Bitcoin paradise - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/12/libertarian-enclaves <comment><USER2> >"In the future, wars will be fought over water," he says. Two rivers border the land, and the community sits atop 56 known water wells.

This is a meme invented by people who've read about oil wars. The problem is that water is very cheap to produce with electricity. Desalination plants are efficient and the price of water they produce is competitive. In addition, the price of water per kg is extremely low. This means that transporting water over large distances like oil is transported is probably non-profitable. It simply means that it's cheaper (and cheap) to produce drinking water from salt water. There are not many landlocked countries.

<comment><USER3> Just curious; I've read that energy takes quite a bit of non-salt water to produce. Energy can be used to create clean water by desalinization, but I believe I read that this still creates less clean water than the clean water needed to produce that energy (though this can be done in a very different area. Would anyone here happen to be familiar with the basic numbers here?

<comment><USER2> >Desalination plants on average use about 15,000 kilowatt- hours of power for every million gallons of fresh water that's produced

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-01/energy-makes-up- hal...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-01/energy-makes-up-half-of- desalination-plant-costs-study.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "As for Ayn Rand, just how much have her ideas influencedthe community's design? Mr Johnson admits he never finished "Atlas Shrugged". "I'm not actually much of a reader," he says. "Watched the movie and skimmed the Cliff's Notes, though. Good stuff."

Awesome ;)

<comment><USER5> I was reminded of this quote from a recent episode of The Simpsons: "Conservatives only get more conservative, because every year they get a little further through Atlas Shrugged."

<comment><USER6> Maybe after that they'll read about Rand's actual life.

<comment><USER7> Yes, someone whose family barely escaped with their lives from a communist state may indeed have strong opinions on the subject.

<comment><USER8> I believe he was referring to this, generally:

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/m1/guardians_of_ayn_rand/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/m1/guardians_of_ayn_rand/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why do people think that they will have access to the Internet and there will be massive amounts of excess computing power to waste if the world economy collapses? Computers and the Internet are luxuries that exist because basic physical needs are met. As soon as the Internet fails for any length of time for a given person, that person will refuse to rely on the Internet for anything until the world economy is back together, if it gets back together. In the event of collapse, it will be necessary to rely on local, physical things rather than the complex, interconnected global system we have now.

<comment><USER10> And without computers, bitcoins will have less worth than sticks and rocks. The community they're talking about can exist, but it's stupid to think it would operate on bitcoin. Isn't that exactly what _cash_ is for? Untraceable, has representation of value but little value itself (besides tinder), easily broken into smaller pieces, etc. Doesn't bitcoin connect them to the very same system they're trying to escape? Cryptocurrency has purpose/value in that it can be easily exchanged with people all over the world fro goods and services. If you're separating from the world, its as valuable as the magnetic strip it's printed on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Our farm workers and suppliers still want to get paid in pesos,"

...and where will you get those Pesos if everyone is paying with Bitcoin? Exchanges, the real basis of the Bitcoin economy. What will happen when the world economic system collapses? Bitcoin will collapse with it.

<comment><USER12> I think this is the flaw in most Libertarian logic that is completely missed, because most Libertarians live in first-world countries.

They have this idea that they want to pay no taxes and only pay for what THEY use, and rely on their own hard work and brilliance to succeed. But of course, that ignores the facts that first-world countries have an entire subsystem that supports this (roads, police, laws, enforcement), which makes their success possible.

In reality, Galt's Gulch is running on the backs of local workers, who have access to everything in the community. What do you think will happen if the world was to collapse? That somehow the residents of the Gulch would blissfully go on about their lives in tranquil happiness, smug in their brilliance? Or would the local population, who outnumber them by the millions, are physically and mentally stronger than they are, and who run their precious ecosystem would simply take it from them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like that he thinks these two things hold true at the same time:

1) Nations are having wars over water. 2) Water rights matter

</comment><comment><USER14> > A quirk of Chilean law makes land, mining and water rights independent of > each other. Mr Johnson made sure to acquire all three, particularly the > water rights. "In the future, wars will be fought over water," he says.

Sounds like he'll have to purchase some nukes next, then ;D

<comment><USER15> For obvious reasons, nuclear weapons aren't the best weapons for securing water rights.

<comment><USER16> Actually they are - you ensure no one could successfully _start_ the war for water. Of course, if you need it, then it may be worth rolling the dice regardless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _> You have reached your article limit. Register to continue reading or subscribe for unlimited access._

wish i could bitcoin my way through this paywall.

</comment><comment><USER18> It wasn't mentioned in the article, but Galt's Gulch Chile was founded by Jeff Berwick the tech entrepreneur who co-founded the Bitcoin ATM project, and also stockhouse.com in the 90's.

</comment><comment><USER19> Good luck to them. It's not often people get to go somewhere new(ish) and try out a new model of society.

I think a society based on Rand and/or libertarianism is a terrible idea, likely to be brutal and darwinistic and to degenerate into feudalism. I also think that this isn't really a model for a society based on these ideals - lets face it, the people who are going to be going there are a wealthy subset, not representative of much.

But good for them for trying.

<comment><USER20> Actually it would be nice if we could get all Ayn Rand followers to relocate to their own society. Maybe the rest of the world would be a nicer place then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Here's the text of the article for those behind a paywall...

A GROUP of self-described anarchists, libertarians and Ron Paul supporters fleeing the crumbling world economic system have founded Galt's Gulch, a community in Chile inspired by Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"—and with an economy based entirely on Bitcoin. Or that's the goal, anyway.

"Our farm workers and suppliers still want to get paid in pesos," Ken Johnson, the project's founder and managing partner, explains. "But Bitcoin as the John Galt coin? Why shouldn't it be?"

If the world economic system "goes sideways," as Mr Johnson puts it, residents will retreat to their self-sufficient gated community, where they will enjoy a shooting range, equestrian facilities, and spa and fitness center. The 6,874-hectare site (pictured) also includes a 100-hectare farm, although it is not clear who will pick the lettuce when the world ends.

Galt's Gulch Chile—a name impossible for local Spanish-speakers to pronounce—will also boast an innovation centre, where expatriate libertarian dentists and chiropractors may ply their trade. In exchange for Bitcoin, of course.

In the event the world economic system fails to collapse on schedule, however, Mr Johnson has a plan B—his new trademark, Galt's Gulch Organics. "The farm came with 65 hectares of lemons," he says. "The US and Japanese markets pay a premium for organic, non-GMO produce." Plans are in the works to plant herbs, spices, fruit, nuts, and vineyards, and organic certification is not far off.

A quirk of Chilean law makes land, mining and water rights independent of each other. Mr Johnson made sure to acquire all three, particularly the water rights. "In the future, wars will be fought over water," he says. Two rivers border the land, and the community sits atop 56 known water wells. Galt's Gulch bottled mineral water may soon be in the offing. Mr Johnson is also building guest haciendas to house not only prospective buyers, but also, he hopes, tourists.

Set in a secluded valley 17 kilometres from Curacavi, Chile, on the road between Santiago and the luxurious beach resort of Viña del Mar, Galt's Gulch is a mere forty-five minutes by car from the Santiago airport, but, as Mr Johnson says, "it feels like you're at the end of the Earth." Yet his goal is not isolationist, he adds. "We're not trying to hide from the world. In fact we want people to find us."

Indeed, of the 430 lots for sale, only 12% have sold so far, and Mr Johnson is marketing vigorously to the libertarian and Bitcoin communities. Lots are priced in both dollars and Bitcoin, with big discounts for buyers who pay in that crypto-currency. Many early adopters of Bitcoin find themselves sitting on small fortunes, and Mr Johnson hopes to tempt them to diversify into real estate. So far nine clients have paid in Bitcoin, totaling around $1.5m in revenue.

Mr Johnson, a former California real estate agent and evangelist of water ionizers (devices supposed to slow aging and prevent disease, but derided as snake oil by many scientists) has become something of a celebrity in libertarian circles. Authors such as Ben Swann, Josh Tolley, Luke Rudkowski, Bob Murphy, Angela Keaton, Tatiana Moroz and Wendy McElroy have visited the site of his future utopia, and a television production company is pitching a documentary series on the community.

Most buyers so far, he says, are expats or second-home buyers. For Mr Johnson, the appeal is easy to explain. "It's like California, only forty or fifty years ago. Feels like you've stepped back in time." Mr Johnson plans to break ground in 2014, and estimates five years to fulfill his vision of a place where he can "live and let live, thrive and let thrive."

Why does he think his project will succeed where similar schemes have failed? "We're a freedom-minded community, but we're not trying to create a sovereign state," he explains. "We pay our taxes, we obey the law. Our goal is to lessen the effect of the rest of the world without telling the world to go take a flying leap."

As for Ayn Rand, just how much have her ideas influenced the community's design? Mr Johnson admits he never finished "Atlas Shrugged". "I'm not actually much of a reader," he says. "Watched the movie and skimmed the Cliff's Notes, though. Good stuff."

