T-Mobile's Binge on Violates Key Net Neutrality Principles [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/downloads/vanSchewick-2016-Binge-On-Report.pdf <comment><USER2> This is how net neutrality dies, if we're not careful. As a T-Mobile customer I browse /r/tmobile every now and then. It's an odd place, full of "fans" of T-Mobile (a concept I can't wrap my head around - users literally have flairs of "bleeding magenta"!), and the net neutrality debate there is fascinating. In short, many think this is not a net neutrality violation because any service can be accepted as part of "Binge On" if they apply to it. It is not anti-competitive, thus, not a net neutrality violation.

Thing is, they're not wrong, per se. Because there isn't an actual accepted definition for "net neutrality". For me, it's strict - the carrier is carrying bits and bytes, and doesn't know/care what they are. For others, it is an anti-competition stance.

Here's the problem: "Binge On" is great, in theory. Unlimited video! Even as a die-hard net neutrality supporter, next time I'm staying in a hotel with expensive wi-fi, I could load up Netflix on my phone and Chromecast it to the TV. Awesome. What's the net neutrality counter argument that is equally as enticing to customers? It's a tough sell.

<comment><USER3> > This is how net neutrality dies, if we're not careful.

Net neutrality has been dead for a long time. Honestly it was never a reality, and always more of an ideal. Transit agreements for CDNs and asymmetric peering arrangements have been commonplace since the mid-90s.

> For me, it's strict - the carrier is carrying bits and bytes, and doesn't > know/care what they are.

I think a lot of people on the Internet also share this belief, but it is incompatible with the way residential broadband connections are currently priced and sold. Residential broadband uses a lot of traffic management tricks to deliver high-performance last-mile access -- and those traffic management tricks drive down operating costs dramatically to the point where it's possible to have a $60/mo broadband plan.

At least T-Mobile is being transparent here: they're using a network management trick to allow them to offer unlimited data to their customers at a lower cost. Consumer last-mile access is all about making these kinds of compromises, and at least T-Mobile is giving its customers a choice to opt-in to a network management scheme rather than just using a hard cap.

If you want totally net-neutral Internet access, it is available to you in the form of a commercial broadband connection (fiber / metro ethernet). It's also a lot more expensive because the ISPs can't oversubscribe their infrastructure in the same way and still meet their SLAs -- but those customers are paying for a higher level of service.

<comment><USER4> > Transit agreements for CDNs and asymmetric peering arrangements have been > commonplace since the mid-90s.

Neither CDNs nor peering have anything to do with net neutrality. What point are you trying to make?

It's entirely another matter that some ISPs use their market power to be rent seekers, but that's an entirely different issue and not directly related to net neutrality.

> Residential broadband uses a lot of traffic management tricks to deliver > high-performance last-mile access

I sure would like to hear about them tricks. Statistical multiplexing and oversubscription aren't exactly novel concepts. Or did you have something else in mind?

> At least T-Mobile is being transparent here: they're using a network > management trick to allow them to offer unlimited data to their customers at > a lower cost.

It's not a network management trick, it's just a novel marketing trick to blow smoke up their customers' arse. If T-Mobile can deliver unlimited data for video streaming then they can deliver unlimited data for all content types.

<comment><USER3> > Statistical multiplexing and oversubscription aren't exactly novel concepts. > Or did you have something else in mind?

They're not novel concepts, but they're hard to pull off at scale. There's no technological "magic pill" here - it's just a lot of continuous improvement on infrastructure. Oversubscription makes it possible to have a 150 mbps connection for under $300/mo. Oversubscription also makes some assumptions in order to make the statistical multiplexing work, and one of those assumptions is a certain level of concurrency and bandwidth usage.

Also, keep in mind that one of the ISPs most effective bandwidth management tricks is psychological: if they make you think that data is a limited resource, people will treat it like one and use less of it. Even if they don't end up charging you, the mere rumor that your ISP might charge you more if you go over is enough to get people to at least consider the amount of data they use.

> If T-Mobile can deliver unlimited data for video streaming then they can > deliver unlimited data for all content types.

Because other content types aren't the problem: video is. Video is 70-80% of consumer Internet traffic (sorry, no source that I can share). T-Mobile can only offer unlimited video because they are taking something that accounts for 3/4 of their last-mile traffic and slashing the bitrate by 50%. They're not saying what video you can or can't watch, nor are they changing the content of the videos.

And video is only problematic because it needs to sit in multiple "buckets" at once. Generally network traffic is optimized for high throughput or low latency, but video needs a bit of both.

<comment><USER4> > They're not novel concepts, but they're hard to pull off at scale.

Citation needed. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proofs.

In fact statistical multiplexing and oversubscription are easier to do the more scale you have. The problems occur at the lower end of the spectrum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The problem for Net Neutrality advocates is that T-Mobile's customers don't care one bit. They love the fact that they don't have to pay for streaming video and that they pay less for video on non-supported services. It is even causing customers of other carriers to ask their carriers to not be net neutral so that they can save money. This is one case where net neutrality is not anti-consumer or anti-competitive and it is hurting the net neutrality case to make such a big deal about it.

<comment><USER2> _This is one case where net neutrality is not anti-consumer or anti- competitive and it is hurting the net neutrality case to make such a big deal about it._

I disagree. What if I want to use my phone connection to remote desktop into servers a lot? I don't get a BingeOn allowance for that. Why not?

<comment><USER6> T-mobile won't give you the BingOn allowance for this. If they lose in court, you will still need to pay for this and for videos.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I know. But my point is why should I penalized as a "remote desktop user", when a "video user" is not?

<comment><USER7> You're not being penalized. You're simply not being granted an advantage of zero rated traffic because you're using network traffic (an encrypted remote desktop session) that can't be managed in the same way video traffic can be.

Not all bits are created equally.

<comment><USER2> _You 're not being penalized. You're simply not being granted an advantage_

But is there a meaningful difference there?

 _Not all bits are created equally._

That notion is literally the core of the Net Neutrality debate.

\---

EDIT: I replied to another post which someone deleted before I could submit. So an elaboration on my point above:

At the end of the day, it's all marketing.

Remote desktop being the "standard rate" and Video being free isn't meaningfully different from Video being the "standard rate" and remote desktop being "standard rate * 1.5". It's just how it's being sold to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The fundamental problem here is lack of real competition. If the transport market was not dominated by just a few players, it would not be necessary to use regulation to try and enforce someone's definition of net neutrality. What I want to see is the gov't step in and break up the providers and maintain the last mile network as a public utility. Wireless isn't exactly the same as a wired network, obviously, but wireless bandwidth isn't unlimited either.

</comment><comment><USER9> Real question: does the fact that you can disable it ameliorate the situation at all? They are not forcing their customers out of freedom. I always assumed there would be customized services that sacrificed freedom for cost—so long as it is not the only feasible option, I don't see a problem here.

<comment><USER10> Net Neutrality was never about __just __the customers / consumers. The argument has been made fairly frequently saying Net Neutrality is good for consumers (and it is, in the long run), but it is much more than that.

It also allows small companies to compete freely instead of favoring large incumbent companies. Imagine a world in which Hulu came out first and was zero rated but Netflix was just trying to gain customers. Which service do you think the consumers would be using ?

This is exactly what is happening now, except Netflix, spotify and other services are the large incumbents. Anything new is being penalized because they don't have the customers or voice.

<comment><USER9> > Anything new is being penalized because they don't have the customers or > voice.

This is only on the burst option, though. This is just as much in the consumer's hands as it is the business's. This is precisely why I disabled it—I don't want to have to consider a brand's political standing with T-Mobile to figure out what kind of service I get.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> t-mobile does the same with spotify in germany. really bad for competing services.

<comment><USER7> Competing services can apply to be included in the program based on technical specifications (limit your bitrate, clearly identify the traffic as video).

<comment><USER12> Sure, in theory, but in practice we're seeing big companies like Amazon Music, Google Play Videos, Youtube not being able to move on just T-Mobile.

Complexity also increases as each ISP gets to choose their own rules.

Besides, I, as a consumer want to be able to use Amazon Prime Music / Video at 0, whether Amazon wants to take the time to set it up or not.

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately, as a consumer, you don't have the technical resources to integrate your video provider with T-Mobile for them to support BingeOn. Your options are to wait, or move to another cellular provider (which doesn't, of course, have BingeOn).

That is why BingeOn is offered. T-Mobile receives a network efficiency benefit, which they pass along to their users as unlimited video. Just because the user complains they want something, doesn't mean they get it.

As always, the customer is not always right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's free shipping. I know people don't like to hear this. The market for mobile "shippers" is more competitive than that in the physical world, in fact.

The analogy is not perfect, but if one objects to this then one objects to Amazon or vendors offering free shipping, which is a benefit that puts them ahead of competitors, and (might) lead the consumer to include it in their decision-making.

