Ask PG: What would your next startup be? - <AUTHOR>

PG, have you ever considered doing another startup? Or, even if you aren't considering it anymore, did you ever consider it after finishing up at Yahoo? If so, what would it be? Merry Christmas <comment><USER2> Leelin's right in a way. We think of YC as a kind of of startup. Our m.o. is to treat investing as if it were a technical problem.

If I had to start another startup in the classic sense, I might do RFS 1: <http://ycombinator.com/rfs1.html>

I did consider trying another startup once after Yahoo. I hired 3 hackers during the summer of 2000 to work on a prototype of a hosted application platform. I couldn't convince Rtm or Trevor to work on it with me, though, and I wasn't into the project enough to do it without cofounders.

<comment><USER3> I always thought that the problem statement for rfs1 is excellent - far more insightful than other rfs statements and hints. Perhaps this is because you've spent more time thinking about the problem.

This is an incredibly interesting problem I've thought a lot about, so I'll say the following despite the danger of turning this into discussion _about_ rfs1. Since I first read it, I found myself disagreeing with the following statement:

 _We think they will mostly die, because we think we know what will replace them, and it is too far from their current model for them to reach it in time._

I think one of the fundamental questions is what _type_ of content is valuable today (compared to what type of content was valuable two hundred years ago). Back when the newspaper business started, _news_ were extremely desirable and difficult to get (and therefore valuable). Someone actually had to travel to the front lines, record the news, and then break it faster than everyone else in order to make money. The cultural artifact of this remains today - newspapers are still called _news_ papers, and when you turn on CNN you often see the term _breaking news_ (despite the fact that every other channel is "breaking" the news as well). But this model has almost no differentiating value today - real-time publishing technology is so cheap that anyone can break news, and therefore no one wants to pay for it. News is a cheap commodity, not unlike orange juice.

Today we have an opposite problem - there is an exponential explosion of content, and people are willing to pay a lot of money for services that filter rare, excellent, original content from the rest of the noise (I don't count digg and reddit because they do a very poor job at finding excellent content). People are willing to pay for excellent writers, balanced and insightful opinion pieces, and articles about current events that actually _teach_ us something, rather than tell us what happened. Some "traditional" publications have already figured this out - Economist, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal (although the future of the latter is in question precisely because of potential for declining quality). They didn't completely embrace this model and don't take nearly full advantage of information technology, but they're on the right track - they accept great guest authors, provide valuable and insightful opinion pieces, and give us articles that _teach_ us things. In exchange, their customers have consistently payed up while other publishers have seen a steady loss of readership.

The trick here is branding - Economist has a world class brand that's recognized for their valuable content. Once they get around to using modern technology to take this model to its logical extreme, there is no stopping them. I suppose a startup could do it first if it figures out a good way to quickly build a brand (which shouldn't be hard, considering how little good content is out there and how many people complain about it), but fundamentally there is nothing stopping Economist from doing this - they're already in a perfect position to do it. All they need a little bit of technology (this should be easy), and a bit of a psychological shift in their culture. They're already on the right track - the solution is definitely not _too_ far from their current model.

<comment><USER4> I can see where you are coming from with your call for _quality_ content, but lets question this for a minute.

I don't see much new in the world now vs 15 years ago that would shift the economics to high quality publishing. Technology and the internet can provide a better platform for crowdsourcing journalism or easier dissemination and aggregation of information, but these are different from just creating and consuming high quality content.

I think what's new is the ability to personalize the information. One way to think about it is that industrial revolution was all about economical mass production, and one of the first things to be mass produced was written text with the help of the Gutenberg press. No one knows what information revolution is really about yet, but one of the promises is economical mass customization, and the news is a perfect first candidate for this (more distant candidates being economically producing clothes that fit you perfectly, for example).

In a related area, Google seems to think they have mostly exhausted the opportunities to improve their search results _in the same way for everyone_ : they have employed IP geolocation for ages and now they even track your search history by default in order to show you different results from what everyone else is seeing.

<comment><USER5> I think one way to be commercially successful is to further differentiate the market for news based on news viewers.

People want to be sheltered from news which goes against their beliefs. Currently, the segregation of news sources does an adequate job of this. Right wingers watch fox and never need to learn about evolution, left wingers read the NYT and never need to learn about climategate. See also the reddit downmodsquad.

But this filtering scheme is pretty weak. I think the next stage in news is pure entertainment and ideological reinforcement. Ignoring ethics, this is what most people want.

(The only exception I can see is people who might be punished by the market for incorrect facts and the intellectually honest. But such people are a small minority.)

<comment><USER6> > Right wingers watch fox and never need to learn about evolution

Stereotype much? (BTW - There are several "right"s in the US, and only one of them, a fairly small one at that, disagrees with evolution. Others do think that teaching preschoolers how to fist is objectionable, but it's not clear that fisting has much to do with evolution.)

It turns out that Limbaugh etc often cite NYT articles. I'd guess that a reasonable number of folks actually followup on such cites.

The reverse - not so much. Otherwise "good people" wouldn't assume that "the right" is as cocooned as they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _"10. Independently wealthy

This is my excuse for not starting a startup. Startups are stressful. Why do it if you don't need the money? For every "serial entrepreneur," there are probably twenty sane ones who think "Start another company? Are you crazy?""_ \-- <http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> Is Y Combinator not an ambitious, challenging, and impressive enough startup?

<comment><USER9> Great point. But the question still stands: if pg wasn't investing all his time and energy into dozens of startups and wanted to put his energies into a new company, what would he go for?

<comment><USER10> Isn't this like asking my grandfather which of his eleven children is his favorite?

<comment><USER11> Always the smallest girl. But they never admit that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> He's got a request for startup (<http://ycombinator.com/rfs.html>).

I'd think that he'd be working on one of these if were willing to spend the time.

</comment><comment><USER13> It wouldn't surprise me if he stayed at YC for a very long time. As far as I can tell, he loves this.

</comment><comment><USER14> I too would like to know what idea of PG's to best steal. ;)</comment>


Google News Archive: Millions of Archival Newspaper Images - <AUTHOR> http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-08-n66.html

<comment><USER2> They should have used the <http://oldnews.google.com></comment>


Facebook, Alphabet, Amazon, and Netflix called to testify on net neutrality - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/facebook-alphabet-amazon-and-netflix-called-to-testify-on-net-neutrality/ <comment><USER2> >It's time for Congress to legislate the rules of the Internet, and stop the ping-pong game of regulations and litigation

Sure. Great initiative, but yet once again the request places the interests of the end users in the hands of organizations that have dramatically different incentives than they do.

You wouldn't field an inquiry into Flint's broken water supply without consulting with the citizens who are expected to drink the water itself.

Still, better than nothing.

<comment><USER3> This is congress attempting to appeal to some of their biggest customers.

As much as I think there are better ways to find a solution, at least an effort (or the appearance of an effort) is being made.</comment></comment>


How I started my professional career in middle of college - <AUTHOR> http://joelbugarini.github.io/about/

<comment><USER2> Hey Joel,

This has multiple columns that are taller than the browser window... so you have to scroll up and down.

This would benefit from being broken up, with more white space. I'd strongly suggest a single column.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Maybe I get used to scroll and didn't find it annoying. I'll definitely try a single column.</comment></comment>


CircleCI is down - <AUTHOR>

Just added CircleCI and it goes down instantly. How does TravisCI compare to CircleCI. What are the pros and co's of each? Which do you use for production? <comment><USER2> Hey, sorry about that. We were down for approximately 5 minutes because of adding a new index to the DB.

This unusual for us, we had 100% uptime in February, according to pingdom (haven't gotten the email for March yet).</comment>


Improve Your Typing For Free - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/amphetype/

<comment><USER2> Neat. This seems to be a typing tutor-ish app designed for people who already know how to type.

<comment><USER3> Most people think they know how to type, but actually don't.

For that vast bulk of the population, a few hundred drills in gtypist are going to be more valuable than any number of hours spent ruminating on statistics:

<http://www.gnu.org/software/gtypist/>

Learning to touch type on text specifically designed to drill you is more important than worrying about your "problem trigrams" in project gutenburg text.</comment></comment>


Designing a Mobile User Interface for Automated Species Identification - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/vacuum?url=www.cs.columbia.edu/graphics/publications/white-marino-feinerCHI07.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> The non-scribd pdf is here: www.cs.columbia.edu/graphics/publications/white- marino-feinerCHI07.pdf</comment>


New leaks: British intel's direct-from-fiber taps "worse than the US" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/new-leaks-british-intels-direct-from-fiber-taps-worse-than-the-us/

<comment><AUTHOR> > You are in an enviable position - have fun and make the most of it

So they openly encourage their employees to eavesdrop as they wish. Like listening in on phone sex and spying on their exes and neighbours.

