Apple using moving letters as captcha - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/itunes/50-billion-app-countdown/entry-form/

<comment><USER2> Doesn't this just make the CAPTCHA easier to solve for a bot?

There's 20 frames in each challenge image, 20 different sets of data to process and compare for a correct result. It's also three letters long.

ED: The form itself is included in an iframe, with the following tag:

        <meta http-equiv="Expires" content="Sat, 1 Apr 2006 23:59:59 GMT">

ED2: The audio CAPTCHA sounds even weaker. You could probably just pipe that to Googles dictation API and you'd be set.

<comment><USER3> It actually makes it a lot easier for humans, while not making it immediately easier for bots which will need to be tuned to use motion.

Pretty smart.

<comment><USER4> They don't really have to be tuned for motion, you can just consider each frame individually.

<comment><USER5> With this implementation you don't, but it's not hard to construct it such that there is no single frame with enough information to construct the whole message. If you screen capture there are several frames where you really can't tell what the middle letter is, but it's obvious what the message is.

The real issue is a computer can compare the images individually and combine them so if it get's 'G_G', 'GF_', and '_FG' it's going to assume 'GFG'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I tried making an animated gif CAPTCHA a few years back, relying on persistence of vision (to try and get round the whole screenshot and process botting issue): <http://sandbox.palmnet.me.uk/gifcaptcha/index.php>

Ended up with roughly 75% correct human responses and 40% correct using a bot. Which are pretty poor stats for both sides of the equation.

<comment><USER7> This looks like a much better idea.

I would continue working in this. I have some feedback to make it harder for robots and easier for humans. Consider this as some quick ideas that should be elaborated (and they may be wrong):

\- Move the letters in opposite direction to the windows and maybe rotate them or make them move inside the canvas. \- Make the windows appear in randomize locations but move them faster. \- Make the blacked part change colors.

I think this is a very, very good way to make a turing test. Congratulations.

<comment><USER6> Cheers for the feedback. I gave up on it quite a while ago but I could revisit it some time and try out some of your ideas.

The main issue was that some browsers render the frames so slowly it was almost impossible. Also, while making it slightly harder to crack with a bot it can be done by merging the frames together and tracking the lightest parts to find the letters which can then be put through OCR.

Also, while making it harder for bots to crack it also makes it significantly harder for people to read, especially people without 20/20 vision which is a major problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks like it's using <http://nucaptcha.com>

<comment><USER9> According to their website[1], it's supposed to be H.264 video, but it's clearly an animated GIF.

[1]: <http://nucaptcha.com/features/security-features>

<comment><USER10> Also, this bit: "It's important to note that NuCaptcha is a video stream and not a Flash program. This is because it is not secure to create a Captcha in Flash."

Yet, the Click-to-Plugin feature from Chrome says it's Flash. Worst captcha company ever?

<comment><USER11> I think the point is that it's not a Flash program that is taking the Captcha value as input and then animating it, where it would be easy to sniff the input value. It's a Flash player for a video stream that is generated externally to the Flash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The signup form looks horrible because they've mixed serif-fonts with a page with sans-serif fonts. Probably some intern is going to get fired for this...

<comment><USER13> I don't see any serif fonts on that page.

<comment><USER14> I do. The text above is sans serif, but the form fields are serif. (Chrome @ Windows 7)

<comment><USER15> Not seeing that on Firefox for OS X: <http://cl.ly/image/3m3j3E061z1F>

<comment><USER16> Chrome on OS X doesn't like it, at all :(

<http://i.imgur.com/PMcxkDt.png>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is the alternative means of entry page for a contest. This isn't even a page that Apple _wanted_ to build. It's a legal requirement. The CAPTCHA is provided by a third party. Who knows why it was chosen. I doubt they put a ton of thought into this page, or the choice of CAPTCHA, if they even built it themselves at all.

</comment><comment><USER18> This still doesn't solve one of the big CAPTCHA issues. Do look at this USENIX paper in [1]. It's still possible to offshore manual CAPTCHA solving to places with cheap labour at extremely low costs. I don't know how common software solvers are, but my impression is that the technology there is only so-so.

[1] Re: CAPTCHAs – Understanding CAPTCHA-Solving Services in an Economic Context [http://static.usenix.org/events/sec10/tech/full_papers/Motoy...](http://static.usenix.org/events/sec10/tech/full_papers/Motoyama.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> Brilliant! The _real_ captcha must be to type "the RED Moving Letters"

<comment><USER20> Now if it only had some letters in another color...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Its very possible that the contest is being run by an outside agency and Apple have been know to proxy in content from the outside agency and display it inside an IFrame, similar to here.

</comment><comment><USER22> If this gif CAPTCHA system becomes popular, there will be some smart hacker who will figure out a way to crack this (read first frame, match different frames etc.)

I wish there was some better CAPTCHA alternative. CAPTCHA can be really horrible sometimes.

I know some people who close a webpage when they see a CAPTCHA, unless they have no other option and are forced to fill the form.

<comment><USER23> You don't even need to be a particularly smart hacker. Even just dumping a screenshot of the page [1] using phantomjs gives you a relatively legible image.

[1] <http://blog.mclemon.cz/apple-nucaptcha-easy-to-break>

<comment><USER22> so apparently reCaptcha is more secure than this one.

From Nucaptcha's website : "...most secure and usable Captcha solution in the market." :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Don't forget that if you're using animation and video to design a captcha, there are a lot of other design options possible: letters appearing one after the other, going in and out of blur, playing with colors, etc... A lot more graphical gimmicks can be added while maintaining comprehension for humans, and hopefully, improving blocking bots.

</comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if creating an animation using canvas would've been better. Then the only way to crack it would be to bring the whole page in memory, take a screenshot and then OCR only the spot the canvas is in. If you made the animation move around also then I don't think anyone would bother trying to crack it.

<comment><USER26> Manipulating canvas requires javascript. It's probably not a good idea to give out value to captcha via js. Although modern browsers are very strict with who can access what js scope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I read that checkbox at the bottom as "I have agreed to all 50 billion of the rules for this contest"

</comment><comment><USER28> I know I'm not the only one who turns off gif animation in browser options. Lots of people can't read text if something is moving on the page. It's going to be a big hassle to turn it on for certain sites, then off again after the CAPTCHA, if this catches on.

</comment><comment><USER29> Maybe it is enough to just try something different? Certainly somebody can break this, but if its something new, it requires some effort. Compare that to some well-known captcha system which you can break for something $2 per thousand captchas.

</comment><comment><USER30> Ironically it's only shown if you allow javascript from "mzstatic".

<comment><USER31> mzstatic.com is one of Apple's "CDN" domains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's also available as an mp4 video if you remove the type=GIF param

</comment><comment><USER33> They can just take a screenshot and analyse it that way.

</comment><comment><USER34> An animated gif you mean?</comment>


Show HN: InboxSDK by Streak (YC S11) – Build Apps inside Gmail - <AUTHOR> https://www.inboxsdk.com

<comment><USER3> You give the code in a .js file that you include in a browser plugin but, you don't state clearly whether this is or is not an open source project. The .js file has no license in it either.

File: [https://www.inboxsdk.com/build/inboxsdk.js](https://www.inboxsdk.com/build/inboxsdk.js)

Then I see the github page: [https://github.com/InboxSDK/](https://github.com/InboxSDK/)

There is no InboxSDK project but, just two example chrome plugins using the inboxSDK.

