Artificial kidneys and miniaturized dialysis could save millions of lives - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00671-8 <comment><USER2> My older sister had end-stage renal failure (from IgA nephropathy [0]) and was on dialysis, so I donated my kidney to her. If you want to make an incredible difference in someone's life, I can't recommend it enough!

There are cool computer science problems involved: imagine person A1 wants to donate their kidney to their partner A2 but they aren't a match. Now imagine many such pairs exist (B1/B2, C1/C2, D1/D2 etc.) and you start noticing that while A1 can't donate to A2, they _can_ donate to B2, and B1 can donate to C2, and so on! Thus the kidney chain is born. You get everyone together and have them agree that if their partner gets a kidney donation, they'll pass on the favor to someone else. All that's needed is a single purely-altruistic donor to start the fire. The longest such chain has reached over 100 people! [1]

Anyway, the surgery is laparoscopic and has an extremely low fatality rate: around 1/10,000, which is an order of magnitude lower than the all-cause mortality rate for living a single year of your 20s. The kidney is a fairly isolated organ, basically only attached to you via the renal artery/vein, the ureter (which carries urine to your bladder), and some fascia (internal connective tissue). You can see a full video of the surgery at [2] (if you're into that kind of thing). I was walking within hours of the surgery, discharged within two days, and back in the gym within 5 weeks. My life is not any different than pre-donation, and if anything goes wrong with my remaining kidney I go to the top of the donation wait-list! If you're interested, you can see more info at [3].

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

[1] [https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/nation-s- longe...](https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/nation-s-longest- kidney-transplant-chain-surpasses-100-donations.html)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8-YhyYrMsc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8-YhyYrMsc)

[3] [https://www.kidneyfund.org/kidney-disease/kidney- donation.ht...](https://www.kidneyfund.org/kidney-disease/kidney- donation.html)

<comment><USER3> Kidney donation may be one of the most admirable and heroic things many people can do for another. I too have had family with renal failure (though I was not a match), and the potential to simply _fix_ it with a match is wonderful. But anyone considering it should internalize upfront that there are potential real long term risks, and a surprising paucity of data since long term outcomes are apparently not rigorously followed. See for example "At 18 years old, he donated a kidney. Now, he regrets it"[0]. It's very much not to discourage anyone, but it'd be a shame to not go in with eyes wide open and have what should be something to be proud of marred by any feelings of deception. I have definitely seen the lack of hard long term data on real risks of kidney donation downplayed, it's not fair to portray "we don't see high risks" when that's because we just don't see much period. "Going to the top of the donation wait-list" for example is good, but there is in fact still a wait list.

All that said, the positive vs negative ratio certainly still appears high depending on the situation. And developments like the one in this article could also reasonably factor into an individuals analysis, after all in 20-30 years it may be a solved problem with high quality synthetic organs, so a young person giving a kidney now is more helping to bridge the gap, and by the time they themselves might have an issue they'll have saved a life yet not have the same trouble. Even so, donators should fully recognize that, all of them should absolutely feel as good about it as you clearly do.

\----

0: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health- science/at-18...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health- science/at-18-years-old-he-donated-a-kidney-now-he-regrets- it/2016/09/30/cc9407d8-5ff9-11e6-8e45-477372e89d78_story.html)

<comment><USER4> As for the guy regretting it, the only real issue is the possibility of getting kidney disease going up from 0.1% to 1.0%. He is greatly over exaggerating the risk. You are screened for potential kidney risk factors before donating.

Your life expectancy is not affected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> a USA Registered Nurse colleague casually mentioned while we were driving past one of the many, many chain store dialysis locations, that the service is inefficient and literally unsafe for many patients, and generally is over- prescribed. I assume because the drive-through model of the service, and the chain store, franchise-type setup, and reducing face-time with MDs, that this factory-like practice fits more to billing models and automation, so is chosen in a pseudo-market evolution. disclosure- I have no direct experience with kidney dialysis, nor known anyone who goes there.

<comment><USER6> I was on dialysis in the UK - Um not sure what you mean though the US has less home dialysis and prefers Hemo vs CPD

Dialysis helps you both stay alive and also helps extend the life of the failing kidneys - and a better outcome for a trasplant

Normally based on my experience you are prescribed your dialysis based on your remaing kidney function.

Dialysis is ideally a long process starting years before you start, combined with going on the transplant list (ideally you get the call before you go on dialysis)

I was doing home CPD dialysis BTW</comment></comment>


Video on Steve Jobs personality - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/video/63722844/?ref=nf

<comment><USER2> Direct .flv download link: <http://videos.bloomberg.com/63723194.flv>

I assume that the Zuckerberg video has one, too, but couldn't find it.

<comment><USER3> Lol is our video player that bad you need to watch the direct flvs ?

<comment><USER4> Flash is disabled on all of our machines due to the history of serious stability issues and vulnerabilities. (most of the time we also avoid enabling scripts from other domains, and don't even try if there are more than a couple or it isn't obvious which is for what) I wouldn't have watched the videos if I hadn't been able to stream or download to another player.

Both videos played smoothly streamed into VLC with the Open Network command. The Jobs video clearly had older codecs, the audio was very marginal. The aspect ratio had to be forced to 16:9 to look right. For some reason VLC recogonized it as 4:3.

It was generally well produced and easy to follow. The bit about MS investing 150 million in non-voting stock probably should have mentioned the deal including a few other things too - avoiding litigation over the unauthorized copied QuickTime code that had been put in Video For Windows, Apple getting continued Office for Mac updates, MS getting Apple to keep I.E. as the default browser for the minimum term of the investment (3 years)

The Facebook video sounded much better and played fine without forcing modes although it displayed as 16:9 inside of 4:3 (black letterbox area seem to be part of video). For 120 meg and 220 meg, h.264 could have delivered great quality at well above the 320*240 or so those are. Even phone displays can handle/show much more detail, but the videos didn't look bad.

I don't mean to be overly critical, just trying to provide detailed feedback. I enjoyed watching both videos. Thank you.

Now I see why some say a 250 meg data plan is way too limiting. The Jobs video alone would nearly eat it up. Old codecs cost everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's the one they did on Mark Zuckerberg: <http://www.bloomberg.com/video/63583008/>

<comment><USER6> I'd love to see one on Jack/Evan/Biz and the journey through creating and scaling Twitter

<comment><USER5> That would be good. From their commercial, the upcoming documentaries seem to center on:

Larry & Sergey (Google) Jon Stewart (Daily Show) Henry Kravis (KKR/LBOs) Anna Wintour (Vogue)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I didn't realise Jobs used to be a hippy with waist-length hair who ate only fruit. I have something to aspire to.

<comment><USER8> Go watch Pirates of Silicon Valley. The movie is surprisingly good and pretty accurate (for a movie).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would do anything to follow Steve Jobs around the office for a day.

</comment><comment><USER10> Robert X Cringely is such a solid individual. I love every word that he says.

<comment><USER11> I haven't yet watched the video, so I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic... but I vividly remember a time in undergrad when I read Cringely regularly. I'd get all excited about these huge claims (e.g. "Mac Mini is built just for taking over the living room"[1]) and would start talking to anyone who would listen about these big, exciting possibilities. Then I realized it was just a gripping style of writing and the ideas weren't particularly earth- shattering... or correct. THEN, I found out the guy's a liar: "In 1998, it was revealed that Stephens had falsely claimed to have received a Ph.D. from Stanford University and to have been employed as a professor there."[2]

Haven't read much Cringely since. Should I?

[1]: [http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2005/pulpit_20050120_0008...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2005/pulpit_20050120_000840.html) [2]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely>

<comment><USER4> I've got one for you. Sometimes he'd write about tech that was twisted enough to raise a few eyebrows and bring a chuckle or two. I was surprised to see this on pbs:

[http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2005/pulpit_20050414_0008...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2005/pulpit_20050414_000849.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> player doesn't work on my macbook in safari... :-)

<comment><USER13> Same here, I have sound but just an empty white space where the video should be.

<comment><USER14> +1, 13inch MBP Safari 5.0.2 OSX 10.6.4

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is awesome, thanks for posting this.

</comment><comment><USER16> What a joke! Doesn't even mention the guy was given for adoption while giving all kind of irrelevant info.

