YouTube Bans Alex Jones, Following Facebook's and Apple's Lead - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/youtube-bans-alex-jones-following-facebook-and-apples-lead/ <comment><USER2> From Wikipedia:

"The InfoWars website receives approximately 10 million monthly visits, making it more visited than some mainstream news websites such as The Economist and Newsweek."

This bothers me. Say what you like about his content, but it is not fringe. He is the preferred "thinker" of a significant fraction of the population. If you think the solution is to deplatform him, you're thinking about the problem _wrong_.

He is an opportunity. By becoming a lightening rod and focal point for a large fraction of a country's misguided thinking, _he has made that misguided thinking more fragile_. Easier to dislodge. Because now you just need to find a combination of words that helps his followers see him for what he actually is.

And if you succeed, everyone who sees will get a lesson in thinking more clearly. They will be more resilient to a future charlatan.

So if Alex Jones makes your blood boil, then put that emotion to work. Raise his platform. Discuss him. Debunk his ideas one by one. Use whichever tools appeal to you. If youtube wants to help, then youtube algorithms should be tweaked to encourage people to view both sides of the debate.

<comment><USER3> You have more faith in human rationality than I do at this point. Making his content harder to get will reduce his legitimacy. Con men and frauds should not be treated with respect or debated. Also, Jones specifically used his platform to abuse people, so this is not just about being full of shit all the time.

<comment><USER4> "We only burn the bad books!"

<comment><USER3> You and others didn't read my last sentence and keep hiding behind childish free speech absolutism. Jones specifically used his platform to abuse people. He should have been banned a long time ago. This isn't just about his conspiracy theories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> j-c-hewitt I think the reason why Alex Jones became popular is because the mainstream news websites like CNN and even sections of the NYT became more Jones-like in their reporting. When people are just choosing between different sensationalist conspiracy theory websites it becomes much more challenging for ordinary people to pick a quality outlet.

The thing is that most of the web and the printed word is spam that will actively confuse you the more that you read it. Compare the newspaper to a cookbook. The cookbook, if it's good, can be tested for effectiveness quite readily even allowing for variations in things like your ingredients and how your oven functions as compared to the one in the author's test kitchen.

The news isn't all that different from Maury Pauvitch and it seems to get worse every year. You would probably at least learn a little about how small claims court works by watching daytime TV but you learn less than nothing from having poorly sourced propaganda piped into your brain at 1080p/60fps. People who watch Maury aren't under the impression that they're being elevated, but people addicted to the news are suffering from that delusion.

<comment><USER5> Oh please. What a load of hogwash. NYT and CNN aren't perfect but making some kind of comparison to the rantings of a lunatic like Jones is absurd. Get a grip.

<comment><USER6> Well for you it might be clear it is much better than Jones, but from the distance the "us vs them" narrative and the obsession with whatever is the latest "scandal" (Clinton's emails, Weinstein, Trump & Russia) makes it seem like pure tabloid. So you can actually make good argument about NYT being similar to Jones (better crap is still crap).

<comment><USER7> It's quite clear if you understand the distinction between journalism and infotainment. Journalism outlets spend millions of dollars to staff professional reporters and fact checkers; when they report a story, they've often got a whole team of trained professionals on multiple locations collecting details and interviewing primary sources. When the outlet we're talking about is the NYT or WSJ, those teams are in dozens of countries around the world operating out of large full-time bureaus.

Infotainment outlets hire a couple dozen people to make shit up and put it on a web page and a Youtube video.

Sometimes reality gets tabloidy. Sometimes editors make decisions that optimize engagement and viewership over clarity. CNN and Fox both run pundit shows along with hard news and blur the lines by hosting their hard-news pro's on the pundit shows. But no matter what happens to make CNN seem like infotainment, it simply isn't, because the process that generates it is journalism.

<comment><USER8> Editorial staffs have been decimated for decades.

There is far less fact checking than before, far fewer corespondents and almost all military reporting is through access-journalism: "our give us pretty footage, we'll write nice things"

At which point I prefer Jones: so trashy that I know it's BS

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In other discussions about this action, I've seen lots of confusion about what the 1st Amendment guarantees. Too many people think it guarantees an outcome: that the government must protect your right to free speech and make sure you have a platform for free speech. When in fact it's almost the opposite: it prevents the government from interfering with free speech, specifically Congress can not pass any laws that interfere with free speech. Keeping in mind that free speech includes the right to not say things you disagree with.

I'd be curious if any legal experts know of other laws that might apply in this case.

<comment><USER10> The first amendment represents an ideal. An ideal the country is walking back from as it discovers a large faction does not share the same morals. The decision to silence instead of engage will lead to disintegration of the country if its not dealt with.

<comment><USER11> First Amendment is about government action, not self-motivated private/corporation action.

Facebook, Spotify, and Apple realized that continuing to allow Alex Jones to remain on their platforms would result in substantial harm to the commercial viability of their platforms, as a result of boycotts, lawsuits, etc. by the 99% of people that Alex Jones spends his life spewing lies about.

It was an easy financial decision. Hell, they could have faced absolutely massive shareholder lawsuits if they hadn't kicked him off their platforms.

<comment><USER10> The only rational solution is to make political affiliation a protected class. It is the only way to ensure democracy in this age of corporations which exert national control over what we see and hear. Radio waves had FCC protection, no such system exists for the internet which is rapidly replacing these systems.

If in the days of the first amendment paper producers conspired en mass to censor we would have seen it dealt with then. Alas its a modern problem which is ours to solve.

<comment><USER11> In the days of the First Amendment...newspapers did actively censor their opposition. Hell, the First Congress, most of whom participated in the drafting of the Bill of Rights and its ratification by the States, passed the Sedition Act, clamping down on free speech in a way not seen since outside of WWII.

As for making political affiliation a protected class...that wouldn't shield Jones. He's being kicked off for slander, lies, and acts of incitement, not his claim to be a conservative.

<comment><USER10> I speak of paper mills not newspapers. This is analogue to DNS providers and other internet infrastructure providers participating in censorship. It would be a clear breach of first amendment rights to force someone with editorial control to print something.

<comment><USER9> Horrible analogy. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are nothing like DNS and other internet infrastructure, nor are they like paper mills.

Alex Jones runs a website using DNS and internet infrastructure and gets 10 million monthly visitors. Where's the censorship?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't necessarily like this action.

People are quick to point out that FB and Youtube are private entities and such but the reality is that they've become so ubiquitous in our lives that if they start censorship based on the company's preferred politics, beliefs, etc. than it will have an effect on all of us.

Can mobile apps (like WhatsApp) inspect messages and decide to boot users if they're saying things that aren't in line with the company's positions?

Can ISPs do that too?

<comment><USER13> Same here. I don't agree with anything he says, but banning him from these platforms sets a bad precedent. The way to fight ignorance is with education.

If anything, this will enforce their persecution complex. Now Alex Jones will say, "See? Big media doesn't want you to know the things I'm telling you." And he'll be right.

<comment><USER14> > The way to fight ignorance is with education.

And ignorance fights back with education. Removing Thomas Jefferson from textbooks for example. Or replacing evolution with creationism / intelligent design theory.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html)

People rewrite education to suit their political slants. You ain't gonna win in education until you win at politics.

<comment><USER15> > You ain't gonna win in education until you win at politics.

Unless politics doesn't control education... which is a direction we're fortunately slowly moving towards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Before today, I could care less about Jones's views. Naturally, with the news of these bans, I visited his site. Looks like all the articles about the ban have the most comments. Presumably these aren't just the usual site visitors.

And of course right now he's atop today's Google searches:

[https://trends.google.com/trends/trendingsearches/daily?geo=...](https://trends.google.com/trends/trendingsearches/daily?geo=US)

</comment><comment><USER17> Congrats, you just made Alex Jones cool and officially counter culture cool.

This will not end the way silicon valley thinks.

</comment><comment><USER18> Prediction: Jones will be back on all these platforms before 2019.

<comment><USER19> Why?

<comment><USER20> Now that he knows where the line is, he'll step back behind it. The pressure from the many fans of his will pressure the companies to put him back on, because he promised to be _good_.

Just a guess.

<comment><USER11> I would predict he'll be back for a different reason.

He'll simply create new accounts, and on this new account he'll toe right up to the line without going over it (until 2019).

The pressure from his many fans will have no effect, because they're not a market that any company wants to be associated with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting if anyone could pursue a lawsuit over this stuff Jones could. Will be interesting to see how far that goes in the court system.

</comment><comment><USER22> free speech is dead

<comment><USER23> "free speech entitles you to saying what you want, not to a microphone"

<comment><USER22> free speech is for the government not a private organization

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Right thing to do. Let's learn from the mistake bill nye made by debating that idiot who built the ship in the Midwest.

</comment><comment><USER25> _> Conspiracy theorist and online troll Alex Jones

>The decision comes hours after Apple and Facebook made similar moves_

So I guess Mr Jones will have to report on this particular conspiracy elsewhere. I for one would like to hear it...

<comment><USER26> Sophisticated people understand that there are no actual conspiracies, only baseless conspiracy theories.

<comment><USER25> Conspiracy theories are usually bad explanations and leave unexplained stuff like how new conspirators are recruited without exposing the conspiracy. Yet a small fraction of conspiracy theories _are_ true, e.g. Guy Fawkes. A more sophisticated treatment acknowledges this and understands that these are frequently labelled 'conspiracy theories' in attempts to discredit them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have mixed feelings about this. I fear it will actually make Jones' brand of demagoguery and crackpot theories more appealing and sexy. The best thing to do might be to let far-right conspiracy theory propaganda die in the mainstream, since the mainstream is where things go to die.

