Ask HN: Is the Bitcoin community doing anything about its environmental costs? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Bear in mind, that I would answer this differently about Bitcoin efficiency and energy usage if the question would be asked in a different manner, BUT:

While some claim that it's a "yes", it's actually a NO.

Bitcoin doesn't care (or people mining it) about environmental impact. Heck, most of the people in general do not care about environment.

Currently, the entire community is riding a speculative hype train to earn money, not to save the planet. Also, most miners (one of the most influential groups in Bitcoin) are based in China - does that strike you as an environment-savvy place?

This question reeks of the Californian idealogical bubble. What's next? Is Bitcoin diverse enough?

<comment><USER3> China is actually quite environment savvy. They understand that environmentally friendly tech is an economic growth machine. The US less so. I do t worry about China as much as I worry about US.

<comment><USER2> I agree that they started caring about it more now (cancelled plans for future coal plants, big plans for electric cars).

But overall, my impression is that disregard for the environment is rampant: \- 60% of the country's rivers suffer from pollution to such an extent that they cannot be safely used as drinking water sources [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources_of_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources_of_China) \- [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/24/river- rubbish...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/24/river-rubbish-ugly- secret-china-beautiful-guilin) \- [http://www.businessinsider.de/china- factories-shut-down-to-c...](http://www.businessinsider.de/china-factories- shut-down-to-curb-pollution-2017-10?r=US&IR=T)

As is it stands now, it is a pretty disgusting place to live in and these habits need a lot of time to be fixed (just because government announced they care environment, it doesn't mean that people/businesses will suddenly start caring as well). However, as you say - they are at least on the right direction for the change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe not necessarily the Bitcoin community, but other cryptos are figuring other solutions to fix this problem. One of these solutions is the Proof of Stake [0] instead of Bitcoin's Proof of Work.

Perhaps after all Bitcoin coins have been mined (currently around 17.000.000 mined, 21.000.0000 total IIRC), not much energy would be needed afterwards, for Bitcoin at least?

\---

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of- stake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake)

<comment><USER5> > Perhaps after all Bitcoin coins have been mined, not much energy would be > needed afterwards, for Bitcoin at least?

Nope, "mining", which is proof-of-work solving, is needed as long as Bitcoin is used, even after coin generation is complete.

<comment><USER6> But the competition may lower, if the reward they get drops.

<comment><USER7> For some blocks I checked a week ago the transaction fees amounted for approx. 1/3 of the reward. Like, 12.5btc of newly generated coins and 6btc of fees. Although, to compensate for the next reward halving the fees would need to go further up, and they already aren't acceptable for smaller transactions.

<comment><USER4> But this is a problem (the high fees) that should be solved by the Lightning Network [0].

From what I understand this will bundle many smaller transactions into 1 big transaction or something like that. This should happen off-chain therefore small transactions will be quicker and cheaper.

\---

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This isn't exactly the Bitcoin community per se, but Ethereum is working on a proof-of-stake algorithm to replace proof-of-work. This is a much less energy intensive intensive algorithm, and while I'm a bit skeptical that it's as secure as proof-of-work, I'm glad they are trying something.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yes, both within the formal Bitcoin Community, and extending to the larger crypto asset business space. There are a few broad initiatives that I know of, forwarded by different groups:

* Tennet and Sonnen collaboration to stabilize European power supplies with renewable sources; built on IBM's blockchain tech[0]

* New tokens with "green" focuses and schemes, represented by SolarCoin, KWhcoin, EverGreenCoin.

* Significant research into "proof-of-anything-but-work" hashing schemes, as previously mentioned by others in the thread. This includes long-running experiments such as Peercoin.

* I count the on-going efficiency gains made by the major mining hardware suppliers. That work isn't altruism, sure, but arguably more efficient miners are better for the environment...though more efficient miners can also be run in denser clusters, so let's call this one a wash.

* Anecdoteally, I've heard of direct seed and early stage investments by people I know in the community to bootstrap renewables. Partially because they are "pet" interests, partially because they were early miners and would like to find a way to bring a cost effective and sustainable electrical source to the networks they contribute to.

——-

[https://www.coindesk.com/tennet-sonnen-ibm-renewable- energy/](https://www.coindesk.com/tennet-sonnen-ibm-renewable-energy/)

</comment><comment><USER10> If you look at Bitcoin as a store of value like gold, the energy consumption is actually not that high.

From a wired post

 _But in his paper, Vranken counters that in the 100MW to 500MW range, bitcoin mining requires between 0.8KWh to 4.4KWh per year, but the energy required for mining and recycling gold – which backs US currency – is 138KWh a year, while printing paper notes and minting coins is 11KWh._

[http://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-much-energy-does- bitcoin-...](http://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin- mining-really-use)

<comment><USER11> Can we have the actual paper, because those numbers without context are obviously nonsense? "0.8KWh to 4.4KWh" isn't the _total_ consumption of anything, I'm guessing it's supposed to be per bitcoin mined or is it per dollar value?

> "gold – which backs US currency"

Not true.

<comment><USER10> This seems to be the paper referenced [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343517...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343517300015?via%3Dihub)

>Not true.

Massive gold reserves are still held by all central banks, so I'd say it is true. Gold and the military back the US currency.

<comment><USER11> This is not how "backing" is normally understood, though; the currency is not exchangeable for gold at a fixed rate. People like to say the military "backs" the currency too, but I've never understood what this means in practice. The stability of the US dollar has caused it to be used by all sorts of countries as a reference, entirely voluntarily.

<comment><USER10> Receiving tax payments is essential to countries in our current global monetary system. USD are spent by citizens but also by the government itself, both depend on system stability. Now assume that one day a large enough number of people/corporations decides not to pay their USD taxes anymore. The FED would issue new bonds to ensure liquidity of the government. Banks would have to buy these bonds from the government and how would these banks be convinced that this is a one time event and tax payers will return to normal behavior and their large USD reserves don't turn worthless? The military. Trust in the military force is also what gives foreign and domestic investors trust in the dollar.

<comment><USER11> So you're saying the US would become a military dictatorship, and this is supposed to be reassuring? It's a weird kind of fantasy scenario about a tax strike.

<comment><USER10> I agree that it's far fetched and an extreme example, but still interesting to think it through. As it does shed some light on the different actors and their potential motivations.

<comment><USER11> > interesting to think it through

I see a pre-determined conclusion there rather than very much kind of thought. Tax strikes are hard to organise and much tax is collected automatically. If some organisation has the power to organise a tax strike, what are their political demands? Why wouldn't this just result in electoral victory for the Anti-Tax Party? Is there a general strike as well?

There's no need to _force_ people to buy US treasuries either, the open market can support a lot of demand and there is a lot of room to increase yields if they're not selling. Finally there is the option to simply "print", physically or virtually, in order to support operations. This runs the exchange rate down but since the US is pretty physically self-sufficient, especially in terms of oil production, food and pharmaceuticals, that's less of an immediate problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Most initiatives, businesses and factories doesn't care until there's a risk of paying a fine, a way to make additional profit or a way of cutting costs. Why would Bitcoin be any different?

</comment><comment><USER13> What would you suggest?

The currency -- like the internet is so decentralised it could survive a nuclear apocalypse. Even attempting to corral this into an some environmentally friendly structure is far beyond trying to herd cats.

The problem isn't Bitcoin -- it's using fossil fuels for energy -- solve this at a global level and the Bitcoin issue is solved as well.

<comment><USER14> I wonder: if there truly was a nuclear apocalypse, could bitcoins be used ? Would it be more practical than barters or leftover coins and jewels ?

<comment><USER15> As long as the nuclear apocalypse in question leaves the Internet effectively untouched, sure. Oh, and shipping companies, to deliver things people buy. And power generation infrastructure, to run the Internet, and fuel infrastructure, to run the trucks. To whatever extent the nuclear apocalypse leaves these things functional, Bitcoin can still be used. That the extent to which the nuclear apocalypse leaves these things functional, is inversely proportional to the extent to which the nuclear apocalypse is a nuclear apocalypse, seems a detail not worthy of much regard among serious-minded cryptocurrency aficionados.

(On a more local level, if your postapocalyptic enclave finds it more practical to denominate transactions in cryptocurrency instead of barter or some physical medium of exchange, congratulations! The power, time, and effort required to maintain such an infrastructure, in such a time and place, represent unimaginable luxury. Try to enjoy it, in whatever moments you can spare from repelling raiders drawn by the prospect of gaining access to a working power plant and all your other riches.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Scalability solutions should help (SegWit and Lightning Network), but energy cost is closely related to the potential gains.

