Karl Friston: up to 80% not even susceptible to Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/dUOFeVIrOPg <comment><USER2> The current face of a death cult.</comment>


No More Rock Stars: How to Stop Abuse in Tech Communities (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2016/06/27/crosspost-no-more-rock-stars-how-to-stop-abuse-in-tech-communities/ <comment><USER2> > Start with the assumption that harassment reports are true and investigate > them thoroughly

Now here's one thing that's certain to not be abused. Ever.

brb, reading again on donglegate.

<comment><USER3> Yep. This is completely against how modern society deals with problems. We don't assume criminals are guilty until proven innocent, it's the other way around. The way a lot of these types want people to believe stuff with no evidence behind it because it's 'the right thing to do' is rather scary to be honest.

It's also a worrying symbol of a world where accusations seems to be more and more seen as evidence of guilt by the accused party. Where trial by media or court of public opinion seems to be valued more than the actual truth.

So no, we shouldn't automatically assume they're true. Investigate them sure, but treat it like any other crime or misbehaviour.

<comment><USER4> In the US, is very common for people who are arrested to be given the alternatives:

1\. post a bail bond

2\. incarceration

pending trial. I'm not offering an opinion on whether this is right or whether the US is a modern society. Just pointing to the reality of how the US deals with accusations of criminal behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > To fight this, encourage and support private affinity groups for > marginalized groups (especially people who identify as women in a way that > is significant to them), create formal systems that allow for anonymous or > pseudonymous reporting such as an ombudsperson or third-party ethics > hotline, support and promote people who are trusted contact points and/or > advocates for marginalized groups, and reward people for raising difficult > but necessary problems.

50% of humanity is not a marginalized group. Anonymous reporting will always be abused.

<comment><USER6> Reporting will always be abused.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Overall, the approach that has the fewest downsides is to establish a policy > that no one can date within their reporting chain or across major > differences in power, that romantic relationships need to be disclosed, and > that if anyone forms a relationship with someone in the same reporting > chain, the participants need to move around the organization until they no > longer share a reporting chain.

How about you fuck off from the private lives of your staff.

This attitude along with the article is abusive and dangerous.

They basically suggest setting up anonymous bully stops.

> Make it easy for victims to find and coordinate with each other

I understand the author is probably unbalanced but what scares me is the people supporting this sort of stuff.

</comment><comment><USER8> 》Seriously, "rock stars" are arrogant narcissists.

How this is not an abuse?

</comment><comment><USER9> I've always interpreted rock star to mean an amazing coder/hacker/architect; not as a personality trait.

I did a double take when reading the headline. Why would we want to stop these amazing people?

Update: I never took personality into account when interpreting "rock star"

<comment><USER10> I think it's meant as that being amazing in the job shouldn't be an excuse for being a terrible person.

While I generally agree with the post (I only skimmed it yet), I am skeptical that it can be completely realized. There are many examples from history of terrible people succeeding, because they were really good at their jobs. If a community gets rid of them completely, it will put itself at a disadvantage. You know, evolution/game theory is a bitch and all that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The @ioerror story is complex and involves a lot of people with questionable motives.

If you want some context and background:

\- [https://github.com/Enegnei/JacobAppelbaumLeavesTor](https://github.com/Enegnei/JacobAppelbaumLeavesTor)

\- [https://github.com/cjdelisle/JakeGate](https://github.com/cjdelisle/JakeGate)

Just to say, it's not as simple as what is presented in this blog post</comment>


How to change iCloud password in 57 steps - <AUTHOR> http://blog.krzyzanowskim.com/2015/08/05/how-to-change-icloud-password-in-57-steps/

<comment><USER2> Experienced a similar situation with registering a new iPad Air in July 2015. Apple customer support was confused and unable to assist with the simple process of registering a new iPad. No matter how many customer service people they handed us off to on each phone call, the result was the same... "We're sorry, the Apple registration process doesn't work..."

When I grew up, Apple had no market share, yet it was the company we all turned to because their stuff just worked. Now Apple is a "big deal" and, yet, has become the same Microsoft-like company that we all tried to avoid growing up.</comment>


Show HN: AI to quickly learn about new legislation - <AUTHOR> https://www.civicfeed.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys! We were super frustrated not being able to understand the laws, organizations, and people that affected us. With over 8,500 bills/resolutions in front of Congress and only 7% that pass on average - there was a lot to unpack (not even including the states!). So, we used our background in AI/NLP to build a product that brings government affairs into the modern world.

</comment><comment><USER2> Hey! Are you taking a different approach from Fiscal Note ([https://fiscalnote.com/](https://fiscalnote.com/)) or this is something similar?

</comment><comment><USER3> I love this! What does the AI actually do / why is AI necessary for this problem?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment! Because of the vast amount of data, we saw an opportunity to use natural language processing to better parse and understand the millions of documents that existed. This allows for faster discovery of information, more relevant data being served, and a better understanding of the text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm afraid that your site is entirely broken and will not load when using an ad/script blocker. That being said, the idea behind this sounds very cool!</comment>


Facebook ruins Zuckerberg Xmas - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/mark_zuckerbergs_sister_is_angry_that_a_family_photo_posted_on_facebook_became_public/ <comment><USER2> Wait, isn't this the same Zuckerberg who said something along the lines of internet anonymity needing to go away??

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/27/randi-zuckerberg- an...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/27/randi-zuckerberg-anonymity- online_n_910892.html)

Oh, the irony indeed!

<comment><USER3> What, pray tell, does this have to do with anonymity?

<comment><USER4> I imagine they were pointing out the irony that someone who wanted to see the end of internet anonymity, which would inherently reduce privacy, is now complaining of a privacy breech on a site where there is relatively no anonymity.

<comment><USER3> I imagine that as well, but it's easy to see that these are meaningfully different kinds of privacy at stake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Zuckerberg's takeaway was "digital etiquette," saying: "always ask > permission before posting a friend's photo publicly. It's not about privacy > settings, it's about human decency."

Apparently "human decency" doesn't apply when Zuckerberg sells your information to 3rd party advertisers on Facebook and changes the TOS to let you know you don't own squat on his company's site. The irony is strong here.

<comment><USER6> You are quoting Randi Zuckerberg. She does not work at Facebook, so she certainly doesn't sell your information to advertisers or change the site's TOS.

<comment><USER5> I realize that. However she is not a dummy and should know better when she says her privacy's being violated on Facebook. Especially when her brother owns the damn company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm disappointed to have to emphasize that this is _Randi_ Zuckerberg responding to the leaked picture, not Mark Zuckerberg. There's no sweet irony here about creating a site and being burned by it, just being it's former chief marketing officer, I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER8> How can he be angry? Posted a photo on a social network site which he developed, his security flaw, his mistake. You post a photo, you can't be angry when your security flaw means it goes global.

<comment><USER9> Typically, the pronouns "she" and "her" are used for females.

