Microsoft is shutting down Mixer and partnering with Facebook Gaming - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21299032/microsoft-mixer-closing-facebook-gaming-partnership-xcloud-features <comment><USER2> I'm very surprised that MS has quit this quickly. I didn't expect them to win in the short-term against Twitch and I doubt they did either. This suggests that Mixer didn't just do poorly (which could have been assumed) but it must have been a deep catastrophe that showed no signs of turning around.

I think the problem with video, and the monopolies it continues to create, is the massive expense of data transfer. I'm guessing Mixer had hundreds/thousands of streamers active at any given time. I assume this was a massive cost and the revenue to support it (even ignoring their deals with streamers like Ninja/Shroud) just wasn't there.

It makes me doubt the profitability of Twitch, although you can be sure they are breathing a sigh of relief today.

<comment><USER3> > massive expense of data transfer

Does anyone here know how video platforms like Twitch managed to get started considering how expensive cloud data transfer pricing is? The steam bandwidth is considerably higher then video bandwidth (twitch uses a bitrate at around 8000k while YouTube has 3414k for comparable 1080p60fps videos). They also cannot take advantage of edge delivery expect for very large streamers because viewers expect a latency of 3secs or lower to their favorite stream.

I am really curious if anyone here knows how they managed to get started? They probably couldn't take advantage of super low bandwidth prices until recently because they were too small but had very expensive requirements (a lot of streamers only streaming to a very limited amount of people with high quality while also having a few very very large streamers stream to a huge amount of viewers and all of that in real time).

> It makes me doubt the profitability of Twitch, although you can be sure they > are breathing a sigh of relief today.

I think twitch is highly profitable these days. Streamers have a considerable amount of subscribers, who pay a monthly fee of $5 (or sometimes even more) and stay for long durations. Twitch takes a 30-50% cut (lower depending on how big the streamer is and if twitch likes the streamer). Even streamers who average less then 1,000 concurrent viewers sometimes have between 100-500 subs.

And they have also created bits, which is a virtual currency viewers can use to tip their favorite streamers and twitch takes a similar cut (and they only let you but it in bulk beforehand to make it less transparent on how much you actually spent on them, similar to many mobile games in-app purchase model). And they play ads before streams (and during streams if they streamer decides to play them for a small cut), they also heavily advertise amazon prime (twitch streams constantly say hey you can use amazon prime to subscribe to me for free), they have premium users and probably even more monetization techniques.

<comment><USER4> > _Does anyone here know how video platforms like Twitch managed to get > started considering how expensive cloud data transfer pricing is?_

A very high quality stream at the start of Twitch was 2500 kbps. Viewership numbers were much smaller. This meant that bandwidth costs were significantly lower.

Back then ad revenue was much higher per user. Ad block wasn't common and I'm pretty sure ads paid more. This essentially allowed Twitch (and YouTube) to grow to become big enough.

Streaming sites before Twitch/JustinTV were even lower video quality. Eg livestream. We're talking about 480p looking good in comparison. Even the audio quality on those was poor.

Twitch actually had a great competitor in own3d.tv, but they had a lot of trouble paying out to the streamers. That eventually sank them.

<comment><USER5> Adblock doesn't work on Twitch though

<comment><USER6> It does, if you use e.g uBlock Origin. Twitch is actively trying to circumvent adblockers but so far hasn't been able to topple the more advanced blockers, even though they released SureStream[1] almost 4 years ago which is supposed to "weave" the ad directly into the source stream.

In the announcement[2] they mentioned:

> We are well aware that many dedicated Twitch viewers use software that > bypasses ads, and the rollout of this technology will reduce the efficacy of > such software. As a company we are agnostic when it comes to the use of this > software. You are free to use it, or not, as you see fit.

I suspect that either advertisers or streamers aren't using SureStream or that it's quite resource expensive to "weave" ads into the source stream so Twitch simply isn't using it when the cost of doing so is more than it generates in ad revenue.

[1]: [https://twitchadvertising.tv/ad- products/surestream/](https://twitchadvertising.tv/ad-products/surestream/)

[2]: [https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2016/11/02/introducing-sure- stream...](https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2016/11/02/introducing-sure-stream-for-a- better-video-ad-experience-on-twitch-3ca5ce3287c/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This comes at no surprise to the game streaming community.

A number of popular gaming stream helpers, namely Harris Heller from Alpha Gaming [0], have kept streamers away from Mixer to focus on Twitch and hosting VOD/highlights on YouTube in order to best grow a community.

Facebook is a large enough platform that this might cause some trouble for Twitch, but we'll see. I think the gaming community is deeply seated around Twitch/YT. Since Facebook has already lost tons of younger users, and rejects anonymity, and doesn't have dark mode, I don't think this will turn out very good for Facebook.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCATWC1JSlhzmYeDbjnS8WwA/sea...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCATWC1JSlhzmYeDbjnS8WwA/search?query=mixer)

<comment><USER8> The name "Facebook Gaming" seems really bad branding to me. That would be like calling Instagram "Facebook Photos" or something. It just doesn't fit at all. At least Mixer had some name ID and some high profile streamers locked into contracts.

<comment><USER9> This usually comes down to whether you need a FB id to sign into something. Its "Facebook" if you need to be logged into facebook to get to it. In this case, its a way to keep you on the Facebook site longer, instead of fracturing off another uninteroperable (inopreable, teroperable?) platform.

<comment><USER10> "interinoperable"? :)

<comment><USER11> "intraoperable" :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 9 year gaming/esports industry insider here.

I don't understand why Mixer, after failing to penetrate the game streaming market - didn't pivot to a tech/coder oriented streaming service. It would have better integrated with Microsoft's other products (GitHub, Teams, etc), and trivialized finding marketing/ad-fill partners.

Twitch has a 'science & technology' channel grouping which is nice, but there's a demographic mismatch and thus it has less than 10k viewers on average. This niche would have been a shoe-in for a Microsoft service.

I also wonder what would have happened in a parallel universe where Beam wasn't acquired by Microsoft.

<comment><USER13> It's a relatively smaller niche than gaming/esports, so such a pivot was unlikely.

Microsoft did admit there is a smarter pivot on the tech side, at least. Mixer's claim to fame over Twitch et al was lower latency streaming and Microsoft admitted they are already working to move the technical teams at Mixer to work on Teams.

> I also wonder what would have happened in a parallel universe where Beam > wasn't acquired by Microsoft.

Best guess: something very similar. Beam would likely have also failed to break much of a second place against entrenched competitor Twitch and likely failed to find a solution to the network effects battles when Facebook Gaming or YouTube gaming started up. Best case for them would likely have been an acquihire by Facebook or YouTube rather than Microsoft in that scenario where Microsoft didn't acquire them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interestingly, this indicates that the streaming market is saturated, and Mixer simply had no room to grow. The analysts probably didn't realize their gamble was a zero-sum game.

Ninja & Shroud weren't enough to tip the scales and Mixer had zero traction. Of course they will be fine, but it sucks for the smaller streamers that hitched their wagons to Mixer and are now left to hold the proverbial bag. Even more telling is that Microsoft is burying this news under WWDC20, probably embarrassed about the entire snafu.

<comment><USER15> Well, lots of streamers really don't like Twitch. But Mixer was a downgrade for most people in terms of features and functionality. Same situation with YouTube - a lot of content creators aren't happy with it, but everything else out there is just a worse version of YT. The bigger, older platforms have a lot of momentum.

<comment><USER16> It's okay to copy a product. You just have to do it better. And Mixer wasn't even close. I actually liked Mixer's video quality more than Twitch, but that's not what makes Twitch fun for users...

<comment><USER17> Mixer did have comparatively low latency and interaction features, that was a unique point at least back then. Apparently not enough though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's kind of sad to see Mixer/Beam go, they did have a couple unique features I made good use of.

\- FTL protocol, a streaming protocol based on UDP which had sub 1 second delay times, far far superior to what Twitch is capable of.

\- User interaction, I was able to quite quickly set up buttons on my page that let my stream viewers control the RGB lighting in my room in interesting ways, and it was a lot of fun for me as a streamer to get that realtime interaction with my viewers

<comment><USER19> > FTL protocol, a streaming protocol based on UDP which had sub 1 second delay > times, far far superior to what Twitch is capable of.

I don't use/watch any of these platforms but I heard the delay is a feature of Twitch to prevent people from "screen peeking" players when they play online.

<comment><USER17> You can always add artificial delay if that's what you want, but if you don't want to delay to interact with your audience/have them interact with the game, you want something that can do low-latency.

<comment><USER20> Totally. Avoiding screen sniping should be up to the streamer — in OBS, for instance, one could set up a scene with one source item, an instance of another scene, then add a delay filter to it.

Then one can freely switch between the live scene and the delayed scene. Simple.

<comment><USER21> Moreover, your audience are all at the same part of the stream, not separated by seconds because of buffering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My solution to a streamer moving to Facebook Gaming is simply going to be watching a different streamer.

<comment><USER23> Streamers really are a dime a dozen. No offense to streamers here.

</comment></comment><comment> tech-historian Mixer joins its brethren in Microsoft's list of discontinued products.

