Comcast: The Consumerist's Worst Company in America - <AUTHOR> http://consumerist.com/2010/04/congratulations-comcast-youre-the-worst-company-in-america.html

<comment><USER2> What did I miss? I didn't see a "why" in there. Is there further reading somewhere?

That being said, my experience with Comcast has been REALLY GOOD.

I don't understand the hate. Is it their policies maybe? Policies that just don't affect me I guess.

The bandwidth cap... I'm a super heavy Internet user. Vidoes, audio all day, MLB TV, etc. I barely even break 40-50GB per month according to their system.

Then there's the service. I had a problem with one channel not showing HD correctly. They gave me Starz for a year for free, then they sent someone out THAT DAY, they gave me a new DVR and a new remote, checked all connections, crawled up the pole in the back of the house and checked the connections up there, and stayed until everything tested out perfectly.

When we first started with their IP phone service, we had problems with connections. They replaced our router within a day and it worked perfectly after that.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't expect better service from a company.

Maybe it's that they have a lot of crappy old hardware that needs upgraded (apparently), but that aside, I don't understand why they got the golden poop award.

<comment><USER3> I think it has to do with the fact that they:

      + are a huge monopoly
      + want to filter and tier the internet and have done so in the past
      + move into markets with low prices, then inflate them once they take over
      + don't want to be seen as a utility, even though they are
      + have horrible customer service if anything goes wrong
      + scare the crap out of people with the whole NBC merger thing

<comment><USER4> Just to give people an idea what "have horrible customer service" means, I called comcast saying my remote was broken and they said they only way to pick another one up was in person. That's right they where unable to mail me a new remote even if I was willing to pay for the shipping.

<comment><USER5> I can top this. I'll try to keep it down to a summary.

I was moving from one unit in my building to another. I had confirmation on the phone that service would remain on in both units for a month.

Tech shows up, no work order, doesn't identify himself, disconnects the old unit, doesn't connect the new one, leaves. I call and complain.

Next day they go out and connect the new unit. They say they will not reconnect the old unit, but they will gladly bill me for the month anyways. The day after that, they disco it again. This is confirmed because I have no signal at my patch panel.

I call. They say it's obviously my modem. They claimed they tried to send it a new bootfile, and it failed. I asked them what my serial number was because I had no signal to my apartment. For if they could connect through the power of magic, they can tell me my serial number. Awkward silence. I ask to escalate to her super.

I get her super. He tells me to buy a new modem. I entertain the idea and do so.

I call back. Liar rep gets me, recognizes its me. Hangs up. At this point I start bitching on Twitter. Within 2 minutes I get a response, and a number to call.

I call back. Get a VP of customer service. He apologizes for everything, and authorizes a truck roll for the next day. He can't explain why I was lied to by a technician and two customer service reps, nor why it took me bemoaning my situation to the internet to get a shred of service.

I still got billed for both units. And I took 3 days off from work. However, I have no other serious alternative in Boston until mayor Menino and Verizon kiss and make up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Providers with regional monopolies are always the worst companies. They have something you want and you can't get it from anywhere else, so they behave as you'd expect them to behave.

To maybe over generalize a bit...

<comment><USER7> New Yorkers can attest that Time Warner Cable = nukular buttfail.

Large business corporations, as I've said before, are a wonderful way to provide the worst of both worlds between capitalism (greed, high prices) and communism (apathy, poor service).

<comment><USER8> I am delighted to inform you of the relevant agencies you can complain to. I highly recommend you complain to the local cable commission. From a subscriber's rights pamphlet that arrived with my first bill, verbatim:

If a problem or question has not been resolved to your satisfaction by a Customer Support representative, you may request to speak with a supervisor in that department. If you are not satisfied with the results, please write to us at: Time Warner Cable, Research Department 41-61 Kissena Boulevard, Flushing, NY 11355

You will be notified, either by phone or by letter, within two business days of our receipt of your letter. We will make every effort to resolve the problem within 10 business days. Should you still remain dissatisfied with our resolution, you have 30 days to refer the matter to the State of New York Public Service Commission, 3 Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12223, Phone: 1.800.342.3377, or 10 days to refer the matter to the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Telecommunications and Cable Television Division (DOITT), 75 Park Place, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10007, Phone: 311. If the matter is referred to the DOITT, it has 30 days in which to investigate the issue and recommend a resolution to the company. If the matter is not referred to the Research Department in 10 business days, our resolution shall be considered final. We also participate in the Better Business Bureau (BBB) Customer Commitment Program. The BBB can be reached at 257 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010, Phone: 1.900.463.6222 (Calls cost caller 95 cents/min.).

\- Now the text implies that there is some sort of time limit regarding when you can file a complaint, but if you visit the websites of the respective agencies (NYPSC: <http://www.dps.state.ny.us/New_complaintdept.html>, DOITT: [http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/html/consumer/consumer_cable_s...](http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/html/consumer/consumer_cable_service_form.shtml)), there is no mention of a time limit. I would suggest complaining anyway, since you have nothing to lose, and the purpose of these agencies is to serve the public. And of course the Better Business Bureau: Better Business Bureau: <https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/getstarted.aspx>

<comment><USER9> but what if the problem is something like:

I have no choice when it comes to selection of service, or,

I am paying you while you fight in court for decisions to be over turned that I don't support

What are they going to do about those?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm unique in that my experience with Comcast has been pretty good. Internet service has been solid. When I have had issues they've sent people out and fixed them w/o cost.

While they were late to the HD game, they've come on strong. Lots of HD channels with reasonable quality. And the OnDemand content is probably the best of any cable/satellite provider in the industry.

The DVR is pretty sucky, but stability has become rock solid. I used to get a lot of missed recordings, but haven't in literally a few years. Oddly, this was fixed when I just happened to mention to a Comcast rep that my DVR was flaky and he said, "We have a fix for that." They sent it, and no more problems. My only complaint is that I had to get this fix out of sheer luck from a rep.

I'd definitely rank Ticketmaster or Sony or my credit card company behind Comcast.

</comment><comment><USER11> I hope they're right up there next to AT&T :/

Comcast and AT&T are the only choices for broadband where I live. I've had both. It really is awful either way.

<comment><USER12> Ouch. I'm moving from an area with Optimum Online & Verizon FIOS to one with only Comcast & AT&T. If you had to recommend between the two, which one is _less awful_.

<comment><USER11> Where I live Comcast offers higher speeds. It's also more expensive. I recently moved and switched to AT&T and I'll explain my current gripe with them.

I have 6Mbit DSL (the fastest they offer). Things worked fine for the first couple months. No real complaints other than the fact that 6Mbit isn't really that fast. Then all of a sudden about a month ago my connection drops to ~1.25Mbit. Netflix is un-streamable (any video really), downloads are slow, all of this regardless of host. Speedtest.net confirms my speeds.

I call and complain, they verify I still have the 6Mbit plan, I play their unplug and replug the modem game (that I had already tried numerous times, as well as a different phone cable and ethernet cable). They run a "line test" and say everything looks fine so they'll send someone out.

The guy never calls or shows up. I call back last weekend to try and get this worked out and get another guy out and they say there is no record of my service call ever. Also, their tools are currently down and without first running a line test they can't schedule a service appointment. They tell me to call back and try again the next day.

As it stands I haven't called back yet because I've been too busy... but I'm planning on it and hoping for the best :/

<comment><USER13> This is exactly why I have Speakeasy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Comcast's customer service isn't as bad as DirecWay (satellite internet provider) in my experience. When I had DirecWay my wait for service was typically over 30 minutes on the phone. So I had to find a big block of time before calling. My internet went out for the 4th or 5th time and I called them the next day to try to figure it out. The service guy on the phone berated me for waiting so long and said "if you had your arm chopped off would you wait a day before going to the hospital??".

</comment><comment><USER15> I can't comment on Comcast's customer service since I am not and have never been a customer. What I can say is that when a company obtains a reputation for bad customer service as Comcast has, it only snowballs; confirmation bias leads people to remember, "Oh Yeah, Comcast screwed me on X" and at that point the game is lost.

Lesson: Never let your pissed-off customers define your brand. Preferably by not pissing off too many, or too influential, customers.

</comment><comment><USER16> By the fact that Comcast has a monopoly in my area both as a cable provider (which comes with the territory) and in broad band I can't help but be biased against them. Every problem reminds me that they have a strangle hold on both these markets, and I don't even have the option to switch. So much for market forces.

Also, I shouldn't have to setup my own DNS server (this did stop a lot of the outages I was experiencing).

<comment><USER13> You can't get a copper twisted-pair to your house (for DSL or a T1)? There is no 3G or 4G wireless service?

I highly doubt that Comcast is the _only_ option. It is merely the cheapest option with the highest available bandwidth.

<comment><USER16> No other wired option, Verizon refused me service (something to do with the wiring in my apartment building). Wireless is an option, but then I either need an extra machine running with the wireless NIC to function as a router for the 2 current machines. I pay enough in power as it is (mainly due to electric heat).

<comment><USER13> You don't need a full computer to be a wireless router, take a look at: [http://3gstore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&prod...](http://3gstore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=610)

Also, I'm sure that Verizon won't sell you anything (they are just another shitty company that caters to low-end consumers), but higher-end companies will probably make the effort to fix your wiring. Speakeasy is one.

<comment><USER16> Thanks. I'll have to check them out. Verizon did wait like 3 months to tell me no, can't say I was very impressed even ignoring the fact that they refused to give me service.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html <comment><USER2> "He attributes the earnings reversal overwhelmingly to one factor: education. For every two guys who graduate from college or get a higher degree, three women do."

