Coca-Cola forced to pull Facebook promotion after porn references - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/18/coca-cola-facebook-promotion-porn <comment><USER2> [http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1003998-Need-help-with- a-v...](http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1003998-Need-help-with-a-very- sensitive-complaint-against-a-massive) This is her thread.

The status message in question was "I watched 2 girls one cup and felt hungry afterwards".

2girls1cup is a pornographic movie featuring two women defecating into a cup and then playing around with and ingesting the excrement.

</comment><comment><USER3> Shades of McDonald's short-lived "I'd hit it" campaign.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=mcdonalds+i%27d+hit+it></comment>


"Never confuse early adopters with a market that actually matter" - <AUTHOR>

What do you think of this quote? Many startups have early adopters, but it doesn't mean they have grow and get to a larger market. So how can one NOT confuse early adopters with a market that actually matter? <comment><USER2> There's a book about this, first published in 1991. It was pretty much the bible for for a couple of generations of startups:

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Well, I've read this book multiple times. It doesn't answer my question (unfortunately), plus, most of the book is about B2B. I wonder about B2C...

<comment><USER3> I just started reading the book and he mentions the "Four Gears" model as more useful for B2C companies. Googling around, he seems to indicate he doesn't believe there's a real chasm between early adopters and pragmatists in the consumer space: [http://www.cmo.com/articles/2014/6/13/geoffrey_moore.html](http://www.cmo.com/articles/2014/6/13/geoffrey_moore.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Steve Jobs explains branding - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmG9jzCHtSQ&feature=related <comment><USER2> Apple's "Think Different / Change the World" ad was a brilliant piece of marketing. But it doesn't seem that really stuck as the core value of their brand. If Nike's message is "we hang around great athletes," Apple's message today is "we hang around the young and hip," [1] which is different than "we hang around people who change the world."

You could argue that these are somehow related, that the young and hip would be attracted by the Think Different ad. I don't dispute that. But the later ads of kids jamming with their iPod ear buds communicate a message that is much closer to the general perception of Apple as a brand today.

\--

[1] In the clothing industry, this type of positioning wouldn't be noteworthy or distinguishing. But in consumer electronics, advertising more like Abercrombie & Fitch and less like IBM has worked out brilliantly for them.

[2] The pre-2000 perception of Apple's brand was also somewhat tangential to the idea of changing the world. Their core message was "we're not IBM." In the talk, Jobs mentions this shouldn't be their core message, but clearly it was. The 1984 ad reinforced this, and even the 1997 Think Different ad retrenched this ground by riffing off of IBM's motto.

[3] Edit: The idea that Apple's core customer is someone who "values their time" and is not a computer geek is meaninglessly broad. Every customer values his or her time, and in any mainstream industry, the vast majority of customers are not computer geeks.

[4] Edit: Was it the success of the iPod that made Apple hip, or was the perception of the iPod being hip part of what made it such a success? Clearly it did become a fashion accessory. The product's clean design was congruent with this message.

<comment><USER3> The success of the iPod made the Apple brand young and hip, but their core customer has been (and may again become with the iPhone and iPad) people who value their time and are not computer geeks per-se. That's a difficult thing to say in a crowd of computer geeks, but may contextualize the iOS/Android debate around here.

<comment><USER4> We shall see how well it works out for them to be the brand for people who aren't fond of rules...computer geeks excepted. Computer geeks who want to change the world seek platforms with fewer rules.

<comment><USER5> _We shall see how well it works out for them to be the brand for people who aren't fond of rules...computer geeks excepted._

I think we see it pretty well already, no? People who think they can change the world aren't the kind who care whether or not Apple gave them permission to jailbreak their iPhone.

<comment><USER4> I think I can change the way the world tells its story with photos, and it bothers me that Camera+ and other 3rd-party iPhone apps can't write EXIF data; only the native app can. Yes, it sounds like a geeky objection, but it makes a difference to people's stories whether the photos can say when and where they were taken.

<comment><USER5> It's been awhile since I've done iPhone development, but it seems this is available starting in iOS4: [http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/Grap...](http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/GraphicsImaging/Reference/CGImageProperties_Reference/Reference/reference.html#//apple_ref/doc/c_ref/kCGImagePropertyExifDictionary)

It's hard to find engineers who can work on products like iOS, so I think it's understandable if they can't get every nook and cranny of the API into v1.

<comment><USER4> It was recently that I heard somewhere that you couldn't write metadata to photos in the photoroll. I think the Camera+ authors have seen iOS4. So I wouldn't read too much into the existence of EXIF data structures in the documentation; it doesn't say what you can do with it.

<comment><USER5> _I think the Camera+ authors have seen iOS4_

Sure, but it doesn't mean they had time time update to use every of the 1000's of feature changes that came with it. This is why Flash as a competing platform is a terrible idea - it adds another stage of "rolling out <some feature> is blocked by <someone in another organization>".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _I'm basically reposting my comments on this video from my company blog..._

The big takeaway is in the first few lines of this video:

"This is a very complicated world. This is a very noisy world and we're not going to get a chance... to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us."

The whole branding/selling thing goes like this...

Lunch pitch ~15 minutes > Bar pitch: ~5 minutes > Elevator pitch: ~30 seconds > ?

That last one is your brand. It's the ultimate quick pitch. You've got 5 seconds, what do you want someone to know about you and what you do for a living?

If you don't know you're in trouble.

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't this just be a company's logo or slogan? (ie Nike: Just Do It).

<comment><USER8> no, that's a mantra:

[http://academicearth.org/lectures/dont-write-mission- stateme...](http://academicearth.org/lectures/dont-write-mission-statement- write-mantra)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe it's because I'm in a cynical mood right now, but Steve Jobs looks like he's performing for an audience. I'd have loved to hear what people like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates _really_ think, but whenever these guys speak, I suspect that they compensate for the fact the people will be listening to them, and that what they say will influence their lives' work.

You're left with no other choice but to reverse-engineer their _real_ philosophies from how the respective companies behave in the market.

</comment><comment><USER10> Let me pass along "Art & Copy" as a suggested movie for those interested in marketing. They talk with agencies both for Apple (Chiat/Day) and for dairy farmers. <http://www.artandcopyfilm.com> \- and on Netflix instant play.

<comment><USER11> Art & Copy does a great job at explaining why the Mad Men era was important - there was a shift in the 60's from large corporate sales-driven organizations to smaller ones where art directors and other "creatives" were in charge.

The parallels to today's startup scene are really strong, with people fleeing corporate cubicle farms and stale products to create fresh new stuff on small teams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's Apple returning to the Big Why. It worked. Apple at the time was in deep trouble having been the "other PC" for too long. They moved away from their "why" to a "what" and they had copied the "what" of every windows PC at the time to abysmal failure.

This speech could have been part of a film "How Apple got its Groove Back".

The iPod ads have nothing to do with this "Think Different" campaign. The iPod ads maintained the "why" as in "Why do we produce these things?" Answer: For fun! For expression! For freeing you from the shackles of a 60 minute CD. For choice.

They didn't go on about what the iPod was (and the iRiver H100 series at the time was a far better machine and the one I chose). They instead went for why it was. That resonated with their audience. They then took that theme and ran with it with every product since.

