After the iPhone 4S, Android just feels wrong  - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/after-the-iphone-4s-android-just-feels-wrong/5068

<comment><USER2> I'm having the opposite reaction. I find myself fighting against iOS most of the time. The browser zooms to odd proportion on most pages, and I really miss the double-tap to zoom for one-handed browsing. Reading a notification, and having no direct path back to where you came from (answering a txt message, for instance) feels really clunky. The lack of widgets feels outdated and dogmatic, rather than useful. Being able to put a contact on my home screen, click once to open ways to communicate and a second time to email/txt/call/facebook is amazingly useful to me, because I generally contact only a few people on a regular basis.

And if you expand to include the ecosystem, it's not even close. The iCloud web apps are pathetic compared to Google's offerings.

I could go on. And this isn't just bashing, I'm growing to like a lot about iOS, but I think these Android vs iOS stories are mostly link bait. They're a lot more similar than most people will admit, and both have plusses and minuses.

EDIT: Ok click to zoom is kinda there, but I like the way it works on Android better. That's just a preference, so I'll strike that from my list of objections.

<comment><USER3> Double-tap for zoom is there all the time but maybe the sites you visit don't zoom correctly because the container goes all the way from left to right (I think this site has such a zooming problem).

And the iCloud web apps are awesome. Don't know where the problem is. They behave like real OS apps. I like that.

<comment><USER2> Really? Performance is awful for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For the uninformed, these are two separate issues.

The first is that apps are laggy or jittery during scrolling or animations. This is partially due to poor coding from developers, but the main reason for its existence was the lack of hardware acceleration on Android devices. This changed with 3.0 on tablets, and now 4.0 on everything. Developers still have to opt-in with a one-line XML file change, due to compatibility issues. So in essence this has been solved across the board.

The second is what a lot of users are now referring to (and was largely masked by the presence of the former problem). And it's that there's a much larger drag distance required to "initiate" user interaction on Android than iOS. When I pick up a friend's iPhone, it seems like if a hair on my finger even grazes the screen the UI immediately (and appropriately) reacts. On every Android device that I've ever used, it takes approximately 0.5 to 1.0 centimeters before the UI will begin to react and scroll. This is what people mean when they say that it feels like you're "pulling" the UI on Android, while iOS has 1:1 natural interaction.

Is it annoying? Yes. But after moderate use I stop noticing it, until I happen to touch an iOS device again. Now that Ice Cream Sandwich has taken care of every other fault with the platform I had, this is really the last item on my list of complaints, having used Android devices for years on a near-daily basis. I don't know if it's a problem with the hardware of the screen sensors themselves or with the levels of abstraction to Java-land, but this should be their top priority for what I can only assume they'll call Jelly Bean.

<comment><USER5> "So in essence this has been solved across the board."

Which is why ICS Galaxy Nexus demo units were reported to still be laggy?

<comment><USER4> Not from what I saw or heard. Engadget's review for example praised how silky smooth the entire user experience now was.

Though I can imagine that being a beta build running in debug mode doesn't really help, if someone did see the occasional hiccup.

<comment><USER6> is ICS going to fix all the crashes, virus/spyware/malware, poor battery life? will ICS even run on older Android phones? will your carrier even let you upgrade to ICS?

<comment><USER7> i mean, if you look at old iphones, they're pretty laggy and jittery on newer versions of ios

<comment><USER8> You mean specifically iPhone 3G with iOS 4.0 (which was fixed with 4.1)?

<comment><USER9> Doubtful, he probably means things like my (current-gen) iPod touch, which runs like molasses with iOS 5. Stutters, jumps, unresponsiveness far worse than any Android phone I ever used.

<comment><USER10> There is probably something wrong with your iPod. I'd take it to the Apple Store. iOS 5 works fine on a 3GS, and your iPod has iPhone 4-comparable hardware.

<comment><USER11> The iPod touch (current gen) has 256MB of RAM to the iPhone4(S)'s 512MB. The iPod Touch (current gen) has a retina display which the iPhone 3GS doesn't have. These factors may have produced a difference in performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Comparing last year's Android with this year's iOS? Why not wait three weeks and compare recent iOS and recent Android?

I think it's common knowledge Google didn't work terribly hard on getting a smooth UI until ICS. I'm an Android dev and I fully understand the "smoothness" of iOS is attractive, but it's a bit unfair of a comparison to make at this time - using an iPhone 4S.

Yes, I know the 4S is shipping and the Galaxy Nexus is not - that much I'll give. But this is only a month-long window and not very reflective of the coming future.

<comment><USER13> Yes, but the same comparison could be made with last year's Android and iOS4. For smoothness of UI, even the original iPhone was smooth.

<comment><USER14> No it wasn't; I own an iPhone 3G and it stalls and stutters doing anything. It's consistently done that for the entirety of its service. My wife bought the 3GS and _that_ was when we saw much of the UI lag go away.

I moved on to Android and own a Galaxy S - there's virtually no UI stutter at all, I only see delays on shutting some programs or launching a few apps. My wife recently bought a 4S and it's very smooth, but don't tell me that iOS has always been this smooth because you're looking back with rose-colored glasses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't see why this is surprising -- after all, the Nexus S is a previous generation phone released 9 months ago. A more fair comparison would be with a Galaxy S2 or Galaxy Nexus.

Personally, I love my S2, as it's remarkably faster than my first gen Galaxy S in pretty much everything.

And since I hardly ever see anyone extolling the actual feature benefits of Android, here are 5 Android only features I could not live without:

1) Swype - Delightful, much faster one handed, much much better in portrait mode, don't have to change the way I hold my phone to start typing

2) Shortcuts to Contacts on Home Screen (two tap calling, texting, IM or email! Best flow for actual communicating after Blackberry's "Just start typing their name")

3) Widgets (Calendar, Time + Weather, Evernote, Live Weather background, Wifi Hotspot)

4) Dolphin HD Browser - I can use my volume buttons to change tabs!

5) Chrome to Phone - Really easy to clip notes to myself for later

<comment><USER16> I think this gets lost inside most android comparisons, but I find the lack of an intents system and more importantly, a global back button completely jarring on ios, the most common example would be, from clicking a link in email, to opening that page in the browser, then pressing back to go right back to my email. the same operation on my ipad means clicking a link, going back, being confused closing my browser, opening email and finding the email again

<comment><USER17> The back button on Android is a double-edged sword (based on what I have read/heard), because its function is overridden by apps in inconsistent ways, so you are never sure what effect that button press may have. Am I correct? (i am an iOS user, so don't know)

<comment><USER18> I love Android's back button, but yes, I think you're right about the overriding problem. The browser, for example, arguably shouldn't be using it to go back to a previous page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can't really disagree with this. After using my wife's iPhone 4S, my Droid X always feels like something less than direct manipulation. [Edit: And to be fair, my wife's old 3GS and her 3G before that were always more responsive to touches than any of my Android phones.]

I say this with every OS release and every major hardware upgrade, but I really hope the Galaxy Nexus[0] and ICS finally make up some of the difference with hardware acceleration of the UI.[1]

[0]: Terrible mouthful of a name, Galaxy Prime or Nexus Prime would've been so much better.

[1]: This is my next/Verge reporting notwithstanding. Reports are that some leftover jitteriness is due to apps not having opted into hardware acceleration yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

<comment><USER20> re [0]: It seems clear that it's a political choice-- Google's not releasing a flagship that's not a "Nexus," and Samsung's not releasing a high-end phone that's not a "Galaxy."

What do you think of "Nexus Galaxy"?

<comment><USER19> Agreed. Nexus Galaxy is just as bad, imo.

When all the rumored names were flying around, I suspected this would be it, but I was hoping it would be some sort of dual release, with Google selling the 'Nexus Prime' directly, and Samsung releasing the Galaxy [X] on carriers. Maybe that would've been worse, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> After Android, iPhone 4s just LOOKS wrong.

I am switching back from 4s to Android because I find Safari unreadable with my old eyes. No control over font sizes, and the double-tap zoom doesn't reflow text. So HN is completely unreadable in portrait, and only barely so in landscape. No problem on my DroidX.

<comment><USER22> Have you tried "Reader" mode in Safari? An icon shows up in the address bar when Safari detects that you're reading an article - when you press this icon, the page appears as simply formatted text and it gives you full control of font sizes.

Of course, since HN isn't an article, it's not much help here - HN is the one page I use where this is a problem, ironically.

<comment><USER13> Goddamn reader button doesn't show up in half the places I would like to be. I don't know why they still haven't implemented text-reflow like most other mobile browsers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Rather subjective and very short on details. Comparing the Nexus S to a dual core phone like the 4S is blatantly silly. Blaming the fluidity of a phone experience on the entirety of Android as a whole is just blatantly stupid.

Nevertheless, "it just feels wrong" doesn't sound like a very actionable complaint; not to mention, the majority of the issues brought up seem to have been addressed in ICS. Perhaps the author should spend more time with newer Android phones, and less time making silly and useless comparisons.

<comment><USER24> If anything the iPhone 4 was a step down in the fluidity department versus the 3GS (probably due to the increased pixels on the retina display).

I don't think it's a subjective, empty complaint. Android phones are laggy, or at least a lot of the popular ones are. Lag destroys the "direct manipulation" experience. Maybe ICS changes everything, who knows. I wrote off Android a couple of years ago. That's the fundamental problem with Android, isn't it? People try a couple of 2.1 devices that suck and well why should they give it another chance?

