Has anyone used SCORE services for a web startup? - <AUTHOR>

Has anyone who has started up a web startup used the SCORE business services (the ones from the public library)?  I'm working on a prototype for my website in my spare time and everyone keeps telling me I need a business plan.  I don't want to waste a lot of time and energy on a very polished and overly formal business plan.  But I do want to contact investors and apply for grants for my company.  Has anyone used SCORE for help in building a business plan?  I'm probably going to go and get help from them no matter what feedback I get, I just wanted an idea of how other startup founders view some old and stodgy service like SCORE as being relevant to a Web 2.0 startup. <comment><USER2> I used a SCORE counselor for help with a technology product (not website) business plan. He was an old-school business executive, with entrepreneurship experience only at the store franchise level.

Extremely helpful. The basic principles of business and research have not changed much. You still identify a market, solve a pain, get paid, etc. Trying to sell your business (concept, not equity) to an experienced but not hip executive will go a long way toward validating your concept.

Unless your appeal is strictly to the hip early adopter. SCORE can't help you there.

</comment><comment><USER3> The quality of SCORE, the organization, depends on your location. Some chapters put on extremey helpful workshops. I went to a few of them in Austin, and found them very helpful. As you note, it's stodgy stuff--not high tech at all. But, accounting, business and contract law, copyright and trademarks, and patents, apply to all businesses, and those are all topics where SCORE can be helpful.

I don't know anything about the materials at the public library you mentioned.

</comment><comment><USER4> Score is relevant to things like business plans for sure. They'll know who to talk to in your area for Grants and VC. They'll have a few business plans for you to look at. While YC says 'make something people want' (they mean monetize later); most businesses have to monetize to stay afloat. This is where score will help you.

Your work with SCORE will (probably) not help your product. They'll help you with your business, which in the long term, as an entrepreneur, is more important if what you're doing is not just a pet project.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've seen it but haven't used it. Where are you located?

For Business plans, I'd go for the 20-pager if you want investors and prep a great demo/pitch presentation. Many folks (including myself) have recommended the "Business Plans That Win Money" MIT series book as well. Cheesy title but pound for pound is best I've read. <http://tinyurl.com/4x9od2>

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm in NYC and was going to go to the SCORE center in the NY Public Library. I'll check out the book you suggested. I didn't want to write a business plan at all, but I went to a free Business seminar and there was this young girl who was starting a hair dressing business who dressed me down in front of the class for not writing a business plan. It was an infinitely humbling experience since she was spot on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is this SCORE as in, Service Corps of Retired Executives?

<comment><USER7> Seems so.</comment></comment>


How a Remote Alaska Town Gets its Groceries - <AUTHOR> https://thehustle.co/how-a-remote-alaska-town-gets-its-groceries/ <comment><USER2> This was an awesome read! Free enterprise at its best.

Another happy message in these times of corporate dominance of everything:

"Small town grocery stores are having kind of a renaissance because of COVID-19," he says. "Everyone is stuck at home and buying locally."

</comment><comment> Nevada-Smith Adapt, improvise, overcome... life goes on.</comment>


Ask HN: I got rejected by all the US colleges I applied to. Now what? - <AUTHOR> - I got a low ACT score (28). Took the test only once.<p>- I applied to all the Ivy's plus half a dozen other private undergraduate colleges. Got rejected from all.<p>- I assumed my 'other' credentials will make up for my low ACT score. I guess i was wrong.<p>- I scored straight A's in my A Levels.<p>- I co-founded a company that has been successfully running for 3+ years now.<p>- I play a very popular sport at the state level.<p>- I expected to at least get into Babson (for its entrepreneurship program). But nope.<p>- Not an expert yet, but i can code (python, javascript).<p>On the plus side, i have saved 100,000+ USD that i can use as seed capital if i launch my company. <comment><USER2> Your "low" ACT score is in the 89th percentile. You simply should've applied to some state schools as backup—you definitely would've gotten in some. If you're still focused on only going to top private schools, you retake the ACT and try again next year but should really consider applying to others as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Crikey. With that experience and that much money why do you want to go to college? You're so far ahead of the game right now, you could continue your entrepreneurship with a level of freedom and resources that most folks could only dream of.

If you want to learn stuff for your own benefit, or for potential entrepreneurial application, I've gotten a lot out of Coursera over the years. There are many great courses covering a broad range of interests.

What is it you're hoping to get out of college?

</comment><comment><USER4> Another path you can take is to enroll at a community college for a year or two to demonstrate your ability to succeed in coursework. Check with the school to be sure that the coursework credits you earn will transfer to a larger school of your choice.

A relative of mine took that path (due to the crappy school he attended as a teen) and graduated as a chemistry honors student from a State University.

Reliance on ACT scores (yours isn't all that low!) is a mechanical, shitty practice. Route around the damage.

</comment><comment><USER5> Take a year and do your company and apply again next year? It seems like the whole university system is kind of wondering what will happen in the fall right now due to the virus. You could have more time to prep and do the ACT over again, and apply to the same schools again and maybe add a couple of others just to widen the net? Seems like you really have a good head on your shoulders. Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER6> In context those A-level results are good enough for any of the top 20 if not top 10 universities in the UK, it's a good qualification if not quite top 5 levels ( oxbridge / top london uni's. )

I suspect the Ivy leagues have enough domestic applicants that a very respectable, but not outstanding candidate with less well understood grades would not make the cut here.

</comment><comment><USER7> Grow your business, fuck college. Also, one little known fact is that you can appeal these rejections. Just write a letter to the head of admissions explaining why you think your denial was mistake, tell them about yourself and your experience.

<comment><USER8> Does that ever work?

<comment><USER7> It worked for me! Remember that college is a business and writing an appeal letter = "Please take my money."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Go to a community college. If you live in a big city, some of the professors are senior manager or executive from some of the largest firms in the area. Not only that, the professors there really care about the students.

</comment><comment><USER10> East Coast private Schools, also heavily favor SAT Scores over ACT. ACT is preferred in the Midwest and South.

Definitely check out some big state schools like University of Maryland, U of Wisconsin, U of Michigan. These schools have large research grants and funding, and they have access to some of the best large scientific computing platforms (HPC and Mainframes).

They may not have the entrepreneurial prestige, but they all have decent business schools in addition to great compsci programs, so you could dual major or minor.

</comment><comment><USER11> Double down on your company. That success will be your credentials and how to make you're living.

</comment><comment><USER12> You may not realize it, but you have happy problems.

Many of your peers are starting adulthood with $0. They are about to take on massive debt for a useless degree. All to become an modern day indentured servant to interest payments. For the rest of their life. It makes the old time 7 years of indentured servitude sound like a pretty good deal.

</comment><comment><USER13> Feel free to apply to UW (University of Washington [http://www.dailyuw.com/news/article_1219baae-7c21-11ea-99ac-...](http://www.dailyuw.com/news/article_1219baae-7c21-11ea-99ac-6b0327844d89.html)) for 2021. They will not be requiring SAT/ACT scores. This is assuming you want to spend $$$ for a degree, which may or may not be worth it.

IMO I'd go for a local community college and do the first 2 years there, which is much cheaper. Also schools in EU are cheap/free not mortgage the damn house.

Also you can reapply, it is not the end of the world life for the majority of us is long... I got rejected from all 5 ivy-level biomedcial PHD programs I applied to, barring one with a late application date which I could still get rejected from lol.

</comment><comment><USER14> The question is why is getting into a US college so important for you? Is it academically interesting for you, or is it getting the rights to add some letters at end of your name?

Once you have answered it, it may turn out that it is not so important after all. My advise is to look deeper.

</comment><comment><USER15> 1\. Why do you even want to go to college? It'll bore you out of your mind given your credentials.

2\. Go to a state college, it's infinitely cheaper for nearly the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER16> I agree with what others have said about the value not being there given your current accomplishments.

If you are one of the rare few looking for the real value in attending an Ivy League college (relationships you'll make with professors and other students), get a full time job - can probably even be a janitor if nothing else - at your university of choice, then audit your choice of courses as staff are generally allowed to do without any admission requirements.

</comment><comment><USER17> > Now what?

Launch your next company. Invest in your ability to grow capital. Higher education is massively over priced right now, in general. I know firms who have hired lawyers for jack squat to replace paralegals because we have a glut of graduates. Graduates are serving drinks and driving ubers. You have a talent that a college cannot teach. Use it.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd say you have two options:

1\. Look into universities in Continental Europe. Most are free or have low tuition and will still give you a solid education. I recommend somewhere in Germany, Austria, Sweden or the Netherlands. Depending on the city, $100,000 will cover your expenses for 5-10 years.

2\. Spend the next year prepping for the SAT. Hire a private tutor, sign up for courses, etc. Then get a high score and reapply next year.

<comment><USER19> Woah can $100k really take you 5-10 years? What are cities you're thinking of?

<comment><USER18> Most smaller university cities in Germany and Austria are very inexpensive. Leipzig, Heidelberg, Kassel, Münster for example. Even Vienna or Berlin are not too bad if you are okay living further out and with roommates.

<comment><USER20> But I think very few courses in Germany are offered in English at the Bachelor's level.

<comment><USER18> Eh, I wouldn't say very few. Depends on the subject and many merely require that you learn German within a year of attending. This design school, for example, is mostly in English:

Kisd.de

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Have you considered The European Union? University education is very affordable, and you can live off 100k USD for 2-3 years comfortably. I can recommend the Netherlands, good tech universities here. It would also be an experience that few of your generation can afford.

