Fury at Facebook as login requests "Government ID" - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/10/29/fury-facebook-login-requests-government-id <comment><USER3> One of my least favorite memes in western society is that individual people actually believe that the government has some say in defining your name or the boundaries of your family.

Everything from the idea of "legally changed his name" to "same-sex marriage" illustrates the problems of turning to city hall for approval or consent of individuals' and families' deeply personal and private matters.

I wish the US had two more constitutional amendments: our bodies are property belonging to us individually and we are free to do with them as we please (solves abortion debate, war on drugs, assisted suicide, et c) and that government has no authority to regulate private familial matters such as what terms we use to call ourselves, what terms we use to call our loved ones, or who is within or without our families and the terms we use to refer to them (solves the current state of marriage inequality for homosexual relationships and also the discrimination against families that practice nonmonogamy, as well as any other oppressive status-quo reinforcement these assholes may come up with in the future).

It takes a very special kind of oppressor to tell you what words you are allowed to use to call yourself, what things you are allowed to do to your own body, and who you are allowed to love and allow into your family.

<comment><USER4> I'm going to take issue with just one statement here because I'm short on time -

> special kind of oppressor to tell you ... who you are allowed to love and > allow into your family.

They don't. You can have a polygamous marriage all you want, you can have an open marriage, you can be as gay as you want.

However, husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter and what not also have legal ramifications, and that is where the law has domain. It has nothing to do with any morality associated with the relationships.

The gay marriage issues stem from a misunderstanding, willful or otherwise, of that. The marriage the state cares about is the contract between two adults, it doesn't give a damn about your morals or god.

<comment><USER5> > You can have a polygamous marriage all you want

No, you can't. It's illegal in most states (see how the "Big Love" family had to move due to pending prosecution in Utah).

> you can be as gay as you want.

Not if you're male - sodomy is illegal in many states (despite a Supreme Court ruling that pretty much shuts them down) in the US, and many other countries entirely [1].

> [The law] has nothing to do with any morality associated with the > relationships.

Laws are derived from the morality of their times. The laws against murder, and exceptions thereof, are based on what society believes is wrong and right.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law)

<comment><USER4> > You can have a polygamous marriage all you want

>No, you can't. It's illegal in most states (see how the "Big Love" family had to move due to pending prosecution in Utah).

Yes you can, you can not however have more than one legal wife. You can marry wife #1 (marriage certificate) and this person will be the only wife the law cares about. You can then have any religious or whatever ceremony to marry any number of other women and you can all live together any way you wish. You can do this because the state doesn't care about the religious ceremony. You can not legally marry more than one woman, the women must know they are taking part in a polyamorous relationship and they can not be coerced into it. Again, the legal definition of marriage and what you call being married do not have to match.

As a side not, it is basically impossible to find what you are referring to with 'the "Big Love" family' since it appears to be a TV show as well. So I can't say anything about it.

> Not if you're male - sodomy is illegal in many states (despite a Supreme > Court ruling that pretty much shuts them down) in the US, and many other > countries entirely.

This is the best example of how the law and individuals differ. Legally (in the US), sodomy is defined as any sexual contact other than vaginal intercourse. Ever had a blow job? Congratulations, you could be charged. It has noting to do with being male, lesbianism would be charged with sodomy as well.

In the US, you can be as gay as you want.

<comment><USER6> > > > You can have a polygamous marriage all you want

> > No, you can't. It's illegal in most states (see how the "Big Love" family > had to move due to pending prosecution in Utah).

> Yes you can, you can not however have more than one legal wife. You can > marry wife #1 (marriage certificate) and this person will be the only wife > the law cares about.

Whether this is true or not depends on the details of the state law, but its certainly not true in, e.g., Utah, where the relevant statute [1] looks at _cohabitation_ as well:

 _(1) A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person._

 _(2) Bigamy is a felony of the third degree._

 _(3) It shall be a defense to bigamy that the accused reasonably believed he and the other person were legally eligible to remarry._

[1] Utah Code, tit. 76, chap. 7, sec. 101; [http://le.utah.gov/code/TITLE76/htm/76_07_010100.htm](http://le.utah.gov/code/TITLE76/htm/76_07_010100.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> With each passing day, I look less and less like a lunatic for avoiding facebook (and its ilk) like the plague.

You should try it.

<comment><USER8> People think those who don't use Facebook are lunatics? Why?

<comment><USER7> For younger generations who grew up with this kind of tech, it's just not conceivable. For them, Facebook is a synonym for having contact with their friends.

In a discussion we once had in class, I mentioned that an option that hadn't been listed besides Facebook, Google+, Diaspora, etc was "none of the above". I got bewildered stares of disbelief in return.

<comment><USER9> Maybe. This is rapidly becoming less true. I had to give a talk at a school the other day ("tech is cool, join the tech industry!") and the bulk of the students didn't have Facebook accounts -- because their parents are on it.

Maybe that'll change when they reach a University age, but it was striking how few of them used it.

<comment><USER10> Instagram is taking over amongst young people.

<comment><USER11> Instagram is even taking over among people in the post-adolescent set. The engagement I see seems to be more vigorous, especially if you're dialed-in and you're making good/interesting photos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Two comments on this:

We started [http://www.nymrights.org](http://www.nymrights.org) to combat issues like this. One of our long term goals is to get companies to adopt policies preventing data demands like this unless sufficient protections (read, laws) are in place. (if you're a company debating adopting such a policy, I'd love to chat!)

Second, if you're European, check out the European Court of Human Rights, which offers protection against privacy intrusions like this. It's worth noting that some countries get more specific: Germany has the Telemedia Act, which specifically protects against problems like this.

<comment><USER13> How would you formulate such a law? What does Germany's _Telemedia Act_ actually say?

I can refuse to let you into my house if you won't show me your passport. If you don't have a passport, then I can just refuse to let you in no matter what. How does that change if I'm running a business? Or a web-site?

Surely it would be better to focus on supply rather than demand. If government ID is mandatory for everyone (e.g. Germany, Belgium), then it makes it easy for businesses to demand to see it. If government ID is entirely optional (e.g. UK) then insisting on seeing it will exclude too many potential customers.

If FB asks _me_ for government-issued photo ID, then they will effectively be kicking me out - I'm not going to go through the rigmarole of applying for a passport just to get a FB log on.

<comment><USER14> > I can refuse to let you into my house if you won't show me your passport. If > you don't have a passport, then I can just refuse to let you in no matter > what. How does that change if I'm running a business? Or a web-site?

Well, you would presumably be keeping some kind of record of my ID. Perhaps you write down my name, date of birth, and passport number. As a business, in the UK you would have to (amongst other obligations):

* Not keep the data any longer than is necessary * Update any inaccuracies in the data upon request * Tell me what data you are keeping upon request

It's not about asking for data, it's about what you do after I give it to you. (NB to those wanting to know more about this, these particular obligations are due to the Data Protection Act)

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure the DPA needs to come into it. If a nightclub bouncer checks your ID, then he's free to forget all about it once he lets you inside. If all FB do is set an "ID checked" flag (and discard data collected as part of the checking process) then I think they'd be in a similar position - I'm not sure whether you could successfully argue that an "ID checked" flag could count as additional personal data.

(Then again, I'm sure FB hold on to data like thieving magpies, so the idea that they would delete your passport number/image/whatever once they have it is, I agree, laughable.)

<comment><USER14> I agree 100%, a simple "ID checked" flag would be OK. Where I think the DPA fits into it is that without the DPA, a lot more people would store those details just because. With the DPA in place I'm a lot more comfortable sharing information like that, knowing that either they just store a flag, or if they store more than that I am protected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How does Facebook intend to validate these government IDs?

I'm pretty sure they can't. They want you to send a scan of some photo-id - that means that all the anti-tamper / anti-forgery tech that might be on the actual ID will be non-existent.

If you are lying about who you are, it will take about 10 minutes in photoshop to come up with something that will pass their test.

Are there any countries that even provide validation services that facebook could use? As I recall, South Korea used to require residents to provide their national ID numbers to access most (all?) in-country websites. That ended up producing a ton of identity theft so they repealed that law.