<comment><USER28> Pardon me, if I misunderstood you.

Jones is already mainstream. He is not going to get smaller if you give him bigger platforms.

Unrelated question.

Can somebody explain to me, how he went from "9/11 was inside job, police are jackbooted thugs, anti Bush, anti Obama" to being pro police, pro government?

I want to understand the logic behind this.

<comment><USER29> How indeed? Best not talk about it here on hackernews though, it's wrongthink and will get you banned.

Remember there's no conspiracy to control the narrative. It's totally a coincidence that Alex Jones got banned from Youtube, itunes, and Facebook simultaneously.

<comment><USER30> I'm surprised that such an established HN user as you would say something that absurd about HN moderation.

<comment><USER29> I've been here long enough right? I've seen it happen, my share of [dead] comments.

<comment><USER30> Maybe so, but "wrongthink"? That's not even close to accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The default SafeSearch filter for Google is turned _OFF_. That tells you all you need to know about their morals.

<comment><USER32> Sorry, what does that tell me about their morals?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> As others I've seen on Twitter have pointed out, the "Infowars Official" app and Infowars Magazine creator page is still available on the App Store:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/infowars- magazine/id69...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/infowars- magazine/id697158581)

I don't peruse the Podcast listings, or news about podcasts that much. Is Apple generally not as stringent about policing Podcasts as it is for iOS Apps?</comment>


Rust for Rubyists - <AUTHOR> http://www.rustforrubyists.com/

<comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this. I've been looking at some new languages of late and might dip into your book in a few days. Wondering what you thought of "go" since you were looking for a systems language?

Did you evaluate various languages before deciding to go with rust ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Sorry, I just saw this now.

> Wondering what you thought of "go" since you were looking for a systems > language?

Go is written by Google, so I don't want to use it regardless. But Go doesn't solve the problems I want in a systems language: I don't care about compilation time, for example.

> Did you evaluate various languages before deciding to go with rust ?

I've been programming in systems languages for a long time: I've built apps in C, C++, and D previously. D is basically a failure as far as I'm concerned at this point.

Ultimately, as I say on the bottom of the homepage, I'm interested in learning languages if they can teach me something. Rust can, and has already, regardless of it being super preview level. Hopefully I'll be building things in Rust in the future, but I'll be glad that I spent time with it regardless.</comment></comment>


How to use Borland Delphi – training video excerpt from the 1990s - open-source-ux https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXX4vl_OUMc <comment><AUTHOR> I learned some basic Pascal in high school. One of my first gigs a bunch of years later introduced me to Delphi, which of course was when RAD (Rapid Application Development) was the new buzz phrase required on the resume.

To me, Delphi was Pascal embracing a few Lisp features. And appearance-wise, it looked like a cross between C and Logo. Pretty wild. Quite slobberproof.

It was a little too verbose for my tastes (although I think most OOP gets that way), but how much you could accomplish without having to continually refer to the manual was quite refreshing. Everything we did in our little shop was constantly being rewritten, so none of us were convinced about the rapid development concept. Rapid getting-to-a-good-mockup for sure, though.

I recall Delphi had garbage collection, but was incredibly bad at it. Kinda like how it is easy to blow the Lisp stack if you don't pay attention to your loops, Delphi seemed to constantly run out of memory, even if the application wasn't particularly extravagant.

Is RAD still a thing? Or is it just assumed in prototyping these days?

EDIT: Trivia - The Greek Delphi was previously known as Pytho. Imagine the name clash that could have created when Python came about.

</comment><comment><USER2> I loved Delphi at the time. It's closest competitor was Visual Basic.</comment>


Google has quietly launched its answer to AWS Lambda - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/09/google-has-quietly-launched-its-answer-to-aws-lambda/ <comment><USER2> I don't understand why would someone quietly launch

<comment><AUTHOR> testing</comment></comment>


Inside look at HP killing WebOS - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/08/19/an-inside-look-at-hp-killing-webos-hardware-here's-how-it-really-went-down/

<comment><USER2> all so depressing.</comment>


Camp - beautiful Basecamp iPhone app - <AUTHOR> http://getcampapp.com/ <comment><USER2> One annoyance with the website:

The row of icons under the title "Keeping it simple. Tools you need and nothing beyond." are clickable, yet they just take you to the top of the page. I wasn't expecting that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Given the official app has been released for free, why would we pay for this one?</comment>


Adobe Alternatives for Digital Artist - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Everblue_Comic/status/1124453210297520128 <comment><USER2> What about Premiere?

<comment><AUTHOR> Try _Olive_ [0]

[0] [https://github.com/olive-editor/olive](https://github.com/olive- editor/olive)</comment></comment>


Multiline strings in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sindresorhus/multiline?unicorns <comment><USER2> That's a really smart hack, I didn't realize comments were included in the output of Function#toString. You could do other cool things, e.g. an annotation for type checking:

      function checkType(f) {
        return function(a) {
          var type = f.toString().match(/\/\/(.*)\n/)[1].trim();
          if(type !== typeof(a)) throw new Error('Invalid type');
          return f(a);
        }
      }

      var halve = checkType(function(n) {
        // number
        return n / 2;
      });

      halve(4); // returns 2
      halve('string'); // emits error

<comment><USER3> _I didn 't realize comments were included in the output of Function#toString_

Probably because sometimes they're not, depending on the JavaScript engine (though perhaps all of the major modern browsers do)

<comment><AUTHOR> The following browsers return comments:

\- Latest Chrome

\- Firefox >=17

\- Safari >=4

\- Opera >=9

\- Internet Explorer >=6

From: [https://github.com/sindresorhus/multiline#compatibility](https://github.com/sindresorhus/multiline#compatibility)

<comment><USER4> Not just "Latest Chrome". Chrome has been doing it for at least 2 years. I know, because I'm using it with it.

<comment><USER5> I think Chrome is mentioned as "Latest Chrome" because:

1) There have been so many versions and not easy to know what came when.

2) Most people get updated to Chrome latest automatically without any fuss.

<comment><USER6> In fact, (2) is not as true as it used to be. This graph, [http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2014/07/chrome...](http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2014/07/chrome-2014-06.png), shows that about 6-7 percent of worldwide browsers are out-of-date Chrome installs, and the trend is for that to grow.

From [http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2014/07/window...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2014/07/windows-8-x-internet-explorer-both-flatline-in-june/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I was first really to program I was into hacking javascript to do the crazy things I wanted it to do. I basically did exactly this, albeit with a worse interpolation feature[1]. Don't actually do this please. In the browser, just open up a different

<comment><USER17> Because you can't do that from within javascript, and my HTML was really just a stub to load all the javascript I didn't want to have to otherwise deal with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The first problem I see, is using any build process which will remove all the comments. Therefore your string will become ''. I wonder how to avoid this.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's mainly intended for use in Node.js, but I've documented how to use it with a minifier for the front-end: [https://github.com/sindresorhus/multiline#minification](https://github.com/sindresorhus/multiline#minification)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> >Note that ES6 will have template string which can be multiline, but time...

Firefox Nightly currently supports just enough of template strings to give you multiline strings.

<comment><USER21> Since a couple weeks back templating is also implemented¹, just lacking tagged templates and documentation²³.

1: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688857#c22](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688857#c22)

2: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/template_strings)

3: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/ECMA...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/ECMAScript_6_support_in_Mozilla)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Cool hack, but a cleaner solution would be to just use fs.readFileSync if you really want long strings, and let browserify/brfs to inline it for you in the browser.

Using this in a library would be pretty unsafe, given how it's browser- dependent, is prone to issues with minifcation, and could just break with future versions of your JS engine.

</comment><comment><USER23> seriously? you people be nuts

        http://stackoverflow.com/a/15558082/2371924
        var myString = function(){/*
          multi-line
          string
        */}.toString().slice(14,-3)

take this code snippet, throw a package.json and some yaml in and make another npm to Show HN.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, only it does several other things do. Like optionally removing indend whitespace.

Did you even read TFA?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> At one point the E4X standard (back in 2007?) enabled a cool multi-line string hack by promoting XML elements to language entities. You could say:

        var htmlFragment = "" + (<r><![CDATA[
        l(a

        le
        af
        fa

        ll

        s)
        one
        l

        iness

        - e.e. cummings
        ;
        ]]></r>);

And then `htmlFragment` would contain your multi-line string. (The addition with the empty string coerces the <r> element to output its `toString()` value, which happens to be the innerHTML).

This is largely a historical factoid, though. I don't think browsers beyond Mozilla ended up supporting E4X.

Really clever hack with the function's toString method!

</comment><comment><USER12> Cool hack but not supporting multiline strings is a feature as far as I'm concerned. Everyone seems to agree that HTML shouldn't contain JavaScript, why should JavaScript contain HTML?

<comment><USER25> That is actually currently being contested by React and .jsx.

That said, I've seen multiline abused for writing SQL queries as well, which would have been better off being written in a separate .SQL file and `fs.read` into a string with a descriptive var name. (Ignoring that massive SQL strings is a code smell imo).

<comment><USER26> Except if your application generates dynamic queries. And not of the sort where variables in the WHERE clause are dynamically evaluated. Of the sort where the entire structure of your SQL is dynamically driven by user interaction with your application.

<comment><USER25> Are you saying that large SQL strings isn't a code smell if the application is dynamically putting them together? That seems like DSL/Query Builder territory to me. Perhaps you could share an example?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This snippet does the same thing, mostly:

        var multiline = function(){/*
        foo
        bar
        baz
        */}.toSource().match(/\/\*([\s\S]*)\*\//)[1].trim()

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, pretty much, but in Node we wrap repetitive things in modules, as they're super cheap. Your snippet is also missing some things like indentation stripping, error handling and browser support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I just use ES6 template strings together with the es6ify transform for Browserify. Works in all browsers and very likely performs much better than using Function.prototype.toString.

