Dropbox is in your Office - <AUTHOR> https://blog.dropbox.com/2014/11/dropbox-microsoft-office-partnership/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=promoted-update&utm_term=English&utm_content=announcement&utm_campaign=microsoft-dropbox-partnership <comment><USER2> I stopped using Dropbox after the whole Condoleezza Rice thing and have been using a mix of Google Drive and OneDrive and I must say I like them a lot better. They do the same (and more if you use other Google Apps) and prices are cheaper. Are there any benefits to using Dropbox?

Are there any other real alternatives you could recommend to give them a try?.

<comment><USER3> Have you had any sync problems with OneDrive or Google Drive? After switching to OneDrive from Dropbox six months ago I've continuously had problems with OneDrive syncing correctly and resolving conflicts by silently dumping a copy of the file into the directory for me to sort out later. Worse it does this silently so I often don't know a sync conflict happened.

Trying out Zocalo now with better results but was curious if anyone else encountered this issue with OneDrive or if my experience was unique.

<comment><USER4> I had all sorts of sync problems with OneDrive so I canned it. I now keep a central SVN repository with all my stuff in it.

I use svn because TortoiseSVN tooling allows diff/merge of documents, it is centralised so there is a single source of truth and it works over WevDAV/http so i can access it on my mobile device if need be (I avoid this where possible and just use it as a tether).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is wonderful news.

I'm really tired of having multiple cloud accounts for different types of media. Getting files between the different versions requires me stopping at a desktop to move to the desktop and then back up.

At least this gets rid of one of those steps. Now I just wish there were a way to take xlsx's from dropbox on the iphone and send it to my work email without it coming as a shared link. I work in a locked down, regulated environment that can't open dropbox links. (finance)

<comment><USER6> I am genuinely curious if you are unable to open any link or is the restriction specific to Dropbox? And what is the reason for this restriction?

<comment><USER5> specific to dropbox type of sites, including external email sites that company data could be dumped out of a secure environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Kudos to Microsoft for being open to partnering with Dropbox, as this new functionality appears to overlap with OneDrive. I hope this is another example of MS being more open and flexible after the recent leadership change.

<comment><USER8> Between this and Band I'm actually impressed with Microsoft.

While it was new at the time of it's release, Dropbox has fallen behind in usability and has sorely needed to effectively break into being a more collaborative platform. While I don't know the numbers, I can imagine SkyDrive hasn't exactly picked up with users.

All around this benefits both companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the screenshots here shows a user storing both personal and business documents under the same account. Is it no longer the case with Dropbox that if you link your work and personal account, and your employer removes your work credentials, then all your personal files get deleted?

<comment><USER10> That is no longer the case. Using Dropbox for Business gives you two separate boxes and the admin for the business one cannot see or access the files from your personal one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Integration between Box and Office was announced at BoxWorks in September, so this shouldn't be a shocker: [http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/03/box-pushes-its- office-365-i...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/03/box-pushes-its- office-365-integration-into-beta/)

</comment><comment><USER12> As the Microsoftie in this thread I feel compelled to point out that you don't need an extensive partnership with us to integrate with office.

And I'm not talking about the plugin development hell (never had to work with it, but that seemed, erm, "difficult"). Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions, or just read the docs yourself ([http://dev.office.com/](http://dev.office.com/)).

<comment><USER13> Quick question: why aren't there any code samples [0] in C/C++? It would be nice to at least have a documented C++ WinRT API to work with for those of us that still write native desktop applications/services. I'm sure other folks across the company would agree ;)

[0]: [http://dev.office.com/code-samples](http://dev.office.com/code-samples)

<comment><USER12> Take this as my own personal opinion, but before I went back into engineering, I worked with a bunch of developers out there to integrate with all kinds of our stuff - and outside of game development, C/C++ isn't the most popular choice. We have some code samples [0], but I see what you mean.

The office team moving away from the old plugin model and opening up the gates for JS apps and REST APIs made life dramatically easier for a lot of folks. So I assume that samples were written with the most popular choices in mind. Internally, C++ is king [0], of course.

It's also worth pointing out that we always accept code samples from the community :)

[0]: [https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/office/site/search?f%5B0%5D....](https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/office/site/search?f%5B0%5D.Type=ProgrammingLanguage&f%5B0%5D.Value=C%2B%2B&f%5B0%5D.Text=C%2B%2B) [1]: [http://cppcon.org/bonus-talk-cxx-in-ms- office-2014/](http://cppcon.org/bonus-talk-cxx-in-ms-office-2014/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Whoa, hell just froze over. I wonder how the OneDrive team feels about this? This kind of a decision was made at the highest levels of the company.

<comment><USER15> It sounds more like Microsoft wanting to bring Dropbox in to its influence area. Possible acquisition, lobbying strategy or marketing stunt sounds right.

<comment><USER16> No it sounds like Microsoft wants its users to use Office documents as opposed to Google Drive.

Box and Dropbox support office formats which makes sense why they'd partner with them to perpetuate this usage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Microsoft integrating with competitor's products, this sounds news to me. A really good move, for both companies.

<comment><USER18> It's a good move for Microsoft, but it's not entirely obvious if this is a good move for dropbox or the storage ecosystem.

For example, Box is also working with Microsoft: [http://content.box.com/box- for-office-365](http://content.box.com/box-for-office-365) \-- I would expect integrations with other platforms in the future as well. If the consumer experience is driven around Office apps rather than around the Dropbox app, then at one point the cloud storage solutions truly become interchangeable.

<comment><USER19> > then at one point the cloud storage solutions truly become interchangeable

I remember one famous Steve saying to Drew Houston that Dropbox was a feature rather than a product. I'd say the need for such a thing as Dropbox made "Dropbox as a standalone product" possible, but in a world where every service starts having its own integrated "cloud" backup service, storage and sync do start looking like a feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Oh, this is great news. Dropbox is a great product (no offense, OneDrive), and it'll make the entire Office Workflow a great deal cleaner and easier.

I'm also glad to see integration across cloud services. I think this will improve the consumer experience.

</comment><comment><USER21> Hey Folks. Thomas from IDrive. Just wanted to point out that we offer private key encryption to our users. That means no one, not even Condoleezza Rice, can access your data except you.

<comment><USER22> But what happens if I lose my key? Is my data inaccessible forever after?

<comment><USER21> Yes that would be the case. For the user's security, we do not store their private key on our servers. But we make sure to give ample warning about this circumstance on our private key page. Hope that helps!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is an interesting move from Microsoft.

It will create some competition for OneDrive. But Office 365 subscribers now get unlimited OneDrive space as part of the subscription.

My bet is Dropbox integration might get some Dropbox users to buy Office 365. When they realize they get unlimited OneDrive space they might switch to OneDrive.

Seems like a good move to be honest.

</comment><comment><USER24> "We'll also be releasing a Dropbox app for Windows Phone and Windows tablet users in the coming months."

Not a day too early for the Windows Phone official app and another tick off the list of missing apps for Microsoft's mobile platform.

</comment><comment><USER25>
      We know that much of the world relies on a combination of
      Dropbox and Microsoft Office to get work done. In fact,
      Dropbox is home to over 35 billion Office documents,
      spreadsheets, and presentations.

See, you already lost me as a customer by highlighting the level of access you have into your customer's private data, and your willingness to exploit it for commercial gain.

<comment><USER26> How could they run their service without this access?

<comment><USER25> See Tarsnap. Good cryptography means you don't have to trust the hosting provider. Obviously Dropbox doesn't offer that so then all we have left is how much we trust Dropbox not to look, and to treat their customers' data privacy as sacrosanct. Apparently that's not the case either, since they are scanning your folder content for marketing purposes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is great news! Although I imagine this will complicate things for those organisations that block access to Dropbox :)

</comment><comment><USER28> Very interesting, just wondering but do people think this benefits one company more than the other?

I originally thought Microsoft as its a great reason to keep Word relevant by teaming up with such a used storage platform and not succumbing to Google docs, but is that offset by dropbox being able to enter the enterprise world?

</comment><comment><USER29> As an Office customer and a Dropbox customer, I can't help but have mixed feelings. Office already has "direct" OneDrive integration and it's pretty useless, how could it be any better on Dropbox?

The whole thing about Dropbox is that _just works_. Files are files, folders are folders, if I move them about they move, etc. The only problem with Dropbox and Office is how Office locks the files so they're only synced after I close the Office program, not after every Ctrl+S. Fix that, and it's integrated.

The whole "save in the cloud" nonsense that desktop Office programs have these days feels like a mistake. I can understand how with iOS's "no files" design, this is the only way forward, but on desktop? Please let it stop.

<comment><USER30> > I can understand how with iOS's "no files" design, this is the only way > forward, but on desktop? Please let it stop.