[https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued- micros...](https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-microsoft- products)

</comment><comment><USER24> The only thing I don't like about Twitch is they got rid of their Roku app. I assume it's Amazon's doing, but it still eliminates a large portion of users who want to watch gamers on Twitch.

</comment><comment><USER25> If I'm Twitch the #1 thing I'm thinking about right now is how to extend the olive branch to all of these creators. Favorable partner terms, sponsorship, resources etc.

This is a market share growth opportunity that comes around very infrequently

<comment><USER26> Really? Why?

Twitch is already over 70% of the streaming market. Let's say that both of them go to YouTube. Let's also say that Ninja and Shroud accounted for all of Mixer's market share..

That would give YouTube roughly 20% of the market, up from about 17%. Twitch is still 70% of the market.

Twitch should be looking for ways to make it easier for streamers to stream and get noticed. Find the next Ninja.

<comment><USER27> I'm not really into that whole scene, but my third-hand understanding is that the Amazon Prime integration is a form of this. Basically, while Microsoft offered millions to people like Ninja, Amazon offers somewhere around three dollars each month to each Prime member, with the restriction that they must give it to a mid-sized or bigger streamer that they enjoy. This makes it worth the time for growing streamers, and lets big-but-not-Ninja-big folks make a job out of it.

It's actually a pretty interesting economic / business model case study: they're basically crowdsourcing which streamers they subsidize while simultaneously offering a cross-promotional perk to an existing customer base.

<comment><USER28> Do you have a source on this? I didn't know about Prime scrip.

<comment><USER29> See [https://twitch.amazon.com/tp](https://twitch.amazon.com/tp) (click on the Prime Status on Twitch section)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> My concern is how FB Gaming will be installed/embedded into the Xbox dash. If it's like the current FB SDK, does that mean that FB will be siphoning data off xbox users that don't use FB?

<comment><USER31> A closer partnership with Facebook is going to loose Microsoft the coming console generation just like their focus on "TV is the new water cooler" lost them the last one.

Gamers don't want Facebook. They don't want TV. Gamers want games.

<comment><USER32> >Gamers don't want Facebook. They don't want TV. Gamers want games.

Yeah, the fact that the PS2 could play DVDs had absolutely nothing to do with its tremendous success.

<comment><USER33> This is how I convinced my parents to buy both a PS2 and PS3 - the PS3 was one of the most affordable blu-ray players when introduced, it just happened to have a game console attached to it.

<comment><USER34> It was a much better player than most dedicated bluray players at the time too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I find it intriguing that generally speaking, people have issue with monopolies. Yet, as much as everyone claims there's a free market, MS has failed with both a mobile OS and a streaming service, and essentially gives it over to the giant.

FB didn't even need to do anything, just their existence and networking abilities is enough to make alternatives unviable.

I do wonder what we will do in the long term as most places are centralized. Google and Apple for a mobile OS, FB (or FB properties) for social networking, there's Twitch for streaming, YouTube for video hosting.

These days, the chances of competition are (IMO) impossible due to the sheer size and influence (and power) of these mega giants.

<comment><USER36> According to the most recent Streamlabs report: YouTube Gaming Live accounted for 22.1% market share for 2019 in terms of hours watched while Twitch market share accounts for 75.1% and Mixer market share accounted for is 2.7%.

Youtube Gaming is also growing extremely fast since they have rolled out their new creative suite.

[https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/streamlabs- newzoo-q4-ye...](https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/streamlabs- newzoo-q4-year-in-review-live-streaming-industry- report/#:~:text=With%20a%2046%25%20increase%20in,share%20accounted%20for%20is%202.7%25).

Facebook Gaming hardly has any market share so I don't understand why you are saying their existence and networking abilities is enough to make alternativeS unviable. The streaming industry seems to be one of the most competitive markets out there.

<comment><USER37> A more recent report: [https://blog.streamlabs.com/streamlabs-stream- hatchet-q1-202...](https://blog.streamlabs.com/streamlabs-stream- hatchet-q1-2020-live-streaming-industry-report-9630bc3e0e1e)

facebook gaming is catching up really fast. it went from 'hardly any market share' to 11% of hours watched.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I wonder what happens to folks like Ninja with big exclusive deals.

<comment><USER39> >stars like Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, Cory "King Gothalion" Michael, and Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek — will be released from their contracts, and Microsoft says it's up to them where they decide to go.

>"It's up to them and their priorities," says Vivek Sharma, the head of Facebook Gaming, meaning the platform isn't actively pursuing exclusive agreements with any of Mixer's biggest names.

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21298963/ninja-shroud- mix...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21298963/ninja-shroud-mixer- facebook-gaming-twitch)

<comment><USER40> Does this mean they don't get paid out for the remainder of their contract? These streamers took a massive brand hit by leaving twitch for so long...

<comment><USER41> It seems like they do. [https://twitter.com/RLewisReports/status/1275139749716480000](https://twitter.com/RLewisReports/status/1275139749716480000)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Mixer had potential as a streaming platform, they completely failed to create a culture anything like what Twitch has. Any streamer who wanted to move to Mixer would have to sacrifice being part of that Twitch community.

<comment><USER43> Their culture is 100% why they failed. They were technically far superior to Twitch. Their video quality was much better with lower CPU utilization, their latency was extremely low, and their UI was intuitive and butter smooth.

Their culture though... Before Shroud and Ninja joined, there were rules that you couldn't tell people your age. They had rules on how wide your shirt straps could be, and just generally seemed like if you had any opinions on other people, you would be chastised. They valued explicit political correctness, but that's not so good when you're making a place designed for just chilling and hanging out... At least, not when you're trying to grow.

<comment><USER44> _They valued explicit political correctness, but that 's not so good when you're making a place designed for just chilling and hanging out... At least, not when you're trying to grow._

Another way to word it is that the online gaming community is extremely toxic and you have to accept a decent chunk of that toxicity to grow a community in the gaming space.

<comment><USER43> What I am about to say, I mean with absolutely no disrespect. What you consider non-toxic is considered uptight and overly sensitive by many... Whether you think that's right or not is beside the point. I understand the need for political correctness and politicing at work. It keeps conflicts from arising and it avoids hurt feelings. It's not as valued by many people outside of work. That can affect the growth of sites like this.

Put in another way: each stream is an individual community. By making such explicit rules, they are policing culture and suppressing certain identities. That is counter to the environment needed for growth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Remarkable if Microsoft really thought they could just buy two big streamers (and a couple of smaller ones) to get Mixer going and that Twitch market share - without making much change to the platform and its community.

"A typical Microsoft" I guess?

Big pay day for Ninja & Shroud though if they're really just free to join Twitch again, their returns will be huge.

</comment><comment><USER46> What's preventing streamers from streaming to multiple platforms at once. Is it against he Eula or something ?

<comment><USER47> Monetization. The platforms require Affiliate/Partner streamers (so people with Subscribe buttons) to be exclusive streamers on their platform.

<comment><USER48> What if you're not a partner on the other platforms, can you still stream to Facebook, Youtube, Twitch, all at the same time? Smaller streams rely heavily on chat and interactions, but 1000+ viewer streams generally don't so you don't need to read 3 different chats. You can still receive donations and maybe ad money?

<comment> brian-armstrong Why do you think this would help? Going from 0 to 1 viewers on one platform alone is quite hard, and then again for 1 to 10 viewers. You would have to put in that effort for each different platform, and ultimately you would still need to pick one and ditch the others once you qualify for partnership

<comment><USER48> As was implied in my comment, I was thinking of larger streamers with thousands of viewers that don't rely on chat. Someone like Ninja who gets 100k viewers could get a couple thousands more off other platforms potentially.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This seems super out of no where and way too soon to throw the towel in.

Thinking there was some break clauses in Ninja and Shroud's contracts that incentivised MS's early exit.

</comment><comment><USER50> Microsoft has done so much to improve their reputation. I think this is a risk and a mistake.

</comment><comment><USER51> Mixer has a nice streaming tech. I used to stream to a friend who could interact (voice chat) with me with almost no stream delay (<500ms). I don't think Twitch offers a latency as low as Mixer. Last time I tried (some weeks ago), it was still 2+ secs.

<comment><USER21> Caffeine.tv offer similar latency. (Full disclosure, I used to work there)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> [https://www.streamhatchet.com/pdf/report2019.pdf](https://www.streamhatchet.com/pdf/report2019.pdf)

Some 2019 streaming numbers from pre-Corona era which I found interesting at that time. Mixer declined in hours watched after summer of 2019. Also interesting to see that Facebook "Gaming"'s top games only feature mobile games. Being a gamer myself I therefore find it difficult to really view them as a serious competitor to the game streaming market of YouTube and Twitch. Maybe this will change with Mixer's user base.

</comment><comment><USER53> Bummer. Streaming from the Xbox was easy and fun. You could stream a multiplayer game with your friends! Friction was reduced to stream and you didn't need to mess with stream keys or overlays. Sad.

<comment><USER54> Not sure why you're getting downvoted. This was a very nice Xbox feature. They had it for PC on their Xbox bar for a while; You could stream any window or your desktop to the same mixer account as your gamertag. Then one day it just disappeared. I guess that should have been a sign they were having issues.