</comment><comment><USER29> If you do multi line strings you could probably do it in a smarter way. Examples:

appendChild instead of innerHTML .html file instead of html inside a .js file. .css file instead of css inside a .js file.

It can get very messy if you store "data" inside JS. Especially if you store markup or styling in the JS.

</comment><comment><USER30> Wouldn't something like a Sweet.js macro be better for this? Just have it output a string with '\n\' at the end of lines, or using Array.join() or whatever you like.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is really handy for DFP creative templates. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER32> Today I learned that in JavaScript, comments are significant and part of the code.

(And people complain about Python having significant whitespace?)

<comment><USER33> Only significant if you want it to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Weird... I just _just_ randomly looking at this a few days ago upon a search for "js multiline" when wondering about the common way to spell multiline (multi line vs multi-line vs multiline). I was intrigued by his code though, ultimately in awe of the cleverness and conciseness of it. Very cool hack! Crazy coincidence to see the very code on HN only a few days later.

</comment><comment><USER35> Be sure to scroll to the bottom for a real-world example, this is very brittle.

</comment><comment><USER36> In other news, the ubiquitous language of the ubiquitous platform of the information age doesn't support multiline strings. But I guess if we keep throwing enough modules and libraries at it, it'll end up being nice to develop for.

Alternatively wait for ES6 or ES7 to (maybe) solve the problem.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is a very clever hack. Great use of anonymous functions and toString.

</comment><comment><USER38> Why not a pre-processor?

<comment><AUTHOR> In Node.js you don't want a compile step. In the browser however that would probably be a better solution indeed.

<comment><USER39> Why don't you want a compile step?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because a compile step is annoying when it's not strictly needed. In the browser you usually have some kind of build system for concatenation and minifying anyways.

<comment><USER40> With coffeescript, at least, there is no extra compile step from the user's point of view. You can run `coffee myapp.coffee` in the same way you would run `node myapp.js`

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I think i saw 8 libraries before who abused comments like this.

Edit: Yawn.</comment>


Apply HN: On-demand for the masses – THE 'APP STORE' FOR EVERYONE - <AUTHOR> Industry: Mobile local commerce
Problem: The way businesses and people communicate is outdated and scattered (phone calls, clumsy email, numerous chat support interfaces). There are too many different on demand apps for many different things, and worse yet, every major brand already has their own app for interacting with their products/services (think Starbucks, Subway, Dominoes, Macy's, McDonald's, etc).
From an average person point of view - buying things from businesses involves too many apps. People do not want to deal with 15 different apps with 15 different interfaces just to achieve a few simple tasks (contact the business, buy from the business, view products/services, etc)
Solution: What if we could have one app where you could find any business you want across any industry, and buy from them directly and seamlessly? What if your appointments and transactions were all in one easy place? What if we made this platform opened so that anyone could start their own 'storefront' (aka 'app') and sell their products/services? What would that mean for people's livelihoods and careers? We're building a platform that can do just this.
We're not just improving the way people connect and buy from businesses, but we're also making it so the average person can tap into this platform and monetize themselves. This is what we're really passionate about – empowering the common folk! We see it as 'opensourcing' the economy and making it easy for anyone to input (sell) and output (buy) from it (in Hacker News talk of course).
Help us: We're based in Canada, we're a technical team of 3, we're on a mission, and almost ready to launch in beta. The YC Fellowship would help us greatly in keeping us afloat for a few more months (we're currently 'jobless' and working on this fulltime :D).
Any feedback, reality checks, and experience is appreciated so let us know what you think.
- Osiris <comment><AUTHOR> Has anyone worked on anything similar in the past, or have any insights on growing something like this? We realize its an uphill battle since there's the chicken and egg problem, and at the same time we'll need to convince businesses to use this platform over others who currently have all the users but little features (think FB's Messenger). There is also a variety of different industries that require different approaches (restaurants, food chains, home handywork, professional services, hair salons, etc).

</comment><comment><USER2> Is it just me, or does this sound like a description of the internet?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really. This relates to commerce, not photo sharing, blogs/articles, videos, link sharing, etc. So if you want to think of it as a browser for businesses and sellers, that would be more accurate.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Audentifi – Identify the music used in YouTube videos - <AUTHOR> http://audentifi.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey all,

I've spent the past few weekends building this:

[http://audentifi.com](http://audentifi.com)

It's a little app to identify the songs used in YouTube videos because I got fed up of finding awesome new music and then not knowing who the artist was.

 __The premise: __

1\. Enter a YouTube URL containing unknown music

2\. Click 'Identify songs' to get the artists and songs

3\. Profit!

Now unfortunately the current version is pretty primitive and doesn't always get anything right - but you'd be pleasantly surprised the times it gets things bang on! I've certainly added some new albums to my collection since...

Here are some cool videos:

\- [Not another GoPro edit]([http://audentifi.com/identify?video_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yo...](http://audentifi.com/identify?video_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D80Ga9qFJLRA))

\- [Fireworks From A Drone]([http://audentifi.com/identify?video_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yo...](http://audentifi.com/identify?video_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPvkcqgpZJCw))

\- [Freeride 41]([http://audentifi.com/identify?video_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yo...](http://audentifi.com/identify?video_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DOW-J2pQrlsw))

Intuitively...

\- Sports edits usually work really well

\- Longer, more complex videos don't work so well (something I'm looking to improve)

Any feedback is appreciated - I'd love to hear any improvements or ideas you guys have. I'm also tweaking the backend to use some machine learning algorithms to determine where the tracks start and end - does anyone have some useful resources on the topic?

Really I'm just testing the waters and seeing if it's worth continuing with the project. I can only afford to keep a couple of backend servers running, so if a lot of people are submitting videos then the waiting time can be quite long...

Thanks for your time guys :)

<comment><USER4> Sweet.. I'm highlighting this on Product Hunt tmrw.

What's a good email to connect with you?

<comment><AUTHOR> mike (at) nordkril.se. I've been listening to some of your podcasts - <USER2> work!

<comment><USER4> email sent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just checked it out on a random time lapse video from National Geographic and it was spot on. Good work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just tried a YouTube video of Stevie Ray Vaughan (randomly selected) - got an error message :) Havent checked more but its really useful if it works as you say. I like to find music to jam along with the guitar so this is a tool to identify new stuff. Thanks

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking it out. It's very temperamental at the moment - <USER3> I'm hoping to improve in the future!

<comment><AUTHOR> On further inspection it looks like the video was blocked on copyright grounds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> * what is your tech stack? * are you using LSH/Minhash? or something else? * where did you get your music database?

<comment><AUTHOR> The hashing algorithm is provided by Echonest in their Echoprint service and used to compare against their database (hopefully growing after their Spotify acquisition). However before this can be done, the individual tracks have to picked out - I've not had much luck with Echoprint identifying more than one track at a time.

Python, RQ / Redis for the task queue, RethinkDB for the backend, FFmpeg for transcoding and C for DSP (only in testing).</comment></comment>


Mixpanel (YC S09) now has "really really slow analytics" - <AUTHOR> http://mixpanel.com

<comment><USER2> I don't think April fool's jokes are /really/ meant to damage your own brand. :/

<comment><USER3> They should really use some kind of analytical tool to measure what effect this joke is having on CTR and conversions.

<comment><USER4> They are I guess. And that's why it's still up there.</comment></comment></comment>


'Once Upon A Time In America': A Butchered Film Rising Up As A Phoenix - <AUTHOR> https://cinephiliabeyond.org/once-upon-a-time-in-america-a-butchered-film-rising-up-as-a-phoenix/ <comment><USER2> This is one of those movies I used to watch every now and then with my dad when I was a teenager (although it's way too long to watch in one sitting). It's one of my father's favorites, along with Rio Bravo, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, and Deliverance (I wholeheartedly recommend all of them, the last one is some heavy shit). Such a shame that most people get to experience it in the butchered version. And to think we were getting the real thing on Polish cable TV and didn't even appreciate it...

<comment><USER3> "Once Upon A Time In The West" would fit well in that list. Very long. Leone back to spaghetti western roots. Fonda as a pretty good bad guy. And Bronson. Been a few years, now I have to watch it again...

edit: link

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

<comment><USER4> I think "Duck, you sucker!" is a very underestimated movie. Too bad it was seriously mistitled: Sergio Leone insisted on a literal translation when "A fistful of dynamite" might have made a difference.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_You_Sucker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_You_Sucker)!

<comment><USER3> Never looked @ SL IMDB page and never even heard of this before, thanks! Just put it on reseve @ my public library. Of course it`s 157 minutes runtime..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recall back in the day being very confused when I first saw the US release, but then several years later watching the original. I didn't know the back- story of the film. I recall thinking "I've seen this movie, but this scene wasn't in it, neither was this, what the hell?" This was obviously pre- Internet, so it wasn't easy to figure out what had happened to the movie if you weren't following the trades.

</comment><comment><USER6> Richard Linklater (Slackers, Dazed and Confused, Boyhood, etc) leads the Austin Film Society and screened the full European cut then led a discussion of the film (video of that here: [https://youtu.be/irYXKADAKjI](https://youtu.be/irYXKADAKjI))

Attending that screening caused me to discover one of my favorite American films.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is one of my favorite movies. I remember learning that he was working on another movie -- siege of leningrad -- but died before shooting started. A terrible loss!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2Ui65SR8KI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2Ui65SR8KI)

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been focusing my library on Google. For the most part they are great for both movies and books. But this is one example of a title they simply don't have. At least in us. I've been waiting for years, I don't care if it's the original cut or not. I just want to buy it digital from my provider of choice. It's infuriating this option is not granted as easily. I'll keep waiting.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you like this movie, I highly recommend the book it's based off of: "The Hoods" by Harry Grey.

