Bank of America data leak destroys trust - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20110524,0,1687635.column

<comment><USER2> "The purloined info included ... PINS ... "

Shouldn't these be hashed like a password? I suppose it's not common practice, but why not? Maybe the use of Pins started well before the internet made all these breaches so easy, so all that data was considered "safe."

</comment><comment><USER3> The most expensive part in all that story is how taxpayers would pay for maintaining prisons for these fraudsters.</comment>


Building computer tools to cure perfectionism. - <AUTHOR>

One could imagine building tools that automatically introduces minor errors into whatever one is working on.
For example, when building a user interface, the UI builder could introduce minor position errors.
When writing an email, a tool could introduce minor typos, inconsistent spacing, etc.
All of this is to make people paralyzed by perfectionism confront the reality that minor errors are ok.
And even in cases where minor errors can lead to disaster, the mental health of the software developer is more important than any product after all. <comment><USER2> You're probably better off looking at some of the research on positive psychology

<http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/>

<http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx>

and seeing if you can automate some of the cognitive training that comes out of that research to reduce your paralyzing perfectionism.

[http://talentdevelop.com/1130/tal-ben-shahar-on-letting- go-o...](http://talentdevelop.com/1130/tal-ben-shahar-on-letting-go-of- perfectionism/)

Introducing errors into a program intentionally doesn't sound like the best way to help a programmer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have any specific therapies in mind?

BTW, intentional errors are described here:

[http://books.google.ca/books?id=w6ESB0Ys4IoC&pg=RA1-PA24...](http://books.google.ca/books?id=w6ESB0Ys4IoC&pg=RA1-PA248&lpg=RA1-PA248&dq=perfectionism+%22intentional+errors%22&source=bl&ots=xr3CG6iS8g&sig=b71qE- dsTc0jxZ8la49Hy0J_tqI&hl=en&ei=U0zpSaXXCMyrtge6jfCXBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1)

<comment><USER2> The three good things exercise

<http://www.cabinetgirls.com/Three_Good_Things_Exercise.pdf>

<http://pos-psych.com/news/jen-hausmann/20070403191>

isn't specifically directed toward perfectionism, but it is helpful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> For writing, Word happen to control those minors errors. It's good. But Word is an application, it works with an exact algorithm, so sometimes it doesn't give you the best results.So here's how I do.

Disable all those features. I write my article or text completely.

Enable all the features again, it'll highlight errors, then I correct the ones that are really errors.

Finally, everyone should have techniques to avoid those minors errors, whether you are developing or writing.

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea is to force people to confront flaws at a minor level in the hope that they would stop worrying so much about flaws of all sorts -- minor or major.</comment></comment>


What is a stateless user interface? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ezyang.com/2015/11/what-is-stateless-user-interface/ <comment><USER2> I think cabal is the primary reason why I do far less Haskell coding than I'd like. Coming back to projects to find that they've suffered from severe 'code rot', even when sandboxing. Then finding it basically impossible to recover from because some library version somewhere isn't happy, but the only thing that's reported are cryptic error messages. I've previously had to rebuild my dev environment from scratch on both OSX and Windows because of unrecoverable issues. It is frustrating in the extreme.

I'm not a hugely experienced Haskeller, so I've almost certainly made 'classic mistakes', but as a system it is so unstable that I couldn't really commit to any large projects, which is a shame, because I really, really rate Haskell as a language.

In stepped F#, and although not as nice a language Haskell, the tooling works. It would be great to see this resolved once and for all.

<comment><USER3> Luckily, Stack [1] allays a lot of the reproducible build hell that Cabal sometimes provides. I would highly recommend trying Stack out before deciding that the Haskell package management system is a dealbreaker for you. More and more open source projects are using it - and if they aren't, perhaps that could make a good first contribution to a larger project (if you're having build trouble with vanilla Cabal, others probably are as well).

[1]: [https://github.com/commercialhaskell/stack](https://github.com/commercialhaskell/stack)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the heads up, I will take a look :)

<comment><USER4> The developers are stack will be really, really happy to hear your thoughts, when you used stack.

(I know this because they kept following up with me a few times, until I finally got around to giving it a try.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The enemy is ambiguity. To avoid ambiguity, you need to be explicit. Being explicit is expensive. Thought prediction (auto-completion) is the solution.

We need a computer-assisted predicate-oriented language. This will become the only UI we need.

<comment><USER6> How is this better than hooking into bash-completion? I don't see this avoiding ambiguity.

<comment><USER5> \- Text isn't sufficient to a rich interface.

\- Auto-completion is best when you start with arguments (as opposed to a function or predicate).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was drive crazy by Gimp this morning because of this. The move tool has a mode: move layers/guides, move the selection or move a path. Sometimes, somehow the mode flips to "selection" and stays there, leaving the user unable to pick and move a guide line (even if the user clicks on the ruler first, which is usually the trick to get into a mode where you can pick a guide line). Just figuring out why it stopped working had me baffled; at one point I "fixed" it by quitting and restarting Gimp thinking it was a bug. Then I found the answer online. Grrr! Though I know what to do, it's still annoying to have to bring up the tool options dialog on the move tool whenever I can't move a guide.

<comment><USER8> Image editing is one of those great examples of the workflows being so diverse that no generalized interface solution will be very good for all of them.

What's tickling my brain at the moment is the idea that these complex apps might be better as languages first, just shipping with thousands of well- organized example scripts that cover all the bread and butter - in the same way that synthesizers moved towards being preset-centric over time, to the point where one of the big features of new VST plugins is the content they ship with and the ease of browsing it.

<comment><USER7> There are ways forward. For instance, instead of a small number of tools which mutate their state, why not let the user clone variants of the tools which are configured differently.

Let me configure two or more copies of the move tool, one configured for layers and one for selections. Let me give them different icons and let me position it in a custom toolbox.

Don't make me do the equivalent of swapping bits on a multi-bit screwdriver. I'm not a mobile handyman trying to save space and weight in a portable toolbox; I can afford to replicate the handle and shaft for each bit.

<comment><USER9> The gimp already has this feature. It's called presets and it works well enough. Just set up your tool exactly the way you want it and then save a preset. You can even configure the preset so some settings (such as colour) pass through the preset.

<comment><USER7> If it exists in the version I'm using, it is certainly not discoverable. I don't see any hint of this in a two-level-deep manual search of various menus. I would expect to find osmething like this if I right click on the toolbox (context menu pops up, with one of the choices being "Add New Preset ..." or whatever). Or in the Tools menu, with a menu item being "Manage presets ..." or whatever.

Ah, finally found it. You have to click on the little docking triangle on some specific Tool Options dialog for a given tool. It is in this docking-related menu that a command is found to bring up the Tool Options Menu! I think I didn't notice it before because it's totally "off topic" for docking. (Why would a semantically important feature be found under a little docking triangle?) It is this Tool Options Menu which has the preset management commands.

If you right click anywhere on the Tool Options, you get context menu with one-button context menu which says "Tool Options". When you click that button, it just disappears: there you are in Tool Options as before! Right clicking on a Tool Options object would be the obvious place to have the Tool Options Menu. Then the preset stuff would be more discoverable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe less unnecessary or confusing state could be a good thing, but taking state out of interfaces altogether sounds like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The whole point of interfaces is interacting with and modifying the state of the computer based on what the current state of the computer is, after all.

<comment><USER11> Nah. Some interfaces are purely functional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> i'd be curious what makes this a useful abstraction compared to thinking about providing useful features with simple interfaces?

i can easily see that reducing state implies reducing the number of steps a user takes to solve a problem (since each step implies some state somewhere).

what i can't see is how it implies that we must implement a new feature. this seems to be the real driver behind solving the "revision pinning" problem in the article - the fact that it is preventing state from changing unexpectedly seems to be coincidental based on what the user actually desires. and actually the solution adds more state - pinned version numbers (or repo hashes, or URLs etc...)

personally when approaching these problems i try thinking about things like "what features are needed to solve the user problems?" and "how can the interface for features as simple as possible?". it seems a lot simpler as an approach, more intuitive, and can be extended to be made more useful (e.g. "how do i make feedback as clear as possible?"). some of these questions are very complicated to answer, especially since they might involve things like user's mood or past experiences... i think that just shows that this is a complicated problem space.

minimising statefulness feels sort of "necessary" rather than "sufficient", and only in some cases. i'd be curious if there is any proof or reasoning to show that it has desirable properties beyond the clear connection to reducing needless user interactions.

</comment><comment><USER13> Interfaces will end up like debuggers. Functional folds over explicit sophisticated state.

<comment><USER14> Err, how is a debugger a functional fold?

<comment><USER13> machine-state -> command-dispatch -> machine-state' ~zero ?

ps: the idea is that the state is made explicit, so the user knows where and what to diagnose.

<comment><USER15> This is one reason why I thought the C and C++ Builder products by Borland were quite strong. The 'properties' and the interaction with the forms were arranged such that the programming environment, the debugger _and_ the application were as close to each other as possible.

The only other environment that manages to achieve this (and better) is smalltalk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was thinking about similar thing recently. The UI state should be isomorphic to the state of the application (which is arguably hard to do with the command line, but I digress).

So every action that user can take in the UI has clear correspondence in valid change of the application state.

