The smug style in American liberalism - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism <comment><USER3> This is definitely the preference falsification election.

Those who know me on HN know that I'm an outspoken proponent of unorthodox ideas. I'm regularly shouted down, called racist/evil/etc, downmodded and flagged on HN. I also get a steady stream of private emails: _" I wouldn't say this publicly cause of the bullies, but that .gov link with all the data does seem to support you. I think you might be right, I need to rethink my views."_ These folks very rarely post here - they are afraid of social and perhaps professional approbrium (ala Brendan Eich and Curtis Yarvin).

Those folks are engaging preference falsification.

Off HN there is a similar manufactured consensus, similar social penalties for expressing the wrong ideas, and similar levels of preference falsification. When pollsters call the preference falsification continues.

Apparently in the privacy of a voting booth, people are willing to express their true beliefs.

Note: I don't support Trump - search my posting history for "open borders" \- but I do understand why folks like him. I don't agree with him on basically any policy, but my visceral _emotional_ reaction to his victory is positive: I love the great big "fuck you" to the biased media sneering at him, calling him racist based on "dog whistles" and then writing hit pieces against Ken Bone (let alone the bullying of folks like Tim Hunt, Brendan Eich and Curtis Yarvin).

See also Scott Aaronson who explains this in more detail: [http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2777](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2777)

<comment><USER4> > This is definitely the preference falsification election.

I agree. In fact, the point at which I started to think that Trump could win was Hillary's "Basket of Deplorables" blunder. It was a blunder because the way she phrased it, she put _far too many_ in that basket.

Paradoxically, because people believed what she said —that there are _many_ Deplorables— she might have initiated the very preference cascade that cost her the election.

<comment><USER5> It was a terrible blunder, that might have cost her the election, and not because of the number of people she put in the basket.

It was a blunder because she called _people_ deplorable. Had she talked about deplorable _attitudes_ , she would have been on firm ground. I hope it doesn't sound like a fine distinction, because it isn't.

I voted for her; I am terrified of Trump -- rightly or wrongly, we'll now find out; but I knew this was a bad, bad mistake when she made it, right up there with Mitt Romney's infamous "47%" comment.

And yes, in my opinion, Trump made a lot more serious mistakes. But I am not totally surprised that a majority of Americans don't seem to agree with me.

<comment><USER6> I don't think the election was about mistakes. It was about loathing for both candidates. Turns out the loathing for Hillary was higher.

I should qualify that. Trump, for all his negatives, had people who genuinely agreed with him. He _also_ had a bunch of "not really for Trump, but I am sick to death of Hillary and her scandals and her Machiavellian machinations" voters. Hillary had a bunch of "good heavens, not Trump" voters, some "female in office, therefore has to be good voters", and not all that many "really love her positions" voters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow. This article was published on April 21st, before the end of the primaries.

> _Trump capturing the nomination will not dispel the smug style; if anything, > it will redouble it. Faced with the prospect of an election between Donald > Trump and Hillary Clinton, the smug will reach a fever pitch: six straight > months of a sure thing, an opportunity to mock and scoff and ask, How could > anybody vote for this guy? until a morning in November when they ask, What > the fuck happened?_

But the § just before that one is the meat of the article:

 _But even as many have come around to the notion that Trump is the prohibitive favorite for his party 's nomination, the smug interpretation has been predictable: We only underestimated how hateful, how stupid, the Republican base can be._

Krugman today:

> _We thought that the great majority of Americans valued democratic norms and > the rule of law. It turns out that we were wrong. There turn out to be a > huge number of people — white people, living mainly in rural areas — who > don't share at all our idea of what America is about._

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/elect...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election- night-2016/the-unknown-country)

Some people never learn, but they're not the ones we think don't.

<comment><USER8> It's not the first time he's been wrong.

Krugman has lived his life in a liberal urban academic bubble and has no idea what the rest of the USA is like.

We would do well to remember that when we have the misfortune to come across his writings in the future.

<comment><USER9> I've been talking to a few liberal friends this morning who have no frame of reference outside of living on one of the USA's coasts all their lives.

The perceptual bubbles are very real for both sides, and to someone who has been on both sides of the aisle - they're terrifying; because breaking through the bubble is exceptionally hard and costly, doubly so if that person is already an established adult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _On November 6, 2000, during his final pre-election stump speech, Bush explained his history of political triumph thusly: "They misunderesimated me."

What an idiot. American liberals made fun of him for that one for years.

It is worth considering that he didn't misspeak.

He did, however, deliberately cultivate the confusion. He understood the smug style._

W's was perhaps a more subtle dominating response to the Smug, but at this point we can't say it was _different_ than Trump's. Both of them went to school with the Smug. They know what it represents both to itself and to the majority of the nation. Neither of them buy into it themselves, unlike e.g. Romney.

Democrats lose when the Republican candidate has an authentic and rhetorically effective response to the Smug. Now that it's happened twice, at least some Republicans will remember it the next time around. Democrats will either do the hard work of excising this from their ideology and communication, or they will lose in the same way again.

<comment><USER11> You aren't wrong, or not all wrong. However, you must consider a) that Nader made a very large difference in 2000, and b) that Trump got to run against Hillary Clinton. She is intelligent and able, but she has been a handy target for conservative media for twenty years now, and a good deal of that stuck with voters.

"Both of them went to school with the Smug"; well, yes, and some would find it curious that our populists come from Yale and Penn.

<comment><USER10> Johnson seems to have gotten more votes than Nader; Johnson and Stein together _definitely_ did so. In _many_ of the "battleground" states, Trump's margin is totally swamped by third-party numbers.

The observations you've made about Clinton aren't news to anyone. The fact she was nominated _anyway_ , with her only primary opposition coming from outside the party, after the DNC had let it be known to all potential opponents that the fix was well and truly in, is symptomatic of the Smug. The insiders couldn't imagine the average voter rejecting the candidate chosen by the insiders. Maybe they still can't imagine it, only now it has happened. They're stuck in a loop, and for the next iteration the Republicans will know just what to do. Hint: it won't be another Romney.

<comment><USER11> I upvoted you. However, I think that Clinton was seen as the safe candidate: she had name recognition, she didn't scare Wall Street. That is not wholly the same as being the candidate of Smug.

I trust that the Democratic Party will understand that it has run out of ideas. Will the Republicans know what to do? It strikes me as quite possible that Trump's qualities could be those of a one-term president.

<comment><USER10> Was that "didn't scare Wall Street" or was it "had accepted tens of millions of dollars from Wall Street"? If Wall Street gets final vet, the Democrat party has changed from the days of FDR. (OT: will they or any of the other Clinton Family Foundation donors ask for refunds?) The inability to see how conflicts of interest look from outside is a Smugness that has afflicted Democrats and Republicans both.

Trump could definitely be a one-termer. I could see him getting bored and letting Pence take over, or deciding to campaign for someone else in his cabinet, or even figuring out something so terrible that it will finally make evangelicals vote against him. Or, he could be like Reagan and W, just let his people handle everything, and sail on to a second term.

<comment><USER11> Indeed the Democratic Party has changed since the days of FDR. It is amusing to consider that FDR thought that a realignment of the parties might be beneficial, with the Republicans picking up the conservative (often southern) Democrats and the Democrats picking up the more liberal (often northeastern) Republicans. How'd that work out?

And of course you are completely correct on the inability to perceive conflicts of interest--where they are or where they just might be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "The knowing know that police reform, that abortion rights, that labor unions are important, but go no further: What is important, after all, is to signal that you know these things."

This is an amazing observation. The 'smug style' doesn't actually contribute to the amelioration of these issues. Even for some things the lack of individual commitment betrays unseriousness, e.g. abortion rights - <USER2> people protesting federal defunding of PP would NEVER imagine to actually cut a check themselves, whereas there are principled libertarians, for example, who would be for ending funding PP using other people's money while donating to the organization themselves. Ms. Clinton's talks in front of Black Lives Matter audiences was notably bereft of any reference to police accountability (which is the one truly important thing) but instead offers feel-good solutions like broadly 'ending racism', 'sensitivity training', 'community policing'.

<comment><USER13> As someone who just recently "got" the whole follow what you preach thing, I believe there is a real gap in communicating how you follow through on high- horse ideals in a practical way.

It took me having a comfortable enough income to donate to political parties before it really clicked I could do a whole lot more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Bravo. Full disclosure, I voted for HRC. However, I've been saying this to my liberal friends for the entire election cycle. The message from of all of my liberal Facebook friends has been some derivative of:

"Hear me out. We know Hillary isn't the best candidate, but you have to vote for Trump. If you don't you're a racist misogynist. Also, if you vote for a third party candidate, you are basically voting for Donald Trump."

There are so many things wrong with that message, that I won't go into it, but the last bit about a third party vote == a vote for Trump is dismissive, condescending, wrong, and rude. The assumption is that the third party voters are reasonable people who would otherwise vote Democrat but for the fact that they have a few misgivings about HRC.

However that is a very poor assumption.

Not once did I hear any of those same people listen to anybody, Trump supporter, third party voter, no voter. They shouted over everyone else and smugly and overconfidently assumed everyone was listening to them.

I am as shocked as anyone Trump won, but I had been telling my liberal friends for months that people just don't like HRC. I have my reasons for why I think that's true and it has nothing to do with emails or Bill Clinton's past indiscretions. Her primary run against Obama in '08 is proof positive of this, and in many ways this general election is a near repeat of that process.