Apparently mobile is the future and the desktop experience must be crippled to unify it with the mobile experience.

Personally, I don't understand how anyone gets real work done on tablets and phones. Sure there are some pretty silos, but trying to move data between silos is usually a nightmare.

<comment><USER31> > and the desktop experience must be crippled to unify it

Windows crippled their desktop experience for Windows 8 and 8.1 and are reversing it in Windows 10. No other operating system crippled their system in this way. So _must_ is an unwarranted intensifier. Mistakes were made, things were learned, what you're saying isn't true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's interesting that the images show the Office app being used on an iPad instead of a Surface.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is very peculiar. From past Dropbox acquisitions, one can extrapolate they're almost certainly working on online collaboration tools. I wonder if Dropbox is using this as a way to gain footholds in large enterprise.

<comment><USER16> Of course. Partnering with OEM's like Dell and integration in Office gives you access to more users and revenue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Considering the content of other revelations in the form of "X is in your Y" (and the general "I'm in your X, Y-ing your Zs" meme), this seems like an odd choice for a _positive_ article.

</comment><comment><USER35> The managed file transfer sector is hot and there is no winner yet. Even a YC company called WireOver [1] is working in this space.

A little bit precient, my company developed a free Outlook add-on to send dropbox files as attachments [2] in 2012.

\- [1] [http://www.wireover.com/](http://www.wireover.com/)

\- [2] [http://blog.nektra.com/main/2012/05/23/integrating- dropbox-w...](http://blog.nektra.com/main/2012/05/23/integrating-dropbox-with- microsoft-outlook/)

</comment><comment><USER36> Dropbox isn't in my office although I really like Dropbox. However, legal compliance is important in an office environment and Dropbox simply does not provide the necessary data privacy to store business secrets or staff records.

Sorry, Dropbox.

(Yeah, alternatives are a problem: Wuala is dying and Spideroak isn't much better easier. Tresorit might be a future alternative but in spite of having their current version published as 2.x, they have still some way to go …)

</comment><comment><USER37> I wonder if this is an exclusive deal (no Google Apps).

</comment><comment><USER38> Dropbox's big benefit for me, their pricing and unethical board members aside, is the sheer number of ancillary services that it works with. Odds are if some random desktop or mobile app has implemented a sync-between-devices service, it's using Dropbox.

That feature is more important to me than just the file storage. Google Drive will become a lot more useful once developers start picking it up.

</comment><comment><USER39> Good move. Will we see Dropbox part of MS soon?

<comment><USER16> Drew didn't sell to Steve Jobs, why would he sell to Microsoft?

<comment><USER40> It's possible that it is becoming a more difficult space to compete in. There are now several companies (MS, Google) that can use it as a mechanism for lock-in or subsidize the costs in another way. If Dropbox wants to compete, their margins over AWS pricing will get very thin, and Google et al can still undercut them.

<comment><USER16> Correct! Actually what's coming is free or unlimited storage from MS and Google as Levie has pointed out awhile ago.

When that happens the only way Box or Dropbox makes money is from businesses because MS and Google will want you in their eco-system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > Dropbox is home to over 35 billion Office documents, spreadsheets, and > presentations

I was at least one order of magnitude out.

<comment><USER42> that is only about 117 files per user if there is still 300 million users

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> For anyone looking for an Open Source alternative:

[https://owncloud.org](https://owncloud.org)

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm looking forward to accessing Dropbox files from the Office app and saving new files to Dropbox.

</comment><comment><USER45> Why does nobody ever mention BitTorrent sync as an alternative in these discussions? Is there some reason why it's not favoured that I have missed? Edit: Just in case this reads as baiting somehow, it's not it's a genuine question.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm surprised by Microsoft's move here. Why would Microsoft not use OneDrive instead of Dropbox? Dropbox is surely a great product but Microsoft has something similar already. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER47> My guess: you either push for universal adoption of Office and Office formats or OneDrive. Office is a bigger deal for Microsoft than OneDrive so they went with the former.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> So they are just using the Dropbox API like anyone else can do?

<comment><USER49> Probably, but no one really cares _how_ they did it, it's _that_ they did it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> So, how long until Microsoft buys Dropbox? Seems kind of strange that they would not be integrating OneDrive into Office rather than Dropbox.

<comment><USER51> My hope is that will never happend. It's just hope. Since FoxPro many years ago, there is not a single acquisition by Microsoft that turned in a great product or an improvement to the end user (please, include in this scope Groove Networks, whichi was great at that time).

<comment><USER52> There's lots of good Microsoft acquisitions since FoxPro. Like:

\- Visio

\- Bungie Software (Halo)

\- Groove

etc...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisition...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft)

<comment><USER16> Yeah but has any of it got better?

Skype, Halo, Minecraft? I think not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> This only seems to be integration with Office web and mobile apps. I don't see integration with Office desktop apps.

<comment><USER54> Don't the desktop apps simply work automatically with DB via the filesystem?

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I really wish I could edit .txt files in the iOS Dropbox app instead. I wonder how much it will increase the app size.

</comment><comment><USER56> That's great news, though a little late. The new iOS 8 document picker allows this in a transparent manner for any storage provider supporting it.

Edit: here's the documentation: [https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/FileMa...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/DocumentPickerProgrammingGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html)

</comment><comment><USER57> So does this ability to edit in the Dropbox app mean I no longer have any need to buy the iOS versions of Office?

</comment><comment><USER58> Condoleezza Rice is in your Office

</comment><comment><USER59> Does this increase the chances that Microsoft will try to buy Dropbox in the future?

</comment><comment><USER60> Wait. This does not make sense given that MS already provides OneDrive.

</comment><comment><USER61> "Dropbox is home to over 35 billion Office documents, spreadsheets, and presentations."

So they're reading the files in Dropbox and its contents to know they're Office documents?

<comment><USER62> Did you think they were not?

How do you think they generate thumbnails and such?.

<comment><USER61> Ah, they do that? That's cool!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Why would anyone send anything important into a 3rd party cloud storage? Even if you encrypt your files before sending? Really why?

<comment><USER64> Convenience. People need to get stuff done and sharing/syncing is often required.

Most of people don't have time/knowledge to setup any shared file storage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> we use exchange + dropbox, so this will be a nice feature

</comment><comment><USER66> DB has now become boring. MS is a boring company.

</comment><comment><USER67> bye bye box.net?

</comment><comment><USER68> There are options out there (that don't have ties to the US military- industrial complex). Check out the free WPS Office. The 2014 beta version has free online backup too: [http://www.wps.com/](http://www.wps.com/)

</comment><comment><USER69> Does this mean Condoleezza Rice will be able to see everything that I'm editing in Office??

<comment><USER70> Condoleezza Rice doesn't care what you are editing in office.

<comment><USER71> Her friends do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Yet another (succesful) attempt of Office to stay integrated into every household. I wish the entire Office suite would kust die over night but sadly it is too settled. There is no competition either or severely crippled.

<comment><USER73> Well, there's Open Office, Libre Office (both free) and Scrivener (paid), and tons of high end professional typesetting software - I'd say there's plenty of competition, but Office is winning because so far it's still the most accessible and useful for most people. It may be that it's the best of a bad lot, but I still choose it over LibreOffice etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Dropbox is banned on my office network. Therefore, at least for me, this is a bit useless.

</comment><comment><USER75> Didn't SunOS have pretty much exactly this in 1985?

It's sad to see things like this being touted as "new".

</comment><comment><USER76> To me this sounds very much like "Microsoft is buying Dropbox in the next 6 months"...

<comment><USER77> What would Microsoft want Dropbox for? They don't have any infrastructure Microsoft would want (MS runs Azure, while Dropbox just rents off AWS), Microsoft has OneDrive clients for most of the platforms Dropbox is on... it doesn't seem to me that Dropbox has anything Microsoft can't just add to their own service.

<comment><USER27> 1\. Market reach, it's where the customers are. Compare the sheer number of apps that have native Dropbox integration, with those that have OneDrive. While it's far from scientific, nearly everyone I know has a Dropbox account - very few have a OneDrive account.

2\. It makes their own OneDrive service seem even more competitive. Why pay for Dropbox when you can buy Office365 for about the same price and get unlimited storage?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Not sure how is this good news for Dropbox?

MS is giving office 365 customer free unlimited cloud storage.

Now M$ can tell their office (probably soon to be office 365 ) customers: "Good News, we have dropbox support for you, but BTW checkout out our unlimited cloud storage for free too."

For me, it is a bit like MS in 90 said we have strong competitor call Netscape while pre install IE for free to kill Netscape. It is assimilation strategy from the old play book.

Dropbox has little choose on this as Box are doing it and their enterprise customers might also demand it. They have to the poison pill.