This makes me sick.</comment>


Flirting with people – iOS style - <AUTHOR> https://alistra.ghost.io/2015/03/18/picking-up-girls-ios-style/

<comment><USER2> Just what every nerd/geek needs</comment>


What's your longest-held programming assumption that turned out to be incorrect? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/888224/what-is-your-longest-held-programming-assumption-that-turned-out-to-be-incorrect <comment><USER2> this is going to be a long long list...

\- being able to out-optimize a compiler (that one hurt, I attribute this to the fact that modern processors are so complex it takes a machine to correctly figure out the best way to schedule code, on a simpler processor a programmer has a much better chance of beating the compiler by being able to spot global optimizations)

\- thinking that any program can be written in almost every language (theoretically yes, but in practice this really does not hold water, especially not with all the domain specific languages that are now popping up everywhere)

\- thinking that I could do a piece of code 'right' in one go (over the years, reviewing old code I see room for improvement _everywhere_ )

\- that I am a pretty hot shot coder (I'm sure I'm alone on that one)

and so on...

</comment><comment><USER3> ...That you should do only a bare-bones implementation for one part of the program, while simultaneously making other parts ultra-sophisticated - presumably because the other parts are more interesting or more necessary for a wishy-washy long-term goal.

Now I've realized that the #1 thing is that every piece of code should provide good user value and justify its presence, even if the code itself is written in a simplistic or unattractive way.

(My second longest-held assumption is that I should be "efficient" and write great code once and forever that will solve all my problems for some domain. It never happens, and these days I'm more patient and happy to see possibilities for improvement down the road.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I used to think there is One Good Way To Program without realizing there is a lot of cargo cult in the best practices out there. Even the ones that used to do a good job are often invalid in a different context.</comment>


XHTML 2 Working Group Expected to Stop Work End of 2009 - <AUTHOR> http://www.w3.org/News/2009#item119

<comment><AUTHOR> completely ignoring the side issues, I think its a shame that we will apparently never be able to use the thousands of xml tools on html sites.

 __goes off to write a html parser for my favourite language(its not ruby or python)

<comment><USER2> XHTML 2 is being dropped in favor of XHTML 5, which is being developed in sync with HTML 5. XHTML itself will remain as (un-)popular as always.

<comment><USER3> You know I just don't understand why some people are so against XHTML.

<comment><USER2> Anybody can vomit text into a file, rename it ".html", and have it rendered to something by a web browser. When they try the same thing with XHTML, they receive an error page. Even otherwise reasonable programmers, who would not expect invalid code to be parsed by a compiler, blithely contribute to the spread of invalid HTML. For example, the front page of news.yc fails with 143 errors:

[http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombina...](http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0)

A second factor is that IE does not support XHTML. Any features that rely on XHTML support (inline SVG, MathML, custom attributes, &c) are unavailable in a "portable" application. IE 6 is still a very large chunk of the market, especially among non-technical users, so relying on any features it doesn't support is iffy from a business perspective.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


[Show HN] D Sharp: Mobile Diabetes Management (JQuery Mobile, MongoDB, NodeJS) - <AUTHOR> http://dsharpdiabetes.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Would love some feedback! Thanks everyone.

From a tech perspective, D Sharp is built using Express, Node-Canvas for rendering Flot graphs, MongoDB via Mongoose and JQuery Mobile.

</comment><comment><USER2> Forgive my ignorance to the types of diabetes, is this service for people who self medicate to control their diabetes?

<comment><AUTHOR> Our goal was to make it work for anyone with diabetes. Most apps target Type 2 diabetics who use diet primarily and really don't work well for insulin users (and even worse for insulin pump users).

You can configure D Sharp to handle oral medications, insulin via pump or pen needle/syringe, etc plus the general logbook functions for blood glucose, blood pressure, weight, diet, etc.

I think the most unique feature is that if you are taking insulin, D Sharp can calculate the insulin dose required to cover the carbs in a meal. It will even track your active insulin and adjust to avoid "stacking" multiple administrations, etc. In this way it provides a lot of the features of an insulin pump and makes them available to someone who is just using a pen needle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Pretty sweet. I'll give it a try!

</comment><comment><USER4> Lookin' good! Came here from IRC.</comment>


HeyZap (YC 09) Goes After Social Discovery, Launches Check-in For Mobile Games - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/16/heyzap-goes-after-social-discovery-launches-check-in-for-mobile-games/

<comment><USER2> "This is significant because it is designed to quickly increase the virality of a game by allowing users to check-in (and broadcast) to Facebook, Twitter, and the Heyzap graph by way of a simple button."

While I don't look forward to what this will do to my Facebook screen, it's a genius idea. The next step, of course, is to offer in-game incentives for users to share, like most facebook games do.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's interesting is that we're going to see lots of sub graphs form outside of Facebook to solve the specific issues. Examples, Quora, twitter, foursquare, instagram, socialcam, heyzap

<comment><USER4> Exactly! People act differently from site-to-site and the more that you force one unified system, the more ancillary sites will begin to grow!</comment></comment>


Mayor of city that threw out Microsoft told to end attacks on Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/mayor-of-city-that-threw-out-microsoft-told-to-end-attacks-on-linux/

<comment><AUTHOR> TLDR: Microsoft fanboy mayor of Munich's unfounded public criticism is creating staffing problems. Difficulty in finding Linux-capable staff is cited as legitimate reason for not switching to Linux.

Excerpt of particular interest, to me:

> Commenting on the findings, Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux > Foundation, said the foundation is aware of the need for a larger number of > people with the skills to maintain and develop Linux-based operating systems > within large companies and organisations.

> "Preliminary findings from our annual Linux Jobs Report, to be released in > February, show nearly 88 percent of hiring managers are having a very or > somewhat difficult time finding adequate Linux talent. This is why The Linux > Foundation has expanded its efforts to train Linux professionals with > expanded training courses, a free Intro to Linux MOOC with edX, and the new > performance-based Linux certification programs."</comment>


Datastream.io: Open Source Anomaly Detection - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ment_at/datastream-io-open-source-anomaly-detection-64db282735e0 <comment><USER2> For those of us not familiar with ML, what are some examples of data that is best consumed by something like this?

<comment><USER3> I could imagine piping system stats into this and then setting up alerts when something "unusual" is happening.

The super amazing thing would be multivariate analysis of multiple series so you could see when the relationships between variables becomes anomalous as well.

<comment><USER4> We have just that type of model coming up in our next release. So for example in the case of a smart car, a higher value for torque than usual might be OK if it is simultaneous with a peak in the gas pedal. But if a peak in the pedal does not coincide with a peak in torque, that is a problem. Follow us to stay up to date!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A free collection of maps for every country in the world, in 11 sizes - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/djaiss/mapsicon <comment><USER2> Great effort!

Unfortunately, you're likely to get a bunch of requests for changes since there are a bunch of places where geo-political boundaries are murky at best.

For example, your map for India ([https://github.com/djaiss/mapsicon/blob/master/asia/in/1024....](https://github.com/djaiss/mapsicon/blob/master/asia/in/1024.png)) shows the boundary as the line of control with Pakistan and China, instead of the boundary which India claims (based on pre-war demarcations, [http://www.mapsofindia.com/images2/india- map.jpg](http://www.mapsofindia.com/images2/india-map.jpg))

<comment><USER3> It'd be a fun project to change political boundaries, location names (Sea of Japan / East Sea), and map orientation (who is at the center?) based on each visitor's geolocation.

The world: _according to you._

<comment><USER4> Google maps already does that. [1]

[1] [http://www.menasborders.com/menasborders/news/article/871/Go...](http://www.menasborders.com/menasborders/news/article/871/Google_in_trouble_again_over_Kashmir_map/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How is this better than existing projects like Wikimedia's vector maps?

[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:SVG_maps_by_count...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:SVG_maps_by_country)

<comment><USER6> Thanks!

This should have been the post...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think if you read all the comments you'll realize why you couldn't sell these. They aren't maps, they are riddled with errors, they are not even in a vector scalable format.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, IMO Natural Earth[0] data is much more valuable, and easy to get into any format one could need. Countries would be covered by the "Admin 0 – Countries" file[1].

[0][http://www.naturalearthdata.com/](http://www.naturalearthdata.com/)

[1][http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural- vecto...](http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural- vectors/10m-admin-0-countries/)

<comment><USER9> > easy to get into any format one could need

Okay, I'll bite. How would one get these into SVG? I haven't found anything as straightforward as an SHP->SVG converter.

