React Native: A year in review - <AUTHOR> https://code.facebook.com/posts/597378980427792/react-native-a-year-in-review <comment><USER2> The React Native team has been doing phenomenal work and having just finished my first React Native app it's definitely the first kit I'd reach for if I needed to write a cross platform app.

However, I'm still not convinced that it makes sense to use a cross platform toolkit if the app is your primary product. If you just need some kind of mobile support for an existing business or service then React Native is a smart choice. But if the app is your bread & butter I think there are still too many drawbacks to working at an abstraction so far removed from the core native APIs.

And as much as JS has improved recently I'd still prefer to work in Swift or Java (or Kotlin) if I have the option.

<comment><USER3> I've tried a couple cross platform frameworks (mostly Xamarin and PhoneGap/Cordova) and am aware of some challenges there.

To me, Xamarin is like programming for each platform, just in C# and with another layer of bugs (and weirdness, I would say, and don't even mention Xamarin Forms). Of course, you get the possibility to share BL in a common layer, but pay for it in terms of instability and complexity to get stuff working native-like. Good for trivial GUI, BL-heavy apps I guess, but not for complex GUI, little shared BL apps.

PhoneGap/Cordova has some serious complications when it comes to predictable rendering due to the plethora of possible rendering engines you may encounter. Any non-trivial layout/styling can be completely messed up on different platforms, or even different versions of the same platform. Also it can be a challenge to achieve native performance and feel.

How would you say React Native compares?

It seems it could be more able to adapt to the platform compared to PhoneGap/Cordova, and easier (perhaps) to work with than Xamarin.

I'm considering using it in an upcoming project where both Android and iOS are required, and given my lack of iOS-experience, it seems like a good alternative.

<comment><USER4> I did a React Native iOS project last summer, and you should be aware that you do need to write a lot of native code to do non trivial things. Think of React Native as more of a view layer than a whole framework, and realize that JS is simply too slow to do things involving realtime reactions to sensor data (including touch) or images, sound or video.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For those interested, Facebook has a site [http://makeitopen.com](http://makeitopen.com) blogging about how they build F8 (Reactive Native app for iOS and Android) for their recent conference. Advisable to read only if you have some basic knowledge of React Native. Too many techs: React, React Native, JSX, Flux, GraphQL, Relay, Redux, Flow, Jest, Webpack.

One thing that is not clear is their direction with Redux vs Relay. In the F8 app, they're actually using both in separate portion of the app. I understand the guy behind Redux is now working for Facebook. Are they going to combine Redux with Relay? Or build Redux+GraphQL? Both techs has seemingly similar use case.

<comment><USER6> Relay and Redux serve different purposes.

Relay makes it easy to query for data that lives on the server and is backed by a schema. Redux makes it easy to map actions into a local state. In most apps you'll have a need for both.

The Relay team publish their roadmaps publicly. I believe there is a plan to eventually handle client state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A review that mentions no pain points at all reads a bit like an ad. It makes me feel suspicious. Such a big change in the way people build apps can't go without hurdles.

<comment><USER8> React Native uses a site called ProductPains for people to report the issues that they run into and upvote them, it can give you a good idea of what the problems are: [https://productpains.com/product/react- native?tab=top](https://productpains.com/product/react-native?tab=top)

In my eyes, the biggest pain points right now are: list views and complex gestures. List views don't recycle native views so memory usage can be very high (but there are some people working on solving this), and complex gestures just aren't really supported -- and by that I mean something like multi-touch to drag multiple slides in Keynote and a bunch of the crazy stuff that the Apple Maps app does (see [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBYPqb83C7k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBYPqb83C7k) for more info on this). Also potentially of interest, see these slides: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/fr46d25zfm6oaqu/philly.key?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/fr46d25zfm6oaqu/philly.key?dl=0) (warning: requires Keynote and 1.2gb because lots of video!)

<comment><USER9> This is probably a frequently asked question, but why doesn't React Native implement its own list views, rather than wrapping UITableView (for iOS) and ListView (for Android)? I figured the latter approach would be the best way to address things like recycling native views.

<comment><USER8> The short answer is that UITableView is an inherently synchronous API whereas the React Native bridge is asynchronous -- UITableView calls cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath: and heightForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath: and you need to respond synchronously with the view for and the height of that cell.

One of the problems with this is that under the current React Native architecture we would need to break the async bridge model by synchronously calling into JS in response to these methods. So some people are experimenting with a slightly different architecture that would allow us to respond to them synchronously from the main thread, which seems really promising :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Stupid question: anyone using React Native on Android in production (other than Facebook that is)?

Would you recommend using React Native instead of developing Android apps the traditional way if I don't already have experience with Android development?

<comment><USER11> 4 months with react-native, pretty unstable environment, lots of headache. Went back to native and happy.

<comment><USER12> Thanks. That cleared up a lot of doubts for me. I was in 2 minds, trying to start app development with native android or react-native.

I guess reading this thread makes me choose native android.

<comment><USER13> IMO if you can afford to spend double time rewriting your app for another platform, just use native and don't think twice. But if you are constrained, react native might be a good choice among current cross-platform solutions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there a 1,000 ft overview of React Native with a brief description of how it works, its capabilities and its limitations out there?

There's so much hype surrounding this framework, but also a lot of criticism and its extremely difficult as an inexperienced outsider to quickly determine whether or not React Native is suitable for a given project.

When I look at another cross platform framework like Qt, I can usually get a better idea of what it can do. But with React Native, its way harder to get that big picture because it seems like it wraps some native components but not all of them, etc.

Everything I read about React, especially from Facebook just seems like a puff piece. Because I know there are Facebook devs browsing this: please consider writing a proper summary.

<comment><USER15> Are you familiar with the benefits of React in general?

<comment><USER14> No, I'm not a web developer. I've tried reading some React articles. There are lots of points that are brought up again and again (diffing for minimal incremental updates, unidirectional flow, etc) that I find really hard to care about since I've never encountered them in the kind of native development I do.

<comment><USER15> Just because you aren't a web developer doesn't mean you can't dabble in web development. Take 30 mins to play with their starter kit [1] or just play around inside JSFiddle [2]. Now imagine being able to encapsulate your native components the same way.

IMO encouraging you to isolate state management is the biggest win. JSX and component-based abstraction are really fucking powerful too though.

[1]: [https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/getting- started.html](https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/getting-started.html)

[2]: [https://jsfiddle.net/reactjs/69z2wepo/](https://jsfiddle.net/reactjs/69z2wepo/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ionic2 + Angularjs2 stills looks easier in this case, i.e. for simple/non- performance-critical apps you can do angularjs then use ionic2 to get cross- platform apps, for native performance you stick with java/swift. I'm not fully convinced react-native is the (efficient and simple) way to go while I like React a lot.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's interesting to see how they are overcoming some of the issues that large projects experience when using GitHub. Their mention bot in particular ([https://github.com/facebook/mention- bot](https://github.com/facebook/mention-bot)) looks like a very attractive piece of software for teams using GH (open source or not).

</comment><comment><USER18> When trying it for Android it didn't feel like a help at all.

I still had to set up all this mobile dev environment boilerplate...

<comment><USER19> Hey, I work on React Native. I'm curious what you meant by setting up the dev environment boilerplate and how we could fix it. Was it the setup described here? [http://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/android- setup.ht...](http://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/android-setup.html)

<comment><USER18> Seems like it still needs a huge chunk of Android-SDK and VM and stuff. I was like "I'm doing React for a year now, lets try this on an afternoon", but then I had some issues that didn't even had something to do with React Native that prevented me from getting things running.

Well, maybe I'm too pampered from web-development, haha

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> One concern I've heard about React Native a few times is that the UX is not at par with real native apps. Does the React team understand why is so, and have a plan for fixing this?

Or is React Native consciously intended as a tradeoff between UX and development time?

</comment><comment><USER21> I hear lots of success stories with React Native but how come I don't see any recognizable names in the list of apps built with React Native? One possible explanation could be that the most popular apps can afford dedicated iOS/Android teams or have been around longer than one year.

