Evernote Gets $50 Million in Funding - <AUTHOR> http://blog.evernote.com/2011/07/13/evernote-gets-50-million-in-funding-with-faq/

<comment><USER2> The exit section is a little silly. When you take $50m you don't just get to not exit later. You're just saying you're going to do it via an IPO or an IPO- sized acquisition.

If you really don't want to exit, don't take money at all. The minute you take a VC's funds you're agreeing to exit.

<comment><USER3> From the context it seems they're specifically talking about acquisitions. IPO seems in line with their goals, including "making a hundred year company".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "What are you going to spend it on? Some of the money will go to long-term investors and shareholders. "

does this sound kind of pyramid-schemey to anybody else? they are taking new investments in order to pay off investors?

<comment><USER5> You're defining a pyramid scheme too narrowly. This is one piece of a pyramid/ponzi scheme, but in those schemes, the underlying asset has no net worth. Here, Evernote clearly has worth, and plenty of it (regardless of whether the exact figure is debatable).

This happens quite often in Series B+ rounds, where previous investors take some or all money off the table. The reason is that early stage investors don't always have the tolerance/portfolio to sustain a long-term investment. Let's use DoCoMo Capital in this example since they were an investor in Evernote's Series A/B rounds. It appears that they didn't invest during this round, so it very well may be the case that they took some of all of their money off the table. It could very well be the case that DoCoMo Capital (who is the venture arm of NTT DoCoMo) made their initial investment in Evernote as a strategic one. Perhaps they no longer see strategic value in the company and need to cash out so they can make different investments that are a better strategic fit for their company. I don't know this to be the case at all - just showing the point.

Alternatively, let's say an angel investor with a very small portfolio had invested in Evernote in their very early stages. It could very well be the case today that 95%+ of that angel's net worth is tied up in the company, and so he/she might want to take some money off the table today to reduce his/her risk.

On the other hand, perhaps Sequoia has the tolerance to wait this out until IPO or a mega-acquisition. So they get in now at a higher price, cash some of the older investors out to reduce some dilution to current shareholders, and then the rest of the cash gets pumped back into the company.

Hopefully this is helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love Evernote with a passion, but only after I studied some in-depth how-to articles from other users, and built my own mental model of how to apply it to my way of working. I think Evernote needs to come with some pre-built paradigms or tutorials if it is going to get more mainstream traction.

<comment><USER7> I've tried and failed to get the point of Evernote a few times.

Do you mind pointing to the article/articles you used to get you up to speed?

<comment><USER8> What makes OneNote so much better than Evernote?

EDIT: This is not an editorial comment or rhetorical. I've heard much about this, and would like to know why many consider OneNote on early 2000's pen computers so awesome and Evernote only so-so.

<comment><USER9> Being crossplatform and multi-device/cloud is a huge advantage for Evernote over OneNote. I'd never even heard of OneNote since it only ran on Windows.

The main difference with Onenote seems to be a slightly better way of rapidly accessing multiple notes than Evernote. This might work better in a classroom type environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Well, we don't think a billion dollars is all that cool either.

Apparently some of the investors who are cashing out think a valuation south of a billion dollars is pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use Evernote, mostly for the automatic OCRing of scanned documents, but I'd rather just be storing the documents locally and/or in Dropbox.

Is there a good way to do this?

Ideally I'd also have a completely standalone document scanner that could sync my documents to Dropbox or something. Has anyone tried this one? <http://www.ionaudio.com/products/details/docuscan-worldwide> Any other suggestions?

<comment><USER11> Absolutely. I use a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner[1], along with the software that comes with it. Automatically OCRs both sides and then stores it on disk. I don't even have to name files as they are full-text-searchable in Finder on OSX. Check out Ryan Waggoner's post[2] on this (where I got the idea from).

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001XWCQO2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001XWCQO2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=nicksergeant-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=B001XWCQO2)

[2] [http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/11/how-i-filled-two- dumpsters-a...](http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/11/how-i-filled-two-dumpsters- and-went-paperless-with-the-fujitsu-scansnap-s1500/)

<comment><USER12> The Fujitsu ScanSnap is the greatest piece of hardware ever.

If you use OS X, you can also get DEVONthink (not free).

Way better than Evernote. Combine it with DropBox, and away you go.

<comment><USER13> Another opinion (mine) is that DEVONthink is a legacy single-user clunker that is inferior to Evernote in every way that matters--stability, speed, and ease of use. And woah, it can sync across machines!

Putting a DEVONThink DB on Dropbox does not work[1]. It corrupts the DB contents.

(Totally agree about the ScanSnap, though.)

[1]: <http://www.devontechnologies.com/support/faqs.php?cat=7>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Two Gripes about Evernote.

Its soo difficult to suggest new features. I have looked a few times and still haven't found a way to do it.

Feature Request: I want to be able to mark a spot on a map for later. Like a way point and add information to it. Example: I found an awesome lake and I doubt Ill remember it 5 years down the road, but want to move there someday. Nothing in evernote allows me to just that. I want to take a note about a specific location.

<comment><USER15> Your wish is my command. I'm gonna integrate my Android app, Car Locator, with Evernote using their API. Check back with me in a couple days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow. Evernote is the kind of software that I wish I used, but for me it has a lot more friction than just using a text file in each project (which I can view on my phone and other computers via dropbox).

Any die-hard users want to share some info about the way you've benefitted from it compared to the sort of system I described above?

<comment><USER17> I feel the same way, I initially really liked Evernote on Desktop, but it's much more clunky then just using Notepad on my iPhone. Plus the notes don't work (well?) when you are without Internet or the Internet is bad like at SXSW.

<comment><USER18> If what you want to use Evernote for can be done in Notepad, then you might not be the right audience. Or you might not be thinking big enough. I've been using Evernote since very early, and it took me awhile to get it, too.

I have a few differet use cases:

1\. Keeping a copy of almost everything I read online. The search feature makes it easy to find stuff, and having a screenshot-like copy means I can tell when people try to disappear stuff. In my opinion, 95% of people using Pinboard and Delicious are doing it wrong; if you want to record where to _find_ (highly dynamic) information then those are the right tools, but if it's information itself you want, why not just have a copy?

2\. More general recordkeeping. The automated OCR means I can take a picture of a receipt and both (a) have it and (b) find it later when I need to be reimbursed. My family also moves far and frequently for work, and Evernote provides an extra place to store the kids' shot records, tax returns, etc. (You can make encrypted notes, or upload pre-encrypted files.)

And despite the fact that everything is in the cloud, a backup copy of your account is kept on your computer, so even if Evernote goes bust or loses your stuff, you've got a backup copy.

They also have great customer service. When my credit card number changed and my premium membership didn't get renewed, they just ave me a couple of months free while I got it sorted out. And it's $50/year ($4/mo) for a premium account! It's worth $4/mo just to be able to scan my records and then throw away te paper copies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> They took money that they actually don't need? So it's like selling yourself?

<comment><USER20> They don't need it now. But money is cheap right now, even cheaper if you don't need money (your company is doing great, plus you have leverage). This should help them avoid having to raise money when they desperately need it, which is a bad situation to be in

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think this is great news. Evernote is a fantastic company, and I think they have a really good shot at changing the way normal people keep track of stuff in their head.

They definitely have a lot of areas to expand. I'd be happy if they used this money to focus on hardware; there are a zillion things you can do to bridge the awesomeness of digital recordkeeping with the constraints of our physical world. Have you seen the Sixth Sense that MIT Media Lab has been working on? (<http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/>). Yeah -- I want that for Evernote.

</comment><comment><USER22> So you essentially Web2.0 a TODO text file, making s/CRLF/<arbitrary new record type>/ and let some other people view it, maybe ... add timestamping or version control or some other cruft, maybe a couple of mobile platform specific interfaces and/or an API (whole thing <1 weekend coding, add 2 weeks for UI/UX) ... somehow con fools in to using it, then someone gives you 50 million USD. This is why the US economy is going down the drain. Unbelievable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you serious? Please try and replicate Evernote in 3 weeks.

<comment><USER22> Firstly, you originally posted this article so I can see that you are biased against cynical dismissal of the company. (I tend to feel that in openness you should have declared that in refuting my skeptical take on Evernote, but now I've done it for you.)

Secondly, it seems from your background that you are 18 and your self-identity is closely linked to programming 'apps' and the whole money-for- dotbubbleapp2.0 thang. I am happy for your (apparent?) success thus far, as you yourself spin it. However, I would suggest that you consider that perhaps you do not have enough perspective yet to understand that this whole thing is just a game... a very stupid game... and ultimately not necessarily producing anything at all that is meaningful or useful to humanity, the economy, the country, or your dog: despite big scary amounts of money being thrown around.

