An Intimate Portrait Of Innovation, Risk, And Failure Through Hipstamatic's Lens - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3002103/intimate-portrait-innovation-risk-and-failure-through-hipstamatics-lens?src=longreads <comment><USER3> This sounds like a company that would have benefited from a program like YC. It would have given them a peer group of entrepreneurs that would have pressured them to keep shipping product, filled in some of the totally understandable gaps in their knowledge (for example around engineering management and best way to time their Series A), and kept their success in context (just about everyone feels like a little fish next to Dropbox and Airbnb, and little fish swim harder.) If they'd had these things two years ago they might be in a very different position today.

</comment><comment><USER4> I can't tell whether I should laugh, cry, or puke. A really well made, polished, fun app. Not innovation.

If we had meaningful innovation in the areas of education and computing, things like Hipstamatic and Instagram would just be fun hobbies, or even just well made grade school projects - not billion dollar businesses. That would open up avenues for true innovation in other fields like photography.

<comment><USER5> Kodak made plenty from popular photography in the twentieth century. Popular photography is a major part of most people's lives in the industrial west. I can understand why these apps/services make money.

The question for me from this article is why assemble the development team and then not integrate it into the rest of the company. The idea of programmers being left with _nothing to do_ and _no direction_ strikes me, as an outsider, as daft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't see how you could look at an ~11 employee company that made $10M in 2011 and $22M in 2012 _selling an iPhone app_ and consider it a failure. In the world of the App Store I would consider that a huge success.

But I guess after Instagram, any result for any other company short of "selling to Facebook for $1B" is failing. An unfair and unrealistic benchmark, in my opinion.

<comment><USER7> I think the company going bankrupt is what constitutes failure in this situation.

<comment><USER6> It's not entirely clear to me that the company is actually going bankrupt. The author of the article seems to imply it, but obviously he's never seen the company's financials.

Still, with 11 employees as of July 2012[1] (and fewer now), even assuming $200k/year salaries, that barely puts a dent into the $22M they made this year. They make an iPhone app, so I can't imagine them having many expenses besides people. The math doesn't really add up to me.

[1] [http://www.inc.com/30under30/nicole-carter/lucas-buick- ryan-...](http://www.inc.com/30under30/nicole-carter/lucas-buick-ryan- dorshorst-synthetic.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My takeaway from that really well reported article by Austin Carr, is that lack of leadership and inability to focus is what help Hipstamatic back. They had the App, the mindshare, and the interest from acquiring companies - <USER2> just couldn't push it over the line, or, were unaware of their limitations and thought they could go it own their own.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yet, nobody has really gone the long way to bridge the gap between the quick and 'hipster' photo retouching like Instagram does, and real cameras (point and shoot, DSLR). I'm pretty sure that there's a niche market there.

I have a hard time actually believing that Instagram killed them. It's just that Hipstamatic didn't do their job right.

</comment><comment><USER7> Fascinating profile, partly because I was under the perception that Hipstamatic was run by a couple of folks as a hobby...there was no other explanation for how such a popular app could do virtually nothing in adapting to Instagram's offering.

> _Despite Buick's resistance toward changing Hipstamatic's direction, the > company embarked on a series of toe-in-the-water attempts at social. The > first was Family Album, which launched in the summer of 2011, a product that > enabled users to create and co-curate photo albums together. The other, D > Series, was an app that aimed to capture a retro, disposable camera > experience on the iPhone. Friends could purchase various packs of digital > cameras together for 99 cents, and take and share up to 24 shots per roll-- > before having to buy another pack of cameras. "It was definitely a reaction > to the social photography wave," Polkus says. "The products were in response > to people saying, 'Okay, well we can take pictures, but how do other people > see them without using Instagram_

It's bad enough that they didn't realize the bottoming out of the paid app market (who could justify paying $1.99 for Hipstamatic when Instagram offered the same product...and angry birds was just $.99?), but their pivots toward social were incredibly dumb.

<comment><USER10> Given the revenue mentioned in the article, it's obvious that many were willing to justify paying $1.99 for Hipstamatic, and then more for additional filters. Frankly, it's rather nice to see a company better value their work and become a strong success. I hope that happens more often.

Based on what I read in that article, I consider their failure to be that they neglected a successful, revenue generating product and instead joined the race for the bottom. $10MM/yr is fantastic revenue stream, and they were willing to throw it away on a whim… yes, a $1B acquisition is cooler than $10MM in yearly revenue, but $1B acqs are incredibly rare and at least Hipstamatic can claim they made money, a goal that Instagram can't claim to have reached. And making money doesn't rule out a fantastically large acquisition; just look at Yammer.

Hipstamatic could have intelligently reinvested their revenue in enhancements to Hipstamatic, built out other products and services alongside the cash cow, and might have scored their $1B++ exit later. And even if that acq never came, at least they'd still have a successful business doing tens of millions in revenue.</comment></comment>


FinTech in Afrika Is Much More Than Just Mobile Money and Remittances - tefo-mohapi http://www.iafrikan.com/2017/02/10/fintech-in-afrika-is-much-more-than-just-mobile-money-and-remittances/ <comment><AUTHOR> I kan agree with that!</comment>


Show HN: Password protect .ppt, .pdf in the browser - <AUTHOR> https://sizle.io/password-protect-powerpoint/ <comment><USER2> two seperate accounts starts with jerremy post links from same domain, is it ok to spam HN like this?</comment>


Whitepixel breaks 28.6 billion password/sec - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=42

<comment><USER2> Wow. No password is safe. If you have an 8 character password using 8 characters from a selection of 80 with a known salt the password would take just 16.5 hours to crack.

Much less if you assume a smaller character pool as most people don't use shift characters.</comment>


Welcome to the 'Sharing Economy' - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/opinion/sunday/friedman-welcome-to-the-sharing-economy.html?pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> The sharing economy is great for anyone who thinks bankruptcy is a cool idea. If you share your home with someone, they can sue you for arbitrarily reasons. If you share your car with someone, and they get into an accident, the victims (or "victims") can sue you for arbitrary reasons.

(Yes the services provide liability insurance, but the caps are well below awards that are commonly made in accident cases. Just trawl some websites of ambulance chaser lawyers to see what I mean)

EDIT: NO this cannot be solved with "boilerplate waivers". YES it's a shame. Try to find a lawyer who is willing to share his car over the Internet. You can't. Because they know.

EDIT: As for jurisdictions, I'm referring to the US. California is probably close to worst case.

<comment><USER3> This is an excellent point that people miss when talking about the 'sharing economy'

The difference in price between equivalent quality airBnBs and traditional hotels can be attributed to a few things:

1) Difference in demand due to people being more comfortable in anonymous hotels

2) Inherent efficiency in 'sharing', because the owner was going to own the property whether or not they rent it out.

3) Corruption. Unfair zoning and political influence of hotel industry.

4) The risk that you mention is priced into hotel rooms, but not into airBnBs.

5) External costs. The negative impact on the neighborhood (traffic, noise, damage) caused by high-turnover renters. Hotels pay some of this through extra taxes and regulation, while sharers pay none of it.

Now to the extent the price difference is made up of 1,2, and 3, the sharing economy is great. We are moving towards a more efficient marketplace, with lower prices and better quality for everyone.

The trouble is, the hotel industry is already pretty competitive. So I would guess that a good amount of the price difference actually resides in 4 and 5, in which case the sharing economy is saving travelers money and taking it out of the pocket of the hosts and local communities.

<comment><USER4> Excellent points, although what do you mean by #3?

My impression was that the hotel industry is subjected to regulation, as opposed to it wielding power.

In addition to regulation, many states and localities impose significant taxes on hotel stays. For example, the theoretically low-tax Texas has a 6% state hotel tax [1], but localities also levy taxes on top of that, bringing the total to often 15%.

[1] [http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/hotel/](http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/hotel/)

<comment><USER5> I assume it meant zoning that limits the number of hotels that can be built in a particular municipality. I also assume he meant to suggest that established players attempt to limit the growth of competition by being in favor of regulation (permits, zoning restrictions, business licenses) that makes it difficult to enter their market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love love love AirBNB. I host w/ my apartment in NYC and it's enabled me to travel around the world this year and still have a home base when I need it. I've used AirBNB a lot in those travels.

BUT (there's always a 'but' isn't there). I'm skeptical. On two fronts:

First, it's becoming increasingly difficult to make reservations as a guest in a nice place unless you're planning 4-6 months ahead of time. Some people have the luxury of doing that, many do not. I've just taken reservations for both Xmas and New Year's eve at my place in NYC and it's barely the end of July.

As a guest, this irks me. I spent 3 weeks in London recently, booked the trip about a month in advance, and tried to no avail to find a place on AirBNB -- nada. All the nice places had been snapped up months ago, and the ones that were left were either shady brokers or absolute crap (it makes sense -- I wanted a 3 week booking. If a nice place had even a 1-day booking in that window, the whole place was unavailable). I ended up booking on HomeAway or FlipKey or one of their competitors.

Second, I feel in some sense, the tide is turning the other way on the regulation front. I've been lucky with my place in NYC in that I'm in an AirBNB-friendly building and I've had extremely good luck in getting terrific guests. But the regulatory environment is not AirBNB-friendly and it's getting less so. Several people who used to host in NYC have stopped doing so for fear (irrational or otherwise) of running afoul of the law.