Other crypto currencies use Proof of Stake instead of Proof of Work for consensus. I think one of them will emerge as a better technical solution and will dethrone Bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wrote an article on this topic:

[https://hackernoon.com/dummies-guide-to-bitcoin-energy- use-5...](https://hackernoon.com/dummies-guide-to-bitcoin-energy- use-5f38e91c3253)

</comment><comment><USER18> Andreas has given his point of view about the matter recently:

[https://youtu.be/2T0OUIW89II](https://youtu.be/2T0OUIW89II)

</comment><comment><USER19> There are new promising minerless coins on the works that look promising. They might end up being a substitute or alternative to bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER20> This sounds like an academically interesting question. Is there an academic community around these questions?

</comment><comment><USER21> Driving up electrical demand/prices so, power stations have more money to invest in solar and stuff.

</comment><comment><USER22> No.

</comment><comment><USER23> Green Mining ;)

</comment><comment><USER24> No

</comment><comment><USER25> Bitcoin doesn't have this problem. Each mined block have limited bitcoins in reward and bitcoin price won't skyrocket to the infinity, so sum of all miner expenses is limited by some fixed number, nobody would spend their money and mine with negative result.

<comment><USER26> > Each mined block have limited bitcoins in reward

This is true, but the value of bitcoin is not limited. If more people buy bitcoins, it's value (compared to USD) rises and so will the reward if converted to USD. Because you pay the mining costs in a real currency like USD, the total mining expenses are definitely not capped.

<comment><USER25> World economics is finite, so bitcoin price is limited, even if we would assume that it'll skyrocket and other currencies would collapse.</comment></comment></comment>


DeepMind has trained an AI to understand how your brain thinks - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/article/deepmind-newest-network-mimics-the-gps-cells-in-your-brain <comment><AUTHOR> The title is a bit clickbait but I thought it was interesting how the artificial spatial awareness seems to match the neural patterns in rats.</comment>


Edw519 wrote a book compiling his best HN Comments - <AUTHOR> http://edweissman.com/i-turned-my-hacker-news-comments-into-an-eboo <comment><USER2> Original author here.

This was a little side project to have some fun and maybe spread a little value.

I frantically threw this together over the weekend to be ready for the traffic Marc Cenedella (CEO of TheLadders.com) promised me today. His posts:

<http://twitter.com/cenedella/status/57759591789887489#>

and

[http://www.cenedella.com/job-search/leonardo-da-vincis- resum...](http://www.cenedella.com/job-search/leonardo-da-vincis-resume-2/)

Thank you, Marc.

As many of you know, I spend most of my time writing software and generally resist spending time writing other stuff (even though I always find time to say something here). So in typical hacker fashion, I "launched" what I had with the intention of accepting feedback and iterating. You guys have always been really good at that.

I originally planned on a Kindle ebook, but Scribd was just so much easier for me. I didn't realize that others had problems viewing or purchasing. If you're outside the U.S. or have any other problems reading the sample, just email me and I'll send you a free pdf.

All of your feedback is greatly appreciated. I'll keep updating the content as I go and will gladly accept help with typesetting or distributing. I plan to follow up with some of you during one of my breaks today.

If you buy the book and don't like it, I will buy you a cup of coffee the next time we are together. If you buy it and do like it, make that a beer.

<comment><USER3> @edw519: send me an original editable format of the book and i'll typeset it for you.

email@example.com

<comment><USER4> edw, do this and give this guy some cut. The scribd version is awful (at least on my screen: <http://i.min.us/iksKDk.png>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hate to be the bearer of bad news--perhaps somewhat mitigated by the lack of hardcopies--but it's 'foreword' and not 'forward'.

That is, unless this is either some technolingo or inside joke that I'm not privy to.

</comment><comment><USER6> "I never publish my code. Ever. Users get to give me feedback, but I don't care what other programmers think. Sure, I learn from them, but never in the context of reviewing the code I wrote. I learn from the code of others and apply those lessons to my own work."

You can, of course, do whatever you want but this seems awfully selfish... Essentially saying that you will take whatever others (foolishly?) give in open source, blog posts, etc., etc., but never give back. Am I reading this correctly?

<comment><USER2> _Am I reading this correctly?_

No.

1\. Almost everything I ever wrote is proprietary. I couldn't legally share it if I wanted to.

2\. I have never taken anyone else's code. In fact, I have rarely even ever read anyone else's code. To me, someone else's source code might as well be object code. "learning from them" means getting feedback without getting code. Others make suggestions. I write my code.

3\. I prefer these analogies: You can eat in my dining room without going into my kitchen. You can enjoy my wardrobe without watching me get dressed. You can watch the movie or read the book without watching either being made. And you can provide feedback about any of them that can be accepted and used.

My source code is private. My customer list is private. My address book is private. My current location is private. My personal schedule is private. You can, of course, share whatever private information you want, but calling my choices "awfully selfish" is myopic and misinformed.

<comment><USER4> >I have never taken anyone else's code.

This is REALLY hard to believe. Also, god bless the person who thought me to use other people's code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think I'd really enjoy the read.

It would have been a bit nicer if the great comments were accompanied by some good design/typesetting (generate latex?) and an alternative format (epub).

There are a few solutions based on princeXML that can take easily generatable HTML+CSS and convert it to pdf (example: <http://www.alistapart.com/articles/boom> ).

While the Prince license might not be the cheapest, there also is a webservice that does the conversion (<http://docraptor.com/tour>)

<comment><USER8> docraptor.com looks like a paid version of wkhtmltopdf which is free

<comment><USER7> docraptor.com uses princexml which theoretically could not only do HTML, but any XML based format. Prince does however include a default style sheet for XHTML and HTML seems to be the only input that docraptor accepts. Not sure what happens if you throw non XML conform HTML on Prince.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ed is one of the most prolific and valuable members of the HN community. That being said, I'd love for andrewwarner to do a Mixergy interview. Ed is not the typical Mixergy success though but we could all learn from his b2b success.

<comment><USER2> Thank you, wallflower.

A few years ago, I did a Mixergy interview along with rms about Hacker News:

<http://blog.mixergy.com/why-communities/>

Andrew, if you're reading this, I would love to do another, not about my past projects, but about my next one. Stay tuned...

 _we could all learn from his b2b success_

Hmmm, sounds like an idea for another ebook....

<comment><USER10> Yup. I'm reading this. Let's talk privately about how we could set it up. <http://mixergy.com/contact>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> He should do Amazon Kindle self-publishing and write about the sales numbers later.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not a US citizen and all I see is obfuscated content reminiscent of rot-13. Am I being slow this morning?

<comment><USER13> Try disabling noscript / enable javascript. I had the same problem

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I tried to read this but the Scribd reader hung up on me after a few pages and all I got to see were blank pages (I'm using FF4). Would it be possible to compile some of the comments in a "Sample.pdf" file and directly link to that instead?

</comment><comment><USER15> I just saw this in his profile yesterday, intend to buy.

EDIT: Apparently I need to be a US citizen. I'll find some other way to send him a donation.

</comment><comment><USER16> I just purchased the book and it was totally worth the $2.56. Which, BTW, is a nice price. :-)

Comment #49 is a piece of advice that will pay for the book many times over, no matter what you do for a living.

</comment><comment><USER17> Congrats Ed! Good luck publishing!

I have a similar project, so I'd like to know how you decided which comments to pick, how you put them together, etc.

I'm working with the epub format right now. Not sure if I made the right choice or not, but it seemed like the best technical option to hit the most platforms. Never occurred to me to use Scribd.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, Daniel.

My app gives 5 sort options

\- by descending number of words, because short comments don't make good book entries

\- by descending points, to take advantage of the feedback you guys already gave me

\- by descending date, to grab the more applicable comments

\- by descending weight, my own changeable formula, attempting to put the best stuff up front

\- in output sequence, to get a feel for how the final product will flow

I say a little more about this in the foreword.

I also hope to clean up the app and make it available if anyone else wants to give it a try.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I probably would have bought it for that price but it says United States only. Perhaps Gumroad or Hawtcakes would work? Or the Kindle store? (I heard you can instantly convert files to Kindle format by mailing them to firstname.lastname@example.com)

Another site that I used to visit regularly, for about 7 or 8 years, had a poster who kept his own text-file of all the great posts he'd read over the years. Occassionally he would tease us by posting extracts (of course, everybody wanted to know how many of _their_ comments made the cut) occassionally. But I always thought the file itself was probably worth actual money. And I keep forgetting to make a similar effort for other online communities (HN for instance. But you'd be here all day catching all the great coments on HN).

</comment><comment><USER19> Jason Gilmore (@wjgilmore) has an interesting article on publishing a book using DocBook, and git for version control. [http://www.wjgilmore.com/blog/entry/why_i_published_easy_php...](http://www.wjgilmore.com/blog/entry/why_i_published_easy_php_websites_with_the_zend_framework_using_docboo)

\--

Also, I just bought Ed's book ... Really great commentary in there. Somewhat sad I've only been a member of the HN community for such a short time.