In answer to your question: I am serious. It appears to me that it is not untrue to say that nothing Evernote has done has actually been new or unique. All they've done is drawn a cloud around some stuff that existed before (I can _hear_ the squeak of the whiteboard marker right now...), put some marketing dollars down and made some sexed-up UI's for a few device types. That's it.

Then got a bunch of money.

Of course, they probably wasted a lot more money doing it less efficiently ... and used a lot of stupid Silly-valley oldboy networks to get the cash ... and burned a lot of time. And maybe actually did produce something new along the way. But basically... nothing new. Skepticism is king.

TL;DR? That's sad because I can't them recommend that you try _The Art of UNIX Programming_ or any tome on code generation. But I hope you do. Also, take a tip and don't aim for fame "One day I hope you won't need to look me up to find out who I am" (puh-lease!) ... we were all 18 once.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will give you $20,000 if you can create a viable competitor to Evernote in 3 weeks.

PS: there are some things called aspirations. I'm sorry I'm not jaded enough yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "A billion dollars isn't cool, you know what's cool? A bazillion dollars." -- Evernote</comment>


Wallpaper - "Don't Ignore Your Dreams…" - <AUTHOR> http://byalicelee.tumblr.com/post/21649931806/wallpaper-dont-ignore-your-dreams

<comment><USER2> I feel a little uncomfortable seeing that quote with my name under it. The ideas are Bronnie Ware's; I just transformed them from mistakes to the corresponding commands.

Also, I didn't mean to imply those are the five most important things in life or anything like that. I just wanted to avoid the specific mistakes she described.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for commenting, and for writing the post in the first place! I understand your concern - and just took your name off of all of em.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I always wonder, will what works for pg and other famous people work for me, a relative zero entity?

It's great that they have these ideals now that they are esteemed critical thinkers, businessmen, and artists. "Would they have been more or less successful if they had had these ideals back then?" is the question that I would like answered.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. Note the source -- folks who had gone home to die and spoke with a palliative care nurse, Bronnie Ware. There are many people who die without access to in-home hospice care.* Overall they tend to be poorer and I would bet they have some other regrets not mentioned here (and I'd be interested to read up on them).

Still, it's hard to argue with this advice...

* I believe Medicare (covers most Americans over 65) provides some in-home hospice benefit, so I'm not saying this is limited to the extremely rich, but it is limited to those with a home and the wherewithal to seek hospice care.

[edit: formatting]

<comment><USER3> I guess that is what gets me with advice. Often times it sounds just "Take only the good parts of this idea and apply it to your life!"

If you define something to be only the positive effects of something else, then by definition you cannot have any negative effects of the first something. "Live a happy life!" is that sort of statement. "Make friends!" is another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This appears to be just some words from PG's article written in nice handwriting in front of a picture of a mountain.

Am I missing something?

<comment><USER6> It's… awkwardly sycophantic.

<comment><USER7> It feels wildly unnatural to see such a cult of personality around an incubator that idealizes free and forward thinking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love that she took the time to _paint_ the words and scan them in. It makes a very big difference I think.

<comment><USER9> Yes, the non-uniformity of identical letters adds a really nice layer to the aesthetic

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Actually using this as my desktop. Works beautifully; serene, subtly invigorating. Nice work: the hand-painted lettering and well-chosen vista add power to a message one can never really hear too often.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why was "don't work too much" rewritten as "don't work too hard"?

<comment><AUTHOR> whoops, my bad! that's pretty major. I'll fix it this afternoon..

<comment><USER11> cool! to me that was the most impactful one - but I still value hard work :)

<comment><AUTHOR> fixed!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm asking this because I'd actually would like to know how, but how do you say things that are on your mind and still cultivate friendship.

<comment><USER7> The difference between an honest person and an asshole? Tact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> /r 1920x1080 please

<comment><AUTHOR> on it! - sneakily making these in class

<comment><USER14> FYI: The default resolution a 27" thunderbolt display is 2560x1440. If you're interested in supporting a lot of different resolutions, you may consider starting there and scaling down.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion - point taken. :) I've uploaded larger versions on the blog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can we get a 1600x900 version please?

</comment><comment><USER16> These would make awesome posters!</comment>


3D Printed Revolver - <AUTHOR> http://www.popsci.com/man-3d-prints-working-revolver-with-his-name-in-it?src=SOC&dom=fb <comment><USER2> _" In Australia's province of New South Wales, thanks to a law passed earlier this month, merely owning the files could land a person in prison for 14 years._

Wow, that's pretty harsh. I have read about Australia's gun confiscation program but I didn't realize they banned possession of _computer files_. I wonder how that could even be enforced. What if you just rename the file to "bunny rabbit" or some other innocuous thing?

And what about 3-D printing parts of a gun separately? A barrel for example is basically a tube. Will they ban tubes? The grip is just a grip. Useful for finger strengthening. The cylinder is a candle holder. Etc.

Just piece it together and you accidentally, coincidentally have something that happens to shoot. As for bullets - hm, homemade bullets have been around for centuries. I would suspect it's possible to make bullets from scratch even in a place like Australia or Japan.

Bottom line: bans don't work, and 3-D printing merely makes it easier to circumvent clumsy, 1930s style laws.

<comment><USER3> In a movie I saw (Existenz) there is a scene where someone pieces together a gun firing teeth from a bunch of stuff they find in their meal. All the bits individually look very gross but are not immediately recognizable as parts of a weapon.

In the words of Chris Rock: we don't need gun control, we need bullet control.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db0Y4qIZ4PA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db0Y4qIZ4PA)

<comment><USER4> Bullets you can make from stuff too. We need propellant control. But then everyone will switch back to knives and blunt objects. What we need is _kinetic energy control_.

<comment><USER5> Newer powders are hard to make, but black powder is actually relatively easy to make from what I understand. You certainly won't be shooting modern quality ammunition, but guns are still possible. The .38 special was originally a black powder cartridge if I'm not mistaken. That's why the case is so large compared to the actual quantity of modern gunpowder that you use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> People love these 3D printed gun stories... but they don't realize that a drill press and a metal file are really all you need, and they make a better gun too...

<comment><USER3> I think one of the reasons is that using a drill press and a metal file require some skill whereas it takes much less skill to download a design and hit 'print'. Even so the quality of low cost 3D printer printed objects is such that you'll definitely need that file (and maybe even that drill press) so from that point of view not much has been gained.

Substituting plastic for metal in a gun is a great way to lose a couple of fingers or an eyeball too.

<comment><USER7> We used to teach middle schoolers to use such tools. It was a class called "shop" or maybe "industrial arts." Who ever thought they might be used to make a gun. Oh wait -- that was the project of one of the kids in my shop class, ca. 1979.

<comment><USER3> Yep. All knowledge is 'dual use', and metal working skills more so than most.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think there's something to be said about the liberty that this kind of thing gives to people in general.

This is a bit of a touchy subject but I think that in the case of overthrowing an oppressive government this kind of thing certainly makes defending yourself a lot easier.

<comment><USER3> If you think this thing is going to be any use against even the lowliest army rifle then good luck to you.

<comment><USER9> ... just like a bunch of hicks with Kentucky rifles couldn't be of any use against the greatest military power the world had ever known to that point (1770s), with its vast navy, cannon, artillery, and mercenaries.

<comment><USER3> It's no longer the 1770's. If you wish to engage in revolution with a bunch of plastic guns and low power bullets be my guest but it's your funeral.

A Glock is also largely made of plastic, but the barrel is made out of steel. Presumably this is because they would like to be able to fire it many times and because this greatly reduces the risk of injury to the user of the gun.

<comment><USER9> It's hard to cut useful rifling into anything but metal or ceramic.

A revolution mainly just takes strength of numbers; it's different from a war. The Berlin Wall fell without a shot, for the most part. And there's an awful lot of killing going on in urban areas of Israel right now with just _blades_. Likewise, 9/11 was accomplished with just tiny blades.

<comment><USER10> > Likewise, 9/11 was accomplished with just tiny blades

tiny blades and the idea that you shouldn't fight back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I could be wrong because what do I know about guns, but when I see these I-made-a-gun stories, I'm really irritated because 1. it seems like the action of someone who began with "What is the easiest thing that I could do that would get the most media attention?" 2\. when an important technology is young, it is so irresponsible to stoke fears for selfish reasons in the populace or abet politicians and pundits doing the same.

<comment><USER3> A lot of 3D printing is like JavaScript: See, I can do 'X' with JavaScript, where 'X' in JavaScript is not better or even a proper application of the technology, but it is new to the maker and it is new to their audience.

Making a gun from plastic was doable for many years (various epoxys, simple casts) so no news there, in principle.

 _But_ making a gun (or a whole bunch of them!) with a push of a button and without skills is definitely new and that's the reason why it is newsworthy.

So even if the tech is wrong, the product crap and the workmanship shoddy there _is_ something new here: a lethal weapon that can pass through a metal detector can be manufactured by anybody without skills. They still need ammo, they are manufacturing guns (which in many places can get you into a very large amount of trouble), they're showing that 3D printing is an enabling technology.

