Goodreads' reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end - <AUTHOR> https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2020/08/better-goodreads-possible-bad-for-books-storygraph-amazon <comment><USER2> I have used goodreads since soon after launch. It's probably the worst site that I use, but I prefer it's benign neglect over the "improvements" made on the main amazon site.

I just use it as a list of books of I've read and am reading, and to see books that my friends are reading or have read.

It's been funny to me that the search is horrible and seems to be something worse than just regexing a list of book titles. But I eventually find what I'm looking for. It's sucked as long as I can remember.

The recommendations are also really bad, it has never recommended a book to me that I thought was interesting or I ended up reading. This is despite having over a thousand read and rated books from me. I've been waiting for them to be able to search all the books I don't know and find one that I will like.

I kind of like the site as it is quaint, but functional. It's like a library in that way.

<comment><USER3> I can't think of a website in any domain where people don't complain about recommendations.

People complain about goodreads, Netflix, amazon, etc.

Even things like google ads whose business is ultimately showing ads for products you might like to buy, a kind of recommendation algorithm, people constantly complain about irrelevance. And they have billions of dollars on the line for making that better, not to mention a dataset that is second to none about the internet using population.

Maybe good recommendations is actually just super hard and nobody has really solved it well.

<comment><USER4> Music recommendations seem to work OK. My Spotify discover playlists are always decent.

<comment><USER5> It's hit and miss.

Sometimes it's very decent. Most of the time my discover weekly playlist contains 95% of music I find plain bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Instead, it has stagnated: Amazon holds on to an effective monopoly on the > discussion of new books

This is the main point.

It is the same thing that Oracle purchasing MySQL. What once was a promising raising technology is nowadays stagnant. (Interest over time [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F05ynw,mysql))

GoodReads could help to find better books to read. But, Amazon likes the current state where Amazon recommends the books that are good for their business and not the best for the reader.

10 years ago, I would buy anything Amazon recommended on books. Nowadays, I do not use Amazon anymore as it just promotes books that, I guess, have larger profit margins or align better with Amazon strategy. It cannot be trusted as a recommendation engine.

<comment><USER7> Amazon was pretty much forced to buy Goodreads: the original business model of Goodreads before the Amazon buyout was making money from referral links to booksellers. While links were provided to several internet booksellers besides Amazon, like Barnes & Noble, already the vast majority of internet users were hooked on Amazon and only buying through Amazon links. Consequently, Amazon was paying Goodreads a huge amount of money in referral fees each month, and it made more sense for Amazon to simply buy the site and stop that.

I agree that Amazon is nefarious and destructive, but I think any company in the same position would have bought Goodreads out.

<comment><USER8> > Consequently, Amazon was paying Goodreads a huge amount of money in referral > fees each month, and it made more sense for Amazon to simply buy the site > and stop that.

Does Amazon has a track record of buying major referral generators? I'd imagine someone like SlickDeals generates higher revenue with affiliate links to higher-ticket non-book items.

<comment><USER9> SlickDeals, as with most deal sites, is the equivalent of a B movie in Hollywood. They're considered trashy, low quality sites. Buying SlickDeals is close to bottom fishing if you're Amazon.

Goodreads was classy by comparison and was/is not primarily about deals or referral links. Amazon considers itself to own the book category, period. Books will always hold a special place in their heart as the origination of the company. Amazon, as with all big companies, also considers its brand when it purchases other things. (some of the tech echo chamber may laugh at that notion, however that's nothing more than ignorance as Amazon has an extraordinary brand among the general population)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The linked article soon goes from criticizing Goodreads to hyping The StoryGraph as a Goodreads competitor. However, all the great new features of The StoryGraph seem targeted towards only one portion of the Goodreads membership: people reading fiction or the most pop-sci-type nonfiction and who want recommendations for new stuff to read.

My own bookish, nerdy Goodreads subculture is very different: we already have more books on our to-read list than we could realistically get through, we don't really need auto-generated recommendations for more. We review a lot of serious non-fiction, not just the mass-market stuff, and genre tags like "dark" or "edgy" don't seem relevant, while being able to add "trigger warnings" misses the point.

Yes, GR users like myself are probably a minority, but we're a very established and recognized minority. We're the sort that keeps some independent booksellers alive, for example, so any new site that aims to maintain a culture of books and reading ought to take us into account.

<comment><USER10> I agree that "I can't find any good books to read" is not really a problem most readers I know have. Most have dozens, or hundreds, of books on their To Be Read pile. Finding new books to read doesn't really strike me as a big problem.

I've seen people looking for _extremely_ specific books get stuck. "I'm looking for fantasy where the bad guy turns into a good guy but keeps working on the bad guy side but actively undermines it and also I want some LBGTI+ romance but no smut/explicit scenes". But I'm doubtful TheStoryGraph is going to help them either.

For almost any niche I've seen there's going to be someone somewhere on the internet who puts together a listicle of books in that niche which is going to provide months or years of reading for most normal people. And that's without even looking into the authors' back catalogues or looking at other authors from the same publishers.

<comment><USER11> _I 've seen people looking for extremely specific books get stuck_

At least some number of writers seem to get started by wanting to read a book that doesn't exist, so they decide to write it themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The author complains that it is "impossible" to find books on Goodreads. Simply adding the author's name to any query will always take you to the book you are looking for. Don't just rely on a title. Which should be common sense (if you were at a bookstore you would always tell the clerk the author's name and not just say "Do you have Holiday Heart?") but apparently isn't.

The author complains that searching for 'holiday heart' didn't show Margarita García Robayo's book in the top hits. But searching for 'holiday heart robayo' does.

As for the rest of the piece...the belief that algorithmic recommendations are going to be easy for some shoestring budget startup run by a single person in their spare time is somehow going to do a good job simply isn't credible.

People _still_ complain about Netflix recommendations and they've spent tens of millions of dollars, possibly over a hundred million dollars, on it and are one of the most valuable companies on the planet with one of the best engineering teams on the planet.

Why do people think algorithmic recommendations are easy? Or even desirable?

<comment><USER12> I love Letterboxd's approach to movie recommendation wherein they don't provide any. Users can create arbitrary lists for all kinds of stuff based anything like genre, themes, feel, mood, cast/crew etc. There is probable a high quality list for anything you can think of. I have found some of my favorite movies on the site this way, no algorithms involved.

I wish more site would do this instead of collecting every single details about my life and still recommend be garbage sponsored content (looking at you Youtube).

<comment><USER13> Goodreads does have that. It is called lists: [https://www.goodreads.com/list?ref=nav_brws_lists](https://www.goodreads.com/list?ref=nav_brws_lists)

<comment><USER14> Funny enough, this is another obvious feature that they get completely wrong -- lists are publicly editable, with no (apparent) way of restricting adds to the original creator. So inevitably any niche curatorial effort slides back to the lowest common denominator taste over time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Business opportunity here to replace this?

Start with some HN or Reddit style forum discussion code. Some income could come from affiliate links to indie booksellers. (Is there even infra for such a thing right now? Need to build that too?)

Edit, answering myself, this guy has some thoughts: [https://tomcritchlow.com/2020/04/15/library- json/](https://tomcritchlow.com/2020/04/15/library-json/)

Edit, as for the index corpus, the USLC does okay: [https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchArg=0312937385&se...](https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchArg=0312937385&searchCode=GKEY%5E*&searchType=0&recCount=25)

<comment><USER16> Is the USLC always updated with the latest books?

What would be the legal background of using their index?

<comment><USER10> Sure, if you only care about America. But people in other countries read books too.

Here's the best selling book in Germany:

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45006237-das- geschenk](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45006237-das-geschenk)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This reads and feels like a 33 paragraph thinly veiled marketing advertisement for StoryGraph, using the David vs. Goliath story model.

<comment><USER17> It's bugging me enough to reply to myself - the author is also throwing shade at LibraryThing passive-agressively by using the association fallacy. AbeBooks owned 40% of LT and Amazon acquired AbeBooks - but that's all the author had to say, no critical comparison of LT on it's merits as a book website. I find this to be disingenuous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Honestly, I checked out the storygraph after reading the article, and the first thing that came to mind when I saw the site was 'amateur hour' that I read earlier today in some post about Apple.

I can't really take it seriously while it still looks like some random programmer's side project.

That said, it's readable and mobile friendly, so that's a win.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is this a hit piece? I've never once had a problem with goodreads. Am I alone?

<comment><USER10> I've never had a problem.

It doesn't do a great job with recommendations but I don't really care. There are thousands of book recommendation blogs, lists, BookTube channels, etc.

I'm not sure why people think every site/app needs to evolve to engulf every tangential aspect of a given ecosystem.

HN can never make up its mind whether it likes distributed systems or not.

HN also loves the benign neglect of HN itself (formatting on mobile still broken after 20 years?)

