Don't feel guilty about not contributing to open source - <AUTHOR> http://jvns.ca/blog/2014/04/26/i-dont-feel-guilty-about-not-contributing-to-open-source/

<comment><USER2> Why do people always focus on the _code_ part? Even when the code is written in a language you don't understand, you can contribute by making the documentation, install process, or general community better.

In the article one of the questions asked is, "Is the documentation good?" If it's not, but you use and like the project, _that_ is your opportunity. Perhaps you can see there are a lot of bugs filed, but nobody is triaging them. Even when you don't know the programming language the project uses, getting or making reproducible test cases for bugs is something you can do.

I completely agree with the "relatedness" aspect. If you're not using a project in your day-to-day work it's hard to stay involved with it. The best Open Source developers are those who understand the perspective of the users, because they _are_ a user.

<comment><USER3> It seems "just" using open source code is unglamourous in this industry. Everyone wants to create it, which leads to too many solutions to the same problems and not enough support for any one. Organizations that simply use open source need to receive more respect.

<comment><USER4> _Organizations that simply use open source need to receive more respect._

Could you explain? While there are other ways of contributing than just supplying code, to gain my respect organizations must contribute something back. I don't see how the world as a whole benefits when a company uses "open source" instead buying something commercial or developing their own solution. It may be a smart choice, but not one that should garner additional respect.</comment></comment></comment>


A collection of Python books - <AUTHOR> http://importpython.com/books/

<comment><USER2> you forgot real python!

[https://realpython.com](https://realpython.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> click on free ( filter ) to see the free python books.</comment>


Thousands of Foreign Students May Have Overstayed Visas Working Shell Companies - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Thousands-of-Foreign-Students-May-Have-Overstayed-Visas-Through-Employment-at-Shell-Companies-565558112.html <comment><AUTHOR> "NBC's efforts to contact officers at 14 suspicious companies were met with a series of dead-end business addresses and disconnected phone numbers. Emails, phone calls, and social media messages went unanswered by all but two companies. In those two instances, an officer reached by phone verified their identity but declined to discuss their company.

Those 14 companies employed more than 5,500 foreign students through the OPT program in 2017, according to ICE records.

Although NBC's investigation found evidence of possible abuse, those cases represent a small fraction -- less than 3 percent -- of the more than 200,000 students that participated in OPT in 2017."</comment>


ShowHN: Sharing markdown made easy - <AUTHOR> http://markdownshare.com/

<comment><USER2> looks like it could be useful down the line. thanks!

-bowerbird

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers.

The biggest issue at the moment is the horrifically ugly look&feel, but I'll aim to improve things soon.</comment></comment>


Today, an Bitcoin node can download and validate 368M transactions a day - <AUTHOR> http://zander.github.io/posts/Scaling%20Bitcoin/ <comment><AUTHOR> People here may know that some bitcoin-scaling issues are being addressed by the Bitcoin community. It is certainly very interesting to realize that todays hardware and internet can already scale quite massively above any need imagined today.</comment>


How Do I Convince My Managers of the Importance of Having Internal APIs? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.apievangelist.com/2011/10/25/how-do-i-convince-my-managers-the-importance-of-having-internal-apis/#.TqcdSz7AaBc.hackernews <comment><USER2> I'd add that it's important to know when you need to break out into internal APIs. It means nothing to do it just because you want to and think you'll get more out of it. Measure the benefit. There are many refactoring techniques to kill app bottlenecks well before it's time to create an internal API.</comment>


Moritz's Provocative Claim: Silicon Valley Needs Just $400M a Year - <AUTHOR> http://www.pehub.com/85297/moritzs-provocative-claim-silicon-valley-needs-just-400m-a-year/

<comment><USER2> Nice provocation. And agreed seed funding requirements might be in that region. But what about growth capital if projects take off?</comment>


Mozilla may make Flash click-to-play by default in future Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2012/04/mozilla-may-make-flash-click-to-play-by-default-in-future-firefox.ars <comment><USER2> I welcome this move, despite the possibility of some fallout from the change. It'll be painful, but even as someone who once made a living writing ActionScript, I have to say that Flash is sufficiently annoying and insecure that it really needs to be phased out.

In the short term, this will probably cause some breakage in certain sites that try to use Flash "transparently" and "unobtrusively" for things like LSOs, drag-and-drop, clipboard access, or cross-domain XHR. These are already problematic with Flashblock installed though -- Pandora, for instance, refuses to load and there is nothing available to click-to-play since that particular Flash object is hidden.

Hopefully this will light a fire under those sites and get them to update to the appropriate HTML5 methods of doing these things (local storage, WebSockets, etc.), just like how Java applets that were used for such things have been largely phased out. Until then, however, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them simply inform you not to use Firefox to visit.

<comment><USER3> To take care of the invisible Flash object problem, Firefox could copy what Chrome does for Java applets and have a bar pop up at the top of the whole page, asking if you want to allow Flash to run on the site in question.

<comment><USER4> If only Chrome did this with it's current click to play implementation

<comment><USER5> It does, though not with the same UI as the Java plugin: <http://i.imgur.com/xHrRX.png>

Clicking the puzzle piece shows a menu to "always allow" or to "enable all Flash applets on this page" (and a few other things).

I can see a more obtrusive/apparent UI being implemented if Firefox makes click-to-Flash default.

<comment><USER3> That's not the same interface that I was referring to. I was talking about this: <http://i.imgur.com/8lzif.png>

<comment><USER6> it's not the same appearance, but it's the same functionality.

<comment><USER3> No it's not, because if the Flash object is invisible, it simply does not give you any way to enable them unless you go to the preferences and explicitly add an exception.

This was my entire point in the first place, if you look up at the beginning of the thread. For example, turn on click-to-play and then go to pandora.com. If Chrome treated Flash the same as Java, you would still be able to use pandora easily.

<comment><USER6> read his post again. he's not talking about the click-to-play ui. there's a puzzle piece icon in the taskbar. clicking it displays a drop-down menu, and even if the flash is invisible you can choose the "enable flash on this page" option.

<comment><USER3> Ah yes, I see now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am so happy that I can barely contain myself. Hopefully this means Flash will now be used for important things, instead of shoving ads in my face that I can't dismiss, and follow my scroll bar.

<comment><USER8> You say that now, but just wait until they're written in JS+Canvas and enormously more difficult to block.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, HTML5 YouTube has the significant disadvantage of autoplay.

<comment><USER10> There's nothing preventing you from blocking HTML5-video just like Flash can be blocked with add-ons today. Personally I use NoScript for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The problem is some uses of flash doesn't put any flash controls on the webpage. Mainly for audio related uses, like audio players (mixcloud), or games (since html5 audio still has some work to be done). Chrome gets around this with an icon in the urlbar, and an option "Run all plug-ins this time". If firefox wants to make click-to-play the default option, I don't think this is going to cut it. The only two options they have are to only click-to-play visible plugins (but this is really hard to detect), or give a popup. The popup might work for most users, but some are just going to get confused. In fact, I don't know if most users will read the place-holder for click-to-play in general, or just go "why isn't youtube working".

<comment><USER12> There's an "enable plugins" icon at the left of the location bar when the page contains those. It's a bit less visible than the one for pop-ups, but at least it's in an area that can't be spoofed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Oh man, bad memories. I used to get so frustrated with Internet Explorer* for doing this about 7 years ago. I was young then, 12 or 13, and had just gotten Flash for my birthday. I know it had to be 2004 or 2005 because the version was Flash MX 2004. I was young enough and it was long enough ago that I think I was using Internet Explorer primarily, and got _terrible frustrated_ when they started using this default click-to-play behavior on _my_ Flash creations. How dare they! It took me long enough to figure out how to embed them (I remember I tried using the <img src="" /> tag with a .swf file. HAHA!)

It was something to do with an "ActiveX control," I don't remember anymore. But you should have seen how angry it made 13-year-old-me, because my loud, annoying Flash creations had to be allowed their obnoxiousness by every user. Anyway, the point is I approve. :)

* I'm pretty sure it was IE, could be remembering wrong.