<comment><USER10> I havent used this, but I've seen it posted a few times on various GIS type places: [http://www.duif.net/qgis/simplesvg/](http://www.duif.net/qgis/simplesvg/)

Not sure if this would fit your needs, or if it's any good

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I prefer my maps in SVG. [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:SVG_maps_by_count...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:SVG_maps_by_country)

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure that you know what the word map actually means.

This is a free collection of country images, or silhouettes, but only in the loosest possible definition of the term could these be considered maps.

Not trying to belittle your efforts; merely your advertising.

<comment><USER7> yeah, exactly. I was helping my 6th grader last night on "Earth Science" (scoped at California) and we covered maps and their definition. One of the primary prerequisite for a map is having physical features like rivers, mountains etc.

<comment><USER13> So, to be clear, you're saying this is not a map: [http://cdn.myzipcodemap.com/statemaps/CA.PDF;](http://cdn.myzipcodemap.com/statemaps/CA.PDF;) this is not a map: [http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/standard-tube- map.pdf](http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/standard-tube-map.pdf) ...

<comment> jack-r-abbit The first one won't load for me. The second is a map, IMO... as it contains "physical features" like the train tubes, wheelchair ramps, bathrooms, etc

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The map for Austria ([https://github.com/djaiss/mapsicon/blob/master/europe/at/102...](https://github.com/djaiss/mapsicon/blob/master/europe/at/1024.png)) doesn't depict Austria, but its state Carinthia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carinthia_(state)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carinthia_\(state\))).

Otherwise, I like your project and the initiative of open sourcing it. Could be a nice resource for making a geo-quiz or similar.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the mistake, will fix this.

<comment><USER15> Also, the one for gb shows Northern Ireland. Great Britain doesn't include any of the Irish island. That would be the United Kingdom. There's a quick overview showing the differences here: [http://resources.woodlands- junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questi...](http://resources.woodlands- junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/britain.html)

Nice work though. I can see a lot of ways these could be useful.

<comment><USER16> Nope. The ISO3166 code for the United Kingdom is 'gb'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> FYI, tf lacks several territories (it only depicts the main island of Kerguelen) but above all, Asia is probably not the continent I would have chosen for a collection of islands near Antarctica. It's usually (as in timezones, for example) put in an "Indian" group which also includes Madagascar, the Maldives, Mauritius, and other Indian ocean territories.

Another point: it's not actually a list of _countries_ but a list of entities that have iso codes, ie. French overseas departements are listed separately from mainland, except for Corsica.

Looking at the France map, I find that the boundaries are a bit out of shape, as if they were a bit "deflated" (the Ardennes point, Crozon peninsula, or Corsica cape, are very thin lines, and even Normandy looks skinny). I'm not sure why.

</comment><comment><USER17> I like Pakistan map ([https://github.com/djaiss/mapsicon/blob/master/asia/pk/1024....](https://github.com/djaiss/mapsicon/blob/master/asia/pk/1024.png)), thanks for adding my country :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Why not vector format?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I created them one year ago using Fireworks. I didn't understand the importance of saving them in .svg back then. Now I do :-) I'm planning to export all the vectors to Illustrator, then saving them in .svg, then putting them in Github too.

<comment><USER19> You didn't seriously trace all maps in Fireworks, did you? Do you realize you can download shapefiles for all countries from multiple places on the net, and then render them at all desired sizes and styles with an afternoon worth of programming?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah - I've been really dumb on this one, I know :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's an issue with Puerto Rico: [https://github.com/djaiss/mapsicon/issues/1](https://github.com/djaiss/mapsicon/issues/1).

</comment><comment><USER21> Nicely done!

Minor things, but I was surprised to find Russia in 'Asia' folder. In most cases (sport for example) it's considered Europe.

<comment><USER22> This, of course, brings us to the question, "What are continents?" [1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34)

<comment><AUTHOR> Again, depending on the wikipedia article, Russia can be considered in Europe, in Asia or in Eurasia. So tricky. Which norm to follow?

<comment><USER23> If you have distinction between Europe and Asia, you put Russia and some other smaller countries in both. If you have only Eurasia, you don't have problem. You don't put Europe, Asia and Eurasia in one flat classification, because Eurasia includes Europa and Asia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Any chance you could build a 2013-ready (flat?) version of timezonepicker.com ?

</comment><comment><USER25> Why not vector/SVG?

</comment><comment><USER26> MY only shows peninsula Malaysia - missing the Borneo States...

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't see Alaska and Hawaii in the namerica / us

</comment><comment><USER28> as a chinese, I don't understand why you make China and Taiwan separately.

<comment><USER8> Probably because they are two different countries for all intents and purposes, and from the point of view of most of the world except for mainland China.

The fact that Taiwan citizens need a (kind of) visa to enter mainland China is also a clear message that they aren't citizens of the same country.

Any other claim is political bullshit.</comment></comment>


The AN-225: How the Cold War created the world's largest airplane - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/an-225-worlds-largest-airplane/index.html <comment><USER2> I have been inside this airplane and I've got some pics to share: [https://egorfine.com/photo/mriya/](https://egorfine.com/photo/mriya/)

<comment><USER3> Great shots. I love interior photos of old military planes and for many of them, what's available is sorely lacking in quality, detailed exploration or perspective. Yours are a fine contrast to those tendencies.

The spare tires had me wondering though. I mean, if one were to blow upon landing, wouldn't that be such a disaster that having a spare inside the plane becomes sort of irrelevant? Or does the AN-225 have so many wheels (which I suspect given its huge size) that it could indeed blow a couple and still continue landing stably enough for a spare to be useful afterwards? On the other hand, in the air I assume they can hardly replace them and why would they blow while retracted anyhow? No expert but those images in particular sparked some extra curiosity.

<comment><USER4> There is a nice video listed below with a pilot of this plane (in russian but with decent english subtitles), he answers to this question. Wheels indeed deflate (not blow) occasionally, this happens when breaks overheat and special thermal plate (at 200C) melts and deflates the wheel gradually, which works as an indicator of overheated break/tyre. Since it happens gradually, there is no danger for the plane itself. The parts for this plane are not that common (they may be shared with An-124 though), so apparently it is easier to carry few wheels than wait for their delivery. The plane caries 10 m.tons of equipment anyway just to load/unload the cargo, so few wheels probably are not that much of a deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 2 years ago they landed this plane here in Brazil, when they camt to pick hidroeletrical generator parts. I gone with a plane enthusiast friend to see the thing take off. I know the phisics, but amazes me that something that big can fly.

Theres hope that more of this are made in the next years. It looks like China is interested in making a few units;

<comment><USER6> It always amazed me that you could strap a space shuttle to a modified 747 and ... fly.

The whole idea of "just strap it to another flying machine and move it that way" seems like something my 4 year old would come up with.

It is clear my mental model of 'things that can fly good' is deficit when we see things like the AN-225 and etc.

<comment><USER7> Interestingly, there was some doubt within NASA as to whether the 747 piggyback was a good idea. One of the proponents of the idea was a scale model builder, and made a model to demonstrate it; the model's success was persuasive enough that they continued to study the idea.

In the end, the 747-Space Shuttle combo actually has better crosswind landing characteristics than a normal 747, but it has atrocious fuel economy.

<comment><USER6> I wonder how many great ideas have been missed out on because our most basic filter / mental models that allow us to just choose basic candidates for options are ... wrong.

"Wait no you can't do that, let's look into this other thing."

<comment><USER7> My favorite example of a near-miss because of that sort of opposition is lunar orbit rendezvous.[1] Yuri Kondratyuk, Tom Dolan, and John Houbolt were the protagonists in that instance; I generally disfavor the 'great man' theory of history, but I think those three made a real difference.

[1] [https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/Rendezv...](https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/Rendezvous.html)

<comment><USER6> TIL that. Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a political stunt, Polish government has chartered this plane to deliver medical supplies to Poland. What a sight! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnQPcMcGVZ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnQPcMcGVZ8)

However, the costs were insane - around $3 million . Transporting the same amount of cargo with 777 would cost about $1 milion.

But the political stunt was priceless.

<comment><USER4> Maybe it was a political stunt, but actually there are two justification of that.

1) The volume. The masks and other protective gear is volume-demanding cargo, since the overall density including packing (boxes) is low. The Boeing 777 Freighter (777F) has 518m3 of cargo volume on main deck [1], An-225 has 1200m3 [2], so the price per 1m3 of volume is 1930$ and 2500$ respectively (ratio 1.3).