</comment><comment><USER10> This partial quote implies that a fully restored version exists (in some publicly-viewable form), but I don't see any details:

[At long last, materials for some of these missing sections have been found and re-inserted into the picture under the supervision of Leone's family and surviving collaborators. The work has been completed by the magnificent team at Cineteca di Bologna and L'Immagine Ritrovata, and it has been wonderful to witness this enlargement of Leone's vision, step by precious step." —Martin Scorsese, Founder and Chair, The Film Foundation]

<comment><USER11> It exists on Bluray, and was released in 2014, running time 250 minutes.

This article is from 2015. It's annoying when articles don't display their original publish date and you need to view source to see it.

<comment><USER10> When you notice such missing annotations, email firstname.lastname@example.com, and dang and company will gladly update accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Definitely one of my favourite films due to its multilayered approach. I also like the idea of these 20's gangsters growing old

I remember reading a theory that the main storyline in doesnt actually happen, and it is just an opium induced haze of de niro's character

</comment><comment><USER13> This movie is possibly in top-3 list of any gangster movie collection. I rank the Godfather (I & II) as #1 and this movie as #2 in my list.

I also consider this to be Sergio Leone's best movie and one of the must-watch movies by any movie fan.

<comment><USER14> The Killer.

<comment><USER15> I can see where you're coming from (both involve crime, intrigue, cops and robbers), but I don't think it's really same genre.

Don't get me wrong, on its own terms The Killer is an amazing film, basically defining the _heroic bloodshed_ action genre, and together with Hard Boiled and A Better Tomorrow among the three must-see John Woo movies.

<comment><USER14> They don't go about it the same way, but I think they explore a lot of the same themes -- loyalty, morality vs. the law, etc. I think people kind of undersell the Hong Kong triad movies as anything other than mindless action.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> [http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Once-Upon-a-Time-in-America- Bl...](http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Once-Upon-a-Time-in-America-Blu- ray/105558/)

251 min running time

</comment><comment><USER17> For those who enjoy commentary tracks, the 4h11m Bluray doesn't contain the commentary by Richard Schickel (film historian and critic), however the 3h49m version does [1].

This is the proper theatrical release with an optional commentary track.

For the 4h11m version, the commentary was dropped due to a lack of space and also because the commentary doesn't cover the additional scenes.

[1] [http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Once-Upon-a-Time-in-America- Bl...](http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Once-Upon-a-Time-in-America-Blu- ray/16190/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Can anyone who's seen the four hour cuts comment on whether it would barbaric to watch it over two nights?

It's very tricky to fit a 4 hour movie into my life nowadays.

<comment><USER19> Once Upon A Time in America should have been a trilogy, it's yet another movie that was undone by its length and the time it was released. Blade Runner is another one that should have probably been spread over two or three movies.

Sometimes I wonder what film history would look like, if only movie directors, producers and distributors had accepted the serial format earlier. It took the success of _Return of the Jedi_ to make it acceptable to spread a story over multiple features, and even then it was considered just a geek thing until Peter Jackson's _Lord of the Rings_ saga. Now Marvel keeps scoring hit after hit with the biggest shared-continuity universe in the business, _auteurs_ have embraced serialization with high-quality TV series, and it's only a matter of time before someone starts purposefully making non-genre continuity- linked trilogies.

<comment><USER18> I'd say it's HBC and it's ilk that shifted things. Long story arc TV shows with the same artistic ambitions and standards as movies. It's debatable where it began. First I remember is Oz but I've read people claim it goes as far back as Hill St. Blues.

In the UK we had a series called GBH that blew me away as a young person. I keep meaning to rewatch it to see if it's as good as I remember.

<comment><USER20> > In the UK we had a series called GBH that blew me away as a young person. I > keep meaning to rewatch it to see if it's as good as I remember.

I've watched it recently, and it's super-fun, but not thoughtful or deep. It's just a LibDem/Tory slander against Militant starring a cartoon character sexually impotent lefty pol who pours campaign fund champagne over hookers while plotting petty revenge against his childhood enemies, slapping children and wetting the bed.

<comment><USER21> Watched it again a couple of years ago. It's not perfect (some episodes could be chopped without you noticing), but a Tory smear it ain't. Alan Bleasdale was "True Labour" (way to the left of The Third Way), he just had no time for the Derek Hattons of the world and believed Militant was an unwitting tool of the establishment (something he made explicit in the plot). Complicated by the fact he made Murray way more interesting than Hatton, ofc.

Nelson is Bleasdale's hero: long standing Labour member. Wants to teach kids, but would never cross a picket line. Doesn't use the personal stuff the establishment have dug up to discredit Murray. &c

Incidentally, I lived near Hatton back in the day. He had done extremely well financially out of his time at the council.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The random synchronicity of life! I am halfway through this movie, having watched the first two hours last night, and planning to view the rest of it today. First time ever, and didn't really know much of it. When up pops this posting on HN.

I assume I shall have to watch the whole thing before it meshes into coherence, so at this point no ruminations on the actual quality of the thing.

</comment><comment><USER23> The same was done to the 1984 Dune movie. It was originally 4 hours, then cut down to 2.

<comment><USER24> No. There are lots of stories about various very long versions of Dune. The most common story that is Lynch had a 6-hour version and that the studio forced him down to 2. It's a myth. The theatrical cut is the only cut Lynch did.

<comment><USER25> The "6-hour version of _Dune_ " is probably confusing the Lynch treatment with Jodorowsky's attempt at a _Dune_ film -- which was never filmed (the script wasn't even finished!), but whose production was documented in the 2013 _Jodorowsky 's Dune_:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky's_Dune](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky's_Dune)

It may also be confusing Lynch's film with the 2000 Sci-Fi miniseries _Frank Herbert 's Dune_, which totalled roughly 5 hours across three episodes.

<comment><USER24> Possibly, but the rumours of a 6-hour and even longer cuts go back _years_. I remember discussing this way back in the late 1990s. It's a very persistent rumour.

<comment><USER25> The attempted Jodorowsky treatment was in the 1970s. The documentary film was more recent, but people certainly would have heard about it at the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> ? I'm not sure how this fits together. There is a four or so hour extended version of the movie which I love. Is this saying that there is a new version as well?

<comment><USER11> The article is from 2015. There is not a new version.

The most recent version of the film is 250 minutes long and was released in 2014 containing the extra 20 minutes of restored footage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> All the top torrents are the 3h 49min or 4h 11min extended version.

</comment><comment><USER28> Great, great movie. I my country it is available in Netflix.</comment>


Cryptocurrency Collapse - <AUTHOR> https://blog.dshr.org/2018/11/cryptocurrency-collapse.html <comment><AUTHOR> The price peak was December 2017 — but the hash rate was six times that by August 2018, at one-third of the price.

Mining 1 BTC cost way less than 1 BTC during the bubble. So, to compete, miners built out big.

The hash rate changes approximately every two weeks. But capital expenditure — building and deploying single-purpose mining hardware — has a rather longer lead time.

The price just crashed, and the hash rate is now dropping off sharply. So everyone's getting squeezed — the cost of mining 1 BTC is circling 1 BTC, like it was in the doldrums of 2014-2015.

F2Pool founder Mao Shixing estimates 600,000 Bitcoin mining machines shut down in the last two weeks — mostly older, less efficient machines. ... The interview with Mao Shixing gives us numbers for how cheap Chinese power actually is. Summer prices are around 2.9 cents per kilowatt-hour. We're coming into winter, and it's more like 4.3 c/kWh.

The current worldwide hash rate is 45×1018 hashes per second. If everyone is running an Ebang E-10 (which they're not — most mining is less efficient), at 0.092 joules per gigahash — then in summer, that's about $2750 a bitcoin for the electricity alone.

Around now, it's getting to … around $4000 to mine a bitcoin.

<comment><USER2> It's fun to watch a market that's actually nearly perfect: no barriers to entry or regulation to capture means that lead time is about the only source of surplus and profit consistently trends to zero.

<comment><USER3> Would be nice if that applied to general computing. Margins on AWS are ~90%; that's pure rent that Amazon is capturing because they're the market leader in a small oligopoly.

There are startups like Golem [1] that are working on tackling this market, but it seems like they're starting with a small set of verticals, none of which are applicable to anything I need.

[1] [https://golem.network/](https://golem.network/)</comment></comment></comment>


The word "mafia" is never heard in The Godfather - <AUTHOR> https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/the-one-word-you-never-hear-in-the-godfather/news-story/4301fd8014305c005f13eeaccdca51a2 <comment><USER3> Its because its not a police movie, and these group didn't refer to themselves as Mafia...they referred to themselves as family (in Sicilian "Cosa Nostra" meaning "our thing" or "thing of ours").

You will hear "Family" plenty in the movie ("never tell anyone outside the family what you're thinking") even in the article, the mystery caller who threatens not to make the movie says:

>"Get the f __k outta town. Don't shoot no movie about the family here. Got it?"

<comment><USER4> To add to this; Cosa Nostra is Sicillian. Over the water, in Naples, it's "Camorra". In Puglia it's "Sacra Corona Unita". In Calabria, it's the awkward to pronounce"'Ndrangheta", who I believe are consindered to be the most dangerous, and closely aligned with the Albanian Mafia IIRC.

