The Inside Story of BitTorrent's Bizarre Collapse - <AUTHOR> https://backchannel.com/the-inside-story-of-bittorrents-bizarre-collapse-a0766a5442d7#.vcdk2tmbj <comment><USER2> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13375350](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13375350)</comment>


How to Save Big Money on Semtech's LoRa - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@patburns/how-to-save-big-money-on-semtechs-lora-129536b1aa9b <comment><USER2> I'm curious, why do you keep advertising by talking mostly about your competitors instead of a positive framing about your products?</comment>


Ask HN: Is it a CMS I am looking for? - <AUTHOR>

I am trying find some form of a content management system not geared towards the publishing of web pages, but rather that of custom content. I am sure there is a name for these kinds of systems/applications, but I cannot come to think of it.
My basic requirements:
1) There needs to be a way to create templates for objects in a flexible manor, where a template is a set of attributes, with the ability to create nested groups of attributes as well as add attributes associated with other templates
2) Content instantiates these templates
3) Arbitrary sets of content needs to be exportable, preferably to custom XML
4) All this needs to be accessible through a decent management UI, web-based preferably. Ideally there is an API somewhere in there as well
What am I looking for? I feel that traditional CMS:es are too tied to that of web publishing. I guess I am looking for something a bit more generic. <comment><USER2> Have you looked at Drupal ? There is a lot of overlap between its custom CMS features and what you describe above. See <http://drupal.org/documentation/structure> .</comment>


What are some healthy, creative ways to spend downtime while waiting for code? - <AUTHOR> As a grad student I'm often running jobs, either on a cluster or locally, to process or generate data for experiments. They can take a few minutes to ~5 hours to run, and I've been working on building good habits whenever I press 'go'.<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> Start using Anki / SRS to learn and consolidate your knowledge. It's easy to do a dozen cards in a few minutes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Go to the gym and lift weights or do some cardio.

</comment><comment><USER4> I really got into learning how to play guitar. Has been amazingly fun so far. I was having a lot of trouble switching off after work. 30 minutes of guitar and I am in pure bliss. Seems ideal for your case as whenever I have a long running build I pickup the guitar and practice a bit.

<comment><USER5> what resources did you use to learn ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Learn the Major mnemonic method for memorizing numbers: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_major_system](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_major_system)

It's very useful for lots of things, from memorizing license plates to birthdays. There are some "better" methods, but the major system has lots of resources, and it's a balance between time consuming and powerful.

Learning to encode numbers to images is good training, a step towards converting paragraphs of text or conversations into easily stored images. A side effect is you'll be able to remember speeches and other things better. I am often told that I have a photographic memory when people see my notes, but it's really years of practice.

<comment><USER7> > a step towards converting paragraphs of text or conversations into easily > stored images

If the Major system is for memorizing numbers, what's the link between numbers and text?

<comment><USER6> For example, you have a number like 83954276, which you can memorize as farm- bell-rain-cash. Which you can encode in your mind as a farmer selling cowbells at a market during a storm.

The hard part is turning a 8 digit number into a story, but with enough practice, you can do this in milliseconds.

Now I'll take a random excerpt of information from Wikipedia.

"Ham Wall is an English wetland and National Nature Reserve located 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) west of Glastonbury on the Somerset Levels. It is managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which helps coordinate conservation issues across the Somerset Levels as part of the Avalon Marshes Partnership"

We can break this down to key points: Ham Wall, wetland, 4 km west of Glastonbury, Somerset Levels, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Avalon Marshes Partnership.

Then we can encode this to wall of pigs, murky puddle, sear (04 km), a glass coffin (Glass-bury), a sunset (Somerset), an overdressed person wearing a bird costume (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), Excalibur buried in an apple (Avalon).

With a bit of practice, you combine this into one image, e.g. a wall of pigs in a puddle west of a bird-costume guy searing some bacon at a funeral, with the deceased holding Excalibur, during a sunset.

If you really want to encode this better, more macabre, shocking, lewd details work better, but I'll leave that to your imagination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can relate.

Some options I'd suggest:

\- reading a book / listening to an audiobook

-update documentation

\- some kind of meditation like activity for shorter jobs

Also, try to make the system send a a reminder when the job is finished.

</comment><comment><USER9> I spend the time between compiling my code learning Rubik's cubes. I have the 2x2 and 3x3 algorithms memorized. I started learning 4x4 recently.

</comment><comment><USER10> Every other suggestion is great.

All I can think to add is maybe double check your work? Or check it as its working?

</comment><comment><USER11> use this time to automate tasks you have to perform several times a day

<comment><USER12> I thought "Fencing Practice" was the go-to activity for developers that are stuck in a hard-wait?!?!?

relevant xkcd: [https://3d.xkcd.com/303/](https://3d.xkcd.com/303/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> take the time off: meditate, cook food, read

</comment><comment><USER14> Tango!</comment>


Man dies on Mount Everest during cryptocurrency promotional stunt - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Man-dies-Mount-Everest-ASKfm-sherpa-cryptocurrency-12967630.php <comment><USER2> So, while I usually agree blockchain/crypto ecosystem is the most degenerate thing since Vista, it's worth being a little objective here.

These were not four crypto nerds travelling with a Sherpa, it was a team of four experienced alpinists, accompanied by three Sherpas. The expedition was not planned by AskFM, they only decided to sponsor the expedition in exchange for the potential to make it into dumb promotional material. In all likelihood, the alpinists were going to make the trek with or without the sponsorship, but the sponsorship from AskFM did help cover financial costs. This is no different than Red Bull sponsoring dangerous stunts all the time. For what it's worth, the team apparently rescued a climber from a different expedition along the way down, who most certainly would have died otherwise.

That said, the CEO did not handle the situation well. On being accused of this, he called the whole thing a rumour. Later, he conceded how fucked up the whole thing was, but AskFM still hasn't removed the tasteless promotion.

<comment><USER3> It's really appalling. The correct behaviour is to pull the plug on your shitty promotion and issue a message of condolence. One company, one guy is not representative of an industry, but my experience of 75% of people in the blockchain/crypto space has left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >The statement here is that ASKfm is not at all afraid to rise to challenges. They're conquering Everest because it's out there to conquer. By doing so they claim: if they're bold enough to do it, they're bold enough to turn a social network into a blockchain ecosystem, and they're definitely bold enough to overturn the market with their new product.

This nonsense could be an absurd line from HBO's Silicon Valley, and people would have found it hilarious. Instead it's not only real, it's cost _a life_. I can't believe this.

<comment><USER5> When watching Silicon Valley I found some lines to be too over-the-top, only to find out they were quotes from real people.

<comment><USER6> Do you have any examples or a resource with some of the best ones?

<comment><USER7> I found it hilarious when Gavin compared his treatment to the plight of the Jews in Nazi Germany [1]. And then I found out it was actually based on this guy [2].

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5zQpN28xa4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5zQpN28xa4)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN- vUaawaF8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN-vUaawaF8)

<comment><USER8> Saving this for later

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As someone who lives among fellow Sherpa families nearby the Himalayas in Nepal, I come across different individuals/teams wanting to _conquer_ the summit to experience the ridiculous "living on the edge" sensation.

Having climbed the beast myself once, I can partly appreciate the fact that the feeling of accomplishment and reward is like no other, but practices like these when an inexperienced group of folks lead to loss of innocent lives is totally unacceptable. Despite our government trying our best to reduce such casualties by implementing strict rules & prohibitions, Sherpas are compelled to go for the climb because it's their only source of income at this remote part of the world.

<comment><USER10> Could you talk a bit more about what kinds of rules and prohibitions exist? Why did they fail to stop the askfm guys in this case?

<comment><USER9> Previously, a lot of fights broke out during the peak climbing season between foreign climbers and Sherpas after a dispute over mountain etiquette. They wouldn't abide by the instructions of Sherpas regarding Mountain cleanliness and safety due to their amateurishness or say foolishness. Since last February, government has started stationing members of the army and police at the base camp at the 17,550ft mark, around the start of the annual climbing season. Also, unnecessary competitions were conducted between climbers to set new records- which also risked Sherpas life. Other regulations were

       1. Climbers must be accompanied by a guide at all times – no solo climbs.

       2. Climbers must have summited a 7,000 meter peak prior to attempting Everest.

       3. People over the age of 75 are banned from climbing.

       4. People who are blind are banned from climbing.

       5. Double amputees are banned from climbing.

       6. Helicopter rides over EBC [ *Everest Base Camp* ] are to be heavily restricted.

       7. Sherpas will also get a summit certificate after the climb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sensational headline that does not paint the full story. ASKfm was a sponsor to a routine climb that had gone wrong.

