Amazon Prime video gives amateur how-to's, conspiracy theories a stage - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazons-video-library-has-grown-big-on-amateur-content-11579792605 <comment><USER2> Now that everyone and their dog appears to be offering their own streaming service, we are right back to the "app store" days of competing on the basis of "total number of apps". Quantity over quality.

BlackberryOS and Windows Phone tried this tactic by offering incentives for developers to build on their platform. The result? A veritable deluge of Bible apps, dictionaries, websites wrapped as native apps, you name it. Both BB and Microsoft were so desperate to get the total app numbers up, they did close to no quality control, and pretty much every garbage app went through unless they had blatant copyright violations.

With user reviews eliminated from the big networks (I have Prime and haven't seen any user-written reviews in the UI), all we have to go on is the all- knowing algorithm to recommend what to watch next.

<comment><USER3> When I was still in school Microsoft would show up like once a semester and throw a "Build an app party". They'd give you like 90% of the code and files need to make a really simple slot machine app (no real money, if you ran out you tapped the get more coins button or something). It took like 15 minutes to finish the app, and if you published your version in the MS app store they'd give you like $600 in free MS hardware right then and there.

It was great, I did it every semester.

<comment><USER4> Here I am wishing they had showed up at my school. Out of curiosity, what hardware did they give you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is far smaller a stage than an open internet has given people, some of whom use it for far worse things than either Amateur How-To's or Conspiracy Theories. The solution should be to education society, not lock down information flow to protect society. For kids it is a bit different, but that's on the parents to protect their child and no amount of technology is going to fully counteract neglectful parenting.

<comment><USER6> > The solution should be to education society, not lock down information flow > to protect society.

I'm not convinced the experiment we've performed over the past ~15 years is bearing this out.

<comment><USER7> It's hard to say. I think it's more that society has changed and become less tolerant.

The sorts of G-philes we used to distribute without a care over BBSes in the 80's get people arrested today.

There was an article in the local newspaper a couple of months ago about a guy being arrested for sending someone bomb-making instructions over the internet. We did that all the time. Even plans for how to make a floppy disk explode inside someone's drive.

The Anarchist's Cookbook didn't cause mass terror in the 20th century. I wonder if it's even available in libraries anymore.

<comment><USER8> > I wonder if it's even available in libraries anymore.

I just checked my local library, and they currently have a copy on the shelves that I could check out. It doesn't even seem to be "adults only".

I've never actually seen a physical copy before (only photocopies of some pages that my friend asked me to "hold onto for him" and PDFs). Now you've inspired me to check it out next time I'm at the library.

I know for sure that the PDF of the 2000 version by the Jolly Roger is still available online though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >After inquiries from The Wall Street Journal, Amazon took down "Endgame" and two other videos from Mr. Jones—all self-uploaded, according to the company—citing violations of company policy. The company's content policy focuses on issues pertaining to the sexually explicit, violence and copyright infringement, but it gives Amazon leeway to disallow anything it deems inappropriate.

Another successful shakedown.

</comment><comment><USER10> Netflix has some similar content, like the recent series about Goop: [https://collider.com/the-goop-lab-review-netflix-gwyneth- pal...](https://collider.com/the-goop-lab-review-netflix-gwyneth-paltrow/). I'm disappointed by both companies. I can't imagine these kinds of moves drive revenue in a meaningful way, but they have a lot of (social) downside by legitimizing harmful views.

<comment><USER11> Yes, let's have Netflix and Amazon decide what is a legitimate view. If you don't like it don't watch it. Unless these films are actively calling for violence (I dont know if they are) I don't see what the problem is.

<comment><USER12> Both private bookstores and public libraries curate their offerings selectively. This isn't the Internet Archive, the equivalent to the Library of Congress or another institution that stores everything.

<comment><USER13> I don't know the details, but I believe the Internet Archive has some minimal filtering now as well, beyond their normal DMCA compliance. For a while they seemed to be the host of choice for extremist propaganda, ISIS videos and the like, but from what I've heard they did something to crack down on that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> To be fair, Netflix also has a bunch of conspiracy theory shows in the "documentary" section.

<comment><USER15> For example, "Behind the Curve" about Flat Earth Proponents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> How dare someone provide an open forum and allow individuals to investigate and use their own critical thinking skills? It goes against the principles of our constitution.

<comment><USER17> You say that as though people aren't susceptible to influence form malicious actors spouting propaganda. It's pretty clear that the current state of affairs allows a greater degree of emotional and psychological manipulation than has been possible in the past. That rather undercuts your idea that rational people can bring their critical thinking skills to bear on it and cut through it. It's simply not how human psychology works.

All of which is somewhat besides the point and off topic from this particular issue: When Amazon Video started out, it was not an open forum-- it was not YouTube. Part of its appeal was that it was a somewhat curated selection of content. Watering that down with content that takes more time & mental effort to sift through the crap isn't really a great experience or what drew people to the platform. Believing Amazon shouldn't do that is hardly a blow against free speech or something.

I also fail to see how curated content somehow goes against the values of the constitution. Every news paper, book publisher, TV channel or other media outlet, ever, has exerted editorial discretion over the content they choose to make available. Believing that model to be superior to a "fire hose" approach is not inherently anti-constitutional.

<comment><USER18> > You say that as though people aren't susceptible to influence form malicious > actors spouting propaganda

People are sheep and require benevolent shepherds. A viewpoint that has successfully been instituted throughout time. Who shall this aristocracy be? Those with the most potential liability and deepest pockets? Sure. I present you believe in Plutocracy, even if you profess not to, by your own circumspect explanations.

Unsurprisingly, this has been par for the US since always (more or less).

<comment><USER17> Stop acting like there's only one extreme or the other. It's a simplistic world view that ignores that most things exist in shades of grey. There can be reasonable places in between extremes, and defaulting to an extreme just shows that you lack imagination or willingness to work through hard problems.

<comment><USER18> > Stop acting like there's only one extreme or the other.

I have accurately described your views, which is how most of the US votes.

Hand waving in denial, is not uncommon. Good luck with that.

> It's a simplistic world view that ignores that most things exist in shades > of grey

That's why it takes MULTIPLE steps to get to that point, which I went through. Take another look at my post.

"Do people need to be protected from other people's speech?" Yes, to some degree there needs to be watchers. "who gets to decide what is 'acceptable'" The watchers are those with the most resources to watch the people.

> defaulting to an extreme just shows that you lack imagination

I present that you lack comprehension of your own viewpoint.

My "failure" is that I have not given you a solution that you find acceptable, which meets your expectations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Amazon is shooting themselves in the foot here. Prime Video is already mediocre so adding more crappy content just brings their average down.

<comment><USER20> Do you compare streaming services by their average video? I just like the ones that have the content I want to watch, extra crappy videos don't really seem to get in the way since I never notice them.

<comment><USER19> I judge services based on how difficult it is to find something entertaining to watch. Frequently on Amazon Prime I spend more time sifting through piles of trash than actually streaming content because aside from a small amount of decent original content it's a mess. Between that and content which is not included in the service but presented in search results I've pretty much given up on the service outside unless I know exactly what I'm looking for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> OMG this complaint is 20 years old. It is true of every new thing on the Internet since the beginning of the Internet.

</comment><comment><USER22> The other day I started to watch a pretty crappy documentary about the founding fathers. I was surprised how it could be part of prime video given its low-quality writing and filming. Now I understand, I guess Amazon is positioning the service at just above YouTube when it comes to quality.

<comment><USER23> YouTube is very heterogeneous. By far the highest quality content I've ever encountered has been on YouTube. You just have to know what to look for. The lowest common denominator is always going to suck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> [http://archive.md/1pzuJ](http://archive.md/1pzuJ)

</comment><comment><USER25> How does this compare to Youtube? There's no barriers there.

</comment><comment><USER26> Don't forget Netflix, who is hosting Anti-Vax shows and movies and causing immense harm.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wait till the Wall Street Journal hears about the religious channel.

</comment><comment><USER28> Paywalled

[https://archive.is/1pzuJ](https://archive.is/1pzuJ)

</comment><comment><USER29> When the media and establishment are repeatedly caught misleading the public, the result is the proliferation of conspiracy theories and a culture of distrust. Alex Jones isn't the answer, but neither is he the main problem. The problem is corruption in the mainstream media. That's far more pressing than grassroots videos that while probably incorrect at least challenge people to question what they're told.