<comment><USER22> Anarchist community inspired by Ayn Rand? Fck me, revisionist history is seemingly having a renaissance with regards to former socialist concepts that is now apparently right-wing - libertarian and anarchist.

<comment><USER23> I don't see what bickering over words is going to accomplish. Your post is typical of the far left: do everything you can to appear smarter than your interlocutor, short of actually engaging the issue.

<comment><USER22> I actually think it's important to call things what they are, just as North Korea aint a democracy even though they call themselves that, this is nothing reassembling anarchist thought. By hi-jacking concepts we introduce confusion and ultimately destroy the original meaning and ideas.

I'm fairly tired of this being the case from the right, not just in america but in my country as well where the most right-wing party recently branded themselves "The new workers party".

<comment><USER24> Or, alternatively, why not actually foster dialogue between left-wing and right-wing anarchists and help the two groups realize that they're often not as far apart as they think? Seems to be working quite well over at [http://c4ss.org/](http://c4ss.org/) .

<comment><USER20> I think they are incredibly far apart.

"Right wing anarchists" seem to want to take the trappings of capitalism, from which they have benefited immensely, and keep as much as they can to themselves. For the good of themselves.

True anarchists reject capital and properly rights, and want precisely the opposite. For the good of everyone.

The anarchy subreddit is actually pretty good and not filled with as much junk as a lot of the subreddits are.

<comment><USER24> It depends on who you talk to; I feel like there's a sort of winding spectrum. It's something like:

         F            A
         |            |
         |            |
         |            |
         E            B
          \          /
           \        /
            D</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment>C

A = Wealthy people who just want to maximize their own revenue without particular regard for ethics. Some do not support libertarianism at all, some support some aspects of it but turn around as soon as they can benefit from pollution, eminent domain or copyrights/patent privileges.

B = Wealthy people who are actually libertarian to a high extent, caring about some notion of property rights, but have basically no concern for equality, corporate power, etc.

C = Libertarians who also care about reducing corporate power and promoting decentralization. These people love markets and voluntary exchange, but also dislike monopolies. They tend to heavily promote 3D printing, Bitcoin, seasteading, etc.

D = Left-libertarians who are fine with property rights, but seek a less market-oriented basis for society. They might like 3D printing, organic farming, urban agriculture, and perhaps also Bitcoin, though to a smaller extent since it is still money even if it does bypass the banks.

E = Anti-propertarian anarchists. Buy into leftist morality (eg. "exploitation" where you benefit much more than the counterparties from an economic agreement is immoral), and are happy to expropriate capitalists. However, they are also anti-state.

F = State socialists and social democrats.

This experiment seems to be something like B with maybe a touch of C. A proper C-libertarian experiment would also try to provide ways for people to live with very little money (eg. by living in a small closet that would normally be illegal under occupancy limit regulations), and D-libertarian would be a commune.

<comment><USER22> <3 the ascii art. I rather like this one: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Political...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Politicalquad_en.svg) (and similar)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's embarassing when libertarians (mis) use terminology taken from Ayn Rand that they don't understand.

<comment><USER24> I don't see the problem here. Atlas Shrugged is a very complex book and has many parts that I find profound (eg. her thoughts on romance, the concept of sanction of the victim and her surprisingly sane views on the relationship between money and human values) and many parts that I find mind-bogglingly stupid (eg. her extreme rejection of anything associated with progressive ideology even when no government is involved, and especially the deduction from A is A to objectivism being true). Taking the parts of a set of ideas the you like, discarding the parts that you do not like, and using the good parts as a core from which you advance your own philosophy with legitimate ideas is not a bad thing; it's how all philosophical progress works.

<comment><USER25> I think we could have a good discussion around a lot of the issues you raise here, but I want to just focus on what I think is the most worth talking about.

> and especially the deduction from A is A to objectivism being true

This is a very understandable, but major, misconception. Very understandable because Atlas Shrugged is a novel, not a formal philosophy treatise, so how would you know any better? (Without spending a crap ton of time studying other Objectivist literature, that is, like I did.) Major because Objectivism is induced from reality, not deduced.

For instance, take ethics. The Objectivist ethics looks at the nature of man and then figures out what man needs to have a happy life. Well, how do we know about the nature of man? We don't deduce it from A is A; that would be impossible. Rather, we look at lots and lots of examples of men and determine what is always common vs. what differs from one to the next.

Almost everything in Rand's philosophy is very bottom-up, based on looking at tons and tons of examples out there in reality and then forming a generalization that holds in a specific, delimited context. But that isn't evident from her writing, at least not at first. And our whole intellectual culture today is very top-down. So it's easy to think the Rand is a top-down thinker and not a bottom-up thinker.

By "bottom-up" I mean starting with concretes in reality. "Top-down" is starting from intellectual abstractions, like A is A, or God, or "a society is only as morally good as its worst-off member," or the libertarian non- aggression principle, or "from each according to his ability," and so on.

<comment><USER24> Thanks for the well-reasoned response; always happy to talk about this stuff.

My main concern with that style of thinking in general is that, while it is good at finding principles, it is less good at finding cases where those principles do not apply. For example, one important idea from Objectivism is the principle that "there can be no conflict of interest between honest men". This is clearly usually true, and classical economics does a great job at explaining why, but there are also cases where it's false. For example, if I am a monopolist selling pharmaceuticals for $1000 when their marginal cost of production is $1, it will benefit me to raise the price to $2000 even if it reduces my potential customer base by 30%, but it hurts those people who can't afford the product anymore, and it also arguably hurts society as a whole. You can't make this argument in non-monopoly circumstances, for reasons discussed by Bastiat, Mises, etc, that I'm sure you're well aware of, but you can here.

As another example, there are circumstances in which it is personally, and arguably universally, beneficial to initiate aggression. For example, if you are starving in the woods and see a hut with its owner absent, you would probably want to break into the hut and steal food from it. If you are honest, you will come back in a month and pay for everything ideally 2-5x over, but even then you technically violated the property rights of the owner of the hut. Of course, the owner would probably be delighted that you stole the food and paid 500% of what it's worth and would have consented to such an arrangement had he known, but the practical communication difficulties of the real world make such consent impossible in that particular circumstance. Indeed, this problem is fundamental; the Chicago School of Economics proves that essentially all so-called market failures are the result of high communication costs.

Some objectivists will make exceptions for at least one of those cases, saying that standard ethics are not intended for emergency situations. If you admit that as an excuse, however, do you support the laws in the United States requiring hospitals to admit non-paying patients for emergency care? If you do not, then you will need to have some reasons why not. And at that point, your philosophy is basically consequentialist - so why not just cut out the middleman of an overarching philosophy and directly support those policies that have desirable consequences?

I do think there are good answers to that question, but I am interested in what you would have to say.

<comment><USER25> You are raising good points and I have (I think) good answers.

I guess fundamentally, my over-arching answer is that abstractions like "there can be no conflict of interest between honest men" and "do not initiate force" are not useful to anyone who has not personally induced them from reality. Only when you have done that can you see precisely why it's a valid abstraction and understand what the delimited context is.

Of course, by that point, the abstraction isn't really "useful," except as a mental shortcut or as a summary to tell someone else (which is likely to confuse them, unless they know to merely treat it as a goalpost that they can personally try to induce).

Most of the Objectivist literature is exactly that: a summary without the full induction provided. Fortunately, not _all_ of the Objectivist literature is that way. After all, I am describing issues in Objectivist epistemology right now, I didn't come up with this stuff.

Regarding the first example: The principle doesn't apply in a mixed economy (i.e. one where you can get regulatory monopolies), except to say that it is in everyone's interest to have a freer, more rights-respecting system. That doesn't mean the principle is invalid, it reflects the fact that every principle is delimited to a certain context.

Regarding the second example: That is correct, non-initiation of force does not apply in an emergency situation. And that is not the only thing delimiting the context. For example, it does not apply in a state of anarchy, which is why you can morally yet forcefully establish a minarchy out of an anarchy. Rand-influenced anarcho-capitalists do not understand this point.

I don't think we should require hospitals to admit non-paying patients for emergencies, I think we should immediately create a totally free market for medical care. I think that the cost of medical care for humans would eventually approach that for animals (i.e. veterinary medicine, which is insanely cheap), at which point poor patients could all be admitted via charity, along with a large number of other benefits to everyone.

If we are not going to take that step, I guess we should keep forcing hospitals to treat these people, but I think you could argue either way. iF you are going to slowly phase in a free market in medicine, maybe you slowly phase out the free medical treatment. I say "maybe" because Ayn Rand does not deal with this mixed case, and I don't think there is a "philosophically right" answer. She would just observe that it's in everyone's self-interest to live in a society where the government does not put up barriers to pursuing personal values; a free market in medicine is an implication of that. So she (and I) would argue for instituting a free market as quickly as possible.

> And at that point, your philosophy is basically consequentialist - so why > not just cut out the middleman of an overarching philosophy and directly > support those policies that have desirable consequences?

