Spurious Justifications for Eliminating Price Caps on .org and Legacy Domains - <AUTHOR> http://www.circleid.com/posts/20190423_spurious_justifications_for_eliminating_caps_on_legacy_domains/ <comment><USER2> Couple of questions:

First, why does ICANN keep insist on picking on .org? In 2004, or thereabouts, .org owners saw a proposal to restrict that gTLD to just not-for-profit and community groups. Considering .org was originally listed as the gTLD for "this doesn't fit into any of the other categories" (back when we actually enforced that .net be a network operator and .com be a business), this would have booted a whole lot of individuals and unorganized groups out of the space. It was also the first gTLD to be foisted onto Verisign, though it got moved to Public Interest Registry in 2003.

Which brings up the second question, why would PIR want price caps to be removed for the .org gTLD? PIR is, supposedly, not-for-profit itself and is owned by the Internet Society, a _very_ not-for-profit group. Shouldn't PIR be pushing for .org fees to be as low as possible to sustain its mission of effectively operating the .org gTLD for as many people as it can? Shouldn't PIR be acting more like a credit union and less like a Verisign?

<comment><USER2> I found, in the linked article, a link another article (by the same author) that answers my second question, why PIR would want price caps to be removed: [https://domainnamewire.com/2019/04/24/how-icann-uses-the- org...](https://domainnamewire.com/2019/04/24/how-icann-uses-the-org-registry- to-fund-the-internet-society/)

My summary of that article is that the article assumes that the Internet Society (which owns PIR and was given .org as a way to fund ISOC's activities) has grown large enough--or may eventually grow large enough--that it considers its current funding levels inadequate and wants the price caps removed so it can receive even more funding. That article also points out that one non- profit, ISOC, is largely being funded by payments from other non-profits since .org is wildly popular in the non-profit space.

<comment><USER3> I see. The not-for-profit has grown from 8 people to over a hundred, and wants to become another corrupt, POS not-for-profit focused on executive fiefdoms and headcount, rather than doing any good.

They have a monopoly position on .org, and so are able to do so if they choose.

Seems like the right response is to cap price increases to 0%, or at most inflation, rather than the current 10%.

<comment><USER4> That is exactly what I imagined when I read that summary.

Dawut? We might not be able to run a profit, but we can certainly make sure to spend ever dollar spuriously.

<comment><USER3> I've been involved in several not-for-profits. The "not able to run a profit" part is a little bit misleading:

1) Base take-home salary is typically a million dollars for the CEO or similar senior positions. 2) A senior position also allows for massive additional sources of income.

Not-for-profits actually have far fewer legal restrictions than for-profits. For-profits run with a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value (source: extended conversations with a lawyer specializing in wealth management). If a not-for-profit engages in research to benefit a board member's business, or the not-for-profit launches a for-profit subsidiary, or otherwise, all that seems to be kosher. See Clinton and Trump foundations for an example of how most not-for-profits work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I saw Derrel Fincher, a Oklahoma House Representative, wrote a comment against the price cap removal. [1]

This was relatively interesting since I've never seen a politician participate in such a niche request for comment process.

[1] [https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/comments-org- renewal-18mar19/...](https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/comments-org- renewal-18mar19/2019q2/002697.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Every time the basics seem set, a bunch of rent seeking overlords arrive to destabilize everything. Verisign shouldn't have this power and should be penalized for trying this trick. They shouldn't be in a position to bottleneck basic internet infrastructural elements and in the spirit of the internet, we need alternatives to Verisign setup ASAP. A counter proposal is in order.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's so utterly obvious that this is not really about "allowing the market to discover prices".

For one, obviously, establishing a monopoly does not allow the market to discover prices.

But also, if they really wanted the market to discover prices, they would establish a market. Namely, they would allow potential registrars to bid on the yearly registration price, and then give the lowest (qualified) bidder a contract to run the domain for a few years, with that fixed registration price.

As it is, this is like handing over the street network of a city to a private owner "for better prices discovery". It's just crazy.

<comment><USER8> > Namely, they would allow potential registrars to bid on the yearly > registration price, and then give the lowest (qualified) bidder a contract > to run the domain for a few years, with that fixed registration price.

This is sort of how it used to work. NSF created and funded InterNIC and contracted its operation to Network Solutions. The cost of registering a domain was $0.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is not even about the price caps. This is about the direct transfer of value from the public to a single company. That's not acceptable. If they had to buy .com or .org they would have to pay billions. We cannot just give this away for free.

I lived in the third world and this was so common there. Some company would infiltrate neutral arbiters or government offices and those places would then pass off public goods to the company under some spurious excuse. That company then immediately gets billions of dollars in value.

That's insane. It's straightforward corruption.

<comment><USER10> .com itself is probably worth 100s of billions. A new Big Four...

There are more than 100M .com domains. An average price of $100/year would leave sites with no other option than to pay.

So, that's a $10bn/year business with very very high margins. Worth 100s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder what the chances of an alternate organization simply starting a new .org registry would be if this actually happens? Would this be bad enough that the world would be willing to simply ignore ICANN on the question of who is responsible for .org?

Or rather, maybe not ignore it, but simply add a secondary recognized authoritative zone that gets asked when ICANN's registrar returns an NXDOMAIN? Then, the Red Cross, say, could simply use trademark law to prevent ICANN's registrar from handing out the domain to anyone, and register it themselves through the alternate registrar at a reasonable price?

</comment><comment><USER11> Comments close in one day, you can submit one at [https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org- renewal-2019-03-18...](https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org- renewal-2019-03-18-en)

<comment><AUTHOR> Also:

[https://www.icann.org/public-comments/info- renewal-2019-03-1...](https://www.icann.org/public-comments/info- renewal-2019-03-18-en)

[https://www.icann.org/public-comments/biz- renewal-2019-04-03...](https://www.icann.org/public-comments/biz- renewal-2019-04-03-en)

<comment><USER12> .info and .biz are not as valuable as .org in my opinion. I don't really mind price changes on those 2, but I certainly think .org has a higher purpose than providing a TLD in exchange for money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> ELI5 version: [https://www.namecheap.com/blog/keep-domain-prices-in- check/](https://www.namecheap.com/blog/keep-domain-prices-in-check/)

I have a .org domain, but I don't know much about the Domain Name System at all so I did Google search and found that article quite helpful. Maybe someone else will too?

</comment><comment><USER14> >If Verisign were to charge him $10 million per year to renew the tucows.com domain name despite "the bile that would rise" in his stomach he would likely pay that renewal fee because it is only through Verisign that he can obtain the tucows.com domain name and because the domain name is that vital to his business.

Would it be in the company's interest to sue ICANN at that point?

<comment><USER15> Sue them on what grounds?

<comment><USER16> I wonder if trademark law would kick in at that point.

<comment><USER7> I suspect it would not. Not until they handed the domain to someone else, that is. You might be able to force them to not give it to anyone else, maybe, but I'd be susprised if you could force them to give it to you.

<comment><USER17> You can force other people who have domains you want to turn them over to you in a trademark suit. Forcing a registrar to do it isn't quite the same thing -- the registrar isn't parallel to you, it's one level up -- but it's not quite different either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No way. This is awful. They cannot be allowed to do this. What do we have to do to stop this insanity? These companies don't own the namespace. They are in charge of delivering a service that resolves the namespace.

This is not at all correct. ICANN must not do this!

<comment><USER17> > These companies don't own the namespace. They are in charge of delivering a > service that resolves the namespace.

Matt Levine likes to write about different concepts of business ownership, such as...

\- You own all the company's stock.

\- You are legally listed as the owner on a piece of paper somewhere.

\- You know all the company passwords.

\- Everyone at the company recognizes your authority.

\- You have the keys to the office.

All of those are more or less independent of each other and give you different kinds of control.

In a very real sense, if you resolve the namespace, then you own the namespace.

<comment><USER9> Sure, in the sense that GitHub owns my code. But if Microsoft take the stuff in my private repo and sell it to someone else, I'm going to kick up a fuss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Isn't this exactly the type of situation that USA antitrust law is supposed to penalize? Controlling .org is a monopoly. Rising prices is exploiting that monopoly and is detrimental to customers.

Seems like it should be easy to show in court. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER19> > Am I missing something?

Modern anti-trust law isn't about punishing monopolies per se. Its primary focus is on consumer harm (direct or indirect). It is not against anti-trust law to exploit a monopoly. Microsoft, Google, Intel, Cisco, eBay, Google, Facebook, SiriusXM, and a thousand other companies (at various sizes at the local, regional and national levels) in the US do exactly that every day.

An anti-trust case would need to prove a given action is particularly harmful. The extent of the monopoly exploitation and harm is where the case is argued. It's very much a subjective doctrine and always has been. Any company raising prices will argue that they're doing so in a very reasonable manner, and then will set out to demonstrate that it's reasonable (based on any favorable comparisons they can make).

<comment><USER4> All .org organizations suddenly switching to a different domain name seems like a fantastic definition of harm to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> [https://www.itu.int/](https://www.itu.int/)

These people should probably be in charge of icann / everything currently in icann's domain.