</comment><comment><USER22> I know Google's Flutter([https://flutter.io](https://flutter.io)) is still in its infancy but can anyone comment on how it compares to React Native?

<comment><USER14> At the very least I don't think Flutter is wrapping native UI components. Flutter renders its own widgets written in Dart and using Skia as the underlying graphics library. So it seems more like QML in that sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> When will React support full CSS?

<comment><USER24> Quick example why its not supported: Lets say you are building an instagram style app. You need to render an image from network and won't tell the app its vertical height(Just like you would do in a webapp)

The app has to judge the image height after the image is finished loading from the network. If the second image loads faster than the first image, then UI has to push the second image further below to make space for the first image. This will make the app look jittery.

<comment><USER25> What has that got to do with not supporting CSS?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you're interested in learning more about React Native, I have published one of the most comprehensive and certainly highest reviewed tutorials here: [https://www.udemy.com/reactnative/?couponCode=4HN](https://www.udemy.com/reactnative/?couponCode=4HN)

I've had a great year with React Native. The number one selling point of the platform for me is productivity; I can create mobile apps and iterate on them awfully quickly compared to what I was able to achieve with native iOS (never worked on Android).</comment>


Show HN: Neutral – Combat climate change from your shopping cart - <AUTHOR> https://shopneutral.io/ <comment><USER2> Can't wait for you all to try our new updates! If you have any feedback, let us know what you think!

</comment><comment><USER3> Love the idea. Save the turtles</comment>


Ask HN: "How to make something people want?" - <AUTHOR> I've been banging my head against the wall trying to refine my target market. I have "ideas" of who they are, but without a network and/or platform to ask these people, it's all theory. Catch 22.
Are there websites that ask people what they want, in a useful, data gathering way?
My thoughts:
Imagine a site like yelp.com Users rate and comment on businesses based on category.
Our website would have two primary actions.
1. Producers list current or conceptual ideas/products/services.
2. Users/consumers give their opinion to help shape and refine the listing. "This is what I would want" type comments are encouraged, over simply saying "this sucks". In other words, consumers help producers make their concept not suck.
Use Case:
I would post a listing as a producer in the "internet services" section, listing my project as "powerful in browser website creation and management system". I might define my intended audience, then let users tell me what features I should add and how it might be useful to them.
Perhaps it would be like uservoice, without actually needing to build the product first. Also user voice requires that you have users. =D
Any similar sites? Any input on the concept? <comment><USER2> Can I give a suggestion? Get off the Internet.

I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean that the type of person who, when they have a problem, thinks: "You know, I bet there is some social networking service out there where I can post about this problem in a real pretty AJAX-y looking form and then Twitter about it to my friends" already has plenty of people solving their problems.

(They also make terrible customers, because one of their problems is that people keep asking them to pay for things, despite those things not being iPods.)

Instead of using the Web 2.0 darling, get out there and talk to Real People who have Real Problems. They work too hard. They don't see their kids enough. They don't make enough money. They are very willing to pay for solutions to any of the above three, but they might not even realize that solutions are possible! (99.9% of people who purchase my software never knew there was software available to do what it does until they got to my site, if you read their search queries.)

[Edit: Incidentally, don't ask Real People what they want. Ask them what their problems are. A lot of my customers see their problem as "I like playing bingo but it takes several hours to make cards by hand." You know what the preferred solution was for years? "I should spent a lot of money laminating the cards that I made by hand, so that I can use them again next year." It never occurred to most of them to ask for something that would make bingo cards in a few minutes for less than the price of laminating a set.]

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Patrick, I needed that.

Just read this post as well: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=750375>

Just to be clear, the concept outlined is not the concept I am pursuing, its <http://plusjade.com> . I just get distracted/discouraged now and then because "I am creating a website engine that makes websites". Who the hell needs that, how is it different from the other 2000 engines out there, and who is paying money for them? Of course I'm not dumb enough to NOT think about these things, its just...

yeah, I should talk to real people. Get it done.

Thanks!

<comment><USER3> Checked out your site. Have you tried going after a niche in the DIY website creation biz to differentiate your offering?

A thought...why not go after restaurants? Have a way to upload menu easily, a location with map info, maybe even online reservations. Fully outsourced, customizable and charge monthly.

When you do go outside, drop by restos and show them your screenshots (done in PS) and get real feedback. You can probably hit 10 restos in a day.

Note: this is just top of my head -- not sure if anyone is even doing this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I think you are spot on. I've tried to force myself to think in terms of b2b because business are willing to pay for stuff that works. I'll put together some market tests and go out and ask people. thanks again.

<comment><USER4> Agile Programming process makes sure projects gets done. There are dozens of other project management methods, yet there are only a rare few processes that lets you discover _what_ customers want, and how to get it to them.

Steve Blank developed a step-by-step, formal methodology to developing customers. Eric Reis's "Lean Startup" incorporates those ideas as well as others. Check out their blogs and get Blank's book. Why reinvent the wheel?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Any input on the concept?

For a first foray into business, I'd recommend against building something that requires network effects.

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

For every Facebook or Yelp, there's hundreds of network-effects-based sites that never gain any steam, and they don't see anything from it. Also, what you're talking about is notoriously hard to get money out of.

For a first business, sell something to people. Take Hacker News' own Patrick McKenzie* (patio11) - he sells Bingo Card Creating Software. His blog is here: <http://www.kalzumeus.com/>

He sells things to people. If he tries something, he knows right away if it's working - he gets bingo card sales. If no one bought his bingo cards, he would know it's not working and he'd have closed his site. You learn a lot about business by selling things to people, and it's got the most clear and insightful feedback.

<comment><USER6> It's like that old joke, that the first telephone was the hardest sell ( _who ya gonna call?_ )

Joshua Schachter (delicious founder) said something about network effects that really struck me: make something that has network effects, but which is _also_ useful and valuable even if no-one else is using it.

There's a related view that's applicable to my startup: make something that useful and valuable on its own, that can have _additional_ network effects if others are using it.

BTW: I've searched for where Joshua said that, but I've not been able to find it (there were three points). Anyone know which interview I mean?

<comment><USER7> [http://www.krisjordan.com/2008/09/17/joshua-schachter- lesson...](http://www.krisjordan.com/2008/09/17/joshua-schachter-lessons- learned-in-scaling-and-building-social-systems) Also this: [http://www.technologyreview.com/tr35/Profile.aspx?Cand=T&...](http://www.technologyreview.com/tr35/Profile.aspx?Cand=T&TRID=432)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the links, though the one I'm thinking of had them as three bullets points. Actually, it sounds like I may be thinking of a slide presentation, not an interview.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Two problems:

1\. Market: People don't know what they want til they see it.

2\. Development: You don't know what problems your idea has (nor their solution) til you see it.

It's an entrancing dream to anticipate all this stuff, which is what corporate _new market development_ and _new product development_ is all about. It's hardly effective (that's not how that corporation began anyway) - plus they are better at it than you.

Build your idea, hacker. Build it, and gaze upon reality!

<comment><USER8> "Market: People don't know what they want til they see it."

Ditto that. If people could figure out for themselves what would solve the issue they had, then they wouldn't need a start-up to provide it.

"Development: You don't know what problems your idea has (nor their solution) til you see it."

The military has some saying along the lines of "No battle plan survives the first engagement." And Bill Gates has said "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."

For me, three years of talking to people online with little in the way of results has convinced me that there is a huge information gap and this is what I need to overcome. But no one could "tell" me that. I just had to figure out why I am getting such poor reception (and so much hostility) for a solution to a problem that everyone desperately wants fixed. The solution I offer doesn't fit with their concept of what a solution should look like and they can't wrap their brains around it. There are two types of people who are relatively more receptive. Both groups are intrinsically less accepting of current dogma than is typical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Instead of making something people want, make something that you want first. Solve your own problem. 6B people in the world, I am sure someone will have the exact same problem as yours.

If your product could not get mass usage, at least, you will always be the user of your own product.