2) The demand and the quarantine itself. During March-April demand on masks was enormous, everyone tried to buy them, some countries even tried to take over deliveries for other ones. China and many other countries were not accepting flights, so arranging even a single flight was challenging (thats why An-225 was flying through Almaty city that many times when making China- Europe routes, all other airports simply didn't accept any planes for transit and refueling). As a result, one huge plane was much more beneficial than 2-3 smaller ones.

[1] [https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_...](https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_02_09/article_02_1.html)

[2] [https://www.antonov-airlines.com/our-fleet/an-225](https://www.antonov- airlines.com/our-fleet/an-225)

Edit: correcting An-225 cargo volume from 1100m3 to 1200m3 using data from the official website.

<comment><USER9> Antonov airlines have a much more cheaper, and more available An-124 with 1000m³ useful cargo volume. An even more easily available, and thus cheaper to hire, 747 has 500 to 600m³ volume in different configurations.

<comment><USER4> Yes, An-124 is indeed a good cheaper alternative with comparable capabilities for this kind of cargo, but in March-April it seems there was a high demand on all Antonov fleet [1] plus the PR factor is not playing the last role here.

[1] [https://www.dw.com/uk/protydiia-koronavirusu-mriia-y- ruslany...](https://www.dw.com/uk/protydiia-koronavirusu-mriia-y-ruslany- zavaleni-zamovlenniamy/a-53095824) or [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dw.com%2Fuk%2Fprotydiia- koronavirusu-mriia-y-ruslany-zavaleni-zamovlenniamy%2Fa-53095824)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "...20 tons of fuel per hour..." holy cow. Pretty impressive statistics all around, apparently the A380 uses closer to 12.5 tons per hour to put it in perspective.

<comment><USER9> Pretty impressive given that:

      Type MTOW [kg] ICAO category
      Antonov An-225 640,000 Heavy
      Airbus A380-800 575,000 Super

and that 225 is made with much less than an ideal aerodynamics, heavy frame, 6 thrust reversers, and oversized control surfaces to accommodate external cargo.

Its 6 engines are also prehistoric. D-18T was made with a much more focus on getting the highest take off thrust over cruise speed performance.

Such a large, wide wing apparently gets very little aerodynamic losses, even with all above considered.

<comment><USER11> Why is 60% more fuel for 10% more weight "pretty impressive"? I mean, you just listed several reasons why it might be "not bad", but what's your baseline expectation that makes it impressive?

<comment><USER9> One is a passenger airliner, made with relatively new engines, and material technology, designed with the aim of flying as economically as possible, another is a one of a kind cargo plane, that from the start had, uniquely, no design aim of flying efficiently.

Also, for that 20t per hour, we need to know if it is for the loaded, or a ferry flight.

<comment><USER11> Yes, that is why it is not surprising if it uses 60% more fuel. My question was why is it impressive? What would you _expect_ given all the things you have mentioned? Twice as much fuel? Ten times? 100 times?

I'm not arguing against your opinion, just asking for context that seemed to be missing.

<comment><USER9> > What would you expect given all the things you have mentioned? Twice as much > fuel?

Pretty much. Most 4 engine airplanes can fly with just 2, or 1. Take off thrust is few times the cruise thrust an all jet airplanes. In flight, the engines needed to achieve the take off thrust are dead drag, and dead weight.

This is why one of crazy ideas for very early large jet planes was to have parachutable, jettisonable engines, or having RATO on civilian planes.

<comment><USER12> Speaking as a passenger, the right solution is CATOBAR. Passenger airports should install linear motor catapults that can get a 500-ton aircraft up to Mach 0.85 in about 10 seconds. (it can support the plane, allowing launch with already-retracted gear) They should also install arrester cables, or something better, such as a moving platform that could handle both tasks.

<comment><USER9> A much cheaper solution is just having really long runways.

<comment><USER12> That doesn't really work for Monaco, Vatican City, or Gibraltar. War is not cheap.

There is no reasonable way to expand London City Airport. Bulldozing London's financial industry to make more room for runways would mean bulldozing the primary customers.

Also, as a passenger, I just want CATOBAR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Small correction with regards to AN-124's name, Ruslan doesn't stand for "condor", condor is its NATO reporting name, Ruslan is just a popular Russian name.

</comment><comment><USER14> Antonov is really struggling to keep the shop open, I wonder if it's possible to keep such plane operational with the manufacturer on the brink of bankrupcy. Las time I checked Boing was supplying some parts that couldn't get imported from Russia now, but AFAIK the are not really having many customers.

<comment><USER15> I don't see Antonov disappearing anymore than GM, Boeing or Volkswagen. I'm sure the Russian state will continue to protect them in one form or another.

<comment><USER16> Antonov is a Ukrainian state enterprise, no problem for Russia to see them go under.

<comment><USER17> By the way, is there any Russian made cargo aircraft?

<comment><USER14> Both Tupolev and Ilyushin are still producing commercial aircrafts. Maybe some others too, but AFAIK this are the two main russian companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> here is a great tour inside the aircraft with 1 of it's pilots (in russian, but with a comprehensible English subs): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TX9L62_Eac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TX9L62_Eac)

<comment><USER19> Wow, just wow.

I knew it carried its whole crew with it, but the cabins are almost a little hotel, two kitchens! Three sleeping quarters! And that's all just tucked into the parts that aren't used for cargo.

I got a few good chuckles out of the back-and-forth, just from the subtitle, I'm sure it's even better if you speak Russian. Well worth a watch, thank you for posting it!

<comment><USER18> There was a piece, where the pilot explained why airports are not in favor of accepting AN225 for landing and takeoff on theirs runways: they have to check the runway surface after landing/takeoff. but even more crucial (not now, but in those times) is that suitable for landing airports are in most cases are those with high throughput of aircrafts and tight schedule and according to the international safety regulations it is possible give permittion for the next takeoff only after 7-10 min due to turbulent wake(is it the right term?). while common passenger flights have an interval of 30 sec

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Jeez CNN is really terrible. The Myasishchev VM-T didn't "carry the spacecraft unassembled" as anyone with eyes can plainly see, and the AN-225 was designed as a replacement for the VM-T (and, truth be told, as a sort of stunt).

[https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a30930668...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a30930668/vm- t-atlant/)

<comment><USER21> Well, the plane shown in the first photo is clearly carrying an incomplete spacecraft. To find out that it was in fact able to carry the completely assembled Buran, you'd have to actually read the article ("During another flight in 1988 — this time with a flight-worthy Buran orbiter"), and that's probably too much to ask nowadays...

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I never knew they had a second, unfinished, airframe ready for assembly.

<comment><USER23> I remember a Discovery program showing what supposedly was an AN-225 airframe parked in a field somewhere. The story was that it was finished, but never certified for flight, and was eventually used for parts to keep the one 225 operational.

I can't find evidence online to back this story up though. Not sure of this was the second airframe shown in the article, or that this may have been a third airframe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The H-4 Hercules could plausibly be considered larger. It has a larger wingspan, height, and cargo volume, but only ever flew once (for about a mile) and has significantly lower weight capacity. It was also bult several decades before the AN-225.

cf [https://www.theaviationzone.com/factsheets/hk1_specs.asp](https://www.theaviationzone.com/factsheets/hk1_specs.asp)

<comment><USER25> Stratolaunch has widest wingspan, Hercules has highest height and Mriya is the longest/heaviest. So... they are all demonstrations for how we learned to build extreme aircrafts.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's no shortage of documentaries on Youtube on the AN-225 [0][1].

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsh2GSHM2TA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsh2GSHM2TA)

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

</comment><comment><USER26> I saw it once at an air show in Pretoria, along with some other cool planes like the Sukhoi SU-35. The Russians actually loaded up all their other planes into the Antonov, and flew it straight from Moscow to Pretoria in one shot!

</comment><comment><USER27> It's crazy how this can be economical with economics of scale=1. Every replacement part for maintenance must be custom-made, there must be no market for trained pilots and technicians on that particular plane, etc.

<comment><USER28> They cross-train for AN-124, which is quite similar, though obviously smaller.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Paul Allen's Stratolaunch has a wider wingspan, but less cargo capacity. Wonder where that monster will end up. It's intended for high-altitude rocket launches and not useful for much else.

</comment><comment><USER30> Whatever its future, that is one monster plane I would love to see fly. Given the 747 has no future now and even the A380 is not that popular and might vanish, we may never see such a huge plane again.

<comment><USER31> 747s are still used for cargo. I saw one fly over my head just yesterday.

