Ask HN: Any speech segmentation API's out there? - <AUTHOR>

I've been working on an idea for an MVP that leverages speech recognition, for which there are a few viable API's. However, I'm interested in not only speech to text, but also determining the timing of each spoken word relative to the input audio. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find  any good resources on how to accomplish this.<p>Any ideas on where to start? <comment><USER2> <http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/wiki/speakerdiarization></comment>


Another prototype iPhone slips from Apple's clutches - <AUTHOR> http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/05/12/yet-another-prototype-iphone-slips-from-apples-clutches/

<comment><USER2> They keep ruining our reality-distortion-field moment during the keynote :(

<comment><USER3> reality-restoration-field is in effect :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like the phone was discovered in Vietnam! Google Translate link to the original (Vietnamese) page here:

[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&langpair=vi|en&sl=vi&tl=en&u=http://www.tinhte.com/threads/406432-Xuat- hien-iPhone-the-he-thu-4-o-Viet-Nam)

I would love it if it turned out that the iPhone was a counterfeiter's latest marketing drive ;)

</comment><comment><USER5> If the phone that firstname.lastname@example.com introduces in June is significantly different in terms of outwards appearances, I think it will really wow everyone way more than usual.

</comment><comment><USER6> Link with video - [http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/iPhone+4G/news.asp?c=2...](http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/iPhone+4G/news.asp?c=20579&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+PocketGamerLatestAdditions+\(Pocket+Gamer+-+Latest+additions\))

</comment><comment><USER7> Suspicious, eh Apple.</comment>


Cloudflare's Blog is down - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudflare.com/

<comment><USER2> Correct. It's hosted on Posterous and Posterous is down.

Unfunnily, Posterous claims on their Twitter fields to be up.

<comment><USER3> I feel like this could be terrible press given yesterday - while it's not in any way down to you guys, it definitely won't look good to have two visible downtimes in the space of two days (admittedly, this is just the blog and not other peoples live servers, but it still falls under the same category)</comment></comment>


Light Table Listens to feedback and dramatically lowers prices - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table/posts/210222&dup=1

<comment><USER2> I don't think it's accurate to call this a _price_. You are not purchasing a product when you fund something on Kickstarter. You are investing in them, and if they succeed, you get the thing you signed up for. I think that most people who invest in projects on Kickstarter now understand this, but I'm not sure that will continue to be true as it grows in popularity.

<comment><USER3> I think Kickstarter can be either a purchase, or an investment, or both. From their site:

 _Copies of the thing: the album, the DVD, a print from the show. These items should be priced what they would cost in a retail environment. ...

Kickstarter isn't charity: we champion exchanges that are a mix of commerce and patronage, and the numbers bear this out. ...

So what works? Offering something of value. Actual value considers more than just sticker price. If it's a limited edition or a one-of-a-kind experience, there's a lot of flexibility based on your audience. But if it's a manufactured good, then it's a good idea to stay reasonably close to its real- world cost._[1]

So their platform is flexible. It works as a way to take pre-orders for a speculative new product (with no guarantee product development will succeed), or as a way to seek patronage for your art. As far as I can tell they're not too opinionated about which of those you go with, as long as you're creating something.

I think the key when you're running a project is to be clear about how you're using the platform. People think very differently about buying products and patronizing art, so you need to structure your offers and your story differently.

As I said in the last thread, I think the Light Table project got off on the wrong foot because it wasn't clearly positioned as either a product or an artistic endeavor -- it was more like, support my cool project, and then I'll own a nice product I can sell to you later. Offering a license at every contribution level went a long way to clarifying the message. I threw in $50. :)

[1] <http://www.kickstarter.com/help/school/creating_rewards>

<comment><USER2> My point is that Kickstarter is not a store, and it's not a simple money-for- goods-or-services exchange. People who give money need to understand that. If they don't, they'll feel cheated if the project fails and they don't get the item that they feel they "purchased."

<comment><USER3> That's a fair point -- it'll be a problem if people get involved in Kickstarter who don't understand that there's no guarantee the project finishes. But I still disagree with your original point -- often on Kickstarter you _are_ purchasing something for money. Conditional purchases happen all the time. For example, you could pay me $500 up front for any valuable items you find while cleaning out my grandmother's basement, and you would have purchased something -- ownership of 0 to N valuable items. Or suppose I give you $20 to bring me a pizza through a war zone, with the understanding that if you get shot you can keep the $20 and don't owe me a pizza. I've purchased a pizza -- just one I might never get to eat. (My life is tough this way.)

I know this sounds nitpicky, but it's actually important to think about if you're running a Kickstarter campaign with inherently valuable rewards. You need to bear in mind that at least some of your backers will (correctly) think of themselves as purchasing a product, just one that they realize may never be delivered. That establishes a particular kind of relationship, and you won't hit the right notes if you don't know it exists.

<comment><USER2> I find your responses confusing - you state that you disagree with me, then proceed to explain what certainly seemed to me like my point. I think we're just disagreeing over the meaning of the word _purchase_. I'm assuming that it means a non-conditioned, absolute thing, which is how I also assume most people think of it. You're including it to include conditionals, which is fine, but it's not how most people think of it.

<comment><USER3> This is a good summary of our confusion. :) Sorry to be a pain about it. Would you agree that I can "purchase" the contents of a suitcase on a gameshow without knowing what they are? Or that I can "purchase" next year's wheat crop from a farm without knowing how large it will be? Or I can "purchase" 100 shares of Facebook stock to be delivered in a year? I think most people would. And this is true even if it turns out that the suitcase is empty, or the wheat crop is a bust, or the stock is worthless -- it's not that I haven't purchased anything, it's that I _have_ purchased nothing.

But the point isn't really the word. The point is that if you're offering a valuable reward on Kickstarter, some backers will think of it as a plain old financial transaction, where they put some money down and they get to have one of whatever you're trying to produce if you succeed. And that's totally fine as far as Kickstarter is concerned. So if it's not how you want people to think of _your_ Kickstarter project, you have to be careful how you position it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I still want to know why he isn't intending to fully open source it. The funding goal should be payment for the product - just make the whole thing open. That is the only reason I haven't donated, I feel like the Kickstarter model should only produce open source software, and not doing so sets a horrible example that you can get upfront donations to make something and then still charge for it after being funded. There is so much interest in it, it might get done even faster with community hackers.

In case anyone wonders, he says he wants to open source the "core" of Light Table. I don't consider that enough, the whole thing should be beer free and speech free after it gets funded.

I should mention I am not hypocritical here - I think any game funded by Kickstarter should be open source too, so I have only donated to open source game initiatives. I just feel the model should produce content as unencumbered as possible because it is being paid for in advance.

<comment><USER5> I don't see why it should be open-source only. They're selling you a copy of an app ahead of time, that's all. You're not buying shares in the company, or getting control over how things work. You're buying a product before it's produced, so that they can take that cash and use it to pay for the up-front costs. Mistaking your relationship for anything more than that is asking for disappointment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't really care what I get for my money. I was just glad to have an opportunity to support a prolific developer that is making the Clojure community a better place.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd be a lot more willing to participate if PHP and/or Ruby were on the pipeline somewhere. I don't use Clojure or python, and an IDE for just Javascript isn't very useful to me. I've wanted to learn Clojure, but I have almost no time to learn new languages in.