</comment><comment><USER22> A lot of people who care about credentials seem to have done undergrad in a state school, then moved on to graduate school in ivy leagues.

That describes maybe half of my coworkers.

</comment><comment><USER23> ACT requires prep. Ivy college admissions without legacy typically requires hiring an application coach 2-3+ years before applying.

The big things you lose by not going to college are dorm life and friendships/networking.

</comment><comment><USER24> Several schools like Colgate, Vassar, and BU are dropping their ACT/SAT requirements due to coronavirus, so you might not be completely out of options.

<comment><USER20> That's for next year. But you are right, I think the only aspect OP is missing is standardized test scores. Multiple colleges will go optional next year, so OP should retry again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Consider applying to a different school, perhaps a state school. A common strategy is to go to a community college for 2 years and then transfer.

<comment><USER23> I did that on a TAA even though I was GATE, NMS, and had a perfect math SAT I 800.# It loses dorm life and social aspects, doesn't save much money, it messes up course scheduling, and there can be an impedance mismatch in terms of course content/prerequisites. I would recommend against it if at all possible.

# 4-5 years of Boston snow or flambéing in Pasadena didn't seem appealing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It seems like you are an international student, within the British Education system. Is that correct?

If so, check out /r/intltousa

</comment><comment><USER26> Are you international? If so, not surprised. You need to be einstein to get into anywhere interesting with international status

</comment><comment><USER27> Why do you want to go to college? Have you thought about the possibility of studying in Europe instead?

</comment><comment><USER28> Why do you want to college in the US?

Why do you want to go to college? You already have a career.

</comment><comment><USER29> Ask Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison ... Interesting that a guy with your background would even need to think about going to a college ...

</comment><comment><USER30> Think about where you want to be 3-5 years from now. From an IRR and ROI perspective, not all colleges are equal and often trade schools yield higher relative returns. You definitely have a lot of capital and can invest in future endeavors. Try to apply for a software internship for the summer -- strong way to gain hard skills and determine whether tech life is a good fit.</comment>


Thousands take to Hong Kong streets to protest new extradition laws - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-politics-extradition/thousands-take-to-hong-kong-streets-to-protest-new-extradition-laws-idUSKCN1S405E <comment><USER2> Hong Kong has not been a true democracy for a long time. The elections are rigged by the use of "special interest seats" in parliament (I'm not sure if this is the official translation) which are overwhelmingly won by the party that is backed by mainland China.

<comment><USER3> Hong Kong has _never_ been a democracy. The British appointed governors and the CCP retains the de facto ability to do so as well (though as a local appeasement process they choose not to do this outright and instead allow public vote amongst an approved group of candidates.)</comment></comment>


TextJs – Secure SMS from Your Browser for Android - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.stackednotion.textjs.rosebud&hl=en

<comment><AUTHOR> This is pretty great. Gives you iOS like iMessage to your PC/Mac syncing so you can do your SMS texting from within your browser that directly connects to your phone. The most secure solution available.</comment>


Google no longer providing original URL in AMP for image search results - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/zenexer/status/1265633022709301249 <comment><USER2> How does anyone think this is a good idea? It should be clear which news site I am reading when I'm reading an article. Otherwise, how do I know which bias to apply? On iOS, the title bar says "google.com" whether I'm reading an article from CNN.com or WashingtonExaminer.com.

Of all the anti-competitive actions google has taken around search results, AMP is by far the worst. I hope they get smacked down for it in the upcoming anti-trust lawsuit. And kudos to Apple for refusing to change the URL bar like Google does on Android.

<comment><USER3> I couldn't agree more that AMP is terrible. I do everything I can to avoid it. Using DuckDuckGo certainly helps, but I will still occasionally stumble on an AMP site. I've created a hosts block list to help me avoid AMP as much as possible. It currently has 3,569 unique domains (works great with a PiHole!). I'm really concerned about Chrome's 'signed exchanges' where they can fake the URL completely. I hope Firefox will never support it.

[https://www.github.developerdan.com/hosts/](https://www.github.developerdan.com/hosts/)

<comment><USER4> Even better than blocking AMP is just redirecting to the proper page[0].

[0]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/amp2html/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/amp2html/)

<comment><USER3> Yes, that is even better! Unfortunately it doesn't work on iOS, or I would have never created my list. Literally the only thing I miss about Android was being able to use browser extensions like uBlock Origin with Firefox on Android. Safari has its built-in content filters but it's not the same.

<comment><USER5> Sadly, Ublock Origin is literally the only Firefox extension available on Android atm.

<comment><USER6> Not quite literal: It's recently up to 6 addons -- the others are https everywhere, privacy badger, noscript, dark reader, and search by image.

Note to others: this is about the upcoming rewrite, available as Firefox Preview and Firefox Beta.

<comment><USER5> Firefox Beta and Firefox Preview are a bit different. Preview and Focus are both currently a bit more experimental, they're stable but they're not guaranteed to be kept alive. Firefox Beta and Nightly are both the current latest versions of what will be merged into the stable.

There's a big rewrite being done and the current stable Firefox for Android which supports basically all addons that the desktop version does, will be deprecated soon-ish. Preview has a broader support.

Beta and Nightly only support uBlock Origin, literally.

Preview supports six addons in all, but Preview isn't a promise of whats to come as they consider it a pilot.

<comment><USER6> Huh, I stand corrected. I assumed that since the geckoview / the new UI had come to beta, that it supported the same addons as preview.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is pretty much what we've been saying would happen since the day AMP was fire presented to the public.

I really hope this AMP thing never becomes anything mainstream, it's an atrocious attempt at monopolizing the internet as a whole.

<comment><USER8> I believe it's already mainstream :(

<comment><USER9> I'm seeing AMP in random links non-techy people post all the time, it's depressing and it's become basically 50% of URLs I see posted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> AMP really has to go away, its a MITM attack on the internet. Google discontinues so many services, why is AMP not one of them yet?

<comment><USER11> The worst thing I've seen recently is amp URLs for reddit threads. It's one bad thing (new reddit UI) wrapped in a worse thing (AMP), and getting back to classic reddit takes a lot of gymnastics. The stupid part is that the amp page is indistinguishable from the (new) reddit page (the AMP page comes complete with the "download our app" popup). So I don't see how it's providing any speed/experience benefit.

<comment><USER12> I can never get the Open In Reddit app button to work. I'm on iOS and have the latest version of the official reddit app. Which btw is painfully filled with ads.

<comment> a-wu Use the Apollo app. Much better than the official Reddit app. It's more like what Alien Blue was before Reddit killed that.

<comment><USER13> Does that make the "open in app" button on the AMP pages work? Because I have the same problem and I'm basically willing to try anything.

<comment> a-wu Unfortunately no. But there's an "Open in Apollo" option from the share sheet which works for me. It's just an extra tap to open the share sheet from the AMP page.

<comment><USER14> Also an easy JB for iPhones was posted this week. With that you can make Apollo your default reddit application.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Malte Ubl from Google responded via Twitter:[0]

> _Just heard from the Image Search team that this is an oversight and they > 'll add the feature! Sorry about that and thanks for the report!_

[0]: [https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1265688067706245120](https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1265688067706245120)

<comment><USER15> Sounds like classic Google "Oops after oops": [https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google- has...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has- sabotaged-firefox-for-years/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup--check out the follow-up thread. [https://twitter.com/Zenexer/status/1265696063345786881](https://twitter.com/Zenexer/status/1265696063345786881)

Me: When can we expect to see a fix? As of right now, there's no easy way to visit the original URL.

Malte Ubl: I don't have a timeline. The share menu should help getting the underlying URL!

Me: I'm sure I don't need to explain how this looks; regardless of your intentions, it comes across as a fairly hollow response. The issue gets a lot of negative attention on HN, someone from Google responds that it was just an accident and will be fixed, but there's no fix.

Malte Ubl: Sorry, no way to do it in fewer than a couple days.

Me: That sounds like a timeline to me. :)

<comment><USER16> I agree with everything you're saying and every single point you're trying to make here, but, as someone who's been on the other end, your responses are _exactly_ why people hate posting about this stuff publicly. He doesn't have the authority to speak on it (alone) but you trapped him into accidently saying something he wasn't trying to say (in fact he only said it to be nice and reply to your question - which he had no obligation to even acknowledge). There was nothing he could have said that would have made you (or me or any of us on HN) happy, no information he was allowed to give out, but on his own volition he chose to respond to and validate your questions, and you reacted by saying "Aha! I got you now!"

That said, it seems likely to me that if this somehow stopped advertising revenue, it would have been fixed before HN even noticed. "No way to fix it for at least a few days" seems very untrue, that department just isn't lead by someone who cares enough about this issue to make it happen. It's not the tweeter's fault, though.

<comment><USER17> Great points - also, reading between the lines of his tweets, it sounds like the bug was pushed by a team he doesn't lead, so the best he can do is ask them "Please fix this, people are really pissed (at my team) because of this". But to the Image Search team, it's like, why should they do a costly rollback? It's easier for them to just sit back and say nothing, and let AMP soak up the blame on HN. Then they can fix the bug on their normal schedule, without their deadlines being affected.

<comment><USER18> Also they can't just roll anything back, the URL has been missing for almost 2 years since they rewrote the image search frontend

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I got a new computer (Mac Mini) last week and, as the ritual usually goes, I opened Safari and was about to type "google.com/chrome", then stopped myself and went to "getfirefox.com" instead. It's been a while since I gave FF a serious look, and so far I haven't felt like I'm missing anything.