There are more, but those are the main active ones. Collectivley, they are Mafia type organisations.

The word Mafia itself is Sicillian in origin, and means "Swagger".

<comment><USER5> I believe Mafia is actually a combination of Arabic and Siciliano

"A less romantic and more likely derivation of the name Mafia is a combined Sicilian-Arabic slang expression that means acting as a protector against the arrogance of the powerful. Until the nineteenth century, the appellation mafioso, a Mafia member, had wide currency in Sicily as a noncriminal, resolute man with congenital distrust of centralized authority."

Excerpt From: Selwyn Raab. "Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Mast Powerful Mafia Empires." Apple Books.

<comment><USER6> So, they were anarchists?

<comment><USER7> I've heard the opposite - that the Mafia formed to take advantage of a period when there was a vacuum of central authority in Italy and therefore little security for common folks.

The mafia served as the protectors - and if not paid, harassers - of the people in this situation.

<comment><USER8> Pretty much any government does the same- try not paying your taxes. Harassment will follow.

<comment><USER9> If you think that's crazy, try stealing a car or assaulting someone! Those darned government oppressors, always keeping us down with their taxes and laws and stuff. Who do they think they are anyway, the government?!?

<comment><USER8> It's payment for justice. We just call it taxes and police. They call it tribute and protection, or something else. The same basic functions are being fulfilled in different ways.

<comment><USER7> I agree that they share many characteristics and objectives, derived ultimately from certain realities of the ways humans operate.

But I do contend that the better forms of government that are less mafia-like. Obviously absolute monarchies and dictatorships aren't among them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It would be unrealistic for anyone in The Godfather to mention the mafia. People involved in a criminal conspiracy typically do not refer to it as such, for fairly obvious reasons. You'll never see a memo with the words "Witness Tampering Plan" or "Quid Pro Quo" left out on a desk at such organizations either, for the same reasons. Such things are discussed via euphemism or outright code, even that as little and as privately as possible.

<comment><USER11> yeah but than again in the 1970s we had creep...for a disgraced president's reelection campaign

<comment><USER12> Nope! It was CRP, named CREEP by opponents as part of the disgracing.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Re- Electio...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Re- Election_of_the_President)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The words "power fantasy" never came up in any of the Marvel movies. Show, don't tell.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's heard in Godfather part 2, though: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=1m&v=L6DkVsss...](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=1m&v=L6DkVsssnmQ)

<comment><USER15> So debunked and bad article.

<comment><USER16> ^The word "mafia" is never heard in The Godfather$

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well if you ask about or mention organized crime, many Sicilians will just ignore the subject as if it was never spoken of, gaslighting. Eventually they might lose patience and rebut that "the Mafia doesn't exist", "it's just a fantasy of the Continentals". And act offended, bloody idiots... (before you downvote, it's family, i can see how this denial has devastated and is still hurting a whole country so rich of potential. I claim my prerogative to be bitter and angry at them.)

<comment><USER18> Lived in Padova with Sicilian roomates for a year, and they certainly talked about it.

I mean, they kind of roll their eyes if it's the first thing someone mentions, because Sicily is an incredible, beautiful place with great food, beaches and Mt Etna - it's much more than the stereotype from the movies.

But it's an undeniable fact of life just the same.

<comment><USER19> I bet Medellin is such a great place too but who is to blame for its reputation? It's just that the locals got used with the families/cartels so they may not be bothered by the crime syndicates that much.

<comment><USER18> It's not an easy problem to solve. If you're the only one to speak up - <USER2> even a visible person - you or your family might get hurt or killed. These are very nasty, brutal people that run these organizations.

I was just trying to make the point that a lot of Sicilians _do_ talk openly about it, but might react poorly if that's like the first thing you blurt out when you speak to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> That's because mafia refers to itself as "Cosa Nostra", "'Ndrangheta", "Camorra", and "Sacra Corona Unita" depending on where in Italy is originated from.

<comment><USER21> "Ruddy also agreed that the script wouldn't include "Cosa Nostra," another name for the mafia"

<comment><USER14> Also mentioned in godfather part 2: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=4m26s&v=L6DkV...](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=4m26s&v=L6DkVsssnmQ)

<comment><USER22> From the article:

"So Paramount agreed and [the League] thought it'd won this great victory despite the fact there was _only one use of 'mafia' in the script_."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder what the state of the mafia is these days. Referring to the Wikipedia article[1], the five families are still a thing in New York.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Families#Original_and_cur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Families#Original_and_current_Five_Families_bosses)

<comment><USER24> Not sure about the US but unfortunately it is still a thing in Italy, especially the 'Ndrangheta. This is an article from 2014 [1] but even so, back then they said that 'Ndrangheta had a turnover of €53bn, and I can imagine it did only go up in the meantime. The bad thing is that it has "captured" most of Northern Italy, too, or at least according to what I have read online and in the papers (I'm not from Italy myself), and it also has a strong European presence: Germany, Eastern Europe [2] etc.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/ndrangheta- maf...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/ndrangheta-mafia- mcdonalds-deutsche-bank-study)

[2] [https://linx.crji.org/2019/08/30/bio-mafia-care-producea- in-...](https://linx.crji.org/2019/08/30/bio-mafia-care-producea-in-romania- asociata-cu-ndrangheta/)

<comment> saiya-jin I can't find the article now, but basically Ndrangheta ended up so effective and successful in black money laundering, all other bad actors (drug cartels, other mafias, any bad guys) are using them for a fee.

They are definitely in eastern/central Europe, in Slovakia government was toppled recently because its close ties to it, and because investigative journalist writing about it was executed with his fiancee. Mostly milking off EU subsidies, but whatever else gets the money, they want in, or they are already there.

I can't imagine easy way out of that situation, government capture was pretty effective. Election change few faces but underlying flows mostly remain the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Random fact: In Sicily they call the Mafia "Cosa Nostra" but here, in the US (and other places i believe), the detectives incorrectly added the article "la" in front of it (which is incorrect italian) calling it La Cosa Nostra, or LCN. So anytime you hear LCN, remember it is acronym for bad italian grammar.

</comment><comment><USER25> Vietnam is never mentioned in any episode of Gomer Pyle either directly or indirectly.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomer_Pyle,_U.S.M.C](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomer_Pyle,_U.S.M.C).

<comment> 1-more Ewok and Jawa are never mentioned in the original Star Wars trilogy. Maybe never at all?

<comment><USER26> Luke, in Episode 4: "Why would Imperial troops want to slaughter Jawas?"

<comment> 1-more Well I'll be. OK just ewok then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is news? New generation discovering The Godfather for the first time? Wait until they find out 2001 isn't about history - that will really blow their mind. ;)

<comment><USER28> Well, AI in 2001, surveillance state in 1984… It almost seems like these are chapter numbers in something like the 1984's inner book about how the modern world works.

<comment><USER27> I've yet to see AI. For that matter, where is my floating car and ray gun? Future is turning out to be more of the same.

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi Come on. For $50 I can buy a smart speaker that recognizes my voice and I can ask about the weather, news, events for a given day, factual questions, set reminders, play music of X genre, etc.

I know the limitations (I work in the field), it's way less powerful than Hal 9000, but by 20th century standards we definitely have AI.

<comment><USER29> "Hey siri, play <search term>"

"I didn't get that."

"Hey siri, play <search term>"

"Got it, playing <similar-sounding search term>"

"Hey siri, stop"

"Hey siri, play <search term (enunciating slowly)>"

"Got it, playing <similar-sounding search term>"

"Hey siri, stop"

<opens app on phone and manually types in the correct search term>

\---

"Hey siri, <a search term more complicated than one short sentence with a clear answer>"

"Sorry, I'm not able to show that. <opens web browser with term>"

\---

We do not have AI, unless you mean in the loosest possible meaning. Everything is still dumb as rocks, we just have made voice recognition a convenience. Parsing sound into a search term and dumb-ly searching is still dumb. It's not AI just because I'm not manually typing it in.

Every system I've asked questions has failed on anything that's not fairly simple. Taking sounds and mapping that to a google search or a particular app is not AI. It's some engineer who decided that questions with a similarity to X or Y can be answered with Z app. (i.e. questions about the weather) Siri and others are still dumb as rocks.

<comment><USER30> Having used all three of Alexa, 'Ok Google', and Siri, I'd have to say Siri is the worst of the three. It's extremely far behind the the other two.

Try your voice searches with Google and it's very likely you'll get what you want.

<comment><USER29> Regardless of the brand, it's still not intelligent in any meaningful way. The capability of alexa/siri/whatever directly corresponds to whether or not some programmer implemented a match statement on that particular kind of question. Alex/siri are still just dumb tools, with voice recognition as a facade. That's not AI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why is this surprising ? Actually curious why people think this is weird ?

<comment><USER32> Living up to your username I see :P

<comment><USER31> Do you run around all day talking about yourself in the third person ?

Why would these people ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Al Ruddy (the producer) describes how this came about in his interview with Malcolm Gladwell[0]. It's quite a story.

[0][http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs- chutzp...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah)

</comment><comment><USER34> For anyone who hasn't seen the movies-- run, don't walk, to go get "Godfather I" and "Godfather II".

Don't bother with "Godfather III".

The book is great, too.

<comment><USER35> The book is not great. It goes on and on with stupid subplots (for some reason johnny fontane is an important character, go figure). Coppola _hated_ the book and hesitated a long time before accepting to work on the movie.

The 3rd party is not on par with the other 2, but it gets more hate than it deserves. It is the closing of the Corleone saga and I found the 3rd act of the movie very powerful.

<comment><USER36> Coppola didn't like it on first reading, bu hated is too strong a word. He really liked it on the second close reading.