<comment><USER16> Turkish Government has an API. You post all the info on the ID to it, and it returns true or false. You have to be a legal entity in Turkey to access it. (Edit: Correction, everyone can access it, and it doesn't require all the info anymore, just ID number, name and birthday. [https://tckimlik.nvi.gov.tr/Service/KPSPublic.asmx?op=TCKiml...](https://tckimlik.nvi.gov.tr/Service/KPSPublic.asmx?op=TCKimlikNoDogrula))

I'm guessing there are other countries that provides this?

<comment><USER17> As a developer, that's awesome. As a citizen.. I would guess not so much.

<comment><USER16> In Turkey everything is accessible with API's. Legal records, insurance, education, work, bank records, things you own (houses, land, probably cars), your address (both work and home), your e-mail, phone number, every other phone number you own, you can even do a quick query on if a car has ever been in an accident or if someone has priors.

Not everything is open to everyone though. My company had access to some of this, it was nice. (Edit: nice as in, it made our life easier.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am going to get a lot of downvotes for this but I am still curious to hear what solutions the HN community could come up with for the problem Facebook is facing:

Some of the accounts have been hacked.

You locked the accounts as a security measure.

Now you need to validate that some person is the actual owner of the account.

How would you solve this problem? (Sending a code via text message to the owners mobile device wont work in every case since old accounts didn't have to validate via phone number on registration)

<comment><USER19> I'll take a stab at this.

Before I get in to it, we need to correct a misconception on your part: using a government ID doesn't work in every case. It turns out hackers know how to forge government ID images, and some of FB's users don't have government IDs (for instance, before I turned 16 all I had was a private school id).

With that out of the way, I think they should do what you suggested: sms verification. Email verification also works. As does postal mail. As does credit card charge. As does ACH charge. As does paypal charge. As does "send in a photo of you with a shoe on your head". As does having a user's friends vouch for them (they call their friends and ask). As do a lot of things.

Facebook should look closely at whatever attacker they are trying to lock out, and make several methods of ownership verification available. Maybe require two?

Requiring IDs just isn't a particularly good way to do it, and has bad PR effects these days.

<comment><USER20> > As does having a user's friends vouch for them (they call their friends and > ask).

This is probably the most "Facebook" of the options. They already do something similar for some account lockout situations ("identify 5 photos of your friends to gain access").

<comment><USER21> "identify 5 photos of your friends to gain access"

Really? I don't use FB so I can't verify, but that sounds like an epic security hole for prankers, stalkers, ex's, and abusive spouses.

<comment><USER22> I can confirm that this happened to a friend when accesin facebook from another country.

Also I remember reading an article (from HN) where some guy hacked a facebook account (if I recall correctly) and that was one of the steps (he and the hacked one where friends and coworkers so they had lots of friends in commmon)

<comment><USER21> Hmm, well hopefully just one of many steps and not "that's all it takes".

I'm no FB fan, but if they are using friends pictures as a CAPTCHA to verify the authenticator is a human not a automated computer, I grudgingly tip my hat in respect toward them. That would be much more elegant than the usual lame CAPTCHA.

This strikes me as it may become more of a problem as kids abandon FB and older people use it. The kid I sat next to in middle school lunchroom back when Reagan was president, and I clicked "yes" on his friend request out of guilt, well, I have no idea what the heck he looks like now. Ex-girlfriends? Well, I remember really well how she looked when she was 19, but that was a long time ago, and...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What amazes me even more is that almost all of those people are screaming an shouting and are entering the ID the next day and forget about it.

<comment><USER24> Thats the problem. I wish people would care more about their data. Lots of us who build stuff are more aware of how stuff works and the repercussions of putting data up just once.

<comment><USER25> This is most valid, data should be centralized, not distributed and not in the hands of facebook. Imagine that there would exist a website that contains all your personal data with 1 password, websites request access to a part of that data and if this website also actively checks that it is valid data that the site is requesting to function, I would pay for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So I got locked out about 10h ago and as I saw lots of people like me on twitter then I just went to bed without verifying anything. Wake up, account unlocked without questions.

I suspect this was related to the earlier news where Obama's facebook was hacked [1]. Some junior dev at FB forgot a WHERE clause at a sql query or did something equally dumb to mitigate this.

[1] [http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/28/uk-usa-obama- twitte...](http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/28/uk-usa-obama-twitter-hack- idUKBRE99R0YQ20131028)

<comment><USER27> That's not what happened at all. The link shortener that Obama used was hacked and previously shortened links where redirected. That article says nothing about his Facebook being hacked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> an ID-verified person - 1st level, 100%. Everything s/he tagged, communicated with, etc... - 2nd level, 95%, everybody "touched" by 2nd level - 90%,... Just a few hundred thousands optimally selected, and the graph is well verified while maintaining an impression of the ID-checks being rare exceptional events.

</comment><comment><USER24> A response to 'The Zuckerberg Files' ([http://zuckerbergfiles.org/](http://zuckerbergfiles.org/))?

I find it hard to justify a use for this type of info online? You can get money-related businesses because of the need to comply legally but why facebook?

Off topic: Does anyone think Google's floating barge is a way to evade compliance when it comes to data monitoring? Theoretically they could go further offshore

<comment><USER28> >Does anyone think Google's floating barge is a way to evade compliance when it comes to data monitoring? Theoretically they could go further offshore

the compliance is mainly enforced through the company execs being onshore, not the data/servers. The barges will be waiving 2 Irish flags with 1 Dutch flag in-between at the same time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is the page about verifying your account:

[https://www.facebook.com/help/385569904840341](https://www.facebook.com/help/385569904840341)

Facebook accepts any government-issued ID that contains name and date of birth. Examples include:

Birth certificate, Driver's license, Passport, Marriage certificate, Official name change paperwork, Personal or vehicle insurance card, Non-driver's government ID (ex. disability, SNAP or national ID card), Green card, residence permit or immigration papers, Social Security card, Voter ID card

If you don't have a government-issued ID, Facebook will also accept two of the following items that combined must show name and date of birth. Examples include:

Bank statement, Bus card, Check, Credit card, Employment verification, Library card, Mail, Magazine subscription stub, Medical record, Membership ID (ex. pension card, union membership, working or professional ID), Paycheck stub, Permit, School card, School record, Utility bill, Yearbook photo (actual scan or photograph of the page in your yearbook), Please cover up any personal information we don't need to verify your identity (ex: credit card number, social security number).

<comment><USER24> What do you think would happen if we just submitted fake data.

Back before facebook went gigantic people used social networks with avatar like display pics & put up loads of fake data.

<comment><USER30> You'd no doubt be committing all sorts of criminal offences in both the US and whatever (Western) country you send them from. It makes for a much better reason for getting the authorities involved in a hacked account than just the initial hack.

It's also much less likely that someone will do it due to the hassle and lack of automation. Though no doubt some hot startup idea is about to be born...

<comment><USER31> How is photoshopping a bank statement/utility bill for the sole purpose of activating a Facebook account a "criminal offense"?

The same question somewhat applies to government-issued IDs depending on state/country, since many laws regarding falsified IDs only apply to purchasing tobacco/alcohol.

<comment><USER30> In the UK it would be forgery - a forged instrument is "any document", and for it to be forgery they have to use it to "induce someone to accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person's prejudice"

I seriously doubt that the US is going have to have less strict laws regarding forged documents. Just because you think it isn't illegal doesn't mean it actually is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is a smart move by Facebook; they already sit on the worlds largest data trove (user profiles with likes, family member info, network info, tagged pictures, etc. etc.), and now they add the last part of the user verification step...

<comment><USER8> How is this smart? (Not disagreeing, just requesting more info.)

<comment><USER33> They can validate their social network graph with ease and therefore ensure they are selling perfectly valid data.

It's really disgusting to see people willfully submitting to this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Facebook is still that popular? I deactivated years ago and never cared to go back. I will activate every once in a while, check the feed, and leave. I have over 1000 friends, but the feed has slowed down to an extreme and it's mostly mommy/kid pictures now. A lot of people in my social circles agree too. It's pretty irrelevant as far as our social lives go. Instagram + Twitter is still pretty active. Hmm..wonder if it's bigger in other states/countries.

</comment><comment><USER35> I encountered this, perhaps ironically, while attempting to deactivate my long unused Facebook account.

I was able to log in using my credentials (which I store in a keepass database), but since the account had been inactive for so long (I guess?) this was insufficient. After successfully providing my username and passphrase, I was prompted with a security question, the answer to which I did not recall (I had created the account many years ago).

