootstrap amount you needed?

<comment><AUTHOR> My first commit was on June 25, 2010. So, 37 from first line of code to launch. I was still working a full time job at the same time, so it was coded during nights and weekends only.

There were very few costs durting that period other than maybe a hundred dollars in server costs for testing and food.

Edit: Now that I think about it there actually were a few other costs such as incorporating the company, outsourcing the logo and business card design, setting up the bank account, and so on. The total came to around $2k.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How long before you were profitable? Have you managed to maintain growth since then?

<comment><AUTHOR> The company was profitable pretty much from day one. We don't have a free tier, so all of our customers are paying customers. We made sure that our initial pricing structure ensured that, in almost all cases, the users at least covered their own costs. We've added four pricing tiers since launching and this still pretty much holds true (except for the lowest tier).

To maintain growth, we've mostly marketed our site using PPC though AdWords. So far, even without much optimization, it seems to be working fairly well. When I have more time to devote to it, I'll be able to spend more time optimizing our ad campaign and explore other methods of marketing.

<comment><USER10> Can you share some basic marketing numbers?

What price range is your PPC? What % of clicks convert? What is your customer's total lifetime value?

Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> The average CPC for last month was around $4.21. The conversion rate was around 4.86%. I don't feel comfortable giving away the CLV, but it's considerably higher than the cost of acquisition.

<comment><USER11> What is your daily or monthly budget for PPC? What beneficial adjustments have you made since starting your campaign?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Are you funded? Where are you based? How many employees?

<comment><AUTHOR> The company is bootstrapped, based in New York City, NY and I'm currently the only employee.

</comment></comment><comment> clark-kent What is your technology stack?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ruby on Rails, Node.js, MySQL and MongoDB

<comment><USER13> Do you think the business would have worked if Node.js and MongoDB were not available, or are they absolutely essential to your core business?

<comment><AUTHOR> Node.js and MongoDB are not essential to the core business. I just chose to use them because they made my life somewhat easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> clark-kent How long did it take you from idea to launch?

<comment><AUTHOR> Related to: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2832865>

It's hard to say when the initial idea came about, but it probably existed in some form or another for 6-8 months before launching although no action was taken until around a month or two before launch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> How did you get your first customer? How much of your time (%) is marketing vs. sys admin vs. coding vs business?

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to work for another company called Motionbox which offered a similar service in addition to a more youtube style type service. Motionbox was sold to SnapFish/HP. SnapFish, for whatever reason, was only interested in acquiring the youtube style customers. That left all of the commercial, paying, customers available. We made a bid to buy them from Motionbox and the bid was accepted. We then gave the customers the option to migrate all of their videos to SproutVideo and become customers. Around 200 made the transition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How did you get your first set of customers? After those were done, how did you get your second set? What marketing, if any, did you do to get those customers? How much time did it take to get them? Did the standard stuff work "AdWords, etc" or did you need to do more innovative stuff to get them?

</comment><comment><USER16> How did you handle the terms and conditions? Did you have to go to a lawyer? If it was just stander boiler plate, where did you get it?</comment>


Pixel Map Generator - <AUTHOR> http://pixelmap.amcharts.com/ <comment><USER2> i wonder what its doing. it seems both really slow and like a really fun to optimise problem...

<comment><USER3> I noticed that too; it takes like 10 seconds to generate a "pixelized" (it's still vector graphics, isn't it?) map that I can't imagine taking more than a couple milliseconds to rasterize.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That is really cool and would come in handy for generating data visualizations. But I think it needs to have added attributes for the latitude and longitude of the center of each circle.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice. One thing though, choosing a country and setting the color for water also makes neighbouring countries that color, as if a country suddenly becomes an island.

</comment><comment><USER6> How can this be so slow? It can't be that hard.

</comment><comment><USER7> Singapore is missing in the map</comment>


Rand Paul: Apple Deserves Apology From U.S. Gov't [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/video/paul-apple-deserves-apology-from-u-s-gov-t-F1tGWOowSvqtcr2bj1Fd9g.html

<comment><USER3> I agree with Rand. It's the duty of the CEO and other executives at any company to maximize return on investment for their shareholders. If Apple executives were to voluntarily increase their tax payments - <USER2> decreasing profits - they would not be properly executing their office and duties. This is especially true when their competitors choose to maintain the legal advantage.

The entire hearing is a farce and should have been reversed: citizens of the US grilling legislators about why they implemented tax laws so poorly that exploitation of loopholes is common practice. I think many of us have suspicions as to why this is the case.