[https://ew.com/books/2019/03/05/the-godfather-book-50th- anni...](https://ew.com/books/2019/03/05/the-godfather-book-50th-anniversary- foreword/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs5KdzlWYNI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs5KdzlWYNI)

As for the book, it is a GAM, Great American Novel. It's intended to tell a broad story of immigration and assimilation. The movie, being a movie with limited budget and time, has to chop much of that away. Needless to say, I liked the book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I highly recommend the book The Good Mothers. Even if you think you know about the mafia, the scale that they are operating on will blow your mind. The Calabrian-based mob control a medium-to-large country's worth of the world's money.

<comment><USER38> Gomorrah [1], the book, by Roberto Saviano is pretty good too.

[1] quick fun read on the origins of Sodom and Gomorrah [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> 'Star Wars' is also not mentioned in Star Wars—which seems like a HUGE oversight in retrospect.

<comment><USER40> Ha! I always love it when characters in movies go out of the way to say the name of the movie. It is a good sign of a bad movie (not always of course but a lot of times.) I still remember giggling when I saw the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider and one of the characters said, "Well, you're the tomb raider!"

<comment><USER41> In Star Trek: First Contact, they time-travel to post-apocalyptic Montana to help the inventor of the warp drive, who calls them "astronauts on some kind of star trek".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Fun fact: this was a question in the original Trivial Pursuit.

</comment><comment><USER43> La cosa Nostra made the filmmakers not mention mafia in the movie.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/20/archives/-godfather- film-...](https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/20/archives/-godfather-film-wont- mention-mafia-protest-gets-mafia-reference-out.html)

</comment><comment><USER44> really interesting article. this is one of my favorite movies and i've never even thought about that word

</comment><comment><USER45> If you're curious about the story in more detail, Revisionist History has a good episode on it: [http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs- chutzp...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah)

</comment><comment><USER46> Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his Revisionist History podcast: Episode 39 ([http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs- chutzp...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah))

See transcript: [https://podscribe.app/feeds/https-feedsmegaphonefm- revisioni...](https://podscribe.app/feeds/https-feedsmegaphonefm- revisionisthistory/episodes/83002bb4-86cb-11e9-afd9-ff62826378b2)

> word mafia is barely in the script it only appears once so I cross the word > mafia I said Joe I'ma do this I'm going to take this out of the movie

</comment><comment><USER47> I started near the end and thought that Columbo had been shot by the mafia. As in Lieutenant Columbo. The horror!

More seriously, though, they're great movies and I enjoyed them.

Can't help feeling though that some people come away with the wrong message: they think that mafia morality is how the world really works and so they must now embrace it.

Instead of noticing that Michael Corleone was trying to escape from it all and create a different life for his children. A life without the threats and violence.

(And then I think, hmm, perhaps mafia morality _is_ still alive and well. It's merely that instead of being assassinated people are being deplatformed, disemployed, etc.)

<comment><USER48> Deplatforming and disemploying is fundamentally different in that it works by social consensus rather than an individual "fiat," at the very least. I can't deplatform you without getting the agreement of all relevant platforms.

That's one big difference in the things you are comparing, without diving too deep into a different topic.

<comment><USER47> Good point. Although I think it tends to be a consensus among an influential minority of the populace rather than society as a whole.

<comment><USER41> Mob rule is never actually mob rule, there's a complicated relationship between the mob and the demagogues who alternately control the mob while also being controlled by it.

<comment><USER49> Controlled opposition while shuffling the real dirty jobs on them and maintaining plausible deniability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> And The Walking Dead never calls them Zombies.

<comment><USER51> The Walking Dead season 7: This is why the word 'zombie' is never used

It turns out horror maestro George A Romero doesn't exist in this show's universe

[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/tv/news/the...](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/tv/news/the-walking-dead-season-7-theres-a-reason-why-the-word- zombie-is-a-big-no-no-a7461246.html)

<comment><USER50> Neat, but I think that's an in-universe explanation for a stylistic decision.

Like "Quiet does commando ops wearing a bikini because she breathes through her skin".

No, the game designers wanted her to wear a bikini, so they wrote in that she breathes through her skin.

Same here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Terrible SEO by the makers.

</comment><comment><USER53> The most interesting part of this article is that the aim of the Italian- American Civil Rights League was to combat derogatory stereotypes about Italian-Americans.

The IACRL promptly reinforced all those stereotypes by launching an intimidation campaign against the production of The Godfather.

</comment><comment><USER54> The mafia is just government by other means, and "The government" hates the competition.

</comment><comment><USER36> The book uses the word _mafia_ quite a bit, 57 times according to my PDF reader.

</comment><comment><USER55> Btw, ask any Italian if they have seen Godfather III: they know it exists, probably, but they hardly know its content: which is explosive

</comment><comment><USER56> How is this on topic in the slightest?

<comment><USER57> It is about culture. Just because it's about the Mafia and those types of people are criminals doesn't mean they don't have their own culture. It being culture, it is interesting to people here on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> They never say "Star Wars" in Star Wars</comment>


The Worst-run Big City In The US - barry-cotter http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/fql/link_the_worstrun_big_city_in_the_us/ <comment><USER2> Measuring outcomes is hard, especially in comparison to outputs which are easier to quantify but are different than outcomes. True measures of outcomes usually can only be tracked over a long period of time, whereas outputs will give instant feedback.

Look at what has been happening in the schools with standardize testing. Proponents think they are measuring outcomes (effectiveness in preparing children to be skilled & productive members of society) with standardized tests. They are actually measuring outputs (test scores) as a proxy for the outcomes.

The result is the system being measured will adapt. Schools "teach to the test" which improves the outputs but we don't know the effect on the desired outcomes. It may result in children being less prepared.

This is a well known effect in companies that measure individual performance in terms of outputs (widgets manufactured, # of upsells, etc). The employees will deliver the required metrics but it often comes at a cost to quality and customer satisfaction which is a negative outcome to the company.

Which is the main lesson in quantifying outcomes: Measuring the wrong thing can be worse than not measuring at all.

<comment><USER3> "Measuring the wrong thing can be worse than not measuring at all."

I'm calling bullshit on that one.

Yes, measuring the wrong thing can incentivize poor outcomes, but _movement in the wrong direction is visible and can be corrected_ , whereas lethargic inaction just lazily drifts into a morass.

You have to measure outcome. Period. We can have great discussions around what kinds of measurements to have and how to apply them, but money should not go out the door without some indication that something is happening as a result of it -- even the wrong thing. In fact, big visible indicators of the wrong thing happening as a result of measurements is a terrific result. If we're arguing over measurement, the game is already lost.

Another way of stating this is that let's say I pick a measurement to implement. It's a terrible measurement, and it causes much pain and suffering. You come to me and say "This is a terrible measurement and causes much pain and suffering!" To which I respond "How do you know this?"

So you show me a study -- another form of measurement! Then we have a conversation about including parts of your study in my measurement, scrapping my measurement entirely, and so forth.

We cannot have meaningful conversations about management without measuring things. Once we start measuring things, the world is wide open about which things to measure. But if you convince me that the act of measuring itself is broken, we have no further basis for any conversation around performance at all. Management has no function. There is no quantifiable return for any possible amount of money I might invest. Very bad.

We don't need to wait around to pick the perfect measurement or do nothing at all. We need to pick measurements -- any measurements -- and rapidly iterate towards finding what works best for us.

If the testing system is broken, and I have no doubt that it is, it's broken based on bureaucrats creating a large, brittle, hard-to-change architecture of testing, instead of just trying to continuously evolve what works best. It has failed because we put the same idiots in charge of school testing that were creating the mess the tests were supposed to fix in the first place.

<comment><USER4> "So you show me a study"

No, he shows you an anecdote or two. Which isn't worth very much, but it's more than what you had before. It's not like the original measurement had any studies validating it either. But it looks scientific: it has numbers!

<comment><USER5> But there are so many ways to mismanage a city! I'm sure that makes it hard to prove one is the 'worst'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Golly that sounds terrible. San Francisco must be an unbearable cesspit. Oh wait, that's right, it's my favorite city in the US, has a better than decent public transport system, and given a choice many people will pay extra to live there.

I've heard some amazing stories of mismanagement and excessively liberal policies (e.g. Homeless people being paid stipends by the city) but there are plenty of well managed cities I would move out of in favor of San Francisco. (My favorite post in the linked thread was a comparison of SF to Saudi Arabia.)

</comment><comment><USER7> The real article which contains much more detail is here:

[http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big- ci...](http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-city-in-the- u-s/)

</comment><comment><USER8> "millions of taxpayer dollars are wasted on good ideas that fail for stupid reasons"

I guess that's better than £1 billion on a not-very-good idea that fails for stupid reasons:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Trams>

£1 billion (and counting) to transport people along a pretty short route in a city that has excellent bus and taxi services is a wonder of our time - <AUTHOR> are only half a million or so people in Edinburgh so that's £2000 per person for a service most of us will never use....

</comment><comment><USER9> That kind of money is tiddlywinks for city's and states, the real ongoing scam is what is called the 'capital expenditure budgets' of these orgnizations. Massive sums of money, that tend to go no-bid, or fixed bid contracts with the authorities buddies. Services to constituents get cut, but the capital exp. budget never gets cut, it is always increased.

</comment><comment><USER10> The SF Weekly article is from 2009. Wonder where the things stand now and after the new mayor.

</comment><comment><USER11> Do people understand that SF's supposed dysfunction is a major contributor to its charm? If it is supposedly "worst run" is that something to aspire to? A lot of people mistake "despite" for "because of" when it comes to stuff like this.

