SymbolHound - <AUTHOR> http://symbolhound.com <comment><USER2> I love the idea of a search engine like SymbolHound, but I find the results lacking in practice.

For example, a search for Swift's nil coalescing operator turns up nothing of relevance: [http://symbolhound.com/?q=swift+%3F%3F](http://symbolhound.com/?q=swift+%3F%3F)

(Actual information about "??" in Swift for anyone interested: [https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Swift/...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Swift/Conceptual/Swift_Programming_Language/BasicOperators.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014097-CH6-ID60))

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm the developer of SymbolHound. You're right, SymbolHound's index is a little lacking, especially for new languages. This is because it's based almost entirely on a stackoverflow data dump ([http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/06/stack-overflow- creativ...](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/06/stack-overflow-creative- commons-data-dump/)) from when I first made it (2011). Swift was released in 2014, so there are no results. I'm planning to update it when I have the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Discussed a little bit 1250 days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3266644](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3266644)

</comment><comment><USER5> Google has the verbatim option for that.

Search Tools -> Verbatim

<comment><USER6> I tried google's verbatim but it returned no results for <$>. Meanwhile symbolhound returned several relevant stackoverflow posts.

<comment><USER7> Assuming that's Haskell, you probably want Hoogle ([https://www.haskell.org/hoogle/](https://www.haskell.org/hoogle/)).

For any other language, SymbolHound seems quite useful.

<comment><USER6> Yes, it is. Hoogle is brilliant and I highly recommend it to anyone that programs in Haskell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks very similar to [http://nerdydata.com](http://nerdydata.com) which let's you search the source code of webpages. They don't seem to index many stackoverflow posts though..

<comment><USER9> SymbolHound seems more geared at searching docs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> (:.) haskell

no luck there

<comment><USER11> For Haskell, Hayoo[0] works well

[0]: [http://hayoo.fh-wedel.de/?query=.%3A](http://hayoo.fh- wedel.de/?query=.%3A)</comment></comment>


Stardew Valley on FreeBSD - <AUTHOR> http://bitcannon.net/post/stardew-valley-on-freebsd/ <comment><USER2> I had no idea Stardew had been ported to Linux officially. Maybe it's relatively trivial to do the porting as a framework feature, but still unexpected given Stardew being developed by one (initially) relatively inexperienced developer.

<comment><USER3> Port was done by Chucklefish. _More specifically, I've accepted an offer from Chucklefish in which they will handle the porting, localization, and the technical side of multiplayer. This will allow me to focus on creating new game content for version 1.1, which I will continue to do entirely on my own._ [http://stardewvalley.net/post-launch-progress-update- version...](http://stardewvalley.net/post-launch-progress-update- version-1-1-and-more/)</comment></comment>


Show HN: StartHQ - a web app directory - <AUTHOR> http://www.arcticstartup.com/2013/03/11/starthq-targets-and-launches-web-apps

<comment><USER2> I checked my app, Tomatoes [1], it's listed: <https://starthq.com/apps/tomatoes> but it has very poor ratings

Google 2/5 but from [https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights#url=t...](https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights#url=tomato.es_2F&mobile=false) I see it has 81/100

Trust, reliability and privacy are 1/5 and are taken from <http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/tomato.es> but they don't apply because there are "Not enough ratings for this site yet" so they should be listed as "n/a" probably.

[1] <http://tomato.es>

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point about the WOT ratings, will fix that! When it comes to PageSpeed, 81 is pretty low as most other apps are 95+ and the rating is calculated relative to other entries in the directory. It should be easy enough to fix by following the instructions that Google provides though. The scores are updated daily btw.

Edit: It will have the nice side effect of improving performance for your users and your Google search rank as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great idea - any chance of getting our HR web app <http://www.staffsquared.com> listed with you guys?

<comment><AUTHOR> Done! <https://starthq.com/apps/staff-squared>

<comment><USER3> You rockstar :) Thank you so much

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem! Actually apps get added automatically to my verification queue if you sign up and add it to your launcher as a link. If the link hasn't been seen before, I verify whether it's an app or not. People have already added a bunch new cool apps since this post went up, you can see them on the last page of the search results: <https://starthq.com/apps/?page=60>

<comment><USER3> Delighted we jumped in just ahead of blimp, which I'm a huge fan of :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A bit of a shameless plug here, but I launched a similar site a few weeks ago: <http://applist.io>

applist.io is mainly focused on B2B SaaS apps for freelancers and small businesses.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice! Are you based in Norway? We are practically neighbors then. Would be great to chat to see if we can do something together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Find a way to escape the big old directory listing trap. Categories and such and you have a killer page. The focus of the UX should be "what do I want to achieve" find me an app that does X. currently it's too similar to lots of other directories, last I checked most of them were zombies after a while.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great advice! We started out with "the launcher" which is what you see when you sign up, but few people found it useful. The response to the directory though, which I agree has been done to death, has been very positive, so maybe there's some truth to the Helsinki Bus Station theory ([http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/feb/23/change- li...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/feb/23/change-life- helsinki-bus-station-theory)) when applied to product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Alongside the rankings (Speed, Trust, Reliability, Privacy) there should be user ranking/rating. For me, curation is the biggest problem (yes, there are hundreds of startups attacking collaboration, but which is the best for my need?)

<comment><AUTHOR> Will add that later this week, see my other comments below. I intentionally want to keep reviews out for now though, since from talking to people it's become apparent that most people find reviews by strangers somewhat useless and would prefer recommendations from people they know & who understand them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice idea.

There should also be some more tags or things that would help someone narrow down results to less apps. Currently all categories seem to have 3-5 pages with 10 apps each, with just a line of description and URL.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. Too many choices make it really difficult to choose.

<comment><AUTHOR> On one level I want people to browse around a bit and discover new, niche apps that they wouldn't find otherwise. What actually happened though is that we have a bug in our ranking code at the moment. The search results should be sorted by popularity based on Compete score and number of tweets & likes of the app profile pages within StartHQ itself.

So, all I can say is: come back in a few days and you will find better apps faster - at the moment I don't want to rock the boat by redeploying the server wth 60+ users online at the same time due to the HN effect.

<comment><USER8> That sounds like a great solution. I'll be back!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Direct link: <https://starthq.com>

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this site supposed to be for B2B or general purpose? I'm a bit confused since the article doesn't specifically mention this as such, but the homepage invites me to enter my work email.

<comment><AUTHOR> B2B

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not possible to add a web-app? How will the directory grow? I was planning to list my app <http://makeplans.net>

<comment><AUTHOR> See my comments below. The way to add web apps at the moment is by signing up and adding the URL to the launcher. I'll add a proper app submission page soon though.

PS. MakePlans added: <https://starthq.com/apps/makeplans>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Love the idea! For some reason I totally missed the sign-up button, I was just blind to it. You might wanna look at making it more obvious somehow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll experiment with making it more prominent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> You're listing Hacker News as a productivity app :)

<comment><AUTHOR> A bit of an inside joke. The rest of the reviews and categorizations are serious, honest! ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice! But when logged in I only get the search bar. When logged in it would be nice to see the categories as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Already on it! Should be live later this week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> looks great;checkout my webapp directory which has apps that are mobile optimized.

<http://webappvault.com></comment>


Peter Thiel to Speak at the Republican National Convention - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/14/peter-thiel-republican-national-convention/ <comment><USER2> What a quandary fom Mr. Thiel...

Does he join in on the anti-marriage equality bandwagon or does he just stick with the evergreen "I'm rich, hands off my money"?

<comment><USER3> In all honesty, even though the GOP has adopted what appears to be a archaic social-equality platform, Trump is still one of the more moderate Republicans to run for president. Pence was a choice out of necessity for party unity. Frankly after the supreme court decision there is not much more to debate.

<comment><USER4> Trump is an extreme authoritarian, but not a consistent social/religious extremist (not so much a committed moderate as someone who has no strong, consistent, or durable opinion on or concern for most social issues.) OTOH, he seems to have decided to pledge support for the extremist position on those issues for the support of the extremists, since he doesn't care about the issues but does care about support from those who do. So I wouldn't count on him governing as a moderate, were he to be elected.

And Supreme Court positions can change when the members of the Court (or, more difficult in this case, the controlling law they are applying) changes.

<comment><USER3> Well like you said, he only needs the extremist support to get elected. Why would he continue to be beholden to the part of his party that has been a thorn in his side since day one after he no longer needs them? Trump has come out in support of gays and I suspect there is little incentive for him to act otherwise.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Meta (YC S13) raises $50M series B - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/13/meta-raises-another-50m-as-it-gears-up-for-the-next-version-of-its-ar-headset-and-china/ <comment><USER2> I very optimistic about what AR can bring. To me, the biggest roadblock for AR as well with VR, is user interacting with the digital world constrained by the physical one (a problem that's been recognized since the beginning).