<comment><USER17> Did you watch the video? In the video, they show clip from Steve's commencement speech where he talks about adoption. I think the video was very interesting and covered Steve's career pretty well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It looks like many of them are trying really, really hard not to use the word "douchebag".</comment>


Sony's New Α9 Professional Camera - <AUTHOR> https://alphauniverse.com/stories/sony-s-new--9-camera-revolutionizes-the-professional-imaging-market/ <comment><AUTHOR> I understand that site is taking a hammering at the moment, here's Sony's product feature video

[https://youtu.be/ILisOOe3iLs](https://youtu.be/ILisOOe3iLs)</comment>


Ask HN: Tools/services normally paid for but free for open source products? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, What are some cool tools that are normally paid but offer something free for open source projects?
Examples I have collected so far:
- Auth0 (https://auth0.com/pricing)
- GitLab (https://about.gitlab.com/2018/06/05/gitlab-ultimate-and-gold-free-for-education-and-open-source/)
- GitHub (possibly not current)
- 1password (https://github.com/1Password/1password-teams-open-source)
What are other interesting / good tools that are free for open source projects? <comment><USER2> [0] Jet Brains offer open source licenses for their products.

[0] - [https://www.jetbrains.com/buy/opensource/](https://www.jetbrains.com/buy/opensource/)</comment>


You have to be incompatible - <AUTHOR> http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/incompatible/

<comment><USER2> "Artist. It doesn't matter if they're inventing the iPad or a new irrigation system. Their work is not their work. Their work is their art. It is what they were meant to do and - in the end - it is art. Both in the creation process and in the final product. Incompatibles embrace the artist's way and follow their muse. They don't care much about market research or customer insights. They know better than both."

That's my favorite.</comment>


Kafkactl: A CLI tool for managing Apache Kafka - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/deviceinsight/kafkactl <comment><AUTHOR> This is a nice little CLI tool one of my colleagues recently wrote to simplify managing Kafka clusters. Think of kubectl for Apache Kafka.

It's a single binary that can easily be dropped on any server.

You can configure one or more clusters in a YAML file, so you don't have to remember all Kafka nodes. It also has smart auto-completion for bash and zsh that leverages your configuration file.</comment>


"Xanadu Hypertext Documents" architecture and data structures, 2019 edition - <AUTHOR> https://sentido-labs.com/en/library/201904240732/Xanadu%20Hypertext%20Documents.html <comment><AUTHOR> Today is the 35th anniversary of the original document, printed the 25th of April of 1984 at 12:45 PDT by Chip Morningstar who was part of the Xanadu team at the time.

One month ago he found the only known remaining copy, a printout that he scanned and published.

I've made an HTML edition to make it easier to read, with additional features like internal links to term definitions.

This document complements the manual available at [http://udanax.xanadu.com/green/index.html](http://udanax.xanadu.com/green/index.html)</comment>


Show HN: Pincode.app – City Based Local Social Network - <AUTHOR> https://pincode.app <comment><AUTHOR> Video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsX7G0b8ljc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsX7G0b8ljc)

Pincode.app is a location based social network that aims to bring people around you first! We know there have been many social networks, but all of them fails in bring people that should matter to you most! We aim to connect people around you starting from people in your landmark, colony, area, city, state, country and then globally! Pincode is a day per day based social network!

We are under Beta and only MVP at the moment to test, if people like you like the IDEA of people connecting around you!

\- When you share your status, it gets visible to people around your location and reaches further to the whole Area, City, Country & Globally!

\- _Request Item - Any Service or Recommendation_ \- Requesting business or service or Recommendation around you is now easier from people around you!

\- _Shop Business - In Neighbourhood, City, State, Globally_ \- It's now easier to find and connect with shop near you as well as any corner of the world based on the Location!

\- _Lost or Found Item - Share with Nearby People_ It's now easier to share and ask help for missing item or Share any found Item in lost and found place!

REPEAT: We are under Beta and only MVP at the moment to test, if people like you like the IDEA of people connecting around you!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any feedback will be helpful!</comment>


CSSEvolve: guided stylesheet evolution (release inspired by recent evolving A/B testing post) - <AUTHOR> http://somanyschemes.com/2008/11/26/cssevolve-guided-stylesheet-evolution/

<comment><USER2> 2009: CSS stylesheets become self-aware and independently perform evolution

Someone set us up the bomb.

</comment><comment><USER3> I coded something similar a loooong time ago (long since lost the code) except that it had a hot-or-not type of grading system so the user would be shown each variation one a time, then user simply clicks on a rating for how much they like it on a scale of 0 - 10 and then they see the next variation. Of course the challenge is to seed it with meaningful font, layout, and color scheme templates otherwise the user gets bored slogging through hideous variants with purple fonts and lime green backgrounds.

I hesitate to even mention it because some jerk will run off and patent it, but the real killer app of this kind guided design is architecture design software. Imagine a screen that simply shows you 4 possible variants of architectural plan, you choose just the ones you like, and the software cross- breeds the preferred designs and shows you 4 other variants and so on. People who don't know a damn thing about architecture could still use the software because they only need to point at what they like, and anyone can do that.

</comment><comment><USER4> While the direction this is taking is ingenious, the concrete implementation is useless. There's a reason why genetic algorithms are automated - most of the mutations are useless, so it's a waste of person's time to look at all of them.

What they could do is have the system teach itself which types of mutations go well with people. body { text-decoration: line-through } is not something anyone would want, yet it's the first thing I got.

Edit: minor complaint - no UTF8 support.

Another idea - a flicker mode, with the original and evolved design switching every half second or so. That's how astronomers detected disappearing stars in the past.

</comment><comment><USER5> mindblowing! i could easily use this to optimize the appearance of the css in my websites... excellent work.</comment>


Ask HN: How and at what age to tell your kids we are mortal? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> When my boy was three, we came home from his preschool on a Wednesday afternoon and Cassy was dead under the coffee table...she was fifteen...old for a dog. I said, Cassy has died. Humans are equipped to handle death. Mortality is a higher order concept.

My random advice from the internet is that your child is probably more comfortable with death than an adult would be.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> They show corpses on TV now, so before you ever leave the TV news on in front of them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Kill two birds with one stone, tell them Santa died.</comment>


Comcast May Have Found a Net Neutrality Loophole - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/11/comcast-may-have-found-a-major-net-neutrality-loophole/?mbid=social_fb <comment><USER2> Can someone help explain how this isn't anti-competitive?

I want to use and enjoy Sling.com and Netflix, yet doing so might cause me to go over my monthly data cap and in turn be costly. Yet, my Internet provider who controls the pipes and the arbitrary cap it has placed on me is offering a OTT type service that doesn't count against my cap; won't be costly to me.

How is that not anti-competitive?

It's a bit amazing that they are trying to pull this when no one likes them and this makes them look even worse!

<comment><USER3> Over-deliver, you're anti-competitive. Over-charge, you're being a monopolist. Provide what everyone else provides at the price they provide it, you're colluding.

Businesses are trying to make a buck. The people coming up with and enforcing regulations are also just trying to make a buck.

<comment><USER4> If Comcast ever over-deliver, I'll eat my hat.

<comment><USER5> I get more download and upload speed than my package includes, and I am a Comcast customer. use salt, hats are gross.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My computer is part of the internet. Comcast is using Internet Protocol to deliver a service to an internet-connected device which is not owned or operated by Comcast (my computer). What happens on the other side of the cable modem is completely irrelevant. How Comcast meters or bills this traffic is completely irrelevant. This is an internet service by any reasonable definition.

<comment><USER7> If you look at your cable contract though that's not what you're paying for. You're paying to be part of Comcast's network in your area, which happens to be connected to other networks.

Same goes with speed, they aren't promising you 50mbps download from the internet, they're promising you that speed connection to their network.

<comment><USER8> Isn't that essentially true of _any_ ISP? Except that a good ISP just routes packets without metering, inspecting, or manipulating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Microsoft got broken into pieces on antitrust violations for less than this. Comcast's latest strategy is obviously anticompetitive. I wonder how far they can push their luck before an ambitious prosecutor takes them down.

<comment> the-dude Got broken into pieces? Sources please.

IIRC they escaped any meaningful punishment.

<comment><USER10> [http://time.com/3553242/microsoft- monopoly/](http://time.com/3553242/microsoft-monopoly/)

This is worth a read, but tldr a judge ordered the split, that was rejected on appeal and the doj settlement was far less harsh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is hardly a loophole, this is just comcast using their cable to provide TV service - which is after all, what they do.

Just because it's the same wire, does mean it's internet.

<comment><USER12> > Just because it's the same wire, does mean it's internet.

Just because it's not the internet doesn't mean that we shouldn't regulate it. The obvious spirit of the law is preventing the owners of physical infrastructure from favoring certain content providers (themselves, usually) over others whatever the technical means by which this unequal treatment is accomplished.

Yes, this idea means that the FCC should make Comcast count traditional cable against its customers' data caps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Mixed feelings. I do think zero-rating violates net neutrality, however benignly. This zero-rating is plainly a threat to Netflix and crew, at least assuming you can random-access shows and not just catch sequential channel streams.

However, as annoying as it is to see Comcast find a new predatory business model, I don't see much difference between this and VOIP or even traditional cable, other than at the terminating end the bridge serves the information into your local network so that non-dedicated clients can get at it too.

