Ask YC: Your favorite startups - <AUTHOR>

What are your favorite startups/projects?<p>Preferably ones that are not very known, and that are innovative. <comment><USER2> (looking across my browser toolbar)

RescueTime! (Okay, I'm biased) Versionate has really grown on me. Wufoo is pretty neat, though I think the inability to have ranking questions ("rank the following features") is pretty painful. Joost is pretty cool.

There are a couple of cool YC08 companies that I'm jazzed about but I can't talk about 'em yet!

</comment><comment><USER3> My favorites are all open source projects, not VC-backed startups who are busy _"building something. getting it to the market. fast"_

I guess greed and innovation don't match very well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good reason to stay away from VCs when possible, and keeping it real.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> bug.gd -- big fan of 'collective wisdom' endeavors.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was really surprised when I saw the title of the page. "Humanity's Only Hope" is a nice tagline.

<comment><USER5> It may be a nice satirical tagline, but it's by no means a good tagline according to Steven Krug (<http://www.sensible.com/>). I'm by no means a Steven Krug fanboy, but if you've read "Don't Make Me Think" you'll kringe at "Humanity's Only Hope." It doesn't tell you anything about what the site is or does.

<comment><USER4> Good point.The first question on the FAQ should probably cut right to the chase, too: <http://bug.gd/search/faq>

<comment><USER5> I figured out the site pretty quickly, but I prefer to be able to infer more from taglines, especially for companies/sites that aren't widely known.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I love rescuetime. Employeesugestionbox is a great idea. Share some more.

</comment><comment><USER6> Mine ;P

(Should be a good answer for most of us)

<comment><AUTHOR> What is yours?

<comment><USER6> Mine is to fix some crappy MMORPG from the outside, by making a fansite. This post is structured thus: Description of the game, description of the problem, description of the solution (= my startup).

 __ _The Game_ __The game is french only. It's a freemium model: the game is free, but you can subscribe for 10$ a year for a couple additional services, and you can also pay 10$ each time you want to relocate your kingdom on the map (normally you can only do that by paying a fair amount of resources in- game). There are 4 "primary" races (mystics, elves, dwarves, humans) and 12 units per race, which you can unlock by building the tech tree. Each unit is of a certain type (melee or ranged or air) and may have some special abilities (ex: +33% power while defending). You can attack or defend people to gain population (and fight armies), which gives you more production power. There are 4 basic types of resources (mana, wood, ore). You choose your race when you register for a "round" (length: 6 months). There's a tick every hour where for example, fights and the moving of armies are calculated. People can group in alliances of up to 30. You have some amount of population that you can assign tasks to (gather each type of resource or build buildings).

 __ _The Problem_ __1\. The game shows all kinds of information in one and only one way, and sometimes you even have to cross-reference with the manual of the game that's in a separate section (and the manual sucks, too). You even have to make some quite tedious and boring work to know how much your army is worth. Overall, there's not enough flexibility of information display. You often find yourself "between" two pages, for example if you want to know what your stuff is worth in resources (buildings + army), and many, many other "cross-page-concerns". The game, overall, only presents a page for resource management, one for building management, one for army management, etc. That's just not enough.

People are so desperate to have the slightest idea of the situation in the game that they rely on fucking crappy and boring Excel sheets to make some calculations. Data entry is painful and it doesn't give much information and it displays it in a crude way.

2\. That game is pretty stagnating, there hasn't been much development in the last 5 years, and it shows because the number of players has declined to record lows, and the situation is getting worse, overall. I think the makers of the game are to blame. They're just incredibly lazy, they won't fix their stuff, their code is obviously a big unmaintanable PHP mess (they won't refactor), for example at some point I discovered that 2 different pages with some information that should have been exactly the same, and hence should have been managed by the same module in the code, displayed the information differently (so they were coded separately after all). Also they use 1998-style HTML, not only do they not use CSS correctly and they use table- style layout, but their HTML is not semantic at all. It even has lots of font tags...

They won't honor the most reasonable and easiest of feature requests/bug fixes. For example, right now when you send a message to someone via the internal messaging system, you don't get a copy of what you sent. It's been this way for YEARS, even if there has been REPETITIVE requests by MULTIPLE people to fix this fatal flaw. Their response to that kind of justified whining is that there's always a workaround. For example, you could use some exterior means (ex: Word) to save your outgoing messages before you save them. And if the proposal is to put a new link to go directly to a related page in 1 click instead of navigating through 2 other pages first, then their "solution" is to... make those extra clicks!

3\. They have some messed up mentality, they won't automate anything because they want their players to be forced to play the game longer unnecessarily. There's also an elitist attitude, it's so hard to follow the game that those who dedicate massive amounts of time to it feel really special about it. Unfortunately it prevents people who have lives from playing the game, so it caters more to 13-20 year-olds. Also they have a demonstrably lax attitude about cheating, at some point lots of people openly admitted they shared their password (which is illegal), but they did nothing at all. They don't seem to realize that they're alienating the more desirable players by doing this. I think they're trying to save what little clientele they have, but they should clean up the mess instead.

 __ _Description of the Solution_ __

So, I want to make a fansite to fix that. Since I used to play that game, I know fairly well what's missing and what I can do about it. First, I'll have people synchronize their information manually between the game and my site (automatic access to the site is prohibited and I want to do something 100% legal and ethical). Then, I'll let them have the superior information display capabilities I was alluding to earlier. And I'll give them a lot of powerful data sharing capabilities to let them communicate easier. Right now, most of them use MSN for communication, because the internal messaging system is so basic. Infortunately, MSN is, like Excel, not adapted at all for that. I mean it "gets the job done", but it's boring and not integrated at all. I want to offer much nicer features, for example you could send army and techtree description "in attachment" to your messages, and you'd have a summary displayed within the message itself and then you could click somewhere to get the full description. I'd also have much better access control, I want to have very granular access privileges, for example within an alliance of 30 people there's usually an elite, a group of let's say 6 people that are much more active and take the big decisions, if they have some secret plan it's normal that they'd want to share it only between themselves at first and not to the greater alliance (in case of spies).

So, I want a win-win-win situation: The players will win because they will have much more fun with the game with the aid of my site; I will win because I'll make some money selling extended services even if my basic service, which will offer quite a lot and fix most of the flaws of the game, will be free; and the makers will win because their game will be much more attractive, AND they won't even have had to work to make it happen! In fact I suspect they might get jealous and finally get off their butts to fix their crap.

The players will finally know exactly what's happening, so turnaround time for attacking and defending will be faster, so the game will be more dynamic. Maybe I can even fight the cheater problem. I want to apply a "ban early, forgive often" policy. Instead of tolerating abuses excessively until I finally put a permanent ban on an account, which is an ineffective strategy, I'd try to detect early when someone cheats and suspend their account for say, 3 days, telling them exactly why they were suspended and telling them to check the rules and obey them next time, but if they don't take the warnings seriously only then do they get banned. I feel a lot of players cheat only because everyone else is doing it and they get away with it, and it wouldn't take much to set them on the right path.

Also, since the tedious and boring calculation works will be done automatically, people will have to differentiate by concentrating on more desirable levels like roleplay. It won't be just a game where the one that wastes his time slugging through piles of raw data by primitive means does better anymore. I want to develop a strong community with the game as a platform.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I might be biased but <http://skribit.com>

</comment><comment><USER8> NewsCred? Yes, its my startup, but its my favorite one right now!

</comment><comment><USER9> I think mint is a fantastic startup.

</comment><comment><USER10> TuneCore.com

</comment><comment><USER11> Tumlbr, FireEagle

</comment><comment><USER12> rescuetime.com

</comment><comment><USER13> employeesuggestionbox.com

We have our employees submit at least 1 idea a month and after 4 months we have already implemented 6 ideas resulting in a new product and other cost saving measures.</comment>


At least 500 Wuhan medical staff infected with coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3050077/least-500-wuhan-medical-staff-infected-coronavirus <comment><USER2> From Caixin:

> He found that two-thirds of the medical staff in the ICU were already > infected. Doctors there were running "naked" as they knew they were set to > be infected given the shortage of protective gear. They still worked there > nonetheless.

[https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/reporters- notebo...](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/reporters-notebook- life-and-death-in-a-wuhan-coronavirus-icu)

<comment><USER3> Running naked seems the best way to infect otherwise sane people while testing... They are seeing a lot of different persons, shouldn't they wear the masks with priority?

<comment><USER2> I believe that they stay in quarantine wards where everyone is known to be infected, since attempts are still made to treat them.</comment></comment></comment>


127-Year-Old U.S. Aluminum Industry Collapses Under China's Weight - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/when-a-127-year-old-u-s-industry-collapses-under-china-s-weight <comment><USER2> Aluminum is interesting. It's sort of a way to do energy arbitrage, since its production needs an immense amount of electricity to reduce bauxite into usable aluminum. Iceland has sufficient surplus energy to "export" electricity in the form of refined aluminum, making them a big player in the global aluminum trade.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iceland#Aluminium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iceland#Aluminium)

<comment><USER3> It seems pretty horrible for the environment for a country to be using coal- powered electricity for aluminum smelting. If a global carbon tax existed, aluminum production would correctly be even more skewed toward counties with surplus renewable energy (iceland, canada, norway, brazil)

<comment><USER4> This article points out that US plants in places where there is cheap hydro power will stay open. Sounds like at least in the US the market for aluminum is working as it should.