This also shows the tension between neutrality advocacy and consumer benefit. In a PR sense, it's very hard to win, when most consumers only see the benefit. (I happen to side with consumers on this.)

<comment><USER4> Imagine if only Fedex got to decide who got free shipping?

<comment><USER14> Fedex probably does charge different prices to different shippers.

Which I think for the purposes of the comparison you are making is the same thing (that is, Fedex _does_ make exclusive deals that are advantageous to Fedex).

<comment><USER4> Different prices, sure. Free shipping, not so much.

<comment><USER14> Doesn't the exclusivity matter more than the free?

<comment><USER4> No. If Fedex won't deal with you then you can always go to UPS.

Free is the kingmaker. If Fedex is free, you will do whatever it takes to get on their "good boy" list. You cannot afford to pay for shipping if your competitors are getting it for free.

<comment><USER14> _will do whatever it takes to get on their "good boy" list_

That isn't true. If Fedex charges good boys $0 and everyone else $10, everyone else will only bother with the good boy list if it will save them the $10 per item.

<comment><USER4> You kind of made my point there. This pricing structure will deter anybody from competing in the market that cannot absorb the cost of making it onto the good boy list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I appreciate that the paper does discuss AT&T, Verizon and Comcast also offering zero rating but only in the case that content is provided by AT&T, Verizon or Comcast.

</comment><comment><USER16> Down vote all you want, but let's be honest. We here are nerds. We know the fundamentals of how the Internet works.

And cost occurs somewhere. This ain't all for free. There are electricity bills to pay, bandwidth with 3rd parties to pay for, and blades to physically source.

Video on demand is damn resource intensive. This isn't about delivering bytes which UTF-16 decoded speak about about a government. This isn't about delivering bytes which primarily educate. this is about Netflix n' Chill. It's about watching Modern Family on the commute home, and consumers loving it.

A lot of the cost for this love, especially in mobile, is paid for by the ISPs. They have to physically deliver this traffic to your device via nodes for $19.99 a month. And damn them if a loading spinner appears. "My Internets rubbish...I'm gonna switch to Acme Internet...they have free Netflix streaming."

So let's not lose focus: all software we write is for the end consumer...we need to create great, appreciated experiences for our users, otherwise they just unsubscribe.

T-Mobile is doing just that. This isn't a philisophical debate. It's about providing end users what they want. And they want Netflix on their mobile without costing them more. And lambasting T-Mobile for doing such is missing the entire constitution of the Internet.

Let them eat cake!

<comment><USER17> No, it's about me being able to get the content of my choice at the same rate as the big boys. If I want to watch a programming live stream (I'm not much for modern family.), I should be able to do it at the same cost as any other bits over the air. Here, producers that that pay T-mobile will have an advantage. In ten years, we'll be boxed back into the same tired old content like we are with cable television. No thanks.

<comment><USER18> And if you opt out of BingeOn, you have exactly that.

<comment><USER17> Except they'll make it cost prohibitive to stream anything but those that pay the fee to T-Moble by artificially increasing the price for data.

<comment><USER18> That seems to me like _that_ would be the time to be outraged.

As near as I can tell, this seems like the #3 or 4 mobile carrier looking for a reason to make themselves appear better to a market segment than the #1 or #2 carriers. Jacking up prices seems antithetical to that mission.

I understand what people want out of net neutrality and all that, but I personally think that the outrage should be saved for things that are outrageous. Giving things away for free, even if there are ulterior motives attached, doesn't seem to rise to that level, in my opinion.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


WellDeserved: A Marketplace for Privilege - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoK4_dQbfuU

<comment><USER2> Wow this is amazing.

Our business plan is that vcs will just give us money. Because this is San Francisco, and we have an idea.</comment>


Show HN: Identity management with end-to-end encryption - <AUTHOR> https://tozny.com/tozid <comment><USER2> I can't tell what the offering is here. Is this an sso platform? Or alternative to saml for my app?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is an SSO platform with authentication based on client side cryptography that enables end-to-end encryption for applications. It supports SAML clients like other SSO platforms.</comment></comment>


The Life Changing Linguistics of Nigerian Scam Emails - <AUTHOR> https://daily.jstor.org/the-life-changing-linguistics-of-nigerian-scam-emails/ <comment><USER2> We often hear the theory that 419 emails are deliberately written in broken, preposterously florid prose.

("These are warning signs that helpfully remove most people who are savvy enough to escape the trap".)

I do wonder whether this is true, or if academics are over intellectualising the methods behind this scam.</comment>


Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf006cb4-316e-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html?postshare=7401465918761361 <comment><USER2> Would be curious to know how frequently the US hacks into Russia's systems. That US (and UK) hacked Belgium's national telecom to listen to EU communications, and planted bugs and breached the systems of the two EU representations in the US (likely to gain insights on the European Commission's TTIP negotiating strategies), Stuxnet, or the ongoing rumours about oddly targeted antennas at the US embassy in Berlin, are well known, but i never heard of an acknowledged/alleged US hack into Russian systems.

</comment><comment><USER3> Previous discussion of same article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11902682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11902682)</comment>


Ask HN: idea to transform static website into realtime automagically?  - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
what do you think about idea for startup to create  tool of transforming any given static website to became realtime website automagically? I mean that after adding one code line to HTML code user does not have to reload the page to get updated content. This tool could do it automagically. What do you think about this idea?
Best, Wiktor <comment><USER3> campaignmonitor.com somewhat does this with uploaded email templates; allowing html elements that are marked with specific id's or classes to become editable.

At the least, for something like this to work, id's or classes would have to be marked out so a script could go looking for them and replace the contents.

Not a bad idea but now your asking your user to embed these tags into their existing static pages; if I have to edit my static pages just to use your tool, why not update the contents while I'm there and bypass your tool?

On the other hand, if your asking, you've probably thought about this and have an idea(s) that are not being conveyed in your question. If you think its a worth while venture - go for it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Not a bad idea but now your asking your user to embed these tags into their existing static pages; if I have to edit my static pages just to use your tool, why not update the contents while I'm there and bypass your tool?

Maybe I was misunderstood, I am talking about changing content of the site in realtime if it was updated in time. That is why there have to be some server which is reading all the time content of given page and if there is some change then notifies given user. It would be tool for public pages - <USER2> sites, rankings etc.</comment></comment>


CouchDB 2.0 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.couchdb.org/2016/09/20/2-0/ <comment><USER2> Yet another product blog that doesn't manage to prominently link to the product.

If you want to make my life a tiny bit easier:

\- blog.<project>.org needs a link to <project>.org because half of you visitors want to read the "it" before they read the "news".

\- github.com/<you>/<Transmogrifier>For<ThatProject> should have a link to <ThatProject> in the description or the readme's first paragraph. I often come across interesting plugins without knowing anything about projects' they are for.

(and yes, I know there are actual problems in the world. But these are easy to solve)

<comment><USER3> Why is this the top post

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR

\- Clustering [https://blog.couchdb.org/2016/08/01/couchdb-2-0-architecture...](https://blog.couchdb.org/2016/08/01/couchdb-2-0-architecture/)

\- New Query Language [https://blog.couchdb.org/2016/08/03/feature-mango- query/](https://blog.couchdb.org/2016/08/03/feature-mango-query/)

\- New Admin Interface (written in React) [https://blog.couchdb.org/2016/07/27/fauxton-the-new- couchdb-...](https://blog.couchdb.org/2016/07/27/fauxton-the-new-couchdb- dashboard/)

<comment><USER4> Also, 2.0 is the unification of BigCouch (Cloudant's work) with the old single node CouchDB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As an low-profile developer who's been using CouchDB for a long time, some weeks ago I've written some quick personal opinions on what CouchDB has become: [http://fiatjaf.on.flowi.es/about- couchdb/](http://fiatjaf.on.flowi.es/about-couchdb/)

<comment><USER6> My thoughts exactly. I'm not sure who CouchDB is supposed to be for anymore. The original developers who fell in love with it are moving on. Who is the audience for 2.0? Who does IBM hope to reach with Cloudant?

BTW, you are spot on about continuous replication. Try using continuous replication on Cloudant and you will end up with a fat bill.

<comment><USER7> There are a lot of use cases, particularly around multi-region/DC master- master replication, where CouchDB/Cloudant is a great fit. IBM also offers MongoDB, RethinkDB, Postgres as managed services and the MVCC/conflict model in Couch is still a standout feature. The other use case I see a lot of is offline-capable apps backed by Couch replication-compatible datastores (PouchDB, Cloudant Sync, Couchbase Lite).

Cloudant recently changed its pricing structure [1] (via IBM Bluemix) which should significantly reduce the cost of continuous replication - that may be worth a look if the current model is problematic.