The only remedy, according to Facebook support, was to provide a scan of a government ID (via email, of course). Nevermind that I knew the password. Nevermind that I had access to the email address associated with the account.

I told them I was unwilling to provide this, and they told me I was out of luck. I decided that leaving a phantom, inactive FB account in the wild was better than providing these people with what they wanted, and got on with my life.

After several weeks, I for some reason decided to try again - and at that time all I needed was my passphrase. Why? Who knows. Maybe it was my lucky day.

I don't really know what the takeaway should be, but my personal lesson is that I should probably also store secret questions and answers in a password database, since apparently some services deem them to be required even when I have the passphrase.

</comment><comment><USER36> Not as bad as Paypal with their requirement that you provide proof of SSN to unfreeze your funds that were frozen for no apparent legitimate reason.

<comment><USER37> In fairness, PayPal, being a money transmitter, has to deal with regulations more complicated and onerous than anyone who hasn't worked in that business can ever know or understand, so there isn't any basis for holding them to blame for such things.

Facebook has no such excuse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> :)) I don't upload images/scans of important documents on the internet what makes Facebook think they're special.

I use my card online (because i have to) and I'm constantly checking my accounts for shady transactions but there's no way in hell I share my id on the internet.

Every bit-coin website that asked for this lost my business and if Facebook does the same will happen to them.

<comment><USER39> I doubt they think they're special. I doubt they think _you 're_ special either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Isn't there a problem of copyright associated with Government ID?

In the UK, things like your passport are copyright to The Crown and there's official guidance[1] on how to go about getting permission to make copies of them.

I'd imagine other countries are the same. So Facebook is asking it's users to infringe government copyright.

[1] [https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/118584/crown- copyright.pdf)

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady Something similar happened to me. I had several company accounts with a page on each. I tried to login one day and Facebook requested ID. It seemed to happen to me when I tried to login via incognito mode in Chrome (so that I didn't have to logout of my main account first).

I still haven't entered the ID but I manage one of the pages for a business (I also manage their website, twitter etc.) and I'm either going to have to enter the ID or give up the job.

I can't see any reason Facebook require this. It seems like real scummy practice.

</comment><comment><USER41> That actually happened to me at the beginning of the year. If I remember right I was in a foreign country (UK) (or just back from it) and Facebook asked me to log in and to scan my government ID (French one actually). However it was optional and there was a small link at the bottom of the page offering to skip that step (which i did without an hesitation).

Is there a difference here? I mean, can they still skip the step? The article does not say much. Anyway the design was made such that it was hard to know you could skip the step.

</comment><comment><USER42> Wow. So, basically, Facebook says: "You're locked out. If you want to stay a Facebook user, you must provide your government issued ID, or else - <USER2> lost."

This is a glimpse of the future, if we let it slide. The Internet giants can amend their ToS as they see fit and you will have to comply or get out. And for many people getting out is not an option when all of their immediate circle is already on it. So they endure humiliation in order to stay in, as well.

There must be legal restrictions on this type of behavior.

</comment><comment><USER43> Simple, do rely only on Facebook, be ready to ditch it at any moment.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm from Europe. If they will do it to me I will be forced to stop using Facebook. And I will laugh if they will make it happen in uk as people here don't have such ID's

<comment><USER45> The UK issues both passports and photographic driving licences. Most people will have at least one of those.

<comment><USER46> Yes, but there is no _requirement_ to have one. UK law doesn't even require a person to have a name.

<comment><USER47> There is no legal requirement in the US to have a picture ID card, either. Unless you want to drive. Or, in an increasing number of states, vote. Or get on a plane without a ton of hassle. Or... well, you get the idea.

It is possible for something to be "not legally required" but still have a very high degree of adoption due to the inconvenience caused by not having it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Doesn't really make sense to why FB would want people's Gov IDs to then allow them to simply upload pictures, gossip, or comment of other people comments. Does this behavior remind anyone of 1984 and the whole idea about controlling people's behavior/thinking by pretending or actually monitoring their activities/life? What is two-step verification, passcode generators or answer your secret questions, if not for this?

</comment><comment><USER49> They should get you to pick 2-3 friends from the subset of your closest contacts that they trust[1] to receive a multi-part[2] password so that you can prove you're you by your contact with your friends.

[1] i.e. Facebook believe they are real people who could verify your identity.

[2] It could be a form of n of m authentication so you wouldn't need to get all of them.

</comment><comment><USER50> I wonder how many people respond to such unreasonable request by uploading something... indecent and shocking, to say the least.

</comment><comment><USER51> Lets all just remember that we make our own choices.

1\. If you want to use Facebook, then you must follow the rules they set forth.

2\. If you dont like #1. Just dont use it.

As consumers we all make choices that we need to make to benefit ourselves. If I dont like a grocery store, I dont shop there. If I get treated rude someplace. I find a new place that treats me better.

</comment><comment><USER52> Meh. The government already knows I use Facebook. Facebook can extrapolate anything about me using the information it already has, including, I imagine, my driver's license number and social security number.

I really don't care at this point. I'm too deeply connected now to retract any of it.

</comment><comment><USER53> Facebook keeps pushing the bounds of what's acceptable in terms of personal privacy. They have given no indications that they will ever stop pushing the privacy boundaries. This behavior seems to be a major component of their operational/business model.

</comment><comment><USER54> Wow, the way that they display the Twitter quotes in the article is hideous! The icons are huge and distracting, and on top of that they don't seem to understand the basic idea that all close quotes need to match up with an open quote.

'Open Quote Icon'

message

'Close Quote Icon'

-username

'Another Close Quote Icon'

</comment><comment><USER55> I think you all are overreacting to this story.

You don't _have_ to provide a government ID to login back into Facebook. Alternatively, I was able to give them my bank passwords, private emails and a list of deep dark childhood secrets.

</comment><comment><USER56> I read that title as "Furry" at Facebook. I guess I need to put on a second pot of coffee.

</comment><comment><USER57> Business idea: Generate "Government ID" that is good enough to pass Facebook verification.

</comment><comment><USER58> Atlast they did it..we can expect same from all other sites soon..

</comment><comment><USER59> I like how how those people think they know better than to provide their personal information to Facebook on a login dialog that is supposed to help them get onto Facebook in the first place. The irony is just so thick I don't even...

</comment><comment><USER60> What is a Government ID?

<comment><USER61> Good point. In my country the government didn't even issue ID cards until 2009 or so, and government-issued IDs are still very very uncommon. Here you typically get your ID from your bank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Migrate to a Open Source social network instead then.

</comment><comment><USER63> Why stop there? They could ask for the SSN as well.

</comment><comment><USER64> Boycott Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER65> Is it April 1st?</comment>


Show HN: Instant, Self-Destructing Websites - <AUTHOR> https://sdnotes.com/faq <comment><USER2> This reminds me of [http://txti.es/](http://txti.es/) (made by the people behind [http://motherfuckingwebsite.com](http://motherfuckingwebsite.com)).

<comment><USER3> Oh man, I laugh with that one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really love ideas like this (and this one is so nicely done!). Reminds me of when "wiki wikis" first started, and many were publicly editable (ah, simpler times!). I'd love to see a real-time chart of the number of active pages... watch how it ebbs and flows over time.

Also, I started to make a "choose your own adventure" game, but I realized that would be the end of my day's productivity!

</comment><comment><USER5> Ephemera. I miss living in New York City because of the street art.

The web would benefit from open air ephemerality. Real ephemerality, not "your photos and videos disappear to our digital vault, probably forever." Also:

> Passwords are optional.

This makes me happy.

<comment><USER6> This sentiment is actually what originally drew me to places like 4chan on the internet. If you miss it, you just miss it. I felt like I legit HAD to be on the board or else I would miss the best joke or thread.

No idea what that's called. Maybe hipsterism? I liked to know that what I'm seeing is authentic, real, and limited (even if it was technically available to everyone in the world).

<comment><USER7> Immediacy?

<comment><USER5> temporal uniqueness. Art in a museum is locked in a gated vault, like a website is locked to a version number. Ephemera is when you walk past your favorite street art and a piece of the pasted image was scraped or defaced, or when another artist or rando with a pen or a can added something in response. An ephemeral website is one that you hope will be different when you refresh it. There's an element of chance and the content is the reward. To an extent, aggregators have long embodied this characteristic I feel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This one is my favorite: [https://sdnotes.com/facebook](https://sdnotes.com/facebook)

<comment><USER9> I prefer [https://sdnotes.com/scavenger](https://sdnotes.com/scavenger)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is cool! It's like a wiki, but there's no structure imposed and everything's ephemeral. Would be interesting to see what happens over time.