Also, this would affect composability. If the state of the application of composed of smaller elements, the UI should be composable too.

So just be defining the application state (this perhaps includes edited document in editors), and possible transitions (which is a category), one should get a skeleton of how UI would behave.</comment>


Video tutorials from Y! Doug Cockford: The JavaScript Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://101out.com/jss.php

<comment><USER2> Non-linkjacked for all of the Yahoo videos, including Crockford's fantastic series, plus the slides:

<http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/theater/></comment>


1500 Archers on a 28.8: Network Programming in Age of Empires and Beyond - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3094/1500_archers_on_a_288_network_.php <comment><USER2> They're right too- AOE and AOK were very playable on a dialup connection.

It's interesting to me that they wound up doing the synchronized message processing model, and that its brittleness became a strength in the war against cheaters. It makes sense, but it's not something I would have anticipated.

</comment><comment><USER3> > We also metered the users demands on the system -- they would typically > issue commands (move, attack, chop trees) averaging about every 1.5 to 2 > seconds

30 to 40 apm? That's extremely slow. I play warcraft 3 -- not very well, and definitely not very fast -- and my apm is more like 80 or 90. Starcraft pros play at 300apm.

<comment><AUTHOR> You have to remember that these games were made a _long_ time ago, before the popular professional gaming events even existed. 30-40 does seem a bit low, but I doubt they had any conception of the actual upper threshold (300+).

Also, AOE is much different than Starcraft/Warcraft. There is much less microing involved.

<comment><USER4> Agree. I recently reinstalled AoE on my machine (my gaming never really evolved past 1998), and I can truly spend 2 minutes without issuing a single directive.

In a 90 minute game, the first 15 minutes might involve very little instruction at all - quite different to more modern expectations of game play.

<comment><USER5> Check out Rise of Nations (gaming circa 2003): it took the Age of Empires style to its logical conclusion by crossing it with Civilization, and it includes lots and lots of features to minimize micromanagement. Things like idle workers automatically finding a nearby resource node to work.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


See which political candidates agree with your own positions on issues - <AUTHOR> http://www.isidewith.com/ <comment><USER2> iSideWith is hosting a live streaming debate discussion tonight with the third party presidential candidates ([http://www.isidewith.com/debate- stream/20161019](http://www.isidewith.com/debate-stream/20161019))</comment>


Ask HN: What are some active non-tech online communities? - <AUTHOR>

Which non-tech, non-business, non-design related communities you know about and are you active there? <comment><USER2> <http://gallifreybase.com> \- Doctor Who fans

<http://mma.tv> \- Mixed Martial Arts

<http://www.phins.com> \- Miami Dolphins fans

<http://libertarian.reddit.com>

<http://trianglemtb.com> \- Mountain biking in the RTP, NC area

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://xkcd.com/802/> (Map of Internet 2)

I like 9gag. I used to go to 4chan/b/ but the community's sense of humor is incredibly racist and sexist which gets to me. 9gag is like /b/ without all the hate.

</comment><comment><USER4> A lot of the subreddits on reddit?

</comment><comment><USER5> Metafilter

</comment><comment><USER6> Less Wrong</comment>


Crazy Competition Just Got Crazier - <AUTHOR> http://pixobebo.com/2013/01/crazy-competition-just-got-crazier/ <comment><USER2> No voice? No real skin (gloves)? ... not the best trust campaign? :P</comment>


The New Travel Document: Photograph of an Empty Plane - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/travel/coronavirus-empty-planes.html <comment><USER2> Wendover did a great video on COVID19 and the airplane industry:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX2e2iEg_pM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX2e2iEg_pM)

</comment><comment><USER3> Paywall bypass: [http://archive.is/IFWOU](http://archive.is/IFWOU)</comment>


The Prospector - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@nominalprose/the-prospector-2fdf68b2d6a2 <comment><AUTHOR> A short musing about time and getting what you want</comment>


Show HN: SpokenBits – Listen to your web content anywhere - <AUTHOR>

If you like reading content on the web, and sometimes is hard to catch up to your queue of articles and blog posts, you might find useful to have SpokenBits to read them for you while you are commuting, working out or simply cooking or cleaning the house.
You will be able to conveniently add as many articles as you need and group them into collections (example: news, health, politics, etc). SpokenBits will extract the uncluttered relevant content, and will read it for you in its original language with minimal text ads or irrelevant information.
Among other things, SpokenBits will keep track of unread/read articles, and listening progress. A convenient table of content is automatically created for each article for easy navigation.
Personally, I've been using it to keep up to date during my commute by listening to the articles and blog posts that interest me.
This is just the beginning, the SpokenBits team is working hard to bring the Audio Book experience to a broad range of Web Content, stay tuned.
http://www.spokenbits.com <comment><USER2> clickable - [http://www.spokenbits.com](http://www.spokenbits.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Airbus Beluga XL - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Beluga_XL <comment><USER2> We can see one landing from the office I work in once in a while, it really looks like a flying whale over Hamburg.

<comment><USER3> Always loved to watch it flying over the city. My old office in emporio offered some of the best views of beautiful HH.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If I had extra money, I would buy one of those and make it into a 'vomit comet' and sell tickets.

All that empty space inside to move in zero G would be fun. Just add some padding and nets to avoid injuries.

<comment><USER5> It's not pressurized

<comment><USER6> That's fine upto 15,000 ft for a maximum of 30 minutes according to aviation regulations. So depending on how you do your vomiting it may work :-)

<comment><USER7> The top of a Vomit Comet parabola is a lot higher than 15,000 feet. Having that as a ceiling is going to shorten the zero-g time a lot.

<comment><USER8> Not a problem, just issue each person a little O2 pony bottle and nasal cannula. At 2 lpm should be plenty for a 30m fun ride.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tangential: one of the problems with Wikipedia - either help people write so that time isn't an issue, or have people who look for things and edit.

So much of this article refers to 2017 as being in the future.

<comment><USER10> Seems fine to me - what is annoying is an old article where you can't pin down when it was written. This way at least people can see that updating is needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why these planes remain specialists equipment and not widely adopted by the logistics industry? Are they very inefficient?

<comment><USER12> I took a brief look and these planes are unpressurized.

This is opposite of the typical cargo planes, which often are older passenger planes or derived types that still have cabin pressurization.

It depends on what you're delivering. For the large airplane parts they are designed for, pressurization isn't needed.

<comment><USER13> Beluga XL has cargo space volume 2209 m^3, while An-225 Mriya has 1300 m^3 (pressurized), cargo weight is 53 and 189 tonnes, respectively. So you need a big, "light" and non-pressure requiring cargo to justify the use of Beluga XL, which is exactly what Airbus is using it for, by transporting fuselages of other planes.

<comment><USER14> Mriya is a 30 years old one-off, a better comparison would be An-124 or 747-8F.

Though Mriya's cargo weight capacity is 250t, 190t is the heaviest _single item_ it's lifted (a power station gas generator, from Poland to Armenia).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love the beluga paint job.

Given its use for transporting large plane parts I'd think an airship would more cost effective. For wind turbine places and the like too, as in both cases size is a bigger barrier than weight.

I know there have been some airship projects in the past few years: why have they not succeeded?

</comment><comment><USER16> Consider the software predicaments caused by the changed aerodynamics at some angles of the 737-MAX, and consider the shape of this thing compared to the A330. I wonder how much of the control of A330 had to be updated for this - and how much that will cost for each sold individual of the transporter version.

<comment><USER14> The problem of the 737 was trying to keep to the type rating so crew didn't need re-training and re-certification, especially for airlines which refuse to fly anything but 737s.

This was not a concern here, it's not going to be sold to operators (let alone operators who don't want to retrain crew).

There are only 5 Beluga XL (likewise its predecessor) and it exists solely and exclusively for Airbus to move parts around due to the distributed nature of its production.

Before Airbus built their own cargo aircraft, they used Super Guppies, which is why there is one on display near or in two of Airbus' facilities (Toulouse and Hamburg), despite the Guppy being on a Boeing base. Airbus actually bought the right to build Guppies at the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think the addition of the Beluga smile is just adorable.

</comment><comment><USER18> How much do you have to spend on logistics so you end up paying $1 billion for a special plane program? Is transportation of parts is so speed-sensitive in plane manufacturing industry that you couldn't possibly use some other kind of transport?

<comment><USER19> This is actually a good question.

The answer is that Airbus is a consortium, a prestige project of the European Union.

One consequence of this, is that parts are manufactured in multiple countries, at a considerable distance from one another, as opposed to the more consolidated approach taken by Boeing.

Therefore, they have a unique need to ship very large and somewhat delicate parts from place to place. The Beluga is a consequence of this.

<comment><USER14> > One consequence of this, is that parts are manufactured in multiple > countries, at a considerable distance from one another, as opposed to the > more consolidated approach taken by Boeing.

FWIW Boeing built a similar plane (the 747-400 LCF / 747 Dreamlifter) to move 787 parts from suppliers, as they were considered too large for marine shipping and existing cargo planes. The biggest difference is LCF is a conversion from regular 747s (though according to wikipedia the program cost the same $1bn, being built from a much heavier plane the Dreamlifter has much higher capacity but somewhat lower volume in its similarly unpressurised hold).