<comment><USER10> The biggest problem with this meme, that 37 signals seem to be a champion for, is that the kind of problems that hackers have are also pretty easily solved by the same kind of people. And so the hacker problem space is often over-run by others and open source software. A recent case in point: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=740789>

But take patio11's company, which solves a problem that none of us probably thought existed, the bingo card creator. Suddenly you have a nice big audience for a fairly simple program, but because it's the kind of problem that hacker community never comes into contact with it's nice and profitable.

So I'd be careful on following this advice unless you're a truly amazing hacker (e.g. afaik 37signal's guy wrote the rails part of ruby on rails). The bar is much higher in the hacker problem space and has to be because in the end, the 'I could write that in a weekend' syndrome often prevails :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Doesn't halfbakery.com do something along these lines?

The main problem I see with your idea is that consumers/users have no benefit or incentive to continually use your site.

They are providing their time and input on something that doesn't exist. People take time to provide input at Yelp because, in return, they can find a good restaurant. People vot on Digg because, in return, they find funny/interesting stories or videos.

You want lay-people to provide you with input but you're giving them nothing in return ... except the _possibility_ that a business they would use could exist in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link. I just conceptualized the idea an hour ago so I do share your concern for the users. I just remembered that launchly.com was a pretty close match. The concept is actually _very_ useful, but its clear launchly has just launched and the userbase is not very big. Also the pricing seems outrageous. But its a better implementation in that the sites have to already exist. This answers your question somewhat because you can offer users who provide feedback an upgrade to whatever the site it is they are reviewing. For example free access for a year or whatever. Thanks for the reply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't see this working out very well, unfortunately.

For one thing, although users can express needs and desires in very vague terms, they can't usually be specific enough to actually help someone that's trying to implement an idea.

I _think_ it was Guy Kawasaki that described this in "Rules for Revolutionaries", but it might've been Gladwell in "Blink" -- I don't remember now.

Anyway, you're usually better off making observations about behavior and then attempting to solve the problems that you see there. In this case, you could frequent web designer forums and the like, as well as the forums for competing software, and see what the most common complaints and requests are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I could see the _actual_ user feedback being nowhere near what the _intended_ feedback would be.

Great idea about frequenting your competitors forums! I actually religiously do this, and it is indeed extremely helpful. The only problem I have with this is I have no real idea if their target market is/should be my target market and of course, is the market lucrative? In other words, I might be optimizing a product that kicks ass relative to users of forum x, but are users of forum x even the ones really dishing out the money? Guess no matter what solution, you won't know until you just test the damned thing yourself. Thanks for the comment!

<comment><USER12> I think you'd be better off building a test version of your idea and then iterating from there.

You don't want to fall into the trap of talking about a thing and never actually doing it. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://steveblank.com/2009/02/23/theres-a-pattern-here/>

[http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven- Blank/dp/09...](http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven- Blank/dp/0976470705/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249825301&sr=8-1)

</comment><comment><USER13> This is more general than what you want but if you haven't read pg's 'why smart people have bad ideas' it's well worth it. <http://paulgraham.com/bronze.html>

</comment><comment><USER14> The main issue with that is the people who you target may not be the people who spend time on the internet looking for websites where they can rate your ideas.

</comment><comment><USER15> Make something YOU want. Hope you're "most people."</comment>


Syntax-Guided Synthesis - <AUTHOR> http://sygus.org <comment><AUTHOR> Program synthesis [1] can be used for a variety of applications, including superoptimizers [2] and programming by example [3].

[1] [https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3208071](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3208071)

[2] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.04422](https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.04422)

[3] [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/2016/12/pbe16.pdf)</comment>


SaaS Billing Guru - Learn about different SaaS Pricing Models - <AUTHOR> https://www.servicebot.io/saas-billing-pricing-models <comment> chupa-chups Crap. Just don't click, or some idiot will earn some money. Been there, done that.</comment>


Microsoft removes ReFS file system create option from Windows 10 Pro - <AUTHOR> https://www.ghacks.net/2017/08/21/microsoft-removes-refs-file-system-create-option-from-windows-10-pro/ <comment><USER2> I might just be drawing a blank, but is there any precedent for a company removing an advertised product feature and relegating it to a more expensive SKU? If so, have any such companies seen adverse legal consequences for doing so?

I couldn't immediately think of any.

<comment><USER3> Sony. "other os" yes

<comment><USER4> Microsoft might get a pass since you can still use your existing partitions, you just can't make new ones

Sony outright removed OtherOS entirely on a whim for both old and new users alike meanwhile

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The system engineers at my work have had a rough time since the Windows 10 rollout. Microsoft now have liberty to change features with zero versioning. Features are added and removed which traditionally came with big version changes. With no stability there's a constant amount of work that comes with upgrading the machines.

</comment><comment><USER3> "pro" ain't so "pro" anymore. "Enterprise" is the new "pro" so pay up!

<comment><USER6> One of the biggest joys of using an OSS operating system is never having to look at a product feature matrix.</comment></comment>


Yahoo Must Pay $2.7 Billion For Mexican Yellow Pages Contract Breach  - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/30/yahoo-worldwide-industries-ideas-interactivas/ <comment><USER2> Its worth noting this stems from a 2003 era deal. The value of Yellow-pages businesses has changed massively in the intervening years. Needless to say, they are no longer the cash-printing-cow businesses they were then.</comment>


Ask HN: Did you ever send a scan of your id via mail? - <AUTHOR> Did you ever send a scan or photo of your id/passport via mail to a third party?<p>What were the use cases? <comment><USER2> Verification for cc payouts.</comment>


How to Buy the World's First Crypto-Equity, ProtoShares - <AUTHOR> http://btcgeek.com/buy-protoshares/ <comment><USER2> I like this exchange, personally.

[https://www.cryptsy.com/users/register?refid=18976](https://www.cryptsy.com/users/register?refid=18976)</comment>


CeramicSpeed's chainless drivetrain now claims to be the most aero too - <AUTHOR> https://www.bikeradar.com/news/ceramicspeed-driven-most-aero-drivetrain/ <comment><AUTHOR> A working prototype of the CeramicSpeed chainless drivetrain that featured on here a few weeks ago ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20713358](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20713358)) has been fitted to a Specialized Venge.

It is now claimed to also be the world's most aerodynamic drivetrain, and a working shifting mechanism is in the works.

<comment><USER2> In-transparent bit.ly shortened link goes to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20713358](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20713358) (only a few characters longer)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have updated the comment to reflect this, cheers (:</comment></comment></comment>


FBI director says disinformation campaigns 'never stopped' after 2016 elections - <AUTHOR> https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/481727-fbi-director-says-foreign-disinformation-campaigns-never-stopped-after <comment><USER2> Disinformation campaigns never stopped since... -the 80's when they passed legislation no longer requiring news -to present both sides of the argument -the Cold War -the massive propaganda campaigns via news, radio, social clubs, and film and advertising of WW2 -the father of public relations Edward Bernays wrote the book in 1921 -the guy he stole most of his stuff from Walter Lippmann worked for the US on an unprecedented campaign for WWI -Ivy Lee, the "first publicist" was hired by the John D. Rockefeller, to improve his public image -traders in Amsterdam used various methods to deceive other investors regarding tulip values -Roman Emperors waged disinformation campaigns against the citizens to make sure they knew that their military campaigns were always the most valiant righteous and most of all triumphant possible -Themistocles launched a disinformation campaign luring the Persians into a naval battle they were ill prepared for at the battle of Salamis

Basically disinformation campaigns have been running since the beginning of time...and the most effective ones are the ones you still never realized.

<comment><USER3> People realized there's no advantage to letting both sides speak. The majority benefits from stifling the minority and inherently has the power to do so by virtue of being the majority. This gets justified with arguments against normalization usually. Why it's so hard for the 'right' side to present their side persuasively isn't examined too closely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Everybody around the world does it. In fact, the CIA has been doing it since its inception!

<comment><USER5> Sure. The problem with Russia is twofold: They're doing it _really effectively_ , and they're doing it _to us_.

