Ask HN: Do you read papers / pdfs on your Kindle? - <AUTHOR>

I'm thinking of getting a Kindle 2 for reading academic papers and books in pdf form. Most of the things I want to read are equation and/or diagram heavy, so I'm curious how well the Kindle works for this type of thing.
Is the 6" version good enough, or do you really need the 9" DX?
How about page refresh speed, navigation, and search?
How easy is it to get pdfs onto the Kindle? <comment><USER2> I have a Kindle 3, and it's possible to read papers, but it's still pretty small. I'm looking at picking up something a bit bigger, probably in tablet form (or preferably with a PixelQi screen) in the next 6-8 months that would work a bit better. I haven't used the 9" DX, but I assume it would do the job better than the Kindle 3, just on basis of size.

PDFs are easy to get onto the Kindle (3, anyway): just move them onto the onboard memory, and they show up like a .azw or .mobi file would.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have the 9" DX and I use it regularly to read technical papers. It's just about the right size for that; I wouldn't want something smaller since there are already occasions when things get a little too small. I find it works reasonably well for reading and navigating PDF's (no detrimental delays).

Putting PDF's on a Kindle is easy -- just plug it in to your computer over USB and it acts like a flash drive.</comment>


Google Chrome more popular than Safari - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5426989/chrome-beats-safari

<comment><USER2> I've been a Mactard for years and a big fan of Safari, but Chrome has become my default browser on my Mac.

Chrome became the default on my PC at work as soon as I could get it installed a year ago.

The beauty of Chrome is its speed and elegance. Omnibox for searches, the behaviour of tabs (remembering which tab spawned the subsequent one), and the ability to use icons only for the bookmarks bar are three things that Safari doesn't do.

The addition of extensions for the PC have cemented its position there, and when those services are added to the Mac version life gets better.

Firefox does most of this, of course, but it looks and feels bloated and old on both platforms.

I will forever love Firefox for freeing us from Microsoft's IE tyranny, but Chrome is truly firing on all 8 cylinders these days, pun intended.

<comment><USER3> I've tried using Chrome as my default browser on Mac many times, but always end up going back to Safari. Chrome just isn't ready yet.

It has no bookmark manager, so when you have more bookmarks than space on the toolbar, there is literally no way to move them around short of deleting enough so that they all fit on the toolbar then moving them around. I ran into this when I wanted to add a new one to my toolbar and it was not possible. There is no way to rearrange them in the menu.

The scrolling in Chrome annoys me by being all herky jerky.

Lack of bookmark synching in Chrome is annoying. I have a desktop at work and a laptop for home use and it's so nice having my bookmarks sync up with Safari without any intervention.

Chrome on Mac is the first browser I've used where if I scroll down a page, go to a link on that page, then hit my back button it doesn't go back to where I was before. I have to scroll down the page again manually.

I'm a 1Password user and they do not have a version of their plugin that works for Chrome.

Chrome also does not make use of the standard OS X Keychain. So I have to put all of my passwords in again manually. Huge pain.

Some of these things can supposedly be remedied by using the latest version of Chromium which has extensions enabled and installing random extensions, but that is a workaround for a browser that's not ready yet.

Until it is possible to rearrange my bookmarks, sync them, use 1Password, scroll smoothly, and not have to scroll every time I hit the back button, I'll stick with Safari. Chrome has great potential, but is still not to the point where it can serve as a valid replacement for me. When I'm using Windows, it's my default for sure, but on Mac Chrome isn't ready yet.

<comment><USER4> "The scrolling in Chrome annoys me by being all herky jerky."

Call me shallow, but that's the biggest blocker for me.

<comment><USER5> Shallow? Not at all. It's an irritating visual disruption that you see every time you interact with a web page. Those small things make the most enormous difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Market share doesn't matter. What matters is person-hours of internet usage. Chrome users are on the internet for hours every day. It's part of their job. IE users are on the computer maybe once a day at the end of the day to check their Hotmail accounts. Since I'm online much more, I'm worth much more to Google, because as I search in the address bar I come across many Google ads from my Google search results. Some of which I click on.

<comment><USER7> But you might be way less likely to click on ads, because you had more training in ignoring them, than those IE users.

<comment><USER8> By that reasoning alone though IE users would be more valuable to Google than Chrome users. I think ultimately it boils down to controlling the user's means of access, probably with more long-term aims in mind, in which case it could be argued that it is raw market share that matters after all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Chrome is the new FireFox--the quickly moving upstart. A great thing as FireFox is quickly losing its shine.

<comment><USER10> Honestly I hope Chrome is the _new IE_. If it chips away at Safari or Firefox marketshare, that's no win for anyone- those are already damn good browsers.

Personally, thus far, I've yet to see anything in Chrome that would make me jump ship (and I've been trying it for a while). I can do serious development with Firefox and I can have minimalist browsing with Safari.

<comment><USER11> The only reason I switched from Firefox because its a memory hog, the longer you use it the slower it gets and eventually crashes - If it was once in a while I could live with that but it happens too frequently. Also installing extensions on Firefox can effect the browser performance, so the more extensions you use more often your browser will crash and slower it will get. Every time there is a extension upgrade you need to go through 2-3 steps and restart browser to install them.

With Chrome, I have 23 extensions installed at the moment, it performs as good as having no extension installed. I can't even imagine having 23 extensions on Firefox. All the extensions updates are done on the back ground, install it and forget about it. I had some browser crashes on the early chrome builds but since the last 8 months I didnt have a single browser crash and I am using dev channel.

IMO chrome is head over heels better than Firefox (this coming from a former Firefox fan boy) and you need to use it more than 5 minutes to really appreciate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can't see why anyone would stick with safari giving that Chrome runs the same rendering engine, a faster JS engine and extensions.

<comment><USER13> Scrolling is broken. The difference is minimal, but Chrome doesn't scroll the same as native OS X apps. It's the same with Firefox (only worse).

I scroll all the time. So it should better work perfectly. With Chrome, it doesn't. Switching between my feedreader and Chrome made my fingers hurt.

(This is, by the way, something many OS X apps get wrong. All of MS Office, iTunes and so on.)

<comment><USER14> What's the prob specifically? That the speed is different?

<comment><USER13> It scrolls faster, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It doesn't hurt that Google has been pushing chrome via ads like crack.

<comment><USER16> or that its faster than all other browsers in my experience.

<comment><USER15> Which one is the bigger population that can statically accommodate this growth? the set of people who consciously shop for browsers with faster Javascript VMs and faster startup times, or the set of people who click on Google ads? Specially authoritative looking ones?

Let's be real.

<comment><USER17> It's not like the performance increase is subtle.

The five buttons you have to click, each saying 'I acknowledge that this software may set my computer on fire' before you can even run an installer on windows has really cut down on program installation by the unwashed masses- in short, I think you are wrong.

<comment><USER15> You are forgetting what people had to cope with before. The new security popups are nothing compared to the abuse shareware has heaped on users.

If the security warnings are discouraging people from installing new software, they would equally discourage Chrome and Safari installation. So this is not an issue.

When it comes to web users, I lean towards them being "naive". You are free to hold a positive impression of the world as benchmarking enthusiasts :-)

<comment><USER11> For some reason you get no security warning when installing chrome on vista or windows 7. I have done this in several windows 7 machines, no popups no nothing, just accept terms and click install and chrome is installed. Can anyone else verify this? I am using dev builds, if that makes any difference.

<comment><USER18> That's because it only installs for the current user, not everyone on your machine. The exe is located in C:\Users\\[User]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe

<comment><USER19> I actually hate that behaviour, specially as the family computer does have several user accounts.

<comment><USER11> takes less than 1 minute to install...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've switched to Chrome primarily because my MB Pro is a little short of memory (should upgrade soon), and Chrome seems to use a lot less real memory (as reported by activity manager) than Safari does. Safari seems to get upto 300 Mbytes pretty quickly, while Chrome stays around 60 Mbytes. My personal experience is that that seems to keep the system from bogging down periodically. Once I upgrade the memory, we'll see.

One potential problem for Chrome, at least for the type of users we see here, is any potential issue with adblockers. Wasn't there some news items about Google possibly being less than thrilled with such extensions (understandably)? I know quite a few people for whom a good adblocking solution is essential, and they stick with Firefox exclusively.

</comment><comment><USER21> The single feature preventing me from using Safari on Windows as my default browser is an option to open new tabs instead of new windows without some sort of "special" click. My annoyance lvel over this missing feature is becoming unreasonable.

<comment><USER22> the following terminal command will change Safari's default behavior to open all "new window" links in new tabs

       defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

EDIT: as slig kindly pointed out, this tip won't help Windows users.

<comment><USER12> Nice tip, but he says that the problem is on Windows.

<comment><USER23> You could email the Safari preferences file to somebody with a Mac and have them run the command.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Given the rate at which Chrome is revolutionizing browser related technologies, I even think Chrome might overtake Firefox in market share very shortly.

<comment><USER25> Chrome's market share is a considerable jump to say it was released little over a year ago. I never saw this kind of growth for Firefox until the paid ads started appearing everywhere.

Chrome has attained in its first year the same average market growth of Firefox (roughly 4.5%) that it attained in 5 years with paid referral programs and advertisements everywhere. I wonder what growth Chrome will attain when it hits the rapid phase of its growth.

Also to consider is Microsoft is shipping Windows 7 in Europe with IE, Firefox, Chrome and another IIRC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm staying with Firefox for the time being even though Chrome maximises screen real estate and scrolls better (larger increments). The reason is the Tab Hunter extension.

One of the biggest issues I have is finding my tabs, and Tab Hunter is ideal for that purpose.

</comment><comment><USER27> Either way, it's a win for WebKit.