[1] [https://developer.ibm.com/bluemix/2016/07/26/cloudant- public...](https://developer.ibm.com/bluemix/2016/07/26/cloudant-public- improved-pricing-model/)

<comment><USER6> Interesting, this came out in July and Cloudant still hasn't updated their pricing structure on their site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sad to _not_ see Jepsen tests ran on this at least by the developers when releasing a new clustering piece.

The folks working on cockroachdb recently did this[1] and it was a good read.

[1] [https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/diy-jepsen-testing- cockro...](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/diy-jepsen-testing-cockroachdb/)

<comment><USER9> CouchDB is eventually consistent and does not guarantee consistency. Would a Jepsen test make sense?

<comment><USER8> Yes. Eventual consistent doesn't mean inconsistent, but eventually it will be. That means under a network partition (P of th CAP Theorem) things should converge after the network converges. This is precisely the type of semantic that Aphyr wrote Jepsen for. See his testing of Cassandra (eventually consistent) or the CockroachDB team (eventually consistent) or Risk (eventually consistent) running Jespsen to prove things work as expected.

<comment><USER8> And by Risk I meant Riak but didn't notice it in time to edit the comment (sorry).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Congrats to the CouchDB team! I remember playing around with writing a NodeJS driver for it all the way back in 2011. Sadly, I decided to use and make a driver for MongoDB instead simply because it was easier at the time. Despite that choice, I have always admired CouchDB for pushing the frontiers on stuff like Offline-First with PouchDB way ahead of its time (and also what inspired me a little bit for our Open Source Firebase alternative [http://gun.js.org/](http://gun.js.org/) ).

I am particularly really excited to see the announcement of the Mango query language, since querying Couch was one of lesser-easy things to do back then. I'm also very excited to hear about performance improvements, as this has been particularly interesting to me as I've been tracking various system's performance as I have worked on our own (Mongo with Wired Tiger, Cassandra, Redis, and even Chrome V8 engine as we have built towards 30M+ ops/sec, see [https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/100000-ops-sec-in- IE6-on-2...](https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/100000-ops-sec-in-IE6-on-2GB- Atom-CPU) ). However clicking through on the performance links didn't lead to any numbers or benchmarks. I would love to see that!

Really happy that Couch is on the homepage of Hacker News. I really feel like they made lots of correct decisions that got passed over by the NoSQL craze, and have lately not been receiving the type of attention as it should compared to (what I biasly think) unfavorable but hyped up Master-Slave systems. People should really check into Couch's Master-Master replication!

</comment><comment><USER11> Just installed it on FreeBSD 10.3.

Fetched and unpacked the source tarball, then did mostly what the INSTALL.Unix.md said to do;

      sudo pkg install erlang icu spidermonkey185 gmake gcc curl help2man py27-sphinx

      ./configure

      gmake release

      sudo pw useradd couchdb -u 5984 -c "CouchDB Administrator" -L daemon -s /usr/local/bin/bash

      sudo cp -R rel/couchdb /home/couchdb

      sudo chown -R couchdb:couchdb /home/couchdb

      sudo find /home/couchdb -type d -exec chmod 0770 {} \;

      sudo find /home/couchdb/etc/ -type f -exec chmod 0644 {} \;

Note how I set the uid to 5984 ;)

Unfortunately, when I try to actually run it...

      sudo -i -u couchdb ~couchdb/bin/couchdb

...I'm just getting messages like:

      [error] 2016-09-20T23:57:55.321596Z couchdb@localhost emulator </comment><comment>--
      Error in process <0.547.0> on node couchdb@localhost with exit value:

      {database_does_not_exist,[{mem3_shards,load_shards_from_db,"_users",
      [{file,"src/mem3_shards.erl"},{line,327}]},{mem3_shards,load_shards_from_disk,1,
      [{file,"src/mem3_shards.erl"},{line,315}]},{mem3_shards,load_shards_from_disk,2,
      [{file,"src/mem3_shards.erl"},{line,331}]},{mem3_shards,for_docid,3,
      [{file,"src/mem3_shards.erl"},{line,87}]},{fabric_doc_open,go,3,
      [{file,"src/fabric_doc_open.erl"},{line,38}]},
      {chttpd_auth_cache,ensure_auth_ddoc_exists,2,
      [{file,"src/chttpd_auth_cache.erl"},{line,187}]},
      {chttpd_auth_cache,listen_for_changes,1,
      [{file,"src/chttpd_auth_cache.erl"},{line,134}]}]}

      [notice] 2016-09-20T23:57:55.321650Z couchdb@localhost <0.323.0> </comment><comment>--
      chttpd_auth_cache changes listener died database_does_not_exist at
      mem3_shards:load_shards_from_db/6(line:327) <= mem3_shards:load_shards_from_disk/1(line:315) <=
      mem3_shards:load_shards_from_disk/2(line:331) <= mem3_shards:for_docid/3(line:87) <=
      fabric_doc_open:go/3(line:38) <= chttpd_auth_cache:ensure_auth_ddoc_exists/2(line:187) <=
      chttpd_auth_cache:listen_for_changes/1(line:134)

<comment><USER12> The new clustered instance doesn't autocreate the system tables. It used to do this in 1.x, but no longer does.

You'll have to create these tables:

* _global_changes

* _metadata

* _replicator

* _users

It's a bit of a pain!

<comment><USER13> The admin interface has a convenient "Setup" menu point that does all this for you :)

<comment><USER11> Thank you both. I assumed that the messages indicated critical error which would mean that CouchDB was not in a running state but indeed the system is running and the admin interface is reachable at 127.0.0.1:5984/_utils/ where the setup can be completed.

<comment><USER13> It didn't make the cut for 2.0.0, but we definitely should have a nice message there on the command line. Sorry about that! :)

<comment><USER11> No worries. Deciding it was time to play with CouchDB once again, I just spent the last few hours moving a little side-project I'm working on over from PostgreSQL to CouchDB 2.0. I liked CouchDB last time I tried it but then forgot about it for a while, and aside from that little bit of confusion, CouchDB 2.0 has held up to your motto -- "time to relax!".

Well, "moving over" might be a slight exaggeration seeing as how my little project is in such early inception that all I had prior to switching it over to CouchDB 2.0 was a few SQL-files defining the schema of various tables, as well as a couple of other SQL-files with queries to run and a bit of sample data. But anyway, the point still stands that said little project is now using CouchDB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A fews things I wanted out of CouchDB years back: \- faster bulk indexing \- space reduction, I think a simple couchdb to psql json was 1/10th of size \- ES6 or even ES5 - * its been a few years since I last looked but I remember you had to tread carefully - Object.keys maybe was one?

When I started with CouchDB it wrong choice for so many reasons, client had <30gb of data, couchdb was cooler than node.js, and I was frustrated with SQL Server. In hindsight sticking with SQL Server or Postgresql would of been better - older/wiser today.

<comment><USER13> > \- faster bulk indexing

With clustering you now get that. By way of "oversharding" even on a single node. Speed up is linear with number of shards / CPUs

> \- space reduction,

2.0 has the better compaction format. There are still ways to improve, but we are getting there.

> \- ES6 or even ES5

Our custom wrapper around Spidermonkey 185 is getting long in the tooth. It didn't make it into 2.0, but we are well aware that this needs updating.

Anyway, sounds like we got there in the end ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love Couch and I feel totally relaxed. What are people building with it?

A spiffy log package was the first thing I thought of and indeed that's one idea listed on this page: [http://docs.couchdb.org/en/2.0.0/intro/why.html](http://docs.couchdb.org/en/2.0.0/intro/why.html)

But I think the "logging" case is hard to argue vs. "manually" grepping (or ag-ing using the silver searcher) over in-place log files and aggregating/rendering dashboards via static files.

<comment><USER16> I used it to store user-uploaded images in a photo contest website years ago. It was a happy medium between storing images directly on the filesystem or as a blob/binary in a relational database. The image requests were AJAX, so I could include the clients screen dimension in the request. My app would resize on the fly if necessary, store resized image to CouchDB, and redirect the image request to CouchDB, which was publicly readable.

Another good use case I had was for JSONP request for an auto-complete input field on a webpage. Again, the database was publicly readable.

I have also used it to aggregate data for graphs. The data changed daily, so the ability to cache the results of a view until the data changed was nice. But the first request of data each day still took a while. I don't think I got a performance boost in this case, but I did get free caching.

All my other uses of CouchDB were mostly for fun and could've been implemented in traditional SQL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I bought the first edition of an O'Reilly book called _CouchDB: The Definitive Guide_ a few years back.

Looking at the online draft version of the book, the tour chapter [0] still has version 0.10.1 in the example.

I wonder if there will be a second edition of the book covering mango, clustering and the new admin interface.