<comment><USER20> The beluga (both the previous version and the XL one) are both derived from other Airbus planes (A300 & A330)

<comment><USER14> The belugas are derived from exiting frames but Airbus programs of their own.

The Dreamlifter is a straight up conversion of second-hand 747-400s by a contracted third-party (Evergreen Aviation Technologies Corporation).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > The aircraft's lower fuselage will be assembled on the A330 final assembly > line, and then be moved to another facility for the year-long process of > assembling the upper fuselage and the lowered nose fuselage.

They do use Beluga XLs to these parts around too?

</comment><comment><USER22> Well the name is fitting. It really looks like a beluga when looked from the side.

<comment><USER23> it wasn't even named as such, until they noticed the similarity

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Anyone know anything about the routes that it's running? I'm surprised these kinds of large parts aren't moved around by barge.

<comment><USER25> Moving the parts by plane works better because the place where the parts are needed (aka the factory where they are put together) is at an airport, which is where this thing can land and directly offload right into the factory. Barges are tougher because unless there is a waterway directly next to the factory/airport (which isn't the case for Airbus's main factories AFAIK), it can be hard transporting such large pieces via streets between the waterway and the factory.

<comment><USER26> Various parts of the Airbus planes are moved with ships between factories.

Airbus ship at the Hamburg Finkenwerder factory:

[https://shipsnmoreships.smugmug.com/ShipsinEuropeanWaters/Ha...](https://shipsnmoreships.smugmug.com/ShipsinEuropeanWaters/Hamburg- Cuxhaven-Elbe/CITY-OF-HAMBURG-Finkenwerder/)

<comment><USER25> That's a cool lookin boat. Airbus's factory in Hamburg is right on the Elbe, so it makes sense that they would use barges for transport to/from it. The factories in Toulouse and Seville are a bit farther from any waterways afaik.

<comment><USER14> While not on the Garonne itself, Airbus Toulouse is pretty close (3km), however it's _way_ farther inland from the sea, on a smaller river, and IIRC there are pretty low lying bridges on the way, so they have to move the parts to river barges.

<comment><USER25> I also think even that 3km can be challenging when you're talking about having to move objects that are the length of a small skyscraper through narrow, twisty streets. I found this picture of such a move [1]. I wonder how often they have to do this!

1: [https://airbus-h.assetsadobe2.com/is/image/content/dam/chann...](https://airbus-h.assetsadobe2.com/is/image/content/dam/channel- specific/website-/company/history_milestones/A380_road_transport.jpg)

edit: I found this page [2] where it talks about moving A380 parts to Toulouse. It sounds like it does happen via the Garonne, but not anywhere even remotely close to Toulouse!

> Here, the components are transferred to specially-designed barges, which > carry them on the penultimate part of their 95 km. voyage up Garonne River > from Pauillac to Langon. ... In Langon, aircraft sections are transferred to > outsized-load trucks to complete their journey to Toulouse by road.

That means the wings and other components have to travel more than 200km from Langon to Toulouse by road, which is wild. Good thing a lot of that is relatively empty countryside rather than packed city streets.

2: [https://www.airbus.com/aircraft/how-is-an-aircraft- built/tra...](https://www.airbus.com/aircraft/how-is-an-aircraft- built/transport-of-major-aircraft-sections.html)

<comment><USER14> FWIW there's a video of A380 parts moving through the streets, they had to be scheduled at night and the tolerances (to buildings!) are really low, it's really cool.

A much larger version of the A-12 trips between Burbank and Area-51, which was also super cool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is this a case of biomimicry? Is the peculiar design functional?

<comment><USER13> The shape is just a result of the engineering decisions to reach Airbus's goal: transport fuselages to Toulouse. Those are relatively light, but big, so building a tube-like structure above the main "chassis" of the plane yields to this kind of shape, which we then recognize as a similarity to beluga.

<comment><USER27> Ah, so it was all after-the-fact. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It is actually smaller than the Airbus Beluga

Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_aircraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_aircraft)

<comment><USER29> Those lists are alphabetical, not by size...

<comment><USER30> The parent is pretty much the worse kind of hn posting - not only did they not read the original article, they didn't read the wikipedia article they linked to as proof of their statement.</comment></comment></comment>


Tempted to Move Out of the U.S.? New Zealand Wants to Help You Escape - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2017/02/27/tempted-to-move-out-of-the-united-states-new-zealand-wants-to-help-you-escape/#3725d3784fd3 <comment><USER2> Yes its nice here but do your homework first, its not cheap, its a long way from home for your family, and the job you get is unlikely to be as cutting edge as one in Silicon Valley

.. plus Canada's closer and just as nice IMHO.</comment>


Show HN: DomainWatcher.io – List of registered, expired and dropped domains - <AUTHOR> https://domainwatcher.io/ <comment><USER2> How does one obtain this list of registered, expired and dropped domains? I always wondered.

<comment><USER3> Not an expert here, but for registered, I would think that you would monitor changes from major nameservers. Wouldn't return 100% of the domains, but probably ~90%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks great, I built a similar too but shuttered it after a couple years. I was able to get a few good domains in 2008 but once pre-emptive bidding on expired domain services like snapnames came around, it was much less useful.

I recommend adding a feature to filter domains that contain numbers/hyphens.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'm definitely planning on adding some more filtering options while keeping it as simple as possible. I'm currently considering using some other lib for the table too, as the one I'm using only allows sorting by single columns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks like a great start. I'm kinda addicted to services like this. I pay for one called JustDropped as it emails me about expiring domains based on patterns I'm interested in and I've managed to pick up several reasonably valuable domains on the drop so far.

</comment><comment><USER6> looks cool!

I have JSON endpoints for other TLDs (e.g. .io, .ly, etc..) on park.io if you are interested: [http://blog.park.io/articles/park-io- api/](http://blog.park.io/articles/park-io-api/)

<comment><USER7> Looks good. Where does this data come from? Which provider is the source of truth on exhaustiveness and accuracy related to this kind of data?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> dropping.com is another good tool.</comment>


My Journey Starts Here - <AUTHOR> http://bootstrappingmybusiness.com/2013/the-journey-starts-here/ <comment><USER2> I was in a similar position about two years ago. And was determined to bootstrap a "lifestyle" business that would provide income with the specific restriction of not doing consulting ever again.

I reached my goal in the first month: <http://macournoyer.com/blog/2011/05/02/working-for-me/> and now have my own biz <http://codedinc.com/> that has been profitable and growing ever since while working very few hours.

Some of this I attribute to the reputation and connections I built over the years before that. But also to knowledge I gained reading about marketing and advertising (mostly old books).

I would highly recommend you drop the anonymity. If it's to feel safer, that's not going to work. To bootstrap your biz you have to put your credibility on the line EACH time. Also, any content you create must fuel your authority/credibility.

Shameless self promo: here's a course I created to teach how I launch & sell products <http://copywritingforgeeks.com/>. But if you have any questions I'd be happy to help, drop me an email at gmail my username.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> You should check out Rob Walling's "Start Small, Stay Small" if you haven't already:

<http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003YH9MMI/?tag=dedasys-20>

It's a guide to "startups" for the rest of us, where "startup" is something small and bootstrapped that, however, makes money pretty early on, and probably will never grow that large.

For me, that book really hit a nerve: I too spent time at a Big Startup, and while I enjoyed the ride... I decided that it's not for me.

<comment><USER4> Hi rwalling, if you're reading this, have you got an update planned for this book?

<comment><USER5> I was planning to let the book stand on its own. But the more time passes, the more requests I see for an updated edition. The book is approaching 11,000 copies sold to date, so it's obviously filled a need.

I'm booked through May with MicroConf and the launch of GetDrip.com...but I've added "Consider v2.0 of Start Small, Stay Small" to my task list. To be considered for the latter half of 2013!

<comment><USER4> Great to know, thanks for replying!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You are not alone, if you go and check the real world (excluding the software dev. freelancers), you'll find that a lot of people are indeed facing the same issue. I stumbled on some doctors forum, and there is stories of how hard it is to get a medical business running (apart from the financial cost for it).

It's not easy (It's not supposed to be), but if someone else did it, you can do it too. Maybe you won't get popular, but you'll be able to have a nice revenue and lifestyle from it.

9-5 job is not my cup of tea. I like the idea of a product, and selling it to customers (if there is lots of support, you can outsource it). Passive income is cool; and if it is stable, it'll give you peace of mind. I'm in the process of achieving financial freedom through products, maybe in a couple of years I'll be doing just high-level consulting.

/rant/

My only advice is: persistence.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hey there, sounds like what you're lacking in your current situation is a network. It becomes easier when you have other people looking out for your interests.

Towards the end of last year, we (a company of 3 in new york) were running low on investor cash and started looking for consulting gigs to cover our burn. We didn't end up going that route, but every gig we had lined up was through a word of mouth referral.

I'm not totally comfortable networking and meeting lots of people (sounds like you aren't either?). I'd encourage you to get out there and do what you can locally, but also hang out in the right places online where iOS work tends to appear. Some iOS people who do contract work can probably point you in that direction.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the advice that everybody gives me, but for some reason this is not working for me.

I'm not uncomfortable in networking and meeting people. It's a skill I have learned with time and I'm pretty outgoing. I know many people and through some event I organize and conferences I've been, I've gathered a good network. I've been involved in a lot of activities locally and I'm quite known.

