Reverse-engineering the new "captchaless" ReCaptcha system - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ReCaptchaReverser/InsideReCaptcha <comment><USER2> When I was a fifteen year old "internet marketer" I was able to create 60,000 google accounts from residential IP's, despite google's CAPTCHA system. As a fifteen year old kid, that's when I knew google is not an invincible company.

The trick was that google's backend registration logic did not validate the referrer of the signup form, or that the submitting IP address matched the one that downloaded the CAPTCHA. So I cloned the form on my own server, loaded it in an invisible iFrame with all fields filled except the CAPTCHA. Then I served the CAPTCHA to the user, who solved it and clicked "submit". Then the entire hidden form in the iframe submitted and registered a google account with the visitor's IP.

I was surprised that worked, because it was a huge vulnerability. Nowadays I would go for the bug bounty, but back then I tried to sell it for $5k -- unfortunately nobody believed I could do it and I couldn't prove it without revealing the method, so I ended up unable to take advantage of the code.

I did have about 60k accounts from random page views on blogspot blogs, but I never did anything with them. Perhaps that was the only time my inability to finish projects ironically saved me from some trouble. :)

<comment><USER3> I remember seeing you post something about this back in the day (maybe on WF?)

good times :-P

<comment><USER4> What is (was?) WF?

<comment><USER5> WickedFire

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I received an email from Google requesting the following:

> The code you reversed is used to protect many sites' registration process > including Google and many others. We are concerned that having your code and > analysis publicly available will make it easier to build registration > automation tools which will result in a surge of spam in all the services > protected by this code and will affect negatively many Internet users.

> This is why we kindly ask you to temporarily remove it from GitHub so your > work won't be used for a malicious purpose which we believe was never your > intended goal.

As I wasn't aware that the _botguard_ was also used for this purpose (separately of ReCaptcha, in Gmail and other services) before publishing my code, I removed the GitHub repository _for now_. I'm sorry for honest security enthusiasts who didn't read the article, but I don't want to cause harm.

Google also proposed me to come visit them in their offices to discuss about my work.

<comment><USER6> Considering that this was done using information also available to malicious parties, is now "out there" even if you take it down yourself and is just a security by obscurity scheme it does leave an bad aftertaste in my mouth.

Google is essentially trying to run code on a user's computer but doesn't want anyone to know what it's running there while it doesn't stop the "bad guys" from doing their own analysis without publishing it. I'm not saying that they're trying to do anything evil, but it just strikes all the wrong notes for me when they try to suppress information on a system they should have known is wide-open to analysis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So in other words, it's a tracking script also serving as a captcha.

"Google servers will receive and process, at least, the following information:

        Plug-ins
        User-agent
        Screen resolution
        Execution time, timezone
        Number of click/keyboard/touch actions in the <iframe> of the captcha
        It tests the behavior of many browser-specific functions and CSS rules
        It checks the rendering of canvas elements
        Likely cookies server-side (it's executed on the www.google.com domain)
        And likely other stuff...

"

At least the old captcha was a more simpler image.

<comment><USER8> Some of this data is readily available in the user-agent string. The other does require some JS execution and sending the results back though. Check this out: [https://valve.github.io/fingerprintjs/](https://valve.github.io/fingerprintjs/)

<comment><USER9> My browser fingerprint is... Nonexistant, because I don't allow arbitrary JS execution without consent.

And my UA string is randomized (unless I override it for a particular site), so that doesn't do anything either.

I wish someone could come up with a plugin that allowed a "safe" subset of JS to run without consent, though.

<comment><USER10> congratulations, you're this guy: [http://www.xkcd.com/1105/](http://www.xkcd.com/1105/)

until there's a significant number of people doing the same thing, you're simply "that guy in <insert geoip lookup city here> with the randomized UA", and you're infinitely more fingerprintable than just about anybody else on the internet. got to EFF's panopticlick to see how unique your fingerprint is. using an iPad with up-to-date software gets me the same fingerprint as about 18000 other people in my geoip region, i haven't been able to do better than that yet.

<comment><USER9> You misunderstand what I mean by "randomized".

It's a weighted random selection from a list of most common browser UAs, weighted by frequency of that UA.

So they can try to fingerprint all they want - all it'll do is clog up their database with useless entries.

<comment><USER10> if your other browser properties don't match the UA though, you're still showing up as a unique fingerprint. You'll be the guy with an IE8 UA sending an accept:image/webp header, or the guy with a Safari UA who's following link prefetching instructions that are only valid in chrome, or something else that makes you unique.

or my personal favourite: sending the do-not-track header, something that only a small number of people send that makes you much easier to fingerprint.

<comment><USER9> The combination of UA and accept headers need to be changed in sync. Good point - any other things like that that should be watched out for?

And DNT is currently at around ~8%, so, although it does leak some information, it doesn't leak an absurd amount (~3.6 bits). (That's using data from here [1], which is FF-only. If you have a better source of data for this, please let me know.)

[1] [https://dnt-dashboard.mozilla.org/](https://dnt-dashboard.mozilla.org/)

<comment><USER11> Any number of things can out you as a fake. Whether or not the request's Accept-Encoding has sdch, can help you figure out if something's Chrome.

You can also abuse parsing quirks to figure out which rendering engine's being used, or just try to use request-generating features that shouldn't be present in whatever browser you're saying you are (<svg>, <video>, styling on engine- specific psuedoelements, etc.)

Here's an example[1] using just HTML+CSS that will request a different image depending on whether you use a webkit or gecko derivative. If you use neither, no image will be requested. Someone who says they're Chrome but requests Firefox's image is immediately outed as a liar.

Same thing given something like `<img src="jar:[http://example.com/ewwww_jar_uri!/baz">`](http://example.com/ewwww_jar_uri!/baz">`). Gecko will make a request to [http://example.com/ewwww_jar_uri](http://example.com/ewwww_jar_uri) while other browsers won't since they don't support the jar URI.

I believe Mario Heiderich also posted some stuff using webkit's styleable scrollbars that could be used for fingerprinting screen sizes and how large certain elements are when rendered.

The list goes on, but my point is that fingerprinting at the rendering / layout engine level is trivial, so you're better off being legitimately ordinary if you're worried about fingerprinting.

[1]: [http://codepen.io/anon/pen/YPwMmY](http://codepen.io/anon/pen/YPwMmY)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oh, it's the botguard we know from the gmail thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8275970#up_8277858](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8275970#up_8277858)

Great analysis!

</comment><comment><USER13> At the end of the day only google.com cookies make sense, everything else can be routinely faked just like author says "Programmatically bypass the captcha by simply executing a rendering engine and automating movements of the mouse." What google was trying to hide? They seem to put a lot of effort in it.

<comment><USER7> They are browser/canvas fingerprinting you and me at a very large scale.

<comment><USER13> But what it has to do with fighting bots? Bots can look like browsers.

<comment><USER14> It's enough information to come up with a unique fingerprint without using cookies.

With that fingerprint they can track your habits across multiple domains. Bots can look like browsers, but they can't necessarily browse the internet the same way a human can.

<comment><USER13> What habits? There's nothing else google can see, they only track movements _inside_ of recaptcha iframe. They have 0 information about how you browse web.

<comment><USER15> _hey have 0 information about how you browse web._

You have chosen a very interesting value of zero.

They have all your interaction with every Google property, tied to your account when you're logged in and semi-persistent pseudonymous identities when you are not. They have the clickstream data between every google property (most notably, Search) and the rest of your web experience, which can (fairly easily) reveal many websites you visit. They have ga.js or AdSense tracking code running on double-digit percentages of all pages on the Internet.

If asked to, Google could provide you with as accurate a record of my flights between Japan and the US as either nation's customs agency could, simply by looking at a time series of IP addresses. Their data got radically more accurate a few years ago when I started using Google Maps with the location permission turned on.

For added giggles, Google is a SQL join away from associating my extraordinarily-well-established-but-weakly-verified Internet identity with unique identifiers like e.g. my social security number. That would probably make someone in the Borg hesitate for a few minutes, but clearly they're OK with saying "At scale, we know the huge class of people which happens to include Patrick -- who we know intimately but prefer to avoid acknowledging that fact in social settings -- is identifiable by a vector of features, and a machine can very quickly cluster a random Internet user with Patrick versus with Spammy McSpamsalot. We can thereby organize data about this person to serve their needs better, for example by giving them access to resources only for trusted people, like captcha-free whatevers. Bonus: this is one more reason why it is fun and convenient to invite Google into even more areas of their life! It's a win-win!"

<comment><USER13> I probably didn't make it clear - recaptcha iframe provides 0 useful information about how you browse web. Of course other google services such as analytics and chrome collect more than enough about your habits. But I don't believe "mouse tracking" inside of 200x400 iframe, nonsense

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The new system is incredibly cumbersome when you have to type the captcha. It went from 2 key presses to 5 (plus actually typing the text of course). Obviously if you just need to tick it everything is fine, but for me the tick works ~5% of the time.

<comment><USER6> There is a <noscript> version of recaptcha which more or less displays the old version: [https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/faq#no_js](https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/faq#no_js)

One could probably write a greasemonkey script that replaces the new captcha with the noscript version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> From original readme:

> It turned out this new ReCaptcha system is heavily obfuscated, as Google > implemented a whole VM in JavaScript with a specific bytecode language.

</comment><comment><USER18> Saw this on /g/. Great work op.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there a place where I can try the new ReCaptcha? The linked Google post only has screenshots.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was activated a few hours ago everywhere on 4chan.