I tried to host w/ my apartment in SF and within 72 hours of posting the listing, I received a very strongly-worded C&D letter from the building's management company staff attorney. They had someone in the office who constantly scanned for listings on AirBNB and came down hard and fast. Others have reported similar stories from HOAs and management companies.

So of course I want nothing but the best for AirBNB - I've a happy customer on both sides. But I don't think it's such a slam dunk as many seem to think it is...

<comment><USER7> I saw a bright lightbulb above my head for a moment: a paid service for $99 per month (or whatever!) and we will daily/weekly monitor if any of your properties/tenants are listed on BnB. Optional service for extra buck: we will mail them C&D letter (with Realtor logo on it, of course) to violators. I can see a brilliant marketing campaign and can imagine many Realtors signing up!

Does something like that already exist?

<comment><USER8> Why would you want to be a force for something like that? Spend your energy doing something productive. I think Airbnb has an honest mission and the legality will hopefully work itself out. I guess if you're just looking to make a quick buck, maybe. But then why not go into finance or something, rather than build a startup that aims to hurt startups?

<comment><USER9> Force for what? For preventing contractually-prohibited uses of my property? That sounds like a fine application, even if it doesn't match your worldview.

I own a home (remote, long story). I hope my property manager monitors my realestate in this fashion. Legally, I'm on the hook for all sorts of eventualities and insurance related to the property (eg. fire and perhaps even injury). I'm not willing to foot the extra risk (or bills!) of having a tenant inviting itinerant AirBnB visitors -- that's why subleasing is not permitted by my contract with the leasee.

Would I be happy with an alternative that yields higher net returns than a property manager? Absolutely. Do I want it done on my property against my permission? Hell no.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I really don't understand the sense of entitlement that people have when it comes to doing things that are _specifically_ against the lease they signed upon renting and apartment (or against the CC&Rs of the HOA they willing bought into).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is going to be a head on collision between current government regulations and this rise of social sharing. Airbnb vs the entrenched hotel industry. Uber vs the taxi commissions.

I, for one, welcome it. It's time the market voiced their opinion over how much value these groups provide.

For example, take internet. Right now everyone can get cable/dsl but in many contracts it is against their terms to share it. I understand why because a lot of their #s are based around utilization. But I still feel in some way taken advantage of.

<comment><USER11> Not just social sharing, I am amazed how many regulations there are that protect businesses from disruption by other businesses. For example, Tesla cannot sell cars in Arizona, because it is against the law for a manufacturer to sell a car directly to a consumer:

[http://bit.ly/143Zvqt](http://bit.ly/143Zvqt)

<comment><USER4> That regulation affects not just Tesla, but all car makers. Tesla is certainly innovative, but these restrictions have nothing to do with that innovation; gas-guzzling SUVs cannot be sold direct-to-consumer either.

<comment><USER12> "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread."

\- Anatole France, Le Lys Rouge [The Red Lily] (1894), ch. 7

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you think Airbnb is big now, just wait.

I'm 27. Most people I know have not stayed in an Airbnb rental, or considered becoming hosts. They haven't heard of it, or they're reluctant to stay with a stranger.

Eventually, positive word of mouth will convince them to try. They just have to like it once and they'll do it again.

Friedman tried to paint Airbnb as massive, but all I can think about it how tiny it still is compared to the global hotel industry.

You may say that for use case X, a hotel would be better. Fine. But I'd estimate 80% of the market hasn't tried Airbnb, and X% of them will switch once they do.

<comment><USER8> There has been somewhat of a stigma associated with it. I was the guy telling my friend in Illinois about it when we were planning a trip to LA with some other friends. I also told my parents when we were planning a vacation. Once you experience it, it's awesome and people will talk about it.

You can find this pattern in other markets, like online dating. A lot of people were initially hesitant (and still are), so there are social forces at work. Once the lid comes off that, I think it'll blow up.

I have the urge to box Airbnb into this "paid couch-surfing" category, but that's not really what they are. They positioned their company as something greater than that: all of the services that went along with their experience. Funny enough, the investors didn't buy it because they were tunnel visioned by how big it could be and whether it would scale at the seed stage. Those are the wrong questions to be asking at seed, and actually I don't think many founders could have pulled off starting Airbnb. The team clearly was the overriding factor in Airbnb working, followed by their excitement to be doing that startup.

I liked the Subject: Airbnb "essay" which showed how true this was ([http://paulgraham.com/airbnb.html](http://paulgraham.com/airbnb.html)).

<comment><USER14> _Once you experience it, it 's awesome and people will talk about it._

Why is it so flatly awesome? My experience was: overpriced room (overpriced because the high airbnb fees get passed on to the person who stays), annoying extra "cleaning/deposit" fees that don't get refunded (and you're not notified that they didn't get refunded), and a quasi-too-personal system of booking where half the listings are by weirdos ("RENT A ROOM IN MAH CAMPER ON THE STREET!") you can't filter out or fake listings nobody responds to.

It's squarely not in my "things that make me happy" column.

<comment><USER15> I had the opposite experience. I was moving to New York City, had been staying with a friend, decided it was high time to move out, and found a single bedroom in a really nice penthouse in east Williamsburg for the short term for... barely more than I was paying to commute to and from my friend's place in White Plains on the train. More convenient, too.

(Granted, it was something like a fifth-floor walk-up, and the neighborhood was a little gritty, but in the edgy-up-and-coming cool-if-you're-into-that sort of way and not the help-get-me-out-of-here fear-for-your-life drug- dealers-on-the-doorstep kind of way.)

I can only expect that I'd be out another few hundred bucks if I used a traditional hotel.

<comment><USER14> Exactly! Saying "airbnb is good" by itself is meaningless. It's a product of the context of experiences sustained over multiple interactions. If you're renting $500/night rooms in Upscale Town, USA, you'll probably love it like you love your $800 shoes and your $3000 jeans. If you're renting $40/night rooms in NYC, you'll probably hate it.

Irrational exuberance of startups around here tends to get out of hand. I get it. Everybody is the friend of a rich person and you want to promote them because you know them. hi-5's and bropong all around. Great. But they're still delusional. Gotta speak truth to ego-elevating unrestricted happiness. Life is pain, not million dollar post-exit condos in SF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> OH NO! Tom Freedman just invented the Sharing Economy. Be hold for 1000 pages plus book and endless pontifications on virtues of "What I call the Sharing Economy" on the Charlie Rose and other shows.

<comment><USER17> I've never really understood the Tom Friedman backlash. He seems to be a pretty thoughtful, reasonably imaginative writer.

My guess is that it's because he's not a doctrinaire liberal, plus probably the whole Iraq thing.

<comment><USER18> The backlash exists because most of his writings consist of regurgitated ideas plucked from elsewhere that he attempts to pass off as his own as though he's some sort revolutionary thinker in the modern era. Then he sells tickets to his Friedman Forum for $1K a pop to people who aren't read-well enough to realize as much.

<comment><USER17> So your issue with Friedman is that he's aggregating, popularizing, and improving the accessibility of new ideas that he himself didn't create?

Sounds like any number of journalists/writers to me.

Do you really feel that he has an attribution issue? He seems to always put the focus on people at the forefront of the change he describes (for example, in this article the focus is on Chesky.) It's not like his articles are some TED like exercise, where he portrays himself as being at the center of making all of these new things happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is sort of a rip of the Economist story: [http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573104-internet- ever...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573104-internet-everything- hire-rise-sharing-economy)

I do think it would be more appropriate to call it the 'renting economy' or the 'ending economy,' however. Sharing implies something more equitable than a straight business transaction.

<comment><USER20> Yep rental economy. Internet lowering of transaction costs is enabling the unbundling of ownership rights to capital/durable goods. AirBnb, facilitating exchange by providing 'trust', which is reducing the asymmetric information between the two negotiating parties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Sharing Houses is just time shares taken to the logical internet extreme.

What are some other sharing ideas that are out there?

I think women's fashion could benefit from something like this, sharing shoes - dresses, gowns etc. Think of all the money that is spent on weddings, proms, etc.

For the typical man, power tools and machinery. The one guy in town with the Bridgeport will make out like a bandit.

Neighbours let each other borrow sugar or borrow an egg. - There's definitely a location aspect involved in all of this. Vacations are different because you're specifically going to some place far away. Maybe otherwise, you shouldn't focus on a single type of item, and simply connect the nearby community with a focus on sharing any and everything.

<comment><AUTHOR> _I think women 's fashion could benefit from something like this_

There's a startup in the current batch doing Netflix for women's fashion: [http://letote.com](http://letote.com). It's quite popular among the women who work for YC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Most remarkable to me is that their success required so few conceptual shifts (but important ones). Time-shares and couchsurfing and vacation rentals already existed. I'll try to remember this the next time I think something's 'obviously' been tried before.

It also seems like there was a large shift in (or discovery of) the willingness of individuals to participate in the way that makes sharing work. I suspect that many other innovations will be primarily social ones enabled by the internet (the watsi model?), and that these will be just as powerful as, say, graphene or spacex.

<comment><USER14> _It also seems like there was a large shift in (or discovery of) the willingness of individuals to participate in the way that makes sharing work._

The "large shift" was when people started getting paid. People will do anything to get paid, including inconveniencing themselves by illegally renting out rooms in their apartments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't really like the term "sharing" applied to airbnb and the like. More like renting out excess capacity, which businesses have been doing since the concept of business first came into being.

