Should cars be fully driverless? No, says an MIT engineer and historian - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2015/no-driverless-cars-1013 <comment><USER2> He is comparing situations where human decision makers are highly trained professionals such as astronauts and passenger plane pilot to daily driving situations where the average human decision maker is more likely to be an idiot(people switch off while driving) distracted by his smartphone.

<comment><USER3> Even a "switched off" human is benefiting from the supervision of a brain that is far more complex than any computer yet constructed, and has, on average, been trained in driving by decades of experience, and in recognizing patterns of movement by millions of years of evolution.

Meanwhile, computers in cars today cannot even reliably translate human throttle inputs into throttle actuations (see: Toyota).

<comment><USER4> A human brain is also more complex than a computer that can play chess, does that mean the average chess player can generally beat a good chess-playing software? More general complexity does not necessarily imply being better at a specific task - in fact, it can be detrimental.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The thing that worries me about semi-autonomous cars is that we might end up in the same place we've ended up with aircraft. Aircraft are sufficiently autonomous in nominal conditions that pilot skills atrophy, and then when the plane encounters adverse conditions, these de-skilled pilots simply do not respond correctly to the problem, crashing the plane. Specifically, I'm thinking of something like Air France Flight 447, where it turned out that the pilot and co-pilot had lost familiarity with how the Airbus A330 behaved while at cruising altitude.

Similarly, I'm worried that auto-drive and smart cruise control systems will take care of highway driving in the normal case, but when things go wrong and the auto-driver disengages, the human at the wheel will have forgotten that a car traveling at 60mph behaves differently than one traveling at 25mph. With aircraft, we can mitigate this risk by forcing pilots to spend extra time in the simulator, keeing their feel for the aircraft from decaying too badly. I'm not sure what the solution is for drivers. Maybe we can force everyone to play a racing sim for a few hours every month ;)

<comment><USER6> This danger will be avoided in automobiles by making human control _impossible_ as soon as that makes any sense. There will be no steering wheel, the front seat will face backwards to facilitate conversation, and accident rates will plummet. The thing that robocars can do, which roboplanes cannot, is slow down or stop completely when faced with vexing situations.

<comment><USER7> Pulling over to the side of the road and putting your blinkers on is (almost) always an acceptable solution to an automotive error. Much harder to pull that off at 35,000 feet.

<comment><USER8> If you have a problem at cruising altitude, there's usually time to deal with it. Transport planes can glide 100-200 miles from that altitude if they have to. Most aircraft accidents happen during takeoff, approach, or landing. See NTSB reports.[1] High-altitude accidents are mostly in-flight fires, including two events involving lithium batteries.

There is, however, one commercial aircraft crash from problems at altitude (no passengers, ferry flight) worthy of a Darwin Award.[2]

[1] [http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/avi...](http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/aviation.aspx) [2] [http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/A...](http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR0701.pdf)

<comment><USER6> That second report is fascinating. One might hope that even amateur pilots would know power curve characteristics at high altitude, and the flight team's "gosh we're saving a lot of fuel" comments on the CVR inspire a sort of grim amusement, but I wonder whether the incident might actually have saved lives in the long run.

If we're going to fly budget carriers like Pinnacle, those carriers are going to employ inexperienced flight crews and attempt to make up it up with training, simulation, and rules. This misadventure identified numerous shortfalls in those. I doubt anyone flying today's Endeavor Air ignores so many stick shakes, uses the same stall procedure at all altitudes, ignores airspeed, hasn't heard of "core lock", or lies so blatantly to ATC in potential emergency situations. I can understand why the report soft-pedaled the training gaps, because after all they didn't need to give the aircrew's survivors any more leverage in the inevitable lawsuit, but I'd expect training to improve anyway.

Is it common practice for pilots at budget airlines to read accident reports like this?

IANAPilot, but I'd like to be!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I must be missing something, because it seems like Mr. Mindell is saying cars _shouldn 't_ be fully driverless because they _can 't_ be. He cites numerous examples of other promised automation technologies that seem to have become a pipe dream over the past several decades.

Except, Google's driverless cars have now logged over a million fully automated miles. It is a proven technology. These aren't exploratory machines going where no human has gone before, they're out there on the road doing what we've all been doing for a hundred years already.

I get the impression this article is just a shill for his book.

<comment><USER10> _Google 's driverless cars have now logged over a million fully automated miles. It is a proven technology._

Not even Google engineers go that far - see this Tech Review article [0] from last years that talks about how Google's driverless cars can't handle snow, heavy rain, or its sensors being blinded by the sun.

Driverless cars may be coming, but it's still along way off.

[0] [http://www.technologyreview.com/news/530276/hidden- obstacles...](http://www.technologyreview.com/news/530276/hidden-obstacles- for-googles-self-driving-cars/)

<comment><USER11> That's just a matter of improving sensors. The point is that cars already exist that can drive just fine without getting into accidents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Apollo program is hardly as convincing an example as TFA seems to think. That was early days for computing power. Humans have landed scores of other craft on various other bodies in the solar system, and that landing has been fully automated in every other case. If a manned moon mission were planned today it would probably be completely automated.

<comment><USER8> The first moon landings (Surveyor, Lunokhod) were robotic and were completely automated. The boost phase has been completely automated all the way back to the first manned space flights. After all, a monkey made the first flight. Other than lunar landing and some older docking operations, just about everything in space flight has been automated.

<comment><USER12> automated can mean 'pre-programmed' automated, instead of dynamic automation, where the actions required aren't known ahead of time, and the machine(s) have a split second to make a choice out of the hundreds of different options available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Mindel isn't saying full automation can't or shouldn't happen for cars. His point is empirical and cautionary: usually when we get excited about automating X, it turns out that X is better with some human supervision. It's not really a contentious claim. I think many proponents of self-driving cars would be ok with some human input – steering wheels, changing routes, feedback on driving performance, etc

<comment><USER14> _I think many proponents of self-driving cars would be ok with some human input – steering wheels, changing routes, feedback on driving performance, etc_

AKA "cruise control"...?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> 40 years of history showing failure, of course for most of that time they have had between a millionth and half the computing power we have today, and most of those years had now where near the capability of image sensors and other sensors. So how much weight should we really give history on something like this?

<comment><USER16> I don't think they're arguing against automation, just that completely driverless vehicles won't be the optimum path. I think there will be some applications for which fully driverless vehicles will be fine, such as trucks transporting goods between loading bays and taxis collecting and dropping off at street addresses, and many others where some level of driver control will be useful.

Take their example of submarines. Fully autonomous submarines are completely possible, but what they point out is that some level of human control is more useful. They don't say why, but my guess is that this is because if the sub comes across something unusual that merits further investigation, humans are better at making that judgement call than a robot would. The same principle applies to the Mars rovers. But it also applies to plenty of routine uses of vehicles. Most of the time I'm driving from my house to a car park or street parking space and such journeys are probably completely automatable. But sometimes I arrive at e.g. a country fair and the parking is in a field and I know I want to park over there in a place which will soon be shaded by that tree, and not in a different place where it looks a bit muddy. At times like that I would want much more direct control over the vehicle and an automated system would not be able to make such decisions for me.

So while the article does a poor job saying so, I think the point is that 100% full driverless automation isn't the best answer in every situation. It might be a fine solution for many purposes, but not all. They're arguing against a (perhaps imagined and possibly straw man) maximalist automation position such as 'in 20 years time no cars will have manual controls'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> In most of the given examples, humans have little control of the environment. We are, in fact, trying to use autonomous vehicles to explore.

In the case of cars, humans can change the physical environment to meet the needs of the car. Additionally, the car may be able to avoid a situation that it knows it doesn't handle well (e.g. avoid complicated intersections).

In the one case of an environment where we have some controls (air travel), it is more difficult to "pull over" as compared to a car (as other commenters have noted).

