Italy Tests Contact-Tracing App to Speed Lockdown Exit - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/17/technology/17reuters-health-coronavirus-italy-technology.html <comment><USER2> Apparently 60% of the population should use these apps in order for them to be effective, which turns into 80% of smartphone users.

In Singapore the uptake of the TraceTogether app has only been 12%of the population, and the city ended up in lockdown anyway.

Making those apps opt-in, i.e. optional, is taking a big risk. At the same time deploying a system that works at such scale in such short time isn't easy.

Source: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52294896](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52294896)</comment>


Ask HN: Serverless: What have you built so far? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> (3) services for work. (1) service for an activism project. (2) personal projects. All have been an absolute pleasure. I will note that puppeteer was difficult, Testing documentation has much to be desired, and we are still figuring out monitoring that works for us. 10/10 would recommend... and very interested in Cloudflare's Service.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've built an app which checks an uptime monitor using lambda.

It runs periodically through cloudwatch and checks if my website is up and sends me an SMS using Twilio if it's down.

It pulls the list of urls from Google Sheet where i add all urls that i need to check.</comment>


Why Asian Internet Companies Struggle to Become Global - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/why-asian-internet-companies-struggle-to-become-global/

<comment><USER2> That's odd. I posted the same story 8 hours ago... [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5989238](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5989238)</comment>


How the NSA shot itself in the foot by denying prior knowledge of Heartbleed - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/institutional-failure-led-to-nsa-missing-the-heartbleed-flaw-7000028366/

<comment><USER2> tl;dr NSA is either lying (they _knew_ about it, and didn't tell anyone, therefore failing their mission to "protect America"), or NSA is incompetent, and in 2 years they couldn't find this massive vulnerability, even though they have thousands of security researchers, spend billions of dollars, and OpenSSL _should_ be a huge target for them - therefore also failing their mission to "protect America".

So far NSA has pleaded incompetence.

<comment><USER3> Such a self-inflicted wound would not be so deep had they not torpedoed their own credibility so thoroughly beforehand: "It was the "least untruthful..."

So there you have the DNI lying before congress, and his General Counsel, in a letter to the New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/04/opinion/testimony-of- the-n...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/04/opinion/testimony-of-the-national- intelligence-director.html?ref=jamesrclapperjr&_r=1) claiming that the reality in Clapper's mind should the basis for judging his truthfulness. It really can't get any better.</comment></comment>


The bliss of an 18-month, paid, Swedish paternity leave. - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2265563/?from=rss

<comment><USER5> You can do much the same thing in the US.

Most people (55%) in the US earn more than similarly situated people in Sweden [1]. (If you focus only on Swedish Americans, 55% goes up to 85%.) If you want to take paternity leave in the US, you can lower your spending/consumption to that of a comparable Swede and put the money you save in the bank. You can then withdraw it during your paternity leave.

The fact that most Americans _choose_ not to do this suggests that paternity leave is not as blissful as the author suggests. The fact that the Swedish govt had to offer an "equality bonus" and use it or lose it incentives to get men to use more than 6% of the per-couple leave suggests that Swedes don't find it as blissful as the alternatives either.

[1] Income distributions overall: [http://super- economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/income-distributio...](http://super- economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/income-distribution-in-us-and-sweden.html)

Swedes vs Swedish Americans: [http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/super- economy-in-o...](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-economy-in- one-picture.html)

[edit: replaced the word "standard of living" with "consumption". "Standard of living" is a poorly defined concept and arguing over definitions is pointless.]

<comment><USER6> Speaking as a father, sitting home with my child for a year and half would probably have driven the whole family crazy.

<comment><USER7> For me the ideal would be part time. I'd love to spend more time with my daughter (15 months old) but I'm not cut out for 7 days a week childcare.

<comment><USER8> In Sweden, the employer can not deny a request for part time work (75%) if the child is 8 years or younger.

<comment><USER9> You've only compensated for the loss of income for a total of 480 days, though. That'll let one parent work 75% for about five years, while earning about 95% of their full time salary.

<comment><USER10> First of all only you're only fully compensated 360 of those 480 days, for the other 120 days you only get the minimum level of compensation. Secondly it depends on what their full time salary is. There is a hard upper limit on how much you can get compensated, and most people with good jobs are quite a bit over that limit. So someone with a higher paying job might only get 40-50% of his salary.

<comment><USER9> The ceiling is about 58kUSD per year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My friend just had a kid. He works in a grocery store, and doesn't make much. They gave him 1 week of paternity leave, and he had 2 weeks of vacation saved up.

I'm doing as much as I can to help, but it's a shitty situation.

EDIT: His wife quit her job so she can be with the baby. Technically my friend's salary should cover everything they need, but if there are any complications, well, they'll be bankrupt in an instant. Thankfully they've got a good safety net (lots of good friends).

<comment><USER12> Another shitty situation would be if all of your friends' coworkers had to work more and earn less to pay for your friend's decision to have a kid.

<comment><USER13> Why? Every single one of those coworkers was born at some point. So they benefited from their parents coworkers getting some time off. And almost all of them will themselves eventually benefit when they decide to have a kid....

<comment><USER5> It's irrelevant that there are benefits from paid time off.

What is relevant is whether the benefits exceed the costs. Most people with the freedom to choose believe the benefits of time off do not exceed the costs.

<comment><USER14> Your last statement is most likely not true for Europe.

So in the end it comes down to cultural preference. If the majority prefers a certain way of doing things, it makes sense to back it up with legislation to harmonize it and make it safe for the individual (in this case, for instance, guaranteeing you to get your old job back after maternity leave).

<comment><USER5> The article explicitly notes that when Swedes were free to choose, they did not choose paternity leave.

<comment><USER9> We're free to not take paternity leave, if we choose.

Maybe most people here enjoy spending time with their children more than they'd enjoy earning 100% instead of ~80% of their normal pay.

<comment><USER5> You are free not to receive the benefits. You are not free to avoid most of the costs. For anyone who values the benefits at less than the full costs, this policy is harmful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't forget Swedish fertility rates are less than the replacement rate: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Sweden#Total_fe...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Sweden#Total_fertility_rate)

So the state arguably needs to encourage procreation in order to stave off the Japanese style demographic crisis: [http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/53050/milton- ezrati/j...](http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/53050/milton- ezrati/japans-aging-economics)

<comment><USER7> Encouraging procreation isn't a sustainable solution. The planet is over populated and building economic models which depend on an ever growing population (or even one sustained at it's current level) is asking for trouble.

<comment><USER15> It's true that building an economic model that builds on a _growing_ population is a bad idea. And it it's arguable that building one based on a population that stays the same size is bad, too.

That doesn't change the fact that Sweden has many such programs, and it's the fifth most rapidly shrinking nation. A shrinking population makes any social program where a bulk of the money is spent on the elderly i.e. health insurance or social security is going to take a severe economic hit. The Swedes think that by offering incentives like this one, they can help preserve some of their other programs.

<comment><USER7> I don't dispute that, I just dispute that the solution is to encourage procreation as the original post stated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In Germany the regulation to get money for maternity/paternity leave is such that the state pays 2/3 of the regular income for 12 months.

(12 months if only father or mother take the offer, or 14 months if both parents choose to, so e.g. the mother gets 2/3 of her pay for 10 months, father gets his 2/3 for 4 months. You also can double the time for half the money.)

Your employer, on the other hand, has to let you take unpaid leave for up to 3 years (I think, not precisely sure on that one) with a guarantee to continue your employment afterwards.

Chris - currently on paternity leave :-)

</comment><comment><USER17> One of the best ways to achieve a flexible work/home-life balance is to run a small business.

Can you imagine what it would mean to a small business with 3 employees if one of those employees goes on a 18-month paid break?

Not every business is a 10,000 employee omnicorp made up of fungible cogs.

<comment><USER18> > Can you imagine what it would mean to a small business with 3 employees if > one of those employees goes on a 18-month paid break?

You do realize that the paid leave is 1. not 100% of salary and 2. not fully paid by the employer, but funded in no small part by taxes on the general population?

Furthermore, if it's a "small business with 3 employees" (or 6, or even a dozen) chances are those people are at least somewhat close and _talk_ to one another. And they know that it's not in their interest to bankrupt the business. There are generally ways to reach an arrangement: try to push the paternity itself further, correctly plan the pat' leave, use part-time instead, etc...

<comment><USER9> _2\. not fully paid by the employer, but funded in no small part by taxes on the general population?_

Actually it's all paid by taxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd be interested in seeing if there's been any effect on Swedish entrepreneurship resulting from generous family leave.

Obviously I'm not talking about high-powered startups here, but lifestyle businesses, freelancers, that sort of thing. Probably hard to draw out causation, but worth thinking about too.

<comment><USER20> From what I have seen: the risk of starting a company is very low. No matter what happens, you're not going to starve or be homeless or be ill with no health cover.

But on the other hand: it's difficult to start a company (in the sense that there is a lot of bureacracy to negotiate) and the incentive to succeed is also lower (partly because the risk is lower, and partly because the tax system is punitive of anyone who breaks from the herd).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder what happens if the family has multiple kids. Say, one every 1.5 years...

