Who should own the copyright of AI-generated art? - <AUTHOR> https://aimade.art/blogs/news/who-should-own-the-copyright-of-ai-generated-art <comment><USER2> In the US this question is fairly settled.

The U.S. Copyright Office has already declared that if it's generated by a machine, without any creative input or intervention from a human author, then the work is NOT eligible for copyright at all.

They believe that "The copyright law only protects "the fruits of intellectual labor" that "are founded in the creative powers of the mind." Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U.S. 82, 94 (1879). Because copyright law is limited to "original intellectual conceptions of the author," the Office will refuse to register a claim if it determines that a human being did not create the work. Burrow- Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U.S. 53, 58 (1884). ... the Copyright Act protects "original works of authorship." 17 U.S.C. § 102(a) (emphasis added). To qualify as a work of "authorship" a work must be created by a human being. See Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co., 111 U.S. at 58. Works that do not satisfy this requirement are not copyrightable. The Office will not register works produced by nature, animals, or plants.... Similarly, the Office will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author."

I'm quoting chapter 300 here: <[https://www.copyright.gov/comp3/chap300/ch300-copyrightable-...](https://www.copyright.gov/comp3/chap300/ch300-copyrightable- authorship.pdf>) of the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices here <[https://www.copyright.gov/comp3/>](https://www.copyright.gov/comp3/>). The compendium is the "governing administrative manual for registrations and recordations issued by the U.S. Copyright Office." In short, for the US, this is an extremely authoritative source.

A future US court ruling or law change could change this, of course, but I sure wouldn't bet on it. The US Copyright Office has lawyers who specialize in this area, have clearly stated their position, and they are citing specific laws and court cases to justify their position. Also, in most cases you can't go forward with a copyright claim without registration (though you can register after-the-fact); if the US Copyright Office won't allow registration, you'll have a really challenging time even _starting_ a court case.

I'm sure there are edge cases and complications. But the essence is only "unsettled" if you don't look for the existing rulings. A Google search will find actual answers from credible, authoritative sources. Sure, courts and Congress could change it, but it'd require a significant change.

While this information is specific to the U.S., copyright is similar enough in other jurisdictions that there's a decent chance that other jurisdictions would come to the same conclusion. European law in particular has a number of similarities in this area; I'd love to hear from those with more background in other jurisdictions.

Disclaimers: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

<comment><USER3> Does tuning the hyperparameters for the IA count as creative input or human intervention?

<comment><USER2> I don't know if hyperparameters count as being adequately creative, and perhaps that is unsettled. I suspect you would have to have an argument about how creative the process of tuning parameters is. It might be very fact- specific, IE perhaps some hyperparameters might count as creative and others might not. I realize that is not very satisfying.

The US Copyright Office says: "The crucial question is "whether the 'work' is basically one of human authorship, with the computer [or other device] merely being an assisting instrument, or whether the traditional elements of authorship in the work (literary, artistic, or musical expression or elements of selection, arrangement, etc.) were actually conceived and executed not by man but by a machine." U.S. Copyright office, Report to the Librarian of Congress by the Register of Copyrights (1966)."

While the dividing line is fuzzy, it is clear that as soon as you're claiming that the art was generated by AI, you are fighting an uphill battle to get a copyright registered.

Again, I am not a lawyer.

<comment><USER4> I think it is perhaps interesting to compare to photography. There a human picks the initial parameters (position, angle, lens, time of day), presses a button, and then the camera (a device) does all the work. It is not controversial that photographers have a copyright on their work.

<comment><USER2> You're right, it is not controversial today that photographers have a copyright on their work. Which is why the monkey selfie is so important. In the monkey selfie case, a photographer did set up the equipment, which means that some of the parameters were indeed established by a human. However, the monkey actually created the picture, including the timing and body placement. The copyright office has determined that the work could not be copyrighted.

Which leads to the conclusion that at least in some cases,a human doing some setup is not enough to grant a copyright.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> See this article that covers a recent case of this, and goes into much more depth: [https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/05/the-internet-furry- drama-...](https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/05/the-internet-furry-drama- raising-big-questions-about-artificial-intelligence/)

<comment><USER6> Thanks, that's a _much_ more informative link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The list is nonsensical. If there is a copyright, it is owned by whoever is running the software. The legal owners. Any program with emergent properties could technically produce output that could be construed as art. Such programs have been around since decades. It isn't like we are on the verge of some new era where we have to consider computers or algorithms as equals or peers that deserve respect.

<comment><USER8> I suspect this mentality will not age well. We very well may be close to discussing robot rights, and the answer to this question in 50 years might be simple: the machine owns the copyright.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the comment, Elon

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Funny to see that there must be a copyright, author didn't tought one option: nobody own the copyright.

<comment><USER10> That is the last option in the list, in the article.

<comment><USER9> Author modified it. Proof:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200613105427/https://aimade.ar...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200613105427/https://aimade.art/blogs/news/who- should-own-the-copyright-of-ai-generated-art)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Running a program which generates art is no different from clicking the shutter on a camera, or throwing paint on a canvas randomly (non-repeatable physical process generates the image.

<comment><USER12> Yeah people get too caught up in the marketing-hype of AI as if it's a magical thinking lifeform. So far, it is not. It's a device, a tool. Devices don't own things.

<comment><USER13> The point is not that devices don't own things but that the owner of the device / creator of the software can't copyright its outputs in his name.

Generating art costs money - electricity to train models and rent/buy the hardware, requires expertise in neural nets, tons of training data from the public domain or privately created, lots of experimenting and fiddling with the parameters, manual curation of the output ...

why should the human who invested all this work not be entitled to the copyright?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Who should own the copyright of brush-generated art?

The question is moot. The tool cannot own the copyright.

The AI is no different than a brush or a hammer or a screwdriver.

<comment><USER15> Collage may be a better analogy than paint. An artist can make an image with a collage of bits of other artists' works, in much the same way that a generative network can make an image out of image elements derived from other artists' works.

The question is not whether the "AI" has any ownership, but whether the original artists do, or whether the programmers do, or whether the people selecting training images do, or whether the person selecting a final artwork out of a mass of inferior generated images does.

<comment><USER16> > An artist can make an image with a collage of bits of other artists' works, > in much the same way that a generative network can make an image out of > image elements derived from other artists' works.

That's not a good analogy because a human is involved. The entire point here is whether living entities other than persons can have copyright, and the answer (in the US) is no.

<comment><USER17> The AI didn't write itself. A human chose the algorithms, the training data, the goals, etc....

<comment><USER13> Apparently that's nothing. As if all this AI generative art is trivial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Who owns the product of an arthouse? Of a manufacturing plant? Of a farm?

The creators and/or owner of the algorithm own the product.

If they use it to train with other artists creation, that is the same as taking inspiration. If they release the alg open source, then its the same as any product that makes things, the maintainer of that instance owns the production of anything created from it.

</comment><comment><USER19> No one. Copyright requires some creativity. If it was generated, there is no creativity.

<comment><USER20> That's not the point. Copyright law - at least the European versions of it - requires a human creator. So the output of an algorithm is not protected under copyright law in general, even if the output appears to be "creative". If the output includes parts of a pre-existing work by a human creator, then it might be subject to copyright law, but in favour of the creator of the pre-existing work.

<comment><USER19> Of course the output of an algorithm is covered, if there is creative input. Otherwise nothing generated from photoshop would be protected. And creativity is the point. As a previous post mentioned, "creative powers of the mind"

<comment><USER20> When you edit images in Photoshop you are the actor and it is your (hopefully) creative result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I believe this could depend on the complexity of AI. If we're talking about _' real'_ artificial intelligence that is self-aware and can mimic human thinking, can interact with human beings as we do with one another then perhaps at first we should recognize AI as natural person or entity, or legal person and grant them necessary rights; which later would lead to all sort of legal issues including copyrights. But if we're talking about AI that is just an algorithm that automates tasks then perhaps its creators should hold the rights or the work should become part of public domain.

</comment><comment><USER20> Copyright laws of most European countries specify that only works created by human beings can be afforded copyright protection. The same seems to apply to current US laws (which I'm not familiar with in detail). In UK and Ireland it is possible in principle that computer generated works can be copyrighted by the person responsible for the creation of the work. So it depends on the country. Notwithstanding the above, a work may of course be sold, in this case by the owner of the printed sheet of paper.

</comment><comment><USER22> I was curious and read that linked wikipedia article on the monkey selfie, which actually makes it clear that US law pretty much does have an answer to the question whether an animal can be a copyright owner.

The actually interesting part is the fact that these photos/selfie situation were set up specifically by a photographer with their equipment.

That is actually the relevant (to AI) portion in all this. If someone sets up all the right pieces but then has a subject or generally "something" else cause the actually creation of the artwork the lines get really blurry. Hypothetically if you set up an elaborate set of machinery guiding an animal/machine/human to paint a picture it wouldn't otherwise be painting, e.g. think elephant with brushes/paint on trunk walks through a guided maze of a huge canvas, the coordinator would not have copyright (by the logic of the monkey case).

