New US $100 bill to debut Tuesday - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/07/news/economy/new-hundred-dollar-bill/index.html <comment><USER2> It absolutely makes sense for the Treasury to generate new bills with technology/features that stays ahead of counterfeiters.

But changing bills every several years can also produce unintended consequences. If new bills are constantly arriving while multiple generations of older bills remain in circulation, it's hard to know what exactly what we should be looking for with each bill.

For counterfeiters, the best time to start generating old bills is probably right after the introduction of new ones. I'd like to think the government took this into account…

<comment><USER3> I've always wondered what incentive counterfeiters even have for trying to copy these new bills. I have several $100 bills from around 20 years ago that I keep in a safe as an emergency reserve and they're still legal tender as far as I know. Why wouldn't counterfeiters just continue to counterfeit the older bills?

<comment><USER4> I think that the anti counterfeiters are planning decades ahead with each revision.

Even the older Benjis are still very hard to counterfeit - all of these new changes are targeted almost exclusively at North Korea's advanced counterfeiting program.

So decades ahead.

<comment><USER5> Are you referring to the Superdollar?

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

<comment><USER4> Yep! :)

The North Korean (supposed) counterfeiting operation is pretty fascinating all around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe in 20 more years we can switch to polymer banknotes with unique sizes for each denomination.

<comment><USER7> We can't even get rid of the penny and the nickel, people would lose their mind if money changed size.

<comment><USER8> We got rid of the penny in Canada. Seemed pretty painless lol. Everything is rounded to 5 cents now.

Also, I think we're a lot more guilty of changing our money's 'look' lol. USD looks quite old in comparison.

<comment><USER9> I visited Canada a few weeks ago and was extremely impressed by both the lack of pennies and the polymer notes. Keep up the good work, neighbors!

<comment><USER4> The polymer bills can melt in the dryer, or so I've been told.

The hundreds smell like maple syrup - and that's not a joke.

<comment><USER10> Rubbish. They don't melt in a clothes dryer. They're designed to withstand temps of well over 100 degrees Celsius (Ps why do Americans not air dry their clothes?). I've never heard of anything going wrong with the notes here in Australia. You can also get them wet without any issue, a far more common occurrence. The Maple Syrup thing is a joke.

<comment><USER4> It's not a joke. It's a controversy.

Haven't met a single person yet who doesn't smell maple on a fresh stack of hundreds.

Speaking of rubbish, you do know that cloth notes aren't damaged by water, right?

The polymer bills are a cost saving measure, and they're inferior (in term of resilience) to their cloth counterparts.

<comment><USER10> Polymer bank notes last two and a half times longer than cotton based ones [http://www.bankofcanada.ca/2013/04/publications/press- releas...](http://www.bankofcanada.ca/2013/04/publications/press- releases/bank-canada-unveils-new-5-and-10-polymer-bank-notes/).

They may not be damaged by water but they do get wet which is a pain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Critique it as a startup rollout:

1) We had the same bills from my grandpas age till mine, and suddenly over the past 20 years we're up to revision 4.0 or so. Confusing the endusers to no end. Although the API has remained constant what you get per bill has dropped quite a bit over those 20 years. Maybe the new 4.0 version should get me more groceries for my $100 rather than less each revision.

2) Same spokesman for each revision confuses upgraders. You got Franklin? Yeah I'm using Franklin. No dude thats the old version of Franklin, has some security bugs, you gotta upgrade before the economy gets powned. Can't they put something contemporary on it, like the Miley Cyrus bill or the 'Bama Bill? Or embed the year, like I got me an "2013 buck" because it has 2013 written in big ole automotive style letters?

3) They're doing a great job at rollout of focusing on the new features, but ignoring the old features. I need to know the API to verify the new bills are legit. A smart counterfeiter would focus solely on the new features and just print on toilet paper or something, half the public would probably buy it. A REALLY smart counterfeiter would start producing a run on version 5.0 $20 bills and most of the public would assume its actually upstream's product, seeing as upstream ships a new version about as often as Detroit ships a new model car now.

4) I'm not kidding around here, why do they use sequential serial numbers when a pub-key crypto signed serial number with a VERY private key would let us look at a bill and verify its a genuine signed serial number? Maybe not prove the bill is legit and uncopied, but at least you'd know its a copy of a good signed bill. They could publish a list of destroyed currency and rotate aggressively such that counterfeits would only circulate for awhile.. Unless of course the destroyed currency was the counterfeit and the cancelled one in your hand is the legit one... maybe thats why they don't do this.

5) As far as .coms go this startup needs a new art director. I'm not asking for kittens but lose the eye in the pyramid and flowery decorations and inkwells and eagles and try a QR code in one corner for vending machines (hey when the 70s stagflation hits and you want to buy a condom for $100 from the local vending machine, you'll be sorry...).

6) This seems to be the only branch that hasn't sold out naming rights. I halfway expect to see "Larry Ellison Bucks" and "HP 20s" at some point in my life. The "3com three dollar bill". As a startup they're leaving money on the table by not selling naming rights. At the bankruptcy Oracle will probably pick up the product for pennies on the dollar and freak out the GPL linux guys who'll fork into a bitcoin implementation on mariadb.

7) I don't think they're getting the tech news buzz they need. They need to send out fat stack of free samples to hacker news readers like me to create buzz. They should send out so many free samples that I can freely share them with friends.

8) Open source the code to generate? Why can't I print some at home to pay my debts, just like .gov does? Information just wants to be free. Speaking of which it needs a license I'm guessing not BSD or GPL not some CC:SA variety?

9) Is the new API compatible with existing players like "wheresgeorge.com" (are they still around?)

<comment><USER12> Regarding 4), as a thought experiment, I was wondering earlier how you'd authenticate the "trillion dollar coin."

Hypothetically, it's possible to mint a one trillion dollar coin to get around the debt ceiling crisis[1]. It's an absurd idea anyway, but what if that coin was made and then lost. Someone says they've found it, but how do we know they're not lying and have just made a forgery?

Assuming that all details of the coin (its exact elemental composition, dimensions, etc.) are publicly known, I thought a possible solution would be to take an electron microscope and image the grain structure[2] of the coin in a specific region (e.g. the eye of the statue of liberty? if that were on the coin). Then hash that grain structure (in a similar way to how one "hashes" fingerprints), sign that hash with a very-private-key, and laser etch the signature onto the coin. Since it's not possible to recreate exact grain structures, it'd be impossible to forge your coin :)

Alternatively, you could probably introduce some specific radioactive isotope to definitively age the coin, such the time since the coin was minted could be definitively measured, and any attempt at forgery revealed, though I'm not sure how to make that work in practice. There are probably other solutions too, though I can't think of any off hand. There must be things people do already to authenticate high-value "natural" objects such as gemstones? Like a laser-etched serial number? I don't know...

An absurd scenario I know, but an interesting thought experiment.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion_dollar_coin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion_dollar_coin) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_structure](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_structure)

<comment><USER11> insert hypothetical hack proof perfect RFID cryptocard into a cavity of the coin and solder it up except for a small hole for RF to pass thru? Unless someone knew the secret private key they'd be unable to replicate it the crypto code?

Hey crypto card, if you actually know the correct private key, you can hash this HN article number "6511347" OH OK dude here is the signed hash "342351315215154" OK let me test that... holy cow it worked.

The real hack would probably be a legal one to embed some kind of national treasure into the coin to make it seized by .gov, so anyone that walks up with one can have it taken away or is counterfeiting. My guess is a little spec of moon dust in a glass capsule that can't be privately owned. Or a little piece chipped off the Washington Monument.

<comment><USER12> >insert hypothetical hack proof perfect RFID cryptocard into a cavity of the coin and solder it up except for a small hole for RF to pass thru?

Then, hypothetically, why not have the "coin" be the cryptocard in the first place? and forgo this whole lump of metal thing. Probably because it's not robust in the long term. What happens when the RFID cryptocard, eventually, fails?

I like the moon dust idea though :)

<comment><USER13> Hypothetically, it's because the authorizing statute specifies that the coin must be platinum (or put another way, the statute only authorizes the minting of "platinum coins").

<comment><USER11> I haven't done much hi-temp thermocouple work... anyone know how easy it is to solder to platinum with "real" or lead-free solder? Electroplate a round cryptocard PCB and solder it together? I know solder sticks very well to gold after some unfortunate accidents (keep the solder away from the plated contacts when assembling, etc) so this would work for a "gold" coin.