All the trappings and mechanics of open source without the actual source and an actual open source license. Are you guys just testing this to see if you can productize it? Or are you going to go all the way and open source this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this.

We're adding licenses to our examples that we have on GitHub and we're also adding a pointer from our inboxsdk.js file to our terms of service.

Over a longer time horizon, we plan on open sourcing the entire implementation of the InboxSDK but just not yet.

<comment><USER4> You do realize that any client-side code – especially with the universal right to decompile and adapt code in the EU – is essentially open source anyway?

<comment><USER5> I can't comment on EU law but the ability to redistribute the (modified) code is also a defining characteristic of open source [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source)

<comment><USER4> Yes, but reverse engineered code is NOT subject to copyright of the original author by law (there is an EuGH decision about this). IANAL.

Therefore it is, essentially, open source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Co-founder of DocSend here - we've been powering DocSend's integration into Gmail with the InboxSDK, and it's been a fantastic experience. So easy to use, and very robust - exactly what you look for in an API.

This is a total game-changer. Very excited to see what the inbox will become thanks to the Streak team.

Cheers!

And of course you can check out the DocSend extension here to get insight into page-by-page engagement with your document attachments :) [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/docsend- extension-...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/docsend-extension- for-chr/nmkphfcebcpicnakipcmgapcckkbhppd)

<comment><USER7> This is pretty cool!

What I am really dying/desperate for is a group chat feature within Gmail where the chat rooms are permanent. I thought it was the biggest opportunity for years. Slack built a billion $ plus business of group chat outside of gmail. I am sure there is a reasonable sized opportunity for group chat within Gmail!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> We rebuilt the Gmail integration portion of our Screenleap extension using InboxSDK and reduced the size of our implementation from a bunch of files to 120 lines of code (the InboxSDK integration portion is only 10 lines). Would've saved a month of work if this was available the first time around!

Besides not having to keep up with breaking changes in Gmail, another really nice benefit of using InboxSDK is that you don't have to keep updating your extension to make sure that it plays nice with other extensions. This was an unexpected and on-going source of development work for us previously.

Looking forward to the Google Calendar integration :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Founder of Streak (YC S11) here - we built the InboxSDK using all of the work we've put into making Streak work great inside of Gmail.

Happy to answer any questions about the SDK.

<comment><USER9> What prevents Google closing the door on this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, nothing really. But thats true for almost anything.

We think you can trust the platform because we're fundamentally making Gmail better and more valuable to Google's users. There are a handful of successful businesses (like Streak and others) already built on top of gmail and have been for years. These venture backed companies already trust their business to be on top of Gmail. We're just making the process of building these apps waaaay easier.

We take security and performance really really seriously. Because our SDK helps you build Chrome extensions for Gmail, Google can (and has) shut down shady apps from the Chrome Webstore, so they don't have to shutdown the entire platform to get rid of a bad actors.

<comment><USER9> A well rounded answer, but I'll pass for now. If Google really believed in your ethos of making the software more valuable via third parties, their platform wouldn't require dom hacks that could break without notice. i.e. they'd open up their own APIs to make building these sorts of apps themselves.

I absolutely commend you for what you are doing, I just wouldn't be willing as a developer to dip my toes in that particular water to spend the time developing something they could rip apart and break.

As a side note, the documentation page is broken on Mac Safari 8 on OSX Javascript error:

TypeError: undefined is not a function (evaluating 'reference.endsWith('()')')

<comment><USER10> Sure Google could break this (maliciously or otherwise), but would you rather have to keep up with their changes on your own, or build something that works on InboxSDK, and let them play cat-and-mouse with the Inbox DOM? Worst case in the latter scenario is that a feature is down for as long as it takes for a fix to be released.

<comment><USER11> I'd rather target open standards, like client-side SMTP/IMAP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If anyone wants to go a different route, Gmail has a fairly complete REST API [1].

[1] [https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/](https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup - this is great for getting at some of the backend data in gmail, the InboxSDK is designed to let you build apps inside the Gmail frontend experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> We've been building our Gmail app over at [http://CloseFox.com](http://CloseFox.com) with InboxSDK and have really been enjoying it!

Definitely a lot better than using gmail.js

<comment><USER14> Creator of gmail.js here. Can confirm

<comment><AUTHOR> Gmail.js is pretty great too.

We're trying to take a slightly more higher level approach but there's def still a few things we're missing that gmail.js does have.

<comment><USER15> Any chance of collaboration between the two projects?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Streak's InboxSDK is the missing link to augmenting gmail's functionality. Gmail is a rich product that always seems to be changing silently. The Streak team does a fantastic job maintaining the SDK so that their changes automatically get pulled in, no need for us to release a new version of the extension.

We used InboxSDK to create part of our DocSend Chrome extension. Our power users who are in gmail 24/7 can't live without it. Thanks to Streak for helping us enable our user base and keep happy customers happy! :)

</comment><comment><USER17> Can anyone explain how this is different from Google's Gmail Contextual Gadgerts? [https://developers.google.com/gmail/contextual_gadgets#what_...](https://developers.google.com/gmail/contextual_gadgets#what_is_a_gmail_contextual_gadget)

I'm looking to build a plugin that can automatically send a mail back under specific conditions and allows follow-ups, but I'm not sure what tech I should use.

<comment><USER18> In my experience (I've built a gadget for our internal use, to create tickets on our software from emails), the gadgets are fairly limited, both in terms of the content they can access (only the first 1000 characters, and no attachments) and in terms of UI (you get a small bar below the email - <USER2> integration with the rest of the interface).

Even for our simple use case, which is essentially a button that makes an HTTP request to a web service with the email fields, it felt limited.

It also suffers from poor debugging tools. They made some changes that broke our gadget (I think it was the deactivation of OAuth 1.0) and there's no way of knowing why it isn't loading, it just doesn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Reading [https://www.inboxsdk.com/terms](https://www.inboxsdk.com/terms) it says this SDK is royalty-free. Is there any additional important licensing issue to take into account before using it?

</comment><comment><USER20> How does this compare with Nylas ([https://nylas.com](https://nylas.com)), who claims they're the "next generation email platform"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nylas is really cool.

If I remember correctly they are building a base email application that can be extended with plugins (like the atom editor). This does require people to adopt their email client.

The InboxSDK takes a different approach in that it lets you extend Gmails functionality and write apps for Gmail. End users don't have to switch their email client (assuming their using the gmail web client)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Well done! I just hope that proper alternatives to customer support services take the chance to surface. It's insane to see how they replicate 3/4 of gmail/another-email-ui functionality just because they add 10% extra functionality to streamline communication with customers (e.g. multi-language canned responses, etc).

Build on top, reuse, don't copy-paste!

</comment><comment><USER22> Neat idea but I don't get how it works with feature rollouts. If Gmail is updated which changes the DOM and breaks the API how does the SDK handle being updated when it's rarely a change that's rolled out instantly for all users (usually takes some time maybe even weeks). I mean you either have a TON of feature testing to figure it out or you let it break; neither of which seems very maintainable to me.

What's going to happen with the rumored update? I've been hearing rumors for over a year now that gmail, calendar, contacts and even tasks are being majorly overhauled; is there any collaboration with Google to make sure when (or if) these rumors come true that it won't simply break everything day one?