Next up, I need to change my default search engine to DDG.

What's a good privacy-oriented, web-based email service? I've heard of ProtonMail but haven't used it.

<comment><USER9> >What's a good privacy-oriented, web-based email service? I've heard of ProtonMail but haven't used it.

Been Firefox user out of conviction for 10+ years, made the switch to DuckDuckGo as my main search engine with about a year ago, no regrets. But Gmail? It's sticky.

I have so much stuff tied to my email account and it just sucks looking for alternatives. I'd even happily pay. The main difficulty is finding a service that's as mature, feature-wise, as Gmail and a sensible way to migrate all my stuff (email-logins for major websites, informing clients of the new address, etc).

I think the best compromise is using two accounts for a couple of years, heavily focusing on the non-Gmail one and dropping Gmail once you had no interaction with it for a while. But all the obvious alternatives people post don't quite cut it for me, I've been searching for ages.

<comment><USER20> I've been "meaning" to switch off of Gmail for years, with all of the issues with Google. I switched to Firefox/Safari a couple years ago, then DDG a year ago..

Finally, a week ago, I switched my email to fastmail. Bought a new domain for 10 years explicitly for that purpose.

I'm slowly migrating everything to them... Every day or two I think of something else that needs to be migrated, and do it. I don't feel a need to rush because I just have them both simultaneously.

I have to say though, Fastmail feels better than Gmail in every way. The UI is fast and snappy, looks clean (with a few themes), includes a calendar and notes. The first month is free, so I figured I'd try it before I decided to go all in. After about 20 minutes I was sold and bought a year subscription...

They have this really cool feature with subdomain forwarding so you can organize things into folders automatically. As I've been migrating emails, I've been giving each service it's own unique email address. Eg `firstname.lastname@example.com` will automatically add the email to my "stores" folder, and I'll see it came from Amazon. I can put unlimited anything before the @ sign, which will be really nice for signing up for one-off forums. If they sell my email address or send spam, I'll know exactly who did it and can just block that address.

They also have a bunch of other features for organization like the "\+ addressing" that Gmail has. I definitely recommend checking them out though. I feel so good having an email that won't get shut down

<comment><USER9> I've seen fastmail pop up a lot, I should definitely give it a shot. I have to look up that subdomain forwarding, it sounds neat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> AMP results are annoying enough on mobile that I switched my default search engine to duckduckgo on my phone.

<comment><USER22> For reportedly being there to accelerate the web, AMP pages remain consistently slower and less reliable than the original websites for me.

<comment><USER23> examples?

Every site in Germany is 10 X bigger in normal browsing compared to AMP.

<comment><USER24> AMP might be faster if you browse the net with javascript enabled by default and with no content blockers enabled. But if you don't do those things, AMP is a clear net-negative.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, but Google doesn't want you to do that. You're here to watch ads, peon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I switched all my default search to DuckDuckGo a few months ago because of stuff like this. No regrets here. If you haven't tried it recently, give it a shot. It's gotten tons better in the past few years. Once you get used to it, it's as good as Google search.

<comment><USER27> I've been using DDG as my default search engine for more or less a year now, and tbh I find myself using the !g bang way more often than I'd like. Basically anytime I'm searching for something dev related or anything that's broad enough that without my personal user info it would be hard to return the results I'm looking for. Which is kind of the crux of the issue I believe. For everything that's wrong with Google as a company in terms of privacy-related issues, the truth , at least for me, is that many times (not all) it ends up being... quite convenient I guess.

YMMV though, maybe I need to step up my searching game to obtain better results using DDG. That's definitely something I should work on.

<comment><USER28> Replace !g with !s to get Startpage results, which is basically proxied Google results. Although I would advise just not relying on Google at all. The perception is that it's better, but in recent years I've found Google results to be total trash.

<comment><USER27> Yeah, definitely, I'll try to replace !g with !s in the future. It is my intention to replace whatever google services I can. But admittedly, since this change is mostly motivated by personal ethics and a desire not to give away my private info (as opposed to issues with the platforms themselves, in terms of functionality), it is a bit rough to adjust to some changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> AMP is the worst. It breaks the web and should just die.

<comment><USER30> Tell me about it. Our company moved to it and its been horrible with any third party application or marketing pixel.

My boss tried to warn VPs of AMP being a nuclear option. Instead of fixing the website they rather put a bandaid over it.

<comment><USER31> > Our company moved to it and its been horrible with any third party > application or marketing pixel.

Isn't that part of the point though? 3rd party marketing and tracking pixels are NOT things that improve the experience or performance for the visitor.

<comment><USER11> > 3rd party marketing and tracking pixels are NOT things that improve the > experience or performance for the visitor.

But neither is AMP. This seems like a pure land grab to send more info to Google and less to other adtech companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Hi all! I'm an engineer who worked on this feature. I can't speak to the general concerns about AMP, but I can say that we didn't remove the original url here intentionally - we actually never added it to the Images version. Sorry for the oversight, we're working on bringing it back now!

<comment><USER33> I've been trying to get a straight answer out of google for a while on this, wondering if you can clear it up.

Does Chrome mobile's "articles for you" section prioritize AMP content along with Google news?

From my experience this seems to be the case. I find it alarming as the only sites that support AMP are often the big clickbait news fear factories. Meanwhile the little sites who never bloated their pages with tracking scripts in the first place end up getting screwed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Google is really showing it's anti-competitive hand here. AMP is a plague.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'd really love to hear the perspective from engineers working on this inside of Google.

How do they perceive the work that they're doing?

Do they see the harm it causes, or do they only believe in the promise of the good it gives?

<comment><USER28> It's been a while since I read the AMP project website, but my impression was that it was written by people who drank a lot of the Kool-Aid. There's probably a lot of people working there who believe that AMP is good, but we can't discount the compliance created by the exorbitant pay and prestige of working at Google.

<comment><USER36> There also seems to be a healthy amount "oh, well that's more of a Google search issue, not AMP as such so I have nothing to do with that" denialism.

I note that Terrence Eden did excellent work getting the concept of "how do users opt out of AMP results" on to the steering group, but it is notable that no work appears to have happened on it for more than a year now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Google seems to be slowly self-immolating.

I've stopped using Google Chrome and Google Search. The only time I use Google Search now is when DuckDuckGo doesn't quite deliver and then I do so using an incognito window. Next step will be to ditch Gmail, and then Google Cloud & Firebase.

This might sound silly coming from a lone developer in South Africa, but my experience is that we live in the future, and developers with a mass intuition is rarely wrong. If the trend continues, then in 10 years' time this will be the popular view.

<comment><USER38> >> when DuckDuckGo doesn't quite deliver

Which is 90% of the time when you are looking for IT questions. Unfortunately. I am hoping they are going to get better, it would be so good to finally stop google search.

<comment><USER39> I use DDG exclusively, and many of my searches are technical. I haven't found any cases where DDG fails to find something that Google finds.

I'm not suggesting that it never happens, but it's certainly not anywhere close to 90%, or even 9%.

<comment><USER40> The main reason I occasionally venture into google is for news -- "!gn something specific" can return better results if I'm looking for a specific article I recall seeing a couple of weeks ago. That said there's also far more rubbish in the google news source, it's far less useful on the whole than DDG, but occasionally it reveals the right result.

<comment><USER39> Ah, that makes sense.

I've generally found what I wanted via the DDG news search, but I haven't used it enough to seriously evaluate its quality, unlike the main search engine. I've also had reasonably good luck with "past week" or "past month" searches on DDG, but those aren't news-specific.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Why can't they just give a simple setting which lets users disable AMP? This is the most annoying about being forced to use AMP.

<comment><USER42> Who's being forced to use AMP? The user? Remember, _the user is the product_.

<comment><USER43> Basically, Google is penalizing webmasters who do NOT support AMP (also by rewarding competitors who DO support it); if you depend on Google search results for a significant portion of your traffic, not having AMP will impact your business.

<comment><USER42> Problem here is twofold. First Google being anticompetitive. Second being companies thinking they need Google for their income.

<comment><USER44> The companies are mostly right though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Time to share this one again before it's too late:

How to fight back against Google AMP [https://markosaric.com/google- amp/](https://markosaric.com/google-amp/)

And the original thread [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21712733](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21712733)

</comment><comment><USER46> I wonder if it's being A/B tested. I still see the URL, and can click on it from the little "i" icon at the top left. Android, Chrome, USA.

Surely a terrible idea though. AMP already has a PR problem.

<comment><USER47> A/B testing whether or not people have finally gotten tired of fighting for the web. Once they can go for a few months without anybody speaking up, they'll move on to further stages.

<comment><USER48> It's illegal to do that in the EU, so probably only affects non-EU terretories.

<comment><USER49> A/B testing is illegal in the EU?

<comment><USER48> Not A/B testing, but not showing the original link is illegal in the EU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> My unpopular opinion. I love AMP. Mobile internet for me ( maybe on worse devices ), was becoming a non-thing for me. AMP let's me check the news again.

My opinion might be because I don't have much understanding of it as a framework, but from a non power user perspective, I've found the UX to be amazing.

<comment><USER51> AMP in part made me switch to Apple News - it's buggy and doesn't respect browser history (major usability failure on Google's part).

<comment><USER52> Regrettably Apple News will occasionally drop sections of the content it doesn't know how to render properly, leaving the news article bafflingly incomplete, and usually it's not obvious that something is missing.

<comment><USER53> It is a problem, but depending on what publications you read, how often it happens can vary.