<comment><USER23> "I wrote off Android a couple of years ago. That's the fundamental problem with Android, isn't it? People try a couple of 2.1 devices that suck and well why should they give it another chance?"

Considering that Android is leading the market place in almost every conceivable category, people obviously aren't just trying a "crappy device" and not giving it a second chance. So, no, obviously not a fundamental problem with Android...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Some of these issues seem really frivolous. First if you're going to compare iOS5 and 4s the comparison should be against the latest Android ICS and Nexus. Second, after a week of use of his new toy he wants to compare it to years of usage of his old Android phone. As a 3GS owner, i've had apps crash, loss of data (instapaper).. among other things. I think its funny reviews like this come out before the launch (you can make the connection)

</comment><comment><USER26> I don't get this article. Web browsing and notifications were the reason I loved Android more than iOS.

The double-tap to zoom on Android browser..just works! It perfectly flies in to the content, adjusts text size beautifully and rearranges the images linearly. If one reads a lot of content online, this feature is beyond awesome.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, it also works on iOS. Since the first iPhone.

<comment><USER26> No it doesn't. What does it do when you double-tap HN page on iPhone?

Do that on an Android and see what happens.

All it does on iOS is zoom till it removes the padding. On Android, it makes it a readable list, with correclty sized upvote icons, perfect reading size. It, in a way, instantly makes HN a mobile site. This is more than just zooming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's hard to disagree with one person's perceptions, but I do think there is a distinct type of person who notices this / cares dramatically about it and that they are not necessarily reflective of everyone. Similar to pentile screens, this seems to be a very personal, thing. Some people it bothers and they just can't stand it. Others will proclaim they cannot perceive it at all. It's interesting how variable it actually is between people.

The problem is that you will get a person who cares reviewing a unit and describing the problem as if its the end of the world when a majority of their readers actually will either not care or perhaps even not perceive the issue at all.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've been on Android for a couple of years now and just got the Galaxy SII.

It doesn't exactly feel wrong, but sure as hell it doesn't feel right, either. Everything I do on Android seems to take about two or three steps more than it should. Some things just don't work. Some things just aren't possible. I can't find certain software that I need. The worst thing, it's missing fit and polish half the time.

This is the least comfortable I've ever been with a tech purchase. Hopefully, T-Mobile gets bought out and then I can play the get out of contract free card and get an iPhone.

<comment><USER29> I have to disagree with you - I got my SGS2 this spring (live in Europe) and it feels quite right to me. Browsing, for one, is really smooth. I thing Samsung did a good job with their Android customizations (well, they copied a lot of features from iPhone).

However the iPhone UI is much more polished. That can hardly be debated, feels to me like the Android dev team "just made it work" and didn't have too much time to worry about polish.

I really hope ICS fixes that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Java once again was a horrible horrible choice for a phone.

I'm still mind blown by the choice of Java. Slow start, garbage collection slow downs, and massive memory usage are all par for course. Then add to it the usual Java developer mentality of needing some massive architecture for the simplest of programs.

Is it any wonder to people that android is slow?

I have hopes that whatever comes next learns the mistake that people hate slow. Not being slow means not using a language where text editors are known to use gigabytes of memory and run slow on 12 core monster boxes.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's got to be java. The garbage collection hiccups and bad performance and all over android phones. I can feel it when I use them. I can feel it when I develop for them. It's like in the old days, 200 mhz computers trying to run java, it was so slow back then. And now cell phones are slow, and performance matters. It's ridiculous that you need a 1ghz processor to get get good performance on a phone, but thats java for you. We had fluid apps running on 200 mhz computers, but they were written languages without memory management. It's no wonder why iPhone apps written in objective-c run so smoothly.

<comment><USER32> I don't know why you've been downvoted, because you're speaking the absolute truth. I guess the truth hurts to the Android fanboys and/or Google employees in this thread.

Then again, Google really didn't have a choice back then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Don't worry. I heard Android has been completely "re-invented" in version 4.0.

</comment><comment><USER34> This article doesn't make much sense after we've seen Android 4.0. Plus, how come he's noticing these differences "just now" ? iOS has pretty much worked like that since day one, and it hasn't changed all that much up to iOS5. In contrast, Android has evolved tremendously over the past 3 years from version 1 to version 4. If they keep this up with future versions, Android will continue its rise in market share _and_ mind share.</comment>


Games Can Be Art - <AUTHOR> http://gamescanbeart.com/

<comment><USER2> I think the argument against it is:

Most of the _art_ in games could be extracted from the game context and the _art_ itself would suffer no consequence. i.e., Most of a game's story could be told in film, the interaction adds little to the art itself.

I don't agree, but neither do I think we've yet arrived at a mature medium. Technologies on the horizon will increase the immersivity of games (Natal, DS3D). Combined with better writing (we're finally getting there) and better applications of present tech (most wii games suck), we'll probably see our Citizen Kane before 2020.

</comment><comment><USER3> This site should be a static page that just quotes whoever said this:

"How can a team of artists work for years on a project and have the result not be art?"</comment>


Gruber (Maybe) Tells Us Everything About the Next iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/03/29/wsj <comment><USER2> As much as I hate the ridiculous iPhone rumor season (which is year-round lately), he was right the last time: <http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/the_next_iphone>

</comment><comment><USER3> (Maybe) It's just Gruber's entry into the iPhone Rumors Game. But he's Gruber, he doesn't merely spread rumors, he conveys them subtextually. (/Maybe)

<comment><USER4> If that was subtext, I'd hate to see what outright is.

<comment><USER3> Him actually owning up to it without the sly language?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> John's usually pretty accurate and circumspect.

I would imagine this is real, based on what he's getting from his sources. (Which are usually good.)

The high ppi screen is an obvious next step (especially for Apple, where appearance is paramount), as is the use of their own custom hardware.

</comment><comment><USER6> His hints at what's to come from Apple are certainly getting less subtle, and I think he might have given away a bit too much this time.

The ppi of the iphone display is already higher than the ipad, so why double the resolution? That one doesn't make much sense to me.

<comment><USER7> For one Gruber is lampooning WSJ's entrance into the Apple rumors business, so keep in mind he might be mentioning those "specs" in jest.

And for two, it should be noted that competing devices released in the past year have higher density displays. Also higher density displays allow for better looking user interface. I would imagine Apple wouldn't want to be outdone in either respect.

In short, I don't think we should draw conclusions neither from Gruber's post, nor from the densities of other devices Apple may be selling.</comment></comment>


Inherited Server from Bankrupt Startup - <AUTHOR>

So the short story goes is our startup went under. The CEO then decided to split up the assets and I received a server stack. What are some interesting/ useful learning scenarios I could perform. I have minimal experience using linux. <comment><USER3> Probably not worth a whole lot to sell. Sometimes the disks and memory will be worth something, _occasionally_ the processors. There are a bunch of folks who part these things out. For the most part the best return can be selling directly to end users on ebay or craigslist.

In terms of learning things, if by a "stack" you have 10 or more, then you run a hadoop cluster or any of a number of other clustered type systems. If you were more devops oriented you could play around with deployment scripts and containers and what not. Setting up bitcoin miners or unikernel systems. Can be an excellent way to transcode video if you've got lots of VHS tapes you wish were MP4's :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you are interested in cloud platforms and you have more than one server (stack usually means more than one) then you could take a jab at learning how to install OpenStack, or go the Windows route and install Server 2012 + System Center.

Really depends on what you want to learn, bare metal does have it's advantages when it comes to learning how stuff goes together. Especially if you also got an ethernet switch out of it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have a buddy with a rack in his garage he uses to run proxmox and asterisk. I suppose you could also run your own SMTP server for private email. Those are some things that seem like they'd be compromised by renting a VPS. I'm assuming your motives are more about fun than economics.

</comment><comment><USER6> +1 for selling as well . . . you can do/learn almost anything on AWS, Digital Ocean, etc . . .

Plus depending on the number of racks you have running it will cost more in electricity each month than the cost of a few VPS accounts.

</comment><comment><USER7> Take it as an opportunity to learn about linux and use it as a test bed to upskill yourself, if you're into that sort of thing.

Install a hyper-visor and start playing with VMs, containers etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> hi,

how old are these systems? servers are only usefull/have significant monetary value for other companies if age is << 5 años.

if they are not too old: sell them and play with an older standard pc - 64 bit / virtualization possible, enough ram.

cheers az

</comment><comment><USER9> sell it to another startup that is starting up and take 1% Equity

</comment><comment><USER10> What kind of server?

</comment><comment><USER11> Well, it depends on what you are looking to with it. Do you want to learn about system administration, software development, networking, ...? It also depends on where the server is, physically - is it in your home or in some data center?

If it's system administration, one example that is reasonably useful is setting up an owncloud server. Or a private mail server. If it is in your home, setting up a DHCP server and a DNS server can be a fun excercise. In any case, there are _many_ tutorials and HOWTOs available online. The search engine of your choice will tell you where. Most major linux distros also come with pretty good documentation or at least have some online. (Depending on the circumstances, you might consider reinstalling the system first - <USER2> physical access to the machine, it is not easy, though.)

