Teenager walked for hours to and from work – until a police stop changed his life - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/09/30/teen-who-walked-two-hours-to-work-surprised-by-cop-who-buys-him-bike <comment><USER2> I love what was done for the young man as well as his dedication. My only question is why didn't they offer to get the car repaired instead of getting the bike?

<comment><USER3> A volvo white block is a real bitch to fix when this happens. It is what causes the death of most white blocks. Sure you can change the timing belt but you need special tools. Like a 3/4 inch square drive to release the accessory belt. How many laypeople have this? Many don't know there's a such thing or they can buy it at Harbor Freight. It's no wonder nobody changes the timing belt.

The head bolts like to break and the bottoms of the holes are 4 inches/100mm below deck. The threads don't even start til halfway down. You know what a six inch long M12 tap costs and how easy it is to get? Now try getting one for a screw thread insert. And a long version of the tool to set such insert.

Then you have Volvo Cars being tossed around from owner to owner and the new Chinese owner does NOT want you to repair your car. This is obvious from the ridiculous parts prices, when they decide they want to supply them. $14 head bolts, a six cylinder needs 14 and a five cylinder needs 12. Sure there is an aftermarket head bolt set. But nothing on the intake side of the block is covered by the aftermarket. How many $50 rubber hoses can a car have? My 960 has at least a dozen. There is not a SINGLE suitable aftermarket hose on the market. You better hope that if you need one that Volvo/Geely didn't decide to stop selling it. They are the kind of company that thinks you should scrap your car over a piece of plastic or rubber.

Volvo do not deserve their reputation for quality, reliable, safe automobiles. They may have at one time but those times are over. The hone marks on our engine look factory-sharp after 220k miles (350kkm) but what good is this if the headgasket is not durable enough to withstand contact with engine coolant? The only well designed safety feature our Volvo has is the rigid body. The airbags are primitive and so are the seatbelts, compared to my older 5 series.

On the other hand I have never seen better paint on a car. Wow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> or why he simply didnt opt for a$50 used bike.

maybe its like that 80's song - "Take the long way home"

<comment><USER5> Can still be a lot of money and if your friends don't have much either a working used bike is hard to come by.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If he lived in Russia, he would have ended up in jail for some crime that he didn't commit. That's what I expected after reading the title.

</comment><comment><USER3> (2016)</comment>


Quantum of Deployment - <AUTHOR> http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2010/05/20/quantum-of-deployment/

<comment><USER2> TL;DR: We (re)invented automated deployment and packaged it as a website with gaudy colors.

It seems quite fast though; production deployment under 3 minutes.</comment>


Ask HN: What would it take to setup a server farm in Haiti - <AUTHOR>

First let me say that I'm an American. I was doing some programming work in Haiti with a friend who's Haitian. We were building a text message tool that ran off of GSM modems and netbooks.
We got to talking about tech in low resource settings. As far as we can tell, there are no server companies in Haiti. This is a problem because all web services are very slow. All traffic has to go to US servers.
Aside from reliable electricity, what would be needed for an MVP? What types of internet connections? Just a static IP and decent bandwidth? In terms of servers, could a bunch of raspberry pis ever work?
I'm more of a programmer than a server person but I'm interested in testing this idea out some day. <comment><USER2> Your problem is the countries network infrastructure not the physical location of the servers, for example here in the UK basically all websites will load quick, it's hard to tell just from page load speeds if a server was located 10 miles down the road from me in the UK, or across the pond in the USA. However Haiti is closer to the USA than the UK, so it's really not server location that makes the difference.

Building a server farm in Haiti isn't really going to improve the speed of web services, what you would need to look at is getting better network infrastructure around the country and back to the main internet exchanges within the US.

Normally the problems you face here is the price of sub-sea cable bandwidth is greatly dependant on the economies of scale; they typically want massive investments to drive the prices down to reasonable levels. Then when you have the off-island bandwidth sorted you need to build faster local infrastructure to get this bandwidth to your users.

Once you have faster internet connections with decent global connectivity you will naturally start to see service providers build data centers out there.

</comment><comment><USER3> I believe there is an NPR Marketplace podcast about the difficulties of building a school in Haiti, I can't imagine how much harder it would be if you needed constant power.

Edit: found it [http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/04/29/135750053/the- tues...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/04/29/135750053/the-tuesday- podcast-how-to-build-a-school-in-haiti)

Maybe Dominican Republic would be a better option

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe... I've been to both. It would be hard. But, I also think there would have to be a change in expectations about what a server farm is... What it looks like. I think it could be very important to make it work in Haiti, even if it was a modest start.</comment></comment>


PG: Why Startups are Good at Doing Things - <AUTHOR> http://www.justin.tv/eric/b/269029870

<comment><AUTHOR> My notes:

* Large number of startups

       - Startups in general do better than any individual startups
     * Nothing to Lose
     * Desperate
       - Makes you try crazy things
     * Poor
       - Makes you do things yourself
     * Do many things
       - More ideas produce more good ideas, even if each idea has no better chance of being good
     * Don't need to prove something is a good idea before trying it
       - All really good ideas seem stupid at first
       - If they didn't, someone else would be doing it already
       - Suggests giving "Get out of jail free" cards to let employees
     * Get all the benefits of your work
       - Otherwise, full downside but minimal upside
       - Risk is proportionate to reward; keeping risks low also keeps rewards low
     * Motivation, in increasing order of effectiveness
       - Aiming for acquisition
       - Fear of failure
       - Play a practical joke on the world

<comment><USER2> More ideas also creates more failures (learning experiences) and problems (source for more ideas and potential revenue streams _).

_ This is probably why there are so many project management/bug tracking tools in existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sorry, but I couldn't finish that video. I couldn't hear a damn thing.

</comment><comment><USER4> I too was having audio problems with the video.

Why are startups good at doing things? The answer seems obvious IMO. They start with nothing. Therefore they have to do something in order to exist. Big companies already have things (product, revenue) so sometimes its not necessary for them to actually do anything.</comment>


Google Play for Education Makes Software, Devices Affordable - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2013/05/15/google-play-for-education/

<comment><USER2> Excellent project initiated by Google. I think these kind of projects will allow budding students in third world countries.</comment>


Queueing theory: The science of waiting in line - <AUTHOR> https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2019/01/23/queueing/ <comment><USER4> Understanding the basics of queueing theory means that you will be eternally frustrated in most US grocery store checkout lines. And you may be kicked out for screaming "Basically zero-cost queue synchronization and heavily variable server time means a global queue is better!"

<comment><USER5> It's true, but there are two things to factor in:

1) People tend to sort themselves by picking the shortest line.

2) Grocery stores try to staff only just enough registers so that no register ever has a gap.

If you combine those two things, the efficiency closes in on what a global queue would. My main gripe is the "unlucky" factor where the shopper gets stuck behind a very slow person, which the global queue would fix.

The third, dark-patterny part of this is how grocers benefit from people and their children being stuck next to impulse merchandise while they wait.

<comment><USER6> With multiple lines, there's also the excellent visual cue to managers - <USER2> the average line length appears too long, you know you need additional cashiers. And my local grocery store is excellent about bringing in additional cashiers if any of the lines are two deep or more.

With a global line, the length of the line isn't a good visual indicator of needing more cashiers. I suppose you could just periodically count the line length, and count the cashiers, and divide, but it's not a quick eye check anymore.

<comment><USER4> Global line length is no different than average line length of multiple lines.

<comment><USER7> On a global average that is probably true. On an individual/personal level it is not. I take a strategic approach, there might be twice as many people in one line but it will be faster. No one in that line is breaking out the check book. They won't be arguing about a 25 cent coupon that expired. On the plus side I've noticed less places accepting checks. Personally I think they should be banned for basic consumer shopping entirely. Unless it is 4 digits, use a card or cash.

As for self checkout lines there should be a huge sign that asks "are you prepared for this technology?, Really? Are you sure?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So should I leave space on the highway so my lowest speed through the occasional slowdown is higher than average or am I hurting the traffic flow?

I recall reading about (highway) traffic being a queuing problem where the arrival rate exceeded the clearance rate due to a transient action (someone tapping their brakes because they were distracted or a bright glint from a glass truck going the other way). If you decrease the arrival rate slightly such that the clearance rate can remove the stopped/slowed cars then the entire traffic flow will return to the norm for the volume of traffic on the road.

Sound? Valid?

<comment><USER9> Braking or a quick lane change causing traffic jams is a well known and refuted myth. Similar to the idea that driving slower on the highway is more dangerous. We have massive amounts of data on both of those. I wouldn't put too much value in that source.

<comment><USER8> And that would be my fault - my parenthetical was just imagined reasons why there might be a saturation-related slow down.

In trying to look for the source I did come across [1] from a few years ago and may have been remembered incorrectly.

Edit: More details at [2], [3], and [4] some noting transient braking may be a factor.

[1]: [https://www.npr.org/2013/11/29/247825768/phantom-traffic- jam...](https://www.npr.org/2013/11/29/247825768/phantom-traffic-jams-what- causes-mysterious-highway-backups)

[2]: [https://www.vox.com/2014/11/24/7276027/traffic- jam](https://www.vox.com/2014/11/24/7276027/traffic-jam) [3]: [http://math.mit.edu/projects/traffic/](http://math.mit.edu/projects/traffic/) [4]: [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071219103102.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071219103102.htm)

<comment><USER9> Right, those are brief disruptions that cause no significant variation in total transit times.

