The Airline of the Future - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/romanitup/status/1242866315997728768 <comment><USER2> Why are we supposed to believe anything this person says.

Twitter profile shows CTO of a bitcoin startup and i don't see anything else that this person knows anything above baseline about airlines.

Comments seem like "Things that I think would make a ideal airline if I controlled the universe"

<comment><USER3> It's a classic idea generation exercise. It isn't a prediction even if worded as such. I found it interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm really really skeptical on the one: "This model also allows a lot more freedom to crew members, without them letting airlines run their lives. Pilots would be less sleep deprived (which is crucial) due to more flexibility. They essentially become freelancers.". Sounds a lot like Uber, doesn't actually provide the freedom nor sleep one expected...

This looks like a startup idea that, if Softbank puts some billions in, could again fuck up an entire industry, and let people down.

</comment><comment><USER5> Uncited thoughts of non-aviation person from unrelated industry who says they know no one in the airline industry.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ya, more rambling twitter nonsense from some no body!

</comment><comment><USER7> How the airline business works:

\- airlines are heavily regulated

\- slots are owned by airlines

\- pilot unions control major US airlines

\- a large percentage of airliners are already owned by leasing companies

\- airline flights are dispatched

\- airlines hedge fuel prices in advance.

\- pilot training is done on specific models and they do route checks. Their "personal business model" is based on seniority at one airline, not like Uber drivers

\- virtually anybody can start a new airline under the above rules.

<comment><AUTHOR> Once the market situation changes (already did, actually) these things will change too. Regulations, slots & unions are things to have during the good times. Unions won't save you when there's no demand, no one will buy slots when there's no demand, regulations are useless if no one is flying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting perspective.

It seems like an uberpool in the sky.

My question is, the risk of owning the planes needs to land _somewhere_. Who holds that bag?

<comment><USER9> according to the tweets, the concept is that the airline books a plane and crew from a charter company, shifting the risk onto them. this implies the charter industry drastically scales up.

the separation of concerns definitely makes this an appealing concept from an engineer's perspective, but it's probably not great for the airline. if you don't actually fly/own the planes yourself, you probably lose most of your ability to differentiate yourself from competitors. plus the charter companies are going to be a lot harder to push around than a bunch of uber drivers, so they probably end up capturing most of the profit themselves.

edit: I also doubt that "most passengers" would be okay with the arrival time (or even date!) being TBD at the time of booking. for city-to-city travel, it might be fine, but if the flight is just the first leg of a journey that ends with a four hour drive, you probably want to know in advance that you're not arriving at 10pm local time.

<comment><USER10> > _if you don 't actually fly/own the planes yourself, you probably lose most > of your ability to differentiate yourself from competitors_

There's been a whole ad campaign by someone who says we are being fooled by the big legacy airlines when they delegate their routes to SkyWest or HorizonAir. These operators don't seem to be too different to the charters that you're talking about.

<comment><USER9> I'd actually never heard of either of those before reading your comment. looks like skywest flies routes for american airlines, delta, and united. frankly I don't fly those very much and I couldn't tell you what the difference between those brands is supposed to be in the first place. horizon seems to be an odd setup. they only fly for alaska airlines which is owned by the same company as horizon itself (?).

I mainly fly southwest, which I find to be a markedly different experience than the other US domestic airlines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I hate to burst this guys bubble, but:

1) Airlines not owning any aircraft or flight crew have existed since forever. It's called "wet leasing", and all of the majors do it to some degree.

2) The concept that OP is describing (essentially UberPool) has already been tried. The most recent iteration of this is from Blackbird, and, assuming you can work out the legal issues, it is much more expensive than flying commercial because of unions, fuel, airport fees (which you as the airline owner still have to pay, even if the aircraft is under lease) and safety.

3) The model of scheduling flights based on crowdsourcing demand would work if aircraft wasn't bloody fucking expensive and everyone didn't want to go to their destination right now for as cheaply as possible. The problem is that aircraft is bloody fucking expensive and most people want to go to their destination right now as cheaply as possible. In order to make the economics work, you have to schedule flights, and because tons of factors go into that, you have to do this well in advance.

4) The reason why Spirit Airlines, known for "notoriously cheap" flights, and Southwest Airlines are the most profitable airlines right now (and are the least worried about what's happening right now, which is to say, they are shitting their pants less than the other guys) is because people absolutely want to travel and will go to great lengths to do it. People visit families. People attend sports events and concerts. People want to hang out in places that aren't home. VACATIONS. All of these are things that air travel has made significantly easier because, let's face it, folks would rather fly for 1.5 hours than drive for 8 if they can afford it.

If only businesses and wealthy folks (i.e. OP, maybe) were the only people who wanted to fly, a coach seat from LaGuardia to Miami would be at least $1200 and y'all here would want to work for American Airlines instead of Facebook because it would pay well and come with travel benefits (i.e. the 50s, 60s and 70s).

Now, for real talk:

1\. Airlines are hurting, but many of the legacy carriers have switched to flying cargo because who else is gonna deliver 10M N95 masks to Germany hot off the press? Given the demand at the moment, many are willing to pay the premium prices airlines are setting.

2\. I (and probably many others) can almost guarantee that the day/week that COVID-19 becomes manageable (through vaccine, anti-viral or otherwise), travel demand will shoot through the moon. 9/11 was devastating long-term because many people are afraid of flying, and ramming two narrowbodies into tall buildings exacerbated that. This, while potentially more devastating than 9/11 economically, really has nothing to do with flying.

3\. If anything, airlines will use this experience to learn how to build their reserves more efficiently. Things will definitely change, but I don't think the changes will be as drastic as OP claims (or as 9/11 was to the industry, and rightfully so).</comment>


OpenID to Save Anti-Spam, Anti-Spam to Save OpenID - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/magnolia_openid_to_save_anti-spam_anti-spam_to_save_openid.php

<comment><USER2> Also now using Clickpass :). Easiest to get to from your Clickpass homepage.</comment>


Ask HN: FontAwesome crowdfunding 1/2 million .. Let's Encrypt, $32K – Why? - <AUTHOR> Come on guys, I love FontAwesome and they have done a great crowdfunding video and rewards, etc., but Let's Encrypt not only saves you money, it makes everyone safer! Go participate! https://www.generosity.com/community-fundraising/make-a-more-secure-web-with-let-s-encrypt <comment><USER2> The comparison is probably not fair for LetsEncrypt, but you're right that we should help with its campaign.

Thank you for raising awareness!</comment>


A Y Combinator point of view and helpful resources - <AUTHOR> http://keepitfresh.frid.ge/post/3915901768/a-fresh-ycombinator-point-of-view-and-helpful

<comment><USER2> Looks very polished!

I clicked on "Instant Personal Social Networks" expecting it to go somewhere, like maybe a page with more details - I think I was fooled by the ellipsis. IF you created such a page, a small "Or learn more..." button linking to it after the Get Started button might be helpful, so say if the video wasn't working, abd I hadn't found the other link, I still can). Finally, the last frame of your video should be a call to action, so I'm not left with a black hole on the screen. Oh, and link your logo on your blog to the main website, not to itself. You want the blog to drive traffic to the big enchilada.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the tips! we are in the middle of updating our "getting started" flow which isn't as optimized as it should be.

this and a full featured native experience is coming in the next few weeks!</comment></comment>


Charles – Web Debugging Proxy Application - <AUTHOR> https://www.charlesproxy.com/ <comment><USER2> I actually use a local instance of nginx/openresty as my web debugging proxy. I should write a blog on it or something, since it seems like few people do.

It's free. It's a breeze to set up, all you need to do is point it at the upstream server you are testing, and it has lua support so you can write code and modify requests on the fly, strip headers, inject things with code.

All the work is already done to manipulate HTTP requests and responses in nginx so it is actually really smooth, there is no learning curve of a new tool, and everything just works.

<comment><USER3> I would greedily read a write-up about this.

<comment><USER2> Cool! I'll write it this week and get back to you.

<comment><USER4> Please post it here on HN when you're done. I'd love to read such a tutorial as well!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've had a license for Charles Proxy for the last 9 years and it's been a seriously useful tool, not just for introspecting http/https traffic (and recording those sessions to attach to tickets), but for dynamically modifying requests and responses.

couple of examples that come to mind:

* Want to test your production/deployed app against a dev/local api server? Have it redirect traffic to a different host and rewrite any headers required (production vs dev api keys for example) - That includes DNS spoofing and re-mapping host names as required.

* Found a bug on a web site and want to test a fix to the javascript without setting up a whole environment? Copy the javascript file in question to your hdd, modify it as desired and have Charles serve that file up when the browser/app requests the original

I don't have any connection to the author; just been well worth its price for me.

</comment><comment><USER6> We use Charles extensively at work, it's a great tool.

The only thing that really annoys me is that, this being a Java app, the interface works slightly different than the standard OS X interface I'm using to.

I regularly use cmd + backspace, for example, to delete all text until between the beginning of the line and the cursor. In Charles this is a hot key that removes all recorded requests. There are more of such things.

I've been looking for a similar app with a native UI, but haven't been able to find one yet.

<comment> aggregator-ios Give [https://interceptapp.xyz](https://interceptapp.xyz) a try. Fully native. Currently in alpha.

Disclosure: I'm the developer.