</comment><comment><USER20> Thanks Ed! How did you make the ebook? I've been looking for a good app to convert blog feeds to books, but haven't found anything that just works.

If you send me an email I will be happy to put it up for sale on my new store (for free of course).

You might also want to try Sahil's <http://gumroad.com>.

<comment><USER5> How the book was made is discussed in the 'forward'--which is viewable in the preview.

<comment><USER20> Thanks, that's an interesting read too!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This will sit nicely next to my Encyclopedia Weaselicus, available now for the low, low price of $3.59.

</comment><comment><USER22> Stuff like this should be made a compulsive reading for hackers.

This solves a very basic problem with hacker-related knowledge - you don't know what to search until you know what to search!

And books like Ed's solve this by compiling it all in one place. Someone here did one for pg's essays and other articles and the result was a 12+MB file good to last you a few days if you're at it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Great idea and I would love to buy it, but I'm not a US citizen :(

</comment><comment><USER24> bought. read. Worth every penny 256 times.

</comment><comment><USER25> About time :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link to the actual book: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/52729281/The-Best-Of- edw519>

I really like this idea and will buy the book. However, it would be nice if the comments were time-stamped, as not all advice is timeless.

Anyone know of any other forum-comments-turned-book examples?

EDIT: I would buy it if I didn't have to be a US citizen to buy a digital book in scribd. Why is this a problem for a book like this?

<comment><USER26> Good find. I believe Amazon allows you to sell ebooks internationally, I could be wrong though.

<comment><USER27> It does.</comment></comment></comment>


The Digitized Culture Wars - <AUTHOR> https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-digitized-culture-wars <comment><USER2> One of the best newsletters going at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author doesn't quite put it in one sentence, perhaps because they feel that it would commit them to a side, but I notice that they lay out all the ingredients for the thesis that one side of the culture wars is fueled by a desire to impose Christian moral authority upon the USA. Such authority has been undermined by a pair of understandable happenstances: It happens that empiricism and the scientific method are simply better at making predictions about the world than priestly divination, and it also happens that the abuses and frauds committed behind church doors keep coming to light.

I wonder to what degree some participants in the culture war are trying to simply communicate the idea that we do not need a deity to deliver unto us tablets of moral rules, and running up against folks who cannot imagine existence without Jehovah.

<comment><USER4> I'm curious to hear how you are making the jump from "empiricism and the scientific method are simply better at making predictions about the world" to deriving any kind of moral order that instructs how you ought to act in this world.

<comment><USER5> > I'm curious to hear how you are making the jump from "empiricism and the > scientific method are simply better at making predictions about the world" > to deriving any kind of moral order that instructs how you ought to act in > this world.

I'm curious to hear why you need an explicit moral order in your life at all.

Imagine you didn't believe in any religion, if you happen to be religious now, and further imagine we were alone and nobody would know what you or I did after it was done. If I walked up to you and gave you a gun, would you shoot me? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't. My society is pretty sure you wouldn't. It has, after all, bet the existence of New York City on that proposition. NYC has a population of a bit over eight million. If even 0.1% of them were utterly amoral and violent, the city would collapse under the weight of eight thousand murderers. Extrapolate for Tokyo, London, Beijing, Singapore... humanity bets quite a lot on the notion that most people, when handed a way to commit a perfect murder, would not do so.

<comment><USER6> Sidenote but, amoral does not imply stupid. There are wolves among us.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Amazon Getting too Big for its Britches? - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/amazon-getting-too-big-britches-160025093.html

<comment><USER2> Good but the article should mention the outage last Thursday.

<comment><USER3> The article may have been written before last Thursday.

<comment><USER2> Its dated today meaning that even if it was written previously, that could have been edited in. Just saying...</comment></comment></comment>


$1,000 a month for tiny room, bedbugs, seedy surroundings in the Mission - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/1-000-a-month-for-bedbugs-shared-bathroom-in-5668140.php

<comment><USER2> I'm tired of the Headline "SF housing/rent too expensive" articles. Move to Oakland, Berkeley, South Bay anywhere else but San Francisco.

<comment><USER3> My thoughts exactly. I don't understand why they feel forced to live in such terrible, expensive conditions. Sure it may be temporarily inconvenient and difficult to move, but wouldn't they be far better off somewhere else?? I just don't get it.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you are an immigrant with kids, presumably with very limited education, I can imagine you would make choices that aren't the most logical from the world view. Fear can be a powerful factor, however illogical they might be, perhaps they know the area or they can't drive or they have a support system, etc

<comment><USER4> If the mother is an immigrant then she probably works in some form of unskilled labor that provides little pay and even more-so little job stability. Chances are if she was ever late she'd be fired. Living in the Mission provides proximity to the job which for many immigrants are gained through personal relationships alone.

So, moving to a new area means that she'll now have to add an expensive and long BART ride into her budget which will probably negate any savings. Plus, she'll loose any childcare resources she currently has established with friends that live in the area. There may/may not be jobs in the new area but she won't be able to get any of them there because she lacks the personal relationships with the immediate surrounding community to get a new job.

Moving is also an expense she can't afford, hence the SRO that doesn't require a deposit. If she had moved in the past it probably was from an SRO to another SRO with most of her belongings being things that could be gathered into a friends car or walked down the street.

Also, living in SF provides a /much/ better future for the children over Oakland where a residence in her budget would probably be unsafe to walk outside at night.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


CISPA is back - <AUTHOR> http://www.cispaisback.com

<comment><USER2> CISPA would not have given federal agencies unlimited access to private data. That's the argument this site leads with, and it is a deeply dishonest one.

</comment><comment><USER3> That was worthless. It starts with hyperbole, and the closest it comes to an argument is that a prior version of the bill was bad and so we need to stop this version--which is not much of an argument.

<comment><USER4> I do agree with your sentiment, however, while the argument is weak, it does make sense. I'm as wary of jumping on bandwagons as any of you are, and while the fear-mongering could be laid off a bit, many different news sources confirm that this is really happening.

<comment><USER2> When 'tzs says "a prior version was so bad" --- a point that many people dispute --- what he is saying is that the bill that actually got voted on by the full house had none of the characteristics this site imputes to it. So, no, the argument does not make sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why don't they write anything about the actual contents of CISPA? I went looking in Wikipedia, and noticed that:

"CISPA is supported by several trade groups containing more than eight hundred private companies ... in addition to individual major telecommunications and information technology companies like ... Facebook ..." [1]

Why would Facebook support CISPA?

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Intelligence_Sharing_and_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Intelligence_Sharing_and_Protection_Act#Supporters)

<comment><USER2> Because CISPA promises (a) to allow Facebook to receive threat intelligence from the federal government, which collects massive amounts of it in ways that it is currently forbidden by statute to share, and (b) to allow Facebook to coordinate with Google and AT&T to track down attacks without worrying that someone's bogus interpretation of ECPA will land it in court for 5 years.

Worth noting here that CISPA is _entirely opt-in_.

<comment><USER6> What's wrong with the ECPA that it's going to land someone in court?

<comment><USER2> There are (faulty) readings of ECPA that would suggest that (say) Facebook providing NetFlow data to AT&T to help squelch a DDoS attack would constitute an unlawful sharing of private data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Given the thematic resonance with folks who identify with Anonymous I wonder if this site is trolling. Lots of people have figured out that its very baity and not very factual so one has to ask, what is its real purpose?

I like Snowwrestler's comment that its an attempt a building a mailing list for later political action, that is very optimistic. Given the state of the world and the not so low level annoyances for people with means that various hacktivists have inspired or created one wonders if this might be a partial response.

We just got another demonstration that when the federal government sets its sights are arming Jihadists on American soil they can find someone stupid enough to take them up on it. [1]

[1] [http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/02/08/fbi-helps- thwart...](http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/02/08/fbi-helps-thwart-san- jose-mans-plot-to-blow-up-bank/)

</comment><comment><USER8> The point of this website is to convince you to put your contact information in, so that you can later be asked to give money and votes.

This is, in political terms, a customer acquisition strategy. CISPA is merely the "power word" they hope will create enough emotional response that you'll fill out the form.

(This is primarily what the campaign against CISPA always was. You can tell because the Senate cyber bill was far more intrusive, but the anti-CISPA groups did not campaign against it.)

<comment><USER9> We sure did campaign against the Cybersecurity Act.

However, the Senate was a lot more of an inside game strategy. We focused on an amendment strategy through Sen. Franken's and Sen. Paul's offices (my primary contact was with Sen. Franken's staff): [https://www.eff.org/pages/no- digital-big-brother-keep-milita...](https://www.eff.org/pages/no-digital-big- brother-keep-military-out-your-email)

The feeling was that we couldn't stop the Cybersecurity Act after CISPA won the House, but we could improve it enough to make the final result slightly less awful. We wanted both acts dead.