As noted below there are better ways of making guns, but they require a little bit more in terms of skills (but less in terms of investment, and the guns will be _much_ better).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> That's a really crappy gun. It's not even a revolver; a revolver has one barrel with multiple rounds in a cylinder. This is a pepperbox gun, an idea from the 1830s that didn't work out. The barrel length is so short you can't hit anything other than at point-blank range.

If you're going to design a 3D printable gun, design something better than what can be machined. Maybe bring back the Gyrojet or something like that.

</comment><comment><USER13> Note that they're using .22LR ammunition, which has low recoil. They are also likely using subsonic ammo, which is even lower powered. Anything higher powered is likely going to break apart plastic.

I'd love to see one of these with a metal 3d printer. It would be impractical for most people to produce, but would be a cool proof-of-concept.

<comment><USER9> Note that a .22LR almost killed U.S. President Reagan and seriously wounded James Brady and two others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> With Fallout 4 being pretty popular in memes at the moment, and the fact that I've been playing a hell of a lot of it, I got a bit of a FO4 vibe from this.

Next stop, adding a scope and replacing the receiver for more accuracy and damage!

</comment><comment><USER14> similar design: [http://nerf.hasbro.com/en-us/product/nerf-n-strike-elite- str...](http://nerf.hasbro.com/en-us/product/nerf-n-strike-elite-strongarm- blaster:4D920EC3-5056-900B-1015-BF6A43ECEACA)</comment>


Ask HN: What are some solutions for managing team passwords? - <AUTHOR>

I'm interested if there are any services or platforms that are good for managing passwords to multiple accounts for team collaboration.<p>Ideally, the service(s) should offer some means to update passwords and push to team members securely. <comment><USER2> Best solution I've found: LastPass.

You can set up teams. Share folders of passwords. And it's all secure and synced between members.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use meldium, it has teams, and the chrome extension is a life saver.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm an engineer at Bitium and we do just that.

</comment><comment><USER5> Keepass</comment>


Slinkset releases categories - <AUTHOR> http://slinksetmatch.com/2009/01/29/categories/ <comment><USER2> Yesterday I made a feature request to slinkset to be able to sort users by date jointed. Yesterday evening they had it running. Congrats guys!

</comment><comment><USER3> 1 week ago they announced their Virgin America site, and now categories? Wow, amazing back-to-back releases - keep up the great work guys!

</comment><comment><USER4> What's with the tennis ball?

<comment><USER5> When we first started working on slinkset we played tennis probably every other day. Even when we were in Boston for YC. Because of the weather we haven't played too much lately...but we'll be starting up shortly im sure. So if you're in SF, let's get a match going.

If you're asking about what happens when you mouse over it...i'll leave that for brett to explain.</comment></comment>


How Ta-Nehisi Coates built the best comment section on the internet - <AUTHOR> http://blog.longreads.com/2015/02/04/its-yours-a-short-history-of-the-horde/ <comment><USER3> Ta-Nehisi Coates's commentary is explicitly political and ideological, and those ideological affinities defined the limits of acceptable discourse in his comments section. You may or may not be sympathetic to those politics (I am, to a degree), but here's another way to describe what made this 'the best comment section on the Internet': it intentionally excluded any viewpoint too far outside the mainstream of the community (and, contra the author's implication, those comments were not necessarily racist trolling).

A similar phenomenon happens on HN; the community centers itself around a particular set of values or opinions, and opinions which differ too radically from the center are very effectively marginalized - like a wave losing strength as it ripples outward. This allows for productive discourse, but explicitly describing the benefits of collective censorship as such makes some people uneasy.

(It's important, then, to ensure that you participate in communities with many different "opinion loci".)

<comment><USER4> HN does strike a good balance between civility and diversity of opinion. Or at least they get a lot of one controlling for the other. I tend to post from a right wing perspective but only had one comment flag killed (where I pointed out that it was hypocritical of French Americans to say that France needs to preserve its culture, while at the same time saying that the US has no culture, and anyone who says it does is a racist).

The one thing that bothers me is the flood of social justice themed articles, including one that was flag killed but revived by the mods. I guess the mods felt that they were reacting against over-zealous flaggers. But I think in practice they are overriding the opinion of the community who are sick of articles about issues like sexism in tech.

<comment><USER5> > the US has no culture

How anyone can believe this is beyond me. It is like saying a given atom has no protons, or that a given region of a country has no area. It's such a gross misunderstanding of basic concepts it should mark anyone who says it as someone who has no basis for continuing the discussion.

<comment><USER6> I've always understood the statement "The US has no culture" as meaning that the speaker thought the citizens of the US weren't "posh enough" in some manner or other.

I imagined it was probably something terribly elegant and refined like eating breadsticks with a knife and fork.

<comment><USER7> I would probably interpret it as saying that there isn't a single cohesive culture throughout the US? I'm not sure how true it is (I've never been) - <USER2> I have certainly observed anecdotally that some states are more keenly independant than others?

<comment><USER5> > I would probably interpret it as saying that there isn't a single cohesive > culture throughout the US?

By that token, no country has a culture, because every country (except, maybe, postage stamps like Luxembourg or Liechtenstein) has regions with a distinctive cultural heritage which they don't entirely share with other regions.

So, put that way, it's trivially true that the US doesn't have _one_ culture, but then neither does France, or the UK, or China, or Russia, or Italy.

Culture is everything which is passed down from generation to generation which _isn 't_ encoded in the genes. For example, my dark hair isn't in my culture, even though I got it from both of my parents; my language, however, most certainly _is_ part of my culture. So's most of my taste in food and drink. Do I share all of my culture with the people I live close to? No, but I share a lot of things, some of necessity (language, clothing) and some because it was just how I was raised and what I see around me (hair style, meal times).

Here's an interesting website on the culture a large percentage of Americans more-or-less shares:

[http://www.zompist.com/amercult.html](http://www.zompist.com/amercult.html)

There's similar pages for Canadians, Russians, Chinese, etc all linked off that page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Hacker News crowd and the tech entrepreneurship ecosystem in general has a deserved reputation for a bias toward trying to fix problems that are prominent in their own line of sight. In other words, a lot of startups trying to fix problems that vex prosperous, tech-savvy single people in San Francisco. But here's a geek-world problem that's staring us all right in the face.

Despite the enormous potential benefit of the internet as a place for open, respectful discourse among people from all walks of life, it seems that every forum must eventually devolve into ad-hominem rancor and trolling, unless it's aggressively and time-consumingly moderated by dedicated human beings.

I've been involved in trying to crack this particular nut since 1997 as publisher of OSNews, and I've been a participant in some relatively good forums such as HN over the years, but I can't help but think that there's an opportunity start with what Disqus has done and take it to the next level.

In the article, Coates bemoans the limited moderation toolset that he got from Disqus, and I can't help but think that there's a potential big data play to fingerprint the most obvious kinds of trolling and give human moderators a quiver of time-saving tools to keep their forums on the straight and narrow.

If anyone here has some ideas about how we might go about executing on this idea, let me know. I'd be interested in being involved.

<comment><USER9> I think the value proposition of Disqus is just comparatively low maintenance. You include a snippet of JS and you get a minimally functional commenting system that includes antispam and requires running no backend server software or security risks. In return Disqus gets analytics and a little bit of ad space. It's not imo going for discussion, it's meant to be flypaper for readers who get a good-feelings boost thinking they're being heard, so it's a monetization tool more than anything. The extreme end of this is Youtube comments, which accumulate so fast and so voluminously that actual discussion is near impossible, and the limited nesting actively fights replying. You can't follow anything. But millions of people pile their worthless comments into the void because it feels good to have your say. Old, crusty ugly forums are better for conversation than new, shiny JS comment systems because they were actually made for conversation, that was their raison d'etre.

Have you tried Discourse? It's almost as good as the hype.

So this is kind of related. I've been reading OSNews since the very beginning, and I really, really love it. It used to beat out Slashdot for me, which is about the highest praise I could give a site. In large part it's because it covered stuff I couldn't see anywhere else and the commenters were positive and knowledgeable. But in the last few years there are so many articles about non-OS political stuff, which in turn causes fighting in the comments. Don't underestimate that the types of articles published determines the type of commenters :-(

<comment><USER10> > It used to beat out Slashdot for me, which is about the highest praise I > could give a site.

Slashdot's meta-moderation contributed to discussion quality and high signal:noise.

I'm still skeptical of parent comment's fingerprinting as a sole solution -- it takes humInt and humInvolvement. Arm willing human mods with tools like fingerprinting, provide incentives for many to moderate and for some to moderate the mods, and good discussions can happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have read and commented on his articles for years. I am opinionated on them. His were only moderately better than most other places.

