The trouble with Khan Academy (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines/2012/07/03/the-trouble-with-khan-academy/ <comment><USER2> Why post (repost?) an article from July 3, 2012? Khan Academy has changed a lot since then. Khan Academy works well for my two younger children.

AFTER EDIT: I'll mention some of the changes that Colin kindly asked for news about. As a lot of Hacker News regulars know, several of the Khan Academy developers regularly visit Hacker News. Some of those developers have interacted specifically with me both on-forum and by private email to ask sincere, action-oriented questions about how Khan Academy mathematics lessons can improve. One suggestion I made a couple years ago was for Khan Academy to arrange its lessons in a "knowledge space" like the competing commerical online program ALEKS,[1] which I like very well for my homeschooled children. Another suggestion I made was to make sure that the online work was more of the nature of "problems" rather than "exercises,"[2] and the Khan Academy developers have come up with some very innovative online mathematics problems to ensure that learners don't merely passively watch videos but actively learn new mathematics.

Simply put, I think Khan Academy is iterating successfully. In many respects, I am in direct competition with Khan Academy as a mathematics instructor who teaches in-person lessons for which fees are billed, but I am happy to let my clients know about the existence of Khan Academy, happy to see my own children use it for a lot of their own mathematics learning, and happy to see schools adopt Khan Academy as they "flip the classroom." I am very much a both-and kind of guy when it comes to mathematics instruction--I like to mix and match a lot of programs--but I think Khan Academy has a useful place in the mix.

[1] [http://www.aleks.com/](http://www.aleks.com/)

[2] [http://www.epsiloncamp.org/ProblemsversusExercises.php](http://www.epsiloncamp.org/ProblemsversusExercises.php)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah. I followed the link from an article that I thought had a little insight, but which might be regarded as blogspam. That was comparatively recent, but, in accordance with the guidelines, I submitted the original.

<fx: shrug />

I still think it has value, and I hear very similar concerns expressed when the subject in mentioned in my hearing when I'm out and about doing in my school talks. Maybe it has changed, maybe it hasn't changed enough.

Maybe it has - perhaps you should document your experiences for us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> _Even if the student can solve optimization or related rates problems just like the ones in the book and in the lecture — but doesn't know how to start if the optimization or related rates problem does not match their template — then the student hasn't really learned calculus. At that point, those "applied" problems are just more mechanical processes. We may say the student has learned about calculus, but when it comes to the uses of the subject that really matter — applying calculus concepts to ambiguous and /or complex problems, choosing the best of equivalent methods or results, creating models to solve novel problems — this student's calculus knowledge is not of much use._

If this is the standard, then we can also say

The trouble with Ivy League Universities

<comment><USER4> Why single out Ivy Leagues? Many calculus students leave calculus without understanding it regardless of their institution.

<comment><USER5> The implication is that _most_ institutions suffer from this disadvantage, and saying "Ivy League" is a shorthand for that proposition, since it is assumed (correctly or not) that Ivy League universities are at least as good as most other educational institutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I generally like what Khan Academy is doing, but it is definitely not a complete replacement for the classroom.

What you are seeing is a blowback against the traditional classroom. Our school systems are so poorly run, that a guy with no teaching experience can create something insanely popular in the education industry.

Why didn't a classroom teacher do what he did? Because our system does not reward teacher innovation and trying new things.

Our system rewards obedience and conservatism.

Our teachers (like our students) are taught to conform and do what the admins want. Those that don't are punished, sometimes directly, but most often indirectly.

Poor salaries and bad working conditions mean the best and brightest do not become classroom teachers. Or, talented people who are classroom teachers bolt as soon as something better comes along.

There are some high quality people who teach, but they are browbeaten so often that it turns the young, dynamic person into a cynical and slightly depressed professional.

I don't have all the answers, but I do know it isn't more of the traditional classroom.

<comment><USER7> "Why didn't a classroom teacher do what he did? Because our system does not reward teacher innovation and trying new things."

Because most people don't give a shit? Why doesn't every STEM graduate have the same ambitions as Elon Musk? The reality is that most people are too chicken shit to have their own interests and to pursue them in a serious way. You think throwing money at things solves problems?

<comment><USER8> socrates1998 didn't say anything about money.

A reward could just as well be encouragement rather than being looked down on or be perceived as arrogant.

<comment><USER7> How do you get people to encourage each other if they don't care to begin with?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To give the article itself the same MST3K treatment they gave the Kahn videos, a much better demonstration of the difference between mechanical skills and "judging between two equivalent concepts" would focus around shell vs disk integral calculus methods. Trivial to teach the mechanics of either, and the names are very intuitive of what they do, but it takes some experience and discussion to internalize when to use which strategy.

"the study of how to ... pass mathematics exams."

Some .edu folks think its hilarious to use math as a gatekeeper although the grads will never use it on the job... jokes on them if someone hacks that system and bypasses their artificial little gatekeeper.

<comment><USER10> > Some .edu folks think its hilarious to use math as a gatekeeper although the > grads will never use it on the job... jokes on them if someone hacks that > system and bypasses their artificial little gatekeeper.

Is it really that entertaining that everyone cavorts around such a useless subject? There's a saying that in a war between kings, the battlefield is the farmers' trampled corn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm in the middle of designing an online course and I've discovered that the technique of live drawing while speaking used in Khan Academy is really quite hard to do well. I certainly don't have the natural ability to do this (perhaps I need a lot more practice) and it's given me a good appreciation for the work that Khan must have put into it.

My technique is to prepare slides with a script and then record myself presenting them. It's not nearly as nice, but at least I can do it.

<comment><USER12> The format used on Coursera[1] is pretty nice, in my opinion. It's a combination of slides, video/voice, and drawing/annotation, which seems to work to good effect.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvMgtcgq34k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvMgtcgq34k)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't know any evidence, that teaching the "mechanistics" of math should lower the chance of understanding it.

Quite often "root learning versus understanding" is the difference between being able to show and demonstrate you know your stuff ("root learning") and not being able to show or demonstrate it, but you think you kinda know it ("understanding").

<comment><USER2> You and onlookers may enjoy reading the article, "Basic Skills versus Conceptual Understanding: A Bogus Dichotomy in Mathematics Education"[1] (1999) by Hung-hsi Wu, for a discussion of what leads to deep understanding of mathematics. Another classic article on the topic is Richard Askey's review[2] of Liping Ma's book _Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics,_ a very good read indeed.

[1] [http://math.berkeley.edu/~wu/wu1999.pdf](http://math.berkeley.edu/~wu/wu1999.pdf)

[2] [http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/fall1999/amed1.pdf](http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/fall1999/amed1.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The general criticism focused on here is "mechanical processes". At first I misread this as a focus on literally mechanical machines that did something. But now I understand it as demonstration of performing an algorithm used to solve a particular pattern of problem. And the core of the criticism is that knowing the algorithm doesn't mean you understand the algorithm, and could modify it to solve related problems.

However, that criticism doesn't have much power for me, based on how I understand I learn. I like to learn from two ends; one, from above, with an overview of the space, so I know where the next bit fits in. And from below, with concrete examples - yes, mechanical examples - of the individual steps. I infer the deeper structure of what's being taught as more and more variants of the mechanical process are shown.

</comment><comment><USER15> The OP has posted this article before, and Sal & others from Khan Academy replied here on HN, but I am not able to find that previous post on search.

</comment><comment><USER16> I agree that KA is not a perfect substitute, but one thing I will say is that there is a huge difference in the intrinsic motivation behind someone that wants to watch a series of KA videos vs. someone that is told they must take a class.

As we know, classrooms are not perfect either. But if we could get classroom education and KA education to both be better (after all, some university courses are shown on vidcast and sections are replaced by digital discussion forums), then I do think KA could be a very viable alternative for the traditional classroom. Instead of telling a student s/he needs to learn calculus, you wait until they recognize the need for it in their daily lives and take the class.

Honestly if you don't need it, it really might not be helpful. I can't say I've used any skills from many classes (calculus, accounting, earth science, etc.) other than being able to recount obscure but interesting facts. For those that say well my inherent problem-solving skills have been influenced by the logic of these classes, well they really haven't (and I had great teachers). Everything I learned about framing and solving a problem I learned from real world work experience as a consultant (why schools didn't find a way to teach this to me is a different argument). And in case it sounds like it, yes I do believe I'm more in the "unschooling" movement.

</comment><comment><USER17> what I've seen of khan academy is pretty cursory as far as the math goes (about enough to get through an introductory course, usually), and that seems intentional. There are definitely a few gaping holes in the curriculum, such as no wronskian in diff eqs. And nobody really learns a mathematical concept until they've been confronted with something significant they couldn't do with it immediately, yet conquered it.

Teaching advanced math, on the other hand, is really hard to do when you're interacting with a person because there are so many pitfalls and if you hit even a single one you can't usually continue until you've tracked it down. Khan Academy has material on all sorts of non-math stuff, like economics and other sciences, and they seem to be gearing the math stuff more towards a younger audience, not an older one, which is probably more important anyways to be honest. smart move, mr.Khan, smart move.

</comment><comment><USER18> If the public school system wasn't a daycare center for parents who need to work but actually focused on educating our kids better, it would have the following structure:

1) Give every family a parental-control iPad if they don't have a computer at home.

