Velocipedia - <AUTHOR> http://www.gianlucagimini.it/prototypes/velocipedia.html <comment><USER2> The first bike is missing its chain stays, the bars connecting the bottom bracket to the rear axle and the ends of the seat stays. Wikipedia has a nice diagram with the names of all the parts of a bicycle [1].

There are real bike designs that have a monofork (a one-sided fork, e.g. the Cannondale "lefty"), a monostay, or a solid body instead of top & down tubes (e.g. many folding bikes or the extremely aero Ventum One [2]). The Giant Halfway [3] folding bike has all three features!

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bicycle_diagram- en.svg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bicycle_diagram-en.svg)

[2] [http://www.slowtwitch.com/Products/First_look_at_the_elusive...](http://www.slowtwitch.com/Products/First_look_at_the_elusive_Ventum__4912.html)

[3] [http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en- in/bikes/model/halfway/1905...](http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en- in/bikes/model/halfway/19053/76916/)

<comment> J-dawg Another fun fact about chain stays is that modern bikes are not symmetrical on either side of the vertical plane. The drive-side chain stay is noticeably thicker on the right hand side (drive side) to deal with the very high stresses in this area.

This photo shows this asymmetry quite clearly: [http://velonews.competitor.com/files/2010/09/IB2010_cervelo1...](http://velonews.competitor.com/files/2010/09/IB2010_cervelo14.JPG)

<comment><USER3> That looks to me like the non-drive-side is thicker, rather than the drive side.

It also depends on the bicycle. I've got a '53 Schwinn three speed that's made out of what seems like gas pipe and it's perfectly symmetrical. A number of my old steel road frames look similarly, and so does my current titanium road frame.

<comment> J-dawg That's a good point! I completely got it the wrong way around and didn't look at the image properly before posting it. The _non_ drive side must be thicker because of the torsional force on the frame when pushing on the pedals. Too late to edit my post!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _bicycles facing left: 75 %

bicycles facing right: 25 %_

That's unexpected. For some reason I'd think more would be facing right than left, and if I were to draw one it would probably be facing right too. I don't know why but it seems to feel more "natural". I just Googled images for "bicycle" and 32 out of the first 40 were facing right.

I noticed all the renders were facing right as well, even if the original drawing wasn't.

I wonder if the dominance of right-hand-traffic countries is related.

<comment><USER5> I would draw it facing left and I think that's because of the way I learned to mount a bike: the bike-stand is on the left side so you need to have your last foot on the ground on the left side in order to pull it up.

<comment><USER6> Yes, this is my guess too. Are all bikes mounted from the left even in areas with left traffic? Haven't thought about that before.

<comment><USER7> I believe this goes all the way back to horse-mounting - mounting from the left is easier, as your primary hand weapon (sword, mace, club, whatever) is likely to hang at your left side, where you can easily reach it with your right hand; this makes mounting from the right considerably harder, as the weapon gets betwween . (It would probably reverse for left-handed fighters; this had very little impact on today's bike mounting and kickstands, however)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For the psychology research he mentions, there is a paper, Rebecca Lawson, "The science of cycology: Failures to understand how everyday objects work", [https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~rlawson/PDF_Files/L-M&C-2006.pd...](https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~rlawson/PDF_Files/L-M&C-2006.pdf)

> The participants were given a single sheet of paper, folded in half. The > bicycle drawing task (see Figure 1) and the forced-choice task (see Figure > 2) were on the top and bottom of the first side, respectively, and a > questionnaire was on the other side. First, the participants were asked to > rate their functional knowledge of bicycles on a scale from 1 ("I know > little or nothing about how bicycles work") to 7 ("I have a thorough > knowledge of how bicycles work"). Next, they were asked to draw the pedals, > chain, and extra frame onto a sketch of a bicycle (see Figure 1). Then, they > were asked to select which of four alternative pictures was correct for the > bicycle frame, pedals, and chain (see Figure 2).

> Over 40% of nonexperts made at least one error in both the drawing and the > forced-choice tasks (see Table 1). In this and the subsequent experiments, > error scores were almost as high on the forced-choice task as on the > freehand drawing task, indicating that production problems were not the > primary cause of people's deficiencies.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a great art project, and I especially enjoyed some of the stats at the end. The motivation seems to be thus:

" _There is an incredible diversity of new typologies emerging from these crowd-sourced and technically error-driven drawings. A single designer could not invent so many new bike designs in 100 lifetimes and this is why I look at this collection in such awe._ "

I wonder what rendering software was used to generate the drawings?

<comment><USER10> From the gif in the article, looks mainly like just some clever (and impressive!) Photoshop. Reading on my phone, I suspected Keyshot and a 3D modeling program at first, so that was a big surprise!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I couldn't draw a bike until I started fixing them. And I rode every day :/

Besides that, the renders are beautiful.

<comment><USER12> For me the most impressive thing is - these are not renders. (S)he had done it in photoshop.

<comment><USER13> Renders also mean drawings. Scott Robertson's book "How to render" does not explain how to press the render button in Blender, it explains how to actually draw (render) a concept art.

<comment><USER14> We already had grammar nazis. I guess it's time for the semantics nazis!

<comment> obj-g How dare he correct someone who already tried to correct someone else (and was wrong). Why does calm clarification threaten you?

<comment><USER15> I truly believe that the renders -> photoshop clarification was genuinely more useful than the 'renders can mean any kind of drawing (even though it's clear from context that the writer meant computer 3D rendered)' clarification. Not that the second one was useless, but calling the photoshop point 'wrong' is way over doing it.

<comment><USER13> > renders -> photoshop clarification was genuinely more useful

Except 'the clarification' is wrong. If you have a render, it doesn't mean it's 3D. It can be 3D, 2D, a mixture of both (last is probably the most frequent). It's a render.

This question can be more important than you think, since people may have the wrong expectations when they get a 'render' from the industry. Good post- processing (color balance, a bit of motion blur and other small effects) can work wonders to show off a product (e.g. video-game), while not being so representative of the end result. Which explains then the disclaimers on trailers and screenshots, which are not there to be pedantic.

Anyway, I'm off sending Wittgenstein to the camps.

<comment><USER15> I disagree that it was wrong. A render is clearly a term with multiple meanings, depending on context, and in the context and audience here most readers will take it to mean 3D rendering . That there is a context where the statements are true does not mean that the statements weren't making the wrong impression in the readers here. Check out the author's reply, clearly indicating that they were surprised at the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> These have great metaphorical power for software engineering slidedecks. Not sure whether they best illustrate 'emergent design', 'the difference between a pretty UI and a good UX', or 'the difference between giving the customer what they asked for vs. what they need.'

</comment><comment><USER17> it's hard to imagine people getting a bicycle this much wrong [http://www.gianlucagimini.it/wp- content/uploads/2016/03/Gian...](http://www.gianlucagimini.it/wp- content/uploads/2016/03/Gianluca_Gimini-Velocipedia-5.jpg)

not that I'd draw it with perfect mechanical fidelity, but there are bicycle defining parts missing there.

<comment><USER18> That's not very wrong, it's just missing things (rear triangle, drivetrain).

At least you could ride downhill on it (though stopping may be an issue).

<comment><USER19> I would say it's one of few that could not break as soon you get on :)

It really looks like as a history bicycle, where you used foots to push.

[http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/064/812/iFF/hobby- hors...](http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/064/812/iFF/hobby- horse.jpg?1397180995)

<comment><USER20> Also known as a "Velocipede".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is exactly the same as in a Brain Games episode where the host had some college students draw a bike, only one got it right. [http://natgeotv.com/ca/brain-games/about](http://natgeotv.com/ca/brain- games/about)

</comment><comment><USER22> Though being biased by this article, I do think I could have drawn one correctly. It's fun to ask peers though, surprising things go wrong. I even saw the double-chained one, surprised by that! (Chain attached to both front and back.)

</comment><comment><USER23> What is wrong with the topmost bike?

<comment><USER24> No frame between rear wheel and front chainring. No strength.

<comment><USER25> But the front wheel is also missing that beam on a correct bicycle.

Edit: implying: if the front wheel doesn't need it, why would the rear wheel?

<comment><USER7> I would like to see you turn a bike with front-wheel chainstays. Straight-only driving, turns are obsolete! :D

Also, the front wheel is connected to the frame in a very different way than the back wheel: single strong tube, only diverging further on; and there is no requirement for the front wheel to be powered - therefore the front wheel can (and does) move WRT the frame, something the back wheel must not do. Yes, they're both wheels, but that's where the similarity ends; the rest of the requirements are very different.

<comment><USER26> You can actually turn by leaning in the correct direction. This is actually the usual way to turn if you're no-hand biking.

[http://www.wikihow.com/Ride-No-Handed-on-a-Bike](http://www.wikihow.com/Ride- No-Handed-on-a-Bike)

<comment><USER27> It's the usual way to turn when using your hands too - in fact, you (subconsciously) turn your handlebars the "wrong" way when cornering on a bike ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersteering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersteering)). This is very counterintuitive and discussing it is a good way to start arguments...

<comment><USER28> I thought that countersteering is only for motorcycles?

But then , cite "The entire sequence goes largely unnoticed by most riders, which is why some assert that they do not do it", end cite, is most probably true.

<comment><USER29> You definitely countersteer on bicycles too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Here are some labelled pictures to help everyone with the terminology when discussing various missing bits of the frame:

[http://www.pinkbike.com/photo/2899038/](http://www.pinkbike.com/photo/2899038/)

[http://www.eandsweb.com/trails/info/bike_buy.html](http://www.eandsweb.com/trails/info/bike_buy.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> Great little project. Some of them clearly wouldn't work but some would be fun to try and make

</comment><comment><USER24> I was looking on my phone and didn't actually see the one by the doctor. Was it there?

