Show HN: A search engine based on social signals - <AUTHOR> http://buzzsumo.com/ We built a search engine that shows you the most engaging stories/topics being shared across Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Google+. We crawled over 15 million articles the past 3 months, retrieved the total number of Facebook likes, tweets, Google+'s etc and built a search index around it.
Here's what our infrastructure looks like:
Rails/Redis: We use the Sidekiq gem as a message queue. We have hundreds of workers that do the crawling, data mining, and number crunching.
ElasticSearch: We built the search index using ElasticSearch, with the data imported from our Postgres database.
AngularJS: Front-end is built using AngularJS and Laravel 4 (PHP), which sends the requests to our Rails server in the backend. <comment><USER2> Since OP is dead:

jwblackwell 48 minutes ago | link [dead]

We built a search engine that shows you the most engaging stories/topics being shared across Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Google+. We crawled over 15 million articles the past 3 months, retrieved the total number of Facebook likes, tweets, Google+'s etc and built a search index around it. Here's what our infrastructure looks like: Rails/Redis: We use the Sidekiq gem as a message queue. We have hundreds of workers that do the crawling, data mining, and number crunching. ElasticSearch: We built the search index using ElasticSearch, with the data imported from our Postgres database. AngularJS: Front-end is built using AngularJS and Laravel 4 (PHP), which sends the requests to our Rails server in the backend.

<comment><USER3> I don't get it....why would it be dead? Did the OP delete that post, or was it just heavily downvoted? And if the latter, why?!

<comment><AUTHOR> It's way down at the bottom! Obviously no one upvoted :(

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6437715](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6437715)

<comment><USER2> No, it's killed so no-one can upvote or reply. Not sure why though but maybe you were flagged as a spammer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice.

The speed is really impressive, at least for the queries I tried. There are still a lot of queries with no results, and you might want to think of something clever to put there in those cases to keep the user turned onto your brand. When there are results, they seem quite relevant and useful.

The "Show me how it works" tour is great too.

I think you just need to work on your value proposition on the landing page. Don't be afraid to sell something. Put together few paid packages as soon as possible. Don't worry if it's not perfect.

<comment><USER5> Yup. Agreed with everything.

Tried "customer success" for example and the results were not valuable. Tried "startups" and got lots of results, but that might be too broad of a topic.

Technically I'd say this is pretty good, I agree that OP needs to work on value proposition and to sell: that's something for content marketers, but try to dive more into the problem you're solving. Be specific. "Social insights" seems too broad to me.

For example, the problem could be not knowing which content to write, wanting to keep tabs on what your competiton writes about, spending too much time researching all this...

You're already writing about benefits("discover what people are sharing..."), I'd try to connect that with how your app is better than current existing methods used by content marketers to create their content strategy.

Congrats with the launch !

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We built a search engine that shows you the most engaging stories/topics being shared across Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Google+. We crawled over 15 million articles the past 3 months, retrieved the total number of Facebook likes, tweets, Google+'s etc and built a search index around it.

Here's what our infrastructure looks like:

Rails/Redis: We use the Sidekiq gem as a message queue. We have hundreds of workers that do the crawling, data mining, and number crunching.

ElasticSearch: We built the search index using ElasticSearch, with the data imported from our Postgres database.

AngularJS: Front-end is built using AngularJS and Laravel 4 (PHP), which sends the requests to our Rails server in the backend.

</comment><comment><USER6> Possible feature to add:

1) Ability to search for influencers that shared an article related to a specific topic. For instance, I want a way to search for SEO influencers who shared something related to Breaking Bad b/c I'm making an article about how SEO is related to Breaking Bad, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea! We're currently working on adding more advanced search operators/an advanced search option so you can do stuff like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems like a pretty smart idea. Good work. I'm impressed by the speed. I like the tour too. I think the UI is very text-heavy right now, it might benefit from swapping some text for icons.

I'd like to see more of a pitch by way of how this app can help me and why I should be using it. Other than that, good job. Hope it does well.

</comment><comment><USER2> I really like this!

A small question regarding the tech stack: how is the relationship AngularJS- Laravel-Rails working? What are you using Laravel for?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're two developers, to get to this point Henley built a crawler and search index around the data. This is then available via a private API. I (James) built the web app using Angular and Laravel.

Laravel is currently just used for user auth and as a proxy to the api. Nearly all the front end logic is handled by AngularJS (it's a single page app).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Really good to know in few minutes what to know about a topic from social media perspective. I will not miss things of these social media I don't read but I have to know what they are talking about, and you search engine aggreator is good for this sum up.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yeah, quite interesting project. As someone who is interested in marketing and social media, I find value in the results of buzzsumo. I guess thats because posts on these topics tend to get a lot of shares and there are many signals to feed the algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is really interesting but I worry about the share of the net you all have crawled/are actively gathering stats on. Perhaps you need a way to request the crawling of a site or keyword?

</comment><comment><USER11> This is awesome, we made a realtime news like this [http://mashrd.com](http://mashrd.com) would love to work together.

</comment><comment><USER12> Great execution. My searches were actually very useful.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting! I got a timeout when trying to find sharers, but I suspect that's due to the fact that you've hit the front page of HN. ;)

</comment><comment><USER13> Google Chrome 30.0.1599.47 (Official Build 223717) beta OS Mac OS X

All I get are angular javascript exceptions, no results, blank white page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please do a hard refresh (ctrl-r) and let me know if this doesn't fix it (email in profile and on site). I had to push some bug fixes recently and you might have some old cache files causing problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Awesome tool and the couple of queries I made has pretty much accurate results

</comment><comment><USER15> This is nice. Feature request: Add a safe-search setting.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is extremely useful, I'm very impressed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Don't forget to sign up to the beta if you haven't already. It's free and you can use the app unrestricted!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> i think its will explosive trend to internet

success to you

</comment><comment><USER17> looks nice

my test about gentoo - passed!

<comment><USER17> suggestion:

please add your engine to [http://mycroftproject.com/search- engines.html?name=buzzsumo](http://mycroftproject.com/search- engines.html?name=buzzsumo)</comment></comment>


Why "the Metaverse" needs gameplay and gameplay mechanics - <AUTHOR> https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2019/06/philip-rosedale-metaverse-gameplay-mechanics.html <comment><USER3> What I find interesting is that when Stephenson wrote _REAMDE_ , he said that he had come to the realization that MMORPGs were how the Metaverse happened in real life.

From [https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2011/09/19/neal- step...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2011/09/19/neal-stephenson- reamde-video-games/)

> That was the thing I totally missed in Snow Crash. When I was thinking up > the Metaverse, I was trying to figure out the market mechanism that would > make all of this stuff affordable. Snow Crash was written when 3D imaging > graphics hardware was outrageously expensive, only for a few research labs. > I figured that if it were ever going to become as cheap as TV, then there > would have to be a market for 3D graphics as big as the market for TV. So > the Metaverse in Snow Crash is kind of like TV.

> What I didn't anticipate, what actually came along to drive down the cost of > 3D graphics hardware, was games. And so the virtual reality that we all > talked about and that we all imagined 20 years ago didn't happen in the way > that we predicted. It happened instead in the form of video games. And so > what we have now is Warcraft guilds, instead of people going to bars on the > street in Snow Crash.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's never going to be _A_ metaverse. I don't see why there ever would be. People came up with that concept when we still more or less had a consolidated media landscape with a few tv networks, one major newspaper per city, etc.