If all this really does is move the functionality of the set-top box into an app, which is my current read, it's really hard to say this isn't OK.

<comment><USER14> I see their zero-rating as a much smaller issue than the data caps.

"It's ridiculous that in this day and age, people have to worry about their internet usage like it's some kind of limited resource."

The caps are driving additional zero-rating services.

<comment><USER15> Well "internet usage" is a limited resource, you need better/more equipment to support more usage.

"Unlimited Internet" was always a bit of a misnomer, at least now they're being honest about it

<comment><USER16> 1 Mbit/s sustained translates into a bit above 300 Gbyte per month.

So they can easily get back to fair use by limiting speeds to a couple of megabits. Of course that would kill streaming tv.

Another way of looking at it, you can listen to audio 24x7 and not go over quota. Watching tv all day every day is not going to work.

<comment><USER15> But most people aren't streaming 24 hours a day, but only in a specific period. So if the plan is 300 GB/month, then having higher speeds is more interesting than having slower speeds (especially if a slower speed doesn't let you actually use all your data)

<comment><USER16> That's sort of where it went wrong. You offer video streaming rates and now people think, cool, tv, let's turn it on all day.

If you offer data rates where you can afford to offer fair use, then each year you can offer higher data rates. Which is what people like.

Where I live, I see this problem mostly on mobile. You see telcos offer insanely high 4G data rates and a data limit that is low enough that you can burn through that in a couple of minutes.

The net result is that nobody cares anymore. In general, people don't want to keep track of their uses. It makes for a poor experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It seems that what Comcast is saying is that Internet traffic is "expensive" and needs to be metered, supposedly because of the costs incurred to maintain an Internet cross-connect.

However, based on this statement, it seems that Comcast is saying that they have plenty of in-network capacity. They are "encouraging" customers to stream video, as long as that video doesn't need to come via an upstream Internet handoff.

So, by an extension of this logic, Comcast customers should be able to stream peer-to-peer traffic within the network without it counting towards monthly caps.

Technically, upstream and downstream data has different "costs" in a cable network, so I could see an argument where Comcast claims that upstream traffic, even in a peer-to-peer setup, has costs associated with it. But, I think that by making statements and policies like this one, Comcast is actually slowly eroding their ability to limit and cap data, they are introducing loopholes and work-arounds that could actually be used against them.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a great example of how regulation can actually nurture innovation. During the whole net neutrality debate there was much FUD about how it would hamper business and discourage investment in networks. Yet here we have business and investment continuing and the customer continuing to get improved services.

<comment><USER19> Two words: Data caps.

When Comcast is pushing for-pay IP-based services and then clamps down on all the others by implementing caps on their data, that is anti-competitive.

Comcast's internal, fully-laden cost for a gigabyte of data delivered to your home is on the order of a few pennies. Charging several hundred thousand percent for overage is beyond anti-competitive and well into the extremely damaging.

Time to write the FCC and FTC again.

<comment><USER18> I think in this case it's a question of why there isn't more competition. Clearly if Comcast's charges are unreasonable or capped at an unreasonably low amount it should _in theory_ be corrected in a marketplace where customers can flee to a competitor who isn't fleecing them. Except obviously they can't where Comcast enjoys a monopoly, is fixing prices with other competitors or prices are set externally by a "regulator" unanswerable to consumer groups.

I don't think framing this as a net neutrality issue will get you very far - it's clearly monopolistic behaviour and you should be writing the DOJ looking for antitrust proceedings ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I dislike Comcast as much as the next guy, but how is this any different from the On Demand services they've been offering? Because you can use it on tablets and laptops? What if they added functionality to their cable boxes that allowed them to stream the video to devices over the home network? Wouldn't that be the same thing from the consumers point of view? It seems like the issue isn't as obvious as it appears...

</comment><comment><USER21> T-mobile is doing exactly the same thing with their own content: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10567216](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10567216) (from last week)

Why is anyone surprised that they all came up with the same idea at the same time? Even if we leave out the idea of collusion, why would they all go for "net neutrality" unless they each thought they could spin it their direction?

I'll note the same thing I did on the original thread:

Get users used to "free" for some thing and if the FCC comes back to slap them, [provider] says "well, _we_ want to give you free data but the FCC wants us to charge you for it."

And then people continue using more data and upgrades their plans (or pays for overages) making them more money or people throw a fit at the FCC.

Either way, [provider] wins.

</comment><comment><USER22> Comcast has a history of being a video streaming/television company. The want to be a television company. The problem is, their customers don't want them to be a television company, they want them to be a utility: simple, reliable and commoditized, like electricity and water. They have the natural monopoly (wires and rights of way) that makes a utility, and internet access _is_ a utility in the same way electricity is. But video streaming is naturally competitive and the only way they can have an advantage there is by sabotaging their utility side.

</comment><comment><USER23> So like, why isn't there a company that offers a non-evil alternative to Comcast yet? Or, how would I go about starting this company?

<comment><USER24> You just need several billion dollars of investment to dig your own cable to each of the customers and then fight each municipality to actually let you dig those cables while Comcast is lobbying hard against you :)

<comment><USER4> I think you'll find it easier to get hired as a manager at Comcast, then use political shenanigans to replace the HR department with a trusted posse of like-minded individuals and following that replace all of management. Then you can upgrade the physical infrastructure and to do that, lobby for laws that will allow other companies to easily install their own.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you think robotics is the next big thing? - <AUTHOR> Software is the hot thing right now, it has a good jobs market, going to the future, do you think, in your personal opinion, that robotics will take over the world in the next few years ? <comment><USER2> No. Do some research on the history of robotics. It has been predicted as the next big thing for more than 25 years. Ask yourself what really has to happen for mobile intelligent robots to be commonplace? You'll see it is not software alone.

</comment><comment><USER3> software:apples::robotics:oranges. They are not comparable in practice however tied they may be in your imagination.</comment>


The white iPhone is here - <AUTHOR> http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone

<comment><USER2> With no new features, this is Apple keeping the buzz alive.</comment>


What's in store for Google I/O? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/05/android-4-3-google-babel-and-the-nexus-7-whats-in-store-for-google-io/

<comment><USER2> Be careful to check that this new Nexus 7 doesn't have any features disabled before you buy one. The tethering is entirely disabled on on my Nexus 7 3G, bought outside of any contract or carrier, as it is for everyone else (search for "Nexus 7 hotspot", although that's all after the fact, this little tidbit never featured on the Nexus 7 product page or specifications).

I can't for the life of me imagine why they did that, it's ruined the Nexus brand for me.

Edit: Thanks for the downvotes.

<comment><USER3> It's your carrier that is blocking that, not the Nexus 7.

<comment><USER2> If that's the case, I am not sure it is unless you have a link or reference, why is a computer bought specifically outside of a contract obeying these directives?

Imagine the reaction if Apple or Microsoft sold a computer which "obeyed ISP flags" to limit bandwidth or made all networking options for linking to a second computer disappear from their menus depending on the whim of an ISP.

The implications are just as bad, or even worse, for Google and the Nexus brand if what you say is true.

<comment><USER4> _why is a computer bought specifically outside of a contract obeying these directives_

Because your data plan exists under a contract with your carrier. Because most users would be angry if their carrier suddenly terminated their connection or layered on additional tethered data costs because of detected second-device traffic (both of which have happened).

The Nexus devices are targeted at everyperson. Not just hackers and rogues.

No-tethering flags exist because wireless resources are actually a finite resource, and because carriers desperately rely upon certain usage models which is basically that you overbuy and underuse, which tethering tends to significantly offset. Should they? Probably not. But if you want tethering, talk to your carrier.

<comment><USER2> "Not just hackers and rogues", well it was billed as a premium device with the full Android experience.

It's a data SIM specifically for use as a modem SIM not as a phone, so while I understand _they_ want to do that I don't see why Google has to go along with it. Despite all the comments in this thread unless it's mandated by law somewhere it's still on Google's head as I see it.

<comment><USER5> _"Not just hackers and rogues", well it was billed as a premium device with the full Android experience._

Since when has the whole Android experience included being able to ignore contractual limitations? That's a different experience than I've ever had.

<comment><USER2> You are just assuming there is some contractual tethering ban. It's a data SIM designed to go in a usb 3G modem or a tablet. There's no contractual agreement between Google selling an independent computer and a telco in central Europe as far as I am aware.

Edit:

Therefore Google should prioritise me and not the profits of another company.

What's the company going to do, ban non-contract devices from their services? Another company will just scoop up all those users.

Google is disadvantaging me and trashing their own brand for the profits of another company. Nobody in this thread has produced any evidence Google is legally required to do this in any jurisdiction. And if they do have a compay- to-company contract with them it certainly wouldn't be a disadvantageous one, it would likely be a contract to do this so that the telco would have the Nexus 7 on their paid plans too. _Again_ that's Google crippling my device for their own profits. _Again_ it's a deception, and _again_ it's on their head.