I may chip in yet, regardless of language support.

<comment><USER8> Or you could view it as an enabler to get support for PHP and/or Ruby. No Light Table, no possibility for support ;).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I actually did that the day after it was launched :)

<comment><USER10> I was thinking this was a bit of old news when I saw it. But who cares? More publicity as the goal approaches! :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Keeping my fingers crossed for $300K so that python is there out of the box. With 29 days to go I'd say that's quite a large probability.

<comment><USER12> This is exactly why I kicked in $80, tweeted this thing, and linked to it on Reddit. I think it is hitting $200k for sure, the question is whether it can plow through to $300k.

<comment><USER13> Kicktraq thinks so. <http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is much more of an investment than a purchase. You purchase something when you reasonable expect to receive it. However, if you look at what people are saying about this project, there is a reasonable chance that you will _not_ receive a product at the end. This type of IDE is highly experimental. There is no guarantee that the project will come together or that the final product if delivered will fully resemble the original vision.

</comment><comment><USER15> Good move. I still think it would be better to get as many people into beta access as possible (at the lowest price - or even no price), to maximize feedback and contributions.

But he's still going to make it to $200,000, and it's still going to be great - thank goodness not everything needs to be perfect to be great.

</comment><comment><USER16> OK, I said I would back at $50 if that included the early beta access, and now I have.

</comment><comment><USER17> If that's the reason for getting some extra HN backing, cool, but there will always be people who want it basically for free. I thought the previous "prices"(investments) where good.

</comment><comment><USER18> No brainer at $15. I hope they knock it out of the park.

</comment><comment><USER19> I was glad to see this popup on hacker news again. I'm a backer now. Personally, I do see this as more of a purchase than an investment.

I'd see it as a donation over an investment as well. To each their own.

<comment><USER20> Well, I see it as an investment. Hopefully, we'll both be satisfied by the outcome.</comment></comment>


OnePlus One User Fixes Touchscreen Issues – It Is the Hardware - <AUTHOR> http://oizoioi.com.my/blog/oneplus-one-touchscreen-issues-fixed/

<comment><USER2> this was something OnePlus said they could not replicate and as such dont think this is the fault with other users handsets,</comment>


How to delete yourself from Google? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/geekyfied/how-to-delete-yourself-from-google-com-f073d7dc191e#.oiyhkqytj <comment><USER2> (1) First, delete yourself from life - be mediocre and obscure, in everything you do.

(2) Then move to a jurisdiction with some variant of a "Right to be Forgotten" law in place.</comment>


Thanks to TruffleRuby, Ruby is about to become an order of magnitude faster - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRKjWrNJ8DI <comment><USER2> I wonder what programs and what version of TruffleRuby are compared on Slide 12 ?

[https://speakerdeck.com/eregon/parallel-and-thread-safe- ruby...](https://speakerdeck.com/eregon/parallel-and-thread-safe-ruby-at-high- speed-with-truffleruby?slide=12)

[https://benchmarksgame- team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...](https://benchmarksgame- team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/faster/yarv-truffle.html)

Slide 12 seems mis-labelled: these are not from The Computer Language Benchmarks Game (richards, red-black, neural-net, matrix-multiply, delta blue), and these are missing (reverse complement, regex redux, knucleotide, fasta).

<comment><USER3> Right, I should just rename it to "Classic benchmarks", since it's also from other sources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And thanks to Oracle nobody will use it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there a non-video link?

<comment><USER6> A few seconds of "research" (despite no interest in the subject): [https://speakerdeck.com/eregon/parallel-and-thread-safe- ruby...](https://speakerdeck.com/eregon/parallel-and-thread-safe-ruby-at-high- speed-with-truffleruby?slide=1)</comment></comment>


Yahoo submits bid for Hulu - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20130524/yet-another-hulu-bidder-yahoo-is-in-too/ <comment><USER2> Holy cow. This is a _big deal_.

There is no reason why TV networks need to exist the way they do. Hulu, Netflix and Amazon all produce original content and are perfectly positioned to disrupt them as their distribution volume increases. Even the current distribution channel is being disrupted by Aereo. Hulu is a a huge asset.

If Yahoo gets in this game, they have a massive number of users, photos (flickr), blogposts (tumblr), mail, content... they're rivaling the reach and diversity of Amazon and Google as content owners (though without their respective cash cows of b2c sales and ads).

What's next? Is there some sort of connection that I'm missing between flickr, tumblr, the existing yahoo platform and hulu? Do they buy vimeo from IAC, or buy/merge with IAC? What's the strategy behind all the acquisitions?

<comment><USER3> > _Hulu, Netflix and Amazon all produce original content and are perfectly > positioned to disrupt them as their distribution volume increases._

Uhh, as a Hulu subscriber, I'll just let you know: If I only had "Hulu" content to pick from, I'd cancel my subscription immediately. It's not great stuff, barely worth paying for and CERTAINLY not worth both paying for and sitting through the same 4 advertisements over-and-over-and-over again for.

Basically, I don't care who owns Hulu, but if Hulu isn't getting next-day network television + back catalogs, then I'm not going to subscribe. That's what I want it for, and I imagine I'm not the only one.

<comment><USER4> _sitting through the same 4 advertisements over-and-over-and-over again for_

What is it I don't understand about the online video business that causes this to happen? They can't get enough advertisements from their partners to allow them to be less repetitive? Advertisers don't want to provide variety? (Maybe advertisers specifically _want_ the monotony? Surely not, else they'd follow the same scheme on network TV.) The endless repetition sucks to watch and it makes the whole thing seem amateurish.

<comment><USER5> Hulu's CPM's are incredibly high, on par with prime time TV. Not that many companies advertise on TV at those rates; even fewer do so online.

<comment><USER4> Huh. OK, then it surprises me that they charge so much. I guess they're selling their ad space, though? (Hence it being sensible for them to charge such a high CPM rate.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow....I feel like I am watching a brilliant game of chess. Marissa Mayer is increasingly showing her genius.

It is clear that she understands that Yahoo is a New Media company. They serve assets to many eyeballs and monetize those assets.

It seems that in her case, their main goal is grab up as much quality inventory as she can, and monetize the hell out of it.

As their media inventory gets bigger, economies of scale start to kick in. Nike may not want to just advertise on Yahoo & Flickr, but they would be damned if they turn away the potential to reach audiences in Yahoo, Flickr, Tumblr, and now possibly Hulu. Plus I imagine that the more inventory they hold, is the more they can package that inventory to increase the unit price for all properties.

Holy crap....this is brilliant and yet so obvious. Why have other CEOs not grasped this and executed on it the way Mayer is.

I think this is the one of the few cases, in Corporate America, where going on an M&A spree makes the most sense.

