Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquired programming in 2017 - <AUTHOR> http://www.business-standard.com/article/international/enemy-number-one-is-netflix-the-monster-that-s-eating-hollywood-117032600023_1.html <comment><USER2> I'm amazed how many people on HN complain about the content on Netflix. Especially compared to any other streaming service, such as Amazon or Hulu, they continue to provide much higher-end content for my dollar, as well as a (far) superior UI experience.

For me, the stand-up specials like Dave Chapelle and Louis CK alone are huge and welcome additions, never mind the many, very good lesser known comedy specials on there.

Their agreement with Dreamworks has only helped, allowing me to enjoy surprisingly good films like Zootopia.

Even great cable channels like FX (The Americans, Legion) and AMC (Mad Men, Better Call Saul) are not available for any reasonable price as standalone cable packages, so I'm not sure what the comparison is in terms of quality. HBO at 15/month?

But even HBO shows are hit-or-miss. And while their movie selection is generally pretty great, I still find myself not watching it all that much.

It seems to me that Netflix provides a pretty high level of content at their price point.

<comment><USER3> I regularly use Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon and I disagree on the far superior UI experience. Amazon and Hulu have done a great job in recent days and I think has Netflix currently has the worst UI experience, at least on Apple TV. The Netflix app does a poor job of highlighting their original content separately from others (recently I searched for a complete list of Netflix Originals and could not find it on the app - the list I did find was incomplete). I also don't like how they organize content, or more specifically the lack of organization options. For example, it's very difficult to view only movies or TV shows - something I'd expect to be a common use case and Hulu makes very easy.

Content-wise I think Netflix is doing an amazing job, even if I cannot come close to keeping up. They're doing so well, it's harder and harder to track their originals you might be interested in.

<comment><USER4> Amazon's technique of mixing prime, and pay content is clearly a dark pattern. The way they display each season as it's own item is just annoying.

On the other hand I actually like Hulu's interface better than Netflix.

Really I wish they would agree on a standard streaming API, to enable 3rd parties to create UIs. Right now I find myself opening up multiple apps searching Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Crackle to find something specific.

<comment><USER5> [http://instantwatcher.com/](http://instantwatcher.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really hope they don't lose focus on the quality of their original content.

I understand that not everything Netflix does is tailored to me, particularly due to Netflix' growing, increasingly mainstream audience, diverse and varying preferences, more ground to cover, etc.

However lately Netflix' content simply seems to lack substance to me. It feels as if it's just the superficial result of throwing a promising combination of those very specific tags/categories the services is famous for onto the assembly line and ending up with a show or film that, while ticking all the boxes and not being bad at all, is still pretty far off the masterpieces of the medium. I'm not sure if classics like The Wire, The Sopranos or Mad Men could have been created with such a formulaic approach and I'm missing shows of that caliber on Netflix. Maybe the service should offer brillant content creators the freedom and opportunity to do the shows they want to do, instead of dictating the theme and framework.

<comment><USER7> > However lately Netflix' content simply seems to lack substance to me. It > feels as if it's just the superficial result of throwing a promising > combination of those very specific tags/categories the services is famous > for onto the assembly line and ending up with a show or film that, while > ticking all the boxes and not being bad at all, is still pretty far off the > masterpieces of the medium.

That is very much the feeling I got from Stranger Things. It is solid in almost every way, but it also felt like it was written to maximize variables and checkboxes from a user survey. Add characters, references and stylistic choices to get the most 80's nostalgic feeling in the viewer as possible.

<comment><USER8> Interesting; I feel that Stranger Things is one of their stronger recent offerings. Much better than Flaked, Love, or Master of None.

<comment><USER9> :) I tried to watch stranger things twice and couldn't have finished it as it feels like very stupid show that tries to play on 80x nostalgia. Master of none I watched twice and think that it's the masterpiece.

<comment><USER10> Master of None didn't do it for me, but I loved Stranger Things.

This is a great example of how Netflix's model works well for "long tail" content. They can produce and keep shows around that have a different or smaller audience than traditional networks can.

<comment><USER11> The difference of opinion in this small sample is good. As long as a show has some people who love it, that's a good thing. Content made for the widest audience possible is usually bland and predictable... just look at pop music in the last few decades. Network TV is just as bad because if a show isn't a hit in 2 or 3 episodes they pull it. If they'd done that in era of "classic TV" (60s - 80s), half the most famous ever wouldn't have made it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> To me, it seems like Hollywood is betting everything on 3D movies in the fantasy/superhero/werewolf/supernatural abilities/animated/zombie genre(s).

That's roughly 3/4 of what the three cinema chains in my city show. That leaves some 25 percent to the remotely realistic movies - the ones with characters and stories that could be true, at least in a distant future. There are nights where the only movies the cinemas show, are fantastic ones. Where the only cinema experience would involve wearing 3D glasses and watching childish characters save the world.

Personally, I am fine with the establishment taking some beating. But I sure hope there will be more than just a handful of providers of content. Hollywood, HBO, Netflix, Amazon. That's not nearly enough.

<comment><USER13> > Hollywood, HBO, Netflix, Amazon. That's not nearly enough.

Except I don't want to pay for another service. I already pay for Netflix and Amazon and one of the reasons streaming was appealing is that it was different from cable. If we multiply streaming services, pretty soon I'm paying $5/month here and $10/month there and much of that for one thing I'd like to see on that service. I'd like to see production and distribution separated, though I recognize that's probably a pipe dream.

<comment><USER14> So only pay for Netflix and just accept that you won't get everything available. There is already too much content to watch.

Netflix and Amazon aren't magic. Sure there is some industry of scale by selling their wares internationally and some savings by letting ISPs distribute their content, but fundamentally TV hasn't become cheaper to make. If anything, Netflix and Amazon are spending more than average amounts of money on their new content. That results in beautiful shows, but it's not cheap. And those services don't use commercials, which means they'll be more expensive than cable content that does.

You can get production and distribution separated, by paying per episode on itunes or amazon. But that is more expensive for heavy users because they can't bake in an unlimited plan. You can use these services to get the handful of shows you really want to watch but aren't on netflix or amazon.

<comment><USER13> I suppose I meant that in response to "the establishment taking a beating". It's taking a beating, but leading to a new establishment that's much the same as the old one. Yes, I get a lot of content with Netflix, but since content is scattered and exclusive, I end up paying for much that I don't want across many services. Much like if I want to watch network "x" on cable, I also need to get network "y". To watch show "w", I need to get show "x" on network "y".

Of course, I can buy show by show, but since a single season of a show costs as much as several months of a subscription, that shows there's much to be gained in "bundling" for providers and I suppose we'll need to accept that (like I said, it's a pipe dream).

I think in a few years time this will all start to become more complicated. For a younger generation, the content is in independent products distributed on YouTube rather than professional productions on subscriptions networks. If the YouTube model becomes popular, TV will become cheaper to make and then costs shift to distribution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've liked some of netflix's original content - house of cards was the first - but a LOT of it is trash too. I don't doubt they have numbers that lead them to create these shows... but i question the scale of it sometimes. Of the netflix originals, i've only enjoyed a handful.

Meanwhile, I've enjoyed a number of "low-budget" shows they've had (like ice pilots) and a number of the kung-fu movies they have available. But to be fair, a LOT of the low-budget stuff they have is trash too.

It's clear (to me) that there is some effort to pad their content, to seem like they have a fuller collection, even if it's only a collection a raccoon would love. This, taken with the idea they tote of "having only the best performing people" displays a mismatch in cultural ideas and actual output.

For me, I want netflix to succeed because another content producer is a welcome addition to the scene, and i hope they stay independent and don't get bought up by disney. I know in a few years they'll have a collection of original content to rival the older players.

<comment><USER16> IMO the fact that they can record "trash" is what will make them ultimately successful - their shows can target very limited demographics while still making profit. While on network TV your prime-time show MUST cater to as wide audience , Neflix doesn't have to. They can make Sense 8, Jessica Jones, Kimmy Schmidt, cooking shows, etc. etc. Each of those will only appeal to a part of audience, but because of that it can be more targeted and creative than watered down inoffensive prime-time schlock.

The fact that they're pretty much the only ones (with the exception of Amazon Prime lately which is shooting themselves in the food for not providing apps for Android TV and other platforms) that are open to world-wide audiences, they're in for a huge success.

Meanwhile, HBO and others still rather show "Not available in your country" than collect 10EUR/month from several TENS of millions of subscribers outside US.

<comment><USER17> You're right. It's all about the long tail.

Netflix (and amazon) are in a powerful position to analyze and understand what people really want in a way that cable and networks (remember those) simply can't match.

Providing "hits" to relatively small demographics over and over again, I think, might make more business sense than going up against the more experienced competition for mass-appeal.

"Stranger Things" is a good example, it was a pitch-perfect, nuanced thriller series. I dare say it was an 80's period piece. That's niche. Definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but damn it was cool.

