ICOs and VCs - <AUTHOR> https://avc.com/2017/06/icos-and-vcs/ <comment><USER5> >The investors who bought your token, like public market investors, may be gone tomorrow, next month, or next year, having moved on to the next big thing, leaving you with little to show for it other than the money you raised.

Oh boy...

>VCs, at leas the best ones, are there for your company in good times and bad. There is a difference, trust me.

This part made me laugh so bad, my entire body hurts. Now, I know pretty well who he is, thus why he may not realize how much bad VCs hurt the industry, especially when a vast number does exactly what he said: leaving as soon as there are any signs of trouble. And I know that from experience.

Now, do I always agree with ICOs? Not really, selling promises that particular way is bound to lead up to some disappointment from one side or the other. But they are perfectly valid to fund yourself if your service, your core business model can be compartmentalized that way. As he said: "The token that you sell in your ICO is the atomic unit of your business model."

<comment><USER6> I'm a VC, so I'm definitely biased here.

On the one hand, I want to be a good person and to do the right thing, so I do my best to be one of the good VCs and not one of the bad ones. (I.e. I don't leave when things get bad.)

On the other hand, when VCs leave at the first sign of trouble, why is that so terrible? I think giving bad advice -- advice that a lot of founders will listen to because they often assume a VC knows what they're talking about -- is much more dangerous. If a VC gives bad advice, that can sink a company that could've been successful otherwise. If a VC walks away or stops being involved, then that seems much closer to neutral than to bad. They no longer try to help, but so what? You have their investment and that is valuable by itself -- especially compared to not having had an investment in the first place.

As an analogy, let's say you go to a doctor for a rare medical condition. They suggest a few treatments, and none work. They're out of ideas. Would you rather a) have them walk away so that you can look for another doctor or try to educate yourself on your condition, or b) have them keep seeing you and either wasting your time or giving you dangerous prescriptions?

<comment><USER7> There is massive bias for VC's to believe they have enormous value that cannot be obtained other ways. This is disruption in real time, disrupting the very people who believed they themselves are the disrupters, and it's making them very scared. Imagine devoting your life, climbing the ladder, becoming a VC partner, having entrepreneurs begging to speak with you, and seemingly overnight a new model exists that makes you obsolete. Very scary.

However, I think VC can stay around as "gold star" supporters who vouch for authenticity of a company before opening up to widespread investment and get some of the tokens in return.

Even if this ICO craze dies, I think the cat is out of the bag, and being able to raise funds globally and instantly is simply too good to pass up.

<comment><USER6> I agree that there's a lot of disruption and innovation happening on the capital side. AngelList syndicates were already doing that before ICOs. But the advisory side is not really being disrupted so far, afaik.

What I do like about all of the innovations on the capital side is that over time, I think they'll drive inferior/shitty VCs out of business. Most founders would prefer to work with Sequoia to using an ICO or AngelList, but ICOs/AngelList are better than SomeRandomFundWithCrappyAdvice. So the SRFWCAs will go out of business over time, but I think the Sequoias will do just fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This whole ICO affair will not end well. Here is a guy complaining about not being able to buy the BATs at the crowdsale: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/6efsc8/bat_ico_w...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/6efsc8/bat_ico_whalesale_completely_against_the_ethos_of/) \- this is a serious gold rush attitude. Those people don't seem to understand that most (9 for 10 some say) startups fail.

And the tokens they are buying is just a promise - they don't bind the company to do any thing. The company promises to use the BAT token in their future monetization model - but in fact they can pivot at any point, like many (if not most) startup do, and do something else, or maybe even do yet another ICO with another token. And that is on top of all the problems with crowdfunding - where even if there is a legal binding, and maybe a fractionary ownership - without all the regulations that were invented to protect the investors - <USER2> founders/executives still can do anything with the money they received from the funding event: [https://medium.com/@zby/the-problem-with- crowdfunding-81b53f...](https://medium.com/@zby/the-problem-with- crowdfunding-81b53f963387)

Update: Even if now most ICO creators are honest - then soon they'll be crowded out by scammers, because honest funders will find other ways to fund their starups - but for scammers it will never be easier than with ICOs.

<comment><USER9> I wrote a similar article on the difference between ICOs and VC investment. In short, the investor gets much less in an ICO:

[https://medium.com/p/why-icos-are-very-different-than- seed-c...](https://medium.com/p/why-icos-are-very-different-than-seed- capital-a59e4c78b84a)

<comment> mck- Great primer on ICOs - thanks for enlightening me :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ico's seem to primarily be a way to get around securities regulation, and I suspect that someone is going to get prosecuted for it eventually.

<comment><USER11> Doubly so since a large percentage of them seem to be thinly veiled scam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Fred's not a dumb guy, even though I never agreed with his Android over iOS statements (Android first, etc). I think he's smart and to him, my opinion doesn't matter, I'm sure.

However, vc is a hundreds, if not thousands of years old. Fine tuned and tweaked in the 80's on to the dot com and thru facebook & google and beyond.

ICO is just a few years old - it's typical for the disrupted to not feel threatened until it's too late. This, in my mind, is the real model going forward. Fuck pandering to Sand Hill road or SV at all - launch an ICO from anywhere in the world on your whitepaper and testnet (shaky???) dev...

ICO's may seem ridic, but this is just the beginning. We are now running at internet speed and there's gonna be a point (soon? who knows when) where this stuff is going to all be automated and 24 seconds will seem quaint.

Welcome to high frequency funding.

</comment><comment><USER13> VCs don't like ICOs because they expose how irrational raising money is. They hamper the whole narrative of VCs being "experts" when the truth is it's all a casino financed by the Fed. VCs are used to controlling the narrative of WHY a company deserves money.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hey, we could sell equity in our company for money....or we could give out gift certificates (tokens) and keep all the equity. Sure, as soon as we've got all the dummies money, the incentives will massively shift for us so that we're better off doing a new ICO than building anything, but they won't notice. Who cares if distributed systems are an overhead and not an efficiency, we can all get rich!

<comment><USER15> If you sell the equity for money only certified investors are allowed to invest. You now also have a investor whose word carries some weight on your company. The latter might be good or bad depending on the investor and your personal view/attitude and situation.

<comment><USER16> > _If you sell the equity for money only certified investors are allowed to > invest. You now also have a investor whose word carries some weight on your > company._

Finance types are a creative bunch. The industry has spent a good amount of time trying to poke holes in securities regulation since the 1930s. Regulators and prosecutors have expended a similar deal of effort suturing the loopholes.

The thread interfering with your idea is the symmetry between securities purchased for cash and securities purchased with "services rendered". Securities regulators and the IRS take a broad view of the latter. The former would likely be more vigilant if unaccredited investors [1] were "buying" these tokens, and even more so if such transactions were taking place next to accredited investors getting _bona fide_ stock.

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answers- accredhtm.html](https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answers-accredhtm.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I read it and still have no clue what is it about, what"ICO" stands for. Never explained

<comment><USER5> Initial Coin Offering. Like an IPO but not quite, you're not selling securities after all, and they may not pay any dividends, you're simply selling a token you can trade with others that may be exchanged for a service by the company that provided them later on. I expect them to raise a lot of uncomfortable questions in a near future.

<comment><USER18> Coinbase published results of some legal research on ICO legalities. They say tokens that can be exchanged for services are relatively safe. Some ICO tokens actually pay dividends, and that's a little dicier.

There are various other criteria. If it's a fully automatic system already deployed on the blockchain, that's lower risk than a coin whose value depends on company performance.

[https://blog.coinbase.com/2016-12-07-blockchain-token- securi...](https://blog.coinbase.com/2016-12-07-blockchain-token-securities- law-a66ef03c383f)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > VCs, at leas the best ones, are there for your company in good times and > bad. There is a difference, trust me.

This is backwards. Raising via an ICO mean no VC can ever push you out as CEO or take control of your company. Their priority is making the company get to a big exit, with or without you. When Ev was running Twitter, Fred wasn't a fan of his and had not problem plotting behind his back with Jack and eventually pushing him out.

<comment><USER20> Can you site any of this?

<comment><USER21> Not OP, but read the book 'Hatching Twitter,' most of it is in there.

<comment><USER19> Yes, it's all detailed in Hatching Twitter which is written by a NY Times columnist. Basically, when Ev was CEO, the board told him to his face he was doing a fantastic job. He had turned around the product org and gotten user growth back on track. At the same time, Fred and a few of the other investors met secretly with Jack and came up with a plan to push Ev out and, bring Jack back with Dick Costolo as interim CEO.

Excerpt from the book after Ev was told he was out:

Williams, stunned, picked up the phone and began dialing. Bijan Sabet was apologetic and insisted that they wanted to keep him on in a product-advisory role. According to several people at the company, Fred Wilson, however, said he thought Williams had always been a terrible C.E.O. "I never considered you a founder," he said. "Jack founded Twitter."

Other portfolio investments of his have followed a similar pattern of having the original CEO pushed out once they get to a certain level of success.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I really dont understand the value behind ICOs.

\- there is no guarantee of limited supply of tokens ( no promise that BAT will be limited )

\- there is no guarantee that company will not come up with secondary token (ex: advanced attention token)

\- Also there is no indication of what 1 BAT will get you. All calculations etc subject to change

<comment><USER8> I have not checked it - but there probably is a guarantee of limited supply - the contract that generated them is already in the Ethereum blockchain and it cannot be changed.

<comment><USER23> > "he contract that generated them is already in the Ethereum blockchain and > it cannot be changed."