</comment><comment><USER18> > "That's just proven to be a loser of an approach in a lot of other domains," > Mindell says. "I'm not arguing this from first principles. There are 40 > years' worth of examples."

Well, that's the problem. Everything the author says is supported by the last N decades in engineering. That argument is so flawed it is astounding that it is coming out of someone from MIT. In looking at his bio it seems he has dedicated quite a bit of time to teaching and researching the history of engineering. It might just be the case that he isn't fully up to date on topics relevant to automation. Does he have an up-to-date CS/AI background? How about computing or chip design?

Saying that automation has failed to deliver in the past N decades is like the Wright Brothers saying "let's not bother because powered flight has failed to be developed in the past N decades". That is not how engineering works.

Today hundreds of millions of people have phones in their pockets that are orders of magnitude more powerful than the computers decades ago. We have better, smaller, cheaper sensors of all kinds. We have accumulated knowledge in relevant CS and AI fields. Today we have cars that can actually drive themselves to various degrees under their own computing power (without having to communicate with a supercomputer in a building). And this is just the beginning.

Fully auto-drive cars will happen. Of course, they will retain the ability to be human driven as well for some time, probably decades. There are many reason for which that makes sense. I am fairly confident we will get to the point where the average self-driver will be safer than the average human driver. All you have to do is point at a teenager behind the wheel. Commutes will be shorter (due to driving efficiently using data) and safer and, with electric cars, healthier (you won't have to breathe the crap coming out of all those exhaust pipes).

Besides, think of the wasted potential of millions of people staring at a road for hours rather than doing something more useful. If you commute one hour per day you'll get back 250 hours per year.

</comment><comment><USER19> On the topic of boredom and attention lapses while driving, I wonder if it would actually be made safer by being made _more_ difficult, in contrast to the never-ending search for ease of use. Something that's difficult, mentally stimulating, and requires actual skill like a video game or musical instrument. Would there be more or less mistakes (collisions) if people were forced to be engaged 100% of the time in order to operate the vehicle?

I'm not saying it's a good idea, because only a subset of people would be capable of it, but it's interesting to think about!

<comment><USER20> this is why many people prefer driving a manual.

<comment><USER17> Including me, so I tried to find some statistics to see if a manual was enough to focus on. I didn't find much.

I found one Swedish study that looked at automatic and manual transmissions affect on young and old drivers' ability to turn left across traffic [1]. It found a manual had little impact on the young driver, and older drivers performed worse.

I'm not sure turning left across traffic is a large enough sample of driving for me to be satisfied.

[1] [http://acrs.org.au/files/arsrpe/Why%20drive%20manual%20-%20a...](http://acrs.org.au/files/arsrpe/Why%20drive%20manual%20-%20automatic%20transmission%20improves%20driving.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think the difference between self-driving cars and Apollo program/subs examples is that the cars can be tested much more thoroughly. No matter how good your simulators are for space conditions, you're never going to really know how it's going to work in actual conditions. Self-driving cars can and are logging millions of miles in a variety of conditions, and every common and almost every remote case will be dealt with before launched to the general public.

</comment><comment><USER22> While the article doesn't actually use the word "never", neither does it hedge and say "anytime soon".

The central logic seems to be that humanity is starting from scratch building self driving cars, versus all the years of experience decades ago trying to automate spacecraft and submersibles.

Oddly, I reach entirely the opposite conclusion. The article reminds us that even decades ago, with rudimentary computers, engineers developed systems that landed men on the moon and returned them to earth.

This article has made it even easier for me to imagine a car taking a fully autonomous trip to a McDonald's drive through, given the state of deep/machine learning, low cost computers a million times faster, and big advances in sensors, Yes there will be a person supervising the car for a while, of course that's true. But it's only a matter of time before our children are surprised that humans were allowed to drive cars, causing millions of deaths.

<comment><USER23> Landing on the moon is to physics what car traffic is to chaos theory.

<comment><USER22> True, but cars can already navigate traffic autonomously. And there is much more to landing men on the moon than physics.

Check out Tesla's live shipping code:

[http://jalopnik.com/teslas-autopilot-system-is-awesome- and-c...](http://jalopnik.com/teslas-autopilot-system-is-awesome-and-creepy- and-a-sig-1736573089)

Are you predicting that cars will never be fully autonomous?

<comment><USER23> As a website commenter I'm not sure I should predict anything. To explain a bit more my previous message, as complex as going to the moon was, it seems a problem scientists knew how to define. One vehicle, 2 planets, the system is describable.

Traffic with lots of agents potentially interacting with every other agent, hence my chaos analogy, lots and lots of variable, ... is blurry.

There's successful research to describe multi agents collision avoidance but I've never seen it used on the field yet.

ps: reminds me airplanes vs car accident rates. Even if flying is inherently complex in itself, there's almost no traffic and almost no obstacle in air. Nobody would crash a car alone in the desert.

<comment><USER24> > Even if flying is inherently complex in itself, there's almost no traffic > and almost no obstacle in air.

Different aircraft are by and large keeping to the same standard routes, altitudes and holding patterns, which is why mid-air collisions are a thing. (The reason they keep to standards is to make air traffic control easier.)

<comment><USER23> Aight, I pushed it, but how is air density ? and direction, I'm sure routes are designed to avoid blending traffics (incoming) as much as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> His 40 years of experience obviously did not include the only recently available GPUs and ASIC deep neural networks which are at the heart of the current self-driving robotics research. There is a game changer, and any previous experience is irrelevant.

</comment><comment><USER26> Cars seem fundamentally different than his other examples: Spacecraft, underwater vehicles, and airplanes. The importance difference is cars have a clear, visual grid of where they can travel and where they cannot travel. Painted lines on the road and navigational signs provide a construct of the environment around them.

Maybe the closest comparison is subway / metro rails. There are already many fully automated subway systems: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems#Grade_of_Automation_4_Systems)

<comment><USER2> There are still some elements of uncertainty in car driving. For e.g. driverless cars are confused by cyclist doing track stand[1]. Hopefully with enough data driverless car could overcome these difficulties.

[1] [http://road.cc/content/news/162468-cyclist-doing- trackstand-...](http://road.cc/content/news/162468-cyclist-doing-trackstand- leaves-googles-self-driving-car-confused)

<comment><USER27> Interesting story. There's a later article [1] that describes the problems that the Google car has with assertiveness at junctions.

[1]: [http://www.roboticstrends.com/article/a_cyclists_encounter_w...](http://www.roboticstrends.com/article/a_cyclists_encounter_with_an_indecisive_google_self_driving_car)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think it may take decades before cars are 100% autonomous in all situations. But if the AI can handle almost everything, it could take over and let the humans read a book, and alert them in the rare case their input is needed. Fleets of autonomous taxis and trucks could have remote controlled operators monitoring them.

</comment><comment><USER29> Here's the thing: we can do anything we want. And there is a huge demand for fully driverless cars that nobody is going to be able to stop, despite whatever sound and reasoned advice they may have. It's coming, like it or not.

</comment><comment><USER30> They are going to be interviewing him in a driverless car in 10 years and asking where he got it wrong.

</comment><comment><USER31> > "That's just proven to be a loser of an approach in a lot of other domains," > Mindell says. "I'm not arguing this from first principles. There are 40 > years' worth of examples."

Yeah, and I have several millennia worth of examples suggesting that organized society at large is a worthless endeavor...

</comment><comment><USER32> Erm... the main point he makes is like "oh, we could not do it before no matter how hard we tried, so let's give up and keep humans in charge" basically.

I'm sure no one believe we would send rockets into space if you look back long enough in time, yet we did it. Driverless cars are not a concept anymore, many prototypes are very close to being fully operational - it would be very disappointing to stop at this stage.

<comment><USER33> "I'm sure no one believe we would send rockets into space if you look back long enough in time"

Not even all that long ago, actually.

