FreeBSD Quarterly Status Report - <AUTHOR> http://www.freebsd.org/news/status/report-2014-04-2014-06.html

<comment><USER2> I love FreeBSD but only really get chance to run it at home as work is very Linux orientated these days. So I don't get chance to stay as up to date with changes as I used to.

So I wondered if someone could explain to me (or point me towards a previous discussion as I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this) about the changes to package management. Previously I would compile everything via ports but I gather the new package manager replaces both the previous binary repos and ports too. So I'm curious, how clean is the switch over to the new package manager and am I likely to see any performance impact in losing the ability to compile architecture specific binaries?

<comment><USER3> The upgrade process is fairly simple and as always there is FreeBSD Handbook page available that describes this: [http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/pkgng- intro.html](http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/pkgng-intro.html)

The ports system still exists, tracking of the installed ports is now done by the pkgng system.

The new package manager (pkg) only install binary packages, if you want to use source and binary, you have to use something like portupgrade.

<comment><USER4> Typically, we use portmaster now.

<comment><USER3> Like I said: "... something like portupgrade."

Portupgrade still does the job, it's not broken, and still supported.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Openbsd quarterly report:

Project policies and governance remain the same.

Openbsd 5.6 is now in the code slush phase. It will be released on October 1.

A new project, libressl, was undertaken.

Some other stuff probably happened, too. :)

<comment> X-Istence This might be slightly tongue in cheek, but as someone who uses FreeBSD but doesn't necessarily keep up with all of the changes as they happen live (same with OpenBSD), something like a quarterly status update is actually very helpful in seeing where the OS is going, what moving parts are actively being worked on and where to go look for new features/updates that may apply to what I am currently doing at $WORK and $HOME.

<comment><USER5> Oh, agreed. I'm partly poking fun at what I consider one of the mindless bureaucracy aspects of fbsd, but I can see their value too. Openbsd has a strict six month release cycle, so the release notes for each page are a good approximation of a semiannual report. There is some lag and they aren't forward looking, though.

<comment><USER6> When one's strong preference is chaos, even a trivial layer of management will seem like "bureaucracy".

Hijacking the thread isn't cool, Ted.

<comment><USER7> Your comment is a little unfocused at the moment. You should decide whether it's more important for you to accuse openbsd of having a chaotic development process, or to tell Ted you don't think he's cool. Then you should focus on a single point instead of general whining.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Supporting Open Source Maintainers - <AUTHOR> https://blog.npmjs.org/post/187382017885/supporting-open-source-maintainers <comment><USER2> > We are already engaged with many of the largest consumers of Open Source > JavaScript. Most of them want to do the right thing, and _we can help them > understand what that is._

Heh... "father knows best." I'm sure they didn't intend to come off as being this condescending.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was already wondering in prior discussions about this why npmjs doesn't look at a business model where they collect license fees for premium features. But what they're onto here looks different (details are a bit shallow).</comment>


Time to Close the Security Theater - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/artcarden/2011/06/30/time-to-close-the-security-theater/

<comment><USER2> The power to end the TSA lies with the public. The responsibility to end the TSA lies with the public. The public need to make enough fuss, so the media reports the fuss, so that more public become aware of the issue.

The key points to identify;

a) The TSA does not make flying safe. The FAA makes flying safe. The TSA allegedly keeps bombs off planes but going by their press releases they've never actually done this. It's always some kid with a pen-knife.

b) For years Customs have been attempting the opposite goal, detecting stuff coming off planes. They have a good success rate, but clearly plenty of stuff gets through. Is there any evidence that the TSA has a better success rate?

c) It's not hard to get forbidden items onto a plane. It just isn't. All the TSA does is make it harder to do it via the main entrance hall. Given the amount of merchandise, and number of people who work on the "other side" of the security barrier, does anyone think it's hard? For example it's easy to take liquids on a plane, just buy them in the departure hall. [edit - It's also not hard to get a job as a TSA agent. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?]

d) Given that the TSA doesn't make us any _safer_, it's hard to find a reason for it to exist. But large govt. departments do not go softly into the night.

It takes sustained, broad-based pressure to make this sufficiently important for politicians to get involved. Until that happens _nothing_ will change. No, I lie, until that happens the TSA will spend more money, and intrude on our lives more, but won't actually provide any benefit.

<comment><USER3> _The power to end the TSA lies with the public. The responsibility to end the TSA lies with the public. The public need to make enough fuss, so the media reports the fuss, so that more public become aware of the issue._

Really? Just like the power and responsibility to prevent Greece from imposing further utterly useless austerity measures on its citizens lies with the Greek public? The _riot police_ would beg to differ.

If the public _anywhere_ was actually properly informed and _asked_ to make a decision on _any_ of the insanity going on all around the world, then yes, you could make that claim. But as long as we have no say in anything, you're just spewing out seemingly righteous but empty rhetoric.

<comment><USER4> _Just like the power and responsibility to prevent Greece from imposing further utterly useless austerity measures on its citizens lies with the Greek public? The riot police would beg to differ._

Oh come on, Greece is not North Korea.

Do you really think the Greek government could push anything through if more then two thirds of the population was violently against it?

Yes, the clashes with police look spectacular but what percentage of the electorate is out on the streets?

<comment><USER3> _Oh come on, Greece is not North Korea._

There's a difference in their respective levels of totalitarianism, yes. But Greece, just like any other country, can turn it up a notch when "necessary".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Terrorism is about creating terror. It's about magnifying, in your enemy's mind, what is actually a small threat.

If you have an entire military, you don't use terrorism; you kill your enemies en masse. If you're a small band of nutjobs, you scrape together the resources for a few small hits. You hope that fear will do the rest of the job of crippling your enemy.

The way to defeat terrorism is to _not be terrified_. To call them on their bluff. "You are a tiny band of nutjobs. You can't kill us all. You can't even kill .00001% of us. You are less of a problem than peanut allergies. If you set off a bomb once in a while, we'll have you hunted down, and the rest of us will continue with life as usual."

<comment><USER6> _"You are a tiny band of nutjobs. You can't kill us all. You can't even kill .00001% of us."_

If we're talking about the US population, then 0.0001% is thirty people. They can probably manage that.

 _However_ , on your broader point, nouveau-Islamist terrorism differs from more traditional varieties (the IRA et cetera) in that its practitioners are markedly less rational. For them, terrorism isn't a tool which they're applying calmly in the hope of achieving a political goal. Most of them seem to just want to kill infidels, because the existence of people who aren't Muslim makes them angry.

So I don't think the refuse-to-be-terrorized strategy actually works. They don't particularly care whether you're scared of 'em, as long as you die.

(They're not very rational or very nice.)

<comment><USER7> No. This is very likely true of the schmucks who blow themselves up, but those people aren't so much Al-Qaeda as they are victims of Al-Qaeda.

Did you ever notice how UBL never participated in any suicide attacks? Not saying he wasn't crazy, of course, but he was crazy like a dictator. Like, say, Hitler, he was shrewd in pursuit of his bizarre ideological objectives. You can't look at him and say Al-Qaeda had no political strategy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We suffer from the same security hysteria here in the UK, albeit somewhat less hysterical.

There was an article on HN a while back about how 'israelification' of US airports would have a positive effect on actual security and a negligible affect on passenger experience. As a layman, it made a lot of sense to me.

[http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199--- israelifi...](http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199--- israelification-high-security-little-bother)

</comment><comment><USER7> It recently occurred to me that we can see what "appropriate" security measures would be by looking, even within the US, at what security is in place at sites that are _not_ targets of mass hysteria.

For example, subways are generally known to be good terrorist targets. What's the security level on subways? In Boston and NY, it's a bunch of signs saying "if you see something, say something" and "we reserve the right in principle to search your bags (penalty for refusal: leaving the subway)".

Intercity trains are sometimes suggested to be terrorist targets (I'm not sure whether they are). What's the security level on Amtrak? Well, I've seen K9 teams at Penn station. I've noticed that K9 teams are a damn sight less intrusive than airport security (and K9 dogs are a damn sight cuter than X-rays).

<comment><USER6> Except terrorists aren't any more rational than the general public are (hey, some would argue even less so), and it's the terrorists who keep on trying to target the planes, not the subways, at least in the United States. If there were a series of successful high-casualty subway attacks you'd see insane security on the subway (and let's really hope that doesn't happen).