Unless another hard fork kicks in and multiple truths exist?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thread-starter here.

I have raised VC, PE, and debt. Early-stage and late stage. Here's my take on "ICO vs VC."

ICO's:

For the investor, they are akin to commodity futures trading. The underlying value of the token is nil, as is the degree of control over the underlying property. But returns from price speculation can be very rich.

For the issuer, they have the money virtually without strings attached. There is no other form of assistance and no loyalty implied in either direction.

For example, I'd be shocked if there were positive "operational" returns from a token like the Brave coin. For that to happen, Google, Facebook, and the rest of the ad industry would have to grant sanction to the vendor of a Chromium-based browser startup yo turn the entire industry on its side. I doubt it. Seriously.

VCs:

For the investor, they get some modicum of ownership and control of the underlying property – sometimes not much but usually a lot. There is an implied responsibility to help with follow-on funding, but nothing solid. The investment is risky but not speculative.

For the issuer (of preferred shares AKA the company), they get the money with all kinds of strings attached. If the VC is top-tier (e.g., Fred, Kleiner, NEA, etc.), significant branding, easy intros, and many other benefits can accrue. If the VC is less prestigious, the operational impact is more neutral. (No VC can make your company grow or be successful – that's on you.)

My opinion:

1\. If I could pull off an "ICO" (bad name) at my next company, I'd do it immediately. Great upside and little downside.

2\. I say "immediately" because I don't think that this vehicle will last long in its current unregulated state. There will be failures. There are enemies. There will be evil deeds (fraud), and those deeds will involve unaccredited investors.

3\. The ICO will be a short-term speed bump to VCs.

4\. That all said, who wants to join me and start an "ICO production" company to create the coins and infrastructure for them to do their own ICOs? Speed is life, and I know some VCs... :)

<comment><USER24> >> an "ICO production" company to create the coins and infrastructure for them to do their own ICOs?

Isn't that what Ethereum is for?

<comment><AUTHOR> >> Isn't that what Ethereum is for?

Sure, but Ethereum is a tool. An ICO is the result of a process.

My thesis is that many companies, large and small, could benefit from an ICO...and that the majority of these know little about ICOs, Ethereum, or the relevant government regulations.

The newco would present the following offer to the prospective customer: --We will ready you for a legal ICO within xx weeks. To do this, we will help you define the unit-of-value for your token and then put all systems, paperwork, and processes in place for the ICO. In return, we will receive coins worth nn% of the ICO as a success fee.--

This is a novel variation of an investment-banker play. Over time, large parts of the process could be systematized in software. Much of the ICO scene is scary and wild. [0] Pathfinders might be valued in this wilderness.

These are my raw and unvetted thoughts.

[0] [https://www.ico-list.com/](https://www.ico-list.com/)

<comment><USER24> What will the tokens represent? Will it be an equivalent of company shares or something else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The BAT ICO is not a success story. It shows how f*cked up the current coin markets are. 4 people saved >50% of coins. They are not interested in the company (how can they communicate huh?) they want to sell quickly when the coin hits Poloniex. VCs are not over. The VC advantage derives from the real world experience and connections they can provide. Also no VC ever would have invested in BAT itself. Everyone knows, if there is an adtech revolution, it will come from Google and Facebook not an adblock browser producer.

<comment><USER26> Because so many revolutions that were initiated by huge incumbents instead of upstarts...

<comment><USER25> Your "upstart" does not stand a chance against Googles and Facebooks wallets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I just don't understand this.

A national currency is an irredeemable medium of exchange, made valuable because it's -- by law -- exempt from capital gains tax (it measures capital gain), and because it's been given legal tender status.

Why would anyone trade an irredeemable currency issued by a private corporation? "Currency" is surely a misnomer, because no one would want to buy or sell goods and services in exchange for it, which makes it more like irredeemable equity, which makes no sense either.

<comment><USER28> Why do you buy tokens at the arcade?

<comment><USER27> Because I can use them to buy something in the arcade, at a price I can check for reasonability beforehand.

What can I buy using the Basic Attention Token? And at what price?

<comment><USER29> Advertisers will buy ads with it. Publishers will collect most of that spend. Users will get some too. The value will fluctuate but all currency does that.

<comment><USER30> Except for a small problem: None of that will happen.

Nobody will switch from Chrome, Safari or Firefox to the "Brave Browser" in order to have ads injected into their browsing session.

The concept is so fundamentally ridiculous that I can't even muster pity for the people who sunk their money into this scam.

<comment><USER29> I use Brave, and there's about a half million other people who are using it too. What I guess you really mean is not that "nobody" will switch, but that "everyone" won't. So it's just a matter of market size, which I agree - we'll see.

<comment><USER16> Out of curiosity, why did you start using the Brave browser?

<comment><USER29> Mostly because I wanted to get the (faster browsing) benefits of ad blocking, without feeling like I'm stealing from the sites I visit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> VCs are actually very interested to play a part in this new form of financing. I live in the Bay Area and have been talking to friends in VCs - from my understanding, it's legally risky for them to directly invest in ICOs and they are putting money in other funds that can invest in ICOs like Polychain - <USER3> is truly an exciting time!

Also, how else you think BAT sells so fast if it wasn't for institutional money

</comment><comment><USER32> To give an example of the current insanity of ICOs, take a look at the terms & conditions for a recent token sale - <USER4> [https://patientory.com/](https://patientory.com/) :

[https://patientory.com/token-sale-terms.pdf](https://patientory.com/token- sale-terms.pdf)

 _Ownership of PTOY carries no rights, express or implied, other than the right to use PTOY as a means to obtain Services, and to enable usage of and interaction with the Platform, if successfully completed and deployed. In particular, you understand and accept that PTOY do not represent or confer any ownership right, stake, share, security, or equivalent rights, or any right to receive future revenue shares, intellectual property rights, or any other form of participation in or relating to the Platform, and /or Foundation and its corporate affiliates, other than rights relating to the receipt of Services and use of the Platform, subject to limitations and conditions in these Terms and applicable Platform Terms and Policies (as defined below). PTOY are not intended to be a digital currency, security, commodity, or any other kind of financial instrument._

So.. by buying the tokens, you are getting, nothing, basically.

 _You have a sufficient understanding of the functionality, usage, storage, transmission mechanisms, and other material characteristics of cryptographic tokens like Bitcoin and Ether, token storage mechanisms (such as token wallets), blockchain technology, and blockchain-based software systems to understand these Terms and to appreciate the risks and implications of purchasing PTOY;_

You've also got to fully understand blockchains.

 _You have carefully reviewed the code of the Smart Contract System located on the Ethereum blockchain at the addresses set forth in Exhibit B and fully understand and accept the functions implemented therein;_

You've also got to be an expert programmer fluent in all ethereum's security weaknesses, plus you better have a disassembler handy to reverse engineer their compiled code (they don't provide any source code - plus, 'Exhibit B' doesn't event give the contract address anyway)

 _You are not purchasing PTOY for any other purposes, including, but not limited to, any investment, speculative, or other financial purposes;_

Sure, sure. That's why people are buying these things, right?

It goes on... you also agree to indemnify the company against everything, all warranties are disclaimed, no liabilities can be held against them, you waive your rights to legal actions against the company, or any class actions (you must agree to arbitration). Oh, and they naturally reserve the right to modify these terms at any time without notice.

No-one in their right mind would agree to these kind of terms, and yet they are common across many ICOs. It is madness. And I haven't even mentioned their proposed application (healthcare on the blockchain) which is dumb in so many other ways.

<comment><USER33> Hi joosters,

I work for Patientory. Please explain why the application -- which is not proposed, but has actually been in development for 16 months -- is dumb. After all, it only has the potential to make data breaches in healthcare organizations a figment of the distant past, reduce health IT costs, and provide a universal medical record that's unhackable.

At your service, Michael

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've heard some people complain about GNO's dutch auction style offering, but only generically. Dutch auction seems like a good option for highly- anticipated coins like BAT. Does anybody have insight into why the dutch auction style isn't more widely used?

<comment><USER25> Gnosis is now owned to an extend of >90% by the Gnosis team themselves. This is why Dutch Auction is not used more broadly. It doesn't help with any of this.

<comment><USER34> That seems more like a flaw with the individual offering than with the concept of the dutch auction. Did team only release a small percentage of the coins in the auction or did they just bet more than everyone else?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> VCs drag you into mainstream orthodoxies in order to be able to do an IPO on Wall Street. With ICOs around, who would put up with VCs again?

</comment><comment><USER36> How does prevent fraud..maybe just some types? I dunno about this..</comment>


Ask HN: Scaling a tech team - <AUTHOR> Hey HN.
I need some help!
I am tech lead for a small team consisting of 3 engineers. We've been bootstrapping everything for the past 2 years but the business is showing promising signs of growth and has secured a solid round of investment. Based on KPIs etc we expect to hire an additional 10-15 developers over the next 12 months. I have never led a team of 15.
I have not scaled a team, been responsible for cultivating a good tech culture, establishing core values and disciplines, keeping team moral high, reminding people of what our mission is here and why we come to work each day, attracting talent, interviewing candidates and so on..
It would be amazing if I could get some advice for the next 12 months and share with me their experiences and learnings.
Cheers :) <comment><USER2> > cultivating a good tech culture, establishing core values and disciplines, > keeping team moral high, reminding people of what our mission > is...attracting talent

Solid outline of the challenges you face-- suggest developing a reading program in each area to gain a base level knowledge.