<comment><USER21> Y'know, I tried to search for opinions on ITU vs ICANN, but I couldn't find much signal amongst the noise - mostly handwavey arguments about how only the US can be trusted to uphold freedom and handing the control(s) of the Internet over to godless foreigners will lead to totalitarianism, yadda yadda. Do you know of any good writing on the subject?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The public comment system is moderated, so any comments that do not get approved by the moderator will not be published.

This is exactly how you get foul play. Far from a vote, this process stinks of all kind of potential for corruption.

</comment><comment><USER23> The internet community needs come come up with an alternative domain registry system, one that completely removes middlemen. Did I hear someone echo "blockchain"?

<comment><USER24> What decides who gets a name in a "blockchain" DNS? The first to squat on the name? The one to waste the most electricity doing meaningless computations? The highest bidder?

<comment><USER23> Same existing methods that are used today could be used to prevent squatting, eg 'commit-reveal' Vickery style auction, in that way the domains do not go for the highest price (The highest bidder wins but the price paid is the second-highest bid).

<comment><USER25> So basically, there is a middleman, taking auction bids which are a lot higher than .com renewal fees...

<comment><USER23> Not when it's built in to the protocol itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is this related to the 2016 story of how "Obama handed over control of the internet" ?</comment>


PyTorch or TensorFlow? - <AUTHOR> https://awni.github.io/pytorch-tensorflow/ <comment><USER2> Some of this is a tad outdated. For instance, PyTorch has vastly improved their device management APIs in their recent 0.4 release.</comment>


How to Setup an Apache Server with SSL (and Get an A+) - <AUTHOR> https://dsgn.io/thoughts/post/set-up-your-apache-server-with-ssl <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone!

After kinda setting up one server for SSL, and my "business card" site over the weekend, I ran into a couple of roadblocks and took notes as I went along. I then discovered SSL Labs' test to make sure your server was properly protected, so I decided to take on a new challenge: set up SSL on the very server this blog post is on, and make it pass with flying colors.

I hope this helps someone, the process was arduous at times.</comment>


Ask HN: Has someone disrupted the burial business? - <AUTHOR> It's time for me to buy a burial plot or 7 (me, the spouse, other family members). Here's what I wanted to do: go online and get the price of plots near me. Here's what I had to do instead: Fill out forms and sit through a screening phone call for the pleasure of making an appointment with a sales person and getting a link to a video on "the benefits of preplanning".<p>Please tell me YC has funded someone to make this process more automated and less icky. They'll get my business, that's for sure. <comment><USER2> You can check out Ever Loved: [https://everloved.com/](https://everloved.com/)

It's an online tool for funeral planning. They have a marketplace for caskets, urns, headstones, etc.

Article here: [https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/12/casket-prices-ever- loved/](https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/12/casket-prices-ever-loved/)

I first heard about Ever Loved from this Hacker News discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22314381](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22314381)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the referral! Sadly it turns out they're only for online memorials. There's no "find a plot" feature, which I'm trying to find.</comment></comment>


How to Get Great WiFi When You're Working Outdoors - <AUTHOR> https://www.insidehook.com/article/internet/wifi-outdoors <comment><USER2> Save you a click:

Buy a WiFi range extender and out it as close as possible to the door/window</comment>


Side projects of famous artists - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/a1fe31a9-46d9-45a6-9322-1857476b60b5 <comment><USER2> I was hoping this would be "famous artists" in the more traditional sense (Michaelangelo, Ed Hopper, etc), but it's the "celeb side hustles" of Keanu Reeves, Beyonce, etc instead.

<comment><USER3> I am hoping this comment section could become that.

Does anyone have examples they can contribute?

Mine is Thomas Jefferson, who basically invented Mac & Cheese. Or at least became the first importer of it to the United States.

[https://www.theodysseyonline.com/thomas-jeffersons-mac- chees...](https://www.theodysseyonline.com/thomas-jeffersons-mac-cheese- obsession)</comment></comment>


How a Weather App is created using AngularJS - <AUTHOR> http://codepen.io/keyurparalkar/full/QKjQpg/ <comment><USER2> All I see when visiting this page is an infinitely changing background color and ℃. Was this what was intended?

I am on Windows 10 and am using Google Chrome 53.0.2785.101 m (64-bit).</comment>


Show HN: Carom Analytics – Free, actionable metrics for Stripe - <AUTHOR> http://carom.io/stripe

<comment><AUTHOR> We extracted Carom Analytics from the CRM we're working on, and we're releasing it for free since we've seen a lot of interest in actionable Stripe metrics--customer LTV, churn rates, etc. I'm happy to answer any questions and would welcome any feedback.</comment>


PuTTY 0.64 released, fixing a security hole - <AUTHOR> http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

<comment><USER2> Kind of off topic:

Is there a secure way to download PuTTY? They are hosting on a http page. Though they provide RSA and DSA signatures how would I verify the signatures themselves? I'm kind of new to walking through trust paths. I don't even have any entry point too since nobody I know use public key encryption (I trust the Debian keys already though since I use their distro, maybe I can use that for a starting point?).

My best bet would be to download the signatures and keys from different mirrors and sources to limit the possibility of a successful targeted MITM attack.

<comment><USER3> _> Though they provide RSA and DSA signatures how would I verify the signatures themselves?_

Ideally, it goes something like this --

1\. Start with the master keys. Download them from their website & import them into your keyring.

2\. Fetch signatures for those keys from some key servers. (E.g. gpg --recv- keys 6A93B34E).

3\. Examine the signatures (E.g. gpg --list-sigs 6A93B34E). Do you trust anybody in that list to have verified the ownership of the keys?

If "yes", then import the release keys and verify that _they_ have been signed by the master keys. You can use the release keys to verify the downloaded binary.

If "no", then you might recurse down those keys to see if you know anyone who signed any of _them_. At this point, you'll need to consider very carefully what your trust policy is going to be.

<comment><USER2> > _3\. Examine the signatures (E.g. gpg --list-sigs 6A93B34E). Do you trust > anybody in that list to have verified the ownership of the keys?_

Well what if I don't know if I can trust them. Also I couldn't possibly verify them in person so I need to recursively walk through the signing keys to find a trusted signature. Isn't there an easy cli command for this? All I could find are online path finders.

<comment><USER4> Easy it's not, but since you trust the debian keys already, you could import keys from the debian-keyring - I'm sure there's a path from those to the putty maintainers'. Here's a somewhat detailed description I just found, for how to do such a thing [https://tails.boum.org/doc/get/trusting_tails_signing_key/in...](https://tails.boum.org/doc/get/trusting_tails_signing_key/index.en.html#index3h1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used to be a huge PuTTY (or derative) user, but recently, I've switched to just using the normal OpenSSH command-line client within Cygwin and ConEmu.

While PuTTY is nice, it lacks some features, like proxycommands and stuff which are standard in ~/.ssh/config. Things which can be taken along in a simple & portable fashion.

No disrespect to PuTTY, but I just found myself not really needing it anymore.

<comment><USER6> I prefer XShell5.

[http://www.netsarang.com/products/xsh_overview.html](http://www.netsarang.com/products/xsh_overview.html)

<comment><USER7> Nice try, XShell employee.

I doubt that anyone is going to take $90/year closed source payware over well known FOSS like OpenSSH or PuTTY here at HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another security hole of PuTTY is downloads being served over non-SSL.

I should know better and check the sigs using PGP and checksums, but on Windows this is such a drag that I just end up whispering hallelujah praise the Lord, and hoping for the best.

I know it's my fault, but I'd still like SSL :(

<comment><AUTHOR> > but on Windows this is such a drag that

Get the keybase.io client, it sets up your GPG pretty nicely. I was able to confirm the downloads on Windows using the standard ``gpg --verify putty.DSA.asc`` and it just worked(tm) in a cmd.exe window. Using the keybase client does not, however, as the signing key for the putty binaries is not on keybase.

Not saying anything about how much sense it makes to verify the downloads, just saying that it does work well on Windows, without any cygwin, mingw or whatever.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for the howto, I'll give this a try next time. Looks much more approachable than I feared.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It would have been better if the 0.64 release had been pulled, the fixed 0.64 release should have been named 0.65.

</comment><comment><USER10> The official git client for windows support ssl, openssl, scp, ... , much more powerful than putty.

<comment><USER11> Do you have a workaround for having to run them in a `cmd` or `powershell` window? Those are worse than the old terminals in many cases.

<comment><USER5> ConEmu, MinTTY or similar terminals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Do you know a SSH client that can share configs cross-platform? So I can define my connections once, and use on Windows/OSX/*nix?

<comment> iso8859-1 OpenSSH does this, no? Just use it in Cygwin.</comment></comment>


Is algolia having problems? - <AUTHOR> Is algolia[0] having problems?  About half the searches I've tried to run today have resulted in 404 responses, with success on a second attempt a few seconds later.<p>Anyone else?<p>[0] https://hn.algolia.com <comment><USER2> It seems there is an issue with the underlying reverse proxy; we're investigating.</comment>


Millionaire's Math - <AUTHOR> http://foreverjobless.com/ev-millionaires-math/

<comment><USER2> Learn more about Expected Value (EV): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value)

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to use a similar method to remove risk from projects. I'd take my hourly estimate, multiple by the percentage I felt I was right, and come up with a total.

