Big, bad Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/10/market-power?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/bigbadamazon <comment><USER3> I see the previous submission[1] to Hacker News of Matthew Yglesias's _Vox_ essay, "Amazon is doing the world a favor by crushing book publishers,"[2] didn't get much discussion here, but I think the essay supplements the arguments in the _Economist_ blog post kindly submitted here very nicely from the author's side. (The _Economist_ post mostly argues from the reader's side.) I still have plenty to read, and I don't find that Hachette or the other people whining about Amazon are doing as much as Amazon is to provide you and me with more to read at a better price than ever before. As Yglesias writes, "When all is said and done, the argument between Amazon and book publishers is over the rather banal question of price. Amazon's view is that since 'printing' an extra copy of an e-book is really cheap, e-books should be really cheap. Publishers' view is that since 'printing' an extra copy of an e-book is really cheap, e-books should offer enormous profit margins to book publishers. If you care about reading or ideas or literature, the choice between these visions is not a difficult one."

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8493736](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8493736)

[2] [http://www.vox.com/2014/10/22/7016827/amazon-hachette- monopo...](http://www.vox.com/2014/10/22/7016827/amazon-hachette-monopoly)

<comment><USER4> It's an interesting narrative, but technology renders the cost of reproduction irrelevant. Which is different from saying it's relevant that it's extremely cheap.

Look at an area that "cheap" has destroyed: the Internet. The Internet is full of crap. I had to censor the ads on a HuffPo article before printing and sending it to someone the other day. That's journalism circa 2014 where there is no money to pay for class.

Is that what we want to have happen to books too? Drive down the prices so the only way to make any money off books is to plaster the end of every chapter with full color ads of Kim Kardashian? Because that's the road Amazon is taking us down, along with all the other companies who make money from distributing rather than creating content.

<comment><USER5> > Look at an area that "cheap" has destroyed: the Internet. The Internet is > full of crap.

Ironically, people used the exact same argument against the printing press and pretty much every single development in publishing. Remember when the gramophone destroyed the live performance? When TV killed theatre?

All of those developments lowered the price of production and/or distribution radically, and allowed the production of new cheap crap, but did not kill the incumbent as predicted.

The same is true today. Before the Internet, you would probably be subscribing to a newspaper, probably at quite high expense. If you limited yourself to free reading, you would only get crap - as true then as now.

If the traditional newspaper is largely irrelevant, there's a large and healthy selection of paid-for journalism out there, just get out your wallet. I'm a fan of The Economist, but that's far from the only selection.

<comment><USER4> That makes it seem like quality is a given in the face of market changes. I don't think that's true. I remember back 10 years ago, the Internet was actually useful. You could search for a product review and not get a bunch of computer-generated crap SEO optimized to turn up at the top. That's not true any longer.

Increased competition has had a negative effect on the media. Go watch CNN clips from the 1980's and compare to today. Its a totally different product than CNN today, and it was possible because they were insulated from the degrading effects of market competition. They didn't have to plaster Kim Kardashians rack over every piece in order to make money, like they do today. And what's driving that competition? Lowest common denominator Internet media like Huff Po that can churn out dreck at zero marginal cost.

<comment><USER5> You're idealising CNN in the 80s. One important milestone in their early history was broadcasting live the explosion of space shuttle Challenger. During the first gulf war, we got live footage of missiles hitting their targets. That's technologically fantastic, but in terms of journalistic value, it's just one, small step above Kim Kardashian.

CNN is widely credited with inventing and pushing the 24 hour news cycle, driving the subdivision of news into every smaller and ever less important chunks, incessantly valuing speed over depth. "You heard it here first!" \- well, who the h... cares?

Anyway, my point, which I don't feel you meaningfully addressed was that once you get out your wallet, every newsstand out there are piled high with magazines and weeklies dedicated to every conceivable topic, many of them high quality (and many of them, admittedly, not!), plenty of them completely devoid of Kardashian-themed content. Just go buy them instead of lamenting that your free entertainment is worth exactly what you paid for it.

<comment><USER4> I think coverage of the Challenger explosion is way above the Kardashians. And I'm not idealizing it based on recollection. Try actually watching some old broadcasts. It's the difference between the Internet circa 2001 and the Internet circa 2014 (it's a lot easier to hide crap content beneath flash and dynamic JS widgets than it is to do the same in plain text).

My point which you're ignoring is that the existence of competition from the crap forces legitimate media down market. For the cost of a cable subscription, CNN is a lot crappier than it was 20 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > On the other hand, it is incredibly easy to go around Amazon.

It is tiring to hear that kind of argument all the time to determine if a business is a monopoly ( monopsonist ) or not and then it is supposed to be business 101 to know that people do not optimize their finance to the last cent and can be hooked into a company by habit or convenience.

What matters is if amazon clients actually do go around Amazon or not and based on what criteria. Google thinks of Amazon as a threat to their ads business because people use Amazon as their search engine for stuff to buy. I would say that a pretty good indication that the original author may have had a point.

> Setting up online stores is not rocket science ( to compete with Amazon )

Sorry but I can't read past that. Beside being insulting for anybody that has tried to put an online business together, can a economy journal be taken seriously when publishing that kind of statement in 2014 ?

<comment><USER7> The author does have a point, though. He's not suggesting that the average reader throw up an ecommerce site to compete with Amazon. He's suggesting that Hachette, a 200 year old book publisher, should be able to compete with Amazon, a 20 year old tech company.

It's Hachette's fault that they don't have an eReader to compete with the Kindle, and it's Hachette's fault they don't have a storefront to sell directly to consumers. The writing has been on the wall for almost a decade. Any idiot could tell you that we were moving toward eReaders. A smart company would see the trend and adapt. Nothing stopped Hachette from hiring engineers and making a push into the future, except for their own 200-year-old stubborness.