[0]: [http://guide.couchdb.org/draft/tour.html](http://guide.couchdb.org/draft/tour.html)

<comment><USER6> That was a great book that got me into CouchDB. I think the original authors of that book, primarily Damien Katz and J. Chris Anderson, left for Couchbase. Today's CouchDB has different motives than the one that book was written for. Couch Apps are no longer the killer feature.

<comment><USER13> The book definitely needs an update.

Just a heads up, Damien didn't work on that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm actually really excited for this. There seem to be a lot of new, interesting, and useful features, and I'm already a huge fan of the couch model.

</comment><comment><USER18> > The second major feature is the declarative query language "Mango".

Nice name :-)

<comment><USER19> I wonder if the design is based on some of the solid research that went into MangoDB[0].

[0]: [https://github.com/dcramer/mangodb](https://github.com/dcramer/mangodb)

<comment><AUTHOR> They wrote something about it being the old codename for the cloudant query language on which they based it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The UI looks pretty awesome. Kind of see the RethinkDB influence in shipping with a web admin, and it's great that where things are heading.

<comment><USER21> Couch did it first!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So, as a CouchDB 1.x user, where to go next? CouchDB 2.x or Couchbase?

<comment><USER23> CouchDB 2.0 is a direct descendant of CouchDB 1.x. The API is 99% compatible, same community working on it, you can replicate between them and so on.

I haven't used Couchbase, but I understand besides the "Couch" prefix and that CouchDB's original author working there for a few years, it doesn't have much in common with CouchDB project.

<comment><USER22> Well Couchbase Lite is largely compatible as far as I can attest. Not sure how it is with Couchbase proper, but I was under the assumption that it is API compatible to CBL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So its taken about 3 years to get from the alpha to release .. meh!

Whilst I really like couch I'm just not convinced on using it in production due to its glacial pace.

</comment><comment><USER25> Good to see v2.0 took them quite long but hey better late then never.

</comment><comment><USER26> The first thing I think upon hearing CouchDB is "perform like a pr0n star"...

</comment><comment><USER27> I remember CouchDB when it was initially released, it was one of the most promising and innovative DB's around. It's a shame it didn't live up to the hype.

<comment><USER28> I wouldn't say that it didn't live up to the hype. I think it just has a steeper learning curve than a lot of other NoSQL databases and is often overlooked.

MongoDB makes a lot of sense to folks already familiar with relational databases. Collections are like tables, documents are like rows, and it's easy to use document IDs to establish relations and perform queries like you would in a relational database. There are a lot of problems with using it like a RDBMS, but still a developer with zero knowledge of MongoDB can become productive with it very quickly.

When learning CouchDB, the first WTF moment is when you realize there are no tables and that all the documents regardless of the type of data they contain go in the same place. Eventually you learn that you can add a type field to the documents to distinguish between them, which does feel hackish. The next WTF moment is when you want to query the data and realize you have to use map- reduce to do what would seem trivial in any other database. The early version of the admin tool definitely didn't make this easy since it required writing a JavaScript function and escaping it so that it could be stored as a single- line JSON string. It also didn't help that the map-reduce code was stored in special documents that used magical document IDs to distinguish them from other documents, which again feels hackish but makes sense eventually.

That said, I am a big fan of CouchDB, and I hope that with the query language and new UI in 2.0 that CouchDB will earn the respect it deserves.

<comment><USER27> Yeah MongoDB kind of dumbed down whole 'rethinking db' attempt. Compared to how much attention and developers others much simpler db's got, CouchDB definitely didn't get as much as it should and could.

I am looking forward to see new features for sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Useless abandonware.</comment>


If Chinese were Phonetic - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/16/if-chinese-were-phonetic <comment><USER2> This is essentially why the Korean language was invented. They originally used Chinese characters and wanted to increase literacy.</comment>


Business Microloans for U.S. Subprime Borrowers [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2436956_code999292.pdf?abstractid=2157707&mirid=1

<comment><USER2> I work for a technology company in this industry, and its really cool to see this on the front page. There are some really interesting technical problems in figuring out the credit algorithms for loaning to small business owners. Banks don't have the incentive to care about $10,000 loans, but it makes a huge difference (as seen in the paper above and our own data) to these businesses.

Its definitely an example of an industry where technology is "disrupting" hard. Loans which used to take 2-12 weeks to be approved can be approved by a computer in literally minutes, and the number of businesses that can be approved efficiently is drastically higher.

</comment><comment><USER3> Credit rating by computers already is too prevalent. Who is a machine to decide if one is credit-worthy? In most banks, you can't pitch your idea like e.g. a startup founder can with angel investors because bank regulations say "computer-only decisions here".

Have a bad mark (e.g. you were in jail for pot in your youth) and don't get a credit for the rest of your life. This is the brave new world of full automation.

edit: also, this introduces a total lack of accountability and basic rights: "when the regulations say that I am only allowed to accept new tenants when they pass the computer check, I cannot give you a home. Even if I like you personally, you have 100K+ income, and that pot jail sentence is 20+ years past - but the computer says no because you are black and a drug offender". Just think about the scenario. It is totally possible today if you feed the computer with the wrong data.

<comment><USER4> This is what regulation is for.

<comment><USER3> Regulation? Are you serious? Just look at the European financial markets.

The ECB pumps billions of euros into the banks in order to incentivize credit flow to businesses. What do the banks do? Computers tell them that providing credit to businesses and consumers is too risky, banks listen to computers and banks invest in stuff with more risk than playing poker in a casino.

Regulation does not work in finance - because banks continue to evade regulation as good as they can.

<comment><USER5> This is why the ECB just went negative on interest rates; to make it more costly to hold onto the funds than it is to lend it out.

<comment><USER3> So what, the cash will still flow where the return chances are higher. And consumer/business credit is far, far below the return rates of speculation and derivatives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This paper seems to be all over the place, including subprime mortgage lending, commercial lending and pay day loans, really to no seeming point. Then they conflate small businesses with startups. All to reach the conclusion that firms who obtain credit are more likely to succeed.

There probably is a very good kernel of analysis in there, but this paper really needs to be tightened up.

</comment><comment><USER7> any ideas on what company it is that they're working with?

<comment><USER8> It says Accion

<comment><USER9> [https://www.fundastic.com/business- loans/accion](https://www.fundastic.com/business-loans/accion) They are pushing their online loan application hard. Their rate is a lot cheaper than Kabbage, OnDeck and Merchant Cash Advances providers.

<comment><USER8> I see your team made Fundtastic. It's a great site.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A stack-based pure functional language for touch devices - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pschanely/wildflower-touch <comment><USER2> Before I comment, I'll just express how insanely cool this is. Mobile programming environments suck right now and this is a step in the right direction. Good proof of concept.

Excuse me if this is implemented and just not in the README:

It would be super awesome if there was a type inference engine that fed into the UI to increase productivity.

For example, if I start to define a function that returns an int, when I go to write out the definition, it suggests functions to me that return ints.

Suppose I pick a function "string_length" which takes strings and returns ints. Now I continue the composition, so it suggests functions (either built- ins or user-defined) which return strings.

Suppose I pick "bool_to_string" which takes a bool and returns strings. Then to finish off the function I pick from a list of bool-returning functions, say I pick "xor".

So now with a few keypresses I have defined a function that, in C, would look like:

        int foo(bool x, bool y) {
            return string_length(bool_to_string(x ^ y));
        }

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! Typing is a BIG question here and I think some form of static analysis is going to be a critical piece of the puzzle. Completely dynamic menus I think can make users have to think too much, but it could work if you have static menus that pop up based on type (for instance, I just hit bool_to_string, so I'm already getting ready for the string-based menu that I know is going to come next...)

<comment><USER3> I'm working on a statically typed concatenative (stack-based functional) language called Kitten, and it's one of the eventual goals to use type information to enable better editing environments, including on touch devices as seen here. The language is still a research project at this point, but it might be something you'd like to keep an eye on.

[https://github.com/evincarofautumn/kitten](https://github.com/evincarofautumn/kitten)

<comment><AUTHOR> I had no idea this many people cared about this sort of thing! I'll totally follow along. I think there's something real in all this; we just need the right combination of ideas, and perhaps the will to collaborate.

<comment><USER3> Statically typed concatenative programming may be at the point that lazy functional programming was a few years ago. As valuable as separate research and hobby projects are, at some point we should probably put our heads together and collaborate on a single vision.

I'm more than willing to lead the effort if there's enough interest—but as it is, it seems like those most interested in seeing it happen are those least interested in actually helping. So I just keep working on Kitten.

Factor is an impressive piece of engineering, and for those who like dynamic typing, I'd strongly encourage people to use it, and see how useful a dynamic and reflective programming environment can be. It's just not the language I want to build.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My first thought was, "How does this compare to Swift?" But this is totally different: you want to create useful programs _on_ the touchscreen device.