It is basically consequentialist already. It's just that you need to talk about things like the nature of reality, valid epistemology, the nature of man, etc. to properly understand cause and effect at a broad level and, therefore, to make sound consequentialist arguments and to be able to refute all the people who say, "the best consequence is when we all serve God" or "the best consequence is when we all serve Society," or "the best consequence is to have an economy that mixes regulation with freedom because without regulation, selfishness [1] takes over and the system gets corrupted" and on and on.

[1] As you probably know, AR claimed that "selfishness" as used in the culture is falsely combining two unlike things, (1) rational self-interest and (2) victimizing others for short-term benefit, which she argued is not a rational strategy in the long run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> ken and his staff are really cool easygoing people.

it is great to see an article about them in the economist.

</comment><comment><USER27> Oscar Bluth, anyone?</comment>


Netscape is now Propeller - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/netscape-now-propeller

<comment><USER2> I predict it will be Britney VMA bad.</comment>


PACER Deleting Old Cases; Time to Fix PACER - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140821/07015128275/pacer-deleting-old-cases-time-to-fix-pacer.shtml

<comment><USER2> PACER is definitely interesting, a bit antiquated, and to date, the data has mostly resided in the hands of the big information companies (Lexis, Westlaw, etc.).

I've been building a system/website to access, search and develop intelligent analytics from PACER court information. We're tracking cases, attorneys, parties, judges, as well as the actual case dockets. The data is a treasure trove of information, and if anyone's interested, I'd be very happy to chat more about it.

The site (a signup for now as I'm working out the kinks in the system) is www.docketleads.com. Email me there or ping me here for more info.

<comment><USER3> I worked on a similar project a decade ago written mostly in Perl with the frontend in PHP (hey, it was 2004, folks!). Just checked and I still even have the old courtbot.com domain I registered for the project.

I suspect you'll find pretty quickly that there's a limit to how far regular expressions or similar techniques can take you if you want to normalize and reference precedents and make sense of cases. That's why Lexis and Westlaw pay actual attorneys considerable sums to summarize cases, and why they can still command such princely subscription fees even in 2014. But analytics might be interesting. A family member is a judge, and her judicial office keeps track of how many cases she decides per month, how many reversals she receives, etc. I don't know if those are made public -- certainly I'm not aware of any project to do it across a large data set, and I wish you luck with it.

<comment><USER2> You're definitely right about case/precedent information, but what we've found is that there's a whole other world of info that can be neatly organized with a lot of crunching, and a small bit of manual manipulation.

The big guys chasing this are highly focused almost entirely on lawyers, in the context of providing them case analysis tools. We've found a bit of a different niche which doesn't need as much fidelity/granularity to the information, but needs it nonetheless.

In any case, I'd love to chat about your experience, even if a decade old. Can I PM you?

<comment><USER3> Sure, happy to chat! What you're doing seems interesting, especially if you're not targeting the lawyer/case research market. My email address is in my HN profile. Though I am working nonstop on [http://recent.io/](http://recent.io/) right now. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if Recap [1] would help in addressing the censorship/deletion issue. Ultimately, the way we fund these programs is the root the problem (and the privatization of what is supposed to be public data).

[1] [https://www.recapthelaw.org](https://www.recapthelaw.org)

<comment><USER5> I don't get the bit about "privatization." PACER is run by the judiciary.

<comment><USER6> The judiciary sees it as a profit center. Folks have offered to essentially buy the data and make it entirely public. But they see too much profit from it

<comment><USER5> Of course nobody is "profiting." There are no shareholders getting dividends or execs getting bonuses. They use it fund the operations of the judiciary in the face of a shortage of funding from Congress.

<comment><USER6> Except, of course, that PACER has various requirements that conflict with this, and they make as hard as possible to keep this profit (which was 150 million in 2008) up.

For example written opinions that "set forth a reasoned explanation for a court's decision" must be free of charge.

They make it is as difficult as possible to access this, and do not allow any sort of bulk download, because doing so would make PACER/courtweb less useful as a pay service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It would cost Google negligible money to host this data and the only people who would be upset would be the rent-seeking jerks responsible for the current PACER debacle.

And EDGAR after that.

<comment><USER8> What do you dislike about EDGAR? I find EDGAR to be pretty good. It's easy to search and completely free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Un-fucking-believable. PACER has always been awful (I've used it since about 2005), but this is a new low---this is ACTIVE awfulness.

I assume, based on the weird specificity of what they're removing, that the PACER office is doing this at the request of the individual courts. Which just sort of underscores how awful this is---that courts get to decide how public their own opinions are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not so. The AO forced the courts to do it according to two people at the Second Circuit.

The most likely explanation is that as part of the "upgrade" of CM/ECF (the write component of PACER) they needed to jettison old databases that used a different schema. This is of course nonsense. They've likely spent over $100 million on this upgrade since 2007, though actual numbers are surprisingly hard to come by. For that price they could have probably afforded a few coders to convert the older databases over.

<comment><USER10> Is there any way to obtain this old data through a FOIA? Or do those requests not apply to US courts?

<comment><USER3> Alas, FOIA applies only to federal government agencies that are in the executive branch. It doesn't apply to federal courts or the U.S. Congress.

<comment><USER10> Well that's depressing.

<comment><USER3> Yep. Though Congress _could_ liberate all of PACER, retrospective and prospective, if it chose -- one data dump to Carl Malamud would do it. The appropriations bills are wending their way through the legislative process right now (mostly out of committee), and that might be a vehicle to add a one- line amendment. Would require a lot of work in the next month or two.

<comment><USER10> Who do I call or who's door do I bang on?

<comment><USER3> I'd point you in the direction of Carl Malamud, Jim Harper at the Cato Institute, and EFF, probably in that order. Jim's made it a project to liberate government data; Carl's gone further and made it his life's work.

Inside Congress itself? Hmm. I'm spending my time working on [http://recent.io/](http://recent.io/) and now paying close attention nowadays. But if you're local to the SF south bay try Rep. Lofgren? I've done some Q&As with her and found she's one of the smarter and well-informed members of Congress on tech policy issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The day that PACER gets fixed is the day judges stop using WordPerfect.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'll say it again: Bonkers!</comment>


tl;dr for dummies - <AUTHOR> http://blog.self.li/post/26560278713/tldr-for-dummies

<comment><USER2> If you need to include "tl;dr" at any point in a blog post for the sake of readers you think might not care to sit through the entire thing, you probably should take what you've written back to your desk and shorten it.

Occam's razor, brevity is the soul of wit, keep it simple, stupid, et al.

</comment><comment><USER3> Or, you can state your case, or proposition, or manifesto in the opening paragraph, like good writers have been doing for thousands of years.</comment>


The End of ProTube 2 - <AUTHOR> http://jonasgessner.com/protube2-statement.html <comment><USER2> > They basically wanted me to remove every feature that made ProTube what it > is – that includes the player itself that allows you to play 60fps videos, > background playback, audio only mode and more.

> background playback, audio only mode

[https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/developer- polici...](https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/developer-policies)

> You and your API Clients must not, and must not encourage, enable, or > require others to:

> separate, isolate, or modify the audio or video components of any YouTube > audiovisual content made available as part of, or in connection with, > YouTube API Services.

> promote separately the audio or video components of any YouTube audiovisual > content made available as part of, or in connection with, the YouTube API > Services;

> create, include, or promote features that play content, including audio or > video components, from a background player, meaning a player that is not > displayed in the page, tab, or screen that the user is viewing;

The author blatantly violated YouTube's developer policies then complained that YouTube was upset? Why the victim complex? What did he expect? He's lucky they didn't choose to go down the lawsuit route instead.

This doesn't seem like an arbitrary policy either. If he's playing the video where the user can't see it, the user can't see ads. If the user can't see ads, the video creator doesn't get paid.

<comment><USER3> > The author blatantly violated YouTube's developer policies

Well duh, but those policies only exist because YT is trying to sell those features.

> He's lucky they didn't choose to go down the lawsuit route instead.

Lucky? It's a toss-up whether policies like this are actually enforceable. Most likely all they'd be able to do is block the devs access.

I'll take this as my stance on this matter: a user or program should be allowed to do anything they choose with the bits they receive. They can alter, modify, ignore, strip, or save any part of it.

This app operates in the same area as ad blockers. Would you argue that uBlock should be taken down because YT wrote a policy demanding that browser software must not 'enable or encourage' the blocking of ads.

<comment><USER2> > Lucky? It's a toss-up whether policies like this are actually enforceable. > Most likely all they'd be able to do is block the devs access.

He consented to a contract, violated it and caused actual damages (loss of ad revenue, profiting from copyright infringement). Given that he displayed content in violation of the license he was given and made money from it, it could even be a criminal copyright infringement case.

> This app operates in the same area as ad blockers. Would you argue that > uBlock should be taken down because YT wrote a policy demanding that browser > software must not 'enable or encourage' the blocking of ads.

The uBlock developer doesn't profit and didn't agree to anything.

> I'll take this as my stance on this matter: a user or program should be > allowed to do anything they choose with the bits they receive. They can > alter, modify, ignore, strip, or save any part of it.