We haven't ever seen a disinformation campaign that was this effective before. At least, we haven't seen one that was this effective against countries with free media and an educated population. (Though the effectiveness of this attack might lead one to question both the freedom of the media and the educatedness of the population...)

Them doing it to us may be "turnabout is fair play", but that doesn't mean that we have to like it, approve of it, or accept it.

<comment><USER6> You should be embarrassed by this comment. What metric are you using to say it's really effective. Please tell me what first hand analysis you have other than being told what you want to hear and using that to justify your position. It's almost like you are a victim of... wait for it....misinformation

It's funny watching people always accuse the other side of being uneducated.

<comment><USER5> I have no problem with you thinking I'm wrong. But I should be _embarrassed_? You seem to want to use emotional manipulation to silence those who disagree with you. That doesn't say anything good about your confidence that your opinion will prevail in an open debate.

If you've got an argument, give it. Save the emotional manipulation for children. (In fact, don't use it on children, either. Just lose the emotional manipulation altogether.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The disinformation campaign is called MSNBC, activists masquerading as journalists, that think the ends justify the means.

</comment><comment><USER8> > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're > evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or > disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's > probably off-topic.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Edit: There's no new information here. Anyone who has been paying even a tiny bit of attention would already know this. "Hacker" "news" wouldn't know an on- topic story if it hit them in the face.</comment>


Composer global require considered harmful - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/composer/composer/issues/5390 <comment><USER2> Using software library 'package managers' to install system-wide command line tools is a terrible idea.

Who'd have thought? /s</comment>


Using the HoloLens emulator - <AUTHOR> https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/using_the_hololens_emulator <comment><USER2> I'm unfortunately not in the right region to get an actual dev kit but I am really, really intrigued to explore what opportunities the HoloLens platform can open up.

I'm really hoping this provides a sufficient facsimile that those of us outside the US/Canada can get cooking on blending the digital and real world together.

<comment><USER3> There's this too: [https://www.metavision.com/](https://www.metavision.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does it strike anyone else that HoloLens is the 2016 version of Microsoft Bob? Just seeing the various virtual "rooms" included in the emulator harkened back to those awful computing metaphors.

Of course, today's Bob comes with a $3,000 price tag and a "developers release".

<comment><USER5> Not really.

It's more of a google glass: woefully ahead of its time.</comment></comment>


Microsoft announces ad-supported Office 2010 Starter Edition - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/10/microsoft-announces-ad-supported-office-starter-2010.ars <comment><USER2> No thanks, I will use google docs Edit: Microsoft does not yet realize the threat it has from OO of google docs. Google did not give a limited capability search for free users. I read in one of PG's essays, "Get all the users and advertisers will follow. I can only see a half hearted effort from Microsoft, which will never capture all users. I would rather prefer full functionality OO compared to half functionality MS office.

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be nice if MS said what type of ad would be shown (banner ad in toolbar à la Opera would be good).</comment>


Bitcoin $500 - <AUTHOR> https://cloudup.com/c8CN2Jj3GHk <comment><USER2> I remember trying to buy some BTC on MtGox for fun, the last time the price crashed.

What an unspeakably horrible service. I thought I was in for hundreds of dollars over budget, but it turns out that not a single BTC was purchased at all.

I only intended to buy ~$50 worth, so I would only have earnt something like $200, but for the love of everything, stay the hell away from MtGox. It's insane how unprofessional they are.

healthcare.gov may be bad, but this is five circles of hell down from that.

<comment><USER3> MtGox was handling 90% of exchange last year, but now - only 25-30%. Bitstamp is huge now, and Bitcoin-Central.net is easy to use (although it hasn't regained it's past volume yet).

<comment><USER4> Just signed up with Bitstamp to try it out, but why don't they accept VISA deposits?

<comment><USER3> Bitcoin is not reversible after 10 minutes, credit card transaction is not reversible after 90 days in some cases. Guess how much fraud will happen to anyone selling Bitcoin with PayPal, Visa or similarly reversible payment mechanism.

The pain in the ass with buying Bitcoins is due to a simple thing: you never own government currency, you always ask someone else for permission to use it and it's always based on human decision. Gold and Bitcoin you can own. Paper bills you can own to some degree (they print more of them every minute, thus taxing your savings all the time). Digital virtual currency USD or EUR in your virtual bank account - you don't own. Banks can even reverse SWIFT/SEPA transfers if they want.

<comment><USER5> I'm intrigued - how is BTC reversible within 10 mins?

<comment><USER3> Not much. Zero-confirmation transactions are quite hard to revert, so they are widely accepted for small instant purchases.

Here's how you normally do it: send a transaction with fairly recent inputs with a zero mining fee. If you are lucky, it will propagate slowly and will reach the merchant sooner than 50% of the network nodes see it. When the merchant sees your transaction, he ships you the product, then you immediately send out double-spending transaction with standard mining fees (sent to your own address). It will propagate much faster and probably will end up mined before the first one.

Fraud with zero-confirmed transactions is most likely in some fully-automated schemes like lotteries, where repeated attempts to reverse the payment pay off immediately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it impossible to withdraw USD from MtGox at this point? How can this be a viable source of BTC->USD comparison when the only thing you can do with a USD balance on MtG is buy?

<comment><USER7> I cashed out all my coins at $144 over a month ago now and I've still been waiting for money to show up. One the one hand I feel annoyed at losing out on the huge rise in value, on the other hand this huge delay makes me feel justified in escaping this terrible system.

<comment><USER8> Mtgox != bitcoin. For everyone who is wondering, Coinbase actually has pretty good service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well now it must definitely be too late to invest. Don't even think about it guys. It's a ponzi scheme slash not real money slash libertarian wet dream. I'd rather trust helicopter Ben with my savings than some obscure open source software that eats 10Gb of my disk space.

<comment><USER10> The market capitalization of US dollars is (correct if I'm wrong) $3 trillion.

The current market capitalization of BitCoin is above $5 billion.

There will only be around 21 million BitCoins.

If the market capitlization of BitCoin even gets close to a national currency like the US dollar, each BitCoin will be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We are about to be at $500. Unless governments crack down on BitCoin(possible) I don't foresee this stopping anytime soon.

To me government intervention to the point of banning BitCoin seems like it would be, at this point, somewhat pointless. The Federal Government has known about BitCoin for some time and has yet to take any major regulatory action against it. I think if they wanted to shut it down they would have long before millions of people started using it, and long before major backers like Peter Thiel and the Winklevi had time to establish BitCoin-based companies and lobbying groups. You want to nip something like this in the bud before it becomes an entrenched interest - and they haven't done that yet.

I'd say it's not too late to invest.

<comment><USER11> The US gov waited until eGold was doing ~2 billion in transactions annually before it moved to shut it down. Given the growth rate of btc it just recently became big enough to get the attention of the federal gov. I think it is certain the US government will attempt to shut it down more a question of when and how elaborate their attempt is (e.g. Will they try to: arrest a few btc users, dump large sums of money into the btc markets to destabilize it, or build a cluster larger than the entire btc network).

<comment><USER12> And if they had already built the largest cluster of asics in the btc network we wouldn't even know as long as they distribute it enough and even join most pools for good measure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What happens to the price when only people with 500Ghash/sec+ can make coins next month?

Early adopters are rightfully getting a nice reward now, but how do you get "fresh blood" when the difficulty is off the chart unless you have several thousand dollars in hardware?

<comment><USER14> wat. The important figures for miners are the btc/usd conversion rate, the network difficulty, your hash rate itself, how much you initially paid for your rig ($/Gh) and how much power you're drawing ($/watt). All of these factors are important, but what will dominate over the coming months is power cost. Someone mining a 100 GH/s rig will make 5 times less BTC per day as someone mining a 500 GH/s rig, it's true, but if the 500 GH/s is sucking up proportionally more than 5 times the electricity then it can be better to mine with the lower hash rate. If the conversion rate improves that delays the period where electricity costs outweighs the income. For the difficulty to rise another order of magnitude (which would make BFL 60 GH/s Singles worthless), there needs to be about another 30 PH added to the network -- where's that coming from in only a month? In any case, people dropping their rigs because they're too power hungry may cause the difficulty to go down and make it worthwhile again for some who live in low-electricity-cost areas... There are variables you're not taking into account, hence the wat.