</comment><comment><USER21> That's nothing. I was on 2 year paid paternity leave in Lithuania :-)

First year - 100%, second year - 85%.

Won't do that again :-)

</comment><comment><USER22> When my daughter was born, I took a six months paternity leave. It was great fun and it allowed me to get a lot of things off the ground for the web app I am now selling.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yes, I'm quite sure having a year and half of your life subsidized by people who made different child-bearing choices than you is nice.

<comment><USER23> Your tone is negative. You seem to believe that making parental leave a positive economic choice is a bad thing for those with no children.

Do those people benefit in some way from the children that the parents have (pensions, steady supply of labour for the economy, etc)? Do they benefit from those children having the parents at home a lot when they are very young - does it lead to better-adjusted adults in the long run? What are the alternatives - subsidised child care so that the parents can work? No subsidised child care so that parents are exhausted and do a bad job when they are at work? Does it pay off in ancillary benefits even for those who choose to have no children?

If _everyone_ benefits, then why is it a bad thing? In order to persuade people that subsidising parental care is a bad thing, it's probably better to show your working. It's not clear to many people that it is a bad thing, even people like me who are single males who end up paying for it.

<comment><USER24> > Do those people benefit in some way from the children that the parents have > (pensions, steady supply of labour for the economy, etc)?

I note that we pay for that labor, so you're trying to double count.

Also, if you're going to argue that we should pay because we benefit, you can't complain when I point out that we can get children for a lot less than 18 months of time-off by relatively high-paid people.

<comment><USER23> You do pay for that labour, but a ready supply keeps the cost down. You've ignored the other benefits too.

You may be able to get children for less - but can you get the same quality of children? Would the children be as well-rounded, would society be as happy? I wouldn't think so. Ans why do you assume that the 18 months of paternity leave relates only to well-paid people? The majority of people who benefit from this scheme will certainly be the less well-off since it applies across the board and there are more poorly- and averagely-paid people than well-off people.

You haven't even tried to prove what seems to be your original thesis - <USER3> mandated generous child care allowances are a negative thing, or even a selfish thing.

<comment><USER24> > You may be able to get children for less - but can you get the same quality > of children?

Probably.

> would society be as happy? I wouldn't think so

You're assuming that society is happy subsidizing the kids that you want to subsidize. How about some evidence?

> Ans why do you assume that the 18 months of paternity leave relates only to > well-paid people?

I didn't, but the well-off will be paid more.... Also, folks who are closer to the edge economically are less able to afford to be seen as less reliable. They're also less able to take any income hit.

As a result, the money will go disproportionately to the well-off. That's how almost all of the "not means tested" programs "for the children" work.

> You haven't even tried to prove what seems to be your original thesis

Pay attention much? The above is my first comment that addressed child care and it doesn't contain that "thesis".

It's not enough to have good intent, you have to actually get the details right.

<comment><USER23> > Probably.

You wanted me to to provide details? How about you lead by example? Or are you not paying attention? There are numerous studies showing that a lack of parental attention is a leading indicator to a poor quality of life in adulthood. You want to make an assertion that prolonged parental contact on average does not increase the maturity, social responsibility and quality of life of a child then you have to show some evidence.

> You're assuming that society is happy subsidizing the kids that you want to > subsidize. How about some evidence?

I assume that the Swedish society is happy subsidising decent parental leave because there's a lack of obvious pressure from the majority to end such a practice. Just like there's a lack of similar pressure in France, Germany and many other European nations. Not only that, but the popular press are writing articles in favour of it! I'd say that people are not against it from these indicators. What kind of 'evidence' do you want me to produce?

>Also, folks who are closer to the edge economically are less able to afford to be seen as less reliable.

Now you're showing your own bias. Why do you think that someone who takes their leave will be seen as unreliable? If it's a societal norm then they are seen as decent parents, not as unreliable. The mad pressure to live in the workplace across the whole of society is American and eastern Asian - <USER3> kind of culture is not followed in Europe, happily.

> As a result, the money will go disproportionately to the well-off. That's > how almost all of the "not means tested" programs "for the children" work.

Wonderful generalisation. Again, a distinct lack of details, despite your aggressive and patronising tone. How about reflecting that someone with less free cash benefits more from these programs, since they have fewer reserves to fall back on. The rich have the choice, the poor don't. And these types of scheme give the poor the choice. > Pay attention much? The above is my first comment that addressed child care and it doesn't contain that "thesis".

You think that subsidising child care is a bad thing - <USER4> thesis/attitude/opinion is against the article, that the Swedish system is a poor model. That much is clear from your sarcastic response. Despite your aggressive tone and your begging for details, you've not put across a coherent point of view, nor have you presented any evidence in favour of your viewpoint. Instead, you've been reactionary and aggressive. How about a cogent, coherent argument in favour of your point of view with 'details' and evidence?

Otherwise your attitude comes across as you don't want to pay for it, therefore it must be bad thing.

<comment><USER24> > You wanted me to to provide details?

Actually, I didn't ask (in this thread) for details. So, once again, you're arguing with voices in your head and trying to attribute them to me.

However, I'm pretty sure that I can get really good kids (and upbringing) for less from India. They won't look like Swedes, but ....

> >Also, folks who are closer to the edge economically are less able to afford > to be seen as less reliable.

> Now you're showing your own bias. Why do you think that someone who takes > their leave will be seen as unreliable?

My "bias" is that of an employer. It doesn't matter whether "taking leave" is ordinary or not - folks who take a lot of leave are folks who you can't count on as much as folks who don't.

Folks who take a lot of leave who are behind on experience and knowledge. When you need someone who knows what happened last month, you can't ask someone who was on leave then.

> Again, a distinct lack of details

Most people can figure out that that n months of paid leave for someone who makes a lot of money takes more money than n months of leave for someone who makes less money without being given "details".

> your thesis/attitude/opinion is against the article

Again, I've posted nothing that supports your assertion. Or, are you going with "any criticism implies ...."?

> Otherwise your attitude comes across as you don't want to pay for it, > therefore it must be bad thing.

I've found that most demands for subsidy are a bad thing.

As our libertarian friends say, there are four types of spending. (1) Our money, spent on ourselves, (2) our money spent on other people, (3) other people's money spent on ourselves, and (4) other people's money spent on other people.

For (1), we're concerned with cost vs benefit. For (2), we're less concerned with benefit and more with cost. With (3), we're more concerned with benefit and less with cost. With (4) ....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> When daddy eventually goes back to work he probably won't feel so blissful about paying Swedish taxes: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden>

<comment><USER26> I guess you get what you pay for - higher taxes, great welfare state. Seems a fair trade to me.

<comment><USER24> > I guess you get what you pay for - higher taxes, great welfare state. Seems > a fair trade to me.

Actually, the taxes paid per person isn't significantly higher in sweden than the US. The US just delivers fewer services, and no, the military isn't the reason. At the same time, US income is higher.

Sweden can do certain things because it's dominated by Swedes. It does about as well as US states with comparable demographics. Other US states aren't as lucky.

<comment><USER27> Having just moved from New York to Minneapolis, I second your 2nd point.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Terrapattern – A visual search tool for satellite imagery - <AUTHOR> http://www.terrapattern.com/ <comment><USER2> The project is more or less abandoned.

It was scheduled to shut down last year: [https://twitter.com/golan/status/976202325076467712](https://twitter.com/golan/status/976202325076467712)

It's also open source, though the code hasn't been touched in a few years: [https://github.com/CreativeInquiry/terrapattern](https://github.com/CreativeInquiry/terrapattern)

[edit: noted shutdown year]

<comment><USER3> This tweet is from 2018, inferring May 2018? Still appears that it was abandoned, just correcting.

<comment><USER4> 2018 was last year?

<comment><USER5> Quick response. Instead of shutting it down, we significantly reduced compute resources for the project (reducing CPU count, RAM, and API request quotas). So now it only costs us about $50/month to maintain, previously it was $200/month. We're maintaining it primarily for historical purposes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a former employee of Descartes Labs.

That being said, Descartes Labs has something very similar on a US-wide scale or global scale, depending on the base layer you select.

see: [https://descarteslabs.com/search](https://descarteslabs.com/search)

<comment><USER7> Wow - you guys need to find a way to commercialize this.

I manufacture products for an agricultural segment (where limited data exists for sales leads), and was able to focus on one example customer site with some of the unique structures they use. Then it brought me loads of other potential customer sites that matched similarly.

You don't have any workflow to help turn this into leads, so then I have to figure out the address, use Google streetview or something to figure out what place it is, and then turn that into a lead I can turn over to salesperson. But if this was made easier, it would be a great lead-gen machine and I'd happily pay for it. My prospects can't hide from satellites!

<comment><USER6> I'm a bit out of touch with plans at this point (left DL in November), but certainly one of the points of this as a demo is to show off a capability that could lead to a number of specific use cases. If your interested in using it as you described, the DL sales team would certainly like to talk with you. Or you could contact me (my username at gmail) and I can point you in the right direction.

<comment><USER7> Got it, sorry I missed that you had left. I'll reach out to them to see if they are thinking about the leadgen aspecet of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hi folks, I'm one of the creators of Terrapattern. It's correct that the project (created in 2015) is now essentially 'abandoned': we are no longer updating the code and datasets. The project is currently running with a very limited compute instance and (furthermore) it looks like we hit our API limits this morning, possibly as a result of this article :( I'll see if I can get it to open up again.