<comment><USER14> I remember that, I believe it was the result of a patent lawsuit. Something about a company had the patent on the concept of embedding assets into the page and automatically starting on page load, or something like that. Microsoft's response was to force the click-to-play mechanic to get around it and then people figured out how to get around that. I don't recall any other browser having to deal with that particular patent.

<comment><USER13> What a stupid fucking patent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is great, really, but I'd like to see something more aggressive:

Non-foreground tabs should be completely suspended - plugins, JavaScript, media, you name it - unless they specifically request and are granted permission to run in the background.

<comment><USER16> Quite a lot of webpages need js to initialize themselves, these days, and I want them to load in background when I middleclick on a link. You probably want (at least some) websites to perform XHR when not focused (to update a news stream or something). I find an opt-in behavior on such a common feature a bit to hard, as a lot of website rely on that.

setTimout and friends are throttled (at least in Firefox) to fire at most once every second, so you won't burn your battery having a graphic demo in the background.

<comment><USER15> Actually, I'd only white-list Gmail and maybe Twitter. I'd prefer it if most site just served HTML to begin with.

I run with JavaScript and Cookies disabled unless white-listed, and just leave the majority of pages that won't load. Techcrunch, Engadget, and most news sites are so much faster without JS.

I might be ok with a timeout - after 30 seconds of no interaction from me, suspend the tab. Would that address your objection?

<comment><USER16>
      I might be ok with a timeout - after 30 seconds of no
      interaction from me, suspend the tab. Would that address
      your objection?

There has been experiments to do that (<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=675539>), and an (experimental) extension brings you this behavior (<https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/dormancy/>), but hasn't been updated in a while.

Actually, this completely unloads the page from memory, which is not exactly what you ask for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very good Idea I think. Flashblock is one of the most useful plugins to me right now. Although I think that mozilla will definitely have to implement a very easily accessible whitelist to go along. Otherwise, it will become slightly annoying for people with slow internet connections who rely on loading e.g. loading videos while surfing in another tab and the like.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not just flash, all plugins, which is a good security idea, considering how Microsoft likes to slip in theirs via windows update.

I see the setting in FF12b5 but not sure if it works yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> The about:config setting currently works only in Firefox 14, available on the Nightly channel: <http://nightly.mozilla.org/>

<comment><USER19> False. Already works for me on FF12b4.

<comment><AUTHOR> I should have clarified that the pieces of the implementation landed starting in Firefox 11, but key bugs like <https://bugzil.la/730318> weren't fixed until Firefox 14. It won't work correctly on all pages in earlier versions.

[I'm a developer of Firefox for Android, which has click-to-play enabled by default starting with version 14.]

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Adobe has proven time and again that they cannot produce secure software. Down with Flash, and down with Reader. These two pieces of software seem to be responsible for millions of malware infections and thus tons of spam and fraud online.

The world would be a better place without these two Adobe products. Their /content production/ software is amazing, and they should just stick to that IMO.

</comment><comment><USER21> I am quite pleased with this idea. This is what NoScript does by default and pages load noticeably faster. In requiring flash objects to be clicked first provides a increased protection against the all too common Flash zero day exploits.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is the original blog post that I wrote in case you are interested: [http://msujaws.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/opting-in-to- plugins...](http://msujaws.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/opting-in-to-plugins-in- firefox/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I didn't know Chrome already had the option to do click-to-play until I read this. Very cool, I'm turning it on now.

<comment><USER24> I turned it on a few weeks ago, and after a day or two white listing a few sites that I use often (Google Music, etc) I've found my browsing experience much more enjoyable. My computer as a whole seems snappier; although it could be placebo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> As a Flashblock user, I love the idea.

</comment><comment><USER4> I rock click-to-play for plugins in Chrome and it's extremely helpful for browsing speed and enjoyability. No more playing "Which window is that sound coming from?". That said, there are definite usability problems with the current chrome implementation that I hope FF improves on. I'd like a "Load all requested plugins for this page" button. Or a whitelist maybe.

<comment><USER26> There's icon in the url bar which you can click to whitelist the current website, and there's whitelist settings as well.

<comment><USER27> It also has a "run all plugins now" button so you don't have to whitelist if you just want them to run in that session.

Sometimes this button is necessary if there's a 1x1 flash embed somewhere that is required for the page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Great move. I am reminded of Apple's recent Java update[1], which turns Java off by default, and disables it again after a period of disuse. It moves the security threat into phishing rather than drive-by territory, a definite improvement.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3834267>

</comment><comment><USER29> i would go one step further and disable all auto-play for audio and video. not just flash, but html5 as well.

if there is some audio or video designated to play onLoad, notify user and have them click ok/prevent/mute...etc. it might make for some no-so-seamless experiences, but the alternative it 90's style animated gif annoyances on spam sites etc..

</comment><comment><USER30> I think the real benefit here would be to block java plugins automatically. The current implementation blocks both (to the best of my understanding).

Not automatically loading java would be a great benefit to the majority of users. Its not used on nearly as many websites yet it is responsible for the lion's share of current security exploits.

</comment><comment><USER31> Didn't IE try this and developers got around it by using Javascript to embed flash?

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9046245/Microsoft_dro...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9046245/Microsoft_drops_IE_s_click_to_activate_nag)

Turns out Microsoft did it because of patent issues.

<comment><USER32> The plug-in was still loaded and executed. It is just the interaction with the plug-in that required an extra click.

<comment><USER31> Yea but I don't recall _anyone_ liking that interaction pattern.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Make this the default behavior if you want, but add a configuration option to change it.

In my opinion, there should always be a configuration option associated to a new feature/behavior like this!

Because in the end that's why I still use Firefox : I can configure it like I want!

</comment><comment><USER34> Is this going to break (or make more annoying) all of the things which use zeroclipboard[1] to copy something to the clipboard?

1\. <http://code.google.com/p/zeroclipboard/>

</comment><comment><USER35> Firefox would lose a lot of users if they did this. There are a lot of people who don't understand plugins and they would probably just find this feature to be annoying and use IE or Chrome instead.

</comment><comment><USER36> On a side note: is there an opensource browser who doesn't let a flash video/embed to steal keyboard focus? I tend to use the kb heavily for navigation and this behaviour is frustrating.

<comment><USER37> I'd like this too

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This should be done for all kinds of animation like gifs, canvas and whatever comes next in the future.

Animated ads are the second most annoying thing on the web after embedded background music.

</comment><comment><USER39> Here's another suggestion: how about an invisible "volume bar" that shows itself in each tab that is currently playing music?

<comment><USER40> This has been suggested often (and would be a wonderful feature). IIRC it's impossible currently due to the fact that flash runs as a single process and so you can only control the volume of all flash movies, not individual ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This feature, although turned off by default, has been available in Opera for some time now. I quite like it.

</comment><comment><USER42> Great idea. Opera browser made this a long time ago. The innovator that everybody else copies.

</comment><comment><USER43> Great! I'm just wondering why it took them so long: Opera has had this built- in for ages.

<comment><USER44> I think the point of the article is "by default". I don't know about Firefox but chrome has plug-in on demand as well. On linux, I have plugin on demand enabled in Opera, however on windows I have it disabled due to it's inability to start hidden flash. For example on Soundcloud. Maybe there's an action for enabling plug-in on demand that I could put to shortcut but I never got around to look into it. Anyway, flash on windows is just fine ...when not counting the adobe vulnerabilities(tm).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Does that mean random websites would no longer scream "Congratulations, youve won!!"?

</comment><comment><USER46> This should be default on every browser but hey, we'd kill flash banners this way.

</comment><comment> why-el I already have to click to enable Flash on my Firefox whenever I use Tor. :)

</comment><comment><USER47> How does this affect adverts?

</comment><comment><USER48> Nice move, appreciated!

</comment><comment><USER49> For my money, they oughta make Canvas click-to-play as well, since the rendering speed in Firefox is unbelievably slow and the javascript behind it is so frequently written to hog up 100% of the CPU it's hard to even know what you're looking at if you accidentally stumble across an HTML5 page in Firefox, before your system grinds to a complete halt. It's funny how people blame Flash for slow websites when what they should really blame is bad coding practice, which can just as easily show up in JS (and does). To take it further, it's pretty rare for Flash code to bootstrap a huge set of libraries to do some petty effect - and if it does, the plugin doesn't freeze the browser preload while waiting on them. Whereas a 150k JS file that includes jquery and a bunch of other junk which probably isn't necessary (but makes coding some effect that much easier for bad programmers) can bring a website to its knees before the first line of text is delivered in the browser.