It's horrible to be using coal-powered electricity at all, and especially for anything that can be produced with "free" surplus electricity and then stored indefinitely and shipped relatively cheaply.

We can all only hope that prices of wind/solar continue to drop, and governments around the world – especially China, the US, and India – have enough governmental/institutional strength to overcome corporate and government corruption and rein in their use of coal power in the coming years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is directly driven by the cost of energy, as tomkinstinch brought up. China burns an incredible amount of coal for power, which brings the cost of energy down at the price of huge amounts of pollution.

As China and other places green, you can expect the price of aluminum to rise and production to float to other places.

<comment><USER6> China is pretty interesting in this regard. While they really do burn incredible amounts of coal, they are also worlds biggest producers of photovoltaic and wind energy and strife for a renewable share of 16% by 2020. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_China#Renewab...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_China#Renewables)

<comment><USER7> And it is starting to work [http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/26/china- coal-idUSL3N...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/26/china-coal- idUSL3N0WL32720150326) with decline in coal use starting.

<comment><USER5> Actually, I think it is debatable - a large portion of the decline could be pinned on the reduction of demand.

If China roars back, so will the coal plants.

<comment><USER8> By the time China roars back (years, at least), coal won't be economically viable (as long as wind and solar manufacturers continue to manufacture at full tilt).

<comment><USER9> Coal is subsidised in China, and a lot is produced by state owned firms. So price does not necessarily matter so much, it is political will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've never understood how the Asian countries that don't really have that many natural resources[1], could out pace American manufacturing. Do we seriously ship scrap metal over there to them just to have it shipped back to us in a different form?? Sounds like a horrible waste of resources (fuel, oil, ect)...

[1][http://en.people.cn/92824/92845/92876/6442551.html](http://en.people.cn/92824/92845/92876/6442551.html)

<comment><USER11> Shipping is very cheap. Smelting (aluminum) is expensive.

I'm going to guess that most scrap is recycled locally, but shipping bauxite to China and buying back bulk aluminum is cheaper than doing it locally. Is recycling done this way also?

<comment><USER5> I think you're right about local recycling - it only takes about 5% of the energy to recycle vs. direct from bauxite.

Here's a list of recycled smelting operations: [http://www.lightmetalage.com/producers.php](http://www.lightmetalage.com/producers.php)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Part of China is closing capacity too: 2 million tons, more than the entire US capacity. It's just that another part of China is still adding capacity, because

"Inside China, the growth of new smelter capacity has been in the northwest, often based on captive, low-cost coal deposits for power generation and utilizing the latest smelter technology that, combined with large economies of scale, has made these Chinese smelters some of the lowest cost of production in the world."

[https://agmetalminer.com/2015/08/28/china-to-close- millions-...](https://agmetalminer.com/2015/08/28/china-to-close-millions-of- tons-of-aluminum-smelter-capacity/)

<comment><USER12> China also has a 15% export tax to discourage export of primary aluminum:

"The Chinese government, which relies heavily on imported bauxite, has long applied export taxes on primary aluminum as part of a broader strategy to discourage exports of energy-intensive products and emphasize sustainable, quality growth" [http://www.aluminum.org/news/aluminum-association- concerned-...](http://www.aluminum.org/news/aluminum-association-concerned- about-cnia-call-removal-export-tax-primary-aluminum)

While it can be worked around by exporting semi-finished products instead, it must be doing something. Otherwise the US Aluminum Association won't be so concerned about its removal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Any chance demand from domestic US automakers would increase enough to stem US aluminum industry losses? With higher MPG CAFE fleet requirements, I'd assume a surge in demand for aluminum for vehicle unibodies (which is stronger and lighter than steel).

Also, I'd be curious if aluminum plants might start buying renewables with locked in rates to compete against foreign firms who have access to cheaper energy (utility scale solar is already down to 4 cents/kwh).

<comment><USER13> Carbon fiber is stronger and lighter than either.

<comment><USER14> Yes but carbon fiber shards. Aluminum crumples, which is good for absorbing energy and keeping people safe while in a car.

<comment><USER8> Yep, exactly. Carbon fiber is great for aircraft, not so good for cars.

Boeing 787 Wind Failure Test: __EDIT: Link removed due to comment advising there was malware. Google for "boeing wing stress test" to find a Youtube video __

<comment><USER15> Just a headsup,a link inside the article about a video of an airplane wing failing has gone bad and now leads to a malware site.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the heads up!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I didn't really follow along at the time, but there was a bunch of noise ([http://www.cnbc.com/2014/11/19/senate-panel-accuses- goldman-...](http://www.cnbc.com/2014/11/19/senate-panel-accuses-goldman- sachs-of-manipulating-metal.html)) about Goldman manipulating aluminum markets last year. Googling turns up more about it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Here's some good news about somebody doing something important more efficiently than their competitors and gaining economic benefits from that. But many comments seem to be suggesting it's a bad thing because of environmental costs.

When US car companies started to recover from the recession, were people equally critical and complaining that the US's economic recovery was coming at the expense of the environment? That they should try to continue underperforming at manufacturing? Afterall, a world with less competition between car makers is surely a more environmentally friendly one. Were people complaining that GM should have been allowed to fail not because it was uncompetitive but because it was damaging the environment by making bigger cars than Japanese rivals? It seems like a double standard of people with a protectionist attitude that's pro-American-corporation and anti-American- consumer.

<comment><USER18> I can't speak for anyone else, however I can say that the reason that I, as an American, do not own an American made car (but I do own a car made overseas) is because I have no respect for the quality of engineering, workmanship, or value that those cars offered at the time I purchased.

Event today, the only American car I can truly be proud of is a Tesla; and that is because in it I see quality engineering, workmanship, and, even as expensive as they are, value. Literally the only poor things I've ever heard of relating to Tesla's involve rare owner error, more frequently error on the part of others on the highway, and occasionally a design flaw that the company owns up to and fixes.

I think most people who complain that X (car company) or Y (big bank) should have been allowed to fail (controlled orderly liquidation) see it as a lost opportunity for something smaller, nimble, and filled with the vitality of new ideas to take it's place. Being allowed to fail is the fire of the ecosystem of industry; in it's wake the green sprouts of a new better thing are possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I thought we would become more competitive with the drop in natural gas prices. Is it that the strong dollar has been greater than the energy price drop?

<comment><USER5> Coal is still cheaper, as is subsidized energy in the Middle East. =/

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> China is almost like a big blackhole.

Destroying industries one by one - the coolest thing about it is they are only doing it to improve the standard of living for their people - having a global monopoly is not the #1 reason.

Like the rest of the world's economy wont matter and are like small planets.

<comment><USER21> That's creative destruction. Nothing wrog about that. If China's competitive advantage lies in manufacturing Aluminum more efficiently than the US, the market forces and even economic common sense dictate that they expand in this activity and for the US to abandon theirs and focus more on what they're really good at and what could prove as a competitive advantage for them.

<comment><USER22> China generally is not more efficient. Rather, China doesn't have the cost of externalities included in the price of the goods. The US doesn't ensure that all the cost is put back on the manufacturers, but our environmental and labor regulation ensures at least some of it is included in the price. I imagine if China had the same requirements on its power plants and manufacturing facilities as the US does then the advantage (if any) would not be very much.

<comment><USER23> Then U.S. is benefiting from China drawing down on its natural capital (much of the pollution from Coal excluding CO2 emissions is local to the continent). U.S. should mothball it's aluminium industry and buy China's.

<comment><USER24> China makes it illegal for foreigners to own controlling interests in Chinese companies, so your last proposal won't work.

<comment><USER23> I mean China's aluminium.

<comment><USER24> Ah, that makes more sense.

Though note that there may be strategic reasons for having some aluminum production capability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Seems like the best way to defeat the American War machine, is to dismantle it's manufacturing sector. Artificially lower <manufactured product> prices by subsidizing production in China, wait for American producers to fold. Wash rinse repeat as necessary.

</comment><comment><USER26>
      <mind-control-sarcasm fetch-type="eager">Cool, maybe we'll finally see what happens when there are no American vested interests in fluoridating water now.</mind-control-sarcasm>

<comment><USER27> Not bad Wonka, shame you haven't got the chops to make it undead</comment></comment>


Rumors of Tor's compromise are greatly exaggerated - <AUTHOR> https://blog.torproject.org/blog/rumors-tors-compromise-are-greatly-exaggerated

<comment><USER2> There are three relevant hacks here, and it's good to keep them clearly separated.

First, Anonymous hacked into some server which ran a lot of hidden services (essentially, Tor was used to hide the identity of the server.) Some pedophiles were exposed, etc. This is not an attack on Tor: vulnerable webapps can be hacked, hidden service or not.

Second, it's been known for a long time that wide-scale traffic analysis can be used to discover who's talking to who. E.g. if I send packets into Tor at t=0, t=.1354 and t=.1432 and you receive packets from Tor at t=1.832, t=1.982 and t=2.091, these may well be related - the delay is approximately constant. (More clever analysis gets you better results.) This is a known attack and not fixable without introducing big random delays. (Mixmaster, "Tor for e-mail", does introduce such delays. It's not a good fit for the web, though.)