<comment><USER13> That's the thing, the new 500Ghash machines can smoke your 500Mhash machines and they use only a little more power. They are using 28nm ASIC.

A farm from a year ago can be completely outpowered by a couple of these machines.

And they are coming online in force over the next 30 to 60 days.

<comment><USER14> Anyone with MH/s-level farms from GPUs have turned them off months ago (or moved to Litecoin). There's some new 28nm ASICs that use less power per hash than the larger nm ASICs, so eventually those will face the same fate as GPUs from power costs (not so much from hash rate -- there are only a few TH machines on the near horizon), but the next 30-60 days isn't enough time to make that happen.

<comment><USER15> Isn't Litecoin's value more or less pegged to BTC? I did a quick calculation with one of the online calculators [1] and it seems that it's a challenge to turn a profit from Litecoin GPU mining too.

[1] [http://ltc.kattare.com/calc.php](http://ltc.kattare.com/calc.php)

<comment><USER14> It used to be more or less pegged, but at least over the past several months it's not quite that simple: [http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/period- charts.php?period=al...](http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/period- charts.php?period=alltime&resolution=day&pair=ltc-btc&market=btc-e)

It's hard to make a profit with litecoin, but a single 7950 can still make you around USD $1/day right now after electricity costs. I have a friend who started mining with 4 of them when summer began, they (and the motherboard, power supply, etc. he used for his setup) ROI'd a while ago. I don't know if it makes sense to buy new GPUs anymore... But at least if it does become unprofitable for all but those who have the best GPUs on the market in the cheapest electricity areas (or even for everyone in the event that litecoin dies completely), you still have very excellent gaming GPUs you can resell at a good price to people on Craigslist/ebay. With the "next gen" of consoles that have just come out being so under-powered, a gamer can expect a 7950 or better to handle any PC ports that come out of this gen...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For those who are interested, pleasingly it's considerably easier to buy/sell btc in the UK these days, [32] and [33] are very functional - I used [32] to buy coins and then [33] to sell some just today. [33] looks much better value both ways but [32] is about as easy as it gets.

* Using comedy numbering scheme in reference to [1337].

[32]:[https://bittylicious.com/](https://bittylicious.com/) [33]:[https://localbitcoins.com/](https://localbitcoins.com/) [1337]:[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373)

</comment><comment><USER17> I went to this talk in 2011 where Gavin Andresen tried giving bitcoin away to anyone that emailed him: [http://blip.tv/amherstmedia/making-money-gavin- andresen-igni...](http://blip.tv/amherstmedia/making-money-gavin-andresen- ignite-amherst-4789326)

<comment><USER18> So – did you email him?

<comment><USER17> No, and I have a feeling in a few more years they will be worth as much as they were then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm really glad I wasn't able to figure out how to short bitcoin right after the Silk Road takedown; I would have gone broke.

<comment><USER20> I wouldn't want to short the one asset that's been on an exponential growth curve. It can only go down 100% but who knows how high it could climb. At least put a ceiling on it.

<comment><USER21> >It can only go down 100%

Isn't this true of all stocks/commodities? You can only lose 100% of your money.

<comment><USER22> Short selling is a different game. In essence you're betting that the price will go down. Right now the price could go down $500, and you'd make $500. However if the price rose $10,000 you'd lose $10,000.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Its 470$ on bitstamp, please ignore mtgox rate, that site is unusable

<comment><USER24> So who's using it then?

<comment><USER25> It's very easy to withdraw from MtGox with Japanese and Chinese currencies. BTCChina is very close to GoxUSD in terms of price. The MtGox price is actually pretty accurate, bitstamp is the one that is lagging behind.

<comment><USER26> So can you swift/iban jpy to your bank from gox and expect a good turnaround time?

<comment><USER25> Well you can withdraw to a Chinese/Japanese bank account in one working day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "Bitcoin will have to change the mining hashing function (SHA-256) in 7 years" [https://twitter.com/SDLerner/status/401467511784235008](https://twitter.com/SDLerner/status/401467511784235008)

<comment><USER3> For the purposes of hashing, double SHA256 is very far from being "broken" or drastically accelerated. If there's some ultra-fast chip that increases hashing by a factor of million, there are still enough of non-zero bits to have unique block hashes. And if, by chance, two blocks have the same hash, it does not break anything at all: each block has a unique serial number ("height") anyway. Hash is only used as a proof of work for a given height.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the most interesting things about discussions regarding bitcoin is you can always count on a few people getting quite angry and spiteful, as if they are personally offended by its existence.

Remember friends, keep your identity small ;) -- [http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html)

</comment><comment><USER28> Now is the time to convert your bitcoins to cash, because this wont last for much longer :-)

<comment> SG- that doesn't make any sense. it will be $1000/btc in less than a year.

<comment><USER29> And it draws into question whether bitcoins can be a useful currency. Can you trade fractional bitcoins? I'm ignorant on the subject, but if not, well carrying around $500 bills is pretty limiting.

<comment> SG- yes, you can trade or buy the tiniest amount (fraction) of bitcoin.

-0.01 BTC = 1 cBTC = 1 centibitcoin (also referred to as bitcent)

-0.001 BTC = 1 mBTC = 1 millibitcoin (also referred to as mbit (pronounced em-bit) or millibit or even bit mill)

-0.000 001 BTC = 1 μBTC = 1 microbitcoin (also referred to as ubit (pronounced yu-bit) or microbit)

-0.000 000 01 BTC = 1 satoshi (pronounced sa-toh-shee)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Could the recent peak be related with the Cryptolocker campaign?

<comment><USER31> It's more likely driven by recent interest of Bitcoin from China: [http://index.baidu.com/main/word.php?word=%B1%C8%CC%D8%B1%D2](http://index.baidu.com/main/word.php?word=%B1%C8%CC%D8%B1%D2)

<comment><USER32> Can't great firewall of china be configured to block port 8333?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I hope there is a crash coming.

<comment><USER8> That is a curious thing to say. Why is that?

<comment><USER33> so I can buy them as a cheaper price point and the current market gain is just people buying to making 10% gains daily and not really to use the coins as currency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Options for purchasing for someone in Australia? Coinbase appears to be US only. Their support docs suggest international support in early 2013, but no sign of that being realised.

</comment><comment><USER32> What will happen with the price of bitcoin if quantum computer with enough q-bits will be invented?

<comment><USER3> Most probably, quantum computer will not be invented overnight. Hash functions are not seriously vulnerable, but ECDSA signatures are. Fortunately, most funds are sitting on never-used addresses which are basically the hashes of the public keys, which are not instantly crackable by a quantum computer. People will probably have time to switch to a new signature method which is resistant to QC. Like Lamport Signatures, for instance. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamport_signature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamport_signature)

The price will dip, but may recover pretty quickly, like when the famous v0.7/v0.8 fork that happened this March.

If the Bitcoin can't be fixed and becomes unusable, its value will instantly become zero and everyone's savings in it will become permanently lost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> No matter your take on bitcoin's long-term viability (or lack thereof), it can hardly be argued that this isn't damn interesting to watch unfold.

A cryptocurrency with zero backing that exists only in digital form is now worth many billions of dollars. Is it a bubble? Will this foment a currency revolution of sorts? If it doesn't crash, how will governments react? If it does crash, what will replace it? Obviously there is a demand for a decentralized currency, and as more people realize that something like this is possible, I can only see demand for it going one way: up. Most people have never even heard of bitcoin; I've only talked to a few people in my own life who are even familiar with the word, and fewer still who know what it actually is. Yet with even such a small awareness, bitcoin's value has grown from zero to billions in a few years. Unless governments step in and find some way to put the kibosh on decentralized currencies in general, it seems unlikely that demand is going to shrink as awareness continues to increase. We're so used to governments essentially owning currencies that it is very difficult to imagine a world where they don't, but obviously, if cryptocurrencies take off in a big way, the implications for the future are profound.