<comment><USER32> I would say 8th one on the right. it could pass as his handwriting or a bike

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I was so disappointed when I realized these images were not real! Awesome project.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm curious, why does he call them "men's bicycle"?

<comment><USER35> I think because in Italy the different models are called "man bicycle" and "woman bycicle" ("bici da uomo" and "bici da donna", respectively). How are they called in English?

<comment><USER36> Men's bicycle and women's bicycle in the UK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Disappointed this isn't about velociraptors :(

</comment><comment><USER38> Brooks saddles are a nice touch :)

</comment><comment><USER39> A similar challenge: draw an ant.

</comment><comment><USER40> What software does he use?

<comment><USER41> Photoshop, probably. These are image montages, not 3D renders.</comment></comment>


Why being 'overweight' means you live longer: The way scientists twist the facts - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/why-being-overweight-means-you-live-longer-the-way-scientists-twist-the-facts-10158229.html

<comment><USER2> Americans spend 76 man years per day in kidney dialysis, one of the many fat consequences.

In the 1950s a diabetes diagnosis meant you should start making your funeral arrangements, today it means getting a repeat prescription.

Mortality is not the only metric.</comment>


Which is the best eCommerce development company in India? - <AUTHOR> Which is the best eCommerce development company in India? <comment><AUTHOR> Start) you eCommerce business

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would suggest contus eCommerce website development firm in India. because they have an attractive features. [http://www.contus.com/ecommerce-web- development.php](http://www.contus.com/ecommerce-web-development.php)</comment>


My US visa got rejected again - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@punitjajodia/my-us-visa-got-rejected-again-85766bf1c97c <comment><USER2> Getting rejected twice in a short time frame does hurt your chances on getting accepted the third time around. In such case, it may be best to either wait a couple years and reapply, or apply for a different visa type.

My colleague in China had a similar issue. The U.S. consulate in Beijing is slammed with visa applications on a daily basis, and it could take 6+hours waiting in line before getting a visa interview that may only be a couple minutes. The meeting itself can be nebulous and certain parts of your story may spur a tangential interrogation into the details. In the end, my friend was slated to attend NYU for grad school (and put a security deposit on an apartment), but was rejected twice in the same year for a US visa. After getting rejected, there's not much recourse in terms of appeal or finding out more details.

Now, he's looking to apply for an E2 visa, having heard it gives slightly better chances, but unless you have the personal funds to find a different avenue to the US, it could be multiple years of reapplying.</comment>


NASA unveils its futuristic warp drive starship - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184143-nasa-unveils-its-futuristic-warp-drive-starship-called-enterprise-of-course <comment><USER2> Maybe we'll even find a way to get out from LEO and make our way to the concept art. Excuse me, the Enterprise.

:(</comment>


Free Software Costs Something - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/ghuntley/it-s-clear-that-free-software-actually-costs-something-4522 <comment><USER2> This is what a dual license GPLv3/LGPL or some Creative-Commons license already solves. You can license the source under one of those licenses and also have a 'commercial license' that allows one to pay monthly to have the right to use your software commercially or close-source it. This allows the maintainer to be supported by their work and the company can use the software commercially. The Qt Company does this.

Licensing it under MIT or BSD essentially risks the maintainer for encouraging closed-source derivatives whereby companies are not required to contribute back or pay for any support, hence the maintainer is working for free.

</comment><comment><USER3> License Zero is not remotely open source in letter or in spirit; it's a proprietary source-available license like Unreal Engine. Which is a perfectly valid choice, but please be honest about it rather than pretending that it's not officially open source only because of a technicality.</comment>


Video: Designing a puzzle game around visualizing math functions - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/268914/Video_Designing_a_puzzle_game_around_visualizing_math_functions.php <comment><USER2> DragonBox on steroids.</comment>


One of my favorite professors in college was a self-confessed liar - <AUTHOR> http://www.zenmoments.org/my-favorite-liar/ <comment><USER2> Excellent, excellent. Could this be applied on a wider scale, or would the loss of novelty dull the effect on students?

<comment><USER3> It seems like it would only work for subjects where students have the capacity to figure out errors on their own. It would be disastrous in a foreign language class if you were told the word for "mother" was "banana".

As I've mentioned in another discussion, I once had a math professor who would sneak in impossible problems into the homework (e.g. prove the continuum hypothesis). It worked very well to get us to spend countless hours just trying things out, and eventually to spur us to prove decidability of the problems, all of which made us much better. But I imagine it would get old fast if every class I took did something similar.

<comment><USER4> When I was learning Norwegian that happened to me. Every weeks lesson had new words, but we were not told what they meant and we were supposed to figure out them on our own. As you would expect I translated and memorized a few wrong every week. This had a snowball effect of making the class harder and harder as I tried to learn new words and unlearn the words/rules I previously memorized incorrectly.

<comment><USER5> It's interesting that you feel that way. I've taken two foreign languages at the university level, and they were both taught in an "immersion" style manner (that is to say, all the instruction was in the native language) and have found it beneficial rather than harmful. But perhaps I reach for a dictionary more often than you did.

<comment><USER6> I'm guessing the "figure them out on their own" precluded using a dictionary? Otherwise you're right, a dictionary should solve the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those, like me, wondering why this sounds eerily familiar:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=124386>

<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/02/my-favorite-lia.html>

It's great to see it posted again - though I do prefer that original overcoming bias version. I can only speculate as to why it received only 30 points two years ago. The key differences seem to be a) the linkbait title, b) the bolding of random sections within the post itself (which I found made it uglier to read) and c) the picture at the top of the post. Of course there's also d) we had fewer people.

I don't know what it is, and maybe I'm mistaken, but it seems posts like this tend to attract a lot of low-signal comments. Perhaps this can be used to our advantage: every few weeks, pg could let a few really linkbaity and low-grade posts past the filters. Pictures of cats, or something equally fun but inane. Something from the top of Digg. Everyone who upvoted such a post would have their voting rights suspended. Would this help or harm the quality of posts here?

<comment><USER2> Presentation is an important component in blogging as in other forms of presentation.

The arrangement of whitespace in the original post made it harder to read. The intro line in the second version is far better than the nondescript blurb in the overcomingbias version. The picture is more appealing, and underlines the tagline. All of these things conspire to ensure that instead of 1 out of 10 people actually reading the post, perhaps 1 in 3 read it.

The lesson: if you're going to publish great blog posts, make sure they're published in a great format that also drags the reader in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The defining characteristic of this story is not the lying part, but professors who deviate from strict curriculum and think about how best to make their students think. My particular canonical example - Literature and Criticism Seminar (An English course) - after 14 weeks of reading passages of poetry and prose and discussing them in class, our final exam was a wine- tasting exam. An opportunity to take the skills we had learned and apply them to a different domain, and have some fun.

The class was very small (8 people) so it was easy for the professor to do this and not have to worry about evaluation issues.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like a great teacher. I had a prof who was a bit more sadistic/incompetent about this. He would incorporate a falsehood into his lectures, not always and not always just one. When challenged he would admit it but if no one caught the mistake he would let us live on in ignorance. This was a fluid dynamics course so you could frequently find the "lie" by carefully going over the algebra in his derivations. I'm pretty sure this was just a clever ploy to conceal the fact that once in a while he did, in fact, make mistakes.

<comment><USER10> I don't even try to conceal the fact that I make mistakes. I tell my students that I'll sometimes lie and often screw up, and that they shouldn't trust me.

Sadly, they rarely listen. I'm told that 95% of what I say is right, and it's not worth the effort to figure out what falls into the remaining 5%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm going to steal this for the ethics class I teach. Heh heh heh.

Of course, I'm still trying to develop a grading curve based on game theory and economics. Given there are only enough points available for 10% of you to get A's, most of you will get B's, and some of you will get C's. OR all of you can work together to get B+'s.

This probably wouldn't work. BUT I think it has possibilities ... Any ideas?

<comment><USER12> There is a professor at my university who is known for doing something like this. He says for every exam that if /no one/ writes anything on the exam, everyone in the class will get an A on the exam. But, if one person writes anything on the exam, then he will grade all the exams normally.

Apparently he's never had an entire class leave all their exams blank.

<comment><USER13> Hehehe. Prisoner's Dilemma, writ large.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Simple things like this seem to be the most effective. This is particularly interesting, because it forces students to check what they (as a class) find most difficult, in order to find what they missed.

From my experience, there seem to be two classes of professors, those that interact with the class, and those that don't. It is relatively easy for a professor to interact with and engage the class when the class is small, in the 20-30 student range. Personally, I don't care much for these classes because when the professor interacts with the class, all of the interaction becomes dominated by one or two students. Then there are the really good professors who teach a lecture-sized class, but still engage the students in the learning process. They have 50-100 students (or more), but still manage to get the students involved with learning. I have only had one professor do this particularly well, and I enjoyed his class far more than any of my others at the time. The interaction dynamic is very different in a class this sized. One or two students can't dominate the professor's attention, it just isn't possible.

<comment><USER15> _One or two students can't dominate the professor's attention, it just isn't possible._

You've clearly never seen me in a classroom setting. :-P

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What a great strategy to help students focus -- and wow for the most difficult part.

</comment><comment><USER17> He claims to have learned that

> "Experts" can be wrong

While I agree with this, and enjoyed the story, the story does not make this particular point well. In the story, the lecturer is basically perfect.