<comment><USER10> "Zuckerberg responded, saying, "Not sure where you got this photo. I posted it only to friends on FB. You reposting it on Twitter is way uncool.""

Zuckerberg uploaded the photo, his sister "leaked" it.

While Zuckerbergs response resonates well with me I don't really get what he was thinking taking this so publicly, making full use of the Streisand-effect.

Either way, it is hilarious and he does deserve every bit of it. Even if he did nothing wrong in this case.

<comment><USER11> Did you consider that Mark's sister's last name is also Zuckerberg? The article is all about Randi Zuckerberg, not Mark Zuckerberg.

<comment><USER10> I just did :(

My mind inserted Mark, even as a copy-pasted it. Sigh, good night.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That moment when, what was that line by Mark? "Dont post online if you have anything to hide" or something? ... gets back at you and bites in the ass ...

</comment><comment><USER13> What an exaggerated titled. Does the pic show anything compromising/very intimate? It appears it does not. Then why all the fuss about it? This could've went swiftly under the radar if she simply would've handled it privately.

A simple direct message on Twitter: 'hey, that's not supposed to be public, can you take it down please? and delete your tweet too.'

Simple and I can't imagine she would've been denied the request, for the very same reason, that she's a Zuckerberg.

</comment><comment><USER14> This from the guy who says privacy is no longer the social norm?

<comment><USER6> No, this is not from "the guy", as all the quotes and tweets in the article are Randi's. Mark is only mentioned as being her brother.

<comment><USER15> Sure but isn't the blood connection here the major reason why we are even reading about this story?

<comment><USER6> I fail to see how that makes it OK to misattribute quotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The Streisand effect strikes again.

</comment><comment><USER17> They're Jewish.

<comment><USER18> i think no one got why wrote so above.

they're jewish, they don't celebrate xmas. hence, no zuckerburg xmas was ruined.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Pretty hilarious!</comment>


Things Overheard at TechCrunch Disrupt - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/09/techcrunch-jargon.html

<comment><USER2> I love that this article was written by Kevin Roose :). Had to do a double- take to make sure I wasn't reading an Onion knockoff.

On a more serious note, this article highlights what is a big annoyance of the startup community. Namely that people are focused on building a startup for short term profit rather than (genuinely) trying to change the world in a big way. It's in some ways analogous to the short-term mindset of the finance industry. Instead of thinking 1,2, or 3 decades out, people are thinking "How can I get $40m on this company in a couple years?" I would be much more excited by a community that consisted of people trying to build long term businesses, not acqui-hires, solutions to mundane problems, or another social app.

Don't get me wrong, if people want to flip companies for several million dollars over a couple years, they are will within their right to do so, and I wouldn't blame them. It's just depressing that our best minds are focused on making quick flips instead of sustainable truly game-changing businesses. I look up to people like Steve Jobs (obviously), Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, and Reed Hastings. These are all people who have transformed industries, and were not chasing some cheap hack to get a couple million dollars. They built real products, not sitting in front of their computer, but by going out and meeting customers, building real solutions to real problems, undertaking genuinely difficult technical challenges.

<comment><USER3> People are following the money - it's VERY hard to find backing for a 'change the world in 20 years' kind of company, but relatively easy to find it for a 'make $40m in 5 years' type of company.

<comment><USER2> I completely agree. I think people are following the path of least resistance to getting money, and this is the crux of what annoys me about the startup community. The goal is not transform an industry, at whatever cost, regardless of what anyone says, but get $40m as quickly as possible. Very few people have genuine convictions that they are hell bent on achieving, or at least it doesn't show.

<comment><USER4> Optimizing for a goal less likely to fail sounds like a good idea for young entrepreneurs that don't have any significant net worth or previous successes.

After they are financially setup for life, more seem to gravitate towards the really big, risky, transformative ideas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Mostly the usual jargon, though "plat-ag" is pretty annoying.

What's up with the wikipedia entry from Collaborative Consumption? There's a npov problem there. "Collaborative Consumption is disrupting outdated modes of business", for example. The whole thing reads like it was written by a Growth Hacker (tm). <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_consumption>

<comment><USER6> It was written by a shill for <http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/> as shown in the cite. Yeah, it is a self-promo article

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ug. I'm going to defend them despite the easy ability to mock.

Each industry has it's jargon of puff words to convey complex things. In my field of physics, for example, we'll often use a short-hand word to cover a very complicated idea, with the understanding that everyone should know what your talking about... and if they don't they should go learn more about it. Entanglement, emergence, wavefunction.

The problem is when you don't actually understand the complexities of the idea just mimic (or make up) the language.

That said, "let's talk about disrupting the disruptors" is always eye-roll worthy.

<comment><USER8> That's true in general, but some of those quotes are just gibberish. "Swimming in the social stream"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Required posting of Startup Guys vid: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMmdl4VltD4>

<comment><USER10> Thank you for that. I had not seen!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> <http://vooza.com/introduction.html>

</comment><comment><USER12> My goal is to make millions quickly with a nifty but superficial startup idea and then create a giant research lab focusing on science I find interesting (superconductivity, md simulations, neutrino research, etc...)

Well, that's the plan anyway. Real-life will probably be a lot different.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Disrupting the disruptors."

Not sure what the speaker meant but in my view that could mean upstaging these hollow throw-together startups with some sound engineering. No hype solutions to the same "problems" that "Just work better" (because they are designed better) and cost less.

</comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me of why I got out of startups.</comment>


Wii-js, interact with Nintendo Wii via Javascript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ryanmcgrath/wii-js

<comment><USER2> Still not sure how this exactly works. This is for browsing the web on the wii, correct?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, yes, I've been up all night working on some other stuff, wanted to throw this up before I sleep. Guess my title was a _bit_ misleading, but you are indeed correct.

It's a Javascript library that makes interacting with the Wii-remotes in the Opera browser that's on the Wii event-based instead of requiring devs to constantly poll it. It also just takes into account a lot of the odd differences; couldn't find a consistent, solid API for all of this, felt like there should really be one.

<comment><USER3> Wondering what was the motivation behind this project, can you it share with us?, i can see your library getting big if Nintendo keeps their current browser on the Wii U, i too hope they push harder on the web this time

<comment><AUTHOR> It's kind of two fold.

1) I have a large interest in teaching children how to program, and I think that getting them to build and run something on a game console speaks more to their minds than a computer. Kids by and large want to own a domain, it's just part of growing up - videogames tend to fill this role for them, so I think it's worth expanding on. There hasn't really been a game console throughout history (to my admittedly short knowledge) that a kid could just build and run stuff on.

I've got some more stuff in this vein I plan to release over the next two weeks, should be pretty fun.

2) I love Node.js, but I feel like that's where all the fun JS is happening these days. The Wii appealed to me in this regard as it's a platform where nobody had really tread this ground - there were one or two half-baked approaches around, but due to Nintendo trying to keep it kinda secret-ish none of them ever really got that far.