<comment><USER32> Yeah...while there probably won't be many/any new 747s built, they'll probably be flying cargo for many decades. Last II knew, FedEx was still flying 25 or so Douglas DC-10 cargos, more than 30 years after the last one was built.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Hour-long video showing parts of a whole mission: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=eNxTq9RrOs0](https://youtube.com/watch?v=eNxTq9RrOs0)

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't think it's the "Cold War" that created it per se - it was the Space Race. We need another one of those, doesn't matter with whom.

<comment><USER35> And the space race was created by the Cold War. Without the Cold War, I doubt we would have ever sent a man to the moon.

<comment><USER34> True. But I feel like Space Race eventually took a life of its own, and it was not military in nature. You don't do joint space programs if you're having a "war".

<comment><USER36> But military requirements seem to have played a significant role in how the Shuttles became what they were. A purely civilian space race wouldn't have had shuttles at all, or at least a very different design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> largest by payload - unless the Stratolaunch gets uprated.

</comment><comment><USER38> They don't make 'em like they used to</comment>


Image to LaTeX - <AUTHOR> https://www.wandb.com/articles/image-to-latex <comment><USER2> So this is just like Mathpix?

[https://mathpix.com/](https://mathpix.com/)

I've never found typing out LaTeX equations particularly tedious, unless you're doing multi-page derivations in which case you're spending more time checking for errors.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I've been using Mathpix for almost a year now and this seems practically the same.

Unless they are deliberately avoiding comparison to Mathpix, they are quite unaware of the competition out there :|

<comment><USER4> We were aware of Mathpix and we think it's an awesome tool! We didn't mention it because there isn't any publicly available performance results for the model they use, so we weren't able to compare it to ours in a quantitative way :)

<comment><USER5> But you could do the performance evaluation of mathpix using your benchmark or?

<comment><USER4> The evaluation sets involves ~20k samples. They only let you do like 100 for free. Also I'm not sure there's an API for it for me to do automatically for such a large scale

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The stated use case is to allow scientists to quickly add equations from other sources into their papers. However, if you look at output 2, there are some subtle mistakes in the result. It seems like whatever time is saved on transcribing equations would be lost on proof reading them.

It does seem like this could have value as a LaTeX teaching tool though, for when you need to figure out how to write the markup to do a certain technique.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, for my domian I just download the latex source from arxiv and take equations from there if there is any point at all to not just transcribing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Unfortunately, typesetting the equations directly is often the wrong way. It might sometimes work for lecture notes, but when you develop your own scientific work, your notation is often still fluid. In such a case it is sensible to express your mathematics with a domain-specific notation. Then you can later a) change your notation and b) understand your source code.

As an example, instead of writing \\(G = (V,E)\\) directly you might want to write \\(\graph{} = (\nodes{},\edges{})\\)

<comment><USER9> > In such a case it is sensible to express your mathematics with a domain- > specific notation.

> As an example, instead of writing \\(G = (V,E)\\) directly you might want to > write \\(\graph{} = (\nodes{},\edges{})\\)

This can be great for personal use, but it can be very bad for communicating with others; (a) you won't be able to write a paper with a co-author unless you agree on your domain-specific abbreviations in advance (and, if you think that's easy, then I say from experience that it isn't), and (b) most journals prefer a minimal number of custom commands, and some forbid custom commands entirely. Even if journals permit custom commands, the more you define, the more likely you are to conflict in some baroque way with their own style files.

EDIT: Also, even if you do this only for personal use, it can be very hard to go _back_ from it (just search for TSE questions on macro-expanders; there are plenty, but all of them that I know of assume some well formedness constraints that make sense to their authors but will almost inevitably conflict with one's own ad hoc conventions).

<comment> Ar-Curunir Eh? I use tons of macros in my papers with 5+ coauthors all the time; it's preferable to random per-person notation that is inconsistent over the paper.

In fact it's the only way to scale a paper across tens of pages and over multiple people

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If this works on handwritten equations it would be great. I used to work at an online school and getting teachers to be able to write latex was next to impossible.

<comment><USER11> There are quite a few educational apps that does this. E.g. look up socratic.org's GitHub.

<comment><USER12> Sorry, I don't see it:

[https://github.com/socraticorg](https://github.com/socraticorg)

<comment><USER13> Socratic is powered by MathpixOCR :) [https://mathpix.com/ocr](https://mathpix.com/ocr)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Project: [http://lstm.seas.harvard.edu/latex](http://lstm.seas.harvard.edu/latex)

Source code: [https://github.com/harvardnlp/im2markup](https://github.com/harvardnlp/im2markup)

</comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of Mathpix Snap: [https://mathpix.com/](https://mathpix.com/)

<comment><USER4> Yep! In fact we chose to work on this project after seeing (and using) Mathpix. We thought it solves a very interesting problem using deep learning :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Another way would be to use the neural network to do segmentation, run the individual results through DeTeXify and finally reassemble. This would probably yield higher accuracy (DeTeXify works with handwritten too).

<comment><USER4> Interesting idea!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I Like this but I notice that even they examples in the paper are buggy.

But it could be like Google Translate: does a terrible job but makes a handy starting point you can then fix up to be reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is awesome I was looking for such a tool. Indeed handwritten seems like the next logical step.

<comment><USER18> Or scanning older math-y books that have no LaTeX equivalent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is only a problem that needs solving because LaTeX formula syntax is pretty horrible.

I'd like to underline that, for all its warts, MS Word has an _excellent_ formula editor (which even supports common LaTeX commands as autocorrect). I know that it's a radical idea, but if the goal is to let scientists spend less time writing formulas, maybe we should consider letting them use modern software?

ps. MS Word can copy formulas into the clipboard as LaTeX expressions, should your journal require LaTeX papers but you dont want to edit your formulas like a caveman.

<comment><USER20> It's extremely tedious to type formulas in MS Word... an insane amount of clicking around the toolbars and then clicking in boxes. In my experience Latex is far easier.

<comment><USER21> Further, this tool is designed to turn screenshots taken from papers into LaTeX code. It's faster than _any_ editor because the user does not have to enter the equation at all.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: NuGet Library Download Trends - <AUTHOR> https://nugettrends.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi! I'm one of the authors and wanted to introduce NuGetTrends.

This is a website with historical total download count for NuGet packages on nuget.org.

There's data since 2013 but the UI so far has predefined filter for as far back as 2 years and result is grouped by week. Query string takes months as an integer though so URL hack to have some fun.

The NuGetTrends workers go through the nuget.org's catalog API so all the package's metadata are available in its database. That means there's the potential to build some new cool stats like:

        - How many packages are signed.
        - Are the DLLs in the packages strong named.
        - Packages with unoptimized DLLs.
        - Stats package adoption of source link.
        - TFM adoption

Code's on GitHub: [https://github.com/NuGetTrends/nuget- trends](https://github.com/NuGetTrends/nuget-trends) Feedback appreciated! Thanks.</comment>


Metric vs. Imperial Units: The Greatest One-Sided Debate of All Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.blog.fictiv.com/posts/metric-vs-imperial-units-the-greatest-one-sided-debate-of-all-time <comment><USER2> Here in the UK, we use a mixture of metric and imperial. Speed limits are given in miles per hour. When you go to the pub, you ask for a pint of beer. And I believe imperial units are still being taught in schools.

So I don't think that map is entirely accurate. There are sure to be more countries that use imperial units to some degree, if not exclusively.

</comment><comment><USER3> _" Metric Centimeters to meters: 1000"_

That, I think, is irony.

<comment><USER4> It's still better than using centiinches per millihours.</comment></comment>


For job seekers, end of the Google gravy train - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2008/10/for-job-seekers-end-of-the-google-gravy-train/

<comment><USER2> From my understanding (and the graphs don't disprove it, aside from the Doubleclick bounce), Google has been in "slow hire" mode for over a year. The feeling I get from folks within is that GOOG got a bit bloated in the middle management tier, had gotten uncomfortably hierarchical, and they would not be hiring to replace a large number of positions (no layoffs...just fewer hires to fill "holes" left by people leaving).

I don't think the economy has a lot to do with it--Google still has tons of cash, revenues are strong, and growth is apparently still happening. I think it's just that they grew too fast to hire as carefully or selectively as prudence requires, they recognized the problem, and took steps to correct it. (I think some of the steps are probably counter-productive. A lot of the early hires that built Google into what it is, wouldn't be able to get an interview with Google today, because they didn't go to the right schools or have a 4.0 GPA.)