If you want to learn about software development, there are more things you can do with a linux server than I can think of. When I try to think of a fun programming project, I often make the mistake of thinking of the technology (programming language, libraries/frameworks) first and then choosing a problem that goes with it. For _learning_ , though, it can be a good idea - so I want to learn about, say, building web apps with Ruby on Rails or Django or whatever; what better way to learn about that than building a small toy application? Okay, now all I need is a nice toy problem, difficult enough to actually teach me something, but not difficult enough to be frustrating.

Again, there far too many tutorials out there for me to mention anything specific. (Just as an example, I taught myself Django by writing an application that is basically a glorified RSS reader with a builtin Bayes network - I could rate news as boring or interesting, and after a while the app could classify news items a "probably boring" or "probably interesting" well enough so I could make it filter out news that were "probably boring". It did not work _that_ well, was really slow, and I basically suck at UI design, so it was really ugly, too, but it was still useful and fun to build.)

I hope this helps at least a little. I am staying fairly vague because your question is kind of vague. If you supplied more details about your interest or your skills/background, I might be able to give a more helpful answer. Generally speaking, try to think of something that would be actually useful to you - that way, motivation will be less of a problem, and it will probably be more fun, as well. (To be honest, learning about Linux / Unix can be very frustrating initially - within the first six months of using Linux on my desktop, I was _very_ close to physically throwing my computer out of the window no less than three times. The learning curve can be steep at the beginning, but to me, in retrospect, it was time well spent. It also tends to be a great deal of fun after a while.)</comment>


Plug and Play Language Model: Steer topic and attributes of GPT-2 models - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/uber-research/PPLM <comment><USER2> Conditional text generation is the real future of AI text generation. This approach is _interesting_ but somewhat hard to parse; the corresponding blog post and papers are very long!

I had experimented with CTRL ([https://github.com/salesforce/ctrl](https://github.com/salesforce/ctrl)), a previous Transformer-based model focused on conditional generation also referenced by this project, and got very good (albeit inconsistent) results: [https://minimaxir.com/2019/09/ctrl-fake- news/](https://minimaxir.com/2019/09/ctrl-fake-news/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Big fan of this work. The headline is only slightly misleading: you'll still need a CUDA-enabled GPU to generate text at a reasonably interactive speed. But you don't have to fine tune a language model beforehand, which is a _huge_ win. Plus, you can use whatever attribute model you'd like, provided you can get a gradient from it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "Fortunately, Uber AI's Plug and Play Language Model allows researchers to make use of the few pretrained models out there: rather than requiring everyone to train their own wooly mammoth, PPLM lets users combine small attribute models with an LM to steer its generation. Attribute models can be 100,000 times smaller than the LM and still be effective in steering it, like a mouse sitting atop our wooly mammoth friend and telling it where to go (Figure 1)."

Essentially, Uber put some attribute models on top of GPT-2 to steer how text is generated. This is better than finetuning the entire model which at the moment requires access to expensive TPUs or 32GB vRAM GPUs which are available to select research institutions/I think AWS may have them at a high cost.

Finetuning is great when you want to specifically create poems or songs instead of some jumbled up string of words which may not be what you're aiming to create.</comment>


The Next Tinyurl - <AUTHOR> http://blog.emmettshear.com/post/2008/03/01/The-next-tinyurl

<comment><USER2> I don't entirely get it, I don't think. Sure, it's useful for videos in Youtube, but how's it beat permalinks?</comment>


Ask HN: Who's conducting the most interesting artificial intelligence research? - <AUTHOR>

Which universities and/or companies are performing the most interesting research in artificial intelligence? I'm specifically interested in the data-side applications, but anything would be helpful.<p>Would love to hear about some project people have worked on. <comment><USER2> I am at CMU working on an artificial general intelligence (AGI). The system is self-modifying (as a form of learning). It uses Scone ([http://github.com/sfahlman/scone](http://github.com/sfahlman/scone)), a knowledge representation system as its core.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for sharing. It looks like the project hasn't seen much activity since the expiration of the DARPA funds and the last commits to the open source project.

Do you know why the activity has slowed down?</comment></comment>


Ultra Low Latency WebRTC Streaming – Open-Source Media Server - <AUTHOR> https://antmedia.io/ <comment><USER2> This looks to be nicely architected. Looking forward to digging in.

In answer to the questions about TURN, this approach won't be lower latency than TURN but will scale better. TURN servers are just (nearly) passive relays, so the sending client needs to set up as many outbound streams as there are receiving clients in the session.

The advantage to the TURN approach is that you can do end-to-end encryption.

The server this post is about "forwards" streams. It's in a class of infrastructure traditionally called a "Selective Forwarding Unit." So the sending client can send one stream, and the SFU copies the stream and sends it to the receiving clients. The server needs more CPU and outgoing bandwidth as the receiver count grows, but the sending client doesn't need much of either.

Once you have streams piping through a server, you can do lots of other things, of course. This server can transcode to several formats, including HLS and RTMP, and can copy streams internally across a cluster to scale more than a single machine can.

Media servers are really fun to work on: lots of small(-ish) hard problems that touch low-level network protocols, memory and cpu optimization, architecture (because eventually you want a clean plugins interface, etc.).

If you're interested in this stuff, check out Mediasoup, an open source WebRTC SFU with a very nice design in which all the low-level stuff is c++ and all the high-level interfaces are exposed as nodejs objects.[0]

[0]-[https://mediasoup.org/](https://mediasoup.org/)

<comment><USER3> The sad part about selective forwarding units (SFU) is you loose end-to-end- encryption. So you only have encryption between you and the sfu and sfu to your participant. For hosted solutions this means a server could record all your conferences.

Therefore i am waiting for the PERC standard. It will allow to send the audio/video to server only once and the server will retransmit to all peers - everything still end-to-end encrpted.

<comment><USER4> How does the key distribution work for that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What makes this approach lower latency than, say, a centralized TURN server in one of those clouds?

<comment><USER6> From my understanding, the current challenge with ultra-low-latency is scale. Will it scale to 100, 1000, 100,000, concurrent users?

At the moment, everyone in the industry is working to figure out how to provide a viewer experience that is similar, or better than the current expectations of live streaming.

Live streaming is hard. Ultra-low-latency is just as hard.

However, I'm still not sure why we need ultra-low-latency. Will it improve the live experience? Maybe. Aside from live-action sports or significant events, do we as content consumers really need ultra-low-latency?

<comment><USER7> How low is ultra-low-latency that it's relevant for sports? Does anyone really care if their broadcast is 30 seconds delayed from live?

I subscribe to both Formula 1 and MotoGP online streaming services and couldn't care less if the broadcasts were even multiple minutes delayed. They may very well be already and I wouldn't know. As far as I can tell they both just use standard CDNs delivering DASH or similar (basically just short video files played in sequence).

That seems more than enough for sports. Multiple minutes may result in getting real time information from elsewhere (e.g., Twitter, local radio) but anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds seems fine.

<comment><USER8> I work for a video streaming company (primarily sports). There is a huge problem with latency in sports.

We call it the "Twitter effect". Essentially people either see things on social media or app notifications before it happens. Kinda ruins it for some people.

We are working on sub-30 second latency in 4K w/ server side ad insertion, but it's hard work. Especially with encoding with DRM baked in.

<comment><USER7> Thanks! Do you know what the equivalent latency number is for cable TV? The Twitter effect only applies for the difference between the two numbers.

<comment><USER9> Broadcast TV latency is usually in the 4-10 second range, with typical latency being around 6s. Not sure how it breaks down between cable vs satellite vs over-the-air.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 500ms is low latency? What's usual?

<comment><USER11> The best Vimeo/Livestream can do is about 30 seconds from the time the frame hits their server, as a reference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's also possible latency savings from having the video encoder be aware of network conditions on a per-frame basis: [http://ex.camera](http://ex.camera) but I don't think it's found its way to the "mainstream".

<comment><USER13> There's also this which tried to do something similar: [https://snr.stanford.edu/salsify/](https://snr.stanford.edu/salsify/)

Edit: It's the same author

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> And here I was blissfully unaware that I'm experiencing reality 30 seconds delayed. Had no idea, other than obviously there's some # frames delay needed to do motion compression, and some transit latency.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've used Wowza (video streaming server) for years and this is a direct competitor. The pricing is a little higher for Wowza, but Wowza is a mature product with tons of options for web streaming. The weakness of Wowza has been its support for WebRTC. I am using it, but it's not easy to stream from RTSP/RTMP to WebRTC. It also doesn't scale out for WebRTC

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Test AMS Live Demo in [https://antmedia.io/livedemo/](https://antmedia.io/livedemo/) AMS Github Pages: [https://github.com/ant-media/Ant-Media-Server](https://github.com/ant- media/Ant-Media-Server) Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER16> It will help apps which require interaction from users, like google stadia's game streaming. for other use cases, I think one does not care even if the feed is delayed by few seconds.

<comment><USER17> Another interesting use case someone mentioned here before is the world cup - you don't want a penalty shoot-out ruined by your neighbours cheering a few seconds before you see the goal.

A few seconds would also such for live streaming where the streamer interacts in chat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How does one-to-many streaming work? If 256 clients connect to one streamer, how does the streamer not need to send his/her stream 256 times?