2) Deliver the lecture part of each class via an engaging multimedia presentation bought from a marketplace of these things. Instead of a boring teacher or one teacher teaching 20 students, a great presentation would be repeatable by thousands and millions of students, and every year can be improved. It could also be critiqued and fact-checked by reviewers in the market. The market would update them like textbooks.

3) The next day, the school day would start later, so kids could get a good sleep (health and cognitive reasons) and a good breakfast (nutrition reasons), the latter can be delivered in school, for kids to come on time and socialize.

4) After breakfast and homeroom, the Tests would begin. Every day, the tests would be testing for real knolwedge that would be obtained from the previous day's presentations. They would test two levels: minimum adequate comprehension, and solid comprehension. This would replace homework and the method of solution could also be analyzed.

5) Students who did not score high enough to demonstrate minimum comprehension for that day would be quickly identified by their test scores. They would be scheduled for smaller REMEDIAL classes later that day for that subject. That means the main time they spend with a teacher would be more individualized and tailored to where they are struggling as actually determined by their attempts on the tests.

6) For a student who scores well on all or most tests, the day would be quite pleasant and free of remedial classes. They could do any number of things - and if they have to remain in the school, fine - there will be plenty of entertainment and socializing there. That is their reward for learning and comprehending the previous day, proportional to how many subjects they were able to do.

7) Right after the Tests, all students would still have to take classes which aren't only comprehension focused such as Gym and Debate etc. But there are very few of those.

8) The students would themselves choose how to schedule their time to study for the next day. It could be a study session with friends or a private study session. No one would force them to sit through a lecture.

Benefits:

1) Insane amounts of homework from multiple classes are replaced by Tests which are already scored in terms of difficulty, cognitive load, and how much time they take. So the school is fully aware of how much load they are putting on the students. Currently there is homework creep.

2) Instead of struggling privately and spending money on private tutors many low-income families can't afford, the students would get individual attention after their performance was analyzed in a Test setting. Home would be reserved for a lot more passive learning, mimicking the real world.

3) The kids would have freedom and responsibility to set aside their own time to learn, and incentive to learn that they do not have when told to sit down and shut up for 5 hours a day. It would also lower incidents of diagnosis of ADHD, especially in restless younger boys in grades where psychological development and aptitude feedback is crucial to get right.

4) Lectures are boring and too variable in quality. An uncommonly great teacher may only be able to reach 20 students while the rest get mediocre or bad lectures. There is no reason to keep things this way when technology can replace lectures with professionally produced multimedia at home. Animations and stories teaching algebra and calculus for example.

5) If you go to the bathroom or zone out during a lecture, you are faced with big dilemmas, having to copy notes from classmates. Here you just rewind. A kid can even pause the lecture for 2 hours and go play basketball or watch another one, finishing this one when they want. Truancy would be greatly reduced.

6) Note taking would not be compulsory and you wouldn't be training kids to be 2nd century Roman scribes. Instead you'd be ingraining habits about learning online which they will carry for the rest of their life. For 99% of us all the material is already written clearly online. Note taking should be optional.

7) It would actually be cool among kids to be educated because these kids would get access to programs the remedial kids didn't. So we would foster a desire and self motivation in kids to learn. Both teachers and kids would be motivated in their remedial classes to prepare kids for comprehending lectures of the next day. Going to a remedial class means that the next day's tests are likely to be guaranteed pass. If these remedial classes get the kid to eventually start consistently scoring above Adequate, into Solid Mastery, both the kid and the teacher are rewarded.

8) Which brings me to granularity, measurability and accountability. The interaction of teachers and students would be in a smaller classroom setting, and more effective. Struggling would be caught early. Each subject would be broken down into very granular modules (one a day). A kid falling behind would be seen a mile away.

This is an example of actually refactoring the system to take advantage of existing technology and aligning the incentives and delivery mechanisms of the system with what what technology has made possible. It has been possible for 15 years now via internt and 40 years via VHS. It's about time this has been tried.

But the question is more about bureaucracy. Given the way public schools are run today, would a principal and teachers ever be willing to try something new? It may be impossible to reform the system so drastically. And what would we do with all those kids and their free time? Wouldn't this lead to more bullying and abuse as maturing 11 year old kids are stuck in a daycare center?

I believe the only avenue for trying this system are private and charter schools. What do y'all think?

<comment><USER19> Have you read about the flipped classroom? It is along the line of what you are suggesting, and has had some success so far.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_teaching](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_teaching)

<comment><USER18> Yes I have - this is an attempt to fully flesh out that idea for public schools

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think they're doing a great job grouping and ordering their videos according to common standards. I find myself jumping around trying to figure out what I need to learn less often.</comment>


A 2048 spinoff to raise funds for cancer - <AUTHOR> http://2048againstcancer.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Check out the source here: [https://github.com/sagnew/2048AgainstCancer](https://github.com/sagnew/2048AgainstCancer)

</comment><comment><USER2> Love this sam! And good luck to Tyler.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good Guy Sam</comment>


Top 100 Advertisers Shifted $1 Billion To the Web Last Year At The Expense Of TV And Newspapers - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/23/top-100-advertisers-shifted-1-billion-to-the-web-last-year-at-the-expense-of-tv-and-newspapers/

<comment><USER2> Okay we get it, newspapers are dying, ads are moving to the web. It seems like Techcrunch doesn't have much to write about lately so they just keep coming up with ways to say the same thing, over and over.</comment>


Google to Make Driverless Cars an Alphabet Company in 2016 - T-A http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-16/google-said-to-make-driverless-cars-an-alphabet-company-in-2016 <comment><USER2> I don't understand the pessimism in this thread. Google owns two of the most important pieces of the puzzle: maps and the mobile OS/app store in 80% of people's pockets. Not to mention lots of software and hardware IP related to autonomous vehicles. There are plenty of car companies in the world who can provide car frames, windows, leather seats, four wheels, and yes even an electric engine. I see Uber, Google, Apple, and others going head to head in this market, ultimately to the great benefit of consumers as transportation prices plummet. Imagine an airport run from 3rd and Market to SFO costing $15 (technically only $13 after 20% discount for paying with the UberRewards Capital One Visa Card), or a 4 hour trip (time to watch a long movie and send some email) from Santa Monica Pier to the Las Vegas Strip for $50 (or for a limited time, $55 if you stop at the selected partner gas/charging station for pre-paid lunch and bathroom break) - it will happen and sooner than most think.

<comment><USER3> Or put another way, electric + autonomous = inexpensive, intelligent, on- demand transportation.

It'll merely spare consumers from a trillion plus dollars - every decade - <AUTHOR> wasted costs on buying cars and then hardly ever utilizing them. While likely saving a quarter of a million lives every decade, and further sparing consumers a large percentage of the vast associated medical, insurance and lost-asset costs that go with those injuries and deaths.

The 'dumb pipe' of the Internet is going to eat the dumb car - as it'll try to do with everything it can touch - sucking out the complexity and inefficiencies with smart, hyper-available software.

A few decades from now, people will consider buying a 'dumb' $30,000 gasoline engine car to stick in your driveway and rarely use, to be comically absurd.

<comment><USER4> Sure cars are mostly idle / under-utilized, but when they are needed, what's the replacement? I don't really understand how a driverless world is going to solve the problem of X million people who have to drive to work every day at roughly the same time, and then get back home at night. For huge swaths of the country public transportation is unfeasible (basically outside of cities), and cars seem to fit the bill there nicely.

On top of that: "It'll merely spare consumers from a trillion plus dollars" \-- seems a bit of an exaggeration, does it not? Transportation will still be needed, and it's going to have to be paid for somehow or another. If it's not directly towards paying for a car it's in taxes for infrastructure, or it's to companies who have to invest the capital and make a profit on it. It changes how the money is spent, I guess, and the hope is that it's more efficiently spent, but I suspect that the costs will just shift around and not necessarily save "trillions of dollars every decade".

<comment><USER5> If you need to leave to go to work at 8:00 AM, to get there at 8:30, it's a 5 minute drive from your office to my house, and I need to leave at 9 to get to my job at 9:30, then an on-demand driverless car can take care of both of us. It can also pick up the person who was able to take public transit in but needs to run errands on their lunch break, as well as the second shift worker, and take someone else home for dinner, and get someone else to the airport at 3 AM.

Right now, many people have cars sitting idle for a large portion of the day because they need them for an hour a day, or sometimes an hour every couple of days, or a couple of hours a week. While it's true that there are surges in demand in the normal morning and evening commutes, there is still a lot of excess driving capacity that is needed for trips other than those surges, and so you only have to have enough cars to cover those peaks.

In addition, there may be other people who could take public transit, walk, or bike to work, but don't because there are other things that they need to do at various points that require a car, and so it's more convenient to just always have it available.

So yeah, driverless cars can only get you so far, you're right that the peak demand number is pretty much the minimum number you could have. But if I go an look at my residential street during the day, when commuters are presumably at work, I still see about half of the cars present. Those are all cars that wouldn't be necessary if everyone were riding in self driving cars that could rearrange themselves based on demand. That reduction in number of cars would also reduce the amount of space needed to store all of those cars, which could help bring everything closer together making it more walkable, bikeable, or efficient for public transit, which could further reduce the demand for cars.

<comment><USER6> > While it's true that there are surges in demand in the normal morning and > evening commutes, there is still a lot of excess driving capacity that is > needed for trips other than those surges, and so you only have to have > enough cars to cover those peaks.