</comment><comment><USER4> love this article</comment>


Why the Greenwich meridian moved - <AUTHOR> http://leapsecond.com/pages/meridian/

<comment><USER2> Explain it like I'm five version : a plumb bob at the Greenwich observatory doesn't point at the center of mass of the earth. This is because of different densities of rocks below the surface, and of mountains on the surface, and so on. Prior to the satellite era, the meridian plane was defined to be parallel to local surface gravity at Greenwich (so the plumb bob string lies in the meridian plane) and perpendicular to the rotation of the earth as determined by observations of stars. When satellites started to be used, the new meridian plane was kept parallel to the original but moved over to go through the center of mass of the earth. The center of mass of the earth is a nice reference point for satellites orbiting the planet. The new system chose to keep noon (the time when the sun is directly overhead, as measured by local gravity direction) at Greenwich fixed instead of keeping the location of the meridian line fixed. That was because lots of people depended on the Greenwich Mean Time standard and not so many people depended on the exact longitudinal coordinates of any location, which prior to GPS had been very hard to measure anyway.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. You are not explaining it like we are five, but as if we were humans.

The explanation in the article is a non explanation, "look at me how smart I am that could obfuscate knowledge, so I look smarter".

<comment><USER4> Re your second sentence, I think it's unfair to attack the author in this way. By my reading, the author didn't attempt took describe the discrepancy and just included the abstract of a paper that does. We should thank the author for their best effort.

This touches me because I've often been in the situation where my explanation was inadequate, and I was accused of trying to sound smart. We shouldn't be too eager to take people down a notch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This story was on BBC yesterday and it surprised me: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33919429](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33919429)

      Researchers have revealed how the Prime Meridian line came to be placed about
      100 metres away from the true divide between east and west.

      It was worked out in the 1980s using GPS technology that the famous landmark at
      Greenwich was in the wrong place.

      The original calculations in [the] 1880s did not take into account the earth's
      contours, according to a new study by astronomers at the University of Virginia.

That page is mainly a video BTW. If you want to watch it in Firefox [0] or Safari [1] without Flash Player then I've written up some guides.

[0] [https://unop.uk/dev/how-to-watch-bbc-news-videos-on-a- deskto...](https://unop.uk/dev/how-to-watch-bbc-news-videos-on-a-desktop- without-flash-in-firefox/)

[1] [https://unop.uk/dev/how-to-watch-bbc-news-videos-on-a- deskto...](https://unop.uk/dev/how-to-watch-bbc-news-videos-on-a-desktop- without-flash-in-safari/)

<comment><USER6> $ youtube-dl '[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33919429'](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33919429')

<comment><USER5> Didn't realise you could do that.

[https://github.com/get-iplayer/get_iplayer](https://github.com/get- iplayer/get_iplayer) is quite good too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Airy ellipsoid is still used by the Ordnance Survey in Great Britain. (Northern Ireland has a different national grid based on a different geodetic system.) WGS84 may be increasingly "the standard", but it isn't the only geodetic system in widespread use. ETRS89 is anchored to the European continental plate, and is therefore slowly drifting out of sync with WGS84.

<comment> david-given The more I learn about mapping, geodetic systems and elipsoids, the more I am coming to the conclusion that deciding to live on a planet made out of squishy goo was a bad idea.

<comment><USER8> It is commonly thought that life would be much harder on a volcanically- inactive world due to the fact the volcanic activity cycles nutrients on a geological time-frame that would otherwise tend to collect on the bottom of the ocean. See [http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/page2....](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/page2.php) for instance, though it doesn't quite make this exact point, you can see how it might be a problem if all the carbon on a planet is locked up in rocks on the ocean floor after a mere 250 million years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Living close to Greenwich, when I was testing a bluetooth GPS receiver (in the days when phones didn't include them), I spent a few puzzled minutes wondering if it was working. Zero longitude seemed suspicious.

<comment><USER10> This is wonderful, not only because I can see my house on the screenshots, but because I've wondered about the exact same thing.

However, it turns out that my house is on the fake, tourist meridian line now. I can live with that. (-:

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're interested in the historical setting of Longitude (and why it's in Greenwich to begin with), I highly recommend Dava Sobel's _Longitude_: [http://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Genius-Greatest- Scientific-P...](http://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Genius-Greatest-Scientific- Problem/dp/080271529X/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Link to the actual paper: [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00190-015-0844-y](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00190-015-0844-y)

</comment><comment><USER13> Ha, just a month or two ago I was asking one of the local experts about the exact same thing.

It got so technical that he advised me to continue my enquiries with the astronomers at the Royal Observatory.

Unfortunately it was a Saturday morning and, as you know, they were all in bed after yet another crazy all nighter.

</comment><comment><USER14> I had a stroll there a few months ago: [https://igcdn-photos- a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/t51.28...](https://igcdn-photos- a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak- xfa1/t51.2885-15/10785082_1512005252407496_613113322_n.jpg) left leg in the western and right leg in the eastern hemisphere.

</comment><comment><USER15> Null Island is a (fictional :) island in the Gulf of Guinea, located where the equator crosses the prime meridian, at coordinates 0°N 0°E: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island)

</comment><comment><USER16> Tom Scott did a good video on this exact thing. The video goes into more detail than the webpage if you don't want to read the 10 page paper.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmvHZ4omB2A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmvHZ4omB2A)

</comment><comment><USER17> My favourite explanation of projections is by the Ordnance Survey (PDF). It looks at things from a practical rather than academic perspective.

[https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/docs/support/guide- coordina...](https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/docs/support/guide-coordinate- systems-great-britain.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER18> > Here at latitude 51.5° and given an Earth circumference of roughly 40,000 km > — one degree of longitude is 69 km

The math is wrong here. If the earth circumference is 40,000 km, then divide by 360 to get one degree equals 110 km. I notice dividing by 1.6 gives 69 miles, so perhaps there's a units error here.

<comment><USER19> One degree is 40,000 km / 360 = 111 km at the equator. But Greenwich is at 51 degrees latitude so you apply a cos (51.5°) = 0.622 factor. That's why 1 degree of longitude at latitude 51 is 69 km. Does that help clear it up?

Note also if you're walking in a circle 57 meters from the monument at the South pole, then each 1 m step you take crosses one degree of longitude. Google for: south pole ceremonial sphere

<comment><USER18> Thanks, I didn't think about it too hard.</comment></comment></comment>


Photograph Your Work - <AUTHOR> https://etbe.coker.com.au/2019/01/06/photograph-your-work/ <comment><USER3> It's definitely a good idea, and an easy way of taking notes from a screen in situations where copy-paste is not available. Or from oscilloscopes or other instruments. Just one thing to beware if your phone is synced to Google Photos:

> ""By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a > perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license > to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly > display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or > through, the Services.""

<comment><USER4> They changed that a couple of years ago.

[https://policies.google.com/terms#toc- content](https://policies.google.com/terms#toc-content)

<comment><USER3> > "you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, > store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting > from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content > works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, > publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this > license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving > our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you > stop using our Services"

<comment><USER5> Any photos you sync to Google can be publicly displayed for google's promotional purposes?

That doesn't sound great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is also true for any mechanical work on vehicles that you're not too familiar with. You will always underestimate how forgetful you'll get after even one day. When rebuilding or even performing small mechanical tasks on a motorcycle, I always photograph and label every new state of the motorcycle and link that photograph to the corresponding parts (nuts, bolts, gaskets etc) in chronological order. And even then somehow I find myself getting lazy in the process and think that I'll remember this little step or location of the part.

<comment><USER7> I often take short videos with narration after removing parts, especially noting where they came from and where they were placed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Off topic, but I photograph everything around the house - windows, rooms, walls, cabinets. I include measurements in my photos so that if I ever need to buy something but not sure how it fits or how it will look, I reference my photos. I also take photos of all consumable products in the case where they run out or break, I can pull up a photo of what I purchased and re-purchase it again, knowing it will work / fit as needed.

</comment><comment><USER9> This has served me very well for decades. Many datacenters will not allow photographs, but if you ask they will usually allow you to photograph your own equipment as long as it is only pictures of your own gear.

Years ago I was managing 10 racks, and I built some scripts to automate turning an SD card filled with images into HTML pages. I would bring in my midrange Nikon DSLR and take photos of the cabinets (upper, mid, lower, both front and back). These high quality photos allowed for high zoom levels that often came in handy. We had facility staff thank us for sending photos with our work requests on remote hands issues.

Now I watch youtube videos with people taking apart and repairing electrical and car related things and think "It sure could be handy to have a full video record of repair work."

I've also been remodeling my house and have taken copious photos of the work, both to help the inspectors, and for future work.

My brother in law just had a house water damage issue and several rooms were torn down to the studs. I recommended he take photos while the walls were open, for future reference.

There's a great use case for taking lots of photos.

<comment><USER10> I once installed a CPU onto a motherboard; the resulting machine didn't boot, and the initial attempts at root-causing the issue implicated the motherboard, so I arranged for it to be RMA'd. However, that meant the CPU needed to come _out_ of the socket, and a small plastic placeholder that protects the pins in the socket needed to go back in. I did _not_ take photos of it prior to removing it, and afterwards I really wish I had. This manufacturer appears to have made two different iterations, slightly different around just this area, with the same model number. The manual's instructions (which were written in broken English, b/c China…) were wrong (they were for the other version), and directly contacting customer support got me the same instructions. The pictures in the manual didn't match the hardware in front of me, so even that didn't help.