The Google post also gives the examples of Snapchat ([https://support.snapchat.com/login2?next=/](https://support.snapchat.com/login2?next=/)), WordPress ([https://wordpress.org/support/register.php](https://wordpress.org/support/register.php)) and Humble Bundle ([https://www.humblebundle.com/](https://www.humblebundle.com/)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The code is still available at many places on GitHub, many people cloned it to their repos.

</comment><comment><USER21> Does the obfuscation serve any real purpose in improving the security?

<comment><USER22> It's similar to when malware authors pack and encode their stuff.

At the end of the day, it does not stop a determined individual from reverse engineering the code (and then publishing the technique).

BUT it does make it more difficult to understand, work with, etc. It simply reduces the number of individuals who have the skills necessary to follow everything though.

It will deter the less skilled people from attempting to "hack" the system....

<comment><USER23> > It will deter the less skilled people from attempting to "hack" the > system....

... especially if slight changes are made. Google could change the smallest thing and run the lot back through their mangler and the attacker would have to go through the process of unobfuscating it all over again.

<comment><USER24> Creating an ever increasing war of mangler vs demangler.

<comment><USER25> Which is exactly the case with regular captchas except now this is less annoying for real human users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Aaaand it's down.</comment>


The 'Silent' Aircraft Initiative - <AUTHOR> http://silentaircraft.org/sax40 <comment><USER3> There are good reasons why conventional aircraft have their engines on separate pods. They get clean airflow, whereas in the Silent design a wing/body stall would also disrupt air intake to the engines giving a sudden loss in thrust just when you need it most. Not to mention the extra difficulty of maintenance and inspection. And the fact that chunks of ice separating from the body fly right into the turbine.

I could live without windows. Have a few cameras connected to the LCD screens in the seats. Should save a lot of weight and drag.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. Even nowadays how many people have window seat on a widebody? some 20-25%. AVOD and external cameras can do wonders, I really like setup on Emirates.

Other problems are solvable too (aircraft is not meant to accumulate ice, you know ;) and airlines will buy anyway if fuel savings are that good in real life.

<comment><USER5> I suspect it'd still be a tough sell for aircraft manufacturers - <USER2> for long range flights. I do 14-16 hour flights frequently and although I might not be seated next to a window knowing that they're there is sort of nice when I get up to stretch legs. Otherwise you're asking people get into basically a cave for that period of time which might be claustrophobic to even those who don't normally get claustrophobic.

Another issue might be the amount of sea sickness you might encounter given that at least having a horizon line that people can focus on helps. On the other hand... on a 14-16 hour flight if I save 50% or in the case of this like 20% to have windows versus not having windows even when not seated next to one, I might suck it up.

As a frequent traveller, I much prefer to get an aisle seat anyway.

<comment><USER4> So you like both aisle and window? Well, on this thing I guess you may get both, unlike on conventional designs!

<comment><USER5> I like the existence of the windows - which I can still sort of see on the aisles but hate sitting at the window because of the need to step over people to get to either the washrooms or the overhead compartment. It's especially important on those long overseas flights...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These guys aren't the only ones working on this. Here's a couple of links to some interesting concepts Boeing is exploring:

2006 article, with more detail: [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/200...](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002973147_boeingconcepts05.html)

2009 article, newer but with less detail: [http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/runway-girl/2009/03/pic- bo...](http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/runway-girl/2009/03/pic-boeing- reveals-ideas-for-f.html)

The Boeing low-noise concept seems to already incorporate the same basic ideas: engines on top, to deflect noise away from the ground, and redesigned wings (presumably for a steeper final approach).

<comment><USER7> The SAI concept looks a lot like some of the Boeing Sonic Cruiser concepts from a few years back, like this one: [http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w238/Christopher_Cvel/114...](http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w238/Christopher_Cvel/11459402906rM971.jpg)

The SAI and early cruiser concepts both have winglets, but the later cruiser concepts have raked wingtips, like the 767-400: [http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_17/wingti...](http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_17/wingtip_devices.html)

I'd love to see how a floor-plan like this works in practice: <http://www.aviationexplorer.com/pics/future_airliners6.jpg> Seems like the airlines and airport authorities would need to come-up with some better queueing/loading processes.

<comment><USER8> Would this really be an issue? In my experience the biggest hold up is people in the aisles putting their bags in the overhead lockers and edging into their seats while you're trying to get past to your seat. In the image you linked to the although there are more aisles each is shorter so there would be fewer people in front of you blocking your aisle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Last update in 2006 :-(

Then again, you could kind of guess this was doomed to failure for commercial passenger use: no windows. I doubt we'll see more than incremental improvements in aircraft design for another decade, especially not from Europe; everyone loved the look of the Concord but it never made money. Too bad, because quieter aircraft are a Good Thing.

edit: thanks for that update Boris, good to hear.

<comment><USER4> last news is that in January 2009 NASA joined with funding as part of it's own studies [http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?cha...](http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news/aw020209p1.xml&headline=NASA%20Backs%20Hybrid%20Wing/Body%20to%20Meet%20Environmental%20Goals)

so I wouldn't write this off yet.

quote from the article: "NASA has not consulted the airlines to gauge their interest in the hybrid wing/body (HWB) - its generic term for the BWB. Instead its research is driven by internal studies that indicate the unconventional configuration is the only way to meet the aggressive environmental targets it has set for "N+2 generation" aircraft to be available around 2020."

<comment><USER10> Considering how much NASA has actually accomplished in the last several decades, that is probably the kiss of death for any actual plane.

<comment><USER4> What's actual accomplishment for you? Winning a manned race to the moon and building first reusable space plane?

There's enormous amount of research being done there that's not as visible, but significantly more important. NASA won't be building planes anyway.

What's also nice about this is that it's mostly open source.

Just take it and build your own startup on top of it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 1\. no windows. Did they account for the extra drag once the windows get added?

2\. A very wide-body plane like that, is problematic. You are going to have very wide rows (like 12-16 abreast), and the people that are in the rear- sides, will experience very unpleasant "roller coaster" effects when the plane does sharp turns, as they are so far from the central axis.

<comment><USER12> Sharp turns? In commercial aviation?

<comment><USER4> yeah. no sharp turns or sharp pitch ups (see other poster's concern about engines not getting enough air) for this bird. fine by me for an airliner.

How would windows add drag I don't get? Actually you can be a lot more creative with windows on this thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe they could do leaf blowers next.</comment>


Capturing video at the speed of light — one trillion frames per second (Video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EtsXgODHMWk

<comment><USER2> Significant discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3346609></comment>


Re Accuracy Concerns Regarding FBI Matters Submitted to the FISC [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/MIsc%2019%2002%20191217.pdf <comment><USER2> One relevant paragraph from the middle of this court order directed at the FBI:

> _The FBI 's handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the > OIG report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described > above. The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned > out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, > and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls > into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is > reliable. The FISC expects the government to provide complete and accurate > information in every filing with the Court. Without it, the FISC cannot > properly ensure that the government conducts electronic surveillance for > foreign intelligence purposes only when there is a sufficient factual > basis._

<comment><USER3> I only wish this is how we would treat every case for a warrant. But it is not [1].

For us regular folk, this is _Franks v. Delaware_. To be "material," a lie or omission has to change the result. So, if the omitted information were added, or the lie deleted, the remainder of the information has to be insufficient to get the warrant. The problem is that the standard (usually probable cause) is so easy to meet that it can be met even with the lie deleted, or omitted information included. So it's rare for even a blatant lie or deceitful omission to be material, and thus overturn the warrant.

If, on the other hand, you lie to the government...

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Besides this particular case, I wonder which other FISA applications were manipulated with exaggerated or fabricated evidence? FISA court is known for rubber-stamping applications, they approve at like a 90% rate thousands of requests to spy on citizens.

Process changes are necessary but only criminal charges are gonna deter future abuse. How is the court supposed to know an email or a 302 was doctored? Process change can't fix that.

<comment> at-fates-hands It's actually closer to 99%. I think I heard they only rejected one warrant in the last calendar year.

Its surprising that it's taken something of this magnitude for people to realize this the whole idea of the FISC is a very bad idea. I know the original idea was to use against terrorist organizations and individuals who they knew were terrorists, but the extensive use of warrantless searches against US Citizens is a very, very dangerous thing.

<comment><USER5> > It's actually closer to 99%.

Folks often bring out this number, as if it is something to be outraged about. What do you think is the rate at which non-secret courts approve warrants?

In Utah, the approval rate is 98%. [1]

Warrants have always been a rubber-stamp process - the main purpose of which is to create a paper trail, and to prevent wide-reaching fishing expeditions.

[1] [https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/01/14/warrants-approved- in-...](https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/01/14/warrants-approved-in-just- minutes-are-utah-judges-really-reading-them-before-signing-off/)

<comment><USER6> A paper trail is less useful to the public when every document is classified. There is little reason to suspect that the FISA court has prevented "wide- reaching fishing expeditions".

<comment><USER5> All currently known evidence indicates that the FISA-stamped warrants that were sent out to tech companies were targeted, in that they identified _particular_ individuals that should be surveilled.

So, yes, FISA did seem to accomplish one of the two purposes of warrants. I agree that a secret paper trail isn't particularly useful.

<comment><USER6> I consider an investigation to be "a fishing expedition" whenever there is no good reason at the beginning of the investigation to suspect that the target has committed a particular crime. Every time a FISA warrant has been publicized, it has fit that criterion. Following Cardinal Richelieu, any person subjected to enough surveillance may be convicted of _something_.