We were entirely wrong though. Business interests killed Cybersecurity because of questions of mandates vs. voluntary buy-in. With opposition led by the Chamber of Commerce, the Senate bill died twice to filibusters. Privacy never became an important part of the debate, sadly.

PS - None of this disputes OP's very valid points about the purpose of the site and customer acquisition. However, FFtF is not trying to corral our votes, it's trying to direct our energy away from social media (which DC considers noise) to effective phone calls to our elected officials. Yes, they use their mailing lists to raise funds through donations. So does EFF and other groups engaged on open internet issues.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Fight for the Future put this page together quickly as an immediate response to CISPA being back on the table. There certainly could be more info on the site, but there is also plenty out there that you can research yourself. This is a site to take immediate action if you feel so inclined. If not, go read up and there will be more chances to take action soon.

<comment><USER2> "In its previous form, the bill would have given federal agencies unlimited access to virtually any of my personal data and online communication-- without a warrant."

No, it would not have. Even had it not been designed to do essentially the opposite, it couldn't have, because it was an opt-in measure. Being in a hurry does not excuse this level of wrongness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "It's been confirmed"

source?

<comment><USER11> Yeah, this "CISPA is back" page doesn't seem to contain much info about what's new with CISPA. Here are the two news reports from yesterday about this new cybersecurity bill:

[http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon- valley/technology/281309-r...](http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon- valley/technology/281309-ruppersberger-intelligence-committee-to-re-introduce- cispa-this-year)

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-08/obama-said-near- iss...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-08/obama-said-near-issuing- executive-order-on-cybersecurity.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nicely developed -- it requires JS from two domains to be run before anything is shown on screen.

</comment><comment><USER13> I found it rather interesting that they didn't include any text from or links to the bill at all -- if any is even available. This, to me, is the biggest red flag.

</comment><comment><USER4> I posted this on the White House "Contact Us" webpage:

"I received notice on a technology message board that CISPA is being reintroduced with an executive order. The previous bill, which was shot down a few years ago, would have infringed upon our God-granted rights. Now that it is being reinstated, I wanted to express my concern for the citizens of America, who, with every day, and every tick of the clock, are subject to a more powerful and potentially tyrannical government that is eroding their privacy and rights one by one.

I would also like to express to the administration that they are merely public servants, and nothing more. The citizens of the United States are their rulers, not vice versa. This administration, and the previous Republican one, are by far the worst in terms of right infringement. The PATRIOT Act, the Section 1021 of the NDAA 2012, and now CISPA have all but erased the privacy of American citizens.

They may not mind now, but the American citizens know about their government. We the people of the United States are not blind. We can see through the smoke and mirrors that the bars of government continue to put up. If you erode our rights, we will be upset. And when we are upset, you will lose your jobs, your credibility, your haughtiness, and your confidence.

Remember, a volcano never stays dormant forever."

Any thoughts? Or should I just start one of those seemingly useless petitions on WhiteHouse.gov?

Feel free to use the above text if you're going to contact your senators or the like.

<comment><USER14> Call your representatives. Seriously, honestly, call them up and explain it to the staffer who answers the phone. Make sure to let them know that you are a voting member of your district and express your opinions politely and confidently. They really do listen to what their constituency has to say, which is a large part of why younger generation's interests are rarely represented. The older generations are actually communicating with their representatives rather than fire-and-forget style of voting. A trip to their office is the most powerful for communicating how you feel, a phone call next, a written letter next and an email is basically a "I don't care much" type message.

While you won't reach your representative directly, the staffers do pass on the feedback to the representative (each office is different, some will read each piece of mail while others only get summaries of what people in general are communicating about).

A representative democracy works only when you actually communicate to your representative what your interests are.

<comment><USER15> I just wanted to post real quick to say that I have experience calling my congressman and talking with staffers politely but confidently and can confirm that they did indeed take my opinions and ideas very seriously, or at least gave me the impression that they did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Source on the confirmation?</comment>


YoAuth - <AUTHOR> http://yoauth.herokuapp.com/

<comment><USER2> Holy insecure demo batman

[https://yoauth.herokuapp.com/authorize?redirect_to=http%3A%2...](https://yoauth.herokuapp.com/authorize?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fyoauth.herokuapp.com%2Ftest.html&username='><MARQUEE>XSS</MARQUEE><!--)

And they want me to trust them with authentication?

<comment><USER3> [https://yoauth.herokuapp.com/authorize?redirect_to=http://yo...](https://yoauth.herokuapp.com/authorize?redirect_to=http://yoauth.herokuapp.com/test.html%27%3E%3Ch1%3EXSS%3C/h1%3E) and here too

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yo is useless and IMO anyone that has or will put money into it no longer has any credibility as an angel/VC. Yoauth actually is comparatively useful, but unfortunately Yo does not and never will have the critical mass to make anyone want to implement it as an authentication scheme. Twitter is a distant second to Facebook in the authentication space, and Yo is no Twitter.

<comment><USER5> To be fair, we don't know what goes on behind the scenes. Yo has simply proven that its creators are audacious enough, and good enough at marketing, to make something go viral. Perhaps they have other ideas, other business plans that are currently in stealth, and they're getting funding for them under the Yo umbrella. These are smart people investing in them, and Occam's Razor would seem to indicate that it's highly unlikely that the investors all got collective amnesia from head injuries and changed their vetting/due diligence strategies overnight.

<comment><USER4> The recurring excuse for the investment is "look at the engagement". Toilets have incredible engagement as well - billions of people use them multiple times per day - but we don't put millions of investment dollars into them. Well, maybe the people investing in Yo do, but most people don't.

<comment><USER6> Yes, and if you showed me impressive engagement and virality metrics for a toilet that had network effects and a plausible recurring revenue stream (ads), then I would definitely invest (of course no such toilet product exists - toilets don't have strong network effects and don't have a plausible recurring revenue stream in the form of ads).

<comment><USER5> > virality metrics for a toilet

Toilets: the only technology sector where there's a direct correlation between "input sanitization" and "virality metrics..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm really glad this saw the light of day. So many people were criticizing Yo for being 'useless' and all that, instead of trying to think about what to create with it.

<comment><USER8> Much easier to berate than create.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Error: Invalid username

I see this string in the URL on the demo page so I'm not sure what this does.

<comment><USER10> You need to use your Yo username.

<comment><USER11> Where is that explained anywhere in the user interface? Or perhaps in the title of the page? Or maybe the link title here?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it easy to "Yo" back someone if they're not in your contacts? On the android app I don't see how to do that.

Also, the security of this seems questionable.

There are other, more interesting uses of the yo API: [https://medium.com/@YoAppStatus/yo-developers- api-e7f2f0ec5c...](https://medium.com/@YoAppStatus/yo-developers- api-e7f2f0ec5c3c)

<comment><USER13> The security is way beyond questionable.

Seriously, don't use this. (Alice tries to log in to Bob's account. Bob receives a yo. Bob yos back to be nice without knowing this is an oauth scheme. Alice now has access to Bob's account.)

But that's not to critique these guys, because I think this is a fantastic hackathon project!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why does the user need to receive a Yo? Wouldn't it be better to ask users for their handle, and then tell them to Yo a specific account in 30 seconds? If it worked like that, yoauth couldn't be used for spam, nor could you Yo someone you know in order to get their credentials if they replied.

<comment><USER15> A friend and I built a similar service (also at the Yo hackathon) and what you mention is similar to the way we handled it. I don't think it's been publicly announced, but Yo can now receive links on iOS.

The service we built ([http://yosesame.com](http://yosesame.com)) works by having you Yo YOSESAME, which signs you up if you aren't already and responds with a URL that logs you in right way. The way Yoauth approached it is interesting, but you're right it's a bit strange to have to receive a Yo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The author of YoAuth (Bilawal) is one of the awesome student hackers helping to bring the hackathon movement to the UK. [http://mlh.io/about/team#uk- team](http://mlh.io/about/team#uk-team)

</comment><comment><USER17> Well, this certainly blows my yo-based Pomodoro Timer out of the water.

</comment><comment><USER18> You can see a demo here! [https://www.hackerbracket.com/hacks/show/53d448e3dfb586b54fa...](https://www.hackerbracket.com/hacks/show/53d448e3dfb586b54fab6c44)

</comment><comment><USER19> Even my non-developer friends think this is awesome.

Because it is.

</comment><comment><USER20> Wow, I was also working on this exact thing... Even own www.yoauth.com and the 'YOAUTH' username on yo....

Glad someone made it a reality!

</comment><comment><USER21> What if you enter someone else's Yo handle and the user naively Yo back, you will then access his account/data/whatever, I imagine.