Third, some Eric Filiol reportedly claims to be able to decrypt Tor traffic (by hacking into lots of vulnerable Tor nodes and overloading the unhackable ones to force traffic through the compromised nodes.) This seems unlikely: the report seems to have lots of (minor) errors, and the description of the attack makes no sense (controlling the flow of encrypted data does not let you decrypt said data.) It _is_ possible to discover who's talking to who if you hack into a sufficient number of nodes, by using the nodes as network monitoring stations. However, that's essentially the same hack as #2 above. (Note that only the last node in the Tor network to see the packet has access to the unencrypted form. Since running a Tor endpoint invites lots of unwelcome attention, these are probably far more professionally run than the average node.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, I'm also to be blamed for this exaggeration.

Last night I also posted one of _those_ links on HN. Sorry about that, reading stuff at 3 in the morning isn't such a great idea after all.

</comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know of any service providers which are friendly to Tor? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with running an exit node (yet), but I think I'm competent enough to run a secure relay node or two in various geographical locations.

Anyone here run a dedicated Tor node? I'm curious on bandwidth and horsepower required. I would imagine even a modest VPS could handle running the service.

I'd really like to support the Tor network on a technical level, to increase the size of the crowd as it were.

<comment><USER5> I have a box that sits in the closet and runs a bridge/relay. Bandwidth on a commercial grade cable connection is minimal, and I don't notice it at all. I've successfully run Tor nodes on boxes with 300 Mhz processors and only 128MB of memory, so yeah, I'm guessing a tiny VPS wouldn't have trouble with it.

I don't run an exit, and won't be running an exit, but it is simple enough to run a bridge/relay that I'm surprised how few people do.

A really helpful piece of software is arm: <https://blog.torproject.org/blog/arm-release-140> really useful way of monitoring how much bandwidth tor is using. It also allows you to edit/reset you torrc with a couple of keys. It keeps stats on how much data your passing through the network too, which is pretty cool.

I've had no problems from my ISP (Comcast), but then again I do pay for their commercial grade service, which doesn't have ToS restrictions on proxies. (I used to run a node out of my residential Comcast connection too-- they didn't seem to mind).

<comment><USER4> You run on a public IP or over NAT? If NAT works, I could stick a little always-on Acer netbook in a closet to participate on the network over my 15Mb cable service. Would save a fair bit of money over dedicated server/VPS.

Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER5> I've done it both ways. Either way, it's best practice to open a few recommended ports, so overall I don't see a ton of difference. NAT seemes to work just fine, so long as tor can establish a few outside connections. (A box sitting behind a NAT router has relayed about 10 GB of data since I reset it a few days ago, so obviously something is working).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> OT: What's the deal with that "thehackernews dot com" site linked in the article, using an orange favicon and everything? Which came first?

<comment><USER7> <http://thehackernews.com/p/about-us.html>

The company was apparently founded in November 2010, so it is quite new.</comment></comment>


Swiss bank whistleblower arrested in Spain -police source - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/04/reuters-america-swiss-bank-whistleblower-arrested-in-spain-police-source.html <comment><AUTHOR> Possibly related to this, though the article doesn't mention it: [https://www.elnacional.cat/en/politics/anna-gabriel- refuge-s...](https://www.elnacional.cat/en/politics/anna-gabriel-refuge- switzerland_240423_102.html)</comment>


My First Multiplayer Game Made with JavaScript (Fightz.io) - <AUTHOR> http://fightz.io <comment><AUTHOR> Dev here. The game was made with Javascript and Socket.io. Feel free to ask me any questions.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is a fun game!

If you created this you might want to read the "Show HN" guidelines and re- submitted it later.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> It took too many steps to just get into the game.</comment>


The world's top performers prove talent has nothing to do with success (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/707205/successful-people-dont-have-natural-talent-they-have-something-thats-much-more-important/ <comment><USER2> The article makes no case that talent has nothing to do with success. It just repeatedly states it with no reference or anything. Just repeating a statement doesn't make it true.

</comment><comment><USER3> >We need to spread the word that with the right sort of practice, pretty much anyone can develop incredible abilities.

And not lose appreciation of how amazingly incredible it can be when someone like Newton or Mozart comes along and puts in the right kind of practice themself.</comment>


List of Epidemics - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics <comment><USER2> So many recent ones from mosquitoes, dengue or chikungunya.

More than almost any other near future technology, I hope for humanity's sake we quickly perfect a way to eradicate that demon insect.

<comment><USER3> Mosquitoes don't pollinate, but they're food for a bunch of other animals up the food chain, no? (e.g. frogs?).

So if we did eliminate mosquitoes, it's probably not going to be a clear win.

<comment><USER4> There's over 3000 species of mosquitoes. Only 3 of those species are the primary carriers of these diseases. Only 1 species carries malaria. So we only gotta get rid of a small portion of mosquitoes.

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/gro...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/group/mosquitoes/)

<comment><USER5> I know there is some science backing the general approach, but doesn't evolution tend to pressure the virus developing different vectors, when faced with eradication? There is probably a good subset of the 2997 other species that could serve the purpose.

<comment><USER6> > but doesn't evolution tend to pressure the virus developing different > vectors, when faced with eradication?

What does evolution "pressuring" mean? Either the organism (or virus) has sufficient chances to randomly mutate a a trait that enables it to survive, or it goes extinct.

<comment><USER5> Well, I meant [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_pressure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_pressure)

Think of a population as holding at any given time a number of individuals carrying mutations. The fringe mutations, such as being able to be hosted by a different type of mosquito (say, better survivability in the host) don't provide much of a benefit to survival. But if the default host population goes away, those mutations become super valuable and will be selected.

See [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/transgenic- mosqui...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/transgenic-mosquitoes/) for a discussion on this topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find it hard to get perspective on how devastating and society affecting the Spanish Flu was. Fifty to a hundred million. Dead. 3-5% of the world's humans gone. More from the prime of life than typical for disease. This on tail end of World War One which also killed many more young men.

History we should remember.

<comment><USER8> We should also remember that there is nothing about the Wuhan coronavirus that is anything like H1N1 influenza virus.

Wuhan is causing respiratory infection that leads to pneumonia. H1N1 caused inflammatory immune reactions ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711683/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711683/)).

So far this virus seems closer to a bad seasonal influenza. 2% mortality rate concentrated in populations over 65 years old. The 2019 Li paper in Lancet had similar numbers in China for the flu. Similar reproduction rate.

I'm not an expert, but some people are are panicking and buying surgical masks (borderline useless) and food supplies. Mass panic reactions are deadly and avoidable.

<comment><USER9> >I'm not an expert, but some people are are panicking and buying surgical masks (borderline useless)

N95 masks are effective in filtering out viruses. Also your conclusions put a lot of implicit faith into numbers reported by the Chinese Communist Party, which has a strong incentive to minimize the problem and probably one of the most facilitating authoritarian cultures to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Doesn't mention the mysterious sleeping sickness epidemic of the early 20th century [0]. I learned of it through Oliver Sacks' writings. Survivors were afflicted by a permanent neurological change:

> They would be conscious and aware – yet not fully awake; they would sit > motionless and speechless all day in their chairs, totally lacking energy, > impetus, initiative, motive, appetite, affect or desire; they registered > what went on about them without active attention, and with profound > indifference.

I can't help but be reminded of the current wave of chronic fatigue. I feel that modern doctors are too... hubristic? to find novel treatments for this like L-dopa.

[0]: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica)

<comment><USER11> Why do you think that about modern doctors?

Modern doctors certainly aren't going to find a bunch of amino acids that a patient may be deficient in, because that work is already done (the finding of the amino acids, not the finding of potential deficiencies).

<comment><USER10> Perhaps hubristic is an unfair description.

As far as I know Sacks was treating patients with L-DOPA on a hunch, based on the surface similarities if their symptoms with Parkinson's. Positive results for L-DOPA with Parkinson's had only been published the year previously.

Doctors like Sacks were happy to really explore with their patients. You can see from his books just how many things he tries to get through to them, and into their heads.

Nowadays it seems that psychiatry treats depression etc. like a solved problem, and continue to use tools and medications that work marginally better than placebo. Promising experimental therapies like ketamine and psilocybin have been stuck in the pipeline for decades.

I know Sacks is an exceptional doctor, and that there were downsides to this 'see what sticks' approach, but I highly recommend his books if you want to get depressed about the state of modern medicine.

<comment><USER12> There are a lot of good ethical and statistical reasons that drug research is done within a more formal framework today. And there are some avenues for patients with poor outlooks to try "hail mary" drugs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> No mention of the Tudor Sweating Sickness, as mentioned in Wolf Hall a dramatisation if Thomas Cromwell:

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

I would of thought some bodies could be exhumed an analysed as to what it might have been.

This was in the thousands, is there a reason why it's not on the list?

<comment> ani-ani Looks like someone just added it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The yearly typical flu is not included while it easily kills a lot more than every other one in that list... So this is heavily biased.

<comment><USER15> Probably the rise above the baseline is not large enough in most years. But yes, Influenza and Malaria would easily top the list every year with hundreds of thousands of casualties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> if you were a particularly sinister CCP official, might you consider releasing a virus on purpose to quell the riots in HK? i have no evidence for this but from a cui bono perspective, it would be a diabolically efficient plan with some plausible deniability.

<comment><USER17> The fact is that the virus originated in a bat in a wet market. Bats are known carriers of coronavirus in China.