[http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp- space/article/20...](http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp- space/article/2009-07/new-york-times-nasa-youre-right-rockets-do-work-space)</comment></comment>


Break Up the Liberal City - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/opinion/sunday/break-up-the-liberal-city.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region <comment><USER2> This is just rubbish. Ross Douthat is just dogmatic. He's peeved that a majority of people in urban areas don't hold The Right Ideas (i.e. his ideas) so he wants some help imposing The Right Ideas on everyone, even those who live in an area where the majority hold the Wrong Idea.</comment>


Ask HN: Is worth learning Ruby on Rails now a days? - <AUTHOR>

I was wondering if is worth learn Ruby on Rails now a days because there're other technologies like Node.js, Scala and Go which I think are better than Ruby for web development. This comes because I never learned Ruby on Rails, and I saw the Mackenzie Child post on Medium (ICYMI: http://goo.gl/dFfflh), but don't misunderstood me, I think is a great idea and he provides awesome value to the newcomers who want to learn Rails. I'm already a Node.js developer, I use Express and even Sails.js, which I think is a great framework for fast prototyping. But, if I already know Node.js, Is worth learn Rails at this stage? <comment><USER2> I don't know Ruby on Rails either and I stick to node/Go mostly. I'd say it isn't worth learning RoR unless you need it to solve a specific issue, or if you feel that it would benefit you in a job search. Of course, it never hurts to pick it up just to know something else, I always like learning new languages as I feel it helps me be a better all around developer.

<comment><USER3> Ruby (and certainly Rails) is still very much in-demand, and I'd say is still "trending" in terms of development languages. Granted, Ruby (Rails) tends to get lost in the sauce with the continual uprising of new languages and frameworks catered towards web development. However, I think that Ruby's strong community, even more-so with the Rails community, is what would make it such a good language to learn for the job market.

Aside from Rails, I think that Ruby will see even more of a surge in popularity with the recent progress in RubyMotion (they changed their pricing plans, and the platform is more easily available to the average developer now). I'm only now dipping into RubyMotion, but it's wonderful if you want to develop on the iOS or OSX platforms without getting heavily involved in learning Objective-C.

Anyways, I'm getting off-topic. Point is, I think Ruby is a very good choice. Being that Rails is the most popular framework in Ruby, Rails would be a wise choice to become familiar with too.</comment></comment>


Massive stretches of weathered oil spotted in Gulf of Mexico - <AUTHOR> http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/10/massive_stretches_of_weathered.html

<comment><USER2> The Coast Guard is saying it's an algae bloom, and I gotta say it certainly does _look_ like one: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_tide#Overview>

Of course, the jury's out until the lab results come back.</comment>


Don't break the Internet with your Javascript - <AUTHOR> http://www.olark.com/spw/2012/03/dont-break-the-internet-with-your-javascript/

<comment><USER2> The point of that blog post is that sites should track the client-side errors that occur. It's hardly a new idea, but is worth repeating since so few people still seem to do it.

Remember folks, for apps that use the back-end as a JSON service, nearly all the code is running on the client. If you have no feedback about errors, you are assuming your 15 minutes of testing with Safari on a Macbook is representative of the entire Internet including that guy with IE7 on XP with the Bing Toolbar. It's not a good bet.

They mention tinyfeedback but there is also DamnIT and the YC-funded proxino.

<comment><USER3> "All requests are status 200, boss. We're doing great!"

<comment><USER4> Our java engine (Jetty) logs 200s even when it's generating 500s.

Learn me to trust my own fucking logs, will you.

One of the more useful monitoring tools I've got is a simple shell-wrapped "HEAD" script that polls our cluster and reports an "OK" or "ERR" (slow responses trigger a "Hrm..", along with the current, median, and standard deviation of the response, and total error counts. That sits in an omnipresent, always-on-top small-font terminal window.

Something like:

          2012-03-30 12:03   i=9948
        Host    Status  Cur   Med   sd     Err
        www     OK      0.22  0.24  0.44    6

<comment><USER3> That is the basic mechanism behind load-balancer healthchecks.

<comment><USER4> That and connection tracking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is hashmonitor open source or going to be open sourced?

Seems like it would be a really useful contribution to the JS development community to make this available for everyone to use.

<comment><USER6> For sure! I'd really like to - just didn't have time to extract it out this week :) To be useful, you will probably want the collection components too. Maybe some weekend hacking...

<comment><USER5> Nice and fast, Thanks - <https://github.com/olark/hashmonitor> :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Next episode: Don't break your site with HN.

<comment><USER8> For sure :-), we've had many HN articles, I wonder what was up with wordpress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ironically, the logo covers half the text on an iPad.

<comment><USER10> Had the logo or placement of the logo been a result of JS, that would have been ironic. Your experience was unfortunate, but not ironic.

<comment><USER11> FTA:

> We constantly have to ask ourselves: _are we causing any issues or slowdowns > on our customers' websites?_ [sic]

The GP's noting of irony (is that correct?) seems to be valid.

<comment><USER12> Why the [sic]? Customers' is plural and possessive in this case.

<comment><USER11> Didn't want people to assume emphasis was mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

The seem to be backing up their site or something.

<comment><USER13> Why do I get 2 down votes? I was just pointing out that they are down (they still are)

<comment><USER14> They know.

<comment><USER15> "Never tell a person something that they already know. It wastes your time and only annoys others." - Old Farsi Proverb

<comment><USER3> "Step 1: Find out everything the person you're talking to knows."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Breaking the internet with your javascript sounds a little like the "IP- Tracking in VB-GUI" thing.. wish his blog was a little more stable.

</comment><comment><USER17> WEB != INTERNET

<comment><USER18> I would go even further to say that, JSON + AJAX != WEB

Like the name or not, it is why we came up with the Web 2.0 moniker. Sending "raw" data over HTTP to a richer client is quite a bit different paradigm to what was envisioned for the web.

<comment><USER17> Good point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Oddly enough I went to this on my mobile phone and the site looked broken because the logo that is on the left is square in the middle of the screen. Irony?

<comment><USER12> Already covered, not irony. Neeext.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Don't break my JavaScript with your Internet</comment>


What to do if your algorithm has been "patented" - <AUTHOR>

I am working on a niche product that requires some algorithms to process audio streams and I have recently discovered that a (small) company with a similar product has patented my algorithm. What should I do in this case? Should I abandon the project or ship it anyways? <comment> alok-g 0\. I am not a lawyer.

1\. Note that "algorithms" cannot be patented (in the US) [A]. Application of an algorithm to solve a specific problem can however be patented.

2\. I am assuming you have access to the said patent. With '1' above in mind, read through the said patent multiple times, paying attention to the "claims" and see if you are actually violating them. Ignore if you have already done this. Just know that the claims are the most important part. Unless what you are selling includes everything that is needed by the independent claims of the patent, you are not violating.

3\. If you find that you would be violating the patent, things will be against you if a lawsuit happens, as this will be considered to be a case of willful infringement, since it is already clear that you are aware of the patent.

4\. If you are adding some real value on the top of what is claimed by the competition's patent or product, you may consider filing a patent of your own invention, if any, and if patentable. I know HN crowd is generally against patenting, so that is your call. This will NOT help you overcome the competition's patent, but would come in the way of your competition copying those aspects of your invention that were not already there in their product or patent.

5\. Last but not the least, you may consider working in association with them rather than competing. Patents and laws aside, there is often a better human- friendly way of doing things.

Having said that, at the end of the day, evaluate your risks and rewards for this and other projects you may have in mind, and pick your best bets.

[A] [https://www.google.com/search?q=patent+algorithms](https://www.google.com/search?q=patent+algorithms)

</comment><comment><USER2> If they are a real company (i.e. not a patent troll) and they're small, then they might appreciate the revenue from licensing their algorithm? Typically, per sale licenses are small. It is the volume that makes them look like big revenue streams.