Nobody wants to live in a single shared virtual universe, hell most people don't even seem to want to live in shared reality and have segmented themselves off into echo chambers on social media.

<comment><USER5> Well, one of the original visions was Second Life and its open source clone, OpenSimulator. OpenSimulator is a sort of 3D Internet - anybody can have a server, and you can move from world to world. (The world to world transfers have problems - what do you get to bring with you? - but they exist.)

Second Life was supposed to be "Internet 3.0". All businesses would effectively have to have a presence in-world. Many large ones did. They're all gone now. The vision of doing things in a 3D world wasn't the right one.

SL still has about 2/3 of the users it had at peak, and is going along fine. About 35,000 to 50,000 users at any time, about even with GTA V Online. Sluggish by modern game standards, though, which is a big problem for new users.

Rosedale went off to do High Fidelity, which was supposed to be a better Second Life. It works, but it flopped. That company has recently "pivoted to enterprise", having failed with their consumer product.

Whether the Metaverse needs gameplay mechanics is an interesting question. It definitely needs game aesthetics. In High Fidelity, when you started up a new region, the world came up as a big piece of graph paper on which you could build. Rosedale thought "build it and they will come". They didn't. SineSpace had the same problem. Sansar (a Linden Labs project separate from Second Life) paid people to build good looking areas. They had a Star Wars prop museum, a Ready Player One prop museum... People came, looked once, and left.

Second Life starts new regions with terrain that has hills, streams, rivers, roads, and trees. Sometimes a full city road grid with street lights. Management behaves a lot like a municipal government.

Recently, Second Life opened some new areas of "Linden Homes". It's a nice suburbia, and it filled up so rapidly that additional areas are being added. It's developing a suburban lifestyle. There's no plot, but there are picnic and boats and pets and pubs. People hang out with their neighbors, drive around, set up community associations, and have barbecues. This appeals to people for whom middle class suburbia is an unreachable aspiration in real life, a growing demographic.

<comment><USER6> > This appeals to people for whom middle class suburbia is an unreachable > aspiration in real life, a growing demographic.

Considering the extremely high cost of SL land, i doubt this is true.

<comment><USER5> It's quite real. A Second Life user of that suburban area wrote: _" Not being American, but having been so 'TV Sitcom and Movie Americanised' over my lifetime, this is exactly what I want. When I visited the US the first time, I was in Connecticut, and I was like a kid with my face pressed up on the car window. When I got out of the car and went exploring I am not embarrassed to say I actually teared up, because there were hoops over garages, there was a bike strewn in the front yard and one front yard even had a catchers mitt and some kind of goal net thing. There were flags beside the front doors, it was everything to me."_[1]

[1] [https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/435890-oh- the-...](https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/435890-oh-the- banality/?tab=comments#comment-1886684)

<comment><USER6> This says nothing about their financial situation. US suburbia does not exist in Europe, but not because people are poor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does it make sense to have an actual metaverse, a common 3D world with the same mechanics for everybody?

I would imagine that different parts of the metaverse would have different rules and mechanics, because they're used for different purposes - <USER2> games, workplaces, software, etc.

And if so - don't we already have that with the internet, reddit, social networks, steam, and MMORPGS?

I would imagine that metaverse as described by scifi authors would have to have some kind of central location with various portals leading to various parts of the world. But I think there's a good chance that what we have now - internet, steam allowing you to download games, and multiplayer games themselves providing various subspaces - might be simpler, more convenient, and more flexible than one unified 3D world.

Hundreds of games already provide their own game unique mechanics, and social networks and reddit already provide unified game mechanics for reputation scores and such.

If we really want the whole thing to exist in VR - maybe there could be a VR "browser" creating a 3D interface for searching and navigating various parts of the metaverse. But the parts themselves would be built by different teams/companies using their own game engines and rules. That version seems more flexible and realistic to me.

</comment><comment><USER8> I both agree and disagree.

A metaverse doesn't need to include games per se, though portals to standalone games will be important - the metaverse simply acts as a lobby.

However, the critical component is the unified physics and interaction model. Games in the real world emerge because people can rely on consistent actions around which rules can be based.

Let people throw and catch, and people will play basketball with trash cans. Provide good collision models and people will play baseball or hide-and-seek. Basic occlusion and grabbing mechanics enable card games. Yes, provide great hit boxes and collision detection and people will become swordsmen.

Right now, creating great (predictable and realistic) physics in VR is CPU expensive and with lots of finicky edge cases. Leap Motion and others have done good work here[1], but anyone that has spent time in VR knows the challenges of simply stacking boxes without everything randomly flying away when the corner of one box is accidentally placed "inside" another box.

A successful metaverse requires physics to be predictable, consistent, and fun. Games will emerge. But expecting a single universe to somehow also extend to the requirements of games like Fortnite, Minecraft, or GTA5 - each of which have their own physics, graphics, and gameplay optimizations - is a difficult, if not impossible, goal.

[1] [http://blog.leapmotion.com/designing-physical- interactions-f...](http://blog.leapmotion.com/designing-physical-interactions- for-objects-that-dont-exist/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe this is captured in "Infinite Detail" but it seems to me that this list is missing the one thing that is explicitly stated to be the key to making the MetaVerse popular in the book: highly detailed and accurate facial expressions.

The facial scanner in the movie adaptation of Ready Player One was a good touch for this. I think we could accomplish the same with temporary (or permanent!) non visible tattoos for facial tracking via cameras.

<comment><USER5> That's been demoed for VRchat already. Facial feature tracking has been around for years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Couldn't more advanced users use the "Programmable Atoms" and "Live editing" to create their own games from within? I thought that was how the "VR-based swordfighting" game was implemented: not by the creators of the metaverse as part of the program's main code, but by players inside the world.

<comment><USER11> The early-access PS4 game "Dreams" [1] is a _great_ implementation of exactly that concept.

Players can create scenes with in-game editors for 3d modeling, sound editing and visual programming. They can then share the scene and play other players' creations within the game.

The scenes load fast, the editor is accessible, easy to use, and powerful. In my opinion it's close to the best we can do with the medium, and the step up from Dreams will only be possible with more precise input/output and more powerful hardware.

[1]: [https://www.mediamolecule.com/games/dreams](https://www.mediamolecule.com/games/dreams)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think the closest we got to the Metaverse so far was Second Life, though it didn't get quite all the way there.

I actually played Second Life before reading Snow Crash. So imagine the chills I got when I started to read, and found this past vision of the future predicting Second Life with such uncanny accuracy. I found out later that the guys who made Second Life had drawn inspiration from Snow Crash. Human nature bridged most of the gap between the implementation detail of Second Life and Stephenson's vision.

</comment><comment><USER6> Strongly disagree. Second life games are at best toys , but that's totally beside the point, they just exist as an relatively unnecessary prop that people use to socialize. People use these worlds the same way they use FB or other media, except they are way different in that they live in expansive fantasy. Gaming the metaverse is not going to bring more people over. I think highfidelity was _paying_ users to attend their load tests (Talk about gaming). Still, thjose users didnt stick.