<comment><USER3> 1\. Any money is a bubble in a sense. It's a feedback loop of speculation that the commodity at hand will be widely accepted by other speculators in the future. The only basis for this speculation is that people need some money to trade. The money bubble pops only if there's some other, better commodity on the horizon that speculators may bet on. [http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.fr/2013/04/bitcoin-...](http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.fr/2013/04/bitcoin-is-money-bitcoin-is-bubble.html)

2\. Some governments are very supportive (at least, not intrusive): Germany, China, Hong Kong, Canada. In United States Bitcoin is effectively 90% forbidden already. Banks close accounts for Bitcoin businesses with no reason, regulatory approval is very slow and very-very expensive (need to get it from all states), past history of very aggressive raids on financial experiments.

<comment><USER36> >>1\. Any money is a bubble in a sense.

Not really, no. Peter Thiel's explanation of bubbles is great. He says that bubbles arise when there is (1) widespread, intense belief that's (2) not true. During the dotcom bubble, people were pouring money into companies simply for having a domain name; the intense belief was that the companies were worth a ton of money, and that simply was not true. A similar reasoning led to the housing bubble: the intense belief in that case was that houses are great investment vehicles and they always appreciate in value. Turns out that also was not true.

Currently, the main thing that is driving Bitcoin's price is speculation. There is widespread, intense belief that it will become a major currency. Is that belief true? The simple answer is we don't know.

But that's not true with just any money. The dollar for example is not a bubble: people believe it to be a reliable medium of exchange, and the fact that it is backed by the US government makes that belief true. Therefore it is not a bubble.

<comment><USER37> And the same isn't true for the USD ? It's only true to the extent you believe the US government can't fail to increase economic activity YoY _. Or, say, for a small currency like the famous Swiss franc ? There are plenty of currencies where the stability of the state behind it is in doubt. I would say dictatorships like Dubai or Kuwait or ..., who have very badly paid "slaves" who far outnumber their own population are at a very significant risk of revolt. Or rather, they would never be able to prevent an even mildly popular revolt from taking over the state. They're not worthless, in fact they can be quite valuable.

And then of course, there's currencies of states that have little qualms of open currency manipulation like the Renminbi.

But even the USD, or at the very least it's value, but I'd argue the US state itself as well, has several critical dependencies. Oil would be the most obvious one, but easy and safe access to the seas, not just around the US, but all over the planet. And I'm sure there's dozens of other things.

In short : The US is not invincible, and I'm pretty sure the status of the USD currently does reflect that belief.

_ Note that this is a falsehood. Speaking on an indefinite timescale, it's an absolute certainty the US will fail. And economic output will falter with a much greater certainty. So it's a matter of when, not if. And the USD may have lasted longer than average for a currency, but it's nowhere near the top (that would be the Holy Roman Empire and it's Guilder (later replaced, and it's complex, depending on regions, ... I guess when a state celebrates a millenium's existence some issues crop up with the currency and they have to play around with it. Some day the US may be lucky enough to have to do the same. The "real" currency can be said to be silver).

It's also humbling to think that this very, very, very long running state did fail eventually (yes, you can make an argument that it didn't really fail, only parts did, most made smooth transitions to their currently existing forms ... I wouldn't agree with that argument but it's not indefensible).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Here we go again. A thread full of financial experts, conspiracists and excessive naysayers. Let's keep Bitcoin off the frontpage until it crashes, okay? With this trend it will reach an all-time-high every week or so which every tech blog will wrap in a bag-full-of-fluff-blogpost, there will be new analysis et cetera.

 _Let it go_. Just enjoy the ride.

<comment><USER39> > Let's keep Bitcoin off the frontpage until it crashes, okay?

Because you say so, right?

<comment><USER38> It was a proposal and my current opinion on the Bitcoin spam every few days on Hacker News. I wasn't expecting anyone to agree with me, but for one am free to state my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is it possible to predict Bitcoin? [https://www.facebook.com/coinalytics](https://www.facebook.com/coinalytics)

<comment><USER41> No.</comment></comment>


WatchOS: Firmly pressing a button in Calculator causes buttons to become stuck - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/documentation/watchos_release_notes/watchos_6_beta_2_release_notes?changes=l_5&preferredLanguage=occ#3318153 <comment><AUTHOR> In latest Apple Watch beta: "Firmly pressing a button in Calculator might cause buttons to become stuck. (50738294) Workaround: Tap any button."

Like a good old-fashioned real calculator :-P Is this an Apple Easter egg?</comment>


Show HN: TechInterview.Club Hack Interviews by Studying Recently Asked Questions - <AUTHOR> http://techinterview.club <comment><USER2> Yet another site that you have to put your details before you can get a sense of what it is, what it does and whether it is worth it or not.

</comment><comment><USER3> Blank page on iOS Chrome.</comment>


Twitter to offer 70M shares priced at $17-$20 to raise up to $1.4B in IPO - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/24/twitter-to-offer-70m-shares-in-ipo-priced-at-17-20-per-share/

<comment><USER2> _Several of the company's directors and executives are sharing stock. Chairman Jack Dorsey is selling roughly .6 percent of the company and will own 4.3 percent after the offering — making his share worth around $434 million. Co- founder Evan Williams is selling 1.6 percent of the company and will own 10.4 percent after the offering. Williams will be worth just over $1 billion if the shares go at a median price of $18.50. CEO Dick Costolo will own 1.4 percent of the company after IPO._

I don't see any sign that anyone is selling stock... these numbers are all consistent with 13% dilution due to Twitter issuing new stock.

<comment><USER3> It looks like TC didn't look at the table in the S-1 correctly: [http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/00011931251...](http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513409822/d564001ds1a.htm) (top of page 154)

That page + the "Several of the company's directors and executives are _sharing_ stock" (sharing? These are shared shares as opposed to all those unshared shares) indicates not a lot of care went into the writeup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems like the trend lately is to float a tiny amount of shares to the public. From my perspective this creates an artificial supply problem for the stock and makes higher valuations easier as you need less institutional buy in to maintain the price, and a few good quarters can result in disproportionate gains in the market.

Can anyone comment on that or shed some light? As a potential investor, those factors make me shy away from these investments as it makes the stock more volatile to changes and puts the fate of the stock in a few large holders hands.

<comment><USER5> This is because all that the insiders need is to make their private shares public, i.e. liquid (notwithstanding officer's planned sales/insider restrictions). Potential liquidity of the insider's shares is the primary objective of a modern internet IPO, like Twitter's.

<comment><USER6> I respectfully disagree. At a company like Twitter, the so-called "insiders" have been able to take plenty of money off the table. And in fact, I'm not totally sure what share (if any) of the offering is from shares held by officers and investors. Have you seen the data?

Moreover, there is liquidity on the secondary market for Twitter like there was for FB, etc.

I think the primary object here is to raise capital and lubricate M&A activity. And most companies have no secondary market, so an IPO really helps unlock value for the rank-and-file who aren't part of the Series-XYZ rounds. There are a lot of engineers and middle managers there who will be able to buy homes and lots of other nice toys not to mention diversify their net worth a little.

<comment><USER7> RSU grants given to employees (including large grants given to new executives and key employees) are typically illiquid until 6 months following an IPO. The company has to IPO to make good on the compensation given to hire and retain their employees. If they never go public, employee compensation is worthless, and they cannot hire nor retain the best people.

<comment><USER6> Most often pre-IPO companies grant _options_ not RSUs. And the lock-up period is a _post IPO_ lockup designed to stabilize the price of a newly offered security while it finds its market.

The existence of a lock up period does not inhibit pre-ipo trading on the secondary market, though to be clear there is no truly liquid "secondary market" for most companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Unless I am reading the prospectus wrong, looks like they haven't made a profit yet and the losses are much larger this year than last. I find that troubling for a software company wanting to IPO.

<comment><USER9> Neither Amazon nor Groupon were profitable at IPO, ostensibly because they were maximizing growth. I guess you just have to decide which you think Twitter is more like.