Do we really have excess capacity compared to the _peak_ demand? Put another way, how many people own a car and _aren 't_ using it at e.g. 8:50AM? At a complete guess I'd say maybe 5%?

(Also, given zoning and city layout, most houses are a lot more than 5 minutes away from most offices. Even if my commute is 8:20-8:50 and yours is 9:15-9:45, we're probably both heading into the city centre from outside, so the same car probably can't serve us both).

<comment><USER7> > Even if my commute is 8:20-8:50 and yours is 9:15-9:45, we're probably both > heading into the city centre from outside, so the same car probably can't > serve us both).

If you are willing to share the ride, you can have the same car serve you and someone else who shares a similar route and is willing to travel 10 minutes early (or late - can be incentivize by a discount).

Self-driving cars can make car-pooling easier - it can be a hyperlocal public transport system. Pick up 4 people who are traveling from/to within a 2-mile radius with each other, and peak traffic will be 25% of what it is now (best case). It's even simpler considering that most people commute the same route everyday.

<comment><USER6> > If you are willing to share the ride, you can have the same car serve you > and someone else who shares a similar route and is willing to travel 10 > minutes early (or late - can be incentivize by a discount).

What does the self-driving car change in that case? Wouldn't that be just the same as ordinary carpooling that we can do today?

<comment><USER5> Right now, I need to manually find someone who is carpooling. If there happens to be someone on my street that I know and is going to roughly the same place, that's fine. However, there are many trips which have overlapping segments that I'd never be able to find without an automated system.

For carpooling with my own car, that's really too much work to try and hunt down someone, figure out how cost sharing is going to work, ensure that our schedules are in sync often enough for it to work out, and so on.

With an automated system, it can just adapt to changing demands. Maybe some days schedules are too far out of sync, so it just sends dedicated cars. Maybe some days there's someone better to pool with.

You can already do this with systems like UberPool, but with self driving cars, you don't have to pay a dedicated driver, so it becomes even cheaper and more convenient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can someone with knowledge answer questions about the current state of autonomous cars:

1) What do these cars do in ambiguous driving environments: construction zones, poorly/under relined lanes, freshly paved roads, hazards, dark/rainy roads where camera images are useless, etc.

2) How do these cars handle system failure while driving? Blown tire, engine failure, etc.

3) Is there "Moral Decision Engine" code in current generation cars? E.g. person runs out in front of an autonomous car, the car chooses to spare the person by veering off and hitting some inanimate object. I can imagine a class of accidents in traditional hands-on cars where a driver hurts himself in order to avoid harming a pedestrian. Is such moral logic hard wired into autonomous cars?

<comment><USER9> 1) Some of the extant cars cede control to the human driver if things get too difficult. This is a problem because people will context switch away from driving and there is no way to get them back in the game in 100ms when the car needs help.

2) Engine failure is not a big deal, it just means coast to a stop on the side of the road with hazard lights on. Blowouts are a little trickier. But what about unusual stuff like hitting a deer? A wheel falling off? Or another car drifting into the side of our car on the expressway? Those are tricky but not truly rare. This is an area where implementors will need to compete yet purchasers will have a very incomplete view of the relative performance of cars on the market (it's not a single number like HP).

3) Hitting a pole instead of a person is an easy choice. Yet one that many humans would not be able to make quickly enough. I think autonomous cars will outperform human drivers in "moral" decision making quite early on.

<comment><USER8> Thanks.

1) Expecting a human to be on deck within some fraction of a second in challenging times will not fly.

2) Perhaps software in cars can be independently safety tested. Just like cars are collision tested today.

3) Understand about human reaction times. My question is about making moral choices: hit a pedestrian or sacrifice the driver?

<comment><USER10> Your wording is very interesting on #3, "hit" a pedestrian versus "sacrificing" a driver. I don't think this situation is very likely. A self driving car should be aware of people and would likely be able to compensate without killing the passenger.

If it was a case of hitting a pedestrian versus driving off a cliff I feel like the pedestrian will just be SOL for getting in that situation. Otherwise you could have murder by car relatively easily.

Maybe we could make people register their car settings at the DMV like we do for organ donations. "Would you like to opt-in to the murder-children AI driver, or the martyr driver?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> More precisely, Alphabet wants to make Google Car an Alphabet company

</comment><comment><USER12> Looking forward to a few years time when they rename the company Google again.

<comment><USER13> I honestly think this will happen. Products like Chrome or Android just wouldn't have survived as standalone companies, so why is it a good idea now to detach projects?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> As Alphabet moves out projects from Google, does that make Google a less interesting place to work at?

And introduce more bureaucracy as now Google Car has to negotiate with Google for access to AI tech, computers, maps etc instead of just using whatever they can?

</comment><comment><USER15> It's been years since the Google car has been in research. I've seen a video of it, perfectly driving a blind man in 2012. It was amazing, but now it's almost 2016 and I know nothing new.

What have they been doing over the last 3 years? I even tried reading their blog, but they only report on building more prototypes or driving more miles. It's a blackout of actual information about their challenges and achievements. When will they be confident enough to launch it, or at least talk about it?

<comment><USER16> [https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/](https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The Associated Press article about the California Department of Motor Vehicles proposed new rules for cars with autonomous driving features[1] suggests one reason to be pessimistic about the vision of rentable self-driving cars becoming a reality as soon as Google would like. (I would like it to be a reality soon, too, but I have to wait for what the technologists and regulators involved can do together to make that a reality for me.) A company that rents out rides to paying riders has to have a market to operate in, and any state could (and, if California is an example, maybe would) regulate that company in ways that might not make it a feasible business. A follow-up article on this news[2] says that Google is "disappointed" by the newly announced California rules.

[1] "California: Self-driving cars must have driver behind wheel under DMV proposed rules" (16 December 2015)

[http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_29262037/california-s...](http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_29262037/california- self-driving-cars-must-have-driver-behind)

[2] "Google 'disappointed' by proposed restrictions on driverless cars" (16 December 2015)

[http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2015/12/16/google- di...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2015/12/16/google-disappointed- by-proposed-rules-from-california-dmv/77447672/)

<comment><USER18> I've never viewed these sorts of regulative barriers as anything more than a headache for Google. There's going to be _some_ government somewhere on earth that will be gung ho about self-driving cars. Americans will not stand for the US not being #1, so regulators will be forced to do a rather quick 180 on this.

<comment><USER19> Meh, Americans also don't like dying horribly and will freakout if they think something makes that more likely. The FDA is relatively conservative compared to many other countries and, especially after Thalidomide, most people probably appreciate that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How will driverless cars deal with crime? How is a passenger going to get away from a car chasing to rob him? How will a self-driving car truck run away from thieves in the highway?

<comment><USER21> Is this a problem most people face? Not to mention a truck isn't gonna be able to run away from anyone, driverless or not.

Kinda sounds like you're inventing problems here and pretending human solutions exist (again, how will any truck run away in the first place?)

I'd imagine a car will hundreds of cameras and sensors in it would be better equipped to deal with crime anyways.

<comment><USER22> This kind of thing comes up in driverless car threads all the time, it's quite odd. People trying to come up with complex situations that humans are likely to be terrible at themselves.

I've seen plenty around constructing some trolley-problem style moral argument about deciding who to kill in a crash. I don't know why it's expected that they'd have to solve, in a fraction of a second, a problem that people have been arguing over for years. The human reaction will probably be at the level of "jerk wheel quickly".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> C is for Car?

<comment><USER24> and D is for Driverless

<comment><USER25> And E is for Elon... woops, wrong driver-less car company.

<comment><USER26> I'd say E is for Electric

<comment><USER27> F is for Fantasy

<comment><USER26> G is for ... on wait, we already Got that one.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How I Replaced 3 External Hard Drives with the Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.process.st/2014/08/how-to-backup-your-external-hard-drives-with-google-drive/

<comment><USER2> The huge problem with this is upload time and bandwidth. For me at least to upload 1TB to the cloud on my reasonably crappy speed ADSL+ connection (1 mbps up, 4 mbps down) it would take more than 2000 hours, assuming constantly on connection and no upload traffic limit.</comment>


Ask HN: When Did Indexes and Query Planners Become a Part of a Database? - <AUTHOR>

I wanted to see if anyone here knew how they got integrated in the modern database system and what were the adoption challenges and maturity issues before we all now take then for granted. <comment><USER2> Indexes are very old; they predate database systems. For example, old IBM mainframe operating systems had indexed sequential files (ISAM)[1] in the 1960s. Early databases - the ones based on hierarchical and network data models that preceded relational databases - all had indexes.

Query optimization dates all the way back to IBM's System R, a research database that was the first implementation of SQL.[2] The third reference in the Wikipedia article[3] is the paper on query optimization published by the IBM team in 1979. Query optimization was needed to make the performance of relational databases competitive with the older databases that existed at the time, since complex queries across joined tables could be very inefficient if implemented naively (the largest mainframes in those days only had a few megabytes of memory).

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

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

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_optimization#References](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_optimization#References)

</comment><comment><USER3> Some of us have been using indexes since 1896 or so. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge- notched_card](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge-notched_card)</comment>


Google blacklists - <AUTHOR> http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google-is-the-worlds-biggest-censor-and-its-power-must-be-regulated <comment><USER2> This critique confuses me:

"In December 2014, facing a new law in Spain that would have charged Google for scraping content from Spanish news sources (which, after all, have to pay to prepare their news), Google suddenly withdrew its news service from Spain, which led to an immediate drop in traffic to Spanish new stories."