Still, clients fail to materialize through all these connections. Given that this advice keeps popping up all the time, there must be something I'm doing wrong. I have to find what that is.

<comment><USER8> Not knowing anymore about you than you wrote, my gut is that your problem is one of 2 things:

1) You lack a compelling value proposition for your clients. Something like, I'm really good at X, better than anyone, hire me. 2) You don't follow through with clients, finish the job etc. so you don't get referred business.

I seem to notice that the HN crowd, and even finance crowd completely ignore marketing. This is a huge oversight that is likely to cost you a ton of money.

I'd read this: How to Close Every Sale (Joe Girard)

The guy is a used car salesman that looks ridiculous, but the book is actually good and there are several big lessons to learn in a very small paperback for less than $10.

I applied the concepts to selling $10m+ apartment buildings with 3 to 6 month sales cycles. The big lesson is that you must always assume you will get the sale. If you are doing things like writing emails in a timid way, no one respects it. You must assume your interactions with others will result in results.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for this advice.

It's true, many people completely ignore marketing, and I did for a while. Now I'm learning, I'm getting books on it and try to fix my deficiencies.

I'll write on the blog about it. At the moment I'm reading "Book yourself solid" from Michael Port: <http://www.bookyourselfsolid.com>

I also have another book I just bought in the pipeline: <http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/the-blueprint>

I'll have a look at the book you recommended, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi, thanks for sharing your story and I'm sure many people have been in the same situation sometime on their journey setting up a startup, I know I have.

It's hard to get up when you get knocked down and at the same time trying to balance finances. A way to make some cash on the side is to build small compact iOS apps and sell them on Codecanyon.net no selling experience required. It might not make you 1000's initially but they do sell and it will help your finances. Look at setting a goal in producing 1-2 apps a week so keep them simple but well featured.

You might even end up working on a new idea by doing this and before you know it end up with a successful business.

BTW email me you skills / work on iOS as I might well have some work for you.

Good luck,

Steve

<comment><USER4> I just checked out codecanyon.net for iOS apps: apparently they're selling for as low as $12 for a whole app.

I'd recommend taking a look at Apptopia.com, deals are exclusive but the prices seem much better. (I have no affiliation with them)

<comment><USER9> Hi cheers for the update I have not heard of apptopia.com looks interesting. With CC the apps remain your property so it depends if you want to start again or sell the same item many times. Some apps on CC have made over $100k p/y.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, that's good to know. I'll have to dig deeper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A bootstrapped business takes time to generate anything approaching a minimum livable income. I'd suggest doing a couple of freelance projects first to keep the wolf from the door, and then return to your business ideas.

You can't bootstrap without bootstraps...

<comment><AUTHOR> My plan is indeed to get some clients first. I'll write about that soon.

<comment><USER11> Post some examples of your work/github, I'm sure there are plenty of people here looking for IOS skills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really doubt whether bootstrapping your own business is a good idea when you are under great financial pressure which will lead to suboptimal decisions. Getting a 9-5 job to build up a healthy financial situation first might be better idea.

Good luck!

<comment><USER13> I hate to have to agree, but I (mostly) do. Trying to start a business under 2 months' of financial availability is indeed going to put a strain on things.

I don't think, however, that a 9-5 is necessarily the answer. I do think that a freelance consulting gig might be a better option - it would allow OP to get the environment he wants "booted up" ie working by himself, getting into the groove of his schedule, etc. And while it might leave fewer hours per week to work on the bootstrapped business (initially), it will give some flexibility needed and get the $$ flowing again to ease the pressure.

Either way - I love hearing about people taking their destiny into their own hands and going for it -- so good luck OP!

<comment><USER12> It depends on the level of risk you can accept. 9-5 is not romantic, not heroic and maybe dull - but it gives you stable income (we won't go into cases if employer doesn't pay you). And when there is no back up plan (OP mentioned that parents are not really able to support him financially and 2 months of savings are well...) it is a good option.

In case of freelancing, OP already mentioned that he is not good at getting clients. In addition, the delayed payments and etc are quite likely. Given the savings would last for 2 months - not an option.

And finally, even if the bootstrap business takes off... Let's say you need a month for launching. You have one months savings left. What are the chances that your first startup will generate enough revenue to make a basic living after a month, while about 90% of startups fail?

It sounds romantic and all but when you compare potential outcomes... I really don't want to say that, I am trying to find a different word for that... But it's very naive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Good luck mate.

You had the guts of making a hard decision, and you are paying the consequences of the uncertainity it brings.

Over the last years I have been thinking of taking the same route (like many people with a reasonable stable/steady job, but wanting more from life I guess), but I always had the fear finding myself in your current situation, and never took the plunge.

I don't think that you would have any trouble in finding a job with a steady income if things go pear-shaped, but I hope you succeed in finding your own independence.

</comment><comment><USER15> I know how you feel. I am in the same situation. Sorta. Good clients are hard to come by and I am running out of them.

But I am not sure if I want to join someone elses startup or do my own. I'm not much of an entrepreneur as I am a hacker. But the problem with most other companies is that they are not run like the way I would want to run them. Which brings me back to the point where I might just be happy running my own show. But again, I'm no entrepreneur.

<comment><USER16> "But the problem with most other companies is that they are not run like the way I would want to run them."

It might just be that companies need to run a certain way to, you know, keep running?

<comment><USER15> Or they run it that way, because "those other guys" did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Mate, good luck. First priority is income - if you would like some freelance iOS dev, email me your details and I will ask around.

</comment><comment><USER18> Good luck! Look forward to hearing your story! I understand the lure of temptations of making "the next big thing" and have been at critical crossroads many times before. I feel if things happened a little different I would have found myself in a situation similar to yours so I wish you all the best in your adventure.

</comment><comment><USER19> I love this. When I start my next business, I will have learned how NOT to grow a 'startup' e.g. hiring to grow, instead of growing to hire, raising money to prove a business model instead of being profitable from the start, and giving your product away for free (U.R.L.)

Good luck man, excited to read about your venture.

</comment><comment><USER20> Hey Matteo - I'm late to this party but as I recently launched our app bootstrapped from the profits from my consulting business I've learnt a bunch of lessons that might help you as you move forward. You're always welcome to drop me a line - simon (at symbol) staffsquared.com

All the best with your new venture :)

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm not sure if English is your first language or not, but you seem to take a negative tone that may burn some bridges for you. You don't want to burn those people still working at the startup you left or your friend who tried to give you some freelance work but his pipeline dried up.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't mean to have any negative tone, English is not my native language. I'll rephrase that, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is the point of staying anonymous to not have your blog help your business in any way? I found you here, I may have some iOS work in the near future that I could see if you'd be interested in but I can't use a nameless entity.

<comment><AUTHOR> The reason is that I simply don't want people that Google my name to find that blog, which my reflect negatively on my professional image.

I can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.com and I can provide plenty of real life information (personal info, company website, blog, LinkedIn profile, references, etc.).

I see you have an email address in your HN profile. I'll write you there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looking forward to updates on this. Your position sounds pretty close to mine (iOS developer, expat, northern europe) except I require sponsorship to work so haven't been able to try my hand at full time freelance work.

good luck

</comment><comment><USER24> Looking forward to seeing what comes of this. Somewhat refreshing to see you opting for an alternative approach to trying to take over the world with the "next big thing". I wish you luck; onwards and upwards.

</comment><comment><USER25> maybe you want to check out this classic: <http://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf>

<comment><USER4> Thanks for this recommendation; it looks really interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "I'm not sold anymore on the idea of starting the next big thing that will revolutionize the world."

Gah. Failed already. Get yourself connected with whatever you're actually passionate about - something that you can connect to significant meaning and value in. That _can be_ your big thing.

If you're not connected to something you're strongly passionate about, why not just go back to being employed?

<comment><USER27> Who in their right mind would make a site focused on bingo cards (bingocardcreator.com - patio11), or a service to send direct mail from a website (mailfinch.com Paul Singh)?

While I tend to agree with you, building something small can be done while employed, and also lead to non-obvious large opportunities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> good luck and i wish you from the deepest of my heart that you make it.

I see myself in your story - with few corrections it can actually be my own: expat, recovering from a breakup, left permanent jobs to pursue freelancing while waiting to find my purpuse ...

</comment><comment><USER29> I wish you luck in your journey.

</comment><comment><USER30> good luck</comment>


Why We Really Loved Steve Jobs (It Wasn't The Toys) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ajkesslerblog.com/why-we-really-loved-steve-jobs/

<comment><USER2> We loved SJ because he won. He's that person in all of us who knows we are right and has to fight the battle against those who are obviously wrong. SJ proved that you can win as long as you don't give up.

We'll never know if somebody would have pulled off the same feats if SJ hadn't. Even today with Apple's shining examples of how to do it right other companies (Google, Yahoo, MS) manage to screw up UX so wonderfully.</comment>


Android and Security - <AUTHOR> http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2012/02/android-and-security.html

<comment><USER2> Google have decided that the app maker is best equipped to decide what access the app should be allowed. This makes perfect sense if you assume that your average user will not install the app if it requests too much privilege. The reality is that most people don't check and install it anyway because they're given a binary choice.

