Machines are better referees than humans but we'll be sued if we use them - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2014/02/18/machines-are-better-referees-than-humans-but-well-be-sued-if-we-use-them/

<comment><USER2> Peter Murray Rust (author of this blog post) is a really great man. He's been a tireless advocate for dismantling privelege and setting knowledge free for several decades. I'm proud to say he's becoming a sort of mentor to me. Last week I spent a couple of days with his research group and saw this software in action - it's really impressive.

They can take an ancient paper with very low quality diagrams of complex chemical structures, parse the image into an open markup language and reconstruct the chemical formula and the correct image. Chemical symbols are just one of many plugins for their core software which interprets unstructured, information rich data like raster diagrams. They also have plugins for phylogenetic trees, plots, species names, gene names and reagents. You can develop plugins easily for whatever you want, and they're recruiting open source contributors (see [https://solvers.io/projects/QADhJNcCkcKXfiCQ6](https://solvers.io/projects/QADhJNcCkcKXfiCQ6), [https://solvers.io/projects/4K3cvLEoHQqhhzBan](https://solvers.io/projects/4K3cvLEoHQqhhzBan)).

As a side effect of how their software works, it can detect tiny suggestive imperfections in images that reveal scientific fraud. I was shown a demo where a trace from a mass spec (like this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ObwiedniaPeptydu.gif](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ObwiedniaPeptydu.gif)) was analysed. As well as reading the data from the plot, it revealed a peak that had been covered up with a square - the author had deliberately obscured a peak in their data that was inconvenient. Scientific fraud. It's terrifying that they find this in _most_ chemistry papers they analyse.

Peter's group can analyse thousands or hundreds of thousands of papers an hour, automatically detecting errors and fraud and simultaneously making the data, which are _facts_ and therefore not copyrightable, free. This is one of the best things that has happened to science in many years, except that publishers deliberately prevent it. Their work also made me realise it would be possible to continue Aaron Swartz' work on a much bigger scale ([http://blahah.net/2014/02/11/knowledge-sets-us- free/](http://blahah.net/2014/02/11/knowledge-sets-us-free/)).

Academic publishers who are suppressing this are literally the enemies of humanity.

<comment><USER3> > Academic publishers are literally the enemies of humanity.

I would not be so extreme: they used to be a necessary evil before the Internet became mainstream. They are more of a millstone from the past that research still drags with it because changing an institution is hard.

<comment><USER4> What proponents of "open access science" fail to realize is that science is a business like any other, and a very big one involving lots of money. Like in any business, some form of marketing and reputation management is key. Academic publishers provide essential marketing services: filtering, sorting, and branding. You self publish, and most people regard you as a kook. You publish in _Nature_ , and suddenly you're someone worth reading. Branding, credentialing, signaling, all these things are just as important if not more so in science than in any other field, and that's the service academic publishers provide.

At the end of the day, nobody is holding a gun to the heads of professors forcing them to publish in these journals. These are freely-negotiated agreements between researchers and publishers. The reason researchers continue to support the existing system is that it serves their purposes and furthers their careers. Any alternative system will have to provide similar benefits.

<comment><USER5> None of this explains why they should get the copyright.

<comment><USER4> They negotiate with researchers for it.

<comment><USER6> Just like I negotiate with my hospital for medical care payment.

<comment><USER7> Life lesson for US HNers who may never have been in this situation: you can negotiate with healthcare providers on price. It is actually fairly routine. They won't think less of you.

70 cents on the dollar delivered immediately in cash beats the heck out of 100 cents on the dollar transferred to a debt-collection agency, worked for 6 months, and negotiated down to 60 cents of which the agency keeps 15.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Google cache: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b2trH5...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b2trH5OA3P8J:http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2014/02/18/machines- are-better-referees-than-humans-but-well-be-sued-if-we-use-them/)

</comment><comment><USER8> When I asked my journalist friend, why in football (soccer) games the ref don't use high-tech, he thought about it for 5 minutes and then told me: "If they use technology it will be really hard to set up games. If you take from a league the ability to set-up games and promote specific teams/individuals, then I don't know how the game will be shaped".

Of course it's _universal_ , it's not like _everything_ is a set-up but happens more often than most would likely imagine, especially since betting came into play.

So there you got it.

<comment><USER9> The reasoning for not using hi-tech refereeing equipment in football is apparently a desire to keep the game played at the top level the same as that played in streets and fields the world over.

The friction of imperfect decisions is also considered part of the drama of the game, rather than a flaw.

<comment><USER10> > The reasoning for not using hi-tech refereeing equipment in football is > apparently a desire to keep the game played at the top level the same as > that played in streets and fields the world over.

That's already gone with goal line technology. In fact, it was never the case - how many street games/underage kids games even have assistant refs?

> The friction of imperfect decisions is also considered part of the drama of > the game, rather than a flaw.

That _very much_ depends on who you ask. Personally, I'd like to see some technology come in (in high profile games played in stadiums already equipped with tv cameras) to help get rid of the more ridiculous refereeing errors.

The most comical example I can think of contrived, convoluted FIFA rules is the Zidane red card in the World Cup final 2006[1]. Allegedly an assistant ref saw Zidane headbutt another player on a tv monitor, then alerted the ref, who red-carded Zidane. Technically the ref didn't follow the rules, as to send someone off the ref or assistants have to have seen the incident in real time. This means the average football fan with only basic knowledge of the rules has a better view of controversial, game changing decisions in high profile games than the ref (fans can watch instant replays in slo mo whereas the ref has to watch at full speed, sometimes with an obstructed view of an incident.)

[1] [http://www.football-italia.net/42269/ref-who-saw-zidane- hit-...](http://www.football-italia.net/42269/ref-who-saw-zidane-hit- materazzi)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This should be supported (both financially and ideologically) by the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. The NIH doles out about $30 billion in research grants every year. If they could spend a tiny fraction of a percent to dramatically improve the quality of the rest _and_ make such automatic checking a standard practice that would be tremendous bang for the buck.

Oh yeah -- and they're big enough to fight academic publishers.

</comment><comment><USER12> Can they release the software to the world? Maybe, if we all make an effort to analyse whatever papers we can access, we will together make enough noise that it will be impossible to ignore, and also impossible to silence (cf. The Pirate Bay). This could be one of the most important advancements of science in the past few years.

<comment><USER2> It's all FOSS:

[https://bitbucket.org/petermr](https://bitbucket.org/petermr) [https://bitbucket.org/petermr/imageanalysis](https://bitbucket.org/petermr/imageanalysis)

<comment><USER13> This is great work, another fantasy of mine made reality and posted to HN!

Is their a tutorial for getting started with OSCAR? A "HOWTO" for analyzing a paper would make this program more accessible. If I could learn how to use it without spending too much time doing so, I would use it as tool for reviewing manuscripts. I would also like to use it on my own manuscripts to find mistakes.

I have a feature request: optical pattern recognition of mathematical formulas. It would be awesome to feed a program a pdf and have all of the mathematical formulas translated to LaTeX.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> At first I thought the article would be about sports, which in itself would make for an interesting discussion about using machines to judge rules adherence, not that I would want to take that human element out of sports.

However this is more along the lines of validating what is published. Of any group you would hope that scientist and their like would jump on technology like this so as to provide the most accurate representation of their work as possible. The same for publishers, why wouldn't they want to brag the use the most advanced interrogation methods for the papers they publish?

I guess they are people too, hyper sensitive that fault will be found

<comment><USER15> > I guess they are people too, hyper sensitive that fault will be found

Or straight up fraud. Or a dismantling of their monopoly of information/data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So as a non-scientist, let me see if I understand.