P.S. While I sympathize with the photographer, the level of butthurt and entitlement is just rich:

> Slater was unable to travel to the July 2017 court hearing in the United > States for lack of funds and said he was considering alternative careers as > a dog walker or tennis coach.[52] "This would be a new venture for me. It > would pay peanuts, but at least it would be more than photography. I am just > not motivated to go out and take photos any more. I've had outlays of > several thousand pounds for lawyers, it is losing me income and getting me > so depressed. When I think about the whole situation I really don't think > it's worth it."[52] Slater added, "Everything I did to try and highlight the > plight of the monkeys has backfired on my private life. I've had my life > ruined."[52]

They made an initial investment, made good on it, then decided to sue Wikimedia without the necessary funds. This is a very special case and not at all related to the viability of the wildlife photographer profession. Nothing about this means the photographer has to abandon their career and start walking dogs instead.

</comment><comment><USER23> The question is: Who would pay money for art made by machine?

<comment><USER13> Whoever wants something very specific that is still hard to reproduce/generate.

In the photography industry there are billions of free images all over the internet, who's going to pay for the next image? Only those who want something specialised that can't be had for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The program if it's on the level of human mind, or no one otherwise. It surely shouldn't be the creator of the program in either case.

</comment><comment><USER25> The algorithm, obviously.

<comment><USER6> I'm pretty sure that that's covered under the option of "the machine itself", as that is a computer running an instance of the algorithm.

I'm actually a bit surprised that this legal territory is so poorly explored, I would have assumed that at least there would have been challenges, lawsuits, and court cases on the validity (and ownership) of copyright for procedurally generated artwork long before now (of course, this would still leave as an open question the issue of whether such a work infringes on works an AI was trained on).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The AI.

A rights!</comment>


Optimizing Your Wife - <AUTHOR> http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath018/kmath018.htm <comment><USER2> The title is off. This is a wife-selection algorithm. If anybody has real ideas for optimizing a wife, please post.

Also, if you do apply this method, don't tell your perspective wife. She will drop you like a rock.

<comment><USER3> The quality of your wife is 40% who you are, 20% who you choose, and 80% how you conduct yourself during courtship and marriage. Overlap due to some correlations and the fact that it's easier to screw things up than get things right.

To pre-optimize a future wife, focus on being a man of character. Sacrifice for noble goals, exercise self-discipline, show love to family, especially your mother. To optimize an existing wife, continue to do those things, and also spend a lot of time together, be romantic, communicate honestly and frequently (pursue intimacy; resolve to hold no secrets), and ensure a good sex life _for her_ \--which for you means generosity and an eye toward emotion.

<comment><USER4> > The quality of your wife is 40% who you are, 20% who you choose, and 80% how > you conduct yourself during courtship and marriage.

This is incredibly idealistic - and doesn't really jive with the real world. It says if a man is a good man and conducts himself exceptionally during courtship and marriage, his wife is almost certain to be quality.

And this is false! I mean, there's so many real world examples - some people are undisciplined, unambitious, self-centered, reckless, not grounded, etc, etc. Unfortunately, I know a couple guys, good guys overall, who married such women. No matter how much he toils in the marriage, it can't and won't be a good marriage.

The character and quality of your spouse has a lot to do with their character - you can help them grow to some extent, but you need to start from a good place. The idea that "be a good person and conduct yourself well and things will work out" sounds nice, but is in fact dangerous and bad advice. For both men and women, the base character of your spouse matters _a lot_ \- and that's before even starting to look at compatibility and having complimentary views. Idealism - "be a good man and things will work out" - sounds nice, but it's the sort of thing you need to be careful with.

<comment><USER3> Fair. Of course, the whole thing is a simplistic rhetorical device; real life is complicated.

If you really could expect full marks in "be a man of character" and "treat her right" categories -- if you were some mythical combination of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus Christ, perhaps you _could_ redeem a fairly self-centered wife. Those are, after all, men who made their names by succeeding at redeeming evil cultures with little more than compassion and force of character. But it'd sure be difficult and painful. I'm not claiming things would "work out" easily even in the best case, and that's the worst one. Most folks really can't expect straight A's there. Most folks, if they're honest with themselves, are shooting for more like a C+ and maybe don't even always get there. So in a way, how my model handles that corner case is academic.

My point by assigning such a low value to who you choose isn't that it doesn't matter at all -- of course it does. Of course you can easily doom the whole thing to failure (short of heroic measures) by marrying an utterly irredeemable jerk. My point is that it's not a relatively big contributer. And I'm strongly of the opinion that it isn't. Stick to quality women, or even just decent women, and the other factors dominate.

Over ten, fifteen, twenty years of marriage, the single largest factor in who your wife is, is who you are. And vice versa. Her criticisms become your defensive sore spots. Your generocity becomes her avid interest. Your callousness becomes her indifference. Her complacency becomes your disinterest. And on and on. After many years, every groove in your soul matches a cusp in hers, and vice versa. There's feedback. There's resonance. That's why the quality of your wife is _120% you_.

You grow to be like who you hang out with. You rise to high expectations or sink to low ones.

Do you want your wife to be beautiful at 35? It doesn't matter whether she was a 6 or 10 or 8 at 24 when you married her. It matters whether you've been buying her jewelry, telling her her beauty is worth sacrifice and expense to you. It matters whether you've been telling her she's beautiful, encouraging her to experiment with new shoes, or making fun of her when you find her with green goop all over her face. It matters whether you criticize or support, because her outward appearance is a measure of her self-esteem, her confidence, and whether she thinks being pretty is a hobby worth keeping up with.

Do you want a sexually engaged wife? Make sex something she loves. Be generous. Be romantic. Be attentive. And wait five years.

Do you want a kind and generous wife? Be kind and generous. Do you want a wife who understands you? Talk to her. Do you want a wife who is not annoyed with you all the time? Listen to her criticism, don't defend yourself, change your behavior, explain in tenderest and most loving tones what has been misunderstood.

To optimize your wife, optimize yourself. Because marriage is really long, and after just a few years, she's mostly who you've made her.

(Goes the other way, too. But this place is mostly guys).

<comment><USER5> _if you were some mythical combination of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus Christ, perhaps you could redeem a fairly self-centered wife._

The irony of this list is that (as I understand it) King was unfaithful to his wife and Gandhi refused to have sex with his wife while frequently sleeping in the arms of beautiful younger women to prove to himself he could resist temptation and Jesus never married at all.

Men who are deemed to be heroes/men of great character in the eyes of society don't necessarily make wonderful spouses.

(Not at all meant to disagree with your basic point.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Funny, but the reason my relationships have gotten better over time has just as much to do with how much I've grown as it does with my partners.

</comment><comment><USER7> I take issue with this step:

"Thus, as k increases, the left side approaches 1, and we can take the exponential of both sides to give..."

k/k-1 -> 1 in the limit.

The problem is that most people don't have an infinite number of women to choose from, so k/k-1 is likely NOT sufficiently close to 1. The algorithm then takes the exponential of both sides, making the matter worse...

So, based on the average number of serious girlfriends the average person seems to have before getting married (~4), the average person probably shouldn't pass on the first N / e... they should probably pass on something more like the first N / (e^1.3) or so.

</comment><comment><USER8> (I would have sent this in private, but found no contact info in the respective HN profiles.)

To Dove and lotharbot:

Thanks so much for your comments in this thread. They are extremely insightful, and resonate strongly with my own experiences of married life, which is nearing a decade in length. I always admire and am inspired when I see examples of good marriages.

<insert politically correct well-wishing here>

<comment><USER9> Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Doesn't this problem basically take the Feynman restaurant problem and replaces meal with woman?

[http://www.feynmanlectures.info/exercises/Feynmans_restauran...](http://www.feynmanlectures.info/exercises/Feynmans_restaurant_problem.html)

<comment><USER11> I believe this problem is a lot closer to the Secretary Problem <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem> As he notes however, he does not try to choose "the very best candidate", for which the optimal solution is to pass on the first 1/e candidates. Instead, he tries to maximize the "goodness" of his wife selection.

In short : maximum likelihood soultion is to pass on (1/e)*N, minimum mean squared error solution is to pass on sqrt(N). This of course assumes you can estimate N well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Could this be applicable to search ranking? Say I was doing a search based on an input string, and I had a "closeness of match" heuristic. That expected value for N=100 case seemed so good that I'm considering the possibility that you only partially search any data set and return a result that is pretty much good enough. (At least initially, and then you could asynchronously add better results to the list, in the background. Then you'd get very fast first results, at the very least).

</comment><comment><USER13> This is all well and good, but doesn't take into account that your ideal wife won't want YOU.

<comment><USER14> "Will want me" is a necessary criterion for my ideal wife!

<comment><USER15> "Necessary existence" is a property of my ideal wife. Step one of the proof complete.

<comment><USER16> I can conceive of my ideal wife, therefore she exists!

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Related: the mathematics of 1950s dating. [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/academic/class/15251-f0...](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/academic/class/15251-f07/Site/Materials/Lectures/Lecture09/lecture09.pdf) [pdf]

</comment><comment><USER18> The article also applies to picking business opportunities. Suppose you are going to see N opportunities. According to the article you should pick the best opportunity so far after N/e have passed.

Some questions this raises:

(a) How do you really know if an opportunity (or a wife) is any good? The evaluation function seems to be a key ingredient for success.

(b) What if N is infinite.

(c) More realistically, suppose N is very large. Suppose I am going to see an opportunity a day. If I live for another 40 years, that 14,610 days. So N = 14,610. Doing the math the article is saying that you do nothing for about 15 years. And then pick the best opportunity you have seen so far.

</comment><comment><USER19> I can't recall where I've seen this before, but it's <http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SultansDowryProblem.html>, the Sultan's Daughter problem.

</comment><comment><USER20> Would my wife use this to optimize her husband? I mean, is the optimization mutual?