Trying not to be a nay sayer; this is a great idea if you want to quickly add something to Gmail without messing with the Gmail DOM yourself but it doesn't seem to be a good long term bet to me.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you are interested in this kind of hacks you can't miss Add-In-Express [1] and my company's Windows Live Mail, Windows Mail, and Outlook Express APIs that created SDKs around closed source products for more than 10 years.

[1] [https://www.add-in-express.com/](https://www.add-in-express.com/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Serious question: How would this handle changes in Gmail?

Google is the platform owner and may change it without prior notice. My interest is in understanding how would someone using this sdk would be impacted.

<comment><AUTHOR> We (streak) keep the SDK up to date. The JavaScript you put in your extension remotely loads the actual implementation of the SDK. If gmail changes, we change the implementation (fast) and your users get the change automatically. You the app developer dont need to do anything or even update your extension.

<comment><USER23> Any blog post that explains this a but further? It should be an interesting read, given that I assume you track changes and update programatically (to a degree).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've had an idea for a Gmail app I've been wanting to build for a while now. Super easy but I need some help getting it built. This is pretty much a layup in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER25> I would love for such and SDK for Google Maps. It's ubiquitous and I'm always trying to catch up with API breakage. Is there something like that?

</comment><comment><USER26> Any tips on how to integrate this with FE frameworks like Angular? Unit/e2e testing?

Thanks for making this.

<comment><USER27> Cofounder of Streak and helped write a lot of the InboxSDK. I can't give a definitive answer right now because we don't use Angular and thus don't have much experience with it. If you're able to specify a DOM node as the root of an Angular instance then you should be able to make it work.

If you try to make the top html tag as your root you'll probably run into a bad time particularly if other extensions make the same assumption. One major difference between writing an app for Gmail vs your own app is that multiple apps can and usually are running at the same time. This was one of the main motivations behind the SDK since many of our bug reports were a result from extension compatibility issues.

We do e2e testing with selenium/webdriver - so it's definitely doable. Tip for e2e testing is to pay for some extra Google Apps accounts so you can run your tests in parallel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does this mean I can have a SIGNATURE in Inbox now? If so, how? (I'm using Safari, so there hasn't been any way that I know of to use a signature, which is the one dealbreaker for me to use Inbox, which I love)

</comment><comment><USER29> Nice! Was thinking about building a Gmail counterpart for Donald in the future, looks like this will simplify/speed up development for that.

</comment><comment><USER30> Dear Gmail Team: Why haven't you acquired this team yet (Streak)?

</comment><comment><USER31> Any plans to support exchange in future?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry not at the moment. Actually Outlook has a really great API to write JS/HTML based apps for their desktop client, web client and mobile client. See [https://dev.outlook.com/MailAppsGettingStarted/GetStarted](https://dev.outlook.com/MailAppsGettingStarted/GetStarted)

<comment><USER32> Some marketing: We are actually providing a Javascript wrapper for most of the official Outlook API, much more fully featured (incl. ribbons): [http://developer.yasoon.com/](http://developer.yasoon.com/)

<comment><USER33> Yasoon looks cool! Is it Windows-only? At work we run Outlook on OS X, so not sure if it's usable there.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, unfortunately it's Windows only atm. Outlook API's on Mac are basically non-existent, so we are having a hard time bridging these :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm confused why people see this as "revolutionary". At the core of it, this is just an abstraction around DOM-hacking. Anyone could have done this, and it is foolish to call such an "innovation" revolutionary.

<comment><USER35> It's a well maintained schlep of a DOM hacking API that makes complex interaction in a hugely important installed base of 1 billion users (previously nearly impossible) possible. Just because you understand the mechanism doesn't mean you should demean the herculean efforts of other good hackers.

Also innovation isn't the idea. Innovation is actually implementing it.</comment></comment>


Show HN: The First Version of Anything Is an MVP - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/dusthq/the-first-version-of-anything-is-an-mvp-5f6eb0d07596 <comment><USER2> Blog posts don't belong in the 'Show HN' category [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

And in this case it's just two sentences.</comment>


Max Von Sydow has died - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51803195 <comment><USER2> Pity they didn't mention Dune. Not the best film, nor a big role for him, but for young me it was still a wonderful experience to watch this. He replaced the imagined book version of Kynes forever in my head. Peace.

<comment><USER3> First saw him in Three Days of the Condor, which I loved as a kid.

[https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/three_days_of_the_condor](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/three_days_of_the_condor)

<comment><USER4> Sydow absolutely crushed that role. In the opening scene, part of the way the massacre, he's calmly trying to get his lighter lit. Creepy and awesome.

<comment><USER5> I don't know why, but the movie is available via the Internet Archive:

[https://archive.org/details/ThreeDaysOfTheCondor](https://archive.org/details/ThreeDaysOfTheCondor)

<comment><USER6> Does anyone know why it is available at the Internet Archive? I would not assume that the copyright had expired yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I recently watched _Flash Gordon_ for the first time since the 1980s, and Max Von Sydow's performance was a definite highlight.

Casting a `proper' actor as the villain in a silly movie is always a great idea. (See, for example, Basil Rathbone in _The Court Jester_.)

<comment><USER8> Don't forget Strange Brew!

[https://youtu.be/oMI23JJUpGE](https://youtu.be/oMI23JJUpGE)

He was also a good serious villain in Minority Report.

<comment><USER9> He was awesome in that role, eh!

(refering to Strange Brew)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Stellar performance as the weary knight in "The Seventh Seal", a film more than 60 years old. Well worth seeing today and to some - with the elements of a plague in the background - of particular contemporary relevance.

<comment><USER11> [https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker- media/image/upload/c_fill,f_a...](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker- media/image/upload/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_675,pg_1,q_80,w_1200/bewtycwbaejgiqflujxx.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Max played a critical role in what I think is an under-rated science fiction movie called "Until the End of the World." He comes into the story pretty late, and is crucial to a tricky transition from a "road" movie to something far more dramatic.

That seemed to be a popular role for him later in life—a sort of super character actor who could come in and punch up the gravitas of any scene with just a few lines. I think that says a lot about his abilities as an actor.

<comment><USER13> The new criterion restoration is amazing! The cover art is great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> To Americans with Scandinavian/Swedish ancestors (there sure are a lot of you), I really recommend watching these two movies starring Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emigrants_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emigrants_\(film\))

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

They are based on a series of novels (1949 and onwards) by Vilhelm Moberg chronicling the fate of a family who decides to migrate from famine/poverty- stricken Sweden to the US in the mid 1800s. A full 25% of the Swedish population ended up migrating to the US.

These two movies made Max iconic and so beloved to pretty much everyone in Sweden. They are also fantastic movies; I find myself rewatching them once every 5 years or so.

<comment><USER15> Thanks! Moberg is very well known in the area where I grew up, I'll have to have a look.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Antonius Block: I met Death today. We are playing chess

Out of all the roles he played I remember him best as the knight from The Seventh Seal. Somehow his looks, demeanor and way of talking perfectly fit that of a stereotypical medieval knight.

</comment><comment><USER17> RIP Max Von Sydow, a great artist.

He's forever in the canon as the protagonist in The Seventh Seal, of course.

Every film buff will have something in particular that stands out in their memory about Max Von Sydow. For me, that would be the as the mad scientist, Dr Farber, in "Until the End of the World"\-- a sprawling train-wreck of a film that I will always remember fondly, I don't care what the pro-critics think!