So Spanish law changed to try and force Google to pay for indexing their news content therefore Google responded by no longer indexing their news content - and then they complained they weren't being indexed?

<comment><USER3> Spanish here: It's exactly like you described, and shameful. To add to the idiocy, it happened right after Germany enacted a similar law, the difference being the German version let news organizations negotiate collective agreements with search engines. Obviously, in less than 1 second, they had an agreement with Google to index for free, because they wanted the traffic more than a fee. So the Spanish government thought they could outsmart the Germans and made a version in which payment was compulsory for all search engines. Everybody saw it coming, except the government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I get that google has the _power_ to censor, but the examples the author gives... I kind of side with google for most of it.

They _need_ to censor autocomplete, otherwise all sorts of depraved crap will turn up. Like another commenter here said, just start typing "jews/muslims/gays/blacks/whites are..." on DuckDuckGo to see why it's needed.

I get the google maps blacklist too. 99.99999% of people will not need to see the areas that are blacked out. Those that want to see them, probably shouldn't! It's a consumer-level mapping tool, it's for showing your kids some geography and getting directions to your friend's cottage.

I understand why Google obeys foreign governments too. They're a private business, if Pakistan wants to censor youtube, let them. From a Western perspective, we think this is bad, but we don't live in Pakistan to fully understand why they need that control. It's not Google's job to be prescribing to foreign countries how they should operate.

And I get why they blacklist websites and entire domains. Sorry, but co.cc _was_ being abused, it needed to go. Whatever google is doing to fight spam is working, my inbox is clean as a whistle, I literally can't remember the last time I got spam.

Ultimately, my point is that, yes google "censors" things. But I haven't seen them do anything that's terribly "evil", it's generally been under the scope of providing a better user experience.

<comment><USER5> It's also worth pointing out that "freedom of the press" in the US means freedom for businesses that own printing presses. Removing stuff from autocomplete is an editorial decision. Removing and reordering stuff in search results can be an editorial decision. As someone who tried (and failed) to compete with Google's search engine, I don't think the US government should regulate editorial decisions of search engines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [some people seem super annoyed that i pointed it out, and it seems to have brought out the brigade, so i'm just editing this out]

<comment><USER7> Why would someone write an article like this if they didn't have an agenda? Every author has biases, whether or not they are conscious or overt.

The better approach is to use your critical thinking skills and avoid ad hominem judgments about the author.

<comment><USER6> "Why would someone write an article like this if they didn't have an agenda?"

Errr, to start a discussion?

You don't have to have agendas to have reasoned intellectual discussions.

"Every author has biases, whether or not they are conscious or overt."

This is such a throw away line i'm not sure why you added it.

"The better approach is to use your critical thinking skills and avoid ad hominem judgments about the author."

In theory, yes, but honestly, i find it's not worth my time when i know it means he's likely leaving out info, etc, instead of trying to present stuff in a reasonable way.

I tend to see others do the same. I don't think you will change this (see, as an example, the viewpoints of the entire populace on pretty much anything, and the way they treat information presented by people they feel have agendas).

You can argue till you are blue in the face that this is not what should happen, but it won't change that it does :)

<comment><USER7> > This is such a throw away line i'm not sure why you added it.

If you understood it, you would not have written something so naive as "Honesty, i wish articles like this were written by people without agendas, so that real discussions would be had."

<comment><USER6> So i see we are back to ad hominen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What garbage. For one, the safe browsing API does not disclose URLs to Google. Instead, a 4 byte hash prefix is used[0]. I'll leave it to others to dissect the rest of the FUD in this poorly researched piece.

[0] [https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/v3/update- guide](https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/v3/update-guide)

</comment><comment><USER9> The state probably ought to actually be transparent before doing this. Otherwise, you're just going to make the state the biggest censor rather than Google, which is a much worse problem in my opinion.

<comment><USER5> How much transparency is involved in the European Right to be Forgotten? None.

<comment><USER10> Google actually acts as the censor in RTBF. While the government has publicly set the criteria for processing RTBF requests, Google itself is tasked with making the decision whether or not to remove a site from search results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I suspect that regulation will result in more censorship.

For example, EU regulations regarding the "right to be forgotten" have resulted in Google being legally required to remove items from search results that Google would not have removed otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's definitely enlightening to see the autocomplete differences with another search engine such as duckduckgo.com

<comment><USER5> DDG appears to not autocomplete dirty words, but try starting with [jews are] or [muslims are] or [gays are] and you'll see the kind of stuff that eventually led to Google's autocomplete being heavily scrubbed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Compare "Information Policy for the Library of Babel": [http://james.grimmelmann.net/files/Library.markdown](http://james.grimmelmann.net/files/Library.markdown)

</comment><comment><USER13> I noticed censorship and manipulation of viewership data on YouTube in 2008:

[http://lee-phillips.org/youtube/](http://lee-phillips.org/youtube/)

The article touches on this in its mention of Pakistan's influence on YouTube policy.

The implications are rather chilling: Google allows the Pakistani government to have a say in what Americans are allowed to see on the internet.

And this article, while it brings up important issues, would be far more credible if it didn't make claims about "blocking the entire internet" and wonder who "gave" Google the "right" to block whatever sites they wish to.

</comment><comment><USER14> Access Denied

You don't have permission to access "[http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google- is-...](http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google-is-the- worlds-biggest-censor-and-its-power-must-be-regulated") on this server.

==/BLOCKEDBYGOOGLEBOT\==

</comment><comment><USER15> I see also that Twitter stops hashtags from auto-completing. I guess there's a department responsible for the manual maintenance of a blacklist of ostensibly offensive hashtags. I wish there was some transparency into this list for trend analysis.</comment>


HAL 9000 Life-Size Replica - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/f29d/

<comment><USER2> I was really hoping someone had a built a replica of the Logic Memory Center complete with illuminatied Perspex "logic modules" or whatever they're called.

</comment><comment><USER3> More like a "Life-Size Replica" of one of HAL's cameras. I was expecting the whole internal memory bank and associated. This is just disappointing.

</comment><comment><USER4> What about the desk console from the pod bay? Or all those screens with 3 letters? They were all CRTs weren't they? On a side note, I was just thinking about how, "not forward thinking" the movies were for using something as outdated as CRTs... then I realized, In 2001, we WERE using CRTs!!!

</comment><comment><USER5> Hmm. The video says it's from the 1967 movie. I wonder what movie? 2001: A Space Odyssey was released in 1968.

#pointlesspedantry

</comment><comment><USER6> > This is it. No silly stories, no funny antidotes.

I could use a funny antidote after that!

</comment><comment><USER7> When a version with a built in Arduino, mic, and camera comes out, maybe then I'll consider it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I feared it was going to be hard to resist buying this. Then I saw the product video.

</comment><comment><USER9> pretty awesome - but that's just the UI for HAL a full replica :p</comment>


SorryOpenERP - Friends don't let friends use OpenERP - <AUTHOR> http://www.sorryopenerp.com/

<comment><USER2> So basically,

The author doesn't like AGPL.

It's hard to upgrade from v6 to v7, and v7 (which is new) has bugs. Who upgrades their _ERP_ to a new version without waiting for at least version x.1 ?

Python with a DIY ORM was a poor choice for an ERP (mem hog and floating point accounting). I guess OpenERP should have used the decimal module for Python.

And it sounds like OpenERP really fucked up the Party Model[1]. I'm surprised how many companies fuck up the Party Model. Salesforce fucks it up (you have to pay extra for a module to sell to an individual vs a company), and SugarCRM did too. Only MS Dynamics CRM seems to have it right (I'm probably missing some).

Oddly enough, the author shits on OpenERP's bad password management, but extols the virtues of Tryton, whose SSL cert is untrusted ([https://demo.tryton.org](https://demo.tryton.org))

[1] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/716549/what-are-the- princ...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/716549/what-are-the-principles- behind-and-benefits-of-the-party-model)

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't it all overly agressive? I honestly still can't decide if I think it's satire or not.

Maybe you'll get sympathy from people who already use OpenERP and share your strong negative opinion about it, but more balanced tech and business leaders considering an open source ERP might be put off by the overall tone, maybe even to the point of questioning the seriousness of your endeavor.

</comment><comment><USER4> I worked at a wholesale distribution company which implemented OpenERP and I have seen most of these issues this site makes fun of.

Had a nice laugh.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We have thought about this every waking moment and then dreamt about it as well. We all knew what we had to do and it was high time that somebody put their hands up and decided it was enough. The Sorry OpenERP campaign is our way of declaring freedom from the cradle of filth, that we all know as Open ERP.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone in Need of a Friend? - <AUTHOR> I noticed some old people here that work remotely. How do you find people to talk to and maintain regular interaction with others?<p>Isn't it addictive to work more from the comforts of your home than you would otherwise at a dedicated workplace? <comment><USER2> I'm married, with kids. I have more social interaction than I need. Also there's far more communication with remote work than face to face.

Office work doesn't necessarily have that much interaction either; only half my jobs we had lunch together or talked every now and then.