<comment><USER19> That's what the server is for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The problem is that webrtc is a very intensive CPU ( each connection have its own encription ). How many users can this solution handle per server?

<comment><USER21> How is encryption expense different from normal https streaming from a cdn?

<comment><USER20> packet size of webrtc(rtp) is VERY VERY VERY small, and since they are UDP, each individual packet must be encrypted. ( i can't just encode a big chunk of data and send to the network like tls ).

in fact, for scaling a solution that uses "near realtime broadcast", you probably don't want encryption at all. ( afaik you can't disable webrtc encryption. )

in my tests i can get 3x more performance just using rtmp/rtsp. ( ~8000 video streaming connections on a aws c5.xlarge at 800kbit/s ).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've heard enough of this anti-anonymity, anti-privacy protocol.</comment>


Ask HN: How do people get to a single number for churn? - <AUTHOR> I often see churn quoted as a single number. How do people "flatten" churn like this? In my experience churn is very high in the first month, then falls as time goes on.
My current (consumer) startup has a churn of around 25% the first month, then dropping to almost nothing after a few months. Using a single churn number doesn't even come close to approximating real behavior.
Seeing single number churns quoted as benchmarks makes them fairly useless. How do people reconcile this? <comment><USER2> It depends on your business, but in the end it is just an average.

If you are a saas business then you may find churn is a case of customers trying the product and then disappearing (often forever). This appears to be the situation you are describing.

With eCommerce it can be completely different, people order once and then take months to re-order. Maybe you sell gifts and people don't come back until next Christmas! For a business like this, churn is simply a matter of 'did they order again within the time period'

If you are in the first group then flattening churn to one number is totally unhelpful. What would you do with that anyway? With business metrics it is important to ask yourself why you are measuring, and what you are going to do with the output. You need to consider the likely behavior for a person trying your service.

Imagine you are 2 years into your service and you decide to make a change which may impact retention, then measuring the 1 month and 2 month drop off may be a much better metric than some 12 month average. You need to measure things that make sense in your business. Taken this way it is a bit like regression testing, did my change break the company.

Perhaps you were thinking of benchmarking churn against some market average? Unless you have fabulous market research with almost identical competitors this seems pointless.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can use probability models to get better churn metrics. One we used in business school was the beta-geometric which gives a discrete model for heterogeneous churns (the population uses a beta distribution to describe probability of churning). [http://www.brucehardie.com/papers/021/sbg_2006-05-30.pdf](http://www.brucehardie.com/papers/021/sbg_2006-05-30.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> You're absolutely right to question the numbers. Without knowing where you're seeing these single churn numbers, it's important to also know the context and business model before being able to use it for comparing.</comment>


The new elite: how startups are replacing resumes - <AUTHOR> https://www.sokanu.com/blog/the-new-elite-startups-replacing-resumes/ <comment><USER2> The appeal of startups is they are the only chance to be paid what one is worth. The alternative is to toil for the rest of your working life making enough to live but not enough to ever be financially free.

The elephant in the room is software developers are massively underpaid. If so many are willing to take the risk is because a one in a hundred chance of success is better than a 100% chance of going nowhere.

I've played the startup lottery, twice, and look forward to do it again. I'd rather own a percentage of a company that has a minute chance of success than a contract signed in blood for a "market salary" for the rest of my life.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it makes sense because programming is more of a power law than bell curve. The best are not just a bit better than average but 10x or more better.

<comment><USER4> And it's not the case else where? Like in finance for example?</comment></comment>


DB-19: Resurrecting an Obsolete Connector (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.bigmessowires.com/2016/06/04/db-19-resurrecting-an-obsolete-connector/ <comment><USER2> There were never DB-9 connectors; they were DE-9s.

The "DB-this" and "DB-that" naming originated by ignorant analogy with the (correctly-named) DB-25 connectors that the DE-9s were replacing. Hint: The letter after the D is the size. DBs had room for two rows of 12 and 13 pins on 1/10 inch centers, on down to DE with room for only 4 and 5 pins with that spacing. Later, the DE shell was used with closer spacing for three rows of pins, for video monitor cables.

Once enough ignorant people took to calling them DB-9 and trying to buy them by that name, the vendors started hawking them that way.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-subminiature#DE-9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-subminiature#DE-9)

<comment><USER3> One thing of note is that the pins are not exactly on 1/10 inch centers, the spacing is slightly larger than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _"But wait!" says the well-intentioned blog reader, "this web site over here > has DB-19P connectors for sale right now!" They may claim to have them, but > trust me, they don't. Electronics parts suppliers seem to make a habit of > listing available items that aren't actually available, whether out of > laziness or as an intentional bait-and-switch, I'm not sure. But if you call > them or try to actually order the parts, you'll find they don't exist._

This reminds me of _Things I Won 't Work With_ mentioning Chinese chemical supply houses that list prices for a gallon of a specific chemical, when there probably hasn't been that much made in all of human history together, and if it _were_ made and brought together in one place, the resulting crater would be visible on Google Earth.

</comment><comment><USER5> Brings back memories. Years ago, I came across a need for a DB-19 cable and had trouble sourcing one at a reasonable price.

I arrived at a somewhat less robust solution which involved a DB-25 cable and a hack saw.

<comment><USER6> That's not quite as ugly as a serial cable in a production dialup mail pick up box I found once. Someone was clearly missing a DB25-DB9 cable for the modem but had a DB9 shell floating around. They made a cable with some telephone wire, stripped the ends, folded them and rammed them into the DB25 connector holes on the modem. The other end was solder buckets and they did the same and crimped the thing. It worked. Until it didn't. Then the modem and the cable had to be replaced because the connector was buggered.

This of course failed and I discovered the situation on Friday at 5:30pm just as the local Maplin had shut.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Amiga uses the DB-23 for monitor, I don't believe it's made anymore, however, it appears you can still order it. It's not as unusual yet as the DB-19.

(And now that you can order, for the first time, a new Amiga with an open source operating system, you don't need the DB-23 anymore, it uses HDMI. Vampire v4 stand alone. No affiliation, just fascinated.)

<comment><USER8> Where? Isn't V4 still unreleased?

<comment><USER9> It's pre-order only so far I think. Here:

[http://apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=1&note=23461](http://apollo- core.com/knowledge.php?b=1&note=23461)

There was a good article about it here that was on HN a few days ago:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcochiappetta/2019/10/22/the-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcochiappetta/2019/10/22/the- next-generation-amiga-that-never-materialized-just-went-up-for-pre- order/#6020370950de)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Atari ST line of computers also use DB-19 connectors for their external ACSI interface, usually used for connecting hard disk drives. ACSI is Atari Computer Systems Interface, similar to SCSI.

<comment><USER11> Here's a photo of a 520. It's the "Hard Disk" port all the way on the right.

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Rear_por...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Rear_ports_of_original_Atari_520ST_%28crop_and_filter%29.jpg)

It was possible to hand-make a replacement for Atari's external floppy drive (round DIN connector on the right) because Atari wanted too much money for theirs. Having two floppies meant that compiling went from several disk-swaps to no-swap happiness.

</comment></comment><comment> iso-8859-1 The project this was made for (FloppyEmu) is awesome: [https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy- emu/](https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/)

</comment><comment><USER12> The Mackie Onyx 1640 [https://intranet.bloomu.edu/documents/tech/ims/Manuals/Macki...](https://intranet.bloomu.edu/documents/tech/ims/Manuals/MackieOnyx1640StudioMixer.pdf) has two DB25 connectors.

<comment><USER13> It _had_ two DB25 connectors. That's an old analog mixer from 2004. The Mackie webpage doesn't even list products that old.

Of course, their current digital mixers don't have any D-shell connectors.

<comment><USER14> Well, it's still around, that's for sure...

[https://apogeedigital.com/products/symphony- io/configuration...](https://apogeedigital.com/products/symphony- io/configurations/dante-16x16)

I mean, I can't afford $5K for that, but it's there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What would the world look like without China ? There is literally nowhere else to go to build something today...

<comment><USER16> If it weren't for China, someone else would be building these. Take China away instantaneously, and there'd be problems. But the reason there's no where else to build something like this today is because China does it better[1]. Without China, (and with enough time) it'd be someone else.

[1]: According to market forces.

<comment><USER15> The problem is "enough time" can be a generation. For example, France didn't build any nuclear power plants for two decade, and when it finaly build a new one (EPR) it takes three time more time an money than expected, because no one no anything anyymore on building a nuclear power plant in France ....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The Amiga uses (it's still alive! DB23 for its RGB signal. I have a hacksawed connector which works fine :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Makes me wonder how conservation work in museums is going to be done on artefacts that were industrially manufactured. Imagine 200 years from now somebody has to repair an Apple II with a rusted out DB-19 port, where are they going to find the mechanical drawings and would the machines needed to make new ports even exist still? My hope is that 3D printing matures in time for this to not be as a big if a problem.

<comment><USER19> For a serious look at this exact phenomenon I'd highly recommend the Apollo AGC restoration done by Curious Marc and others for the 50th anniversary. They had to redesign and rebuild a few connectors down to the pins to actually restore things. There's also a lot of other crazy stuff they had to do, including putting some of the electrical modules in a milling machine and drilling them out to replace bad parts.

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-_93BVApb59FWrLZfdli...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-_93BVApb59FWrLZfdlisi_x7-Ut_-w7)

particularly parts 10-13 I believe are where the pins and contacts come into play.