<comment><USER4> It is indeed a misnomer. Services like AirBNB allow for spare personal consumption to be monetized as business would, yet users of it don't want to pay the costs of operating as a business or follow the same rules. EDIT: "The monetizing economy" would probably be a better term, but that doesn't sound as noble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hasn't the sharing economy already reached the tipping point?

The ideas in the piece clearly aren't new for most of us on HackerNews, but I would contend they're not really new for many in the general public either.

There have been many mainstream news stories about the sharing economy. And even battles in big cities (SF, NY) over regulation. I would've guessed that this was already on many people's radar.

<comment><USER13> You'd be surprised. About half the people I talk to under 25 haven't heard of Airbnb yet.

This usually comes up when I tell them what Ycombinator is.

"Have you heard of Dropbox? Airbnb? Reddit?"

Usually one of those three works, but a surprising amount of people don't know what either of the first two are. I even talk to a lot of people who don't know what Reddit is.

They're all obviously mainstream, just not as mainstream as, say, staying in a hotel.

<comment><USER24> I was having dinner with some college friends recently who hadn't heard of Google's self-driving car. O_o

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I like to think about the "Sharing Economy" kind of like the shift from physical servers to virtual servers. A similar set of principals come into play when you try to make better use of excess memory and CPU cycles VS when you try to make use of nights when your spare room is empty.

</comment><comment><USER26> What's the airbnb equivalent for renting a drill/lawnmower/weed whacker/snowblower from a neighbor?

<comment><USER27> [https://peerby.com/](https://peerby.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "can be trusted like a company and provide the services of a company. And once you unlock that idea, it is so much bigger than homes. ... There is a whole generation of people that don't want everything mass produced. They want things that are unique and personal." "

Failure of analysis. The reason why people want to trust each other rather than companies is not some weird cultural shift that doesn't exist WRT anti- mass production, its the death of trust in existing big companies. I want a coffee mug. I don't really care how many other copies exist, I'd just like one not made with lead, where the artwork isn't water soluble, and it hasn't been value engineered to fail rapidly. Because of crony capitalism and consolidation, and the careful cooperation of for-profit media also owned by consolidated crony capitalists (in some situations, the same individuals...), those options are not available in the big company mug market. So a system that rates individuals for their production is going to do well if the big companies are unable to provide what individuals are allowed to provide.

The TLDR is a monopolistic command economy (ours) is inherently inefficient. Computers and tech and stuff can make at least some inefficient things, efficient enough.

I don't really care if I'm sleeping in the most unique bedroom in the world... I'm asleep, what do I care. On the other hand, I'd like it to be reasonably clean, no bed bugs, and no one stealing my stuff. I'd feel more ethical if no illegal aliens were being treated inhumanely as part of my experience. And no customer service script readers. The big corporations simply can no longer provide that experience like they could in the past, too bad. Airbnb can provide some trust in that experience. Guess which is growing?

</comment><comment><USER29> The sharing economy is also known as the collaborative consumption based economy, a directory of websites I found a while a go: [http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/directory/](http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/directory/).

<comment><USER30> Toffler should get some credit for "prosumer," years and years ago.

<comment><USER29> Looking at Wikipedia, he did get some recognition: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosumer#General_meanings](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosumer#General_meanings).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Can I see some of the castle listings? I'm curious.

EDIT: Sweet...

[http://www.probnb.com/the-most-expensive-airbnb-listings- in-...](http://www.probnb.com/the-most-expensive-airbnb-listings-in-the-world)

</comment><comment><USER32> I like the business concept behind Airbnb because it can apply to so many other industries - which suffers from the mismatch between supply and demand. It definitely helps spawn similar ideas that are set out to help eliminate inefficiencies in the economy. Now there are a lot of start-ups that help you share your car, vacation home, yacht and pretty much whatever you own that you would rather share with someone than let it sit rotting in your garage.

</comment><comment><USER28> An area of failure in anecdotes about "sharing economy" or specifically airbnb is the locality and individuality of the transactions vs the "big domain name" for the whole thing.

Anecdotes, good or bad, are as pointless as reading nation wide multi thousand tower cell phone company reviews. "Oh, you're looking for a cell phone company (in LA)? Well let me tell you, (multinational) is (terrible|great) (in NYC)."

</comment><comment><USER27> Reminds me of [https://peerby.com/](https://peerby.com/) which is also definitely part of this.

</comment><comment><USER33> Great concept, but in Marin county I would get a huge fine for doing this. My neighbors would turn on me in a second.

<comment><USER34> I've had people here for a while - they were homeless. I took them in, helped them stop doing (most) drugs, and taught them a trade.

Nobody in my condo cluster had a problem with it.

And yes I live in Marin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Can't help but wonder if this is one of those things that will go downhill towards the "dangerous, better not try" once a wider demographic than the early adopter tech crowd gets involved. Like hitch-hiking?

</comment><comment><USER36> Sharing is caring.

</comment><comment><USER37> I recently co-founded a startup ([http://outpost.travel](http://outpost.travel)) that aggregates the 'sharing economy'. So far we've had a great response to it from investors and users. It's been a crazy experience going from idea to MVP to where we are today and I get exactly what they mean when they say to keep an eye on startups/sites like Airbnb/Vayable. Almost all our users hadn't known about Airbnb before we introduced them to the whole P2P travel experience and quite a few then booked experiences, rideshares and place rentals using us. The one think that I am concerned about is that quite a few federal/state tourism agencies are now banning P2P travel as theres no taxes being made and it takes away from bigger chains such as Hilton and Holiday Inn.

<comment><USER37> And there goes the backend... We're fixing the problem should be back in a few min. Sorry about that!

EDIT: Fixed!

<comment><USER17> Did you really get HNed just from a link in your comment, or was the outage coincidental?

<comment><USER13> I had top comment on pg's most recent essay; I got an extra 1,500 visitors to a subreddit I mentioned in the comment.

And my comment only rose to the top when the essay was quite far down the frontpage.

The link in this post was top or near top at the time this essay was #1, so I imagine they got quite a few visitors quite fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_exchange_trading_system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_exchange_trading_system)

I like the idea of something like this, with a local non-monetary exchange currency.

</comment><comment><USER39> i read the title as "welcome to the sharding economy" \- oops - but still, looking fwd to reading that post somewhere.</comment>


Steve Jobs Was Right, Android Logs Everything - <AUTHOR> http://www.cultofmac.com/132461/steve-jobs-was-right-android-logs-everything/

<comment><USER2> So, if you posted this to show how idiotic fanboys are, well sir you made your point. On the other hand, if you posted it believing this was information...

</comment><comment><USER3> Except he was also doing the same thing on iPhone. Mac fanboys blah blah whaa whaa.</comment>


How Much Radiation Does Your Phone Emit? - <AUTHOR> http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/how-much-radiation-does-your-phone-emit/

<comment><USER2> Enough to pop corn?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAd0aWxs7kQ>

Nope.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2100...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2100340/Mobile- phone-popcorn-'hoax'-hits-YouTube.html)

<comment><USER3> Basic thermodynamics (Joules needed to pop a corn kernel) says no. Just think about popping popcorn with a microwave: at least 600W do it in a few dozen seconds at least. How the hell could 8 Watts (4 phones * 2W per phone PEAK power per the GSM standard) do it in a few seconds? Answer: it did not, the vids are faked. The phones simply do not have enough power even to heat the seeds, lest to pop them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No radiation. EM waves are not radiation.

<comment><USER5> Google gives me around 2 million hits for "electromagnetic radiation".

<comment><USER6> Google gives me around 275,000 hits for 'Bill Gates is Satan' and 130,000 hits for 'Every time you masterbate, a kitten dies' but I can't vouch for the latter.

<comment><USER7> That's especially shocking given that you spelled masturbate wrong ;-)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A pair of anti-vaccine activists sparked a FireFauci furor - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/13/anti-vaccine-activists-fire-fauci-furor-185001 <comment><USER2> Why am I not surprised at who it is?</comment>


Settings required to run Windows 8 in VirtualBox - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.lessthandot.com/index.php/SysAdmins/OS/Windows/2003Server/you-need-to-have-hardware <comment><USER2> > After BOIS has been configured, you need to do a reboot, shut down, wait > about 10 seconds and then start up again.

Ignoring the BIOS spelling thing: What is this 10 second wait here? Magic? What do I have to say and which type of animal should I offer to the machine?

More serious: Why?

<comment><USER3> This is mostly a safer version of a quick power on/off/on. Some badly designed power sources will cough when they start with charged capacitors... Ten seconds is neither enough nor too much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Got Win8 installed on VirtualBox just fine on my Dell laptop, but network adapters didn't work for me. So no internet. :(

I went with the virtual hard drive technique (<http://hnsl.mn/win8vhd>) instead and it worked perfectly. I'm now dual booting Win8 and Win7. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> No luck for me with the 64-bit build in VMware Fusion 3.1.3. I hear it runs on VMware Fusion 4 though. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2996520>

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm trying the 32 bit developer preview on Virtual Box 4.0.12 with Host as a WinXpSP3 system. Even with the above settings I keep getting a "computer needs to restart" error. Anyone faced/solved this issue?

<comment><USER6> Never mind. I hadn't turned on virtualization in my BIOS. Its working now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know how to enable IO APIC on VMWare?

My attempt to install Win8 DP only gets a "HAL INITIALIZATION FAILED" error in the setup screen.

</comment><comment> captain-asshat Hi Rod!