Goldsmith is interesting on Motivation & Morale, which is often misunderstood. If you read nothing else, Chapter 11: Empowering Others, is golden > [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13236274-paid-to- think](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13236274-paid-to-think)

On attracting talent & interviewing, Geoff Smart has the best introduction on the hiring process and score-carding candidates > [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4989687-who?from_search=t...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4989687-who?from_search=true)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much!</comment></comment>


Why time seems to speed up as we get older - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2015/12/30/10690560/time-speed-accelerate-age-new-year <comment><USER2> I remember reading an intuitive explanation of this effect. Separate from the three reasons provided in the article.

Basically it goes like this- our perception of time is relative to the memories we have. At any given moment, we have a finite space to conceptualize time, and the size of this space is fixed our whole life.

As a two year old, you have only two years of memories spread across the entire expanse of your fixed time-space, but as a twenty year old you have ten times as many, crammed into the same conceptual space so to speak. So when youre older each memory occupies a shorter piece of space and with shorter memories time feels faster.

Put another way, if we were to allow ourselves 60 seconds (or some fixed amount) to conceive and flip through all our memories, time would seem to pass a lot faster the more memories we had.

</comment><comment><USER3> When you're 10, 1 year is 10% of your life. When you're 50, 1 year is just 2%.

<comment><USER4> I agree, we tend to remember time compared to the time-span that we have during our life. There is a profound difference when a year lasts 10% of your life compared to when it lasts 2% of your life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How do you slow it down?</comment>


New distributed fault-tolerant cloud provider u2601 - <AUTHOR> http://u2601.com/

<comment><USER2> Works in IE, FF, chrome, and even on iOS! The clouds look different in each browser.

It kinda reminds me of zombo.com!

<comment><AUTHOR> It all depends on your system font: <http://www.marathon- studios.com/unicode/U2601/Cloud>

I also didn't use any frameworks or vendor prefixes.. should be all standards compliant cloud action :D

The zombo.com references is the highest of praise in my book. I might re-make zombo.com as HTML5 sometime..

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can't wait until the page title trick makes its way to the next revision of the Azure Management Portal.

</comment><comment><USER4> Haha, man... I actually had this open in a tab for a while waiting for it to load.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you check out the page title on the tab? u2601 provides background support, continuing to provide you with a cloud platform.

<comment><USER5> On Chrome, the tab's title is an animated cloud moving across a line..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> HTML5 standards-based and open platform for clouds. ;) Note: there were no images or jQuery used to produce this toy.

</comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for making my day :)</comment>


Free Printed Copies of "Version Control by Example" - <AUTHOR> http://www.ericsink.com/entries/vcbe_print_edition_free.html <comment><USER2> What a great idea. Will future updates be available as well? Perhaps in a DVCS for easy access?

I'd be a happy man if ALL tech books lived in a DVCS. Users could fork it, push updates, fixes, etc. and the author could integrate changes as they see fit. No more searching for errata URLs, simply update your repository.

I'd even pay for this.

A great example of where this idea could be really useful is with Linux books like 'Linux Device Drivers', or 'Understanding the Linux Kernel'. These books are often out of date at the time they're published. I'd happily pay for access to them in a repository somewhere.

This is not unlike how the Pragmatic Bookshelf (<http://pragprog.com/)works> today with the exception that you have to wait for new book versions to become available, then regenerate them in your e-version format of choice. It'd be much more useful if the community of users could contribute back to the book source repository at their leisure.

<comment><USER3> There are these things called wikis... some books are even published that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd love to request a copy, but the District of Columbia is not an option in the state field. I know we're not technically a state, but we're still people!

I actually have this problem more often than I should. It is especially painful when I'm trying to _pay_ for a product. Tip to all web developers: Make sure DC is an option in your signup/order forms.

<comment><USER5> I just wanted to make sure none of those crooks in Congress got a free copy of my book, but I keep forgetting that other people live there too.

:-)

Seriously, sorry for the oversight. We'll fix this.

<comment><USER6> Why you are not offering a paid eBook format? I am sure people would like to pay you for the eBook version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Heck, people often pay more per click on AdWords than it costs to print and > ship a book.

Wow. Such a great way to spend money, and I think it would get them some great ROI.

(They are launching their new SCM veracity.)

<comment><USER8> I certainly didn't know it existed until now (though I was aware of the book in no-trees-were-harmed form) and we are currently assessing our ongoing needs regarding version control (it works, but we _really_ need to move onto something more modern at some point soon), so they've at least bought a little mindshare here, and I doubt we are at all unique in that regard.

It'll be interesting to see how this works out for them if we get a follow-up article further down the line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Would be great if you guys would report back with a ROI type report on this pr stunt. Wish you all the best!

</comment><comment><USER10> I reside in India. My request went through without a hitch (Opera11.50/Linux).

I think this is great idea for a version control book. I work in a dual-vcs environment (Hg, git - Work, personal)

</comment><comment><USER11> Really great idea. I checked out the ToC before ordering and I like the way it offers a comparison of the major existing version control systems and then includes in the comparison at the end the new version control system. So basically it's useful to anyone who is thinking about moving to a new VCS and "happens to mention" the author's VCS. I'd pay for that any day, but instead I'll just recommend the book to everybody I know... which is probably what they want...

</comment><comment><USER12> I picked up a copy of this book at OSCON a few weeks ago. It's well-written, humorous, and a great overview of Mercurial and Git and a good introduction to Veracity.

If you have been using Mercurial or Git for a while, there won't be much new in here, but it is an enjoyable and quick read. And it could come in handy for converting those holdouts on your team still using Subversion (or, like a few people I work with, no version control at all!).

</comment><comment><USER13> Fantastic! Thanks for doing this because some of our devs barely use SVN in my office and it would be great if they became more aware of the benefits of version control. I've used git on previous projects and love the distributed model, hopefully having this as a good reading option in our office will help improve us all.

</comment><comment><USER14> Smart Bear does the same thing: <http://smartbear.com/best-kept-secrets-of- peer-code-review/> \- I received a free (paper) book after attending a session about peer code review.

I still haven't read the book, but that's a whole different discussion.

</comment><comment><USER15> My request went through (Philippines) :) I hope it comes. I'd like to show my workmates the beauty of version control and what they're missing.

There's a free online version (also PDF) <http://www.ericsink.com/vcbe/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER16> It's worth mentioning that you can also read the book for free online: <http://www.ericsink.com/vcbe/index.html>

Take a look and decide if it's something you like to have in paper form.

</comment><comment><USER17> Since I cannot control-F a book, I'll save a tree and stick with the PDF.

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks like an interesting book. Were you taken to another page when clicking "Request a book"? For me, the page was reloaded and my answers to questions 1-8 were deselected.

<comment><USER19> I got taken to a page saying:

 _"Thank you for requesting a copy of "Version Control by Example".

"Before your request can be processed, you will need to verify your email address. You will be receiving an email from us shortly with instructions to verify your request."_

<comment><USER20> Was that surprising ?

<comment><USER19> Well the person who I replied to said he got no confirmation and the form just reloaded, so I told him that he should see a confirmation page and showed him what to expect. Did you not bother reading the comment I was replying to?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I submitted twice using different browsers and both times the form came back empty except for the address. No sign of any error or missing fields. The PDF will be then.

<comment><USER5> Apologies to folks having difficulty. Book requests are still coming in, so the system is definitely operational. We'll be investigating the problems this morning. For now, my only guess is that it is related to the load, so I suggest you keep trying.

<comment><USER22> Also, under question 2), one has to double-click the textbox following the "Other" choice, in order to give the textbox focus and gain a working insertion point.

You should give the form a good going over. It starts to, erm, not be confidence inspiring.

Nonetheless, looking forward to having a look. I decided to request a dead- tree version as sometimes having one at hand allows me to pay attention at times I otherwise wouldn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Doesn't seem to work, no matter which browser I use. Maybe it doesn't like UK addresses?

<comment><USER8> It didn't seem to complain with my (UK) address, and I got the "confirm your email address" mail through and that link worked fine. This was one or two hours ago though, so there may be a new bug or the page (or the DB behind it) may be under sudden load if the link has hit high volume sites like slashdot.

I'd report it to them if I were you, though _please_ make the bug report much more detailed than "it didn't work"...

<comment><USER23> Don't worry, I filed an extensive bug report, like a true-hacker-style.

<comment><USER8> There is no "hacker style" to filing a good bug report. But I have a bee in my bonnet about bad ones - I often get the equivalent of dropping a car off at the garage for repair with just a note that "it makes a noise".

<comment><USER23> HAHA!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The form seems to be failing to load. Did we break it?

</comment><comment><USER25> firefox on XP here, and I couldn't submit the form either.

</comment><comment><USER26> The author donated an entire box (!) of this book to our students. The book itself is well-written, which is surprising considering that it appears aimed at selling people on Veracity. But, to be fair, after comparing Veracity to Perforce, I am sold on Veracity too. :3

Even if you don't care about enterprisy VCS, this book covers three established community-based VCSes in a really great way. Get a copy, put it on your shelf, give it a read.

</comment><comment><USER27> Awesome! Just ordered a copy.</comment>


Ask HN: What apps are always running on your phone? - <AUTHOR>

Just interested in what apps you are always using.  For me in no particular order (iPhone) - RunKeeper, Safari, Mail, Twitter, Audible, TuneIn, Instagram... <comment><USER2> Apart from the usual suspects (Phone, Message, Mail, Safari): Whatsapp, WeekCal (Great calender replacement), Plaintext (Great notes replacement +dropbox sync), Dropbox, Alarmed (Great alarm + reminder app), Navigon plus the latest casual game I run (currently Modern Combat 3 (which still amazes me running it on a 3GS)).