Much like the idea that slower drivers cause more accidents, this is based on other drivers experiencing discomfort and having to be more careful to avoid the slower car. It feels like it is more dangerous, but the data we have shows that it does not result in more accidents.

Traffic jams that cause meaningful changes to total transit time are almost always based upon significant disruption events(accidents) or uneven capacity(merging traffic at a higher rate than the freeway can absorb).

We know from psychology that a person will perceive something that requires more attention and effort as taking longer and perceive something that requires less attention and effort as taking less time, even if the times are equal.

<comment><USER10> > Much like the idea that slower drivers cause more accidents

Slower vehicles are more likely to end up in an accident. Speed - <USER3> rate curve is IIRC called Solomon curve. I haven't heard this theory disproved.

> this is based on other drivers experiencing discomfort and having to be more > careful to avoid the slower car

I have heard experts saying that observations indicate that slower drivers cause accidents indirectly. They are usually slow enough to irritate other drivers, but fast enough to make it hard for an average car to overtake them safely, which pushes some faster drivers into dangerous situations, sometimes resulting in accidents from which the slower drivers escape unscratched.

<comment><USER11> > Much like the idea that slower drivers cause more accidents

I think this might be statistically valid, due to correlation with the root cause. Drivers who are inexperienced or uncomfortable due to poor eyesight, poor reflexes, unfamiliarity with the vehicle or area naturally slow down.

These are the same sorts of "driver disadvantages" that would cause more accidents.

No references, just intuition based on decades driving in Chicago traffic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some goodies via Jon Bentley:

[http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs261/background/p176-ben...](http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs261/background/p176-bentley.pdf)

And a different presentation of some of the same material, on consequences of Little's Law, from his book Programming Pearls, quoted here: [http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~baker/opsys/notes/queueing.html](http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~baker/opsys/notes/queueing.html)

(I'll paste this here as it's already being shared online)

"For instance, if you're in line waiting to get into a popular nightspot, you might figure out how long you'll have to wait by standing there for a while and trying to estimate the rate at which people are entering. With Little's Law, though, you could reason, `This place holds about 60 people, and the average Joe will be in there about 3 hours, so we're entering at the rate of about 20 people an hour. The line has 20 people in it, so that means we'll wait about an hour."

Bentley also cites the following, attributing them to Peter Denning:

"The average number of objects in a queue is the product of the entry rate and the average holding time."

"I have 150 cases of wine in my basement and I consume (and purchase) 25 cases per year. How long do I hold each case? Little's Law tells me to divide 150 cases by 25 cases/year, which gives 6 years per case."

"The response-time formula for a multi-user system can be proved using Little's Law and flow balance. Assume n users of average think time z are connected to an arbitrary system with response time r. Each user cycles between thinking and waiting-for-response, so the total number of jobs in the meta-system (consisting of users and the computer system) is fixed at n. If you cut the path from the system's output to the users, you see a meta-system with average load n, average response time z+r, and throughput x (measured in jobs per time unit). Little's Law says n = x*(z+r), and solving for r gives r = n/x - z."

</comment><comment><USER13> Tangential: in the article submitted the other day[0] that interviewed Japanese demoscener 0x4015, he brought up a time-lapse video of half a million people queueing for an event in Tokyo:

> _I should also mention Comic Market (Comiket). It's the world's largest > self-published manga exhibition & sale fair, and about half a million people > (back then, quarter-million) visit there. This is a time-lapse video of the > queue for the Comiket entrance. It gets demo-ish after 40 seconds and I find > it interesting._

It is oddly mesmerizing to watch, indeed[1].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18965767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18965767)

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

</comment><comment><USER14> Vaguely on the topic of queing I noticed this year on black Friday several sites had queue systems ( e.g 'game' store was one I remember and even had a limited time you could spend on the site after the queue ).

Part of me wonders whether this was really a server capacity issue or there was some sort of psychological gaming scheme for customers to feel like they need to make a commitment to purchase.

Does anyone have some information on this sort of tactic if so?

<comment><USER15> If this wasn't a gaming scheme, it soon will be. I bet it worked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Two large Australian department stores implemented single global queueing for non-self-serve when they introduced self-serve. Its a mixed bag because they also reduced staff on the line to match maximal delay for minimum fuss: ie, they don't aim to serve this line any faster than the worst-case single line instance.

It doesn't invalidate the single global line theory: it points out that the _qui bono_ moment in a queue is not you the customer: its the profit centre. They do anything to maximise profit absent a strong signal they went too far.

its morally akin to basic time-and-motion/taylorism.

<comment><USER17> The signal I usually give is that when I arrive at a line of (understaffed) counters, with all of them having long queues, I turn around with my basket or cart, put everything back on the shelves, and leave. I do that if I it's clear that I have to wait more than a few minutes.

<comment><USER18> The signal is clearer if you abandon the trolley and walk out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's interesting that all the grocery stores with automated checkouts I've been to have single lines for multiple automated checkouts, but multiple lines/single servers for human checkouts.

<comment><USER20> that happens a lot at grocery stores because of carts. it's even more obvious at costco.

stores where people are more likely to hold items in their hand or a small basket can do global queue like home goods or old navy. but once you have 10-40 carts lined up it's a shit show. imagine costco on the weekend with everyone trying to push their cart through a maze of switchbacks.

self checkout likely has less carts through it than staffed chashier lines. also their close grouping makes this a little less of an issue

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Queuing theory is something I'm familiar with from my educational background and general interest in math and systems. But I don't actually know of a good introduction to the topic, it's just a set of information I've accumulated and internalized over the years. Any suggestions from the HN crowd for something I can pass around to some of my team leads and managers that will help them to understand these topics?

<comment><USER22> The book Queuing Theory in Action: [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/PerformanceModeling/book.html](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/PerformanceModeling/book.html)

<comment><USER23> +1 For the above mentioned book, especially if you are looking at computer systems/networks.

For more pragmatic treatment found "Fundamentals of Queueing Theory"[1] really good.

[1] [http://mason.gmu.edu/~jshortle/fqt5th.html](http://mason.gmu.edu/~jshortle/fqt5th.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We've gone to great lengths to get as close to accurate 'queueing theory' for our game, SimAirport. The systems allow for a global queue for many desks, or one queue per desk, or any hybrid of one queue per N desks, etc...

It's tough because scaling time & 'movement distance' in a simulation game isn't easy -- but sounds like that's actually an issue in real-life, too. :)

</comment><comment><USER25> I was expecting them to explain why the queue I join is always the slowest.

<comment><USER26> You're probably joking, but you have spent more time overall in slow queues than you did in fast queues... This is similar to the fact that "your friends have more friends than you do" [0]

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

<comment><USER18> My rubric for picking the quickest queue is the one with the lowest total age. A queue of pensioners will take longer to pack bags, find the right payment card, redeem vouchers and chat with the cashier.

<comment><USER27> Also tourists and people with many products in their vicinity. Suddenly I really want to collect numbers of this. What's the proportion of age to product count, for example? How many tourists are one pensioner?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is there a nice and visual queueing theory simulator for python or other programming language?

<comment><USER29> I had written a quick visual demo using the Python mode of Processing language. Perhaps someone here can build upon it.

[https://gitlab.com/nileshtrivedi/queue_simulation](https://gitlab.com/nileshtrivedi/queue_simulation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> There is also a rough application of some queueing theory ideas (one might also say, the more general lessons one sees in the physics of transport phenomena, before one specializes in continuums etc) to business, called "theory of constraints." The basic idea is that there is probably right now only a handful of things that are slowing down your ability to make more money, and if you can figure out what they are and add extra capacity to those things, you can presumably get "more bang for your buck" than attempts to improve every part of the system individually. A lot of authors also discuss similar concepts under "systems thinking."

More specifically, the theory of constraints is kind of half-applied to the "projects" contexts that we work in in software in the "critical chain" methodology. It basically says in our context that for each project you have, at any given point during a sprint, there should be one person who is "holding the baton" for that project, they need to be aware that any delays in their work are getting communicated to the project launch date, while others working in parallel are usually exempt. Essentially exactly one person on the project should be panicking, and everyone else should have spare capacity to handle the routine "hey Alice from HR wants us to change all of the articles in the table which Bob has authored so that they no longer say that they were authored by Bob since his last day is next Friday, can someone write SQL to do that?" \-- even if Carol has the most domain knowledge about that, if she's holding some other baton, that comes first. In fact, if Carol can split her work -- one common one in our field would be between functionality and tests/documentation -- so that she can pass the baton a little sooner, often that is a net win, too: she finishes the core functionality up to testing-by- hand, she delivers it to Darryl who is the next to hold the baton, then she documents and adds unit tests in a separate PR before she loses her context about it.

Similarly the management of these projects is different because you don't want to estimate "hey Carol we think this is a two-day PR and we will hassle you come day three," since if she judges it to be a half-day PR then it's in her best interests to spend a week on other urgent-seeming requests as those minimize who is hassling her. But instead you want to communicate "hey, this is going to take however long it takes, and I know I cannot make it happen faster by hassling you. I want you to know that even though we guessed that this was a within-one-day task we put an extra safety cushion in the project in case it goes longer, but you have the entire project's safety cushion if you ultimately need it: conversely, any time you save right now can be passed on to your other developers. What I need from you is a daily guess about when you realistically think you can pass that baton so that I can tell Darryl, 'hey, heads up, you're about to have to drop everything and pick up this baton.' You can change that estimate at any time, I just want to minimize that friction and encourage you to sprint as hard as you can on this since you're on the critical path, if anyone tries to tell you that they have something more important for you to be doing, you tell them to talk to me and I will do it personally."