The expert lecturer remained fully in control of the situation at all times, had the students doing what he wanted, and was never wrong by accident.

In general, imperfect experts can be wrong by accident, can lose control of situations, etc... It's common, but the linked story isn't an example of an expert going wrong.

<comment><USER18> Except his point isn't what you say it is. You quote only:

> "Experts" can be wrong

His point in its entirety is:

> "Experts" can be wrong, and say things that sound right – _so build a habit > of evaluating new information and check it against things you already accept > as fact_.

Emphasis mine.

<comment><USER17> Again, while that's a good lesson, the story doesn't teach it. The story only gives an example of evaluating new information when you're told it will contain a lie.

<comment><USER19> You're nitpicking. Humans (and all animals) operate by constructing mental approximations and generalizations. This does in fact teach students not to trust authority.

<comment><USER17> I think what would teach not to trust authority is an explanation of why it's bad to trust authority. The story does not contain such an explanation.

Secondarily, I think an example where people trusted authority and got burned would work. The story doesn't contain such an example.

Thirdly, one could have an example where people refused to trust authority and got good results. The story doesn't have that either.

What it does contain is students who did what their teacher wanted and got good results by going along with the authority's lessons.

<comment><USER20> I agree that the story does not explain WHY it is bad to trust authority. But it tells the story of HOW the author have learn to mistrust authority.

It's one thing to know that you shouldn't trust authority, it's another thing to have practiced it. And this is exactly what the professor teaches: giving the students the tools and practice of constant skepticism toward even qualified authority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "...an arousing melange of exasperated groans..."

I'm pretty sure the author meant "rousing," but I think I prefer this more titillating version.

</comment><comment><USER22> This will be off topic, but ... what if he makes _two_ lies in a class? :D

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm surprised that nobody has pointed out yet(that I could find) The lie in that last lecture was: "Each of you has one falsehood in your lecture notes. "

</comment><comment><USER24> It seems it would also be a great way to keep students from mindlessly repeating whatever they read or are taught.

</comment><comment><USER25> Do we really need to repost this story every few months?

<comment><USER26> First I've seen it and I've been here almost 2 years, the value of a community like HN is the commentary on the links as much as the links themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think President Bush used this technique as well.

(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)

<comment><USER13> He uses the more interesting "One thing in every one of my speeches will be true" technique. Makes for entertaining press conferences.</comment></comment>


A Language = Python's grammar and C++'s efficiency and Lisp's power - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/roundsheep/rush <comment><USER2> could you perform a benchmark?</comment>


Ask HN: Fairly successful startup CTO – How to return to a big company? - <AUTHOR> Hey all-<p>I started a mildly successful startup and now going through a mildly successful acquisition (100+ employees, 30+ Prod/Engineers, Series C), and thinking about what comes next.  Was hoping to maybe go into one of the FAANG for a while (or something similarly large).  Anyone done this?  Any suggestions?  What jobs do I even apply for? <comment><USER2> Sorry to hijack but I'm genuinely curious why you want to go to a big company. I would assume many of us view an acquisition and the ensuing payout precisely as a pathway to set the terms of our careers and NOT have to work for a large co. So you seem to at least be defying expectations.

I've been at two of the FAANGs as well as several early stage companies, and my opinion is that a person who enjoys everything that comes with the startup life enough to see one through to an acquisition is likely to find him or herself grossly incompatible with the reality of working at a FAANG company. But I am very curious to hear your rationale.

<comment><USER3> Not OP, but my 2 cents on this having bounced back and forth a couple of times between a founder and an employee at places.

As a (co)founder life is stressful for quite awhile with a lot of pressure and weight on you. Even going through funding rounds is stressful, getting the money removes certain fears and stressors but raises others, so it isn't free of issues either. Joining a FAANG company allows you to play with some technologies you may not have been able to prior, or to play at a scale you weren't able to reach and add that to your list of skills. And do so at a lower level of stress than starting over as a founder. And sometimes, people find they aren't cut out to do the founder route after doing it so this is their way out.

Basically, to me it is a way to reset yourself while getting paid, learning some new skills and staying relevant while you find your next thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a pretty common post-startup experience. You'll likely find that positions in the Senior Manager to Director/Senior Director range are a good fit. It's often easiest for hands-on CTOs to transition to Director of Engineering roles but look at Product Director and VP of Product roles also.

The most likely challenge if you haven't been in large enterprise before is that the level of formality around processes and permissions can be a hard- start for people accustomed to the speed and autonomy of a startup.

</comment><comment><USER5> Startup experience is probably about as valuable as a Master's. Which is to say, it varies a lot. Sometimes it might be less valuable than working for that period of time. Sometimes it makes you unique and stand out.

I wanted to go to a large company because it was the only route I hadn't taken by then (and my wife kept bugging me not to gamble with startups and give it a shot).

If you've done startups even fairly well, large corporations feel frustratingly slow and incompetent. I'm not sure if this is the case with FAANG, but Google and Facebook have hardly created anything new. For engineering roles, you'll also have to go through the coding gauntlet, spend months revising algorithms that you'll never use. This is not necessarily a bad thing if you have time and want to skill up.

Another option is investing in new startups. Depending how big a deal you got, you might be of angel level and have better than average odds. You could probably make good money as a full time investor on NASDAQ, or work with a VC.

One thing I did enjoy is teaching. It might not pay so well, but it's fun to impart your skill onto others. You sound like you're at the level where you can also give advice to established groups like 500 Startups, though not necessarily on a full time basis.

Also one of the best times I had was consulting for large corporations. You're at the stage where you're practically a superhero to some. It pays well, and you also get some of the perks and feel of big corp like work, like wearing a tie and nice food.</comment>


Small Startup Keeps Cash Flowing to WikiLeaks - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/12/small-startup-keeps-cash-flowing-to-wikileaks/67681/ <comment><USER2> Good to hear that there is some way to support Wikileaks now that Paypal has cut and run. Very disappointed in how some U.S. companies are reacting, when the U.S. makes fun of countries like Iran, China etc., for doing basically the same.

</comment><comment><USER3> All governments behave similarly. There really isn't much of a difference between governments anywhere. Democracy the way it is today doesn't seem to be run by the people. TV, media, Money, and pure force, that's government for you.</comment>


Finnish Defence Forces' Cyber Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://erityistehtavat.puolustusvoimat.fi/cyberchallenge.html

<comment><USER2> In Finland we have a mandatory army service, this is the test you need to take and send in your answer before 20th of July if you want to apply for the army's cyber security division. More info here in Finnish: [http://erityistehtavat.puolustusvoimat.fi](http://erityistehtavat.puolustusvoimat.fi)

<comment><USER3> Too bad I can't apply from the US, it's fun :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Link to Google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tPfs4yO...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tPfs4yOPZXQJ:erityistehtavat.puolustusvoimat.fi/cyberchallenge.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Spoiler alert! Answers below:

===

===

===

===

===

Ad 1. Someone tries to exploit Internet Explorer. You see a command line which is subprocess of web browser (unlikely normal).

Ad 2. a) 16 days ~= (31337 __4) / (700 * 10 __9 * 3600 * 24) b) 10 days ~= 95 __9 / (700 * 10 __9 * 3600 * 24)

Ad 3. Lorem~Ipsum (Base64)

Ad 4. Yes. One of the programs guess the same as random, the other guess the opposite of random.

Ad 5. QWErty

<comment><USER6> 8\. "password"

        $6$saltsaltsaltsalt$bcXJ8qxwY5sQ4v8MTl.0B1jeZ0z0JlA9jjmbUoCJZ.1wYXiLTU.q2ILyrDJLm890lyfuF7sWAeli0yjOyFPkf0

11\. (1/3)^3 + 3 * (1/3)^2 * (2/3) = 0.2592592 (can someone else please verify this?)

26\. An attacker could work out the password reset token using the time.

Multiple SQL injection vulns.

Not a vuln, but a mistake - Line 6 of passwordRecover.php should be

        if ($_GET['token'] == $result[0]['pass_recover']){

<comment><USER7> For 11 I think you're wrong because you forgot the part: "As minutes pass, you begin to vaguely remember lurking in your basement and typing the command ':(){ :|: & };:' in an _xterm_ session just before everything went black.". The fact that you have a machine which has an xterm session means that it's either an OS X or Linux Box, which rules out the possibility of having 3 windows boxes. So you have 1/26 chances of having 3 linux boxes and 3*2/26 chances of having 2 exactly 2 linux boxes, so in total it's 7/26 (or 0.2692307692307692).

<comment><USER6> Yes, that would make more sense.

<comment><USER8> ad 11. I think that all the possible "combinations" are not 27 but 10, because e.g. tuples (Linux, Windows, Linux) and (Linux, Linux, Windows) are identical. I.e you should count combinations not variations.

All the poss combinations: LLL, LLW, LLO, LWW, LWO, LOO, WWW, WWO, OWO, OOO

Then you cross out WWW (xterm constraint), and you have 9 combinations, of which 3 are valid for the condition (at least two "Ls"). So 1/3.

Let me know if I got sth wrong :).

<comment><USER7> No, there are 27 combinations(when you still account for the fact that you can have three windows machines).

You can see it in that way:

machine1: L, machine2: W, machine3: O machine1: L, machine2: W, machine3: W

The reason why it matters is that you have more ways to have exactly two linux machines:

m1: L, m2: L, m3: O

m1: L, m2: O, m2: L,

etc.