This is just another case of industry incumbents failing to keep up with moving technology. For others, see MPAA, RIAA, Taxis, etc. I have no sympathy for a company that could have entered the game five years ago, but failed to. Hachette, if anything, was in a _better_ position, from a market/supply chain standpoint, to develop eReaders. They just failed to.

<comment><USER8> No one wants an eBook reader for each publishing company.

<comment><USER9> True, but without Amazon we likely would not have any eReaders with much support. Any of the large publishers could have stepped up early on and became the dominant e-reading platform. Instead they have fought e-reading every step of the way. The publishers _hate_ e-reading. IMHO, the complicated rules around DRM and ebooks is proof that publishers want to make it so complicated to read an ebook that people simply give up.

<comment><USER10> Thats not an argument for Amazon though.

<comment><USER9> I agree, but lets not paint the publishers as innocent here.

<comment><USER10> Oh I wouldn't :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Amazon vs. Hachette is increasingly one of those battles you'd like no-one to win.

The discussions around the conflict have, to me at least, shown pretty clearly that book publishing as it currently is isn't a model which stands up to too much scrutiny when you look at how well it works for anyone outside it.

On the other hand I think we'd all rather it wasn't Amazon, a company who many seem to like using but don't trust much further than they can comfortably spit a dead rat, giving it a kicking. The old metaphor about frying pans and fires springs to mind.

Maybe we just live in a more cynical time but it would be nice if our disruption was something people generally felt optimistic about.

<comment><USER12> Disruption has always been the province of companies that played fast and loose with the rules and were generally not very nice.

<comment><USER11> I disagree. Disruption involves change which is often stressful and yes, many of those who are disruptive can play it fast and loose with the rules.

But being nice? I see no evidence that old businesses are nice (we're just more used to their nastiness) and I certainly see no case that new, disruptive businesses are any way worse. If anything I think back to the likes of Google in the don't be evil days - young idealists who just wanted to make the world better and would work out the money side of things later.

Even if that weren't true, I still want to be optimistic about change. I accept that it's not all great, that everything comes with a cost, but if you're doing something that's so obviously potentially positive, surely something is wrong if people don't feel good about it?

<comment><USER13> I don't think it's useful or accurate to attempt a value judgment on "disruption" in general. It means massive change, the results of which can and likely will be good for some people, bad for others, and neutral for some as well.

Being optimistic (or pessimistic, really) about such a broad concept doesn't make sense. Could positive consequences come out of any massive change? Depending on your point of view, perhaps, with exactly the same probability (undefined) as negative consequences.

Current companies' and industries' goodness or badness are almost always a matter of perspective (though some are easier to argue one way or the other, again, depending on your point of view). Removing or stunting them with a new paradigm certainly changes things, but rarely if ever in a black and white, "things are universally [better|worse] now" way.

<comment><USER14> In other words: disruptive innovation is likely not strongly Pareto optimal in most cases.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency)

That's not to say it's not an overall improvement though.

<comment><USER15> Disruption is by definition not Pareto optimal since it is bad for those disrupted. What's your point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Of course. It's so easy to use a different book store, even with kindle, that this whole argument holds no water.

Since Amazon doesn't really carry Polish books, I get .mobis from random e-stores all the time. It takes no effort. There is no barrier to entry. Well, except actually having something in stock (easy enough when it's an infinitely copyable file) and making your website/UI not atrocious (not that easy, apparently).

Most will even email it and Amazon will deliver it straight to the device. No need to look for the usb cable.

</comment><comment><USER17> _But the biggest reason is that one simply cannot argue with any credibility that Amazon has control over the market for buzz. My book buying habits may not be representative of the public at large, but while I almost always buy my books through Amazon I cannot remember the last time I discovered one there._

Yeah, appeal to the sample size of 1, great argument...

I _do_ use Amazon for discovering new books, now he has a sample size of 2 and Amazon controls a massive 50% of the world's "buzz". That changed fast didn't it.

I'm sure there are good responses to Krugman out there, but this isn't one.

<comment><USER18> Here's a response to Krugman that I found far more thoughtful than this Economist article, from Matt Ygleslias of Vox: [http://www.vox.com/2014/10/22/7016827/amazon-hachette- monopo...](http://www.vox.com/2014/10/22/7016827/amazon-hachette-monopoly)

And here's a response to his response: [http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119977/what-matt- yglesias...](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119977/what-matt-yglesias- doesnt-understand-about-book-publishing)

<comment><USER19> " _In a system without the publisher operating as middleman, where the author takes his life's work and just posts it to Amazon, each book becomes a lonely outpost in the stiff winds of the marketplace, a tiny business that must sell or die...._

" _But I'm not sure that even Yglesias would want to live in the world he's envisioning. Mark Krotov, an editor at Melville House, points out on Twitter that in posts like these two, Yglesias has often recommended 'good, unusual books' such as Maxine Hong Kingston's Tripmaster Monkey and Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained. 'I'm confident that none of these books, as different and diverse as they are, could ever have found their audience without a publisher,' Krotov writes._"

I'm rather suspecting that Evan Hughes could stand to be less ignorant of the industry he's discussing.

For one thing, _Tripmaster Monkey_ is at least the fifth book that Kingston has written (I can't find a complete bibliography.) and Dennett's _Content and Consciousness_ was published in 1969, 22 years before _Consciousness Explained_. Both of them had already "found their audiences" before those books were written, much less published.

Further, Dennett has published many of his books with academic presses, where advances are rare. (Anyone know if MIT Press pays them?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The article ends in a non serious fashion.So the author discovers his books outside of Amazon.Does this fact has any relevance to how people in general discover books ?

On the other hand, Amazon is Google's biggest threat in general product search(and probably discovery). So surely Amazon is even stronger in books.

And i'm sure Amazon does play with search/recommendation ranking, and publishers see the effect on sales, or else they wouldn't have bothered with this fight.

<comment><USER21> And just about every retailer does the same with their planograms/floor layout.