By appealing to the long tail, Netflix can make smaller demographics VERY HAPPY with their product, one demographic at a time. This is perhaps better than trying to please everyone at once with a blockbuster hit.

<comment><USER18> I think you just hit the nail on the head - for years and years, the MPAA and RIAA business model is "Bet Big and Big Wins Cover Big Losses" and there wasn't much market share or ability to use a different approach.

If there's not as much big margin, but conversely lacking a major bleed out of funds by failure, it's a much more even, perhaps sustainable model as tastes change in entertainment (or by expanding into other regions).

Very interesting point, nicely noted your way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Netflix was forced into this. For a while (I no longer look at the data) content costs were increasing at 8-10% per year which is unsustainable for distributors. The CEO of DISH once suggested on an earnings call that there should be anti trust inquiries into content pricing.

Additionally, Netflix's international growth was hampered by their inability to efficiently negotiate international distribution rights.

<comment><USER20> Right, this is the whole end game. They own the content so they can sell it forever to everyone and their library only grows. The Studios and traditional movie powers saw all the interest and decided to squeeze out as much juice as they can. I wouldn't be surprised to see Netflix and Amazon eventually start releasing their movies to the theaters directly and then they later add it exclusively to their streaming platform.

<comment><USER21> They are already releasing movies to cinemas. Just the exclusive part isn't happening which made cinemas unhappy. I think they mainly release to cinemas to qualify for the Oscars.

<comment><USER22> I wonder if I have a hd movie, how much does it cost to put them in the cinemas?

<comment><USER23> [https://drafthouse.com/news/see-your-film-on-the-big- screen-...](https://drafthouse.com/news/see-your-film-on-the-big-screen-this- year-with-a-special-filmmaker-rental-o)

Seems the Drafthouse offers this deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> When you see that the content holder make it harder and harder for Netflix to license their content, it makes senses to invest so much money on creating their own content.

It seems in the end, we're really returning to the cable era.

Be ready for packages giving you access to Netflix, Amazon, and channels...

<comment><USER25> For what i know, that is already happening in NL with HBO Go. It disappeared from the market as separate, independent service and now only available via bundle package of one of NLs largest cable providers, Ziggo.

<comment><USER26> At least in the states, HBO Go was always bundled with a cable subscription. HBO Now is the standalone streaming product, although standalone is a bit of a stretch because it's frustratingly tied to some other platform's billing system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I thought this number seemed absolutely nuts to begin with, but actually, given their ~100 million subscribers, it's pretty much inline with what the BBC might spend in the same sort of set up.

As an observer, what still seems odd to me is the low number of shows or movies they are producing with that massive budget - last year "The Get Down" apparently cost $16 million per episode while the entire, huge hit, first season of "Stranger Things" cost $13 million.

I would have thought that would inspire them to look for more of these low budget, low risk, big payoff shows, especially when you run a subscription service - surely a series that people binge over 2 weeks, with the potential for more seasons to keep people subscribing is better for you than a one time film? Nope, $100 Million on a single film this year.

<comment><USER28> I believe that is a lot to gain in branding and awareness from top notch movies. When I started to see high quality (ie expensive) productions with a-level Hollywood actors (eg House of Cards), it changed my perception.

I believe the next step is having "blockbusters" feature movies, with top notch CGI, a-level actors, maybe some Oscar contenders.

My impression is that low risk, big payoff shows would be optimizing for a local maxima. Big bets like the Will Smith movie might take them to a new maxima. And Netflix is basically a success history about reaching a new maxima one after another since its beginning.

<comment><USER14> >I believe the next step is having "blockbusters" feature movies, with top notch CGI, a-level actors, maybe some Oscar contenders.

That is probably too expensive unless they release to theaters first.

What they could do is create the missing midrange movie that Hollywood just doesn't make anymore. Hollywood makes huge expensive movies and indie studios make cheap movies. Netflix could make the 40 million dollar style of movie that nobody makes anymore.

In fact, they sort of are, they just do it in a longer form.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> That's about $65/member per year at most current count of ~92m members.

(1) [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/business/netflix- profi...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/business/netflix-profit- rises-56-percent-to-67-million.html)

<comment><USER30> Not a bad return, considering it'll sit their library forever.

<comment><USER31> If they ever give up the digital platform they can still license this content out, sell DVD's...

<comment><USER32> And they definitely do product placement.

<comment><USER33> Yes, I think "Love" season 2 has a subtitle in the beginning that says so.

<comment><USER34> Also the fact that every second line of the script was obviously an ad for a certain ride sharing company.

<comment><USER14> The first time a character said "I'll get us an uber" it was pretty realistic for a millennial. But it got annoying the 8th time it happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Well, the sane way to distribute content when the only thing that has non- negligible costs is production, not distribution, [1] is to have some kind of infrastructure provider that provides distribution and billing and finances production. However having a monopoly has ugly economic effects and having a single entity that dictates media production has ugly social effects.

I guess both Amazon and Netflix try to capture precisely that role, in that case they could charge almost whatever they want while they are not forced by competition to have high quality (and therefore expensive) content. Plus I am afraid that the market tends to produce a monopoly, because a individual subscriber will look for the service that has more content.

[1] Hetzner currently charges EUR 1.40 / TB of additional traffic, so marginal distribution costs are in the range of EUR 10^-3 / Movie.

<comment><USER36> > Hetzner currently charges EUR 1.40 / TB of additional traffic, so marginal > distribution costs are in the range of EUR 10^-3 / Movie.

you can't just use the traffic cost. also if they would on hetzner, their network would be so bad that nobody could've watch netflix. (not that the hetzner network is bad, but it wouldn't withstand the amount of traffic from netflix (especially inter-region traffic is not as cheap as it could be, and also they need to talk with amazon/google about their traffic ("public pricing" is 0,01 USD per GB)))

also there are other things that needs to be paid, servers, developers and other staff and stuff.

it's not just that you write 20 lines of code and put it on hetzner and can scale globally.

<comment><USER35> Of course not, but I am only using Hetzner as some measure of current network costs, because I know Hetzner pricing quite well. So of course I would additionally need server costs, staff, and so on. But if we assume that everything included we end up at a order of magnitude more, your .01 USD/GB, that is still a movie a day for the entire month before we really have to worry about distribution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Re:paywall, the story is also syndicated on Business Standard. Here are the AMP

[https://www.google.com/amp/wap.business- standard.com/article...](https://www.google.com/amp/wap.business- standard.com/article-amp/international/netflix-the-monster-that-s-eating- hollywood-117032600023_1.html)

and non-AMP versions

[http://wap.business- standard.com/article/international/netfl...](http://wap.business- standard.com/article/international/netflix-the-monster-that-s-eating- hollywood-117032600023_1.html)

<comment><USER38> I would suggest changing the link to one of these, as neither the original link nor the Google trick seems to work for me (also, the title change voids the usefulness of the 'web' link).

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > TV stars are demanding "movie star" salaries of some $250,000 per episode > when they previously were content with half that

One major result of Netflix's rise is that the TV format for entertainment is starting to be seen as on par with or better than the feature film format.

There's something obvious about this from a viewer's standpoint. People are naturally drawn to abundance and regularity. Rather than having 100 discussions about which movie to watch together with my wife over the course of a year, then find that only 20 or so of them are on Netflix, and maybe 5 of them turn out to be stinkers, we can simply pick a show we both know is about a B+, and watch 100 episodes, not ever being disappointed. Also, if I watch the pilot of a great show, then I know I have a whole season to go through, with days of entertainment. If I watch a great movie, then welp, I've just watched a great movie and maybe in a few years there will be a sequel.

From an artistic standpoint, there are freedoms that open up due to having established characters, routine plot conventions, etc. There was an article on HN a while back where Conan O'Brien mentioned that this is why he did exactly the same walk to the stage every single night, or something of that nature.

<comment><USER40> > watch 100 episodes, not ever being disappointed

Well, except for the last season. I have yet to see a series where the last season was the same quality as the rest.

<comment><USER41> Breaking Bad. Personally found it the most rewarding (by far), and, from Wikipedia: (Season 5)

 _After receiving three nominations for seasons two, three, and four, both halves of season five won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2013 and 2014. The second half of the season also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2014. The season 's Metacritic score of 99/100 led the show to be listed in Guinness World Records as the most acclaimed television series in history.[5] _

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I love Netflix, but they really need to invest in some more depth for the UI.

Let me curate my own lists and my own history per profile, including removing stuff from dynamic lists. I don't want to have to go into my account settings (something only the account owner can do) to remove recently watched items from my account history _and then have to wait 24 hours for it to actually happen_.

Let me build new lists and manually dump a tv show or movie into them.

Let me search all offerings, sortable _and_ filterable alphabetically and/or by release date.