Even in AR you do not have haptic feedback, this to me is a critical component for a system to be truly adoptable outside of niche domains such as surgery, industrial processing etc.

I am sure many people are think of this. I have seen some research work out of the Media Lab at MIT trying to address this problem with deformable tables, likewise a Japanese group was doing air pressure haptics.

Could anyone working in this space comment on some state of the art stuff? And provide links? Thanks in advance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, haptic feedback is challenging. The thing that gets challenging in my opinion with 3rd party haptic sensors is a low latency integration. Also, there are no hardware standards that define performance/latency requirements for a good AR experience. All those things will contribute to designing haptic devices.

I saw a paper recently [http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10292/9652](http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10292/9652) around a low cost haptic game controller, which interested me a lot. There might be clever ways to create alternate haptic feedback like hot or cold sensations when an object is grabbed or interacted with ([https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151110082541.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151110082541.htm)).

Because AR itself is not mainstream yet, it is quite hard to figure out what is the right haptic feedback that feels natural. I am hoping this will evolve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have worked with Meta in the past. They are not going to release a viable consumer product. I have serious doubts about Magic Leap achieving anything of the like either.

AR is a good idea, but the management over at Meta has about as much chance of making it viable for any customer as uBeam has of delivering on wireless charging.

<comment><USER4> Any concrete information from your time working with them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> And here I was thinking the bubble was beginning to pop.

<comment><AUTHOR> What exactly is a bubble here? I think AR is going to hit high strides.

<comment><USER6> Also, at the very least, they have a finished product.

[http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/02/hands-on-with- the-949-mind-...](http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/02/hands-on-with-the-949-mind- bending-meta-2-augmented-reality-headset/)

I don't know how big the market will be, but I already have potential customers lined up for some very crappy forms of AR.</comment></comment></comment>


Knollop - what do you want to learn? - <AUTHOR> http://www.knollop.com/ <comment><USER2> Hi. I am one of the creators of this site. Thought we saw a little traffic bump this morning and then found this! We want to build an online learning material aggregation and discovery tool. We'd love some feedback here (directly) or on the site. Please let us know what you think.</comment>


Ask HN: How do so many projects on Kickstarter have such professional videos? - <AUTHOR> It seems like almost every Kickstarter project has some incredibly professional-shot video clip.   How is this possible?  Sometimes they're asking for only a couple of thousand dollars, and it looks like the video cost more than that to produce. <comment><USER2> In short, because it takes far less resources and skill to create a professional quality video these days. Advances in technology have made the tools required for doing so accessible to (almost) everyone.

I came into web development from the film industry. We used to work with a lot of large ad agencies, mostly on national and international broadcast commercial packages.

When I first started in the industry, shooting a commercial meant hiring a large production crew. Shooting 35mm film was still the norm, but over time producers became more open to trying HD video. Despite being cheaper than 35mm, shooting HD was still a large affair with many moving cogs. It wasn't uncommon to have to seek out and find specialized service providers just to have access to the equipment needed, even though we were one of the biggest and well-equipped post houses in Chicago.

The thing is, over a period of just a few years, things within the industry radically shifted. The prosumer market began to catch up. Suddenly we had access to high-def cameras that cost nearly as much to purchase as the former technologies cost to rent just a few years prior.

We started to get requests from agencies to actually shoot ads ourselves to save costs. Our coloring facilities, which used to take up two rooms of our office, shrank to the size of a desktop console. Our offline editors began to be able to add complex graphic work without the aid of our highly skilled online editing team.

It simply amazes me when I walk into a post-production facility these days. What used to be rooms full of bulky equipment and stacks of film is now, quite often, nothing more than a few little desktop computers.

So to return to your question... technology is no longer the barrier to creating high quality videos. The only real barrier is creativity- what you can do with all that potential at your fingertips.

</comment><comment><USER3> There may be a selection effect at work here; people who are good at making videos get noticed on Kickstarter so it looks like everyone on Kickstarter has good videos.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I think the question might better be phrased, "Why is Kickstarter showing me all the projects with good videos?", in which case the answer is self- evident.

<comment><USER2> Assuming the question is "Why is Kickstarter showing me all the projects with good videos?"

The answer is simple. People respond to them. There's a good reason why companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year creating advertisements.

My question is, given the importance of a good pitch video, why aren't more people making them?

As I've stated in my comments, there really isn't any good excuse not to.

If you own an iPhone you have access to better video than we were shooting just a handful of years ago on projects with budgets upwards of $100,000.

I think the issue is that many people don't recognize the importance of putting some effort into their pitch video. They see their video as an afterthought, when in fact, it's quite possibly their most important asset to a successful fundraising campaign.

A bulk of our business in editing was doing pitch videos for ad agencies. When landing a job means you're bringing in millions of dollars to your agency, spending $80,000 on a pitch video seems like chump change.

Granted, many Kickstarters aren't working on that level, but the principles are the same. If spending a few hundred bucks and some time could land you the funding for your dream project, would that be worth it to you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone have any insights into the common set up for the videos (camera, editing software)?

<comment><USER2> For cameras, there are just too many options to say there would be a "common" choice. Could be anything from a top of the line RED camera down to a DSLR with HD video capabilities.

For editing, you have Avid, Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere heading up the pack. Avid is still the top gun, especially now that Apple redesigned FCP. I haven't used Premiere much, but I've heard good things about it recently.

As for production quality, a good lighting setup will go a LONG way to getting nice footage. Studying basic 3-point lighting will do just fine.

One tool that many amateur filmmakers overlook is the coloring process. It takes some skill to get right, but a good coloring session after you've locked your edit can really add a lot to the quality and tone of your finished video. Many software editing packages come with coloring tools mixed in these days. There are also good stand-alone packages that offer more precise control.

Audio is another prime indicator of production quality. A perfectly shot video with poor audio is just as bad, if not worse, than a poorly shot video. A good shotgun mic or lav mic will help greatly in this respect. Always try to lower or eliminate as much environmental noise as possible and remember to record ambient noise (room silence) to mix in with the finished audio when needed.

I could go on and on, but there are plenty of resources for this stuff freely available. Arguably, the biggest factor to success in a video project is proper planning. You can't fix everything in post.

<comment><USER6> Could you point me to a reference on why you want to record ambient audio to mix in?

<comment><USER7> you can research the concept of "room tone" which is prevalent in film sound design. when it's not done properly, you will hear the dialogue cut in and out. you don't always need it though, it depends on the project.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


To cash in on Kindle Unlimited, a cabal of authors gamed Amazon's algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17566276/cockygate-amazon-kindle-unlimited-algorithm-self-published-romance-novel-cabal <comment><USER2> From the article:

 _Valderrama allegedly said that she organized newsletter swaps, in which authors would promote each other's books to their respective mailing lists._

Funnily enough, I've seen this same behavior from developers, freelancers, and authors who are "internet famous" on HN and Reddit. I've signed up for quite a few newsletters from these people because they often provide useful information.

But since I signed up for so many, I started noticing that fairly often, they'd recommend each others' products. I realize it's entirely possible that these endorsements are authentic, but after a while, it starts to look like it's an interconnected web of people that met at conferences and agreed to cross-promote each each other on their respective newsletters. And so it ends up feeling like each recommendation isn't really authentic, but is instead more of a quid pro quo in exchange for a reciprocal recommendation.

And it's possible that I'm completely wrong and just imagining all of this. It's just one of my pet peeves, so perhaps I'm exaggerating how prevalent it is. And don't even get me started on developers who have resorted to hokey long-form sales copy to sell their books and services... :)

<comment><USER3> I'm a person with a mailing list in this space who has recommended other people's products, so I can maybe offer some insight on how this world works.

The typical person working in this niche is a solo creator who maybe splits there time creating free content and doing paid consulting projects. The business model is usually something like "write a lot of regular free content to build up a giant mailing list and then occasionally sell something to your mailing list to pay the bills".

The problem is that it takes a lot of time and effort to create good content. You are often so drained creating your "free" content that you don't have enough time or energy left to create enough "paid" content regularly enough to pay the bills. So you find friends who have created great stuff that you really like and you help each other out by cross-promoting.

In almost every case, it's a direct business relationship. The typical deal in this niche for reselling electronic content is a 50/50 split. So you help your friend sell extra copies (which is just free income to them) while you also make decent money to sustain your work.