>these days I tend to believe that comment sections are just tumors on otherwise good journalism, and that we'd all be better off without them.

Comments sections are great when the writer is lying or obfuscating, which happens with shocking regularity. It's great when someone in the comments section adds context to a story that the writer neglected to include, either though ignorance or malice. I would say for local news, you quite often have to go to the comments section to even find out what really happened.

</comment><comment><USER11> > Those threads were where the regulars started to really get to know each > other, and develop their own shorthand, nicknames, and inside jokes.

Online communities, like any communities, need to develop the right culture in order to thrive. People have to get to know each other; then they'll engage in shared defense of the culture against hostile outsiders (trolls, in this case).

If you're trying to create on online community, then you can short-cut the process a little bit by attempting to install your own culture via participation (modelling the values you want to see in your commenters) and moderation (excluding those who violate the culture).

But to do that effectively is very hard work. Hard work that most people and most publishers don't seem willing to do. So they end up with crappy pointless comment threads.

</comment><comment><USER12> His blog is one of the most thought-provoking American political/social blogs. He writes from a unique perspective and really challenges you to think.</comment>


Edinburgh Hacker Meetup (Nov) wednesday - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
The November Hacker (Tech) Meetup at Edinburgh is on Wednesday, 12th November at 6:30pm at 6th Floor Appleton Tower. Please email me (arnav (at) yadster (dot) com) if you would like to come along and meet other techies around Edinburgh, Scotland and Northern UK...
Here is a writeup on the last meetup where we had about 70 hackers/techies attending: http://arnavk.blogspot.com/2008/10/second-tech-meetup-another-success.html
Arnav <comment><USER2> Hey Arnav, will definetly be along. Interesting that you are setting up different areas in the room, I have a G1 now so I'll be hanging about the mobile dev bit :)

See you there</comment>


Show HN: Android version of board game Baghchal - <AUTHOR>

Nearly a year ago we launched real time online baghchal game in HN. [1]
On Dec 21st we launched its Android version [2].
Please check it once and do provide feedback.
Happy Holidays !
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3437535
[2] http://goo.gl/UDZ3R [play store link] <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable:

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3437535>

[2] <http://goo.gl/UDZ3R> [play store link]</comment>


How I met my identity thief - <AUTHOR> https://stories.californiasunday.com/2015-07-05/how-i-met-my-identity-thief/ <comment><USER2> Good article, thanks for posting. A good friend of mine maintains that there is no such thing as Identity theft. What we call identity theft is simply bank fraud. However, in a brilliant marketing reframing, the financial industry has made the consumer the victim, instead of the financial institution.

Unlike a Gilliamesque world in which a bad actor assumes your identity, generally a bad guy gains access to your resources, bypassing the protections set in. While the consumer is guilty of this sometimes, the victim harmed is almost always the institution, not the consumer; and yet the consumer is framed as the victim.

In a signature based authentication system, the banks suggest YOU are the victim of identity theft if someone gets your credit card number when it's their authentication system that was 'hacked.'

Similarly, checking account numbers, etc.

Of course there are exceptions, people use bad passwords, they allow others to get their info, etc.

But, I do think this term "identity theft" is often overused.

<comment><USER3> If your friend is the Patrick Kelly who contributed the comment quoted below at [http://www.cringely.com/2015/04/15/where-the-money-is-or- was...](http://www.cringely.com/2015/04/15/where-the-money-is-or-was/) , his words should get more circulation

 _" ""

"Identity theft" is a lie. There is no such thing as "identity theft", it's all fraud. The term "identity theft" was created to put the burden back on the consumer, away from financial institutions. The actual problem is that the cost of actually verifying identity is higher than financial institutions want to bear. Most of the cost would be in missed loan opportunities. Financial institutions don't want to bear the cost of verifying identity so they experience fraud (surprise!) and then tell us that somehow we have to protect our identity. It's insane.

If it was legally required that you appear in a bank with an ID to get a loan or a credit card, imagine what would happen to "identity theft". There's nothing wrong with filing electronically, but how about having people come to the post office, with ID and a thumb drive, show ID and sign a log, then file from there?

"""_

<comment><USER4> It's not an uncommon idea. There's a Mitchell and Webb sketch about it too that you may be able to find online somewhere.

<comment><USER5> Here you go: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oOQBpHN_kS0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oOQBpHN_kS0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > If you're not famous, no one cares what you have to say, but if you're > famous, it doesn't matter what you're talking about, people pay attention > and like you.

This is the most interesting comment in the whole story, in my opinion. I might be taking it entirely out of context, but I wonder if, as our world grows larger and more automated, celebrity becomes a relatively more important form of capital. The growing prosperity and connectedness of the world population creates a new class of consumers to be influenced by celebrity, which is infinitely replicable due to the internet. Meanwhile, typical jobs get robotized whereas social capital is hard to automate away.

Celebrity has always been an object of desire, but it probably feels more attainable these days. There are more niches to fill and easier distribution channels for it. We used to compete for attention in our vicinity, but the internet makes us small and has us pining to be noticed. [/armchair analysis]

<comment><USER7> A good keyword is "attention economy" if you're interested in further research on the topic--it's an interesting hypothesis about how "information" is no longer the dominant mode of economics. Your post reminds me of this article: [http://markmanson.net/attention](http://markmanson.net/attention)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sorry for sounding cynical, but this hacker just hacked his way into the author's brain (social engineering). Of course he likes chicken biryani. I also like chicken biryani! Now tell me what your favorite drink is and I'll tell you what mine is!

Successful/influential people tend to greatly underestimate the lengths that some people will go to just to put thoughts inside their influential brains.

When you let someone else's thoughts get inside your brain, you are giving them power over you. You should only give that power to people you actually trust, not random people who hacked into your account.

I think that's why it's so hard to reach influential people (aside from the fact that they get zillions of emails per day). At least at a subconscious level, they must feel like their brains are constantly under assault by foreign thoughts (often coming from people who are trying to gain something out of it).

The mind is like a sponge, it absorbs everything around it. People believe that they have control over what they believe, but it's not the case. Your environment will decide for you what you believe.

That's why brainwashing works and why there are so many terrorists. Everyone is vulnerable.

<comment><USER9> Always good to remind people:

Everyone is vulnerable.

You are included in everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting article, but more details on how the attack succeeded would have been worth reading. Was it a problem with password reset in the Harvard email system, i.e. was publicly available information used to answer a verification question in combination with an arbitrary email address? Or was it a social engineering attack, i.e. did the attacker convince somebody at Harvard to initiate a password reset using this information?

<comment><USER11> From the article "Itz very simple sir… Im hacked your account in 2 min… Im learned ur boi (bio) from internet… and create gmail account like yours then I fill the submit form with my email and Harvard send mail the Password change link.. That it…"

<comment><USER12> So I don't quite understand that... Trying to piece it together.

Perhaps the Harvard email system will allow you to send a Reset Password link to an arbitrary (?) email address if you correctly identify some "identity verification" questions, and this guy was able to glean the answers to those questions from reading the article author's bio?

<comment><USER11> Didn't sound like it was too awfully difficult but yea, pretty thin on the details. Here's Harvards password reset instructions... [http://huit.harvard.edu/reset-your-harvard- password](http://huit.harvard.edu/reset-your-harvard-password)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This seems like the modern day equivalent of joy riding. I wonder whether this young hacker will clean up his act and later laugh at this conversation with a journalist or if this is the first step on a slippery slope to hardened criminal?

<comment><USER14> _This seems like the modern day equivalent of joy riding._

Exactly. However, there's a wiff of sociopath in the responses, ever so slight. He seems to not feel remorse about things I would never do.

<comment><USER9> I noticed that as well. Everything was "happening to him". His girlfriend cheated on him. The world just isn't taking him seriously, he's obviously down on his luck and this was just a cry for attention yada yada yada.

Efficiently re-contextualizing each of his actions in an attempt to garner sympathy. It's not a slam dunk but there is a possibility of some psychopathic characteristics here.

For the record, I'd lay odds at 2% ish. If I was on Baratunde Thurston side of the conversation though, I would be operating on that assumption that he is one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In what world does Facebook constitute someone's identity?

OH NO SOMEONE HACKED MY AOL ACCOUNT BETTER CALL THE FEDS

<comment><USER16> The world in which people get fired for things they post on FB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Facebook was set to use the Harvard email address as the reset emsil address? The lesson here is to be very careful about what kind of email provider you use for a reset address. Clearly the weakest link here is that shitty Harvard email administration.

</comment><comment><USER18> Great article, wish i had such an experience when getting an account hacked

<comment><USER19> My thoughts too, both seem to be pretty decent people

<comment><USER20> Being stalked can be flattering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> No blackmail? No money in return? This hacker was definitely more considerate than your typical hacker with ill intentions.

<comment><USER22> Seems like a young person making some bad calls in life and enjoying the thrill of doing things you're not supposed to do or be able to do.