In a sense, the Wii is "the other other Javascript platform that nobody thinks about". ;)

<comment><USER3> First of all thanks for sharing this, i completely agree with you, Node is where all the fun is happening right now in the JS world but there are more areas where it could span specially in Gaming, since JS is growing in popularity i think in the following days we will keep seeing more places where we can use our JS skills, i just hope that Nintendo picks up where they left with their browser, but i wont blame them if they limit what you can do with it. In another topic i think that you picked a great way to empathize by working on a console, ill be paying attention to your releases. Excellent work

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks awesome! Great work dude.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, it's much appreciated!</comment></comment>


FSF condemns partnership between Mozilla and Adobe to support DRM - <AUTHOR> http://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-condemns-partnership-between-mozilla-and-adobe-to-support-digital-restrictions-management <comment><USER2> If we should train our guns somewhere it should be at the W3C; the guardians of web standards. W3C shouldn't have legitimized this feature by bringing it into standards discussions. The media companies would have had to comply eventually. They had no future without distribution over the internet. Now of course, they have hope.

Mozilla had no chance once Google, MS, Apple and everybody else decided to support EME. Most users don't care if they fought for open standards. They are probably just going to say that Firefox sucks.

If you ask me, Mozilla could be the most important software company in the world. The stuff they are building today is fundamental to an open internet for the future. It is important that they stay healthy for what lies ahead.

<comment><USER3> Everyone keeps repeating the claim that "most users don't care" but I think the more accurate characterization is "most users don't understand". Teaching people is much harder than blithely complaining about their motives, so I can understand the appeal to HN commenters, but I would have expected Mozilla to see above that.

<comment><USER4> Without responding to your specific point, many people say "people who disagree with me (just) don't understand," but in reality the people who disagree often have just as good an understanding of the basic facts, yet disagree anyway.

<comment><USER5> Put me in that camp. I did care about DRM at one time, but that's tapered off quite a bit over the years.

A lot of this probably correlates with my having become something of a cord cutter. It's hard to get worked up over concerns that someone might be threatening my "right" to disposable content that I've decided I don't need, usually don't want, and tend to think of as having a net negative impact on my quality of life. Perhaps it's my jaded brand of libertarianism showing: I'm inclined to say that media companies have just as much a right to make it hard for me to give them money as I have a right to continue not giving them money. Ironically enough, we're actually working toward a common cause.

(edit: A response would be more edifying than a drive-by downvote, y'all.)

<comment><USER6> First they DRM'd the videos, and I did not speak out— Because I don't watch TV and Movies.

Then they DRM'd the music, and I did not speak out— Because I have a nice vinyl collection.

Then they DRM'd the ebooks, and I did not speak out— Because I still use public libraries.

Then they DRM'd the news, and I did not speak out— Because I don't read the news.

Then they DRM'd me.

<comment><USER7> The reason the slippery slope is considered a fallacy is because if you're not careful about the validity of your logic, it would apply equally well to _any_ ill.

That would therefore mean that _all bad things_ must be stopped with full force, because "First they $VERBd the $GROUP[i], and I did not speak out" would apply for the union of VERBs, GROUPs, and possible {i}s.

E.g. in this case you literally end with "Then they DRM'd me". Are you seriously trying to claim that the end state of Mozilla supporting EME is that DRM is used to physically hurt people?

<comment><USER6> >Are you seriously trying to claim that the end state of Mozilla supporting EME is that DRM is used to physically hurt people?

Of course not. That last line is clearly meant to be absurd. I wanted break the slippery slope argument.

What I was trying to do was poke fun at the idea that DRM is okay as long it doesn't affect you directly. You should speak out against DRM, not because it is a slippery slope, but because it is wrong and it hurts people. The reason I think you should speak out against interning socialists is because it is wrong, not because of the slippery slope that it entails.

<comment><USER7> Fair enough. Poe's Law and all, it's hard to tell nowadays. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Honestly, I think the w3c should've just told Netflix et al to get the heck out of the browser.

Really, that's what this is all about... but those companies are already building fully native applications for every platform other than win32+Web. Telling them to go make a native application (or keep dealing with Silverlight/Flash) for that one last platform would be completely appropriate.

The world of software has changed - now we have major companies building applications for multiple different platforms instead of "just windows" or "just web". The web doesn't _need_ to do everything.

It doesn't need to do this.

<comment><USER9> But that's entirely the reason Netflix wants this. They don't want to create a separate application for every platform. EME offloads the cross-platform responsibility onto the browser vendor.

<comment><USER10> They want to have one lame web app instead of a set of nice native apps? I mean it's very efficient for start-ups and a cost-saver, but they seem to be past early stage...

<comment><USER11> Native apps have a huge set of their own problems. People don't want to have to install junk just to look at what should be a website, especially not when so many love grabbing all the personal data they can. If it had to be watched through an app, I'd bet any sum of money you'd find many/most accessing things like camera, mic, location, messaging, contacts, device ID, and other things they have zero business intruding in.

<comment><USER12> Why should it be a website? The only connection between movies and hypertext is both can be delivered over the internet. Why the HELL would you shoehorn a branded DRM-enabled movie streaming application into a _document viewer_?

<comment><USER13> > into a document viewer?

DRM discussion aside, the browser has not been a simple "document viewer" for quite some time, despite its origins.

<comment><USER10> One can teach a dog how to dance, but we don't say that dogs make good dancers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The FSF refuses to compromise their principles. They refuse to negotiate. I respect them for that, morally its nice to have a fixed point to hold the line and refuse to change, it gives you a benchmark against where to judge yourself. Even if sometimes you think the _old guard_ ate a bit to much paste.

<comment><USER15> Exactly - every time I hear someone like ESR troll the FSF about why they should support "open source" instead and embrace proprietary software, I have to wonder what they're thinking. The sole purpose of the FSF is to promote free software.

If the FSF had come out in support of this, I would have said that they're shirking on their responsibility. The FSF has been known to make compromises for the sake of pragmatism in the past, _if and only if_ such compromises actually promote free software[1]. DRM in the browser is a very different case, though.

It reminds me of the Republican party leader[0] in 2009 who said, on the topic of healthcare, 'It's over. Democrats lost. The people spoke, and they don't want healthcare. They want lower taxes. Democrats need to move on.'[2]

[0] It may have been Eric Cantor, but I can't remember

[1] e.g., using the LGPL instead of the GPL for glibc: [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not- lgpl.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html)

[2] It's actually even worse than that, because political parties change their platforms over time, but since healthcare has been the crux of the Democratic party platform for half a century, it's the closest thing to a fixed principle as politics has.