Besides, you just can't kill that many people on the subway. A single bomb on a 747 can kill 400 people... and with a single gun you could kill thousands. (A knife probably isn't good enough any more since folks will fight back, but with an assault rifle you can _probably_ kill anyone who tries.)

<comment><USER7> It seems to me that to make your argument valid you have to be implicitly claiming the following: we're so confident that no fragment of the current Islamist terrorism movement will target subways that we don't need to put in place the security measures that would be necessary if we thought they might; and yet we are so clueless as to when, where and how they plan to attack airplanes that we have to strip-search every 95-year-old/5-year-old/this week's TSA victim stereotype across the entire system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Security theater, political theater, Broadway -- it's all theater.

Chomsky and Edward Herman go over this in detail in "Manufacturing Consent" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_The_Poli...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_The_Political_Economy_of_the_Mass_Media)).

When the public starts to see it for what it is, it will lose its effect, and the playwrights will have to find a new tactic.

<comment><USER10> Which is great - except that the public will never, ever see it for what it is. Or rather, said insight on the part of the public will be treated with the same respect as any other conspiracy theory. (Oil companies colluding to raise the price of oil! Ha! That would _never_ happen in our free-market system!)

<comment><USER9> Evidently, but it crossed over into the theater of the absurd years ago. I would be curious to hear from those who don't see it, what is your perspective?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reddit has a community around it called Operation Grab ass: <http://www.reddit.com/r/OperationGrabAss/>

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm amazed this post was so popular. A populist point "let's shut down the TSA" is supported by a series of really poorly thought out and subjectively supported arguments.

Mind you, I agree that the TSA introduces unprecedented invasions of personal privacy. And I agree that it should be shut down on those grounds. But making the point that TSA kills because it incentivizes driving is silly.

What else is stupid? Privatized Airports. Besides security and fleet maintenance concerns, this sounds like a recipe for monopolistic airport practices, ie, come to Hartsfield Jackson, an airport paid for with tax-payer dollars. I'm not saying that public airports are run like well oiled machines, but I'd rather roll back one stupid administration than throw the baby out with the bathwater.

</comment><comment><USER13> The supporters argue that all these measures are required to preserve "our way of life". The hard truth is that, it is already lost - unless constantly living in fear counts.

</comment><comment><USER6> What are folks actually suggesting here? That we go back to the more relaxed pre-9/11 days where you'd go through a metal detector and get your carry-on X-rayed, but it wasn't that big a deal? Or that we actually abolish airport security entirely?

The former seems pretty sensible to me, the latter seems a bit crazy.

I guess the other problem is this: there's no doubt a bunch of Al Qaeda-ish folks sitting around right now plotting how to kill people. A big sudden announcement that "guess what? you won't have to take your shoes off any more" might just give 'em the idea.

<comment><USER14> I think you completely missed the point. The TSA is, at best, plugging a few holes in a sieve. Any non-retarded terrorist could setup attacks. Un-plugging those few holes by reforming the TSA would free resources badly needed elsewhere and not change actual risks a iota.

<comment><USER6> Y'see, this is where the argument turns into hyperbole. Airport security does, in fact, make it much harder to carry out an attack on a plane.

Maybe you can sneak a blade through, but you're not getting on board with a gun. Maybe you can stick forty grams of plastic explosive up your butt, but you're not getting on board with a bag full of TNT. The 9/11 hijackers used shitty weapons because it was all they could get on board -- they changed the rules, and now they're stuck with even shittier weapons. The shoe bomb was a crappy bomb, and the underpants bomb was even crappier.

Now, if your point is that a terrorist would have to be stupid to even try to attack an aeroplane when so many other opportunities for killing folks exist... then you'd be right. But that's _exactly_ the kind of stupid that terrorists seem to be... they keep on going for the aircraft rather than the crowded music festival. And hey, if they want to keep going for our best- defended rather than our softest targets then I'm not gonna try and talk 'em out of it.

Perhaps the TSA is really a desperate cry of "Oh please don't throw me in that briar patch!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm all for what the Author is getting at here. My one nit to pick is the following:

"Some might object that private firms will have incentives to cut corners on safety. It is a legitimate concern, but competitive mechanisms tend to weed this out."

What does that mean? We need to have a security incident before one private firm is replaced by another? Flying is the kind of business where you need to be spot on every single time or people will surely die. TSA is obviously not the way but neither is simply saying that market forces and capitalism will solve the problem.

<comment><USER16> Very next sentence: "It is important to remember too that just because competitive markets might not provide the best of all conceivable worlds doesn't mean that government intervention can."

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The show must go on

</comment><comment><USER18> _Better yet, it needs to be replaced with a competitive market for air travel in which the airports, the airways, and the airliners are in private hands.

Some might object that private firms will have incentives to cut corners on safety. It is a legitimate concern, but competitive mechanisms tend to weed this out._

Ugh, how are they going to 'weed this out' exactly? Seems to me competitive pressures would lead private firms to do exactly what the TSA is doing i.e. give the appearance of being serious about security. And do it cheaply. Christ, all these high-profile hacks against big corporations recently and this guy really expects anyone to believe that competition will 'tend to' force businesses to take security seriously? The author hasn't given this a lot of thought, I strongly suspect.

The TSA is awful. But the idea that competition and the free market is a panacea for all problems financial and social is too often used as a crutch by bureaucrats and politicians who don't want to do their god damn jobs, and as a cudgel by idiot pundits on the payroll of big business, as we see here.

Just fix the TSA.

Edit: and it appears Forbes stores your passwords as plaintext. Really shining example of the free market and competition magically solving all our problems, fellas.

<comment><USER19> _Seems to me competitive pressures would lead private firms to do exactly what the TSA is doing i.e. give the appearance of being serious about security._

In the marketplace competitive pressure leads to better service, not worse.

LASIK has gone from a novelty for the rich to a treatment everyone can afford, for example. Possibly counter examples exist, but I can't think of any offhand. Perhaps after I've had my morning coffee.

The reason I would prefer a private company over government is that you have a choice with a private firm: don't like AA's service, think their security guys are fools? Fly with Southwest. Write a letter to AA. Become a shareholder and annoy the board with your opinions.

So do something like this: require private security firms to meet standards X, Y, Z. Enforcement by government inspection. Bust a standard, loose your business license.

This works in other areas - workplace safety, food inspection.

Am I missing something?

<comment><USER20> Your friends can tell you how well their LASIK worked, and how much it cost, as soon as their eyes heal. This allows market forces to do what they do pretty well.

Anti-terrorist security measures have neither of these advantages. It's very difficult to find out how much they cost; especially if you include indirect costs to travelers. It's also very difficult to determine how effective they are since, to a first approximation, terrorists attacks don't happen even with lowered security.

<comment><USER19> _It's also very difficult to determine how effective they are since, to a first approximation, terrorists attacks don't happen even with lowered security._

This is also a problem with TSA. And we can calculate - roughly - the cost of TSA in delays, wages, missed flights.

A good argument just popped into my brain: we used to run security at airports with either local cops or private companies. This worked, pretty well, except for 9/11.

But everyone was taken by surprise, then.

<comment><USER21> We've made effective changes since then -- they just haven't been at screening. Passenger awareness that they should resist and reinforcing cockpit doors have greatly increased security. The TSA? Not so much. See [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/the- thin...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/the-things-he- carried/7057/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The problem with airport security in America is that they search for "Dangerous Items", not "Dangerous People". A dangerous person is allowed on an American flight if he/she doesn't have any dangerous items with him. In my opinion, a motivated group of guys could take a plane hostage with nothing but car keys, ju jitsu and some creative thinking.

I'm not saying searching for the dangerous person is superior to searching for the dangerous item. But I think TSA needs to be reminded that weapons don't kill people, its the people that do the killing.

Safe person + Dangerous Items = Safe. Dangerous Person + Safe items = Unsafe.

<comment><USER2> Actually, they only search for dangerous items coming through one door. Do you think every person, product or vehicle that enters an airport goes through the same scrutiny as the passengers?

It's like having a bank, where the front door is policed by an army, but the backdoor is wide open for employees, and every window in the place is open every day.

Given the amount of theft from airport bags, and hence stolen goods _leaving_ the airport, do you think it's any harder to bring illicit stuff in?