<comment><USER28> Which was made what it is today with heavy contributions from Apple. Man, that's gotta sting a little bit :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Chrome just doesn't do it for me [yet]. I'm sticking with Opera for the foreseeable future. For me, "great speed + few features" doesn't beat "adequate speed + great features".

</comment><comment><USER30> Great! I like how safari looks but Apple's refusal to allow third party extensions has always soured me on the program and meant I never really seriously adopted it over FF. I just cannot live without ABP.

Chrome's a great browser and with the extensions has become the best browser on Windows IMO. Mac doesn't support extensions yet but they are presumably coming, and when they do it'll be the best browser on Mac, too, unless FF pulls something out of their hat ..

<comment><USER31> What do you mean by 'Apple's refusal to allow third party extensions'? For example, I'm using Click to Flash for in Safari at the moment.

<comment><USER23> Click to Flash isn't really an extension. Your browser sees it, like Flash, as a plug-in that can handle certain content. But instead of actually presenting that content, it draws a gradient and some text until you click on it (at which point it hands control off to the actual Flash plug-in).

Real browser extensions allow you to do a lot more than this.</comment></comment></comment>


Richard Garriott: the man, the myth, the mischief - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/features/2017/1/30/14406074/richard-garriott-book-interview <comment><USER2> My favorite Ultima-related story is "The Assassination of Lord British":

[http://massivelyop.com/2015/10/03/the-game-archaeologist- the...](http://massivelyop.com/2015/10/03/the-game-archaeologist-the- assassination-of-lord-british/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Interested to see what Shroud of the Avatar will be like, whenever it's finished. I got thousands of hours of entertainment from Ultima Online, and Shroud is said to be "UO 2 with a different name." He makes a good point that the Steam audience is a different beast; as a whole they aren't very tolerant of alpha releases, with good reason.

<comment><USER2> I've been an Ultima fan since Ultima III, and rate Ultima IV the best of the Ultimas. Yet today, all of the Ultimas are pretty insufferable to me. They're too simplistic. Too cliche. Too limited. I expect a lot more from a game today than pretty much any game of the 80's or 90's could deliver.

I haven't played Shroud of the Avatar, and have only read the reviews of it on Steam, but I don't think I'm a typical Steam gamer, if only because I'm much older and have played many of the original Ultimas when they came out. Still, the Steam reviews, if they are to be believed, make Shroud of the Avatar sound like a gigantic disappointment.

Garriott does not seem to want to take any of the criticisms seriously, and never really addresses any of the really deep criticisms, of which there are many. He just brushes them off with a few words about the game looking _" unfinished, unpolished, with only a few weapons and an obtuse UI"_.

The impression I'm left with is that either he's in denial or hundreds of negative Steam reviewers are fools or exquisite liars. I really doubt the latter is the case, and don't hold out much hope for this game, though I'd love to see Garriott emerge triumphant and for Shroud of the Avatar to become a groundbreaking classic like his early games.</comment></comment>


Zoom is reinstalling itself after a minute of being uninstalled [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AL28s9An5k <comment><USER2> I couldn't reproduce it (Mac, Mojave 10.14.5). I did this:

1\. Ensure Zoom client is not running (the GUI, not the ZoomOpener)

2\. Completely delete Zoom client app from /Applications, empty trash

(ZoomOpener continues to run from ~/.zoomus/, not just from memory, it is never deleted)

3\. Wait 5 minutes

However, if you click on any Zoom link after you've done those three steps, it will absolutely re-install that client app into /Applications AND launch it into that video room. I confirmed that.

I still feel this is a violation of my trust and I'm uninstalling this app entirely and won't use Zoom again.

Also, if Apple actually cared about the Mac and privacy like they say they do, they would temporarily revoke Zoom's app signing key until they cut this shit out.

<comment><USER3> You sure you want that last sentence? If that were happening, we would all be commenting on here about how Apple decides who succeeds and who fails by threatening to revoke companies' keys on a whim.

<comment><USER4> Apple did that when Facebook was abusing enterprise signed apps and nobody threw shade at Apple. There's a time and place for that, and this is it.

Now, if Apple revoked their cert because they didn't like Zooms view on <some political issue> then I'd be ranting and raving with the rest of HN.

<comment><USER3> Ok thanks for the example. I hadn't heard of that, so I just briefly read about it. It looked like there were clear terms about the Enterprise apps: that it was for internal, employee use. Facebook was distributing it to non employees. I imagine that is why there was little shade thrown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really hope Zoom promptly fixes all these recent issues. I've used so many video conferencing solutions. Vidyo was amazingly unreliable. BlueJeans had the most amazingly awful interface I've ever encountered. P2P WebRTC solutions get destroyed when there's more than a couple people on a call. Hangouts has decent call quality but had spooky issues, like all parties joining a call, but each appearing as if they're the only ones present.

Zoom is the only solution that's been decent for me. The UI for the desktop client is a bit rough around the edges, but it's certainly not the worst. I'd really like to continue to like Zoom but I can't do that if they're going to do shady things or bungle security.

<comment><USER6> _The UI for the desktop client is a bit rough around the edges, but it 's certainly not the worst._

It is the worst for giving presentations. I had practiced for giving a presentation from my MacBook, and it was sprung on me when I arrived. Zoom "oh so helpfully" pops down a control panel every time the mouse cursor approaches the menus at the top of the screen. It also "oh so helpfully" puts itself into fullscreen when I don't want it to do that.

As far as I'm concerned, the UX is bungled.

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately the default settings aren't great. But if you've got the patience to configure it (e.g., you're a remote employee) it's much more tolerable.

<comment><USER6> So basically, you have to become a Zoom expert to make it good for presentations? Funny, but Keynote hooked up to a projector or a screen just works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems like ZoomOpener automatically reinstalls the Zoom app if it is uninstalled? [1]

[1][https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362983-How- to-u...](https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362983-How-to-uninstall- Zoom-on-a-Mac-)

<comment><USER8> This support article was silently updated after the Zoom debacle. Google cache has the old version, that doesn't mention removing their trojan:

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QxuW6p...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QxuW6pW- XjAJ:https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362983-How-to-uninstall- Zoom-on-a-Mac-+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

>To uninstall any Mac App, see this article by Apple. Please also see [http://www.wikihow.com/Uninstall-Programs-on-Mac- Computers](http://www.wikihow.com/Uninstall-Programs-on-Mac-Computers)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Related?

[https://email@example.com/zoom-zero- day-4-milli...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com/zoom-zero- day-4-million-webcams-maybe-an-rce-just-get-them-to-visit-your-website- ac75c83f4ef5)

</comment><comment><USER10> Could you explain the problem in words, please? Not in a position to watch a video right now.

<comment><USER11> It's a silent video of less than two minutes. It shows a user on macOS quitting the Zoom app[1], dragging it to the Trash and emptying it. They stay still for about one minute and fifteen seconds, at which point Zoom pops up on the Dock again, opening its window.

[1]: This Zoom: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20387298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20387298)

<comment><USER10> Thanks! That was a lot quicker to read than watching the video.

<comment><USER12> Thank you everyone for this little thread. This is exactly what I am looking for when I read the comments to a video link!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Between 00:15 and 01:30 it's just waiting, so you might want to skip that section if you're only interested in seeing it happen.

</comment><comment><USER13> Give this a try:

[https://www.objective- see.com/products/blockblock.html](https://www.objective- see.com/products/blockblock.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Are we sure they're not just using fleetsmith to install it and trolling all of us with the zoom news going on?

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks like a background self-update was in progress while it was deleted?

Or is there an official uninstaller, and Zoom simply tries to "fix" itself after the deletion-hook was invoked by MacOS? I can imagine plenty of people wondering why Zoom doesn't work after they "moved it".

<comment><AUTHOR> Very unlikely, because we've double-checked on a couple of machines at the office here. Only on Mac though. Would be useful if we get some more confirmations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am pretty confident the Zoom team can fix this and the other issues mentioned in the great security article from yesterday. They seem to do good stuff and I love how well it works.

<comment><USER17> Lol, is this a paid account? This seems to ignore just how bad this issue is.

<comment><USER16> Super bad issue, just merely voicing I think they will fix it. Everyone seems to go into this shark feeding frenzy of how they are terrible and will never fix it. I get tired of that shit and merely pointing out this is a well run big company and they are going to fix it.

The mob mentality in these comments is overwhelming sometimes.

<comment><USER18> The question is not "Will it be fixed?" but "Why is it there In the first place?" Given that the app makes a request to zipow.com to download the new installer, the auto-reinstallation is not a bug or an issue, but an intentional and anti-consumer design decision.

<comment><USER16> Yep but everyone in this community should know the answer there, we aren't perfect, we don't think about everything and we make mistakes. Then you fix them.

Too many people are just piling on without examining themselves and their own work.

<comment> en-us You're ignoring much of the story, such as the part where they ignored the issue for months and then released a patch that they were told is ineffective.

So yes, we all make mistakes, and we should fix them promptly and correctly. Zoom did neither, and then put out that nonsense PR blog.

There's no way I will trust that company again after how they handled this.

<comment><USER16> Not ignoring, but I've seen similar from many companies we all work for. Of course, your criticism against them is fair too. And, I can also show you many companies who haven't gotten their shit together in 90 to 120 days too.

Give them some time and I think they will fix this and fix the issues that caused them to not catch this the first time and fix it as quickly as we would all like.

<comment><USER18> If you go into the bathroom of a restaurant and see cockroaches, would you feel comforted by management telling you to give them time, because they will definitely get rid of them and to not be too worried that they haven't already gotten rid of them?