There are lots of uncaught errors floating around out there in scientific papers, and many of them can now be found with this software. But the exposing the errors so that they can be corrected is tricky because: A) you have to have legal access to a paper in order to scan it, and B) even if you do have access, under the current rules only the publishers have the right expose the errors, and they're not interested because they want to avoid the embarrassment.

Am I understanding it?

</comment><comment><USER17> I see a very exciting possibility for the future of academic papers in certain disciplines where we could have a machine validation step performed automatically, not only on submission but as a tool for the author to check their work. Like a git commit hook that forces a test suite to run. Of course, this would require some formalism to tag data, diagrams, and formulae but it's probably in our best interest in the long run to make the body of our research more machine-accessible anyway.

<comment><USER18> I have a hard time seeing how anything but a teeny tiny fraction of scientific results would ever be amenable to such an automatic checking. And I am a mathematician -- in principle this should be easiest in mathematics, since at least we have well defined axioms and _in principle_ one could derive everything from those axioms. In practice, this seems completely unfeasible for most mathematics, at least currently.

<comment><USER17> I'm guessing you're not alone, I would go so far as to say that validation software would offend most authors - the same way code validation tools hurt programmers' feelings.

"But I'm right and the tool is wrong! The tool doesn't understand the complexity/brilliance of my work!" And sometimes you're going to be right with that assertion. Other times, however, it will push you and your reviewers towards better quality.

I find it fascinating that the entire article is in fact about this issue, the copyright thing is purely incidental.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For those curious, the 5 membered ring in cyclopiazonic acid should have a NH atom rather than a CH2.

</comment><comment><USER20> When people talk about the future, they always seem to think that it will be the scientific jobs that get roboticized last. I think it will be the opposite, it won't be long before systems like this one will be able to analyze the scientific literature, identify shortcomings, and tell us what experiments to do next. Science will become less about creativity and problem solving, and more about following directions; eventually becoming completely automated.

[http://www.aejournal.net/content/2/1/1](http://www.aejournal.net/content/2/1/1)

</comment><comment><USER21> Any chance you could farm out the software to lab in a nationality with MUCH MUCH looser copyright laws, and a court system that would be problematic for outside law suits?

<comment><USER22> That's what I was thinking. Find someone who isn't under such a restrictive licence, and let them feed in the data.

I presume this is what will happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This blog post is down, try here: [http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk.nyud.net/pmr/2014/02/18/machines-a...](http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk.nyud.net/pmr/2014/02/18/machines- are-better-referees-than-humans-but-well-be-sued-if-we-use-them/)

</comment><comment><USER24> I suppose one way around this would be the NSF to require any grant awardees to deposit their structures in a publicly accessible database...But, I'm a bit surprised--is there nothing like arxiv.org for chemistry? Why not?

</comment><comment><USER25> There is of course a way around the problems cited in the article.

If the referees ran the software on the preprint it would find the same problem.

I agree this isn't as good, but it would be a step forward.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think the dream would be to couple a literature-analyzer like this with a specialized search engine like Wolfram Alpha.</comment>


Facebook Seems to be Down - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/sorry.php?msg=account

<comment><USER2> The headline url is: <https://www.facebook.com/sorry.php?msg=account> doesn't this just mean that their error page works...?

<comment><USER3> For those who have the problem, you're automatically redirected to this page when acceding facebook.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those of you without Facebook, here's the message I'm getting: <http://i.imgur.com/CaT46eG.png>

<comment><USER5> The more funny thing is this one I get : [http://pixelstech.net/images/application/user_image/sonic000...](http://pixelstech.net/images/application/user_image/sonic0002/facebook_down1.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been using Facebook all night and haven't run into an outage. This may be isolated.

</comment><comment><USER7> Down for me, confirmed down for plenty of others on IRC and Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER3> Me too, first time this happens to me. Did you see this often?

</comment><comment><USER8> Yup. Apps still work though.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yep same for me

</comment><comment><USER3> Up now for me.

</comment><comment><USER10> Works for me

</comment><comment><USER11> down to me , Apps works fine

</comment><comment><USER12> didn't notice

</comment><comment><USER13> works for me</comment>


Stormz: fun & efficient brainstorming - <AUTHOR> https://stormz.me

<comment><USER2> This kind of platform is for now really unique. Basically, existing solutions doesn't provide guided activities, that orchestrate users interactions.

It allows you to focus on a problem or a challenge, for 10min to 1hour, and have a nice creative output of the workshop.

Btw, it's not the silver bullet to improve your creativity, you still need a great facilitator, but many brains are better than one :).</comment>


Ask HN: How do you charge teenagers on internet? - <AUTHOR>

I am working on a service where clients are in a age range of 15 - 25. Most of them doesn't have credit card.
What are your ideas to charge them? I thought in paying with the credit in their cell phones, which teens usually have. But I should talking with phone companies to be able to do that.
Have you got any idea?
By the way, this would be a good hole to fill in the internet, so use it as a startup idea if you want to <comment><USER3> You don't HAVE to talk to telecom providers - you can use Pay-by-SMS services like Zaypay (<http://www.zaypay.com>).

If you plan on offering the application via the iTunes App Store or Google Play, then you can have them sign in and purchase "credits" via in-app purchases. This way, they can use iTunes gift cards. Plus, which teenager doesn't have iTunes credit?

Edit: In the case of Pay-by-SMS, the parents would find out either way when they see the bill. So, they might as well just use their (the parents') credit cards instead of allowing the teenager to charge it to the monthly phone bill. In this case (and other cases where the parent(s) are aware of and approve the service), you might just want to include credit card payments (via Stripe).

I despise Paypal, but you can always try that.

And because you pay them a commission for each sale, you're not losing money if you offer these options and they aren't used.

Edit 2: Zaypay IS AVAILABLE in Argentina (<http://www.zaypay.com/outpayment>).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, something like Zaypay was what I was looking for :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like you'll have a tough time getting your customers to pay you - <USER2> you're after money, is the idea still worth pursuing if you're going to have to 1) convince them it's worth paying for, and then 2) find a way for them to pay you? It seems like a lot of hassle.

That being said - people who don't have credit cards a lot of the time have parents/guardians who do. You could try that?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are doing research yet, but we got 1 resolved we think (I mean, people will want to pay for it). Number 2 is what our trouble. This is not in US, but Argentina, where people are not used to give their credit card details online, and they won't definitely do it for they childrens.

<comment><USER4> It sounds like you've picked an idea that will be very, very tough to make a sustainable business out of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Use cellphones. Usually when there is a natural disaster or other catastrophes, the red cross has a way to text in a word to number and then they charge it to the phone bill at the end of the month. I do believe though that this method is only good for donations and not businesses but hey, maybe you can prove me wrong?

</comment><comment><USER6> Teenagers will find a way to buy stuff if the want it bad enough. Find a way to make the product really attractive and they will find a way to buy it. What type of product is it? By the way, if there is one segment who will find a way to pay for something its teenagers.</comment>


Show HN: Firesize – On-the-fly image resizing, no code required - <AUTHOR> http://firesize.com/

<comment><USER2> Nginx can do this with the ngx_http_image_filter_module (included in stock distribution): [https://neosmart.net/blog/2014/nginx-wordpress-images- with-n...](https://neosmart.net/blog/2014/nginx-wordpress-images-with- ngx_http_image_filter_module/)

<comment><USER3> The image filter module is really neat, but for people reading it is limited to basic functionality like crop and resize. It supports PNG, GIF and JPEG, but PNGs are usually too large and GIFs are low quality, so you are stuck with JPEGs. Not sure if webp support is on the way or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks great. I see mention of limits, but there is no pricing page. It's hard to adopt a service if I have no idea what it will cost me.