<comment><USER8> True, but Amazon could easily be profitable. It is a matter of choice in their case and has been that way since the beginning if my memory serves. Jeff Bezos chooses to run the company more like a non-profit than a C-corp. On the other hand, Groupon never had a sustainable business model.

Twitter seems like they could have a sustainable business model which is good, but I haven't seen much proof so far. When Facebook was not profitable for so many years, it was fairly obvious to me they had a path to profitability or sustainability (if they chose to act like Amazon). It is not obvious to me how Twitter will do this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is probably a silly question - but can regular people buy Twitter stock as soon as trading begins?

I am thinking of buying a very small number of shares & "gifting" them to my sister - a super user of their service..more for novelty than as part of any serious investment strategy.

<comment><USER11> Of course, but you won't know what the price will be until the shares start trading. If there is a lot of demand, they could be priced higher than the offer price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> $11B seems like a low valuation. Groupon is still worth $6B and I don't think its anywhere near half as valuable as twitter. Twitter does have a problem trying to monetize the core business, the only way seems to be to charge celebrities and businesses to send out tweets(advertisements) but that will probably hurt them a lot.

But with all that data and all those users and celebrities there is so much possibility and directions it can go. If I owned them the front page would be all entertainment news, hire bloggers to scan through tweets and write stories about the latest gossip. Why let tmz and other entertainment news get all the ad revenue by writing about the info coming directly out of your site, twitter should be the #1 webpage for celebrity news/gossip. The kind of people who really use twitter are obsessed with this garbage, it seems only natural.

<comment><USER13> They may have been advised to be a bit more conservative, given how FB IPO went

<comment><USER14> Well… the FB IPO went great for existing (vested) stockholders.

If your stock doubles immediately after going public, you just lost a ton of money and were probably grifted by your market-maker.

<comment><USER12> For famous companies that are already in the public mind I have no idea why they go the traditional IPO route (I'm not sure what SEC/market regulations require). Why not something like offer 10k shares at a $100B valuation see if anyone bites? Then go to $90B, and so on until you sell your entire offering. There is so much dead money out there that would buy $20 shares of twitter for any insane valuation and they are just leaving it on the table.

<comment><USER13> Google tried something similar with the reverse dutch auction

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's interesting that Biz Stone, the face of Twitter for a few years, isn't listed on the prospectus as a large shareholder.

<comment><USER16> He sold most of his stock when he left a few years ago, and owns about a tenth of one percent of the company now.

[http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/10/where-is-biz- st...](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/10/where-is-biz-stone.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What is twitter going to do with $1.4B? Do they have some incredibly expensive investments planned?

Companies offer stock as an investment opportunity to raise capitol. Right?

<comment><USER18> That's one reason. Another reason is to provide liquidity to shareholders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Anyone planning on buying Twitter for around the IPO price?

<comment><USER20> Don't buy it during the initial hype. Wait it out. My 2 cents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Was expecting more like $8-$12 not this high.

</comment><comment><USER22> Average consumers like us can't buy stock right?

<comment><USER23> The point of an IPO is to offer stock to the public. Once its on the market, anyone can.</comment></comment>


Facebook privacy, Chrome extension for 2-clicks "like" button - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hayeah/FaceOff

<comment><USER2> For Firefox users, may I recommend ShareMeNot (<http://sharemenot.cs.washington.edu/>). It also nukes the tracking behavior of Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Google +1.

Or, if you are an Adblock Plus user and want to kill Facebook on non-Facebook sites, add the following rule:

      ||facebook.*$domain=~facebook.com|~127.0.0.1

<comment><USER3> Block all social garbage with adblockplus.

[http://www.techairlines.com/2010/12/12/block-social- buttons-...](http://www.techairlines.com/2010/12/12/block-social-buttons- widgets/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Better to have posted it _after_ you've actually written it...

<comment><AUTHOR> MVP. Sorry to disappoint :p

<comment><USER5> MVP stands for Minimum Viable _Product_. There has to actually be something for it to be a Product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I misused the term minimum "viable" product. But isn't it a standard practice for lean startups to run something like a potemkin village to test if there's interest?

I don't see why I shouldn't do the same with an open source project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does everyone realize google tops Facebook by millions for cross site tracking? I mean ad scripts, stats scripts, +1 scripts, etc. etc. etc.

Good luck on blocking google, I cannot even turn off javascript for their domain because now their search requires it to function.

<comment><USER7> Yes, that is a very important point, precisely because people do not want to focus their attention upon it.

Google has gone from a company that does not do any "evil" to a company that tries to make a progressive / positive impact and therefore they feel entitled to collecting more information about their users than they ever thought they would need at the beginning.

In that sense Google is like the government in the original Austrian economics. From utility to expansive progressive force. But with what results this time?

Edit: this reminds me off the "Faceback" app from the movie Good Guys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great Idea. Hoping for a Safari extension soon.

</comment><comment><USER9> The Disconnect extension for Chrome is pretty good for that:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jeoacafpbcihiomhla...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jeoacafpbcihiomhlakheieifhpjdfeo)

</comment><comment><USER10> i love it when stuff backfires on evil/annoying companies. god i hope everyone starts implementing the 2 click like buttons.

<comment><AUTHOR> You would violate terms of agreement. But if it's a Chrome extension, what can they do?

<comment><USER11> Not a violation.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2957957>

<comment><AUTHOR> ah. I stand corrected.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Largest Email Marketing Firm, Epsilon Hacked. Big Name Customers Exposed. - <AUTHOR> http://www.securityweek.com/massive-breach-epsilon-compromises-customer-lists-major-brands

<comment><USER2> Anyone find details as to how Epsilon was compromised?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just added Walgreens to the list. Getting Interesting.

<comment><USER3> Wife got an e-mail from Disney about it, which is not yet on the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> CollegeBoard too

</comment><comment><USER5> The email of every college bound student will soon be available for download. How long until throwaway email accounts are the norm?

<comment><USER6> Only a sucker signed up for the SAT and at college events with their real email in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Got an email from Home Depot and Target... Looks like Home Depot is missing from their list.

</comment><comment><USER8> Oh the irony... I get a popover for SecurityWeek's "Free Subscription!" email briefing.</comment>


Ask HN: Crazy society changing ideas - <AUTHOR> Where does one even start with really massive, change the fabric of society projects?
No matter how I try I cannot explain it in a 2 minute pitch without a massive loss of clarity. It usually takes longer than this just to establish some basic context so people  understand the problem.
If I try to explain the impact it is so huge it sounds unbelievable or unachievable. <comment><USER2> Just write a blog post(s). Under a nom de plume if necessary. I'd be happy to publish it on my website as long as it doesn't advocate for something I strongly disagree with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are places like Kickstarer or Idiegogo useful for large scale projects?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What's the goal? Change society or make a lot of money off the idea? I assume it's going to take a society size investment?

Who would benefit the most? become early adopters?

<comment><AUTHOR> Change society is the primary goal, but I have also identified several different revenue streams making it a license to print money. Its a simple technical solution to solve the economic calculation problem in any socialist or central planned system while also eliminating most of the problems in capitalist systems.

The early adopters will be inefficient socialist systems e.g charities, non for profits and governments, as well as anyone who funds them.

It will enable them to optimally and transparently allocate resources efficiently at all levels, from the individual up to global scale.

The problem is mostly technically solved with no foreseen show stoppers, Investment is needed for commercialization so shouldn't be society size.</comment></comment>


Elon Musk announces secret Model S battery swap feature. - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/346895679471357952 <comment><USER2> Does this mean that they will be swappable like a propane tank and you only "rent" the battery or pay a deposit and get that back when you buy a refill? If so this is a pretty big game changer. I hope it's easier than going to a dealership and it means service stations can swap the battery quickly.

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems like the Better Place strategy. But unlike them, Tesla didn't base their whole company on that strategy. I still think the _right_ strategy is the Supercharger network one, and they need to expand that all over the world as soon as possible.