I don't know why people are coming into the thread here so strongly to defend huge corporations that are selling computers and Internet connections and arbitrarily cutting people off from legitimate features. All the bandwidth is metered anyway so it doesn't matter whether the first device or a second device via the first uses it anyway. Or they could readily implement shaping (as in Australia, full speed to Xgig, slower speed thereafter) and just state it openly.

There is no reason for any of this besides naked profit taking and deception.

<comment><USER5> _I don't know why people are coming into the thread here so strongly to defend huge corporations..._

I know _my_ reaction when I see statements that seem too strongly worded to be rational is to play devil's advocate, to try to bring a little rationality to the conversation (or, alternatively, learn the reason why the strong working is warranted).

 _There is no reason for any of this besides naked profit taking and deception._

Saying _there is no reason_ in this case assumes more knowledge of the situation than you could possibly have. Besides that, you begged the question in the previous paragraph.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A release of Android 4.3 for the Nexus _4_ fixing the Bluetooth bugs and the WiFi bugs and the battery bugs and the IPSEC VPN bugs would be nice, because frankly my previous Galaxy S2 worked a lot better, even with Gingerbread 2.3.5. Wish I'd never bothered upgrading.

It's a shame because the Nexus 7 has been for the most part trouble-free.

<comment><USER7> Oh! No Nexus for me then.

<comment><USER8> Don't drop the whole series based on a few bad experiences.

I have been using a Galaxy Nexus since they came out, and a Nexus 7 for almost a year (both currently at 4.2.2 via normal OTA updates). Neither has had any of the problems described.

Lemons happen. Also, these are complex machines that run complex software; malware happens too, as does innocently-perpetrated excessive resource consumption by background processes created by third-party developers that either aren't careful enough or simply missed something complex.

There's a lot of reasons things like this can happen. By many accounts the Nexus 4 does actually have serious issues in a lot of ways... of course, there are also many people that have and love this phone, too.

Don't judge the entire line based on a few complaints.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I doubt it will happen but I wish Google start to refine and simplify the Android UI. It's starting to get bloated and overly complex. There's only so many buttons, long presses, drags, and gestures you can jam onto a small screen. I've been evaluating a Windows Phone device to potentially replace my Android phone and it's so refreshing to have a UI that's not jam packed with features I have no desire to use. I wish the app situation was better but at this point I'm willing to compromise there to have a more usable UI. If Google can un-kitchen sink 4.3 a bit I might reconsider.

<comment><USER10> What you seek for is a big change. 4.3 is an incremental update. Key lime pie can have big improvements in UI section, which I myself am looking forward to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Google Babble would have been exciting a few years ago. Right now, however, I'm already on iMessage/WeChat/Skype/FB Chat/Whatsapp, which is too much, really.

Since I don't already use any of Google's chat platforms, I'm going to avoid Babble. In fact, I'm kind of hoping it fails to gain traction. I'd hate to be 'forced' to use it in the future.

I suspect I'm no the only one thinking this.

</comment><comment><USER12> No mention of chromebooks? I bet there are some exciting announcements there too

<comment><USER13> PixelPro $2300

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The article didn't mention a spiritual successor to GOOG Reader. One interesting way to increase G+ use would obviously be to embed Reader functionality into G+. Stick a RSS feed into a circle. Of course its probably too late, most/many users already abandoned them. I went to Newsblur (and paid for it) and am pretty happy overall.

The theoretical GOOG babble product should also, in addition to whats listed in the article, include GOOG voice, somehow. GOOG must have dozens of "products" that all boil down to "send / recv a message" and I would like them to merge into one.

They should just buy doggcatcher as the best in class podcast fetcher and rename it "dogg-oogle" or something, and mush that into the "babble" or "g+" as per above.

I still have never found a place to try goog wallet on my nexus 7 in person. I have fat stacks of cash so you'd think there would be some interest in getting some of it. Most of the "lifestyle" vendors don't apply to me as I don't drink coffee or hang out in convenience stores and airports.

<comment><USER15> There is no successor to Reader, it's gone. Forever. Babel (Hangouts) is not theoretical, is very real and has been leaked already. It's just a walled garden (they threw XMPP away and went with their own proprietary protocol) so I personally would steer clear from it.

<comment><USER16> Nothing you're saying is based on anything but speculation. Babel (most likely called Hangouts) is real, yes, but that's about all we know about it.</comment></comment></comment>


Social Fixer extension hacked (192k users affected) - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/socialfixer/posts/10155109803749342 <comment><AUTHOR> It looks like a script was added (insertion.js) that inserts a script from [https://unpkg.com](https://unpkg.com).

[https://pastebin.com/q9xT21Xr](https://pastebin.com/q9xT21Xr)

The script seems to be blacklisted currently, but the new code has a changing hash based on time since install which I think allows the hack to continue working after it has been blacklisted.

I am hoping I am safe as uBlock caught the script before it could be executed due to it coming from 3rd party domain.

[https://i.imgur.com/0lck7mG.png](https://i.imgur.com/0lck7mG.png)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well done to unpkg for being quick to block the malicious packages:

[https://github.com/unpkg/unpkg.com/commit/ac09a03c75a51997b9...](https://github.com/unpkg/unpkg.com/commit/ac09a03c75a51997b909a63546f9773ca9aeb837)</comment></comment>


Magicians And Mathematicians: The Missing Human Side of Quantitative Finance - <AUTHOR> http://www.wilmott.com/blogs/paul/index.cfm/2008/12/12/Magicians-And-Mathematicians

<comment><USER2> There is the field of Behavorial Finance, which assumes everyone isn't rational. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_finance>

I would have gotten a PHD in Finance focusing on behavioral finance 12 years ago that but at the time I would have been poorly received and unlikely to get tenure since I was undermining the central supports of the entire field.</comment>


Free tool to track the private jets of the Russell 3000, VC firms, PE firms, HF - <AUTHOR> https://jettracker.xyz <comment><AUTHOR> The main use case for this is tracking potential mergers and acquisitions: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-02/hedge- fun...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-02/hedge-funds-are- tracking-private-jets-to-find-the-next-megadeal)

There are also some more creative ones, like tracking CEO vacations: [https://www.lebow.drexel.edu/sites/default/files/event/Tails...](https://www.lebow.drexel.edu/sites/default/files/event/Tailspotting%20Yermack.pdf)</comment>


Just launched: http://talkMiner.com - <AUTHOR> http://talkminer.com this is a video search engine for lectures and talks. It extracts keyframes like slides, analysis them with optical character recognition, and shows them in a nice UI for quick skimming. <comment><USER2> great idea. great execution. poor design. You did the hard stuff, now make it look good and you'll have the complete package. Nice work.

<comment><USER3> I think he should keep how it is. It's so simple.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, totally agreed. Just a few changes here and there to make the colors less garish and tweaks in the padding would make the content stand out better. Other than that, it's very functional.

He launched with the right MVP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like what I see. I think it would benefit from a "browsing" entry point as well as a search box, because I often want to see a stimulating lecture, but don't have a subject in mind.

<comment><USER6> I think the recently added talks let you browse through various talks without having any topic in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> am i the only one that was expecting something to do with the trapped chilean miners?

<comment><USER8> No, I thought it'd be that too! Send a message to the trapped miners! Top answers will be curated/voted up and then sent along!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The site is sweet. I really enjoy finding videos and searching through google is a pain. I can see this website be extremely useful. If you ever need any help with testing let me know.

I would definitely say once you get the core functionality done to work on some UI changes, which would really help out the look and feel.

</comment><comment><USER10> At first I thought this was another "launch" of a skinned, Google custom search. Those tend to fade away when the curator loses interest, etc.

But looking at your about page it seems to be different, looks like you're doing an interesting and useful thing to find/index talks, good luck with the site!

I like the all-slide thumbnail view, that will be really useful.

</comment><comment><USER11> One minor suggestion: Do not shorten titles so aggressively (or at least add full title to title element). Here's an example: <http://talkminer.com/searcher.jsp?q=scalability> \- all titles are prefixed by "Seattle Conference on Scalability:" and then almost all of the real title gets cut off.

<comment><USER12> Those short titles are coming from youtube. That is, the original youtube page for those videos has the 'truncated' titles. TalkMiner isn't truncating them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> BUG: The Share balloon hides behind the video -- at least the one I'm seeing here: [http://talkminer.com/viewtalk.jsp?videoid=jqjTBEfh4gM&q=](http://talkminer.com/viewtalk.jsp?videoid=jqjTBEfh4gM&q=) I'm using Opera, btw. [typo edit]

<comment><USER12> FWIW the share balloon shows correctly in firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really agree with robertg's comment, but I would also make the suggestion to include TED talks.