Another thing is the more properties she buys, and the better deals she does is the easier it is to buy other deals. Startups loved being bought by Google because YouTube was bought by Google. The same thing is starting to happen. Yahoo! bought Tumblr, so other companies are going to feel comfortable being bought by Yahoo! and that will create more deal flow, resulting in more deals.

Hrmmm...I wonder how much cash Yahoo has on their balance sheet - either way, I am sure they can raise a ton of money to do more deals.

WoW....just WOW!!!!

<comment><USER7> Is "buy lots of big properties so you can advertise across all of them" really CEO _genius_? It's something that Yahoo was doing for years before Meyer even came on board- they bought Flickr and Delicious, and tried to buy Facebook. Granted, none of those were hugely successful, but we're still yet to see whether Tumblr and (maybe) Hulu will be.

I'm not sure that buying Hulu is such a slam-dunk, anyway. They are entirely at the mercy of the TV networks- if they pull content, Hulu is worth very, very little. People use Hulu largely because they have to.

<comment><USER8> I think the genius will instead lie in her plan for internal consolidation for the two platforms to converge in harmony as complementary.

Taken together the two most recent poaches (i.q. provided Hulu) have much crossover especially while accounting for further past acquisitions. Amalgamating successfully will position them as key content provider in the market.

<comment><USER6> That last sentence was so full of businessy-speak....I have no idea what you meant to say....and I am an MBA!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can anyone explain why Hulu wants to sell to a third party? I understand there's infighting according to the article, but it's unclear to me why one of the owners doesn't buy out the rest. Is there some general principle behind not selling to your competitors and choosing a party currently without a huge stake in television or movies like Yahoo? I'm curious about both reasons specific to this particular deal and general principles behind selling to third parties.

<comment><USER10> It's all about licencing.

"In 2011, Hulu's owners put the company up for sale and were looking for a bid of at least $2 billion; in exchange, they would offer content licenses that would run for two to three years."

"Last month, former News Corp. COO Peter Chernin submitted a starting bid of $500 million, with the understanding that he would be willing to pay more for extended licenses."

Basically, a huge chunk of Hulu's value is having a wide selection of content. At the same time the people doing the highest value licencing also own the content. Right now they can play an accounting game and lower the licencing costs to make it look profitable sell and then raise their licencing costs. Effectively it's the same money because they own the company as long as all the owners agree to a sweetheart deal. Unfortunately for them they are having some issue deciding just how much everyone should discount there content to make Hulu look better. However, nobody got suckered into there 2 billion dollar shell game.

<comment><USER11> I have had a Hulu account for the last two years. I recently canceled it.

Their content is actually not that good, and on top of it, you're forced to watch commercials as well. The service was terrible.

<comment><USER12> I've never understood why people dislike the commercials so much.

Most of their half hour (21 minute) shows only contain at most three minutes of commercials spread through the show. At worse you're sitting through a minute break from the show.

People pay $100+ per month and seem to live through tens of minutes of commercials per show.

Plus is about having device and HD access more than anything. I like it as I get far more content from it than I can over the air and I refuse to pay $60-100/month for cable/satellite.

<comment><USER13> Ignoring the obvious "I don't want to watch fucking random useless shit in the middle of something I am enjoying," there is another reason: commercials create mental pollution that in some cases never goes away.

For instance, I still have the jingle of this horrid local low-budget commercial from KFTY TV 50 (UHF broadcasting out of Santa Rosa, CA) in my brain: "♫ Auto body masters... _EuroCal_... ♫ Auto body masters... _EuroCal_...".

I was fucking _eight_. It's been _thirty fucking years_. And yet that crappy little jingle for a company I never used still bubbles up to the surface sometimes, in the shower or in the subway station. We all carry around these little worthless turd fossils in our heads. I noticed my friend humming McDonalds' _I'm lovin' it_ to herself as she worked just 20 minutes ago.

Gross.

<comment><USER14> So if you hadn't seen the commercial, what else would be playing in your head? Mozart?

<comment><USER15> Perhaps not Mozart, but anything is better than a fucking jingle.

I havent seen a TV commercial in years.

We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded by information. Some of it stick to your brain whether you like it or not. Presumably the brain has a finite amount of bandwidth for processing/retaining incoming information. With that in mind, I'll do my best to avoid commercials so something from the 'useful' information streams has a better chance of sticking.

Or perhaps my brain will latch on to some other useless information. But thats ok, because adverts are the fucking bottom-feeders of the information ocean.

Commercials didnt use to annoy me that much. But for the last three years I've consumed all my TV via Netflix and online video, commercial free. Now I find commercials unbearable. Sometimes I even get angry - how dare they interrupt my immersion and enjoyment of a story? Imagine if you were reading a book and every 5 minutes some obnoxious advert interrupted you? Thats how weird it feels.

<comment><USER14> When I watch TV, adverts fascinate me as a study of society. I'll admit that the enjoyment drops off after the first time though.

But are TV adverts really more "mentally polluting" than a 80s song or a limerick you picked up at a schoolyard? Relax everybody.

<comment><USER15> _adverts fascinate me as a study of society_

Thats a nice perspective, I might try that. The science of advertising is also interesting - these marketers spent squillions of research dollars on figuring out the most effective technique to transfer an idea/emotion/brand (essentially a meme) to your brain. Those techniques are also applicable to giving a presentation for work and public speaking. I've noticed the most successful people in the workplace are those who can 'sell' their ideas to their colleagues and managers.

 _But are TV adverts really more "mentally polluting" than a 80s song or a limerick you picked up at a schoolyard?_

For the most case I think you're right. There is a subset of more evil adverts which attempt to play on insecurities (body image, gender roles/responsibilities, medical fearmonging). But most advertising is just...transient noise. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by banality.

I have a pet theory that our brains will retain a certain amount of useless 'mental pollution' regardless of what information streams are being thrown at it. Not because we need those little nuggets of useless information, but because they are implicit to the formation and recall of other 'useful' memories and emotions. Memory is a multi-sensory thing, regardless of what part of the memory is 'useful'.

Music is a special case, its ability to trigger episodic memories is very strong[1]. I like to think of it in computer science terms as a hash table[2]. If you spend enough time doing a certain thing whilst listening to the same music, the event is stored against the hash (music). Then in the future, listening to this music will trigger a _very_ strong memory of that time in your life.

I spent many hours as a teenager listening to music whilst playing video games. Now if I listen to these albums, the memories instantly 'come flooding back' as the saying goes.

[1]I believe olfactory triggers are stronger than auditory triggers. Perhaps smell-o-vision advertising is the next big thing.

[2] Not a great analogy - the linking and recall is really bidirectional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think one potential positive outcome of all these acquisitions and rumours of acquisitions is that devs are once again seeing Yahoo as an interesting place to work. When you got so many in-shop startups working on interesting stuff, great things can happen beyond figuring out how all the individual acquisitions can fit together. Provided, of course, that Yahoo knows how to properly nurture the startups and their culture.

<comment><USER17> Whatever,management has not changed, the culture has not changed. Yahoo is just on a buying binge, until it runs out of cash. Mayer will have to fire half the current work force to make up for this or will be out in a year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> whoever buys Hulu is going to regret when they find out all the content deals goes up in smoke when the company change hands.