<comment><USER21> I don't see any gender differences in the OA that would be important. If a woman is willing to similarly watch for the best man and choose him when she meets him, she should use the same algorithm.

<comment><USER22> Indeed, it's not courting-specific at all, or even human-specific. The same math could be used to answer questions like: "If you are a hamburger bun selecting patties from a conveyor belt, how do you optimize your selection of a quality patty?"

<comment><USER15> 2‽

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This kind of mathematical advisor could be a differentiator in the dating-site market.

Any HNers working on one?

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if this will fit on a Valentines Day card...

</comment><comment><USER25> it's also a good example how heteronormativity works

</comment><comment><USER26> You're mistaken... The mere fact that you've done this, and gone public with it, guarantees that you'll be single for the rest of your life ;-)

Just kidding. Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER27> How Not to Optimize your Wife: Using Calculus.

Geeks though, you gotta love them.

</comment><comment><USER28> Why did this remind me of the "Ten Women" game?

<http://www.davidlouisedelman.com/uncategorized/ten-women/>

</comment><comment><USER29> The author is so gonna get laid after writing this! He should publish it in Vanity Fair.

</comment><comment><USER30> Dupe. I really dont think this deserves a repost. Was on the front page just some months ago.

<comment><USER31> Where? [http://searchyc.com/submissions/%2522mathpages.com%2522?only...](http://searchyc.com/submissions/%2522mathpages.com%2522?only=domain&sort=by_date)</comment></comment>


Google lifts ban on Huawei - <AUTHOR> https://sea.mashable.com/tech/4128/google-adds-huawei-back-to-the-android-q-beta-list-should-you-still-sell-your-huawei-devices <comment> a0-prw I don't care if Google reinstate them. I'm staying with Huawei regardless of the cost to myself partly because they make great phones and partly as a protest against the USA. If it ever comes that far, I'll just use my Huawei as a camera. It would still be worth the money.

<comment><USER2> If you've got $900 to spend on a camera, just get a dedicated camera with interchangeable lenses.

<comment><USER3> $900 is still far below the price level of even the bottom end range of interchangable lens bodies, never mind body+lens.

The bottom end for such bodies is around $1500. Add another $100 for a low end lens, or ~$1000 for a low end Leica level lens to match the $900 for the huawei.

You are essentially getting a free phone and camera with a (slightly worse than interchangable-level quality) leica lens with the P30.

<comment><USER2> > The bottom end for such bodies is around $1500

That's not accurate. You can get a Sony a6300 with a lens on amazon for $850 right now. That will get you a much better image, with a lot more flexibility. If the P30 is your phone then it's a fantastic camera and certainly more than good enough for most people. But if you're just getting it to be a camera you're wasting a bunch of money on features you won't be using.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Easiest and fastest way to create website specifications - <AUTHOR> https://specfox.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys,

we just launched and will really appreciate any feedback, suggestions and will happily answer all your questions.

Kristaps</comment>


Saudi Arabia's PIF and SoftBank Not Interested in Tesla Buyout - <AUTHOR> https://wolfstreet.com/2018/08/11/saudi-arabia-pif-softbank-not-interested-in-tesla-take-private-buyout/ <comment><USER2> Yeah, sure: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-12/saudi- fun...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-12/saudi-fund-is-said- to-be-in-talks-to-invest-in-tesla-buyout-deal)</comment>


Job website build on Wordpress, what do you think? - <AUTHOR> http://www.freelance.sr What do you think about this website? It's build with Wordpress. <comment><USER2> Looks pretty good. I like seeing WordPress used as more than just a blogging platform, since it is so much more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

It IS so much more.

I also like looking at sites which are build with Wordpress, and are not just sites based on content, but also on functionalities.</comment></comment>


Radioactivity detected from a half-life of once every trillion universes - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/04/dark-matter-detector-identifies-extraordinarily-rare-radioactive-decay/ <comment><USER2> Note that this is almost "as expected". If you have only one xenon atom in a box, to see that it decayed you should wait a "1.8 x 10^22 years—or about a trillion times the age of the Universe".

If you have two atoms in a box, you must wait approximately half of the time to see the decay.

They have 2 tons of xenon. I'm not sure if 1 ton = 1000kg or 907 kg, but it doesn't change the result too much. With 2 tons you have 2 x 907 * 1000 / 131 x 6.02x10^23 = 8E28 xenon atoms, so you expect to have a few decays per hour (if I did the calculations correctly).

I'm not sure if they can detect the 100% of the decays and the noise level, so it probably takes a longer time to detect a good signal.</comment>


How do you spend your time as a business leader? [PODSCAST] - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jxtfb#synopsis

<comment><AUTHOR> > _"Evan Davis asks his executive guests how they spend their time each day. > What does the activity of running a company really involve, and what do the > guests' diaries tell us about the nature of their jobs?"_

HN readers may be interested in other "The Bottom Line" podcasts, which are discussions between business leaders and presented by Evan Davis. He's pretty good at this kind of discussion.</comment>


Show HN: Pygit – Just enough git to push itself to GitHub - <AUTHOR> http://benhoyt.com/writings/pygit/ <comment><USER2> Exercises like this are very educational for taking magic away from version control tools.

Some time ago I did a similar exercise in Haskell: [https://github.com/EarlGray/omit](https://github.com/EarlGray/omit) (it also took about 500 lines of unnecessarily dense Haskell), implementing barebone functionality of `git log`, `git add`, `git commit`, `git status`, `git diff` (using an existing Haskell diff library). It was eye-opening how simple the concepts of git are.

On the other hand, the most interesting parts of git are still left out: branches, merges, conflict resolution, remote sync. I'm wondering how many more lines are needed for this.

<comment><USER3> > It was eye-opening how simple the concepts of git are.

Exactly! Sometimes I'm bewildered how complex git porcelain (CLI interface) is compared to the basic building blocks.

Usually when I want to do something complex in git I think of how I want the structure to look like and then figure out which command does that ("was it git reset --soft or git stash --keep-index that did X?"). Now when I'm thinking about it I usually imagine states (like DOM trees). I see current state and the state I want to have the repo in (commits, working directly, index). What I'm missing here is a React-like reconciler that will transform one into other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice work!

I love projects like this, because I think most of us would benefit from re- implementing our dev tools (at least partially) to develop a better understanding of how they work.

<comment><USER5> Traditionally some of the trade apprenticeships started with the new apprentice making their own tools.

When I took a molecular cell biology class in college, the first series of labs involved disassembling and reassembling the bench microscopes that we would be using for the rest of the course (they were close to maxing out on optical resolution, the faculty couldn't afford to replace a broken one)

As an engineer I enjoy making my own tools, sometimes a little too much

<comment><USER6> Similarly, when I got my first job as a PC tech at a locally-owned computer shop, my first task was to assemble my own "bench" PC for testing various components.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Related: [http://gitlet.maryrosecook.com/](http://gitlet.maryrosecook.com/)

 _Gitlet is an implemention of Git in JavaScript._

[https://maryrosecook.com/blog/post/git-from-the-inside- out](https://maryrosecook.com/blog/post/git-from-the-inside-out)

</comment><comment><USER8> Super cool project!

I hope this isn't taken as a frivolous or mean-spirited comment, but the code samples on the blog would be much more readable with some kind of syntax highlighting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good call! Thanks to Jekyll and Rouge, I added some light syntax highlighting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great article! An equally educational one for a torrent client in C# [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12035568](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12035568)

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd reconsider the name, I'm sure pretty it will cause confusion with pygit2.

</comment><comment><USER11> This feels like the most appropriate way to make a quine of a VCS tool.

</comment><comment><USER12> Neat!

My local Python group had a talk on something like this last year: [https://github.com/glenjarvis/explore_git_internals](https://github.com/glenjarvis/explore_git_internals)

</comment><comment><USER13> See also Dulwich, a pure-Python Git implementation [https://github.com/jelmer/dulwich](https://github.com/jelmer/dulwich)

</comment><comment><USER14> I wonder how fast it would propagate if it was able to inject itself into existing repos and hook itself to package.json and other installer scripts.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice. I wonder if anyone tried doing the same in rust?

<comment><USER16> I don't think it would be of any strategic advantage? The promise of Rust is to be once better than C not better than Python. Nit to mention all the needed libraries.

<comment><USER17> I'm a bit confused by this logic; git _is_ written in C, so if Rust is supposed to be "better then C", then wouldn't it make perfect sense to write it in Rust?

<comment><USER16> In general yes, it would benefit Rust, long term. But for the purpose of this article, no. The result would at this moment be much bigger than 500 lines, which wouldn't have any power of a short example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice work! This seems like it could be a fun weekend project.</comment>


Show HN: Helvetitee: Custom tee. No bullshit. (Our four-day startup) - <AUTHOR> http://helvetitee.com/tee/%23HackerNews <comment><USER2> So £25 (fairly expensive) for a t-shirt based on a fairly dead meme that is available in one colour and can have no other details? Apple fans are going to _love_ it.

In all serious, I'd be tempted if this was sub ten quid but for £25 you can get so so so much more for your money, and if you're willing to pay that for a white t-shirt with a word on it you have far too much money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point. We'll come up with a better price as everyone seems to agree it's too high.

<comment><USER3> How did you come up with the current price?

