Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/19/facebook-is-secretly-building-a-phone/ <comment><USER3> I don't understand where they're coming from. Android's Facebook integration is a little rough, but all the problems are with the Facebook application.

When it comes to the article's touted benefits of deep integration in the OS - calling a friend, deep syncing contacts, etc, Android does it all already.

I have it set to only sync contacts that are already in my phone, but if a friend texts me who has their number on Facebook, their picture shows up instantly, no syncing required. It's downright creepy to the point of making me seriously consider turning it off. OS integration is a solved problem. It's actually browsing Facebook that doesn't work.

<comment><USER4> You're spot on - I have trouble believing that they're really going to put in all the effort to build an entire OS when they could achieve exactly the same end result by merely _finishing their freaking Android app_.

Thus far, Facebook hasn't even proven that they can competently develop a mobile _app_ , let alone an operating system. Even if the issue isn't talent, but resource allocation, are we really to expect that they're motivated enough to develop a mobile OS if the mobile experience hasn't been important enough to them until now to even finish their app?

<comment><USER5> Who says they have to build the whole OS? I bet it's just gonna be a variant on Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome. Microsoft does search, Google does mobile OS, Apple does social networks, now Facebook does phones. Its an all out tech war.

<comment><USER7> This is what happens when you staff a company with brilliant "generalist" engineers.

Heed the warning folks, hire specialists or your startup will be making phones before you know it!

<comment><USER8> _Every company attempts to expand until it can sell mobile phones._ It really seems like a modern variant on Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment, having displaced the dying medium of email.

<comment><USER9> Maybe "Building a mobile phone" is the new "Jump the Shark" for tech companies? And yes I'm giving a shout out Jon Hein.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Building a phone, the solution to all of the modern software company's problems.

<comment><USER11> Building a reliable network to support these phones, a solution to all of our connectivity problems.

<comment><USER12> If you think about it for a second, we still don't have that great mobile-only social app yet. The mobile versions of FB etc. won't cut it if the next 5-10 years are going to be all about mobile.

IMO, FB is extending its vertical with a mobile-only social app AKA the "FB OS."

<comment><USER13> "if the next 5-10 years are going to be all about mobile."

Yeah, if.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't buy this at all.

Apple has always been a hardware and software company with a very specific philosophy about user experience being everything. The digital music revolution gave Steve Jobs the opening to create the iPod that basically resurrected the company. That ply has been extended into phones and mobile computing.

Google is (from a revenue perspective) a search and advertising company. Their business model is predicated on how much you use the internet. So what Google is concerned with is everything between you and the internet. They've done Chrome, Android, etc to commoditize every link in that chain. Everything they do is about you using the internet easier, cheaper, in more places or more often.

Microsoft is about one thing and one thing only: selling Windows and Office licenses to enterprise and OEM customers. Nothing else matters. Look at the Kin: they bought Danger (with its once successful Sidekick) but then spent the better part of two years rewriting its OS as some Frankenstein version of Windows mobile. It arrived way too late and was dead before the first unit was sold (in large part due to the enormous data costs that Verizon saddled it with as they'd lost patience with the delay). Windows Phone 7 has the same goals.

Facebook is all about capturing and cultivating your relationships. They are a silo. They want to own that data because that data is their business and their entire value. Integration with everything else is about allowing other people to give Facebook more data.

What sense does a mobile platform make in that context? Absolutely none that I can see. How does it let them capture and control more data? Apple has had huge success with the iPhone because they have the industrial design, UI experience, supply chain management (which shouldn't be underestimated), iTunes (as much as many--including me--hate the application it is a near- monopoly in digital content) and retail channel.

For Facebook to succeed in the mobile space they would need most if not all of these things. It's a huge risk for relatively little gain and a small payoff. I can only thing that by leveraging a mobile platform of their own they could essentially lock out other platforms. The problem is that Facebook is usable with any Web browser.

I can't imagine Facebook doing any more than controlling the Facebook experience on all mobile platforms, an area they're still sadly lacking in (iPad app anyone?).

Basically this makes as much sense as Twitter making a mobile phone.

<comment><USER15> FB has the most complete contact list for a lot of people. It would be pretty cool if my phonebook ran off this and auto updates itself when people change their numbers.

<comment><USER16> Android phones with HTC Sense UI do this. It's pretty cool, it pulls a bunch of data (E-Mail address, birthday, last status message) and integrates them into your contacts. They also pull the profile image from Facebook and it's displayed when you get called.

<comment><USER17> My "Google experience" Droid 1 does it too.

<comment><USER18> So does my Droid 2. I assumed this was part of Android 2.2.

<comment><USER19> Good ol Palm Pre does this as well.

<comment><USER13> As did my Nexus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Or rather, they're building the software for the phone and working with a > third party to actually build the hardware. Which is exactly what Apple and > everyone else does, too.

What? Apples and oranges. Apple designed the hardware, they're a hardware company. What TechCrunch?

<comment><USER21> But they outsource the actual manufacturing to FoxConn.

<comment><USER22> The point is that outsourcing the manufacturing (like Apple) is extremely different from outsourcing the hardware design. That the iPhone's hardware and software is designed under one roof is a huge advantage. It's extremely unlikely that Facebook has hired out the hardware engineering and industrial design teams needed to go the Apple route. If they were doing that, someone would have probably noticed by now.

<comment><USER21> Why the down votes? I was simply pointing out what TC might have meant by "building". Everyone and their mother knows Apple doesn't outsource hardware design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The thing is, everyone I know uses Facebook the website but hates Facebook the company. I don't see the Facebook brand selling phones (I recall they rated on the bottom of brands in some study).

<comment><USER24> People hate everything. The big banks and airlines all rate at the bottom of customer satisfaction surveys, and yet they're big because everyone does a lot of business with them. People complain, but they don't change who they do business with.

I think a Facebook phone will be massively successful on name alone.

<comment><USER25> Pretty much everyone needs to deal with a bank, so in a way it doesn't matter that they all have customer satisfaction issues, since people have to put up with it. If a bank gets really bad, people will switch (I think it'd have to get really bad, since switching seems overly painful for me personally - <USER2> again, I'm Canadian and our banks work a bit differently than in the states). If all the banks suck - or at least, as you say, the "big banks" who obviously have the biggest mind share - then people just sort of put up with it.

The same goes for airlines. If you're in the position where you're considering flying, pretty much all of your options suck anyway. By this, I mean that if I didn't fly home (a two hour flight), my next best option is to travel by train, which is comparable in price, takes 10x more of my time, and is (warning: unsourced memory of something I may have misread) actually les safe than flying. Flying is a hassle, but its typically an infrequent one, and it's a lot better than its alternatives.

Phones, however, are pretty much a dime a dozen, and the range of products is immense.

I've had a "dumb phone" for four years, and I don't really have a reason to upgrade. I can call, I can text, and if I really really need to I have web access on a browser that makes Lynx seem state of the art. This is enough for me.

For those who want a "smart phone" there are already great options:

\- Blackberry is still a big name, and when I tried out my dads a few months ago, I liked it and considered buying one of my own. \- Apple is now the big name and iPhone has huge mind share (I can't speak to its market share off the top of my head) and people who like Apple like it a lot. \- Google is a trusted name, and they're marketing the hell out of Android. Their sales are pretty decent IIRC, and they're growing.

My point here is that there are already three large, established names that can compete "on name alone." The Facebook name, in a lot of circles, doesn't have a great reputation, particularly when talking about privacy.

I'm sure there _are_ people out there who would buy a Facebook phone purely based on the name, but there are an awful lot who would do the opposite. Personally, when I saw the title "Facebook is Secretly Building a Phone," my first thought was "...and I would never buy it." That's based entirely on the Facebook name, based on my perception of the company.

<comment><USER24> I don't think you realize that most people love Facebook and simply don't understand that there is privacy issue. They log in, see their friends, and play Farmville. A phone will let them do that when they're away from home.

<comment><USER23> An actual study says different:

<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2366730,00.asp>

 _...slightly miffed at the traction gotten by "you're a geek so your opinion doesn't reflect the average..."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm still waiting for the long-rumored Facebook gmail-killer. Wasn't there a rumor of a Facebook browser at one point too? So I'm not holding my breath on this one-although a Facebook-branded version of Android might make sense.

<comment><USER12> I know from a FOAF^n that FB-mail is real and they are planning to launch soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Assuming this is accurate, I think it makes a lot of sense, especially if it's based on Android. As it is, the bulk of people I see on laptops, iPads and iPhones in cafes are just using them as Facebook devices anyway. They might as well make it official.

On another note, if I see or hear the phrase "Web-based operating system" one more time I swear I'm going to lose it. Fine, great, it's a browser-based desktop: that's cool. Or, there is no desktop, there's just a web browser with a poorly debugged set of device drivers underneath[1]: that's cool too.

But a website does not an operating system make. ARGH!