<comment><USER12> You can solder _with_ platinum directly, in a manner of speaking (it won't be 100% platinum, and it also requires much higher temperatures than ordinary solder).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It looks like they threw everything they could think of onto the bill. It looks terrible...

</comment><comment><USER15> I thought this might be of interest to the HN crowd.

According to my girlfriend the color changing tech comes from JDSU, a local bay area company. Here is some (fairly dry) info:

[http://blogs.jdsu.com/perspectives/archive/tags/Anti- Counter...](http://blogs.jdsu.com/perspectives/archive/tags/Anti- Counterfeiting%20Technology/default.aspx) [http://www.jdsu.com/en- us/Authentication-Solutions/markets/b...](http://www.jdsu.com/en- us/Authentication-Solutions/markets/banknotes/Pages/default.aspx) [http://www.jdsu.com/en-us/advanced-optical- technologies/Page...](http://www.jdsu.com/en-us/advanced-optical- technologies/Pages/default.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER16> And maybe one day the we'll actually write the numbers on our coins so they can be friendlier to visitors...

<comment><USER17> You mean like how the quarter says "QUARTER DOLLAR"? And how the nickel says "FIVE CENTS"?

("ONE DIME" is kind of dumb, I'll give you that.)

<comment><USER18> Most nations put Arabic numerals on their coins.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How much money do counterfeiters cost us, anyway? Even if they have, to date, inserted only $70,000,000 of counterfeit bills, the impact to inflation is minimal, and really it only hurts a few individuals here and there who aren't able to circulate the bills. But how can you measure this impact, and, if we don't fight it, what would its projected potential impact be?

Then I'm curious about these questions:

1\. Is this the most cost efficient method to deal with it? It seems a bit silly, to me, as this is a game of cat and mouse, and those tend to be very expensive in the long run, if you want to win.

2\. Would it be worth investing in a digital solution such that a bill could be copied, but only one copy of that bill can ever be recirculated, so you could "back up" your money, digitally, then re-print it somewhere else, but you could never spend it more than once, as a general solution to counterfeiting?

3\. Would either of these actually save more money than just ignoring the problem?

4\. 100% digital? Maybe not online as a requirement, but definitely tap your card to transfer funds to someone? Why do we still have paper bills anyway, with multiple demonstrated cryptographic protocols that could replace them entirely?

<comment><USER20> I don't understand why we still mint a $100. It's the prime counterfeiting target, is mostly used overseas, and is too big for real commercial value. It seems like just having the $20 be the largest bill would overcome all these problems.

<comment><USER21> $100s have plenty of commercial value. Any time you're exchanging physical things of high value, cash is key. Cashiers checks, etc., can and are forged. Also, gamblers regularly walk around with 10s of thousands of dollars on them.

<comment><USER22> That's one thing I like about Danish money; the 500 kr note (~$90) and 200 kr note (~$35) are both common and regularly used. Makes it much more convenient to use cash for things like groceries or restaurants without having to carry around a thick wallet full of wads of $20s. Sure, many people use cards too, but you don't have to if you prefer cash.

<comment><USER23> The greatly increased CoL in Denmark also somewhat necessitates the prevalence of larger denominations.

<comment><USER22> I don't find much difference in CoL between the Bay Area and Copenhagen. If anything it's slightly cheaper in Denmark (more expensive restaurants, but cheaper rent). If you're comparing median U.S. CoL, sure, but even in high-CoL areas like San Francisco and New York City, $100 bills seem rare, despite the fact that >$100 tabs at NYC restaurants are not exactly rare. The difference seems to be that Americans are wary of larger amounts of cash, so use a card for anything nontrivial (or among older people, a personal check), while Danes can go either way, depending on personal preference. I'd blame it on the difference in mugging rates, probably.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Obligatory stories of a Taco Bell employee refusing to accept a $2 bill and a Best Buy employee having a guy arrested for paying with $2 bills. (plus more currency anecdotes linked from the bottom of the article)

[http://www.snopes.com/business/money/tacobell.asp](http://www.snopes.com/business/money/tacobell.asp)

</comment><comment><USER25> I would have never have thought $100 bills would be more common than $20 bills.

<comment><USER26> They are not more common in general use. They're more common in suitcases full of notes.

<comment><USER27> It can contain much more dollar value at same sized locker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As someone who lives in a western nation outside the US, I never use non electronic currency. Why do you still carry around so much easy to steal paper money when a debit card is so much more secure?

</comment><comment><USER29> Maybe a silly question... but what prevents counterfeiters from making false copies of the old bill if the new bill is harder to counterfeit?

<comment><USER30> Presumably the old one will be taken out of circulation as they go through banks, so in a few years anyone with a large quantity of "old" bills will be heavily scrutinized for fakes. Canada's old bills had a pretty big forgery problem, and nobody will accept old 50s/100s.

<comment><USER31> This is particularly true outside the US. In much of Asia, banks (and anyone else who might accept dollars) strongly prefer crisp, new US bills, and heavily scrutinize or reject old bills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> "The bills took more than a decade to develop.." I wonder if they had a dedicated team to work on this for 10+ years.

Meanwhile Mars rovers can be built in less than 5 years. Hilarity.

Source: [http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57606401/new-$100-bil...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57606401/new-$100-bills- to-start-circulating-tomorrow/)

<comment><USER33> I have to disagree. The potential downside for a flaw in the new bill could be rather catastrophic damage to the economy. The downside of a failure with the Mars rover is that the rover just doesn't work. Thus, it makes sense to be dramatically more conservative in designing a new currency.

<comment><USER32> Alright, I was quick to judge and there is no way of knowing how many people worked on it or what technology is included. However, 10+ years is a heck of a long time to work on the bill and I'm not sure taking more time on something necessarily insures that it is the best. But I will concede on the grounds that this is one of those situations that you can't just iterate on. It works or it doesn't and the consequences of failure are incredibly high.

<comment><USER34> There are many definitions of "work on". Perhaps the first 5 years was just a couple of people spending a couple of hours a week keeping up with the latest state of the art since they knew that eventually they'd probably be replacing some bill in the next decade or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm convinced that one of their goals is to discourage counterfeiting by making our bills as ugly as possible. /s

</comment><comment><USER36> If the US defaults in 10 days, there may be only few of these bills in circulation. It may be a good investment :)

</comment><comment><USER37> There's no denying that Franklin was a genius, but should our society honor a slave owner by putting his face on currency?

That's a serious question. I think Franklin's legacy is clouded by some moral ambiguity: his innovations were incredible, he fought for abolition and yet he didn't walk the talk.

Is that a mistake we should overlook in remembering him?

<comment><USER38> We should be careful to avoid presentism, applying modern moral standards to somebody who lived over 200 years ago. By the standards of his time, Franklin was unquestionably a great man.

<comment><USER37> You can justify almost any instance of slavery or genocide by arguing that the perpetrators acted according to the standards of their time and communities.

<comment><USER39> He's not justifying Franklin's slaveholding, he's justifying Franklin as a person. It's silly to discount everything great Franklin did because he held a position on slavery that was no worse than the prevalent opinion of the time.

Most of the "bad" people in history (e.g. Hitler, Pol Pot) acted worse than the standards of their time. Nobody's justifying them or their actions with this logic.

<comment><USER37> I agree that no one should discout Franklin's inventions and great ideas. That's why I was careful to mention them in my comment.

But I take issue with forgetting about this one aspect of Franklin's character because he was simply following the standards of his time.

The question is, standards for whom? Affluent white people? The standards certainly weren't acceptable to black Americans.

I know that I may sound nit-picky, but I think it's important to apply our current sense of morality to this period in American history. When we gloss over the uncomfortable details, we gloss over some of the lessons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> can i get a code for beta access plz?

<comment><USER11> Just download a torrent and use your own copies; I mean, what could possibly go wrong with that plan?</comment></comment>


My Latest Project - Share Music Instantly - <AUTHOR> http://instant.fm

<comment><USER2> I've definitely wanted exactly this in the past. Only thing that stopped me from building it was the law.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're just playing YouTube videos. Nothing against the law about that.

<comment><USER2> Oh man. I just noticed this in my comments archive. I'm a dick. I wasn't paying enough attention to the implementation. Apologies.