<comment><AUTHOR> We wanted to ensure we could post anywhere in the world and not lose money or have to charge extra. I think at this price orders will be slow though, so we've slashed it to $25 to see what happens. Should still make a profit unless the order is in very far-flung lands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really dig the simplicity of the process. I love that the entire top of the homepage not only shows exactly what you offer, but it is, essentially, your entire user-facing product. The price point is a little high compared to normal custom t-shirt offerings, but if you're offering higher quality shirts and a better user experience, then that isn't a bad thing.

A couple of suggestions:

1\. The person/model used for the primary image/ordering system looks _miserable_. "Look, you can get your own custom shirt, but it isn't going to make you happy" doesn't exactly seem like the message you're trying to send here! A smile would go a really long way. Also, the cropping around the hair makes it look a little less professional. I'm not a designer, and I'm sure it is difficult to get something like that perfect, but I think it is worth the effort given how prominent the photo is.

2\. The photos of the t-shirts themselves make the t-shirts look like they're low quality (specifically, really thin). I'm not a huge fan of white shirts in general, but I definitely don't want _any_ t-shirt that I can actively see through. Sure, your "gallery" model may be attractive, but it doesn't look very professional (nor does it speak highly of your shirts) if you can see her bra through the product.

3\. I feel like the "About, delivery & more" link should really link to the "About" section. I was a little confused when it jumped down the page and I was just staring at some random "suggestions" which, in my case, were not interesting. There's nothing wrong with the suggestions, I just don't think they should be more prominent than "About".

4\. I'm on a 27" thunderbolt display, and the marketing material in your bottom tabs is taking up less than half of the bottom of my screen when I am scrolled down as far as I can go. That's not the worst thing in the world, but I would rather scroll down than just change the bottom 40% of my screen when I click "tabs".

5\. I'd want more information about the product, the company, and possibly you before I order anything. If you're trying to sell quality, then a full page talking about how damn awesome your shirts are would go a long way to converting me to a customer. And after you sold me on the product itself, I still wouldn't feel safe ordering anything from an unestablished company with no business address, almost no information about the people behind it, and no contact means other than email/twitter.

All in all though, it is cool to see what you can accomplish in only four days. Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the really comprehensive feedback.

I actually agree with every point you raise. We've got a great deal to improve upon but like you say at the end, it has only been a quick project thus far.

I hope you'll take a look back (or follow one of us on twitter - @tomcavill / @helvetitee / @ccharlesworth) so you can see the site improve over the next few weeks.

Thanks again for taking the time to comment.

<comment><USER5> I think the site is pretty awesome but I had the same exact feeling about the price. If you're interested, I don't mind helping out with that.

We have an API that you can use to maximize profit over time. You send us order information, we build a pricing model, then you make calls out to the model to either update it with a new order or get a price.

For more info (we actually use tshirts as an example): <https://ventata.com/Ecommerce/Home> && <https://github.com/Ventata/API>

Send me an email and I'll give you an API key.

(Don't go through my normal site, you'll have to pay that way)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like that you included photos of the printed t-shirts, also I like that you're using a printer with no web presence so we can't go straight to the supplier, hah.

A cute idea that might help people to spread their shirts: If someone creates a shirt (let's say I'm miley cyrus and I make one for my fans, "I <3 @mileycyrus") and it gets x (5?) sales they get a free copy of the t-shirt. That would give users an incentive to share their creation with their Facebook friends and Twitter followers.

The way you described the t-shirts makes them sound quite appealing so I figure I'll order one, no idea what to put on it though... :( maybe "I just wanted a t-shirt".

oh also I assume "handmade in London" refers to the business; but with t-shirts it would read as if you're saying the t-shirts are handmade in London, which isn't true.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great idea, and something close to what we're thinking a few versions down the line. The free shirt after 5 purchases is very clever, and probably a better model than standard affiliate stuff.

I've changed the footer based on hearing this suggestion a couple of times :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are literally dozens of "make your own t-shirt" offerings online, most with a wider array of shirt colors and the ability to include your own graphics in addition to text, at a price comparable or cheaper than you are offering (cafepress.com, inktastic.com, etc). I've used these services myself and found them easy, not at all "cumbersome" as you state on helvetitee.com.

What value does your offering have in comparison to your competition?

<comment><AUTHOR> We view our simplicity as a benefit. Sure SpreadShirt and their ilk offer thousands of options, but when you _just_ want a message printed clearly on a tshirt, we provide a solution that you can take advantage of in seconds. It's very easy to make a pig's ear of your shirt with those other services. With Helvetitee, it's actually hard to make something ugly.

Your point on the pricing is fair, it's something we'll have to monitor and find out what people are comfortable with.

Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can't help but call out that the homepage uses a image ripped off America Apparel ([http://store.americanapparel.net/bb401.html?cid=198-313&...](http://store.americanapparel.net/bb401.html?cid=198-313&c=White)) and they sell Gildan shirts. Still, more of a side project than I've ever done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Guilty. We took a few shortcuts to get it done in our timeframe (4 days). We will of course be replacing this ASAP (we were originally going to use AA hence this image).

Just wanted to get the first version out there and pick up feedback.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, couldn't help myself ;) I really like how straightforward the UI/ordering process is. Very impressive for only 4 days work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like it. One comment though, I thought the "Type to edit your text" is a textbox. It's because I clicked somewhere in the website and the cursor focus is not in the shirt. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Changed the helper text, hopefully this fixes.

<comment><USER9> That might do the trick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a fail:

No XXL sizes in a store for hackers?!?

Nice design, though!

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, we will react to demand on that front.

Thanks re: design. Nice to hear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice. Very nice. The simplicity is extremely appealing. I'm going to jump on the "price too high" bandwagon as well. Unless you really need that price to cover costs and make any profit at all, I'm going to suggest that you can make _more_ money selling them for just a little less.

You're sitting right at that point where a slight ease in price is going to result in a significant increase in quantity sold. Unless your production capacity is constrained or you're already very near your break-even point on cost/price, charge less and sell more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. You're right. We've changed the price down to $25 based on so much feedback suggesting it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> For ~$40(USD) I want a much higher quality shirt than Gildan. That seems ridiculously over priced. With a quick Google search "Gildan's 100% cotton, ringspun, pre-shrunk sofstyle tshirts" (what the about page says you use), the shirts cost less than $3.00(USD) to buy in bulk.

 _Suggestion:_ Why not lower your profit margin a little bit (you have to be making at least $30+ USD on each order right now) to make it more affordable? I just imagine this could probably go much more viral at a more affordable price.

<comment><AUTHOR> All the feedback so far indicates our pricing is too high. That'll definitely be the first thing we'll fix.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the feedback so far. We've changed the price to $25 (formerly £25) as almost everyone said the price was too (damn) high. Margins will be cut significantly, but it was definitely too high before, and we'll still make a small profit with the new price.

We're probably going to put it up to $30 after the opening two weeks, so consider this an 'early adopter' discount...

Here's a humble suggestion for fellow HNers: <http://helevetitee.com/tee/Founder>

<comment><USER13> AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YOU ARE BRITISH; DON'T PRICE IN DOLLARS.

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll intro geo-based pricing asap :)

<comment><USER13> I know the GP wasn't very well reasoned, but it really frustrates me that British startups think it is ok it's OK to price in dollars. You are alienating your home market and Europe in order to sell to another. Tackle your home market first; if people in the US really want your product, they can put up with fluctuating prices and crappy exchange rates for once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was really hoping this was going to be a way to get a t-shirt that has the perfect cut and fit, which is difficult to do. I'd pay real money for a site that guided me on how to get accurate measurements of all the key areas which then enabled them to create perfect, custom-fit basic t-shirts in a wide variety of colors and styles. Heck.. even just white crew-necks.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think this site is going after a good initial target market: hackers. Making it dead fucking simple is a nice touch

BUT 25 British Pounds for a tshirt basically makes you ridiculously expensive to any American. Why would I pay $40 for a t-shirt ever? It doesn't matter how "hacker cool" it is :)

If you localized, you would significantly improve your prospects in the US.

</comment><comment><USER16> My input: more colours, and a better cut t-shirt. No one I know wears plain white round-neck cotton t-shirts.

How about something like this: [http://images.asos.com/inv/media/9/3/6/7/2477639/greymarl/im...](http://images.asos.com/inv/media/9/3/6/7/2477639/greymarl/image1xl.jpg)

Taken from here: [http://www.asos.com/ASOS/ASOS-V-Neck-T- Shirt/Prod/pgeproduct...](http://www.asos.com/ASOS/ASOS-V-Neck-T- Shirt/Prod/pgeproduct.aspx?iid=2477639&SearchQuery=asos%20v%20neck&Rf-800=-1,9&sh=0&pge=0&pgesize=20&sort=-1&clr=Greymarl)

If they can sell them for 6 quid, surely you could pick up something similar for just a few pounds.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I like v-necks too. It's definitely something we'll consider, but it has to balance with not having too many options (simplicity being the by-word for this project).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like the concept, but the photos make it look like the fabric is "less than stellar." Can you provide a hardy/hearty fabric that doesn't show the skin beneath the models? I created a rather expensive t-shirt here in Chicago and the fabric was pathetic....I felt sorry for my friend who was the recipient, even though my "logo" was clever. No one wants a t-shirt that shows the underlying chest hair or nipples of the people.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know the fabric does appear a little thin in the photos, but honestly, they're really high quality tees. We consulted with our printer and they assured us they are the best available at a reasonable price point. I think the see-throughness is exacerbated by the harsh flash from the camera. In reality they are a good weight and made from high quality cotton.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Liked it! Although the image of the model is horribly cut out, especially on the left of his head. Its the very first thing I saw and it screams "amateurish" at me. Not that the site as a whole is amateurish, just that bit! Also the photo looks washed out and a bit fuzzy. His expression is a bit bored and/or confrontational too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Accept that. It looks a damn sight better on a light background, but we changed it to dark gray hours before launch. The image will be replaced shortly so I'll sort out my cutting skills then ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Congrats to you guys. Loving the dead simple process and clean UI design. I will definitely put in an order for the support of hacker's spirit.