The virus originated in Wuhan. Residents of Wuhan have to cross a controlled border to enter Hong Kong. Hong Kong has 2 orders of magnitude less infections than Hubei province.

Biological weapons are typically highly deadly and not transmissible between humans. You want to be able to target specific populations with a biological weapon. The virus isn't affecting young protestors in Hong Kong, it is mainly affecting people with already compromised immune systems throughout central China.

I hope that we can take the unreasonable accusations of conspiracy by the CCP as an opportunity to examine our own biases and preconceptions regarding China. The CCP is often incentivized to misinform and censor. We have seen this at the regional level with the Hubei governments slow response to this outbreak. I can find no indication, nor think of any reason why, the CCP is not working diligently with international cooperation to contain this virus.</comment></comment>


Streaming video contributes to climate change - <AUTHOR> https://www.dw.com/en/is-netflix-bad-for-the-environment-how-streaming-video-contributes-to-climate-change/a-49556716 <comment><USER2> It isn't absurd in the sense that it's untrue. It is factual that using electricity generated by carbon emitting processes affects climate change, but to factor every keystroke I'm making right this instant is a thought exercise warranting ridicule. We can cite the other extreme and condemn Bitcoin blockchain maintenance as an energy travesty.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> To be clear, this is absurd. I'm posting so that the community can enjoy.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for this. Was so absurd it was laughable.

One of my favorite videos on how they like to use climate change to be the 'explain everything' theory.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huKY5DzrcLI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huKY5DzrcLI)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do open source authors have a responsibility to maintain their projects? - <AUTHOR>

I would be interested to get some opinions on this one. Personally I get very frustrated when people open source projects then neglect them. I feel it may prevent others from moving into that space and doing a better job. <comment><USER2> No. They are people working for free on their spare time. They have no obligation whatsoever to anyone.

If you feel an open source project you like and use is being neglected by its original author, why don't you step forward and assume its ownership?

That's what open source is about: to give everyone the freedom to do whatever they want and need. Open source is not about forcing developers to work for free forever to support your needs.

Open source developers are real people, with real jobs, real families, and who needs to eat, sleep, and pay rent.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's what forks are for. If there are issues outstanding, and you can fix them, and you've sent patches / pull requests upstream and heard nothing, then get promoting your own branch. Who knows, the maintainer might welcome the chance to hand over the reigns.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do they have a "responsibility" to do so? No. Should they find a replacement when they burn out / get bored / etc? Yes. I think so.

But they are under no obligation to do so. If it's popular enough, someone will pick up the reigns.</comment>


Show HN: Git-heatmap – histogram of most-changed files - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jez/git-heatmap <comment><USER2> That looks like a bar graph not a heat map. A heat map to me means you have pixels or squares which are colored according to frequency or prevalence.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I realized that after I'd already published it!

It's still a listing of "hot" files in some sense though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Display a heatmap for oft-edited files

I was surprised to see "often" shortened to "oft", i dont see that oft.

<comment><USER4> Not exactly a shortening, per se. "oft-", not "oft", is the prefix[0] form of "often".

I'd guess "oft" on it's own would probably be archaic.

[0] [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oft-](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oft-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks a great project but can't really see why you'd use it. It's awesome to see which files have been edited the most but what would you do with that information?</comment>


Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea - <AUTHOR> http://yeonhoyoon.tumblr.com/post/44682321591/letter-from-steve-wozniak-to-a-high-school-student-in <comment><USER2> Woz is such a generous, stand-up soul that he should be famous for that alone, even if he were just a mediocre engineer. The fact that he was also one of the greatest hackers in his time is just a bizarre, but welcome anomaly of tech history.

</comment><comment><USER3> _You are recognized by your own skills and good work, and you don't have to criticize others for not doing good work. Just worry about your own skills._

Wozniak is a very technically brilliant guy, and I have the utmost level of respect for him. But the sentence I quoted above just shows that he's also a stereotypical "nerd" in a lot of ways [1], in the sense that he has a very poor understanding of how humans operate, both at the individual level and the organizational level.

Specifically, just worrying about your own skills is not enough most of the time, especially if you work in any kind of team setting where success requires every team member to pull their own weight. If someone is fucking up constantly and ruining your team's objectives and deliverables, you need to let them know. You can be nice about it if you want, but if you actually care about your work then you absolutely cannot "just worry about your own skills."

Heck, this isn't true for just companies. I think every one of us has had group assignments in college where one person just didn't do the work or did it incorrectly. Someone like Woz might have let it go, because people who are taught by their parents to be "nice" tend to avoid confrontation due to the unpleasant feelings it brings. But the right thing to do - both morally and otherwise - is to criticize the person for slacking off and file a formal complaint if they don't start performing.

In fact, now that I think about it, that's probably why he didn't call out Jobs on it when he found out that Jobs screwed him out of $5,000 back in the day. He just didn't have the confidence to fight wrongdoings, even when he was directly hurt by them (granted, Jobs was Woz's polar opposite in the sense that he had an extremely strong personality, one that would have crushed Woz's). Also remember that when he built the first Apple computer, he wanted to give it away for free because he was just a nice guy. It was Jobs who was a lot more grounded in reality and convinced Woz that they needed to sell it for money.

[1]I put it in quotes because I'm not using it as a pejorative.

<comment><USER4> I'm sure Woz has a fine understanding of "how humans operate", perhaps even better than you or I. He has worked with some of the most important individuals and companies in this industry.

Woz is not dumb. His point was that he chose to adopt this mindset on purpose. He'd rather be the "average person joking all the time than a powerful businessman stressing over work everyday".

By not calling out Jobs for screwing him out of $5,000, you can easily say Woz was just avoiding confrontation. But I really think his whole mindset transcends that. It just wasn't important to him. And that's how Woz lived his whole life, simply focusing on the things that really mattered to him.

I have always been so impressed with how true to himself Woz was.

<comment><USER5> haha, it appears to me that woz was a better Buddhist that Jobs.

<comment><USER6> Cannot upvote enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> JL posted her interview of Woz on the Founders at Work website. It's one of my favorites in the book (need to buy another copy, gave away my last one) because you really get a sense of the pure hacker/engineering genius/engineering spirit Woz is.

The floppy drive story is priceless.

<http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html>

<comment><USER8> I hadn't read that before - it's a really good read. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Woz is the catalyst that pushed me into programming, and that is something I'm perpetually thankful for.

I should write him a note...

<comment><USER10> The Woz model - engineering as a fulfillment of curiousity is powerful. It is often hard to make the leap towards understanding what to commercialize...

<comment><USER11> Ever been quoted before? ^^ Worth quoting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _"You are recognized by your own skills and good work, and you don't have to criticize others for not doing good work. Just worry about your own skills."_

Reading from inspiring people like Wozniak makes me wonder how to adopt such advice.

I am wondering about that almost every time I review a pull request. How do you deal with bad code, poor comments or over-engineering when you see it? Of course you can be nice, but then code and product quality would end up affected. How do you balance this thing?? The person being reviewed knows it's not personal, but it too often becomes a battle of egos. I would be really interested to find ways to become a better programmer by being nicer without bending over or compromising on professional integrity. Any suggestions?

<comment><USER13> > Of course you can be nice, but then code and product quality would end up > affected.

Why? This attitude baffles me. You don't have to be a dick when reviewing someone's code, terrible or not.

> The person being reviewed knows it's not personal

It absolutely is personal if you make it personal, i.e. start personally insulting the author.

"How could you be so stupid to write this this way?"

"This is really idiotic code."

"Sorry, this dumb way of doing things is dumb, and I don't approve of dumb things in my project."

All of the above are personally insulting comments. You should not make comments like them if you value being civil.

There are plenty of ways to reject code without being a complete dick. For example:

"This is pretty neat, but I don't think it fits in here because _________"

"I really appreciate the commit, but _________ doesn't quite work with _______ idea."

"This is a great start. Could you change _____________ to meld better with ________?"

All non-confrontational ways to say "sorry, this isn't good enough" while also offering positive feedback.

<comment><USER14> I found both types of examples you gave insulting.

Obviously being called dumb is insulting, but being treated like a baby is too.

What's so wrong with just saying

"This should be changed because ___"

"You should avoid doing something like this because __" ?

<comment><USER15> I always advise my staff to simply stick to the facts. Anything that can be disputed will be. This results in statements like:

"I'd like this changed because I believe it's a mistake to use globals in this context"

rather than

"You're/It's wrong to put a global here"

The difference is subtle, but important. It allows personal opinion to be used without the debate being personal.

<comment><USER12> That seems to be the direction I was looking for. It is subtle, but I see the difference. What I noticed in your example is two things:

1\. The statement is framed as a personal viewpoint, rather than absolute truth/fact. 2\. You not only state the problem, but also the intent or direction for a fix.

I'll try to see if I can adopt something along those lines. Thanks.

<comment><USER15> It's important to acknowledge personal differences while trying to see them as separate from the people themselves. It's when the two are confused that problems arise.

If you ignore personal differences, or don't understand that they're opinions (albeit based on experience) you will fail.

That's therapy training for you :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Gotta love Woz. So humble, such a brilliant mind, a pure hacker at heart. Need more guys like him and less turds like Mark Pincus (first one that comes to mind).