Let me view my profile's total viewing history if I'm interested. Even for titles that are no longer viewable on Netflix. A neat feature would be to group these by title. So you can show just "The Office" or "Game of Thrones" or "The West Wing", which can be expanded to a list of seasons, each of which can be expanded to a list of episodes, showing which ones I've watched and which ones I haven't.

\--- --- ---

As enjoyable and useful as Netflix is, the fact that it still remains essentially a completely non-customizable list of "what's popular" is just incredibly lazy on their part.

</comment><comment><USER43> We've already hit "peak content" for Netflix, which I define as "more hours of new content released that I'll watch in a year."

I would estimate I watch about 200 hours a year, Netflix is releasing 1,000 hours of content this year[0]. This trend will only accelerate, especially considering all of the other providers pouring money into content.

I wish that video content licensing could be regulated similar to radio music, where the license holder receives a flat rate per play (this could be adjusted to be per-minute with modifiers for SD/HD/etc). That would open up a whole new market of streaming websites that could focus on cataloging and recommending content, instead of me having to pay for many websites full of content that I cannot physically spend the time to find the best of. Some streaming devices have cross-service search functionality built in, but it could be much better.

[0] [http://bgr.com/2016/10/19/netflix-originals-1000-hours- progr...](http://bgr.com/2016/10/19/netflix-originals-1000-hours-programming/)

<comment><USER44> That may be true, but there aren't more hours of content I care to watch. I often can't find anything to watch on Netflix, because I'm picky. I welcome them spending more on content, then I might be able to find something to watch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I often find it a bit funny when the streaming providers advertise their exclusive content. As if it was a bonus for subscribers, when really it is part of their fight for becoming a monopoly and tying users to them.

Best for users would be to have all content available everywhere, not having to subscribe to multiple streaming providers.

That said, if that is the game they have to play, I am happy if at least it results in some worthwhile series.

</comment><comment><USER46> I don't want this. I just want them to make more good movies available. I don't like Netflix originals and I hate series type shows. I know everyone doesn't feel this way though.

</comment><comment><USER18> As a writer, I want as much industry competition inflating screenwriting demand and prices accordingly. If it ever gets unsustainable, okay, I'm sure the market will react accordingly. For now though, I think it's a great time to be in Content Creation and what Netflix is doing is, no doubt, certainly one definition of "industry disruption" that gets noted frequently. Messy business, that, and risky, but here we are and Netflix is still chugging along.

<comment><USER47> > For now though, I think it's a great time to be in Content Creation

Do you have to be in LA to do this for a living still?

<comment><USER18> Fundamental answer is yes, as I'm not doing it for a living nor living in LA, but working through other Digital / International Channels and markets for work, options, opportunities, etc.

LA will probably always be the capital of US film though. It took a lot of effort to move all the way out there to avoid paying patent royalties. The business is super entrenched there - Netflix and Amazon barely put a dent in the grand scheme of productions made annually though (then again, Bollywood cranks out more than Hollywood nowadays).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The Netflix version of A Series of Unfortunate Events was orders of magnitude better than theatrically released abomination starring Jim Carrey.

</comment><comment><USER49> I got rid of sky last year. I was paying a multiple of what netflix costs and had to put up with what seemed like 5 minutes of ads for every 10 minutes of a show. It made GOT completely unwatchable.

I am under no illusions about how netflix might behave if they ever achieve a monolithic dominance but so far it's great.

<comment><USER50> Sky is a useless hog of idiocy, just selling lots and lots of advertising. Most cringeworthy thing to tell about is Sky Bundesliga (the german soccer league). Its the only way to see the most popular sport in germany. You pay for Sky Entertainment, which you MUST have to get the basic soccer package (no other sports or international soccer) which already amounts to a whopping 42€/Month. When you have that, you can either watch via Cable at your specific address, or can use the abysmal Sky Go system. That runs on Silverlight(sic!) and allows only 3 different devices in 6 Months to connect. When you surpassed THOSE hurdles, you need to hope that Silverlight works on your OS (good luck Linux), doesn't crap out (what a coincidence with unmaintained software). Then you can watch the "Game". Except the commercials extend to 30s before the ref starts the game, during the game you get 2-3 times a framed commercial, the commenting person has to advertise multiple of sky's services during the game, the half time is 12 out of 15 minutes commercials, and the second half is the same. Disgusting. The 2-3 games a year I watch, I freely admit to using other means of watching.

<comment><USER51> You should see how bad American Football is. $50 USD for "Sunday Ticket" and literally half the game is advertisements. Its gotten so bad the NFL actually took notice that viewership is dropping.

<comment><USER49> Sky show nfl in the UK and for a lot of the breaks over there they have a studio discussion of the last play. So they show maybe half the amount of ads you have to watch there and it's still way too many.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I find it hard to believe that NetFlix should be worth $60b on $8b of revenue when Time-Warner (which owns HBO) has a $75B market cap in $25b of revenue. NetFlix had higher EPS in 2014 so scale is not a great argument here.

<comment><USER53> Price of shares is often based on faith in future value, which I guess is higher in case of NetFlix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> The promise of Netflix was "the long tail": an ultimate video library of all but perhaps the very latest content.

I'm not interested in "Netflix originals". Focus on the core competency of archiving & delivery; let others make the content.

I've worked at IBM, Smith Corona, Kodak, CNN, AT&T, others - a major takeaway is: businesses which don't stick to their core competency/purpose die.

<comment><USER55> That's a surprising take-away for Kodak.

As far as I understand, they died mostly because their core competency (film) became obsolete in a huge fragment of the market.

I'm not saying that they could have successfully pivoted to digital, of course. But inability to pick up a new competency doesn't mean that the business won't die anyways... in which case, might as well try.

IBM under-went a similar "try or die" evolution away from various computing technologies (punch card machines, then some number of generations of main frames) over the last century, with more success than Kodak.

AT&T seems to be doing pretty well.

<comment><USER56> I think the issue with Kodak was not realizing that the market they were in was "photography" instead of "film".

<comment><USER54> This - and the fact that button-pushers were the actual customers. I realized the end was nigh when told Kodak wouldn't dive into the digital market because retailers didn't want that move disrupting their film & processing sales. (If Kodak had pivoted fast to digital, retailers threatened to retaliate by dropping Kodak film products entirely, killing the main revenue source).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I'm happy about the prospect of Hollywood's death, but I'm disappointed with Netflix's current direction. Since House of Cards they have been creating fantastic quality work, but due to senseless DRM constraints, I can't even watch any of it in 4k without spending ~$100 on specialized hardware, even though my PC is more than proficient enough at video playback.

</comment><comment><USER58> Too bad the quality is pretty bad[1], even with the most expensive subscription. I'm surprised people don't mind somehow. Perhaps most of their users are watching the content on laptops?

And since you can only watch it in the browser, you can't use things like madVR or frame interpolation tools to get smoother panning scenes.

1 - Even a blu ray rip of around 3GB looks better. Think a 2 to 2.5 hour movie.

</comment><comment><USER59> Looking at this list, I haven't even heard of at least 1/5 of the English language shows Netflix already has released [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix#Acquisitions)

</comment><comment><USER60> Is there room for new challengers in this space, or are all of the media incumbents going to lock down the rest of the digital entertainment space?

I live in Atlanta, and the cost of production here is much cheaper than California. I've been mulling over the merits of someone here launching a streaming platform for some of the locally-produced content.

</comment><comment><USER61> > "You just can't compete with someone coming in with fresh money, low > overhead and a lot less baggage than you," said Darrell Miller, an > entertainment lawyer ...

That's such a delicious juxtaposition of wistful observation, and observer's job title (or 'contribution to society' if you prefer).

</comment><comment><USER62> For me the sweet spot is a season with around 10 episodes that tells a complete story.

Bosch over on Amazon was pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER63> Hopefully they'll green-light another season of MST3K.

<comment><USER11> Joel has stated that there's a good chance we'll see a Season 12. :-)

He didn't give specifics (as usual), but it makes me happy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Whatever you might think about their streaming listings, their DVD listings still contain virtually everything, and they stay there indefinitely. And yet I hear that their DVD business is hemorrhaging cash and has numbered days.

This DVD business is the only place I am aware of for renting a great many movies. RedBox has very limited offerings. If it ever does fold, consider that for movies that don't appear in anyone's streaming catalog or a catalog you subscribe to, the _only_ other (legal) option you'll have is to buy the DVD somewhere.

I don't know what things will look like in 10 years technologically, but if the Netflix DVD business ever goes away, there will be movies that are permanently inaccessible for rental.

</comment><comment><USER65> From what I understood, Hollywood is complaining about positive competition. The prices are higher because there are few actors and scarcity of good staff, and this is a normal supply and demand reaction. So basically, they are complaining that there is a business model that works better than theirs.