<comment><USER12> [http://talkminer.com/searcher.jsp?q=author:%22tedtalksdirect...](http://talkminer.com/searcher.jsp?q=author:%22tedtalksdirector%22)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a cool idea, I haven't seen something like this that's all encompassing. Ted.com is huge for talks within it's sphere, but for talks in general (as opposed to the more broad "videos in general" (youtube) this seems ideal.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a cool idea, I haven't seen something like this that's all encompassing. Ted.com is huge for talks within it's sphere, but for talks in general (as opposed to the more broad "videos in general (youtube) this seems ideal.

</comment><comment><USER16> Just crashed: <http://talkMiner.com>

<comment><USER12> Not a crash, just a (poorly) scheduled server restart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Killer feature for me--if you made this thing automatically extract the text from talks, I would be willing to pay for it. I love talks but hate having to wait through the whole thing to get all the information.

<comment><USER18> Maybe crowd-rated "spoiler" comments. A succinct paragraph on the core point of the talk would be huge for me with some of this kind of content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> i liked it, i really liked it.

the first thing i've searched is "django" and i got an awesome result. :)

congratulations and wish you all the best.

</comment><comment><USER20> There is no suggestions on incorrect spelling. Instead it just says no results found. WOuld be great if it can suggest a correct spelling.

</comment><comment><USER21> Very cool. Do you think a <http://www.khanacademy.org/> channel fits in?

</comment><comment><USER22> I get an Error 503</comment>


Handling 3D touch with JavaScript in mobile safari on the iPhone 6s - <AUTHOR> http://freinbichler.me/apps/3dtouch/ <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: The touch event now has a force attribute with values between 0 and 1.</comment>


Releasing startup soon -- Constructive criticisms needed for "buzz" page - <AUTHOR> http://www.coffeedig.com HN,

  I know all you guys have a short time so I'll try to be as quick as possible.  A friend and I are going to release our startup in about two months that will be a social approach to rating, buying, sharing and collecting coffee.
 37signals "getting real" is a book I hold close and dear and they recommend to get out a "buzz" page to collect contacts.  So I built a simple one with a few features:
- Linked up to fb instead of asking for emails for social proofing and its a lot easier to "like" something than give up your email address.
- Showed my friends screenshots to get quotes, linked to their twitter accounts to give credibility
- Since its not released it hasn't been featured in any outlets, I did however submit it to some of the leading "link dumps" and put their logos in there.  Even though being seen on digg isnt a big deal, the logos add credibility
- Offered incentives that will be followed up on: early adopter badges and early invites.
What I'd like from you guys: 1. Like it if you like coffee.  I'd be smitten.
2. What would you do to make a more efficient and effective buzz page to collect user bases?  What pearls of wisdom do you have to market and grow a new web app/startup?
3. If you are a coffee drinker, how do you think technology can be used to make your coffee experience better?  What would you really like to see in future iterations of a coffee application? (Some early requests from friends has been to add coffeehouses in the mix) <comment><USER2> Hmmm...there is no "action" that a visitor can take on your website. At least I can see none...

And 2ndly (and I am speaking from my own perspective as a coffee lover), the landing page, and the whole site for that matter, will do better if I see more pictures of coffee... At least that's what I think your site focus is on...good coffee right?

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't like the all caps text. Looks a little pixelated to me.

Also, facebook should probably be capitalized.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. A switch in the font face could be easier to read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm always a bit nervous with "revolutionary". By now, it's almost a buzzword.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, I felt a bit of the same. Switching to "new" may be a good idea.</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Our startup, CarcodeSMS, has been acquired by Edmunds.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.edmunds.com/car-news/edmundscom-acquires-carcode-sms-to-help-shoppers-dealers.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Long time Hacker Newser here (and one of the founders of CarcodeSMS). Just wanted to share with HN, as we're really excited. As part of their plans for the product, they're making it free for car dealerships to use, and would like to roll it out to all dealerships nationwide. Please feel free to ask me any questions or anything like that.

 _EDIT: One of the cool things about this, is that we won their Hackomotive competition back in February this year, and we 're the first startup that Edmunds has every acquired, since they were founded in 1966 (and since Edmunds.com was started in 1995)._

<comment><USER2> Congratulations!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I have to say it's been an awesome experience working with Edmunds.</comment></comment></comment>


ACTA - No consultation means no European legitimacy - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/02/acta-update-vii/index.htm

<comment><USER2> ACTA is not the beginning, nor the end. Bureaucratic minds are hard at work all the time on legislation just like it. If ACTA will fail, there are many options still available. At some point, the vigilance of the public will waver and ACTA 2.0/3.0 will be rammed through.</comment>


Open-source metal 3D printer - <AUTHOR> http://www.appropedia.org/Open-source_metal_3-D_printer

<comment><USER2> Sadly I can't find any images or videos of the product of the device. The site has a couple of videos showing it throwing sparks, but that's about it.

<comment><USER3> Agreed -- the fact that they don't show a single finished item tells me that the quality of the printed part must be _extremely_ bad.

<comment><USER4> It _is_ extremely bad. See the actual paper, where they show one part and its CAD model.

[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6678...](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6678531)

There's only a vague resemblance between model and part. No way could you use that sprocket. Not only are the edges rough, it has voids. You could grind or machine down down rough edges, but voids make the process worthless even for making blanks. That's about what you'd expect with MIG welding. Welding just isn't a good way to make smooth surfaces.

The low-end 3D printer people tend to obsess on the problems of building a 3-axis motion system (a completely solved problem in CNC machines) and gloss over the problems of what's happening at the weld point. The common extruder- type printers are trying to weld a hot thing to a cold thing, which never works very well. (In soldering, that creates cold solder joints. In welding, it creates bad welds.) Heating the bed plate helps a little, but once the thing being built is more than a few cm high, the build plate isn't accomplishing much. That's why most taller objects made with low-end 3D printers fail.

There's a plastic welding technique that's been in use since the 1950s that works reliably. ([http://www.professionalplastics.com/WELDER](http://www.professionalplastics.com/WELDER)). Not only is the welding rod heated, the target area is heated with hot air. This produces a solid, reliable weld. I've suggested doing something similar for extruder-type 3D printers, using small lasers (2-5 watts) to preheat the target area just ahead of the extruder. So far nobody has done that.

<comment><USER5> Heating things with a laser is not quite as easy as you might think. Different materials will absorb different wavelengths of light at different rates. So for example a 1um laser might not heat white polyethylene enough while it would melt black ABS. Hot air has the advantage that it is always a consistent temperature regardless of the material.

<comment><USER4> Use a laser diode pulsed with pulse width modulation, at perhaps 1KHz, duty cycle < 80%. During the off period, view the hot area with two photodiodes behind different-wavelength IR filters. The ratio between the outputs gives you the temperature. Go closed loop on temperature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's so cool that it's an inverse delta! Sadly this is probably because they had to find a way to circumvent patents.

<comment><USER7> Not necessarily. Tilting the substrate platform lets you build more complex shapes without support material.

<comment><USER6> I have a delta 3d printer and I'm having a hard time imagining how this would work... Do you have an example?

<comment><USER7> Looking closer, this doesn't apply here. The Stewart platform allows 6 degrees of freedom, with useful amounts of tilt. The inverted delta used here is 3 axis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Additive manufacturing pretty much always needs some sort of leveling phase to cope with z-axis irregularities. Without that you can't hold tolerance. Furthermore without support material you're limited in what you can build.

Looking at the pictures this seems like it makes metallic blobs approximating the shape. I suppose if you have a CNC to post-process it into something closer that may be fine. It'd be nicer to do the machining on the fly, but with the width of the material deposition it looks like it would drip down the sides if you did that.

<comment><USER9> With this design you might but you can get good essentially flat layers using the same essential process. There are existing commercial machines that use metal welding to do mixed additive and subtractive manufacturing. It's really a question of getting the welder dialed in so it creates a smooth enough surface. The weld will also fill into the small inconsistencies in height better than filament.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9IdZ2pI5dA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9IdZ2pI5dA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Perhaps manufacturing processes like laser sintering or 3D printing with a MIG welder have not become mainstream because traditional metalworking processes like casting, turning, and milling are so much faster and much more repeatable. Let me know when this thing can hold tolerances of +/\- 0.0001". We'll probably have a cure for cancer by then.

Metal can be a tricky material to work with. It takes a lot of force manipulate. If you don't know what you are doing, you can very easily get seriously injured or even killed. To me, it would seem much more rational to try to build low-cost milling and turning centers that are small enough to move into a house without taking out the walls and simple enough to maintain where you don't need to have certified mechanics come every time you crash it. You're still going to have to make a considerable investment of time to learn how to safely and properly operate it, but that seems much more realistic scenario than emailing a file to grandma, having her put on her sunglasses, then pressing "Print," followed by 6 hours of sparks flying.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are applications for additive metal manufacturing processes, but I believe that the cases where they are the best solution are few and far between.