<comment><USER19> This right here. I actually think adding some sort of machine learning recommendation system would be an anti-feature. I do use the site for recommendations on what to read next, But I get that from reading the reviews of other users. These reviews often say "the idea of this book is good, but was done better by ______ in _______." That context is critically important. Just being told I might like this other book is not helpful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Goodreads interface is terrible. I'm surprised Amazon hasn't shut Goodreads down.

All I want from Goodreads is:

        * A nice way to see all the books I've read
        * Maintain a list of "Want to read books"
        * A decent recommendation system for my next read

(If you like Goodreads I recommend Readwise, which lets you upload Kindle book highlights and helps you learn from them.)

</comment><comment><USER21> A shameless plug here, I've been working on a web app to tackle a small part of the issue here. Showing contextual recommendations from 1300+ leaders with verified quotes [https://www.readthistwice.com](https://www.readthistwice.com)

</comment><comment><USER22> I started [https://MyBookList.club](https://MyBookList.club) over a decade ago and always stayed away from recommendations. They're never going to satisfy everyone. The closest thing is "similar books".

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm seeing this piece around widely. I agree with the premise, and am willing to give StoryGraph some time and attention.

I mostly stopped using GR because it just seemed like a noise platform — and, I guess obviously, I didn't want to give Amazon any more data about me.

</comment><comment><USER24> TL;DR: social book metadata site Goodreads has stagnated since being bought by Amazon.

This pattern has occurred repeatedly with metadata associated with digital media; CDDB vs. iTunes, IMDB vs. Amazon DVD listings, Goodreads vs. Amazon book listings.

Rather than assuming that Amazon is strategically hampering Goodreads functionality, I assume that Amazon is a large company that misses opportunities to delight its customers. Giggles ensue every time I come across a "We don't have any cast information" message in Amazon Prime Video.

Hanlon's Razor [1] applies: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor)

</comment><comment><USER16> What is the main feature of Goodreads?

Is it discussing new books?

If so, what is the reason people want to discuss new books? Anybody here who does it?

If so: Why do you do it? And do you do it before or after you read it?

</comment><comment><USER25> That intro was waaaay too long. As someone who knows Goodreads in passing, I just wanted the author to get to the point and make their recommendation.

As a TL;DR for Good read users: The StoryGraph. Check it out.</comment>


Cows talk to each other about weather and food - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7894257/Cows-CHAT-food-weather-express-emotions-study-finds.html <comment><USER2> This is the research paper: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-54968-4#Abs1](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-54968-4#Abs1)</comment>


Animating Artworks in the Met's Collection - <AUTHOR> https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/collection-insights/2018/open-access-artwork-animations <comment><USER2> These are great riffs on the originals :-). It's amazing what people can do when our cultural treasures are in the public domain.</comment>


Show HN: our Co-op onboarding project - <AUTHOR>

Hi Hacker News! My Co Co-op Matt and I are on a work term and were given the task of building a webapp that could make $20 in four weeks as our onboarding challenge. We're in the final stretch here and would sure appreciate HN's thoughts (we realize we kind of did this backwards, building something first before talking to people who might use it, but hey! We're leaning.).
So basically, we tried to apply game dynamics to retaining visitors to websites by offering a reward (ie. discount coupon / premium content, etc.)  for meeting various 'objectives' (ie. pages to visit). We call it ScavSite and it just creates a toolbar along the bottom of your website with information about the next objective to meet and the current points accumulated.
We've just gone live over at scavsite.com, and although the original four week goal was to make $20, right now we'd be really happy if a few people found this useful. :) It's been a long journey. We built it in django, which neither of us had used before, and it's been an incredible learning experience. <comment><USER2> Max, It seems like a cool idea that I could certainly see implementing it on one of my sites. I'm trying to push visitors into some complimentary services/products, so I could certainly see giving them a % off by looking at promo page for those.

Overall, neat idea. Does it work on sites that aren't magento?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey matdwyer - definitely works on non-magento based sites! Let me know if you're interested in setting it up and I'll give you a hand.

</comment><comment><USER3> Update: We disabled the payment system so that you can create free accounts.

</comment><comment><USER4> clickable: <http://scavsite.com/></comment>


Node Knockout registration open (edit: now full) - <AUTHOR> http://nodeknockout.com/

<comment><USER2> The new site just looks annoying and confusing.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't buy anything from them but I think it's keeping in the spirit of the community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yo, we weren't expecting the sudden flood from Hacker News last night! Sorry to those who haven't gotten in yet!

We'll be opening up as many new spots as possible every day at midnight GMT (5pm Pacific). (The number of spots is limited by the number of judges we can get).

If you're interested in being an expert judge (and helping us open up to more teams) check out: <http://nodeknockout.com/judging>

\- Gerad (Node.js Knockout co-creator)

</comment><comment><USER5> I was kinda hoping this was a node.js + knockout.js thing.

Am I alone (in the Unix world) in thinking Knockout is awesome?

</comment><comment><USER6> Well, I'm glad all the legit teams like "Team'); DROP TABLE Teams;" and "•̫͡•ʕ _̫͡_ ʕ•͓͡•ʔ-̫͡-ʕ•̫͡•ʔ _̫͡_ ʔ-̫͡-" got a spot. Along with PowerNerd getting two slots. [1]

[1] <http://nodeknockout.com/teams>

<comment><USER4> We're on the PowerNerd issue. It's a bit complicated due to the fact the two teams have different members. It will be cleaned up soon, and we'll be opening more spots tonight (see my earlier post).

<comment><USER4> And.... the second PowerNerd has been deleted. (1 new open spot). :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone know exactly how long it took to fill up? I'm glad I signed up when I did.

<comment><USER8> 4 days

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> would like to join a team..any spots open?

<comment><USER10> yeah i got some open spots, if anyone wants to join up with me (contact in profile)</comment></comment>


Rudyard Kipling in Vermont - <AUTHOR> https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2019/0715/Rudyard-Kipling-loved-Vermont.-Then-he-had-to-leave-it <comment><USER2> You can actually rent and stay in Kipling's house in Vermont, Naulakha, through the UK's Landmark Trust. They mostly rent historic properties in the UK, but have a few like this with a British connection.

[https://landmarktrustusa.org/properties/rudyard-kiplings- nau...](https://landmarktrustusa.org/properties/rudyard-kiplings-naulakha/)</comment>


Evolution of Trust - <AUTHOR> https://ncase.me/trust/ <comment><AUTHOR> I thought this interactive piece on the principles of game theory and strategy evolution in populations might be interesting to some. Reminded me of the more detailed explanations that Dawkins gave in The Selfish Gene and/or The Extended Phenotype (can't recall which one).</comment>


Jquery Toastmessage – Android-like Notification - <AUTHOR> http://blogfreakz.com/jquery/jquery-toastmessage-android-like-notification/

<comment><USER2> This is more Growl than Android.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but the color scheme and the icon is similar like android user interface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Could be interesting to integrate with [http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/WebNotifications/publish/Notif...](http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/WebNotifications/publish/Notifications.html)

I know Chrome supports them already, maybe others will too (soonish).</comment>


The tale of aux.c - <AUTHOR> http://heirloom.sourceforge.net/mailx_aux_c.html <comment><USER2> So, all that text to tell people he is refusing to rename a single file? :-P

I encountered that issue a few times in the past, most recently when a couple of years ago i was writing the console support for my 3d game engine and made two files called `con.c` and `con.h`, checked them in to version control and then at some point (much) later synced it on the Windows side. Fossil (the VCS i use) simply skipped that file (maybe it complained? i don't remember, but the files weren't created) and when i tried to build the engine it didn't work - i thought that i forgot to add the files, rebooted to Linux, forced a re- add, back to Windows and nothing again.

Eventually it clicked that "con" is a bad word in Windows filesystems, so i simply renamed the files to `csl.c` and `csl.h` :-P. I found this a bit irritating because my naming convention follows a mostly rigid pattern where `xxx_` prefixed functions will always recide on `xxx.c/h` (or `xxx_yyy.c/h` where yyy is a subsystem or specialization) and i really prefer the `con_` prefix to the `csl_` one. So far i've kept the `con_` prefix and made a special note for that in the readme file where i explain the naming conventions, but every time i have to use or work with that part of the engine i feel the irritation :-P.

<comment> cup-of-tea I found it an interesting and well-written piece of history.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So, you smug Linux guys think it can't happen to you? Well, before you get off my lawn, let me tell you a story...

Early versions of FrameMaker kept all resource files (internationalized strings, dialog box layouts, etc.) in the two subdirectories .../FrameMaker/Resources/{Unix,Core} (the first one for the Unix platform- specific resources, and the second for the cross-platform ones also used by the Mac and Windows ports). We had hundreds of happy customers, and had been shipping for 4 years or more.

