Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch  - <AUTHOR> http://www.getinPulse.com <comment><USER2> For comparison: Texas Instruments sell something called the EZ430 Chronos watch, which has a much lower-res display, a proprietary RF protocol with a USB transceiver, and a bunch more sensors including 3-axis accelerometers, pressure and temperature.

It is based on the MSP430 microprocessor which is much less powerful than this thing, its capped at 16mhz or something IIRC and only has around 8K of program space. It is however about a third of the price.

<http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/EZ430-Chronos>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, but we've got Bluetooth, a fantastic OLED screen, and example Python, Android, Blackberry code!

Also, we're right here on HN to answer your questions!

<comment><USER3> Ok first question:

Why only one button?

Two would have been really nice for most things (like back and forward in powerpoint/itunes).

Edit: Another one:

Why don't you ship outside the US/Canada? I considered buying one, but I'm in Germany :(

<comment><AUTHOR> We choose one button to keep it simple (and quicker to get to market). You can do a lot of things with just one button, just look at the single button on the iPhone! For example, you can do two actions, like click and click-hold.

<comment><USER4> also, double-tap.

<comment><USER5> Neither seems very intuitive for "back" and "forward".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What I _really_ need is a stylish women's watch so my wife can know when her phone is buzzing in her purse!

<comment><USER7> While it doesn't appear to be a women's watch, this might interest you:

[http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=sony+eric...](http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=sony+ericsson+watch\\&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=3385409835421323450&ei=sslaTey- GIGBlAeZlLTKDA&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCMQ8wIwAQ#)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Awesome!!!! They even look good too. I might think about getting one and whip up an Android library for people to use.

Question to anyone reading this. What would be a good use to notify users? There was an article on HN about startups using a visual dashboard: [http://mygengo.com/talk/blog/why-your-startup-needs-a- visual...](http://mygengo.com/talk/blog/why-your-startup-needs-a-visual- dashboard/) I think something like that would be cool to have. Hook into your KPI's and have that information right there on your wrist.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've even got a sample Android project to get you started. Download the SDK and example apps: <http://www.getinpulse.com/images/pulse_sdk100.zip>

<comment><USER8> Awesome thanks!

I just checked the specs, "4 days depending on display/Bluetooth use"

Even if its two days of full time use, thats great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Correct me if I am wrong. I think I have found a way to track sales of both the models on sale.

Depending on how many items you ask for in order screen, it lets you go ahead or displays "stock unavailable".

For the Mettalic Silver, It seems 57 items are available at the time of writing. and for Black Anodized, it is 108. I have to take a reasonable assumption now to get the sales numbers (may be 200 at beginning?).

<comment><USER10> 56 and 107 now. Seems you are right.

<comment><USER11> 50 and 94 now, seems the black is selling faster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is very cool. I own a few Timex Datalink watches which are also programmable. Timex recently discontinued the Datalink and they're already becoming very hard to find. I hoping some company would come up with a suitable replacement but unfortunately nobody seems to build something with a comparable design.

The advantages of the Datalink are that it always shows the time (no button press necessary), the battery lasts an entire year, is water-resistant, and is small and subtle. It also just makes a damn good watch without any of the programmable features. Every other programmable watch available is anything but subtle, with a display that isn't active all the time, and has to be constantly recharged. Those are considerable failings for a watch.

What the Datalink lacks is a denser display (but remaining as 1bit LCD is ok), any sort of wireless (ANT+ would be suitable), and sensors (pulse, altitude, position, etc). It could also use, obviously, a faster processor with more RAM and storage (it also has 32k).

The price for this watch is fantastic but it's still just not quite what I'm looking for.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a very hacker-unfriendly device. I wouldn't buy one.

The SDK's compilation tool doesn't invoke a compiler; it uploads your code to a service running off of <http://188.8.131.52:8080>.

The Arduino is fantastic because the bootloader is open-source, the hardware is open-source, and it's easy to find out full information about the hardware and pull the MCU datasheets yourself.

<comment><USER14> I'd love to hear a counter to this. I was really close to buying one...

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Guys, Eric from inPulse here. We're trying to make it as easy as possible for people to develop for inPulse. That's why we've built a cloudcompile service. No messing with DLLs, drivers and other annoying parts of embedded coding.

I think we've succeeded! In our beta testing, users were able to go from downloading the SDK zip to loading their first app on inPulse within 5-8 minutes. I think that's pretty impressive for a startup hardware biz.

If you'd like to setup the arm-gcc toolchain and compile your own apps, absolutely no problem! We'll have instructions online shortly. If you need them faster, just email firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER13> It's certainly easy to use, as long as the server remains up. But do I still have full control over the code that I upload to you, or does it count as "user-generated content" in <http://www.getinpulse.com/terms/>? What privacy guarantees do you make regarding the code that I upload? (Hopefully very little; it is transmitted in the clear, after all..)

We live in a world where device vendors (even small ones) routinely use technical means to thwart hackers and other tinkerers. Often, this is done under the guise of usability or security (sometimes with some justification, even). Plenty of people don't mind trading away some control for stability or ease-of-use.

This is a forum for hackers, and you just called your device "hackable". I'm saying that it's not, currently; it's a black box with an SDK that does cloud compilation. You don't document that fact anywhere or provide an ready alternative, and there's no information about what's underneath your API, either OS or hardware.

<comment><USER15> This is extremely important - the claim to user-generated content is either boilerplate and wasn't intended to apply to actual software, or it is specifically intended to apply to the uploaded code due to the cloud-compile service.

The question has been asked a couple times here - is there an answer?

<comment><AUTHOR> Boilerplate. We'll get the lawyers on it and get it fixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm impressed with the price point. It's about what I'd expect a device like this to run if it were a higher-volume product selling through mass-market channels, rather than a low-volume, enthusiast product selling only through the manufacturer's website.

Are you guys courting retailers like ThinkGeek?

<comment><USER17> Do you know of other retailers like ThinkGeek?

(I like ThinkGeek, but I'm curious if there are other, similar stores.)

<comment><USER18> SparkFun, if you're not already aware of it, is only vaguely related to ThinkGeek, but it seems to me anyone looking at a hackable watch would be right at home there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looks cool.

But when I do upgrade my venerable analog watch, it's probably going to be to a <http://lunatik.com> \+ ipod nano 6g. A little more expensive, requires a jailbreak, but a hell of a lot more functional, and doesn't require uploading my code anywhere to compile it once jailbroken.

<comment><USER20> Has the nano been successfully jailbroken? Last I saw was that some of the images/text could be changed but I wasn't aware of anyone getting actual new code running...?

<comment><USER19> Seems I was mistaken and the answer is "not yet".

<comment><USER21> Well also, it doesn't run iOS so a jailbreak wouldn't be that interesting..

<comment><USER20> On the contrary, it would be a very interesting little platform to play with.

Just because it doesn't run iOS doesn't mean you couldn't write code for it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm puzzled to see such resoundingly positive feedback here. Props for the hard work on building this product out.

However, in a world of smart phones I can't imagine ever using a watch like this.

Watches have been relegated to primarily fashion items, I can't imagine why you'd want one that runs code.

Sorry for the harsh review, best of luck.

<comment><USER20> Not a motor/bicyclist eh? :)

Having access to information without having to dig your phone out of your pocket (not to mention a phone you can't operate with sturdy gloves) is very useful in such situations.

Which reminds me; how "weatherproof" is this thing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is this device "Made For iPhone" (<http://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi/>)? If it is, I suggest putting the badge on your front page. If it's not, I suggest applying for it to be.

</comment><comment><USER24> Does this run multiple applications or do you have to plug it in each time you want to run a different app?

<comment><AUTHOR> One app at a time, right now...but we're working on getting multiple apps running as well! Good point.

<comment><USER25> So I can't have a watch and notification app running on the watch? Guess you'd have to make them into one application?

If you do get that working, does that mean new hardware?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The devices look cool from a technical perspective. It could use a few more sensors (GPS, gyro/movement, temp, etc.) but I'm sure that will come.