<comment><USER20> Except Marc's team actually had highly detailed mechanical drawings of those parts, so the only hard part was finding someone who could manufacture them. Thankfully they had connections in that area.

<comment><USER19> Yea, that definitely made things immensely simpler but it's still a good reference for seeing what kind of problems happen. I'd also imagine that for most connectors you aren't going to need nearly as robust or detailed drawings or data about them to make something that will work. In this case they also wanted something that would mate up perfectly without any possibility of damage or excess wear on the connectors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For a problem like this, I wonder if it would be easier to just make a replacement cable for the DB-19 connector on the computer itself, which replaces the external DB-19 with some other more-common connector (along with the cable that goes to the PCB inside), and then the device you're selling uses a cable that matches that.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wasn't aware the Atari ST's used those. I remember the 8-bits one had a similar, but just different enough connector for its SIO expansion bus.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why does this post not have upvoting buttons?

<comment><USER24> You probably already upvoted (or downvoted, accidentally?) it. If it says "unvote" under the link you can click it to get them back.

<comment><USER23> I have no unvote either

<comment><USER23> Just for this post, see it occasionally. I know it's a thing for YC hiring posts, but I've seen this happen and was wondering the rules that apply

<comment><USER23> There are three of them like this on the front page for me now. I upvoted another and it appears normally.

A/B testing?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Re-inventing the Leaf: Artificial Photosynthesis to Create Clean Fuel - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=reinventing-the-leaf

<comment><AUTHOR> P.S. The print-friendly link:

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=reinventing...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=reinventing- the-leaf&print=true)

 _In photosynthesis, green leaves use the energy in sunlight to rearrange the chemical bonds of water and carbon dioxide, producing and storing fuel in the form of sugars. "We want to make something as close to a leaf as possible," Lewis says, meaning devices that work as simply, albeit producing a different chemical output. The artificial leaf Lewis is designing requires two principal elements: a collector that converts solar energy (photons) into electrical energy (electrons) and an electrolyzer that uses the electron energy to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. A catalyst—a chemical or metal—is added to help achieve the splitting. Existing photovoltaic cells already create electricity from sunlight, and electrolyzers are used in various commercial processes, so the trick is marrying the two into cheap, efficient solar films.

<snip>

The problem is that commercial solar cells contain expensive silicon crystals. And electrolyzers are packed with the noble metal platinum, to date the best material for catalyzing the water-splitting reaction, but it costs $1,500 an ounce._

So the major hurdle for the electrolyzer component is platinum, because it is rare and expensive. But solar / photovoltaic-derived energy is the future. Ergo: investments in platinum could be very lucrative.

<comment><USER2> You realize they can use other materials as catalyst beside platinum as electrolyzers?</comment></comment>


Atty. In Fla. Robbery Case Seeks NSA Phone Records - <AUTHOR> http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/06/12/atty-in-fla-robbery-case-seeks-nsa-phone-records/

<comment><USER2> This is not the first time a request like this has been made. In the Noriega case, the attorney for one of the co-accused pilots requested copies of telephone conversations intercepted by the NSA at their secret facility in Panama called "The Tunnel." The Government went ballistic and tried to have the defense attorney arrested--somehow he had obtained a copy of a map showing the existence and location of the facility. The Government merely denied that it had such records but quickly made a princely deal with the lawyer which ended up excluding the pilot from the case and giving him a sentence of less than a year. The other issue that bothers me with respect to the defense lawyer's tactic here is that it does not appear he has complied with the Classified Information Procedures Act. Since the request was made in the middle of trial, perhaps the judge waived these, but failure to comply would be another way to get around the disclosure requirement. Finally, line U.S. Attorneys really have no knowledge of these matters--Main Justice flies in CIPA specialists to assist whenever there is classified information.</comment>


Ask HN: Best reads about open source movement/philosophy? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for the best books, articles, essays, films (?) about OSS: its philosophy, history, and so on. <comment><USER2> Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and The Bazaar is probably the most famous piece of open source evangelism out there. You can buy it on amazon or read it on his website: [http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral- bazaar/cathedral-...](http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral- bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/index.html#catbmain)

Apparently there's some debate over whether or not his ideas are really that great, though. I actually found this site just a few minutes ago from I-dont- remember-where-now by stumbling onto DonHopkins' criticisms: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7608563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7608563)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Free for all" is fabulous book...</comment>


How The Damn Google Spoiled My Career - <AUTHOR> http://www.jjude.biz/2012/02/how-the-damn-google-spoiled-my-career <comment><USER2> This says a lot more about the author than it does Google. Knowing where to go to quickly find information is a good thing; not being able to learn anything because "it's on Google" is not. The point is to choose what to learn and what not to learn; choosing not to learn anything, or being unable to learn anything, is simply not acceptable. The author has ruined his own career, not Google.

<comment><USER3> I would agree with that. If they find they are losing the ability to recognize numbers I would consult a neurologist. It is entirely possible to have a 'micro stroke' which does strange non-obvious damage to your brain. Keep your blood pressure down, get enough sleep, etc etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "This discovery of yours [writing] will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves." \-- Socrates, ca. 360 BC

</comment><comment><USER5> It is true that when most knowledge was passed down orally, human memories were much better. From this, however, it does not follow that writing stunted our ability to learn. Quite the opposite. Writing allowed us access to _vastly more_ knowledge than we could ever memorize, and each successive advance in the recording and propagation of knowledge led to greater and more widely accessible achievements for all of society.

From the scribes to the printing press, and on into the digital age, the advancement of the human race has been directly tied to humankind's ability to store, copy, and recall ever greater amounts of information.

So I call hogwash.</comment>


Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2018/09/21/google-suppresses-memo-revealing-plans-to-closely-track-search-users-in-china/ <comment><USER2> > "The Dragonfly memo reveals that a prototype of the censored search engine > was being developed as an app for both Android and iOS devices, and would > force users to sign in so they could use the service. The memo confirms, as > The Intercept first reported last week, that users' searches would be > associated with their personal phone number. The memo adds that Chinese > users' movements would also be stored, along with the IP address of their > device and links they clicked on."

This seems to be the direction for all users of Google. The new version of Chrome signs you into the browser even if you don't want to sign into the software itself. You can't really use Google's browsing device (Google Chrome) without providing your identity, if you ever want to sign into a Google website.

Support for Firefox is more important than ever.

<comment><USER3> I installed Chromium on Ubuntu today, and on the first run was given an opportunity to opt _out_ from Google's personalized ads being shown to me based on my entire web browsing history. It was that moment when I realized, that what I had just installed was not primarily a web browser, but a Google application with a web browsing feature built-in. Because everything in it was built to optimize Google's ad revenue. It even had an ad blocker enabled by default, which made Google's ads stand out by disabling the ads by others.

<comment><USER4> I am so saddened by how much we trust Google. I wish we regarded Google software with more suspicion. Would people have been nearly as upset if it had been Google that acquired GitHub?

I miss the days of being suspicious of Microsoft. But Microsoft isn't nearly as diabolical as Google, nor are they as competent.

<comment><USER5> I'd argue MS has become less diabolical as they've become more competent (VS Code, e.g.). Google is more complex, they are certainly looking more diabolical, not quite sure about the more competent - I suppose it only matters that they are competent enough to be dangerous.

<comment><USER6> That's because Microsoft's incentives are more aligned with ours. Better, more user-centric software == better outcomes for users, more Microsoft usage/profits.

Google, on the other hand, is fundamentally incentivized to sell ads, which requires collecting data. The more data they collect, the more money they make. As the saying goes, we are the product. No amount of hand-wringing or shaming is going to change that fundamental fact.

I think that in 100 years we're going to look back on how personal data is used the way we look at barbaric medical practices of the Dark Ages. People in general just didn't know or expect better.

<comment><USER7> > That's because Microsoft's incentives are more aligned with ours. Better, > more user-centric software == better outcomes for users, more Microsoft > usage/profits.

Microsoft is in the same business as Google. Search, Bing. Gmail, Outlook.com. GCP, Azure. They even operate an ad network.

Google has some bad incentives but Microsoft has all the same ones. If not, why isn't there a single button for "never send any of my personal information to Microsoft" anywhere in Windows 10?

<comment><USER3> > Microsoft is in the same business as Google.

Microsoft and Google may have competing products, but they are in completely different businesses. Microsoft is in the business of software, Google is in the business of data. That's why there's a public Bing Search API[1], but there's no public Google Search API.

[1] [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive- service...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive- services/bing-web-search-api/)

<comment><USER7> > Microsoft and Google may have competing products, but they are in completely > different businesses. Microsoft is in the business of software, Google is in > the business of data.

In what way are Windows and Edge "software" but Android and Chrome are not?

> That's why there's a public Bing Search API[1], but there's no public Google > Search API.

The company that is operating a data service is the one _not_ in the data business?

<comment><USER3> > In what way are Windows and Edge "software" but Android and Chrome are not?

> The company that is operating a data service is the one not in the data > business?

A company in the software business charges for the usage of its software (Windows, Bing API). A company in the data business gives the software for free, and monetizes the data it collects about its users (Android, Google).

<comment><USER7> > A company in the software business charges for the usage of its software > (Windows, Bing API). A company in the data business gives the software for > free, and monetizes the data it collects about its users (Android, Google).