I think the thing to be careful about with remote work is you don't move around enough. It's tempting to skip lunch or even bathroom breaks, and sitting on the chair too long is likely to make you feel bad.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's an easy rabbit hole to fall into, and comparatively harder to get out.

Sure, I could quit, but what would I do then? Browse HN all day?

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been working remote for a long time, and I've done it as a founder with a fully remote team and as an employee in both remote and mixed remote/on-site teams.

It is super easy to get yourself into a state where you don't go out and you overwork without even realizing it. Even after all these years I did that to myself last summer/fall and thankfully I work for some pretty good people who also saw it and we talked about it and realized I needed to take a short break. They could tell my demeanor was off a little and my productivity had gone down from what it normally is. So yea, it is an easy trap to fall into even when you know better.

My basic rules I have for myself, and I ignored a couple last year for a little while which is what bit me.

1\. Have a hobby or something where other people depend on you that is outside your home. In my case I generally coach club (travel) volleyball which gets me out of the house multiple days a week and at least 1-2 weekends a month where I interact with other human beings face to face. And it has nothing to do with technology.

2\. Have a general hobby you enjoy doing that isn't something on the computer. I absolutely enjoy hobbies on the computer but you need something to break your habit of sitting in front of it cause you can. I also have a family & kids which helps me break this some.

3\. Set hours and stick to them. Within reason of course.

4\. Setup a distinct area where you work, and don't have it be a common area where you spend all your other time. What I have found is that it makes it too easy to keep doing work while say turning on the TV. So you fool yourself thinking you are relaxing but you still have the computer in front of you.

5\. Force yourself to go out of the house/office everyday at least for coffee or lunch etc. I'll sometimes make a lunch at the house and go to the beach to eat there, just is that separation.

There are other things, but that's kinda the big stuff IMO. How I got myself into trouble last year is I wasn't coaching spring/summer of 2019 and I violated #3 and was working crazy hours on both work stuff and learning some new technical skills which was burning me out. I fixed it by taking a few days off as a start and I already was scheduled to start coaching again in November so that then kicked me out of the house more to interact with people.

There are lots of team oriented factors I didn't mention, but having people you interact with regularly on your team that can do what my founders did for me is helpful. They caught me burning out just through the fact we talked pretty regularly and my basic demeanor and productivity had changed enough they could feel it and wanted to make sure I was good.

</comment><comment><USER5> Would you downvote me for saying yes?</comment>


6 Web App Ideas Off My Chest - <AUTHOR> http://www.nilkanth.com/2010/05/21/6-ideas-off-my-chest/ <comment><USER2> I thought about 4 out of these 6 ideas myself over the years and that makes me realize even more that a truly unique idea is a very rare thing. Ideas are so worthless, unless they are related to HOW you go about implementing one of these obvious already-thought-of ideas.

Does anybody know of a site where you can go and find out what apps already exist that implemented your idea? I'm sure that a lot of people wouldn't use it because you have to divulge your idea to find out whether it's been done before, but I for one would find it incredibly useful. If this doesn't exist, I'm going to build it. Wait a minute, forget I said that.

<comment><USER3> _Does anybody know of a site where you can go and find out what apps already exist that implemented your idea?_

Google?

(Obviously this isn't ideal because the person who implemented your idea may not have implemented SEO to target your idea in your words, but I couldn't resist.)

<comment><USER2> It doesn't work that well. At all. Try googling for any of the six ideas the OP listed and see if you can find any if not all of the apps out there that implement them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've got buyagoal, buymygoal, sellagoal and sellmygoal.com for sale if someone wants to start trading goals ...

E.g. 'If you can: make me lose X pounds in Y weeks, I'll pay you Z'

It's a better business model .... ;)

<comment><USER5> I've always wanted the following:

A site I can "commit" to a goal buy sending money. I assign a friend I trust to update the site (let's say every week) on whether I'm fulfilling my commitment (exercising, dieting, etc.) As long as I keep my goal, I don't pay the money. If I don't meet my goal a certain week, 50% of my money goes to charity, 50% to the site (or some such percentage).

<comment><USER6> Check out: <http://www.stickk.com/tour.php>

You can pick a goal, set the stakes, select the friend you trust, and even get supporters -- all based on ideas from the field of behavioral economics.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for pointing out this website! I was looking for similar website to encourage bunch of 30 something friends to exercise. How do they earn money? What is the business model here?

<comment><USER6> b2b potentially, according to this article: [http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/30/stickk-raises-more- funding-...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/30/stickk-raises-more-funding-for- self-commitment-service-eyes-b2b-play/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm all for sharing web app ideas (and ideas in general), but I get the feeling this person didn't Google for any of these ideas before posting this. Reading through, I had at least one existing website come to mind for each one.

1\. Carpooling: zimride.com

2\. Comments Aggregation: backtype.com (sort of, perhaps this is one not actually done)

3\. Social Goals: 43things.com

4\. Feedback for Startups: could be done with getsatisfaction.com and surveygizmo.com (in fact I've used surveygizmo.com's API to offer incentives in RateMyStudentRental.com for completing the survey, took about 15min to setup)

5\. Food photos: there are actually many more than I came up with initially, just scan the rest of this thread (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366785>)

6\. Integrated Blogging Environment: Tumblr.com does most of that, then there are also apps like the ScribeFire extension for Firefox

<comment><USER8> I totally agree. I'm also all for discussion, but I think he makes a mistake when he tries to imply they are special at all and other people should "go for" them / are "free to use them". Some of these ideas have been around for ~10 years. I actually posted a comment at the link critiquing along these lines. He moderated the comment out. I don't blame him because the comment was pretty straightforward in calling him unoriginal. The original comment:

"""Yeah, I'm reading back now trying to figure if you're just being sarcastic or trolling. But I guess you must not be. Listen, most of those ideas, save the comment aggregation one as far as I know, have been around for ever and have in fact been done and have gone through iterations. I'd go down the list because there's something to say about all of them but I don't want to take the time. I'd just suggest that you use google. Maybe throw out a few things: erideshare.com ; 43things.com / weightwatchers (not a whole lot to do with game theory but that does sound smart); blogger.com is wsywg ; gastroporn as primary content hasn't (yet) worked in a big way despite being tried a few times (radar.net / other mobile photo sharing sites with food channels).; uservoice.com and it's competition. Coupon incentives are sleazy. It's important to have ideas and to talk about them. That's great. But you can't really say these are your original ideas. There's like, a lot of prior art on all of these. It almost seems like you're hoping in 10 or 15 years you can point girls to this blog post and be like "See, I just gave those guys my ideas back in 2010 cause that's what kind of a guy I am, and they did em. I'm the seed planter." or somesuch (crack inspired?) reattribution. It's probably not going to work. But hey - a piece of good advice that should shine through this critique (I hope): Just work on your own stuff. If you have good ideas show it. Do it. Anyone can write a few paragraphs about websites that are already way in existence and pretend like they just got something "off their chest"."""

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Feedback for Startups is intriguing because the pain is definitely there but this approaches it from the wrong perspective. How can we help startups get feedback from potential users in their target market, not just those seeking incentives for doing simple tasks?

<comment><USER10> There's already at least a few feedback sites out there. There's that one with the orange "Feedback" tab I've seen some places, that pops out from the side. I can't remember the name. But perhaps none of them do what's described in this article.

<comment><USER11> That's UserVoice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Commenting on the idea is fun but not productive. Address the real issue: why are you standing there doing nothing? Fear of failure? Lack necessary skills? No partner? Address these things, one at a time, and that's progress.

</comment><comment><USER5> I like the comment idea, but focused on the user posting. For example, I'd like to put up a page in my blog that aggregates pretty much everything I've ever written online, ever. That way, I could have a "collected writings" page that will show my comments on various blogs, on HN, on reddit, maybe reviews I've written for Amazon, etc.

There are some technical difficulties with doing this automatically (how will you find every comment I ever post on any old blog?). But this would definitely be a cool way to aggregate all my writing into one place. It could also have controls letting me exclude certain writings, etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> car pooling app - <http://avego.com>

</comment><comment><USER14> My carpool app for Ireland: <http://getthere.ie/> To solve the chicken and egg problem it's built on top of a public transport info site.

<comment><USER15> Yay, Ireland ... I'm in Cork

have you thought about advertising to hostels?, this could be very useful to travellers looking for rides ...

p.s. The bus eireann site is a completely ridiculous joke!!!, how did you get around that issue?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> And here I went, "So, all six of these are being done by someone, so why don't we have a web application directory?"

In comes google with three of them. <http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/> <http://appuseful.com/> <http://www.go2web20.net/>

Now, if only they were comprehensive... Makeuseof is pretty cool, though.

</comment><comment><USER17> goal setting - <http://www.43things.com/>

I agree, the comment aggregator has some merit.

</comment><comment><USER18> Integrated blogging, I like that. Useful for content mills. Just look at the amount of value created by Associated Content. $20m per year of existence.

</comment><comment><USER19> Comments Aggregation: <http://www.cocomment.com/>

<comment><USER20> cocomment seems to aggregate with respect to the person making the comments. Does anything aggregate comments with respect to the thing being commented on?

Given an interesting bit of content, it gets posted on a variety of sites that support commenting on links (Digg/Reddit/HN/...) and frequently the comments are actually more interesting than the original content so getting a unified version of those would be nice and something I'd probably use.