The only problem, I think, is that they're not very stylish. A bit too large/clunky looking. I'm not sure how to fix that while keeping the display a useful size. But that what geniuses like you guys are for!

<comment><USER8> I think these look much better then putting the Apple Nano on your wrist: <http://bit.ly/hnLUkQ> To each their own though. =)

As for applications, yeh GPS, Gyro would be great.

<comment><USER27> Here's the TikTok/LunaTik link: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1104350651/tiktok- lunati...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1104350651/tiktok-lunatik- multi-touch-watch-kits)

They raised $941,718 from users, so there's definitely a market for style. It's touchscreen, costly (nano+holder) and non-hackable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Are you looking for investors?

</comment><comment><USER29> Looks very nice. If it had a couple more buttons, it would be great for a workout tracker.

Give it more buttons and I'll buy it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Few comments:

* Your 3rd video is the most presentable one and best intro, make it on top.

* The screen seems not be a touch-screen since not mentioned in features. So seems like only way to navigate the on-screen "buttons" with a single physical button is to press it until it cycles to highlight screen button and press and hold it to select. This does not seem to be a good UI.

For a v.2, you either need to use a capacitive touch screen, or make that single button you have on the bottom face of the watch like iphones, and have 4 to 6 buttons on the side, 2 to 3 on each left/right side so that app developers can program their screen buttons to float to left or right and user can just press the corresponding button. Of course the side buttons will need to be "concave" (not sure the right terminology for it) and be seamless on the side and not use that same old metallic button used in many watches. Minimalist does not work on a non touch-screen. Remember that even the ipod retained all 6+scroll buttons in its 10 year history.

[Edit: After a bit more though, if the side buttons are to be implemented, they need to go on only one side since the opposing side need to be empty for the opposing force of the thumb.]

Even if you decide to use a touch screen (pro version?), get rid of the side button and make it on the face like the iphone -- not only does it currently not look right on the Black Anodized version (some design work may be needed for a front facing button to look good on the Metallic one), but it will also hurt the users' finger less being a iphone-like button on the front for intensive apps like games.

* Why is the Black Anodized version cost $50 more? I would imagine the opposite. What does it have that the Metallic doesn't?

* Most people who spend $150+ on a watch actually cares how good it will look on him/her. Either make a pseudo (bunch of images wrapped in a slider div) 360 model view or take a bunch of pictures in different angles standalone and on different wrists (men and ladies). Have its dimensions stated like so:

        ->|x|<---
          | |   ^
          | |   |
        |     | |
        |<-z->| y
        |     | |
          | |   |
          | |   -

(ditto for its height dimensions).

* Why is the Blackberry features page totally hidden on the footer? That should be your main feature! In fact, write a hello world ASAP that talks to the iphone/ipad/android (eg. notifications or different vibration alerts for different notifications), it will probably 2-10x your sales and developers.

* Nitpicking - the "Buy it now" on the features page needs to be on the bottom, no one will buy until they read the features. And after reading, there's no "buy it now" action avail.

* Find a way to tap into the ipod nano watch or other smart watch community, you should get converts or potential customers there.

(Edited to format the diagram and more details.)

<comment><AUTHOR> x (strap)= 26mm, y (height of watch casing) = 50mm, z = 36mm \- Thanks for the tips, incorporated. \- No touchscreen at moment. I like the way you think about wearable UX. If you're interested in continuing the conversation, please ping me at email@example.com \- We're testing the selling points. Right now with supply being limited (early stage startup) we decided to let people hack away at their watches. I'm sure as our capacity improves, we'll retarget consumer verticals. \- Here's a cool bit of community news, OpenWatch for Android now supports inPulse (<http://beta.smartmadsoft.com/>). Marcel, the creator of OpenWatch, was able to get started with our dev tools and integrated inPulse in a very short time!

<comment><USER30> You can reference the dimensions to something everyone knows too, like an SD card or ipod nano (not something everyone knows, but it's a good way to convert potential ipod nano watch buyers if it's smaller and better looking, which it does seem to be, even compared to the Metalic tiktok variant).

<comment><USER31> Here's a quick comparison between the iPulse, SD Card, and latest gen iPod Nano with sizeeasy:

[http://sizeasy.com/page/size_comparison/31203-inPulse-vs- iPo...](http://sizeasy.com/page/size_comparison/31203-inPulse-vs-iPod-Nano-vs- SD-Card)

Only the watch body itself is shown: SizeEasy only supports cubic dimensions, so I couldn't find a way to show the wrist band.

Also, SizeEasy requires all three dimensions be provided, and since I couldn't find official dimensions anywhere else I used those cited around the web, for example:

[http://www.berryscoop.com/2009/11/questions-answered- about-t...](http://www.berryscoop.com/2009/11/questions-answered-about-the- inpulse-watch-for-blackberry/)

Overall, decently sized but definitely not head-and-shoulders above the Nano.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't really see the point of having a watch nowadays. I usually just look at my phone for the time. This watch seems to do some of the stuff a standard smartphone does, but is more limited. At this point in my life, I'm trying to do what I can to limit the number of various gadgets I carry around on my person. I would rather have a small little device that does everything pretty well, than 50 devices I have to lug around that do everything perfect.

In a sense its similar to using your computer instead of a television. You can access more interesting internet videos online, and usually don't have to watch commercials because of ad blocking software. You can play video games on your computer instead of using a console. Your computer could hook up to a projector or HD Television as needed. You can read books on your computer. You can call people on your computer. You can IM/Email/Facebook on your computer. I think the future will be far fewer devices that can do a whole lot more. This watch seems like a step into the past.

</comment><comment><USER33> I would buy this right now if it worked with iPhones. I love my iPhone, but Apple's restrictive policies are really starting to get to me.

<comment><USER17> Given the schematic and gerbers, I'd be willing to make a version of this watch that would talk to un-jailbroken iPhones (and other iOS devices).

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Oh man, this looks /really/ cool. but the battery life? that's going to be a problem. I had a Matsucom brand OnHandPc back in the day, and it'd last a few weeks on a set of (replaceable) batteries. ran dos. It had a little joystick /and/ a bunch of buttons around the side, so it was fairly useful.

anyhow, an important use case for me, if I buy this, is using it as a bluetooth vibrator. I'm a SysAdmin and on call; but I'm not single. I want something that will wake me up without waking up anyone else who may be in the bed at the time. This means I need to wear the thing while I sleep; which makes charging... difficult.

I would give up color in a second if it would improve battery life.

Of course, I could aways just use a bluetooth bracelet at night and this during the day, but I'm bad at remembering things. I want to minimize the number of things I need to remember to charge.

</comment><comment><USER35> I think one of the best uses for this product would be its secrecy.

For instance, I work at an establishment which bans the use of cell phones, but due to the fact that sometimes emergencies happen, a lot of people tend to sneak it in, anyway. So when our pockets buzz, our only option is to ninja it out of our pockets, hold it out of view of others, yet in our view, and check the notification.

With this invention, we would be able to simply hit a button on our watch, and not risk losing our jobs just to read a "hey how r u" BS text, or a missed call from an unknown number. Now we can tell whether or not we need to leave the office to return a text or a call without even touching the phone.

This is what I would use it for, anyway.

<comment><USER36> But, r u sure u cant get email notifications for those missed calls/msgs

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've had this page bookmarked for months, waiting to be able to order it (back when it was just designed as a bluetooth extension to blackberry devices).

Petty about US/CA shipping only, seems a pretty dumb move (unless there's some reason, other than shipping costs which you can make customers pay, for limiting who can buy it).

<comment><USER2> _> (unless there's some reason, other than shipping costs which you can make customers pay, for limiting who can buy it)_

Shipping goods for money internationally is a bureaucratic _nightmare._ A million possible edge cases to do with tax and so forth. This is why hardware startups often only take orders from their home country for their first batch.

<comment><USER38> I have zero experience in this area, but could it be that the manufacturer has to go through an approval process and/or have liability insurance in each country they ship to?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm surprised nobody here has mentioned Dynawa, yet.