<comment><USER7> Nice, the part about JSON schema decoding seems useful. I've done that by hand and ripped apart enough curl requests from chrome network tools -> right click -> copy as curl to want an easier way. Paw can also import HTTP requests into itself (free plugin) and export Python Requests code or different curl or many other versions for different languages, as well as inspecting the request and response headers and bodies, making things like the Authorization header super easy, etc. We use it at work quite a bit and go as far as documenting the APIs for things with a paw file (you could get the same thing with a Swagger doc and the swagger ui, and sometimes we do that as well). [https://luckymarmot.com/paw](https://luckymarmot.com/paw) (I'm not affiliated with them in any way beyond being a paying user grateful for a nice tool).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Betwixt is amazing, you can use the familiar Chrome Dev Tools interface for debugging web requests.

[https://github.com/kdzwinel/betwixt](https://github.com/kdzwinel/betwixt)

</comment><comment><USER9> OWASP Zed Attack Proxy is a proxy for pentesting - [https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Zed_Attack_Proxy_Proje...](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Zed_Attack_Proxy_Project)

</comment><comment><USER10> Charles saved my life last year. I had just been promoted to systems administrator, but given no access to any systems. Like, no access to the IIS server, and no access to the SQL Server instance!

That didn't stop them from expecting me to diagnose what was wrong with their custom app. When I noticed that I also could submit test data to a test store in the app on my iPhone (it was an exclusively mobile only app) I ran the app through Charles and discovered that the app was spitting back a SQL Server error - that the disk was full.

48 hours later and the so called database gurus in South Africa had fixed the issue. I would be prevented Dom gaining access to these critical systems throughout my time at that company.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you make third party web applications, Javascript or whatnot to include on someone else's page, then Charles or similar is a must-have when you have non- technical and semi-technical people helping with customer issues. Almost anyone can use Charles to make the simple assessments of a problem, root cause, wolf-fencing, etc.

In the technical groups, Charles can usually be bettered for ease of use by custom tools for specific use cases. It is pretty quick and easy to use the proxy libraries in Node.js to throw together internal tools with a command line interface, for example.

</comment><comment><USER12> mitmproxy is a fantastic tool and free. This is just marketing spam.

[https://mitmproxy.org](https://mitmproxy.org)

<comment><USER13> >marketing spam

Why does team must-do-everything-in-the-terminal always come off as so religiously provocative and desperate? Not everyone is obsessed with their keyboard and feel like going through a huge learning curve to use basic tools, most of us prefer utilizing the mouse and GUIs.

<comment><USER14> The op didn't even mention mitmproxy is a terminal tool. You're being a little too sensitive by automatically assuming this is a GUI vs terminal war.

People would have less problem if the submitted was an open source tool, GUI or not.

P.S. Terminal application does have tremendous advantage when you work on a headless server. I used mitmproxy and it's great. The ncurse'd interface isn't harder to use than that of a GUI.

<comment><USER12> Thanxs. Exactly what I thought. Anyway I'm not against Charles but better use other channels to publitize a prized app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Use this religiously at work, fantastic tool.

<comment><USER16> Same. It's really great for reverse engineering the endpoints mobile applications use.

<comment><USER17> any idea how to decode the HTTPS traffic ? Note the server and client is run by us.

<comment><USER18> You can install a self signed certificate by Charles on your device and trust it. Then you can decrypt the traffic from your device using Charles as a proxy. Really easy,really nice.

<comment><USER19> To add, it's basically 1-click for the iOS simulator install, my favourite feature

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Charles is one of those applications like Sublime Text that delivers value far in excess of the purchase price.

Plus, the Charles icon on Mac is always an idiosyncratic delight to see in the dock.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've been using it daily for years. Just wish it had some scripting capability for rewriting requests etc. Perhaps Jython integration...

</comment><comment><USER22> I prefer netfox! [https://github.com/kasketis/netfox](https://github.com/kasketis/netfox)

</comment><comment><USER23> Is anybody aware of alternatives? I'd like to compare before deciding which one to embrace.

<comment><USER24> I am most familiar with Telerik's free product Fiddler. Looks like a similar feature set to Charles.

[http://www.telerik.com/fiddler](http://www.telerik.com/fiddler)

<comment><USER25> On Windows at least, Fiddler has always been the tool of choice for this amongst everyone I know too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> You can't use this to workaround pinned certificates right?

It's very powerful, but unfortunately it just caused the first mobile I tried to misbehave, I'm assuming because the certificate was pinned.

</comment><comment><USER27> Well, since this is up here: Does anyone else get an error in Firefox when using Charles on sites that use HSTS?

I can't use Charles at all in Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER28> Can someone please enumerate the advantages compared to, let's say Chrome dev tools? Tried to google to no avail. Thanks in advance.

<comment><USER29> Applications other than web browsers send and receive network traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Great tool, I have used this to learn how some apps interact with theirs corresponding back ends.

</comment><comment><USER31> Looks like a nice tool, too expensive for me though.

<comment><USER32> After the trial period is done, it doesn't stop working, it just becomes nagware. All the functionality is there, but it will close itself after 30 minutes, and every once in a while will pause for five seconds to ask you to buy a license.

I've used the nagware version at work while waiting for purchasing approval. It's perfectly functional for the work I do, and only very slightly annoying. YMMV depending on your needs (I never need it for more than ten minutes at a time).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Still doesn't render html?

</comment><comment><USER34> Why is this spam on the frontpage?

<comment><AUTHOR> Could be becaus I loved it and posted it to HN, and I wasn't the only one?

I prefer using MITMproxy/dump together with Node but this is a lot more simpler tool to get your head around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Great tool. Don't like the marketing spam though. I'd like a scripting Api though.</comment>


NASA, Industry Test Additively Manufactured Rocket Engine Injector - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/july/nasa-industry-test-additively-manufactured-rocket-engine-injector-0 <comment><USER2> "Additive manufacturing" is pretty vague, wish this went into more detail on what specific process they're testing. I'm hoping it's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_beam_freeform_fabricat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_beam_freeform_fabrication) just because it's so awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> The article _does_ mention "selective laser melting manufacturing technology".</comment></comment>


Show HN: Delta News – Hottest news stories shared by your Twitter friends - <AUTHOR> http://deltup.com

<comment><USER2> The people I like to follow on twitter most are those that are laser-focused on producing content related to one thing. Conan O'Brien, for example, almost exclusively tells jokes. I don't want to read his re-tweet of some fan's comment, for example. These make Twitter a lot less useful. A complement to your service would be to remove these less useful tweets from my feed, and just show in aggregate the links that were tweeted, as you currently do. I've spent very little time on Twitter; maybe this kind of service was first offered years ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that would ideal way to use twitter. But most of the people don't use twitter for that. For example, Mashable has 4.3M followers, what they do is tweet every 15 minutes or so with their links, sharing a link multiple times. And for these 4.3M followers those, the kind of tweets you mentioned will get buried among these tweets.

But its very difficult to separate the "less useful" tweets. For example @pmarca shares a lot of links always accompanied by some comment. But a lot of people share just the title and the link and can be considered less useful in a sense that it should be displayed in a list like in Delta.

Still that's a great idea, and increase the utility of twitter for a lot of users. I never thought of that. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Once you sign in with your twitter account, Delta goes through your home timeline to find the stories that were shared by your friends recently. Then a Reddit/HN like list of stories is created, where each tweet containing the story is considered an upvote.

Will this be helpful for news consumption? Any other suggestions to make it better?</comment>


Intel Announces Xeon W-3175X: 28-Core Processor for Extreme Workstations - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/13449/intel-announces-xeon-w3175x-28core-processor-for-extreme-workstations <comment><USER2> In a surprise to no one, it doesn't run at 5 Ghz like their demo did. Still, 4.3 is very impressive for that many cores. I'm curious how it stacks up against the 32-core threadripper.

<comment><USER3> Didn't they use liquid nitrogen cooling and "forgot to mention it"? [1]

[1] [https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-28-core- cpu-5ghz,372...](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-28-core- cpu-5ghz,37244.html)

<comment><USER4> I guess it should stop being surprising that, just like in June, Intel can't seem to cope with amd beating them. They just outright lied in June (your article reminds us), and this seems like a slightly smaller lie?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 265 W TDP stock, yet comes with an unlocked multiplier? Good luck with overclocking. 5 GHz (as demoed) won't be easily attainable.

Interestingly, AMD's TR 2990WX has a 100 MHz lower clock rate (3.0/4.2 GHz), but achieves a TDP of 250 W with 32 physical cores. It will be interesting to see their power efficiencies (i.e. FLOPS/W) compared.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm wondering why dual-Xeon Silvers aren't more popular?

Xeon Silver goes up to 12-cores (but the 10-core seems best price/performance). So dual-Xeon Silver 10-core gives you 2x10 cores in NUMA configuration.

You get AVX512 from Xeon Silver. You compromise slightly due to NUMA architecture but less so than Threadripper (2x NUMA) or EPYC (always 4x NUMA).

Xeon Silver 4114 x2 gives you 12-memory channels, 2x10 Cores (40-threads). Nominally it was supposed to be under $600 per chip, but its closer to $750 at the moment. Even then, Dual Xeon Silver seems to be the best price/performance from Intel.

\</comment><comment>----

The Xeon W-3175X is a singular NUMA node with 28-cores is nifty for sure, but its a niche product. Threadripper demonstrates that the typical consumer can handle NUMA nodes.