Of course once you get "magic internet money" coming in this way, it's very tempting to abuse your audience and oversell. But then you lose subscribers quickly. Some people are very cynical about this and literally have spreadsheets to maximize how much they can sell while minimizing user attribution, but I'm not a fan of that. It just feels gross.

So yes, it is indeed a small, interconnected web of people who agreed to cross-promote each other. And sometimes the recommendation isn't authentic, but often it is. But in almost case, it's not an exchange of free recommendations, but it's literally an affiliate split between the authors.

As far as long-form sales copy to sell books, it is definitely very hokey. But the counterpoint is that most other approaches just don't convert. A cold lead who finds you via Google needs to be convinced that your stuff is worth money and long-form sales copy is one way to do that. I also hate it and completely avoid it, but I understand why people do it.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for providing some perspective! I appreciate it.

And I completely understand that long form sales copy is often what converts visitors into customers. It just doesn't convert _me_. But it would be totally irrational for content creators to waste time on landing pages that'll convert anti-long-form grumps like me. :)

<comment><USER3> As a fellow grump, I _totally_ agree - even to my own financial detriment.

But you are exactly right - that ad page isn't for you at all. The mailing list and free content is for you. You hopefully buy based on your relationship with the author and aren't going to be convinced by any ad copy anyway. They just hope you'll ignore or forgive them for the annoying ad copy and not unsubscribe.

That ad copy is aimed at the less-engaged customer - say a project manager at a large nameless consulting company somewhere in Germany or whatever who doesn't really care about topic X but was told by their boss to research topic X and has a training budget to buy a book on the topic (which they may or may not even read).

Notice also how every one of these pages will have an absurdly priced $800 bundle option. First, some people at companies who have training budgets will buy it because to them $800 vs. $100 is a rounding error when it's all just free money anyway. And second, having an $800 option makes the $100 option seem incredibly reasonable (when you are essentially asking someone to pay $100 to download a PDF).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you run a platform and its algorithms can be gamed by "partners" for profit at your's or the user's expense you should expect that it is or will be gamed. An important part of designing tech products that scale is sitting down and anticipating all the various ways you are incentivizing cheating and gaming, and then closing the holes as bugs. It's like doing a security audit, with the attackers being your partners rather than hackers.

It's best to fix the gaming via technical means, but if you can't, it's still important to spell out unacceptable behavior in the terms of use. Even if it's something you can't enforce at scale (for instance: enforcement requires manual review by humans) you still need the policy so you can do one-off enforcements against egregious cases. Otherwise you sit around in these meetings going, "well we know they are gaming the system but we can't do anything about it because it's not against the rules!"

<comment><USER5> I could be wrong but I wonder if they want to leave the loopholes open a bit to see where they get exploited and then slowly roll out updates. Not that they're intentionally creating bugs but perhaps seeing how they get exploited and where so that the authors are doing the work for them rather than internal engineers.

<comment><USER6> In a perfect world, maybe. It's hard to tell with Amazon now. Fraud and counterfeiting have become rampant on the platform since they opened up third- party selling to all foreign nations 18 months ago and despite the negative press and angry consumers, they've said and done very little to combat these issues. It's difficult to find other reasons why nothing has done beyond their bottom line numbers growing significantly.

Generally speaking a business should find flaws and fix them before releasing. Iterative development is okay, but when issues like this become commonplace and nothing is done to combat it, that's when there's a problem. I have no solutions to offer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Kindle store is already garbage for any kind of discovery, and Unlimited makes it worse being just more marketing BS to hide the real price and displace good content. Their suggestion algorithms are terrible, and only really work if you want something from the same author.

Steam has exactly the same problem, although ar least they're trying to solve it in various ways.

<comment><USER6> Are there examples of businesses out there which have done product recommendation correctly?

Amazon is notorious for trying to sell you the same kind of product after you've already purchased it (e.g. I bought a ladder and now all of my recommendations are for more ladders). How hard can it be to uncover which items are more likely to be one-time buys and recommend the products people buy with those items instead (ex. show me painting supplies when I buy a ladder)?

<comment><USER8> Slightly different but spotify's algorithmic recommendations have been great. I've found some really amazing stuff through "discover weekly", "new releases", and "related artists". Same with Bandcamp. (Maybe the problem is easier for music?)

For content, I also find that user curated lists can be far better than automated systems. They give me an upfront sense of the curator's tastes and define niches that algorithms would never recognize

<comment><USER9> Are the categories you mention sorted by confidence? That is, is any part of what you like about them oriented around not having to scroll for the stuff you like the best?

<comment><USER8> "Discovery weekly" and "new releases" are not sorted as far as I know, but related artists may be. A key factor at play here may be that there is no "best", the variety of the recommendations feels like a positive for music whereas it could be a negative for a larger commitment like novel or for a consumer product. Even Spotify's objectively terrible recommendations (such as once recommending an album called "Music of Lorestan 1" for the synthwave artist "Saffari") turned out to be nice discoveries

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The fight to win over algorithms instead of creating worthwhile content continues to compel all media, books included, in a race to the bottom. I really don't think this is a problem tech can solve.

<comment><USER11> I don't see the problem here, algorithms are just helping satisfy the thirst for novels with cocky shirtless males.

<comment><USER10> Humanity has never been furthered by what the masses were itching to get. In fact it's almost always the exact opposite.

I'm not saying there's something intrinsically good about being contrarian, I'm just saying it feels like a whole lot of products, especially but not exclusively in tech, feel so "samey". It's all the same crap just differently branded in different colors, and I feel like algorithms are possibly to blame for that.

Going to stores in the old days used to be exciting, you'd always find something new and interesting, especially in Radioshack n such. Now it's just the same old bullshit every single time.

<comment><USER12> I think when you refer to going to stores in the "old days" and finding new and exciting stuff basically means things were new for you at the time. The more you learn about world and the older you get things begin to excite you less.

The more you know the less excited you get about marketing because you can actually see through the bullshit.

<comment><USER10> I have to disagree. Products were just more interesting in the 90s and even early 2000s. Tech is the line going through the big-suck right now but cars did the same thing from the 1970's to the 2000's: where once you had different models and styles sporting different looks, different and novel features, etc. you see things slowly boil down to a few good exceptions and the rest of it might as well be all the same thing (and with the example of cars, often is, what with manufacturers selling to each other and re-badging for different markets.)

Not long ago, shopping for a laptop was interesting. Did you want the one with the swiveling screen, or the one that was liquid cooled? The one with the super HD screen or the one with the built-in fold-out legs to angle the keyboard better? Thick keys or thin keys? Optical or no? A novel visual design or just as-thin-as-can-be? What were the pros and cons to all this? On and on.

Now all laptops practically look identical, even something with a somewhat novel design becomes 2-3 times the price for no additional power, and all of them are designed to overheat and die within a couple of years, with the exception possibly of Macbooks, which cost a King's ransom. There's no novelty or interesting ideas, just the same old things.

<comment><USER13> > Now all laptops practically look identical

No, they don't. Most of the options you point to from "not long ago" (and many more) are still available. Okay, I don't see liquid cooled or fold-out legs much, and swivel screens seem to have been displaced with the 360-degree hinges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fascinating that Kindle's still don't track which pages actually were "read" (as in "skipping from page 1 to page 100, doesn't meant 2-99 have been read). Basing the author payout system of Kindle Unlimited on that metric is the (technical) root cause here.

<comment><USER15> The OP seems to disagree with you, mentioning that Amazon has some algorithms to determine actually read pages? Or do you have other information?

<comment><USER14> What part of the text are you referring to exactly?

There was a sentence that Amazon's metric isn't influenced by big fonts or other formatting choices (they probably just use a plain text version of the text to define what a "page" is) and 'that the KENPC system (Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count) recorded pages read with "high precision"' \- which doesn't actually mean that much.

Did I miss the interesting part?

My point was mostly based that I know it was that way for a long time, and that things like stuffing or those newsletter signups or competition in the back of the book wouldn't have any influence if it still wouldn't be this way.

<comment><USER15> This sentence, mentioning "pages read":

A June blog post by the Kindle Direct Publishing Team assured authors that the KENPC system (Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count) recorded pages read with "high precision" and that the company was constantly working to improve its "fidelity."

<comment><USER14> Yeah, as far as I know this has always been the official wording.

What makes me skeptical here is the use of "high precision" and what there could be to improve... a page was either viewed for the time necessary to read it or not. Over all readers of a book, it should not be too hard to find out the distribution of valid read times of a page.

Unless, of course, you don't have that data, but only some snapshots of which page is opened (e.g. when a sync to the cloud servers happens).