</comment><comment><USER18> My favourite roll of his was in Strange Brew. Such a powerful actor in such a silly roll.

<comment><USER19> This was our 'repeat rental' growing up. My whole family loved watching this together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> He was perfect as Leland Gaunt in _Needful Things_. And his little turn as Joubert in _Three Days of the Condor_ makes the life of a professional assassin seem almost reasonable.

He has but a scene in _Conan the Barbarian_ , but what a scene! "What daring! What outrageousness! What insolence! What arrogance! ... I salute you."

</comment><comment><USER21> What an amazing actor, he had so many fine performances during his career. I loved him in Dune, and also this cameo as King Osric in Conan the Barbarian: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVTOag1lQHc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVTOag1lQHc)

</comment><comment><USER22> He was also in the Bob abd Doug MacKenzie movie 'Srrange Brew'.

</comment><comment><USER23> Max is/was one of my favorites. Rest well, Max. His Shutter Island performance was one that sticks with me, though you could rattle off any of them.

</comment><comment><USER24> The Magician, Wild Strawberries, Through a glass darkly, The Virgin Spring and the Seventh Seal. These films are 50 years old! Being in these films alone would be enough to qualify as a cinema legend and he still had nearly 50 years to go! Extraordinary!!!

<comment><USER25> Not a major role in Wild Strawberries, though? Agree with you nonetheless!

<comment><USER26> He was the gas station attendant, if I remember right. A small role, but played excellently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> W-Stool Watch "Three Days of the Condor" if only for the scenes with DEC PDP hardware. That's the way we used to do it kids.

Max was also great in this movie - I would not want that guy coming after me. RIP after an exceptional career in films.

</comment><comment><USER27> I was almost offended when Facebook popped me an article named "The Game Of Thrones and Judge Dredd star died", and none of the hundreds of comments ever mentioned anything but the three-eyed raven. Sad.

</comment><comment><USER28> His exorcism scene in The Exorcist is one of the most powerful and terrifying scenes of all time:

[https://youtu.be/bWyi3ShHxzM](https://youtu.be/bWyi3ShHxzM)

</comment><comment><USER29> I quite liked him in The Black Hole, which is a weird Scifi flick Disney put out in the 80's. Quite dark for a Disney flick.

<comment><USER30> That was Maximilian Schell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> His film I've watched was an old Danish one, Pelle Erobreren (Pelle the Conqueror) from director Bille August.

</comment><comment><USER32> First movie I saw him in was an Australian film called 'Father'. Great film, and he won an acting award for his performance in it, too.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_(1990_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_\(1990_film\))

</comment><comment><USER33> Good god, I just finished watching Shutter Island and then read this. May he rest in peace.

</comment><comment> saiya-jin I remember him more from things like 3 days of condor or Lynch's Dune. But 7th seal is a true classic in any and all possible ways. An unmistakable actor.

Respect for his work and achievements.

<comment><USER34> His performance in Three Days of the Condor was masterful. He portrayed a nondescript, unnoticeable man who was nevertheless the leader of a deadly group of assassins, operating in the shadows.

At the time, people were mumbling about Robert Redford, the star. But von Sydow owned every scene he was in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> My favorite performance of Max Von Sydow was Frederick, in Hannah and Her Sisters. His critique of television and contemporary values becomes truer every year.

</comment><comment><USER36> Guess you can only turn the chessboard on Death so many times.

</comment><comment><USER37> I think he was great in The Emigrants and The New Land.

</comment><comment><USER38> Favorite role: Hannah and her sisters. he had a great role - some humor, some sadness (when his heart is broken). This guy could totally act.

</comment><comment><USER8> He also did Esbern's voice in Skyrim. RIP

<comment><USER39> That was a big moment for me. It went from "Hey this is a pretty good game" to "Holy shit they got Max von Sydow!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm sad. He was one of my favorite actors:

Flash Gordon

The Emigrants

The Flight of the Eagle

Heidi

Hawaii

</comment><comment><USER41> I always thought he was one of the greatest actors ever to grace the screen. Truly a shock to see the headline.

</comment><comment> 076ae80a-3c97-4 Ming is dead.

<comment><USER42> That was a pretty amazing death scene.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> No one has mentioned him in The Exorcist yet, so I do

</comment><comment><USER44> They finally finished that game ... RIP

<comment><USER45> And Flash won, of course.

Oh, not that film?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> His best work was Judge Dredd

<comment><USER39> I would like to heal this schism by asking that we all agree:

 _All_ of his work was his best work.</comment></comment>


New €350 monthly freelancer tax "will kill innovation in Germany" - <AUTHOR> http://www.deskmag.com/en/new-350-euro-monthly-freelancer-tax-will-kill-innovation-in-germany-378

<comment><USER2> This is seriously madness. As an expat entrepreneur living in Berlin, I can honestly say that I'll leave Germany and take all my tax money with me if this law passes. Being an entrepreneur and a foreigner here already has many drawbacks including the obligation to pay for the same health insurance Germans enjoy freely while paying the same or higher income taxes. I have little intention of retiring here, but even if I did, the chances of social security even being around by then is slim and wouldn't be enough to live on anyway.

This is especially bad news for the Berlin startup scene which has been experiencing such incredible growth in imagination and momentum lately.</comment>


Ask HN: iPhone PKCS#11 SSH-key "SmartCard" over Bluetooth? - <AUTHOR>

I would like to use my iPhone as a security token, to generate and store my SSH private keys.
Whenever I would like to connect to a remote server via SSH, the SSH program would communicate with the iPhone, requiring me to press a key on the iPhone display, thus verifying I am the one who requested the authentication and not some malicious user controlling my computer.
Smartcards are an option, but its nicer to use something you always carry with you.
I am thinking something like:
ssh-add -s iPhone.so
And then the iPhone.so module would connect to the iPhone over Bluetooth or Wifi or perhaps via the cable.
Does anyone know if there is any open source project working on this already? Otherwise I'm thinking of working on it. <comment><USER2> I'd say it's not a bad idea - oddly enough I've tried to do it the other way around (using a physical PKCS#11-compatible token on iOS devices). There are CAC-type smartcard readers that operate over Bluetooth, but they're big and expensive.

A couple of thoughts: Is there a reason you wouldn't use a 'real' hard-token like an eToken or similar? Yes, they need USB - but they're small and resilient. I generally have my keys on my all the time!

There's a project out there called LSM-PKCS11 that basically has encrypted storage 'boxes' (files) that are accessed via PKCS#11 via a daemon-client system over TCP. It might not be too hard to port the daemon to iOS. Somewhere to start, maybe? <http://www.clizio.com/lsmpkcs11.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> This may be of interest: doesn't seem to be Android-specific, and is open- source, so porting to iOS shouldn't be _extremely_ hard. [http://www.mnxsolutions.com/security/two-factor-ssh-with- goo...](http://www.mnxsolutions.com/security/two-factor-ssh-with-google- authenticator.html)

Edit: it seems that the functionality already exists for iPhones; not sure whether this requires communicating with a third-party (Google) server in addition to your device and the target.

<comment><AUTHOR> This requires modifications to the server. I want to use normal public/private keys, without any special configuration, but instead of storing the private key in ~/.ssh/id_rsa, I want to store it in my iPhone, and authenticate via the PKCS#11 protocol.