I have used Embed.ly's similar service in the past. There is a sizable free tier (25,000 images) and it works more or less the same. [http://embed.ly/display](http://embed.ly/display)

<comment><AUTHOR> If you join during the beta, we'll grandfather you in to the free plan (no- limits). I should make that more clear on the homepage though. Thanks.

<comment><USER4> Awesome! One line about that should do the trick.

Is the only way to "join" via Heroku? Or is there another place I can create an account?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, but only for the MVP. Adding our own signup form is something we're working on.

Send me an email at email@example.com and I can manually hook you up with an account though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This was built by our awesome community on Assembly. If you have any feedback or want to get involved and help us continue to build this, check out the project on Assembly: [https://assembly.com/firesize](https://assembly.com/firesize)

</comment><comment><USER5> Bit off-topic, but... it feels like there's a trend towards "x as a service" away from "x as open-source software". Is that something other people are seeing, or is it just my imagination?

<comment><USER6> This is actually also an OS project it appears: [https://github.com/asm- products/firesize](https://github.com/asm-products/firesize)

<comment><USER7> Firesize uses ImageMagick, which in my experience consumes more memory and is slower than libvips [1] for simple image resizing/optimization.

I built a simple image-resizing server with a query string API using libvips [2]. This is based on sharp [3], a good wrapper of libvips for Node.js.

[1] [https://github.com/jcupitt/libvips](https://github.com/jcupitt/libvips)

[2] [https://github.com/nthtran/imgop](https://github.com/nthtran/imgop)

[3] [https://github.com/lovell/sharp](https://github.com/lovell/sharp)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do you have a utility that lets me port over my named transformations from Cloudinary? Also, is there any way to pull images directly from an S3 bucket rather than from my Heroku instance?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh nope, but that would be pretty sweet. I'll throw that in the queue of things to build next.

We just grab whatever image you include in the url, so as long as the images in your S3 bucket are public, Firesize should be able to resize them just like normal.

<comment><USER8> I like your pricing model much more--I don't like how Cloudinary charges me for storage, because I don't want them to store the images, just transform them.

What I would need to move over to yours are the following features: * Reorienting the picture based on exif data * Picture gravity via face detection * Way to ensure no one else maliciously uses my account (e.g., domain whitelisting/CORS, only pulling from my S3 bucket, something like that) * Renaming the output file image on the fly

Obviously, I'm only one customer, so don't do anything based on just me! But if it's at all helpful, these are one potential user's needs :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One small issue is that it doesn't correct for gamma. Most browsers don't even do it properly, so it isn't a very important issue at all.

Demo: [http://firesize.com/100x100/g_center/http://www.4p8.com/eric...](http://firesize.com/100x100/g_center/http://www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma_dalai_lama_gray.jpg)

More info: [http://www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma.html](http://www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there anything yet to prevent abuse? For example, in the case of Cloudinary, they allow signing of URLs[0] to prevent anyone from just using your account to serve arbitrary images.

[0] [http://cloudinary.com/blog/on_the_fly_image_manipulations_se...](http://cloudinary.com/blog/on_the_fly_image_manipulations_secured_with_signed_urls)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, we're actively building both url whitelists per Firesize account and url signing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> >You're images will be quickly delivered to your users

A typo. "You're" should be "Your".

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah! Thanks iokanuon. If you add a bounty on Assembly, I'll award you some ownership for pointing this out: [https://assembly.com/firesize/bounties](https://assembly.com/firesize/bounties)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great :), first impressions:

I've seen a few of these before and the things I remember I liked about them was the ability to provide a default image incase you cannot load the image.

Major kudos if you could do a g_face so you could center / crop around faces!

You say you provide a CDN and yet the images are loading slow under HackerNews weight. I guess the type of people who are going to use these aren't super concerned about being hammered!

Lastly the Heroku add-on, does that mean I can run your code on my Heroku instance instead of rely on your site? That would be fantastic!

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh yeah a default would be nice. Good idea.

The image on the homepage isn't behind a CDN, but when you signup we give you a custom subdomain which is behind a CDN. Although the initial loading and resizing still takes a quick second, before we cache it.

Not exactly. The Heroku addon just means you can easily signup and manage Firesize from the Heroku dashboard. Although the code is AGPL'd so you could totally run your own hosted version of Firesize: [https://github.com/asm- products/firesize](https://github.com/asm-products/firesize)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Quick bug report, g_none seems to not be working, instead it's just doing the same thing as g_north

[http://firesize.com/720x100/g_none/http://i.imgur.com/hHpJsc...](http://firesize.com/720x100/g_none/http://i.imgur.com/hHpJscb.png)

[http://firesize.com/720x100/g_north/http://i.imgur.com/hHpJs...](http://firesize.com/720x100/g_north/http://i.imgur.com/hHpJscb.png)

</comment><comment><USER14> "This app is in region eu, firesize is only available in region us." Thats a shame. But is guess getting manually hooked up would work for this case too?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh yeah shoot me an email (email@example.com). We're working on making it available in other regions as well. Sorry about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I built a JavaScript library which automatically applies this optimization to all the images on any site it's placed on (using a MutationObserver): [https://github.com/EagerApps/FireSize](https://github.com/EagerApps/FireSize)

</comment><comment><USER15> Very similar to Cloudinary, though they have more advanced features as well. worth checking out IMO.

</comment><comment><USER16> Free during beta, but how much will it cost after? Are you going to limit access through the Referrer header? Why do I need a Heroku addon if I can just use a Firesize URL from anywhere automatically? How much does it cost to run a massive service like that?

</comment><comment><USER17> Hi,

I just recommended you to someone on weekendhacker chat earlier today. Glad to see another assembly launch.

</comment><comment><USER18> I have an old project that does a similar thing: [https://github.com/kristopolous/apophnia](https://github.com/kristopolous/apophnia) ... enjoy

</comment><comment><USER19> what different things do you offer than cloudimage? [http://cloudimage.io/](http://cloudimage.io/)

</comment><comment><USER20> We are using thumbor self hosted to solve a similar problem. It evens smart crop with opencv features detection, like people faces.

</comment><comment><USER21> g_center, assuming there are more options, could very well be a select option with the other available options. :)

</comment><comment><USER22> Is this really a problem painful enough that you need a SaaS?

<comment><USER4> Depending on what you are building, yes. This can save a developer a good portion of a day between the code, file storage and CDN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep that's exactly why we built it. To be honest it's not overly complex to build yourself, but taking the time to get it right, setting up the CDN, and maintaining background workers can be pretty expensive when you factor in developer hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just so you know, Web of Trust gives firesize.com a "Very Poor" Trustworthiness and Child Safety rating. [https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/firesize.com?utm_source=a...](https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/firesize.com?utm_source=addon&utm_content=warn- viewsc)

<comment><USER24> Based on one comment in 2009, surely WOT needs a better algorithm for refreshing these ratings as time passes.</comment></comment>


Social Media and the 'Spiral of Silence' - <AUTHOR> http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-the-spiral-of-silence/ <comment><USER2> I don't want say to I am ahead of the curve or anything but yes I already have started not saying nothing on my social network that's related to politics/religion/social-issues/etc. I don't say yes or no on any of those on social network. I have decided silence is the best option.

I do have a real world example too. I used to work with a manager over me who was really cool and worked with me well. Felt he was looking out for me and my career advancement. We shared common interests on more than a few things too.

And then one day I said something that rubbed him the wrong way (still don't know what exactly) and just like that, he pretty much stopped talking to me. And that led to the point where I was left out of projects, out of discussions, and eventually to the point where the upper management felt I was not needed. I had to leave the company. I still feel he was a great guy and smart dude.

Btw, I read somewhere that on US Navy ships' officers' dining rooms, 2 topics are not discussed at all: politics and religion. I understand why.