<comment><USER16> Bad analogy :)

But you guys do what you want, I am getting tired of the mob mentality and extremism that seems to permeate these and other discussions. Why not give them some time and not adopt such an extreme position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Luckily I use Pi Hole I just Blacklisted zoom.us and zipow.com

<comment><USER20> Pi Hole only covers DNS queries though, right?

<comment><USER19> Yep, but from the original [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20387298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20387298) it looks like zoom uses zipow.com for re-install</comment></comment></comment>


Ethernet will never work (1974) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/aka_pugs/status/1236356815626981376 <comment><USER4> From the middle of that thread[0] we discover that the original author of the original memo commented on it in 2008[1]. That follow-up is definitely worth reading to better understand the context of the memo.

Not reading the follow-up and still criticising/laughing at the original memo is thoroughly unjust. I've submitted[2] the follow-up as a separate item if people want to comment on it.

[0] [https://twitter.com/_space_train/status/1236373295429226496](https://twitter.com/_space_train/status/1236373295429226496)

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1xz13/in_1974_x...](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1xz13/in_1974_xerox_parc_engineers_invented_ethernet/c043yl0/)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22517640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22517640)

<comment><USER5> That's certainly helpful.

However, both the original memo, and the reddit update have the same sort of condescending/arrogant tone. That probably was as much a factor in why people jumped to conclusions as anything else.

<comment><USER6> Original memo gives good pointers, references, and ways to improve. It is also very short. I would love this critisizm on my work.

<comment><USER5> Would you love it arriving as a letter to your boss's boss, with no prior discussion? Also, it includes quite a lot of unneeded pejorative rhetoric that adds no value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Bachrach gave an account of writing the memo on Reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1xz13/in_1974_x...](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1xz13/in_1974_xerox_parc_engineers_invented_ethernet/)

According to his account, the original version of Ethernet had the problems he outlined in his memo, but in response the Ethernet designers made changes to account for them.

<comment><USER8> Bachrach was also, basically, correct. The collision contention issue with Ethernet did limit the effective throughput of networks, which is why we now exclusively use Ethernet in configurations in which there is no collision contention (star topology, full duplex links).

While his delivery is a bit harsh I think Bachrach's criticism was completely valid. As a matter which is perhaps more product than technical, Ethernet's downside resulting from collisions turned out to be an acceptable tradeoff for its other advantages (including simplicity and low cost compared to the non- collision systems of the time). However, it was indeed a significant limitation, and so continued development of Ethernet has had to find ways to eliminate the problem.

<comment><USER9> Except wireless internet used/uses a similar backoff trick, since a wireless channel is just like a hub. I'm not hip on the latest tech, but I think they use things like collision avoidance now.

<comment><USER8> This is exactly why Ethernet behaved that way - Metcalfe credits the idea to ALOHA, an early wireless network protocol. However, that doesn't by any means make collision detection _ideal_. Collision avoidance is strictly better for performance, it was just judged infeasible for Ethernet at the time - <USER2> turned out to be a good call as Ethernet would almost certainly not be as popular as it was today had it used a collision avoidance scheme like most of its competition. However, times change, and Ethernet has been collision-free in the vast majority of applications for a couple of decades while wireless protocols are also gaining collision avoidance across the board.

<comment><USER10> Now I'm curious. I thought collision avoidance generally meant giving each machine a more or less constant allocation of 1/N of the total bandwidth, efficient when every machine wants to transmit all the time, but in the usual case where traffic is unpredictably bursty and most machines are idle most of the time, collision detection is in practice better. But you say collision avoidance is _strictly_ better. Why?

<comment><USER11> One issue you have is it's difficult for everyone to see the same line condition. There is always a small chance you'll see a collision anyways. When the network gets busy that small chance becomes no longer small. And every time you have a collision you have a retransmission. Eventually the network begins to thrash.

What I've seen with wireless stuff is simple algorithms can only get you to about 20% network utilization.

<comment><USER10> There is some theorem that says network utilization with collision detection can be as low as 1/e^2, though in practice it rarely approaches that. 20% sounds like a plausible bad case if the network is heavily loaded and the stars are not lining up right.

But how do you get dramatically better with collision avoidance? If you've allocated most of the available bandwidth to machines that are leaving it unused, utilization could well drop substantially below 20%.

<comment><USER11> If you look at token ring, idle machines just pass the token on if they don't have a packet to send. Other systems have central coordination and assign 'channels'. I think Bluetooth tries to do that for audio. (unsure)

<comment><USER12> BT channel-hops 1600 times/second - at least that's what it did years ago when I memorized this for an exam. I don't recall audio getting some special handling, but it was only SBC and maybe AptX back then.

Yes, WiFi can run some coordination function, but can't recall the details. Maybe it's called DCF/Distributed coordination function (same exam, I think 54 or 108MBit was the norm back then. So probably terribly outdated - but indeed: coordination isn't new for WiFi).

(Yes, I could look up everything, but don't have the time right now ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I remember having a conversation with my dead 1-2 decades ago about switched ethernet. he was involved in network protocol development back in the 70s and was very familiar with AlohaNet and how ethernet borrowed from it. but had moved in a different direction in the decades since

When I mentioned switched ethernet, he looked at me blankly and said something along the lines of (take some of it as hyperbole). "that's not ethernet? the whole point of ethernet is dealing with collisions. it's not ethernet without a medium where colluions can happen. heck, if we could have given everyone a private link, networking would have been easy"

</comment><comment><USER14> Here's the text transcript for those who have a hard time reading this blurry document:

To: Bob Metcalf and Dave Boggs

Date: March 5, 1979

From R.E. Bachrach

Location: PARC - Bldg. 31

Subect: Comments on "Draft Ethernet Overview"

Organization: GSL - <USER3>

I have read with dismay your presentation "Draft Ethernet Overview". As I am sure you are aware, technically or conceptually there is nothing new in your proposal. Perhaps appropriately, you have chosen a coined jargon utilizing discredited scientific conceptual expression in which to frame your ideas. I find your analysis on the proposed interconnection lacking in technical credibility. Quantitative statistical analysis would show that your proposed system would be a failure. You have tried to adopt a scheme inappropriate to the intended engineering application. A random transmission scheme such as you propose, along with the quasi-de-randomizing hardware you invoke to patch the obvious deficiency, would place in fact an undo hardware, software, and scheduling problem on the individual stations.

You should seriously reconsider your basic premise and formulate fully and logically all the parameters necessary to evaluate the system. Your transmission medium or environment is not quantum noise limited. Simple analysis shows that imposing a poisson (i.e., random) statistics on message transmission drastically reduces the available effective bandwidth. Such a system is effective (reasonable) only in the limit of negligible average bit transmission rates. In fact you will want to maintain as high an effective transmission rate as possible. This requires a synchronized system. The fallacy in your conception is that the stations should be transmitting randomly. One possibility for a synchronized system would be time division multiplexing. You should seriously study how the telephone companies handle this problem. For example, the A.T.T Long lines T2 buried microwave link multiplexes close to 10^7 - 6 KHz channels.

Most importantly, you should fully define your engineering application before proceeding further. You specify an undefined message packet length, a 1 mile or 1 mile diameter look and 256 stations working ad 3Mbs rate. What is the nature of the station? How many bits transmitted does an activity require and what is the expected average rate that the 256 stations will be seeking use of the bus in the contemplated application? What is a tolerable dead time for a given station to acquire a full set of data? The worst case delay for your 1 mile loop is 2~ usec. what effect dos this have on far stations getting locked out, etc. . . ?

Robert Bachrach

<comment><USER15> The article seems to miss the concept of criticizing an idea without criticizing the individual. This approach is ineffective as a means of communication. It just looks like mud-slinging and it always comes off as a defense mechanism. Even when one is genuinely interested in addressing the issue this obscures that intent.

Edit: Also, thank you for posting the text. I came to the comments hoping this had been done.

<comment><USER16> Seventies-era Xerox PARC cultivated a deliberately confrontational environment for its researchers. They managed to accomplish some great things.

<comment><USER17> "They managed to accomplish some great things" in spite of being jerks to each other.

Imagine what they could've accomplished if they had empathy and were collegial with each other.

<comment><USER11> When you consider, other people took their ideas and build companies worth hundreds of billions out of them, but they themselves didn't. hmmm...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Should be read in conjunction with [https://web.archive.org/web/20080528221818/https://www.bytec...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080528221818/https://www.bytecoder.com/2008/05/25/xerox-1974-ethernet- would-be-a-failure-robert-bachrach-response/)

</comment><comment><USER5> There's an interesting interview where Metcalf shares his memory of the memo.

An excerpt:

 _" Metcalfe: My mom used to say if you can't say something nice about someone you should just hold your tongue. But Bachrach was a not nice person. Or is for that matter; he may still be around for all I know. He was sort of a grouchy physicist on another floor in another lab, and he read my memo. And this is a physicist. The phrase you didn't catch in his now famous memo -- this memo's posted all over the world because everyone thinks it's a hoot that he wrote this memo -- he said the problem with Ethernet was that it was not quantum noise limited, which is a very physicist thing to say. Of course it's not quantum noise limited! That wasn't the point. But he resented the fact that we were not using every shred of bandwidth that was capable. I told you how we decided on the clock speed. There were gigabits per second of capacity on that cable, and we were using a pitiful few megabits of it. But he was concerned that it wasn't... And he did a nasty thing, and it was sort of an early lesson in nastiness, which is he wrote a memo. He didn't come see me. He didn't say, "I just read your memo and I have a few questions about it". He didn't do that. He sent a memo to my boss's boss accusing me of writing something that wasn't new and it wasn't quantum [noise limited], completely making an idiot of himself. But it didn't feel that way at the time. It felt kind of nasty. The next thing I know I'm in my boss's boss's office having to explain how this guy's an idiot. Which he is, or was. To put it more kindly, he was from a different universe. I was in a computer science universe, he was in a physics universe. We were solving different problems and he should have minded his own business. Or at least come talk to me before sending a memo to my boss's boss, so maybe I could save him the embarrassment. There are many places where I go where that memo is on the wall, pinned to some cubicle -- "the old Bachrach memo" -- because it's just such a great example. Now Bachrach, I ran into him a decade or two after that unfortunate memo, whereupon he was letting it be known that he'd helped invent Ethernet. How he got there I don't quite know, but it had something to do with this memo being really instrumental in fixing some of the early problems with Ethernet, which is a complete hallucination."_

[http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_Histo...](http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/Metcalfe_Robert_1/Metcalfe_Robert_1_2.oral_history.2006.7.102657995.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> I think the issue with this memo is not the technical concerns, but the insulting adjectives used in it. I cant imagine communicating with colleagues like that now a days. If you got technical concerns just point them out in a bullet list and leave the negative remarks out.