<comment><USER17> > less turds like Mark Pincus

Does that sound like the sort of thing Woz would say?

<comment><USER18> Alas that's why there's so few beings like Woz.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Love the Woz. A extraordinary combination of quiet genius, generosity and humility.

</comment><comment><USER20> > ... never want to tell one story in different ways.

 _\tangent_ I know what he's talking about (spinning the truth), so the following is not addressing what he meant, it's just that the bald statement irks me so: when explaining something to somebody, it can be very helpful to express it in familiar terms and concepts that they already understand. You might need to customise the story for each person, and the change might be much more than just a few words, but premised on entirely different concepts.

It's more like: you have a map and you know their intended destination. It's not helpful to just tell them where they should be; nor even to just explain one way to get there (one story). Better to find out _where they are_ , and then give them directions in terms of that. (from my stint as an ugrad tutor/demonstrator).

</comment><comment><USER21> Loved every word of that, great guy!

"The best things I did in my young years leading up to the early Apple computers were done because I had little money and had to think deeply to achieve the impossible."

On a side note, I think this is why more (and arguably better) hackers come out of Eastern Europe/Asia.

<comment><USER22> Yes having only "little money" forced Woz to really focus, think and experiment. However, I'm sure living in the same neighbourhood/city as people from IBM, Intel, HewlettPackard, etc wasn't bad either ;-)

<comment><USER21> Oh clearly! And how much easier it was back then to simply walk into HP for example, and talk to these people directly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm living in Korea right now and I'm fascinated as to how and why Woz decided to reply to this Korean high school student's email, of all the emails he could've replied to, and how often he does this for people. So random but so awesome.

And what an amazing and thoughtful reply it was, especially considering how lately Woz has become known more for being a loose cannon criticizing Apple in the press, than for his (amazing) previous accomplishments. Not to mention his portrayal in Steve Jobs' biography was less than glowing.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think my favorite part of every Woz letter and email is how he signs his name upside down. There's not much more endearing than the playfulness and wonder that somehow conveys.

<comment><USER25> yeah i saw that too.. thought it was really cool..

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Noticed the signature at the end, the sign of one of the greatest hackers of our times.

Kudos sir.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm impressed by how well the response was written. Every sentence seemed to be written in a very unambiguous way. The phrasing may have been awkward, but was very appropriate for a Korean audience.

<comment><USER23> Good point, his email reply got me wondering how familiar he is with Korea and whether he was deliberately tailoring his message for a Korean audience as well.

He talks about not learning from books, not caring about what others think about you, choosing a company based on how they treat you and not how "hot" they are - These are all the complete opposite of what Korea values and the way most Koreans live (book-learning, image-conscious, brand names over personal satisfaction).

<comment><USER28> I could say the same thing for the culture in Hong Kong or China at large too.

<comment><USER25> Singapore too..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> _I didn't know anything about computer languages except—a friend of mine had gone to MIT and, while he was there, he would Xerox pages out of books that were good topics, and he had sent me a lot of pages back from compiler design books._

I wonder if MIT knew about students sharing information with the outside world 40 years ago. If this copyright violation would have not happened, we'd be in a world without Apple computer, or at least Apple BASIC.

<comment><USER30> [http://www.copyright.com/Services/copyrightoncampus/content/...](http://www.copyright.com/Services/copyrightoncampus/content/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> _Computer apps are not to be judged by what they do or how well they do it. Rather, it is more important that they feel natural to normal humans and they are led to the right actions._

This statement makes me sad... but I cannot articulate exactly why.

Edit: I like the essay in general. It's very motivating. It would have been great advice when in highschool.

<comment><USER32> Its because like many nerds, you love to program, and you love THE program.

I find that many technical people actually find that while they keep solving technical problems, the people problem never goes away with their software.

We treat people as idiots and act in condescending manners because we think they are too dumb to use our software or computers in general, but the truth is our software is dumb and a lot of us dont want to change it.

<comment><USER31> I don't think that's it... Woz talks about internalizing and owning his own thoughts throughout the article, then implies that computer programs (that presumably the student could / should build) ought to be tailored to everyone else's mental models. It seems contradictory. I'd much rather hear something like, "Build something you love using... that's easy for you to use."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > The teller doesn't feel that the truth about how they are and how they act > is not good

...did the transcriber double negate this by mistake or is my head spinning the wrong way?

</comment><comment><USER34> Is the upside down signature in the original?

<comment><USER35> Yes, it's his normal email signature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Is there a better modern sage than Woz?</comment>


Ask HN: Has Twitter's latest UI change worked for you? - <AUTHOR>

Twitter has changed their appearance again, and broken several things for me.  Has anyone else had their "User Experience" broken by this?
And here's a question: if you provide a service via a web interface, how much testing should you do before making a change?  What browser/OS combinations should you test, and how should you test them?
For reference, I'm using Firefox 13 on Ubuntu 12 here.  It's also broken on a much earlier version of Firefox that I'm using on a netbook running a bespoke version of Linux.
So HNers
* How much testing do you do?
* How much testing do you do?
And if anyone from Twitter is here: You've broken my experience.  Again. <comment><AUTHOR> Examples of some of the things that are now changed, sub-optimal, or just plain broken:

* External links no longer appear in the actual tweet, you now need to click on the tweet to see the link to click to get to the item. Two clicks instead of just the one.

* A middle-click doesn't work any more - I constantly use that to open things in a new tab so I can then rapidly run through multiple conversations and links. Not any more, they rigorously enforce the inefficient, linear experience.

* You now need to click to get more tweets, and it lengthens the existing page, rather than loading a new one. That rapidly becomes unusable on my mobile device.

* It no longer indicates if a given tweet is part of a conversation, so now you have to click on the tweet, and it flash loads the conversation, if it exists, taking away my ability to control how much stuff I download.

* The "search" function does not turn up every instance. For example, this search:

<https://mobile.twitter.com/search/ColinTheMathmo>

... does not find this mention:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/noodlemaz/status/2180626418962350...](https://mobile.twitter.com/noodlemaz/status/218062641896235008)

* While composing a tweet I now can't use the mouse to select, cut and paste text, and the END and HOME keys don't do anything. They used to.

... and so on.

Bloody annoying.

<comment><USER2> When Twitter starting "app-ing" their pages, I gave up on them. I now access my account once or twice a year to address something very specific.

Too many hoops, and this old dog gets tired and goes somewhere else.

And sooner or later, "the kids" are going to discover the joy of "retro" and bail on the UI BS, as well -- my personal speculation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Honestly it hardly made any difference for me. The only thing about the latest update that bugs me is now the birdie is tilted more upwards than he was before.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't notice any changes, do you have a screenshot?

<comment><AUTHOR> Before: <http://www.solipsys.co.uk/images/Tw0.png>

After: <http://www.solipsys.co.uk/images/Tw1.png>

It doesn't load at all on my netbook. I'm trying to document all the differences and what doesn't work, but I'm just overwhelmed by the brokenness, and don't really know where to start. I wasn't expecting this, so I don't have many examples of the previous version to compare against.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> people use the twitter website?

<comment><AUTHOR> People ask snarky, rhetorical, non-constructive questions on HN?

However, to answer your implicit question:

I regularly use 8 different platforms, some of which I have no control over, and some of which don't have native Twitter apps. To use the Twitter web site means - correction, _meant_ \- that I have - correction, _had_ \- a single, consistent, usable interface that worked reasonably efficiently and reasonably effectively on all of them.

So yes, I use - correction, _used_ \- the Twitter web site.</comment></comment>


With cops away, it's like Capitol Hill is slipping back to the Pinkerton's era - <AUTHOR> https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/with-cops-away-its-like-capitol-hill-is-slipping-back-to-the-pinkertons-era/ <comment><USER2> I recently took two years off and drove from San Francisco to Panama. I spent a lot of time in El Salvador and in Honduras and made some observations. Police in those countries are invisible (non-existent?). You can pretty much do what you want- Honduras just built a new highway system, you can drive as fast as your engine allows. But when you get to know people, the owners of small businesses will tell you that there's another kind of protection. I would call it racket. In San Pedro Sula especially, when you stop paying for protection, your troubles start. Even on the smallest personal level: there are no meters in the center. We parked on a public street, and a 15 years old teenager came and asked 20 Lempiras for parking. My very experienced German companion wanted to ignore him, but then the teen's "supervisors" showed up. They looked like people you don't want to mess with. They politely offered the schedule: 1h is 20, 30min is 10 and left. We opted tor 30min, and the teen timed us to a minute on his watch. In exchange, he "guarded" my California plated car and blocked the upcoming traffic so that I could leave the parking spot (and that he could get another "customer"). I believe some people would actually prefer that system, but so far I liked the American system better.

<comment><USER3> Similar happened to me in Morocco. Parked in a public park. Guy came over and told me it was 20 dirham. I Argued with him a little bit pointing out it's a public parking lot and there is no meter. Spouse told me to pay the man or he may cause trouble. I relented thinking of the damage he could cause to our rental. He did guard our car and stopped traffic.

Police were prevalent, just setting up speed traps and shaking down tourists.

<comment><USER4> I had that happen in Capetown. It was cheap enough I was happy to pay the guy and be done with it. I'd feel differently if I was local, but I also obviously looked like a tourist, had an American accept etc.