The trek, independent of the company, would have happened with or without crypto company's backing.

[https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/06/04/whos-to-be-blamed-for- the...](https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/06/04/whos-to-be-blamed-for-the-tragic- mt-everest-expedition/)

<comment><USER12> Strangely without the crypto babble, the climb and the man's death wouldn't have even made the news, it'd just be another day in the Himalayas... (How many other sherpa deaths have you noticed?)

But the crypto promotion does make the death feel extra cheapened, it'd be like having someone die doing a dangerous stunt while promoting, I don't know, Kim Kardashian perfume or something useless like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sad, he was a Sherpa hired to help the hikers. Moreover, ASKfm is trying to suppress this tragedy instead of assuming responsibility and maybe taking a moment of reflection about all the crypto bandwagon mess they're in.

<comment><USER14> But they are a company that "isn't afraid to take risks". In other words, who ever is running the show has decided they are willing to cut corners to make a buck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me of a great book I read, "Into Thin Air"[0]. If you're interested in getting a first-hand account of climbing Everest, and what effect novice climbers have had on it, definitely give it a read.

[0][https://www.amazon.com/Into-Thin-Air-Personal- Disaster/dp/03...](https://www.amazon.com/Into-Thin-Air-Personal- Disaster/dp/0385494785)

<comment><USER16> I read this knee-deep in snow on the Annapurna Range.

Still keeps me the creeps...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> We are surely living in the dumbest timeline.

<comment><USER18> Let's hope so...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "ASKfm, one of the world's top 10 social media networks"

This line in the article feels really weird and sketchy. Especially given that I'd never heard of the site. I don't see any indication this is true whatever it means. But the fact that they are pivoting to crypto doesn't make me think they've been all that successful in the social media world.

<comment><USER2> It's rank 726 on Alexa ranks. Somehow I find it hard to believe that of the 725 more popular websites than AskFM, only 9 are social networks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Thousands of people summit Everest every year. This is not 'bold', it is a dumb marketing stunt. I guess I'm aware of their ICO now, and my likelihood of buying their coins can't go below zero, so they didn't hurt their chances, but this is still sad.

<comment><USER21> It's less than that, it's in the hundreds. Roughly 4,000 people have climbed Everest ever.

<comment><USER22> Interesting, I would have thought it was a lot more!

Here's a page with a lot of statistics [http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2017/12/17/everest-by-the- nu...](http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2017/12/17/everest-by-the- numbers-2018-edition/). It's primarily based on analysis of [http://www.himalayandatabase.com/](http://www.himalayandatabase.com/), plus some other history recounted by the blog author.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That's it. We've literally reached peak crypto

<comment><USER24> Cute. But note we've already reached orbit [1] and many projects are aiming for the moon:-)

[1] [https://blockstream.com/satellite/](https://blockstream.com/satellite/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> That mountain often seems to bring the worst in people. It becomes an obssession. I worked at Intrade for a few months and its obsession eventually killed John Delaney, the CEO of Intrade.

<comment><USER26> This is true of more than just a mountain... it's a story as old as mankind. See also Moby Dick, Macbeth, Beowulf, etc.

It's basically the achievement treadmill. Either you realize you eventually have to get off the treadmill or you die trying to make it to the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't think anyone's going to climb Mt Everest for the sole purpose of getting those tokens. 500K tokens and an expedition costs upwards of $50K? It's not worth it to go get and wasn't worth it to even place up there, especially in the light that a Sherpa died during the expedition. First piece of technological junk on the summit I suppose.

<comment><USER28> I was thinking perhaps the poor sherpa tried to recover the coins: money can make people behave illogically, he knew where the coins were buried, he was some way up there, so it might seem less risky to turn back and descend for the last time compared to descending and then at a later date returning, especially if the coins might be gone already (publicity stunt => other teams and sherpas)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> i'm glad google blocked advertising for sbitcoins and their ilk.

It seems like the very worst aspects of human nature have congealed on the coin industry. Every huckster and madmen wannabe is pushing their flavor of snake oil.

</comment><comment><USER30> This must be the first site I ever visited which gave me a choice to opt out of certain tracking/cookies. Is this something real and working, or rather giving a false-ish sense of security/respect for privacy? Other sites do this?

</comment><comment><USER31> Great, this tragedy just further fuels their dumb publicity stunt.

<comment><USER32> Who in the world is going to see this story and decide to invest?

<comment><USER33> anybody who searches investment opportunities, has the money, deems this a good opportunity, can distinguish between the deal itself and the PR stunt and never heard of it before seeing this story.

<comment><USER32> I suspect that a company that gets someone killed in a PR stunt may be poorly run in other ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is likely an Omen that crypto currencies are dying.

</comment><comment><USER35> Idk what's more risky, crypto or everest

</comment><comment><USER36> He probably went back for the crypto.</comment>


Nighthawk: Debug iOS apps remotely from your browser - <AUTHOR> http://mobilenighthawk.com

<comment><USER2> Looks like this could be very helpful. The landing page makes a great first impression, great animations explaining what it does. However...

Can someone explain to me why so many startups have started to not list their pricing plans anywhere at all, even when you click on the "sign up" button? Did some startup guru tell people to stop putting pricing everywhere and everyone is following their advice?

This is so very frustrating to me as a potential user. There is no way to tell whether this service might be "out of my league" as a solo dev, whether there might be a free plan, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> We simply haven't decided the price yet. It's free at this moment and we will decide a pricing based on how the service is used.

Thanks for the feedback.</comment></comment>


Strategies for creating a new Web 2.0 product - <AUTHOR> http://www.start-up.co.nz/creating-a-new-web-2-0-product-50-essential-strategies/

<comment><USER2> This is an excellent article.</comment>


My humble thoughts on the 10 minute YC interview process - <AUTHOR>

i'd like to start out by saying that i have nothing but the utmost respect for y combinator and the people involved in it.  i wish like hell we would have been accepted into the summer 2011 program.
after 2 days of reflection i have a few humble thoughts, and i'm sure these were manifested because we were rejected:
1. the 10 minute interview process works for yc and they have their reasons for keeping it brief (probably because they had to do 170 of them this time and because 10 minutes is all they need to make their decision).  that being said, it seems to me that such a monumental decision (at least for the teams applying) would warrant a bit longer discussion.  there is a wide range of industries and business models that are represented, and i guess the question is: is it worth extending the interview 10 more minutes so that teams may expound on their ideas?  to me, the interview felt like chaos and before i knew it jessica was snapping our photo and we were whisked out of the room.
2. i know everyone tells you not to have a pitch ready and to listen to the questions and respond thoughtfully and this you should absolutely do.  however, i think that you should also have a list of 5-10 points that you simply have to get across and you find time to squeeze them into the interview, regardless if it's a total non sequitur.  i understand pg and co. are intellectual giants, but i find it hard to believe that they know the nuances of the very industry/business you've been deep into for months or years and there could potentially be a crucial piece of the puzzle they're missing that you need to convey.
3. mike tyson says everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.  well, we were punched in the face.  all you can do is internalize your yc experience and learn everything you can from it.  then you got to get up and keep on charging.  my grandpa always tells me that a) it's gunna be uphill all the way and b) you're gunna be just fine.
4. finally, i think there are only so many defining moments in our lives and it's up to us to capitalize.  that 10 minutes in the interview room is probably one of them, and maybe there's a damn good reason 10 minutes is all you get.  i wish you all the best of luck. <comment><USER2> First off Evan, as I'm sure you appreciate, this isn't your only chance, your only 10 minutes. It may be your only 10 minutes with YC, but you've still got a lifetime (or 3 years, whichever comes first) of 10 minutes(es) in your business.

It seems to me you focus lots on the 10 minutes issue, and yet you understand why the limitation stands. What you may be missing when you refer to PG&co. not knowing the nuances of every business, is that they shouldn't need to know the nuances of every business in order to make a go/no-go decision.

Could it be your focus on the nuances rather than the big picture may have been a self-imposed limitation?

I don't know what industry you are involved in, or anything about it, but the simpler you can make something seem, the more approachable it becomes. If you are getting into nuances that can't be understood without background knowledge, it could have just been to complicated when other interviewers had a clearer message.