<comment><USER79> It's good for Dropbox, because they can push further into the enterprise market. When business users try to decide between Dropbox and OneDrive, Office integration won't be an issue for Dropbox any more.

Dropbox has its own merits over OneDrive. OneDrive is not as friendly and feature-complete as Dropbox is. And Dropbox has far better APIs when it comes to integrating with other services.

And as far as Microsoft is concerned, the partnership improves people's productivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> For me, the fact that Microsoft worked directly with the FBI to integrate OneDrive into PRISM makes the whole product something I would never touch, so it's great to see alternatives picking up the slack.

[http://cryptome.org/2014/11/ms-onedrive-nsa- prism.htm](http://cryptome.org/2014/11/ms-onedrive-nsa-prism.htm)

<comment><USER81> All the major cloud vendors are surveillance collaborators.

... and I have to ask: do they have any choice? Can you say _no_ to the national security state? If I were in charge of a company with employees who have families and fiscal responsibilities, I can't say that I could. I'm sure any request from those quarters comes with an implied "we wouldn't want anything bad to happen to your company, now would we?"

The only way I can imagine a company saying no is if it were privately held and the largest investors were on board, and most of these companies are public. Being public makes you subject to all kinds of "soft power."

<comment><USER82> this is a political problem, but can also be addressed as an engineering problem: [https://leastauthority.com/](https://leastauthority.com/) and [https://www.tahoe-lafs.org/](https://www.tahoe-lafs.org/)</comment></comment></comment>


Nice site if you have forgotten the basic geometric formulas for area and volume - <AUTHOR> http://www.geometrybasic.com/ <comment><USER2> Really helpful when designing models in openscad

</comment><comment><USER3> "if you have forgotten"... Because search engines don't exist?</comment>


Top paying programming languages - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/298635/these-programming-languages-will-earn-you-the-most-money/

<comment><USER2> Hmmm, I bet this survey didn't control for location of employment.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't Ruby on Rails a web framework and not a programming language?

</comment><comment><USER4> soooo, apparently Erlang and Haskell are new languages...</comment>


Ask HN: Updating the Programming Language Family Tree - <AUTHOR>

I've been asked by the german branch of O'Reilly to update their poster featuring the family tree of programming languages. Since the last public release of said poster some time has passed, so a few things have changed in the world of coding.
When I received the template of the current state of the poster, I was a bit disappointed by seeing the timeline culminating in a bunch of thinning parallel lines of the past 5-10 years, after the exciting crissing and crossing of the wild 70s. So I decided to not just extend the tree with the well known established languages, and to not only add the well known up-and-comming languages, but to add some of the less well known and experimental languages as well. Otherwise one could get a distressing sense that the world of programming languages has grown stagnant and tentative, whereas I think we're on the cusp of a new explosion of exploratory languages.
Let me give you a run-down of the languages that popped up since 2000 that I've collected so far, and would love to hear of any others I might have missed and you deem important. Please note though that both space on the poster and time available to me are finite , so I will have to draw the line somewhere - unfortunately I won't be able to include a majority of the 8512 languages present in the Encyclopedia of Computer Languages (http://hopl.murdoch.edu.au/) :)
New "major" players: Clojure, D, Erlang, F#, Factor, Funnel, Go, Groovy, IO, Lua, Scala, Windows Power shell
Experimental/young languages: Agena, Alef++, BeanShell, BitC, Boo, Cat, Chapel, Clay, Cobra, Falcon, Fantom, Fortress, Frink, Ioke, Joy, Judoscript, Mirah, Nice, Noop, OOC, Pizza, Quark, Reia, Rust, Scratch, X10
PS: Does anyone have any information about the date of appearance and languages that influenced the design of Fjölnir (Icelandic programming language) or DRAKON , PROL2, Rapira or Glagol (Soviet/russian programming languages)? My Google-Fu fails me on these. <comment><USER2> haXe, Vala, ATS are all about as noteworthy as the other young languages listed.

Also possibly worth indicating: Objective C, while quite old, has suddenly become a major player since the rise of the iPhone App Store.

</comment><comment><USER3> For golang, check out <http://golang.org/doc/go_faq.html>.

</comment><comment><USER4> see subthread by Barnaby (and me!) here

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1774337>

Also:

<http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2010/05/types-la-chart.html></comment>


Ask HN: Are auto login tokens in transactional emails bad practice? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, what do you think about auto login tokens in transactional emails? If the user has multiple devices (e.g. desktop at work, ipad at home) it's just very convenient. We also offer login with social accounts (e.g. facebook, google) but most of our users still register by email.<p>Whats your opinion? <comment><USER2> I've seen a website without password. To login: you have to fill you email adress, they send you an email with a one time auto login token.

It was great!

But (because, there is a "but") it was (I repeat) a _one time_ auto login token.

If there was a for ever auto login token, this mail may be lost, duplicate, or worse, compromised.

The _one time_ auto login is "secured" in the way you know you will have first access to this mail (mail is mostly unsafe) and the link worked.

Advantage : only one password (double authenticated for several providers) for your mail. As would be an oauth connection.

In a transactional mail ? Muh... "transactional" mean with an action, but commonly with a paid action, with private informations like a credit card number... I will not feel safe if in the same email I have a confirmation I have paid something (ie: advice about payment information are provided) and a link that allows the mail reader to get those informations.

There were my 2 cents.</comment>


Top Largest Databases in the World - <AUTHOR> http://www.focus.com/fyi/operations/10-largest-databases-in-the-world/

<comment><USER2> Seems to rely on old data and guesses.</comment>


Apollo's Forgotten Computer – The LVDC - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p12CinjFh1I <comment><AUTHOR> 32kb RAM, 2MHz processor isn't that about the power of a ZX81?

I bet the RAM back would have come loose during launch</comment>


16 year old Wikileaks supporter arrested for DDOS attacks on MasterCard and Visa - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekword.net/wikileaks-hackers-arrest/

<comment><USER2> It was only a matter of time until they arrested someone. Putting the controversy surrounding Wikileaks aside, this arrest seems like a good thing. Setting a precedence of not punishing people for DDOS attacks would be definitely be bad. Especially when the DDOS attacks are so simple to do, "download this program, enter <http://visa.com> into the first box and press Go".

</comment><comment><USER3> Finally.</comment>


Ask HN: Is developing open source and then using it at my job wrong? - <AUTHOR> I love my job and I work for a great company, but we have some very strict internal development policies, so much so that it makes development quite slow and cumbersome, and sometimes impossible. Many requests have to be approved for very simple tasks that need to get done, and my ability to perform my job is hampered by these policies. I love my job don't get me wrong, but outside of work I have much more freedom and can produce value at a much faster rate. In fact, the approval process for using open source is much faster than building something internally.
My question is: If I were to do open source development outside of my job, would it make sense for me to then use my work for my job? Given that I go through all the proper procedures and channels of course and don't use anything proprietary that could be grounds for a lawsuit.
I have good intentions, I want to do my job as best as possible, but the restrictions inside the company are so strict that I'd be better off creating something outside and then bringing it in. Does this make sense? Could there be legal repercussions? <comment><USER2> Yes, you may be contractually forbidden from doing such work.

You need to have a lawyer review the IP assignment clauses in whatever you signed. It may be that there is no such thing as "outside of my job." They may own everything you do regardless of when or how you do it, which means their policies apply for everything, all the time.

Even a reasonable IP assignment, that only assigns ownership to the company of work that is directly related to your responsibilities, might conflict, since you'd be making an open source project to help with your responsibilities.

Talk with a lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER3> The practice is typically viewed as pernicious behavior in both small and large companies. There are a few 'lifestyle companies' which have an ethos of developing in the the open. If you do not know if you work at one, then you probably don't.

I know it does not seem "fair" that virtually every intellectual product you create is ascribed to your employer; especially since you have probably made a significant effort to make your professional interests align with your personal interests. (This is particularly true at the beginning of your career.)

Different companies draw the line differently. Most seem to be okay with the submission of fixes/patches/features to existing open-source projects. For those not so lucky, you will periodically see substantive "Drive-By- PullRequests" from anonymous committers. Though - for maintenance reasons, those are often rejected.

</comment><comment><USER4> If I was your boss I would say two things: 1) Here are the reasons we have these protocols in place. 2) Tell me what you want to make and how it will help the company.</comment>


Tell HN: HackerNews finding its way into the german mass media - <AUTHOR>

The German newspaper "Die Zeit" recently cited HN and namely patio11 in an article about Diaspora: http://www.zeit.de/digital/internet/2010-09/facebook-diaspora-sicherheit (sorry, it is in German)
The relevant parts, translated freely:
--
One could overtake other accounts, friend people or delete photos, whithout the original owner being asked for permission, the comments of the technics-forum HackerNews said.
Patrick McKenzie, owner of a japanese software-enterprise, judged more drastically: "Right now there is nothing that an intruder could not to with another persons account." McKenzie even supposes that it is possible to take over the server the program is running on, due to a glitch in the software.
-- <comment><USER2> Which merely means is that Die Zeit is using The Register as a source, as that's where Patrick's quote originates.