But one new customer was calling in a panic. They'd installed the product, and it would work fine, but the next morning, it wouldn't even start up, and they had to re-install it. And then it would break again over night. After much pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth, it turns out that due to some other flakey product they were running, they had previously instituted a nightly cron job that ran around removing any core files it could find (since they were large and wasteful of precious disk space back in the day). And the knucklehead who wrote the script had it do a case-insensitive match on "core" _and_ had it essentially do a "rm -rf" even though no true core file could be a directory. So, every night, our Core resource directory was blown away.

We actually had to change the product, as this was a big, important customer, and they outright refused to fix their cron script. Never had this problem on the Windows and Mac ports.

<comment><USER4> While an interesting story, this is more of a self-imposed customer screw-up and not quite the same thing, IMO.

<comment><USER3> A more direct (though fictional) illustration that Unix also has reserved file names that you'd better avoid: "I was writing a novel about digging to the center of the Earth, entitled "core". One day I was running some program that crashed, and my novel turned into a bunch of binary gibberish." Or how about: "My video of my kid's first at-bat, in a file I named a.out, got mysteriously clobbered when I took my first programming class." These are more insidious than the MSDOS examples, which at least fail right away.

<comment><USER5> If we're going to criticise Unix file naming, I'd rather talk about how file names with spaces in them break things, or how hard it is do delete a file named "-".

<comment><USER6> There's something in my environment that keeps creating a file called "-" in my home directory, and it's driving me crazy.

<comment><USER7> By convention, when a unix program is passed "\--" it means there are no more flags being passed. Try the following:

$ rm -- -

<comment><USER6> Oh, I can remove it... And a few hours or days later it's back!

<comment><USER7> Okay, you're gonna want to type $sudo crontab -e...

<comment><USER8> It is better to write EDITOR=nano sudo crontab ... otherwise instead of edititng the crontab you will be solving the problem of exiting vi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> On Windows, paths can be accessed with \\\?\ prefix:

        mkdir \\?\V:\con
        notepad \\?\V:\con\aux.txt

This avoids reserved filenames as well as 260-character length restriction. But many programs that try to do any path processing fail after seeing an unexpected prefix, even File Open dialog (on Win7 at least).

<comment><USER10> It was finally fixed on Windows 10.

<comment><USER11> Not really. Windows 10 made it easier in certain ways for a program to support long file names. But it still requires explicit support, and programs can and did support it previously. And importantly _explorer_ still doesn't support it properly.

<comment><USER10> It just requires enabling it, no special care from applications.

It is disabled by default due to backwards compatibility.

[https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/aa3...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247\(v=vs.85\).aspx)

The file explorer does not support it on purpose.

[https://superuser.com/questions/1114359/windows-10-home- anni...](https://superuser.com/questions/1114359/windows-10-home-anniversary- update-long-path-fix-not-working)

<comment><USER11> Once you enable that, it still only works on applications that explicitly declare support in their manifest.

The backwards compatibility here is only in the fine details of _how_ you deal with long paths. The old way and the new way both require application support. The new way is easier, but the old way worked fine even on XP and earlier.

This setting isn't actually future-looking. It was already possible to make these files with certain tools. And they could have let it always be on for programs that support it. This setting exists so you can signal to programs that they _shouldn 't_ use long paths, even when they are capable of it.

> The file explorer does not support it on purpose.

Sure, it's on purpose, but it's a good example of how impotent the setting is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In 1991 I was working at a place with a Novell Netware network. I decided to make a system that would execute remote commands by writing them to a shared directory and other machines would see the files and execute the commands. I named those files COMXXXXX.TXT where the X's were a random number (yeah, that was a bad idea). Every few days the system would hang and stop working. I finally narrowed it down to the random number being 1-9 that would correspond to the serial ports on the machine and it would then hang.

<comment><USER13> Lesson: always zero pad.

<comment><USER14> Be careful with that. Using leading zeros (in KSH) treats them as octal and doing things "old" school will break.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If I had to guess I would bet that none of the commenters in this thread have ever used the Heirloom version of "mailx", and some have never used, or would ever want to use, the BSD mailx either.

It is a shame because I think Mr. Ritter deserves more recognition for his work.

IMHO, some of his versions are real improvements over the BSD ones, e.g., troff (doctools) and nailx.

I for one am very thankful for the Heirloom Project and very glad to see it live on.

<comment><USER16> I know of him through the version of vi that comes with Arch. I really appreciate that there's somebody keeping a conservative version of vi around. Even if I'm mostly going to use vi-like editors with more features, I'm glad there's a vi to fall back on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> We ran into this issue in Servo too. [https://github.com/servo/servo/issues/1226](https://github.com/servo/servo/issues/1226)

<comment><USER18> Same thing in Cargo: [http://sasheldon.com/blog/2017/05/07/how-i-broke-cargo- for-w...](http://sasheldon.com/blog/2017/05/07/how-i-broke-cargo-for-windows/) [https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/issues/3982](https://github.com/rust- lang/cargo/issues/3982)

<comment><USER19> ... and the Linux kernel itself.

[https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=509072](https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=509072)

I learned about this when I added cloning the Linux kernel repository to an integration test suite for a cross-platform filesystem. I had to use another project because of that file :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >But nowadays, people confuse Microsoft Windows, the successor to DOS, with a Unix operating system, and want to run mailx on it.

...huh

>If you want to use mailx, there is the technically and morally sane option of using a free Unix implementation.

I mean it's really not that hard to release a Windows compatible version. You change a single file name?

This just sounds like throwing gas on the flame war that is unix vs windows.

<comment><USER21> It was written in 2007. There was much greater tension between Microsoft and free software at that time.

<comment><USER20> yeah I just noticed that, good point. Although releasing as much OSS/Free software to every OS (regardless of status) would have been a better fighting route than "*uck you."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is this when I get to complain about operating systems that allow spaces in filenames which also have a shell language that makes it difficult to use those files?

</comment><comment><USER23> Even if Microsoft keeps this behavior, I'm surprised they don't modify it to check the filename extension. It's one thing to change a device like CON that people might expect to exist, but it seems like not distinguishing CON and con.c is just asking for trouble.

<comment><USER24> That behavior is intentional and is workaround for programs that does not let user change file extension on saving.

<comment><USER25> The funny part is, that is not the purpose at all any more. It was probably only for a handful of years that this trick was needed to "trick" programs which thought they were saving a normal file and forcing the correct extension to actually use a printer or serial port. No one has used a printer or serial port by File -> Save As to "lpt.txt" in decades!

Now it's just because some code hidden away under 10s of layers a millions of lines in some obscure line-of-business applications is accidentally dependent on this quirk and "it works now" and no one will ever fix it.

<comment><USER26> This isn't an issue for contemporary human facing UIs. Somewhere there is guaranteed to be a crusty POS system still in use that is sending receipt data to LPT.TXT or AUX.TXT.

<comment><USER27> They could remove it in a new version of windows, that crusty POS system is going to be doing a lot of testing before they upgrade the version of windows it's running on. Even more likely is that they'll never upgrade from whatever ancient version they're using so it won't affect anyone.

I think they just keep it because it feeds into the backwards compatibility myth that MS has built up.

<comment><USER28> Or they could just create a registry flag that enables the backwards compatible behavior. Then all default installs don't have the "bug", while those that need it can enable it.

<comment><USER29> They could probably make the new behavior opt-in in the application manifest.

Without a manifest, you'll see pre-XP common controls, and GetVersion will return an old version, so every modern application has it anyway.

<comment><USER30> They could even incorporate this into some sort of... Compatibility Mode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is an entirely different mechanism, but was bitten not long ago by a surprising feature of the C++ language. It was as surprising to me as I imagine saving a file to aux.c would be.

I was working on a C++ program, editing, compiling, debugging as one does. After a while, my efforts to compile were stymied due to a flood of weird compiler errors that didn't make sense. After rewinding recent changes to a point where I knew it used to compile, it still refused to compile.

Finally I figured it out. During debugging, I created two copies of log file, one called "old" and one called "new". Somewhere in an include file (which probably included other files, etc), there was a statement "#include <new>". Rather that picking up the library source code, it tried to interpolate the contents of the local file "new" during the compile phase.

</comment><comment><USER13> Every time I read this I have to wonder how many windows users are really interested in running mailx.

</comment><comment><USER32> See also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12129647](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12129647) "Git for Windows accidentally creates NTFS alternate data streams"

</comment><comment><USER33> I came from a BBC Micro background and found MS-DOS to be a step backwards from what I knew. I couldn't believe how naff MS-DOS was and how lazy the coders must have been to make it so primitive. I also found PC vendors to be lazy too, it wasn't as if any of them made an effort to do any code to improve on matters, they just shoved the same old MS-DOS in the box.

What I had not realised before reading this article was that the file system was as flat as Acorn's ADFS, i.e. no hierarchy. How this joke of a product came to take over the world and take us from networked computing to standalone 'personal computing' was a tragedy, holding computing back 'decades' rather than enabling a better world.

<comment><USER34> ADFS allowed directories, but used "." as the separator, giving you paths like "Letters.Memo1".