Also the queueing theory makes me a lot more patient with myself. Like I used to get really hard on myself about how "you spent all of this time on the job doing this other thing that didn't need to get done, you lazy procrastinator you!" ... with some queueing theory you start to ask, "what would happen if we defined load as the maximum usage of CPU, RAM, network -- what would happen if we ran a server at 100% load? Machine failure, yes... but also high latency, and things would just get dropped forever. So what would happen if I run _myself_ at 100% load, is that really what's best for the company?" and in a couple of cases (like on these critical paths, with a crucial deadline) that _is_ what's best for the company, but in most cases actually the company _should_ want you to have some idle bandwidth so that you can promptly serve their ad-hoc needs.

<comment><USER30> s/spend a week/spend a day/

Apparently I am trying to edit this after some threshold time...

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Interesting Freakonomics episode [0] about this, where among other things they suggest that the most efficient queue puts newcomers at the front, essentially LIFO... thus transforming the queue to a stack!

[0]: [http://freakonomics.com/podcast/what-are-you-waiting- for/](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/what-are-you-waiting-for/)

<comment><USER32> But only if all the players are rational. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> And then there's how they wait in line in Cuba...

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/in-an- onli...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/in-an-online-world- cuba-remains-a-stand-in-line- society/2015/05/31/07459d7e-fd90-11e4-8c77-bf274685e1df_story.html?utm_term=.7047f0afbd48)

</comment><comment><USER34> > With only one teller, customers will have to wait nearly five hours on > average before they are served. But if you add a second teller, the average > waiting time is not just cut in half; it goes down to about 3 minutes. The > waiting time is reduced by a factor of 93x.

This is exactly why asynchronous programming (where every task competes for the same CPU) is such a bad idea.

<comment><USER35> I don't see what this has to do with asynchronous or synchronous programming. If you have more work to do than what the core can handle, you're going to wait a while no matter what style of programming you use.

<comment><USER34> The point is that the async style of programming will introduce unpredictable and potentially wildly varying service times. Contrast this to multithreaded programming, where the program is cut into thin time-slices which all have a similar, predictable duration.

<comment><USER27> I'm not sure I follow... If I understand the async style correctly, the idea is that a task will yield the CPU as soon as it is about to wait for I/O an insignificant time. This allows CPU bound tasks to race to idle, and prevents context switches unless they are nearly certain to be needed.

I guess I understand your concern in the case of multiples tasks that are very CPU heavy, but that hardly seems like a universal issue.

I also think it's a bit of a mathematical sleight of hand to use measures very sensitive to outliers with a distribution that generates large outliers in order to make a point. Perhaps the median or the 95th percentile is more useful. But less dramatic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder if a noble goal for queuing systems would be to eradicate the need for the queue all together. E.g. more frequent public transport, designated security screening times at airports and gigs, supermarket checkout without tills or home delivery as an alternative. Theoretically it would be nice, but could it be ever be practical...

</comment><comment><USER37> besides self service cashiers i saw here in Europe global queues implemented only in Kaufland hypermarket, they actually don't use one big global queue but have queues assigned to group maybe of 4 cashiers max., in the end anything it's better than waiting at one cashier queue

</comment><comment><USER38> Are there any good reads about matchmaking in video games? Which is basically the same queueing theory</comment>


Apple Rejects Valve's Steam Link App Due to 'Business Conflicts' - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/24/apple-rejects-valve-steam-link-app/ <comment><USER2> Not surprising. If people can play their PC games via Steam, they'll be less likely to purchase games and in-app purchases on iOS.

That said, Steam's argument is technically true (I think) - their app is basically a remote desktop client. I wonder how Apple could defend that legally without shooting itself in the foot? Although, they'll probably come to some closed-door financial arrangement before it comes to that.

<comment><USER3> Apple's argument could be primary purpose.

A general RDP app would stream your entire desktop; exactly what happens on the desktop is outside of the purview of the app.

This Steam Link app is designed to stream Steam, but can be kinda/sorta halfway backed into streaming the remote desktop. It's primary purpose is to stream the Steam "Big Picture" UI -- which prominently features an independent store -- in addition to any PC games that run through Steam. If Valve were to remove the store links, this would be a very different discussion.

It's similar to how Apple wouldn't allow something like the Kindle app to "just" direct users to an in-app web-view or deep-link to content in the system browser to avoid paying Apple -- if you're selling a digital good on an iOS/tvOS platform, you need to pay the 30% gatekeeper's fee.

<comment><USER4> This is no different than R-Play though. A Remote Play app for iOS to connect to a Playstation 4 which is allowed on the App Store.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if this is really apple's concern. It's not hard to imagine this feature eventually evolving to the point where you don't run your own games on your PC and stream to your device. Surely within the next 5 years this feature evolves to have Valve run the games in the cloud and stream to your device, so it's always available if you have a sufficient connection, no need to even have a PC.

At that point it's a much bigger competitive risk to Apples AppStore game sales revenue. To play devils advocate, I could see this argument having more strength within Apple's walls than banning an app that just streams games from the user's own PC.

I think it's inevitable Valve enter the cloud hosted pc gaming market eventually, personally. Sales of mobile devices and cheap PCs dwarf sales of gaming PCs, the size of the potential customer base explodes once your users don't need to be well off enough to afford a gaming rig.

<comment><USER3> > It's not hard to imagine this feature eventually evolving to the point where > you don't run your own games on your PC and stream to your device.

nVidia already runs such a service, GeForce NOW. I've been trying the Mac beta for a few months and... it's not great. Some games just _need_ 1:1, perfect streaming (twitch shooters, 2D platformers, etc.), and their service at best (when on wired ethernet and a datacenter nearby) delivers a lag of 2-3 frames. Valve's product, since you're running it on your local network, can get that down to a single frame, but that can still be too much at times.

<comment><USER5> What you say is true of today. I'm talking about the future.

I think it's foolish to bet against cloud game streaming technology reaching the point where it is good enough for _most_ people, and when it does I'd be even further surprised if Valve aren't at least trying to be a major player. LAN based game streaming is always going to be a relatively niche feature, as gaming PCs are increasingly niche. Cheap tablets/phones/laptops that could use a cloud based service number well into the billions at this point.

As for your point about lag - sure it's not going to be as low latency as a local LAN system, but honestly I don't think a lot of customers will notice this too much or care - people are already happy with 30FPS consoles with often terrible controller latency on some titles. Sure there will be those who still want the best, and they will continue to build expensive gaming towers. The Playstation Now game streaming service has been relatively successful despite having all of these problems and more. I recently finished The Last Of Us on playstation now. Again, it wasn't the best, but it was very close to "good enough".

Many kids today are happy playing "Fortnite" on a phone. A phone, playing an online FPS with touch controls... It's clear that perfect playing conditions are not the primary driver for a lot of people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, That's extremely disappointing. They're only shooting themselves in the foot though. I'd planned on purchasing an Apple TV to give this a try (a single box to replace my Fire TV and Steam Link).

I'll give nVidia Shield a try instead. Still a bit disappointed I won't be able to play from my phone, but who knows maybe that'll change too. Only one month left on my iPhone 6s plus payment.

I can use one of several apps to do effectively the same thing, but they lack the Big Picture and Steam Input API integration. Moonlight, Parsec, etc... Some of which are open source. Even if they were rejected down the road I could just run them myself using my dev account.

<comment><USER7> I have four Apple TVs - three third generation and one 4th generation ATV. The only reason I have a 4th Gen one is because it was free with DirecTVNow.

But if that weren't the case, my next purchase was going to be an Nvidia Shield once my old 2009 Core 2 Duo that I'm using as a Plex Server bit the dust. The idea of having a $200 Shield that could also serve as a Plex _server_ is very enticing. I would have a NAS in my office and the Shield connected to one of my TVs.

I was not going to spend $200 on a 4K Apple TV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is unacceptable, Apple will have to give in on that one. I hope Valve is going to fight them with everything they can do, so this gets resolved in a timely manner. Many people were looking forward to use the app.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's a shame. I was really looking forward to playing controller based Steam games from my iPad Pro.

I think Apple is shooting itself in the foot with these stupid decisions, but time will tell.

<comment><USER10> Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Valve sued Apple for this.

This is definitely anti competitive practices and I think there is a case to be made for it. Even more if they decide to do it in EU.

<comment><USER3> Would Valve even need to do so, or could an EU government (or the EU itself) step in?

<comment><USER11> The EU tends not to step in to protect the interests of non-eu companies.

That's why the EU action against Google was initiated by some shady comparison shopping websites from the EU, and by Opera (also an EU company). They were financially backed by Microsoft, but they kept their name out of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While we don't have the full story here, I'm betting that Valve isn't being entirely forthcoming on the reason.

One of the features that Valve talked about was using their Steam Controller with the app.

Since the Steam Controller is not MFi-certified, there was speculation that this feature worked by emulating a keyboard, and sending input as key presses.

This similar to iCade, which has been in the App Store for quite a while.