And yet, just being fun and frivolous doesn't work for everything. Take a look at the iPhone ads; all about function through the app store... and yet withthat function they declare "Fun!". Take a look at the words they use; magical this and magical that. Meanwhile their competition tries to tout function this and function that... and price. Even HP now recognizes what Apple did right and they tried to rip it off with designer notebooks. Too bad that while they have the product the ads still suck (does HP advertise?)

Apple has nailed down what works in marketing for now. They control the mobile space. They control the music space. They have far greater impact on web development than their products have reach. If Adobe/Microsoft/Google ever "get it", watch out. But maybe that is Steve Jobs greatest asset. He knows that they don't "get it".

</comment><comment><USER13> I have to admit, watching this video kind of killed the magic of the Think Different ad video.

From now on I will see it as a Nike ad rip-off. A good one, but still.

</comment><comment><USER14> There is a big difference between those brands, Nike and Apple. There is a reason I use a Mac and I don't wear any Nike.

I bought early one of the most expensive Nike Air running shoes. The quality was total shit and running with them was a pain. I never bought a single pair of Nike shoes again, and I bought a lot of running shoes. There was nothing that Nike could fix, it was just the whole construction of the shoe that was a big fail. Plus it was their most expensive shoe at that time. It was way too soft, the Air sole lost its function early, the rubber was also soft and there was not much left after just a bit of running, it provided no stability at all, and the whole 'Air' was just hot air. The shoe could be used for walking around, but not for running. From running with them one would get all kinds of injuries because of its various construction failures. So the core function and the core value of that shoe, the essence of Nike, was zero. All the marketing money with fancy ads showing athletes was zeroed out.

I then kept running Adidas and currently I'm very happy with Brooks shoes.

I bought early an Apple IIc, then a Mac SE30, a PowerBook, and then a multitude of other Macs - typing this on a MacBook Pro. The quality was good (not always) and Apple tries to improve things (though not always). All in all it was and is fun to use their products.

In the end the 'brand' stuff for me is bullshit of the quality of the product is bad. Apple had some bad products, but it was never such a total failure at its core architecture as that Nike shoe.

</comment><comment><USER15> He's wearing shorts!

<comment><USER16> I didn't notice it until 1:20 or so. Then you see that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> That commercial still give me goosebumps

</comment><comment><USER18> At least at the time Jobs was thinking different himself. Very powerful idea and transformation for the company. Really planted the roots of what the company has become today. The ad itself is powerful even when watched now, 13 years later.

</comment><comment><USER19> It reminds me of this scene from Madmen: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRDUFpsHus>, on How to pitch a product.

</comment><comment><USER20> Apple has a living, beating heart; That heart is Steve Jobs.

He is a megalomaniac, an obsessive driven by the desire to shape the world in his image. He is an artist whose canvas is metal and whose paint is code. Apple is simply a machine that turns Jobs' vision into reality. On Infinite Loop, his word is absolute.

You may love or hate that vision, but just you try and ignore it. Apple inspire many emotions, but very rarely indifference. That is the essential genius of Apple - of all computer companies, they and they alone seek not just to appeal to the intellect, but also to the emotions. No other computer company announces new products to rapturous applause. No other company attracts such vitriol, against not only themselves but their customers. No other company elicits gasps of delight and desire _at their packaging_.

Apple have done many things to frustrate me and anger me. They have made many decisions that I strongly disagree with. They have also made me cry with joy, on several occasions. To me, "Branding" seems far too mild a word.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndkIP7ec3O8> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0FtgZNOD44>

</comment><comment><USER21> This video is awesome. Think Different is my favorite ad of all time. Unfortunately it feels like they have lost something in the last decade. While before it was about enabling passion and challenging the status quo, now it is more about reverence for old heroes. Before it was a call to arms to be inspired by those great men and women and do great stuff, now it is just to adore what they have done, while we continue to live life in our pods.

This makes me sad.

</comment><comment><USER13> 3:22. "The core value of Apple... is that we believe that people with passion... can change the world for the better."

</comment><comment><USER22> A rare, wonderful and inspiring look inside the greatest marketing organization ever created.

Many businesses create Ogilvy style campaigns that sell benefits (rather than features). For example:

"Only Dove is one-quarter moisturizing cream"

"At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock"

Apple understands that they are essentially in a commodity business much like Nike. It's tough to sell benefits in that environment when your benefits are the same as everyone else's. In the market they're in, everyone already understands what the benefits are and most people can use a spreadsheet, word processor or web browser equally well on an Apple or PC.

What Apple did is create a new intangible and very powerful benefit with Think Different:

The words "Think different" translated into an Ogilvy style headline would say: "If you buy this product your friends and peers will think you are different and you will stand out from the crowd.". It's not possible to communicate that directly because it's an embarrassing subject. The Think Different campaign takes a wonderful indirect approach to addressing a sensitive issue and communicating that benefit.

This approach of creating a new intangible and emotional benefit in a commodity market has worked so well for Apple that they have incorporated the marketing approach into the entire organization including their sales strategy and their products. Whereas before their products focused on differentiated features, now they focus on emotional differentiation. Apple stores are an emotional experience.

Apple's smaller market share facilitates this approach because their customers have been the minority. So you're automatically "different" if you buy Apple. These days that is less true, so it will be interesting to watch the marketing organization evolve as their market dominance increases.

Here are my notes from the video:

1\. Marketing is about values

2\. You don't have much of a chance to get people to remember you.

3\. You have to be really clear on what you want people to know about you.

4\. A great brand needs investment and caring if it's going to retain it's relevance and vitality.

5\. At the time of this video Apple's brand had suffered from neglect.

6\. Don't talk about features.

7\. Nike makes you feel something different from a shoe company.

8\. Nike honors great athletes and they honor great athletics.

9\. The question Apple asked was "Our customers want to know who is Apple and what is it that Apple stands for? Where does Apple fit in this world?"

10\. Apple is not about making boxes to help people get their jobs done.

11\. Apple's core value is that "We believe that people with passion can change the world for the better."

12\. Apple is going back to their core value mentioned in 12.

13\. "Values and core values mostly shouldn't change" ~Jobs

14\. "The things that Apple believed at it's core are the same things Apple stands for today"

15\. The ad is a way to communicate this.

16\. Jobs is clearly and intentionally emotionally engaged with the ad and that engages his audience.

17\. The ideas above were distilled into "Think Different."

<comment><USER23> That's a thoughtful post, but I think you got the wrong message out of it. Jobs wants to create computers for people who "think different" in a way that changes the world. He's not talking about it as a fashion statement as you imply when you say:

> The words "Think different" translated into an Ogilvy style headline would > say: "If you buy this product your friends and peers will think you are > different and you will stand out from the crowd."

tc's comment does bring up the fact that that's not what stuck, but it is what Jobs was trying to get at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Steve Jobs is right about branding in this video, and it's for exactly these reasons that I'm not a big fan of Apple. Their core values are about dictating what developers can do with their hardware. Selling software shouldn't be about one person having the power to dictate what goes into a store. That's not a free market. Users shouldn't have to "jail break" their own hardware just to be able to use it as they wish. That's disempowering people with technology, not empowering them. I don't much care for those kinds of core values.

<comment><USER25> Its pretty sad to see that yes men of Apple vote you down, when you speak the truth and offer an intelligent start to a conversation.

<comment><USER26> Oh yeah, so sad. Those that agree with you are intelligent and speak the truth, those that not, are "yes men".

Forget me, I don't want to pop the bubble you live in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Only someone like Steve Jobs could talk about core values and branding wearing shorts. It's only for a short instance where you can see his shorts. Right before he introduces the ad.