<comment><USER3> The reason politics and religion are discussion taboos is the same reason things are so slow to change in both of those realms.

<comment><USER4> This is just crazy. To have a healthy society these issues should be discussed a lot but without the fear of being punished for your views.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I find this research fascinating, and some of the findings conflict with the point I am about to make, I nevertheless want to object to the selection of Snowden-NSA as the particular topic used as the basis of this research. Although it does conveniently have a nearly-even split of opinion, the nature of the Snowden-NSA revelations carry very specific baggage for social media conversations precisely because the revelations suggest a comprehensive and worrisome monitoring of all online activity.

Those who wanted to talk about the NSA, especially critically on social media, may have refrained or at least paused to reflect on whether that was a sensible thing to do _precisely because_ of the NSA dragnet. I personally initially paused and considered my action moreso than usual before I began retweeting and writing tweets of my own that are critical of the NSA's behavior and the laws that provide cover for its behavior.

Irrational or rational as fears of later repercussions for communicating opinions may be, when the subject matter is a principal organization that will ensure that very communication is never forgotten, I believe there is a chilling effect. It would be like hesitating to criticize Twitter on Twitter—you can imagine less savvy users would wonder, "Will this get me into some kind of trouble with Twitter?" Even now having long since put aside my worry about being critical of the NSA's behavior in public (yes, based on the tired axiom: "why would they care about me?"), I still suspect that I have squelched at least 10% of what I would have otherwise said.

Even as I write this now, it's impossible to not have a concern that in some (very unlikely) future, the NSA will put anyone who had been critical of their actions onto a "definitely will aid with all parallel construction requests" list. Irrational, sure. But difficult to put aside nonetheless.

<comment><USER6> Yep, the chilling effect is real, and in action. Next (and critically, invisibly) people as a whole will actually think less about the NSA and having their online activity surveilled and what those two bits mean. Fewer people will be exposed to the circulation of ideas on these topics. This is the consequence of being afraid to speak freely in what used to be an open forum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was going to sternly object, and then I remembered how a friend deleted me on facebook because I liked a certain politician. Then my work friended me so I went back and pruned every semi-controversial topic from my feed and "unliked" a ton of subjects. And now I keep it all to myself. I probably reveal more here in my writing than I do on those outlets.

And to say I edit my thoughts _here_ on HN would be an understatement. People don't want true diversity. That would mean hearing something they dislike. Which would invalidate their life apparently.

<comment><USER8> Funnily enough Google was really onto something with the concept of Circles. We do not, and should not, want to share everything with everyone a la Twitter and Facebook.

The execution of G+ was bungled disastrously, and ass-backwards policies like Real Names ran directly contrary to the original notion of having multiple identities/profiles to present to different people.

But I do wish someone would run with this idea again.

... But maybe we don't need to. Social networks with segmented audiences/identities have existed since forever, they're called BBSes and Forums.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's amazing: 20 years ago, we went online to debate at will with people we would never see and who had no power over us. Now online we have to be super careful about everything we say lest someone who can make a decision over us be offended.

<comment> vezzy-fnord I actually think this illustrates an interesting evolution in our attitudes towards anonymity on the Internet.

It was only quite recently in the grand scheme of things that, particularly in school computer labs, one of the major things that we ingrained in children's heads was basic web safety etiquette: never reveal your real name, street address, phone number, etc.

With the advent of popular social media, holy shit has that completely turned around in the opposite direction. Now such things have been completely normalized, and we've started to talk about the "nymwars". There's also a reasonably influential segment that thinks all online communications should be done using personally identifiable information, lest someone gets trolled and has their sensibilities hurt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been consistently removing people from my facebook and twitter feed who disagree with me. Not because I don't want to hear their opinions, but because when I voice mine in response they are generally offended (I was usually just pointing out factual omissions). I needed to remove the temptation to engage with anyone in my social network who was prone to anti-intellectual discussions.

</comment><comment><USER11> The last paragraph of the article:

"Because of its sample size (1,801 people) and choice of topic, Pew's study might not be a fully accurate example of social media's silencing effects, but it's definitely fodder for discussion – if you dare! – as well as further research."

Sigh.

<comment><USER12> Which of the following does your sigh indicate:

a. You are sighing because you believe the study to be meaningless due to its sample size.

b. You are sighing because the writer needlessly undermines the results of a completely legitimate poll (+/\- 3.3% margin of error for the subgroups).

c. You are sighing about poor comedy ("if you dare!").

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I find it ironic that the social media is effectively making average Joes and Janes (who generally dislike politicians) act like they are politicians, not saying what they really mean and worrying about how they are viewed by the public.

Weird I must say.

</comment><comment><USER13> LOL.

> _Of course, it's worth pointing out that the choice to use the Snowden > situation as the basis for this particular study could be flawed – after > all, social platforms, including Facebook, were implicated as being among > the places the government tapped to listen in on citizens' conversations. > Perhaps citizens didn't want to publicize an opinion on this particular > matter, but would be more willing to do so on others._

LOL again. Have the Pew researchers never heard of the "priming" effect? As soon as you bring up Snowden as the topic, respondents may immediately think of the social network surveillance and of course, think that they may not want to talk about just anything -- Snowden related or not -- online.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm concerned that it's only going to get worse.

Look at Brendan Eich, no matter what we think of Proposition 8, I think it's crazy that his support of a political position that was also supported by a very narrow majority of his fellow Californians could cause him to have to leave his job six years later.

It's entirely possible that Eich could become a verb, like Bork. Any one of us could support one side of a contentious political fight today and in six years get Eiched because the winning side chooses to be vindictive and petty.

I hesitated to bring this up because I thought about the last time I was moderated -4 for something I said here.

In the end we need to decide, how serious we are about the marketplace of ideas. We need to decide if we really believe in the ideals that we claim to.

If I disagree with you, I'll challenge your ideas. I'll challenge your thinking. I'll debate you. I will not attempt to silence you.

<comment> vezzy-fnord My main beef with the Eich case wasn't the fact that people protested his decision, it was _how_ they did it.

The main method of protest was to boycott Firefox. Yet this was a stupid thing to do, because Firefox is the result of over a decade of wide-scale community effort, all done on a non-profit basis, and has been instrumental in advancing web standards. Firefox was also the initial spark that got us out of the stagnation caused by IE6.

By boycotting Firefox, people were punishing pretty much everyone _except_ Eich. A much more blunt statement would have been to boycott JavaScript, something Eich was directly responsible for. Of course, that would actually require some effort in a major overhaul of one's browsing habits.

Then it was OKCupid just blatantly jumping on the bandwagon, encouraging Firefox users to leave their browser, all in an absolutely farcical attempt to assert their moral superiority.

Finally, most people don't seem to be aware that gay marriage is often a red herring in general, and the topic of marriage privatization is rarely discussed in public. But that's heading towards my personal views.

<comment><USER15> _My main beef with the Eich case wasn 't the fact that people protested his decision, it was how they did it._

Causing indiscriminate collateral damage (and using various arguments to deflect blame onto your enemies) until people submit to your whims is a long and time-honored tradition (for example, terrorists).

Vicious attacks against those who (appear to be about to) "leave the fold" are also long and time-honored tradition (for example, apostasy in religious-ruled countries).

Given that They (the people doing the protesting) decided that Eich's political actions made him a "them", and that They considered Mozilla to be an "us", it was _perfectly reasonable_ for Them to (1) attack Mozilla for associating with Eich, and (2) attack anyone associated with Eich until Eich was forced to submit to Them (in this case, to Go Away).

So no, the problem _is_ that people decided to suddenly target one individual for protest over a years-old used-to-be-majority political opinion.

<comment><USER16> I was about to make the same comparison.