<comment><USER16> Another example regarding [1] (by rms, not exactly the FSF) is actually supporting a non-copyleft/permissive license for libogg: [http://lwn.net/Articles/299016/](http://lwn.net/Articles/299016/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The key insight for me is this one: _" Popularity is not an end in itself. This is especially true for the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit with an ethical mission."_

Even though non-profit organizations like Mozilla do not seek to maximize financial gain (by definition), they often seek to maximize their relevance in the world. As a result, they ARE susceptible to corruption: most if not all are willing to "compromise" \-- that is, sacrifice their mission and values -- in order to remain "important" in the eyes of society.

The folks running Mozilla are sacrificing the organization's mission and values because they're afraid of losing market share. They do not want Firefox to become a niche platform.

<comment><USER18> It is not as simple as that, because I got the impression THE reason folks at Mozilla do not want Firefox to become a niche platform is popularity is a necessary resource to have leverage in the standard body, not popularity itself. Frankly, I think they will accept Firefox becoming less popular as long as the probability of maintaining necessary market share to have leverage increases, although I don't think such situation is likely.

<comment><USER19> What's the point in having leverage if you're not going to use it?

This was their moment. They have the second largest audience of desktop users. They have their leverage, and chose not to use it.

<comment><USER20> This was one of many possible moments. How well did it work when they didn't support H.264? They're picking their battles.

<comment><USER21> and if they choose to battle for privacy and proper DNT it makes a lot more sense than a losing battle against DRM.

The most annoying part of this is that Abobe is providing the plugin. Much rather Mozilla do their own thing.

<comment><USER19> DNT is a non-starter. It's asking companies to play nice and please please please don't track users. That's never going to be a reliable option.

Blocking third-party cookies by default on the other hand is a good start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Yes, it's disappointing that Mozilla is adding DRM to Firefox. No, that does not mean they hold " _misguided_ fears about loss of browser marketshare".

People have the freedom to disagree with you, FSF. Just because they do doesn't make them misguided, especially on a _future prediction_.

How is this any different from flash/silverlight plugins we already have?

<comment><USER11> Exactly.

If Joe Sixpack or Aunt Tilly uses firefox, wants to watch Netflix, and can't because of this, they're going to switch to Chrome. They won't understand why, and won't care even if they did. I'd have thought the FSF would be more concerned about them potentially switching to Chrome in that use case...

<comment><USER22> > If Joe Sixpack or Aunt Tilly uses firefox, wants to watch Netflix, and can't > because of this, they're going to switch to Chrome.

They won't switch because they are already using Chrome.

Most Firefox users I know (perhaps I'm biased?) do so not because it's the best browser (it is absolutely not!) but because of Mozilla Foundation's values.

<comment><USER23> You don't know anyone that uses Firefox for its wider selection of extensions, more customizable UI, and better privacy (separate search bar and URL bar) features?

<comment><USER22> > wider selection of extensions, more customizable UI

Nope. Most people don't care about that or in fact prefer Chrome's non- customizable UI.

> and better privacy (separate search bar and URL bar, keystrokes not sent to > Google as "partial searches" by default)?

That's what I meant with "Mozilla Foundation's values".

<comment><USER23> Usually when "supporting a company's values" is given as the primary explanation for choosing one product over another it implies that the customer does not gain or is in fact sacrificing some direct benefit because of a factor that not related to the utility of a product relative to its competition.

Increased privacy is very much a direct benefit for a user and it is a real factor that contributes to the utility of FF.

<comment><USER24> Which adding DRM detracts from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The FSF would have good points, but then they ruin them with things like "or the issues that inevitably arise when proprietary software is installed on a user's computer.". Yes, DRM is bad, but not everything has or needs to be open source to treat its users ethically, and some people do need to make a living from their software.

Not everything needs to be GPL to respect people's rights to do what they want with something they bought, not everything needs to be open source just because they like it that way, and above all, people should have a right to _choose to_ install whatever they want, and distros should have the same right to choose to tell the user about closed source software when it would be helpful to them. If the end user didn't want to hear that, they can either ignore it, or use a FSF-endorsed linux distro like Trisquel. The fact that so few people do shows to me how most people are completely fine with having the ability to install what they want.

Freedom may include giving others freedom to do things you personally don't like, but the FSF tends to think a single, ironically restricted set of freedoms to match their philosophy are all that everyone needs.

<comment><USER25> The FSF doesn't fight for open source. They're not the "open source foundation". That's someone else.

Proprietary software is obviously not a requirement to make a living off software, unless you think Mozilla had been starving until now and that's why they have to put proprietary software in Firefox.

<comment><USER11> So every random small developer or indie game studio can get a multibillion dollar partnership with google?

As it is, Mozilla's relationship with Google is looking shakier every day, as from Google's perspective it's undercutting their own business with Chrome, while from Mozilla's perspective, they promote firefox as being a browser that respects privacy, and partnering with an organisation as fundamentally anti- privacy as Google undermines that.

Yes, Mozilla needs funding, but I'd rather pay a one off fee to purchase firefox if it really became necessary. Firefox could then come with no bundled search engines[1], and by default direct the user to the mozilla addons page to select which they would like to add, perhaps with a predefined list of popular choices given prominence similarly to the microsoft browser choice screen that gave prominence to Firefox, Chrome, Opera, IE and Safari, then had others listed if you cared to look further. I guess that whole argument is getting into the question of whether firefox is for power users or the drooling masses who wouldn't want to configure their search engines though.

[1] I'd like to see it bundled with duckduckgo included, but I know that even if it came without any, many users would want to add google themselves. I respect their choice to in that case.

<comment><USER15> > Yes, Mozilla needs funding, but I'd rather pay a one off fee to purchase > firefox if it really became necessary.

Wonderful! So you don't even have to wait - you can do almost exactly what you're describing right now! Just do the following:

1\. Donate to the Mozilla Foundation[0]

2\. Download IceWeasel, a version of Firefox that comes with no non-free software by default (but which allows you to install non-free plugins later on if you desire)[1]

[0] [https://mozilla.com/donate](https://mozilla.com/donate)

[1] [http://www.geticeweasel.org/](http://www.geticeweasel.org/)

<comment><USER26> _a version of Firefox that comes with no non-free software by default_

So is the Mozilla version, and that will even still be true after EME gets added.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Does anybody know what Brendan Eich's stance on DRM is? I can't help but wonder if this would have turned out differently had he still been in charge.

Eich helped found Mozilla back when it was just contributions to Netscape, and then helped break off as a fully-fledged project. My guess is that he understood the loss here. On the other hand, Gal wrote PDF.js which replaced the proprietary PDF reader, so you'd expect him to get it, too.

<comment><USER15> Eich strongly opposed DRM and patent-encumbered formats like H.264, but he also understood the realities of the situation[0].

The writing has been on the wall for a while - as soon as Mozilla realized that Google was going to renege on their promise to remove H.264, Firefox was bound to include it (since H.264 wasn't going anywhere). As soon as the W3C enshrined DRM in the HTML standard, it was a matter of when, not if, Firefox would be forced to, assuming the media industry adopted it (which they will).