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe JWZ is right when he says the city of SF is clueless about business. It certainly seems to be clueless about the nighttime entertainment business, which is where his rants and his increasingly bad temper seem to come from.</comment>


Mozilla Tests Firefox Containers for Separate Online Identities - <AUTHOR> http://www.techtimes.com/articles/165830/20160618/mozilla-tests-firefox-containers-for-separate-online-identities.htm <comment><USER2> Discussion a couple days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11915656](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11915656)

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder how this differs from profiles ('-P') which firefox already has. Hopefully it will work on the mobile version too...</comment>


UK police arrest man via automatic face-recognition tech - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/police-automatic-face-recognition/ <comment><USER2> I think the big thing people forget when they automate systems is that they make them too strict. As in you're always expected to fit within the parameters and pattern of behaviour that the system was built with. It tolerates no deviation.

However as with all human things, it is better and less trouble to be able to take shortcuts rather than have to stick to the rules 100%. For example people crossing the road in the middle of the night with not a car in sight. People reversing down the road a little bit to turn or get a parking spot. Being able to cross the centre green patch on a high way at night because there won't be a u-turn available for many kms. The issues with identical twins and not being able to get IDs (basically the inability to override a system).

These sort of issues help remove stress and simplify things in our daily lives, and help make the world function.

<comment><USER3> What has that got to do with the article? Facial recognition isn't crime detection...it's recognising someone who has an arrest warrant (or in this case, perhaps also checking against a list of banned hooligans), i.e. it either is the person or it isn't.

<comment><USER2> My comment was on people putting too much trust into computerised systems, of which facial recognition is one. It also referenced comments other people had made here for when the rules and programming in such a computerised system broke down in the real world.

In the case of facial recognition there was examples of twins being rejected for IDs because the system thought it was the same person applying under different names.

I'd also be dubious as how well it can identify people based on grainy and low resolution camera footage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let me wave my hand around a crystal ball and peer into our future...

"Cameras are everywhere and record every crime. Somewhere in the city a man commits a murder. Computers register the crime. Later that same man steps into a self-driving car. The man explains to the car that he wants to travel to the other side of the city. The car doors lock and the vehicle takes off. But the car is not going to where he thinks. Slowly the man realizes that he is being taken directly to the nearest police precinct for booking. Desperately the man tries to exit the car but the doors are locked. He lays down in the seat and frantically kicks at the windshield but there is no time. The car has been given emergency priority and begins traveling over 90 mph. The precious seconds tick by...

Back at the precinct the cop takes another bit of his doughnut and reminisces about the time when policing was not just a desk job."

That's enough of the crystal ball for today.

<comment><USER5> Isn't this good? Fuck criminals. Anything that makes catching then easier is good.

<comment><USER6> The problem is trying to "automate" the justice system, and in the process, accidentally creating a dystopian dictator's fantasy.

Mass surveillance provides unparalleled power to those who control it. It's unprecedented in all of human history. I don't believe humanity knows how to safely handle such power at this point.

One of the most fundamental concerns is the fact that, once collected, the data is vulnerable to being misappropriated or weaponized for the entirety of its existence, possibly for many decades or longer. By that point, laws may have changed significantly and the entire political climate could be drastically different.

Imagine being automatically put on a special list and thus denied certain basic priveleges due to "questionable" posts you made in an online forum 15 years ago. We can imagine a wide variety of vague and controversial definitions of "questionable content" for this thought experiment.

<comment><USER7> But the police is explicitly _not_ the justice system.

Courts are of course complicated, and I imagine that police would abuse such a network to arrest people without means to fight back... but at the end of the day I can at least hope to be in front of a judge. And it's not like the courts are the ones doing the dystopian investigating.

<comment><USER8> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So when a crime happens in public: in addition to a dump of all cellphones in the area they'll also have access to all scanned faces and license plates (via lidar) to reconstruct what happened. Plus potentially an always-on eye in the sky via drones/planes which allows them to "rewind" peoples and cars movements up until that point. Pretty scary to think how easy their jobs will be.

<comment><USER10> The'll have instant connection to any CCTV facing public places (including hotel corridors) and any dash cam. After all, all the videos will be uploaded to data centers via 7G.

Identification of humans, dogs, car plates will be in real time plus the identities will be logged for 5 years.

The CCTVs will record in PetaHD, enough for fingerprint identification from distance of 120 meters.

PetaHD © records use two cameras (for 3D) with auto zooming for moving objects.

All cars will have black boxes with video and sound recording. Illegal turns will be autofined (if you were able to turn illegally, because most of the time your car won't allow you).

<comment><USER11> > Illegal turns will be autofined

I also expect the fines to get lower once everybody gets a couple of fines per day on average.

<comment><USER12> No, they won't fine anyone until you protest against the state, and then they will crush you with "the law".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > In the same statement, the police force turns a little more towards pre- > crime. South Wales police and crime commissioner Alun Michael said: "Our > approach to policing is very much centred upon early intervention and > prompt, positive action; the introduction of facial recognition helps to > support these aims by allowing us to identify vulnerability, challenge > perpetrators, and reduce instances of offending within environments where > the technology is deployed."

As spooky as automatic facial recognition is for finding and arresting criminals, it's like they're parodying themselves with this statement. You couldn't sound more evil if you tried.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think the real battle is in Judicial reforms. Honestly we are at a stage where the face recpgnition technology is just too easy to deploy. [1, 2]

There are also several legitimate use cases, e.g. Amber alerts, Public right to record, etc. The society can delay dealing with technology for only so long. Over the next decade we will see huge adoption of Autonomous cars, robots, cheap drones essentially "Mainstreaming" of surveillance technology. At this point the legal system would have to decide a sane framework to resolve the challenges posed by technology. However given the paralysis in Washington, and inability to deal with even the most basic questions of algorithms and law (No-fly lists being the prime example) I am not too hopeful.

[1] [https://github.com/search?q=topic%3Aface- recognition&type=Re...](https://github.com/search?q=topic%3Aface- recognition&type=Repositories)

[2] [https://aws.amazon.com/rekognition/](https://aws.amazon.com/rekognition/)

<comment><USER15> Done by a government with proper legal oversight it certainly has its place and easily will be a net positive for society. Though lawmakers seem to be oblivious to tech advances moving far quicker than they can, don't hold much hope they can keep up.

Used by corporations it will be frustrating and take privacy intrusions to the next level. In the end though, democracies will survive fine.

The real issue is tyrannical regimes getting their hands on facial recognition, it's a terrifying prospect and likely to be used with great effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Last night I watched the 'Total Recall' remake with he kids. I couldn't help making connections between the film and the way technological policing is progressing. I keep noticing that in dystopian sci-fi films there are far too many parallels with the UK. I should stop watching sci-fi and finish some coding...

<comment><USER17> Meanwhile, back in the real world, I spent an hour waiting to speak to someone in the police the other day only for the guy on the desk to say he needed another 30-45 minutes with the lady at the desk and there were no other staff. So, if you really do want to report a crime or some criminal behaviour that has got to the stage where a little bit of community work by the police would help, good luck to you. Maybe take an afternoon off work so you will have time for the bureaucracy.

We are a long way from 'you have twenty seconds to comply' policing.

<comment><USER18> It seems to me that the danger is having no time for _anything but_ 'you have twenty seconds to comply' policing.

Just look at the comments made by serving UK police officers in light of the recent high-profile attacks, particularly about the relative lack of intelligence now that there are so few officers assigned to basic community policing and everything has become about reaction rather than relationships.

Compare and contrast those views with the recent comments by Theresa May about how the problem wasn't really caused by a sharp reduction in the number of police officers but instead must be fixed by regulating everything and throwing human rights laws out the window if they happen to be inconvenient.

<comment><USER17> My experience was definitely of this, the problem that you cite.

But as you mention, police, despite all accusations to the contrary, are not stupid. They know what policing is and it is about communities and people rather than enforcing the edicts of a given political party. It is strange how police are always politically controlled, maybe in some do-gooding place like Norway they are allowed to be professional without interference.

Along with 'twenty seconds to comply...' there is this instant execution by police that happens. Nobody is shedding a tear for the three terrorists shot 8 minutes into their killing spree, however, would the police have been able to apprehend them if they only had their batons?!? This was the situation in the UK until recently, if you 'went postal' in some regional town it would take a while before officers with guns would arrive. You would have hours to escape bullets. But now? 8 minutes.

I also imagine a world where no terrorist gets tried in court. Death awaits them before they get that far and the quaint notion of justice before a jury goes by the by.

<comment><USER19> You're not going to get an 8 minute response anywhere but in the major city centres, which have armed units on 24/7 standby.

I think those units have been around in London for decades at this point. Probably ever since the ring of steel was installed as a response to the IRA bombing campaigns of the 70s/80s.

<comment><USER20> Exactly. Borough market is right next to London Bridge station, Guy's Hospital and the Shard, all of which are obvious places to park rapid response units.

Similarly the area of Westminster around Parliament and the Palace will be completely covered 24/7, extending out towards the nearby embassies and Whitehall civil service buildings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you're watching (or reading) The Handmaid's Tale, this is what an Eye van looks like in real life.

</comment><comment><USER22> Relevant.

[0] [http://www.radiolab.org/story/eye- sky/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/eye-sky/)

[1] [http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-eye- sky/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-eye-sky/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Anyone know what the false positive and false negative rates are with current tech?

Edit: Assuming real world conditions where people don't pose for you.

</comment><comment><USER24> tighten the rules by using technology and criminals will use technology to break the rules - murders by drone</comment>


Camera Uses Laser Beams to Take 3-D Images From 1 Kilometer Away - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/04/3-d-distance-camera/

<comment><USER2> I wonder if you'll get more discussion than when I submitted this story yesterday:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5517580>

I think it's intriguing and deserves more attention.