I think there's a general and growing distrust of media that feeds into people like Alex Jones' popularity. I don't know how many of those people take him 100% seriously vs how many are just happy listening to an outsider that's taking shots at _known_ corruption.

<comment><USER30> Can you give me an example of "media and establishment are repeatedly caught misleading the public"? Are there documented cases outside of Fox news? Its a genuine question.

I thought the rest of the main stream doesn't lie and if they realize what they reported is wrong they retract and issue and correction/apology as needed.

My impression is the whole "media is lying" is a narrative furthered by Fox, right wing talk radio and more so Trump now to discredit the good institutions and to bring their trust level down.

<comment><USER31> Remember CNN sharing debate questions to Hillary before a primary debate?

Edit: source for the downvoters [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Brazile#Sharing_debate_q...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Brazile#Sharing_debate_questions_with_Clinton_campaign)

<comment><USER32> From that link, it seems to be "rogue CNN contributor" rather than CNN - indeed, they forced her out 3 days after her leaking was revealed. Am I missing something that indicates it was a larger CNN issue above and beyond a single rogue contributor?

<comment><USER33> > Am I missing something that indicates it was a larger CNN issue above and > beyond a single rogue contributor?

No, you aren't missing anything. No one says that CNN as a whole committed a grand conspiracy to assist Hillary with questions. However, each one of those "rogue CNN contributors" reflects poorly on the company as a whole, and the image of the whole media outlet as trustworthy suffers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why not take down books too? What if Alex Jones publishes a book with the exact same content? Why does the video get zapped, but the book doesn't?

<comment><USER35> Because these people don't read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Any non-paywall link out there?

<comment><USER37> Open the "web" link in private mode, then click the article.

<comment><USER36> I might be misunderstanding, when i open the link in private mode it behaves the same as it does in non-private.

<comment><USER38> On Firefox and Chrome the paywall is in full force in private mode. Not just you.

I'm not sure if disabling javascript still works. It used to.

Also, pasting the link into archive.is used to work, but I think that hole got plugged some months ago as well. [checking] Oh wait no, someone got it to work. Here:

[http://archive.is/1pzuJ](http://archive.is/1pzuJ)

<comment><USER36> Excellent, thank you! I didn't realize this was possible, appreciate you taking the time to educate me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> What is more dangerous, Alex Jones saying there are chemicals that make frogs gay or all major news sources saying that Iraq had WMD?

<comment><USER40> Jones was not completely wrong. The chemicals don't make the frogs 'gay' but they definitely severely mess with their sexuality

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842049/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842049/)

<comment><USER41> Alex Jones didn't just say there are chemicals in the water turning the frogs gay. Alex Jones said the government was deliberately putting chemicals into the water as part of a chemical warfare operation to increase the homosexual population and reduce birthrates, and that the frogs turning gay was the proof.

It doesn't matter that he was a little bit wrong about the actual effect of the chemicals on amphibian sexuality, he was _very_ wrong about his actual claim, that being that gay people are bioweapons in a secret program of mass human genocide.

<comment><USER33> While Alex Jones was undoubtedly wrong on that one, I believe the source of his misinformation didn't come out of nowhere. Which is exactly what the parent comment was trying to illustrate. Take a few pieces of truth, fill the gaps with wild imagination and emotionally charged responses, and you get Alex Jones and his content.

Back in the 90s, US Air Force Research Laboratory was indeed working on a halitosis bomb that would do exactly that - turn those impacted by it gay.[0] As far as the wikipedia page goes, it seems like they didn't succeed in producing an actual halitosis bomb (and I have zero reason to believe otherwise, but I bet some Alex Jones supporters might disagree with me here), however it was included on their 3 pages long proposal paper for possible nonlethal chemical weapons. Which proves that there was some research on it and that the intended purpose of the hypothetical "gay bomb" was to use it as a nonlethal chemical weapon.

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_bomb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_bomb)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I, for one, welcome our new government overlords. Me and my family feel completely incapable of judging the truth or falsehood of claims based on evidence and testing hypotheses.

<comment><USER43> I'm not saying the government is always right, but are you saying you are? Have you tested the hypothesis that the earth is round? That we landed on the moon? Where does your line between self-evident and requiring testing lay?

<comment><USER42> Admitting ignorance until proof is presented isn't a bad state.

The problem isn't being ignorant; it's being certain of things that turn out not to be true.

Unfortunately, this appears to be most of what people have been led to believe.</comment></comment></comment>


Pokemon Go: here's how to choose one of three evolutions for Eevee - <AUTHOR> https://www.vg247.com/2016/07/16/pokemon-go-heres-how-to-choose-one-of-three-evolutions-for-eevee/ <comment><USER2> Here are some more pokemon go Hacks: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvdYP4a9Q7k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvdYP4a9Q7k)</comment>


Do these conjoined twins share consciousness? - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/5916013/do-these-conjoined-twins-share-consciousness

<comment><USER2> If you show picture to one head. does other one know what it was?</comment>


Breakthrough Research Papers and Models for Sentiment Analysis - <AUTHOR> http://blog.paralleldots.com/technology/nlp/breakthrough-research-papers-and-models-for-sentiment-analysis/?utm_source=forum&utm_medium=group_post&utm_campaign=Hacker%20News%20 <comment><USER2> Really nice blog. Cutting through lot of bullshit in web today. Tough to find quality blogs. Thanks. This will give me great pointers for the reading sessions we have.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting... I wish there was a dataset like ImageNet for standard text analysis tasks...

<comment><USER2> True, big and standard datasets have revolutionized vision research

<comment><USER2> But this has its cons you know. Lot of the work these days are just improving state of the art. IDGAF about sota man. New ideas should flow not architecture tweaking lol</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A Speed Reading Bookmarklet - <AUTHOR> https://gun.io/blog/openspritz-a-free-speed-reading-bookmarklet/ <comment><USER2> Change the name. I'm pretty creative and am usually able to come up with at least a somewhat plausible argument for either side on any question, but here I can not even come up with an idea for how to even begin to search for an argument that the name you have chosen, "OpenSpritz", for your program that clones the functionality and appearance of the "Spritz" app, from "Spritz Technology, Inc." is not an infringement of their trademark, which they have been using in commerce for several months (according to their filing with the trademark office). Even if I had a holocaust cloak and a wheelbarrow, I would have no idea how to make a plausible argument in your favor.

If "spritzing" were a common term for presenting words one at a time, then maybe there would be the beginning of an argument, but as far as I can see this has never been called spritzing before they came up with that name.

ps: nice bookmarklet

<comment><USER3> You definitely could have been less sensationalist in your advice.

Something like, "Looks like you might be infringing on the trademark of a company that produces a similar product. You should consider changing your name to avoid legal complications."

<comment><USER4> Weasel words don't improve the advice.

<comment><USER5> Just as body language dictates much of our communication, so does tone. I would therefore argue that it does in fact improve communication and therefore advice.

<comment><USER6> Also, why must we only use the bare minimum language to convey the point? We're not allowed to have fun with words and add some personality? Ok then, direct me to the grey overcoats and I'll join the single-file line of subjugated masses shuffling their way towards death.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > OpenSpritz is in no way affiliated with Spritz Incorporated, the developers > of the Spritz reading system.

This is nicely done but i don't think you should use their product name as a part of your own product name, even if its open source.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps 'OpenSpray' to keep with the theme?

<comment><USER9> To keep the ideas coming, how about OpenSpreeder?

<comment><USER10> OpenSodaProseccoCampari

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been using something similar called "Spreed". It's an extension for Chrome and it's been super helpful for me to actually retain the things that I've read.

[0] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/spreed-speed- read-...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/spreed-speed-read-the- web/ipikiaejjblmdopojhpejjmbedhlibno)

</comment><comment><USER12> Why do people insist calling this "Spritz-like" like it's something new invented by Spritz? Just google on RSVP technique for speed reading and you'll find a million of references and implementations. Even wikipedia has an article[1] citing >50 years old research.

Nothing new there, just walk on.

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

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Happy to answer any questions if you have them!

Also, if you find sites which it doesn't work with, please report them here so I can triage them:

[https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenSpritz/issues/8](https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenSpritz/issues/8)

Project source code:

[https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenSpritz/](https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenSpritz/)

<comment><USER13> What are the words centered on?

<comment><USER14> According to the official Spitz app which this is based on, the red letter is the letter that's left of the letter at the center of the word.

Not sure on the scientific reasons but that left-of-center-letter as the focal point supposedly helps with the speed reading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's a similar project that literally just popped up (two hours ago). Spritz-like reading as a Chrome extension.