Can definitely be a slippery slope, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> 100 years of British oppression have created a uniquely insane breed of online thugs, why do they all use "Sir" online? Do they actually believe they portray an air of dignity and respect?

I know people blame poverty and stuff but so did Taiwan, Japan, Germany, Korea have all gone through far worse state but you never see the same behavior. People leave their cars with keys or wallet hanging out while passed out drunk in Korea, and miraculously you are belongings and yourself is intact. If you don't believe me just go to Korea or Japan.

<comment><USER24> "Sir" is a common way of addressing someone "above you" in India.

In general folks in India have a policy of "respecting elders" and "those above you" (teachers, your boss, etc), but this is mostly faux respect in the form of honorifics and not arguing with statements by these people. I don't like this too much (grew up in the States, people earn respect there), but sometimes I do it too in some contexts because it's a social norm.

I don't think this has anything to do with British oppression. Sir is just an honorific applied willy-nilly by Indians both online and offline.

<comment><USER25> It is willy-nilly IMHO. Over the phone an Indian (or is the custom also common in other countries too?) spoke to me, a peer and I might add a Yankee, with a "sa" at the beginning of half his sentences. During the call I parsed this as "um" or "yep" would be parsed, and after the call I thought maybe it was a "sir" in a non-rhotic accent.</comment></comment></comment>


Businessweek's Sony story is really bad - <AUTHOR> http://inqk.net/weblog/2011/976

<comment><USER2> > It contrasts this with the ease with which Samsung could put its phones in > blockbusters like The Matrix.

> By Samsung I guess they meant Nokia.

No, they probably meant Samsung. Specifically they meant this phone, made for use in the later Matrix movies: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SPH-N270>

Quote: _"The design crew of the Matrix worked closely with Samsung to develop a phone whose features and release date would coincide with the movie."_

Now, granted, it was kind of a crappy phone, but at least it _existed_ ; the key feature of the Nokia used in the first movie was a spring-loaded mechanism which didn't actually exist at the time.</comment>


Stealth – Open source Ruby framework for chatbots - <AUTHOR> http://whoisblackops.com/articles/introducing-stealth <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, I'm the creator of the Stealth framework. Let me know if you have any questions about things not covered in the blog post. Happy to share.</comment>


Tell HN: I can't stick with a to-do list manager for more than 3 weeks. - <AUTHOR>

I'm starting a new semester at college and my to-do list just got really long. I've tried using OmniFocus, Notes on my iPhone, paper planners, index cards, but I can't get anything to stick for longer than about three weeks. How do you organize your to-do lists, and if you have one you've stuck with for a long time how do you manage that? Is my inability to keep a to-do list more about my personality or about not finding the right system? <comment><USER2> Like you, I've been searching for a solution that works for a long, long time (and also a college student). For some reason, to-do lists never felt right to me. I'm not sure if it has to do with the inherent structure or design of to- do lists (and similar web-based concepts), but they just never clicked. When searching for the perfect solution I always ended up resorting to scribbling thoughts in tiny notebooks and on whiteboards - something that felt more natural and unstructured than to-do lists. As I would get things done, I would scratch them off. The things I wrote down were usually just thoughts (as opposed to "tasks") and never had associated numbering systems (for priority) or deadlines.

Eventually, I decided to scratch this itch with my first web-based app, Pocket. I released an MVP a few days ago and it gained quite a bit of traction here on HN, receiving thousands of hits and nothing but positive feedback. While building Pocket, I translated much of my experiences with physical note- taking to make the app feel as natural as possible, and I'm really pleased with what I have accomplished thus far. Over the past month or so, I've recorded hundreds of thoughts - everything from new Pocket features to songs I want to download to little miscellaneous reminders, etc. If you're interested, check it out at <http://letspocket.com>. I'd love to hear what you think and whether or not it suits your needs.

<comment><USER3> Looks neat, I'll give it a go. Dude, you should add it to <https://chrome.google.com/webstore>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is both: if you find yourself abandoning systems after 3 weeks, then something about the way the system fits you is wrong. Perhaps it's too complex. Maybe it isn't flexible enough. Maybe it inherently creates too much guilt so you get frustrated and give up.

It may help to think of the number one goal of a todo list as a place to get onto paper (or bytes, whatever) all the things you have in your head that you think you need to do, NOT as something which will help you get more done. The primary benefit is to remove your anxiety about having to remember everything you need to do. Once it's all out of your head and in one place, you can easily determine what it is you need to be doing _right now_ , and _forget_ everything else.

Complicated GTD or todo systems just bog you down and take too much fiddling and constant review/maintenance. I use two lists: a "dump" list where I put anything/everything that I need/want to do, and an "action" list where I move a few things from the dump that I'm going to focus on for the day or very immediate future. It's a simple matter to go through the dump and pick out the highest priorities and move them to action.

If you're struggling, I'd advocate trying something simple like this and forgetting more complicated systems. Google Tasks is perfect for something like this.

</comment><comment><USER5> Forget dates and times. Don't set dates to get something done.

That's what worked for me and that's why I love Workflowy, I can set the to-do on my way and rearrange the best way at anytime.

<http://workflowy.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> It's both. You need to personally believe it's important for it to stick, and you have to train yourself to keep it in mind. It has to become like a demanding girlfriend you have to remember to txt or call. You can't dump her because she's loaded and you work for her dad.

The right system is totally secondary. It can be as simple as a note in your front pocket. In fact, a written note is good because you have to continually rewrite it, and that makes the tasks stick in your head. It also becomes a huge hassle to keep writing down the same things instead of getting them off the list. When I have to kill my list I do this.

Day to day I use google tasks (iphone-dock and firefox-sidebar) and it stays in my face all day between those two.

A long list is good. There's nothing that guarantees failure in todo world like having tasks like: "Profit". You have to break everything down to the smallest particle you can, then you knock off more things more often and you get used to using your system.

Determination is the most valuable skill in the world, stick with whatever you do and it will pay off in every aspect of your life.

</comment><comment><USER7> Your to-do list, what sort of items they contain? If it is about when the certain homeworks and when the finals are, then the best for you is to use a calendar system. I use Mozilla Sunbird. Here is image of what my calendar looked like last semester: <http://peri.me/albums/aDemoUzer/1/original/Calendar-F10.png> \- I color-code all of my items, so I can visually tell when homeworks due, the midterms are and so on. \- On the left, you can see what various colors mean. \- In the task panel, I usually add in items to plan out what I should be doing for this and next week. This gives me some idea as to what I should work on now and next. If I get bored of working on what I am doing right now, I start on something else I need to do.

During the final's week, I added in to-do things like what I would be studying and when in order to prepare for all of those exams: [http://peri.me/albums/aDemoUzer/1/original/FIanl%20week-F10....](http://peri.me/albums/aDemoUzer/1/original/FIanl%20week-F10.png)

</comment><comment><USER8> Here is my advice. Review all the planner systems and make a list pro/con and how it fits with how you think/work. Pick one and stick to it for the whole semester. At the end it won't matter as long as you have some kind of system to keep tabs on your goals, plans and values. Once you are acclimated to _using_ a planning system only then should you consider switching or trying other systems.

</comment><comment><USER9> I used 3M's Digital Post-it notes. Look like virtual post-its on your desktop. Super simple for me.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup idea - <AUTHOR> Nowadays, people post almost everything happening in and around their life on various social-media platforms.
So, I am working on an AI assistant which will return more personalized results by searching for user queries in user's, user's friends', local and global social-media posts.
For example if you want to know whether your friend would be going to that party or not, you can ask this assistant and it will search for his/her social-media posts and will return with relevant results (after taking user's permission).
Please let me know your feedback and further suggestions. <comment><USER2> Tough but worth doing. There is just so much noise out there (probably 1% of content in my feeds is relevant.) Turning it down so you can see what matters is like making glasses that let you look at the sun.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think that's an absolutely amazing idea. Sounds like a cool kung-fu ai chatbot social chatbot assiatant.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool! So, should I develop a standalone AI assistant (like Siri) or should I develop it on already available platforms like Alexa or Google home?

<comment><USER3> It should be based off all three platforms. But to start off you should create a standalone AI assistant, then refactor to each of the 'already available platforms based on feedback.' The latter should be easier to scratch if you have your own backend to digest and reply via api layer from.</comment></comment></comment>


The Future of jQuery - What To Look Forward To In Late 2010 & Beyond - <AUTHOR> http://addyosmani.com/futureofjquery2010/ <comment><USER2> Anyone have a nice summary? I don't have time to watch the video now.

<comment><USER3> Yes. Does anyone else automatically hit the back button when you see a video and not a nice, concise, article?