<comment><USER21> > Does anything aggregate comments with respect to the thing being commented > on?

<http://co.mments.com>

<comment><USER19> I was going to include that in my post but the site is down. Still seems to be. So I just assumed they'd gone under because I hadn't heard of them for a year or so.. Know anything to the contrary?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like the comment aggregator idea. Thought of it some time ago as well; it'd be really neat.

<comment><USER23> So does everybody else, which explains why there are 460 of these sites up today. None of them have critical mass, so they're all completely useless. And since there's really no good way to make money doing it, nobody big enough to gain critical mass is going to take it on.

<comment><USER24> perhaps what is needed is not another central commenting site, but rather a site that aggregates the comments of hackernews, slashdot, reddit etc. as well as phpbb forums on the webpage of the original post

So I place a commenting widget on my blog and interlieved in the comments on the original post are the discussions from other websites that point to the same url.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How will you make money with any of them?

</comment><comment><USER26> I like the food idea.

<comment><USER27> <http://tastespotting.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> checkout zimride.com for the carpooling idea</comment>


First 3DS Emulator (Citra) to Run Zelda OOT - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF8qBGYrYjA#t=15

<comment><AUTHOR> Although now playable yet. Github project for interested ppl [https://github.com/citra-emu/citra](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra)</comment>


Wikileaks publishes documents showing how Google helped Al-Qaeda in Syria - <AUTHOR> https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/wikileaks-publishes-documents-showing-google-helped-al-qaeda-syria/ <comment><USER2> Lies about the very sources (an email) it cites. Also incoherent - what did Google do exactly?</comment>


Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project as a blueprint for living online - <AUTHOR> https://reallifemag.com/the-arcades-project/ <comment><USER2> While I appreciate Benjamin's point (very much so, in the sense of "dealing with what we have" in the commodified and totalizing culture of capitalism, as he might put it), I am also sympathetic to Adorno and Marcuse's thoughts against the project - the idea that engaging in commodity culture can be liberating is just as valid as the idea that it sinks one deeper into the totality. Marcuse's argument, in fact, was that the only hope for resistance against the system came from _outside_ its totalizing influence, those who had not been integrated into the system yet. The idea of 'the arcade' does not seem to be realized anywhere. Readers of the article (or indeed Benjamin's works) may get the impression that this is a space that (1) already exists, or (2) we can create in today (after Benjamin's time). Both of these suppositions are doubtful. Adorno noted in the preface to the second edition of _The Dialectic of Enlightment_ that it had in some ways become more relevant than when it was initially published.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting comment! I'm not the author of the article, but I know them. I think her perspective is that we are free to imagine arcades within the web construct, flaneuring through the images and ideas in an ambulatory way, trying to grasp the totality in different ways. I take it as an antithesis to the more common interpretation of the web as a filter bubble. I think like all of Benjamin's work, there's a performative element — he's not simply trying to extract the truth of the matter but rather encouraging us towards a more 'adventurous' being.</comment></comment>


Breaches, traders, plain text passwords, ethical disclosure and 000webhost - <AUTHOR> http://www.troyhunt.com/2015/10/breaches-traders-plain-text-passwords.html?m=1 <comment><USER2> Possibly the most horrifying parts of this situation are:

1\. A dump of 000webhost's user database was being circulated and actively exploited for _over six months_ , and they either never realized what was going on, or never took any action. (I'm not even sure which would be worse.)

2\. 000webhost made themselves essentially impossible for the author to contact (regarding a very serious security issue!), and _still_ haven't publicly acknowledged the breach, beyond forcing a password reset.

<comment><USER3> As much as this whole thing is horrific, to be fair about 1), if a dump doesn't show up in any public forum, pastebin or Tweet, it can be hard to realistically become aware of it.

(and yes, point 2 makes that redundant in this case)

<comment><USER2> Over a short period, sure. Over a period of six months, though, as the credentials get passed around and used... _surely_ they should have noticed that their customers' sites were getting exploited unusually often, and in ways that couldn't be explained by typical poor security practices?

<comment><USER3> I've done a lot of work with cheap shared hosting and... I doubt it. Closing a compromised account until it's repaired is something I've done five times in a day, and I stopped investigating after a while because it was absolutely always a Wordpress or Joomla installation that hadn't been updated in five+ years.

I played for a while with sending people warning letters asking them to upgrade known vulnerable versions, and more often than not they would just close their account and move it somewhere they "don't have those issues".

It's easy to be amongst larger application developers and lose track of just how low the bar in the market they are playing in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A good way of determining how seriously an organization takes security is to look for any kind of security incident report page or security contact info. Bonus points for publishing a GPG key for the security account. Pretend you have a found a security issue in their system and look for how to they want that reported.

Also. Unresponsive companies like this contribute to the volume of people who don't bother with responsible disclosure and just go straight to full disclosure, anonymously or not.

Companies need to see a hit on their bottom line or a breach in their own security before they take it seriously, as has been demonstrated time and again.

<comment><USER5> Are we doing it right? [https://paragonie.com/contact](https://paragonie.com/contact) :)

<comment><USER6> I'm getting a 502 from CloudFlare, so maybe not?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I don't know what happened. I got those last night and I SSH'd in and there were no problems on our end: Both nginx and php5-fpm were running clean as a whistle, no error log entries, etc. :\

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, terrible response.

Unfortunately I believe I'm on that list from when I was in middle or high school, dabbling with PHP. I'm certain that I haven't used that password in nearly 10 years (and of course now use a password manager with random passwords for every site), but it still feels terrible anyway that my email and plaintext password are being sold online.

<comment><USER8> You can confirm now via the service troy runs: [https://haveibeenpwned.com/](https://haveibeenpwned.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> To a first approximation: _all_ of these no-name hosting services are owned up. Do not use mom-and-pop hosting providers.

<comment><USER10> I agree. I am constantly surprised when people have the concept of _free_

They will happily pay $50 - $200 for drinks on the weekend, but when something hosting comes up, there's a perception that it "should" be free.

At the end of the day, we all pay. It's just a question of how much...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I made a free html&css course some time ago and used 000webhost for the convenience of just zipping and uploading it to make it live. Now I have to dig up their contact to tell them the bad news. 000webhost turned out to be like a bad STD.

</comment><comment><USER11> They need to work on their security, but I've had three websites up for four years--for free. Never paid a cent. I don't think another hosting service can beat free.

I did have problems with one site, it was hijacked by someone with a .ru email. I needed to point my name servers elsewhere in order to get my account back. Yes, it was a problem, but their staff was not completely indifferent to my problem. I've experience worse.

I can't knock a free server. If they get their security problems worked out, I would consider paying them, and using them for a site I really cared about.

<comment><USER12> AWS has a free tier as long as you don't go over limit. But obviously if you get DDoS, then your bill can go up.

Digital Ocean is a good one for $5 and pretty stable for me. If all you need is a static site, use github.

<comment><USER4> Prepaid credit cards are a very valuable tool for anyone using the AWS free tier of service. Its an extra layer of protection if you ever do get DDoS'd.

No, I don't care if it means amazon doesn't get paid for the bandwidth consumed by an attack. Sometimes all I care about is not getting a 10k or bigger bill at the end of the month for what was advertised as free. IMO they really need a way of automatically shutting down VMs that go over limit instead of just charging the credit card on file.

<comment><USER13> If it's your personal project, shove CloudFlare in front of the AWS site.

Also, they have [http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/Developer...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/DeveloperGuide/UsingAlarmActions.html) but like a lot of things with AWS, it's ridiculously complex.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I understand that it's possible to configure alerts so that you are notified when your account goes overlimit, but for pet projects, I don't want to be notified and expected to respond, I want it to just stop the server. I don't see them ever actually implementing this though because it wouldn't bring in any additional revenue.

<comment><USER14> I don't see why you couldn't use the cloudwatch metric to just turn off all your instances if you go over budget.

Of course it would require you to set it up, but for the vast majority of companies that are on AWS, if they were to go over their budget, it would be worse to shut down the instances in that case...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This guy on Reddit also noticed a security issue years ago...

[http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/3qqo79/000webhost_da...](http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/3qqo79/000webhost_data_breach_13m_passwords_disclosed/cwhmsd9)

</comment><comment><USER16> Jesus. Thanks for the heads up. I was with these guys last month, now im on their paid service. Great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Then you _might_ be lucky since the breach was 7 months ago (yikes)

<comment><USER16> It reports im included. I think the account was really old, im going to migrate to a new host this weekend. Shit.

Anyone got a good host they use? Lol. There goes my weekend. Daaaaamnit!

<comment><USER13> DigitalOcean or AWS, GitHub or NeoCities for static stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really hate hearing about all these cyber attacks lately. Makes me worried some day the government will force you to get an expensive license to launch a website, maybe even requiring years of mandatory college.

Just a bit scared that someday these irresponsible companies will some day ruin it all for even ones that are responsible such as hashing passwords and other security measures.

Wonder if other Hostinger services were also hacked like YouHosting or Hosting24

</comment><comment><USER18> Just got an e-mail from them about the breach.

"At 000webhost we are committed to protect user information and our systems. We are sorry and sincerely apologize we didn't manage to live up to that."

Being committed to protect user information and saving passwords as plain text are two different things in my opinion, though..