I'd wager that it's this bypass of the MFi program which is irking Apple, not the screen sharing function.

<comment><USER13> > While we don't have the full story here, I'm betting that Valve isn't being > entirely forthcoming on the reason.

I was expecting someone to find a way to blame Valve for this, rather than admitting that Apple likes to abuse its position.

They definitely lost me as a customer.

<comment><USER12> Oh, don't get me wrong, I think that Apple is totally wrong for blocking the app.

If they're blocking because it doesn't use MFi that's a blatant cash-grab.

I'm not trying to justify it, just trying to understand wtf is going on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 'Business Conflicts' a.k.a. monopoly abuse.

</comment><comment><USER15> I was looking forward to this, but Apple keeps competing stores out of their ecosystem -- you can't buy books in the Kindle app, for instance. If the Steam Link app lets people buy games from Steam, I can see that being a problem, but I'm surprised it got as far as it did before being rejected.

I hope we still get our hands on this sometime soon.

<comment><USER16> The reason you can't buy books in the Kindle app probably has more to do with the fact that Apple requires payments for all digital goods to go through it's service and collect 30% of the revenue (15% if its a subscription after the first 12 months). It does not make the same requirement for physical goods.

I continue to be divided about this, the point of view is understandable, as it would threaten app store revenue (every app would just switch to a digital subscription outside of apple and never charge for the apps) however there's also a clear line of digital goods that are more physical like in nature (rather than just the software) such as eBooks etc and the 30% margin is high enough to ruin most business plans.

This particular rejection is somewhat irritating though.

<comment><USER17> Sorry to ask, where Could I read this in more details? I have been wondering what classify as Physical Goods and Digital Goods. Example why aren't Bitcoin charged with 30% fees? And If I brought Amazon / iKea or StarBucks Credit, why aren't those charged 30% fees?</comment></comment></comment>


In a city that plays it safe, incubator has a tough job - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/06/01/in_a_city_that_plays_it_safe_incubator_has_a_tough_job/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed5

<comment><USER2> In this article, Graham says "about 85 percent of the companies eventually receive further funding". Elsewhere, on this message board, he has put the number closer to 1 in 8. In 5 minutes of Google searching, the best I came up with was:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=145760>

Which says (non-authoritatively, and in paraphrase) "50% of the minority of companies that we fund that want VC score it".

I'm sure there's a semantic thing going on here that reconciles these figures, but I'm wondering what it is.

<comment><USER3> _I'm sure there's a semantic thing going on here that reconciles these figures, but I'm wondering what it is._

"receive further funding" != "get VC".

Most YC companies get their further funding from sources other than VCs -- as pg points out in the comment you linked to, most of them go with angels.

<comment><USER2> You're probably right, but an angel offers a 6-12 month runway, and YC has a longer track record than that. Graham gave a more definitive answer on the number of YC investments that had taken A rounds, but I haven't been able to find it.

I'm not disagreeing, I'm just curious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why does Azuki need funding when the guys behind it are worth 'hundreds of millions' of dollars? They should be running funds themselves.

</comment><comment><USER5> More random hints about Tsumobi without any meat. Argh:-)

</comment><comment><USER6> Better title might be nice: "PG Video Interview" or something....

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you see the article under the video? There's a 2 page article which has more content than the video...

<comment><USER7> perhaps by better title he meant something that would get a lot more attention</comment></comment></comment>


How Let's Encrypt Runs CT Logs - <AUTHOR> https://letsencrypt.org/2019/11/20/how-le-runs-ct-logs.html <comment><USER2> 1 million certificates each day - it's amazing to see how much of a cornerstone of the internet Let's Encrypt has become.</comment>


AMD Showcases Its Fastest Radeon Yet, R9 Fury X2, Powering HTC Vive Headset - <AUTHOR> http://techfrag.com/2016/01/25/amd-showcases-its-fastest-radeon-yet-r9-fury-x2-powering-htc-vive-headset/ <comment><USER2> At the expected price point, isn't this card going to be kind of dead in the water considering Nvida's Pascal line will most likely be released just a quarter after it?</comment>


YouTubers are unionizing, and the site has 24 days to respond - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2019/07/29/youtube-union-ig-metall/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554806](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554806)

</comment><comment><USER3> Are youtubers employees? Surely they can't be.

<comment><USER4> Does that matter? The concept of collective bargaining still applies.

Obviously anyone replaceable has a bad position to bargain, so it becomes a question of how replaceable YouTubers are. Clearly there are plenty of people who want to fill that role, but I don't know how the average user interacts with YouTube.

For me, if the creators I watch were striking and trying to force change, I'm not going to bother going on YouTube. I have no idea if "watching a specific set of creators" is a significant enough part of the user-base to really hurt YouTube enough to comply, or if most people would just watch other videos.

<comment><USER5> Youtube I'm not sure about, but Twitch is pretty controversial about selectively enforcing their TOS with regards to big streamers. Youtube has become more corporate-focused lately so I don't know how much they depend on let's say the top 10% of creators vs TV/Sports networks, but striking might work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Brilliant asymmetric response.</comment>


Automatically Tuning Text Classifiers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sigopt.com/post/133089144983/sigopt-for-ml-automatically-tuning-text <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, author here, let me know if you have any questions. I'll be checking in throughout the day</comment>


Kanban for E-Mail - <AUTHOR> https://kanbanmail.app/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure what the research shows on this sort of thing, but when I loaded up the landing page on my desktop browser, I saw two buttons, and neither applied to me. "SIGN UP" and "LOG IN". Since I did not yet know what this thing is, beyond my vague knowledge of Kanban and email, I wanted it to explain that to me. Instead, I have to take action.

Oh wait... after a while I look for a UI element - a scroll bar. And this is the only clue I get to tell me how to navigate. Is this a good design choice, to make it appear like your only options are one of two actions, while relying on a native browser control to hint to the user that they can scroll to get down to the information they are going to need to start making decisions?

(I'm not arguing that this can't be a good design choice, but at least for me, personally, it seemed pushy, while also being unintuitive if you're not there to take one of those actions.)

<comment><USER3> Typically there are two affordances that tell the user he can scroll:

1) A scroll bar

2) Clipped content

Many browsers hide the scroll bar, so the only thing left is 2).

For some reason designers think that it's a good idea to scale the content in such a way that the initial page load looks like a complete page.

This is so idiotic! You are actively misleading the customer! You are hiding all the marketing copy.

Some designers have realised this is a problem, and they add a little arrow to indicate you can scroll. Nobody understands those weird arrows except other designers.

The easiest way to tell users that there is more content is to show it! Make it so that part of the second headline is visible, and noone will miss the fact that there is more content below!

If you go for sexy screenshots, sure, go make your first section fill the browser window. If you want your visitors to read your page, don't do that!

<comment><USER4> Interesting. I'm pretty sensitive to UX but this has never been a problem for me. I don't come across single non scrolling static websites that often, and knowing that the entire content will most likely never be at the top, I immediately scroll down without thinking.

I find it extremely fascinating that some people actually have to look for a scroll bar or clipped content (spoon fed) in order to scroll down. Sometimes I don't even know there is one unless I have to speed drag on a long page.

<comment><USER5> The "spoon fed" bit is insulting. People are not infants if they don't guess that there's an invisible thing.

If designers want people to know something exists, they should generally make it visible. Especially given that with pages like this one, deemphasizing or hiding things is a common dark pattern to force people to think there are no alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is neat, and I could see it potentially being a useful way to categorize and organize e-mail, though I personally find e-mail clients that allow for deferral/scheduling sufficient for my needs.

However this trend of using lean and Toyota production system terminology to sell stuff that has no real relationship to it is starting to get tired.

None of these card column systems has any real relationship to the Kanban process outside of the use of cards. The similarities tend to end at a completely superficial level.

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

Rule #1 of Kanban is that it is a "pull" system. By design e-mail is push. It would also be difficult to limit work-in-progress here, which is another cornerstone feature of a Kanban system.

<comment><USER7> >Rule #1 of Kanban is that it is a "pull" system. By design e-mail is push. It would also be difficult to limit work-in-progress here, which is another cornerstone feature of a Kanban system.

I was actually just thinking about this the other day. To rephrase it slightly, an email inbox is essentially an opt-out model. Any person anywhere can put something in your inbox, and after reviewing/getting sufficiently annoyed you can opt-out from receiving their emails (marking them as spam, forwarding to trash, etc.)

Personally I've been interested in seeing how an opt-in inbox model would perform. Every email goes to spam and/or a review bucket, and then once a week (or whenever you feel like it) the user can skim the bucket for emails from people/lists they actually want to see, and approve them. Follow up emails from those address can then go straight to the inbox with out need for review.

This might not work for every use case, but I suspect I'd like this for my personal email use. No matter how many times I unsubscribe from an email list or service, a new one takes its place without me signing up for it. I think I would find significant less frustration being able to opt-in vs opt-out.

<comment><USER8> Google Inbox basically does this automatically for me. It has learned which email addresses I correspond with for work and other important topics, which it pushes directly to my inbox. It also automatically bins other emails into categories such as forums, commercial promos, social (newsletters and what not), which arrive in a single bundle each morning or each Monday morning. These bundles can be opened to see individual emails or archived as a bundle with a single click.