<comment><USER53> I was wondering where that that went and thought it was a bug or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> >dead streaming is shutting down and partnering with dead streaming

The only real alternative to Twitch is streaming live on YouTube. Not a competitor, but an alternative. And that's only because they have a massive viewership already. A lot of those probably never heard about Mixer or even Twitch at all.

You'd think it's the same with Facebook, but that's like a different target audience. You don't usually go to Facebook to binge videos. Just like it would make no sense to stream live on Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER17> Mixer had (pre-Microsoft) some neat tech, but wasn't enough in the end. The few streamers I knew moved there have all long moved back.

</comment><comment><USER56> is FB gaming even a platform that people _want_ ? I just get annoyed and skip past stuff that shows up on my feed cause that's not how I want to use FB ever.. If I wanted to watch someone streaming I'd go use a site specifically for that, but maybe my internet use is dissimilar to how most people expect content to be delivered?

</comment><comment><USER57> Didnt ninja and Shroud bag a lucrative deal with Mixer this year?! guess they will go back to twitch after all

[https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/ninja-shroud-could- ret...](https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/ninja-shroud-could-return-to- twitch-after-mixer-joins-facebook-gaming-1383085)

<comment><AUTHOR> > Sources: Facebook offered an insane offer at almost double for the original > Mixer contracts of Ninja and Shroud but Loaded/Ninja/Shroud said no and > forced Mixer to buy them out. Ninja made ~$30M from Mixer, and Shroud made > ~$10M

> Ninja and Shroud are now free agents

[https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1275145243478892544](https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1275145243478892544)

<comment><USER58> Man, getting paid to switch just to have the service go bunk anyway. Probably one of the easiest $30M ever. I really wonder if he lost any sort of revenue over those months that he switched? I can't imagine it coming anywhere close to the $30M he made just for the time.

<comment><USER59> Ninja had 80-100k viewers when he switched to Mixer, and now on Mixer he has 2-5k. Each sub on twitch was making him $3-4/month (do not know how many subs he had, but I can imagine 10-30k). So, he lost $30-$120k on Twitch subs alone per month.

Then an Ad on Twitch in front of 100k viewers is different than an Ad on Mixer (not really sure if they have Ads on Mixer). With Ninja's viewership on Twitch 60 second Ad, can probably bring him more than $10k. Not sure if he had used Ads though (may streamers chose not to use them).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Wow that came out of nowhere. Mixer could be so great but they're massively mismanaged with what I guess is out of touch management. They had such a big budget and still failed. Like many couldn't get used to the bad site and never used is. But competition for twitch would have been nice. The internet can be weird.

</comment><comment><USER61> [https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21298963/ninja-shroud- mix...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21298963/ninja-shroud-mixer- facebook-gaming-twitch)

I'm wondering how these contracts for the the Mixer exclusives will pay out.

</comment><comment><USER62> I always hoped Mixer would do better, I really liked watching E3 conferences on it over Twitch and YouTube. Its latency really was way better than them, and it seemed like Microsoft had better infrastructure overall.

</comment><comment><USER63> Unfortunately Twitch is buffering for me all the time. 4K streaming on Mixer was flawless, I can't even do 720p 60fps most of the time on Twitch :/

<comment><USER64> Could be throttling. Have you tried watching through a VPN?

<comment><USER63> Yeah VPN works perfectly but I'm not a big fan of it I have to use it all the time just to watch Twitch

<comment><USER65> Can you drop the 60FPS to 30FPS ? That would cut the bandwidth requirement in half.

<comment><USER63> Oh I'm talking about watching not streaming

non affilite/non partnered streamers don't have quality selection and if they stream 720p 60fps I have to watch that.

I honestly don't even know what's the problem because I can even stream on Twitch easily pretty much up to 10000kbps. But once I start watching almost any stream heavy buffering starts.

<comment><USER66> Twitch caps the bitrate at 6k ¹

[1] [https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/guide-to-broadcast- health-a...](https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/guide-to-broadcast-health-and- using-twitch-inspector?language=en_US#HowtoSetaProperBitrate)

<comment><USER67> Big streamers are streaming at closer to 8k. You can see it in twitch stats window live.

I'm pretty sure they will bend the rules if you all nicely and generate enough revenue, or you have friends that work at twitch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I thought Mixer would've been a home run if they integrate it into the new xbox's dashboard. Guess it's company infighting that killed it.

</comment><comment><USER69> How long did Mixer exist again? For the people here who think GitHub is too big too fail under Microsoft… and let's not forget that MS used to have its own code repository website before shutting it down...

</comment><comment><USER70> Happy that Shroud and Ninja get to come back to Twitch

</comment><comment><USER71> I never heard of Facebook Gaming. Is it a serious competitor to Twitch?

</comment><comment><USER72> I'll give credit to Mixer for 1 thing they did do well, you will only expect proper gaming channels.

Nowadays, Twitch is filled with "Just Chatting" which you have people doing illegal watch parties of copyrighted content or girls showing just enough skin to not get banned. Twitch is slowly becoming a degenerate platform.

<comment><USER73> > Twitch is slowly becoming a degenerate platform.

Are you 80?

<comment><USER74> No, but I can fully understand their viewpoint, especially if they have kids to monitor. People forget part of the reason YT has been cracking down heavily on the behavior and content within streams and static video is complaints from parents and politicians, not just advertisers or nebulous "social justice" groups. What we may see as perfectly acceptable is not the same as the parents of a young teenager trying to prevent their kid getting bombed with Rule 34 content because they were suggested a Fortnite stream.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you detect user language in web sites - <AUTHOR> Hello HN, I'm interested to hear how would you configured your web apps and web sites to detect visitor language.
I currently use the Accept-Language header, most of the browsers appear to just use `en-US` as the default. I am not sure if default installations in various countries have different default settings (for example `de-DE, de` if you download Firefox from Germany).
Second, I could use a small IPGeo database to determine the user country and map it to locale/language, but I really don't want to do it because it's not very user-friendly to those who travel or simply prefer English.
I will of course have a language select list and save this preference, but I'm interested to hear how I can make it user-friendly and do some guess work for the user without being annoying to those who prefer English as opposed to the what my app _think_ based on the location. <comment><USER2> We had a discussion about this kind of thing and associated pitfalls, a couple of weeks back:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216502](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216502)

After the hassles I've had with Yandex Browser [as mentioned in the above] I'd say; don't try and detect it. Let the user select their preferred language.

Or, if you really insist on trying to be clever by detecting user language --for the love of all that's holy, give the user an easy way to change it if [when!] you get it wrong!

Few things more annoying that a page which loads in the 'wrong' language and then, even if you select the 'right' one, automatically reloads the wrong one again, because the developer wanted to show off some fancy _" I know what you want better than you do!"_ scripting.

<comment><USER3> Even worse, it redirects you to the landing page instead of the different language version of the page you were just on.

It's so bad before even trying to look for a language toggle I see if I can replace "de" with "en" in the URL somewhere, drop it altogether, or append a "hl=en" query parameter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As an expat living abroad, please don't do this. Your webpage doesn't know better than the user's settings, there are few things more annoying than sites that automatically redirect you to another subdomain based on your location. Luckily, the right thing is the easy one in this case, simply add a language picker to your site.</comment>


I've spent a few days 60-70 hours in app.net, got questions? - <AUTHOR>

Im not paid in any way or connected in any way except through my membership.  Ask away.  I think there are many misconceptions about it but I want to know what you want to know. <comment><USER2> After spending a considerable amount of time using the service are you excited to continue using it? Do you see exciting growth potential?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but not how you might expect. I don't conceive of it as something where Dalton has to build this 1 big social network to eat the rest of them. Its going to allow a lot more context sensitive (in product/app/content) social networks to form that will be smaller but way more relevant. I think even after the apis are all baked there will be a robust services industry around it, collecting filtering graph walking analysis services etc. I think people looking at alpha.app.net and thinking thats it are totally off base. Not even wrong, misled by internet echo chamber.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, by using it I mean both keeping in contact with people I met in Alpha.app.net but using a different UI which somebody already built, but more importantly, using the apis to build new social stuff and helping to form the apis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Tell me why this isn't a clone of Twitter where I pay to talk to almost exclusively under 30yo guys.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually there isn't a UI really to App.net per se, its an infrastructure play, more twilio than twitter. They built a UI for demo purposes to let people know that it wasn't vapor. They don't even refer to the UI as app.net, its called Alpha to differentiate it. App.net is the apis on git hub, some of which are baked, enough to build Alpha. If you get a dev subscription you get api keys. Ive seen some pretty cool stuff already. The idea is that you build whatever social experience you want for your product. here is a for instance. Suppose you are the new york times, you could build social into your website and apps. subscribers could then see their social interactions and data in context rather than crammed between a cat photo and a belly fat ad on or underneath an unrelated tweet. Sane people could go have a convo and exclude trolls by forming ad hoc groups etc... tailor to the audience and the site to enhance the experience.