Networking didn't initially work for me but I got it going by using NAT with an Intel card; seems they included drivers for them.

</comment><comment><USER8> Has anyone been able to make mouse integration work correctly? That is the only thing that I haven't been able to make work correctly.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I had enable absolute pointing device unchecked. Silly answer to go with my silly question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Has anyone been able to use it in Bootcamp on a Mac?

<comment><USER10> I was able to install it on my MacBook. But the Bootcamp CD installer doesn't load. So I guess it "worked" but I have to hard click everything with my trackpad and I can't scroll with it.

It just feels like a tablet operating system over Windows 7. The new interface is kind of stupid without a touch screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Also it is important to do a full power shutdown, not just reboot if you are enabling virtualization in BIOS for the first time.</comment>


Ask HN: Industry-specific devs, your experience? - <AUTHOR> Those of you who are industry-specific devs (eg, developers working solely in oil/finance/adverts/etc) - what's your experience? Do you command a premium? Do you find it difficult to find a new job with only a few potential employers? <comment><USER3> I was in defense - avionics, mostly. It was pretty great in the mid-late 90s as military aircraft were retrofitting to use GPS and digital navigation. Things got harder after most of the airframes were upgraded. I ended up doing an augmented reality thingy for the Air Force and I was able to leverage that into an industry position It's kind of dumb, but people lack imagination, and are unwilling to see a career path as evidence of any kind of skill at learning and executing if you don't have their exact set of requirements. So I lucked out in that I had essentially done the project already.

So, yes, it can be hard. Not sure about the pay in defense- you can be one of three people that know something, but with the way contracting goes I'm not sure it matters. Companies bid, supply some more or less random collection of resumes to 'prove' they have the skill set, somebody wins, they slap the cheapest people they can on the project, and so on. If you price yourself high the bid will have to be high, and the bean counters in Washington aren't going to recognize that you are the precious snowflake you know you really are ;) Probably the far better route there is as a contractor/consultant - <USER2> seemed to command arbitrarily big fees.

</comment><comment><USER4> I was starting as industry-specific, then gradually moved towards general IT so I could acquire more broad skills within dev/ops and then armed with that experience and knowledge came back to industry-specific again. I discovered there is a gap in IT knowledge within my industry - so there aren't many engineers who would posses industry-specific knowledge as well as IT skills (dev/ops + security). And that works pretty well even though there are not that many major players in this sector.</comment>


Ask HN: Tutorials to break free from PHP? - <AUTHOR>

I'm wondering, as a fairly inexperience programmer with most of my time in PHP: is there any good reference for "How to start web development in ___ (insert other language) with previous experience only in PHP". There's a lot of PHP-bashing as a newbie language, so I'm wondering if there's any tutorials aimed at PHP-only developers. I would love a tutorial that explained how to accomplish in another language (namely Python for me) all the things that PHP makes simple for newbies. I'd also be totally willing to help an experience person develop such a tutorial. <comment><USER2> I had a friend in a similar situation. I gave him this:

<http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.2/>

And he had a site up and running about a month or two later.

Zed Shaw recently created a Python book as a sort of constructive rant against Dive Into Python. It's here, if you're interested

<http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index>

</comment><comment><USER3> here is a recent on for ruby on rails:

[http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/how-to-create-a- blog...](http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/how-to-create-a-blog-from- scratch-using-ruby-on-rails/)

and for python's django:

[http://www.djangorocks.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a- basic-b...](http://www.djangorocks.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-basic-blog- in-django/starting-your-applications.html)

here are two for seaside:

[http://onsmalltalk.com/screencast-how-to-build-a-blog- in-15-...](http://onsmalltalk.com/screencast-how-to-build-a-blog- in-15-minutes-with-seaside)

<http://smalltalk.gemstone.com/tutorial.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://flask.pocoo.org/>

That's flask. It's nice and simple, but still lets you do things. Give it a try, it has good documentation.</comment>


Mincome: Canada's 1970s universal basic income experiment - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200624-canadas-forgotten-universal-basic-income-experiment <comment><USER3> I'd love for someone to explain how UBI won't just inflate prices. Obviously it comes down to exact implementation.

To me it seems it would be similar to the government intervention into housing - the gov't wanted more people to be able to own homes. So they create 30-year mortgages (for example). This was great because you could spread the payments out over more time, lowering your monthly payment.

Oh wait, the 30-year mortgage is open to _everyone_. So now _everyone_ has more buying power. Prices rise and you end up in the same spot as before - <USER2> big chunk of the population can't afford a house.

Why wouldn't this happen with UBI? If you have everyone in the US $10,000, no strings attached, I would guess prices would generally rise until $10,000 wasn't enough to survive on.

<comment><USER4> I'd love for someone to explain how UBI wouldn't just end up replacing part of people's salaries and turning into a wage subsidy for corporations.

<comment><USER5> Some see this as a feature, not a bug. It means that companies don't have to pay as much to hire people, because companies don't have to be on the hook for giving people enough money to survive. You wouldn't need a minimum wage, for example.

<comment><USER6> UBI need to be high enough then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> At this point of time I seriously think we only have a few conclusions: (Special note to 4, please address)

1) Recognize that we have sufficient "small" scale studies (note the quotes) that are short term, and providing similar results, which necessitate longer term studies. i.e. studies that are ~30 years, so that children can grow up completely under this environment and live through their dependent years (<25 years old) under these conditions.

2) The experiments provide enough evidence and this warrants attempting this on a much larger scale for the presumed future. i.e. institute a UBI (obviously we need to determine WHICH kind of UBI we would institute).

3) There are major flaws in the studies that need to be addressed and we need to refine them. (Personally with the many variations of these I've seen I do not think this is an accurate conclusion, but I am open to being wrong as I am not an expert studying this topic)

4) While the benefits are real, the cost is too much. This is one I'd particularly like to see addressed. Pretty much every time we see UBI experiments come up we see: 1) little to no earning wage increase (which is difficult to say if it is because the short time periods or not) 2) lower hospitalizations 3) higher sense of self worth 4) more children are finishing education 5) more children are reaching their dietary needs. The issue I see is that these have (unclear) economic values tied to them but are not discussed. I ALWAYS see the economic _cost_ discussed, though understandably this is a much easier thing to calculate. But aren't economists supposed to be estimating these difficult concepts? As a voter I would like to know what the economic benefit is to these programs as well as the cost. This will allow me to make better judgments (e.g. even if UBI costs more economically maybe my personal moral utility value makes up the difference between the numbers). It is a shame that this is not discussed.

The issue of UBI and all its variations is complex but I believe that the conversation is frequently being framed in ways that is difficult to make real judgments on. We see the economic costs, but not the economic benefits. But we do see moral benefits, but this isn't enough. Legitimate excuses are given (for and against), but no one is making new experiments that address these concerns. We need a serious conversation with less surjection.

<comment><USER8> I think it could be simpler. Instead for means testing and all the administration that comes with it we could try much simpler schemes. Just give something to everyone, could be a negative tax, but a dividend is even simpler.

Since we are in the middle of various economic transitions where we need to introduce taxes to control over consumption the simpler experiment (instead of finding a region and allocating a budget) would be to introduce those taxes together with a public dividend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If curious see also these other Mincome threads:

2016 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11497021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11497021)

2015 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004287)

2014 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8792192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8792192)

</comment><comment><USER10> If say, a liberal state in the US like California wanted to do a useful study on the subject, the way to do it would be to randomly choose a pair of nearby cities/counties with similar composition, then impose both a basic income stipend _and_ the extra taxes needed to pay for it on one of the counties and not on the other, for a minimum period of 10 years. You could even choose the specific city/county pairs from only those that wanted to take part in the experiment and had voted to that effect in a ballot proposition. _Then_ you could answer important questions regarding effects of the increased taxes as well as that of the payments. I'd be particularly interested in 2nd order effects, for example, if the voters can vote to keep increasing the basic income amount, would the increased taxes eventually drive out those who are taxed most heavily? And would that be net negative (reduced tax revenue to fund the program)? Or net positive (e.g. reducing housing prices?)

</comment><comment><USER11> Manitoba again. If you're paying attention to universal basic income, this is more like the experiment they keep reminding us about.

</comment><comment><USER12> I feel like there is a specific issue with the methodology of this and various other basic income experiments: it was time-limited.

If one goes into the experiment knowing that the basic income will end after N years, I suspect that may significantly affect one's behavior. For example, this study found that people typically did not quit their jobs (for 4 years of basic income). Would that result replicate with indefinite basic income? I'd like to see a follow-up study to test that.

<comment><USER7> While I agree with this, is there any long term experiment even in proposal? We'd really need at least 30 years to see how children develop through their dependent years (<25). I see "it was time-limited" often stated in response to UBI criticism (it is a legitimate complaint that these are time limited!) but I have yet to see a proposal that tries to remedy this. Is there one?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _They wanted to see whether a guaranteed basic income for those below the poverty line could improve quality of life_

This is what drives me crazy about these experiments. Obviously, using straight donations to keep people above a certain poverty line will improve the lives of those particular people. What's always missing is the other half of the equation: the analysis of whether UBI is the most efficient way to spend that money. Every study seems laser-focused on the outcomes of people who received the benefit while ignoring the projected effect on the society as a whole. It's entirely possible UBI is a great choice but its proponents seem bound and determined not to prove it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Instead of the idea of universal basic income. I like to toy with the idea of somehow making it so people can work less. Such as a person works every other week and where someone else fills the role for the weeks the other person isn't working. I think it would increase job positions and better mental health. I'm unsure how it financially could work out but I assume money can come from somewhere because UBI is basically proposing income for no work at all.