[https://github.com/ds300/jetzt](https://github.com/ds300/jetzt)

</comment><comment><USER16> Made the same thing yesterday: [http://www.davidhampgonsalves.com/spritz-like- rsvp-reader-bo...](http://www.davidhampgonsalves.com/spritz-like-rsvp-reader- bookmarklet/)

HN will probably see a lot of these in the next few days.

Edit: Some users requested keybindings and I found them useful(pause, skip, rewind, etc).

<comment><USER17> I was going to comment to say ability to pause/rewind would be awesome. Seems like you've already done that! I also like the interaction of selecting the text you want to speed-read.

One thing that might be interesting, is a shortcut to jump to the article where the current word is. This happens when I want to glance at a paragraph above, and don't want to rewind all the way back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> You should definitely also checkout [http://www.beelinereader.com](http://www.beelinereader.com) to hack your reading speed.

<comment><USER19> This is actually pretty amazing. When I speed read, I usually use my finger to set the pace ahead of my eyes which is REALLY hard to do on the computer. Since I'm used to using a finger as a guide, I often find myself skipping over lines/words @ 400-600 WPM on the computer. This appears to solve that problem. Thanks for the link!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hehe, you've got to fix it working on that page! ... everyone is going to press that button.

<comment><AUTHOR> I knowwww! It's Readability's fault. I've opened a ticket and they've actually been very responsive about fixing it. Something to do with SSL.

For now, you can just select the text you want to Spritz.

<comment><USER21> Rich, if you'd like help with clean text extraction, ping me at john at diffbot.com. I like the Spritz concept and we'd be happy to support your bookmarklet through free API calls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Here's a nice book on the biological apparatus of reading: [http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-Science-Evolution- Invent...](http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-Science-Evolution- Invention/dp/B003H4RAOU)

One idea that I've yet to see anyone try is to increase letter size as distance increases from the highlighted letter on either side. Presumably as the fovea is centered on the highlighted letter, resolution for letters farther away decreases gradually, so increasing letter size may compensate for it. I'll be trying this soon for my iOS speed-reading app ([http://velocireaderapp.com](http://velocireaderapp.com)).

<comment><USER23> I bought two speed reading apps earlier this week - didn't realize yours did epubs. More important than increased letter sizes, I think, is the redicle. I hope you add it to your app.

<comment><USER22> That is the patent-pending bit, unfortunately.

Here's the Spritz patent application: [http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20140016867](http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20140016867)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Instead of choosing WPM from the outset from a drop-down, how about having a default start WPM and being able to change the WPM with keyboard shortcuts while you're reading?

With this as in most reading I find myself slowing down in some parts and speeding up in others. With keyboard shortcuts one could keep one's eyes on the text while tweaking the speed.

The keyboard shortcuts for the speed could be =/\- or 0-9, like for the Autoscroll bookmarklet:

[http://tim.theenchanter.com/2008/08/autoscroll-in-safari- fir...](http://tim.theenchanter.com/2008/08/autoscroll-in-safari-firefox.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> Since there seems to be a nice collection of speed reading bookmarklets and extensions being shared on this thread, I want to toss in mine as well: "Read"

The chrome extension can be found here: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/read/aiijjeoekhpdp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/read/aiijjeoekhpdpfcnejiganpaaacdodko)

Github home is: [http://github.com/jamestomasino/read_plugin](http://github.com/jamestomasino/read_plugin)

Comments and feedback for improvement would be appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER26> Most of the speed reading extensions listed in the comments use one word at a time. Maybe its just me but I find it very disconcerting since word lengths change causing a flashing experience. When I read I like the continuity of the sentence or phrase. Maybe in addition to selecting wpm there should also be an option of phrase length. I did an informal test and found that I could read faster than 400 wpm when reading the original text but found it tough to maintain context when using 300wpm using the bookmarklet

<comment><USER27> Mine has phrase-length, plus some highlighting to help keep your place in the text.

[http://qwerjk.com/force-feed](http://qwerjk.com/force-feed)

<comment><USER24> Really well done. This is precisely the tool I've been looking for for a long time. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Nice! As I mentioned in the original Spritz thread, I've just released an android app[0] that does something similar. Think I'll use the positioning concept from (open)spritz to improve things.

I do wonder what the Spritz team were doing for 3 years. Like the OP, it took me a couple of hours late one night to get to basics working.

[0][https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hughesoft....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hughesoft.speedy)

</comment><comment><USER29> It doesn't seem to play well with Pocket but the text selection feature helps when it doesn't. Well Done!

I would love a pause button for when you're disrupted while reading.

</comment><comment><USER30> While I don't have a Google Glass, I could see this being the ultimate reading interface for a device like that.

<comment><USER31> Google Glass is not centred as far as I recall, I imagine it'll put quite a bit of strain on your eyes to read any significant volume of text from top- right corner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Hate to say it but this is awesome. Exactly what I was hoping to find as soon as they announced. Change the name, or perhaps give them the code and they can release it if they see fit.

</comment><comment><USER33> This felt really revolutionary! I love it.

Started testing it on 200 WPM, but quickly went to 500. Tested out 750 WPM and was amazed that I got the entire text at this speed.

</comment><comment><USER34> I think I'll certainly give this a try in places where I remember.

Such a shame I can't see it working for pdfs, I could save hours reading research papers.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a big use case I'm interested in. Unfortunately, browsers can't read selected text of PDFs at the moment.

I'd suggest "printing" to HTML and then Spritzing that, but it's suboptimal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm not easily impressed, but this blew me away. You can have very good understanding of the text and still read blazingly fast.</comment>


Apple rejection of Indigenous app described as symptom of 'digital colonisation' - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-17/apple-drops-indigenous-app-creator-warns-of-digital-colonisation/8032904 <comment><USER2> From what I can see this app lets you scan an AR marker (that you apparently have to buy) and then it plays back a movie. End of functionality.

I'm sure the actual movies are decent enough, but as an app there's hardly any functionality and it does look like it violates Apple's policy.

This has nothing to do with 'digital colonisation' and everything with rejecting shitty money-grab made-in-an-afternoon apps.

<comment><USER3> really not enough information to judge on...

All we have is "Apple [..] expect[s] apps to provide a really great user experience" vs this low-res screenshot of some video or animation (can't even tell which and there is no UI visible) [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-17/a-screenshot-of-the- in...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-17/a-screenshot-of-the-indigital- storytelling-app/8034620)

As you said, if the app part is starting a video that could just as well be on youtube, there is no use in it. If it has a decent interface to discover different videos, it can make sense. But we can't know based on the spare facts we have and for this I blame that company, not apple. Even on their website there is not a single screenshot showing the app...

edit: so they mapped a video on to a business card with unity... [http://www.indigital.net.au/single- post/2016/11/09/Indigital...](http://www.indigital.net.au/single- post/2016/11/09/Indigital-Storytelling-App-is-in-the-App-store-vortex)

<comment><USER2> The app is available for Android if you want to try it.

<comment><USER3> thanks. indeed very very unspectacular. I personally prefer the android store, where anything can be published, but can understand how apple says the app part of this thing has no value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This makes me wonder if Apple could let more of their app selection process be a crowdsourced function? Outside of illegal content or porn I can't imagine why Apple should block anything on content grounds to satisfy their 'walled garden' protective goals, and cultural content like in the OP is certainly relevant to the indigenous communities involved.</comment>


The Rotting Stink of Corporate IT - <AUTHOR> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/article.php/3828966/Developers-Kvetch-The-Rotting-Stink-of-Corporate-IT.htm

<comment><USER2> I dropped off after the first couple of paragraphs - was there anything there worth reading?

<comment><USER3> In my opinion not really. The whole article boils down to "CTO's should allow corporate developers more time to develop rather than rushing them because rushed programmers produce bad code"

It's not a bad point but to my eyes it's an obvious one. What programmer hasn't been told to do code right the first time so it's easier to maintain? And since she didn't provide any suggestions on how to get CTO's to do this or how to justify the initial expense to management the whole article comes across as just a rant.

<comment><USER4> There's nothing wrong with a rant, although I would have liked a longer one with more substance.

I think there are a lot of other factors involved that contribute to the corporate IT stench, like the true motivations of IT management, bad programmers, and good programmers.