<comment><USER22> Agreed. Amazon is not required to give equal promotion to every product it sells, and neither is any other retailer. Retailers will promote what sells, not what's fair.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So the argument against Amazon is that it is has the potential to do bad things, so they should have restrictions? Surely Krugmen's argument isn't so shallow and petty.

<comment><USER24> Many criticisms of Krugman are valid, but he is rarely shallow or petty.

OTOH, the Economist article isn't petty, but it doesn't seem to make any particular groundbreaking point.

<comment><USER25> And these criticisms are what? Besides what the OP mentioned... Can you point us to his arguments/points?

<comment><USER24> The article links to Krugman's post. One point Krugman makes that isn't discussed at all is that Amazon uses its market power to keep book prices low. That makes the article's points about it being easy to setup an online store somewhat moot: What point is an online store if no one buys from it because prices are dramatically lower elsewhere.

Krugman also makes the point that Amazon is a (and perhaps the dominant) discovery mechanism for books. Of course, if you aren't in Amazon you miss that mechanism. Combine these two things, and it makes creating a competitor very, very hard. That's doesn't make it illegal, but it's a very big concentration of market power. Edit: notably, this makes it difficult for even publishers to compete: if the dominant discovery mechanism for your items excludes you, then it's a problem. Note the similarities to Google here, and how careful Google is to emphasise the algorithmic nature of their search ranking. Amazon can't use that defense.

I'm not sure I totally buy Krugman's argument that Amazon is actually _using_ its power in ways that "hurt America". But, I am more amenable to his argument that it has too much market power in the book market as outlined above - <USER2> totally convinced, but I think his points in that area are much stronger than the Economist makes them out to be.

<comment><USER26> But publishers control the supply, so unless Amazon is willing to subsidize the difference (and purchase books through unexpected channels) they really can't undercut prices.

What's going on here is that publishers want to use Amazon's platform, but they want to dictate the terms of that usage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The equation is somewhat complex. eBooks don't cost zero to deliver. In other words, the infrastructure required to deliver them (which includes people, not just servers) at a place like Amazon isn't trivial in cost.

And then there's the author's need to earn a respectable living. Obviously that equation produces different numbers based on whether the product (the book being the product) sells a thousand vs. a million copies per year.

If a publisher is in the middle then they need to make money to offset their fixed and variable costs. The presumption is that they provide the author with valuable services.

I've paid up to $200 for privately published eBooks on very specific subjects from authors with deep expertise in the matter. In this case the authors undertake the entire task of producing the book, often hiring people to help edit, format, illustrate, etc. I wonder how the economics of such ventures works out. In all cases the books have always been worth every penny.

One of my pet peeves with Amazon is that they don't offer eBooks in PDF format. I hate the Kindle experience, even on their PC application. I far prefer PDF documents everywhere.

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands The fatal flaw in the article is this:

>> _On the other hand, it is incredibly easy to go around Amazon. One of the works Amazon is supposedly dooming, according to Mr Krugman, is a book called "Sons of Wichita". But if one googles "Sons of Wichita", then one of the first results is the book's page at the website of Barnes & Noble, a rival online bookseller. Barnes & Noble offers a competitive price and 24-hour delivery (same day delivery in Manhattan!)._

There is a fundamental difference in how people search for books compared to other items. Since people know Amazon has such a huge inventory, they go to Amazon and THEN search for their title. 99% of people I know do not simply Google a book title and then select the first result they get in Google, it just doesn't happen that way.

This is an important fact which undermines the idea it's "easy" for consumers to selectively use another vendor to get their books from. It also gives a lot more weight to the fact Amazon really is a monopsony.

<comment><USER19> So you're saying that if Hachette pulled David Baldacci titles from Amazon, everyone would just give up on buying his books?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I live in Manhattan and love both Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's same day service as well as Amazon Prime's free 2 day and low cost overnight shipping. I have also had great customer service with Amazon.

I don't understand why Krugman wrote a column about a firm which offers great selection at low cost with rapid low-cost or free shipping. Customer service is great as well. If only all firms aspired to be Amazon!

</comment><comment><USER29> This may be a silly question, but could publishers simply set up their own Amazon storefronts? That is, could I buy a book from "Hachette, fulfilled by Amazon" if Hachette was willing to set things up on their end? I'm sure that the current dispute would make this approach untenable, but I have to wonder why publishers aren't using Amazon services to sell books at their preferred prices.

</comment><comment><USER30> The notion that Amazon is a book store is the most flawed aspect of this article.

<comment><USER31> They are more than just a book store, but they do sell 40% of all new books with no competitor in sight. I can't see how any bookstore can't afford to be online. Even small independent book stores do sales online.

<comment><USER32> I also suspect that books is the only market in which they can act like a monopsony.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> From the first sentence:

>LAST week, the Nobel prize in economics was awarded to Jean Tirole

There is no such thing as the Nobel prize in economics. The prize's real name is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. It's not a Nobel prize.</comment>


Has the ISS captured footage of a UFO? Nasa live feed films - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3547293/Has-ISS-captured-footage-UFO-Nasa-live-feed-films-horseshoe-shaped-object-Earth-mysteriously-cutting-out.html <comment><USER2> It looks like an aurora.</comment>


Spyjax: Using a:visited to test your history (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://ajaxian.com/archives/spyjax-using-avisited-to-test-your-history

<comment><USER2> Spyjax doesn't work in modern browsers anymore after all the major vendors plugged the hole. That's why people are resorting to the timing method instead.

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell This trick still works:

[https://grepular.com/Abusing_HTTP_Status_Codes_to_Expose_Pri...](https://grepular.com/Abusing_HTTP_Status_Codes_to_Expose_Private_Information)

Although, the Google test on that particular page is currently not working.</comment>


Show HN: Watch People Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.watchpeoplecode.com/?src=hn <comment><USER2> This brought back a memory from the way back machine. Back in the early days of computers, many of them like the C64 or TRS80 (circa 1985-ish) had an option to use a TV as a monitor to save money. I recall that I had a Trash 80 and it was hooked up to the TV with a cable splitter in a spare bedroom. There were a number of relatives and friends visiting and myself someone that shared my love of computing were in the there programming away, and really programming, we are talking assembler here. And after a couple of hours we came down to the living room and everyone had the TV on channel 3 and everyone was watching us (I did not realize the splitter was broadcasting throughout the cable in our house). I guess there was nothing better on back them before cable had 100's of channels. It was interesting to hear the non-programmers questions and comments about what we were doing and really how much they had actually picked up on.