But this swappable battery thing is certainly a nice "feature" and I'm sure some customers will take advantage of it, and it's a decent stop-gap until superchargers are _everywhere_ , which could be another decade or more.</comment>


Capistrano: Can't be MIT licensed any more  - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano/issues/926?utm_content=bufferfe3ee&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> The current title ("Capistrano: Can't be MIT licensed any more") is misleading. leehambley (Capistrano maintainer) refutes this claim in the thread itself:

> I think I made myself clear. Our lawyers don't see a problem (and don't see > that the GPL of SSHKit is viral in terms of the usage of Ruby, and > Rubygems), that in this circumstance the copy-left of the GPL does not cross > the boundary of Rubygems (Capistrano hints to Rubygems that it would like to > use SSHKit). And that even using the LGPL with it's provision for "dynamic > linking" being an exception adds nothing to the discussion for scripting > languages.

> I won't chance the licence without a proper, peer reviewed audit, if this > means your lawyers don't think you can use Capistrano, I'm sorry for that, > but I can't afford the time and energy to re-open this debate. (again… > again… again… again).

> SSHKit is intentionally restrictively licensed to protect the investment > that my company made in building it, which is something I also don't have a > choice about. If you want to rewrite a competitive alternative to SSHKit > with a compatible API and release it, that would probably be best for the > community. (At least those backed by pushy IP lawyers)

Funnily enough, this is a case where changing the title _away_ from that of the original page would improve the accuracy of the submission.

<comment><USER3> > refutes this claim

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

"disputes" might be more accurate, but that still wouldn't invalidate the title. This is an entirely legitimate bug report; the maintainer of Capistrano seems to hold a very unusual view on Open Source licensing, and one at odds with just about everyone else in the Open Source community.

<comment><USER4> No, refutes is entirely correct. The lawyers for the company that _owns_ SSHKit say there is no licensing issue.

<comment><USER3> Either the company in question is creating some strange implicit exception to the GPL, or proprietary/GPL-incompatible products derived from Capistrano are in violation of the GPL and the company in question simply declines to pursue those violations.

Here's the statement from the folks who wrote the GPL, on this exact point: [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#GPLWrapper](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLWrapper)

<comment><USER4> The statement you quote is not on point, since there is no "module B" here. What they are trying to describe in that is the situation where someone takes a GPL piece of code, and writes a wrapper module (module B) that adds some kind of interface that their proprietary module (module C) knows how to interface with, and then they distribute this whole mess.

As far as I can see, Capistrano has not wrapped SSHKit or modified it. It just invokes SSHKit through its public interfaces. In particular, Capistrano does not seem to be a derivative work of SSHKit. If it and SSHKit are distributed together, this would be what the GPL calls mere aggregation.

Conceptually, it is no different than distributing bash along with a bash script that is not under GPL.

<comment><USER3> > The statement you quote is not on point, since there is no "module B" here. > What they are trying to describe in that is the situation where someone > takes a GPL piece of code, and writes a wrapper module (module B) that adds > some kind of interface that their proprietary module (module C) knows how to > interface with, and then they distribute this whole mess.

Other than flipping C and A around, what you describe exactly matches the situation from the GPL FAQ.

Apart from that, I'm not going to argue GPL, derived works, and linking here; suffice it to say that the interpretation of the GPL authors is that code calling into GPLed code (directly or indirectly) is a derived work and subject to the GPL, and thus may not be proprietary. That's the interpretation and intention of the FSF in writing the license, and it's the standard interpretation in the broader FOSS community.

<comment><USER4> In all the cases I'm aware of where courts have considered code calling into other code, they have found that this does not make the caller a derivative work of the callee.

Here's a good quick and dirty test. If I write code that interfaces to your code, and I do this without looking at anything of yours other than things that are not copyrighted (such as your publicly documented interfaces), then my code cannot be a derivative work of your code. If I want to distribute my code (in source or binary), and I'm not distributing your code with it, then I don't have any reason to care what license your code is using.

Now, if I've going to take my code, and your code, and compile and link them together and distribute the result, then (1) I've actually copied your code into something I'm distributing, and (2) I'm distributing your code. In this case, your license is very relevant. This is the kind of situation the FSF was mostly thinking of when they wrote most of that FAQ. I think they were caught off guard by the explosive rise of the so-called scripting languages, which do away with the whole linking things together into a package to distribute thing.

This is very good for free software. If calling into code (directly or indirectly) made the caller a derivative work of the callee, then it would be a copyright violation to make and distribute apps for jailbroken iPhones. These apps call into Apple's system software, and so would be derivative works and require Apple's permission to distribute, and Apple has not given that permission. It would be similar for desktop operating systems--application writers would need permission from the OS copyright owner to make applications that run on that OS.

Capistrano is distributed in source form (and as far as I can see that is the only form in which it is distributed). Looking at the source, I don't see them including anything copyrighted from SSHKit. I'm not a Ruby guy, so maybe I missed some tricky Ruby thing that would make it non-obvious. Any Ruby users want to take a look?

<comment><USER5> > In all the cases

Please cite references rather than hand waving.

Here is some other dirty tests: If I write a website that links to someone else images, I can still be held liable under copyright law. It is not good enough defense to claim that the images themselves are not sent by my web server.

Dirty tests are often not enough in discussion around law.

<comment><USER6> For what it's worth, 'tzs is a law school grad.

<comment><USER4> An almost grad. Never got around to finishing a paper for a seminar, which was needed to satisfy a writing requirement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > the GPL is recognised to be a dinosaur that has little bearing in modern > software infrastructures

If I needed any more reason not to use Capistrano, this is it. But I need to wonder why people still use such outdated and poorly implemented instruments as Capistrano in 2014. I speak for myself only, but we have about 200 websites that use Capistrano at my work, each with its own 50-line Capfile, that is subtly broken depending on which Capistrano version you use. Every 2.x release is broken in a different way such that we have an index of which exact version of Capistrano (down to the patch level) works because the rest don't. 3.x is backwards incompatible and infeasible to upgrade at this scale.

git-based deployment takes five seconds to set up and leverages the existing infrastructure instead of creating a feeble reinvention of the wheel, so maybe we should forget this licensing issue and use other deployment strategies because they're plain better.

<comment><AUTHOR> _git-based deployment takes five seconds to set up and leverages the existing infrastructure instead of creating a feeble reinvention of the wheel_

Isn't Capistrano basically git-based deployment, wrapped in some DSL-ish commands?

<comment><USER7> Sort of. Capistrano can clone a git repo for your application code, but by git-based deployment I mean via post-receive hooks a la Heroku. For example, a short script that runs `bundle install`, `rake assets:precompile` and restarts your web server. Ultimately, you get a solution like Heroku where you deploy by `git push`ing to the server.

Trivial to set up, easier to modify, easier to integrate with your git repository, easier to debug, and isn't _completely broken_. Capistrano compared is all downsides.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Will Bryant is unhelpful here with his aggressive tone and how he "threatens" to post on the mailing list warning people about the project.

The question regarding when a project becomes a derivative in the GPL sense seems quite complicated and is definitely something that should be decided by lawyers rather than flamewars online.

</comment><comment><USER9> It seems a strange situation. Both packages have the same author. He chose MIT license for one and GPL for the other. He claims his lawyers told him this was OK, but in fact legal opinion is divided on this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Lin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Linking_and_derived_works)

Of course, from his point of the view this really doesn't matter: he is the copyright holder of both packages and he can hardly violate his own copyright. The problem is for other people who might want to distribute modified copies of Capistrano under MIT but who can actually only do so under GPL.

If he really does want the whole package to distributed as MIT with no ambiguity then the solution is simple: change the license of SSHKit to LGPL. If the company won't agree to that, then change it to GPL plus written exception that we won't sue you for linking to Capistrano.

However, he could be deliberately sneaky. Tell people "our lawyers think this is OK, but check with your own lawyers". Then if any competitor does fork Capistrano and the fork becomes too successful he could say "whoops our lawyers have changed their mind, you've violated the GPL and we are now suing you."</comment>