She and her supporters were overly confident, refused to believe that they weren't connecting with mainstream America, and then got blindsided when the votes were counted.

I truly hope that the democratic party learns something from this, but from what I've seen on my Facebook feed this morning it certainly doesn't feel like it's going in that direction.

<comment> hash-set I'm just curious how old you are because I lived through the Bill Clinton years and it was appalling how bad the Clintons were. Their legacy from Arkansas all the way up the Pay to Play Clinton Foundation has been completely consistent--to bend and break the law everywhere possible if it is to their benefit to do so and then engage in cover ups, blackmail, and possibly murder to get away with it. They are a modern day crime family. You probably dismiss all this as unproven "tinfoil hat" conspiracy stuff, right? But there is such a large body of circumstancial evidence when it comes to the Clintons that it is impossible to ignore. Then the leaks started dropping and we got a small window in a large world of corruption. Did none of this occur to you?

<comment><USER15> _Then the leaks started dropping and we got a small window in a large world of corruption. Did none of this occur to you?_

It seemed to me more like a very large window onto what turned out to be a pretty small world of corruption. I don't have an axe to grind but I've never seen a straight answer as to what her "crimes" supposedly are.

<comment><USER16> Evidence of corruption is not necessarily evidence of a crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As a Brit it has been fascinating to watch the Dems run basically exactly the same campaign Remain ran.

<comment><USER18> As an American Democrat, I'm not in the least bit embarrassed by our campaign. We ran on 8 years of growth, cutting the deficit, 5% unemployment, tripled stock market, etc. Justly proud of that.

I'm embarrassed for the country by what Republicans ran on and who they elected.

<comment><USER3> No, "you" ran on "Trump is raaaciiist and if you support him you are too!"

(I put "you" in quotes since I'm referring to Democrats in general, not you personally.)

It's the same thing "you" ran against Bush and Romney on. It might even be true this time around, but you are the boy who cried wolf at this point.

<comment><USER11> "We" (an editorial we) ran on "Trump will do for the United States of America what he did for the United States Football League; and that he will be no better president than he was a businessman."

I don't remember anyone saying that Romney was racist. I remember many saying that he represented the very wealthy rather than the middle and poorer classes.

<comment><USER3> Here's people calling Romney racist:

[http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/8/27/1124649/-Romney- Goes...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/8/27/1124649/-Romney-Goes-Full- Racist-Accuses-Obama-of-Cutting-Welfare-Work-Requirment-to-Shore-Up-Base)

[http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/07/romney- accused-...](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/07/romney-accused-of- racism-following-naacp-speech.html)

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/romney-faces- challenge...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/romney-faces-challenge-on- mormonism-and-race?utm_term=.spvew4WEA#.thWQRvzq3)

[https://thinkprogress.org/romney-dog-whistle-obamas- philosop...](https://thinkprogress.org/romney-dog-whistle-obamas-philosophy- is-foreign-to-the-american-experience-bbd65dcc55f#.pauwyh389)

<comment><USER19> Romney being a racist was not a major (or even minor) theme of Obama's campaign. I don't think you can really be suggesting that alleged racism on the part of the Republican candidate was as big an issue in the previous election as in the present one (where the Republican candidate made widely publicized explicitly racist statements).

<comment><USER3> I agree that the "$republican is literally hitler", "$republican is racist", etc, is more hysterical this time around. I attribute that to Trump being blatantly on the wrong side of the culture war [1].

I'm just saying that "XXX republican is racist" has lost it's meaning due to overuse. The boy has cried "hitler" about Bush, Romney, etc, and the villagers will no longer come running.

[1] I recommend reading Moldbug's article on the topic: [http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/castes-...](http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/castes-of-united-states.html) The tl;dr; is that while Bush and Romney were Brahmin Republicans, Trump is very clearly a Vaisya, leading to vastly more hysteria.

<comment><USER19> I think this is wrong in two respects. First, the statement has not lost its meaning but only its effect. Second, the claim that Bush and Romney were racists was not a major strand of political discourse. People talked about Republican policies rooted in racism, but that is a very different thing from having a presidential candidate who is himself, on a personal level, a racist.

<comment><USER10> Bill Maher is no genius, but even before the election he had already identified this lack of credibility, the umpteenth time some random Republican is deemed beyond the pale:

[http://www.salon.com/2016/11/07/bill-maher-liberals-cried- wo...](http://www.salon.com/2016/11/07/bill-maher-liberals-cried-wolf-about- mitt-romney-now-they-face-a-genuine-fascist/)

<comment><USER19> There are always people on each side making outrageous allegations about each candidate. The question of whether Romney was a racist was not a major issue in the previous campaign.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I recall reading the post when it was published, and thought it was very powerful, although I had some quibbles with the details and the tone. I mean, the author was broadly right, sure, but...

Also interesting to recall: The amount of disagreements and personal insults the author got for the piece.

And another: Rensin was let go from Vox shortly after writing the piece for tweeting "If Trump comes to your town, start a riot."

In any case, in retrospect...he nailed it.

(Disclaimer: Supported Clinton, although with major qualms.)

</comment><comment><USER21> Pretty hard to not look down on those people when you know that the facts are on your side, since for certain things there are established facts. I wouldn't be ready to be patient with someone who thinks the moon is made out of cheese or something.

But I suppose the article is still right and competent politicians should have the empathy to relate even to those people. I couldn't do it.

<comment><USER22> Yes, it was pretty hard for the Nazi to not look down on the Jews too. And we all know how that turned out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This was a bit TL;DR.

I think a better summary is that "liberal elites" (although really moderate republicans) has conclusively failed. And it lost in 2000 and 2004 and this is a pattern of it failing.

And the problems are that they've completely lost the blue collar male vote. There's no labor party here in the US at all. And the problem goes all the way back to Bill's vote for NAFTA and his center-right policies. The Democratic party has been losing the actual working class ever since then.

The Democratic Party should really stop lecturing the working class, and start promising the working class that they'll have jobs and won't see their kids sent off to die in foreign wars.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have a feeling that this explanation overly complex, more like liberal self- beating and giving far too much credence

Simply those who voted for Trump feel like victims of "something"

And despite having won "everything" I have the feeling that they will still feel like victims of the undefinable "other" in the up and coming loooong years..

<comment><USER22> I agree.

Trump supporters won everything by losing their jobs oversea.

Trump supporters won when other people call them racist for wanting to have a job.

Trump supporters won when their kids are sent to die in the Middle East to line up the Rich Elite's pockets with oil money.

Trump supporters won when they return from the war, with missing limbs, and the VA won't even take care of them.

And the smug still can't figure out why Trump supporters support Trump.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's not just America - see the responses after Brexit as well. The major claim seems to be that most people are just not intelligent enough to have voted correctly.

<comment><USER26> After Brexit, the smugness continued. Remain supporters took the campaign for a revote that got millions of signatures as a sign people were regretting, but obviously the signatures mostly were from people who had voted to remain.

Still, "they regret it already" was the message spreading throughout Europe for a while. I recently saw some research stating that a very small percentage had changed their mind about the vote, and they came more or less equally from both sides. So no, no significant regret noticed.

Not sure why I'm writing this. It just seems that the people seeming to vote rationally are completely irrational when it comes to judging the other side. Did we collectively lose the skill of empathy?

We need to understand this or we'll be repeating these mistakes forever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Where I think this approach has been especially disastrous has been climate change. When people challenged the facts - which I don't entirely believe but the potential outcome is too serious to just blow off - they were humiliated and discredited, sometimes viciously.

When people challenged the feasibility of solutions - ditto.

Which in my mind signaled the worst - the desire to break resistance was stronger than the desire to persuade. Which led to a belief that maybe something more sinister was in the cards - a la Pol Pot's killing fields.

Not a reasonable belief but when you see others dehumanized for questioning the know-it-alls, it's understandable.

</comment><comment><USER28> Yes, liberals in America are all smug and holier-than-thou, unlike their ideological opponents, who really listen to what you have to say and never judge you ahead of time. And, of course, they never pass comment on how a person looks.

<comment><USER29> You don't get to claim the moral high ground and use the tactics of the opposition at the same time.

<comment><USER30> The only claim of a moral highground here is implicit in that shitpost of an article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the article isn't very good. In essence, it reverses the direction of "holier than thou".

However, it raises an excellent point. The United States is not going to get anywhere if half the country looks down on the other half as a bunch of plebs, and in response the "plebs" disdain the elites. (I understand that this is a gross simplification, but I have seen this attitude often enough that it is significant).

For me, the article was about the need for mutual respect.

<comment><USER30> There will be no mutual respect here; the schism that began with Reagan, and widened with W. just ripped wide open today. The only thing coming out of this is going to be deepening resentment, and incredible economic hardship.

Ironically, the people who are going to take it most directly in the tuckus, are the people who voted Trump.

<comment><USER31> If large parts of your community are already on unemployment, disability, and/or heroin, are you focused on the downside risk or looking for anyone willing to even pretend to have a new plan?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Ironic. Vox exemplifies this.

<comment><USER33> They ended up firing the author.

<comment><USER34> They suspended the author, then let him back off of suspension. It was strange because he was leaving willingly in a few weeks to attend a graduate school program.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's been a really long time since I read an article this long. Very eye opening.

</comment><comment><USER36> And so begins a really tiresome round of navel-gazing.