</comment><comment><USER19> Always exciting to see my home country (Cyprus) mentioned although I'm 90% sure that's just a shell corp and the address is their accountant's/lawyer's office.

</comment><comment><USER20> Damn, one of my old accounts got compromised. Thanks for reporting, no communication received from 000webhost at all about this issue.</comment>


Show HN: A program to beat procrastination - <AUTHOR> I'm a mobile and web designer. I used to procrastinate a lot. After my procrastination became too much of a concern I learned about the psychology behind procrastination, the research done (and being done) on it, and how to overcome it. Then I made a series of changes to my approach in doing tasks and now I'm on top of my schedule (not completely but almost).
Based on my learning and experience I've started a program that aims to help people beat procrastination. The program is now in beta phase. So far, one person took part in the beta and in his words,
> the program helped me enough that I felt myself a steam raise, and others commented on my level of productivity with surprise and gratitude.
If I find it works the same way for more people I'll launch the program publicly. If you'd like to take part in the beta here's an outline:
1. You'll answer a questionnaire to let me understand your procrastination. 2. The program will run for 5 days. Each day you'll do a set of your procrastinated tasks. At the end of the day you'll answer a few questions to let me understand your bottlenecks, based on which I'll give you specific tips to overcome them. 3. At the end of the fifth day, if you're happy with the outcome of the program, and if you feel like it, you may pay what you want.
You'll be in complete control of the program and you can stop anytime you want. By joining the beta at worst you'll just continue the way it is; but if it works you'll get started on your long procrastinated tasks and feel great. Contact me if you're interested. <comment><USER2> The "Show HN:" section is usually for showing something. You might be better off using the "Ask HN:" section in order to get feedback on this idea.</comment>


Building a Go Compiler in Go - <AUTHOR> http://newquistsolutions.com/blog/technical/building-a-go-compiler-in-go/

<comment><USER2> It's an interesting article, but wow is that line-spacing difficult to read.

<comment><USER3> Not only insanely difficult to read, but actually low on content--I would very much like to read more about that but this is probably coming in the future...</comment></comment>


If I taught full stack RoR dev in SF for $30/2 hours would you come? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Thirty dollars? That's much too low. Rates for training typically build in premiums for the time it takes to build courseware and for the fact that course delivery is very demanding. A $5-10k day (for the trainer) is not at all outside the norm for in-person training. There are plenty of open- enrollment classes that are in the $1-3k/attendee range.

If you're giving the class just to figure out how your courseware works, or to dip your toes in the water --- I do both somewhat regularly (as in, a few times in the last 5 years), just do free. $30 isn't even enough to work well as earnest money.

<comment><USER3> It depends on several factors. How good is the tutor is and how long tutor has experience in RoR programming. If somebody is starting out to develop a customer base then this is perhaps a good start. I agree the price is low but If he completely new(I mean having less recognition) in this area is planning to take a dozen or two students per session then the price is ok.

If it is targeted at intermediate level, I would certainly be glad to take it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is comparable to the hourly rate for lessons I took for fun or otherwise for personal benefit. Swing dance lessons, improv comedy, etc.

I'm not seeking to learn RoR, but your rate strikes me as extremely reasonable. tptacek suggests that it's too low; I'll just say that if I wanted to invest 2 hours in this, I'd certainly also be willing to invest $30.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is interesting. I like teaching and have thought about doing something similar for iOS development in/around NYC as a means of supplemental income but I haven't quite worked out how to go about it yet.

I'd be really interested in hearing how this goes for you!

</comment><comment><USER6> What's the target audience, are you going to filter by, say, DBAs, QA engineers and those conversant in django/java/PHP who're crossing over vs. people getting started in dev?

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't live in SF or need that sort of instruction, but that strikes me as a bargain rate - even for group instruction.

<comment><USER8> Agreed - it sounds a lot less than you would get teaching web / programming at your local community college.

I suggest you think of things this way - can you find 3-5 (there are three below, so good marketing) people who would want to take a tutored course of say two weeks. Then you need to find a community college or similar where you can rent a room and Ethernet. The small group learning is always a better bet.

This is a pretty good idea though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> $30 sounds like a steal

</comment><comment><USER10> I would even consider flying in from EU.

</comment><comment><USER11> Yes.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yes.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yes.

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds good! I will look into starting something. I'm at Runway shared workspace in SF, and I can use the conference space for free. Small groups and higher rates sounds like the plan.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Fairbooks – Uber for authors, Spotify for readers - <AUTHOR> http://fairbooks.co?ref=hn <comment><USER2> Really interesting project, wish you all the best and congrats on launching. You chose a tough industry but your execution is excellent!I subscribed and I will check it out as soon as i receive the confirmation email.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! We're are working hard to build the best product for authors and reader. We hope you enjoy it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do you have an email address? We'd love to chat about matching up some of our writers with your product. [http://bubblecow.com/](http://bubblecow.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> You can reach us at firstname.lastname@example.com</comment></comment>


Oh Caml Five Songs about Programming - <AUTHOR> http://thenewstack.io/oh-caml-five-songs-programming/ <comment><USER2> Heck, you could go clear back to at least 1963, with Allan Sherman's "Automation", a parody using the tune of "Fascination". Sherman was the "Weird Al" Yankovic of his era.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsDFYUD5KUA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsDFYUD5KUA)

(skip the first 20s)</comment>


Ask HN: Libraries for classification of text - <AUTHOR>

I've searched fairly hard, but I'm finding it hard to locate exactly what I want.  Maybe it doesn't exist, and maybe I just need to adapt something that's there, or write my own.  But I thought I'd ask.
I have a bunch of text items that have had classifications applied to them. These classification aren't exclusive - each item may be in one or more classes.  Perhaps it's best to think of them as tags.
What I want is a system that has a stab at applying these tags to previously unseen items, based on the tags of existing items.  I know that such things exist, but they all seem to be poorly performing, proprietary, hard-to-use, free-but-closed, or otherwise just not quite what I want.
Can I take suggestions from the floor?  Is this a problem you've dealt with, and what did you use?
TIA. <comment><USER2> You are just looking for a multi-label text classifier by the sounds of things. You could start with Weka: <http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/> (see <http://weka.wikispaces.com/Text+categorization+with+Weka>) or there's the CMU toolkit called Rainbow (<http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mccallum/bow/rainbow/>).

Or if you want something simple I wrote about how to create a naive Bayesian text classifier in Dr. Dobbs some time ago: <http://www.drdobbs.com/tools/184406064>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. And yes, I think I am, which is why I'm sure such things must not only exist, but should probably be readily available and reasonably easy to use.

I have written a Bayesian classifier before, but that was binary, not multi- label. I can run multiple binary Bayesian classifiers, but that's probably not the best thing to be doing.

Hence the question.

I'll check your suggestions - thanks.

 _Added in edit: The package "bow" doesn't compile on my machine, so now I'm looking at an undetermined amount of time fixing the package so it does compile. Always fun._

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've used NLTK (<http://www.nltk.org>) to do something similar. And there's also <http://scikit-learn.org/stable/>. Both libraries are for Python.

As far as my experience with NLTK and machine learning in general goes: you'll need to spend a fair bit of time figuring out which features to extract.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for those - I'll go check them out and see if I can bend them to my will. Cheers!</comment></comment>


In Open Source, Learn to Decide - <AUTHOR> http://nacin.com/2011/12/18/in-open-source-learn-to-decide/

<comment><USER2> That screen is exactly the reason why I personally prefer Android and open source. I know what those options mean, and I appreciate the opportunity to choose.

This really is a situation where you can "have your cake and eat it too". For a good user experience you need:

1) sane defaults 2) a minimal, apple-like settings screen 3) an "advanced" settings screen

The important thing about #3 is that you must make it clear that most users do not need to access that screen. A button on the main settings screen call "advanced options" does not necessarily make that clear -- there are still people that will fiddle with it even though they don't need to. My suggestion would be to make it minimally hidden, such as Firefox's about:config.

</comment><comment><USER3> The funny thing is that the screenshot ([http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7160/6532001299_e08f052149_b.j...](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7160/6532001299_e08f052149_b.jpg)) on which this post is based is actually a request of making and unavoidable decision (how the phone should present itself to the computer plugged via USB), and the "clutter" is a clear description what both options mean.

<comment><USER4> There's several problems with that screen. I'm not a professional, and there should definitely be user testing, but these are my observations.

\- There's way too much text. Users don't like reading. [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/10/treating-user- myopi...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/10/treating-user-myopia.html)

\- Nobody who isn't a nerd will know what MTP and PTP stand for.

\- This screen could be broken down, roughly, into three large buttons for Windows, Mac, and Linux with no extra text. Windows needs no explanatory text or further configuration. The screen displayed after the Mac button is touched could instruct the user to download File Transfer for Mac. The screen after the Linux button could contain instructions for whatever it is Linux users do to connect via PTP. Heck, you could even show Linux users the current screen; they probably won't care.

<comment><USER3> But those Win/Mac/Linux buttons would be simply a wrong solution -- the idea is to peak a standard that will work with a certain application, not OS. You just can't make it simpler without sacrificing functionality.

Clueless user will of course be left only with an option just to try both, but IMO this glitch is way better than macky "I won't work, but this is their fault".