The only alternative would be for Firefox to hold out and refuse to adopt it, watching their userbase shift away to all the other browsers that did support it.

[0] [http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open- enterprise/2013/11/bre...](http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open- enterprise/2013/11/brendan-eich-mozillas-cto-on-eme-and-drm/index.htm)

<comment><USER27> EME is not in the HTML standard yet, and is in fact not even out of Working Draft state yet.

Meanwhile users abandoning Firefox for not supporting DRM in the browser is not at all a foregone conclusion. More likely is _years_ of content providers forced to support other browsers, giving more leverage to those seeking other solutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Mozilla is Serving Users. A great Orwellian phrasing.

[http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2014/05/14/to-serve- users.html](http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2014/05/14/to-serve-users.html)

</comment><comment><USER28> I don't see why the FSF is up in arms about this. Mozilla is essentially doing the same thing that the FSF does with the GNU C library by releasing it under the LGPL.

They even spell out the case when they should adopt the lesser License[0], despite the fact that it goes against the FSF's core values and they advise not using it[1].

At the end of the day, I see this as Mozilla's LGPL.

[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not- lgpl.html](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html) 0\. The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. 1\. But we should not listen to these temptations, because we can achieve much more if we stand together.

</comment><comment><USER29> Has Mozilla really changed its policy? At a certain abstraction level, they already had a plugin in system that allowed for DRM binaries embedded in the browser. So what if the plugin system is a bit different?

You could already watch DRM netflix in firefox. If they were going from no-DRM plugin policy to allowing DRM in plugins, that would be cause for uproar. But Mozilla has always allowed DRM via plugins.

<comment><USER30> Arguably a DRM-specific plugin API is worse than a general-purpose plugin API (NPAPI) that was used for DRM.

<comment><USER31> Even if that DRM-specific API offers sandboxing of the plugin in ways that a general-purpose API could never hope to do?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32>
      Write to Mozilla CTO Andreas Gal and let him know that you oppose DRM.

mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER33> To help Google to essentially kill yet another browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Mozilla is very much trying to be a technology company these days with profit in mind (realize that there are 2 Mozilla's - one which is a nonprofit org and another a for-profit inc).

They are not like the fsf. They care about user share, market and all that. Idealists cannot afford to think that way.

</comment><comment><USER35> If there was some way we could verify DRM was "what it says on the tin," it could be a tremendous tool for ensuring our privacy and freedom online. When big companies DRM content, it limits our freedom, but if we could DRM our own data, it limits big company and government abuses.

However, there is admittedly a big caveat here. I don't know of a workable way to know that DRM is "what it says on the tin." Big business and governments could place back doors into such mechanisms, which would put us in an even worse position than where we are now.

<comment><USER30> Audited open source DRM could work if it ran on trusted computing hardware, but that's a double-edged sword.

Also, the imbalance of power between companies and individuals is so great that I don't think any amount of DRM can overcome it. Companies can afford to not negotiate with individuals.

<comment><USER35> That's exactly the verifiability problem I'm talking about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I can't find the information to answer my question, so don't downvote me because it's a stupid question. I admit it is, I just want to know for curiosity.

I don't understand why Adobe has to be used here? Why didn't Mozilla partner with Apple, Google, and Opera on a standard implementation code for this? After that's done, then Mozilla can try to sneak in one last question for all partners, can we do it better than this?

<comment><USER30> Here's some speculation based on industry politics: Apple doesn't cooperate with anyone. Opera is irrelevant. Google, MS, and Adobe are probably willing to license their DRM plugins to Mozilla. We can imagine that some kind of three-way bidding process went on and the outcome was that Mozilla chose Adobe DRM. As others have pointed out, Adobe is kind of desperate because they don't have their own browser, so perhaps Adobe was willing to make their DRM plugin slightly less evil than Google or MS.

<comment><USER37> If Mozilla licensed DRM from a competing browser vendor, they would effectively be crowning a de facto DRM "standard" based on combined browser market share. Mozilla's support for Adobe's "less evil" CDM means there may be more competition around DRM, though I have no theories how that might play out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Can we please ignore the W3C and start all over with a new "HTML" definition without all the vendor-specific and compatibility clutter, without loose parsing and redundant "featuritis" tags and attributes?

Build a (much simpler) GPL browser for this new "HTML" syntax and implement compatibility plugins for legacy browsers (perhaps server-side fallback solutions to simple HTML). Put the FSF and EFF in a strong position for future development to ensure we can keep this technology isolated from the corporate interests and patent trolls.

Any takers?

</comment><comment><USER39> "Use a version of Firefox without the EME code". Well I already use a fork of Firefox called Iceweasel, so I'm curious what Debian will decide to do with Iceweasel.

<comment><USER26> Too bad Iceweasel contains NPAPI which is almost exclusively used to insert much more severe DRM into it (of course that is only offered from the non-free repo).

<comment><USER39> I thought NPAPI is something used by all browser plugins, for example Java. Having said that I like to keep my browser free of plugins (no Java then), the less plugins, the less security vulnerabilities ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I really don't know much about e specifics of this DRM proposition. So I accept that my assumptions may be invalid. But just based on the history of DRM and e internet... does anyone really doubt that someone will be able to defeat this DRM?

<comment><USER18> No one is doubting DRM will be defeated. No one technical, anyway. The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violation. This seems to be widely misunderstood point.

[https://plus.google.com/+IanHickson/posts/iPmatxBYuj2](https://plus.google.com/+IanHickson/posts/iPmatxBYuj2)

<comment><USER40> Thanks, that was an interesting read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Here's hoping that a viable non-Mozilla group emerges that will offer a DRM- disabled version of Firefox, one that is addon-compatible and which pulls in all non-DRM-related upstream changes. Mozilla has lost my support over this decision.

<comment><USER42> It seems like you are describing an oxymoron. It's not possible to create a browser that both supports plugins, but disables DRM. Plug-ins (assuming you are referring to the NPAPI) by definition can do anything they want, and in fact are used today to implement DRM in the form of Silverlight and Flash (RTMPE). Think of this as an alternative <object> tag, that doesn't allow arbitrary plugins, but one very specific to encode and decode audio/video.

Fun fact, if you have used Youtube, you have probably consumed DRMed content via Flash's RTMPE support.

<comment><USER41> I meant addons and extensions, not native code plugins. I have all plugins including flash disabled, so no, I don't consume DRM content via Youtube or any other site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Why are people attacking Mozilla? Go after the real culprits in this fiasco (you know who they are), not the reluctant consenter. Kick up a fuss with users of the competing browsers. It's still possible to salvage something from this.

</comment><comment><USER44> Mozilla could and in my opinion should do much more in order to live up to their fundamental principles and stated goals. They could inform the user about each website that uses DRM without prevent the user from viewing the content.