It's purely functional and stack-based. This is a clever approach to the UI problem - how to program when you can't typeLongWords? Answer: use the stack! I expect the act of writing programs will feel a lot like using an old programmable calculator.

Really excited to see how this progresses!

PS: How do I run that demo locally?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! The title could be better. While researching this, I found an amusing comment: "Reverse Polish notation is so last century" That's probably true. Still, I think it's a fun project. If you're interested in this sort of thing, I also recommend checking out the programming languages "Joy" and "Pure". I find both really interesting.

I'll add official build info tonight, but it's a cordova app, so: (also be aware most things are buggy or simply not implemented right now)

# make sure you have npm, gulp, & cordova

$ cd client

$ npm install

$ gulp app

$ cd ../mobile

$ cordova platform add android (or ios!)

$ cordova run android (or ios!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Holy shit that is a fantastic way to do mobile UX. Radials for each thumb? Fucking brilliant. I could imagine this could also make a great keyboard layout for certain domains

2\. I would flip out even more if this UI was available for more mainstream functional languages like Haskell or Clojure. Do libraries break the process? I don't think they have to.

<comment><AUTHOR> :) Thanks! I don't really understand why radial menus aren't all over the place, frankly. I think there is a ton of room to adapt popular languages to mobile (and would love it if this inspires someone to do that!) Here, I'm more trying to figure out what the upper bound is for how efficient it could possibly be. So, (1) avoid naming things and (2) be super minimalistic in your primitives. For instance, I was wondering whether I should even have a sum() function. Perhaps not. Perhaps lambda-plus-reduce becomes the way you "spell" the word sum. I haven't convinced myself on that point, but I think it's fun to consider.

<comment><USER6> In High School I read through a lot of Don Hopkins' blog on Pie Menus ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_menu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_menu)) and also wonder why they continue to be infrequent in usage. The interesting thing is that apparently on Don's watch the proliferated somewhat in NextStep, but never quite made the leap to OS X Cocoa (and subsequently iOS), which seems interesting. Maybe there's an AU out there where OS X and iOS are heavily radial menu driven.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for reading my blog and mentioning it! ;)

I wrote an article for InfoVis.net about "Why pie menus aren't ubiquitous?" [1] in 2003, but since they still aren't ubiquitous, it's good to keep asking that question.

[1] [http://www.infovis.net/printMag.php?num=125&lang=2](http://www.infovis.net/printMag.php?num=125&lang=2)

They may not be everywhere, but they've turned up many places, including games like The Sims, and tools like the Grasshopper visual programming language for Rhino 3d.

Some NeXT Step applications may have implemented pie menus, but I tried unsuccessfully to convince Steve Jobs to make them an official part of the NeXT Step GUI.

On October 25 1988, I gave Steve Jobs a demo of pie menus, NeWS, UniPress Emacs and HyperTIES at the Educom conference in Washington DC. His reaction was to jump up and down, point at the screen, and yell "That sucks! That sucks! Wow, that's neat! That sucks!"

I tried explaining how we'd performed an experiment proving pie menus were faster than linear menus, but he insisted the liner menus in NeXT Step were the best possible menus ever.

But who was I to rain on his parade, two weeks after the first release of NeXT Step 0.8? (Up to that time, it was the most hyped piece of vaporware ever, and doubters were wearing t-shirts saying "NeVR Step"!)

In the mean time I've been developing pie menus for many different applications and platforms:

Here's an implementation of pie menus I wrote for jQuery: [https://github.com/SimHacker/jquery-pie](https://github.com/SimHacker/jquery- pie)

And some documentations and thoughts on the design: [http://www.donhopkins.com/mediawiki/index.php/JQuery_Pie_Men...](http://www.donhopkins.com/mediawiki/index.php/JQuery_Pie_Menus)

The Sims, Pie Menus, Edith Editing, and Simantics Visual Programming Demo.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-exdu4ETscs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-exdu4ETscs)

This is a demonstration of the pie menus, architectural editing tools, and Edith visual programming tools that I developed for The Sims with Will Wright at Maxis and Electronic Arts.

Unity3D Pie Menu Demo.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMN1LQ7qx9g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMN1LQ7qx9g)

I've made a general purpose pie menu component in C# for Unity3D, which supports text items, image items, and 3d object items too!

I will make it available as free open source software on the Unity3D app store!

Here's a silly demo, showing a set of SimCity pie menus: [http://www.donhopkins.com/home/PieMenuDemo/PieMenuDemo.html](http://www.donhopkins.com/home/PieMenuDemo/PieMenuDemo.html) (If you don't have the Unity3D browser plug-in installed, it should show you a link to install it.)

They have a full set of useful notifiers so you can tightly integrate them with your application to give rich feedback during tracking (for example, modifying the 3D menu items, or previewing the effect of the menu item and distance parameter in real time, making them more like "direct manipulation").

For example, to show how you can implement feedback like The Sims pie menus with the head in the center that looks at the selected item, I've made a 3d object in the pie menu center with the webcam texture on it, so YOUR head is in the center of the menu, looking at the selected item! (That's why the demo asks for permission to use the webcam.)

The pie menu and each item has a title as well as a description. One feature I've added is the ability not only to disable an item, but also to provide an explanation of why the item is disabled! (PacMan in the demo is disabled, for example.) I wish other menus and widgets would do that -- it's frustrating when you can find an item you want, but can't figure out why it's disabled!

Another nice thing about them is that you can either configure algorithmically with an API, or with JSON data (which makes it easy to make dynamic data driven menus downloaded from a server or database), or construct them in the Unity3D editor out of objects (which makes it easier for artists to design them)!

I've made a custom Unity3D editor that lets you edit the properties, drag and drop textures and objects, edit and rearrange the items, and has some convenience commands, so you can place the 3D item objects in a circle in the 3D world, and call a command that figures out which item is in which direction by their position, and tidies them up. (That is much easier than arranging their order in a linear list of items.)

I'm going to play around with more in-world editing features, to make them easier for artists to design them.

Source code: [http://www.donhopkins.com/home/PieMenuDemo/PieMenuDemo.zip](http://www.donhopkins.com/home/PieMenuDemo/PieMenuDemo.zip)

MediaGraph Music Navigation with Pie Menus Prototype developed for Will Wright's Stupid Fun Club: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KfeHNIXYUc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KfeHNIXYUc)

This is a demo of a user interface research prototype that I developed for Will Wright at the Stupid Fun Club. It includes pie menus, an editable map of music interconnected with roads, and cellular automata.

It uses one kind of nested hierarchical pie menu to build and edit another kind of geographic networked pie menu.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> V-2 Very interesting, but it could be explained better. I have to admit that I didn't really get it until I read some comments here.

<comment><AUTHOR> It could use a lot more explanation! Or, at least, something more than zero. I appreciate you taking the time to reason it out in spite of that. For the moment, I'm just collecting some preliminary feedback. I owe you some real docs once I get to an alpha, plus interest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice work! I have been playing around with touch programming concepts for a while but did not yet dare to show any to the world. Let this stimulate me in that and hope others will follow. Even if just for fun.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, exactly! Get on those concepts! Or, let me know what you're thinking, and we'll team up :)</comment></comment>


Appeals Court Upholds New Trial for Subject of 'Serial' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/appeals-court-upholds-new-trial-for-subject-of-serial?cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-tictoc&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_content=tictoc&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> Much like the Steven Avery case, this case was poorly prosecuted and defended. The case the State brought was unlikely that what actually happened. In the Steve Avery case there was a healthy dose of the police 'enhancing / fabricating' evidence and witness tampering, here it was mostly witness tampering and prosecutorial and defense 'issues'.

If you believe Adnan is guilty - he goes free because of poor prosecution and defense; If you believe Adnan is not guilty - he spend years in jail for a crime he didn't commit - because of poor prosecution and defense.

:(

<comment><USER3> What was poor about it? All my research into the case show that the prosecution was fairly above board and comprehensive. Syed had motive, means, and opportunity. There was physical evidence, a pattern of Syed lying to police and a confessing accomplice who had information the police didn't.

Real tragedy in this case how the justice system can be so easily manipulated by the media.

<comment><USER4> There was no physical evidence in the case.

<comment><USER3> Syed's fingerprints were in the victim's car, no other suspects were.

<comment><USER4> His fingerprints were on a map in her car. He was her boyfriend, so it's no surprise that some of his fingerprints would be there. It has no actual connection to anything related to the murder.

I spent some time looking into this case as well and came to the conclusion that there is simply not enough information to definitively conclude anything, and that people seem too eager to take several leaps of faith to assume he's guilty. He very well may be, but it isn't close to being proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Every piece of evidence used to convict him is sketchy in some way.