That said, I still suspect the law might impact the future of your product since I assume many of the songs in the videos that you're listing have been uploaded illegally.. however, I do love the idea and hope it works out..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really amazing site! Finally a way to take advantage of the "I listen to all my music on YouTube" behavior that's becoming so common.

One comment: it's too difficult to create new playlists. The front-page suggested lists is great, but I don't think you want to require people to open up iTunes or some other player and then figure out how to export a playlist to text format (most of your users, I imagine, will have no idea how to do this).

You could supply a guide on how to do this for various popular media players, but far easier would be to do a live search on a text field and let people click on the song they want to add from the search results.

Considering your average visitor is probably "someone who tends to listen to their music on YouTube", you've got to make the experience extremely low- friction, or they're just going to go back to watching stuff on YouTube.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, we're working on simplifying the new playlist creation process. Thanks for the nice comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Behaves very strange in Opera, but I guess it's a very cool project.

The problem is: when a playlist is chosen it doesn't load, the page refreshes all the time.

<comment><USER5> +1, same issue in FF3.5 and IE9 (works in FF4).

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed this now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At last, a music service that actually cares about UX. It's great, the animations are a bit choppy on my machine but other than that everything is great, very intuitive interface. Where are you getting artist info from? Again, congrats.

<comment><AUTHOR> So glad that someone appreciates all the time we spent on UX. We're still tweaking things and trying to make it even better. We're getting most of the music data from Last.fm's excellent API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is amazing the UI is really nice and intuitive. I did a dubstep playlist <http://instant.fm/p/5r> . It's interesting to notice that everything is on youtube now.

<comment><USER8> Hmm, it's showing up as a blank playlist for me.

<comment><USER7> strange, a bug maybe?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, we had a bug right after we launched where playlists wouldn't get saved if you were logged out. So sorry about that. It's since been fixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice use of <http://html5boilerplate.com/>

Your humans.txt and favicon are still the default though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, you noticed! Just fixed that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice job.

<http://instant.fm/p/5l>

I don't see a way to rename a playlist. Am I missing something?

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome playlist! Hope you were able to figure out how to rename. The other commenter is correct - click the edit link next to the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice to listen to something new. I could not drecrease the video to something below 720p. Is this somehow fixed or a bug?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, this is a known bug. We're going to fix it soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> One might also consider tweaking this to allow for stringing together of longer video lectures/debates on various topics.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've definitely thought about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Check out voxound.com

Edit: it appears to be down

</comment><comment><USER13> Wow - really nice! Love the design.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. So glad to hear that people appreciate the design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You're gonna get so sued for this.

<comment><USER15> It's just YouTube playlists, how is that illegal?

Edit: all of my 4- and 5-star rated songs in iTunes: <http://instant.fm/p/7d>

<comment><AUTHOR> Really cool.</comment></comment></comment>


ARM: Can 'crown jewel' of UK technology be protected? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54144434 <comment><USER2> The irony in all this is that a government that says it wants to create a 'trillion dollar tech giant' has no idea what to do with the one world leading tech company that is based in the UK.

[1] [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/09/11/cummings-p...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/09/11/cummings- plan-create-uk-trillionaire-tech-giant-admirable/)

<comment><USER3> > Cummings suggested that a no-deal Brexit could allow the Government to offer > state aid to the country's most promising technology businesses

The second level irony is that it's the UK that has always been the main opponent to every state subsidies while they were in European union.

<comment><USER2> Third level irony: UK tech sector wants freedom of movement across the EU and would rather not have state aid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been doing a lot of thinking out loud today about the UK's lamentable state with regards to its technology industry today without much disagreement in my back channels – perhaps HN will have more interesting things to say?

It feels like the UK's failings in the technology space are entirely cultural. Looking back at the 70s and 80s when the UK punched above its weight in the microcomputer space, UK tech companies remained very insular and the people who got rich tended to just retire or move on to other industries. This seems to happen wave after wave in the UK. The big names of any decade are no longer around in the next one because they got rich and quit.

The US seems to have a culture of building up business communities in a way the UK doesn't through investment and people _staying in the game_ for multiple decades. There are _thousands_ of paper multi-millionaires who continue to work 40 hour weeks in the US in a way you'd never see in the UK. It's also far less common in the UK for people who got rich off tech to reinvest back into the nascent companies in their space rather than retire. And who's giving multi millions to CS institutions like Imperial or St Andrews in the same way US billionaires do to Stanford and MIT? Where are the charismatic titans of UK technology?

Maybe I'm being unfair, but I can't put my finger on any of it with any clarity because I don't have my head in the UK tech space too much (I live here but virtually "work in the US", so maybe I'm part of the problem) but something smells funny about British culture when it comes to tech and I'd love to know what the cause of that smell _is_.

The UK is certainly capable of great things. We've seen this in the biomedical, pharma, finance, and energy spaces – how can we be punching above our weight in sectors like those but still have most of our population flocking to American sites like Reddit, Facebook, and Instagram because the local alternatives either don't exist or are terrible?

<comment><USER5> >It feels like the UK's failings in the technology space are entirely cultural.

Yes, It is cultural. And I think It is more than what you described, Although I may be over generalising it a bit.

If you look at the US, all of the large tech companies, or in fact _any_ big companies, not just tech all have the same mentality. _Rule_ the world. Whether that is Finance, Energy, Food, Tech. The home market US was merely a testing ground, they always had an eye on the _world_. They are greedy, pushy, willing to go the extra miles to close the deal. The sales forces between US, UK and Continental Europe are very different. Where in UK and EU there are more towards making both party happy. US tends to be ruthless.

US tech communities and companies also has a rather strange workaholic culture. Where employees are expected to put in the extra hours. But of course the pay in US is also a lot better. It also gives the idea that if you wanted money, go to US, or even working in a US company in the UK, or remote. Most UK / EU tech companies are not salary competitive.

Management Style is also different. Which also mean the working environment in tech also flavours US companies. Some of what is common in US is against the norm in UK. This matter in Tech because the space is moving way too fast. Innovation Efficiency is the key. Before you could gasp the basic of one thing you already have to learn another. Compared to other industry you mentioned which tend to have a slower pace, even in finance. what you learned dont change that often. Only the Data changed.

Not to mention the Brits culturally aren't very good at marketing. Something the US is exceptionally good at.

<comment><USER6> > Not to mention the Brits culturally aren't very good at marketing. Something > the US is exceptionally good at.

Strange to hear this - I've always thought that the UK was particularly good at marketing, [English-speaking] world-leading, in fact. The creative aspect at least. Perhaps I'm conflating this with advertising.

<comment><USER7> Good point on differentiating ads and marketing.

UK have some of the best 'communications culture' in the world, which lends to agency style stuff.

Marketing, particularly product marketing, is somewhat different. I would still say pretty good though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm very confused. We sold this to the Japanese already!

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I'm confused as well. SoftBank could have done things the UK didn't like. They've owned ARM since mid 2016.

<comment><USER10> Probably a couple reasons why it's coming up now. First the Japanese have a pretty good reputation as owners of UK businesses, they own quite a few Scotch distilleries and impressions are they manage things well.

Second, I think the world feels a lot more protectionist nowadays vs when the original buyout happened. I know it wasn't that long ago but the trade war tariffs between the US and China sort of set the tone.

<comment><USER11> The level of anxiety about capital and industrial flight in the UK is also much higher due to Brexit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > but conversations on whether to impose them or what they might be have not > even started.

Sorry for the cheap shot, but the current government is not very good at starting conversations, signing agreements or to to keep them.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hasn't the ship already sailed? It was sold to softbank and now NVidia? It seems a too late for this.

edit: Get rid of little to late and change to too late.

<comment><USER14> Apparently; when ARM was first sold to Softbank, Softbank made several guarantees to the UK. Nvidia has made no agreement to continue those guarantees.

> At that time, Softbank announced it had agreed to legally binding > commitments to increase investment, headcount and preserve its headquarters > in the UK.

> It is not too late for the government to impose conditions, but > conversations on whether to impose them or what they might be have not even > started.

<comment><USER15> I would assume Nvidia bought (by obligation) those commitments too?

Otherwise it would be pointless having them in the first place, you'd just get out of it (if you wanted to) with some creative corporate governance.

[I used to work at Arm, but not on creative corporate governance.]

<comment><USER11> Uhm, no...? The obligation was on Softbank, not on ARM.