Its not even a revolutionary concept, as they are already requiring a click- to-accept with self-signed certificates. It puts the responsibility to the website if the black box called DRM causes problems, locks up, or cause some general havoc on the user. It highlights that the website is demanding to take control over the users device, and gives the user an option to say no.

It is easy to speak about fundamental principles in PR announcements, but code speak louder. The only bright spot is if Mozilla don't do more for the users, add-ons and forks will try to carry the principles for them.

</comment><comment><USER45> "The decision compromises important principles in order to alleviate misguided fears about loss of browser marketshare"

misguided, as in, Firefox wants people to actually use its browser? I'm seriously surprised at some of these idealists failing to understand that normal people _just want to watch House of Cards_ (or whatever) and that's pretty much it. Mozilla can't turn their back on those users.

<comment><USER18> Mozilla can. Mozilla decided not to. It is an important difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> A very sad day for the Open Web. What can we as users do?

<comment><USER47> Continue to factor DRM into your payment decisions. Given reasonable opportunities, encourage other people to do the same thing. That is, if you catch them listening, point out how DRM makes media less valuable for end users.

I think being overly reasonable and keeping it simple is probably the right approach, so pointing out that a video is tied to a specific system and will likely stop working is preferable to stuff that heads in the direction of $15 purchases harming freedom.

<comment><USER48> I think this is the key avenue for progress: work to keep the perceived value of DRMed content low.

People don't mind DRM on things like Netflix because the cost is so low and the model is clearly communicated in all of Netflix'x marketing.

In contrast, DRM inspires significant outrage when people are told that they "own" something but are restricted from using it normally. Even people who don't normally care about technical issues know it's not right when they're told e.g. they have to pay a second time to watch a movie on their iPad after paying $50 for a Blu-Ray copy.

If anything is going to change the DRM trend, it'll be increased unwillingness to pay high prices for restricted content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Open" web.

</comment><comment><USER49> A victory for the giants.

</comment><comment><USER50> I await the resignation of Mozilla's CEO, who clearly has shown an inability to represent the community on this issue of human freedoms that form the cornerstone of the Mozilla Foundation.

</comment><comment><USER51> Dont worry,Mozilla already betrayed Adobe once with this whole Tamarin/ES4 fiasco,with a little luck they'll change their mind for the best this time too.

</comment><comment><USER52> Between this and forcing Eich out of a job over a political issue, I've lost a lot of love for Mozilla in the last month.</comment>


Why Microsoft isn't the smartphone leader it should be - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2016/12/30/why-isnt-microsoft-the-smartphone-leader-it-should-be <comment><USER2> I don't care if it's Microsoft or canonical or whoever wants to have their go, but I am so, so ready to leave both Android and iOS. I have a pc so half of the iPhones features are useless to me (I never really cared for the platform to begin with), and android constantly annoys me these days. Give me a phone with a browser, nice screen, and a battery big enough for me to never worry if I charge it every night. Nokia and Microsoft were close with the lumias, it's so frustrating that they stopped.

Edit: I know I can still buy a lumia 950/xl or an older Windows phone, but some amount of platform support would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think MS may have been too early on mobile. If they had come out later they might have come up with something original, rather than just putting Windows on a phone. I remember a friend tapping the start menu with a stylus and opening up the D: drive. On a phone. Who wants that?

<comment><AUTHOR> I never thought the stylus was that bad, and worth the effort to get email, word and excel.

<comment><USER3> On a 2004 phone with a tiny screen?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, I had a tablet computers that also needed a stylus, so maybe I was already trained to accept it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I worked at MSFT on Windows Mobile, and somewhere I still have my "Ship it" for Win Mobile 6.5. Thoughts are of course my own.

I remember when the iPhone came out. It was amazing, and really had us beat in usability, and friendliness. But all the execs and bigwigs at MSFT were really pushing for Windows Phone to be the new Blackberry.

Blackberry had some of the best business facing features, like remote wipe and access policies. This kind of top down IT control, and trying to sell more big ticket MSFT licenses (like exchange) were the focus, and not at all normal users. It was all about selling to businesses, and then have "trickle-down" where users would buy phones themselves.

This was the opposite of the Apple strategy: making something so usable that everyone can use it, and then forcing offices to accept iPhones on their network.

All these years later, it's been interesting to watch, but I'm glad I got out of the mobile space. And yes, I have an iPhone now.

</comment><comment><USER5> This article neglects to mention the primary factor in MS's failure to gain traction in the mobile space and that is it wanted to replicate its hugely profitable business model from the desktop. Is they would make the mobile OS and license it to the hardware makers.

The problem was that hardware makers, familiar with how MS treated them with Windows wanted nothing to do with licencing anything again from MS, and so they didn't.

MS at that point had the choice of going it alone with their own hardware or effectively dropping out of the market. Since they had almost no hardware expertise at the time and, I suspect, felt the market was too small to be worth the effort, they demured.

Even today when MS has new software that requires non PC hardware they have to do the hardware themselves.

</comment><comment> norea-armozel Microsoft just missed the boat on this one. They initially had some presence in the mobile market but left it to others to take it over. Personally, I think Microsoft would be wise to focus on the next stage of mobile devices rather than trying to fight it out over smart phones since very few vendors make the kinds of profits that Samsung (on a good year) or Apple do. It's a race to the bottom in that regard and so I think Microsoft's Hololens could be a signal that they're putting out feelers for the next big thing. If AR turns into that thing and they're ready to take a position then they'll win big. If they ignore it this time I expect them to lose further relevance as other OSes eat their consumer market share.

</comment><comment><USER6> This story goes through a play-by-play of the bad sectors for MS mobile over the years, & broadly concludes that MS didn't push hard enough or didn't embrace hardware soon enough. I find it boring and ignorant and not contributive in how it puts each step through the wash and then makes a broad generalization of what MS ought of have done, which is unsubstantiated "dream big" koolaid.

MS never had a chance. They had no apparent technical choice but to ride their historical platform's success into the new mobile world, to reshape the interface and APIs that had served them then into new ones that would build a platform. That didn't exactly fail, but the platform was as ancient decrepit and unappealing to outside developers as it got, and a rough start for hardware makers. The article places the blame on MS for not making hardware but even if they had better hardware offerings it's hard to imagine the software side of things- app makers, app store buyers- having taken off. Where were the kingmakers- the various software developers willing to put hard work into an app store that would barely pay out- willing to invest enormously in a platform with few competitive advantages, a small market, and the most aged platform around? Was there anything technically exciting about the software stack to lead devs to it? Were devs going to get broad expert wisdom from using the MS stack? No. MS software platform has been an unsophisticated, isolated, lonesome base. There's been well over a decade of C# and a consistent decade of that .NET platform having F# as the one lure for devs that want to feel better about themselves.