The reason is that, like AMP, Apple News only supports a subset of HTML. It's up to the publishers to adhere to those limitations. Some choose not to make a special Apple version or change their main content to be Apple-friendly, so Apple News does what it can to show what it can.

It's not ideal, but it's better than being reliant on Google.

Also, if you see an article that doesn't look right, there's an option to report that article to Apple. One of the options is "Content missing."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I have never liked AMP and I really don't like this. I also find myself wondering if this has any security implications.

I mean if AMP effectively disguises the original URL could it not be used for phishing?

To be clear I know very little about AMP and if this is the case

Regardless it just adds complexity and makes it that much harder to teach people what is an acceptable URL when it comes to email links etc...

<comment><USER55> It uses Signed HTTP Exchanged.

[https://blog.amp.dev/2018/05/08/a-first-look-at-using-web- pa...](https://blog.amp.dev/2018/05/08/a-first-look-at-using-web-packaging-to- improve-amp-urls/)

<comment><USER54> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> For anyone on the fence about using DuckDuckGo instead of Google, if you don't find what you're looking for, it's easy to revert to a Google search by typing "!google" with your query.

DDG has improved a lot with time, so I almost never fall back to Google anymore.

For some technical searches that DDG can't find, I find codeseek.com is better than both Google and DDG

<comment><USER57> if typing "!google" is too much of a hassle "!g" also works. you can also do pretty much any letter and it will search another service from bing to yahoo to images to maps to wikipedia to whatever.

<comment><USER58> I often use !hn in DuckDuckGo, which redirects to this website's search.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Started using DuckDuckGo just to avoid AMP, the search results aren't as good, but at least the results are usable.

</comment><comment><USER60> Previously I'd considered AMP a storm in a teacup. Now I think it's enough that I'll switch my mobile device to DDG, something I thought I'd never say.

For some reason on my iPhone AMP pages just don't fit on the screen. Maybe it's because I have a large default zoom/font. But this actually makes them unreadable because pinch-to-zoom is almost always disabled. I have a bookmark workaround for that but honestly I don't think it's ever worked.

Only recently did I discover a workaround for this: on Safari you can force touch to bring up a preview of the original site then click on it to bring that up.

If this change breaks that functionality then something has to change. That could be by using a browser to pretend to be a desktop browser or it could be DDG. I'm not sure yet.

Why do I, as a user, not have the ability to opt out of this horrible broken mess?

I'm all for having Web pages that render fast. I really hope for Google's sake that rendering speed alone is what affects ranking and there isn't some boost for AMP directly because that has anticompetitive written all over it. It would be forcing sites to adopt AMP or suffer downranking (to be fair, companies are typically terrible at designing fast-rendering websites).

So if if DDG gets me out of AMP and I can somehow set it so I get Google search results by default (instead of Bing) without using !g on every search then honestly at this point, I'm in.

</comment><comment><USER61> I Googled "how to turn off amp results" and the top article is a 2017 article[1] that lists some workarounds, such as using duckduckgo or installing DeAMPify, "an Android app that lets you bypass AMP links so you can always load the original link." As far as a first-party way to disable it, the article says:

>"Late last year [2016], Google said that it's working to let users disable AMP in Google search, but there doesn't seem to be any official kill switch yet. Meanwhile, you can use any of the above workarounds to get around Google AMP pages."

Can any Googler chime in on why it would take more than 4 years to figure out the code to turn off a feature like AMP for signed-in users who don't want it? I would have thought that this is something anyone could do in 20 minutes, but I do realize that Google has thousands of highly paid and experienced engineers so maybe there is something that takes a lot longer, that I didn't realize. Could you shed some insight on what makes this difficult?

[1] [https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disable-google-amp-google- sear...](https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disable-google-amp-google-search- android-iphone/)

</comment><comment><USER62> This is exactly what people speculated would eventually happen when they first announced AMP. Google continues to disappoint and harm the internet in a very predictable way, year after year.

</comment><comment><USER63> Personally, I hate AMP. Especially when it comes to reddit results.

</comment><comment><USER64> If I tap on the share button on the top right of the AMP frame, it seems that I am able to copy the original URL (although it's the specialized amp.knowyourmeme.com version of the page)

</comment><comment><USER65> For those who are okay to install addons on your browser, there is Redirect AMP to HTML addon[0] on Firefox. I'm sure there is something similar for Chrome.

[0] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/amp2html/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/amp2html/)

</comment><comment><USER66> I never looked deep into this but I remember that back in the day there was the "View original image" link in image search and I think they got rid of it because of some EU directive that stated that they can't link an image directly but rather provide a link to the original source, that is the website? Or am I completely wrong?

<comment><USER67> That was a result of the Getty Images lawsuit [1].

1: [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages- after...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after-google- removes-view-image-button-bowing-to-getty/)

</comment></comment><comment> wombat-man Sharing AMP links is the worst. I probably wouldn't mind if they had a way to provide short links that cardified okay in slack, but lately I've been just sharing the link to the original.

if anyone else prefers to share the original link, you can probably find the article by searching on duckduckgo. Using their search more often now these days.

</comment><comment><USER68> Haven't tried it, but there is this Firefox extension to help you stay away from AMP: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/amp2html/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/amp2html/)

</comment><comment><USER69> I can kind of understand why Google wants to do AMP. Mobile web performance and all. It probably scores better at some metric that someone believes passionately in (to the exclusion of all else). I don't think it's worthwhile overall, but I can understand it.

What I can't understand is why it has to be managed _so badly_. Just put the damn URL there for people who want it. Allow opt out for people who want that. Super easy.

Even if the plan is to cynically use leverage to railroad through adoption of AMP, you're not going to win over the people who despise AMP. There's nothing to be be gained by twisting arms like this. You're only making enemies. Just throw a bone to the people don't like AMP, and the rest of the people will go along with AMP anyway because they don't care.

</comment><comment><USER70> Correction:

The original URL is provided by the Share button on the right. But it's not a link. (To visit it, you'd have to copy and paste back into the browser. You can't share a link to the app you are shared from )

So the _URL_ is available as always, but the _link_ is not.

</comment><comment><USER71> For those of us who had no fucking idea what AMP stands for here's the link:

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

</comment><comment><USER72> If you're looking for a decent replacement to images.google.com, I run [https://canweimage.com](https://canweimage.com). It gets results from Wikimedia Commons. There's also just [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page). I built canweimage because Wikimedia Commons used to be harder to navigate (once you searched, you then had to click through categories and subcategories to see image results). Looking at it just now, and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore!

</comment><comment><USER73> I always chuckle to myself when people are quick to attack amazon/facebook as being the _real_ evil companies....while google has been slowly taking over the internet these past 10 years.

<comment><USER74> They're all companies. They'll take as much as they can. It's just how companies are. Don't make the mistake of anthropomorphizing them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> This is so unfriendly to users. I don't understand the push to obscure URLs. They are sometimes hiding the URLs in search results also which is infuriating. One more reason to use DuckDuckGo.

<comment><USER76> Another thing that is extremely annoying is the hiding of urls in Chrome. Hiding the protocol and the rest of the url besides the domain. When you go to click up in the url/address bar to change a section of the site the protocol re-appears and messes you up.

Or when you click in on some mobile and the whole url disappears and you just wanted to change part of the url.

Yes Google there are still people that want hackable urls, I remember when that was something they pushed, clean urls that make sense so you can type in where you are going.

AMP might be the thing that actually brings anti-trust, so not needed and very anti-competitive using their monopoly position to stifle competition and innovation rather than extend innovation and compete on product. Google should reward fast sites not band-aid it with an anti-competitive AMP. AMP also creates lots more work for content companies and it is only useful for Google. Essentially content companies are doing Google's work for them.

McKinsey and the management consultants have taken over large swaths of Google with stuff like this and AMP.

Here's hoping some pirate product people/engineers put up a flag and start returning to product over management metrics.

<comment><USER77> Yeah the hiding of the protocol in the URL was a pain to deal with. I updated Chrome today and looks like there's a way to turn this off:

1\. Enable chrome://flags/#omnibox-context-menu-show-full-urls

2\. Right click the address bar

3\. Select 'Always show full URLs'

Instead of seeing: news.ycombinator.com You'll now see: [https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com)

I made a Tell HN post about it: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322705](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322705)

<comment><USER76> Looks like they finally added it back in to version 83 of Chrome with the flag and then setting, it was originally removed in version 70.

The long dark days of url shrouding and obscuring are over. We won the battle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Google is an evil and destructive force in technology and it genuinely baffles me that people trust their email and smartphone operating systems to be guarded by an advertising company.

</comment><comment><USER36> It is a huge shame that the AMP AC seems to have completely dropped any work on the following focus card on their Github - [https://github.com/ampproject/meta- ac/projects/1#card-194203...](https://github.com/ampproject/meta- ac/projects/1#card-19420310)

Overwhelmingly that's the main user request for AMP. The lack of progress and the fact that it disappeared from the 2020 priorities with no progress speaks volumes.

</comment><comment><USER79> I'm not an expert in the details of Chrome permissions vs. other browsers, and setting aside for the moment the market power of Google/Alphabet, this seems fairly fixable, along the same lines as email spam or ad tracker networks, and a clear case for "caveat emptor".

How about rewriting any AMP urls in the browser location bar to redirect to the canonical location as an end-user extension, or as an in-content script?

</comment><comment><USER80> I don't understand why Reddit specifically puts up with AMP.