<comment><USER3> What early hires are you thinking of?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought they would be talking about a cut in options or something , slow hiring doesn't end gravy. Better title "google hiring slows"

<comment><USER5> Though, the lower stock price of late means that options have been "cut"

<comment><USER6> Lower stock price means the _strike price_ of the options has been cut, which is _good_ for new employees. Your total profit on options is numOptions * (stock price - strike price).

Unless they've reduced the number of options to compensate. I don't see why any company would do that though - it's not like writing options at a lower market price costs them more, accounting-wise.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What gets you in a hacking mood? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> Electronic music gets me going. Anything that resembles The Matrix soundtrack brings me good memories because I was spending a lot of time tinkering with low-level stuff when the movie came out.

</comment><comment><USER2> Watching Elliot from Mr. Robot hacking big companies always turns me on

<comment><USER3> Don't downvote this guy, if anybody's ever watched the show we can agree this is an honest response.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is going to sound stupid, but opening my ide and starting to code.

I have more ideas than I will ever have time to look into, and weeks can go by without hacking if I don't open that IDE.</comment>


Ex-Googlers Launch MightyText, An iMessage For Android Users - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/19/ex-googlers-launch-mightytext-an-imessage-for-android-users/ <comment><USER2> Tangentially related: I find it really ironic how the IM landscape has changed over the decades.

At first we had proprietary protocols like ICQ, AIM and MSN. Then we got clients that reverse-engineered the protocols and supported logging onto multiple networks, which was nice, but the cat-and-mouse game between IM vendors and the people reverse-engineering the protocol was annoying for all parts (i.e clients stopping to work and wasted effort on the IM vendor side).

In all this mess, Jabber was born, trying to standardize IM with the XMPP protocol and the Jabber implementation.

It never flied.

And now we are at a point where all these additional IM services pop up. Ironically, all of them are using XMPP under the hood but all of them go great lengths in adding crypto to make absolutely sure that they are not interoperable.

This is one of the rare cases where a standard was created which everybody is actually following, but which didn't create any kind of interoperability between clients.

It pains me endlessly that I must know whether I can contact person X via iMessage or WhatsApp or now this. And this time it's not even about reverse- engineering protocols. It's just about checking whether your client is a "legitimate" one. There's no technical reason besides actually removing checks and making server names configurable why WhatsApp couldn't talk with iMessage or why GTalk can't talk with WhatsApp and so on.

<comment><USER3> Jabber and GTalk are completely interoperable, though.

<comment><USER4> Except that user name quirks are required to login to gtalk with an xmpp client :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> MightyText is a "SMS remote control" for your Android phone. It gives you a browser-interface from which you can send/receive SMS.

It's critical to realize that you are interacting with the MightyText webapp over the internet, it runs on _their_ servers. When your phone receives a SMS it will upload it to _their_ servers so it shows up in the web-interface.

When you write a SMS in their web-interface then your phone will later pick it up (by polling _their_ servers) and send it out via your phone's GSM.

Notice something?

Right, _all_ your SMS conversations now run through their servers. Also, if their servers get compromised then the new owner will gain significant control over your phone; at the least they will be able to send SMS in your name. This is a disaster waiting to happen.

If you're looking for a better implementation of this concept (convenient web- interface to send/receive SMS) then look for "EasySMS" in the android market.

EasySMS runs a webserver directly on your phone, which you connect to with your browser. It's your own local MightyText. No middleman involved, no need to upload all your SMS to remote servers, no need to give a third party remote-control over your phone.

<comment><USER6> > Right, all your SMS conversations now run through their servers.

I may misunderstand but all of your text conversations are _available_ through their servers while they still _go_ through your phone. You can still just directly send a text from your phone, right?

<comment><USER5> Yes, that's right.

My point was that you're then sharing all your conversations with their servers. That's imho a bad trade-off when you can just run the web-interface directly on your phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> People seem confused as to what this is. MightyText lets you text from your computer as if you are texting from your phone.

I've been using this for around 2 months now. It is VERY buggy. Sometimes you'll experience delays in receiving and sometimes you don't even know if your text was sent out. You have to kind of get used to its 'quirks'.

Having said that, it has gotten a lot better and I expect it to continue. Anyone who texts a lot during the day should love setting up MightyText.

<comment><USER8> I tried it and agree it's very buggy. If they can't get rid of the obvious bugs, how am I supposed to trust that my data is not exposed by much more subtle ones? I've un-registered and deleted my data.

<comment><USER9> How'd you delete your data?

I'm trying to remove my account too..

<comment><USER8> I revoked address book access, deleted the conversations individually (I couldn't find a feature to delete them all), revoked access from Google Accounts, and removed the app from my phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why can't Google centralize its messaging apps already, including adding SMS into it? Sure, the carriers might not like it, but get with the program Google.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't see how it is different from DeskSMS. This is not like iMessage at all, it just syncs your SMS messages to your computer. It doesn't actually enable your computer to send or receive SMS messages. So if I am roaming or have my phone turned off, I don't get messages.

<comment><USER12> looks pretty close to DeskSMS. they seem similar.

the problem with the "phone off" thing is -- then you don't get texts to your # at all.

I hope carriers will work with MightyText to do direct integration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been using MightyText in beta for months. It doesn't resemble iMessage in any way, and it's not supposed to. I have no idea where the headline came from. It's not an IM service. It is, simply, an app for sending and receiving text messages _through your phone_ from a PC. So if you're at a computer and you receive a text, or you want to text someone, instead of taking your phone out of your pocket and using the little screen and the little keyboard, you do it right on the computer. Simple, useful, end of story.

</comment><comment><USER14> Okay, I'm still confused. Is it "iMessage for Androud users" in that it automatically recognizes other MightyText users and sends those messages over the data connection? That point isn't especially clear.

Also, why is there so much emphasis on browser sync? Is the browser install a dependency? Does this work if, say, my browser is closed or my PC is shut down? I would assume that it does, but with the browser sync instructions so heavily emphasized in the install instructions, I'm not sure.

<comment><USER13> It's not "iMessage for Android users" in any way. The headline is nonsense. If your browser is closed or your PC is shut down, MightyText does nothing for you. The browser interface _is_ the interface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm curious how this is significantly different from say, Google Voice's SMS implementation; Aside from the obvious "making and receiving" calls functionality, it looks just like Google Voice to me, which I use exclusively for its ability to send text messages without having to resort to using my phone.

Edit: Nevermind, after installing and playing with it, it even consumes my native SMS messages. A nice touch for sure.

<comment><USER12> yes the difference is that it integrates directly with your android phone # and sms.

been using it for a few weeks, really like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> For others like me that skimmed the article quickly trying to figure out how it was different than all the other iMessage competitors on Android right now, let me save you the trouble and show you the big difference:

> Uses your current Android phone number.

This is awesome. I hope it takes off quickly.

<comment><USER17> WhatsApp is also based on your phone number and it works across all major mobile platforms (iOS, Android, WP, BB)

<comment><USER18> > mobile platforms

And that's the problem. I want to have clients on all my devices (desktop, tablet, smartphone) accessing the very same account, like GTalk.

<comment><USER17> I should have read the article completely first.

I was thrown off by the comparison to iMessage in the article title.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Calling it iMessage for Android is misleading. MightyText is basically a web interface for your SMS's.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is good but what I really want is SMS integrated with email. Think about it SMS is a text based conversation just like email- how much better would it be to have all the other functions of email (especially gmail) tagging, archiving, threads, filters, ability to mark as SPAM.

SMS as a separate product made sense when it was first introduced- email on phones didn't exist. But in 2012 it's time they were integrated.

As an aside I also wish that carriers would stop doing voicemail and the various (broken) text->voice services and just record the message as an MP3 (low quality is good) and message it to me- again having it turn up in my mailbox would be even better.

</comment><comment><USER21> Does it count toward my 250 texts per month, or is it free?

<comment><USER22> i think its whatever your phone's plan is cause it sends from your phone.

<comment><USER21> OK, then that's not as good as google voice, for me. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Doesn't work for me.

<https://mightytext.net/app> -> " __Error in GetUserInfo: timeout" whether I'm logged into Google or not.

Too bad. I like DeskSMS and I'd prefer something like it only free.

<comment><USER24> I get the exact same error. Have you found anything since you posted this?

<comment><USER23> A few hours later it worked on my work computer with XP. Still doesn't work on my home computer with Arch Linux.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I noticed yesterday that my android gtalk app was updating a thread when I switched to it. It seems like a recent change and it's entirely server side. Has anybody else noticed?

<comment><USER26> This is not particularly recent, in my experience. GTalk has been syncing between gmail, my phone, and my tablet very well for a while now, but it's certainly a welcome feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wait, I thought WhatsApp or Google Voice were the replacements for iMessage. It needs to work everywhere like Google Voice, or save you international SMS like WhatsApp does.