Btw, how do you plan to do marketing on this? (Besides posting it on Hacker News - which probably brought you a ton of traffic already)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, very kind.

We're going to try and utilise the fact you can 'create' a tshirt with just a link, i.e. <http://helvetitee.com/tee/foo-bar>. It's so quick to react to trends and happenings, or suggest a tee to someone based on their actions, that we feel the product can benefit from virality and p2p sharing. Plus a healthy mix of the usual Google ads etc.

<comment><USER20> That's an excellent idea. Love the simplicity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't see any value in this as a product. $25 for a shirt is incredibly expensive, especially printing is limited to text in one typeface on one side of one type of shirt. It's pricey and limited. I just don't see why I would want to use it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Random feedback: I tried removing the "type to edit your text" text and enter my text there.

Your model looks very negative in expression. Also you have some left-over glow around the head.

</comment><comment><USER23> Dynamic volume/quantity pricing would be cool.

Tees are light enough that whether I order 1 or 3 any increase in weight (and thus shipping costs) will be nominal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely on the roadmap

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The domain name needs some serious improvement. I think I'd need flashcards to remember how to spell it or even try to google it.

<comment> mark-r The site name implies Helvetica, but uses Arial in the examples. Anybody who knows the difference will never come back.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are using Helvetica Neue with Helvetica as a fall-back, and a Helvetica clone (Nimbus sans) after those two in the font stack. You'd have to have some funny configuration not to see Helvetica. What's your setup?

<comment><USER25> On a Windows box, Helvetica is aliased to Arial as true Helvetica is not installed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't realise that. Looking for ways to ensure that doesn't happen. Do you have any ideas?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good effort for making a bootstrap site not too bootstrappy. Also, how many people pronounce it Helv-Titty?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha. Maybe too many. We're not closed to the idea of changing the name if we think of a good one. Suggestions?

Thanks re: bootstrap.

<comment><USER24> shirts.io

<comment><AUTHOR> That's very cool. I wonder if .io domains are too geek-centric, though?

It's very memorable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It would be cool if they included Cooper Black for those of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s.

</comment><comment><USER28> It looks like they've already dropped the price from $45 to $25. Huge difference…

</comment><comment><USER29> $40 for a shirt with a word on it? That's bullshit.

I can have a custom Gildan shirt for $16:

<http://www.customizedgirl.com/category/menstops.htm></comment>


Advertising Will Be Squirted into Your Nostrils as You Sit in a Bus (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/the-future-of-advertising-will-be-squirted-into-your-nostrils-as-you-sit-on-a-bus/260283/ <comment><USER2> Sensory triggers have been used in many contexts. Mrs Field's Cookies used to pipe the smell of fresh chocolate chip cookies into the mall breezeway from the shop. French bakeries can be found by following your nose for a block or so. Natural gas and propane incorporate a trace amount of butadine as a warning. Laundry detergents and soaps often contain perfumes that people associate with cleanliness. Bad smells, for example, sewage odors, signal areas that should be avoided. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odor).

That portable odor generating devices tied to location using GPS are being used to promote commerce is not surprising. The Dunking Donut idea of reinforcing the odorant with a fragment of commercial jingle is right out of a Bollywood movie or a Gibson novel. Welcome to the 21st centrury.</comment>


Show HN: Short URLs and Better Image Processing for a Simpler QR Alternative - <AUTHOR> http://www.taglev.com <comment><USER2> I guess the reason we have QRs is because we are not yet there to determine what is the object in question. QR technology makes it easier by providing a unique tag for each object. So now when you see the QR code, your QR reader can access the look-up table to find what particular object it is.

The proposed technology is one step ahead of existing QR systems. But I guess the end goal to identify objects, and making a one to one association would be very cool. For Ex - when you want to identify people, you do not want them to come with QR code. Putting a name tag is something I will do to introduce myself in conferences so that people can recognize me from distance. But Ideally I would like that they recognize me by my face :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The main programmer here. For the technically curious, the ingredients of the image processing are OpenCV and CNNs(Convolutional neural nets).

On design aspects, we wrote a short post here: [http://blog.taglev.com/design- philosophy-behind-taglev/](http://blog.taglev.com/design-philosophy-behind- taglev/)

<comment><USER3> For CNN's are you using caffe?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not Caffe. We're using a light weight in-house library which compiles and runs easily on mobile devices too. The advantage is primarily in size as we don't need as many features as a full blown framework like Caffe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> QR has a lot of error correction built in which this solution doesn't offer. Also, you would need a central repository to hold all the tags as they are just references and not the final URLs themselves. But that might be OK considering all short URL services work the same way.

</comment><comment><USER5> The "hitler finds out about X" meme isn't played out yet? I was quite surprised to see that. Also I find the quote at the bottom in poor taste, especially with the exclamation point. But to each their own.

<comment><AUTHOR> A friend did say that about the quote. I wanted to get more opinions. Will have to take it down today then. Thanks for the feeddback though. :)</comment></comment>


Buy Congress' Browsing Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.gofundme.com/BuyCongressData <comment><USER2> I think this is a little premature until we know what exactly can be purchased and when. As of right now throwing money at this person seems like just giving him free money. 21k is a lot of money and this is the second gofundme like this that I've seen. Who is this person and is he trustworthy ?</comment>


Kik Messenger Insecure - mike-cardwell https://secure.grepular.com/Kik_Messenger_Insecure

<comment><AUTHOR> I love how Chrome tells me that this link is insecure (something wrong with SSL). Oh coincidences...

Besides that, I don't quite understand what separates this from any other IM platform..?

<comment><USER2> Well... secure.grepular.com uses an unsigned certificate, that makes most browser squeak.

It is important to understand that albeit it's not proper https, this is still an encrypted connection that will make eavesdropping impossible. Being signed by an actual authority is only necessary to ensure the website we're talking to is actually secure.grepular.com, and not a man-in-the-middle that would intercept our queries and forge answers. "Unfortunately", both ideas of security and authentication are part of https, and having one without the other is going to pop big scary messages.

This sort of https is _still_ more secure than plain http.

His point about transmitting the password in plain sight is a very good one. Firesheep showed how bad it is to transmit your cookies in plaintext, but sending your login/pass is even worse.

<comment><USER3> Making browsers squeak is a fundamental part of the SSL security model.

Invalidly signed HTTPS is only slightly more secure than HTTP. Let's look at the open WiFi scenario. If you login to ServiceX over HTTPS but ignore certificate warnings, I can just mount a man-in-the-middle attack and relay all your traffic to ServiceX. It's more involved than just sniffing your cookies, but its still quite practical.

The only place where ignoring certificates is OK is if you know that an attacker can _read_ your network, but cannot write anything to it.

<comment><USER4> Explain this to me, because one of us is misunderstanding https. As I understand it, the danger of a self-signed certificate is that you don't know if it was issued by the site owner. You don't get the certificate authority's trust by proxy, but if the certificate is genuine, it's as secure as any level 3 ssl certificate. The only thing a CA certificate is guaranteed to get you is the ca's rubber stamp that they issued it.

<comment><USER3> You said it yourself: "the danger of a self-signed certificate is that you don't know if it was issued by the site owner".

In the case of someone attacking you on WiFi, that self-signed certificate _wasn't_ issued by the site owner. It was issued by the attacker. If you happily ignore warnings, your browser will just setup a "secure" connection to the attacker. Then the attacker just creates another HTTPS connection to your actual destination, and proxies the content back and forth.

Now, if the attacker can only read packets, then yes, the actual encryption is still secure. But in many places where an attacker can sniff (WiFi, on your Ethernet), they can also inject.

There are lots of problems with CAs and the crappy verification that goes into most certificates. But having a CA cert for SSL still significantly raises the bar and limits the extent of an attack. (If one did get a signed cert for PayPal or Facebook, they couldn't just go and publish it in a program like Firesheep, as it'd get revoked pretty quickly.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find Kik could easily be the Blackberry killer app we've all been hoping for. The only real reason most Blackberry users don't switch to iOS or Android is Blackberry messenger. I hope they can get their security up to par.

<comment><USER6> What's Blackberry messenger? It isn't enabled on my Blackberry. (Nor is the camera, or text messages, or pairing with non-approved Bluetooth headsets, or the "app world", or ...)

The reason Blackberry users don't switch to iOS or Android is that their employer mandates Blackberry. I would much rather use my Android phone for work, but RIM's marketing worked, and I can't. (Think about how insecure our company's intellectual property would become if I could join a conference call with a headset that didn't have 128-bit encryption!)

<comment><USER5> Do you work for the government? I have to use a Blackberry because of business, but it's a pretty decent smartphone. I'd prefer it to an Android phone, though if I could I'd just get an iPhone. C'est la vie.

<comment><USER6> No, but Fortune 500, so almost the same thing.