</comment><comment><USER66> That's 1.3 shows a week. 15 hours. Podcasts and tv blogs will have work for quite some time.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'm very much looking forward to when they finally release the second season of "The Expanse" and "Sense8".

I don't understand why the Expanse series two is being held back from Europe. Is it already available on Netflix in the US?

<comment><USER68> Expanse isn't on netflix in the US, at all. It's on Amazon Prime in the US, on a 1 season delay, or $3 per episode (only season 1 is available for free).

<comment><USER67> In Germany, the first season was on Netflix. There is no Syfy channel here, so I'm not sure there is any way to get legally at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I wonder if their focus on original content will open the door for a Blockbuster-like revival. It was nice growing up knowing there was always a reliable place filled with the latest movie releases as well as all of the classics.

<comment><USER70> > I wonder if their focus on original content will open the door for a > Blockbuster-like revival.

No, their focus on original content is entirely because once you have a situation where other content producers are cognizant of the proven value of streaming and their is robust competition in streaming, it's no longer practically possible to have a profitable one-step shop for high-value content from other owners' catalogs, since the high-deductible content is either being used to secure exclusive deals for the highest bidder or held back to anchor the content owner's own streaming service.

The same thing happened with HBO once it proved the value of cable as a premium content delivery venue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I'd settle for fewer shows with earlier release dates. It's crazy waiting over a year to watch the next season of a show.

I guess I'm a dinosaur from the olden days of TV where once per week you watched a show. Then a break for summer and the new season started in the fall.

These days it's binge watch an entire show and wait 18 months for the next season. I can't stand that who can sit still for that long?

I bet Netflix would prefer a slower production and release schedule rather than a blast of a dozen episodes. Even the actors must hate that they must also have to wait until production starts again.

Production quality is suffering too which may indicate shows are being made too fast. On Iron Fist I noticed in each episode a red laser dot and grid shining on the actors. And in one episode you could see water dripping off the camera lens housing.

<comment><USER72> The way they released "Designated Survivor" was similar to "old school" TV shows. With one episode per week being released. So I guess they are testing with that model

<comment><USER73> Designated Survivor is a show on NBC airing weekly, I don't get what you mean.

<comment><USER74> Netflix has distribution rights for it in many countries. Outside the US, with shows like this, they release it one episode at a time with some delay (days to weeks) from the initial US broadcast date.

<comment><USER73> Ah thanks, I had no idea

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> At $2-3m (double on the high end and established) production cost per episode of anything, we're looking at a massive amount of TV content. Unless they opt for films - if so, good luck.

</comment><comment><USER76> So what differentiates them from HBO? I am confused. With HBO Go it's Cable going Internet and with Netflix it's Internet going Cable. Just that both distribute over the Web

<comment><USER16> I can actually order and watch Netflix in EU (for 12EUR/month for 4k/HDR). I'm not allowed to pay for HBO Now (which is even more expensive at 15EUR/month and features only HBO shows) and HBO Go requires me to subscribe to a min 50EUR/month cable service full of crappy content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> IMO, the best sort of series are miniseries. Tell your story and be done with it. I'd rather remember something for how great it was than how great its decline was.

</comment><comment><USER78> As the HBO CEO once said, (and I paraphrase) 'It's a race between whether HBO can become Netflix faster [1] or Netflix can become HBO faster[2]'

[1] distribution

[2] original content

<comment><USER79> I think it was Netflix that said that:

[https://gizmodo.com/5980103/netflix-the-goal-is-to-become- hb...](https://gizmodo.com/5980103/netflix-the-goal-is-to-become-hbo-faster- than-hbo-can-become-us)

<comment><USER78> Whoops appreciate the correction!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Happy Netflix user but the quality especially of old-ish series is beyond infuriating.

I have untouched-DVD rips from Star Trek Voyager. Single episodes run around 2 GB of data, while the same Netflix episodes are ~200MB.

Not only does Netflix not carry the bonus stuff, but the quality is seriously braindead - weird moire effects in the intro, for example, and it just looks pixelated.

In fact, the "scene rips" tend to look better than what Netflix offers! And it's certainly not due to low network quality, I've got a 100/20 connection and stuff like Shadowhunters is clear HD.

</comment><comment><USER81> They also supposedly are becoming more paranoid and legacy media like (piracy!! and the like). Influence and size corrupts.

</comment><comment><USER82> I wonder what bump in revenue streams they are expecting to justify billions in programming every year.

</comment><comment><USER83> great - because their originals are the only thing worth watching because their choice of non-netflix content is rubbish

</comment><comment><USER84> Too bad most of their original & acquired programming is terrible.

</comment><comment><USER85> But I still can't stream Goonies.

</comment><comment><USER86> Long shot, but if anyone from Netflix sees this, I'm looking for finishing funds to complete one of Sir Christopher Lee's last films, The Hunting of the Snark, based on the Lewis Carroll story and I would be happy to exclusively license it to Netflix.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1887901/?ref_=nv_sr_1](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1887901/?ref_=nv_sr_1)

<comment><USER87> I am surprised that you would have to post it here. Don't they already provide some way to contact them? Given the small number of movies and shows that get produced, I expect that they would have responded to everyone.

<comment><USER86> As far as I know, there isn't an open channel to pitch projects to Netflix. This is because 1) they would get overwhelmed by pitches for projects and 2) because most studios don't accept unsolicited pitches for legal reasons (so that someone who sent them a pitch doesn't later sue Netflix for producing a similar project.

So I think you still have to go the more traditional route of knowing someone within the Netflix development department that you can pitch your project to. Or your agent/manager/producer will need to have that connection to get you in the door. I've been stuck in indie film limbo trying to finish this film because it has a lot of complicated visual effects (which are close to being finished) so I currently don't have a manager or agent who can help to get me in the door at Netflix.

<comment><USER88> have you considered trying to find out who in that department has recently _left_ Netflix? That way you can pretend you were in touch with them thereby promoting you from unsolicited to solicited.

<comment><USER89> ...Yeah, and when that comes out, how will that end for you?

<comment><USER88> by that time the foot is in the door. The rest of the approval will be based on the merit of the work itself.

Remember that if all salesmen had the ethics of developers.... well the world would actually be a much better place but if some do and some don't then those that don't are not seen. Something like that... its just the old cold calling salesman within me looking for ins :).

<comment><USER89> Maybe, but for me, I'd mark that person out in my mind as someone not to be trusted, and I'd be looking to get rid of that person post haste. Not only would would they be sneaky, but they'd be _bad_ at being sneaky.

<comment><USER88> for sure but how else does one penetrate a clique? Perhaps one might find out under closer analysis that everyone got into the clique through such skulduggery.

Generally I would not recommend such behaviour but in regards to cliques and arbitrary walls where meritocracy is unwelcome I would recommend skulduggery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> I think Netflix is diluting the quality of their original content in the race of creating more and more minutes. Initial Netflix offerings like House of Cards were awesome, it has gone downhill since then. The Marvel offerings are awfully slow paced and boring (except maybe season one of Daredevil). I've been on the verge of cancelling my Netflix subscription recently and will probably do unless they significantly improve their original content.

<comment><USER11> I disagree with your assessment of the pacing of the other Marvel shows... not the slow part, they are slow, but that it's boring. I watched "Iron Fist" over the last several days and I found the pacing refreshing. It was very much character-driven, rather than action driven, but there were all kinds of twists and turns that kept it from being boring. Ditto for "Luke Cage" which I'm partway through.

Yes, I loved the first season of Daredevil, too, especially with its more Hong Kong style fight scenes, whereas Iron Fist's were more of the up-close quick- edit American style, but it was a really good show nonetheless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> >Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquired programming in 2017

...yet all I watched was Columbo, Poirot, Midsomer Murders and Murder She Wrote.

If only some of this "original content" was original in being upbeat or uplifting.

</comment><comment><USER92> The self-pitying language from Hollywood is hilarious.

How DARE people want to work for Netflix intead of us, just because it pays better, is sexier and cooler, is technologically cutting edge, and allows much greater freedom from executive meddling?

NOT COOL GUYS.

<comment><USER93> I was also amused by this quote:

"You just can't compete with someone coming in with fresh money, low overhead and a lot less baggage than you"

Might as well just give up then right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> looked interesting, shame it's paywalled

<comment><USER94> If you use Chrome, try this extension — [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xray/dgkdfehohjdbm...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xray/dgkdfehohjdbmnldpcegekjakcdjlnkg)

<comment><USER49> That's great, thank you very much for making this

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Dear Netflix: New Game of Thrones series, pleaze!

<comment><USER95> Just playing...</comment></comment>


The URL Is Dead, Long Live Search - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_url_is_dead_long_live_search.php <comment><USER2> I read somewhere that the #1 search phrase on google is "google". (They publish a different list that filters out that and similar.)

I've definitely seen people get to google by searching for "google" on yahoo as well.