</comment><comment><USER28> Here's what gets me:

The disconnect between that video at the end of his presentation versus Apple today.

"Think different... as long as we approve your application for download on the app store."

Admittedly a pretty cool video though.

<comment><USER29> The App Store the is epitome of "Think Different".

It has done an astounding job of attracting developers to their platform, and no competing "Store" does a better job of connecting developers with actual users.

Yet there was no shortage of people who said it would never work, and there's still no shortage of people who keep saying they're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER30> I thought it was people saying they're doing a lousy job of explaining the rules of approval?

<comment><USER28> What he said.

If they're going to try to say to break out of your shell and be different and go crazy and be rebels (look at the people in that video, jeez) it's ironic that Apple now tells people what they can and cannot create.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Reminds me another Steve Jobs conversation, about the NeXT logo:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb8idEf-Iak>

He talks about Paul Rand, who refused to give Steve multiple options on the NeXT logo. He would do just one, it would be right, and Steve could take it or leave it.

I admire the courage involved in saying "taste is more than subjective, it's right vs. wrong, and I choose to be right."

That's a huge part of the power in Apple's branding.

</comment><comment><USER32> I wonder what happened between then and now. Seems like a different company altogether.

<comment><USER33> Would you say they make better products now or when this video was shot? I think that for such a product-centered company, that should be the benchmark.

<comment><USER32> I'd say they make far far better products now. That's not the issue here. It's just that back before Jobs was ousted and when he returned you'd hear about Apple, you'd hear about philosophy behind it etc. Now you hear sales stats and here and there how good the product is or will be. No more philosophy or visions in talks. Maybe it's just my perception of it though.

<comment><USER34> This is so offbase, that I'm not sure where to begin. Every iPod ad. The FaceTime ads, at the end of all recent Steve Jobs keynote. Apple is trying to promote their philosophy and vision constantly.

<comment><USER32> No, it's not. I see you've got brand nursing out of marketing agencies and genuine talks by Steve Jobs confused. Which makes sense, it worked.

I was referring to how before he was ousted and just after he returned he was talking very differently, more passion, genuine. Sure, related concepts to branding they have now, but related only via high concept. Something changed along the way. Take it as you will - it's just a subjective perception anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that actually do."

Brilliant

</comment><comment><USER36> thanks for this video - i just wrote a post about apple marketing comparing it to christian marketing - [http://makebelieve1.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/apple- promises-...](http://makebelieve1.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/apple-promises-and- delivers/)

one thing i disagree with what he says is that it is -not- nike who has the best marketing department of all times but christianity

</comment><comment><USER37> I think it says a lot about how much Apple's brand is damaged for me that I can't think of one of those people in the ad, if they were alive today, using a mac without it diminishing their image in my mind.

<comment><USER38> You would think less of Gandhi and Martin Luther King if they used Macs? I think it says more about the irrationality of your Apple hatred.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How am I still able to order new IPv4 addresses despite run out? - <AUTHOR> I have heard for years now that IPv4 address exhaustion is a huge problem. Lots of warning have been issued before it did ran out, and now that is has, nothing seems to have changed from a end-user perspective. I just purchased a new server at OVH and it came with an unused IPv4 address. I am still using IPv4 in my everyday website developer life.
I know that ISP have pools of unused addresses and that they recycle old ones, but it seems to me that IP demand should be exponential, but yet it looks like they still have plenty.
So is this a "Year 2000 problem" type situation, where thanks to warnings, people worked hard to increase somehow IPv4 lifespan so it's not really a problem anymore? Or is it still a big upcoming problem, and I won't be able to order in the future new servers with new IPv4 addresses like I just did? And when will that situation happen approx.? Thanks <comment><USER2> I believe problems of IPv4 are related more to IoT than end-users currently. There is not much urgency for humans to switch within ~3.7 billions of IPv4 addresses unless all of humanity will suddenly decide to own a web-site with unique IP or a dedicated IP from their ISP.

But there is an enormous number of devices being connected. This also brings the more important aspects of IPv6 to the front: its increased security, extensibility and performance. IPv4 is very old and wasn't designed for the modern world, it uses crutches to adapt.

So the answer to your question "when will its lifespan end" depends on how fast will new IoT-devices saturate the market. It can be a few decades or a few years, only prophets know. Overall it's not a fast process but it's better be ready for the transition than not.

</comment><comment><USER3> We are effectively out of free, _unallocated_ IPv4 addresses. All of them are owned by a non-regulatory authority. If any of those entities want to sell some of their IPs, or their block, they are free to do so, and it happens all the time. But if you wanted to go to ARIN and ask for an IP or a block, you are out of luck.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the most useful Mozilla Firefox extensions? - <AUTHOR>

Similar to the one on most useful chrome extensions [1], this is to track and list most useful firefox extensions.<p>[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9158448 <comment><USER2> Someone just posted exactly the same question a few hours ago, and there have been a number of replies:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9158800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9158800)</comment>


Web Apps To Keep Your Startup Organized - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/readwritestart/2010/01/5-web-apps-to-keep-your-startu.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29

<comment><USER2> The hardest part about using any of these products is getting employees to switch over- I have found that if you don't use them from the start, employees will never adapt to them. Any time a startup I worked for decided to use a product similar to the ones on the list, the only employees who used them were the ones who started after the change was implemented.

The problem is that employees get used to a certain workflow (such as email), and it is hard for them to get into a new mindset. If Basecamp or the other products are used from the beginning, it would be all they know.

Basically, when you introduce a product like Basecamp to an organization, employees get frustrated it doesn't conform to their current way of doing things. It needs to be the other way around- users need to conform to the way Basecamp does it (which is hard once employees already have a workflow).

</comment><comment><USER3> These are a bit obvious. I'd be worried about any start-up that's not aware of the first three, and I have actually heard of and used all of them before.

</comment><comment><USER4> I hadn't heard of DimDim, so I just setup a trial account hoping it would be a viable alternative to GotoMeeting. Short answer: no. Sadly, it seemed very slow and unresponsive. The extra $40/month for GotoMeeting now seems good value.

</comment><comment><USER5> Had never heard of MindMeister before, was looking for something like it yesterday. It'll definitely be handy to use.

</comment><comment><USER6> They didn't cover any tools that help you communicate/collaborate on stuff beyond the logistics (e.g. project management, todos, milestones, etc).

What about discussions about roadmap, pricing strategy, marketing?

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm surprised a ticket tracking / code repo app isn't mentioned on here. For that, use either Codebase (costs money) or Redmine (open source).

<comment><USER8> That's easy! Get everyone on dropbox and create a projects folder which you share with everyone in the company. Create a subfolder in projects/ for each project you have. Inside those folders make "bugs", "source", and "docs" folders.

It's simple and easy. (And you'll want to shoot yourself after about 3 hours of using it)</comment></comment>


Lobbyists Made Sure This Crucial Protection Was Left Out of Covid-19 Bill - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/lobbyists-made-sure-this-crucial-protection-was-left-out-of-covid-19-bill <comment><USER2> I know we're not supposed to editorialize headlines, but surely leaving clickbait titles as-is is worse.