Again, don't blame the tools; blame the tools who use them.

<comment><USER50> Firefox canvas really isn't that slow anymore. Every time they increment the major version number, I play a couple of HTML5 games and check out the difference in responsiveness. A highly subjective test, sure, but an effective one. If you take a user-centric view then it's arguably the only test that really counts. You wouldn't believe the difference between FF5 and FF12 playing a game like Canvas Rider[1].

[1]: <http://canvasrider.com>

<comment><USER51> yeah but consider in the future everyone ditch Flash ads for canvas animation ads, your page will basically have like 1000 embedded blinking and scrolling ads made in canvas.

<comment><USER52> canvas { display: none; } in your userstyles?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Awesome. I hope the old adage good product wins is really true in the browser world. It was quite a trick to grab market share against IE back in the day, but now they are up against the google cash machine paying Adobe/Avast/ Real/etc. $3/download for chrome. Hard for the little non-profit that could to compete against that. We'll see.

</comment><comment><USER54> Did anybody notice that this feature is already available (off by default) in Firefox 11 stable?

I hope they don't turn it on, or advertisers will move away from Flash to Canvas.</comment>


Kindle Unlimited - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/kindleunlimited <comment><USER2> I'm very disturbed by the steady erosion of ownership that has been happening for the past few years. Subscription models are an attractive way to get some digital content for a low price, whether it's music, software, movies, or books—but the internet has a notoriously short memory, and I fear that we're condemning ourselves to becoming cultural goldfish.

I have books and records from my youth that sit on my shelf and are there for me any time I want to revisit them. Heck, I even have software from back then because I never got rid of my Apple II.

Of course, there are emulators, and Spotify probably has 60%-70% of the records that are in my collection, and I can find A Wrinkle in Time on the Kindle. But how long is that guaranteed to be the case? And how can I be sure that the digital simulacrum are really the same as the originals, if the originals are gone?

For the moment, it's an easy answer—just don't use the subscription services, and keep owning things. But will that always be an option? Why should ownership continue to be an option ten, twenty, or thirty years from now, when it's so much more attractive to companies to rent their products to you for a constant stream of monthly income?

Will books end up getting unskippable "updates," or even being deleted at the whim of the publishers or Amazon one day?

<comment><USER3> I can fully understand your sentiment, and to some degree emotionally connect with it, but rationally: my entire bookshelf of computer science and literary classics has gone untouched since my initial read through the vast majority of books.

I keep looking around and I'm not sure that I'm happy with the "ownership" aspect of books, or a lot of stuff in general. (Having moved three times during the last six years, moving books is an awful experience).

This is probably an expression of what I've been feeling in general as of late, but I am extremely happy with the "subscriptionification" of media that's been happening. Spotify's huge library is a net win for me, as opposed to collecting albums for them to just collect dust. For me, revisiting what I used to listen to in high school by over-hearing someone's playlist has a far stronger emotional reaction than revisiting it by walking past a bookshelf.

Regarding stuff disappearing ten, twenty, thirty years from now: my experpience has been the opposite. The Internet has been getting better and better and archiving content of yesterday, and has provided better and better access to it.

My personal lean has been to own less stuff in general, which includes books, music and media in general. So needless to say, I'm pretty excited about Kindle Unlimited.

<comment><USER2> Show me anyone's MySpace profile from 2006.

Tell me again how good the Internet's memory is.

<comment><USER2> The issue isn't about making a value judgment on what's worth having and what's not.

Whether you like it or not, a person's social media profile is a part of their life. I'm sure you don't care about someone's photo album, or their diary, or the box full of concert ticket stubs they keep in their closet, either. But they matter to the person who kept them.

Except that now, we've grown accustomed to keeping our personal memories on Facebook, or Twitter, and used to keep them on MySpace, Friendster, and LiveJournal. "Just back it all up" you could say—but how many average everyday people even know how to do that?

The other day, I was looking for a podcast that I'd been on in 2010. Unfortunately, the site where it was hosted had undergone a refresh, and all content older than two years was gone. It reminded me just how quickly online content churns and disappears, and how even someone as backup-conscious as myself can lose digital media.

There's so much good about the planet-wide accessibility of digital data, and it's certainly better to have, say, a podcast out there that might be on thousands of computers than a cassette tape that's going to be lost or damaged in your car.

I'm simply saying that we should treat digital media as just as inviolate and permanent as physical media, and make it a better experience, not a more ephemeral one.

<comment><USER4> Consider your ancestors. How far do you have to go back before you know essentially nothing about them? I know a lot about my parents, know a few stories about my grandparents, and nothing about my great grandparents beyond a name and a couple old pictures and maybe a letter or two.

What they were, the things they possessed, are all just gone. I am not sure if that's a good thing or not, but the idea that digital storage is ushering in a new age of ephemerality is not justified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love the idea, but the selection is not good enough (for me) yet. I keep an Amazon wishlist as a "reading queue" and none of the 60 books (technical, business, pop-psych) in it were available on Kindle Unlimited.

I usually buy 2-3 Kindle books a month at around $9/per, so I would definitely use this service if the selection improves. I kind of wonder if Amazon could get away with charging $9/month for any book they have and just cash-in on folks that "spend" less than that a month.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. I don't read many books, but I asked my wife about the last 3 ebooks she'd read. One of the three was already a free book due to Amazon prime and was also included in Kindle Unlimited. The other two weren't available as part of Kindle Unlimited.

So comparing Kindle Unlimited to Netflix's online streaming is actually a pretty accurate correlation. It's currently comprised of second-tier (or lower) books that aren't likely to yield the same profits as new and currently popular titles, so they're used as filler for this service.

<comment><USER7> Free, top-tier pre-1920 ebooks from centuries of book reviews:

[http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/themes/](http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/themes/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very saddened by this:

      We're sorry. Kindle Unlimited is currently only available for US customers.
      Please visit us again when it is available in your country.

<comment><USER9> I still don't understand why, when content is digital and distribution doesn't cost anything extra, things like this are restricted to specific countries.

<comment><USER10> Contracts.

See this explanation by author Charlie Stross: [http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/07/some- ram...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/07/some-rambling- thoughts-on-regi.html)

<comment><USER11> But amazon have no problem selling me ebooks and audiobooks even thou in am located outside the us.

<comment><USER12> Sure, because those books have rights to be sold in your geo. OR, your account is based in the US (billing address).

<comment><USER13> I think the OP's point is some subset of the Kindle ebooks are already available in his locale, so why not roll-out this service for those titles?

<comment><USER14> Probably because the license they have to sell those titles doesn't allow them to rent them on this service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> To all the "this is just a 10 dollar library card", I ask you this: if library books are the way to go, why do people buy endless amounts of books from amazon. Amazon became successful by selling books. Audible is another successful company that offers a feature that according to you, can be achieved at a library. Clearly libraries are missing something or else we'd be using them more. Maybe it's one click instant access. Maybe it's the larger selection, or that lack of having to wait. Regardless, it's not the same.

<comment><USER16> This of course all depends on which country you live in. Where I am from libraries already offer ebook and audiobooks and university libraries have bought licenses from most academic publishers, so that students can download most of their course material and almost all journal articles free of charge. Also all libraries are a 15 minute bike ride away. All of them combined carry a higher quality selection of books than Amazon with their 600.000 could possibly have. Of course they probably won't have some obscure medieval vampire romance novel.

The only books I ever ordered from Amazon were books in foreign languages and academic books that Amazon apparently prints on demand on behalf of publishers. Books in my mother tongue can only be sold at a fixed price set by the publisher, so there is little incentive of buying from a company that mistreats their warehouse workers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can anyone offer any guidance on the audiobook aspect of this? What is a "Kindle book with narration"? If I'm an audible customer... doesn't this seem like a far better deal? Their page seems very light on details for audiobooks.