<comment><USER15> It is not for no work at all. You would be free to work and earn more money, so why wouldn't you? It just guarantees a minimum income not a comfortable income. And it would encourage people to do exactly what you want, work less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Also read negative incometax. Same thing. At this point economics will make more sense if human cost is acually made quantifiable and counted in profit and loss.

<comment><USER17> UBI is not the same thing as a negative income tax. I would be sure to get a UBI this month, and next month, and the month after that independent of what I do. With a negative income tax, I might be employed this month, then lose my job and barely scrape by next month, and starve the month after that. And then sometime next year, after filing tax papers, I would get some money to keep me alive... this year.

It's true that in the grand scheme of things, averaged over many years, I would get the same amount from a UBI and a negative income tax. But at critical points in life, where my employment status changes significantly, the delay from the negative income tax would not provide the security that a UBI does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How much bigger do UBI experiments need to be before we can be confident that these positive small-scale outcomes will also replicate on the scale of a USA- sized country?

<comment><USER19> There's some longer term unanswered/unanswerable questions as well. How do children do if their parents have never worked?

<comment><USER20> I don't know where this idea is coming from that UBI will incent people to drop out of the labor force. Any reasonable and currently-feasible UBI would do the opposite. And experiments bear this out - those who seemingly leave the workforce are actually doing something quite different: namely, they're temporarily shifting from formal employment to working towards human capital acquisition, or else providing care for others.

<comment><USER21> > those who seemingly leave the workforce are actually doing something quite > different: namely, they're temporarily shifting from formal employment to > working towards human capital acquisition, or else providing care for > others.

Providing care for others is a great use of labor. Working towards human capital acquisition sounds great, but then you realize you still need people working the bottom jobs.

Bottom jobs suck. If people have legit UBI, they won't do them. They'd be stupid to do them unless they truly believed they could not do better with self investment. But we need those jobs to be done.

So maybe you raise wages. So prices rise a bit, cheap foreign labor becomes even more enticing where available, and the UBI is not Universal-not-quite- Basic-Income. What do you do when your UBI isn't quite livable?

<comment><USER20> The thing is, one you've raised those wages enough, the "bottom jobs" are no longer at the bottom. Especially if people are no longer limited to that single source of income. So some people get actively drawn into that sector, and prices stabilize. The whole notion of some jobs being at the "bottom" while others aren't is quite dysfunctional and not really an inherent part of a functioning economy.

BTW, an UBI can be less than "livable" and still be quite useful. Even a baseline subsidy can bring a very welcome increase in flexibility in the seemingly "bottom" sector, which is also often the entry point into the labor market.

<comment><USER21> If wages rise, then prices rise. The stabilization occurs at the point where people need to do the bottom jobs. It's great if individuals can earn a partial UBI and a higher paid bottom tier job.

However, when you raised the wages, you inevitably caused some of those jobs to be outsourced. So now there's a class of people who bottom tier job doesn't exist anymore and whose UBI isn't enough to live on. Now they're screwed. They could offer to work for cheaper and lower the wages, and let's be fair and acknowledge that even if they do, overall real wages per capita will probably rise net positively. But it's much more difficult to compete with neighbor nations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This endless discussion of UBI or other programs in isolation is like trying to find treatment for an itchy toe, ignoring that the rest of your body is also itching.

<comment><USER23> That treatment for an itchy toe managed to reduce hospitalization rates by over 8% and increase high school completion rates (to the point where everyone at least started their final year). There were also indications that small businesses started appearing, presumably because people wanted to keep working yet also wanted more autonomy. The article states that was possible because financing was easier to come by.

There is a possibility that addressing financial insecurity will give people the freedom to address other social ills on their own accord. Yet we will never find out if people keep coming up with excuses to prevent wider scale trials.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There is UBI in Canada, but it's called welfare.

In order to form the Canada federation, Ontario had to agree to pay residents of Quebec and the Maritime provinces for not working.

"Transfer payments" is the only reason Quebec hasn't become an independent country yet.

How it's handled in Newfoundland is that fishermen agree to fish for a few months, then they get "income support" for the remaining months of the year.

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

<comment><USER25> That is an interesting take. I'm not sure I would agree with the way you described it.

This is a more relevant link[0].

Technically, the money comes from the federal government. It is given to the poorer provinces as general revenue and it is used to balance their budgets.

It is not specifically used to pay Maritime fishermen not to work. The wealthier provinces essentially subsidize the poorer ones. It is just like society; wealthier people pay more tax and poorer people use more social services.

I'm not saying it is a perfect solution. But it does ensure a certain baseline level of services across the country.

Quebec is, by far, the largest recipient of equalization payments.

[0] - [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments_in_Can...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments_in_Canada)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> without knowing anything about it I'd think that our system would be working better with UBI if it was randomized and switching between citizens, would make sense to exclude everyone who is already a millionaire or something. So if you pull it, you get 4-8 years to build a business with the money, or do whatever u want, and then the money goes to someone else. That way it wouldn't just be hyper inflationary. If you give everybody more money, nobody has more money. Capitalism is built on inequality.

<comment><USER27> Things are still unequal with UBI - if you get $2k a month, billionaires are still billionaries. It can make being poor less dangerous; e.g. homelessness, car repossession, lack of basic necessities can stop being a thing.

I sometimes think really that a good alternative would be Universal Protected Net Worth. Maybe things would be better if there was some floor of money and assets below which no court or legal proceeding could take from you, including taxes, fines, bail, judgements, seizures, forfeitures, etc. I don't know how that would work in practice.

<comment><USER28> The Mosaic law actually has something kind of like this where you can't lose ownership of your allotted farmland. Thus, at minimum, everyone owns a valuable asset and thus some net worth. (Data is sparse on whether this law was every actually followed or the effects.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> In Canada anyone who is out of job now unconditionally gets 500/week of Covid money. Pretty much same idea as UBI. The immediate effect that I observed was that all Filipino nannies quit. There is no incentive for them to work any more. I am not sure what they do with all the free time though. Maybe the life was different in rural Winnipeg in 70's (btw 11k was a shitload of money back then), but nowadays the UBI will immediately wipe out the low paying jobs. This may disrupt industries that rely on cheap labor. But what is much worse - it will create a class of people who are entitled to free money and have zero incentive to do anything with their lives, like get education, progress their careers, strive for better live. There is a need for a safety net in a society for those who slipped, but UBI is different. It is designed to make people regress, takes away any motivation.

<comment><USER30> It sucks that you are now unable to take advantage of poor immigrants because they are not in desperate need of money. It is nice that they have temporarily escaped their cycle of poverty. Instead of complaining about how they are wasting their lives by not working (and reciting the poem The Educated Man's Burden), you should instead pay them their actual worth.

<comment><USER29> Oh, I was not complaining:) I do not have a nanny neither want one. I clean my own shit. I was just observing. Nanny's salary is based on supply/demand. Until government interferes with Covid payments. When payments stop, nannies will go back to work. And, you are right, I believe that idling on Covid handouts is a waste of time. Any sort of idling is a waste of time.</comment></comment></comment>


Scoble Interviews Scribd CEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/make-your-documents-social-objects-with-scribd-0

<comment><USER2> __high bandwidth warning __

... ever since scoble switched from text I can't get scoble-tv. mainly due to what-ever video format they are using [0]. Anyone care to summarise the highlights (plz) ?

[0] 64 bit systems do not seem to be a priority, maybe this one will work ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=133436></comment>


Uses This / Dorian Taylor - <AUTHOR> https://usesthis.com/interviews/dorian.taylor/ <comment><AUTHOR> I found the OA's idea of 'sovereignty' of the user interesting.

Bit loquacious but worth engaging with.</comment>


Tell HN: Happy Programmers' Day to all devs in HN - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Programmer <comment><USER2> I just chastised my FB friends for not wishing me a "Happy Programmers Day". They're all feigning ignorance.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've yet to meet a happy programmer, maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.

</comment><comment><USER4> Watch as this becomes an interview question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could be a question for leading roles, expecting to evaluate how much this person cares about keeping his troop content :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I want Chinese programmer's day!

<comment><USER6> ¿Por qué no los dos?

For today, the highest budget[1] celebration I've run across: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrH8xyJG4rc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrH8xyJG4rc)

I'll have to try to find something else for 2020-10-24, but it appears Sun Wukong had a hacker's aversion to authority, so maybe that avenue will be fruitful?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_King#Havoc_in_Heaven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_King#Havoc_in_Heaven)

[1] [https://101zabava.club/wp- content/uploads/2019/03/pozdravlen...](https://101zabava.club/wp- content/uploads/2019/03/pozdravlenie_programmistu_30_30161559.jpg)

left panel: programmer working

right panel: programmer celebrating Programmers' Day

<comment><USER7> > For today, the highest budget[1] celebration I've run across: > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrH8xyJG4rc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrH8xyJG4rc)

What are they singing about? (EDIT: I mean what exactly. The title "I'm a hacker" and the dancers don't leave that much room for imagination.)

<comment><USER6> Excellent question. I rely heavily on machine translation, and while auto- subtitling on YouTube is misleading for speech, it's atrocious for song[1]. Maybe we'll get some native speakers to answer by tomorrow?