I eventually "intuited" how it fit together, but I caused damage to the pins in doing so. A single photo of the assembled version would have really helped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've got terrible eyes, and I've also used my camera phone to zoom in on tiny serial numbers. Sometimes it's enough to use the built-in zoom for magnification; sometimes I actually snap a pic and zoom it after.

I've got a desk in a co-working space with a locking cabinet underneath that has a godawful (three-wheel, not dial) combination lock that is impossible to read in low light. Worse, the dials are chrome so shining a light on it produces specular highlights that make it even harder to distinguish the numbers. I regularly have to snap a photo of the lock, zoom in, and adjust the wheels based on the photo.

<comment><USER12> Even if you have good vision, a phone is useful when you need to look at something that is in a cramped space, e.g. behind a wall mounted TV.

<comment><USER13> Or if something is at an odd angle. I once had to grab the model number of a transformer mounted in a chime box that was mounted over a set of stairs - <USER2> simply setup a ladder by the railing and used my phone to grab a few photos of the entire box.

<comment><USER14> Yes, I've held my phone through a small hole drilled in a ceiling to locate a dripping water pipe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Slightly off topic but I've noticed all the good contractors I've hired in recent years take photographs of their work after they have finished. I'm beginning to think it might be worth asking to see the photos before they start as a filter.

<comment><USER16> I get the feeling that asking that would be confusing correlation and causation. Do you know whether the bad contractors take photographs too?

Although your method is bullet-proof in one sense: if a contractor agrees to show you pictures of other clients' infrastructure, you might not want to hire someone who is such a security risk :)

<comment><USER15> Well I was thinking more about people that do work around the house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I run timesnapper on my windows computer, it records a video of everything on my computer for the entire day. In the event I need to reproduce errors for sysadmin work

Whenever I have to debug / gut components out from my PC, you pretty much had to take pictures. Especially if you need to determine which point of failure you have (hardware, or software related).

<comment><USER18> Great idea, I'm starting that too now. Thanks for the suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yes, this is equally important when repairing some electronic gadgets with tens of little screws and interlocking parts, etc.

</comment><comment><USER20> Great article.

I've never thought of using slo-mo video to capture overly fast error messages.

</comment><comment><USER21> The sentiment is correct, but there are a number of caveats depending on the nature of the work.

Dealing with any data that is defined under a compliance policy of some kind, for instance.

</comment><comment><USER22> Having grown up in digital scarcity or perhaps 'photo poverty', one of the things I've had to learn after getting a smartphone is to take more photos, at the drop of a hat, for anything I might want to recall later. Caption on artwork? Photo. Item at grocery store? Photo. Interesting cat posture? Photo. Where I parked in a parking garage or giant parking lot? Photos.

Gives one a hint of how useful good lifelogging could be.

</comment><comment><USER23> I keep a daily log of all my work with screenshots and phone pics along with a narrative. It has saved me countless times.

</comment><comment><USER24> As an admin I will _never_ _ever_ put ssh private keys on any kind of mobile crap. I have no control on it, I can't trust it in any way.

However yes, I like photograph not only to fix for future reference something but also to document what I'm doing, and also other kind of logging, sometimes useful if something goes wrong not because of me but someone like to say it's because of me...

And for that a traditional pocket voice recorder is really good, plus eventual camera on it :-)

</comment><comment><USER25> Similar thing, but I once needed to see the readout of a binary transmission coming at a baud rate of 31250Hz using a low quality (and hence minimal featured) oscilliscope. The individual bits were too fast to see in real time, so I used to slow-mo camera to record it, and got what I needed.

</comment><comment><USER26> Definitely do this. It's incredibly handy to be able to send a video to support of a startup sequence failing or some other hard to describe scenario. Only point of caution I'd raise is if any confidential information is contained in the images. I know one data centre that forbid cameras within the aisles.

</comment><comment><USER27> Unrelated to the content, but related to the website, Cisco Umbrella / OpenDNS tells me that etbe.coker.com.au is blocked due to a security threat. Yet, I threw the URL at VirusTotal and Google Safe Browsing and they both returned with a clean analysis. Either Cisco TALOS is ahead of the curve, or way off.

</comment><comment><USER28> I always photograph (and sometimes even record video) of the build process of all my sculptures and carvings. They more than anything else help me reflect on my work and avoid the same pitfalls the next time.

</comment><comment><USER29> Saved me a few times when doing laptop surgery!</comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone take the risk to work on private projects from workplace? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I have many private project ideas and i'm working on some but it's just impossible for me to have a full time job + personal projects + wife & kid. I wonder what are people doing about it? I would like to work on it from workplace but maybe they have keyloggers and stuff like this? I don't know... Should I take the risk? does anyone take this risk? I mean I wouldn't want to sit in work and work on my private projects but if I finish my day job at 19:00 then I would like to spend another hour on my private projects, what do you think? <comment><USER2> > Should I take the risk?

No.

> does anyone take this risk?

Quite probably yes, but that doesn't make it right, or smart.

Is there any way you can work 1 day per week part-time and devote that to your private stuff or do it after hours ?

If you get fired from your day job you'll have all the time in the world but that probably wasn't what you had in mind.

Also, technically your employer would own what you made, so it really isn't a good idea.

If it isn't possible, it isn't possible, but I'm pretty sure that that is just a matter of degree, I'm sure there is at least a 1/2 hour per day or maybe a Sunday morning early when you can work on your own stuff.

Or maybe at night?

But you'll have to learn how to do with less sleep, and that's not for everyone.

<comment><USER3> First, let me say that I agree it's usually a bad idea.

But...

Not everyone works as a software developer and there are many jobs where coding while you work isn't a detriment to doing a good job. Any job where workers bring in books & magazines to pass the time is a candidate here. I knew someone who was a plant engineer at a water treatment plant. His job consisted basically of being onsite in case there was an emergency. And he managed to bang out a nifty niche application while working there, along with upgrades! (not surprisingly, the app was based on automated monitoring of process systems...) His boss simply didn't care, since he had done that job himself and knew that it really didn't require much attention.

So: generally not a good idea, but in some specific instances it can work out OK.

<comment><USER2> You're absolutely right. But when the OP stared about 'keyloggers' and stuff like that I assumed a technical environment comparable to the stuff he'd be doing for himself.

Bad assumption, I should have asked. Thanks for pointing it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Keyloggers are unlikely to be particularly useful in this case, but if you imagine you are being keylogged, then you can take appropriate steps to mask your behaviour.

Other than that, I would advise sshing somewhere remote and keeping all of your private project stuff there (i.e. work on it remote - don't keep local copies).

<comment><USER5> Or if your lazy and a web programmer you can do everything through a portable app on a USB key. www.portableapps.com including a web server. Thus giving you the power to work on stuff without the pain of moving it everytime you leave work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As an employer I would say bad idea. If your employer does not pay you your last salary you will claim that he stole money from you. By working on a private project at work you are actually stealing money from him.

Late nights were made for private jobs!

<comment><USER7> That might be overly simplistic. The three issues I see are:

1) Company hardware. Don't use theirs since it's unethical without permission, and even with permission, your employment contract might give them rights to your work.

2) Time. Just because you're in the office doesn't mean you are on their time, but if you are, then that's unethical too.

3) Space. If you've satisfied the first two conditions, it seems like little harm is done and little risk assumed by working on your own laptop on your own time while in the office.

Lastly, I'd worry more about network monitoring than keystroke loggers. If you attach your laptop to their network, you're still using their company resources to do your work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You could try some of the techniques in Tim Ferriss's 4 Hour Workweek. Basically it involves negotiating a deal to work from home 1 day a week to start, and eventually fulltime. Make sure you are more efficient on this day off than the other 4 days. He suggests hiring a virtual private assistant to handle the more trivial aspects of your job, for a few dollars an hour.

While you are "working from home" you can work on your side projects. Even if you don't hire a virtual assistant, you'll save plenty of time without the distractions of work (water cooler talk, commute time, etc), that you should have an extra 10-20 hours a week.

<comment><USER2> But with a wife & kid around the 'distractions of work' will be replaced with the 'distractions of home'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Get a better paid job. As a consultant, you could work a couple of months for clients and the rest of the year on your own stuff.

Personally I think working on the job is a bad idea. usually it will give your employer the rights to your private project.

<comment><USER5> Get a better paid job? The year 2000 is calling and it want's it's reality bubble back.

<comment><USER9> Developers were still in high demand after the year 2000.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why not just get a laptop and go out to the nearest coffee shop / library / whatever?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a very good idea. Will be useful I think only after the day has ended right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yup. I'm doing it right now.</comment>


Show HN: OMW (On My Way) – Help Eliminate Texting and Driving - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/omw-on-my-way-share-your-location/id874599912?mt=8

<comment><USER2> Just tried it and it works great. One thing I would like to see in this space is the same thing but then for plane travelers. It's very common to update your parents and family before, during (if you have stopovers) and after the trip.

<comment><AUTHOR> great to hear, thanks for trying it out.

we've been considering adding flights as a feature, what would be the easiest way to enter your destination: flight#, airport code?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nicely done. Have been wanting this app to exist for at least a year.