<comment><USER5> This is everywhere in South Africa. It annoys people but it's not worth making a fuss over. It's clearly extortion but it's so widespread for so many years that it's de-facto legal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really have no idea who to believe when it comes to the CHOP zone because there's so many incentives to lie. I'm curious if anyone on HN lives nearby and can comment on their experience. Thanks.

<comment><USER7> I lived above it. I can answer some questions.

Proof: [https://imgur.com/a/7hKqmUe](https://imgur.com/a/7hKqmUe)

Authoritative Sources of information:

\- [https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/](https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/)

\- [https://twitter.com/Omarisal](https://twitter.com/Omarisal)

To kick things off:

\- Local business hired a PMC/Local Armed Security group (don't remember the name) to provide real security after Car Tender was attacked. On the night that happened, they had a dude with an AR15. What happened was some junkie/non protester jumped a fence, started a fire, took some cash, and keys to vehicles. The owners (dude with a gun) detained him, but protesters started mobbing and forced them to release the dude who broke in. Some stuff was recovered by the mob.

\- There was at least two armed groups of volunteer security. One organized one (the gun club mentioned and the now well known picture of the dude with the ar15, vest, and green bandana- this dude: [https://libertyunyielding.com/wp- content/uploads/2020/06/arm...](https://libertyunyielding.com/wp- content/uploads/2020/06/armed-guard-ar-CHAZ-1200x630.jpg)) was part of it. From what I've been told, they were organized and mostly on the roof providing overwatch and sniper support in case something happened. The other group was possible gang bangers- these are the people who shot the white jeep and most likely executed one person. Then there is "Raz." I am unware of his involvement other then breaking multiple state and federal firearms laws.

\- Towards the end, a majority of the population was a mixture of homeless, gang members, and non-local people who came to support the vision of CHAZ. There was protesters, but their numbers deminished

<comment><USER8> I support drastic police reform, but anyone who thinks pure anarchy will work clearly doesn't know much history. It's been tried time and again and again. The sad truth is that it always implodes.

<comment><USER7> I do as well. 100% we need reform.

There are more then a few "for sale" signs in Capital Hill that I've walked past in the past few weeks. I watched a few people move out of my building and I'm planning on leaving shortly when I land a new job (or I don't)- just gotta find out which.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd like to note, this is from before the Mayor ordered the cops back in to break it up.

This quote however is a worthy take away:

"As for "Defund the Police," that slogan doesn't mean get rid of the police completely. It's to cut their budget and demilitarize their roles while boosting social services. This is a rational goal, but we can already see one possible unintended outcome if the people of Seattle perceive that traditional police services are declining. Those with money will just hire their own "high threat private protection services." They're already doing it.

There's a ton of work to be done reforming the police. But going back to the Pinkerton's era has got to be one of worst ways to reduce inequality in a city already riven by it."

<comment><USER8> It's hard not to think there's also a "we'll take our ball and go home" attitude going on here. People call to reign in the police, so instead of learning to de-escalate the situation they throw their hands up, stop policing an area altogether, and say "see what happens when we don't get to do things our way?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a bit dated:

\- It misses the part where the CHAZ "security" murdered a black teenager, and tried to kill another: [https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/06/night-of- gunfire-...](https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/06/night-of-gunfire-at- capitol-hill-protest-zone-sends-at-least-two-to-hospital/) (topical to the article, though)

\- The camp is gone, swept up by the SPD re-occupying the precinct. Wrapped up a couple weeks ago.

If you want on-the-ground reports from people in the neighborhood (not really the camp itself), there are a LOT of threads about the CHAZ/CHOP on reddit: [https://reddit.com/r/seattle](https://reddit.com/r/seattle). Lot of trolling, lot of flaming, but also a lot of people who live on cap hill who talk about their experience living next to it.

<comment><USER11> They did mention his death, they just didn't mention it was CHOP security that murdered him, or the video evidence of the execution ("Oh you're still alive?" followed by a gunshot), or the fact that he was black (ironically making CHOP the greatest per-capita rate of police killings of unarmed black people). They did however mention the very incredulous rumor that the murdered teen and his friend were shooting, which there is no evidence for and a lot of evidence against.

Honestly, it's weird that an article criticizing the CHOP security debacle would decide to leave out pertinent details that help bolster the critique.

As a side note, there is both/r/seattle and /r/seattlewa. Both of them are seeing heavy traffic from out-of-towners right now, but the general divide is /r/seattle is the left-leaning one and /r/seattlewa is the right-leaning one (at least within the context of Seattle).

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I check out both, but didn't feel like wading into that hairball. And to be honest, just picked the one less likely to inspire downvotes and complaints.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Who'd guess that advocating for less policing without providing a clear alternative would be terrible for everyone except for those who can pay for private security.

Even bad cops are better than no cops.

</comment><comment><USER13> Unintentionally libertarian.

<comment><USER14> the fundamental problem with trying to be ancom inside an unrelentingly capitalist system

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In a new post-police era:

The rich will have private securty.

The middle class will have good guns and good ammo.

The poor will have nothing and suffer.

<comment><USER16> Your imagined new era in Seattle is already over, we are back to the police acting normally.

<comment><USER11> Considering they're likely to defund police budget by 50%, I'd say that's very wrong.

<comment><USER16> I'd support major changes in the police funding and move more to social services, but I'm really skeptical it will happen. The mayor doesn't seem like a rock the boat kind of person.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any OOP language which enforces / encourages purity / immutability? - <AUTHOR> I'm a c# developer and working on large projects made me realise how hard is it to maintain projects with side effects everywhere.
Which made me wonder if there are any OOP languages out there which has a strong emphasis on immutability. For e.g. syntax that lets user construct an object only on instantiation, syntax to easily clone an object, syntax to differentiate between a pure function and an impure one etc.
Note:
1. I do realise many people define OOP as stateful and what I am describing above is fundamentally against such OOP, and also this problem is solved by functional languages. But what I mean by object oriented is a paradigm that keeps classes/types/structs as fundamental building blocks to model problem domain, which has behaviour (methods) on state, and one which has essentially '.' (dot) syntax. For e.g. a language where I can do:
class Person (name, bday) {
    ...

    func int age()
    {
        // calculated from bday state
    }
 }
// And later var p = new Person (...) var age = p.age()
2. By mutability I mean mutating an object (changing its state), not reinitializing the variable. I'm OK with latter.
First time on HN, hopefully my question is within the rules. Thanks everyone! <comment><USER2> Some random internet remarks:

0\. This looks like the why in 'why are there new languages?'

1\. Objects are a place based abstraction that provides the ability to distinguish between 'this' and 'that' in the same way that two identically optioned BMW 325i's may be distinguished, e.g. mine and yours.

2\. Immutability is a value based abstraction in which two identically optioned BMW's are fungible (e.g. mine and yours while they are sitting on the dealer's lot awaiting sale).

3\. The simplest object like data structure is a hash/hash map/hash table. An immutable hash table can probably provide all of the semantics you describe.

4\. There are lots of languages with immutable hash tables.

5\. Ruby is one of them and:

       a. Ruby uses the . syntax.
       b. Everything in Ruby is an object.
       c. To a first approximation, any object in Ruby
          may have any of its methods over-ridden/shadowed/redefined
       d. The Ruby ecosystem supports writing new embedded languages,
          e.g. Rails.
       c. The downside is that, historically,
          a first class Windows experience has
          not been a priority of the Ruby community.

My random advice is to not get hung up on the dot syntax until it is clear that the semantics actually do what you want and therefore to mock up the semantics using hash-tables in a language that expects them to be immutable such as Clojure...hash-tables are more or less why Clojure does not have an object system.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. I get the difference you're talking about between an instance (identity based) and a value. My question is exactly about a value based oop language, more like 'Value Oriented Programming Language' with modelling and patterns similar to oop languages. C# has struct types, so does many languages which have mechanisms to disallow state mutation but they are all optional. You can pretty much do oop modelling with them all.

2\. On Ruby, is it possible to have functions on hashtables, just like methods on objects? Is it possible to define a Person hashtable and a Car hashtable and type system pick up the difference? It would be a hack to code like that if idiomatic Ruby code is not built around hashtables.

3\. I see your point not to get hung up on dot syntax, my question was out of curiosity. I do like object modelling and wished if I could continue with a paradigm I'm so familiar with without its warts (side effects).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Have a look at Swift.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Will play around with it.. Heard similar things about Rust, F#, etc. Will spend some time on them all.</comment></comment>


How to design a system that everybody hates - <AUTHOR> http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-188129.html

<comment><USER2> From the article: "I've had a chance to interview many cashiers and evaluate many Point of Sale (POS) systems for usability."

I've seen plenty of Point Of Sale systems where POS would more accurately mean Piece Of ####.