<comment><USER4> And then later on they ask for a Tax Holiday to repatriate the funds. All perfectly legal, right?

Why are tax laws implemented so poorly? Could it be because companies like Apple have pressured for thge congress for a shitpile of loopholes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ahh yes, the "job creator" myth of low taxes. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g></comment>


Xkcd: Two Years - <AUTHOR> http://xkcd.com/1141/ <comment><USER2> "They were big years."

Perhaps the best summary one could achieve.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh yes...</comment></comment>


Followup on "IQ-boosting exercise": Cognitivefun, my website for cognitive exercises - <AUTHOR>

I have been working on a general purpose site for cognitive tests, for informational purposes and out of interest. It's also the first thing I thought of doing after learning some Flash.
One of the tests I decided to include initially is an n-back task variant; as per http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=176264 , NewScientist wrote about a recent publication using an n-back task, so I thought I should demo while it's still fresh in memory. Forgive its simplicity (and again, it is a variant), but as always, I'd love to hear your feedback.
http://cognitivefun.net <comment><AUTHOR> Since this didn't survive the front page I'll just add stuff in case somebody drops by later.

A simple variant of the n-back task (adjustable between 2 to 5-back) is here: <http://cognitivefun.net/test/4> Test 1 is a classical reaction time test.

I haven't had time to think of how to track and display progress, so it just loads the stats. Suggestions are welcome. If Test 4 is stable I'll be working on other tests, like interference tests and counting and such.

<comment><USER2> Well, that was bad luck. With the interest shown in the article I would expect greater success. I would submit myself with a direct url and a title that mentions "n-back test" in particular but I don't want to step on your toes. Meanwhile I am off to test your site.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Posting to a personal blog vs submitting guest posts? - <AUTHOR> Posting to my personal blog can feel like shouting into the void, so I'm trying to figure out if there's a smarter way to go about this.<p>I have several draft blog posts written and I'm trying to decide whether to post them to my personal site or try to submit them as guest posts to an established blog with an audience. Has anyone had success (in terms of exposure/traffic not money) writing guest posts for a major dev blog, e.g. Hackernoon, CSS Tricks, freeCodeCamp? Any advice on how to think about this? <comment> code-faster Posting both on your own blog and others is called "blog syndication", it's a common practice that's googleable.</comment>


Stripe launches German beta - <AUTHOR> https://stripe.com/global#germany <comment><USER2> Great to see the acceleration of roll out of counties ! DE does have lower CC usage, but I think it will be more use for DE businesses operating internationally to accept in EUR & USD. btw. I threw together a handy tool for calculating the cost of a transaction. [http://www.blackdog.ie/stripe/](http://www.blackdog.ie/stripe/)

 _edit : clarity_

<comment><USER3> Completely off-topic - but why does a consultancy company in Munich have a .ie domain? :-)

<comment><USER2> Because I'm Irish.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's astonishing how quick they can expand something as complicated as payment processing to many - bigger and smaller - countries in Europe.

<comment><USER5> One you get into one EU country, dealing with other EU countries is probably quite a bit easier...

<comment><USER6> Especially if that first country is Germany, as they're one of the economic powerhouses of the EU.

<comment><USER7> They were already in beta in the Netherlands for a while actually.

Given that we're quite similar to Germany except for being a bit more focussed on international trade, we might have been a test run for German deployment though.

<comment><USER8> Ireland was the first Eurozone country to enter Stripe beta, UK was the first EU.

<comment><USER9> Ireland is in the EU and uses the euro. UK is also in the EU but uses GBP.

<comment><USER10> Isn't that exactly what Kudos said?

<comment><USER9> Ah yes a little confusion has taken over on my part. Ireland is in the EU and the eurozone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just got accepted into the Australia Beta, its working awesome.

<comment><USER12> D'oh, I had no idea, and here I am already having spent months talking to NAB in order to charge USD and support AMEX. Stripe seems a lot cheaper too in terms of fees.

Stripe AU supports AMEX and USD charges, right?

<comment><USER13> Stripe AU supports AMEX (as well as Visa and MasterCard!), but is currently only for AUD charges. We are actively working on adding USD support, and hope to roll it out soon. Email me @ email@example.com if you would like a beta invite.

<comment><USER12> Thanks thairu, patrick has sent me an invite.

USD charging is definitely essential for SaaS selling to the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To those who say "I almost went with PayMill, thank god Stripe is here now" don't forget that PayMill features _direct debit_. Depending on who your customers are this might be an important feature for you!