This would mean 2-factor security for all my servers and services relying on SSH, such as git, without any modifications on the server side.

You would push a button on the iPhone to verify you want to authenticate, instead of typing in digits like with Google Authenticator, which is a bit of a hassle.</comment></comment>


Duolingo podcast: The kiddnapping of Luis von Ahn's aunt - <AUTHOR> https://podcast.duolingo.com/episode-8-el-secuestro-7edc43d97dcc <comment><USER2> Does anyone know where I can find podcasts to improve German?

<comment><USER3> If you're a beginner, I'd listen to "Deutsch – Warum Nicht?" from DW. It's narrated in English but the main character speaks in German. Radio D is another podcast from DW at about the same level.

From there I like Coffee Break German because it has a language expert and a native speaker discussing German words and grammar in a classroom/conversational setting. Again, this one is narrated in English but they're talking about the German language.

DaZPod is also great for short little clips, completely in German. Once you're ready for the full-on German stuff, Langsam Gesprochene Nachrichten has a new podcast every day where they read world news, slowly and clearly articulated, completely in German.

Of course most of these come with transcripts you can read along with to improve your German reading comprehension as well.

-edit: check out DW.com and look for their German courses... they have a ton of podcasts for all levels, and they're really good.

<comment><USER4> >Deutsch – Warum Nicht?

If you don't mind listening to a really weird drama about a hotel porter who's having some kind of psychotic episode. I'm not knocking it, but it's bloody strange.

<comment><USER3> It really is. You have to have a sense of humor and a bit of imagination because boy them Germans don't mess around with their fairy tales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would love to listen to this. But as a native spanish speaker, this is unbearable

<comment><USER6> Why is that?

<comment><USER7> I second that.

Native English/Spanish speaker... having one paragraph in English and one in Spanish is very confusing.

It's an interesting format for a Podcast, but the written version really messes with your brain. Specially given that sometimes the following sentence translates part of the previous paragraph, but then sometimes adds additional context or continues the story.

<comment><USER8> In audio form, as a learner, it's awesome. It's like a mini pitstop for your brain. If you had 20 minutes of nonstop foreign language, your brain can lose track and be overwhelmed. They make really good use of the pitstops by paraphrasing a particularly difficult passage, adding more context with tenses or vocab that would be too difficult for the level, or to straight up define a word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Terrible moments. And Guatemala paid the steepest price: lost a brilliant scientist that would be working there to make the country a better place.

</comment><comment><USER10> The idea of someone like this being deported with the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen is sickening.

<comment><USER11> The idea that people (especially those with criminal backgrounds) can willfully break the law and can enter the country without going through the proper channels that millions of others go through to become legal residents each year is sickening.

<comment><USER12> Isn't it frequently easier for people to break the law than go through proper channels to accomplish a goal?

Eg driving a car without a license, import goods, repair a tractor ( _shudder_ , obviously)

<comment><USER13> Since they are replying to a comment that thinks deportation is sickening, I think they are saying that it's sickening that someone to willfully break the law yet be immune to deportation.

This is one of the hot topic controversies in the states right now. For example, deportation is now often rebranded as "breaking up families" in the media which now makes you that bad guy to suggest it.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the response!

It seems like one should be able to be against both: breaking up families is crappy and totally not fun. We also don't want people to think breaking the law is the best/only way to support [or be with] their family!

But these problems don't have easy solutions. You can feel bad for [deporting] a model citizen who is also in a country illegally while simultaneously wanting to limit the number of people in the country illegally.

Unfortunately, all decisions in this space have [sometimes surprising] consequences. One of my most brilliant colleagues will not be staying in the US for very long because he is an only child and wants to be closer to his parents as they age [there is a provision that allows naturalized citizens to obtain green cards for their parents for exactly this purpose, but it is reeeallly slow - and he has no guarantees it won't be shut down before his parents receive green cards].

On these paradoxes and contradictions, I can't help but think of Hamilton: "The Constitution's a mess" [so it needs Amendments] "It's full of contradictions" [so is independence!]</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How PTSD Became a Problem Far Beyond the Battlefield - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/05/ptsd-war-home-sebastian-junger

<comment><USER2> Very interesting subject, but far too long. can anybody please write a tl;dr ?

<comment><USER3> PTSD is almost all about the P and not about the T, and that the number one defence against long term psychological illness is a supportive society, such as that of Israel, where the war is close and the vast majority have served and understand what service is, than the US where we are relatively cold to one another and really give only empty gratification ("Thank you for your service").

<comment><USER2> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Apple needs to do more for parents - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2011/02/15/apple-needs-to-do-more-for-parents/ <comment><USER2> Reminded of a story a friend told me: her little daughter saw her dragging icons to the trash on her Mac (OS9). When she came back again, all her applications and documents had been thoroughly deleted!

Anyway on the iPhone, deleting apps can be restricted in the settings. Buying apps can be restricted. Your phone can have a passlock. As wccrawford says, the best way is just to keep it away from your little kids, or monitor them closely.

<comment><USER3> Something tells me you don't have kids, or they are mostly taken care of by your significant other, or you've simply never explored the possibilities. Keeping kids away from electronics can rob them of wonderful developmental opportunities. My 18-months old can't speak or dress himself but he is getting very good at several challenging iPhone apps that involve assembling shapes, matching tiles from memory, mixing music, etc. Likewise, constant monitoring of your little ones is neither realistic nor desirable, especially when there is a simple solution at the technology level. We don't get all worked up about door locks - why the negative attitude towards e-locks for children?

<comment><USER4> I'd be happer with something a lot simpler: disabling the home button.

My 3 year-old loves watching videos and playing simple games on my iPhone. But she can't grasp the idea of _not pressing this really cool button_ at the bottom of the screen. So 30 seconds into the video I get an "aah! bring it back!". Over and over and over.

The only solution I have to date is to wrap a piece of cardboard with a rubberband and strap it over the home button. That works a bit longer, but it's still not perfect.

<comment><USER3> I hear you. Disabling the home button for a preset amount of time, or until you press the top off button, would be a godsent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> iPad's and iPhone's are not made for small children. People are being a little silly in demanding that Apple child proof their luxury brand gizmos.

Your child will not lose IQ points if he doesn't have a shiny iOS device to play with. Give him a book or puzzle to do like the rest of us had growing up. I promise you he'll turn out just fine.

</comment><comment><USER6> My son just received an iPod Touch for his 6th birthday. Problem solved!! He can do whatever he wants with it and sync it to our family iMac using his own account. All I need do is be a bit careful about handing the 'iTouch' back to him right after I made a purchase for him.

</comment><comment><USER7> Show them the money. Those features are undeveloped because they aren't valued enough. If more people wanted and used them, they'd develop them better.

Here's my favorite quote from the comments: "Simple solution, don't let your kids get their grubby paws on your phone. I have none of these issues as my kids are not allowed to touch my phone. They have their own electronic toys and iDevices to play with."

Yes, that's right, the best way to prevent kids from destroying expensive things is to not hand them to them. There are devices designed for children that have these protections and more.

<comment><USER3> Huh? The solution to missing features is to stop using the product?

My 18-months old is getting really good at several puzzles on my old iPhone. He also deletes apps constantly, because there is no lock mechanism/parental controls. The fact that the iPhone is exclusively his to play with is irrelevant, as is its price.