<comment><USER19> The content deals they currently have in place are so one-sided that there little to be gained by owning Hulu. Their contracts are basically, you get a license to the content, but 95% of any revenues you generate must be given to the content partners.

The whole point of Hulu was to stop piracy and return any cash generated to the content providers, not to be a profitable ongoing business. I don't even know what it means to buy a company that must funnel all revenues to content providers. It seems like Yahoo is bidding on something they won't actually control.

<comment><USER20> Yeah. Hulu is 100% a creature of the content owners. It's not a business. What would anybody be buying? The brand?

<comment><USER21> The advertising stream? I've never seen Hulu but there would be a lot of chances to show ads on it I'd imagine.

And yahoo is a company with alot of add inventory!

<comment><USER22> Of course, the whole point is that most of the revenue from the ads goes to the content providers, not to Hulu.

Still, you can imagine a scenario where Yahoo signs an ad deal with say General Motors for an overall package for all their properties, and then throws in Hulu as a bonus.

Keep the ad rates at Hulu at whatever minimum is written into the content deals, but use that as a bonus/loss leader for the real money that's allocated to advertising on the other Yahoo properties.

Might work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> First Marissa buys Geocities and now she's making a play for Broadcast.com.

</comment><comment><USER24> Out of all the names on that list William Morris Endeavor is the most surprising.

The agency model in Hollywood will eventually fade away because middle men don't offer as much utility as they once did when information wasn't so readily available.

It's surprising to see any of the major agencies waking up to this idea and acting on it.

If WME wins the bid we could see some interesting changes in the entertainment industry.

If actors, writers and directors (talent) are only a single step away from creating content in an environment where distribution has very low variable cost then we could see a boom of high quality independent films and shows. Think House of Cards (Netflix US) on a more frequent basis.

<comment><USER25> In the case of WME, they are 1/3rd owned by Silver Lake, so some sophistication in this area isn't surprising:

[http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/silver-lake-takes- sta...](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/silver-lake-takes-stake-in- william-morris-endeavor/)

I don't know about WME, but CAA also has a small venture arm.

<comment><USER24> I used to work at CAA and there are a few agents aware of a bleak future for the agency model but to be honest no one wants to face the music over there. Their investment arm is for tech and entertainment startups, I doubt they would use it for Hulu. A Hulu acquisition would require their Silverlake equivalent, TPG. I'm all for it, but trust me when I tell you that I doubt CAA will put a bid in on this.

They are so far ahead #1 that they can't see it. It's a classic innovators dilemma problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Yahoo is the new Lycos. Lol. They are just buying a lot of stuff wihout a strategy and focus.

</comment><comment><USER27> "In 2011, Hulu's owners put the company up for sale and were looking for a bid of at least $2 billion; in exchange, they would offer content licenses that would run for two to three years."

Given that Hulu is now owned by the folks who license its content, any new buyer/owner can expect to pay astronomically more (think of what happens to Netflix every few years as they license content) or lose access to content every few years. Essentially, the owners would sell you the company and retain the option to put you out of business. It's a really bad deal.

<comment><USER17> well some people callit genius , go figure ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Can someone tell me where Yahoo gets all this money from? It's not like they have pockets as deep as Facebook or Microsoft! Although I believe I do understand part of their strategy (having a foot in every type of medium), I have concerns about how they will integrate all this content and users into the Yahoo ecosystem. It is certainly not going to be easy work and the acquisition is the most straightforward bit. I really don't know what to think about this move. It seems a bit premature though.

<comment><USER29> Back in the day, they bought 40% of Alibaba, which has done VERY well. Selling back this stake has raised a lot of money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I see a lot of people down the thread complaining about advertising and saying how it has become a normalized part of the experience.

I tried scanning the thread, but ironically more knowledgeable people have not mentioned cable television did not originally have ads; at least one of my parents said this was the appeal of premium cable at its inception. Wikipedia kind of confirms this in several places, but does not discuss the history of ads on cable TV specifically, which I would want to read more about.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United_States)

So, keep in mind it is the lazy or indifferent among us who let them get on cable in the first place, so surprise surprise Hulu and other content providers are not going to diverge from the inertia of greediness set by their industry decades ago.

Also, not to defend Hulu, but they tried a lot of experimenting with fronting the ads in blocks so you can watch shows interrupted. I respected they made an effort, and they need to show with ad revenue and subscriptions (just like cable companies and satellite providers before them) they can use these models _on the web_ to turn a profit. I actually considered Hulu subscription, even if it is garbage, because supporting legit streaming content in any form is the only way to drive it home to these morons in the entertainment industry that I want internet-based services, not DVDs, movie theaters, set-top boxes with encryption cards, etc.

</comment><comment><USER31> Ok - at this point I'm wondering just how much Yahoo thinks it can swallow as a company. Tumblr -by itself - is going to take months to integrate into the Yahoo ecosystem. And now they want Hulu? I'm really wondering if they are biting off more then they can chew.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think this is a smart buy. Buying netflix would be stupidly expensive, but buying Hulu and changing it to out-netflix netflix could be a really good play to pick up a platform fairly cheaply and run with it. The question is whether or not Yahoo! has the dynamism to do that, and I'm not sure anyone other than Marissa Mayer has the answer, if her.

Here in the UK, iPlayer dominates the online market. If she can come with a paid for equivalent getting things like Game of Thrones and original content on the level of house of cards, Yahoo could really challenge that.

<comment><USER33> The UK market is probably one of the most 'advanced' in terms of online viewing of TV and movies (thanks in large part to the popularity of the iPlayer).

There's a mix of things; multi-platform free VoD (iPlayer, 4oD, ITV), multi- platform subscription VoD (Netflix, Blinkbox, Lovefilm), subscription live stuff (Sky).

I would credit the BBC with spurring on this competition - they've expanded the mindshare for these kind of products with everyday people probably more than any other company. They're not really competing with the other players in the UK, though.

A new player would be competing with the likes of Sky (who own the rights to a load of premium stuff, which wouldn't be up for grabs for a long time, and when it is, would be fought for). Netflix has this problem right now with movie and TV rights.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> There is a strategy behind this - Tumblr, now Hulu. She is acquiring content generating properties. Whether it will succeed or not remains to be seen, but kudos to her for trying!

To those who say it has been tried before by other CEOs: Flickr and Delicious generate pictures and bookmarks. Pictures and bookmarks have pathetic monetization rates, compared to articles/blog posts. With Hulu, it gets better - awesome paid subscription rates, along with monetization via advertising.

</comment><comment><USER35> Yahoo is trying to acquire so many companies, I fear they are only going to run into culture problems as they begin to assimilate them into the parent company over time.

Just look at AOL as the model company that did this in the late 90s and early 2000s. They broke so many companies they acquired and it only hurt AOL.

Google and Facebook have been successful at it because they essentially used it as a way to hire smart people who wouldn't have interviewed with them.