<http://www.dynawa.org/>

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm not purchasing one, but it's way cool that you got these things out there. I look at most stuff on HN and think "hey, I could build that!". I look at this and I think "wow, it's cool that someone managed to manufacture and build hardware on a small scale and sell it".

<comment><USER40> <http://kbembedded.com/products/multiwatch>

[http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/cd13/?pfm=Search...](http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/cd13/?pfm=Search&t=Multiwatch)

Not nearly as easy to hack as this Bluetooth with OLED, but still a watch designed by a single guy located in Tempe. I bought one from ThinkGeek a while back version 1 (pictured on his website, the picture on ThinkGeek is version 2) and I love it. It is unique and I always get looks from people.

It uses an MSP430 at its core.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Very cool stuff !

I think something like this, but bigger and wall mountable would be very neat. The obvious use case for startups is to use it as a dashboard with your most important metric for display - for example your google analytics traffic stats.

</comment><comment><USER25> So is there a reason you have to send the code to an external server to compile it? Would like to be able to use this a year or so down the line if your server isn't around or is having issues...

</comment><comment><USER42> This is mind blowing. Any plans for iOS support? Jailbreak or otherwise?

<comment><USER43> Hey, we actually do have iOS support, but yeah the device has to be jailbroken. You can read the FAQ here www.getinpulse.com/faq

<comment><USER42> The FAQ doesn't mention any jailbreak support. It just says that there's no iOS support :(

<comment><USER44> FAQ has been updated. We provide example code for jailbroken iPhone in our SDK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Tell me I was not the only whose first thought was how cool it would be to build a cluster out of these things. But props to the OP, it looks like something I would spend hours playing with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just for you, Anemecek, I'll wear a beowulf cluster on my arm. I think it will vibrate off I you guys keep sending me email... www.getinPulse.com/images/toomanywatches.jpg

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I didn't see this anywhere on your website: is the watch water-resistant? I know you're focused on the programmable aspects of the watch but to me this is important information.

</comment><comment><USER47> Seems pretty cool! I laughed though at "intuitive one button interface" where the guy pushes it a few times, then he holds it in to do another function.

</comment><comment><USER48> Couldn't find pictures of the back of the watch. Would be nice with an easy way to find good pictures of the product. Like a picture gallery.

</comment><comment><USER49> Any idea how big the range of the bluetooth is? I'm curious how far away I can be from the other device I'd like to communicate with.

</comment><comment><USER50> did anyone else think "red-green-refactor-wristband" when they saw this? Or at least something to hook into a CI or uptime service?

</comment><comment><USER51> Very cool... I assume it tells time, too? :-)

</comment><comment><USER52> Is Bluetooth the only way to get apps onto the watch?

Also, Python is the language to program apps in? They only language?

<comment><USER53> Python is a scripting language used on the receiving end of the messages, not on the watch. The language for code you run on the watch seems to be C

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> \+ touchscreen for +$100 and I'd buy.

</comment><comment><USER55> I am totally getting one, soonish. I confess, i have a Watch fetish :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Better get one quick! First batch is moving...

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Wow, I love it! Seems like a great gadget; I'll be purchasing one.

</comment><comment><USER57> ok so programmable bluetooth item that vibrates, this is a great idea, so great I'm going to let this comment about it be lost amongst the sea o' comments

</comment><comment><USER58> A bit expensive for a watch, but still very very cool!

<comment><USER59> I've paid that much (and more) for watches that did nothing more than tell the current time and date.

Their price seems eminently reasonable to me.

<comment><USER60> you paid for design

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> so does this keep a check on one' heart rate and send out an SOS email to Doc/911 if one is dying/drowning/ suffering from a heart attack?

</comment><comment><USER61> hmmm, I am interested in seeing more detailed battery life information including for more "active" use.

<comment><USER43> <http://www.getinpulse.com/faq/> The first question under Inpulse category will answer it. That's in case you haven't seen that one already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Some love for Other countries, please

</comment><comment><USER63> You guys make Waterloo proud!

</comment><comment><USER64> how can i get one in germany?

<comment><USER36> amazon!

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> iPhone/iPad/iOS compatible?

</comment><comment><USER66> There is a similar product, Sony Ericsson LiveView, which can be worn as a wristwatch and paired with an Android phone: [http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/products/accessories/overvie...](http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/products/accessories/overview/liveview)

Retails for EUR 39.50.

I do not own one so cannot say anything about how well it works -- just came across it randomly yesterday when buying something online. If the client is Android-based it is almost certain the protocol can be easily reverse engineered to make it hackable from other paired devices.

<comment><USER67> I was very excited when I saw a demo of this, but the review I watched seems to imply that it sucks for bluetooth connectivity. I'm wondering inPulse has the same issues.

<comment><USER17> There is an update for the firmware on the Sony LiveView. (I own one, and it made a big difference in connectivity to my Nexus One.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Any chance it has infrared for a TV remote that never gets lost?</comment>


Rithmomachy - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rithmomachy <comment><USER2> Are there any computer versions?

<comment><USER3> Yes there are.

A Windows Shareware version: [http://www.stargraphics.com/ambush.htm](http://www.stargraphics.com/ambush.htm)

An Android version: [http://www.stargraphics.com/amband.htm](http://www.stargraphics.com/amband.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very interesting!

Nothing much mentioned about sudden decline in its popularity.

I guess, Games that are tied with the tradition of a culture tend to have a longer lifetime.

<comment><USER5> The 17th century was the century that saw the rise of card games, which exploded in popularity due to printing. Checkers had probably supplanted Morris earlier.

More important is probably its educational use in teaching Boethian arithmetic in the medieval university. By 1600, Europe has rediscovered scores of classical texts and was on the verge of making very major strides in mathematics. It probably just didn't seem relevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is "De Lite" really "By lawsuit" rather than "By law"?

<comment><USER7> Yes. Lex/legis is law; litem is lawsuit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I always need to recognise that the dark and Middle Ages of Europe where horrific obviously but if there can be a popular game using arithmetic progression to win at chess then, it was not all Eric Palin harvesting mud

<comment><USER5> "Popular" is a relative term. Early in the middle ages, long division was considered advanced, graduate-level work.

<comment><USER9> That can't be right. It may be that very few people learned it (not relevant to most people's lives), but to those who did, it couldn't have been advanced, graduate-level work.

<comment><USER5> This is a factoid that I've been carrying around for a while, but it looks sort of true. Fibonacci introduced Arabic numerals in 1202, which slowly grew to predominate over Roman numerals/abacus use by circa 1600. So it's not that educated Europeans couldn't do complex division, they simply used abaci and clunky Roman numerals rather than long division. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_Abaci](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_Abaci)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Police Feeding Celebrity Photos into Facial Recognition Software to Solve Crimes - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwngn3/police-are-feeding-celebrity-photos-into-facial-recognition-software-to-solve-crimes <comment><USER2> Feeding in doctored images, grainy social media pics of people that look "kinda similar" and other garbage data into these tools just to generate a list of possible suspects is a surefire way to generate garbage matches (i.e. non-matches).

I don't see how this is any better than just putting all the names of people who have the same demographic info into a hat and picking a set of them.

I guess incompetence might be the thing that saves us from a truly effective Orwellian state.

<comment><USER3> I write FR software, and this practice irritates the fuck out of me. A common phrase in the industry is you can't anticipate what stupid users won't do, and this is a clear case of end-users sticking their fingers into powered light sockets, at the expense of the general public's safety by the very agency enlisted to protect the public. The stupidity is amazing. If there is ever any regulations around FR's use, probing with doctored or "looks like" images needs to be illegal or at minimum no grounds for any warrant of any kind.

<comment><USER4> If the FR were to learn based on input I could see how feeding it doctored images would screw it up in the long run. But if its just the FR utility, minus any ongoing machine learning, how does this effect the public's safety exactly?