<comment><USER3> The mind can always come up with an innocent explanation if it wants to see that. He had been an ex-boyfriend for nearly a month, and no other suspects had fingerprints in the car.

Not sure how you believe people are too eager to see him as guilty when the only reason anyone knows about him is a campaign to free him.

<comment><USER4> I don't think he's innocent, I think there's not enough info, and people are being intellectually lazy in proclaiming him guilty. It's a common and dangerous trend in the US and I think it's one of the reasons why so many innocent people are wrongly convicted.

It is absolutely ridiculous to claim the fingerprints have significance. Fingerprints on a weapon, or her clothes, or even the trunk or door handles are evidence. Fingerprints on a map are meaningless when he had probably been in her car dozens of times before as her boyfriend.

<comment><USER3> I think it is equally intellectually lazy to throw up your hands and claim solipsism in a murder case, particularly when there is a lot of compelling evidence.

The real significance of the finger prints isn't that Syed's were there, but that they were there and no other suspects were. Someone with murderous intent was in that car, and the evidence shows that Syed was at least recently in car while all other suspects have no evidence that they were.

<comment><USER5> What's intellectually lazy is that you're clearly approaching this from the assumption that Syed is guilty and demanding proof that he isn't.

The American system is founded on the exact opposite principle: the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Syed is guilty. Syed doesn't even have to show that he is innocent, just that the State can't prove his guilt.

In the case of the fingerprints, as many other posters have pointed out, he was the victim's boyfriend and so had been in her car many times. The presence of his fingerprints in her care is therefore neither surprising nor evidence of guilt. It just shows that at some point he was in her car, which already know was true many times.

It's not for Syed to explain away the fingerprints, it's for the State to explain how it proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed the murder. Despite your numerous erroneous assertions to the contrary, the evidence presented by the State is extremely weak and circumstantial, and testimony of their key witness demonstrated to be extremely unreliable.

Not to mention your assumption that it MUST be one of the listed suspects, and since their fingerprints weren't there it must be Syed. It's possible the killer was an unknown person. It's possible one of the other suspects wore gloves or some other protection against fingerprints. It's also possible Syed was the killer, but the fingerprints being in the car are not in any way proof of that because, as noted above, their presence is to be expected.

Yours is precisely the kind of mindset the entire system is set up to avoid. Thankfully people who actually know the law and have gone over the evidence haven't approached this question with your attitude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Jay knew where the car was.

<comment><USER7> Do we know that?

One of the many eye-opening things in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH_nP8pX4Fg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH_nP8pX4Fg) is that during a long questioning session the police will often introduce facts about the case to see if you recognize them, then forget that they did so, then hours later ask a different question and your knowledge of the facts that you were previously told BY THE POLICE is now evidence against you.

This happens frequently enough that I would want to know that an independent third party reviewed tapes of all questioning of Jay before concluding that he in fact had previous independent knowledge of any fact about the crime.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, like the child sexual abuse trials of the 80's. The children were fed facts that were later presented as information in the trial obtained from the children.

I do think this is the central question the retrial should deal with.

<comment><USER7> Children in particular are very suggestible. We had to learn how to question them without eliciting the response that we are priming them for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How do articles like this pertain to Hacker News?

<comment><USER10> This case involves two things that are very interesting for this audience:

1) Cell phone data was used as evidence to convict him. It later came out that at the time it wasn't that accurate and that the prosecution misled the jury about it (perhaps based on the prosecution not understanding the data either). Also of interest was how much trouble the judge, prosecutors and jury had with making sense of this data. Cell phone location data is way better today, but when this kind of data first became available -- much like DNA evidence -- juries have trouble making sense of it.

2) This trial is also interesting from a DNA evidence perspective. A lot of people feel that DNA evidence makes a case ope and shut, but everyone involved with this case was purported to be friends. So, what does some small amount of DNA evidence mean in a case like this?

I find this trial is also interesting as we look at data from home AI speakers. I get the sense that we may have a few trials like this coming up in the future where the quality or type of data that a home AI speaker records is misunderstood, and it leads to bad evidence being shared.</comment></comment>


Appengine lock in by design, not a strategy. - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/110401818717224273095/posts/Uoj3pmhbCkH

<comment><AUTHOR> Though lock-in is not the strategy, it created the same effect. Not sure why, Google routinely gets a pass for these kind of things. The one true open (its a bit debatable as well) software they did was Android and that is pretty much it. They've taken bunch of unpopular decisions in recent history that affected developers/users. Maps pricing change, Google reader, decent Api support for G+, etc.</comment>


Fairfax strikes $4.7-billion deal to buy BlackBerry - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/fairfax-strikes-47-billion-deal-to-buy-blackberry/article14470689/

<comment><USER5> Fairfax Financial is run by Prem Watsa, a cautious, methodical, "value" investor who has compounded Fairfax's book value by nearly 23%/year over the past _27 years_.[1] (Fairfax's stock price has gained 19%/year over the same three-decade period.) His approach and track record are similar to those of Warren Buffett earlier in his career -- i.e., not someone one should normally bet against.

If Fairfax is offering to pay $4.7 billion to acquire RIM, Mr. Watsa somehow must have convinced himself that the value of RIM's business exceeds $4.7 billion by a large margin.

However, to me Blackberry looks like a dying platform suffering from _anti- network effects_ (that is, fewer and fewer people use it, so fewer and fewer people want or need to use it). I don't understand how he gets comfortable with that number.

\--

[1] See page 8 of Fairfax's last annual letter to shareholders: [http://www.fairfax.ca/files/Letter%20to%20Shareholders%20fro...](http://www.fairfax.ca/files/Letter%20to%20Shareholders%20from%20Annual%20Report%202012%20FINAL_v001_o7033s.pdf)

<comment><USER6> I'm a value investor myself and was seriously considering buying into this stock if it dipped any further. The thesis for investment is pretty darn clear at this point: _Blackberry is trading at levels significantly below asset value and below the amount you 'd get from tearing down the company_

The balance sheet numbers per share: 1) +$13.50 - Net current assets (i.e liquid assets) 2) +$2.50 - Real estate holding (less liquid) 3) +$6.50 - <USER2> value of IP 4) -$7.00 - TOTAL Liabilities

Meaning if you shut down the company you could realize a value of around $16 per share. Even if you discount current assets & IP since they might be over- valued in the books you can realistically get to a $11-$14 range for the value of the stock.

Essentially this means that any smart owner could realize a significant profit at $9/share just tearing down the company smartly (i.e. not a fire sale). As such, I expect Fairfax: 1) Maintain the businesses that are profitable TODAY 2) Shut down the unprofitable parts of the business that are destroying earnings (and thus slowly eating into asset value and the investment thesis) 3) Shop out ownership / licensing of the IP given it's significant value

I don't think this means that Fairfax is trying to turn around the company and restore Blackberry to its earlier glory; that would be a bit irresponsible and reckless for a value investor. Don't expect Blackberry to be the same company it was before, although I expect parts of business to continue.

<comment><USER5> slykat: I'm looking at asset liquidation value too, but my conclusions are different from yours. According to the June 1, 2014 financial statements[1]:

* Cash, short-term and long-term liquid investments, receivables, and assets held for sale totaled $6.0 billion. (I wouldn't dare put a dollar value on inventories, because their value declines at an accelerating pace, like a waterfall, due to the rapid pace of technological change.)

* Property plant & equipment (consisting mostly of land and buildings) totals $2.2 billion. Let's give them full credit for this figure.

* Total liabilities are $3.7 billion.

So, assuming you can liquidate the whole business quickly, the liquidation value of all tangible assets appears to be somewhere around $6.0 + $2.2 - $3.7 = $4.5 billion. However, the company is hemorrhaging money by the day and suffering from _anti-network effects_ that can make revenues drop like a waterfall (instead of declining in a gentle slope), so this estimate may be optimistic. In a year, the figure could very well be down to $3.5 billion.

That leaves the value of intellectual property, carried on the books at $3.5 billion. Of that amount, $0.8 billion is the price paid for Blackberry's share of the Nortel patents[2]; the reminder consists primarily of all the Blackberry software they've developed in-house (that is, their proprietary OS and applications, built on top of QNX), which is valuable to third parties only to the extent they want to build a business around it. My (conservative) guess: this is worth a LOT less than $3.5 billion -- maybe ~$1 billion -- but I don't know for sure.[3]

At a proposed purchase price of $4.7 billion, the margin of safety looks very slim to me.