</comment><comment><USER36> My two biggest complaints re: Hulu are

1) "web only" content licenses. Nevermind that they really mean "PC only", it's a confusing user experience to pay for a service and have content selectively unavailable. I think that this is mostly Fox's fault.

2) choppy ad serving. Video serves very consistently, but ads are prone to pausing, stuttering and other buggy behavior.

</comment><comment><USER37> I hope they buy it and open it for international users as well, it's a pity right now it only works in the US and you have to resort to tricks to access it from outside the US (for those interested here's a chrome add-on that lets you access it from outside the US - 'Media Hint').

</comment><comment><USER38> I don't really understand how this would work because I thought the secret sauce of Hulu was that the networks owned Hulu, so they allowed their content to be on Hulu. If Yahoo buys Hulu, do they still get the network content?

</comment><comment><USER39> Hulu has too many vowels to be a Yahoo acquisition. It just can't happen.

<comment><USER40> y is a vowel sometimes ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Looks like Marisa is following the Google recipe. Blogs, Videos, Photos (improving flickr), now they just need a real mobile product and a social network.

<comment><USER42> 60% of google's revenue comes from search. You can't be google without the golden hen and yahoo doesn't have search.

<comment><USER41> Content discovery is moving away from search. If anyone would know that it would be Marisa. Perhaps she is positioning the company for 2-3 years down the road. Which means she needs more social component to yahoo beyond tumblr.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> What's the value of Hulu to Yahoo besides trying to buy itself into the cool kids club? What is Yahoo these days anyways? Search? Content aggregation?

<comment><USER44> Yahoo is its Alibaba stake. No more, no less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I think Vimeo might be better acquisition than Hulu.

<comment><USER46> Agree. It seems much more complementary to Flickr, and avoids all of the negotiation with the networks that any deal with Hulu would entail.

This article is a leak, the question is by whom, and to what purpose. The cynic in me says that Yahoo made some lowball offer and Hulu leaked it to try to drum up more interest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Another example of acquisition frenzy by Marissa Mayer...already priced in, especially in this market of asset inflation.

</comment><comment><USER48> If yahoo makes it back to the top, it will be a coup of sorts.

I might be rushing it a bit, but we need competition at the top!

</comment><comment><USER49> Marissa Meyer sure likes shopping.

<comment><USER50> Nominated as HN's best/worst comment of the day. <http://on.fb.me/10Yo7An>

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Seems yahoo and Google are competing to be the ne AOL.

</comment><comment><USER52> Yahoo! is showing us what a new media company is.

</comment><comment><USER53> Seems the new CEO is hard at work

</comment><comment><USER54> "Yahulu", then.

</comment><comment><USER55> I tried Hulu multiple times with their free month offers. It sucked so bad that I canceled before I had to pay for a subscription. I'm sure people love Hulu, but I am definitely not one of them.

<comment><USER56> It burns me to pay a subscription and still have to watch advertisements.

It burns me even more that the ads are so repetitive.

<comment><USER57> How is that any different than cable/satellite?</comment></comment></comment>


10 features Apple stole for the Swift programming language. - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoworld.com/slideshow/155797/10-features-apple-stole-the-swift-programming-language-243934#slide8 <comment><USER2> Can we add the quotes around stole in the title that the original article has?</comment>


Bitsquatting: DNS Hijacking without exploitation - <AUTHOR> http://dinaburg.org/bitsquatting.html <comment><AUTHOR> The Python script at the end is fun to play with, for example:

        $ python bitsquat.py google .com
        foogle.com: is taken (22.214.171.124)
        eoogle.com might be available!
        coogle.com might be available!
        ooogle.com might be available!
        woogle.com: is taken (126.96.36.199)
        gnogle.com might be available!
        gmogle.com might be available!
        gkogle.com might be available!
        ggogle.com might be available!
        gongle.com might be available!
        gomgle.com might be available!
        gokgle.com might be available!
        goggle.com: is taken (126.96.36.199)
        goofle.com: is taken (184.108.40.206)
        gooele.com might be available!
        goocle.com might be available!
        gooole.com: is taken (22.214.171.124)
        goowle.com: is taken (126.96.36.199)
        googme.com: is taken (22.214.171.124)
        googne.com might be available!
        googhe.com: is taken (18.104.22.168)
        googde.com might be available!
        googld.com might be available!
        googlg.com might be available!
        googla.com might be available!
        googlm.com: is taken (220.127.116.11)
        googlu.com might be available!

<comment><USER2> It's tempting to grab one of those, and see how many hits there are a month, other than those coming from crawlers.</comment></comment>


A new kind of Twitter outage  - <AUTHOR> http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/04/20/aNewKindOfTwitterOutage.html

<comment><USER2> Blah blah blah.</comment>


Digital and Analog Under One Startup Roof - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys! Adam from Baron Fig here, a lot of you guys know us for our analog notebooks. (Maybe some of you are using one right now.)
Yesterday we launched our digital notebook, Mosaic, on iOS. I figured you all might have some good questions about how/why this whole analog/digital thing fits together under one startup roof.
Feel free to ask away! You can check out Mosaic via http://www.baronfig.com/pages/mosaic <comment> Engr-Student andigilog. It had both under one roof in 2004. [http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.as...](http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=6313062)</comment>


Sequoia funded YC startup hiring - <AUTHOR> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/sof/593696990.html <comment><AUTHOR> Also a program manager: <http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/sof/598719856.html>

</comment><comment><USER2> rms - do you know or can you vouch for those guys in some way?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know them personally. From Googling around a bit they seem to be the merger of YC startups Clustrix and sproutit.com. I assume they're onto something big if they raised a Sequoia Series A.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A workflow tool for resolving PCI security requirements with ease - <AUTHOR> http://www.compliancechimp.com

<comment><USER3> Do you really need this much access?

      Personal user data Full access

      This application will be able to read and write all user data.
      This includes the following:

        - Private email addresses
        - Profile information
        - <USER2>

<comment><AUTHOR> @dfc I don't know how to stop that honestly. Like I can't figure out where in Github to stop it from asking all that information. No I don't need all of it! Would you be able to show me the right direction please?

<comment><USER3> I am sorry, i do not know.

<comment><AUTHOR> @dfc I fixed it! Would you be willing to try logging in with GH and see if you see those permission requests again please?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Zuckerberg accused of securities fraud - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2010/05/19/facebook-connectu-securities-fraud/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitter-publisher-author&utm_campaign=twitter <comment><USER2> A few observations:

1\. What is at stake: The original lawsuits filed in Massachusetts in 2004 claimed a theft of IP by Mr. Zuckerberg in starting what is today Facebook. Ergo, there is a massive amount at stake financially if the original case is re-opened and made subject to litigation. Among other things, the ConnectU founders could make a claim on FB's profits almost in perpetuity, could obtain injunctive relief by which they could effectively shut FB down via court order, and could cause the FB founders to be exposed to endless problems with FB's own investors for what would undoubtedly be breaches of reps and warranties made by FB and its founders in the Series A through D & following investment documents (for example, Microsoft might potentially seek to rescind its $240 million investment and demand its money back). Thus, a re-opening of the original case would be a horrific event for FB and its founders. The problem here is this and _not_ any supposed indictment for securities fraud. Of course, with such risks involved, the ConnectU founders have a great motivation to push every angle possible to get the case re-opened because any amount that would be paid to settle the case today would easily dwarf the original settlement amount.