Anyway, saved you a click as to what's still not protected against:

>Surprise billing happens when patients, often in cases of emergency, are treated by hospitals or doctors outside their insurance network—and end up on the hook for the difference between what their care providers charge and what their insurer can cover. A bipartisan coalition in Congress had finally emerged last year to fix what had become a widely-recognized flaw in the U.S. health-care system.</comment>


Scribd and Lulu Join Forces - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/scribd_and_lulu_join_forces.php

<comment><USER2> I'm surprised the more logical combination of adding a "Print with Lulu" button to iPaper hasn't been added with commission for each sale going to Scribd (and possibly, in the future, the original author of the document so the platform could be used for previewing books from small-time authors).

The ability to instantly get a PDF printed and mailed to you via paper would be a nice feature.

<comment><USER3> Or, you could just, like... print it on your own printer. You know, just sayin'.

I guess it would be useful if you don't have a printer, but then shipping, etc. would make it kind of pointless, with the obvious exception of books (or other documents) on Scribd that have a certain production specificity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lulu on an merger spree ? I hear some more rumors.</comment>


Major Breakthrough: First Photos of Planets Around Other Stars - <AUTHOR> http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/081113-hubble-exoplanet.html <comment><USER2> Space.com doesn't give the photos and they don't even link to the original paper. The article mostly speculates and link to themselves. Sorry, no up.

Wired did a much better article, and shorter, with less speculation: [http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/first-direct- im.h...](http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/first-direct-im.html)

Original paper: <http://tinyurl.com/6fdeu5> or [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;1166585v1...](http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;1166585v1?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=bruce+macintosh&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT)

<comment><USER3> They do, but it's hard to find: [http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display...](http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=081113-hr8799-02.jpg&cap=The+three+exoplanets+%28red+dots+in+the+right+panel%29+are+shown+orbiting+HR+8799%2C+whose+residual+light+is+shown+as+the+multi- colored+specks+in+the+center+of+the+right+panel.+An+infrared+image+of+one+of+the+planets%2C+which+lies+at+38+AU+from+the+star%2C+is+shown+in+the+right+panel.+%28note+that+the+right+hand+panel+is+a+blowup+of+the+region+marked+B+in+the+left+hand+panel.%29+Credit%3A+National+Research+Council+Canada)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I remarked earlier to my flatmate how much it said about our society that this wasn't the top item on all the major news sites. At least it's the first thing on Hacker News.

<comment><USER5> Scientists and engineers have long been the engine of progression for societies. I think it's a shame that people don't have more of an appreciation at the technological and scientific wonders of the modern world. But like you said "At least it's the first thing on Hacker News" :D

<comment><USER6> That's a relatively recent thing. Back in the day, engineers like Brunel were rock stars.

<comment><USER7> To my ears you're saying, "Nerds are high status; They're valued above CEOs and politicians (or historical equivalents) for most of history."

I'm saying, "Suits are overvalued. And nerds are undervalued even by themselves. That's always been true with periodic exceptions."

And I don't mean "suits" as a pejorative; I'm not using it in contempt. It's a fact that people of that class wear them.

Actually, _I_ like wearing them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Scientific truth is too beautiful to be sacrificed for the sake of light entertainment or money. Astrology is an aesthetic affront. It cheapens astronomy, like using Beethoven for commercial jingles."

\- Richard Dawkins

<comment><USER5> This article made me think of another quote my old physics teacher use to quote -

"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion"

\- Democritus

<comment><USER8> What about photons?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> pic: [http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display...](http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=081113-hr8799-02.jpg&cap=The+three+exoplanets+%28red+dots+in+the+right+panel%29+are+shown+orbiting+HR+8799%2C+whose+residual+light+is+shown+as+the+multi- colored+specks+in+the+center+of+the+right+panel.+An+infrared+image+of+one+of+the+planets%2C+which+lies+at+38+AU+from+the+star%2C+is+shown+in+the+right+panel.+%28note+that+the+right+hand+panel+is+a+blowup+of+the+region+marked+B+in+the+left+hand+panel.%29+Credit%3A+National+Research+Council+Canada)

</comment><comment><USER9> What kind of telescope would be necessary to actually view the details of a distant planet? Also, this seems to be the uncolored version of the pic:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HR_8799_planetary_system_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HR_8799_planetary_system_photo.jpg)

<comment><USER10> _What kind of telescope would be necessary to actually view the details of a distant planet?_

An incredibly large one. I don't have time to figure it out right now, but if anyone feels motivated then what you need to be looking at is the diffraction limit:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_limit>

That's the fundamental limit on how small a feature you can pick up using a telescope of a given size.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, if you mean "detail on the planet" and not just resolve the planet from its star, then it's completely infeasible. The current 30m-class telescopes that are under development (ie www.tmt.org) in combination with high-contrast adaptive optics will make it possible to see earth-size planets, if I'm not mistaken, but not to resolve detail on their surface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If there was a habitable planet in that system with intelligent life, with the same capabilities as us, they wouldn't be able to see _any_ of the planets in our solar system.

<comment><USER12> Why not? It seems like if we can see them they could see us - unless you just mean our planets are smaller so they'd need a better telescope than we can make?

<comment><USER13> Because we do not have any planets as huge as Formalhaut a, b and c in our solar system...

<comment><USER3> Yes, and those planets are also hotter, therefore brighter and more visible.

The sky might be full of earth-like planets, and we wouldn't know (yet).

unless... detecting star-wobble is already sensitive enough to detect earth- like mass and distance from sun?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sorry kids, My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles is going to become merely an introduction for the book you'll have to memorize after this project is finished ;)

<comment><USER10> The planets are called a, b and c. I think we can remember that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Did anyone ask the inhabitants whether they agree to have their information stored in our computer systems under the terms of the Data Protection and Privacy laws?

<comment><USER16> I'm no legal expert, but I'm guessing that the Universal Supreme Court will affirm that a nation doesn't have legal jurisdiction outside of its light cone.

<comment><USER17> I thought we were in their light-cone, if we can see them.

<comment><USER16> We are in the light cone of the light that they emitted several hundred years ago. The light that they are emitting "now" [1] is still a few hundred years outside of our light cone, just as they still a hundred years or more away from learning about our discovery of radio.

It's theoretically possible that they know about Earth's IP laws as of a few hundred years ago. But in Dickens' day England couldn't manage to enforce their IP laws _in the United States_ , let alone the rest of the Milky Way.

These days I'm sure that many lawyers wouldn't hesitate to sue Pluto for misappropriating the name of a Disney character, but that news has yet to reach many of our extrasolar neighbors.

[1] Keeping in mind that, in a discussion involving relativity, you have to be very careful with the word "now".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wouldn't it be interesting to have a Google Earth-like products of other planets (due to spectacular advances in imaging, of course :-) ) long before we ever have the means to travel there?

<comment><USER19> That already exists! There is a product by NASA that allows you to do that, I don't remember the name (you can see the moon, mars, mercury, etc).

<comment><USER19> This one: <http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/>

Enjoy! It's really amazing

<comment><USER18> Great - thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is incredible. If astronomers analyse the spectra of the planets they can now image and find oxygen, methane and CO2 in certain proportions, the only conclusion will be life. Imagine if they find the spectral lines from chemicals produced by an industrial, polluting society!

<comment><USER21> If current technology had enough resolution, scientists would have scanned the planets already for oxygen, methane and water (which mixed together don't quite exist unless there's a continuous force, like life, unbalancing the physical reaction).

<comment><USER20> I realise they would have done this already if they could. I was thinking more in the medium term - the next 3-5 years?