The stuff that's locked down is not what bothers me about a Blackberry. It's the core functionality; the hardware keyboard is harder to use than a software keyboard (because there is no autocorrect), and "push email" is much slower than IMAP on my Android phone.

The worst feature is the keylock -- it doesn't work. Unlocking involves pressing a key, which is why the keylock exists anyway. The thing makes a ton of calls in my pocket, often to 911.

<comment><USER5> My experience is once again completely different. I kind of prefer the extra speed the hardware keyboard provides and my Blackberry does have auto-correct. Emails are pushed to my phone before both the browser or my email client notify me. I just sent an email to myself and I received the push notification almost instantly (around 5 seconds faster than both the browser and the client). On my phone, un-locking means either pressing a series of keys at the same time or pressing a hardware button on the top of the phone. I have never ever have had my phone miss dial or even been unlocked by mistake. It is easy to un-lock it when I really do want to though.

May I ask what model you are using? I'm currently using a 9700 and other than the fact that I miss a few apps I had on my iPhone, I actually do find this phone pretty good where smartphones are concerned.

<comment><USER6> The phone doesn't have the model number on it anywhere. It's a Bold from Verizon purchased a few months ago.

I blame Exchange for the slow push mail. It always takes forever to notify the desktop client of a new message. (But the Blackberry is still slower. I have often read and responded to a message before my Blackberry alerts me of "new mail".)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Encryption didn't make it into the MVP? :-)

</comment><comment><USER8> Can someone explain to what's so awesome about this app? When that other link hit the front page - I couldn't even tell what the hell the app was for. I guessed from the image that it was some kind of messaging app - but couldn't for the life of me find any information on that site that could tell me why I care.

And yet - a million people seem to have done better than I. Dubious...

<comment><USER9> Well, the "asynchronous" and sent-delivered-read notifications are cool, but what I'm really excited about is this:

"Here's where things get interesting. If it can build its community, Kik has a lot of new territory to cover if it wants to. It can layer on functionality as it sees fit. For example, it can let you take pictures, and show friends what you're seeing. It can then let you stream the music you're listening to, directly from your phone over your friend's phone. The same can be done for video. And it can be done over any device. While none of this is available right now with the app, Livingston demonstrated this advanced streaming technology to me, so it's clear he can turn it on at pretty much any time.

During the demo of all this, we sat hundreds of miles away from each other, but he was able to remotely take over the Chrome browser (with my permission, of course) on my MacBook. He then played music over it — all while remotely operating this from his phone. All I did was enter a code that he gave me so that my browser knew to pair with the phone and allow the stream. (A QR code can be used, too.)

It's pretty cool. _Basically, Kik's technology lets you wirelessly "sling" any content on your phone to any device running on any software. This hasn't been done before, as far as I know. Sure, AppleTV lets you stream iTunes content to the TV, but it's a closed garden. You can't run Apple content on other devices. Kik's technology allows you to stream pretty much any content on any device with a browser, whether it's a basic PC, or even a PS3, Wii or a Windows Media Center device._

It's heady to think of the future of this application. I can scan my surroundings with the camera on my Droid, Blackberry or iPhone with merely a cellular connection, and then stream it to my friend's phone. Or I can go to my friend's home and stream an HD move from my phone onto his TV."

from : [http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/03/kik-messenger-sees- explosi...](http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/03/kik-messenger-sees-explosive- start-a-mobile-chat-better-than-sms/)

It's also promised on their blog: [http://www.kik.com/blog/2010/11/zero-to-a- million-in-15-days...](http://www.kik.com/blog/2010/11/zero-to-a-million- in-15-days/)

<comment><USER10> _Basically, Kik's technology lets you wirelessly "sling" any content on your phone to any device running on any software._

That should have been on the home page. This "free real-time texting" thing makes no sense to me. Doesn't virtually everyone with a modern smartphone have free real-time texting?

But being able to stream live TV from my Media Center box to my phone would be cool.

<comment><USER11> > Doesn't virtually everyone with a modern smartphone have free real-time > texting?

At least in the US, the cell companies charge a pretty penny for text messages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "You should follow me on twitter" on super bold red. Always lame sounding.

<comment> mike-cardwell Yeah, my whole website design is shit. I've learnt a lot about web design recently though, especially from articles posted here on HN, and am currently redesigning it. Here's my current front page under development: <http://dev.grepular.com/>

</comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell I've explained the SSL situation here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1880051></comment>


Snapfinger lets you order food using your iPhone, may spell the end of waiters - <AUTHOR> http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/05/31/snapfinger-lets-you-order-food-using-your-iphone-and-may-soon-s/ <comment><USER2> Hyperbole like "May spell the end of ..." immediately makes me dismiss that which is being discussed, same as 'x killer'.

That said, I like this idea. I have speculated on using a Surface for the same purpose and I think - especially when I'm sitting at a table waiting for my bill or realize I just got my food but forgot to ask for whatever-it-was - that it would be extremely useful. But who is going to bring me my whatever- it-was? The chefs?

</comment><comment><USER3> Can you use it to pay by credit card and split bills in complicated ways? To me, that is by far the larger annoyance than menus and ordering from waitstaff.

</comment><comment><USER4> Theoretically, wouldn't this be good news for waiters? Creating a 'human touch' value at restaurants?

I schedule my banking around the tellers' hours to socialize, rather than use the ATM outside...

</comment><comment><USER5> Didn't the reddit guys originally want to develop an app like that?</comment>


Mach Loop - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_Loop <comment><USER2> I remember well driving along one of the roads and seeing two _very_ fast jets in the valley below me. Quite a sight, and even if it had been in these days of the ubiquitous "camera in the pocket" I would still have been too slow to video it.

They were gone in a load roar and instant.

</comment><comment><USER3> Any motorbikers in London interested in making a day trip out of this?</comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite code problems to give while interviewing? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER4> This is a great topic.

I like to split my interview to the following steps:

\- introduction, small talk about the company or the candidate \- level 1 write a function that flips a bit that is represented as a single digit integer: (0 -> 1, 1 -> 0) flip two variables (int) without a third one: (a,b -> b,a)

\- level 2 what is the runtime complexity of a nested loop (assuming n == m) lease write a function that returns the list of numbers (in a string representation) that are permutation of N digits, where digits are 0..9. (1 -> 0..9, 2 -> 00 01....98 99 etc.) please explain recursion

\- level 3 99% of the candidates do not make it to here I guess I should just make them flip that binary tree over the phone. :)

This is basics I think, so most of the software engineers should be able to solve these, even with a little hint.

On the top of these artificial tasks I usually ask them what is the biggest system they contributed code to, what was the contribution. What tools are they using. What is the favorite language and why. How do you to performance profiling for your code. What was the last problem that you solved in production, what was the problem and what is the solution.

And few others.

<comment><USER5> How do you flip two variable without a third one ?

<comment><USER6> Another way is to just use subtraction:

      x = x + y
      y = x - <USER3>
      x = x - <USER3>

I originally learned about this while preparing for some interviews.

The funny thing, I find, is that in Python you can simply do this:

      x, y = 5, 10
      x, y = y, x

I was asked this question in an interview and I responded that you can do this. His response: "Python is weird."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like to give some broken code and ask them to fix it...or give a Class that's missing a function or two and ask them to fill in what seems to be missing.

I tend to like those types of problems more than the "blank page" kind...I've found it to be a closer approximation of the everyday tasks they'll be encountering on the job.

<comment><USER8> This is my favorite as well. Sure you'll be joining to write code from scratch, but day-to-day, you'll most likely be reviewing other people's code, hunting down bugs in other people's code, and so forth.

I'm a huge fan of "What can you fix or improve upon in this given code snippet?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> i guess if i say invert a binary tree i will be hunted down?:D

<comment><AUTHOR> a good thing is that now probably everybody knows how to solve it ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The kind that they can solve at a computer with a real code editor.

</comment><comment><USER11> I like to describe a problem that we are currently experiencing or one that we had in the past to see the troubleshooting logic in play. I love explaining something that is not quite optimal in production and see if this person could help.</comment>


This is Why You Test Your Regular Expressions - <AUTHOR> http://xato.net/hacking/this-is-why-you-test-your-regular-expressions/

<comment><USER2> Couldn't read the article since the 'sharing' pane blocks the left ~15% of the text on mobile.

<comment><USER3> [http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fxato.net%2Fhack...](http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fxato.net%2Fhacking%2Fthis- is-why-you-test-your-regular-expressions%2F)

<comment><USER4> Cool service, should come in handy. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Regular expression or not; all code must be tested. Coding to check for ip addresses using /127./ is a wtf mistake IMO. It is not a case for 'testing regular expressions.'</comment>


Who spends more on books for their kids, Democrats or Republicans? - <AUTHOR> http://littleheroes.posterous.com/democrats-spend-more-money-on-books-for-their

<comment><USER2> Sometimes I wish there was a little bit more political diversity to HN...</comment>


Guile security vulnerability with listening on localhost and port - <AUTHOR> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-user/2016-10/msg00007.html <comment><USER2> Is this an issue with Guile, or is this an issue with browsers? It seems like allowing sites to query localhost is a vulnerability that could affect a wide variety of development tools. Maybe I'm not thinking of some use case, but it seems to me that we would only ever want requests to localhost to come from local sources, no?

<comment><USER3> Dropbox and Github both use it to talk to their installed desktop clients from the website. It's very useful as it by just installing an app, a website can get more access to the local machine's hardware without having to resort to browser-specific plugins.