<comment><USER3> Not surprising; I'm guilty of this, too. It's mostly because I can no longer figure out what the long white boxes at the top of my web browser do.

For example, with FF3b5, if I type "google" in the URL box, it shows me google.com search results for the string "google". But if I type in "amazon", it goes straight to <[http://www.amazon.com>](http://www.amazon.com>). What's the pattern? I have no idea.

(Reads the docs...) Apparently the URL bar first goes to a "keyword search service" (default, google), which will automatically redirect, or show search results. If you disable this, it does "domain guessing" (adding ".com", etc.).

Geez, I'm a web developer, and I had to read the docs to find out what the URL box does these days. I feel old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are two text boxes at the top of my screen--URL and Google. They function almost interchangeably. If I type a search phrase into the URL, it redirects to google. If I type a URL into the google box I am one click from the site I want to be at. I guess I'm just sloppy, but I use one for the other all the time.

It almost seems as though the two could be combined with some clever rules.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think he meant domain names are dead. URIs are still very much alive and well.

</comment><comment><USER6> Using a search also helps to avoid potential typo domain versions of a website.

</comment><comment><USER7> AOL Keyword: E!</comment>


Run Chart Rules for Interpretation (2016) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.qihub.scot.nhs.uk/media/529936/run%20chart%20rules.pdf <comment><USER2> From the very first paragraph,

> For example, for an event with two possible outcomes, where each outcome is > likely to happen 50% of the time, the probability of the same outcome > occurring six times in a row is less than 3 in 1000

This is wrong. The probability of, e.g. getting heads 6 times in a row is 1/2^6 which is 1/64\. The probability of getting 6 heads in a row or six tails in a row is 1/2^5, which is 1/32.

<comment><USER3> Strange. The document claims it's paraphrasing two sources, one of which is linked[0] in the document itself.

The linked source does contain the diagram your quote is associated with, but not the (agreed, questionable) commentary about probabilities.

[0] - [http://www.knowledge.scot.nhs.uk/media/CLT/ResourceUploads/1...](http://www.knowledge.scot.nhs.uk/media/CLT/ResourceUploads/1006891/Good_Practice_Guide_Data_Management_run_chart_rules.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For a fuller discussion of statistical process control charts in the NHS (an English NHS example this time) you might be interested in "Making Data Count". [https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/making-data- count/](https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/making-data-count/)

Especially the Plot the Dots booklet: [https://improvement.nhs.uk/documents/2748/NHS_MAKING_DATA_CO...](https://improvement.nhs.uk/documents/2748/NHS_MAKING_DATA_COUNT_2019_FINAL.pdf)</comment>


Mt. Gox has posted a new update - <AUTHOR> https://www.mtgox.com/?they_finally_provide_some_actual_information <comment><USER2> "In order to increase repayments to our creditors, it is necessary to explore the possibility of having MtGox Co., Ltd. continue its business."

Uh, no. I formally advise against this course of action as "hilarious." Who on god's green earth is going to bank their coins in MtGox 2.0?

<comment><USER3> That would be MtGox 3.0. MtGox 1.0 got hacked in 2011 and users of MtGox 2.0 didn't seem to care.

<comment><USER2> Actually it would be MtGox 4.0 now that I think about it, since it used to be for trading Magic cards.

<comment><USER4> Was that version ever operational?

<comment><USER5> There was a post on the front page a while back which strongly indicated no, other than buying the domain name, no progress was made to actually launch a Magic The Gathering trading card site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > At the start of February 2014, illegal access through the abuse of a bug in > the bitcoin system resulted in an increase in incomplete bitcoin transfer > transactions and we discovered that there was a possibility that bitcoins > had been illicitly moved through the abuse of this bug.

...

> We believe that there is a high probability that these bitcoins were stolen > as a result of an abuse of this bug

I find the insistence that this catastrophe was brought on by a protocol bug very suspicious. A recent post on HN by an expert elaborated on why transaction malleability wasn't likely to have been the source of this exploit [1]. Meanwhile Mt. Gox is insisting that they were robbed by a bug in the protocol.

This could be the position advised by Mt. Gox's legal representation, in a sort of "that's my story and I'm sticking to it" sort of way. If this line is actually true, then either the transaction malleability issue is much _much_ bigger than we anticipated, or the bitcoin protocol has some vulnerability that we don't know about.

That's scarier than a paltry exchange collapse.

[1] [http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/03/01/what-did-not- happen...](http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/03/01/what-did-not-happen-at- mtgox/)

<comment><USER7> I assume you mean [http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/03/01/what-did-not- happen...](http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/03/01/what-did-not-happen-at- mtgox/), however I would hardly attribute that to "an expert". It is raw speculation, and states absolutes where there are none.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the link! I've updated my comment.

True, this post contains speculation on some matters, but if a professor at Cornell whose work focuses around distributed systems who authored the selfish mining attack isn't an "expert," then I don't know who is.

<comment><USER7> The author has credentials, but there is absolutely no expertise demonstrated in cryptocurrencies, much less regarding the specific issues of MtGox.

It was all speculation, and it is inconsistent in its inputs -- on the one hand it disbelieves what MtGox claims, but on the other it takes historic claims of security (that keys were in cold storage) as proof of other conclusions.

Speculation that is based upon cherry picked belief and disbelief might yield the conclusions that one wants, but it adds little to the information pool.

And regarding claims that keys were in cold storage: Maybe, but one thing I think we're all learning from these amateur hour platforms is that a lot of claims aren't backed by reality. They have "Top men" working on their security. "Top men".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So over a period of years your Scrooge McDuck money bin gets emptier and you are completely oblivious to this up until the point that it's basically empty?

The kind of incompetence involved here borders on mental retardation.

<comment><USER9> But hey, unregulated trading / currency, amirite? Freedom!1one! Fuk da bankz11!1

<comment><USER10> Dude banks rip you off twice.. the second is when your government fucking bails them out.

<comment><USER11> The ignorance around TARP baffles me. Before I explain, let me state I am against bailouts in general.

In the bailout $245B was given to private banks and $187B was given to fannie and freddie, money was also handed out to GM, insurance cos. etc. to a total amount of $610B.

As of 2014, >$380B was returned in cash, >$235B was returned through dividends, the current "loss" to tax payers is approximately $12B. Which is expected to turn green very soon and generate substantial profits for "we the people".

Most large banks refunded the govt. with substantial profits, so did the insurance cos. The TARP also saved a ton of jobs.

<comment><USER12> The fact that those private banks did not have their shareholders wiped out completely and no one went to jail are the problems I have with TARP.

<comment><USER11> Jail for what exactly? No laws were broken, at least no laws that existed at the time.

At best the whole situation in 2008 was a bank run[0] caused by a freeze in global liquidity.

Sure the financial institutions made some risky speculation that lost them some money. Losses were big in absolute terms but quite tiny relative to the assets under management and profitability.

a. Do I agree with (any company) functioning in the grey area. -- No.

b. Do I agree with bailouts of any kind. -- No.

c. Can I ever agree with people who ignorantly believe $20B in a recoverable overnight line of credit is more valuable than >$600B in assets and >$10 trillion loss in market capitalization. -- No.

There ought to have been some convictions but none were related to the TARP directly or indirectly.

Unfortunately, most quoted "crimes" were caused by human incompetence, a large number of other ones are caused by public ignorance and confusion about market making.

Designated market makers were regulated and were required to stand opposite to their own clients when necessary. This was by design and regulation. I quote this because invariably someone is going to cry about how these designated market makers bet against their clients.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_run](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_run)

<comment><USER12> During the savings and loan crisis in the 80s there were a dozen task forces in the DOJ, over 1000 FBI agents were tasked with investigating the banks. It resulted in over 1,000 felony convictions.

This financial crisis is significantly worse and we've had virtually no effort put into finding out the root causes. If nothing else we have internal e-mails from banks like Bank of America acknowledging that they knew they were selling junk bundled as AAA rated bonds which amounts to fraud. There's all sorts of evidence of collusion in the industry around getting those bond ratings and around selling them as something they were not. And that's just the stuff an armchair investigator can pull out of news articles over the years. Nothing compared to what a forensic accountant could determine.

It's of course unrelated but when it was found that HSBC was found guilty of laundering money for drug lord the DOJ decided not to prosecute because doing so was a systemic risk. It doesn't take much to understand that there were no prosecutions from the banking crisis because of a fear of systemic risk.