Shame the Kindle APIs are undocumented :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have a feeling that the whole Erom genre is where porn videos were 10 years ago. Low quality, keyword-stuffed, fad-following, repetitive content is so ubiquitous (and all that's needed to get someone off) that someone will come along and be the Erom Hub and swipe the legs out from under the market.

The interesting question, that the article raises but does not answer, is how far Erom is demonstrating a pattern that'll be followed by other genres. There is a lot of similar self published genre fiction, but it is still a different order of magnitude to KU contemporary romance.

</comment><comment><USER17> Do you think _Her Cocky Software Developer_ would be a big seller?

This is the real issue

<comment><USER18> I know you made this comment as a joke, but there actually is an entire sub- genre of geek-related romance novels.

<comment><USER17> These lot seem sweet and charming:

[http://twincitiesgeek.com/2017/07/24-romance-novels-for- geek...](http://twincitiesgeek.com/2017/07/24-romance-novels-for-geeks-of-all- kinds/)</comment></comment></comment>


Why is Google blocking shopping results in the US for vitamins? - <AUTHOR>

Goto Google.
Search for Vitamins.
Click on the shopping results.
Zero results. <comment><USER2> Google Shopping has moved to a paid inclusion model, and it looks like no one in the vitamin sector has paid...

Here's Google's May 31st announcement on the change: [http://googlecommerce.blogspot.com/2012/05/building- better-s...](http://googlecommerce.blogspot.com/2012/05/building-better- shopping-experience.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Huge opportunity here for somebody to jump in and make giant piles of money through an affiliate network. Outside of membership programs vitamins and "health" goods have crazy affiliate payouts.

</comment><comment><USER4> Didn't google lose a huge lawsuit about something to do with online pharmacies not too long ago? My guess is it's something to do with that.</comment>


Google '99.9 Percent' Sure to Shut Down in China - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-13/google-99-9-percent-sure-to-shut-down-in-china-ft-says.html <comment><USER2> The rumor I've heard here in Beijing is that, among other things, the Chinese government was interested in the actual search-engine tech to help fuel their own CCTV search engine (which is to eventually be expanded beyond video search). Baidu is not considered friendly enough to government policies, so they want to spin their own version.

Just a rumor, but it doesn't sound too outlandish to me.

(An interesting and tangential question is how good could a state-run search engine be? My personal belief is that they could make it pretty good if they really focused on it (consider, for example, the Soviet Union and the nuclear arms race)).

<comment><AUTHOR> There was an aborted attempt at a German/French initiative that was supposed to become the de-facto search engine for the European Union.

I personally don't think a state run search engine stands even a tiny chance.

<comment><USER2> Presumably the Germans / French had a lot less to lose with a failed search engine, whereas the Chinese stand to lose control of the next medium of communication.

I'm sure in the minds of many of the people planning this, the idea is that the internet is just the latest iteration of communication technology (like the newspaper, TV, etc), and as such the government should have a significant presence there in the same way as it does with The People's Daily and CCTV.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, sorry, you're absolutely right. I watched the movie in German, never for a second thought they would have translated the title for the English release.

It's pretty obvious they would have translated the title too.

<comment><AUTHOR> How on earth did that comment end up here ? it was supposed to go below a completely different one...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Unclear from that article how much of the JP Morgan estimate of $600 million/year revenue to Google from China is from ads sold on Google and viewed in China (.cn/.com) and how much from sales to Chinese advertisers viewed anywhere on Google. Revenue from the latter case isn't likely to suffer from a pullout.

</comment><comment><USER4> The typical argument is that China cannot resist the money. But, to be a devil's advocate here, perhaps they think that it's MORE risky to their business to stay in China. That is, someone was trying to steal their technology. If someone got their hands on their secret sauce algorithms that would surely put the business, as a whole, at risk considering it's their one real moneymaker.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have very mixed feelings about that. It's good when such a big company takes those measures. But in the end it will harm google more then it will do good, as no other company will follow.

And Chinas government may be very happy, the got rid of _the_ source for political information for the people and now can work further on controlling the rest.

<comment><USER6> If Google quits, they will no longer be subject to Chinese law, which will open up all sorts of possibilities.

<comment><USER7> What sort of possibilities? I'm running some sites on Google's AppEngine, and recently found out that it is blocked due to the GFW. I don't see any signs of that changing, especially with this new policy.

<comment><USER8> Can anyone confirm that AppEngine does not work right now in mainland China? I've been thinking about moving to China for a while now and this would be yet another reason to stall on that decision. I know I can VPN out for Twitter / FB / Google, but that just seems such a hassle for an internet professional.

<comment><USER9> AppEngine is not blocked from here... What is bloked in China is google group and some parts of google code (sigh)...

For accessing any website, I just use a ssh tunnel to a vps in the US and have almost no loss of speed or latency when reaching US websites... So it's really not a bother...

If you have any questions on living in China, you can get in touch with me, my email is in my profile...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "An exit from the world's biggest Internet market would cost Google, whose sales growth slowed during the U.S. recession, $600 million in revenue, according to estimates by JPMorgan Chase & Co."

On the other hand, I wonder how much it's costing them. Once you add in all the costs of filtering the Chinese searches, I could see them not making as much profit as you'd expect. But this is sheer conjecture on my part. It's also possible that Google's bluffing.

</comment><comment><USER11> this article by WSJ is more insightful: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870344710457511...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703447104575118092158730502.html)

<comment><USER12> The problem with the link is it's behind a subscriber paywall. In this case, I'm not even going to go through the trouble of using Google News first click to read it. I've gotten the news through many other resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have no doubt that Goog will continue to operate in China. At the end of the day, there's way too much money on the table to do something as drastic as that.

<comment><USER12> One other article I read indicated that it was only the search engine itself they were looking to shut down, and not other operations. If that is the case, I'd be sorely disappointed in Google.</comment></comment>


How Many Users Does Twitter Really Have? - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-how-many-users-does-twitter-really-have-2011-3?op=1

<comment><USER2> A few years ago, a friend and I wrote a script that would crawl through the user pages of my space and scrape the "last login" to determine this for Myspace.

We did a varying sample based on the UID and though I dont recall the numbers, there was something like 30% that hadnt logged in for over a year.

This information about twitter is directly linked with their monetization issues. They have to think of ways to engage users better.

One of the things they should have done was build an ad delivery API that the development communities could incorporate into their clients and then share revenue with the developers.

Instead, they moved out of fear and closed off the system to outside clients. Had they embraced the developers - and brought them closer to the flock, they could have had their help in working on the issue.</comment>


Show HN: Simple Minimal YouTube Alternative Player (no ads...with powers) - <AUTHOR> http://beta.echotu.be/ <comment><USER3> mpv[1] can utilize youtube-dl[2] in the background for playback, so that is on-the-fly downloaded video, with no ads, played as it was local video, hw acceleration and all.

[1]: [https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv](https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv)

[2]: [https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/)

<comment><USER4> And it works not only with youtube but at plenty of other places as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I will have to check this out when I get the chance. I was deeply saddened when YouTube killed their "Feather beta" feature which presented a super- minimal version of the site with the intention of reducing load times on slower internet connections.

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't have thought a minimal interface is required for YouTube.

If your internet connection is too slow to handle a more detailed interface, how on earth is it going to cope with doing something like streaming video and sound?

<comment><USER7> I think the idea is barely. Thus the adverts and extra load hurt the experience too much. Consider that it might take some time to load the video, now add in the advert on top of that and it might no longer be worth it.

<comment><USER8> Yet the advert is what's paying for the video and the bandwidth.

<comment><USER9> I wonder if YT will begin inserting ads directly into the video file server side. If you download the file to watch elsewhere, you get the whole package. Viewers can skip the ads manually, or wait for someone to write a program to detect scene changes and hope to skip the ads automatically. Then we're back to the TIVO model.

<comment><USER10> I doubt they will do this because they serve custom ads to each user, and to split and merge video files is considerably less efficient than just loading different files.

<comment><USER11> Can't some video formats be concatenated? Something like this pipeline for serving the ad:

        cat $(select_ad_file $user) $video_file

<comment><USER10> I know ffmpeg can do that, i've never tried just using cat.

An additional reason for not serving ads in the video file is that their ad clients probably want to know if someone watched it or not. By loading ad as a file associated with the ad client it's easy to verify that someone watched the ad and didn't just click out after 1s, etc.

<comment><USER12> Not sure why you're being downvoted when that's entirely true; knowing what audience has actually engaged with your ad can be just as (if not moreso) valuable as an engagement in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Isn't this more of an alternative browser, as the playback uses YouTube's own HTML5 player?

<comment><AUTHOR> hi @cr3ative. imho, it suppose to give an alternative experience to youtube's interface.