I often feel I could/should write some blog posts about this kind of stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Article fails to live up to its title.</comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on my startup for devs - <AUTHOR> The landing page is here: https://www.slugbay.com
Is it clear from the Landing Page what you can get from our product?
We aim to fix 3 key issues we found when looking for resources.
1. Find an exhaustive list of available and up-to-date resources quickly (think Google Search but only for Developers); 2. Help devs pick the right resource among many options with the help of the community; 3. Easily collect these resources and build a personal library (current tools to curate content are not designed for devs - i.e, select bits of code, keep the syntax highlighting, etc.)
What do you think? Plse share your thoughts. <comment><USER2> > Please activate javascript

No that does not make it at all clear what I could get from your product.

A dedicated search engine for devs sounds good. Sometimes a keyword might be so common that you don't get good results from a generic one (I'm thinking of "make"). I doubt I would register though because I'm not very interested in the other features.

</comment><comment><USER3> I understand what you are doing, but i am not sure why i would use something like this. We (developers) spent years to perfectionize our google foo and have platforms we are used to where talk to other developers and exchange resources.

From your intro i see no benefit for myself, just that i should pay for something that already works near to perfect.

You may want to work on that factor, maybe show some more of your features so i can see a real benefit?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for your feedback. I'm interested to know what sites/sources do you currently use to exchange resources?

<comment><USER3> Hacker News :), Reddit, a few Slacks and IRC.

Next to various newsletters, but these are not exactly exchange.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thx! Same here ;)

I have multiple sources I've curated over the years... but I don't keep track of all of them. That's why we created SlugBay. I want to rely on it to help me find good resources and store them whenever I need them.

IMO - Finding resources is somewhat easy (it just takes time) but finding the _right_ resource is way more challenging.

The Search Engine is just an entry point. First, we're building a database with dozens of curated sources like HN, dev blogs, aggregators, repos, newsletters, etc.

Then, we build a community to help us curate those (already) hand-picked resources. The invite-only process is just to help us choose the right developers. We need to have enough relevant content before opening the floodgates.

In the long run, we want devs be confident they can find and pick the right resources for them on SlugBay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The search functionality sounds interesting if, somehow, it actually finds things that Google doesn't, but there's no way I'd sign up to something (regardless of price; even if it's free) to try out a search feature. Google is good enough. I don't _need_ to give out my email address to search for things, so I won't.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback. How do know if the results/resources you get from Google are good or fit with what you are looking for?

<comment><USER5> Usually because I continue googling until I find something that is helpful. Its a tautology, however if you could demonstrate/tell more about how your system is faster than googling I would be interested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are companies that do each of these steps better than you can possibly do it. Search for a smaller problem within a tight community, so you can take it over and expand from there.

E.g. if you want to do something about resources or packages, fix a problem that npm has, take the whole community, do the same with pypi and so on.</comment>


SmartThings hackathon - <AUTHOR> https://howsmartareyourthings.splashthat.com/# <comment><AUTHOR> The shuttle will pick up at our SF office, 2 blocks from Embarcadero BART. It will depart on Saturday 5/21 at 8am (timed to get you to the event on time), and will return on Sunday 5/22 at the event's end.

</comment><comment><USER2> The page mentions there is a shuttle service, where does it pick up from and when does it run?</comment>


Free course on developing iPad applications from CMU's HCI institute - <AUTHOR> http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/computing/2012/winter/ipad-course.shtml <comment><USER2> Not only is it a badass iOS programming course "co-taught by top industry developers" (hint: they work for a large company intimately familiar with the platform), but the main focus of the course is also on using the iPad for visualization of large datasets. It's a pretty creative and exciting course in my opinion (disclosure - I'm the TA). The course website is here: <http://hci- ipad.org>

<comment><USER3> Can you describe differences between this and the Stanford course outside of iPad focus and data presentation?

<comment><USER4> Is there a Stanford course in iPad development?

<comment><USER5> It's the CS193P. The lecture videos are on iTunesU.

<http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi-bin/drupal/>

[http://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/ipad-iphone-application- dev...](http://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/ipad-iphone-application- development/id473757255)

I'm "taking" it right now, so I should get back to work instead of reading HN :) I like it so far. If you have prior experience with object-oriented programming, it is a good resource. The basics are enough; understanding the concepts of classes, methods, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know why iTunes U lectures are almost always out of order? This course lists lecture 3 SD first and lecture 3 HD last for example. Seems like it would be simple to have things ordered in a sensible way.

<comment><USER7> A simple but sad explanation would be that it is dependent on the reviewer, or more likely reviewers, over at Apple. E.g. if Sandeep finishes reviewing faster than Nikolai, then those lectures will go up faster.

The Apple "new improved textbooks and courses" thing suffers from the same problem, I had a look at one (on geometry and trig) and things were out of sequence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there an equivalent android course?

</comment><comment><USER9> Is there any way to download this when I don't own an iOS device?

<comment><USER3> iTunes runs on Mac/PC, so yes. But you'll need a Mac to program iOS devices (for Xcode).

<comment><USER9> Ah, thanks, I didn't know I could get it on iTunes, even though I avoid installing it... I know I'll need XCode, I just wanted to see what ObjC is like.

<comment><USER7> I believe there's a free (as in freedom) version of Objective-C out there, I think it runs on Windows and Linux.

Check out the book by Stephen G. Kochan

The caveat of course, is that Cocoa (an Objective-C API used for making interfaces) is very Mac/iOS specific.

So you may not be able to write _Cocoa_ code on Windows/Linux even of you download... (it might be) OpenStep?

But your gcc should compile Objective-C sans Cocoa.

As for XCode, like most Apple side-projects it tends to gather dust in darkness, until one day they come in and change everything around, just because they can. In 2007 it was pretty good if you wanted a stripped down lean and mean coding IDE which still had access to a lot of features.

Contrast that to the Java IDEs of the time which seemed to be saying "FEATURES! WE HAVE FEATURES! GET YER FEATURES HERE! Never mind about that coding crap, have you seen our FEATURES!!!???".

Eclipse was a particular offender, cramming your interface so full of buttons and tabs and tabs of tabs and templates of tabs of tabs and views of tabs, and buttons that the actual coding area on a normal monitor was like unto a postage stamp. (It got better, but vestiges of the feature-mindset-disease remain)

Anyway, I'm less impressed with the current version of XCode than I was with the one from 5 years ago.

Primary attractions of Objective-C

Memory management Message passing (which is what all those square braces are about) Long method names which increase readability at the expense of not being able to remember what the heck the function you wanted to call is named so you have to keep referring back to the documentation Did I mention the squirrelly syntax?

From a pattern point of view they use the delegate pattern a lot, e.g. The Window handles the Windowy stuff, but for those things you are most likely to want to customise it passes them to its delegate.

That way you 'never' need to actually subclass anything, you just plug delegates in everywhere.

<comment><USER9> That's very interesting, thank you. I might have to plug in my disk with the backup OS X install and have a play, then...

<comment><USER7> Today I remembered what was the most tantalisingly interesting thing about XCode back then - the distributed compilation. The idea that you could have a team of people and my computer would steal spare cycles from yours (and vice versa) when mine was compiling and yours was sitting there waiting for you to hit the next key...

I never had anything large enough on XCode for it to actually matter enough to me to get it working though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it possible to setup an iPad dev environment in linux?

<comment><USER11> The short answer is no. You really need a mac to run xcode on. Yes, you can google hackintosh but it's not worth the effort. If you are on a budget, then get a mac mini.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This really is the future-- having great universities on tap like this!

I remember when I was in my teens having a great deal of interest in things and not being able to get access to materials-- the tiny university in my town had a library that was a goldmine for me, but in retrospect was very small. I remember often having to wait weeks or months to get specialized knowledge that I knew was out there but that wasn't readily available.

This course is great news. I'm a longtime iOS developer, but have to have my head in the server side of things so much that I appreciate these courses as a refresher.

Also coming to appreciate the iTunes U App. I just downloaded Stanford's Machine Learning course in the format last night. (This is the same course that was given for free last year, same instructor, but the one in iTunes U's new course format is from 2008, not sure why.)

Love having the homework and being able to check things off so I can keep track of how much of the course I've completed.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't think universities should teach this. This is not science.

<comment><USER7> Universities also teach philosophy, and it isn't science either.

Of course, as we can see from the Philosophy of Science courses, that philosophy is actually more important than science, because philosophy is more meta.

That is to say, without philosophy you wouldn't know which approaches to doing science were better than others.

To solve that, you'd need to invent a "science of science", or a "science of thinking about science", or a "science of knowing stuff"...