</comment><comment><USER22> So I can use your app to spam other people? Nice :)

<comment><USER23> I would recommend [http://yofor.me/](http://yofor.me/) for that

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What if the user doesn't receive the Yo in time to authorize? Yo's always seem to take a while to reach me.

</comment><comment><USER25> I authenticated as authyo using two tabs. Super secure :)

It's a fun hack. Nicely done.

</comment><comment><USER8> <3 so much creativity out there.

</comment><comment><USER26> What is the point of this?

<comment><USER8> It lets you log into websites using Yo.

<comment><USER27> This doesn't answer the question! :p

<comment><USER28> Neither does going to justyo.co. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Plain http links? I suggest using TLS/SSL for any authentication platform. I know it's a quick hack, but you can quickly setup a secure proxy with Cloudflare.

<comment><USER30> Actually you don't even need that, *.herokuapp.com comes with https for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> F! I was working on the same thing! Nice work!

<comment><USER32> Whats the difference from oAuth?

<comment><USER33> an edit distance of 1

<comment><USER34> Upvoted for first instance of Levenshtein-related joke I've ever seen.

<comment><USER35> Fully agree, can safely assume I probably won't hear another ever again

<comment><USER36> this is history in the making right here fellas!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Baldness cure could come from side-effect of cancer drug - <AUTHOR> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/05/08/baldness-cure-could-come-side-effect-cancer-drug/ <comment><AUTHOR> Identifying novel strategies for treating human hair loss disorders: Cyclosporine A suppresses the Wnt inhibitor, SFRP1, in the dermal papilla of human scalp hair follicles [http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jour...](http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003705)</comment>


TheFunded Founder Creates A Startup Camp For Young CEOs - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/03/thefunded-founder-creates-a-startup-camp-for-young-ceos/ <comment><USER2> Teaching startup entrepreneurs how to create/run a business is a waste of time. Entrepreneurs only need to identify markets and build products they believe will generate interest, and can be monetize beyond the break even point.

What are you going to teach them? How to pitch?

The value of an incubator is not the lessons on how to incorporate or how to close a deal. The value is the network. Your incubator must be connected with VCs, the Media and more importantly Buyers.

Everything the entrepreneur will pick up as he goes. Also most of the things that apply to all startups (accounting, payroll, incorporation), they should simply outsource it and focus on building a product.

Bring me money. Bring me buyers. Bring me customers. Bring me Media attention. The rest we got it. Spending 8 hours a week learning how to create a great powerpoint presentation is not an entrepreneur's business. When you get to the point where you need to learn these things, you go hire yourself an MBA.

Just my 2 cents. That being said, I wish he helps startups launch.

<comment><USER3> Good points, but not everyone that can build a good product has the ability to position it, promote it, and sell it - a crash course could be of great value.

Further, paying in warrants for a class is much less expensive than hiring an MBA.

<comment><USER2> Well then let's hope it is the non-technical co-founder without a MBA who seats there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great. The more of these seed camps the better, in my opinion.

<comment><USER5> agreed, any help is good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So basically the offer is tuition for some dubiously useful courses in exchange for options on your future company.

ACT NOW!

</comment><comment><USER7> The whole concept of not investing until after graduation has some merit...but I see 3 problems with this:

a) this guy has no pedigree...all he has going for him is that VC rating site

b) He has no practical experience, when he had a VC rating website, what did he learn about pitching to investors?

c) As a fresh startup...do you really want to start out with ties to someone who has negative relations with pretty much all VCs?

It just seems like he is an opportunist who is jumping on a bandwagon,

<comment><USER8> In response to 'a' and 'b':

<http://www.adeoressi.com/about/>

<comment><USER9> Upmodded for the most ass-kicking refutation I've seen here in a long time.

Edit: Maybe that's harsh, but one ought to be careful before saying that someone has "no pedigree".</comment></comment></comment>


Parse adds easy caching support for iOS and Android - <AUTHOR> http://blog.parse.com/2011/09/30/easy-caching-with-parse/

<comment><USER2> This adds a whole other dimension to Parse for me. Core Data is useful, but incredibly annoying to deal with at times (migrations etc.), I've been waiting for the Parse guys to replace Core Data, and it looks like they've done it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks, Parse! You just added the one feature that precluded us from using you in our current project. I think you just landed yourself a spot in v1.1

BTW, Parse has the best "Quick Start" I have ever used for an API. Great stuff. A+ for removing any and all friction for a dev to take you on a test drive!

<comment><USER4> Thanks! And Ilya is actually working on making the "Quick Start" even quicker right now ;-)

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure if you can answer this, but I've been wondering since I seen the listing on the front page of parse.com several weeks ago. Any word on when the social integration is coming?

<comment><USER4> We're actively working on it, but we don't have a specific launch date.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Remarkably good, easy to follow tutorial for those who like me don't know what Parse does: <https://www.parse.com/docs/ios_guide#data>

</comment><comment><USER7> For simple caching in IOS you can also use property lists:

[http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/...](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/PropertyLists/Introduction/Introduction.html)

It has good examples of how to read and write to local files.

Another option is to use Three20's TTURLCache: <http://api.three20.info/interface_t_t_u_r_l_cache.php>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, you can definitely use property lists but our solution integrates completely with the queries going to the backend. So you don't have to worry about a lot of complexities that are sure to arise if you do it yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm excited to try this. I'm trying to build something which is fairly firmly Core Data based right now but I desperately need a way to smartly cache client side because the database is growing too large. Hopefully Parse can help me out.

My biggest concern is how these are stored and whether I can trust queries to be cached for very long periods of time (like until the data updates).

</comment><comment><USER9> here's a beta code for the first 50 HN readers -- 'hacker' (no quotes)

</comment><comment><USER10> lovin Parse more and more, excited to upgrade my SDK now</comment>


ElephantDB: a distributed database specialized in exporting data from Hadoop - <AUTHOR> http://tech.backtype.com/introducing-elephantdb-a-distributed-database

<comment><USER2> This is probably a dumb question, but what does ElephantDB offer over HBase? It looks a lot simpler, but read only and with far fewer features.

<comment><USER3> This is a good question.

The answer is simplicity and robustness. HBase is a very complex system. It's a monster to configure and operate. If you don't need random write capabilities and a K/V data model is sufficient for you, HBase may be overkill.

ElephantDB has very little moving parts, so it "just works." Additionally, if you make an update and write bad data to ElephantDB, you can easily delete the bad version and roll back to a version with good data.

At the end of the day, they target different use cases.

<comment><USER2> _Additionally, if you make an update and write bad data to ElephantDB, you can easily delete the bad version and roll back to a version with good data._

To be fair, HBase has this too. As long as you don't overwrite 3 times (configurable, on a per-column family basis), you are fine.

I must say that an alternative to HBase which just works is mighty tempting. I'm using HBase, and about half of the nasty problems I've run into have been caused by either HBase directly or making HBase talk to Django (the thrift interface works nicely in batch jobs, but causes all sorts of problems in a webapp). Will definitely check out elephant.

<comment><USER3> There's a few important differences between HBase versioning and ElephantDB versioning. The HBase versioning is more of a "buffer" that gives you a limited window to rollback when you make a mistake. As you said. if you overwrite too many times you can't recover.

The ElephantDB versions are totally independent from one another, whereas with HBase they're stored in the same index. The only tradeoff to storing more ElephantDB versions is using more space on the distributed filesystem. ElephantDB versions don't go away until you delete them, which lets you use whatever strategy you want to manage versions. For example, you may decide to keep one version each month, and every version for the past week. This lets you do analytics that looks at your data from long ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Link to the last time this was posted: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2237158>

</comment><comment><USER5> I was going to snarkily say that they named their database after PostgreSQL's mascot, but then I remembered that Hadoop also has an elephant logo.

<comment><USER6> there's also a CL db named elephant <http://common-lisp.net/project/elephant/></comment></comment>


Show HN: How I made the print and eBook versions of my web book - <AUTHOR> http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2014/11/03/bringing-my-web-book-to-print-and-ebook/ <comment><USER2> Other ebook creation / selling options:

Leanpub: [https://leanpub.com/](https://leanpub.com/)

Softcover: [https://www.softcover.io/](https://www.softcover.io/) By Michael Hartl, author of the Rails tutorial.

Lulu: [https://www.lulu.com/](https://www.lulu.com/) is still around too, originally by the creator of Red Hat.

O'Reilly Atlas: [https://atlas.oreilly.com/](https://atlas.oreilly.com/) \- new; may be only for books you write with them as publisher, not sure.

There must be some others too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Blurb and Lightning Source are two others I recall looking into.

<comment><USER3> Lightning Source is who provide the actual printing services for my published books (though contracted through a third-party marketplace). Not bad quality, and meeting their standards was a lot more painless than Lulu used to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is the sort of stuff that was mainly in the realm of publishers until recently. I'm always curious about the degree to which what publishers, record labels and similar industries do is being parceled out to smaller services.