[1] i had no idea my blog was the #3 result for that phrase on Google until just now. [2]

[2] I wrote the aforementioned blog entry four years ago when I still worked at Microsoft. I was dead wrong, at least for a lot of scenarios.

<comment><USER27> It is probably based on Android if this is true. I remember seeing @joehewitt working on Android. See for example: <http://twitter.com/joehewitt/status/20691624768>

<comment><USER28> Or if anything, they're just rewriting the Facebook Android app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'll bet its not a hardware phone. Rather a kind of Skype/Google Voice feature that will be added to its mobile clients. On your Facebook app for iphone example, there will be a new icon called "Phone" in addition to the existing News Feed, Inbox, Events, Photos etc.

<comment><USER30> This is the most intelligent interpretation I've seen so far. It makes excellent sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm probably going to be dead wrong about this (based on my track record), but I think this will be a total-loss.

Facebook is not a hardware provider any more than google is, if google can't put the N1 out there and make it work I have a hard time to understand how a site like facebook would be able to.

They should concentrate on improving their applications on existing mobiles in stead of rolling out a mobile of their own.

<comment><USER32> I'm with you 100% on this. I think tech companies see Apple's success and want a piece of that pie. Unfortunately I think they underestimate how much of a fluke Apple's success actually is.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> But will Facebook be willing to open up their social phone to other networks like twitter or will it just be Facebook contacts? I think a device unassociated with a particular network has a better shot since it'd be willing to open up to all networks and give a better experience.

</comment><comment><USER33> Ah, this might explain why their apps and mobile site are such crap.

This could be a popular gadget if done right. "Facebook Phone" is instantly understandable by any FB user, whereas it's not at all clear to them that they can fully use FB on an iPhone/BlackBerry/Android (and indeed, they can't).

They could make it tiny and cheap, which might capture customers that just want a smartphone for social stuff. It would be hard for any mobile app to consistently match the user experience, especially if FB keeps adding features.

They could even do simple third party apps, just like they do on the web site.

</comment><comment><USER34> Letts' Law: All programs evolve until they can send email.

Zawinski's Law: Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail.

I propose a new law: Every website calling itself a platform will attempt to incorporate the functionality of all other platforms that are popular at the time.

Having a phone for your platform is just another silly functionality that may or may not pan out in the end for any given platform.

It's an inevitable next step for any platform looking to invest in something/anything/i-have-ho-idea-what-do-do-now.

<comment><USER35> Everything evolve until they got a Linux heart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> So the protocol seems to be that strong web platforms want to themselves loosen up their dependence on their OS platforms: browsers, operating systems, etc..., so taken to an extreme the right thing to do is _build a hardware platform_? A little extreme, no?

It makes for a good plan B, but who thinks that creating yet another competing platform in the mobile space is a good thing for Facebook, _at this point_? Right now they have a very comfortable position on iPhone, Android, and Phone 7, with the biggest risk for platform subversion coming from Google. That still leaves them two viable platforms on mobile, with virtually no conflicts of interest coming from Apple, and possibly none from Microsoft either. (Okay, Ping, but I don't think Apple's ambitions for Ping are anything beyond boosting iTunes sales.) Now not only will they introduce another platform, but they will turn their existing platforms hostile against them. It's the kind of behavior that will land Bing as the default operating system in future releases of iPhone.

Possible responses: a Facebook phone OS might push Google to do a deep Google Me integration into Android, thus forcing most Android users to at least give Google Me a try, which hurts Facebook. It might force Apple to make Mobile Me free, and then integrate deep photo sharing and commenting into iPhoto and iOS. Since a plurality of college students own Macs and iPod touches already, Apple has very powerful platform control that can cause trouble for Facebook should Facebook be perceived as a threat to iOS. I don't see either of these response scenarios being particularly profitable for Facebook.

This can get very, very nasty. As they said in Godfather, "Nobody wants all out war."

<comment><USER36> Actually it looks like Android will be basis for Facebook's phone.

[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/09/19/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/09/19/businessinsider-facebooks-secret-phone-is- android-for-sure-2010-9.DTL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Unless FB are considering making it impossible for others to access it's API, building a phone seems like a better deal for Facebook than it does for it's users.

<comment><USER7> It's the twitter problem all over again; they want their data and network/platform to be ubiquitous but while reaping all the eyeball revenue from being the frontend of choice and making every other client second-class.

<comment><USER37> Not to forget Google.

Android is by some metrics a good platform, but I do wonder whether it's going to be the revenue generating channel that they seem to hope it will be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The most significant concept the article touched on was the potential to call people rather than their numbers. I think at this point it'll be hard to get beyond what Apple and Google are already doing on that front, however, as they already allow one to call Julie's Mobile.

The next stage would have to be calling Julie in a sort of Google Voice type of way, where her location isn't even an issue. At that point you could just call a person, but until then there will still be a need to define which location to call them on.

I wrote something about this type of convergence a while back called the Water, Steam, and Ice of Communication: [http://danielmiessler.com/blog/the- steam-water-and-ice-of-mo...](http://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-steam-water- and-ice-of-modern-communication)

<comment><USER39> I can't remember the last time I called someone via their number. What a ridiculous statement!£

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Facebook released a statement claiming this techcrunch article is inaccurate [http://mashable.com/2010/09/19/facebook-we-are-not- building-...](http://mashable.com/2010/09/19/facebook-we-are-not-building-a- phone/)

</comment><comment><USER41> Does this remind anyone else of the Peek? <http://www.twitterpeek.com/>

It seems like this might make Facebook more accessible for some group of Facebook users who aren't so computer savy. A dedicated device where you don't have to login, but you can see your families updates, interact, send messages, see pictures.

Also just did a quick check: <http://whois.domaintools.com/facebookOS.com> It's been registered since 2007, so it's certainly not something that's been off the radar from them.

</comment><comment><USER42> "All we know for sure is that Hewitt and Papakipos are working on something very stealthy together. And we have a source that tells us that stealthy thing is a Facebook phone."

The rest is all Arrington's speculation.

</comment><comment><USER43> Is "stuff people want" == being owned by some company? I rather doubt it, but then again, human nature is full of surprises. For example, a lot of people might want to be told what to do.

</comment><comment><USER44> I really wish they'd just fix their own software first... There are 4 different ways of accessing FB on my Android (app, touch, mobile full website), each and every one of them suck and in a different way. If I want to check my events - I have to use one, if want to delete a rushed post - has to use another..... annoying doesn't even start to describe it.

</comment><comment><USER45> I doubt this is true, but I hope it is. The more non-carrier companies with money in the wireless space the better. Maybe AT&T and the rest of them will have to give up some control when every major software company is competing for it.

In six months: the Oracle phone. You heard it here first.

</comment><comment><USER46> I dont think if users out there consider fb friend list as their contact list (users add bunch of people they dont even know or they hardly know them). I dont see it as a real smartphone, may be another social networking gadget.

</comment><comment><USER47> Didn't everyone see this coming? Isn't like 30% of iPhone app usage in Facebook?

</comment><comment><USER48> Since that "I Like" button campaign, Facebook's target is clear: Google. The mobile sector is not yet fully taken. So it seems logical to hit in that direction, if you have the power and user base like Facebook has.

</comment><comment><USER49> I've been waiting for this for years- it always seemed so obvious to me. Had Facebook done this a few years ago, I think it would have been a huge preemptive strike against the iPhone (and possibly Foursquare). After all, Facebook has the UX skills combined with massive amounts of data.

Now, though, it comes off more as a "me too" move.

Hopefully it's built on Android. Even if it looks and works nothing like Android, it's one less platform developers have to worry about when creating an app. I mean, imagine if developers had to create a separate version of their site for IE, Firefox, Safari, etc.

(Of course, my opinions are even more speculative than the original post- I'll wait until I actually see it to judge it.)

<comment><USER33> If they do apps, I bet they will work more like the apps on the site: very high level, markup for UI, thin client, server backed. This will keep the phone cheap, the software simple, and is conducive to the kind of social apps they want.

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 Surprised that the former lead of the Chrome OS project isn't barred from working on another OS project for a potential competitor by any sort of non- compete agreement.

<comment><USER50> I believe, and IANAL, in California non-competes are not enforceable anyway. Ref: Edwards vs. Arthur Andersen

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Could it be that the phones would be intended for parts of the world where not everyone owns a computer? It would get more people onto Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER52> Prior to building a Phone, I think FB should roll-out a mobile browser.

</comment><comment><USER53> wondering, when the facebook chat will stop sucking ?

</comment><comment><USER54> Sounds like another Kin. I don't want Facebook integrated deeply with my phone that would be intrusive, it's there when I need it.

<comment><USER55> I don't think it would be aimed at the type of person who reads stuff here or anyone who reads techcrunch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Mobile-device-as-a-service? Why not, half-billion users is enough to try.

Like a Kindle just for one kind of activity - reading, it could something like an iPad with only one big app.