Not disagreeing just curious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had thought they were going to say that they use celebrity images to train the systems. Because celebrities are an _incredible_ training set for facial recognition.

Consider: You want to train a one-shot matching system for taking photos from crime scene cameras and searching a database of drivers licence photos. You need a training set of different images of the same person, and then lots of those sets for different people. Boom: celebrities! They have thousands of photos from thousands of angles. Poorly taken shots by paparazzi. Stills from films at a zillion different angles. And some nice, face-on shots like a drivers licence photo. (Heck, if it's the police they have access to that celebrity's actual DL photo).

The one nice side about training that way is that most celebrities are really good looking people, so only the really pretty criminals will be caught thanks to training bias.

<comment><USER6> It's also bad news for people that have stunt doubles or thought cosmetic surgery would keep them free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> While I've never been detained, I've been around police enough to know that they generally know the likely suspects immediately after many crimes (turning in a statement after an SF Mission smash-grab; talking with a friend about a -significant- tool theft from their barn). I suspect the reason this celebrity-photo thing is happening is that the police already know their primary suspect and they're looking for "modern", crappy supporting evidence. It's like the JS/PHP of police work...

</comment><comment><USER8> I cannot fathom how they put obvious mistakes in the training material (e.g. hairline in the last example). How are they selling something when their own training material shows it's total bunk.

The time and money spent on that could be spent on actual police work...

<comment><USER2> Because it's not about accuracy. It's about generating a match, no matter how crappy. It's no different than back when they used to pick up random known criminals (usually non-white) and charge them with whatever crimes they had no leads for in order to clean up the number of open cases. Selecting the random person to pick up is now outsourced to the software. The cops can claim not to be responsible because they're just doing what the computer says. The company selling the crap can claim not to be responsible because the cops are using it wrong.

<comment><USER9> > It's about generating a match, no matter how crappy.

That's the worst thing about this kind of dragnet search is that the more comprehensive the surveillance and the more accurate the picture of the offender, the more likely it is that when you're picked up as the prime suspect in something you had nothing to do with, that you look identical to the culprit and you were in the area at that exact time and so on.

And so if you _are_ the unlucky bugger that gets caught up in it, the better the system works, the harder it is for you to argue that you actually WERE innocent. Juries aren't good at the Law of Large Numbers.

<comment><USER10> Well we can look at this from the opposite side, it eliminates more people far faster giving the authorities fewer people to check. Now this is fine provided there are sufficient rules governing that second step.

That is where the process currently fails. There are no published checks and balances.

Look, we don't have to like this one bit but we are kidding ourselves to think it can be stopped. Even the actions of San Francisco can be overridden at the state or federal level when push comes to shove if not a shift in electorate. so the task ahead is to regulate strictly how it is used and what can happen from beginning to end of life of the data. the first rule being, it can never establish guilt on its own.

<comment><USER11> There will be some percentage of false positives. If you're feeding the system with a biased, handpicked population, you will get false positive matches from that population and not from other populations. If you are on the shit list, your odds of being accused when you're actually innocent are far, far higher than those of someone not on the shit list. If the shit list is predominately black, then innocent blacks will be sent to jail more often than innocent whites. It's profiling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Fantastic, because I look like the literal twin of a very famous actor who appears in multiple current blockbusters. It's not that either of us is especially good looking, but we have that sort of face that is bland enough to take on many different looks.

</comment><comment><USER13> It will be interesting to see how facial recognition is treated as evidence. Things like, will judges grant warrants based on a 80% match but not a 70% match? Will juries consider it more or less reliable than recognition by eye witnesses? Will defense experts be able to cast doubt on certain algorithms or techniques vs others?

</comment><comment><USER14> I disagree that this is, per se, a violation of due process

As long as the matches are not being used as evidence on trials or as evidence to get warrants, the police can generate their list of leads by consulting a hamster, or by taking names out of a hat. Right? Or is there/should there be a right to not be considered a suspect on foolish motives?

Also, maybe these techniques are useful, in the sense that they allow for police to use a bad image to reduce a pool of suspects to a manageable pile that can be examined by hand.

<comment><USER15> So you would be comfortable with police essentially randomly selecting people to arrest for various unsolved crimes? And we'll just let the courts sort it out?

The reason the fourth amendment exists is exactly to prevent this sort of thing.

<comment><USER14> No, but it is my understanding that to even detain a person you need to meet some standard of evidence. I am saying: let the police use whatever lead generating method they can, as long as they are not using it as evidence to detain, search, or imprison.

That is, their system can be whatever they want to generate a list of names. Afterwards, they need evidence to search a persons house, or to detain them, or to arrest them.

(In legal lingo: I am okay with them using these methods, as long as they are not considered probable cause [https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/when- police-can-make...](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/when-police-can- make-arrest-probable-cause.html))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me of the common practice of using drug-sniffing dogs not to actually sniff out drugs but as an excuse to do a search.

I think there should be an examination and maybe some additional rules around establishing probable cause using what amounts to a divining rod.

<comment><USER16> Or the "you didn't use a turn signal" as an excuse for a traffic stop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Considering that all the research points to image recognition having basically no robustness to noise, I imagine the path here is going to be to at least block it's use in court, if not to generate the lead to begin with.

</comment><comment><USER18> Surely, having such a excellent track record- criminalistic techniques and sciences, will soon reach the level of a true science such psychology.

</comment><comment><USER19> Can't get past that awful ad play with no close button taking up half the screen

</comment><comment><USER20> So this is what actual True Detectives do?</comment>


Ask HN: Why did Microsoft not use HTML as the format for its word documents? - <AUTHOR> What's the difference between using doc vs. HTML as a document format? Why did Microsoft not use HTML instead of inventing doc format? <comment><USER2> Because Microsoft Word came out in 1983 and HTML didn't exist until 1993. Not to mention that early versions of HTML were pretty limited (CSS didn't come out until late 1996).

Also, a binary format like .doc is much more compact and faster/easier to parse, and in the 80's and 90's, computers had much less memory and processing power than they have today.

Today's Microsoft Office formats are based on XML - a .docx/.xlsx/.pptx file is a zip archive containing a directory tree of XML files (plus some binary data such as bitmap images).

</comment><comment><USER3> Microsoft started using XML-based document file formats in the early 2000s, and adopted Office Open XML in 2007. XML is like HTML but not limited to web- page markup.

The reason it wasn't always the case was that the .doc format was initially developed before HTML and XML.

The first version of Microsoft's .doc format was developed in 1983.

HTML was released in around 1991, after being developed through the late 90s, and XML emerged in the late 90s.

To be fair, Microsoft was reasonably fast to move to XML-based formats once it was clear XML was becoming an industry standard.

</comment><comment><USER4> People will come up with all sorts of opinions about this but if you want to find the actual answer for this question then you need to ask someone who was in the control of deciding about the doc format when it was first invented.</comment>


Can We Use Unpaid Interns to Do SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? - <AUTHOR> https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/429/how-can-we-use-unpaid-interns-in-our-startup-and-n.html <comment><USER2> I can tell you this topic is not as murky as this article would have you believe. There are very very few instances where you can have an unpaid intern unless you are acquiring your interns through a college/university/tra inning program and that individual is acquiring knowledge through the training they receive working for you AND they receive credit in the class/course/program for the internship.

If you Do not hire interns through a college/university/training program, it would be a very very rare circumstance where you could meet the IRS six part text for non paid internships. The IRS has determined that using an intern to carry out activities/work that replaces a paid employee requires payment. They have also ruled in the past that the utilization of an intern in lieu of hiring a contractor or employee does not meet the test and the intern must be paid. You must be training the individual in order for them to be an intern so if you are a non technical founder, you do not meet the test. If you/your startup will advantages from the work performed by the intern, you do not meet the test. If the intern is not closely supervised you do not meet the test.

Running afoul of the IRS is not something any business wants to do and particularly could be a nightmare for a startup.</comment>


Apple Reports Third Quarter Results - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/07/apple-reports-third-quarter-results/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20568853](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20568853), which was posted a hair earlier.