A stance like this is how you get DRM and ads baked into the video stream. Would you honestly prefer we get into an arms race with YouTube? With DRM the way it is today, I'm not sure that's a battle we can win. Head down this path and we'll have DRM and eye tracking to make _really_ sure we're watching ads before we play a video.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure where the copyright angle is coming from. YT doesn't own the copyright of the videos they host. The best YT could hope for is a ToS violation which is pretty toothless.

> The uBlock developer doesn't profit and didn't agree to anything.

So if the app was Free and FOSS would it be okay? Hopefully so since youtube- dl exists.

> A stance like this is how you get DRM and ads baked into the video stream. > Would you honestly prefer we get into an arms race with YouTube?

Right, but in your alternate universe you are legally bound to view the ads and still have all the restrictions of DRM. It's really no different but without any possiblity of circumventing it. Nothing really changes.

<comment><USER2> > I'm not sure where the copyright angle is coming from. YT doesn't own the > copyright of the videos they host. The best YT could hope for is a ToS > violation which is pretty toothless.

The developer is displaying copyrighted content. YouTube doesn't own the copyright but it does hold a sublicensable license, which is how the developer could legitimately develop a YouTube app. By violating the developer agreement from YouTube, the developer is breaching any copyright license he may have had. By selling the app commercially, he's also potentially doing so criminally. There's also the CFAA which I forgot at the time.

> So if the app was Free and FOSS would it be okay? Hopefully so since > youtube-dl exists.

If the app was free and didn't utilize the API, then yes, it'd be in the same space as youtube-dl.

> It's really no different but without any possiblity of circumventing it. > Nothing really changes.

What changes is that as users, we're forced to let invasive technologies into our lives in order to consume content.

<comment><USER3> > Sublicenses

I'm sure this could be the case but I'm not convinced that their license to the content would be so specific as to require the delivery of the content video/audio together, or must be played in the foreground. Especially since it would require all of the content be relicensed every time they change their policies. And especially since YT themselves can ignore these rules.

Also, we all know that the CFAA is both bullshit and makes basically everything illegal. It has no place in any discussion like this.

> What changes is that as users, we're forced to let invasive technologies > into our lives in order to consume content.

Sure, but you've just traded invasive technologies for invasive legal requirements. But your world is basically the case right now and we have DRM and plenty of ad blocking circumvention measures so I'm not convinced it would help.

<comment><USER2> > I'm sure this could be the case but I'm not convinced that their license to > the content would be so specific as to require the delivery of the content > video/audio together, or must be played in the foreground.

The license a creator gives to YouTube might not require that YouTube delivers audio and video together (it clearly doesn't for YouTube Red) but the license YouTube gives developers definitely does, as pointed out above. Plus, if the video isn't played in the foreground, people don't see ads and creators don't get paid. If there isn't an explicit agreement preventing it, it'd certainly cause conflict if YouTube were found to be allowing it.

> Especially since it would require all of the content be relicensed every > time they change their policies.

They've done it in the past, when they introduced YouTube Red for example: [https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2015/01/23/youtube- removing...](https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2015/01/23/youtube-removing- artist-refuses-license-subscription-service/)

> Sure, but you've just traded invasive technologies for invasive legal > requirements.

Legal requirements are soft and barely enforceable on end users. I'll take those over technological solutions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The author expects Google to pay for the storage and bandwidth cost, while the author monetizes that with no revenue sharing?

Not only that, the author also refused to release the app for free on Cydia:

> Some people might suggest that I re-release ProTube 2 on Cydia. Few people > even have jailbroken devices anymore and only a fraction of my user base > would be able to access Cydia. Purchases from the App Store also can't be > carried over to Cydia so people would have to purchase the app again. And > YouTube might still come after me.

If the author refuses to give it the app for free, why does he/she expects Google to do the same?

And it goes beyond that: none of the money the author makes by stealing traffic from YT goes to the creators. Zero. The author is defunding both the creators and YT while making money for him/herself.

If ProTube was free/oss, I could see some valid points behind it, but the creator is actually making money on that copyrighted content.

Seriously, why would anyone have any reasonable expectations of a different outcome?

<comment><USER5> Maybe Google/creators need a new business model that doesn't depend on adverts?

Your argument is essentially the same one against Adblockers in general.

<comment><USER6> Isn't that what they're doing with the YouTube Red thing?

<comment><USER5> If you can obtain YouTube Red functionality by using an Adblocker, it may not work as a business model...

<comment><USER7> Youtube Red features: 1) offline viewing. 2) no ads. 3) original programming. 4) background audio-only playing. 5) Google Play Music subscription.

<comment><USER8> 6) Works with Chromecast Audio. Yes, the "normal" Youtube doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As much as it sucks for the author, if you're providing a service or app on top of another service (like providing a better way to browse a website's content or API) you're really at the mercy of that service provider, especially if you've registered to use their API. If they want to squash your service/app, they can either just revoke your API access, or just find some violation of their TOS, or just create one with a TOS update. Then they can report you to the respective app store (App Store, Google Play Store) and most likely get it removed. Without looking at the Youtube TOS, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a section that explicitly disallows paid apps besides Youtube's, probably to prevent competitors for their Youtube Red app.

Although I wouldn't have bought it since the plain Youtube app is fine for me, it looks like he put a lot of work and soul into the app, and I feel for him. I also appreciate the level headedness of the statement, explaining the situation without much vitriol, although I'm surprised he doesn't mention anything about one of the issues Google likely had, which was ad-blocking (see edit below). Good luck to him on his next project.

Edit: It looks like the author of the app likely got in a lot of trouble with Google for not having ads when playing videos, on top of the other issues, a commenter below points out. I think it's a little disingenuous of the author to not put this in his statement as I'm sure Google wasn't happy about it (and probably said so in the emails) and it's likely another violation of the TOS (and I'm surprised they haven't pulled/didn't pull API access). What I said still stands, but he should be more direct about the issues that Google had.

<comment><USER10> You're missing the main issue here, that service he provides is an an adblocker along with other Red features. Google ProTube and every review spells it out. "ProTube as an ad blocker for YouTube"..."It's an alternative to paying for YouTube Red"..."ProTube also supports audio playback while you work in another app, which the YouTube app doesn't do without a YouTube Red subscription"[1]

Seems clear to me, this is a way of cheating Google out of their Red subscription fee or their standard ad revenue.

I'm really don't get the outpouring of sympathy here. He's essentially pirating their Red service and charging a fee for it.

[1] [https://www.macstories.net/reviews/protube- review/](https://www.macstories.net/reviews/protube-review/)

<comment><USER5> It's not cheating, you should have the right to render content as you see fit. That includes using Adblockers on the web and elsewhere.

I don't think they really need to use the developer API to implement any of the functionality used. And I don't understand why it's Apples job to police their ecosystem in Googles favor. Seems like an anti-user move on Apples part.

<comment><USER9> It's because if an author makes an app that goes against Youtube's TOS, if Apple doesn't take action, then Apple is liable for it. Apple isn't actively policing it, as well, it's more that Google requested it be taken down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you use closed platforms tightly controlled by large companies, it's not surprising that things like this will happen.

Meanwhile, on my desktop I use a downloader script that continues to work flawlessly for some of those usecases described in the article; it doesn't use the "official API", but mimics what a browser would do, so YouTube would have to stop working in the browser to stop that from working.

<comment><USER12> Can you put it on GitHub? :)

<comment><USER13> You should try also Youtube-dl - amazing piece of kit :)

<comment><USER14> As I do not include Python in my system images I wrote a very reliable youtube download script that uses only sh, sed and an http client, where http client is fetch, ftp, curl, wget, or some similar program. Currently it is at 1205 characters, or 1205 bytes. No "developer API" needed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow, if this was any other company this guy would have just been sued. I don't really have a problem with the guy scraping and using other techniques to get around playing ads and other restrictions. But then he turns around and sells it, and then acts like Google is behaving unfairly by shutting him down... what a class act. I find it hard to have any sympathy for this guy.

<comment><USER5> It would have been better if they were sued. Why should we have Apple policing their ecosystem on Googles behalf?

<comment><USER16> Because Apple wants to send a message to app creators of original content that Apple has their back. In this case it was Goliath vs. David, but is probably just as often the reverse in terms of parties' sizes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like how this person brags about how successful his app was and how it hit #1 in 10 countries, but neglects to mention how he was continually violating YouTube's terms of service all the while.

Here's my favorite part:

 _YouTube wants to sell its $10 /month subscription service which offers many features that ProTube also offered for a lower one time price, so they started hunting down 3rd party YouTube apps on the App Store._

It's their service so they can charge whatever they want for it because they actually pay the bills to keep the service up and running. What's not okay is for you to sell an app to customers that, you clearly knew, violated YouTube's TOS and was subject to takedown at anytime.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yes, he's at the mercy of YouTube since he's building on the platform in violation of its ToS.

But as a consumer, you can use the youtube-dl script ([https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/)) along with mpv ([https://mpv.io/](https://mpv.io/)) to play YouTube videos as you wish. Example:

        mpv https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

        mpv --no-video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

        mpv <pretty much any video / streaming site in existence>

Both packages are available in your nearest package manager, i.e. brew for MacOS, MSYS2 for Windows, etc.