To me, this is enabled by social media. This uproar against Eich wouldn't have been viral if it weren't for Twitter, Reddit, and others.

The people who complained used tactics akin to bullying: "do what I want (fire Brendan Eich), or else I'll make much noise as I can, and drag your brand through the mud".

The backlash was driven by self-righteousness ("my beliefs are superior to Eich's") and contempt ("his beliefs hurt people, so he isn't entitled to them"). These feelings are timeless and have been common throughout history. The problem is that it's easy for them to quickly spread on Twitter, and then get blown even further out of proportion, either by being mentioned on 24/7 TV channels, or, here, because of OKCupid pulling a marketing move by supporting the backlash.

And overall, the effect is that some opinions and subjects are sadly becoming taboo, and people have to be politically correct or risk having their lives ruined. This happened to Eich, it happened with Donglegate [1], and it will happen again. The common theme in these stories is social media.

[1]: [http://arstechnica.com/staff/2013/03/donglegate-is- classic-o...](http://arstechnica.com/staff/2013/03/donglegate-is-classic- overreaction-and-everyone-pays/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wouldn't [http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and- the-s...](http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-the-spiral- of-silence/) be a better link as this article seems to just repeat what the study says.

<comment><USER18> Yes; thanks; changed. (Was [http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/26/social-media-is- silencing-p...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/26/social-media-is-silencing- personal-opinion-even-in-the-offline-world/.))</comment></comment>


Android Migration - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/ios/ios9-preview/#android <comment><USER3> It seems a bit evil that Apple takes advantage of Android's open APIs to provide this tool, yet it's not possible to write a tool to go the other way because so much iOS user data is locked in by Apple.

(You can of course get some of this data from iOS, but things like preferences and settings from the default applications just are not accessible.)

iOS, the "Hotel California" of mobile?

<comment><USER4> I think, if you look at it from the perspective of a user who wants to switch from Android to iOS, this tool makes the job easier. And I wouldn't fault Apple for making this transition smoother, they're being "customer-centric" in my books. Is it not that you can take your data and move to any other platform the entire selling point of Android and the openness?

I'd venture that Google's tightening its grip on Android and making it more closed than it ever was. A high profile engineer, JBQ, quit AOSP project for a reason. As an android user, one is already consuming a lot of Google resources for free; and Google isn't going to sit back and not make you pay for it.

<comment><USER5> > I'd venture that Google's tightening its grip on Android and making it more > closed than it ever was. A high profile engineer, JBQ, quit AOSP project for > a reason

It might seem nit-picky, but that is so vague as to be untrue. The reason JBQ quit, as I pieced together from his G+/tweets, was because of 3rd party drivers for a Nexus device that were not released as open source as he would have liked (he managed AOSP releases). Inferring from his posts at the time, this was something he realised as a potential problem ahead of time and notified legal, but it seemed nothing was done (or they failed in negotiating with manufacturer).

I'm not a Googler, so I could also be off-base here. I apologise ahead of time if I misrepresented anyone.

<comment><USER4> You're right. JBQ quit because of the reasons you mention. But he was tired of AOSP in general and doubted the intentions of powers that be. Android was notorious for its non-cooperation with the rest of Google (remember the android browser vs chrome wars?), IIRC. Removal of Andy Rubin from the Android division was a sign enough... Ever since Sundar Pichai has taken over, Google has continued to close source a lot of code that was earlier part of AOSP.

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/android-5-0-lollipop-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/android-5-0-lollipop- thoroughly-reviewed/#h1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Android has many problems and is far from perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our users in, to prevent them from leaving us."

<comment><USER7> Neither has Apple. Remember it was Apple that forced the music industry to go from DRM encumbered music to DRM free, etc. etc.

The Evil Apple mythology is pure political ideology on the part of Apple haters / Google Zealots.

And I've been hearing this kind of Apple bashing since the 1980s.

Yes, yes, Apple sells more expensive stuff. Apple focuses on design. Apple doesn't compete in the low end (though they are damn price competitive when you compare like systems.)

This does not make Apple evil. The idea that Android is "open" simply because linux is an open source operating system is silly- Darwin is open source as well, and Apple and Google both keep the application layer closed source.

All those knockoff phones sold in China that you're desperate to count as "Android" to claim Apple's losing (Yet nobody ever actually counts real sales of android devices, because android phone makers keep this data secret, unlike Apple that reports it quarterly to the SEC...why is that I wonder? Maybe the illusion that Android is "winning" would be shattered, hmmm? Meanwhile only %8 of "android" devices are running a current operating system???!? How is that "Winning"?)..... those knock off MediaTec phones are not "Android" and are not running google Apps (unless they've been cracked) because google has just as stringent licensing terms as Apple, actually much worse. And of course those apps are not open source either.

<comment><USER8> > The idea that Android is "open" simply because linux is an open source > operating system is silly- Darwin is open source as well, and Apple and > Google both keep the application layer closed source.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29)

"On July 25, 2006, the OpenDarwin team announced that the project was shutting down, as they felt OpenDarwin had "become a mere hosting facility for Mac OS X related projects," and that the efforts to create a standalone Darwin operating system had failed. They also state: "Availability of sources, interaction with Apple representatives, difficulty building and tracking sources, and a lack of interest from the community have all contributed to this."[24] "

Darwin is open source, but to compare that to linux is laughable. Google is one of the top contributers upstream to Linux and subsequntly hundreds of millions of devices are better off because of it.

I'm unaware of any modern darwin based distro's and I'm unaware of any iOS mods like Cyanagenmod. To say Apple and Google are about the same when it comes to Open Source is a joke. Based on Steve Jobs stopping all donations to charity I'm fairly certain the fact that Darwin is open source is because the licensing requires it to be. Otherwise Darwin would be proprietary so fast no one would notice because it's too difficult to work with anyway.

<comment><USER9> Most of the 'Darwin' open source releases on opensource.apple.com are not under any variant of the GPL. However, they are only provided for OS X - <USER2> iOS section only has a short list of LGPL projects, and ARM code is often stripped out; new projects are never added, even rewrites of older code that was open source (launchd, discoveryd); several projects cannot be compiled without some work dealing with missing header files; and some projects (kernel extensions) have over the years had entire files redacted to blankness, or been removed from future distributions altogether. In other words, it very much feels like a legacy thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is actually an Android openness success story. Even if Android is not as open as it should it still shows how much better it is in this subject.

<comment><USER7> Oh really? I notice that you all are just assuming so.

Exactly what data are apps not able to reach on iOS that they are able to reach on Android?

If Google cared about their customers they could write this kind of App as well.

But google is not in the same business as Apple. Apple is making the best platform they can. Google is in the business of commoditizing Apple's platform so that google can sell ads on it.

Apple charges for its platform and protects customer data. Google gives the platform away for free at the price of your immortal soul.

<comment><USER10> everyone is entitled to their own opinion

<comment><USER11> The user you replied to certainly thinks so. He's posted variations of that comment several times on this thread. It does not seem to be well received, however.

<comment><USER12> HN is a bit sad like that. Comments should be downvoted if they don't add something to the discussion not if you disagree with the opinion.

<comment><USER13> I suspect it is because he is being very repetitive (besides being disparaging). Repetition does not add to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Migrating data from an android phone to an iPhone might now be easier than migrating from an android to another. I haven't come across any free, play store app that can seamlessly transfer data between android phones of different makes.

<comment> jon-wood Motorola's devices all come with Motorola Migrate[1], which supports transferring data from both Android, iOS, and some older devices. The times I've used it I was pretty impressed by how smooth they made everything, although I was going Android-Android, I don't know what caveats there are for iOS migrations.