MS at least tried to get JS devs somewhat on board, but it was still far shy of the sophisticated olive branch WebOS had held out. The general unappeal was furthered crippled by IDE demands- for the longest time and probably still today MS assumes it was ok to have Windows Phone developers have Microsoft OSes. A massive number of devs escaped to OSX long ago to run web-oriented OSS, and the legion of Linux has remained unphased over the decades now: neither had much enthuse for picking up MS toolchains, for regardless of how good they and their IDEs are or what merits they bring they've always been distant worlds from the normative baseline Linux that the biggest segments of software development (web development) target and ship on.

> Perhaps the biggest reason why Windows Phone (and later Windows Mobile) > suffocated was that there was a vacuum of consumer enthusiasm.

If one is asking the question, why did the platform fail, this is an inadequate response. No one buying it is a symptom of failure, not a cause. I've suggested that the reason no one bought the platform was because there was no software for it, and there was no software for it because everyone had already had 20 years of Windows development and thought it was A) pretty technically boring by now and B) that those skills wouldn't translate into the pertinent money making skill of building "master-server" software that actually runs the internet and makes all the money (Google, Facebook, &c). The Windows Phone platform had no draw for the developers. People are only interested in what the platform brings them, and one of our primary senses of how vibrant and useful a platform is is having good stories showing ongoing progress for the software launched on that platform. MS could never create that story by themselves, no matter how well they made the platform and how much software they built for it- the sign that a platform is doing ok is when it is widely and independently developed for, and the way to draw developers into that is to either already be a huge cash cow or to make yourself hugely accessible to existing software development sectors. WinJS wasn't a complete failure in accessibility, but it also wasn't seamless and doable enough for the Macbook and Linux crowd, who have been busy getting sizable paychecks building web-apps for a long time now.</comment>


Ask HN: Web application (primarily image based) hosting - S3? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,<p>I'm looking to deploy my startup on a scalable solution and was hoping you experienced folks at HN could give me a few wise words and tips. The start up is effectively an image editing service which will allow users to host the edited images for use wherever. I anticipate about 1 MB storage per edited image including all overheads. I intend to take a freemium approach with a free service for up to X images edited/hosted and a charge beyond that. I will possibly consider in-image advertising on the free images as a source of revenue. The problem is, I have totally no sense of scale for anticipated take up, although doing a few quick calculations for a worst case scenario (no paid subscribers) shows a significant cost per user that can potentially skyrocket in terms of Bandwidth where one simply cannot anticipate demand. How do I deal with this? Do I start off in a private beta on a simple shared/virtual server and then consider dedicated/S3/others? Also, possibly dodgy, but what about considering free image hosting solutions out there for free users on the freemium approach - I realise this is a huge liability - but just thinking about it the porn industry is probably a pretty good paradigm. I have read through the other discussions on HN on AWS/S3/Smugmug etc but they are outdated if I'm not mistaken. Any advice much appreciated, thanks! <comment><USER2> Maybe you should look through this: [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9tlwi/im_the_imgur_guy...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9tlwi/im_the_imgur_guy_ama/)

and search for more information from MrGrim on reddit.

I think one thing about free image hosting is that it can really add up in bandwidth.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that was really useful. Another basic thing I was wondering about was User Management (i.e. getting users to sign up, assigning password protected dirs etc). From browsing around there seems to be some good scripts but are there any classic recommended solutions that would be easy to integrate and allow payments etc.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do Ask HN rankings work? - d--b I've submitted a Ask HN today, which tanked in rankings within minutes. After 30 minutes it got off the ask hn front page and after 3 hours it went off all ask hn pages despite having scored 3 points. I still see some ask hn post on the front page with 2 points after 15 hours...<p>I am not complaining (just a little bit, but what comes into play? karma? number of comments? <comment><AUTHOR> It's much more complex... PG posted an updated version once.

        (= gravity* 1.8 timebase* 120 front-threshold* 1
           nourl-factor* .4 lightweight-factor* .17 gag-factor* .1)

        (def frontpage-rank (s (o scorefn realscore) (o gravity gravity*))
          (* (/ (let base (- (scorefn s) 1)
                  (if (> base 0) (expt base .8) base))
                (expt (/ (+ (item-age s) timebase*) 60) gravity))
             (if (no (in s!type 'story 'poll))  .8
                 (blank s!url)                  nourl-factor*
                 (mem 'bury s!keys)             .001

<comment><USER2> That's cool. Are they really using Clojure/Lisp?

<comment><USER3> The language is called Arc and runs on top of Scheme.

The function mentioned above is here:

[https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/master/news.arc](https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/master/news.arc)

<comment><USER2> The more you know. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Score = (P-1) / (T+2)^G

where, P = points of an item (and -1 is to negate submitters vote) T = time since submission (in hours) G = Gravity, defaults to 1.8 in news.arc Edit: obsolete algorithm, find updated below. From [https://medium.com/hacking-and- gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking...](https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how- hacker-news-ranking-algorithm-works-1d9b0cf2c08d#.etm5srfyo)

<comment><USER5> If it needs more than one point to rank at all, how does a new submission come in?

<comment><USER6> New submissions start with a single upvote, just as comments do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> sounds like the fate of all my submissions</comment>


Show HN: Relé – Make Google PubSub Integration Easier for Python Projects - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mercadona/rele <comment><USER2> Awesome. Might just use this for an upcoming distributed project.

Google's free tier for pubsub is hilariously high so this can be used to glue interesting stuff together.

<comment><USER3> Shh... don't tell them...

<comment><USER2> haha maybe.

I very much doubt they're getting squeezed on free tier pubsub. They're way more likely to cut VM or IPV4 (as they just attempted)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Huh, I never really thought of PubSub as being tricky to use, especially in Python, but looking at the docs, this seems to just make it even easier still.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The real trickiness for us revolved around DB connections, publisher memory management, etc. when integrating it with Django. In addition, when dealing with multiple services, we realized we needed one way across all services to solve the same problems.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Learning to ship – month 1 launch - <AUTHOR>

In January I posted a project where this year I have committed to launching one side project a month as a way to get over my block of 90% finished projects...
Month one is complete and launched. These are not intended to be revenue streams or even portfolio pieces, just getting used to "finishing" a project without external pressures.
More info: http://www.a-project-a-month.com/projects/january-2015-launch <comment><USER2> Awesome project, Malcx! If you're looking for someone to help you out on the front-end side, I'd like to talk to you about linking up!</comment>


Ask HN: Contracting without an agency - <AUTHOR>

Background: In the US, an independent contractor/consultant can not work directly for a company like an employee. This was in response to some companies (Microsoft) classifying employees as contractors to avoid paying benefits, etc. However, a job shop/outsourcing agency can rent you to a company on a long term basis. One agency that I worked for payed me $65/hr and charged the client $130/hr.
I've contracted and had my own clients but the IRS rules* limit my flexibility. I.e. going to a clients site and getting guidance and then working offsite is fine but if I want the ability to work on site day after day without getting my clients or myself in trouble with the IRS I can't as an independent contractor.
What are my options for performing the agency role and capturing that value myself? Can I somehow be my own agency?
* IRS "20 Questions" a a guideline for determining if you are an independent contractor or not. <comment><USER3> No, that's not true.