Were you thinking of DFS?

<comment><USER33> You couldn't do hierarchy though, it was only one deep.

<comment><USER35> That was true for DFS, but not ADFS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> D-Coder Does anyone remember Basic-4 systems?

I transferred several programs, in those days and on that system with a maximum of six characters for the name, from one machine to another via magtape. One was named "CR" (customer report or credit report, who knows). It disappeared on the new system because it was mistaken for the Card Reader.

</comment><comment><USER36> Lol, a huge wall of text because the OP doesn't want to rename a single file.

Jeez.

<comment><USER37> Most of that text explains the often forgotten issue, it is only the last paragraph that tells his preferences. I didn't even know that CP/M was sane in its naming scheme and thought it was CP/M legacy, not Microsoft's madness. Pretty informative, though not much surprising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> "{S /con/con" in AOL chat used to BSOD everybody's computers - {s was a directive to play a sound

<comment><USER39> you could do the same thing to Internet Explorer with simple image link

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> What happens if you create a file called aux.c under a different OS, and then mount the drive on Windows?

<comment><USER41> This is the type of question that leads to new classes of exploit... well thought!

<comment><USER42> Except it's one of the first things each of the thousands (likely more) of professional and hobbyist hackers have already tried after learning about this particular OS quirk

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I wonder if the restricted names are still with us in ReFS? I don't have one handy to check it on, but it seems like if there were ever a good time to break backwards-compatibiliy, ReFS would be it.

<comment><USER28> The restriction isn't in the filesystem. You can mount an NTFS filesystem on a Linux box, create a file called "aux.c", then mount that filesystem on Windows.

See also: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15335209](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15335209) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15335474](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15335474)

<comment><USER44> With default mount options you can even create files/folders named foo\bar.</comment></comment></comment>


Why academic publishing hasn't been disrupted [2009] - <AUTHOR> http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2010/01/04/why-hasnt-scientific-publishing-been-disrupted-already/

<comment><USER2> Go read some of Robin Hansen's essays on academia on Overcoming Bias (<http://www.overcomingbias.com/tag/academia>). The real reason is status signaling- online publishing, more accurately publishing that doesn't go through the _established gatekeepers_ , doesn't provide the status that _real_ sources do.</comment>


Question: What factors are contributing to the growing interest in GraphQL? - <AUTHOR> What factors are contributing to the growing interest in GraphQL? What type of projects are you using it for? <comment><USER2> I don't perceive there to be growing interest, from my perspective it's been in decline. Why do say increasing?</comment>


Justin.tv's Live Video Broadcasting Architecture - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2010/3/16/justintvs-live-video-broadcasting-architecture.html <comment><USER2> I just compared that 45 gbit / sec with Amazon pricing. If it was hosted on EC2, bandwidth alone would cost ~$1.2M / month.

<comment><USER3> On top of that, the article says they've got settlement-free peering agreements with many top tier ISPs, which is almost a requirement for a bandwidth-intensive service like this. I'm sure it still costs them in the neighborhood of $500k/mo after all is said and done to run this backbone with all the equipment, space, power, telco fees, etc. It's rather impressive they pull this off with a staff of 32 according to TechCrunch.

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 I posted this comment to the article as well but I figure I might get more discussion of it here:

What exactly does "30 hours per minute of video is added each day." mean in layman's terms - 30 hours of video are uploaded each day? 30 hours of video are uploaded each minute of the day? I'm having trouble deciphering this metric.

<comment><USER4> On average, every minute of the day, a total of 30 hours of video will be uploaded.

Since 30 hours is 1800 * one minute, the above is a fancy way of saying we have an average of 1800 live channels at any given moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Database schema upgrades are done by hand."

Cool, I thought I was just a total newb for doing schema upgrades by hand! (Well, I _am_ a total newb but anyway)

<comment><USER6> I don't know what they mean by "by hand," but IMO, you should always script database changes and run the scripts in staging environments so you know you didn't forget anything and then it'll correctly run in prod.

<comment><USER7> We have a well-hacked version of ActiveRecord migrations that works with our replicated databases. We also have a number of different staging environments that we test with before deploying changes to production.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think I've read every post on highscalability.com, and this is by far the most deep and detailed writeup they've done. Lots of insight into the huge scale of justin.tv and what it takes to push that kind of traffic.

Highlight for me was discovering twicecache. Love the narrow scope and "fit" for the job it's intended for.

<comment><USER7> Twice is great for us, but it's one of those things that evolved to meet our specific needs and architecture. If I were starting a new Rails app tomorrow, I'd start with Varnish, and only move away from that if absolutely necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> what is the story behind Twisted being phased out?

<comment><USER9> nevermind, I see it's all in Twice now :)</comment></comment>


Netflix picks up an Oscar nomination for "The Square", a documentary - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/media/2014/01/16/netflix-picks-oscar-nomination-square-documentary-egyptian-revolution/ <comment><USER2> Documentaries are a smart direction for Netflix. They can actually afford to license the best ones for streaming. Of the five Oscar nominated documetaries that were announced today, three are already streaming on Netflix and the one Netflix produced comes out tomorrow.

Given that the actual movie studio distribution of these movies must be minuscule, it makes a lot of sense for Netflix to just buy them directly.

<comment><USER3> I've seen a trend lately of my friends increasingly referring to "this documentary XYZ that I saw on Netflix". It seems to be a great way to build mindshare in a segment that isn't as interested in mainstream TV shows (somewhat akin to their approach of producing critically acclaimed TV Dramas)

<comment><USER4> It's neat because the barrier to entry to Netflix is so minimal. Previously, when someone said "I saw this documentary XYZ", you basically had to say "Oh that's neat, wish I could watch it..."

Even outside Netflix really, documentary and lower-budget films are much, much more accessible, which is a great thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To be clear - The Square wasn't created by Netflix. The Square is an independent documentary started a few years ago, boosted with a successful Kickstarter ([http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noujaimfilms/the- square-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noujaimfilms/the-square-a- film-about-the-egyptian-revolution)) last year, and finally picked up by Netflix. That said, much credit goes to Netflix for recognizing and promoting independent documentaries.

</comment><comment><USER6> Rightly deserved. It's an incredible documentary and I suggest everyone watch it when it's released.

I hope Netflix continues in this direction. It seems to be a great platform for documentaries to reach mass consumption, like we saw with Blackfish.

<comment><USER7> This might actually hinder 'mass consumption' in Europe if Netflix decides it doesn't want to license broadcasting rights to public broadcasting, which often have their own online services. I think we should be at least somewhat skeptical of the rights-holder also controlling distribution channels.

<comment><USER8> Fun fact: If you have a private German TV broadcast license, you are required to give a certain amount of airtime to independent companies. And you are required to air news-segments - the quality may vary :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've always found Netflix to be a great source of documentaries. Especially now The History channel and discovery channels play mostly reality shows now. Its also great to see their own productions are decent to watch. They may have a chance to become an HBO type provider.

</comment><comment><USER10> Here's the link to the Netflix documentary -

[http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/The_Square/70268449](http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/The_Square/70268449)

It's not yet available to public but you can watch the trailer and save it to your list.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why can't I get this documentary on my Netflix?

<comment><USER12> It came out in theaters first, they acquired the rights to it after it had been released there. The best I can find about availability on Netflix is "early this year".</comment></comment>


Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126102247889095011.html <comment><USER3> I have a thought. How about next time the military just flies one of these things down to Defcon and lets people have a go. The hackers get a cool toy to play with a for a day and the military gets a free fairly sophisticated penetration test. I'm sure the flaw would have been found; instructions on how to intercept satellite data with about $100 worth of hardware have been floating around for years. I'll edit this post in a minute with details for anyone that's interested.

EDIT:

* One possible LNB: <http://bit.ly/7AGe7e>

* Possible dishes: <http://bit.ly/4NfMN1>

* One possible receiver (for digital, you'll need a different one for analog): <http://bit.ly/4zHyND>

* Useful forum: <http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/>

That setup is enough to pick up signals from satellites (locations: [http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=satellite+index](http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=satellite+index)). If you do this as a hobby you might want to spend the money on a motor to tilt/pan your dish for you. ;-) The article implies that such a setup is pretty much what the insurgents used to intercept video from the drones. The drone bounces its video up to a satellite and the satellite bounces back down to the operator. The insurgents just grab it when it's coming down to the operator from the satellite. I'm pretty sure (or at least I hope) the receiver would have to be modified to decompress/decrypt the drone data properly. It'll do just fine if you're scanning for legit TV signals.

<comment><USER4> The question is, what do our defence contractors care more about: making their weapons _actually_ work? Or merely selling them?

<comment><USER5> The later is true. There is a large, high througput, revolving door between DoD and large contractors. Yesterday's generals are today's board members and C*Os of large defense contractors.

When something is purchased, or a bid is chosen, it is often because of those conections not because a product is inherently better.