[1] this is a parody, so no published lyrics. The original tune was italian: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM63xMU6FEc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM63xMU6FEc) .</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Princeton's Admissions Officers Talk About Race - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleyclancy/asians-very-familiar-profiles-princeton?utm_term=.jfV66yKR4q#.meW33Akj06 <comment><USER2> With all the criticism of higher education not being diverse enough, why wouldn't they discriminate based on race? You can have a complete meritocracy where only the best students get in, or you can have an inclusive environment where minorities are given preference over other students, but we live in a world where different races have different levels of academic achievement, so you can't have both. Seems like a lose-lose situation regardless of what the admission officers do here.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a Princeton Alumnus whose application data might actually be released in this probe[if they go back a lot of years], I have the following thought. I think people put way to much weight/stock in standardized test scores. I scored very highly in both GPA and PSAT/SAT, etc tests in my quest to get into an Ivy League school. Looking back, I think my high test scores were more a measure of my culture and socioeconomic background, then my aptitude. A lot of research seems to back up that inference as well. The problem for admissions officers is that they need an objective standard to create something objective, and they probably fail a lot at it. Thankfully people seem to be fairly adaptable and more or less people figure out their way in life. And also thankfully, Admissions people treat their job very seriously and try to 'craft' classes that they think would benefit all. Is it 100% accurate, probably not. But I don't think anyone reading this forum would actually like a Judicial System that is 100% decided by a dispassionate computer either. For me the two camps are analogous. Justice by computer, and school admission by test score. Human systems are a lot more nuanced than that in my experience. Maybe it works for CalTech, but every school is not CalTech and neither is every undergraduate a CalTech 'student'.

Underlying this whole debate is the idea of school = earnings potential. I think it's a false dichotomy to say that a great school = high earnings for life. They are definitely correlated, but in my experience, my classmates who have graduated and worked really hard are successful, and those that haven't by and large are not. I think if you took those same successful people and put them into different circumstance, re school, that they are the type of people to overcome that 'perceived' disadvantage. There is a weighting of privilege, but my lived experience indicates that it's more socio-economic and cultural than school based. Even at Princeton, the rich kids had their cliques that have continued into adulthood. So like everything, once at Princeton it was, what elite more selective group can I join to get ahead. I think this is very toxic thinking, though unfortunately intellectually easy so a lot of people do it. Figure out what matters to you and focus on that. The people I've seen do that, seem to find their way.</comment>


Show HN: Tool and API to sync Docker images across multiple registries - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ivanilves/lstags <comment><AUTHOR> _For the last 6 month "lstags" evolved from a small utility to a full Golang API library, it survived complete re-shape and re-fit, and I hope at least some of you will find it useful!_

HOW/WHY COULD ANYONE USE IT???

Well, for example, lstags could be used for filling local registries (or to "prewarm" caching registries) with images from _quay.io_ and _gcr.io_ , to speed up K8s cluster launches.

Also could be used to "prewarm" local Docker storage by pulling popular images in advance (so your "docker run" will not be wasting time on pulling things, it will just run!).

P.S.:

 _There is a terrible lack of V2 registry tools, so I decided to write my own (a mix of NIH and real necessity, yes!!!)._

Any ideas are welcome (I am very open), if you know any useful Docker registry tools, please mention em here.

I am seeking for collaborations now, to not become yet another lonely Golang madman reinventing the wheel. ;)</comment>


JSON.stringify killed my express server - <AUTHOR> https://itnext.io/how-json-stringify-killed-my-express-server-d8d0565a1a61 <comment><USER2> Caching is great for performance. I'll bet dynamic brotli encoding of my 40k JSON payloads to frontends also kill the server.</comment>


The Next Twenty Years - Why the closed distribution model of Windows 8 is bad - <AUTHOR> http://mollyrocket.com/casey/index.html

<comment><USER2> I see the only reasonable way for developers is ----- to dump windows 8 at all.</comment>


League of Legends compromised – North American accounts and transactions - <AUTHOR> http://beta.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/riot-games/announcements/important-security-update-and-password-reset <comment><USER2> Sigh.

My office plays League of Legends regularly. It's quite a fun game. This, however, isn't fun at all.

Is it just a fact of doing business in the modern internet age that everyone can and will eventually be pwned?

The best part of this is that it's obviously some legacy system that wasn't properly decommissioned. Think about it, the records haven't been in use for 2+ years? Sounds weird, right?

Remember, if it's on the network somebody can get to it and just because you don't use it anymore doesn't mean you can just stop patching the boxen :(.

<comment><USER3> I do assume that almost all online services will be pwned. I have a small amount of faith that my Google account, Amazon account, and (major) bank account won't be compromised except by my government. Maybe a few other services are this trustworthy to me, but not many, and I can't think of them off the top of my head.

We just need to get used to using throw away credit card numbers from our credit card's website. Or buy game currency/points/time in stores, in the form of cards, to prevent giving out the info that will be pwned sooner or later, on one service or another.

And get used to using throwaway passwords. If your password being compromised on one service makes you worry about other services, you've already done it wrong.

I assume my passwords will be stolen. I even have a generic password I use for many sites that I do not and will never trust.

It could be stolen -- and hell probably has, knowing how many services have been pwned, and how many don't even realize it. But it won't give you anything close to access to any email, bank, or merchant website connected to my debit card, as they're all using unique passwords and 2-factor auth where available.

Startup Idea: Debit/Credit card services that provide not "throwaway" numbers, but separate numbers/info for every major subscription or service you use. Generate an Amazon number, an Xbox live number, a number for your cellphone payment. If any one number is compromised, it can be disabled and handled without any interruption or issue to other numbers and services.

In the age of constant pwning, a debit card that isolated the damage to that one service without any hassle or disruption to any other service would be brilliant. I know I'd pay for that. In fact, how easy would fraud monitoring be when the only charges to a specific number would be allowed from that 1 service. It makes the numbers useless outside of that 1 service you're using it for, even when stolen.

<comment><USER4> That's actually how the Discover Card Secure Online number work, although apparently some merchants can't use them. From their FAQ, [https://www.discover.com/credit-cards/help- center/faqs/soan....](https://www.discover.com/credit-cards/help- center/faqs/soan.html#q1) :

 _Secure online account numbers is a free online service offering you added security by protecting your account number while shopping online. When you make a purchase with a merchant using a secure online account number, the number is assigned only to that particular merchant. Once a secure online account number is assigned, the merchant can use it for your future purchases with them unless you specify otherwise. Some merchants, such as Facebook, Amazon, and PayPal, will not be able to use the same secure online account number multiple times. When shopping with those merchants, you will need to use a new secure online account number each time._

<comment><USER5> Just make sure you keep track of the number you used, or be able to find it in your statements, because some customer validation systems require parts of the CC number. I've had to stall customer service reps several times because I had forgotten.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Riot should be a case study on how to handle leaks. Immediately releasing all that they know and forcing password resets. Good on them!

<comment><USER7> This has happened numerous times this year. The same response to me both these times.

Crytek: [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-05-crytek-pulls- we...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-05-crytek-pulls-websites- after-suspicious-activity-detected)

Ubisoft: [http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/779040-Security- update-...](http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/779040-Security-update- regarding-your-Ubisoft-account-please-create-a-new-password)

And even the PSN outage in 2011.

I for one am sick and tired of these account breaches. Not only do account details get disclosed, but I am forced to create these accounts to access games which I play. I have a perfectly accessible steam account with an authentication API available that only a handful of games decide to not use.

If you want me to have another account, fine. But promise these two things: 1 - It is worth my time and effort to create the account (I think League of Legends is fine here,they have a large ecosystem, however my two examples above are not.) 2 - You take care of my details. (Which they have all failed.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What types of attacks are commonly used to compromise information like this?

Is this simply a lack of SQL injection protection or is it the result of an attacker gaining access to the web/database servers?

<comment><USER9> Some variety of exploits probably lead to this, for example communication to their internal servers from their public servers may not have been isolated well enough from the outside world (providing a proverbial window into their internal system of services, databases, and APIs).

I'd imagine that Riot Games operates a plethora of servers with one, central, very large database containing all customer billing information.

Large-scale attacks are usually coordinated with a collection of exploits, for example SQL injection can provide a means to utilize XSS for exploiting administrative interfaces leading to session hijacking. This can be useful for reconnaissance and analysis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not really related but just read a few days ago:

In the Activision/Blizzard buyback from Vivendi one of the investors was Tencent, owner of Riot. Meanwhile Blizzard is also developing a Dota-clone, Blizzard All-Stars.

Unfortunately I can't add anything more but I found that interesting.

</comment><comment><USER11> > _" approximately 120,000 transaction records from 2011 that contained hashed > and salted credit card numbers have been accessed"_

Why oh why would you store the number. Utterly unnecessary for recurring billing.

<comment><USER12> The only thing that comes to mind is fraud prevention? But that only works if it's a global salt, rather than a per user/card salt.

<comment><USER11> I don't buy it. You're exposing your users to massive risk in order to detect fraud on a product that effectively costs $0 for you to provide. I _might_ understand it for a retailer that gets chargebacks for physical items shipped, but that doesn't make sense here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I just pray they dont use sha1 salted passwords or I'm pretty f*cked...</comment>


New effort to study astronomical 'wow' signal after almost 40 years - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2016/apr/14/alien-wow-signal-could-be-explained-after-almost-40-years <comment><USER2> Forgive me if this is a daft question, but, how much effort has gone into analysing the contents of this signal?