Some feedback for the author: it might be interesting to add a "I'm feeling lucky"-type feature, kind of like StumbleUpon. Or some other fun discovery technique.

</comment><comment><USER11> I really like this concept, and you've done a nice job stripping away everything except the bare minimum essentials.

That being said, are there any plans to support markdown? Also it may prove helpful to be able to download posts before the site is destroyed.

<comment><USER12> +1 .. Markdown would be awesome!

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea! Currently it supports some HTML elements using Rails' simple_format (<b>, <i>, etc), but Markdown would definitely be an improvement.

<comment><USER11> Not really related, but I just browsed through all the projects on [http://unfoundedlabs.com/](http://unfoundedlabs.com/) and really enjoyed it. You have a unique voice and an artists sensibilities which will now serve as an inspiration to me.

<comment><USER13> Just a warning that there might be some NSFW content on the websites. The very first site I opened (the one about a collaboration on shirts or similar) has a half naked woman in the first picture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [https://sdnotes.com/reddit](https://sdnotes.com/reddit)

>tfw when someone doesn't have a strong password.

<comment><USER15> I assume a lite site like this doesn't having any kind of rate limiting feature so it would be simplicity to brute force a page's password.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What password is assigned if you inadvertently click "add password" with the password box still empty? If you click "add password" without first entering a password in the box, the site is locked behind an unknown password. You can't login with an empty password, nor with "password"...

</comment><comment><USER17> This is cool, but seems ripe for abuse. Do you have a plan to deal with that?

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I had a question around how to stop people from claiming "legit" brands and bashing them? I could easily see someone take a brand like Uber or Airbnb and start creating content that could get the actual brand in legit trouble. Cool concept though! I like the simplicity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question and it's definitely a concern. For now, I'm just monitoring things manually, but certainly would need a more scalable system if the site grows.

<comment><USER18> Or worse like paste in, Bitcoin and other public places people will post urls to terrible/illegal things on the internet. People always find a way to ruin the public commons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rss-spoof There may be minor security problems with some choices of site name. Example: [https://web.archive.org/web/20190924064831/https://sdnotes.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190924064831/https://sdnotes.com/feed)

</comment><comment><USER19> Love this, really fun idea.

It would be nice to have a setting that prevents a password from being added to the page.

Right now, all it takes to end the fun of an unpassworded page is for a bad actor to add a password (see: [https://sdnotes.com/index](https://sdnotes.com/index))

</comment><comment><USER20> [https://sdnotes.com/index](https://sdnotes.com/index)

damn beat me to it

<comment><USER21> Love all the XSS attempts

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Be careful when perusing various names. Not all might be SFW.

</comment><comment><USER23> Man you should really ad "nofollow" to links, otherwise you'll soon get spammed.

<comment><AUTHOR> ah yes thanks, will add shortly

</comment></comment><comment> 52-6F-62 So does it persist all of the posted content if the page is updated within every 30-day window?

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct. Perhaps I can make that more clear in the FAQ

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I actually love this, hands down amazing for blogs

</comment><comment><USER25> reminds me of [https://itty.bitty.site/](https://itty.bitty.site/)

</comment><comment><USER26> A feed with latest posts would be cool (after adding markdown support)

</comment><comment><USER27> You can now use it as a chat room! [https://sdnotes.com/chat](https://sdnotes.com/chat)

</comment><comment><USER28> Love this, particularly that you can view the content without JavaScript as well.

If you can solve the "potential for abuse" problem while maintaining this format, you've got something!

</comment><comment><USER29> A similar idea that we're working on: [https://pocketweb.io/](https://pocketweb.io/)

</comment><comment><USER30> This is actually very nice. I think discovery can make this site really catch on, like most active, featured, etc.

</comment><comment><USER31> Apologies for nit-picking, but you might like to fix the typo "defintion" in the FAQ.

<comment><AUTHOR> fixed, thx :)

</comment></comment><comment> kalium-xyz but is it as good as pastebin at being a command and control for you botnet :p?

</comment><comment><USER32> Would be cool if people could comment posts as well, great idea!

</comment><comment><USER33> At last, a contender for the title of Twitter-killer.

</comment><comment><USER34> open/GitHub/self-hostable?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/eri-b/mini](https://github.com/eri-b/mini)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is cool for blog posts.

</comment><comment><USER36> Really cool

</comment><comment><USER37> Half of the Show HN websites I see use Bulma. Thanks for using it!

</comment><comment><USER38> lovely idea. really hope it catches on.

</comment><comment><USER39> This would be nice for paywall workarounds.</comment>


Epic Games Is Acquiring Psyonix - <AUTHOR> https://www.rocketleague.com/news/psyonix-is-joining-the-epic-family-/ <comment><USER2> I've had a Steam account long enough to know how terrible and annoying Steam can be. I've also seen how much Steam has done for the PC gaming community over the years, and I originally hoped Epic would push them into accelerating some of their timelines. There is value in Steam having competition, but that value diminishes as soon as someone comes along and competes for games instead of users. It took Steam a long time to become both useful (Workshop, Sales, Forums), and generally good for the customer (Returns, Curation, Support), and Epic isn't even trying to compete in those areas.

Epic isn't making a marketplace where I want to spend my money by being better than Steam, they're just trying to make a place where I _have_ to spend money if I want to play certain games. Good luck with that one.

<comment><USER3> > There is value in Steam having competition, but that value diminishes as > soon as someone comes along and competes for games instead of users.

Content platforms _always_ compete on availability of content. Steam did the exact same thing early on with Half Life. Look at what's happening in the streaming video space. Look at console gaming.

Ultimately, people aren't making Steam accounts because of the Steam workshop or Steam forums or Steam chat or what have you—they're making Steam accounts because there's a game on Steam that they want to play.

If Epic's store had better features but the same games, existing Steam users would _still_ continue to use Steam, because that's where their existing game libraries are. The _only_ way Epic could compete on features alone is if it were possible to migrate Steam purchases to the Epic Store. Since Valve will never let that happen, Epic _has_ to entice users with exclusive games.

And that _could_ be great for everyone—if it caused games to be made that would otherwise never get developed. Consider how much great content the video streaming wars have produced. As annoying as it is to switch between subscriptions, I'd say TV viewers are winning right now.

The problem, of course, is that Epic _isn 't_ developing original content—they're paying for existing content to be removed from Steam. My great hope is that this will change in time. Original games take several years to develop, so if any _are_ under way, we wouldn't have heard about them yet. In the meantime, we're getting PC ports of Journey and Detroit, so that's pretty neat!

<comment><USER4> >The problem, of course, is that Epic isn't developing original content

And Valve is?

<comment><USER5> Didn't they just release a card game with Richard Garfield?

I'm not into games myself, but Valve has done tremendous work for gaming on Linux. That alone is enough reason for me to support them.

<comment><USER6> And this graph should give you an indication of how well this went: [https://steamcharts.com/app/583950#6m](https://steamcharts.com/app/583950#6m)

<comment><USER5> Why is that? Did it turn out to be a bad game? As a fan of Magic: The Gathering I was quite interested in it and the concept looked interesting too.

<comment><USER4> Valve has never been good at building progression systems, and that's exactly what killed Artifact.

You get no rewards for playing the game. If you want new cards, you have to spend money on packs or spend money to enter drafts.

This old fashioned "just play the game because it's fun" mentality is dogma to Valve, but nowadays users want and require the Pavlovian reward systems.

<comment><USER3> > This old fashioned "just play the game because it's fun" mentality is dogma > to Valve, but nowadays users want and require the Pavlovian reward systems.

Speaking to the choir I suspect, but god do I hate progression systems.

Haven't played Artifact, but I'm really not convinced by the narrative that Valve is removed from this stuff. TF2 and Counter Strike all have loot and inventory systems of their own. They're basically required in any free to play game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Played rocket league for years, really miffed here. At some future point all the steam workshop and custom content wont work for players, so anything there is now DOA.