<comment><AUTHOR> pedalpete,

great point. i think we failed to keep it simple. we focused too much on level 2 and 3 stuff as opposed to the basics - blocking and tackling. and pg went right to the crux of our business model and we had assumed we had that figured out long ago. thanks for the input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Out of curiosity, what part of your proposal led them to turn it down? Was it something they accurately understood, or something they misunderstood and you think an additional 10m would have fixed that?

<comment><AUTHOR> he doesn't think our pricing model will work. we're a ticketing business and we think fans will pay to upgrade their seats in game, if the price is right. i think it was just a disagreement and we didn't have any hard data to back up our assumptions.

<comment><USER4> Sounds like Nor1's model for upgrades is one step ahead in the transaction process which makes payment and overall decision making much simpler, leading to higher conversions. Something to ponder...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It really shouldn't be even close to a defining moment in your life. There are a myriad of routes to building a successful company, and YC only accounts for a tiny percentage of them.

It's easy to miss this fact if you spend a lot of time reading Hacker News, but it's true. So use this knock to re-evaluate and analyse by all means, but YC is far from a guarantee of success: if you were going to be successful after being accepted through YC, then you will inevitably find some other path to the same destination.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised you got stuck on revenues. Typically if you can show that you are building something that people want in a big category in an area people are known to spend money, you would be ok. Ar you sur that was it? I would also reiterate what others have said: if you're grinding away on nuance, you need to simplify.</comment>


The invention of string 120k-160k years ago - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/ancient-seashell-beads-may-help-unravel-the-origins-of-string/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0234924)</comment>


This $5 lamp is powered by gravity - jack-r-abbit http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/26/this-5-lamp-is-powered-by-gravity-and-just-destroyed-its-funding-target-on-indiegogo/

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, yes, absolutely, post this again. It's only been posted to HN about five times so far.

<comment> jack-r-abbit I thought it was cool and had not seen it before. Sorry for ruining your day by forcing you to read and comment on a story you had already seen. I'll fall on my sword now.</comment></comment>


The Health Insurance Marketplace is coming soon - <AUTHOR> https://www.healthcare.gov/

<comment><USER2> This looks a lot nicer than the websites I had to deal with last time I bought individual insurance on the open market (2010). Will be interested to see how the presentation of plan information is when it becomes available, since that was the second-worst part of the old experience [1]. Hopefully they'll get it right and lay out the choices in some kind of understandable and transparent way.

[1] The worst part was the scammy "comparison" websites, who presented themselves as third-party information aggregators, but often turned out to be stealth affiliate-marketing fronts for a small subset of companies.

<comment><USER3> It looks nicer than my.company's website for open enrollment. Since Obamacare was enacted, I've gone from a PPO that pays for just about everything to a HDHP that only pays for catastrophic things. But at least the price of the coverage only went up 28% for the vastly inferior coverage.

Two of the provisions that are in place already that really raised the cost of the vast majority's health bills are having to cover pre-existing conditions and cover students well into adulthood.

<comment><USER4> That's one of the reasons why subsidising and regulating private health insurance is not a good approach. If the government worked the way it was supposed to (rationally), then they would have voted for a public insurance option. They went half-way, and everyone will now pay the price.

<comment><USER5> 300bps is complaining about the fact that as a person with a low actuarial cost, he is being forced to subsidize others with a high actuarial cost. I too share this complaint - I wake up and hit the gym from 8-9:30 every day - as a reward for taking care of myself, I'm obligated to subsidize diabetes treatment for people who wake up and eat donuts.

How would a public insurance option change this?

<comment><USER6> It wouldn't change that and this is a good thing.

Part of being in a society is shared responsibilities. I subsidize the education of other peoples' children by paying taxes that fund k-12 education. I have no children of my own. But I'm not being cheated because a society that has universal, free k-12 education is better than one that doesn't. Similarly a society that has free, universal healthcare is better than one that doesn't.

In the current system the U.S. spends around 40% more GDP per year on healthcare than any universal healthcare system and has much lower outcomes than many. The evidence is that it would be cheaper and better to have a single payer system.

It's great that you workout and lead a healthy life. What are you doing to counter genetic defects you may possess? Perhaps you have a predisposition to cancer or some rare disease that is expensive to cover. The reward in a single payer system is that everyone gets covered regardless of genetic or life circumstances.

Every person for themself makes us all(almost all!) poorer.

<comment><USER7> I agree with the shared responsibilities, but you make it sound as if you are voluntarily subsidizing other peoples' children when in fact you are forced to. If you would contribute to the education and the health costs of others, why do you need to be forced to do it? And if people agree with you, they will do so without a gang of people coercing them to. So cut out the middleman.

> Similarly a society that has free, universal healthcare is better than one > that doesn't.

That's a pretty broad, unsubstantiated statement. And how is it free? Nothing is free; that's just propaganda.

<comment><USER6> We all know that nothing, ultimately is free. However, the colloquial usage of the term means free means that the person receiving a free service means they don't fork over money specifically for that service. Free healthcare means, in essence, a person receiving it is not in danger of going bankrupt or of having significantly less money as a result of the care.

I did not make it seem like I pay for k-12 education voluntarily. the opposite is true. It was an essential part of my point that it isn't done voluntarily. It should be forced because some greedy self-centered person will refuse to pay for it. It's called the free rider problem.

Societies that don't have free, universal healthcare overwhelmingly have worse health outcomes, and are crappier places to live.

<comment><USER7> I find it funny that the person using force is calling the other people greedy and self-centered. You are being self-centered by acting like your ideas and needs trump everyone else's to the point of being mandatory. I'm sorry, they don't. If your ideas are good, you will get support. You can put down the guns. If you have kids and think that education is important (I agree), then work for it and get support from those around you. I know it's not easy as pointing guns at people via the State, but I don't think k-12 education is a hard sell.

<comment><USER8> The problem is, at some point it becomes the _individual's_ best interest not to pay for education, but it's in _everyone's_ best interest to have more education. This is a classic collective action/free rider problem.

So you if your ideas are good, you get support from your neighbors, and you get your idea moving, so the benefits start to accrue. Then the situation changes so that education 'exists' whether you individually pay for it or not, so you need to put in some penalty for not-paying otherwise the system falls apart when people start acting in their best interests... and next thing you know you've ended up with governance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice government website? Impossible.

Nice government website with an API? Get out.

[https://www.healthcare.gov/developers/](https://www.healthcare.gov/developers/)

<comment><USER5> All the API does is return healthcare.gov advertisements in json format.

I'm a little less impressed.

<comment><USER10> What else could it return other than the content of healthcare.gov (that you apparently designate an advertisement)? That the government recognizes the value of an interchange format like JSON is quite a good sign. They even have CORS setup so that you can include stuff client-side.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This site's source is also on Github, and they've pledged to keep the repository up-to-date with the site -- [https://github.com/CMSgov/healthcare.gov](https://github.com/CMSgov/healthcare.gov)

</comment><comment><USER12> That's actually a very nice website, and quadruply so for being a government created website.

<comment><USER13> Of course, my question is how much we paid for it.

<comment><USER12> Well, I was trying not to be negative, because often HN is accused of just being 99% negativity, but yeah, I was thinking just that.

Philip Greenspun wrote a post about that sometime back.

[http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/09/15/californias- st...](http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/09/15/californias-state- government-builds-itself-a-327-million-web-site/)

<comment><USER14> Kind of a cheap shot: This website created in compliance with a law designed to increase insurance industry control over medicine is overpriced, therefore we should remove one of the last remaining restrictions on that control.

<comment><USER5> How is prohibiting competition a restriction on insurance industry control over medicine?

That's like saying medallion cabs have too much control on taxi service, therefore we should not remove restrictions which keep Uber and other competitors out of the market.

<comment><USER14> The only "prohibiting competition" rule is that currently insurance companies have to create plans for each state they want to operate in, and those plans have to follow the laws in that state.

Since not every state insurance commissioner is captured by the insurance industry, this is a big problem for them so they're heavily lobbying the feds to create a situation where insurance policies are regulated by the state the company is based out of.

This will let them set up an operation like corporate governance and consumer lending have, where one of the most corrupt states like Delaware sets up rules that let insurance companies do whatever they want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We have a health insurance marketplace already. The headline should read: "Government run insurance coming soon".

<comment><USER16> This is a common MISUNDERSTANDING, unfortunately. The insurance in the exchanges is still "run" by HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES. Where government enters is:

(1) To allow people to compare apples to apples by having, in the exchange, groups of plans that offer the same coverage.

In the current individual insurance marketplace, it is basically impossible to compare policies because they all differ on many different details, and finding out those details is a laborious, unrewarding, and confusing slog.