</comment><comment><USER3> Along these lines, I recently started watching (and enjoying!) Casey Muratori's _Handmade Hero_ , "an ongoing project to create a complete, professional-quality game accompanied by videos that explain every single line of its source code."

[https://handmadehero.org/](https://handmadehero.org/)

<comment><USER4> I have too.

I've only made it to week 10 but i've already learned a huge amount in a short amount of time (and only had to completely abandon my own code and start from scratch from the archived version once so far.) It's fun (and insightful) to watch half the comments disagree vehemently with something Casey said that day (const is useless? what?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This may be a good place to ask this question -- I think I saw a website which had videos of how well-respected experts write projects from start to finish. So, if I were interested in learning how experts in golang write a web-service end-to-end (design, DB, write, test, deploy, debug), I could watch those videos and learn the right(ish) way to write a web-service in golang. I'm sure I'll learn a few other things too (like how they replaced a block of code in vim in 4 keystrokes where it would have taken me 12). Does anything like that exist? If not, then that sounds like a fantastic opportunity to me.

<comment><USER6> PeepCode did this with its Play by Play series. They were acquired by PluralSight, and the series is still going on there [0].

[0]: [http://www.pluralsight.com/search/?searchTerm=play%20by%20pl...](http://www.pluralsight.com/search/?searchTerm=play%20by%20play)

<comment><USER5> This is it! Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Recently, I was amazed at how fast one of our devs were. When trying to see what made him so fast, it was a combination of being very good at reading code and understanding the underlying structure of the code, and also he was very fast with his editor. I could barely follow what he was doing as he was tracing his way through the code.

Watching him work as we were discussing an architecture made me more inspired to type faster, learn my tools better, and get better at reading code.

<comment><USER8> You might enjoy watching a few episodes of _Emacs Rocks!_ The guy who does them is pretty cool to watch as far as knowing your tools well. Even if you're a vim user, you'll probably appreciate how well he uses emacs.

[http://emacsrocks.com/](http://emacsrocks.com/)

<comment><USER9> Emacs Rocks is great, almost got me converted ;) For a vim guys I can recommend watching 'Destroy All Software' by Gary. He's a master of his tools and pleasure to watch.

<comment><USER10> [http://vimcasts.org](http://vimcasts.org) is also a great resource for vim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> After ~60 minutes of random debugging in production. If anyone noticed any weirdness(like a lot of repeated streams / streams disappearing) -- we're sorry. Looks like everything should work now.

Just a bit of technical details for curious: twitch streams are painful to deal with. Twitch channel != youtube channel. Twitch channel is akin youtube video(or stream) but with offline/online status. Mapping "online/offline" statuses into proper upcoming/live/completed statuses isn't straightforward. Differentiating between different "streams" is also difficult(i.e. user streams twice on two different days, but the link stays the same).

Also, twitch api often returns 5XX errors.

Bug reports are welcome here: email@example.com

Also, if you want to be notified about upcoming streams, then you can subscribe to subreddit([http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode](http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode)), subscribe on the website, or follow [https://twitter.com/WatchPeopleCode](https://twitter.com/WatchPeopleCode).

</comment><comment><USER11> I offer these quotations from well known figures as a mental antidote to the 'churn things out fast' / 'learn all the editor shortcuts' mentality being promoted throughout some of the comments.

 _The real hero of programming is the one who writes negative code._ \- Doug McIlroy

 _You 're not to come up with a simple design through any kind of coding techniques or any kind of programming language concepts. Simplicity has to be achieved above the code level before you get to the point which you worry about how you actually implement this thing in code._ \- Leslie Lamport

 _Use tools in preference to unskilled help to lighten a programming task, even if you have to detour to build the tools and expect to throw some of them out after you 've finished using them._ \- Doug McIlroy

... from my _fortune_ clone @ [https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup](https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup)

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady OT slightly: Why do some YouTube embeds (including the one on this site) not contain a full screen button? It drives me nuts. Especially here as to actually see what's happening full screen is essential. The only way to get full screen is to click the YouTube button to actually go to YouTube and full screen it from there.

<comment><AUTHOR> What stream were/are you watching? Also, what is your OS/browser? I checked "Instruction Set Development - Part 5" and there is full screen button(Mac OS X, chrome/firefox).

<comment> k-mcgrady Just clicked: "Building a Search Engine -- Season 2 episode 1" and no full screen option. I'm on Safari on OS X 10.10.3

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I'm going to investigate this. I have OS X(although 10.10.1), but I'll I can update my Mac OS X'.

I hope there is a way to force youtube to have full screen option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Side question: I'd like to stream some audio content to a few 1000 people (24/7) and wondered if anyone knew (back of the envelope) what the cost model for this would look like? Assuming it's just bandwidth unless I go p2p... Just trying to understand the current lay of the land as I remember the youtube guys were paying $$$/mo for bandwidth when they first started. Thanks.

<comment><USER13> If you don't stream video, you can use something designed for audio streaming like Icecast[0]. Then your bandwidth per month is approximately users×bitrate×60×60×24×30/8/1000000000\. For 1000 people at 128kbit/s, that would be 41.472GB/mo, which you could pay for with $5.

[0] [http://www.icecast.org/](http://www.icecast.org/)

<comment><USER14> I wonder if Opus is being used in production anywhere yet. For some content you could get away with 48kbit or less, which would cut the costs dramatically.