[https://www.motorola.com/us/motorola-migrate/motorola- migrat...](https://www.motorola.com/us/motorola-migrate/motorola-migrate.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It looks like a better experience than moving to a new Android device.

Google only copies system settings and list of installed apps, but not "sd card" data with local music, photos, apps' settings or data.

<comment><USER16> You don't need to transfer photos, because they're automatically uploaded to Google Photos ASAP.

You don't need to transfer music if you're using Google Play Music (including the option to upload your own music), Spotify (has a similar options), or something else like that.

I'll give you application settings, but that's only because the applications didn't bother implementing the backup services.

<comment><USER17> Why on Earth should I have to use Google Photos or Google Play Music if I want to move content to a new phone? That would be quite the definition of lock-in, particularly when what we're talking about is moving non-system files.

<comment><USER18> You can redownload your photos and music from both services. You aren't locked in at all.

<comment><USER17> I'm curious how having to give the rights to my photographs over to Google to be able to transfer them wouldn't be locking me into the Google ecosystem?

I get it's easier, but that's not the point here.

<comment><USER18> How does it lock you into the Google ecosystem?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The timing of this is pretty interesting. Apple's been able to make such a tool for years, but the trend has clearly been iOS -> Android for a while. Now that they're finally offering devices in sizes people want (literally 80% of the new iPhones I see are the 6+), people who wanted the bigger devices but went to Android, are finally seeing a reason to switch back. Furthermore, iOS is finally in good shape compared to Android w/r to features like notifications, multitasking, etc. making the idea of migration parity simpler.

I don't think this will have a huge impact in conversions, I think the path Apple is on is already doing that, but it's not a terrible idea.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there any reason for google to allow this in their play store ? Serious question here, i cannot think of apple allowing the same kind of an app for google in app store...

<comment><USER7> You notice Google maps, that failure of an Application, is available on the App Store, along with Google Now, Google Earth and lots of other apps from Google.

The idea that Apple won't let google applications on their store is just google zealot paranoid fantasy.

Hell, Apple's bringing Apple Music to android. It's treating it like a real platform.

<comment><USER8> > You notice Google maps, that failure of an Application

"Google Maps for mobile is the world's most popular app for smartphones, with over 54% of global smartphone owners using it at least once during the month of August 2013.[3]"

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

I think your bias might be showing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Seriously, it's a bit annoying to have so many news related to apple products making it to the front page of HN today.

<comment><USER21> Just avoid HN for a week or so while WWDC is on. It is always like this

<comment><USER22> And the same for BUILD and IO. Tech geeks get excited when tech companies announce things, news at 11.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is it really an amazing thing that you can recycle your Android device for _free_? I wonder what they do with them..

<comment><USER24> A less wasteful solution is to completely wipe your phone and then sell it. But cheap, used Android phones on the market is not congruent with Apple's goals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's funny how they are trying to suggest that getting same apps isn't going to be a problem :).

<comment><USER26> Yeah, it would be newsworthy if Apple stomached the cost of paid apps for people who move from android to iOS.

I mean they'd only have to pay 0.7x the cost of the apps, if that.

> And your paid apps are added to your iTunes Wish List.

Oh how convenient!

I wonder if they will allow an app that lets people migrate from iOS to something else on their app store. The reality distortion field at Cupertino remains strong.

<comment><USER27> I've always thought someone should do this. Would have though MS, BB or Samsung would have more to gain than Apple, but the result would have to worth the cost?

However my anecdotal evidence is that having paid for apps on one platform isn't a barrier to switching for a lot of people. It seems to be an afterthought, a realisation only when they come to download (and pay) for the app again. By that point its too late.

<comment><USER7> Plus nobody pays for Apps on other platforms. Developers who release on iOS and android see 10-100 times the revenue on iOS. Partly this is piracy, but a lot of it is culture.

More than that, even on iOS the paid App model is going away and free apps with in-app-purchase or other premium models are what's succeeding. (not watch this get downvoted.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Recycle your Android Phone"

Well, that's quite petty insinuating that the Android device is essentially garbage.

</comment><comment><USER29> What kind of ugly Android phone is used on the left?

<comment><USER7> Isn't that an HTC One?

<comment><USER29> They probably chose it on purpose to make Android look dated. If they had used a Samsung phone it would not have looked like a old chunk of metal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is quite presumptuous of them. I find iOS a bit backwards and unintuitive compare to Android, not to mention I find their practices the worst of all evils (and I'm far from being an ideologist).

<comment><USER31> Me too, but I don't see this as presumptuous at all. They're trying to make it easy for people who want to migrate from Android. Who can blame them?

<comment><USER32> Those who might want to migrate the other way, perhaps.

<comment><USER31> [https://twitter.com/Stavros/status/608215259153858560](https://twitter.com/Stavros/status/608215259153858560)

<comment><USER7> That tweet is simply dishonest. Expecting Apple to make a migration assistant to help people move off of its platform is absurd and hypocritical.

<comment><USER31> No, I want to make the migration assistant. How can I access on iOS the same data that Move accesses on Android?

<comment><USER12> Ask the user for their iCloud credentials. That would get you documents, photos, mail, contacts, calendars, reminders, bookmarks, notes, passwords and many app settings.

Then it should be just a matter of parsing a bunch of plist files and a few SQLite databases.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SpaceX Responds To Forbes Contributor Loren Thompson - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/bruceupbin/2011/05/24/spacex-responds-to-forbes-contributor-loren-thompson/

<comment><USER2> From their site (<http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/mission>), we find that the Lexington Institute's mission is...

"The Lexington Institute believes in limiting the role of the federal government to those functions explicitly stated or implicitly defined by the Constitution. The Institute therefore actively opposes the unnecessary intrusion of the federal government into the commerce and culture of the nation, and strives to find nongovernmental, market-based solutions to public- policy challenges. We believe a dynamic private sector is the greatest engine for social progress and economic prosperity."

Thompson's article does not align with this mission.</comment>


Bumblebees Sleeping in Flowers (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://beeisbeautiful.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/bumblebees-sleeping-in-flowers/ <comment> ezequiel-garzon I noticed the use of _male bee_ instead of _drone_. English has been my second language for a long time, and only recently did I learn that mechanical drones get their names from that. Do you native speakers use _male bee_ more often than _drone_?

<comment><USER2> Drone is the name for the male of the honey bee. This is a close relative, but different kind of animal. The animals sleeping in flowers aren't necessarily male.

<comment> ezequiel-garzon Thanks! In those cases (honeybees), do you tend to say _drones_?

<comment><USER3> Sometimes yes, but especially children often don't know the word so when you use it you often have to explain. Beekeepers do tend to say "drone" in my experience (Source: my father kept bees for a while).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are the bees actually sleeping (in the neurological sense) or is their metabolism slowed by the cold?

<comment><USER5> Sleep is ill-defined for non-mammals, so it really depends on what you mean by "sleep".

<comment><USER6> Mammals and birds sleep. Everything else has some kind of circadian rhythm that approximates sleep to varying degrees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Last summer bumblebees liked sleeping in our pumpkin flowers most of all, sometimes 2 or 3 together.

<comment><USER8> All kinds of bees like that apparently. Gotta be careful when you harvest the flowers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some people cannot or will not see the simple and honest beauty of something like a bumblebee in a flower, and would rather trample them all in the name of industry.