</comment><comment><USER4> See also Glympse a Seattle area startup working on ephemeral location sharing.

<comment><USER5> This is much simpler to use than Glympse.

Think of it like this.

It's like waiting for your Uber driver to arrive except it's someone you love :)</comment></comment>


Schema.org: Mission, Project, Goal, Objective, Task - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/schemaorg/schemaorg/issues/1127 <comment><USER2> Schema.Org is an OpenDomain!

This is the story of how I got a $20,000 T-shirt: I received a call a few years ago from a domain broker offering to buy the domain Schema.org. I tried to tell her that I do not sell domains, I let people use them to support Open source or charities. They must of thought I was negotiating, because they kept on raising the offer - all the way to $20,000! I admit - I am not rich and I was tempted. I could have used that money to help send my kids to college, but I wanted to do the right thing, so I told her no. She then told me it as GOOGLE that wanted the domain - I think she was expecting me to make a demand for $1 million or something, but she was very surprised that I gave it to them for FREE. A few weeks later, I received a box in the mail from Google with a very nice T-shirt. Every time I wear it, my wife calls it the "$20,000" Tshirt.

Proof: [http://schema.org/docs/faq.html#17](http://schema.org/docs/faq.html#17)

<comment><USER3> So... Why didn't you just take the money? I'm confused. Like you said, you could have sent your kids to college, but instead you chose to deny them that?

<comment><USER4> I'm kind of stunned, too.

> software developers are as a demographic cohort terrible at negotiating - > tptacek > [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7612100](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7612100)

His wife sounds justifiably annoyed. Google isn't a charity, $20-50k means _far_ more to you than it does to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can someone explain to me how this fits into Schema.org's core mission (which, as I understand it, is basically to provide a lightweight ontological overlay on pages to assist search engines)? This seems like an attempt to build a formal project-management ontology for systems that will never get indexed by Google -- an effort that might benefit more from the Basic Formal Ontology as a starting point.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't have to be webpages. I know gmail already uses schema.org for parsing flights, reservations, appointments etc from inbound mail. So it's not a huge leap to assume this could be used to mail todo,milestones etc to a contributor, and have something at the other end know what to do with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> so basically you make your site easier readable by search engines which in turn extract the data from your site stealing your traffic?

for example if you search for something on google, you get a preview in a box of the main info with a link to the original article (e.g. on wikipedia, imdb etc depending on what you search for), in most cases you no longer need to visit the original link.

<comment><USER8> There are always two ways to look at things.

In the case of Wikipedia and similar high-traffic websites, it probably takes a bit of the load off. It's probably a considerable saving in terms of serving requests if a user searches for an actor they think they recognise from a movie and see a snippet from Google served from Google's cache rather than a full pageview from Wikipedia.

In the case of physical stores and offices, I would imagine that a check for opening hours or telephone number shouldn't be counted as a pageview -> conversion anyway — they already chose you i.e. converted. Maybe they're a returning customer or somebody who liked the email marketing you sent them.

Is Google Maps stealing traffic from you by showing your business on the map? Maybe, but they're also doing you a favour. Neither Google nor Google Maps are likely to go anywhere anytime soon, and a considerable number of people are only going to check Google Maps and won't bother checking your site for the same information w.r.t. your business's location.

Beneficial in terms of reviews as well — displaying the aggregated score in a rich snippet is arguably preferable to letting the user click through where they can be persuaded against the 4 star average by an impassioned negative review.

Google obviously wants to be the one and only gateway to the web, and they want to keep you on Google pages as much as possible to show as many ads as possible, but unless you're selling ads, counting pageviews/traffic is pointless unless it's new business, and people new to you are unlikely to make a snap judgement based on a rich snippet. If anything, it's more likely to convince the new user to click through to your site.

[IMHO]

<comment><AUTHOR> > In the case of physical stores and offices, I would imagine that a check for > opening hours or telephone number shouldn't be counted as a pageview -> > conversion anyway — they already chose you i.e. converted. Maybe they're a > returning customer or somebody who liked the email marketing you sent them.

As well, adding structured data to the page (with RDFa, JSONLD, or Microdata) makes it much easier for voice assistant apps to parse out the data people ask for.

> Google [...]

Schema.org started as a collaborative effort between Bing, Google, Yahoo, and then Yandex. Anyone with a parser can read structured data from an HTML page with RDFa or a JSONLD document.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema.org)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which email service provider values privacy? - <AUTHOR> I am planning to move out of Gmail, yes I know this is very late but better late then never. I tried proton mail, it's good and I don't know I amnot able to completely believe that they are good enough. So, seeking for experts opinion here. <comment><USER2> Similar question from 3 months ago "Ask HN: Secure email provider" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15112084](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15112084) though it's more about security towards governments, not against the mail provider itself.</comment>


Ask HN: Why are programming lang ranks on StackOverflow and Tiobe so divergent? - <AUTHOR> Most popular languages according to StackOverflow  2020 Survey: JavaScript, and C is way down below.
https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-programming-scripting-and-markup-languages-all-respondents
While in TIOBE index, which is based on search engine traffic, C just overtook Java. These two have been the top two languages since 2002.
https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
How that can be explained?
Note that I am asking which language is better. I am trying to understand why these two are so different. Because how what programmers tell in a survey be so different from what they google? <comment><USER2> Another excellent source is language subreddit subscriber numbers. Go to [https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/wiki/faq#wiki_what_lang...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/wiki/faq#wiki_what_language_reddits_are_there.3F)

Mind you the numbers for each language get out of date very quickly. Visit the actual subreddit to see the true numbers.

As far as I'm concerned Tiobe is at odds with everybody else and should be regarded as junk.

</comment><comment><USER3> TIOBE tracks the trends (or at least hopes to) of people looking to learn/re- learn/familiarize/re-familiarize themselves about whatever programming languages for whatever reasons. That's certainly the most one can really glean by the stats on searches of +"<language> programming". People who are "googling" so are not necessarily just starting out in the field, or learning in school, or researching to decide what language to use in some greenfield project. What's also likely is they are seeking employment someplace or recently got work on somebody's (perhaps legacy) software; i.e. they're searching for immediate professional interest.

StackOverflow attracts a population of programmers interested in regularly helping out other fellow programmers navigate through whatever arcana of tools and libraries and frameworks and languages etc. It will mostly be this set that takes the survey. It also seems that it is the web/mobile technologists that predominate, which is understandable considering how big a deal web/mobile is. There seem to be so many new&shiny things in that web/mobile sphere, year after year ("Web 2.0" is so early 2000's), and that's certain to keep the arcana wheel going.

Fun factoid: Stack Overflow was founded by Microsoft alumnus Joel Spolsky and developer/blogger Jeff Atwood. Spolsky, while Program Manager on the Excel team, designed Excel Basic and drove Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications strategy. Atwood says: "I was weaned as a software developer on ... Microsoft BASIC in the 80's... I continued on the PC with Visual Basic 3.0 and Windows 3.1 in the early 90's... I am now quite comfortable in VB.NET or C#, despite the evils of case sensitivity." ([https://blog.codinghorror.com/about- me/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/about-me/)). Spolsky still seems proud of Visual Basic: "I am always saying 'I could do that in a weekend in Visual Basic' when developers tell me some feature is going to take a year." ([https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2018/04/06/the-stack- overflow...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2018/04/06/the-stack-overflow- age/)). Visual Basic has long been the "most dreaded" language on Stack Overflow surveys, and in 2019 explicitly got dropped from that year's survey. The very fact that VB.NET manages to be in the top 10 of TIOBE, and VB clinging to the top 20 of TIOBE, has often been given as immediate evidence of why TIOBE should not be taken seriously.

</comment><comment><USER4> StackOverflow tends to attract new developers and newer language frameworks simply because it is a Q&A site.

There are scores of developers out there that don't need beginner level help with their language or use a proprietary language where the help they get is via professional services training, courses, etc. Think whatever SAS or Oracle ERP Apps use under the hood, as an example.

These surveys only purpose is marketing/research for the owner of the survey.

</comment><comment><USER5> One is a survey in which people have to participate actively (so there is a bias in favor of the languages with more vocal users) and the other one is a sample of an indicator (of popularity? of complexity? other?)

I'm not surprised that they give different results. You can average the two rankings and get something maybe closer to the real popularity.

You can also rank languages by number of repositories on github and get a ranking with a different bias.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a good point.

I looked at GitHub: [https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2020/2](https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2020/2)

And that matches with survey. How that can be reconciled? What are the biases here?

<comment><USER5> I might be wrong but there are only public repositories in that graph. Closed source private projects are not there. The open source libraries they use do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Tiobe ranking looks just plain wrong. It would be interesting to know how exactly they're calculating and interpreting search engine traffic.

<comment><USER7> They don't. They use search engines to do searches and count hits. See [https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/programming-languages- defi...](https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/programming-languages-definition/)

Their method means that, in general, their numbers will trail changes in programming language popularity. For example, if everybody stopped using JavaScript tomorrow, there still would be millions of hits on _+"JavaScript programming"_ for years to come.