</comment><comment><USER19> I never knew about ProTube, but since YouTube disabled playing videos in background even on Safari/Chrome it's been very annoying. I used to love listening to long format shows/audio in the background. It's still possible, albeit likely not as good as the ProTube app seemed to be, you just have to load up Youtube and request for the desktop site. The site switches from mobile to desktop and becomes a real pain to use but hey I can play videos in the background again.

It's pretty lame of YouTube to do, especially since I can't even buy the paid service if I wanted to (I live in Canada).

<comment><USER4> > It's pretty lame of YouTube to do, especially since I can't even buy the > paid service if I wanted to (I live in Canada).

They don't have the license to do so. Streaming audio requires a different license than streaming video.

<comment><USER20> YouTube can't stop me minimizing my browser window on the desktop and nobody is accusing them of violating any licenses for failing to prevent me from doing that, so why is mobile different? Just because they have the technical ability to tell the difference?

<comment><USER4> That's not how licensing rights work. Just because you think it is the same, doesn't mean that lawyers will think that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> When depending upon a 3rd party content in violation of their TOS, it's bound to happen & especially when it's monetised.

It's the users who are really getting screwed, probably many of them still don't know the difference between official app and an 3rd party app. The users are of grave risk under such conditions, where if a 3rd party app developer of a famous service decides to sell the app to someone; they could easily pish the unsuspecting user's login credentials.

In this case, the developer took the right call to bring down the app. I hope his future endeavours are just as successful without using 3rd party content.

</comment><comment><USER22> Censorship, monetization algo changes, dark ux patterns, buying whitelist space on adblockers, political bias coded directly into search algo...

I do hope the future holds something better for the consumer than YouTube

<comment><USER23> Unfortunately, most industries on the internet are winner-take-all due to the network effect. Without significant government intervention, which comes with its own problems if done poorly, monopolies on the internet are nearly inevitable.

<comment><USER24> I would love a regulation for companies that they must make all user contributed data freely available for everyone. This way YouTube (and Facebook and Twitter and...) would not be a data silo but just one of many access portals to that data.

I know this is a question of values, of what is considered "just". But for me it would feel fair if all the 20k reviews of the nearby mall on Google maps would not be Google's property but belong to everyone, since many many people contributed to it out of goodwill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> ProTube actually got me using YouTube on a regular basis and became part of my nightly routine - I subscribed to channels, occasionally commented, made playlists... I even started using the (terrible) YouTube app on the Apple TV from time to time. Boy is it bad!

Before ProTube, I only watched YouTube content when it was embedded in sites I was browsing. Hopefully the current version works long enough for me to figure out a replacement (either for the app or for YouTube itself.)

<comment><USER9> It looks like, as long as the app can use the API, it'll stay updated for iOS 11 (the author states he updated it as soon as he could), and so it'll likely function for a while.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I'm using it on iOS 11 and it works great (although I don't love the new native video UI Apple is going with) - my concern is that YT will be dicks and kill access through the API. I sure hope not.

<comment><USER26> > YT will be dicks and kill access through the API

how is that dickish ? They seem pretty gracious right now to have let the API key work for so long while it breaks half their TOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Same thing happened with my app, Streamus, a few years ago.

[https://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/07/21/how-youtube- killed...](https://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/07/21/how-youtube-killed-an- extension-with-300000-users/)

It's not a surprising outcome, but still unfortunate for both YouTube and consumers.

</comment><comment><USER28> "Interesting" faked whois data on the domain:

> Registrant Name: Jonas Gessner

> Registrant Street: Infinite Loop 1

> Registrant City: Cupertino

> Registrant Postal Code: 95014

> Registrant Country: US

> Registrant Phone: +14.089961010

<comment><USER29> So not only do they break YouTube tos but they violate icann rules too? Nice.

[https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/ra- agreement-2009-05-2...](https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/ra- agreement-2009-05-21-en#188.8.131.52)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Bit of a shame, I understand the reasoning, but I also understand how poor the existing YouTube app is to this day.

I'd be happy with ads, I'd be happy with not being able to download videos, I just wanted to get videos from channels I'd subscribed to and multitask with iOS' native PiP and ProTube let me do that.

</comment><comment><USER31> Simple Googling revealed this:

[https://github.com/pieter/YoutubeDL-iOS](https://github.com/pieter/YoutubeDL- iOS)

Anyone can sideload without mercy of Apple, uses infamous youtube-dl. Might try later tonight.

Would love author to open source his code or contribute to above mentioned project.

</comment><comment><USER32> Don't build on someone else's platform unless you have a ripcord. :/

<comment><USER33> The platform here is the internet. YouTube is trying to say you can't write custom software that accesses their publicly accessible service.

ProTube is nothing more than an alternative user agent that users are choosing to use to interact with the youtube.com service.

They should shut down the public youtube.com service if they don't want people to access it in ways that are reasonably fair use.

<comment><USER17> No, ProTube used the YouTube API and repeatedly violated the terms of service, which he legally agreed to, and then charged customers for an app that he knew was in clear violation and subject to termination.

<comment><USER33> Why does he have to agree to the ToS to use the public API?

Would it have been okay if he didn't use the API but accessed the same functionality just like you can with a web browser?

<comment><USER34> He requested an API key, that's not exactly "public" like you think it it and is subject to the TOS he agreed to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> So, the reason you're not putting it on Cydia is because not many people are going to buy it? Ok.

The argument that people will have to buy it again to access it makes no sense, it doesn't matter.

</comment><comment><USER33> 1\. YouTube built their business on other people's content. Just like LinkedIn, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, etc.

Aren't we, as the public, entitled to access the data that we, the collective public, have contributed?

How many people that uploaded content want to prevent others from privately enjoying it?

2\. A federal judge recently ruled that LinkedIn couldn't block a service that was scraping their service. That scraping costs LinkedIn some measurable amount of money, but I personally think that should be a burden they're required to bear.

If they don't want that burden, let them shut down the service and allow a new service or technology to replace it.

<comment><USER17> Is YouTube stopping people from scraping their site?

<comment><USER33> I guess that's my question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Would you mind giving access to the source, so that advanced users can still compile and install their own binary? Happy to pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER37> What's so frustrating about this is that yourube does not even sell red here. I cannot pay for what protube enabled.

<comment><USER38> Unless you use VPN, but this could be a pain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Can I buy and install Protube on my iphone without using the app store?

</comment><comment><USER40> "Do no evil" \-- unless it affects the bottom line, of course!

</comment><comment><USER41> Well that sucks. I never used ProTube but it looks like it was a great app.

</comment><comment><USER42> This is fucked up. I really liked the app. No google, I dont want to pay you 10 usd monthly so that I can listen to music on your app when it's in the background.

<comment><USER4> No _RIAA_ , I dont want to pay you 10 usd monthly so that I can listen to music on your app when it's in the background.

There, I fixed that for you.

<comment><USER43> Not everyone uses YouTube to listen to music in the background. I want to listen to podcasts or just listen to videos distributed by casual content creators in the background - they're not forcing me to get YouTube Red, YouTube is. Which is fair, because it's their platform, but to blame it on RIAA is wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Welp, thanks YouTube, you're ruining everything I like about it. This is right up there with Twitter api tokens. Next anyone uploaded content deemed not advertiser friendly will be banned. Say goodbye to H3H3, and hello to only Casey Neistat. Death by a thousand cuts.

Everyone saying "this is why you don't build your business on someone else's X" yeah, we get that, but 3rd parties don't always have to do this.</comment>


Competitive programming - <AUTHOR> Slides from my course on competitive programming (beginner to intermediate level). It could perhaps be useful for others. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/elucterio/Competitive- Programming](https://github.com/elucterio/Competitive-Programming)</comment>


Ask HN: should we stop telling biz people to be their own technical co-founders? - <AUTHOR>

I know a lot of people have been saying recently that anyone can be their own tech co-founder.  Business folks can load up codeacademy or similar site, learn development, and build an MVP.  That doesn't feel like a great move to me.  Remember the first time you learned how to develop (or do calculus for that matter) back in college?  You were slow, stumbled through things, made a load of mistakes, and didn't get things exactly correct.  You had weeks to do problem sets.  Now imagine that you had to build a functioning product at that point in your life.  It would be a super slow process and the end product would leave a lot to be desired.  Now, imagine a business person doing this.  While he or she is stumbling around writing code, who is networking, hustling, and doing all those important things that business people do?  And in that slow development process, someone else can swoop in and build the same product a lot quicker.  I understand that people are frustrated that they cannot find developers, but I am not sure if this new movement is the best bet.  Thoughts?  Maybe I am taking crazy pills. <comment><USER3> I tend to agree. Theres so much to do at the beginning of a startup for someone to focus on something they are not productive in, is a formula for failure. If they want to learn while someone more knowledgeable either outsourced, or contracting, then thats fine. If they don't have the money to do something and can't convince someone to work with them, then thats really their only option.