Those people should be scorned and ridiculed.</comment>


On Customer Development from CEO of RightNow - <AUTHOR> http://nrao.posterous.com/greg-gianforte-ceo-of-rightnow

<comment><AUTHOR> Whereas google ad-words tests work well for web-based consumer products, this guy advocates 400 cold calls/month for an analogous test in building the right enterprise software app.</comment>


Show HN: Microscope, logically group validation/filter regexes - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/clotheshorse/microscope

<comment><USER2> This is super useful / timesaving.</comment>


Domain redirect using rack-rewrite - <AUTHOR> http://www.production-hacks.com/2010/06/05/domain-redirect-using-rack-rewrite/

<comment><USER2> For god's sake please do it in nginx or apache assuming you have one of those in front of rack.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, you can achieve this easily in nginx/apache. The whole idea of the rack-rewrite gem (and this post) is to move those rewrite rules into your app's code repository. This way your app can be moved between web servers without having to rewrite those rules.</comment></comment>


Even Apple will be hated one day - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/Tech/4535/apple-google-microsoft-fickle-consumers-dr--080320/ <comment><USER2> Apple is no different than google, ms and ibm ...I just read the extract from the book "The Self-Destructive Habits of Good Companies". The author and well known academic Jagdish Sheth says that he's closely watching a clutch of hugely successful companies such as Google and Cisco and he is convinced that on their way to success, these companies have unintentionally acquired certain bad habits which might lead to their downfall. With success, Google will become arrogant and complacent. Google is today's avatar of Microsoft, which is yesterday's avatar of IBM.

"I used to think that competition destroys good companies. Strangely, I found that's not true: companies destroy themselves," says Sheth. "On the way to becoming successful or achieving survival or greatness, companies begin to acquire bad habits." None of these habits, he says, are acquired intentionally but it happens as a side effect of growth.</comment>


The RUM Conjecture - <AUTHOR> http://daslab.seas.harvard.edu/rum-conjecture/ <comment><USER2> So it's basically CAP theorem?

<comment><USER3> Not a db specialist by any means, but this seems orthogonal to CAP to me. CAP is about distributed databases, RUM is about the trade-offs between read and write speed and memory; can be single node database or distributed.

<comment><USER2> Oh, I agree with you. I'm not even saying that I disagree with RUM, but I'm just saying that it's too easy and possibly lazy to apply "Pick Three, Take Two" to other technical problems.</comment></comment></comment>


Serverless – Passing the Buck? Pt.2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.lunchbadger.com/serverless-passing-buck-pt-2/ <comment><USER2> Like the thought leadership. However predicting costs in Serverless environments can be a challenge. Infrastructure costs, even if elastic are more predictable. Thoughts on how to project spend or determining compute resources per function ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Very very true. Cost of compute is already published per cloud provider. For example, on AWS, it's currently first 1M is free. After that it's a million per $.20. At some point of volume depending on your use case there's going to be an inflection of just running your own container or VM. The bigger challenge here is tracking and understanding your usage as it pertains to your application, beyond the compute resources on a per call basis. We're intending on building governance and metering for infrastructure usage as part of our orchestration solution to help shed light on this area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Don't worry about the OS, focus on your App - interesting take on API's

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We think what we've built can potentially give you the best of both worlds. No one is going pigeonhole your entire API solution into just serverless infrastructure. But a portion of it can be and should be if you want the most efficient cost of compute and manageability.</comment></comment>


What Would Happen If Bernie Sanders Taxed Wall Street? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/what-would-happen-if-bernie-sanders-taxed-wall-street-1455359588?mod=e2fb <comment><USER2> I'm always puzzled by these kinds of articles. Under the U.S. system, the president can't tax anyone. To create new taxes or raise existing ones, Congress has to enact legislation. Since many legislators on both side of the aisle get a lot of campaign contributions from the financial industry, the chance of this kind of legislation passing is small. Also, Republicans currently have a majority of both houses of Congress, so if Sanders is elected he won't have an easy time getting any of his agenda enacted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Beyond the pure clerical duty of executing on existing laws, the President has both the right of legislative initiative and relatively unhindered communication channel with the nation (as opposed to being a Senator, Congressman or just a random activist, where it's just another voice out of many) to explain his case. The way the congressional and senatorial elections are structured, it's possible for a President with a plausible agenda to manipulate the public into electing cooperative legislators.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The problem is that he is saying he will only tax Wall Street, but it's pretty obvious to anyone with an interest in economics, that it won't stop there.

To fund everything he wants, everyone will be taxed.

He said one time that he wants the upper tax bracket (federal) to be 56%. With state+federal+local taxes, this means your actual tax rate will be closer to 75% (just like in Norway, which is what he wants to emulate).

It's strange that so many people criticize Trump for discriminating against minorities, when Sanders is doing the same thing.

The 1% is a minority in this country and his main plat form is taking everything he possible can away from them and using them as a scapegoat for everyone's problems.

I call it 'economic fascism'.

<comment><USER4> The 1% is a minority? Well then I guess so is the 49%!

Your wealth isn't a trait. You're not born wealthy, you're born into wealth. You're not stuck being wealthy, you make a choice every day to remain wealthy.</comment></comment>


Gas Delivery Startups Want to Fill Up Your Car Anywhere. Is That Allowed? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-02/gas-delivery-startups-want-to-fill-up-your-car-anywhere-is-that-allowed <comment><USER2> This is pretty rich: "If it was illegal, they would have and should have told us many months ago.""

How about getting some lawyers to ask the counties and cities before you do something like this? What's next, build a new hospital get some medschool droputs and when the authorities come investigating, tell them, well, we didn't know you had to hire actual physicians and have actual permits to run a hospital -we just want to offer cheap healthcare!

I would have little issue with these companies if they take the proper precautions regarding spills (hazmat) as well as have double hulled vessels which pass impact tests to ensure if they are involved in collision, you don't have a situation with flammable liquids spreading all over the place with a company with little of the way of cleanup experience as well as a way to keep liquids from spilling in the first place.

<comment><USER3> Portable solar EV charging would probably be safer.

<comment><USER4> Safer perhaps, but it would take a really big panel a really long time to give you even a few miles

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is not a good field for companies with the mantra of 'move fast and break things'.

Seriously though, the attitude with the companies here is pretty awful, and seems to be an unfortunate trend with certain types of startups. Do whatever you like, and hope you get big enough to withstand being sued, regardless of legality.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow. "We basically said, 'We strive to be safe in every way to the consumer, and this is exactly what we do, and we welcome dialog'"

Sounds like they are playing with fire (sorry). I sincerely hope that the laws are in place to send the principals to jail if they cause an injury.

</comment><comment> King-Aaron People will die, and then it will be the "government's fault."</comment>


Apache Whirr 0.7.0 Released - <AUTHOR> http://www.cloudsoftcorp.com/blog/apache-whirr-0-7-0-released/ Apache Whirr 0.7.0 is now available. This release contains 56 improvements and bug fixes created by the Whirr community. This release is notable as the first since Whirr graduated from Incubation to become a Top Level Project at the Apache Software Foundation. <comment><AUTHOR> Whirr is a library and a command line tool that can be used to run distributed services in the cloud. It simplifies the deployment of distributed systems on cloud infrastructure, allowing you to launch and tear-down complex cloud cluster environments with a single command.

Supported services currently include most of the components of the Apache Hadoop stack, elasticsearch, Apache Cassandra, Voldemort and Hama. Services can be deployed to Amazon EC2 and to Rackspace Cloud.</comment>


Microsoft Support: Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music - <AUTHOR> http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=261186

<comment><USER2> Considering this was developed in 1997, this is actually an ingenious way to get "Joe Q User" to call tech support. They boot up their computer, and music randomly starts to play, they get scared, shut down and call tech support. It certainly won't work every time, but considering that this has to happen all within BIOS while the CPU is melting, it's a reasonably good idea.

</comment><comment><USER3> "indication sent to the PC speaker from the computer's BIOS that the CPU fan is failing or has failed, or that the power supply voltages have drifted out of tolerance"

Should have made it play "Daisy, Daisy, tell me your answer do..."