Usually the best third-party article is better than the press release on a corporate topic, too, though I wouldn't make a hard rule of it.</comment>


The Most Terrifying Drone Video Yet - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2013/02/19/most-terrifying-drone-video/

<comment><USER2> Cheap 3D renderings of hypothetical uses of not-so-technically-feasible dronish things. Nothing to see here.

<comment><USER3> I'm wondering if you would have said the same thing about quadcopters 10 years ago.

<comment><USER4> Quadrocopters are still unfeasible today, because their flight time is very limited.

<comment><USER5> These guys are claiming 4 to 8 hours, 4,000 feet etc. <http://www.uniteddrones.com/aether-aero/> Heck even 10 minutes flying and one day solar recharge would be awesome in an urban area for stealthy long term observation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One day when the high school dropout in the TSA feeling you up at the airport decides he doesn't like you or that you insulted him, he will be able to walk over to a monitor and trace your past month as recorded on a series of drones - all cataloged by license plate and origin addresses.

And I bet that day is by the end of this decade.

<comment><USER7> What's wrong with a high school dropout? You feel superior? Maybe you should change your attitude towards your fellow man so they don't hate you. Maybe a dropout was a drop because people like you looking down on others.

<comment><USER6> That's a valid point to challenge my thinking about some hs dropouts.

But if you feel there are any TSA workers who are thoughtful, intelligent beings, you are way off. It has massive turnover for darn good reason. Think about the lack of thought and care that has to go into taking a job like that. I mean you would have to really enjoy people hating you, enjoy violating people, or just not caring, and any of that make for a really horrible personality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This stuff is science fiction at this point. Moreover, this article / video describes this scenario, when it ever becomes technically feasible, as if it would come without regulations, without (financial) restrictions and as if no counter measures would be invented in the mean time.

<comment><USER9> On the subject of countermeasures: I worked for a defense contractor over a decade ago which was developing countermeasures for such things. On the basis of supply/demand, they obviously weren't doing it for a laugh.

With a relatively unconstrained budget, access to technology which is quite scary and secrecy regime, we might already be there behind closed doors.

<comment><USER10> how would the countermeasures for such things look like, really? I can imagine few things that would work: EMPs - nope, as they would be used most likely in a heavily populated area with everybody relying on electronics; an array of sensor systems connected to something like remote operated guns - too hard to do this without serious damage in a heavily populated are. There's few things that a team of "bad guys" operating in a heavily populated area can do to defend themselves from this tech...

<comment><USER9> Directed microwave weapons (fry RF circuits), guided high energy lasers (physical damage), barrage nets (trap), radio jamming (kill ability to return information), doping logical resting points with glue (trap), ASTOR radar (finding source and destroying), honey traps (trap), building other drones to physically knock them out (physical damage), flares (sensor overload).

That's what I came up with in a couple of minutes.

Plenty of ideas floating around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I know it might sound a little bit unethical, but I find this coming revolution (+ I really think it is a coming revolution) incredibly exciting.

Though there are endless evil creepy uses, there are also many very, very nice ones too - finding (+ even rescuing in awful weather with a _big_ UAV) missing people is an obvious one, courier delivery is another (not with micro uavs though!)

Having said that, I can't help but find the evil uses incredibly exciting too. Like military weapons that are deadly and awful in practice, there is some engineering loveliness there too (just _look_ at an F22 for an e.g.). Sue me.

<comment><USER12> _courier delivery is another (not with micro uavs though!)_

FedEx micro UAV delivery was in Vernor Vinge's 2004 short story Synthetic Serendipity[1] and set in the same universe as his 2006 novel Rainbows End.

 _"Jerry was looking upward, at the FedEx shipment falling toward his outstretched hands."_

[1] [http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/synthetic- serend...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/synthetic-serendipity)

<comment><USER11> Awesome, thanks! I will check that out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I still can't get over that perching bird drone which seems to have been designed without any concept of basic physics. It takes off via a single rotor, has no means of anti-torque, yet doesn't spin around uncontrollably during take off. It's like they asked an eight-year-old to design a drone, and then just prettied-up his drawings in 3D without talking to any engineers.

</comment><comment><USER14> The blogger who wrote this up as terrifying isn't really with the program. With a friend of mine building laser-guided mosquito zappers in her backyard, drones like these are relatively easy to deter. Of course it leads to an arms race, but maybe we'll eradicate those mid-summer bloodsuckers while we're at it.

Drone proliferation, military and civil, is unavoidable.

<comment><USER15> It depends on the cost of developing weapons, the cost of countermeasures, the relative effectiveness of both, and target selection.

Shielding high-value targets from ultra-small drones would be relatively easy. For someone bent on terror or softer targets, it's harder, and the attacker need only succeed once (or a relatively small number of times).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Of course, the bad guys are gonna get them too... oO;

"May you live in interesting times."

<comment><USER17> 'Bad guys' is very subjective. I would argue that anyone who wants a flying death machine capable of killing people with a button-push from thousands of miles away is a 'bad guy'.

<comment><USER15> The interpret the phrase as "your enemy".

The US and its allied forces presently have an overwhelming superiority in drone devices (airborne as well as land and sea based). Other parties are likely to catch up, even if only with more primitive devices and at smaller volumes of production, relatively quickly.

The scenario which becomes ... interesting ... is where all parties have access to technology of this type.

Criticisms of the US notwithstanding, the nation generally acts with some level of conscience and oversight. The same cannot be said of all adversaries. An Al Qaeda, North Korea, Iran, or African warlord with such weapons would likely have far fewer reservations in their use.

Even conventional RC aircraft, radio and GPS controls, and small explosives or other ordinance could be used to lethal effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My math teacher worked on a MAV project in the US before he moved here to become a math teacher. scary shit.

He also designed systems for heat-seaking missiles and underwater torpedoes. He's amazing in a scary, lethal way

</comment><comment><USER19> "The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer", Neal Stephenson

(as always ;) provides some additional "nice" ideas for this kind of future warefare.

</comment><comment><USER20> There have been rumors for years suggesting that these types of devices (unarmed) are already being used for domestic surveillance. It should be noted that a google search didn't reveal any solid proof beyond eyewitness accounts. <http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/insectdrone.asp>

</comment><comment><USER21> From what I understand in terms of weight vs battery life tradeoffs, flight times are limited to about 10-15 minutes on helicopter like aircraft. That's nowhere near enough for continuous operations like those illustrated in the video.

<comment><USER22> Why not?

      Fly to destination within 15 minuted.
      Sit there for days using sunlight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's worth reading the longer article linked from TFA

[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/unmanned- flight/ho...](http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/unmanned- flight/horgan-text)

</comment><comment><USER24> meh. "Most Terrifying" is a bit of hyperbole I suppose. I was expecting to see actual Assassination By Drone footage or a drone "liquidation" on US soil or something.

Did anyone really not see this coming? Pervasive, ubiquitous surveillance(+) is fairly obviously in our current-to-near-future. The fact that others will be able to build similar technology (aside from the US military/government), while scary, might be better than the alternative (one power having a monopoly on ubiquitous surveillance).

</comment><comment><USER25> Exactly the same video submitted yesterday, to extensive discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5245345>

</comment><comment><USER26> I should start a company in portable EMPs.

</comment><comment><USER27> In all honesty, despite the scary-voice narrative, I think this is a boon for urban war scenarios like Iraq. If I was a soldier, I would much rather see this vision be realized, than be the person to conduct night raids or go door- to-door to try to track someone.

Of course, this leads into being used in non-war scenarios (Minority Report style), which is where I suspect most of the discussion will center around.

<comment><USER28> You assume you were the soldier in Iraq controlling the drone, not the one that got shot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The point about "using microprocessor technology" sure makes is sound like real technology!

</comment><comment><USER30> A bit like "The most terrifying robot video yet" after seeing the Transformers trailer.

<comment><USER31> Well it was horrifying enough. I guess it's a small step to be terrified of another Transformers movie ;P

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Why would a bird or insect design use Ornithopter design rather than helicopter design?