Seems line the history repeats itself and we're heading back to the future from an era of general web sites in a universal browser to a closed world of connected devices. ^_^

<comment><USER51> I think most people want a swiss army knife, a device that can do everything. They don't want to lug around a bunch of devices, each of which does one thing and does it well. That's probably why the iPhone is so popular; It's a phone, mp3 player, camera, browser, everything you can think, except it doesn't have a corkscrew.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I finally opened a Facebook account years ago when I became convinced they kept private info private, now they are making private info public by default, and I no longer trust them. I certainly won't be buying a phone from them.

</comment><comment><USER58> Facebook is growing more powerful than Google.

<comment><USER59> For that reason specifically, I think they would have some serious hassle from the FCC if they wanted to bring a phone to market.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Help out an old data center tech monkey which job is about to deprecate - <AUTHOR> I am not really old, but old enough to be on the verge of not being able to learn anything drastic and not being able to take a radical 180 for my own sake and change the course of a confirmed deprecation
I am one of those thick-skulled data center tech monkeys that for the most part doesn't know shit about the bigger picture, and knows only how to rack servers, connect network cables and replace hard drives
my only luck is that as my english is decent, I got hired in a fortune 500 software company.
I Never chose my path, I could have been a software engineer if I was a little bit lucky and worked for it, instead I work in the physical infrastructure, I do see that where I work is neither were the money or the gratitude is, and lately the company like many others decided to go full public cloud. we should be done in about 2/3 years
The company have good reputation and pays well, very above the average. for the same job, I cannot claim the same salary anywhere else. so naturally me and many of my peers are stuck, slave of the paycheck and we could be tempted to stay as long as we can, hoping that we will be able to jump off the sinking ship in time and find something else
I read HN among other websites to smell the ambiance and learn new acronym and also the culture, I found very interesting links, found also a lot of resources for self learning
But there is not so many books and articles that someone can read per day while working a very busy and stressful job. catching up in 1 or 2 years what some learned in 15 years is no easy task. I am looking for a shortcut.
I know that this needs huge efforts and I'm willing to provide, but rather than going one way for too long and finding out that it is the wrong direction, I am trying first to get the big picture and see where I am, and then if it exist, take a shortcut <comment><USER2> You aren't too old to learn new things unless you suffer from dementia, and I don't get that impression. I'm probably older (60) and I still learn new things in software development and sys admin constantly.

Find out what cloud provider(s) your employer is migrating to. Learn those, get certified, get involved in the migration. You have two to three years to learn some new things that at least relate to what you do now. Don't stand around waiting for the ship to sink, as you put it. Get on the team, learn about cloud hosting, networking, security. Make yourself valuable to your employer rather than standing there watching your job evaporate.

You can read books and articles but the best way to learn is by doing. Most likely your employer will go through some trial and error figuring out the migration, which gives you an excellent opportunity to learn by doing.

<comment><USER3> This. If your company is migrating to AWS, go with AWS certification. You need to go horzintal in your learning, i.e broad and wide in term of knowledge and certifications. After getting some experience or extensive labbing, you can go vertical, i.e deeper and more specific knowledge.

Find whatever projects your company is planning, read more about those projects. Then understand where your passion is and what value you can add. Start learning, then contact the people owning those projects. Say that you want to contribute and that your main job will not be affected, as you will be doing it on the side. Your transition will not happen overnight, and you need a lot of work to get there, but if you are persistent you will get there.

There are courses on AWS certification for 9$ on udemy. You can also get a free account from AWS and start labbing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > I am one of those thick-skulled data center tech monkeys that for the most > part doesn't know shit about the bigger picture, and knows only how to rack > servers, connect network cables and replace hard drives

Don't know if this is useful in your case but, the "cloud" does no magically means those thing do not exist. A lot of the concepts that exist in hardware IT systems (networks, firewalls, proxies, routers, balancers, etc) have cloud equivalents. Maybe with a bit of work you can "transfer" your skills and become a "Cloud DevOps": Get into GCS, AWS, Azure, OCI and other cloud providers. These jobs are becoming more and more in request.

Good luck!</comment>


Oracle attorney says Google's court victory might kill the GPL - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/op-ed-oracle-attorney-says-googles-court-victory-might-kill-the-gpl/ <comment><USER2> "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

Ahem. No, it's just your flawed legal idea that's falling. Code is still totally copyrightable, and not takeable under "fair use" (unless it's a very small amount), but using APIs _is_ fair use.

API != implementation. Is that so hard to understand?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, the argument presented seems to go way beyond the case, but I do have a bit of a concern.

If using the API is fair use, how does this affect programs using libraries licensed under the GPL? Can a company claim fair use and not follow the GPL's restrictions on linking?

<comment><USER2> > If using the API is fair use, how does this affect programs using libraries > licensed under the GPL?

If you use the library, you're using - executing - the _implementation_ , not just the _interface_. That's not covered by this case, and you can't ignore the GPL's restriction on linking.

The analogy of this case would be if you kept the same function signatures of the library, but re-implemented it. Can you do that without violating the GPL? This case says "yes".

<comment><USER3> thanks for explanation - I thought as much, but it seemed to be missing from the stories

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess we're moving into the sour grapes stage of the litigation. I guess corporations really are people: 1\. denial (tick) 2\. anger (TICK) 3\. bargaining (tick) 4\. depression (coming soon) 5\. acceptance (#NeverAccept?)

</comment><comment><USER5> I literally just spit some beer out onto the bar. Are they high? Who at Oracle comes up with this shit?

Oracle is a threat to the GPL. They'll sure anyone.

</comment><comment><USER6> Oracle better stop fucking around. Larry's gonna learn a late lesson.

</comment><comment><USER7> Leave it to Oracle to continue with the FUD.

</comment><comment><USER8> Some more words from Annette Hurst: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/death- free-software-how-googl...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/death-free- software-how-google-killed-gpl-annette-hurst)

</comment><comment><USER9> apparently the GPL has only ever been challenged once in court. From "THE STORY OF BUSYBOX AND THE FIRST GPL LAWSUIT" [http://torquemag.io/2013/03/busybox/](http://torquemag.io/2013/03/busybox/)

quote:

> _Fascinating. Strangely, the BusyBox seems to have been the very first U.S. > lawsuit to enforce the GPL so his statement seems to suggest that there were > cases before that – I can't seem to find any._

<comment><USER10> There have been lots in Germany:

[http://gpl-violations.org/news/](http://gpl-violations.org/news/)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Peer-to-Peer travel API - <AUTHOR> http://docs.outpost.travel/en/latest/

<comment><USER2> Can someone explain what data is this returning?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is our (Outpost) API and essentially its grabbing data using the Python framework Eve. It's currently returning almost all of our listings that we display on our site. Place rentals is the feed with the most data but we received a few requests to affiliate for the experience feed so expect more data from there in the future.

TL;DR it's a JSON feed of our MongoDB.

<comment><USER3> Some of the audience here hasn't heard of you before, and doesn't know what Outpost does or what kinds of data are available, and the linked page doesn't really say, or even have obvious links to find out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well the linked page is more for the API cause I didn't want it to sound to spammy. I'll add more of a description and upload it in a bit.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Last Person to Receive Civil War-Era Pension Dies - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/last-person-to-receive-a-civil-war-era-pension-dies-11591141193 <comment><USER2> Wild.

Especially now, it's important to remind ourselves that American slavery isn't a thing of the the distant past - there are old people alive today whose fathers literally fought in the war to keep slavery legal. And the last former slave died in 1971 [1], which means there are probably tons of middle-aged people going about their lives who personally knew and had conversations with ex-slaves.

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

<comment><USER3> I would be curious to find out how many Americans today have ancestors who lived in America during Civil war. Even more detailed question is with percentages cohorts based on how many ancestors were in America vs somewhere else during that time.

<comment><USER4> My earliest ancestors came over in 1620, the last came over in the 1850s. So during the civil war, all my ancestors were already on this continent. However, none of them participated in the war since they all lived out west, beyond the boundaries of the USA, throughout the war.

<comment><USER5> The West was involved in the war in various ways. California was a state and Nevada became one. Gold and volunteers were sent east. There were troops sent to secure New Mexico from the confederacy.

<comment><USER4> None of those are places my ancestors lived.

<comment><USER5> The civil war took place after the Mexican-American war and the establishment of the border with British Canada. What is the western US now was under US control. Some parts were states, some territories. There was military and political activity all over the region related to the civil war. My ancestors lived in Utah. They didn't go fight, but that doesn't mean they were entirely isolated from the events.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A friend of a friend married his carer or nurse instead of paying her wages. He was not expecting to live long and needed 24/7 care.

It was agreed that she would be written out of the will, so his children got all the inheritance which was not diluted due to years of a full time carer. She got a lifetimes worth of pension payments, in exchange for a few years work (and forgoing other romantic relationships). She lived with him so I assume her living expenses were covered.