Also, there are/were cool people in Alpha and it wasn't so crowded a few hours ago that you couldn't talk to them. Famous VCs, internet celebs like Gruber and McCracken and Siracusa, regular celebs like Stephen Fry etc... I don't know what the plan is for Alpha but the point is the infrastructure not Dalton making an ad free twitterbook clone. Other people have already made better UIs than Alpha even. Apis pretty easy to use.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you recognize these symptoms? - <AUTHOR> I recently became ill. I have worked with my doctors and they can't find anything wrong with me. This includes a brain scan.
I'm a long time HN reader, so I know that many people here have suffered with mysterious symptoms like me. I thought I would take a shot in the dark by posting here.
About 5 weeks ago I began getting headaches and shaky hands as well as confusion. This escalated rather suddenly to very intense bouts of neurological symptoms lasting for about an hour or two. The symptoms now include confusion (brain fog), weakness of limbs or a sensation of weakness, extreme nausea and a bitter depression. These bouts are extremely unpleasant. They seem to happen every couple of days. I can't identify any triggers.
As I've said, my doctors refuse to continue testing me, saying nothing is wrong and insisting on anti-depressants. In an effort to get some relief, I've traveled away from where I live and even bought new clothes, just on the off chance that it was some kind of chemical exposure in my house.
So far, on the road, symptoms have lightened up noticeably but they are still there.
The only thing I can think of is that my house was a bit moldy.
I'm not looking for medical advice or direction — I would just like to see if anyone has any anecdotes or ideas because neither google nor my doctors are helping much. Thanks. <comment><USER2> Given that the doctors are refusing to test you, perhaps you could use an online symptom checker? I find its better than google for symptoms though and using multiple tools like this could give you an idea of what it could possibly be.

Obviously they don't replace doctors, but you can show them a report of the symptoms and the possible outcome of how you're feeling.

A few you could try are listed here: [https://medicalfuturist.com/the-big- symptom-checker-review/](https://medicalfuturist.com/the-big-symptom-checker- review/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Almost sounds like lead poisoning[1]. Or 'Mad Hatter' disease[2]. Pretty unlikely I'm sure. But could you have lead piping where you live, or be near a source of mercury vapour?

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erethism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erethism)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've just posted extensively about that in a similar thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23531361](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23531361)

</comment><comment><USER5> By a brain scan I'm assuming you have been checked for a strokes or TIAs but have you been checked for "Adult-Onset Hydrocephalus"? One of my relatives has it and had symptoms similar to yours

<comment><AUTHOR> The result of the scan was that I didn't have a tumor, stroke Or any bleeding. Thank you, I'll look into this.

<comment><USER5> On the plus side, correcting the issue for them was relatively simple with a little shunt. Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Did the doctors test for B1 deficiency / sufficiency? Should be 2.5-7.5 μg/dL, or 74-222 nmol/L</comment>


Ask HN: I'm very conflicted, what's your opinion - <AUTHOR> Hello Everyone,
5 months ago I joined a startup as a senior engineer/ employee 0. During my interview I shared my goals with the cofounders of wanting to move into management and hopefully become the CTO one day. The cofounders said they'd love nothing more than to see that happen, and agreed that I'd be the most suitable candidate for the job since I'll pretty much be designing the entire system. Shortly after joining we got into an accelerator.
3 months go by, 2 weeks after our release I heard my CEO chat about how he asked one of our advisors to join as the CTO. When I asked him wondering, he said that VC firms were pressuring them to get an experienced CTO.
I had no issue with accepting the fact that I am not experienced enough to be a CTO. But I felt used and hurt because my CEO knew that fact from the beginning, and didn't tell me a thing. The only reason I found out about the whole situation was because I was around when he was having that conversation.
During my conversation with the CEO he said they weren't concerned with getting a CTO at the moment but much more focused on getting more engineers since the other engineer and I pretty much can't pull 18 hour days anymore.
2 weeks after my conversation with the CEO, I met one of the cofounders friends who later I find out was in consideration for the CTO position.
Today my CEO was telling me about how it looks like that friend is probably joining as the CTO.
I spoke to my mentor and others. Everyone told me to take this opportunity to learn from someone great. But I can't help but feel angry because the cofounders say one thing, and another thing happens.
EDIT:I'm feeling very unmotivated, and pretty depressed. I feel like I failed, and I have no goals to work for. I am pretty much stuck as an engineer for at least 2-3 years until we even grow large enough to layer up
What would you do? am I being immature about this? <comment><USER2> I would advise you to consider do you really have the skills to be a CTO? Have you ever managed a team, had fudiciary responsibilities, engaged professionally in internal and external sales to other executives, lead large technically complex change initiatives? To be fair I wouldn't even consider the following a comprehensive list. If you don't have those experiences now I would advise against trying to learn them at a startup as the support structure rarely is in place and any misstep magnified.

That being the case it doesn't sound like the current CEO is trustworthy or honest with you. If the person they are looking to bring in doesn't have of the aforementioned skills or experience then you should run away now!

<comment><AUTHOR> I admit that I don't have that experience. What we discussed was me growing into that position by learning from the CEO, COO, and advisors.

I met the guy twice we had some interesting conversations. He's smart. But I still don't feel like I can trust the CEO again..

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's natural to feel bad, but it's also correct that you should take this opportunity to learn from someone great.

The thing is, these "CTO", "CEO", etc. is nothing more than a title, it's just for vanity. You probably think everything will be different once you become the "CTO", but you'll realize that nothing changes even if you do become one.

What's really important is improving yourself. You also said you think you're not experienced enough to be a CTO compared to the other guy. Then get more experience! Simple as that.

Don't make this about your ego, because there's nothing to gain from that. Learn, learn, learn.

<comment><AUTHOR> So* you're saying my issue here is just ego? Humm I can't say my ego isn't hurt but I'm just not sure if it's only my ego.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, I'd love to have a problem like yours. Both of my parents are getting on in age and aren't as healthy anymore. I worry about them all the time and can't program as much as a result. I envy you.</comment>


Pay less for Heroku Postgres - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tombenner/heroku-schemas

<comment><USER2> Heroku needs to rotate database credentials every now and then so be careful that your second app on the database can have some downtime. Monitoring here could help.

Interesting idea.</comment>


Death in dolphins: do they understand they are mortal? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128283.700-death-in-dolphins-do-they-understand-they-are-mortal.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

<comment><USER2> Anything with a fear of death knows it is mortal (can be killed). I think even the most basic creatures understand this.

<comment><USER3> For loose enough definitions of 'understand'.

For example, when I hold my breath, the urge to breath increases steadily until I am forced to start breathing again. Is this because my body explicitly understands that not breathing eventually results in death, or is it more appropriate to say the response is automatic?

<comment><USER4> It's a case of both. The diaphragm muscle in your abdomen is both controlled manually by yourself, and automatically by your brain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This has been observed with other seemingly less intelligent species as well, for as long as man has kept pets. Anyone who has ever had f.e. dogs or cats at home as part of the family, coupled with one pet in the "litter" dying suddenly or accidentally, knows how notably different the other animals in the home will react to this compared to when one dies from drawn-out illness or old age. It is like that other side of the coin of missing someone, something most of us know is a characteristic that animals share with us. Animals being in mourning during sudden deaths of their kinsmen and companions is something the pet keepers among the population knows very well - there just haven't been much of formal or scientific studies in the topic.

</comment><comment><USER5> If they don't, that's probably why they always look so damn happy.

<comment><USER6> People expect their pets to be happy based on human features (shape of the mouth and eyebrows), which don't correspond to the actual mood of the pet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish!</comment>


Inmates offered reduced sentences for birth control procedure - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40677725 <comment><USER2> If getting 30 days shaved off your sentence is such an appealing offer that an optional bargain involving sterilization is considered coercion, surely it's _putting people in prison_ that's inhumane here?

<comment><USER3> Prison in the U.S. _is_ cruel and unusual punishment, as well as an institution of modern slavery.

Race and income are the highest predictors of whether a person would end up in prison.

Both of these speak loudly about us as a society and about our true values.

<comment><USER4> In the case of drug crimes, I agree with you. Appeal of the logic starts to break down when you scale it out for violent offenders. In fact, I find the lax sentencing in Scandanavian countries appalling.

<comment><USER5> > In fact, I find the lax sentencing in Scandanavian countries appalling.

Do you find their low recidivism rates similarly appalling?

<comment><USER4> I find their population bares little resemblence to Chicago's.

<comment><USER5> We're not talking about Chicago, are we?

You said "In fact, I find the lax sentencing in Scandanavian countries appalling." I'm asking if you're appalled by the low recidivism rates their apparently-appalling justice system produces.

<comment><USER4> Sure we are.

"Socialism works so well there! We should do it here."

"They have such low recidivism there! We should use their sentencing as a standard!"

I think violent offenses are more than something that requires reform for the perpetrator. It requires justice for the victim. Rape and murder? Fuck you, you're going away FOREVER.

<comment><USER5> What, exactly is the socialist/capitalist dividing line when it comes to sentencing length? At what point does a short murder sentence become a sign of socialism?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some women have a severe adverse reaction to "hormonal" birth control. These products actually use hormone analogues that disrupt the steroid pathways.

This diagram shows how cholesterol is turned into the steroids: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid#/media/File:Steroidoge...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid#/media/File:Steroidogenesis.svg)

As best I can figure, my friend had her first psychotic break after 9 months of chemical castration with time released medroxyprogesterone acetate (Depo Provera). This drug is a very good mimic of Progesterone USP (what the body makes for itself), but the body cannot transform it into the steroids downstream from Progesterone USP.