Also, their methodology overrates languages many people wrote about or those that trigger more questions online. I would guess it underrates COBOL, for example.</comment></comment>


Affluence...a social network for millionaires - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/25/affluence-the-social-network-that-makes-your-life-better-if-youre-a-millionaire/

<comment><USER2> Just what we need: an online community of the elite upper class to get organized to better manage us worker bees.</comment>


I rode in a 3D-printed car (and I kind of liked it) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/13/7539341/3d-printed-car-local-motors-strati-naias-2015

<comment><USER2> Interesting idea, this is the first time I have seen something this large being 3D-printed. I like the concept of this type of manufacturing in a micro- assembly plant.</comment>


The Path to Mastery (2000) - <AUTHOR> http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=26380 <comment><USER2> I like an article about mastery that doesn't talk exclusively about 10,000 hours. The idea of nailing a subject's fundamentals is import. Similar to the story, I did some of my best academic work in the subjects that I knew the least about because I had to question everything.

I found the same thing to apply in UNIX. The folks who opened all the doors and learned all the details (beyond what class asked) were the ones who could later write 2 or 3 line scripts to solve most any problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> The discussion here is where the gold is.

</comment><comment><USER4> interesting to see the tie in between good proofs and good programs. I've never done much with perl, but I've heard that one can achieve a very high degree of concision.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say that Perl is roughly on par with other scripting language in terms of how concise it is. The downside is that it is more idiosyncratic, the upside is that it has better libraries. Perl has been good to me, personally, but I'm not about to try to tell a Ruby or Python developer that they have an overwhelming need to switch.

However the advice about knowing your tools applies to proofs, programming, cooking, mechanical engineering...</comment></comment>


Back to the future - <AUTHOR> http://www.zubairquraishi.com/zubairquraishi/back-to-the-future.html

<comment><USER2> Good post. I love this part:

"In my view this is as bad as hating someone from another country simply because they do not understand their environment or the context in which that other person is living, or because they believe the media image portrayed about other countries. So programmers and programming languages may have more in common with daily life and politics than you may think."

This is so true.</comment>


Linus Torvalds on Android, the Linux fork - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linus-torvalds-on-android-the-linux-fork/9426 <comment><USER2> While the differences between the Android fork and upstream Linux will introduce pain points during the merge, Linus takes the long view and rightly points out that the Linux project is poised to inherit a huge amount of code that has gone through rigorous real world testing and quite a bit of success.

This is the great thing about the Linux project. If your work doesn't get accepted right away (someone may have objected to the lock model that Android uses, compared to the vanilla Linux lock model), well, just go out in the market and prove that your work is better. Typically with that kind of proof you can start to work on a way forward to integrate your work back in. It's a win-win for the project, since if your endeavor fails they're not stuck with it, but if it takes off they're poised to reap the rewards.

In summary, Forks (that are used for experimental features, not political schisms) are GREAT!

</comment><comment><USER3> This was hard to understand:

 _This doesn't mean that Android isn't, but it has become something of a Linux fork. That doesn't, however, as some recent reports had it that Android and Linux are somehow in a fight with each other._

I just gave up and glossed over that part.

<comment><USER4> The article definitely needs editing. Much of it was painful to read due to omissions, redundancy and generally bad flow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Google didn't help matters at all when in the fall of 2010, "Google engineer > Patrick Brady stated unambiguously that Android is not Linux" That was never > true.

Another example why naming popular desktop OSes as "GNU/Linux" (as opposed to plain "Linux") is important, unless all parties know the context. And never compare "Android" and "Linux", unless the "Android" comes right before the word "kernel".

</comment><comment><USER6> Summary: Linus asserts that Android, the fastest growing smartphone platform, comes from Linux and will return to Linux.

The key to understanding this is to change the "s" in Linus' name to an "x" and see what happens.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Fortunately, thanks to the GPLv2, all the significant changes come back to > the mainstream kernel.

How exactly, does that work ?

<comment><USER8> This is a valid questions, because iirc, as long as these companies don't distribute their linux fork outside of their company, they do not need to release the source. GPL takes effect when you _distribute_ binaries, not when you create them.

<comment><USER9> If you copy or distribute the derivate work in either object code or executable form, you are obliged to make the source available.

Arguably anyone who has a phone, has had a copy in executable form distributed to them, and can ask for the source.

<comment><USER10> He was talking about Google's private fork of Linux for their servers to run Google search.

<comment><USER9> He was talking about companies in general tweaking linux for their particular uses.

Indeed, if you focus on the preceding bit about Google's in-house linux for their own servers, then there would be no distribution and arguably GPL2 could not force those modifications to be made public.

But I would imagine that he's probably quite versed in GPL2 and knows this -- so since he brought it up specifically, it suggests he was probably thinking at that point more about cases where distribution does happen (e.g. Android, embedded etc).

Perhaps he considers it a 'significant change' primarily if there's some sort of distribution ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the future of mobile app dev machines? - <AUTHOR>

Do you see yourselves developing mobile apps on laptops and desktops for a long time?
Or do you reckon that sooner than later, you will be able to develop these apps on the same machines that they run on (smartphones and tablets)?
How soon do you think that might happen? What are the biggest hurdles? <comment><USER2> I think people are already innovating in this area! A local South Florida startup called Rheti is one in particular you should check out. Here's a presentation by the founder at 2011 O'Reilly Conference where he talks about your questions (what are the problems, how will it look, etc): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vySFqdlg0g>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Mike. I'll check out the video. I'm curious to know what your own thoughts are on this.

<comment><USER2> Ah, alright. Well I a big challenge will be your interface since that's the primary change between desktop/mobile development. And most people seem to be innovating on that. I did see a few interesting demos that focused on new UI paradigms. LightTable was particularly interesting. Even though it was never demoed on a mobile device, I don't think it's hard to imagine how LightTable might work on an iPad.

The hardest problem, I think, is the environment. The UI stuff (like getting the same density of information around and under your hands while you're working on a piece of code) will get solved pretty easily. I'm more concerned that closed systems (like Apple's) will be threatening to any type of local development environment. Even basic web development, I'd expect to get full access to the developer tools within mobile Safari if I wanted.

Remote development (via ssh, perhaps) is a compromising solution here, but I'd really like to do my development offline if I need to. Being tether to an internet connection can be distracting and something you want the option of especially if you're mobile.

I have seen some interesting attempts to create an all-in-one solution within Android (and can't find the project right now) that has shell access with vi and ruby/python/scala interpreters/compilers built in.

I think progress in this area is happening much quicker than you think.

<comment><AUTHOR> To some extent I feel the opposite is true - local dev might get solved more easily than a good mobile UI.

Because of the relatively open nature of Android, we're already seeing things like Android AIDE (as aniruddh mentioned in another comment here). With increasing power in mobile devices, we can definitely expect more powerful tools for on-device offline development.

But a good UI won't just come out of increasing processing power. It will take more deliberate effort.

<comment><USER2> Local dev has a great opportunity on Android, but Android tablets are still the minority. (I own one myself, but know only a handful of other people who do, too.) I think iPad has to be considered a target if mobile programming will ever become mainstream. Until Apple and developers can make nice and find a nice tradeoff between control-of-the-experience and hacker-friendliness, I think this will be a long face-off.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will be surprised if Apple does not eventually allow programmers to program directly on iOS. I think they restrict it for now because of the limitations of the device.

If they don't go that way, then I'm willing to bet on Android or any other more hacker-friendly platform to give them a run for their money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think one would have to think about what a desktop means. Is connecting your tablet to a 24inch monitor and a keyboard considered to be a desktop arrangement? Although the tablet is capable of developing apps, one might not be developing while walking or riding a bus. However, when docked it could be a dev device. Look at Android AIDE. It lets you build apps on an Ice Cream Sandwich device.

<comment><AUTHOR> Connecting phones and tablets to bigger displays is definitely going to become common. But I'm more interested in developing on the go.

Thanks for pointing to Android AIDE. It looks great. Do you know of any good apps built on it?

Is there any equivalent app for iOS? I know about Codea, but that doesn't let you compile on the device.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The biggest hurdles are probably screen size & lack of symbols on the default keyboard layout.

I think they can be solved with a little design, creativity, and focus on common use cases before generality.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's on the input side, but what about the output? You can't compile and run an app on your mobile phone yet.

<comment><USER4> Does the application have to be a fully-native one? I think an interpreted app would be possible, but distributing it would need distribution of a runtime.

Perhaps if the idea of developing apps on the device turns out to be of strategic importance for the platform, the main mobile OS makers would add some sort of compilation service to the OS. If this is true it would still need a killer-app to prove it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I'm talking about fully native apps.

Imagine if you could only write apps for your laptop on a mainframe. That's how writing mobile apps on laptops feels like to me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


An amusing story about a practical use of the null garbage collector - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180228-00/?p=98125 <comment><USER2> Discussion of the original post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14233542](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14233542)

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny - The owner of a cloud web service can't keep their blog up when it gets a bunch of traffic!

</comment><comment><USER4> Rational.com... what do they know about programming?

</comment><comment><USER5> [1995]

<comment><USER6> The blog entry is recent. It quotes from an email from 1995.</comment></comment>


Notes on fuzzing ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick - <AUTHOR> https://alexgaynor.net/2019/feb/05/notes-fuzzing-imagemagick-graphicsmagick/ <comment><USER2> [libvips]([https://jcupitt.github.io/libvips/](https://jcupitt.github.io/libvips/)) is a pretty amazing replacement for IM/GM -- for the overlapping functionality, IM/GM still do some things vips doesn't, and vips will depending on how it was compiled in some functional paths call out to IM/GM as a dependency, too.