Risky for both sides, she could contest the will or the pension provider could find a loophole or accuse her of fraud.

<comment><USER7> I think this might also be a way for any two people, not too closely related such that the marriage is illegal, to dodge estate tax.

<comment><USER8> Civil partnerships, brought in for the purpose of giving the same legal rights for gay couples as married ones had, presumably also granted these rights. Since then gay marriage has rendered these redundant for their original purpose but they still exist. Some overtly non-romantically involved, long term, co-habitees are now using civil partnerships to protect the surviving person from estate duties upon the other's death. The anomaly now is that the people have to be of the same sex and there is pressure to allow people of the opposite sex to form them.

<comment><USER9> Can't you just accomplish the same thing with a trust? Admittedly it's a few hundred dollars instead of whatever the marriage license fee is, but, really?

<comment><USER8> I don't know but in the occasional debates I heard around this issue, trusts were never mentioned. Maybe that's a more possible solution in the USA. The attraction of civil partnership as thought of for these cases is that it's understood to just be a legal arrangement that confers all the legal rights of spouses to property automatically. Because it's possible for same sex people I've heard of two widowers who share a house entering such an arrangement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This reminds me that there is video footage online today of a person who witnessed President Lincoln's murder: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4)

<comment><USER11> This one is lively. Civil War vets chatting in 1929 [https://youtu.be/4qGX0XM84Ck](https://youtu.be/4qGX0XM84Ck)

</comment></comment><comment> Mary-Jane One aspect of this that doesn't seem to be getting much attention is the law of unintended consequences. It's easy to contribute other people's money to an inarguably noble cause, but I wonder how many of the authors of the budget that set aside these funds appreciated that their great great great great great grandchildren, many of them _descendants of slaves_, would be paying for this benefit?

<comment><USER12> As long as pensions aren't inflation adjusted and we have near-constant low level inflation, it's just not a big deal. This article is about an approximately $1000/year benefit received by a single person. It's an extreme outlier and its cost is many orders of magnitude from being even a rounding error.

To your question, though, designers of pension funds definitely do understand that pensions which survive the original recipient can start to look like perpetuities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me that at least until recently, two grandsons of President Tyler (born in 1790) were still alive.

<comment><USER13> Here's an interview with one of them: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiL2PgC17A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiL2PgC17A)

It seems like a lot of elderly men in the late 1800s/early 1900s married younger women to essentially be caregivers.

<comment><USER8> The grandson comes across as a nice sensible countryman, no airs or graces despite the extraordinary lineage and the wealth he seems to have, judging by his house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The headline is a bit weirdly qualified. "X-War-Era" usually refers to something from the time of but _not_ directly associated with the war. This is, in fact, a Civil War pension.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nopay 2016 article about the recipient and other war funds:

[https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-08/civil-war- ve...](https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-08/civil-war-vets-pension- still-remains-on-governments-payroll-151-years-after-last-shot-fired)

</comment><comment><USER16> [http://archive.is/Ksohd](http://archive.is/Ksohd)

</comment><comment><USER17> How is such a pension delivered? A direct deposit? Is there somewhere in an interface or a check where the words "Civil War pension" would be displayed?

<comment><USER18> Its a line item via direct deposit labeled "VA Payment" or something along those lines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Huh, they completed a loop in time.

</comment><comment><USER20> Agreed, I think this is such a good reminder that slavery wasn't that long ago. There are many people alive today who grew up under legal segregation. In fact, it's not hard to see how today's modern Republican Party grew out of the "Southern Strategy" of the late 60s.

<comment><USER4> The Democratic Party used to be the party of the south/segregation. What year (or decade) is the point where the two parties flipped places on this issue?

<comment><USER21> The solid south flipped in the 1960s. LBJ through force of his will basically betrayed the senate democrats and pushed through significant social legislation. (Voting, civil rights, great society, etc)

The solid south types saw the writing on the wall and started breaking away. The "Southern Strategy" as implemented by Nixon and perfected by Reagan basically started as a collaboration of conservative southerners ("rehab Democrats") and western resource extraction interests. Eventually they took over the GOP and you have the circus that we see today.

<comment><USER22> It _started_ flipping in the 1960s, but Southern Democrats hung on to most southern state governments, and many House & Senate seats, until the 1990s. Richard Shelby (a conservative Alabama Senator) only switched parties in 1994, for example.

<comment><USER23> It _started_ even earlier. In 1948, Strom Thurmond ran for President as a Dixiecrat (Democrat for Racial Segregation), which is one reason why Truman v. Dewey was so close.

In 1952, Robert Taft wanted to run for President using the "southern strategy" to woo disaffected Democratic voters, but Eisenhower decided to run, and that put an end to that strategy until Nixon was more successful in 1968.

Basically, the south became squishy on Democratic Party once northern Democratic Mayors (and FDR) realized that African-Americans were a strong labor voice and a powerful voting block. "The Party of Lincoln" (GOP) had been ignoring African-Americans since TR was in the White House.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


List of Multiple Discoveries - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries

<comment><USER2> I invented the Trie data structure ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trie)), and used it to efficiently count and sort words.

Years later, I found out it had an official name and was well documented.

<comment><USER3> I had the very same experience (though my use case was something akin to autocomplete), and so have a handful of other people I've spoken with. I think that has interesting implications regarding the patentability of software and algorithms.</comment></comment>


Jeb spent $2845 per vote in Iowa - <AUTHOR> http://braid.io/tile/iowa-cost-per-vote <comment><USER2> They took the dollars that each candidate spent on advertising and divided it by the number of votes they received. They only highlighted the total dollars spent ($14.9M) and total votes received (5,235) by Jeb Bush, but didn't bring up the totals of any of the other candidates. For all we know, he could have spent the least amount of money. It's impossible to tell without the other candidates' totals. If I paid my friend $10 to vote for me, then I'd be spending $10/vote which all of a sudden sounds pretty good. Although, if I spent $5k to convince that same friend then all of a sudden my efficiency has dropped below Jeb's.

EDIT: Was easy enough to find those other numbers. [http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/and-the-total-amount-spent- campai...](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/and-the-total-amount-spent-campaign-ads- iowa)

Total Iowa ad spending so far:

      Team Bush: $14.9 million (all from the Right to Rise Super PAC)
      Team Rubio: $11.8 million ($4.6 million from campaign, $4.7 million from Super PAC, $2.5million from 501c4
      Team Clinton: $9.4 million (all but $50K from campaign)
      Team Sanders: $7.4 million (all from campaign)
      Team Cruz: $6.0 million ($2.2 million from campaign, rest from outside groups)
      Team Trump: $3.3 million (all from campaign)
      Team Carson: $3.5 million ($3.2 million from campaign, $300K from Super PAC)
      Team Jindal: $3.3 million
      Team Huckabee: $2 million (all from Super PAC)
      Team Paul: $1.1 million
      Team Walker: $1 million
      Team Perry: $814,000
      Team O'Malley: $219,000 (all from Super PAC)
      Team Santorum: $3,000 (all from campaign)

<comment><AUTHOR> The bottom of the page has a link for the source with all the absolute number: [https://morningconsult.com/briefs/campaigns-brief-how-to- wat...](https://morningconsult.com/briefs/campaigns-brief-how-to-watch-the- iowa-caucuses/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Could someone elaborate on the reasons for his lack of popularity? Is it because of his Brother/Father's track record?

Sorry for my ignorance, I don't live in the U.S so I'm just an observer.

<comment><USER4> I suspect you may be on to something...

His father, George H. W. Bush, was known for prosecuting a fairly "successful" war--the 1990-1991 Gulf War--that ostensibly lasted about 5 months...essentially "ejecting the Iraqi army from Kuwait"\--the stated goal... his domestic record was viewed as "less than stellar"...

Americans pay attention to things like that and seem to relish a victory...listen to the response to Whitney Houston singing the National Anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl:

[https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=whitney+houston+super+bowl) (This is worth a listen even if you're only interested in the question itself...it's the best rendering I'm aware of at any time in U.S. history.)

The audience's response hints at the "prevailing" national mood at that time...

His brother, George W. Bush, served 2 terms with mixed results...some counted him as one of the least-talented (intellectually) Presidents the U.S. has ever seated...here you can factor in the controversial 2003 invasion of Iraq itself, and the mishandling of a response to Hurricane Katrina, especially in the city of New Orleans...

I'll stop here; the tale is long and complicated...those are just major highlights...

Jeb Bush is likely quite capable of exceeding expectations, but some say he lacks charisma, charm...there's probably some reluctance to elect another Bush because of journalists and historian's evaluations of the presidencies of his father and brother...

Having said all that, he might be the best qualified "moderate" candidate the Republicans could field in this election...time will tell...he appears to be out of the running for a nomination...