</comment><comment><USER13> I find the Vernor Vinge's vision of ubiquitous AR blending with VR from "Rainbow's End" a more compelling vision then the "Snow Crash" metaverse. Not sure if we'll get to persistently worn contact lenses or glasses, but a system that anchors the virtual into the physical has much more appeal than a purely virtual one. I don't think I'd go to a virtual bar to meet people and have virtual drinks, but if you give me a way to feel like my best friend from across the country is sitting across my living room having a real beer with me, that I'll pay money for.

</comment><comment><USER14> The Metaverse is going to _grow_ gameplay if it doesn't have it already. One of the things about video gaming that few people understand is that it's almost fundamental to computing itself because it's one of the obvious things you can do with a computer. So if you build a computer, somebody somewhere will build a game for it. As Alan Kay said: "Spacewar blossoms spontaneously wherever a computer is attached to a bit-mapped display."

</comment><comment><USER15> There was an up and comer a few years back called Blue Mars, that was shaping up to be something really cool. It allowed content creators a great deal of control over their virtual landscapes.

But, for some reason they abruptly changed direction to some kind of weird mobile avatar creator on mobile and shut down shortly after.

<comment> crooked-v "Some reason" was probably lack of money.

<comment><USER15> That could have been it, but when they pivoted they had a very complete beta product. Probably more to do with investor pressure or something along those lines.

I think Blue Mars was started when there was a huge surge of them after Second Life took off. Even Google and others were developing something in the space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've poked at High Fidelity occasionally over the last 3 years or so, and I'll say one thing: "the Metaverse" will be able to load decently over a 100Mbps connection and won't bring an i7 w/ 16GB of memory to its knees. H.F. can get back to me when they figure that part out.

<comment><USER17> I think something along the lines of Google Stadia will really open up some possibilities regarding this.

<comment><USER18> Yes! A subscription model would solve the hardware problem.</comment></comment></comment>


Tutorial: Creating a CDN for WordPress with CloudFront and S3 - <AUTHOR> http://cln.gs/167wfys

<comment><USER2> Way to go man...</comment>


Meet the Axon M: ZTE's crazy foldable smartphone - <AUTHOR> https://www.androidauthority.com/zte-axon-m-807955/ <comment><USER2> Damn for a moment it looked good. Then the specs and price are revealed and its immediately a 'nope' for me.

I was tempted to grab one as a cool little portable Linux hacking terminal. But at the ~$750USD price point for something that isn't more powerful, i just can't justify it. I can get an upgrade capable raspberry Pi based laptop for under $250USD, its just not as small or as cool looking as this. But smaller and cooler looking is not worth $500 in this case.</comment>


Show HN: Wethr – get current weather from the command line - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/twobucks/wethr#readme <comment><USER2> Cool little project , very similar to wttr.io

<comment><AUTHOR> you mean `curl wttr.in`?

<comment><USER2> haha yeah :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Your API key is showing.

<comment><USER4> probably needs to be picked from the env, rather than hardcoded.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the best ways to read HN? - <AUTHOR>

I check the HN front page several times per day usually, and have recently become interested in better ways that I might be able to do this more efficiently.
A) What 3rd party sites/extensions do people use and what are their advantages?
B) What would you like that doesn't seem to be possible? (e.g marking stories you've read etc.)
I've discovered http://hckrnews.com/ which looks promising for looking back for the 'best picks' of the last few days when you've not been about. What else is there that you'd recommend? <comment><USER2> I start off at the <http://news.ycombinator.com/classic> \- it shows only items upvoted by members older than one year.

A) Greasemonkey has a few scripts that add this or that to your experience

B) Collapsing the first level of comments (a la reddit). I put in a feature request today about that actually -

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5007553>

<comment><USER3> Thanks for mentioning /classic, I had no idea that existed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi Tom, Try to read it less, not more often. Seriously a tool to read it better? Believe me, if you try to read it only once every day or every two days, it becomes so much more interesting and you can pick really good looking stories. Otherwise you're just loosing your time....

Frans

ps. thanks for the <http://hckrnews.com/> tip

<comment><AUTHOR> I do agree with this to some extent, but I don't want to miss things! However, if I browsed once a day via <http://hckrnews.com/>, then maybe that wouldn't be a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use a Chrome extension called georgify [1]. It makes the site better looking by changing the typography via CSS.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/georgify/ofjfdfale...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/georgify/ofjfdfaleomlfanfehgblppafkijjhmi)

</comment><comment><USER6> Subscribe to <http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/> and <http://www.daemonology.net/hn-weekly-ask/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - they both look awesome, especially for 'catch up mode'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I use hnnotify.com. I am far more socially oriented than most people here and that fulfills my need to respond in a somewhat timely fashion to other humans who are trying to talk to me.

I am noting that because I don't know what you need that isn't being met by hckrnews.com or hn itself. I know there are other solutions out there but, for my needs, it works fine to show up whenever the heck I feel like and read what catches my fancy, but checking for replies to my comments used to make me nuts and now that piece of it is solved. I would not be surprised if I find myself wanting something else in the future when my life is different from what it is currently, but I think the solution that makes sense depends a great deal on what you _need_ and I don't see an explanation of that (edit: I mean I don't see where you have clearly stated what you really need here).

I will note there is also <http://rrrewind.com/>

Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Both those links look very interesting -- thanks.

What am I missing is a good question - I think there is certain stories I really don't want to miss, and there is certain stories I don't mind missing. This is probably decided somewhat topically; maybe I should build something with AlchemyAPI!</comment></comment>


How to Download Windows 10 for Free, Even in 2018 – ExtremeTech - <AUTHOR> https://www.extremetech.com/computing/260524-download-windows-10-free <comment><USER2> This needs me to have Windows 7. It is not an OS for free, but an upgrade for free.

</comment><comment><USER3> Who remembers Digital River?

<comment><USER4> I remember them mopping up all the e-commerce companies in the shareware/software world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This has actually expired now and is not available, at least through that link.</comment>


LibreOffice community protests at promotion of paid-for editions - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/07/libreoffice_community_protests_at_introduction/ <comment><USER2> You can read the discussion on the bug page itself: [https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486](https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486)

This is an awful move by TDF. The wording ("The Personal edition is supported by volunteers and intended for individual use") is egregious: People who use LibreOffice on their work laptops because they don't want to use Word may find higher-ups scared by that that wording prohibiting that practice. If the point of contention is that companies that can afford it shouldn't use free community support, there are much better ways to put that. However, TDF says this is a part of their "marketing plan" for the next 5 years[1], so I don't see that changing.

[1]: [https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2020/07/06/board- st...](https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2020/07/06/board-statement-on- the-libreoffice-7-0rc-personal-edition-label/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I would be really disappointed if any of this would stay in the About box. Regarding alternative text I like Comment 25 [0] best, which suggests this text:

> This software is developed by a team of volunteers and is supported by the > community.

> LibreOffice is Free Software and is made available free of charge. Please > consider donating: > [https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/](https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/)

> For professional support services for LibreOffice, see > [https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional- > support/](https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/)

[0] [https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486#c...](https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486#c25)

</comment><comment><USER4> TDF could've avoided all this by not doing it in the first place. They sure would've known what the community's reaction was going to be.