A services API isn't software. You're not buying a copy of the code and running it on your computer. And Google offers the same category of thing (paid services), e.g. the Google Maps API or G Suite, while Microsoft offers free services equivalent to google.com and gmail.com like bing.com and outlook.com.

Meanwhile Microsoft has been giving away actual software like Windows 10 for free, along with a variety of other things like IE/Edge (including for non- Windows platforms), VS Express, the Skype software, etc.

They're direct competitors operating in largely the same markets and using the same business models.

<comment><USER3> > A services API isn't software. You're not buying a copy of the code and > running it on your computer.

It's called SaaS, which stands for "Software as a service"[1].

> They're direct competitors operating in largely the same markets and using > the same business models.

Google generates 84% of its revenues from ads[2], Microsoft generates 95% of its revenues from software[3].

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

[2] [https://martechtoday.com/google-posts-31-1b-in-total- revenue...](https://martechtoday.com/google-posts-31-1b-in-total-revenue- beats-top-and-bottom-line-expectations-214433)

[3] [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/Investor/earnings/FY-2018-Q1...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/Investor/earnings/FY-2018-Q1/segment-revenues)

<comment><USER7> > It's called SaaS, which stands for "Software as a service"

In other words, you're not buying a copy of the code and running it on your computer. So the provider has all your private information.

And if that's "software" then how is Google not a "software" company? All their services are that.

> Google generates 84% of its revenues from ads[2], Microsoft generates 95% of > its revenues from software[3].

It's understandable that you missed this, but the distinction you're making is arbitrary. Microsoft can book ad revenue under software and service categories because the software/service is what generated the ad views. They definitely make more than 5% of their revenue from ads.

Percentages are also useless in general. If Google merged with Amazon (which has much higher revenue) then most of their revenue wouldn't be from "advertising" but how would that change their incentives at all? If anything it would be worse -- now they're providing more non-advertising services to you and have the incentive to spy on you via those services to increase their ad profitability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ouch. It must be really fun for Googlers to hear their company is working so hard to repress dissidents trying to reveal its secret project to help China repress dissidents.

<comment><USER9> Fact of the matter is that there is a Chinese internet and a US internet. Going forward there will be a Chinese internet, that some authoritarian countries will adopt that are a part of the Chinese sphere of influence. American companies, and the American government through them want a foothold on that internet. This is the only way for them to do so.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/20/eric-schmidt-ex-google- ceo-p...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/20/eric-schmidt-ex-google-ceo-predicts- internet-split-china.html)

<comment><USER10> The idea that this appeasement will make Google a contender in China is blazingly ignorant of Chinese politics. No foreign company will ever be allowed to gain significant market share; it would be seen as a national security threat. The only way for Google would be to forge an equal partnership with a Chinese tech giant---Tencent, Alibaba, Huawei, or maybe one of the two dominant cell carriers.

Google is selling out for nothing.

<comment><USER11> That's bs. Apple is making billions from China each year without any bs partnership.

<comment><USER12> Regarding iCloud, Apple has made decisions to bring Chinese iCloud in compliance with Chinese regulations. Chinese iCloud accounts, data, and encryption keys are stored with a Chinese firm overseen by the Chinese government.

<comment><USER13> Yep. Apple moved their keys to be stored locally on state-owned servers, meaning that Apple has given the Chinese government access to Chinese user data. Apple even updated their TOS for it.

<comment><USER14> Not according to Apple [1]:

>Apple says the joint venture does not mean that China has any kind of "backdoor" into user data and that Apple alone – not its Chinese partner – will control the encryption keys.

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud- insigh...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud- insight/apple-moves-to-store-icloud-keys-in-china-raising-human-rights-fears- idUSKCN1G8060)

<comment><USER15> China goes so far as to require Android users to install a surveillance app in some provinces ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingwang_Weishi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingwang_Weishi)) so you think the Chinese government would really allow the sale of unbreakable end to end encryption domestically just because it's Apple?

What would be the point then, as anyone wanting to avoid Chinese surveillance could just buy an iPhone. They wouldn't go through huge, immense trouble rolling out a massive surveillance apparatus on this domestic internet only to allow the world's most popular phone to be sold domestically as a simple circumvention.

No, Apple obviously made a deal as they are totally dependent on China for manufacturing their phone as well, they have no leverage. The difference is, Apple's culture of secrecy seems to prevent their employees from leaking dissent externally, so whatever they did, the details aren't public.

<comment><USER14> >so you think the Chinese government would really allow the sale of unbreakable end to end encryption domestically just because it's Apple?

Yes. Apple has even said this in court filings during the FBI legal fight [1]:

>Finally, the government attempts to disclaim the obvious international implications of its demand, asserting that any pressure to hand over the same software to foreign agents "flows from [Apple's] decision to do business in foreign countries . . . ." Opp. 26. Contrary to the government's misleading statistics (Opp. 26), which had to do with lawful process and did not compel the creation of software that undermines the security of its users, Apple has never built a back door of any kind into iOS, or otherwise made data stored on the iPhone or in iCloud more technically accessible to any country's government. See Dkt. 16-28 [Apple Inc., Privacy, Gov't Info. Requests]; Federighi Decl. ¶¶ 6–7. The government is wrong in asserting that Apple made "special accommodations" for China (Opp. 26), as Apple uses the same security protocols everywhere in the world and follows the same standards for responding to law enforcement requests. See Federighi Decl. ¶ 5.

and Craig Federighi's declaration [2]:

>5\. Apple uses the same security protocols everywhere in the world.

>6\. Apple has never made user data, whether stored on the iPhone or in iCloud, more technologically accessible to any country's government. We believe any such access is too dangerous to allow. Apple has also not provided any government with its proprietary iOS source code. While governmental agencies in various countries, including the United States, perform regulatory reviews of new iPhone releases, all that Apple provides in those circumstances is an unmodified iPhone device.

>7\. It is my understanding that Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a "backdoor" in any of our products and services.

>I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct.

Apple has leverage in China because they indirectly employ millions of people.

>No, Apple obviously made a deal as they are totally dependent on China for manufacturing their phone as well, they have no leverage. The difference is, Apple's culture of secrecy seems to prevent their employees from leaking dissent externally, so whatever they did, the details aren't public.

Lol. I'm sure Federighi perjured himself because the Apple Cult is _just that strong_.

[1] [https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2762131/C-D- Cal-1...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2762131/C-D- Cal-16-Cm-00010-Dckt-000177-000-Filed-2016.pdf)

[2] [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2762118-Federighi- De...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2762118-Federighi-Decl- Executed.html#document/p1)

<comment><USER13> The FBI is a US Government Agency, not China.

And even then, the declaration you quote (made in a US Court case referring to the FBI) was made two years before Apple gave the keys over to China.

Apple has deleted VPN apps from the Chinese store at the request of the Chinese government. They also added a clause to their TOS that allows the state-owned data company to access all user data. When they rolled this out and gave the keys to China, they only gave their users the option to delete their account, not opt out.

I'm sorry to be the one to have to break this to you but Apple is acquiescing with the Chinese government surveillance demands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I guess we'll get a new blog post from Pichai about the people he fired because tracking users against their wishes, exposing data against their wishes, and compelling employees to delete their own files "contrary to our basic values and our Code of Conduct." [0]

Fortunately Google is an ethical company and not hypocritical when it comes to very important issues.

Maybe this will be positive and result in new US law like the foreign corrupt practices act of 1977 [1] that prevents US companies and their subsidiaries from bribing officials in other countries, even when local law allows it. So forcing US companies to follow the minimal US laws protecting privacy even if to comply with other laws will be a net positive for humanity.

[0] [https://www.blog.google/outreach- initiatives/diversity/note-...](https://www.blog.google/outreach- initiatives/diversity/note-employees-ceo-sundar-pichai/)

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

<comment><USER17> Reminds me of this tweet: [https://twitter.com/nmgrm/status/1038790691529273345](https://twitter.com/nmgrm/status/1038790691529273345)

>programmers get upset about the words "master/slave" in software now, but are happy to keep constructing a global surveillance economy and becoming middle caste

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Disclaimer: I work for Google. I also think that there is an anti-Google bias on hacker news, holding Google to a standard not applied to others and taking any excuse to roll out the same old tired rants in response to almost any Google post (DAE Google Reader etc).

If what I read is true then this is the first thing that has truly rocked my confidence that the company generally tries to do the right thing (while making money of course, we're not a charity). I expect significant internal backlash if they proceed and I hope they learn from this.

<comment><USER19> "I also think that there is an anti-Google bias on hacker news".

Nah mate. When a company isn't paying me, I am unrestrictedly free to be objective.

The problem, with companies (and with mafia, etc) starts once you take the money.

So, from that perspective, what you read from most of us, is more objective than anything you read on your internal mailing lists.

We, unlike your HR, don't care about morale, perception and corporate tracking pixels of stuff one isn't supposed to see or read.

HN crowd for the most part are smart and informed people. So, don't look at it as bias, look at it as assessment.

<comment><USER20> So are you as critical with every other company that does business in China. Are you gonna throw out half of the products in your house which are Made In China? Are you also criticizing Apple and Tesla for doing business in China?

<comment><USER21> It isn't just about doing business in China, but the nature of the business (and propping up the Chinese regime).