<comment><USER37> This was published in April - not that it isn't relevant now, but this discourse started happening a while ago.

</comment></comment><comment> hash-set Pretty much sums up why I'm no longer involved in higher education.

I also tend to think a lot of liberals are mentally ill, but I concede that you can't begin a dialog with that assumption. The PC movement on campuses today is a dead end and will thus die or higher education will die. Their choice.

</comment><comment><USER38> The plebeians have spoken! Let us wait for our Gaius Marius, Gracchus brothers, and Sulla.

<comment><USER39> Sulla was an Optimate.

<comment><USER40> What is that? Roman history? (Genuine question)

<comment><USER41> An Optimate was a supporter of the Senatorial class who were benefiting from the massive wealth flowing into Rome after conquering the Mediterranean area. This created a huge problem after 100 of thousands of slaves were brought back to Italy and eliminated the small Roman farmers. The populares took advantage of this, but it ended up in civil strife and war for about 80 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> But dumbasses do exist. And if a true dumbass senses that you think he's a dumbass, he will obsessively counter everything you do just to be contrarian. Teach those libtards a lesson. It's not logical but it makes total sense if you think like a dumbass.

I guess I'm part of the problem.

</comment><comment><USER43> Well tens of millions of "stupid hicks" are about to lose their health insurance. How is that for a "good fact"? Sorry for being smug.

<comment><USER44> Walls of flames here today. Suggest we flag political stories - HN is not the place.

And that's coming from _me_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps flag comments. But I think that it is essential to have political stories be visible today, so that we can try to understand why the election results are what they are.

I posted this particular story because I have seen what it criticizes on HN more than anywhere else. Perhaps the article is wrong, but I thought an external opinion would be useful.

Perhaps HN is not the place for political discussion. But it has been in the past, and will be in the future, so I think that this article is excellent to contemplate.

<comment><USER45> I would say that this was the perfect piece to be published on that exact day. I do fear that the tone of the article is too smug, even for "smug liberals" and that it might have been passed by plenty of people - especially the usual Vox readers.

I don't think it makes the article justice by trying to simply place it as "right" or "wrong". I'd be content to just point out that I think it covers a lot of history, divides and for lack of a better word, emotions or perspectives.

I'm not liberal, but I too constantly need to fight the need to be smug towards others and their choices.

Thank you for posting it. It was a worth the time to read.

<comment><USER44> Says the unbelievably smug guy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: FontReach – Surface font usage data on the web - <AUTHOR> http://www.fontreach.com/ <comment><USER2> this really is something! One thing that I would love to see is font pairings that occur together frequently.

</comment><comment><USER3> The use of non-tabular numbers on the results list kind of threw me off, possibly just an odd default of the font used, seemed easier to read with the following CSS:

font-feature-settings: 'tnum';

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Creator here - happy to answer any questions anyone has re: FontReach!</comment>


My startup browxy.com, an online java compiler, has reached 20000 users - <AUTHOR> http://www.browxy.com <comment><USER2> Nice online compiler, what I like is that you enter the site and run the code. No need for registration :) I like the publish feature :) I think that the look and feel can be improved and more languages added like C++</comment>


Digg Owner Betaworks Buys Instapaper - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/25/betaworks-instapaper/

<comment><USER2> Confirmed by Marco on Twitter.

Here is the blog entry:

<http://www.marco.org/2013/04/25/instapaper-next-generation></comment>


The Demise of Tilt: A Bargain for Airbnb, a Classic Loss for Investors - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/3069164/how-tilt-veered-off-course <comment><USER2> So what companies are currently in Tilt's space?</comment>


Xamarin raises $16 million to build "delightful" tools for mobile devs - <AUTHOR> http://www.citeworld.com/development/22131/xamarin-raises-series-b-fund-developer-outreach

<comment><USER2> OK! As long as they are 'beautiful' too!</comment>


CouchDB and MongoDB: Let our query APIs combine - <AUTHOR> https://cloudant.com/blog/couchdb-and-mongodb-let-our-query-apis-combine/?utm_source=hacker%20news&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=cloudant%20query

<comment><AUTHOR> For an overview of the query syntax, see [https://cloudant.com/blog/introducing-cloudant- query/](https://cloudant.com/blog/introducing-cloudant-query/)

Note: I work for Cloudant.</comment>


Tab Groups: Firefox 6.0.1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/6.0.1/whatsnew/

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if there is any increase or decrease on memory efficiency when using tab groups. Anyone with some technical specs or analysis on this who would like share. I think it would be great to know.</comment>


Would You Give Neo-Nazis Basic Income? - <AUTHOR> https://posts.philipkd.com/honest-question-would-you-give-neo-nazis-basic-income-8c524530db1 <comment><USER2> I wouldn't give anyone a "basic income"</comment>


A chimpanzee browses Instagram [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwf080_Bfby/ <comment><USER2> I fully expect Captain Disillusion to completely deconstruct this video in the coming days. There's no way it isn't VFX. The chimp naturally swipes through instagram, ending on a video of when it first met the owner? Please. It's a viral stunt, nothing more.

<comment><USER3> Chimps can recognize their own image in a mirror. To me, that makes it seem at least plausible that they could understand the level of abstraction necessary to scroll through a list of pictures with a touch screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If the chimp was taught how to publish content (as opposed to just consuming), I wonder if it would do so of its own accord.

</comment><comment><USER5> Great, now we're getting Chips addicted to social media!

<comment><USER6> Chimpanzee is capable of learning by imitation and cultural learning. So technically if you show a few of them how to use Instagram, it will spread quickly.

What is more spectacular about this video is the fact that the Chimpanzee is not doing it for a reward!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks like Apple has found a new untapped market.

</comment><comment><USER8> Previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19750278](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19750278)

</comment><comment><USER9> This video has been freebooted, the original is here: [https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwf080_Bfby/](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwf080_Bfby/)</comment>


Gmail's Security Hole Could Lead to Mass Harvesting of Accounts - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27863/?p1=blogs <comment><USER2> I think this is really far fetched. If you can get a person who has their cell phone number in Google as a recovery option, to not notice that an SMS number comes from two different sources (one of them possible marked as Google), and to enter a security number (explicitly labelled so) on an insecure webpage, I think it would be easier to just ask for their Gmail password.

<comment><USER3> I agree that this phishing attack probably won't lead to mass account takeovers because Google's two factor authentication is not be widespread. However, you are downplaying the risks.

The different sources of the SMS may not cause alarm. The victim may not go back to original message to verify the numbers. Many companies have multiple legitimate phone numbers. The phisher may try to find phone numbers that are variations of Google's so the user is less likely to notice.

The phishing page could be secure in the sense of having SSL and looking professional. I haven't use Google's SMS verification, but I'm hoping that the text they send raises red flags about only entering the code in Google's web site. If not, e.g. if it's just the code, I could very easily see a victim entering the code into a legimate site. If Google's SMS does have warnings, the attacker could get a domain like <https://gmailgiftcardverification.com> that may still get some victims to enter the verification code.

I think this is more dangerous than page directly phishing for a google password. Users are conditioned to look for google.com and a green address bar before revealing their password. On the other hand, SMS verification is relatively new, and users may be less familiar with what to expect regarding the format and origins of the text messages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Gmail's security hole"? Really? So "security hole" now means "any opportunity for users to be stupid". In related news, Gmail's _other_ security hole could lead to mass harvesting of accounts when users choose a password of 'password1'!

</comment><comment><USER5> It's weird. A few minutes before I read this article, Google send me a verification code to my phone. And I don't currently sign-up/sign-in/open any google related service. Maybe someone use this trick to me?</comment>


Roy Moore, Alabama Judge, Suspended Over Gay Marriage Stance - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/07/us/judge-roy-moore-alabama-same-sex-marriage.htmlz <comment><USER2> The URL seems to have an extra "z" at the end.</comment>


South Asia: Unrestricted Conventional Warfare - <AUTHOR> https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/south-asia-unrestricted-conventional-warfare <comment><USER2> Seems like a naive piece of propagit to me.

So many empty statements as a result of droping some bombs on empty forrest.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the most interesting articles on warfare that I've read this year.</comment>


Coping with Java security changes - <AUTHOR>

We really like Java for bioinformatics apps because the same app can run the heavy-duty backend processing, as well as the web-enabled front-end for querying results. We don't have to program two UI's, one for standalone use and one for public data access over the web. Also, it provides a full UI programming environment so you can be pretty sure you're going to be able to accomplish what you want to in that regard.<p>Problem is the security is getting ever more burdensome. I am wondering two things: 1) How are people coping with security? By paying a CA for signing?
2) Is there another platform we could be using to achieve the goals outlined above? <comment><USER2> The answer to the issue with Java security from the a web user's perspective is simple. Skip web certificates and rewrite the code with something less hazardous. A certificate doesn't solve their problem and it doesn't solve the organization's problem. It just solves the problem of a person within the organization tasked to do something about the problem but who is not looking forward to what is required.

Java on the web is technical debt whose note is coming due. Fortunately it's not onerous just a little painful, and repayment removes a possible impediment to user base growth.

</comment><comment><USER3> What about using JSP? It's somewhat Java and doesn't require Java on the front end(which is the source of most security problem).

On the server side, you have to look for the vulnerability of the web container that you are using.