(2) To make sure that the plans in the exchanges would be considered insurance to a rational person. Right now, the individual market has a lot of low premium plans (i.e., plans for which you don't have to pay very much per month) which are next to useless when you actually NEED the insurance, because they don't cover very much at all. The idea is to maintain minimum standards of coverage so if you ever are in a situation when you really NEED insurance, you actually will HAVE insurance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The Health Insurance Marketplace is coming soon...as soon as Martin Fowler and Uncle Bob figure out how to breed.</comment>


This supercomputer is a supersleuth for insurers - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbsnews.com/news/this-supercomputer-is-a-supersleuth-for-insurers/ <comment><AUTHOR> _You 're just starting work on a major home improvement project when your insurance agent calls. "You need more coverage," he says. But the real question is: How did he even know you were building an addition? Did he smell the sawdust or hear the hammer?

Neither. Thanks to a supercomputer owned by LexisNexis, the data analytics subsidiary of London-based RELX Group (RELX), your insurance company knows so much more than that.

"Very little in your life isn't known," said Victor Bayus, who runs the new Active Insights program at LexisNexis. It enables other companies to "predict, assess and manage risk." ...

In a world where every keystroke is often recorded, don't think for a second you can remain anonymous._

</comment><comment><USER2> A better title for this might be "How Insurers are using public and private data".

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I tried to find a quote in the article that was more descriptive than the title, but ran out of time and went with the HN standard of using the actual title. Your idea would have been better.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Quod.us – Building an open database of misinformation - <AUTHOR> https://www.quod.us <comment><AUTHOR> I'm trying to validate this concept, so any feedback is greatly appreciated.

My goal is to create a nonprofit organization and make everything free and open source.

I have a small amount of experience in NLP, specifically with NLTK. I think this type of dataset would be very useful for flagging potential misinformation, but if anyone more experienced than me could chime in, I'd appreciate it.</comment>


Apple TV 4K brings home the magic of cinema with 4K and HDR - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/09/apple-tv-4k-brings-home-the-magic-of-cinema-with-4k-and-hdr/ <comment><USER3> I'm generally not an Apple person, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I'm just that not that excited for anything they are doing. It feels way behind Google Home and Amazon.

<comment> ctrl-j > It feels way behind Google Home and Amazon.

Between Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft - Apple is the only one I would invite into my home to listen to my activities. Perhaps it's just marketing, but the other three have not done anything to earn my trust. Apple at least _appears_ to be concerned about my privacy.

<comment><USER4> I know Amazon's intentions and their profit motive: to get me to buy things. This makes me okay with an Alexa in my home. Google is murkier, but I feel assuaged a bit because they have -- hands down -- the best 'knowledge engine' for a speaker.

Microsoft will never, ever have a live mic in my home. I have done everything I can find to neuter any background listening my Win10 PC can do.

Apple wins on the privacy front, but they have neither the broad knowledge available that Google does nor the 2 years of experience that Amazon does.

<comment><USER3> I feel completely the same way. I have appreciated the control Google has given us now as well with being able to manage some of the data stored on us. I know they see _everything_ I do, but between the well-working product and ~illusion of~ control, they have me. On the other hand, it will take a lot for me to trust Microsoft again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> $179? Unlike the iPhone and Macbook, I think it's really hard to argue the Apple TV is better than its much lower cost competitors.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't have to be better, just on par. The reason to buy one is because you have a 4K TV and you are already buying TV/Movie content from Apple, use Airplay, Apple Music, etc. It's a really easy experience v.s. juggling multiple providers and TV sticks.

Likewise, if you're already deep into Google territory and are buying content from Google Play Music/Videos, YouTube RED, have an Android phone, etc - <USER2> Chromecast is the obvious choice since that all works seamlessly in that environment.

<comment><USER7> Who is still buying/renting movies from Apple iTunes anymore? Their share of the market has fallen in half in recent years. [0] The better experience, as demonstrated by market success, is provided by cross-platform networks like Amazon and Comcast.

[0] [http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/07/09/apple-itunes- video...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/07/09/apple-itunes-video-sales- and-rentals-reportedly-in-free-fall-amidst-competition-from-amazon-comcast)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The last generation should've had 4K. Way overdue.

<comment><USER9> What percentage of TVs in the wild, even among Apple buyers, were 4K at the time? What percentage of streamed content on 4K-supporting devices was 4K? Even a small price increase might have made it a bad idea for a product intended for the general (even the general potentially-Apple-buying) market.

<comment><USER8> At the time (released in sept 2015) 4K TVs were actually generally available: [https://www.avforums.com/article/best-4k-ultra-hd- tvs-2014.1...](https://www.avforums.com/article/best-4k-ultra-hd- tvs-2014.10664) and Netflix already supported 4K videos. Youtube had it years before that.

Apple has always been on the forefront of technology, with things like Retina displays, long before other vendors. I think they should've been there with 4K too.

<comment><USER10> > Apple has always been on the forefront of technology, with things like > Retina displays, long before other vendors. I think they should've been > there with 4K too.

They used to be. That is generally untrue for the last 5 or so years with only minor exceptions (mostly limited to the iPhone).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been pretty happy with my current Apple TV, and am moderately tempted to upgrade to ATV 4K. My 4k TV has had no 4k devices connected to it since I got it last year.

The biggest drawback is that damn glass remote. I dropped it on my hardwood floor and now it has a rather large chip in it. Thankfully its not on the touch surface.

My biggest annoyance UX-wise is that the touchpad button takes input _without_ capacitance on the touchpad. This means I'm inadvertently pausing videos all the time when the remote is between my couch cushions. This is completely baffling, since this should be a solved problem, my MBP's touchpad doesn't accept clicks without capacitance.

</comment><comment><USER12> There are rows of 4K TVs at Costco and WalMart. Apple is late to the party.

<comment><USER13> How many people are actually watching 4K? I only have a 1TB data cap. I come dangerously close to it every month, and that's with all 1080P or less.

I wonder how many people hit their caps, switch down to 1080P, and realize they can't tell the difference from the couch anyway.

<comment><USER9> > I wonder how many people hit their caps, switch down to 1080P, and realize > they can't tell the difference from the couch anyway.

I have to stand closer than ~6ft away from my now-considered-tiny 42" 1080p TV to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. At my couch's distance of ~12ft I don't notice the difference between DVD quality and 1080p with most content. According to an online calculator that confirms those numbers so I think it's probably somewhat reliable, I'd need a 78" TV to get the benefit of 1080p at 12' away. I can't even imagine what kind of absurd seating/TV arrangement I'd have to have for 4K to matter. Couch 4ft from a 70" screen? Something like that?

In a monitor, yeah, bring on the extra pixels. In a TV though? Why?

<comment><USER12> Movie video in ultra-high resolution isn't that interesting because it's composed by humans. You're being told where to look. Watching 2160p video on a desktop of walking or driving through interesting places with a stabilized camera gives a real feeling of presence. You can look where you choose (especially with spherical video) and see the detail. [1] (Shenzhen) [2] (Harajuku)

[1] [https://youtu.be/NTcx0OHehdE?t=57](https://youtu.be/NTcx0OHehdE?t=57) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiQ4YDH3g80](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiQ4YDH3g80)

<comment><USER9> Is that the kind of thing one might watch on TV (so, not a monitor) enough to make it worth the 4K upgrade? Cables, receiver, TV, all of that. Seems like more of a VR thing to me (though I don't have a VR rig, so what do I know). On a TV it'd be more a novelty than an actual thing you'd sit down to watch for minutes to hours every single week, I'd think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 4K benefits will be lost without Dolby Vision or DCI-P3 TVs.

People notice color more than resolution, and right now there aren't enough people that own high color-space TVs. They instead have crappy 4k TV and that's going to limit the market, with people thinking that's going to be good enough.

<comment><USER15> HDR10 is the dominant standard and it supports that. The KS8000, arguably the most standard/common 4K TV of the last year, doesn't even have DV support.

I'm not sure that will actually hurt them. Pretty much all TVs support HDR10.

<comment><USER16> The vast majority of consumer HDR displays aren't capable of displaying the full P3 Gamut - let alone making a proper dent on Rec. 2020.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> And again, Apple not including a gamepad by default or offering an official one.

Playing with the included remote is super limited so games have to be designed with that in mind.