</comment><comment><USER3> Many patents that the USPTO issues are not valid. Consider buying some time from a patent attorney to see if the problematic patent is questionable.

One of the principal reasons frivolous patents are filed is to unjustly intimidate small operators like yourself.

</comment><comment><USER4> Have you (or someone else) been using your algorithm for at least a year before the patent application was filed? If so, can you prove it?

That would invalidate the patent due to prior art...</comment>


I'm Not Dead Yet: The nineteenth-century obsession with premature burial - <AUTHOR> http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/01/06/im-not-dead-yet/ <comment><USER2> There was a fantastic episode on this topic, on the fantastic podcast, Memory Palace: [http://thememorypalace.us/2013/10/im-still- alive/](http://thememorypalace.us/2013/10/im-still-alive/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, now they immediately desanguinate the body at the funeral home, just to make sure you don't wake up.</comment>


Review my startup: Housefed.com - Airbnb for food - <AUTHOR> http://housefed.com/#

<comment><AUTHOR> I love to cook, and love to try new foods. After watching Anthony Bourdain eat with families all over the world, I thought - I want to do that! So I made Housefed.com - an Airbnb for food / OpenTable for your kitchen. What do you guys think?

With 200 registered users, I launched it this morning and am opening the site piece by piece. I think people will not want to eat with a host without seeing their food first. So part 1 is aimed at photo-sharing and growing the community. After a user has uploaded 5 pics, they can apply to become a host. Once there is an initial group of hosts, I'll open the site for meal booking.

Hosts will be able to create meals other users can book a seat at. Hosts will be able to filter the users prior to booking. Users will pay through the site prior to getting directions to the host's home.

I think this will be great for people who love to cook, love trying new foods, and especially travelers. Trying real pad see ew with a Thai family would be mind blowing (at least to me).

In terms of the legality of booking a meal at a person's home, I am not sure. Each state/country has their own regulations so until it grows to a point where that is a problem, I'm not worrying about it.

What do you guys think about the site / strategy? Thanks for your time and thoughts.

Emile email@example.com

PS if you remember the HN post 'Quit Job, Learning to Code' back in July ( <http://goo.gl/cxNsr> ), that was from me. I have been at it since then day and night. Thanks to everyone who has helped over the last few months. You too can learn how to code.

<comment><USER3> "Opentable for your kitchen" is a _much_ better X for Y than "Airbnb for food".

<comment><USER4> Yes x1000. I had no idea what Airbnb for food meant. Although I know what Airbnb is, when I saw the phrase for some reason I thought air delivery of food.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Went to front page. Saw a bunch of photos of food. Didn't see where I could buy food. Left.

Saying "airbnb for food" is not a substitute for explaining what you do or having a user interface which visibly allows the actions you want a user to perform.

<comment><USER6> I was worried for a bit because I thought there's new competition for our Munchery (<http://gomunchery.com>), which is much more like Airbnb for food. :)

<comment><USER7> Not that you don't know your own startup, but Munchery seems much more like Groupon for Food.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Aka GrubWithUs Residential. You have a big challenge because eating dinner with someone at their home is really intimate. I wouldn't start with photo sharing-- you need to start working on the dinner mechanics right away. Go low tech. Pick a single city, find a couple people willing to host, then send out invitations through existing social connections. Maybe get people to commit to 5 dinners up front for $100. I would also look at having a fundraising component (25% to charity?) because now the dinner can be ABOUT something. You can't just get a bunch of random people together and hope the conversation works out, you need some common cause or interest to act as social lubricant.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'll be blunt, and I hope you take this all with the understanding that I'm only trying to help. I've tried to point out specific things you can do/add wherever possible. With that said...

Your home page is incredibly confusing, primarily because there is no call to action. Even though I know and use Airbnb, "Airbnb for food" could still mean several things, and I'm not even sure what the # of countries has to do with anything. Suggestion: ditch the Airbnb comparison and put up a 1-sentence elevator pitch followed by a 1-sentence call-to-action. Example: "Housefed.com lets you find and eat with talented chefs in your area. Get started by _______."

Continuing on the call-to-action thread, there isn't even anything for me to do! Am I supposed to search? Am I supposed to click on the food? Clicking on the food takes me to an equally confusing page with nothing for me to do there either. Suggestion: add an obvious thing for me to interact with (search box? I don't even know what...) and lose the sorting features, which add nothing to the first impression.

After signing up -- even though nothing on the site makes me want to -- nothing changes! I still have no idea what to do on your site, or where to do it. Suggestion: let a not-logged-in user browse the available food and understand WHY it's posted (so that they could eat it, I assume), and then invite them to sign up with a statement like: "Want to eat this and other delicious meals in your town? Sign up and get housefed!"

I suggest you spend a lot more time studying <http://airbnb.com> and the subtleties of their homepage and UX. Notice that their home page tells you EXACTLY what to do ("Find a place to stay.") and shows you HOW to do it (by filling out one field that tells them "Where are you going?"). I can use and browse everything on their site without logging in or signing up, and they detour me to the sign-up page only when absolutely necessary.

I remember your original "noob" post. Congrats on making it this far. Seriously. Most people would've given up long ago. Keep at it. I think your site fills a real need (at least, I would use it, fwiw).

</comment><comment><USER10> Brilliant. Lose the Airbnb reference. Landing page should clearly and concisely tell me, the random passerby, exactly what you do: "Get a home cooked meal by a fellow foodie"

<comment><AUTHOR> I will definitely be doing this. + 1

<comment><USER11> I would lose the "food porn" bit... I understand it's a Bourdain reference and I love his show but I think it would jar with a lot of folks who don't know that.

<comment><USER12> Nah, gives it character. You don't need to appeal to a mass audience at this stage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just a couple of comments about the homepage:

\- as said by somebody else, I'd remove the reference to Airbnb. Not many people know what Airbnb is and "Airbnb for food" doesn't really explain what it means.

\- I'd also remove "food porn". I wouldn't be surprised if many people are uncomfortable with the word "porn" even if it's about food.

\- right now, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing on the site or what the site is all about. I see pictures, I click on them but then there's barely any information: what am I looking at? Why are you showing this to me? What can I do with this?

\- I know you're just starting and thus have to feed some content yourself but seeing "Emile P." all over the frontpage is not great. You might want to limit the number of pictures by the same person there. Even if you get traction that might be something that you would still want to change for the case of someone uploading a bunch of pictures at once.

As for the sign-up, I'm not sure why you want to limit users to put their first name and only first initial of last name. This seems a bit restrictive and I'm not sure if there's a good reason behind it. I could see having just "Name" and they put whatever they want?

Since your current focus is on the pictures, I might do a couple of things: show more and/or bigger pictures on the homepage, possibly removing the username/likes/comments metadata (with them showing on hover?) and make sure _your_ pictures are of the best quality possible (maybe not quite professional, but at least edited a bit). As a comparison, look at what Instagram looks like when you start it up without an account: a page full of good-looking pictures of different styles, by different people…

Hope this helps, congratulations on the launch and good luck!

Disclaimer: I'm no expert or designer, this is just my humble opinion :)

</comment><comment><USER14> That sounds lovely - but I think the legality thing is something to investigate early. I think a lot of places have rules about restaurants having hygiene certificates and passing inspections - maybe having a meal exchange would bypass that (like you can try other peoples' food as long as you also host every so often?). If you're taking money, I'd talk to a lawyer early (or friendly person with legal knowledge at least!)