<comment><USER5> You may think that way, but judges don't.

If you are a gang leader, and you call someone twice a day, any judge will absolutely sign a wiretap warrant targeted at the person you are calling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hope someone goes to jail. How else will this deter future abuses? Americans are tired of people in positions of real power receiving preferential treatment.

</comment><comment><USER8> As far as I am concerned the 4th amendment has been mostly stripped to a relic of the past. If you want protection from search/seizure then you must educate yourself on how to guarantee it absolutely as a matter of technology.

</comment><comment><USER9> From the first page:

> A finding of probable cause to believe that a U.S. citizen (or other "United > States person" as defined at Section 1803(i)) is an agent of a foreign power > cannot be solely based on activities protected by the First Amendment.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are very few things in life that will fuck up your day faster than lying to a Federal Judge, example N.

[N-1] [https://twitter.com/obarcala/status/1192193014350991360](https://twitter.com/obarcala/status/1192193014350991360)

[N-2] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/prenda- hammered-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/prenda-hammered- judge-sends-porn-trolling-lawyers-to-criminal-investigators/)

.....

<comment><USER10> It's different if you live in the Beltway, attend the same cocktail parties as the federal judge you're lying to, and have children who attend the same private schools.

<comment><USER3> I presume FISA courts are in D.C., so I suppose this could be true. But judges, ADAs, Federal justice employees live in, and work closely together in, hundreds of localities across the USA. No ADA/Agent in any of them ever have stories that start with "A judge found out I (even sorta kinda) lied" that ended well for everyone involved.

<comment><USER6> DoJ lies all the time. The judges know this. The system does not exist to police _itself_.

<comment><USER3> Those are two different systems, so it's not clear what you are trying to say, other than, like, burn it all down man.

<comment><USER6> In the public courts, DoJ lies with impunity. It's very difficult for defendants to escape with their freedom; holding federal prosecutors responsible for their misdeeds is the last thing on their minds.

In the FISA courts, DoJ lies with impunity. The judges occasionally throw a warrant back and tell them to try harder, but mostly DGAF, because no publicity. Now there is publicity, and suddenly a judge cares...

I am an anarchist, so I oppose all arbitrary authority. If burning will solve these problems, then let's burn. If not, let's do something else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I thought it was cool that this appeared on the front page for me even though it was already [flagged]. I can actually see why it's flagged; of mostly political import with very little technical detail.

<comment><USER11> It's pretty obviously just flagged for violating the permitted narratives. If this document is 'of mostly political import', then this[0] one most certainly is.

Though I think it's pretty funny how this scandal has mutated from a "far- right conspiracy theory" to "FISA courts are obviously being political". Really this is just a CYA move to heap all the blame onto the FBI, but it's hard to try and claim this isn't relevant when it's sharing the front page with threads like this[1], where the top comment thread is discussing FISA courts as a solution to litigating against the government.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19762811](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19762811)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21826567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21826567)

<comment><USER6> I mostly agree, but assuming you're talking about this [0] I think that's an uncharitable reading.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21829759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21829759)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I need to read this and find the context because I am unsure about how to feel about this.

<comment><USER13> An FBI lawyer changed an email that said Carter Page was a source to say Page was "not a source"

<comment><USER14> More to the point, Page was a source to _the CIA_ , and had been for years, by reporting on his meetings with Russians. The FBI knew this, but specifically altered evidence to hide this from FISA when seeking a warrant to spy on him (and, thus, the Trump campaign).</comment></comment></comment>


Finally, a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/finally-a-problem-that-only-quantum-computers-will-ever-be-able-to-solve-20180621/ <comment><USER2> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17368493](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17368493)</comment>


Microsoft Announces Windows Support for the Raspberry Pi 2 - <AUTHOR> http://makezine.com/2015/02/02/microsoft-windows-support-raspberry-pi-2/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like it'll be painful to use. Imagine the lag!

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny. It took RPi to have four cores and 1GB of RAM to have Windows. Why would anyone want a system that uses that much of resources merely to run itself and still needs plenty of software yet to be installed to do anything useful?

<comment><USER4> Not really. It took RPi to use ARMv7 to have windows. Number of cores and RAM have nothing to do with it. Exactly the same situation with Android.</comment></comment>


Achieving overnight success: Tom Preston-Werner  - <AUTHOR> http://joel.is/post/27696148578/achieving-overnight-success-tom-preston-werner

<comment><USER3> This reminded me of Chris Wanstrath's (GitHub Co-founder) talk/post where he said:

      But it wasn't an overnight eureka, and it wasn't intentional.
      I didn't just walk out of high school, pick up a Ruby book, meet Tom and PJ,
      then launch the site GitHub.

      Before GitHub came, in chronological order, Spyc, Ozimodo, my ozmm.org, tumblelog,
      ftpd.rb, Choice, Err the Blog, acts_as_textiled, Cheat!, acts_as_cached, Mofo,
      Subtlety, cache_fu, Sexy Migrations, Gibberish, nginx_config_generator,
      fixture scenarios builder, Sake, Ambition, and Facebox.

      And that's just the stuff I released.

Source: <https://gist.github.com/6443>

Discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=282158>

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm impressed with the premise of these articles and want to see more of them -- removing the glitz and glamour added by the media to entrepreneurial stories is an important service.

I must have been out of the loop -- I never knew that Tom Preston-Werner founded Gravatar[1] or that he worked at Powerset.

He mentioned in his blog post[2], as he was labelled a "flight risk", he was offered quite a sum of money to stay at Powerset/Microsoft. Money is quite sticky and to pull away from it requires both guts and determination. Even though I'm early in my career I've already come across the "flight risk" pot of gold and avoided it -- though as opposed to Tom I don't yet know if I made the right decision or not ;)

[1]: [http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/10/27/looking-back-on- sel...](http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/10/27/looking-back-on-selling- gravatar-to-automattic.html)

[2]: [http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/10/18/how-i-turned- down-3...](http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/10/18/how-i-turned- down-300k.html)

<comment><USER5>
      > though as opposed to Tom I don't yet know if I made the
      > right decision or not ;)

The interesting thing is -- it was probably the wrong call, and I'm saying this without having the faintest idea who you are or what you do. An abundance of news on IPOs, start-up millionaires, and other "over night" success stories has the unfortunate effect of grossly distorting our perception of the actual success/failure distribution.

NB, this doesn't mean one shouldn't _try_. But you know what I'd be interested in? A series on utter failures. People leaving safe jobs for a half-baked idea that simply doesn't take off. Companies folding after a couple of months without much publicity. Desperate hunts for "acquihires" that go nowhere.

<comment><USER6> I agree, the survivor bias in the startup world is intense. We're always focusing on the success stories and replicating what they did. But, like you say, for every "toiled away and finally made it" story, there are probably 5? 10? 100? "toiled away and still got nowhere" stories.

As someone who has written a little about trying and failing[1][2], I'll say that the community doesn't exactly embrace such stories. Instead, everyone piles on to armchair quarterback and tell you what you did wrong.

But, to anyone who is serious about succeeding, you need to listen and learn from both the successes and the failures. Otherwise, you're operating on far less than half the story.

[1] [http://blog.aisleten.com/2009/04/06/what-we-did-to-not- get-i...](http://blog.aisleten.com/2009/04/06/what-we-did-to-not-get-into- techstars/)

[2] [http://peachshake.com/2011/07/20/entrepreneurship- stumbling-...](http://peachshake.com/2011/07/20/entrepreneurship-stumbling-my- way-through/) (go about 10 minutes in to hear about failure)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The praise for Github bootstrapping to over 100 employees always strikes me as odd. I have the impression that using venture capital to accelerate a company marks a more modern approach to business, relative to the last ~30 years. Along these lines, Github's seeming delay in accepting venture capital signals to me that its core business plan strongly builds value without a "warp- tunnel" of venture capital, and that its current valuation comes from patience rather than a VC's gamble. Therefore, I see such public investments of VC more as a mark of impatience caused by a society that thrives so much on near- instant communication.

Is my impression off?

<comment><USER4> Whilst VC can certainly accelerate a company's growth, it can also be risky.

When you take on funding you also take on obligations. One could imagine that VC partners early on may take issue with the idea of Github offering free services for open source projects for example. Before the network effect steps in, it'd just look like a foolish and idealistic idea. Essentially, VC funding may well accelerate your company but it's so early you have no clue if you're accelerating in the right direction.

By bootstrapping to such a successful point and then taking VC funding they're in far more control over how much money they receive and what percentage of equity they give up. The worst position to be bargaining from is a position of weakness -- having a self sufficient company puts them in control.

Bootstrapping lead to what appears to be very competitive terms from well known and respected VC partners[1]. Whilst they could have raised funding earlier, they would have been parting with much more equity.

[1]: [http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-deals/2012-07-09-github- takes-1...](http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-deals/2012-07-09-github- takes-100m-in-largest-investment-by-andreessen-horowitz/)

<comment><USER8> It's not just obligations.

I'll take an example from my own career: One of my first startups was a vanity domain hosted e-mail service. We bought about 60.000 domain names. Originally this came out of the realization that myself and one of my co-founders were in effect both "blocking" a surname for everyone else with our own domains - <USER2> for a fairly common one. We figured we'd add some services and value and create the opportunity for effectively sharing domains. We figured since we, and quite a few other people) as we found out by checking which common last names where available on .com) were willing to pay for a domain, chances were a decent number of people would be willing to pay for a service like this as well - particularly non-technical users. And anyway, it was possible to buy ourselves artificial scarcity fairly cheaply.