That gives you 2*3 ways of having exactly two linux machines (you have 3 ways of having exactly one non linux machine, and then this machine can be two different things). If you say that LLO is OLL, you would have only 2 ways of having exactly two linux machines.

Hope this makes sense.

<comment><USER8> I see. LLO and LOL are different occurences and must be counted for. Thanks for clarifying!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone get a solution to 7 that doesn't involve a whole lot of steps? I did it in 44 steps, with the same 4 step combo being repeated 10 times in a row to work down to 0.3 liters.

<comment><USER10> My breadth first search found that the shortest solution was 44 steps.

[https://gist.github.com/deckar01/beb96fc0afc0715f01bb](https://gist.github.com/deckar01/beb96fc0afc0715f01bb)

<comment><USER11> Most buckets are shaped like a truncated cone, so with a steady eye one should be able to fill a bucket to exactly half (2.15 or 2.35 liters). However, in this puzzle, this little trick doesn't help and the shortest solution is indeed 44 steps.

<comment><USER12> How does being shaped like a cone frustum help?? Even if the bucket were a cylinder (so filling it to half height got you half the volume), that would be crazy difficult. With slanted sides, how could you possibly know how high to fill for half the volume? Did you bring a protractor? Sextant?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That is pretty cool. I liked q9 since they named the characters after the RSA creators (Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, Leonard Adleman) and the question is most likely modular exponentiation.

</comment><comment><USER14> Lorem~Ipsum

)87*;+xorXOR</comment>


The Vaccine License – A Software License That Saves Lives - <AUTHOR> https://vaccinelicense.com/ <comment><USER2> This definitely does not abide by the requirements of an open source license[0], particularly the discrimination against persons/groups clause. AFAIK, no license that mentions not using the code for "evil" has ever been accepted by the OSI.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for vaccinations, but there are definitely interactions with religions that don't permit vaccination (e.g. [1]) that mean this license is definitely discriminating against particular groups. I should hope the OSI doesn't accept licenses like "the MIT license, but people who practice Jainism and Zoroastrianism are disallowed from using it".

[0] [https://opensource.org/osd](https://opensource.org/osd)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science#Healing_prac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science#Healing_practices)

<comment><USER3> > religions that don't permit vaccination

That shouldn't be allowed in the first place. Imagine if I created a religion that doesn't permit paying taxes. Would the government really allow me to do that?

<comment><USER2> I am not commenting on whether that should be allowed or not: I am saying only that (1) religions like this absolutely do exist, (2) this license obviously discriminates against them, and (3) because of the wording of the OSD, this license cannot meet the definition because of the interaction between (2) and the discrimination against persons/groups clause. This is not a value judgement on my part.</comment></comment></comment>


Lazarus Release 2.0.0 - <AUTHOR> http://forum.lazarus-ide.org/index.php?topic=44161.0 <comment><USER2> This project had significant attention on HN as well as a repost recently:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18856123](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18856123)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19085802](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19085802)

For an explanation of why this makes the current submission a dupe, see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103247](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103247).

Another good Lazarus discussion from 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14973706](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14973706)

<comment><USER3> > but about one per project per year is the right amount for HN to host

Does that mean the arbitrary, catch-all VS Code release threads are finally going to stop, too?

<comment><USER2> Sure, if they fit the criteria. Keep in mind that we don't see everything and so can't catch all of these. If you see one that we appear to have missed, it would be helpful to let us know at email@example.com.

Edit: while I have you, could you please not create per-comment accounts? This is in the site guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). For explanations about why, see [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20identity%20community...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20identity%20community&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0).

<comment><USER4> Well when there are version releases I think they should come through. A lot of time I have a wait till they have feature x included.

The time stories are on the front page can be just a few hours. They might have been a big story in one time zone and then the later time zones don't see the story.

<comment><USER2> All true, but front page space is the scarcest resource on HN. The approach I explained at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103247](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103247) has proven to work well.

Btw, you can see front page stories you might have missed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/front](https://news.ycombinator.com/front).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> a comment: when posting links like this, please add "(Free Pascal IDE)" to the title. I tried Lazarus years ago and knew what it is but many people on HN might skip over this link not knowing what Lazarus is.

Both Free Pascal and Lazarus are great projects! I have warm feelings about Pascal because I wrote my Go Playing program for the Apple II. Several years ago someone paid me to convert one of my open source projects to Pascal and Free Pascal and Lazarus made it fun to do.

</comment><comment> open-source-ux What Lazarus and Free Pascal need is someone to sponsor a full-time technical writer to produce reference and tutorial documentation. There so much potential in both Lazarus and Free Pascal but I suspect many curious minds give up because of the scattered and often out-of-date docs. The official Free Pascal documentation is terse and formal, but not ideal for learning purposes.

So many people complain about Electron or rush to use it. Yet, Lazarus gives you cross-platform apps with self-contained binaries. How many people will never give it a second glance because there's no getting starting guide to ease them into the language and tools? (I realise some people, possibly many, will never give it a chance because of Pascal).

Interesting aside and previously discussed on Hacker News:

 _Energy Efficiency across Programming Languages: How does energy, time, and memory relate?_ \- Pascal ranks well in this analysis.

[https://sites.google.com/view/energy-efficiency- languages](https://sites.google.com/view/energy-efficiency-languages)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15249289](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15249289)

<comment><USER6> I agree, the documentation is difficult to find and work with. That's why I maintain a few useful resources that are shared with the community.

Here are the reference documents in searchable form. It can be easily integrated into the IDE with F1 context sensitive help opening the appropriate pages:

[http://docs.getlazarus.org/](http://docs.getlazarus.org/)

Also to help you understand the Free Pascal dialect you can interact with my railroad diagrams:

[https://www.getlazarus.org/learn/language/lexical/](https://www.getlazarus.org/learn/language/lexical/)

Also you can just use or add to the Lazarus learning portal or for that matter any page on my site (it's a custom wiki type website):

[https://www.getlazarus.org/learn](https://www.getlazarus.org/learn)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Only thing I wish would change about Lazarus is the UI. It's too much like the old Delphi IDE UI, I'm thinking Delphi 7 and probably before. I would love to see it become a toggable thing or something. I hated that GIMP used to do the same.

Lazarus is great, I wanted to make my own basic text editor ages back with syntax highlighting, and it worked out really well. Unfortunately as it stretched further than I knew Delphi / FreePascal I left my project to die. I had redone it in Qt with C++ years later, but only got as far as building a Notepad cross-platform application (no syntax highlighting).

Heck if Lazarus did what VB6 did for managing windows, I wouldn't be as bothered, I just want to jointly contain all the available UIs so I don't lose a piece.

<comment><USER6> If you want a single IDE window simply install the anchor docking package. It docks all windows into one window with docked windows that can be moved around.

See: [https://cache.getlazarus.org/images/lazarus- docked.png](https://cache.getlazarus.org/images/lazarus-docked.png)

That's part of the power of Lazarus and Free Pascal. It has the ability to rebuild the IDE right in it, and anyone can easily add new or optional packages to alter it in any way they please.

See also this overview: [https://www.getlazarus.org/new/](https://www.getlazarus.org/new/)

<comment><USER7> I've gotten it working once, and I can't recall what I did to get it to work since, but it was buggy as one would expect sadly, it just didn't feel like it was fully implemented. I would love for this to be a standard instead of an addition, but I make Lazarus work for me when I do use it.

<comment><USER6> If you install Lazarus using the bundles on my site all these things plus more tweaks are already installed and configured for you.

[https://www.getlazarus.org/setup/?download](https://www.getlazarus.org/setup/?download)

Also the bundles I put together give you more recent revisions than whatever is in your distros package repository or whatever was last put together on the official project pages.

My setup scripts and installed are all freely hosted online, and if you want to build both the compiler and IDE from subversion I also have a few guides for that linked on that same page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What is the macOS support like on this, is it using Cocoa underneath?

<comment><USER9> During the first compilation on macOS with Lazarus, I saw a number of references to carbon in the message area. I'm running 10.11.6 (High Sierra).

The Release Announcement states the requirements for macOS:

Mac OS X: 10.5 to 10.12; Carbon (32bit), Cocoa (64bit, beta), qt and qt5 (32 or 64bit).

The Lazarus project seems to be working on a Cocoa interface (among many other tasks); see [http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Roadmap](http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Roadmap)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Master password to one password per site with bcrypt algorithm - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I created a password utility for myself a while ago that is becoming increasingly useful. I'm looking at turning it into a small web service, as well as open-source offline script but obviously the core algorithm is rather important (and at the moment - may be flawed).
I've uploaded the source as a gist if anyone cares to comment: https://gist.github.com/4088402
Basically it generates a bcrypt hash using the site name and the password, and then uses the value of the hash to pick out a ten letter password according to certain specifications (starts with a letter, contains atleast one other letter, one number and one symbol).
It seems like having the hash only dependent on the site name is a bad idea... but I'm not sure what other choice there is. Having the password influence it would make it significantly cheaper to find the password (which is way more important), but having just the salt there means any users using the same site name which will happen often - will have same salt.
There are plans for a number of very useful features (saving comments with passwords, verifying the master password when generating, etc.) but all of that can only come once the core algorithm is nailed - because that will be very hard to change. <comment><USER2> Don't roll your own crypto. Just don't. It's a bad idea. It's close to impossible to do it correctly even if you're an expert.