<comment><USER8> This is still one of my favorite deep learning projects, and has inspired a few algorithm ideas in the hospital environment where I work.

Great job on this!

<comment><USER5> Thanks much! The goal of our project was to inspire new ways of thinking about images and machine learning. Glad you found our work helpful!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A similar counterpart tool of matching land imagery (like mountain ranges) could be quite useful too. Especially for investigating things like this [https://twitter.com/Europol/status/1051812094214066177](https://twitter.com/Europol/status/1051812094214066177)

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice. Unfortunately it stopped working after a couple of results. I get this google maps error now - [https://imgur.com/a/Yf9Bv5l](https://imgur.com/a/Yf9Bv5l)

</comment><comment><USER11> This is pretty cool :)

Minor nit: the plural of cul-de-sac is culs-de-sac

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cWGzd21ENI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cWGzd21ENI)

</comment><comment><USER12> This is a really cool idea! Looks like it suffers from API limits, though. Would be a cool service to integrate with something like Planet.com.

<comment><USER8> I started a project like this with them. Never got around to it :p

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> the UX is unbearable.</comment>


BET HN: In 5 Years Uber Will Be Using Self Driving Cars from Tesla - <AUTHOR> Uber and Tesla are both so aggressive, that I bet in five years Uber will be using self driving cars from Tesla.<p>Who wants to take me up on this bet? <comment><USER2> I will. Even assuming Tesla has a street-legal self-driving car (that works outside the interstate), owning and operating cars ($70-80,000 a piece) is a pretty big change in Uber's business model. That's not a unicorn business model, it's a pack mule business model.</comment>


OpenWRT vs. FCC – Forced Firmware Lockdown? [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/08/07/openwrt-vs-fcc-forced-firmware-lockdown-presentation-video-and-slides/ <comment><USER2> If you're in the US please take 5 minutes and do something about this. This is a big deal.

Make a phone call about this:

> 1 (888) 225-5322

Send an email:

> Chairman Tom Wheeler: email@example.com

> Commissioner Mignon Clyburn: firstname.lastname@example.com

> Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel: email@example.com

> Commissioner Ajit Pai: firstname.lastname@example.com

> Commissioner Michael O'Rielly: firstname.lastname@example.com

Write a letter:

> Federal Communications Commission

> 445 12th Street, SW

> Washington, DC 20554

source: [https://www.fcc.gov/contact-us](https://www.fcc.gov/contact-us)

<comment><USER3> PLEASE put in comments on this proceeding, everyone! WE NEED YOUR HELP!

<comment><USER4> First I would advise you to understand why this is being done.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10137739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10137739)

<comment><USER2> I don't understand your/his reasoning here.

* People don't enable DFS and they mess up radar for Airports.

* ~20 reported incidents, people are fined ~$25k and stop.

* Therefore we must make it illegal to change the firmware on wireless devices.

Only 20 cases? $25k fines!? Why can't we continue to solve this problem like this? The hobbyists flashing their devices with OpenWRT and then making a conscious decision to override defaults (upon which OpenWRT will warn you about legality) are a rare breed. Those that foolishly do this are being fined heavily.

I just don't understand the jump.

<comment><USER5> Because _one_ case can (potentially) cause the radar to miss a wind-shear threat, which is precisely what the radar is there to detect. Missing that can cause a plane crash and kill anywhere from one to a few hundred people.

Given that level of potential downside (even if things would have to happen exactly wrong for it to occur), I'm not sure that "we fine them $25K and they stop" is the right trade-off. I'm not sure that "only 20 reported incidents" is a level that you should expect people to be comfortable with. I'm not sure "we'll continue to not be horribly unlucky" is a valid approach.

<comment><USER6> This is just a variation on the old "Turn off your Game Boys before takeoff, or the plane might crash" schtick.

The proper way to fix that issue, if there ever was one, was to mandate the implementation of avionics that can't be jammed by a Part 15 device. Instead, look what happened... we got a decade of silly, groundless rules that had no useful effect and were eventually scrapped.

Now it looks like it's the WiFi industry's turn. Gee, maybe putting weather radar right next to an unlicensed ISM band wasn't such a great idea. Maybe _they_ 're the ones who should move.

<comment><USER5> > Gee, maybe putting weather radar right next to an unlicensed ISM band wasn't > such a great idea. Maybe they're the ones who should move.

Doesn't work that way. They're trying to detect air movement. That's hard; it's not possible at just random frequencies. You can't (effectively) move the radars without changing physics. They're at the frequency they're at for a reason, not just because of random bureaucratic decisions.

(Of course, it's not that simple. Of course you can move them - at some loss of effectiveness. How much, to move them how far? I can't answer that.)

<comment><USER6> I haven't looked into it in depth, but AFAIK weather radar works at X band, doesn't it? And it doesn't detect air movement, but water droplets, correct?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Better off just building your own router. The high brow option is an embedded motherboard and minipcie wifi card. If the hardware is powerful enough to MASQ gigabit, it won't be obsolete for a decade. And you can upgrade wireless standards with a new card. The only reason there's such an upgrade cycle for consumer routers is that they're built shoddily and with the slowest CPU possible.

And as much as I appreciate spectrum partitioning, we really need to get the major wifi chipsets completely reverse engineered so we can blow away this ambiguous spectre of "unauthorized" modifications and turn them into something normal. Randos stomping on ch12-15 isn't an actual problem - but that widespread rulebreaking coupled with the unknown of what further mods could do is scary to regulators. Destroy that unknown.

<comment><USER8> > _The only reason there 's such an upgrade cycle for consumer routers is that > they're built shoddily and with the slowest CPU possible._

A lot of this is that consumers have been taught that routing, NAT, etc isn't done by a general purpose computing device like a PC or server, but that those tasks MUST be relegated to an appliance.

But compute is compute, and antennas are antennas. And the word "appliance" has long held a secret meaning of "a Linux server on your Windows (or local area) network."

<comment><USER9> I hadn't actually put those thoughts together - which is funny considering I've been working a lot with embedded boards lately.

So.... how could you custom-build something akin to say, the Netgear Nighthawk (Netgear R8000)? I'm thinking multiple 802.11ac antennae with all that new multi-user beamforming stuff that's been released lately. Is there open firmware that supports that / do the commodity Linux drivers support controlling and fine-tuning that kind of function?

Added: Interesting.... There's an x86 port of DD-WRT:

[http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/X86](http://www.dd- wrt.com/wiki/index.php/X86)

<comment><USER10> All the fancy wifi stuff is part of the wifi chipset, which most router vendors tend not to have any hand in - especially for consumer stuff. (also, beamforming is a very misleading term). You can basically buy a card that does all this stuff 'off the shelf', and could even plug it into a laptop. Though, antenna placement may be something you'd need to do some research on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A government-mandated locked-down radio firmware isn't much better than a government-mandated locked-down main firmware.

The FCC should punish crimes, not impose prior restrictions on innocent people.

<comment><USER4> The reason they're doing this is because a lot of crimes have been committed -- resulting in interference with weather radar.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10137739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10137739)

<comment><USER11> There have also been a lot of crimes committed over the internet. We'd better lock it down.

<comment><USER12> We are and have been.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Submit a formal comment on the Federal Register:

[https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/08/06/2015-184...](https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/08/06/2015-18402/equipment- authorization-and-electronic-labeling-for-wireless-devices)

</comment><comment><USER14> Alright, after searching on this a little bit more, it seems that the FCC is _not_ prohibiting the installation of software like OpenWRT or DD-WRT, but are instead mandating that there is software for the radios only that ensures they operate in the manner they are certified for.

There is much more information in the HN comments from a previous time where this was discussed: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9959088](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9959088)

<comment><USER15> Given appropriately designed radio hardware, this would be a non-issue. But given the radios that are on the market right now, this could be a very bad thing in the short term for the most open products that are the only affordable platforms for further R&D of Linux-based wireless router software. Anything that would take ath9k hardware off the market before an equally-open successor is available would be more damaging than any interference these products are capable of producing.

<comment><USER16> I mess with radio's at work. The there are two issues.

Often for testing one wants to check the radio operation outside the normal band or modes of operation. In my case, sweeping the radio across a really wide and band noting where the pll fails to lock. I'm going to really twitchy if I can test the pll at frequencies outside the band. Doing things like, turn off spreading and checking carrier and tx power. I'm sure more complicated radio's than I use have similar.

The second is what is legal varies depending on where the product is sold and used. So so a mode that's legal in one country is verboten in another.

In general though, I'd rather hate for the FCC to try and force manufacturers to lock people out. Because likely it won't work well and there is a definite cost to implementing secure boot. But then again the FCC is historically extremely hostile to the idea of ordinary people mucking with wireless. So this doesn't surprise me at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I recently bought an ADSL modem/router TP-Link 8970 (or something). The thing is awesome, except for that fact that it doesn't support OpenVPN... Supports PPTP or IPSec.

Now if only, I could install OpenWRT on it. Since OpenWRT makes ROUNDS around every custom software I've seen on low-end ADSL modem/routers makes me wonder why on earth companies don't just ship OpenWRT and get over with it?