<comment><USER11> Actually, they have. There are observations with the Spitzer space telescope infrared spectrograph of planets occulting their star, where if I'm not mistaken one could see something like methane absorption signatures of the atmosphere of the planets. That's not very surprising, since these are Jupiter-like planets and they have methane clouds in their atmosphere.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hate Mail from Third Graders - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pluto/mail.html

<comment><USER3> The one that says not to write back in cursive because she can't read cursive yet is cute. Though the one with the six-year-old 'polling' people and such seems more like the entire thing was orchestrated by the mother.

<comment><USER4> I want to know what a Double Planet is. Is it twice as good as a regular planet?

<comment><USER5> Actually there are plenty of astronomers that consider the Earth - Moon system to be a double planet.

A double planet is basically any planetary system that contains moons that are relatively massive compared to the primary mass in the system.

Our moon is also quite large (1/4 the diameter of the planet).

<comment><USER6> The most widely accepted recognition is when the systems centre of mass (barycentre) is outside of the primary planet's surface. With Pluto and Charon the centre of gravity is outside of Pluto's surface.

However Asimov made a very interesting point, and a definitely more future- sighted point. He said that the measure of a double planet is of the tug-of- war between planet, satellite and star. With the Earth-Moon system, the Sun is winning the tug of war, eventually the barycentre will exit the Earth's surface and eventually the Moon will break free of Earth's orbit. This would make the Earth-Moon system a double planet. However Pluto is winning the fight in the Pluto-Charon system, and eventually Charon will impact Pluto's surface.

I personally prefer Asimov's definition. It's only a matter of time (maybe longer than the sun even) until the barycentre leaves the Earth's surface. IIRC ~600 million years the day lengthens by ~2 hours. This means that likely by the end of Earth's habitability (roughly 2 billion years from now) the day will be ~30 hours long at the present rate (it's considerably speeding up).

The vast majority of planet-satellite systems are arranged in a way that the satellite will eventually collide with its host planet. Those that don't will eventually hit their own classification as a planet or dwarf planet along the way, especially the Moon.

<comment><USER5> Thank you, that's a very detailed explanation.

It also gives me hope that in the long run I'll be able to catch up on all the stuff I should have been doing, 30 hour days sound just fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me of that girl who wrote in and kept telling the car talk guys that they stink. It was hilarious when they flew her in to appear on the show. What was her name again?

</comment><comment><USER8> Do all third graders have weird line justification issues?

<comment><USER9> Yes. In fact, it is not limited to third-graders. I once sat in a class of intelligent undergraduates taking first-year Chinese. These were people who could format APA citations on hand-written exams. When asked to write a paragraph in Chinese, they often started at the edge of the paper, went all the way to the other edge, leaving no margins.

The issue seems to be: are you comfortable enough with a language that some portion of your brain can focus on whether what you're writing looks nice, or are you straining so thoroughly just to control the micro motor movements that these is no attention left for macro aesthetics?

<comment><USER10> haha. i took "justification" to mean inability to accept things outside their control and wanting keep the science books right and not take away a "being"'s favorite planet, home or friend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand the title. There isn't a hate mail to be found. Some of the justifications are better than those of your average crackpot: at least most of these kids realize they _want_ Pluto to be a planet, instead of arguing that it _is_ a planet by some non-existing absolute standard.

<comment><USER12> "at least most of these kids realize they want Pluto to be a planet, instead of arguing that it is a planet by some non-existing absolute standard"

That's called "honesty". Or, more realistically, "not yet having learned how to lie effectively".

<comment><USER6> Actually, I'd say its that they haven't learned how to lie ineffectively. Crackpots are usually deemed to be cracked-pots when they no longer make enough sense to pay attention to. They argue by a self-standard of usefulness instead of adapting.

<comment><USER12> Well let me break down what I meant. The average adult who argues that Pluto is a planet honestly just _wants_ Pluto to be a planet, but he knows that's not a good argument and knows to manufacture another, more convincing argument in its place. He even convinces himself that his rationalization is really the reason why he thinks Pluto should be considered a planet. He lies to himself, in other words.

Kids aren't necessarily clever or knowledgeable enough to think that far. But kids can and do lie, and they're not always effective about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When John Glidden grows up I want to employ him. Anyone who polls 11 of their friends at age six and has a concept of what a Kuiper Belt Object is is welcome in my company.

(Yes I accept that his mum may have driven the data collection but it comes to the same thing. She's going to make sure he turns into a winner)

<comment><USER14> She going to make sure that he's exposed to a world that lies behind that of Playstations and 24h cartoon TV, and that's good.

But I also see the making of self-righteous, arrogant know-it-all. The kind of person that will complain over all non-A grades because his mum told him he's smarter than the teacher. Seriously, he's telling scientists how to do their job. Blind obedience to seniority is a bad idea, but so is that " _sigh_ you got it all wrong, here, now, let me show you"-attitude.

<comment><USER13> "Know your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of the naïve ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher's ideals are" \- Richard Feynman

I doubt Feynman's reaction to the boy's letter would have been: "I also see the making of self-righteous, arrogant know-it-all....Seriously, he's telling scientists how to do their job".

There's not a single thing in the boy's letter that is factually incorrect. It's merely a statement of opinion accompanied by some supporting data.

The child's name is in my comment. If you don't like something someone says then critique their opinion but try not to be personal and rude, it only makes you sound bitter.

<comment><USER14> I'm not trying to emulate Feynman, and what I wrote wasn't a reaction to the kids letter, but to your comment.

I'm not criticizing the child, I'm presenting an alternative scenario. I'm not saying he going to end up like that, but I am saying that it's premature to conclude he's going to be a particularly employable based on that letter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thankfully no death threats, that would have been really disturbing.

</comment><comment><USER16> Semantically, Pluto is still a "planet" (as far as the definition of the word goes linguistically), but is specifically classified as a _dwarf planet_ by the International Astronomical Union.

It strikes me as disingenuous, then, for anyone to authoritatively state that Pluto is "not a planet" without clarifying their use of the word "planet" - <USER2> leads to a lot of confusion amongst the public who suddenly believe something has physically changed, as we see here.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm not feeling the hate. Certainly, they've identified Public Enemy #1 (anti- Pluto-as-a-planet-ers), but they're quite civilized with it.

I particularly liked the sad Pluto & Uranus (Urectum?) / Saturn. I can't decide if I think it's cute or funny, but it certainly made me laugh.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sometimes the most esoteric truths are the hardest to settle on.

<comment><USER19> Sometimes the questions are just malformed to begin with: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_insid...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_inside/)

It's cute when third graders do it, but the phenomenon is not limited to kids...</comment></comment>


FedEx DVDs held at U.S. Customs until video declaration form completed (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/104925781657226108947/posts/hDJy8L9Z9Lj <comment><AUTHOR> I've just double-checked dates (G+ doesn't show them for original shares, and the original FB post was deleted): this was actually posted in January of 2012, so it's nearly 2 years old.

In which case I'd be really interested to know what the follow-up on this is / has been.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The FedEx form in question: [http://www.fedex.com/sg/services/tools/demo/video_form.html](http://www.fedex.com/sg/services/tools/demo/video_form.html)

<comment><USER2> "EFFECTIVE 07/01/2001"

Weird that we've never heard of it before now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Don't forget, the terrorists hate us for all our freedoms.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand why customs needs this.. it's perfectly legal for them to just take whatever they want or deny whatever they want entry for no reason as I understand it.