Anyone contributing "a lot" (financial & technical), either Enterprise or individual, doesn't mean they can pull the project in their direction. If the project is community driven, then it stays that way.

Tired of Enterprises hijacking FLOSS projects, just because they contributed more in terms of development & finance. They still should be considered volunteers & thank them for their support, that's it. If they think that they aren't getting their deserved cut, then they no longer have to volunteer. If the project development wouldn't go at an accelerated pace, because enterprises weren't involved, so be it.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Vignoli said that "the ecosystem is not growing as much as the community." > He also referred to "frictions" in the community, caused by tensions between > the commercial and community project members, "which are not beneficial to > the health of the project".

It's not beneficial and unfortunately TDF is making it worse. Essentially they are moving to Open Core model, a la Gitlab

> Differentiating between free and commercial versions, and delaying release > of the free version, could satisfy both sides, the presentation suggests.

That could not satisfy both sides, even suggesting it means that community would be a second class citizen regardless of how they wanna call it. This along with the recent moves from Qt company is attempts to have the cake and eat it too.

</comment><comment><USER6> That libreoffice is a big shot in your own knee.

-Why not offer Microsoft -> Libreoffice transfer services?

-A Special LTS version for Goverments/BigBusiness/Healthcare (FIPS Cert etc)

-ODF/libreoffice integration help into Applications

There is so much more you could do, but no going the easiest, boring and most counterproductive way is what you choose.

EDIT:

And maybe have a look at your own license:

2.6. Fair Use

This License is not intended to limit any rights You have under applicable copyright doctrines of fair use, fair dealing, or other equivalents.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are numerous examples of community developed software where they simply add something along "Professional support available for corporate use", without the inevitable negative impact of "supported by volunteers and intended for individual use". They could make money without ruining the product's perception, but apparently they don't care.

From their page at [https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional- support/](https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/)

"The Document Foundation does not provide professional support services for LibreOffice. It does, however, develop and maintain a certification system for professionals of various kinds who deliver and sell services around LibreOffice."

 _There_ is where the problem lies, and where they should do something. Don't touch the product, just build a business around it.

</comment><comment><USER8> This move is very sad.

And it is also a very slippery slope. Let's not forget that the split between a free and a "commercial" version of OpenOffice by Oracle was one of the root causes of the uprising leading to the creation of the TDF.

And it is even worse not to communicate publicly but to reply that people should have followed the relevant mailing list.

We can only be grateful to Collabora and it's employees for the work they do/did on libre office. But somehow, I think that it is a betrayal to all the other individual contributors and the community that supported and advertised the project for years.

<comment><USER9> > And it is even worse not to communicate publicly but to reply that people > should have followed the relevant mailing list.

From the article: "the community spotted _changes to the code that broke the embargo_ ". So it's really like:

"But the plans were on display…"

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard."

(from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's not about "protest against promotion of paid-for editions", it's about an attack on the normal edition. The phrase "intended for individual use" or "intended for personal use" is highly damaging for everyone, it's like just straight up saying that the thing is inferior. Completely outrageous.

</comment><comment><USER11> I do wonder just how much TDF benefit from other open source software. If the developers of the software they depend upon for their build toolchain, libraries within their product, text editors, web stack, development machine OS, web browsers (etc, etc) were to start these pressure tactics I'm sure it wouldn't be so well received and they wouldn't be crying that "during the last 10 years there has been a constant increase in the number of businesses using the free version without paying or giving back anything, and this has created issues for the project's business model."

</comment><comment><USER12> It's like they're begging for a third big fork. LibreOffice was born from OpenOffice back when it was in Oracle's hands to begin with, and I don't doubt that anyone opinionated and motivated enough would have many scruples to do it again.

<comment><USER13> For those unaware of the history:

Star Writer was created by Star Division. Sun bought them and renamed it StarOffice. StarOffice was open sourced as Open Office (later renamed to OpenOffice.org).

Oracle later bought Sun and renamed the merged StarOffice and OpenOffice.org to Oracle OpenOffice. Around that time, a fork of OpenOffice.org happened by many of the developers and LibreOffice was "born."

Only a few years after the acquisition, in 2011, Oracle abandoned the project and donated the code to the Apache Foundation. Development continued as Apache OpenOffice, but it has never attained the popularity of LibreOffice.

Interestingly, there's NeoOffice (for macOS only) that's (currently) based on LibreOffice. It's a commercial fork, but still GPL licensed.

WikiMedia has a nice "merge chart" of the various forks and mergers of StarOffice: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/StarOffi...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/StarOffice_major_derivatives.svg)</comment></comment>


Show HN: A yield curve application made with quantra.io - <AUTHOR> https://terminal.quantra.io/ <comment><USER2> Hi, I want to like this - but I can't seem to get it to do anything.

Some honest feedback is the UX is not at all friendly, and after 5 minutes of trying I couldn't generate a curve from the example. I got to the point where I had to chose a date that has at least one data point. But how do I know what that date is?

IMO, loading the example should fill in absolutely everything needed to generate a curve. Including the points, definition, rates, and schedules, and then show something instantly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback and sorry for the design :(

The existing example is a full working example, the only thing that needs to be set are the curve parameters.

To make it work:

\- Go to tools \- Load the example \- Go to Term Structures \- Go to submenu Generate Curve \- Select DiscountCurve, December 11th of 2012 as date and the curve you want \- Generate the curve

I just added a message with a brief explanation of it.

Rates are there too, you can see them if you go to Term Structure Rates and select December 11th of 2012, they are also from the paper.

<comment><USER3> Just make a button for first time users that says "show example curve"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How about populating it with an example or two, eg the USD and EUR current curves?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you go to tools you will be able to load the eonia curve from "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Multiple Interest Rate Curve Bootstrapping But Were Afraid To Ask" from Ametrano

<comment><USER5> no wok!

<comment><AUTHOR> Just added a popup message

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It might not be as sophisticated, but I've been working on a small app to generate yield curves from Fed data: [http://yield.io/](http://yield.io/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Much nicer design :) Bonds can be priced with the API too, will add them some day

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> An example which loads itself would be helpful.

What else does quantra.io do?

<comment><AUTHOR> Already answered the example question.

About quantra.io, is an API that can be used to generate curves, price Interest Rate Swaps, price bonds and some dates and calendars calculations.

Check apidocs.quantra.io</comment></comment>


Mnot/redbot @ GitHub - <AUTHOR> http://mnot.github.com/redbot/ <comment><USER2> This page needs an example output to see what one can expect from the tool and there should be a better way then a git checkout to install. A rubygem that adds a binary perhaps.

 _Edit:_ misstook it for a command line tool. This is great!

<comment><USER3> You can use the tool online at <http://redbot.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I get spurious error messages about the clock being incorrect on some sites - it will say it's in the future, but the time reported looks correct to me.

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks! This is great, it found a few problems with my stuff.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice project. Should also check the Vary header.