<comment><USER14> imho thats what he said

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looks like it's got some bugs preventing it from working.

You're loading the videos over HTTP while hosting your site on HTTPS which will result in the iframe being blocked. This is a security issue anyway and should be corrected.

Also looks like you're using localStorage and sessionStorage without checking to see if they're available.

<comment><AUTHOR> hi @TrueDuality. I updated the code over the last hour - so probably those were the bugs. yes - currently it's hosted over http (github-pages) - <USER2> - it functions correctly without it. regarding localStorage - currently, I assume modern browsers are used - it works on Chrome (desktop - Mac, Windows / android). Thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER16> Modern browsers can have no localStorage available too. See: [https://gist.github.com/JohnAllsopp/1470989](https://gist.github.com/JohnAllsopp/1470989)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Awesome app. A Grooveshark replacement for me.

I don't know if it too much to ask but Last.fm integration beyond just scrobbling can be nice. I have used an app belonging to Windows store which used to fetch full discography of searched artist from somewhere and show best YouTube video song next to every track.

One question: Are there benefits of signing in beside being able to save playlist?

Great work.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. currently, benefits of sign-in is: load your youtube user playlists and play them. save a playlist is a work in progress

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Slightly offtopic. Is there a way to watch youtube videos across different devices while preserving video location?

Use case: start watching conference videos or lectures on my phone, then move to the laptop then continue on the tablet, then back to the computer. Similarly to the way iBooks transparently preserves and syncs reading position across devices.

<comment><USER19> Use the website or first-party clients, it does that if you are logged in.

(not trying to be snarky, if you tend to use 3rd party clients you might not know)

<comment><USER18> Hmm.. I must be doing something wrong then. Logged in on my Chrome on Mac, watched a video, paused it. Closed tab, reloaded tab. The video plays from the beginning. Opened the same video on my iPhone, official youtube app. Plays from the beginning as well.

I guess I need to investigate this further. I didn't realize official google apps support this functionality because it's never worked for me. Thanks for mentioning it.

<comment><AUTHOR> hi @tra3 currently, Echoes doesn't support playing a video from where it was recently paused. if more users request it - i'll add it.

<comment><USER18> That would be fantastic. Youtube API provides this information so it's definitely possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The page at '[https://orizens.github.io/echoes- ng2/#/'](https://orizens.github.io/echoes-ng2/#/') was loaded over HTTPS, but requested an insecure script '[http://www.youtube.com/iframe_api'](http://www.youtube.com/iframe_api'). This request has been blocked; the content must be served over HTTPS.

<comment><AUTHOR> hi. you should use http for now:

[http://orizens.github.io/echoes-ng2](http://orizens.github.io/echoes-ng2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> MotionBox is another alternative player - actually he calls it a video browser. Its Qt based: [http://motionbox.handmade.network](http://motionbox.handmade.network)

</comment><comment><USER22> On a related note, NewPipe on Android a simple stripped down youtube client.

<comment><USER23> Which is also free software, and available in FDroid. [https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe](https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> No powers, but I've long loved the ads- and comment-free experience of quietube: [http://quietube.com](http://quietube.com)

</comment><comment><USER25> Awesome! I'm surprised Google hasn't come up with a way of preventing this.

Btw - anyone know how to adjust the volume?

</comment><comment><USER26> I also like the myTube app on Windows 10. It's the only Metro app I use.

</comment><comment><USER27> I need G+ for this ? Skip.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you want to play playlists from your youtube account - then - yes. Otherwise - g+ is not required.

<comment><USER27> Hm, since usage of playlists is available now through Google Account login and with G+ removed, is this somehow different in their API for 3rd party apps ?

<comment><AUTHOR> G+ is Google Account. I'll change the sign-in button to display "Google Sign- in" so it won't confuse. thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER28> I like the way you're responding and quickly putting action items into the pipeline.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Interesting, I wonder when will youtube shut it down in a way or another...

<comment><AUTHOR> hi @Thomas_9. I'm using youtube's data api and player's api without any hacks. I actually following the api's rules and available api.

<comment><USER29> If it is basically youtube but you just remove ads, I tend to think they will react. But I admit this is a feeling more than a sure fact. I can't remember the name of the app that worked on top of a Google Api that was stopped in few hours...

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't remove any ads - only static ads are displayed - no video "trailers" though.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Komplish – Turn your todo list into your Résumé - <AUTHOR> https://www.komplish.com <comment><USER2> Why is your app unavailable to Android 9 - Brazil?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's only available in the US right now. Sorry...hope to expand soon!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "App not available in your region" .. <insert "keep your secrets" meme></comment>


Is the World Making You Sick? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/15/turbulence/is-the-world-making-you-sick?utm_source=tss&utm_medium=desktop&utm_campaign=linkfrom_feature <comment><USER2> I run a hospital lab, and I see requests for testing for all sorts of bizarre things, largely by naturopaths, deriving from the "philosophy" expressed here. We refer to people who believe this stuff as being on the "Quest for Purity", a quixotic drive to remove all "toxins" from their bodies. Regardless of whether or not there are substantiated examples of low doses of chemicals causing effects, the worry about this problem being widespread is a very common delusion that consumes an enormous amount of attention and money, is preyed upon by charlatan doctors (or naturopaths, who call themselves doctors), and is incredibly confounding. The rub in these potential illnesses is that you can never actually remove any of these exposures completely, and thus you are required to continue to purchase diagnostics, cures, and consultations forever. If there is a true toxicobiologic effect in here, it will be essentially impossible to discern from the obvious and overriding psychiatric issues and financial conflicts at play.

<comment><USER3> Yep, this was pretty much my opinion.

But then my wife got sick. Spent 5 years with myriads of specialists, who all did their testings, and threw their hands up in the air.

So guess where we eventually land, when traditional medicine gets us no where? Within months of removing these effect-less "toxins" from her diet, I have a wife back.

So believe what you want -- I'd do the same if it hadn't radically effected my own life.

<comment><USER2> It is devilishly difficult to separate correlation and causation. This difficulty has to be the reason why some forms of "medicine" persist, ie naturopathy will have to work sometime, just as a stopped watch is right twice a day. I would never be so foolish as to discount your story, however, without knowing the actual facts, and without acknowledging that some people do, in fact, have food allergies, celiac sprue, etc... The problem is that not nearly as many people actually have these things as they might believe. And, combined with the STRONG financial motivation for folks to exploit the sufferings of others like yourself, my point is just hat its devilishly hard to make sense of anything.

<comment><USER4> Double-blind experiments are a great way to separate correlation and causation. See my (@zenkat's) wife's story above. Every so often, she accidentally and unknowingly eats foods she is sensitive to, and exhibits symptoms shortly afterwards. We go back and check the label and ... yep, there's the dairy/soy/yeast extract.

Oh, and there's no financially motivated third-parties here. We've done all this testing, elimination, and observation on our own.

<comment><USER2> That's not a double blind experiment, but I'd agree it points to an intolerance. Actual experiments, I will reiterate, are hard to do. Have you tried feeding your wife food devoid of known triggers but told her they were in the food? I would hope not, because it's not an ethical thing to do, but you need that sort of thing to nail it down. Also, since she seems to accidentally eat food of unknown provenance, can you be sure the times she's gotten away with it without symptoms that the food in question was truly devoid of triggers? In others words, it is very very easy to confirm that things are bad for you, correctly or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > There are several types of proof. Nick Ashford and I observed the same > patterns of inexplicable new-onset intolerances across very different toxic > exposures in over a dozen countries. Sheep dippers using organophosphate > pesticides in rural areas of Europe, radiology workers inhaling chemicals > while developing films in New Zealand, Gulf War veterans, EPA workers in a > remodeled and poorly ventilated office building in 1987, cleanup crews > breathing fumes after oil spills. Many would get ill, and a small percentage > never recovered. They became exquisitely sensitized, as well as disabled.

This doesn't really sound that crazy to me. People working with industrial chemicals need protection. This is a widely known and accepted fact. It doesn't point to the entire population getting sick from small doses of chemicals in their day to day lives, like the flame-retardants in their mattresses, as the article opens up claiming.

<comment><USER6> I see similar complaints about risk to health and personal safety from emergency services personnel, but their life expectancies suggest otherwise.

What I would really like to see is an estimation of the life-expectancy of the workers in these industries. Is it actually lower than average, or does it appear that the exposure has a minimal effect on health?

Do the benefits of working in the industry out-weigh the risks (e.g. good health insurance benefits for treating other diseases out-weigh harms from exposure)?

Are life insurance companies requiring higher premiums?