In our case, we're using it to read data from a barcode scanner to use it on a web application. All a user needs to do is to install the application an once that's done it works in all browsers.

<comment><USER4> Can any websites talk to these apps? I've built a similar one (a decade ago now), but we at least had the benefit of only running on a closed network.

<comment><USER3> Potentially, yes. In our case we're doing a bit of additional work to prevent this from happening though. Other sites would get access to the built-in web server, but they wouldn't get anything apart from a 403 error.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The same issue was discussed on here recently:

[http://bouk.co/blog/hacking-developers/](http://bouk.co/blog/hacking- developers/)

I think we're only scratching the surface on the number of vulnerabilities exposed.

<comment><USER5> I don't think this is the same vulnerability. You don't even need to rebind DNS to do it, I believe: just make an XmlHTTPRequest. Your GET is considered code. The browser will get back a request that doesn't have a cors header and so not let you read it, but your code still executes. So there's no reason to be on the same origin, so DNS rebinding is unnecessary

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is actually a vulnerability in any language that provides a networked REPL.

I'm glad that Guile kept the option to run a REPL via a port, because that's really useful for debugging nonlocal servers (investigating production issues, etc.).

<comment><USER7> It does look like there's a way to "forward" a unix domain socket over ssh enough to do that kind of debugging:

[https://debian-administration.org/users/dkg/weblog/68](https://debian- administration.org/users/dkg/weblog/68)

<comment><USER6> That's certainly a potential solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The browsers should consider detecting when an adress in DNS changes from non- local to localhost and blocking requests when this occurs.

<comment><USER9> Not the browsers, the dns library. Protect any application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > the presumption that "localhost" is only accessible by local users

Why is there even a presumption that all local users are equally trusted?

<comment><USER4> Someone logged in to the machine likely has enough access to make this attack irrelevant.

<comment><USER11> Even HN has enough access to your machine. Your browser is showing you this page, the page may contain javascript (probably does, feh), and the javascript can retrieve [http://localhost:43278/this/that](http://localhost:43278/this/that).

<comment><USER12> That doesn't even require JavaScript, does it? Just `<img src="[http://localhost..."/>`](http://localhost..."/>`).

<comment><USER11> I suppose you're right.

Although for the good stuff you want POST. With POST and an error-tolerant SMTP server you can send mail, I imagine other kinds of servers might be equally accommodating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds very similar to the emergency patch issued for Android Studio and IntelliJ IDEA back in May, [https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2016/05/11/security- update-f...](https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2016/05/11/security-update-for- intellij-based-ides-v2016-1-and-older-versions/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Clojure should pick up on this too.

<comment><USER15> There is [https://github.com/monsanto/nreplds](https://github.com/monsanto/nreplds) but it requires some native code, and obviously isn't a solution for those on Windows. I'm not sure how vulnerable nRepl is to http attacks as I don't think either of its default transports would accept or filter out http commands.

<comment><USER14> I'm not so sure, certainly one of the two socket protocols is vulnerable (the "tty" one) judging by what the regular repl does with '' GET /%20(println"hello") HTTP/1.0 '' and it's somewhat likely that you could get through the bencode transport too.</comment></comment></comment>


Obama lists his favorite books of 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6oYKxAgCn7/ <comment><USER2> There's a page two that's not accessible on instagram that has earlier books: [https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1211033245812441091?s...](https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1211033245812441091?s=20)

There he recommended Exhalation/Ted Chiang -- my favorite of the year

</comment><comment><USER3> List plain text (from [https://www.latimes.com/entertainment- arts/books/story/2019-...](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment- arts/books/story/2019-12-28/barack-obama-favorite-books-2019))

        "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power," by Shoshana Zuboff
        "The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company," by William Dalrymple
        "Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee," by Casey Cep
        "Girl, Woman, Other," by Bernardine Evaristo (Booker Prize winner)
        "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present," by David Treuer
        "How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy," by Jenny Odell
        "Lost Children Archive," by Valeria Luiselli
        "Lot: Stories," by Bryan Washington
        "Normal People," by Sally Rooney
        "The Orphan Master's Son," by Adam Johnson
        "The Yellow House," by Sarah M. Broom (National Book Award winner, nonfiction)
        "Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland," by Patrick Radden Keefe
        "Solitary," by Albert Woodfox
        "The Topeka School," by Ben Lerner
        "Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion," by Jia Tolentino
        "Trust Exercise," by Susan Choi (National Book Award winner, fiction)
        "We Live in Water: Stories," by Jess Walter

<comment><USER4> Please don't use code blocks for quoting text. Due to side-scrolling, it's difficult to read in narrow windows, particularly on mobile devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1\. _The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power,_ by Shoshana Zuboff

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/age-of-surveillance- capitalis...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/age-of-surveillance-capitalism- the-fight-for-a-human-future-at-the-new-frontier-of-power/oclc/1121142538)

2\. _The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company,_ by William Dalrymple

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/anarchy-the-relentless- rise-o...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/anarchy-the-relentless-rise-of-the- east-india-company/oclc/1128195130)

3\. _Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee,_ by Casey Cep

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/furious-hours-murder-fraud- an...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/furious-hours-murder-fraud-and-the-last- trial-of-harper-lee/oclc/1110448869)

4\. _Girl, Woman, Other,_ by Bernardine Evaristo (Booker Prize winner)

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/girl-woman- other/oclc/1127909...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/girl-woman- other/oclc/1127909792)

5\. _The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present,_ by David Treuer

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/heartbeat-of-wounded-knee- nat...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/heartbeat-of-wounded-knee-native- america-from-1890-to-the-present/oclc/1108751718)

6\. _How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy,_ by Jenny Odell

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/how-to-do-nothing- resisting-t...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/how-to-do-nothing-resisting- the-attention-economy/oclc/1130765325)

7\. _Lost Children Archive,_ by Valeria Luiselli

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/lost-children- archive/oclc/11...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/lost-children- archive/oclc/1111703725)

8\. _Lot: Stories,_ by Bryan Washington

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/lot- stories/oclc/1128099233](https://www.worldcat.org/title/lot- stories/oclc/1128099233)

9\. _Normal People,_ by Sally Rooney

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/normal- people/oclc/1119769689](https://www.worldcat.org/title/normal- people/oclc/1119769689)

10\. _The Orphan Master's Son,_ by Adam Johnson

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/orphan-masters-son-a- novel/oc...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/orphan-masters-son-a- novel/oclc/777134695)

11\. _The Yellow House,_ by Sarah M. Broom (National Book Award winner, nonfiction)

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/yellow- house/oclc/1122461200](https://www.worldcat.org/title/yellow- house/oclc/1122461200)

12\. _Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland,_ by Patrick Radden Keefe

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/say-nothing-a-true-story- of-m...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/say-nothing-a-true-story-of-murder- and-memory-in-northern-ireland/oclc/1088724018)

13\. _Solitary,_ by Albert Woodfox

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/solitary/oclc/1105720325](https://www.worldcat.org/title/solitary/oclc/1105720325)

14\. _The Topeka School,_ by Ben Lerner

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/topeka- school/oclc/1126252713](https://www.worldcat.org/title/topeka- school/oclc/1126252713)

15\. _Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion,_ by Jia Tolentino

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/trick-mirror-reflections- on-s...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/trick-mirror-reflections-on-self- delusion/oclc/1117453514)

16\. _Trust Exercise,_ by Susan Choi (National Book Award winner, fiction)

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/trust- exercise/oclc/111435376...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/trust- exercise/oclc/1114353765)

17\. _We Live in Water: Stories,_ by Jess Walter

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/we-live-in-water- stories/oclc...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/we-live-in-water- stories/oclc/885023342)

(ProTip: don't use HN code blocks for quoted text.)</comment>


Wine-tasting: it's junk science - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis <comment><USER2> If wine-tasting were anything else, we'd recognize it as quackery immediately. The made-up vocabulary, un-testable results, self-motivated promotion of certain wines, corporate sponsorship and exaggerated claims wouldn't pass if it were a car, or a drug, or even a detergent.</comment>


What Makes People Engage with Math – Grant Sanderson [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_L-fp8gDzY <comment><USER2> I love Grant Sanderson's YT channel. His video on Fourier transforms is amazing.</comment>


Fact Checking the Claim of 97% Consensus on Anthropogenic Climate Change - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2016/12/14/fact-checking-the-97-consensus-on-anthropogenic-climate-change/ <comment><USER2> tl;dr: A guy who works in the oil industry throws a bunch of survey numbers up in an effort to spread uncertainty about the cause of climate change, even then can't do better than claim it's "only" an 80% consensus.</comment>


The man who deactivated Trump's Twitter account has revealed himself - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/29/16717668/trump-twitter-account-deactivation-bahtiyar-duysak <comment><USER2> I'd like to see the Whitehouse start their own Masterdon server, specifically for any Senator or Congressperson who wants to create an account.</comment>


Analyse Asia 52: The Vietnam Startup Ecosystem with Anh-Minh Do - <AUTHOR> http://analyse.asia/2015/08/15/episode-52-the-vietnam-startup-ecosystem-with-anh-minh-do/ <comment><AUTHOR> Synopsis: Anh-Minh Do from Tech In Asia joined us for a discussion on all things start-up and venture capital in Vietnam. We discussed the current local major players within the ecosystem, the top three venture firms and the important people who you must get to know in Vietnam. We also discussed the most interesting startups that are emerging and the interesting connection between Vietnam and Silicon Valley. Last but not least, we dug deep into why the Vietnamese startups are still experiencing a valuation gap below US$300M.</comment>


How Teletext and Ceefax are coming back from the dead - <AUTHOR> http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/how-teletext-and-ceefax-are-coming-back-from-the-dead-1326145 <comment><USER2> Teletext is still available here in The Netherlands, the public broadcaster [1] and some of the commercial channels still have teletext pages. If you have an internet connection (which 96% of the households in the Netherlands [2] have) there's absolutely no point in using it as the same (and more) information is available on their websites, but it's still an important source of information for the elders.