 _> you'd just get out of it (if you wanted to) with some creative corporate governance_

... aand you've just "discovered" how large companies routinely get out of their commitments to politicians.

<comment><USER16> > The obligation was on Softbank, not on ARM

Plausibly the obligation on Softbank could require them, when selling, to require the new buyer agree to the same obligation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If arm wanted to stay in the uk they shouldn't have sold themselves to the Japanese.

The UK has always lagged in tech as they still think it's the 1800's and their domestic island is enough as they ignored the world in the 80s with low effort 3rd party sourcing at best.

As usual the state TV and education could have dominated the English speaking world with BBC micros and education, but again they stayed on their tiny insignificant island.

This whole thing is nothing more than sellers re-remorse for selling ARM for next to nothing.

Go and do something new.

</comment><comment><USER18> Who needs ARM when you have solid investments in companies like OneWeb

<comment><USER19> I hope your joking

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A: No.

<comment><USER21> Of course it can?

Just buy it from Softbank at over 40bn$.

"It's as simple as that".

What the choosing beggars want, however, is getting ARM back from Softbank for free. After Softbank paid 32bn$ for it. And there you are right, ain't gonna happen.

<comment><USER22> I'm not so sure UK politicians would know what to do with a complicated tech company.

<comment><USER23> The answer is leave it the f___ alone. Why do people think politicians _need_ to do anything?

<comment><USER24> Because we live in a world where governments use their power to prop up certain companies, giving them a competitive advantage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Isn't apple about to design their own cpu? I would be selling arm asap.

<comment><USER26> Apple has been designing their own CPU's for a decade, using the ARM ISA. Apple has a perpetual license to the ISA though, so they would not be a source of future revenue.

Apple is also under no obligation to stick with ARM's roadmap for future products.

<comment><USER27> This is something I have wondered about and had no idea they basically had some sort of perpetual license. Is this normal for ARM to give out such a license? Or are all ARM licenses basically typically under those conditions? I know ARM mostly just licenses specs to their chips.

<comment><USER28> ARM is a joint venture that Apple started with Acorn and VLSI.

Article from 1990: [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la- xpm-1990-11-28-fi-4993-s...](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la- xpm-1990-11-28-fi-4993-story.html)

<comment><USER27> Wow I had no idea, now a lot of things make more sense to me about why Apple is going the route they are. I honestly wish them nothing but success. Part of me hopes they license their own chips down the line. The Intel monopoly over desktop systems needs to end.

<comment><USER29> Not under current market.

Apple got as big as it is by vertically integrating everything and creating walled gardens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why is government interfering with private enterprise? The UK gov't always does this.</comment>


The Dimming of GE's Bold Digital Dreams - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dimming-of-ges-bold-digital-dreams-11595044802 <comment><USER2> Is there an open access version of this?</comment>


Instacart (YC S12) aims to be the Amazon Prime of grocery delivery - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57489629-93/instacart-aims-to-be-the-amazon-prime-of-grocery-delivery/ <comment><USER2> Amazon has had, what, five years to expand its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service? The fact that they have chosen not to implies that they haven't managed to make it cost effective. I think this speaks volumes about the feasibility of grocery delivery.

<comment><USER3> While I agree that Amazon not having much success in this market is not a great sign, it seems like there are probably a number of other reasons they haven't been expanding the service. Amazon is trying to be the one spot you buy all physical goods, but it's been proven time and time again that getting to generalized, or trying to be all things, means you can't do all of them (or sometimes any of them) well. I think a new company with this focus definitely has the best chance of success. At which point, Amazon will probably buy them.

For now though, please expand up to Marin!

<comment><USER4> Personally, I wish Amazon had stuck with books. IMO, their diversification has made their site organization suffer -- especially when they allowed 3rd-party sellers to create product listings (which led to maddening duplicates).

I pray that Newegg's diversification from computer hardware won't have the same adverse effect, but it's probably a law of retail that it will.

<comment><USER5> I completely disagree. I think Amazon.come is absolutely amazing, and I do the vast majority of my shopping through it. Bezos's intention was to offer everything under the sun when he started the company, hence the name Amazon, because of it's diversity in terms of number of species that exists there.

I compare my experience with Newegg, and although I've bought some stuff from Newegg, I will generally go with Amazon, even if it's a few dollars more expensive, because I trust Amazon so much more, and the entire experience is so much better. I'm basically their model customer, and they have me hook, line, and sinker, especially with Amazon Prime.

<comment><USER4> Maybe that was his intention, but it's hard to deny that the main focus of Amazon was (and may continue to be) books. I think it just boils down to whether or not you believe in the aforementioned idea that it's only possible to do one thing really well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> $10 for one-hour delivery and $4 for three-hour delivery seems extraordinarily cheap, given the someone is actually going to a grocery store, buying this stuff, and delivering it to you.

If those are the actual operations, it appears like it would be very difficult to turn a profit. However, it does seem like there are plenty of good ways to make the operations more efficient once demand is high enough while still remaining light on assets like warehouses, trucks, etc.

<comment><USER7> Those prices are comparable to services like Peapod which take orders the day before and plan out at least relatively efficient schedules. Especially if they're moving to a yearly flat rate subscription to get people to make more frequent orders, I don't see how this can work.

But I wish them the best of luck, it would be wonderful for them and their customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Back of the envelop calculations: A typical delivery would cost 1 hour of someone's time. At minimum wage this would cost ~$5. So $99 buys you 20 deliveries. If you batch up 3 customers every hour than $99 can pay for 60 deliveries.

If your order twice a week for 50 weeks than customer gets 100 deliveries for $99. So net/net Instacart would have gap of 40 deliveries = $33. So in essence they would eat up $33 per customer as loss which you can simply be viewed as customer acquisition/retention cost.

I think this is brilliant model. $99 for 3 hour deliveries would be very attractive to upper middle class. It also illustrates class of powerful business models which are simply based on swapping time for money and leveraging the exchange rate between time and money to be minimum wage.

<comment><USER9> With a concentrated customer base and excellent logistics, they may be able to do much better than 3 deliveries per hour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Isn't Amazon Fresh the Amazon Prime for Groceries?

<comment><USER11> This is word for word what I was thinking. Well played Randall from 58 minutes ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hate to be overly negative against this startup, but I have a couple of issues with this service, that haven't been addressed since Webvan in 2000:

1) The target audience is definitely those people who are too busy to get their own groceries. If they are too busy to get their own groceries, aren't they too busy to cook a meal? I would think that take-out or going out to eat would be their #1 competitor in this area. When both my wife and I were working full-time, at the end of the day we were so exhausted that the last thing we wanted to think about was what we were going to eat, and then actually cooking it. We ate out probably 5 days out of the week. Ordering take-out will be quicker, and less of a hassle.

2) If the delivery person selects items such as meat, eggs, milk, etc that are expired or very close to expiry, it will likely cause a complete lack of confidence in the service. It will only take 1 bad experience buying meat, or a couple of busted eggs in a dozen, and they could potentially lose a customer forever. I'm not sure what their return policy is, but if they have one, it will likely be pretty costly for the company. There also could be incentive for people to return their close-to-expired food to Instacart, claiming that the delivery person selected it. It may seem petty, but for example very high chargebacks rates are one of the biggest challenges that Square faces right now.

3) Free delivery is interesting, but the 3hr delivery window I think will turn out to be pretty inconvenient for customers. It means that they need to deliver their goods at home, because who wants to be stuck at work waiting for their groceries to be delivered? I'm not sure what the delivery times were during their beta testing, that would be interesting to know, but my best un- educated, armchair-analyst guess is that the highest amount of deliveries will be from 7 to 10pm, and on weekends. If Instacart takes off, it means a disproportionate about of work required between 7pm and 10pm, and a lot less at other times. This sounds like a lot of people sitting around waiting for deliveries.

4) Safeway has their own delivery service as well, with a 1hr time window. What exactly does this service provide that Safeway can't? Is it cheaper? Or just faster?

<comment><USER12> Don't forget about people who don't have cars.

I absolutely loved Ocado when I was living in London. Tesco's was four blocks away, and Sainsbury's a kilometer. Getting groceries home on the bus is no fun.

Damaged goods were refunded no questions asked (the yogurt pots had a habit of bursting).

If I could get the same service in this area, I'd do it at the drop of a hat.

<comment><USER13> I second that. We have a standing weekly order with Ocado.