They already have a "good" mobile site. The AMP pages _break_ reddit results and result in the constant annoyance of having to dismiss "Open in App?" banners both in the AMP view and on the mobile site. Everyone hates the AMP page. Why keep it? You already invested a ton of resources in the fast/nice mobile app...

</comment><comment><USER81> AMP is a terrifying solution to an awful problem.

</comment><comment><USER82> Am I the only one who likes AMP? Like 99% of news websites etc. are so overloaded with crap to the point where it's impossible to read them on mobile. I'm glad to see an AMP link, it means the content will load quickly.

I feel like we need a solution that works for everyone, not just news companies and search giants, but users as well!

</comment><comment><USER83> "Just heard from the Image Search team that this is an oversight and they'll add the feature! Sorry about that and thanks for the report!"

[https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1265688067706245120](https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1265688067706245120)

</comment><comment><USER84> Seems like a short sighted move since image search is one of the few times I'll jump from DuckDuckGo to Google. Probably won't bother if I can't pull the source image url

[https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=google+images](https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=google+images)

</comment><comment><USER85> I could buy their reasoning for AMP and site speed, if and only if they make it easy to get the URL.

When it first came out you couldn't get the URL either and they added it after people complained.

The removal seems to make it clear that it's really about control and keeping things within the confines of their own system.

</comment><comment><USER86> Is AMP popular in the US only? (I am from the Netherlands)

As far as I know I have never seen an AMP website. I use DDG as search engine but !g a lot, so I assume I should have stumbled upon an AMP site at least once.

But maybe it is also browser related? When I go to amp.cnn.com I get redirected to editions.cnn.com in Firefox.

<comment><USER87> AMP is "Accelerated Mobile Pages". Are you on mobile?

<comment><USER86> Yes I am.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> To think their motto used to be "don't be evil"... pretty insidious in retrospect.

<comment><USER43> The thing is, from their point of view they aren't evil; they are "making the web faster", they say (and they're not wrong) that most sites are so full of crap like trackers and adverts that it negatively impacts your browsing experience.

This Twitter post costs me 1.6MB of bandwidth and it keeps pinging for more stuff, and that's with an ad blocker enabled. While we're talking just bytes in terms of the main message.

Google is selling it as an improvement to the web, but that also says a lot about websites.

But this has been Google's strategy for a while now; they push technology that make the web faster and accessible to more people (like Chrome, HTTP/2 and 3, webp/webm, google DNS, google fiber (discontinued), Android, etc) and score goodwill, but at the same time they know if people can browse faster they will run into Google ads more often, earning them more money.

AMP is no different; if a site that doesn't even have google ads takes 10 seconds to load, they earn nothing. If the same content takes <1 second to load, WITH google ads, they earn money. And they earn money more often because people can consume more content instead of wait for things to load.

<comment><USER89> Amp-the-standard is not the same thing as amp-the-google-UX.

I'd love for sites to adopt AMP, as a standard for web design which leads to very lean sites without content pop-in. That'd be awesome! Give me a little icon next to the search result that says "this site is AMP certified" so I know it'll be fast.

But what I don't love, is that Google uses AMP as a trojan horse to keep me inside the google search results as I browse the internet, by:

\- Rehosting the amp sites on their CDN

\- Pre-rendering sites I haven't clicked yet to make them load faster

\- Putting the site in some pop-over div which makes me feel like I'm still in the google results (so I can pop right back quickly and spend more time on google!)

\- Breaking the swipe gesture

\- Breaking the URL bar

\- Breaking my phone's auto-hide for the URL bar

\- etc etc

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> OK, see if we keep using Google for image search, then. Bing was already better at that anyway.

<comment><USER91> Google gives me slightly better results (sometimes much better, much of the time about equal), but I prefer Bing's interface. If you want to stop using Google, Bing Images is a good option to replace the vast majority of image searches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> In my opinion everyone should do the following:

\- Install an Ad Blocker, so Google will not be able to make money on your visits and chances you'll get a malware from ads will decrease \- If you use Android, you can install Firefox and add uBlock Origin as extension, because Google abuse their power and prevent people from installing Ad blocker on Android. \- Stop paying money for Google Ads \- Stop using Gmail. There are plenty of alternatives (ex. outlook.com) \- Use other search engines (bing.com and yandex.com). I noticed they work in many cases better than Google. For example, yandex.com is much better for semi-legal content which is blocked on Google and not available at all. \- Stop using GCP. AWS and Azure are the better cloud providers. \- Stop supporting AMP on your website \- Don't pay money for integrating Google Maps into your website. There are much cheaper alternatives. \- Office 365 is years ahead of Google Docs.

</comment><comment><USER93> Out of all Google projects that they put to the grave, they commit to this stupid service.

</comment><comment><USER94> AMP is the _one_ reason why Duck Duck Go is now my default search engine on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER95> There are so many times when using google news app where the story half loads, or the main part of the story is missing... now I can't even go to the actual site and read the new because the link is gone. Goodbye google news.

</comment><comment><USER96> What about Facebook instant articles and Apple News? Are these better than AMP?

</comment><comment><USER97> Okay, so besides all the "told you so", "Google is evil" and "I hate AMP":

Has anybody actually seen the behavior described in this tweet by some anonymous guy? Because I can't confirm it so far.

<comment><USER98> Yes, I tried the query in the sample, and it works exactly the same for me here. Are you saying you also get a link to the original URL in the popup?

<comment><USER97> I just tested again with Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi and Firefox on Android and can confirm now, too (except for Firefox). First I only checked on desktop where you get to the original website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> It's not often any more that when I search for an image that Google Image Search is my last stop. I use DDG, so when I need an image I try any of !gi !bi !yi or just !i

Generally Google Images are the worst.

</comment><comment><USER100> Non-web coder here.

I searched 'google amp', and I can't really understand what it's supposed to do?

Can anyone explain what problem AMP is supposed solve, or what features it brings to the table?

<comment><USER101> Amp is supposed to reduce file size and script overhead. Its seemingly innocent goal was to speed up page loading on slower mobile devices and reduce bandwidth usage. Google then cached entire amp versions of articles on their servers and never load the original when searchers or Google news app users click to read an article. It means the authors of the articles web pages never get hit by readers. This is I think the main reason why website owners are quite upset.

<comment><USER55> You're only half right. While Amp is designed to create small pages, what's more important is that they should be safely-embeddable. That means there's no potentially unsafe scripts or asset requests. That why Amp uses a subset of HTML as defined via WebComponents.

>Google then cached entire amp versions of articles on their servers

That's the Amp Cache. The cache allows vendors like Google, Microsoft, and Cloudflare (who each run their own caches) to automatically preload these pages in search results without there being any risk to the user. Yes, Bing runs a copy too.

<comment><USER101> "preloading" the entire article the way say, Google News app does for example means that without going two touches deeper it essentially negates the user ever needing to visit the site that originally authored the content removing them entirely from the process. It's not very content-creator friendly. For that matter, why use the internet if you don't trust anyone but Google, Microsoft, Cloudflare, etc? Insanity. The internet may as well be considered broken and useless if you can't trust your web browser to at least minimally protect you from scripts automatically hijacking your computer with an "unsafe script".

Also, I did mention scripts but left it short and sweet with the limited support of scripting that AMP has to explain AMP in more simple terms.

<comment><USER55> > ... it essentially negates the user ever needing to visit the site that > originally authored the content removing them entirely from the process.

Yes, in this sense they are acting as a CDN. The original website is still authoring the content however.

> The internet may as well be considered broken and useless if you can't trust > your web browser to at least minimally protect you from scripts > automatically hijacking your computer with an "unsafe script".

It's not just about malware. I'm sure most users would not be comfortable with websites being able to track them after simply performing search results. Actually going to a website is an action with more intent behind it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> AMP makes work easier for Google (their indexing and content presentation process). However it's presented as something that makes it easier for us the general public.

</comment><comment><USER103> AMP is hated so much by HN and yet content creators are ___opting in_ __to use it. They must be getting something out of it.

<comment><USER104> HN is not representative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> [https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle](https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle).

</comment><comment><USER106> This seems like the kind of thing that will be labeled (maybe rightly, maybe falsely) as a "mistake" and fixed... It really seems like if this AMP proxy stuff is going to get forced down our throats, then viewing the original version needs to be integrated at the protocol level and exposed out through the browser UI, not the website (which would also make it possible for non- Google browsers to opt out, as an extra bonus). Otherwise, this sort of thing is just going to keep on happening.

</comment><comment><USER107> Interestingly : could this lead to Google violating copyright laws ?

As long as Google is "only" a search engine, referencing other websites, it can get away with copyright laws by stating that he's not infringing, only showing infringing website...

But if Google serve the image by itself, with its own domain, doesn't it make him responsible for its own copyright infringement ? Maybe that we be a way to kill the behemoth... or at least this stupid "feature"...

</comment><comment><USER108> Another one of those weird "mistakes" that always, always flows towards Google and against everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER109> I see a lot of hate for AMP, and rightly so. I've been able to get rid of it completely on my Android device with two tricks:

\- Changed my browser for Kiwi browser : very close to Chrome but with some neat features, one of them being to automatically redirect AMP links to original links

\- deAMPify is a way to redirect AMP links from any other app than the browser

I really wish there was a way to opt-out of AMP as on iOS you're definitely SOL

</comment><comment><USER110> if you're on Android use Firefox as your main browser, if you wanna avoid the shit called AMP. on iOS safari does a little better on showing the url. Changing search engines to say Bing, is not really helpful. Bing on chromium android, still shows AMP pages.