If they don't want Occupy videos they can just reject them. This form isn't needed to accomplish that.

What is its real purpose?

<comment><USER5> It has been widely speculated that the customs form that they pass out on the airplane en route to the USA is not about stopping bad guys but about getting them to lie on official paperwork so that there is a documented crime to cite as a reason to deport/jail them.

<comment><USER6> What about about the customs form you get when flying from the USA to another country?

<comment><USER7> The ones here in Uruguay and especially Argentina are mostly concerned about illegally entering or withdrawing cash (US Dollars mostly).

You have to declare cash above a certain amount, and I believe excess cash can be confiscated.

There are also other questions (for example: if you're bringing animal products - we had very damaging outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, the mad cow scare, etc)

<comment><USER8> That's exactly what is on the customs forms going into the US, too. Of course, that doesn't fit into the conspiracy theories.

<comment><USER9> The I-94 form asks such questions as "have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies", "have you... procured or attempted to procure a visa or entry into the U.S. by fraud or misrepresentation?", and "are you seeking entry to engage in criminal activities?"

[http://www.immihelp.com/visas/i-94w.html](http://www.immihelp.com/visas/i-94w.html)

<comment><USER8> Wrong form. The customs form is 6059B.

[http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/vacation/sample_declaratio...](http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/vacation/sample_declaration_form.xml)

<comment><USER9> Yes, I know. I'm fairly confident it's the form tedunangst referred to, and to travellers, the distinction is mostly academic, since they're both handed in at customs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm confused, what if the videos contain information about Obama murdering Americans with drones? Would that be illegal for import?

<comment><USER11> It's illegal in parts of the US to film the things going on inside factory farms. That are real events that are actually happening, so I don't think the fact that what you mention is actually happening will make a difference. If they don't want you to know about it, they'll make it illegal.

This is so similar to the Chinese people not being educated about Tienanmen Square it's eerie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The author of the post was importing videos from a vendor. How can she swear to what the contents are? Well, in this case there's a basis for confidence that they're training videos, but she may not have seen them. If you ordered, for example a fictional film on the basis of a recommendation, or someone sent you a data disc, you might have little idea. Will the government refuse it admission if you can't swear that its content is within the guidelines?

</comment><comment><USER13> But: internet.

<comment><USER14> They have that covered.</comment></comment>


Supersonic Flight Prepares for Takeoff Again - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/supersonic-flight-prepares-for-takeoff-again-1522850332 <comment><USER2> Alas, while I have been lucky enough to see Concorde fly, I was never fortunate enough to actually fly IN one. Though when I walked through one at a museum some years ago, I thought that even a 2 hour flight in that cramped, narrow cabin would have been a very uncomfortable experience.

Modern subsonic airliners are now capable of far better speeds and efficiencies. Qantas just commenced one of the (if not THE) longest non stop flights from Perth in Western Aus. to London in 17 hours. I myself flew from Sydney to Houston direct in 15 hours last month. The new generation 787s etc., with their carbon fibre construction enabling them to fly at higher altitudes, combined with efficient, powerful power plants are slicing _hours_ off most long routes.

The last time I flew to London (mid 90's), the Singapore-London leg was 22 hours in a 747. To be able to fly Perth-London in 17 hours is a massive improvement of over 20% reduction in flight time in just a couple of decades.

Personally, I would far rather spend 17 hours in a comfy, wide body aircraft than even 10 in a narrow missile. I do realise that modern SST aircraft may be wider and more comfortable than the Concorde, but there are still physical limits to fuselage cross sections and weights that will limit the comfort factor and size IMO.

<comment><USER3> >Personally, I would far rather spend 17 hours in a comfy, wide body aircraft than even 10 in a narrow missile.

Personally, I would rather spend 3-4 days in an airship with a bedroom and a bar and a view.. Not everyone is in a rush.

<comment><USER4> Yes, or an ocean liner. I dearly hope I live to see the resurrection of an affordable North Atlantic passenger line.

<comment><USER5> There are a few passenger services from $1000 or so. I'm not sure it was ever really cheap [https://thecruisepeople.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/atlantic- co...](https://thecruisepeople.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/atlantic-container- line-announces-new-trans-atlantic-passenger-service-starting-in-march-hamburg- antwerp-liverpool-halifax-new-york-baltimore-and-return/)

<comment><USER6> I doubt it was that expensive. I know families who migrated from Europe to the US in the 50s/60s, and I'm pretty sure they didn't have (inflation-adjusted) $1000/person.

It was probably easier to find work on a ship to pay for the trip, at least for able-bodied men.

<comment><USER7> A Rudolph Arhlich got a third-class ticket from Bremen to New York in 1928 for $208.75:

[https://www.gjenvick.com/Immigration/ImmigrantTickets/1928-1...](https://www.gjenvick.com/Immigration/ImmigrantTickets/1928-10-03-SteamshipTicket- GeorgeWashington-ThirdClass.html)

It would have been higher by the '50s, i guess, but not five times higher.

<comment><USER6> That actually undermines my claim :) $208.75 in 1928 is over $3000 today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Kind of surprised they didn't mention the low-boom supersonic plane Lockheed is working on for NASA (which just received a $247.5m contract) -

[https://www.wired.com/story/nasa-x-plane-supersonic- lockheed...](https://www.wired.com/story/nasa-x-plane-supersonic-lockheed-low- boom-x-58/)

<comment><USER9> $247m seems cheap for a brand new experimental supersonic aircraft.

<comment><USER10> Didn't read the contract, but it might be payment to fund just one phase of long-term development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [http://archive.is/UAdoq](http://archive.is/UAdoq) works for me.

<comment><USER12> Surprised that it worked. If I remember correctly, you can block the page from being archived in robots.txt.

<comment><USER13> that's archive.org and that being retroactive is also why everyone moved to archive.is

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think I'd want to fly in these at least once, but I'd probably prefer a subsonic aircraft with Ka-band satellite and more comfort (via more space and weight budget) for most flights. NYC to London one-day turnaround would be a killer market for it, but 7h in coach++ vs. 16h in suites-level luxury would probably lead me to prefer the subsonic suite for transpac.

<comment><USER15> I think it'll aim at business travellers anyway. One-day returns EU-US are one example that will have high demand but there are a lot more profitable routes. London-HKG is currently 12h direct, I bet a lot of companies would pay up significantly to reduce that. The difference with supersonic is close to an 8h workday in each direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder what will be different financially this time around, to make SST profitable. Customers are as price conscious as always and the first class crowd is limited, especially so for a higher priced option.

<comment><USER17> More fuel-efficient engines.

Lighter structural materials (carbon composites instead of metal).

More advanced aerodynamics (less drag, thus less fuel is needed).

And while not directly related to cost, aerodynamic advances have also led to the possibility of nearly eliminating the sonic boom, thus allowing flight over populated areas.

<comment><USER18> Going to struggle on the engine front as the major manufacturers have shifted to high-bypass turbofans rather than turbo jets in the civilian world.

<comment><USER19> Boom is planning on using "off-the-shelf" medium-bypass turbofans, with proprietary intake and exhaust: [https://boomsupersonic.com/airliner](https://boomsupersonic.com/airliner)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would really think that environmental concerns would ground a supersonic commercial passenger aircraft, until those problems are overcome - most likely with a breakthrough in technology.