When writers write about why they need publishers, they usually mention editing, marketing & advances. I imagine for many people marketing is not very relevant. Either the publishers will not do much of it anyway or the author has access to an audience himself. Advances are also (I imagine) not that important to many authors. Maybe some need the commitment as part of their process but purely as a way of financing, I don't see an insurmountable requirement that this be bundled with the other things they do. Most authors are not going to make money anyway so a small chunk now or a slightly larger trickle later doesn't matter much either way.

Is there a thriving industry of editors for hire? People who will take raw text and turn it into books?

What's the state of this ecosystem today?

<comment><USER5> There are lots of freelance editors and cover designers, yes. Covers may run $100-300. Editors from roughly $1000-3000.

The marketing you largely have to do yourself, and there are a few different approaches. For business books, the main one is to treat the book as a regular old problem-solving-product and do content/permission marketing with a focus on building the mailing list.

For fiction, it seems that the most successful authors are serialising their full-length books into a number of chapters that they release monthly on Kindle Direct for $1-3 each. They focus on building their catalog of titles over time to slowly build and retain fans who then [hopefully] keep buying new titles or binge-read the whole back catalog.

There are also some premium consultancies that help self-publishing authors have a publisher-quality process through and through, for a price more like $10,000-30,000. And finally, you've got the parasites who will "offer" to "publish" your book for a small fee, which basically means the author is the customer.

<comment><USER4> Lets put it this way...

Joe Smith is a working fiction writer. He has a fan base that he knows how to reach. His books usually sell 25-35,000 copies (A) Can he make a living? (B) Is he better off with an old fashioned publisher (C) If he goes "indie," what services does he need? Are good ones available at a doable price?

<comment><USER5> A kindle direct title can easily earn you $3 profit even if you keep the price very low, and more like $7 if you price it like a normal book. So if you're able to move that many copies, then certainly yes.

Self-publishing is more profitable per copy. With a publisher you'll make ~10% of cover sales (so $1-1.50 per copy) versus the above.

Publishers offer [small] advances and cover some of the costs like editing. If you can pay the $1250-3500 for a cover design and editor, and can do the marketing, then you don't need a publisher for anything else.

The resources you're going to want are:

      * KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing for main distribution)
      * CreateSpace (turn PDFs into physical print-on-demand and list them on Amazon)
      * Scrivener or softcover.io (writing apps that easily export to ebook formats)
      * Wordpress + Themeforest (or softcover) for a book page

And that's about it. Very doable without a publisher.

<comment><USER4> I that case, why do established authors do deals with publishers?

<comment><USER6> When they weren't established authors, they signed deals for the next X books to be with said publisher. Another is that an established author may sell X copies at 15.00/copy, or Y copies at 25.00/copy (but only take 7.00 of the 25). If I'm an author, and my passion is writing, not marketing, if X _15 < y_7, or even anywhere close to equal, then it makes sense to go with the publisher, so you can spend more time writing

<comment><USER7> Exactly. I work in publishing and I often wondered why established authors don't just self publish. The answer: not all authors are Tim Ferris. They love having a staff cater to them, market their books, and editorial help. They are not really entrepreneurs like Ferris. They don't want to do too much more than write or whatever else they do (many authors are celebrities in other fields and are busy doing that, like most chefs on the food network).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very entertaining read; I suspect your book is equally interesting.

I've had both experiences, one book published by a mid-sized publisher, and self-publishing another. When publishing the book myself, I found myself immersed in the world of typography, paper weights, ISBNs, and designs. It was really, really fun. I'm thinking through a new book project now and am starting that process again. I'm looking forward to seeing what new tools are out there.

A bit off topic, but what I really liked was that little pumpkin pie that you baked. How small it was! Why was it pink? Even the consistency of the pie looks perfect. I can't figure out how you got those small wisps of whipped cream into such tiny loops?

<comment><AUTHOR> > I really liked was that little pumpkin pie that you baked. How small it was! > Why was it pink? Even the consistency of the pie looks perfect. I can't > figure out how you got those small wisps of whipped cream into such tiny > loops?

I was stretching the truth a bit by "baked". It was baked in an oven, but that's because it's made out of Sculpey. :)

My wife checked out a book [1] about making food from polymer clay from the library and we spent an afternoon playing with it with the kids. I was pretty pleased with how mine came out.

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CK8CLGG](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CK8CLGG)

<comment><USER8> Very cool, thanks for the update. I probably should have paid more careful attention to the paint brushes next to it, would have given me a clue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Enabling authors to self publishing is something we're doing with GitBook ([https://www.gitbook.io/](https://www.gitbook.io/)).

We have a one source format based on markdown which is open source ([https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook](https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook)) ! And from this we build a nice web book, ebook (EPUB, MOBI) and PDFs.

I don't want this to be a shameless plug, it just seems oddly relevant. Hope it helps !

Disclaimer: I am the founder of GitBook

</comment><comment><USER10> Very good article, I've also been down the path of using Ruby + LaTeX to build print books. It ain't easy.

You might take a look at a project by Matthew Butterick: he made a very nice publishing solution with Pollen - [http://pollenpub.com/](http://pollenpub.com/)

He also has an interesting take on eBooks in general: [http://practicaltypography.com/economics-year- one.html](http://practicaltypography.com/economics-year-one.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Great post, thank you! Going to be embarking on that journey soon as I'm finishing up my own book ([http://hellowebapp.com](http://hellowebapp.com)). Great breakdown of the process, and your thoughts/mistakes. The first thing I thought when I saw your initial grid was that there was going to be problems with reading text near the spine. Great job catching that and getting the finished version looking great!

<comment><AUTHOR> > The first thing I thought when I saw your initial grid was that there was > going to be problems with reading text near the spine.

First time around is always a learning experience. What's funny is I measured the inner margin distance on a couple of books and also followed CreateSpace's guidelines but I guess I tried to push the limit a bit too much.

<comment><USER11> Yeah totally — I only knew about it because I took an editorial design class back in the day. One of those little things that not many people are aware of that goes into book design!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> FYI, if the author is reading comments here, you can have the kindle and print versions 'linked' so they appear on the same Amazon page.

This is an old self publishing trick to make the kindle version seem like a bargain, and can drive sales.

<comment><AUTHOR> > FYI, if the author is reading comments here,

I am!

> you can have the kindle and print versions 'linked' so they appear on the > same Amazon page.

Yes, from the docs I read, Amazon does that automatically, but it can take a few days. I couldn't find any UI to do the association myself.

<comment><USER12> Yup, there is no UI to do it manually, but you can email the people at KDP and they will link the book for you. I've waited for it to happened automatically in the past, and it hasn't worked out for me.

Once linked, you can also do cool things like offer the ebook at a discount (or for free) if they buy the print version.

Having both versions on the same page really makes the whole thing look more 'professional'.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, thank you for the heads up. I just sent them a note.

> Once linked, you can also do cool things like offer the ebook at a discount > (or for free) if they buy the print version.

Swell! That's exactly what I want to do, and people have already asked for that.

<comment><AUTHOR> ...and this is done now. The books are linked up. Once Amazon finishes processing the change, you'll be able to buy the Kindle version for $3 after you buy the print edition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My eBook was made using Leanpub, which allows you to create on their platform and sells on others (thanks, Leanpub!)

See Leanpub's FAQ question "Can I sell my book on Leanpub and other sites at the same time?" \-- [https://leanpub.com/help/author_faq](https://leanpub.com/help/author_faq)

All that being wonderful, I found attempting to do any customizations (font, font size, line height) impossible - both in attempting to figure out markdown -> pdf tools (or md -> html -> pdf) and within services such as Leanpub.

There's definitely a market out there for creating eBooks with customizations for those who care about the look and feel of their publications! And if not a "paying market", at least an interested on for either a service or good tutorials!

For the curious, I wrote "servers for hackers": [https://book.serversforhackers.com](https://book.serversforhackers.com)

<comment><USER2> Useful info about Leanpub, thanks.

Also, your newsletter looks interesting. Signed up for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> With all of the tools available now - some of which were mentioned in this writeup - it really puts into perspective the efforts Edward Tufte went through with his awesome books 10-30 years ago. I believe he said he spent into six figures just getting _The Visual Display of Quantitative Information_ produced and out of the door.

<comment><AUTHOR> Edward Tufte is my hero. His books were some of the ones I measured when trying to figure out my metrics. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love posts like this which exude the joy and pain of a perfectionist. Congrats on getting it done :) ...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I love the passion Bob puts into his work. This is such a fine book. I've already read it but I'm definitely getting the final version in paper.

</comment><comment><USER17> Great write-up. A lot of people have asked us why we haven't made a print version of Discover Meteor yet. Next time, I'll just point them at your post!