<comment><USER4> But surely you don't need ~40 words to communicate the difference between two options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I WANT THAT FUCKING CHOICE. Don't you DARE take away my fucking choice. I WILL CUT YOU! _rages_

[I exaggerate here, but I think my point is clear. Not every user thinks choices are a bug. I will switch away from any platform with less choice to any platform with more choice, every single time. And I am not alone.]

<comment><USER6> So how is Linux From Scratch working for you?

<comment><USER5> Good choices are accompanied by sensible defaults. LFS lacks any defaults at all...

(I am in fact currently moving down the "user-friendliness scale" of linux distros, but I haven't hit the bottom yet. Right now I'm ditching Ubuntu for Debian, to escape the ongoing friendlification.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The thing that always brings this home to me is how much harder it is (for a developer) to rethink a design to remove the need for an option than to not bother and defer the decision to the user.

It's sometimes instinctual in these situations to be lazy, but a small amount of reflection (try having a conversation with an imaginary Steve Jobs) makes it obvious that the time and energy cost for you will be easily justified by the time saving for a non trivial amount of end users.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think the decision only has to be made at the top level, the graphical UI.

One of the things I like about Mac OS X is how solid the command-line "defaults" mechanism is. It has allowed me to expose everything that _might_ be useful to configure, while still trimming the graphical preferences UI and setting a series of factory defaults. So an app can be both simple and flexible at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER6> Relevant reading is Barry Schwartz's _The Paradox of Choice_ , which makes this insight as obvious as it should be.

</comment><comment><USER9> Open source segments need the design considerations - Even with its size and limits with scope.

An important read but not very relevant to open source whitneyhess.com/blog/2011/04/23/youre-not-a-user-experience-designer-if/

The user perspective is the most important gain for any designer/team. Build a team to challenge each other in user perception and details. Settings and preferences are the most valid arguements for such choices. Clutter is unacceptable.

Iterate on much focused segment of your problem.</comment>


Lessons of the McAfee False Positive Fiasco - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363018,00.asp

<comment><USER2> Who tests the testers?

According to Wikipedia, XP is the most widely used OS and SP3 shipped two years ago.

It's pretty unforgivable not to test against this configuration, although as I read it XP SP3 most likely slipped through the cracks (and who knows what else) when they changed their testing setup rather than their deliberately just not testing against it at all.

For a product where testing is so critical and there are so many configurations to test, it would make sense to automate the confirmation of the full test suite rather than depending on eyeballs. That's the sort of thing computers are good at, after all.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's missing a lesson: don't use McAfee</comment>


"Why did you shoot me? The new warrior cop is out of control (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/"why_did_you_shoot_me_i_was_reading_a_book_the_new_warrior_cop_is_out_of_control/ <comment><USER2> "Cities Under Siege" by Stephen Graham is a good reference if you're interested in reading more deeply about the modern history of police militarism in the United States.</comment>


Paypal shut my account today because my business donated money to wikileaks - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/ejzfp/paypal_shut_my_account_today_because_my_business/ <comment><USER2> _Lots_ of people donated to Wikileaks. Did they all get locked out? Or is something else going on here? We can't possibly know from this, can we?

<comment><USER3> There's a complete lack of detail in this story, and the wikileaks bit almost seems like an aside looking to cash in on some of the wikileaks sympathy.

It's humorous how bitchy people are about PayPal -- do this sort of stuff with your bank and see how that turns out. Long before wikileaks, and before 9/11, banking and financial regulations have been very tight.

Every single payment system on the planet has to abide by the laws of the countries that they are operating in. Anti-money laundering regulations, in particular, apply to every organization that does money transfers of any sort.

Further still, many of the recipients of PayPal cash got paid via credit card. For those who don't know this, when you pay someone with a credit card they normally don't get a penny for 60 days or so. PayPal, in letting you withdraw cash against credit card payments, is essentially fronting you a loan with the CC receipts as the collateral, though obviously they have risk if you have significant fraud or chargebacks. It's that element that so many fail to understand.

<comment><USER4> Stop pretending there isn't something horribly wrong with the company just because it suits your rhetoric.

They go above and beyond what the law requires them to do.

>Disclosure: My first entrepreneurial effort was annihilated in concert by UPS, PayPal, and eBay.

<comment><USER3> _Stop pretending there isn't something horribly wrong with the company just because it suits your rhetoric._

This sort of trollish nonsense has no place on HN.

I built a banking AML system (not for PayPal, which is a company that I have zero affiliation or interest in). I _know_ the incredible burden that the financial industry lives under, and to say that PayPal -- which is absolutely the wild-west of payment systems (it exists for a reason, often serving those organizations who in many cases would have had trouble getting a merchant account) -- goes "above and beyond" is patently ridiculous. No seriously, file that patent, because you nailed it.

Some subsection of users have trouble with a large organization. Big whoop.

<comment><USER2> Consider striking the first two sentences and the last sentence from this comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a person, you do have the freedom to donate to whomever you like but you, alone, have to bear the consequences. But to use your business account to donate money puts you _and_ your clients (and their livelihood) at risk.

I don't think it's responsible.

Regards

<comment><USER6> Under US law, you can not donate to whomever you wish. Sending money to organizations flagged as terrorist organizations is illegal. (Not that the US has officially declared the wikileaks org to be a terrorist organization.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I guess the moral of the story, whether PayPal is justified or not, is to have another payment solution in the wings ready to go at any time.

<comment><USER8> <http://www.paypalalternatives.net/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you read past the top dozen or so comments on Reddit, you get to the likely _real_ explanation. The guy is (1) emptying his account every day, and (2) making unusual large oversees payments.

These are things that correlate pretty well with scammers, and that is probably why his account is being investigated.

</comment><comment><USER10> OT, but I recently updated my credit card information in PayPal. New information is valid and verified. Bank account information remains unchanged and is the first choice as a source of funds.

My couple of crappy little subscription payments start failing. "No secondary source of funds specified."

I look through all the configuration settings -- which it turns out are not at all clear about funding sources for existing subscriptions. About three times. It all looks fine / as good as I can set it.

I email PayPal. It's like talking to a blank wall. Customer support? Buwahahaha! (That would be their response, not mine.)

Fuck them. I wouldn't trust them to buy a lollipop.

(Which reminds me, I should probably just close my account, though I've kept it up to this point for the occasional crappy little payment.)

CORRECTION: I recall now, I used their own web site form to 'report a problem / as a question', not email.

<comment><USER11> They finally let me close mine today. Had an "instant" payment pending for the past week for some reason. Good riddance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://hackerne.ws/item?id=1982856>

What did I say HN? What did I say?

<comment><USER12> >What did I say HN? What did I say?

You sound indignant, like no one believed you -- but you have like 80 up votes on that comment. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER4> I don't care as much about the upvotes as I do the people who respond.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So much for political freedom

<comment><USER14> What do you mean, you have complete freedom! Why, all you have to do is simply to start your own international payment processing system, convince enough people to use it, and voila; convenient money-transfer freedom by your own rules! Oh, what's that you say? You don't have a multimillionaire co-founding CEO to force your idea on the masses by partnering with existing internet monopolies? Well, then obviously you just need to work harder for your liberty (erm, I mean, it's not as if you're actually _entitled_ to political expression or anything—that's for people with money).

<comment><USER13> you forgot that to convince enough people i can't be silenced every step on the way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> i hope my hackernews account is not shut for upvoting this post

</comment><comment><USER16> You could not pay me to use paypal.</comment>


US imposes sanctions on Iran for Internet censorship - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/us-imposes-sanctions-on-iran-for-internet-censorship/

<comment><USER2> The irony is delicious.</comment>


900 phone line meets gaming for lonely hearts: GameCrush. - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/24/gamecrush-is-crushing-it-investors-agree/

<comment><USER2> Mmm, life imitates art. I always knew Nerdrotica was a good idea.</comment>


A Story of Chernobyl plant liquidator that wasn`t included in the HBO series - <AUTHOR> https://en.hromadske.ua/posts/a-story-of-chernobyl-plant-liquidator-that-wasnt-included-in-the-hbo-series <comment><AUTHOR> > _I was on the bus to work when somebody uttered "what's that?" I looked and > I saw the destroyed block_, - one of the #Chernobyl disaster liquidators > Oleksiy Breus[0]

[0] [https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1137764228771852289](https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1137764228771852289)</comment>


The Hype Framework - <AUTHOR> http://www.hypeframework.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> Some trivia: Joshua Davis was part of the Kioken design studio and founder of the Dreamless forum. He gained significant recognition as a generative design artist, creating online artworks such as Praystation & Once Upon A Forest. He is also a really inspiring and heartwarming person, sharing his knowledge in workshops and conference talks worldwide.

The HYPE Framework was initially made in Flash and co-authored with Branden Hall, but is now resurrected on top of Processing with James Cruz.

Here is a 2007 profile on him: [https://vimeo.com/5950300](https://vimeo.com/5950300)

And his more recent online class on generative art: [https://www.skillshare.com/classes/design/Programming- Graphi...](https://www.skillshare.com/classes/design/Programming-Graphics-I- Introduction-to-Generative-Art/782118657)

<comment><USER2> Rare to see dreamless mentioned anywhere; it was a special place while it lasted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Dreamless and The Root 42 felt sort of like a gateway to a future part of the internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> We had the pleasure of spending a week with Josh at his annual workshop in Aspen learning Hype/Processing. It's a lot of fun.</comment>