</comment><comment><USER4> If the business type is just in it for the money, in my opinion, they will fail. If it is an intelligent business person who has a passion for learning, and they want to create things, I see no reason why they would not succeed. Yes, they will need more help/advice from other technical people, but I say let them go for it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I am thinking of it from my perspective where on projects I have worked on alone as a technical person I wished there was someone who had time to hustle the product. Since I was trying to innovate 24/7 I did not have much time for that but it is super important. There is never enough time...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Depends on the situation. If the "business person" is really just "some guy with an idea" then maybe it's fine to suggest they learn to code enough to code up an MVP or prototype or whatever. It's not like there are many other value generating activities they are going to be undertaking otherwise.

OTOH, if the "business guy" is a great hustler, sales guy, marketing whiz or whatever, who has good domain knowledge, can do (or has done) customer development and/or market research, has connections to funding sources, etc., then it makes more sense for them to go out and find a techie to partner with. Now you're talking about a true partnership where each side is bringing something valuable to the table, and where the whole is - hopefully - <USER2> than the sum of its parts.</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for open source video chat solution - <AUTHOR>

Anyone have any recommendations.. Web RTC seems like the way to go, but browser restrictions will limit users. Anyone have any advice or solutions? <comment><USER2> OpenTok is pretty good and relatively straightforward to include into your site

<http://www.tokbox.com/></comment>


The 25 Best U.S. Cities for Tech Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227829

<comment><USER2> What is with the inconsistencies in naming convention for the states?

1\. No state listed.

2\. Two letter abbreviation.

3\. Three letter abbreviation.

4\. Four letter abbreviation.

5\. Full state name.

6\. Multiple cities/states listed in one line.</comment>


Rovio's CEO Steps Down After Just Over a Year - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2015/12/09/rovios-ceo-steps-down-after-just-over-a-year/ <comment><USER2> I still don't understand how the market overvalues all these "one-hit wonder" companies, like Rovio, Zynga, King, OMGPOP, etc., and how they grow to such massive amounts of employees (it's kind of a "curse of success").

Edit: the proper URL should be

[http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/9/9878424/rovio-angry- birds-...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/9/9878424/rovio-angry-birds-ceo- replaced)

<comment><USER3> I did a post on this already

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10711645](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10711645)

<comment><USER2> Thanks :) I hadn't seen those.</comment></comment></comment>


Popular .NET Web Content Management Systems (CMS) - Open Source - <AUTHOR> http://www.devcurry.com/2010/06/popular-net-web-content-management.html

<comment><USER2> We're a Python/Django shop with a few ASP.NET/C# projects every now and again. We use Django CMS for many of our clients, but we've used Umbraco for a few. It was aweful, the interface is fine for editing content, but building and templating a whole site through a web based client is painful.

Trying to build extensions was daunting, especially with the free version, it seems like they have a Commercial version with a few more developer bells and whistles.

Version control was also a pain, because everything is stored in the database, including templates and styling, so you can't really version control that with an outside VCS (we use Git). And what you CAN put under version control is half binary files anyway, hello conflictville, population you and a bunch of binary conflicts every time you sync.

Overall, I'm in love with Django CMS, and .NET is an old lover whom I don't really want to talk to any more, but she's still in my phone so I know who's calling when she drunk dials me.

<comment><USER3> As of v4, Umbraco uses nested .master pages for page rendering which saves you from the "template stored in database" pain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're a developer, using a CMS quickly becomes grating enough, but for me, using a .NET CMS eventually became unbearable.

After I had a few of these up and running for a couple of years, having implemented custom modules to collect form data, and even going through the trouble to pack the modules up all nice and kosher, when it came time to make a minor change to one of those modules, and I had to find a correct setup of Visual Studio, with all the dependencies, and then compile and deploy the module, just to make a small change, I said: never again do I want to write websites in a compiled language!

<comment><USER5> Any good CMS should separate logic, configuration and presentation clearly. If you need to recompile something to change anything less dramatic than the way the CMS works, this separation has been broken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I haven't found a single .NET CMS that doesn't drive me completely batty. I think most CMS tools, including non-.NET ones, break down when they start trying to be able to do all things for all people. It's debatable if any are able to pull this off (though admittedly I'm not up on current CMS tools to know if that world has improved.)

Because of that, I've been rolling my own basic backend for my own personal use on projects for myself, friends & family for about a half-year now; the ultimate goal being dead-simple templating using standard HTML pages, fast & secure data & code, and ease of extensibility. It does what it needs to. But, because it's domain-specific, I'm not trying to make it a general-purpose "CMS," so I currently don't have to worry about stuff like registration/authentication, comments, etc. I would never release it in its current state, though, and likewise I'd probably never plug a bunch of other junky code into it, expose a ton of dubiously-designed interfaces & reflection as "extensibility," require master pages (ew) or some custom markup language (ew x 2) to make templates, and call it a full CMS.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is there a reason to use a .NET CMS other than the obvious (i.e. it's a .NET shop)?

<comment><USER8> You realize that it is possible that someone might like a CMS because of its features, not the language it was implemented in, right?

<comment><USER7> Yes, that's my point. The OP is a list of .NET content management systems, not a list of CMSs that have broad or interesting features. Hence my question about why anyone would specifically want a .NET CMS.

<comment><USER8> Blah my bad - I misunderstood you then. I thought you were just making a general "eewwwww .net" comment :p

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> _DotNetNuke, also known as DNN, is the ideal platform for building professional websites with dynamic content and interactive features._

This made me laugh. My coworkers that have worked with DNN have many horror stories. I've never heard from a developer that used DNN and liked it. Given the superficiality of the descriptions, I assume all the info was copy/pasted from the marketing material for each project.

<comment><USER6> DNN is a heap. My God, is it a codebase trainwreck. Apologies to any DNN devs that may be HNers, but holy cow is that an example of how serpentine code gets when you try to be all things to all people without a strong planning phase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> BlogEngine.NET is a wonderful blog platform (I consider that a CMS) that's easy to extend and the codebase isn't so massive that you can learn it quickly. Some of these, like DNN, are nightmares.

</comment><comment><USER9> People interested in .NET Content Management Systems may want to watch the Orchard Project: <http://orchard.codeplex.com/></comment>


Food bloggers dish up plates of spicy criticism (Yelp's far reaching influence) - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/03/25/MNGV9ORDSH1.DTL <comment><USER2> I was intrigued by the reference to the "good ol' days" when reviewers would let a restaurant have 30 days to work out the kinks.

I have a friend from Vietnam who started a restaurant in my hometown, which has a Vietnamese population of around 30-50,000. He told me, just before opening, that the first 3 days would make or break the shop. That's the way that community worked: hundreds of people would descend on a new restaurant and then go tell all their friends and relatives. So he put tons of effort into the first days. Sounds just like... Yelp!

Rules change, people adapt. The restaurants should read PG's essays on listening to early adopters.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Personally, I love Yelp. I've discovered some great hole-in-the-wall places that make me feel like I'm in the know. Some critics can be exceptionally harsh, though, and it's interesting to witness the quick impacts they have on businesses.</comment>


Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia - <AUTHOR> https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-donald-j-trump-standing-saudi-arabia/ <comment> java-man we all deserve this.</comment>


Verizon's 5G service is faster than Google Fiber, will begin to roll out in 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://bgr.com/2015/09/08/verizon-5g-wireless-service-2017/ <comment><USER2> 5G is pretty much undefined right now so an aggressive OpCo is abusing the label (again).

With that timeline this is LTE Advanced which is 1Gbit at best.

And this is a horrible article void of facts just reproducing some hype a verizon bigwig uttered. BGR|CNET, no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER3> for the first 10gigabytes, that is</comment>


Congratulations, Your Study Went Nowhere - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/upshot/publication-bias-threat-to-science.html <comment><USER2> >Researchers should embrace negative results instead of accentuating the positive

The problem starts here. Most researchers would love to show their negative results, they're well aware of the problem. But they need to publish, they need grants, they need money which is outcome independent. They need an alternative reality where negative results and reproducibility studies make money.

As it stands you get money for publishing praise, a lot of industrially sponsored medical research is just "9/10 doctors recommend x" advertising.

We need to instate the rule that only preregistered studies can be published or at least used by the FDA as for decisions.

Right now you can conduct 1000 studies until you find a handful which randomly show the result you want.

<comment> 08-15 > We need to instate the rule that only preregistered studies can be published > or at least used by the FDA as for decisions.

That won't help, not by itself. Preregistration helps with "p hacking", the practice of moving the goal posts until some result become significant. A bigger problem remains.

Medicine and Biology accepted the framework of Statistical Hypothesis Inference Testing, where a null hypothesis is rejected at some p-value, usually 0.05. Ignoring many faults of this framework (for example that the alternative hypothesis is not tested at all, that it is a bad caricature of the bad statistics R. A. Fisher introduced, that the numerical outcomes depend on the probability of events that _didn 't_ happen, etc.), the logic is that you limit the false positive rate to below the p-value threshold.