Game devs won't risk making a game that needs a third party accessory, so Apple again killed all gaming potential for the Apple TV.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The product page is up now: [https://www.apple.com/apple- tv-4k/](https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-4k/)

<comment><USER18> Sadly, no mention of if the device supports 120Hz output (even if it's only at 1080p) to avoid 3:2 pulldowns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Same terrible interface. Same terrible remote. But in 4K now.

<comment><USER19> I use my iPhone so I don't care about the remote that much. The 4K aspect is much more important to me because, honestly, the Android TV experience that is included with my TV is much, much worse. It was pretty reasonable at first, but I think an update has basically destroyed wifi stability and netflix constantly refuses to connect.

Finally, I can use my 4K TV reliably.

<comment><USER13> That's precisely why I hate the remote - because it's so much like the iPhone app, which I also hate using. The only improvement with the remote is that you don't have to wait eons for it to connect every time you want to pause.

I just want a clicky directional pad. Just put the Siri button on the old remote.

I just can't believe they are doubling down on their worst reviewed product. 1.5 stars on their own site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> HDR is just another gimmick that will probably not scale into anything long- lasting, nor anything beneficial to the consumer.

It's being used to remove all that remains of the realism and life-like immersion of visual media in this insanely media-illiterate world. Right up Apple's alley, actually.

EDIT: People who are downvoting me are doing so because they don't know anything about video.

EDIT #2: I am very disappointed in the non-factual answers to my post, and that people would choose to downvote rather than jump in with anything even remotely accurate or helpful. These technologies are major components to the future of the web, and people on HN best become media literate if they want to keep their comfy jobs.

<comment><USER21> Isn't the whole point of HDR to make things even more lifelike and immersive?

From a technical standpoint 8-bits-per-color was never enough to display anywhere near the full spectrum. I've also personally been peeved with the flat, weak-ass dynamic range on most TVs and anything to add a few bits to the stream seems like a win in my book.

Unless, somehow, this ends up stuck in a rut in the uncanny valley (or someone wants to make the filesize argument), how is improved dynamic range a bad thing?

<comment><USER20> Of course not. If you want to increase the dynamic range of color, all you have to do is increase the sampling bit depth of the picture being captured.

HDR is a specific technique which involves cheaply processing pixels to fit a different color curve than it was captured in. It's not lifelike, it's candy- like.

<comment><USER22> I think you may have some technology terminology confusion. There are 4K panels that really can display colors that are physically impossible for other panels to display.

It is true that these systems ship with fake-o postprocessing to take conventional content and smear them into these new colors, but that's a stopgap, and you aren't actually obligated to use them, you know. Just like TVs tend to ship in what I call "claw your eyes out mode" for display, but it's the work of just a few seconds to turn them back to something sane for any decent quality panel. (There are certainly panels that have no decent quality setting, no matter how much you fiddle; if you care, do some research. I do and did.)

Per what I see of your other comment, whether you like it or not, there are standards being called "HDR" that includes true expanded gamut support: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic- range_video#Stand...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic- range_video#Standards)

<comment><USER20> No, the new standard is called "HDR10" [1] and it standardizes the use of BT.2020.

Can we not even trust people on HN to only speak to what they know about?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic- range_video#HDR10](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic- range_video#HDR10)

<comment><USER23> > Can we not even trust people on HN to only speak to what they know about?

Not any more than we can trust the old curmudgeons to not beat their knowledge into others by force I guess.

<comment><USER20> I'm not an old curmudgeon - I am a young guy who knows a lot about digital media technologies and their underlying principles.

Don't trivialize my specialized knowledge by saying I'm old. The only reason you can watch anything on youtube today is because people like me cared about standards and best practices -- and most importantly, cared about being right about things.

Typical "break stuff, stop reading books" mentality of engineers my age. It's sad.

<comment><USER23> "Old curmudgeon" has nothing to do with age, but attitude. You might be young, but doesn't mean you don't have a "get off my lawn" attitude throughout this thread.

<comment><USER21> That matters why?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Thanks for your patience about all the (YC S12) - <AUTHOR> I realize the frontpage has been clogged with launches recently.  It's because Demo Day is coming up in a few days.  Every batch I tell the startups not to wait till the last minute before launching, but most always do anyway, with the result that there's a glut of launches a week before.<p>The good news is that the flood should be peaking about now.  In the meantime, thanks for putting up with it.  Although for HN readers the volume of launches probably starts to become an annoyance, for each startup that's launching it's big deal. <comment><USER2> Have we really gotten to the point where we can assume readers on HN are _annoyed_ by hearing about new company launches? It's sad that this warrants an apology.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's not so much the individual launches that annoy people as the fact that there are so many at once. It throws off the usual mix on the frontpage.

<comment><USER3> I find all of the job posts from YC companies that launched years ago most distracting.

Launches are interesting to a general audience.

Jobs only to a small niche.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, the launches are interesting. YC job ads I see one of the ways the site pays for itself.

But seriously, tech startup launches? As opposed to another shallow-but- emotionally-intense political discussion? Easy choice.

<comment><USER5> When you see the same startup over and over again, it does raise an eyebrow as well.

<comment><USER6> Oooh, ooh, I can play this game! I used to play Guess Who as a kid!

Doooooes their name begin with a number?

Do they wear glasses?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Look Paul, I know you don't want to spend time coding and upgrading this site, your time is more valuable managing your business and dealing with all the new startups coming down the pipe.

But it would greatly benefit you, the startups and the readers if you had a section with all the upcoming startups, their founders bio, and a place to showcase their products.

Something like crunchbase, but better. Organized by batch (YC S12). Searchable by funders, VCs, etc.

We want to see what your guys are working on and give them props for their work!

<comment><USER8> This. I've been using HN for years now (significant portions of that time as purely stalking) and I check it rarely, but I'm very interested in these startups as I've had nothing but praise for the ones who's products I do use.

It would be a great help in trying out their stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't mind seeing the launches on the front page here, but I wish I could see them all together rather than haphazardly like this. Is there any chance we could have a /yc-s12 list which has all the posts with "(YC S12)" in the title?

<comment><USER2> I'm the total opposite. It might be nice to see all the launches in one place, but the relative position of each YC12 launch on the front page conveys information about the level of enthusiasm HN has. As long as nothing from Torrentfreak hits the site at the same time.

<comment><USER10> on a related note, it feels like anything with a (YC S12) tag in the title gets an arbitrarily high number of upvotes (ViaCycle, for example, got like 40 upvotes in around 30 minutes.)

I don't mean to profane YC, but I seriously doubt an otherwise uninventive bikesharing company would get so much attention if it didn't have the S12 brand behind it.

<comment><USER2> I am interested to know that people are starting bikesharing companies, for whatever that's worth.

<comment><USER10> Why?

I don't mean that to be condescending; I really just don't get it. All of the bikeshare programs to which I've been exposed are more expensive than a bike purchase by two years of membership, and none of them (ViaCycle included) seem to mitigate the biggest issue; bike parts are theft-prone.

<comment><USER11> Sharing a bike is cool if you need it only sometimes, like a few times a month or less. Or if you don't have space to store your own bike.

<comment><USER10> My point is that most bikesharing programs I've seen average in the $50-$75/year range (ViaCycle included), and an entry-level (as in 'this won't win you any races, but you can ride it to the store') bike costs $100.

The space point is apt, but I can't imagine that the space constraints for your own bike (any bike rack) is more specific than a viaCycle location.

<comment><USER12> The main selling point for bikesharing programs is that they deliver some form of ease-of-mind. The core benefit is, that you don't have to spend any thoughts on these bikes, they are just there - no maintenance, no charring- around, no winter-issues (depending on your region), no theft, etc. But then again I am an avid user of one of these services and might be a bit biased.

<comment><USER13> "The core benefit is, that you don't have to spend any thoughts on these bikes, they are just there - no maintenance, no charring-around, no winter- issues"

Exactly. Commonly known as a "turnkey" experience. Something to also keep in mind when developing products or services.

I had such a service business years ago. The main thing we did was offer something and not require any thinking on the part of the customer. We limited their choices, gave them advice, and made things very easy. They liked that. They had less to think about than with our competitors. (We were able to charge more and our quality wasn't really that good.) We saved them time and the stress of making decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I actually like seeing the launch announcements, but I would prefer if they didn't come via TechCrunch.

(My main opposition is that the TechCrunch website is like playing Russian Roulette with my v1 iPad. It crashes frequently.)

<comment><USER15> I upvoted your comment but I doubt we'll stop seeing the TC announcements. There's probably an unspoken quid pro quo agreement that TC covers the launches in exchange for exclusivity and traffic from HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually all the other TC-like sites will also cover a launch in return for an exclusive. The reason most people go with TC is simply that it's the default.