2\. Where this is at: The article makes it seem like some dramatic event occurred by which FB and its founders have suddenly been hit with some claim for securities fraud. This is far from accurate. Back in 2005, Facebook responded to the original Massachusetts suit by filing a legal action in California, evidently trying to gain a procedural advantage against both ConnectU and its founders. The ConnectU founders got themselves dismissed from that case on grounds of lack of personal jurisdiction, leaving only their entity in the case. The parties later conducted a private mediation and settled the case over a two-day period. The ConnectU founders did appear in the mediation and got their promised payday. The settlement was documented in the form of a 2-page term sheet and basically involved the grant of a large chunk of FB's common stock to the ConnectU founders. After the mediation was done, the parties attempted to take the 2-pager and put it in the form of definitive documentation and that is where things broke down. Initially, FB apparently tried to accommodate the ConnectU side by preparing complex documentation that would have made the acquisition of ConnectU by FB a tax- free merger (this obviously would have benefited the ConnectU founders, who otherwise would have been taxed on the value of the stock they received as of the date of receipt, leaving them with a multi-million dollar tax hit and no way to liquidate their FB stock to pay for it). When disputes arose about the detailed terms, FB filed a motion with the court to enforce the settlement. In doing so, it asked the court to enforce the terms it had put form in the _complex documentation_ and not as set forth in the 2-pager. The court, on hearing the motion, ordered that the settlement agreement be enforced but did so based on the terms set forth in the 2-pager. The ConnectU parties were then forced to deliver the ConnectU stock to Facebook, which (given that it then controlled the company) promptly fired the attorneys who had been representing ConnectU and its founders. This left the founders scrambling to appeal and to do so under circumstances where the only party with standing to appeal (ConnectU) was controlled by FB as an adverse party. This led to a logistical nightmare, from a litigation perspective, but it eventually got sorted out when the court let the ConnectU founders "intervene" and make their case on appeal. The brief filed before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (discussed in this article) is the opening shot on an appeal seeking to overturn the lower court's order enforcing the settlement.

3\. The legal claims on appeal: When it opposed enforcement of the settlement in the lower court, ConnectU raised the legal theory that FB had violated federal securities laws when it allegedly agreed to grant stock to the ConnectU founders in exchange for a release of their claims. The lower court disagreed in electing to enforce the settlement and that is why the issue is being raised on appeal. The other ground of appeal is that the 2-pager that the lower court said constituted an enforceable settlement agreement did not amount to a binding contract because it lacked material terms. Hence, given that the parties were unable to agree on the detailed terms, ConnectU asserts that, at best, the parties only had a "letter of intent" outline of what an agreement would look like, subject to reaching final agreement following the mediation itself. Since no final terms were reached, ConnectU argued to the lower court, and argues now on appeal, that there is no binding agreement and that the Massachusetts litigation by which it seeks the horrific remedies described above should be allowed to proceed (i.e., that FB give back the ConnectU stock, that the original lawyers for ConnectU be brought back into the case, and that the litigation on the merits of the alleged trade secret theft by Mr. Zuckerberg be allowed to proceed to trial).

4\. The merits of those claims: This appeal is a testament to what high-priced (and quite excellent) lawyers can do to stir things up when large amounts of money are at stake. I have been involved in countless mediations over the course of a 30-year-plus career and can strongly attest that no one in his right mind (or otherwise) even begins to think that federal securities laws should be taken into account when settling a case by which stock is transferred from one party to another as part of the settlement. Such a mediation usually takes place over a day or two (as it did here) and is conducted under confidential circumstances - that is, there are court rules that affirmatively state that nothing said or done in that process shall be admissible as evidence for any reason in a later proceeding. Who, in that context, would be concerned about making sure that whatever was said by one party or the other constituted truthful representations about the value of what was being transferred to settle the case. Indeed, if anything, parties will try to wildly puff up the value of what is being offered in order to maximize the value of their deal (no one wants to leave "money on the table"). What is more, the other party knows that this is happening. That is the nature of litigation, where you frequently have blowhard lawyers shooting off about this or that with little regard to truth. When a fight is settled in this way, and stock is transferred, the party getting the stock is not making a business investment by which the transferring party needs to figure out if he is, e.g., an accredited investor or, e.g., if he has had full and complete access to the company's books and records. If anyone would even suggest such things in a mediation, he would be laughed out of the room. But, when you have expensive lawyers straining for every possible ground to maximize their client's leverage in a case where huge amounts of money are at stake, you get an approach where no stone is left unturned to gain maximum advantage. Hence, this argument in this appeal.

5\. The alleged "fraud" is likely bogus here as well. The theory is that FB did a press release shortly before the settlement touting Microsoft's $240 million investment and suggesting that, based on that investment, FB had a market cap of $15 billion. The claim is that the ConnectU founders relied on that valuation in determining what the value of the common stock was that they received. Later, supposedly, they discovered that FB had in fact done a 409A valuation of the common stock and that such valuation had placed an approximately $8/sh price on the common stock (in contrast to the $35/sh price placed on the preferred at the time of the Microsoft investment). Thus, the ConnectU founders were supposedly defrauded by having been misled about the value of the FB stock they were receiving to settle their claims (that is, as alleged, they thought they were getting stock worth $35/sh when it was in fact worth no more than $8/sh and, presumably, they would not have settled their claims for this supposedly lower amount had they known the true facts about the 409A appraisal, which facts were not disclosed to them at the time of the mediation). That might sound plausible to someone who knows nothing about startups but it is in fact an absurd argument to anyone who knows even the basics of startup financing. Every startup deal-maker knows that startups value preferred stock at 4 to 5 times higher (it used to be more like 10 times higher) than the common stock. This is vital for keeping employee incentives reasonably priced. Anyone who has been through even a single financing with a startup will know this. Therefore, what are the odds that the ConnectU founders, knowing that the $35/sh price was based on a press release discussing Microsoft's _preferred_ stock investment, did not immediately know and understand that a startup of this type would be putting a significantly lower price on the common stock at the same time. Thus, the argument strikes me as entirely artificial. It is a lawyer argument, very likely concocted after the fact. Because of this, too, in my judgment, I believe the argument will be rejected on appeal, just as it was by the lower court. If courts were to hold that no stock could be transferred in a settlement effected through mediation unless the parties stopped to comply with federal securities laws, the result would be utter chaos whenever a party sought to transfer equity as part of resolving a dispute. This is wholly inappropriate to a settlement context because you take a situation where a party is trying its best to "put one over" on the other party (that is how litigation is played) and transform it into a situation where a party can be sued for statements made about value or company circumstances, etc. Rule 10b-5, for example, allows a defrauded investor to sue not only the issuer but also all controlling persons and also all aiders and abetters. Will we now get lawsuits against litigation lawyers who are trying to get the best results for their clients by structuring a settlement with a stock component? Will we now have to create a record of negotiations rather than conduct settlements in a confidential context where parties can feel free to discuss the merits of their case openly without fear of repercussions? When you consider this claim in context, it is actually frivolous, at least when considered as a general rule for whether such laws should apply to a settlement context.