Edit: I just found a link that includes Kindle Unlimited books with Narration: [http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=9630682011](http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=9630682011)

<comment><USER18> There are about 2,000 audiobooks available through Kindle Unlimited. Compared with 150,000+ available through Audible.

So yes, if the books you want to listen to are on KU, it's a better deal.

*Full press release embedded here: [http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-unlimited-reading-2014...](http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-unlimited-reading-2014-7)

<comment><USER17> Full press release ended with me finding a link that shows the narrated books they include. Edited above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> To anyone complaining about country restrictions:

Selling books is actually quite the complicated matter in some countries. At least in Germany you are not allowed to sell a book at a price of your choice ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_book_price_agreement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_book_price_agreement))

It can be pretty fucking annoying to have these laws in place (they do have their merits, but... that's a completely different debate), but I can understand Amazon not having worked out all the legal issues to go worldwide with this

</comment><comment><USER20> Given that Amazon royally screws independent authors (not being a publisher, I can't speak to whether they screw larger publishers too) who want to price their works about $9.99 (if you're after a vertical market, Amazon hates you) I can only imagine they'll extend the screwing to authors who won't also make their works available via Unlimited.

(How do they screw us? They cap the 70% less download fee royalty at the $9.99 level. In order to make more than $7 (less download fee) per sale, you need to price a book at over $20. So if I sell a $20 book on Amazon, BN, and iBooks -- I get twice as much from BN and iBooks as I do from Amazon. To make the same royalty from Amazon, I need to charge $40, but Amazon won't let me do that. So I pulled my book from Amazon and revenues _increased_.)

<comment><USER21> I assume it's a technical book? There are very few novels I'd pay even $10 for.

<comment><USER22> That's a pity, too, from the writer's point of view.

<comment><USER23> $7 to the _writer_ for a fiction work is pretty good, IMO. There's probably no way you're going to achieve that otherwise. (I'm part of the "fuck the legacy publishers" camp; I do care about compensating writers and some editors, but in general, I'd rather pay less, read a lot more books, and have writers paid more, and fewer useless NYC publishing house employees playing games and acting as gatekeepers.)

<comment><USER22> Oh, now I remember hearing something about how high the margins in the publishing business are. Probably you're right: $7 to the _writer_ should be more than a writer can count for, with any reasonable retail price, in the traditional publishing model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If I have a digital copy, it's important for me to have a physical copy, as well.

At different times, I prefer different media.

Until I can buy a book and get a digital version for either free or for a (very) small added fee, I'm just not getting on board with kindles (or whatever e-reader device).

Amazon _did_ roll out some version of this book+ebook service a few months ago, but it included such a small number of volumes that it was virtually worthless.

<comment><USER7> It's dependent on publishers. At any time you can ask Amazon to search through your _entire_ history of Amazon print purchases and it will give you free access to the Kindle versions, if the publisher enabled this feature.

<comment><USER24> Yup, I know. But out of the hundreds of books I've purchased through Amazon, only a small handful offer free Kindle versions.

The complications between Amazon and publishers are deep and messy and I surely won't get what I want as a consumer for some time, if ever.

Just thinking about the ideal situation _for me_ , however unrealistic it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Perhaps my reading behavior is atypical - but "Hyperion", "I Robot", "Ringworld", "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Dune" \- none of the books I read were in the Kindle Unlimited List, and they were all in the Vancouver Public Library.

I love the concept - but I need at least a 50% hit rate on the books I read before i'll be willing to pay $120/year to use it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Well, I looked up a small handful of books I have been interested in reading next, and while all are available on Kindle, none are on the Unlimited program.

Looks like I'll be giving this one a pass.

</comment><comment><USER27> Can someone explain to me, whats the difference between Kindle Unlimited and Amazon Prime[1]?

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000739811&ref=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000739811&ref=primedp_koll)

<comment><USER28> Kindle Unlimited gives you unlimited access to about 600,000 ebooks and audio books on Kindle devices.

Prime gives you free 2-day shipping on a large number of Amazon products and gives you unlimited access to Amazon Video.

I personally was a little surprised (and disappointed) Amazon didn't roll this out as another Prime perk. I'm not sure why making Amazon Video available to Prime members makes financial sense to Amazon, but making Kindle Unlimited doesn't.

edit: With Prime, you also get access to music, some ebooks, and something called "Amazon Pantry". There is a description here:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200444160)

<comment><USER29> Probably because Amazon is known more for their books than their movie/TV show selection.

Also: Prime gives you access to the lending library, but you can only lend one book a month.

<comment><USER28> > Prime gives you access to the lending library

I'm a Prime subscriber and I didn't know about this. It seems the lending library has 350K-500K books, not dissimilar to Kindle Unlimited. And like other commenters, it looks like both unlimited and the kindle lending library has pretty small intersection with my reading habits.

<comment><USER30> Lending library, though, only allows you to check out one book a month, and you have to have a physical Kindle device. The Kindle unlimited, it seems, allows you to use any kindle app, which is a nice change. I did just recently get a Paperwhite, so it doesn't affect me as greatly now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> So let's see... 10 bucks for books, 10 bucks for Spotify, 10 bucks for Netflix. That's $360 a year. It kind of adds up, doesn't it? :)

When I was little I went to the local library. There I had unlimited access to movies, music and books, for free. Sure, it's hard to compare the music collection to Spotify. But at the time I was content. And I actually think I'd still prefer both the movie collection and the book collection of the library (especially as my native tongue is Swedish).

<comment><USER32> Less than a dollar a day for unlimited media consumption doesn't sound like a lot to me. It's still significantly less than 1 cable subscription.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It looks like I was incorrect when I predicted that the ebooks would only be available on true Kindle devices (and not for example the Kindle app on iPad).

Unfortunately it looks like the Lending Library (which comes with Prime membership) still only works on true Kindle devices. I wonder if this is a licensing issue, or just a deliberate choice on Amazon's part.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000739811](http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000739811)

</comment><comment><USER34> "We're sorry. Kindle Unlimited is currently only available for US customers. Please visit us again when it is available in your country."

That's ok Amazon. My local library lets me check out as many ebooks as I can read. And audio books. And paper books.

Total cost? FREE _!

_ via taxation which works out as £13 per year (budget is £8 million, population is 650k)

<comment><USER35> Amazon isn't intentionally discriminating against your country, they don't have a choice.

<comment><USER34> I'm well aware of that. And, I don't think it's discrimination to only sign complex licensing deals in only one territory.

I'm just not sure why people in the UK would go for this when the Library already does a fine job of "all you can read".

<comment><USER36> I haven't been to a Library in probably 20 years, so this is a legitimate question, not being snarky. Can you somehow check out e-books at libraries these days? Some people actually prefer that experience.

<comment><USER37> Usually you can even do it online without having to go to the library. Go to your local library's website and see if they have anything there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This service would have the extremely interesting effect of replacing itself with all your reading sources. Consider: Given a choice between buying a book elsewhere and reading it here, you're going to choose the latter because it's free. But also, if you normally read a book per month, since you're paying for it whether you read or not, you'd have to basically read more from here to be able to make it "worth it". So given a choice between buying a book elsewhere or reading a _different_ one here, you're still going to lean towards reading it here. Pretty smart!

<comment><USER39> Are books fungible?

If you're in a rich Western country, the time you spend reading a book probably has an opportunity cost much greater than the cost to acquire rights to read the book. Why would you spend 10 hours with a book whose marginal cost is $0, when you could pay $10 and spend those ten hours with a better book?

<comment><USER38> Wow, never thought of it that way. Although I don't think that'd factor in as much if there's books I want to read on _both_ sides, which I assume is the case. So it's not so much an absolute ranking of books. If it's over a threshold, I want to read it. Given two books I want to read, it might not be that clear that I want to read one over the other, but when you add the cost difference it'd become clearer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I think Amazon's always done a pretty good job of rolling out new services, but this is a train wreck. About 3 minutes after I signed up for the free trial, I cancelled it. 99% of the books are the same type of low-quality, spammy nonsense that I was already getting free through Prime.

I was hoping for something along the lines of Safari Books, only with a much wider range of categories. As hard as it might be to imagine, the selection of books here is far far worse than Netflix's selection of movies. That's pretty fucking sad.