<comment><USER5> <some counted him (GWB) as one of the least-talented (intellectually) Presidents the U.S. has ever seated>

That's the popular media and pop-culture narrative, but it just wasn't true. Read firsthand accounts from non-media policy experts who were there, for example... [http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/](http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/)

Similarly, Eisenhower and Reagan were portrayed as a dottering grandfatherly types disinterested in policy during their tenure, but honest historians later gave them their due.

<comment><USER4> That's precisely why I used the word "some"...

The questioner asked about his brother's track record, specifically the potentially negative aspects of that record...public perception, even if shaped or influenced, remains that...truth often doesn't enter into it, just as you correctly allude...thanks for your response...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The real story here seems to be Trump's impressive showing, having both the most votes per $ AND the most votes per day spent there.

</comment><comment><USER7> Dude, just drop out already.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wish someone would do this with the Walker *recall (not impeachment) advertising dollars, from several years ago. I think it was somewhere around a magnitude more than the challenger.

<comment><USER9> _Recall_ , you're thinking recall, not impeachment.

And Walker's fight was viewed as one for the Right for the whole country, I, for example, sent him $200 for that, did my part to validate the recall petitioner signatures on a web site they set up (didn't find any bad ones), etc.

Rather a different thing than a normal election. Oh, _and Walker won_.

<comment><USER8> Fixed.

And yeah, he _only won 52% to 46%_ (w/ 4% margin of error), despite _spending 7x_.

* Walker Spending Dollars: $30.5 million

* Barret Spending Dollars: $4 million

* Walker cost per vote: $23.10

* Barret cost per vote: $3.49

Thanks for interfering with another state's recall, I guess. You fell for their schtick that the entire country was threatened, when in reality it was just WI public sector workers losing their universal rights.

<comment><USER9> The same universal "rights" FDR thought it was unconscionable for them to have? Wasn't until JFK at the national level, and as I recall Wisconsin a few years before, that this ripoff of taxpayers started, public sector unions negotiating with politicians for the mutual benefit.

I, for one, want that replicated in my state, so we don't go bankrupt like Illinois and California are frequently close to, so establishing that a governor and ruling party could do this without losing in the polls was _essential_ , my state is very much threatened.

<comment><USER8> The same Universal Rights as declared by the United Nations.

I don't really care about whatever fallacious reasoning you've come up with to appease your cognitive bias. It's pretty obvious your critical thinking is impaired if you think setting a state budget has anything to do with collective bargaining. Or that the people whom you paid $200 to take rights away from are even a threat. Good job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another example of money having little power in elections.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure that's in any way demonstrated here. If Bush didn't have quite a bit of money he wouldn't even be on the ballot for the vote he lost. We've got ample evidence that money is extremely powerful in elections.

It would be more accurate to say the money, while still a necessary condition for competing, is not a sufficient condition for winning. You have to have...well, a personality, too.</comment></comment>


Is this c/10 spaceship known? - <AUTHOR> http://www.conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2057 <comment><USER2> This writeup (found a few pages into the thread) explains things in a little bit more detail for a newcomer. [https://niginsblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/new-spaceship- sp...](https://niginsblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/new-spaceship-speed-in- conways-game-of-life/)

<comment><USER3> That is an awesome post and gives hints into the depth the community has gone into the conway game

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's a beautifully concise numbering system for sharing being used there.

Now if only we had descriptions of chemistry that were this terse. Imagine if this kind of problem solving, collaboration, simulation, and instant verification were the norm for synthetic chem. One of the comments -- "[Let's] use gencols to rub the ship against gliders and *WSSs to see whether there is a useful collision to maybe build a puffer" \-- just blew me away. If this were chemistry, that commentator would have been suggesting automatic nanomachine factory discovery.

(InChI appears to be close. But vast amounts of data are locked up in obtuse formats are either Assigned-Names-And-Numbers style formats which are useless to indexing and similarity searches, or formats that embed non-relative coordinates in 3d space, etc, in such a way that computing a deterministic ID for sharing is practically a nonstarter.)

<comment><USER5> InChI is not designed as, nor can used for, what you propose. Last I checked, conversion from an InChI to a structure format was not a supported option, and only exists for testing purposes. Which is not to say that people don't use for that. (Also, last I checked, there are inputs which cause InChI to segfault. And there's no spec for how to interpret InChIs other than to run the reference code.)

The InChI normalization step may also change the chemistry. For example, it may put things into a preferred tautomer form or charge state. This is essential for its goal of linking disparate records, but it is not chemistry preserving, and can be worse than passing an SD file to your nanomachine factory.

It was designed as "deterministic ID for sharing", yes, but not for sharing structure information but rather information related to the structure.

The most "concise" solution is to record the positions of the nuclei and the total charge. Then any quantum mechanics program will be able to reconstruct (to the desired level of approximation) the electron density of the molecule. This is the one you reject.

For good reasons. As you say, you want a nomenclature that can help with identity and similarity, and electron density is a very slow way to do that.

But such nomenclature is driven by human concepts. Fundamentally, there are different reaction rates depending on the relative orientation of two molecules. We see this in molecular beam experiments. For example, from 1979, [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/00092614798...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0009261479803851) "Molecular beam reaction of K atoms with sideways oriented CF3I".

InChI doesn't have a special name for "sideways oriented CF3I", even though a complete, concise system would have to be able to provide a name for it.

Instead, we've come up with concise approximations - a SMILES string, a bitstring fingerprint, etc. - which are tractable for the purposes you want, so long as we stay within relatively normal chemistry. But it's still humans who categorize things into, say, "aromatic" or "chiral", so our approximate nomenclature has to partially encode how humans think of chemistry.

The Game of Life is much simpler than the Reality of Life.

<comment><USER4> All of this is true. The word "close" was chosen very, very deliberately.

Though the Game of Life is surely simpler than the Reality of Life... if one were to flat out name the core concept as "godel numbers for chemical formations", it's certainly possible, don't you think? InChI isn't it, I agree; just wanted to toss the seed of the idea out there, with an example that's a lot "closer" to the target semiotics than a bunch of unnormalized floating point coordinates drifting around in xml.

"good enough is the enemy of good" can apply in spades here, so I appreciate your thorough analysis of specific weak points in InChI.

<comment><USER5> InChI is not closer but actually further than SMILES or SD files for many of the use cases you wanted. It is not a supported capability to turn an InChI into a structure, which makes it hard to generate, say, a fingerprint for a Tanimoto search system. (Yes, the command-line tools and its wrappers support that, but the InChI developers do not condone its use. Even if you do so, the output may differ from your input structure in ways you disagree with.)

InChI is only closer for the classical purpose of chemical documentation - record association and text-based search. That is not a bad thing, but given the entirety of your goals, it is equally correct to use "close" for SMILES, SLN, SD, Mol2, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hint: Click "Show in viewer" in the first message. Zoom out a bit. Press play.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the hint, I was just trying to dig up Golly to test it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Skimming through the thread, I realized I had no idea of the type of community that exists surrounding Conway's game. I think it's awesome.

<comment><USER9> I know! There is probably some corollary to Rule 34 that states that for every obscure topic there is an internet forum of people dedicated to it.

<comment><USER10> There is, naturally, a relevant XKCD about this:

[https://xkcd.com/1095/](https://xkcd.com/1095/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just love all the lingo in little specialized communities.

orthogonal spaceship, glider, puffer, rake, loafer.

"Trying to perfect a rake so it does not create Methuselah which eventually evolves into loaves, beehives and traffic lights isn't normal. But on Conway's Life, it is. Life. Not even once." \- 'muzik

"\- Use gencols to rub the ship against gliders and *WSSs to see whether there is a useful collision to maybe build a puffer." \- 'HartmutHolzwart

And the excitement exhibited over this discovery. Very cool.

<comment><USER12> Most of the language was introduced by Conway himself, with a bit of contribution by Gardener who popularised it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very nice!

You might be interested in a simple proof I found of why c/2 and c/3 are speed limits for orthogonal and diagonal spaceships respectively.

Definition: In a gameplay of life, an "infinite lifeline" is a sequence of pairs (c_i,n_i) such that each c_i is alive in generation n_i and either c_(i+1)=c_i or c_(i+1) is adjacent to c_i.

Lemma ("Two Forbidden Directions"): Let x,y be any two 'forbidden' directions from among N,S,E,W,NE,NW,SE,SW. In any gameplay of life that starts finite and doesn't die out, there is an infinite lifeline that never goes in either direction x or y.

The lemma's proof uses biology. Say that (c,n) is a "father" of (c',n+1) if c' is the cell adjacent to c in direction x or y. Otherwise, (c,d) is a "mother" of (c',n+1). By the rules of the game of life it's easy to show every living (c,n+1) has at least one living father and at least one living mother. It follows (modulo some more details) that since the gameplay doesn't die out, there must be an infinite lifeline where each cell is a mother of the next, i.e., an infinite lifeline that never goes direction x or y.