Just store the passwords in a file and use a well-tested and well-reviewed crypto package to encrypt it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <https://gist.github.com/4088402></comment>


How to Advertise on a Porn Website - <AUTHOR> http://blog.eat24hours.com/how-to-advertise-on-a-porn-website/ <comment><USER3> That was actually a really interesting article. I think it really helps that they were able to come up with a really good set of ads that worked perfectly with the audience on the adult websites. That's always the goal, but execution is never quite as easy as it seems :)

<comment><USER4> And what is the audience of the adult websites? It is the same audience that reads NYTimes and WSJ and WaPo. Everyone on the internet watches porn - <USER2> some that prefer to read it.

<comment><USER5> They're definitely in a different context / mindset though.

<comment><USER6> That's because the "audience" is not necessarily defined by properties that are set in stone. Yes, they're the same people that read certain other sites/mags/newspapers, but they're different in that they are horny, and not distracted by the visual cues advertisers usually employ.

In other words: no, this is a different audience than the audience that's reading those sites; these are _horny_ readers of those sites.

A big difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Of the total traffic generated by our ads, over 90% were first-time visitors to Eat24.com"

Or a large proportion are browsing incognito.

But what a great article!

<comment><USER8> Umm, as they do delivery and accept creditcards, then they can be rather sure which orders are from new users and which are repeated. Unless they have amnesia.

Just as Chrome says - browser incognito mode doesn't really work if you tell a website where you live and what name is written on your card.

<comment><USER9> "Total traffic" and "people who gave us credit card info" are two very different things, and they are discussing the former. They would only be able to disambiguate in the (presumably small) portion of people that went on to log in/sign up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why is there so little non-porn advertising on porn sites? If CPMs are low, and conversions are good enough, what's up with the ROI gap? Is this really the cost of social outrage? I'm really curious to see if anyone has any theories/answers...

<comment><USER11> I wanted to, but in my company case we cannot risk it at all, even 4chan was banned by the CEO...

We make games for children aged around 5 years old... If we advertise that at a porn site, beside probably missing our target market, we risk people making those huge outraged internet firestorms that after 4 republications by blogs and newspapers will result into people concluding I am a pedophile.

<comment><USER12> So.. why did you want to advertise your game for five year olds on porn sites?

<comment><USER13> Lots of visitors to porn sites have 5 year old children?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I skimmed 96 comments looking for anyone to say, "You know, this is pretty offensive and/or wrong." I found only two posts comprising one sarcastic attempt at pointing that direction.

No one's making the _argument_ that porn's good, but a lot of people either genuinely assume so or want to signal that they're really pragmatic and modern and liberal. (If you think everyone's just bracketing the moral questions and that it's appropriate to do so, ask yourself how well a post on successfully marketing on white supremacist websites would fare.)

I'm not going to make an actual case that porn is evil either: it's clear we'd have to do a lot of work on finding common philosophical ground first, and I don't have the time. But in the face of apparently-overwhelming social acceptance of evil, it's better if someone says, "Hey, everybody, this is wrong," even if they can't convince people of it at the moment. Since I can't find much to upvote here, I'll be that guy:

Pornography is evil in concept and in practice. Building your business through it is considerably worse than, e.g., using huge email spam networks. It beggars belief that--in a community that can at least entertain the idea that it might be wrong to create a business by exploiting people's lizard brains with notifications, gamification, and misleading social ads--ninety-eight percent of comments on using porn to promote your business either avoid considering morality at all or go out of the way to indicate that everything's a-ok here.

<comment><USER15> They've certainly taken a stance on porn that is opposite of, say, Apple.

Too bad you're being downvoted for expressing a different opinion on porn.

<comment><USER16> Comments which tries to appeal to emotion without any supporting facts should get downvoted. If one where to replace "porn" with "Microsoft" in midnightmonster comment, it would be a common microsoft bash comment. If you replaced it with Apple, it would become an Apple bash comment. As it stand, it is now just a porn bashing comment.

To examplify: _" Microsoft platform is evil in concept and in practice. Building your business through it is considerably worse than, e.g., using huge email spam networks. It beggars belief that--in a community that can at least entertain the idea that it might be wrong to create a business by exploiting people's lizard brains with notifications, gamification, and misleading social ads--ninety-eight percent of comments on using Microsoft platform to promote your business either avoid considering morality at all or go out of the way to indicate that everything's a-ok here."_

Comments that has that attribute should not reside on hacker news. It brings nothing to the table, and only tries manipulating the other readers with emotions, rather than with valid logic, to win an argument.[1]

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Those pornstar tweets sure do look like paid promotions... article implies they are organic, but they don't look that way to me.

<comment><USER18> I have a feeling that pornstars know all about the "unsolicited, easily quotable backpat" trick. Enthusiastically edorse random things you like, and-- if the recipient persoh/company understands marketing-industry SOP--you'll get endorsed in turn. (You can notice this in, for example, every blog post or podcast Patrick McKenzie has put out lately. It almost feels like he has a secret cabal he's colluding with to pass traffic between then, for all they mention each-other in shining terms--but it's just unsolicited praise. A war of gifts, you might say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This was one of the most interesting articles to pop up on hn recently. Kudos to eat24 for sharing that research.

What are some other things that could appeal to porn users? Travel? Legit online dating( ie match/eharmony)? Credit card savings? Subscription services (would dollar shave club do well?)

<comment><USER20> Adult traffic is pretty useless to most traditional affiliate marketing-ish offers. It's almost like the users just have this one, single thing on their mind and can't be bothered with anything else at that moment.

<comment><USER21> And yet, the stats presented in the post seem to suggest otherwise. After they finish watching the porn, users click the ad and convert. Even if they click and convert at a lower rate than traditional media the data suggests that the lower CPMs more than make up for this.

It's not great for brand advertising (potentially). But for affiliate type marketing this seems like an untapped goldmine.

<comment><USER19> that's what I was thinking. half the stuff sold from affiliate marketers isn't of name brand stuff anyway.

food makes sense after porn, you're appealing to humans base needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Google cache link: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fblog.eat24hours.com%2Fhow- to-advertise-on-a-porn-website%2F&rls=com.microsoft:es:IE- SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=)

I get a 503, probably HN effect ;)

<comment><USER23> WP effect I'd say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This was hilarious and definitely worth the read. The ads alone have definitely persuaded me to try out their service. The company seems like a breath of fresh air, considering how everyone else avoids associating with porn sites like they're the plague.

</comment><comment><USER25> Their porn statistics are questionable: they say "2/3 of men admit to watching porn" and "70% of those men are between the ages of 18-24". This implies that at least 47% of all men are between 18 and 24, which is clearly wrong. Otherwise, good article.

<comment><USER26> It could mean "2/3 of the men who took the survey admit to watching porn" for w/e survey they had in mind...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I read this and it was really interesting. Here's a question, HNdom. Should I advertise my nonprofit* on porn? (I won't use nonprofit funds, I'll pay from my own pocket) Do you think the total nonsequitur will work? Is there any downside?

Sub question: If I were to do it, how non-sequitur-ey should it be? I could play it as "help save boobies" or just straight-man it "help cure cancer"

*we'll be crowdfunding to get an public domain anticancer compound through preclinical trials, it may be effective against triple negative breast cancer, and other other cancers.

<comment><USER28> Nothing like using porn to advertise your non-profit. Because porn sites don't exploit _anyone_.

<comment><USER29> > Because porn sites don't exploit anyone

The one's you visit may do, but don't tar the whole industry with the same broad brush.

<comment><USER28> Ooo... I guess you got me good!

Excellent rhetorical technique - I give you 5 out of 5. Very weak on actual argument substance though. I give you 1 out of 5, with half a point to encourage you to try better next time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> You know you're a hacker news reader when your first thought after reading this isn't "order food!" or "watch porn!", but "I wonder if any fast food delivery websites have affiliate schemes...."

<comment><USER31> Mine was "do they have an API?" and to my amazement, yes they do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I find it fascinating that order sizes increased for people coming via the ads. Your pre-frontal cortex is the part of your brain responsible for willpower. It gets tired like any other muscle. The fact that you're watching porn is an indicator that your willpower is depleted and therefore far more likely to give in to the dessert as well.

<comment><USER33> I like this theory but hard to disambiguate from working up an appetite and the associations between the two forms of pleasure, perhaps the most overwhelming forms of pleasure in our biology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> That was quite an enjoyable article actually, they certainly had fun with it. Clever idea as well, they had a good chance of hitting their target market.

</comment><comment><USER35> Genuinely ascinating article!

Pity their search threw nonsensical errors when I put in my home address. ETA: Ah, I see the problem. They can't seem to give a message as useful as "We don't provide service to that city/ZIP code/etc." and instead just say, "Oops, something went wrong" or suggest that the ZIP code is invalid.

At least their ad strategy is smarter than that.

</comment><comment><USER36> I predicted that "Wash your hands" wouldn't work. I'm sure a higher percentage of porn visitors are dudes, and dudes don't want to click on other dudes, generally.

<comment><USER37> It wasn't the CTR that was the problem; though. It was the product not matching the advertisement. There are 9M LGBT in the US, alone. It's fairly likely that there is a demographic for this kind of ad, so why not have it available; not everyone is going to want to see a girl spread eagle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is the first article on HN I actually had fun reading. The puns were terribly hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER39> Unrelated question : But whats a good hosting service provider for hosting Adult content ?

<comment><USER20> When I needed to host adult landing pages, Rackspace indicated they had no restrictions on regular adult material. You might want to check what their limits are, but they're certainly OK with your run-of-the-mill hardcore porn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> A couple interesting things i'm considering from this.