<comment><USER4> Yup - I am sure a business could be started around this for providing summaries of videos etc for businesses and people too busy to watch a video but will read some text

<comment><USER5> There is a definite need for this. For example, asciicasts.com is the same content as railscasts.com but as an article instead of video.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> God I hate video presentations for something like this. Give me an article _with sections_ that I can quickly skim. Give me bullet points. When I want more detail I'll read it.

what's worse is that the narration is incredibly tedious. He goes on for 2 minutes about the problem jQuery Mobile is attempting to solve. We're developers. We get it. Keep it moving.

Just now I have the section on jQuery 1.4.3. He goes on for a minute with what could just as easily have been said with "It will fix several bugs. Those bugs are..." but yet he goes on about how important these bug fixes are.

Basically, just like there is an art to being concise in writing, if anything that's even more important in video because it's much harder to "skim".

Basically this is a 28 minute video that could've covered its material in 5 minutes tops.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is great. We are developing a cross-device webapp and ended up using Sencha Touch (there's no choice, really). It looks great but I am definitely not convinced about it, mainly with aspects around the code that are important to me - [http://www.sencha.com/forum/showthread.php?110693-misc- quest...](http://www.sencha.com/forum/showthread.php?110693-misc-questions- about-sencha)

So, really looking forward to the possibilities the new jQuery will bring.

<comment><USER8> I'm in the same boat as you but instead I am using JQTouch which works well enough...but I find myself writing workarounds to get stuff working the same in desktop and touch enviros. If they can really pull off the "write once" model between enviros I will jump for joy!</comment></comment>


A paper based journal for hackers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dps/journal/blob/master/README.md <comment><AUTHOR> I've made a preview PDF available at singleton.io/alpha/Journal.pdf also.</comment>


Google's PixelBook: the target is bigger than it seems - <AUTHOR> https://chromeunboxed.com/googles-pixelbook-the-target-is-bigger-than-you-think/ <comment><USER2> Google might be targeting high end enterprise needs, but breaking into that market is a long, painful road predicated on strong sales/IT relationships. Hence why you don't see ODMs eating large portions of the market, Dell, HP and Lenovo offer essentially the same product, but with sales and some support.

From what I've read on other threads about high end Chromebook Pixel's, getting them repaired if there is a manufacturers defect, or worse yet it gets damaged is very inconvenient and costly. Comparatively, replacing a smashed screen in a T440 is a $50, sub-5 minute affair, and Dell & HP's enterprise laptops seem just as repairable (albeit parts are 40% to 50% more).

<comment><USER3> There's also Google's terrible reputation of poor and unreachable support, as well as the unappealable terminations of service. And they're not limited to consumers - some companies have had service terminated leaving them with no recourse.

Google's offerings are as much software as hardware, and having Google drop your account over a misunderstanding and thereby disabling all your laptops for several weeks would be a nightmare. Many of the people in charge of making purchasing decisions will have this type of concern in mind.

Whether they can turn that around and make a strong enterprise support channel is a valid question. But it's going to take some strong sales and tech to get people to risk trying it out. Google's a great company as long as you don't have to actually talk to anyone. Which makes them wholly undesirable for companies that obsess over the number of nines in their reliability.

<comment><USER4> > Google's terrible reputation of poor and unreachable support

My experience is not the same for all the products I bought for Google.

It was really easy to contact support and replacement devices came quickly.

<comment><USER5> We're in Germany, and have tried for 4 months to get my sister's Nexus 5X repaire d or replaced. The damage was caused by a third party, who is willing to pay for repair or replace.

So far, so simple.

It's been 4 months of calls, emails, faxes, and sending the device back and forth between Google, LG, the insurance, and the repair facility.

Google says they're not responsible for Nexus devices, so we should talk to LG. LG says they're not responsible, we should talk to Google. We got someone at LG to discuss this, and they told us to send it to their official repair facility. They just sent it back because of a typo on the form, or because the insurance didn't say fast enough that they'd fund it, or because "dunno".

We've now taken the device to Media Markt to get it repaired, and it took 2 days.

Never ever are we going to buy a device from Google again.

<comment><USER6> Odd, it took me a single phone call to get my 5X replaced when it started bootlooping. I called Google, and they replaced it well out of warranty after a 20 minute phonecall.

(disclosure I work at google but this was before I started)

<comment><USER5> That may be fine if you get a warranty replacement, but even if you want to pay, getting a repair is basically horror.

This is now the second time we've had this odyssey with Google (the Nexus 7 2012 being the first case), and by now it's obvious it's not a problem with the OEM, but Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder might Google be making a play for the Macbook segment of the market? That'd be interesting. Imagine a non-Windows high end laptop able to go toe to toe with Apple quality and design but running a very secure version of Linux.

I know that Apple Macbooks are as popular as ever but there has been some grumbling that RAM is limited, the touchbar has caused a split in opinions, and there has been suggestions that Apple is trailing Intel's top of the line chip launches, and finally that Mac OS X is not getting the love that iOS is getting.

Put that all together and maybe Google has a small window of opportunity to surprise the dev community and bring out a kick-ass Linux laptop workstation to offer true competition to Apple on their home turf. That would be pretty exciting, all the more so if they got within sniffing distance. Since the demise of SUN Solaris and SGI Irix workstations and the like Apple has had this segment (brawny Unix workstations) pretty much all to themselves in a way.

Dream machine: Great Intel hardware, RAM up to 64G, decent graphics card, flawless 2D/3D drivers (minimum brawn needed for ML work), ChromeOS w/ dev tools a couple of command line scribbles away, software repo as large as Debian/Unubtu/Arch/Gentoo, ability to run Android apps, Secureboot and non- reboot kernel/driver updates, ability to install my won boot key if I so wish, fingerprint reader –– hey I did say dream machine!

<comment><USER8> Exactly what I would love. A Linux MacBook. That is really secure and then the cherry on top would be also Android support. Really hope that is what we will get with Pixelbook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If Google wants to go enterprise, they need to get their support act together.

I had a 2013 Chromebook Pixel that started to have a vertical line of dead pixels running down the screen. It should have been a simple fix. But first, Google didn't want to repair the thing because it was barely out of its one- year warranty (which you can't even pay to extend, by the way). Then, when they finally relented and agreed to take it, they sent me a new one, rather than fixing the other one. There have been minor problems with it since then, but I don't dare try to get them addressed, given that the laptop is way out of warranty and no longer manufactured.

My next laptop after the Pixel was a Dell XPS 13. And that was in no small part because I knew that Dell could provide hardware support if something broke. I even paid additional support to extend my warranty through 2019, because it's mission critical that this thing work.

Google needs to understand that there's no way any reasonable person can be expected to spend $1200+ on a laptop that can become a paperweight because it suffers a hardware failure and the manufacturer refuses to touch it. The "rumor" is that the original Pixel was created because Google themselves was having trouble getting support from Apple for their employee Macbooks, which makes the lack of Pixel support even more mind-boggling.

<comment><USER10> I've heard support for customers of GSuite is pretty good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Speaking as a "Enterprise" with over 800 Windows PCs deployed to students and teachers. The primary draw of a Chrome device to us has been the cost. The pixelbook does not have that advantage. It will be a very hard sell if the pixel devices end up costing just as much as an equivalent Lenovo ThinkPad. If they can't compete on price anymore they need to make the features at least as good or better. They just are not there yet.

<comment><USER12> The article is speculating this will be targeted towards developers. A laptop shipping with out of the box VMs/containers for ChromeOS, Android, Ubuntu, and Windows, with easy VM management could have a compelling sales-pitch (at least if support is decent, which is the biggest question).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> TLDR: commits indicate ChromeOS will be able to host virtual machines.

This still fits the "device for google internal use that they also sell outside" model since the Pixel 2013, with perhaps increasing emphasis on selling outside.

Making ChromeOS a stable, durable hypervisor that also hosts other OSes (better linux support than Crouton, and possibly adding windows support) just makes it an ever-more viable replacement for those-other-companies' high-end laptops.

Is there any benefit of a VM-friendly ChromeOS retaining Chrome as root-level functionality? Why not move the Chrome-browser-UI into a client VM as well, parallel to Linux and Windows clients?

<comment><USER14> Well the way they have ChromeOS support Android apps is by putting effectively the whole Android framework in a container.

Taking this a step further would not surprise me the least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am hoping it's gonna be ARM based and that it will be easyish to install Linux on it. ARMs, at least apples cores, finally seem to have gotten fast enough to be powering my main/Dev machine and if I could get the screen, look n feel, ram and disk that's high-end enough I am jumping at it. I am really hoping for something to be replacing the x86 with something more open, more secure and more battery friendly.

<comment><USER16> ARMs are mostly horrible in case of drivers. I have an Acer Chromebook 13 with nVidia Tegra K1. Around the beginning of this year videos can get pixelated [1]. Generally there are few graphical glitches - boot splash screen can have many short black lines overlaid, mouse cursor can have some random garbage in it.

I had to once wait over an update, because it broke the system. It had symptoms of GPU driver issue.