I do not see how would a CA helps you in your concern. Yes, having certs provides you encryption when your data is travelling, and client side cert may also helps you as a method as authentication if you wish, but all those does not help you in the Java security problem itself.

I'd be interested of a different opinion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I was not being very clear. We're not concerned with security per se, only with reducing the security-related hurdles that our users have to go through to run our applet. Signing with a proper cert will reduce that, and probably we'll do that, but it's not free and I'm guessing it will have its own inconveniences. We are worried that Java security could become so onerous that it just isn't usable on the public internet, but we're not seeing another similar option.

<comment><USER4> That could be true for general consumers, who could be scared into disabling Java altogether in their browsers(so that some part of the population wouldn't be reached by the app). On the other hand, if you're making B2B/scientific app for a specific niche, your target audience should be interested enough in what you have to offer so that, even if they disabled Java, they'll turn it back to check out your app. In other words, people will gladly suffer minor inconvenience for an app that adds value, while would be probably put off if the app is another social network/messaging app/game etc., where the perceived value is vague at best.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, you're probably right...I hope...and Java still seems to the only game in town for unified web + desktop functionality.I just don't see another choice.

<comment><USER4> My understanding is that web apps have some limitations that can be a show- stopper for scientific apps - for example, there's no way to gain an arbitrary access to file system (something that is easily doable with a signed applet), which can make bulk processing/import etc. impossible. That's the reason I recommended applets in the startup I work for.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


CAR, CDR, and Lisp... - <AUTHOR> http://www.mschaef.com/blog/tech/lisp/car-cdr.html

<comment><USER2> Regarding the "hunks" he mentioned, here's what Guy Steele had to say about them when I interviewed him for Coders at Work: "I implemented a new data type called a 'hunk,' which was probably the biggest disaster in language design we ever put in. It was essentially a cons cell with more than two pointers. It was a desperation move because we were running out of address space on the PDP-10. Recall that the -10 only had an 18-bit address space. In a list, 50 percent of the pointers were dedicated to just maintaining the structure of the list, whereas with a threaded set of hunks, maybe only one-eighth of the pointers were dedicated to the threading of the chunks so you'd get better memory usage that way."

</comment><comment><USER3> Of course since Clojure is built upon abstractions, and because it's simple to introduce your own protocols and extend them to existing types w/o conflicts - it's straightforward to reintroduce the concept of a "pair" where the right- hand side is not a sequence. I recently encountered this challenge working on a Clojure port of miniKanren (the relational programming system described in the The Reasoned Schemer).

In miniKanren the concept of a "pair" is useful because the right hand side of a sequence in miniKanren might be a _logic variable_ and not a sequence.

What's lovely is how simple this is. I can define a custom iteration protocol (LogicSeq) which define two functions - lfirst, lnext. Then I create a custom sequence type that returns a legitimate Sequence _or_ logic variable for lnext.

To bring all the other collections into this protocols is 4 lines of code:

      (extend-protocol LConsSeq
        clojure.lang.IPersistentCollection
        (lfirst [this] (clojure.core/first this))
        (lnext [this] (clojure.core/next this)))

Voila! Custom iteration!

What's even more amazing is that there's hardly a perf hit. The JVM sees it's just a pass through call for real Clojure collections.

Fun stuff :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Why are people so offended by syntax? So many people complain about parentheses or names like car and cdr. Is it the programming equivalent of being shallow or judging by appearance?

When I first started learning scheme I was much more challenged by the rest of the cognitive assault - tail recursion is "free", call/cc or continuations, the shift to thinking in "higher order" mode, macros, being able to effectively define your own syntax.

<comment><USER5> It's disingenuous to split people into those who whine about syntax and those who enjoy deeper challenges. It's possible to be in both camps.

Syntax isn't any more important than the other things you mention, but it's certainly _as_ important. Syntax is not mere window dressing. Like punctuation in written language, there's good and bad, confusing and obvious, opaque and transparent, and it will be judged and analyzed like anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised cadr, caddr, cddr, etc. were not mentioned when comparing car/cdr with first/rest.

See [http://www.franz.com/support/documentation/8.2/ansicl/dicten...](http://www.franz.com/support/documentation/8.2/ansicl/dictentr/carcdrca.htm)

<comment><USER7> Indeed, so was I: the cºr indirections strike me as a very good reason to _not_ switch to `first` and `rest` (or `head` and `tail`) in Lisp: they provide an unambiguous and readable way to quickly traverse multiple levels of datastructures (as long as they're not abused too much) which is not as easy to generally replicate using more meaningful names.

<comment><USER8> Maybe it's just my mental model, or being new to the language. But while going through SICP - 'cdadadr', 'cddaadr', etc. never really "clicked" in my mind. Really anything past 3 levels (cadar, cddar, etc.) always slowed down reading code, like hitting a speed bump.

I would have to stop and really try to grok what list item it was referring to. Not saying that that is a bad thing, just an observation.

Is there a common way of thinking that makes it easier to comprehend, or is it just something that comes with experience?

<comment><USER6> I worked with Scheme (a type of Lisp) professionally for over a year and even after heavy usage there were still lots of syntax "speed bumps" like this that slowed me down. I really enjoyed a lot of the concepts of Scheme but the syntax was a bummer and I'm so glad I'm not programming with it anymore. :)

<comment><USER8> Yep Scheme was what I was using with SICP.

I've heard of Common Lisp in passing, does it have a more friendly syntax?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _car_ and _cdr_ must have something going for them that _first_ and _rest_ don't, or else people would have abandoned them decades ago. The author mentions one point in their favor: generality. I'd add another two: brevity, and symmetry.

It's also worth noting that the primary disadvantage of _car_ and _cdr_ , their arbitrariness, fades as one becomes familiar with the language.

<comment><USER10> >car and cdr must have something going for them

In most implementations , I can do

 _(cadar (list (list 1 2 3))) - > 2_

vs

 _(first (rest (first (list (list 1 2 3))))) - > 2_

I find the car and cdrs in Racket very very convenient.

Reference:

[http://docs.racket- lang.org/reference/pairs.html?q=pair%20ac...](http://docs.racket- lang.org/reference/pairs.html?q=pair%20accessor#\(part._.Pair_.Accessor_.Shorthands\))</comment></comment>


Nightmare – Guided Intro to Binary Exploitation/Reverse Engineering - <AUTHOR> https://guyinatuxedo.github.io/ <comment><USER2> The best thing one can do when setting out on the journey to learn reverse engineering is to avoid the temptation of trying to understand every line of assembly. Instead, try and gain an intuition around common patterns in various dialects (ARM / x86 / MIPS / etc).

You can then abstract that understanding into macro-intuitions of control flow. When opening a black box binary in IDA for the first time, this allows you to think in terms of "X input results in control flow path Y which gives me access to function Z and - because of calling convention - register A to redirect execution to memory location M." Now you're in business and can worry about shellcode, ROP chains, whatever.

Just a couple of cents from the trenches.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://microcorruption.com/](https://microcorruption.com/)

<comment><USER4> Can't recommend this enough. It's an exponential increase in difficulty/time spent on the exercises, but it's really worth it, you end up learning both how to read assembly and different low-level security issues, countermeasures (NX, ASLR, stack canaries, safer programming paradigms) and bypasses to said countermeasures.

<comment><USER5> i agree, and its for the wonderful msp430 architecture

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Props to @travmatt for this find ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22401990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22401990))

</comment><comment><USER6> For anyone who is new to assembly and has $10 to spare, I would recommend getting Human Resource Machine on steam. It's essentially a game that teaches you basic assembly programming. It's a lot of fun, and very hackable since you can import and export between the game and your favorite text editor.

<comment><USER7> Shenzhen IO is also worth checking out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks for the links you've been posting, @throwaway_7718! All great material that will be tried in due time :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Happy to help!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice, this looks fairly comprehensive! It should be a fairly decent resource for people trying to get into the area.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice to see CSAW represented so much there. Shout out from an OSIRIS Lab alum.

</comment><comment><USER10> "We write code that is handed to a compiler, and the compiler takes that code and generates assembly code that will accomplish whatever the C code tells it to."

Uhhhh....

<comment><USER11> It sounds like you have a much clearer way of summarizing the compilation and linking process. As the book is the product of a college student who wanted to start a community around learning these skills it doesn't promise perfection, and I'm sure we'd benefit from your expertise.

<comment><USER10> No actually my comment was glib, i'd delete it if I could. This is a fine resource, I was grousing about semantics, it was unwarranted.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Basket Chrome extension-Best way to organize your links from any tab - <AUTHOR> Basket for Chrome allows you to read articles offline from extension itself. First of it's kind. You can access all of your saved contents from any opened tab by just clicking the Basket icon in your Chrome toolbar.
We wanted that our users must access all of there contents being in any tab without moving and without breaking concentration to enable maximum productivity.
Have a quick glance: https://basketapp.net/apps/chrome
Your feedback is very important to us and will help us to serve you better.
Here is some features for your quick reference:
Add Notes: You can add notes against any saved content. To keep in mind why you saved it or to keep some more information against the item you saved note can be very handy.
Organize Properly: You can save and organize your items in proper categories. On top of that Basket allows you to put label against your saved items to further extend organizing ability suitable for your workflow.
Find in Google: If you already saved any link on a topic and you forgot and you try to search for it again in google then Basket automatically shows you links already saved in your Basket to enable maximum productivity.
Thank you very much. We are eagerly waiting to know your views.
Best regards, Ranit ( Co-founder of Basket) <comment><USER2> 1 thing i must say it`s very compact and user friendly .. and easy to use.. all your things in a basket.. n more over it`s handy..