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/16/diaspora_pre_alpha_l...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/16/diaspora_pre_alpha_landmines/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I was not aware of that</comment></comment>


Ruling for Apple against Psystar means clone-makers have no legal recourse - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/nov/14/apple-psystar-cloning-licence-judges-ruling

<comment><USER2> Engineering recourse is still an option. Instead of changing Apple's software, change your hardware. But that requires real work.</comment>


Bloomberg Goes iPad - <AUTHOR> http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/04/bloomberg_goes.html

<comment><USER2> Where did I see that article about the stages of Apple product launches? It went:

      * It's announced
      * Blogs hate it
      * Blogs love it
      * It's released
      * Everybody buys one

I believe we are right on schedule.

<comment><USER2> Just one example:

Then: <http://gizmodo.com/5458382/8-things-that-suck-about-the-ipad> Now: <http://gizmodo.com/5506692/ipad-is-the-future>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I find it sad that there is pretty much nothing about this interface that could not be rendered in a standard browser interface. Yet they are investing loads of money, hype and effort and everyone will have orgasms about it just because it's an "app". And in the end we've just reverted what would have previously be done in an open, standard way into a proprietary, closed, single vendor (and, I'm guessing, expensive) format.

<comment><USER2> Moreover why does every _content site_ need an app? What's the point?

<comment><USER4> Because they're too afraid to syndicate their content and deal with a mess of licensing deals.

<comment><USER2> But why not just slap a mobile stylesheet on the existing site?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> According to <http://uxmag.com/design/the-impossible-bloomberg-makeover> the terrible Bloomberg interface is a way to "sustain a fictive status symbol". I am happy to hear that sustaining a status symbol just got a lot more stylish.

<comment><USER6> I never get this part "The pain inflicted by blatant UI flaws such as _black background color_ "

Why is black background color bad? I love using sites and tools with a black background color. I have far less eyestrain than with a white background.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Slopes – Visualizing and Manipulating Economic Data on Your iPad - <AUTHOR> http://slopelabs.com

<comment><USER2> What is the target market for this? If its financial industry professionals, why would they use an iPad in lieu of a desktop they're spending all day behind?</comment>


Paradox inside innovation... - <AUTHOR>

I suspect that the identification and then resolution of paradox inside a well defined situation has a causal realtionship to innovation... maybe. <comment><AUTHOR> This relates directly to creating solutions for pain-points. It's an approach to solving a problem.</comment>


The Biggest Rebranding Failures and Successes in Marketing History - <AUTHOR> https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/1286/what-are-some-of-the-biggest-re-branding-failures.html <comment><USER2> As european i won't say theese are the biggest failures in marketing history, just "subjective failures in US marketing history". This article was written probably just to generate content/clicks.</comment>


No More Custom Browser Views in iOS Apps - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mobtest.com/2015/09/no-more-custom-browser-views-in-ios-apps/ <comment><USER2> Yeah, I always hated those UIWebview screens with different buttons all the time. Good riddance, hope devs do away with them!</comment>


Preliminary analysis of a floating-point benchmark on ARM processors - <AUTHOR> http://codedivine.org/2012/09/25/prelim-analysis-rgbenchmm/

<comment><USER2> Works on Nexus 7, results:

1 thread - 316.0 MFlops 319 on 2nd run 2 threads - 880.0 MFlops 4 threads - 1454.0 MFlops

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Good to know it is consistent with what other users reported to me :)</comment></comment>


Livescribe 3, Jot Script and Pencil: Three "Smart" Pens for the Tablet Era - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20131119/livescribe-3-jot-script-and-pencil-three-smart-pens-for-the-tablet-era/ <comment><AUTHOR> I've been using the new Jot Script and the positional determination when writing is good. As the reviewer notes, the biggest problem is the "feel" of tapping on the glass. It is like writing on glass with a ballpoint pen. You naturally expect the more tactile softened sensation of a pen landing on paper, so it jars a little. If there was a screen cover that worked with capacitative touch and felt like like paper it would be more natural.</comment>


Google transferred ownership of Duck.com to DuckDuckGo - <AUTHOR> https://www.namepros.com/blog/confirmed-duck-com-transfers-to-duckduckgo.1113728/ <comment><USER2> NamePros user, Thelma, made a good point:

> The story of Microsoft floating a significant loan to Apple in order to keep > Apple solvent in the late '90's is well-known. Microsoft didn't do so out of > altruistic impulse; they did so to decrease the odds they'd be the target of > anti-trust legislation. I'm sure the c-suite at Google is very aware of that > history lesson, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more likely anti-trust > target than Google. Alphabet was a proactive effort to stay ahead of that > curve. This is another. It's also why I suspect they either gifted > Duckduckgo the domain, or sold it at a modest price. Even if they squeezed > Duckduckgo for every penny they could and maximized the duck.com sale price, > that's a penny in the couch for Google, and of insignificant benefit, > compared to the license to print money that they maintain as a monolith.

<comment><USER3> Is this not just a classic example of HN looking for the negative in every positive? Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy and MS pushed them off it. Conversely, DDG is nowhere near bankruptcy and although it may be easier to type, a shorter domain name is not going to drastically increase the competitive edge that DDG has over google. To me they seem in totally different categories.

<comment><USER4> > Is this not just a classic example of HN looking for the negative in every > positive?

A company single-handedly helping to save a direct competitor defies all business logic and obligations to shareholders of that company. The truth is this was a business move to benefit Microsoft, even though it had a benevolent factor to it.

Thinking otherwise is overly optimistic, similar to how you believe it being a classic example of HN pessimism.

<comment><USER5> DuckDuckGo is hardly a competitor to Google. I struggle to think of some future scenario where Alphabet looks back and thinks "Damn, we never should have given DDG that domain name, it was all down hill from there!". No antitrust investigation is going to believe that this small action makes any difference to Google's total dominance of search.

<comment><USER6> There is nothing illegal about a monopoly. A monopoly that uses it's position to prevent competition is illegal. Giving DDG a very valuable domain name (given their name) _absolutely_ does what you're saying it doesn't.

<comment><USER5> How is not giving the domain name to DDG using their monopoly to suppress competitors? This is not equivalent to say, removing DDG from their search results.

<comment><USER7> I don't think that's what they're saying. The point isn't that withholding the domain name is the end of the world, the point is that handing it over is a small token that Google can use to claim that they aren't anti-competitive. I don't know what my stance is on that interpretation, but that seems to be (to me) to be the intended interpretation.

Does that make sense?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Meta:

NamePros tech admin here. This hammered our servers so hard that we actually uncovered a fairly obscure bug in Nginx's FastCGI caching. It's gone unnoticed for years, including during rigorous load testing.

<comment><USER9> Nginx has had some strange bugs under heavy load. Way back in the day, reddit used Nginx as its frontend webserver/load balancer. All of a sudden one day I noticed that it was sending 99% of the traffic to the app server listed first in the config, then 99% of the remaining traffic to the next one, and so on down the line, such that the last app server in the list (only about 10 at the time) was essentially getting no traffic. If I changed the config, the traffic pattern was still based on the config order, so it wasn't a bug in the hashing or the numerical values of the IPs of the app servers or anything like that.

Never did figure out what caused that problem. We just switched out Nginx for Haproxy and never had a problem again. :)

<comment><USER10> ConnectionLeaseTimeout?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice! Now DuckDuckGo needs to just change their name to Duck Search and it can be used as a verb.

No longer will you have to say "Did you DuckDuckGo it?" and can instead say "Did you Duck it?".

Even on the domain alone I will use Duck more since I won't have to type in the full DuckDuckGo.com domain.

I _feel_ like this could really bring some measurable growth to Duck search. I _feel_ like I certainly will use it more and talk about it more. Time will tell.

<comment><USER12> My iPhone is constantly autocorrecting "fucking" to "ducking" no matter how many times I write the former and never write the latter, so this could be a huge thing.

Me: "Ducking Donald"

Siri: "Duck Search found a McDonald's two blocks away, should I reserve you a table?"

<comment><USER13> lol @ reserving tables at McDonald's.

<comment><USER14> If you search Google Images for "romantic dinner at McDonalds", you get some fun results.