<comment><AUTHOR> seems its not catchy enough for the hn crowd...</comment></comment>


HubSpot: Why We Fire Our Best Employees - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/201109/inc-500-brian-halligan-hubspot.html

<comment><USER2> "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."</comment>


A job ad: "Senior Lisp Developer" - <AUTHOR> http://seeker.dice.com/jobsearch/servlet/JobSearch?op=101&dockey=xml/c/5/c5a3833d4768e81f7e276c9f574d52c1@endecaindex&c=1&source=20

<comment><USER2> Are Lisp jobs so rare that they're Hacker News worthy?

</comment><comment><USER3> It's as if a previously thought extinct animal has just been spotted alive again.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://lispjobs.wordpress.com/> for more.

</comment><comment><USER5> What am I missing that lands a dice.com link on the front page of HN?</comment>


Show HN: The Five Year Itch - <AUTHOR> http://fiveyearitch.com Show HN: Experienced software engineers who  want to change jobs after a few years need a service targeted at them, that won't make them chase ads nor swamp them with recruiter spam. We built FiveYearItch.com We're wondering: Does this meet a need for the stable, experienced, skilled,  but non-rockstar programmers? <comment><USER2> The one thing that annoys me about this, it doesn't work for other countries. It's quite limited in its use, not everyone is from the US and I don't see why it would be that hard to open it up to other parts of the globe. Believe it or not there are software engineers and web developers in Australia as well.

<comment><USER3> I am in Australia and I often find this frustrating, I do completely understand why though. The United States has a population of 311 Million. In Australia we have a population of 22 Million.

When you consider the complications in making software global, I can see why our potential customer base doesn't make it worthwhile.

Even the simple things are tougher than they seem (post code vs. zip code). It seems easy enough to detect their location and display the right wording... but then your help documentation is going to be wrong for some, or will you create multiple versions of that too.

I wish it were different, but I suspect until we have the same needs/laws, it's going to continue like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Yes, we plan to go global, but have to start building relationships with employers in the US first. Please sign up at this feature request [http://fiveyearitch.uservoice.com/forums/172768-five- year-it...](http://fiveyearitch.uservoice.com/forums/172768-five-year-itch- suggestions/suggestions/3269252-please-go-global) and we'll let you know as soon as we step out of the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like the design of the website aesthetically and at first it's what kept my attention.

After reading through the site though, I am not sure the tone/feeling of your site suits your purpose. Looking for a job is a very serious thing, I wonder if your site is a little too comical for your audience/purpose.

For me, it doesn't have the feel of a site I would want to use for job hunting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, appreciate the feedback. We designed it to be simple, fun and funny. It's not intended for job hunting so much as for relaxing and letting the high-quality offers come in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, five years is quite a long time to be in any job these days!

<comment><USER5> I think "The One Year Itch" might be more accurate.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, calling it "The Five Year Itch" is a great way to alienate anyone who hasn't worked in the same job for 5 years.

Also who, when bored with their current job, asks themselves "oh how could I scratch this Five Year Itch that I'm having"? I'd venture to say anyone who has worked that long in software development would either reach out to their network or simply stop ignoring the requests from recruiters they're getting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a really nice approach to job finding. I wonder if the same could be applied to dating websites?

<comment><USER8> you mean "I have a partner now but I'm looking for someone better" ? Seems like a strong disincentive to dating you.

But then again, I know there are dating sites which only focus on cheating so surely there is a market for this too.

<comment><USER7> I was thinking more in terms of the way candidates are anonymously matched.

NB: I don't know anything about dating or dating sites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is pretty cool I'd like to see more useful filters when searching for candidates. If you just search python it shows both learners and experts. Also no salary filter and other stuff it seems like.

</comment><comment><USER10> Very nice, I think reversing the job marketplace for tech jobs is a viable need (will only work as long as demand is higher than supply)

however, what really worries me is that you use sendgrid, but still your confirmation email got to my spam folder.

Does this mean that sendgrid.me (what was used in that case) reputation is down?

I strongly suggest that you get your own email IP, you will have low bounce / unsubscribes anyway as you send only transactional emails

(I'm not affiliated or have any relatives in sendgrid)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, we are looking into upgrading our SendGrid service or else switching to another provider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Your confirmation email ended up in my gmail spam box. Not sure if its me or gmail.

Other than that I really like the low traction.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that feedback! We'll look into getting a better email service.

By 'low traction' I presume you mean the ease of signing up. Thanks, yes, we made it super-easy on purpose. Our target market is busy people who don't feel like chasing down new jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great concept and nice execution, if I was looking for a job I would give this a try.

One thing to consider; I spent about a minute looking on your site (and on Laudits) for information about you and didn't find anything. So you seem kind of anonymous. You could be a bunch of sniggering recruiters, I don't know.

</comment><comment><USER13> I can see this being a sort of "glassdoor.com" as well. It also seems that many people are content making well below market value. Money isnt everything, but being compensated fairly goes a long way with making me feel valued as an employee.

</comment><comment><USER14> Really like the implementation, but I really don't like the name. Maybe you should think about renaming it to something less focused on the 'five year' bit.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think you need a remote employment option.</comment>


Paint Roulette demonstrating HTML5 Canvas and WebSockets - <AUTHOR> http://showmetheco.de:4040/ Using the HTML5 Canvas element on the client side and Perl/Mojolicious (http://mojolicious.org) on the server side, both connected via WebSockets. <comment><USER2> Do expect lots of penis drawings...

</comment><comment><USER3> You can also check out my project Colorillo <http://colorillo.com/>

It also uses Canvas but doesn't need non-standard ports (this one needs another connection on port 843), allows semi-opaque colors, etc.

Apart from that: what does "clear" actually do? Does it clear the screen for everyone?

<comment><USER4> It clears only your screen.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The whole code is on GitHub. <http://github.com/vti/showmethedrawing>

</comment><comment><USER5> I can't connect to the site from Belgium. Is it down ?

<comment><USER3> For me it takes forever to load, but does so eventually.</comment></comment>


Netflix Open Sources Media Caching HW, SW - <AUTHOR> https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect

<comment><AUTHOR> Possibly "open sources" should be in quotes; there's no actual code there and not a lot of detail on the software. The hardware spec has a bill of goods which includes a custom chassis and no info on how that was built. Still, it's an interesting look into the hardware design for large scale media caching.</comment>


Effective ML video - <AUTHOR> http://ocaml.janestreet.com/?q=node/82

<comment><USER2> FYI: "ML" as in "OCaml", not as in Machine Learning.

* disappointment sets in __*

I know _extremely_ little about OCaml, unfortunately. Anyone have any reasons I should look into it / avoid it? My next major learning task is to dive really deep into Ruby metaprogramming, which'll keep me busy for a few years, but I'm always up for adding more things to my list.

<comment><USER3> F# + Mono.

F# is derived from Ocaml and you can compile Ocaml programs using the F# compiler (if they adhere to the -ml-compatibility subset)</comment></comment>


What could go wrong? "Perl cgi html uploading linux kernel" - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.com/q/44148502/100754 <comment><USER2> I can think of some convoluted scenarios where it's plausible(What if a computer distributor had some private testing server that vendors could use to test drivers?).

I can't think of a good reason for anybody that has to ask how to do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> >solved it by adding in the visudo file a line thar www-data user needs no password for sudo

Dear lord. SUID scripts have a bad reputation but that would have been a much more secure solution. Now the attack surface is the entire of lighthttpd plus any CGI scripts, which is much simpler to exploit than crafting a custom malicious kernel module.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have seen this in some cheap Chinese home routers.

</comment><comment><USER5> JIAHAHAAAAAAA

<comment><USER6> Not here, please.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Features in a language - <AUTHOR>

Consider your ideal language(s).  Some people love the "I don't have to think about it"-ness of garbage collection, others hate the "I don't know when this destructor will be called" effect.  Yes, I know these are not exactly opposites, and that different languages have semantics and pragmatics that vary from a little to a lot.
So here, let me ask: What must a language do and have?
For you, for your programming style and purpose, must a language have GC?  Must it have strings?  Must it be able to take a list of any type and act on it?
In Python you can define the "length" function like this:

    length = lambda L: sum(map(lambda x:1,L))
 or like this:

    def length(L):
        if L==[]: return 0
        return 1+length(L[1:])
 and you don't have to worry about the types held in L.  Does that matter to you?
What really matters?  When I get enough answers, if I get enough answers, I might turn this into a poll. <comment><USER2> It all depends on what I want to do. For quick hacks, I prefer a language that supports that: perl or python (since that's the two I know well enough).

When writing programs to a very limited platform, I'd rather use something I can control much better, which is most often C.

Other times, I don't really have a choice: if I'm writing a web application, there's not much else than JavaScript that I can use on the client side (assuming I want to be reasonably portable, and don't want to use flash).

I tend to use whatever language fits the job at hand best, since they all have stronger and weaker areas.

</comment><comment><USER3> Absolute necessity:

Garbage collection

Built-in (or included library) types: string, integer, decimal (precise, not floating-point), boolean, list, dictionary

If statically typed, generics

First-class, anonymous and inline functions, as well as closures, or at least some convenient way to imitate these

Really, really nice to have:

If statically typed, type inference

List and dictionary literals

Consistent naming of all included code

Operator overloading

Map/select and filter/where functions on built-in list type (preferably all the functions of IEnumerable in .NET and then some)

If it wasn't obvious from that list, my favorite language is C# (at least version 3.5 or newer).</comment>