</comment><comment><USER3> The ones I use the most are RunKeeper, SleepCycle, iReal b (great tool for practicing jazz), plus Yahoo Japan's app for looking up train routes.

I also often use Skype on my phone because it sucks less than on my Linux desktop.

</comment><comment><USER4> These are the ones I use most: <https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5rryu7904o9xku3/KcEycVRsxq>

[update] - not sure why there is two Mobile Mouse =p

</comment><comment><USER5> Notes, Twitter, Facebook, Maps, Safari and my own app Finderous.

<comment><AUTHOR> Finderous looks pretty cool. Good luck! We've just launch out app in beta - not a mobile app yet neufit.com but we are gaining some traction with it to go mobile as well!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> iphone: mail, calendar, phone (obvious) DO (tasks) Openera (files/attachments), Evernote (notes) Tweetbot (twitter) Google Maps...oh wait... not anymore.

</comment><comment><USER7> The Most Used app on my phone is Dictionary.</comment>


Heat Your House with a Water Brake Windmill - <AUTHOR> https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/02/heat-your-house-with-a-water-brake-windmill.html <comment><USER2> It seems that windmills on-site at residences are rare, rural homesteads aside. They are mostly seen at centralised wind power generation plants. On the other hand solar panels, generating electricity or heating water, are increasingly common. I imagine homeowners are reluctant to take on the burden of maintaining a windmill, and there are probably more objections to their use from people in the neighbourhood. Solar panels are fairly unobtrusive, but windmills are highly visible, and possibly audible. Unfortunately, these concerns hold more weight at the public meetings than concerns for the environment, or concerns for our unsustainable lifestyles.</comment>


China, Unhampered by Rules, Races Ahead in Gene-Editing Trials - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-unhampered-by-rules-races-ahead-in-gene-editing-trials-1516562360 <comment><USER2> There is a great talk on some of the dangers: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY)

News article if you can't watch: [https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/31/bioweapons-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/31/bioweapons- cancer-moonshot-gene-editing)

tl;dr "The reason you haven't heard much about bioweapons is that they've been held back by a pretty severe limitation, which is the potential for blowback." Unlocking the ability to target specific genes will overcome this since the same tech that allows targeting only cancer cell will allow targeting specific groups or individuals.

> What, for example, if groups spread their agenda in a very direct way, by > literally rewriting DNA to make it impossible to live a life against their > credo? Suppose militant vegans wanted to end meat eating: there's a gene for > that. Or imagine if radical misogynists wanted to force the veiling of all > women: there's a gene for sunlight intolerance, and the genetic functions of > gender are already well-known.

> Or, he suggested, attacks could be done on an individual level: targeting > public figures by stealing their genetic code, or targeting their whole > family by sequencing the genes of someone who's closely related. And the > attacks could be subtler than what's expected: Sotos cited genes for > intractable diarrhea, massive weight gain, total baldness and "an intense > fishy body odour".

<comment><USER3> > Unlocking the ability to target specific genes will overcome this since the > same tech that allows targeting only cancer cell will allow targeting > specific groups or individuals.

Filtering for specific genes doesn't offer any evolutionary advantage to a theoretical pathogen, so why wouldn't it very quickly evolve our of this artificial limitation?

<comment><USER4> Don't filter the vector, just the payload.

<comment><USER5> That's a good point. Then there's no mutation advantage to the organism for the payload filter to attach to new binding sites.

The organism will infect everyone and any increase in its virility won't make the payload any more likely to affect unintended targets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If the human race was a bit more functional, we might already be living in a Star Trek-level near-utopia.

A great thing about being alive today is knowing how much less humans will suffer in the future. A tough part of being alive today is knowing that you're likely to miss out on it, and will instead suffer greatly.

Our descendants will pity us for lacking medical technology the same way we pity our ancestors.

<comment><USER7> Depends on your perspective. Bioethics exist in the West because people here have cared to ask some very sensible questions about what it means to be human, and the trade offs we make as we become post human.

> Our descendants will pity us for lacking medical technology the same way we > pity our ancestors.

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe our descendants will be homogenous near-automatons, the product of normalizing and optimizing humanity to something that today we wouldn't even recognize as human.

I'm glad the West is "hampered" by bioethics. China is generally not hampered by ethics or advanced social thought of any kind. God bless them.

<comment><USER8> "Advanced Social Thought" is really just a western pseudonym for "the shadows of judeo-christian morality". I wouldn't be so quick to under-estimate them so quickly. Chinese art & philosophy is just as profound as those in the west. America may seem secular but our attitudes towards death and the individual are the result of our Christian roots.

<comment><USER9> > "To them, violence, power, cruelty, were the supreme capacities of men who > had definitely lost their place in the universe and were much too proud to > long for a power theory that would safely bring them back and reintegrate > them into the world. They were satisfied with blind partisanship in anything > that respectable society had banned, regardless of theory or content, and > they elevated cruelty to a major virtue because it contradicted society's > humanitarian and liberal hypocrisy."

\-- Hannah Arendt

Where you see a "shadow" or something "hampering", I see a railing. Where you hear criticism of the jealous people left behind, I am waving at a dot that is getting smaller and smaller.

<comment><USER8> I think it was more of a reactive comment: It's funny to uphold moral superiority towards a people that have never conquered nor been conquered. I think comparing it to the philosophy of the Nazi's is a bit of a stretch. I do see your point though -- but everything exists on a spectrum. As a dominant superpower it's pretty easy for the west to hold the moral high-horse in things like this but seems hypocritical when you look at the big picture of the results of our dominance (imperialism over the past millennium).

I think China has the ambitions to be a superpower and they have a willingness to cut corners to get to that point. Smart authoritarians are a short-term optimal system of governance and that is the type of rule that China finds itself under currently. My thought is that the cutting of corners is not so much inhumane as it is cutting through bureaucracy, intelligently, done by smart leaders with a definite vision of the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Unrestricted gene editing in humans is probably a bad idea. (1) Evolution has been pretty effective to this point, (2) decreasing genetic variability will make humans as a species more susceptible to extinction from a single event, and (3) it will probably backfire as humans do not possess the foresight to know what the world will be in 1-3 generations and what traits might predispose their descendants to success.

Hell what we think of as genetic "diseases" give an evolutionary advantage under the right circumstances (ex. sickle cell anemia + malaria, cystic fibrosis + cholera).

<comment><USER11> Evolution is nothing more than dumb luck trial and error. There has to be a better way. I remember a quote from Gattaca "I not only think we will tamper with Mother Nature. I think Mother wants us to."

It would be folly to think that we know how to improve the Human genome. I don't think we understand enough of how the genome works. We certainly can't predict how genetic changes will affect an organism. But I'd like to think that someday we will get there

<comment><USER12> I agree with you that purposeful gene editing ought to be better than random evolution _at the individual level_.

However, grand parent raises a good point about reduced diversity, which is bad _at the species level_. There is really no way to guard against this because:

1\. Even though diversity is good at the species level to safeguard against future disaster, everyone will race to have the same set of (currently) desirable traits. Framed another way, since human genetic diversity is a public goods, few people will help maintain it at the cost of their own benefit

2\. While we could theoretically understand the genome in full, I'd argue it's impossible to foresee all the potential disasters that can wipe out a genetically homogeneous humankind.

<comment><USER13> a lack of diversity is only really bad in a changing world. however humans have made the world far more stable than before, and as we move our civilization into space, we'll find likely more stability (in the long run)

<comment><USER4> > humans have made the world far more stable than before

You must be kidding. Humans have changed their environment almost beyond recognition. We may already have broken ourselves, look at birth rates in the most industrialized countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If there was a sector fund for Chinese biotech (preferably Gene editing) I would buy it instantly. So far the closest I've gotten is ARKG, but that's US. Anyone know if there's any way for a retail investor to gain exposure to Chinese Gene editing industry/startups?

<comment><USER15> Not sure which exchanges without some more digging, but I see a fair number of companies are listed[1], apparently.

1: [http://www.chinabiotoday.com/categories/stockwatch](http://www.chinabiotoday.com/categories/stockwatch)

<comment><USER14> Ideally I'd want some kind of fund holding a lot of stocks. Individual companies are too volatile for me. I tend to buy high and sell low when investing in individual companies.

<comment><USER16> If you want to play with A shares, it is almost day trading on individual stocks and the Chinese stock exchange isn't sophisticated enough yet where people actually go and buy funds. Of course, foreigner individuals are mostly locked out of A shares, so this is mostly moot, maybe try Hong Kong?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> [http://archive.is/pZ9My](http://archive.is/pZ9My)

<comment><USER18> Thank you! I actually really wanted to read this one but can't afford a subscription at the moment.

<comment><USER19> Click the "web" link on HN to read paywalled articles.

<comment><USER5> That still didn't work for me in Chrome - even in incognito mode. I copy- pasted the link to a normal Firefox window and it worked from there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A great primer on CRISPR can be found here: [http://www.radiolab.org/story/update- crispr/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-crispr/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Some opinions.

Unhampered!=Free

Unhampered~Abuse of Human Rights

Loosening some protections for terminal/near terminal patients who may want to take a gamble on an untested treatment may be warranted, however.

</comment><comment><USER22> First,gene-editing will become accepted as a norm to prevent/cure? diseases.

Then, the same technology will be used to create superior beings (hacking our own evolution).