1\. Typically any business that supports even the concept of porn would get crucified in the media. It seems like because eat24 is a young internet startup that its users don't mind it being associated with porn. If the service becomes nationally recognized, will the small vocal minority eventually come out of the woodwork to protest? (I think yes) Other consideration: almost all food services are in some way family-oriented (families eat a lot of food) and thus would be more vulnerable to topics that are inappropriate for kids.

2\. If somehow they find a way to keep their porn ads up while still bringing in users that are morally opposed to porn, could this create real social change? Could it eventually become socially acceptable to support businesses that support porn and alternative lifestyles? And towards that end (hehe I said end), should the company push for higher standards and more stringent requirements on the kind of content included in the porn? Could the company's ad push eventually improve the conditions and content of the porn industry?

</comment><comment><USER41> If anyone is inspired by this article and feels adventurous, I'm currently trying to sell a 1.5M/day inventory that is mostly across porn sites. Hit me up at firstname.lastname@example.com for dirt cheap CPM rates.

<comment><USER42> I also have a cheap lawn mover! Send me a pm! If you pm now, I will add 2 xxl size trash bags to the deal!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> To riff of of AznHisoka, is the eat24 delivery man a new archetype for these sites?

Seriously though well done on their part identifying the opportunity and I hope it works out well for them in the future.

</comment><comment><USER44> I always enjoy reading these interesting strategies for marketing to the consumer. However, it makes me a little sad that I can't really apply it to a b2b product.

</comment><comment><USER45> Seems like the perfect advertiser for 4chan. A lot of traffic, the ads are ALWAYS for porn so people will notice, and the user-base never leaves the house.

</comment><comment><USER46> They should bribe some of those actresses to make a movie with them, and give them 100% free membership for life :)

</comment><comment><USER47> I haven't seen these ads anywhere before. REALLY.

And its a good reminder, instead of competing in places where everybody is already competing, while paying high and raising the price for everybody else. Find a new efficient strategy from a different niche.

</comment><comment><USER48> Best creative I've seen in a long time.

</comment><comment><USER49> Great article.

</comment><comment><USER50> eat24hours is a shining example of a successful, bootstrapped startup that is in it for the long-haul and not out for a quick buck.

It doesn't hurt that they gave me a bunch of free credit for reporting a CSS issue.</comment>


Vidly: Twitvid.io (YC S08) Changes Names, Direction, And Gets Funding - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/28/vidly-twitvidio-changes-names-direction-and-gets-funding/

<comment><USER2> Definitely deserves props for persistence and constant iteration. Perhaps they have cracked the secret of getting TechCrunch coverage: Just keep changing your name!

Feb 25, 2009: Fliggo Launch [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/25/y-combinator-startup- fl...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/25/y-combinator-startup-fliggo-lets- you-build-your-own-youtube/)

May 21, 2009: Fliggo -> TwitVid.io [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/21/twitvid-wants-to-be- the...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/21/twitvid-wants-to-be-the-twitpic- of-video-sharing-on-twitter/)

Aug 28, 2009: TwitVid.io -> Vidly [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/28/vidly- twitvidio-changes...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/28/vidly-twitvidio- changes-names-direction-and-gets-funding/)

</comment><comment><USER3> If I were competing with vid.ly, bit.ly or any of the other ly's, I think my main strategy would be to post material guaranteed to offend Libyan national pride without offending American sensibilities, and see if I could provoke a ruckus. The reliance on geopolitically shaky TLDs is bound to bite someone eventually.

<comment><USER4> If I were competing with vid.ly, bit.ly, or any of the other ly's... I would quit, and try something with a business model next time.

<comment><USER3> It's remarkable that an entire business ecosystem can exist around Twitter's inability to get simple features right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why would anyone use them instead of Posterous? Posterous is dead simple, allows me to share _all_ media, and autoposts way more places. It's basically a direct subset of Posterous's features.

<comment><USER6> let me tell you a story. i wanted to post some images and videos of a new game i was playing. i looked at tumblr and posterous, two platforms i'd never used before. i've also never uploaded images or videos before, either.

i chose tumblr because it looked cooler... posterous is plain and the managing of posts and accounts--at least through their website--is confusing as hell. i still don't know how to delete blogs or my account, and it always took me a handful of extra clicks to figure out how to post a new entry.

this was for Salamander Wrestling, btw: <http://salamanderwrestling.tumblr.com>

then i wanted to start a development blog for my startup. i stuck to posterous this time, the blog being more of a writing thing, and because tumblr doesn't have comments out of the box (i've since hooked up disqus to salamanderwrestling).

i'm not comfortable using email to make posts. what i want is a powerful markup language (read: pretty prints code) with elegant markup (read: not html).

posterous just didn't cut it for me. things looked...plain and yellow...and i couldn't save drafts. i'd be happy to use emacs to write markup blog posts, but because posterous only allows rich text or html i _have_ to use their web editor.

i switched to wordpress while writing my second post. wordpress makes me feel safe and comfortable. my posts are autosaved. i can upload images. it has themes.

each platform has its niche. here are some reasons why someone wouldn't use posterous (i really tried, though. i'm still rooting for you guys.)

<comment><USER7> I 2nd you. The only thing I've consistently been able to use Posterous or Tumblr is for my photo blog. The iPhone to blog feature is just awesome.

Yet, for anything else, even for the simplest of blog entries, there comes an occasion you HAVE to post something a little advanced. With both Posterous and Tumblr you end up hitting a wall. I can understand their perspective too: they want to keep it dead simple. But I'm also hoping one day that they can build an obscure page somewhere with all the advance features generally found in a typical wordpress blog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting.. Today I just got an email that TweetLater is rebranding themselves as SocialOomph: <http://www.socialoomphblog.com/>

Personally, I think these new names are terrible. Are these signs that the honeymoon with Twitter is over?

</comment><comment><USER9> The new logo reminds me of something. Vidly for Vendetta?

<comment><USER10> I didn't get it at first, but you're right; it's uncanny.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/saynotes.html> (footnote 8), and:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/vwfront.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Leo Laporte is going around shooting people using the word twit? Wow, he sure lucked out with the advent of Twitter and its lexicon.

Edit: _Leo Laporte actually has rights to the trademark "TWiT" in relation to audio-visual performances. So, anything that's outside of the realm of video are not a valid target for him._</comment>


LTSE – Silicon Valley Is Reinventing Wall St - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-vs-wall-street-can-the-new-long-term-stock-exchange-disrupt-capitalism-1508151600 <comment><USER2> I don't really see how this is "disrupting" capitalism: it might be disrupting the current exchanges, but if anything that's more capitalistic than leaving them too it. A disruptive version probably wouldn't have to spend a year getting regulatory approval.

<comment><USER3> National securities exchanges provided marketplaces for trading but some of them also set up rules for public companies listed on them and they are responsible for them as self regulated organization approved by the SEC. This actually gives exchanges a lot of power. We are innovating rules by which public companies are governed (known as the listing standards) and are seeking SEC approval so that we can provide a different public company venue and IPO route. The goal of our listing standards is to move the focus away from quarterly capitalism toward the long-term value creation and getting the company operators and investors aligned via incentives like the long-term voting system, executive compensation, enhanced disclosure and board oversight described in the WSJ article. This is a major disruption to the current vicious cycle of short-termism as it allows our listed companies to trade off juicing the short-term performance for committing to their long-term innovation.

Tiho - VP Engineering at the LTSE</comment></comment>


Interviewing for a Tech Position at Stitch Fix - <AUTHOR> http://multithreaded.stitchfix.com/blog/2015/11/15/interviewing-at-stitch-fix/ <comment><USER2> Very interesting that they use real applications as a code challenge. How did it work initially? Did they just sent you the code repo or used a testing tool like hackerrank?

<comment><USER3> They sent the code for the application in a zip file and had me return in the same way. I stuck it in a local git repo, personally, because habits and such, but they made the receiving-and-returning process pretty simple.</comment></comment>


Microsoft Writing Off Nearly All of the $6.3 Billion it Paid For aQuantive - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20120702/microsoft-writing-off-nearly-all-of-the-6-3-billion-it-paid-for-aquantive/ <comment><USER2> Microsoft bought aQuantive as a knee-jerk reaction to Google's acquisition of Doubleclick. It was comical at the time because

\- aQuantive's Atlas was a distant number 2 to Doubleclick's DART in terms of ad server market share

\- aQuantive had no plans to create an ad exchange, nor did their market share make that a credible possibility, and

\- Microsoft somehow paid twice as much for aQuantive as Google paid for Doubleclick.

All told it was a bewildering acquisition. Either Microsoft didn't understand why Google bought Doubleclick, or Google corpdev did a masterful behind the scenes headfake with regards to the value of aQuantive.

Yahoo at least understood what the DCLK acquisition was about and bought Right Media. Of course, an open ad exchange is basically at odds with Yahoo's premium inventory direct sales strategy, so it has been difficult for Yahoo to really make it successful.

In the end the whole episode was a giant win for Google, and an embarassment for MSFT and YHOO.

<comment><USER3> But, had msft executed, there definitely is room for competitors for both dfp and dfa. Many pubs seem to want something, anything besides dfp. Plus the rise of ssps is (maybe?) a reaction to the pub adservers not innovating. For god's sake, _openx_ (written in php!) is being used by pubs.

also, hi (earl from qc)

<comment><USER4> Could you maybe explain some of those acronyms you used?

<comment><USER3> Sorry dude.