</comment><comment><USER111> Is there any way to get the url out of an image search anymore without going through AMP?

</comment><comment><USER112> Slow trek back to the AOL-style walled garden 2.0 but paved with good intentions?

</comment><comment><USER113> Is it an iOS thing? I can't reproduce this on my laptop using Firefox

</comment><comment><USER114> In mobile Google News you don't see URLs either (which bugs me)

</comment><comment><USER115> and now they own the content. Links will be created to that google URL that last decades. And google can replace the data at that link with whatever they want, whenever they want.

</comment><comment><USER116> Google is overdue on regulators cracking down on their BS

</comment><comment><USER117> Twitter thread suggests it's a bug that will be fixed.

AMP should die.

</comment><comment><USER118> What is "AMP?"

Critical info that's missing.

</comment><comment><USER119> I'd guess they'll go next after DOM manipulation in browsers. It's how we remove ads afterall.

</comment><comment> grey-area Another reason to stop using Google search

</comment><comment><USER120> How long until AMP is stAMPed out with a good ol' Anti-Trust

</comment><comment><USER121> Antitrust suit rumors are swirling and Google is more and more boldly manifesting its despotic tendencies, as if in defiance.

</comment><comment><USER122> No surprise here, Google is now full on 90's - style Microsoft, with a twist of SJW thrown in, and hipsters everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER123>
      Some website: "I did this"
      *walks away as Google approaches*
      Google: ... "I did this"

Seriously, though. I understand why the general public isn't pushing back against this, but why don't I see more push back from websites? Websites support AMP for SEO, but at this point they should be trying to redirect users away from AMP and social media sites should be trying to automatically strip AMP from links.

And why does the "Redirect AMP to HTML" extension on Firefox have so few users?

</comment><comment><USER91> Wait, AMP still exists? I haven't seen it for a while now, also in google search results (though I don't do many of those). I thought it was dead after literally everyone thought it was a terrible idea.

I suppose I'm happy the google crawler is still banned from my domains. People should use something else if they want good results now.

Does uBlock or privacy badger block it? It seems out of scope for those projects so I expect I should see amp links just like anyone else. Or did they kill it in the EU or something? I saw someone from NL wondering the same elsewhere in the thread.

</comment><comment><USER124> I understand the objections to Google's actions--this is clearly a dick move which is terrible for both users and content creators--but I'm not understanding the AMP hate here.

As a user, AMP is great. AMP is a better implementation of the open web than HTML is. It's a (usually) self-contained document that isn't tightly coupled to the server it came from. You can download an AMP document, render it, attach it to an email to a friend, etc., without having to log in or get tracked. Unfortunately AMP is adding ad capabilities, but at least AMP allows you to strip those out fairly trivially.

As a website, if you want your users tightly coupled to your server, just don't implement AMP? You literally went through non-negligible effort to implement a feature and now you're surprised and angry that it works the way you implemented it. AMP was always a bad idea if you wanted users to be dependent on your website for your content--this has only made it a slightly worse idea. And by the way, if all you want is credit for your content, it's trivial to add a linked byline to the top of your AMP.

I'm not defending Google here. They're an amoral corporation with too much power and shouldn't be used, period. But AMP is fine.

EDIT: I can only assume the silent down-voters are people who implemented AMP and are whining that what they implemented works. ;P

<comment><USER65> > AMP is a better implementation of the open web than HTML is.

Except the results of AMP can be done without AMP. It just requires site owners to not put a bunch of crap on the site. Something that AMP requires you to do.

> You can download an AMP document, render it, etc., without having to log in > or get tracked

Except for the fact that now only Google tracks you. Also, doable without AMP.

The hate from many isn't about being a website owner. It's about being a website user. When I click on a link of a website, I expect to go to that website. Not stay on Google's site.

<comment><USER124> > Except the results of AMP can be done without AMP. It just requires site > owners to not put a bunch of crap on the site. Something that AMP requires > you to do.

Sure, you can build self-contained HTML pages, but you don't have any way of indicating to browsers or search engines that what you've created can be consumed in that way.

> The hate from many isn't about being a website owner. It's about being a > website user. When I click on a link of a website, I expect to go to that > website. Not stay on Google's site.

That's a great objection to Google not linking to the original site.

It's not an objection to AMP. Nothing about AMP prevents Google from linking to the original site.</comment></comment></comment>


The Social Network scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin posts about the portrayal of women. - <AUTHOR> http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2010/10/aaron-sorkin-responds-to-commenter-in.html <comment><USER2> > Facebook was born during a night of incredibly misogyny. The idea of > comparing women to farm animals, and then to each other, based on their > looks and then publicly ranking them. It was a revenge stunt, aimed first at > the woman who'd most recently broke his heart (who should get some kind of > medal for not breaking his head) and then at the entire female population of > Harvard.

What a bunch of pretentious self important nonsense. Fact is, from age 12 to age 25 or so, both men _and_ women are incredibly superficial and petty and immature in their relations to each other. There's probably a lot of reasons why, but I think one big reason is that young people spend these days spend very little time on things that actually really matter, thus aren't relating to each other on topics that actually matter. So both genders descend into social pettiness pretty quickly and easily in their younger years.

Young men and young women both act petty. But these days, it's very fashionable to point out all the sexism... on men's parts. Applause lights go on. "Yes, fight that evil male sexism!" It's like, okay, there's a bunch of 20 year olds drinking too much and jockeying for attention and being to mean to each other and then throwing up for all the liquor... neither men nor women at that age seem particularly enlightened to me, but people like to be very grave and serious about "this horrible sexism among men today." It's seems like feminism succeeded at all its objectives, but was doing so well that it just kept going. Nowdays any immature male behavior is portrayed as a sign of some deep cultural problems. Immature female behavior? What, no, that doesn't happen. What are you, a sexist or something?

Edit: Reply instead of downvoting. I disagree with the author's perspective and think he's spouting cliches that don't match reality or improve things. I listed a counter perspective. You're welcome to disagree with me, share your thoughts.

<comment><USER3> I was one of the people who downvoted you (though it looks like the crowd is back on your side again), so here's an explanation:

First and mostly unrelated to your post: I have big issues with the Social Network's accuracy in its storytelling. Besides all the things that were completely made up, it's very telling that Sorkin in the OP states that the voiceover from the Facemash sequence was completely factual, with only minor things _removed_ from Zuckerberg's blog posts. In fact, if you track down the original blog posts on Scribd, you'll find that Sorkin _inserted_ several of the most offensive sentences, such as the crack about the Erica character's bra size, and also including the sentence "Do you think that's because all BU girls are bitches?", which Sorkin seems to be attributing as a quote in the OP but were not in the blog posts. So when I talk about Zuckerberg's misogyny, I'm talking about the misogyny of the character named Mark Zuckerberg that Aaron Sorkin made up for the movie, not Zuckerberg himself, as I'm convinced the two are mostly unrelated.

So all that said, the stuff movie-Zuckerberg does in the Facemash scene is blatantly and unambiguously misogynistic. He blogs about his ex-girlfriends bra size, he calls her and all other girls attending BU a bitch, and creates a site allowing you to publicly compare the hotness of various women using pictures obtained without their permission. These acts demean women, portray them as just sexual objects, and are essentially misogynistic.

What's bizarre about your post is that you didn't dispute any of those things. Instead, you presented an argument than women and men are equally petty and immature, and then an argument for how the feminist movement has led to an over-interrogation of male sexist behavior while ignoring similarly problematic female behavior. You can make those arguments, but the fact that you did so in reply to the paragraph you quoted strongly implies that you believe that the actions portrayed in the movie were not sexism and not misogynistic. You seem to be characterizing the things movie-Zuckerberg did as just "a bunch of 20 year olds drinking too much and jockeying for attention and being to mean to each other", as if those were the reasons why people saw movie-Zuckerberg as misogynistic.

I agree that feminists are often too quick to see male sexism in places were it isn't there, but that doesn't mean that male sexism doesn't exist. It's one thing to think that feminists go too far, and another thing to go on a rant about the excesses of feminism when confronted with a (fictional) example of _actual_ sexism. The things movie-Zuckerberg did _were_ sexist, and if you disagree with that, and it seems like you do, I'm honestly a little disturbed.

<comment><USER2> > I'm talking about the misogyny of _the character named Mark Zuckerberg that > Aaron Sorkin made up_ for the movie, not Zuckerberg himself, as I'm > convinced the two are mostly unrelated. So all that said, _the stuff movie- > Zuckerberg does_ in the Facemash scene is blatantly and unambiguously > misogynistic.

You and I both know it's a fictional character, but Sorkin is acting like it's not:

"These women--whether it's the girls who are happy to take their clothes off and dance for the boys or Eduardo's psycho-girlfriend are real. I mean REALLY real."

> What's bizarre about your post is that you didn't dispute any of those > things. Instead, you presented an argument than women and men are equally > petty and immature,

Yes. In the real world, yes. But Sorkin's pretending his movie isn't fiction. That's the problem - he's saying it's really real, I'm saying his movie and righteous indignation doesn't reflect reality very well.

<comment><USER3> Well OK, if your argument really was "Sorkin created a fake caracter that acts really misogynist in order to make a political point about feminism that I disagree with", and not "what was shown in the movie wasn't misogyny, just college boys being equally immature as college girls are!", then I must say I am more than a little surprised, but tone is hard on the web, so I'll give you be benefit of the doubt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1- If you put any teenagers actions under a microscope, you will find regrettable and petty things. Just because Zuckerberg founded a huge company doesn't mean he necessarily had to be a wise adult at 19 (or whatever age he was). Cut the man some slack for being like every other guy his age (at that time). He doesn't appear to have been the most mature guy at that time, so what? People can grow and change.