<comment><USER15> [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/08/mcdonalds-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/08/mcdonalds- community-centers-us-physical-social-networks)

>When many lower-income Americans are feeling isolated by the deadening uniformity of things, by the emptiness of many jobs, by the media, they still yearn for physical social networks. They are not doing this by going to government-run community service centers. They are not always doing this by utilizing the endless array of well-intentioned not-for-profit outreach programs. They are doing this on their own, organically across the country, in McDonald's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is cool and I hope it leads to a rebranding. While I like DDG a lot, the name has always felt off-putting to me. I'd much rather say "I'll just search Google" than "I'll just search DuckDuckGo."

Does an extra syllable really cause that much additional friction?

<comment><USER17> Also, rather than saying "Google it" maybe we can now say "Duck it".

<comment><USER18> Suggested title of blog post announcing change: "Duck Yeah!"

<comment> barrow-rider I rarely use the term "ducking" in conversation, though auto-correct thinks otherwise. Maybe now I will.

"I was ducking around and found a few good resources for fixing the OSPF problem."

<comment><USER19> In Trinbagonian dialect, "ducking" is the act of skipping work/school.

See: [https://youtu.be/2qunog47EVo](https://youtu.be/2qunog47EVo) for musical reference.

<comment><USER20> "Ducking" is also a term used in audio mixing. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducking)

<comment><USER21> "Are you good at ducking mate? Let's party!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> DDG is great - have been using it for months and I really enjoy the results. Google searches seem to be more of an echo chamber whereas DDG results seem to be more representative across a broad spectrum of sites.

<comment><USER23> To be honest I've never noticed the filter bubble everybody is talking about with Google. They can infer a lot from context, like city or previous searches, however that's primarily helping users, because coming up with precise search queries is not something that normal people can do and even power users like us fail at it.

I have been using DuckDuckGo because I'm making health related queries and I'm pretty scared of companies profiling me based on that.

But the experience with DDG has been worse, although it is definitely improving. And it's bearable, plus protecting my privacy is worth it.

<comment><USER24> > To be honest I've never noticed the filter bubble everybody is talking about > with Google.

Filter bubbles are personalized, so YMMV.

<comment><USER25> Nice Kafka trap!

<comment><USER26> That's not what a Kafkatrap is. Though I suppose if one stretches the metaphor far enough...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In the 1980s an engineer named Dave Smith, who ran a very popular music synthesizer outfit called Sequential Circuits, proposed an open protocol for connecting music synthesizers. The idea was scoffed at by a number of manufacturers, but relatively soon Roland, and eventually the other major Japanese firms (Korg, Yamaha, Kawai) got on board, and that caused everyone else to join in. The standard became known as MIDI.

In the late 80s, Sequential Circuits went belly up due to some bad product decisions. Yamaha bought the remnants of the company, and Smith himself went to work at Korg, where he helped develop an important line of machines (the Wavestation).

In 2002 Smith decided to try again with his own company. As Yamaha owned the Sequential Circuits name, he settled on Dave Smith Instruments (or DSI). The company did quite well in its own boutique business (high-quality analog polyphonic synthesizers).

In 2015, Roland's founder Ikutaro Kakehashi, who had collaborated with Smith on MIDI, went to Takuya Nakata, the President of Yamaha -- a 3.5 billion dollar revenue company mind you -- and together they decided to unilaterally give Smith the famous Sequential Circuits trademark back as a thank-you and gesture of good-will. Kakeshashi said "I feel that it's important to get rid of unnecessary conflict among electronic musical instrument companies. That is exactly the spirit of MIDI. For this reason, I personally recommended that the President of Yamaha, Mr. Nakata, return the rights to the Sequential name to Dave Smith." DSI has since been renamed Sequential.

I'm not sure Smith was even aware of their plan. Two of the most powerful people in the music instrument business just gave him his famous company name back for free.

I like to think Google was doing this.

</comment><comment><USER28> Don't fall for it duckduckgo!

If you change your name to duck, your name will no longer be searchable!

It's a trap!

<comment><USER29> When I ask Google for "duck", duckduckgo is literally the first hit. My experience may be biased, because I am from Germany, but outside of English speaking countries, they should do just fine.

<comment><USER30> Incognito search in the UK here:

1st result: Wikipedia Duck

2nd: Wooden Ducks

3rd: BBC duck recipes

4th: Toilet duck cleaner

5th: BBC iplayer, Sarah and Duck

It goes on. The only mention of duckduckgo on the first 5 pages is this recent news

<comment><USER31> Same experience here. I wonder if this is some kind of bug?

<comment><USER32> It's locale sensitivity.

Duck doesn't mean very much in Germany, so there's little that competes with duck.com. In Britain duck has many other meanings.

If you search for an abbreviation that's commonly used as company name, you may find that Google's top result is the one near you, and that the eponymous company in Petrapavlovsk isn't listed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> According to wikipedia,

       On2 Technologies, formerly known as The Duck Corporation...

So it all makes sense now and all the conspiracy theories about Google's ownership proven false. And kudos to Google for transferring a high value domain ownership out to a competitor!

<comment><USER34> Even before handing over the domain, Google had a landing page that was essentially saying: "If you want to visit DuckDuckGo, _click here_."

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Technical question: Since DuckDuckGo uses Bing Ads, and Bing Ads have tracking that allow for remarketing, is there a point? advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/audience-targeting/universal- event-tracking

<comment><USER36> Ads on DDG don't use tracking / remarketing, they are only based on your search terms.

See [https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and- affiliates](https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates) for details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Might be a nice step towards rebranding for a bigger audience? I use DDG as a default search engine, but the name doesn't roll off the tongue nicely at all...

Edit: It doesn't roll of my fingers either, I didn't even type out the full name...

<comment><USER17> I love DuckDuckGo and use it on all my devices, but, WOW what a horrible name/branding. What were they thinking?

Every time I mention/recommend it to someone the response is always a blank stare followed by something along the lines of "I would never use that if only to avoid that horrible name / brand URL". And I can't say I blame them.

<comment><USER38> Maybe it's a geographic thing?

I feel like anyone who grew up in a region where duck, duck goose was a common game for children to play wouldn't be too confused about the name.

Not that being confused about the name or disliking it is a bad thing. But I like the name, and it's part of the reason I chose to start using DDG.

If they changed it to something more generic, I'd be less likely to keep using it because I'd feel less of a connection to the brand. If I'm going to use something that generic and corporate, then Binging sounds more fun than Ducking.

I do realize that potentially losing _me_ as a user doesn't mean this would be a bad move for DDG overall.

<comment><USER39> I'm not a native English speaker and "duck duck go" doesn't evoke anything at all to me. I learned the reference from your comment even though I've been using DDG for years.

If they want to expand to non-English speaking countries having a long and somewhat complicated name like "duckduckgo" seems like a liability.

<comment> basil-rash I am a native English speaker, and I played duck duck goose as a kid, and I didn't make the connection until just now.

Part of the reason I use Bing is the name is nicer in my head. Also the background images are cool (it's my homepage).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> No mention of a sale?

That seems so strange. I cant think of any other times that a business has given charity to a direct competitor like this.

<comment><USER41> I wonder if Google wants them around so that they can point to them as a competitor when anti-trust suits come up in court.

<comment><USER42> Ding ding ding.. we have a winner

<comment><USER43> Bing exists?

<comment><USER44> Does it?

<comment><USER45> I mean it's bigger than DDG?

<comment><USER44> Well only because DDG aggregates some of their stuff plus Microsoft ship everything to glue into Bing (windows login screens / default browser config / Cortana / XBox).

I know no one who consciously uses it to do anything other than my mother who uses it search for Google.

If none of the other default integrations exist it'd be dead on it's arse.

<comment><USER46> There are memes out there about people using it to search for porn and I've seen it referenced in forums, so there's at least one use case. Although why anybody has to actively /search/ for porn is beyond me.

<comment><USER44> Well it's not like you find it in a bush these days so you have to put some effort in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I wish everyone used DDG for the sake of privacy, but I cannot. It just doesn't give me answers that I am expecting. It reads my mind less than Google and that's a problem.

<comment><USER48> I may be the only one, but I do think most companies don't use my data for evil purposes. For example, if a search engine can track me on the web, they can deduce which web page answered my query. Then they put that page near the top of the list the next time anyone runs the same query.

Furthermore: if a retailer can use my location data to predict demand, they can optimize their logistics and save fuel.

<comment><USER49> > if a retailer can use my location data to predict demand, they can optimize > their logistics and save fuel.

Do you think those cost-savings will be passed down onto you?

<comment><USER50> I'm no fan of privacy violations, but if everyone uses a little less fuel there are huge gains for our future, regardless of whether the cost savings trickle down to me personally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I'm hoping the phrase "duck it" will become as widespread as "Google it"

<comment><USER52> I always say, "Search for," e.g. "I searched for it online"

I hate how Google has become a verb and I don't want to see another one named after a company. I miss the days of Lycos, Hotbot, Dogpile, Excite and where you could search for terms on different engines and get different results.