It's only natural that something which promises to heal, also aids in enhancement (think Viagra).

I for one am excited about it's prospects in the future. For example - Can we live in a world free from cancer?

</comment><comment><USER23> I have no problems with China beta testing gene editing. I wonder what bugs they will find...

</comment><comment><USER24> Unhampered by Fear? The article states 'Rules', which is probably more apt.

<comment><USER25> Not sure if that was editorialized or the WSJ changed the title, but we've s/Fear/Rules/ above.

<comment><USER26> I'd be _very_ interested in knowing if OP editorialised - not to crucify them, but because it'd be somewhat reflective of the publication's opinion/allegiances.

<comment><USER27> Considering the url of the article reads "rules", it's probably OP that editorialized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Wow, I posted this story twice within the past 24 hours. The first one didn't quite get enough momentum, and the second got nothing.

I knew it was a winner. I should have gone for 3.

1pm on Monday didn't do it. Looks like 5pm EST was a better time.

<comment><USER25> I think it's mostly just random what does or doesn't get attention. I noticed an article yesterday that only took off on its ninth posting: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Death%20of%20Microservic...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Death%20of%20Microservice%20Madness%20in%202018&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0).

We try to rescue good stories that fell through the cracks and put them in the second-chance queue, described at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380) and links back from there. But it's random what gets seen that way, too. Plus it depends on how much energy we have and whether there are flamewars going on elsewhere and whatnot.</comment></comment>


Thin clients and the cloud: how ARM beat x86 to the punch - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/01/thin-clients-and-the-cloud-how-arm-beat-x86-to-the-punch.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss <comment><USER2> > The first, most recent example, is Android 2.1's pervasive use of voice > input, a compute- and storage-intensive task that the phone can simply > offload to Google's servers. There's enough network bandwidth to make the > turnaround time for voice recognition fairly snappy, so that a phone would > never need the local storage or cycles to do this itself.

Really? I hadn't realized that...

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if we're heading for a split in computing devices: the hackers and "content producers" will get stuck lugging laptops around while everyone else uses pocket computerphones. That's kind of depressing.

<comment><USER4> The notion that smartphone and netbook users are merely passive consumers of commercial content strikes me as somewhat elitist, or at least not fully thought out.

Taking photos and videos is a major use case for phones, dumb and smart variations alike. A substantial portion of that material ends up being published one way or another, even if just to a circle of friends. That's content originated on a phone.

Similarly, Windows netbooks quickly displaced the early Linux-based attempts mainly because people wanted to run Office and other familiar apps. What is writing a Word document if not content production?

<comment><USER3> It's not elitist at all. I meant a split between people who cary non- pocketable devices and those who cary pocket devices as their primary computers. A netbook falls in the first category.

We already have a class of professionals who use Blackberrys as their primary device. Presumably more professions will follow. But programmers, graphic designers, modelers, etc, may not be able to make the jump if they require more power/input speed/screen area than a pocket device can provide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Doesn't mention Acorn or Archimedes or Psion or Symbian. Clueless.

<comment><USER6> It's not a history article. What's you're point? Is an article about, say, Intel's Beckton rollout this quarter similarly clueless because it doesn't mention the PC/AT?</comment></comment>


Amazon's Vanishing Cardboard Box - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/16/business/amazon-cardboard-box-prime-day/index.html <comment><USER2> Amazon sometimes gets things wrong when it comes to packaging but they're light years ahead of Wal-Mart when it comes to right size packaging. I've only ordered online from walmart maybe half a dozen times but each time the box was too big and the contents were all flopping around hitting each other. I haven't tried their store pickup yet but have been amazed at how poorly they've implemented box packing for delivery.

<comment><USER3> I generally like to bunch up my orders such that (hopefully) as much of my stuff as possible gets packed into the same box.

A recent order though had two things of eye liner in it aaaaand... of course they ended up in their own very oversized box. (I did go back and make sure that part was also fulfilled by Amazon. My guess is that someone just thought it would be funny to ship a package that is 99.5% empty :D)

<comment><USER4> I wish there was an option to bunch up the orders more to reduce packaging at a cost of greater shipping times or even some additional fees (could pitch those as carbon credits to reduce waste). This was something Jet had encouraged really well.

<comment><USER5> Amazon Prime lets you choose a "Prime Day" and when you place an order, you can choose to have it be delivered on that day of the week.

Not a perfect solution since sometimes orders come from different warehouses so are still packaged separately, but it's a pretty good way to combine orders into less packaging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I actually wish they would use more cardboard boxes and less of the plastic envelopes.

The cardboard boxes are easily recyclable or compostable. the plastic generally cannot be recycled but will sit in a landfill forever (at best).

<comment><USER7> Cardboard is a lot heavier so costs more to transport, plus of course its production is somewhat energy intensive. On a lifecycle basis does it consume more oil than a plastic envelope?

I prefer cardboard but I wonder if I ought not.

<comment><USER8> Also the plastic lying in a landfill not decomposing is essentially sequestered carbon, isn't it? Which is better than burnt fuel sending the carbon into the atmosphere.

<comment><USER9> That's assuming it doesn't get burned. A lot of places use incinerators to get rid of garbage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I hope they can get this sorted out.

Of course everyone's seen the oversize boxes containing a relatively thimble- sized object, but I've pretty much had to stop buying books at Amazon - especially hardcovers for gifts. Nearly EVERY time, they just toss the book(s) in an oversize box, with zero or token padding. Of course the books arrive with the corners crunched and dust jacket torn. Usually not terribly, but more than enough that it is no longer a new book or suitable for a gift. They've gotten a lot of returns.

Very occasionally, rarely enough that it may be the book printers themselves doing it, I get a (usually paperback) book shrink-wrapped in to a larger cardboard, placed in a larger box. These arrive perfect every time, but obviously use more packaging & labor. Still, seems like less than 2-4x return/reship cycles trying to get a good one.

It just seems ironic that Amazon started out selling & shipping books, has become a technology leader in multiple fields, yet still cannot get it right how to ship a book.

<comment><USER11> Bruised books have been an intermittent (and exasperating) problem with Amazon (and Borders and Barnes & Noble) from the beginning. I've always been surprised that they never managed to permanently sort out the packaging of their core product.

<comment><USER10> Yes, seems like the primary example of the boxed for shipment to a store vs e-commerce. In the store, the books came in a pallet/carton set, and they are all pristine. Breaking that pallet and tossing it in a box for another shipment is just guaranteed to damage it unless packed diligently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting that so much consumer product is still packaged for retail, even some brands that I imagine sell a vast majority online. retail packaging translates to online-friendly packaging, but the reserve seems likely to be less true.

Not to be pessimistic, but I would guess that the added cost of managing two SKUs for each product is not feasible for many smaller retailers, especially since the cost (putting in a new box) here is born by those further down the supply chain.

All that said, I've seen a lot more Amazon orders ship in plastic bags recently. Even the car seat I bought recently which is ship-ready without another layer. My guess there was that adding the plastic anonymized the purchase a bit, which might ward off thieves?

</comment><comment><USER13> I took a tour of the Amazon FC in Fall River, Mass., last month. It stocks about 400,000 SKUs, all larger items (as I recall meaning at least one size of the item is more than 15") and they have a _lot_ of irregular items - mops, rakes, window blinds, pool noodles, you name it.

One of the most interesting parts of the tour is the "box machine" used to scan and make custom boxes for these odd-shaped items. We watched a worker take a bundle of tiki torches and quickly package them using the machine, and it seemed pretty efficient in terms of matching the size of the box to the size of the item.

<comment><USER14> I know for certain they're working on this, and pushing this boxing up the stack to suppliers.

As of August 1st, Amazon started charging/fining their suppliers $2/unit if large items are not able to ship in their own packaging.

Meaning anything that is A) large, and B) unable to ship with UPS adding a label will cost suppliers an extra $2.

They call this program SIOC (ships in own container)

The fun part is that amazon does not accept price increases very easily. Especially not in this scenario... so suppliers either have to A) repackage their shit, B) eat the cost, C) find a partner to help distribute.

source: I'm an Amazon Consultant [1]. and we help brands figure this stuff out.

[https://www.andersonassociates.net/2018/frustration- free/](https://www.andersonassociates.net/2018/frustration-free/)

<comment><USER13> They mentioned SIOC as an option for sellers of any type of good but they positioned it as a way for sellers to save money ("we're not charging them for the box") and have better control over branding.

I am an Amazon seller myself (two brands) and I am interested in your comment about changing prices. I've done this in the past and don't recall getting any pushback. Is this something new, or is there a threshold you have to hit that triggers a rejection of a price increase?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I just can't believe there is 85 people working in this team and I still get a box that is 10 times the size it needs to be.

<comment><USER16> My understanding is that they have an algorithm which determines the best box size to minimize breakage and initial packing of the car for fullness.

This means your box size may be to prevent breakage for another box.

<comment><USER17> I dunno. I ordered a gallon of oil for my car, and it came in a box that could easily hold 6 of these gallon containers. There was one plastic air pocket for packaging, which was basically flopping around in the box with the oil, and doing nothing. I would think that the oil container flying around the box would cause more damage to other packages than if they had packed it tightly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have to applaud Amazon Fresh for their innovative packaging (vs. e.g. Google Express)

Handle paper bags instead of boxes, frozen water bottles instead of freezer packs to keep things cold, everything packed tightly but not bulging.

<comment><USER19> They originally started with very heavy freezer bags and freezer packs or dry ice. I really like the paper and water bottles but I do wonder if the thick plastic bottle is actually less trash overall.