Would a better model be to allow the user to choose the allowed permissions? In some cases this would cause an app to fail, but as someone who firewalls outgoing IOS requests, this is unlikely.

However, it still becomes a user interface issue. Any security system that requires the user to make knowledgeable security decisions in unfair and usually just a way to offer plausible deniability.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am a bit worried about the amount of false positives from these type of scans over the years (see antivirus scans) , and google`s lack of support or accountability in disputes. "We have found you to be guilty. We will not say what of. Goodbye" type attitudes from Google have shown up in a number of blog posts. I hope this system doesn't lead to more incorrect bans.

</comment><comment><USER4> If they want to improve security, they should switch from the current offer- you-can't-refuse approach to a capability/interface system. An application should always be able to successfully "list my contacts". Whether it gets the complete list, an empty list, or a less-sensitive subset should be up to me (and unknown to the app).

<comment><USER5> This would probably destroy many ad-supported apps, since users would just choose to not allow them to access the network.

<comment><USER4> So then Google doesn't have to make that an option on stock android (although droidwall currently takes care of that quite nicely). The restrictive option for internet access could be a low quota for people concerned with data usage.

The open source android distributions would hopefully go further and empower their users with control over their devices.

<comment><USER6> CyanogenMod lets you change permissions of apps: <http://review.cyanogenmod.com/#change,4055>

They drew the line at letting you spoof unique IDs for privacy purposes though <http://review.cyanogenmod.com/#change,5677>

<comment><USER4> Except (AFAIK) the API calls _fail_ when a permission has been revoked. A non- defensively coded application will most likely crash when it tries to use a revoked permission. A developer has little motivation to support a user taking app permissions into their own hands. What really needs to happen is for the call to return a sensible value for what the application is allowed to access. It would even be handy to return a subset of the contacts list, say if a user is willing to take a risk of spamming friends but not professional contacts. A user would set the base permission for all newly installed apps, and would _increase_ an app's permission after they used it long enough to trust it. The only thing the current system does is fake consent for misbehaving apps.

I am aware of that rejected patch, and I can only hope that the CM people will overcome their fear in the future (or maybe a security-conscious friendly fork).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm actually a little surprised that this wasn't in place from the start.

<comment><USER8> I believe that they have been running (and refining) this process since at least early 2011. It is surprising that they didn't do it from earlier than that, though.

<comment><USER9> not early 2011, was summer GSOC project 2011 though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The only truly revocable permission for applications is internet access. Each application runs as its own user (although some from the same publisher do use the same user), and this can be combined with the linux kernel's firewall to prevent internet connections to specific applications. To do this you need root access, and an application like DroidWall. By default, DroidWall only allows applications you select to have internet access. Since DroidWall is using the kernel's firewall, it doesn't need to do anything in the background, so doesn't impact battery life.

</comment><comment><USER11> This moment is akin to Microsoft creating a free antivirus (security essentials or something) for Windows users. An acknowledgement that a real problem exists. But good that google took a step before this was blown out of proportions.

<comment><USER12> Well, aside from the fact that a) Antivirus was already a thriving market and b) No one but Google could create "bouncer" for Google's Android Market.

It is a further admission that Google needs to apply some more order and curation to their marketplace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "The service has been looking for malicious apps in Market for a while now, and between the first and second halves of 2011, we saw a 40% decrease in the number of potentially-malicious downloads from Android Market."

I'm not sure how to read this. They detect an App is malware and leave it in the market? Or they didn't detect it until after it had been downloaded many times? The former is unfathomable while the latter indicates a gaping hole in the system.

"This drop occurred at the same time that companies who market and sell anti- malware and security software have been reporting that malicious applications are on the rise."

Don't believe all the charts showing a malware explosion on Android, they have a conflict of interest. We at the Official Google Android Blog continue our 100% neutrality however.

"While it's not possible to prevent bad people from building malware, the most important measurement is whether those bad applications are being installed from Android Market"

Not if you're going to advertise side-loading as a feature the competition lacks.</comment>


Ask HN: Why doesn't GDPR go after web browsers? - <AUTHOR> As expected, as of today more websites are displaying complex options for accepting or declining cookies, analytics, and personalized advertising. Wouldn't it make more sense if this was asked once by the web browser, and not separately on every website?
When you install a web browser it would ask...
1. Do you want to allow websites to use third party cookies for analytics? This may share information about your browsing activities with third parties, but help websites better understand how their users are engaging with their service. Yes, I would like to use cookies for this reason. No, I would not like to use cookies for this reason.
2. Do you want to allow websites to display personalized advertising to you? This will help to display more relevant advertising by sharing information about the websites you visit online. Yes, I would like the advertising I see to be personalized. No, I would like the advertising I see to not be personalized.
And, that's it. The regulation could focus on the wording that should be displayed, ensuring it's clear, unbiased, and fair. The browser could also allow you to toggle those options individually for websites if you decide not to use the defaults you specified.
Wouldn't this make sense? We wouldn't need to see a popup on every website, and configure these options a hundred times a day as we're browsing the internet. If I just want to quickly search for a recipe on Google, I don't want to spend 30 seconds going through the cookie settings on the website before I can spend 30 seconds reading the recipe. It's also annoying when every website is setup differently, so it's hard to navigate these settings and avoid the tactics they're using to opt me in. <comment><USER2> The decision is made with regard to organisation, not medium. You may make one decision for one website, and another for another. Also different sites have different options to choose from: some ask you for permission, some have many variants to offer. Many websites have apps, once you agreed to something via app, browser settings are irrelevant. What exactly to decide on or agree to vary by site as well: its not just about tracking and ads. One size does not fit all.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. is pretty much the basic idea behind Do not track headers. Acceptance of it among websites is... low, and given the history around it its probably not legally viable to treat DNT: 0 as "I consent to tracking", since there's no clear standard _what exactly_ it'd be consent for, and no clear way to be sure that the user has seen enough details about it. (DNT: 1 as "I do not consent" wouldn't be a problem, but why respect that if you can annoy the user with a popup and try to get consent anyways?)

But your 2 examples only cover a tiny sliver of what GDPR covers, so no, it wouldn't make sense for the regulation to be replaced by proposals like this.

Nothing stopping the tech industry to develop standardized mechanisms to communicate privacy rules though, and use them where appropriate. I haven't seen much in the way of proposals for this though, I suspect because a fair implementation of that would have the same issue the advertising industry had with DNT: don't make it to easy for users to not consent, that's bad for profits.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why not force publishers to respect the do not track headers, and clarify what it means to not be tracked? I'm not asking for GDPR to be replaced, and I understand it covers a much wider range of issues. However, I want to say that analytics, advertising and cookies are the ones that most affect users, and are the ones that will be causing the popups everywhere online. I feel this process should be simplified, users shouldn't need to update these settings with every website they visit, and we shouldn't trust publishers to be the ones asking for consent, since they have a high interest in misleading users and finding creative ways to obtain consent, which we can already see happening.

As for your last point, there are standards being implemented related to obtaining and communicating consent ([http://advertisingconsent.eu](http://advertisingconsent.eu)). However, these standards are being set by the ad networks, and as you would expect, they are looking out for their best interest and bottom line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not just about cookies, tracking and advertising; it's about informing the user about what will be done with their data, its retention periods and reasons for holding/collecting/processing the data. This will be site dependant, so can't really be generalised in the way you suggest. eg a manufactures website may say they hold your data for 6 years in case of a product recall but an online shop might only hold your data for 12 months for the purpose of returns, so it'll be different permission in each case.</comment>


Irish beach washed away 33 years ago reappears overnight after freak tide - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/08/irish-beach-washed-away-reappears-freak-tide <comment><AUTHOR> Very strange, it appears that the HN submission algo didn't flag this as a duplicate of @grej's post of this from yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14291548](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14291548)

My apologies for the duplicate post, @grej!

Still hoping that I can learn more about the mechanisms that allow it work, if anyone is able to share their hypotheses.

<comment><USER2> From the FAQ: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

> _Are reposts ok?_

> _If a story has had significant attention in the last year or so, we kill > reposts as duplicates. If not, a small number of reposts is ok._

The dupe detector is slightly week to allow good stories to get a second chance in case the first submission was unlucky. I don't know the thresholds, but clearly the previous submission didn't get attention.

(This is a problem with some stories that are submitted 5 times and get only 1 or 2 votes each time.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to know, thank you. I must have run into the duplicate detector on widely discussed items in the past and that's why I thought it was triggered on all matching URLs/titles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Can anyone with a background in oceanography help me understand the mechanisms that would enable this event to occur?

Was this a case where the bulk of the original sand that had been lost in 1984 was trapped offshore in a location that was generally untouched by wave action? Or is this a case where an entirely new set of sand was deposited from some other location?</comment>


Dark Web Drug Vendor Pleads Guilty After Feds Traced His Bitcoin Transactions - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/legal/dark-web-drug-vendor-pleads-guilty-after-feds-traced-his-bitcoin-transactions/ <comment><USER2>
       All in all, this is just another case where authorities have proven once
       more that Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency isn't really anonymous
       as it was advertised for the past decade.