<comment><USER20> I understand where you're coming from regarding the tone of the memo, but I think it's important to keep in mind that this was not a public critique. The author mentions in a reddit post that this was originally a confidential internal document, and written in the context of a very small group of like minded coworkers who knew each other personally. I have certainly said or written things to coworkers of mine, who I count as respected friends and confidants, that if taken out of context and published for all to read would sound obnoxious if not reprehensible. The author had no idea that this private critique would be read by the general public 40 years later.

<comment><USER21> Check the comment from the original presentation's author too. Apparently Bachrach didn't send this memo to him, but to the _boss of his boss_. I'm happy I've never had to work in an environment as hostile as that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A human readable copy:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20080528224324/http://bytecoder....](https://web.archive.org/web/20080528224324/http://bytecoder.com/2006/09/28/xerox-1974-ethernet- would-be-a-failure/)

</comment><comment><USER16> The funniest part about these tone police comments is that people are concerned about somebody hurting _Bob Metcalfe 's_ feelings.

</comment><comment><USER23> Sounds like he knew what he was talking about...

I didn't get "Ethernet will never work" from this memo, I got "you have some serious flaws you need to fix first."

Maybe it was the tone that made people jump on this. I can tell you, I appreciate the candor of someone willing to call you out like this before you go down the rabbit hole of mistakes you're about to make.

</comment><comment><USER24> Back in the early '90s I used some network that ran over CAT-3 copper, and they had some sort of time slot so there were no collisions. I wish I could remember the name. Our Netware admin swore by it, because no collisions! IIRC, the throughput was 200kbps.

It was, basically unusuable. We eventually switched our development network (8 machines) and customer network (25 machines) over to 10-base-2 Ethernet, and it was blazing in comparison. The Netware guy was sure it would be terrible because of the collisions.

This memo reminds me a bit of that: in theory the other network was better, but in the real world Ethernet worked pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER25> Note that what we now call Ethernet does not work like this (CSMA/CD) any more, now that we exclusively use switches instead of passive hubs. Wifi does, though.

</comment><comment><USER26> So crazy that so many things came out of particle physics experiments: Ethernet, WWW, ... kind of crazy

</comment><comment><USER27> Oh, wow, he misspelled undue. What a freaking moron!

<comment><USER28> When I read old text I frequently note that this sort of typo seems more common in the 70s. There was likely nothing checking the spelling. And certainly no editors putting squigglies. No place to Google your spelling doubts. And annoying to correct typewriter mistakes.

Also, "undo" is a valid dictionary word.</comment></comment>


NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/noaa-satellites-helped-save-record-421-lives-in-2019 <comment><USER2> I have one of these beacons and take it with me most times I'm going out alone into the wilderness. I don't want to be the guy who had to cut his own arm off after it got trapped by a falling boulder.

That being said, this is an interesting spin on the number. I've been hearing from friends on Search and Rescue crews that an increasing number of people are going out hiking being completely unprepared for any possible emergency, thinking that they'll just use their cell phone if anything goes wrong. I wonder if any of these beacon carriers fall closer into that camp than true serious conditions, though I suspect that simply carrying a beacon puts you in a higher preparedness bracket than the cell-phone only crew.

<comment><USER3> _I 've been hearing from friends on Search and Rescue crews that an increasing number of people are going out hiking being completely unprepared for any possible emergency, thinking that they'll just use their cell phone if anything goes wrong._

This is so true.

I live in the desert, and it's amazing the number of people who simply don't take the natural world seriously.

The dead and rescued are almost always tourists. And for some reason, almost always from Europe (I suspect because my observation has been that Asians tend to travel in large groups on air conditioned buses). They drive rental cars into deep sand and get stuck and die. They run out of gas and get stuck and die. They never bring enough food or water and don't know what to do in an emergency.

I was at a hotel on the Navajo Reservation (Arizona/New Mexico/Utah) about a year ago and there was a British couple arguing with the manager that of course their cell phone should work, they bought it in San Francisco. I tired to explain to them that the whole reason people visit places like this is to get away from technology. Even though I'm sure there are remote places in Europe, they had no concept that there are places in the world where there's no cell service.

A couple of years ago there was an article in the newspaper about a German guy who decided to rent a Harley Davidson and drive through the desert like some kind of David Hasselhof fantasy. It was 115° and he was in full-on black leather gear. They found him dead on the side of the road, still sitting on his motorcycle with his helmet on.

\--:--

Editing to add the results from a four-second Google News search:

 _authorities in California launched a search for Pi-Wei Hung, 40, early Sunday afternoon... the woman's vehicle was discovered stuck in the sand on the shoulder... and then died in the heat as she tried to walk out of the area. The high temperature that day was 113 degrees._

 _a 60-year-old tourist from Germany died from heat exposure... not far from his where his motorcycle was parked, upright and in working order, in the 118-degree heat._

 _...two French tourists got their car stuck in loose sand... no one knew their specific travel route, and they were out of cellphone range in temperatures above 110 degrees._

<comment><USER4> A good read about being unprepared for the desert is "The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans" which is an amateur's search for answers on how a German family of tourists abandoned their van in Death Valley and then disappeared.

[https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the- hu...](https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the- death-valley-germans/)

<comment><USER5> This website cost me a weekend once :-)

<comment><USER6> That and the website of the desert hunter who found the crashed SR71 should come with some rabbit hole warning labels. :)

<comment><USER7> I think it's the same person!

(I would check, but I've stuff to do and I've already been down that rabbit hole once.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I bought one of these PLBs after spending 12h down a canyon with a broken ankle and no cell reception. Friends had to hike back out of the canyon and hike then drive for hours to get help. Never again.

Since then I got a sailboat and it's pretty standard in that field to have EPIRB, PLBs and the likes. There's life-vests that come with mini-PLBs in them. It's a bit pricey but it's essential in my opinion. I was lucky to be with friends and within reasonable distance of help when I got my accident. If something happens at sea, you need these NOAA satellites.

<comment><USER9> How much does one of those go for if you don't mind me asking.

From the article... >By law, beacon owners are required to register their devices online with NOAA. The registration information helps provide better and faster assistance to people in distress, and can guard against false alarms.

What does that registration process look like exactly?

<comment><USER10> > How much does one of those go for if you don't mind me asking.

They cost a few hundred dollars.

Which is well worth it if you've broken your ankle at the bottom of a canyon imho.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> COSPAS-SARSAT originated as a collaboration between the US and the Soviet Union (COSPAS is a romanization of the Russian acronym), with several other countries joining shortly after (France, Canada) and ownership ultimately migrating towards the UN. In many ways it's a remarkable example of successful collaboration between not-so-friendly powers in the typically tense domain of space systems.

The EU Galileo system includes an enhanced SAR capability which will be integrated with the COSPAS-SARSAT system. In the future, properly equipped transponders will be able to receive a confirmation message transmitted from Galileo satellites to provide the user reassurance that their call was received.

There are also subscription services available, such as Spot and Garmin InReach which rely on commercial satellite networks. They're not really that expensive (Spot as low as $18/mo) and depending on the provider include position tracking and two-way text-messaging. These extra features can be very useful, but coverage of these commercial providers is not necessarily as good as COSPAS-SARSAT, especially near the poles. This is particularly true since COSPAS-SARSAT is augmented by a small set of geostationary satellites (NOAA's GOES) which provide "worst-case" coverage, while the commercial networks are LEO.

</comment><comment><USER12> Posting this because it isnt mentioned in the article, but among mariners these beacons are known as EPIRBs. The system has evolved significantly to support individual beacons now. So search for EPIRB if you want one or want to learn more.

[https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=mtEpirb](https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=mtEpirb)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position- indicatin...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position- indicating_radiobeacon_station)

<comment><USER13> \- EPIRB = Fixed unit, installed on a boat. Water activated.

\- ELT = Fixed unit, installed on an airplane. G-force activated.

\- PLB = Handheld unit for individuals. Manually activated only.

They're all the same technology, but the form factor differs depending on which term you refer to them by.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The digital 406 MHz signals received by the satellites mentioned in TFA are unencrypted and can be receive by ground-based receivers as well.

There are commercial receivers/decoders[1] but you can also do it fairly easily with an appropriate antenna and SDR[2].

[1] [https://wst.ca/beacon_monitor.html](https://wst.ca/beacon_monitor.html)

[2] [https://www.bytebang.at/Blog/ELT+Testing+with+rtl- sdr](https://www.bytebang.at/Blog/ELT+Testing+with+rtl-sdr)

</comment><comment><USER15> in 2016 I got one of the ACR PLB-375 "ResQLink+" locator beacons. I did a bunch of research at the time, and liked this because it was $250, and required no subscription. Looks like they are $300 now.