<comment><USER41> this is the first comment in this thread that is not predicting the future. there is some 200 i just scrolled past above.

yeah, amazon prime content is anything but prime. odd seasons of old series. movies that even late night open tv is embarrassed of showing, and now teen romances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I think the audiobooks part is going to be more interesting than the rest. I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts, so listening to unlimited audiobooks is something that might be amazing.

<comment><USER43> I completely agree with you. Right now, I mostly rely on audiobooks from my public library system (the price point -- free -- is hard to beat). Audible (also owned by Amazon) is really the only other decent option for professionally narrated stuff (I've tried non-professionally-narrated stuff, and it's generally really bad). And since people don't generally listen to the same audiobook over and over again, the way they do with music, I don't think many people will mind that they don't get to "own" a copy of the book, like with Audible. If it weren't for the fact that Audible has a far better selection, I'd say it would be ridiculous for anyone to continue with Audible over Kindle Unlimited. I mean, one audiobook a month vs. unlimited? No hard decision there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Hmm... how can you tell which books are available for it?

I searched for a philosopher I like to read and none of his books had the "unlimited" indicator... so I don't think this is for me.

<comment><USER45> To answer your question: Try searching the Kindle store for something that is in Kindle Unlimited. For example: [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3D...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=harry%20potter) You'll see "$0.00 kindleunlimited" for books that are available. The selection is grim.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> As an author with two books enrolled in KDP select, I didn't know they'd be included in Kindle Unlimited. It will be interesting to see if this has any effect on sales.

<comment><USER47> Do you know how you and the publisher are compensated in this situation? I'm assuming there is some sort of royalty stream coming back to you? (I'm not asking for details, just generalities).

<comment><USER48> I'll answer since they didn't. Kindle Select is direct publishing only, so they don't have another publisher.

They get paid based on number of their reads (that's anyone who reads >10% of their book) as a proportion of number of total reads across the library, calculated against a money pool that Amazon determines month over month and tunes to keep the program attractive.

More details here:

[https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A3BQJE2QV37M1B#kll_calc](https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A3BQJE2QV37M1B#kll_calc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Is this the same as the Lending Library you'll get with Prime, where you can get 1 book for free per month if you're Prime customer? If so, the offer in Germany is absolutely terrible. I found only 2 books in that library, because they count endless self-published garbage-titles to their library of "600,000+" titles.

From the comments here, I assume that the model is similar in the US and 9.99$ is only so cheap, because there's mostly junk in the library.

</comment><comment><USER50> Sadly, I don't read nearly enough to justify a $10/mo subscription. (This is something I'd like to improve, but I have ADHD and poor reading comprehension.) This is contrast to a service like Google music that I use nearly every day. I wish there were a cheaper tier with perhaps fewer rentals at a lower price. Based on the current volume of reading that I do, the most I can see myself paying for a subscription is about $3~5/mo.

</comment><comment><USER51> I notice few commenters have brought up the obvious deflationary pressure being brought to bear against authors and publishers here. The same thing has occurred in music and film.

In the future is art and literature going to once again be the exclusive province of either those who have taken a implicit vow of poverty or the independently wealthy? Are we seeing the end of the era when a person could actively earn a living doing these things?

</comment><comment><USER52> Just as an alternative, the NYPL (which is the New York City public library system) allows you to get a library card, and browse from their online ebook collection, as long as you are a resident of New York state. It's a bit of an annoying process, but their large selection makes it worth it.

[http://www.nypl.org/help/library-card](http://www.nypl.org/help/library-card)

</comment><comment><USER53> I signed up for the 30-day free trial, and immediately found books that I'd like to read that are on long request waiting lists at my friendly county public library. Now I can look up those books any time I like during the next thirty days. I'll see whether or not I think there is enough value here to pay ten dollars a month indefinitely to keep this service, but I think I will.

</comment><comment><USER54> This is also interesting from the cloud storage perspective. Amazon is slowly making personal cloud storage almost irrelevant by providing all these subscription streaming services. You don't event have to digitally own something anymore you just rent it and stream it from the cloud. No need to back up the majority of the files you have.

</comment><comment><USER55> Looks like Amazon is trying to do to ebooks what Spotify and Netflix have done to music and content.

The pricing is interesting. At $9.99, it's more than Netflix and the same as Spotify. I'm not sure if anyone will binge read books the same way people do with the other two services.

<comment><USER56> There are plenty of people already on the $15/mo plan with Audible. Myself included. I listen to audio books on my commute. The difference with my more expensive plan is that I get too keep the audio books. Though I have not re- listened to any so this is something for me to think about.

<comment><USER57> It is a surprise that Audible is an Amazon company. Will the launch of this service create self-competition?

<comment><USER7> Amazon also own GoodReads, CreateSpace, Shelfari, Abe Books, The Book Depository, BookFinder and 40% of LibraryThing. Some of those compete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I mostly read software and technical books. None of the books I am interested in is in the collection. Maybe the improve the collection later, but for now it's cheaper to buy for me.

</comment><comment><USER59> I think this is good for "candy books" like thrillers, etc. but for books that I want to keep...no. I don't care as much about movies but for books...this is not for me.

</comment><comment><USER60> I wonder if you get to keep the notes you make from books in this? Of the last 5 books I've read, only 2 were in this, so I'm not sure I'll sign up.

</comment><comment><USER4> It seems that the debut of $10/mo Kindle Unlimited was accompanied by the demise of the one per month free Kindle lending library for Prime customers.

<comment><USER48> Where did you see that? The KLL page is still up and accepting Prime memberships, and the Kindle Select (author program behind KU and KLL) terms are clear that authors can opt their books into or out of either or both.

Edit: I do notice that the website doesn't display the KLL option for me on eligible books, but I assume that's because my KU subscription enables less restrictive access to the same book.

<comment><USER4> My books which were formerly enrolled in Kindle Select are no longer. They are now in Kindle Unlimited. I didn't change anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> We're sorry. Kindle Unlimited is currently only available for US customers. Please visit us again when it is available in your country. (figured)

</comment><comment><USER62> It looks really great! So bad it isn't available in Poland. Does anyone know when they will expand to other countries?

</comment><comment><USER63> How do authors get paid with this? I don't imagine a pay per play scheme work like it does with the music industry

<comment><USER46> I assume the same way they do with KDP Select where prime members can borrow a free book once a month. Amazon will set aside a pool of money and divide it among the books that were read each month as part of the program.

<comment><USER64> Yes. As a Kindle author, I got an email this morning stating that's how it will work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> This offer is only available to US customers - I think it's worth to reflect that one in the title in here.

</comment><comment><USER66> Let say I'm not in the US, what are my options if I'm interested to subscribe? Will VPN work?

</comment><comment><USER67> This has a ways to go in terms of content before I would actually use it.

</comment><comment><USER68> Does anyone have any info on how royalties will be calculated yet?

</comment><comment><USER69> Are they making the whole Audible library available through this?

<comment><USER70> nope... very limited audio selection compared to the audible.com catalog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> What does this mean for oyster?

</comment><comment><USER57> It is like a paid pass to amazon's selected digital library.

</comment><comment><USER72> "We're sorry. Kindle Unlimited is currently only available for US customers. Please visit us again when it is available in your country"

Again.

Companies just don't learn. This is the Internet. If you sell digital content online, there is no "US customers". There are exactly two groups of customers: those with credit cards that are willing to pay you and all the rest.

This whole idea of segmenting by country is not only outdated, but harmful to business and outright offensive to customers that were not "included" in the "segment" that was "chosen".

Let's see, what will those people left outside the door do? Will they wait and "visit us again when it is available in your country"? Surely! They will patiently regularly check the webpage to see whether Amazon has graciously agreed to take their money. Or they'll just turn to Bittorrent and get the goods anyway, right now.

Anticipating responses: yes, I know, the usual narrative is that it's the evil publishers. So what? Amazon fights the publishers on other fronts, why can't it arrange for worldwide licensing here?

<comment><USER73> The copyrights are often dispersed, with different publishers owning different rights. It's not a matter of just "arrang[ing] for worldwide licensing." It's dealing with a completely different set of owners who may have no interest in signing on.