Wait who advertised that ? I have always read that bitcoin was pseudonymous (not anonymous) and with public record of all transactions and wallets

<comment><USER3> Bitcoin isn't really pseudonymous either (not by design) it only has one type of transaction that is always public and there is no inherent deniability as far as wallet ownership goes.

There are some currencies that attempt at providing anonymity or at least deniability but those also haven't been tested yet either against capable forensic adversaries.

<comment><USER4> Isn't it pseudonymous? You use addresses to send and receive money, not your real identity. And anyone can generate addresses in a vacuum. Combine that with a VPN or some network routing, and its basically a mountain of work to trace any address or transaction to a person.

<comment><USER3> It does not offer inherent plausible deniability and only relies on the relative anonymity of your internet connection to hide your identity.

Look at the difference between Bitcoin and say Monero when it comes to anonymity.

My point isn't about something being easy or hard but rather if the anonymity comes from the design of Bitcoin or is it circumstantial to how you use it and it's essentially only the latter.

The network was never designed to be anonymous and there isn't any way to "hide" transactions or to deny your association with a wallet or an address if they trace the IP to you or you end up holding the private key it's game over and nothing Bitcoin does impacts on the difficulty of this task.

<comment><USER4> Sure we're talking about pseudonymity though, not anonymity.

<comment><USER3> Yes but the source of it isn't Bitcoin but rather your own opsec which can be employed for any other commodity transaction.

<comment><USER5> your name on the network is your wallet address, and not your own, actual name. hence psuedonymous. you're inventing some bizarre definition of the word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Even with all the mistakes that he made, I think he would have easily walked had he not done the thing that sealed his fate: bringing his hot "work" laptop (possibly unencrypted or otherwise compromised) with him to the US.

All his other mistakes put together were not enough for the feds to hang him since there is plausible deniability:

The "writing style analysis" may seem advanced but in practice is laughable in terms of false positives.

Being in a possession of a bitcoin address that received payments from a drug trafficker isn't enough evidence to convict. But of course allowing the feds to go through his laptop where he had the trafficking signing keys and other credentials can not be explained away :-0

</comment><comment><USER7> Using technology to subvert the State is a large cat and mouse game and the first mice are bound to make mistakes. It's the risk of jumping in before having a better grasp of the underlying technology that you rely on for security. Eventually the market will move nearly completely to more private currencies but the "game" will continue. Some people like to focus on the "high reward" part of "high risk/high reward" a lot more than the "high risk" part.

<comment><USER8> Storing one's ledger in a publicly-viewable, massively replicated database is a pretty big on the risk factors IMO.

<comment><USER7> Yes, absolutely. Unfortunately the majority of people don't fully understand what the system is and how it works. Sound bites and misinformation are regurgitated and spread like the plague while solid understanding requires a lot of work exploration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >US authorities arrested Vallerius in September last year, at the Atlanta airport after he arrived in the US to attend and participate in the World Beard and Mustache Championships that was being held in Austin, Texas.

And is facing a life sentence.

Dont travel to such countries. Never ever period.

Crossing a border is a big decision, no matter how cheap the tickets are. I dont get people who keep doing this, its not like those are split second decisions.

Why in your right mind would you do this without carefully considering what the effects of you being in that country might be. I had female friends talking about going to holiday in Dubai, another friend with a Turkish passport visited his family in the south east recently.

Think for a moment for gods sake.

<comment><USER10> > I had female friends talking about going to holiday in Dubai

You get a 1-dimensional perspective every time something local goes wrong and is masqueraded as international news. Its like if a civil rights violation from one US city on any given day was elevated to the world stage. It would sound like much more of a nightmare than anything going on in the UAE.

Most females I've talked to absolutely love Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Even people that have moved there.

The best analogy to the experience is Disney World. Lots of thrills, and adult sexual behavior is stifled, except for minor infractions instead of simply thrown out of the park you'll be thrown in a horrible prison.

The fact of the matter is that you're not one of the slaves. That side of things won't be your experience.

You hope you don't get sexually assaulted and judicially victim blamed, and thats the same anywhere.

<comment><USER11> Most women I know wouldn't go there - including myself. Maybe we run in different circles.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, you read about women reporting rape, then being jailed for extramarital sex, and realise that ... no, just no.

<comment><USER10> Its like if a civil rights violation from one US city on any given day was elevated to the world stage. It would sound like much more of a nightmare than anything going on in the UAE.

<comment><USER12> Point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is not right to have customs search his laptop. Anyone with that much power will abuse it one way or another.

<comment><USER14> Why isn't it right? By this point they had a very reasonable suspicion that he was the criminal they were looking for based on his bitcoin addresses and then further confirmed by analyzing the writing style. That certainly seems like a good enough reason to search someone's laptop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Dude's OPSEC game was pretty weak. If you're going to do stuff that could get you imprisoned for life, you'd think you would be more thorough.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't understand the sentiment of these comments. This isn't an impressive example of mass blockchain-and-IP-address correlation and collection - this is an embarrassing example of an inexperienced user publically posting wallet IDs directly linked to his Localbitcoins account.

This is as much "tracing" as it would take to look up a license plate. Add to that a lack of full disk encryption and international travel...

<comment><USER17> Could you please not use allcaps for emphasis in HN comments?

This is in the site guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

<comment><USER16> To what are you referring? /s

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the edit!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> they found so much on his laptop, he didn't even bothered to encrypt his stuff? it seems that he have made so many mistakes for his job

<comment><USER19> Even then, nothing seems perfect.

I have FileVault turned on in OSX. But I noticed that, since the latest version, if I open my laptop within some interval, it doesn't even make me type my password again.

And sometimes I've even opened my laptop many hours later and it inexplicably bypasses the login. Just seems so precarious.

I read how the FBI(?) faked a scene (a fight?) near the Silk Road creator so that they could nab his laptop while it was open. Well, I chuckle at how unnecessary that would be for my laptop: just walk up and open it. The piece of shit probably won't even make you log in.

</comment></comment><comment> cup-of-tea Did he try to sell drugs in the US? How can they arrest him for things he did back home?

<comment><USER7> For selling to US customers. Similar to the GDPR and European customers.

<comment><USER20> It is not going to be long before people will have to wear armbands stating their citizenship...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Finally, chemical compounds in demand by adults for private consumption will no longer be available. Victory in the war on drugs!

<comment><USER7> You're being downvoted but imprisoning OxyMonster for selling things to willing customers will have almost 0 effect on the opioid markets. It's a costly symbolic gesture that will affect nobody but him and his family.

<comment><USER22> I think many times these arrests are meant to be a demonstration that law enforcement is doing their job. I imagine even the arresting agents realize this guy is a drop in the ocean and his customers will quickly flock to his replacement.

Similar to those folks who work in a corporate environment who complete a document that they know will be jettisoned into a corporate black hole but checks off a requirement.

<comment><USER7> Sure, but "doing their job" is a bullshit excuse for taking somebody's life away. Honestly it's worse IMO. They know it accomplishes nothing except making them look a tiny bit better to their bosses. Destroying a person's life for career advancement is quite different than making a worthless gdoc that nobody will read.

<comment><USER23> >excuse for taking somebody's life away.

There are a million other things he could have sold online that wouldn't have resulted in 20 years in jail. Whether you agree with the illegal status of drugs or not, if someone choose to subvert the law, you can't expect law enforcement not to prosecute.

<comment><USER21> > if someone choose to subvert the law, you can't expect law enforcement not > to prosecute.

Sure, that's fine.

But it also obfuscates the more important point: I _can_ expect (and I do expect) that a reasonable, mature society stop this idiotic practice in the first place.

Refusing to learn from the failures of drug prohibition throughout history is one thing, but continuing a current and clearly failed experiment for an entire century is flabbergasting and childish.

Who will be the last person who's life is ruined for no reason? Will it be this dude? Or someone in the same position tomorrow?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> And this is why Zcash excites me so much! It's everything Bitcoin is and much, much, more!</comment>


AT&T trying to crackdown on unauth. tethering - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/03/att-shames-unauthorized-phone-tetherers-gives-ultimatum-deadline.ars <comment><USER2> Add a bit of personal experience here. Google gave its employees unlocked Android phones (not once but twice :-) and some of us (like me), put our AT&T sim card into them and used them instead of our plan phone. There was a 'feature phone' data plan that was $15 unlimited and there was the $10/month 'tax' if you had an iPhone.

Using the cheaper unlimited plan worked for a long time, and then AT&T started 'automatically' switching people to the smartphone tax if their IMEI indicated they had an android phone. I did what any reasonable person would do, cancelled my AT&T contract and signed up with t-mobile :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Lots of discussion of this elsewhere. It looks like some people who don't tether (but use a lot of bandwidth) are also getting the message, leading people to believe to that AT&T is looking solely at bandwidth usage.

[http://modmyi.com/forums/iphone-news/755094-t-cracking- down-...](http://modmyi.com/forums/iphone-news/755094-t-cracking-down-mywi- tethering.html)

I use TetherMe ($2 in the cydia store, instead of $10 for mywi, enables native tethering), and I haven't gotten this message.

<comment><USER4> I certainly wouldn't be surprised if that was the case that they're just going after high bandwidth users and not doing packet inspection (yet). I occasionally swap my iPhone 4 SIM to a Nexus One and use the built-in wifi tethering feature, and haven't heard from AT&T about it. On the other hand I only have used maybe 2GB of tethered data over the last _year_ and in general run up no more than 800MB-1GB of mobile data a month.