The alternatives have more features, like sending messages or two way messaging, and incoming messages, but also tend to require monthly subscription fees. Some of them now have subscriptions that you can "pause" when you aren't using it.

I bought the beacon for offroading, after one trip where my son was screwing around and fell and hit his head pretty hard on a rock. He was ok, but it made the ability to reach out much more real. Sometimes I can get cell phone signal on the trail, but usually not. The medical kit I carry and my medical abilities were not up to serious injury. My trauma kit stayed at home: my wife is a nurse. :-)

I like it, but in retrospect I wish I'd gotten a 2 way Iridium one, because my wife really worries when she can't get status updates. "Not getting a call from emergency services means we're ok" is not good enough. <shrug> :-)

<comment><USER16> >I like it, but in retrospect I wish I'd gotten a 2 way Iridium one, because my wife really worries when she can't get status updates. "Not getting a call from emergency services means we're ok" is not good enough. <shrug> :-)

When I was leading sea kayaking trips, there was effectively a similar conundrum. The standard practice was that you were supposed to leave a float plan with someone you trusted. (Planned route, planned time of return, etc.)

But what did that mean really, especially if no one on the trip had a partner expected to move heaven and earth if something might seem wrong. You're an hour past your expected arrival and no call. Do they drive an hour or two to the expected takeout because something might be wrong? Or... wait for how long? (Especially pre-cell phone.)

In my experience float plans were something you tended to do as something of a formality and never really expected to use and sort of ignored the practicalities if things had really gone sideways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Incredible service.

Is there a payment required for rescue services? For instance, does the Coast Guard charge the six people rescued when the boat sank?

<comment><USER18> Not on the sea. By old and ancient tradition all who sail come in aid to their brothers in need.

<comment><USER19> Off topic, but this reminded me of the stark contrast between this and my state's "stupid motorist law"

> any motorist who becomes stranded after driving around barricades to enter a > flooded stretch of roadway may be charged for the cost of their rescue

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

<comment><USER20> That sounds reasonable to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > the impact of the crash of a small aircraft near Skwentna, Alaska, activated > the emergency beacon onboard.

I wonder how that kind of event is detected by the beacon, and if I could buy one for a person I know flies with visual flight rules (this means no recurrent fee, at least for 10 years).

<comment><USER13> For the aircraft units (ELTs), it's triggered by g-forces.

Almost all aircraft in the US are required to have an ELT beacon installed on- board, though many are still equipped with the old analog (121.5 MHz) technology which isn't monitored by satellite anymore.

If you want to carry a backup or want to have a modern digital beacon (406 MHz), you can certainly carry a PLB. Many pilots do, myself included. Note that these are manually activated only, no g-force sensor.

For a PLB, I recommend picking up an ACR ResQLink. They retail for about $300.

<comment><USER22> Even if you have a digital ELT, make sure you know how to manually activate it and teach any frequent passengers. The automatic trigger is not reliable, it's better than nothing but survivable impacts may not trigger the beacon.

PLBs tend to have pretty easy to follow instructions written right on them, but again people who'll be with you when it's needed should be told about it during safety briefing. Kids too young to learn the radio or other potentially life-saving apparatus can be shown how to use the beacon because of how simple it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Nothing worse than an article with acronyms without stating what those acronyms are.

<comment><USER24> I know what NOAA is but I didn't (from the headline) understand what a weather satellite does for saving people (at least in tangible numbers, I get that a hurricane prediction helps but 421 people is awfully specific).

So I would agree that the headline could use some work. It's also not as if NOAA is the only provider of this service (see Galileo), but I'm not sure if there are stats published for other systems.

<comment><USER22> The stats will be for the whole COSPAS SARSAT system but limited to rescues in the United States because Americans only care about other Americans (not all of them but in general)

The system doesn't present users with "This beacon was detected by this NOAA satellite". You could trace it back, but it's generally not relevant and people are focused on stuff like Do we have a good fix? / Does the registration tell us anything useful? / Who is available that can be tasked to go look? Also do you then count scenarios where five satellites were involved and one was NOAA? A lot of alerts will be "seen" by more than one satellite.

NOAA has some geostationary birds, which can be enough for sole alert if the beacon has GPS, because GPS tells the beacon where it is (if it can see the sky well enough) and then the beacon tells the geostationary satellite its location as part of the distress beacon message. For those obviously they're "parked" over America so maybe some central American or even Canadian incidents but mostly US stuff. For a beacon without GPS the geostationary alert is not much help. "Joe needs rescuing from somewhere in your hemisphere". With 406MHz digital beacons you might perhaps try calling Joe's wife "Oh! Joe is out on the lake, actually he's a bit late for dinner" and that might be useful but mostly alerts with no location are not actioned.

But lower orbits mean a non-geostationary NOAA bird could be over anywhere in the world, and those low orbit satellites can measure doppler shift (ie determine location without GPS), it's just that the rescuers wouldn't necessarily be American and in most cases neither would the victims. Australia has lots of wilderness and so lots of alerts for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> My FastFind PLB doesn't seem to have replaceable batteries so I just left it in storage and haven't used it. Has anyone managed to replace their batteries?

<comment><USER26> [https://www.sparesmarine.co.uk/mcmurdo-plb-battery- servicing...](https://www.sparesmarine.co.uk/mcmurdo-plb-battery-servicing/) that any use?

<comment><USER25> Yowsa. Do I spent the additional $100 and go with a new one? I wonder how much technology has changed in 10 years since I bought this..

<comment><USER27> May be better GPS processing: more channels for a quicker fix. Perhaps lower power or better battery chemistry so the '2.0' unit may last longer?

<comment><USER25> great points

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Anyone know of a good hand-held NOAA unit to buy in case of emergency?</comment>


Forge - an easy way to accept payments online, powered by Balanced (YC W11) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.balancedpayments.com/balanced-powers-forge <comment><USER2> At the bottom they lay out the charges. All of us can do the arithmetic, but their example works out to 6.4% of a $20 sale!

And of course once you back out the overhead and direct costs of selling, the amount of your potential profit that eats up is some multiple of that.

They charge 2.9% + $0.30, and then 2%.

Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30.

So they are approximately 65-70% (2/2.9 = 0.69) more expensive, depending on your average charge.

<comment><USER3> You are correct. We are more expensive than Stripe if you're just looking at money.

But we look at it from a time and capital perspective. With Stripe, you have to code and maintain your own payment solution on the backend and your own checkout form. You also have to worry about a million other things like emailing your customers when they place an order, and handling refunds. If you don't have the coding skills to build that yourself, you have to hire an expensive developer to build and maintain that for you.

If that extra 2% cost savings is worth it to endure the hassle above, then Forge isn't for you. We're aiming at people who don't want to deal with all that and would rather concentrate on growing their business doing things like launching a new product and marketing their current ones.

<comment><USER4> If you want to stay competitive, you'll probably need to drop your fee down to 1% to match <https://spacebox.io/> (which is powered by Stripe)

<comment><USER3> We're purposely not trying to compete on price. There are always going to be cheaper solutions out there.

We're aiming to be the best. We're aiming to be the absolute easiest checkout process and the simplest experience for the merchant.

<comment><USER4> Understood. Good luck :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The word "forge" seems to me an odd choice for a company that deals in finance. Three of us here independently saw negative connotations when it comes to money, security, trust, etc. but nobody else has brought it up yet so perhaps it's just us. Best of luck to them.

<comment><USER3> That's certainly a valid point. We're trying to convey that you're forging a lasting online business and doing the hard work to be independent from a corporate job.

If the name turns out to be losing us business, then we'll have to address it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A few points:

Why is this different (in a worthwhile way) from existing payment options? Like Stripe?

What else can you cite that Paypal does wrongly _that you can implement correctly_?

I don't mean to be critical, just asking hard questions. "Taking on" big companies like Paypal has been a de facto way to bring attention to projects since the early 2000s, but it's hard to actually achieve that level of eminence and market share. Being good isn't enough.

<comment><USER3> Designer at Forge here.

Those are both great questions. We're aiming Forge at people who cannot write their own backend payment processor to use Stripe, and only know basic HTML. If you have the skills and the time to code and maintain payment processing and a checkout form, then Forge isn't for you. We're aiming it at non-techies who want to sell something online.

PayPal certainly has its advantages, but we're trying to solve two main problems: the checkout experience and the withdrawing of funds. The checkout experience on PayPal has 5 or 6 steps and redirects you away from the merchant's site to complete a payment. Ours is on one page and is embedded directly in the merchant's site. Click "buy product", checkout form pops down, fill out 6 or so fields and click "buy now." Done.

Also, we automatically deposit your profits into your bank account every Friday. Our goal is to get this down to the next-day. You sell something Tuesday morning, ship it Tuesday afternoon, and the money is in your bank account on Wednesday morning.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the quick reply Kevin.

Will you also be implementing a hardware system for the iPhone/iPod like Square? Or are you going entirely online?

Paypal has a card reader as well. Just a thought.

<comment><USER3> We don't have any plans to make a hardware system for taking payments. Only online.

Square is not a business I want to be up against right now :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are you guys doing the exact same thing as Stripe Checkout? <https://stripe.com/docs/checkout>

<comment><USER8> Stripe checkout button only sends a charge token to a backend that you have to write. A backend that needs to trigger the actual charge and everything that goes along with that, like generating emails and receipts.

Forge takes care of all of that so you don't have to worry about it.

<comment><USER7> Ah. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yet another Payment processor which doesn't work outside of USA/Canada. I hate being in Europe.

<comment><USER3> Believe me. We're bummed about that too. We're working as hard as we can to get into other countries, but we had to start somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Stripe is going to be a tough organization to compete with. I wish you the best of luck.