</comment><comment><USER28> the main reason i use android over iphone is the seamless integration of google voice, and gv already gives me access to my sms & vmail from the browser.

imho, the solution isn't to build yet another android app but to make google voice a natural/default choice for android users. if you have an android phone and haven't tried google voice yet, i highly recommend you give it a shot. having used it for the last few years, i can't imagine ever going back to carrier sms/vmail.

<comment><USER29> I agree. The killer thing about Google Voice is that it lets you block calls via a web interface.

It's not hard to figure out how to block all "private" and "unknown" calls. So that means surveys or telemarketers or whoever have to use a number that you can block.

The Google voice extension for Chrome works very well for texting. Nice to use a full-size keyboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Such a simple idea, but love how it's done. Surprising that Android doesn't offer this as a standard part of it's OS. Well done MightyText!

</comment><comment><USER31> How is this different/superior to gtalk in anyway?

<comment><USER32> If some of your friends have no access to gTalk, or prefer SMS, then this might help. However this will store all your SMSes in their server from now on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> We are using Chikka (<http://www.chikka.com/>) in the Philippines since 2001

</comment><comment><USER34> For interoperability, I like email. It is well supported across most platforms, and everyone has already adopted it.

</comment><comment><USER35> It's not totally perfect, but HandcentSMS will auto-group iMessages sent to you for you on Android.

</comment><comment><USER36> just started using it. Its simply amazing... users seems to love this app like crazy - <https://twitter.com/#!/mightytext/favorites>

</comment><comment><USER37> Sticking with koush's DeskSMS for now. Support the indie devs!

</comment><comment><USER38> Let me just say it - what a silly name.

</comment><comment><USER22> just downloaded. i can text so much faster now. is this for real? wow.

</comment><comment><USER39> A BBM for Android?

</comment><comment><USER40> How is this different (besides visually) from porting my number to Google Voice? It seems to have the exact same set of functionality.

Also, koush's DeskSMS has been around much, much longer and _is_ the _exact_ same as this.

<comment><USER41> I'm not sure if this helps, but I think Google Voice is still unavailable to 95% of the world (i.e., it's Americans-only) so that may be a large difference (if these guys support non-Americans, anyway).

<comment><USER40> Ah, I always forget my American privilege. You're right of course.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask PG: Bug or feature in HN code? - <AUTHOR>

I notice that any time I respond to one of your comments, I get sent to the page that shows all your comments after submitting it, while for everyone else, I just get sent back to the top story page.  Just curious as to whether this was intentional. <comment><USER2> I just tried responding to a random comment made by PG, and on submissions I was taken to... Noodles comments page (<http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=noodle>)

I deleted the comment right away.

<comment><USER3> pg,

This sounds similar to the behavior I emailed about on 20090528, just as FYI/reminder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I noticed that too a while back.</comment>


Show HN: CleanEmail – email clean/organization tool which doesn't sell your data - <AUTHOR> https://clean.email/?c=SWEET30 <comment><USER2> Keeping email clean is a never-ending task. I really want something that can help.

I've spent some time with various tools, I like the UX of your tool. My first reaction was that it seemed promising.

But in practice... I'm not sure how it would save me time. I just spent the last 30 mintues trying to create rules and such to help it clean my inbox... I think right out the gate you need to show value.

Right away it should have a list of all mail that's from email spammers, and give me the option to delete it. I suspect, in time, you'll have data needed to identify the spammers more easily?

I'm new to the tool... so maybe I got this wrong... but I know that I have friends and family that send using BCC... and for whatever reason it thinks all of those are spam. They aren't. But to protect them... I have to go to every from address and say, "This isn't spam..." and that's a lot.

Anyway if you do a search for the word "noreply" or "unsubscribe" in your Gmail... 99% of the time that's spam. You can quickly delete it.

I empty my inbox by doing "before: 04/24/2017" every Monday morning... any emails from the past week get thrown in the archive... I do star a few things as I go to help me follow up.

If the tool could do some smarter stuff like... instead of specific email addresses, I want to block everything from anyone "@paypal" that sort of stuff -- that'd be good... I can do that already with Gmail.

Nice UX, I can see this being useful for people who don't know how to use advanced queries in Gmail... it takes a bit of time to set up though... whatever you can do to cut that down so people see value in the first 3 minutes would be good.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> hello everyone!

Some of you might have seen our service at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14178397#14180463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14178397#14180463)

In short: CleanEmail helps you organize, remove, label, and archive groups of emails in your account. Instead of focusing on individual emails, CleanEmail segments your mailbox using smart rules and filters.

We're very strict about privacy and data: we don't keep, sell, or analyze your data for the purposes beyond our public features. Our privacy policy is in the bottom of every page and it clearly explains what we do with data and what data we collect.

We were also mentioned by John Gruber: [http://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/04/24/cleanemail](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/04/24/cleanemail)

I'll be happy to answer any questions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Love this. Thank you for charging and respecting privacy. In the future, would be great to have periodic audits from third parties to verify that privacy is being respected (since email is the most sensitive account that I have).

Also, a hugely useful feature for me would be the ability to archive emails older than X days (not just 2 years).

<comment><USER2> [https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7190?hl=en](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7190?hl=en)

`before:` gives you this functionality if you want to archive your inbox.

<comment><USER3> That doesn't give me a rolling window to archive my inbox, and you can't create a filter with just "older_than" or "newer_than".

<comment><AUTHOR> this message validates a feature we are working on. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> (and that link has a 30% discount in it in case you decide to subscribe)</comment>


OWASP Cheat Sheet Series - <AUTHOR> https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org <comment><USER2> I'm a product security engineer. I reference these all of the time during my own work to make sure I didn't miss something stupid, but I also hand links out to them to engineers when we do find bugs in their code. Most of the time I think they're ignored.

If most engineers just took a second to read the ones that were directly pertinent to their projects and tried to be cognisant of some mitigations, I'd find substantially less low-hanging-fruit vulnerabilities in the first review pass. Doing so actually makes my job significantly more difficult, and forces me to dig deeper - which is a _good_ thing. Instead of writing up for the 100th time some input validation spiel, I can spend time searching for more complex bugs, writing protocol fuzzers, and doing _real_ analysis in the time I have for the review.

<comment><USER3> When programmers feel frustrating repetition they automate. The way to reach people is not with scolding but with scanners that are easy to use, helpful, and don't have lots of false positives.

<comment><USER2> > The way to reach people is not with scolding

I think it's an unfair assumption to say that I'm scolding the teams I work with by trying to educate them on security issues - the fact that that is your takeaway from my last post says a lot about another issue with security organisations: that there often exists some adversarial nature between software engineering and product security. I moved into security from product engineering. I try my best to be the ally of the engineers, and educate them on bug classes so they can learn to deal with issues throughout the software development lifecycle, from early threat modelling and design issues to creating implementations that minimize weaknesses.

A helpful solution, as the child poster says, is to have frameworks that stop you from doing the dumb stuff, but smaller organisations sometimes don't have that luxury, and even still you can shoot yourself in the foot with your frameworks (Using front-end frameworks as an example, I've seen way too many extraneous uses of dangerouslySetInnerHtml and DOMSanitizer bypasses when I was a consultant.)

> scanners that are easy to use, helpful, and don't have lots of false > positives.

I've written a fair amount of automation tooling to glue together COTS/OSS SAST/DAST applications. Most of even the better commercial tools still yield insane amounts of false positives and require human interaction to make sure that the bug is actually exploitable. Common web security tools such as Burp Suite Pro's scanner are effectively useless for most modern web apps. Some languages and architectures are better than others, some companies' internal rulesets are better than others, and it's a struggle to get something that works for even the majority case. Some of the most mature technology companies I've worked at are still trying to build these tools across their infrastructure, and they have better success in some languages/platforms than others, and they don't have the resources to keep up with the new languages / platforms / frameworks engineers want to use for this project or that. It's an uphill battle, and education is still just as important as tooling.

<comment><USER4> I've been involved with several security teams, either as a builder getting my stuff reviewed by them, or as someone brought in to help them do the reviews.

Besides myself, I've never came across another developer in an InfoSec team. Their background ranges from networking, desktop jockeying, manual sysadmin, audit, script running pentesters and mangerial, but never really developers, nor anyone who has been setting up automation for an operations function.

I think this is partly because I contract, and the sort of orgs that bring me on are already struggling, but I think it's also just a common theme that InfoSec teams don't build, and so people that do don't want to be there.