[1] [http://nos.nl/teletekst](http://nos.nl/teletekst)

[2] [https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2015/11/9-in-10-people- access-...](https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2015/11/9-in-10-people-access-the- internet-every-day)

<comment><USER3> I'm sick to the back teeth of getting news from web pages, because there's about 1 kilobyte of text I want to read and megabyte upon megabyte of other crap from logos to tracking cookies to ads that I don't give a shit about. IT's not so uncommon to tap on a news story on my phone and find it takes longer to load than it did to read.

It's ridiculously inefficient from the point of the news consumer, which is logical since the news consumer is basically the product in a transaction between content delivery firms and advertisers. New news has always been supported by advertising, but it's gone past the point of absurdity into being economically unsustainable. The western social order is clearly on the verge of a breakdown, not least because public trust of the media is at a nadir and so large segments of the population have abandoned truth-seeking as a component of their media experience and drifted more and more towards validation. This is going to end badly.

<comment><USER4> I am smiling across my front teeth, so rare is it that I read

> I'm sick to the back teeth

Thank you for keeping this colloquialism in circulation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Last weekend at Assembly[0] there was a teletext entry in the wild compo[1][2]

I know people who use one of the various ios apps to watch the local public broadcasting teletext (teksti-tv), because it is a fast and easy way to look at the news, with descriptive titles without clickbaits :) Web versions of course available too[3]

[0] [http://www.assembly.org](http://www.assembly.org) [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_To2TwIrWqQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_To2TwIrWqQ) [2] [http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=67927](http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=67927) [3] [http://www.yle.fi/tekstitv/html/P100_01.html](http://www.yle.fi/tekstitv/html/P100_01.html)

<comment> david-given The BBC Micro, one of the most popular 8-bit micros in the UK, contained a teletext decoder chip, the Mullard SAA5050. (There was an addon available that would let you display Ceefax pages displayed over the air with it; for a while they even broadcast programs using the Ceefax system, which you could download.)

It was mainly used as a cheap and cheerful display mode, as it consumed a mere 1kB of video memory and got you fast, colourful, chunky graphics, and at the same time gave an entire generation detailed knowledge of the innards of the teletext system:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqzkGkIrbd8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqzkGkIrbd8)

It was a pig to program for: it was (mostly) just a simple 40x25 array of bytes, one for each character. Special effects were done by using command bytes, which showed up (mostly) as a space. So, to change the foreground colour to red, you used a 129 byte. But that used up a character. Getting good effects took skill. Notice the way in that game the colours are separated by line? That's because there'll be two control bytes at the beginning of each line, one to set the colour and one to set block graphics mode, and the visible portion occupies the other 38 characters...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Teletext is still alive in many parts of Europe. The Austrian broadcaster still has a service and they have an online interface for it: [http://teletext.orf.at/](http://teletext.orf.at/)

<comment><USER7> Teletext found its niche.

The Austrian broadcaster ORF even released an TELETEXT app (!) this year [1], available for Android [2] and iOS [3].

An then there is also art, as with every "old" tech. Check out the International Teletext Art Festival [4].

[1] [http://futurezone.at/apps/orf-teletext-app-fuer-ios-und- andr...](http://futurezone.at/apps/orf-teletext-app-fuer-ios-und-android- gestartet/184.680.818) [2] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.orf.teletex...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.orf.teletext) [3] [https://itunes.apple.com/at/app/orf- teletext/id1063231874](https://itunes.apple.com/at/app/orf- teletext/id1063231874)

[4] [http://www.teletextart.com](http://www.teletextart.com)

<comment><USER8> Dutch teletekst has had one for years. Strange, actually, that each country is releasing its own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is the epitome of the famous Mark E. Smith quote "the finest of British attention to the wrong detail." I admire the level of geekiness involved in recovering Teletext from old VHS tapes.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm waiting for the announcement that Gopher[1] is coming back from the dead!

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_\(protocol\))

</comment><comment><USER11> I use the swiss teletext app daily, it's the fastest way for me to consume informations and sport results.

<comment><USER12> Also works without the app: [http://m.txt.ch](http://m.txt.ch)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I live in the U.S.. Why did I never know about this and why was it not more popular here? Is it totally gone now that analog signals are gone?

And now reading how it's popular in other countries, it makes me so angry!

<comment><USER14> I live in the US and I've never heard of any of this either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have just three digits: 302

<comment><USER16> Which teletext service?

<comment><USER17> From memory, that's the BBC football page.

It's either the main page or the latest scores 'vide-printer' style service.

[hums MOTD theme to himself].

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ha I used to work with Peter from the article at MRG Systems, who were a primary supplier of teletext equipment to broadcasters:

[http://www.mrgsystems.co.uk/about- us/historyskills.php](http://www.mrgsystems.co.uk/about-us/historyskills.php)

[https://www.kitplus.com/FORSALE/Audio/Other/MRG_Systems/DTP_...](https://www.kitplus.com/FORSALE/Audio/Other/MRG_Systems/DTP_900/133320.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> Interesting article but somewhat misleading

<comment><USER20> Please explain why it is misleading.

<comment><USER21> What would you think of an article titled "Steam locomotives are coming back from the deads" when someone restore an old locomotive in his garage?

<comment><USER22> Slightly OT, but a group in the UK actually recently built a steam locomotive and operate it fairly regularly[0], so steam is kinda back from the dead…

[0][https://www.a1steam.com](https://www.a1steam.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Teletext still works in Italy on digital tv. By heart: 103 latest news, 110 news index, 201 football index, 202 serie A results and 203 leaderboard. 295-298 results and leaderboard of major European leagues, 261 other sports index. If I have the tv switched on it's faster than my tablet.

</comment><comment><USER24> The mother uses it all the time to get the latest Lotto numbers.

</comment><comment><USER25> "poor mans internet" they said.

<comment><USER26> Perhaps, according to the Europeans in this thread, also the "busy man's internet"?

It sounds like there's less fluff, trash, and noise to wade through.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Don't do a google image search for "teletext". About 1.5 pages down is a goatce in teletext. Ick!</comment>


Why local state is a fundamental primitive in stream processing - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2014/07/why-local-state-is-a-fundamental-primitive-in-stream-processing.html

<comment><USER2> (I read also [http://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log- what...](http://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log-what-every- software-engineer-should-know-about-real-time-datas-unifying)).

I wish to solve the problem of sync data from mobile to a master database, and is about invoices, orders and that kind of data. Here, is necessary to preserve the order of the data actions. The data must return back to each client, and the clients could be offline from time to time. In some cases for a couple of days. I have total control on the solution, so I could move to any direction, but my only hard requirement is that the data in the client is on sqlite.

I struggle to build a reliable solution, but I understand that a log based could be a good idea. Wonder what way could lead me closer to the solution?

<comment><USER3> So you need to _process_ your events linearly, but you don't need to _store_ them linearly.

Here's a way you could achieve this:

\- keep sqlite

\- use Pouchdb on top of it to sync your data to your server, typically Couchdb

\- Since you know the order of events, tag each of them with an application- level sequence number

\- On your server, when you receive an event, check all events that happened before, in order. For each event, if it has not been processed, process it

<comment><USER2> But I need to duplicate the data to pouch, then move it to couch.

My question is how do the sync myself. How build the log so it be usefull to this task? To be clear, how is the algorithm for this? Any hint or open source example?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Shameless plug: at WebAction we have an enterprise-grade (exactly once processing, scalable, built-in streaming data integration) SQL-based streaming platform. It's clear real-time analytics is headed in this direction and we have some interesting problems to solve.

If anyone is interested in chatting about it, feel free to email me firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER5> Is anyone using Samza outside of LinkedIn? I've been interested in it for a while, and I'd love to hear your experiences.</comment>


Ask HN: Good Java development tools? - <AUTHOR>

At work, a new hire introduced us to Powermock. It's an amazing tool that allows you to write really pure unit test. It made me think what other great tools are we missing? <comment><USER2> IntelliJ IDEA

</comment><comment><USER3> Eclipse</comment>


Massive power outage in San Diego - <AUTHOR> http://www.fox5sandiego.com/news/kswb-massive-power-outage-hits-county-20110908,0,6894078.story

<comment><USER2> Standing in a line at the airport. It's a near standstill

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another update: outage could extend until tomorrow in some areas

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> update from SDG&E: an event happened between AZ and CA, both major connections for the region have been lost.</comment>


AMD Collaborates with Microsoft to Advance Open Source Cloud Hardware - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/amd-collaborates-with-microsoft-to-advance-open-source-cloud-hardware-2201579.htm <comment><AUTHOR>
      Microsoft's Project Olympus platform design to incorporate the upcoming high-performance "Naples" x86 server processor

On top of the nice features of Naples outlined by hn user "throwawayish" [0] maybe also a response to Intel giving Google and Facebook a few months earlier access to Skylake-E?

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13812406](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13812406)</comment>