It's interesting itself that more women graduate than men. But equal pay means equal pay for people with similar qualifications doing similar jobs. This comparison means nothing to me.

<comment><USER3> Sadly "equal pay" means whatever you want it to mean.

At some point the nurses union in Denmark argued that their education was roughly the same length as that of an engineer, so they should be paid the same on that basic. Completely ignoring that engineers spend five years at the university vs. the 3.5 years for nursing school and that engineers are pay wildly different salaries bases on their field of work.

In my mind, equal pay is for people doing the exact same job, and the exact same number of hours, but that just my interpretation. Many will use the equal pay term to advocate for a pay rise, because they feel that their line of work is underpaid.

If someone believe that they should be better compensated, just say that, don't hide it behind "equal pay". One issue of cause it that people don't understand economy, it not necessarily about the hours you work, the responsibility you have, but about the profit you generate for your employer.

<comment><USER4> > Sadly "equal pay" means whatever you want it to mean.

Exactly this. At a fundamental level every individual has an infinite number of "dimensions" (in ML parlance) associated with him, and "equal pay" people or groups will try and convince you that expected pay should be the same over a certain subset of dimensions while ignoring all the others. Invariably they will pick the most beneficial to that particular person or influence group. They will give you arguments from moral, while forgetting to mention that like in any midly complex problem, data bias and confounding variables are of paramount importance.

So "equal pay" means whatever you want it to mean because try and you may, you will never have a model with the full infinite set of dimensions that the real world has. Having to pick you pick the ones you want, a choice that others will attack.

<comment><USER5> You cannot dismiss rigorous statistical analysis by arguing it can never encompass the full dimensions of the data. Of course it can't. The map is not the territory; it is a useful way to find our way around it. Ignoring the map is perilous, if not arrogant, even though it is merely a flawed representation of the real truth.

You might argue that a specific study or meta-analysis contains a bias or misinterpretation, but only if you've actually examined their methodology, data, and reasoning. You cannot argue that all studies of complex topics are invalid simply because their topics are complex.

<comment><USER6> _> You cannot dismiss rigorous statistical analysis by arguing it can never encompass the full dimensions of the data._

This simply means it's not rigorous. See _Omitted-variable bias_ \- from [1]: _The bias results in the model attributing the effect of the missing variables to the estimated effects of the included variables._ For example, including gender but not education or hours worked will result in attributing pay differences to gender, but including all relevant variables shows that's gender is irrelevant.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omitted- variable_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omitted-variable_bias)

<comment><USER7> You entirely missed the point. We can never include _every single_ relevant variable to perfectly explain the observation. It's impossible.

This doesn't mean statistics is useless.

This is the meaning of the phrase "the map is not the territory". All models are flawed, but some are useful.

<comment><USER8> No, statistics aren't useless, but its usefulness cuts both ways: if you can add one or two relevant variables and almost entirely remove the observation, then statistics tells you that the observation was only there due to omitted- variable bias.

<comment><USER7> Sure, that's fine. That's part of using statistics to the best of our ability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm bothered by the implicit authority given to the word "study" nowadays.

Collecting data and drawing conclusions is much easier than contrasting assumptions for the sake of understanding the underlying issues, yet the former seems much more prevalent in public discourse.

<comment><USER10> I would further add that the credibility of the person performing the "study" is also no longer analyzed which it should be because implicit bias is a serious factor.

<comment><USER11> Implicit bias or confirmation bias?

<comment><USER10> I would say it could be either but none the less bias is a relevant variable that should always be considered. For example, studies on say smoking or the health benefits of a pharmaceutical performed by a tobacco company or big pharma respectively are openly and voraciously discredited as bias which they should be. Anything relating to social justice of any sort is swallowed as irrefutable fact without a second thought or an ounce of critical thinking applied.

It is then regurgitated argumentum ad nauseam and any statistical (read fair and scientific) analysis of the study and its bias are attacked as anti- something, racist, misogynist etc. It is academically and morally corrupt and cannot and should not be allowed. The academic community should be vocally standing against this practice but being that they are afraid to be called a name or slur they swallow it.

People have put their political subscription above everything else and it is sickening.

<comment><USER11> > People have put their political subscription above everything else and it is > sickening.

Agreed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From what I gather from the article, the study doesn't seem to account for the profession, which would make it as meaningless as other gender gap studies I have seen so far. A banker or lawyer is paid significantly more than a professor or a nurse. So at the end all you are measuring is the difference in salaries between professions rather than the actual gender gap between people with the same qualification and profession.

<comment><USER13> If men or women are choosing different career paths, that too is notable and worth reporting. Papers can report the gap without going into underlying causes.

<comment><USER12> Except that most newspaper are jumping to conclusions, saying that there are discriminations, women not getting the same chances, etc. That might be the case but these studies do not allow to establish that.

<comment><USER14> If women aren't having the same access to more lucrative positions or fields that men are, then that is discrimination — in education or the workplace or both. Unless you believe that something about women drives them away from such positions/fields or makes them less qualified in such positions/fields, in which case you are in the Damore camp.

<comment><USER15> Agreed -- if they aren't having the same _access_, it is discrimination. But once again, nothing in the study points to that.

Do you believe men don't have access to jobs in the field of nursing? On average, women outnumber men 9.5 to 1 in nursing in the US. [0]

[0] [https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/human-capital-and- risk...](https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/human-capital-and-risk/gender- ratio-of-nurses-across-50-states.html)

<comment><USER14> I think nursing may be a field where certain stereotypes, etc. keep the gender balance of the working population a certain way. And I think you correctly point out that men do have _access_ to the field of nursing so it's not ad much of a problem per se. That said, the reason I think you can say men aren't denied access is because you don't have hordes of men revealing patterns of regular and constant discrimination, as you do in technological fields today, so I don't think the comparison says what you wish it did.

Furthermore I think it's telling that you being up nursing, a not particularly lucrative field, as a female dominated one. It's not a secret that the most scrutiny is going to those fields that are the more lucrative/powerful as discrimination in such fields serves to keep wealth/influence concentrated in whiter, maler hands.

<comment><USER16> A few years ago there was a nice government report here in Sweden on gender segregation for teachers, and guess what they wrote? Hordes of men revealing patterns of regular and constant discrimination, very similar to that in technological fields today, and cited research which points that any work place which is dominated by a single gender has a tendency to create a discriminating culture against the minority.

I would bet that if one looked at the drop rates of male nurse students it will look very similar to that of female programming students. If one looked at the reason cited why they decide to drop it will align to very similar answer, where the minority will cite an increase self-doubt and low support. If one looked at the rate people leave the field after working the first year, again we will likely find identical reason for programmers where many will citing clashing work culture as a top reason for leaving the profession. Looking at those staying after 3-4 year, again there is a similar pattern where the minority will move towards specialization (sub groups of the profession) where there is a higher ratio of members of the minority.

We have medical specializations which have a gender segregation that is above 99%, where for every person of the minority gender there is several hundreds of the majority. Why do such extreme segregation exist where both men and women has equal access to the same profession?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> After having a kid I think I can see what creates the gender gap and the same effect is happening to me. Now, if there's a conference call at 5:30 at work, I skip it. If there's a new project that's going to make me work extra hours I decline it. Overall I am willing to sacrifice a lot of my career for time with my kid and most women take the majority of childcare responsibility. For people without children I wouldn't expect there to be much of a gender gap.

<comment><USER18> And it is ok, that you skip it, the difference on pay gap is men having far worse life for those few extra bucks. It is not everything about the money and your path is correct. We (men) are doing it wrong and we are the idiots. The extra money is just not worth it, but we are pushed into craving for social status (which in most cases equals to income, car, house,...) due to the fact that potential mates (females) are searching for such mans (statistically womans are marrying to mens with ~30% higher income than they have) . And idiotically as it sounds, the "equality" will just make both genders work harder, spending life at workplace. Working for "8%" less money than you will get for your peak capabilities and you will have far better life. It is just not worth it.

Money is NOT everything.

<comment><USER19> Interesting theory. So you think if women make more, than men will try to increase the wealth inequality in other ways? I'm curious about that.

Alternately, they could also just learn how to validate and be with women's emotions (and their own).

<comment><USER20> > Alternately, they could also just learn how to validate and be with women's > emotions (and their own).

That would mean unlearning every single thing society tells us not to do. I would ask you listen to this: [https://www.npr.org/2018/03/19/594719471/guys- we-have-a-prob...](https://www.npr.org/2018/03/19/594719471/guys-we-have-a- problem-how-american-masculinity-creates-lonely-men)

Humans are emotional creatures, modern men get that beaten out of them. If you're female I'd ask that you talk to some of the men you know and ask them if they've been emotional around women in the past and how that went. This is a societal problem and if we keep treating men as both the problem and the source of their own problem, its never going to change.

As it stands I highly doubt anything will change in America in my generation or the next two at the very least. Until it becomes a problem that can't be ignored this will continue to be ignored.

<comment><USER19> I studied PUA for a decade, coached it (and even saved the marriage of one of the all time most famous "gurus"). I was a master of shutting down my emotions, acting like a guy with avoidant attachment in order to trigger a womans anxious attachment.

I slept with tons of women and also couldn't sustain a "relationship" once any sort of actual intimacy was demanded of me.

Finally, after being at the brink of suicide, I realized that my emotions were deeply valuable things and that I needed to develop a relationship with them -- all of them, and stop trying to run from sadness or rage or jealousy or rejection.

Once that internal process reached a critical mass, I then began the work of retraining my nervous system to be oriented towards people who were more secure and able to be with others honest expression of emotion. This meant telling the truth and often feeling like shit when people did, in fact, reject me.