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. We are working hard to make Basket more user friendly in each step. Your words means a lot to us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very user-friendly and loved the UI/UX.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. :)</comment></comment>


I interviewed at 5 top companies in Silicon Valley in 5 days, and got 5 offers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@XiaohanZeng/i-interviewed-at-five-top-companies-in-silicon-valley-in-five-days-and-luckily-got-five-job-offers-25178cf74e0f <comment><AUTHOR> It looks like something that cannot be achieved by anyone who has to care about anything else but his/her job. The author says that he has a wife and a daughter, yet it looks difficult to me (I have two kids) to meet such a schedule.

My alarm rings at 6:30 am, and for the next two hours I am busy making breakfasts, preparing kids and bringing them to school; at night I never free myself before 9:30 pm, so there is really little time to study, especially that amount of material.

Maybe I'm limited and I have time-managing problems, so I'm interested to know the experience of other dads and moms.

<comment><USER2> No, that's about right. They must have a spouse/grandparents pulling most of the child care duties...or the kids are taking care of themselves.</comment></comment>


Nasa's Dawn probe achieves orbit around Ceres - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/03/nasa-probe-finally-arrives-icy-alien-world/ <comment><USER2> And now we might get to figure out those bright spots :-) I look forward to the day when someone could take their space tug, fuel up at depot at the Earth-Moon L2 point, then plot an intercept trajectory to the asteroid belt station.

</comment><comment><USER3> I saw it launch - it was supremely impressive.

[http://theroadchoseme.com/dawn-launch-cape-canaveral- florida](http://theroadchoseme.com/dawn-launch-cape-canaveral-florida)

<comment><USER4> There's something so slow and then tremendously fast about space exploration. Your blog post was a little bit over seven years ago. It must be nerve- wracking to be on the engineering team for these projects. You spend years building the craft then there's this long wait until it gets near the destination. Now the world is all of a sudden watching you. A failure might be a career or reputation killer as well, and for nothing you did wrong or could avoid.

This makes me think about the failure of the Beagle 2. Colin Pillinger's star faded pretty quickly after that. Turns out it landed during a dust storm which thinned the atmosphere which meant parachutes were deployed too late (deployed by barometric pressure?). Its remains on Mars show that its solar panels still folded. Its assumed it hit the surface so hard that the motors needed to open them failed to operate.

I believe the cost was pretty close to 100m USD. Not super expensive, but certainly not cheap, especially for the ESA.

And the waiting game continues:

> [Dawn] won't be sending back any pictures or data until late April

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article has more details: [http://www.wired.com/2015/03/nasa-probe- finally-arrives-icy-...](http://www.wired.com/2015/03/nasa-probe-finally- arrives-icy-alien-world/)

The most interesting bit of information to me: _[Dawn] won't be sending back any pictures or data until late April, when it reemerges from Ceres's dark side. When it does, it will start to map the surface, analyze the chemical composition, and make the most accurate measurements yet of the planet's mass._

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that article is indeed better, I hope a moderator can change it.

<comment><USER6> OK. Url changed to that from [http://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-31754586](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31754586). We'll keep the latter's title since it's more informative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Initially misread as "Nasa's Dawn probe-bears down on Ceres".

<comment><USER8>
        s/-/: /

<comment><USER9> ;</comment></comment></comment>


How legislators are enabling California's housing crisis - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/How-legislators-are-enabling-California-s-11275560.php?t=9bfa279a29 <comment><USER2> Commentary on this from earlier in the week:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14728094](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14728094)</comment>


Seven-Inch Tablets Are Just Plain Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://brooksreview.net/2010/09/seven-inch/ <comment><USER2> No they aren't. I don't want or need it to fit into my pocket - that's what my iphone is for. I want a larger iPod Touch that isn't too big to read in bed with one hand.</comment>


Philae: The Biggest Jump Ever - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolfspelz.de/2014/11/philae-biggest-jump-ever.html

<comment><USER2> I wonder if it would've been worthwhile to put a flea-like mechanism on Philae to jump around the commet.

Looks like in that kind of gravity pull, you don't need a lot of force to jump high, and the damage from falling is also much less.</comment>


Microsoft open sources the inference engine in its Windows ML platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-open-sources-the-inference-engine-at-the-heart-of-its-windows-machine-learning-platform/ <comment><USER2> Apparently, the Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) runtime is an API so you can run models locally instead of on another machine.

I didn't see any details about the inference engine, so I assume this is a neural net AI application programming interface instead of a symbolic AI inferencing engine.</comment>


Ask HN: How to find a user acquisition person - <AUTHOR>

I am an engineer who has built a full working beta of a new startup in the e-commerce domain. The service still hasn't launched and has almost zero traffic.
In the past I've made few projects that have failed with traction. This time I'm hoping to improve: I received very positive feedbacks and from the few beta testers that used the service there's even tiny revenue which is very encouraging. However the fact that this is still almost with zero traffic make it hard to attract people to join me, and also means that probably most of the work will be grunt work, with no compensation.
I'm hoping to find a person who would become a co-founder and invested as myself in the project and would help grow the traction and be invested in the idea as myself.
The question:
For engineers, it seems easier to find people who are interested in the same domain as you are thanks to services like GitHub or StackOverflow, however I am not sure where I could find someone who would be interested in the same domain and would like to partner.
Are there any quality social networks (Angel List?!) where I could look for people?
Am I doing a mistake for looking for a user acquisition person as this stage? Should I do the work myself and get help with a paid intern? <comment><USER2> Even with a specialized social network (like cofounderslab.com) - I would say finding a co-founder is extremely tough and needs equal dollops of luck & hard work. The worse part is that if you do not find the right person, not only will you not make any progress but will also be wasting your own time/motivation/resources.

So yes, I would say do not look at a co-founder as a user acquisition person at this stage (especially if you have zero traffic). Learn the basics of marketing & conversion - they are not tough at all. Take your startup to a position where potential co-founders would atleast be interested in investing their time. Or combine this with a paid intern as you mentioned.

I do work with startups a bit, so if you want to brainstorm this with someone - feel free to send me an email. deepak at withstartups dot com

Good Luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. What would be a good resource to start learning marketing and conversion?</comment></comment>


For the first time, DDG gave me better results than Google - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/a/hy2NJly <comment><USER2> Google actually showed you some black belts.

On a wristwatch, that's called a strap.</comment>


Two Riot Employees Leave After PAX Session Excluding Men - <AUTHOR> https://kotaku.com/two-riot-employees-leave-under-complicated-circumstance-1828886072 <comment><AUTHOR> > _Klein confirmed to The Verge that he was "fired for violating our social > media policy."_

Sad to see these two folks make their exit. As we saw from Barry Hawkins[1], quiet advocacy and going through channels doesn't always work when the problems come from the top. It seems like Riot will not change easily.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17853073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17853073)</comment>


Andrew Ng's deep learning is hiring (and expects 70-90 hour weeks) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/AndrewYNg/status/908052152722976768 <comment><USER2> > Strong work ethic. All of us believe in our work's ability to change human > lives, and consequently work not just smart, but also hard. It's not unusual > to see some team members in the office late into the evening; many of us > routinely work and study 70+ hours a week.

lol. The classic "we're changing the world" excuse for justifying ridiculous hours. At least they were upfront about the the time involved, but I respect a company _way_ more if they hold back the BS. Even more so if they actually treat their employees like human beings in the first place.

> Growth mindset: We are eager to teach you new skills and invest in your > continual development. But learning is hard work, so this is something we > hope you'll want to do.

The wording of that statement is hilarious.

I'm sorry, I like Andrew Ng and his work in AI, but this is an extremely unappealing job description. I know lots of startups capable of raising _way_ less money than Ng that have a far more respectful attitude towards their employees' lives.

I'm sure some (perhaps many) would jump at the chance to work here, but personally there is just way too much opportunity and too little time in life to justify slaving away for this man's vision.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The page has been edited to say their idea of a "worth ethic" is working "70+ hours". It said "70-90 hours" when it launched yesterday ([https://twitter.com/twinaki/status/908085572283092996](https://twitter.com/twinaki/status/908085572283092996))

<comment><USER3> 14+ hours a day? Really? How's that supposed to work when you have to factor in commute time?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> if you know someone who might be a good fit, you can refer them to the job here [https://ref10.com](https://ref10.com)

you'll earn a referral bonus once they're successfully hired</comment>


12 fuck ups whilst making a chatbot - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/wk-ventures/11-f-k-ups-whilst-making-a-chatbot-10b71d837e2a <comment><USER2> <i>Some people are too stupid to follow directions</i>

Just have the chatbot tell the cookbot what to do.</comment>


Chrome OS and IT platform longevity - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/2194283690 <comment><USER2> I work at a bank, and while what the article says is true, we will never use Chrome OS. Why? Because the IT department can't easily make it miserable.

For example, does Chrome OS have a $1000/workstation program to pop up a message saying, "OMG you're going to be fired for charging your phone from the USB port"? Nope? Then they won't use it.

The goal of corporate IT is to make using their machines as miserable as possible while costing as much money as possible. ChromeOS is limited, but friendly and cheap. So no sale, sorry. (Also, can you unleash a team of 10,000 C# developers on it to deliver full-screen messages from our CEO? No? Double no sale!)