Also, it might be worth starting on a specific scene first so you concentrate your community (your local town, your uni alumni, conference attendees at local tech conference or whatever).

edit: OK actually people do this, trended in London a year or so ago (sorry for non-reputable source: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-1253584/I-ope...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-1253584/I-opened- restaurant-living-room--Pop-restaurants-latest-foodie-trend-open-doors.html))

<comment><USER15> This was my initial thought too. When you start selling food for money things get complicated quick. If you look at some of the actions against shared kitchens and such it's disturbing. You'll want to look into this ASAP as it's complicated by locality and directly impacts your business model. It might be that you could have "food points" that you get when you cook and spend when you eat and essentially trade meals but I'm not sure if that's actually ok legally or if it works with what you're thinking about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great idea -- I've long wanted a tool to help organize voluntary, opt-in communal cooking around where I live. It's beyond stupid for 100 single adults within a block of each other to cook 100 single servings every night.

But this could enable something much less repetitive and less obligatory than a shared cooking schedule between friends (something I've tried--everyone cooks for the others one day a week, etc.).

Anyway, if I were you I would consider this market in addition to the tourist market akin to that of airbnb. The tool probably wouldn't need to be much different, but the marketing might be.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's a lovely concept (I hesitated to use that adjective there, but it is!) - so I would drop the line "Everyone loves a little food porn". It just conotes, you know, porn. With strangers. And you might lose some people who aren't familiar with the phrase.

</comment><comment><USER18> Im working on the exact same concept (it isnt ready for public launch yet). The major hurdle Ive run into is the legal side of things - it is illegal to "sell" any type of potentially hazardous food i.e. hot food from a home kitchen no matter what state. You can sell baked goods like cookies, jams, jellies and so on from a home kitchen from a handful of states though.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentially_Hazardous_Food>

</comment><comment><USER19> The concept is unclear to me. Is this basically about ad-hoc restaurants, where people cook for guests, and the guests can browse through hosts by looking at pictures of food they cooked? If yes, why don't you write that on the home page?

And why do you only show the food? I'd be interested to see pictures of the hosts.

Also, location would be supremely important. Where are these hosts located?

EDIT: Some more feedback: Photos should look way better. Encourage hosts to use DSLRs. Show some tips on food photography.

Make sure that browsing through the finished site shows just 1 pic per host, with all the other pics grouped together at the host page.

Apart from that, fantastic concept, wish you luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point -I'll work on making the cook more prominent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Saying this is the Airbnb for food made me think it's a way to sell my leftovers on the web.

</comment><comment><USER21> There is so much wrong with the statement at the top of your site.

#1 LOTS of people have no idea what Airbnb is. This service by itself is very niche.

#2 Can you even use the name of another company like this? Do they want you to associate yourself with their service?

#3 Everyone has food porn? Really? The LAST thing foodies want to think about when looking for food related websites is pornography. In fact, for many, just the words on the page make for a disgusting feeling.

</comment><comment><USER22> Do you plan on allowing people to charge for hosting? If so, aren't there some serious health code issues that arise (at least in the U.S.)?

Friends of mine work at a non-profit that wanted to sell espresso at their center and they ran into all kinds of health code issues due to just having milk. Apparently as soon as you introduce perishable items, all kinds of red flags get raised and you need inspections, etc.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've actually heard of this before, there are a few but they tend to stay small. Not sure what they are officially called but I called them underground restaurants.

They only do it once or twice a week but they serve lots of different types of food, they usually are done by local chefs. But that's usually very high class food.

I also suggest not comparing yourself to another service on your home page and explicitly saying what you do.

<comment><USER24> They're generally called "Pop-up restaurants"

<comment><USER25> Right. Tho the pop up restaurants that I've heard of have been set up by chefs with some sort of following via a previous venture... this thing here ain't that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is a really cool concept! Awesome job.

I like the feedback someone else gave on showing photos of the people. Since this is more 'socialize here' than 'sleep here,' (unless it pivots into house- based on-availability takeout) I'd prefer to see photos of people + their interests than photos of the food.

It's saturday night, am I looking for someone making turkey sandwiches in Eugene, Oregon, or am I looking for some cool people to meet and have a few hour conversation with? Am I buying a conversation or the food? I think I'd be buying a conversation and an opportunity to meet new people. The meal is secondary.

My ex-girlfriend and I had a recurring conversation about meeting people and making new friends in our mid-20s. It's a good question, one I'd like to see tackled: "What does a non-dating 'dating' site look like?" Howaboutwe.com is sort of what I'd like to see done in this space, but a site like this that arranges social events / group 'friend' dates to meet people in your community based on food / interests / conversation? That's right up my ally.

Great job launching an MVP. I'd love to see what comes next.

</comment><comment><USER27> 1\. If you have no idea what Airbnb is, which many people do not, then you have no idea what to do at the site and you'll probably leave. 2\. I know what Airbnb is and still could not figure out Housefed was until I read your post here.

It sounds like a fun business. I think you should be more explicit on the front page as to what exactly it is. I would definitely try this out if there was a host near me.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is true, thanks for the advice. I appreciate it

<comment><USER28> I think it's fine. For now. It is likely that your early adopter will have heard of AirBNB, and that phrase "AirBNB for food" carries high information density about what your site does.

But you probably don't want to the the brand of your company in the longer term to AirBNB.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Looks like a fun idea and I'll sign-up and give it a shot as a customer. One business suggestion: don't describe yourself as "Airbnb for food" on your main website. That's fine for HN but many potential customers will not know/care what Airbnb is.

One other suggestion is to spend some time looking at the GrubWithUs site; it has a great design for this type of service.

</comment><comment><USER30> OK here's my gut reaction:

1\. You don't explain what you're doing and why I would want to do it. Even with all their publicity I would wager that 90% of the people you are driving to your home page have never heard of AirBNB. Calling yourself the AirBNB of food might work when you're pitching the idea to a VC but doesn't work on the actual website.

2\. Two thirds of your potential customers will be using Internet Explorer. I know it's not fair but that's reality in 2011. In IE you cannot even see the fields to sign up.

If in fact I can buy dinner at different peoples houses every night that's a really cool idea. In my state you couldn't do it legally but you've researched all that right? To succeed you need more than a cool idea, you have to execute.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think most people are going to be puzzled/turned-off by your reference to "food porn".

</comment><comment><USER32> Love the idea. Rails Rumble a few years ago produced this: <http://tablesurfing.com/> which never actually launched, but I was really hoping it would have.

Comments:

Without the "airbnb for food" tagline on the site, nobody would have any idea that this site is anything more than a bad Foodgawker clone. Nothing about it lets users actually do anything other than share pictures.

If that's the goal, make it clear how to do that or let us know when it will be possible.

</comment><comment><USER33> So someone pays me for me to cook for them? Sounds strange, why not get takeout or to a smaller restaurant if it's too pricey and want to eat out?

<comment><USER34> Why would you choose to use airBnb when there are small hotels and motels?

The answer is two-fold: 1) Cost. People cooking food and hosting guests don't have the same running costs as a restaurant. It may just be a bit of side- income or maybe they're breaking even and doing it out of passion. 2) The experience and locality is different than hotels and motels. I could see this being big in young, hip areas like SF (Mission, Haight Asbury) and Brooklyn.

<comment><USER33> Because I can have a decent meal for a similar price to paying someone. Airbnb you get a nicer place to stay for a far lower price. I mean not saying this is a terrible idea just saying it doesn't work for me.

<comment><USER34> Fair enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Congrats on following through on your goal, and for shipping! Really cool idea. The service may not be for everyone, but ones who use it may become fanatics. There are definitely regulatory issues with this in my mind, probably for all of the US and many other countries as well, but one thing I love about the Internet is how it challenges and sometimes breaks conventional models and rules.

</comment><comment><USER36> It's something I might be especially likely to use if I moved to a new city, and wanted to meet people, and try something different for the hell of it.

There is a social angle to be worked here. Maybe allow users to post profiles? I'd be much more likely to try this if I could see that interesting-looking people were going to the same dinner as me.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is a VERY intriguing idea.