When a publisher (pub) sells ad space to an advertiser, there are at least two sets of servers involved. There is a publisher / sell side ad server (pub adserver) which picks which ad to show in an inventory slot on a page view and generally tries to optimize for the publishers income, plus does publisher side reporting. There is a advertiser / buy side ad server which does cross publisher reporting; allows the advertiser to control, change, and update creative; tries to do frequency capping; tries to do cross channel reporting; and tries to optimize on the advertisers' behalf. These are generally not the same server. Google's ad server were basically purchased from doubleclick. DFA is doubleclick for advertisers and DFP is doubleclick for publishers. Openx is a competing publisher ad server. Atlas is microsofts advertiser ad server; it competes with dfa.

An SSP is a supply side platform. It's a service that basically replaces a pub ad server and attempts to get as much money for the pub as possible by switching between ad networks and possibly trading off between guaranteed, network, and rtb. It basically is a saas stack that replaces a publisher ad server. An SSP will often also attempt to prevent first party data leakage.

a DSP is a similar beast for the demand side and can start to replace an advertiser ad server.

From my perspective (and I think many pubs) there hasn't been much innovation between dfp and openx. Hence the movement to SSPs.

First party data is, in a nutshell, the fact that a user visited a site or a page. From this you can derive all sorts of things such as the purchasing interests of the user.

guaranteed is presold ads, the most lucrative for a publisher

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the explanation! Having never dealt with internet advertisers I didn't realize there was as much to it as there is :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was part of aQuantive on the Avenue A | Razorfish side and was there for about 2 years leading up to the MSFT acquisition and was also part of another MSFT acquisition (Farecast) so I want to provide some context/opinion on where the business was at it when it was purchased.

\- The Atlas ad serving platform and related ad exchange platform was one of the top ad systems alongside DART, Valueclick, and others. There was also a steady stream of new leads to Atlas as the agency side acquired new clients. I think the opportunity that was missed was to tie the MSN search business with the banner/rich media ad serving business and create a single platform to reach and remarket based on search intent. A lot of this is done today but this deal was 5 years ago and would have been more groundbreaking.

\- The agency side of the business wasn't interesting to Microsoft but at that time, Avenue A | Razorfish was the top digital agency in the US with clients from Expedia to Nike to Best Buy. The team at AA|RF had a direct line to the CMOs and worked in most cases as an extension of the marketing teams for these Fortune 500 companies and MS could have leveraged this team as a focus group and to enroll these clients to test innovative ways to market across a publishing network like MSN (still a top portal property). I don't think this was done and again another opportunity missed.

Overall, I just felt that there was the potential for aQuantive to help Microsoft close the ad revenue/platform gap with Google and they missed the boat.

<comment><USER6> Razorfish pitched to our marketing department (I was the token tec on the panel).

Being a Microsoft appendage was a big negative from my point of view... as was the giant Silverlight logo in their pitch docs.

> MS could have leveraged this team as a focus group and to enroll these > clients to test innovative ways

Don't do that! If we hire you to do work for us and you sucker someone in our org in to some shit like this, we will very quickly question your motives and ultimately the value of our relationship.

In the end the the marketing wonks went with the agency with the best creative (again).

<comment><USER5> I didn't mean you get your clients to try things without telling them. I meant get them into pilot programs to find more incremental places to acquire new customers.

In regards to creative, Avenue A | Razorfish was a combination of two distinct skillsets. Avenue A handled media buying which in most cases is more important to the success of a campaign than the creative and the Razorfish part was the "creative" side of the agency that worked on all of the campaign assets, etc. Both sides worked together to ensure that the creative was right for the audience (media).

<comment><USER6> > you sucker someone in our org in to some shit like this

Didn't think they would secretly do that.

Ulterior motives of corporate overlords, be they pushing Silverlight or pulling us into a msn search strategy are a recipe for friction.

That said i'm not in marketing, not in the US, and we are a small org with limited resources that is perpetually screwed around by agencies, so my views are probably of limited value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interestingly, aQuantive (formerly Avenue A Media) was founded by Nick Hanauer, one of the people profiled in GQ's recent article[1] on income inequality. He was also one of the first investors in Jeff Bezos and Amazon.

[1] - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4181382>

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting. On the surface this seems like a colossal failure. It could also be an accounting trick too. Write the whole thing off now, and people view it as a non-recurring charge. Then when the unit does something/anything to be profitable, it looks like positive earnings rather than a less-bad loss.

<comment><USER9> Yup. It also has the nice effect of inflating the P/E ratio for Microsoft, at least temporarily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What truly amazes me is the fact that Ballmer is allowed to keep his job despite one colossal blunder after another.

<comment><USER9> This is why.

[http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/revenues#series=type:compa...](http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/revenues#series=type:company,id:MSFT,calc:revenues&zoom=&startDate=1/1/2000&endDate=7/2/2012&format=real&recessions=false)

<comment><USER11> So, he doubled revenue over the last 10 years. They were already high to begin with, but lets see...

[http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/revenues#series=type:compa...](http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/revenues#series=type:company,id:MSFT,calc:revenues,,id:GOOG,type:company,calc:revenues,,id:IBM,type:company,calc:revenues,,id:AAPL,type:company,calc:revenues&zoom=&startDate=1/1/2000&endDate=7/2/2012&format=real&recessions=false)

Even more impressive:

[http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/revenues#series=type:compa...](http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/revenues#series=type:company,id:MSFT,calc:revenues,,id:GOOG,type:company,calc:revenues,,id:IBM,type:company,calc:revenues,,id:AAPL,type:company,calc:revenues&zoom=&startDate=1/1/2000&endDate=7/2/2012&format=indexed&recessions=false)

So, basically, Microsoft let its two main rivals close in at a tremendous pace. If I had Microsoft stock, I'd be rather disappointed.

<comment><USER9> Shareholders and long term investors (aka those who care most about management) look for long term stable growth in core businesses. Yes, you can argue that their performance compared to competitors has been dismal but MSFT is still a solid investment and has seen double digit growth rates for over 10 years - this is incredibly hard for a company this size. Most will argue that this good management.

For example, look at their revenue growth quarter-over-quarter:

[http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/revenue_growth#series=type...](http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/revenue_growth#series=type:company,id:MSFT,calc:revenue_growth&zoom=&startDate=1/1/2000&endDate=3/31/2012&format=real&recessions=false)

Also, GOOG and AAPL don't pay dividends (yet), which is a very good proxy for shareholder value:

[http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/dividend_yield#series=type...](http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/dividend_yield#series=type:company,id:MSFT,calc:dividend_yield,,id:AAPL,type:company,calc:dividend_yield,,id:GOOG,type:company,calc:dividend_yield&zoom=&startDate=1/1/2000&endDate=3/31/2012&format=real&recessions=false)

I'm not saying MSFT can't do better; OP asked why Ballmer is tolerated and I wanted to point out that there are plenty of reasons why.

<comment><USER11> Well, my point was that throwing in a revenue chart of one company only is just not a way of explaining things. There are many reasons why you could want Ballmer to stay - as you say, a replacement could even do worse - but that chart alone is not one of them. Especially because in our growing industry, the growth roughly matches the growth of the market. It is certainly not "plenty of reasons". Hewlett Packard has similar revenue development with MSFT and still they are firing CEOs left and right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Accounting question: Is this write off writing off the goodwill that was created by the merger?

<comment><USER8> Goodwill is the premium paid above the book value. It occurs because most corporate purchases occur above the value the acquired company has on the books. An example: My company has a book (accounting) value if $10 million. I sell it to you for $30 million. $20 million of that becomes an asset on your books of "Goodwill" - a catch-all for the brand value above and beyond my tangible assets. If at some point you don't think you can generate earnings to justify the premium, you write it down. This is what Microsoft did.

For a longer explanation: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwill_(accounting)>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> now when is zynga going to writedown 180mm for OMGPOP.

<comment><USER14> "Draw Something" is the #55 paid app on the app store STILL. So clearly it's bringing in and has brought in a ton of revenue since the ac (acquisition was in March). Sure not $180MM but it was also an acqui-hire. I think this could have ended up being a great deal for them, despite the negativity. It's not all about one game.

<comment> shock-value #55 paid app is not at all impressive given how much they paid for it. For that price Draw Something would have had to stick around the top ten, probably the top five, for quite awhile to make it worthwhile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Now do it for Skype.

<comment><USER16> Ok I'll bite. Skype isn't and won't be a bad investment. It is installed on most peoples computing devices(computer,mobile,tablet), it really doesn't have any good competitors(maybe google voice), it's used heavily in business world for conferencing, virtual numbers and internal comms, it has a nice technology stack which a few companies were eyeing (fb,google).

Really it's amuch better investment then spending a billion on a revenue less image sharing site or a corporate social network provider.

<comment><USER17> I don't think that Google Voice is any kind of competitor to Skype because of its incredibly limited global availability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Beat you: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4190965></comment>


Stephen Wolfram: Computing a theory of everything - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_of_everything.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2010-04-27&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

<comment><USER2> I think his whole approach is flawed... unless he proves that P=NP (with a constructive not an existence proof) his research agenda and the aim of Wolfram Alpha is stillborn. Setting aside his chronic confounding of existence and consciousness, his plan for searching the "computational universe" is _impossible_ if one grasps the scale of that endeavor. Finding a needle in a haystack is _easy_ compared to what he wants to do.</comment>


Amazon AppStream - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/appstream/ <comment><USER2> Why would I give up fixed operational expense of distributing my game and instead pay Amazon computing resources everytime one of my users played? The more you use, the more you pay. The more users you have, the more revenue you will need to cover the cost of the computing resources needed to run the game for your players.

Not to mention if you ever need to get off of Appstream there is no migration path, because you used their SDK to build your game.