\--

[1] [http://ca.blackberry.com/content/dam/bbCompany/Desktop/Globa...](http://ca.blackberry.com/content/dam/bbCompany/Desktop/Global/PDF/Investors/Documents/2013/Q1FY14_final_filing.pdf)

[2] See the "Intangible Assets, Net" notes in [http://press.blackberry.com/content/dam/rim/press/PDF/Financ...](http://press.blackberry.com/content/dam/rim/press/PDF/Financial/FY2013/Q4FY13_final_filing.pdf)

[3] For reference, QNX -- the jewel in Blackberry's software portfolio -- has been sold twice over the past decade. Harman International bought it for $138 million in 1994, and then sold it to RIM for $200 million in 2010. These figures are rounding errors compared to $4.7 billion. Source: [http://blog.vdcresearch.com/embedded_sw/2010/04/update-2-rim...](http://blog.vdcresearch.com/embedded_sw/2010/04/update-2-rim- to-acquire-qnx-terms-of-the-deal.html)

<comment><USER6> Glad to see someone actually looked into the balance sheet before discussing valuation! To be fair I didn't do a detailed analysis into their books - <USER3> just skimmed over their balance sheet.

Nevertheless here's where I think we disagree:

* Inventory will have some liquidation value. Let's discount inventory by 75% which is pretty conservative; you will still get $200M here

* IP - Main disagreement for me is here. Most analysts who have pegged the IP at $2 - $3 bn. Let's put it at $2bn, the lower end of the spectrum [1][2]

6.2 + 2.2 - 3.7 + 2 = $6.7B (~40% above purchase price)

As we can see the main question is the value of the IP (and PPE to a lesser extent). I have absolutely no experience valuing patents, I'm not a patent lawyer, and definitely won't be evaluating their 9K+ patent applications. So unfortunately there's a pretty big unknown in the valuation.

Regardless we have a $4.7B - $6.7B range based on a very quick 15 minute analysis of their balance sheet with an upside of earnings of any profitable lines of business that can be operated independently (if they exist).

My guess is tha Prem Watsa, as former chairman of BBRY, has done a much more rigorous evaluation of their IP and found profitable business lines he wants to keep / spin-off to reach a comfortable margin of safety.

[1] [http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/24/technology/enterprise/blackb...](http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/24/technology/enterprise/blackberry- patents/)

[2] [http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate- intelligence/2013/08/26/the-n...](http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate- intelligence/2013/08/26/the-numbers-behind-blackberrys-patent-goldmine/)

<comment><USER5> slykat: thank you.

The value of IP isn't the only question. We also seem to disagree on how quickly value is evaporating! Blackberry sales are bound to decline faster and faster, like a waterfall -- similar to what happened to Nokia's smartphones.

After the introduction of iOS and Android in 2007-2008, Nokia's quarterly smartphone unit sales barely budged... at first... but then dropped by two- thirds between Q1 2010 and Q1 2012![1]

Liquidating a company of Blackberry's size would take _at least_ two years. Any estimate of liquidation value should take into account the possibility of quarterly unit sales dropping by two-thirds in the near future.

\--

[1] [http://www.dazeinfo.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/post-15.b...](http://www.dazeinfo.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/post-15.bmp)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Fairfax Financial Holdings (TSX: FFH) is an $8.3 billion property and casualty insurance company. They are an acquisitive bunch, having spent $4.7 billion on deals since 2011 (37% of their enterprise value as of 30 June 2013 or 57% of their market capitalisation as of today). _All_ their acquisitions since 1997 have been in the banking, insurance or shipping/transportation spaces, with the exceptions of EFI Global (environmental services).

Their CEO, Prem Watsa, is a value investor. Fairfax's IRR is around 20% - <USER4> means Blackberry needs to yield about $840 million in cash a year to tread water. That seems unlikely. Instead, I think we will see a spin-off of the handset business and patent portfolio with a retention of the cash-flow generating service business.

What's the service business worth? It made $3.2 billion annualised the last quarter (Q2 FY 2014), $3.9 billion in FY 2013, and $4.1 billion in FY 2012. Let's assume it keeps declining at 8% a year. Let's further assume it can return at least the entire company's FY 2013 40% gross margin. Guess what 40% of $2.9 billion declining at 8% annually and discounted at 20% is worth over the next 10 years? $4.7 billion. Thus, _if_ decline can be maintained at no more than 8% while margins are maintained at 40% and the cost of capital capped at 20%, the handset business, patent portfolio, and any terminal value after 2023 are freebies.

</comment><comment><USER8> I worked at another Canadian company called Corel back in 2002 that went through a similar takeover. Company with a large cash position relative to the take over price, taken private by a Fund with the intention of being taken public again in a few years after costs were under control.

If that experience was any indication of whats to come then life at BBRY is about to become atlot less fun.

When a fund comes in they have a window for which they want to see a return( ie go public again or sell). In such cases any expense that can't be directly traced to adding to the bottom line will be mercilessly cut.

Good by Friday afternoon beers, employee sports teams, Christmas parties, bonuses, T-Shirts, etc.

The MO for takeovers like this is similar to a house flipper, they aren't looking to do the right thing for the long term, they'd rather do what can be done to make things look good for the next 2-3 years.

They understand( or believe) that employees will stick around in the short term( and put up with this stuff) if they believe an IPO is only a few years away.

As someone who sits on the other side of the table now at a fund, I've seen it happen from both sides now.

<comment><USER9> > Good by Friday afternoon beers, employee sports teams, Christmas parties, > bonuses, T-Shirts, etc.

Considering they lost $1,000,000 in the last 90 days I would assume it hasn't been a very fun place to work at in a while. Maybe you could ask one of the 4,500 people they just laid off?

<comment><USER10> > Considering they lost $1,000,000 in the last 90 days...

$1,000,000,000

<comment><USER9> Whoops. I knew it was a lot of zeros... $11,111,111 a day. Or $462,962 an hour or $128 a second. That's a lot of cash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Tentatively sold" is the worst description ever for what is really happening.

BB has just received an offer, the board has now approved this, but needs to advise shareholders if this is a fair or not offer, dd is pending, and shareholders have to decide yes/nor by tendering their shares... add to that to the possibility of more offers being made, making this entire thing last months (a la Dell et al).

Source: [http://press.blackberry.com/press/2013/blackberry-enters- int...](http://press.blackberry.com/press/2013/blackberry-enters-into-letter- of-intent-with-consortium-led-by-f.html)

<comment><USER12> It should be noted Fairfax holds 10% of BBRY shares ([http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=BBRY](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=BBRY)), which means this to be taken a little more seriously than a 3rd party unsolicited bid.

<comment><USER11> I'm not saying otherwise, but a "letter of intent" has the same legality be it from an existing shareholder or a non-current shareholder.

<comment><USER7> Hmm, they could be fishing to help value their existing stake.

<comment><USER8> That's a big gamble. The stock went from 8.60 to 9.20 on this news.

If this is a gamble and their bluff is called the stock is in for quite a tumble.

This doesn't really fit the risk profile of FairFax capital.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Ugh. I know Fairfax VERY well. Prem Watsa is often called Warren Buffett of the North, and he may very well be. He's a great investor, and has done VERY well in investing the float of their insurance business. But, BUT, I think he's way in over his head here. Buffett himself will not touch technology companies, or businesses he doesn't understand. He has also said the technology world is way too competitive, and that there is hardly a "moat" that can protect a business from competition, etc... I don't understand why Prem is going after Blackberry. It is clearly in one of the most competitive spaces in technology, and there is no good crystal ball to see what the future holds. I mean, for every Apple, there are lots of companies like US Robotics.

It is why I shy away from technology companies with my investments.

<comment><USER14> To be fair, Watsa is a current RIM investor and a former board member. That suggests he probably has a good idea of what he's getting into.

<comment><USER15> OR.... he's biased into thinking RIM can "pull through" because of his existing close relationship with the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In context: Apple likely made more than $4.7B in revenue from its weekend iPhone launch.

<comment><USER17> If you do the math assuming Apple make's $400 a phone which may or may not be true, and the 9 million figure is correct. Then they made $3.6B however they probably made another 1B from accessories, warranties, apps, etc. So yah they probably did.

<comment><USER9> The cheapest phone that launched was $549 so your estimate is wildly off base. The average selling price was likely closer to $700.

<comment><USER18> Does the carrier subsidy count up front, or does it trickle in over time?

Getting very tangential here, but that question occurred to me and I don't know how it works.

<comment><USER9> They account for it over time ("subscription accounting), but I believe get it all at once. It's goofiness required for GAAP accounting IIRC. This is why carriers often post lousy numbers after a big launch even though it means a lot of future revenue--those $350 subsidies add up quickly.

<comment><USER18> That's pretty wacky. So from an accounting perspective, the money just _disappears_ for a while? If the phone companies have to post the loss immediately but Apple posts the earnings over time....

Not saying you're wrong. The world of accounting is just odd sometimes.