<comment><USER5> I think your bar is a bit high. Standard milling tolerences are almost 50x higher than what you state. Casting is much worse. The point is that additive printing won't take over the metal world any time soon but it does have some advantages. Try to machine a hollow sphere for example. There are plenty of shapes that can't be traditionally machined.

<comment><USER4> Yes, milling to 0.0001in tolerance is rare, although possible on some machines. 0.001in is not unusual, though. This 3D printer, from the pictures, seems to be delivering about 0.2in. That's worse than sand casting. Still worse, some of the errors are in the void direction, undersize. If this thing consistently produced a good solid metal blank, ready for finish machining, it could substitute for having a foundry for small jobs. But it's not even that good.

There are very good, but expensive 3D printers that print excellent metal parts. Check out Space-X's 3D printed rocket engine for the new Dragon spacecraft. Shapeways can now do small steel parts for $10 + $5/cc with reasonable tolerances. 3D printing of metal works now. This welder thing, not so much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd rather see this used as an robot-welder than a "3D printer". At least enclose this in an argon chamber dammit!

</comment><comment><USER12> How about something like SHIP2? They print the shape in the green and compress it using gas. This allows 3D printing of Inconel in shapes that require almost no machining after production.

[0] [http://www.summitmaterials.com/near-net- shape/](http://www.summitmaterials.com/near-net-shape/)

</comment><comment><USER13> See also [http://minimetalmaker.com/](http://minimetalmaker.com/)

</comment><comment><USER14> woah nice

</comment><comment><USER15> I have welded before and I know that you need to clean each weld with a wire brush. I just can't imagine what is created is very strong. We need some pictures and some stress tests validating it as useful.

<comment><USER16> They might be able to reduce the oxidation on each layer by enclosing the whole thing in a box filled with an inert gas. (This is the recommended technique for welding titanium, for example.)

Argon is relatively cheap.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are good examples and features of a Professional Website? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking to finally replace my "under construction" page on my domain with a professional page reflecting my work/interests/achievements. So i was looking for input and examples of professional web pages. <comment><USER2> Depends on your industry. A designer would have a completely different page than a programmer, marketer, or plumber.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am a soon-to-be computer science graduate. I want to promote my projects and resume.

<comment><USER2> You could do something like David Wurtz - <http://davidwurtz.com/> \- with a blog on the side for more detailed information on the progress of your projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> hmm something like that, but i think im gunna go for something a little more in depth, content wise

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> are you using some type of framework?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes im using drupal, im planning on making a theme based off of zen

<comment><USER3> look at smashingmagazine.com

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, thats more like it</comment></comment></comment></comment>


California Says Tax Revenue 'at Risk' From Facebook Drop - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-02/california-says-tax-revenue-at-risk-from-facebook-drop

<comment><USER2> I can't quite believe any govt official with half a brain would forecast tax revenues based on the vagaries of company stock prices.

</comment><comment><USER3> "hundreds of millions of dollars of income tax revenue assumed in the state budget plan are at risk."

Who runs a government like that?

<comment><USER4> This is a common risk when you have an extremely progressive tax system, or rely heavily on taxing companies. Companies and high income people have volatile income, making tax revenues volatile.

If you want to avoid it, you'll need a more regressive tax system that leans heavily on the poor/middle class (e.g., the sort you find in Europe).

<comment><USER3> I could understand forecasting corporate taxes, but concretely relying on fluffy bunny overhyped IPOs in your budget seems irresponsible.

<comment><USER5> I agree wholeheartedly.

Then again, it seems that California _is_ a horrible manager of money. So maybe we shouldn't be too surprised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It appears Facebook is in need of a bailout.

<comment><USER7> Too big to facepalm!</comment></comment>


Dropbox Professional - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.dropbox.com/dropbox/2017/10/new-plan-dropbox-professional/ <comment><USER2> According to the new plans page [1], "shared link controls" for things like passwords and expiration dates will now no longer be available on the Plus plans like they have been for the last 5+ years? Am I reading this correctly? If so, that is a deeply unsatisfying regression buried in this announcement.

[1]: [https://www.dropbox.com/plans](https://www.dropbox.com/plans)

<comment><USER3> I noticed that too and that would definitely be a shame to have such a downgrade.

I see how Dropbox is trying to diversify their prices based on features. But honestly, they should try to compete harder with providers like Apple and Google by providing different storage tiers. Apple has 2TB for the same $9.99/mo Dropbox provides 1TB. At this point Dropbox has me mostly because of inertia and their reliability.

<comment><USER4> It's difficult to compare Dropbox to Apple, Google and Microsoft in terms of what they offer and for how much. All three of those giants are able to subsidize their storage offerings. Apple has their hardware business, Google has their ad business, and Microsoft has their software business. The storage offerings from all three are used to entice you into using their other services. It doesn't matter if they're profitable (and I'm willing to bet that they aren't). What does Dropbox have? Nothing but its storage offering.

<comment><USER5> If you're a consumer, it's easy to compare, though. Consumers don't care about the vendor's costs, just the price and some perception of stability (of which, if I had to bet, Dropbox and Apple are the most likely to not surprise- discontinue on us in the future).

That said I'm pretty happy with Dropbox and not going to switch. I'd love Smart Sync, though, but not at 2x the price I'm paying for Plus right now. $99 a year is great, $199 not so much.

<comment><USER6> OneDrive has been around for 10 years and we're one of the best known companies for backwards compatibility and keeping things far past their prime (Hotmail/Outlook.com, for instance, which has been out for 21 years, albeit only 20 under the company.)

What makes you think it's going to be surprise-discontinued?

<comment><USER5> Probably more detail than I can really articulate, but I've lately perceived a shift in how Microsoft wants to support legacy and maybe getting more aggressive in taking a stance in eliminating some.

Right now Microsoft seems really high on cloud, particularly as a means to make Office a subscription product (which helps with legacy support, as in the long run, there are no legacy versions to support in this model). From that respect, I don't think OneDrive is at any risk of ceasing to be a product, but I do think they might yo-yo the storage quotas and things like that. Didn't they do that with SkyDrive a while back?

I'd certainly rate their risk lower than Google, which does have a history of abandoning things that people really like.

Dropbox and Apple are lowest risk for me, but for two different reasons. For Dropbox, it _is_ their product, and they seem to make money. For Apple, it's baked into their user experience, and they tend to focus on that - rather than cut costs and compete on price, they'll make it more expensive if they need to, but it'll probably continue to work well.

<comment><USER6> You are right, your quota will depend on when you got the account and what you did. At various times, we had 5, 7, 15, and 25GB for free. When the big nerf happened from 25 to 7 (I think that's the one you're talking about), existing accounts could opt in to 25GB (personally, was not a fan that it was opt-in) for life. Same thing happened to the O365 offering, nerfed from unlimited to 1TB which is more reasonable, I don't know why anyone would offer unlimited storage honestly, that's just an open call for abuse.

Edit: For me, after Apple actually decided to integrate iCloud into macOS, I felt more secure about it staying, but before that it definitely felt like a pet project that might be abandoned. I still don't fully trust it with my documents, but since I have an iPhone, I have well over 15GB of photos and videos uploaded that I'd like to see stay for a while. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a hard time with Dropbox' pricing. I was a pro user once, but discontinued it because i didn't actually need that much storage, i would have been fine with 100GB for 40 EUR or something.

I pay 99 per year for Office365 which gives me the full office suite for 5 people who can each install everything on 5 devices + 1TB OneDrive. Of course OneDrive is no Dropbox, but it does it's job and holds the bulk of my data while i use Dropbox just for sharing.

<comment><USER8> I would say it's more that you don't need Dropbox's non-storage features and value Microsoft Office. My $100/year pays for the quality sync client and the web interface than the space (I have fewer files to sync than you do.)

Since there are probably more people who are paying for quality/reliability than paying "per gigabytes," they would badly hurt their business by offering a plan that cheap.

Since OneDrive's lower quality product satisfies you, you don't need what makes Dropbox good, and it doesn't make sense for them to pursue you by introducing commodity pricing.

<comment><USER7> Why can't they offer the same quality/reliability at $40 for say 250GB ? I value Dropbox quality sync, but i think they will have to lower prices sooner or later. And let's be honest, it's not that Dropbox is flawless, even when using just syncing i had my share of problems over the years that i used them (since 2009).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If anyone from Dropbox is following along in this thread, can you explain why your most requested feature has been ignored for years?