<comment><USER5> One of the problems it found with a site of mine was that it doesn't send Vary consistently.</comment></comment>


Fornova - Rip off alert, (Stole over $5k of our money) - <AUTHOR> http://www.fornova.net/ As if running a startup isn't hard enough... these guys stole over $5k of our bootstrapping funds, (Personal money). Be warned. <comment><USER2> If they ripped you off, (a) why do you not give details? (b) why do you instead link to their site, helping their search engine rankings?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi mooism2, (a) We paid the company $5625.00 in March 2011. They have not delivered us a single bit of data as agreed. We are now over a year down the road and seeking a refund, but have been told they wish to complete the project they overshot by almost a year, (More stalling for time). The company refuse, outright to issue a refund. (b) By linking to their site and in turn backlinking to this post, we hope to be able to get visibility for their company name, "Fornova" in Google SERPs and warn other companies and startups of their business ethics. Specifically we intend, over time to oust both the company and it's management. Amir Freund, Dori Stein and Michael Rubanovich.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We also welcome Fornova to defend their name here.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite books for object-oriented design? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I used to like Thinking in Java [1], but not sure how it holds up now, I think I read the first the edition.

I enjoyed reading the headfirst patterns book as a refresher

[1] [https://sophia.javeriana.edu.co/~cbustaca/docencia/POO-2016-...](https://sophia.javeriana.edu.co/~cbustaca/docencia/POO-2016-01/documentos/Thinking_in_Java_4th_edition.pdf) [2] [https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Brain- Frie...](https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Brain- Friendly/dp/0596007124)

</comment><comment><USER3> Definitely Applying UML and Patterns [https://www.amazon.com/Applying-UML- Patterns-Introduction-Ob...](https://www.amazon.com/Applying-UML-Patterns- Introduction-Object-Oriented/dp/0131489062)</comment>


Language Support for Memory Persistency [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~vgogte/kolli-top-picks-19.pdf <comment><USER2> I can't help but feel like language-level support for memory persistency is just a database engine with all the same complexity, problems and plenty of research already. And given that persistent memory is not reliable, shouldn't hardware manufacturers merely provide an API for raw access to each rewritable block and let applications deal with consistency models, concurrency, wear leveling, etc. Just like with disks, but a faster ISA-level API.

<comment><USER3> > persistent memory is not reliable

What does "reliable" mean? It saves data across a power cycle.

It wears out eventually, but so does flash. And mechanical drives eventually fail. And CPUs and DRAM don't last forever either.

This sounds like a specious point absent numbers. In fact existing memory persistence designs are plenty good for storing important data given reasonable backup strategies, and without reasonable backup strategies _nothing_ is.

<comment><USER2> It's not reliable enough to be treated as memory, i.e. fast unlimited endurance temporary storage, but reliable enough to be treated as persistent storage.</comment></comment></comment>


The way humans point isn't as universal as you might think - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/the-way-humans-point-isnt-as-universal-as-you-might-think-91434 <comment><USER2> Funny I think the way animals point is more universal than people think.</comment>


Python will be the official programming language for education in France - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/nnja/status/1062621193696612352 <comment><USER2> Not true. The linked government page says they're "thinking about it and taking suggestions"

A decision has not been taken. They're still taking suggestions until Nov 20.</comment>


The Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing - <AUTHOR> http://www.dspguide.com/pdfbook.htm <comment><USER2> Great intro to DSP. If you're looking to build your EE library further, Ron Mancini's Op Amps for Everyone is also available as a free download from Texas Instruments. If you don't already have it, you can get it here: <http://focus.ti.com/lit/an/slod006b/slod006b.pdf>

<comment><USER3> Fantastic reference. I suggest you submit it as its own link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Happy to upvote this, even though it's not new. I think this is the best introductory DSP text anyway, and I've got a bunch of them. Its treatment of the various approaches to the fourier transform (and more importantly, why they work) is outstanding.</comment>


How to Make Your Business Boom in Africa - <AUTHOR> http://minutehack.com/guides/how-to-make-your-business-boom-in-africa <comment><USER2> > Africa is becoming a global superpower...

As and African, I wish this was true.</comment>


The Obamacare Website Didn't Have to Fail. How to Do Better Next Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-16/open-source-everything-the-moral-of-the-healthcare-dot-gov-debacle

<comment><USER2> Amazing bullshit. E.g.:

" _The dining room is the front end, with all the buttons to click and forms to fill out. The kitchen is the back end, with all the databases and services. The contractor most responsible for the back end is CGI Federal._ "

Uh, no. Unless everything we've heard is completely wrong about them being responsible for the front end, and e.g. Quality Software Services Inc. (QSSI), a unit of United Health Group, being responsible for the backend identity module (using a known to work, even if it's a pain, package from Oracle).

This article is mostly a plea to do things the open source and specifically GitHub way. Except for mentioning the typical total opaqueness of what's behind the front end to those of us not connected to the problem, it doesn't address the major well known issues that made _certain_ this would be a failure. I keep saying this, but here goes again:

HHS's CMS, i.e. government bureaucrats and perhaps political appointees, who had no serious (or any???) experience, assumed the role of integrator, including integration testing.

They and those above were late with specifications and requirements, kept changing them (7 major ones in the last 10 months per the NYT), were making changes in the week before launch, per the AP did integration testing and when they did a simulation test of 200 simultaneous logins just before launch the modules they were testing locked up. As did the site shortly after its midnight launch. Oh, yeah, three days after the launch CMS panicked and proposed to fire QSSI and punt their identity system, but eventually decided that would take longer than QSSI getting it to work; who knows, but that's another sign of CMS as the integrator failing hard while distracting both QSSI and CGI Federal.

Contrary to what the author says near the end:

" _Doubtless the problems will get fixed. All bugs are shallow with the president watching._ "

No, there's no guarantees enough of the problems will get fixed with the current setup and processes (or lack thereof) in the time politics will allow before the nation times out on this mess (Jan 1 is a very hard deadline for all those losing their soon to be illegal major medical plans, and as of now these exchanges are the only way to get mitigating subsidizes for the gold- plated minimum plan).

So far, "the president watching" has been reported to result in the White House and CMS ... working on a plan forward, which will hopefully be finished Thursday, 3 and a half weeks after the launch. I.e. we're not seeing decisive action, not even an admission there's a really serious problem.

<comment><USER3> Incidentally, the entity involved is "CMS", not CMMS.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Medicare_and_Medica...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Medicare_and_Medicaid_Services) [http://www.cms.gov/](http://www.cms.gov/)

<comment><USER2> Damn. That's what I thought, then saw people using CMMS and thought I'd confirmed it (on Wikipedia, even), but you're right.

Thanks a lot!