Of COURSE Amazon wants to access customers in other countries, it's not like they haven't thought of it!

<comment><USER72> > Of COURSE Amazon wants to access customers in other countries, it's not like > they haven't thought of it!

Actually, I believe they are not fully aware of the adverse effect these kinds of restrictions have: as much as many people try to explain that it's not Amazon's fault (just observe the downvotes on my previous comment!), it is Amazon.com that rejects me as a customer.

But perhaps I should refrain from commenting, as downvoting based on opinions seems to have become the norm recently.</comment></comment></comment>


Designing User Interfaces for Your Mother - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@TGines/designing-user-interfaces-for-your-mother-dd45ec50f7b0

<comment><USER2> Maybe, maybe not.

Would you design an Air Traffic Control console for your mother ?</comment>


Ask HN: What better alternatives are there to namecheap? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> For domains [https://www.name.com/](https://www.name.com/) and for SSL certificate [https://www.cheapsslshop.com/](https://www.cheapsslshop.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been looking to switch away from namecheap, too. Their AJAXy UI feels more flaky/buggy than what they had 5-10 years ago.

Gandi.net is probably what I'll move to. It's quite popular with their users, and only slightly more expensive once you take into account that namecheap charges extra for WhoisGuard.

<comment><USER4> Imo gandi has the worse interface. Not so ajax-buggy but old and complicated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> iwantmyname.com

Simple, functional UI and really awesome customer support. Been with them for a few years, and can't recommend them highly enough. They have more tlds than Google Domains (still missing .ly).

</comment><comment><USER6> * gandi.net

* amazon route 53 domain registration

* Google domains, if you are in the US

Just curious, why aren't you using Namecheap?

</comment><comment><USER7> porkbun.com</comment>


Let's Encrypt new hierarchy plans - <AUTHOR> https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/lets-encrypt-new-hierarchy-plans/125517 <comment><USER2> Am I the only one getting a corrupted content error?</comment>


Cancer Deaths Decline 27% Over 25 Years - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/cancer-deaths-decline-27-over-25-years-11546959600 <comment><USER2> The war against cancer is its infancy. There is a long road ahead of us. Take for example Glioblastoma or single cell lung cancer, these problems are really tough to crack.

There aren't many things worse to see than a child die with cancer. If you have either time or money, consider helping out...

There are a ton of ways to do good in this world and one of the most helpful life-changing ones is:

[https://www.acco.org/get-involved/](https://www.acco.org/get-involved/)</comment>


The Cryptocurrency Tax Problem – Why Exchanges Can't Provide Users with Tax Info - <AUTHOR> https://www.cryptotrader.tax/blog/cryptocurrency-tax-problem <comment><USER2> > In this case, the solution to the cryptocurrency tax problem hinges on > aggregating all of your cryptocurrency data making up your buys, sells, > trades, air drops, forks, mined coins, exchanges, swaps, and received > cryptocurrencies into one platform so that you can build out an accurate tax > profile containing all necessary data.

No. The solution is or HAS TO BE a change in the law to simply taxing cryptocurrency trades/investment. The currenct solution which has been backdported from the stock market is completely unworkable for the cryptocurrency world.

There needs to be a much simpler solution, like say taxing 15%-20% of the money whenever you transfer money from crypto into USD, or even the reverse (from USD into cryptocurrency) if the government believes the former is too game-able. Heck, from the government's point of view, the latter may even be preferable to what exists now, because they could see it as a disincentive to buy crypto.

And yes, of course there will be ways to bypass these taxing system, just like for anything else, including the current system.</comment>


Show HN: Member Since: Find out when you created your Yahoo account - <AUTHOR> Http://www.membersince.pw <comment><AUTHOR> I made this over the weekend to answer a simple question: When did I create my Yahoo account? For many, it was one of the first services they registered for. I was able to look for that piece of information easily in the past, but now it's been increasingly difficult to do so. Hence, this web app was born.

Member Since asks for your Profile information, but don't worry, I store none of them. The permission was used to make one single request to retrieve your account creation date — that's it.

Let me know if you've got any questions.</comment>


Facebook's fbFund Is Accepting Applications For FB Connect And iPhone Apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/16/facebooks-fbfund-is-accepting-applications-for-iphone-apps/ <comment><USER2> Interesting differences than previous years:

\- down from $250k to $100k

\- equity rather than a grant

\- incubator program in Silicon Valley

\- focussed on Facebook Connect</comment>


Ask HN: Who to use for email marketing? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking for a new company to use for email marketing as MailChimp had said I am no longer welcome. I have used iContact and ConstantContact with other employers in the past and have no problems with them, I was just curious if there is something better.
Some background on why MailChimp asked me to leave. I run an online store that launched in late October. We have done four campaigns in that time each with a list size of 500, 1000, 3000, and 90,000. Due to our rapid rate of growth every mailing has essentially been a first time send to the list. Unsubscribes and bounces are removed right away. I also understand the laws and that the rates the list saw were just too high. All of our lists track the date/time and IP address to have a proof of signup that they recommend. I even checked with them before the last send knowing I had issues, the person I spoke with said he understood and I should be okay even with the proof. Well I wasn't and I have been asked to leave. I will give props to MailChimp for not billing me this month to help with my transition.
So... with that being said I need a new home for my email marketing need.. what does everyone recommend? <comment><USER2> Aweber is really easy to use, has good deliverability and back end metrics. Prices are ok. I've used them on a number of projects.

<http://www.aweber.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.campaignmonitor.com/>

</comment><comment><USER4> That's too bad about MailChimp. We experienced something similar when using MailChimp for Page99Test.com: our pre-launch signup list was _not quite as clean_ as MailChimp (or we) would've liked. It was dirty. Like, pornographic dirty. ;) Not good. Too many bounces, unsubscribes and complaints.

But they accepted our excuses and let us stick around. And we're good now. Our list is clean as a whistle.

That said, we've also tried Campaign Monitor. Although CM isn't quite as straightforward or pretty as MailChimp, it has served our needs well.

LESSON (we learned the hard way) FOR PRE-LAUNCH SIGNUP LISTS: Always be sure to confirm email addresses (i.e., use double opt-in). The trouble single opt- in can cause -- specifically re: dirty email lists -- is just not worth the time savings of _not_ doing double opt-in.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've tried to talk with them and sadly it just didn't work. I am kind of disappointed as I got different answers more than a few times. I even asked if I could call someone there and talk to them.. they didn't even bother replying to the email.

Our list isn't even a prelaunch, just the newsletter signup on the right side of our site (thepaws.com - shameless plug..). It's just new customers signing up. But you're right it does make for very dirty lists. After the 1st send the list got cleaned up so hopefully moving forward it won't be as dirty, unless we hit a huge growth spurt again, and I wouldn't mind that!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: One Weebly To Rule Them All? - <AUTHOR>

We just launched Electobot (www.electobot.com), which provides turnkey Web sites to political campaigns. It's basically "barackobama.com for local candidates."
It's simpler than a Weebly or Homestead in that the site structure and content are ready-made. A customer sends Electobot a photo, edits some text, chooses a look/layout, and he's done.
We believe that Electobot is where Web development will eventually end up, with customers in a specific vertical market getting a ready-made hosted site that's tailored to their business.
There won't be One Weebly To Rule Them All. Instead, each vertical market will have its own Electobot that provides easily-updated Web sites for a monthly fee. There will be one for doctors' offices, one for building contractors, one for restaurants, etc.
What do you think? Is this assumption correct? <comment><USER2> I like the concept, and the price is on point so far as I can estimate, it's pricey enough to make good profit for you all, but low enough that some individual bootstrapping his campaign can afford it.

The site does a great job of telling me what you do, but not a great way of how you do it. Give me a breakdown of costs between some firm I might hire and using you guys. Etc.

I'm not sure I agree with your concept of a targeted web development app, since it's what I do for a living, but I wish you guys all the best.

<comment><AUTHOR> There will always be a market for custom-built sites. But for folks like local candidates and your dentist, they can really use something off-the-rack and affordable.

For example, most of the local candidates I've seen get volunteers to build their sites for free...and get what they pay for. Very few can afford the $10K it takes to get a decent site custom-built.