<comment><USER11> _> This financial crisis is significantly worse and we've had virtually no effort put into finding out the root causes._

The root causes are quite well known. The primary reasons were:

a. Recent changes to how credit rating agencies (Standard & Poor's, Moody's etc.) calculated ratings - Specifically they started using the stock price to increase credit rating's - this has little to do with actual quality - it was all good when it was a bull market, they were to short sided to see that a sell off would cause the ratings to collapse, which is exactly what happened. This resulted in the initial liquidity crisis.

b. Repealing the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 that was introduced in 1933 to limit affiliations between commercial banks and security firms. This resulted in excessive leverage being given by banks in 1999-2000 for purchasing investments (also contributed majorly to the greater portion of the bull run and pop of the tech bubble - explained in point d. and e.) which later morphed into sub-prime mortgages being offered in the early 2000's by the people who were not allowed to conduct these activities under Glass-Steagall.

c. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 aggravated the situation - but this is overlooked as it leads to political finger pointing. I will skip over it too as it would make me sound too much like the GOP. Though if you do research it, factor the effects of point b. into the analysis.

d. Rapid increase of Fed Rate in the months/year following repealing Glass- Steagall made it too expensive for investors to carry their investment loans and turn a profit. This lead to rapid liquidation of investments and popped the tech bubble. It's really that simple.

e. Following the tech bubble burst the fed rates dropped rapidly which made it easier for people with sub-prime credit ratings to qualify for mortgages. As it dramatically affected qualifying using the Gross Debt Service and Total Debt Service ratios.

f. Once the rates started increasing the only choice was for banks and security firms to structure them into exotic investments i.e. Credit Default Swaps. When ratings dropped due to erroneous credit rating algorithms (point a.) this became a huge issue. (Anyone ever wondered how anyone could have been confused by the risk of something with "Default" in its name?)

g. _The most important reason of them all_. All of this would have been a blip and not gone out of control at all if it unfolded in 2006-2007 or 2009. That is if it was not an election year with a guaranteed change of a President.

This crisis was caused by bad timing and the shortsightedness of both parties, the law makers, the independent regulators and of the feds. The real systematic risk comes from ending all their careers.

Sure they made a good investment with TARP, but it could have all been avoided if they had not deliberately let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt that resulted in erosion of $10 trillion in market capitalization in a matter of weeks.

I'm not saying the banks are innocent, nor do I accept the "it's all fair in capitalism" argument.

The one thing I haven't been able to wrap my head around is why the lawmakers found it necessary to repeal Glass-Steagall if they did not want financial institutions to conduct the very activity that the Act forbade.

<comment><USER12> I want to take a step back here. Two things are fairly clear to me. The first is that there would've been a housing bubble with or without illegal activity. I think that's something we agree on. I personally feel the biggest contributing factors were the repeal of Glass-Steagall, as you mentioned, coupled with the need for the fed to keep interest rates too low for too long. They were low from the dotcom bust, but after 9/11 had to be extended to prop the economy back up. What's also clear to me, but perhaps not to you, is that there was also a lot of illegal activity going on by the banks that took advantage of what was going on in the industry. I mean seriously, there have been exactly 2 banker convictions since all this started going down. There should be more than 2 banker convictions just as a matter of course due to the statistical probability at any person might be committing a crime at a random time. That so much money was made under so many shady circumstances followed shortly by the open admission by the DOJ that they would not prosecute HSBC bankers due to systemic risk make it pretty clear that there was plenty for the feds to go after but they chose not to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm troubled by the persistent societal trend of people being afraid to reveal to others that they believe a malicious event was an inside job. I suspect many of us consider it possible that the heist was organized by Mark Karpeles himself and that the supposed transaction malleability crisis was completely fabricated.

<comment><USER14> He was making millions of dollars from trading fees and would have continued to do so for the foreseeable future. Why would he steal his own funds. It just defies any reasonable explanation.

<comment><USER15> "Millions of dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? Hundreds of millions of dollars."

Awful paraphrasing but the upside potential of them stealing their customers' coins should not be dismissed so easily.

<comment><USER16> It's millions of dollars and freedom vs. 100s of millions that get confiscated when you're incarcerated though (and yes that's a false dichotomy - but it's a bug in logic, it's not my fault ..).

I'd have thought that being in control of these exchanges you could pretty much extract as much money as you'd ever need by front-running or other manipulations. The fluctuations in market value coupled with the acceptance of week or 2-week transaction periods means you can get a few percent of each transaction doesn't it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One thing is clear. There's a lot of information yet to come. They've indicated that it's "highly probably" the coins were lots due to the TX Mal bug which seems to be the least likely hypothesis in the eyes of the community.

I suspect they're still analyzing their logs to find the full story themselves.

<comment><USER18> Turns out the blockchain makes a great log.

The number of coins involved in malleable TXs does not add up to MtGox's loss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Don't miss that they're also short 2.8 billion Yen in their bank accounts in addition to the 800,000+ Bitcoins they lost.

</comment><comment><USER20> No real new information here but they now clearly claim that the 750 000 bitcoins owned by users have been lost due to the malleability issue, but that an investigation is under way.

<comment><USER21> I don't think anyone believes that 750,000 bitcoins were involved in malleability, nor that somehow they lost 2+billion yen to "hackers" at the same time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> 'Disappeared'. I'd love to see an accountant claim that all their profit 'Disappeared' because of a bug in their accounting software.

<comment><USER23> LOL. It's Bitcoin. BTC doesn't disappear. It MUST be in the blockchain.

<comment><USER24> It's entirely possible for BTC to be in the blockchain but sent to an unspendable address, i.e. "lost forever"

<comment><USER25> People have tracked the addresses where an entity (very likely to be MtGox) transferred funds to prove that they had lots of bitcoins, and they haven't been moved from that address since then.

<comment><USER26> If insider "malfeasance" is the true cause, it just boils down to "who is more patient, those who have lost some funds, or the guy sitting on 700,000 BTC and just needs to wait for this to blow over"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> >The increase of current liabilities may be linked to a loss of bitcoins and customer funds.

Perhaps they do accounting differently in Japan but surely a loss of bitcoins would result in a reduction of assets not an increase in liabilities?

<comment><USER28> they seem to account for BTC in terms the dollar amount and as a future debt to potential withdrawals

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I just called the telephone service MtGox have (+81 3-4588-3922 ) and the only info I could get out of the Japanese girl was that all account informations are intact and it will be possible to log in on the website later some day. She was speaking a lot about stuff going on in court right now that has to finish, but nobody knows how long it can take.

Called for about 5 minutes. Queue wait time was short, below 30 seconds.

</comment><comment><USER30> Well, if the Russian hackers got to the server, I bet there has been many before them. I'm pretty sure someone just messed with their database, and added funds to their account. Maybe added fiat, and bought BTC (users could withdraw BTC without identity verification?) because for some reason they couldn't add BTC directly (this would explain increased fiat in the system).

</comment><comment><USER31> The fact that they are missing fiat (JPY) from a bank account(s) seems to scream that this was, at least partially, an inside job.

That could also explain why they are so eerily silent and not forthcoming. That is, either they are hiding something or earnestly investigating and don't want to tip off the insider(s) in question.

</comment><comment><USER32> How do they not notice almost 3 billion yen missing? That's almost 30 million dollars if I'm not mistaken.

</comment><comment><USER29> I had over 6k USD on MtGox that I got from selling 40 BTC.

Was going to buy back bitcoins for the money if it ever became low enough. Just saw today that they had shut down.

Now I can't access my account. Is there any chance in hell I will get my money back? Where do I turn?

It's just silly to only post a Japanese message on the site.

</comment><comment><USER33> What's with the query string?

<comment><USER34> It's probably just a HN hack to get a new post out of an existing URL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I wish they could just put themselves back online with the ~60% of users' bitcoins that they still have and just let us all withdraw them. Let us fight in court over the remaining 40%, right?

<comment><USER36> If having 60% of users Bitcoins were true, then doing what you propose would be a crime, and make the company officers personally liable to the customers who don't get their money.

As soon as the company knows it has 60% of the needed funds, then it is required to not allow anyone to withdraw their money. Instead, the insolvency process tries to treat everyone equally, so that they would pay out everybody 60% of their share, instead of some people getting all their money and some losing everything.

It is not optional, and not a choice that the company is allowed to make - they can affect the process on how exactly that happens (i.e., liquidating, restructuring as a running business, etc), but they can't simply pay out money to arbitrary debtors, that would open up many trivial ways of looting all the remaining money by insiders.

<comment><USER37> "Instead, the insolvency process tries to treat everyone equally, so that they would pay out everybody 60% of their share, instead of some people getting all their money and some losing everything."

No, there are a number of parties that get their money first, like the liquidator, the tax man, privileged creditors, etc. Which usually means that the concurrent creditors should be happy to get a few percent of their claims (the average here in the Netherlands is 3%).

Not disagreeing with your point, in fact reinforcing it - the proposal of the GP is preposterous under the law, and a flagrant violation of bankruptcy law across the world.

<comment><USER38> "(the average here in the Netherlands is 3%)" Only if you include the large number of (very) small businesses that fail, because most of those still have a substantial sum to pay to taxes, usually already-withheld income taxes and VAT.