<comment><USER3> i don't know much about POS systems but there is a 99 cent store near by that when they scan an item it make a koo koo sound like in icq when you get a new message. its realy funny shopping there.</comment></comment>


Show HN: MassageJoy is Exec for Massage Therapy - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
The best advice to founders usually includes "Make a Painkiller, not a Vitamin" - and we took that advice to heart.
So we're delivering what's essentially Morphine-as-a-Service: Press a button, and get a Massage delivered to you.
We've painstakingly poured over every detail of the massage industry to try to modernize how people get Massage Therapy,  to perfect our customer experience, and to get the best massage therapists we could find. But only so much can be done pre-launch. So we're launching our beta now.
Book online at http://www.massagejoyspa.com, or give us a call at 650.681.0596
We're in beta, so everything won't be perfect. But we're good at listening - give us a try and let us know how we can do better. You can reach me directly at email@example.com anytime.
<comment>----- Why we're doing this:
You book massage therapy when you're either in pain or stressed out. It's the worst time to be forced to commute, fight traffic and search for parking. Instead, just book online at http://www.massagejoyspa.com, or give us a call at 650.681.0596. Our android and iOS apps are coming soon. </comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, we really want your support and your feedback - I'll be hanging our here in the comments and I'll be as responsive as possible. We serve the SF Peninsula: Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Stanford, Atherton, Mountain View, Portola Valley, Menlo Park, Redwood City, Los Altos & Los Altos Hills - basically anywhere 15 miles from Stanford, CA. If you're somewhere that isn't listed, but you're in the area, we'll still come to you.

Clickable link : <http://www.massagejoyspa.com>

</comment><comment><USER2> I understand why you mention it (both make you feel good), but are you sure you want to draw lines between your service and a much-abused substance known to be highly addictive?

<comment><AUTHOR> We also thought about saying Aspirin-As-A-Service.

The truth is, it's a much more dangerous risk for us to die without anyone knowing we exist.

<comment><USER2> How about NOT going down the medical route entirely?

Instead, you're the first Happiness-As-A-Service (HAAS) company in the world!

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be awesome, and it was our first idea, but it doesn't work.

It would draw direct issues - there are seedy massage providers out there offering sexual services under the guise of "massage".

So it's very dangerous to use the words "massage" and "happy" together. You'll start ranking on google for some very questionable queries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Coverage area on front page and in marketing would waste a bunch fewer people's time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll add it to the ask HN now, and to the app later today. Thanks!!!

For others who see this comment: We serve the SF Peninsula: Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Stanford, Atherton, Mountain View, Portola Valley, Menlo Park, Redwood City, Los Altos & Los Altos Hills - basically anywhere 15 miles from Stanford, CA. If you're somewhere that isn't listed, but you're in the area, we'll still come to you.</comment></comment>


Show HN: New PHP router wich is up to 20 times faster then Aura Router - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/alexdodonov/mezon-router/blob/master/doc/router-aura.md <comment><USER2> From what I can tell, the speedup is because it's using var_dump() to a file and require() for persistence to disk and caching. That basically uses the built in opcache as a data cache. It also looks like there's race conditions there: [https://github.com/alexdodonov/mezon- router/blob/master/Rout...](https://github.com/alexdodonov/mezon- router/blob/master/RoutesSet.php#L210)

I would imagine you could tweak any router to use a cache like Apcu or Redis and get similar numbers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting title. Why not "New PHP router which is 1.3 times faster than nikic's fast-route"?

<comment><USER2> It's a little wordy, but for clarity, you would need:

 _" New PHP router that has caching on by default is 1.3 times faster than nikic's fast-route using the default non-cached dispatcher. No comparison was made with fast-route's cached dispatcher"_</comment></comment>


Pokemon Yellow Total Control Hack - <AUTHOR> http://aurellem.org/vba-clojure/html/total-control.html Go to 666s into the video to see the bootstraps running. <comment><AUTHOR> Seek 666s into the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5T81yHkHtI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5T81yHkHtI) video to see the bootstraps begin running.</comment>


Commodore C65 Classroom Prototype - <AUTHOR> http://6502.org/users/sjgray/computer/c65cc/ <comment><USER2> I never had the chance to play with a Commodore 64, but am happy to see how popular retro computing is becoming. The "8bit-guy" is working on a modern C64 called the Commander X16 that should be out in 2021 I think. I'll definitely be picking up one. I would get a ZX spectrum Next, but they're too expensive right now.</comment>


Americans pay more for wireless data compared to most other developed countries - <AUTHOR> https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2018/Q4/unlimited-data-draining-your-wallet-your-plan-costs-more-in-u.s.-than-those-in-most-developed-countries.html <comment><USER2> Why aren't mvno providers more popular? I pay less than $20 a month for my plan.</comment>


Circuit Scribe: Draw Circuits Instantly - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0NM1jJbjrM

<comment><USER2> Cool! I tried these 30 years ago and they didn't work. Looks like it's time to try again...</comment>


Russia's Playbook for Social Media Disinformation Has Gone Global - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/technology/twitter-disinformation-united-states-russia.html <comment><USER2> I think the best way to limit the effectiveness of such campaigns is to have well-educated people. Of course, having critically thinking, sceptic population is very unwieldy.</comment>


Microsoft finds underwater datacenters are reliable, practical and sustainable - <AUTHOR> https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/project-natick-underwater-datacenter/?_lrsc=bc327fb3-15b0-49ce-9fb7-59bc01d22bf1 <comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24469643](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24469643)

</comment><comment><USER4> curious, wouldn't warming oceans with data centers not be good environmentally either?

<comment><USER5> I used to work on this project - water cooling is more efficient than air and heat generated by computing is the same. The heat ends up in the ocean anyways.

<comment><USER4> thanks, is there a paper on the topic that MS published that I can read? Would love to understand more of the detail and analysis

<comment><USER5> Sadly, no. The physics follow though - water has a much higher specific heat than air, so you have to move much less water than air for equivalent cooling. The production of heat by the processors is the same (and you save on air handling electricity/cooling processes, as the water is already cool in the ocean). As for the oceans absorbing the heat, that's how it works anyways - <USER2> unit of heat released in the atmosphere has to be sunk somewhere and the ocean is the "Earth's biggest heat bucket".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Safari 13 Is Out - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari_release_notes/safari_13_release_notes <comment><USER2> It really, really is a shame that they removed proper extensions. While Safari never had a good extension story, it was at least bearable, and in all other regards its simply the best Mac browser.

Now I have to take a really hard look at switching back to Firefox, and that would be a downgrade in almost every regard I care about. Pity.

<comment><USER3> I made the switch to FF 2 months ago after being a Safari zealot (for nearly 10-14 years). I did not notice any memory hogging (was an issue in past). I have not rebooted FF in 20+ days. I really enjoy the "container" concept in FF. (ymmv of course)

<comment><USER4> The only downside is that FF battery life is much worse than Safari. Supposedly they're working on being smarter about GPU usage to improve this, but I haven't checked lately to see if it has made a difference.

<comment><USER5> On newer versions (of Firefox Nightly), they use the native CoreAnimations library now for vastly improved battery life:

[https://twitter.com/whimboo/status/1168437524357898240](https://twitter.com/whimboo/status/1168437524357898240)

<comment><USER6> It's still a very long way from Safari on battery life. As is Google Chrome, by the way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> * Added support for the Pointer Events API enabling consistent access to mouse, trackpad, touch, and Apple Pencil events.

[https://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer](https://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer) \- now you can use one unified event capture everywhere, instead of having to choose between "click" and "touch"!

<comment><USER8> Nice to see that all browsers support Pointer Events now. This Microsoft proposed standard was initially fiercely opposed by Google and Apple some years ago.

<comment><USER9> Well that was before they were shipping devices with a stylus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This update kills Tampermonkey.

I only used it for a very specific reason - I had a script which removes multi-item eBay listings where one item is 99 cents (typically some kind of keychain) and the other items are the actual listed item at a much higher price.

It's a technique used to break the "sort by price" function, since it sorts by the cheapest item in a multi-item listing.

</comment><comment><USER11> Just opened it again out of curiosity and the first message I got is that the Bitwarden and Pocket extensions are not supported anymore. Oh, well, as much as I'd like to use it, a desktop browser without extensions is dead to me. There are some extensions that provide me with little quality of life improvements and whatnot. Since, when I'm using my computer, I'm almost always using a browser, these things become important.

I wonder why Apple decided to axe extensions and not support WebExtensions, that at this point have become a standard shared by Firefox and Chrome. Too bad.

</comment><comment><USER12> Apple removed the ability to use uBlock Origin or similar.

I tried few ad blocker from the app store, but non of them block Youtube's video ad, making it useless.

We still have Firefox for now I guess.

<comment><USER13> wipr from the App Store is a serviceable ad blocker, not as good as ublock origin, but (mostly) does the job for me at least. I miss the ability to kill specific elements ad-hoc.

<comment><USER14> I payed for Wipr and I don't notice the difference between it an uBlock Origin on my windows machine. Can you report if it works on Safari 13?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Added support for FIDO2-compliant USB security keys with the Web > Authentication standard in Safari on macOS.

well this makes me happy at least

<comment><USER16> Does it work on IOS?

<comment><USER17> I believe iOS 13 does via NFC. Yubico was just talking about this: [https://www.yubico.com/2019/09/yubico-ios-authentication- exp...](https://www.yubico.com/2019/09/yubico-ios-authentication-expands-to- include-nfc/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One thing Safari really needs to fix: suggesting a secure password but then not save it. I have been trolled too many times.

<comment><USER19> This.. I'm sure it's happening because the respective websites use JavaScript to submit the form data via XHR, but I've been burned so many times by the password generator that I'm writing down the password from the field before submitting it. Very frustrating!

Entering it in the actual login form will then usually trigger a save of the credentials.