[https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox/Ignore-folder- withou...](https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox/Ignore-folder-without- selective-sync/idi-p/5926)

<comment><USER10> I don't work at Dropbox, but I believe it's ignored by design. Fewer users would upgrade their storage to the paid plans.

<comment><USER9> I hadn't even considered that TBH.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why is Dropbox straying so far from its core mission and competency?

 _Edit_

It seems like they're bloating up the product with features that have little relation to the core mission of providing secure storage, access, and sharing for files.

As a user and investor, I'd rather see:

\- Better, more competitive pricing.

Or if that's not an option, at the very least..

\- Stick to relevant technological innovation. For example, wouldn't it be cool if intelligent caching and network awareness would let you turn a 1TB drive into a 5TB drive? That would be a much more compelling story.

Given the stiff competition in the space, all this holds doubly true imho.

<comment><USER12> the "intelligent caching and network awareness" is basically the Smart Sync feature. Dropbox makes files appear as if they're on your hard drive when they're not and fetches them in the background when you actually need them all while trying to keep the files you really need locally cached for you.

Edit: there's some cool tech around this you can read about here: [https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2016/05/going-deeper-with- pro...](https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2016/05/going-deeper-with-project- infinite/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I might sign up for this just for Smart sync.

A great next step here would be to venture into the online document signing space (Ecosign, RightSignature, etc).

You've got probably 70% of what you need for it here already with Showcase.

EDIT: Tried to sign up but the linux client doesn't support Smart Sync yet. Support people tell me it's pending.

<comment><USER14> Smart sync is great news, happy to pay the extra for that.

Setting up on new computer has been painful since full sync takes couple of days (lots of small files). With smart it would be actually possible to travel with empty disk and sync needed files on destination.

<comment><USER15> > Setting up on new computer has been painful

What about Selective Sync which has been there for years?

<comment><USER14> Not very convenient when you have lots of files and deep structures. Selecting the stuff you need through that dialog is quite inconvenient (although doable, this is what I have been using to get the most important files on my computer first).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would love to see Dropbox get into the Productivity market. Google and Microsoft gives everything an enterprise would need, Storage, Sync, Document collaboration, Online word, sheets etc., email etc.

Dropbox so far is a brilliant file sync and storage service. Dropbox Paper may be a start, but if they want to stay relevant, productivity is something they will have to do.

<comment><USER17> I think they have less reason to be concerned about their competitors than they do about their pricing. $99/year for a somewhat crippled version of Dropbox is steep.

<comment><USER18> I am not sure what you mean by crippled... nor do I have vested interest in Dropbox. However, I would be remiss to not mention 1,000GB of storage on S3 would run you $23USD. Now this is before calculating management, request and data transfer pricing.

I just did the math and now thinking I should pay for Dropbox, instead of S3.

<comment><USER19> Yes but most people don't use 1tb, which is a problem with inflexible pricing models like this. If you're using 100 gb, which is probably the more typical user, you're still paying $100 a year, which isn't competitive with other options in the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So they created a new Pro plan:

[https://www.dropbox.com/plans/individual?trigger=nr](https://www.dropbox.com/plans/individual?trigger=nr)

Recently, they renamed the old Pro plan to Plus. This sucks quite a bit for long-time users, since they are only adding new features (smart sync, full content search) to the new Pro plan.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, I bet they peg the average "storage" per customer around 300GB. People are forced to manage the space on their HDD and not simply dump everything to Dropbox. If everyone used the 1TB... I imagine Dropbox wouldn't look the same pricing wise and/or have some serious heart ache about it.

Like over provisioning in the VPS space... maybe, I don't know for sure, just throwing this out there food for thought.

<comment><USER21> I got my Classic Dropbox account upped to around 300GB for life because I answered a question at a conference. I haven't exceeded it for the last seven years or so.

<comment><USER22> PyCon by chance?

<comment><USER21> No, Reflections projections at U of I.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Dropbox's "Smart Sync" sounds a lot like Google's "Drive File Stream" \- [https://gsuite.google.com/campaigns/index__drive-fs- eap.html](https://gsuite.google.com/campaigns/index__drive-fs-eap.html)

<comment><USER24> Except Dropbox's Smart Sync has been available for a year already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> A showcase portfolio? Is that still a problem in need of fixing? I can't imagine myself using this and I've been using dropbox for ages and I work for myself in the creative industry.

<comment><USER26> You're on Hacker News and your name is "digitalengineer." You're probably not their target customer :)

I have a bunch of friends in the creative space who use dropbox exclusively to share their work. It's a portfolio for them that's easier to update and control what the prospective client sees. Some of them also have a website portfolio (typically a squarespace setup) but they take so much time to build and maintain with fresh work that they end up sending both a link to the website and dropbox for the latest work.

I totally see why Dropbox is doing this, I just wonder if there are enough creatives who use it this way to make them any substantial gains or if the cool kids convinced them this was the most important thing to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If you need to, here is how you cancel your dropbox account... they don't make it easy to find. www.dropbox.com/downgrade

<comment><USER12> Errr, I don't get this reaction. If you were already a Dropbox customer, you haven't lost a single feature, right?

<comment><USER28> They quietly removed shared link controls from Plus accounts (previously Pro accounts). Apparently customers already in Plus will keep that granfathered, but new customers won't. That's a feature lost, as if you decide to cancel and comeback, you won't get it back unless you upgrade. They have also negated selective sync to Plus customers, ignoring hundreds of comments on their forum.

<comment><USER12> The point still stands that if you have an account, and Dropbox was worth it yesterday, it's worth it today. Would be nice to get Smart Sync, but there's nothing you lost to make Dropbox less valuable then it was yesterday. (unless you were expecting your existing account to get Smart Sync soon?)

(also note that selective sync != smart sync)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So they're trying to compete with Behance? That actually kinda sorta explains the recent, somewhat odd redesign. Not sure how they'll manage to take market from Behance though.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'd pay money for a replacement for their old "Public" folder that gives me:

1\. A directory on my drive that's automatically synced to a public folder on a web server

2\. The convenience of Dropbox's Finder/Explorer integration (right-click to copy link)

First one is pretty trivial with a cron job (or equivalent) and some rsync-fu. Second one, not sure. That's basically the convenience factor I'd pay a few bucks a month for. That and never having to check if the cron job's running. I want brain-dead simple. Anybody know of something that does this?

Their "link to your file(s) on Dropbox.com, embedded in a fancy web interface" feature(s) seems pretty useful honestly. _Especially_ the history of who viewed the file -- that's a real differentiating feature. Different use case though.

Edit: I'm not sure why this is being downvoted.

<comment><USER12> You can have most of what the public folder offered for $5/month here: [https://www.site44.com](https://www.site44.com) (Dropbox API app)

If you just want to right click to get a shared link...Dropbbox has always supported that. If you don't like the ugly chrome Dropbox puts around your content, append "?raw=1" to the links Dropbox returns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm a long time Dropbox user, paying €14 per month (including the extended version history and taxes).

If I upgrade to Pro to try it out and then downgrade to Plus, I'll probably lose the "shared link controls" feature. To take a feature out of a current plan in order to convince people to jump on your new plan — that's a pretty shitty thing to do for any company.

Also €14 is already above the threshold that I'm willing to pay as a professional and yes, I rely on Dropbox to keep my data safe and for sharing stuff with others. But I've been doing it in the hope that Dropbox will include features that I need and I've been glad to support them.

Features like online _full-text indexing_ are missing from Plus and I need that, because I'm searching for documents on my mobile phone too. And I've been putting up with it hoping that it will eventually be included.

And now they want me to pay €20 for that, not including the extended versioning? I'm also a FastMail user, paying around €4 for email. So that would be a €24 per month for file storage, plus email, forgoing the extended version history, going out of my own pocket.

Well, Google's GSuite for Business is €9.52 (including taxes), which includes email and unlimited storage (they say 1TB for under 5 users, but truth is they aren't capping your account until you abuse it). And on last year's Black Friday I saw Office 365 Family offers for €4 / month.

Now I understand that Dropbox has the best sync engine. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now — and I might try the Pro plan this month. But if that Smart Sync feature doesn't do wonders for me, I'm switching, sorry.

Also Smart Sync is not available for Linux. Again, I've been putting up with their big price because I care about Linux. Not seeing the Linux client evolving however makes me wonder about their long term support and seriously, if they ever drop Linux support, I'll drop them like a hot potato.

</comment><comment><USER32> I wonder if axing public folders was partially done because of the, at the time, upcoming Dropbox Professional? If you could share an interactive HTML mockup as part of the free service, there is little incentive to pay extra for a professional service.

<comment><USER12> I don't think the decision to remove the public folder had anything to do with making money. I think it was getting very little use by new users and it complicated the product.

And these days you can use a Dropbox API app to get something just as good and in some ways better than the public folder. Check out [https://www.site44.com/](https://www.site44.com/) It has no problem linking to free Dropbox accounts. (though it is a paid service...)