The result is a lot of overpriced, under-performing equipment. The amount of waste is just ridiculous, even for a $650 billion market ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budg...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget)).

<comment><USER6> This is also an apt description of the relationship between the FDA and large pharmaceutical companies. Also, the USDA and large food companies. There are likely many more examples. It's a systemic problem of our structure of government.

<comment><USER7> The trick is: who better to run a military contractor than former military men? Who better to run a food company than someone who has worked in the USDA?

These are natural career paths for those individuals that make perfect, natural sense and --in and of themselves-- aren't a real issue.

The _real issue_ is that our government can too easily reward individual companies or industry groups with hand-outs.

If a single general couldn't essentially hand a contract to a supplier on his say-so, that supplier gains nothing by bribing them with a future board position.

What we really need, is for it to be more difficult for individuals to drive contract selection and for the standards for passing a bailout, tariff or corporate welfare program to be much higher.

Perhaps by requiring such legislation to be stand-alone bills, and requiring an oversight office to evaluate contract selection.

<comment><USER5> > Who better to run a food company than someone who has worked in the USDA?

Are you asking as the food company, or as the proverbial "concerned citizen?"

Because I would want the USDA to work for me, since I am paying my taxes. I want it to do its job and protect me from Kraft selling me salmonela infested cookie dough. It is hard for USDA to do that when they expect to be hired by Kraft and be payed large bonuses and salaries in the future.

> The real issue is that our government can too easily reward individual > companies or industry groups with hand-outs.

The other serious problem is that individual companies can easily 'reward' (read 'bribe') their friends in high places so they can turn a blind eye and in turn harm the public.

I have the naive desire to have a government that would take care and protect its citizens. I don't have the time and the resources to carry a microscope and a bacterial toolkit to the grocery store when I buy meat or eggs. I expect to pay my taxes and USDA to do its job.

<comment><USER7> As a concerned citizen, naturally I don't want the USDA Director working for Kraft. But what do I care whether the director goes on to work at Kraft afterwards? Or even came from Kraft in the first place?

I'd prefer we have qualified people in public office. Proven managers, subject-matter experts, etc. If we erect a wall between private industry and public service, we're not going to get that.

If there's a problem with the director of the USDA being able to let his former-employer slide, that's a separate problem than where (s)he came from or is going. I'd prefer we deal with _that_ , than try to police people's careers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _the U.S. military found pirated drone video feeds on other militant laptops_

What is the meaning of "pirated" here? Are they going to sue militants for copyright infringement?

<comment><USER9> New definitions of words creep into usage all the time, and this is one I've been noticing.

Folks are using "pirate" to mean "intercept" or "surreptitiously copy", rather than the traditional usage (leaving aside the even older meaning, of course) of simply "distribute copyrighted material".

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Having an unencrypted video broadcast on a military drone is just a dumb idea by whoever manufactured it. Encryption would seem to be the most minimal requirement for such an application.

<comment><USER11> I agree that the transmission should be encrypted, but I think the usefulness of the video feed to insurgents is overstated. You can _hear_ and _see_ the drones overhead, so it is pretty clear if your area is under surveillance.

<comment><USER12> You can not hear and see the drones. That is what makes them such an effective weapon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Part of the problem is that the military awards contracts that are sometimes decades long. What was "good enough" security in 1990 is not looking so hot 20 years on. The US military machine may not perform as well as it has in the past in the new era of betas, hotfixes and patches.

I will not be at all surprised when insurgent "rc-plane" drones start showing up with cell phones, arduinos, grenades and duct-tape.

<comment><USER14> It's dreadfully easy to shop build a rocket, especially in America where places like Radioshack exist.

<comment><USER15> I think your post got caught in some sort of time dilation field from the 80s or something...

Radioshacks only sell cellphones (mostly) now. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Instead of hack, it should read "Insurgents intercept U.S. Drone video feeds"

<comment><USER17> That's more clear, perhaps, but this is certainly a hack

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> _"The military [is] trying to solve the problems by better encrypting the drones' feeds."_

Where by "better encrypting" they mean "using any encryption at all"

<comment><USER19> _Predator drones are built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of San Diego. Some of its communications technology is proprietary, so widely used encryption systems aren't readily compatible, said people familiar with the matter._

If some Russian software could intercept it, it wasn't _that_ proprietary!

<comment><USER20> They mean the hardware/software for the drones, not the protocol / format used for transmission.

<comment><USER21> Predator and Reaper drones run on VxWorks, for which crypto is readily available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's amusing that they consider the lack of encryption a mere "flaw". Seems like a huge oversight to me.

</comment><comment><USER23> Sounds like a great opportunity to feed some false information to the insurgents.

</comment><comment><USER24> _The potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the unmanned craft and ground control._

What about the uplink?

<comment><USER25> I assume that's encrypted for obvious reasons. However, encrypting live video feeds requires a lot more prepossessing power than encrypting telemetry so they apparently left it out.

Honestly, from a classic military standpoint encrypted video does little for you. If you can intercept the transmission then you know where the drone is. The only advantage is knowing what it is looking at, but a traditional army is large enough knowing something is in the area is enough. It's only gorilla style fighting when it becomes particularly useful.

<comment><USER19> Guerrilla, BTW.

The thing is, these drones' primary use is against insurgents, AFAIK.

<comment><USER26> It is now, but I don't think this was intended to their primary mission profile when they were designed, over a decade ago. A lot of the intended uses were more traditional than the ones that reality has presented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> _The potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the unmanned craft and ground control. The U.S. government has known about the flaw since the U.S. campaign in Bosnia in the 1990s, current and former officials said. But the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn't know how to exploit it, the officials said._

<comment><USER28> This is actually a deeper problem - we (the US/UK/Western world) assumes the middle east doesn't have the same level of technical competency as us.

Iran is a pretty well educated country, and while Iraq and Afghanistan doesn't have the same level of education in the tech/science areas, there are many sympathizers who are well educated -- including educated in UK, US, etc.

There's actually a lot of comparisons to be drawn here with startup culture vs big business. Once again the smaller, less resourced are able to bring down the big players by being more nimble and not feeling the need to build everything "in house".

To the "in house" point - the US probably spent high $100ks of mine and other tax payers money building viewing software for these drones vs the insurgents who use $25 Russian shareware. Now, I'm not saying that the government should be running SkyCatcher to view streams - but I bet they didn't include opensource options into their video viewer solution that would have saved $$$ in upfront and ongoing maintenance costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> War machine sending data through unprotected channel? In XXI century? After two world wars and a cold war?

How?

</comment><comment><USER30> The problem is that the people in charge of deciding what to approve/buy for the Military are not qualified. They get the position of authority by being successful in the military not by proving they understand the technology of the things they are buying.

I can see how this happened. Say the military guy had two choices of what to buy for video feed products.

Product 1. Fully encrypted video 15 frames per second and a 5 second delay.

Product 2. No encryption video at 30 fps and 1 second delay.

At the demo he says "product 2 is much better lets get that". When product 2 is questioned about security they say something like "we have proprietary codecs". From the miliary guy's point a view a codec is just as good as encryption.

</comment><comment><USER31> Whether this particular mistake was avoidable or not, the event raises bigger issues.

The military is building more and more lethal, radio-controlled robots.

No networked device can be _guaranteed_ to be secure. Computers have been hacked since they existed. The hacking of satellites is endemic. A civilian hacker was supposedly holding a military satellite hostage a while back.

Thus this strategy makes it likely that hackers will get the ability to command a lethal device sooner or later.

The risks of this might be worth the rewards in terms of avoiding casualties, projecting power, etc.

But there hasn't been much public discussion of the choices that are involved here. There should be.

</comment><comment><USER32> That poses an interesting technical question - how do you achieve military- grade encryption over a communications line with heavy packet loss (assuming the drone->satellite connection is like that)? Most self-synchronizing ciphers would have too much of a lag for real time operation.

Perhaps two synchronized pseudo-random number generators, driven by synchronized clocks, could be used for variable key generation for a symmetric cipher.

<comment><USER33> I am assuming that there already exists an encrypted communications channel between the ground and the UAV (command and control). So, it would be trivial to include a command to switch encryption keys at specific intervals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> As @noonespecial alludes to, some of the comments on the WSJ site and (less so) here are made incognizant of the complexities of the systems and timelines of procurement, testing and deployment.

@tsally the DEF CON suggestion is a good point. Because of ITAR, it is unlikely that the actual "toy" will be provided, but a comparable subsystem wouldn't be out of the question. E.g. The DoD regularly operates rapid reaction challenges with a simulated problem from theater - <USER2> <http://www.kirtland.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123120737> Something similar could be done with DEF CON.

I think it is important to maintain perspective when stories like this come out. Contrary to some of the comments, defense contractors and researchers/engineers at gov't R&D labs do put the priorities of the warfighter first. Consider that many of the engineers/contractors/researchers/etc working on technology development are combat veterans themselves.