6\. Having said all that, I have been involved a number of times with settlements where the deal falls apart before it is fully documented, and courts are generally highly reluctant to enforce a settlement agreement if they are not absolutely convinced that the deal as struck is truly a binding agreement. It is impossible to evaluate this without being able to see the 2-pager itself (which is not in this record). Based on that experience, though (and every litigator will attest to this), it could well be that the ConnectU side has good grounds to get the settlement set aside, and I assume that explains the tremendous effort that has gone into this. Even if they don't ultimately succeed, this puts _enormous_ pressure on FB and Mr. Zuckerberg to settle up at a much higher amount than that of the original settlement, even while the appeal is pending. The lawyers representing FB are undoubtedly sitting their client down and reviewing the parade of horribles in great detail, if nothing else just because they want to cover themselves from liability.

7\. I don't know any of the participants here but, from what I have read in news reports, the founders on each side of this do seem to deserve each other - but I can't say that about innocent investors and others who stand to lose and lose big if this goes awry. This is just the sort of royal mess that winds up on law school and bar exams to test the limits of a candidate's knowledge when something gets super-complex with myriad twists and turns. Not a happy situation for anyone really.

<comment><USER3> Grellas, thank you for your time and interesting insight. Despite that probably your writing is more suitable for a blog post than a comment (over 2000 words).

<comment><USER4> I strongly disagree. Writing and thinking of this caliber is _most welcome_ within the comments, in my eyes. That said, nothing stops you from recycling it as a blog post too.

Thank-you Grellas.

<comment><USER5> Since the parent's post has gotten a few downvotes, I think he meant "you're so good you may want to think about breaking out of our small pond", not "we don't want you in our small pond."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On the one hand, it's tempting to dismiss all of the negative vibes about Zuckerberg as just haters latching onto a runaway success. On the other hand, I don't remember anything like they about the Google guys, or Yahoo. (I remember it about the MySpace guys, and it turned out to be mostly true.)

<comment><USER7> The Google guys seem nice. Zuckerberg does not give off a "nice" vibe. He's much more like Bill Gates than LarrySergeySchmidt. He is in the game to win and doesn't pretend to have a benign mission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have a very neutral opinion about Facebook and no strong attachment. While I respect their ability to solve some really interesting scalability challenges, I don't work there: I ignored them early on thinking they're "just another PHP website", their recruiters did reach out to me recently but I've already started a new position. I am not a heavy user of the site: I don't message other users, don't use any applications and update my status from Twitter. Essentially, I don't have a bias for or against Facebook.

On the other hand, I find the Winklevoss brothers revolting: "Oh hey, here's this nerd who can our build vision for us and make us rich! Let's hire and pay him pittance! Oh no, he executed on our unique idea himself?!".

As for most other developers, when approached by "business guys" my typical reaction is to polite say no. Zuckerberg did a much smarter: took their (simple and intrinsically worthless) idea and built a product _and_ a business on it himself.

It's sad that the courts gave the brothers _any_ money (rather than treating the lawsuit as frivolous). Nonetheless, I still hope this will be a sign to "business guy" jocks that this model won't work: it's a lot easier for a nerd to learn business than it is for you to learn programming. Want to build software? Pick up the K&R book, instead of trolling the CS lab.

<comment><USER9> I dunno, it depends on the circumstances I suppose. If you accept a hired job from someone and then take the idea private instead of doing it for the person who hired you, that seems like it legitimately should be illegal. Like if an Intel manager comes up with an idea and asks an engineer to work up a prototype, surely it'd be illegal for the engineer to quit and work up that same prototype for a new chip-design startup instead?

<comment><USER8> > Like if an Intel manager comes up with an idea and asks an engineer to work > up a prototype, surely it'd be illegal for the engineer to quit and work up > that same prototype for a new chip-design startup instead?

Yet this is how many Silicon Valley (back when the valley was actually about Silicon) start-ups began. Generally, however, the pattern was engineer and manager would identify a business need that real customers have. They would attempt to build it as a "pet project", be stiffed by conservative and hunch- driven product organization and would then _both_ quit and take a large chunk of the engineers along with them.

The reason this succeeded is that NDAs and non-competes are unenforceable in California. Law suits would still come (due to alleged theft of IP, which generally never happened) and be settled out of court for only a small proportion of the the equity the "idea" produced.

Personally, I will stand by my words. If you can't build your idea it's worthless (you can't estimate whether others can either). If everyone else can (welcome to web 2.0), it's worthless as well. Sure you may be able to sue somebody over your idea (but you generally have to have something more, like a claim of IP theft), but your lawsuit proceeds will be a fraction of what the person who "stole" your idea has made out of it. That $65mm doesn't change Zuckerberg's life _a single bit_ (not having another $65mm might only make life easier for him, as that's one less bodyguard to hire to protect it).

On the other hand, if you have a genuinely new idea i.e., you have a new CPU architecture you invented but don't have the ability to build the prototype chip _all by yourself_ then one engineer quitting and competing with you won't succeed unless he _actually_ steals your design (this is real IP theft) and even then you'll likely outdo him (as he'll have a bug for bug copy of your design, whereas you actually understand the design choices).

If management wants to be rich, they have to treat engineers with utmost respect. There's difference between engineers mere _coders_ who turn business requirements into code (usually by gluing software others have written together) and engineers. Spot the engineers early on, challenge them, give them autonomy and responsibility. Let them work on pet projects (Google calls it "20% time", but it's merely a codification of something successful companies had been doing before), tune your product vision with their data.

<comment><USER10> > The reason this succeeded is that NDAs and non-competes are unenforceable in > California.

True for employee noncompetes with no other relevant factors; not true for NDAs.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for correction. I treat NDAs _as_ enforceable, I stick by my word. Just to be clear: I am entirely against IP theft (taking actual source code from a company).

Nonetheless the idea of "social network for X" is not unique and deserves no protection similar to what a chip architecture or a machine learning algorithm may receive. Not that there aren't ambiguous examples e.g., using SVMs to categorize users of a social network or using an emulated RISC architecture to profile the GUI front-end of a web application (such as a social network) but in the cases the idea is not very useful without the engineering chops to put it into use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm consistently surprised by how supportive or neutral a position the tech community (or Silicon Valley tech media) takes towards the Winklevoss brothers when they provide an avenue to attack Facebook or Zuckerberg.

These guys seem to be the antithesis of what Silicon Valley claims to be all about. They wield the benefits of a privileged American elite background masterfully, having top-brand lawyers work on their behalf whilst they attend top academic institutions and train for the Olympics. It's a far cry from Silicon Valley's purported do-it-yourself, boostrap-iterate-and-execute meritocracy. (This is not an ad hominem attack, just an account of apparently differing values/ideals.)