Generally I'm quite pleased with the machine, but I wouldn't buy another ARM Chromebook. Rockchip SoCs have drivers mostly open source from what I understand, but GPU driver is not OS. Intel is safer bet. I really like the idea of AMD Chromebook, but you can't have everything.

[1] [https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/chromebook- cent...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/chromebook- central/jByKcbxQ0V8/jRYMA7HtBQAJ;context-place=forum/chromebook-central)

<comment><USER15> Thanks I am gonna check this one out! I don't care about graphics to be honest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It looks like Google may target devs and leverage containers (i.e. Docker) to run to their cloud services or even other OSes locally.

After all, Google is a SaaS and developing a SaaS requires back-end services. I run a SaaS and on the dev side, we've dockerized the database, cache, and other services. Google's plan may be to provide local versions of their cloud services for development on the PC.

The PC is powerful enough to run all of this. 512GB of storage and (hopefully) a powerful processor would explain this.

</comment><comment><USER18> Why would I buy hardware from an advertising company?

<comment><USER19> Because they're trying to diversify and find new revenue streams that don't depend on advertising.

<comment><USER20> Good for them. So do you think that when Google will make billions of dollars in profit a year from the hardware it sells, it will stop tracking user behavior on those same machines?

<comment><USER21> Now _that_ seems like a move that would get picked up by monopoly watch dogs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A link within that article mentioned Android Studio possibly running on it. Who cares? Are there any developers who live 100% in an IDE? I use Sublime Text in addition to a full blown IDE because sometimes there's stuff that you know will be tedious in an IDE and simpler with your go-to editor.

Until you can run Sublime Text, and bash (with perl, python, sed, awk, etc, or any other arbitrary piece of software I don't see developers moving to this device.

<comment><USER23> Lots of iOS and Mac developers for better or worse live in Xcode, same with C# developers and Visual Studio. So even if it just runs Android Studio there could be a developer market for it.

<comment><USER24> Can confirm that if you're doing C#, you're probably never leaving Visual Studio. Nothing can touch the VS autocomplete, and the text editing features are at least pretty good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Lots of large enterprises don't even allow the use of Gmail, let alone a device made by Google.

<comment><USER26> "Google will stop scanning your Gmail messages to sell targeted ads" [0]

Likely because of this fear that Google might be using corporate data (even if it was not done for corporate emails, aka Google Apps / GSuite, even before this policy).

[0] [https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/23/15862492/google-gmail- adv...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/23/15862492/google-gmail-advertising- targeting-privacy-cloud-business)

<comment><USER20> And it only took a few lawsuits and anti-trust cases against Google to do that. How generous of them.

<comment><USER27> Which lawsuits were those?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For how long are Chromebooks supported again? I can use a PC for more than 10 years if I want. Do Chromebooks approach that level of support? Or are they the "Android phones" of PCs?

<comment><USER28> Chromebooks get 5 years of OS updates

<comment><USER29> 6 1/2 now. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "..much bigger than what we have seen on the surface"

no pun intended? :)

</comment><comment><USER31> I suppose it depends on the enterprise but working in a highly regulated environment that wants to guard against data exfiltration, desktops and laptops are the exception not the rule. And once you build out infrastructure to support virtual desktops served up by low cost appliances, there's no compelling reason to go back to something like a chromebook. I have no idea what the discount would be when you buy 10,000 thin terminals but they're pretty much disposable when they break at the kind of pricing I'd guess one would enjoy.

</comment><comment><USER32> "enterprise" is not that easy as there are a lot of financial /creative / inhouse apps requiring .net, windows, ms office and adobe stuff which will be too hard to run on pixelbook. it could be best if google targeted the startup/SV crowd with a high end, linux-installable workstation just for PR. I think of macbook pro or thinkpad killer. but when it comes to hardware google underwhelms recently.

<comment><USER33> Also, active directory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Somehow the idea of running VMs on laptops never adds up. The constrained laptop environment just doesn't lend itself to that use case.

Using cloud resources or ssh'ng to other boxes just about make sense which you can do with any laptop. But any heavy apps or workloads will have your fans spinning up, throttling and heat and generally reduce the life of a pretty expensive product.

</comment><comment><USER35> If this means that Google is attempting to shift to having its customers be anyone but advertisers, this is probably a good thing for everyone. There GSuite product is pretty good and even has reasonable privacy controls. I want to like Google more than I can with their current loyalty to the advertisers paying the bills.

</comment><comment><USER36> Can I ran docker without some hacks?

<comment><USER17> I reckon this is where its going. It will allow for a local cloud. Need M*SQL, Elastic, Redis, etc? Run it in a container. The PC is powerful enough to do it.

<comment><USER37> Likely Minikube on the box by default, if I were a betting man.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This sounds pretty cool if it ends up correct. Able to develop GNU/Linux on the my laptop just makes sense as the cloud is Linux in most cases.

Then to get a secure Chrome OS and the cherry on top is Android support.</comment>


Hadoop filesystem at Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://blog.twitter.com/2015/hadoop-filesystem-at-twitter <comment><USER2> Hate to be the one to pick fly shit out of pepper but why "/user" and not "/temp"? I'm sure you'd get used to it over time but just for the sake of consistency if we're going to reconstitute vowels in the unix conventions, shouldn't we do it uniformly?

Anyhow, seeing an inconsistency like this from Twitter makes me feel a little better about my own shortcomings.

<comment><USER3> My reading is that /user is for data associated with twitter users/accounts, not meant to store things that go in /usr. /usr says system related stuff. /user is meant to be distinct from /logs and /tmp, not indicate a global, common utility/data directory.

        /user holds twitter user data
        /logs holds time stamped aggregated data
        /tmp  is for ephemeral data, it has a truncated name because that's
              what people are used for this purpose

_I_ wouldn't name it /usr if it held information about users either.

<comment><USER4> We delete anything in our hdfs /tmp after two weeks. It's very convenient for oneoff job output which you know doesn't have to be around long. /user is for important longer lived stuff.</comment></comment></comment>


The folly of Fallingwater (2001) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/sep/10/artsfeatures <comment><AUTHOR> The greatest American architect of all time, Frank Lloyd Wright is 150 years today. When I was at Fallingwater (it is absolutely stunning and I recommend it to everyone), the engineering behind the structure was one of the most interesting things.</comment>


WordPress 4.0 Beta 1 Released - <AUTHOR> https://wordpress.org/news/2014/07/wordpress-4-0-beta-1/

<comment><USER2> Here is a quick review of some salient features of WordPress 4.0 Beta 1 and some initial bugs. [http://www.cloudways.com/blog/wordpress-4-0-beta-1-review/](http://www.cloudways.com/blog/wordpress-4-0-beta-1-review/)</comment>


If PHP Were British - <AUTHOR> http://www.addedbytes.com/blog/if-php-were-british/#.T5oOzLNPAlM.twitter

<comment><AUTHOR> I would definitely use PHP if it were more British. ;-)</comment>


Tesla Announces $2B Public Offering to Accelerate Model 3 Ramp Up - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-18/tesla-announces-2-billion-public-offering-to-accelerate-model-3-ramp-up <comment><USER2> The big surprise here isn't that Tesla was doing an offering - it was Goldman did a huge research note 24 hours before the offering while actually participating in said offering.

Super bad form and just goes to show the community- don't trust investment bankers. Such bad form.

<comment><USER3> The equity research department is firewalled off from the deal teams doing the offering. It would be unethical if the people who published the research note even knew anything about the offering.

<comment><USER4> Who actually audits that? Is there proof?

Better firewall would be not even to exist within the same company.

<comment><USER3> Ya, maintaining the Chinese wall between research and investment banking is a pretty central function of compliance and is regularly audited by the SEC.

<comment><USER5> What do Chinese have to do with the SEC?

Answers are more helpful than downmods.

<comment><USER6> From Wikipedia[0]:

> Chinese wall is a business term describing an information barrier within an > organization that was erected to prevent exchanges or communication that > could lead to conflicts of interest. For example, a Chinese wall may be > erected to separate and isolate people who make investments from those who > are privy to confidential information that could influence the investment > decisions. Firms are generally required by law to safeguard insider > information and ensure that improper trading does not occur.

...

> The origin of the phrase is the Great Wall of China.

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

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I didn't see anything about SEC in there.

That page also quotes a California Superior Court opinion that found the term was a "piece of legal flotsam which should be emphatically abandoned". The same opinion also found:

> The origin of the use of "Chinese Wall" in the context of confidentiality is > unclear. Evidently, the term was casually coined in some appellate opinion, > then picked up and used without question or explanation by courts and > commentators.

Can you point to an SEC regulation, or other law, that refers to a Chinese Wall? Like, is there a more specific, technical definition? Wikipedia refers to Chinese wall departments in companies; do you know where to find more information about them? Perhaps links to their enforcement and compliance documents?