<comment><USER3> You say that but the irony is Chrome OS holds the potential for IT departments to make your life even more miserable. One example...

It's still reasonably difficult to document every single thing a user does on a PC. It can be done with key logging but it's a pain and even key logging solutions can miss things. With Chrome all you need is a browser extension.

That same extension can be used to detect your phone on the USB port and deliver your CEO's full screen messages. So having everything in the browser actually provides IT departments with a level of control and monitoring they'd never have dreamed of before.

<comment><USER4> >>irony is Chrome OS holds the potential for IT departments to make your life even more miserable

That is, when IT Teams in those places themselves are aware of playing around well with those systems.

IMHO, banks (like where jrockway is employed) or BigCorp Inc (where I am) have IT teams comprised of subcontracting teams with MCSE types, hired precisely because their CTC is far less than average. Am pretty sure most of those teams would never (or even allowed to) take the pain of hacking up and altering OSes for that company's needs (blocking USBs/CD-ROMs, limiting privileges to ridiculous levels etc), when they could do it the easy way in Win XP or Win 7 installations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That article is 100% wrong. My aha moment was when they showed the citric 'app'. A google chrome computer is a modern day dumb terminal, and the citrix server is the mainframe. Corporations who spend millions of dollars supporting computers (and most of whom already host their business critical applications on a citrix server) will jump at the chance to replace their costly (in terms of money and tech support) pc's with cheap dumb terminals.

<comment><USER6> But IBM etc supported their cheap dumb terminals.

From the server side -- sure you can continue to patch/update your citrix apps etc.

If Google drops Chrome in 5 years time and in 5.5 years there is a massive flaw (some form of root-kit that saves every username/password and grants you access to the citrix system or the ceo's cloud based email account). If google decides that it wants to focus on Android and drops Chrome -- the pain could be immense. // This obviously doesn't apply for smaller faster moving companies.. But if you roll out 10,000+ Chrome systems -- Long Term Support plans are a good thing.

Otherwise - I agree. If you can replace a complex win/mac system with a cheap dumb chrome terminal -- the benefits for support are immense.

<comment><USER7> It seems most of these corporate "dumb terminals" are running Windows 2000 or Windows XP. In a few years (or already?) Microsoft will stop releasing security updates for these operating systems. The argument to switch to a new system, especially one that is free and open source, more secure, faster and better in almost every possible way, will be clear and obvious.

<comment><USER6> See OP Footnote: Win 2000 had 10 years of support. Win XP has until 2014 (13 years). The point is not: What is the best option at this point in time, but What is the best option for 5 years from now.

// Something like Ubuntu LTS might fit the bill perfectly so please don't think I'm just advocating Windows. I'm just considering that Google already produce a very successful light-weight linux-based OS (That has shipped far more units than Chrome likely will) and has a history of killing off products that don't get much traction (see Wave for a recent example)

<comment><USER8> IIRC, XP was EOL'ed several times, and to M$'s dismay, they've lengthened the support date a couple of times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _For Chrome OS to be considered by any reasonably large business, their IT decision-makers are going to want to know that Chrome OS is going to be around and supported by Google many years from now._

Actually, they just want to know that it will be around and supported by _someone_.

The change over to things like Chrome OS will be partly generational, much like it was with web applications. Young people brought up on Chrome OS will start businesses which will use Chrome OS to run their businesses fast and lean. Larger firms will have a lot of cultural inertia to overcome.

<comment><USER10> You bring up a good point, actually: since Chrome OS is almost entirely open source as Chromium OS, couldn't just about anybody step in and provide a reasonable level of support for a fee, in the unlikely event the Google decides to quit?

<comment><USER11> Absolutely. To me the key "risk" really is not so much the OS going unsupported but any Google services that it depends on doing so. Which is more about the buy in to things like Google Docs, Calendar, etc. The risk is all the higher because the services are "live". If Microsoft gives up on MS Exchange, your exchange server doesn't immediately stop working. But if Google turns off Google Calendar one day because it's not turning a profit ... oops.

The problem is that, for me, a huge part of the value of ChromeOS is provided by Google's suite of apps. Those apps are the _reason_ it is viable in the business space. I would be looking for a way to run hosted versions of those in house and _then_ we would have a really interesting situation.

<comment><USER12> This issue was the main reason that we decided against Google Apps for our email system. If we're running an Exchange or Domino server then even if MS/IBM stop supporting it we can continue to use everything and plan a migration. Google could turn off decide GMail was unprofitable and turn it off tomorrow, and everyone would be screwed.

I went to a Google Enterprise sales event and asked them about an internally- hosted version, but they were very clear that this wasn't something they were considering.

You could protect yourself against this by building an internal IMAP server and syncronising it with Google regularly. But that's a lot of work, and maintaining your own email server negates many of the benefits of outsourcing to a cloud service.

<comment><AUTHOR> _turn it off tomorrow, and everyone would be screwed_

Could Google stop offeringing Google Apps at some point? It could happen. Tomorrow? No way. They have shown that they give people time and options when they no longer want to provide a service. Google Apps would be no different and they would probably even work a lot harder at making that easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A big point that the article doesn't bring up is the ongoing upkeep costs that already exist even for smaller organizations. Even if the computers are all running windows 2000, the easiest way for most companies to license the software is by paying a yearly site licence to Microsoft.

If Chrome OS costs less than than that yearly upkeep cost, and comes with perks of low maintenance and remote connectivity, I could see a lot of companies being very tempted to switch.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm pretty sure Google has shown the longevity of Gmail. That's another large IT platform which they are trying to get enterprises to use.

At least that's a start. Plus, it's not like Google OS is a from-scratch endeavor. It is just a highly customized Linux, is it not? So at least enterprises could be reasonably comfortable with getting support in that regard. However, I suspect that businesses that might be inclined to such migrations may have already moved in that direction.

</comment><comment><USER15> You can't go wrong by doing nothing : I think that the most prevalent behaviour in bank. Anything new is dismissed as too unsecure, so only the most essential things get ever done.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been reading the comments here and I think most are thinking of this the wrong way. Chrome OS is simply not going to be a viable corporate environment out of the gate. That's not even a question (the incremental updates that are automatic and can't be turned off would prevent that all by themselves).

The question is whether the computing model will be enough to entice CIOs and IT Managers. The dream of every IT manager has always been the dummy terminal it was just never viable (Though Citrix solutions and Terminal Server get much closer). If Google can prove they're serious about this they could start to make serious in-roads by the time Microsoft releases Windows 8 (around 2013 I'm guessing)

</comment><comment><USER16> I support a small business with 3 PC's (XP, Vista, Win7). One of them has an intermittent problem that I have spent 50 or 60 hours tracing. Chrome OS would solve 99% of the support problems that they have - reducing all of the support to just "Are you connected to the internet?" I so wish that all the apps that they use were available as SaaS.

</comment><comment><USER17> 2 words - desktop virtualization.

then the deployment nightmare goes away, support costs go down, and a ChromeOS appliance which is a head for a PC in a data center can justify itself.

</comment><comment><USER18> For Chrome OS to "work" in the enterprise, I suspect you need to have working AD-authentication or the IT-department will make it a no-go.

So far my attempts to make Linux do AD-authentication has all been failed and miserable with _immense_ amounts of work compared to just "join domain. done." in Windows.

Not saying it can't be done, but I seriously doubt Chrome OS was made for a corporate environment or that corporate environments see Chrome OS as a viable fit for their needs. Yes, it may be cheap, but a cheap OS alone doesn't make for a cheap total.

<comment><USER19> > So far my attempts to make Linux do AD-authentication has all been failed > and miserable with immense amounts of work compared to just "join domain. > done." in Windows.

Have a look at likewise-open. It's pretty much that easy to join a domain and allow domain auth. Integration is where it gets interesting.</comment></comment>


Show HN: RiteTag – Hashtag grading system - <AUTHOR> https://ritetag.com

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7464896](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7464896)

<comment><AUTHOR> That discussion pertains to our last iteration. What we do now probably deserves a second look.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> RiteTag offers the world's first real-time hashtag grading system which aids users in modifying their hashtags to nail the ones most likely to get their tweets discovered by topic-opted-in audiences.

Browser extensions provide this goodness within Twitter for free users and for paying users, also in Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Buffer, SocialOomph, and SproutSocial.</comment>


It's Not Silicon Valley Versus Hollywood – It's Greed Versus Greed - <AUTHOR> http://meganhannay.com/its-not-silicon-valley-versus-hollywood-its-greed-versus-greed/

<comment><USER2> Hollywood is the term used to refer to the current ideology and industry _of_ film making, not film making it self. Hollywood is dying. Film making is not. There is no fight against film making. Everyone loves the motion picture. Its the ideology of the industry that is old and needs to go.

Silicon Valley Vs Hollywood = Old hat film making/distribution VS New hat film making and distribution.

That is all.

-edit-

And furthermore, they have almost completely rejected working together with anyone and sue their own customers in mass. All out of fear of cannibalizing their own profits. Essentially Hollywood refuses to innovate out of fear. I'm not into that so much.

<comment><USER3> Indeed.

With regards to Hollywood film making, if you look at startups, you can be any gender or race, but as long as you bring your A-game, people will take you seriously.