The issue is that we face adaptive adversaries.

</comment><comment><USER35> I hope instead of shutting it down, the military feeds them false information. If done right, it could make a good trap.

<comment><USER36> I hope, instead of merely listening in, the insurgents start to jam and crash the drones.

Sorry, but a different view needs to be represented. To a lot of people the foreign occupation of Iraq is a grave injustice, not just some big game.

<comment><USER37> While I want the US to pull out of Iraq as much as anybody, I think that you have to dead in the skull to root for the insurgents. Most of the problems in Iraq right now are primarily due to religious extremists terrorizing the locals and fighting with Americans to push their agendas. No matter how bad Iraq is now, it will be _worse_ off if these people take over.

<comment><USER38> _No matter how bad Iraq is now, it will be worse off if these people take over._

So? The concept of American responsibility for the well-being of foreign citizens is the root of this whole war problem. Let my people go!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Note that "skygrabber" is the #5 search phrase on google right now. [http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?sa=X&oi=prbx_hot_...](http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?sa=X&oi=prbx_hot_trends&ct=title&q=skygrabber)

</comment><comment><USER40> "said people familiar with the matter"

WSJ is really going down in journalistic quality, it seems. But seriously, problem known for a decade, "they're dumber than us so they can't use it" attitudes, in a device at that price point, you'd expect they'd think about these things. Reminds me of the Boeing report on Columbia. ( [http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg?msg_id=0...](http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg?msg_id=0001yB&topic_id=1) )

<comment><USER41> This is a grave oversight, but often it isn't the military that needs convincing of the intelligence of the enemy it is the politicians. These politicians and often news pundits have often said things such as why are we spending so much money on this war when we are fighting people who use sticks and stones.

So it is a catch 22 when you have to cater to the politicians you are often enabling your enemy. Not that I think we shouldn't have government or politicians and internal opposition, it is just that I wish politicians would do less grand standing and more actual thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Do you think obsfucation and spam could solve this problem? Could they setup cheap broadcasters all over the place that constantly send out fake videos and develeop a sophisticated filter they can use themselves that the insurgents wouldn't have access to? Then they wouldn't have to rework the drones themselves, and they could constantly rework the spam and the filter to stay ahead of them.

<comment><USER43> Good thinking.

There are a lot of simple, inexpensive measures that could be used to neutralize their advantages.

OTOH, if you know where are the satellites drones use and the frequencies they employ, it would be trivial to just set up a very directional antenna coupled to a high-power noise generator to render the drone's controllers more or less blind and the drones useless.

At least until they evolve into autonomous drones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Is anyone talking about the potential to not just grab video but to send control signals? What if the enemy could actually take control of one of these drones? Is that channel encrypted? How about sending back false video to not allow the true operators to know what is really going on or to generate false positives.

<comment><USER21> If an enemy could take control of a Reaper he wouldn't... Until it was returning to base at the end of its mission, at which point he'd fire its Hellfire missiles right into the control building. Then the dominoes would fall like a house of cards. Checkmate!

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> They say there's "no evidence" that they were able to take control of the plane's in flight. Since nobody bothered to encrypt the video feed, and they're saying there's "no evidence", it sounds to me like they also didn't bother to encrypt the control signals. Nice...

</comment><comment><USER46> Anybody remember the movie Body of Lies? Would be interesting to feed the insurgents a different video feed from what is actually be used.

<comment><USER47> It's possible, though unlikely, that the entire report is deliberate misinformation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Is there any chance the problem is technical? Encryption increasing latency (at least for the pilot's view), anything like that?

</comment><comment><USER49> Wonder how soon they find a way to spoof drone video streams with some open sourced software, probably VLC ;-)

</comment><comment><USER50> 'Fixing the security gap would have caused delays'

'... it would have added to the Predator's price'

If you're paying $20 million each you'd think another million to ensure your targets don't see you coming would be a no-brainer?

<comment><USER51> While I obviously think they need to close the security gaps, I just want to make a comment on your comment: it's that kind of thinking that keeps our taxes increasing and our economy in shambles.

I'm with @tsally on the solution to this kind of problem...

<comment><USER52> @tsally is advocating having 'real' hackers hack on the thing to find vulnerabilities. In this case though, the vulnerability was _known_ but it would have cost more money to actually fix it. Having people attack the thing for vulnerabilities still wouldn't change the fact that you would need to pay however much money to do the fixing.

<comment><USER51> pff, you didn't address what I said...

"it's only another $1MM"

<comment><USER52> I was addressing the last thing that you said.

<comment><USER51> quit these goading, troll tactics please

there is no contradiction: yes "real" hackers, yes spend money, no don't say "just another million"

sheesh

<comment><USER52> Where did I say 'just another million?' From where I stand, you seem to be opposed to spending more money on something to make it work, and I'm arguing that by agreeing with having hackers hack on the device doesn't fix it on it's own. It still costs money. Whether it's "just another million" or "just another $100,000" is irrelevant. The thing won't fix itself for free and at $20 million a pop it's a waste of money if the thing is broken.

Note: I'm not goading, trolling or whatever it is you think I'm doing. This thread is a conversation, and I'm responding to what you said.

<comment><USER51> _...and I'm responding to what you said_

No, you're not, you're actually ignoring my words. Please stop.

Note: You have made one lifetime submission and it was flagged and marked 'dead.' I will not call you a troll, but please stop.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Prank Startup Pitch To A Real Investor (VIDEO) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI99phzofk8

<comment><USER2> Something similar to the described software has already been made by a group of artists ~ The transborder immigrant tool: [http://www.vice.com/read/follow- the-gps-225-v16n11](http://www.vice.com/read/follow-the-gps-225-v16n11)</comment>


Why YouTube's HTML5 Player Sucks - <AUTHOR> http://chrismorris.co/2012/02/08/why-youtubes-html5-player-sucks/

<comment><USER2> I have run into all the same problems, also I don't like the loss of full screen video. HTML5 video is simply not an adequate replacement for Flash, end of story.

I've found that many people who believe things work fine joined the HTML5 opt- in trial, but don't realize that HTML5 only works on some videos and Flash is still being used for others. Most videos seem to be only available in Flash even with the trial enabled. Right clicking on the video reveals which it is if there is any doubt.

A YouTube engineer discussed some of the issues a couple years back: <http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html>. At the time Hulu had similar comments about HTML5 video capabilities: <http://blog.hulu.com/2010/05/13/pardon-our-dust/>. A more recent post from a few months ago by YouTube staff on the subject is here: [http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/11/youtubes- html5-play...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/11/youtubes-html5-player- gets-better.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. They've done such a good job in mimicking the look of the Flash player than many in the HTML5 opt-in probably don't realise half the videos they watch are presented in Flash.

Thanks for the links, very interesting reads. I agree that the HTML5 player has vastly improved, but if the issues I'm experiencing with the player now persist, I don't think that it's nearly ready to replace Flash - or, I don't think they should.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's not a YouTube issue, but a browser issue. HTML5 video was rushed and poorly implemented by the browser makers. I'm a Chrome user, so I can't speak for the Firefox and IE experience, but this awful user experience is true whenever I watch any HTML 5 video in Chrome. It's extremely frustrating, especially when it's missing simple things like buffering, caching and continuing download on pause. Give me Flash video any day.

<comment><AUTHOR> You may be right, however, some people haven't experienced the caching issue when using the same browser and version that I was using at the time of this post (Chrome 17 just came out), which makes me wonder if the download limitation was implemented by YouTube to conserve bandwidth should a user click off the video early, thus saving YouTube from sending the entire video to the user when they're not going to watch it.

Interestingly, my caching issue seems to have disappeared since updating to Chrome 17. I need to do some more tests, though.

I think you're right, though, more likely to be browser issues more so than YouTube issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting take. I've always experienced caching issues of the video buffer not buffering correctly. This has happened ever since they introduced 1080 content. I generally only go to 720p if I ever want to actually finishing watching the video.

It could be that their servers just cant keep up with the 1080p feed. It would need a thorough investigation to get to the bottom of it.

However, there is one great feature with their new player.

I have 3 monitors and when I fullscreen a video on one monitor, I can continue watching it and click away and work on another monitor and it is still maximized.

<comment><AUTHOR> So you've had that caching issue with Flash as well? I'm wondering if it's YouTube setting a limit to how much video can be downloaded in the case that the user clicks off the video early, thus saving bandwidth. If it is, then I simply won't be able to use YouTube HD anymore.

That's really good, re: multiple monitors. That's one thing that really bugged me about Flash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not having these particular issues except for the timing one, but I'm definitely not a fan of the HTML5 player (yet). I'd also like to use it but it's just nowhere near as good.

Videos open and pause at 0, and no matter what I do I can't get them to play unless I reload until I get the flash player. Seeking is pretty wonky. As well a couple of weeks ago it used a different sound output than flash (Flash would use what my music did, the headset, but the HTML5 player would try to use my speakers, which were off. Seems to have improved now).