Apple have had plenty of stick about their practices too. I think they just have too many diehard followers that the negative information gets drowned out by the positive.

I think there's a perception that Google is the one company that many people are (or were) supportive of, because of their past stance with regard to China. Google's former motto of "Don't be evil" convinced a lot of people that they have strong ethical standards. This may have been true in the early days. To me, it has not been true ever since Schmidt became CEO. I've been actively avoiding Google as much as possible since around 2005, because it was glaringly obvious even then that they were out to destroy privacy.

I also avoid Apple. Never liked their software, and they have pretty much the same problems wrt privacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Genuine question: why is there not more outrage over Bing working in China? Surely there's as much user tracking/censorship as Google is doing?

<comment><USER23> Microsoft and Bing never started with the mantra of "Don't be evil". Microsoft also has a much more established history of working with different government agencies and foreign governments. The perceived contrast from what people expect from Google and what Google is doing now is just that much more glaring/obvious.

<comment><USER24> And that is part of the reason why Microsoft has been hated/less trusted than Google for so long (and still is).

Google is making a very big mistake ruining this image and supposedly core principles with the actions it's been taking in the past couple of years. They won't recover for decades from this, just like Microsoft still hasn't fully.

Google's "Don't be evil" has been a _huge_ branding asset, but it seems Google has been too eager to step all over it and throw it in the garbage lately. I wonder if it will be worth it. I _hope_ it won't be.

These days I distrust almost every move Google makes _by default_ , and I imagine there is a growing number of people like me. Google may think "eh, so what, we'll just lose a few percent of our users, but gain all of those juicy killer machines and censorship contracts instead," but now people like me will also be first in line to support governmental action against the company (GDPR, etc), while before I would've been the first in line to defend it. So Google won't be losing just users or even advocates, but it's also turning them into _vocal enemies_ \- all in the name of continuing to grow those quarterly profits.

<comment><USER2> > These days I distrust almost every move Google makes by default, and I > imagine there is a growing number of people like me.

Google has lost its way, not just with this, but with AMP/Chrome/URLs, and their impending destruction of one of the great achievements of modern technology -- the decentralized, open WWW. The Web was always under attack but to see the fatal blows delivered by Google is very depressing.

I've already removed Facebook's companies entirely from my life. This year, I'm working on moving away from Google as much as possible.

<comment><USER25> Google has not lost their way. They walked away from billions in China when the government tried to hack Gmail accounts. Google made it so ALL people can afford a smartphone not just the rich like Apple.

Apple on the other hand

[https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple- privacy...](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy- betrayal-for-chinese-icloud-users/) Campaign targets Apple over privacy betrayal for Chinese iCloud ...

<comment><USER2> Smartphones are not necessarily good things. I think they are damaging attention[1] and causing a lot of negative effects on society (social media, fake information, etc.). Humans shouldn't be online at all times.

[1] [https://hbr.org/2018/03/having-your-smartphone-nearby- takes-...](https://hbr.org/2018/03/having-your-smartphone-nearby-takes-a-toll- on-your-thinking)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> >Emails demanding deletion of the memo contained "pixel trackers" that notified human resource managers when their messages had been read, recipients determined.

This seems like the worst part (not that the rest is not bad), anyone has an idea of what this "pixel trackers" are and how they actually work?

<comment><USER27> Pixel trackers are just small embedded images in the email that when they are fetched from a server, the server logs it. Pretty simple way to track whether or not someone has opened an email. It's my understanding that gmail however downloads all images and then serves them from Google servers to avoid this issue entirely.

Traditional email clients like Outlook/Thunderbird are susceptible to this kind of attack. That's why they often ask you before loading images.

[https://smallbusiness.chron.com/set-email-tracking- pixel-493...](https://smallbusiness.chron.com/set-email-tracking- pixel-49332.html)

<comment><USER28> Variants of "pixel trackers" still work fine on Gmail despite this. To this day a lot of marketing, recruiters and others are tracking when you open their message on Gmail.

<comment><USER29> How are these variants working? Curious about how they are getting around google hitting all of them.

<comment><USER30> I assume Google doesn't request the image until the email is opened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > "Leadership misled engineers working on [Dragonfly] about the nature of > their work, depriving them of moral agency," said a Google employee who read > the memo.

Lying to our own colleagues now are we? The end justifies the means I guess. Wait, what was the end again?

<comment><USER32> No offense, but Google is gonna launch that search engine regardless. Even if it's gonna have to outsource coding to China itself.

<comment><USER31> How does that justify lying about it?

If you're going to lie to your colleagues better have a very good reason ready. "They won't help me if they knew the truth" is not a good reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Well sure, they censor/manipulate their users, why wouldn't they do the same to their employees?

<comment><USER34> That fiasco earlier this year with James Damore comes to mind.

<comment><USER13> Damore was fired for perpetuating gender stereotypes. Even he confirmed it. That isn't unique to Google, and employee policy is not manipulation of search results.

<comment><USER34> Do you have a source of him confirming it? Genuinely curious. I'm just going off of his interview with Joe Rogan.

<comment><USER13> >Damore has confirmed to multiple outlets that he was terminated for "perpetuating gender stereotypes."

[https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/8/16106728/google- fire...](https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/8/16106728/google-fired- engineer-anti-diversity-memo)

<comment><USER34> Ok thanks, I think I misunderstood what you were saying.

I thought you meant that he went on record saying something like "I'm perpetuating gender stereotypes".

Instead, it looks like he's just confirmed that _Google_ thought he was perpetuating gender stereotypes, and that's what he was fired for, which is no surprise.

<comment><USER13> It doesn't really matter what he thinks he did, because NLRB deemed it a legal reason for firing him. It's not unique to Google, and considering he's suing for discrimination against white conservative men I don't think his lawyer would let him say something like that anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Honestly at this point I wonder how much there is between what US agents can do with a FISA warrant and what Chinese agents can do with their surveillance - if there is a difference it'll be pretty small I imagine.

I'm not trying to justify Dragonfly but just pointing out that tech companies are being pushed into more censorship and tracking by governments all over the world.

<comment><USER36> Are there major Chinese companies currently investing in the development of systems specifically tailored to help total surveillance of US citizens by the US government?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This whole thing feels like it's going to hit Google straight in the face like a ton of bricks.

At a minimum there is some serious streisand effect potential.

<comment> oh-kumudo I don't think so. Half of US's electorate already see Google as hypocrite. Only ones will be truly annoyed is a certain fraction of its own employees.

<comment><USER38> Computers are magic.

Half of the US electorate is completely ignorant about what's going on. The people that do know have no sway over a self-serving Congress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> That would be really horrible, living in a country where Google functions as a quasi-government entity consolidating everyone's access to useful resources on the WAN and tracking users, on some secret police's behalf, under the guise of marketing.

Who can even imagine such a thing.

</comment><comment><USER40> Why is there no such outrage over google closely tacking search users in America?

<comment><USER41> Because Google doesn't come to your house, take you in for questioning and then pressuring you into confessing that you did something wrong which disturbed civil order.

Stories about what happens in China: [https://chinachange.org/](https://chinachange.org/)

<comment><USER42> They would still send your data to the government when there is a subpoena I suppose

<comment><USER13> If they didn't comply with subpoenas, people would be complaining that Google thought it was above the law.

<comment><USER42> It does seem there's little difference from what they're trying to do in China then.

<comment><USER43> There's a massive difference. Complying with subpoenas is not the same as giving the government on-tap access to all data at their leisure. And for all the US's problems, the rule of law and respect for the rights of citizen's and responsibilities of the state toward them in the administration of justice is leaps and bounds better and more transparent in the United States.

<comment><USER42> if you say so..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ryan Gallagher seems to own this story like John Carreyrou did Theranos. Pretty much every scoop about Dragonfly has been reported by him.

<comment><USER44> I began working on the Google DoubleClick Mozilla essay earlier in the year, though I am not as famous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> > According to three sources familiar with the incident, Google leadership > discovered the memo and were furious that secret details about the China > censorship were being passed between employees who were not supposed to have > any knowledge about it. Subsequently, Google human resources personnel > emailed employees who were believed to have accessed or saved copies of the > memo and ordered them to immediately delete it from their computers. Emails > demanding deletion of the memo contained "pixel trackers" that notified > human resource managers when their messages had been read, recipients > determined.

Has the Dragonfly memo leaked publicly yet?

</comment><comment><USER46> >Emails demanding deletion of the memo contained "pixel trackers" that notified human resource managers when their messages had been read, recipients determined.

The surveillants are becoming so paranoid that they are now surveilling themselves.

</comment><comment><USER47> "Don't be evil"

History will judge them poorly for this.

</comment><comment><USER48> Google is already a creepy organization. Android is intentionally designed to leak like a sieve, they are stalking people 24/7\. No one at Google can pretend they are not building invasive surveillance systems, they can only hand wave it away and attempt valiantly to 'normalize' it.

Whether it is amazon and its work practices, Google or Facebook the common factor is there are thousands of employees willing to do their bidding without protest, without mass resignations, without whistle blowers.

Its difficult to believe that after decades of posturing about freedom and liberty there is only one person in technology who had the guts and integrity to stand up.