I regained my ability to feel, however, along with my ability to be with others feelings.

Now, I'm engaged to an incredible woman and have a coaching practice full of all sorts of folks seeking guidance on how to have real relationships. Some of my clients read HN, others run the companies you work for, star in the movies you stream or build the products you use.

It's hard work, but highly recommended and required if we are going to emerge into a new paradigm of human relating.

Gratuitous engagement video shot with drones on a remote tropical island that we are planning to turn into a village for visionaries like all of you here ;) >>

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEiW- Jee2eI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEiW-Jee2eI)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities"

This is a trend that I have personally witnessed since joining the corporate workforce as a recent college graduate living in a major city.

In general I saw my female colleagues getting promoted faster and moving up faster than their male counterparts.

In no way do I think it was favouritism, I just believe our senior management thought these young women were better prepared and organised than their male counterpart in their 20's.

Whether or not this trend continues to higher levels of management remains to be seen.

<comment><USER22> I don't think you can justify your position "these young women were better prepared and organised than their male counterpart in their 20's".

You say that women in their 20s are better at something than men in their 20s. I believe you know this is indefensible and if you would say the reverse you would get kicked out of your job.

<comment><USER23> >You say that women in their 20s are better at something than men in their 20s

I don't know what comment you read, but the comment I read said nothing remotely close to this. If you want to paraphrase what they said, it'd be more like "the very small sample of women I was exposed to in a small amount of time at one single professional workplace were better prepared for the job than the very small sample of men I was exposed to in a small amount of time at one single professional workplace".

That says absolutely nothing about men and women in general, no matter how much baseless controversy you want to drum up.

<comment><USER21> Not trying to drum up any controversy and I fully admit it is a small sample size. As someone who falls in the demographic "Under 30 and Living in a Metropolitan City" I feel comfortable sharing some of my own personal and my friends experiences in their particular office as well.

The dominant news story has always been the story women earn 80 percent less than men, but that was difficult to reconcile compared to what I was seeing in my work life. This article backed up some of those points.

If you are looking for hard data to back up what I experienced, the article posted here is a perfect source.

<comment><USER23> I wasn't accusing you of trying to drum up controversy, I was accusing PunchTornado of doing that. They were the one trying to force you to extrapolate your limited experience to the entire population and then use that strawman for target practice.

<comment><USER22> Well, way say it then if you don't want to generalise it and give an explanation for the findings in the article. However you put it, your comment says that it may be that women in their 20s are more organized because in my company I observed this. If this statement is ok with you then fine, but it wouldn't be ok to say it loudly in some companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can't seem to find the study itself, but there's another article about this study from 2014 which goes into a little more detail: [http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/apr/09/...](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/apr/09/genevieve- wood/what-pay-gap-young-women-out-earn-men-cities-gop-p/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Real life stubbornly resists all attempts to make it more _fair_.

An 8% difference in either direction is acceptable to me. It's good enough to tolerate until it's worth revisiting for further improvements. So now that we have the gender pay gap (almost) sorted out, perhaps we should tackle a problem more likely to cause societal problems: the increasing measures of wealth inequality.

<comment><USER26> Why is wealth inequality a problem? People should be free to pursue maximum compensation for their skills and abilities, not be limited because they are better at somethings than other people.

<comment><USER27> When people talk about wealth inequality as a bad thing they're normally talking about self-perpetuating wealth inequality, or wealth inequality that is caused by things that are seen as inherently unfair, like the family you are born into.

A lot of people who have comparative wealth and have worked hard for it feel they have earned their wealth, disregarding the fact that a lot of other people work equally hard and do not have the same amount of wealth. This sort of thing muddies the issue.

Also muddying the issue is the fact that some people think that if X amount of money could lift Y poor people out of poverty, vs making rich person Z marginally richer, it is self-evidently the case that it is better and therefore right for X to be spent on the Y rather than person Z. I.e. as long as some people are below a minimum acceptable level of wealth, all wealth inequality is, in this view, bad.

<comment><USER26> People who think wealth inequality is a problem are being short sighted.

>wealth inequality that is caused by things that are seen as inherently unfair, like the family you are born into.

I, like my father before me, am making sacrifices to benefit my future generations. It's not unfair, it's called being responsible and thinking about the future.

edit: changed delusional to short sighted.

<comment><USER28> So rather than downmods, I'd be really interested to hear why people disagree with this - apart from the argumentative "delusional" comment.

Is it wrong to work hard to improve your children's future prospects?

<comment><USER29> > Is it wrong to work hard to improve your children's future prospects?

Nothing is wrong it.

> I'd be really interested to hear why people disagree with this

It's a blatant strawman.

If you provide for your child 1000x what they need (during childhood and/or via inheritance) that is not bad (in the scope of this discussion, no other details implied). What is bad is if you have 1000000x what your children need and you built this on the backs of people who will squaler in poverty until the day they die and the only thing you use the wealth for is to acquire more wealth. That is bad. The strawman makes it sound like you are defending an average middle class engineer saving up for their children's college as if they were in the wrong, as if they were on the winning side of increasing income inequality.

Nobody here is arguing against a middle class person saving up for their kids college. They're against people who actually have ridiculous amounts of wealth and the rapid growth of that inequality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This would not be any better than women being payed less. The entire premise of "equal pay" is that both genders paid roughly the same for the same job.

</comment><comment><USER31> Should have (2010) in the title.

</comment><comment><USER32> As other commenters have pointed out, these comparisons are confusing, especially when reported as headline figures.

There is clear envidence for a "gender pay gap" - in that women get paid on average less than men. Whether that is a bad thing which we need to do something about is a different question, which heavily depends on your overall gender role opinions.

<comment> wu-ikkyu >There is clear envidence for a "gender pay gap" - in that women get paid on average less than men.

If you control for education, years of experience, and skills there is no such gap.

<comment><USER33> Do you have a source for that claim? From what I've understood the gap shrinks to somehing like 4-8%, not that it goes away entirely. I would like studies if it goes away entirely (because I haven't seen such a study).

<comment> GuB-42 The trick here is how to match men with women in order to make the comparison.

Do we group by job position, skill level, education, experience? And what is "same experience"? In tech, it is usually counted in years, regardless on how many hours you work during the year. Compare to airline pilots where the metric is flight hours. The same kind questions can be asked for all other points. Even the wage can be tweaked. Is it by year? working day? hour? What about pauses, overtime, work at home, commute time, ...

By carefully choosing the metrics, we can say whatever we want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bummer Time hasn't figured out how to include link preview metadata.

</comment><comment><USER34> Careful. This doesn't fit The Narrative, and could cost you your job.

</comment><comment><USER35> There's no perceptible gap in wages between almost any pair of social groups, provided we compare only similar roles. This has been solved by the market years ago.

We still need more wage transparency. Companies should be required to publicly list all wages, because lack of transparency is detrimental to the workers.

<comment><AUTHOR> In the UK, that is already in progress - [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/06/gender- pay-g...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/06/gender-pay-gap-law- could-have-significant-impact-say-experts)

<comment><USER35> This is still an incorrect approach looking at incorrect metrics. According to the government document:

>The gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings of men and women, expressed relative to men's earnings. For example, 'women earn 15% less than men per hour'.

But this is not what should be measured. If there's a mining company that employs 90% men working down in the mine and 10% women doing accountancy, then of course the average wages of men are going to be different than those of women, but that tells us nothing about equal and fair treatment of men and women at this company.

<comment><USER36> > But this is not what should be measured

It's a perfectly reasonable thing to measure as long as it's not being used as a proxy for equal pay (which it explicitly isn't in this case).

What it can show is systemic bias. Now, unlike unequal pay, it's not necessarily blatantly unfair bias. It might not be unfair at all depending on the detail.

But knowing that there's a gap and understanding the reasons for the gap can be beneficial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> >Wednesday, Sept. 01, 2010

</comment><comment><USER38> Sadly this same article would be unlikely to be published by Time in 2018.

<comment><USER39> Nice, an assertion that can neither be proved nor disproved. A perfect idea faraday cage.

Also, as we can all see, it is _still_ being published by time.com in 2018.

<comment><USER40> The person did say "unlikely" (which is more a statement of opinion than of a definitive claim), and given the cultural climate of 2018 we can draw reasonable conclusions about what the response to such an article, if first published in 2018, would be, and thus the likelihood that a publication like Time would publish it for the first time now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> If we could solve the gender pay gap for working mothers, computer programmers, machine-shop workers, and other jobs where men still earn more, we might finally be able to celebrate equality between the sexes.

<comment><USER42> The adjusted gender pay gap is only a couple of percent. Maybe that can simply be explained by different behavior between men and women and is not evidence for discrimination. For example male Uber drivers earn 7% more than female drivers even though the algorithm doesn't distinguish by sex [1]. Should we force Uber to pay women 7% more to adjust for this fact?

[1] [https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/UberPayGap.pdf](https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/UberPayGap.pdf)

<comment><USER43> > The adjusted gender pay gap is only a couple of percent.

This suggests where the best opportunities for improvement lie: equalizing parental leave (so that the parental career penalty is distributed more equitably), decoupling health insurance from employment (to lower costs on business for parental leave), and so on.

<comment><USER44> >equalizing parental leave (so that the parental career penalty is distributed more equitably)

If you mean giving the same amount of leave to both fathers and mothers, isn't that already the norm?

Also, offering this is one thing, but getting parents to use it is quite another. Many fathers probably avoid taking so much leave precisely because it does harm their career. How would you fix that?