Then came the discussion of bringing in VC's, and as this was '99, once the discussion turned to what a VC might be interested in, switching to a free, ad supported model to boost user numbers came up early on the basis of the ridiculous per-user valuations of the time. And the VC's took that bait hook line and sinker.

So it's not just _obligations_ : Deciding to targeting the VC's when you're starting from a weak position (not existing, profitable product) has the potential of warping your thinking as you try to make your idea into something that is attractive to _them_. I'm not going to blame the VC's here - we did this entirely voluntarily, and of course were also seduced by the potential for a much larger exit (but didn't think through the increased risks that came with growing the company so rapidly)

The problem is that since the VC's want out fast and have diversified their risks significantly, they are willing to 1) take significant risks on building businesses where there's no known long term prospect if there's decent shots at exits. In this case, there was a steady stream of acquisitions based largely on per-user valuations without much revenue. In this case it was openly acknowledged that while everything thought it was possible to break even, the hope for a big exit lay in this. 2) they're willing to make some really high risk bets if the potential payout is a large enough multiple.

These makes sense for them, but much less so for founders that has a much lower limit on how many shots we effectively have at a successful startup through our careers. And so it is important to keep that in mind when considering what changes are acceptable to make in order to get VC funding - some changes might get you lots of money, but might severely impact your odds of getting an exit that _you_ might be perfectly happy with.

In the end we acquired a decent number of users (1.5 million or so) in very little time, didn't see a way of getting the money, the bubble had burst and the investors got skittish, and so we pivoted. Twice. In the end the company survived, at least. But the assets of the e-mail service was sold off, and the new owner made a profit on that acquisition in no-time by returning to our original idea (and were later acquired - I don't know what valuation they got, but I'm willing to bet their ROI was substantially better than ours...).

I'm all for taking VC cash for the right opportunity, but anyone going that route should think long and hard about if and how changing the business to "fit".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The site seems to be down due to traffic overload - here is a cached version:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7f0lqf7...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7f0lqf7g9s8J:joel.is/post/27696148578/achieving- overnight-success-tom-preston-werner)

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow, never knew Tom created Gravatar. Really like these sort of posts but maybe the title of 'overnight success' is wrong? Great article though!

</comment><comment><USER11> Why does this site always take 10 attempts to load?

<comment><USER12> I wrote this post for that exact reason [http://blog.picplum.com/startups- dont-host-your-blog-on-tumb...](http://blog.picplum.com/startups-dont-host- your-blog-on-tumblr/)

edit: re link not loading - anyone else having Zerigo DNS issues right now?

edit2: yeah, lots <https://twitter.com/#!/search/zerigo>

<comment><USER13> My connection to Tumblr is always being interrupted. I brushed it off as an edge case, since I live in a pretty remote area in Europe. This makes me think the issue more wide spread.</comment></comment></comment>


Why don't notebook users protect each other from theft using their webcams? - <AUTHOR>

For example, they could form a surveillance network in a public library for this purpose. If a theft occurs, they could send their videos to the police. <comment><USER2> Because its easier to buy and use a cable lock.

Unless, like me, you've got a Mac Book Air whose design must be unencumbered by such pedestrian concerns.</comment>


Chicago Loses, Nerds Win: The real story behind Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2231173/ <comment><USER2> In all the commentary so far (e.g. on Chicago's WBEZ public radio, playing in the background), I haven't heard a single mention of the hassle it has become for many people to visit the U.S. I've seen this point made many places, including in comments on this site, particularly a year or two ago. I've heard it from friends and acquaintances.

I don't know whether it would have influenced the decision at all -- my ill- informed impression is that many of those decision makers don't travel in such a "plebian" manner. But I've been wondering. Given what I've heard, if I were a non-U.S. representative casting my vote, I'd take it into consideration.

Overall, but again without having paid particular attention, the Rio decision makes sense to me. South America has not seen much of the Games. Brazil is an up and coming power. Much of the world is weary of the excesses of U.S. hegemony (the excesses, as opposed to the entire role of the U.S.), even if it did in general take some heart in Obama's election.

Perhaps, also, this is a leading indicator of a decline in the need to kiss the U.S.'s posterior.

<comment><USER3> _I haven't heard a single mention of the hassle it has become for many people to visit the U.S._

It is a hassle to visit China, as well, but that did not affect their Olympic bid.

<comment><USER4> I've visited China many times, and it has never felt like a hassle. It actually feels more difficult re-entering my own country (Australia), as it takes considerably longer to get through customs and pick up baggage here.

<comment><USER3> I consider getting a visa for a short-term tourist stay to be a hassle. You can't just buy your plane ticket and show up, instead you have to fill out paperwork, fax copies of your passport around, etc.

(Personal story: I transited Shanghai a few weeks ago. If I didn't need a visa to visit the city, I would have added a stopover or picked a longer connection so that I could go into town. But since this would have involved money and paperwork, I decided to skip it.

I did get to see the Great Firewall in action, though, which was kind of neat. I felt like I was Sticking It To The Man when I had to ssh to my server at home and use w3m to read blogs.)

<comment><USER5> Er BTW many people need a visa for a short-term visit to the US. Now even people who previously could visit short-term either have to jump through hoops or have to apply for a visa. A significant amount more post-bush need visas than did pre-bush.

Because of decent negotiating on the British part, most Britons still apply for the visa-waving program (mostly because the British government said if the UK loses its Visa-waving program to the US, the US will lose its to the UK). This happened only a couple of years after the whole mandatory machine readable passport thing (which the British government again said that US citizens have to do it too).

Ironically the US was trying to ban British Pakistani's from entering the US, however the US never even attempted to prevent the entry of the IRA when they were purchasing weaponry from the US for terrorist purposes. I suppose the US's whole anti-terrorist stance is hugely different when they terrorists are helping your economy, not trying to destroy it.

<comment><USER3> No offense, but US immigration restrictions have very little to do with terrorism. It is more about "protecting" our jobs, or something.

We have plenty of natural-born citizens that like killing people (Ted Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh, etc.), and the 9/11 hijackers all had valid visas. INS (DHS now) is not in a position to prevent terrorism.

Now, why anyone would want to come to the US illegally, with our lack of health care, crumbling school system, horrendous prisons, and so on, is beyond me. Someone should tell the illegal immigrants that there are many better places to immigrate to.

<comment><USER5> I wasn't talking about immigrating, I was talking about visitors visas. Big difference, the US was planning to remove the visa-waver program because of the British Pakistani community.

However, I understand what you mean about illegal immigration. Although I completely understand why people work illegally when they do go to a different country. I'm immigrating legally to Canada and it's been almost 6 months without a single response, but I can't work for risk of voiding the application process. I'll be lucky if I hear anything before the new year.

However 1 year of unemployment is a better option than the potential 5 years my wife could face trying to work legally in the UK. Plus, you know, Canada actually has vegetation in the places they call 'cities', which by far beats the UK's desolate wastelands (personally I don't count many British people on the streets as alive, at least from the city I came from, I think 90% would probably pass a test for P-Zombieism).

<comment><USER3> _Big difference, the US was planning to remove the visa-waver program because of the British Pakistani community._

I doubt this. One crackpot unelected official does not "the US was planning" make. If we kill our visa-waiver program, everyone else in the world will remove the US from theirs. That is simply not going to happen.

Also, if you feel that the US is discriminating against you because of your ethnicity, you have full access to the courts. The Constitution protects all "people", not just citizens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN. I wrote this for Slate today and wanted to share it with you as it breaks down the conflict in Chicago over their own Olympic bid, good- government geeks on one side, pro-tourism jocks on the other.

<comment><USER6> What I found most interesting is the detailed analysis of the expect costs and benefits. What I strongly disliked is how it was cast in jocks vs nerds theater.

I understand that Slate's readership isn't HN's readership, and that just the facts aren't enough, that there needs to be some kind of emotional story to hold the reader's attention.

But is jocks vs nerds really it? Is that the most interesting thing? Wouldn't a more generic dreamers vs. hard nosed realists be something a wider audience can identify with?

Perhaps you're also looking for strong passion, not just the widest general interest? But even in that case, the jocks vs nerds cliche? Nerds hate any kind of sports related activity so much they won't even allow their home city to host the Olympics?

It just feels tired and forced. But the economic analysis was great.

<comment><USER7> I wonder if the same people opposing the Olympics would oppose, say, an economically dubious high-speed rail line?

<comment><USER8> I would! I can't speak for anyone else, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'll become interested in the Olympics when they add programming to it. I've been an aspiring prograthelete for years, but alas, the Olympics still doesn't have the most grueling sport of all: the prograthelon, 36 consecutive hours of mind blowing competition:

      1. IDE Finger Gymnastics
      2. 100 Lines-Of-Code Dash
      3. Individual Text Editor Medley
      4. Regular Expression Datelifting
      5. Greco-Roman Webpage Translation
      6. Modern Compiling
      7. Databaseball
      8. Hackstroke
      9. Printer Throw
     10. Debugging Marathon

<comment><USER10> You forgot race condition :-P

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Denver actually bailed out of a commitment to host the Olympics 30-odd years ago: [http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/millennium/1012stone.sht...](http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/millennium/1012stone.shtml)

</comment><comment><USER12> p.s.: rio won the bid for 2016.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm sorry . . .

But the comic in the right hand column of that Slate Article is awesome. That is SO Chicago.

<comment><USER14> The comics rotate. Which one were you looking at?