<comment><USER23> Well, just to play devil's advocate, I don't get patted down leaving the airport, so I'm not terribly sure that your point about baggage theft is relevant...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The reason the TSA is not reigned in is that only the little people are subject to search. If you fly on a private jet you and your luggage are whisked right to your plane with no inspection whatsoever.

<comment><USER25> Pilots and air crew have to go through the TSA theater as well. The only immune people are the high-profile politicians.

<comment><USER26> Error.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/articles/A17073-2004Aug...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/articles/A17073-2004Aug19.html)

<comment><USER25> By 'immune' I mean with an ability for recourse. That benefit is not reserved to mere mortals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Without TSA we would have lowered the bar on airplane hijackings and opened the door to lower level threats that could easily bring down a pressurized cabin at 35K feet:

Idiots with firearms or other dangerous items on planes. Simple criminals looking for media attention. Robberies like D. B. Cooper.

We just need better technology for TSA to make it faster and less invasive. It will happen. In the mean time, relax and enjoy the fact that you can get from SFO to NYC in less than 6 hours instead of 7 days by car.</comment>


Show HN: Newest Social Network for Animations and Comics - <AUTHOR> https://www.prisimanimations.com <comment> 100-xyz Looks interesting.

I am developing a web based animation editor [https://its- near.me/flash2/editor](https://its-near.me/flash2/editor)

Any way to include animations produced by this editor into your site?

Thanks

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course, I'll check it out and try to add it to the animation help section!</comment></comment>


Vim-signify - my approach of a gutter plugin - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mhinz/vim-signify This is my version of some kind of git-gutter plugin for Vim; vim-signify.
Features:
- supports git, mercurial, bazaar, subversion, cvs
 - pretty well documented
 - _everything_ is configurable through variables
 - quite fast
 - can be toggled on a per-buffer base
 - preserving of signs set by other plugins (optional)
 - additional line highlighting (optional)
I started writing it 3 days ago, but it's working pretty good for me already. I'd like to get some more feedback now. Thanks in advance.
(Feature requests are feedback, too!) <comment><USER2> Pretty cool, but you could add a brief comparision with vim-gitgutter to the Readme, or explain why you felt the need for a new plugin.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just added a short explanation to the README:

Yes, I knew about vim-gitgutter before, I even contributed to it. But in the end I just didn't like the codebase and started my own plugin. And because I like programming VimL.

The main difference is probably the support for other DVCS. Moreover, execution speed and high configurability are two of the design goals.

<comment><USER2> Indeed, I noticed it is faster!

Rest well. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Cold war files show UK fear of US H-bomb - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cd462a38-78ca-11e5-933d-efcdc3c11c89.html <comment><USER2> Couple of problems with this article:

1\. The atomic bomb didn't end the war with Japan; an impending Russian invasion did. Japan preferred surrendering to America first while they still had some bargaining power left (plus they hated the Russians). Dropping a couple of big bombs on some secondary cities was nothing compared to the devastation of major metropolitan centers from the firebombing campaign.

2\. The UK's primary worry was that the USA would once again become isolationist like it usually does, which would leave the UK alone to contend with a very powerful neighbor that could push them around now that Germany was divided and France essentially impotent. The H bomb was simply a demonstration of how powerful (and thus influential) a nation could get. The UK's "special relationship" with America is a diplomatic consequence of this worry.

</comment><comment><USER3> The title "Cold war files show UK fear of US H-bomb" is quite misleading. The UK feard that the Russians would attack them with hydrogen bombs. Can't see where the US fit into this, except for pioneering the hydrogen bomb, but that doesn't make all hydrogen bombs US bombs.

When we are on the topic of the UK and atomic bombs. This is a great article from the archive: "British nukes were protected by bike locks" \- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7097101.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7097101.stm)

<comment><USER4> The UK was worried that the US was escalating the Cold War conflict and that we'd be _more_ at risk rather than safer as a result.

Given that this was exactly what happened in the late 50s and early 60s (US over estimates Soviet threat for internal political reasons, builds huge arsenals, Soviets scramble to catch up) this is pretty much what happened so their worries were justified.

<comment><USER5> "US over estimates Soviet threat for internal political reasons"

"Over-estimated" how?

I mean, there really was about a 2:1 Warsaw Pact tank advantage, and nuclear deterrence really was the only realistic way of countering it.

Can you be more specific about how this threat was "over-estimated"?

<comment><USER6> Nuclear wasn't the only way. We built the A-10 Warthog specifically to counter the tank problem and it filled its role brilliantly.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thun...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II)

<comment><USER7> The A-10 program only survived the 1970s as an anti-tank respin of a Vietnam counter-insurgency specification.

The gun was only effective against certain aspects of T-64 armour and only after US Army Cobras had eliminated or reduced ZSU and Gaskin vehicles to allow the A-10 to approach to gun range.

What it does very effectively today in close-support was for what it was originally intended, not tank-busting.

<comment><USER6> The GAU-8 cannon was designed specifically for the anti-tank role using APDU. The A-10 was designed solely for close air support, including attacking tanks as the link I provided mentions. All close air support requires control of the air space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Referrer link: [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwj- tZ- ghdjIAhXDrD4KHZQdBco&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fcd462a38-78ca-11e5-933d-efcdc3c11c89.html&usg=AFQjCNHki9a147PKWJNMJqzj_EtWKz4bJA&sig2=lwnuUOon7UYfD8uJZ34QTw)

<comment><USER9> Thanks! How does this get past the paywall, exactly? Is it passing a user auth through ?

<comment><USER10> Sites with paywalls often prefer that Google can index them, and Google doesn't like indexing a page that will be shown differently to a user who clicks on it from a search, therefore to get the full content indexed and avoid being penalised by Google, they show the full article if you come from a Google search (or through a Google link that makes it look like you came from a search)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Curious why thorium and heavy water are necessary for H-bombs. I'm more familiar with reactors than bombs but from that perspective, heavy water is a moderator, which you don't need with the highly-enriched fissile in bombs, and thorium isn't fissile, but can be turned U-233 which is fissile but not something we actually use in bombs, or need if we have U-235 or plutonium.

<comment><USER12> Don't want to use up my very small quota of FT articles, but as for heavy water, thermonuclear bombs use lithium-6 deuteride, lithium-6 hydride where the hydrogen atoms are deuterium ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_hydride#In_nuclear_che...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_hydride#In_nuclear_chemistry_and_physics)), the best source of which is heavy water.

This compound is a compact and stable solid at the relevant temperatures; as the above says, when bombarded by neutrons the lithium-6 is converted into tritium in an exothermic (favorable) reaction, and then it fuses with the deuterium.

<comment><USER11> Ah that makes sense. Any idea on thorium?

<comment><USER12> None whatsoever,

I'm still in my intensive study of the Manhattan Project and one thing that's very clear is that the "try everything that looks like it might work to make sure at least one will" had a great benefit in building the insanely scaled K-25 gaseous diffusion plant ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-25](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-25)). This allowed us to easily build reactors and all sorts of things with enriched uranium. With that good an ecosystem, where does thorium fit in?

Ah, here's a theory: the U.K. didn't know how well we'd done in finding uranium sources. So early on, besides just trying it out, wasn't it posited as an alternative to U-235 if we ran low on it? And I've read on Wikipedia that some thermonuclear primaries were/are U-235 implosion designs; if that's advantageous, alternates to U-235 for power reactors could be useful.

And skimming this [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_Kingdom) and finding this [http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Uk/UKFacility.html](http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Uk/UKFacility.html) confirms that it took a long time for the U.K. to enrich uranium, especially to militiarily useful levels (HEU) and amounts, 1954 and 1957 respectively, long after the 1952 creation of successful H-bombs.

But I still can't find or think of anything that supports the bald assertion in the article (which I did break down and read), which tells me the author is grossly ignorant of the most basics of the subject, and I strongly suspect the whole article is highly suspect, putting a spin on events that's not in the least supportable by reality, there are plenty of tells, including extremely limited quoting of the documents which are supposed to reveal all this.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Scotland wants a new currency – Should it choose Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://cryptostar.money/blog/scots-want-to-abandon-the-pound-will-they-choose-bitcoin/ <comment><USER2> There is no way this is a genuine submission. I've seen spam/seo bots write better articles than this. Spam</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for a Book on Cellular Automata - <AUTHOR> I'm self-studying cellular automata and I'd love if there were any sitebooks or torrentable textbooks. <comment><USER2> Surprised no one has said "A New Kind of Science" by Stephen Wolfram. While not quite a new kind of science, it is all about cellular automata.