Unfortunately, journals consistently reject submission, unless there is a significant p-value somewhere in there. ("Highly significant" is better, even though the term makes no sense.) So if plenty of researchers investigate some random nonsense where the null hypothesis is actually true, 100% of published studies will be spurious results, preregistration or not.

To make progress, this kind of statistics has to go. Journals would have to change their policies, which probably means peer reviewers have to change theirs. I have no idea how to make that happen.

<comment><USER3> Preregistration does help with this issue a bit. It won't make published studies any better, but it still helps solve the file-drawer problem if the results are available _somewhere_. If you take a shotgun approach to getting significance out of null hypotheses, you presumably get 5% successes. (Sort of. Maybe. p-values _really_ stink, as you point out.) But if 20 people all run variants of the same bunk study, preregistration means that instead of just seeing one success, we see one success on the cover of PNAS, and then at least have the option to look up the ~10 prior failures and decide not to accept the conclusion. (Well, one time in twenty it'll be the first try, but it's still progress.)

Of course, that's still going to push researchers to change up their techniques for getting false positives. It rewards either covering unexplored domains (so there's no counterexample to your false positive), or exploiting other tricks to manipulate significance in preregistered work.

I don't think existing journals have much hope of improving their practices, honestly. Between their ludicrous financial incentives and ideologues talking "methodological terrorism", that matter seems depressingly settled. But I wonder if there might be hope for creating a counterweight to this?

What happens if Gelman and Khahneman get together to create the _Very Prestigious Journal of Replications_ and the _Somewhat Prestigious Journal of Rejected Hypotheses_? The first one is neat because it rewards negative results, since they change the state of what's understood - at the very least it might encourage more people to start checking the most influential and most suspicious results. The second thing might be a harder sell, but it could reward comprehensive negative work on key topics (much like Alzheimer's research has heavily consisted of excluding possible pathways). Honestly, "create new prestigious journals from scratch" sounds far easier than "reform existing journals" or "tenure and reward professors for reasons other than publications".

<comment> 08-15 > Honestly, "create new prestigious journals from scratch" sounds far > easier...

What used to be "prestigious" has come to mean "high impact factor", mostly because funding agencies needed an "objective" way to grant funding, and being run by bureaucrats, they picked impact factor as a measure of scientific success. For a Journal Of Replications to have impact, researchers would have to cite papers about replications. But that's not expected; you cite the original paper, not the one that replicates a result, and you never hear about the one that failed to reproduce a result.

I don't see that approach working, but I'd like to see someone try it.

<comment><USER3> > _For a Journal Of Replications to have impact, researchers would have to > cite papers about replications._

Yep, this is definitely the biggest weakness for the idea. A journal about replications would probably end up with low impact factor, and wouldn't be able to grab a groundbreaking result to boost its prestige the way some narrow-topic journals have.

My only thought for handling that was alluded to with "Gelman and Kahneman"; maintaining a tolerable reputation and impact factor would probably require leaning on big names and people who are devoted to doing replication work regardless of journal. Gelman, for instance, showed up in PNAS with references when he criticized that godawful "boarding and air rage" study. If we're willing to abuse the process even further, there might be room to publish methodology-of-replication papers in statistical or procedural journals and create further citations that way.

It's not a very good answer, and I don't think it's going to free anyone from "publish or perish". The best I can really hope for is creating a bit of space for talented, skeptical researchers to add replications to their other work without needing to be tenured and entrenched first.

<comment><USER4> A big part of the problem is there are too many PhDs chasing too little funding. There's no room for negative results when the competition is that big.

<comment><USER3> I wish I could find it, but there's a superb piece out there about the inherent dysfunction of lottery-style careers. The basic idea was that there are a handful of careers where success is highly rewarded, but job count and quality don't really respond to the market.

In academia, there are however many tenured professorships with whatever salary, set by largely non-market forces. In Hollywood, there are only so many recognizable stars at a time who can guarantee sales, so their salaries don't really decline no matter how many people vie for their spots. And the same in pro spots, music, politics, Harvard admissions, etc.

And the result is that without adding new jobs or dropping salaries, the people hiring balance the market _somehow_. Unpaid internships, selling expensive credentials, would-be singers selling hits to existing stars, massive university donations by parents, vicious hazing on football teams, horrifying abuse by casting agents; people who control these 1,000:1 (or higher) seeker-to-slot fields manage to exploit that eagerness to all kinds of horrible ends. [1]

Academia is probably less bad than many of those fields, perhaps because the rewards at the top are less spectacular. But it's not a coincidence that Brian Wansink's big scandal was about pressuring a grad student to find results in null data, or that grad students and postdocs end up working miserable hours to be third author on their own research.

I don't have an answer here, really. But I certainly agree that as long as there are endless ranks of people struggling to make their names, people are going to keep finding ways to get dramatic-looking results, data be damned.

[1] I suspect this stuff really kicks in at several hundred to one or higher. Harvard doesn't reject this percentage, but note that it applies a time-and- money filter before the applications even arrive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I got put off science at high school when I'd get marked down for having "wrong" but truthful results to physical experiments, so I ended up going around and averaging out other people's results (not their conclusions or write-ups, just the raw numerical measurements) which yielded better marks. I wonder if an element of that is at play in corners of the broader scientific community.

<comment><USER6> High school physics experiments are somewhat of a different case, as "wrong but truthful" results are probably evidence of an incorrectly performed experiment, performing which correctly is part of what one is assessed on. That, or bad luck, but presumably the experiments are sufficiently simple that performed correctly they all but guarantee a "correct" result.

<comment><USER7> i guess it depends how complex the experiments are at your particular high school, but in my experience we did not have terribly precise instruments or techniques, so the labs would have a high degree of random error. since the lab usually had to fit into 75 minutes, the procedure usually didn't call for many trials. labs where we would perform 5 or more (up to twenty in one lab) trials for each step in college might have 3 or even just one trial in high school.

if you have poor quality equipment and very few trials, the results are going to be all over the place. if you average the whole class's values, you might actually get close.

<comment><USER8> The time I learned how important it is to forge numbers is when we were measuring gravity in high school by rolling a ball off the end of a table and using a stopwatch to time how long it took to fall to the ground by starting it when the ball fell off the end and stopping it when it hit the ground.

To free fall one meter on Earth is about .45 seconds.

If you are systematically off and get .35 seconds, you get a gravity of 16m/s^2. If you are systematically off and get .55 seconds, you get a gravity of 6.5m/s^2. It isn't that hard to be systematically off in your button presses by that amount even in ten trials. The noise is huge compared to the signal, and averaging several attempts can only smooth out random noise, not systematic miscalculations of when the ball leaves the table or lands.

I got the second result. I got a bad grade. I learned my lesson. Remarkably every subsequent experiment I ever ran was within ten percent of the real value. My turnaround was truly amazing.

<comment><USER4> Manually triggered stop watches are a terrible way to measure gravity. Human error is going to dominate the result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've had an idea about this problem that I'd be happy to hear your thoughts about:

Simply put, a promise for an independant future reproduction study should be part of the published paper.

Once a researcher achieves a publishable result, she looks for a peer- researcher that will commit to perform a pre-determined reproduction study in the near future. This promise is written in the original paper.

This ensures that a negative reproduction would definitely be published. It incentivises the original researcher to not mess too much with the data post- hoc, and to be as helpful as possible to their reproducing peer. The peer gets a citing _before_ writing the paper, and all the help they'd want to get the study done as quickly and easily as possible (q&a, analysis code etc).

<comment><USER3> This is a really interesting idea.

Adversarial collaboration has produced some interesting results, and is probably our best bet for settling arguments on topics where results are consistently rejected over methodology. It's done good work on ESP, and shows some promise on priming if anyone will actually sign on.

But that basically requires finding fields with conflicting viewpoints and well-understood methodology spats, which means established debates. This idea would get the same effects - experiment design that's accessible and verifiable - on untested topics, while simultaneously baking replication attempts into initial publication.

The more I think about this, the more impressed I am. It guarantees replications, it guarantees data and methodology availability, and it makes replications a publication-worthy step by making them part of the initial 'success'. It doesn't solve the file drawer or salami slicing problems, but it does huge work to sidestep them by forcing another _p <.05_ which isn't subject to them. And wildest of all, it might even be acceptable to journals in a way that "publish replications and null results" isn't. Thanks for the most creative approach to the replication crisis I've heard in ages!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Furthermore, it would be extremely useful if scientific research was transparant from inception to outcome.

Scientific 'papers' are archaic forms of knowledge transfer suited for a time when physical paper was the only way. These days, science would serve us better if we could see everything involved in the process. I don't want to see only the results, I want to see the whole notebook and all the hurdles along the way. Why can't we follow the researchers and the accumulation of evidence in real time?