Just hoping it improves significantly in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting. So you can use 1080p just fine? May I ask what download rate you generally get when browsing YouTube?

I didn't have any issues with the sound, but my computers all have one sound output apart from one which is connected to a sound system. I plug my headset into the sound system, though, so I've never had an issue.

Seems people aren't getting a uniform experience at all =/.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to hear if anyone else is having these issues, because it's really frustrating me.

<comment><USER6> I don't have the buffering issues on Firefox 10. Everything else happens though. (The cursor not hiding can be avoided by moving it to the bottom-right corner of the screen, which effectively hides it.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't tried on Windows, but on my Mac my dock is set on the right-hand side of my screen. This means that if I move the mouse to the bottom-right or top-right corner, the dock sometimes pops up if I'm not careful. I can't move it to the other side either because the mouse hit's the wall, so to speak. I think I just have to get used to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is anyone else finding this guy's site lags when scrolling? In Chrome any time the top banner is visible it lags. In Opera the whole page is unusable because to take 3-4 seconds to scroll,

Is there just too much CSS?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, it might be that I've used two large background images plus transparency on top of them. I may have to re-design. Sorry about that. It's still a work in progress, actually, so if you change your browser width to below around 760px, the CSS should disappear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It looks like they fixed the bug, but for about 3 days a week ago I couldn't skip to different points in any video I've viewed in full screen without Chrome crashing. It was enough to almost push me back to Firefox...

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm still having some problems with the player, but I've updated to Chrome 17 and my caching issue seems to have gone away. Not sure what the cause was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> i hadn't noticed any issue other than the cursor not going away, but i'd trade all of your gripes for the significantly decreased CPU usage (and heat output) of the HTML5 player vs the Flash player.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. However, the downside to HTML5 is that if your computer freezes for a moment, the video continues playing and you may have to rewind a few moments. Flash tends to pause the video when a computer freezes.

I haven't noticed my computer overheat nearly as much as it did with Flash, though, so that's great.</comment></comment>


What If Google Is Actually *Weak* In Search?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/what-if-google-is-actually-weak-in-search-2014-4?source=HackerNews&referrer=Anuj+Adhiya

<comment><USER2> I'm confused. if project loon is going bring internet to the 2/3 rds of the world that can't afford to access the internet. how are they going to afford to pay for stuff on ads they click?</comment>


I dropped out of college today - <AUTHOR> http://worldsgreatest1729.tumblr.com/post/119196032728/i-dropped-out-of-college-today

<comment><USER2> "So starting today, I will start things afresh, I will work on my side projects and hopefully, while finding localy optimal solutions to small problems, I will eventually find a globally optimal solution to an important problem."

99% of any project is un-interesting, rote, work that just needs to get done. It's not all about changing the world with ground-breaking technology.

I'm on my 4th (and finally successful) business and I've tried to partner with many, many people over the years and the majority quit mid-project because they weren't willing to push through all of the boring work to get to the end goal.

You say one of the reasons you dropped out is because it's "boring". I graduated 15 years ago and although many things seemed boring at the time, I'm glad I learned them because they are fundamental to becoming a better developer.

If you want to succeed at business, you will need to be able to work on anything, even if it's boring.

<comment><USER3> I partly agree with what you have said. Persistence is important, there will be always some boring stuff to learn and repetitive tasks to do. We all have to deal with it.

What would be your advice to a person that skipped college due to financial crisis (had to support family). However i found a job in IT and still am employed and this is my 4th company. I am now kind of financially secured. I feel like going to college would just kill time i have already turned into $ and knowledge. Yet I'd like to get exposed to some areas and stuff taught there.

DISC: I am european, 24.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I graduated a 3 year college in 4 years. I was working as a freelancer during that time, which also contributed to problem.

I wasn't an academic person, I was struggling with most of the courses.

At some point I started earning enough money to sustain myself. The thought of quitting was constantly tempting me.

One thing I kept telling myself: I started this, I'm gonna finish it.

There was a lot of pain and agony, but in the end I pushed myself hard enough to finish it. This was something that had a profound effect on me and helped me endure though times after college.

I would recommend taking some time out and then regroup and revaluate your situation, it might not be all that dire and impossible as it seems.

</comment><comment><USER5> hey sorry to hear you had such a tough time in college. My time wasn't so rosy either and I graduated with poor grades but it did feel good to complete it, so maybe speak to some of your professors before you make the final call? Also, when you say 76 days to create something of value, do you have anything in mind or will it be writing? Having time pressure may add to anxiety so i recommend steady exercise routine, no alcohol, and a balanced diet. Also interacting with humans on somewhat regular basis can be good for keeping a positive outlook. Either way you go good luck!</comment>


Chinese Traffic to Time.gif · HookRace Blog - <AUTHOR> https://hookrace.net/blog/chinese-traffic-time.gif/ <comment><USER2> I'm almost certain this is organic traffic.

You could consider monetising with a footer URL to a site who wants traffic.

<comment> def- I'm not sold on the idea of monetising traffic. It's not like the traffic is costing me anything or causing harm.</comment></comment>


Node.js stdlib ported to CoffeeScript (6,501 additions, 15,896 deletions) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/joyent/node/pull/2472

<comment><USER2> It's a joke commit, with auto-generated CoffeeScript from a conversion tool.

About 3,700 deletions come from files that were erroneously replaced by empty files. Another 1,400 or so are from removing the license comment at the top of the files, and I'd imagine stripped comments throughout the code add a bit more.

The actual compression ratio seems to be about 20-25%, then. It's likely that idiomatic CoffeeScript, rather than generated CoffeeScript, would be somewhat shorter, but probably not by a drastic amount; I'm no JavaScript guru but the Node.js source doesn't strike me as verbose to begin with.

It seems to me that CoffeeScript is in some ways an attempt to make you write using only - in the words of Douglas Crockford's book title - "Javascript: The Good Parts". The most representative test of its success would thus be rewriting a _bad_ library or tool into CoffeeScript and seeing if it makes the inner badness come to the surface where you can deal with it more easily. If you're already writing disciplined, well-organized JavaScript, than there's no reason to stop.

<comment><USER3> because, coffeescript is a joke

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This kind of trolling should not be on Hacker News, and I definitely can't believe it got 70 points. Might be time for some more Erlang articles...

</comment><comment><USER5> diffstats are misleading since it looks like he stripped at least 20 lines of comments from each file (license blurb). If Coffescript really did remove that much code I would seriously consider switching. Most research has shown that bug count is pretty heavily correlated to source line count.

<comment><USER6> While I don't disagree about the point regarding the relationship between line count and bug count, I'm very wary of this move because they still haven't solved the issue on how to debug CoffeeScript with all your error messages being reported back to you in terms of the compiled Javascript.

<comment><USER5> That's an implementation detail though. Although it's a lot of work to fix, it's not insurmountable. You would need your development browser to support Coffescript natively. It's not really a serious problem if IE7 generates a Javascript back-trace, right?

The important thing is if Coffeescript really does significantly reduce line count and by extension bug rates. I'm not sure it does, generally syntactical sugar doesn't have that effect.

I hope it does. My life seems nicer when writing Coffeescript vs JS.

<comment><USER7> You don't need to support CoffeeScript natively. The answer is simple and is called source mapping: the output code carries comments that map each line to a line in the source file. This will also work for LESS and any other transpilers.

Work is underway since August to implement it in WebKit ([http://peter.sh/2012/01/css-selector-profiler-source- mapping...](http://peter.sh/2012/01/css-selector-profiler-source-mapping-and- software-rendering/)) and Gecko (<https://wiki.mozilla.org/DevTools/Features/SourceMap> \- the intern has gone back to school, really?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Darn, this looks like auto-generated CoffeeScript. Much less interesing...

<comment><USER8> Its definitely generated. Just compared some files from the output from <http://js2coffee.org>

Its not even funny anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The title, of this submission, does not include the fact that thousands of the deletions have very little to do with a port. All licensing is removed. All comments are removed. Significant carriage returns are removed. As well, while LoC is cool to count, promoting line removals that only include an end-of- block ("}") is not, at all, interesting or helpful.

In short, the diff in LoC is just snark to pull at the strings of those that will correlate LoC to bug counts.

What are the advantages of porting Node.js to CoffeeScript? Node doesn't deal with the DOM or browser incompatibilities, which are the stronger reasons to port.

</comment><comment><USER10> Although it is a nice joke, CofeeScript has several issues.

I could explain why omitting an ending delimiter is an issue, or how easy it is to add a new line or space, but the image does a decent job.

[http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/306/javascriptinasimplewa...](http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/306/javascriptinasimpleway.png)

Now guess which of the three Javascript examples is generated by.

        foo -> bar 'foo', -> 'bar'

The point, is that Javascript is simple in demonstrating what are and aren't functions because it has an ending delimiter.