<comment><USER14> Direct debit can easily done by creating some CSV-style file without additional charges using FinTS/HBCI.

For most SaaS/e-product models "direct debit" is not an option because a customer can do a refund without a reason for at least 6 weeks. It also has no CVV2, so you can just abuse some charity bank details for a direct debit purchase. Good luck dealing with fraud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sadly Germans hate credit cards.

<comment><USER16> Credit card usage is somewhat lower in Germany (though by a smaller margin than people think), and we considered holding off 'till we had a better answer to this. But we thought about it more, and talked to a bunch of German companies, and realized that a lot of German users want to sell to a _global_ market in the very same way that, say, an American company would -- there isn't necessarily a tight coupling between the geography of your customers and the geography of your business. (This is what's great about the internet!) Travis CI is a good example here.

Seen this way, we figured it made sense to bring the capabilities that US users have today to Germany as quickly as we could.

<comment><USER17> I just signed up for PayMill yesterday, but didn't send them the paperwork yet. I might as well sign up for Stripe then.

<comment><USER18> Same here, the paperwork will be left undone as it looks...!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I can see a vast majority here are very positive on this news. Just wonder in areas that are yet to be covered by Stripe, what are you guys using? Also, I recall a few months ago PayPal introduced a revamped set of APIs which claims to be more developer friendly. Anybody cares to chime in on that front?

<comment><USER20> We use Paymill for which we're very satisfied with. The initial paperwork isn't fun, but the experience is much better than all previous options for EU companies..

I believe that PayPal's new API is only available for american merchants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you guys usually just use Stripe API directly or do you use some kind of middleman (e.g. spreedly.com)?

</comment><comment><USER21> This is fantastic news for german startups. I wish Stripe can expand to more countries around the world faster!

Anyone knows how easy would it be for them to expand to Dubai for example?

</comment><comment><USER22> Any plans for Stripe to serve startups based in South Africa?

<comment><USER13> South Africa is on our roadmap, but have no current ETA for when it will be available. Please sign up at [https://stripe.com/global](https://stripe.com/global) to be notified when we launch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> According to the linked site they seem to be in Beta also in France, Belgium and Netherlands. I think I lost those announces in the past weeks. Congrats!

<comment><USER24> Indeed, I just received my invite for the Belgian beta

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Honest question to everybody:

Would you trust your financial data (= growth data, etc.) to a company like Paymill that's owned by a clone factory (i.e. the Samwers') or do you think that's being paranoid?

EDIT: I wasn't asking for downvotes, I was asking for rational comments, explanations, thoughts.

<comment><USER26> Well, Paymill is German and Stripe is based in the US, so from a trust viewpoint, I'd go with Paymill, maybe their customer data gets fleeced a bit less by the NSA than Stripe's.

<comment><USER16> Stripe has never participated in any kind of government surveillance program. Quite the opposite -- we're trying to figure out new ways to protect our users: [https://stripe.com/blog/towards- transparency](https://stripe.com/blog/towards-transparency). As CEO, I'll do everything in my power to make sure that that remains the case. If you follow me on Twitter (I'm @patrickc), you'll notice that I'm no fan of this stuff.

<comment><USER26> Just to make this clear, I don't doubt your personal integrity.

However, I have lost faith in the ability of US-based companies using US-fiber and US datacenters to protect against NSA snooping.

I am not naive - I have no doubt that German fiber is monitored as well, but afaik LE could gain access to your servers and serve you a gag order - something they could not do over here.

So, my comment was in no way specific to Stripe - I don't trust Google or Apple either.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, I think that's generally reasonable, and I totally see where you're coming from. (Though I do believe that even though we're in the US, Stripe will do a better job of guarding the privacy of our customers than the vast majority companies.)

Having said that, in the particular domain of electronic payments, I think that meaningful privacy is (sadly) a mostly unattainable goal: it seems safe to assume that the card companies themselves collaborate with all kinds of surveillance. Given that everything ultimately becomes a transaction on those networks, what happens at the edges matters less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does Stripe deal with scoring and fraud prevention etc. or do I have to implement my own countermeasures?

</comment><comment><USER28> Any schedule yet for Switzerland?

<comment><USER29> UBS allows you to open a bank account in Germany and connect it to a Swiss account. You can setup automatic transmission of money from German account to Swiss account every 15 minutes or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Just curious, does Stripe's recent expansion have any impact on US companies using Stripe? Can Stripe now process German and UK customer credit cards for US companies, or was that already available?