<comment><USER7> Their firmware is _the_ feature they're selling you. The hardware is generic and without their wonderful firmware, they'd be competing solely on price. This is what the skinjobs think, at least.

BTW, openvpn performance sucks eggs on the processors used in consumer routers.

<comment><USER18> Feels like the same problem that a lot of Android handsets have had. "Look! We added value by making the product worse!"

<comment><USER19> And the same problem that Windows PCs have had for two decades now. The hardware is effectively equivalent; it's now a matter of trying to "add" value with shitware.

This is especially true of Windows laptops nowadays; you're pretty much relegated to 1366x768 screens, shitty dual-core or hyperthreaded single-core processors, _maybe_ 4GB of RAM, and Intel graphics at best. Anything better is still at the prices they were 5 years ago. You'd think that old technology would get cheaper as time goes on, but it seems like the only innovation these OEMs are going for is "how do we make customers pay for progressively shittier hardware and software?".

<comment><USER20> > hyperthreaded single-core processors

I don't think Intel has marketed a single core processor since the Core 2 era. You may want to look at Windows laptops again: it's now possible to buy a 1920x1080 13.3", 8GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD for $600 without any bloatware. It does have a weak dual-core hyperthreaded processor, but this allows it to omit fans.

<comment><USER19> > I don't think Intel has marketed a single core processor since the Core 2 > era.

[http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/celeron/ce...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/celeron/celeron- processor.html)

Specifically: [http://ark.intel.com/products/74390/Intel-Celeron- Processor-...](http://ark.intel.com/products/74390/Intel-Celeron- Processor-G470-1_5M-Cache-2_00-GHz) (a "hyperthreaded single-core processor", as I was describing) or even [http://ark.intel.com/products/58667/Intel- Celeron-Processor-...](http://ark.intel.com/products/58667/Intel-Celeron- Processor-G440-1M-Cache-1_60-GHz), which is single-core and not even hyperthreaded. These are being marketed unironically under some "Experience Brilliant PC Performance" marketing blurb.

> You may want to look at Windows laptops again: it's now possible to buy a > 1920x1080 13.3", 8GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD for $600 without any bloatware.

And I have a garden that grows unicorns on a vine. Got a link to this mythical creature?

<comment><USER20> The mythical creature is the UX305. You have to apply the promotional code "SAVE100" at checkout to get the price I mentioned.

[http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/ASUS- Zen...](http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/ASUS-Zenbook- UX305FA-USM1-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.320751400)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Asshats brought it on themselves, don't commit felonies and mess with regulatory bodies... There is no reason in the world to run Wifi on outlawed channels other than pure selfishness to have a better connection and not be on the same base band or expansion bands as your neighbors. The FCC even allowed people to run low power transmitters on the restricted channels 12/13 but stated that channel 14 is banned and asked nicely for people not to dick around with it.[1] [https://transition.fcc.gov/oet/ea/presentations/files/oct05/...](https://transition.fcc.gov/oet/ea/presentations/files/oct05/Unlicensed_Devices_JD.pdf)

Now it doesn't matter why is that channel blocked, it's not a licensed channel in many countries (as they are used for air traffic landing assist systems, radars, medical equipment such as panic buttons for elderly and disabled people, alarms etc...) and it seems like it is causing interference other wise the FCC would not be chasing this issue again after relaxing the regulations for restricted channels and asking the users to behave.

It's a felony to tweak your Wifi beyond specs, it causes issues and regulatory bodies react, OpenWRT and DD-WRT could've saved them selves the trouble by developing a mechanism to respect local regulation own their own.

Also as it seems people panic too quickly what will happen is the same thing with the radio's on mobile SOC's each region will have it's own channels enabled, you'll still be able to use DD-WRT or w/e you want in the end you won't be able to play with the Wifi settings out of spec which there's no reason in the world for you to be able to in the 1st place.

<comment><USER22> > _Asshats brought it on themselves_

I've been using Tomato firmware for years, and I never did anything illegal with it. How did I bring it on myself exactly?

> _you 'll still be able to use DD-WRT or w/e you want_

RTFA: Vendors will have to "describe in detail how the device is protected from "flashing" and the installation of third-party firmware such as DD-WRT"

As far as I know, all of the issues at hand _could_ be solved with baked-in hardware lockouts without otherwise affecting custom firmware, but that's not what the FCC is demanding.

<comment><USER21> Have you read it?

GP1: "Describe all the radio frequency parameters that are modified by any software/firmware without any hardware changes. Are these parameters in some way limited, such that, it will not exceed the authorized parameters?"

3dP1: "Explain if any third parties have the capability to operate a US sold device on any other regulatory domain, frequencies, or in any manner that is in violation of the certification"

3dP2: "What prevents third parties from loading non-US versions of the software/firmware on the device? Describe in detail how the device is protected from "flashing" and the installation of third-party firmware such as DD-WRT."

They don't care that people can install DD-WRT because of DD-WRT they care about it because it bypasses vendor restrictions if DD-WRT comes up with a way to comply with the regulatory domain, or if the vendor explains that DD-WRT will not be able to modify the Wireless Parameters out of the spec of the US regulatory domain due to limitations on the radio SOC it self they won't care if you can install DD-WRT.

<comment><USER23> Yes, I appreciate that the FCC's proposal imposes the fewest possible restrictions, but you'd be crazy to think that it will work this way in practice. It's far easier to comply with FCC regulations by preventing any modifications whatsoever than to lock down the specific modules.

<comment><USER21> Really depends on how the open firmware community decides to handle this, if they'll put their heads in the sand and say well FCC are bad and write to your representatives nothing will come out of it. If they work out a framework to prevent misuse of regulated equipment there's a good chance that thats what we'll see implemented.

And locking out the firmware might not be the easiest way to handle this if you are a manufacturer since you'll still need to provide updates and multiple software versions (even basic things like ISP branding), so you'll have to resort to using cryptography building in a secure boot/secure flash mechanism and such and such which isn't cheap to maintain, for you telling broadcom to just disable Channel X Y and Z in their radio might be a cheaper and easier option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does this affect phones that can be used as hotspots? If so, you can say goodbye to any remaining Android phones that come with unlocked bootloaders, such as the Nexus series.

</comment><comment><USER25> The unintended consequences of this will be millions upon millions of compromised devices all over the world with owners completely unable to solve the problem themselves.

<comment><USER26> Or the router manufacturers will properly modularize their designs so that the parts you need to replace to fix a compromise are separate from the parts that ensure that the radio stays on legal frequencies, under legal power limits, and uses legal modulation modes.

<comment> mark-r The cheapest way to ensure those things is to do it in software, which is how we get into this situation in the first place. Modularization will cost more, and what manufacturer is going to willingly sign up for that?

<comment><USER27> The one made too by FCC regulations.

Companies would do lots of things if they could get away with it, as someone commented on here a while back (and I wish I could find it) "It's a corporation of course you can expect it to shit on the kitchen floor"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't know too much about these things, but isn't it possible to have some sort of hardware filter on the antenna to block illegal channels?

<comment><USER29> They release physical hardware which is capable of operating in many regions and firmware which is specific to a region.

It's straightforward to create hardware which is physically incapable of violating licensure, but it is also expensive.

That's not the point though, it's becoming a serious problem with technology enabling restrictions which weren't possible in the past and which now threaten free society through a well intentioned but misguided bureaucracy.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

There's a certain unalienable right which is being encroached more and more – the right of ownership, the freedom to tinker.

That is more specifically, everyone should be capable of learning and executing complete control over the things they own. DRM, locked firmwares, license agreements – all of these things are a serious and existing threat to your freedom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This makes a great reason to buy Chinese equipment. Do that, it might be substandard, but you preserve your freedom.

<comment><USER31> Unless of course their equivalent of the NSA doesn't install something that runs next to the firmware independently.

> [http://www.infoworld.com/article/2608141/internet- > privacy/sn...](http://www.infoworld.com/article/2608141/internet- > privacy/snowden--the-nsa-planted-backdoors-in-cisco-products.html)

<comment><USER32> At this point in history I fear less the Chinese government intercepting my data than I do my own ( UK )...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This appears to me to be a clear-cut example of prior restraint, if common sense standards of free speech are to be applied to source code.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure that is a valid analogy. They're not trying to prevent "free speech", just stop idiots who don't know what they're doing from interfering with aircraft weather radar.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10137739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10137739)

 _edit_ please read the background before downvoting, and you'll see what I mean. Also, there is no loss of freedom here. As long as your radio software is separate from the router software, there is no issue at all.

<comment><USER33> I certainly didn't downvote you.

I do, however, disagree.

In this particular case, it seems that the method employed to "stop idiots who don't know what they're doing from interfering with aircraft weather radar" is to infringe on _everyone 's_ right both to run software without the government assessing its content _and_ to broadcast signals regardless of their content.

<comment><USER4> Assuming that the radio and router are separate and only the radio firmware is locked down, is there any way that the NSA could snoop on the content? Or are you saying you want to have the right to reprogram the radio?

<comment><USER34> I'd be happy [1] with locked-down radio firmware if it could talk only to the radio.