Splitting the install base effectively across another platform just spits in the eye of people who've bought RL and want to make it easy to see/join their friends. They've had years of problems getting a unified platform going, and its still not nearly as simple and straightforward as using steam friends.

Probably going to ask for a refund on Steam when this game is no longer for sale.

<comment><USER8> Why would you ask for a refund when you've played it for years? Does that time not count? Was it not enjoyable?

<comment><USER7> Absolutely it counts, and it was enjoyable.

However, if you want to break your game after I purchased it and change the rules of how that license works and dont expect me to possibly change my mind about my decision, think again.

All the money I spent buying decryptors and getting wins/losses/placements and having an account where I could easily tell where all my friends are playing in one place also counts.

When its likely that EGS will get features that I wont (even though I funded the original building of all this) it grinds my gears - the vague announcement from a corporate aquihire is a klaxon shouting about the changes that are in the pipeline.

If Psy wants to say "hey, we'd be glad to move all your stuff over without a hassle" I actually wouldn't really be miffed, but that's not what they came to us with.

<comment><USER8> It sounds like you got what you payed for and have used it for a long time. Did you buy what what was available at the time, or did you pay for what you thought it would be years into the future?

What other goods or services do you expect to use for years and then get your money back? If Spotify removes your favorite artist, do you expect to get money back for the years you already payed for while you listened to that artist?

<comment><USER9> Well, they are pulling it from steam. Want to play with your friend that never played? Yeah, you'll need to buy him a copy... on epic's store. And a new one for yourself.

Pulling it from steam is reason enough for me.

<comment><USER10> So far all they've said is they aren't going to sell it on Steam. Any suggestion you won't be able to play with your friend is just speculation.

 _The PC version of Rocket League will come to the Epic Games store in late 2019. In the meantime, it will continue to be available for purchase on Steam; thereafter it will continue to be supported on Steam for all existing purchasers. "_

 _Furthermore, Epic clarified that support for Rocket League on Steam will continue even after the game is released on the Epic Games Store and players "will still be able to play Rocket League on Steam with all of the content they've previously purchased, same as always."_

[https://www.usgamer.net/articles/epic-promises-support- for-r...](https://www.usgamer.net/articles/epic-promises-support-for-rocket- league-on-all-platforms-no-announced-plans-to-pull-it-from-steam)

<comment><USER11> I can't imagine why Valve would continue to provide services such as Steamworks matchmaking and Workshop content for a game they can't possibly make any more money from.

<comment><USER12> Because they'd get bad PR for yanking that stuff? It's not like it costs them a noticeable amount of money to maintain the existing services for a single game for customers who've already purchased it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm cautiously optimistic about this. I've played Rocket League for a long time and I think it's an incredible opportunity for esports. It's exciting, extremely fast-paced, the meta is easy to understand for traditional sports fans, and the skill curve is more forgiving at the lower tier than many games.

If Epic can use its reach and resources to promote larger tournaments and higher stakes for Rocket League as an esport, I think that'd be a win for the game.

If they overrun it with more loot crate/f2p stuff and make the game all about the meta, and just use it as an exclusive for their own platform, that will suck.

Congrats to the Psyonix team though. They seem like genuinely great, passionate devs.

</comment><comment><USER14> I will stop playing this game if I have to make an Epic account. Their security is a joke. Some Russian made a fake account using my email address without Epic ever actually verifying that the email address they used belonged to the individual that made the account.

<comment><USER15> >I will stop playing this game if I have to make an Epic account

Haha

Meanwhile I can't even __update __my NVIDIA driver without loging into whatever their GeForce platform thing is now called.

Can't remember your password? Stuck on old driver

<comment><USER16> You absolutely can. The GeForce Experience is not necessary for anything. You can download drivers and install them without having to login to anything. GeForce Experience is just for the convenience of automation and for the extra tools it brings with it...

<comment><USER15> Forcing login for a simple driver update is borderline malicious and you know it.

Yes there are work arounds, but that doesn't excuse this kind of behavior in what I'd imagine is their main update delivery mechanism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are several people in this thread who don't understand a lot about modern PC videogame distribution. Just because "you don't care" or "you don't use" certain of Steam's many features it doesn't mean they aren't important or essential.

Thousands of developers rely on Steam, Epic, GOG, etc. for multiplayer networking/matchmaking features (all digital stores offer this type of service, AFAIK, but it's not the same service). In Steam's case this isn't limited to services provided in-game, but also inviting people or joining people directly through the Steam interface, which is invaluable.

Achievements are not unimportant. Millions of players play for the achievement; they are an essential part of their entertainment. In addition, they provide important metrics for developers, players and researchers.

The Steam Workshop is the best system out there for players to publish and obtain custom content and mods for games integrated with Steam. It's an essential part of several games; they literally couldn't exist in their current form without it.

The Steam Inventory can be used for holding a collection of meta-items provided by games to other games or for trading with other players who own the same game. It's not just used for trading cards. It would for example allow a Pokemon game to exist on Steam with tradeable Pokemon. It's used by SteamVR for allowing games to provide assets for SteamVR homes (not very important, but still quite interesting).

Steam's categorization, organization and search features are not excessive but insufficient. I want more of those, not fewer.

Family sharing is important for me to share some of my games with a small number of people from my family or close friends. GOG also allows me to share my games in this manner, since they are DRM-free.

Steam community pages/forums are often nowadays the best place to interact with developers and find important information regarding issues, upcoming patches, difficult bits of gameplay, and generally other people talking about that problem you just had.

I'm not saying Epic can't do all of this, and do it well. But saying that "all you need in a game store is to buy games" is incredibly naive. Any digital retailer that requires all of these services to be nonstandard and dispersed is doomed to lose.

<comment><USER18> people have gone to ridiculous lengths to get the steam version of their games before.They treat it like a profile page. I don't think this thread realizes that

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is what Epic Games doing with their exclusivity deals legal? It's one thing if they pay a developer to exclusively release on their store, but they are paying developers not to release on Steam, even though it's fine for them to put their game on other stores, like the Windows Store, Humble Bundle, etc. That seems super non-competitive, like if Google paid Microsoft to prevent users from installing Firefox, even if though there aren't any technical limitations preventing it.

<comment><USER20> The same thing is happening with NetFlix. There are no FRAND rules for this sort of thing, as far as I'm aware. If Congress weren't... well, Congress... they might look at this sort of thing.

Exclusivity arrangements certainly seem like potential trust issues, but Steam is a de facto monopoly, as is Amazon, and NetFlix is the clear leader in it's domain.

<comment><USER21> There are rules about that. NetFlix funds their own shows so they're typically not forced to make them available. In practice, it's mostly a US only company and they relicense most of the productions to other networks around the world.

For example, NetFlix France is a joke, you couldn't watch any netflix shows because they're not available, they sublicensed to canal (the main paid TV service) with exclusively and are left unable to serve their own TV shows.

The Epic Store (and Steam) are global. That's more than 200 jurisdictions with different rules on anti competitive behavior. They are preventing competition globally and systematically, this has to be breaking some rules somewhere.

<comment><USER22> Way OT, but, I'm interested in why you and the parent comment are writing Netflix with a capital "F" as NetFlix. I've not seen this in any of their branding or collateral before. Is there a specific reason for it?

<comment><USER23> Years of writing camelCase code have taken their toll. At least they have for me.

Either that or there is some (justifiable) brand confusion, as there are brands/companies spelled like that: "iPhone", "eBay", "FedEx", "DreamWorks", "HarperCollins", etc.

<comment><USER21> Not familiar with the service for the aforementioned reason, the catalogue is a joke here. That spelling seemed more likely to me given all the companies written like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There's a pretty big difference between just releasing a new game on a new storefront, and pulling a game (or games) from an existing storefront so it can be exclusive to that new storefront. Weak approach to "competition" if you have to buy your way to relevancy with zero other value to the customer.

To be fair I have basically zero trust of digital storefronts - for example, Steam will no longer run on my still-very-recent MacBook (OS X 10.10), so I can't play any of the hundreds of games I "own" on there anymore.

<comment><USER18> Isn't steam the reason thousands of windows games work out of the box on mac and linux though? Wine wasn't as awesome as it is now without valve's involvement

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Sad news. They have a 50 million (!) player base, 350k+ online right now. That means over a billion USD in revenue, probably way more with crates/keys taken into account.

Unless the cost of their server infrastructure got wildly out of control, why would a company that is raking in cash sell out?