I can't imagine that most people need tight-thread integration that the W-3175X would give you.</comment>


Microsoft to Add React JSX Support to Visual Studio 2015 - <AUTHOR> https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2015/02/20/react-for-web-essentials.aspx <comment><USER2> Why? I hate reactjs and the jsx format... ember is so much more powerful. i know, it's probably not apples to apples. but why patch together 10 different techs to get a web app up and running when ember and ember cli, does it all for you.

PS: I am open to convert over, so convince me :)

<comment><AUTHOR> React is not about doing everything for you. It's about creating discrete pieces that can be composed into more complex UI elements. Ember, Angular, etc, are all doing too much imo. I much prefer the granularity provided by React.

Regarding JSX, I was a little put off by some new 'bastard' JS format but all it really does is allow you to write HTML in your JS code and have syntax highlighting and all the benefits of those tags being first class citizens in the language for a change. This allows you to write much more clean HTML inside your JS without a ton of commas and escape characters, etc. I personally think it's worth it, but JSX is optional- you can always write pure JS which is what the JSX crosscospiler spits out for you.

Take some time to play around with it, the lightbulb moment hits pretty earlier for most people because this isn't a radical change compared to most of the big JS libraries out there.</comment></comment>


Hagel speech signals major shift in defense procurement approach - <AUTHOR> http://journalstar.com/news/national/read-the-text-of-hagel-s-speech-at-national-defense/article_98df9b79-8f8b-5a9b-a081-977af6aacd2b.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The shift away from expensive top-down procurement to lower cost bottom-up solutions seems to me to have important implications for startups.</comment>


From Italy with Wine – Collio Wine Zone - <AUTHOR> http://www.fromitalywithwine.com/2017/07/from-italy-with-wine-collio-wine-zone.html <comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! there is a big job around this post..</comment>


WhatsApp to impose new limit on forwarding to fight fake news - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/07/whatsapp-to-impose-new-limit-on-forwarding-to-fight-fake-news <comment><AUTHOR> Does this imply that WhatsApp is not end-to-end encrypted and Facebook can read the contents of the messages in order to determine what is being forwarded?

<comment><USER2> I think it's more a sort of message ID than its content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ooh, I love this. We need thought police to control what we send, not accurate information and facts. What a convenient way!</comment>


Why waiters who don't write your order down aren't as amazing as you thought - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@doublethought/why-waiters-who-dont-write-your-order-down-aren-t-just-as-amazing-as-you-thought-bfeded5453b1 <comment><USER2> mostly because lot of them don't get my order right.</comment>


Linkrdr - Next Gen Feed Reader - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupsea.com/2012/02/linkrdr-next-gen-feed-reader.html

<comment><USER2> nice start. Get me a way to import the opml file of my feeds from google reader and I'll give it a serious go. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> Founder here: Added OPML support. Give it a try!

<comment><USER2> very nice! I'll keep playing with that over the next few days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I didn't want to sign up, but I did anyway.

Then, when I signed up, it didn't have any feeds.

After that, I closed it.

<comment><USER5> I also added a feed. Then it sorted some links for me. I didn't understand how to use it or what it was supposed to do.

After that, I closed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Agree with the others on the OPML import. Also, would be a lot more interesting to be able to link into Twitter and pull links from all of the people I follow (or certain lists), rather than have to add them individually.

</comment><comment><USER7> It should use link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" to discover feeds.

</comment><comment><USER8> The app looks promising but you'd have to show a bit more before I create yet a other account.

How much research/interviewing did you do before building the UI/UX? I ask because I'm curious to know your findings, e.g. an outline style expandable list of stories performed better than the magazine style that was popularized by Flipboard.

Also, is there an easy way to collapse similar stories. I hate reading the same story about Apple 10 times from different news sources (not picking on Apple, just as an example).

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe I'm missing something, but did signing in via an external service (facebook) give me any sort of benefits or save me any time? It doesn't seem to have pulled any feeds in from FB, and I had to create a username regardless. That said, it certainly has potential and I'd be interested to see this in a slightly more fleshed out form.

Also: not sure this link needed to be proxied through "startupsea.com" - I got more context from the homepage of the app itself than your ads & short description gave. Sorry!

</comment><comment><USER10> I would group "My Feeds" and "Add Feeds" into a single page "Manage Feeds" because having one page to add feeds and one which essentially only lets you delete them is a bit much.

also the default action on clicking a link title should be open the link not expand the box. Most of the time I would want to click the top few links, have them load in the background and then browse through them, having to click the open link button or expand and click seems a bit convoluted.

</comment><comment><USER11> Protip: don't host HTTP things on ports other than 80 and 443. This site has its CSS and Javascript files hosted on other ports which are blocked for me.

</comment><comment><USER12> Any links to the Privacy Policy?

</comment><comment><USER13> I think the "Take the tour" should be renamed "FAQ"

I was hoping to see some shots of it in action before I signed up.

<comment><USER14> Same here, I don't really understand what it does, or why I should spend 10 minutes registering and setting it up just to find out.</comment></comment>


I am declaring war on the phone zombie apocalypse - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@andrewdoherty/i-am-declaring-war-on-the-phone-zombie-apocalypse-4623a5836c42 <comment><USER2> About time ;)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes!

</comment><comment><USER4> yes please!</comment>


Ask HN: Which managed VPS will you recommend? - <AUTHOR>

Need some recommendations for managed VPS hosting for someone who is n00b in linux administration.<p>Something like linode 512 but managed.
Budget is less than $50/month. <comment><USER2> Linode is great. Even if you don't use them (you should), their docs are definitely worth looking at, as they have tutorials on most of the setup and config stuff you'll want to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> I personally use and like linode but this is for a friend who has no experience with linux. He develops on WAMP and till date has been using shared hosting. Linode library has good documentation but I doubt Linode is for someone like him.

What he needs is better performance than shared hosting( specifically in terms of handling high traffic) and ease of use.

Ideally, a preconfigured VPS with a control panel.

<comment><USER3> <http://www.webfaction.com/> might be a good choice. I used it two years ago for a while and was very satisfied with performance and their (custom) control panel. Also, I remember they had very good docs and support staff that actually knew what they were doing.

Highly recommended based on my two years old experience.

edit: It's not a VPS, but based on your description, you should check it out.

<comment><USER4> Second this! I have a linode (use for OpenVPN) and a webfaction (personal websites). The nice thing about webfaction is that its kind of a cross between VPS and a shared hosting. You get shell access (i.e. you get to learn SSH on Red Hat Linux) and makes spawning off as many websites as you want extremely easy to do. Also, is probably the best place to host a django site, the support is amazing.

Shameless plug: my webfaction affiliate link is in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> RailsPlayground offers VPSs starting at $20 per month with optional management service that costs $15 per month [1]. They offer VPS images that include control panels: cPanel ($12 per month) or Virtualmin (free).

That said, you will need to familiarize yourself with the OS, control panel, and the other software that's included in the VPS image that you use. With this in mind, I think your time would be better spent learning how to set up a server. One of the biggest regrets of my career is the time I wasted trying to take shortcuts (e.g., using text editors other than Vim and Emacs).

[1] <http://railsplayground.com/plans-products/vps/>

</comment><comment><USER6> If you're noob in linux administration, look for a host who offers cPanel.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any specific recommendations?

<comment><USER6> <http://iweb.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> servint.com is pretty good.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I make using a computer distraction free? - <AUTHOR> If I could ditch the computer altogether, I'd do so in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, to do my job, fulfill errands, or to make most projects happen in the modern world I usually need access to a computer and to the internet.
Are there ways to address this problem? pg mentioned getting a computer that wasn't connected to the internet, but admitted that the strategy didn't work.[0]
What are your strategies?
[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html <comment><USER2> \- Editing your /etc/hosts to block the worst offending sites that offer no real value

\- Using tools that augment sites that are distracting but can be useful (e.g. YouTube)[1]

\- Using website blockers - I made one that uses AI to recognise what is and isn't on task [2]

\- For me the single biggest thing is changing my physical environment for better habits. E.g. coffee shops and coworking spaces aren't the best for focused work but they at least make me more consciously aware that I should be working and not wasting time on distractions. Obviously you are in an office this may be difficult to change though.

[1] - [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mindfultube- youtub...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mindfultube-youtube- witho/gbgflbnpknldkjbbhmgbdalgjadgjfok?hl=en)

[2] - [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/deepmode- intellige...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/deepmode-intelligent- webs/kgkiahkjnfjbmdehoiggjnhljkjpdlcp?hl=en)

<comment><USER3> The deepmode extensions sounds great. But how does it know, what I am supposed to be working on? And how does it handle context switches? For example programming, then literature research.

<comment><USER2> You set a task description on the extension's popup page and then this gets sent to the API which will figure what the relevant categories are (this doesn't always work perfectly but you can edit them yourself after).

If you want to switch contexts you can just set a new task, although if the topic is the same - e.g. machine learning both in the case of programming and literature research then you shouldn't need to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Same issue. Now I use an _website /application blocker_. I set up a schedule 8:30~19:00 so that I can't access distractions during my workday, even If I wanted to! My tool of choice is _focus_ [https://heyfocus.com/?utm_source=focus_about](https://heyfocus.com/?utm_source=focus_about) I'm not affiliated to the developer, I just really like the app. I locked down the settings so that there's no way to undo the block while it's running: the lack of options is oddly freeing and it forces me to face the issues at hand. I also set up a night schedule 22:00~6:00 so that I don't waste a good night's sleep online (but I do cheat on that sometimes...).