<comment><USER33> I disagree. They haven't publicly touted the feature for years but there are millions of files that are now dead and no longer accessible because they couldn't be arsed to keep minimal infrastructure in place to support it.

<comment><USER12> Public folders for legacy users were supported for several years after new users stopped getting the feature. The actual number of people still accessing public links after those years was quite low...

But yea, it certainly sucks to have to remove functionality, especially from such long time and loyal users. I just want to make the argument that this wasn't done to somehow trick people into upgrading their plans, but with the goal of creating a better product (which sometimes means a simpler product).

edit: For a timeline breakdown...accounts created after late 2012 stopped getting public folders. Public folders for legacy users kept working until March of this year. That's ~4.5 years of support for a feature only accessible to legacy accounts. They certainly did not foresee Dropbox Professional when they made the decision to stop creating more public folders. [https://www.dropbox.com/help/files-folders/public- folder](https://www.dropbox.com/help/files-folders/public-folder)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Dropbox has been dropping out of favor for me. Their app now has non- notifications on my system menu (Check out this new feature!), and it drains my laptop's battery when there's lots of syncing going on. I also I didn't like how they handled the Accessibility controls fiasco.

I bought my parents a subscription to iCloud and whats really great about the product is that they don't even know they have it, they just know their iPhones and Macbook aren't nagging them about space anymore (They're not techies).

So far iCloud has been working really smoothly for them and I'm considering the switch.

<comment><USER35> How did you provide payment information for iCloud for an account that wasn't your own? Or is your CC the one on file for your parents' account? I want to do the same thing for my own parents, but they have their own CC on file and AFAIK there's no way to supply a different one for a one-off purchase.

<comment><USER36> Family controls let you pay for someone else's storage (if they're on your family account). Buying then an iTunes gift card works as well.

I prepay my $36/year in iCloud storage for all of our synced family photos by purchasing a gift card each year and then applying it to my iTunes account (instead of dinging my CC $3/month, which is just annoying).

<comment><USER35> Thank you. That's a good idea, and I will look into this. With this method, do you get an alert or email when your period is about to expire?

<comment><USER36> Apple sends me an email invoice every month for the storage. If I still have a credit, it says "stored credit" was applied. I put an annual reminder in Google Calendar to re-up the account balance with a gift card. If I forget, I get the American Express push notification that Apple charged my card.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> As a paying Dropbox subscriber for many years, all I see is Dropbox removing features (like public folders) or making existing features worse (current situation of search is insanely bad). I for one am looking at alternatives now.

</comment><comment><USER37> IMHO, IPFS paired with GPG is the best, open source solution out there.

</comment><comment><USER27> More features leaving Dropbox paid plans. I don't get it. Public folder, the photos thing, now shared link controls are gone. I'm done with dropbox.

</comment><comment> d--b It's not that surprising that Dropbox is moving into this space. They kind of lost the enterprise battle, and are still very popular among arty people who need to share large files easily (and without caring much about security).

In a way it's a bit like Apple's move to cater to creative people after losing the enterprise to Microsoft.

They have some way to go though, cause the brand is not really there yet...

<comment><USER38> > They kind of lost the enterprise battle

What is this based on? Not saying you're wrong, just looking for some evidence because that seems like a big claim.

<comment><USER39> Box and Microsoft dominate this space.

<comment><USER40> Box has a fraction of the seats Dropbox has in Enterprise. And when you add Dropbox consumer business, it's not even close. It's not clear wrt Drive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I've switched to resilio sync already. It works perfectly even on rapidly changing files.

</comment><comment><USER28> Apparently they now have problems too. Getting HTTP 500 errors everywhere...

</comment><comment><USER42> So a Squarespace/Wix replacement?

<comment><USER43> Potentially better if there's a way to somehow automatically "blog" about my new photos on auto-upload.

I don't see that feature, but they're more likely to be able to than squarespace/wix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Aside from iCloud, are there any other comparable alternatives to Dropbox?

<comment><USER45> Looking for Dropbox alternatives a few weeks ago, I found a consultant talking about Amazon as a competitor. Lo and behold, there's an Amazon Workdocs buried at AWS.

It's $5/mo per head, 1TB of storage, Mac and PC clients. It is rough around the edges (nomobile ecosystem, for example) but it seems to be more than adequate for syncing and some sharing.

[0] [https://aws.amazon.com/workdocs/](https://aws.amazon.com/workdocs/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Tl;dr - It looks like a rebranding to charge more for single creative pro users that previously would have gotten nearly the same benefits of the personal plan for, I think, half the price. They are injecting a tier in between the normal plan and the teams / business plan.

Selective sync isn't actually new despite the marketing spin that now it's available on a per file level. Nor are expiring and protected links. The webpage builder tool is new.

Edit: Surprised to see someone downvoted this. Look at Dropbox's feature page… this stuff already exists.</comment>


Independent Assessment of the Technical Feasibility of the Mars One Mission Plan [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/sydneydo/Public/Mars%20One%20Feasibility%20Analysis%20IAC14.pdf

<comment><USER2> "Finally, the space logistics analysis revealed that for the most optimist scenario considered, establishing the first crew of a Mars settlement will requireapproximately 15 Falcon Heavy launches costing $4.5 billion, and these values will grow with additional crews. It is important to note that these numbers are derived considering only the ECLS and ISRU systems with spare parts."

Basically main points of review that it is feasible to establish settlement on mars, but maintenance costs will quickly skyrocket as colony grows and equipment ages. Report also advises that a lot more research into reliability and modularity of critical equipment is required to lower amount of spare parts required.

It goes without saying, that without getting to some level of self sufficiency given current launch costs (even if they are slashed by order of magnitude) it would be prohibitively expensive to maintain any sizable human presence on Mars. Therefore some research definitely needs to go into rolling out production facilities from scratch.

<comment><USER3> Is there a reason to want a sustained human presence on Mars? I heard about using it as a rest stop on longer trips but couldn't any science be done on a per trip basis?

<comment><USER4> Sure you can go half-way. But that's optimum if you value human life over all other considerations. However, there are people who are willing to take risks, and those people can drive the cost of science, development and colonization down by an order of magnitude. You just have to accept the mortal risks involved with launching an outpost using unproved equipment in an unknown environment.

Then there's the benefit if they survive. Not only a 2nd human population in the galaxy, which increases the odds of long-term human survival by some huge margin. But the inspiration they give to others that it can be done. Who knows what would come next? Moons of Jupiter? Venus?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Earlier thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8436818](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8436818)</comment>


A computational model of the Moth Olfactory Network learns to read MNIST [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://openreview.net/pdf?id=HyYuqoCUz <comment><USER2> For some reason, Figure 2 doesn't continue out beyond the few-training-samples regime. Therefore, I think we're left to assume that MothNet underperforms the other techniques in the many-samples regime. Is there something I'm missing?

<comment><USER3> It is ambiguous. It's not clear whether or not they performed the experiments with # samples / class > 20.

<comment><USER4> (paper author) You are correct that the 'natural' moth maxes out after about 20 samples/class. It is not yet clear whether this is an intrinsic limitation of the architecture (the competitive pressure on an insect is for fast and rough learning), or whether it is just an artifact of the parameters of the natural moth. For example, slowing the Hebbian growth parameters would allow the system to respond to more training samples, which should give better test- set accuracy. We're still running experiments.

<comment><USER5> It sounds like you ran experiments on the BNN with >20 samples/class. Why were those data points not included in Figure 2?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yet to read this paper but wondering if the authors a familiar with the work of Dasgupta et al. on fly olfactory model for locality sensitive hashing?

[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/08/25/180...](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/08/25/180471.full.pdf?%3Fcollection=)

I have been contemplating the relationship between random projections and compressive sensing since reading it and curious to read this paper for any insights on compressive sensing.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is absolutely brilliant. I have been looking for a way into an understanding of learning within biological neural nets. I dont suppose there is source code around?

</comment><comment><USER8> So are we learning that brains and neurons are general purpose computation goo that can be applied to many different areas of signal processing yet?

<comment><USER9> Kind of feel like we already know that brains can do general purpose computation...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Needs a [pdf] flag

<comment><USER11> Why is it, by the way, that papers have the author names at the top but not the date? The dates are added to papers in references, so why not the date of this paper itself too?

This one happens to have "Workshop track - ICLR 2018" at the top so has some dating, but most don't even have that

<comment><USER12> That's the nice thing about arXiv. The first four digits of the paper's number tells you the month and year it was first published.

<comment><USER13> > The first four digits of the paper's number tells you the month and year it > was first published.

I think "published" should be "submitted" there. (I suppose that one could argue for regarding submission to the arXiv as publication, especially given the presence of overlay journals—but probably that's not what you meant.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>