<comment><USER7> Farmers dipping sheep in organophosphates may have many years of reduced quality life before dying at about the same age as other people.

Farm workers are traditionally poor so that might be a confounding factor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I predict many of the additives in our food and other products will be dimly viewed in retrospective, similar to how we view asbestos & lead paint today.

The preservatives, anti-caking agents, food colorings and other profit- enhancing additives are basically used with an "innocent until proven guilty" mindset.

As usual, you need only follow the money; who profits from adding these things to our food? Pretty much everyone.

There's much less profit motivation for pure food, so it simply won't happen until there's conclusive proof that the additives are bad.

And who's going to pay for that proof -- enough that those profiting from them can't squash it?

<comment><USER8> Because of market forces and some of the documentation regimes, the end cost to the consumer is higher _without_ these things. One might think it's because the-products-without are less mainstream and less subject to economy of scale, or just because shopping at Whole Foods signals caring. That does not make Whole Foods a scam; it's complicated. Not picking on Whole Foods ( I've never even been there ) - they're just a visible metaphor for this phenomenon.

There's something in our Values Map that seems to put profit at cross purposes to "human values" or "caring". It may also be that food "made by hand" is actually of higher quality since the producers have more control and are interested in it more as an... art statement(?).

Maybe it is profit; maybe it ain't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > In 1962, physicist and historian Thomas Kuhn proposed that science makes > progress not just through the gradual accumulation and analysis of > knowledge, but also through periodic revolutions in perspective.

Kuhn is almost always referred to as a philosopher because he left physics to be a "philosopher of science".

In a nutshell I see an article about a scientist who worships a philosopher, believes she's the leader of the third major revolution in understanding human illness, and has a theory that's plausible yet difficult to test. Doesn't make the idea wrong, but these are not good signs.

In her defense she's published a few times on the subject* still something about the article's rubbing me the wrong way.

* - [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=claudia+miller](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=claudia+miller)

</comment><comment><USER10> There is room for improvement in the modern world. But you know what could be making us sick in our everyday lives? Cholera. Makes bpa a little less scary after all.

<comment><USER11> Let's not resort to the appeal to worse problems as a reason to give up on solving problems closer to home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If this topic interests you, you might enjoy the Todd Haynes movie [SAFE] (1995).

<comment><USER3> Also related is Katie Couric's Fed Up (2014).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What makes me sick is this fear-mongering. Go back to the industrialization in England if you want to see real pollution. We have made astonishing advances when it comes to increasing air quality. Catalysts in cars, all kinds of regulations about emissions. We are constantly trying to remove harmful substances from our lives - but that requires evidence, we can't just randomly blame 'chemicals'. It's far from perfect, I know that. But the average lifespan of humans has steadily gone up.

<comment><USER14> Dreadful fear-mongering? Plenty to monger! Good gracious -we are even told to watch and limit the amount of fish we eat thanks to its mercury content. And mercury (horribly toxic) is only one of many substances that we should get concerned about.

"The researchers, led by scientists from Harvard University and the U.S. Geological Survey, found that the ocean's mercury levels have already risen about 30% over the last 20 years. Combined, the findings mean the Pacific Ocean will be twice as contaminated with mercury in 2050 as it was in 1995 if the emission rates continue."

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The reflexive lay dislike for "chemicals" is a bit weird to me, because everything in this world is made up of chemicals. If anything, the ostensibly healthy foods like fruits and vegetables probably have _more_ chemical complexity and heterogeneity than processed foods.

In terms of pollution and the presence of bad chemicals, it's nothing new. Burning any organic matter releases thousands of chemicals, and for all the romance around wood fires and stoves, those are much more polluting than most industrial processes today.

This isn't to invalidate the core concept of the article, which I can't really evaluate. It seems likely that some of the irritating illnesses people get are due to hypersensitivity to certain chemical agents that, in low doses, most people can tolerate. I just doubt that this is a new problem, given that we've always lived in somewhat of a chemical stew and our air and water have always harbored things that can kill us.

<comment><USER16> Honest question: given the incredible variety of chemical compounds in nature, if one wants to describe specifically those that are directly harmful to health, or that trigger an immune response in some persons, what is the optimal umbrella term? ("Toxin" is every bit as overloaded and fuzzy as "chemical" in common parlance.)

<comment><USER17> That's the problem, isn't it? What is directly harmful to health? Beyond those agents we've universally codified as people poison, "harmful" is a constantly shifting designation that will always be misappropriated by those with a cross to bear over their pet subject. Health is such a complex, nuanced subject that its hard to imagine anything different than the messy passions we're describing.

<comment><USER16> That doesn't address the question. To most people, peanuts aren't harmful, but a small number of people can die due to exposure. A laundry detergent with no effect on most people may cause some to break out in hives. What do you call these substances, whether natural or man-made?

<comment><USER17> I understood. My answer is that outside of outright toxicants, the language will always be reduced to a "fuzzy" value, because the proposition of "harmful" is itself fuzzy, and is doubly so inside a contentious and complex environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have a new law based on Betteridge's law of headlines:

Any scientist who claims to have produced a paradigm shift hasn't.

You're welcome to call it Monochr Law of Paradigms.

<comment><USER19> Mancini's corollary: the robustness of the scientific foundation of an article is inversely proportional to the frequency of the word "chemicals" in the article</comment></comment>


Inside the Tesla 100kWh Battery Pack - <AUTHOR> http://skie.net/skynet/projects/tesla/view_post/20_Pics+and+Info%3A+Inside+the+Tesla+100kWh+Battery+Pack <comment><USER3> I wonder if anyone has estimated the impact of "simple" engineering changes on the progress of electric cars.

I have seen things that extrapolate out battery progress, so if batteries become cheaper/lighter/more powerful in a similar way they have in the past then that has a big impact on EVs, dropping their price and/or increasing their range.

But a lot of things seem fairly simple, if not obvious except with hindsight e.g. heated steering wheels and seats instead of air heating, heat pumps rather than resistive heating, puncture resistant tyres rather than carry a spare, led lighting, replacing side mirrors with cameras for lower drag etc. How much can straightforward, no new tech, improvements in all these areas actually help if you add them up?

<comment><USER4> > e.g. heated steering wheels and seats instead of air heating

The next step could be microwave heating systems that directly heat your body. But I would probably not feel comfortable with that.

[https://www.wired.com/2008/01/pain-beam- centr/](https://www.wired.com/2008/01/pain-beam-centr/)

<comment><USER5> Let me see, people are already really upset by cellphone radiations, which are non-ionizing and therefore can only be harmful from the heat it generates.

You would need marketing masterminds to sell this.

<comment><USER6> All it would take is one mommy blogger to make the connection that cell phone signals are _already_ microwaves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is it really just an array of 18650s? Seems primitive??

<comment><USER8> 18650s are pretty much the only way to get decent energy densities and allow for high power output. What a lot of people don't know - which I find fascinating - is that discharge rates on batteries are set mostly by how much heat the battery can dissipate safely, and not as much by the cell chemistry itself. Looking at a random 18650, it may be able to (in theory) put out 200 watts, but the cell would be permanently damaged by the intense heat produced.

As a result, if you build an enormous single cell battery, even though it seems futuristic, it'll be horrible at distributing heat. A Tesla pack that was consolidated into one cell would basically be an enormous furnace at any reasonable discharge rate, and they'd have to discharge it at a very low rate in order to prevent it from permanent damage and/or fire.

If there's one thing to call "primitive", it would be the new low cost 21700 battery cells Tesla is producing; these have shockingly low power and energy densities, and disappointing cycle limits. They are cheap though, and that seems to be why Tesla's making them: for lower cost vehicles.

<comment><USER9> > If there's one thing to call "primitive", it would be the new low cost 21700 > battery cells Tesla is producing; these have shockingly low power and energy > densities, and disappointing cycle limits. They are cheap though, and that's > why Tesla's making them: for lower cost vehicles.

Two claims here - that the batteries have lower energy density, and that they're intended only for lower cost vehicles - go against the common narrative among Tesla people. Can you provide any background on this?

<comment><USER8> TL;DR 21700s produce less power (not necessarily energy) for the same cycle length and weight, so Tesla will either have to reduce power consumption of their high end vehicles -or- add more batteries, which adds weight. Both of these things reduce performance.

I'll be honest: I've got much more knowledge about batteries than I do about Tesla's strategic direction.

I do know that there are currently problems with Teslas sustaining their power output when on high performance mode. Since the power density of 21700 cells will almost certainly be less than 18650 cells (this is basic physics) [0] I think they will use 18650s for their performance vehicles. However, I could be wrong; they -could- simply increase the number of cells used and make the vehicle heavier. Strategically, I would use 18650s (at least with the performance cars) if I was Tesla. However, for PR reasons they may choose to use 21700s and compromise the performance of the performance cars.