<comment><USER13> The one with Obama at the podium, flanked by two mafia guys with tommy guns. And he says something to the effect of, 'Like we Chicagoans always say, vote early, and vote often!'

<comment><USER14> It is definitely annoying that every time I go downstairs to buy coffee, I have to thread my way around angry looking mafia guys with Tommy Guns and bribe the barista.

<comment><USER2> Ha. In a previous corporate position, senior management was flipped to some East Coast "fixers". They started whacking jobs left and right. They felt the need to be on site, rather than remaining out east, but apparently feared for their lives or well-being during this blood bath. So... they holed up in one wing of the building, and installed armed guards in the lobby. Every time I went in or out, I was walking past armed guards.

(I realize a significant fraction of people here may have that, but for a bland corporate job?)

Fortunately, the guards were decent fellows, once you got to know them (and working a lot of evenings and weekends, I got to know them). Neither angry nor armed with fully automatic weapons. But then this was the genteel suburbs; might have been different if we were downtown. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting article. I wish it would have addressed the go-to stat of the pro- Olympics crowd here in Chicago, namely that no Summer Olympics has lost money since '84.

<comment><USER8> Really? I heard that no summer Olympics in history had ever _made_ money except for 1984.

I expect it's one of those creative accounting things where you can come up with pretty much any number you like.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Online English copywriter/translation service - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I am a non-native speaker and I need hassle-free copywriter/translation service for my startup.<p>Few weeks ago I saw a startup here on HN where native speaker would correct your sentences as you type, they used "catnip" as currency, I've been googling for 30 minutes but can't find them. Any help is welcome. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://chattingcat.com/](https://chattingcat.com/)</comment>


List of common misconceptions - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions <comment><USER2> The collected pet peeves of internet nerds. For best effect, reformat in green comic sans.</comment>


Anaxagoras Was Exiled for Claiming the Moon Was a Rock - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ancient-greek-philosopher-was-exiled-claiming-moon-was-rock-not-god-180972447/ <comment><USER2> The title of the article doesn't really match what the article has to say about his trial. It does, however, work nicely as an example of a general rule I have:

I'm always suspicious when hearing tales about scientists who were punished for their discoveries by less enlightened minds. Looking into it, it mostly turns out they were either sentenced for other crimes or, as this article claims was the case here, that it was most likely a political move masquerading as being motivated by theology.

Which itself falls under another similar guideline: if any big societal undertaking (wars unfortunately seem to be the most common example) seems motivated by religion, that's usually not the true reason behind it.

Perhaps my own beliefs are colouring my interpretations, but it just seems like people's actual motivations tend to be pragmatic but they market their actions as being out of belief or morality.

<comment><USER3> > Looking into it, it mostly turns out they were either sentenced for other > crimes or, as this article claims was the case here, that it was most likely > a political move masquerading as being motivated by theology.

Despite having been a believer until age ~14 or so (raised that way) I've been having real trouble lately getting into the heads of adults who really, actually believe all the stuff their religions teach. I don't mean the vaguely spiritual Unitarian Universalist sorts or the new-age Buddhists who figure all the weird stuff in Buddhist teachings & writings is purely allegorical, I mean the ones who _truly_ think all the stuff in their books happened and maybe even that the supernatural has a real influence on their lives today.

I have even more trouble modeling the mind of functioning, even intelligent adults who _run_ religious institutions and are true believers, not just pragmatists following along because that's What One Does, doing it all with a bit of a wink and a nod. Like, your average priest: how many _actually_ believe? Is it really most of them? An abbott? Really, they do, for the most part? How about back in, say, the middle ages, the cardinals and such really believed? Nobles and heads of state did? I just can't wrap my head around it.

Or, ancient folks. How _real_ was religion in their lives? To what degree were the gods of Greece a vehicle for conveying (this part clearly real and important, to the Greeks!) common norms and lessons via (essentially) folk tales, and how much did they actually think Zeus— _actually_ Zeus, a supernatural being who for-real did all the batshit crazy stuff in the stories—truly might show up at their door dressed as a beggar? Did most people believe it? Did the elites? It's hard for me to imagine.

All this seems incredibly dumb, I know, but that's where I'm at.

[EDIT] incredibly dumb _that I 'm struggling so much to comprehend this_, I mean.

<comment><USER4> As a functioning, intelligent adult who believes everything written in my religion's holy book I empathize with how ridiculous it looks from the outside. But to me I have just as much trouble understanding how someone can go through life and not believe that there's more to it than the natural world, and probably struggle as much to understand that viewpoint as you do to understand mine.

To me it's a self evident miracle that any kind of universe exists, not to mention that there's life in it, and even more amazing that the life can observe the universe, explore it, and enjoy it. To me something had to cause all this, and if so then some religion has to be true. If some religion is true then you can't pick and choose the parts you like and discard what you don't.

I agree that many of the most powerful religious leaders don't actually believe everything they teach though. Religion is a powerful tool to get people to do what you want.

<comment><USER5> Isn't it much more likely that if a diety exists that it isn't described by any of the small handful of religions we have concocted here on earth?

<comment><USER6> This is a sort of "gambit" that doesn't work because it assumes that all religion is created by humans. But most religions claim they are handed down directly from God, so the point would be moot.

 _Of course_ anyone who thought their religion was made up by a human _wouldn 't_ really believe it. So this won't convince anyone either way.

<comment><USER5> I guess I just mean to say that I can still have the abject wonder about the world we see around us and have reason to believe that there was something (as opposed to nothing) responsible for the entirety of existence, without having to fall back on saying that MY religion is the reason for this to be the case.

<comment><USER7> I agree with your logic. Believing _something_ made the world doesn't necessarily mean one religion reveals that _something_. In the journey of my life experiences I have found a compelling case in the Bible and Jesus. I understand that it sounds strange (incomprehensible?) to others with different experiences. But the best I can say it in short form, logic opens the door for belief, beauty guides me through that door. By "beauty" I mean that aesthetic sense of _rightness_. The same feeling that makes me know a painting is good is the same feeling that makes me feel that the story of revelation, fall, redemption presented in the Christian religion is True.

What I can't understand is atheists who balk at the possibility of any kind of god, but happily entertain the notion that we are in a simulation. What exactly would be the difference in a created reality and a simulated reality?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find the picture of Anaxagoras (the crater) rather annoying, because they didn't orient it with the light source coming from the upper left, as is (or used to be) kind of the convention on a computer screen.

<comment><USER9> Wow you're right - it's so much better rotated: [https://files.catbox.moe/tt6mu1.png](https://files.catbox.moe/tt6mu1.png)

<comment><USER10> Wow, indeed.

My thanks to both you and the OP. I had to replicate this to see if it wasn't some sort of trickery.

Frankly this is a little unsettling; why am I primed to to recognise something "with the light source coming from the upper left"? Is it an effect of previous continuous exposure or a general principle of how the brain interprets lights and shadows?

<comment><USER11> The sun is normally in the sky above us, we build buildings with lights on the ceiling or high up on the walls, so it's reasonable that an image with a light-source above would be more understandable than one with a light-source below.

It's very unusual for a light-source to be exactly aligned with the thing it illuminates, so unusual that if you see it, it looks wrong[1]. It's reasonable that an image with a light-source to the top-left or top-right would be more understandable than one with a light-source directly above.

As for why "left" rather than "right", I don't have a good answer. When Microsoft redesigned Windows 3.0[2] to make the buttons look more like buttons (instead of just rectangular or rounded outlines), they decided to put the light-source at the top-left rather than the top-right. Why they chose that direction I don't know, but I notice the mouse-cursor also points to the top- left, the most important menu (the system menu) is in the top-left, the title bar is at the top and the menus in the menu-bar are left-aligned, etc. etc. I don't think there's a _neurological_ reason why shading should have a top-left light-source, but if you're making an interface for people who read left-to- right, top-to-bottom and you visually organise everything in that same order, it makes sense to align shading in the same way as everything else rather than have it be The One Thing Out Of Place.

[1]: [https://www.amusingplanet.com/2017/04/lahaina-noon-when- shad...](https://www.amusingplanet.com/2017/04/lahaina-noon-when-shadows- disappear.html)

[2]: [https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win30](https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win30)

<comment><USER12> When writing, right-handed, a lamp to the right will cast your hand's shadow over the nib, and will cramp your elbow room.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have no idea what the title "An Ancient Greek Philosopher Was Exiled for Claiming the Moon Was a Rock, Not a God" has to do with the detailed explanation in the last three paragraphs of how he was exiled.

The misleading implication of the title seems to be the ancients were dumb for exiling someone who had a controversial scientific opinion; we'd certainly never do that now (LOL); the records and detailed explanation imply he was exiled simply for supporting the wrong politician.

Its exactly analogous to claiming James Watson was attacked because people didn't like the chemical bond structure of DNA.

<comment><USER14> The article writes:

> Anaxagoras was arrested, tried and sentenced to death, ostensibly for > breaking impiety laws while promoting his ideas about the moon and sun.

This provides the context to understand that while the title is true at a surface level, his claims around the moon likely served as pretext rather than true cause.

You write:

> Its exactly analogous to claiming James Watson was attacked because people > didn't like the chemical bond structure of DNA.

I disagree. An exact analogy would require that James Watson was actually attacked for his belief in the structure of DNA, which served as a pretext for the real claims against him. James Watson was attacked directly for his views on race.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> An Hipparchus (c. 190 BC - c. 120 BC) estimated the distance to the Moon in the Earth radii between 62 and 80 (depending on the method he used). Today's measurements are between 55 and 64, so it was quite good.