>decoupling health insurance from employment (to lower costs on business for parental leave)

This decoupling is a good idea for many reasons, but I don't see how it would decrease costs on businesses for parental leave. Health insurance doesn't compensate businesses for having to pay people for time that they spend away from work, it just covers their medical bills. Most of that paid time is just parents staying at home with their new kid.

<comment><USER45> _If you mean giving the same amount of leave to both fathers and mothers, isn 't that already the norm?_

In the US it's nowhere close.

"The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) requires 12 weeks of unpaid leave annually for mothers of newborn or newly adopted children... "California is the first state to offer paid paternity leave weeks (six weeks, partial payment). In the rest of the US, paternity pay weeks are not offered (therefore neither paternity paid leave weeks)." [1]

Of course companies can offer what they want above the requirements, but even when it's offered it's very common for the paternity leave to lag far behind maternity leave. For instance, even for a company like Apple, which is generally pretty progressive,

"U.S. employees will now have a few more weeks of paid parental leave: Young Smith says expectant mothers can take up to four weeks before a delivery and upwards of 14 weeks after and expectant fathers (and other non-birth parents) can take six-week parental leaves." [2]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_States#Paternity_leave)

[2] [http://fortune.com/2014/10/02/apple-employee- perks/](http://fortune.com/2014/10/02/apple-employee-perks/)

<comment><USER28> >> _If you mean giving the same amount of leave to both fathers and mothers, isn 't that already the norm?_

> _In the US it 's nowhere close._

I think that wikipedia page has misleading or outdated information in the summary. FMLA leave covers both mothers and fathers equally.

From the Department of Labor: "Both mother and father are entitled to FMLA leave for the birth of their child, or placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care."

Bringing up California further confuses the issues, since that is about paid leave whereas FMLA is unpaid. I think the 6 weeks of paid leave in CA comes from the employer-paid disability insurance.

[https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/fmla/10a1.aspx](https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/fmla/10a1.aspx)

<comment><USER45> Thanks, this is interesting and I'd like to learn more.

FWIW I did some web searching for the policies at big tech companies (which of course offer more than the minimums. The following article is a bit dated (2015) but seems to give a nice summary of maternity- and paternity-leave policies.

[http://time.com/money/4098469/paid-parental-leave-google- ama...](http://time.com/money/4098469/paid-parental-leave-google-amazon-apple- facebook/)

The TLDR: some (e.g., Facebook, Netflix) have parity between mothers and fathers but most of them (e.g., Amazon, Apple, Google, MS, Twitter) give at least some extra weeks for moms and/or birth moms.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


IT workers go offline to avoid recruiters but still get jobs - <AUTHOR> http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2012/09/20/13991469-it-workers-go-offline-to-avoid-recruiters-but-still-get-jobs?lite#__utma=14933801.437994314.1348413671.1348413671.1348413671.1&__utmb=14933801.3.10.1348413671&__utmc=14933801&__utmx=-&__utmz=14933801.1348413671.1.1.utmcsr=hotsheet.com|utmccn=%28referral%29|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/&__utmv=14933801.|8=Earned%20By=msnbc|cover=1^12=Landing%20Content=Mixed=1^13=Landing%20Hostname=www.nbcnews.com=1^30=Visit%20Type%20to%20Content=Earned%20to%20Mixed=1&__utmk=185695785

<comment><USER2> "It's a direct result of an unemployment rate for software programmers that in the first part of 2012 was 4.4 percent, slightly more than half the national average."

That's about the rate for college graduates, see this chart: <http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS14027662></comment>


Ask HN: Plan to fail or fail to plan? - <AUTHOR>

Failure is the most dominant outcome, but it seems like no one ever talks about planning for failure. How do you plan for failure, and how much does that factor into your overall planning? <comment><USER2> Your title is a common quote, I'm not sure if you're misusing it on purpose or not

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's a play on Franklin's "If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!" because I think in the startup space the age old quote isn't quite right.</comment></comment>


Which other website would you like to see added to push.co? - <AUTHOR>

We had some great response to launching the HN push.co app and are wondering which other website you would like to get push notifications from. Feel free to drop suggestions in the comments.<p>http://push.co/a/w4bcXKT0W <comment><USER2> There are already lots of channels in there. I'd say perhaps give the user some control on what they receive push notifications on.

For example keywords, when my company name is mentioned in one of the channels, push me a notification on it.</comment>


I don't hire unlucky people (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://braythwayt.com/posterous/2014/10/04/i-dont-hire-unlucky-people.html

<comment><USER2> See link at end. 271 HN comments await, from about 1078 days ago.</comment>


Ask HN: What's up with Red Bull's pricing strategy? - <AUTHOR> Foreword: hopefully this relates to HN as it is business/price-setting related, which could be related to startups.
Well, a 4-pack of 250 ml Red Bull cans costs around five dollars (at Walmart). That is an average price of $1.25/can.
A 24-pack of 250 ml Red Bull cans costs around 42 dollars (http://www.amazon.com/Red-Bull-Energy-Drink-Sugarfree/dp/B000MTM0WK). That means 42/24 = $1.75/can.
At Walmart also, a 12 pack of 250 ml Red Bull cans costs 20 bucks. That is 20/12=1.66 per 250 ml can.
So, 1.25 (4-pack) < 1.66(12-pack) <1.75(24-pack).
The question is: WHY?
Shouldn't a properly run pricing strategy encourage customers to buy more, not discourage them? What's going on exactly? <comment><USER2> 1\. You can't compare Walmart to Amazon and expect the same prices.

2\. Although larger quantities are usually cheaper by the unit, sometimes that is not true. Maybe the store is running low on inventory for the larger one, or high for the smaller one. Maybe they cut the price on the smaller one to act as a loss leader - I know drinks are often in this category.

<comment><USER3> Point 1 is incredibly important. Walmart achieves low prices in part by putting pricing pressure on their suppliers. I have never seen a 4-pack of Red Bull for $5 anywhere, it's always $6 or $7. My guess is that Walmart is setting that price point, not Red Bull.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps Red Bull takes into account some discrete pricing jumps that people might have. For example, suppose a single can of Red Bull costs $1.50 (you haven't given that price, but I think it's important) and I go in and see that 4 cans cost $5. So I see that it's a good deal and it's just a five dollar bill.

But when I get to 24 packs I'm in a whole different league and not thinking of an individual note. Now we're talking serious money.

Or perhaps Red Bull buyers can't do arithmetic.

<comment><USER5> typical single pricing for a can is $2. also, typical pricing for a 4 pack is $6-8. walmart is specifically pricing them lower than "market", if what the OP is saying is true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The original Thai version of Red Bull can still be found for much cheaper at your local asian grocery store. They will typically carry several off-brand versions as well for even less.

</comment><comment><USER7> In local stores (in my country) a Redbull costs me around $2.5. Looks like you guys are very lucky :)

</comment><comment><USER8> If you drink a lot of that junk, you need something like this:

<http://journal.dedasys.com/2008/10/17/programmer-fuel>

I think I paid 2 euro for that whole bottle. Wow was I wired that day...

<comment><USER9> and I bet productivity plummeted :P

Top Tip - stimulants like that (and I include coffee there) dont work twell at all: try orange juice instead, it will work much better and for longer. Follow it up with plenty of water (even minor dehydration makes you tired).

One glass of OJ every half hr plus lots of water will keep you awake longer than a can of Red Bull etc. :)

<comment><USER10> Try mixing half orange juice and half water. Very refreshing, and it doesn't impose as much of a "sugar rush" and crash.

I used to drink this after heavy exercise -- I was never into sports drinks (amongst other things, the food coloring in them upsets my stomach). I found it very effective; it also stopped my stomach from cramping at the sudden introduction of a large quantity of water.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It isn't legal were I live! :-)</comment>


Possible blood test for colon cancer - <AUTHOR> https://news.stanford.edu/2019/04/19/possible-blood-test-colon-cancer/ <comment><USER2> Wake me up when toilets tells us anything we need to know about our health.

Depending on implementation it could even be scary. A companion app that gives you AmazonFresh ads: A little low on zinc today eh? Why not try some Pumpkin Seeds™

Is anyone working on something like a smart toilet? Sounds like something papa Bill Gates would bank roll

<comment><USER3> Theranos #2

<comment><USER4> Hate to be that person, but it'd be Theranus

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems likely that, in the next 50 years, instead of actually curing cancer, we will just get really really good at early detection and prevention.

<comment><USER6> Well, my father died of pancreatic cancer three years ago. It was detected in the last stage due to very strange positioning. He only had a few months to live at that point.

I really wish we had better methods to detect that cancer. Maybe before it metastasised he could be saved?

<comment><USER7> Pancreatic cancer has very poor survival. 5-year survival for stage 0 to II (i.e. early detection) is 34%. Most pancreas tumors are KRAS mutants - undruggable and aggressive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If this works, it is going to put a lot of GI doctors out of business.

The guidelines for screening after 50, plus the ACA's provision that makes colonoscopy "free" has led to a large increase in the number of screenings over the last 20 years [1], and I suspect that a lot of GI docs are making out like bandits.

[1][https://progressreport.cancer.gov/detection/colorectal_cance...](https://progressreport.cancer.gov/detection/colorectal_cancer)

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't understand the comparison between the unpleasantness of a colonoscopy vs. collecting a stool sample. Anyone with a dog is collecting a stool sample every day. It is not prohibitively high on the unpleasantness scale.

Is the whole point of their work the incremental improvement of procuring blood vs. stool?

</comment><comment><USER10> "Current recommendations suggest that everyone between the ages of 50 and 75 get a colonoscopy."