Proof of c/2 orthogonal speed limit: If a spaceship went faster than c/2, say, northward, by the lemma, it would have an infinite lifeline that never goes N or NE. The only way it could ever go northward would be to go NW. Every NW step would have to be balanced out by an eastward step (of which NE is forbidden) or the spaceship would drift west. So every northward step requires a non-northward step, QED.

Proof of c/3 speed limit for diagonal: A diagonal spaceship faster than c/3, say, northeastward, would have an infinite lifeline that never goes N or NE. The only way for it to go northward would be to go NW. Each NW step would need at least two eastward steps in order for the ship to go eastward, QED.

<comment><USER14> I'm no life expert, but this proof doesn't work for me. Just because _there exists_ some configuration that doesn't generate lifelines in your chosen directions, doesn't mean that _any particular configuration_ doesn't generate lifelines in those directions.

<comment><USER13> You're mixing up where the negation goes.

The lemma says that in any configuration which starts finite and never dies out, there _DOES_ exist _at least one_ lifeline which _DOESN 'T_ go in a forbidden direction. (There are almost certainly lots of other lifelines which do go in forbidden directions, that's fine.)

An example of a lifeline in a southeastward spaceship that never goes S or SE: [http://www.xamuel.com/images/lifeline.gif](http://www.xamuel.com/images/lifeline.gif)

The proof I outlined above was published in the Elect. J. of Combinatorics (last section): [http://www.combinatorics.org/ojs/index.php/eljc/article/view...](http://www.combinatorics.org/ojs/index.php/eljc/article/view/v20i1p31)

<comment><USER14> Ack, sorry. For some reason my mind wasn't wrapping around the fact that you can choose your configuration _before_ choosing your forbidden directions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm thinking about writing a Conway's Life MMO, where you can activate "lanterns" that illuminate rectangles in the grid with Conway Life squares. These lanterns are fueled with "living" Conway Life cells, which are harvested by the player. Sound interesting?

<comment><USER16> Honestly no. Building an MMO that ran entirely on life would be amazing but probably impossible. Building something that used the trappings of life without having it mean much would just be infuriating. Unless I'm misunderstanding the proposal?

<comment><USER15> The first thing that comes to mind, is that players would build glider guns that would cause live cells to "fall into" collector cells to gather resources. So it would be a farming/RTS game, except all of the crops and weapons would be emergent from Conway's Life.

<comment><USER16> I think that's going to be unplayably difficult for anyone except serious programmers, and it will be very difficult to design life structures that have the behaviour you need to make the game fun, and even if you manage it you'll have trouble running them fast enough to perform well. I mean best of luck if you do do it, but it's going to be a real uphill struggle.

<comment><USER15> You're totally misunderstanding my proposal. (Either on purpose as a troll, or you're just having a particularly obtuse day.)

The life structures you need to start would just be glider guns. The glider guns would fire into walls of "collector cells" which are not Conway Life entities, but are implemented by the game directly.

Likewise, the character is not a Conway Life entity, but implemented directly by the game.

 _I think that 's going to be unplayably difficult for anyone except serious programmers_

What I've envisioned might well be appreciated by Life enthusiasts.

<comment><USER16> A glider gun is still incomprehensibly complex for non-programmers, I fear.

To the extent that resource collection involves stuff happening in Life you will struggle to balance it, and to the extent that it doesn't it's not really life-based at all.

<comment><USER15> _to the extent that it doesn 't it's not really life-based at all._

Obviously, because no MMOs have contrived mechanics, ever!

<comment><USER16> MMOs need two things: mechanics that make them fun as a game, and themeing that will attract players. As far as I can see including a life aspect doesn't help with either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> [https://niginsblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/new-spaceship- sp...](https://niginsblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/new-spaceship-speed-in- conways-game-of-life/)

This link has an animation of the c/10 spaceship.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm confused about what I'm looking at... is this a pattern that emerges in conways game of life?

<comment><USER19> it's a pattern that "moves forward", i.e. recreates itself at another position.

<comment><USER20> At speed c/10, "one tenth of a cell in each iteration", or, better said: after ten iterations, the pattern has moved one cell, but is otherwise unchanged. That's why it is called a glider; it glides through the grid (a puffer stays at its location and returns to its original snape after some time, but periodically sends out gliders)

What's new here, apparently, is that this is the first glider discovered with that speed. It also is surprisingly small.

<comment><USER21> Really great explanation, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is it just me or does the original frame look like Serenity (Firefly)? It's movement is backwards though.

</comment><comment><USER23> amazing</comment>


Want to Be Happy? Think Like an Old Person (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/nyregion/want-to-be-happy-think-like-an-old-person.html <comment><USER2> Some thoughts from someone who recently became an "old" person. Around turning 50 I suddenly realized that my life will probably be always somewhat similar to what it is now. The big ambitions and dreams are gone so I don't feel that much pressure to achieve anymore. Also at that age the options to change one's life are pretty limited compared to being in your 20s. Which makes me much more content compared to when I was younger. I have also accepted that I will die some day.

I don't think younger people should adopt that mindset necessarily. It's good to have ambition while you are young but maybe you shouldn't listen too much to other people. In the end being young is hard. There are so many options for living your life but there is no way to tell which one will be right for you. So there is a lot of luck involved. Some people pick the right path. Many don't.

<comment><USER3> >I have also accepted that I will die one day

How? I'm only 27 but every time I try to tackle this problem raw panic prevents any reasonable thinking.

I've instead adopted a "when it happens I won't know" mindset and continue to work towards extracting maximum enjoyment from life.

<comment><USER4> I'm 29 and comfortable with the thought of dying. Not looking forward to it, but not frightened either. The "how" is just like anything else, practice. Since you can only die once, you have to rely on the deaths of others you care about to help you over your fear.

When I was in third grade, one of my brothers was murdered. I felt all the panic of mortality, and intense, visceral grief -- etc that you might imagine. A few years after that, a cousin was stabbed to death. I didn't know him much, and I figured that was the reason why his funeral felt much easier.

My grandmother died in 2007, she was the sweetest lady you'd ever meet. It was even "easier" than the cousin's funeral.

In 2009, an uncle died. In 2010, an aunt. Another aunt died in 2013.

Another one of my brothers always used to say that he never wanted a funeral. When he died October 2016, some family threw him a funeral anyways. I felt like I was doing his memory a solid by not going. At an earlier stage in my life, when I was more self important -- I would have been livid at the family who threw a funeral for someone who didn't want one in life. Now I know stuff like that just doesn't matter.

The pain of losing a loved one has changed from an acute stabbing sensation in my kidneys to somber waves that roll over me, then recede. Getting better at coping with the deaths of those you love helps you come to terms with your own mortality.

Basically, don't worry about it.

<comment><USER5> You might once it starts becoming more statistically probable.

<comment><USER4> Probably not. I rolled my truck a few years ago, and my numbness persisted even while windshields were shattering and up became down, then up and then down over and over again. I wondered if I was going to die, and just surrendered myself to physics.

If I ever fall feet first into a wood-chipper, I'll probably panic and try to find a way out. The instinct to survive is still there. The existential dread is just gone.

<comment><USER5> Yes, well those are statistical anomalies. Once you get to a point where in a perfect scenario, you may only have 40 years at best, or 25 years normally, that weighs on your mind and actions. Not to mention, those last 20 years aren't nearly as good from a health/pains perspective as the first or middle 20. "Probable" that I used isn't a good word, more like "inevitable."

When you get a certain age, you know you will be dead in the time it took you to be born and graduate from college. Your window is rapidly closing. What are you going to do with the last 20-40 years? You might not be able to do much because you are stuck working, making someone else rich. You may very well be bound to that job because of health care costs.

When you are young, you may realize this will eventually happen, but you won't really understand it until you are in that situation. It's some heavy shit. People thinking about this sort of thing is probably why humans invented religion and spirituality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how much of it is caused by having the freedom to decide how to spend your own time.

I had the opportunity to spend a couple of months off between jobs a few years back and I've never been happier. It was gone within a day of starting my new job. I like what I do for a living, but not nearly as much as I like freedom. Spending most of your life in dayprison sucks the joy out of your life.

<comment><USER7> I think 3 months is the expiration for unemployed meanderings to be fun. I quit my last job to pursue a side project full time and it went from every day being bliss to every day having a film of meaninglessness over it. Humans are social creatures, and it is strange how important just having other people who care about what you are doing is to making it seem important in your own mind. I am debating finding a co-founder just so they can look at it sometimes and be like 'yeah seems good' :/.

<comment><USER6> > I think 3 months is the expiration for unemployed meanderings to be fun.

I've spent longer periods of time doing fuck all earlier in life (college) and it was awesome. I could just hang around the house for the rest of my life and not get bored one bit.

> Humans are social creatures

While that may be true for the majority of people, it doesn't apply to me. Being around humans makes me miserable. I like the _idea_ of socializing, I see people having fun at social activities and that makes me want to spend time around people. But every time I do it's just soooo boring. All I can think of is how I'd rather be at home, alone.