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

</comment><comment><USER16> A lovely story and a useful reminder that every single scientific norm or fact we take for granted likely has thousands of years of thought, debate, controversy before reaching the relative stasis from which we build.

<comment><USER17> Well it's more of a story about how scientists who support the wrong politicians in ancient Greece might find themselves exiled if their side ends up loosing, regardless of their scientific beliefs.

<comment><USER16> Which happens to this day in modern democracies, except swap exiled for ostracised.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A more formal intro to the Anaxagoras story: [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anaxagoras/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anaxagoras/)

"Democritus, a younger contemporary, dated his own life in relation to Anaxagoras', saying that he was young in the old age of Anaxagoras (DK59A5); he reportedly accused Anaxagoras of plagiarism. Although Anaxagoras lived in Athens when Socrates was a youth and young adult, there are no reports that Anaxagoras and Socrates ever met. In Plato's Phaedo, Socrates says that he heard someone reading from Anaxagoras' book.... As with all the Presocratics, Anaxagoras' work survives only in fragments..."

</comment><comment><USER19> A little off topic but what great names the Greeks had. If Anaxagoras was running for president I'd be tempted to vote for him just based on his name.

<comment><USER20> I wonder if this is actually the other way, that is, so many words and names of Greek origin are associated with ancient philosophy and classical wonders (Archimedes, Pythagoras, Parthenon, etc.) that these words end up sounding "great".

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The Science was settled.

</comment><comment><USER22> Instead of beeing what ? Cheese ?

TLDR : instead of being a god.

</comment><comment><USER23> ...if Anaxagoras knew that some people today would consider the earth flat and the moon made of literally cheese, he would have commited suicide himself.</comment>


AskHN: How to fund a DevBootcamp in a smaller city? - <AUTHOR>

I live in Dayton, a largely .Net town, not too many web app companies around, and not many specializing in Rails - I want to change that - but one caveat is that I'm currently underemployed as a PHP developer @ $15/hour, so w/ little money how can I start this endeavor, tried reaching out to companies to sponsor, but all I got was a lousy t-shirt from Stripe(no offense, very thankful for that lol..but won't pay the startup costs..) <comment><USER2> These bootcamps can pretty much fund themselves if put together properly. Putting together a curriculum, finding a space, in a nutshell just putting together a business plan.

From there I would set a price for the class and start doing pre-registration, do a limited 10 seat first class and have people sign up if interested. An instructor you can bring on board for a contract price for the duration of the bootcamp.

I have seen this work out successful many times in the recent 6 months. Also if your looking for something that is more for the community and less for the profit, take a look at [http://www.meetup.com/codecrewny/](http://www.meetup.com/codecrewny/). These guys do meetups to go through the JS in 6-8 weeks curriculum ([http://javascriptissexy.com/how-to-learn-javascript- properly](http://javascriptissexy.com/how-to-learn-javascript-properly))

Since Rails is not prevalent, it's a great time to seize the opportunity of building that following.

</comment><comment><USER3> In about 5 minutes I found 5 companies in Dayton who use open source tech for web development[1]. I also found a web developer meetup group that's been going for 6 years, has more than 350 members, and has a meeting in a couple of weeks[2]. And a dynamic languages (e.g. Ruby) group with 46 members meeting the week after that[3].

And I'm thousands of miles away in the UK.

There are people out there who can help. Get in touch with them. Don't try to do it all yourself. Many, many people will volunteer time.

[1] [http://boldmove.co](http://boldmove.co), [http://www.volotechnologies.com](http://www.volotechnologies.com), [http://atomicinteractive.com](http://atomicinteractive.com), [http://www.designchemistry.com](http://www.designchemistry.com), [http://www.bitstormweb.com](http://www.bitstormweb.com)

[2] [http://www.meetup.com/dayton-web- developers/](http://www.meetup.com/dayton-web-developers/)

[3] [http://www.meetup.com/Dayton-Dynamic-Languages-User- Group/](http://www.meetup.com/Dayton-Dynamic-Languages-User-Group/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Suggest you find a bar, restaurant, or office that will be willing for you to meet up, invite some tech people to do something techy (maybe give talks on what you've been working on). Companies are more likely to sponsor if you've got an audience, no real reason for Stripe etc. to give resources to every town that asks for them especially if you've not got any other people interested. Once you've got something of an audience then you've got a chance of reaching out to others who might be interested in a bootcamp. You might want to focus on PHP given that you're able to find in employment in PHP (and presumably not in Rails) or even in .Net if that's what people are doing locally. If you can't get a few techy people for drinks then you're unlikely to persuade people to come for a full bootcamp.</comment>


Slipstream aims to be the cure of information overload on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://slipstre.am/

<comment><USER2> Founder here. Thanks for the mention and happy to take feedback! Was planning on doing an Ask HN post soon.</comment>


EA: Blaming sexism for lack of women in our industry is a cop-out  - <AUTHOR> http://gamasutra.com/view/news/185122/EA_Blaming_sexism_for_lack_of_women_in_our_industry_is_a_copout.php#.UP2bmz_lP-I

<comment><USER2> Maybe it's just the low quality of the article that leaves me puzzled, but the Gabrielle Toledanos argument doesn't make sense to me.

According to the article she says that sexism is not the problem, but perceived sexism. So women don't join the gaming industry because they think it's sexist.

Assuming she is right (I'm not saying she is), doesn't that make removing the sexist reputation of the gaming industry the main issue?

<comment><USER3> Let me try to explain what I understood without in any way taking up this position (I have nothing to do with the games industry).

She says sexism is a serious issue, BUT the problem in the games industry is not enough women to hire, especially in engineering. This is the bottom line for the article.

She doesn't at all say that perceived sexism is "the problem," I think that is your interpolation. She does say that if the reason a woman doesn't join the industry is because she fears sexism will limit her, that woman is missing out (implied: it's worth it, it's not that limiting). But nothing is asserted about perceived sexism having primacy. So it doesn't necessarily follow from this position that the main issue is to remove the sexist reputation of the gaming industry. But even if it were, you will see a different approach if the reputation is accurate vs. if it is overblown.

There are lots of reasons for why a demographic might be under-represented in an industry, which do not require that the demographic is being abused to a point where there is no point in their getting equipped to join that industry

<comment><USER2> OK, you're right, maybe I'm interpolating her argument because it is the only thing the article mentions her saying about why women don't join the gaming industry (or become engineers in general). Saying the problem is that there aren't enough women to hire is just another way of saying that only few women want to join that industry. That is not a problem analysis.

So I read the actual article in Forbes: She argues that the level of sexism in the gaming industry is similar to other male dominated industry and that the game industry just has a bad reputation. She then goes on to encourage women to join the gaming industry. That makes more sense then the sensationalist title/article on gamasutra.</comment></comment></comment>


Scala is my next choice - <AUTHOR> http://www.khelll.com/blog/scala/scala-is-my-next-choice/

<comment><USER2> These 'look how these 4 lines of Java translate into 2 lines of Scala' don't really convince me to start using it. It would be a nice to see a more structural example. Like a real world app. Anything available that is open source?

<comment><USER3> Try these, for starters:

<http://github.com/robey/kestrel/tree/master>

<http://github.com/dpp/lift-samples/tree/master> ( <http://github.com/dpp/liftweb/tree/master> )

<comment><USER2> Thanks. I'm reading the Kestrel source and it looks very interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been considering having a look at Scala as the next potential language that I'll learn.

It looks pretty nice. I'd add another point to the article - what I've seen of the community from mailing lists and such has been very positive. It seems like they're all (or mostly) very smart and welcoming.

</comment><comment><USER5> The section regarding pure functions doesn't inspire me much about using Scala in a "functional way".

</comment><comment><USER6> Scala is not only means [A Ladder; Stairs], But also A Rock, in Slavic languages... And Marin (the creator of Scala) has polish last name, and most probably is polish..

<comment><USER7> I don't know what slavic languages you have in mind, but in Polish, Scala does NOT mean a rock, it means "combines"</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone willing to build a "ls" with Subversion integration? - <AUTHOR>

I've been Googling around for a while looking for a "ls" script that would highlight versioned/non-versioned files differently (or even display a tag next to their filename Added/Modified/Deleted/etc.).
I haven't found anything, so if you're looking for a fun project, here's one :) I would build it myself but I'm still a noob at shell scripting.
I've talked to a couple of friends about this project and they all seemed to like the idea.
If anyone's interested in building this, keep us updated here !
UPDATE: I've found this script that colorizes some svn commands: http://snipplr.com/view.php?codeview&id=28748 <comment><USER2> svn status does not provide you enough information ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, perhaps I should simply take the habit of using svn status when in svn repositories. Still it would be _cool_ to have it integrated with the regular "ls". Obviously, it's more of a nice-to-have than a must-have.