"Show them the money" is equally irrelevant. By definition, you cannot measure how much consumers value something that's not there. I'd love to show Apple my money but I can't magically pay for a non-offered feature.

<comment><USER2> Settings -> General -> Restrictions.

My pleasure ;)

<comment><USER3> Thanks, I wasn't aware of those options. Still, that's only a small subset of parental controls that are needed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Plus, there are many apps our 1-yr old uses, but if she pushes the wrong button it enters a settings mode or something where she can't get back to the main app.

<comment><USER3> Which apps can you recommend?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Similar to a 'first-world' problem, this is a 'dumbass' problem. Should you give a child an easy-to-use device which contains all of your data? There is a simple and clear answer to this. Parental lock is irrelevant. If it becomes simpler for the average parent it will only become simpler for the average child to defeat. Add in the fact that the device is breakable, and it becomes all the clearer. I don't know - perhaps Scoble's children are angels who never break things. Do you think?

</comment><comment><USER10> At least the kids can't buy anything involving naked girls on the app store. Not sure if daddy is still a fan of this 'feature' late at night though.</comment>


Religious Social Networks on the Rise - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/18/religious-social-networks-on-the-rise/

<comment><USER2> The article failed to mention Shoutlife (<http://www.shoutlife.com>), probably the biggest Myspace-act-alike Christian social networking site.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whatever the definition of 'social network' I don't think it should include facebook apps and video sites.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm waiting for their next coming.

When they rise from the dead, as it were.</comment>


Team develops wireless, dissolvable sensors to monitor brain - <AUTHOR> https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/team-develops-wireless-dissolvable-implants-to-monitor-brain/ <comment><USER2> So many questions. But to start...

What are these powered by?

Does the PLGA dissolving also break down the silicone?

Edit: Ah. This article (from 2014) seems to have a little more detail: [https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/soluble-electronics- reliably...](https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/soluble-electronics-reliably- monitor-intracranial-pressure/)

Edit 2: This article makes it seem like they might mean silicon rather than the (presumably not degradable) silicone.</comment>


Understanding Uber's Bleak Operating Economics - <AUTHOR> http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html <comment><USER3> Really good article.

Some thoughts on Uber Eats...

I used to be an analyst at a VC firm that invested in a food delivery startup (which went broke). Food delivery is not a very attractive business in terms of its profitability, but it is an extremely attractive business if you want to show fast top line revenue growth.

Why so? Food delivery is great because the full order value can be taken as the top line revenue. If someone orders a £80 meal for four, that's another £80 to add to your top line even though your net revenues were ~£8, if that.

The institutional investors Uber will need to attract at IPO will be expecting Uber to have a typical tech company profile - extremely fast growing revenue and healthy losses. Strangely, from the IPO documents I've seen, accounting is very opaque for public companies vs private companies - meaning Uber Eats revenue is unlikely to be separated.

I think there is a possibility Uber is being forced to gear up to an IPO, top line revenue growth from the taxi business is not enough to justify the valuation, so the board has decided to move Uber into food to drive big numbers - but not profitability.

<comment><USER4> Savvy investors do split this revenue into two buckets:

1\. Gross merchandise volume (GMV), or what passes through the marketplace: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_merchandise_volume](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_merchandise_volume)

2\. Fee revenue, which is what the marketplace actually retains

This knowledge is common among investors, like item #6 on [http://a16z.com/2015/08/21/16-metrics/](http://a16z.com/2015/08/21/16-metrics/). It may not be common among, say, individual private wealth management clients of Morgan Stanley who funded their SPV ([http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/business/dealbook/deal- sho...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/business/dealbook/deal-shows- investors-are-willing-to-make-a-blind-bet-on-uber.html)), but they chose to invest without _any_ revenue reporting at all, so it's probably not what made the difference.

<comment><USER3> Right, but I think the reporting would be the same in this case as both Uber Eats and Uber (taxi) are marketplaces. I don't think Uber will be breaking down it's revenue into these two marketplaces when it IPOs, but yes - it will be the GTV showing big growth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another big point that he didn't make, which helps his argument a bit, is that Uber is no longer novel. It's spread and network effect have stopped, and gone are clean cars and a positive experience, replaced with mostly beat up city cars and drivers with no practical professional driving experience.

It's akin to delivering pizzas now, the only people doing it are not realizing the negative value proposition it offers and are desperate for fast money.

I was a big fan of it at first, but now I've gone back to using cabs because A. I know in this city at least (Chicago) cab drivers have to pass a basic exam showing they know how to drive people around in the city, and roughly that they know where they are going. B. It's the same price. C. It's not hard to find a cab any time but very off peak where I live and work and socialize.

Too many drivers that were stuck staring at the GPS in the car, not knowing where to go, what route to take. Too many filthy cars, smelling like cigarette smoke. Too many insinuations that I needed to tip. Too many times I've been cut off or hit by or gotten stuck behind an illegally parked Uber when I was driving. The list goes on.

<comment><USER6> I think a more important factor is that Google Maps shows competitor taxi services. I guess they have to pay a fair bit to get that advertising, but probably not _that_ much and it means there is not much value to being a well- known brand.

Still, this article claims customers pay 41% of the true cost which doesn't seem right - there's no way 'normal' taxis are more than double the price of Uber, at least in the UK.

<comment><USER7> Depends where you are I guess. Where I live, it seems about right, assuming there is no surge tax.

At 1.0x it usually costs at least a third less. The hard thing is getting the regular rate

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a very interesting article - thanks for some actual reporting.

Note: Uber could be in violation of NAFTA and many other trade deals - as they maybe 'dumping' a product (in this case a service) on other markets, massively unprofitably, in order to put competitors out of business, after which they will ostensibly reap monopoly profits.

I'm still not quite sold on Uber, I think there is some interesting value here ... but there are some dubious issues.

If Uber falls it will be painful for other entrepreneurs - they are definitely keeping some 'animal spirits' going among investors. A lot of institutional money is in Uber, if they pull out of other things ... well valuations will get harder for companies looking for bigger C and D rounds for sure :)

<comment><USER9> That's a good point. I wonder how things will shake out for Uber if NAFTA is renegotiated.

In any case, one game-changing regulation or political event could wipe out tens of billions in perceived value. If, for example, a small cluster of European countries banned Uber for whatever reason, it could make the entire house of cards collapse if they don't cross the self-driving car chasm fast enough.

<comment><USER8> Canada is way to weak to get anything with NAFTA.

We don't even win cases against America that are cut-and-dry.

The problem with trade agreements, is that ultimately, issues are grey, and therefore political.

Making an 'anti dumping' case against Uber is a little bit of a stretch, meaning - Americans will tell us (Canadians) to f __* off.

If we try to enforce even more material issues, then we get the threat of other things (border fees, travel visas, no pipeline approval).

There's 1% chance NAFTA will be re-negotiated.

A) I don't think Trump actually dislikes it, he's just being populist.

B) He would not negotiate in a fair manner. Way back, when it was done, it was done in the spirit of trade. It was an intellectual thing. With Trump, it will be 'America first' \- not about the value of open trade.

Even if Canada is forced to the negotiating table, we will have a very weak hand, and our strategy would probably be simply to delay, delay, delay until someone other than Trump is in charge.

There are basically zero other Presidential Candidates who would be against it.