<comment><USER7> You're taking that quote WAY out of context. That was an ethnic-Chinese judge criticizing the specific phrase, and preferring that "ethics wall" be used instead.

'He maintained that the "continued use of the term would be insensitive to the ethnic identity of the many persons of Chinese descent"'

The article mentions, but does not specifically name, regulations implemented after the 1929 stock crash; it also specifically names Title V of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The SEC is responsible for the enforcing the provisions of the latter.

<comment><USER5> The damning part is this:

> then picked up and used without question or explanation by courts and > commentators

This indicates (and was also said) that the term has no lawful basis; it is industry cargo cultism that had been copied around without basis for years.

<comment><USER7> It is an informal term that refers to very real regulatory requirements.

<comment><USER5> I'm having trouble visualizing such a wall. Is a wall referenced? Or is just a metaphor for some vague rules that may or may not be followed? Is there a turnkey fire/Chinese wall product on the market?

<comment><USER8> it works just like a industrial grade router firewall - the router is connected to a gas main, which directs a stream of gas over the back the of router where the rj45s go into, and a flame continuously burns any nasty hackers attempting to hack into your system.

home router systems don't have such a feature.

edit: matt levine used to work at goldman and he posted a piece that has a description of how goldman's multiple chinese wall systems works:

> Nor will [the research analysts] get any hearty back-slaps and high-fives > from the bankers, because any banker who walked onto a research floor would > be vaporized by powerful lasers long before he could raise his hand for a > high-five.

> Remember, bankers can't just call up analysts. Their phones would explode.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-19/goldman-p...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-19/goldman- picked-a-good-time-to-like-tesla-s-stock)

<comment><USER5> OK, so what I gathered from that article is that it is super illegal for researchers to talk to bankers. So much so that they cannot call or email each other over official company channels, but if they do want to talk, they can just step outside the office and use their cell phones.

The wall sounds as effective as LIBOR's blind auctions.

<comment><USER8> yup. obviously there are limitations. how do you even plan to 100% restrict that information? i guess you can lock up the research analysts and bankers in monitored cells after work...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well, $1.4 billion for Tesla, $0.6 billion for Musk personally, and an option for Goldman Sachs to get $0.21 billion.[1] Tesla stock is down in after-hours trading, but that doesn't mean much. If the stock is down significantly at the close tomorrow, the market didn't like this.

It's a legit offering. The company intends to build a big factory and make stuff. Real capital assets will be bought with that money. It's not to sell stuff at a loss to gain market share in hopes of raising prices later. (Looking at you, Uber.)

Tesla just hired Audi's head of manufacturing, Peter Hochholdinger. About a week ago, the previous two top people in manufacturing quit, right after Musk announced he wanted the production line running two years sooner. Maybe Hochholdinger can do it.

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000119312516...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000119312516594471/d185970d424b5.htm)

<comment><USER10> > Tesla stock is down in after-hours trading, but that doesn't mean much. If > the stock is down significantly at the close tomorrow, the market didn't > like this.

Well... there's all kinds of information asymmetry in investing. Musk generally has a clearer picture of the company's future than investors, such that signalling theory postulates that when he decides to issue equity, this may be interpreted as him viewing the equity is overvalued. i.e. selling an overvalued stock makes sense. Particularly, selling an overvalued stock prior to bad news coming out that would negatively affect the valuation, such as a growing rate of cancelled orders. Just making something up here.

As such, knowing nothing about the firm, and only the timing of the equity issue, most investors are usually inclined to interpret an equity issue as the stock being overvalued somewhat, and adjust accordingly.

So the market not liking this may just be a function of general principles of finance, and have little to do with the specifics of the company itself.

<comment> stp-ip As far as the information goes. Musk is selling his stock to buy his stock options and cover the resulting taxes. The documents stated, that even after he sold part of his stake for 0.6B he would have more shares than before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why do people keep spouting this nonsense that Tesla is losing money on EVERY car? They make money on every car otherwise they wouldn't be selling any cars. The lose money due to their high R&D.

<comment><USER12> Possibly because other auto manufacturers do include R&D in their COGS? Tesla, instead, treats it as an OpEx which to be fair, most non-automotive companies do as well. Still, it's not standard for the industry the are in.

tldr: Because if Tesla did their accounting the way Toyota does, they have a negative gross margin.

<comment><USER13> Actually, per their latest earnings reports[1], if they did what Toyota does and roll their R&D expenses into their cost of revenue, they would still show a gross profit. It would just be $70M for Q1'16 instead of $252M.

[1] [https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TSLA](https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TSLA)

<comment><USER12> I guess I made a _gross_ assumption? Thanks for the link -- i had just accepted the premise of the question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is not a surprise; there's an old saw that I think I first read in a Buffet annual report. It says that financing tends to alternate forms for companies in terms of what makes sense: debt -> equity -> debt -> equity.

Equity offering seems likely to be much cheaper than debt right now; Tesla has great mindshare among consumers, and lots of doubters on the professional investor side.

<comment><USER15> Also, Tesla's valuation is still sky-high in comparison to comparable companies (automotive or tech), so converting some of their shares into cash now makes a lot of sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16>
        echo "Tesla to offer $1.4 billion shares, remaining to be sold by Elon Musk.
        Musk is exercising options to buy 5.5m shares and will boost overall holdings
        on net basis. Developing... " | wc
        1      30     176

News articles and tweets are converging at an alarming rate.

<comment><USER17> Twitter's been around for 10 years, and Twitter is mostly a fad. I wouldn't call it alarming.

<comment><USER18> Newswires have been around for 100 years...

Edit: to be clear, my point was that "twitter-like" news alerts are not new; not that Twitter is some kind of successor to newswires.

<comment><USER19> And they'll still be around in 100 years. Twitter? Not so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's pretty obvious at this point that Tesla's number one product is their stock. Which makes it no different from a number of other high fliers.

At first they were an innovative car company. Then the stock price shot well above the level sustainable by an electric car company. Elon realized this, and then builds the Giga factory. We're not just a car company, we're a power company!

Now they are raising more equity off of an inflated stock price. I'd stay away from this one.

Not a total hater, Tesla cars are great, but one of these day's Elon's moon shots and obsession with the stock price will catch up with him (he'll still be rich) and his investors (they may be significantly less rich).

</comment><comment><USER21> It's neither here nor there, but I feel like Bugs Bunny in "High Diving Hare", and Musk just raised the platform another 50 feet:

[https://youtu.be/6eZaVdFbo6A?t=145](https://youtu.be/6eZaVdFbo6A?t=145)

</comment><comment><USER22> From the press release, it appears that the capital raise is "only" $1.4 billion -- the remainder is Elon Musk selling shares to cover his tax liability for simultaneously exercising options from 2009. Hopefully 1.4 billion is enough.

<comment><USER23> I don't think it is, I am guessing they are going to go back to the well when the stock price is higher, but I don't really like that strategy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Tesla has a really great business. They're not just cars, they're batteries. Their home battery for storing solar energy is a huge deal at least in terms of future cash flows. Also, they're a white label supplier of batteries to companies like Toyota and Mercedes. Anyway--new long term TSLA shareholder here. Bought in at $205.

</comment><comment><USER25> Anyone have thoughts as to why they're selling stock as opposed to issuing bonds?

<comment><USER26> Sounds like they would need to issue a ton of stock anyway, because Musk is exercising like $600M in options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> When you have 375k $1000 preorder deposits its probably an ideal time to raise investment.</comment>


Concur.next — Messaging - <AUTHOR> http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2009/10/26/Messaging <comment><USER2> One of the things I really like about Concur.next, and Tim Bray in general, is the humility with which he approaches things. He's totally open to the idea that maybe he's going down the wrong road, and attempts to back up ideas with quantifiable results.

Too often, programming language discussions devolve into pointless argument about aesthetics and edge cases. Concur.next seems to cut away a lot of the wankery to try and see the true strengths and weaknesses of these tools.

For an excellent example, check out the "Wide Finder" series. It's eye-opening to see how these languages perform under real workhorse conditions.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just spent the weekend messing around with Clojure. The docs aren't great (mainly due to lack of examples, IMHO) and it's been 10 years since I seriously programmed in any Lisp so it's been a bit slow going.

But I am in love with the concurrency model. Clojure's software transactional memory is amazing. It's like garbage collection for concurrency. Instead of having to remember to synchronize everywhere concurrent access could occur, you have to start a transaction any time you want to manipulate shared state.

<comment><USER4> The clojure wiki has examples.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I know that. I had about 40 tabs open with every page I could find. All I'm saying is that It takes a while to figure out stuff like:

I would like to call toLowerCase on a list of strings. How do I pass an argument to the function?

(map #(.toLowerCase %) word-list)

It's not exactly obvious without a bit of searching what # and % and . mean here.</comment></comment></comment>