<comment><USER33> So people think it's a bird or insect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Kinda stupid and short-sighted, I think. The technology won't work the way it's shown, it's just not feasible. What happens when you send a thousand tiny bombs or guns into a city? How do you make sure that they don't end up accidentally killing civilians (through malfunction)? How do you make sure that you don't accidentally end up arming your enemy since they can be captured with a simple net? How do you handle MAV's being counteracted by other MAV's and anti-MAV systems? How do you manage the torrent of data from an MAV swarm?

This is just a half-assed fantasy.

<comment><USER35> You don't have them going on a shooting spree unguided. Even an evil military superpower will have a human making the last call on pulling the trigger. Have the drone sending a video stream as soon as it discovers a target that seem remotely interesting. Let the operator choose what get to live another day.

Point being, a single operator can potentially control many drones spread out over a large area.

<comment><USER36> What is the benefit of a human in the loop, if he is just trained to push a button when the red light flashes? AFAIK this is essentially the situation with current bombers, a computer locks the target, and another one calculates when the bomb should be dropped. In such an szenario the 'human in the loop' is just PR, since the protocols are specifically designed to minimize the impact of said human.

<comment><USER35> Discerning between threats and civilians to a high enough certainty should be a challenge. And throwing out a bunch of drones that goes about semi-randomly doesn't have to be a liability unless they also shoot people and destroy things semi randomly.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Platform indicating how the majority of people feel - <AUTHOR> http://kaarmr.com/

<comment><USER2> I'm not the user for this, but you might have a 'market' Just one thing, don't do infinite scrolling when you have a footer, either take the footer out and put the links on the top, or don't do infinite scrolling</comment>


U.S. Sues California to Void Illegal Immigrant Protection Laws - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-07/u-s-sues-california-to-nullify-three-immigration-related-laws <comment><USER2> The Bloomberg title does not include the word "Illegal", which appears to be an editorialization in the title posted here on HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> The original Bloomberg article was misleading because there are many laws which concern immigrants, but the US is specifically going after those protecting immigrants here illegally.

Hence my more precise title.

<comment><USER3> The HN guidelines recommend not changing the title unless it is misleading or linkbait.

It sounds like you think that leaving out the "illegal" part is misleading, rather than a simplification used to make a shorter headline.

If that's so, why did you clarify it as "illegal immigrant" rather than "undocumented immigrant"? That is the term used several times in the text, and it follows the AP Stylebook recommendation, described at [https://blog.ap.org/announcements/illegal-immigrant-no- more](https://blog.ap.org/announcements/illegal-immigrant-no-more) .

As you wish people to have a respectful manner appropriate to HN, surely you must agree that the clarification " _undocumented_ immigrant" would be more respectful of the source material, yes?

Given your view that "illegal immigration is bad" ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16009093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16009093) ), I cannot help but interpret your choice of inserting "illegal" here instead of "undocumented" as editorializing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting to note that this was one of the top 10 articles on the front page then in the space of 5 seconds dropped off entirely.

Very odd...

<comment><USER4> Because in the US, at least, illegal forms of immigration can be a contentious issue where it's proven difficult for many to discuss the issue civilly and productively.

<comment><AUTHOR> Those who have trouble discussing the issue in a respectful manner appropriate to HN should be removed from the conversation, rather than the conversation itself being removed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...

<comment><USER6> Do you believe the government is overstepping its authority by stopping people from entering the country without permission? I'm curious if you support an open border and how you want to deal with the ramificiations?

<comment><USER3> The parent comment was rhetorical baffelgab. You are unlikely to get a meaningful response.

Your questions have little or nothing to do with the topic at hand, which concerns state laws that restrict state and local law enforcement officials, and private companies, from voluntarily sharing certain information with federal agents, and a law which allows state officials to review and inspect federal detention facilities in California.

What are your views on the topic? Can a state prevent voluntary sharing of information with the federal government?

I know of few people who call for truly open borders where the government has no authority to stop people from entering the country, so I don't understand why you posed your questions.

The one exception I know of is Svalbard. You can move there without a visa, if you can support yourself, live there for 7 years, and then get Norwegian citizenship.</comment></comment></comment>


NASA Scientist Wants to Colonize Venus with Floating Sky Cities - <AUTHOR> http://litostpublishing.org/2014/10/22/this-nasa-scientist-wants-to-colonize-venus-with-floating-sky-cities/

<comment><USER2> Neat! It might cool if NASA would start by send a smaller robotic balloon to Venus flow in the sky and collect pictures and data.</comment>


Secret sharing: A usable, reasonably secure alternative for PGP - <AUTHOR> I recently open sourced a tool to share secrets between one or more users using SSH keys.
Any comments, feedback welcome!<p>Here is the link: https://github.com/prbinu/zcretshare <comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/prbinu/zcretshare](https://github.com/prbinu/zcretshare)</comment>


Jordan does not block, it throttles internet access - <AUTHOR> https://netzpolitik.org/2020/jordan-throttles-not-blocks-internet-access-shutdowns-keepiton/ <comment><USER3> Egypt does something similar. They do "soft blocks" where a site they don't like will be sporadically blocked and unblocked on different ISPs, on-and-off. Visitors of that site learn to expect that the site may or may not load when they try to access it, so they bleed away and just stop trying to access it.

And the government can just say they're not blocking anyone and that it's ISP- related technical issues.

Source: am originally from Egypt and my previous startup, an independent news aggregate, is suffering this fate.

<comment><USER4> Routing traffic through a giant cdn like cloudfront + eSNI + encrypted DNS should finally put a stop to that.

<comment><USER5> Is this something site owners themselves can set up, or does it require that users use a special client or special DNS config? If you have any links, I'm sure a lot of people reading this thread would really appreciate it.

<comment><USER6> The CDN (Cloudflare etc) is something the sites set up. Encryption of DNS happens on the users' side, but I believe it's something browsers are starting to enable by default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is actually a pretty common tactic among Internet censors. The Chinese have been using this for a few years; whenever it detected an unknown protocol that looked like tunneling or VPN, it just throttles it (introducing high packet loss) without necessarily completely cutting off the connection.

Here's someone's experience: [http://blog.zorinaq.com/my-experience-with-the- great-firewal...](http://blog.zorinaq.com/my-experience-with-the-great- firewall-of-china/)

<comment><USER8> The most insidious part of this is I've never been sure if use of the site was being discouraged by the powers that be or if a more mundane, sensible explanation existed. It could be the authorities effectively censoring, it could be Chinese internet companies wanting Western competitors to have a reputation for being slow and unreliable, it could just be mundane technicalities like not bothering with peerage agreements for economic reasons, or it could be an alignment of interests between all of the above. I think not knowing who or what to blame, or even if there is a problem other than your personal connection, is the point. "My connection to certain sites seems inconveniently slow and maybe the government is doing it" is just way less sharp than "the government won't let me see this and likely has something to hide."

As counter-intuitive as it is, throttling without blocking is a more effective form of information control than blatantly blocking. The flow of information, like the flow of a river, cannot be stopped but it can be diverted and otherwise engineered.

<comment><USER9> > As counter-intuitive as it is, throttling without blocking is a more > effective form of information control than blatantly blocking.

This is equally true for removing problematic users from a site. Outright banning them might anger them to the point of becoming a bigger nuisance, but throttling them (without their knowledge) is more likely to just bore them into targeting another service.

I know I've seen others here talk about this technique too, but I'm blanking on specific examples.

<comment><USER10> Shadow banning is incredibly effective for awhile, yes.

<comment><USER9> In this case I'm talking about slowbanning: [https://blog.codinghorror.com/suspension-ban-or- hellban/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/suspension-ban-or-hellban/)

> A slowbanned user has delays forcibly introduced into every page they visit. > From their perspective, your site has just gotten terribly, horribly slow. > And stays that way. They can hardly disrupt the community when they're > struggling to get web pages to load. There's also science behind this one, > because per research from Google and Amazon, every page load delay directly > reduces participation. Get slow enough, for long enough, and a slowbanned > user is likely to seek out greener and speedier pastures elsewhere on the > internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Same thing they do in Kazakhstan for more popular sites like YouTube. I have also noticed encrypted tunnels (like WireGuard) being intolerably slow. Best thing is, you can always write this off as a problem with the network (which is the defense local politicians use most often).