[http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html](http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html)

<comment><USER3> ANKOS was in fact mentioned already, a couple of hours ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11982034](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11982034)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Chapters 11 & 12 of the free textbook "Introduction to the Modeling and Analysis of Complex Systems" [1] are on cellular automata. The "Complex Systems" journal has many papers on CA. [2] (I've just finished a project where we implemented a random number generator using a cellular automaton, might be nice to see. [3])

[1]: [http://textbooks.opensuny.org/introduction-to-the- modeling-a...](http://textbooks.opensuny.org/introduction-to-the-modeling-and- analysis-of-complex-systems/)

[2]: [http://www.complex-systems.com/archives.html](http://www.complex- systems.com/archives.html)

[3]: [https://sunsistemo.github.io/mozzacella-automato- salad](https://sunsistemo.github.io/mozzacella-automato-salad)

</comment><comment><USER5> While not just about this, The Computational Beauty of Nature [1] is worth checking out.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Computational-Beauty-Nature- Explorati...](https://www.amazon.com/Computational-Beauty-Nature-Explorations- Adaptation/dp/0262561271)

<comment><USER6> This is my all-time favourite book! Reading it way back in the day is what convinced me that studying Applied Mathematics & Computer Science was my path in life. Absolutely incomparable, I loved it mainly because it's a grand tour of everything that is amazing _and_ the author doesn't shy away from code, formulae, and background (OGY Control, eigenvalues & eigenvectors!) necessary to really grasp the concepts and implement them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I believe it's out of print now, but if you can find it, check out "The Recursive Universe" by William Poundstone. It centers around Conway's Game of Life, but every other chapter branches out to draw connections with other topics, like biology, information theory, and thermodynamics.

<comment><USER8> Dover started republishing it a few years ago and it's even available on Kindle.

Definitely a fun read and worth the $10 and the couple evenings it takes to read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not sure about books entirely about cellular automata, but Stephen Wolfram's "a new kind of science" has a LOT on cellular automata.

Also check out his papers if you're interested in them

<comment><USER3> I'd strongly suggest not reading ANKOS until you already know what Cellular Automata are and how they work.

First because Wolfram is not actually very good at explaining things: he's a very smart guy, but very smart guys don't necessarily know how to lay new concepts out so that other people can grasp them. Second, a MAJOR problem with the book is that he does not admit any sources outside himself: the inventor of CA, John von Neumann, is _never mentioned in the main text_.

You come away understanding only what Wolfram thinks is important, which has a lot more to do with him than with the subject. It's a book worth reading, but it's not an introduction.

(I won't even get into his tortured writing style, for which he actually had to include a little apologia in the introduction.)

<comment><USER10> I feel the need to voice some moderation in response to this response.

ANKOS is sometimes painful to read for Wolfram's incessant self-aggrandising, and it is also frustratingly unstructured in parts. Nonetheless, many of the digressions are thought provoking in ways that you won't really find in _any_ other book. Further, it is mostly non-technical and informal, so it can serve well as a very broad introduction to some of the curious corners of cellular automata research.

<comment><USER3> >it can serve well as a very broad introduction to some of the curious corners of cellular automata research.

This is true. It's a substantial book, well worth reading despite its flaws. The thrust of my post was that it should not be the _first_ thing you read in order to begin learning about CA.

<comment><USER11> Forget reading, the first thing you should do is write your own version of "the game of life", which I did as part of my CS class in 8th grade. Just be careful, youtube might suggest you do it in APL, don't do it in APL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a kinda good theoretical intro: [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cellular- automata/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cellular-automata/) and search the Santa Fe Institute's site too: [http://www.santafe.edu/search/results/?query=cellular+automa...](http://www.santafe.edu/search/results/?query=cellular+automata)

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a good introduction: [http://natureofcode.com/book/chapter-7-cellular- automata/](http://natureofcode.com/book/chapter-7-cellular-automata/)

<comment><USER14> Love this book!

It is especially good for beginners.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> My favorite one is, by far, "Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe" by Andrew Ilachinski (2001). It goes deep into the juicy details and has only a limited amount of hand waving. You can probably find it in the local math/physics department library, or in the usual internet sources ;)

There are also some articles from Wolfram that make good introductions. Mostly those from the old days in which "I" wouldn't be the subject of every second of his sentences. In particular:

Universality and Complexity in Cellular Automata Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 10, no. 1–2 (1984): 1–35

Computation Theory of Cellular Automata Communications in Mathematical Physics 96, no. 1 (1984): 15–57

</comment><comment><USER16> A basic introduction, as well as suggested readings, can be found in the book Biological Computation, which I co-authored [http://t.co/JzWrcnSzB3](http://t.co/JzWrcnSzB3)

I am especially fond/proud of the detailed explanations of the proofs of computational universality of CA.

<comment><USER16> Here's what we had to say about books mentioned in this thread:

Schiff, J.L. 2008. Cellular Automata: A Discrete View of the World.John Wiley & Sons. A readable introduction to cellular automata and their applications.

Wolfram, S. 2002. A New Kind of Science. Wolfram Media. A very ambitious book trying to demonstrate in detail (the book contains 1,197 pages) that the entire universe around us (e.g., biological, physical, and computational phenomena) could be and should be considered as cellular automata. While the approach of the author is a matter of heated discussion, the book is thoughtprovoking and contains many interesting examples.

Ilachinski, A. 2001. Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe. World Scientific Publishing. A detailed (approximately 800-page) and technical exposition of cellular automata. Includes detailed discussions of various theoretical techniques for studying cellular automata behavior. The proof of the universality of Life is presented in detail. Among the topics covered are probabilistic CA, the relationship between CA and physics models, and a comparison between CA and neural networks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cellular-automata- machines](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cellular-automata-machines)

The greater part as I remember it is on ideas and applications; a substantial fraction covers their particular system.

<comment><USER18> I second this book. If I recall correctly, it shows implementation on their fairly unique hardware, but getting their examples working in a modern CA library shouldn't be impossible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd recommend "The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul" (readable online at [0]). It's wacky at times, and not deeply rigorous, but _thoroughly_ enjoyable. But not a textbook.

[0] - [http://www.rudyrucker.com/lifebox/](http://www.rudyrucker.com/lifebox/)

</comment><comment><USER20> My information is pretty dated but I found Wolfram's collected papers a very good read (Amazon lists it as ~$40 but you can get it for under $5 used) [1]. I wouldn't be surprised if you could find a torrentable version as well.

You have to be careful about what kind of cellular automata you're talking about. There's the 'toy models' such as 1d and 2d cellular automata that Wolfram and Conway's Game of Life [2] fall into but there's also many others, including lattice gases and more complex modeling options. I assume you mean the cellular automata that have the flavor that Wolfram and Conway are talking about.

The linked Wolfram book is a 'classical' treatment where he introduces different classes (I,II,III and IV) of cellular automata, ranging from completely ordered (1d, rule 0, say) to completely disordered (1d, rule 32, say).

I hope I'm not rambling too much but from what I understand it was a commonly accepted that 'complexity happens at the edge of chaos' [2]. Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" (again, from my understanding) essentially represents an evolving view (by Wolfram) where he graduates from "complexity happens at the edge of chaos" to "complexity is the norm, rather than the exception". Wolfram coins this as the "principle of computational equivalence" [3]. People have recommended ANKoS and I would really recommend against reading it. I think the principle of computational equivalence and the proof that rule 110 is Turing complete (given in ANKoS) are interesting but they're so buried in exceptionally bad writing as to be not worth the effort.

If you're interested in studying Conway's Game of Life [4] more, there's Golly [5], which is a wonderful piece of software. Cellular automata is a very large field and there are lots of different questions to ask about it, so you might want to limit your scope if you want more directed suggestions.