And to be honest, although we do provide ePub/mobi versions, we've decided from the start to put our efforts into the online version and PDF. It's just so much easier to produce something that looks good for a lot less effort.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wow. When I got to the end of that blog post I seriously felt like giving him a round of applause.

 _Cheers!_

(am seriously considering buying the book weren't it that I still got a stack of reading of both new and borrowed books that I prefer to make smaller before I make it bigger. Maybe instead I'll get it as a present for someone)

<comment><AUTHOR> > am seriously considering buying the book weren't it that I still got a stack > of reading of both new and borrowed books that I prefer to make smaller > before I make it bigger.

I feel your pain. I still have a copy of SICP staring at me, making me feel guilty for ignoring it. Maybe now I'll have the time to actually work through it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Awesome post!

We'd love to have your eBook available on Scribd, an unlimited book subscription service. We receive files from Smashwords, so just opt-in to the Scribd distribution channel. Shoot me a note if you do and we can give you some promotion in our tech category.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's already opted-in and just waiting for Smashwords to ship it out. That in turn is pending Smashwords doing its manual review to make my book a "premium" one.

I thought about waiting until this was done before I made the announcement but what I've read is that they can get backlogged a couple of weeks, and I wasn't patient enough to wait that long. :)

Thank you for taking an interest in my book!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What an awesome post! Totally loved reading about how you typesetted the book. Thanks for sharing the video as well.

Would it be too much to ask you to share a single page in PDF (of the final copy) so that I too can

> _zoom into 1000% and drool over Sina Nova._ :D

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure! Here's the first three chapters:

[http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/sample.pdf](http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/sample.pdf)

<comment><USER21> Any chance I can buy the whole book in that format?

<comment><AUTHOR> It'll take me a while, but let me look into that. I'm certainly not opposed to selling the PDF for people that want that, I just need to figure out the right distribution system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> 1\. You forgot getting a Library of Congress catalog number and then typesetting that text block (typesetting of L/C data is a bit peculiar). Without L/C information you won't have any library sales.

2\. Your typesetting saga is a good argument for using LaTex over InDesign. Why not stand on the shoulders of giants? If you like the Tufte design format, just use the Tufte LaTex package. No need to reinvent the wheel.

3\. The PDF format is page-size agnostic. If people would create them in a friendlier format, say 6x9in or so instead of lettersize or A4; they would be easy to read on tablets.

</comment><comment><USER23> Absolutely fascinating. Even though I probably wouldn't ever write a book (at least not at this stage in my life) this is very interesting. I'm sure it's pretty similar in the UK.

Thanks for the insight!

</comment><comment><USER24> final web version : "Game Programming Patterns" :

[http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/contents.html](http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/contents.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> Do readers really prefer EPUB/MOBI over PDF? Personally, I've always preferred PDFs.

Nicely written article, by the way. Genever Benning's board meetings elicited a chuckle!

<comment><AUTHOR> > Do readers really prefer EPUB/MOBI over PDF?

A bunch do. When I read eBooks, I prefer them because I want the text to be reflowed on my device. PDFs only look good if your screen is about the dimensions that the PDF was authored for.

> Personally, I've always preferred PDFs.

Hmm, I didn't make that format available but I certainly could once I figure out how. I'm not familiar with people buying PDFs. Is what you expect basically just a digital version of the print layout?

<comment><USER25> Just a personal preference, and I'm a single data point, so please don't mistake my opinion for market demand.

But to answer your question, yes I prefer reading the digital versions of print layouts as they are. Quite possibly because I feel the EPUB/MOBI ebooks I have are not laid out so well.

<comment><USER26> Recently I've tried to read a PDF on my Nexus 7. In portrait mode the letters were to small, and in landscape I was constantly scrolling (and the letters were still pretty small). I'm sincerly curious what good layout means, because I've never had any issues with layout, only with too small text.

<comment><USER25> The ebooks I read are almost all technical books. Lots of code, diagrams, equations, images.

I may be biased because of my particular collection, but what I've felt is the PDFs in my collection "look" attractive and compel me to keep reading. I can see the creative effort that has gone into them by their authors and editors. Different colors for different kinds of text, syntax highlighted code, good fonts, diagrams fit correctly, proper indentation, proper word wrapping, chapter headers, footnotes at bottom of page, image wrapping and alignment in a way that improves readability - etc. They justify the word "e-books", in the sense that they feel like paper books.

EPUB/MOBI on the other hand I guess are subject to layout rules of the particular reader and screen size, and for me, they don't look so attractive. In most of my ebooks in these formats, code snippets for example are not syntax highlighted and so don't make easy reading. Image wrapping is all out of whack - an image is on one page, but its explanation which kind of assumes the image is visible right there by its side, is actually on the next page. Little details like that.

I agree with you about having to zoom and scroll a lot. But the readability of PDF makes zooming and scrolling worth the effort for me. I guess ebook UX too is just as subjective as website UX.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm going to go ahead and ask the question on all our minds: can you really run Apache/Perl on an Arduino?

</comment><comment><USER28> You're a very talented writer and I thoroughly enjoyed your post, best of luck with selling your book!

</comment><comment><USER29> I've also recently self published my book [http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/](http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/) via createspace, having first converted it to an ebook and then to a print book, so I was really interested to see this article to read what was the same and what was different. I did speak to a couple of keen publishers, and I guess ended up self publishing for similar reasons. I wanted more control over the process and the final layout, and some publishers were not happy with having a free version provided online.

Creating the ebook was fairly easy. It ended up being a case of writing a bunch of scripts to fix and tweak various things about the HTML website. Constructing the print book was a lot harder work.

I explored rendering a PDF from the ebook but the font rendering was ulitmately too poor and the configuration of the ebook tools was getting really difficult. Additionally the text layout was not great with lots of code blocks getting split over pages and images in wrong places.

I knew I needed to use a program more suitable for publishing so I tried doing a manual conversion to Latex, but after the first couple of chapters I realized it was going to take too long. Instead I begun on some scripts converting my HTML into Latex automatically. Most of this work was done by `pandoc` and a list of regexes that redefines "unholy". God only knows how it all worked in the end. I found various Latex solutions for the pullouts, and syntax highlighting, that I liked ang which gave me as much control as I required, and in the end it was actually looking pretty nice.

Then came the copy editing, and like in this article it was long, tedious, difficult, and I'm still not completely 100% happy with the final result. It took the form of a bunch of scripts inserting pagebreaks before or after paragraphs and moving text, images and pullouts to balance the pages. Essentially it is very difficult to copy-edit a book with so many code blocks, even with the help of Latex. This is the only part of the process where I felt down on my skills, and that someone who does it for a living would not face the same problems (probably they wouldn't be using Latex in the first place). But in the end I was happy with the interiour - which still looked awesome printed in color - and I think I by far did the best I could.

I designed and made the cover in Photoshop to the vision of it I had always had. I think I did a fairly decently job but certainly it would have been better looked at by a professional. Unfortunately createspace doesn't seem to do a good job of printing the cover, so it didn't look precisely like the supplied image I made. Perhaps this is different when ordering non-proof copies.

The nice thing about my approach was that when people send pull requests and corrections to the website I can automatically integrate them across the ebook and print versions, and if I ever do want to make updates in future the process is relatively painless. I think I'd be happy to self publish again. Createspace was great and I felt good not having to rely on others for the process. The main thing I didn't like about it was the marketing - that is something that does not come naturally to me. I think it is unlikely I will write a programming book again. It was fun, but I felt like finishing it more of an obligation once the ball was rolling. Ultimately I think I made a "good" thing which lots of people read, enjoyed and appreciated, and I know it wasn't just an additional item of waste in the universe due to all the people who have reached out to me personally (thank you so much). But at the end of the day unfortunately it hasn't derived me satisfaction worth the effect it took to produce - which was a lot - and I think that is just due to the nature of the thing, not it's success or position in the world.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I've also recently self published my book > [http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/](http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/) via > createspace

Oh, I just saw your post about this a couple of days ago. Your book looks beautiful! I was so tempted to do full color, but didn't think the finances made sense for my book. I'm totally jealous you went that route. :)

How did it end up working out? I assume it's process, not spot color. Is the colored text still sharp enough to be read easily?

> Instead I begun on some scripts converting my HTML into Latex automatically. > Most of this work was done by `pandoc` and a list of regexes that redefines > "unholy". God only knows how it all worked in the end. I found various Latex > solutions for the pullouts, and syntax highlighting.

Smart! I considered this route a little bit, but I spent some of my formative years doing "desktop publishing" back when Aldus PageMaker was still a thing, so I looked forward to doing it a more hands-on, designery way. It worked out well for me -- the time I spent in InDesign was really enjoyable -- but I can definitely see how it wouldn't be the right choice for others.