Also - maybe Trump doesn't like it ... but he's not going to do a trade deal on his own. 99% of Republicans and probably 80% of Democrats are 'for' NAFTA. They have powerful constituents.

The moment negotiations started, a lot of CEO's will be screaming bloody murder, and Trump would listen.

But as far as Uber-NAFTA - I doubt there will ever be anything raised.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Uber is currently the most highly valued private company in the world._

No, they're not. 37Signals is [1]. Kidding aside, the term valuation in the context of a private company is always quite a bit whacky. Who determined that valuation? VCs with their liquidation preferences? Please.

 _If rapid growth could not drive major margin improvements between 2012 and 2016, there is no reason to believe that Uber will suddenly find billions in scale economies going forward._

Sorry what? As if Uber isn't already getting all the benefits of scale economics. Their losses are due to their hyper-aggressive growth plans and the stiff competition. The end game isn't saving money due to economies of scale. That's already happened. The end game is driving everyone else out of business and dominating the market in every region of the planet. _That 's_ when the profits would come in.

[1] [https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1941-press- release-37signals-...](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1941-press- release-37signals-valuation-tops-100-billion-after-bold-vc-investment)

<comment><USER11> I'm late, but Uber has the same problem as cleaning services - they can't drive the drivers out of business unless they succeed at self-driving fleets, and they have no monopoly advantage as long as someone else can convince people to install their app. So it's easy to replace them until you lose money yourself.

There's a reason other taxi companies haven't formed global corporations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _" Uber passengers were paying only 41% of the actual cost of their trips"_

That's worse than I had imagined, assuming the analysis is correct.

<comment><USER13> That's the key issue. How long before Uber runs out of cash? They've raised around $15 billion.[1] How much of that is left?

The experience of Austin, TX, where Uber and Lyft pulled out rather than fingerprint their drivers is indicative. Within weeks, there were seven companies replacing Uber. It just isn't that hard to replace Uber.[2] When Uber goes under, it will be a speed bump, not a disaster.

Amazon lost money for a long time, but they were building infrastructure - huge warehouses and giant data centers. That's ordinary industrial growth, like building a steel mill. Now that's paying off. What physical assets does Uber have? They don't even own the cars.

[1] [http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/why-is-uber- raising-s...](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/why-is-uber-raising-so- much-money) [2] [http://www.512tech.com/technology/tested-seven-austin- post-u...](http://www.512tech.com/technology/tested-seven-austin-post-uber- lyft-ride-hailing-apps/D6OMshqRSE0exTmJt8m94M/)

<comment><USER14> Uber's value will have been generating mindshare for consumers about ridesharing services. Not good for them, but we who are fond of consumer excess thank those investors for burning their dollars up with Uber instead of in a barrel.

<comment><USER13> $15 billion is a lot to pay for "mindshare".

Uber is starting to look like the Webvan of transportation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a great article. The biggest point here is unlike facebook, google and Amazon there is no chance to magically find billions of new users and scale up for Uber. So the chance of turning a profit can only happen with driverless cars, which is atleast a few years away. I did not realize they are desperate to get self driving cars. Wonder how long they can sustain if their self driving car project hits a snag.

<comment><USER16> There is absolutely no way Uber will have fully self-driving cars in a few years (a car that picks you up without a driver). If anything is going to save Uber, it's going to be Otto. Self-driving trucks are a much easier technical problem and the market is the better part of a trillion dollars just in the US.

<comment><USER17> > Self-driving trucks are a much easier technical problem

People keep saying this. Wouldn't you still have to solve the hard problems? A truck that spends 99% of it's time on interstates still have to deal with that 1%.

<comment><USER18> What if you bunched up multiple rides? Like a leader truck which has a human operator and multiple driver-less follower trucks that simply follow the leader.

<comment><USER14> Going to need drivers for each of those trucks after you exit the interstate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There is too many assumptions to make a case either way. There is zero info about actual unit economics available publicly. We don't know which cities are without subsidies (on both driver and rider) and which ones are, only Uber has it available internally.

Heck, due to the growth in a city, the economics themselves change as the company scales in a city. Only Uber can actually project out to a certain reasonability (which are almost always different from reality even after that). Projections are just broad strokes to see if something will definitely _not_ work rather than a proof that it definitely will.

All these arguments could have been made for Google, Amazon, Facebook etc at a certain point in the company's life, and then BAM - in a couple of years there was some "magic point" where the whole company became a cash minting machine. Also, Amazon is not a "pure software" company - there is a huge operations backend which was scaled along with the company.

People tend to look at a given snapshot in time and confidently proclaim that it won't work - ever. But the world is a complex place - nobody has a fking idea what's gonna happen next. Instead of finding reasons to proclaim "This is not gonna work - ever.", it would be better if we can ask - "Okay, it looks like it doesn't work in the current phase - but what are these people doing which makes it possible to work."

In short, its moot to discuss why Uber will fail - atleast right now - <USER2> isn't enough data that we can confidently project to make that conclusion. Its better if this sort of analysis is done in hindsight because right now there are too many variables which are changing too fast for anyone to make any prediction about anything.

<comment><USER20> Very well said. I remember all the bright kids from my college having to decide between Google/Amzn/msft or Facebook pre-ipo. News articles at that time had similar proclamations based on leaked revenue estimates. Most of them that joined FB are now multi-millionaires. Which is not to say that Uber will be successful, but there's just too many unknowns to make a conclusion either way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> My gut feeling is that the next few Enrons will be from the valley

<comment><USER22> Enron screwed a lot of "normal" people. A lot of employees bought their stock. Uber will just lose the VCs money.

<comment><USER23> Startups indeed do not typically require employees to shell out hard cash for their equity, but one could argue that they're just extracting payment in employee time instead.

<comment><USER24> > one could argue that they're just extracting payment in employee time > instead.

Uh, they get a salary.

<comment><USER25> But usually a lower salary than otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> One great advantage of Uber is that it works the same in any place of the world. Anywhere you travel, you know it will give you a fair priced ride. There are taxi services which only business proposition is to extract extra money of foolish tourists.

<comment><USER27> But how often do people travel abroad? And Uber covers only major, well–known cities in select countries, a far cry from any place on the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This feels like a straw man. They hammer on the costs and then hand wave around the driverless car potential. Of course Uber is driving for driverless cars and they're applying a simple formula. If the Customer acquisition Cost (CaC) is less than the p net present value (NPV) of that customer over that customers lifetime the you should spend to acquire customers. Driverless cars will increase NPV even if the economics don't make sense today.

<comment><USER12> The article does skip any analysis of the model with driverless tech.

I couldn't find much out there that breaks down what the cost difference would be. One article[1] suggests driverless would drop the cost from $3/mile to $1.20/mile.

I'm not clear on whether that's enough to counterbalance _" Uber passengers were paying only 41% of the actual cost of their trips"_

I suspect it would require not just driverless, but also a fairly steep hike in what they charge. Especially to overcome X (5,10,20?) years of subsidies waiting on driverless to be viable...that's a pretty big hole.

[1][http://www.fuelsinstitute.org/News/AdditionalResources/2016/...](http://www.fuelsinstitute.org/News/AdditionalResources/2016/May2016.shtm)

<comment><USER29> Benedict Evans got the cost of driverless cars to something like 0.40 cents/mile if I'm not mistaken.

Also another option for Uber should have been shared trips, which should have(?) network effects , but they don't seem to do very well at that , compared to the competition .