What is true is that large companies will (a) ask one-person consulting shops to subcontract through existing contracting firms, because they have very complicated MSAs and accounting processes set up with those larger firms, and (b) occasionally try to withhold taxes for one-person contracting firms.

These are sales/marketing issues, not legal issues. There's no formalism to consulting "agencies". Basically: if you're talking to a BigCo who wants you to work as a sub through one of their vendors, that's a sales objection. If you're doing commodity consulting work, like the same front-end web software development work that their vendors already sell them, you're going to have a hard time displacing the vendor, because doing that costs them money and incurs risk.

Three responses to that trap:

* Specialize further, so that the work you do isn't substitutable by work they can buy from one of their big vendors. Note that you will not have an easy time trying to specialize in _technology_ (being the best Angular.js developer in the world does not make it easier for you to sell web front-end work against a huge vendor that already provides that); you need to find ways to specialize in business model and problem domain.

* Pick more appropriate clients. This sounds flippant, but it's not; it's one of the core problems of sales. If you're running into potential clients that all want you to sub, you need to do a better job of _qualifying your leads_ so you don't waste time on prospects who aren't going to sign an MSA for you.

* Grow. BigCos can ask a single-person shop to sub through an existing vendor, but they can't reasonably ask a 10-person shop to do the same thing, because no 10-person shop would ever do that.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is not as big a problem as you believe it to be. The independent contractor test is a balancing act. It is not an absolute barrier to you personally working on behalf of a particular client.

Kalzumeus Software maintains a fact sheet, because that sounds better with "Word document". It's one page and starts with the words "Patrick McKenzie is, under relevant IRS regulations, an independent contractor and not an employee of your company." It then has a bunch of bullet points where I recite the facts which are most supportive of that conclusion.

This has resolved 95% of interactions I've ever had about this question. (The last 5% was at a particular BigCo where they wanted me to fill out a BigCo- approved questionnaire, but they reached the same conclusion.)

I second Thomas' comment that this is largely a sales question rather than a legal question. At a lot of places, "I want an agency in front of you" just means "I want someone to yell at if you turn out to be a bozo." An agency is one way to decrease the downside risk of you being a bozo. Or you could just have a bunch of strong signals which say "Almost certainly _not_ a bozo." If a potential client said "Patrick, we want to work with you, but we'd rather do it through an agency." I'd say "Can I ask what is motivating your desire to do it through an agency? I might have a solution for you."

</comment><comment><USER5> These are excellent responses as usual, and I'm coming to this a few days late, but I wanted to add another answer for someone who maybe isn't willing to bite off quite as much sales skills as tptacek and patio11 are suggesting, or are dealing with a buyer who doesn't have the authority to go against the agency rule - i.e. the dev manager wants to bring you in, but he has no idea who he has to talk with to get you on board as an independent contractor, and you're not on an approved list, and two people tell him that he can't do it, and three months are going to go by and meanwhile everyone is frustrated, including you, who wants to work.

This is a common, real-world scenario, and we see it all the time. Agencies, in fact, are used to it: it's called payrolling.

If you find the work yourself - i.e. someone wants to hire _you_ but needs you to go through an agency - then ask for the names of three agencies they work with, and if any of them payroll. (They may not know the answer to that.)

Then call all three, tell them the hiring manager and anything else you know about the financials (you might know bill rate, or what you want to make, or both), and tell them you're calling all three agencies, and you'll go with the one that can make the best deal. That's a win for the agency (a little money and another person on the books with that client) and a win for you (in comparison to the $65/$130 deal). Factoring in things like employment taxes and such, you can assume that you'll keep ~90% of the bill rate. (So $65 would become $117 total comp: if they're required to employ you and pay taxes, offer insurance, etc., more like $95 to you. Look, almost a 50% raise.)

We're a small agency (~50 engineers), and we usually have 3-5 people we're payrolling because either the client called us and asked us to payroll, or we got a call like the one above and decided it was worth it.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. That's excellent, helpful advice. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your help guys!

</comment><comment><USER6> This is an exact analogue for the UK's IR35 rules. It is designed like the US to protect workers being exploited. Note that it is not entirely designed to prevent tax avoidance - someone pays my National Insurance (think benefits) - either my "employer" or my own company.

Now I am a middle aged, middle class skilled software professional with 20 years experience. _Exploiting_ me is qualitivly different to exploiting a single mother on a zero hours contract at the local factory. And HMRC knows this - and has better things to do with their time.

This is not to say that my contracts are shams or that the basic principles of independence and substitution are not there - but that we are all big boys - exploiting 500/day software developers is like raping a hippo - difficult, noisy and leaves no-one satisfied.

I would focus on an aspect of the 20 questions like "substitution". Under IR35 the contracting company must have the right to swap out a person doing the job - that is if Mikado Software wants to send Bob in to do just as professional a job as me, then the contract jus allow this and the "employer" can't refuse. A friend and I used to promise to act as swap partners to make this happen (he is now following his startup dreams at Nujobs.co.uk)

This is I have found the simplest and best way to say to a client "you are buying services from a company, not just me". It is something I do rarely obviously but with lead time and explanation everyone sees it as a tough but necessary thing to do - IR35 rules don't you know !

Your ability to perform the agency role is as others say a sales function (these guys spend all day everyday cold calling - the bad ones do at least)

But your ability to substitute other developers in for yourself is the key - if you are doing well for a client and they have more work then you are in a great position to "bring in this great developer I know" to help - <USER2> suddenly you are not running a single person contractor anymore but a digital agency. This is a lot of work and stress so think carefully - and as a rule of thumb you will need to hire out 8 employees to start making more take home than you do now.

So if you focus on something like substitution, and get the idea you are a company not a hire into the minds of your "employer", and if you build up a marketing presence as a "agency focused on xxx" and if you want to run an Dev shop, then you _will_ find a client who wants to hire a shop for a actual project not just bums on seats.

But I would warn you Brennan Dunn (bdunn on HN) is clear eyed on the costs and stress of running a profitable shop - and that only when you have grown to 8 or so people will you start to see an easier road than just being a bum on a seat.

In short, don't worry about someone capturing the "contractor surplus" \- 20% is about average and it's dropping. The guys who who raking in 50% were exploiting you - are you still workin there? See ?

Focus on upping your daily rate for a year whilst building an expertise and audience in a certain fun niche. After this I suggest you may well be in a better position to decide how to jump. If you aren't on 100/hr find a contract where you are. If you are on 100/hr move up to 120. Keep doing this for six months - I was made redundant in 2008 and it took 8 months of hustling every lunchtime to move three contracts and hit 120k/pa (about 200USD). It's doable.</comment>