<comment><USER31> I'm pretty sure that any Visa/MC can be processed at Stripe, regardless of location. Country specific cards, like Diner's Club and others may require extra effort by the processing companies, and sometimes lead to higher costs. But can generally still be processed.

Moral of the story is anyone anywhere can buy something from a US company using Stripe on their credit card.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Congrats to Stripe team. They have done a really good job, I find since they get it work in UK, they are expanding in a very fast pace for now (y) Hope it will come to Northen EU soon :)

<comment><USER13> Northern Europe is on our roadmap. Please sign up at [https://stripe.com/global](https://stripe.com/global) to be notified when we launch there

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I just signed up. There is no setting for Germany in the account details, just United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

</comment><comment><USER34> What's so great about Stripe? What does it do that other payment processors don't? I don't get it.

<comment><USER35> It's developer-friendly, very fast to get started and doesn't require a merchant account.

<comment><USER34> Ah, cool thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I was just about to go with Paymill. It's great to have one more option. Now the rest of Europe please.

<comment><USER28> What speaks against Paymill? Are there any problems with them? They support a lot more countries than Stripe right now.

Edit: Just read that its from the Samwers. Might be enough to wait for Stripe then.

<comment><USER37> When I tried to use them, they required me to mail in a bunch of paperwork. Stripe doesn't.

<comment><USER38> How does Stripe get away without the paperwork?

<comment><USER37> That's what I'm wondering too. They require zero paperwork, though, and Paymill did tell me that the paperwork they sent me was mandatory for all money-processing companies.

<comment><USER39> Stripe collects information from you before you can start using it -- you'll see us ask for this when you go to activate your account. But we've worked to make it as quick, painless and sensible as possible.

The sign-up process is part of the product, and we treat it that way. Onerous paperwork is not an inevitability.

<comment><USER37> Well, I don't even remember you asking for it, so you must be doing something right. On the other hand, all I remember about Paymill is that they asked me for the info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> What criteria is Stripe looking for to get in the beta? Anyone know?

<comment><USER16> No criteria per se -- everyone is welcome. We're just rate-limiting it a bit to make sure that everyone has a good experience.

<comment><USER41> I've just sent my "notify me", but the response left me a little uncertain: "We'll get back to you as soon as we launch in Germany.".

So... is this what I need to do to get into the beta? Or is there something else I need to do?

<comment><USER16> Good point; we'll update that wording.

<comment><USER41> Thanks - uhm... so... since I won't see that message, I still need to know whether I'm now in line for being considered as a beta tester? ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Any plans for Latin American countries?

</comment><comment><USER43> Oh hallelujah!

</comment><comment><USER44> Is 3D Secure supported?

</comment><comment><USER45> Fun to see stripe in europe, however in europe almost nobody pays by card, or let alone: even owns a credit card.

We pay by baking systems such as Ideal (in the netherlands).

<comment><USER46> Debit cards are quite prevalent here, rather than Credit i'd say.

<comment><USER47> Actually most people speak about credit card when they actually mean a debit one.

<comment><USER48> We refer to a "bank card" when we mean debit and "credit card" when we mean credit. YMMV :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Should you pay to present to investors? - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to present my product (www.formlis.com) to investors. I'm in Calgary and the only places I've found (Alberta Deal Generator & Venture Alberta) charge fees: $1,500  and $2,000 respectively.<p>I understand that investor time is valuable, but is this standard practice? <comment><USER2> Pay to pitch events are evil, they are a business source for the event management team and add no value to the entrepreneur or the investor as there is no filter on quality....the best way to run pitch events is for the event management team to engage with entrepreneurs and to filter on quality.... They can't be invcentivised by entrance fees!!!

</comment><comment><USER3> It's not standard practice at all. Never pay to pitch.

[http://eu.techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/heres-how-to-meet-a- vc-h...](http://eu.techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/heres-how-to-meet-a-vc-hint-not- by-paying-to-pitch/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the quick responses, I had doubts that payment would lead to meeting real investors. Its disheartening to find places that advertise to help you, and then at the last page of the sign up mention enormous fees. I'll have to work other connections then.

Thank you very much.</comment>


YouTube's live TV service is now available for Apple TV devices - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16961904/youtube-tv-apple-availability-roku-streaming-service-app <comment><USER2> It's a pretty great product IMO -- I just cut the cord, they have enough of the sports content I didn't need cable anymore.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, just heard that they got on Roku's platform earlier today, this is a huge move for YouTube!</comment>