For those who've not experienced Ocado weekly deliveries:

It's fantastic - they automatically create an order for us every week for delivery on Friday between 6pm and 7pm. The order includes items we've said to always include, excludes items we've said to never include, but other than that they create a "recommended" order based on our past shopping patterns. Usually it's a very close match and we just tweak some quantities if we've used less or more of something or want to wary our menu.

We then have until about 1am on Friday to amend the order via the web interface or their mobile apps as our needs change through the week. It cuts down my total grocery shopping time to about 5 minutes a week.

Everything comes sorted into color coded bags for the freezer, fridge or cupboards, and the invoice (and web site) lists the minimum number of days until the use by date of each item.

I hardly shop offline any more - between Ocado and Amazon, 99% of my shopping needs are taken care of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I loved Webvan when it existed, and then Tesco's delivery service in the UK, but never got into the delivery options in the US since then. (I also ended up with >30 of their crates...)

I'd pay $50/wk for someone to go to storage freezer (deer, beef), the butcher in Alameda (other meat), Berkeley Bowl (produce), Tokyo Fish Market (fish, japanese stuff), Whole Foods (365 is a decent deal, failthrough for anything not at the above), Costco (specific bulk items, like ito-en green tea and san pelligrino), and Trader Joe's (frozen food) to get groceries. Unfortunately, I think I outgrew Safeway some time ago. The other problem is I often want to buy highly seasonal items, based on availability, price, and quality. I don't think there's a good way to get the quality I want at a single store at a decent price; Whole Foods comes closest, but is expensive. Add BevMo for liquor, too.

Webvan had basically one or two steps better quality than Safeway (on par with Andronico's), and all in one place.

A service to get stuff for a party during the party (e.g. if you run out of beer) in 1h for $10 would be awesome. I don't think I'd use 3h Safeway delivery even if free. I would use a higher end service with great quality food (by going to the right shops) if the ordering experience exposed current inventory status.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would really like for online groceries to work, partly because I despise going to to the grocery store. I'd much rather have someone else find a place to park, locate all of their items, wait in line at checkout and haul the groceries out of the store. I'm even willing to sacrifice things in order for that to happen, like being able to inspect and pick my own meat and produce.

The only sticking point for me is price and selection. I want options when choosing products and I want the prices to be comparable to what I see in the store. I don't want prices that are twice as much as in the store PLUS delivery fees.

Hopefully Instacart Express tackles that problem. The only concern I had after reading the thread is that it sounds like they have an employee go to an actual grocery store to pick up the order and deliver it. That method of doing things sounds painful once the service really starts to grow, but perhaps they've got an alternative strategy for when that happens.

Good luck, Instacart!

</comment><comment><USER16> We started and operated a grocery delivery service like this for some 15 years as a sideline to our normal delivery business.

It was an operational nightmare.

Picking one order for a customer at a grocery store quickly is hard enough. Two orders requires using two carts and care that you don't mix up the orders. Picking more than two orders at a time is almost impossible, which limits your productivity.

We routinely had customers who would order more than a cart worth of groceries at a time. Offices would order 20 cases of soda pop and several boxes of munchies. Picking, transporting, and delivering these orders often took well over an hours' worth of time each.

If the average customer is ordering once a week, the $2 they receive won't be enough to cover their costs, and they'll have to charge significantly more than shelf price for the groceries if they are to be profitable. But this will discourage customers who believe they are paying an annual fee in return for "free" delivery.

</comment><comment><USER17> In Minneapolis, we've had grocery delivery for quite a while now through Coborn's Delivers (<http://www.cobornsdelivers.com/>). It used to be Simon Delivers (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimonDelivers>), a startup that went under and then was taken over by an existing local grocery chain.

We pay $5 for next-day delivery or $10 for same-day (for orders of at least $50, otherwise add another $5 to delivery).

It's a huge time saver, we have groceries delivered every Sunday and they have good selection and produce. The prices are a little more expensive, but it's totally worth it for us.

The startup I'm working at also uses it periodically to have soda and snacks delivered. Much easier and more reliable than having to send someone out every few weeks.

</comment><comment><USER18> I can't help but worry that services like Instacart, TaskRabbit and Exec may perpetuate the problem of "underemployment" in the United States.

Let's face it, you can't pay delivery people as good as, say, Costco does it's hourly employees and only charge $4 or $10 for delivery. It's even worse if these services are just 1099ing these people without any benefits, gas money, etc. (I have no idea if this is the case).

Maybe these services use student workers. Maybe I'm way off. But I do know that I'm as pro-capitalism as anyone but felt a little dirty after paying someone on TaskRabbit $15 to walk around SF for 2 hours and get me some restaurant information.

</comment><comment><USER19> Do you not have these services already in the US? In the UK every major supermarket will deliver to your home whenever you want. They all have mobile apps, etc. They have the leverage, surely the same would happen in the US?

<comment><USER20> I imagine is has to do with the comparative sizes and population densities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I thought this concept of grocery deliveries for free had died with WebVan back in 2000 [<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan>]

</comment><comment><USER22> "Instacart simply takes customers' $10 or larger orders, sends a staff shopper to a local merchant to load up on fruits, vegetables, meats, and the like, and then delivers them." How are they going to scale this? Sounds like it would require a huge workforce in each of their markets. And what about the grocery chains' delivery services like Peapod?

<comment><USER5> If they wanted to scale, they would need to make deals with the grocery stores to pack the groceries, or have their own food depots so that the delivery people wouldn't have to waste to packing groceries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I hope that while they exist they use heavy duty containers for the deliveries.

I'm still getting a lot of use out of my old Webvan tubs!

</comment><comment><USER24> As far as I can tell, Instacart works on phones only, not the web. Will there be a web UI? And it's iPhone only. Q: Where does Apple get its 30%? All in-app sales? Just the delivery charge? Will there be an Android version? If not, why not?

</comment><comment><USER25> those damn instacart addicts :)</comment>


Show HN: Web app to build better products using visual feedback - <AUTHOR> http://www.zipboard.co <comment><USER2> I like the way you can navigate websites inside the app itself.</comment>


Ask HN: Medical Feed for HN? - <AUTHOR>

I know there are sites that do feeds of, say, the front page for Hacker News. Is there a site that specifically aggregates 1) submissions of medical articles here or 2) medical articles that generated discussion here?
Or is there is some other option I am not thinking to ask, like an HN style site for medical news?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I can't answer exactly that, but I'll try to give some suggestions:

Many of the tokenadult submissions are about medicine, or medical research [https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=tokenadult](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=tokenadult)

Also, many of the comments of tokenadult are in the same kind of topic [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tokenadult](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tokenadult) (usually a looong explanation of the methodological failures, like "they used only 3 rats" or "it works in rats, but it may not work in humans", but mooore polite and informative and with links to support the main points)

In particular, you can read: [http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/)

You can create and save a filter in [http://hnapp.com/](http://hnapp.com/) to see the medical posts. You will have to tweak the keywords until you get the correct set of post. (I use it when a single topic monopolizes all the front page.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thx.</comment></comment>


Similar websites to Hacker News? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys, I really think this website is great, currently it's my nr. 1 source for online news. It's exactly my style geeky/techy + codes included. Not to mention the great economical + benchmarks seen here in the past year, nothing for me even got close to this website.
Are there are any more sites similar to hacker news, where users submit stories and crowd gathers?
Cheers! <comment><USER2> quibb.com

</comment><comment><USER3> Here are a few to get you started: [http://www.scottcowley.com/blog/algorithm- based-content-aggr...](http://www.scottcowley.com/blog/algorithm-based- content-aggregator-websites)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks mate!</comment></comment>


New Zealand reinstates coronavirus restrictions - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/11/world/new-zealand-restrictions-intl-scli/index.html <comment> blaser-waffle Yeah was wondering why they were so self-congratulatory when they were trumpeting their 0-cases. Either they're missing them (not testing, etc), or they're on hold for more. Pandemic ain't anywhere near being over.

Additionally, the NZ is like 5 million people in a highly isolated island; they have it on easy-mode compared to NYC, which is centrally located and has north of 20 million souls in the greater NYC area.

<comment><USER2> Did you read this article? There are now 4 cases (all in one family), after 102 days without any. They are reinstating restrictions for 3 days so authorities can properly do contact tracing.

Of course pandemic isn't over, but I think some level of self congratulation is appropriate.