So there is a high level of lock-in, and its introducing a cost structure that is coupled to the usage of the app. If using Appstream helps your apps be more successful, then it also helps you give more of your profit margin to Amazon.

<comment><USER3> on the cost structures: my guess is this is primarily aimed at the type of game developers who build upon a MRR (monthly reoccurring revenue) model - from WoW through to XBox-Live type gaming. Being server based particularly lends itself to multiplayer gaming where network latency should be zero and MRR is most common.

It's basically OnLive for mobile but you bring your own distribution channels.

This isn't going to compete with casual games you would natively run on devices for a fixed deployment cost.

<comment><USER2> I don't see that as a problem. My guess is, even if you remove the barrier to entry by not requiring strong hardware to run the game, you still have to turn someone that has had no previous motivation to play hardcore games, to now play those games simply because they can.

Sure, those who would love to play these games without chasing hardware will, but I can't imagine that's worth the additional, continual cost of rendering the game in the cloud and piping it over the network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very similar to what was proposed by Firefox/OTOY/AutoDesk [1]. OTOY is using Amazon so there appears to be some overlap there [2]. Wonder if Amazon licensed any OTOY technologies.

[1] [https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/11/05/mozilla-otoy-and- au...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/11/05/mozilla-otoy-and-autodesk- work-to-deliver-high-performance-games-and-applications-on-the-web/)

[2] [http://www.otoy.com/AWSPressRelease.htm](http://www.otoy.com/AWSPressRelease.htm)

<comment><USER5> Didn't Microsoft demo something similar a couple of months ago. Running halo on windows phone via cloud?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> More on Jeff Barr's blog post: [http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/11/amazon- appstream-deliver-...](http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/11/amazon-appstream- deliver-streaming-applications-from-the-cloud.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Latency is still a limiting factor is all of these. For some apps it would be ok like Excel but anything requiring precision is going to be a horrible experience. This morning my TWC was delivering data from all sites at 3K/sec.

<comment><USER7> Just an anectote about app/game streaming: I've recently played Orcs Must Die 2 on OnLive, a game-streaming service, and was very much surprised by the responsiveness! I think that probably a lot of apps/games will work just fine.

<comment><USER8> Yeah I think this type of stuff will depend a lot on buffering/rendering technology. You can imagine that it would be a terrible experience if it literally sent your keypress to the server, registered it in a game & then sent back the screens display pixels.

But I imagine (as with online gaming systems) that the experience is much more like... server loads the necessary rendering resources into the devices RAM/storage and then gameplay occurs the same as if files were loaded from a CD/other media.

I'm sure you could learn more by digging deeper but I imagine it is something more along those lines -- advanced API for a rendering engine.

<comment><USER9> The truth is I/O is much slower then networking. Many LCD displays do image processing which results in it being several frames behind the one the GPU is currently pushing out. So between your desktop and your monitor could be 70ms of latency. On top of that there's the delay in input devices.

If streamers could maintain 30ms of network latency then it's just a minor difference from the system baseline.

If the streamers are smart they could colocate with the game servers. Then that 30ms of network latency is there regardless, home system or streaming system. It effectively adds no lag for streaming.

John Carmack made a comment that he could send a packet to europe faster then he could send a pixel to a screen: [http://superuser.com/questions/419070/transatlantic-ping- fas...](http://superuser.com/questions/419070/transatlantic-ping-faster-than- sending-a-pixel-to-the-screen)

<comment><USER8> Woah, interesting stuff. thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow. These two announcements from Amazon today have been really interesting. I work at a community college and we're constantly investigating VDI and vApp solutions. With the heavy push towards a more cloud-ready infrastructure, it'll be interesting to see how our upper management approaches this platform. A lot of ya'll seem to be arguing about gaming -- but I see other highly demanding software being used -- CAD, Maya, Blender, AfterEffects, etc. All of which will be on-demand. We won't have to invest so heavily in up front hardware costs just to handle our typical overwhelming periods.

[anecdote] We've licensed our CAD software to have 100 "seats" available at any time. We also (try to) reserve that much hardware to be available. We only ever see maybe a 5-10% utilization throughout the semester with ~200% utilization in the last 3 weeks of the semester (When util >100%, users are queued). That's a lot of waste and still isn't acceptable to the majority of our professors and student body. While it'd be great if we could retask that hardware to justify its cost when not in use, we simply can't. We need that hardware to be available for these applications at a minute's notice.

I can see this being a huge win for education or independent studios who are just starting out.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is this for people who live in kansas city or outside the us?

</comment><comment><USER12> The gaming applications sound a lot like Gaikai, who Sony acquired for $380m back in 2012.

Here's a pretty cool video demonstration of its on tablets and TVs use prior to acquisition:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2i01vGsbOk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2i01vGsbOk)

</comment><comment><USER13> The previews for this product are stunning: this is not the first company providing this king of service, but well.. it's Amazon. Even though the cost will be initially a little high, its very likely that's worth it. Amazon has an undeniably powerful infrastructure, and AppStream could give a boost to app development. I love especially the multi platform support features, which are a tremendous relief for developers.

</comment><comment><USER14> Two challenges for $ on ideas on how to use AppStream and building out early prototypes on it here: [http://www.topcoder.com/aws/](http://www.topcoder.com/aws/)

<comment><AUTHOR> If you come at the AWS booth, the Appstream team will show you a few cool things, such as the character creator for the MMORPG Eve Online: [http://t.co/22FpUB1ot6](http://t.co/22FpUB1ot6) (screenshot)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am surprised the server side is windows. If you stream your app to a device the server platform does not matter, and would have thought linux to be the first choice in that case.

<comment><USER16> Came here to post exactly this.

I was initially excited, wondering how we could leverage this, but now I'm perplexed by: "currently supports streaming applications from Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2."

I would have thought Linux would have been the optimal server environment too.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you are at re:Invent, go to the AWS Booth and talk to the team. They might share details on what else is going to come in the next few months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> 0.83 / hour sounds really expensive

<comment><USER18> Is the price of the g2.2xlarge instance included? I couldn't find that anywhere... that would be another .767 / hour.

They REALLY need a killer app here to demonstrate the use case where this is worth the price. You need an application that has very high computation needs that is being used on a platform with limited computation ability BUT has a solid internet connection (preferably low-latency, if you want it for "twitch" type gaming, but not necessary in all cases). The example in their video is a FPS. I don't think that's a good example, as it is way too expensive for that market.

<comment><USER19> Also, it's a poor fit due to latency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Web sockets 'a la charte'?

Is it good for turn-based games like poker or even tic-tac-toe?

I'm sold.</comment>


Ask HN: Help me with creating a business card and name. - <AUTHOR>

I'm starting a small business and I need to create a business card and name for my business to hand out to people. The business is mainly an automotive parts distributor.
1. Where can I get business cards for cheap? Should I go to a physical store or do it online? 2. What are things I should consider when creating the business cards.
3. What are the things I should consider when choosing my business's name?
Any other tips would be highly appreciated, thanks HN! <comment><USER2> This was an HN submission earlier today: <http://p.printingchoice.com/battle- of-the-business-cards/>

Might be helpful as far was where to order cards from. Some of the sites also help you with some basic design options.

As far as the business name is concerned, I'm not thinking creatively right now, but is it a general parts distributor, or is there some specialty aspect to it?

<comment><AUTHOR> General automotive parts, mostly in fluids, liquids, etc.

Think less actual physical "hardware"

Thanks a lot for the link brk, I found it really helpful! I really appreciate it. :)</comment></comment>


Supercentenarians are concentrated into regions with no birth certificates - <AUTHOR> https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v1 <comment><USER2> previously discussed: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20625547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20625547)

</comment><comment><USER3> Study finds more people likely to commit fraud in areas where fraud is easier to commit.</comment>


Redactor II WYSIWYG editor released - <AUTHOR> http://imperavi.com/blog/redactor-superior-in-every-way/ <comment><USER2> Will you upgrade?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure yet. Was hoping to see some discussion on pros/cons :)

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10416141](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10416141)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you take this opportunity? - <AUTHOR> Give the opportunity that you can solve the problem of cancer (or any other major problem humanity faces) but the catch is you won't be able to earn any money or credit for the solution. Would you go for it? <comment><USER2> Credit is uninteresting to me. I don't do most of what I do for credit. I either do it because it interests me or because it's what I feel is right. I suppose there's also the self preservation aspect where I do what I do because it pays and doesn't conflict with the first two.

That said, if I can't support my family then I wouldn't be interested.

EDIT: extra reason

</comment><comment><USER3> Probably, unless it would take too long or be too draining.

If not getting credit for the cure means it would be credited to someone else, then that wouldn't work. It would have to be something along the lines of the cure magically appearing without anyone knowing who was responsible.

Cancer isn't the main thing that bothers me. It would be things like serious illness in general (cancer can be fatal, but isn't that common-- or maybe I just don't care), poverty, violent crime, inequality, people starving, etc.</comment>


How to Convert a SheevaPlug from JFFS2 to UBI/UBIFS via USB - <AUTHOR> http://nitrogen.posterous.com/converting-a-sheevaplug-from-jffs2-to-ubiubif

<comment><USER2> Did anyone here use one of those contraptions? Any thoughts?

<comment><USER3> I bought one last year, and I love it, although admittedly I don't do a whole lot with it - I use it mostly for remote SSH tunneling and as a file server with an external 1 TB drive. For these sorts of tasks where few resources are needed, these plugs are great, especially with their super-low power consumption.</comment></comment>