<comment><USER8> I am pretty much like this. I still enjoy socializing with people, but I'm happy as hell when I have loads of free time to work on what I want, when I want, for as long as I want. I could live a thousand years without a schedule and never get bored.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article isn't really a good candidate for a list of "things you can learn from older people".

First, the study it cites is at [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3332527/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3332527/). The study has a few problems insofar as the way the article wants to use it. The study covered several hundred individuals ranging in age from 18 to 94; the median age of the participants was about 55, but the study doesn't specify how many people were aged 80 or older; the study self-selected for people "who reported that their health was 'as good or better than most people their age'"; and, the trend analysis in the study displays a negative slope after age 70 for "positive emotional experience".

So, as long as you limit your sample to people aged 50 to 70 who are in better than average health, sure, maybe you can write an article that older people are happier. Also, make sure you use pictures of people _much_ older than 70, and talk about a handful of individuals you used as case studies.

Missing from the author's case studies is my grandfather, turning 90 soon, who in his younger years was always very physically active and healthy, who was well-read as an orphan and supported the civil rights movement long before there was even a movement, who raised three daughters and lived long enough to see two of them die and the third fall to a painkiller addiction, who was married to and loved the same woman for almost 60 years before losing her, too. He spends his days and his nights in a recliner. Most of his mind still works but his body has mostly failed him. He can't go for a walk or enjoy the sunshine. He relies on phone calls and visits from his grandkids to break up the miserable monotony of his remaining days. He talks longingly and sincerely of "the Oregon needle", and is disappointed every time he recovers from a bout of pneumonia.

One of the things I've learned from him is that dying is okay. Just try to live really well first.

<comment><USER10> Ok, I'm at a loss... "the Oregon needle"?

*edit - I'm guessing assisted suicide

<comment><USER9> Yep. Oregon refers to this as the "Death with Dignity Act".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm 52 and completely and utterly lost. None of my early goals (wife, kids, close friends, personal company) have been reached. I have no hangout buddies, no really close friends, no SO. Sometimes in the last 10 years my interests dried up. Since my teens I wanted to have a company in a certain industry and that industry changed and holds almost no interest now. I've no idea how to get my groove back. I still mostly enjoy programming but I hate feeling like life is happening while I stare at a screen even though I keep staring.

People tell me to get out and I do, tried surfing for example, didn't really appeal to me. Tried dancing, same. Did lots of traveling but it's not so fun alone for a 50 yr old guy.

I mostly feel now it's partly about luck as well. Meeting the right people, having the right support groups is invaluable. Pretty much everyone I meet that I might work with though is just looking for cheap labor as "I have this idea, you're an engineer, how about you do all the work for free and I'll take all the money if we make any" or at least that's how it feels.

As for as whether or not 52 is old sure it's not as old as 70 or 90 but ... society in general labels me as old. Various forms require an age listed and 45+ or 50+ is the last group. HN tells me I'd have trouble being hired. Not yet my experience but certainly on my mind. Going to almost any bar, club, meetup, hackathon and I'm the oldest one there.

I don't feel I've lost my ambition. If I had then maybe I'd be content. Rather I just lost direction and belonging.

<comment><USER12> I'm too young to be giving you advice, but if according to what you have written 1) you have few responsibilities to others 2) little satisfaction in your current life (not much to lose) and 3) you're still healthy, then you are logically in a position to take risks and maybe do something wholly out of your comfort zone, or at least take the time to do some radical thinking about your existence and what you really value.

<comment><USER13> Wholly agree with above sentiment and advice. I'm in my sixties, which amazes me daily, as other than some recognition of slowing down physically I don't have a clear sense of being young or old. I'm also about to start looking for work again, about which I feel less dread than I anticipated, mostly due to reasons others have given: less anxiety about the future as more water passes under the bridge. But to the original point, as you said, one definitely shouldn't be afraid of venturing outside one's comfort zone ... or if too self-controlled, consider deliberately placing oneself in a situation you can't strictly control. Otherwise one continues to plow the same rut until the end, simply because it's the one you're in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Most old people I know are either semi depressed, or not very happy (say slightly the middle point).

I also very very very often look a children. I know it's probably near impossible to recapture a virgin mind and its fresh experience of everything. But there's a musicality, in a physics lingo, a superb low impedance to their behavior. They just flow. And it speaks to me. After long periods of getting stuck in loops of browse/todolist/procrastinate. I find the idea of catching my own desires, no matter what, and just get moving; often by starting the motion, energy and happiness make a blip on the radar.

<comment><USER3> Sometimes this is captured in the "mindfulness" philosophy - opening your eyes.

<comment><USER14> I didn't interpret that term this way. It feels more passive but wider perception of the world and not necessarily to act on your own desire over said world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been reading Leland's book, Happiness is a Choice You Make, the past couple weeks. I'm about half-way through it and totally recommend it. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073P1HP8P/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073P1HP8P/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

I've been insanely fortunate to have things align for me such that I was able to recruit my 93-year-old grandpa to be my unofficial happiness mentor about 18 months ago. What started as just errands morphed into going on adventures and a constant stream of wisdom. I've been on what feels like an unusual journey (not many of my friends hang out with a 90+ year-old every couple weeks). Leland's book has been helpful in understanding how special it's been. I wrote a longer piece about my journey with my grandpa this week. [https://nanagram.co/blog/on-happiness-from-tirrell- cook](https://nanagram.co/blog/on-happiness-from-tirrell-cook)

<comment><USER16> Great post and pictures. Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My personal belief is hang with kids. I'm 56 and I dread the day that my kids are out of the house (and it's coming).

My kid keep me young, keep me learning. I used to coach high school hockey, that was a blast.

Want to be happy? Don't get old. Want to not get old? Hang with kids.

There was some interview with a tailor in HK I think, he was pushing 100 and still working. He credited kids, he said they kept him young and interested.

<comment><USER18> We got a hiking club in local university. One of it's founders, a dude in his 80s (I think..) is still coming to easier hikes. Not only coming, he frequently leads those hikes. People frequently ask him how long will he do this. His response is "I don't know. What I know is, once I stop hanging out with young people, I'll get old and die".

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Now think about how much better being old would be given the medical technology to repair the causes of frailty, functional decline, and age related disease.

<comment><USER20> The medicalisation of my death is the thing I fear the most.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> >Older people report higher levels of contentment or well-being than teenagers and young adults.

Does this confuse anyone? What old person is told by others when to awake, what to wear, what to say, who to talk to, when to get through the metal detector, how to act in front of the pervasive cameras in every hallway and every room, watched over like a hawk for any infraction, kept away from friends and where every joke is taken out of context in the most negative interpretation possible and used to persecute and judge them, always with the expectation that a criminal and malign intent is at heart?

Here's a little experiment. Take any article about adolescents, teenagers, young adults, millenials, etc... and pretend they were saying those things about a race. Or gender. Just replace the age category with one you're not comfortable being bigoted over. See how the claims stack up and how familiar they sound. The young are a persecuted minority group. Who would expect them to be content?

Overall I like the article though it was a bit predictable. Taoism by a different name, but yes, it works. In a storm, the stiff branch breaks while the supple, flexible one survives. A stream flows around and through anything placed in its path but can wear away mountains. Each day, you must find enough food to eat and water to drink to stay alive. You need shelter from dangerous weather (depending on your location). Everything else is gravy. Everything.

<comment><USER22> In many contexts it is not the young but the old who are discriminated against.

<comment><USER23> The old and the young have this in common.

When you're young, no one cares about what you think, or what you have to say, when you're old, no one is paying attention anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The thinking expressed echoes many of the themes from my reading of Stoicism, chiefly * learning to appreciate what you have rather than chase something you don't have in the vain hope that it will give you satisfaction. * coming to terms with the fact that there are things you have no control over and not worry about them.

(If you are unfamiliar with Stoicism and would like to learn more, the blog archive at [http://modernstoicism.com/](http://modernstoicism.com/) has a lot of content. I also liked William Irvine's "A guide to the good life" ([https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient- Stoic/dp/0195...](https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient- Stoic/dp/0195374614)).

</comment><comment><USER25> This is a beautiful article, and made me smile. I was greatly inspired by the subjects' attitudes. However it seems this tiny sample of people are happy in spite of their old age, and not necessarily because of it.

What I got from the piece was: if you want to be happy, have a caring circle of friends, family who visit you once a week, a supportive lover, and impactful projects your are passionate about. These folks live quite excellent lives (health issues notwithstanding) compared to anyone of any age. Age has certainly given them more perspective, but I think it's secondary here.