...at which point you're simply reinventing the epistemological wheel as it were.

Also, universities teach art, medicine and architecture, all of which (or so I've been told) have some marginal redeeming value.</comment></comment>


Python is now Blub! Run! - <AUTHOR> http://arvindn.livejournal.com/91103.html

<comment><USER2> Oh no, the [programming language I favour | band I like] is now mainstream. Well, I [use the more obscure features | prefer their older albums].

I [am a much better coder | have way better taste] than those other people anyways.

<comment><USER3> I liked [band I like | programming language I favor | dinosaurs] when they were still underground.

<http://xkcd.com/460/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> False premise. Google chose Python as the first language for GAE because it would be the most appealing language _among the programming languages already used at Google_. It has nothing to do with "being a language widely used and understood by the masses".

Javascript/Rhino would be also a cool choice, but I think that is what Steve Yegge is working on.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Because if you want to do a startup, you should have some reason to believe that you are several times more productive than the average programmer, an order of magnitude even."

Uhh... what? Who said that?

<comment><USER6> I would hope my organization was several times more productive per employee of an average company. I wouldn't put all my faith in it being the direct result of a specific programming language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Even worse, he's writing blog posts in English! (the same language used by millions of semi-literate people)

<comment><USER8> "millions." "semi-literate." haha...you made my day.

<comment><USER9> now. now.

<comment><USER10> Sorry, accidentally down voted. Slippy fingers clicked to fast.

<comment><USER9> sorry, accidentally up voted.

<comment><USER9> someone downvoted my accidental upvote :)

wow.

there goes a loser.

<comment><USER9> loser

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What about Bluby..err Ruby? :D

well, if i look on the situation more seriously, python is more popular than ruby, and ruby has some features that make it a tiny bit more powerful in some situations so if the author if such an underground freak, he can use ruby for a few months until it becomes Bluby too.

<comment><USER12> Python more popular than Ruby? To me it always seemed that Ruby and Rails are more popular.

<comment><USER13> I would say that RoR is more popular than, say, Django, but that Python the language is more popular than Ruby the language.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, thats what i meant. Do you use ruby for scripting blender or anything else other that RoR? Do you use it for scientific computation? Do people use it for shell scripts and small games, or GUI apps?You can do that with ruby, but for me, people learn ruby because rails is popular, python doesn't have that one big killer app, people learn python because its generally fun and useful for many stuff.

<comment><USER14> I think this is a great indicator of whether a language is a success: Do people learn it because its generally fun and useful? (Versus, do people learn it because of corporate PR, or because it's the accepted/official way to do [X])

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If it were true, Guido at least would be happy (how much more "blub" can you get than "programming for everyone"?)

Unfortunately, it isn't true at all. As it stands, no one but hardcore web app enthousiasts use Google Apps. That hardly makes it mainstream, I should think.

<comment><USER14> Is OOP a Blub-level paradigm now? I suspect that it has been for awhile now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> You can't say that a language is Blub. It becomes Blub only if the programmer using the language fails to realize that there are more powerful languages. It has nothing to do with mainstream or not.

<comment><USER17> Every language is Blub to someone. What do Haskell types think about Lisp?

<comment><USER10> Common Lisp is ugly to look at. (Compared to Haskell or Scheme.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I didn't understand if the article is ironic or not.

</comment><comment><USER9> could lisp be blub for something else? if yes, what is that something. if you think not, why not?

<comment><USER19> X is blub if there is a language which is more powerful than X and you can't understand that the "extra stuff" in that language is actually power, as opposed to meaningless stuff.

For example, an argument could be made that Lisp is a blub, because of the libraries problem. I'm not a lisp user myself, though I'm learning Scheme, so I don't know for sure if the libraries problem is an actual problem. But if it is, you could say that Lisp is a blub for Python, because while Lisp users are spending their time inventing a DSL that's incompatible with everything else, Python users type 'import awesomelibrary' and get the job done.

So, really, it depends on your notion of power. In pg's original Blub essay, power is Lisp-y-ness (or macros, perhaps), so by definition Lisp can't be a blub. But if your notion of power is something else, maybe it can be.

<comment><USER20> Specifically, the Blub idea applies to _language_ power. You could build python's libraries in Lisp, but you can't build a macro in Python without changing the language.

On the other hand, Lisp isn't at the top of the theoretical Blub hierarchy. Users of erlang can to some degree look at lisp as a Blub - what do you mean there's no lightweight concurrency, and you can't start millions of threads and have the messaging just managed? Lisp is broken! A language with Lisp's (lack of) syntax and erlang's concurrency might be able to look down on both.

<comment><USER19> "You could build python's libraries in Lisp"

Then why doesn't someone do so?

<comment><USER20> Just because one could do something, doesn't mean one will do something. I'm not arguing you should use Lisp over Python, merely that the strength of libraries is not a language feature per se. Clearly, it's one of the most important things to consider when picking a language, but it's not a feature of that language any more than how helpful the people in that language's IRC chat room is, or how good the documentation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wait a minute. How did he come to this realisation? Did he just suddenly INVENT it? Did he just MAKE UP that graph? Because to me, it sure seems that way. He does not backup his assertion that python is now in the middle of the programmer world.

</comment><comment><USER22> "This doesn't mean that I'm going to start programming exclusively in Lisp from now on—the libraries just aren't there."

What libraries does he need that "just aren't there"?

</comment><comment><USER23> Python became blub the second the "one true way to do it" mantra was conceived.

<comment><USER24> Blubbiness is not a property of the language per se. Is it the phenomenon that you don't recognize if an unfamiliar language is _more_ powerful than the currently most powerful language you know. The more powerful languages just seem bizarre are annoying. But you immediately recognize when a language is _less_ powerful than one you know.

Therefore many developers think they are using the most powerful language in the world ("Blub").

So if Python is the most powerful language you know and you don't understand the power of eg. Lisp macros or the Haskell type system, then Python is Blub for you.

If Lisp is you favorite language and you don't understand the power of the Python readability, the concept of "one obvious way" and so on, then Lisp is Blub for you.

<comment><USER9> the assumption is that languages vary in power, and furthermore that lisp sits pretty high on this power ladder. let us assume further that lisp is more powerful than python (i think that's safe. in this forum anyways). so to say that python readability makes lisp blub sort of implies python is blub to you. unless, of course, you think python is more powerful than lisp.

my question is, what leads people to believe lisp is so high up on the language power scale?

ps: incidentally, macros are all about readability. if you took all the macros out of your program and substituted them by their macro expansion (by copying and pasting) you would end up with exactly the same program. exactly. it would just be less readable ;)

<comment><USER24> I assumed the definition of blub from the original PG essay, which argues that Lisp is near or at the top of the power scale.

I don't really believe in a linear power scale though. Some languages are strictly more powerful than others, but there are also (i believe) different axes of power. I mention Haskell, Lisp and Python because they are three very powerful languages, but powerful in different ways. If you think that any one of them are strictly more powerful than the others, then its probably because you don't understand the power of the other.

<comment><USER9> i don't know what you mean. could you provide an example? let's take lisp and python. in which "axis" is python more powerful and how? (i'm talking about core language features).

<comment><USER24> The power of Python is a consequence of a design with focus on clarity, readability and consistency. GvR understands that code is as much communication to humans as instructions to the computer, and that code is read much more than written. This makes the language very productive, but is especially valuable when you have to read or maintain code written by others. It is easier to learn from each others code and libraries.

Related languages like Perl or Lisp with a focus on TMTOWTDI are more immediately gratifying because you can easier tailor the look of the language to your personal preferences. This however have a long term cost to maintainability and sharing in the community.

The power of Python is an emergent property caused by readability and clarity combined with the network effect in the community.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mobile app or Web app? - <AUTHOR> I run a small mobile app development studio. Since last 6 months, we are seeing increased demand for web application inquiries while a huge decline in mobile apps inquiries.<p>I think this trend will continue in 2018. What do you think of it? <comment><USER2> I think the average business gets no advantage from a mobile app as opposed to a web site. The average user gets an active detriment since I find "apps" are frequently harder to use than web sites, are less frequently updated, less complete, buggier, etc.</comment>


How private is your email? Not very - <AUTHOR> http://blog.slidemailapp.com/how-private-is-your-email/

<comment><USER2> > Other than rolling our own email server, another solution is to use paid > email alternatives ...

Actually there are a lot of very strong free alternatives which seeks to protect privacy and security of the users.