But for some tasks I was doing, I found that vips could accomplish the tasks I was doing in IM in up to an _order of magnitude_ less RAM _and_ CPU time. (GM was getting me more like 10% improvement at best).

It would be sweet if they'd add vips as a fuzzing target too.

<comment><USER3> you linked to a fork of libvips the original is [https://github.com/libvips/libvips](https://github.com/libvips/libvips)

<comment><USER2> Oops, you're right. jcupitt is the creator and principal maintainer of libvips, but I guess I linked to his "personal copy" git repo (which comes up first on google!).

You linked to a git repo, I linked to docs, but here's docs with internal links to the 'official' repo.

[https://libvips.github.io/libvips/](https://libvips.github.io/libvips/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> btw, ClusterFuzz, the infrastructure behind OSS-Fuzz was open sourced today: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19106771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19106771)

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone have any good resources for someone with reverse-engineering and security CTF experience looking to get into fuzzing?

<comment><USER6> "fuzzing intro", "fuzzing tutorial" will no doubt point you at suitable content.

I started with AFL, via this piece:

[https://lwn.net/Articles/657959/](https://lwn.net/Articles/657959/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> is there a good GUI to IM / GM ? I like cli typically, but not in this case. There parameters are just too verbose and obscure..

<comment><USER8> photoshop

<comment><USER9> Way overkill</comment></comment></comment>


Announcement: YC alumni will help us read applications  - <AUTHOR> We've recruited some YC alumni to help us read applications, starting with this cycle.  They've agreed to (a) stop reading any application that seems like it will compete with something their startup is doing or plans to, and (b) keep stuff in
applications confidential.
These are people we know and trust, so we doubt there will be any problems.  But since we didn't tell people about this before they
applied (we are in fact still organizing it), we're giving anyone who wants to the opportunity to unapply.  If you want to have your application deleted, just email me (firstname.lastname@example.com).
Also, in case anyone didn't know, the deadline for applying is
tonight at 10 Pacific.
Make sure you actually submit your application, using the
submit or resubmit button on http://news.ycombinator.com/apply, or we won't consider it.  (If you don't see a submit/resubmit button on that page, it's been submitted.)  Every cycle a few people
who probably meant to apply forget to actually submit their application after editing it.
Edit: Since a lot of people seem to be worried about this, the alumni are reading the applications in addition to us, not instead of us.  Our goal is to ensure that we don't overlook promising applications.  If we give an application a low rating but it gets high marks from alumni, we'll give it a second look. <comment><USER3> I feel like this is going to work against me - in a really serious way.

First of all, I really liked knowing that I had a one in three chance of a woman, Jessica Livingston, reading my application.

I liked how the application felt like a college application; they judge you based upon your potential and what you've done in your circumstances, not like an investor who says: "What experience and traction do you have?".

I totally trusted PG, Jessica + TLB to see my potential and tailored my application to the rubric they stated on the website--looking for outstanding "outside of the box" people.

Having entrepreneurs, who may not be as used to thinking outside the box of "who is a good founder?" will be more biased towards founders like themselves - i.e. male coders.

This comes as a very sad surprise to me. I have a feeling I'm going to be treated as I usually am by the men in technology - which is an outsider. I know that there are VERY FEW female YC founders and I know that having male coders looking at my application is going to totally work against me, if for no other reason than they don't relate to me.

[edit: I sincerely apologize that my comment has generated so much heat. I wanted to raise a concern, I'm sorry this got out of hand.]

<comment><USER3> I know it's verboten to talk about HN on HN, but it's fun clicking refresh and watching people upvote and downvote my comment. Talking about male prejudice in the tech community really gets under people's skin, including my cofounder bravura who said that maybe I shouldn't have posted and rankled people.

<comment><USER4> Yes, you're correct: people don't like being accused of being prejudice, especially in a community like this which prides itself on being open minded.

Your gender isn't important here. Whether or not you're an entrepreneur with a plan, is.

EDIT: This discussion really belongs in another thread.

<comment><USER5> There's definitely subtle and persistent sexism on HN, but that doesn't make the original commenter's complaint about the new YC process any more valid. I agree that filling out a YC application is the least of your real-world problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While I personally don't have a problem with this, I can fathom how some would.

What about (1) announcing who is reading and (2) allowing applicants to specify who should NOT read their application.

Just a thought, there should probably be some more thought on this kind of privacy/conflict since they will not be investors and I'm assuming you will make this standard procedure.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd rather make the system based on trusting people.

Also, paranoia about secrecy is one of our selection criteria. E.g. every cycle there are a few applications that say they won't tell us any details about what they're doing without an NDA. We thereupon instantly hit "next." People who think their startup's success is going to follow from their immensely valuable secret idea are disproportionately likely to have bad ideas. I'm guessing it will be similar in this case, and that anyone who would be freaked out by YC alumni reading their application is probably someone we wouldn't have funded anyway.

<comment><USER6> Well you are ignoring half of the potential problem.

Even smart people have different opinions: what if an applicant thinks someone you chose to read their application is naive (or worse, an idiot)?

Also seems just plain fair that applicants be aware of their audience.

<comment><USER7> Do you honestly feel PG and co. are incapable of selecting people that aren't naive nor idiots?

<comment><USER6> Not sure if you did it on purpose, but your double negative is the converse of my sentiment.

Do I think YC is _capable_ of making poor selections?...Absolutely.

<comment><USER8> Capable? sure. Likely? no.

YC makes funding decisions after a few short interviews and an application, and they seem to do pretty well with those. I would imagine that after working with some founders for months, they have zero likelihood of selecting a naive idiot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does YC not run a risk here of falling into a reinforcement loop where each generation gets more and more "perfect" from the POV of the current generation, leading to highly specialised but unadaptable individuals a few generations down the line?

<comment><USER10> Adding some randomness could help to avoid over-fitted populations. Then you could prevent to converge to a sub-optimal state and force the system to look beyond of what it seems the best.

<comment><USER11> I thought mating was the main cause of genetic diversity, not mutation.

<comment> a-priori Mutation introduces new alleles, and mating recombines existing alleles. Both processes increase diversity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "They've agreed to (a) stop reading any application that seems like it will compete with something their startup is doing or plans to."

You could have an answer-by-answer reveal button, to see who stops reading and when. That'd remove the temptation to break this rule. There could be post- submission round-up by to see if the trust was actually there.

<comment><USER13> Let's not go overboard. I'd much rather pg and co. put their time into reviewing applications than adding "features" like this. This is, at its heart, a social problem, not a technical one, and needs to be addressed as one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Having graded papers in college and worked with a number of professors, peers are often a far harsher critic.

Investors also operate in a big picture kind of way and see a horizon that is far larger than operators tend to see.

It'll be interesting to see how this adds to the decision-making process for PG. I'd love to see the data (even anonymized) about how the peers review compare to PG and teams reviews.

<comment><USER15> I think there's an inversion of your logic about grading papers when applied to investing. Usually grades in college operate on a curve; the peers are harsh because their grade is relative to other students. In this case, it's ycomb that is putting money on the line. Your peer reviewers have nothing to lose by dropping your name into the hat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm curious about the reasoning for this. Is it purely due to not having the time to read through all of them as thoroughly as you'd like, or to help make sure apps don't fall through the cracks (or none of the above)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Both; those are the same problem, since the biggest danger of not being able to read them all thoroughly enough is that a good one slips through the cracks.

<comment><USER17> Will you still be reading all the applications then?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, YC partners will still read all the applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd love for a bunch of the YC founders to review my application-- I feel like I've spent the last several weeks getting every smart person (including YC founders) I could find to read my application. Who knows, maybe one of the YC founders will see something that piques their curiosity. It'd be great if this process generated constructive feedback or a partnership opportunity.

A minute or two of mind share from YC founders sounds better to me than 30 seconds from the YC partners.

</comment><comment><USER4> Even though fears of a pre-facebook Zuckerberg reading your ideas about a new social networking site are valid it seems to me that this more of an exception than a rule.. but it does seem like a valid concern..

The only other thing I would add is that given the rising popularity of YC it seems only natural that PG and friends would like some qualified help.

At any rate, were someone to actually successfully steal your idea, this person would probably be found out and disowned by the community and YC. In other words, there is plenty of incentive for people _not_ to steal.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a brilliant decision. I attended Startup School this weekend, and used the event and the surrounding parties to pitch our idea to at least 10+ Y-Combinator startups. Every time i pitched our company i learned something new and got great feedback on how to pitch it better next time. Startups that are concerned about this, should realise that to be accepted to Y-Combinator is not the goal of your startup. It is more than everything else a great test for yourself. Are you able to explain your idea in a couple of sentences, do you have a great founding team, is there really a market for what you are building? Trust me, when i remind you that making your company succeed is much harder than filling out the Y-Combinator application form.

Having other startups validating your idea is a great way to actually proof your team, competence and idea. We're based in London and despite the fact that we were lucky enough to know a couple of YC startups, that gave us great feedback on our application, we're thrilled to know that our idea, our team and our startup will be reviewed by a couple of other great YC startups.