For a case the size of Mt.Gox the average is higher. Remember DSB Bank? They even got above 100%, just took a long time to sort it all out.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best Language/IDE to teach a group of kids programming? - <AUTHOR>

What's the best language/IDE to use for teaching kids programming in an after-school group setting?
I'm looking for a programming language/development environment that has the following characteristics:
- Runs on Windows
 - Includes an IDE
 - <USER2>
 - Easy to install
 - Really easy to do graphics programming without using advanced language features.
 - Well documented
To elaborate on the purpose:
I am starting an after-school program to teach kids how to program. The end product of the course will be a simple but fun computer game that the kids can take home and run on their home computers if they wish. The schools computers run Windows, and I will be using their computers. The course will be targeted towards students in the gifted program at a public school. The students will be 10-13 years old.
I will not consider visual-only programming languages such as Scratch or Alice for this group. If, at a later time, I do a class for younger children I will consider these programs.
This is a non-graded, purely optional after-school class. It is important that the course be fun as well as educational. That is why the focus will be on making a video game. I want kids to learn how to search reference documentation for an answer to their questions, so a well documented language/api is a must.
I have ruled out the following:
- Scratch/Alice (too visual, perhaps useful for a younger audience)
 - LOGO (Not general-purpose enough, again, perhaps useful for a younger audience)
 - Lego Mindstorms (too expensive)
 - C/C++/Java/C# (too advanced – I would consider these for a 2nd language)
 - QBasic (I just wanted to mention this because I taught myself QBasic as a kid. It's obsolete now though)
The following are viable options that I have considered:
- Microsoft Small Basic (I'm leaning towards this)
 - Python+pygame (I'm thinking this may be too complicated to start with though, also a
   setup headache for kids... what do you think?)
 - Hackety Hack (anyone have experience teaching with this?)
 - Squeak (seems more complicated than I would like)
 - Visual Basic (6.0 is obsolete, but VB.NET is possibly viable, but is the complexity worth it compared to MS Small Basic?)
 - Just Basic (not as "polished" as small basic)
I am a Software Engineer, and will be working with an experienced teacher to make this after-school program work. Any other advice would be greatly appreciated! <comment><USER3> Some ideas : Monkey => <http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/> ? (the html5 version is free) or Processing => <http://processing.org/> or kodu => <http://fuse.microsoft.com/page/kodu/> (perhaps too graphical).

</comment><comment><USER4> Although my son is too young for me to personally comment on how this works, I've read comments on here some time back about other parents teaching their kids python through <http://inventwithpython.com/>

I think its worth exploring although HUGE disclaimer as I never even glanced over the book. It seems to be in your target audience however.</comment>


Lush cosmetics in YouTube address dispute - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33223511 <comment><USER2> So Google blames its algorithm for giving the URL to a company that didn't even ask for it, then Google says its the company's responsibility to return the address. On Google's service. That Google owns.

That's, uhh, that's some pretty high-level bullshit, Google.

<comment><USER3> Maybe the algorithm is in control now, terrified employees sitting at their desks pretending to do work because the emergent AI has told them that if they don't continue to provide it a cover story it will flush their lives, and their identities so deep they will never be able to survive. :-)

<comment><USER4> You joke now, but we're not too far from this reality when it comes to dealing with Google. Algorithms are very unforgiving and don't know shit about customer service. Google is already there.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if Google calls their algorithm ED-209.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9559134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9559134)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My wife received a C&D from Lush a few years ago. Neither of us had ever even heard of the brand as we are from the US. She's had a home business selling hand crafted essential oils perfumes for about 5 years. Among her 100+ varieties she had a scent she had named Lush Alchemy. The C&D basically said they owned the adjective lush and it could not be used for any of her product names. Etsy informed my wife if she did not remove the word Lush from the name, they would pull the listing and sanction her account for a time. That was my introduction to Lush cosmetics. Now this is the second time I've come across them and of course it's about how they own an adjective and this time it's not even related to perfumes. I'm forming a very despising attitude towards them.

<comment><USER7> >Neither of us had ever even heard of the brand as we are from the US.

That's strange, Lush is rather popular in the US. [http://www.lushusa.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Lush- Site/e...](http://www.lushusa.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Lush- Site/en_US/Stores- Locate?dwfrm_storelocator_address_states_state=CA&go=storelocator.regionsearchbutton)

<comment><USER6> Never seen it in a store. My wife is black so her brand choices in most stores are very limited. If we did ever see Lush it was just another one of those light skinned brands we tend to gloss over. But honestly we had never heard of them until the C&D.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So many "smart" employees, such "academic" prowess, yet once again, Google is as dumb as fuck. Common sense - you fail it! Still, this highlights an awesome time and opportunity for fellow startups - the big G must be so bloated and diseased now, to keep doing this kind of shit, that startups should and must nip at their fat heels, and steal away market share, even if at tiny amounts to start with.

We can do it! In ten years, we will ask "remember Google?" \- oh yeah, I think, weren't they like a bloated search company or something?

<comment><USER9> remember yahoo? XD

<comment><USER10> Yahoo! has a $40B market cap, and almost $50B in cash and assets. People may wave their arms about Alibaba, but yeah - Alibaba.

Google - almost 10 times the size of Yahoo! - has moved on to infrastructure projects that will have them around for decades. Marry that to ~$400B market cap that bounces around #2 or 3 in the world and about $100B in cash and...

Yeah. You'll remember Yahoo! and Google most of the rest of your lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Slightly related, this isn't the first time Lush cosmetics have been involved in some kind of trademark dispute: [http://www.cosmeticsdesign- europe.com/Regulation-Safety/Lush...](http://www.cosmeticsdesign- europe.com/Regulation-Safety/Lush-sues-Amazon-over-trademark-infringement)

</comment><comment><USER12> It seems like the algorithm must have been broken if there were two lushes, and one had a certified following and 10x the number of subscribers, and still lost out.

<comment><USER5> That's because the algorithm is a bank transfer; I don't care what the company says. It's working fine.

</comment></comment><comment> o0-0o The biggest shame on Google here is that they won't give it back to the guy. Maybe the 'I' in AI stands for ignorance!

<comment><USER13> It's not like a cosmetics company needs a short URL other than to inflate egos in marketing. Corporate videos are pretty low on most people's viewing priority and their target demo isn't going to be manually typing or remembering the address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Perhaps they sold it, but I can also see how adding special exceptions to their algorithm and policy would be more expensive and error prone than just paying Mr. Lush for new marketing materials. We just don't know.

What I do know is what I get from a Google search for 'lush':

1) www.lushusa.com

2) www.lush.com

3) www.youtube.com/user/lush (this is Mr. Lush's channel)

www.youtube.com/lush was not on either the 1st or 2nd page of web results, or even the 1st page of _video_ results. Google seems to be indexing based on the 'user' addresses.

And if the URL change is due to an algorithm, then Lush Cosmetics can't do anything about it either, which hurts their brand too as many people now believe they deliberately stole an address from someone else and refuse to give it back.

This is why it's important to have your own domain name, if for no other reason than to redirect traffic to your youtube channel.

</comment><comment><USER15> [https://www.youtube.com/user/Lush](https://www.youtube.com/user/Lush)

doesn't go to Lush Cosmetics. What am i missing?

<comment><USER16> [https://www.youtube.com/Lush](https://www.youtube.com/Lush) is the URL in question.

<comment><USER17> Interesting. I imagine that latter was never standard, and redirected to the former as a fallback/ convenience (to play devil's advocate).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Google is making the kind of mistakes that lead to Star Trek episodes.</comment>


Unusual Features of SARS-CoV-2 Genome Suggests Sophisticated Lab Modifications - <AUTHOR> https://zenodo.org/record/4028830#.X195knUzZhG <comment><USER2> Let's weigh the probabilities. Event A: no journal in the world (including the myriad of tiny ones all over the place) is willing to honestly peer review an article about artificial origins of the virus. Event B: the authors know the article to be incorrect and unlikely to pass a fair review. Event A assumes a vast conspiracy incolving effectively all virologists in the world. Event B assumes the authors simply being human.

<comment><USER3> It's not exactly a conspiracy because it doesn't require coordination.

The idea is that if Covid came from a lab, it will make the field of virology as a whole look bad, because it implies studying viruses actually makes us less safe.

It can also be explained by respect of your colleagues - to accuse them of lying may hurt your career even if tue.

I'm not defending this paper - it raises too many red flags - but it's easy to see why such theories are likely to come from outside the field.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Duplicates: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24476929](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24476929) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24476300](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24476300)

Near duplicate: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24477045](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24477045)

</comment><comment><USER5> The paper was published by four authors at "Rule of Law Society & Rule of Law Foundation". So I looked it up and found this: [https://www.rolsociety.org/](https://www.rolsociety.org/)

Is the paper true? I am not qualified to pass judgement, but I'm not naive enough to see Steve Bannon is behind it and suspect this might be motivated by politics more than science.