Yes, unless Kaiser Permenente is your insurer. Oh, the almighty dollar.

<comment><USER11> Or 10 years prior to the age of an immediate family member diagnosed with colon cancer, whichever is earlier.</comment></comment>


US considers banning laptops on flights from UK airports - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/25/us-considers-banning-laptops-on-flights-from-uk-airports?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other <comment><USER2> _The bans sparked criticism from technology experts, who said the new rules appeared to be at odds with basic computer science._

 _Nicholas Weaver, researcher at the International Computer Science Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, said last month: "It doesn't match a conventional threat model. If you assume the attacker is interested in turning a laptop into a bomb, it would work just as well in the cargo hold."_

I'm not sure what this has to do with computer science, unless computer science includes "the science of things shaped like computers", or why you need Nicholas Weaver to tell you about how bombs in cargo holds work.

<comment><USER3> Something something combinatorial explosion.

<comment><USER4> Nothing like calling Ack(8,8) on a transatlantic flight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is no way I would ever stow a macbook pro in my luggage, only to see someone from baggage handling throw it around and be damaged or arrive at the destination and find it missing.

With everything else that is happening in the industry. I'm now starting to seriously consider JetSmarter.

I'm genuinely interested to know of experiences traveling from outside the US to the US using them. Were you subject to the same security screenings, would this ban be subject to JetSmarter as well and finally, are you able to board your own luggage?

Thanks.

<comment><USER6> I'd never heard of JetSmarter so I went to their site to learn more. The website is a scroll hijacking mess that's really unpleasant to use. I didn't make it past the landing page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Imagine if some source indicates that explosive fibers can be woven into innocent looking clothes, would all passengers be required to be naked before they are allowed to fly? I believe we can do better than this outright banning ...

<comment><USER8> I sometimes wonder if "the terrorists" have a twisted sense of humor. They put a bomb in a shoe, so now we all have to take off our shoes at the airport. Learning from this, they put a bomb in some guy's underwear. Fortunately we don't have to take off our underwear at the airport now, but we do have to be gawked at essentially naked by underpaid TSA rent-a-cops.

It's only a matter of time before they think of the "butt-plug bomber," and we get cavity searches before boarding planes.

<comment><USER9> There's a similar situation waiting to happen with OFAC regulations. They have a blacklist of people's names[1]. They compel banks and companies like Paypal to do loose/fuzzy string matching for any money transaction and block it. The string doesn't have to match just in the payer or payee field. It can match anything, like a memo field. It already affects people with popular common names that are similar to the real person on the list[2].

Waiting for some suspected terrorist on the list to legally change their name to "THANK YOU" or "PAYMENT FOR" or similar.

[1] [https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/SDN- List/...](https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/SDN- List/Pages/default.aspx)

[2] [https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/About-Business- Archive/T...](https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/About-Business-Archive/The- Secret-Paypal-Blacklist/m-p/925329#U925329)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> (Edit: it seems it's all of Europe, not just the UK) So you fly to Amsterdam or Dublin, then onto the US instead.

This isn't going to protect anyone, it's just stupid and inconvenient to its very core.

I'm already apprehensive about potentially having to visit the US because of everything from asking for social media accounts to copying data off of phones. All this is doing is making sure that I'm not going to travel to the US for business or pleasure.

<comment><USER11> From the Times article that has more details:

"British security chiefs have been put on alert that the US is planning to impose its laptop ban on incoming flights from some parts of Europe — a move that could be implemented within weeks. They are waiting to see whether Britain is included, according to a senior Whitehall source."

[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/trump-considers- bann...](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/trump-considers-banning- laptops-on-planes-from-uk-airports-5rbxgm67m)

<comment><USER12> As long as there's one country in Schengen which is not affected it doesn't make sense. You could just drive to that country and fly from there. Unless it's based on different security procedures. But in that case the US could give that information to the affected countries so that they can act instead of being banned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> United and American Airlines suggest that we ban cell phones with cameras(probably shouldn't have to make this distinction) too, for umm safety.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is insane and will not end well. I suspect it'll not be nearly as damaging as it should be for the US, though.

</comment><comment><USER15> So what's stopping them from flying to Canada and taking a connecting flight?

Or putting the device in the cargo hold, landing in the US, and detonating it at any sports event or concert?

This whole thing smacks of Security Theater more than anything else. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater)

</comment><comment><USER16> The hit to in-flight productivity will be enormous.

Then again, this falls into the same 'collateral damage' category as speed bumps - saves lives but also shortens lives with air and noise pollution, interferes with paramedics, increases commute time etc.

<comment><USER17> Except we have studies showing that speed bumps actually do save lives. There's nothing indicating that this ban would prevent bombs on planes in any meaningful way.

<comment><USER16> I'm for speed bumps, but the equation is life years saved minus years taken. The subtraction part comes from shorter life spans due to increased air pollution, from deaths caused by speed bumps, from emergency vehicles having to drive slower in time-critical situations etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Isn't this why we pay for all those fancy color scanners?

<comment><USER19> We pay for fear. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> My life improved so much once I decided to stop flying.

<comment><USER21> While it might be environmentally friendly to fly, or cosmically irrelevant, my life is enriched by visiting places. You don't like far off vacations?

I'd love some Matrix-like virtual reality in the future though.

<comment><USER22> Last flight I was on, I took my friend's mini-geiger-counter, and the radiation level at 35,000 feet (over Oregon, not the Arctic or anything) was fifty times the background radiation at the airport. Obviously it's not acutely dangerous, but you have to wonder how many, say, cigarettes that's equivalent to as far as cancer risk.

<comment><USER23> Answer: For each flight, you get 2.3 cigarettes worth of radioactivity.

You would need to fly 4572 East-West coast flights per year to reach same dose as from smoking 1.5 packs of cigarettes per day.

\---

Data points:

Smoking 1.5 packs of cigarettes per day is equivalent to between 60 and 160 milliSievert per year [http://mathscinotes.com/2014/01/radiation-exposure- from-ciga...](http://mathscinotes.com/2014/01/radiation-exposure-from- cigarette-smoking/) With 20 cigarettes this means 10958 cigarettes. At about 160 milliSievert, we get 0,014601205 milliSivert per cigarette.

You would be exposed to about 0.035 mSv (3.5 mrem) of cosmic radiation if you were to fly within the United States from the east coast to the west coast. [https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/air_travel.html](https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/air_travel.html)

<comment><USER24> I think that's 345 banana equivalents. (Since you can't smoke on the plane.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They already use these bomb detectors on some bags with random checks. Apparently these scanners can detect any residue of explosives. Why not make it compulsary for all laptops? Should be impossible to transform a laptop into a bomb without creating some residue.

Or are they concerned that people use batteries as bombs? In that case you could just use several phones instead.

</comment><comment><USER25> if they ban anything larger than a smartphone how do they figure that the terrorists won't just use smartphones?</comment>


Not the first to market?  Competitor has traction?  You're screwed. - <AUTHOR> http://jdg.net/post/29673368

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry but I disagree wholeheartedly with this post (and the way you presented it). Competition is healthy for any market, and for the businesses in that market. Giving consumers the option to choose between services means more flexibility to improve on what you have, and how you plan to introduce it.

Yes, Tumblr is a great application backed by some very competent developers out there, but have you given a look at Chyrp (<http://www.chyrp.net>)? The immediate user may not directly associate it with a tumblelog from the very beginning, but if you look at the way it's created, even look at the code it's obvious that's just what the application is, and it's doing incredibly well on it's own two feet.

Market economies are all about competition, supply and demand. I think you should take another look at what you've written, and what's going on in the web right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Chyrp and Tumblr are two different markets.

Tumblr is hosted, Chyrp isn't. There is an obvious differentiation there and it's two unique sets of users.

I agree that competition is healthy. I also agree that there is more than enough room (in most markets) for more than one player. However, once one player has a large amount of traction in the market it is difficult to uproot that player unless you are either a) uniquely different (and not just differentiated on features!), or b) you have an actual marketing budget unlike 90% of web2.0 apps out there.

If you don't, quit wasting your time.

<comment><USER2> "Chyrp and Tumblr are two different markets..Tumblr is hosted, Chyrp isn't."

Not entirely (I mean if you look at it rhetorically, you have to host Chyrp somewhere but I understand the dichotomy you argue). If essentially the bottom-line of both applications is to allow the end user to publish content, they're not at all different. They are different in the way you mentioned, hosted vs. non, but not by much. Tumblr does allow you to use a line of Javascript and transcode a Tumblr feed to another site with very little effort.

Chyrp has all the same functionality that Tumblr does, text posts, links, video, audio, and conversations. In that sense, they are almost one in the same; the only differentiation is that yes, Tumblr has more "traction" if by traction you mean 'userbase'.

I think the issue we debate here is market dominance. Tumblr clearly has this, however Chyrp is still an up and coming engine that performs the same tasks with more options for server-side customization, and user interaction. This alone has granted Chyrp a very respectable number of users.