<comment><USER26> Epic has F-You Money.

Epic needs users.

Epic bought publisher of a highly popular game their users.

Psyonix sold out, because at everything is has its price.

Expect Epic to forcibly migrate Rocket League Steam users. They will turn RL Steam into an Epic launcher and all current RL Steam users are suddenly Epic users.

For Psyonix and Epic there is no real downside. If you care about this decision, you're not in their demographic, and probably didn't help them generate their F-You Money.

<comment><USER25> > If you care about this decision, you're not in their demographic, and > probably didn't help them generate their F-You Money

I've bought their game in three different platforms.

<comment><USER27> I interpreted parent comment as "you're not in [Epic's] demographic, and probably didn't help [Epic] generate their F-You Money", as a reference to the money gathered from Fortnite.

Unless of course you are referring to the paid version of Fortnite, but I don't think that's clear from your comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Its really time for Steam to respond. Eventually the Epic store will match the features of Steam, and open more broadly to upper-tier Indie games. What will be left on Steam? There has already been a notable lack of launches this year.

Steam needs to halve its 30% commission to 15% for all games, and increase the Steam Direct fee to $2,000 to increase average quality. Developers aren't just leaving because of the high commission, they are leaving because of the deluge of junk launching on the store daily.

</comment><comment><USER29> Great.. another installer to download. I play RL on the lower (very low) pro levels, I just hope it doesn't spark a wild shift. RL has been pretty solid for it's ESports partners and I hope this only brings good things to come. Psyonix deserves it for all their hard work.

<comment><USER27> I usually appreciate Steam competition, but the Epic launcher is just bad. I agree with you that RL has been great as an ESport, and I really am rooting for Psyonix here, they do definitely deserve it. If anything, I hope this succeeds in spite of Epic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Will it remain on Steam and playable on Linux?

<comment><USER31> It is being removed from Steam (EDIT: rather, staying on Steam for now) for Epic Games Store exclusivity, and EGS does not support Linux: [https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1123674492566372352](https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1123674492566372352)

EDIT2: "Epic clarified to Variety that continued patches, DLC and all other content that hits the PC version of the game through the Epic Game Store will also appear on Steam for those who already own the game."

[https://twitter.com/crecenteb/status/1123690436604960771](https://twitter.com/crecenteb/status/1123690436604960771)

<comment><USER32> That feed makes it clear it if you already purchased it on steam that it will be supported there for forever. Not sure if that also applies to linux though.

<comment><USER27> What does "supported" usually mean in these cases? Will the Steam version receive the same features as the Epic version, or will the Steam version only receive bugfixes?

I'm not a fan of Epic's store feature and usability-wise already, and I don't feel good about Epic's decision to remove RL from the store on Steam.

<comment><USER33> They're already talking about using EGS specific features. With their user hostile approach to everything EGS, I doubt you'll keep the same experience on Steam.

<comment><USER27> Do you have any sources for EGS specific features? I really don't want to speculate because I really want to root for Psyonix here, but this is what I'm afraid of. New maps and queues only being available on the Epic version, being able to purchase/unlock DLC/items on the Epic version only etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I am not sure how I feel about this. So long as I can continue to play without interruption then its all good. However, if they try to force me to pay more I am going to be very upset.

<comment><USER31> If anything, Rocket League will go F2P.

<comment><USER35> I believe it already is in China. So not too surprising if it does.

Sadly RL has been very good about not trying to milk it's users. Crates suck but whatever. They give free keys with seasonal stuff. Hope it doesn't change too much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Ok, so multiple, competing app stores for a platform are bad? I'm confused now.

<comment><USER19> Epic is paying boat loads of money so they don't have to compete, that's the issue. Their store is objectively worse than Steam in almost every way, they know they can't compete, so instead they're throwing money at the publishers and telling customers to suck it up and use their store, or don't play the game.

<comment><USER12> You think Epic is the only game store that buys exclusives? Sony and Microsoft have both been doing this for many years for their platforms (whereas Nintendo prefers to simply develop their own exclusives instead of paying third parties for them).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I guess I will go against the grain and state that I don't really mind Epic's aggressive foray into the marketplace, it seems like their best bet against incumbents and a prove strategy in the marketplace.

People had the same reaction to Uplay (No exclusive games but you still need to have an account) and Origin (Only way to play EA Games) and while the services still don't compare to Steam they were absolutely hated when they came out and now people mostly tolerate them to get access to the big AAA games (Apex Legends came and went but few people complained about Origin Exclusivity).

I'm pretty ambivalent when it comes to Steam, the client has become quite bloated with tons of unused / deprecated features and Steam Marketplace feels super scammy full of bots and phishing attempts, and their Chat leaves a lot to be desired but I still use it daily.

Only other services I can think of that has exclusive games and people have a positive / non negative reaction to is the Blizzard one but that has like 8 games in total.

I have read that Epic has no plans to remove the game from Steam so we shall see about that, but I for one am fine with more competition if it means that:

A) Exclusivity deals result in more stability for the devs in terms of receiving large cash inflow

B) Forces both parties to improve their services

</comment><comment><USER38> Kind of a weird acquisition if they don't want them for Fortnite dev, why not just make a publishing deal.

<comment><USER39> Having two big esport games under their belt is a pretty big deal, as well allows them to consolidate those teams under the same company. Psyonix has a lot of experience with developing an esport and Epic Games might also be looking for help developing Fortnite as an esport.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Epic Games seem to be making a gambit that if they can become a marketplace that has significant market share compared to steam all the bad will will be worth it and people will forget. Since they know this Fortnite thing is kind of a limited windfall. So they are going HARD.

</comment><comment><USER41> Awesome to see the Epic Game Store continuing to make waves. Hopefully the beatings will continue until Valve stops taxing game developers so hard.

Epic gets a lot of flack for being a fairly simple store at the moment, but Steam's had ten years to get where it is. Competition was sorely needed and we're finally getting it.

The CEO of Epic is a big fan of open platforms and cross-platform gaming and a loud and outspoken opponent of walled gardens. If there's anyone who will move us out of this model as much as possible, it's probably him. But exclusives is the only way to fight the Stockholm Syndrome people seem to have with Steam.

<comment><USER42> >But exclusives is the only way to fight the Stockholm Syndrome people seem to have with Steam.

Stockholm syndrome?

Epic competed for developers on a more competitive split, but have done little to entice users; their platform didn't have even the barest of (edit:) feature* parity with Steam at launch (or even today), and rather than, say, fund new titles for their platform, they've largely paid for existing or in production titles to not appear on their competitor.

They're competing based on attacking their competitor (and/or users of their competitor's platform) rather than by bolstering the merits of their own platform.

It's a shallow distinction but a fair one for consumers to make. "We have helped create this thing for our users" is different than "We paid to prevent their users from having a thing."

<comment><USER4> What do users really need from a platform beyond basic social features and the ability to, you know, launch the game?

I've used Steam chat and voice comms all of about 3 times. Discord is better.

Profile pages and achievements? Couldn't care less.

Streaming? There's Twitch for that.

What I really care about from a platform are the games that are available for it. Valve waved the white flag on that a while ago when they abandoned first party game development.

<comment><USER42> Given that we're talking about a store, a shopping cart is generally a good feature. Wish lists / favorites are a useful QoL feature as well. There's a bunch of things like that where it's hard to believe the Epic games store is being pushed so hard without them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> "Editor's Note: We wanted to clarify something for you after today's news: Rocket League is and remains available on Steam. Anyone who owns Rocket League through Steam can still play it and can look forward to continued support. Thanks!"

</comment><comment><USER44> I can only hope that these kinds of fights lead to a greater analysis of letting major companies have this control over access

</comment><comment><USER45> Congratulations Psyonix team!

</comment><comment><USER46> Why did Psyonix want to be acquired?

<comment><USER47> Most likely classical start up cashout.

<comment><USER48> This seems likely. They began piling on sponsorships when the game became feature-complete and since then the only significant changes have been additional micro-transactions. There is little left to squeeze out of Psyonix in terms of innovation. The acquisition will help drag Steam users kicking and screaming into the Epic Store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Epic is getting big enough to consider regulatory breakup.