2- There's a lot of "trusting" Aaron Sorkin going on with his descriptions of things. Given that he didn't talk to several important people, one has to remember this is just the POV of the guy who has a vested interest in fabricating the greatest possible amount of controversy to push his movie.

</comment><comment><USER5> >These aren't the cuddly nerds we made movies about in the 80's. They're very angry that the cheerleader still wants to go out with the quarterback instead of the men (boys) who are running the universe right now.

I'm finding Aaron Sorkin incredibly irritating lately. Jeff Jarvis called it 'revenge on the revenge of the nerds' and this absolutely is. The movie hasn't been released where I live yet, but I've read several interviews with him where he makes statements like this. It's complete nonsense. There is no us and them, no global jocks vs geeks battle being waged here.

If anything the cultural conflict is generational; media and communication is changing faster than some people can understand. And Sorkin is one of those that doesn't. He doesn't understand what facebook is for, why people like it, or what Zuckerberg wants. He claims that facebook is just the backdrop of the story he's telling - and movie maybe good as a movie, but it's a fictionalized account, by somebody who doesn't understand what backdrop was all about.

Disclaimer: I'm historically a fan of Sorkin's movies, and a vocal critic of Facebook's privacy policies.

<comment><USER6> >There is no us and them, no global jocks vs geeks battle being waged here.

And you think the Engineers vs. sales is really all that different? I mean, being as we are adults now we can largely avoid oneanother, but as far as I can tell, the style vs. substance battle continues apace.

<comment><USER7> Engineers and salespeople generally have different personalities, don't enjoy hanging out with one another, and look down on one another's interests, but that doesn't make it a _versus_ thing. As adults we are no longer competing directly with one another for status.

<comment><USER8>
      As adults we are no longer competing directly with one another for status.

Oh look, an idealist who never opened a Psychology or Anthropology book.

<comment><USER7> As an adult engineer, I feel myself in status competition _with other engineers_ : I want to be recognized as a better engineer than they are. The salespeople just aren't on my radar.

<comment><USER9> > The salespeople just aren't on my radar.

That is one reason why salesfolk typically make more than engineers....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This _Slate_ article claims that Facemash had pictures of men and women:

<http://www.slate.com/id/2269250/>

It seems that most of the specific evidence Sorkin cites is fictional. If _Slate_ is correct, the site was egalitarian. If the transcripts of Zuckerberg's blog are believable (Google them if you want; they're not hard to find), then Sorkin wrote most of the inflammatory material.

It is interesting that people who don't know the story very well still zero in on the fictional details Sorking added as the most upsetting. In a way, it must vindicate Zuckerberg. Unfortunate that those readily-identifiable details are so memorable.

<comment><USER11> It would probably have been difficult to separate the photos by gender.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I see far too many distortions and exaggerations in Sorkin's script for this to be credible. Some are already noted in this thread, but to add a few more:

\- In this rebuttal Sorkin says that the party sequence is something Mark is imagining and seems to suggest that's right out of Mark's blog. I don't see how this can be supported by what was in the film; it is depicted as a real event. I don't see anything in Mark's blog (at least those few pages commonly quoted on the web) to support the contention it's Mark's fantasy.

\- For most of the period the movie covers, the real Zuckerberg has a girlfriend and is an athlete himself -- he's a fencer. The movie Zuckerberg is a dateless wonder who believes athletics are beyond him.

\- In a sequence that only a Hollywood screenwriter could have invented, interns are tested by hacking into a "python webserver running SSL (??)" while being forced to drink shots according to highly implausible rules. The script actually has stage directions for HOT ASIAN WOMEN pouring shots to be stationed a pace behind (!!) each male hacker.

Sorkin defends himself in this rebuttal by noting that the Erica Albright character, and the unnamed lawyer at the end, are Mark's moral superiors. But that's a form of sexism too, when you only have "good girls" and "bad girls".

The movie is clearly setting these two kinds of women in opposition and had to wildly exaggerate things in order to get there. The movie Mark Zuckerberg is frustrated he can't win the respect of "good" women like Erica as a peer, so he attempts to rise above the entire social system by creating Facebook, and thus enters a more narcissistic world (embodied by Sean Parker) in which "bad" women are mere accessories.

As a movie it works. As a programmer I am disturbed that so much innocent tomfoolery as well as brilliant creativity are dismissed as embodiments of misogyny.

For the record, I'm not a fan of Facebook or even Mark Zuckerberg. But many people, even smart people, are taking the movie at face value as a depiction of the real Mark Zuckerberg. I've seen feminist writer Naomi Klein quoting this "Facebook was born in a night of misogyny" thing too. It looks like this is destined to be part of Zuckerberg's legacy, whether he deserves it or not.

</comment><comment><USER13> "More generally, I was writing about a very angry and deeply misogynistic group of people. These aren't the cuddly nerds we made movies about in the 80's. They're very angry that the cheerleader still wants to go out with the quarterback instead of the men (boys) who are running the universe right now."

This is a gross overgeneralization, and also the biggest fault of the movie. That Zuck's drive to build Facebook is nothing more that petty revenge against women (Erica) and jocks (the Winklevoss twins) is completely unrealistic.

All people who create things, whether it's a website or a screenplay, do it for the love of creating that thing. Creation is its own motivator. Sure, there may be scores to settle in the process -- that's human nature -- but it's never the driver. It's puzzling that Sorkin never made the connection that Zuckerberg is a creative just like him.

<comment><USER14> Did you create this comment exclusively for the love of creating a comment?

<comment><USER15> What would be another motivation? Certainly not money or fame.

<comment><USER14> <http://xkcd.com/386/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hasn't the Zuck been dating the same girl since just before or just after he started building the whole thing?

<comment><USER17> Yes, I believe they are engaged now (can't find a confirmation link though).

Also, I think a lot of people need to remember the movie only goes through 2005-ish when they got their 1,000,000th member and Sean Parker was forced out after the cocaine bust (which I gotta believe did not happen in the same day like the movie portrayed). This movie does not touch anything about current day Facebook and all the recent privacy issues or anything. It focuses on the ramp up and all the hurdles Zuck crossed to get there (regardless of whether he created those hurdles for himself or not).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think this is one of those arguments where its really hard to find the line between art and reality, which has the effect of simultaneously making The Social Network an amazing and controversial film.

I'm a huge fan of Aaron Sorkin and I think he takes the screenwriting craft to a whole new level. When he's writing something I don't think he just creates a "story" in his head, I think he crafts a whole society as a canvas. He has the ability, like many artists, to craft an extremely vivid picture in his mind and then translate that vision and eventually the story to his writing. So when he's telling the "Zuckerburg" story he creates an alternate reality but with some small basis in truth. A world where women are treated in a misogynistic manner, in a world inhabited by socially inept genius and an out of touch upper crust.

In this case he bases a lot of what he's built on the books and stories written, quite frankly, by the losers of the Facebook battles. These inform and lead the story but by the time its complete the villains, attitudes, and societies have been morphed into something quite more archetypical then their corresponding reality. Small quirks he finds interesting get expanded into large issues. Molehills are turned into mountains.

And really he's done a great job. The level of discourse on HN alone testifies to his ability to tell a story - like it or not.

</comment><comment><USER19> I find the depth of his analysis the most telling aspect of the entire affair. If I were to go to wikipedia right now and look up his article, for example like I just did, I might easily come up with a life story that I could easily understand through my own perspective, disdainful as I am of his chosen occupation and its associated culture.

BA in Musical Theatre lives pointless life as just another starving artist desperately trying to get noticed. His treatment at the hands of a world that values art as perhaps the cheapest commodity in existence leads him to cast around for his own personal pariah and he finds it in the hacker archetype that seems to be taking over the world he inhabits; about the furthest from himself it is possible to get. Finally lucks into success in chosen vapid field. Spends better part of relatively successful career making plain old fashion television in an age where such is being rapidly torn from its roots by the very archetype he's building up a dislike for.

Hits out with poorly researched and much assumed dreck with high production quality at a phenomenon he neither understands, respects, nor has any desire to and fights bitterly against any accusation that his perception may diverge significantly from reality. Throw in the drug habits and the card carrying democrat political affiliation and the story almost writes itself.

He doesn't know Zuckerberg, he's the antithesis of the hacker mindset, he's a typical "artist" and everything in his world is tinted through that view, it's easy to parody an archetype the exact opposite to yourself.

Disclaimer; This is not to say that I know him either, the above is a purposefully shallow analysis. I make it in the interests of pointing out how easy it is to descend into plausible sounding narratives that have little bearing on objective reality when you're dealing with something so far outside your own sphere of experience. Your points of reference become stereotypes and staple characters, and you bend the reality of the people you're attempting to analyse to fit them.

</comment><comment><USER20> Wow. He doesn't hate women, he hates geeks.