ProtonMail [1] is a very promising one, for example. The entire mailboxes of the users are encrypted so that even the sysadmins cannot read them.

And there are the likes of Riseup [2] and autistici [3], providing e-mail and other web services for activists, they intentionally refuse to provide data about the users when requested.

And there is Mailpile [4] project as a client.

All of them run on donations.

It also is good to observe after Snowden that it progressively becomes a common knowledge that "if a product is free, _you_ are the product".

\---

[1]: [https://protonmail.ch](https://protonmail.ch)

[2]: [https://riseup.net](https://riseup.net)

[3]: [http://www.autistici.org/en/index.html](http://www.autistici.org/en/index.html)

[4]: [https://www.mailpile.is](https://www.mailpile.is)

<comment><USER3> The main problem I find with these smaller email providers is the uncertainty of their future - they can easily disappear the next day, because they ran out of money or simply lost interest, and then you're f.cked. With Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft you can be at least sure they'll provide their email service as long as possible.

<comment><USER2> Which is exactly the reason that I have provided rather well-established examples.

Protonmail is developed by a group of people from MIT and CERN, and they raised more than half a million in their crowdfunding campaign [1]. They take the matter so seriously that its co-founder has talked about privacy at TED Global [2]. And riseup has been providing e-mail and VPN services for activists since around 1999.

Just check the links for more information.

The point is that if you take privacy and security _really_ seriously, it is not very hard to find people just as serious as you.

\---

[1]: [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/protonmail#/story](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/protonmail#/story)

[2]: [http://www.ted.com/talks/andy_yen_think_your_email_s_private...](http://www.ted.com/talks/andy_yen_think_your_email_s_private_think_again)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _It's not entirely clear if this only applies to the free Gmail offering or also the Google Business App offering._

This is entirely clear:

 _No. There are no ads in Google Apps Services or Google Cloud Platform, and we have no plans to change this in the future. We do not scan for advertising purposes in Gmail or other Google Apps services. Google does not collect or use data in Google Apps services for advertising purposes. The situation is different for our free offerings and the consumer space._

Source: [https://support.google.com/work/answer/6056650?hl=en](https://support.google.com/work/answer/6056650?hl=en)

<comment><USER5> So they do read it… just not for advertising?

<comment><USER6> Yes, of course they read it, they must get it into your screen, that counts as "using data."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Uhg. It's 2015 and there are _still_ blog articles (honestly) asking this?

"It's not entirely clear if this only applies to the free Gmail offering or also the Google Business App offering."

[https://support.google.com/work/answer/6056650?hl=en](https://support.google.com/work/answer/6056650?hl=en)

There is absolutely no value in this article, other than self-promotion.

</comment><comment><USER8> Do iPhone/US Gmail users really see ads in Gmail on their mobile devices? Not sure whether it's because of our privacy laws here in Germany, but I've only ever seen the (quite general) ads on the webinterface where I've opted out of profiled ads I guess.

<comment><USER9> UK, iPhone 4s, GMail app.

You have to go to the promotions tab to see the ads. Ads don't appear in the other tabs.

[http://imgur.com/FtxsmhA](http://imgur.com/FtxsmhA)

<comment><USER8> Ah! Guess this is due to me not using the "multiple email tabs" feature of Gmail then. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The issue of ads are a red herring, if you don't control the server, and aren't using end to end mail encryption, your emails aren't private in the sense the author intends: someone else's server is parsing your emails and has accesss to the plaintext. If it's not parsing them for ad keywords it's parsing them for spam filtering or for IMAP search indexing or it's a service that supports web mail and so it has to sanitize the messages to prevent XSS.

Honestly this blog post reads like an ad for SlideMail disguised as community PSA. People interested in mail security should choose more secure options than just avoiding server side processing.

End to end is the only real way to go for personal 1:1 messages you need kept private.

</comment><comment><USER11> To summarize the blog post- The solution to free email is paid email. And solution to email clients is to read privacy policy.

It would be a cool post in 2007 when Google described their ad policy for gmail, and we gladly accepted that. As of 2014, in post-Snowden era, the simplest solution to security and privacy is- end to end encryption. Or, if you have something better in your bag...

</comment><comment><USER12> email is still federated, I can start my own email system.. my friends can start their own.

assuming we have a good chain of trust between us, all communications are secure.

You know what you're signing up for with google, the services they provide are not the product.. you are..

everyone on hackernews knows this, surely?

<comment><USER13> > assuming we have a good chain of trust between us, all communications are > secure.

That is not correct - an SMTP server will deliver email to another SMTP server in the clear [1]. Your ISP or the ISP that the remote SMTP server is using can read it. Even then - running an email server from home has certain issues such as port 25 inbound blocked, or most email servers will drop email from residential IPs.

The only way to make sure communication is secure is to use an email certificate with encryption or GPG. These would have 2 benefits: the email would verify who it came from (email can be easily forged) and the contents would be encrypted.

[1] [http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/12087/if-i- send-...](http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/12087/if-i-send-an- email-over-ssl-will-it-always-be-transmitted-over-ssl)

<comment><USER12> Well, I'm actually a big advocate of PGP and encryption.

however, I know that SMTPd's (notably: postfix) will negotiate TLS where available, and you can configure it to fail if speaking plaintext.</comment></comment></comment>


NYC JavaScript User Group: First meeting, tonight at 7pm. - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/nycjs/browse_thread/thread/6348252c09dc4706

<comment><USER2> hm. a little bit of notice might have been nice :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd like to go. I haven't heard of this group before. There is no history other than this thread ont he group</comment>


Smuggle Truck: new iOS videogame about illegal immigration - <AUTHOR> http://smuggletruck.com The creators mention that it is a critique on the immigration system based on one of their friends. Seem legit but I wonder if creating a "controversial" app is an easy way to get attention for future apps. <comment><USER2> Uh, you honestly think they'll approve that?</comment>


VMware's virtualized Android phones coming to Verizon - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/10/vmwares-virtualized-android-phones-coming-to-verizon.ars

<comment><AUTHOR> There was a related discussion just a week ago.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3098050>

</comment><comment><USER2> I wonder why is virtualization needed to have multiple profiles in one phone... wouldn't it be easier to integrate that at OS level?

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone got any experience with this? I don't know anybody who knows anybody that uses this product.</comment>


Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals - semi-extrinsic http://www.bib.umontreal.ca/communiques/20160506-DC-annulation-springer-va.htm <comment><AUTHOR> "UdeM Libraries will renew access to 150 of the 2,266 journals included in this collection. The price we will pay for these individual subscriptions in 2016 is the same we were willing to pay for the entire collection."

So Springer still gets all the moneys they could have gotten anyway.

I totally understand why the library has to make such a compromise, but that's not a very strong bargaining position.

<comment><USER2> And it sounds like UdeM is not exactly pleased with Springer's pricing practices - added emphasis in []:

        "We are trying to best meet the needs of our community
        despite budget cuts in the last few years, the
        [greediness of commercial publishers], and the weak
        Canadian dollar," said Stéphanie Gagnon, Collections
        Director.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wish universities would take the lead in forcing open the journal monopoly. It would be really great if a major university like Stanford or Harvard said to its professors: You may publish anywhere, but you must also publish it for free to the academic community. Until a major university or five takes a stand on this, the rest of us must continue to fight.

<comment><USER4> > You may publish anywhere, but you must also publish it for free to the > academic community.

Is this possible? When publishing in a journal, I think you transfer your copyright to them; thereby preventing you from publishing the article any other way.

Although as far as I know many journals allow a "pre-print version" to be published by the authors on their personal website.

<comment><USER5> > When publishing in a journal, I think you transfer your copyright to them

That is correct. I have done this for every publication I've ever put out (O(10)). There may be exceptions but this is certainly the dominant paradigm in the physical sciences.

My two cents: this is bigger than any University. It will require a government funding agency (likely, NIH or NSF) to take a stand vis a vi the public availability of research produced by public funding.

<comment><USER6> Since a few years ago, any EU or UK public funded research (which is most university research) must be published as open-access. It is a requirement of the funding. So this is already happening. However, it will need to be done by a greater proportion of the world to be effective.

The only problem is that the method of open access publishing is usually to pay a few grand to the publisher for the privilege.

<comment><USER7> That can be a lot of money. E.g. elsevier charges $5000 / article : [http://www.cell.com/rights-sharing-embargoes](http://www.cell.com/rights- sharing-embargoes)

And that is money that should be going to research.