<comment><USER15> Others would cover for exclusivity but I'm assuming you're going with TC because they're the most popular for your target audience.

I mistakenly included _exclusivity_ as unspoken when that's likely a standard agreement when trying to get a story covered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can we have a new link at the top of the HN page which wil take me to the: "YC Batch" section. Then all the YC launches/news can be under that one category - and the regular news feed can be about the general happenings in our industry?

You could also have historical batches as well. So if I want to find out anything on YC11 - I go to their batch page?

<comment><USER17> All I really care about is them being very consistent with how they indicate YC in the title (so it can be searched for); always YC S11 not YC11 or YCS11 or YC Summer 2011 or S11 or whatever.

At some point, having actual tags per-submission could be cool too. Sort of a stopgap on the way toward Reddit-style subreddits. Tag posts with admin, security, python, vc, ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm curious why there isn't a place on HN where we can see the startups for each of the classes including their web site, industry, a description of their service, etc.

I know there are a few resources online, but they don't seem to be kept completely up to date. Personally, I love reading about the startups and would prefer to have that information made available here in an organized fashion than having to read about them on TC or elsewhere.

Anyway, no apologies necessary for me! :)

<comment><USER19> They likely do not have a page because each startup needs to go out and develop an audience, work at it. Try to solve problems and become popular that way. Also by not listing the startups, it makes it more mysterious. This way if a lot of startups fail, it is not like there is a list on the site or that they suddenly disappear, it would look bad. Better to celebrate success then mourn the losses.

<comment><USER18> Good points for past classes, but I don't see the harm in listing the current class. On the other hand TC seems to cover them, so I'll lower my hand now :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "Thanks for your patience about all the" is quite an unorthodox name for a company.

</comment><comment><USER21> For those of us who grew up reading heavily editorialised printed press, having (voted up) news about hackers in a site called hacker news shouldn't be too painful.

</comment><comment><USER22> Just put a link next to Submit:

ask | jobs | YC S12

</comment><comment><USER23> I always found it confusing reading about all of them on the same day on techcrunch. One yc startup launching per day gives me enough attention time to learn what they are building and doing. I actually think it's a good strategy.

</comment><comment><USER24> No apology is needed.. that's among the most interesting articles of HN in my opinion. As someone else pointed out, I'd prefer to see the post from the founders rather than by Techcrunch thought.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's actually exciting to see all of these companies coming to fruition. If anything, it'd be nice to see an official "who's launched" list so we can check everything out.

</comment><comment><USER26> Paul, have you considered making a formal staggered launch schedule? All of them launching at the same time makes every launch that much less remarkable.

</comment><comment><USER27> I, for one, love seeing all the new companies launching - Hacker News feels like an even livelier more vibrant place this time of year. Keep 'em coming!

</comment><comment><USER28> Don't worry, even if every YC company ever chartered launched today, it would not outnumber the Twitter me-too posts.

</comment><comment><USER29> So far so good. Interesting batch.

</comment><comment><USER30> Would it be better to post 'Show HN' with a direct link rather than Techcrunch?

</comment><comment><USER31> Really not annoying at all, they're always interesting to see.

</comment><comment><USER32> I love to see them, but it is hard to keep up with so many.

</comment><comment><USER33> I didn't even notice.

</comment><comment><USER34> When is demo day?

</comment><comment><USER35> Hey, you welcome!</comment>


Tesla tells Germany that 98% of drivers don't find 'autopilot' misleading - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/11/11/tesla-autopilot-germany/ <comment><USER2> As long as you're not on the autobahn with one of the 2%, you'll be fine!

</comment><comment><USER3> They surveyed existing car owners. _After_ the news stories?</comment>


How to break out of the 9-to-5 rut? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.reuters.com/prism-money/2011/02/15/careers-how-to-break-out-of-the-9-to-5-rut/ <comment><USER2> This is interesting, and I prefer the term "patchworker" to "freelancer" so kudos for that. I'd love to see employment in the U.S. either regress and become much more static or move forward towards a more dynamic model like this. In the '50's and '60's, being an employee of a company carried a certain set of obligations. You were a "company man" and, in exchange for doing your time and climbing the ladder, you'd be taken care of with a pension, great health care and near-guaranteed employment. Now, the benefits are almost all gone and that makes long-term employment with one company a suckers' game barring extraneous circumstances. Some places hire long-term contractors, but I don't think this is what the article is talking about as long-term contracts generally carry the same demands on your time as a full-time job does, making it much more difficult to keep several irons in the fire, so to speak. This patchworking concept is, as I see it, the ideal circumstance for someone who knows their shit and can get things done.

However, the link doesn't say very much about the obvious problem with the model it advocates. How do you convince companies that they can, in fact, get work from part-time patchworkers that is just as good as the work they get from full-time employees? I understand that there is a mentality that assumes you can't manage someone who isn't in the office, but I don't know how to disabuse someone of that notion and replace it with a results-based view of work. THAT, to me, is the lynchpin to breaking out of the 9-to-5 rut, and I'm not sure how to convince a business that the code I wrote at 3 am in my living room can do their work just as well as the code I'd be writing at 11 am in their offices. THAT's what I'd like to see in an article talking about breaking free of the 9-5 rut.

</comment><comment><USER3> Coders of Fortune

Seriously, I think that the more you bring together people, from organizing a monthly get-together to a full-blown BarCamp, the more impact you have.

Blogging and contributing to open source is one way to get your name known but nothing beats organizing a large or small regular event that is big enough to require more than one person to organize.

There are three powerful C's:

1) Continuity - How likely is it you will see someone again. A random bar ranks low while a monthly tech meetup rates higher

2) Conversation friendly - Is it a nightclub or a post-meeting drink at a local watering hole

3) Context - How connected are you to the other people at the event. Random sports bar low, tech meetup higher, conference in Iceland on the mating habits of Emperor penguins very very high

My point in rambling on here is if you choose your collaborations and meetings according to the 3 C's (better if you help organize an event that tries to score high on all of them) - the better connected and more "luck" you will encounter - and better prepared to leap from nine to five MTWTF to 9 to 9 SMTWTFS - but responsible for yourself, freelance or consulting or partner</comment>


Pentagon halts F-35 deliveries over contractual dispute - <AUTHOR> http://www.janes.com/article/79216/pentagon-halts-f-35-deliveries-over-contractual-dispute <comment><USER2> Yet foreign governments are buying this turd [1].

Thankfully the F35 is so overpriced it is probably not in the final list for the next Swiss fighter plane purchase. [2]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba63OVl1MHw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba63OVl1MHw) [2] [https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/fuenf-kampfjet-typen-in-der- ueber...](https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/fuenf-kampfjet-typen-in-der-uebersicht- ld.1327181)

<comment><USER3> It's a great plane. The best multirole fighter any airforce can procure, by far.

<comment><USER4> "It's a great plane. The best multirole fighter any airforce can procure, by far."

I think for national armies which are funded by tax payer money the total cost of ownership should be a significant factor when considering what to buy. And should factor in the definition of "best".

I don't know much about aerial warfare. Aren't fighter jets just glorified missile launching platforms nowadays, especially for defensive purposes? What does the extra cost buy for the end user in terms of actual features they are going to use? I suppose the keyfactor of a multirole aircraft is radar that allows tracking and fire control for both aerial and ground targets and a selection of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles that go with it. What am I missing?

<comment><USER3> If cost is the core objective, consider having no military expenditures at all. All military gear is expensive, depreciating assets not contributing to productivity and tying up resources that can be used elsewhere.

Ukraine did just that prior to 2014.

Otherwise, your weapons should be a practical deterrent to an aggressor.

<comment><USER4> I wholly agree on requiring a deterrent, but the total operative capability of the defensive force is much more important than individual hardware components.

I wasn't claiming a modern fighter is not a critical part of this equation. I was merely asking what does actually "best" mean in this case. If I get you on my fire control radar and you get me on yours and we both fire missiles, it seems to me the missile and the radar is far more important part of this equation than the avionics platform where they are.

So, practical tactical features...

<comment><USER3> > If I get you on my fire control radar and you get me on yours and we both > fire missiles

What happens is F-35 lets you fire missiles a lot earlier than your opponent. If they see you at all.

The 'lock on radar' part is what all Russian missiles struggle with currently, a situation they hastily attempt to remedy.