<comment><USER3> There are a total of four _detected_ cases, with no known ties to any obvious potential source of infection like overseas travel, border enforcement, isolation facilities or anything like that, after 102 days without any. Covid-19 cases don't just spontaneously generate - they had to catch it from someone. Which implies there is some unknown number of undetected infections out there spreading for an as-yet-undetermined amount of time during the 102-day period where no cases were detected. This is not a good sign and definitely calls into question the self-congratulation. I suspect their PM knows this.

(I've also heard claims that their testing numbers were quite low during the period when zero cases were reported. Didn't get any mainstream media coverage, but stuff which doesn't fit the narrative generally doesn't.)

<comment><USER4> Yeah the message was always to get tested if you had any symptoms but that may not have always happened in practice. There was sentinel testing of border workers, but not widespread testing of the asymptomatic public.

If they can't definitively contact-trace the origin of this family's infection, then we're probably going to have to lock down for two transmission cycles, ~4 weeks. That would be disappointing and difficult. We're in the middle of an election campaign cycle right now, so I hope that doesn't strain our unity.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to get an amazing website for $99/mo. - <AUTHOR> https://320ny.com/packages/ So we've been dealing with the consulting cash flow roller coaster for some time now and decided generating more recurring revenue was probably a smart move.
One idea we had (thanks to advice/guidance from the likes of Brennan Dunn, Nathan Barry, Amy Hoy, and Patrick Mackenzie) was consulting as a service. We realized there were many business owners out there who struggled with the various template sites (Wordpress, Wix, Web.com) but didn't have thousands to spend on custom development.
So we created a simple $99/month package which included everything clients needed (design, updates, and hosting) via Squarespace. The price point seems to be working well so far and clients get a quasi-custom site built without having to deal with anything tech related which they love.
Curious what everyone thinks of the concept (good and bad)? <comment><AUTHOR> Really no thoughts?</comment>


Which PHP MVC Framework should I use with MongoDB? - <AUTHOR> http://mongoq.com/h29FZz

<comment><AUTHOR> Major requirements ...

* MongoDB support (the more 'built-in' the better, a full ORM is not needed however.)

* MVC (and nice pretty urls ... if you will ... too!)

* Must work on Apache (2.2) on Ubuntu (10.04.1 LTS), but nginx is also a nice plus.

* PHP 5.3 or greater.

Nice to haves ...

* I'd prefer more readable code than lots of "shortcut" shorthand coding (that just ends up confusing me later.)

* I've used PHP for a number of years, but don't use a lot of it's OO (nor do I really care to.)

* I really love jQuery, so a framework that "thinks" the same way would be nice.

* Lightweight, I don't need a ton of features ... I just need to make my life easier.

</comment><comment><USER2> Why is this here?

<comment><AUTHOR> From the News Guidelines ...

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

In response to your comment, you might want to see this in the News Guidelines ...

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

<comment><USER2> It's just you and me here.</comment></comment></comment>


Cross-Browser NoScript Hits the Chrome Store - <AUTHOR> https://hackademix.net/2019/04/12/cross-browser-noscript-hits-the-chrome-store/ <comment><USER2> I'd been a keen user of this until a while ago when they completely overhauled the UI in a way I couldn't figure out all, when I abandoned it.

<comment><USER3> While I agree the change in UI was disruptive, it shows more info and in a more accessible way than before. (At least once one takes the time to learn it.)

If a simpler interface is preferred then it's already possible to blacklist JS in Chrome and enable it per-site by clicking to the left of the page address for the access privileges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In my opinion NoScript is the single most powerful security tool for the home user. It's a shame they've rendered it nearly unusable with the new UI. I don't know why it's a trend with developers these days to turn readable menus into oversimplified buttons/icons. I have to rely on tooltips just to work my Gmail and that's ridiculous.

<comment><USER5> The UI works fine for me.

> I have to rely on tooltips just to work my Gmail and that's ridiculous.

Pick a better mail service that doensn't 'require' JavaScript? You're complaining about a thing that lets users control what sites are allowed to run and you're trying to use one of the most JS-heavy sites on the internet...

<comment><USER6> The parent commenter was comparing the bad UI of NoScript to the bad UI of Gmail. Seems fair comparison to me if the UIs are similar. What does JavaScript have to do with it? People are quite capable of creating bad UIs with or without JavaScript.

<comment><USER5> > What does JavaScript have to do with it?

Um, the article is about NoScript.. which (drumroll) allows users to manage Javascript on a per-website and/or per-source basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> <Regrettably, the additions and enhancements which resulted from this work have not picked up by Google.

Maybe Microsoft does and push it upstream?

<comment><USER5> Microsoft doesn't own the upstream code?

<comment><USER7> Google does

<comment><USER5> That was my point..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish NoScript would work with Safari. With Apple's commitment to privacy, they really need to lift their game with safari extension support.

</comment><comment><USER9> FYI, Noscript had a serious zero-day which runs js files with MIME type text/css.

<comment><USER10> "FYI", so what am I supposed to do with this information? If software were perfect we wouldn't need solutions like this in the first place.</comment></comment>


Asio, SSL, and scalability - <AUTHOR> https://konradzemek.com/2015/08/16/asio-ssl-and-scalability/ <comment><USER2> I'm so confused by his analysis:

> A look at engine::perform implementation in engine.ipp quickly shows us > that... everything is fine.

Here's the beginning of perform():

        ::ERR_clear_error();
        int result = (this->*op)(data, length);
        int ssl_error = ::SSL_get_error(ssl_, result);
        int sys_error = static_cast<int>(::ERR_get_error());

So the lock contention is in SSL_get_error / ERR_get_error? I see a big problem here - stop checking them on success!

        int result = (this->*op)(data, length);
        int ssl_error = SSL_ERROR_NONE;
        int sys_error = 0;
        if (result != 1) {
            ssl_error = ::SSL_get_error(ssl_, result);
            sys_error = static_cast<int>(::ERR_get_error());
            ::ERR_clear_error();
        }

The move of the error clearing to right after they're retrieved, may not be completely right so the rest of the code needs to be checked. But the general idea should eliminate the lock contention completely. (unless they deal with mostly connection errors)

</comment><comment><USER3> Are there that many situations where you can't just put a SSL proxy in front of a standard HTTP server, and keep the application itself simpler?

If I were a sysadmin in charge of just keeping in-house applications running, I'd really hate it if some SSL layer bug meant I had to figure out how to recompile some custom application - especially one using boost! - not to mention figuring out how to update certificates and that sort of thing.

<comment><USER4> I also would tend to agree on this, if you're talking server sockets. With client sockets this is still very relevant though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not to be confused with Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation.

</comment><comment><USER6> Arr you going to raise a ticket on libressl so they know to fix it?

</comment><comment><USER7> What's the name of the profiling tool from the examples?

<comment><USER8> Instruments:

[https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Develo...](https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/InstrumentsUserGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html)

Which for some features it just a fancy UI on top of dtrace, but still a good way to get started with these kinds of things.

<comment> X-Istence Fancy UI or not, it is an absolutely invaluable tool when profiling code on OS X. The memory leak detector is really neat too, and has helped me numerous times track down where I am leaking memory.</comment></comment></comment>


Is China Exporting Its Authoritarian Politics via Its Technology? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theafricareport.com/20947/is-china-exporting-authoritarian-politics-via-its-technology/ <comment><USER2> Sooo what the US has been doing for years?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I don't disagree that the U.S. has been selling technology that can be used for nefarious purposes to not nice people/outright bad regimes for a long time, I think the reason why people are concerned about this is because China has an even more negative track record (at least recently) for human rights, mass surveillance, etc. and ostensibly has fewer demands for the people it sells to to be more Democratic or use the technology in non-authoritarian ways</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any grad students interested in writing a CS paper? - <AUTHOR> I have a two ideas that are publish worthy but I do not have the motivation to turn them into papers.
If there are any CS grad students who want to take the ideas+code and publish them let me know.
Idea 1, is an anonymous, verifiable voting system where there is no need for trusted authorities. As far as I know there is no published way to do this.
Idea 2: https://github.com/Jakobovski/decoupled-multimodal-learning but it needs more work to turn it into a paper. <comment><USER2> Have you written a CS paper before? It isn't just write this up in an academic style.

> As far as I know there is no published way to do this.