It appears we have 72 seconds of data to work with, or is it just completely random data with no pattern at all?

If we did receive an intelligent signal from an extraterrestrial source, what form do we think or hope it would take? Perhaps something along the lines of counting out the first 100 prime numbers?

-Edit- so to answer my own question, there is no actual recording of the signal, we only have the intensity of the signal over a period of 72 seconds, represented by 6 characters, each covering a period of 12 seconds.

6EQUJ5

<comment><USER3> Why is that? We just didn't record it?

<comment><USER4> 1977\. The intensity data _was_ the recording according to the standard of the times.

<comment><USER5> Having read about historical radio astronomy and practiced signals analysis, I think they were a _little_ more sophisticated than that. The recording in this format was made for easy perusal by a human, say, the next morning. I think that was the case with this signal. No doubt they wanted to revisit that spot in the sky looking at intensity, frequency shifting (Doppler), bandwidth, modulation, etc. But they never saw it again.

Historical point of interest: the Big Ear telescope that recorded this was bulldozed to make way for a golf course.

<comment><USER6> There's still a "memorial" web site:

[http://www.bigear.org/about.htm](http://www.bigear.org/about.htm)

The Big Ear telescope "was larger than three football fields in size and equivalent in sensitivity to a circular dish 52.5 meters (175 feet) in diameter. The telescope consisted of a flat tiltable reflector measuring 340 feet long by 100 feet high (less when tilted), a fixed standing paraboloidal (curved) reflector which measured 360 feet long by 70 feet high, an aluminum- covered ground plane measuring 360 feet wide by 500 feet long, and two feed horns mounted on a movable assembly."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _Comet 266P /Christensen will pass the Chi Sagittarii star group again on 25 > January 2017, while 335P/Gibbs will make its passage on 7 January 2018. > Paris plans to observe these events to look for a recurrence of the mystery > signal. But time is not on his side for using an existing radio telescope – > they are all booked out._

Can someone explain why he needs to observe them when they're passing in front of those particular stars?

<comment><USER8> I think the point is to reproduce as much of the original conditions as possible and check for a similar signature. The paper itself, does not explain the need for exact conditions: [http://planetary-science.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/01/Pari...](http://planetary-science.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/01/Paris_Davies-H-I-Line-Signal.pdf)

<comment><USER6> From the comments on the Guardian site, user bllckchps estimates the needed amount of stuff in the comet to produce the signal:

"Of course, most of the mass is in the nucleus, and will be in molecular form, unobservable at 1.4GHz. Let's be generous, and allow the comet to be made purely of water ice (H20) which will dissociate into a neutral hydrogen (H) and a hydroxyl (OH) as it goes into the halo, meaning that ~1/18 of the mass can be H.

We're already about a factor of 20 too low to explain the Wow signal, and now here's another factor of ~20. What fraction of the total mass is in the halo? Generously, maybe ~1%? So it's about a factor of 40000 too weak to be a plausible model."

The same user, regarding Antonio Paris, the person who collects the money:

"The web page for his Center for Planetary Science is pretty much just a collection of stuff taken verbatim from wikipedia. And his twitter feed is mostly a collection of uncredited images taken from whoever/wherever, interspersed with exhortations to send him cash for this ridiculous project.

If you follow up the various programmes he has been "involved" in (candidate astronaut etc) you will see that they are distinctly less impressive than they might at first seem to the naive. "

Fascinatingly, according to Antonio Paris' LinkedIn profile, he got a Master degree in 2012 and immediately started to refer to himself as "Professor Paris" in the "Area 51" documentary directed by... himself!

His "astronaut candidate" program:

[http://projectpossum.org/possum-astronaut- program/training-p...](http://projectpossum.org/possum-astronaut- program/training-program-at-embry-riddle/)

Wow, indeed.

<comment><USER9> Kickstarter once again fails to find intelligent life on Earth.

Apparently there was a "Habitable Planets Field Trip" in 2015.

Sorry to have missed that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> August the 15th, 1977, signal received. Next day, Elvis dies.

That's just too good of a nutcase story not to be in circulation.

<comment><USER11> s/dies/called back to his planet/

<comment><USER12> ...was that a Men in Black reference?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This looks like a con job using pseudo-science to get money from well- intentioned individuals.

<comment><USER14> I read this as 'cron job'.

<comment><USER15> Strange, likewise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's amazing how manual this process still was in the late 70s. Imagine spending hours and hours pouring over tables of numbers. At the same time, it's amazing how hard it still is for computers to say "that's interesting". Sometimes it takes human to go "wow"

<comment><USER17> That's because "interestingness" takes a _lot_ of context.

Humans interpret the low dimensional natural world into much higher dimensional space by turning things into models (cars, cats, science, etc), and often "wow" comes from a combination of many of those high level interpretations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Some radio amateur could perhaps help. 40 years is a long time and equipment is now amazingly cheap.

</comment><comment><USER19> So the amount requested is not all that much money for a radio telescope. A world-class ham radio tower (200 feet or so with appropriate beams) will run about $10,000 per each. So the cost requested here is not that out of line.

</comment><comment><USER20> So if being a byproduct of comets is ruled out, and we take it for granted that the signal is of extra-terrestrial origin (which apparently has been pretty much accepted), then we don't have an explanation for the origin under our current understanding of the cosmos? Is this a correct understanding? How exciting.

</comment><comment><USER21> Did they not find the source of the signal last year?

[http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/10/rogue- mic...](http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/10/rogue-microwave- ovens-are-the-culprits-behind-mysterious-radio-signals/)

<comment><USER22> Nah, they knew that those signals were local in origin and the Wow signal wasn't because the perytons showed up no matter which direction they looked in whilst the Wow signal was only received on one of the two antenna at the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Seems unlikely. If undiscovered comets were this prone to putting off such strong signals, there should be a lot more unexplained "wow!" notations in notebooks from them.

<comment><USER8> I do not think it matters how unlikely it is. As long as it is possible and there is no surefire culprit the theory needs to be tested, if only to rule it out.

<comment><USER23> "Probable" and "unlikely" are antonyms. It can't be unlikely and probable.

 _edit:_ The level of likeliness should affect the amount of effort put into testing the hypothesis. I'd like an explanation from them on why they think the Wow! signal is so rare if a comet is the explanation - NASA says there might be as many as a hundred _billion_ comets in the solar system, so "where's the rest of their signals" is a legit criticism.

<comment><USER24> I think it's important to remember how _empty_ space actually is, when taking this view point. For instance, an object randomly shot through the asteroid belt has near zero chance of actually hitting anything, and that's a _relatively_ dense space. The Oort cloud, which is where a large number of the theoretically unknown comets live, is only about 5 Earth masses.

The bottom line is, pointing a telescope to a random spot in the sky is very, very likely to find nothing. Even with a billion comets and a billion asteroids and a billion stars.

<comment><USER25> Forgive the naive question, but ___why_ __is space so empty.

I mean I understand infinite but I'm just really interested in why the universe is the way that it is.

What is the best theory for this? Has anyone proposed a why?

<comment> maze-le Because the universe is expanding. Space itself expands the further away you are from a reference point. That means, everything is moving away from us (on a grand scale), and the greater the distance to the reference point, the bigger is the rate things in the universe are moving away from us. I think the rate is about 70 km/(Mpc _s) - wich is an incredibly small number, scaled down to a meter it is ~10^-23 m / (m_s). And as space expands over time, the density of matter in space get lower and lower.

<comment><USER25> ELI5 If space is just empty nothing vacuum - how does it expand?

<comment><USER26> Space isn't an empty vacuum, but that's tangential. The expansion in this context is metric explanation, which just means things are getting further and further apart between two points due to space "expanding" between non- gravitationally bound objects. The explanation for "why" is sort of "we don't know". AFAIK, the leading theory is a combination of momentum / inertia from the big bang and acceleration from dark energy. Which we also don't know a lot about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "How a team of astronomers embezzled crowd funders into buying them a new telescope by making them believe they will look for a 'Wow' signal explanation"

<comment><USER28> That's so nastily uncharitable.

I understand the fun in painting what people are doing in the blackest possible colors. It's a parlor game and gives a buzz to both the writer and reader. But in doing so, you smear black paint all over the parlor. We're trying to make HN a better place to be than that, so please don't play that game here.

<comment><USER29> LunaSea is making an interesting argument that I hadn't considered.

You on the other hand have levied a substance-less complaint about a user's attitude. Who is really undermining discourse here?

Pessimism ought to be welcome here. If you need protection from other people's attitudes go join a university safe space.

<comment><USER28> I actually appreciate your point a lot more than it probably seems like I do (not counting the rude bit, which was out of place and wide of the mark). The counterargument only becomes compelling when you start to think practically about the effect snark etc. has on online communities. This is an externality, so it is easy to overlook and not always in the interest of individual actors to take care of.

We could compare it to a company that makes a good product (in this case, a good point about funding and the politics of research) while polluting the local environment (the community here). The solution isn't to ignore the pollution, nor to justify it.