One big problem is that coprocessors in embedded systems often have full access to the memory bus, meaning there's no way to stop a trojan in the closed and locked radio firmware from reading and modifying any bit of system memory, which can include your personal data and encryption keys.

[1] Although I'd hope that it'd still be possible to buy or build a general- purpose SDR.

<comment><USER4> I would have thought (correct me if I'm wrong) that it would be pretty straightforward to give the radio unit its own memory, and not give it access to the system memory bus at all. However I don't know if manufacturers will want to go to the trouble of segregating the radio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> As a skeptic I have to wonder whether Google lobbied for this prior to their OnHub release. I'm also expecting Apple to announce some sort of router on Sep 9 to go with HomeKit + AppleTV. Both parties would have a vested interest in locking down the open source router ecosystem.

<comment><USER26> If you are not using a Google or Apple router, I don't see why they would care if you are running third party firmware on your router.

If you are using a Google or Apple router and they do not want you to replace the firmware on it they could use signed firmware already. They would not need to have the FCC tell them that they have to use signed firmware in order to use signed firmware.

If there was some way to use third party firmware on a non-Google, non-Apple router in order to interact with Google or Apple routers in a way that compromises something Google or Apple are trying to do, then maybe Google or Apple would have an interest in trying to stop that...but this would not be an effective way to stop that.

It would not be effective because people would simply build their own routers using a PC with a wifi card to attack the Google or Apple routers, instead of attacking by replacing firmware on stand-alone consumer routers with firmware that supports that attack.

I can't think of anything else. Did you have some other vested interest in mind?

<comment><USER36> I think parent meant competition. If all other choices are super-exploitable crapware-laden routers, then Google's and Apple's devices become that much more valuable. Not sure effects on the market would be that great, but I can see how it would benefit GOOG/AAPL to reduce choices.

<comment><USER27> Oth hand no way in hell would I consider putting a Google device in the most important spot on my network, My distrust of them grows by the day.

<comment><USER37> When Google bought Nest, someone quipped something like: "great, now I'll have to listen to an ad before my smoke alarm goes off".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


In Europe, a Resolution to Break Up Google - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/in-europe-a-resolution-to-break-up-google/

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8642803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8642803)</comment>


New Ruby on Rails Tutorial book-in-progress - <AUTHOR> http://www.railstutorial.org/

<comment><USER2> _Previously, [Michael] taught theoretical and computational physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for six years, where he received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2000. Michael is a graduate of Harvard College, has a Ph.D. in Physics from Caltech, and is an alumnus of the Y Combinator program._

man, I guess my stereotype that it's mostly non-academic programmers who wouldn't know a heap from a hash-table which are drawn to web-dev is a little out of date...

</comment><comment><USER3> I like how you introduce the concepts of git and Heroku as well (I haven't looked closely at the actual contents).

How the hard part: making sure the book the book can keep up with the pace at which the Ruby & Rails community moves.

Good work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's the plan:

      $ git commit -am "Updated the tutorial for the latest Rails version"
      $ git push heroku

:-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Definitely going to be working through this. Looks like it's hitting the topics I want to hear about as I learn RoR. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER5> Just worked through the first two sections, really enjoying the balance between 'learning' and 'doing' so far.

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks like a great start, Michael!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Really like Michael's clear writing style (remember reading Railsspace back in 07). Thx for this new resource.

Also like the fact that he doesn't use many gems, but discusses building stuff from scratch (regarding Railsspace book).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! _Ruby on Rails Tutorial_ follows the same basic philosophy as _RailsSpace_ , including its treatment of gems. See, e.g., my comment at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=986514>.

<comment><USER7> e.g. I fondly recall the use of the 'Haversine formula' (calc. distance on a sphere with given lat, lng) built in SQL, instead of using one of the available Geo ruby libraries/ gems (although I'm not sure, if those gems were available back in 07).

<comment><AUTHOR> Dude, I would totally use a library today! But it was fun busting out a little spherical trigonometry for a Rails book. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is definitely the best rails tutorial I've seen. Congrats Michael. Awesome job!

</comment><comment><USER9> nice..would it be rude to ask if/when you plan on putting out something for Rails 3?

<comment><AUTHOR> You mean like having a separate Git branch for a Rails 3 version of the tutorial? I'd have to be pretty on-the-ball to have thought of that. ;-)

<comment><USER9> You have a beautifully structured online book. Thanks for making it. Using git to be able to easily compare v2.3.5 code samples to 3.0 could be an amazing resource.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome! I plan to design around version differences for the most part; by sticking to core principles, I hope to steer clear of needing big tutorial changes from version to version. Rails 3 changes a _ton_ of things, but it's almost all under the hood; plugin developers will have a new API to learn, but most changes should be invisible to application devs. It may be a pipe dream, though; I'll let you know how it goes. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks really good so far.

Do you plan on using gems, or building everything from scratch?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm focusing on building things from scratch when possible, but I'll definitely use gems when they fill a need. For example, all the user signup machinery will be built from scratch so that readers understand all the different moving parts, but when filling the database with sample data I'll probably use the Faker and Populator gems.</comment></comment>


Building APIs: lessons learned the hard way - <AUTHOR> https://gocardless.com/blog/lessons-learned-building-apis/

<comment><USER2> I like it. Simple, clear. Well founded. And open source.</comment>


HackMIT Puzzle Guide - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/hackmit-2014/joining-the-fancycat-club-hackmit-14-puzzle-guide-6f4ebef5b69 <comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure the "Give it a try first." in the intro should be a link :-P

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone have a breakdown of how many people made it to/through each part of the puzzle?

</comment><comment><USER4> In part 1 you need the sound turned on to solve the puzzle. I don't think I could have ever gotten farther than that on my own. Even at home I keep the sound turned off on my computer unless there is something I specifically want to listen to.

<comment><USER5> If you look at the network requests when the page loads you can see a good hint that something is going on, 'dialuptone.mp3' is requested from the server (and there are DOM <audio> nodes to play it). I guess if they had wanted to be sneaky they would have generated the sound with the Web Audio API [1], but I'm not sure what browser support is like for that yet.

[1] [http://webaudio.github.io/web-audio-api/](http://webaudio.github.io/web- audio-api/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Love the creativity in this - reminds me of the book Ready Player One, except with less 80s references and much harder (well, in some sense) puzzles.

</comment><comment><USER7> Pretty tough puzzle. The audio part certainly seems the hardest but it looks like there were some other clues ;) on that page to get you to that.

</comment><comment><USER8> I would call this a good CTF game. Too bad, this year I am out of luck. I just graduated, but last year was a total blast!

</comment><comment><USER9> I know people from MIT, only those people would have the perseverance to solve this puzzle

<comment><USER10> It's not as bad as the Valve Args were/are. The hardest part for me would have been finding the red herring!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Look behind you, a three headed monkey!</comment>


Show HN: PM News – I write TLDR summaries for tech news - <AUTHOR> https://pmnews.substack.com/subscribe <comment><AUTHOR> Hey all, I'm starting this tech news newsletter. I pick 5-10 stories from across the web then I write little snippets for each one. Then I send it to you every morning, Eastern time.

I want to save people time everyday. And give you a bit of joy in your inbox :)

Any feedback is appreciated.

<comment><USER2> This sounds cool but isn't it possible to read them without subscribing to the newsletter ?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your preferred authentication method as an end-user? - horizontech-dev To be clear, looking to hear whats your preferred authentication method as an end-user (not as a developer).
Example:
Phone Number Gmail Social (fb, linkedin, github etc)
Sorry, if there is already a discussion around this. Feel free to link me. <comment><AUTHOR> login-id + password

Random websites simply _do not_ get my phone number (and if they persist, they often receive 123-456-7890 which quiets them down). I do not use gmail (and random websites would not get it if I did). I also do not use fb/linkedin, but even if I did, random websites also would not get that information either. Do have a github account, but again, random websites will not receive that information either.

<comment> horizontech-dev Got it. Thanks.

Are security and privacy the reason for the aversion to phone number and social methods?

<comment><USER2> Firstly, I usually don't have the methods being asked for. I don't use Linked- In, I barely use FB and certainly can't remember my password. And seriously, would you go around giving your phone number, email, physical address, etc., to everyone? The opportunities for social engineering abound.

And just because the people I give it to may be trusted today, there's always (a) buyouts, (b) security breaches, (c) going rogue.

Why are you asking these questions? Are you trying to learn about security? Are you surprised at the responses?

Would you, without reservation, give random people your email, phone number, login-id for other services, etc?

If so, why do you _not_ have concerns?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I second everything that pwg said[0]. Why should I give a random website information? There has to be an exchange, and it has to be fair. Do they provide enough value for me to give them information?

Rarely.

Do they _need_ the information to perform the service they are offering?

Rarely.

For me, login-in / password. If they're asking for more then it had better be obvious from the start that it's worth the trade.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22771460](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22771460)

</comment><comment><USER3> For HTTP(S) stuff, HTTP authentication (basic or digest auth). However, better would be to use SASL (which is usable with many protocols, although I think HTTP(S) unfortunately doesn't), and then from that to have some sort of SASL method which allows decentralized authentication like OpenID but does not require a web browser.