Most of the other endocrine disruptors used as birth control aren't nearly as bad as Provera, but all have potential for adverse reactions.

edit: wording

<comment><USER7>
      chemical castration

Equating _temporary and removable_ birth control with "castration" is ludicrous.

<comment><USER6> > Equating temporary and removable birth control with "castration" is > ludicrous.

The 'chemical castration' comment was about Depo Provera specifically. The injection is NOT removable: you're basically stuck with the effects for 3+ months, unless you know to use the antidote (which is not covered in doctors' curriculum for using this class of drugs on their patients).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_castration#United_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_castration#United_States)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is not "birth control"—it's "coerced sterilization."

<comment><USER9> It's my understanding that the hormone-releasing implants for the women are birth control - remove it and you can get pregnant again in a month or two. I see this is an arm implant, not an IUD as a couple of friends have used (and subsequently removed and had a beautiful healthy daughter), so I may be incorrect.

But yes, the vasectomy offered to the men is far more permanent than "birth control".

<comment><USER10> India pioneered a "reversible vasectomy" [1]. Basically they gum up the ducts from the testes. It does not have to be irreversible.

The thing to watch is whether knowing they have become, at least temporarily, infertile, will lead them to unsafe sex practices resulting in more venereal disease.

[1][http://newatlas.com/risug-male- contraception/18824/](http://newatlas.com/risug-male-contraception/18824/)

<comment><USER11> There's a YC company, Contraline[1][2], doing a similar thing.

[1]: [http://contraline.com/](http://contraline.com/)

[2]: [http://contraline.com/news/2016/05/13/contraline-is- accepted...](http://contraline.com/news/2016/05/13/contraline-is-accepted- into-y-combinator-fellowship/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "A Tennessee judge has rescinded his controversial program that sought to encourage drug-dependent female and male inmates to cut their jail time by voluntarily agreeing to undergo birth control procedures.

White County General Sessions Court Judge Sam Benningfield of Sparta filed the order on Wednesday, a day before two state lawmakers asked Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery to render a legal opinion on the controversial program's constitutionality."

[http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/breakingnews/story/2017/j...](http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/breakingnews/story/2017/jul/27/tn- lawmakers-seek-state-attorney-general-opinion-judges-inmate-sterilization-- freedom-program/440575/)

</comment><comment><USER13> This practice has been stopped. (Edit)

Source: [http://wkrn.com/2017/07/27/white-county-judge-stops- trading-...](http://wkrn.com/2017/07/27/white-county-judge-stops-trading-jail- time-for-vasectomies/)

<comment><USER14> The article is from July 21, which wasn't too long ago.

<comment><USER14> (Can't edit my comment anymore, unfortunately. To clarify the context, before it was edited, the grandparent comment I replied to said something like: "This article is very old." The author has since removed that sentence.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> it's not eugenics I swear

<comment><USER10> What is the real end difference between this and something like genomic editing?

I'm not arguing for one or none of the above. Simply curious.

<comment><USER16> Depends on the nature of the genomic editing and the circumstances under which it occurs, doesn't it?

For example: "We'll give you time off your sentence if you let us edit out genes in your gametes linked to aggressive and addictive traits." That trade is similarly coercive, and doesn't provide a clear benefit to the future children.

<comment><USER17> > doesn't provide a clear benefit to the future children.

> edit out genes in your gametes linked to aggressive and addictive traits

sounds like a pretty clear benefit to me! I'd do that even if I was trying to conceive naturally. Why would I want my children to have a genetic predisposition towards undesirable behaviour?

<comment><USER18> Maybe aggression is a desirable trait.

<comment><USER17> To be fair, there are different types of aggression - some desirable (i.e. a strategic thinker who isn't afraid of /blitzkrieg/ as a valid strategy in business ventures) and others undesirable (e.g. prone to outbursts physical anger) which can only be described as a liability in polite, organised society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There's been sterilization of "welfare moms" in the recent past in the US.[1]

[1] [http://www.thedailybeast.com/sterilized-for-being- poor](http://www.thedailybeast.com/sterilized-for-being-poor)

<comment><USER7> 1981 isn't "recent", and it was illegal even then, as your link states clearly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am failing to find it, but this same basic story was posted in recent weeks. Perhaps just as well. A tldr of my comments there: Eh, some inmates might feel "You are going to reduce my sentence AND give me free birth control? What's the catch?"

As this article says, he may be going about it the wrong way, but he probably is trying to do something good. The Deep South (where I was born and raised) seems to generally be even worse than the rest of America about certain things. I can see him being willing to take the blame so some young woman can stop being a baby factory and blame it on him, thereby getting relatives and church members off her back.

<comment><USER21> Is it common for inmates to have relatives and church members on their back about not having children?

It seems there is a more serious situation that the relatives and church members would be on their back about.

<comment><USER20> I have read that sexual activity among teens in Europe and the US is about the same, but teen pregnancy rates are higher in the US due to reluctance to use birth or less ability to access birth control. Girls who take the pill in the US are "sluts" because they planned it. Girls who are swept away with emotion are in the clear morally because it is "love." The US also has a lot of hangups about abortion and barriers to accessing it.

There are social settings where "good girls":

A) Do not use birth control, especially if they are unmarried.

B) Serve the sexual needs of their man.

C) Do not get abortions because it is baby murder.

Etc. Ad nauseum.

It is a recipe for disaster for the girl and there is no socially acceptable escape from it -- unless some " asshole" male authority figure kindly gives you an out where you can say "Look, ma, I took the deal to come home to my kid 30 days early. I am trying to be a good parent here. Not my fault the judge is an asshole."

Good authority figures accept that doing the right thing means taking the blame for it when people don't like it. It is part of the job.

(Edit: some stats may be out of date because I am an old woman. The general principle still applies.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So, where are the Conservatives deploring this government involvement in health care?

Or, viewed from another angle, _this_ is the future of health care in America.

(For those who are unaware, note that _other_ aspects of health care in U.S. incarceration are often poor or outright unavailable. As a simple exercise, just say to yourself "private prison" \-- which many jurisdictions have increasingly moved to -- and imagine the corresponding pressure for cost savings (i.e. profit).

But, "spay and neuter" them? [Yes, an intentionally harsh and polemic phrasing on my part.] Sure, we can pay for that.)

<comment><USER13> Conservatives do not like it when the government forces them to pay for other people's birth control. This is usually one of the top issues in any American election and is discussed repeatedly year-round in the media.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If we support "cash for clunkers" why not support "pay people to be sterilized?" I don't mean "pay poor people and criminals" \-- I mean, open up the program to any person who volunteers.

<comment><USER10> I don't see an issue if it's available to one and all adults for free with no strings attached.

<comment><USER23> What about the hypothetical scenario where the procedure is free, and the volunteer also receives, say, $2,000?

<comment><USER10> If everyone is offered the $2,000, for the reversible kind, I'm okay with it. I know for some people 2,000 is something, for some people it's nothing. But if it's reversible I don't see the harm.

<comment><USER23> On the whole, I'm with you -- even if the procedure is not reversible.

I do have sympathy for the view that paying people to be sterilized preys upon the weak. Many people can think of things that they would have done for $2,000 at one point, but not at another point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is disgusting.

</comment><comment><USER25> RIP Here lies humanity

<comment><USER26> News flash. This has been ongoing for decades, on and off. America is a shithole.

<comment><USER27> Honest question, is anywhere not?

<comment><USER28> Australia and New Zealand?

<comment><USER29> Australia was considering forced castrations as recently as 2015. Also, I'm led to believe that internet service is fairly poor there due to limiting outgoing bandwidth.

I don't really know anything bad about NZ.

<comment><USER28> I 100/40 Mbps fibre connection to my house in Launceston, Tasmania. Seems to work alright. But I'm lucky.

I've often wondered if I had been castrated as a teenager maybe I would have spent less time in police lockup for stupid behavioural issues.

 _Castration, as well as the elimination of hormonally-driven behavior associated with a stallion, allows a male horse to be calmer and better- behaved, making the animal quieter, gentler and potentially more suitable as an everyday working animal._ [1]

 _Decreased Aggression: One of the most important behavioral advantages of castration is that as adults, these dogs will tend to be less aggressive both toward other male dogs and also people. The androgen (male) hormones, of which testosterone is the most important, are responsible for the development of many behavioral patterns. When young puppies are sexually mounting their 7 and 8-week old litter mates this is because of androgen surges in their bodies. The same is true with aggressive behavior._ [2]

 _Forced_ castration is something I don't think anyone should admit to supporting.

I wonder if there is scope for repeat violent offenders be _offered_ the procedure in exchange for early release or more lenient sentencing. Can, meet worms.

I like to imagine that scenario ends up being a footgun when, in the future, we've bred violence out of the human race, the aliens invade and we're too passive to do anything about it.