Fortunately for all of us, it's not only possible to make the product without polluting, but the product comes out better when one does so. But this doesn't happen by default; the default is the opposite. That's why I post moderation comments, at the cost of off-topicness. In the long run, the plan (and the unsolved system design problem!) is to get the desired effect without posting such things, which are as tedious to write as they are to read.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple reveals lineup for its biggest-ever Worldwide Developers Conference - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-reveals-lineup-for-its-biggest-ever-worldwide-developers-conference/ <comment><USER2> It feels like often when they portray a minority they're trying to cram several sub-groups into the same person (or in this case avatar).

"Let's put in a black, transgender person with green hair and Asperger's and a blind, blue-haired, handicapped asian girl with multiple piercings. We'll stick in a white dude too, since we know the conference will be 90% white, heterosexual males and we don't want them to feel too unwelcome."

I get that they want to make everyone feel welcome, which is great! But when it's too made up it doesn't feel genuine and you'll just discount it as diversity window dressing.

<comment><USER3> When Apple happily works in tandem with a government which has imprisoned an entire minority and has been doing the same thing to Christians for decades, you get some perspective on how much they dress themselves up to impress their local audience, not because they actually care.</comment></comment>


Hacker news reader for iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=333187163&mt=8

<comment><USER2> If I were to pay money for my HN, I'd want at least some of it to go to the actual HN team.

<comment><USER3> I find it funny that a community of people who make their living off selling software are so averse to paying for it. How much of your hourly rate is the cost of buying this? How much time do you spend on HN daily? How much percent better does reading HN does this app need to make, for you to be ROI positive in a week?

<comment><USER4> It's not the problem of spending $2, it's the question of if that $2 is going to the right people.

<comment><USER2> Indeed. This is the crux of our news organizations' current crisis. They create and organize the content, yet everybody else is using the content for profit. I choose to reward those who create and organize the content.

The delivery of content is extremely easy, especially for me since I'm a developer myself.

<comment><USER5> When's your Hacker News iPhone app coming out then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://www.icombinator.net/> works great for me, and costs nothing. Also has nifty instapaper functionality which I've grown to live on.

<comment><USER7> I agree. I just bought the app and it offers an inferior experience to icombinator from what I can see. This app doesn't have threading in the comments (you can't see who replied to what), it doesn't have the instapaper functionality, etc...

I expected an app to at least allow me to log in and post comments but it doesn't even do that. Which makes me ask what the point of having a native app even was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=809181> for a discussion about other HN on the iPhone solutions.

My version is at <http://mobilehackernews.appspot.com/>

It uses iUI for the list and if you click on a story link it uses arc90's Readability to make the site you visit easier to read. The Readability script also puts a button in the top left corner of the page to revert to the original version.

<http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/>

<comment><USER9> That actually seemed awesome until i started getting this on pretty much every page:

Traceback (most recent call last):

      File "/base/python_lib/versions/1/google/appengine/ext/webapp/__init__.py", line 507, in __call__
        handler.get(*groups)

      File "/base/data/home/apps/mobilehackernews /1.336829969607358575/main.py", line 137, in get
        html.head.append(cssCode)

     AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'append'

<comment><USER8> Odd, I saw that few times just now. But I can't reproduce it. The error suggests that when BeautifulSoup parsed to the contents of the posted article, it found a page with no head node in the HTML.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Kevin, you should probably check this stuff too. Not because PG&Co will sue you, but just to be a good dude.

<http://ycombinator.com/legal.html>

</comment><comment><USER11> I highly doubt the developer did this for money. At best he'll make $1000. I'm guessing he developed the app for himself and just decided to release it. Why not comment about how it could be better?

My suggestion has already been voiced: Need upvote capability.

</comment><comment><USER12> "The item you've requested is not currently available in the Polish Store"

Did the developers place geographical restrictions or is this a bug in the iTunes store?

Dear developers, please make sure the app is available everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think it's a bit high, but I bought it to give it a run. From the screenshots, it seemed decently full featured. The only thing I wish it had was AT least the upvote capabilities. I never really comment from the iphone, since I know ill limit my comments. Give me a few days of waiting on line with nothing to do and checking HN via my iPhone to give it a final verdict. .99 seems like a better price than 1.99

<comment><USER14> > a bit high

Seriously?

It must have taken at least a couple weeks of work to write and polish up this app. Then there's ongoing marketing, support, more dev if he adds the features people are asking for here, etc. If the app sells 1000 copies its first month (which would be pretty good!), the economics barely make sense at $1.99. At $0.99 it's basically a community service project.

Games can be priced at a dollar because the audience is everyone with an iPhone. For apps that are carefully tailored to the needs of a small group, you must expect to pay more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> For those without iTunes: <http://www.kevintom.com/>

<http://www.kevintom.com/ycnews> didn't render properly in Safari or Firefox...

</comment><comment><USER16> <sarcasm>Man I am glad I have this app now! HackerNews is a website with MB's of flash and images that make browsing it _really_ slow. I mean it doesn't even have rss!</sarcasm>

</comment><comment><USER17> I bought it and it looks good. Though I mostly bought it because I noticed that the author used to be my project manager. :) Best of luck with the app, Kevin!

</comment><comment><USER18> i installed it. i think it's pretty nice but still needs some work. for example, i don't like that it opens the links in safari. i'd rather stay within the application (like the reddit app). if i'm going to end up in safari every time i want to read something, i'll probably just use <http://www.icombinator.net/> instead:(

</comment><comment><USER15> You know... Not everybody has iTunes on the computer... Or even a computer where iTunes is willing to run.

<comment><USER19> In that case then, this app probably isn't targeted at you.

<comment><USER15> I do, however, have an iPod and an iMac. I just happen to use Linux for work.

<comment><USER19> Seriously, I'm not sure what the point of your comments are.

Based on the devices you stated and your presence here, it would seem you are astute enough to recognize that not every app is going to be applicable for all people. This app especially seems to target a niche of a niche (iPhone users reading HN), and is not even 100% necessary within that niche.

Most people would recognize that certain criteria must be met to be able to download and use an App from iTunes.

I don't mean to be harsh, your comments just sort of seemed like statements of the obvious.

<comment><USER20> I'm guessing he would have rather had a link to the website about the app instead of the iTunes link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> none of your screenshots actually show a story. does that mean it just shows the webkit view?

<comment><USER22> Also, I couldn't tell from the screenshots if the app allowed users to view comments on a submission. As we all know, the discussions can be as good as, if not better, than the articles.

<comment><USER23> Indeed. I'd buy this instantly if it provided an iPhone-friendly interface for reading the discussion, but I can't tell from the screenshots. Also, if there is a story view --- reasonably sized up-down voting arrows alone would make it worth paying for.

<comment><USER24> It doesn't even seem to have a way to log in, getting to comments is awkward, and threads are flattened to an iPhone list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Installed!

<comment><USER26> Me too! Thanks, much more readable than in Safari.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Private cloud shell history. Open source server for bashhub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nicksherron/bashhub-server <comment><USER2> Can someone explain bashub to me? I don't get it at all. Bash history is already searchable (history | grep "foo"). Is the benefit just to be able to easily see what you ran on some other device?

the pitch is "Never lose another command again" but you can increase the size of your history file to be pretty enormous. Is being able to find a command you ran 2 years ago really a valuable thing?

<comment><USER3> I always find my history not complete when using tmux. I started using these functions in my profile to collect everything. I don't remember the source of the functions.

      log_bash_persistent_history()
      {
          [[
              $(history 1) =~ ^\ *[0-9]+\ +([^\ ]+\ [^\ ]+)\ +(.*)$
          ]]
          local date_part="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
          local command_part="${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"
          if [ "$command_part" != "$PERSISTENT_HISTORY_LAST" ]
          then
              echo $date_part "|" "$command_part" >> ~/.persistent_history
              export PERSISTENT_HISTORY_LAST="$command_part"
          fi
      }

      run_on_prompt_command()
      {
          log_bash_persistent_history
      }

      alias phgrep='cat ~/.persistent_history|grep --color'

I like the idea of a hub, as I do a lot of work inside docker containers and vms -- so this could be tailored to help me collect all my history.

<comment><USER4> I also use those. They came from here: [https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2013/06/11/keeping- persistent-...](https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2013/06/11/keeping-persistent- history-in-bash/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pretty cool! I'm not a big public cloud guy (but do run/manage many systems) but will try this out. Fwiw, I currently have almost all of my systems sending my command history to a syslog server (splunk) via constant VPNs (.bashrc and logger) , it works surprisingly well and consistently for the amount of issues I read about when searching for how to implement this online

</comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for this! I was working on a private server for BashHub to be used at work, but this is better than what I've got so far! It's sad that the creator of BashHub has sat on releasing the server for awhile since it was a very requested thing.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is bashhub itself secure? The FAQ says "You need an access token associated with your user account to retrieve them." Wondering if anyone has any other color on this.

<comment><USER8> To this point, is there an open source, encrypted data sync server? Some encrypted database I can connect to and query for data, that will also do deduplication, etc?

I'm imagining something like a shell history client storing the history on this database, with the server having no knowledge of any of the data, but the client still being able to easily sync it between devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> OT side note I haven't been able to vent elsewhere: who decided to remove failed commands from ubuntu shell history.. grr

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm actually interested in people's opinions on this. I'm only returning commands with exit status 0 or 130. Not sure if what the best approach is.

<comment><USER6> Maybe filter out repeats of anything with an exit code other than 0 or 130, but still log the command itself? Sometimes I will run a command a few times since I know we've either hit an API limit, or I'm testing incremental changes.</comment></comment></comment>