Secondly, I use _Adblock Plus_ and other plug-ins to edit out parts of websites. I removed the homepage, _up next_ and recommendations from my youtube experience. That sidebar at the side of every article/video? Gone. I can't recommend this enough, modern webpages are exhausting to look at.

Lastly, I recommend you to edit your _host file_ to block annoying content while browsing: [https://github.com/4skinSkywalker/anti-porn-hosts- file](https://github.com/4skinSkywalker/anti-porn-hosts-file). You can find all sorts of lists online to suit your needs. Note that the host file blocks whole websites (e.g. _reddit.com_ ), not specific pages ( _reddit.com /r/news/_). Good luck with your effort!

</comment><comment><USER5> I find I'm most productive by postponing heavy browser usage until later in the day. So I start by postponing mindless browsing until then. When trying to avoid distractions, I only open my browser for a specific tasks and close it when it's complete. I don't open my browser if the tasks or inquiry can be postponed until later (for me, innocent sounding inqueries often end up being time-killing hydras - postponing it keeps my priorities in check, and often my interest in the task or inquiry doesn't even survive the day (on the contrary, an unimportant inquiry or tasks can easily suck up a couple hours)). I found logging my browser usage, both time spent running and why I was using it, to be helpful too. I don't do that often though, but when I feel I've wasted too much time surfing I try and crack down.

On top of that, I try and write scripts to avoid opening the browser - it also saves me from having to enter stuff into the log :^) The most frequently used example is a youtube scraper (download the first x videos for query y).

I'm also a heavy Emacs user, so I apply some of the methods towards avoiding endless elisp tinkering, as that can be a timesink too! On the topic of Emacs, I will add one last thing: keeping an agenda in org mode and deliberately clocking in and out of tasks helps me stay focused on what I'm doing - I seem to respect the clocked in time much more.

[https://nosurf.org/](https://nosurf.org/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I struggled with this very problem OP and that lead me to build Focus Window ([https://apps.apple.com/us/app/focus- window/id1444457097](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/focus- window/id1444457097)). Every single time I would work on a task I would be distracted by so many things including emails, websites, slack etc. To beat the distraction now I turn on Focus Window and that allows me to focus on a single application at a time, then I hide my desktop icons to "clear" my mind and lastly I play music that is soothing to the ear to remain calm and on task.

</comment><comment><USER7> /etc/hosts blocking of every site you reflexively open, including this one. It still takes some effort but now when you start screwing around you know it's a conscious choice.

<comment><USER8> This. Having a tiling windows manager also helped me focusing on the task at hand somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have been using the switch_off[0] addon for Firefox and Chrome since last one year. It has worked very well for me in avoiding online distraction. It blocks specified websites at specified times of the day, and also prevents opening more tabs than specified. It is a paid addon tough.

[0] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/switch- off](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/switch-off)

</comment><comment><USER10> Theoretically, one could set up vim/emacs for development, lynx for browsing that documentation, mutt for email, slack-term, etc. Do not start the X session. Images, sounds, videos are the biggest driver of distractions. Use 3M Peltor earmuffs on top for that extra bit of isolation. If only our willpower wasn't a finite resource.

</comment><comment><USER3> A simple trick is to turn off the all the screens you don't need for your current work. Sometimes working with multiple screens is great, but during some tasks, the browser or mail program lingering on another screen can cause distractions. In my case, I often mindlessly switch to HN as soon as I start a compile/test cycle.

</comment><comment><USER11> For me, the Cold Turkey app is key. It has a tremendous amount of flexibility for blocking applications, web sites, etc.

[https://getcoldturkey.com/features/](https://getcoldturkey.com/features/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Get a child lock software and install it. Such software often has functions to limit websites to non-entertainment only.

Depending on your willpower, you might have to set a very long, random password, write it on the paper, and store that password in a place you cannot get to fast.

</comment><comment><USER13> None of these apps/extensions to eliminate distractions are effective as long as you have the capability to disable them.

</comment><comment><USER14> Exactly why do you NEED a computer that is always connected to the internet? Disconnecting works for me, so it should work for most everyone.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have a raspberry pi (pihole) set up to block ads but also block all my tech news sites e.g. HN, slashdot, reddit, lobste.rs, as well as twitter, facebook, CNN etc. When I'm trying to get stuff done I turn on the blocking. Works like a charm.</comment>


Crunching Big Data to deliver Real Time Ads - <AUTHOR> https://www.feedeo.io

<comment><USER2> Interesting stuff. Are these positions still available? [https://www.feedeo.io/blog/two-part-time-coding-positions- op...](https://www.feedeo.io/blog/two-part-time-coding-positions-open/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, they are still available. Feel free to apply :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It would be interesting to see teaser of the technology stack you guys are using to achieve this.</comment>


Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46665615 <comment><USER2> Serious question - is there any actual evidence that there was ever a real drone? There are no available pictures of the supposed drone, which seems odd if it was 'buzzing the tower'. It also seems odd that it kept 'popping up' in random places, yet nobody managed to follow it with their own drone, or track it on radar. And now the police are arresting people with no connection to the incident and clearly still have no idea what was going on. The most parsimonious explanation would appear to me to be that somebody reported a drone once, possibly mistakenly, and once the extremely costly call had been made to shut down Gatwick, it snowballed into a mass hysteria / UFO sighting scenario, with everyone seeing 'drones' all over the place.

Of course, it's possible there is in fact ironclad evidence for the official story that we're not being told. But it seems to me there's lots of incentive for the police to share all they know, and huge incentives not to admit that it was all a cock-up.

<comment><USER3> You are not the only one questioning the existence of the drones: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/23/police-admit- may...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/23/police-admit-may-never- have-gatwick-drone/)

<comment><USER4> That article is paywalled but what about this bit of the parent article?

> "We are [..] carrying out a forensic examination of a damaged drone found > near the perimeter of the airport.

Sounds like some evidence of at least one drone. But regardless this is still likely a culmination of panic over a potentially one-off sighting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm sure the two of them are enjoying having their faces plastered over the sunday news ([https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs/the_papers](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs/the_papers)) and sorting through all the lovely messages they've received over the last day or so.

<comment><USER6> Whilst a free press is important, I would argue that 'a man and a woman have been held in connection with the Gatwick Airport drone incident' would suffice. Kudos to the BBC for recognising this.

It's not in the public interest for us to know exactly who they are unless they're actually found guilty of a crime. Publishing their names and pictures before _even being charged_ does nothing but open potentially innocent people up to danger.

Whoever caused the Gatwick chaos needs to be brought to justice, but this is beyond reckless

<comment><USER7> > ... It's not in the public interest for us to know exactly who they are > unless they're actually found guilty of a crime. ...

On the contrary, the commonly-acknowledged right of _habeas corpus_ essentially _requires_ the government to make the fact that someone is being detained public, at least if the prisoner himself so chooses. Privacy is a red herring here - _habeas corpus_ is about preserving basic freedoms.

<comment><USER8> What do you mean when you say habeas corpus essentially requires a detention to be made public? Habeas corpus provides for a review of the legality of a detention for the requester. How & when is any information given publicly under habeas corpus laws? What makes you think habeas corpus and privacy can't co-exist?

<comment><USER9> Without public knowledge and pressure, there is no check on authoritarian abuse and the law has no teeth.

<comment><USER8> Maybe, but that's not what I asked. Don't habeas corpus laws provide public _access_ to a (perhaps private) legal review? When do laws require sharing results with the public, as the GP comment claimed? Can there be checks on authoritarian abuse that don't require public dissemination? Is the threat of publicity exactly the same thing as a requirement for publicity?

<comment><USER10> Imagine a country where the police arrest people and they vanish in the middle of the night, with no way to determine what their status is.

<comment><USER11> There is no need to imagine a country where mugshots are freely available, even is that person is later released without charge, that already exists, and we know what the practice does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I assumed they were the wrong suspects as soon as I found out they were hard core hobbyists. Pulling a stunt like this would be social death and would kill the hobby for them. No-one would want to hang out or work with them again.

<comment><USER13> Except she didn't use drones at all, and he wasn't really interested anymore.

So, does that now make them perfect suspects?

For me a "perfect suspects" is a hard core hobbyist or someone who does it for a living.

What's the next step after perfecting a hobby or being bored because it's a forced job other than taking it to the next level?

Given the limited info it wasn't just a kid popping a drone over given how hard it seemed to be to catch them so that leaves someone who knows what they are doing.

Who cares about "social death" over prison time? If anything it makes them heroes to many/most people, a good FU to the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There must have been some motive for whoever did this. AFAIK, no environmental or terrorist groups have claimed responsibility.

Is it possible that this has been done by someone within the police or intelligence community in order to create a pretext for pushing through drone licensing laws?

<comment><USER15> Could just be some immature troublemaker, like people who shine lasers at planes. There doesn't need to be some real motive.

<comment><USER16> Not an expert, but this really seems like something a teenager that recently acquired a drone and was showing off to his friends would do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I work with small drones, sUAS, and back in the day some of the guys were too lazy to go to the airfield to fly them and would just go to a beach park instead but it was close to an airforce base and an medium size airport. Anyways they were flying pumas and had the entire police force of the city show up. Luckily the drones they had were fixed wing and designed to just fall out of the sky so they brought them down really quick and got away. I'm sure no one ever figured out who was flying drones in their airspace.

</comment><comment><USER18> The front page of the Daily Mail was "Are these the Morons who shut Gatwick with a Drone?"