I can't say that I would invite someone into my home for a few bucks, but it definitely is intriguing. Then again...I wouldn't rent out my couch to random strangers, so don't use my opinion on the deciding factor to go ahead.

Look forward to keeping track of this and seeing how it progresses.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER38> I heard Brian Chesky (Airbnb's cofounder) on Gigaom talking about announcing other categories in 2011 on top of housing (which sounds like a natural extension).So kudos to the guy who executed this but I can already see this space is going get ultra competitive pretty soon.

</comment><comment><USER39> I am betting you need a health department certificate in most states to do this.

<comment><USER40> I think you are OK if you have people be "members" of your food club. It's only when you're cooking for walk-ins.

Even so, I am something of a foodie and a home cook, and I wouldn't feel comfortable cooking for paying strangers, or paying to dine with them. To me, something that helped organize and plan potlucks would be more appealing, (like "Meetup meets Cooks Illustrated" perhaps). But maybe that's just me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> [http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/zapmealscom-closing- the...](http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/zapmealscom-closing-the-gap- between-your-mouse-your-tummy-for-supernova-2007)

</comment><comment><USER42> there are a couple startups in this space (GrubWith.Us, gogrubly.com, maybe others?). what differentiates housefed? is it the international angle? the kind of foodspotting-esque type focus on user-generated photos?

any plans for adding descriptive content so that the comments aren't just "is that [fill in the blank]? Btw, I'd love to see a lot more positive user feedback before I sign up. I'd say get some good traction from friends/beta testers before spreading it too widely. Oh and I agree with others: lose the food porn reference. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER43> As a user of Housefed before today's front-page-on-HN, I want to give folks a heads up that it looks like the traffic may be causing a few bugs.

If anything feels strange, definitely return after a bit.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> WOW thanks for the feedback! There are a few bugs I missed in my testing - <USER2> I've taken down a few of the features. Everything will be back tomorrow (with a new homepage). Thanks again!

</comment><comment><USER44> Love the idea. I know some folks that sell home-cooked foods. This happens in ethnic communities. So that can be an option.

Also reviews are super important to decide.

</comment><comment><USER45> Looks awesome.. one suggestion is to avoid using the word 'porn' on the front page. Love the idea though!

</comment><comment><USER46> Awesome work Emile. I love the tenacity.

</comment><comment><USER47> I think this is Foodspotting, not Airbnb

</comment><comment><USER48> how bout <http://mealtik.com> ?

</comment><comment><USER49> About Page

</comment><comment><USER50> Am I the only one who thinks the local and federal food regulatory bodies are going to have a field day with this?

I hope you have a solid legal team in place to deal with the inevitable FDA, USDA, state heath boards, and local restaurant licensing regulators that are very likely to take notice if you grow.

</comment><comment><USER51> I had never heard of Airbnb before. Once I got on your site, I went to their site, clicked around for a while, tried to get the gist of it. Then came back here to comment because I still don't get housefed.

I don't think I should have to go learn a totally different site in order to understand the tagline of your site.

<comment><USER52> If you've never heard of Airbnb before, perhaps you're in the wrong place. Airbnb is a YC company and is one of the (if not the) _hottest_ startups out there.

<comment><USER51> Perhaps you're right. I will leave at once!</comment></comment></comment>


Suggestion HN: bigger arrows - <AUTHOR> On mobile, the arrows to up/down vote are really tiny, and it's easy to hit the wrong one. I just realised that I now always zoom in before up/down voting.<p>Would it make sense to have bigger, more spaced arrows? <comment><USER2> For suggestion, it's better to write directly to the mods email@example.com , because sometimes these threads are not noticed.</comment>


Observations from two weeks of SSH brute force attacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2012/01/25/observations-from-two-weeks-of-ssh-brute-force-attacks/ <comment><USER2> I've been running a similar experiment. And noticed similar things as the author.

However, I decided to run an additional experiment to contact Amazon since the IP was originating from an EC2 instance. Amazon contacted me after I filed an abuse report and said they were investigating.

A week goes by and I'm still getting hammered. So I email Amazon and asked when it will be resolved. No response. So I email again, again, and again. I finally get a response saying they have resolved it, but I'm still getting hammered from the same IP address.

So I email them once more asking - what is it exactly you have resolved?

No response.

I presume it is not in Amazon's best interest to resolve such issues as long as people are paying for their instances....

<comment><USER3> One of my linode servers was compromised and was used to originate such attacks. Linode proactively shut down the machine after a 24 hr notice period.

Unfortunately, I wasn't expecting this, so I missed their email and only realized the problem once my linode was offline.

I wouldn't be thrilled about either linode OR amazon

<comment><USER4> The Internet at large, on the other hand, would be quite happy with Linode in this particular instance.

Was there some other way they should have contacted you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just move your SSH off the port 22, hide it behind another instance and/or use fail2ban. 99% of problems with SSH scans/attacks sorted

<comment><USER6> Or better yet, don't run SSH at all. Leave it to the pros.

I had an experience about a year ago on one of my home servers that convinced me of this. It was a Debian machine that I kept religiously up to date (daily cronjob and manual checking). It only had an external SSH port, I used log2ban, and disabled all logins except for one non-root user.

I got the common ssh brute force spam. Then one day I happened to be checking logs, and noticed rootkit logs in the /root directory. My server had been hacked! Fortunately whoever had broken in had completely botched it and left traces all over the system. It looked like they had given up at some point, despite having root access.

I later discovered that the attacker had used a 0-day openssh exploit that had been released that very morning. For that time period of 24-48 hours between release and fix, my server had been hacked. I only wonder how many other servers were hacked by skilled people that didn't leave evidence behind.

So morale of the story - you can't secure _anything_ that is publicly facing on the internet. And if you really need to do it, it requires constant vigilance, DMZs, and all that other stuff that is not worth it unless you're being paid.

<comment><USER7> In your specific case, this wouldn't have happened if your SSHd had listened to something else than port 22.

<comment><USER8> s/wouldn't have happened/would've been much less likely/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A long time ago I used to have a general purpose server on a DSL line with port 22 open. I thought everything was fairly secure, patched up, etc... I never thought brute forcers would be able to guess one of my accounts (which was a friend's account actually). The kicker? The password was the username. I found out about the rootkit a few days after they got in. I tell ya, kids these days just don't know how to hide a backdoor.

A really good port knocker is your best defense against rogue attackers of an external service (because there is no defense against a 0-day). For an iptables-supported system I recommend Knockknock by Moxie Marlinspike (<http://www.thoughtcrime.org/software/knockknock/>).

<comment><USER10> For brute forcing, without resorting to port knocking, fail2ban works well and has a pluggable system to handle more than ssh.

<comment><USER2> Does fail2ban work against brute force distributed attacks?

I've noticed a few attacks that seem to be orchestrated from the same people but using different IPs.

<comment><USER11> It doesn't specifically target distributed attacks, but I'm not really sure how something like that could know whether incoming requests are part of a botnet or ligitimate logins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think that a more reasonable explanation could be that the attackers were careless about building the dictionary. If it's built by parsing files and you feed the wrong file or the parser does not work correctly you end up with a dictionary with lots of bogus entries. That seems a simpler explanation than:

"The best guess is that these passwords were collected from an unhashed password database, or from a trojaned SSH server or client."

or

"This might be due to the brute force tool not properly interpreting comments in the dictionary file, or the attacker not understanding the comment notation"

<comment><USER13> Interesting idea. Assuming competence on the part of your attacker isn't as dangerous as assuming incompetence, but it can be just as mistaken.

<comment><USER12> It could be more haste than incompetence. Anyway, if you think about massive brute force attacks like this, they are 'silly' easy no-brain attacks more likely to come from script kiddies who downloaded a tool someone else wrote than real attackers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Heh, those passwords are in Romanian

TiganilAFloriNTeleormaN - Gypsies at Florin in Teleorman

Fum4tulP0@t3Uc1d3R4uD3T0t - Smoking can kill awfully bad

</comment><comment><USER15> What is with Romanians? Most of the metadata sent (see at the bottom) is in Romanian.