<comment><USER21> Do you mean the noise, or the energy requirements? The former can be dealt with, I think, or at least greatly limited (and flight paths can be kept to areas tolerant of a bit of noise). The latter can't really a commonly held concern it seems, or we'd already be trying to cut back on the tremendous amount of regular flying that happens every day now.

<comment><USER22> Parent is probably referring to the ozone layer depletion caused by the Concorde and similar high-altitude jets [1].

[1] [http://science.sciencemag.org/content/270/5233/70](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/270/5233/70)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wow, 4500 nautical miles unrefueled. So the US West Coast to Europe and US West Coast to Oceania routes I fly most often might still be better-served by a nonstop flight on a 787 or similar.

In particular, losing the great circle route would be painful on the way to Europe.

<comment><USER15> Development of that plane is likely profitable even if you'd only use it for EU-US East and US East-West. 3h flights LON-JFK and JFK-LAX/SFO (if supersonic over land is allowed) would create enough demand to justify the cost.

Just London-NYC has >20 direct flights each day, that's more than 1,000 business class passengers. Most of them will already pay >$2,000 per flight (or their companies).

<comment><USER24> > Development of that plane is likely profitable even if you'd only use it for > EU-US East and US East-West. 3h flights LON-JFK and JFK-LAX/SFO (if > supersonic over land is allowed)

It won't be, and Concorde's 3h30 flights between JFK and London or Paris were not enough.

> Most of them will already pay >$2,000 per flight (or their companies).

That's cute. Circa 2003 standard round-trip on Concorde was >$10000 (that's around 14k in 2018 USD), discounted "celebration" fares were $7k. For $4k you could do Concorde one way and 747 the other way.

<comment><USER15> > That's cute. Circa 2003 standard round-trip on Concorde was >$10000 (that's > around 14k in 2018 USD), discounted "celebration" fares were $7k. For $4k > you could do Concorde one way and 747 the other way.

I'm aware of that, Concorde represented First class, not business class. I was talking about today's prices for business class fares. Ticket prices have come down over the past 1-2 decades, I wouldn't expect the same prices (inflation adjusted) as with the Concorde. But certainly more than business class fares, therefore my reference to current fares.

Regarding profitability, the Concorde was extremely inefficient and very restricted in flight paths. A supersonic jet that is allowed to fly supersonic over land could unlock more profitable routes (e.g. intra-US or EU-Asia), optimising utilisation.

<comment><USER24> > A supersonic jet that is allowed to fly supersonic over land could unlock > more profitable routes

It also won't happen. Especially in the land of NIMBY that is the US. Not only could Concorde not _go_ supersonic over the mainland, it had to slow down to subsonic when crossing FLA between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.

<comment><USER15> That was because the boom was so loud with the Concorde. Fighter jet booms regularly cause property damage. Apparently new designs allow for much quieter supersonic booms which would make it easier to allow those. The US isn't just a country of NIMBY, also of capitalism and lobbying. If enough congressmen get free tickets for intra-US flights, the ban will quickly be lifted ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Living in SW London while Concorde was in operation, I was able to quite regularly look up and see it flying.

Although one becomes quite inured to plane noise, the distinctive rumble came to herald the lovely sight of this slender aircraft.

</comment><comment><USER26> Given yesterday's arguments over the naming of CockroachDB, am I the only one wondering if naming this thing Boom might, well, back fire?</comment>


Is Ubiquitous Encryption Technology on the Horizon? - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/63871

<comment><USER2> Probably not.

I like Mark Handley's work, but the premise of this project seems off. It was true in 1999 that the easiest attacks were passive, but it is no longer true in 2010. Today, you are far more likely to have traffic intercepted --- through a hijacked DNS server, on a public wireless network, or via an application-layer flaw --- than you are to have traffic "sniffed". "Authentication" in the simplest sense, of "am I talking to who the address bar says I'm talking to" is the key problem that Internet crypto addresses.

Lightweight negotation and session reuse are good concepts, but SSL is trending in that direction anyways (soon you may be able to negotiate SSL once and then use the key material to send lots of out of band messages). Meanwhile, SSL is thoroughly tested (look at what Nate Lawson just did to OpenID for an example of why that matters) and well understood. The organizational/logistical challenge of how we tear the bloodsucking CA leeches off our applications boils down to "how can we get one more root cert added to IE and Firefox", which is a far, far easier problem to solve than forklifting out everyone's TCP stacks.

Apropos nothing: using a short TCP option to signal that the SYN+ACK contains a larger data payload is clever, although I wonder if they realize that SYN and SYN+ACK can already contain data, and that every TCP stack in the world will deliver that data to the application as soon as the 3WH is finished.

<comment><USER3> The checks that CAs perform before issuing a cert can be pretty minimal - sometimes as simple as sending an email to an administrator address at the domain in question.

And do you trust all of the CAs who have certs on your machine? I did a quick check of the list on this box and I have no idea who most of these organizations are!

<comment><USER2> Changing which root certs your browser (or everyone's browser) honors is a less dramatic move than deprecating the world's best-tested crypto protocol and replacing it with something new.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if you could encrypt the IO and CPU operations from a VM. You would burn extra cycles, but you could publicly share computer resources.

<comment><USER5> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption></comment></comment>


Is Your Content Marketing Making Brand Withdrawals? - <AUTHOR> https://chartmogul.com/blog/2015/08/is-your-content-marketing-making-brand-withdrawals/

<comment><USER2> Well, ChartMogul certainly earned a brand withdrawal by having a floating social media bar consistently obscuring the left hand side of the article text that I was trying to read...</comment>


Ask HN: What software would you pay for right now? - <AUTHOR> Looking for some ideas on what to build for small-medium sized businesses/startups. <comment><USER2> 1.Better automated webinar software. The existing solutions are good feature wise but the UX's are awful. This space needs some serious innovation.

2\. Customer journey automation tools. Autopilot is really good but its good to see competition in this area

3\. Something that makes the burden of making data more accurate at the logging end better to report to business intelligence tools

4\. Something that allows me to leverage my knowledge expertise as a consultant and better helps me deploy group coaching and accountability. Again there's some software out there for this already but nothing I like

6\. Most important. A really good CRM. I've tried soooooooo many. Not a single silver bullet solution. Can't believe it given its 2016.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow. Many ideas and all of them seem really good.

For 6, what's the biggest problem will all the CRMs out there these days? What makes you cringe?

2\. is something that I did think about but am unsure about the market for the tool. I'd also like to learn more about 1. and 4. in greater detail.

3\. I know how you feel - I've been in BI and logging data accuracy is just a pain. You'll also have to balance to make sure that the UX is not affected by having all these logging events.

<comment><USER2> Glad you like :)

For 6, all the tools despite promising minimal data entry don't actually deliver on their promise (at least not in my experience) and don't play as nice with other tools as they could. Customer journey automation is a growing market and CRM systems are not paying that area enough attention. It's not that they need to build something that can address automation itself -- they just need to play nice , very nice, with other tools.

For number 1 check out Stealth Seminar and EverWebinar. They're the two best in the business which says a lot.

For 4. What else would you like to know? What kind of detail would you like me to share?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Would love to discuss with you further about 6 .. and the customer journey automation piece. Maybe something we could collaborate together.

Would love to know what's out there for 4.

<comment><USER2> Happy to chat further and happy to collaborate in some way, but you should know I'm not a coder/developer. I don't have any skills -- coding or otherwise -- that would help in building anything. I'm good for collaborating with in terms of domain research. I.e. what are the challenges users are facing and what is or isn't a good solution.