<comment><USER18> It's immediately usable as a cooling device and consumable as portable water.

If you assume (sadly true) that most families probably use bottled water (we do for short trips where it's easier than filling up the reusable ones), this simply defers new purchases of bottled water.

Granted, it's promoting bottled water usage, but from a consumer point of view, I'd rather the frozen bottle of water than one MORE of those stay-kool packs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I really dislike those white plastic bags they ship stuff in. Always seems so wasteful.

</comment><comment><USER21> One thing that concerns me is that the cardboard biodegrades, while the plastic bubble wrap envelopes I've been getting things in lately presumably does not. That's a lot of plastic packaging waste that will end up in the oceans.

<comment><USER22> Plastic waste in the ocean pretty much never comes from any western countries. The "pacific patch" comes mainly from Africa and Asia.

<comment><USER21> Which is where we send our plastic recycling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This starts to explain why any vinyl records I order from the UK/Europe come in a package that is insufficient to protect the record. And US orders come wrapped in layers of cardboard to protect from the USPS throwers.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, I ordered a drywall trowel from Amazon a while ago and it came in a plastic bag. Someone, somewhere dropped it and it bent the corner. I looked at returning it and the process seemed convoluted at best, so I just hammered out the corner until it was good enough to be functional again.

I tend not to order from Amazon much anymore, and this only strengthens my resolve to order from other retailers.

<comment><USER25> Below $15, there are no returns in Amazon now.

Everything else, it's either USPS label or pick up at home.

<comment><USER26> I was talking to a guy at the UPS store and he said amazon told them to bundle all their returns together.

Meaning, 12 customers return stuff, they put all 12 returns in the same box and send it in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Warning. This site starts auto playing a video with audio.

<comment><USER28> Unless you open it with Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wish there was some sort of program to give the boxes back to amazon so they could reuse them or something. I guess the work of having to make sure they were clean would be too expensive.

<comment><USER22> I've been donating about 3' high pile of Amazon boxes every 6 month or so to local businesses. Well, actually _was_ , before I got in retail myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is utter nonsense. From all I can say, Amazon has been moving away from recyclable / re-usable packaging and is pretty bad at optimization.

Paper padded envelope have moved recently to plastic ones (say, over the past 6 month). Now the shipping tag cannot be removed and the enveloppe cannot be reused. Also Carboard box move every now and then to non-descript box to highly customized and covered by advertisement ones.

On the optimization side, they are very, VERY, bad, how many times have I received a huge box with a tiny item...

</comment><comment><USER30> Does this mean they'll stop putting a box which says "Ready to Ship" inside another stupid cardboard box that's just sliiightly larger, just so they can show off their Amazon logo?

<comment><USER31> I just got a package like that yesterday. The article points out that's sometimes done for privacy & security (if a package is, for example, obviously a laptop it might be more likely to be stolen)

However, the package I received yesterday wouldn't have had these issues. The inner wasn't obviously something of steal-able value.

<comment><USER32> I think Amazon does this automatically for expensive items, but for less expensive items they let you choose:

[https://images.markets.businessinsider.com/image/5c140c7eb3c...](https://images.markets.businessinsider.com/image/5c140c7eb3c21d1bb926bcd5-840/ship- in-amazon-packaging.jpg)

<comment><USER30> Hmm, I'll have to look for that next time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> TL;DR Amazon wants "Zero Packaging" which is their way of saying they want suppliers to pay for packaging, and every product should be manufactured for eCommerce consumption.

Unfortunately:

\- Most manufacturers cannot afford dual stock (retail packaging and eCommerce packaging)

\- Most manufacturers cannot afford employees onhand to repackage each eCommerce order

For now this hurts the consumer. Soon eCommerce packaging will be table stakes.

<comment><USER8> I've started seeing retail packaging that is basically just a full-color paper/cardboard sleeve over what I assume is the eCommerce packaging

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm regularly sent two containing boxes. One contains 20-lbs of plastic-sacked loose material. The other holds 2-dozen food cans (~10 lbs) set in a plastic- wrapped half-box. Both containing boxes are thin cardboard.

Their only purpose seems to be for transport-packing and carrying to my door. That's a lot of waste for a trip across town.

</comment><comment><USER8> It seems at some point the rough handling by the couriers should also be addressed. If they weren't crushing the packages in shipping, the packaging could be much lighter.

I live in Japan now and I've maybe only once had a domestic package arrive damaged, despite the much thinner cardboard used here, so it must be possible.

</comment><comment><USER34> I wish that all the plastic packaging could be recycled through the normal processes instead of "store drop off".

</comment><comment><USER35> Explains all the poorly packaged (and thus damages) items I've received from Amazon lately. I'm curious at what point the extra carbon emissions from shipping returns and replacements outweighs the environmental impact of cardboard savings. Anyone up to doing some back of the envelope calculations on that?

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm glad Amazon is reducing waste as a distributor. I also think Apple has done a great job over the years as a manufacturer. I was in retail from 2004-2007; I remember how the Apple boxes kept shrinking drastically. Other hardware followed suit, but the iPod, MacBook, and MacBook Pro seemed to be blazing the trail.

</comment><comment><USER37> Amazon cardboard boxes have so many uses from Maker projects, to mulch, to shredding and sticking in the compost.

<comment><USER38> Don't for get the cats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > And in China, a company called Suning.com is using shared plastic delivery > boxes in 13 cities that can be almost infinitely reused.

...is this really a different company from the Suning (no ".com") department store?

</comment><comment><USER40> CNBC had a similar piece last week with more detail:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYh1KTfydvU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYh1KTfydvU)

</comment><comment><USER41> weird title, seems like cnn is trying to make it seem that amazon is being effective at eliminating cardboard

<comment><USER42> I was thinking the same. Implying that Amazon is at the forefront of solving this problem, when in fact they're the main culprits (and have been for years).

<comment><USER4> Those aren't mutually exclusive states. They may be trying to solve the very problem they've exacerbated.

<comment><USER41> To draw a superlative parallel, an article called "Tobacco Industry's Vanishing Cancer" that talks about how they are now studying how to stop cancer would be effectively the same, but a less subtle defense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> [http://archive.is/e00mA](http://archive.is/e00mA)

</comment><comment><USER44> Well I just learned like 10 things, that was awesome and I am amazed it was on CNN :)

<comment><USER45> It is rather strange, isn't it? I usually auto back out once I see it's CNN. They still roll the freakin' insanely annoying video without any gesture from me, but somehow I didn't notice before I'd started reading. I may have lost a step tho...

<comment><USER44> ya I've got them blocked with a browser addon for that plus annoying headlines, I actually opened an incognito browser for this one and was pleasantly surprised.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> save the box. just slap a shipping label on my item itself... it probably has packaging already anyways.

</comment><comment><USER47> Will make it easier for people driving by my house to pick which packages to steal...

<comment><USER48> Why?

Is there a correlation between size and value?

It would make it easier to steal all your packages though, as they could fit more packages in their van/car/bike.

<comment><USER49> The article describes attempts to avoid an outer box entirely in favor of making the product manufacturer's existing box "ship-ready" by itself. But that box is usually decorated to show what is inside.

<comment><USER48> Perhaps. The article offers many options, and 'ship-ready' to me suggests at the very least, much less branding.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tesla Motors on a mission to hire American veterans - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26086136/tesla-motors-mission-hire-american-veterans

<comment><USER2> While this kind of thing will undoubtedly bring out hailcorporate naysayers, I have to applaud the company for introducing a mutually beneficial arrangement for a group of people that yes, do have a tough job background that comes with it a sentimental level of loyalty and PR goodness. But in the end, if both sides benefit from the deal, it's tough to find a negative here. Props to the vets for all they do and to the company for smarts</comment>


Give Broadband Consumers the Flat Rate Service They Demand - <AUTHOR> http://stopthecap.com/2012/05/23/innovation-reality-check-give-broadband-consumers-the-flat-rate-service-they-demand/

<comment><USER2> Should someone who purchases a Coca Cola be limited to just 12 ounces? Coca Cola should be unlimited -- if I want to drink over 9000 ounces then I should not pay more than someone who just wants a sip. Right?

Perhaps I ought to start my own soda company that doesn't employ usage-based pricing.

Perhaps those opposed to this or that in an industry ought to start their own companies doing the way they think it should be done.

Uncapped broadband is contrary to every other utility pricing model. You pay electricity, water and gas based in usage: why should broadband be any differently.

Throttling, however is NOT good. If you pay for unlimited anything, then you should get what you pay for.

<comment><USER3> Buying raw megabits-per-second into the internet is very cheap. You should have the option to buy based on speed and have them make a profit even if you saturate the line 24/7.

Electricity, water, gas cost a lot more to produce.

<comment><USER2> The cost to produce is irrelevant. If I have a product that costs $0.01 to produce and I can sell it for $10, then good for me; no one is obligated to pay that however. The marginal cost of broadband is very low, but there are very high fixed costs.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Please review my site http://tweetingmachine.com - <AUTHOR>

TweetingMachine has been my weekend project, mostly to learn Twitter's API after some previous freelance requirements.
It's a crowded marketplace, but there seem to be enough people out there wanting to use such tools; do you think there's room for me if I keep adding more features?
http://tweetingmachine.com <comment><USER2> There is always room for more, HN has taught me that.

Nice work for a weekend product. How does your system handle spam? e.g. if I schedule a tweet every 1 second to 20 accounts that may get your oAuth or ip blacklisted from Twitter.