Marketing is less about budgeting, and more about effectiveness and utility of your product. The WoM movement proves this everyday, and with more and more flexibility in social content development and usage, marketing is essentially being performed everyday on YouTube, even Facebook by the users - much less large, seasoned companies.</comment></comment></comment>


Firefox 64-bit development quietly ended for Windows - <AUTHOR> http://www.techspot.com/news/50887-firefox-64-bit-development-quietly-ended-for-windows.html

<comment><USER2> Already discussed here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4817574></comment>


Show HN: Fieldbook: Lightweight Database with a Spreadsheet UI and a REST API - <AUTHOR> https://fieldbook.com/developers <comment><USER3> I would use an open source version of this immediately. I've written several hacked up projects using google spreadsheets and it works, but its unreliable. I would not want to use a smaller 3rd party service as I would be afraid of the service getting shutdown or neglected. I would be much more inclined to use and pay for this service if they also open sourced it. Maybe run it like wordpress, they make a lot of money :)

<comment><USER4> Wordpress is kind of a "one-off" in the same way that Farmville and Minecraft were (i.e. right place, right time -- Newspro and Perl CGI was falling out of fashion, PHP4/MySQL3.23 were common everywhere, shared hosting was easy, and Wordpress came bundled with CPanel IIRC).

A more sustainable business model would be, I think, the safe middle-ground for both the consumer and the developer-- the Atlassian model. Offer an absurdly cheap .jar/.dmg/.exe out of the box which you can run locally for the end-user/small-business (what is it like a dollar a user a year for the self- hosted binaries?) and limit it to 5 or 10 seats. If the acquire-hire-kill by GoogAplTwitSquare happens, you still have a local copy of your data and the ability to migrate off the platform. If >(5||10) employees are using the application as a critical component of your business, making the seat-fee price-jump at that point is worth it (value provided > cost of seats, even at a few hundred dollars a month).

<comment><USER5> WordPress 4.4 comes with a new REST API that might change some things:

[http://v2.wp-api.org/](http://v2.wp-api.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hey Folks!

I'm the CTO of Fieldbook, we're really proud of what we've built here. In particular, I really like our API explorer that allows you to run real node code right in the browser to explore our API. (And see our realtime updates in action on the same page). That feature is powered by Tonic ([https://tonicdev.com](https://tonicdev.com))

Its mad fast to setup a database with a REST api with Fieldbook, and we'd love to hear what you think / what could be better / etc.

<comment><USER7> While it's nice that you have your own spreadsheet interface, how hard would it be to hook Excel in as a front end?

I deal with large enterprises primarily and I've been looking for a nice relational backend for Excel for years.

So breaking out the roles of a consumer vs. a creator, I would like end users to consume without knowing that there is a different backend to the Excel sheet they are using while still freeing up the creator to do what is needed on the backend.

For example, we have extremely complex pricing spreadsheets that we use to estimate projects, it would be fantastic to be able to collate and manipulate data on the backend as well as data sources while being able to tell an end user to keep using Excel as the front end as before.

Maybe this is a fit, maybe it isn't but any insight/feedback would be welcome. Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! At some point I think we'll have an integration that allows data syncing to and/or from a spreadsheet like this.

The spreadsheet isn't ideal as the primary UI for a number of reasons. That's why we built our own UI, inspired by spreadsheets but fundamentally breaking from the model to be more like a relational database.

But a spreadsheet connection could be great for reporting, modeling scenarios, etc. – basically, all the things that spreadsheets are actually good for.

<comment><USER8> I've been shocked at the number of enterprises with workflows involving shared Excel docs (particularly in the eCommerce space). One of my (Magento) community members has a business which seems to tackle some of the issues around this: [https://www.cobby.io/](https://www.cobby.io/)

Might be worth having a chat with him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Neat. How does this compare to Airtable? [https://airtable.com/](https://airtable.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

I think we've focused a lot more on relational support. For instance, on a detail page, you can view and edit all linked records, and add new ones inline: [http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/go-beyond-the- grid](http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/go-beyond-the-grid)

We have a full-fledged query UI: [http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/focus-on- relevant-items](http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/focus-on-relevant-items)

And we have a grouped view (think Trello meets spreadsheets), which is great for any kind of pipeline/kanban view: [http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/track-a- workflow](http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/track-a-workflow)

<comment><USER10> Just an idea to share, from someone who's been building business apps using Knack's visual builder for the past year, I think a killer combination would be fieldbook's friendly UX for the database with a "marketplace" of front-end "plug-and-play" UI modules. So in fieldbook I would create and save views for the database with your current UI but then I could plug ready-made UI modules on top of that database view and then customize the front-end UI. Ideally these UI modules would be free or pay web-based or native.

I know it's extremely important to strike the balance of complexity, capability and UX so this area is notoriously difficult to tread but I think whatever solution does it right without sacrificing customization extensibility is going to win big!

Fieldbook looks great and I hope it keeps getting better!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Good ideas, and yes, you nailed it: the right balance of complexity and functionality is key.

<comment><USER4> Eve's already been mentioned here, and Chris' lecture at Cal was really interesting from a UX perspective. I'm sure you've seen it but if not, go watch it.

The spreadsheet model is fairly intuitive for the end-user. He and Rich Hickey both are pretty convinced that a Datalog-esque query engine is the way to go. 20 years ago, Lotus' Improv's model (where you separated the data manipulation from the data type constraints) was way ahead of its time and guaranteed so much more internal/referential integrity than 1-2-3. Modern-day Quantrix is probably the closest you'll get to it, used pretty heavily in niche finance.

MSR puts out some interesting work on the PLT behind alternate spreadsheet grammars[1] which are quite interesting too. Other than the obvious issues (ETL[2], ACLs/RBAC, presentation/extensibility) MSR has put out quite a few interesting papers out there. This is a very interesting problem domain to say the least. I've developed up-to-the-Pareto-point for this in the past for clients and if you get it right, it's a license to print money.

[1][http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/sumitg/pubs/pl...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/sumitg/pubs/pldi11-table-synthesis.pdf) [2][both conventional a la SSIS and Informatica, as well as a Pipes-esque query; a premium feature you could easily charge into-the-Oracle-rates would be a Pipes-esque service with an SLA. I've been in enterprise consulting long enough to know that whether you're Ingersoll Rand, Haas, an REIT or Cravath, sanitized, guaranteed data is worth a lot, integration is worth even more.

<comment><USER11> When you refer to Pipes-esque - are you talking about yahoo pipes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been using Fieldbook a little bit, and even playing around with their API.

It's a great product I'm going to use more. Big fan - there have been several side projects where I've wanted to use Google Sheets as a prototype DB - <USER2> the simpler API and better relationship model, I'm going to use Fieldbook from now on.

</comment><comment><USER13> It looks very nice. But I can't integrate it into a project if I can't guarantee that it will run even if Fieldbook-the-company changes business models next year. When can I deploy a self-hosted version, and how much will that cost?

<comment><USER6> We definitely intend to be in this for the long haul! We will always let your data out of Fieldbook, we already support CSV downloads of any sheet or view, and we are thinking about a wide variety of export and sync options to other services / data formats.

I understand being leary of business model changes. While we can't make any guarantees in the wild world of startups, we can say that we want a free tier to remain forever, and would give plenty of warning if it were ever to change. A little more information available here: [http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/security-and- privacy](http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/security-and-privacy)

We don't currently have any short term plans for a self-hosted version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The user interface looks beautiful and I like the innovation for the group/sorting/filtering. Allowing all three to be defined using drop downs within the single area is really neat. Fast to add and compact in space.

How does it handle data types? Can you put any type of data into any cell? If I want a column that is numbers is there anything that stops a user adding a string to one of the cells by mistake?

<comment><AUTHOR> By default you can put any type of data into a cell, like spreadsheets. If you want some input validation, you can add an optional input type to a cell. So you could set a number type on a cell, and then if someone tries to type a non-number, they'll get an error. [http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/input-and- formatting#input-ty...](http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/input-and- formatting#input-types)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can multiple people edit the same spreadsheet at the same time? If so, are their changes displayed live?

<comment><USER6> Yep! Definitely. We don't (yet) show cursors and who is connected like google docs does, but you do see changes replicated to all windows / users in real time. You can even see your own real-time changes from API calls in realtime while looking at your book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This looks really awesome. Can you lock columns or rows to prevent people from changing them?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We're working on a feature that will let you share a book "metadata- readonly": allow editing of rows/cells but not the structure of the book (sheets, fields, links, formulas, etc.)

Longer-term we might offer more fine-grained locking or permissions control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This looks excellent! I recently started writing something similar for my phone since I needed something more flexible than the standard todo/gtd apps. Do you have plans for a 1st party mobile client?

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now there is basic mobile web access. Definitely going to do a native mobile app!

<comment><USER17> Great to hear! I've been playing with the product for a few minutes and I really like it so far. Lots of very nice touches! I think I found a bug -- If I give 2 columns the same name, the resulting JSON field gets overridden: [http://i.imgur.com/KA9mAeI.png](http://i.imgur.com/KA9mAeI.png)

Maybe display an error if I name 2 columns the same? Or disambiguate somehow in the JSON?

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct, we don't handle this case right now and one of the fields will get shadowed. We'll handle this more gracefully in the future; for now we recommend unique column names :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've used Fieldbook a few times. It is incredibly neat.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's an interesting idea, However if it's not self-hosted then I think their reach of customers is very limited. We all know most of the businesses run on spreadsheets and most of them don't want to share that information with anyone.Unless you handle this problem with run time encryption or provide a self-hosted version It's difficult to land lot of customers.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is so awesome. Easy to use, set up in seconds, and is mobile friendly. Nice! Can't believe no else has something like this.

</comment><comment><USER21> Its not that difficult to use Google Spreadsheets as a database - here's an app I put together in a couple of hours to allow people to rate players after a soccer game - currently used by a reddit sub:

[http://www.teamrating.com](http://www.teamrating.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice!

One of the key advantages of Fieldbook is actual relational support. You can create a relational model by "linking" sheets, and then linked records are returned by the API.

Also, the Fieldbook UI is more suited to being used as a database than spreadsheets are. It's much easier to do queries, for instance, and sorting/filtering won't mess up your book.