<comment><USER13> It's used by Mumble[0]. It definitely sounds great at lower bitrates.

[0] [http://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Main_Page](http://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Main_Page) and [http://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/FAQ#What_makes_Mumble_better.3F](http://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/FAQ#What_makes_Mumble_better.3F)

<comment><USER12> Looks like Icecast supports Opus too

"Icecast is a streaming media server which currently supports Ogg (Vorbis and Theora), Opus, WebM and MP3 audio streams."

Thanks everyone. Absolutely what I love about HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is interesting!

While I think it'd be difficult to _fully_ learn how to implement something from this (read: tedious), I do see it as a cool way to learn how other people think about and solve problems. If it means anything, I watched a good five minutes of the guy working on the Arduino code without thinking about turning it off.

<comment><USER16> I watched notch develop Prelude of the Chambered over a livestream a couple of years ago. It took a couple of days, but I picked up so much (I went on to port it to Ruby, bizarrely).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like this idea! Having the option to watch people code their games live is also a feature I enjoy on the Ludum Dare site. I often tune in to Twitch channels to watch people write code, only for a few minutes mostly, but it does make me feel connected and sometimes there are interesting things to discover.

I'm less sure about your choice of data source, though. /r/WatchPeopleCode is fine if you're already active on Reddit, but given the fact that people need to actively register there means you're missing out on a lot of programming streams.

In my opinion it would be a better idea to automatically pull a list of programming streams from Twitch, Youtube, and Hitbox just using the appropriate key words.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm more concerned that twitch.tv is already good and has it's own culture developed for this. Unless some extra meta data type stuff is added like which language, which subjectd, which editors, which techniques etc are added in a very useful way.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I'm more concerned that twitch.tv is already good and has it's own culture > developed for this.

Twitch is ok, but it is against ToS to stream non-gamedev programming. These rules aren't enforced strictly though.

VOD support for twitch sucks. Personally, I prefer my videos not getting deleted after 14 days. So that's why I stream on youtube.

As for the other stuff, we have a few ideas(most of them vague). One of them: auto speeding up "boring" parts of videos(e.g. silent thinking) in recorded videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if there is an viable alternative to YouTube. I find the idea intersting and could see people gaining something from watching others code, but sadly live streams are yet another thing I cannot use without a proxy.

There seem to be legal problems with them in Germany or is it some European law and other countries are also blocked? Does anyone know what exactly the problem is? Just potential copyright infringements from audio in the background e.x.?

<comment><AUTHOR> > There seem to be legal problems with them in Germany or is it some European > law and other countries are also blocked?

It is a stupid law in Germany. :(

[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/qLbjw...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/qLbjwfP9_IU)

"Because of the German law (RStV), you must have a broadcast licence from the media authorities when you make a live stream that can reach more than 500 people at the same time. Not getting one would result in a fine of up to 500 000€. However, even if you would have one, Google might need one as well (because they somewhat are the "television channel") and they don't have one (if you do stuff that is against German law in your live stream, Google would lose its licence because of you)."

<comment><USER20> The question in that thread is a good one, and unfortunately not actually answered. What defines 'live stream'? Obviously basic sharing of non- commercial recordings cannot require a license.

<comment><USER13> _Obviously basic sharing of non-commercial recordings cannot require a license._

I seem to recall reading that the German audio royalties law forced streams to pay royalties to the industry association (RIAA equivalent) _even for creative commons music_. I could be misremembering or misinterpreting, so if someone could provide an up-to-date reference it would be appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The feedback on these streams makes this a really incredible idea. I just watched one where users were constantly noticing syntax errors, etc. and alerting the dev in real time of them. A few people on these streams are learning languages (like Lua) for the first time and powering through these projects with aid from viewers/commenters. Love it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Would it be better performance wise to get the Twitch.tv/YouTube/etc. summary of what they're showing and present that first, and if you're interested to click on the summary then you can load the video? Loading all of those videos at once is pretty heavy, at least for my mbp.

<comment><USER23> Yeah this is quite a problem - I'm puzzled how there aren't more comments on this. This page brought my PC almost to a complete halt for 20 seconds or so. On newest FF and Chrome!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that, we were probably having some issues with twitch streams: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9018638](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9018638)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Apparently it's possible to embed a HTML5 Twitch player instead of Flash. Would it be possible to use this?

[http://discuss.dev.twitch.tv/t/html5-embedded- player/150/3](http://discuss.dev.twitch.tv/t/html5-embedded-player/150/3)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! This is interesting, although it looks like there is/was an issue with autoplay attribute. I'm going to test this tomorrow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Another great place to find dev streams (game developers):

[http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Game%20Development](http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Game%20Development)

</comment><comment><USER26> I like this idea. It isn't the most common thing to shadow someone while they code, you can learn a lot from how people "flow".

The site can be a lot better. I think it has potential if curated properly. I'd watch.

+1

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't understand how this adds more value than the other places on the web. A blog, tutorial video, stackoverflow post, book, etc will provide more knowledge in less time than watching someone real-time code and step through the software writing process. I understand the game channels on twitch provide entertainment, but don't see how this will catch on widely. Would love to hear others thoughts.

<comment><USER28> It might be interesting to see the thought process, mistakes and debugging.

<comment><USER18> What you said.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I put up a stream for a few hours. It went well! I didn't think anyone would enjoy it but it looks like I'm expected to do it more now :)

</comment><comment><USER30> I think people would pay good money to learn from great programmers over something like Webex where you could follow along and also ask questions.

<comment><USER13> Air Pair ([https://www.airpair.com/](https://www.airpair.com/)) is one example of such a service that was mentioned at last year's Railsconf.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> You can also watch folks code with Floobits:

[https://floobits.com/active](https://floobits.com/active)

</comment><comment><USER32> This looks nice! Nice job.

I am using my iOS device so maybe I missed it - but is there a way to search for a particular language?

<comment><USER33> Not yet. It'd be a nice feature, so we'll probably add it soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Live streaming not available in Germany due to rights issues. Background music, or what is the issue?