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

2\. [https://www.petcoach.co/article/benefits-of-neutering- castra...](https://www.petcoach.co/article/benefits-of-neutering-castrating- male-dogs-puppies/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suggest reading about [http://www.projectprevention.org](http://www.projectprevention.org) for a less coercive version of the same concept.</comment>


Stop calling it "poaching" - <AUTHOR> https://42hire.com/stop-calling-it-poaching-especially-for-devs-7c4223ed431f <comment><USER2> Should be (2016).

Color me surprised - a poaching company doesn't like people using the term "poaching"?

As commenter David Carson points out on that page, people use "poaching" to refer "a company making an offer to an employee of another company that they currently have a business relationship with. Customers hiring staff away from suppliers, and vice versa, etc."

There's a related definition which I think is more common. Quoting Wiktionary, "To cause an employee or customer to switch from a competing company to your own company." Quoting from Merrian-Webster, "to attract (someone, such as an employee or customer) away from a competitor."

In neither case does the term have the meaning of hiring people for a higher salary.

The essay says "Did you know that the roots of Silicon Valley can be traced back to one of the most epic "poaching" events of all time?", referring to the 'traitorous eight' who left Shockley to found Fairchild.

This was not poaching. It doesn't even fit the author's own definition, which is "one company offering an employee of another company a better job". Those who left Shockley were founders; Fairchild didn't exist to make them an offer.

And if the company is serious about not using "poach" as metaphor, they should stop using "hunt" as a metaphor for finding employees. Eg,

* "many companies try to hunt the same developers" \- [https://42hire.com/how-to-attract-and-select-the-best-progra...](https://42hire.com/how-to-attract-and-select-the-best-programmers-2-e4171aba487b)

* "When you are engaged in talent acquisition and on the hunt for your next talent" \- [https://42hire.com/top-secrets-to-become-the-best-recruitmen...](https://42hire.com/top-secrets-to-become-the-best-recruitment-managers-2-d74913cb96ab)

* "Permanently rotate people and hire new MBAs to hunt employees with analytics skills." \- [https://42hire.com/digital-hr-tips-to-update-the-recruitment...](https://42hire.com/digital-hr-tips-to-update-the-recruitment-process-45c6e5530ac5)

This 'hunt' metaphor _equally_ compares you to Cecil the lion.</comment>


Tormented typhoon victims scour for food - <AUTHOR> http://www.rappler.com/move-ph/issues/disasters/typhoon-yolanda/43381-tormented-typhoon-victims-scour-for-food-yolanda <comment><USER3> You can donate to Save the Children here: [http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/about- us/emergencies/phili...](http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/about- us/emergencies/philippines-typhoon-haiyan)

Also: [https://donate.oxfam.org.uk/emergency/philippines?intcmp=hp_...](https://donate.oxfam.org.uk/emergency/philippines?intcmp=hp_276_hero_philippines- typhoon_2013-11-10)

<comment><USER4> I know that this is an emergency and perhaps not the best time to split hairs.

Having said that, is there a Charity Navigator for the UK / Europe?

[http://www.charitynavigator.org/](http://www.charitynavigator.org/)

I do not give a single red penny to even a local food bank unless I am fairly familiar with the inner workings and general overhead of the organization.

I am sorry but gone are those days one could blindly write a check to any random outfit - Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders or Oxfam - <USER2> reputable and however straight-laced.

The kind of waste, misuse and sheer incompetence that goes on in some charity houses borders on the rotten.

<comment><USER5> Direct Relief gets great marks from Charity Navigator and others, and 100% of donations go to intended recipients due to a neat structure that offloads ops costs onto a trust.

[http://www.directrelief.org/](http://www.directrelief.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some people are surviving on just coconuts because they are afraid to fish due to all the dead bodies. I have family, friends and employees in the Philippines, fortunately they are all safe and were in areas only battered by the heavy winds and rain. I was told many years ago they were suppose to build a WALL near Tacloban, knowing it was a bad area for storm surges, but politics prevented that from ever happening. The devastation is so heartbreaking! No one knows what to do, it's just so overwhelming. OH.. and there's another storm, Zoraida, approaching the southern Philippines just days after this super storm.

</comment><comment><USER6> Can anyone comment on the relative efficiency of charitable donations to disaster relief, as opposed to other programs?

I think it would be a mistake to bias charitable donations towards acute problems as opposed to chronic ones.

But on the other hand, increases in the total amount of charitable giving are a net plus, so I'm not complaining about this story, I just think it's good to think of the bigger picture too.

<comment><USER7> Basically yea. Anything you give now won't get there quick enough to do any good. All the stuff the red cross collects after a disaster is simply warehoused for the NEXT time something happens.

<comment><USER8> Or to buy the Red Cross Executives BMW's...

Never donate to the Red Cross, pick a Real Charity

<comment><USER9> Source? I was about to donate to the Red Cross, so I'd like to hear more about this.

<comment><USER10> In my opinion, you should just go ahead and donate. There was a thread a couple days ago about someone replying to essentially the same comment, and for every point there was a counterpoint that led nowhere.

I don't doubt that an international association like the Red Cross has administrative overhead. It is reassuring thought that overall reports [1] seem to be positive.

If that argument is not enough, I'd argue further: we cannot know for sure how (or if) our contribution will make it to those that need it, but I'd rather donate now and research later than postpone the donation "just until I find the ideal charity" and then forget about it. The Red Cross has been around for around a hundred years, though, so I'd say that's good enough when it comes to trusting a random association to coordinate at a global scale.

Disclaimer: I donated to the Red Cross

[1] [http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...](http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3277)

<comment><USER9> Excellent reasoning :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This whole thing is just heartbreaking. I live in Manila but spent the majority of my life in Bicol, a southeastern province facing the pacific, making it one of the most typhoon-prone parts of the country.

I watched the local news over dinner today and here is the latest:

        People sleeping near the tarmac, waiting to get out of Leyte as soon as possible.
        Ports in Cebu are filled with people going to Leyte, some travels are cancelled due to bad weather.
        Businessmen complaining about the looting and wants to leave the province, demanding security from the government "for a long time". They also said that these looters are organized and are taking advantage of the current state of the province.
        A lady telling the story of his children eating spoiled food. I can't quite translate the whole story from the local language but this one really touched me.
        A child pleading for help, saying "wala nang pagasa" (Hope is gone).
        The Department of Help urged the local government to postpone the burial of the dead.
        Some of the baranggays (local communities) are still isolated.

</comment><comment><USER12> Can we as a community think of anything we could do help this situation?

Is anyone helping people locate loved ones?

Is anyone giving people a way to report where help is most needed?

Is anyone giving bystanders like us direction on how we should help?

If funds are needed, is anyone taking charge in rallying the support needed for private donations?

<comment><USER13> Give money.

<comment><USER14> +1. Why money and not stuff? There are literally hundreds of articles on this topic, but here's one from a professor of public health specific to Typhoon Haiyan relief:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/11/how_to_help_typhoon_haiyan_survivors_in_the_philippines_the_only_donation.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "THIS STORY MAKES PEOPLE SAD"

I'm not familiar with Rappler and have never seen this emotion voting before.

Edit: For 5%, this story makes them happy?! This story makes me want to help. Looks like people are adding details on how to do so. Ignore this trivial comment and see those. Thanks.

Edit 2: Here's a related thread on Reddit for details on what's happening and how to donate:

Emergency appeal in response to Typhoon Haiyan (self.doctorswithoutborders)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/doctorswithoutborders/comments/1qejw...](http://www.reddit.com/r/doctorswithoutborders/comments/1qejwm/emergency_appeal_in_response_to_typhoon_haiyan/)

<comment><USER16> Re: the 5% happy - the internet has trolls and other folks who just like being contrary for the sake of it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This quote really got me choked up, "I am a decent person. But if you have not eaten in 3 days, you do shameful things to survive," ...as for Rappler's mood meter, I'm definitely SAD and angry about all this.

</comment><comment><USER14> [http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/super-typhoon-haiyan- re...](http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/super-typhoon-haiyan-relief-fund/)

GlobalGiving.org's Super Typhoon Haiyan Relief Fund is raising funds to support immediate relief and long term recovery efforts. Donations made to the relief fund will be used to support local organizations that are well positioned to make a direct impact in their communities but lack the name brand recognition to fundraise internationally.

After the 2011 Japan Tsunami, GlobalGiving raised over $8.9M for the Japan relief fund and used it to support a variety of local non-profits in the Japan doing incredible work.

[http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/japan-earthquake- tsunam...](http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/japan-earthquake-tsunami- relief/updates/)

Disclosure: I'm the Chief Product Officer at GlobalGiving and am happy to answer any questions. Your donation will be used responsibility to ensure that it helps those in need in the Philippines.

Pre-emptive Answer: Yes, GlobalGiving has overhead. Every charity does. We offer you the option to explicitly cover this overhead when you donate so that 100% of your donation will go to relief efforts. None of the other charities can make this promise.

</comment><comment><USER17> TIME actually has a good, comprehensive list of ways to help:

If you're looking or have information on a missing person, Google Person Finder has launched a Typhoon Yolanda page. A Google Crisis Map is also available for evacuation and relief information.

The mGive Foundation is collecting donations from U.S. wireless subscribers, who can text AID to 80108 to give a $10 donation to the organization's Philippines Typhoon Diaster Relief Fund. Charges will appear on the user's wireless bill or will be deducted from a prepaid balance. Text STOP to 80108 to stop or HELP for assistance. Full terms are available here.