My claim that they have a low energy density is on less strong ground, of course. As Musk said during the Q3 2014 conference call, "show me the cell, not the powerpoint." I only have powerpoints and no cells. However, the powerpoints I do have show that the energy density will be between 220 and 260 Wh/kg. They may be up to 280 Wh/kg. But I doubt that they'll beat the current maximum of 310 Wh/kg that you can get today.

Tesla does a lot of really cool stuff, but there's a bit of a Tesla reality distortion field going on. For example, this post here [1]. Some genius speculates that batteries grow at a 5.94% compound rate, and then extrapolates to assume that Tesla's cells will reach 350 Wh/kg. Here's the kicker: li-ion battery cell capacity has been practically stagnant for 11 years. In some of these 11 years, the cells have gotten cheaper, but not by much. If we truly had grown at that 5.94% compound rate for the past 11 years, we'd currently have a 528 Wh/kg cell today.

Li-ion battery energy density grows in spurts. Realistically, there have been a few major improvements, with very small incremental improvements in between. For example, in 2001 we were at 180 Wh/kg. In just a handful of months we jumped to 260 Wh/kg, then to 280 Wh/kg as manufacturing processes improved. In the last 11 years, however, improvements have been maybe a few Wh/kg per year, and there have been literally zero improvement whatsoever in the past four years, by anyone.

I think Tesla - may - get a bit north of the 310 Wh/kg we can get today, and I'm confident in their ability to reduce costs, but I don't expect anything revolutionary (energy density wise) like Musk implies in his presentations. I'd set the threshold of 'revolutionary' at 400 Wh/kg, a 29% improvement from today.

For future-me-check-if-I-was-right purposes: these estimates are for Tesla's cells released in early 2017.

[0] The larger a cell is, the lower its theoretical power density must be. Power density is a function of power dissipation, and larger cells are worse at dissipating power. These new cells are only a few millimeters wider, but that's enough to increase their volume by 50%, which means their power density will almost certainly suffer.

[1] [https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/21-70-cell- informati...](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/21-70-cell- information.74652/#post-1683564)

<comment><USER10> Are you comparing the Tesla 21700s with all the commercially available 18650s, or with the specific 18650s Tesla uses? It's possible Tesla doesn't use the most energy dense 18650s available, so their 21700s could be an improvement for them.

Also, are they currently limited by the heat dissipation? If not, increasing the volume per cell might not be as much of a problem. The linked article mentions that they doubled the number of cooling loops per module, which might already be anticipating an increase in heat to be removed.

<comment><USER8> > Are you comparing the Tesla 21700s with all the commercially available > 18650s, or with the specific 18650s Tesla uses? It's possible Tesla doesn't > use the most energy dense 18650s available, so their 21700s could be an > improvement for them.

For reference, Tesla's current cells are about 215 to 225 Wh/kg; they are not the most energy dense cells you can get. What I'm comparing are Tesla's new cells to the best cells out there. The reason why I do this is because that's what Tesla fans - and Elon Musk - repeatedly do. Also, I'm almost certain that Tesla's new cells will have a higher energy density than 215-225 Wh/kg; if they didn't, they'd be on par with batteries from a decade and a half ago, which would be pretty pathetic.

> Also, are they currently limited by the heat dissipation? If not, increasing > the volume per cell might not be as much of a problem. The linked article > mentions that they doubled the number of cooling loops per module, which > might already be anticipating an increase in heat to be removed.

It's complicated. Technically, at the rate of discharge that Tesla uses right now, they shouldn't be. Teslas right now discharge their 65-100kWh pack in 3.5 to 5 hours. That's about 20 kW power continuous. There are roughly 6000 to 9000 cells per pack, so very roughly you discharge, while driving, between 2 and 3.5 watts per cell, so around 0.2C discharge. However, Teslas have their packs in an enormous, insulated, heavily managed sealed blob of batteries. This confines the heat to the pack, which requires their water cooling system.

Another complicating factor is that heat dissipation matters in a few different contexts. First, there's the important matter of getting the heat from the inside of the battery to the battery surface; this is a matter of battery design and solved by the people that make the batteries. Then, there's the matter of what you do with the heat once it's at the battery surface (Tesla water-cools their cells); this is a problem for whoever makes the battery pack. Then there's the problem of what to do with the heat in general; now that you've drawn the heat away from the batteries and into the heatsinks or water, how do you cool your hot water/hot heatsinks?

Switching to 21700s 'only' changes the first part of the equation - <USER2> dissipation within the cell - but this is one of the trickiest parts to deal with. You can put a water cooling system on the outside of your battery, but you can't put a water cooler in individual cells. You can change the chemistry of the battery to better dissipate heat, but changing the chemistry of course also changes the battery's characteristics: energy/power density, cycle life, weight, cost, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you managed to find ~50kg motors & wheels and strap them directly to this battery pack, you could do 0-60 in 1 second.

<comment><USER12> I know this is a joke but you really couldn't, traction (friction) plays a huge role in 0-60 times and something so light would not have that much traction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> [https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/my-take-on-the- new-1...](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/my-take-on-the-new-100kwh- pack.76065/)

The above has some better details but the one I cannot find is weight of the pack, assumptions put it near 1300lbs. Weight is the one area batteries suffer compared to other alternatives and it needs to be addressed because weight is one area car makers are trying real hard to solve.

</comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone know how they get around faulty individual cells taking out the whole group?

<comment><USER10> Fuses and active cooling.

Each module has six groups connected in series, and each group has dozens of cells connected in parallel, each cell with its own tiny fuse (see the pictures in the article). If one cell shorts, the fuse removes it from the group, while the rest of the cells in the group is enough to keep it working. And the active cooling removes the heat released from a failing cell, so it won't overheat its neighbors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can anyone explain (or hazard a guess) why Tesla uses cylindrical cells verses the 'scalloped potatoes' approach of Apple's newer laptops?

<comment><USER16> Cheaper to buy standardized cells at scale, due to production capacity?

<comment><USER17> With the giga-factory coming online I wonder if that will change the equation in favor of flat cells instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> tldr: "Basically they crammed a couple more rows of cells into the module."

<comment><USER19> Between that and the ever so sliiightly higher capacity cells they already adopted, I can't see them getting any more performance out of the existing tech.

That, and 100kwh for a Model S battery is pretty damned good, could probably set a 650+ mile record under special handling (current record is 550 miles on a 85D).

<comment><USER20> I don't want to specially handle my car every day. The car is good for in-city usage, but if you're travelling a lot and live in Europe, it's still long from being usable.

EDIT: an explanation of the downvotes would be nice.

<comment><USER21> I'm not sure why you are getting downvoted so bad. It's a fair point to bring up when people bring up these 500+ mile range runs. The Tesla is restricted to being an amazing city car, and that's OK.

Even if you're in the US and you live in a remote location, the car is crap for road trips. For example, you live in Rock Springs, WY and want to drive to Buffalo, WY. You will be lucky to make it on one charge and adding a supercharger to the route will take you hours out of the way.

<comment><USER22> Y'all pretend like there's nothing between a city car and a car that regularly does 500+ mile trips. EV's aren't at the point where really long trips are as convenient as in a combustion car, that's not news. But the range that they're good for has been steadily increasing, and so have the goalposts of the "I'll buy one when they can do XYZ miles on a single charge" comments.

This discussion has been had so many times, I can't blame people for downvoting it. Nothing new is going to come of having it again, it's just going to derail the thread.

<comment><USER21> But the comment was in response to a comment about a 550 mile record. I think that brings fair game to point out that nobody can reliably use the thing to perform trips 85% that long frequently. For example, someone who classifies as a "mega-commuter"[1] would not be able to use a Tesla unless their office has a charging station.

1\. "Across the United States, mega-commuters on average spend two hours to traverse 166 miles just for the lighter morning commute " [http://www.mercurynews.com/2013/03/04/bay-area-tops-new- mega...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2013/03/04/bay-area-tops-new-mega- commuter-census-list-defining-the-worst-trips-to-work/)

<comment><USER23> _For example, someone who classifies as a "mega-commuter" would not be able to use a Tesla unless their office has a charging station._

Pedantically, some would, since to be a mega-commuter you only need to travel 50 miles in each direction. Average != all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if there is any potential danger to having a public Bitcoin wallet string. I don't know if you can "receive bad money" for example. I don't know.

<comment><USER25> Yes and no.

"Coins" aren't a thing, so there's nothing to be tainted, per-se. However, yes - if an address that ordered a murder sends you a lot of btc, expect someone to come by and discuss it.