<comment><USER12> In that case Kazaks should be petition to introduce a legally binding SLA for network performance in order for companies to qualify for the license to operate.

<comment><USER11> I honestly can't tell if you're joking or just not very familiar with what's happening here. What companies? There are only two major ISPs here, one of which is considered a "natural monopoly" and operates almost all networking equipment which connects us to the outside world. Other ISPs route most or all of their traffic through the major one. Needless to say, they maintain a very close connection to law enforcement agencies and to the royal family itself.

<comment><USER13> I like how you used the phrase "the royal family".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Starlink internet can't come soon enough... Seems like the only real technical solution. (In some of these places a political solutions seems to be centuries off...)

<comment><USER15> Starlink doesn't talk directly to handsets, so you'd still need a pretty large and noticeable antenna that would draw unwanted attention from the local authorities. If this style of censorship works by raising friction for your typical internet user, well your typical internet user is also not going to import a large and expensive transceiver from abroad.

I could see expats bringing a Starlink system with them into a country with questionable internet to maintain a low latency VPN connection to company servers back home, but that's about the only people that would or could use Starlink. Even Musk has said that Starlink doesn't have the bandwidth to provide service for all the users that might want to access it from an urban area like Beijing.

<comment><USER16> From my understanding, as Starlink density increases, the needed antenna should get a bit more simple and more compact. Since the satellites are intended to be geostationary, you should be able to use a very directional antenna which will also save on size versus a radome or dish.

I suspect users will also grow clever and learn how to hide antennas - <USER2> out of aesthetics than anything - which will help. More than a few Ham operators have figured out that a regular fence can hide a very large coaxial antenna.

<comment><USER15> You're going in the opposite direction of what starlink is at least based on what I heard. Starlink isn't geostationary, it's LEO. That's how they get latency down to something comparable to your typical broadband network because wireless signals don't have to travel up to geostationary orbit and back. However, LEO satellites orbit faster than the earth's rotation, so you need a whole web of mini satellites to ensure that as one satellite dips below the horizon, your antenna can switch to another satellite that's orbiting past. As you said, this needs a very directional antenna that can track a satellite. Antennas get larger the more directional they are, not smaller. I have doubts Starlink can shrink their phased array antennas smaller than their current pizza box without a host of other issues. Also, authorities aren't going to be looking for starlink antennas by sight. They'll be flying drones around listening for unauthorized wireless transmissions on starlinks frequency bands and homing in from that. Ask those ham operators how well a fence can hide their antennas from the FCC if they decide to start a pirate radio station.

<comment><USER16> Woops, you're correct re it being non-geostationary. This is what I get for reading too quickly.

Actually if the satellites are moving you may not want a heavily directional antenna since that adds in a fair bit of mechanical complexity. There are several antenna designs which have relatively wide radiation patterns, but that depends on the needed strength.

> They'll be flying drones around listening for unauthorized wireless > transmissions on starlinks frequency bands and homing in from that

That would obviously work for detection, but would be complex and expensive. I would be surprised to see such complexity from the CCP in short order unless Starlink turns out to really disrupt the firewall in a widespread way.

<comment><USER15> Check out how phased array antennas work. No mechanical parts needed. Those things are used to precisely track missiles in defense systems. The accuracy and versatility will blow your mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> That's the same case for Great Firewall of China. At least from what I experienced. Your packets are not dropped. DNS still resolves.

Chinese authorities throttle the "original" packets and flood you with nonsense content to confuse the clients.

</comment><comment><USER18> I am from Kashmir (Indian Administered), the unprecedented internet blockade that happened here has gone to become the longest in history, whole IT sector in kashmir got collapsed, thousands of poeple lost jobs, before this it used to be random internet shutdowns for a couple of days but now it is six months and it was only after 5 months we have been given access to 2G internet , which too initially was whitelisted.

</comment><comment><USER19> The Philippines also has very slow internet, and lots of throttling and intermittent package loss. They don't have a lot of their own infrastructure and their backbone seems to be dependent on China. There is also an almost- monopoly with ISPs, just enough 'competition' to allow plausible deniability regarding monopoly.

</comment><comment><USER20> The intermittent disruption of services is death by 1000 cuts. Read the Zynga story.

[http://wrongtool.kostadis.com/firewalls-killed- zynga/](http://wrongtool.kostadis.com/firewalls-killed-zynga/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Whatsapp is also completely unusable in Jordan because of this throttling. But I don't believe it's a political decision, it's the cell phone companies way of dealing with the competition.

</comment><comment><USER22> Will satellite internet solve this?

<comment><USER23> Only if satellite internet providers are so anti-censorship they are willing to put it on the line and use their tech and altitude to wantonly break local laws—so probably not.</comment></comment>


ChefHangout is a genius use of Google+ Hangouts and could actually make money - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/02/14/chefhangout-is-a-genius-use-of-google-hangouts-and-could-actually-make-money/

<comment><USER2> Can the technology support hundreds of viewers? Can you moderate people piping up with questions so it doesn't get out of control?

If so, celeb chefs even just in Australia could rake in money using this. Cooking reality shows (MasterChef, Kitchen Rules) are very popular and the chefs are often household names. I am not one for mainstream television, but the Friday night Master Classes during the MasterChef season are great.

If you put one of those names like Gary or George from MasterChef (and there are a number of Australian celebrity chefs ahead of them) in a Friday night class doing 2-3 dishes for $15, you could get 1,000 signed up if not 10-30,000 with a bit of promotion.

Imagine a season pass with a chef doing Friday night dishes. Tune in when you can or have access to archives if you're otherwise occupied. Suddenly the market for cooking classes booms.

I've done in-person cooking classes here in Australia and also in Turkey and could see myself trying out on-line streams.

Further than cooking classes, imagine name musicians teaching signature tips and tricks with a guitar or effects. Imagine Trent Reznor, or Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, doing live Friday evening jam sessions to viewers. They set up the camera, open a bottle of wine, and start mucking around. Moderators could enable fans to butt in at the right times to suggest a style or ask a question. "Hey, can you drop-D and stuff around for a bit - would love to see what you create!" Make it affordable at $10-15 and you could get hordes.

In each case, do special/limited shows for $80+ with more access to interact and get personal feedback.

Could it work? I'd love to build it.

<comment><USER3> They have Hangout OnAir for opening the Hangout to everyone, but Google is only allowing some people to use it so far. Not sure why. It would be great if they allowed everyone to use it.

Also, they need to allow the person hosting it to auto-record the Hangout so he can post it on Youtube later. It could be automatically saved in his Youtube account, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's clever, and I hope it succeeds, but:

 _This site could also be a great way for chefs to get the word out about their respective restaurants and book ventures_

... well, for generating awareness of a restaurant or a book, isn't a simple broadcast video of the same content more effective?

</comment><comment><USER5> I think this is an excellent use of the G+ technology stack.

For certain dishes or chefs, I easily see foodies and aspirational gourmands paying the price of admission.

The viability of ventures like this are very dependent on the underlying technology, but more importantly they are subject to the legal attitude of the host company - I was about to say that I would be nervous trusting my product to such a high level of vendor lock-in, but I use PaaS products as often as possible (speed kills)...

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems interesting, but overpriced. I wouldn't pay $25 for a video conference with a chef - I'd probably just find a video on youtube of how to do it for free. That said, I think it's a cool idea, and I'd love to host my own cooking sessions if I could list it for free (not sure if you can or not, didn't see any classes that were free). It'd be a fun social interaction site, but I wouldn't pay for it directly.

<comment><USER4> You're getting feedback from the chef, right? Isn't that what you're paying for?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This could apply to other services, like www.tangomeet.com, or others where they offer online video lessons.