This is what leads to a lot of things we don't like. The demands to follow processes that don't really help, the buying of random products and demanding you integrate, etc. They simply lack of knowledge in Product Development leads to a lot of bad habits.

Much like you suggest, my job is too easy really. The builders also flee these orgs, because dealing with bullshit bureaucracy isn't fun, so with what's left all I can really do is suggest: use a framework that deals with security considerations, and don't deviate; follow this guidence such as CIS Benchmark; Use scanning tooks and look into the input; basically basic stuff, then come back to me when I have something to look at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The thing that I find difficult with OWASP: there doesn't always seem to be comprehensive examples provided for what these attack surfaces could be used for. That makes it difficult to both understand the impact of a particular issue, and test for it.

As an example: [https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/AJAX_Security...](https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/AJAX_Security_Cheat_Sheet.html#always- return-json-with-an-object-on-the-outside)

I'm fascinated to know how this could actually be exploited. But there's no hint or reference to that. It's just "don't do this".

<comment><USER6> Here you go: [https://haacked.com/archive/2008/11/20/anatomy-of-a- subtle-j...](https://haacked.com/archive/2008/11/20/anatomy-of-a-subtle-json- vulnerability.aspx/)

<comment><USER7> The biggest pain point in these security guidelines is context. For example this Array override issue has been fixed in major browsers 11 years ago [0]. Unless someone codes for IE6 I'd consider this not a real problem.

[0]: [https://johnresig.com/blog/re-securing- json/](https://johnresig.com/blog/re-securing-json/)</comment></comment></comment>


Texas teacher says no homework for second-graders: Exception or trend? - <AUTHOR> http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2016/0823/Texas-teacher-says-no-homework-for-second-graders-Exception-or-trend <comment><AUTHOR> Note: this will probably be submitted through some various sources. Not sure how much "editorializing" should be appropriate for a landing article. Should be a worthwhile discussion point, and citations do exist regarding the teacher's judgment call, as noted in this link.</comment>


Baikal T1 MIPS Processor – The Last of the Mohicans? - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/09/26/baikal-t1-last-mips-processor/ <comment><USER2> They basically made T1 to blackmail arm into licensing them arm cores and peripheral ip.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd be excited to see Baikal have a RISC-V design, though perhaps they have agreements or other constraints which prevent that, or it still doesn't look like a good deal to them. I guess for now it's probably mainly that licensing a complete solution in the RISC-V space raises more questions than licensing from Imagination, and if ARM were cheaper and more efficient at negotiating contracts then possibly ARM as well.

Always up for more vendors stabbing at this stuff, especially if it means more companies have the incentives to consider investing in fabs. Having to choose between a U.S.-centric hardware trust model and a China-centric one seems a little bit lame.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't be surprised if they chose RISC-V --- it is basically a MIPS clone with some small differences, perhaps one of the biggest being its lack of licensing costs.</comment></comment>


Google Premium Analytics Pricing Revealed: $150,000 A YEAR - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/google-analytics-premium-price-150k-year

<comment><USER2> _For comparison, many report paying over $100K a year for Adobe's Omniture SiteCatalyst offering. I can't remember what we used to pay for Webtrends Enterprise at my old job but it was in the same ballpark._

So, let me understand. The price is on par with industry standard pricing. So why is the title in caps with an exclamation point? Just go all the way with the title.

OMG GOOGLE ANALYTICS PREMIUM PRICING: ON PAR WITH INDUSTRY STANDARDS!!!!!

</comment><comment><USER3> The Omniture pricing is where you start. Then they charge additional to raise your server call limit, additional for data correlation, additional for data warehousing. Omniture has a great product, but to think that an enterprise gets away with $100k is laughable. I've had clients in 7 figures easy.

If you're a startup, the only bonus you're really getting with premium Google Analytics is SLA, which most startups can do without. Stick with free.

</comment><comment><USER4> How much would it cost to pay someone to write you an analytics suite? A lot more than $150,000/yr.

It's a lot of money for you, but it's not a lot of money for people that actually need something like this. (I use "grep" as my web analytics tool, because that's all I can need and all I am willing to spend.)

</comment><comment><USER5> for an enterprise application, that seems just about right in line.

<comment><USER6> I don't understand why there is an exclamation in point in the article title and he has the price in bold red letters, yet at the end of the article he goes on to say that it's priced just a bit more than two other competing products. I say a bit, because if you are in the market for $100k analytics suites, what's another $50k?</comment></comment>


Robots are now fighting fires in Australia - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/571881/robots-are-now-fighting-fires-in-australia/ <comment><USER2> This reminds me of how a group of Hungarian engineers used the jet engines from a MiG-21 mounted on a T-34 tank to extinguish Kuwaiti oil well fires during the Gulf War. [0]

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EYRPJgZdp4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EYRPJgZdp4)

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like they repurposed snow making machines and put it on a remote controlled mini-caterpiler.

Snow making machines pictures: [https://www.google.com/search?q=snow+making+machine&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=snow+making+machine&tbm=isch)

</comment><comment><USER4> Is it a robot or just a remotely controlled machine?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, and it seems to be have only used at 1 fire so far.

<comment><USER6> So the correct title is "1 oversized RC car with hose fights a fire in Australia".

<comment><USER7> with jet hose!

<comment><USER8> Thank goodness it's not being used by the riot squad...

<comment><USER9> Christ, don't give them ideas! :(</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Security researcher discloses Safari bug after Apple delays patch - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/security-researcher-discloses-safari-bug-after-apple-delays-patch/ <comment><USER2> Another proof that Apple, by restricting use of alternative browsers, does not have a goal of security in mind but control.

> Does Apple permit iPhone users to set a browser other than Safari as the > defaultbrowser?

> iPhone users cannot set another browser as the default browser. Safari is > one of the apps that Apple believes defines the core user experience on iOS, > with industry-leading security and privacy features.

[https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG...](https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG-116-JU05-20190716-SD036.pdf)

<comment><USER3> It's especially ironic, when you consider the whole anti-competitive lawsuit against Microsoft and them bundling Internet Explorer with Windows back in the day.

Now Apple just gets away with the same thing, but even worse (because they don't even allow other competing browsers on their iOS platform at all).

It's kind of puzzling to me.

<comment> frosted-flakes I'm not saying I agree with Apple, but the difference is that Microsoft had at the time more than 90% of desktop computer market share in the US. For Apple and smartphones, it's about 50%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apple is really bad at dealing with security researchers, and would rather figure out ways to silence them than prioritize fixing anything. For a more fleshed out argument about this, see this Twitter thread I posted last week (which starts out talking about Epic Games but quickly moves through the Corellium lawsuit to focus on this topic).

[https://twitter.com/saurik/status/1295024384596312064](https://twitter.com/saurik/status/1295024384596312064)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I believe the lead here is this part (and goes on):

"However, the real issue here is not just the bug itself and how easy or complex it is to exploit it, but how Apple handled the bug report."

</comment><comment><USER5> Actual bug and disclosure timeline: "Stealing local files using Safari Web Share API" [https://blog.redteam.pl/2020/08/stealing-local-files- using-s...](https://blog.redteam.pl/2020/08/stealing-local-files-using-safari- web.html)</comment>


The Scunthorpe problem - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem <comment><USER2> Recent Motherboard article about this topic: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kmp9v/life-on- th...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kmp9v/life-on-the-internet- is-hard-when-your-last-name-is-butts)

<comment><USER3> Discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17870222](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17870222). I suppose we should mark the current submission a dupe.</comment></comment>


Google and China: Flowers for a funeral - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15270952

<comment><USER2> Looking at this from a computer nerd perspective, China has been a successful NODEMOCRACY because they have been able to deliver on an increasing standard of living for its citizens. I suspect that a lot of Internet users in China are much more interested in their careers and lifestyle than "freedom." That said, if the Chinese government fails to deliver on an every increasing standard of living, then they have real problems.

A little off topic, but: here in the USA we spend about 1.5 trillion dollars a year on our military industrial complex (DoD, Home Land Security, foreign aid through the State Department, interest on loans to pay for all of this, etc., etc.) I am not the only one who wishes that more of these resources were directed at our own industrial and educational infrastructure.</comment>


A plan to redesign the internet could make apps that no one controls - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/01/1004725/redesign-internet-apps-no-one-controls-data-privacy-innovation-cloud/ <comment><USER2> Ethereum world computer going after Financial Realm/DeFi.. settlement layer for web3

DFINITY Internet Computer is going after the entire legacy IT stack, and making the lives of developers a couple of magnitudes easier

what a time to be alive</comment>