<comment><USER50> I hope this is sarcasm...?</comment></comment>


Solving chicken and egg problem: VisionSync Dating API - <AUTHOR> http://datingapi.io/

<comment><AUTHOR> About: [http://thenextweb.com/dd/2011/06/24/new-dating-api-could- bec...](http://thenextweb.com/dd/2011/06/24/new-dating-api-could-become-the- facebook-open-graph-of-love/)</comment>


France may pass a law on the "right to disconnect" from work emails at home - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-may-pass-a-law-on-right-to-disconnect-from-work-emails-at-home-a6878571.html <comment><USER2> Haha. Imagine the horror of trying anything like that in the US.</comment>


Germany won't ban Huawei from supplying 5G hardware - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/eu/2019/10/14/germany-wont-ban-huawei-from-supplying-5g-hardware-despite-us-pleas/ <comment><USER2> Do we want 5G at all? I know the hamster wheel must be kept spinning for the economy, and platitudes a la "Industrie 4.0" (how very original!) are making the rounds, etc. But 5G means every device, every TV set, every appliance, every car will send data home. After this decade's experience, I'm not sure dirt-cheap, unblockable, undetectable data (short of jamming devices) being sent all the time will benefit humanity, to say the least, whether from Huawei or not.</comment>


"And the winner here clearly is Digg" - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2008/06/18/reddit-tries-to-compete-the-open-source-way/

<comment><USER2> "...as long as it doesn't alienate it's core users"

<comment><USER3> That is the quotation that stuck out to me, too. I abandoned digg during the mass exodus and quite enjoyed reddit for some time. Now that my interests have become more focused, I find myself hanging out on hackernews and stackoverflow more than any other site. My only hope is that this community can maintain the current level of maturity and focus.</comment></comment>


Why Geneticists Need Designers: Making DNA Into Art - <AUTHOR> http://blog.scienceexchange.com/2013/02/making-your-dna-into-art/

<comment><USER2> I think the idea of DNA portraits are pretty cool. Could make for a cute (albeit pricey) family portrait.

Is this service affiliated with DNA11? This service seems very similar, right down to sizes, pricing, and colour options.

They also provide DNA canvas art. ( <https://www.dna11.com> )

<comment><AUTHOR> They are not associated, although yes they are quite similar. DNA11 (a cool service) is really focused on just a business around selling art, while Kishan has bigger plans -- art is just a logical first step in visualizations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is such a well written post.

"Design by definition is the study of how people emotionally respond to an experience."

This is one of the most concise definitions of design I have come across.

I wish I could've seen a sample of what I am buying but the idea is awesome.

<comment><USER4> It's interesting to see how the word "Design" is getting a more and more specific definition related to people and cognition.

As an engineer, I'm starting to be forced to call my designs "engineering designs", because people already associate "design" only with visual/industrial/interaction design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As personalized medicine becomes more mainstream, it will be important to use accurate terminology in general overviews like OP's website. For example, 23andme does not provide DNA sequencing. Instead, they evaluate samples against a comprehensive panel of small nucleotide polymorphisms. This "fingerprinting" is informative and actionable, but not technically sequencing. In the same way, I doubt whether Genetik Ink will actually "take your DNA, sequence it, and turn it into an artistic representation" for <$500 (full genome sequencing is still $5000+, though dropping quickly in cost).

<comment><USER6> That is a good point. What we do is Sanger sequencing. This is sequencing of up to 500bp of DNA and not the whole genome. This type of sequencing is much more affordable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I guess this is a cool business idea. The science of decoding the genome into useful information is still in its infancy (I think). This means that right now having your genome sequence is of limited use because there will so much of your genome that we don't understand yet (again, I could be mistaken).

These individuals have found a way take this developing technology and sell it. Kudos to them.

Does anyone know what type of sequencing technology they are using? Would the authors care to share?

<comment><USER6> We are using Sanger sequencing technology.

<comment><USER8> Is there any specific reason why you use Sanger instead of, let's say, Illumina?

Because in my experience Sanger is slower and more expensive than Illumina or any of the other 3rd-gen-sequencers...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The unspoken story here is that Science Exchange is more than just a resource for scientists. It also lowers the entry barrier for scientific start-ups.

I suspect that Kishan doesn't have access to a sequencer himself, he just proxies the sample to one of the SNP Genotyping services on Science Exchange (<https://www.scienceexchange.com/services/snp-genotyping>).

</comment><comment><USER10> This has been around for a long time. You can't really confirm that it really is your DNA, since DNA can be cut in a variety of ways.

</comment><comment><USER11> Just found out you can do it for your dog's DNA as well!

<comment><USER6> Yes so far we can create a portrait of your dog and soon we will be able to make cat portraits as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oh, they talk big about communicating with the patient. But what they actually want to do is take some of the _most private data I could ever provide_ and make a PICTURE out of it.

Uhh, thanks?

<comment><USER6> You bring up a good point. We have a privacy policy in which our lab does not know the name of the customer through the entire process ensuring confidentiality. We also delete your DNA after 30 days when your guarantee expires. Finally to ensure your identity protection, we do not sequence your entire DNA. We only sequence a portion. You can think of this as only having the first four digits of a credit card. To actually have an even better idea, imagine only having one digit of your credit card. That's the amount of DNA that is sequenced in respect to the entire human genome. When taking these measures into consideration, we believe the issue of personal identification becomes non-relevant.</comment></comment>


I went to help at Calais's Jungle refugee camp – and what I saw haunts me - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/10/calais-jungle-refugee-camp-volunteer-conditions <comment><USER2> This article skirts around the critical point that these are not actually refugees. They may have started their journey as a refugee, escaping some horrific conditions in their home country.

But then, they traveled through many European safe countries where they could (legally, should) have applied for asylum. And yet, they deliberately chose not to for whatever reason. Now that they are in Calais, they choose to stay there instead of applying for asylum in France. A refugee has no choice but to flee from where they are. These folk have had a choice for as long as their journey, and continue to do so as long as they are in France.

Side note: I do volunteer work for Syrian refugee children. There is a serious refugee problem in Europe, but this is not one of them. The UN quite rightly does not spend its limited resources here.

<comment><USER3> Your response sounds super unsympathetic, but your side note hints at some actual understanding of the situation. Briefly, what should be happening?

<comment><USER2> Obviously, I do not want people starve or freeze to death. I guess I should have made that more clear?

But, the term refugee has a very particular meaning and comes with a particular set of rights, re:the UN. See: [http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c125.html](http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c125.html)

I have no expertise in policy-level decisions, my volunteer work is on a very local level. I do not know what should happen.

<comment><USER4> The French and UK governments are notoriously keen to bat this political ball aggressively back and forth. Any special agreement between them to cope with this specific situation will likely take months of negotiation.

Add to this that the UK government is posturing over seceding from both Europe and European Human Rights, and it adds up to a sorry situation.

Out of curiosity, what are the "obligations" on these asylum seekers? Should they seek asylum in the first country they can? Why are they not at liberty to travel as far as they are permitted? I thought in fact that this was encouraged by some nations, perhaps making them pawns in national border politics. Their situation feels like "kettling", with The Channel blocking further movement.

Also, what proportion of people fleeing Syria seek asylum in which nations? Is there really a preponderance of them at the French/UK border?

<comment><USER5> > Out of curiosity, what are the "obligations" on these asylum seekers?

By law, asylum seekers are obligated to register in the first EU country they arrive. Failing to do so results in illegal entry and/or stay and is grounds for deportation.

That's what the law says. Whether it's morally right or wrong is another matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I recently read an interesting comment on politics.stackexchange.com that gives some insight about this situation.

[http://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/8460/why-is- the-...](http://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/8460/why-is-the-drive- for-undocumented-migration-so-strong-between-france-and-the-uni)

<comment><USER7> Thanks. Actually some solid info there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's not a refugee camp. Refugees go through the system fairly quickly and get all sorts of help. They definitely are not left destitute.

And I really don't see what's so special about them compared to people in similar conditions in India or Uganda or some other poor region of the world.

<comment><USER9> >> _And I really don 't see what's so special about them compared to people in similar conditions in India or Uganda or some other poor region of the world._

Or in developed parts of the world, for that matter. People are living on the streets sleeping under cardboard boxes or in the bushes in almost any major city in almost any developed nation, eating whatever they find in trashcans, with no access to healthcare or sanitation either.