<comment><USER9> It doesn't disappear, it's noted, but just not counted as received. It is wacky, but makes some amount of sense and makes revenue more even. It helps lessen the incentive to stack a quarter with revenue even though it starves the next quarter (someone else's problem).

It seems to relate with software updates being assumed:

[http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/21/inside_apples_ipho...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/21/inside_apples_iphone_subscription_accounting_changes)

> Based on research into what allowed this to happened, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act > was instituted to require certain minimum standards of financial > accountability. Among its many rules is a provision that states that > companies can't immediately book revenue for a product if the complete > product has not yet been fully delivered.

<comment><USER18> Appreciate the info, always nice to learn new things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> sooo... it seems partly for emotional reasons

"We're trying to make sure it remains in whole in Canada"

that is not a business reason

"we have every confidence it will be successful again,"

based on?

"There are no strategic players, or other technology firms, in the consortium."

so... a bunch of non technical players want to try and save a dying tech company for emotional reasons?

unless I'm missing something it might seem like a good idea to run away from that deal and fairfax at a pretty good speed.

i mean blackbeerry just announced hilarious losses for q2, dropped 4500 staff and just announced "pulling out of the consumer market to focus on enterprise"... it seems they are deeply failing to learn from the lessons of the iphone 7 years ago now. they always were a more enterprise phone and that was still not enough to save them from being cannibalized first from iphone and now android. hell even now windows phones makes better sense because it will tie in with your windows outlook, etc infrastructure better in your standard microsoft office.

am I missing something? thoughts?

<comment><USER20> All they're really saying is that they want to maintain control without outsiders. And to really do that, they have to convert the company back into a private one, cut their losses by removing the deadweight in the 4500 employees, then stick to a core business that they know will keep them alive.

<comment><USER21> They should do infrastructure, and high-end Android phones aimed squarely at execs. Qnx is great, but the eco-system is in Android, BlackBerry should make the switch.

Their hardware is great, they could bring their UI and apps with them, enter Google's ecosystem and sell a bunch of gold-plated, physical keyboard equipped Android phones...

<comment><USER22> I think switching to Android would be a disaster. "Just another Android phone" is something we see already in the market, with very few players actually differentiating themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hopefully this means that BlackBerry will survive in some form and have a future. Their recent phones and version 10 OS have a lot of merit, and I enjoy using and developing for them.

</comment><comment><USER24> Its a(nother) sad day in tech-Canada. You don't have to like their products to appreciate how they change the mobile landscape.

<comment><USER25> This deal is not a death knell for BlackBerry by any stretch. I'm from Waterloo and I can tell you that the general impression from the town and the people working there is very positive – they're free from the pressures of quarterly earnings calls to regroup.

This sale is not the end of BlackBerry.

<comment><USER26> "I'm from Waterloo and I can tell you that the general impression from the town and the people working there is very positive"

If your definition of positive is the same condition that afflicts the posters & commenters on Crackberry.com, I think a more appropriate word would be "delusional." They've been positive & upbeat all along during BBRY's spiraling death march.

With all due respect, I've yet to read ONE story out of Canada about Blackberry that was not plagued by misplaced sentimentalism, or economic nationalism. Just a couple days ago, I was mesmerized to watch a very somber Peter Mansbridge interrogate his panel of journalists aboutwhat RIM's demise meant for Canadian identity....crazy stuff.

<comment><USER25> I'm referring specifically to the University and startup scene around here. If anything, it's the opposite – they've been absolutely cynical the last few years. I don't think you'll find a higher concentration of "rim job" jokes anywhere than UWaterloo.

Don't get me wrong, we are _rooting_ for them. A lot of us bought stock years ago and they're very generous with the city and University, but this is basically the first perceived "good news" about RIM in years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The bid is US$9 per share, but it traded at $10.50 around the announcement?[0] Are they really going to get away with paying below last marked price...

0: [https://www.google.com/finance?q=BlackBerry&ei=64NAUpDFA8OXw...](https://www.google.com/finance?q=BlackBerry&ei=64NAUpDFA8OXwQPsVQ)

<comment><USER8> Well the announcement you are referring to is the layoffs and quarterly losses and not the letter of intent.

This news solidified what the street thought about Blackberry's recent BB10 sales. Its sort of like saying this house was worth 1 million before the fire. How can someone get away with paying on 300,000 for it now that its been burned to the ground.

The answer is that given the new news( poor sales, layoffs, write downs of inventory, etc) that BB is no longer worth 10.50/share.

So to answer you question, yes they probably will get that price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I really hope this is not a front for a patent troll. I know 4.7B is a lot for a patent troll to spend but the most valuable assets BB holds right now are its patents. A tech player is not going to (rather should not) buy BB because a negative momentum is much more dangerous than a non-existent one.

<comment><USER12> Google Fairfax and Prem Watsa. He is sort of like Canada's Warren Buffett and a large existing BBRY shareholder. Not saying he won't monetize their IP portfolio, but it's not a front for a patent troll.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Let's be clear, Fairfax 'buying' BlackBerry given Prem Watsa was on BB's board is akin to saying Dell was 'sold' to Michael Dell.

</comment><comment><USER29> Irregardless of this deal...I'm still skeptical of where BlackBerry goes from here. They said they are out of the consumer handset market yet the consumer handsets were what gave BlackBerry those huge revenues/profits.

The corporate-only strategy I read about seems like if even successful would be much smaller in scope. There seems to be no real idea of what BlackBerry has to offer anymore??

</comment><comment><USER30> Back in 2012 I figured that the total value of cash + patents got us a share price of around 8 bucks, so I guess that seems about right.

[http://investingwithoptions.com/blog/2012/05/03/rimm- shake-s...](http://investingwithoptions.com/blog/2012/05/03/rimm-shake-shorts- patent-portfolio/)

</comment><comment><USER31> I hope this works out well for everyone involved. I also hope that Fairfax leaves Blackberry alone if the deal goes through. I say this judging ONLY by the state of Fairfax's website: [http://www.fairfax.ca/](http://www.fairfax.ca/)

</comment><comment><USER32> On a side story of the same article, I saw this : BlackBerry bought private jet months before layoffs [http://www.cnbc.com/id/101053908](http://www.cnbc.com/id/101053908)

<comment><USER33> From the article: "In light of the company's current business condition, the company has decided to sell that aircraft along with the two legacy aircraft and will no longer own any planes."

They probably bought it before this slump. Jets take months to deliver.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The deal is not done as yet - there are "terms" to be discussed as well as 6 weeks of time. It only has a letter of intent from Fairfax in which shareholders would receive $9 per share in cash.

</comment><comment><USER35> very interesting move. i currently have both a blackberry for personal and work (yeah, one of those guys). i am converting the personal blackberry to an iphone, and the work to the q10. the iphone arrives tomorrow. i've been waiting a month for the q10. i still have high hopes for the q10 device but the only thing i get out of blackberry is the keyboard, and cloud synching of notes from the device on an enterprise account. i don't think it's enough.

</comment><comment><USER36> Crap. I was hoping for an investor that actually had some kind of real plan, some technical synergy they could offer... Facebook or Sony or Canonical or something.

</comment><comment><USER37> Time to put Android on those phones...

</comment><comment><USER38> Just wondering, why would an Insurance company buy BlackBerry? What are they planning to do with it?

<comment><USER39> I started working at an insurance company (my second real job) 6 mos ago. Insurance companies are banks but instead of getting money to invest from depositors, it comes from businesses and individuals who hold policies.

A population of policy holders is predictable most of the time. You take the money that you know you won't have to pay out and you invest it.

Warren Buffet's money comes from Geico etc. That's why they advertise so much. The operations of Geico do not return fast enough to justify that marketing spend. Warren Buffet's portfolio of businesses, on the other hand, return handsomely.

A good sized fraction of the money of the people who see all those commercials gets funneled directly into GEICO's float and increases Buffet's leverage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> why not use their resources to help build the new Ubuntu Mobile phone that was on kick starter it would be a huge in demand project with a lot of buzz...Ubuntu knows software blackberry hardware could be An interesting marriage.

<comment><USER41> Similarly, a phone with a Blackberry-designed physical keyboard and [a maintained] WebOS on it would keep me from ever choosing a new smartphone again. I'd just keep buying the same phone over and over again, personally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I hope this doesn't cause them to patent-troll with the Certicom ECC patents.

</comment><comment><USER43> OK, let's start guessing who Fairfax is :)

<comment><USER8> > OK, let's start guessing who Fairfax is :)

Why do we need to guess who they are?

They are a public company listed on teh TSX. Did we nee to guess who Google was when they put in an offer for Motorola?

<comment><USER43> Sorry, I meant who is Fairfax representing?

"Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. has put together an equity consortium..."

"Fairfax's equity partners want to remain anonymous until the due diligence is completed."</comment></comment></comment>