There are people on that thread showing they used 10+GB/month, connecting their Xbox 360s to Live via their phones, etc. That certainly seems like a way to get "noticed" by AT&T.

edit: one guy on there pasted his usage from AT&T's account manager - 165 GB!

<comment><USER5> Those are the people who are ruining it for everyone.

I use the Tethering on my Nexus One (Tmobile) from time to time, but I don't abuse it. I use it as an emergency backup internet access for cases like if the wifi at the hotel isn't working, etc. IMHO, that's reasonable and my usage when tethered probably isn't much more than when I run things like Pandora or Youtube on my phone.

If I were using 10+G/month, then I'd _expect_ to have to pay for a higher priced "tethering included" plan.

<comment><USER6> Some put it the other way around: you owe the ever-improving network to the heavyweight users [1]. Well, at least Cisco says that -- and you know what they sell.

In any case, it's not the other user that oversold the bandwidth; it's the ISP. They made an unhedged bet, it fell short of working out(predictably), so it's their turn to foot the costs of upgrading the network.

\----

[1] [http://business.financialpost.com/2011/03/04/bootup-heavy- we...](http://business.financialpost.com/2011/03/04/bootup-heavy-web-users- are-just-early-adopters-research-shows/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> These e-mails from AT&T are almost always smoke and mirrors. I'm on the same data plan I had in the Cingular days and have received dozens of e-mails and texts warning me that I "may be violating my contract" and that they're going to switch me to the $60/mo plan.

I've yet to be switched away from my $10/mo data plan.

<comment><USER8> Same for me, until I got a Nexus One.

I was using an HTC TyTn2 that I didn't purchase at a Cingular Store and I was on the $15 data plan. Never got caught with this phone, probably because they didn't know what phone to map my IMEI to.

I got a Nexus One for AT&T last year, and received an auto upgrade SMS shortly after, saying that my Nexus One required another plan...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love when my ISP is actively monitoring/reading packets. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

</comment><comment><USER10> Was posted earlier today with a large set of comments: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2340275>

</comment><comment><USER11> It's unlikely AT&T is doing anything fancy at this point, but there's potentially much more to detection than TTL. NAT devices make an attempt to be transparent at layer 4 and try not to interfere with it. Host OS fingerprinting can rely on a combination of options at that layer as well including but not limited to windowing scaling MSS. If AT&T cared to go the distance, it would be very difficult to get around detection without interfering with the TCP/IP stack.

<comment><USER12> Use SOCKS proxy for tethering - problem solved. (OK, it is not that transparent for client, but the detection would be much harder).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is a greater underlying issue here which seems to be missed.

I have paid £x to use O2's (or in this case AT&T's) network, not only that but I also had to partially pay for the handset.

O2 should not really give a damn about what device I use to access their network - sure, they may have sold me a handset with an Internet plan, but it is MY DECISION to use whatever device I see fit to use that network.

If I am allowed to use whatever device I want but it was capped to say 4GB, I would have no issue, but as it stands, I am not only paying to use the phone, but an additional bullshit cost to tether the phone which technically should be none of their concern.

<comment><USER14> That's a bit like saying "I bought a plane ticket, and if I want to cram multiple people, cargo, or whatever into the seat that's MY decision and the airline should not give a damn".

There's no underlying issue. You accepted their offer of a subsidized handset in exchange for entering into a contract to buy voice & data for that handset, or an equivalent, for a period of time. Your agreement pertains to that type of device only, clearly stated in the T&C's.

Now, if you want to argue that tethering charges to use your bandwidth is a dick move, or that mobile operators should NOT be able to discriminate, or charge more just because you own a certain device, then I completely agree. But neither of those are what you agreed to.

<comment><USER15> You're absolutely right about the T&Cs. Presumably AT&T are aware that some people are prepared to pay more for tethering and therefore write the T&Cs such that can price-discriminate in order to get more money out of those people for potentially the same service. The sad thing is that people probably signed up in the expectation that the T&Cs would not be enforced and are getting a rude shock.

To slightly modify your airline analogy, this is like going on a business trip and flying economy. The airline scans your baggage, notices that you have packed your suit and other work-related items and demands that you pay the business class fare. "Hold on a minute," you complain, "I am entitled to 20kg of hold baggage and 7kg of hand baggage, so long as it fits with certain dimensions and isn't dangerous!" The airline retort: "Read the small print. Business travellers with certain items in their baggage will be charge the business class fare, which will be charged to your credit card. Now, enjoy the flight and don't forget to pay attention to the safety announcement."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious to find out what you guys / gals think about this. Is this just a fear tactic? Or, does ATT have a legit way to check if you're doing unauthorized tethering. Any of you get hit with this text on accident (false positive)?

EDIT Removed the '(Ars)' from the title. N00b mistake :)

<comment><USER16> There are dozens of legit ways to automatically detect this, and dozens more if humans are involved.

Requesting non-mobile versions of sites that do not have the option

User Agent strings such as "Internet Explorer" or "Safari" in HTTP requests

Sending screen sizes via relatively common web calls

The use of UA-Pixels at all, especially when specifying large screen sizes.

Use of protocols that are only seen in desktop OS programs (ventrilo, starcraft2, etc for instance is one that should be a good detector).

<comment><USER17> How are any of these legit, all of that's illegal wiretapping.

<comment><USER18> It'd be illegal wiretapping if it were the government, perhaps, but I'd imagine the standard contract with AT&T permits this.

<comment><USER19> _"AT &T may, but is not required to, monitor your compliance, or the compliance of other subscribers, with AT&T's terms, conditions, or policies"_

And, of course, it's now well-known that the government WAS using deep packet inspection on AT&T internet traffic.

I would assume they're just looking at how much you download in a month, though. I don't think AT&T is worried about offending outliers using large amounts of mobile data by inaccurately accusing them of tethering.

<comment><USER20> Could you provide a link to the government using deep packet inspection on ATT internet traffic. I don't remember it/haven't heard about it.

Just curious.

<comment><USER21> Here's what a Google search for "at&t nsa splitter" turned up:

<http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/04/6585.ars>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Unless they're performing a deep packet inspection, there's no good way to tell if you're tethering. Usually tethering option uses user name that differs from non-tethered option during authentication. If your unathorized tethering application sits on the device, it simply shares non-tethered connection, hence the user name doesn't change. The only plausible explanation w/o going deep into packets - bandwidth or some unusual ports usage.

</comment><comment><USER23> Great, now I get to stop working away from home. I mean, I can barely pay the $20-25/mo for 2 gigs, let alone $45/mo for 4 + tethering.

</comment><comment><USER24> They can detect this only by listening traffic. Isn't this require some court order for wiretapping? =)

Also, what's about if I setup permanent openvpn connection from the phone to some dedicated server?

</comment><comment><USER25> They should have called the plan "all-your-iPhone-can-eat-plan Note: meals not to be shared with other devices"</comment>


Creating a Computer Voice That People Like - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/15/technology/creating-a-computer-voice-that-people-like.html <comment><USER2> Amusingly the biggest problem here is english itself, and the way it is amazingly irregular in all its pronounciations, and how a few letters can change an entire word (constable, unstable).

The article shortly mentions the technology that uses voice sample databases, without mentioning its primary example: Vocaloids.

With vocaloid technology digital speech synthesis works amazingly well and is used to create entire songs ( here's a video of a voice bank donor singing together with her vocaloid: [https://youtu.be/JfW0glLj2pE?t=74](https://youtu.be/JfW0glLj2pE?t=74) ; here's an example of casual TTS for chat that sounds silly, but is incredibly clear to understand: [https://youtu.be/R8OoadkjO8Q?t=20](https://youtu.be/R8OoadkjO8Q?t=20) ). However this only works well for japanese (voice bank size: ~100 samples), since it is astonishingly regular (i.e. spelling maps almost 1:1 to pronounciation), while in english there is almost no regularity whatsoever, so to replicate the same, voice banks need to be 1000 samples and more big.

<comment><USER3> There are still a limited number of sounds in English. Including a dictionary that had phonetic pronunciations seems like it should be sufficient to avoid the constable/unstable problem.

<comment><USER2> It's not just pronounciation of specific words though, it's also combinations of words, and abbrevations like "would've". English basically consists entirely of special cases, while in japanese you can straight-up just match the written letters to the sound and get it right in most cases. In fact, i can tell you the exceptions in this post right quick: Sometimes the u sound is swallowed when it would be more comfortable to say the word without it. "Wo" is almost always pronounced as "o". "Ha" is very often pronounced as "wa" due to a specific grammatic rule. Now try listing all the exceptions to english pronounciation. :)

<comment><USER4> You can deal with the irregularity of spelling by using a pronouncing dictionary, which has the correct pronunciation of every word in a lexicon. For example, CMU has the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary:

[http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi- bin/cmudict](http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/cmudict)

Spelling irregularities are fully taken account of. But a problem is heteronyms, where the same spelling is pronounced in two different ways depending on the meaning, like English initial stress derivations

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial-stress- derived_noun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial-stress-derived_noun)

A pronouncing dictionary will record each of the options but might not provide a way to determine which one is correct in a particular context.