<comment><USER11> Sounds nice, but as a scientist I can say that it would be a huge overhead to have to constantly prepare half finished work for public consumption throughout the entire process of a study. Scientific papers make sense because the point is to summarize your results, discuss what they may imply, e.g what theories they support or deny, and describe what you did in a reproducible way so that the work can be verified. The writing of a paper is an act of communication. It's important that it is an explicit thing that researchers are trained to do properly, not something that they just shit out at the end of a poorly done study that didn't work, or worse, in the middle of something where they can't draw any conclusions yet. E.g. journalists already pick up on wrong or hype-inducing interpretations of poorly written press releases of published papers. Imagine if they could also pick up on half-finished work. "Study being done could mean something amazing, maybe, if it works!" You think fake news is a problem _now_? Imagine the world you propose.

Now, if researchers were encouraged more to describe in detail their process and everything that went right and wrong throughout a study, along with data and algorithms and everything, perhaps as appendices or in supplemental material like blogs or videos etc., and and I find this is what is happening lately, that would be fine, and a nice ideal to strive for.

But realize that scientists are _already_ required to not only perform the study but write about it, and convince every skeptic that they are right, go to conferences and get an article accepted by a journal which can take a year or more. And now add to this that they are required to prepare the data and software for public consumption, make videos and blog posts that describe everything, answer all questions that the public has. Think about all that overhead you are demanding that goes so far above and beyond _doing the actual science_. It's not small. And they are not paid extra for it, in fact their paycheck is probably half what they could make doing closed science for a for- profit company. Meanwhile their job as an academic is only to explore new ideas and convince their peers of their worth. Why should they go the extra mile, for free, for every member of the public who demands answers and transparency? Sorry, but it's too. much. work.

<comment><USER12> > Sounds nice, but as a scientist I can say that it would be a huge overhead > to have to constantly prepare half finished work for public consumption > throughout the entire process of a study.

How about writing into a (public) blog, instead of a lab notebook?

<comment><USER11> First, my notes are not nearly well-organized enough to have any kind of coherence for anyone but me. Do you think it's interesting for me to answer public questions, to defend ideas that I haven't even completely thought through yet? But secondly, why would I want to publish my half-baked, unproven ideas? I can see two possible outcomes: (1) I completely embarrass myself because they are stupid ideas that I haven't verified, or (2) they are good ideas and someone takes them and runs faster than I can and beats me to a result. I see zero advantage for _me_ to do what you say.

I think this idea of let's do every step of science 100% in the open are completely forgetting that science is a social process. Putting things out there has consequences. The onus is on the scientist to verify things before saying them. There is a word for "scientists" who do not. Personally I don't believe that that is something that will change in the next 100 years.

<comment><USER13> The current "science as a career" model of science with public grants etc stems entirely from the development of the atomic bomb and World War II resulting in Vanevar Bush proposal of the NSF. I sincerely doubt that science will be practiced anything like it's current form in 100 years. What it will look like is an interesting question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I fear that science is slowly going awry, particularly in fields where outcomes have grave and immediate implications for businesses. In this respect, physics is simpler than social science. Not getting the results you expect is fine and often teaches you something.

<comment><USER15> I don't think it's going awry but rather that certain fields have always been suspect and we're just now realizing how bad it is. In mathematics, there are proofs that have stood up for thousands of years; in physics there are models that have remained useful for hundreds. How many fields can claim that kind of longevity?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Posts like this are often put on hacker news. No one doubts that cherry- picking from hypothesis is real. The same goes for 'spinning' negative results.

However, the solution: "pre-register trials and only do what you say you are going to do" oversimplifies things a lot. Testing and rejecting your hypothesis is a very real part of doing science. But its also a scientists' job to come up with a new hypothesis that explains the data better. I think the real problem here is that writing something up and saying: "our initial hypothesis was wrong, we suggest this and this factor is at play" is not the way science is done currently.

<comment><USER17> If your study took a lot of wrong turns, include that in an appendix at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been kinda thinking this for more than a decade after working at one of the big pharmas. I witnessed several trials with subpar results that would not go on to be published. I think all studies should undergo a simple national pre-registration and require a summary at the end of each study. One of the things that makes humans special is our ability to store information and pass it to further generations and just throwing away unwanted results is not helping anyone.

</comment><comment><USER19> The problem with "studies/research" today is that most of it cannot reproduced, not that it went nowhere. It's not really a matter of "cleaning up" the research to make it "positive". In other words, most science today isn't real science.

Throw in the issues of funding ( government - political issues, private - corporate issues ) and there is very little incentive for real research. And with the current academic environment at leading institutions like Yale, scientists probably are too afraid to do research honestly on sensitive topics.

Also, isn't this just a rehash of another nytimes article from last year?

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/upshot/science-needs-a- so...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/upshot/science-needs-a-solution-for- the-temptation-of-positive-results.html)

There are 3 or 4 nytimes articles on the frontpage. At this rate, how long before the entire frontpage is just nytimes? Just redirect hn to nytimes and be done with it?

<comment><USER20> The NY Times just rotates through the same double-handful of subjects on something like a six week timer. It does get a bit tedious, because there's very little that's actually new to be said, and everyone just rehashes the same tired arguments over and over and over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I still think that science should be automated in some way, shape or form. I'm imagining something like you have a dataset and you have to upload that dataset to some third party that checks it for it's validity. Then you write exactly WHAT you are going to do with the data and then you send the proposed "routines" in, this should give automated generated output and an automated report of what was done and why. Of course, this is a completely silly idea but I'd love to know if someone has like any tangential related thoughts on this

<comment><USER22> My research area has actually started doing that. Sure it's a CS discipline, but yeah we have a second component of our conferences where we automate our benchmarks, and other people run those benchmarks and validate the results.

<comment><USER23> For CS publications, it should be the norm to insist on inclusion of all source-code and data-sets used, unless there's a compelling reason they can't be included.

It's absurd that reproducing results be any more of a challenge than simply re-running a freely-available program.

<comment><USER24> All but one program I wrote for scientific publications have been on the payroll of corporate grants, and the IP rights hooked right back into the company paying for the whole show. Can't exactly open-source things you don't actually own.

<comment><USER23> Then you should be denied the opportunity to publish. Corporate obstinacy should not trump good science.

Software is unique in that it can be generally be duplicated and executed trivially.

There's no way to make it trivial to reproduce a test on the strength properties of a new ceramic. There _is_ a way to do this for software, and it's rather silly that it isn't standard scientific practice to do so.

I realise I'm taking a strong line here, but I've never seen a good argument against it.

<comment><USER24> The unfortunate answer is that instead of harder-to-reproduce science, no science would have been published in all of those cases. Quite often, sharing knowledge is a secondary goal to achieving the set goals of a project. In niche fields, input from any source is welcomed gladly, as long as the papers are sound. Banning corporate players from sharing knowledge in your journal if that's the majority source for input in the field is not really an option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So, who is paying the bills?

<comment><USER26> For Engineers- Capitalism/Customers

For Academics- Whoever tells you to run the study.

Which one do you think is more often corrupted for centuries at a time?

<comment><USER7> "whoever tells you to run the study" is basically whoever approves the grant, so either a business, the government, or a university (indirectly using the governments money). all three are corruptible in their own ways.

<comment><USER26> What I'm saying is that Business is different from Government/University.

If a Business is wrong, they go out of business.

If a University is wrong, they teach it for the next 10 years.

If a Government is wrong, they go forward with the policy until the next regime change.

One of these is different from the rest.

<comment><USER7> businesses certainly have a high incentive to get internal research correct. they don't necessarily have the same incentives when it comes to publishing results or funding external research. see tobacco health research performed/funded by tobacco companies.

in general i trust businesses a bit more than governments, because I find it easier to dissect their motivations, but either can be greatly incentivised to distort scientific findings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can't learn from failure. Stop wasting people's time</comment>


Show HN: Startup Cemetery – Learn why 100+ startups have failed - <AUTHOR> https://www.failory.com/cemetery <comment><USER2> Very resourceful for those looking to see how the risks many of us take can end up. Hope to see the website populated further! Thanks for showing :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice work on an interesting topic. Lovely that it works without js enabled

</comment><comment><USER4> Netscape = Poor Product?

?

Someone does not know their Internet history...

<comment><USER5> Beat me to it!</comment></comment>


The Definitive How-To Guide For Conversion Rate Optimization - <AUTHOR> http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-definitive-howto-for-conversion-rate-optimization <comment><USER2> Posted similar sentiments on SEOmoz, but this article really is the single best intro to the process conversion rate testing that I've seen.</comment>


How software is eating software development - <AUTHOR> https://airdev.co/about <comment><USER2> Since this has been promised many times in the past 40 years it would be nice if more proof was offered instead of buzzwords and marketing babble.</comment>


Show HN: I built a lame site, now what? - <AUTHOR> http://versusyesorno.com

<comment><USER2> This may have some potential, if you can get traffic. It's a bit sluggish though (for example, the render + chart feels a but slow)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ya it's a base project (I have a lot of ideas) unless traffic comes, but I feel like that'll be impossible. I have a full time job and kids so have zero time to work on side projects:( If more traffic I'll put more addons otherwise I guess it's dead in the water.

To your note I'll have to load more than 1 question + charts (maybe 5 in queue). BTW thanks for adding a question to the site:)</comment></comment>