</comment><comment><USER7> Sheesh! Let your SSHd listen to something else than the standard port already!

<comment><USER16> Or don't use password based authentication...</comment></comment>


Is twitter still the biggest rails site? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.evanweaver.com/articles/2008/05/27/is-twitter-still-the-biggest-rails-site/ <comment><USER2> It's really beside the point, and it's a shame that Twitter's scaling woes are at all associated with Rails. Rails is a framework for making _web applications_. How many of Twitter's problems stem from generating HTML pages? At its core, Twitter is a massive messaging system; the web app part is a tiny layer on top. Blaming Rails for Twitter's downtime is like blaming your chat client if AIM goes down.

</comment><comment><USER3> QOTD:"It is important to keep in mind how useless this information is."

</comment><comment><USER4> His math looks like it's really inflating the scribd numbers. Could compete.com really be off by a factor of 5?

</comment><comment><USER5> Yup, sure, it is, off course, f'sure.</comment>


Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast's $500M Snapchat Investment - <AUTHOR> http://fair.org/home/with-no-disclosure-comcast-owned-vox-runs-commercial-for-comcasts-500m-snapchat-investment/ <comment><USER2> Does anyone else deeply distrust Vox? The quality varies a LOT, they frequently present opinions as facts, etc.

The weird thing is they have moments of brilliance like the "Liberal Smugness" piece - but search "Vox News article" and it looks like even the left really hates them.

They seem more interested in telling me how to feel than the facts, I guess. I wish the rest of the world had the same pride in journalism as say, the Economist or the New Yorker

<comment><USER3> Vox and all its sibling outlets (Polygon, the Verge, etc.) have devolved into poison. They've surpassed Mother Jones as the Internet's premiere outraged bleeding liberal rag. Their headlines are physically painful to read. They are unabashed smug coastal liberalism.

Their videos are consistently high quality though. I'll go there probably once a month and watch a handful.

<comment><USER4> Liberalism or leftism? A lot of the modern trends you see from the left actually feel very illiberal.

<comment><USER5> Leftist ideology is not mutually inclusive of liberalism (in the philosophical sense) but that's true of most ideologies. Heck, mix nationalism (extreme patriotism) with socialism (illiberal leftist ideology) and you can get national socialism (far-right Nazism).

<comment><USER6> The claim that nationalism socialism is a type of socialism is dubious. Names are tricky like that. [http://www.politicususa.com/2012/09/12/hitler-explains- gop-w...](http://www.politicususa.com/2012/09/12/hitler-explains-gop-wrong- national-socialism.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I totally think that when a Vox Media publication writes about Comcast that they should disclose the fact that Comcast Ventures owns a minority stake in Vox Media. However, I think it's a bit ridiculous to expect them to disclose this every time they cover one of their investor's portfolio companies. According to Crunchbase [1], there are 1,124 companies that share at least one investor with Vox Media. That's a pretty large list for editors to keep track of. I'm not aware of any publication that provide disclosure statements when they cover one of their investor's portfolio companies.

[1] [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vox- media/insights/i...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vox- media/insights/investors)

<comment><USER8> I think the challenge arises in ascertaining whether or not there is an adverse incentive driving their reporting on a given story.

In the case of Snap it seems safe to conclude that someone asked them to write positive stories. The need to disclose _all_ potential conflicts arise because we cannot trust the authors of these sponsored stories to honestly disclose that that is what they are.

<comment><USER9> "It seems safe to conclude that someone asked them to write positive stories." As the author of the article in question, I can tell you that this is false.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Baffler, one of my favourite publications, nailed Vox a wee while back: [https://thebaffler.com/salvos/explanation-for-what- johnson](https://thebaffler.com/salvos/explanation-for-what-johnson)

</comment><comment><USER11> I find the headline a little misleading. Reading it, I was thinking "ok, Vox runs an ad for Comcast - what's wrong, all the press runs ads, that's how they make the money, and why would they refuse to run an ad for Comcast?". Reading further, the allegation seems to be much more serious - that Vox run an article, purporting to be an editorial content, but in fact being, by its content, very close to an ad. Wasn't clear from the headline at all.

</comment><comment><USER12> Which is strange, as Vox and it's child companies usually do a good job of disclosing things like this.

<comment><USER13> There was another example in this very article of them writing a glowing defense of Comcast, which they neglected to put a disclaimer on until a large outcry caught up with them. Where are you getting your opinion that they "usually do a good job of disclosing things"?

<comment><USER14> I think the problem is a lot of people go "I agree with essentially everything this newspaper puts out, thus this is great journalism!" when really good journalism would likely have you disagreeing with it as much as you agree.

<comment><USER15> Of course, since most people don't want to read things that they disagree with, the result is that most people don't want to read good journalism.

<comment><USER11> I think you oversimplify. Most peopke are more tolerant to bad journalism if it confirms their prejudices. And doing good journalism is harder than doing bad one. Thus it is easy to get away with bad one if you only care about click and/or only care for one ideological niche. But that doesn't mean there's no demand for high quality journalism - it's just harder to do it, so less people bother to. In nonpolitical topics, where prejudices are less strong, there is plenty of quality content. And if we stop supporting crappy content in political topics, it will happen there too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This makes no sense, while Vox might sometimes post video stories on their discover platform, it's not particularly common that they do when compared to other partners such as mashable or buzzfeed.

Regardless, you see similar articles about Snap on websites that don't share any major investors with the company, so this argument doesn't really make sense.

<comment><USER13> If large stakeholders in Snap also had large stakes in all these media outlets praising the Snap IPO, would you say the same?

It's not really about what everyone else is reporting; it's the fact that no matter what the spin, they should disclose their ties to Snap's success so the reader is fully aware that this piece could come across as a back-scratch type of move on Vox's part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm guessing that investment is now up 100% minimum..I wish I could have invested too when it was only worth $3 billion.

The question is, how far down the chain is a disclosure necessary? It seems like calling out conflicts of interest is a way to discredit someone or something without having to actually create an argument against it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Being a regular vergecast listener they regularly disclose that the verge which is part of vox is invested by comcast. It's interesting that vox wouldn't when it's other publications do so even when they are just riffing in their podcast.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is it any wonder that the youth distrusts media. The confidence seems to be disappearing quicker than a picture on Snapchat.

</comment><comment><USER20> On a slight tangent, anyone else really annoyed by the articles which seem to be "company profiles" but really are PR puff pieces. They masquered as real journalism but they feel like content spoon fed by the company's PR manager. They tend to be at publications like Fast company, Techcrunch, and business insider. Anyone have a way to filter out puff pieces? I have been thinking about building an algorithm since these pieces now filter into more reputable sources like WSJ and Nytimes too.

</comment><comment><USER21> Next you guys are going to think the CIA's contract with the owner of the Washington Post is a bad thing.</comment>


Ask HN: How to build your own reporting tool? - <AUTHOR> For my thesis I'm going to build a Proof of Concept of a reporting engine but I don't know where to start. I have read about business intelligence tools a bit and that is the direction that I need to search but those all refer to existing tools. What I have in mind is a reporting tools like google analytics based on dimensions and metric to extract aggregated data from the database.<p>Any recommendations on literature about how reporting tools work? Or some talks about it on YouTube? <comment><USER2> Have a look at the author [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Kimball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Kimball)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I have just bought the book 'The Data Warehouse Toolkit'. This was just what I was looking for.