> Essentially it is very difficult to copy-edit a book with so many code > blocks, even with the help of Latex. This is the only part of the process > where I felt down on my skills, and that someone who does it for a living > would not face the same problems (probably they wouldn't be using Latex in > the first place).

It's a relief to hear someone else say this. Trying to keep the code blocks from being split was really really hard. Halfway through the process, I started flipping through my copy of SICP to see how they did it. As far as I can tell, though guys are just absolute wizards. Every page is completely full and yet code blocks are almost never split across pages. Granted, Scheme snippets tend to be fewer lines of code, but they still did an amazing job.

> Unfortunately createspace doesn't seem to do a good job of printing the > cover, so it didn't look precisely like the supplied image I made.

I've done some print work before, so I was fully expecting some variance here. Unless you have a carefully calibrated display and keep track of color profiles through the whole pipeline (and they do too), there's always some difference.

In my case, it came out surprisingly close to the image I sent, but I tried to keep the design pretty simple and not use too much detail or color.

> The nice thing about my approach was that when people send pull requests and > corrections to the website I can automatically integrate them across the > ebook and print versions, and if I ever do want to make updates in future > the process is relatively painless.

Yeah, this part will be rough for me. The print version is basically a fork at this point. Any changes I make, I have to manually make in both the markdown (eBook + web) and InDesign (print).

> But at the end of the day unfortunately it hasn't derived me satisfaction > worth the effect it took to produce - which was a lot - and I think that is > just due to the nature of the thing, not it's success or position in the > world.

For what it's worth, I'm really glad you made it, and I'll be buying a copy.

<comment><USER29> Thanks for the support, and congratuations to yourself on publishing. It looks like you've done a really great job and totally nailed the process and the print version!

> How did it end up working out? I assume it's process, not spot color. Is the > colored text still sharp enough to be read easily?

Yeah it isn't spot color and the text looks really great and easy to read. The print quality of the interiour seems very high quality and it really makes it seem alive with the images and colored sections. I think it keeps it fun to read, which was always one of my intentions. I was totally over the moon with the interiour when the first proof copy arrived.

But as you mention financially it isn't going to make much sense. I don't make much more off the print book than the ebook sale, and yet it costs the consumer ten times as much! So in some sense it was kind of vanity project - but I still enjoyed it a lot, and wanted to prove I could do it additionally.

> It worked out well for me -- the time I spent in InDesign was really > enjoyable -- but I can definitely see how it wouldn't be the right choice > for others.

Actually if someone had mentioned InDesign to me I might have given it a try. I mainly picked Latex because I knew the font rendering and formatting would be awesome and it was something I knew already so I could get started. As you say, InDesign is fun, while working on a complex project in Latex isn't exactly a joy. But I think the end product was still sufficiently professional :)

> I've done some print work before, so I was fully expecting some variance > here. Unless you have a carefully calibrated display and keep track of color > profiles through the whole pipeline (and they do too), there's always some > difference.

Yeah I probably should have been prepared for this. And additionally there was some error in how they were cutting the bleed which looked poor with my cover design. If I did it again I would definintely try to find a professional to consult before tacking the cover for any friendly advice he/she had to offer.

> For what it's worth, I'm really glad you made it, and I'll be buying a copy.

Thanks! I feel bad ending on a downer because I really have gotten a lot of pleasure out of it, so I don't want to paint the process in a negative light. As a learning experience it was really unique and great. There are just too many fun, great and unique areas of computer science to play around with as well!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> You tease me to buy the book which I don't need now, well done.

</comment><comment><USER31> One of the best reads in a while; such a fun and wel written piece!</comment>


Humans exploiting and destroying nature on unprecedented scale – report - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/10/humans-exploiting-and-destroying-nature-on-unprecedented-scale-report-aoe <comment><USER2> At what point are we going to decide to sacrifice our standard of living in order to ensure a better future for our offspring?

Will there be a point?</comment>


Censorship at CyberCon 2019 in Melbourne - <AUTHOR> https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-10-08/us-whistleblower-speech-cancelled-at-cybersecurity-conference/11581986 <comment><AUTHOR> An interview with Thomas Drake & Sulette Dreyfus on their deplatforming: [https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/...](https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/super- weird:-censorship-at-the-australian-cyber-conference/11589888)</comment>


Mining patterns in search data with Google Correlate - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/mining-patterns-in-search-data-with.html <comment><USER2> This is pretty cool. It's similar to what I do at Correlated (<http://www.correlated.org>) -- I compare the results of each daily poll with all the previous daily polls, and find the strongest correlation. Granted, Correlated is decidedly less serious.

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems like a really cool idea, but I just can't for the life of me get the kind of cool graphs that I typically can from Google Trends. Not sure if I'm doing it wrong, but most of the stuff I'm getting seems pretty random.

<comment><USER4> It probably is. That's what make the non-random ones noteworthy.</comment></comment>


Scientists Just Teleported an Object into Space for the First Time - <AUTHOR> https://time.com/4854718/quantum-entanglement-teleport-space/ <comment><USER2> no, they didn't; but they did redefine the definition of teleportation.

> Teleportation is the theoretical transfer of matter or energy from one point > to another without traversing the physical space between them. ... [1]

if they teleported anything, it was information, not matter or energy.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleportation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleportation)

<comment><USER3> > information, not matter or energy

Aren't matter and energy just a manifestation of information though?

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure if abstract semantics are a good place for scientific discovery announcement headlines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> tl;dr

"A team of researchers in China sent a photon from the ground to an orbiting satellite more than 300 miles above through a process known as quantum entanglement"

links from the article:

\- [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608252/first-object- telep...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608252/first-object-teleported- from-earth-to-orbit/)

\- [https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.00934](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.00934)

imo, it's far-fetched to call a photon an "object".

<comment><USER6> Well, it'll work once we figure out how to convert an atom or molecule into a photon and back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Inaccessible, probably due to adblocker or being in the EU.

<comment><USER8> Able to read it with adblocker active while in France (on mobile).

> _A team of researchers in China sent a photon from the ground to an orbiting > satellite more than 300 miles above through a process known as quantum > entanglement, according to MIT Technology Review. It's the farthest distance > tested so far in teleportation experiments, the researchers said. Their work > was published online on the open access site arXiv._

> _For about a month, the scientists beamed up millions of photons from their > ground station in Tibet to the low-orbiting satellite. They were successful > in more than 900 cases._</comment></comment>


Ask HN: what can I do with 3 recycled laptops? - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
After get rid of my old home networks (now I'm living in other country), I still have 3 old laptops I repaired.
Currently I use to make my research for new technologies on virtual machines, but I still have 3 laptops I think I could take with me after vacations to my work-country.
The question:
What are cool projects, or technologies, to explore today, given 3 laptops and a network switch ?
I'm seeking more for personal, home-time projects.
The electricity bill is included on my rent price.
Are Intel Centrino with +/- 1 or 2 G of ram suitable for bitcoin ? <comment><USER2> Clusters, honeypots, bitcoin mining, roll your own cloud.

Well thats a few to start with i guess.

Edit: Missed the part about bitcoin. They wont make you rich but anything is ok to dabble with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea I think I could go the BitCoin way with these machines. I've read about bitcoin but never started.

About clusters and own cloud, I've enough dose at work, with better hardware :-)

The honeypot road also I think could be a fun project. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> These machines doesn't see to have virtualization capabilities so I think I'll go trough the security training path (honeypot, personal lab, etc).

Also maybe I'll put one of them to work on bitcoins to know better the technology.

The BOINC seems a interesting usage once I get bored of play with them.

Thanks for all the responses. Great tips.

</comment><comment><USER3> You have 2 choices.

1)Create your own cloud, make them "servers" and make them host personal projects, cool apps, ask your friends to try to hack your "servers", just to try security policies etc..

2)Donate them to charity and use your new free time for some beers and meet girls in the new country. :))

</comment><comment><USER4> XBMC is good but those laptops might be a bit too loud as a proper mediacenter. Install proxmox ([http://www.proxmox.com/](http://www.proxmox.com/)) and make yourself a cluster of small openVZ containers/KVMs to experiment new OS or new services.

</comment><comment><USER5> Could use them to do some distributed computing, via BOINC

[https://boinc.berkeley.edu/](https://boinc.berkeley.edu/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Rip them apart and make frankenstein tablets?

Set up a "wargame" lab to learn security techniques.

</comment><comment><USER7> Mine has become an awesome xbmc server :)</comment>


Ask:HN Building a local classifieds - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
   I am planning to build a local classifieds web applications . What are the options for server side coding...python, java or ruby ..i am a java developer <comment><USER2> Uh, if you are a java developer, then your option is to use Java. I'm not sure why you'd chose to use something you're not strong in, unless your goal is to learn something new and get better at it.</comment>