</comment><comment><USER7> Strange, I follow the instructions to apply as a chef, but when I get to the step that says click on My Account, all I see is Manage Account. If I click on that, I don't see the Application option anywhere on the page. I'm trying to help a couple of chef friends sign up.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think this is great. My wife and I can't get out much due to the baby in the house, plus there aren't a ton of private cooking classes to be had in Wichita, KS. But we'd love to learn some more advanced techniques. We'll definitely pick out a class and give it a try!

</comment><comment><USER9> Why do I see this expanding into other "lessons". I can completely see doing something like guitar lessons this way. Or college classes, or study groups...

</comment><comment><USER10> Seems like they shouldn't have just focused on chefs, however could be a good market to test before opening up to other areas of interest. Great work!</comment>


Attachment Security, Part Deux (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.technet.com/b/kclemson/archive/2005/06/04/405887.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> What is funny is that Outlook Express used to have one of these bugs: [https://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/security/ms01-02...](https://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/security/ms01-020.aspx)</comment>


Product Team Antipatterns - <AUTHOR> http://www.allanberger.com/post/35054897217/anti-patterns-of-lean-ux

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you made an experience based upon one of the topics mentioned in this article? Do you know some Product Team Anti-Patterns everybody should be aware of? I'd love to hear your opinion.</comment>


Ask HN: Favorite board games? - <AUTHOR>

I find that most of the hackers I know tend to enjoy board games, especially designer board games. I thought it'd be interesting to see what everyone is playing. I'm always ready to pick up and learn a new game that's been recommended to me. Do you play? What games are your favorites? Any really obscure games that you like?<p>Currently my favorite game is Carcassonne. Other games I usually play are Ticket to Ride and Settlers (of course). I just bought Memoir '44 and am anxious to play my first game of it. <comment><USER2> Risk, Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico

Someone just set up an _Atlanta startup community board game night_ where we get startup-minded folks to play strategy board games like these once a quarter.

<comment><USER3> Risk is great. Does anyone know a good online community for Risk (i.e. where you can play Risk online)?

<comment><USER4> you can try out kdice. pretty similar to risk

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Modern Art is pretty fun, and since it's auction-based you end up thinking about negotiation and valuations.

I'm learning to play Go, and it really appeals to me in the same way Lisp might - simple, elegant, but with endless depth.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure if Go is in the intended category of "board games" as that term is being used here, but I must also recommend it.

Learning Go, I found all other games began to seem dull by comparison.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's rather silly, but I seriously love "The Farming Game" (<http://www.farmgame.com/>).

Maybe it's the whole running a business aspect, or just that I really like tractors.

</comment><comment><USER8> Risk, Talisman, Arkham Horror and Android. The latter two are really good, but they could be a bit frustrating if you've never played anything like them again. Once you get the hang of it though they are really addicting.

</comment><comment><USER9> I enjoy Backgammon and Checkers, Scrabble and Monopoly.

My current affair is with Rubik's Cubes, though--but that's not the exact question here.

</comment><comment><USER10> List of nice games <http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame>

</comment><comment><USER11> Civilization (out of print) Industria Carcassonne Pueto Rico

</comment><comment><USER12> Another vote for Settlers, also axis and allies is good.

</comment><comment><USER13> backgammon.

started playing it recently when i got a new job and the guys at my new firm play it. fun as hell.

</comment><comment><USER14> Robo Rally

</comment><comment><USER15> Chess.</comment>


Show HN: Markdown-UI – Write UI/UX with Markdown Syntax - <AUTHOR> http://jjuliano.github.io/markdown-ui/ <comment><USER2> I don't know what to make of this. I like the general idea but I really don't like the use of Markdown here.

Markdown makes writing markup faster and reading markup easier. It's a limited set of syntax elements optimised for writing and reading text. No more, no less. It is not, however, a new set of language elements to be used for whatever purpose.

For example, how is this:

      __Basic Button|Icon:User,Text:Add Friend__

Any better than this?

      <button icon="user" text="Add Friend">

Even YAML seems to be much better suited for structured data like this.

      button
          icon: text
          text: Add Friend

If your aim really is to "lessen the cognitive load", why not work with tools that better work towards that goal?

<comment><USER3> At the end of the first draft, this YAML convention will become Jade.

<comment><USER4> I think I would actually like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Please don't ever make buttons with <div>s! [0]

Focusable should be the default, as many folks can't (or don't want to) use a mouse. Use the semantic <button> tag or even just an <a> with role="button" and you'll get accessibility for free.

[0]: [http://thatjdanisso.cool/a11y/clicking-with-a- keyboard/](http://thatjdanisso.cool/a11y/clicking-with-a-keyboard/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, thanks noted, let me research on using the <button> semantic vs. <div> more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the idea of using something like Markdown to write GUI descriptions. But I don't think pressing a meta-language into Markdown is the way to go. Better use the same principles and create your own language. The principles are: text is formatted nearly the same way a plain text email would have been formatted, overview of the grammar is more important than complexity.

Don't be disappointed though if the result is not better than the solutions using XML, JSON or YAML that already exist.

Maybe something like funciton would add a new perspective to it: [http://esolangs.org/wiki/Funciton](http://esolangs.org/wiki/Funciton)

<comment><USER7> This is exactly what PIC is for images: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pic_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pic_language)

<comment><USER6> I really like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOT_%28graph_description_langu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOT_%28graph_description_language%29) for diagrams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why not just inline html? doesn't conflict with pre-existing markdown specifications, more usable for breaking out of document flow (if one is making a proper form, this helps a lot)

> Focusable Button

why not just have all of them be focus-able? I mean, unless you have a strong dislike of people who don't use mice, this shouldn't be an option

<comment><USER9> My guess as to the reason for not using inline html, is that according to the markdown spec, block-level elements can't have markdown inside of them. So his DIV buttons couldn't have markdown formatting inside them otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I built something similar called Formdown: [https://github.com/bradgessler/formdown](https://github.com/bradgessler/formdown)

If you're wondering why something like this would be useful, it's great for prototyping interactive web pages of UIs. A non-technical person can easily write out their ideas and a more technical person can covert the markdown into real form markup.

</comment><comment><USER11> Anyone interested in this should also look at

* Marx, the CSS framework without classes: [https://github.com/mblode/marx](https://github.com/mblode/marx)

* Classless, the HTML5 framework and themes for CMS-like templates: [http://fiatjaf.alhur.es/classless/](http://fiatjaf.alhur.es/classless/)

</comment><comment><USER12> What is the different goal here compared to Salt? [http://plantuml.sourceforge.net/salt.html](http://plantuml.sourceforge.net/salt.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> It's a good beginning even if there are already some good alternatives out there as well.

Wishing to see how you solve the problems of layouts and nested layouts (including transitions in between). I really hope you can simplify the current state of the art, because, at least for me personally UI programming is a pain (too many options and abstractions I do not know).

<comment><AUTHOR> For some of us technical programmers it's hard to come up with a website or UIs than doing backend work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's not what User Experience means.

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe I'm not getting something quite right, but why is there a "UX" in the title?

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't get the fascination with "markdown". Even for messaging systems, BBcode ([i]like this[/i]) was easier. Markdown is always fighting with indentation for other purposes.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't think this should use the name of "Markdown" in the name, this is a niche feature this just waters down the meaning of "Markdown".

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm not willing to learn a new set of markup just to not write some HTML (I'm glad that Markdown plays nice with it).

<comment><USER19> Seriously! Every editor in the world by now has an Emmet plugin (possibly still called "zencoding" if it hasn't been updated in a while), and I'd rather write an easy-to-learn superset of CSS selector syntax, then generate conformant HTML from it right there in my editor, any day of the week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> link to repo [https://github.com/jjuliano/markdown- ui](https://github.com/jjuliano/markdown-ui)

<comment><AUTHOR> The demo site itself is written in markdown, I'll fix this thanks.</comment></comment>