Side note: CGI Federal is responsible for cms.gov and medicare.gov, the latter of which I can attest to working well (Part D prescription plan signup and claims stuff), even if it's a bit clunky.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Did Firefox (63.0.x) just force re-enable autoplay? - <AUTHOR> One of the many reasons I switched off Chrome in the past couple of years has been the disabling of options to turn off autoplay video.  They literally removed the option, because it's part of their ad business model.  Of course, attention means impressions means billable ad dollars.
However, my Firefox auto-updated to version 63.01 and now not only is autoplay turned ON again, but searching for 'autoplay' in options shows nothing.  Also, a document from the Mozilla foundation about turning it off is outdated (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/block-autoplay) shows options that this new Firefox does NOT have.
Dear HN Community:  how do I rid myself of this scourge?  I find it egregious that video should autoplay in any capacity at any point anywhere in this ad-filled world, much less on MY computer equipment.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> [https://support.mozilla.org/en- US/questions/1238091](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1238091)

 _hi, in firefox 63 the autoplay preferences are reorganised in preparation for this feature shipping out of the box in one of the upcoming versions. in about:config you can set media.autoplay.default to 1 in order to block automatic playback on all pages or set it to 2 to decide on a per domain basis._

 _these hidden autoplay-related preferences have been under development for a long time. If you read past support threads about how they broke the Netflix player, or GIFV "images" on Imgur, etc., you know they needed more work before being unleashed on 300 million Firefox users. Meanwhile, Firefox 58 introduced a new approach to site permissions on the Options/Preferences page. When the feature is fully debugged and ready for prime-time, we expect a new section to appear where you'll be able to manage it like other site permissions, and if you want site-by-site control, a drop-panel from the left end of the address bar._

 _Until it is fully baked, please understand that its behavior and naming will remain in flux. And please report problems as they arise._

 _You can set the first two prefs listed below (or at least user-gestures- needed) to true then to have a setting available in "Options/Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Permissions" that also allows to inspect and modify the exceptions._

        media.autoplay.enabled.user-gestures-needed = true
        media.autoplay.ask-permission = true
        media.autoplay.default = 0 [0=Allowed, 1=Blocked, 2=Prompt]

_You can open the about:config page via the location /address bar.You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue._

        http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config</comment>


Swagapalooza (YC W10) live on Justin.tv - <AUTHOR> http://www.Justin.tv/swagapalooza

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure I understand what is going on here. Is there something more to this than a bunch of guys (of questionably sound state-of-mind) pitching the kind of crap that you end up with at the end of a conference?

I may be way off here, in which case I kind of feel like I'm on the outside of some exclusive club.

<comment><USER3> Nope, it's a conference for individuals and companies to pitch their stuff to top bloggers. So bloggers get free stuff - books, physical products, etc. - and in exchange, they get the opportunity to present to the kinds of folks in a position to spread the word on their product. It's a really cool idea.

Props to the Swagapalooza guys for throwing a conference _on_ Demo Day. That's fortitude.

<comment><USER4> It's a social hack. I think it's pretty clever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes!</comment>


Image Hosting on Reddit - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4p5dm9/image_hosting_on_reddit/ <comment><USER2> It's really unfortunate that Imgur took such a turn for the worse.

Originally it seemed like Imgur was a benevolent gift to Reddit users... a clean, simple, easy to use image hosting service that everyone could use for free. I guess it was too good to be true, because now it's tricky to link to a direct image (though not impossible), and the standard landing page is filled with unnecessary clutter.

As an aside: if you're looking for an amusing read, the "IgnorantImgur" subreddit[0] is filled with examples of people from the Imgur community who seem to be oblivious to Imgur's origin as an image hosting site for Reddit users.

[0]: [http://www.reddit.com/r/IgnorantImgur/top](http://www.reddit.com/r/IgnorantImgur/top)

<comment><USER3> What really killed them was the GIF explosion. Average image size remains largely static and bandwidth and storage costs steadily decline so if you get your timing exactly right, you can hit that sweet spot where your CPM declines slower than your hosting costs and provide an increasingly profitable business.

However, GIFs completely upended that calculation by increasing the average file size by an order of magnitude and pushed the viability of a cruft free image host further down the road by another few years.

Frankly, I'm surprised Google never just bought imgur and absorbed it under youtube or something. Being the default place on the web to host images seems like something way more strategically valuable to Google than any standalone image host.

<comment><USER4> Why would Google buy when they can just create one overnight if they wanted? Probably much more stable than Imgur too.

Imgur is just a commodity. Youtube is not.

<comment><USER5> Imgur has a community. Tons of users that goes directly there to see funny images and GIFs.

Yes, Google can create a infinite scalable image hosting overnight, but creating a community is a lot harder.

<comment><USER6> Imageshack was in the same position 5 years ago. And Photobucket 3 years before that. Image hosts go through a cycle of upending the tyrant and then becoming the villain.

<comment><USER7> does anyone remember pbase.com for free photo gallery hosting, in around 2002? apparently it still exists with its same basic but functional UI.

<comment><USER8> From their FAQ:

Is PBase free?

        No.

<comment><USER7> it used to be, a long time ago

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No reference counting? This seems like it will cause problems:

[–]iBeReese 1246 points 3 hours ago Is there a planned retention policy? Or is it an "as long as reddit has the money to maintain the servers the images will stay forever" kind of deal?

[–]Amg137[S,A] 1421 points 3 hours ago We will keep the images as long as they are associated to a post. However if you delete a post we will also delete the image

[–]speedofdark8 1007 points 3 hours ago How are reposts handled? If i upload something into /r/aww, get the link for that post's image, submit that link to /r/cats, then delete the /r/aww post, will the link in /r/cats still work?

[–]oldschoolred[A] 795 points 3 hours ago No it wont... once the uploader removes the original post the link to that image will break

<comment><USER10> IMO that's how it should act.

Just because someone else links to a picture doesn't mean that they get to say whether it's taken down or not...

If you want to be the "uploader" then upload it, don't just link.

<comment><USER11> In the hypothetical case, the uploader is the person linking to it. They just want to post it on multiple subreddits without having to keep reuploading it.

Heck, I can see a similar situation where post 1 is on a subreddit with awkwardly enforced rules, post 2 is on a more relaxed one, and then because the mods remove the post and image on subreddit 1, the second version breaks with it.

Should people have to keep reuploading the same image every time they want to use it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is the announcement for the full rollout on the Web.

Access to the Reddit image host was formerly app-only. When the partial rollout occurred on test subreddits (including defaults like /r/pics), the number of submissions from the Reddit Image Host doubled. However, the market share of Imgur submissions remained unchanged, and in the weeks since then, the market share of both services has not changed at all: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f73AWzKsYrK7vFdJ3yJN...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f73AWzKsYrK7vFdJ3yJNYhRczke5V5Cn7ZC_IwtZGQg/edit?usp=sharing)

It will be interesting to see how the full rollout affects Reddit globally, particular as Imgur's redirects are becoming non-user-friendly.

<comment><USER13> is a week a meaningful amount of time to mention whether market share has changed

<comment><USER12> The original test started on 5/24 ([https://reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/4kuk2j/reddit_change...](https://reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/4kuk2j/reddit_change_introducing_image_uploading_beta/)) which is why the chart starts a few days before that.

It has been a month since then.

<comment><USER14> Yes, but that test only applies to official apps... Do we have usage data on those? Especially taking into account very good apps already existed and most users probably couldn't be arsed to switch to the official one.

Those official apps have lots of downloads, but don't be fooled: I bet most people downloaded them because of the free three months of reddit gold you got when you logged into them.

<comment><USER12> The 16 subreddits in the 5/24 test were for the Web UI (the primary Reddit platform), not the App UI, which was available to all subreddits at launch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think this is going to work for reddit long-term unless they change it so that removing the post tied to the image doesn't remove the image itself. People are going to share these images endlessly, perpetuating on Facebook posts and Instagrams for years and years. If they don't change their minds, we're going to see endless broken image links all over the internet as those reddit posts get deleted.