</comment><comment><USER4> Fur Elise is cool, but playing "It's a small world" when you already have a hardware problem is just evil.

<comment><USER5> "It's a small world" hardly qualifies as classical music,either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm playing Portal 2 right now and just heard the line "Oh no. He's playing classical music." Fur Elise is playing. And it means exactly this! I would have never got the joke otherwise. But I suspect that was the reason this was posted.

<comment><USER7> It isn't Fur Elise that is playing it is Little Prelude in C Minor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The summary indicates that the music is played by the BIOS to indicate that the CPU fan is failing. I would have thought that it would be better to just play a warning beep; having music play randomly is a bit weird.

<comment><USER9> Once, a PC scared the shit out of me because the motherboard started talking at bootup (was a feature of Asus motherboards). But at least it was recognisable as an error message, just having music play randomly would be even more weird.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yet another instance where Macs are better (well, at least the old ones) ;)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g1-iPRw-5M&t=0m25s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g1-iPRw-5M&t=0m25s)

I had a Centris 660AV and I used to play that crash sound over and over, it was hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why not play a recording that actually said, "CPU fan failing, call tech support".

<comment><USER12> It's the same reason why we still have beep codes and LED status indicators on our motherboards: You don't need to localize Fur Elise.

<comment><USER13> In Greek, we call it "Για την Ελίζα".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A throwback to simpler times. Back then many datacenters were just a room where you had a couple of desks with some PC's on them. Maybe a Sun pizza box or 2. And people would be there to listen to the machine play "Fur Elise" when the power supply failed.

In today's datacenters where you have lines and lines of racks receding into infinity, and where you need to use hearing protection whenever you need to get in for 5 minutes to power-cycle some stubborn switch, I don't see a solution involving "Fur Elise" being too useful.

</comment><comment><USER15> Has anyone here ever come across this?

<comment><USER16> I had two old computers that would play the first 2.5 notes of Fur Elise every time they were power cycled, before the fan was completely spun up. I only figured out what it was after holding the fan one day and recognising the tune.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow. I thought Microsoft were too uncool to include stuff like this in their code.

<comment><USER18> It's in the bios so it would happen if you were running any OS. Evidence of MS coolness still eludes us.

<comment><USER19> how about the flight simulator easter egg in Excel? that was cool

microsoft always included cool easter eggs in their products

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_eggs_in_Microsoft_produc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_eggs_in_Microsoft_products)

<comment><USER20> Not anymore. After the lawsuit about including the web browser with the system they are no longer allowed to include undocumented features in their software. (citation needed)

<comment><USER21> no it wasn't then. It was around 2000 or so and more related to (as i remember) two things - securing government and enterprise contracts and public perception related to viruses and security. I was there as an employee in Visual Studio and distinctly remember the admonition from Brian Valentine that there were to be NO easter eggs in Win2K and on. They couldn't credibly say that they were in control of the security of the platform with people hiding doom levels in Excel and (in the case of Visual Studio) working slot machines...

<comment><USER20> Working slot machines? Please tell me more...

<comment><USER21> visual studio 6.0 - help | about, then ctrl-shift while double clicking the visual studio logo. the code name for the project was... vegas

EDIT: wow this isn't even on wikipedia. i feel like i'm revealing a MS secret. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Oh, so THAT'S what that is! BRB, calling tech support.

<comment><USER23> I think you meant

OH! Good thing I know how to fix this now, damn PC got Fur Elise stuck in m[NO CARRIER]

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I submitted this about 9 months ago...

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1552067></comment>


Ask HN: I just turned 30. Am I too old for an internship? - <AUTHOR>

I know that internships are typically given to recent graduates, so is it something I should look into or would I be better off working on "side" projects and try to get a job as a junior developer once I have something to show? Ceterus paribus, I would guess that the latter route is better overall, but the idea of working within a company on something that actually has users and revenue (or at least funding) has a lot of appeal.<p>FYI, I've been coding on and off for a few years, I consider myself an intermediate coder, and I just turned 30. Most recently I made this: fraze.meteor.com. (It's a knock-off of the game Catchphrase - get your team to guess the phrase (in my case it's just a word/idiom) before the time runs out. It gets random 'idioms' from the Wordnik API.) <comment><USER2> Lots of startups looking for new talent, so you should be able to land a job with some work. The app you linked to is probably too small to generate interest though. Have you considered something like Recurse ([https://www.recurse.com](https://www.recurse.com)) as a place to get some more reps as a coder and then using their services to find a job? That seems like the best bet if you have the resources to be able to spend the time there.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't heard of Recurse, but thanks for pointing me to it!

Also thanks for the feedback on the app. It is small, but it was the first complete web app I've made. I'll step it up for the next one!

<comment><USER2> Definitely awesome first effort. Just keep on sharpening your skill and good things will happen. Mentoring will help accelerate your curve, which is what Recurse (or just a developer friend) can help with it. Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am 28 but would never consider myself too old for an internship, but only if the internship is in my best interests.

For one, I would consider an internship if that was the only way to get hired at a company that I know I would like to work at. Maybe the company has great individuals that I will get to work along side?

Secondly, I would start by networking and try to get a paid position first as a juinor dev. I might be in a different position in life then you though; ie: two children and a wife in school.

<comment><USER4> Completely agree with @cgsmith. I did an internship at age 30: it was 2008, the economy was in the doldrums, and I was desperate to change the direction of my career. The internship lasted 6 months, I was obviously far more experienced (in terms of strategic thinking & organisational experience) than other interns, my boss and even the boss of my boss. Long story short, 6 months later I was hired by the company with a decent position, salary, and having completed my professional turnaround.

<comment><AUTHOR> So it's at least worth looking into. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You're absolutely not too old for an internship. I did two internships when I was 29, one of which led to full time employment.

Internships are tryouts---the company sees what you're like, you see what the company's like. I think they can be a great way to bolster your resume and potentially find long-term work.</comment>


Life is terrible: Lets talk about the web [video] - <AUTHOR> http://vimeo.com/111122950

<comment><USER2> High on humour, low on actual content. But very entertaining though.

<comment><USER3> I actually waited to hear something, anything, interesting. Remained dissapointed.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I attended this talk at öredev and had the same reaction. However, this year's conference was a general disappointment, so this was unfortunately one of the best talks I saw.</comment></comment></comment>


Stephen Hawking warns humans may have only 1,000 years left on Earth - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/17/stephen-hawking-warns-humans-may-have-only-1-000-years-left-on-e/ <comment><USER2> Why does the press lap up anything that Stephen Hawking says?

He is a brilliant physicist so I would definitely listen to his opinion in that specialist area. But he is not an expert on climate change, artificial intelligence or global extinction events. There are experts in those other areas that are worth listening to but just because Mr Hawking says something in those areas does not mean it is gold dust. If you want to know the possible dangers of AI then talk to Andrew Ng but Stephen Hawking is not your man. Would be listen to Kim Kardashian's opinion on climate change? I hope not as she is not qualified in that area, being well known does not mean you have expertise. Just an opinion and that opinion might be no better than the general public.

/RantOver

<comment><USER3> May be because he is aimed to find out objective truth but not to make money on lie

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's obvious that for our survival we need to become interplanetary species. It's only matter of time (doesn't matter if it' 200 years or 2000 years, it will happen eventually) until meteor (or other similar event) will hit earth and only primitive life will probably survive. There is a lot more of random natural extinction events that could eliminate human beings (meteors, super viruses etc.). Additionally we create our own problems that could threaten our existence (global warming) and how many more that we don't even know (our knowledge is limited) we created?

Getting on Mars is our best bet for now, as human race. If we can colonize Mars, this will double our chances of survival.

</comment><comment><USER5> Al Bielek told us that years ago :D</comment>