</comment><comment><USER26> I personally think that happiness is overrated. To me it is just a way of rewarding my brain for doing something good like achieving a goal. but I don't want that reward to become a goal itself

</comment><comment><USER27> Two of my favorite insights about aging come from the unlikely sources of Star Trek episodes. In the series finally of Voyager, the older and younger Captain Janeway meet face to face. After overcoming their initial distrust, they come to realize that each has something to learn from the other, and when they team up they're unbeatable even by the Borg queen. I can take something away from that when writing about work I've done in the past, which is like collaborating with my younger self. His job is to have the bold ideas, mine is to correct the errors and omissions, and neither of us is much use without the other. The other insight comes from an episode of TNG when a dying Captain Picard is given the chance by Q to relive an incident from his youth that he regrets. Fully expecting to put everything right because of his accumulated wisdom and experience, he succeeds only in alienating his young friends and setting the rest of his life on a course of mediocrity. Aside from the similar theme of the older self underestimating the younger one, that story makes me look at all the dumbass things I did when I was young in a different light. A lot of them were due to having too big of an ego, but some measure of that same personality characteristic was also an essential prerequisite to doing anything worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER28> *Think like a happy person.

</comment><comment><USER29> Want to be happy ? Don't listen to all of these self help charlatans .

<comment><USER3> Seems... Pretty dismissive.

How can a miserably depressed closed system find a solution without exploring outside of themselves?

<comment><USER29> I am being dismissive but I'm mainly talking about the racket that creates these self help headlines and news stories promoting a book and disappearing a few months after once everyone really associates it with a result close to a placebo.

Thinking outside of yourself and trying to be happy are things that you have to realize for yourself and self help stories like these don't do much in the grand scheme of things. I just practice mindful meditation or do something relaxing. I think its sick making people believe in some kind of false hope that you get from these self help phonies.

<comment><USER3> How did you learn about mindful meditation? I agree that there's a lot of noise in the self-help space, but I've found at least 5 books that I consider "must-reads" in terms of figuring life out. Maybe because I was raised by parents that were relatively poor/uneducated/young, but sometimes the best way to get this information is be taught it through a book.

<comment><USER29> A girl I had a crush on talked about it because she was a psych major. Also, my iWatch does breathing exercises I use for meditation. I tried to use headspace but it didn't work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I recently turned 40 so I'm thinking about old people stuff. But I know it's not too late to reinvent yourself.

Despite years of chronic fatigue (hence my username) I decided to start a manufacturing business and go after all those dreams I had as a kid but never knew how to get to.

Reinvent yourself. It's never too late. Some of your best years may lie ahead.

</comment><comment><USER31> "Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." -Isaac Asimov

</comment><comment><USER32> "Another five or six books were almost ready, and a couple of films still needed finishing. After that, he said, "I'd like to travel.""

I'm doing my travelling and going to concerts while I'm young.

The quote from Jonas made me think to look for books written by old people. Is there a database where I can easily compare the publication date of a book and the date of birth/death of the author?

Surely the data must be available, because the date of the author's death is important for copyright issues.

<comment> CO-VAX Try these: 1) [http://gutenberg.net.au/birthdeath.html](http://gutenberg.net.au/birthdeath.html) 2) [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/deathdates.html](http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/deathdates.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Because they don't have to work.

</comment><comment><USER34> Selection bias?

</comment><comment><USER35> "You are a product of your environment" \--Clement Stone

You'll be depressed/unhappy when your environment doesn't foster creativity/self-actualization in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

</comment><comment><USER36> So, to be happy, we should take a lot of vitamins? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16771044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16771044)

</comment><comment><USER37> I watch my girlfriend's daughter (tween) as well as those in the local community and wonder if there is still such a thing as "ambition". There is obvious cognitive ability, but attention span and retention is quite lacking. An old friend who has two young daughters and is on top of things, described a lot of the young culture as having "a 4 second train of thought" because of constantly on.

I personally don't see the younger generation, without some large impact, able to step back from their need for immediate response, lack of attention to detail, etc.

<comment><USER38> I'm sure every generation has said this.

<comment><USER37> Tell me what generation had high twitch games and 4" screens in their hands 24 hours a day?

<comment><USER38> I don't know of such a generation.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Giant Phages: a discovery in the world of viruses - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/02/oh-look-ton-giant-viruses-inside-your-mouth/606763/ <comment><USER2> I was not expecting it to attack other phages. Fascinating article.

</comment><comment><USER3> Always intrigued by this argument about whether viruses are 'alive':

"Viruses...cannot reproduce on their own and are completely dependent on their hosts. "

This is not a very strong argument? So many other creatures that lay eggs in a host have exactly the same restriction. Do we thinks some wasps are 'not alive' because of this?

Anyway, I'm a little startled and afraid of what these WhopperPhages are doing with those hundreds of thousands of genes...that's a lot of code.

<comment><USER4> Maybe the word "alive" cannot be rigorously defined in a way that agrees with our history and intuitions, and could be retired?

<comment><USER5> It's certainly a silly word to gatekeep.

<comment><USER6> Not so much gatekeeping as rigorously defined, when speaking about it in scientific terms. Colloquial uses of words generally have a much lower barrier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kinda makes me wonder if gut phages etc. act as a sort of control plane for the bacteria.

</comment><comment><USER7> This article is really important for whom has any interest in the medical research field !!!</comment>


The Online Disinhibition Effect (2004) - <AUTHOR> http://users.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/disinhibit.html

<comment><USER2> Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me... That is, unless Facebook (Disqus, your government, etc, ...) makes everyone give their real name in order to participate in discussions in the first place, then you're open to every racist, sexist, and drug cartel with access to a computer.

From today's links: [http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/01/23/how-some-men- harass-wo...](http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/01/23/how-some-men-harass-women- online-and-what-other-men-can-do-to-stop-it/) ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5107886> ) From the article: _"One man left a letter at her door saying he'd 'find you and your mom and rape you both.'"_

Anonymity has some pretty small downsides (people acting like assholes, which you can ignore), but pretty huge positives (physical safety and freedom of expression in spite of assholes, which despite our mothers' wishes, we all are; and getting to hear a person's true feelings). The only reason I post here is because I'm psuedo-anonymous.

(I recognize that the article isn't itself an argument against anonymity per se, but I can easily imagine someone using it that way.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Or, in more humorous form:

<http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19>

<comment><USER4> I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that cartoon ends up as part of a museum exhibit someday. It sums up so much about anonymity in the early internet age.</comment></comment>


Stanford students' invention could revolutionize the way diseases are diagnosed - <AUTHOR> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/july22/nanolab-diagnostic-tool-072309.html

<comment><USER2> This is a pretty amazing development. It could eliminate many or most expensive lab tests. It's just the kind of thing to hit back on health costs. My reading is that it works just on proteins, so it doesn't eliminate all tests.</comment>


Australia's fires have pumped out more emissions than 100 nations combined - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615035/australias-fires-have-pumped-out-more-emissions-than-100-nations-combined/ <comment><USER2> It's not so simple.

Although this year is particularly bad (weather is contributing but accidents and arson are probably also a big factor) bushfires are part of periodic cycle that renews the vegetation and removes accumulated dead plants.

<comment><USER3> Yes, normally fire is a revitalizing driving force for an area. In this case, however, given the massive scale of the fires, plus the decades-long issues with extreme drought and heatwaves, any regrowth is going to struggle, with an uncertain future.

And that's just talking about the plants. Animals die in fires, but they usually are replenished. However, given the enormous area burned, there will be much less room to recover. Plus, they will still have to deal with tentative regrowth on the brink from drought and heat.

The sheer scale of the fire, and it's compounding issues, means that the situation is much more complicated and dire than normal.

<comment><USER2> Australian flora are adapted to these conditions. In fact, the seeds of some species need the heat of a bushfire to germinate.

See the quick reaction: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- australia-51036608](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-51036608)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What if 'Life on Earth' is a game...how would you play this to win not just for survival, but also to thrive.</comment>


How do you register a .cn domain name? (I would like to protect that market) - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I think for .jp domains you have to prove residency, maybe same for .cn? They're both expensive compared to $6 .com domains. I never bother. I'm also kind of paranoid I'd attract some kind of Chinese government attention just by having the domain. Probably unfounded paranoia though.

</comment><comment><USER3> :)) it's possible at godaddy Nick if my memory serves me good. $40/yr

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Ivan! And yes, your thread prompted this :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unless you're making something specifically related to China I would say it's not worth it.</comment>


Watch Tim Cook Explain Why He Doesn't Think Google Glass Will Be Mainstream - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ceo-tim-cook-on-google-glass-2013-5#ixzz2UeZU98ck

<comment><USER2> BI is such a content farm they basically wrote the same article 2x:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ceo-tim-cook-on- google-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ceo-tim-cook-on-google- glass-2013-5)

[http://www.businessinsider.com/cook-google-glass-is- unlikely...](http://www.businessinsider.com/cook-google-glass-is-unlikely-to- be-mainstream-2013-5)

It must be uplifting being one of their "journalists".</comment>