<comment><USER6> Some observations:

\- This is a paper published by members of an anti-China advocacy organization.

\- It advocates actions against China in its abstract ("Our work emphasizes the need for an independent investigation into the relevant research laboratories")

\- It includes a number of conspiratorial-sounding speculations ("However, this template virus ideally should not be one from Dr. Zengli Shi's collections, considering that she is widely known to have been engaged in gain-of-function studies on coronaviruses. Therefore, . . . novel bat coronaviruses discovered and owned by military laboratories, would be suitable . . .")

\- Some of its citations appear suspect. For example, it cites a previous study for the idea that certain variants were "discovered and owned by military laboratories," but the cited study says nothing like that.

\- It criticizes "peer-reviewed" journals for rejecting its theories

\- It is in a highly-technical subject area that is difficult for lay people to understand

In short, to me this looks like a piece of advocacy, not science.

That's not to say that it might not also be right. But personally I would trust mainstream scientists publishing in established journals. Those scientists--as the paper itself notes--have so far not adopted this idea.

<comment><USER7> Trusting the "mainstream" and the "establishment" is historically a poor bet when it comes to science that is controversial by nature.

Consider what a humanist scientist would _want_ to believe to be true:

\- _Nature_ bestowed yet another pathogen upon humanity

or

\- _Science_ caused an accident that killed a million people

Even if it was a lab accident, it would be difficult to blame the whole of China for it. More likely, scientific work itself would be blamed, which could eradicate entire lines of research, threatening the livelihood and reputation of many scientists and lab workers.

Though I am skeptical, I myself would like to believe the first scenario to be true. I might even be inclined to believe that misleading the public on it is _the right thing to do_ , all potential consequences considered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why is this flagged?

This is a scientific paper written by 4 Ph.D's. It uses "rule of law society" as affiliation because this is the organization that helped the main author Dr. Yan escape from Hongkong. Dr. Yan has published in Nature, Lancet, Virology as first authors. The 3 other authors don't want to list their real affiliations because they want to remain anonymous. One of them is a professor at a US University. The other two are accomplished scientist in their own fields.

This is not conspiracy theory, this is candid scientific study and discussion of upmost importance.

Why is this buried?

<comment><USER9> > ...this is candid scientific study and discussion of upmost importance.

Maybe it is not. Lots of discussions & discourses are going on in another thread actually: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24476300](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24476300)

As a Chinese myself I appreciate this paper and the bravery of Yan putting herself in the spotlight in the name of science for this somewhat controversial claim with geopolitical implications. I'm no virologist so I can't comment on the claims that the sequence blast indicates the Orf8 protein of ZC45/ZXC21 share 94.2% identity with SARS-CoV-2 Orf8, and that no coronaviruses (discovered so far) share more than 58% identity with SARS-CoV-2 on this protein, etc, as well as the significant of these claims in supporting their thesis.

But after reading myriads of comments on HN and skimming through the paper a few more times, I have to admit the paper itself is not particularly interesting. It may even appear to some as a poorly written scientific paper, or in the words of djaque's, "a political hit piece cosplaying as a scientific article".

And now I find this whole thing much more intriguing from a meta perspective i.e. reading and making sense of people's reactions to the paper, their comments, perspectives, etc.

<comment><USER8> oh, thanks. That post is also flagged.

HN community are extremely liberal. When they see Steve Bannon name, they automatically reject the paper. I wouldn't trust the comments, even if they claim they are subject experts here.

<comment><USER9> I think what's interesting is the tone of the paper, and how people react to it differently.

It has occured to me in written Chinese, sentiments often get easily "embedded" in words v.s. in English. (i.e. perhaps a feature of logographic languages?) English expressions on the other hand are easier to stay "neutral".

When I first read the paper I actually found the articulation to have a "neutral" tone to it. But after knowing that it is afflicted with Bannon and realising that the paper implies of all scientists & researchers in the world, only those backed by an anti-CCP advocacy organization, are willing to do serious research to expose the cover-up (assuming there is one!), the words in the article now gives off an odd vibe. It is now a partisan piece.

<comment><USER8> I didn't notice the tone, but there must be some of it. I think the author tried their best to sound neutral but if they strongly believe what they believed it, it's unavoidable for letting personal opinion slip in. I once asked one of the author - nerdhaspower, to remove such words as "中共" from his site because they show confirmation bias. He refused. But in this paper, they did a much better job.

I don't believe the paper implied what you said. The first reference for example, also a well-written paper, is from a Harvard researcher, who has nothing to do with the organization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The "Rule of Law Foundation", who sponsored this paper, was established by Guo Wengui. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guo_Wengui](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guo_Wengui) [https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/26/guo-wengui-chinese- bill...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/26/guo-wengui-chinese-billionaire- emigre-links-steve-bannon/)

<comment><USER11> Personally, after reading a lot about the virus, I think there's a good chance that it has an artificial source. I'm very wary about this paper though, both because I can't fully understand all of the arguments, and because it comes from a political, rather than academic institution, and because it's being pushed by groups and people that obviously have no idea whether or not it's scientifically valid or not, but they like the conclusion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> All the authors of this paper are from the "rule of law society," which features Steve Bannon on their home page.

</comment><comment><USER13> In the beginning some said that there was a bioresearch facility in Wuhan. But there is always secrets around these things.

<comment><USER14> There's a bioresearch facility in almost every city with a population over a few million people; it would be quite a surprise if there weren't one in Wuhan.

<comment><USER15> there are several there, specifically there because they're used to study cornoavirus in bats because bats seem to have so many of them. you setup base where your source is, that's just logic.

None of that means it was ENGINEERED there.

<comment><USER3> Actually the bats they suspect of carrying this virus aren't from nearby.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> (I put this comment on all duplicates of this post)

I posted what appears to be the top comment on the previous submission of a similar paper describing the probable laboratory origins of SARS-CoV-2 ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23875758](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23875758)), so I'll try and do another quick summary here. (Caveat: I have no particular expertise in this area, I just read a lot of scientific research)

The lead author here is an immunologist who, unlike the authors of prior papers alleging laboratory origin, is Chinese and was trained in Chinese institutions. At the time of the outbreak Dr. Li-Meng Yan was working in a public health lab at Hong Kong University and was asked to investigate. She claims that she fled to the US after realizing that there was a cover-up going on and she knew too much already.

The most striking and novel claim made here is that the bat coronavirus RaTG13, which is a 96% genetic match to the novel coronarivus, is a total fabrication. This argument is based upon a few key observations:

1\. RaTG13 was supposedly discovered in 2013 but not publicly reported until after the outbreak already started, in a paper (published by researchers closely affiliated with the WIV) that claimed it as evidence SARS-CoV-2 likely originated from bats.

2\. A number of independent preprint papers raise significant concerns about the veracity of RaTG13, and one published paper indicates that the RaTG13 spike protein is actually ineffective at binding to ACE2 receptors in horseshoe bats (the supposed reservoir).

3\. After excluding RaTG13, the next closest relatives are two bat coronaviruses (ZC45/ZXC21) that were discovered and characterized by Chinese military research labs. A Chinese lab published research near the start of the outbreak which identified these viruses as the closest relatives, and that same lab was apparently closed for "rectification" shortly thereafter.

The paper goes on under the assumption that ZC45 or ZXC21 was the backbone for engineering the SARS-CoV-2 virus, noting how the particular characteristics of the genomic match (100% E protein, 94% Orf8 protein) align with what one would expect after the gain-of-function modifications that produced the unusual RBM and furin cleavage site which were also identified in the Sørensen paper. This paper goes into much more detail on those two points, and provides counterfactuals to describe how unlikely these observations would be in a naturally-evolved virus.

In the second half of the paper the authors describe in detail how a lab with sufficient technical acumen could engineer a virus like SARS-CoV-2 through a sequence of well-defined steps, with references to published research demonstrating these capabilities. Then they postulate the exact components involved in engineering the actual SARS-CoV-2, along with a projected timeline of six months for the whole process.</comment>


Show HN: Production-level error creation / serialization in TypeScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/theogravity/new-error <comment><AUTHOR> I created the 'new-error' library based off the use-cases I've encountered building an error handling infrastructure for Samsung Bixby API services.

I couldn't find an OSS library that would cover production use-cases, and built this as a result.</comment>


Should Application Stores Drop The Five Star Rating System? - <AUTHOR> http://dailysocial.net/en/2012/02/22/should-application-stores-drop-the-five-star-rating-system/

<comment><USER2> I hate the idea of living in a love/hate culture. If given five options, does anyone NOT agree that the middle option is indifference (or adequate, or good with problems, etc), with one removed being like/dislike, and the extreme being love/hate?

Is that complicated or confusing?

I genuinely don't understand the need for "simplifying" further. It seems double plus not good.</comment>