<comment><AUTHOR> Stupid law in Germany(regarding broadcasting): [https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/qLbjw...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/qLbjwfP9_IU)

<comment><USER34> Bummer, didn't know about that. Really silly law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Well, this was kind of fun! I just finished streaming 6 hours of UX development. Didn't expect much of an audience, but in the end there were over a hundred viewers (I bet most came via HN). I'll definitely be doing this again soon :)

</comment><comment><USER36> OH! I very much like this!

</comment><comment><USER37> It's like from the _Antitrust_ (2001) movie.

</comment><comment><USER38> Love it. I hope this gets popular.

And sort of sad because people seem to be able to do more then 10 minutes at a time without alt-tabbing to HN or lolcats for pointless distraction.</comment>


The economics of good looks - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21526782 <comment><USER2> I used to be skeptical about those claims that beauty could help you out (in a significant way) professionally, since I had never experienced it myself. I'm not sure how I rank, beauty-wise, but I'm definitely not in the top 1%... in North America (Montreal).

However, things changed when I moved to China. Chinese people tend to like tall, light skin, light hair, light eyes, big eyes guys (i.e.: me). I'm probably in the top 1% in China, if not more (I'm not bragging, ask any decent looking guy who's been there that matches the description). I believe my newly found handsomeness opened me up to multiple opportunities. Here's two examples (among many others).

One time, in Starbucks, a CEO from a Hong Kong private equity firm started talking to me. After some chat, he knew I was the ideal candidate for this big software project he had in mind. Anecdote: He was reckless enough to use my computer to login onto his business email account. Hell, he probably didn't even notice I was running Ubuntu.

Another time, I met a guy in a bar. He started serving me drinks as he noticed I was attracting pretty girls around the table. He told me that he owned multiple consumer electronics stores in China. A few days later, he was calling me to discuss the possibility of me opening up and managing a new store for him in Hong Kong.

I like to think that "knowing I was handsome" gave me a lot of confidence which is what really helped me out. But I'm having a hard time convincing myself...

<comment><USER3> You have a plastic that states first class country living rights to any woman that get's you. Living in China for some time you didn't realise the "attractiveness" of that? I tell you something. I saw a 50 year old, objectively ugly, stupid US guy in Hangzhou who most people wouldn't waste a 'hi' on. But Chinese girls were running after him, telling him how attractive he was. You still think you are so handsome because Chinese girls tell you?

I mean, what should they say? "Marry me, because then I can live in Meiguo." (for them it's not a big difference) Also I can't blame them to want to improve their living conditions. Their live really sucks and it seems (not sure, was there just for one year) that life really is harder for women there, then for men. Don't be naive. At least know what really makes you attractive, over there.

<comment><USER4> What you said is definitely an important piece to note. But I think the OP's finding is relevant too.

I was born and raised in China, and I get way better reception when talking to women in China than I do in Canada or the States.

Coincidentally, I fit in the category of skinny, light skin and big eyes.

<comment><USER3> It is true that skinny, light skin and big eyes also have a different value in China. But it still is hard to get sufficient data to support that one of these is a factor for women who meet u. If you look "american", that alone might be enough. Also if you find another country where other values apply. I don't know for sure, but let's take a country in Africa. I guess (but don't know!) that more masculine, strong and dark skinned men are better looking there. The average North American or European guy will still have more success there, then in his home country, because he still has "plastic" and money value, that is a lot higher then for most black man. Even a Chinese man (who sometimes feels treated badly by western girls) will have a lot of success in Africa, beause the Chinese financial and living standards are higher then in many African countries (also don't have any data to prove that "most" really applys). And also in his own country a Chinese male will have better chances with women, because there he works on an equal level, while he really has a disadvantage in Europe and North America.

To make a long story short: I don't think "I get more girls in this country or in that." can be a good model to compare the beauty values of women or bosses, because other factors are more important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have felt variously throughout my life both beautiful and homely. As a gay man, I perceive the ubiquitous social pressure to be attractive much more acutely than most heterosexual men. That pressure is not easy to shake off; I can only imagine what women experience.

Case in point: a few years ago, I noticed that my hair wasn't quite as thick and lush as it once was. I panicked, stupidly. Without performing adequate research, I began taking a medication that blocks the hormone DHT. Only later did I learn that this medication can subtly alter cognition by affecting the production of various neuro-steroids. Obviously, the value of my mind vastly outweighs that of my appearance, so I stopped taking the medication knowing that one day, I'd probably lose my hair because of it.

Despite the obviousness of the choice, it was ridiculously difficult to implement. The social imperative to be beautiful is powerful. Yet:

You aren't your hair. Or your face. Or your breasts.

It may very well be that attractive people have it easier than less attractive people. But that's a problem with human nature, not with those not blessed by beauty. Make reasonable steps to improve your appearance, then forget about it. Self confidence, humor, and a compassionate nature will always win the day with people who matter.

Ask yourself: is Steve Jobs as classically attractive as Brad Pitt? Who is more accomplished? Isaac Asimov? Donald Knuth?

<comment><USER6> >Ask yourself: is Steve Jobs as classically attractive as Brad Pitt? Who is more accomplished? Isaac Asimov? Donald Knuth?

Depends on how you rate accomplishment. Your average female certainly knows one of those people, perhaps two given recent news. But unless they are big into Sci-Fi or computer science, they have no idea who Asimov and Knuth are.

In the evolutionary struggle to breed, Brad Pitt is the winner here, by a long shot.

<comment><USER7> Pitt: 3 children (Age 47)

Asimov: 2 children

Knuth: 2 children

Jobs: 4 children

In the evolutionary struggle, I'd say all the fame and gorgeous abs haven't created Ramses-style success for Pitt. Academic reputation and billions of dollars do less for you than simply marrying a nice girl who likes babies would.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I think a lot of this focus on looks is just an exaggerated venting of sexual frustration. When you're not getting any, it can feel like the best thing in the world would be to become a Brad Pitt lookalike so you could have your pick and go out on some huge bacchanalic binge, but there's a reason a guy like Brad doesn't spend much of his time doing that sort of thing--it isn't all that satisfying or fulfilling.