In Hollywood, you have to be a very specific type to make it as a performer, otherwise you are relegated to working in the background to help create the movie OR fitting a stereotype to be part of a movie. In the last few years, the only Asian actors I've ever seen lead a 'Hollywood' movie without being relegated to action heros is Harold and Kumar.

<comment><USER4> I am fairly certain that this reflects the wishes of the audience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "And no one in Northern California addressed this issue, or led a charge to start paying for content."

Netflix? iTunes? Amazon? Hulu?

Once a cheap, frictionless, legal method is available then most people are happy to pay for content. Netflix, for me, is "better than free" as it cuts out the hassle, time and legal risk involved with less legitimate methods of downloading.

There's plenty of precedent for companies who try to do this, but the labels and studios are doing their best to make it as difficult as possible to innovate in this space.

Doesn't Ycombinator actively dissuade music-related startups because licensing is essentially impossible for smaller companies? Sure I remember reading that on their site recently.

<comment><USER6> You can't really include Hulu in that list since it is based out of LA (souther California) and was started by "Hollywood" via the TV networks.

Also, while it does match the spirit of what you are saying, most of Amazon is in Washington state rather than Northern California. (Not sure where exactly the video team is based.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _You could assert that not paying $25 for a season of Weeds is a whole different ballgame than taking down a website with hundreds of millions of users._

I do so assert. One _might constitute_ (need a trial) copyright infringement, not even theft. The second is an abridgement of human rights on a mass scale, something to be ashamed of, and something to shame others for doing.

</comment><comment><USER8> _If Hollywood is dying, it's not because of lack of demand, it's because of theft._

There's two things in this sentence that stick out to me:

1) "If Hollywood is dying". Is it? I recall more than one person arguing that Hollywood is making more money than it has in years past. Now, that may in fact still be a loss, if they're also paying more people than they were in the past --- unless the "made more money" is net rather than gross. However, for the sake of argument, let's say that they are dying. Well, then.

2) "it's because of theft." Is it? Is it really? I haven't seen their bank books. Are they loosing money because they're spending more money on special effects and not getting the returns they want, maybe? What shows are losing the most money? How many people watch them? How many pirate? What percentage of all people that watch that show/movie pirate it? What shows/movies are the big favorites? Do those shows/movies have a higher piracy-percentage than others?

Next thing. Movie theaters. Overpriced for the standard occasion. Did anyone evaluate if the price of a movie at a movie theater might actually be reducing attendance and thereby reducing profits? I recall this nice graph that compares supply vs demand; and I believe it can relay price vs value. Perhaps they're vastly exceeding the sweet spot.

Furthermore, we're in a recession. There are a ton of people out there without jobs. No job = less/no money. No money = ... spending your money on luxuries? Nope!

I'm sorry, but while it may in fact be greed vs greed, I cannot accept his argument that piracy is killing Hollywood. I need more data on the things I listed, especially where Hollywood is putting their money, and what the piracy percentage is. Until then, I do not accept that as the answer.</comment>


Mystery of Van Leeuwenhoek's microscope lens is partly solved - <AUTHOR> http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2018/03/mystery-of-van-leeuwenhoeks-microscope-lens-is-partly-solved/ <comment><USER2> This is an interesting story.

Maybe he had special glass. My gut says he just made sure it was of high quality. Rejecting most samples, putting his work into the best.

From there, he "got it", as humans tend to do. Excellence, pushing a craft and skill to the max the world allows.</comment>


Quantifying the performance of the TPU, our first machine learning chip - <AUTHOR> https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/04/quantifying-the-performance-of-the-TPU-our-first-machine-learning-chip.html <comment><USER2> So since "sharing the benefits with everyone" could involve just allowing people to rent time on the Google cloud, we can still ask when/if the chips themselves will ever be available for purchase?

</comment><comment><USER3> "This first generation of TPUs targeted inference ..."

Makes me wonder if there are more recent generations that target training.

</comment><comment><USER4> From the paper:

> if the TPU were revised to have the same memory system as the K80 GPU, it > would be about 30X - 50X faster than the GPU and CPU.

Is it "hard" to interface with GDDR5/HBM? Layout challenges? Or do they need the capacity more than the speed? Why _wouldn 't_ they have used faster memory than DDR3?

<comment><USER5> Memory controllers are not so simple to do, and fast MCs also eat quite a bit of power. So a simple reason that they didn't do it could be either

a) they did not want to license a more expensive, faster design

b) while it would be faster, it would decrease efficiency to a point that did not meet their goals (for data centers, efficiency > absolute performance, within reasonable boundaries)

c) like b) just with cost of memory

d) GDDR5 and DDR3/4 have different design trade-offs. The former is optimized for sequential bandwidth (and low capacity; GDDR always was a point-to-point memory bus just to achieve the clock speeds), while DDR3/4 takes random read/write workloads into account (eh... to the amount possible with DRAM...)

\--

HBM requires a silicon interposer, which is basically like another complete chip (just without the FEOL parts, "just" metallization), that has to be significantly larger than the size of _all chips combined_. So unless you really need that performance or have a volume product it's unlikely to be a good deal.

<comment><USER5> Looking at their block diagrams: They have two large "cache-like" structures: The unified buffer (24 MiB) and the accumulators (4 MiB). Bandwidth between these and the matrix multiply unit is high (167 GiB/s), bandwidth out of that complex is low. So it would seem that they just don't need a very large bandwidth out of that function complex.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is this device optimized for forward passes or backward passes or both?

It seems to me that Google engineers could use Tesla's or other high end GPU's for training and development, but then deploy those models on hardware optimized for forward passes...

<comment><USER7> If "forward passes" means inference (as opposed to training), then the post says the first generation targets that. I don't think they say anything about any future generations (other than they're working on them).

<comment><USER8> I mean, there's no real reason they shouldn't be able to do a backwards pass assuming they're using trivially differentiable activation functions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe it's just me misunderstanding, but to me "inference" and "training" are one and the same. But the article defined it thus:

This first generation of TPUs targeted inference (the use of an already trained model, as opposed to the training phase of a model, which has somewhat different characteristics)

This Nvidia article treats them differently, too: [https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/08/22/difference-deep- lea...](https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/08/22/difference-deep-learning- training-inference-ai/)

But the definition of "statistical inference" on Wikipedia says "Statistical inference is the process of deducing properties of an underlying distribution by analysis of data" which seems exactly like training.

<comment><USER10> Some parts of stats (esp. classically) do use "inference" for the whole process of going from data -> result, especially when doing descriptive rather than predictive statistics. In most of ML the process is split into two phases, training a model on a data set, followed by using the trained model to predict labels (or whatever else it's predicting) for new data. Training is an implementation of statistical induction, from data to model, while model "use" or "evaluation" is an implementation of (probabilistic) deduction, from model + query to result. In ML, "inference" is usually a synonym for the "deduction" or "evaluation" portion. It makes sense to me intuitively if you think of it as learning things vs. inferring things from learned knowledge.

But you do find constructions using it as a synonym for training too, as in phrases like "model inference" (which means inferring models from data, aka model induction or training). Inferring things from other things is a pretty general concept, so it can be slippery without context...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a very very bad idea. The so called AI is changing, far from being stable. Software can change, hardware can not.

</comment><comment><USER12> so basically they're ASICs?

Would love some tech details, but it seems that the paper wont be published until 5pm today

<comment><USER5> Most accelerator-esque chips are often considered some kind of ASIC. CPUs are not ASICs because ??? ... never heard a good reason there. It's a fuzzy (but not fluffy) term.

<comment><USER13> Because CPUs are not application-specific? ASICs are typically designed from the ground-up to do a specific thing really well.

<comment><USER5> I'll bite: In which way is a computation engine (CPU [not ASIC], GPU [ASIC], Xeon Phi [ASIC]) more general purpose than a computation engine for AI [ASIC], GPU [ASIC] or Xeon Phi [ASIC, even though some of these are usable as a host processor?]

For other parts it's even less clear: Flash or hard drive controllers are pretty normal micros with some dedicated hardware bolted on - clearly ASIC, but most of it was not designed for the "AS" part, and you could just ignore the flash and SATA interfaces and use it as a regular micro.

So the distinction, if any, can't be about volume (since a lot of them are large volume parts), nor about functionality, but some fuzzy distinction by narrowness of intended use of the part (- but then again, GPUs).

And how does it apply to other domains of chips? Is a TDA7000 an ASIC?

:)

<comment><USER13> Firstly, on what basis are the Xeon Phi and GPUs ASICs? Secondly, I'd argue that a GPU is definitely more general-purpose than the TPU. Just look at the block diagram shown in the linked paper: a GPU is orders of magnitude more complex than that! The added complexity is a result of a GPU having to support a wider variety of workloads. As for Flash controllers etc., if they incorporate a MCU or CPU, then they are simply not ASICs?

I believe that the term ASIC itself is quite overloaded. From what I've seen, many people use the term ASIC to refer to any IC that is not reconfigurable (i.e., FPGA). Going by that definition, an ASIC is any circuit that is custom designed and fabbed on a wafer. Naturally, this would include a CPU, a GPU, and whatever else you can think of.

The way I like to think of it is that an ASIC is a circuit designed to perform a specific task _as efficiently as possible_. Note that I used to word circuit; in other words, an ASIC could be part of some larger design.