As a sort of tangential recommendation, I would highly encourage you to check out "Complexity and Criticality" by Christensen and Moloney [6]. Though they don't talk about the cellular automata that are described above, they motivate a lot of the different concepts of criticality, phase transitions and other motifs that show up repeatedly when discussing these models and others like them.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Cellular-Automata-Complexity- Collecte...](https://www.amazon.com/Cellular-Automata-Complexity-Collected- Papers/dp/0201626640/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466995038&sr=1-1&keywords=9780201626643)

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

[3] [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrincipleofComputationalEquival...](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrincipleofComputationalEquivalence.html)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life)

[5] [http://golly.sourceforge.net/](http://golly.sourceforge.net/)

[6] [https://www.amazon.com/Complexity-Criticality-Advanced- Physi...](https://www.amazon.com/Complexity-Criticality-Advanced-Physics- Texts/dp/1860945171/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466995970&sr=8-1&keywords=christensen+complexity)

<comment><USER21> Wolfram has put the entire text of Cellular Automata and Complexity: Collected Papers online

[http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/cellular- automata...](http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/cellular-automata- complexity/)

The survey papers in this collection would be the place for OP to start; note that some of the other papers assume a significant background in mathematics and physics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> have you tried googling for "books on cellular automata"? also consulting Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube, etc, more directly?

<comment><USER22> I am amused that this very reasonable and constructive, and "teach a man to fish" kind of comment of mine has been downvoted to -1.

HN ownership/mods: please remove the ability to Downvote. it's clearly being abused. do you want to have a community of smart, helpful people with free discussion, with the goal of mutual improvement? or do you want a community of assholes and heavy HiveMind/ThoughtPolice effect?

a follow-up related challenge is do you want HN to become the sort of website where anyone can ask, for example, "what is foo?" despite <foo> being a thing that that very same someone could have gotten reasonable answers/education about by just googling about? What is sex? What is algebra? How do I learn about computers? What is a website? What is a web browser? What is HN? Who is PG? What is the English language?

Are these acceptable questions for the caliber of people you'd like to attract and retain here on HN? Do you realize that some people are just gaming your system? Do you realize that some are carrying out stealth self-promotion, while playing innocent? Where do babies come from? Which key do I press to submit this comment? How do I use the Chrome browser? Are these all acceptable post topics and comments here on HN as well? (This should be a fair question given the recent mod and community track record to date.) What is "Star Wars"? Who made "Linux"? What is a "pineapple"?</comment></comment>


Voter Matchup - <AUTHOR> Do you use a calendar(.ics) to keep up with local elections? -and- Would you like a way to directly tell elected officials if an issue is important to you? <comment><USER2> If they are local officials I will tell them directly, myself.</comment>


Four Reasons to Use Maps Instead of Classes in Clojure - <AUTHOR> http://spin.atomicobject.com/2015/09/14/clojure-maps-objects-classes/#.VfbF3E7Eibk.hackernews <comment><USER2> Basically that's what Lisp did with assoc-lists and property-lists since the dawn of time.

        CL-USER 63 > (pprint *players*)

        #((:NAME (:FIRST "Jose" :LAST "Peraza") :STATS (:STOLEN-BASES 35 :HOME-RUNS 6) :POSITION :SS)
          (:NAME (:FIRST "Mike" :LAST "Trout") :STATS (:STOLEN-BASES 15 :HOME-RUNS 36) :POSITION :OF)
          (:NAME (:FIRST "Manny" :LAST "Machado") :STATS (:STOLEN-BASES 20 :HOME-RUNS 30) :POSITION :SS))

        CL-USER 64 > (elt *players* 0)
        (:NAME (:FIRST "Jose" :LAST "Peraza") :STATS (:STOLEN-BASES 35 :HOME-RUNS 6) :POSITION :SS)

        CL-USER 65 > (getf * :position)
        :SS

        CL-USER 66 > (loop for p across *players*
                           sum (getf (getf p :stats) :home-runs))
        72

Later various dynamic object systems have been written for Lisp, for example the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS). 'Dynamic' means that they don't have the drawbacks of the static object systems, but still provide many of the advantages of OOP.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not against the idea of using maps for (almost) everything. It's definitely convenient and something I do in Clojurescript.

That said, I mostly use Common Lisp, and I really enjoy CLOS. As far as I can tell none of his examples would be any more complex in CL if the objects were CLOS instances.

It's definitely safer to use a slot reader in CLOS than the keyword functions that look up a value by key in Clojure. This is not helped by the fact that :foo returns nil instead of throwing an error if the key :foo doesn't exist in the map.</comment>


Alau.me Wants To Fix iOS Marketing With Bit.ly-Like Links - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/07/alau-me-launch/ <comment><AUTHOR> This looks promising and is something that is needed. It is tough tracking whether a click actually led to a download through the appstore.</comment>


Candy Japan April Income Report - <AUTHOR> http://www.candyjapan.com/april-profit-report <comment><USER2> I've been following your posts since you started with the business. Have to say that I'm impressed by your tenacity in keeping this fun idea going.

Now, your marketing copy is all over the place. The layout is so hard to follow. Things are just too spread around, and the eye cannot follow an easy reading path.

Put everything into two columns, side by side. Put more pictures, and more information. Get a smaller third column on the right side for the testimonials.

Also, your headline is not bade, but it has nothing under it for me to read . The job of a headline is to get people reading the copy. You have no copy.

The big ugly green button is akin to a car salesman handing you a buying contract for a brand new car before you even shake hands. Get that out of there!

I believe that if you did a video of you hand picking specialized candy for your customer then sales would improve. People are not buying the candy, they are buying the experience. Let them see the process through a camera so they can relate and live out their Japanese fantasy. In fact, do a 10 minute long video of you shipping for candy. Put all the different candies and give out your opinions. Talk to Japanese people, and have them share their favorites. You could even try and get the best selling candy manufacturer into letting you do a little tour of their factory.

There are so many neat things you can do that will turn this into a 10K business ASAP.

Good luck!

PS. Shoot me an email to rm at innovafy dot com

<comment><USER3> Hi, thanks for the feedback. The current layout is the result of lots of playing around with the site. Testimonials and the video had a big impact on conversions, so they are front and center now. I guess I might be biased from looking at the site a lot, but to me it seems pretty clean.

I think it needs to be clear exactly what step I want the user to take to join, so that's why that huge big green button is there. It's also not half bad looking in my opinion, although depends on your browser since it uses some recent webkit CSS stuff.

Factory tour / other kind of video back scenes content is probably a good idea. Since the current video works, it may be that that would work even better. Even before that though, I've been thinking of experimenting with a video that would just explain the service in simple terms.

You have a lot of ideas, have any for how to bring in traffic?

<comment><USER4> Personally, I really like the design. The only thing I would do would be to slightly increase the line-height on your copy. It should make it slightly easier to read (I usually aim for about 1.5em but some prefer slightly less).

<comment><USER3> Better now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd say you could do some serious work on your site. I have no idea what amazing candy could be sent. Your site is very bland for a site about CANDY. I really like the idea and I think you would totally increase conversion if you actually did some selling of what you're giving (GIANT PICTURES OF CANDY LOOK AT THIS AMAZING CANDY IT COULD BE YOURS TWICE A MONTH). Videos are cool, but I don't see a single beautiful picture of candy on your site.

Also, based on the demographic of people who will want candy from Japan, perhaps toy with the 8-bit nyan-cat-anime-retro geek-style vibe? Cute rainbows and hello kitty and all giant eyes and all that. Perhaps do huge detailed 8-bit renditions OF THE CANDY.

<comment><USER3> Thanks a lot for the feedback. I agree that might be cool, although would need to test it against current. If you know someone who could such a mockup for me, let me know. The current site was just designed by myself, I wanted to do more cute / sweet style design, but couldn't come up with one that I was satisfied with. You definitely have a point here.

Update: added some example pics

<comment><USER6> It's candy and it's japanese... that just conjures all sorts of images of a super high tech factory run by cats and magic. I'd love to see a candy envelope being stylised packing animation in the background or off to the side. It could look amazing visually and would explain the concept instantly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like how you've used my IP address to tell me that delivery will be free 'even to the United Kingdom'.

May I suggest using the same code to also convert the price from $23.95 to the users local currency as this will help increase conversions. £15.10 feels a lot less than $23.95!

Other than that, great idea and I wish you all the best!

<comment><USER3> That's a great idea, I get this gut feeling/fear though that it might introduce some extra complexity. I might be able to do that at least for EUR/USD/GBP but I suppose have avoided it until now to keep things simple. Will have to think that through more.

<comment><USER7> Sure. I see your PayPal subscription is $23.95 per month - which is fine, there's no need to change that. I'm just thinking from a UI perspective you could try using money.js (1) to show to the user the current price in their local currency:

Mystery sweets from Japan for £15.10 ($23.95 USD) / month

(1) <http://josscrowcroft.github.com/money.js/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was surprised not be greeted with high quality photos of examples of past candy. To see any of your product I need to find the 'past candy' link then decide on which unfamiliar product to click on.