I could only see what the Pro cost is very small at the bottom of the screen. You should make your pricing structure more obvious, and I would like to select which version im signing up for before I sign up for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now I handle spam by not having a recurring tweeting function ;) You have to manually send each tweet, however that's not to say someone determined (not to mention, also very bored) couldn't sit there constantly hitting the send button. I'll look in to this.

I'm going to play around with where else to put the price as you're right, it's a bit hidden at the moment.

Currently, the only way to pay is to log in with a Twitter account first and then upgrade from there. I'm thinking about an option to "sign up for premium" where after signing in with Twitter the user's taken to a payment page. Do you think that'd be a good idea?

<comment><USER3> But I can schedule tweets right? How does this work?

<comment><USER2> I suspect his application saves the datetime of when the tweet is to be made and simply submits it at that given time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it in one, although before a user can schedule tweets they have to tell us what their local timezone is. So that, plus some funky timezone fun inbetween :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Since the marketplace is crowded with free tools, why don't you just sell a pro version? It will differentiate you and make you focus on making something worth paying for. Please don't hide that cost at the bottom of the page. Put it on top, make a video to tell me why I really really need to buy this beautiful thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Those are good points, thank you. I hadn't considered going pro-only, as I'd thought users might like to play with the system first before paying and this might get more signups. Hmm... I'm tempted to do an a/b split test and see...

I'm going to make the pricing more obvious, and will knock up a features video at the top as well.

<comment><USER4> The most important question is: do you want users or customers? You may be trying to be benevolent by giving away your work for free, but don't forget that making money enables you to be more benevolent in the long run.

</mega visionary sound bytes>

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, I'm sold, Pro-only it is! I think I might do some coding tonight... :)

<comment><USER4> Awesome! By the way, how are you finding Poland?

<comment><AUTHOR> Poland rocks and I love it here, although the language is still breaking my head on a regular basis ;)

<comment><USER4> That's great. I can imagine the language must take time to get used to. Good luck with TweetingMachine, I just signed up for the free version. Looking forward to being asked to upgrade :-P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The good thing about models like this is they're easy to scale, and they're relatively low maintenance.

You could get rid of free accounts, and only offer Pro accounts with a 2 week free trial (pending payment w/ cancellation at end of term).

<comment><AUTHOR> You're now the second person to mention only offering Pro accounts, I think this might be the way forwards :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You're falling in the same trap all other tweet scheduling services are falling into: I have to explicitly state when I want each tweet to be sent. Here's my dream tweet app (running from the command line):

username:~ machine$ schedule_tweets textfile_with_tweets_one_per_line X

X is the time interval at which I want the tweets to run.

Basically what I want is a service where I can add tweets to a queue, set it to 'post one tweet per hour' and let it run ...

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm on the verge of adding a similar service: enter as many tweets as you fancy, and then select the interval between each tweet. Would that be something you'd be interested in? For that matter, it wouldn't be a pain to offer a CSV-style upload option either.</comment></comment>


A Google Site Meant to Protect Is Helping Hackers Attack - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/09/how-hackers-use-virustotal/ <comment><USER2> I don't see what's the problem here. Of course hackers test their malicious code against anti-virus programs, and Virustotal is just one of the most convenient checkers. If there was no Virustotal, hackers would simply use other similar checkers or set up their own checker. Virustotal is not at fault at all, it's the concept of virus checkers that's failing. The headline makes it look like Google knowingly exposes us to hackers. It does not, of course.

<comment><USER3> The article's title is even stranger in context of what the article says, which is mainly that Google researchers were able to _detect_ this kind of use, and were able to learn much more about the attackers' identities, methods, and targets as a result of this use. The article says they're now inviting other researchers to use the data for the same purposes.

So in some ways it's a lot more like "A Google Site Meant to Protect You is Helping Hackers Attack You And Thereby Expose Their Affiliations, Methods, Targets, and Schedules to Security Researchers".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm an adviser for one of the companies that partnered with VirusTotal. I cannot go too much into details, but as a partner, we have access to the live submission feed which we analyze in real-time to discover new threats etc. I can assure you that we are not the only one. Furthermore, most partners sync their data not in real-time which could yield incorrect scanning results, making the hackers think they're good to go.

I can also say that the more serious groups/hackers do not use VirusTotal to check their malware. They have their own verified, anonymous services that do the same thing, just without submitting the malware to the anti-virus company.

<comment><USER5> This is all true. There exist essentially blackhat versions of virustotal that don't submit the samples, and don't have a feed delay that are pretty popular among the virus writing community.

One of the ways that virustotal IS used however is by checking the hash of their malware to see if it has shown up yet. That lets them know if someone has taken an interest in it yet, and if they have, it means they need to start rolling a new version.

<comment><USER6> >One of the ways that virustotal IS used however is by checking the hash of their malware to see if it has shown up yet. That lets them know if someone has taken an interest in it yet, and if they have, it means they need to start rolling a new version.

But once they upload the file to see if the hash already exists, they can no longer check, since their hash will already be indexed. No?

<comment><USER5> you can check a hash without uploading the file in question. VT only stores a set of results if it has seen the actual file, not if a hash is checked against it. This is why, when doing incident response, a lot of people suggest not uploading suspicious files to VT, because it lets the attackers change up and start using new malware

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Malware authors giving you their samples directly, before they ever unleash them into the wild? This seems like a great way to find new malware and 0-days, and a huge wasted opportunity if Google/VirusTotal isn't privately doing this same sort of analysis internally.

<comment><USER8> I have to take back my previous comment. It looks like VT has to maintain "neutrality" and avoid stepping on any commercial AV companies' toes, in order to get them to cooperate. "The most important rule governing VirusTotal's usage is that none of its publicly offered services/applications should be used in commercial products, commercial services or for any commercial purpose." [https://www.virustotal.com/en/about/](https://www.virustotal.com/en/about/)

An example of what I was talking about earlier: a third-party found malware and then used VT to find interesting info about it. [http://www.spamfighter.com/News-19068-F-Secure-Intercepts- Ne...](http://www.spamfighter.com/News-19068-F-Secure-Intercepts-New-Sample- of-BlackEnergy-Uploaded-on-VirusTotal.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> TLDR - Hackers use Virustotal.com to test and refine their malicious code.

<comment><USER10> Not just hackers, but also nation states and APTs (who may have ties to nation states).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is common knowledge that VirusTotal analyzes and shares submitted files with security researchers. The only blackhats who use VT to check their own files are those who are either incapable of setting up their own multi- scanning systems or paying to use one of the many "underground" services[0][1] that offer similar functionality and do not share submitted files. The fact that allegedly state-sponsored groups from China did not use these services is yet another example of the striking difference between their apparent lack of operational technical proficiency and the amazing results they achieve.

[0]: [http://krebsonsecurity.com/2009/12/virus-scanners-for- virus-...](http://krebsonsecurity.com/2009/12/virus-scanners-for-virus- authors/) [1]: [http://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/04/virus-scanners-for- virus-...](http://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/04/virus-scanners-for-virus- authors-part-ii/)

</comment><comment><USER12> This reminds me of the early days of SpamAssassin. It used to have a fairly simple set of regexes that would catch a great deal of spam. Then as it became popular, spammers used it themselves to pre-filter and tweak their messages until they passed the filters.

</comment><comment><USER13> This has been done for a long time - a couple years ago when I was learning about exploits, this was one of the ways to check who would discover your exploit. Pretty nifty trick</comment>


Hands on with India's £3 smartphone - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36651700 <comment><USER2> Not "hands on" in the slightest. Just the same old speculation that every other news site has.

Shame on the BBC for descending to clickbait.</comment>


EventProp: Backpropagation for Exact Gradients in Spiking Neural Networks - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.08378 <comment><USER2> Great research! I guess this solves backpropagating on spiking dynamics. Ground-breaking and with a lot of potential for generalisation.

One question; do you know whether this is implemented somewhere we can try it out? And do you see this happening in a specific neuromorphic platform anytime soon?</comment>


Will Nintendo sue? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Diogenesthecynic/FullScreenMario/issues/34 <comment><USER3> If they notice, they'll probably complain. Nintendo is fairly hardline on this kind of thing, afaict.

An academic conference in my area used to host an annual "Mario AI championship", where competitors submitted either Mario-playing AI controllers, or systems to procedurally generate Mario-like levels [1]. After a few years someone at Nintendo found out, and demanded that we: 1) stop using the name "Mario", and 2) stop using the Mario assets in the procedural level generation framework. Imo there was a decent fair-use claim in that case, but nobody wanted to pursue it, so now it's informally referred to as the "Non- Mario AI competition" [2]. (As a direct reimplementation of an actual Mario Bros game, the project here seems like it would not really have a good fair- use claim, anyway.)

That's in contrast to Blizzard's reaction to the annual Starcraft AI competition [3]: once they found out about it, they sent a representative and donated prizes.