Yet, here folks are, on Hacker News, dispassionately contemplating whether they deserve $30 million or $60 million. Most folks working 80+ hour weeks on innovative startups, no matter how talented or even lucky they are, will never earn that kind of money.

If this were not connected to Facebook/Zuckerberg, I suspect that any discussion community like this would be absolutely overflowing with vitriol towards these characters.

</comment><comment><USER12> I believe this will hinge on the details of how Facebook represented the value of the securities to ConnectU. Representations of the value of a security are legally perilous. If Facebook's lawyers at the time were good, I imagine Zuckerberg will get a pass. If they missed the dots on a few "i"s or the crosses on a few "t"s, then Zuckerberg could be in for a long ugly ride.

I am not a lawyer, but I worked in the securities industry in a regulatory supervisory capacity (series 24, plus a mess of others).

Good general advice: Any time you feel the urge to tell somebody what your stock is worth, avoid the urge unless your legal department is involved.

</comment><comment><USER13> This looks weak. They knew what they were getting. They agreed to take it. And now they've changed their minds. The secondary value of that stock is _higher_ than the value at the time of the Microsoft deal (<http://www.sharespost.com/companies/facebook>), so they're basically suing because Zuckerberg accidentally gave them a bargain.

If FB can buy back that stock at the original valuation, they'll get a good deal.

<comment><USER14> The point is they based the stock off the valuation of _preferred_ stock, but then they actually "received" common stock. It takes a while to get the ball rolling to accuse Facebook that they got a raw deal.

Here, Facebook tried to pull over a "well at least its stock" deal even though they agreed to $65million.

I wouldn't feel bad for ConnectU as $35million is still fantastic, but wouldn't you go back to court if another 35 was on the table? You'd be an idiot not too.

All that said, this is perfectly in-line with Zucker's character as its been painted as of late.

<comment><USER15> I don't feel that bad, considering it seems like Zuckers has been an unethical solipsist since the start. These 3 perhaps had more than just money taken from them by Zuckers "jackassery".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "An actual indictment on securities fraud would make it impossible for Zuckerberg to remain Facebook's CEO if it were to go public."

How likely is that, really? Regardless of whatever anyone thinks of Zuckerberg, that's ridiculous.

<comment><USER17> This statement is ambiguous anyway. This is a civil suit and not criminal case. Secondly, from my understanding, only the SEC via a federal court can "ban" someone from being a director in a public company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> To those who say that the execution matters more than the idea, I ask why copy someone else's idea? If it's all in the execution, execute well on an idea you think up yourself.

<comment><USER19> Most ideas, brilliantly executed, could never be 10% as big as FB. It's most definitely not all in the execution, except where execution includes "Be ready to change your idea to a better one".

<comment><USER20> But the original idea for Facebook wasn't 10% as big as Facebook. 'Execution' includes turning your good idea into a great one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is one of those stories where I cannot feel sympathy for either side.

<comment><USER22> I feel sorry for the ConnectU guys only because it looks like they'd rather spend time suing than building something else. Sure, it sucks to get ripped off, but it sucks worse to drag out that kind of response to having that happen.

<comment><USER23> What realistic chance do they have of building anything that would make up the difference of around $30 million?

"Shrug it off and go build something else, it's not worth the hassle" is for when you miss two weeks of consulting fees on a terrible customer before you cut them off, not $30 million.

<comment><USER24> About as much chance as they'd have of building anything worth $65 million in the first place, which doesn't seem like much. These guys are just the stereotypical "startup idea people" who think "we just need to hire a programmer to implement our vision".

I know Mark Zuckerberg is the villain now, but let's be fair. Just because Facebook's default privacy settings aren't private enough for our tastes doesn't mean Zuckerberg is a psychopath or that everyone who has a grudge against him is the hero.

<comment><USER23> I have no idea nor any opinion about the merits of their case. I am pointing out the otherwise useful idea of "just shrug it off and build something else" is good advice only in a certain domain, and this is not in that domain. It is dangerous to take advice out of the domain it is appropriate for (a broadly applicable statement), and useful to point out when it is occurring.

Frankly, I don't care how any lawsuit goes. My personal recommendation would be to take the settlement and cash out while Facebook stock is still worth something. I'm not terribly sanguine about the 1-2 year prospect of the stock. (Not because Facebook will be gone by then, but because the current value of the stock includes a promise of growth that I think will be obviously not going to happen by then.)

<comment><USER24> I was actually agreeing with you, in a way--the ConnectU people shouldn't and can't shrug this off and build something new, because they couldn't build anything in the first place.

<comment><USER23> Ah. My cynicism was insufficiently deep. Thanks for helping me correct that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> When I first read the headline, I assumed the story was going to be something like Zuckerberg looks at Facebook user's private messages and makes trades based on the private information in those messages. Obviously that's not the case, but it wouldn't have surprised me with the way he treated user data, especially early on in Facebook's history.

<comment><USER24> What good do you think it accomplishes to post this comment? Of course people assume terrible things about Zuckerberg now that Facebook has passed into the backlash stage of the hype cycle, but having a vivid imagination about the crimes someone hasn't actually committed is a reflection on you, not on him.

<comment><USER25> The point of my comment is that unethical behavior, even when you're early 20s, will cause people to assume the worst with you. Facebook's current privacy policies and attitudes are alarming enough, but they're far more alarming when taken into context with Mark Zuckerberg's alleged past behavior.

Most people don't read full articles. They look at the headlines and make assumptions. Mark's put himself in a position where the assumptions that people make are going to be negative, and that's going to hurt his business, even if it's unfair.

<comment><USER24> It's important to recognize that once you've reached the backlash stage of the hype cycle, the negative rumors and assumptions of bad faith will begin. It's not important to participate in that process personally, and it's rather below the level of discourse I'm interested in seeing on Hacker News.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Zuckerberg slept with my girlfriend!

Do you see what I did there? Anyone on the Internet can accuse anyone of anything. And you can do the same in a court document -- when you sue someone, you don't say "I think the person I am suing is a fine and upstanding citizen." You come up with anything that sounds bad and could possibly be true, just in case you're right or the judge buys it.

This is a non-story. Facebook is shady, but there is probably no securities fraud involved.

<comment><USER27> I'm sure the settlement was well-documented... much more documented than any supposed rendezvous with your girlfriend.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Devs-Use – A place for developers to share setups and tools - <AUTHOR> https://devs-use.netlify.com/ <comment><USER2> Reminded me of the [https://usesthis.com](https://usesthis.com) Can use a better design in my opinion, but always love these kind of websites. Maybe its a little like usesthis for developers.</comment>


Linus Torvalds likes Google's Chromebook Pixel - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/linus-torvalds-really-likes-googles-chromebook-pixel-7000012168/

<comment><USER2> Was posted here. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5327261>

Then mysteriously disappeared off front page, perhaps due to flagging.

<http://hnrankings.info/5327261/></comment>


Node v4.2.1 (LTS) – Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v4.2.1/ <comment><USER2> Wondered why MySQL was dying on me with 4.2.0.. Good to see they got to it quickly.</comment>