I await the out of court settlement with interest

</comment><comment><USER19> Considering how well organized the attack seems to have been, I assume those behind it know a lot about airports/drones.

I wonder if it could be a government researcher worried about a lack of funding/preparation for this kind of attack (similar to the FBI's conclusion regarding the anthrax attacks)?

It doesn't seem like a protest, so unless it's economic terrorism or a state- backed attack, what else is it likely to be? A former pilot with a grudge?

<comment><USER20> Or a potential government contractor selling anti-drone technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Has this story been updated? There's now a "may not have been a drone at all" in the middle?

<comment><USER14> Daily Mail have this video: [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1828378/Video-D...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1828378/Video- Drone-spotted-flying-Gatwick-airport-London.html)

Although I have no idea if it is real.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What if the while thing was a product demo? A group showing off their DDDOS (distributed drone denial of service) services?

</comment><comment><USER23> Also, the drones may never have existed.</comment>


Ask HN: Best open-source react pdf viewer - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You will find plenty of wrappers for [http://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/](http://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/) such as [https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-pdf](https://www.npmjs.com/package/react- pdf)</comment>


How Google Could Collapse - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/how-google-collapsed-b6ffa82198ee <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14221587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14221587)

Author's comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14223780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14223780)

"Honestly I just wrote this for fun to play devil's advocate and see how convincing an argument I could make. It was intended to be more creative writing than a serious market prediction. (The title used to be "How Google Collapsed" \-- Startup Grind changed it and added the subtitle when they published it on their blog).

I don't think it's likely that Google is going to collapse any time soon. I just wanted to imagine a world where they had, and try to work backwards from there with current data.

It's my first article, and I'm only 21 so I definitely got a lot of things wrong and oversimplified/combined others. But I do have almost 2 years of work experience in online advertising, so I have /some/ idea of how things work.

I was honestly expecting 12 views and a mean comment about how stupid I was -- I didn't expect the article to pick up traction. The editor in chief of Startup Grind reached out to me and asked if I would like to have it published on their blog, and I said sure."

<comment><USER3> It's a very good analysis. You miss chromebooks and the play store revenues but those might be dwarfed by ads. the next task is to figure out what's next which might be glass/AR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article is placing so much emphasis on voice interfaces as the replacement for screens, but I can't imagine that happening for more than a handful of use cases. Maybe I'm an outlier, but I would never use a voice assistant in public, and you can show a much higher depth of information on a screen. Screens are going to be around for a long time, with AR headsets being the logical next step.

Google will have plenty of time to show me ads on screens in the future (if not directly in search, then via app stores and video ads). And even if their voice assistant just exists to direct me to their screen presence more, in my experience, google as a voice assistant has been 10x more reliable than either Alexa or Siri.

<comment><USER5> > would never use a voice assistant in public

I would be _so much_ more willing to use voice control systems if they ditched the stupid code phrases, and just used a push-to-talk button instead. Something about saying "Okay Google/Siri/Alexa" creeps me out way more than just talking to a computer. I already use voice search and say "timer 10 minutes" rather than navigate the awkward clock app, but I'd love to be able to just squeeze a reliable button on the side of my phone (or even smart watch) to do that instead of fiddly swiping.

And PTT would also reassure me that the mic isn't listening in when I don't want it to, and help to minimise latency (which IME is a major impediment to using voice control) by providing immediate feedback when you're done speaking instead of having to wait for silence.

<comment><USER6> If you have an Android phone with a Bluetooth headset you can do exactly that. By default you just need to long-press the play button on it. That said, I personally still very rarely use it that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm tempted to be pithy. I'm tempted to write something like "and that, of course, is why Microsoft as a company completely folded after the death of the desktop PC," but it wouldn't really be worth reading. On the other hand who doesn't like a bit of apophasis, right?

But, you know, maybe they're right. Maybe online advertising is a dying business, and maybe that's why no one solicits for advertising partnerships at the bottom of their articles.

Who knows. Maybe their article is, seriously this time, completely correct, and maybe that flashy graph they've got at the top of the page -- you know, the one asking about whether or not you search for products on Amazon or Google -- isn't because no one really feels the need to google for toilet paper before buying some off whoever is convenient.

You know what will help? Some pullquotes from CEOs saying things like "brand owners are detemined to take the lead". Of course they are. That's why the Internet is now devoid of atrocious ads.

Quick. Put some more graphs in, but make sure you don't put the one in that shows their rising profit margins.

<comment><USER8> _" and that, of course, is why Microsoft as a company completely folded after the death of the desktop PC,"_

Who thought giants like SGI, DEC, Sun would fall? But they did, and when it happened it happened quickly. Isn't Google in SGI's old building now?

<comment><USER9> And who thought companies like Apple and Microsoft wouldn't fail?

Doom articles are dime a dozen.

<comment><USER10> Survivorship bias.

<comment><USER11> You seem to have a very flawed concept of what the word "bias" means.

<comment><USER10> How? This is straightforward survivorship bias. The first examples of big companies that come to your head are always going to be ones that were lucky and survived by pure chance. You are much less likely to remember or hear about the unlucky ones that aren't around anymore.

<comment><USER11> Because the word "bias" pertains to whether a sample is representative or not. It has to do with probabilities.

GGGP isn't saying that long-term successful outcomes are the probable or most likely result of being large at one point in history, so your criticism is inapposite. What he's saying is that, contrary to the OP's seeming position, a paradigm shift isn't always fatal to established players, i.e., "doom articles are a dime a dozen."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hope it collapses fast and hard. Advertising is a nearly worthless vampire industry that works to suck some of the life out of other useful services. If Cisco, Qualcomm, or Texas Instruments threw in the towel, their respective industries would change forever; we would be hearing about it in a matter of minutes. The same can't be said for any advertising company other than Google, and that's not because we find Google's advertising particularly endearing. As time wears on and consumer patience for advertising wears thin, Google will need a miracle in a market that the world can't live without.

<comment><USER13> It has always been something of a mystery to me that billions of dollars of revenues are somehow extracted from the internet in this form.

My reaction to advertising in all forms is visceral and strong. I don't really understand it, but I know that I am willing to go to some lengths to avoid it. Reading HN threads over the years has shown me that I'm not alone.

For this reason, I've come to believe that this era of internet advertising will be a brief flash in the pan of history. I have no idea what the next step will be, but it's hard for me to imagine the future internet being one held up by something that is genuinely despised by so many.

Mass quantities of free, mediocre quality content will give way to something else in this new equilibrium. But what will pay for all the infrastructure? All a subject for science fiction writers at the moment.

<comment><USER14> > Mass quantities of free, mediocre quality content will give way to something > else in this new equilibrium. But what will pay for all the infrastructure?

There are still a lot of people who just rent a (virtual) server, or rent space on someone else's platform, to post whatever they want. They might have tens, hundreds, thousands of viewers. They could easily scale to even more viewers with the help of some off-the-shelf CDN, while keeping the total expense well within the realm of "hobby spending" for most people in the developed world.

Producing and distributing content only costs a lot of money if you want to deliver a lot of content to a lot of people. But I would much prefer a decentralized network where a lot of people each produce and distribute a little bit of content. Each of them would only incur a small expense, if and only if they want to. It will probably cost less than what they're already paying for advertising anyway.

Even in a world like that, large content producers who actually have a concrete revenue stream, such as Hollywood studios and a small number of world-famous and/or publicly funded news outlets, will continue to reach billions of people at a time. We don't need to worry about BBC as we say farewell to thousands of content mills who had no reason to exist in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This assume Google can't do anything about it. But it can.

It can deny the use of it's services to people using ad-blockers.

It's possible that we see a migration from youtube. Maybe some people will be ok with migrating from gmail (probably not the majority though. I did it and it was HARD). But very few people will stop using the search engine or google map, because it has absolutely zero decent competitor. I tried them all for months, fairly. Their are not even on the same planet.

So apart from a few geeks, people will just disable the ad blocking software if google decide to force their hand.

Besides, wait for the W3C DRM standard + webassembly to be used to hack very hard to block ads...

<comment><USER16> > google map, because it has absolutely zero decent competitor.

I am using [https://openstreetmap.org](https://openstreetmap.org) and have no problems with it.

<comment><USER15> Open street map don't tell you to go to the left ride of the lane so you can take a better right turn in 100m in real time, then inform you that you have to alternatives to your current trip given the current traffic spike if you wish.

<comment><USER17> If there is a choice between having to watch annoying ads and not having those details, then I go for the more basic system that is ad free. (I do use openstreetmap for 99% for my navigation, mostly because I care about open navigation systems)

No doubt, real time traffic information can be developed for openstreetmap. But if and when it happens depends on where others drop the ball.

For example, current navigation systems built into cars tend to be completely out of date and mostly unsupported long before the car itself is end of life. So this is an area where openstreetmap might take over.

<comment><USER18> OSM actually had ads way before Google Maps: [http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mappam](http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mappam)

<comment><USER19> I don't think you can compare the ad tracking that Google does now, and what the OSM website used to do years ago. That wiki page is almost 10 years old, with the website mentioned (mappam.com) no longer working.

Though since OSM predates Google Maps, it makes sense that OSM would have another first :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The battle for the future success of Google isn't going to be over advertising. Google already knows they need to be more diverse than that. And they already are, even if we look no farther than their cloud platforms.