Definitely feels like an opt-in experience to me, and far better than previous email solutions I used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As Getting Things Done taught us, our inbox is not our to-do list. For example, in the screenshot at the top of the landing page: what action do I take on "Jennifer: Privacy Policy draft #3"? So in this state this would not be a benefit to me.

But a fairly simple tweak would change the equation: a feature to process emails by converting a message into 0, 1, or multiple actions that would then go through the board. Those actions would include the email for context.

A card board that allows me to stay on top of my duties without a separate email client (and without turning my inbox into my todo list) could be a _very_ nice tool.

Congrats on shipping this!

</comment><comment><USER10> Most of my communication with various people/communities is done via mail. For those using Emacs:

I use a Kanban (or GTD, depending)-style workflow using Org mode and Gnus. Org mode recognizes `gnus:'-prefixed links. For certain types of mail, I use an Org capture template within Gnus which inserts a TODO item into an Org document, along with a link to the original message (which can be opened in Gnus using C-c C-o).

You can then go through your usual workflow as you would with any other item; mail is just another source of data.

Considering that the task originated via mail, chances are it'll require some back-and-forth, potentially over the course of weeks and perhaps with a handful of people involved. I also keep detailed timestamped logs of correspondence and my actions, linking to important messages as needed. This is particularly useful for large threads, since I highlight the most important information. Since I'm logging via Org mode (and not my MUA), my logs can also include any other additional information and time tracking that has nothing to do with mail, so this creates a useful timeline that combines both actions and correspondence into a single view.

Because this is married with the rest of my Org-based task management, my mail also shows up in my agenda and reporting.

<comment><USER11> This is a great setup. I used to have the same configuration, but ended up replacing Gnus with Notmuch.

I'm far from a Gnus guru, so perhaps I'm missing something, but why do you prefer Gnus to Notmuch or Mu4e?

IMHO Notmuch has a very clear MUA model. Plus it's extremely fast and simple. Everything is done via tags. Notmuch never ever touches your email. This is the task of a backend, which has to translate tag changes into Mailbox actions. I do this using a few trivial Bash one-liners, which accommodate for Gmail's unusual IMAP implementation.

Mu4e is more similar to Mutt, as it does touch email directly, allowing you to move emails across folders or delete them. I also found the interface a little bit less snappy than Notmuch.

Gnus has some great ideas, but it's quite slow and the internals are a mess. It needs some serious refactoring.

<comment><USER10> I haven't researched Notmuch, but I've heard some interesting things about it. I used to use Mutt back in the day. Whatever I use would have to have Org integration, though.

Tbh, I just haven't researched other things and I haven't had the time. But Gnus does seem to fit well how I organize my mail: I subscribe to a lot of mailing lists, each of which are filtered into their own folders via Sieve scripts, before they touch my MUA. I also organize normal mail similarly.

<comment><USER11> Yes, I used to deal with email like that. Gnus + Dovecot + Sieve.

I find Notmuch + mbsync more satisfying because of efficiency and simplicity. It's a serverless setup, config files are small, and it's very quick.

Both Notmuch and Mu4e have good Org integration, so if you want to explore that route it shouldn't be a show-stopper.

<comment><USER10> This is a late reply, but thanks for your input. I'll look into them further. What interests me is your replacing Dovecot + Sieve with your MUA; I'll have to see if I want to do that or not.

<comment><USER11> No worries. For some time, before fully transitioning to Notmuch as a MUA, I was running Gnus with just Notmuch (using nnir notmuch search backend). So no Dovecot or Sieve. A pure Maildir.

I'm not sure whether you'd loose any feature like this, I don't think I did. But perhaps it's much simpler and quicker to switch to Notmuch for Emacs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Let me state my personal experience trying something like this. I get a ton of email on all sorts of different topics and projects that may be old or may be currently in progress.

I did something like this inside my file manager. Just download all new messages into a directory a couple times a day. Delete the junk. Put email needing to be processed into one directory. Put processed email into a different directory.

The system didn't work at all. Sure, it works great for certain tasks, like responding to "What time will we meet for lunch?" I had to add extra directories to allow archiving messages by project. An email is a piece of reference material. You appear to be constructing a walled garden that makes it hard to do anything with messages once they're inside your service. What do I do with messages that don't need a response but that provide information? How do I view past email related to a project? Hopefully the answer is not "use your regular email client".

Looks good but unless there's more than shown on this page, I don't see it yet being a solution for the people that would be willing to pay for it, if it does nothing more than sort through messages needing a reply.

<comment><USER13> I already do something like this, but with a lot of success: anything that requires an action on my end stays in my inbox and anything that I get done or is purely informational goes to a folders (typically project related).

All this seems to do is break out my inbox/"to do" into "uncategorized" and 3 other "to do" categories. I don't know if totally needed. If someone already has a problem organizing their main inbox, how are they going to stay organized with this kanban flow?

<comment><USER12> > how are they going to stay organized with this kanban flow?

That's exactly right. Processing your email does not mean you reply to every message. It means every task related to every email has been completed and you have access to that information everywhere its needed - even if you forget about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This workflow can already be done with good old Apple Mail. The ability to open multiple windows all showing a personalized view (both in the selection of emails and what you want to see about them) allows for this flexibility. As a bonus, the views can be compact and take up very little screen space.

<comment><USER15> I miss Lip Service from NeXTMail. The ability to quickly add an audio note to an email was very useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Congrats on shipping this, it looks very intriguing!

A few thoughts/ideas:

\- It would be helpful to see more product screenshots/videos of it in action.

\- It would also be useful to get more info on how this works and interacts with email services - perhaps easiest to add an FAQ page (this discussion thread should help get some ideas for the questions).

\- I echo what some others say - that I don't necessarily know whether this would work for all my emails. I tend to find some emails would suit this process. Therefore, I'd love a Chrome extension into this, where it is a tab added in Gmail. I could process emails and move some to the kanban board for when I'm in 'action things' mode, and they are out of sight when I'm processing emails - sort of a two step process. If you had that I'd sign up to at least try this right now.

Good luck with it!

<comment><USER17> For what it is worth, this is how I use Todoist integration with my mail clients. I made categories according to GTD and assign emails to the right category. I tag them with my tags like "read/review", "reply", and other tags useful to me.

Next to that I use Todoist for regular task management. Works quite well for me. Made all these additions to email clients like "snooze" redundant.

P.s. key is to have the task management app with proper functionality which is available on your phones email clients as well as you read quite a lot of them there. This is why I chose Todoist as it integrates with my Newton email app which I use for my work mail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cool idea, I would like to challenge his $12/month price point.

Subscriptions I could get cheaper than $12 a month:

Netflix

Youtube Red

Amazon Prime

Dollar Shave Club

All of which provide higher value than reorganizing email. I think he should price in relation to other subscription services that exist.

<comment><USER19> i take the opposite side:

even saving one hour per month with this tool is worth more than 12 usd, to me (compare hourly wage).

i just want a free month to be sure i am not giving out money to a bad product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love it! The thing I would like to improve is that there as a user I am a bit confused about what it is and how it can provide value to me when I land on the product's page.

* Pricing is hidden.you can only view it when clicking "join" but I do not want to click join until I know that price.

* When I land on the page I see two calls to action ("join" and "login") and no indication of if there is more content. Naturally I'd bounce from the page most of the time.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER15> "Indie Maker" —- is this a new term or am I missing something about this?

<comment><USER21> It basically just means that the product isn't made by a VC-funded company. C.f.:

[https://www.indiehackers.com/](https://www.indiehackers.com/)

[https://indieweb.org/](https://indieweb.org/)

As a customer, the main advantages of using indie products is that there aren't investors telling the founders that they need to shut down if they don't get millions of users in the next 18 months, or that they need to start selling customer data. And if you're a big enough customer, it means potentially being able to own part of the company. (Since turning a business into a co-op and selling shares to the existing customers is a common exit strategy, but is rarely possible once a company has taken venture capital.)

<comment><USER22> > As a customer, the main advantages of using indie products is that there > aren't investors telling the founders that they need to shut down if they > don't get millions of users in the next 18 months, or that they need to > start selling customer data.

I get that, but companies exist to get paid. And therefore a successful product will attempt to grow, which often means a change in business processes or pricing. So if I make a product like this indispensable to my workflow or company, I could be faced with a change being forced upon me when they go to scale.

All that to say I'm not 100% it's effective marketing.

<comment><USER21> > So if I make a product like this indispensable to my workflow or company, I > could be faced with a change being forced upon me when they go to scale.

Sure, that risk still exists. But with indie products there are essentially three groups of stakeholders (founders, employees, customers) instead of of four (+investors), so that risk is greatly reduced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Congrats on shipping an MVP! In my humble opinion however Kanban and email are not a match.

In fact for most people (definitely for me) I believe email is a very poor backend for a todo list.

My reasoning is that your email inbox is something that anybody can add items to -- even if those items start out as uncategorized, you still need to decide whether they deserve action or not. And when you receive 100+ emails a day, that's a job in and of itself.

The essence of any prioritization system should be that it helps you focus on the most important things first. And you already know what those things are -- you don't need dozens of people proposing them to you.

My personal system is to sit down every Monday morning, think about the absolute highest impact things I need to accomplish that week, and write them down in an old fashioned paper notebook which I refer back to any time I feel like I'm spinning my wheels.