<comment><USER53> Using, "google" as a verb pretty much started out as a meme-like phenomenon; a bit of an in-joke for the more tech savvy when Google was still rising to prominence.

As these things sometimes go, mass adoption happened. What used to be cute and funny is now free marketing for a search tech behemoth but with people unwilling to give up this initial connotation of "tech savvy."

I've long since reverted to "search online" or "search the web", but I do hope "to duck" gains some prominence; it could be the new "tech savvy" verb to use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Google is like a french word that rolls off the tongue. Duck is like a anglo/norse, sharp and harsh but satisfying like our other favorite 4 letter word.

<comment><USER52> It made me wonder if ente.de is in use (Ente is Duck in German). It is .. and it's full of 90s Internet.

<comment><USER55> > Last Update 21.07.2003

Not quite, but the design, layout and editing is indeed hilariously outdated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Though this is a good move, DuckDuckGo should really try and work toward taking ownership of [http://ddg.com](http://ddg.com).

With the 'D' and 'G' key separated by just one key in between on a standard QWERTY keyboard, this should really make it exponentially easier to get to DuckDuckGo's homepage.

<comment><USER57> They already have ddg.gg which is even easier to input. Not that owning ddg.com as well would be a bad thing, though.

<comment><USER58> "ddg.gg" is quite awkward if you ask me... or am I the only one who finds repeated letters harder to type than alternating ones?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> How nice it must be to be so big that you don't have to worry about helping the "competition".

<comment><USER60> It's also funny when Google does 'nice' things, it still gets attacked, even though they don't seem to have bought the domain to be malicious.

<comment><USER61> I don't see what's so nice about this if all they were doing was squatting on the domain. It's good that they stopped squatting, let's leave it at that.

<comment><USER62> Why it was squatting?

<comment><USER63> If you own a domain you have no intent to use, which someone else may conceivably want, you're squatting.

<comment><USER64> Google owned the domain because they acquired a company that used to be named "Duck Corporation" and predated DuckDuckGo.

A few months ago, DuckDuckGo asked for the domain, Google agreed to give it to them for free, and the transfer took place today.

That doesn't really seem like squatting, at least not how the term is generally used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> DuckDuckGo People, now you need to buy duck.it domain!

<comment><USER66> So if anyone asks you something you don't know, you just say "Let me duck that!"

<comment><USER67> If anyone ever said that to me, I'd assume they were verbally confirming that they were trying to get out of the situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> It's hard to think of a worse name than 'DuckDuckGo'. It's amazing that the company managed to survive with a name like that.

</comment><comment><USER69> Seems quite the timely strategic PR move from Google; this might alleviate some of the bad press it's been battling lately (public leak of DragonFly project, workers' protest and public petition against it, etc). Good for DDG, though.

</comment><comment><USER70> What? that was weirdly nice of Google to do this. I'm very shocked at this.

<comment><USER71> Google facing anti-trust investigations is inevitable at this point. When the hearings and inquiries come, holding onto domain(s) directly connected to the trademarks of would-be competitors is going to be a liability. It might not be unlawful in any way whatsoever, but having to answer why you're holding onto these properties in a way that doesn't demonstrate a promotion of anti- competitive values is going to be, at best, challenging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> If using Firefox, you can now browse the web and search it with some animals, _the Fox and the Duck_.

<comment><USER73> But in which order do you ferry the animals across the river so as to not have the fox eat the duck?

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I'm quite surprised there's no .go tld, I could see it being used quite a lot.

<comment><USER75> Two-letter TLDs are ccTLDs, and all the existing countries already have their ccTLDs. In order for this to happen, you'd need to have a new country spring into existence that can plausibly be abbreviated to .go, and then they would have to treat it like a faux-generic (like .io) instead of imposing registration/use restrictions as some countries do for their ccTLDs.

<comment><USER52> I love how you can still buy .su (Soviet Union) domains.

<comment><USER75> I tried to buy one but it bought me instead :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> No details?

I need to duck the web to find out more about this. :)

</comment><comment><USER77> Having heard and tried DuckDuckGo many times over the years, the other day, I thought about giving it the nth try, to finally switch from Google.

And what did I type? duckgogo.com.

I'm sure there are others who find the name not so memorable. duck.com makes it simple.

</comment><comment><USER78> Is this to fein competition?

<comment><USER39> I'm guessing that's it's more like a PR move to show that they're "playing fair" that doesn't cost them much. Or alternatively, a way to avoid bad PR from squatting a domain that would be beneficial to a competitor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> I do feel like DuckDuckGo is too long to type. That's a barrier for me. Rebranding to just Duck might be a good thing, but why "duck" ... not my favorite animal, or why animal at all...

<comment><USER80> That would be D+Enter if you indeed use it regularly. Add it yo your bookmark bar => no typing :)

<comment><USER79> I did. My D+Enter is draw.io...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> I use also use ddg, but maps.google is far better for maps. So I mix both, using an addon, I can right click an address and send to google maps. Its a nice compromise.

<comment><USER82> you can also just add `!gm` to your query and it will then populate Google Maps with it :)

<comment><USER83> !m is enough, for another 33% saving :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Welcomed change!

I never remembered whether to type duckgogo.com or duckduckgo.com - either of them i had to type twice due to normal fat-fingering :)

<comment><USER85> It's like Duck Duck Goose

<comment><USER84> Or was it duck goose goose? :)

duck.com!

<comment><USER85> The game where you tap tap two heads and all 3 of you run in a circle. At least two people collide and are knocked out. The 3rd gets the website they wanted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Interestingly transferred, not bought.

Does Google buying DDG at this point make sense?

Given their stance on privacy, it would allow Google control of the narrative..

<comment><USER87> I don't see it. Google needs an independent DuckDuckGo to show it does not have a monopoly on search.

<comment><USER86> True.

So a helping hand doesn't taint the DDG brand, buys good will, and provides competition to the defacto monopoly. Good move.

How much is a 4 letter domain worth these days? 10s - 100s of thousands?

<comment><USER88> Duck.com would have been worth $500K+ on the open market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> I used to refer to the tape like this, but we can now utter "If you can't Duck it, fuck it." in (casual) technical conversations.

</comment><comment><USER90> That's cool and I wish DDG would offer Duck mail.

I'd like to diversify my digital life and move away from Google as much as possible!

<comment><USER91> I'd suggest not mailing the same mistake again. Go elsewhere for your email. I switched my domain to a paid provider recently and really like it. As much as an @duck.com address would be cool and I'd use it as a 2nd email, I wouldn't want it as my primary.

<comment><USER90> Cool for me I'm all good using one company's svc as long as that company is ethical and stands behind their values.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Imagine if Google had GoogleGoogleGo as their branding from the start. Would they be where they are today?

<comment><USER92> ggg.gg?

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> That's nice of Google to not be a duck.

</comment><comment><USER94> This makes me think that DDG is Google's effort to counter the anti-monopoly arguments.

</comment><comment><USER95> So will DuckDuckGo change their name to Duck? DuckDuckGo is a terrible name.

<comment><USER92> Duck isn't much of an improvement, the word doesn't sound serious in business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> Now that fits their motto of "don't be evil." I'm happy to read this story.

<comment><USER97> I believe it's "do the right thing" now

<comment><USER96> That's probably better as it's something to do, an action, the right thing, as opposed to avoiding being something. And if someone does the right thing they're not being evil. Much better motto.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> I use DDG most of the time.

But for dev related stuff I use Google, results are simply better

</comment><comment><USER99> Where does DuckDuckGo get the money to keep this service alive?

<comment><USER100> Ads. Just not tracking-based ads, only keyword-based ads.

<comment><USER99> Thanks, that makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> I would be amused if DDG flipped the domain for cash.

</comment><comment><USER29> ddg.gg is still easier (and for some reason more fun) to type. It might sound silly, but that's what won me over in the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER102> A good gesture, which is not powered by AI!

</comment><comment><USER103> I love DuckDuckGo! Been using it for years!

</comment><comment><USER104> Now give us back the .dev TLD.

</comment><comment><USER105> Has anyone noticed DDG results getting worse lately, btw?

</comment><comment><USER21> This is cool!

</comment><comment><USER106> Classy move.

</comment><comment><USER107> I fear the Goog, even when they bear gifts.

</comment><comment> phoe-krk About time!

</comment><comment><USER108> Why did google own duck.com?

Edit: lol

<comment><USER109> I'm curious who owns the other animal domains.

<comment><USER110> I really want a .fox domain but the whole tld is reserved for Fox news which doesn't seem to use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER111> pretty awesome. except I saw accidental penis via dick.com and my fat fingers.

edit: u is right next to i guys. this is not a valueless comment. it's a legitimate thing that will happen to someone you know.