When the article said that Search is the only product that Google was a winner on, it seems to have forgotten about gmail. And how a large number of enterprise customers are moving their internal email to gmail, and thereby their Office Suite to Docs. If Google fills in the gaps that custom software development fills in the enterprise (small department level workflow apps, content management, industry-specific forms, processes, and data flows, etc)... THAT is what will make a whole new Google over the next 10 years.

<comment><USER21> Do enterprise customers really move to GSuite? I don't believe so. Startups may start on it, but I would never put my business on there. You can't even back up your documents! They only exist as links. And you can't move them.

<comment><USER22> Wrong. You can backup all your documents in a real format.

[https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout](https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I think the value of personal data in advertising is inflated right now.

P&G spent $7 billion on online ads in 2016, and has been making a lot of noise about moving away from them. Many of those consumer products can be sold to almost anyone, and hyper-targeting users by keyword may not help much.

For the sake of the Internet, it'd be stellar if the value of personal data corrected to a level that stopped the war on user privacy. If it turns out that the value is propped up by hype/FOMO-driven ad purchases by larger companies, it could very well happen.

<comment><USER24> _P &G spent $7 billion on online ads in 2016_

No, P&G spent $7 billion on ads in 2016.

<comment><USER23> You're absolutely correct - I'm not sure how I didn't notice that. Thank you for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Using voice interfaces (at least in a public setting) is going to end up like the Segway. Looks kinda cool on the brochure, but feels a bit daft actually doing it when out and about.

<comment><USER26> This ^^^. My Dad is always talking into his phone to send text messages. I really want to tell him, "Dad, you're doing it wrong. Nobody wants to hear you narrate your text messages."

<comment><USER27> Aah, but your dad doesn't care. It's just so much easier to use the VR software than to fiddle with the keyboard, especially as you hand-eye coordination fades with age. Spend a minute fiddling with a tiny on-screen keyboard, or a few seconds and a minor social gaffe?

People have been speaking to their phones for decades now; the only difference is there isn't someone listening directly.

<comment><USER25> Most people, I think, don't feel comfortable speaking to their phone when nobody is at the other side. Even if I, as an observer am not aware of that. I know I don't feel comfortable. Because I know nobody is there and i'm talking to a machine. Besides, can you imagine the background noise in the world if everybody started talking to their machines? Its enough their eyes are stuck on the screen all the time. If they equated that time to talking - it would mean constant chatter noise. nobody wants that...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is fun reading, but it paints a picture of a "Google" much smaller than the real thing.

<comment><USER29> Well, the truth is Google is not that bigger than the picture.

Despite Android and Gmail and self-driving cars and this and that, the overwhelming majority of its revenue is plain ole advertising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> People want stuff for free more than they hate ads... ads aren't going anywhere.

<comment><USER31> While ads definitely aren't going anywhere, the extreme majority of Google's $99 billion in sales (last four quarters), is earned directly from search ads, not from ads having anything to do with free stuff (gmail, youtube etc).

<comment><USER26> I think he means free search results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This graph paints a different picture, though: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/234529/comparison-of- app...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/234529/comparison-of-apple-and- google-revenues/)

<comment><USER33> revenues are not profits.

Alphabet profits have increased but profit margins are down.

Amazon revenue is rocketing in the expense of not making profits.

<comment><USER31> Alphabet's margins in fact are not down in any meaningful sense. They're basically unchanged for years.

2016 net income margin: 21.5%

2015 net income margin: 21.7%

2014 net income margin: 21.3%

2013 net income margin: 20.4%

2012 net income margin: 21.6%

<comment><USER33> Alphabets profit margin dropping is recent phenomenon. 2017q2 profit margin is just 13.55%. Advertisers paid 23% less per click.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Clever article, blending history and future conjecture. Sure, Google has potential long term problems with its ad revenue stream but the have sufficient cash reserves to succeed in different lines of business. And they probably will. I use fastmail and mostly duck duck go, so in a sense Google doesn't make money from me in the traditional advertising sense, but I like GCP, pay for YouTube red and music, and buy movies and tv shows on Play TV.

<comment><USER35> In practice, Google have very few different revenue streams. They do a lot of different things, but advertising makes up the biggest portion of revenue and search market share is what locks up that market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Two of the largest customers of adwords are Expedia and Priceline. Why?

Because almost every travel customer starts by typing their destination into google, and whoever has the top ad gets the booking.

It's a fierce bidding war on keywords, and the only winner is Google.

This article grossly understates the number of companies and industries that begrudgingly play this game to acquire expensive traffic with hopes that it converts to cheap organic repeat traffic in the future.

Google is doing fine.

<comment><USER37> > This article grossly understates the number of companies and industries that > begrudgingly play this game to acquire expensive traffic with hopes that it > converts to cheap organic repeat traffic in the future.

Exactly right. Seen it over and over again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> So, talking about ads... Yes my adblocker on the web is pretty nice... But I'm still getting bombarded by ads on Youtube and Twitch.

That's the difference, if you own the platform / app, you get 100% ad views.

By putting more DRM on the web and 'sneaking' ads on the web, they will prevail.

<comment><USER39> I wonder what AdBlocker you are using. I use both of these platforms daily, and see absolutely no ad. Apart from product placements directly in the video by the content creator, but not as banners/pre-rolls or any other form.

<comment><USER38> YouTube and twitch apps on iOS. No ad blocking that I know of. Sorry I wasn't clear.

<comment><USER39> Oh, yes I understand. Totally with you. And proxy adblockers are not really user-friendly yet, so as long as advertisers go native they still have a rosy future indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> My feeling is that the thing that would really rock Google to its core would be a major scandal about ad spend.

Like one where they were unambiguously exposed - say - channelling all the good leads to people at the start of campaigns and then once the spend was established starting to feed them the shit leads, until they convinced them to spend more money. In short like a Casino that would let people win to give them a taste and then reef them.

But of course that's purely speculative and probably that type of thing couldn't be unambiguously proved even if it were true - which it isn't.

</comment><comment><USER40> Google needs to fix the issue with search optimization gaming. Searching for products on Google is useless! The SEO manipulation puts marketing heaving companies first, while companies with product focus rather than marketing focus loose out. This creates a world of empty products with the majority of the product's investment going towards the advertising of the empty thing.

</comment><comment><USER41> If I had to pick a point of fragility for Google it is that the founders have set up the company such that they exercise dictatorial control. This can be good, but it's a question mark what will happen once that control is passed to other hands. Further, Google makes most of its money from advertising and it's search engine. They're one competitor away from being in serious trouble. So far Google has beaten them all off but there are a lot of very smart people out there who want to cut into that very profitable business. In the plus column for longevity is a very large cash hoard. However, history proves that companies can vaporise their cash overnight in ill-advised acquisitions.

</comment><comment><USER42> It is true that, for all the cool stuff Google does, it is still fundamentally an advertising company where the future in those revenue streams looks bleak.

That said, Microsoft didn't die off in the "post PC" era even after spectacular failures in things like trying to make inroads in mobile phones. So with Google yes there are dark clouds on the horizon, but they could pull off a change in revenue streams and still do quite well.

The clock is ticking though... they're spending tons on these other pet projects that have yet to pay off so the pressure is really on to prove that they can actually create a viable business with revenue outside advertising.

<comment><USER12> The zinger with the "post PC era" bullshit was that it was a ridiculous marketing/buzz campaign that attempted to completely eschew the reality that most people _need_ something more than a compact touch screen device to effectively complete their work. You cannot genuinely ask an electrical engineer, Excel jockey, photographer, or any other professional or power user to use something other than a laptop or desktop to make their living.

I think you can can see the difference between Microsoft's model (which never did go out of style and won't any time soon) and Google's model (which was doomed from the start).

<comment><USER43> It's still a net reduction in the size of the market. Early 2000s your office had a PC and you had one at home. The office computer may remain but the home one is gone for the vast majority of people.

<comment><USER12> There's a net reduction, but that loss in the market didn't translate directly into tablet/mobile usage. Anecdotally, I would say that the home PC isn't gone, just less focused on entertainment. I've noticed a significant shift towards occasionally used laptops that are used for work and study while mobile devices make up for the entertainment/simple browsing/bullshitting that would have been done on a desktop ten years ago.

Regardless, the relevance to my point is still there; PCs are a product that will have worthwhile demand for the foreseeable future while internet advertising could disappear with little fanfare. That isn't a good fit for Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> You want evil? I can give you evil.

ASM.js or similar like Webassembly. Use it, create a polymorphic VM in the browser that forces a user to compute the ads in order to get content.

Now, trap the content in each VM (and no, not as a downloaded plaintext). This will be an encoded bytestream, that the easiest way to decode will be through the browser VM, and displaying ads along the way.

That's evil, and I would highly assume it works.

</comment><comment><USER45> This reminds me of all those articles saying Facebook would die because people were moving to mobile and "there are no ads in the Facebook app".

<comment><USER26> I still don't think facebook is safe long term. I've been on facebook off and on for 12 years, and honestly is was only really cool back in college. I suppose there is some value in the whole 'real identity' thing. But the problem I see with facebook is the whole 'friending' thing. Do you really want to have to maintain digital relationships with everyone you've ever known? A digital phone book would be so much nicer. Want to reach out to an old friend from college you haven't seen in years? Look them up in the digital phone book. Wouldn't that be nice? But with how facebook works now, you have to stay 'friends' with everyone you've ever known (because its awkward deleting and then re-friending people). But then you ended up with this news feed full of a bunch of crap from everyone you've ever known. It's just not good. People aren't going to want to keep using facebook for 20+ years. After 12 years I'm burned out as hell on facebook and only have like 7 friends. And I have a feeling, other people are going to get burned out at the 12 year mark as well.