I'm on twitter @khurammalik

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would pay for a way to manage my google search results. I sometimes go to 10th page on google, I make extra effort to avoid some websites and I keep expanding my search words. If I search for Donald trump now and two minutes later I search for "Donal Trump, Hillary comment", I don't want to see the results I got from my first search query. Either google should have a way of not showing these results or some 'note taking chrome addon' can remove those results for me.

For what it is worth, sometimes my search string is as follows (India related). As you can see, I am searching for narendra modi minus major news sites. narendra modi -timesofindia -ndtv -ibnlive -thehindu -Firstpost -facebook -indianexpress -hindustantimes -news -indiatimes

<comment><AUTHOR> What it sounds like you're describing is a way to filter out certain websites?

<comment><USER3> Yes. But the list to be filtered varies with the query I make.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like an idea that the Google Search PM should pick up on :)

<comment><USER3> Yes. But I am not going to hold my breath about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A portal where small companies could apply for bespoke enterprise technical projects, without the hassle of bribing officials or writing long tenders.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would it be something like a job board for small companies? I've been in a consulting firm and I'm still trying to understand whether a portal would help solve that issue.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, I meant for something like government projects and huge companies like banks.

Because a lot of them have nowhere to list. The process is not fair, and in developing countries, people exploit this. Usually one person has the power to recommend and significantly affect the decision. That one person tends to get a lot of free lunches and free phones.

The lack of competition also leads to overinflated prices on the buyer's end and over promising on the seller's end. If the average applicant offered to Project A for $1,000,000 in 4 months, and suddenly company 13 offers to do it for $400,000 in 1 month, something sticks out.

If there were only 1-4 applicants, as usually happens for this situation, the shady inexperienced one will not stick out so much. As a result, a lot of these companies take these jobs and get burned, which damages the industry as a whole.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can see it working for governments but for private banks, not sure. Even in Canada, we see a lot of value placed on business relationships and even though there's plenty of transparency, many times there are things that get swept under.

However, in Canada, we do have a system like that for government projects so it could definitely be a step in the right direction. Especially for developing countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had a pretty good idea that I thought would be good to sell to small-medium businesses but I realized I'm not a sales person and so I "pivoted" to a business that only required the skills I had. Just don't want you to fall into the trap I was in. If you or a partner don't want to spend all the time calling on businesses I would find something else to go after. my 2 cents.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip. It's definitely a concern of mine. If you don't mind me asking, how did you pivot to a business that only required the skills you had?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would pay for one app/service that does 80% of what all other apps/services do.

One app which I can use to sell things, buy things, send messages, review things, control things, get notifications, track my health, learn things, etc.

This doesn't seem like something that would be too hard to do, considering that all apps pretty much do the same things. But that would make people's life so much better.

<comment><USER7> I think this is a major challenge facing software technology now. Seems to be related to my question at: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10883322](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10883322)

One way to solve this is to create a modular super-app for which developers can write components. This is much more than just the idea of plug-ins or extensions, because the super-app will be built from the ground up, and at various layers, to be highly modular, which almost every aspect being replaceable with user-chosen components. Also, the basic structure of the app and the its extension points cannot be changed unless by majority vote of registered users.

For example, imagine a task super-app. The user should be able to choose from various competing workflows, UIs, or 3rd-party integrations. These components could be purchased outright from a gallery, subscribed to, or paid per use. So if I have a little idea about how to improve todo lists, I don't have to build an entire app from scratch to do it, I can just define a UI flow.

<comment><USER8> > One way to solve this is to create a modular super-app for which developers > can write components

I am pretty sure they call this an operating system. Moreover, most operating systems do provide built-in or pre-installed functionality, such as for scheduling, messenging, and note-taking.

<comment><USER7> Ok, but most consumers have no stomach to go mucking around with OS components. The modularity of OSs is at too technical a level. And most third- party apps are trying to solve slightly different issues, with lots of overlap in functionality. There are no well-defined, standardized extensibility points are needed

In any case, if I were to write an app for any OS, I still have to think about authentication, UI, storage, etc. There is no tight environment where I can just submit a more performant file sorting algorithm, for example, and be paid by users who choose to use that in the OS. That is the idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would pay for a stripped down better designed version of soundcloud that was targeted for music producers and djs to share samples.

<comment><USER10> Can you explain the problem that you have that something like a stripped down SoundCloud would solve?

What are your thoughts on bandcamp?

<comment><USER9> I am a triathalon biker and also go to the gym multiple times per week. As such, I always have my phone strapped to my arm. Soundcloud's interface for liking/saving songs is basically unusable with my phone strapped to my arm. The whole mobile app is a complete piece of shit in terms of UX desgin and usability. As a producer, there is not even a button to click to access a list of my own tracks I have posted on soundcloud! I test mixes on different speakers all the time and it is a major headache to have to search for your own damn song on soundcloud just to be able to find it!!! I should be able to click a button called "my tracks" and see a list of all my tracks I have uploaded instantly.

Also, soundcloud is just unreliable in general. Even on my laptop with fiber internet I find myself running into ajax calls that timeout. I always have to refresh the page and whatnot to get songs to play.

I could honestly write a small book about all the things I hate about soundcloud. Now that they have ads I really hope that a small competitor steals their pie. If I didn't have to work a silly enterprise job 9-5 I would just write a new platform myself....

A stripped down version of soundcloud would include:

no stupid animations when I click any buttons.

no 100 ajax calls every time I load a page.

a mobile interface that didnt suck - and had an easy button for getting to "my tracks".

A page that showed a history of every song I have ever played in chronological order so I could go back and find things I missed.

Smaller album art for each song (ie. more songs displayed per screen space unit).

No ads.

No fullscreen play/next buttons on mobile - screws me up all the time while biking/running/driving. The buttons are too big.

As for bandcamp - I don't use it. The few times I have used it have been fine though.

TLDR: I think soundcloud is the best source for finding new artists and music, but the platform from a UX and technical standpoint is shitty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> alok-g I am always struggling to find good educational games for kids. Something like [http://betterexplained.com/](http://betterexplained.com/), but for younger kids (mine is currently ~8 years), would be great.

</comment><comment><USER11> A Linux desktop environment that:

* works as well as Windows or OSX _out of the box_

* is beautiful and usable

It just doesn't exist at the moment unfortunately, but I'm confident PapyrOS, Pantheon or Cinnamon will come to solve this soon.

<comment><USER12> Elementary OS gets pretty close: [https://elementary.io/](https://elementary.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I would pay for a service that allows me to view an aggregate of all the board game meetups in my area.

In fact, I've started a project to make that a reality.

<comment><USER14> I'd be interested in seeing that once you're done

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> YouTube offline mode

<comment><USER16> If you sign up for youtube red you can download videos. [https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6308116?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6308116?hl=en)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A cheaper but as useful dropbox

<comment><USER18> Do you find that the prices are too expensive? I have always thought that their prices were quite reasonable

<comment><USER17> 9.99 a month makes me consider dropping it but something like 6.99 would be lovely.

<comment><USER19> Does amazon cloud drive @5 per month fit the bill? Not sure if the experience matches your expectations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> google analytics with automated filtering of referral spam

<comment><USER21> I'm consistently amazed that Google doesn't do this already.</comment></comment>