In reality, once you are able to reach a base level of intimacy and satisfaction in one (or multiple) sexual relationship(s), how others perceive your looks in general stops mattering almost completely, and the fortunate truth is that achieving this satisfied state doesn't really require being some sort of Casanova, just moderately socially active, comfortable with yourself, and willing to put yourself out there occasionally. It may be slightly easier to be happy in this aspect of life as a very attractive person, but in the whole scheme of what it takes to be fulfilled, it's a fairly small advantage really.

<comment><USER9> ..and looks stop mattering completely the moment people start speaking instead of looking and deciding weather or not speaking will be interesting.

How you look signals what sorts of conversation are likely to be possible or interesting. e.g. if you really like knitting, go talk to the person wearing the nice custom sweater.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You can't change genetics, but you can become fitter, leaner, and more muscular, and wear flattering clothes.

<comment><USER11> Indeed. Living in a third-world country makes it really obvious that while beauty is rooted in nature it can very easily be bought if you have enough money. As you age, the niceness your skin is inversely correlated to solar exposure and manual labor, and positively correlated with money spent in moisturizers and other products. How fit your body is also depends on the money/time spent on a gym and on the quality of the food you eat. Your hair will also look as nice as the money you spend on it (even if you're bald), and even teeth can be fixed if you have enough money at a young age. Finally, beauty is socially defined, and over time the standards will shift to mirror other aspects of society (in Brazil, for example, white people are generally better off, so all standards of beauty encourage "looking white", by hair straightening, makeup, etc. In places where rich people don't do manual work and stay indoors all day being pale is considered pretty, while in places where rich people can afford to go to the beach looking tan is considered better).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."

— Roald Dahl (in _The Twits_ )

<comment><USER13> I feel like that's a cruel thing to say. "You're supposed to put your guard down when you're ugly".

<comment><USER14> Or worse - reverse it and you have if I think you're ugly, you can't have good thoughts.

<comment><USER15> I wouldn't go that far.

But it is true (in my experience) that good looking people are a bit more self-absorbed than normal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Lookism is a little silly. Unlike race and gender, looks are something we actively work on. I have a lot of gorgeous women in my life (even if I never compliment them), and I _know_ they take hours each day to make sure they look great. They spend effort in everyting from learning to put on makeup to accent their appearance, to using moisturizers, masks, cleansers, eye cream, lip gloss, to keeping a consistent workout schedules. Really, looks and knowledge are really developed in similar ways. They're not things we can't change.

We're allowed to judge people on intellectual merit as well as physical fitness, so why not on looks? You can work as hard as you want in an academic area or in a sport, and chances are you'll still never be in the top 1%. Likewise, your looks are also rooted in your genetic luck.

Other than stigma, I really see very little difference between academic merit, physical merit, and looks.

</comment><comment><USER17> I see this as a skill that can be improved – just like anything else. Even if you don't consider yourself the most attractive person, having a strong self worth and putting an effort into your appearance can go a long ways. There are enough sites/books/friends out there to help you figure out what is a good look for you. I have constantly harped on friends that it is amazing how much dressing better can do for your career. Control the things you can control and what you wear is certainly something you can.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sure sucks for those without good looks, but I see it as more gas for the fire to make yourself overcome that disadvantage.

<comment><USER19> Absolutely. Either accept your lot in life or try to overcome it. I can't see a good way of regulating lookism. Hey, Abercrombie & Fitch have been able to get away with it for years ([http://jezebel.com/5479980/american-beauty-a- brief-history-o...](http://jezebel.com/5479980/american-beauty-a-brief- history-of-abercrombies-hiring-practices)).

<comment><USER20> Well, if we can't get away from lookism, we need to have ways to redistribute the effects, right? We do it with smarts (if we assume that, in the aggregate, smart people make more money), so why not with good looks? So, attractive people need to sleep with the uglies, and the more attractive they are, the more they should do it. We'll add a few fields to tax forms where you enter your hotornot.com score, and a few months later if you're ugly you get sex coupons to spend and beautiful people get an assigned amount of sex coupons to collect.

(I usually use this argument to argue against wealth redistribution and progressive taxing, but I guess it works the other way around too ;) )

<comment><USER14> Well progressive taxation already redistributes money whether it's from aggregate advants of smarts or looks. You're talking of non-economic advantages, which are not redistributed for smarts either

<comment><USER20> Oh you're right, this article actually disproves my point. Doh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Looking good takes a certain amount of discipline. You have to eat right and exercise and take time to groom yourself. I wonder how much of the increase in success for attractive people is caused directly by their looks, ie greater self-esteem and unfair treatment. How much of the increase is not caused by good looks but correlates with good looks due to a deeper cause such as greater self-discipline?

</comment><comment><USER22> There's a positive feedback loop involved as well. Beautiful people are more likely to have others want to befriend them. This social practice makes them more sociable. Which makes more people want to befriend them.

I don't know if anyone here has lost a significant amount of weight (50+ pounds) while they were still young, but they will confirm this effect. In fact, this effect is often so strong, that people who have lost weight often become very skeptical of people's motivations. People who had never noticed them are now suddenly nice and friendly. This starts to make you wonder if the interest of other people in you, is purely based on your looks or who you really are.

<comment><USER23> If your store isn't bringing in enough customers you can upgrade the facade to bring in more traffic, but it's still up to you to make the sale once they walk inside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > It limits a person's right to equal opportunity, reinforces the > subordination of groups where unappealing characteristics, including > obesity, are concentrated (ie, the poor, some ethnic minorities)

That doesn't seem to be true:

> Contrary to conventional wisdom, … the poor have never had a statistically > significant higher prevalence of overweight status at any time in the last > 35 years. Despite this empirical evidence, the view that the poor are less > healthy in terms of excess accumulation of fat persists.