Have you thought about picking a vertical, creating an amazingly excellent site to serve it, then selling that site a thousand times with different skins? I used to do custom Web devt. too, and the sell-do cycle drove me nuts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> how different do you think a doctors surgery and a building contractors website needs are?

Why not just allow the user to select his business type, and offer a default template of content and items -- and they can customize it some more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Pretty different, actually. In fact, podiatrists and ear/nose/throat practices, plumbers and trim carpenters may need different templates.

We found that when we began talking to local citizens advocacy groups. We initially thought that they could use the same architecture/structure we use for political campaigns (they're campaigns too, right?), but found out they need a different site template.

Good question, pclark--thanks for responding.</comment></comment>


Michael K. Williams Is More Than Omar from 'The Wire' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/nyregion/michael-k-williams-is-more-than-omar-from-the-wire.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news <comment><USER2> Salient: "Michael K Williams asks: Am I typecast?" [https://youtu.be/STkh15nZ1uA](https://youtu.be/STkh15nZ1uA)

<comment><AUTHOR> This was beautiful! Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "he was on a three-day-long bender when his mother brought him to a rally for Barack Obama in Harrisburg, Pa. Earlier during his campaign, Mr. Obama had declared "The Wire" the best show on television and Omar his favorite character. When the two men met privately after the event, Mr. Williams, lock- jawed and high on cocaine, could barely speak."

Damn.

</comment><comment><USER4> There are not many shows taht are better than the Wire; my favorite part about Omar is that he doesn't curse.

In a profane and violent world, he has a code, which he upholds. IIRC, MKWilliams was the one who insisted that Omar not curse.

<comment><USER5> "There are not many shows taht are better than the Wire; my favorite part about Omar is that he doesn't curse."

I loved the wire - truly.

However, I think I would rate the first season of true detective as being better than all of the seasons of the wire _except_ for season 2, which was my favorite.

I was surprised to learn that s2 (dock workers, etc.) is not very well liked - I thought it was by far the most interesting.

EDIT: WIRE SPOILER: also, as long as we're talking about it ... the resolution of the omar character in the last seasons of the wire was _incredibly anti- climactic_ and just downright weird. I understand they got the rug pulled out and had to quick wrap up the show but that was really just the worst and most useless bookend to his character arc...

<comment><USER6> > EDIT: WIRE SPOILER: also, as long as we're talking about it ... the > resolution of the omar character in the last seasons of the wire was > incredibly anti-climactic and just downright weird. I understand they got > the rug pulled out and had to quick wrap up the show but that was really > just the worst and most useless bookend to his character arc...

I think that was the point. I don't remember where I read it, but his death was always going to be like that. It didn't matter that he was the only beacon of (kinda) good in a cruel world - good and bad, the streets get you eventually and its never honorable or glorious.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I would have expected - and enjoyed - a blaze of glory end for Omar.

Which in itself is an argument against doing that!

The way he went out says that in the real "game", there are no super heroes. Even the biggest badass dies just as much from a bullet, and ultimately mean nothing compared to the big institutional forces that shape the world.

One way to think about The Wire as a whole is that it's about organisations and how they remain the same, regardless of the seemingly big influence individuals have in them.

At the end of the show most the bigger-than-life people on all sides have been replaced. Yet everything is just the same as it always was.

<comment><USER8> What makes the show both brilliant and crushingly depressing is the cyclical nature of it all. At the end there's a new Bubbles, a new Omar, etc. Nothing changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would strongly recommend Michael K. Williams' interview on NPR's Bullseye. It is great.

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

<comment><USER10> That was an excellent listen, thanks for the link!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase. It's all in the game though, right?"

<comment><USER12> Hey yo. Hey yo. You all need to open this door, man, before I huff and puff. Come on, now, by the hairs of your chinny-chin-chin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> In light of the "All Eyez on Me" movie recently released, there is an interesting, indirect relationship between Michael K Williams and Tupac Shakur.

Shakur was filming with Mickey Rourke for 1996 release Bullet (actually filmed in 1994), and Williams was specifically chosen for a role by Shakur because of his facial scar. William's manager at the time was James Rosemond who is currently incarcerated with several life terms. Rosemond was a childhood friend of Michael Williams, and grew up in the same area of East Flatbush, Brooklyn, near the Vandeveer housing projects (now called Flatbush Gardens), and became heavily involved in street crimes as a teenager, allegedly robbing drug dealers like in the Wire.

Fast forwarding to the early 90's, a number executives in the urban music industry had indirect/direct ties with street crime and gang culture, and Rosemond, who became Michael K William's manager, was believed to be one of them (he also managed several popular urban music groups at the time). It's widely believed by industry insiders that Rosemond wanted to become Shakur's manager as well, but Shakur wasn't interested. Also, much of Shakur's problems (the 1994 shooting and imprisonment) are believed by many to be of the doing of either Rosemond or his acquaintances.

It would be interesting to know how much Omar's character was influenced by his friendship with Rosemond and people from the neighborhood they both knew.

<comment><USER14> A lot of the show was inspired by real events and real people, including the experiences and true character of some of the actors.

One of the most interesting to me was Melvin Williams who played The Deacon, and in real life was a big-time heroin kingpin who was renowned for his intelligence. There's a decent documentary about him floating around and a (short) Wikipedia page [0].

Another is Felicia Pearson who played Snoop. Listen to an interview with her and hear her backstory, and you know she's the real deal. Stephen King called her character "perhaps the most terrifying female villain to ever appear in a television series". [1]

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Williams_(actor)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Williams_\(actor\))

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoop_(The_Wire)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoop_\(The_Wire\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> 15 years of The Wire. Nothing has changed.

Goes perfectly with the ethos of the show, at the end, nothing changes.

<comment><USER16> Enamored with David Simon's work, I picked up the DVD box set of "Homicide: Life on the Street", which I'd heard of before, but didn't have an attachment to. After seeing The Wire, then Treme (which took me a long time to adjust to not being The Wire, but may actually be even better) and then Show Me A Hero, it's fair to say that Davis Simon is just a brilliant writer.

Anyway, that was kind of a tangent to get to the real point, which is that Homicide, filmed a decade earlier than the Wire, highlighted many of the same troubles that The Wire did. Perhaps as the result of being based on the same (or similar) works, but if Homicide was authentic (and I believe it was) and the Wire was authentic (which I also believe), then it seems that Baltimore's had problems for some time.

I work in Baltimore now, and get to see some of the areas The Wire was filmed in enough to see that they've made real progress in certain areas, but on the whole, but Baltimore tends to do a good job of holding a spot in the top 10 of "most dangerous cities" lists year to year.

<comment><USER17> I tried getting into Treme but couldn't hack it. Maybe I'll give it another try, though -- what was the appeal of it for you?

<comment><USER16> It took me a long time to switch gears. Going from The Wire to Treme is kind of like switching from Windows to Linux -- the hardest part is unlearning what you already know. In my case, I kept expecting Treme to be more Wire-esque. It isn't, at all. It's its own show, with its own characters, in its own city.

What it has in common with The Wire is that its characters are richly crafted, and they're _whole_ characters. Nobody in any David Simon show is a throwaway character, and that might not ever have been more true than in Treme. Also, the acting is exceptional, in every scene, and in every case. Another commonality is that of the failures of people, and of the institutions that ostensibly aim to protect them. Like The Wire, Treme is filled with a panoply of people all attempting their best in every task, but as in life, those people sometimes fail, and often those failures come at the expense of somebody else. Just as in The Wire, we often get to see the impact of those failures up close and personal, and we get to feel the hurt it causes, while sympathizing with those who made whatever mistake caused the failure, and far too often to be comfortable, we get to pick which one of those people we prefer.

There are big differences, obviously. The Wire is, at its core, a cops and robbers drama, with some other stuff going on. Treme focuses more on the people, and less on the game they're playing. Music plays a _much_ bigger role in Treme than in The Wire, but that's a commonality too, as David Simon works tend to feature the city as a character, and Treme's set in New Orleans, and that music is part of New Orleans' character.