<comment><USER5> >The 'lock on radar' part is what all Russian missiles struggle with currently, a situation they hastily attempt to remedy.

Can I humbly ask you for citation?

<comment><USER3> [http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the- buzz/russias-s-300-s-40...](http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the- buzz/russias-s-300-s-400-s-500-vs-americas-f-35-f-22-who-wins-20095)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why hasn't there been a focus on multi-role fighter drones? Is there a responsiveness problem or a contextual awareness issue?

I would think that most of the cost of this F-35 is dealing with the problems caused by putting human in the middle.

Having multirole drones would lower the cost a lot, and it would actually likely increase its theoretical effectiveness because you wouldn't have a pilot scared for their life in it.

It would be so scary to go up against a drone multirole fighter, it could pull off the craziest multi-G moves, and it would be fearless.

There must be some technological reason we have moved to this yet.

<comment><USER7> Drones have a very real weakness: they rely on a radio signal.

But that aside, the F-35 program was never really about building a fighter jet. It was designed from the beginning as a way to funnel 100s of billions of dollars into the defense industry and to keep that money flowing for decades.

<comment><USER8> > F-35 program was never really about building a fighter jet.

This. It was primarily about international collaboration, not military capability (F-22 is a more capable fighter). Best military technology (with most capable pieces likely highly classified) can never be built as a multi- national project. And there are cheaper ways of boosting international goodwill than funneling hundreds of billions into favored defense contractors. Government :(. My 2c.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A little longer and less paywalled version [https://www.reuters.com/article/us- lockheed-f35-exclusive/ex...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us- lockheed-f35-exclusive/exclusive-pentagon-stops-accepting-lockheed-f-35-jets- over-repair-cost-dispute-idUSKBN1HI304)

<comment><USER10> Yes, quite a bit more informative. Seems Lockheed made an error, but the government didn't detect that error and accepted the planes. I can see why that would lead to a dispute...</comment></comment>


The Tools of Campus Activists at UC Davis Are Being Turned Against Them - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/a-protest-against-the-protesters-at-uc-davis/479256/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> The left on campus combines the rhetoric of victimhood, with verbal and physical harassment of those who disagree with them[0][1]. _Of course_ this will eventually turn against them.

[0] E.g. an activist says to a crowd "every single trump supporer has a full legal name, attached to a social security number, with a place of residence, and employer, and classes. That information is easy to find online" in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ50XmALd54#t=3m18s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ50XmALd54#t=3m18s) [trigger warning: this video also features physical harassment of Trump supporters]

[1] A university lecturer and activist tries to stop someone filming in their "safe space" (which is also a public space) and yells "I need some muscle" in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_vgu4ewxVc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_vgu4ewxVc)

</comment><comment><USER3> The right wants a theocracy.

The left wants a fascist state.

I just want to stay as far away from them as possible.</comment>


Why isn't iTunes shuffle random? - <AUTHOR> http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/23194/why-isnt-itunes-shuffle-random

<comment><USER2> I think this is one of those problems where smart people think too hard. It has nothing to do with non engineers misunderstanding randomness or the human mind intrinsically superimposing structure. All it has to do with is being an algorithmic dj.

Users don't want a random playlist. They want their songs shuffled, and they want them shuffled in a way that keeps songs from the same album distributed far apart. No one presses the shuffle button to get satisfaction out of pure randomness. They press the button because they want to listen to music. If think your users are dumb because they don't understand randomness then you don't understand the job that shuffle is supposed to do.

<comment><USER3> This is something any game programmer can tell you. Pure randomness in a game kills the fun. You have to shape the randomness to match human expectation.

<comment><USER4> That depends on the game and the feature of the game that requires the randomness though. True... pure randomness over spawning points for enemies in an action rpg game, might kill the experience. But if I am playing poker.. I do expect something close to pure randomness when you are dealing my cards.

<comment><USER5> I think people are confusing the term "true random". It's still truly random, but it won't have a uniform distribution over all possible values. For example, a common trick in FPS games is to pick a random spawn point, but exclude spawn points that are too close to other players. Still truly random.

Another trick in RPGs is to increase or decrease the odds of a successful hit according to recent hits and misses, bringing the short-term average much closer to the expected value. It's still "true random", but uses correlation between attacks to create an underdispersed distribution overall. (Basically, you want to make the variance lower to make people happy.)

<comment><USER6> "Truly random" is usually contrasted with "pseudorandom". In that sense almost all games are not "truly random". But you are right in that "truly random" also doesn't mean "uniform".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I also recall Steve Jobs explaining in a keynote once that they had made the shuffle feature less random in response to user feedback about not wanting to hear the same song twice in a listening period.

Aha... just found what I was thinking of. Quote from article:

As humans, when we come across random clusters we naturally superimpose a pattern. We instinctively project an order on the chaos. It's part of our psychological make-up. For example, when the iPod first came out and people started to use the shuffle feature, which plays songs in a random order, many people complained that it didn't work. They said that too often songs from the same album, or the same artist, came up one after another. Yet that's what randomness does - it creates counter-intuitively dense clusters.

In response to complaints from users, Apple CEO Steve Jobs changed the programming behind the feature: 'We're making it (the shuffle) less random to make it feel more random.' In other words, each new song now has to be significantly different from what came before, so as to conform to our expectation of randomness. Which isn't really random at all.

Read more: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1334712/Huma...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1334712/Humans- concept-randomness-hard-understand.html#ixzz21pzqiW5O)

<comment><USER8> >In other words, each new song now has to be significantly different from what came before, so as to conform to our expectation of randomness. Which isn't really random at all.

That's the trouble with randomness. <http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-10-25/>

<comment><USER9> I like to say "Random is blotchy". If we mean "uniformly randomly chosen with fully independent choices", smoothness is proof that it's not that sort of random.

This comes up surprisingly often. For instance, the mere presence of clusters of some non-communicable disease or something prove diddly. It must be shown that the clusters are unexpectedly large, not merely that they exist. Of course they exist. That's the default presumption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I solved this problem by creating a smart playlist that only includes songs I haven't heard in X days. I actually went further and made it include 5-star songs I haven't played in X days, 4-star in X weeks, and 3-star in X months. I hear the songs I like the most, but the constantly updated list prevents the "random" shuffle algorithm from picking the same songs too often.

</comment><comment><USER11> The top answer is good, but it doesn't explain why iTunes couldn't maintain the seed while skipping forward and back, but reshuffle whenever a new song is selected, or whenever iTunes is restarted, or whenever you switch to a playlist and back, or all the other times you wouldn't expect it to maintain the sort order. So this still seems like something that Apple could (and should) really improve on without breaking important functionality.

<comment><USER12> That approach could have some random unintended consequences. I shuffle my playlist and listen to a few tracks. One comes on that I don't like or doesn't match my mood, so I peek at the playlist to find on that does match my mood and double click it to start it playing. Unbeknownst to me, iTunes triggers a reshuffle when I do that, and the very next track to play is the one I was trying to get away from.

The better solution (at least from my perspective) is to not pretend that shuffle is a setting, but an action. Simply have a button that says something like "Shuffle this Playlist" or more explicitly "Re-Shuffle this Playlist". Play, stop, forward, back all would work normally within the existing order (straight or shuffled), and if you wanted a new order, you click the "Re- Shuffle" button.

<comment><USER13> > Unbeknownst to me, iTunes triggers a reshuffle when I do that, and the very > next track to play is the one I was trying to get away from.

What are the odds of this happening?

<comment><USER14> Pretty low if I'm listening to all my music at the same time, but what if I have a playlist of 10 songs?

<comment><USER15> > Pretty low if I'm listening to all my music at the same time, but what if I > have a playlist of 10 songs?

You wouldn't listen to a playlist of 10 songs when there are many of them in it you are not in the mood for?

<comment><USER16> Well, you only need one for it to be annoying!

Just about every album I have has one song that I will routinely skip over, because I don't like it much.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, sometimes I like to just toss a album in a playlist and listen to it, and I always seem to end up skipping at least one song

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It sounds like it's a naming issue. It's not "shuffle mode" - there's a shuffle action.

<comment><USER18> If that's the case, then there's also a bit of a UI issue. The current shuffle button is a toggle, not a "click once each time you want to shuffle" button.

<comment><USER19> Yes, but you still need to be able to "unshuffle", so they kept it as a toggle. not the most natural ui, but it works.

<comment><USER17> "unshuffle" is a sort action

<comment><USER19> For a playlist, it's "sort by the original arbitrary order that the user put it in" so you can't rely on the usual sort methods - e.g. clicking the column header.