<comment><USER3> Yes, also intuitively to me it would make sense to have such photos, but I found the same thing as Manpacks did (<http://mixergy.com/manpacks-ken- johnson-interview/>) that showing product photos on the main page lowers conversions. It seems people are in it for the surprise factor.

<comment><USER9> P.S. This is not untrue for software in many cases. Some products get a big boost out of screenshots. Many don't, and instead get big boosts by e.g. showing pictures of users or the team which wrote the software. (Whether a screenshot helps is surprisingly uncorrelated with my subjective impression of which products are "pretty", even given that I have less artistic sense than a mole rat.)

<comment><USER3> Any tips btw. for content I should have on the site for SEO purposes? Even though I rank for the generic term "japanese candy" and also some specific candies, I haven't been able to convert people except those searching for the site specifically (<http://i.imgur.com/OnVIF.png>)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> $2k per month profit (before tax) is not bad. There are some costs that cannot be avoided per order but imagine as volume grows, so will efficiencies. This model looks like the mens shaver business. Can see this working for any niche - shavers, stationary, fruit, nuts...

How can we see earlier blog posts?.

<comment><USER3> I started this to learn and to provide some basic source of income in addition to software, so it has worked well for that purpose. It has involved writing more software than I expected, though!

Earlier posts are at <http://www.bemmu.com/> with currently no easy way to see only the Candy Japan related things. I was still feeling a bit undecided where to put them, wondering if it's a good idea to expose customers to income- related posts.

<comment><USER10> Absolutely awesome blog. Pretty sweet ( excuse the pun) execution of an idea into a profitable business.

Do you think you automate the packing and shipping?

<comment><USER3> It's already outsourced, which I'm very happy about since it was very time- consuming when we did it ourselves. I've gradually grown a nice relationship with the nearby supermarket, it's almost a drop-ship operation at this point, although I do still meet with them face-to-face every week as our process isn't totally perfected yet.

If you mean automated as in having robots do it, that would be fun, but moving oddly shaped objects from sealed bulk packages into narrow envelopes isn't a very easy task to automate that far.

<comment><USER10> Interesting. Packaging and shopping seems to be your biggest pain point and cost. Reduce these and you have an easier business to manage and can focus on getting more customers.

Good luck. I imagine there are other goodies from Japan you can offer.

No robots, but rather outsourcing.

Edit: just read your recent post on face book adverts. Really clever. Would you share more details on conversion numbers.

<comment><USER3> Long story short, I am not planning to expand my FB advertising efforts at this point. In my best ever campaign I managed to get 6 conversions after spending $280 which is getting close to breaking even, but not quite there yet. Just to reach this almost-breaking-even point I've spent probably close to $2000 on various ad networks.

Another one that came close to working was bidding on SMBC comics ads through Project Wonderful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 'What a great subscription based business' is always my very first thought when I read news from Candy Japan. And every time I try to come up with a similar idea matching my region but I don't find any.

And these income reports are clever Marketing.

<comment><USER12> _And every time I try to come up with a similar idea matching my region but I don't find any._

I did the same, but my idea didn't really work. Too bulky and sensitive to the shipping delays.

<comment><USER13> Pastéis de Belém, heh?

<comment><USER12> That was my first idea, but it's actually a trademark[1] owned by "Antiga Confeitaria de Belém Lda", and I didn't want to get involved in ugly legalese.

[1]: [http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline/RequestManager/en_Result?tra...](http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline/RequestManager/en_Result?transition=ResultsDetailed&ntmark=&application=CTMOnline&bAdvanced=0&language=en&deno=&source=search_basic.jsp&idappli=1254895)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone tried the same idea but with Asian stationery? There's always been a huge array of crazy stuff when I've browsed stationery sections of department stores in Thailand, China, etc. I'd try it myself, but I think there'd need to be someone on the ground with direct, cheap access sourcing the product.

Lightweight, should be cheap to ship, etc.

<comment><USER11> Crazy stuff at stationery sections? What do you mean exactly?

<comment><USER14> Asian stationery is often pretty peculiar. Bizarre and cutesy characters, Engrish slogans, colour combos and so on. I think someone could put together packs of pens, pads, erasers, etc and have a crack. Wish I were over there to try it.

Would partner with someone who was there on the ground and handle design and so on if anyone was interested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _First thing is PayPal fees, after which we are left with $6895. We are switching from PayPal to accepting credit cards directly through WireCard + Recurly, but that will likely just raise our costs a bit (but will hopefully improve conversions)._

This interests me the most. Could you shad some light as of why you switching knowing the cost will go up. You say it will improve conversions, but #1 isnt PayPal still the most well known payment system over the web, and #2 dont they offer payment via regular credit cards?

What you trying to do here, is replace better option with narrower one for all customers. If anything, you should add Google Checkout, as I got used to using it over PayPal (and sometimes wont convert) because PayPal got me real mad couple times in the past.

<comment><USER3> Instead of redirecting users to PayPal and requiring them to have PayPal accounts with credit cards linked to them, I can directly ask for their credit card information. This is how it should look after the Recurly integration is complete: <http://imgur.com/SHC0a>

I am now paying PayPal $339 / month.

Recurly charges 1.25% + $0.10 / transaction + $69 / month. WireCard charges 2.75% + $0.19 / transaction + $24 / month. My total cost from these would then be about $473 / month. If I can get ~20 new customers because of this more convenient payment method, then it was worthwhile.

I'm also expecting some increased life happiness from having to deal less with PayPal (the interface is sloooow).

<comment><USER16> I think some customers (like myself) would be more hesitant to use a non- PayPal option on your site. With PayPal, I can easily cancel at any time. I would be worried that by directly providing you with my credit card number, it would be harder to cancel.

<comment><USER3> I might have direct credit card input as the big default button and a smaller PayPal link for those that prefer that. I will have to continue supporting PayPal indefinitely in any case since I have all subscribers there now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love it, but I'm really curious about taxes/export-import- duties/regulations, FDA, etc. I guess I always assumed there'd be some strict rules that would make starting this kind of business kind of hairy. Not so?

<comment><USER3> I'm far from expert yet on this, but as I understand it depends on whether you are the one bringing the product into the country or not.

For example if I were to go to an anime expo in the US to sell candy there, then I would need to clear the customs and comply with FDA regulations such as the list of ingredients that have to appear in the packages.

But when I am situated here in Japan and people order things from me from all over the world, then they are the ones who are clearing the customs. However when the shipments are really small, customs is not a problem for the person receiving them and many countries have limits where you never need to deal with customs if the order size is small enough.

<comment><USER17> That's interesting, but I would think it would have limits. Would you be able to send small amounts of a drug that was legal in your country to a country where it's illegal? I suppose you'd only be subject to the laws of your country in that case, the buyer would be subject to the laws in theirs?

Of course, we're talking about Candy.. I'm just intrigued by the idea of shipping-worldwide subscription businesses in general.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I suppose if you mail-ordered illegal drugs from abroad it would be you who gets into trouble, not the person sending them if they were perfectly legal in their home country unless the country in question had specific rules forbidding sending such items.

I am at least a bit encouraged by jlist.com et al. doing direct-sending including food items from Japan for years apparently with no significant problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Having tried Japanese candies (and deserts in general) while visiting Japan, I'm very surprised that this actually works.

When it comes to sweets and deserts Japanese taste is so different from what's popular in the west. It might be interesting but I'm not sure I'd want to pay for a continuous supply.

French/Belgium products might appeal to western taste better.

Other than that - Good luck!

<comment><USER19> Because it is different than what is typically available, there is a market for those who have developed those tastes which isn't being served in a lot of places.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Have you thought to tap out the Japanese Expat market as an advertising/marketing opportunity?

That might include Japanese people living abroad, students, workers living in the middle east for 12 months, etc

The service could very easily appeal to people living abroad and wanting a reminder of home every month.

<comment><USER3> I might try it, but wouldn't they have friends who send them items? It's very common even inside Japan that relatives send food items to each other, and I the Japanese expats who I knew in Finland were also getting items sent to them by their parents.