What I hate is using a telephone number (I don't want them to call me on the telephone, and other people in my house might use the same service so then that won't work so well!), Gmail (I don't use it), GitHub (again I don't use it), Facebook (again I don't use it), etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> Email + password. I can isolate the email in case of breaches and it helps avoid leaking behavioral data to social networks.</comment>


Trainee doctors left 'crying' after computer glitch crashes online exam - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-20/trainee-doctors-left-distressed-after-online-exam-aborted/9464936 <comment><USER2> It appears the exam was online for the first year, and was administered by Pearson Vue, the same Pearson responsible for MyMathLab and others.

I can't say I'm surprised that the system crashed, given that. Pearson software is just generally unreliable and unpleasant to use. I don't believe they deserve anyone's business, but unfortunately it appears to be very difficult to start separating colleges from Pearson.

<comment><USER3> I can agree with you on that. Every time I've taken an SAT or some other state test online I've ended up with Pearson. Their software in general is pretty janky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't emphasise how big a deal this is for the doctors and hospitals involved. It's very difficult to organise the rosters to allow this exam to happen. This exam is high stakes and difficult. The pass mark is only 50-60%.

</comment><comment><USER5> >This is the first time the exam was done online and was run by the international IT company Pearson Vue on behalf of the RACP.

Not surprising. I remember dreading any university course that had online "tools" run by Pearson.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would love to hear how this happened.

<comment><USER7> At a previous job, I had to investigate a similar issue where some online exams were being terminated early. The overall scheme worked out something like this:

      1. students connect to the online system
      2. load balancers assign each connection to a server from a pool of 8 or so
      3. students start the test
      4. a single server responsible for monitoring test duration, checks all open test instances, and terminates those that have exceeded the test time limit

The issue ended up being that a single one of the load balanced servers had its time set slow. That meant that when the terminator server came along, the students had their test end according to the time delta between the server assigned their connection, and the terminator server. Amusingly, it took some time to convince the sysadmin to check their times - they were convinced that they'd manually corrected all the system times after the last power outage...

<comment><USER6> Thanks for this, interesting stuff!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why did MS never add 2 mouse and pointer support in old days? - <AUTHOR>

If most pointer is like pointing with your hand, 2 pointers could have been like using your both hands. We all see advantage of multi touch now a days. <comment><USER2> This can be done. Here's some links [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4012352/linux-dual- mice-m...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4012352/linux-dual-mice- multiple-mice-with-multiple-mouse-pointers)

Using both hands is pretty tricky. I'm left handed, and it's much easier for me to do mouse stuff with my left hand than with my right. Using both together would mean my right hand is under moving, and my left hand would be over moving. Working out what pointer belongs to what mouse would be tricky too.

It would be a bit like one of those "brain training" games where they display the word RED but in a blue colour, and you have to say "Blue".

Also, multiple monitors still suck, even though they're commonly used. I can only image how bad dual mice would suck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Have you tried using the mouse with your off-hand?

Not saying it's universal, but I use the mouse left-handed like I'm beyond drunk.

Beyond that, I can't think of a very useful purpose, despite the things multi- touch are useful for.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sejje, its because you are use to of using it.

I am left handed and using mouse with my right hand from past 10 years, since i started with a PC.

its same problem with keyboard with 2 hands. I haven't though about it till now but just realized how proficient I am with my right hand in operating mouse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe 5 or 6 years ago ms had a api via .net that allowed for two cursors on the screen and two mouses obviously. The drive behind it was to make applications for developing nations where people could share computers

</comment><comment><USER5> Or two people could work together, closer to that was envisioned by Engelbart : [http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/](http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/)

</comment><comment><USER6> The only time I've heard about two mouse pointers at the same time is the Amiga version of the game Lemmings. It had a two-player mode with a split screen, and each player had a mouse which would control the cursor on his side of the screen.</comment>


P&G paying $100M for deodorant startup - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/p-g-paying-100-million-for-deodorant-startup-2509782940.html <comment><USER3> I was introduced to Native Deodorant via Product Hunt.

A "digitally native" brand that was only available through their website. It's the best working deodorants have found without the aluminum etc. - <USER2> brands in the healthier deodorant space required me applying 2-3 times a day. They also nailed their brand messaging and customer service.

Now that they're at P&G? May have to find a new answer.</comment>


Building a One-Person SaaS App Offers a Profound Sense of Personal Achievement - <AUTHOR> https://blog.nugget.one/upstart/building-a-one-man-saas-app-offers-a-profound-sense-of-personal-achievement/ <comment><USER2> I'm building mine since September, I can confirm.

1) Using all the knowledges and skills I developed during 5 years as an employee to finally build my own SaaS is a very great feeling.

2) Building a one man SaaS forces you to leave your comfort zone. I've learned new languages/frameworks. I've learned about security and infrastructure (I use a dozen of AWS services, I've never touched AWS before that). I've written a CLI to deploy my front-end on S3. I've learned how to integrate a billing system. I've learned to study my market and my competitors, to make a roadmap and prioritize the tasks, to find a good domain name, to find my first beta testers. I've learned how to create a legal entity in France and get some financial helps. I've never learned as much as in the last 5 months.

3) Being able to work when, where and how you want is an amazing thing. Not having to debate during long meetings and convince all your colleagues about every business, UX, technical or design choices feels so much more productive. Having to make all the tough decisions alone teaches you a lot.

Even if my SaaS doesn't become successful, I will regret nothing, it's the best experience in my career.

<comment><USER3> Can you share a link?

<comment><USER2> Not yet. I'm polishing for the release (probably end of February).

<comment><USER4> You say "polishing", which implies minor details. Could you cut a bunch of stuff, and release next week? The real adventure doesn't start until you've deployed. You might even find out that the polishes don't even matter that much, and something that wasn't even on your roadmap is everything.

Unless your previous experience was as the first engineer at a startup, your previous experience was probably preparing you to iterate on an existing product (late phases of phase 1 or phase 2), or a new product for existing customers. You had a base level of expectations. Previously, you were forced to released a polished version, but you had the resources to do it. In your new capacity, you (probably) don't have that. There's something to be said for just throwing out there a minimum version of the product, and polishing it later. You'll save weeks of wasted effort probably.

<comment><USER2> Thank you for the tips. :)

Actually the app is online since 1 month. It was necessary to integrate with AWS, test everything in prod and let people play with the product. I deploy new commits every day.

When I said "I'm polishing for the release", I was referring to:

\- make a minimal website to present the product (right now I don't even have a white page but a "Could not resolve host")

\- finish to integrate the payment system

\- fix some bugs I don't want to have for the public release

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is another attempt to shell shovels during a gold rush, where the HN audience can play the role of the starry eyed rubes dreaming of easy riches. There is no substance here, just a totally unsupported claim that building a SaaS app (of all things!) will bring profound personal meaning in your life. The only reason this post exists is to get people to sign up for his community thing.

If anybody wants real advice, I got some for free: less talk, more product. You don't need any of the services people are trying to sell you. Build a product. Add Stripe. Profit. Not exactly rocket science.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Build a product. Add Stripe. Profit. Not exactly rocket science.

I don't think you realize just how much of a naive statement that is.

That is honestly, genuinely, terrible advice that does not take in to account that building a business means building a BUSINESS not building software.

They are two very different things.

The idea that you can "build it and they will come" has been proven to be a fallacy many many times over.

With regard to your other comments - Yes - I wrote that post with the express purpose of drawing attention to my product. That is called marketing and that is how you build a business.

The trick is to always try to give value while you do that, and from reading the general tone of the comments here I believe that aim was achieved.

<comment><USER6> > building a business means building a BUSINESS not building software

This has been my biggest reality check. Building software is _easy_. Do you know how much of a pain in the rear it is to, for example, open a bank account for a registered company? I didn't! It's not hard as such, just not something I've done before.

The idea was to open a braintree account. The reality was I had to open a bank account for the business. To do that I had to get a passport (never been out of the country - it involved visiting passport interview office a few cities away to prove I'm me). I then had to write up a bit of a business plan so that I had numbers to give the bank.

Then braintree wanted a bunch of info to open the account, this involves bank statements to prove I have enough liquid cash to cover chargebacks and refunds. Now I had to look at what a director's loan is (UK) and how to use that so I can put enough cash in the bank to prove I can cover chargebacks.

I also registered the company far too early I believe, I had to do a tax self- assessment this month being a company director. I've never had to do that before, so that was another hurdle to figure out. I'm going to have to at some point before 2018 figure out how to do corporation tax and the likes as well as accounts. Either that or hire an accountant which is yet another interview and business plan scrutiny (first business plan I've ever written, so somewhat anxious I've done it completely wrong). Bear in mind all this doesn't even touch on advertising, marketing, landing pages, etc.

Building software is easy.

<comment><USER7> Have you looked into Crunch? I'm going to be starting my company through them. Should take care of a lot of those accountancy headaches for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I feel compelled to speak up in defense of this guy. Fundamentally, all businesses are in the business of "selling shovels to gold miners". No one business offers a complete solution or path to riches. The task of the entrepreneur is to integrate the various products, services, financial capital and labor available in a market – package it in a unique (or commodity) way – and sell it.