Fundamentally the value I generate doesn't come from reacting to people all day, it comes from identifying outcomes that truly matter and doing whatever is necessary to advance those outcomes.

There absolutely _are_ jobs where the inbox-as-todo model makes sense: customer service agent and certain kinds of sales rep come immediately to mind.

But I think this model where externals just keep on pushing new tasks onto you is fundamentally not a great tool to help most people generate value. Also not good for mental health.

If you have a boss, a personal assistant, a spouse or kids those are people who should probably be able to reach you immediately and easily. Outside of that I think we should generally start at zero and have to whitelist specific people. In the old days this was accomplished by giving them your phone number.

<comment><USER24> > Fundamentally the value I generate doesn't come from reacting to people all > day, it comes from identifying outcomes that truly matter and doing whatever > is necessary to advance those outcomes.

Amen. I've never written a performance review (or received one) applauding email reaction time. Think about it. The stuff that gets accolades are accomplishing the things that "truly matter."

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> You don't list anywhere on the site how it actually works. Is it IMAP?

<comment><USER26> and are there rules for sorting or do I manually move all of them? Can the columns be customized?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Lol that the hero quote is just by the founder

<comment><USER28> Yeah that's a little awkward. Should've just made it a statement instead of a quote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This seems useful in concept but $12/mo is more than I'm willing to pay for email.

It's also unclear to me if this is a browser based email client (using imap/smtp etc.) or if it comes with it's own email address and handles final delivery/storage.

</comment><comment><USER30> Pictures are huge and font is huge on my 1080p display. Is this just designed for a 4K audience or something? Starting to feel like the whole move towards supporting mobile should include 4k devs supporting lower resolutions too? Or is it just me...

<comment><USER31> The header font is huge and doesn't scale with the viewport, that is not a requirement for mobile/responsive design though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I do this already with categories in Outlook, plus I use the single line view so I can see all my tasks on one screen.

I hate the trend of apps following google's lead and putting eons of white space in their apps forcing tons of scrolling to get anything done.

Chrome apparently will be updated sometime soon with a UI that adds two or three horizontal lines of white space above the tab bar, and they will be totally changing the way tabs look in general to make it much harder to differentiate different tabs. I will probably be moving to firefox after that...

</comment><comment><USER33> Well done! I would disregard much of the criticism on here as bikeshedding and not worth much merit. Reminds me of the dropbox HN thread.

I often "hold on" to certain emails for certain reasons. Because I need to reply to them, or read them more, or am waiting on reply. I can see breaking it out into a kanban could be beneficial for that.

I would never use though; because the service will never do what I need from an email client. It'll be more like an email backed trello, and even then I would bet the providers it works with will be gmail and gmail. Even then there are things like PGP, search, exporting, that a good client offers, and then issues with data security and exposing your inbox to a third party who could do anything - from data mining, to theft; with or without intent.

But... as an app? I'd be down. Maybe not $12/mo down... but $4/mo for an email client that's both good and being improved upon would not be a bad deal for me. Maybe do personal/corporate licensing, as companies will have more money to throw at software; which would help with reaching sustainability.

Anyway, great idea and I hope it really can become something. Launching anything is hard, doing it alone even harder. To deliver something that isn't completely nonsense is almost a feat in itself.

</comment><comment><USER34> This looks nice and kudos to the team (Ethan) behind it for shipping it!

I have tried similar tools in the past that convert Gmail into a Kanban board ([https://www.sortd.com/](https://www.sortd.com/) and [https://www.dragapp.com](https://www.dragapp.com)) and have not had much success with that method of triaging emails. Perhaps it's a personal failing of my own.

</comment><comment><USER35> This sounds like it could be potentially useful, as an alternative to unopinionated productivity tools which force you to make far too many decisions upfront. On the other hand I've never heard of Kanban and I'm not the only one. I feel like the name alone is intended to communicate what this does to a core part of your target audience, but if you've never heard of Kanban explaining that it's a "Kanban board for your emails" in the tagline doesn't make it that much clearer either.

Either way, good luck with it! I'm a screen reader user so would be interested to see how accessible and usable it is from the keyboard alone. That's also why you should read what I've said above in the context of not being able to see your visual design, which might instantly make it clear what it does.

</comment><comment><USER36> The efficient ways of handling emails is to do it a few times a day, and then either deal with them to the point where you can delete it, or turn it into a task. (I have employees who are masters of efficiency and lean and this is their thing, but I've seen the benchmarks on departments where it was implemented, and it works.)

I can see how you could use kanban to do this, but most offices already have dedicated systems for handling their tasks, and honestly, even outlook tasks are better at this than a kanbanboard.

Why would you need multiple lines for an email? And why would you keep you emails on your email account, where no one else can get it, client if it's important enough to archive?

Best of luck though, maybe there is a usecase I'm not seeing.

</comment><comment><USER37> The privacy policy is a blank page.

<comment><USER38> Exactly. If this thing is accessing my email, I need to understand more about it, especially the privacy policy. A blank privacy policy page doesn't instill confidence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Full privacy? LOL!

People don't subscribe there, they will steal all your emails.

Just use secure email provider like protonmail.com or even better, register your domain, and fetch emails offline to your computer as soon as they arrive.

Don't addicted to "online" storage of your personal data. Do you know those people? You have to be independent.

Who does that server really serve? [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does- that-server-really-se...](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server- really-serve.en.html)

And use mutt email software, the best in the world [http://www.mutt.org](http://www.mutt.org)

</comment><comment><USER40> This looks nice!

I'm using gmail exactly like this with the "multiple inbox" experiment. I'm triaging my mails a couple of times per day and assigning them to the correct inboxes via labels (ctrl+l).

</comment><comment><USER41> Nice job getting a landing page on the front page :-)

This is an interesting product. I've been using Google Inbox at work for the last ~6mo. I really like the snooze feature that removes an email from your inbox until a set time. I check my Inbox every few hours and try to keep it squeaky clean by snoozing emails until I plan to attack them. When something's snoozed over and over due to procrastination / poor time management, you really feel it.

How does everyone else manage their email? I don't get that many emails, probably < 10/day.

<comment><USER42> I read them and mark them as unread until I have time to deal with them.

Every once in a while I try to clear out "sections" of time such as the current day, week or month by either responding or by performing the requested task - hoping that one day I'll get my unread count down to zero. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I wish there were more information on how data is accessed / stored. The site claims that the only thing that is stored is the email address of the user, the rest lives in gmail.

Is there an app that can read all the email and then store metadata back into each thread ? Can this app 'tee' my data somewhere else without me knowing?

I guess a lot of people are not excited to give anyone else access to their email.

</comment><comment><USER44> I use Trello for my day to day official/personal task. This idea looks good, especially when dealing emails with clients related to tasks

<comment><USER45> You can use Trllo for this as well. Each board has an associated email which converts any messages sent to it into a card.

I've created a hotkey for my email client so any email that may require an action can easily be added to the Inbox list on my GTD Trello board.

It works really well as long as I am maintaining it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This would be neat if it were a local application.

</comment><comment><USER47> I saw "kanban for email" and thought "ugh.", because it sounds like a very "an engineer thought of this" idea, but then I saw the product shots and the usefulness of it did jump out at me. This looks handy.

Email-based task systems tend toward clutter, but if you have some way to deal with that onslaught, this could be really useful

</comment><comment><USER48> What a fantastic idea! I know many folks, especially in small business, who would get a massive productivity boost from something like this.

I'd recommend explaining how the service integrates with people's emails, before asking them to hand over any details. That's the only thing that would stop me from giving it a go.

</comment><comment><USER49> Using this workflow for email is pretty interesting. I'm currently relying heavily on snoozing in Google Inbox to manage email tasks, but this takes things a step further. I will say though that $12/mo is too steep compared the upside for me when you can hack together a workflow for free relatively easily.

</comment><comment><USER50> I would be very interested by this if it was opensource with integrations to major clients and open source web clients like Roundcube. But until then, I don't want to give always more private information to any new third party, even very cool Indie Maker ones.

</comment><comment><USER51> Damn, nope. Gotta spend $12 a MONTH?! I don't even pay that for my Netflix or Spotify.

</comment><comment><USER52> My biggest question is: Does it work with Gmail, but this is no answered anywhere, so I am not keen to sign up. (I also don't really know what I am signing up for.)

</comment><comment><USER53> This is a really good idea. If it works well, this is a god-send for product managers. I've forwarded it to my company's product slack room.

</comment><comment><USER54> Cool looking project, but I'm not about to give a third party that I know nothing about access to my emails since this is a hosted service.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER55> Late to the party, but if this is going to be a commercial product here are my thoughts:

      1.) Add a quick 30 second or 1 minute demo video
      2.) Pricing should be a visible (in the header) and a dedicated page
      3.) Pricing of $12/mo seems high. I'd recommend something like $4.99/mo early adopter pricing. Then if demand, increase.
      4.) How it works. Show technology and how you don't store sensitive e-mail details like subject and body.

</comment><comment><USER56> An MVP to check if there's product market fit for something like Drag. nice. how's the stats? :)

</comment><comment><USER57> This proves again that software engineers have a strange understanding of kanban :)

</comment><comment><USER58> This community can be fucking toxic sometimes, at least this person created something.

Get off your high horse and write positive criticism / offer help / suggest improvements or just stfu.