Anyway... I think facebook is still the most vulnerable of all the big tech companies. And I think Mark Zuckerberg feels the same way deep down inside. Why else did he pay $1,000,000,000 for Instagram? And feels he has to copy SnapChat? Because he's scared his empire is going to be the next MySpace. And you know what, it probably will go the way of MySpace eventually.

<comment><USER46> Facebook has a bunch of tools to restrict both what you see of other people in your newsfeed (unfollow), and what they see of you (restricted list).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The Google's business is not search, but answering questions. Web search is just one way to ask (and answer) a question.

</comment><comment><USER48> Personally I think the problem is the ad bubble in general not just Google.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm not too sure about the conclusion of the article. While it's true that ad blockers have been adopted by users, advertising revenue from Google is about to get a 15% growth this year compared to last year.

Regarding Cloud computing, although I have no numbers to back this up, I'm pretty sure Google Cloud will also grow nicely in the next decade.

From an AI perspective, they're clearly leading that field over amazon, without a doubt.</comment>


Health care takes on the fight against trafficking - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketplace.org/2016/03/02/health-care/health-care-takes-fight-against-trafficking <comment><USER2> Horrifying. It occurs to me that even if all you were implanting was an empty metal cylinder, it would be _very_ convincing theater, especially in the context of that level of abuse. It's hard to see a permanent solution to this that doesn't involve massive education initiatives at the community level.

<comment><USER3> I was really struggling to understand the point of this, but your comment made it click, it isn't _actually_ about tracking, it's all head games. That's really messed up, but I guess considering the sorts of people that would be involved in something like this I shouldn't be surprised.

<comment><USER2> Exactly, it's all about breaking people so they won't even try to fight or escape. Drugs, abuse (physical and psychological torture really), and simply killing the ones who don't perform. It's... unbelievably brutal, and the only ways to fight it are education, and probably a legal framework and oversight for prostitution.

<comment><USER4> And brutal punishments for those who are found guilty of human trafficking.

<comment><USER5> Won't help.

It's a populist request, but a majority of experts, the criminologists, are convinced that the death penalty for example is not a deterrent.

A source (one of many): [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/study-88-criminologists- do-n...](http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/study-88-criminologists-do-not- believe-death-penalty-effective-deterrent)

<comment><USER6> Devils Advocate here (I don't personally believe in the state run death penalty): Maybe its not about deterrent as it is getting an abhorrent person out of society permanently?

<comment><USER7> The argument against that is that lifetime imprisonment serves the exact same goal, and gets rid of the nasty issue of killing people who are found innocent 20 years later, as it sometimes happens. If I recall correctly, the process of actually executing the death penalty is so expensive it's not even cheaper than lifetime imprisonment anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Note that this of course wasn't a _GPS tracker_ , it was a standard implantable RFID chip, as used in pets and livestock. Transmission range on it is a couple centimeters. It can't be used to track people from a distance.

GPS trackers have big antennas and large batteries: [https://www.amazon.com/Spy-Tec-STI-GL300-Portable- Tracker/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Spy-Tec-STI-GL300-Portable- Tracker/dp/B00JG8KCLO/) But if you tell your victim that a RFID chip is a GPS tracker, and they believe you, then it largely accomplishes your goals.

<comment><USER9> It's not at all surprising that the woman would believe it was a GPS tracker if told though which makes it nearly as effective as actually having a tracker implanted in her. TV and movies love their impossibly tiny GPS trackers.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, when you're being drugged, raped, beaten, starved, threatened with death, moved around... threats like "we put a tracking chip in you, we can find you anywhere, anytime," must be absolutely terrifying. Especially since I'm guessing the average victim of human trafficking isn't an electrical engineer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "But here's the challenge: you've got to convince doctors and nurses that they are the ones uniquely placed to break the cycle of violence." If health care is used to fight human traffic, human traffic victims will not have any more access to health care. I do not see how this would help victims.

<comment><USER2> The problem is deeper that that really. Doctors and nurses are already expected to detect and report a huge host of issues, ranging from child and spousal abuse, to malingering and drug-seeking behavior. This, in addition to increasing workloads, increasing pressure of lawsuits and debt, and decreased time to spend on each patient.

At some point you're asking a doctor to spend maybe a third of the 10-15 minutes they might get with a patient to run with a checklist to which the answers will virtually always be "no", regardless of circumstances. In the same way that this rarely detects or interrupts cycles of violence in more traditional abuse models, it would fail to do so here.

Doctors and nurses can only function this way when they're part of a functional system, and they are not. We can't keep making demands of them, we need to start offering resources and support, preferably diverted from the obscene profits behind our swollen healthcare costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't like euphemism "human trafficking". Terms like "slavery" and "slave trade" are better at describing reality.

<comment><USER12> "Human trafficking" has one advantage: it can be very broadly defined at law, allowing police, prosecutors, and legislators to look good and like they're "cracking down" as they aggressively prosecute people for relatively innocuous activity compared to actual forced prostitution. For example, you arrange an encounter with a prostitute at a hotel and on top of the usual fee, you pay for her cab fare to the location. It doesn't matter that the prostitute chose this line of work and is not doing it under force or duress. You have "transported" a person for "commercial sexual activity" and are guilty of human trafficking in Massachusetts, a state widely praised for its "comprehensive" human-trafficking legislation. That's a five-year mandatory minimum sentence and a mandatory sex offender registration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> About a month ago Trump mentioned in a speech that he would end human trafficking, but I haven't read anything more about it.</comment>


Ask HN: What technologies would you use for your next web app? - <AUTHOR>

I'm an iOS dev with very little backend and web experience.<p>I'd be interested in knowing what technologies you would use for your next big idea, would be great to know why. <comment><USER2> What's the big idea? If performance is key then maybe something like GoLang or Rust, if rapid prototyping is key then maybe RoR or MS MVC, if I wanted to be able to deploy it to an inexpensive host then maybe PHP, if I wanted to hook into enterprise systems then maybe JSP, and so on and so forth.

Cannot be more specific without knowing the project requirements, my knowledge set, and if I have any pre-existing deployments I can re-use.</comment>


The ungrateful refugee - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/dina-nayeri-ungrateful-refugee <comment><AUTHOR> "Civilised people don't ask for resumes when answering calls from the edge of a grave. It shouldn't matter what I did after I cleaned myself off and threw away the last of my asylum-seeking clothes. My accomplishments should belong only to me. There should be no question of earning my place, of showing that I was a good bet. My family and I were once humans in danger, and we knocked on the doors of every embassy we came across: the UK, America, Australia, Italy. America answered [but] what America did was a basic human obligation. It is the obligation of every person born in a safer room to open the door when someone in danger knocks. It is your duty to answer us, even if we don't give you sugary success stories."

An excellent read.</comment>


Hello, it's Dell. Time for a reintroduction. - <AUTHOR> http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/hello-its-dell-time-for-a-reintroduction/

<comment><USER2> The article and comments on the page all read like part of an advertisement.

</comment><comment><USER3> In brief: Dell makes workstations, which can be bought.</comment>


Five Reasons Why Developers Need To Be Wary About Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2012/03/31/five-reasons-why-developers-need-to-be-wary-about-android/

<comment><USER2> This appears to be strategic advice to developers based upon a survey of interest among developers.</comment>


Facebook IPO: Company Has a Valuation Problem - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2012/05/09/facebook-has-a-valuation-problem/?mod=wsj_share_linkedin <comment><USER2> From the article:

"If Apple, which manufactures tangible products, was valued at a multiple comparable to Facebook, Apple's market capitalization/value today would be approximately $2.7 trillion,"</comment>


Could the IPad make computer science obsolete? - <AUTHOR> http://geomblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/could-ipad-make-computer-science.html

<comment><USER2> This guy completely misses what computer science is about. Sure, nobody studies "Toaster Science" just like nobody will ever study "iPad Science". But plenty of people study mechanics, electrical engineering, thermodynamics and other fundamental academic fields that have enabled humans to design and mass- produce toasters.

At it's core, Computer Science is the mathematical study of computation and algorithms. Some of the most important results in CS were discovered before computers even existed (like the Church Turing Thesis). A new device with a slick form-factor and usable interface will not at all make CS obsolete.