</comment><comment><USER112> This is not charity. Google needs DDG to exist, because Google is a monopoly. That economic reality is increasingly translating into political calls for GOOG to be broken up. Supporting DDG is just Google preparing for future legal and legislative/regulatory battles. They can point to DDG and say, "Look! There is another search company!"

Google also probably accelerated this potential action to this week because they're taking so much heat and needed positive press.

<comment><USER113> > Google needs DDG to exist

DDG is just a frontend to Bing. They need Bing to exist, not DDG.

<comment><USER114> I thought DDG had its own indexer as well, and aggregated from several sources, including Bing.

<comment><USER115> Their own crawler is only used for widgets and stuff. All the organic results are from Bing and Yahoo.

See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664967)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


GigaOM: The Coming Apollo vs. Firefox Battle - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2007/03/19/the-coming-apollo-vs-firefox-battle/ <comment><USER2> As much as I'm a fan of Open Source and support Firefox I don't think there's realistically any battle to be fought here.

Flash has nearly 100% install base across every single browser and can get users to upgrade extremely quickly with their nearly-automatic upgrade system.

Not to mention the horde of experienced Flash developers chomping at the bit to make offline versions of their apps.

<comment><USER3> Firefox isn't going anywhere. Even if Apollo catches on like nothing since C, it wouldn't kill Firefox; the user still needs a browser.

Yes, FF supports rich application development in XUL, and yes, Apollo might compete with that somewhat, but it doesn't really matter. XUL is there not as a feature but as a tool: the FF UI is built with XUL. That it is useful for others is really just a detail. In FF3, there will be more emphasis and support given to XUL apps, but still, it's there for the browser.

Also, the degree of competitions between FF and Apollo is, I think, overestimated. Apollo is basically just another RAD toolkit. XUL apps aren't desktop apps, they run directly in the browser just like Ajax apps. That gives them an entirely different use case than Apollo. (E.g. if FF becomes widespread, XUL might compete with Ajax when building something like gmail. Apollo wouldn't--a desktop app built with web tech is still a desktop app.)

<comment><USER2> I'm not saying Apollo will replace Firefox -- just that Apollo will win the war for developer attention in developing "rich internet applications".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Curious if this will play out like she describes. If you are targeting web developers it would seem like a bad idea to battle Firefox.</comment>


Show HN: We are Reasonal, we are solving the misinformation problem - <AUTHOR> https://reason.al <comment><AUTHOR> We are creating single, universal and modifiable entry for every link, image, and video on the web, inspired by the editing mechanism in Wikipedia.

Reasonal entries are available on Twitter now using a Twitter bot, and will be available from Social Media and messaging platforms in the future.

Here is an example Reasonal Entry: [https://rsn.al/V2Xnbuj](https://rsn.al/V2Xnbuj)

You can get the entry for any link by visiting [https://reason.al/twitter- checker](https://reason.al/twitter-checker) (opens Twitter).

You can also get entries by installing our Browser extension and browse Twitter and Facebook: [https://reason.al/reasonal- extension](https://reason.al/reasonal-extension).

We are a team based in Berlin.</comment>


I built Lambda's 4-GPU deep learning rig for $4000 cheaper - <AUTHOR> http://l7.curtisnorthcutt.com/the-best-4-gpu-deep-learning-rig <comment><AUTHOR> Hi hackers!

This is a follow-up to the previous post "I built Lambda's $12,500 deep learning rig for $6200" which had around 480 upvotes on Reddit. That previous build had only 3-GPUs and took some shortcuts. In response to the hundreds of comments on that post, including comments by the CEO of Lambda Labs, I built and tested multiple 4-GPU rigs. I'm back to share a near-perfect 4-GPU deep learning rig with the highest performance and reliability, no thermal throttling, and lowest cost. This build is nearly identical to Lambda's 4-GPU workstation, but costs around $4000 cheaper. Happy building!

<comment><USER2> Very nice build indeed! I was comparing it with Lambdas build and it's pretty good on comparison, any thoughts on the Threadripper vs Intel? Also regarding the PSU, I've seen some pretty nasty reviews on that one ([https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-HERCULES-1600-Continuous- Has...](https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-HERCULES-1600-Continuous-Haswell- SILVER/product- reviews/B00A940V1K/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews- filter-bar)). How did yours perform so far?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why speakers are counting hands on every conference talk? - <AUTHOR> I'm wondering what's the purpose of doing that. Maybe there are some speakers which actually use that number to say or not to say something, but I think most of them are doing that without any purpose. <comment><USER2> It's an audience engagement tactic.

<comment><AUTHOR> To be honest, it's getting really boring and they should invent different tactic :)</comment></comment>


Tezos: A Self-Amending Crypto-Ledger [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://tezos.com/ <comment><USER2> Proof of Stake seems like an interesting idea. I've often wondered if bitcoin's proof-of-work verification model would remain viable as the currency reaches the end of its generation phase and the incentives for hashing become negligible. Off-chain transactions will become more and more popular, which not only draws revenue away from the hashers but also undermines the consistency of the system.

Tezos' second innovation, its ability to incorporate changes to the protocol without forking, is also interesting but raises some questions. If I understand correctly, stakeholder consensus is required to integrate a change to the protocol. The author gives an example where a developer attempting to remove this safety mechanism would fail because the stakeholders, recognizing that the change is not in their interest, would reject it -- analogous to voters rejecting a proposal to eliminate democracy, I suppose.

However, this seems to rest on the assumption that a majority of stakeholders are familiar enough with the protocol to recognize which changes are beneficial to them and which aren't, in situations less obvious than the above example. Further, they must be willing to put in some time and effort to understand the amendment and cast their vote. My hypothesis is that this would lead to a disproportionate concentration of power in the hands of those who control large amounts of currency, precisely the problem that PoS purports to avoid.

The entities controlling large amounts of currency have plenty of incentive to understand the protocol well and vote on every proposed amendment. The average user, who controls a small wallet and uses the currency for day-to-day transactions, has much less incentive: the average user of HTTPS does not feel the need to educate themselves on the underlying technology, nor is the average user of dollars familiar with macroeconomic policy. So the amendments which pass "review" will be the ones most favourable to larger entities, even if these entities control less than half the actual currency. I don't buy into the idea that those with monopolies have little incentive to abuse them: even if a protocol change will eventually alienate users and devalue the currency, the controlling entities may still choose to implement it for short-term profit, undermining the currency in the process.

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems like an amazing development.

If I read it correctly, Tezos aims to decentralize the core protocol development by allowing forks to coexist and peacefully merge in any innovations.

It is also in OCaml, which is great for the robustness of the code developed. Much less scary than C/C++. Tezos even goes to the point of suggesting formal proofs of correctness, using COQ proof assistant.

<comment><USER4> Tezos does aim to decentralize core development, but the emphasis is on allowing stakeholders to coordinate on forks rather than having forks coexist.

The latter possibility is very interesting and can be implemented within Tezos, but it will require a lot of forethought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very nice write-up on where are we standing currently, but that's pretty much it.

General idea seems great, but there's not much more than hand waving about it.

<comment><USER4> Hi comboy,

Thanks, the motivation part does try to describe where we currently stand. However, if you look through the "Abstract Ledger" section, you'll see a specific description of how a meta-ledger can be achieved.

A more specific white-paper will be released in the next few days.

Regarding implementation, the meta-shell currently works with a toy protocol, and I'm working on completing the seed protocol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The name is most likely a reference to Leah McGrath Goodman (who, if you don't know, wrote the piece on Dorian Nakamoto in Newsweek).

<comment><USER3> Yup -- this definitely feels like a dig at her. Who invented Tezos? Why, of course it was Leah! After all, what's in a name?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there an implementation in the works? Also, if you're the author, find me on #tendermint on freenode. There are some things about PoS that I'd like to share with you.

</comment><comment><USER8> who wrote this, Satoshi?

<comment><USER9> I can neither confirm nor deny that. ;-)

More pertinent question: Does it matter?</comment></comment>


Snapchat Lands $13.5 Million in Round Led By Benchmark - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20130209/snapchat-lands-13-5-million-in-round-led-by-bessemer-ventures/

<comment><USER2> ok, this might be a weird question (as in "hard/impossible to answer"), but how are they possibly going to spend 13.5 million reasonably?

<comment><USER3> Don't worry, they'll find a way. Spending money is ridiculously easy, making money, that's hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand this from Snapchat's side and from the investor's side...anyone care to enlighten a confused soul?

<comment><USER5> While I'm not privy to the specifics of this specific deal, I believe often the point of raising large amounts of capital, is to secure and ensure continued market dominance, in winner-takes-all stakes.

It's usually not the primary goal to innovate new features per se, although that is often what is stated publicly.