UNICEF is supporting relief efforts by helping displaced families find access to shelter, clean water, food and vaccines and airlifting $1.3 million of additional supplies from its Copenhagen warehouse. You can donate online, call 1-800-367-5437 or text RELIEF to 864233.

The Philippine Red Cross is providing a tracking service for family members looking for missing people. The organization is accepting donations on its website (100 PHP = $2.30) and is looking for volunteers to help assemble relief packages at its headquarters in Manila.

The American Red Cross has also activated a family-tracking service for those looking for a missing family member in the Philippines. Donors can send a check to their local chapter, indicating "Philippines Typhoons and Floods" in the memo line.

The World Food Programme is mobilizing 40 metric tons of high-energy biscuits and additional relief supplies, but it is also accepting donations online or by calling 1-202-747-0722 or +39-06-65131 from outside the U.S.

CARE is accepting donations on its website and has deployed workers to the Philippines to assist with emergency relief. You can donate by phone at 1-800-521-2273 or +1-404-681-2252 for international calls.

Oxfam has emergency responders on the ground to assist with relief support. The organization is asking for contributions to its Typhoon Haiyan Relief and Recovery Fund online.

International Medical Corps is also on the ground to help assess damage and is accepting donations on its emergency-response page for Haiyan relief.

ChildFund International is distributing clean water, food, blankets and other emergency aid items. Staff members are also setting up child-centered spaces in evacuation centers to offer counseling and relief for children and their families. Donate online.

Doctors Without Borders has had 15 members of an emergency team in Cebu since Saturday. The organization is sending more staff to assist with medical and psychological treatment as well as items such as medical kits, vaccines and hygiene kits over the next few days. An additional cargo with an inflatable hospital and medical material is being prepared to leave later this week. Donate online.

The International Rescue Committee has also dispatched a team of aid workers to assist in assessing the damage and providing access to clean water and hygiene and sanitation needs. The organization is asking for donations online.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a scenario Silicon Valley libertarians would be cool with. "The market will take care of it", right? Still waiting for the libertarians to move to the Philippines...</comment>


TrueCrypt's Plausible Deniability is Theoretically Useless (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://defuse.ca/truecrypt-plausible-deniability-useless-by-game-theory.htm

<comment><USER2> If you're in a country where the government would torture you indefinitely just for suspecting that you have a hidden TrueCrypt volume, you're probably screwed anyway if you ever appear on their radar. At that point you probably did something else besides using encryption that would be sufficiently susicious to get you tortured.

Plausible deniability is simply not a useful defense against someone that would decide to torture you for a mere suspicion.

<comment><USER3> It is not just about torture. You might be penalized by a judge for failing to disclose your "other password" regardless of whether or not it actually exists -- you might even be asked to prove that there is no other password. A customs officer might refuse to allow you to bring your laptop across the border until you enter your "other password," also regardless of whether or not there actually is another password.

It is also worth pointing out that the number of passwords you deny having is completely irrelevant. You could claim to have forgotten the one password you use for non-deniable encryption and the effect would be the same (and your story is equally plausible). It is much easier to claim to have forgotten one password than to try to maintain an innocent partition, so you might as well just do that.

<comment><USER4> > A customs officer might refuse to allow you to bring your laptop across the > border until you enter your "other password," also regardless of whether or > not there actually is another password.

I never thought I'd feel the need to offer this as serious advice, rather than just a novelty toy, but SpyCoin is a way to get data across borders.

[http://spy-coins.com/](http://spy-coins.com/)

I have a pound coin and it's pretty good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Plausible deniability is not intended to protect you; it is intended to protect the data. If you know that giving up the key (or all the keys) will not make them stop torturing you (as you cannot prove that you have given them all the keys), there's no incentive to give up any keys in the first place.

At least that was Julian Assange's vision when he invented the Rubberhose filesystem[1] in 1997.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_%28file_system%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_%28file_system%29)

<comment><USER6> Exactly. There's no reason for the government not to torture all suspects to death, because they can never be sure that there's not another volume somewhere, or whether the outer or adjacent volumes that they've gotten access to that appear to have the information that they want are decoys, or even whether the bearer of the computer has knowledge of or the ability to open the relevant volume which may or may not exist or be a decoy.

The rational thing for the government to do would be to ignore the computer (after forensics), and work on the person. If the information turns out not to be productive, escalate the torture. When the suspect dies and/or fools you into a significant expenditure or public failure, you lose and the suspect wins. Same as it's always been.

edit: of course, faced with the fact that there's no reason not to torture you to death, you may just become a willing collaborator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is stupid. The author clearly missed the word "PLAUSIBLE". Yes, in any country where they will torture you you're fucked. In any other country you can put your hand on your heart and swear there is one volume, and you gave the correct password. Now it's up to them to prove you wrong.

I hoped this would b a technical article explaining a flaw in TrueCrypt, but it is just flawed logic based on a misconception that "plausible" means "full- proof".

<comment><USER8> The author specifically mentions that this argument doesn't apply in countries with a presumption of innocence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> We need to shift encryption paradigm from local mindset "I own it and only I can read it" to globally distributed anonymous data sets: "No one (including data server) knows who owns and whats inside it".

Zerobin gives an idea: [http://sebsauvage.net/wiki/doku.php?id=php:zerobin](http://sebsauvage.net/wiki/doku.php?id=php:zerobin)

</comment><comment><USER10> I think the author made a mistake. The first case (but bottom left square of the table) is this scenario (Keep Torturing, No Hidden Volume):

      If you don't have a hidden volume and the government decides to keep torturing you,
      you're screwed. You have no way of stopping the torture even if you wanted to, and you
      probably get killed. So your reward is -100. The government's reward is 10 because
      although they may have wasted some time torturing you, they have your plans, can prove
      your guilt, and arrest your accomplices.

I don't understand why the government's reward is 10. How do "they have your plans" if there is no hidden volume? Are the plans in the "outer" partition in this scenario?

<comment><USER11> Yes

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Simple solution: 3 hidden volumes.

</comment><comment><USER13> When you're ordered by a judge to disclose the contents of your computer or media by lawful order, or the police have reasonable suspicion that you have some sort of hidden container, than yes, it's pretty useless. In those cases your refusal to comply can be used against you.

It's a very useful mechanism to protect information important to you in other situations. Perhaps you don't want your spouse, kids, boss or employees to have access to some data. Or you need to hide sensitive data in plain sight for preservation purposes.

</comment><comment><USER14> _It 's important to note that the actual number's don't really matter here. All that matters is their ordering (greater than or less than)._

And your irrefutable logic for picking that ordering is what, exactly?

The reasoning behind the 9 and 10 on the 'no hidden volume' side is especially flawed, and seems to be a backwards argument made to support the number, rather than to derive it.

Somehow being wrong and wasting resources costs no points, but uncertainty and being correct costs points.

</comment><comment><USER15> To go along with what everyone else is saying, TrueCrypt is meant as _legal_ protection. Assuming anything more leads us to the ever-relavent xkcd: [http://xkcd.com/538/](http://xkcd.com/538/).

Also, there is no strictly dominant strategy in the prisoners dilemma like he says.

<comment><USER16> I use encryption to store vaguely sensitive documents because it mitigates the consequences if my computer is stolen.

I guess that means I'm not a true crypto nerd?

(I think it is unfortunate how dismissive that comic is, exactly because of this use case...)

<comment><USER15> No, that's what I do too. My point is simply that crypto only protects you from attack vectors targeting the data. If _you_ are the target, your crypto won't save you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's a bigger mistake. If government keeps torturing until all volumes are discovered and unblocked (or until you're dead), than why your points when you have hidden partition are higher, when you don't? Considering this, it is no longer a strictly dominant strategy for you to have it.

</comment><comment><USER18> The logic of the article is flawed. On many points.

<comment><USER19> Well, the underlying issue is quite real -- TrueCrypt's hidden volume capability is so well-known that it provides little to no practical benefit.

Look at it this way, if the US government could get Glenn Greenwald's laptop, which in this scenario is TrueCrypt-encrypted, do you think they would simply give it back to him and say, "I guess he didn't have anything after all" if the first password he gave them turned up nothing but pictures of his cat?

Of course, the goal of TrueCrypt may be to provide a small amount of extra security, which it does. As others have said, a regime that would torture you to death likely doesn't need your laptop anyway. But the point is reasonably valid that a hidden volume is only _enormously_ valuable if no one thinks you might have it, which isn't the case with TrueCrypt anymore.

<comment><USER20> If Greenwald were trying to hide what he has, he could put the documents/information he has already leaked, plus a bunch of stuff he decided not to, plus some other documents that are undecided and innocuous in an unhidden (encrypted) partition- or have a second hidden partition- that he could give the Feds access to very reluctantly and such, and they would find all those documents and possibly think that was all he had. They still would not know what else he had, and really wouldn't know that he had anymore, even if they suspected it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you were counting on TrueCrypt for "plausible deniability" than you are stupid.

That's "magic bullet" security/magic thinking if I've ever heard it...

<comment><AUTHOR> In the official Truecrypt website, "plausible deniability" is one of its selling points.