Lots more on Fieldbook vs. spreadsheets here: [http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/what-is- fieldbook](http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/what-is-fieldbook)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Congratulations Jason. it looks awesome and has come a long way in the last year.

</comment><comment><USER23> Looks like the beginnings of a QuickBase competitor, which would be welcome...Intuit's pricing model is terrible.

I had high hopes for DabbleDB before Twitter bought them and shut it all down.

<comment><USER24> I went down the road of working with QuickBase, meeting their implementation consultants. It was classic old school software company. Left hand not talking to the right, bloated, unresponsive, just trying to sell you.

TrackVia is another interesting alternative, they started as an Excel replacement (and very good one at that), but have since gone more towards mobile and simplicity in the new version.

Knack is in the conversation as well, but it seems like Fieldbook & AirTable are now the ones to watch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> How does this differ from DabbleDB, which seemed to have all this and more?

(Sadly went nowhere and subsumed by Twitter.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't learn about Dabble until after it was gone, so I only know it from watching the demo video and talking to one of the founders. The spirit is similar and I think we have a lot of shared vision.

I think our UI for creating links (relations) and for doing queries is unique, both were developed through hundreds of usability tests to be both accessible for novices and satisfying for power users. Check it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The UI is just gorgeous IMHO.

Can you share which frameworks you used ? Did you use a template for the front page ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Not much of a framework on the front end, but we do take advantage of Bootstrap and Backbone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> That looks like a really well made product, awesome UI!

What are some real world use case for using fieldbook?

<comment><USER6> Thanks! We actually have a few user success stories, and most of our templates are directly from use cases we've seen people use.

Here is a story of Data Analysis tracking sales leads: [https://medium.com/@fieldbook/data-analysis-tracks-sales- lea...](https://medium.com/@fieldbook/data-analysis-tracks-sales-leads-in- fieldbook-696be751f693#.jpoj426f9)

And here is one about how Continuum Analytics uses us to track their professional service work: [https://medium.com/@fieldbook/continuum-analytics- manages-pr...](https://medium.com/@fieldbook/continuum-analytics-manages- professional-service-work-with-fieldbook-a0ecfeb617a5#.w0zix0qae)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Anyone remembers similar product DabbleDB? Or I'm too old?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, we've had a few conversations with Avi, one of the Dabble founders; he's been helpful with advice and feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> is this a bit like sheetsu?

<comment><USER30> It's someway similar. The difference is that Sheetsu.com use Google Spreadsheet as a storage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> It would be nice to get something modern to replace what people used to do with FileMaker. This may be it.

<comment><USER32> Hi DHJSH, I just wanted to let you know that you have been "shadowbanned", which means all of your comments are dead on HN by default. I vouched for this comment to make it visible, but mainly in order to reply to you and let you know that you have been banned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Disclaimer: early Kinvey engineer here.

Doesn't sound too far off from Kinvey and Parse except for the fact that MBaaS services have been around a lot longer and have much more robust mobile and web SDKs.

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't think of it as BaaS. Instead, we think of it first as a spreadsheet- like UI, and it also has an API.

The use cases people have been most excited about need both. For instance, set up a configuration database or CMS for your app--an engineer can create the schema and read via the API, then anyone on the team can view and edit the configuration.

With the BaaS offerings I've seen, you get the database and API, but you have to build any UI you want yourself, including any web or admin UI.

<comment><USER33> >With the BaaS offerings I've seen, you get the database and API, but you have to build any UI you want yourself

Not true, you get a spreadsheet data grid like UI out of the box.

They are more general purpose - that is true.</comment></comment></comment>


Rands in Repose: A Hard Thing is Done by Figuring Out How to Start - <AUTHOR> http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2011/04/04/a_hard_thing_is_done_by_figuring_out_how_to_start.html

<comment><USER2> I sometimes have a hard time justifying how much time I spend on HN, but this quote about creativity really put it in perspective for me:

      "A current favorite is Hacker News. Look, someone is describing how they did the effects for Tron Legacy. They really did go out of their way to make those Unix screens authentic. You know, I have an article about the beauty of the command line. I should write…"

I definitely consider it less of a side-track considering the blog posts and side projects that have been inspired by HN.

<comment><USER3> I've always wondered what kind of ambient value HN adds to Y Combinator. As an advertising tool for PG's operation, it's exceptional. But as a serendipity generator, it's also pretty remarkable. Curious to know how many people who have gotten stuck while working on Y Combinator projects managed to get unstuck thanks to finding the right link at the right time.

Theoretically, any number of filters could do this (RSS, twitter, etc.), but none of them have quite the same feedback loop as the comments sections here. Personally, it's becoming rare for me to open a link without simultaneously opening the discussion link. In terms of that serendipity, I wonder if it isn't (just) the suitably interesting variety of topic which produces it, but the way that a particularly astute set of replies prompts thinking from a variety of angles.

That, more than anything, seems to be the real cause of prompts with regard to whatever problems you may be struggling with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My mornings are similar to Rands. Wake up, shower, read HN/reddit(limited subreddits), go to class, go to work, and do homework. My already planned day usually ends around 6pm and for me this is where Rands and I diverge completely. At this point I am exhausted, bored to death and usually both from the days activities. This is where I need to make a huge decision, either sit down and start working on something I care about or Watch TV/read reddit all/go on facebook. If I even take one minute to do any of the later group my entire night is finished. I've come with terms that some nights you need to unwind and just let the brain relax and enjoy some mindless activities. The nights that I sit down and work I feel amazing, time flies by and the next thing I know its 3am and I've got class in 5 hours.

Thanks for sharing Rands!

<comment><USER5> What about exercise?

<comment><USER4> I really need to get that back into my schedule, at the end of the day I'm exhausted and this always seems to be the first thing to go. I need to work on improving that.</comment></comment></comment>


Y Combinator emails are out - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Moderator, can you merge this and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10467672](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10467672) with [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10467290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10467290) ?

</comment><comment><USER3> Do both the cofounders get emailed?

I'm confused because I applied for two startups, but my other cofounder didn't get a rejection email so I'm not sure if both were rejected?

<comment><USER4> In our case only the one who submitted the application got the e-mail.

<comment><USER5> Ditto here.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Briefing – Anonymous, secure, open source WebRTC group video chat - <AUTHOR> https://brie.fi/ng?ref=hn <comment><USER2> I don't understand the anonymous claim.

Since in WebRTC peers connect directly to each other they'll see the IP of the other peer and can determine their locations.

Further there is the signalling server which may also see these connection details if it isn't end to end encrypted (I haven't checked the code).

IMHO private might be a better word than anonymous here.

<comment><USER3> By using the term "anonymous" I wanted to say, that no user account is required. To hide one self's identity and network location I would expect the users to make use of browsers like Tor or using VPN. I don't know of any way to provide anonymity on web application level. If somebody knows more, please let me know.

<comment><USER4> How about the term "unauthenticated", which is well understood for HTTP requests?

<comment><USER3> Well, IMO the definition of the word "anonymous" still fits how personal information is handled in Briefing: "Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's name is unknown" [1] And this is true regarding the Briefing service.

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

<comment><USER5> Heh, well you cherry-picked there. It goes on to say ". The important idea here is that a person be non-identifiable, unreachable, or untrackable."

Regardless, it's Wikipedia, that definition ought to be fixed to say "identity" rather than "name".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _> Anonymous end-to-end encrypted_

End to end encryption implies that you have established an encrypted connection with a known participant and secured it by verifying your keys either off-band or via some CA provider to prevent MitM attack.

If your chat partner is anonymous, and your only connection is via offered service, there is no way to determine if you are being spoofed.

So anonymous end-to-end encryption is an oxymoron. I wish people would drop this e2ee fetish, insisting it everywhere, and would learn how it works, so they would be using the real thing where it makes sense, instead of opting for readily supplied snake oil.

<comment><USER7> In this case authentication is provided through a shared secret (the room name). An arbitrary MitM wouldn't know the room name since the connection to the server is also encrypted. Unfortunately this isn't _much_ of a secret, since the server also knows the room name, but it's a start. There is an open issue to add password-protected rooms which would fix that problem.

<comment><USER6> In most e2ee threat models the biggest source of threat is the server that mediates the data exchange. Other threats are sufficiently thwarted with TLS, so ... ... these Briefing guys should better bring on these password protected rooms if they want to put this end to end encryption claim on their website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How does the encryption work here? The home page says "end-to-end encrypted"; is there a key management concept and a key verification feature of some kind?

<comment><USER9> He means peers directly connect to each other, so there are no data packets that the server could man in the middle.

<comment><USER10> Lack of a central server does not imply end-to-end security. In just about any useful situating, when A connects to B, the following will at least be in between: A's modem, A's ISP (typically multiple routing devices), B's ISP (ditto), B's modem. Since all of these are literally in between, they could act as men-in-the-middle... barring countermeasures.

End-to-end implies some crypto scheme whereby all intermediate points can only act all-or-nothing: either they forward packages or not. The contents of the packages should be inscrutable to them. (ideally, you'd want the meta data to be similarly indecipherable, but that requires a Tor-like infrastructure.)

So, either there is some cryptography, which requires exchanging keys somehow, or it's not end-to-end in a meaningful way.

<comment><USER11> WebRTC is encrypted.

<comment><USER3> Correct. Scroll up the page to learn about the details: [https://brie.fi/ng#help](https://brie.fi/ng#help) Also see [https://webrtc- security.github.io/](https://webrtc-security.github.io/)

WebRTC is end-to-end encrypted by default. There is a signaling server that helps establishing the connections between users in a room, but after that the communication is encrypted. Also those TURN and STUN servers are only required for technical reasons to get peer-to-peer working. So no content is ever passed unencrypted.