Furthermore, when it comes time to exit, a premium will likely be paid, for the competitor in pole position.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the response. I guess I am confused at what market they are dominating and if it is a market if they aren't making money off of it...I can't see the monetization angle (maybe I'm just missing something obvious).</comment></comment></comment>


Silicon Valley's Legendary 'Coach' Bill Campbell Has Died - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2016/04/18/silicon-valleys-legendary-coach-bill-campbell-has-died/ <comment><USER2> Very, very sad indeed. I had far too few chances to interact with Bill, but when I did, they were always incredibly memorable.

One of my favorite quotes came at the SV Angel CEO conference a few years ago. When asked about culture, Bill said: "Culture is not about the free food or the ping pong tables. Culture is about how you treat your people and how they treat each other."

Rings very true to me. My condolences to his family, Bill was a great man.

<comment><USER3> Says volumes about our level of discourse that this is considered a pearl of wisdom.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately this was particularly the case around 2011 :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am surprised that the Bill Campbell described in this article could be the same one who oversaw Intuit, a company which has engaged in some very shady business practices with regard to tax reform ([https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of- turbotax...](https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax- fought-free-simple-tax-filing)). This is not to speak ill of the dead, only to note that people are complex and full of contradictions.

<comment><USER6> Bill Campbell was also the one that helped negotiate the wage theft that Apple and Google were sued over. [https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how- silicon-valle...](https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon- valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers- wages/)

<comment><USER7> There's an interesting portrayal of Bill and his actions in Biz Stone's "Things a Little Bird Told Me", his memoir about Twitter and other things.

<comment><USER8> Can you add more to this?

<comment><USER6> At board meetings, Campbell would appear to listen to Ev's presentations on the state of the company. After Ev's sermons were done, the coach would clap loudly and hug his protegee, proclaiming again to everyone in the room that Ev was "doing a fucking great job" and asking them to clap… Then, after Ev left the room, proud that his mentor thought he was doing such a great job, Campbell would shout at the group: "You gotta get rid of this fucking guy. He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing."

[http://fortune.com/2013/11/04/6-things-we-learned-from- hatch...](http://fortune.com/2013/11/04/6-things-we-learned-from-hatching- twitter/)

<comment><USER7> That's from the other Twitter history by Nick Bilton but both agree as to the nature of "coach" as betrayer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What makes him so special is that he was the one "Adult in the Room" who was welcomed in. He understood that technology is a Long Game, not a Short Game, and encouraged great leadership and management. This is an enormous loss.

I would love to see comments by people who had personal interactions with him. Please. :-)

<comment><USER10> It's interesting you say that (Adult in the Room), since my interactions with him were kind of the opposite. I don't mean that he was childish, but that saying evokes a feeling of tempering one's impulses in a way that he didn't seem interested in doing.

I met him at one company mixer and he was regaling us with many stories from Intuit's past. Someone asked him if he'd like another beer (he'd had a few already) and his response was, "I can't drink from an empty bottle." I also saw him do tequila shots with the head of our business unit on stage at a fireside chat they had. I don't mean to paint him as a lush, because that didn't seem like the case, but more to point out how genuine he was. With him, there was no concession to propriety. He did and said whatever he felt like doing or saying.

I can see why the companies he lead and advised tended to have great culture because I think the first step is for the leaders to be as warm/friendly and genuine as possible and Bill had those qualities in spades.

<comment><USER9> Thank you for sharing. This explains why he was so welcomed. By "Adult in the Room" I mean being the person to instill perspective and a longer time horizon in executives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This should constitute a black bar for today.

Campbell was responsible for shaping some of the greatest minds the tech industry has ever known. I mean, the amount of money that the people who learned from Campbell control can be measure in TRILLIONS. This man was the absolutely one of the most influential people I can even think of when it comes to tech.

I wish I could've met him!

<comment><USER12> > TRILLIONS

C'mon now, let's not get ahead of ourselves...

<comment><USER6> Apple and Google alone have over a trillion in market cap.

<comment><USER13> How much of that valuation is due to his efforts, and how much is due to the decades of labour by over a hundred thousand talented engineers?

<comment><USER14> That's not what he suggested:

> the amount of money that the people who learned from Campbell control can be > measure in TRILLIONS

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A truly sad day. I had a chance to meet Bill 4 or 5 times as a student and as an entrepreneur, and you would have no idea that he was such an institution: completely approachable and willing to give advice and support even to a random kid from North Carolina.

<comment><USER11> Hey, I'm from North Carolina too, from Clayton!

That's really awesome to hear that you were able to meet him. I always hear stories about people like that, who leave that 'approachable' impression on people they meet, I'm glad that there are still others like Campbell left, and that it seems that so many have learned from him. Surely his great work will continue on in the lives he touched.

<comment><USER16> Boy, has HN grown. I would have never imagined seeing another Clayton native here!

<comment><USER11> Well, Clayton has grown quite a bit too. I'm in NYC now, but I visited some family there a few months ago, and the place has changed quite a bit. Lots of new developments and such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Absolute Legend. Here's an hour long interview with the man. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFWG51nGmGA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFWG51nGmGA)

</comment><comment><USER18> Wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Campbell_(business_exe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Campbell_\(business_executive\))

YouTube: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GHLg1wDuc10](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GHLg1wDuc10)

</comment><comment><USER19> This is very sad. Just this week I have been reading "The hard thing about hard things" by Ben Horowitz and he makes countless mention of how great Bill Campbell was.

</comment><comment><USER20> Url changed from [http://www.businessinsider.sg/bill-campbell-has- died-2016-4](http://www.businessinsider.sg/bill-campbell-has-died-2016-4), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER21> That free food and those ping pong tables are very representative of how a person treat their employees, though.

They typically mean that the person believes that food and games are appropriate compensation for continuous overtime. I wouldn't need food if I was (socially, it's rarely made explicit) allowed to leave at an appropriate time (5pm, assuming 9am arrival), because I'd have time to make my own dinner.

Similarly, ping-pong tables mean you do not value your employees' focus, and believe that "whack whack whack" noises are totally okay in a room of knowledge workers (well, then that it's a single room room means...).

So culture might not _be_ the ping-pong tables and candy, but they're certainly representative.

<comment><USER22> I have plenty of time to make my own dinner, but I don't like cooking, and hate washing up.

<comment><USER23> Yes but people with kids and family would like that time for themselves. Although you mean good, when enough number of people in the office stay late for food and in the process work a little, it puts pressure on the family people. This results in them giving up their family life for the fear of being perceived as a slacker.

<comment><USER24> The world is not obliged to bend to your choice to have children, just as I don't expect employers to oblige my decision to occasionally go out drinking on a Thursday night.

If leaving at 5pm is important to you, work at an employer who ends work then. There are plenty out there. They also tend to require arriving by 9am (which I would hate), but I don't derail other HN threads to complain about that.

<comment><USER23> >The world is not obliged to bend to your choice to have children

But they are when someone stays at office because they don't want to cook (which is the reason the comment I replied to gave)? Nobody is asking for extra privileges for having kids, the problem is being penalized for having a life outside work.

<comment><USER24> > But they are when someone stays at office because they don't want to cook > (which is the reason the comment I replied to gave)?

Offices certainly aren't _obligated_ to provide food and in fact the majority don't.

Different companies offer different perks which appeal to different workers. If you don't like the perks of a particular company, it's not a "penalty"—just work elsewhere.

<comment><USER23> You don't seem to grasp what I'm saying. Giving or not giving food is not the penalty. If some people stay beyond work hours for food and work while they are there, but some people don't stay, it should not be held against them.

>Different companies offer different perks which appeal to different workers. If you don't like the perks of a particular company, it's not a "penalty"—just work elsewhere

First, this is a general trend, not an exception. Most new companies advertise free food as a perk. Second, just work elsewhere is not always possible for everybody. If you can't relate to other people's situation and problems, keep quiet. Don't say it is not a problem because you don't think it is.

will you say the same thing about working conditions in sweatshops? Should the kids assembling iPhones also 'find' another job?

<comment><USER24> > will you say the same thing about working conditions in sweatshops? Should > the kids assembling iPhones also 'find' another job?

Comparing highly paid software engineers to kids working in sweatshops is ridiculous at best, insulting at worst.

Some companies have strict working hours of 9–5. There are plenty of job openings at such companies. Again, should I complain about the penalty I would inevitable receive from such companies for not showing up at 9am?

<comment><USER23> >Comparing highly paid software engineers to kids working in sweatshops is ridiculous at best, insulting at worst.

Yes because money is what determines the ethics and attitude that companies and managers have towards employees.

>Again, should I complain about the penalty I would inevitable receive from such companies for not showing up at 9am?

No because that is a written rule that conforms to labor laws that you have agreed to, before you joined. Not staying back after work because I have life outside of work is neither.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>