Some examples off the top of my head:

\- Digital camera CMOS sensor

\- Video decryption chip (e.g., in a cable box)

\- Active noise cancellation chip (if custom and not a DSP)

\- Full-custom TPM

\- Full-custom RSA-2048 engine

\- High-performance Ethernet switch controller

\- CPU cache controller (ASIC that is part of a CPU)

<comment><USER5> Counterpoint to complexity: Simple CPUs (scalar, in-order) are likely less complex than the TPU. E.g. here's a super-scalar in-order core: [https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/US6311261B1/US06...](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/US6311261B1/US06311261-20011030-D00011.png)

> I believe that the term ASIC itself is quite overloaded.

I think we're arguing the same thing, just from different angles :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Botpress: an open-source bot creation tool written in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/botpress/botpress <comment><USER2> How does this differ from so many frameworks? If you still use platform dependent APIs and do not hide abstraction over them. I would not call it wordpress for bots, because Chatfuel is more close to being a wordpress for bots (with closed source)

`bp.slack.sendText` vs `bp.messenger.sendTemplate`

<comment><AUTHOR> This question is very relevant and I think we need to work more on how to express what I am going to say (any idea form you guys would be extremely helpful)..

Botpress differs from other frameworks (I consider as frameworks only the code-based solutions like Botkit, MS Bot Framework and Hubot) in that we don't only provide the connectors to the chat platforms (which is the minimum to having a chatbot), but also provides all the other things you will eventually need when writing your bots: the ability for users to subscribe to topics, broadcasting abilities, tasks scheduling, natural language processing, human- in-the-loop, analytics, etc... All of which is available on a web interface.

Botpress differs from other platforms* (platforms are hosted services like Chatfuel, Flowxo, Motion.AI, etc) in that it is developer-oriented (i.e. it's not a tool designed for total newbies and non-coders). The logic of your bot will inevitably lead to code, but in exchange you get total control and flexibility. You own your data, you have no dependency on 3rd party services, you need a new feature you just code it. Finally, the major difference is that Botpress is not hosted, it is an open-source software you install and host yourself.

The reasoning behind Botpress is: make it super easy for developers to create a bot (through a powerful SDK and a highly modular ecosystem), easy for bot owners to administrate (powerful web interface).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Botpress is great! RadBots ([https://radbots.com/](https://radbots.com/)) built a monetization module for use in Botpress and found the experience to be great. Total support, engaged devs, and great mission.

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/botpress- monetize](https://www.npmjs.com/package/botpress-monetize)

<comment><USER4> So you get money when someone clicks on an ad? I'm reading their site and can't really make out the payout?

How much per ad click?

<comment><USER5> .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Planning on building a messenger bot for fitness. Botpress /Botkit. oh seems there's already some module/integration for Botkit in botpress-botkit

<comment><USER6> botpress-messenger + botpress-rivescript = sugar

<comment><USER7> You should probably look @ the one they have already built as an example ... [https://github.com/botpress/Boost](https://github.com/botpress/Boost)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would love to see a sample of botpress actually in action.

<comment><USER9> For now, we are not aware of any major brand that runs on Botpress, but we have some great partnerships to announce soon.

We have built 1 month ago a community and open-source bot, but we didn't have the time to maintain it. You can try it: [https://www.messenger.com/t/boostfuel](https://www.messenger.com/t/boostfuel)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This looks great! How are the integrations with slack?

<comment><AUTHOR> Our Slack integrations make it very very easy to create a Slack bot and all the tasks around a Slack bot (i.e. broadcasts, subscriptions, scheduling tasks, human take over). We have very nice features like automatic users profile fetching (and caching) and all the Web APIs actions are implemented. The only drawback is that we have no deep integration for Slack Grid (yet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> We changed the URL from [https://github.com/botpress](https://github.com/botpress) to what seems to be the main project on that list.

<comment><AUTHOR> hey thanks dang!

<comment><USER12> This is the inevitable comment when you're asked about the terminal emulator from your screencast. (And better to do it here by piggy backing off this off- topic thread than for it to pollute the main discussion.)

So what's behind those effects?

Thanks.

[https://botpress.io/video/video_1.mp4](https://botpress.io/video/video_1.mp4)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hehe this question was indeed inevitable. I'm using Hyper ([https://hyper.is/](https://hyper.is/)) with the "hyperpower" plugin. Enjoy!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Adobe acquires EchoSign - <AUTHOR> http://blog.echosign.com/2011/07/great-news-adobe-acquires-echosign.html

<comment><USER2> Non-Flash-based-PDF-reader press release: [http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/2011...](http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/201107/071811AdobeAcquiresEchoSign.html)

Gotta say I didn't see this coming, but it makes sense for what they're doing with Acrobat. I just hope to god that two things happen:

1) They don't turn the product into a trainwreck (overly cross-promoting, bulky useless features, etc). 2) They open up the damn API to the cheaper plans. I want to do cool stuff with their API, but I don't want to pay $500 a month for it...

</comment><comment><USER3> How has Docusign not been mentioned? Speaking from a developer perspective, their API is far and away the most flexible and easiest to get started with. Integrating with Adobe will definitely give EchoSign a bit more visibility (they really focused on consumers vs. enterprise before anyways) but I think consumers will want a separate solution anyways and enterprise will continue to choose the market leader (something like 95+ of the fortune 100 use Docusign already).

</comment><comment><USER4> I hope they don't kill it. It's an electronic signature system that actually works for humans, unlike the debacle that is Acrobat's.

<comment><USER5> I often use HelloFax as my signature system of choice. It actually works really well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> EchoSign is pretty awesome - we've used it extensively and it speeds of contracts, legal stuff, etc immensely. I hope Adobe doesn't mess it up.

</comment><comment><USER7> After creating <http://qktract.com> I found about EchoSign from a few of my customers. I've taken a completely different approach to online contracts/signing than they have but it's nice to know that there is a good business model here and plenty of room for competition. Congratulations to the EchoSign team.

</comment><comment><USER8> Anyone know what EchoSign is and how it works?

I can't find much apart from marketing speak on their website.

<comment><USER9> You upload a document, add some signature fields, they email it to all parties for signature, you get the e-signed doc back including an audit trail. Works great for contracts and services agreements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I used to work next door to these guys. Excellent product and sharp team. Congratulations!</comment>


Data Storage and Interaction Using Magnetized Fabric [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://smartfabrics.cs.washington.edu/smartfabrics.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> How does this differ from Google's Project Jacquard?</comment>


Demoscene news and downloads - <AUTHOR> https://www.scene.org/ <comment><USER2> Now, scene.org is hardly a decent news archive these days. It's basically just kept alive with no active development.

Scene.org's core function is to act as an archive. A _very_ large share of all demoscene productions, ever, are hosted on scene.org and its mirrors. It's been fullfilling this service for many many years now, and I don't think it's going to stop anytime soon. It's excellent for a community to be able to rely on such an excellent file host for such a long time.

For a better accessible and searchable database of demoscene productions, it's better to go to [http://pouet.net](http://pouet.net). Don't be scared away by it's, well, "impressive" look and feel, it really is the central hub of the demoscene and the design is chiefly maintained because of nostalgic reasons.

Another more detailed archive of roughly the same productions is [http://demozoo.org](http://demozoo.org).

<comment><USER3> is this the skrebbel that put stuff out on d-cibel? :)

<comment><USER2> is this the keyle that ran the label? :)

good to see you here. i replied to a comment of yours before but i don't think you saw it. gamedev it is, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://pouet.net](http://pouet.net)

<comment><USER5> ftp.funet.fi/pub/amiga/demos

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Over a year since the last news item. What happened in 2014? Pouet.net is much more active.

</comment><comment><USER7> How one can get into making demos? What are the key concepts/techniques? What are the best sources/books about the topic?</comment>


Apple allows Google to cheat in the SDK - <AUTHOR> http://spazout.com/google_cheats_independent_iphone_developers_screwed <comment><USER2> Apple has had an agreement with Google since the announcement of the iPhone. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt even sits at Apples board meetings.

Google is a special partner and this is why you get Google Maps integration, Google as the default search, etc... It only makes sense that they get preferred treatment in other situations as well.

<comment><USER3> Due to the Android conflict of interest, Eric Schmidt excuses himself from all conversations involving the iPhone.

<comment><USER2> True, particularly in strategic decisions. However, that does not mean that Google doesn't get special treatment when it comes to Apple products.

Eric Schmidt is a heck of a lot more likely to get Steve Jobs to bend the rules a bit than Joe Shmoe is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Our friends at the worlds biggest software company seem to not be playing fair when it comes to their new iPhone application."

Microsoft has an iPhone application?

<comment><USER5> And plus, Microsoft actually gets most of its revenues from selling software. Google gets its most of its revenues from selling ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Actually it looks like Google was just using a private, undocumented API. Apple likely did not give them special access. The blogger was able to gain access to the method later.

</comment><comment><USER7> From using the app, it looks like they just use the accelerometer and guesswork. Or they just really suck at detecting my head. The preference for screen rotation says "Turning on Screen Rotation disables motion sensing for voice search."

<comment><USER8> The article has been updated to reflect that it's overriding an undocumented method on the UIApplication class called -proximityStateChanged. I've tried it and it looks like it's _not_ a delegate method.

Gruber has a much better article on this here:

[http://daringfireball.net/2008/11/google_mobile_uses_private...](http://daringfireball.net/2008/11/google_mobile_uses_private_iphone_apis)

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I think my phone just wasn't liking my hand/head when I was trying to test it.</comment></comment></comment>