There is a tremendous need in the marketplace for services that teach business skills. I'll tell you why: because I've worked with enough MBAs to know that the ones worth their salt didn't need the MBA and didn't learn anything valuable from it, and the rest simply developed their interpersonal networks to improve their skills at "leading through politics" – a recipe for mediocrity, certainly not a path to riches. Definitely very little in terms of practical, actionable, best practices, entrepreneurial "business sense" is dispensed through the majority of traditional educational programs

<comment><USER9> Agree completely. I'm primarily in sales and have owned businesses in the past. The number of web developers and designers I work with who have amazing talent and skill and absolutely no business acumen is staggering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Business-wise SaaS seems vastly superior compared to traditional one-off software selling but lately, I have begun to recognise the areas where the latter excels. Selling SaaS is hard. You have to care of support, billing, failed charges, churn and thousands of other little things to get it off the ground. In comparison, selling small apps, plugins, and desktop software — while may yield lower revenue per month — is something more doable as a side- project. You can bank on platforms like Fastspring and App Stores, ship your product and expend less hours fighting fires.

If my memory serves right, Eager Apps, one-man company behind Postico, makes around $10K / month selling a Mac App for Postgres administration.

I think being entrepreneur is vastly more fruitful and less stressful with small stepping stones and for a start, it's a better to sell small things on side then dive into growing the $10K Month SaaS.

<comment><USER9> I think you're overstating the enormity of building a SaaS. "Support, billing, failed charges, churn, and thousands of other things" are easily managed when there is 1 customer. 2 customers is a little more difficult. 3 even moreso. But most SaaS founders I know of would agree that in the early stages, the "I am not sure if this is actually going to work" stages, managing things that become a headache at scale is actually quite manageable.

You don't start with 1,000 clients thankfully. You start with 0. And then 1. And so on and so forth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> because not everyone has the ability to build a SaaS, I would encourage everyone to try and build something using the skills they do have and then fill in the rest later.

I started WP Extra Care (www.wpextracare.com) because I love WordPress but my skill as a developer and designer was mediocre. So I thought "I know a lot more about security for WordPress than most people, I'll offer that up." Now I've been able to add in extra skills that have been fun and also allow more of the business to run on auto-pilot. "Can you help us setup backups to AWS instead of them running on our production server?" "Yeah, I can help with that on Monday" :spends weekend learning:

TL;DR - build and launch what you can. Listen to customers and learn how to do what they will pay for. Then try learn that. You'll come out on the other side having gained both money and knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER11> As a one-man SaaS bootstrapper myself, I definitely agree.

I'll add that shipping a working SaaS (= functional & bringing at least some profit) increases your personal experience by quite a lot, making you more employable than ever (either as an employee or a consultant).

So I can definitely encourage solo developers to try out that adventure :-)

</comment><comment><USER12> Hey, off topic but this blog has a problem when you try to select some text.

I bet it has something to do with FB/Twitter sharing function and Ad-Blocker.

[https://i.imgur.com/ZDQ38H4.gif](https://i.imgur.com/ZDQ38H4.gif)

</comment><comment><USER13> Your SaaS is a subscription to help people build a SaaS? What is the Software component of your service?

<comment><USER14> Its like the whole internet marketing scene.

People get dreams of making money from the internet, until a year or so later when they realise they are not getting anywhere. At this point they step up to the next level, of trying to build mailing lists of their former self, to try and sell them the secrets to making money online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "and establish herself as a play therapist in private practice."

Huh, you learn something new all the time. I had no idea this was a thing ... [http://playtherapy.org/Helping-Children/About-Play- Therapy](http://playtherapy.org/Helping-Children/About-Play-Therapy)

</comment><comment><USER16> Hey Justin, used to listen to you on techzing years ago. Congrats on the sale, was it pluggio?

Nugget looks like it's off to a great start. Subbed. Good luck with it. Don't mind these guys, the corporate 10-8 breeds stress + suspicion and jealousy of anyone doing it different and _gasp_ happy about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yo, hey, thanks for the kind words.

I'm sooo sorry that you had to stop listening to TechZing because of "the other guy" talking for hours and hours ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Been thinking of building a saas, can anyone vouch for their track record? This could be legit but could potentially be simply another sass to make money. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nugget founder here.

Our track record is terrible if you mean revenue generating saas apps. In fact in six months we currently have zero members of more than 250 that have achieved any revenue.

But, that is because all of our members are starting from pre-idea.

To get some revenue you need to build an audience that are willing to pay you for what you have made, or are about to make.

The best path to get to that place is to pick an audience to serve and then to run customer development interviews.

Then, based off of those interviews you can discover a pain point that the audience really wants to pay to get solve and then you can launch.

So, if your measure of success is, are we helping founders on a day to day basis with that process?

Then yes! We are doing tremendously well! We have quite a few founders who are running customer interviews and making some amazing headway on building a real business.

All the focus at this point is on teaching and supporting cold outreach and audience building and getting founders to a place where they have a validated low risk business to get started on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Well there's certainly much romanticizing and exaggeration going on there. After all he's ultimately promoting his own website. I'd say it's not all that rare at all that one person builds a website and successfully turns a handsome profit. Or, even if not for a handsome profit, at least make it functional and learn a lot in the process. It's mostly just software engineering, on a popular framework, with tons of examples and libraries to rely on after all, and in many cases the service itself could actually just be dead simple. Of course to earn a lot might require some more UX, marketing and luck, but my point is, just "building" one is definitely not that comparable to marathon no matter how you look at it.

</comment><comment><USER19> While Im in agreement that finishing anything you set out to do adds or creates to a sense of accomplishment, this type of advice seems to prey on people who are looking for one.

So often you end up hearing things like "upset? Aimless? Start a company!" Dont do that. Building a project or something as a learning experience is great. But dont put your hopes and dreams into something like this. Dont pray itll lift you out of depression. It wont.

The best you should seek and hope for is to advance your knowledge and understanding and take pride in that accomplishment.

<comment><USER9> I think putting your hopes and dreams on something like this - your own fortitude, determination, creativity, and aptitude - is EXACTLY what you should do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> You had me at low-risk second salary.

</comment><comment><USER21> 4 years of one's life just for a 100k exit? Honestly that's the kind of thing that I got into software to escape.

Edit: I mean this literally. I spent three and a half years building a brick and mortar educational business that exceeded the success of the one in this article by some margin. I left that business to learn web development skills because of the slow painful growth in a shrinking offline market.

Perhaps, this makes me an unreasonable person but I truly did get into software to escape that. I want to either give far more to the world in terms of impact or earn enough to fund someone else who can.

<comment><USER22> I'd argue the gained experience and skillset was worth much more than 100k.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is so true, and it made huge differences in my day job as it helped me see the bigger picture. It also meant that my contributions in board meetings and such were able to shift outside of the usual CTO role.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've built my first SaaS ([https://www.unfollow.io](https://www.unfollow.io)) and even after three months gaining users is still a hard challengef for me. But all in all the experience and the feeling after the release was totally worth it, even if it turns out not to be profitable in the long run.

If anyones interested in talking about the project hit me up @ email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER24> I am doing a one-man SaaS project also. It is extremely hard. Yes it is rewarding but it is also soul-crushing and stressful and most probably will not go anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER25> The hardest part of a saas is coming up with an idea and finding customers. I've been trying for over a decade.

<comment><AUTHOR> Aha, that's the part they we (nugget) help with :)

That said, it's still not easy, and requires a fair amount of annoying work that stretches one outside of their comfort zone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> .

<comment><USER27> > I have so many things I would comment on this but this being HN, I know > better..

I think it would actually help everyone if you were to comment.

As a guess: you wanted to be negative because it sounds like a sales pitch ("get rich quick")? In that case, I kind of agree with you, but people seem to like the article, regardless :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, it's more like "don't get rich, slow". But interested to understand why it feels that way. I personally HATE internet marketery stuff.

<comment><USER28> Marketing is about pointing out the end result before the action. In your case, you point out a friend made "millions" and then speak for his weakly biased advice to "do SaaS" as if that's going to net someone the end result of millions. The reason it "feels" that way is because it _is_ that way on your site, even if you rationalize it otherwise.

<comment><AUTHOR> At no point does the OP say a friend made millions.

There was the mention of an unrelated mobile app guru who had made millions from mobile apps.

But that was simply to point out the irony, that even THAT guy, thoguht it was better to build a SaaS app than a mobile app.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is gun purchase data available? - <AUTHOR> Following the horrible incidents I was wondering if we can build a model with gun purchase data and some other data sources like social, etc ? <comment><USER3> To get a first approximation on this, assume everyone in the US has access to a gun, then take a look at the FBI's yearly extended homicide tables, which breaks down US homicides by demographic factors, (and means of death)

The first, obvious conclusion from FBI data is that a group making up approximately 4% of the US population commits about half the US homicides, mostly against others in that group, and the other 96% of the US has a homicide rate lower than England - and also much lower violent crime rate than England.

<comment><USER4> I think that's a very generous assumption considering that strict gun control laws mostly correlates with population density. Gun laws vary a lot from state to state and in most states that have some sort of licensing requirement anyone below the top half of the middle class would have to invest a non- trivial (a little more/less than a driver's license) amount of time and money into owning any sort of firearm. I know in the Boston area the unwritten policy is "municipalities inside I495 typically don't issue concealed carry permits unless you're a cop or politically connected" Basically state laws can skew things a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not publicly, so far as I know.