Mark Zuckerberg, probably put it best during his Startup School talk. He told the audience that instead of going for the universities that really wanted to use Facebook, they rolled out Facebook to the universities that seemed the least interested in it. I think this is a brilliant move to test your product. The same applies here.

Good luck to everyone!

<comment><USER20> Great post, Bastian.

<comment><USER19> I like your ADstruct concept. Having worked with a couple of out of home media companies, i feel there is definitely space for innovation. If you don't have contacts to European media buyers, fell free to dope me a line.

<comment><USER20> Hey Bastian - I'd love to talk. My email is firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maybe there's a way a limited version of the app could be viewable by the alumni, and only the complete viewable by the YC partners?

<comment><USER17> That seems like over optimizing. Setting up a limited app would probably take longer than just having the four YC people read all the apps themselves.

<comment><USER21> A few of the application's questions could be designated alumni-readable and marked as such.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Well, this seems like an 11th hour announcement, many of the applicants might not be watching HN at the moment and may not be able to exercise their right to "unapply" before the deadline.

But those are problems for the fainthearts who get deterred with this kinda announcement.

For the rest of the bravehearts its 'ok', they should feel like they are at day 1 on the market and its all bare now. Just that they should gear up for a much quicker launch in case of a possible rejection, which they anywayz should be - "hope for the best and be prepared for the rest/worst".

Let's face it, trustworthiness, bias, plagiarism and wisdom are all human traits.

@PG: Just a thought from a novice. This kinda late announcements/disclosure may taint YC's image like those " __conditions apply" advertisements. An announcement early on would be better. I hope you are not doing this intentionally as a first filter for the applicants and hence reduce the load of applications automatically.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think it would be nice/fair to know how much input the Alumni will actually have. Do they give you summaries? recommendations? Do they have the power to completely block applications?

<comment><AUTHOR> The goal is to use the alumni as a second set of eyes. The way the software currently works, the alumni say either that they think we should accept an application, or that we shouldn't. So if we notice we're giving a bad rating to an application multiple alumni think we should accept, we'll take a second look, and vice versa.

<comment><USER24> The more sets of eyes the better. Y Combinator is looking for the best startups which fit their criteria, and any review system which results in them funding a higher ratio of startups that benefit real users in the long-term is all that really matters. Lets keep in mind the actual end-users in all of this. If it's not something people want, then it shouldn't have been funded in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I too could see how some applicants would feel uneasy about this decision. Considering these are smart and savvy founders that are not investors in the applicants. Good thing YC is offering the "unapply" option for applicants. For example, the founders of <http://www.thesixtyone.com>, if they so happen to read my application, a lightbulb may go off in their heads. But as YC has stated, they have agreed to stop reading apps if there is competition. And will keep confidential. Therefore, I will be keeping my application entered. No guts, no glory. Could be looked at as a greater risk has been entered into the equation. But it could actually be a positive thing. I will be taking my chances in aspirations for a strong future partnership with YC.

<comment><USER26> _For example, the founders of<http://www.thesixtyone.com>, if they so happen to read my application, a lightbulb may go off in their heads._

Take additional comfort in the knowledge that YC teams are small, and have far more ideas and light bulbs going off in their heads than they have time to implement. Ideas are not in short supply. Time to implement, ability to execute well, ability to connect with markets, and the focus to deliver a compelling product that makes peoples lives better in some small way in a reasonable time frame are. So, even if your idea is brilliant and new, and even if it _would_ help thesixtyone, and even _if_ they saw your application, it's unlikely they would recognize it as a "killer feature" and it's even more unlikely they would have time from their existing product development schedule (which they probably also believe has some "killer features" on it) to implement it in an effective manner.

<comment><USER25> Thanks for the encouragement. We will see the outcome in 6 days. Im confident in my statup, and hopefully YC will see the opportunity as well. We are working hard and creating something special.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This makes me not want to apply; I guess I am just one of those people with bad ideas that YC would not have wanted to fund anyway.

<comment><USER27> I know this is not a popular opinion its really how I feel. I know lots of geeks and am very familiar with geek / startup culture. One of the coolest things about YC is the fact that there is so much input / guidance from PG. This decision seems like a shift away from that and toward more of a judged by peers model IMHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> To me the question boils down to, "Do you trust YC to have the right people reading your application to make a good decision?" I know that they have high enough volume that it makes no sense for pg to make every decision personally.

What I just read is, "They have found a way to scale higher and while sticking to high quality people who have direct experience with what you want to do."

That makes the answer to the first question a "Yes". :-)

<comment><USER29> I think this sums it up best. It comes down to trust and you either trust YC or not. If anything, this is a good litmus test for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm not so concerned about opening up the reviews to trusted others (after all, if an application is successful it is open to peer review and scrutiny anyway), but I do have a question regarding 'early' submissions (which are described as preferable).

Do early submissions get reviewed BEFORE the actual closing date? That's the clear implication from what I've read elsewhere on this thread, because it's stated "there is more time to review early applications"

In my case, I submitted (initially) soon after the applications were opened, and have been editing, proof reading, clarifying generally and improving on it, and re-submitting right up to this evening - the evening of the closing date. So there are quite possibly at least 30 different iterations of my application. My first submission was crude, but early. My final submission is probably a factor of 10X better, but two hours before the deadline.

So without giving too much away YC, which iteration gets reviewed and when, and how do you know when the submission is final, if you review before the close date?

</comment><comment><USER31> Cool.

It seems that the kind of folks who are scared off by this might be doomed anyway. If you're going to be successful, then at some point you've got to take up the attitude that you're going to eat the competition's lunch - <USER2> if they know what you're doing. Because you're just that good.

Good luck.

(Have not applied. Am not applying. Just a member of the peanut gallery.)

</comment><comment><USER32> More eyes means a more reliable result, so assuming I'm worth funding, then this can only benefit me.

</comment><comment><USER33> It may be totally irrational, but my gut reaction is, "Some young founder who can't think outside of his or her space is going to read our application and toss it away."

Although I think our company will be massively profitable, our proposal is a long way from glamorous.

<comment><USER34> Everyone with worries like this should (re-)read <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=908612>. From that comment, it sounds like no alumnus/a will have the power to get your application tossed. In fact, it sounds like the only effect they can have is to get your application a second look, which is something you should want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Will this, or the extended application deadline, affect Nov. 5th feedback date?

<comment><USER36> I'm guessing they're doing this so they'll be able to keep the Nov.5 date, after seeing a huge increase in the number of apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I actually think that this is a great idea on the condition that PG/JL/TLB/RM still have the majority of the final say. Given the sheer volume of applications, having more eyes can really only help ensure that the most promising startups get the attention they deserve. It also sounds like a great way to pair up new founders with YC alumni who really see the potential in their startup. I know that my co-founder and I personally think that being stealth is overrated/stupid and would love to hear what other smart people think about our idea.

Disclosure appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've got no stake in any of this at _all_ \- never applied to YC, doubt I ever will - but something which'd bother me a little: what if a company applied a while back and hasn't seen this HN thread? You can guarantee that at least one set of founders is going to be on holiday.

The problem, though, is that I imagine that'd it be really hard, what with the number of applications there'll be, to individually reach out to applicants before making their applications available to anyone other than the partners...

</comment><comment><USER39> 1\. Is it possible for an application to be rejected after having been read by just one alumni, and no one else?

2\. Are the readers given a specific list of criteria by which they are supposed to judge the applications, or is it just basically anything they want?

3\. Trust is great, but do you have any way to find out if a reader approves an application because it is from a friend, or if a reader rejects good applications that are too similar to the application that was submitted by a friend?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, no, and no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Can you tell us, who they are, if their companies are conflicting, we delete our application.

</comment><comment><USER41> It looks like many people are scared of someone stealing their ideas. Startups are not a zero sum game, we can all create wealth.

Also, if you are scared someone else will out execute you on your own idea maybe you need work on your execution and dedication.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'd like to hear how you went about training them. That alone is interesting.

</comment><comment><USER43> This isn't an entirely new thing though is it? I remember some of the YC alum saying they had actually done some phone interviews of YC applicants.

</comment><comment><USER43> although some might consider it positive discrimination, you should really get involved with an organisation like: <http://www.astia.org/> They have been great to jlees. In fact she is attending the Silicon Valley event next week.

</comment><comment><USER20> Thanks for the disclosure, Paul. We look forward to you guys checking out our application for ADstruc!

<comment><USER44> FYI ADstruc, your website is wrong, you aren't the first marketplace of that sort. Check out Tapinko.

<comment><USER45> Also, images for all the text? Really?

<comment><USER20> We've spent our time focusing on the back end which is building our platform and obviously less on the website. Regardless, the website will be a wash once the product goes beta.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Leaked pics reveal Google smart debit card to rival Apple's - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/17/google-card/ <comment><USER2> I don't really understand the draw of using a card from a tech giant. It seems to be popular and people were fawning over the Apple card from what I remember when it launched.

Reading about the Apple card it doesn't seem to offer anything beyond what a standard cash back credit card offers. Besides branding what are Google / Apple doing to get me to drop my Visa/Amex/Mastercard in exchange for 'their' visa/mastercard/amex.</comment>