<comment><USER6> Forge and Stripe are technically not applicable to the same audience.

Developers are attracted to Stripe for extensibility and customization through coding.

Non-technical users will like Forge because it's non-technical and quick to start up, in a "just works" sort of way.

<comment><USER3> Couldn't have said it better myself.</comment></comment></comment>


Finland's government falls after attempts to reduce healthcare spending fail - <AUTHOR> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-09/finland-government-falls-after-attempts-to-reduce-healthcare/10885712 <comment><USER2> I don't understand where the failure is.

Yes, people are living longer. That trend has been going on for decades. Did the Finnish statisticians and actuaries underestimate the increases in longevity and costs?

Or did the people on government choose to, for example, lower taxes based on the optimism that it would improve the economy enough to make up for the shortfall, only to find that wasn't the case?

Or something else?</comment>


Tor's Open Research Topics (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.torproject.org/tors-open-research-topics-2018-edition <comment><USER2> > Censorship Circumvention: Exit Side ... what if there were a pool of exit > bridges that you could use via this mechanism? Would that pool have any less > abuse or incidence of banning? What if this pool were pay-to-use?

This can already be solved outside of the network by setting up a VPS and chaining it after the exit node (you still have to figure out a way to pay for it anonymously and it's a PITA to set it up).

> What if you posted a monetary amount via a ZK smart contract, and if there > was abuse reported, that money became forfeit?

Now that sounds interesting. Not sure how it would work in practice tho.

<comment><USER3> > This can already be solved outside of the network by setting up a VPS and > chaining it after the exit node (you still have to figure out a way to pay > for it anonymously and it's a PITA to set it up).

This isn't really a solution. Not only do you have to pay for it "anonymously", but any slip up at all suddenly correlates all your traffic. What do you do when an adversary compromises your VPS, will you even notice?

<comment><USER2> > What do you do when an adversary compromises your VPS

You already have to operate as if an exit node could be bad, it's not that different. One could swap them each month.

> any slip up at all suddenly correlates all your traffic

Hadn't considered that, may be a major downside for some use cases. Easily solved by using one VPS for one service / website you visit :D

<comment><USER4> > You already have to operate as if an exit node could be bad, it's not that > different.

Tor's anonymity is guaranteed by its probability and temporary nature of exit nodes. Every Tor client uses the same algorithm to select an exit node, and a single exit node in a circuit is typically discarded within a few minutes for web browsing. Further, Stream Isolation selects different exit nodes for different destinations. Effectively, it means the correlation between an individual Tor user and a particular exit node is practically zero (and tracking at Layer-7 is often better than breaking Tor).

It's like discarding and selecting one of the 1,000 dead-drops at a time, and all of them are being used by a million people. On the other hand, purchasing a VPS is like setting up a single, permanent dead-drop just for yourself. The correlation is almost-certain, and the cost of getting a new one is high.

It may be a solution to a very specific problem where pseudonymous access is needed, like using a VPN/VPS to bypass the Tor blacklist of your E-mail account, and ONLY TO ACCESS your E-mail account. But for greater applications which requires anonymity, or very-shortlived pseudonymity, it's generally unsuitable. You don't want to ruin your valuable VPS that you've spent half- an-hour to purchase via Bitcoin, only to bypass the blacklist of a random website.

Some may suggest a pool of VPS servers can be provided, and well, be purchased on-demand via Lightning Network's micropayment (old-school Cypherpunks will love this idea, the idea had been around since the 1990s, and has eventually become feasible today!). But it effectively recreate the Exit Node infrastructure that Tor is using.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Clump – A library for expressive and efficient service composition - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/getclump/clump

<comment><USER3> If you use long lasting TCP sockets for your 'bus' needs in your SOA - <USER2> clumping is a non-issue. Remember that TCP is an idle protocol.</comment>


Arbitration of Netflix vs. domain squatter (June, 2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.adrforum.com/domaindecisions/1840643.htm <comment><AUTHOR> Earlier today I tried to visit Reddit (a moment of procrastination), mistyped it, and instead visited "reddkt.com". This contained to mildly alarming message:

"You have been redirected here by the Starnoise research project. This redirect is temporary, things will return to normal.

All the best, Michael Brooks"

A few searches of salient terms later I determined I hadn't in fact fallen prey of a research team but to a domain squatter and my own fat fingers.

I found this arbitration document interesting, and have had quite a few lively discussions about the lines between researchers, bounty hunters, and extortionists today!</comment>


Dude… Would You Please Quit It With The Financial Markets Jargon Already? - <AUTHOR> http://www.adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/quit-the-financial-markets-jargon/

<comment><USER2> Someone should create another joke programming language, where the only tokens are double-quotes, the words "like" and "dude" and basic punctuation marks like comma, period, question mark and exclamation mark. Capitals could be significant and denote the beginning of a statement. Maybe another keyword: "and-i-was"</comment>


Perfect Storm: Energy, Finance, and the End of Growth - <AUTHOR> http://tullettprebonresearch.com/2013/01/21/perfect-storm-report-now-live

<comment><USER2> It seems to me like what we need is a massive pro-nuclear (power, not weapons) political and advertising effort. "It's not perfect, but it's the best we've got" or "hey, it kills fewer people than coal!" aren't particularly rousing calls to action, unfortunately.

Without fission, the Malthusian doomers are, well, they are right. And that's going to make for an unpleasant world to live in.

<comment><USER3> >Without fission, the Malthusian doomers are, well, they are right. And that's going to make for an unpleasant world to live in.

Isn't that a bit of a stretch? These long-scale predictions are always wrong.

We're on the very leading edge of many areas of energy research, any of which could dramatically alter the energy landscape. With materials science, genetic engineering, and nanotech all reaching some level of sophistication, the chances of a 'big' success are increasing daily.

Additionally, the big breakthroughs in the past were largely discovered by the ~5% of the globe who had access to the best universities and labs. The democratization of knowledge to literally billions of people has given earth the potential to collaborate on big projects on a scale the never before seen.

Obviously, nuclear power is the lowest-hanging fruit if you aim to achieve carbon-neutral energy security, but this pessimism about human ingenuity is probably misplaced.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely! We can keep going until the waste heat from our energy liberation melts the polar ice caps/melts lead/melts the earth's crust/is hotter than the sun.</sarcasm>

This isn't about knowledge. We simply cannot indefinitely grow our economy/energy usage. And no, we're not going to find a workaround for the laws of thermodynamics. They are the most certain knowledge we have.

<comment><USER2> >This isn't about knowledge. We simply cannot indefinitely grow our economy/energy usage. And no, we're not going to find a workaround for the laws of thermodynamics. They are the most certain knowledge we have.

Well, in the long term, sure, you are right. (in the long term, we are all dead.) But that's a long way off. In the short term? it is about knowledge, partly, but more about what technologies we use.

Do we power our cities with hydrocarbons? or with nuclear power?

Realistically, that's the choice.

The thing is? we already are involved in resource wars over oil. We are already suffering due to not having as much energy as we'd like, and apparently we're altering the composition of our atmosphere with our waste gases. This is a problem right now, not a billion years from now.

Fission isn't perfect; it has problems, it kills people sometimes, yeah, but it kills fewer people, it has fewer problems than coal, which is the only realistic medium-term alternative.

I do think, in the medium term, it is reasonable to expect that science can bring us plenty to the point where we don't have resource wars.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Parallella reached $750k funding goal - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a-supercomputer-for-everyone?foolhn

<comment><USER2> I don't mind posting here and saying how wrong I was. Because on the original post, I said for sure it wouldn't be funded.

To show that I have sufficiently eaten crow, I felt I should make this post and pledge $99 + $20 (for a case) to them. And so I have.

EDIT: Clever use of the ?foolhn tag. I was going to post the Kickstarter link to HN as penance for my doubting Thomas ways but I've never submitted anything, and when I tried, I got a dupe check, so I didn't bother.

</comment><comment><USER3> Congratulations. I was a doubter in the first thread on Parallela, but I'm very impressed and happy that you guys achieved your goal.

I'd love to hear more about your plans to build a community around the boards now. I'm working on building a community around a yet unreleased but announced open source project myself (<http://famo.us/>) and I'm in the early stages of planning everything.

Check out The Art of Community by Jono Bacon, the guy who was responsible for the Ubuntu community. That book has a lot of good stuff.

<http://www.artofcommunityonline.org>

<comment><USER4> Building the community will be the success or failure of this project. We've seen it with the Raspberry Pi and (to some extent) Ubuntu. They aren't the best products in their field (IMHO; I've not made anything better), but they have the best community. These days that means more than a mail list; it's the forum and Q&A (stack exchange) sites as well.

Dear Founders, please please set up a Q&A site. They are much more effective than forums.

<comment><USER5> Some bits[1] of the Ubuntu community are decidedly sub-optimal.

Less bad than other parts of the Internet, but still not what I'd use as an example of good practice.

[1] Sprawling support, often including support from people who know very little about Linux or Ubuntu; gently toxic development lists.

<comment><USER3> I think any community the size of Ubuntu is going to have parts that are sub- optimal. I think it's unavoidable at that scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's a shame they didn't hit the 3m goal. The device they were going to build them seemed more competative. I think the 16 core device will probably be an interesting toy though. Wrote my thought up here:

[http://41j.com/blog/2012/10/my-take-on-the-adapteva- parallel...](http://41j.com/blog/2012/10/my-take-on-the-adapteva-parallella/)

</comment><comment><USER7> For those wondering whats the difference between the Parallella and the Rasberry PI: [http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/09/99-ras...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/09/99-raspberry-pi-sized-supercomputer-touted-in-kickstarter- project/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Oh good! I've posted about the project on HN a couple of times, but being $150k short of the goal yesterday with only 24 hours to go I wasn't optimistic.