<comment><USER21> I agree with mendable, I feel like your service is very convenient, much more so than having friends send you things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Perhaps it isn't an issue at this scale but for exporting food products aren't there any regulations / paperwork to fill in? I'm sure I remember hearing the US were getting stricter re: this. Perhaps this is where your missing deliveries are going.

<comment><USER3> I should be OK as I am not the importer of the candies, rather the people receiving them are. Still, I try hard to be on the safe side so I've contacted FDA twice to ask if there's something they'd like me to do, once via physical mail and once by email and got ignored both times.

If I started doing the importing on US side myself in bulk amounts, that would be a different story and would involve at least filing FDA prior notices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I feel like your landing page is too "corporate".

Candy Japan is about the emotional experience. The design should reflect that!

<comment><USER3> I agree it's not that "sweet". I wonder what would be a good example of the kind of site design I should be aiming for?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hmm, first General Motors and now Candy Japan pulls their ads from Facebook. How is Zuckerberg going to stanch the bleeding?

<comment><USER3> Without my $250 / month they might have to cancel the IPO :)</comment></comment>


U.S. Suspects Contaminated Foreign-Made Components Threaten Cyber Security - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-suspects-contaminated-foreign-made-components-threaten-cyber/story?id=14035692

<comment><USER2> "Some foreign-made computer components are being manufactured to make it easier to launch cyber attacks on U.S. companies and consumers". Ha ha ha! Greg Schaffer, the "official" in who said that, is just confusing reality with the plot of the Disney hamster vehicle, "G-Force". Next up: DHS reveals plot to train flys, Guinea Pigs, moles and rats to spy on counterfeiters, pirates, child pornographers and the tattered remnants of Al Queda.</comment>


Ask HN: How do the growing number of marketplaces handle outgoing payments? - <AUTHOR>

There seems to be an increase in startups that have two sided payment processing needs.  That is to say they collect money from one party and pay it out to another.  Just a few examples include Groupon, AirBNB, Etsy, Freelancer, Tippr, TaskRabbit, Uber and oDesk.  All affiliate networks, advertising networks and other crowdsourcing marketplaces would fit this description as well.
Getting a merchant account is a hassle in itself (just to accept incoming payments).  Dealing with outgoing payments via bank transfer, cheque, PayPal, Moneybookers, Amazon and others only adds to the complexity.  Let alone on an international scale.
Are there any startups out there offering a service layer that makes the integration of all of these options as simple as a few lines of code?  The upside of this would be that the provider only deals with one central point of contact, their users can choose the most convenient method for payout, that they'd gain instant global reach and have access to an extra level of fraud prevention (screening of users, cross-site analysis, etc.)
What startups are currently in a phase that could benefit from this?  I'd imagine this would be startups in a stage of relatively fast growth and users all around the world.
[Note: a relevant article from Nathan at AirBNB http://nerds.airbnb.com/do-it-yourself-ach-direct-deposit] <comment><USER2> You want to be very careful with this, as you can end up classified a money transmitter and have to comply with a whole bunch of painful regulations. Just search for PayPal chained payments or Amazon's equivalent, it will do exactly what you need.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, my startup has a two sided payment process and was flagged by Paypal very early on for violating their Acceptable Use Policy. This was for the mere fact that the business model made my business a third party handler, which violates that agreement. Some companies fly under the radar on this, I wasn't one of those.

So, the realistic options left imho are ACH using something like AmazonPayments and sending out checks, which has its issues. Unfortunately there simply aren't as many options for paying money out as there is taking it in.

Btw my startup is Sponsorist.com, currently taking $ in through Stripe and sending out as checks. For now. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great answer. This is essentially what most startups do, it's how Groupon handled things for a long time too (from what I understand).

Checks are fine but as a foreigner they seem really clunky and don't work once the company has a greater reach. Shame PayPal flagged you so early on.

I wonder how many other startups are in your position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Problematically, with many lawyer and accountant hours, and generally while buffering outgoing payments until the incoming payment is fully secured. Paypal and ACH seem to be common transfer protocols.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. Any startup handling incoming vs. outgoing payments is going to have special issues to deal with. Always walking a fine line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Since there are fees involved, wouldn't it make sense to collect the money, sit it on it for a month (or some period of time) to earn interest, and just send the other party a check?

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely it would. Sending a check seems clunky to me, just curious what other options exist. It seems the answer is none (essentially).</comment></comment>


A patent example of beneficial IP - <AUTHOR> http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16153508657179172499&q=Powell+v.+Home+Depot+USA+Inc.,+663+F.+3d+1221+-+Court+of+Appeals,+Federal+Circuit+2011&hl=en&as_sdt=2006

<comment><AUTHOR> Patents get a bad wrap. This court decision from 2011 describes what may be a clear cut example of a patent protecting its inventor from malicious business practices.</comment>


Microsoft shows off 'new' Windows 8 input devices - <AUTHOR> http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/windowsexperience/archive/2012/07/30/new-windows-8-ready-mice-and-keyboards-from-microsoft-hardware.aspx

<comment><USER2> The Microsoft Touch Mouse looks nice. The snarky editorialized title doesn't do the blog post justice. Nowhere does Microsoft imply that these are a "new" type of input device. The article title only mentions, "New Windows 8-ready mice and keyboards..."

Just like Apple, it makes sense for Microsoft to sell accessories specific to its Surface offerings.

<comment><USER3> The difference is Microsoft is supposed to be a software vendor and has a very large number of OEMs depending on them staying that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can tell about Microsoft Touch Mouse (last mentioned in the article) first hand. I've been using it for about seven months, and sometimes it is annoying. Idea is great - multitouch mouse, but implementation is shaky. I'd like to call this bug "unintentional scroll".

Since its surface is touch-sensitive, it is really easy to perform unwanted tasks like scrolling, when just moving it or clicking. For example, when holding Ctrl and trying to click a link to open it in new tam, you should be really accurate. If you're not (I'm often not) it starts scrolling and with Ctrl it just zooms in and out web pages.

You can get used to it, but it happens from time to time anyway.

On the other hand, Microsoft Arc Touch mouse ir an awesome portable mouse to keep in your bag. It takes time to get used to it, but when you do, it is awesome. It fits anywhere, because of its design (flat, when switched off). It is light. It is wireless.

</comment><comment><USER5> That wedge mouse looks awful. Horrific memories of the Apple puck mouse coming back.

The first keyboard looks like the cheap £5 keyboards you can get on ebay. The second one doesn't look so bad but still nothing amazing.

Pretty "meh" line up in all honesty.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't get it. The keyboard looks like a cheapo plastic thing that offers nothing different from other cheapo plastic keyboards, and the mouse looks dreadful. Why would people choose this over a normal bluetooth keyboard/mouse?

<comment><USER7> Because Microsoft is 'cool' now. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Wedge Touch Mouse looks suspiciously puck-like.

</comment><comment><USER9> Hope this keyboard comes with a simple 1 click shut down hot key for desktop versions, 4 clicks to shut down my PC in Preview told me that Windows 7 will be a strong runner in desktop OS for a long time yet. Mouse looks dreadful too.

<comment><USER10> Doesn't one press of the power button work? Even then, newer PCs are so power efficient that you can generally just put the PC to sleep and not bother turning it off.</comment></comment>


How HashMap works in Java - <AUTHOR> http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-hashmap-works-in-java.html

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know why they chose to go with linear probing over double hashing? I could never really think of why one would be more advantageous than the other.

<comment><USER3> Linear probing will always let you fill a hash table to a load factor (\alpha) of 1. Double hashing may prohibit this, even if it is more efficient for smaller values of \alpha.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That was utterly unreadable.</comment>


Ask HN: Presentation – tracing visualization revealis thread affinity issue - <AUTHOR> I'm trying to find a presentation and accompanying paper. A group of Google engineers demonstrated thread tracing. It revealed latency outliers that were caused by the Linux kernel trying to keep threads scheduled on the same core. Some threads were stuck waiting on a core that was currently occupied (by disk i/o iirc) when others were available. <comment><AUTHOR> I have found a video, but not the related paper, although I'm hoping the video points to the paper.

Dick Sites is the name of the presenter (super hard to search for!). The presentation is titled "Data Center Computers: Modern Challenges in CPU Design".

[https://youtu.be/QBu2Ae8-8LM](https://youtu.be/QBu2Ae8-8LM)</comment>


Mobile Mesh Networking Framework - <AUTHOR> http://www.hypelabs.io <comment><USER2> Woow, looks awesome! But what do you mean "pre-register"?? When will it be available?