That's the difference to other services like Zoom and Jitsi, where a server in the middle is receiving the video streams unencrypted and then redistributes. Although Jitsi is adding encryption support for that as well soon.

<comment><USER12> I think you are very much misinformed on the subject.

You're not sending unencrypted streams to Jitsi, as it uses hop-by-hop encryption, meaning you send an encrypted stream to the server where it gets decrypted and re-encrypted for the rest of the participants. At no point you are sending "plaintext" data. What you might have heard is that Jitsi will be introducing end-to-end encryption, but it doesn't mean it doesn't have encryption at the moment.[1]

I think it's a misnomer to say WebRTC end to end encrypted by default.

If you cannot guarantee end to end encryption during the negotiation phase, you cannot trust that the party you're encrypting for/receiving encrypted content from is the actual party you are expecting to communicate with, hence the need to independently verify over a trusted channel whether the fingerprint in the SDP offer/answer matches.

After the negotiation is complete, the streams will indeed be encrypted, but if the offer/answer SDP has been tampered with by the signaling server, which is under the control of a rogue/compelled provider, and another DTLS certificate has been inserted, the encryption is useless as far as complete communication security is concerned.

[1] [https://jitsi.org/blog/e2ee/](https://jitsi.org/blog/e2ee/)

<comment><USER3> I did not want to say Jitsi is bad. It is one of the best solutions around. But you still have to trust the server if e2ee is not turned on and more than 2 participants are using it [1]: "This outer layer of DTLS-SRTP encryption is removed while packets are traversing Jitsi Videobridge"

I believe it is correct to say, that WebRTC is end-to-end encrypted. What you are referring to is, if you can trust to have a direct connection to the other participant and that you can make sure she is the person she pretends to be. This layer is indeed missing and will be added [2]

I would very much appreciate your help on the project to eliminate those concerns.

[1] [https://jitsi.org/security/](https://jitsi.org/security/)

[2] [https://github.com/holtwick/briefing/issues/1](https://github.com/holtwick/briefing/issues/1)

<comment><USER12> > This outer layer of DTLS-SRTP encryption is removed while packets are > traversing Jitsi Videobridge

What this means is that the packets are encrypted between you and the video bridge and the packets travel unencrypted within the videobridge infrastructure, but at no point does the outside world see the unencrypted stream. Talking to the Jitsi video bridge is just a regular WebRTC session as far as clients are concerned (so any DTLS encryption WebRTC has, the Jitsi call has), I know this because before they had a decent SDK I had to manually wedge my WebRTC calls into it.

If you're looking to add e2ee to your project, you're pretty much left to choose between Olm and Signal Protocol, which are quite similar, but libsignal is GPLv3 while libolm is Apache 2.0.

I've used Olm more intensively over the last two years. While it works, it's great, when it randomly wedges a session for no apparent reason you feel like throwing it out the window.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback, I'll take Olm/Matrix and Signal into consideration, although I believe for the described purpose of Briefing the current implementation is sufficient and secure.

<comment><USER13> Not sure if this is possible with the current WebRTC api, but if you could expose the dtls public keys for the current and remote sessions somewhere, that would help to reduce the risk of MITM attacks. Users would at least have the option of manually verifying keys through another channel.

edit: it looks like you can find info in the RTCSessionDescription.sdp property. The remoteDescription and localDescription should each have key fingerprints in lines with "a=fingerprint:..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looks really cool. One key element is that anyone can spy on your call if they guess the random name that you generate to create the link. I am curious what randomizations you have used to generate those? (perhaps you don't want to share to avoid exactly the spying, I can understand if you feel that way). Thanks for your insights. Cheers

<comment><USER3> Indeed, it is a rather simple algorithm [1] But you can set any name you like, either in the input field or directly in the URL. Protected rooms, where the participants need to know a common secret, are planned to be added to the project, see [2]

[1] [https://github.com/holtwick/briefing/blob/master/app/src/com...](https://github.com/holtwick/briefing/blob/master/app/src/components/app- welcome.vue#L266)

[2] [https://github.com/holtwick/briefing/issues/1](https://github.com/holtwick/briefing/issues/1)

<comment><USER14> Yes password protection would definitely make this more usable.

Have you also seen apprtc [0]? Could you point out if there are any differences you see there to Briefing?

[0] [https://appr.tc/](https://appr.tc/)

<comment><USER3> It is basically the same. Briefing is a bit more modern and has a few more features. As I mentioned in the help text on [https://brie.fi/ng#help](https://brie.fi/ng#help) I started the project as a spin off of a virtual classroom project [https://peer.school/](https://peer.school/) Sources [https://github.com/holtwick/peer2school](https://github.com/holtwick/peer2school)

<comment><USER14> Cool. Also there is screen share option which is cool. I will pitch it to my peers and see if they catch on ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I just wanted to say that this looks very nice indeed.

</comment><comment><USER16> How do you do the background? Are you using the bodypix tensorflow library? Because in my tests it had been horrible slow and very inaccurate depending on lighting,

<comment><USER3> That's correct, I use [https://github.com/tensorflow/tfjs- models/tree/master/body-p...](https://github.com/tensorflow/tfjs- models/tree/master/body-pix#bodypixdrawbokeheffect)

It is indeed slow. The video signal first is drawn to a canvas and then from there streamed as a video again. Some browsers perform better than others. Probably due to WASM support, but I did not dig deeper here.

The "pro" though is it all happens on the client in the browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks useful thank you for sharing.

The website that provides the web app and mediates the communication stores as ( _few_ -> _little_ ) data as possible

</comment><comment><USER18> Do you maybe have instructions on how to set this up on my own server/domain? I've looked at the code but I'm not familiar with Vue. I have an online webgl multiplayer game where I create random room names to connect players. It would be amazing if I could use my domain and the same random room to enable video chat among the players.

</comment><comment><USER19> How can we further decentralize this such that the entire app runs "without any servers"? Sadly it is so close but the realities of ipv4 and local subnets definitely makes this more difficult. I always thought that this is part of what webrtc was trying to solve

<comment><USER3> Well technically it is possible to avoid the signaling server, but you'll need some other channel to exchange the peers connection data. This is pretty inconvenient though. But a signal server is a rather light thing and easy to install on a location you trust: [https://github.com/holtwick/briefing/tree/master/signal](https://github.com/holtwick/briefing/tree/master/signal)

<comment><USER19> > you'll need some other channel to exchange the peers connection data

Perhaps using IPFS to pin the data temporarily and share that hash between the peers?

<comment><USER20> If you can figure out how to share that hash, you may as well just share the offer.

<comment><USER19> Yes, serialization is the issue. URL length is technically unlimited but in practice very long urls don't work out so well

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "No camera or microphone has been found!"

Using firefox 79, the usual prompts to allow permissions were not issued.

<comment><USER3> This is a Firefox Nightly release, correct? Current stable release is 77.0.1 Do you experience those issues with the stable release as well? If so I would like to ask you to file a bug here and add the OS version. Thanks for letting me know! [https://github.com/holtwick/briefing/issues/new](https://github.com/holtwick/briefing/issues/new)</comment></comment>


HTML5 Media Source Extensions: Bringing Production Video to the Web - <AUTHOR> https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/04/html5-media-source-extensions-bringing-production-video-web/ <comment><USER2> Without detracting anything from MSE, EME doesn't bring "production video" to the web. It brings useless encryption that needs to _die_ before it even sees the light.

Maybe you really need a reminder if you think that EME does _anything_ useful: look at blueray or any encrypted video technology before it.

Now, your users _already_ paid for it. They're logged-in and the transport is secured. If they want to copy the video, they'll do it _anyway_. So please, let's kill this draft.

<comment><USER3> You're not going to get Hollywood to publish online without EME.

This is the discussion about whether you want Hollywood movies to exist online or not, and they're perfectly happy to go without online streaming.

<comment><USER4> > You're not going to get Hollywood to publish online without EME.

Then they don't publish online. It's not the end of the world.

> This is the discussion about whether you want Hollywood movies to exist > online or not, and they're perfectly happy to go without online streaming.

I'd say "perfectly happy" is an overstatement... given that they are the ones trying to push nonsense this though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I tried to give an overview on the technical details of the HTML5 MSE/EME, which is used e.g. by Netflix and Youtube. If you are interested in any details, just post it here, happy to answer.

<comment><USER5> What 3rd party players do you recommend for HTML5 MSE/EME based playback across popular browsers?

<comment><AUTHOR> on the open source side, shaka ([https://github.com/google/shaka- player](https://github.com/google/shaka-player)), dash.js ([https://github.com/Dash-Industry- Forum/dash.js/wiki](https://github.com/Dash-Industry-Forum/dash.js/wiki)) and hls.js ([http://dailymotion.github.io/hls.js/demo/](http://dailymotion.github.io/hls.js/demo/)) are good.

on the commercial prodcut side, the bitmovin player [https://bitmovin.com/player/](https://bitmovin.com/player/) is best one covering HLS & DASH on all browsers. There are also a lot of demos at [http://www.dash-player.com/demo/](http://www.dash-player.com/demo/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Are binary black-box EMEs going to be the new flash&java-applet of web vulnerabilities?

<comment><AUTHOR> hopefully not :-)

the difference between Flash-like plugins and the EME is that the EME is directly build into the browser, with a narrow and focussed use case. This limits als the vulnerability, in contrast to a lot more powerful plugin- systems like Flash or Silverlight or Java.</comment></comment>