Everyone else in spite of knowing what these companies are upto are lining up to sellout. What these discussions do on technology forums is perpetuate the illusion that people care and gives apologists and sellouts an opportunity to normalize, diminish and dilute the implications of surveillance and stalking.

</comment><comment><USER49> Let's forget childish arguments of who will do what to punish Google. Noone will do anything; Congress in US is unable to call in top execs to answer questions, meanwhile EU $5B penalty is a slap on GOOG wrist. They may as well start a child kidnapping ring tomorrow and it would take years before any LE would get to the bottom of this in such huge corp.

Users won't stop using Google because its good enough. Advertisers won't stop paying for AdWords because these yield good enough results. But Google purpose is not finding information; it is rather to search thru a huge mess (that loosely organized internet is) and find info to a good enough extent. So other than Duck Duck Go, who is working on search and what other alternatives do we have today, and will have in the near future, please?

Anyone?

</comment><comment><USER42> There are a lot more they can track than the search history. Google maps app has a timeline feature that tracks every place I go :)

<comment><USER13> You can turn that off here, FYI: [https://myaccount.google.com/u/1/activitycontrols](https://myaccount.google.com/u/1/activitycontrols)

<comment><USER50> I've turned it off, but I found out that it removes a very useful feature: I can no longer set a home or work address. Why is this? You could've easily just stored those two addresses and not track everything else. They are clearly incentivizing the user to turn on activity tracking. Now instead of just typing in 'home', I have to input the entire address.

<comment><USER51> Yes, this bugs me too. They are also discouraging users like me from using maps at all, which is fine. Their app, their rules. maps.me, here we go maps and osmand all work reasonably well. Sometimes they aren't very good at finding addresses, but you can usually get the coordinates from an address using a separate tool or a web-search.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Do more evil

<comment><USER52> "Don't be evil unless it's scalable"

<comment><USER53> Evil is trivially scalable, it just needs to be rebranded as good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Make sure they don't catch you doing evil

</comment><comment><USER55> At what point did they scratch out the "don't" and just switched to "be evil"?

</comment><comment><USER56> Google is a private company. Google can do whatever it wants.

</comment><comment><USER52> _Emails demanding deletion of the memo contained "pixel trackers" that notified human resource managers when their messages had been read, recipients determined._

Not very nice being tracked is it? I hope that will be a wake-up call for everyone at Google.

<comment><USER57> Many google engineers already knew that a great deal of information was being collected on them.

<comment><USER52> But this will bring home the reality of how it can be used against them. Just as they have helped to gather information that could be turned against ordinary people very easily.

<comment><USER58> Everyone knows that you can be fired or worse if you're caught leaking. It's part of employee training and there are many reminders.

(Clearly, it's not working, but this is a wake up call for nobody.)

<comment><USER52> _Everyone knows that you can be fired or worse if you 're caught leaking._

But that's not what's happening. They are being reported to HR for even reading it or being aware of it. _That's_ why this is relevant. Just like the way Google tracks people everywhere on the web, and would gladly sell their browsing history to employers, insurers, anyone.

<comment><USER59> Do you have a link to Google's website where I can buy someone's browsing history? You did say they would sell it to anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Google being google. It's strange people are still so shocked by what google is.

</comment><comment><USER24> Google's new internal motto must now be: "Be _more_ evil."</comment>


Vyapam scandal : India punishing student cheating - <AUTHOR> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyapam_scam

<comment><AUTHOR> They need a more wholistic admissions / high tuition local alternative to the pure merit based entrance tests. Or maybe some people should just send their kids abroad to private schools instead of paying for cheating.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Reduced middle class corruption is one silver lining to the surveillance state</comment>


Second edition of the OpenStack Cookbook released - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1782167587/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1782167587&linkCode=as2&tag=anystackercom-20

<comment><USER2> For 60 dollars, I'm not sure if a book is worth that price.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. The kindle edition is $16.50 tho: [http://www.amazon.com/OpenStack- Computing-Cookbook-Second-eb...](http://www.amazon.com/OpenStack-Computing- Cookbook-Second- ebook/dp/B00FZMREUM/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382126588&sr=1-2)

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, available on Safaribooksonline.</comment></comment></comment>


LLC vs C-Corp, What should a startup go with? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> What are your big concerns? Taxes or liability protection? If liability protection, the answer will vary by state but the corporation will usually give you better liability protection than an LLC.

From a tax perspective, the IRS doesn't recognize the LLC as a business entity type. If you own a single-member LLC you'll be taxed as a sole-proprietor by the IRS & pay income and self-employment taxes on the net taxable income of your LLC. If your LLC has more than one member you'll be taxed as a partnership. An LLC can elect to be taxed as a corporation, either C or S.

An advantage of the S Corp is the losses will flow to your personal return. This is likely to be most beneficial in the earlier years when you're pumping money into the company. As long as you have sufficient basis in the company, the losses are deducted from your ordinary income on your personal tax return.

The taxation of LLCs vary by state too. Some states have a low franchise tax on LLCs. CA, on the other hand, has a $800 minimum tax on LLC (and corporations). The franchise tax in some states is based on gross revenues so be aware of that if you expect to have low-margin product.

Take a look at <http://www.biztaxtalk.com> for more on taxation of various entity types.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you an American citizen or a legal resident? Are your co-founders as well? If both answers are yes, go with S-corp instead of C-corp initially. Why? Well, it allows you easier filing, pass-through taxation (you won't get taxed twice like with C-corp) and best of all, you can easily convert S-corp into C-corp by filing a single form (if you ever raise VC funding).

No VC will ever invest into LLC and converting LLC to a C-corp is a pretty involved (and expensive) process.

If you're a foreign national or have a foreign national as a co-founder, you should go with C-corp.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am an American citizen. Thanks for the info, its really confusing and there seems to be a lot of conflicting arguments on this matter. I am looking for outside investment not specifically VC, but probably eventually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In most cases, I'd advise initially starting out as a Limited Liability Company of the state in which you reside. The main reason for this is that you (and your contributors) can get tax write-offs for investing in your startup. Also, it's much cheaper and easier to set up than a corporation, and provides a great deal of legal protection for your co-founders. There's really no reason to bother with an S-Corp, since an LLC essentially has all of the benefits and far less drawbacks.

However, most VCs won't fund an LLC for a number of legal reasons. If your LLC is planning to pitch to VCs, I'd recommend incorporating (into a C-corporation) before doing so. Sure, it will cost you a few thousand dollars in legal fees and paper work, but I don't know of any VCs that don't require incorporation first.

Also, I'd recommend incorporating in Delaware, since Delaware law is extremely forgiving to new startups. There's a reason why so many businesses are registered in that state...although, many startups have been incorporating in California recently as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> LLC is probably cheaper and easier and more flexible and better for you tax- wise if you plan on having revenue and profit. It does get expensive quickly to do anything complex with your corporate structure as an LLC.

You need to be a C-corp to raise money from a venture capitalist.

Do it in Delaware or make sure your home state doesn't have an enormous franchise fee.

<comment><USER2> Forming your LLC or corporation in Delaware will not protect you from the $800 minimum state tax if your business is located in California.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can I visit your office in London this Friday?  - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I am moving to London in December and I will be looking for a job as a Product or Marketing Manager.
I will be in town this weekend to visit flats but since I arrive Friday early morning I though it would be great if I could visit some startup offices, grab a coffee with some people in the industry so I can get a feel of how the startup industry function in London.
You can reply here or send me an email, my details are in my profile.
Cheers, <comment><USER2> If you're here this weekend you should check out:

<http://www.silicondrinkabout.com/> <http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/>

(Incidentally if you're looking for a flatshare @simoncast who co-runs the ProductTank meetup is looking for a new flatmate - see his twitter for details)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I forgot to mention that I would be attending SMR on Saturday and maybe Sunday too.

Regarding the flatshare, I'm moving to London with my GF but thanks for the though!

Cheers,

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Welcome to London!

Check out Google campus - <http://www.campuslondon.com/> . The cafe is a great place to meet London startup people and there are always events going on (<http://www.campuslondon.com/events/>).

If you're here till Monday night, check out Burger night - <http://thestartuptoolkit.com/blog/burger-night/> It's just a casual dinner for local founders.

I might not be around this weekend, but email me some time if you want to meet. I'm a solo founder - no office (yet) but happy to meet for coffee/beer. My details are in my profile.

Edit: totally forgot about Silicon Milk roundabout, thanks ig1! You couldn't be visiting at a better time, knes.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll be in Shoreditch friday morning so I'll definitely visit the Campus Café. Too bad I'm leaving monday morning, I would have loved to attend the Burger Night.

Thanks for the tips!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Your email is not displayed in your profile. You have to put it into the description field if you want it to show up.</comment>


Ask HN: I run windows 7 and OS X, how can I best promote IPv6 - <AUTHOR>

Given that we are very near IPv4 address exhaustion, what can we as consumers do to help promote IPv6? <comment><USER2> The exhaustion of IPv4 addresses is not a problem for the general public to fix. This is a problem for ISP, datacenters and corporation that insist on using public IP addresses where a private IP address scheme would suffice. The consolidation and privatization of IP address blocks is the only way to extend the life of the IPv4's limited resources. In my opinion those efforts are better spent migrating to IPv6.

So to answer your question doesn't worry about it and ignore the hype ... unless you are a network admin or architect that has assigned IPv4 block/s.</comment>