[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/08/the-poor-are-not- fat.h...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/08/the-poor-are-not-fat.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> Somewhat interesting that most of these comments are about the accuracy of the observations that looks have a beneficial impact in the stated areas. Is that really up for debate with the amount of verification already done on this subject?

I think a far more interesting question is how to exploit this global and obviously negative fact.

1) Don't play the game, you don't want to bother being stuck in a peer group where this is standard operating procedure. The fact that it is so widespread is actually a bonus here because you can easily cut out association with a huge swathe of humanity purely because they are simple beasts hung up on their evolutionary drives.

2) Know that generally, others not playing the game are likely to be focused on other areas also. Take their lack of focus on their appearance as an indicator that this might be the case, try to see where they are actually focusing their attention.

3) If your discard evolutionary metrics for lifestyle, largely you get to make them for yourselves. This is an enormously freeing experience in and of itself and I can't recommend it highly enough. If there's one thing life has taught me it is that you do _not_ have to accept the measures you are constantly barraged with as the only valid ones, and in fact if you don't, you will have less market competition in the areas which you end up focusing purely because humans generally don't do that.

</comment><comment><USER26> I love the comments that argue that since a preference for attractive (i.e., symmetrical) faces is hard-wired, we shouldn't try to legislate against it. From what I remember of ev psych, suspicion of individuals who are not of our group/tribe is also hard-wired - I wonder if those same commenters would abolish legal protection based on race.

That said, as a woman in tech, the concept of "erotic capital" resonates with me. I'm wildly ambivalent about it, though - the risk seems to outweigh any potential reward.

<comment><USER15> >I love the comments that argue that since a preference for attractive (i.e., symmetrical) faces is hard-wired, we shouldn't try to legislate against it

Well, it is also hard to quantify. How are you going to prove to a jury that you are plain and thus got turned down?

<comment><USER27> You can't in a single case, but over time and many cases, pattern of discrimination can be suggest via statistical methods. This is how covert racial discrimination cases are tried.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> People pick you based on how _they_ feel about you. Sometimes they pick you because you're nice, or funny. And sometimes just looking at you makes them feel good.

</comment><comment><USER29> "Yet because ugliness is harder to define than race or sex, some argue that anti-discrimination laws are impossible to maintain." Anybody else find the premise to that statement a bit short-sighted? I just read an interesting book called "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, where he cites scientific studies that prove many of our prejudices occur not at the conscious level, but rather unconsciously. In other words, even if you personally do not consider yourself a racist, a sexist, or a looks-ist (need a real word for that last one), you can easily be swayed by such factors -- even if you are aware that you could be influenced.

To assume it all happens consciously, and to consider legislation as the primary way of preventing discrimination, is a bit short-sighted in my opinion. Being aware of this concept is a first step, but efforts should be made to control for unconscious bias as well. Companies have an incentive to do this as they may be passing up better qualified candidates. Perhaps developing a way to implement blind performance reviews or conducting non-soft skills, technical interviews that test a person's cognitive ability behind a screen could be one way to curb the trend.

<comment><USER27> You may be interested in the Implicit Association Test: <https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/>

It comes with a disclaimer:

"Important disclaimer: In reporting to you results of any IAT that you take, we will mention possible interpretations that have a basis in research [...] If you are unprepared to encounter interpretations that you might find objectionable, please do not proceed further. [...]

I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed. [Click]"

<comment><USER29> Yes, this test is actually referenced throughout "Blink" -- Really interesting when you look at the results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Money can go a long way in mitigating lack of beauty (At least in men).

<comment><USER30> For men, social status is much more important than either looks or money.

<comment><USER3> And often money walks hand in hand with social status. And concerning attractiveness to women, that high correlation and what their women can buy from their money often is enough "prove".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Current studies show a positive correlation between IQ and looks. If that is true, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to think the same factors that result in good looks also result in a well developed brain, attempts to normalize pay regardless of looks are misguided.

<comment><USER32> How well does IQ correlate with intelligence?

<comment><USER33> Considering that it is designed to measure intelligence in a way that can be objectively defined, I'd say it correlates pretty good. Can you think of many intelligent people with a low IQ or unintelligent people with a high IQ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is there any idea to know if I'm a nice guy or not? I never had a girl friend, or talked to a girl for more than 10 minutes alone. I completely ignore if I look good or I'm bad. Any measures or software to estimate that?

</comment><comment><USER35> Does anyone else think that this could be one more thing holding back telecommuting?

Lately I have been trying to spot more of the soft factors that keep people coming into offices.

</comment><comment><USER36> Love the affiliate links to the referenced books at the top of the article.

</comment><comment><USER37> I call bullshit on this. If this had any truth to it, you'd think the entire C-level in every corporation would be overrun with "beautiful" people.

I think someone saw Gattaca and made a bet with a colleage to see if they could get something published based on the premise.</comment>


PayPal Adaptive Payments: Supported in 21 Countries - <AUTHOR> https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/products/adaptive-payments/#

<comment><AUTHOR> For those who wonder, here's the description of the 21 countries supported:

\- United States

\- Canada

\- Australia

\- United Kingdom

\- Germany

\- China

\- Singapore

\- Pakistan

\- Japan

\- India

\- Canada

\- China

\- Singapore

\- Pakistan

\- Japan

\- Australia

\- Mexico

\- China

\- Singapore

\- Pakistan

\- Japan</comment>


Show HN: Open Companies – For profit orgs who open sourced their major products - <AUTHOR> https://oo.t9t.io/organizations <comment><USER2> Does Microsoft count?

<comment><USER3> "Major" products. Haven't seen the source code for Windows or Office anywhere yet.

<comment><USER2> There is the Roslyn compiler. But I get your point. Companies at this scale are unlikely to open source their Golden geese</comment></comment></comment>