<comment><USER16> It's with my deepest regret that I have to tell you.. people already don't care for broken links. Every other link citation on Wikipedia is broken, if it's a link to a newspaper, the probability approaches 1 as these sites just don't bother in their perpetual quest for SEO and ad value.

<comment><USER17> What's ironic because a stable link from Wikipedia must be some great way to improve one's SEO.

<comment><USER18> No, because Wikipedia citation links have rel="nofollow".

<comment><USER19> It would be irresponsible for a machine learning black box like Google's indexer to give much importance to rel="nofollow". Think about it.

Imagine you're building the perfect internet indexer. In an effort to generalize your model, you anticipate a scenario where a nofollow link shows up consistently on various Wikipedia pages where it persists for a long time. What are you going to do? Ignore the link because, sorry, them's the rules?

Or are you going to realize that nofollow is about as useful of a signal as <meta name="keywords">?

<comment><USER18> Interesting. I and everyone else I've talked to in the industry have always assumed Google just takes it on faith.

Granted, I never worked in SEO directly.

I'm still not sure what the truth is. You raise a good point.

<comment><USER19> The only reason you'd take someone's word for something is when you can't derive it yourself, like if the tech isn't there yet.

Google introduced nofollow in 2005 to either let people help fill a gaping hole in Google's tech at the time or for the smart marketing move of making people fixate on their magic attribute. Both under the guise that spammers would care.[1]

It's been twelve years.

The SEO advice industry and Matt Cutts' blog these days are probably like when I try to ponder why my cat scoots its waterdish around the room before it drinks: attempting to find backsplanations for the idiosyncrasies of a neural network that nobody quite understands.

[1]: [https://googleblog.blogspot.mx/2005/01/preventing-comment- sp...](https://googleblog.blogspot.mx/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Besides whamlastxmas point, the danger that I see is also tied to copyright infringement.

Imgur and other small sites, mostly because they don't have much profit, don't suffer a lot from copyright takedowns. I think reddit won't have the same treatment, and Imgur will still be a viable long-term solution.

<comment><USER21> Especially when reddit is spending so much time trying to court Hollywood celebrities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This must be the first actual meaningful change to the site since the whole "we're a startup again" and "tripling our headcount" episodes.

And it only took a year!

<comment><USER22> Not the only change, the mobile site got bloated and slow in the last year.

All community/social changes aside, the site has gotten worse from a usability perspective as they increased their headcount.

This is _the_ most predictable pattern in our industry.

<comment><USER14> You can still access the old site by using i.reddit.com or adding .compact to any url: [https://www.reddit.com/.compact](https://www.reddit.com/.compact)

<comment><USER23> Thanks. The mobile site has a banner that takes up a lot of the screen advertising their app. I don't want their app, and I can't dismiss the advert. Still, it's saved me wasting time browsing.

<comment><USER24> Why don't you want the app?

<comment><USER25> Tabs. Loading on mobile still takes a second or two. Tabs help with this. All those native apps usually staring at blank screen half the time. And I have 4g and top of the line phone.

<comment><USER23> The new version of the mobile web app has this issue too, where comments take ages to load. Older phone but 4g too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I miss the days of meaningful filenames.</comment>


BlackRock voted for proposal to replace Tesla's Musk with independent chairman - <AUTHOR> https://reuters.com/article/BigStory12/idUSKCN1LG01R <comment><USER2> Isn't the title misleading? Article says there have been a vote, but the result was against removing him. Title leads you to believe that motion was accepted.

<comment><USER3> Yes. Especially because ...

> More than 86 million shares voted against the proposal at a shareholder > meeting in June, while fewer than 17 million voted in favor, Tesla said.

... and ...

> BlackRock funds are a top-10 Tesla stockholder, controlling nearly 6.5 > million of Tesla's 170 million shares, according to Thomson Reuters data > based on public filings.

So who cares how BlackRock voted?

<comment><USER4> That might make it an uninteresting story but not a misleading title.

<comment><USER3> OK. But why _do_ we care how BlackRock voted? What makes them newsworthy, regarding Tesla or whatever? I could google it, but the article doesn't make it very clear.

<comment><USER4> It's a big shareholder voting for one of those somewhat-off-the-beaten-path proposals that often get zero support from big shareholders. That's about it. It's a pretty basic newswire service report. Does it belong on HN? Probably not. I voted for it not being on the front page!

<comment><USER3> Thanks. I could have googled that, I know. But I was rather expecting the article to make some argument. It did quote BlackRock about standing for "shareholder value", whatever that is. But I was wondering whether it was just a catfight, or stock manipulation, or whether BlackRock was standing for something fundamental.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fuck BlackRock. Aside from their weird anti-2A politics (maybe driven by their fund managers, maybe driven by LPs), now they are trying to kill Tesla?

(Driving Musk out as chairman might not itself cause serious problems, but it could also be a prelude to replacing him, which would be the end of Tesla.). It is pretty telling that their vote was at variance to most of the other institutions.

</comment><comment><USER6> I was going to say this headline seems geared to mislead. But really it's the existence of the article itself.

Apparently there was a recent vote about replacing Musk as chairman. The vote was overwhelmingly defeated with more than 83% voting to keep Musk. Instead of running an article on this Reuters seemingly chose to run an article highlighting a seemingly random minority holder voting for the replacement, with the result mentioned as a numeric aside. This feels like _Spin_.

<comment><USER7> BlackRock is far from a "seemingly random minority holder". They are the largest asset manager in world, with by all accounts has more assets under management than the 10 biggest sovereign wealth funds combined.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As Charmain, not as CEO. Many companies have the Great Leader as CEO and somebody else as chairman, for all kinds of reasons.

</comment><comment><USER9> Seriously misleading headline. They didn't vote to replace him at all. They voted to add another executive (A COO). He would have remained CEO. Also, the vote failed.

</comment><comment><USER10> Look at Apple to see how ousting the (genius) founder worked out in 1984. Stupid BlackRock, good their proposal was dismissed.

<comment><USER7> The vote had nothing to do with ousting Musk. He would have remained CEO no matter what.</comment></comment>


"Uber for Private Jets" Gets $20m Funding from Jay Z and Saudi Royals - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/private-travel-startup-jetsmarter-raised-20-million-from-jay-z-and-saudi-royal-family-2015-7

<comment><USER2> Wow. $9K/year for unlimited private worldwide flights is an incredible deal. I've explored empty leg price specials before, there are even multiple private providers who offer these empty legs through Instagram -- and it's typically at least 9K for one flight (albeit for 6-12 passengers.) Managing the marketplace would of course provide efficiency and a lower price.

Surprised I haven't seen more high end marketplaces, except for at that price many customers expect concierge-level service. Or are there more of these than I have been exposed to??</comment>


Scientists Lay the Groundwork for a Reliable Marijuana Breathalyzer - <AUTHOR> https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2017/07/scientists-lay-groundwork-reliable-marijuana-breathalyzer <comment> King-Aaron [https://i.imgflip.com/1hcwth.jpg](https://i.imgflip.com/1hcwth.jpg)

Seriously however, with the increase in social acceptance around the world, this is a necessary technology. Operating a vehicle in any mentally reduced state is a hazard to everyone around you.. And too many people seem to disregard the dangers when smoking pot.</comment>


Who Gets Care as Washington State Hospitals Fill Up? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/us/coronavirus-ration-hospitals-seattle-washington.html <comment><AUTHOR> My natural inclination would be to use the predicted fatality and severe outcome distributions by age, as a probability distribution to sample from. _But_ , I assume that the first person who "dies by randomness" would result in uproar. Even if you could design a likelihood model of improved outcomes, it seems possible that the right choice would be to avoid riots/fights by simply doing preference based on age.