How much background reference search have you done?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Have you written a CS paper before? No

> How much background reference search have you done? A few years ago I did a > bit... but it was probably not thorough enough.</comment></comment>


AppSumo.com Raises Round with a Top Angel - <AUTHOR> http://blog.appsumo.com/appsumo-com-raises-round-with-a-top-angel/ <comment><USER2> That should go in TheOnion... not on your blog.

<comment><USER3> I totally disagree, this tells me that they're not afraid to make/poke fun at their own expense and would make me want to work there. It may be polarizing, but it can also be worthwhile. We recently released an Awesomesauce edition of a WordPress plug-in I've been working on and our entire website is ridiculous. And yet it generates sales, we have great and fun customers (who are joyous we're solving an issue or in this case that they're getting a deal) and today I even got an e-mail saying that this guy has been pitching our website as the way Awesomesauce business should be done. It's self selecting, and if done properly, it helps brand and build the culture they want.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Open discussion on the type of VC you really need - <AUTHOR>

If any other applicants, like me, have been wondering why they weren't picked on Monday and don't think the "Why Not" page is a good enough answer, I figure an open discussion might be useful to all of us.
After that e-mail, I spent a solid 24 hours trying to convince myself that our startup was a bad idea. That way I could hit this first speed bump, walk away, and carry on with my meaningless 9-5 job in my cubicle. Fortunately, I was able to dissuade myself from that option. So why didn't YC see it the same way? What do they know that I don't?
After some soul searching, I think it is the other way around. They don't know what I do know, thus they know it is outside their expertise and not in their best interest. Here's my reasoning: Our startup is 50% based on the technology and 100% based on making the right political connections (Yes, it totals 150%). So even with their proven success guiding the product development correctly, it only affects 50% of the outcome. They can only control half, and we only gain half. It may very well be a poor match.
The application forced us to be aggressive, meet a deadline, and build a reasonably functional demo. I say that is successful in itself. It has also forced us to evaluate what types of investors and contacts we need to be successful. In these reasons alone, I believe YC has helped us as much or more than if we were picked to be funded. My only regret is that I don't have an excuse to move to SF for the summer.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> you have an excuse to move to SF for summer _founding a startup_.

Why would you even consider giving up after being rejected from YC? Isn't that telling the world you're not sold on _your_ idea?

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe in the product. And although I have been involved in startups previously, I've either worked for one or haven't been in a position to found one as serious as this. My personal risk is greater and I naturally question it more.

And you are right, I can still move to SF :).

How about you? Have you already founded a startup? With or without YC or anyone else for that matter? And why?

<comment><USER2> How about me. I'm founding a startup with a friend, we've been bootstrapped for 6 months.

We applied for YC, but didn't get in.

We dont _need_ YC -- but it would have been great. We had other offers on the table (good offers, they wanted us to go thru YC and they'd invest with/during/after) -- those offers still stand post rejection so we're going to close very soon. Some of those investors are pretty big names in the tech world, so we're really excited.

If I was to informally tell you the roadmap of our startup it'd be: (now) small round (~$50k) of funding, prove our worth and take a larger round (~$300k) in ~12 months, go from there.

I'm 21, my co-founder is 28. We're young, we haven't done startups before -- we understand its a huge risk, so we're trying to break it down so everyone wins.

I like to think in a year we'll be in exactly the same position as if we had taken YC. We'll see, I really want to email them saying "we just closed Series A, wish we could have worked together, no hard feelings and I'd still love to buy you guys beers"</comment></comment></comment>


GoDaddy issued at least 8951 certificates without proper domain validation - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/m/?hl=en#!topic/mozilla.dev.security.policy/Htujoyq-pO8 <comment><USER2> CEO was probably too busy hunting elephants.</comment>


Gadget Made by a 16-Year-Old Could Decrease Your Energy Bills - <AUTHOR> http://tech.co/decrease-energy-bills-ottomate-2014-01

<comment><USER2> "Ottomate cuts the electricity completely and, he estimates, can save you up to 75 percent on your energy bills."

...except running my clothes dryer or stove for 60 minutes (~3kWh) uses more power than most things I could plug into that device would use in a month.

There are so few devices I could actually use this on in my house. Maybe the stereo power amp which uses 9W (6.5kWh in 30 days) when "off". Everything else has a clock or expects to have constant power to work as expected.

</comment><comment><USER3> Assembled by 16 year old workers too</comment>


14 Days Later: What I've learned in the first 2 weeks of my startup - <AUTHOR> http://blog.doddcaldwell.com/post/10178334836/startup-launch-lessons-learned-from-bellstrike

<comment><USER2> I (transparently) love HN, but very much do not love HN on pricing. A blog post is sitting in my drafts folder about this. One of these days, one of these days...

There are numerous Ask HNs about our demographics. Take a look at them. Compare with your domain expertise about people who run non-profits. The differences are fairly dramatic.

You'll never win an argument about pricing with someone who is not in the market for your product anyhow. Their opinions are not relevant. Getting $0 from HN readers will not compromise the success of your business, since there is no pricing strategy which will result in you getting more than $0 from HN readers.

I also think that 9.5% is less than 6% + 3.5% when considered from the perspective of the people whose opinions matter to you making your rent next month. For that matter, I think 10% would also _also_ likely be perceived as less than 6% + 3.5%. In any event, you'll likely be additive on their existing revenue (or the customers will think you are), and 90% of free money is better than 100% of no money every day of the week.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some wise words. Thanks.

You're correct - we are additive on the nonprofits' existing revenue (other than cases where they would be switching from another service). The problem that I seemed to be encountering in emails from prospective customers (actual nonprofits) was that it was psychological. Nonprofits are pressured to keep their Administrative and Fundraising expenses low. They tend to have a gut reaction when they see a percentage that's above 0%. They also tend to think about how much they could raise. When they think of it in very aspirational terms, the % seemed prohibitive.

Of course, I could be wrong on all of this. I've only been doing it for 2 weeks...

<comment><USER3> Did you edit your post? I seem to remember reading that you were planning to lower prices with scale.

If that is true and you're finding that people are price sensitive, you should list your lowest price on the front page ("as low as 4 percent!"), and make it clear in the signup process that rates are higher at lower volumes. Ten percent is not a lot to pay at lower volumes considering you take care of payment processing and tech hosting, and merchant accounts at Paypal start around $30-40 USD per month, so someone will need to be collecting at least $500 a month before they come close to breaking even.

<comment><USER4> I came here to suggest fees dropping as volume rises, but of course it's already been covered! All I can add is that you're not even factoring in the cost of finding a competent developer and paying them to make that happen - small nonprofits usually don't have a developer on staff, often just a volunteer or two who may really just be WordPress admins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Epic quote - "I've never even been to Silicon Valley. I think of Silicon Valley as people in far flung areas of the Roman Empire must have thought of Rome. Surely it's a mythical land of people who hack apps together in a weekend and sell them for $20 million on Monday."

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow! Impressive first two weeks. It seems to me that you're doing a lot right here. I like how you sum up your business ("We let nonprofits setup a good- looking, donation-enabled website in about 1-2 minutes."), and if I were a website-less non-profit, I would be very interested.

I clicked over to your site, and your design blew me away. You really build authority with it, but also keep things fun, lighthearted, and modern.

A couple suggestions:

\- You might want to test telling people they don't pay you fees after the first X they receive in monthly donations (around $1333, right? maybe make that an even $1000) as opposed to the maximum they pay you in fees. My marketing copywriting intuition tells me that may be clearer / more compelling than people having to do the math themselves. It also gives them a more tangible goal to shoot for and story to tell themselves. ("I'm sure we can get over $X a month, and the service is basically free after that!")

\- Possibly test a more prominent mention of Facebook / Twitter integration on the front page (to the point that you don't have to click or mouseover to see it). I have a feeling that these features are pretty important to non-profits, especially ones who aren't savvy enough to have a good web presence yet. I'm not sure - again, probably I would just test it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Those are great recommendations. I'll definitely look into testing them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That background makes the text very hard to read (at least for my eyes). Literally had to copy-and-paste the text into a text editor...

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll look into changing it. I just put something up quick last night after I wrote the post

<comment><USER8> Is the paper-bag background what he's complaining about or is that what you changed into? I love the paper-bag background. Do you mind sharing where you got it from? [EDIT] Nevermind the last question, saw the tumblr link at the bottom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can definitely relate to the "outskirts of the roman empire" sentiment: I'm also launching a startup in Greenville, SC, and it definitely feels like the "middle of nowhere" in the world of tech startups. I'm curious how many other startups/HN users are around the area.