<comment><USER3> .bashrc:

alias ls="my_ls"

my_ls (chmod +x):

if [ -d .svn ]; then svn status else ls fi</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Advice? Can't tell if me or bad job - <AUTHOR> Currently, I am employed by a "top" tech company in the bay area. Not the very top, but a company that tends to land in the top ~15 range in the various best places to work publications.
Title is product manager, but this is in title only as I am in the Enterprise Applications space. The real product manager seems to be the business stakeholder, and the delivery manager is the engineering lead.
I really don't see the value I'm adding but they insist on keeping me around - bear in mind I have no salary complaints as I am not cheap and they pay more than what is fair. This is part of the reason why I feel like a spoiled brat complaining.
The problem is that the work just seems so damn trivial. The "business" gives the requirements, usually a document outlining exactly what they need, down to the solution, despite our attempts to tell them to stop. Then I take these "requirements", regurgitate them into "user stories" and the dev team works on them.
Then I play middle man to get questions answered, but usually the DM can do this on their own.
On top of all this our team feels super bloated. I get constantly dinged for not "delegating" work, but truth is there is not much to do beyond what I said above other than responding to about 6 tickets submitted by the biz peeps. There are 3 other analysts on this team.
During stand up, people report what they did yesterday and they are tasks that take about 10 minutes to complete. Sometimes I rub my eyes and shake my head because it feels unreal. It seems like a bad joke that everyone is in on except me.
What should I do? I come from the product side and is this just what IT is like in general? I'm thinking it's time to jump ship, but I just switched out of a job after only a year and I've only been here a year. <comment><USER2> Yes, this sounds like like typical Enterprise software development. Actually it a sounds surprisingly competent compared to the average.

The biggest thing that's making your job boring is probably that your customer is doing most of what you would be expected to do. But this is a fantastic thing for the project - if someone who deeply understands and is embedded in the needs can write almost programmer ready specs then 50% of the project risk, confusion, and delays goes out the window.

Most enterprise software development is horribly slow, builds buggy, unusable products, and may never deliver.

The fact that your project many be over staffed, but still delivers repeatedly, actually makes makes management really happy.

Let me tell you about the best network engineer I've ever worked with. The guy did no apparent work. If you ever had any needs, he didn't even have to stop working on anything to give whatever you needed his full attention then and there. The reason he could do this was because had built everything to be scripted, monitored, and documented to the point that his stuff never broke. This have him time to script and monitor and plan for the future even more.

But the main takeaway was that even though he didn't do "work" everyday, he was worth a huge salary. His value to the company was the fact that the networks never went down, not that he ran around in a panic every day.

You worth to the company isn't that you are working hard - it's the output of your team. The fact that you aren't overloaded allows you to be responsive both inside the team and to the customer. This is way more valuable than you may think.

It sounds like you lucked into an unusually functioning project. If you want to stay in the Enterpise world, you aren't in a bad place.

(And yes, entprise programmers have an amazing ability to do only tiny amounts of work per day. It's incredible. I don't understand how many are employed)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the detailed response. You certainly have an optimistic way of looking at the situation.

My problem is that I'm 32- the way I see it is I have 3-4 more years of going balls to the wall before my wife starts popping out kids and I'd really hate to waste this time doing low level unchallenging work.

The funny thing is I can see myself 10 years down the line WISHING I had a job just like this.

<comment><USER2> Haha. I know the feeling.

I've been offered these kinds of jobs at BigCo's and turned them all down. I just do solo coding from the house. I get to define my own projects, use my own tools, and set my own hours. Most importantly, if I don't like a customer, I can just never work for them again after that project. This keeps my life full of working with people I enjoy working with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sounds quite boring. Go somewhere where your mind is fully engaged the you will be much more satisfied.

</comment><comment><USER4> WOW, BEST OF LUCK</comment>


Xbox One: The Review - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/a/xbox-one-review <comment><USER2> If you've ever complained about surveillance then I don't see how you could even consider buying this.

>Kinect is also used for lots of little things throughout the Xbox One's user experience. Profiles support fast facial recognition for sign-in. Once a profile has a face associated with it, the console will sign that person in whenever they sit in front of the console — it even says hello. Controllers sync automatically based on who's holding them.

Not to mention that Microsoft has been working on techniques for reading the emotions of people in the room through body language in order to better serve up adds.

By having this in your living room, you have a device that passively builds facial profiles, monitors emotional states, and counts the number of people in the room. But people are paying to be spied on by Microsoft so that makes it OK, right? Even when the NSA goes to Micrsoft and says "give us access to your data".

But privacy doesn't play the latest Killzone or log you in with facial recognition or play blu-rays.

There's too many people in the valley that complain about surveillance and then do everything in their power to enable it in ways ever more omnipresent and pervasive.

<comment><USER3> The system will function without Kinect plugged in, Microsoft reversed the always on requirement:

[http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-one/get-the-facts](http://www.xbox.com/en- GB/xbox-one/get-the-facts)

> _Xbox One does not require a Kinect to be plugged in for the system to > function._

You can supposedly control the use of your data according to the fact page also.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, I missed that they changed this requirement. As an owner of all 3 of the previous generation of consoles, the always-on camera + voice was an absolute deal breaker for me.

I'm still going to hold off for a few reasons. The first is the requirement for XBox Live Gold. It makes no sense to me why I have to pay $$$ to Microsoft in order to watch Netflix. My PS3 does quite fine without a subscription. I was a fan of the Halo franchise but after the "incidents" with Bungie (Halo shoot'em ups) and Ensemble (lesser known for Halo Wars, more known for Age of Empires), I feel bad supporting the franchise with my $$$.

I'm also getting old and have less time to play games on my consoles. My iPad used to get a lot of game-related usage until the games started becoming "free" and continuously bugged me for in-game coin purchases.

Maybe I am just out of touch.

<comment><USER5> The PS4 requires Playstation Plus to play online but I'm not sure whether apps like Netflix require that.

I had the same issue with Halo. Ultimately, I'm not going to support the Xbox One due to likely surveillance. At least with the PS4 the camera isn't forced on you at purchase. Although the PS4 camera does seem to have similar features like facial recognition. I wonder whether that will encourage anything malicious.

<comment><USER4> Wow ... no multiplayer without PS+? You seem to be correct and this is a step back for Sony in my opinion. I thought they were the humble ones this time around and not pulling this crap.

PS+ doesn't seem to be required for Netflix and Amazon though.

Source: [http://mashable.com/2013/11/07/playstation-4-facts/](http://mashable.com/2013/11/07/playstation-4-facts/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Again, focusing on the presentation rather than the content, I'm extremely impressed with the integration of advertising on the page, using position:fixed to lock it in place while the content scrolls over it.

If we go with the assumption that advertising is a necessary evil, this isn't a bad direction in which to take it.

<comment><USER7> What are you talking about? 100% of that page is an advertisement.

<comment><USER8> That claim seems pretty weak, especially without any support whatsoever.

<comment><USER9> Unless we all look at the page for ourselves??

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _" A notable disappointment is the absence of real-name support at launch. One of the PS4's most enjoyable enhancements has been postponed for Xbox One until an unspecified future date. Microsoft has also dropped social-network integration, which seems like a short-sighted reaction to the lack of users of the Xbox 360 apps."_

This is a great move by Microsoft--tempting though it would be to send hate mail to the jerks you meet online.

<comment><USER11> Agreed. Don't really see the need to have social media embedded with everything. I just don't see how gaming could tie into it, though it might just be the bad impression of getting spammed with Facebook notifications from their games.

Also, if Youtube is any indication, users will prefer to use usernames versus real names, especially if you're potentially interacting with people you don't know.

<comment><USER12> I assume (hope) it would be more like Blizzard's system for Starcraft, which only lets you see the real names of friends that you add using an email address (and if they accept). Showing a person's real name to everyone in game just sounds insane.

<comment><USER13> This is exactly how the PS4 real name system works. You have to add a friend as a "real name" friend, and they have to add you back with the same permissions. Just adding someone as a friend doesn't grant them permission to see your real name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The article was well matched to its topic; like modern video games, its flashy and high tech, but nothing new or interesting.

I had to laugh at the kinect video. The white/beige featureless walls with no human pictures in its field of view, the actors wearing extremely high contrast clothes, the incredible cinematography style smooth and even lighting... My real world experiences with the kinect on a 360 have been super aggravating and frankly I hate the GD thing. Hey, all you need to do, is remodel and redecorate your home and buy new clothes... No, instead I think, F microsoft, my plan will be to not buy another kinect instead, they need my money more than I need their aggravation. Don't get me wrong, its really cool for about the first 15 minutes until it gets super aggravating.

As a disclaimer after the initial newness wore off I tend to use the 360 for living room youtube viewing (you need to disable kinect and voice recognition or miscues will drive you insane) and multi-player minecraft on the same screen at the same time is entertaining. And I play Forza although the review notes the new version has been neutered and downgraded so I don't want it.

<comment><USER15> _> Hey, all you need to do, is remodel and redecorate your home and buy new clothes..._

A friend of mine is an editor for a tech magazine, and has been playing with the Xbone (I totally read that as EX-bone now...) -- the Kinect is a thousand times better now, in that regard.

<comment><USER14> Then they should have done a video in my somewhat less well lit living room, with a couch that's the same color as my wife's shirt, and a stereotypical wedding pix in the background and peculiar shadows.

If its higher performance, well, show it!

The real killer is the concept. The highest performance way to do "up down enter" on a menu is obviously a controller not an arm and camera.

Kinect doesn't have to work very well for my daughter to have fun with her dance games. But for a UI to a menu, it does kinda actually have to work all the time, which is a meta-UI issue. If it was just a dancin' jumpin' peripheral, which its "good enough" for, then I'd be very happy, but no its gotta be implemented as the worlds cruddiest most aggravating menu navigation system, which makes it an epic fail.

My carpenters hammer is a great tool for nail installation, but an epic fail at screw installation and forcing everyone to use hammers to install screws is just going to piss people off.

<comment><USER15> Fair points!

His opinion of it was that the voice navigation is far more useful than the "swipe your hand like an idiot" bits.