<comment><AUTHOR> In the beginning of April both iOS and Android version will be available

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This might make a good "Show HN". Is there a story behind its development?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your interest and feedback, will definitely post it on "Show HN" in a couple weeks, as soon as both iOS and Android versions of the framework are ready and publicly available!

About it's story, we started working on this aprox. one year ago. We had an "off-the-grid" messaging app and visited a conference in order to promote it. Wi-fi was always going down, so we were one of the only apps that could actually be used, and tons of developers came to us asking to use our technology (which was kind of primitive at the time, but worked) on their own apps. Long-story short (with a few trips to countries with poor and expensive connectivity in between), we then decided to make as our mission to help build a more connected world and help developers build solutions that can work when others can't, and started working on the framework only.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. Curious if there is anything interesting about the architecture and implementation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Will this be for enterprise use only or any developer will have access to it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, Hype Labs team member here. The framework will be open and free for everyone, from enterprise to developers and released in a few weeks. We just want people to use mesh on their own apps and to see which kind of solutions they build with it. It's been super interesting to know for what people want to use it so far, may write a blog post about it and about how mesh can be powerful on mobile anytime soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks interesting, I'll definitely give it a try.

</comment><comment><USER6> Mesh is already available?

<comment><AUTHOR> Available in April</comment></comment>


A Minimal Perfect Hash Function Library by Thomas Müller (Author of H2) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/thomasmueller/minperf <comment><USER2> Wouldn't be good to have it implemented in a single Java file, thus simplifying integration into other projects?

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be a big problem to support such a library. It's enough to have a Maven library to simplify the integration, though I'm not sure if it's available now. Or you can build a jar and use it - that's how you manage integrations in Java :)</comment></comment>


Sort latitude and longitude coordinates into clockwise ordered quadrilateral - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2855189/sort-latitude-and-longitude-coordinates-into-clockwise-ordered-quadrilateral/2863378#2863378

<comment><AUTHOR> Demo: [http://www.whitemagicsoftware.com/software/climate/guru.shtm...](http://www.whitemagicsoftware.com/software/climate/guru.shtml)

Drag the map icons around and across each other.</comment>


Dropbox possibly compromised, password dump "teasers" appearing on Pastebin - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/NtgwpfVm <comment><USER2> This is not necessarily a Dropbox hack. Maybe somebody ran a list of other stolen credentials against Dropbox, used a third-party app to trick people into giving their Dropbox email and password, or was simply a trojan. Anyway, what's the common theme here? - Bitcoin!

<comment><USER3> Considering some of the passwords in that pastebin have "expired", I would imagine they were real and they now require a password reset.

<comment><USER2> I never said they were not real, only that it's users' hack, not necessarily Dropbox' one. I see a bunch of articles asking people to change their passwords - if they believe Dropbox is hacked and not patched yet, changing the password won't do any good. It could even be worse. Anyway, given the fact that passwords in clear texts leaked and that Dropbox doesn't store in clear text (they've had multiple articles on the subject in the past), it's most probably not really a Dropbox hack. Given they recently blogged about phishing [1], I'm sure they were already aware of what's going on.

[1] [https://blog.dropbox.com/2014/10/dont-get-baited-by- phishing...](https://blog.dropbox.com/2014/10/dont-get-baited-by-phishing-or- malware/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I found it hard to believe that Dropbox allows passwords such as "abc123", so I checked the password requirements. Turns out they don't explicitly state any limitations: [http://i.imgur.com/v4h0g8D.png](http://i.imgur.com/v4h0g8D.png)

That being said, I still do not believe this leak is legitimate.

</comment><comment><USER5> Its also hard to believe that dropbox would store passwords in plaintext, if this is real then their in some deep sh*t for storing passwords in plain text.

Or were the hackers able to decrypt all the passwords, unlikely?

<comment><USER2> They sure don't. They've had numerous articles on the subject in the past.</comment></comment>


How to validate your SaaS idea with the power of hustle - <AUTHOR> http://blog.close.io/lean-sales-how-to-validate-your-saas-idea-with-the-power-of-hustle

<comment><USER2> I'm curious how the _" Here's a problem we think you have. We plan to solve it with software."_ approach compares to the _" What problems do you have? Would $software_solution solve it?"_ approach.

This is a roundabout way to ask which product development strategy is better:

\- Identifying a potential problem/solution match and then validating it via conversation

\- Choosing a potential client/market and discovering a problem/solution match via conversation

The reason I pose this is because my partner and I are currently attempting the second method. We have interviews lined up with potential SaaS clients, and we are going in with the mindset of "What are your pains? What could we build to remove this pain?". Now I am wondering if it is better to go to prospects with a solution in mind and get more focused feedback.

Does anyone who has gone through the SaaS product/market development process care to weigh in?

<comment><USER3> There is a time and a place for both, with option number 2 coming first.

When you are first interviewing your target customers you really want to gain a deep understanding for their pains and a sense of empathy for how their pains rank on the totem pole of "I will pay you money now to solve this problem" to "It sucks.. but the system we have now works".

Once you've had those first round of interviews go back to them with a prototype (this can be paper, or just marketing material) and have another conversation. It's a great way to start building a solution people will actually care for, and build a small customer base at the same time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice list of activities related to sales to test your idea.

</comment><comment><USER5> Steli is the sales guru</comment>


Ulam Spiral - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulam_spiral <comment><USER2> Three years ago I proposed using Ulam Spirals as the peering logic for Bitmessage (decentralized, trustless messenger service). Essentially with Bitmessage you trade messages with everyone on your network but you can be a member of multiple networks. My proposal was to be in one network but peer with with all the "touching" digit peers according to the Ulam Spiral. The benefit of this approach is that newer (higher value) networks are peering with older more established ones and there are multiple paths between non- touching networks to send messages.

Here is the forum post with the suggestion: [https://bitmessage.org/forum/index.php?topic=2549.0](https://bitmessage.org/forum/index.php?topic=2549.0)

<comment><USER3> What has happened since then?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some nice images of a hexagonal version here, along with a python script to create your own: [http://hexnet.org/content/hexagonal-number- spirals](http://hexnet.org/content/hexagonal-number-spirals)

</comment><comment><USER5> Here is a YouTube video of a breakdown of manually exploring the Ulam Spiral in the J programming language [1], and finally coding it up user tangentstorm. [2]

After all, J is an array-processing beast!

[1] jsoftware.com [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBC5vnwf6Zw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBC5vnwf6Zw)

</comment><comment><USER6> As someone who occasionally contemplates upon the Origin of Everything (something that I think every sapient being does at least once), looking at the Ulam Spiral felt like there was a faint inspiration just waiting outside the grasp of my understanding;

What if Reality came into existence simply out of mathematical truths and the patterns arising from them?

That would require no First Cause.

And of course, there would be multiple ways to "see" those patterns, with our universe being just one of those ways, just as the Ulam Spiral being a specific 2D ordering of primes. I said "came into existence" but it may be more accurate to say that all perceived existence is just one _interpretation_ or another, of fundamental truths.

<comment><USER7> Wonderfully worded. I'd throw that to Bill Nye at big think on youtube at see what he has to say. He loves "far out there" explanations for everything like that

<comment><USER8> or he could ask an academically trained philosopher of mathematics and probably receive a much more insightful response

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [https://github.com/silveira/ulam](https://github.com/silveira/ulam)

Here is a reusable implentation in Javascript using Html5 canvas. You can just download the source, edit and run in your browser. Or see live examples here: [http://silveiraneto.net/2013/05/14/twin-primes-visualized- ov...](http://silveiraneto.net/2013/05/14/twin-primes-visualized-over-an-ulam- spiral-in-html5/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I used it in one of the Pictur Bale pieces (Christian Bale vs. Mathematics GIFs) [http://picbale.tumblr.com](http://picbale.tumblr.com)

</comment><comment><USER11> There's probably code in there, somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER12> Previous discussions at [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Ulam%20Spiral%20points%3E10&so...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Ulam%20Spiral%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0).</comment>


Show HN: Orbiiit – Discover the social media world - <AUTHOR> http://orbiiitworld.com <comment><AUTHOR> I'm so sorry for the repost. Had to delete the previous post for some reason.</comment>