<comment><USER59> >write positive criticism / offer help / suggest improvements or just stfu

Interesting that you did exactly zero of the things you suggest (and used a throwaway knowing you'd be downvoted.)

<comment><USER60> What do you mean? Aside from the stfu, you quoted their constructive criticism.

I don't know what posts they were talking about though. I came late to this conversation and voting moved the interesting posts up already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I wish this was open source.

</comment><comment><USER62> I find that for email the Getting Things Done framework works the best.

</comment><comment><USER63> cool stuff, i actually do kanban on my gmail by tagging them with different colored stars. i'm not sure i want the UI though, but maybe because i'm already used to my workflow

<comment><USER64> Yeah, I have a very similar set up to this on gmail using labels and the multiple inboxes feature. Which also has the benefit of working with filters to automate some sorting, e.g. certain emails going straight to todo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Hahaha the landing page quotes the creator of the app.

</comment><comment><USER66> Definitely add video showing how it works. Great job !

</comment><comment><USER67> A todo app where anyone can put shit in

</comment><comment><USER68> Hn went down the rabbit hole and got stuck on Gui design...

Did anyone try it? To me it seems like emails are long, have images and attachments and are part of a conversation. The home page just shows almost tweet like emails in those boxes, without pics or attachments or threading.

</comment><comment><USER69> The concept is cool, but the website needs far, far, far more information. And having the very first thing you see is a giant "SIGN UP" screen is a pretty big turn off.</comment>


Should Developers be allowed to talk to Customers? - <AUTHOR> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/features/article.php/12297_3916821_1/Should-Developers-Be-Allowed-to-Talk-to-Customers.htm

<comment><USER2> Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2004686></comment>


Use Google Spreadsheets as a CMS - <AUTHOR> http://data.brace.io

<comment><USER2> I built a site for a restaurant and use a Google Spreadsheet as the back-end for menu data. Whenever they have a change to make, they modify the spreadsheet, and the updates are instantly live on the site.

They like it because they're very non-technical people, but totally get spreadsheets. I like it because there's version-control on any changes to the spreadsheet, so tracking updates is easy. Everything is cached in-case Google'd data were to ever be inaccessible, but it's a system that was easy to implement, and has worked well for a couple years without any perceivable negatives.

<comment><USER3> I am using Google Spreadsheet as a simple back-end just using client-side JS (on a website to track testing of Firefox add-ons). I've been meaning to write a blog post about this because the existing blog posts I read each missed some details about parsing the spreadsheet data or accessing different spreadsheet tabs.

1\. My data is on this spreadsheet: [https://docs.google.com/a/mozilla.com/spreadsheets/d/1CXdwQq...](https://docs.google.com/a/mozilla.com/spreadsheets/d/1CXdwQqNm5nqBDDfZcEoG90SLHAtb- mfMH4eAjDrFAMY/edit#gid=1816064743)

2\. I load the spreadsheet's tab "1816064743" as XML: [https://github.com/cpeterso/arewee10syet/blob/master/index.h...](https://github.com/cpeterso/arewee10syet/blob/master/index.html#L18)

3\. Then parse the spreadsheet rows and columns here: [https://github.com/cpeterso/arewee10syet/blob/master/js/gdat...](https://github.com/cpeterso/arewee10syet/blob/master/js/gdata.js)

4\. And display the pretty results on my website: [http://arewee10syet.com/](http://arewee10syet.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've done something a bit similar on Lump.co, but I'm using Workflowy as a CMS there instead of Google Docs.

I basically shove whatever random lists of things I need to manage into a shared Workflowy list and then point some server-side PHP at it. It has some crude memcache support and conventions for formatting the content and stuff.

It's handy because it makes it really easy to manage those "extra things" that most people don't have time to model in a CMS: sidebar links, footer text, meta descriptions, etc. If something requires a more functional UI or deeper forms of manipulation, I'll build whatever custom admin UI I need.

Plus, I'm already in Workflowy 24x7 anyway, so it makes updating my site a breeze.

At least until Workflowy changes their internal API endpoints, which will break everything. :)

If anyone wants to know more I'd love to talk about it or share the code.

</comment><comment><USER5> A screencast, or even a screenshot could go a long way to explaining what I'd get before diving in.

.02

</comment><comment><USER6> I actually use Google Spreadsheets for signing people up to a newsletter. This way, if they want me to send emails through my mailing webapplication (alpha use, so i'm using it only for myselve right now). I only need to download the spreadsheet as *.csv and i can upload it right in my webapp. The spreadsheet doesn't need to be a specific structure fyi and the app supports multiple languages {{isEnglish}}my English message for {{FirstName}} {{/isEnglish}}{{isDutch}}mijn Nederlandstalig bericht voor {{FirstName}} (=my dutch message){{/isDutch}} in both subject, message (text) and message (html).. So it's quite flexible, i'm just not satisfied with my current layout...

I also tried to use it as a CMS. Using an 3rd party app in Google Drive for editing HTML files and then including it in my website, but i had problems with connecting the webapp with Google Drive OAUTH (spreadsheets was a no- brainer fyi). The problems were with a combo of Google Drive, OAuth and the .Net library that Google released (API V2. i suppose) :-(

I now use a file based database in Asp.Net MVC for my CMS. I'm updating it with every new website i have to create (if the client wants a CMS, off course).

I'm kinda curious what their backup method is when Google Drive goes down? (i thought about caching and a button for the client for cleaning the websites cache, so they could see their changes. )

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been tinkering with a variant of the same thing at Cloudstitch.io and will be presenting a paper about spreadsheet-backed web apps in UIST 2014 [1] (an HCI research conference).

Happy to give anyone an account if you'd like to beta test.

Also, Brace.io folks -- great stuff. we should chat :)

[1] [http://www.acm.org/uist/uist2014/](http://www.acm.org/uist/uist2014/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I briefly wondered how to get push notifications from a Google spreadsheet, to update a website. My guess is they do it by getting email notifications: [https://support.google.com/docs/answer/91588?hl=en](https://support.google.com/docs/answer/91588?hl=en)

<comment><USER9> Or maybe they just use push notifications?

[https://developers.google.com/drive/web/push](https://developers.google.com/drive/web/push)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is pretty cool. You can do something fairly similar with www.silk.co except it acts more like an online database and less like a static site. Basically, CSV to Website conversion where each page acts like a row on a DB. (Full disclosure - I work for Silk).

</comment><comment><USER11> [http://mynameisrage.com/](http://mynameisrage.com/) runs off of a SpreadsheetCMS I wrote ages ago. It's awesome and free :) I love that we get the off the shelf interface of Google Drive.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wish this landing page wasn't so sparse. Lots of questions unanswered.

<comment><AUTHOR> What questions?

<comment><USER13> I've been trying to figure out how to sort based on row value...

<comment><AUTHOR> No sorting or pagination yet. Thanks for the feature request!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Cool idea, but it's scary to grant full access to my Google Drive to this random app, so I didn't try it.

</comment><comment><USER15> Great encouraging people to use the wrong tool for the job on a tech site.

Welcoming the oncoming downvotes.

</comment><comment><USER16> cool idea but I can't get it to work. I don't get it.

</comment><comment><USER17> its somewhat cool thing ;]

</comment><comment><USER18> interesting.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't see myself using something like this under any circumstances. I would just make my own database and call it myself.

It's not really a static site once you have dynamic content on it.

<comment><USER20> I am mostly of the same opinion as you are, but really what they are offering is an easy way to expose your data source as a service, and to provide a simple already established user interface over that data source.

So it does have its place but probably has a limited sweet spot. Is your end user already familiar with spreadsheets, possibly might want to view/edit the data in bulk, not going to pay you to build ur own editor over the data, not really that concerned about performance on a large scale? Then this might be a good solution for them.... Its basically MS Access in the cloud...

<comment><USER19> I agree with you in that it's not a bad idea for your use case. I would likely still make an admin portal to insert data. If we are dealing with static pages that have a dynamic spreadsheet, I would look up a Wordpress or Drupal solution first.

After reading your comment, I'm thinking that it may be easier in some situations like a teacher posting curriculum. It's also much easier than setting up a Wordpress deployment.</comment></comment></comment>


2018 Global DNS Performance Report – Managed DNS, Public Resolvers, Global Roots - <AUTHOR> https://www.thousandeyes.com/resources/2018-global-dns-performance-benchmark-report <comment><USER2> Original link requires email.

Direct link:

[https://marketo- web.thousandeyes.com/rs/thousandeyes/images/...](https://marketo- web.thousandeyes.com/rs/thousandeyes/images/ThousandEyes-Global-DNS- Performance-Benchmark-Report-2018.pdf)</comment>


How Much Does Christian Doctrine Have In Common With Open-Source Software? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21527031

<comment><USER2> I am glad somebody posted this article. I found it very thought-provoking.

Some background:

The original paper by the Jesuit priest was discussed on HN a few months ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2421107> (includes a link to the abstract of the article, in Italian)

Here's the website of the Catholic open source advocacy group mentioned: <http://www.eleutheros.org/en/>

One of its cofounders pops up in the comments at the Economist to defend accusations that the Catholic Church is jumping on a bandwagon ("if you can't beat em, join em" is the accusation).