<comment> semi-extrinsic I completely agree. I've said it before, pay-for open access (aka. "gold open access") needs to go die in a fire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think forbidding professors and staff to participate in reviews and volunteer work for commercial publishers whilst on University time, or say that it is a conflict of interest which compromises their ethical duties to the University, would make Spring and Elsevier suddenly realise that there entire model is in jeopardy.

It would be hilarious (at least to me!) if all Universities suddenly did this due to the outrageous pricing. Or, and this would be an interesting turn of events, they demand that they be paid for supplying free labour. They could use that payment to purchase access to the journals.

It's time for commercial publishers to realise that they are getting a free ride, and that the free ride is ending. They might complain, but the only ones who they will be able to blame are themselves for their predicament.

<comment><USER9> Many journals offer an open-access option for publishing. However, this is chosen after the article has been reviewed and accepted. So, currently there isn't always a way (for a reviewer) to know if an article will be published open access or not.

Edit: added "for a reviewer"

<comment><USER10> Not for Springer though, right ? From Springer FAQ ( [http://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/authors-rights/faq- ab...](http://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/authors-rights/faq-about- authors-rights/2114) )

"I don't want to transfer my copyright. What should I do?

You can choose to publish your article open access in Springer's Open Choice program or one of our SpringerOpen journals. Publishing an article with open access leaves the copyright with the author. The article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY), which allows users to read, copy, distribute and make derivative works from the material, as long as the author of the original work is cited"

<comment><USER9> But the reviewers have no knowledge of this choice (nor should they really).

The parent was suggesting that Universities bar their faculty from reviewing papers unless it was an open-access publisher. I haven't published in a Springer journal, but others have the authors make the open-access determination only after the paper was accepted. In which case, the _reviewers_ would have no idea about if they were reviewing an open-access paper or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Librarian fight!

" ... UdeM professors and researchers that are concerned about these changes are well positioned to make a difference. They can, for instance, express their disapproval (see Springer contacts for UdeM below), refuse to review articles, or support open access publishing. The greatest risk for publishers is that people start questioning their access to this free research output and volunteer workforce as well as their business model."

<comment><USER8> The only sort of fighting I really can get behind, to be honest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> University of Montreal should provide a link to Sci-Hub on their main library search page. Their students would appreciate it.

<comment><USER13> Or just have a lecture about it in every required freshman ethics course, which would have the same effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The journal publishing model may have made sense before the Internet became widespread, but now it's just a business that allows a few publishers to make bank from academics who are both doing the work (writing papers) and curating the content (peer review), all for _free_!

<comment><USER15> So the peer reviewers usually aren't paid? I thought many were.

<comment><USER14> Nope, we get sent papers to review and are expected to read and send a report of them without compensation, as part of our scientific responsibility.

There have been attempts to speed up publication by offering cash bonuses ($20-$50) if you return your review in a timely fashion (as you can imagine some reviews take a really long time since there is no hard incentive to do it) but these amounts still pale in comparison to the several hours or more that you are asking of an expert's time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > "We are trying to best meet the needs of our community despite budget cuts > in the last few years, the greediness of commercial publishers, and the weak > Canadian dollar,"

Money's short, thus expenses have to be cut somewhere. Very understandable.

> UdeM Libraries will renew access to 150 of the 2,266 journals included in > this collection. __The price we will pay __for these individual > subscriptions in 2016 __is the same we __were willing to __pay for the > entire collection __.

So... you _save literally zero_ zilch nichts, except you now hold 85% less things. In other words, this whole action is meaningless.

Also,

> A survey conducted recently with the university community established that > only 256 titles (or 11.6%) within the Springer collection are needed for > research and teaching at UdeM.

That rubs me in a wrong way, you don't know wether you can use a paper for your own research or teaching until you've read it, meaning until your _need_ for it has been satisfied. (edit) Lucky stumbles do happen, and I generally don't like the idea of scaling a scientific library down. Strictly speaking, UdeM's library actually continues to grow, only at 15% of the previous rate, since old issues aren't being thrown out. But we seem fine relying on (economic) growth as an accurate measure of well-being, so why not apply it here? Then remember the non-existant economic advantage (which should be around an 85% payment cut), and the whole thing stops making any sense.

Depending on which and how many branches a university has, 256 journals can mean a whole lot or ridiculously little literature about each subject. I don't know UdeM, so I can't judge them.

Add the little sentence

> Springer's articles end up being 225% more expensive at UdeM compared to > Elsevier's.

and this whole move starts stinking like there's no tomorrow.

(edit) That last sentence may be a bit harsh, but I do believe this should not be taken at face value (something's missing).

(rewordings)

</comment><comment><USER17> Why not just fully automate the interlibrary loan system to eliminate human intervention? Have it accept a DOI, return the PDF, and automatically fill out any backend paperwork.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder how much this has to do with the francophonic Quebec culture. Montreal has two big universities, McGill and UdM. McGill is primarily English-speaking, while UdM is primarily French-speaking. French Canada has always been far more politically activist than English Canada - they shift paradigms without a clutch.

<comment><USER19> You're confusing UdeM with UQAM. UdeM is the more prestigious one by far, but it's also smaller than UQAM. There's at least 6 universities in Montreal, it's easy for outsiders to get lost.

<comment><USER20> Actually, UQAM trails UdeM in both enrolment, staff and research budget

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> University have to start mandating that their teacher's research be deposited as OA first, locally, before anything else happen. Teachers' evaluation should be judged based on what is found locally.

</comment><comment><USER22> While price gouging by monopolistic publishers is certainly unpleasant, the very same universities complaining about the issue raise tuition and fees disproportionately.

Save a few public universities, the Canadian and American universities operate just like the publishers they complain about.

<comment><USER14> As opposed to the many private institutions in the US, Canadian universities are all publicly funded and tuition costs a few thousand dollars at the most.

<comment><USER23> Where was mankash666 talking about private universities?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Elsevier...you are next.

<comment><USER25> Oh yes, I really wished it were true.

We're working in a small satellite institute, and we don't have direct access to an university-level subscription.

There are _some_ (single) journals we subscribe to, but for most of the articles we have no other option than to pay _per-article_. Doing background research this way is incredibly frustrating, incredibly time-consuming and you have to decide whether a paper is worth investing to just by looking at the abstract. Doing a literature review is hell.

So what we do, like everybody does, is to ask the authors privately, and copy articles whenever we can. Or ask colleagues that have access through an university subscription.

I actually don't mind for the "pay for open-access" model. On all the articles we published, we always picked this option if available. In the scheme of things, the cost of publishing is minor. In several fields (genetics), it's not even a blip on the running costs of a lab. I don't mind paying for journals that actually do a reasonable selection and review on the articles. Some journals _are_ worth the cost of publishing.

Unfortunately, this is not as widespread as it should. Keep copying guys... nothing new here.</comment></comment>


A Crispr future - <AUTHOR> http://thebulletin.org/crispr-future <comment><USER2> Far too many opinions shaped by bad sci-fi than by reality.

There won't be genetically altered sub-humans for menial labor -- we couldn't possibly pay them any less than the near nothing we already pay Bangladesh serfs. Not to mention we already can't employ enough people thanks to increasing automation. We can only be thankful that in the next few decades the robots will be even cheaper.

The "Gattica" scenario is essentially inevitable, however it won't be so bitterly divided. Crispr is too easy and cheap, the elite won't be able to keep it all too themselves for long.

Of course there will always be regular humans simply b/c they choose to stay that way. They will not be discriminated against for who they are, but they may find themselves struggling to keep their "habitats". Then again, if we ever get off this rock that might not be as much a problem either. It will be interesting to see if, 100 years from now or so, protected spaces are designed for regular old humans to exist undisturbed by modern man.

Our biggest concern should be the use of this technology by the military industrial complex. If we don't put a stop to those nuts, the future isn't going to matter in any shape or form b/c their isn't going to be one.</comment>


LocalFlow – Discover your neighborhoods - <AUTHOR> http://localflow.biz

<comment><USER2> If i need a smartphone for it, sorry, it's not my network.

Take it as a wish-list, I love the idea.

<comment><USER3> Just to brainstorm with you on this, so if not phone, what would it be? Suppose we could build any hardware, any form factor, with any sort of input to convey your wishes to it, and any sort of output to feed back the output of the "eval" loop of it (riffing off REPL) into any of the five senses (yes, let's include smell to...just for the purposes of an unconstrained brainstorming), how would you envision that? I have been thinking about a "hands-free headset" that just talks to you and you talk back. And I wonder how would "apps" look or function in an ecosystem if the only API available was to speech-recognition engine and a text to speech engine?