<comment><USER17> Right, but it's still an action - "put it in some specific order"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I really like the way Winamp handles shuffle. It takes the current playlist (whatever is selected to play), then shuffles it in memory for stable play order. If you select a new song manually, it will play that song, then resume the old play order.

<comment><USER21> I use ncmpcpp (a client for mpd) and it does the same thing. I've never had any issues with its shuffling; it just works exactly as I would expect it to for everything.

<comment><USER22> On a sidenote, mpd + ncmpcpp is a killer combination for playing and managing music. I can only recommend that to anybody geeky enough to use a CLI music player :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This wasn't the question I thought it was. It's actually "why don't things get reshuffled when I expect?"

The answer to the stated question is: because randomness clumps and plays too many songs from the same album/artist/wtfe and bugs people. See also <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4301922>

</comment><comment><USER24> I got tired of hearing the same songs over and over during my train rides, so I wrote an app that plays your songs with no repeats ever until you've heard them all.

[http://itunes.apple.com/app/true-shuffle- pro/id355913111?mt=...](http://itunes.apple.com/app/true-shuffle- pro/id355913111?mt=8) , if you're interested.

I priced it high on the theory that people with lots of music have already put hundreds or thousands of dollars into their music collections and wouldn't mind spending a little to enjoy all their songs in a useful way. I actually tried a free version at one point and it sold the same number of copies as the $4.99 version, so I ditched it and just have the paid version.

EDIT - Don't want to feel spammy here, and wasn't going to include a link to my app, but for those who do want a "listen to all my songs with no repeats" solution, True Shuffle does the job. Hit me up for a promo code if you need one, eh.

<comment><USER25> iTunes will play all of your songs without repeats until you have heard them all as-is. A user would simply go to their music collection, select the shuffle action, and then begin playing a song. No song will be repeated until all of them have been played, which you should have been able to take away if you read the OP or the comment thread. As for the fact that your app is $5, I will refrain from saying anything besides do not spam the link to it on HN please.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I remember when the iPod first came out and was truly random. People would notice that song X came up twice before having played song Y and conclude that the iPod wasn't truly random. There was a big thing on Slashdot about how the record labels were paying off Apple to weight certain songs more heavily in the shuffle for their own nefarious purposes.

Then again, my memory isn't what it used to be, so maybe the Slashdot crowd was right about that one and I just forgot.

</comment><comment><USER27> I remember on the Banshee mailing list a while ago (with fear to be corrected here right now) a discussion about how randomness should work. They implemented some awesome random options though: Random by album and random by artist. So you can play different albums or different artists all the time.

But a really random playlist, really sucks. You get incredibly random stuff, e.g.: the same artist 5 times in a row or sometimes, the very same song.

</comment><comment><USER28> I observed this with Google Music too. Nirvana is underrepresented in my music collection (1-2% tops) but I seem to hear multiple Nirvana songs every time I log in and shuffle all (4-6 hour period). I have wondered if Google Music is picking music that is related to previously heard music.

But I have no way to check without looking at the source.

Until Google Music gets smart playlists, I have no recourse I guess.

</comment><comment><USER29> One of the more interesting things I've heard about iTunes/iPod shuffling is the phrase 'it knows me so well', obviously every shuffle isn't a win, but I'm guessing it's not just seeding it pseudo-randomly but also applying some specific constraints on the playlist.

I don't realllly like completely random shuffles as jazz into techno isn't the smoothest transition, but I've never really seen that with iTunes.

</comment><comment><USER30> Not mentioned but I think the randomness is also not equally weighted, 5 star songs will show up way more then lower rated songs. A few years back someone gathered a large dataset of shuffles and plays with songs clipped to a second or less.

<comment><USER31> I find that hard to believe. The songs are actually "shuffled," in the same sense as a deck of cards is. One a song is "drawn" from the shuffled deck, it is not put back until the deck is exhausted and shuffled again. So in any shuffle, each song must show up exactly once.

There's a setting in iTunes DJ, however, to "play higher rated songs more often."

<comment><USER30> Yep thanks, I was confusing features there.

This appears to be the article I was remembering (caveat: it's from way back in 2005):

[http://www.omninerd.com/articles/How_Much_Does_iTunes_Like_M...](http://www.omninerd.com/articles/How_Much_Does_iTunes_Like_My_Five_Star_Songs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Also, back when iPods had platter harddrives, if it predetermines the whole shuffle order in advance, the iPod can load the few next songs into memory and not have to spin the harddrive up as often. Saved a _lot_ of battery.

</comment><comment><USER33> Who expects shuffling to be _random sampling_ and not shuffling?

All shuffle modes I've ever encountered have shuffled the playlist or songs on a compact disc and then played them in the once-randomized order.

</comment><comment><USER34> I had a similar issue with Foobar until I realized that 'random' meant 'won't play song twice in a row' while 'shuffle' was more of a 'won't play song again until everything else is played'.

</comment><comment><USER13> The bigger problem is that if I select a single album, tell it to shuffle, and click play, it hardly EVER plays the entire album. I've had it play two songs and stop.

</comment><comment><USER35> If the major reason for this behavior is so that you can press back to play the previous song, it can simply remember a short period of history.

</comment><comment><USER36> Note that "shuffle" isn't "random". A mathematically "perfect shuffle" of a deck of cards is not random at all, but still provides a pleasing distribution.

</comment><comment><USER37> Probably the same reason iPhone camera output is filtered (or any other technical term that ends up with photos looking better than they really are).

I had my doubts WinAMPs shuffle was acting on some heuristics, though I never bothered to check.</comment>


Why Android Will Dominate Japan - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mobify.me/2009/12/05/why-android-will-dominate-japan/

<comment><USER2> Ever since Google announced Android I predicted that it would become a dominant mobile environment. We're not there yet, but it's becoming increasingly evident that Android is here to stay.

It shares a lot of similarities with linux. That linux hasn't become dominant on the desktop can (to a large extent) be attributed to the entrenched desktop market where people and organizations use the same system (and applications) over many years.

Mobile doesn't have that yet. People switch phones every year or so and are used to them all being different. Vendors can therefore pretty much pick a new OS every few years (I'm simplifying this, of course).

When selecting a new OS, vendors will evaluate two main elements - price and control. Pricing usually being bound to licenses (a form of control held by a third party), it usually just boils down to control.

And what does Android offer? Control over everything vendors care about. For the companies involved, software development is cheap, but not so cheap that they can just build an OS from scratch (hi there Palm!). Also, Android is low on legacy and fully web-ified (sorry for using that word).

Sure, you love your iPhone. Spare me the feedback. I get forwarded loads of links telling me how crap Android systems are compared to Apple's stuff. But that's just Apple with Apple hardware, Apple software and hard contracts for the carriers. All the other vendors are hell-bent on breaking that. With Android Google (who is not a vendor in this space) is basically flooding that market with free, top-of-the-line R&D on the software end. Of course people building the hardware are going to pick that up.

<comment><USER3> > That linux hasn't become dominant on the desktop can (to a large extent) be > attributed to the entrenched desktop market where people and organizations > use the same system (and applications) over many years.

Its inferiority in most arenas of modern desktop usage explains its failure better.

> When selecting a new OS, vendors will evaluate two main elements - price and > control. Pricing usually being bound to licenses (a form of control held by > a third party), it usually just boils down to control.

I agree that vendors will look at price. But it's less obvious to me that control is important to them. I would think that software people are willing to pay a lot of money for would be more valuable.

> top-of-the-line R&D

Almost. Almost top-of-the-line. As you mentioned, iPhone is _the_ top of the line.

> Of course people building the hardware are going to pick that up.

I don't necessarily agree with all the points you used to reach this conclusion, but I will say that there's compelling empirical evidence that hardware manufacturers are going to buy in to Android. I don't think that this conclusion though supports your initial claim ("Android will become a dominant mobile environment"), unless you meant dominant in the less common "not dominant but at least better than Windows Mobile" sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The only non-fanboy argument in the article is Japanese carriers' hunger for control. This is absolutely true, and might be the reason Android gets some traction in Japan. But consider the implications of this for the user -- why is it that you think that Android is a "good" OS, something that you'd want on your own phone? "It's open and I can do whatever I want with it"? Well, not after the Japanese carriers have their way with it.

<comment><USER5> yup and they will cripple everything to point where its impressive how low the maximum perf of a 3rd party app will be... hopefully this round its gets to double digit MHz

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It has a cutesy Japanese style mascot. Also, they love robots.</comment>