<comment><USER9> My thoughts were exactly the same. In mere 8 hours yesterday they went up by more than $100k. Is there any sorts of stats on Kickstarter to see which sizes of pledges were contributed during a given period of time? Seems a little dodgy to me - could they actually fund the rest of the campaign out of their own pocket(they have a 2.5M investement after all)? But anyway I already pledged $120 myself to get the board, they guys seem trustworthy.

Update: The links below reveal services for tracking campaign so I will investigate: <http://www.kicktraq.com/> and <http://canhekick.it/project/5064d31d8f647c24e5ad60d0>

Update2: So they raised $192k yesterday, October 26 with 903 backers which averages to $212 per pledge. So it is all looks fine, perhaps that's how campaigns generally behave.

<comment><USER10> It seems it is the norm - lots of people were going back and upping their pledges. They did a ton of updates, and offered cases (for an extra $20 per unit) and a book (at $25) to pull in existing people. And a lot of those of us who had already backed were also far more actively tweeting or otherwise promoting it. Add on coverage here and several other places, and the time pressure. Others pointed out yesterday that it's fairly common for Kickstarter campaigns to get most of their funding in the first 72 and last 24 hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Do we know the specifics of the final funding? In the discussion yesterday there were good comments flying around about founders maxing out credit cards, general trends of most funding being in the first 72 and last 24 hours of a Kickstarter campaign, and various other interesting arguments (not all optimistic). I'd be curious what it came down to in the end.

<comment><USER12> here are two links that show the project's progress during its kickstarter life:

[http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a- super...](http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a- supercomputer-for-everyone/) <http://canhekick.it/project/5064d31d8f647c24e5ad60d0>

<comment><USER11> Thank you, that's really cool.

EDIT: It answers one of {how, what} but not the other. Anyone got any more?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looking forward to getting my Epiphany next year. What an exciting time to be alive.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seems like a lot of pent-up demand. What are the practical applications of something like this?

<comment><USER15> Personally I see a killer application of (clusters of) parallella boards in machine perception for e.g. robotics and information retrieval/websearch. When I talk about Machine perception it could, for instance, refer to advanced visual object detection, recognition and tracking combined with pattern recognition on other sensory modalities such audio and haptics.

To make high computing power portable, as could be needed for machine perception applications in robotics, high power efficiency is needed. This is something the Parallella is aiming for.

Machine perception algorithms using "brain-like" computation structures are not only highly parallel by nature but also need fast access to memory. Instead of having a thin pipe to a central memory, it needs to be distributed, build close to/in to the computation cores.

The long-term vision of Parallella's Epiphany multi-core processors indicate a __1000 __cores per processor, with 128KB memory per core by __2014 __a possibility(!) This is exactly the order of parallelism and distributed memory Machine perception applications need.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I just cancelled my pledge, feel free to get that (it's a $99 level pledge)

<comment><USER17> You pledged just to see the project succeed ?

<comment><USER18> I could see that. I pledged at the "cluster" level ($1000) when the project looked likely to fail, then when it crossed the finish line I backed off to the "personal cloud" level ($500).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Congrats. I'd love to see some real-life software (like WRF) port to that platform.</comment>


An Open Letter to YouTube's CEO - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2019/6/7/18656597/youtube-harassment-policy-susan-wojcicki <comment><USER2> Please define your understanding of free speech and hate speech. The vox double standard to insult and humiliate others who don't agree with them is at this point a meme itself .</comment>


Ask HN: Should I Go Back To School? How Important Is It? - <AUTHOR>

In my Junior year of college, I dropped out in order to pursue a startup idea. It was innovative and ultimately had a good - not spectacular - exit.
I'm now located in NYC and it's always bothered me that I didn't continue and get my college degree. I've applied to and gotten into some of the "non-traditional" education programs, most notably Columbia's School of General Studies.
I want to know:
a) Is it worth it? I've been out of school for about 4/5 years with significant experience.
b) How is Columbia GS taken? Is it seen as a "joke school" or "joke degree". It's rather expensive, so I'd rather know now what it looks like.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Are you going to go into management? Do you ever want to work in a large company that you did not build, as anything other than a developer or development related discipline like developer, admin or architect? Do you want to do scientific research? Do you want to teach at the university level?

If the answer to any of those is yes then you may want to consider a degree. If the answer is no, then you should really consider the value proposition of higher education. Keep in mind that many believe that there is an ongoing bubble in education and that the prices and value of education will continue to decline. The influx of regulations and lending has caused significant inflation in the cost of attaining a degree while at the same time reducing the real world value of that degree.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi there....

I cannot speak to question b, but I have some very direct experience with question a that I would like to talk about for a moment.

Like you, I dropped out after my third year of an accounting degree to pursue my own business. It was the late 90s, the world of technology seemed to be one of limitless potential, and I got the entrepreneurship bug. So, I dropped out and followed my dream - this particular company (like yours) did fairly well and I got to exit with my head held high.

After I sold my company, I spent the rest of my twenties working some interesting gigs and honing my skillset. But that unfinished degree kept plaguing me - I constantly wondered how much further I could go if I had a piece of paper behind my name.

So, I went back to University and finished a marketing degree. I didn't learn a whole lot during the degree - business degrees are about as useless as you can get. But, I definitely gained value. Being significantly older than anyone else in my classes meant that my peers were other more mature students with work experience, graduate students and professors. That network is worth way more than the cost of tuition and made going back to school incredibly worth it.

As an aside, that network actually helped me start my next business, which I launched a few days after convocation. That business failed miserably, so either the network wasn't worth all that much, or I was a bonehead...:)

</comment><comment><USER4> \-- Don't let your schooling interfere with your education. --

Nevertheless, education is vital. For everyone. The more educated you are, the better. I don't know specifically about _that_ degree you're talking about, but as an American (most presumably you are, that is) think about the option to finish your college degree, let's say in Germany (Berlin has an awesome startup scene coming on, too) or in the Netherlands (Amsterdam is rocking big time, too).

I referred to Germany mainly because their education system is public (the fees for some unis are $500/semester, pretty decent, most of them are free -- depends on the state) and their unis are rocking big time.

I don't know what you were studying before you drop-out but as a technical kiddo, pardon my word usage, consider also studying something different now-- let's say philosophy or something.

If I were you, I'd try to study. A guy with a college degree is always more "better" (with a very broad sense) than a guy who hasn't a degree. Well, not always -- especially in the IT field, BUT generally speaking, I consider a BSc a vital thing for to posses.

And remember, it's not always what you will be taught in uni -- you mainly get to understand how to think properly and not for example how to program fluently in Python. They teach you how to think.

And thinking is vital.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you ever want to work overseas it helps the visa process. Likewise, if you ever want to do something other than programming, having a degree usually helps. For instance, I wanted to teach a programming class at the university extension in my hometown, but they wouldn't let me because I do not have a master's degree. They wouldn't have even bothered telling me that if I didn't have a bachelor's degree.

</comment><comment><USER6> The fact that you are even asking this question and that you are as far along in the process as you are (i.e. you have applied and been accepted) indicates that it is important to you - and that's as important as anything gets. School is often wasted on the young, it sounds like you are in a position to appreciate it. Good Luck.</comment>


Multiple new unpatched AsusWRT vulnerabilities (including RCE) - <AUTHOR> https://bierbaumer.net/security/asuswrt/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author's comment regarding disclosure to ASUS: [https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/5yftr2/multiple_vul...](https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/5yftr2/multiple_vulnerabilities_discovered_in_asuswrt/deq09cb/?context=1)</comment>


Technology News For Geeks (and other Caged Animals) - <AUTHOR> http://meta64.com/?link=meta_technology_news&timeline=yes

<comment><USER2> Are you looking for feedback on this? Is this your project?</comment>


Nice graphic: box office revenues since 1986 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/02/23/movies/20080223_REVENUE_GRAPHIC.html

<comment><USER2> I went all the way back to the mid 80's, and the blockbuster back then was Top Gun, which apparently didn't even break 250 mil. Nowadays, we have huge blockbusters that regularly surpass 250 mil every season. Even though we have DVDs and can download copies (pirated or not), collectively, we're spending more on movies than we use to.

However, we don't know whether that's due to more people going to see movies, or merely just an increase in ticket prices. It'd be more interesting to see the graph adjusted for this so we can see if more or less people are going to the movies than before.

It also seems that movies that are series get a second hump, like Jurassic Park III, Harry Potter, etc.

IMAX movies have a looong shelf-life, compared to all other movie types. Mysteries of Egypt was there all the way from 1999 through to the end of 2000, when it had a small resurgence before disappearing.

<comment><USER3> Less movie goers.

"In 1948, with studios earning all their revenues from the box office, that audience was moviegoers. Even as late as 1980, when the audience had television sets and video players, studios still earned 55 percent of their money from people who actually went to movie theaters. In 2005, however, those moviegoers provided the studios with less than 15 percent of their worldwide revenues, while couch potatoes provided it with 85.8 percent."

From 2005 and still relevant <http://www.slate.com/id/2123286>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of this last.fm visualization by Lee Byron: <http://megamu.com/lastfm/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Excellent way to display more than 2 dimensions in 2 dimensions.

Reminds me of this one from 1861 which showed space (map of Europe), time (length of lines), direction (beige for eastward, black for westward), size of army (thickness of lines), and even infers weather conditions (what killed the troops):

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Minard.png>

<comment><USER3> Beautiful visualization. Reminds me that it is time to browse my neglected copy of Tufte's Envisioning Information. Thanks

<comment><USER5> Thank YOU. Reminded me that there ARE other people who own some of the same books as me.