There are lots of hospital/physician/doctor types on HN. How do you think about the trade off between outcomes and "makes more sense to people"?

<comment><USER2> Having spent some time around cancer hospitals, I hope they are asking patients what they want and offer palliative options. Not everyone who has been through enough (esp in and out of hospitals) wants to spend more time in ICUs.

Sometimes hysterical families and robotic docs just cause more misery than is actually required.</comment></comment>


Hate fighting with Outlook? There's a better way to build emails - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mail-designer-2/id865277902?ls=1&mt=12&at=10lba7&ct=hnpost

<comment><AUTHOR> We've just launched Mail Designer 2 – a Mac app that lets you design emails and newsletters that work with MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, Apple Mail etc.

Sure, most of us could build these by hand, but who really wants to mess around with Outlook 2003 background fixes?

For our launch, we're offering Mail Designer 2 for just $9.99 this week – if you send emails for your product / blog / newsletter, it'll save you a ton of time.

If you have any questions, let me know!

Cheers, Adrian</comment>


SMOKE SCREEN Big Vape Is Copying Big Tobacco's Playbook - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/16/16658358/vape-lobby-vaping-health-risks-nicotine-big-tobacco-marketing <comment><USER2> Be careful:

> After comparing genetic information swabbed from the noses of smokers, > vapers, and non-users of both, researchers found that smoking suppresses the > activity of 53 genes involved in the immune system. Vaping also suppressed > those 53 immune genes—along with 305 others.

and:

> This flavor has been found in some e-cig flavorings, but it's known to cause > bronchiolitis obliterans, a severe disease caused by scar tissue and > inflammation built up deep in the lungs. The link was discovered years ago > in food manufacturing, particularly microwave popcorn factory employees who > developed "popcorn worker's lung."

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/e-cigs-shut-down- hun...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/e-cigs-shut-down-hundreds-of- immune-system-genes-regular-cigs-dont/)</comment>


Could WebOS for PC's will make 2011 the year of desktop linux? - <AUTHOR>

under the rush of hp/webos announcements today was this: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/09/webos-is-coming-to-pcs-later-this-year/
It made me think back to ten years ago, back when os x wasn't out just yet, and many hackers (including myself) were using desktop linux as a windows alternative. There were competitors such as BeOS porting to any x86 machine, and a slew of company-backed linux distros advertising themselves as the way to go.
Microsoft won the whole battle at the time because:
1) MacOS X was just shipping, and was sadly limited to PowerPC computers.
2) Linux distro vendors weren't investing much in providing a great user experience. They were at most (and still are) skinning Gnome or KDE and calling it a day. Doing any investment required creating X, which would be expensive for a post-internet-bubble company to undertake.
3) Microsoft shipped windows XP. It's ugly by today's standards, but it's surprisingly the most prevalent OS ten years later.
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--
Now, after 10 years we come to a crossroads again. The gold is currently developing for smartphones and webapps, and the pickaxes for the most part don't need to run windows.
How WebOS will make desktop linux finally viable:
1) Last I checked, WebOS is based on the linux kernel. This is attractive for folks tired of juggling and making ports to BSD. The great interface to HP is partly a sunk cost due to it's development for the phone already.
2) WebOS on the desktop needs to quickly attract a crowd of developers. While they've made a great js-based platform for their smartphone apps, they need to go one step further for native desktop apps. My guess is that they're going to do a similar step to what sony was attempting to do recently and have some form of an openstep implementation. This is to attract the macos developers to quickly port desktop apps. </comment><comment><USER2> It's not just webOS. We should also be seeing a lot more Android tablets this year, which of course is Linux based as well. There's Chrome OS also, again, hard to say, but it likely will be on a lot of devices before the end of 2011. Ubuntu is used more than before, though it's not precisely mainstream for normal consumers yet. Still, with Ubuntu going with their own desktop manager with 11.04, it could possibly gain more traction if they really nail the user experience.

And, of course, iOS and OS X is based on BSD, and BlackBerry's Playbook will run a QNX based OS. Both of these are UNIX OSes. At the very least, more people than ever in recent times will be using *nix operating systems on a daily basis.</comment>


Registrar for .info domains acquires the ".pro" gTLD - <AUTHOR> http://www.afilias.info/news/2012/01/17/afilias-expands-market-leadership-acquisition-registrypro

<comment><AUTHOR> I've always liked this little underdog gTLD - hopefully this will help it to pick up some public awareness. Lots of good names available plus you can register a .pro name right now for under 3 bucks:

[http://www.encirca.com/domain-news/2012/pro-under-new- manage...](http://www.encirca.com/domain-news/2012/pro-under-new-management/)</comment>


Ask HN: Books on hacking (Fiction) - <AUTHOR> I want to read a fictional book, a novel, about hacking and coding. It doesn't have to be the main subject of the book or as epic and accurate as a Neal Stephenson novel, i settle for a programmer character. For instance, i know The Girl with a Dragon Tatoo's Lisbeth is a hacker and that the trilogy is supposed to have a couple of lines of, i don't know, a hacker doing it's thing? The culture, and so... Bruce Sterling has written a couple i think, but you tell me. <comment><USER2> Amazon looks like it may have a lot of what you're looking for:

Books › Mystery & Thrillers › Thrillers › Technothrillers

Lots of interesting looking books in there.

It looks like if you put "hacking" in Amazon's search field at the top, and then in the left margin drill down through the genres, you'll get a hacking focused list, e.g.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_16?rh=n%3A283155...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_16?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Ahacking%2Cn%3A!1000%2Cn%3A18&bbn=1000&keywords=hacking&ie=UTF8&qid=1306849604&rnid=1000)

More generally, Amazon via Google:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+hacking+fiction>

</comment><comment><USER3> Grumby by Andy Kessler

"its a very funny novel set in Silicon Valley (and Wall Street), about a hacker that creates the next great consumer electronics device (believe me, you'll want one) and then the rollercoaster ride of getting screwed by VCs, hacked, the deluge of orders, Chinese manufacturing, privacy issues and going public amongst the chaos of competition and rivalries. the technology is its own character, eyes, ears, voice and face recognition, GPS, spy software and a wise-ass personality."

</comment><comment><USER4> Artemis Fowl? [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Artemis-Fowl-Eoin- Colfer/dp/01413121...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Artemis-Fowl-Eoin- Colfer/dp/0141312122) though just get it from your library (which may have a different cover).

</comment><comment><USER5> Not quite hacking, and not quite fiction, but I think Microserfs as well as others by the same author are representational of the more above-ground hacking that goes on quite a bit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome book. Didn't read it, actually, but listened to the audio book readed by Mathew Perry. Yes, the one from Friends. Love it anyway and might check jPod, from same author.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Have you read "Emergency" by Neil Strauss? It's kind of all about hacking real life. Great read, IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't knew this one, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Bug by Ellen Ullman was popular when it came out. I couldn't stand it.</comment>