<comment><USER10> Small world, I'm also in Greenville and just recently launched <http://fileslap.com>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I hate to be a downer, but I don't think there's any world in which two weeks is enough to make any conclusions. I think you need to give it a serious shot (think months) before you'll be able to objectively assess your business.

<comment><USER6> I disagree. The most successful entrepreneurs learn quickly and iterate quickly. You usually can learn something in two weeks - even if it's just that certain language you use is unclear or a turn off. And that's a start.

<comment><USER12> Quick iteration is the goal, but in two weeks you can't possibly gain enough data, experience, and mindshare to properly build a conclusive picture. Sure, iteration means making quick _tactical_ decisions and conclusions, but business is about _strategy_ and that often moves on the scale of months (even in lean startup land). Those that try to make strategic decisions faster than they can figure out what their data and experience means always end up falling over (I've worked for companies that have done this - twice).

<comment><USER6> I agree, but I don't think that the original poster was claiming to have a conclusive picture. He had a few observations from the first two weeks, and I'm arguing that they were valid. Was it a good idea to act on them so quickly? Possibly. In my experience, (nine years of running the same business) intuition is sometimes enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just FYI, the I Do Foundation (a service where you can donate to charities that a wedding-couple list) charges 8% <https://www.idofoundation.org/>

So your 9.5% is not that far off. When I did my donation to the charity my friends chose, it included a note about the 8% and told me that it's the general rate.

From their site: """

Charitable Gift Registry: The percentage listed on the I Do Foundation website for each store is the exact amount that will be donated to charity every time a guest purchases a gift through an I Do Foundation registry link. For example, a $100 purchase from Cooking.com generates $8 for charity. The I Do Foundation does not deduct any fees from these donations. When guests make online donations, an 8% fee is added to their donation. This fee covers the cost we incur from our credit card processing company. For example, when a guest donates $100, an $8 fee will be added. """

</comment><comment><USER14> No doubt that HN rocks. Being a person not living in Valley, even in US I got to know about the things which I really needed to know; business and tech. Though I have not done something "remarkable" yet but I believe in myself that whenever I do, it would be because of things I learnt from HN.

Coming to your product, it's a cool idea and you are definitely targeting a niche which makes it noticeable. One thing which I think successful entrepreneurs don't share that how do they reach their target audience. This is something which every entrepreneur should share by discussing his/her case study.

</comment><comment><USER15> Somehow, I missed the original HN post, but I like the service as it serves a vastly ignored market (I've also been a fan of Causes since they started).

As far as pricing is concerned, it sounds like it might be best represented on a graph (donations vs. donations less fees).

Also, I'm curious about pointing people to Hover when they want their own domains: is there an affiliate relationship there? I didn't get too far into the 'help' section, but who is going to help with DNS settings? Is that something Bellstrike will provide support for?

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't have any type of affiliate relationship with Hover. Most of our target market is not super tech savvy and I just think Hover is one of, if not the, easiest to use registrars out there. Right now, nonprofits have to just forward their custom domain to their Bellstrike domain. However, we have plans to implement domain masking. If we do integrate with Hover's API, we could manage their DNS settings for them (if they choose) or just give them good instructions. It's kind of hard to give great instructions on DNS settings to a non tech savvy audience though because every registar is different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Good post. I can relate to a lot of it after posting my project here on HN a couple weeks ago. (plus it's also a niche website builder)

You didn't ask for any marketing advise but have you considered targeting Christian (or other) missionaries overseas? I have several friends from the US who have moved to Africa or eastern Europe long-term. They are usually sponsored by a US church and qualify as non-profits; but they also rely on recurring support to pay their bills. I think many of them could use something like this.

Well done.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to target them. Do you know the best way to do so? I have a feeling it's a pretty fragmented market so it could be difficult to get in front of a large group of them in a single publication, website, or conference.

<comment><USER16> Do searches of church blogs and facebook pages (example search "missionaries africa site:facebook.com").

Also, pitch it to some of the top christian/theology blogs out there. Since your product is essentially free to setup/host and quite beneficial, I imagine you could get a few to post about it.

Many of the missionaries I know meet with other nearby missionaries monthly or quarterly, so I think the word could spread if you were able to reach the right people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You are selling a publishing platform, so why use Tumblr? You might want to switch your blog over to your product, you know, eat your own dogfood and all that...

</comment><comment><USER18> DCaldwell, I agree with you on the limits of the lean start-up philosophy. I think the minimum viable product idea is hyped up immensely and is often an excuse for someone to release a half-finished product and call themselves an entrepreneur.

A minimum brilliant product, on the other hand, is something I could unreservedly support. And I think that is what you have achieved. Well done!

</comment><comment><USER19> The design really caught my eye as well. I love the playfulness of it. Who is your designer, if you do not mind me asking..

</comment><comment><USER20> I've known the fine folks behind this project for a while and it's exciting to see them launch and gain some traction. It's great for our area and great for them. Congrats again Dodd and team. Looking forward to see more great stuff coming down the pipe!

</comment><comment><USER21> For dcaldwell: maybe consider working with reddit somehow? [http://blog.reddit.com/2011/09/if-youre-nonprofit- organizati...](http://blog.reddit.com/2011/09/if-youre-nonprofit-organization- we-have_14.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. We're actually setup as a for-profit. But I really want to provide value and help nonprofits out on our blog. I'll probably write a post about how they can use this service with Reddit.

<comment><USER21> Yeah that's what I meant, co-ordinate with reddit to offer this as a service to your users. So they create a site with you and advertise with reddit :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Thanks for being honest about your experiences. It's refreshing to hear some real metrics, even if they aren't the most compelling stats for a launch. Excited to hear more updates in the coming months.

</comment><comment><USER23> > _Impeccable design is worth it_

The site's design is indeed impeccable; did you do it yourself or did you use a service provider of some kind?

<comment><AUTHOR> We used the amazing @rogie (twitter handle) for the design of Bellstrike.com and the amazing @squaredeye for 3 of our templates/themes. We iterated on some of their work in house and did some other minor design stuff ourselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> do you mind sharing how you actually got those hits in the first two weeks? i know with many startups getting the word out after the launch is very hard.

so aside from HN what else did you do to get word out and get even foreign non-profits?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've actually got a blog post planned for that :) I'd love to get a little more traction so I actually have something to write about though. But a big thing is just that people like to talk about designy stuff on Twitter a lot</comment></comment>


A Gay Husband, a Dire Diagnosis and the Best-Laid Plans - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/well/live/lung-cancer.html <comment><USER2> Fuck this hit a little close to home today. My dad was just diagnosed with Leukemia and all the reading is grim. Basically every aspect of his situation puts him in the low-survivability group.

I wish I could say there was something beautiful and redeeming about this situation, but right now it's just fucking grim.

</comment><comment><USER3> How can you be gay if was, for a short time, happily married to a person of opposite sex? I think the only thing you can turn out to be is bisexual. No?

Then again, there are people who can bullshit themself for prolonged periods of time, and for them it's not so clear cut.

<comment><USER4> > I think the only thing you can turn out to be is bisexual.

It's not your place to decide.

<comment><USER5> Let's not conflate two different things. The popular definition of bisexuality (AFAIK) is "feeling attraction to more than one gender". As an outside observer there is therefore a strong argument for putting this person in the bisexual bucket.

However, this person's identity is entirely up to them. Want to be straight man and still make out with guys occasionally? Be my guest.

Personally though, I'd still be grateful if people would tick the box for the appropriate definition when filling in surveys and official paperwork. I think bisexual people are ignored enough as it is :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Guess I don't see why this is written. Its two married people dealing with cancer. Does gender really matter?

<comment><USER7> Obviously it would be relevant to their marriage, which is what the story is about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why is this even on front page? This is 2017 people, not 1997. What does the gender/sexuality has to do with when dealing with cancer of a loved one. You will do anything you could do for a loved one.

<comment><USER9> 'What does the gender/sexuality has to do with when dealing with cancer of a loved one'

The basis of the article is that she made plans that didn't work out, such as getting married to someone who turned out to be gay.</comment></comment>


Singapore's Fake News Law Is Also an Internet Surveillance Law - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190603/18492642323/singapores-fake-news-law-is-also-internet-surveillance-law.shtml <comment><USER2> Who'd have thought?</comment>