CofeeScript isn't pretty very clear.

<comment><AUTHOR> To play devil's advocate: Does JavaScript have "several issues", in that it allows you to write your first example like this?

<https://gist.github.com/1567793>

<comment><USER10> which of the three Javascript examples is generated by?

        foo -> bar 'foo', -> 'bar'

The point, is that Javascript is simple in demonstrating what are and aren't functions because it has an ending delimiter.

CofeeScript isn't simple with anonymous function creation.

<comment><AUTHOR> FYI, function application wraps rightward to the end of the line, or the end of the block, so:

        foo -> bar 'foo', -> 'bar'

Means:

        foo(-> bar('foo', -> 'bar'))

But in any case, you wouldn't write it like that.

<comment><USER10> Telling the user to write something in two different ways, depending on the argument being passed, isn't simple.

The point is an ending delimiter would greatly benefit CoffeScript.

Although CofeeScript certainly has its perks, anonymous function creating isn't simple then Javascript.

<comment><AUTHOR>
        > Telling the user to write something in two different ways,
        > depending on the argument being passed, isn't simple.

Huh? Sure it is.

Fun fact: Any algorithm you can write in JavaScript can also be written as a single function, full of nested whiles, if/elses, fors, labels and breaks ... does that mean you should write your entire program as a single function? Nope.

I'd like to think that CoffeeScript functions read better without an "ending delimiter":

        $('button').click ->
          alert "hello"

        # Or:

        app.get '/', (req, res) ->
          res.send 'Hello World'

In any case, if you're interested in using CoffeeScript, but the lack of an ending delimiter is putting you off -- I encourage you to add one in your fork.

<comment><USER11> Jeremy, I don't know much about CoffeeScript but I'm having a really hard time parsing your last example. Did you mean

      app.get '/', (req,res) ->
        res.send 'Hello World'

    ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I did indeed. Serves me right for commenting on the run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great, now go and convert Linux kernel to OOC; I'm sure Linus will merge it right away.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd be curious to see whether there's any substantial performance differences

</comment><comment><USER14> To be honest, I do not like the idea. I do not use node much, only played with it a little. Now about CoffeeScript, I CANT read it, hurts my brain pretty bad, and I fail to see how can it be good.

<comment><USER15> "hurts my brain" == "don't understand"

*I use vanilla JS.

<comment><USER16> If you really used vanilla JS you would have used the typed equality operator :P. === fo' life.

<comment><USER17> No, he wouldn't have. If you use === everywhere, you're wasting bandwidth for the extra character. Use === only when the type matters and is likely to be different. 99% of the time, it's when you want to distinguish between undefined, false, 0, and null.

<comment><USER18> that's a false economy since you must also include however many bytes it takes to explain in a comment that you used == on purpose, and not as a typo- to warn future maintainers not to switch it to === when they run it through JSLINT.

<comment><USER17> You put comments in code? I place all comments in a separate markdown file.

<comment><USER19> Could you share a link that describes this? I'm having trouble finding anything about it.

<comment><USER17> Just take a look at how Mootools or Node.JS takes care of their documentation. Same principal. There is no need for comments/documentation to muck up code.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Privacy and incentives: Thoughts on the iPhone location database - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/2011/04/25/privacy-and-incentives

<comment><USER2> Marco.org didn't have his comments turned on his blog. Marco, the tracking data in the phones is used by stalkers. It isn't just the iPhones either. It is the PDAs and Smartphones. The stalking is widespread and horrifying.</comment>


We need a software revolution for the greater social good - <AUTHOR> http://www.recode.net/2017/3/22/15011658/social-sector-technology-entrepreneurs-philanthropy-investment <comment><USER2> Makes some valid points. However, doesn't reference some really interesting tech companies in the space already doing massive good like [http://www.crisistextline.org/](http://www.crisistextline.org/). And knowing some of the history there, it is more about governments and social providers that are resistant to tech as opposed to tech not wanting to solve the issues.</comment>


Ask HN: Prometheus-Cortex Technical Expertise - <AUTHOR> We are looking to solve an optimization problem related to cost, performance, and capacity of Kubernetes workloads.
A customer asked me "you have my data on my workloads, why don't you tell me how they should be distributed?"
If you are a distributed systems engineer with golang and python experience and knowledge about Kubernetes, Prometheus, Operators, and are interested in this space, please reach out. <comment><USER2> HN is not a job board, please see the FAQ. This also makes your other recent post look like you don't have the technical expertise to back the claims on the launch page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for this post. We have engineers working on it now -- we are looking additional expertise though - will find the right place for it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How many of you founders are girls ?  - <AUTHOR> Well, I am one, about to quit my job tomorrow and planning to go full time on my iPhone development company (www.meraiphone.com). Just wondering what's the startup-girl-scene is like. <comment><USER3> The founder of Oneforty Laura Fitton was an individual female founder. I particularly enjoyed that interview on Mixergy. <http://mixergy.com/oneforty- laura-fitton/>

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe it's just me, but I'd be more concerned with kicking ass than how many other girls there are doing what you do.

<comment><USER5> Maybe she feels that having an understanding of the demographics of the industry she's working in (and possibly making contacts with whom she can discuss issues she imagines they will have experienced) will help her to kick ass.

<comment><USER6> Echoing a the grandparent post, I'd spend time worrying about the demographics of my customers, not the industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Congrats on quitting your job!

</comment><comment><USER8> clickable link <http://www.meraiphone.com>

</comment><comment><USER9> My friend Seema is CEO of a robotics/toy startup in Pittsburgh, which she co- founded with other students from her grad program at CMU:

<http://www.interbots.com/>

</comment><comment><USER10> Good luck!

What does 'masala' mean in the context of an application?

<comment><USER11> "Masala" is a Hindi work, which directly translated means "spice", like those that you would add when cooking. It can also refer to a mixture of various spices, with the mixture designed for a particular recipe in mind - <USER2> Tandoori Chicken masala. Here it's not one, but a mix of spices that make up the masala.

In this case, I think it applies in the same vein as the spice in "Spice Girls" does. Another way to look at it to look at it a an interesting mix that add flavor to something. For example, a common phrase you hear a lot in Bollywood movies is "masala film" which essentially translates to a film with a little of everything - humor, romance, musical.

In this regards, it would think it would be one or both of the above. Dunno if that helped you or not ;-)

<comment><USER12> "she who controls the masala"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I made a loosely related poll a while ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=749617>

</comment><comment><USER14> Call me silly, but self-proclaimed hotness (your sig*) might work very well in WoW, but I imagine less so here.

If I were you I'd change it.

(sig: Hot + Geek = me)

<comment><USER14> I never intended for this comment to get to this level of ugliness. It doesn't really matter now, but my intention with it was merely meant as a piece of advice rather than an attack on OP's persona.

I realize this is bordering towards something that might still be slightly taboo, but over the years online I have developed a slight allergy towards women (or others pretending to be women) who use the very fact that they are a woman as a leverage to get something rather than by merit. And hold on before you judge me. My comment came from the fact that OP might not want to come across as that type of person here or anywhere, in my eyes, or anyone elses. So it was a friendly advice.

But when all is said and done, this got way off topic + a bit nasty and for that I apologize.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do not think you should apologize. I didn't think much before filling that section.

It would indeed hurt me if I come across as that type of women. So, thanks for the advice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm in a start up of three, I'm the only girl. None of my friends in other start ups are girls.

</comment><comment><USER16> the start up girl scene is nonexistent, which is why it's awesome, it gives me the advantage ( and the confidence) to talk to any venture capitalist, and know am definitely making more of an impression than the next techie guy

</comment><comment><USER17> Seems like you are located in Mumbai! I am the cofounder of stareable.com based in Lamington Road.

Very cool to see a Mumbaikar doing cool stuff like this. Would love to have a chat with you sometime.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, definitely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Love the landing page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. There were several friends who helped in designing though, I am still learning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is that "mera iphone" as in Swedish "more iphone"?

<comment><USER20> "mera iphone" is Hindi for "my iphone"

<comment><USER19> Aha.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Congratulations, are you based out of India?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, mumbai.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Congrats. I'm not a girl, but my co-founder for my startup was (I say "was" because I've since bought her out).

<comment><USER23> You guys got married?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> just curious, do you live in India? I wonder this because I'm curious how the process is in making iphone apps from there. Do you get the same profit as us developers from apple? Is it easier to make a living off of iphone development due to lower cost of living there?

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess the profit sharing is the same.

I can live pretty comfortably @ 300$ per month. That would mean no savings, ofcourse. As of now, my apps aren't making that much. However, I have hardly put any effort yet. Most apps are naive, unpolished and non-internationalized.

Now having quit my job, my first goal is to reach there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wouldn't it make more sense if your tagline was " _hot_ masala applications?"

</comment><comment><USER26> I thought chicks prefer to be called women.</comment>