Any time someone purchases a gun from a store, or from most dealers at gun- shows, a background check gets run. This, + paperwork and records residing with individual sellers are your only real sources of data, neither of which are public.

The concept of a national gun registry has been debated hotly for quite a while, but that would _definitely_ not be public if it existed.

<comment><AUTHOR> oh ok.. then maybe credit card transactions if they dont buy it with cash instead

<comment><USER6> These aren't clear either. Is that $1000 At Guns R' Us a rifle, or bulk ammo? Is that $25,000 at Guns, Fishing and Other Stuff a rifle with fancy inlay or a new fishing boat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> there are so many gun owners in the US. If you look at that sheer number and compare it to the number of horrible incidents involving guns, I think it would be hard to draw conclusions on gun purchase data.

I think building a model on other factors about the people that commit these acts would perhaps yield better results.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think you may be going into precog territory while looking for a needle in a haystack. Some of the common patterns seem fairly well documented: disaffected male, mental issues, history of abuse, affiliation with radical islam. But most experts seem to believe finding a key indicator before hand is really impossible since you will also label so many people who will actually resist the urge to violence. The Orlando killer popped on the FBIs radar twice and they couldn't make the call with all the expertise and experience the organization has. Machine learning a data model to predict violence will have so many false positives as to be either useless or used as a totalitarian hammer. [1, 2, 3, 4]

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/mass-shooting- psych...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/mass-shooting-psychology- spree-killers_n_2331236.html)

[2] [http://www.livescience.com/21787-predicting-mass- shootings.h...](http://www.livescience.com/21787-predicting-mass- shootings.html)

[3] [http://andrewgelman.com/2016/02/25/probability-paradox- kills...](http://andrewgelman.com/2016/02/25/probability-paradox-kills- thousands/)

[4] [https://bayesianbiologist.com/2013/06/06/how-likely-is- the-n...](https://bayesianbiologist.com/2013/06/06/how-likely-is-the-nsa- prism-program-to-catch-a-terrorist/)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's not going to be very interesting, but the entire lists of NYC residents who got handgun and long gun licenses was published a while ago, less than 60K each for a city of 8 million (I counted the totals myself, easy with a fixed number per all but the first and last pages).

Also check the Federal government statistics as organized by the US gun industry lobby, the National Shooting Sports Federation: [http://nssf.com/](http://nssf.com/) Look up the ammo production and importation numbers, well over 12 _billion_ per year, and I'm not sure which include the seconds from the DoD Lake City plant that ATK sells to us (the Pitman-Robinson point of sale tax data will).

Maybe also check the raw numbers of concealed carry licenses, the GAO publishes these, but 10 states now don't require a license. I'll add that at the local level of my home county, Jasper in Missouri, as of a year and a half ago, 5% of the age eligible population had a $$$ Missouri concealed carry license ("$$$" because our's is one of the most expensive, and any state's will do if you want to save money). All these numbers are rapidly increasing as the population ages, as well as the other obvious reasons.

</comment><comment><USER10> Following the [X] I was wondering if we can build a model [Y] and some other data sources like [Z], etc ?

(X = Reichstag Fire, Y = of potential communists, Z = communist party affiliation) (X = 9/11 Attacks, Y = of terrorists, Z = mosque attendance)

I guess you could, but has history taught us nothing? If I am a communist, am I a threat to you? If I am a muslim, am I a threat to you? If I have a gun, am I a threat to you?

I don't own a gun or have a gun license, nor do I want to be the victim of gun violence (or violence of any kind, having experienced it), but I don't know what you would gain from this information if you are looking to profile a potential disaster.

<comment><AUTHOR> thats why i used both causation and correlation. Correlation probably doesnt help here but until the model is built you can't really tell right?

<comment><AUTHOR> not sure why i got a down vote for this

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Firearms Dealers vs. Burgers, Pizza, and Coffee [http://flowingdata.com/2016/06/14/firearms-dealers-vs- burger...](http://flowingdata.com/2016/06/14/firearms-dealers-vs-burgers- pizza-and-coffee/)

ATF Listing of Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) - <USER2> [https://www.atf.gov/firearms/listing-federal-firearms- licens...](https://www.atf.gov/firearms/listing-federal-firearms-licensees- ffls-2016)

This might offer a start.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure about gun purchase data, but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has some interesting information on their website ([https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/data- statistics](https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/data-statistics)). I'm not sure if this is useful for you, but I hope this helps you out.

</comment><comment><USER13> I read a well done statistical analysis on state-by-state gun ownership correlation.

You might find some of the data sources listed valuable.

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/06/guns-and- states/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/06/guns-and-states/)

</comment><comment><USER14> If you watch last week's John Oliver you will see that due to heavy lobbying there is no proper electronic record keeping. Gun stores keep record but on paper and when they close the data is put on microfilm stored somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER15> I heard on NPR that the National Institute of Justice, which is an arm of the Justice Department, has funded some studies. Might want to try there.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> to add, there is also training data available in form of people who have committed shootings or have any crime record. its then just about feature selection that could prove some causation or correlation

<comment><USER5> what do you mean by "training data"?

<comment><AUTHOR> in machine learning we could use some supervised technique if we have training data instead of unsupervised. sorry for not being clear

<comment><USER5> what I thought, just making sure.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cheap, portable personal 3D printer: the UP [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2010/09/06/cheap-portable-perso.html <comment><USER2> I've been keeping an eye on the various processes that enable rapid prototyping and micro-scale manufacturing for the last few years.

This is the first time I've seen an off-the-shelf 3D printing solution that works well _and_ is affordable.

This is now on my shopping list.

If you're interested in DIY'ing something like this check-out the RepRap project:

<http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page>

Or for low-cost kits check-out MakerBot:

<http://makerbot.com/>

<comment><USER3> Don't also forget the up and comers:

Bits from Bytes:

<http://bitsfrombytes.com/>

And Purple Platypus (which is selling the RapMan):

<http://www.purpleplatypus.com/>

And Fab@Home:

<http://fabathome.org/>

And the Ultimaker:

<http://www.ultimaker.com/>

Then the super cutting edge projects that MIT is doing:

<http://web.mit.edu/imoyer/www/portfolio/fabmate/index.html>

<http://web.mit.edu/imoyer/www/portfolio/plaster/index.html>

It's... heating up a bit, eh? (good for me, my startup is in this space)

<comment><USER2> Definitely lots of great links there!

Out of everything I've seen I think the RepRap has the best overall toolchain for creating models and controlling the machine.

One of the reasons I thought the machine in the OP looked so good was because it's software is obviously pretty good too...

CloudFab looks great! It's a little disappointing I can't use it in Canada!

<comment><USER3> > CloudFab looks great! It's a little disappointing I can't use it in Canada!

Thanks! You technically _can_, but the address fields are certainly a bit... American centric. We've got some bigger, better stuff coming soon that will certainly be international, so keep your eyes open. I'll be posting it here for sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My first thoughts after watching the video (having used other 3d printers in the past)

Clean... no wires everywhere... smooth profile. Reall open build deck. Neat spool winder... seems really efficient. Looks like a better resolution. They have the build parameters right...(no glooping or snaging... no stringers between objects) parts don't seem to have ...Wobble? (slight x,y variation between layers).

The threads seem to really work (threads I have made seem to get snagged on gloops and the wobble).

Windows only :( I won't be buying one.

</comment><comment><USER5> Good concept, poor demo example. That was something that would have been better-faster-cheaper on a SRP (subtractive rapid prototyping) system (like a Sherline mini-mill with a 4-axis setup and a CNC kit, at about the same price as this printer). You can even do one-offs in the destination material (assuming the material is machinable) with a low-speed SRP and with less chasing and finishing work to do. There are things that ARPs (3D printers) can do that SRPs can't; they should have demoed something with internal structure that can't be machined in one piece.

<comment><USER2> The threading on the container and it's lid is not something that would be easy to do on a 3 axis mill.

I think it does show off the advantages to an extent, but something else (like their ball-bearing example) may be a better front-page example.

<comment><USER5> It's not something that would be particularly difficult on a mill (and remember I said a 4-axis machine; the fourth axis is a horizontal rotisserie- type armature), provided that the thread is stopped before the join points. The internal thread only seems difficult; the right tool bit can easily cut UNC-type internal threads to a bit-length-limited depth, and a keyhole-type bit would provide the thread-end relief. The external can be cut with a standard round-point 60-degree bit, as long as you don't try to cut threads all the way to the shoulder (a flat groove between the thread end and the shoulder wouldn't harm functionality -- and would be a good place to stick an o-ring if the bottle is supposed to hold liquids).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't tell from here, but I think is is the same thing as was previously submitted here (to a thunderous silence):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1671141>

<comment><USER3> Yep, same thing.</comment></comment>


Using Rust for Game Development by Catherine West - <AUTHOR> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aKLntZcp27M <comment><AUTHOR> And here's the follow-up blog post: [https://kyren.github.io/2018/09/14/rustconf- talk.html](https://kyren.github.io/2018/09/14/rustconf-talk.html)</comment>