If it could efficiently solve NP problems...THEN perhaps some computer scientists would out of work ;)</comment>


Rajeev Motwani passed away in a swimming pool accident - <AUTHOR> http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2009/06/rajeev-motwani.html

<comment><USER2> a very bad news. He did not deserve such a death.</comment>


Ask HN: What's your desktop look like? - <AUTHOR>

I've noticed something very interesting with my fellow hackers: they have amazingly sparse desktops but pack their machines with tons of windows and information.
For example, I can trace the evolution of my progress by looking at the pure complexity of my desktops over time.
Since many of my pictures are stashed on an old webserver I use, I'll start with those...
beware that some of my wallpapers are... risque?
Back in 2008, I had a really quite sparse layout that packed a lot of information into a small amount of space: http://sonof.bandit.name/files/morestuff/pictures/desk1.PNG
Later on, my desktop became much more mundane, and in 2009 my layout changed styles: http://sonof.bandit.name/files/morestuff/more_pictures/images/qqqqq.JPG
Here's what my machine looked back in my junior/senior year of high school: http://sonof.bandit.name/files/morestuff/pictures/xfce3.png
Once I was out of highschool my layout changed a lot: http://sonof.bandit.name/files/morestuff/more_pictures/images/desktop_2010_01_31.png
My desktops changed to lighter as my programming increased and I headed off to college
http://sonof.bandit.name/files/morestuff/more_pictures/images/scrn-25_Apr_10-180435.png
http://sonof.bandit.name/files/morestuff/more_pictures/images/scrn-10_Jul_10-003337.png
After not cataloging my desktops much for nearly a year, I have noticed that my main desktop today is much, much lighter:
http://i.imgur.com/GitGY.jpg
What's your desktop metamorphised into? <comment><USER2> Mine is extremely anti-climactic: <http://i.imgur.com/gwbBC.png></comment>


Fab.com Hits A Million Users, Is Raising Many Millions of Dollars - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/14/fab-com-hits-a-million-users-is-raising-many-millions-of-dollars/ <comment><USER2> Have these burst deal sites (Gilt, Fab, etc.) even proven to be profitable? With people worrying, and almost constantly bashing, daily deal sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial, one can only wonder if these are next.

<comment><USER3> Fab claims to be profitable (and have been for a while). I'm not sure if they'll switch their strategy for large-scale growth/marketing. We'll see.</comment></comment>


How to avoid being fooled by a menu - <AUTHOR> http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/12/how-to-avoid-being-fooled-by-a-menu.html

<comment><USER2> Direct link to the menu discussed - <http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/62498/></comment>


Beneath AI hype is likelihood it threatens the poor says former Microsoft exec - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/beneath-ai-hype-is-likelihood-it-threatens-the-poor-says-former-microsoft-exec-2018-9/ <comment><USER2> I confess I'd never heard of the "Artificial Intelligence Conference" before, so I had a look at their "about" page:

 _AI is finally moving from being the province of university labs to being a critical part of the software developer 's toolkit and a focus for mainstream companies. There is a growing—and urgent—need for information on applied AI, as opposed to the kind of research presented at academic conferences.

That's why we created the Artificial Intelligence Conference._

So it's, um. Some kind of industry "conference" on ah, "applied" AI. Actually, it looks more like a few days of tutorials and perhaps workshops, rather than the kind of conference were people present research.

I'd say it sounds like complete toss, but Peter Norvig is one of the program chairs so it can't be all bull.</comment>


Expect (and accept) the oh s%$^t moment - an agile marketing manifesto - <AUTHOR> http://gregmeyer.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/the-product-you-deliver-will-change-agile-marketing-principle-2/

<comment><USER2> Love the idea of applying agile concepts to your marketing efforts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - it started as a defensive measure ;) and then I realized it had good applicability beyond just the immediate project

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great article on agile marketing!</comment>


Google App Engine opens up for Google I/O, pricing announced - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/27/3000-developers-to-converge-on-google-io-tomorrow-heres-what-to-expect/

<comment><USER2> The pay-as-you-go won't be enabled until sometime around the end of the year.

The quoted CPU pricing "$0.10 - $0.12 per CPU core-hour" is similar to Amazon EC2 small instance pricing ($0.10/hr), but it's probably not a straight comparison. AppEngine seems to charge by the sip, as might be expected from a compute utility, while web apps will probably require a minimum of 24x7 usage of an EC2 instance. So AppEngine should be less costly on the low-end.

Here's an interview with some AppEngine managers on the announcements tomorrow:

[http://readwritetalk.com/2008/05/27/pete-koomen-paul- mcdonal...](http://readwritetalk.com/2008/05/27/pete-koomen-paul-mcdonald- product-managers-google-app-engine/)

<comment><USER3> EC2 charges only for the time you use, rounded to the next hour. A small instance running for 6.1 hours costs $0.70 + bandwidth.

[http://www.amazon.com/FAQ- EC2-AWS/b?ie=UTF8&node=2015910...](http://www.amazon.com/FAQ- EC2-AWS/b?ie=UTF8&node=201591011#ecc16)

<comment><USER4> My understanding is that EC2 charges for wall clock time. I heard a rumor that Google was going to charge only for the actual CPU time used. In other words, if your service is totally idle, Google will be free but EC2 will cost you $84 a month per server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Also to note: no additional languages will be supported._

$@*!.

Well, looks like Heroku will hang around for a while...

</comment><comment><USER6> yawn.... ok. I can't think of serious startups using their services. Maybe if I am doing something quick, a small app, while having a full time job. etc...

At least with amazon, you have controll of the servers, and can install whatever you want. With Goggle App Engine your are tied to it to the hip.

And Google has been getting eviler lately. For some reason I wouldn't trust my source code with them, while I would trust amazon a little bit more.

<comment><USER7> Amazon really wants your business. They want to make a fortune in the compute supply business. This seems like another Google offering that they don't take particularly seriously - that they can offer for free at some level of service because of the enormous river of advertising cash - but you know its not much of blip on their business radar. Mostly these services aid recruitment and keep up Google's profile but I don't expect them to be actively chasing down customers and getting better at what they do like Amazon does.

There is only one business sector in which I'd be scared to compete with Google and that's search.

<comment><USER8> _This seems like another Google offering that they don't take particularly seriously_

I don't think so, Google's hosting is going to bite into MS's market of IIS and Windows Servers just like GMail/Calendar is competing with Outlook/Exchange.

<comment><USER4> Microsoft is countering with hosted Exchange service and hosted SQL Server services. I think hosted Exchange will be a lot more profitable than (ad-free) GMail hosting can ever be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen _The big announcement will be around Google App Engine - expect the 160,000 or so developers on the waiting list to be let in tomorrow (75,000 have been given access already)._

That's a lot of entrants to the web 2.0 market.

<comment><USER8> I don't think they're all entrants... just people who are curious about the service.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Bodybuilder – an elasticsearch query body builder for JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/danpaz/bodybuilder <comment><AUTHOR> And this blog post explains a bit about why the project exists: [http://engineering.fluencia.com/blog/2015/12/11/building- ela...](http://engineering.fluencia.com/blog/2015/12/11/building- elasticsearch-queries-and-the-case-for-abstraction)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for this! This post flew under my radar, but I've been essentially writing my own es query constructor because of the sorry state of elastic.js. I'll definitely keep an eye on your project.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is your favourite hack? - <AUTHOR>

This could be a hack on anything e.g. your favourite editor, OS , Hardware , mobile device , web app e.t.c. <comment><AUTHOR> Related content website search on google- use [related:] url

</comment><comment><USER2> Wikipedia summary lookup via dig, where '$$' is a topic.

dig +short txt $$.wp.dg.cx</comment>


UK newsagents to sell 'porn passes' to visit X-rated websites - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/porn-passes-newsagents-shops-online-pornography-website-id-uk-government-a8349281.html <comment><USER2> Twenty years ago this would have been the premise for a Fry and Laurie sketch.

Hugh Laurie wearing a mac and looking embarrassed, enters a newsagent where Stephen Fry is manning the register. Several customers browse. Laurie quietly mumbles that he would like a _porn pass_ , upon which Fry loudly starts enumerating the various categories available ("The new porn categories only just arrived this morning. Now — no no, let me guess! I'm a good judge of character — I think you are looking for an ebony-pass. Am I right?"), to the embarrassment of Laurie who looks around at the other customers anxiously.

Hilarity ensues as Fry continues listing ever more embarrassing categories of porn for which a pass presumably exists, and Laurie's character loudly gets his name read back to him as Fry reads the details on his driver's licence for confirmation.

Something like that would never happen in real life of course.

Strange and worrying that this managed to get turned into legislation in a country like the UK.</comment>


Lavabit Tried Giving the Feds Its SSL Key in 11 Pages of 4-Point Type (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131002/17443624734/lavabit-tried-giving-feds-its-ssl-key-11-pages-4-point-type-feds-complained-that-it-was-illegible.shtml <comment><USER2> Skip to pages 145+. I love how the OCR text tab looks like line noise.</comment>


An overview of PEAR for PHP developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.brighthub.com/hubfolio/matthew-casperson/articles/55712.aspx

<comment><USER2> Not to be unfair, but the post is rather bare. (Ignore the rhyming, thanks!) It's also incredibly Windows centric, and does nothing to explain what PEAR can do for your projects.

MDB2 is a neat database wrapper you can use from PEAR, but there's also BBCodeParser and a number of other great modules that could be useful for your projects.

Some people hate PEAR for its lack of docs, coding standards, etc. I'm a little biased: I like it, I use it, and I test what I use before I go live with it just to make sure. Sure the docs are often sparse or riddled with inconsistencies but at least they exist.</comment>


JavaScript Grid Component: Look for Investors - <AUTHOR>
 I have 4 years old product.
It is JavaScript Grid library for Enterprise.
https://fancygrid.com
It has clients in 25 countries.
It is used by Fortune 500, banks, government orgs, medical companies, retail, tech, fintech startups, manufactures and others.
The most famous clients are: Intel, SanDisk, P&G, BMW, Kia, AirBus.<p>I am looking for investors. <comment><USER2> This isn't a place where a looking-for-investors post will do well. But you should post your project as a Show HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/show](https://news.ycombinator.com/show). See the guidelines at [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html). Email us at firstname.lastname@example.com if you want some advice about how best to do this.</comment>