<comment><USER20> Nice thing about 1Password (just a user) is that when you submit a generated password it is also temporarily copied to the clipboard. I paste it somewhere (typically at a bash prompt) in case this happens if it does make or adjust the correct entry. Sucks, but there are, as they say, no standards.

The nice thing about it being at the bash prompt is I can just press ^U and it doesn't end up stored anywhere (and even if it did it would be a random, contextless string).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For those wondering how to install this update in macOS 10.14 Mojave; it is distributed as a Software Update in System Preferences.

</comment><comment><USER22> > Added support for the Visual Viewport API for adjusting web content to avoid > overlays, such as the onscreen keyboard.

This is awesome for WYSIWYG editors, most of which have struggled to keep the formatting toolbar visible on mobile screens because there's been no good way to detect whether the keyboard is open.

</comment><comment><USER23> Can it play 4K videos on YouTube?

<comment><USER24> Nope, and probably ( I hope ) never will. The chances of Apple support VP9 is slim, and in case you want to point out Apple is a Founding Member of Open Media Alliance, as of today it still doesn't have Apple's Official Logo in its member page.

Compared to MC-IF, an industry forum focusing on next generation H.266 / VCC which Apple is also a Founding Member, has an official logo from Day 1.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Added the ability to Safari for macOS to share your screen with others using > only web technologies. Plug-ins are no longer required.

This is a nice enhancement. I previously used the Screen Sharing feature that was buried in Messages, which somehow stuck around from when it was iChat.

</comment><comment><USER26> Upon completing the Safari upgrade, I was forced to upgrade to 1Password 7.x, which forced me to upgrade my Dropbox password storage to a new file format… an avalanche of changes and I am afraid I may corner myself into having to spend more on 1Password.

<comment><USER27> 1Password is an amazing piece of software that is worth every penny.

I used to always buy my license instead of the subscription but recently switched because frankly, I know it's a better business model for them, and I get so much value our of 1P I don't mind paying.

I've been a 1P user since before 1.0.

It's too easy to always try to squeeze every penny out of these small companies, but I think it's worth really thinking hard about their reality, and how much their software is actually worth to us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Safari continues to lead the path for privacy and security. WebAuthN is a welcome change although supporting the built in TouchID in Apple devices would have been nice. The new password change prompt is definitely a plus.

<comment><USER29> Safari is the very last major browser to support WebAuthN. If anything, it is following the path. [https://caniuse.com/#search=webauthn](https://caniuse.com/#search=webauthn)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Safari is the new internet explorer. Too little, too late.

<comment><USER31> Nope. Chrome is the new IE. Standards don't matter when you have a high enough market share- you can do whatever you want and people have to support it.

IE was the reference browser for the web in the 90s, and Chrome is that today.

<comment><USER32> Yes, Safari is the new Opera. Technically superior in many ways but also barely competing. Opera went on to abandon their custom technology in favor of Chrome's after losing their dominant position in mobile to Safari and Chrome. As long as the EU doesn't force Apple to accept fair competition on iOS Safari's future looks bright!

<comment><USER33> Safari is the new IE6, because the version of Safari you have is locked to the version of iOS you have. Features like Pointer Events, visualViewport, ES2017 etc are available on _Android 4.4_ , because Google still updates Chrome on old Android devices.

I struggle to support iOS 9 (Safari 9) and I barely support iOS 7, because we have a number of users with old devices and we are not a consumer app so we can't just ignore our users who _cannot_ upgrade their browser.

I regularly check caniuse and mdn to see if I can use a useful feature that is in Firefox, Chrome and Edge, and I regularly can't because Safari doesn't support it. Or often I try to use a feature and it is buggy on Safari. Safari is the only browser that regularly breaks our web app (most recently Safari 13 changes for the iPad desktop mode). I also see old versions of Safari in use by some of our MacOS users (presumably because they can't or won't update?)

If our users hit a show-stopping bug in any other browser (browser bug or our bug), they can usually try a different browser. But iOS users can only use WebKit, so they are the most vulnerable to serious bugs.

<comment><USER34> I would say you can pretty much aim for iOS 10 or even 11 as a minimum. The number of devices running iOS 7 is quite small. My moms iPad 2 runs iOS 9 and that's about one of the oldest Idevices going

<comment><USER33> You can do that if you don't have any poor users, or you don't have to care about them (e.g. many consumer apps).

Our clients are businesses, and our users are their employees (from a wide range of backgrounds). The employees must use our web app, and our clients mostly don't get to choose what their employees use.

We log how many users are on old browsers, and we try to support users on old browsers if it isn't too costly for us to do so.

In my experience, the majority of people using a iPhone 4 or an Android 4.4 device are doing so because they can't afford to update, and they are often otherwise marginalised. I try hard not to give them yet another kick in the teeth for stuff outside their control.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Adventures in Video Conferencing Part 1: The Wild World of WebRTC - <AUTHOR> https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2018/12/adventures-in-video-conferencing-part-1.html <comment><USER2>
      "Can you hear me?"

      "I can't hear you."

      "Let me change the microphone settings."

      "Can you hear me now?"

      *horrible audio feedback*

Every single time, even in 2018. Will WebRTC save us? No.

<comment><USER3> you should try zoom or bluejeans, it's been extremely stable and consistent for us, we do conference calls from behind china's great firewall to palo alto with little to no lag, even has HD video.

<comment><USER4> Zoom won't really help you with the above situation which is mainly users having their microphones disabled etc.

We're building a virtual classroom solution and we now always force every user to go through a wizard which checks their audio and video, clearly marks when there is no sound being received and connects them to a support person to help them resolve their AV issues before they can join the meeting.

It's a little annoying for the person who wants to join, but the experience for the people already in the meeting/classroom is much better.

<comment><USER5> Is the product you are building out already?

<comment><USER4> We are currently testing with some early customers and now about to go broader. We only sell to universities though, so it's hard to demo. Here's an article with more info from one of our customers that gives you a look into the product: [https://awaytolearn.iese.edu/ieses-virtual-room-online- learn...](https://awaytolearn.iese.edu/ieses-virtual-room-online-learning- reinvented/)

One interesting part is that, just like in a real classroom, by default everybody is unmuted. So you can have discussions with 80 students and one or multiple teachers. This makes stuff like echo cancellation, reducing the noise floor etc. a big part of the problem we attempt to solve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm working on a project that requires consuming a UDP video stream from the browser. Because of the near real time latency requirements, I think a WebRTC is the correct solution, but every time I start reading about it, I get overwhelmed by all these acronyms like STUN, TURN, ICE, etc.

Does anyone have suggestions for good learning paths for WebRTC?

<comment><USER7> This might be helpful for your project [https://janus.conf.meetecho.com/](https://janus.conf.meetecho.com/)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, Janus is excellent. Just get it running in a local network and head scratch about ICE, STUN, etc. only if a firewall is needed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Facebook, WhatsApp, FaceTime and Signal are just a few of the many ways that > users can make audio and video calls across networks.

I find it interesting that they don't mention Hangouts, given that they're, well, _Google_ Project Zero…

<comment><USER10> Maybe they listed the highest market share? I didn't look but I wouldn't be suprised if these have the biggest. In order, too.

Or maybe they just listed the ones they use. If I did the same, it would look _very_ similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A bunch of these vulnerabilities are the result of iterator invalidation in C++. Food for thought for those who claim that iterator invalidation doesn't happen in modern idiomatic C++.

</comment><comment><USER12> Low latency video streaming in the browser is a mess. it's WebRTC or [insert hack]. WebRTC is kind of a single-purpose black box, so it's difficult to deal with. I Would love to know more about how people are solving this problem (like Zoom).

<comment><USER13> Zoom's solution seems to be clunky software that works worse than Jitsi.

<comment><USER14> Works better than LifeSize! I've been relatively non-angry with Zoom which is at least some form of success. I also like that we can download missed meetings that we're recorded and I can play them in my player of choice (yay, 2x speed!).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We've tried several video conference solutions. Google hangout was nice for up to 10 people. Then it get really slow and the quality of the video decrease. It also do not work in China (need a VPN).

By far, the best one is Zoom. It can easily handle with a really great quality 25 people on 1 page, in a conference with 80+ people. It also works smoothly for people in China (without VPN). Anyone has any know the magic behind their tech?

<comment><USER16> Zoom doesn't use WebRTC (which the article is about). They use websockets to send media through the pipes and decode using a webgl shader or similar.

I don't work for Zoom, but do work in the WebRTC space and read an article about it recently.

<comment><USER17> Gotta link for that? Sounds really neat

<comment><USER18> [https://webrtchacks.com/zoom-avoids-using- webrtc/](https://webrtchacks.com/zoom-avoids-using-webrtc/), perhaps?

<comment><USER12> Zoom has to be using h264 under the covers. Did they recompile the OpenH264 into WASM?

like: [https://github.com/kazuki/mediacodec.wasm](https://github.com/kazuki/mediacodec.wasm)

It could also be that they are using websockets to deliver MPEG-DASH/HLS segments for low latency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A good testability lesson. The project had used fuzzing, but due to complexity nobody had figured out how instrument it for deep coverage.

(Aside from the obvious one that you shouldn't write protocol implementations in unsafe languages... WebRTC is too new to have a legacy excuse even)

</comment><comment><USER20> FB Messenger calls work the best for me.

Hangouts and Zoom second best.

Worst has been Skype and WhatsApp.

But Skype has been getting better the last months.</comment>