<comment><USER21> Indeed. That's the group he feels comfortable slagging off in the post.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Aaron Sorkin interviewed on CNN: [http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/celebrity.news.gossip/10/17/...](http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/celebrity.news.gossip/10/17/aaron.sorkin.facebook/)

source: Follow up post by Ken Levine: [http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2010/10/aaron-sorkin-on- cnn.ht...](http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2010/10/aaron-sorkin-on-cnn.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> The rules for all of this are already described in John Fonte's Why There is A Culture War:

[http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy- review/article/780...](http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy- review/article/7809)

The movie was not sufficiently critical of hegemonic values to reach the threshold of cultural acceptability.</comment>


Offer HN: Free Web/UI Design - <AUTHOR>

Hi. I am a freelance web+interface designer and I am offering my services for free to HN startups. My portfolio is at madebyargon.com<p>I will pick two startups who email me at firstname.lastname@example.com. They will get a free custom redesign for their website or app. <comment><USER2> Since your website fails to scale down to fit on mobile devices, yet claims to have mobile apps in the portfolio, one has to wonder how many other oversights the developer has failed to consider. The failure to target the vast emerging mobile audience is inexcusable within today's context.

<comment><USER3> I didn't want to just down vote this without an explanation:

My father is a plumber, a very good one in fact, yet his house has some of the worst plumbing you'll ever see. Ever heard the phrase "The cobler's son goes barefoot"? It applies to almost every industry.

When you're good at what you do, you're too busy earning a living to apply your trade to your own life. As long as ashraful's websites that are meant to be responsive work on mobile devices what's the problem if his portfolio doesn't?

And while I'm spouting old-timey phrases, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> email sent : )</comment>


Google's Moonshot Projects Are Crashing to Earth - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-alphabet-moonshot-projects-are-crashing-to-earth/ <comment><USER2> Google,(or Alphabet) from my perspective,has lost the plot.

I used to view the company as a place where world-changing technologies got developed, where smart engineers could get to work on the future without beancounters looking over their shoulders fretting over beans, and where the acquisition of a company meant it would finally get to grow and develop, instead of being expected to be a money-maker from day one.

Now Google is the company where technology goes to die. It's a place where once promising projects get scrapped without warning. Or get neglected to the point of irrelevance.

And why? To focus on ads!? Isn't that a dying industry? Is Google in financial trouble? Why not just stop pretending to be a center of technological progress(and stop acquiring promising startups to kill off)? Is Deepmind next? How much beans do they generate?

Why not simply get a business development team to go and market some of those incredibly promising projects instead?

I guess that's why Elon doesn't want the Wall Street gangs making decisions on SpaceX.

Mini-rant over. As you were.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is sad. For years many have asked why innovation has slowed compared to previous generations. Here's a prime example. Companies/CFOs need to see all research as a profit making venture where all money spent must have a short term return and there is very little room for basic research or high risk research that has a long term outlook and benefit.

All the moonshot ventures were long term shots at innovation. Now the CFO has looked at them with an eye towards short term profits and most did not pass the test. Too bad, wall street is happy with Google and the stock price will certainly improve but at the cost of long term benefits for all.

Let's face facts as great as Google seems it has come at a cost of countless jobs. Advertising campaigns have certainly shrunk when compared to pre-Google days. It's not Google's fault but they have certainly benefited by grabbing a major chunk of the cash. As such they should work towards improving the future. Generating cash for the sake of profits will not make things better. Larry and Sergey did see that Google's money had the power to change things but they seemed to have bent towards the Wall Street way of running a company.

<comment><USER4> >All the moonshot ventures were long term shots at innovation. Now the CFO has looked at them with an eye towards short term profits and most did not pass the test. Too bad, wall street is happy with Google and the stock price will certainly improve but at the cost of long term benefits for all.

Not just that: at the cost of betraying the people who joined Google when their "moonshot" companies were acquired. Once upon a time, one grim CFO didn't have the power to reap so many projects.

Founders should exercise more caution before selling good projects to Alphabet to die.</comment></comment>


Is this the first practical quantum computer? (D-wave 128 qbit box) - <AUTHOR> http://www.dwavesys.com/en/products-services.html

<comment><USER2> It's not fake, but it's not the quantum computer you would expect.

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/loser-dwave- does...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/loser-dwave-does-not- quantum-compute/2)

"D-Wave's system uses a chip with little loops of niobium metal containing Josephson junctions—two superconductors separated by an insulator. When the chip is cooled to very low temperatures, tiny electrical currents flowing around the loops exhibit quantum properties, and you can use the direction to represent the states of a qubit: Counterclockwise represents 0, clockwise represents 1, and current flowing both ways represents a superposition of 0 and 1.

D-Wave's superconducting qubits are not new, and other groups use similar devices. But whereas most groups are trying to build the quantum logic gates from which all computing operations can be derived—an approach known as the gate model—D-Wave has adopted a different approach, called adiabatic quantum computation. Here's the gist: You initialize a collection of qubits to their lowest energy state. You then ever so gently (or adiabatically) turn on interactions between the qubits, thus encoding a quantum algorithm. In the end, the qubits drift to a new lowest-energy state. You then read out the qubits to get the results."

<comment><USER3> Yes, I wish they'd stop calling it a "quantum computer". It's not a quantum computer. It's a thingy.

That said, I'm quite impressed that D-Wave is finally bringing out a thingy that actually does something. Reading the Scott Aaronson post elsewhere in this thread it appears that they've finally got around to demonstrating that their thingy really _does_ do stuff that involves quantum mechanics.

They're still _way_ behind their implausible schedule, and their thingy still can't do anything that a classical computer can't do a helluva lot faster and cheaper, but I do congratulate them on having a proper working thingy.

But they need to stop calling this thingy a quantum computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> D-Wave has been operating under heavy-duty NDA's for a long time. I know of at least two published authors in quantum physics who have signed an NDA and been given the grand tour. I know one well enough to have asked him what he thought without divulging anything he couldn't tell me. He said what D-Wave had when he was there was not a general purpose quantum computer, but rather, a sort of hard-coded specific purpose device not unlike an electronic circuit built to implement a specific algorithm rather than function as a general purpose programmable device.

Regardless, what D-Wave has is real enough that they are not being laughed at in the circles that matter. I would also say that they aren't doing anything that makes academics who are working on QC devices despair of doing anything useful themselves. I think it's rather unlikely that this device is going to be busting open RSA keys anytime soon.

In short, this is probably not fake or a scam. It's just not quite what the original poster was hoping it was.

<comment><USER5> From what I've heard, this thing is designed to solve whatever can be transformed into energy minimization problems - "travelling salesman", routing the wires on printed circuit boards, urban planning, etc etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Scott Aaronson is an MIT prof and a leading researcher in quantum computing. Here is his take on a recent paper DWave published in Nature:

<http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=639>

(And the Nature paper: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7346/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7346/full/nature10012.html))

<comment><USER7> "after four years of the quantum computing community being told to review a restaurant based solely on its ice water and table settings, I'm delighted that D-Wave has finally brought an appetizer."

haha... those physicists

<comment><USER8> Later in that article:

> As some of you might be aware, I'm a theoretical computer scientist, not a > physicist (much less an experimentalist).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> ok so where is the "hello world" program for this type of system? .. wonders if it could figure out the HTML5 specs before we do?

<comment><USER10> Please consider returning to slashdot

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is... is this real?

<comment><USER11> I emailed them asking how much and when. $10million USD available now.

Ouch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Commercial"? That website looks like it's using the same web template as Orbo.

</comment><comment><USER13> "It's a Ming Mecca chip!"

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a) fake or b) a scam.

<comment><USER15> Yes, some quick googling appears to show that they've been pushing similar scams since 2007 or so:

[http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=d-wave+hoax)

They claimed to have a 16-qubit machine then, whereas a recent (May 2) New Yorker article revealed that Oxford's research lab quantum computer is only an 8-qubit machine, and that's in 2011. Yale has built one and it's only 2-qubit.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How common is it for web agencies to grant repository access to clients? - <AUTHOR> Lack of trust between client and web dev agencies seems to be a common thread.
For me, the most important issue is code quality - all I see are the defects discovered by our internal test team... often functionality is broken that has no apparent relationship to the features being worked on.
I would love to see who is approving pull requests (or if code is just being merged without any checks).
Has anyone heard of clients getting read access to their dev agency's repository? <comment><USER2> "often functionality is broken that has no apparent relationship to the features being worked on."

This is not necessarily about getting access to the code repo. You need a project management tool between the client and dev term where they can track requirements and delivery of those requirements. The code is more of an implementation detail.

If clients start asking for access to code repo, that opens up a whole different ballgame and should be done at a MUCH higher price (read: enterprise). I would never give access to our code repo unless the client has specifically agreed to pay for that access. If clients are worried about what is being delivered, project management tool solves that.

Yes, I understand that clients can also be developers or technical. But the whole point of going with a third party company is that you DON'T want to look into code and stuff. Otherwise, you may as well build an internal team yourself.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not really familiar with the web agency space, but from working at a few enterprises that have outsourced dev work & technical understanding for internal line-of-business applications:

* If you're paying someone to write or customise code for you, why wouldn't you want to own that code, and be able to read and/or patch it?

* If you've outsourced the dev talent, do you have enough in house technical capability to evaluate if the company you're outsourcing to is taking you for a ride and is producing a giant pile of tech debt that will become increasingly expensive and slow to make controlled changes to (i.e. changes that don't inject a high rate of new production defects and regressions)?

</comment><comment><USER4> I think it's common, but not really a lack of trust thing -- instead the code is a work product unless what you are paying for is a functioning application + hosting + support.

If stuff is breaking then it means you have a more serious problem on your hands then just lack of access to the code base and that access will not solve it for you.

</comment><comment><USER5> That would depend entirely on the contract agreed by the agency and the client. Providing source code is usually a (heavily) billable deliverable.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes, all our customers can get source code access if they wish. It is their application after all. Any reason why they should not get access?</comment>