Combinations of words, as you mentioned, do pose problems for speech synthesis because of suprasegmentals, where for natural speech you might need to adjust features of one word because of the presence of others, for a variety of linguistic reasons.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody_%28linguistics%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody_%28linguistics%29)

Japanese has suprasegmental issues too, so you can't expect to make realistic speech synthesis easy just by synthesizing a language with a regular orthography and a simple sound structure. Also, imagine trying to create text- to-speech for Japanese texts written in kanji rather than kana; you'd have irregularity problems in some ways even more challenging than English orthography presents!

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%94%9F#Kanji](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%94%9F#Kanji)

<comment><USER5> A pronouncing dictionary does not help you when people invent new words or import new words from a different language, in which case readers familiar with the subject at hand might identify the pronounciation from their familiarity with the source language or subject.

Unless, of course, you have an AI attached to your TTS that can understand the context in a similar way.

<comment><USER3> Depending on the context, you could potentially just include the pronunciation of all the new words in the context a video game set in a fictional setting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've always found it odd that the video game industry hasn't put as much focus on improving speech synthesis as they do on 3D graphics. They would be the ones to benefit the most from more natural text-to-speech.

Seems to me that back when games used to be in text, you got to have more elaborate storylines because the developers and writers themselves could just add and improve the dialogue at any time. See Planescape: Torment [1], regarded to have one of the most complex stories in a game, with enough dialogue to rival a novel, but most of it is in text. Same for Star Control 2 [2] which was the inspiration behind Mass Effect.

Now, when everyone wants to be Hollywood and voice-acting is the norm, and _expected_ by players for a game to be considered high-quality, stories are locked in to whatever was recorded in the studio at the time. This is also probably the reason for the discrepancy between the dialogue choices you see onscreen, versus what your character actually says (such as in Mass Effect and Fallout 4 and many others, where you just to get choose between something like "Joke" or "Threaten" and it sometimes spawns a very unexpected chain of conversation.)

Better speech synthesis would not only empower solo developers to write engrossing stories and complex dialogues from the comfort of their bedrooms, like they used to, it'd also open up better player customization in RPGs and online games, when whatever you type would be spoken to other players in your preferred voice.

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

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Control_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Control_II)

<comment><USER7> It would be convenient, certainly, the same way a robot kitchen would be convenient. But it turns out human chefs aren't all that expensive compared to an equally competent robot chef, at least for the foreseeable future.

The video game industry already has lifelike speech available to it, for a cost. Lifelike 3D graphics on the other hand don't exist at _any_ cost.

<comment><USER6> But with human voice actors, you can't modify the dialogue in your game, or change/improve the part of the story that's tied to that dialogue, without scheduling new recording sessions.

That can get expensive and actors aren't always going to be available (which is another problem when you're trying to make sure you get the same voices for DLC & sequels etc.)

<comment><USER7> Yes, I understand why it would be _nice_ to have arbitrary lifelike synthesizable voice. But hiring a voice actor currently gets you 90% of the way "there" (wherever "there" is) at a tiny, tiny, minuscule fraction of the cost of personally developing the entire future of speech synthesis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Having grown up with various levels of automated speech, today's speech synth is _really_ good. At times it takes a few seconds of listening to find a "tell" that lets you know it's not a person or a pre-recording of a person.

Here's some examples of what I grew up with for comparison:

-[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ccKPSVQcFk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ccKPSVQcFk)

-[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR0Ofu0M53g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR0Ofu0M53g)

-[https://youtu.be/4S3G3veop2w?t=102](https://youtu.be/4S3G3veop2w?t=102)

-[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ginShVeGpGY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ginShVeGpGY)

and then suddenly in the last few years you get Siri.

With a few more rules, I wouldn't even mind if modern voices read entire books to me. They need to make more pauses, take breaths for example, or they can be exhausting to listen to...but I have the sense that we're pretty close.

<comment><USER9> Of the examples you gave, the first one is a real human voice run though a vocoder, and the last one is a real human voice sampled at a really crappy sample rate and played back using hardware never intended for digital sampled audio.

<comment><USER8> Speech synthesis is a spectrum of technologies. In the early days there really wasn't much difference between recording somebody and playing back, and using chopped up phoneme recordings or words and reordering to produce speech.

It's kind of like those robot voices used by telephone companies and answering machines for years, they're just a prerecording of somebody saying some words and numbers and the machine connects them back in the appropriate sequence.

At finer granularity you simply record somebody saying phonemes and reconstruct them back into a voice that can say pretty much anything. Alter pitch and you can have it ask questions or sing. This technique has been around in some way for decades.

Here's an excellent interview with the guy who did much of the foundational work in the field. [http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic- interview-101-forrest-m...](http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic- interview-101-forrest-mozer-pioneer-in-digitized-speech)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I always liked the original, Klatt-based synthetic voices that actually sounded like vocoders. I would think we could avoid the uncanny valley by creating synthetic voices that _deliberately_ sound like synthetic voices.

</comment><comment><USER11> I still find Watson's voice a little unsettling. It's almost like the speaker is smiling to me all the time, like the black-suited man who recruits Deadpool in _Deadpool_.

<comment><USER12> As an aside, if anyone is wondering why that guy looked so familiar it might be because he played the always-smiling alien Teb in Galaxy Quest.

Edit: Funny enough, the "uncanny valley" cadence of the Thermians' English reminded me quite a bit of speech synthesis. I now wonder if that's where they got their inspiration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I "heard" Stephen Hawking remains with his stilted American-accented computer voice instead of using a modern computer voice because people recognize it as him. That old voice is hard for me to clearly understand, as I was listening to his recent salutary message on gravitation waves.

</comment><comment><USER14> "Andy Aaron, an IBM Research researcher, said mispronunciation was the "biggest problem" in preparing Watson for "Jeopardy!""

Ironically I'd say that mispronunciation is probably a trait that would make it seem more human.

</comment><comment><USER13> The irony is that photorealistic imagery with three orders of magnitude bandwidth than voice has been essentially solved already. If it was solved, they would have replaced expensive voice actors in CGI movies.

<comment><USER15> One of the reasons the photorealistic imagery with those badly synchronized lips works is because the voice makes it authentic.

Remove the voice and we fall into the uncanny valley.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majel_Barrett](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majel_Barrett)

Done

<comment><USER17> In order to spare some of you a click: this lady was the talent behind the voice interfaces in Star Trek.

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (first name pronounced /ˈmeɪdʒəl/; born Majel Leigh Hudec;[1] February 23, 1932 – December 18, 2008) was an American actress and producer. She is best known for her role as Nurse Christine Chapel in the original Star Trek series, Lwaxana Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and for being the voice of most onboard computer interfaces throughout the series. She was also the wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The Talking Moose circa 1987 using the Macintalk voice of 'Fred'\-- what more could we need?</comment>


Archaeologists with drones discover pre-Columbian earthworks in Kansas - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/archaeologists-with-drones-discover-pre-columbian-earthworks-in-kansas/ <comment><USER2> Related documentary about how modern technologies aid archaeology - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpK8fpqPJT0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpK8fpqPJT0)

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if they are using synthetic aperture radar to do this too?

<comment><USER4> If you use a fleet of drones at once, presumably you could get an even larger synthetic aperture (radar from each drone bounches off the ground and is picked up by all other drones)? Contrary to movement-based synthetic aperture this would be movement+many-receivers?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> We're going to find many, many more of these.

See also: [https://www.amazon.com/America-Before-Earths-Lost- Civilizati...](https://www.amazon.com/America-Before-Earths-Lost- Civilization/dp/1250153735)

<comment><USER6> I started reading into these supposed "fringe" theories surrounding Hancock and Robert Schoch and the other people talking about these ideas about a year ago and I find some of their arguments credible and not completely nuts and I honestly think there's something more there than what the official, established story is able to explain.

Some of the evidence Hancock presents doesn't hold much weight in my mind and I think he's just reaching but other pieces do. For example, I think the Orion Correlation and Sphinx Erosion Hypothesis are interesting to look into. Also Gobekli Tepe.

There also doesn't appear to be any indisputable evidence that officially dates the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx to the purported time period of around 2,500 BC, the age of Khufu.

It doesn't necessarily have to be that Hancock's theories for what actually happened are right and he's not adamant they are either, only theories, but I think he's raised enough issues with what Egyptologists or Archeologists are saying is canonical to lead me to believe what the mainstream majority Egyptologists or Archeologists claim is certain fact may just be a local maxima based on interpretation of found evidence at the time the theories were first recognized and an unwillingness to change their position unless evidence to contradict them becomes so strong they can't deny it with a straight face.

It's also fascinating that many large burial / ancient civilization sites have been discovered even in the last 50 years, e.g., Cerutti Mastodon site, and also Amazon civilization remnants using Lidar, which leads me to hope a lot more could be discovered in the next 50 and greatly change what is purported on wikipedia as true.

# Comment Updated.

<comment><USER7> >There also doesn't appear to be any indisputable evidence that officially dates the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx to the purported time period of around 2,500 BC, the age of Khufu.

The fact that there isn't any Predynastic pottery at the Great Pyramids severely limits any kind speculation as to when they were built, at least in the backward direction.</comment></comment></comment>