<comment><USER6> I love Tufte's ideas and design. They are on my reading list. I'll be tackling them after school this summer.

Another thought: I don't know that I'm ready to count the New York Times out yet. I know that Pmarca is doing their deathwatch: ttp://blog.pmarca.com/2008/02/irony-is-dead-l.html

But, I'm seeing some impressive changes over there. With the release of their archives, and some of the changes they're making, I think that it's rapidly turning into one of the best newspaper presences online. Seems like they have some people in the right places with their thinking caps on.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The new Google Pixel Buds are available today - <AUTHOR> https://www.blog.google/products/pixel-buds/pixel-buds-now-available/ <comment><USER2> Except you can't buy them, still waiting list oriented

<comment><USER3> You can buy them in white color now, other colors are waitlisted</comment></comment>


The Renaissance Precursor of Rap Battles and Flow - <AUTHOR> https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/10/19/renaissance-poetry-precursor-rap-battles-flow/ <comment><USER2> This was really interesting, but I was hoping to read about some Renaissance rap battles, and in that regard the article is sorely lacking. Still, I'm glad I know who Skelton was now.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's no Lokasenna [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokasenna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokasenna)].

</comment><comment><USER4> 'the poem will continue "as long as the resources of the language hold out"' segues happily into an unmatched parenthesis in the last ¶.

[https://www.xkcd.com/859/](https://www.xkcd.com/859/)</comment>


Ikea C&D's 8-year old Ikea furniture hacking website - <AUTHOR> http://www.ikeahackers.net/2014/06/big-changes-coming-to-ikeahackers.html <comment><USER3> Ikea handled this pretty good I think:

FTFA: "Long story short, after much negotiation between their agent and my lawyer, I am allowed to keep the domain name IKEAhackers.net only on the condition that it is non-commercial, meaning no advertising whatsoever."

That could have been a lot worse. She gets to keep it, they don't see their brand diluted in any meaningful way or exploited commercially.

I count a whole pile of ad banners on the site, IKEA branding (including their colors and logos) everywhere. She really got off very light. And if she switches to another domain in time then there will be 0 harm.

<comment><USER4> Sounds like ikeahackers should just redirect all the pages on that site to a different domain name that doesn't use the IKEA trademark, and then serve advertising.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps "IDEAhackers.org"?

<comment><USER3> That's an excellent one. And it seems to be free. You should mail her.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Let's use this as a case study: What (according to HN) should IKEA have done?

On one hand, trademark preservation is important.

On another hand, how many companies would kill for a community of "Raving Fans" like this? And in addition to enthusiasm, the site seemed very high quality and thus complementary to Ikea's marketing.

<comment><USER7> _Let 's use this as a case study: What (according to HN) should IKEA have done?_

Buy the site and pay the owner to keep on running it. If it's owned by IKEA there's no trademark dilution problem...

<comment><USER3> > Buy the site and pay the owner to keep on running it.

I think that would send the wrong signal to would-be copycats. I think the chosen solution, allow them to continue but non-commercially is a pretty good one. If it's a fan site then it should be non-commercial.

<comment><USER8> I don't think it would send that message at all.

IKEA Hackers wasn't just some site using the IKEA name, it was a high-quality and well-established community. If IKEA had purchased this establishment, I don't think a reasonable person would conclude they would give the same treatment to just any other trademark infringer.

And even non-profit sites need money to pay for hosting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's quite a few comments that have been posted that refer to the site owner as "he". Jules Yap is female. [http://jules.ikeahackers.net/](http://jules.ikeahackers.net/)

<comment><USER10> There is a picture at the top of the post with a female character in it. The amount of "he"s in this thread is probably a good indication of how much time a reader spends looking at such things.

<comment><USER3> Or, you know, that the name 'Jules' is used for males the vast majority of th time.

<comment><USER10> Did you really notice that there is an image with a girl in it at the top of the post and still think that the author must be male?

My first association with Jules is male (the only Jules I know is a guy), but the image gave me second thoughts.

<comment><USER3> I read the text, never looked at the image, but now that I have looked at it, it seemed like just an illustration anyway, not a picture representative of the author.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What is the benefit to Ikea (or other companies with armies of lawyers who like to threaten loyal customers) by sending cease and desist letters to sites like this?

<comment><USER12> Without passing judgement on this example, there's at least a hypothetical risk that if you don't continuously defend your trademark, you could lose it! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark)

<comment><USER5> There's no genericisation happening on that site. It's a fan site. It's like saying that "ikeasucks.com" is going to lead to genericisation of the mark, there's no chance as the trademark is only being used to refer to what the company uses it for. On a general point you can defend your mark as much as you like it can still take the elevator to, or get hoovered up by genericisation by the public - google it on Bing if you don't believe me. ;0)

Strictly speaking ikeahackers.net is using the mark in a commercial way (because of the advertising) and so by UK/EU TM law seems to be infringing. There does also appear to be a strong possibility of confusion - the site is very "on message" for Ikea IMO and uses their livery and it's own design to imitate well the Ikea style.

From the sites perspective they can use a different [distinct!] name and make clear they're not legally associated but only a fan site, acknowledge Ikea's RTM in the footer for example and disclaim association. That seems sufficient to differentiate and avoid possibility of actual confusion (though they could still be sued of course). Adding in products from other suppliers would help here too ... that of course is bad for Ikea, but they're the ones pointing the gun at their own feet.

From Ikea's point of view. License the site, pay the content creator a nice fat salary to carry on and thank them sincerely for marketing your products so well for you. It can't possibly be cheaper in lost good will and lawyers salaries to sue "Jules".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is an amazing cultural reference point for modern western thinking. I mean, no longer do you actually build something out of real materials like wood: rather, you take the _notwood_ chipboard+plastic laminate available in an over-marketed unit shipped half way around the world in volume, modify it, then post to the internet about how to do it. Finally, people respond with anecdotes like the comment here ... [http://www.ikeahackers.net/2014/06/balcony- bar.html](http://www.ikeahackers.net/2014/06/balcony-bar.html) ... this is going to be some hardcore retro content in another twenty years.

<comment><USER14> To be fair, Ikea can be the cheapest source of some raw-ish materials like mirrors, glass tabletops, metal poles, even some forms of solid wood. Why not take advantage of their economy of scale - do you know the alternatives haven't travelled just as far?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder had Jules turned over the domain to them (or might still, given the intention to transfer the site to a new domain) if IKEA would have just made it a blind redirect to their main site, or just killed it to prevent the next Jules from having it.

I almost thought they would start their own DIY community, but running a community is a ton of work and I doubt it would increase their sales by a large enough percentage to warrant it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Not only is management clueless, but their front-line support staff refuse to escalate complaints about the issue:

[https://gist.github.com/duncan- bayne/74d6e38c506000982237](https://gist.github.com/duncan- bayne/74d6e38c506000982237)

</comment><comment><USER17> I say it was handled quite badly, IKEA doesn't need the extra revenue but the site dominates a growing niche that IKEA might no longer be wishing to be associated with as they try and push upmarket....

Dumb idea all round to act like this, and good luck to IKEAHackers.net

</comment><comment><USER18> The guys behind ikeahackers should escalate this to higher positioned managers within Ikea, until they have a chance to talk to someone who will understand and appreciate the idea behind the website.

<comment><USER3> No legal action would ever be taken by a company like this without the appropriate managers being 100% aware of the situation. Even if they claim later publicly that they did not know once the backlash starts up. Lawyers don't just act on lowly minions talking to them, someone with specific powers must authorize the action.

<comment><USER19> This is true but not necessarily entirely correct either. IKEA probably has a legal department handling things such as trademark issues, knockoffs etc; that department may have very little contact with marketing or much-higher-ups.

It's unlikely nobody would be aware of this if this was over "months of negociations", though. Still, I think this is a case where a lot of bureaucracy has clouded what should be a very clear cut case. It's possible if a reasonable top-of-the-chain higher-up is told about all this and it is clearly demonstrated that (assuming this is at all what the site owner wants) IH could be acquired or affiliated and the whole thing could turn from bad PR to good PR, they would tell legal/laywers to sod off.

<comment><USER3> I think you fail to understand the basiscs about how IKEA is put together. The brand is _not_ owned by the parent company:

[http://www.thelocal.se/20120809/42514](http://www.thelocal.se/20120809/42514)

So when you do something with the IKEA brand and furniture all kinds of 'reasonably considerations' that would flow from brand being owned by the mothership go right out the window.

Likely the only kind of employee the brand company has is IP lawyers.

<comment><USER5> A fine tax dodge no doubt - Lichtenstein should nationalise that shell company, y'know, just for the giggle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For anyone arguing this was the right decision... the bottom line is that now Ikea has made me very aware that they care more about the brainless legal bullying of corporate business than applauding a patron who loves their goods.

I can only imagine being an artist, finding someone has created a site about my work, and then deciding that I should attempt to sue or censor that person.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's alarming to me that we allow corporations to control how and how we are not allowed to use words. Trademarks should be limited to preventing people from selling similar products using your company name. They shouldn't be a way for companies to control related culture.

<comment><USER22> By monetizing the site with ads she is making money with their unique brand name.

<comment><USER21> Well, I imagine she's actually making money with her original content - <USER2> then they're saying she can't, because it happens to refer to their "unique braand".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> totally understand IKEAs concern. I thought this was IKEA's website before I read the article..

IKEA should acquire / host this community on their dime & domain

</comment><comment><USER24> fwiw, particle-board-hackers.com is available

</comment><comment><USER25> I suggest she rename it πkea.com

</comment><comment><USER26> Anyone remember ikeaheights?</comment>