<comment><USER22> ...And plausible deniability seems to be exactly what it delivers. Meaning simply that 1) you can deny it, 2) and its plausible that your denial is true (the extra requirements on the hidden data, such as that the non-hidden part cannot grow, are kindof inconvenient - from what I remember). That this might not satisfy a rogue actor that likes to torture you without much if any cause doesn't change that fact.

Rather, this article argues something different, which is that in some (extreme) circumstances, plausible deniability won't help you much (though it's still optimal in that it's a "strictly dominant" strategy) . To which i would say "no duh".</comment></comment></comment>


Bash.org is back - <AUTHOR> http://bash.org/?latest <comment><USER2> Good time to revisit some of the classics that have propagated into general geek culture:

The origin of "hunter2" as a password: [http://bash.org/?244321](http://bash.org/?244321)

Sysadmin problems: [http://bash.org/?5273](http://bash.org/?5273) (Ever had a server accidentally walled up into an inaccessible space, but it kept working?)

"The keys are like right next to each other": [http://bash.org/?5300](http://bash.org/?5300)

IRC pong: [http://bash.org/?9322](http://bash.org/?9322)

Boolean awesomeness: [http://bash.org/?10958](http://bash.org/?10958)

<comment><USER3> rap: [http://bash.org/?870063](http://bash.org/?870063)

<comment><USER4>
      <djahandarie> dont mind me while i emerge my ownage

haha, emerge. remember when Gentoo was a thing?

<comment><USER5> "its -O3 the letter, not -03 the number"

[http://web.archive.org/web/20060513022941/http://www.funroll...](http://web.archive.org/web/20060513022941/http://www.funroll- loops.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting how many of the things make me think, "This is awesome!" (like the "boolean awesomeness" one that JoshTriplett linked), and yet so many also are such examples of hatefulness (e.g., top ones) and the kind of things that I would not want anyone to read.

<comment><USER2> See also 4chan. Pervasively offensive and frequently hateful, yet also the source of impressive content, touching moments, activism, and miscellaneous awesomeness.

<comment><USER7> human nature in a nutshell

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This one is my personal favorite: [http://bash.org/?104052](http://bash.org/?104052)

      <NES> lol
      <NES> I download something from Napster
      <NES> And the same guy I downloaded it from starts
            downloading it from me when I'm done
      <NES> I message him and say "What are you doing?
            I just got that from you"
      <NES> "getting my song back fucker"

</comment><comment><USER9> This deserves way more than 70 points in 2 hours. If bash.org isn't up HN's alley I don't know what is!

<comment><USER10> Bash.org has been up and down quite a few times for the past few years, there's only one real reason that it's interesting and that's for it sentimental value. Who ever browses bash.org for new content anymore? IRC's only used for open source communication and general knowledge channels nowadays anyway, not much fun going on still.

Unless general IRC channels and networks experience a revival there won't ever be a better source for IRC quotes than the internet archive's mirror of bash.org.

<comment><USER11> > _IRC 's only used for open source communication_

I know non-open-source companies (of various sizes/ages) that use IRC for internal dev communication...

What's the _alternative_ to IRC, with similar characteristics?

<comment><AUTHOR> Slack / HipChat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm feeling a bit ignorant - could someone give a bit of background about bash.org and its history?

<comment><AUTHOR> Long ago in the dark days of the internet, before Facebook and social networks, and Reddit, everyone communicated using a group chat service called IRC.

On IRC people often said very funny things!

Bash.org is a collection of user contributed quotes from IRC conversations. When you would see someone say something funny on IRC, you would instantly load up bash.org and submit your quote. Moderators would then approve the ones they thought were funny. If they were actually funny they would get upvoted.

About two years ago the site simply stopped updating with new quotes. People like me, who had incorporated bash.org into their "I have 30 seconds to kill, type random urls into my browser and hit enter" process still visited pretty regularly in desperate hope to see a new quote.

Finally a few days ago, after years of silence, a new one appeared.

<comment><USER12> Exactly what I was looking for - thanks slifty!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The very first page on it and I get this random gem: (do a ) tracert -h 100 22.214.171.124 ; after the 10th hop or so, watch for an imperial star destroyer.

<comment><USER14> Try 'traceroute -m 255 obiwan.scrye.net'

By suggestion of your command

<comment><USER15> `tracert -h 255 obiwan.scrye.net` for you windows bunnies out there

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> See also:

* [http://qdb.us/latest](http://qdb.us/latest) \- more active than bash.

* [http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/browse](http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/browse) \- quotes from irc.mozilla.org , mostly Mozilla-focused.

* [http://www.xkcdb.com/](http://www.xkcdb.com/) \- covers #xkcd and related channels. Randall Munroe participates sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's been years since I've visited this site. While it could use a technology update, the content is still quite humorous.

<comment><USER18> > While it could use a technology update, the content is still quite humorous.

Why? I love the fact that there is at least one site out there that remembers that plain-text web pages can run just fine if all you're doing is delivering plain text. (Hacker News is another nice, nearly-plain-text example.) What purpose would be served by a technology update?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> For french speakers who might not know, there is also the french equivalent of bash.org previously called bash-fr (now renamed to danstonchat) [http://danstonchat.com/](http://danstonchat.com/), it also has a quite large community.

</comment><comment><USER20> That's really cool. A dozen of my bookmarks don't return 404 anymore.

</comment><comment><USER21> Now that we've got Bash.org back, what will it take to get Randall Munroe to restart LimericksDB?

</comment><comment><USER22> did they remove rss though?

<comment><USER23> Rss started working again for me a couple days ago. Guess I never bothered taking it off.

<comment><USER24> path please? i cannae find it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Next up: Robot Wisdom.

</comment><comment><USER26> I love their variety of slightly racist humor!

</comment><comment><USER27> Add a Bitcoin Donation link like [https://coinkite.com/u/OpenBazaar/](https://coinkite.com/u/OpenBazaar/)</comment>


Appsaurus (YC 07): A Smarter Recommendation Tool Than App Store Genius - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/appsaurus-iphone-app/

<comment><USER2> Have the recommendations of Appsaurus been demonstrated to be better than the app store Genius?

<comment><USER3> Any such demonstrations would be totally anecdotal though.

There's no way to say its recommendations are quantitatively better, you just have to try it and see whether their machine learning _stuff_ is better than Apple's ML _stuff_.

<comment><USER2> _Any such demonstrations would be totally anecdotal though._

Why not conduct a proper experiment complete with statistical significance calculations?

<comment><USER4> Yes, you could definitely gather non-anecdotal, statistical evidence, but I think you're missing dschobel's main point. I _think_ he's making a point about the inherently subjective nature of "quality of recommendation", not suggesting the obviously stupid idea that it's impossible to gather statistical data on a recommendation engine.

And to that point, I have to agree with him. At least, most of the obvious choices for a quality measurement seem quite flawed. Here are the first few I thought of:

\- Apps downloaded (this is more about how good you are at getting people to donwload an app, and recommendations are only a small part of that)

\- Subjective direct rating (averaging subjective experience doesn't tell you what's good, it just tells you what people perceive as good)

\- Length of usage (measures how much fun you made the rating "game", not how good your recommendations are)

This isn't an accident. Recommendation quality is inherently tricky, because if you knew how to figure out what you _should_ recommend to any given person...that would be your recommendation engine! So you're always using a proxy for goodness, rather than a direct measurement, and that abstraction tends to leak.

<comment><USER2> How did Netflix evaluate submissions to its competition?

<comment><USER4> Presumably you already know how Netflix does that and you're asking this rhetorically. If you are actually interested in how Netflix evaluated submissions, you can read all about it on their contest page.

I thought about the Netflix example, which is obviously related, while writing my post. Ultimately the Netflix competition isn't for a recommendation engine, it's a prediction engine. They use that prediction engine to produce recommendations, but that's a separate phase. The top N predicted ratings != the best N things to recommend at this moment, though obviously it's useful to know predicted ratings for movies if you're writing a recommender.

A recommendation engine should not just recommend the highest predicted rated apps given that the user downloads the app. As an extremely simple example, even if you habitually rate games much higher than other apps, it shouldn't recommend you 100% games. You probably want to see other things sometimes too. The perfect set of apps on your phone would not be entirely games; you do like to twitter after all, even if you're not entirely fond of any of the twitter apps out right now.

The perfect recommendation engine would be psychic; it would know the set of apps on your phone that would make you maximally happy. That's obviously not the same as predicting exactly what you'd rate each app (though presumably you could do that easily).

<comment><USER5> So if I take the history set of Apps rated/downloaded by a user and give the Apps recommender only half of it to base it's recommendation, is that a prediction engine or recommendation engine?

<comment><USER4> Prediction. The whole point of a recommendation engine is to _change_ the set of apps you download in the future. Otherwise it might as well not exist!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised the DirectEdge folks havent done anything on app recommendations yet - not only will it be a huge hit if it works well, it'll bring in some great PR as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> For a moment I thought it was YC 09 not 07, but it is an app from the adpinion guys. Looks mighty fine indeed.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how they chose $1. This seems more valuable than that.

</comment><comment><USER9> Oh man, huge congratulations guys!</comment>