<comment><USER2> That gives you understanding of data modeling, dimensions vs facts and how to structure database tables (or other data stores). Next read up on ETL system (how to get data into databases) and Hadoop (aggregating data among dimensions). At least for Hadoop there should be many online presentations and youtube videos. Lastly data visualization.</comment></comment></comment>


Recurly raising prices. - <AUTHOR> http://recurly.com/pricing

<comment><USER2> Existing customers are grandfathered in but don't get access to the new services.</comment>


5th SpaceX SES-9 Launch – Livestream - <AUTHOR> https://spacexstats.com/live <comment><USER2> The full webcast is also available here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muDPSyO7-A0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muDPSyO7-A0) and the technical webcast (without commentary) is here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIkPP2LM8DU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIkPP2LM8DU)</comment>


Show HN: Your Startup Perk Provider AnyPerk (YC W12) Gets A Redesign - <AUTHOR> https://anyperk.com/ We just redesigned AnyPerk, and we couldn't be prouder. The products and services are now showcased on the website, instead of being hidden, and members sign in to access the perks and discounts. What do you think? <comment><USER2> This looks really amazing. Excited to see what this team does now!</comment>


Facebook has a MASS spam attack - 200 Million Users Affected. - <AUTHOR>

I have noticed and researched over 600 spam attacks coming though Facebook.
This is the first major SPAM attack I have seen through Facebook.
The virus is attaching it self to users accounts and sending messages to the users friends either promoting a Southwest Free Flights Promo or a unique look at a Spider Bite or Free Subway For A Week!
These are all FAKE.
FACEBOOK HAS BEEN PENETRATED AND ALL USERS ARE AT RISK! <comment><USER2> Posts in all caps look like spam...

If this is a genuine threat, I suggest you don't use such an alarmist tone.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is my first post to Hacker News. Can I edit it to remove the caps?

By the way, it is real.</comment>


Ask HN: are there api's for bank's such as Wachovia and Bank of America? - <AUTHOR>

Ask HN: are there api's for bank's such as Wachovia and Bank of America? I'm trying to find an API for my bank because I'd like to automate a complicated transfer task I have. Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> Most banks dont really have apis. The way to get information is then to screen scrape but this would require your clients to give you information. Services like Yodlee.com simplify the process but are quite expensive to use unless you are funded.

<comment><AUTHOR> Services like Quicken / Mint are capable to getting bank information using a known protocol. Is there no way to kind of do the opposite (Ie, use a known protocol to send money / update bank information)?</comment></comment>


$185M in 5 days: Block.one sets new ICO record with its EOS token - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/01/185-million-in-5-days-block-one-sets-new-ico-record-with-its-eos-token/ <comment><USER2> I was young during the dot com boom, but I would like to know from people who weren't: Does the ICO boom resemble the dot com boom? Because this screams bubble like nothing I've seen before.

<comment><USER3> The way I see it, all asset classes are inflated: stocks are at nosebleed P/E ratios, bonds have next to no yield, house prices are once again at historic levels, and Silicon Valley unicorns are again getting unrealistic valuations. There's a lot of money sloshing around the economy looking for return. It's no wonder some of it ends up in cryptocurrencies.

<comment><USER4> Wait, if everything is inflated, then really, everything is actually in balance? But ok, so if most things are inflated, then what has proper value or is under valuated?

Subject being blockchain, I'm pretty sure Ethereum, Augur & MakerDAO are ones of those few rare under-valuated assets. Disclosure: I might own a few coins of each.

<comment><USER5> ethereum is undervalued @ over $200 a token because...what?

this is tulip mania. at least when a stock price shoots up over news, that company is (generally) backed by revenue. a sales channel. assets. something. anything.

a cryptographic signature is only worth something if a group of people all agree it is worth something.

before someone makes the fiat argument -- the USD is worth something because there are a lot of bullets and bombs behind it.

<comment><USER3> The correct analogue of cryptocurrency is not USD (because of the bullets and bombs you mention), but rather precious metals, particularly gold and silver. Yes, the metals do have practical applications, but that does not account for the majority of their price (value?).

<comment><USER6> You're gonna have a bad time if you are comparing cryptocurrency to metals. There are dozens of currencies that are widely used at the moment, and I'm willing to bet over the next 2-4 years we will get into the hundreds. Your cryptocurrency isn't valued because its rare, it's because everyone else is buying into the same coin. It only takes one new currency to come in and be better than YOURS to reduce its demand and subsequent value - no matter how rare your coins are. It's a stock market not a gold coin collection.

<comment><USER3> Well, not me, because I use the analogy to metals to not invest in crypto currency either. They're non-productive assets. I stick to stocks, bonds, and real estate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can someone please explain this about ICOs for me: are people investing because they believe the company itself will create real economic value resulting in dividends based on their coin holdings, or is it all about secondary market gambling and betting they'll make a profit off coin speculation?

<comment><USER8> There are no dividends paid on holdings. That would make it a security and fall under regulation.

Most ICOs stipulate that in their T&C that tokens are to be regarded as without value. Yet they put up a big dog and pony show about selling them. To think that this absolves them of responsibility is a bit naive, in my opinion.

This particular token is a clear cut example. Block.one will build another altcoin. There is no code yet, only a whitepaper that on the face of it seems to promise the impossible (all the functionality you can think of at a million times the throughput). To finance this they will sell this EOS token, which is explicitly stated not to be exchangable for their future altcoin product or have any other use.

It might be of interest to note that the person behind this is not new to the game. This is his third crowdfunding scheme, and the first two products are far from what was promised. As to why people invest your guess is as good as mine, but the greater fool theory is a good starting point.

<comment><USER9> You sound legit. Real question: I'd like to short 1000$ of this "security" or bitcoin/ethereum, is there a way to do that currently?

<comment><USER10> You can short Bitcoin or Ethereum on any major coin exchange and some trading platforms even go up to 200x leverage using margin and synthetic derivative contracts.

<comment><USER9> Can you tell me which major exchange does this? I'd like to buy a "reverse insurance" a-la "big short" type of thing. Also, what are the examples of a "synthetic derivative contracts"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's only these past few days that I've started getting interested in cryptocurrencies. And I've stumbled across tezos and im pretty sure their ICO is going to set a new record too. It's only been less than three days and they're at 103million.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why are these numbers so high? Why don't they set the supply to something more realistic, like $10M? How do they justify it?

<comment><USER13> When fools are rushing to buy your pipe-dreams what does it benefit you to limit the supply? You are making the mistake of believing that these are not simple pump-and-dump scams wrapped cryptocurrency clothes.

<comment><USER12> I thought all ICOs were fixed supply. How does unlimited supply even work? Isn't each token meant to represent something?

<comment><USER13> You close up shop, change the name plates on the office door, and launch your next ICO. Investor gullibility is that of which there is an unlimited supply.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SparrowHub is a script repository. Share your scripts with others - <AUTHOR> SparrowHub is a script repository. Share your scripts with others. Popular languages support - Perl5, Python, Ruby and Bash.<p>https://sparrowhub.org/search <comment><AUTHOR> Sure, I have already seen this site. Looks like these are lower level commands, but the idea is quite the same ))) indeed I have already thought about collaboration with them.

</comment><comment><USER2> [http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse](http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse)</comment>


3D printable handle for sink can be turned with elbow (Danish Language) - <AUTHOR> https://www.tv2ostjylland.dk/aarhus/ninas-opfinderfar-udrydder-potentiel-smittebombe-paa-skolen <comment><AUTHOR> I said one time I didn't like to put non-English content on HN and someone said they would like to see non-English, so this Danish content is about a father making a 3d printable handle for sinks at his daughter's school. The handles can be turned by the elbow and thus have reduced hand contact.

The 3d printable file can be downloaded here [https://soelystskolen.aarhus.dk/media/40882/solystskolens- kr...](https://soelystskolen.aarhus.dk/media/40882/solystskolens- kronegrebsadapter-dang-le-v3.stl)

hopefully HN doesn't kill these sites.</comment>