Here's the Eric Raymond post mentioned: <http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3094>

"The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is available on his website: <http://catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/></comment>


Designing a retro pixel-art tile-set - <AUTHOR> http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/2012/03/01/designing-a-retro-pixel-art-tile-set/?v=0

<comment><USER2> If you appreciate pixel art and you haven't heard of Henk Nieborg you might want to check out his website: <http://www.henknieborg.nl/home.html></comment>


Astree – Optical ray tracing and design software - <AUTHOR> http://edeforas.free.fr/?p=305 <comment><USER3> Was slightly confused because there is this other Astrée: [https://www.absint.com/astree/index.htm](https://www.absint.com/astree/index.htm)

<comment><AUTHOR> JFTR, Did you know that _Skencil_ [0] vector editor (open-source app for Linux) formerly called _Sketch_ [1], but actually there is another one _Sketch_ [2] vector editor (proprietary app for macOS).

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

[1] [https://sourceforge.net/projects/sketch/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/sketch/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketch_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketch_\(software\))

<comment><USER4> Sketch is not "by" Apple. It's made by Bohemian Coding, though exclusively for macOS.

Edit: And I don't really understand why it's even relevant. Skencil changed it's name in 2004, several years before the first release of Bohemian Coding's Sketch.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _Sketch[2] is not "by" Apple._

Thanks for correction. Just fixed in my comment above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would love to try this project, but only Windows binaries are provided and there is apparently no build system; the provided Makefile only builds tests. I'm sure I could hack together a Makefile of my own, but is it worth the effort? It's not clear whether it's meant to run on Linux or not - <USER2> Windows-only projects don't even bother to provide a Makefile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Take a look on Travis script.[0]

Year ago I was be able to produce AppImage[1] in my fork repo.

[0] [https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/blob/master/.travis.yml](https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/blob/master/.travis.yml)

[1] [https://github.com/Symbian9/Astree/releases/tag/continuous](https://github.com/Symbian9/Astree/releases/tag/continuous)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's cool. The other one we use a lot in the industry is Zemax

<comment><USER7> When I worked in a design firm we used CodeV. ZEMAX was for the test and assembly engineers. I think the price difference was 10X!

<comment><USER8> I'm a Zemax user. It's certainly used for serious design work, though it's also acknowledged that CodeV is more elaborate. Granted, I'm not designing high performance optics -- mostly stuff for measurement instruments. For me, since optics isn't even 100% of my job, it's hard to justify upping to CodeV.

It would be interesting to work somewhere with test engineers who can grok Zemax. My observation is that unless someone has a degree in optics or physics, they have little hope of understanding optics, and Zemax isn't nearly as user friendly as, say, Solid Works.

As I understand it, CodeV is more than just software -- your rental agreement gives you access to their team of optical engineers who also do general optics consulting. They will add features to their program if you need them, which could happen if you're doing something really innovative.

I dream of designing optics using Python, but I realize that I might be waiting a while for that.

<comment><USER9> It's a shame that Zemax recently went down the subscription route, but I suppose most users were already getting updates every year anyway.

I have a friend who is developing an optical train simulator in Python, but that's for a fairly niche astronomical use case (instruments for the ELT that haven't been built yet).

I've always been curious about the optical stuff in Mathematica (there is also Optica) which I think you get for free.

Otherwise in places I've worked we used Oslo and Fred (I think one is free if you don't save, so it's useful for quick tests). I know Zemax is used by the telescope folks in my department as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The convention of naming a program with a prefix based on the UI-framework is bizarre. QtLens.

<comment><AUTHOR> Screenshot in the news article is default (and little outdated).

 _QtLens_ was initial name of this app, but later project name was changed to _Astree_.

Here is updated screenshot.[0]

[0] [https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/issues/20#issuecomment-53...](https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/issues/20#issuecomment-531880054)</comment></comment>


What's the difference between Text, Text - MS-DOS Format, and Unicode Text? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2012/02/20/10269537.aspx

<comment><USER2> Very informative, in that it answers the question very precisely. It's like the old joke about a helicopter pilot lost in pea soup fog over Seattle, somewhere. A building abruptly looms out of the fog, and the pilot holds up a sign saying "WHERE AM I?" The person at the window scribbles on a piece of paper: "YOU'RE IN SEATTLE". The pilot whips the helicopter around, flies straight to a helipad and lands with 30 seconds of fuel left. The passengers want to know how he did that. "Well, the answer was perfectly correct, but absolutely useless. So, I knew that the building was in Redmond on the Microsoft campus."

Although I liked seeing and knowing what Wordpad means, this is the worst kind of apologetics (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologetics>). It's great that Wordpad allows this sort of control. But what the heck? Why does "text" mean three different things? Why does "text" differ from "binary"? That's just confusing.</comment>


Cruise has settled a lawsuit against its former cofounder Jeremy Guillory - <AUTHOR> http://uk.businessinsider.com/car-startup-cruise-settles-legal-case-involving-cofounder-2016-5?r=US&IR=T <comment><AUTHOR> As part of the settlement, Cruise and its founder Kyle Vogt now acknowledge that Guillory was a cofounder of the company.

</comment><comment><USER2> Technically, nobody is ever a "former" cofounder. You're either a cofounder, or not.</comment>


Killing Adobe Flash - <AUTHOR> https://blog.glasswire.com/2015/02/05/living-without-adobe-flash/

<comment><USER2> I've been living without Adobe Flash installed directly on machine since 2011, and have to say it's the best decision I could have made for Flash. (I do, however, have FreeSMUG build of Chromium[1] installed in case I need Flash in some video streaming site that I occasional use. I dislike Google's Keystone Updater.)

From my experience, uninstalling Flash will let you see _less_ missing plugin icon than having Flash installed with Click-To-Play enabled. This is because once Flash is uninstalled, the browser will simply report to the website that the user do not having Flash and allow the website to fallback to no-Flash mode accordingly.

One biggest problem of having Flash and using Firefox was Vimeo videos because Firefox weren't able to play H.264 on its own, and Vimeo do not provide WebM. This is where it used to be the problem. However, fortunately recent Firefox versions now included OpenH264 codec and could play Vimeo videos without any problems.

Nowadays there are only handful of sites I need to keep Chromium installed, but the number is rapidly decreasing. With YouTube switching to HTML5 by default, I'd recommend anyone to try uninstalling Flash and rely on Chrome/Chromium when Flash is needed. You won't really miss much.

[1]: [http://www.freesmug.org/chromium](http://www.freesmug.org/chromium)

<comment><USER3> While I fully agree that for video type media, I find that Flash is still pretty important for online games. Sure, those games could be remade in HTML5, but until then it's nice to be able to play them with comparatively little issue. I do, however, like your solution for needing flash on the odd occasion.</comment></comment>


Is it ok if I share "exclusive" news on my blog? - <AUTHOR> Hi,
I am looking to start a new blog in a niche. In my niche, information is scattered across multiple sources.
I am a member of many closed communities and VIP on some important forums.
Would it be ok, if I share the information that I collect from these sources on my blog after giving due credits or can it result in be getting banned from those communities?
As the information is scattered, a small blog might help people looking to read in my niche.
I am told that a lot of good bloggers frequent HN, would really appreciate their take on this.
TIA <comment><USER2> >Would it be ok, if I share the information that I collect from these sources on my blog after giving due credits or can it result in be getting banned from those communities?

We couldn't tell you. That depends entirely on the rules, norms and expectations of those communities.

</comment><comment><USER3> Aren't they "closed communities" for a _reason?_</comment>


Humans Show Racial Bias Towards Robots of Different Colors - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/robots-and-racism <comment><USER2> I'm not sure this makes a lot of sense. If you google "evil robot", immediately the whole page is filled with black and dark silver robots. So maybe, through movies and series' of the last 30 years, people have been conditioned to the "dark robot = evil" paradigm instead of assigning them a race by judging their color.. Interesting research though.</comment>


GoGuardian on my sons school laptop - <AUTHOR> Does anyone know about something called GoGuardian? My child was given a laptop from the school district. The one page instruction sheet mentioned it as being on it. However there is evidently the ability for the administrator t not only keep track of computer usage, but also keep track of who uses it through visual and sound monitoring. Now I'm not aware of the legality of this. Nor of just how far that goes. But why is my childs educational tool allowed to also watch our lives? If someone can give me some insight into this, I would appreciate it. Just because theyve restricted our lives doesnt mean they should get to also be in them at will. More seriously, since these laptops were provided to those families of lesser means, this would also seem to be a targeted monitoring. <comment><USER2> It will be easier to treat the machine as hostile (like any piece of untrusted Internet infrastructure) and not give it access to any sensitive data, so put it on a separate network (or be mindful of the risk and only use encrypted protocols on your LAN) and only have your kid use it for school resources and no personal stuff at all than to try and fight the school to uninstall it - don't log into any personal accounts, etc. The camera can be taken care of with a piece of electrical tape. For the microphone you can find the mic hole and destroy it with something sharp like a needle. If your son needs to use the mic you can give him a wired one (I recommend USB ones) or a Bluetooth one (AirPods are great in this case).

</comment><comment><USER3> It should be possible at first to deactivate the microphone and camera completely. Thr camera can be obscured with tape. This sounds scary and I cannot help you with the legal advise here, but filing a complaint (even though you might feel strange after receiving a "free" laptop) might be an idea if thats applicable in your country. In order to find out more about possibilities, can you describe the laptop? What model, company, does it run windows, are there things on the computer disabled, that would be accessible on your personal computer like system settings?</comment>