<comment><USER30> The problem with shared trips, I think, is that customers _just don 't want them_ in any great quantities. They don't want to be in very close quarters with randos. They don't want to wait while someone else gets picked up or dropped off.

<comment><USER29> >> They don't want to be in very close quarters with randos.

Maybe for shared rides , UBER should only assign vehicles that, allow people to sit with enough personal space,wider, for example a minivan, but make sure the middle seat is empty. That, combined with a culture of phone staring may make the experience neutral ?

>> They don't want to wait while someone else gets picked up or dropped off.

Most of the complaints on twitter are on the first problem you mentioned. So maybe solving it would make the service "good enough" , for the more cost- consious custuomers, and that's a big market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> What attempts are there to bring the tech that makes Uber popular to the Taxi industry? My limited experience with taxi's in Las Vegas and San Francisco have left a lot to be desired when compared to Uber. The fact that the app gives me metrics about my trip, including driver location and cost, go a long way in my use of Uber.

</comment><comment><USER32> The author makes some interesting points, that I haven't seen made elsewhere, although I think they could have been made much more briefly and cogently. Also the Author makes the curious choice to use the metric of "EBITAR" rather than the standard metric of "EBITDA" with no mention of the "rents and restructuring" that his metric exudes. This makes me think he is not all that familiar with financial analysis.

Lots of his article is "Uber's aggregated financials suck and they aren't getting better." This is pretty useless without more data on current per city or per unit economics. Also, maybe give Uber credit for splashing some cash to grow 10x in 1 year? That won't happen again.

The per ride subsidies are the most worrisome. I took an $11 Uber ride the other day, if that was a $22 Uber ride I would have definitely thought about it twice! But you can't really throw headquarters cost into that subsidy calculation- which he seems to do.

For me, the analysis of Uber really comes down to that old chestnut of low user acquisition / user behavior. If every time a consumer wants to do a web search they go to your site (google) and if every time they want to sell their junk they go to your site (ebay) you'll generally have a good business. If there is one thing that Uber has taught us is that the product of "car rides hailed by an app" does have huge and sustained demand. Will the consumer be trained to always go to Uber? Or will the regional nature of the business and low barriers to entry (easy consumer and driver app switching) allow small regional apps to sprout up take flow / demand from Uber.

<comment><USER12> >the Author makes the curious choice to use the metric of "EBITAR" rather than the standard metric of "EBITDA"

That was Uber's curious choice, not the author's. They were the only publicly available numbers from Uber.

Edit: One of the screenshots of what Uber shared: [http://images.gawker.com/1372623315394702184/c_scale,fl_prog...](http://images.gawker.com/1372623315394702184/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800.jpg) It's missing the info needed to calculate EBITDA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> From an antitrust perspective, predatory pricing is only a violation under EU/US law if firms are pricing below marginal cost. That's not to say Uber might not be pursuing a predatory strategy, but that it falls within both jurisdictions' safe harbour of legitimate practice.

</comment><comment><USER34> (I hope this comment is useful. Perhaps I am just confused by the article).

Interesting article. The article emphasizes that the $2B loss that Uber runs is effectively a subsidy for riders. But that isn't necessarily necessarily 100% true. If Uber loses $2B/yr because it pours $2B in a hole and sets in on fire, that isn't a subsidy to riders. If that's the case, then Uber can stop losing money simply by stopping doing that.

What percentage of the $2B is spent on growth (minus subsidy to ride cost; e.g., advertising) which can be shut off eventually? What percentage is spent on software, which is a fixed cost and actually infinitely scalable? What percentage of engineering headcount can be laid off/replaced with cheaper people as the service approaches feature completion?

Uber spends about $2.1B in sales and operating expenses. I don't know what the breakdown is inside these. But if it can turn off some of those expenses as growth slows, and if others are fixed as it grows, then is there no hope?

The article doesn't give Uber enough credit for offering a definitely superior product, IMHO. Uber doesn't necessarily need to be price competitive with previously existing companies, which were garbage. The accountability of Uber drivers, the ability to call a car to a specific location within minutes, these are things that, when I lived in Chicago, simply did not exist at all.

That said, there's a limit to how much Uber can charge extra. If it needs to charge double the prices of previously existing competitors, then the extra service isn't worth it, and Uber wouldn't be worth anything.

I don't understand how Uber could possibly need to charge that much more than existing companies. Yes, it misses out on the "fleet effect;" but if the largest cost goes to driver compensation, the economy of running a fleet is maybe a small percentage of overall costs. Yes, Uber needs to build and maintain software; but that ought to be a fixed cost (and mostly in initial years!).

I guess it comes down to this: I don't understand the contention that Uber has no meaningful scale economies (the software, right?) or how it could be possible that Uber's model needs to cost significantly more than pre-existing competitors. Since I can't see inside of what Uber spends its revenue on, I don't know how much it would need to raise its current prices. But if Uber costs, say, 10% more than pre-existing taxi companies, I would still expect to be worth >>$0. I can't speak to $70B.

(Also, I offer no opinion on long-term defensibility of Uber's business to new entrants).

</comment><comment><USER35> I have maintained the viewpoint for a while that if Uber's valuation is based on the inevitability of driverless cars and the reclaiming of that 80%+ revenue they are in trouble. Driverless cars even when the tech is ready will take many years to clear the political hurdles necessary for wide enough usage to help Uber. The same people that put Trump in office are not going to happily accept tech that will be painted in the political light as a tool to remove tens of thousands of jobs from the economy. The politics is going to be almost as big of a hurdle as the tech itself.

(Not to mention that removal of the driver opens up Uber's competition many competent tech companies with deep enough pockets and direct access to the masses.)

</comment><comment><USER26> Uber will work when we start to get autonomous cars. So they will fire everybody and retain all the profits.

</comment><comment><USER36> Of course Uber has $2B in annual losses, that's by design. Do you think they would take $13B in VC capital and then not spend the money?

The profit margin is stable at around (100%) because it is kept there artificially, balancing how much of the expansion is paid for with revenue and how much is paid for with VC money.

The rest of the article was super interesting - but the conclusion of what Ubers current losses means I think seems off.</comment>


Show HN: Zip – Make "staying informed" effortless, reliable, and fun - <AUTHOR> http://www.zipnews.io <comment><AUTHOR> I made Zip to take the amorphous and cloudy concept of "staying informed" (especially during these last few months of rapid, world-changing developments) and turning it into an effortless, clearly defined action: getting exactly what's important from the news cycles and trending stories on any subject you could want or imagine - no more, no less.

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Ask HN: Emailing users their passwords outdated? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys, wondering what your thoughts are on emailing a user their password, upon registration for example. A lot of sites still send you a record of your username/password when you register. It feels like an outdated practice and a security flaw because of changes to the way we use email.
I recently had my Gmail compromised, and like most people, having all the space I need means I never need to delete anything which is convenient but also a security risk. I wondered what would happen if they downloaded my entire inbox and sorted through all emails with the text "password" in it. I'd have a lot of accounts on different services exposed.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> It's always been a bad idea. The server should not be storing your password in plaintext, let alone transmitting it over email.

</comment><comment><USER3> Send a one-shot link which logs them in.

Optionally, takes them to the 'change password' area with no need to enter the previous password, this time.

Yes, don't store or send passwords.</comment>