The narrative in Treme meanders around A LOT. It all basically wraps itself up by the end, but while The Wire managed to tell a basically cohesive story each season, Treme's big plot is spread out, with blurrier lines. It gives you the feeling of closure with each season finale, but the collection of tales being told don't, and really, keep going well after the show's end.

At the end of the day though, the main difference is that narrative draw. If you need one, maybe Treme isn't for you. Sure, it has political corruption, and criminal investigations, and the occasional legal proceeding, but at its core Treme is really just a window into the lives of a couple dozen folks making their way in post-Katrina New Orleans. We get to see how the storm affected them, and how the city affected them, and sometimes, how they've affected the city -- whether by making their mark on it, or succumbing to its ways, or in some cases, getting out while the getting is good. It isn't _about_ anything that I could wrap up into a few sentences, but it's a deep cultural exploration into a culturally rich and beautiful people, and it's a showcase for some of the best damn music around, and it's an expose into the triumphs and troubles of people just trying to make it work in a city at a time when nothing's working as it should. It's also the inverse of that, in true David Simon form, so -- yeah, nobody can fault you for having a hard time making an adjustment, but it's worth adjusting if you can manage it.

<comment><USER18> Beautifully written.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you've not seen the Wire, this article contains major spoilers.

</comment><comment><USER19> Also the unofficial spokesman for honey nut cheerios.

</comment><comment><USER20> He's excellent as expected in "Hap and Leonard" with James Purefoy.

It's on Sundance TV in the US and Amazon Prime in the UK.

Two seasons with a third already commissioned.

>Set in the late 1980's, Hap and Leonard is a darkly comic swamp noir of two best friends, one femme fatale, a crew of washed up revolutionaries, a pair of murderous psycho killers, some lost loot, and the fuzz.

</comment><comment><USER21> He was great in Boardwalk Empire!

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't think of any of his performances that have been weak (performance- wise).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Best.Show.Ever. Nuance, layers, intricacies and Macro/Micro views on Baltimore pictures in a realistic and coherent whole. I will never know these microcosm, but for 5 years I felt I was part of them.

</comment><comment><USER23> "Omar's coming!"

<comment><USER24> Not to be a pedant, but one of the best things about The Wire is the language..."Omar comin!" or "knockos" instead of "narcos" (narco cops) or "Hamsterdam," a mishearing of "Amsterdam."

<comment><USER25> I saw an article that said the UK audience required a Rosetta Stone for the Baltimore street talk, both words and accents.

<comment><USER26> They didn't.

In general people in the UK can understand most Americans. People in the US are fucking baffled when they hear someone from the UK say "herb" or "water".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> He also has a documentary series on Viceland, called black market. Very good look into illegal underworlds.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is Facebook's data worth that much? How is it used? - <AUTHOR> I understand the basic idea yet I am curious as to why this data is so important and meaningful. Better ad targeting is one thing but what else? <comment><USER2> Anecdote: Two days ago, I bought some drain cleaner. I paid with a credit card. This morning, for the first time, Facebook presented me with an ad for Liquid Plumber (a drain cleaner).

Without my ever giving them my credit card number, they or the attendant ad agency have cross-linked my credit card with my Facebook account. :-(

This may be more noticeable to me, because Facebook on my phone is one of the few places I haven't blocked ads. I don't block them out of spite; I block them because, 1) They completely distract me, when they move and make noise; 2) I've yet to encounter an ad network I trust.

I simply don't do much secure stuff on my phone, and I use a separate email account on it that's not tied to anything significant.

Facebook on my phone is also eerie in presenting content and ads that relate to what I've recently been doing. If they aren't outright monitoring my conversations, they are damned good at determining my location (while my GPS is turned off) and making remarkable inferences as to what the topics at hand likely were.

If it weren't the default means my wide-ranging friends use to keep in touch, I'd by having a serious conversation with myself today as to whether it was time to uninstall it. I'm still debating; just don't want to fall out of touch with those friends.

P.S. As has been mentioned here frequently, FB maintains shadow profiles for people who don't have Facebook accounts.

Facebook is becoming a primary connection / cross-reference between market activity (e.g. shopping) and personal data (not just ZIP, age, etc. demographics, but likes and activities, and that all-important social network).

<comment><AUTHOR> That is very Orwellian and disturbing to me. We are treated like farm animals, domesticated for our data, and most people seem to be perfectly okay with it.

Not sure what to think right now.

<comment><USER3> But how else will you find out what Disney princess you are? Or what complete strangers ate for breakfast? Facebook knows whats best for us. I for one welcome our all knowing algorithmic overlords.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The advertisement industry moves an insane amount of money. People pay up to several dollars for a single potential customer ending up on their website(s).

<comment><USER5> People pay up to several _hundred_ dollars for a single customer ending up on their website, in some industries.

(Check out the pricing on Adwords for serious medical conditions some time.)

<comment><USER6> Ads for lawyers have ridiculously high prices in Adwords. Since my first job was in a firm that handled marketing for personal injury lawyers, I had an impression that adwords was really expensive and ws wondering why the ads were so ubiquitous for low revenue businesses too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There was this article on how Trump won the elections thanks to the very precise and narrow-targeted ads on social networks where all the right messages were shown to just the right audience. Not only Facebook gathers the private info you obviously put on your profile, but also what you like, what you respond to, what you even look at - crazy detailed statistics. This allows them sell you anything like magicians because they know everything about you and what you like and HOW you like it.</comment>


Towards a dynamic multiscale personal information space - <AUTHOR> https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3397537.3397542 <comment><AUTHOR> A visionary paper synthesizing Alan Kay, Bret Victor, and recent research in visualization and computational notebooks. "Rethink[ing] the nature of information".</comment>


We Said We'd Be Transparent … WIRED's First Big HTTPS Snag - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/05/wired-first-big-https-rollout-snag/ <comment><USER2> There's irony in a company that talks "transparency"... in an article with a 5-second-delay popup paywall.

<comment><USER3> To make these anti-adblock annoyances go away, in uBlock Origin, go to the 3rd Party Filters tab and check "Anti-Adblock Killer | Reek" under the Ads heading.</comment></comment>


Show HN: LeadQ – Qualify leads 10x faster, Tinder style - <AUTHOR> http://www.leadq.io <comment><USER2> It's really bad to have booster accounts upvote your post and even worse to have them comment in the thread. Whether they're sockpuppets or just friends and fans, it's against the rules (see [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)) and not in your interest because we ban accounts and sites that do it. Also, HN users are good at picking up on it and eagerly flag such submissions. So, not a good idea all around.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Basically what we do is that the user uploads a CSV with a list of domains and we then take screenshots of each and every domain and show it to the user with enriched data.

The user then marks each item as 'Lead' or 'Junk', Tinder style!

This saves a lot of time, because the normal way to do this is just having an Excel file with lists of potential leads and then you'd have to copy and paste the URI into a browser and wait for it to load before taking a decision for each item.

This takes way too much time so we built a tool that lets you do it 10x faster.

We wanted to solve this problem, because we encountered it ourselves with our main product (we had a list of 60K companies and had to sort the junk out of the list).

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on LeadQ.

<comment><USER3> Still confused by this.

How is a domain a "lead"? Aren't leads usually potential customers and, therefore, people?

Are you saying you have a list of target companies, and you want to tell -- by visually examining their website -- whether the company is likely to need your service?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly how it works, we also gather more data about each company such as Alexa Rank, traffic data, and data from LinkedIn as well.

Basically you save a lot of time by using LeadQ because it takes so much time to manually copy the URI from an excel file and putting it into the browser and waiting for the webpage to load and then taking a decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello,

My name is Albert and I'm one of the founders of LeadQ.

If you sign up, you'll get free credits inside the app.

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to contact us on email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER4> UI looks really good! Will give it a try</comment>


Hong Kong Activist Joshua Wong Urges Starbucks to Cancel Hong Kong Franchise - <AUTHOR> https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/hong-kong-activist-joshua-wong-urges-starbucks-to-cancel-local-franchise <comment><USER2> In essence his view of democracy is thus " _have correct opinions or else_ "

It is quite extraordinary to call for a business to be bankrupted just because the owner stated a fact by calling violent protests 'riots'.</comment>