<comment><USER14> I had to disable voice navigation because I'd be watching a youtube video or whatever, and my daughter would be talking to my wife across the room or the next room, and I'd randomly get restarting or skipped videos or whatever. I decided it was misinterpreting conversations in the room as me saying "xbox, next" or whatever. I don't recall if I software disabled it (is there an option?) or the old fashioned hardware disable using duct tape and stuff. Its been months since I've had a problem, so I have no proof (logs or whatever) but the correlation is interesting. (Edited to add, I'm not even sure the yt app supports voice... but the correlation with "I got really pissed off and shut off a bunch of features" and "it works better now" still exists)

Once kinect and voice are disabled, it is a pretty decent console.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> People that make articles like this are freakin' artisans, love the page.

<comment><USER17> Agreed. A couple of people here have pointed out that it's broken for them, or they don't like wasted pixels or something (somebody think of the pixels!) - but technical problems aside: this, and the PS4 review change my views of what an online article should be. It obviously doesn't apply to all content, but for a review of next-gen game consoles it really adds a sense of... tactile- ness? I dunno. But they are fantastic!

<comment><USER18> I feel out of touch for saying this, but I found the page visually exhausting. I don't know exactly why - it's partially because the contrast of the text is too low on the white background and partially because I find extremely long pages disorientating, but that doesn't account for all of it.

I'm all for beautiful, elegant presentation, but when it comes to reading a long article I don't want lots of movement and twiddly bits.

<comment><USER19> I agree. It also causes my fans to spin up which isn't very relaxing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's interesting that the D-Pad on the controller is now just a cross, instead of this awkward circle with a hinted cross on top.

Didn't Nintendo have a patent for the cross D-Pad? Hence all the other "fun" ideas from Sega, Sony and Microsoft.

Edit: Yep, the patent expired a while ago:

 _U.S. Patent 4,687,200 (expired in 2005) - Nintendo 's multi-directional switch_ \- [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-pad#Patents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-pad#Patents)

<comment><USER21> My first thought was that having just a cross eliminates the ability to easily hit a diagonal on the D-Pad. I can't imagine it being easy than what was before.

<comment><USER22> The problem with having it be a disk is that it's hard to push any direction reliably. If it is a cross, if gives you fingers a guide, and actually makes it easier to go diagonally by doing a sort of roll from the top to side.

<comment><USER23> Personally I have an Xbox360 controller for use with my PC and both a Nintendo Wii and DS and I find that it's much easier for me to reliably press diagonals on the xbox controller, than either the DS or Wii controller.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Try tapping Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A on the pad.

<comment><USER25> Brilliant, now I guess I'll waste my time looking for Konami all over other Polygon big reviews.

Edit : PS4 Review too. [http://www.polygon.com/a/ps4-review](http://www.polygon.com/a/ps4-review)

<comment><USER4> lol ... which one?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can anyone tell me what framework/technology was used to design this site? It looks really good.

<comment><USER27> From what I've heard from The Vergecast (sister publication), they have a custom CMS that focuses heavily one building these super-custom one-off designs for 'big' articles

<comment><USER15> Yep, done in Ruby on Rails (well, at least all of The Verge and Polygon is) IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> _The nicest description most Polygon staff could manage for the Xbox One 's silhouette is "inoffensive" — there's no sugarcoating the console's lack of visual flair. Microsoft has created a system designed to blend into the other components of your home entertainment center, and it does that ... for better or worse._

 _It 's quiet, and it runs relatively cool. But if you're looking for subtlety, this is not the console for you._

Is it just me, or does the writer/editor not understand the word "subtle" here?

Otherwise, that was a really beautifully done review, at least visually.

<comment><USER29> "subtle - adjective 1. (esp. of a change or distinction) so delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyze or describe."

The xbox one is big, bulky, and not svelte.

This extends beyond the console dimensions, however. It has an external power brick, you can't stand it upright, and you can't stack another box on top of it due to the fan placement. Whereas the xbox one might camouflage better with your other AV boxes, the ps4 does a better job of subtly getting out of your way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> They also thoroughly reviewed the PS4, and the review was also pretty mixed. Overall, I'm not tempted to buy either device (10+s to wake from sleep seems infuriating; my AppleTV takes about that long and it drives me bonkers).

My take on the next gen consoles is that it's not clear there will be any winners. The current generation hasn't actually been profitable for either Microsoft or Sony, and the economics of the industry have, if anything, gotten worse. (Sure, the market is bigger, but if you're selling the platform at a loss hoping to profit on licensing then you need the cost per game to remain steady or go up.)

And there's the other shoe: iOS / Android / Steam / Linux. E.g. if Apple were to release an iOS console (i.e. AppleTV on steroids) sometime in the next two years they could leave Microsoft and Sony to eat their loss leaders and take a huge chunk of the market away. (In general, Apple's 30% cut of games is smaller than what the games companies pay to retailers and platform licensees, and Apple could always lower it if necessary.)

Overall I think it's kind of a nightmare scenario:

1) Long wait since previous generation, so expectations are sky-high.

2) Each platform has been hit by at least one scandal -- PS4's bricking, Xbox One pricing model backdown followed by 720p launch titles (WTF?!)

3) Neither platform offering elegant out-of-box solutions despite numerous complaints with the previous generation (seriously, every time I launch my PS3 it needs to patch, and the same problem is in the PS4 and Xbox One).

4) Underwhelming launch titles.

Sony and Microsoft think they can ship a half-baked product and fix it over the next year or two, just like it "worked" for the previous generation (that pretty much lost them both money).

<comment><USER31> Agreed - I have a launch PS4, but I've been underwhelmed by the game selection. I cancelled my Xbox One preorder a couple of weeks back over the same concerns. I think the Wii U has a much more entertaining selection than both at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> "When you turn on your Xbox One, don't panic: from a cold, powered-off state, we've clocked the system requiring a minute or more to boot into the update screen (or the main home screen, if you've enabled power-saving mode and disabled the system's suspend ability). Once you've run your console and enabled suspend, things are much better: from power off to the home screen, we've measured startup at six to 10 seconds."

hmm... they couldn't boot the system up and do this for you? or make it come with a pre-stored 'image' for the suspend/restore? that doesn't sound like a particularly challenging ux bug to fix...

sloppy.

not surprising from microsoft of the crashy sample code and buggy C++/Cx that nobody needs or wants and simply adds technical debt, bugs and points of failure all over my code - to the point where they advise you to avoid it at all costs.

</comment><comment><USER33> Reviews came in pretty much as expected: Xbox One for those looking for an _entertainment_ system, PS4 for those looking for a _game_ system. Only issue is that the PS4 games lineup (entire console games lineup) is sparse at launch. Will be interesting to see how the sales numbers come in after the first month.

</comment><comment><USER34> Does anyone think this is over-engineered? I can imagine looking back at this in ten years as we do with blinking marquees.

I agree the artwork is really impressive but for a console review it should be content over presentation, right? It genuinely appears that the page was a big custom job and the prose was scratched up in an afternoon.

<comment><USER35> I think it's adequetly engineered if the motivation is to get people to say "Wow" and then link the article to a friend. At the end of the day, they're selling ads, and this page does a pretty good job at it, I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I don't understand how they can call the Xbox One's appearance to be dull/boring/unsubtle, when they simultaneously praise Sony's effort as beautiful.

To me they look virtually identical. They only difference is the PS4 has a groove in it.

</comment><comment><USER37> After seeing what the kinect sensor is capable of - not a chance of having such device in my house without having root on it or being able to work completely offline. It is too creepy. And too potent.

<comment><USER38> Doesn't seem much worse than a regular camera, is it?

<comment><USER37> I don't have camera on my pc. It is not the sensor that is worse but the control over it.

Can MS turn it on remotely if hit with an lawful request? Some of these consoles will work their way to places that are of interest for law enforcement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> |Unlike the PS4, there is absolutely no available functionality for the system until that update is performed.

Seriously?

<comment><USER40> Yup, the system software was so late and so rushed that they couldn't get the software they wanted for launch ready in the timeframe needed for manufacturing.

Not a huge surprise to people paying attention to consoles. More and more games have been shipping in various states of brokenness for years. The last generation introduced online game updates, which has become an excuse to cut corners and fix it later. Just ship a day one patch and fuck you to anyone without a constant, fast internet connection to their console, they're statistically insignificant now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> this may sound cliche, but i am really impressed with the website itself rather than the Xbox. (even that i am xbox user myself) !!

</comment><comment><USER42> Scrolling is broken, I couldn't scroll to the bottom to see the score it kept bouncing back up.

<comment><USER43> This kind of comment is useless without information on browser, version, OS, etc. It works fine in the latest Safari.

<comment><USER42> Up to date chrome on windows 7. The scrolling is broken because it dynamically loads content as you scroll.

<comment><USER25> Windows 8.1

Firefox 25 : Works flawlessly.

Up to date Chrome : Works great.

Spoiler : 2x2x2

<comment><USER42> I clicked to look at the PS4 one to compare score, in order to do that I had to scroll to the bottom. Try refresh and then scroll to see the score as fast as you can, scroll bar jumps all over the place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is obviously an advertisement rather than an actual review. I think I know what's relevant though. Its a powerful gaming PC with a new significantly improved although still imperfect Kinect. Anyway its funny that so many people can't tell the difference between a commercial and a review.

<comment><USER44> >This is obviously an advertisement

Could you care to explain? From the article and the video, I got the notion that both pros and CONS were touched.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> That looks like a not-so-subtle full promo.

<comment><USER46> They did a similarly artistic, and glowing, review of PS4 the other week.

<comment><USER45> Selling guns to both parties is out of the question then?</comment></comment></comment>