<comment><USER2> Well, I was just thinking about a laptop/desktop version.

I avoid smartphones (not by economic reasons) but I know I'm a unusual person.

Your hands-free idea sounds interesting!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That would make for a pretty neat integration with Navut[1], a local Montreal- based startup.

They offer data-driven information about neighborhoods that would be pretty cool to combine with the people-driven information that LocalFlow produces.

[1] [http://www.navut.com/montreal](http://www.navut.com/montreal)

<comment><AUTHOR> LocaFlow is an app style of Reddit / HN from the point of view of news which are posted.

<comment><USER5> I've actually been working on a website based around a reddit style of interaction between users and locations. I've focused on the web portion as I'm a web developer. I've only toyed around with the mobile portion so far. I wonder if a collaboration would be possible? I only want to broadcast the landing page on hackernews [http://www.nualt.com/](http://www.nualt.com/) But I have a fully functional site with maps, user accounts, posts, pictures, places, etc. Feel free to reach out if you are interested in talking more. email@example.com

Great work. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Many Thanks for your comment. We're actually focused on ios app improvement, and to release android and windows mobile version. A future api integration with your project is a good idea. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When's the android version coming out?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think a month is ready.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _``It was through the private world of family that the public world of politics came alive.´´

-Sonia Gandhi-_

This is a first. Never seen a startup quoting from a politician from India (not related to Mahatma Gandhi) in their landing page :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Someone finally did this, been thinking about an idea similar to this for services think angie's list mixed with this. Great work guys, waiting for the android version to give this a try.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, maybe there are many services like this one. But simplicity and non disclosure of personal data included Facebook Account, Twitter and etc.. are the main of this project.

Also this is totally focused on the News, rank, votes etc

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> here the video presentation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KrWI-3P_is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KrWI-3P_is)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm the author, happy to answer questions.

<comment><USER9> Downloaded this app with high hopes, but left quite disappointed. Sitting in Downtown Chicago and UI is completely empty except for one other "New User"

I think you should give more consideration to empty states, in particular for metro areas not SF (or where ever this currently has active usage) to encourage new users of your app to generate content. As it is now, I don't know what I should do or why I should do it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you're right, I really appreciate your tip. Other apps l usually generates fake content, and I didn't want to do that.</comment></comment></comment>


How Debian managed the systemd transition - <AUTHOR> http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/657345/a0ca846bdcbf6bf2/ <comment><USER2> I've been using Debian for about 10 years now and with all the FUD I was worried about the systemd switch, but its been largely uneventful for me.

The only bug I've noticed after switching to Jessie is that on one of my systems that has two NICs for some reason both NICs will occasionally end up with the same IP on both NICs. I need to investigate further to figure out the root cause but a reboot always solves the problem for a couple days. I'm confident its not a dhcp server issue.

I expected much more grief due to edge cases that weren't planned for but I've yet to find more than the dual nic issue.

<comment><USER3> That's good that you didn't experience any bumps in the road, but did you notice the supposed benefits of systemd yet? Namely faster startup times?

<comment><USER4> [http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest- myths.html](http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html)

Myth: systemd is about speed.

Yes, systemd is fast (A pretty complete userspace boot-up in ~900ms, anyone?), but that's primarily just a side-effect of doing things right. In fact, we never really sat down and optimized the last tiny bit of performance out of systemd. Instead, we actually frequently knowingly picked the slightly slower code paths in order to keep the code more readable. This doesn't mean being fast was irrelevant for us, but reducing systemd to its speed is certainly quite a misconception, since that is certainly not anywhere near the top of our list of goals.

<comment><USER3> > Myth: systemd is about speed.

Then what is it about?

<comment><USER5> Kernel encirclement and owning userspace.

Basically the biggest players in all this has long bellyached about fragmentation in the Linux ecosystem, and preached the wonders of monoculture (aka Windows and OSX).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting to me that debian has written systemd-shim, hadn't heard about it before.

I remember that for a while, the primary criticism I heard of systemd was that it would make software linux-only because of systemd dependencies (gnome was the primary example given) and that it was _impossible_ to write a compatibility wrapper. I guess the debian guys busted that myth.

<comment><USER7> BSD devs wrote a shim too for Gnome called systemd-utl (now system-bsd) at GSoC [https://uglyman.kremlin.cc/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=systembsd.git...](https://uglyman.kremlin.cc/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=systembsd.git;a=summary)

More info [http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140915064856](http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140915064856) it provides hostnamed, localed, timedated, and logind to packages that have this as a hard dependency.

<comment><USER8> Writing new implementations of the systemd interfaces for systems which don't use systemd seems reasonable, but I think it's interesting there was a need to reimplement the timedated interface on a system that does use systemd and supports no other init.

I wrote a replacement for the systemd-timedated service for Fedora. The reason was simple, it could no longer control other NTP clients than systemd- timesyncd (which technically is just an SNTP client). With timedatex, users can now enable and disable with the "NTP sync" checkbox in GNOME any NTP client as was originally supported by systemd-timedated.

[https://github.com/mlichvar/timedatex](https://github.com/mlichvar/timedatex)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> iso8859-1 Can anyone post subscriber links to LWN, or only liotier and corbet?

<comment><USER9> The LWN people have stated that subscriber links are okay because they can help drive new subscribers who might otherwise not know such context existed, but obviously they don't want people posting EVERY link. I forget where I saw this discussed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I saw my first "restart to install updates" dialog in Debian this week.

SystemD is cargo-culting Windows.

<comment><USER6> So you have not been rebooting when you update kernels up until now? That might leave you open to security vulnerabilities.

You don't specify which update tool you are using, but if it hasn't shown you that screen before that sounds like a bug.

EDIT: replying to digi_owl, as HN won't allow me to reply at a deeper nesting level.

> 1\. you can actually do a kernel update without a reboot now, using certain > tools.

To my knowledge, none of them are supported by debian, which was what the OP was talking about. Maybe he's using them, but then, it seems weird to complain about debian requiring reboots if he's gone to such lengths to prevent that problem in the past.

> 2\. dbus was a reimplementation in C of dcop, the KDE IPC system. It was > aimed at allowing desktop programs to talk to each other, not carry the > whole OS on its back.

I'm not sure what that has to do with anything in my post.

> 3\. drop the attitude. Or are you deliberately trying to derail the topic?

I'm not sure what attitude you refer to, it was not my intention to come off as hostile. Apologies to the GGP if that's how it sounded. I was merely pointing out that reboots for upgrades are not a new thing in debian, as the GGP seemed to be implying.

<comment><USER5> 1\. you can actually do a kernel update without a reboot now, using certain tools.

2\. dbus was a reimplementation in C of dcop, the KDE IPC system. It was aimed at allowing desktop programs to talk to each other, not carry the whole OS on its back.

3\. drop the attitude. Or are you deliberately trying to derail the topic?

<comment><USER11> _1\. you can actually do a kernel update without a reboot now, using certain tools._

Which Debian doesn't officially support, so they can't be expected to write update scripts for that use case.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


An online environment for interactively exploring programming languages - <AUTHOR> http://repl.it/

<comment><USER2> A working back button would be nice (to get back to language selection).</comment>


Isn't it Byronic? Don Juan at 200 - <AUTHOR> https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/isnt-it-byronic-don-juan/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here's one passage I remember after many years: Byron explaining how convenient it was for schoolboys that the editors of the classics had thoughtfully collected all the obscene bits in one place. They were too prudish to leave them in the text, but too scholarly to delete them altogether.

      Juan was taught from out the best edition,
        Expurgated by learnéd men, who place
      Judiciously, from out the schoolboy's vision,
        The grosser parts; but, fearful to deface
      Too much their modest bard by this omission,
        And pitying sore his mutilated case,
      They only add them all in an appendix,
      Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index;

      For there we have them all "at one fell swoop,"
        Instead of being scatter'd through the Pages;
      They stand forth marshall'd in a handsome troop,
        To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages,
      Till some less rigid editor shall stoop
        To call them back into their separate cages,
      Instead of standing staring all together,
      Like garden gods—and not so decent either.

<comment><USER2> This makes me now want to read the book, after sitting on my shelf for the better part of 15 years. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Only Cantos I and II were available in 1819.

XVI and unfinished XVII were available in 1823 and 1824 respectively.</comment>