[1] [http://julian.togelius.com/Togelius2013The.pdf](http://julian.togelius.com/Togelius2013The.pdf)

[2] [http://platformersai.com/](http://platformersai.com/)

[3] [http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~cdavid/starcraftaicomp/](http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~cdavid/starcraftaicomp/)

<comment><USER4> Although the SC AI guys are still stuck with BW, not SC2 :'(

<comment><USER3> Nobody's hacked up a straightforward way to hook into SC2 externally afaik. It's less likely to happen in a stable way with a currently active game, because bot hooks can be used by cheaters, so game companies tend to change around interfaces in patches to thwart them. Whereas SC/BW is old enough that BWAPI has been stable for years now, and Blizzard hasn't moved to disable it (either legally or technically): [http://code.google.com/p/bwapi/](http://code.google.com/p/bwapi/)

I have seen one SC2 bot, based on the rather impressive feat of intercepting raw DirectX calls and reconstructing game state from them: [http://graphics.stanford.edu/~mdfisher/GameAIs.html](http://graphics.stanford.edu/~mdfisher/GameAIs.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The developer uses Nintendo's trademark "Mario" in the title of his video game project. (Edit: As pointed out in the comment below, the name "Mario" itself is not trademarked, so to be correct the previous sentence should instead read "The developer uses Nintendo's trademark Mario in his video game project.") I'm not a lawyer but as far as I understand (unlike with copyright) Nintendo is legally obliged to react and protect it, right?

Edit: Concern about trademark issues is also what apparently led to the _Super Mario Clone_ FOSS project ([http://sourceforge.net/projects/smclone/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/smclone/), note the URL) being renamed _Secret Maryo Chronicles_. I'm not sure if Nintendo ever contacted them or if it was a precautionary change.

Edit 2: There's some interesting commentary from a professional lawyer on the issue of trademarking and copyrighting characters at [http://www.ivanhoffman.com/characters.html](http://www.ivanhoffman.com/characters.html), though it's from 2003.

<comment><USER6> When people claim they're legally "obliged" to enforce their IP, they're saying that if they don't enforce it, it could possibly be argued that their ownership rights are diminished because the work was orphaned, just as abandoned physical property can lapse to the city if the owner is absent and the property unmaintained. They're not actually "obliged" to do anything with their property.

Most of the time that argument is a convenient cop-out. You'd have to abandon your trademark pretty hard to lose the rights to it; leaving a few obscure online projects unmolested won't matter.

The real deal is that companies are very protective of their IP because they don't want anything to potentially impact their brand(s), and lawyers are eager to bill for as many hours as they can. It's possible that IP owners could commit a small team of goodwill ambassadors to filter alleged infringements and send licenses instead of (or quick on the heels of) C&Ds to good projects, but who's going to do that?

<comment><USER7> I believe the concern is that one obscure project becomes two obscure projects becomes four obscure projects becomes a not at all obscure project. Then somebody has to decide what dilutes the brand name and what doesn't. Zero tolerance policies, for all their other flaws, do provide a very simple decision tree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If anybody is interested in what this is all about, it's an OS project called Full-Screen Mario, a clone of the original SMB using HTML5. I had a little play, and so far it seems like a pretty good clone: [http://www.fullscreenmario.com/](http://www.fullscreenmario.com/)

Might be worth contributing to if you are interested in HTML5 game dev or have some experience with the potential legal issues surrounding the project.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nintendo definitely won't.

Namco on the other hand appears to still be somewhat reliant on sales of their 30-year-old Pac-Man game. They issued a DMCA on my silly Pac-Man project last year [1][2]. My goal was to archive and educate people about the internal mechanics of the game.

[1] [http://pacman.shaunew.com/play/index.htm#learn](http://pacman.shaunew.com/play/index.htm#learn)

[2] [http://pacman.shaunew.com/play/index.htm#cheat_pac](http://pacman.shaunew.com/play/index.htm#cheat_pac)

<comment><USER10> > Nintendo definitely won't.

Except that they did. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/10/17...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/10/17/nintendo-says-this-amazing-super-mario-site-is-illegal- heres-why-it-shouldnt-be/)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the update. I am definitely naive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's the official stance of Nintendo on ROMs, emulators and mods:

[http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#helping](http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#helping)

But, it seems Nintendo is pretty lenient on fan-made content:

[http://kotaku.com/5585802/nintendo-doesnt-want-to- criminaliz...](http://kotaku.com/5585802/nintendo-doesnt-want-to-criminalize- obsessed-fans)

</comment><comment><USER12> As a Dolphin(Wii Emulator) developer, I can tell you that we haven't heard anything from Nintendo in the 10 years we have been around.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if a possible solution here is to distribute a Makefile or something that extracts the assets (sprites, music) from a ROM. I think this would make hosting a live version somewhat dubious, but the code should always be able to be distributed.

N.B. I am not a lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER14> ianal, but given that you can play almost every gamecube, n64, snes, gameboy, gameboy color, and gameboy advance game that has ever been made online for free via ROMs/ISOs, they should be fine

<comment><USER15> It's legal to download and use ROMs or console BIOS dumps if you own the original hardware/game [1] (although this is controversial and officially disputed by Nintendo). But that doesn't give you permission to modify and redistribute them - the games are still under copyright.

I think the reason Nintendo doesn't stop you from playing ROMs is similar to the reason HBO doesn't stop everyone from downloading Game of Thrones - <USER2> would be just about impossible. It doesn't mean they condone it.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_emulator#Legal_issu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_emulator#Legal_issues)

<comment><USER7> The citation for that comes from the Game Genie case, which is a little different. You're free to copy and modify the game hardware you own. But strictly speaking, I'm not sure that extends to a copy of similar game hardware. (i.e., if you and I both own a DVD and you rip it, can you give me that rip? It's a copy of your DVD, not my DVD. I don't know if this has been settled one way or the other.)</comment></comment></comment>


Lenovo Launchs New ThinkPad T431 - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/lenovo-launches-thinkpad-t431-adds-new-version-of-black-7000012684/

<comment><USER2> Not pleased.

Keyboard changes, including what appears to be a "sharper" front edge to the palm rest. (I hate having that pressing into my wrists when a table is not at the ideal typing height.)

Apparently only one DIMM; initial 4 GB soldered.

WWAN and mSATA share a slot; it's either/or.

No optical drive or spare drive bay. Yes, some of us still use those.</comment>


TextNow launches the U.S.'s first VoIP-only mobile phone - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/08/06/no-2g-required-textnow-launches-the-u-s-s-first-voip-only-mobile-phone/

<comment><USER2> Without Wifi its gonna be a kids toy.. Who is gonna use it?</comment>


Galago – your personal Google - <AUTHOR> http://galago.me/start

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for comment. SSL currently available ([https://galago.me](https://galago.me)), page saving process goes strictly over HTTPS. I will add HTTP -> HTTPS redirect very soon (now HTTP is necessary for backward compatibility with previous version :)).

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice idea. But SSL will be cool!</comment>


Show HN: Microscaling-in-a-box – demo of autoscaling with containers - <AUTHOR> http://app.force12.io <comment><USER2> Hi, I'm Ross one of the developers at Force12io. We've done a blog post with more details about the tool.

[http://blog.force12.io/2015/10/16/microscaling-in-a- box.html](http://blog.force12.io/2015/10/16/microscaling-in-a-box.html)

Happy to answer any questions. Also all feedback is greatly appreciated!

</comment><comment><USER3> Does this scale across multiple docker hosts or just act as a scheduler for a single host?

In what circumstance is this better than Docker Swarm, with it's multi-host scheduling?

[https://docs.docker.com/swarm/scheduler/strategy/](https://docs.docker.com/swarm/scheduler/strategy/)

<comment><USER2> We're working on a container scaling solution that runs on top of the scheduler. It will scale containers based on current demand. There is overlap with the Swarm strategies but we're focused on auto scaling. So for example we'll use the scheduler to provide fault tolerance.

The demo tool we've released today is single node and uses the Docker Remote API. We've also built demos that integrate with the ECS and Marathon schedulers. Force12 will be platform agnostic. So we plan to integrate with more schedulers and Swarm is definitely on that list.

<comment><USER3> Most services are developed to make maximum use of a host machine's hardware, so scaling multiple containers of the same image on a single physical host has very limited value.

Services are typically clustered across multiple hosts to alleviate pain associated with the availability constraints of a single host (e.g. physical resources, redundancy). "Scaling" containers across _just a single host_ is:

1) an misunderstanding on the part of the operator, or

2) a very inefficient way of maximising the availability of a service on a single host.

In the case of 2), if you need to run multiple instances of your web service because one container doesn't maximise the resources of your host, then you're solving the problem in the wrong way. You should be making your service, in a single container, capable of maximising the resources of that host. Otherwise you're going to be wasting your physical resources taken up by the running of unnecessary containers.

Running multiple containers of the same image on the same host should be limited to testing of clustered services on a local host, admittedly with a few exceptions. I'd welcome any arguments to the contrary.

<comment><USER2> Yes the tool we've released today is for playing with and not production use. It's single host to keep things simple. Definitely agree for production use a multiple host cluster is essential for redundancy.

We think the faster launch times of containers makes auto scaling easier compared to using VMs. So our tool will prioritise the mix of running containers based on current demand.

To do this we'll need to support multiple metrics. Some of those will be within the cluster like CPU and RAM. But some may be external like the length of a message queue or requests per second on a load balancer.

<comment><USER3> How will the feature set differ from Docker Swarm?

[https://docs.docker.com/swarm/](https://docs.docker.com/swarm/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is the Go binary open-sourced or is the entire scaling tool open source?

I'm not quite sure what this means:

"Now that we've open sourced our Force12 Agent we've got follow up releases ..."

<comment><USER2> Yes the Go code is on GitHub. It has the integration we've done with the Docker Remote API.

[https://github.com/force12io/force12](https://github.com/force12io/force12)

The follow up releases will be for the integrations we've done with the Marathon and ECS schedulers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm also a dev on this (anne) we've had a question, are the scaling containers running locally on your machine? The answer is yes, we just display what's happening on your machine on our portal</comment>