Also, the waters are muddied now (intentionally), in a similar way to how every piece of American cash is rumored to have traces of cocaine on it. The theory is that the more this implicates everyone, the less it implicates anyone.

<comment><USER24> I briefly searched on it, the one thing they mentioned was the possibility of being able to link exchanges to other unknown people because you're now known if your website says who you are and you have a key right there. But they also said to use other ones for each transaction. I don't know. Anyway thanks for the info. Bitcoin is a bit volatile for me but I appreciate it's capability and would like to have some in the future. I'm also broke/in a lot of debt so any concept of savings... Anyway I'm trying to "spread out my money" so to speak for a safety net. I don't know.

<comment><USER25> If you're in debt, you need to pay off your highest-interest creditor first, and then on to the next one. When you have spare money, you can hedge bets on investing it.

But, Bitcoin is _not_ an investment.

First, nothing _you_ don't understand is ever an investment for you. If you don't know mining and I do, I'm investing by buying shares in a mine whereas you're gambling by doing it. (For instance, if you don't know, and really understand, why bitcoin tends to be used in a manner where you empty the balance from one address, sending some to the intended recipient, and the leftovers to yourself at a new address, then you're not ready to invest.)

Second, it functions as a store of wealth not capital. Its gains are partly from other currencies devaluing around it, not it being used to create more goods the way buying a piece of capital (shares in a manufacturing company) would.

That said, if you do any gambling (lottery tickets) you might as well put that into bitcoin, you at least might get something back.

<comment><USER24> Yeah it wasn't so much "looking to grow" just that it would be separate from cash, another means of having money like items that have good resale value like Apple computers or something (like a MacBook Air for instance that even after 3 years later still sells over $600.00)

Yeah I briefly read about mining and how it's not worth it anymore unless you join a group to mine with.

I don't know, I'm not even able to open up bank accounts anymore/at the moment so I have different accounts whether prepaid or through job provided bank accounts or PayPal business account.

Yeap I'm not in a good place at the moment.

Thanks for the information.

<comment><USER25> Sorry to hear it.

In that case, where you don't have false goals of runaway success or anything, and aren't gambling the farm on it, yeah you should throw a few bucks into it. If you read up on what the differences between currencies are and how that's likely to impact survivability, you'll be able to pick fairly well.

BTC, Ethereum, and Monero look good, but do your own research. Scams abound.

The most critical thing to remember is that if your currency is "in an exchange" it might as well not be yours. Funds only become yours, meaningfully, when transferred to an address whose keys you generated and which have never been online on an insecure device.

Ideally repurpose an old phone for a wallet and keep it in airplane mode. You can browse the chain with your regular phone, including monitoring incoming transactions, all you won't be able to do is sign an outgoing transaction. Then you either turn on the wallet-phone's connection when it's safe, or implement a paper-wallet system between the online and wallet phones.

That's overkill for what you'll probably put in right away, but good practice.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The owner was comment spamming, so here's his download page - <AUTHOR> http://www.programcomputers101.com/thankyou.htm

<comment><USER2> Wow! $17 and I can download a list of names of programming languages, computer programmer salary information and links to OTHER services that cost MORE money that I could have found using a simple google search! Thank you programcomputers101.com!!</comment>


Mushrooms might be key to Stradivarius sound - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/11/07/mushroom-violins.html?ref=rss <comment><USER2> I doubt the sound has anything to do with mushrooms. For one, sound quality is a subjective thing, and to speculate that these particular mushrooms improve sound quality in exactly the right way to produce a Strad sound is really stretching it.

For another, I heard that the wood used to produce a strad was from logs that had been kept chained under salt water for a large number of years. This produced a "partial fossilization" or something. I'd think that it would have a fairly strong anti-fungal effect, too.

Any way, I've heard so many things that could be the reason for the Stradivarius sound... old growth wood, special varnish, etc... It seems that once every year or so someone discovers the what causes the sound.

<comment><USER3> I think the researcher is arguing not that mushrooms are responsible for the sound of existing Stradivarii, but that they can be used to create new violins with similar characteristics:

 _The mushroom nibbles lightly on the wood, reducing its density and intensifying the sound, he said. [...] Many researchers believe the unmatched sound of Stradivarius violins comes partly from the instruments' age._

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sorry but this is a fungus, not a mushroom. A mushroom is only the reproductive body of certain fungi.</comment>


Binary marble adding machine - <AUTHOR> http://woodgears.ca/marbleadd/index.html <comment><USER2> This is great for convincing the average joe how computers are able to do math with ones & zeroes, because this is a remarkably simple design and is visual.

I think clearly displaying the value of the internal state would be useful. One way would be to hide the numeral for power of 2 behind the top right of each rocker when unset, such that when each rocker gets set, that numeral would be exposed. Then wouldn't need to have the reveal slider.

Oh, and could even include a simple Digital-to-Analog converter to display the binary number. If each power of two column could control some measurable entity, then could add up each power of two of that entity. For instance, could control a mass equal to its power of two, and then have a simple mechanical scale add up the weights.

</comment><comment><USER3> Related discussion from earlier today, in case you missed it: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13008408](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13008408)</comment>


A music publisher says a Cox customer shared illegal files - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2014/12/2/7320135/cox-bmg-isp-piracy

<comment><AUTHOR> > 54k times. at issue is whether cox is liable or not. this is a case worth > watching. what obligations do isp's have to police their own networks.

the outcome, for the safe harbor provisions of the dmca in particular, and copyright in general, is bound to be precedent setting.

the complaint can be found here:

[http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2014/11/BMGvCo...](http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2014/11/BMGvCox.complaint.pdf)</comment>


Apache CloudStack 4.2.0 released - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.apache.org/cloudstack/entry/announcing_apache_cloudstack_4_2

<comment><USER2> Lots of great features in the 4.2.0 release.

<comment><USER3> Looking forward to using S3-style object storage with Apache CloudStack.</comment></comment>


Keep ASP.NET MVC projects organized with partial classes - <AUTHOR> http://douglastarr.com/keep-your-asp-dot-net-mvc-projects-more-organized-with-partial-classes/

<comment><AUTHOR> Over the past few years, I've come to rely on this pattern with ASP.NET MVC. Would love to hear how others keep asp.net mvc projects organized.</comment>


Rebuilding the Foundation - <AUTHOR> http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2012/07/15/Watch-this-space

<comment><USER2> HTTP/2.0 already exists. It's called SPDY.

The IETF really dropped the ball here. People have been complaining about HTTP's problems for over a decade, but the IETF couldn't even come up with a standard. Usually the problem is adopting a standard, not creating it.

Lately, it seems like standards bodies are lagging. The W3C has a similar problem. Browsers implement new CSS properties. Eventually, the W3C picks the standard name for the new CSS property. I'm betting something similar will happen with HTTP/2.0. Eventually, the IETF will approve SPDY as the new standard.

A side note: It used to be that browsers wouldn't add support for a new protocol because web servers didn't support it. Web servers wouldn't add support because browsers didn't support it. Now that Google has a significant chunk of the browser market and serves a significant chunk of web traffic, they've solved this chicken-and-egg problem. They can coordinate roll-outs, then let everyone else play catch-up.

<comment><USER3> SPDY is likely not our savior (from the Varnish author):

[http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/07/13/1327235/varnis...](http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/07/13/1327235/varnish- author-suggests-spdy-should-be-viewed-as-a-prototype)

 _Overall, I find the design approach taken in SPDY deeply flawed. For instance identifying the standardized HTTP headers, by a 4-byte length and textual name, and then applying a deflate compressor to save bandwidth is totally at odds with the job of HTTP routers which need to quickly extract the Host: header in order to route the traffic, preferably without committing extensive resources to each request. ... It is still unclear for me if or how SPDY can be used on TCP port 80 or if it will need a WKS allocation of its own, which would open a ton of issues with firewalling, filtering and proxying during deployment. (This is one of the things which makes it hard to avoid the feeling that SPDY really wants to do away with all the "middle-men") With my security-analyst hat on, I see a lot of DoS potential in the SPDY protocol, many ways in which the client can make the server expend resources, and foresee a lot of complexity in implementing the server side to mitigate and deflect malicious traffic._

His full writeup is quite good, I'm not sure that if it was submitted to HN:

<https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/trunk/phk/http20.html>

<comment><USER2> That guy doesn't make much sense. He's worried about scaling? SPDY can scale. Google uses it.

Then he complains about security and complexity, but he wants people to seriously consider mixing HTTP and HTTPS in the same TCP connection?! There's a reason every browser complains about mixed content by default.</comment></comment></comment>