Note that I'm not trying to downplay the misery the immigrants in Calais are in, or the terrible things they've endured. It just strikes me as odd that whenever some humanitary crisis occurs that attracts a lot of media attention, they forget about the misery they can find at home every day...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think a distinct problem with the most recent flow of migrants into Europe is the idea of 'reliability' and how that effects feelings towards a migrant population.

In many previous migration movements in both Europe and the United States there was some rateable factor between the native population and the migrants. For example, people coming to the US from Cuba were seen as escaping communism for democracy and were seen as good. Similarly with Vietnamese immigrants for example. In Europe the same thing happened after 1991.

Conversely now, other than the fact that the migrants are of a different skin color and religious make up than the majority of Europeans, society does not have the same sympathetic view as compared to the past. There were not Cuban or Vietnamese terrorist strikes on American or European soil, and thus the new migrant wave is seen as a risk.

Also given that that fact that we are still at 'war' with the middle east doesn't lend any help. It is easier for a society to forgive a nation/ethnicity that they've been fighting after said nation has won than while they're still in conflict.

Overall I think the situation is very complex, and theres not a easy way to make Europe accept this wave of migration in comparison to similar waves in the past.

<comment><USER11> I agree and it scares the crap out of me to think about what might happen in the coming years.

Mostly I'm trying to think of the best course of action for _me_ as an individual. Not doing anything seems like the worst option. But when it comes to doing something, should I:

1\. actively fight right-wing sentiment, with probably little effect (mostly preaching to the choir, as most of my friends are highly-educated left-wing liberals). 2\. volunteer in a refugee camp, which while personally more satisfying, might waste more 'valuable' things I could do. 3\. become politically active in some way, but this would require a significant up-front effort in trying to untangle the situation. 4\. try to find longer-term sustainable solutions for refugees who are likely to be here for a long time no matter what happens, faced with few good options (they can't work, can't study, and are often isolated). 5\. something else?

I'm currently a bit paralyzed by the possible options, yet for various reasons feel a strong desire to contribute to the problem, perceived or otherwise, of the influx refugees. I'd greatly appreciate some concrete suggestions.

<comment><USER12> > 5\. something else?

0\. Stop the dogmatic multi-culti cult, accept human nature (= we prefer to live with our kind) and strive for a world in which every race and religious group is able to live peacefully and prosper, in its OWN LAND, with its own way of life.

And that includes Europe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Did I miss the part between the infighting amongst refugees of various religions/groups? That's a ticking time bomb ready to happen. Talk to the refugees in Calais (and other places to) and you'll hear the same notion.

</comment><comment><USER14> When the Hungarian revolution of 1956 against communism was knocked down, I didn't hear the refugees smashed truck windows, left tons of rubbish after themselves in foreign countries, neither attacked each other or raped women.

Sorry for the exception, I really hate when people starve or cold. I know there are good people there, kids and women as well, but their culture is just not fit in to Europe.

</comment><comment><USER15> Summary of comments before this one: Who gives a shit, it's their own damn fault.</comment>


A car that knows where your kids are: BMW invests in Life360 - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/03/08/a-car-that-knows-where-your-kids-are-bmw-invests-in-life360/ <comment><USER2> Life 360 is one of those startups that makes me smile whenever I see their name in a headline. They were one of Twilio's first customers, and the first I ever met in person, more than 4 years ago. It just goes to show how much of a long game great startups like this one are. Nice work guys!</comment>


Ask HN: CS and programming books of 2017 - <AUTHOR> Which CS/Programming related book(s) that were released in 2017 would you suggest?<p>My suggestion: Clean Architecture by Robert Martin <comment><USER4> My highlight was Yegor Bugayenko's "Elegant Objects". Volume 2 was released this year (however I found the first Volume (2016) much better).

Yegor describes what went wrong with object-oriented programming. Whether you are stuck with Java or broaden your horizon, I can really recommend this book series, as it shows nicely how to deal with object-oriented code in the right way.

What was eyeopening for me was that code, written after some of the rules he proposes, becomes indistinguishable from functional programs. One example of a tree of objects resembles a LISP program. This all made me realize how flawed some of the arguments are that to me seem to divide the functional/types and OO camps.

[https://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Objects-1-Yegor- Bugayenko/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Objects-1-Yegor- Bugayenko/dp/1519166915/)

[https://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Objects-2-Yegor- Bugayenko/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Objects-2-Yegor- Bugayenko/dp/1534908307/)

The books are short and relatively expensive, but Yegor claims to refund 20 euros for everyone who is willing to write a blogpost.

<comment><USER5> Any ebook on the way?

<comment><USER6> Nope, the author described why he won't made e-books here: [http://www.yegor256.com/2016/11/09/why-no- ebooks.html](http://www.yegor256.com/2016/11/09/why-no-ebooks.html)

<comment><USER7> tl;dr because of piracy

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Francois Cholet (author of Keras)'s Deep Learning with Python will be complete and fully published on the 20th of December: [https://www.manning.com/books/deep-learning-with- python](https://www.manning.com/books/deep-learning-with-python) The chapters released so far are very good, the outlook chapters were extensively discussed on HN: [https://blog.keras.io/the-limitations-of-deep- learning.html](https://blog.keras.io/the-limitations-of-deep-learning.html) and [https://blog.keras.io/the-future-of-deep- learning.html](https://blog.keras.io/the-future-of-deep-learning.html)

Wickham's R for Data Science came out in December 2016, I'd like to pretend that counts as 2017: [http://r4ds.had.co.nz/](http://r4ds.had.co.nz/) It's a very complete introduction to the tidyverse which makes working in R much more pleasurable.

The second edition of Python for Data Science came out in October 2017 - <USER2> one focuses on Pandas, numpy and Jupyter notebooks, reasonably good introduction to those libraries.

The second edition of Sebastian Raschka's Python Machine Learning came out 2017 too - that one focuses more on scikit-learn and tensorflow, have only heard good things but haven't read much in it.

<comment><USER9> HN discussions for the lazy:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14790251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14790251)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14797364](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14797364)

search: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=blog.keras.io](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=blog.keras.io)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a side-comment, don't limit yourself to recently released programming books! I used to do that when reading about web stuff, since most older texts were outdated. But there's many topics for which older books are far better sources of information! The 80s and 90s had tons of improvements and innovations which are still highly relevant. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that something is better just because it's new.

As for 2017 CS books, I'd second Designing Data‑Intensive Applications.

If we count updates, the latest revision of The Swift Programming Language is solid. My forays into Swift have been enjoyable.

This last one is kinda cheating since it's continuously updated, but I'd highly suggest browsing through the HTML Living Standard [0] and reading any parts that grab your attention.

EDIT: Looking through whatwg's news, I found out there's a developer edition [1] of the spec which strips the stuff that's only relevant to browser developers.

[0] [https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/)

[1] [https://html.spec.whatwg.org/dev/](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/dev/)

<comment><USER11> Yup, Martin did a fantastic job with his book. Before you would have to go through hundreds of blog post and articles to piece all that distributed systems knowledge together. It's kind incredible how much he managed to cover in a clear and understandable language without going into the math or proofs. His talks are great too, thank you Martin if you're reading this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I found Clean Architecture to be a big disappointment. I specifically waited for its release to read all of his architecture-related advice in one volume, and then found that most of the meat was in figures and diagrams which I couldn't follow because of my visual impairment. I realise that's not entirely Uncle Bob's problem, but all the way through the book I was telling myself that it would be worth it once I reached the case study in chapter 33. At which point he zoomed through a use case and architecture diagram and called it a day.

Good books have figures. The best books have figures and textual explanations to go with them.

<comment><USER13> Are you able to read braille? Are these diagrams translateable on that fashion?

<comment><USER12> Yes to both, but unfortunately the cost in time, money and related skills is prohibitively high:

\- The diagrams would need to be re-traced and any printed labels replaced with braille ones.

\- As braille characters can often take up more space, the labels might need to be shortened, meaning that a separate diagram key would need to be prepared.

\- These are technical diagrams, so if you redraw them at the same scale they appear in the book they might not necessarily be understandable in a tactile form.

In terms of money, if you can get away with using A4 paper, the particular type you would need costs £0.38 per sheet. If you need to use A3, it's £0.77 per sheet. Many commercial transcription services, when you take into account the labour costs of adapting the diagram, will charge £70 plus per image, and £3-5 for additional copies if you need them. There are free transcription services provided by charities, but the staff are not experts in preparing technical diagram material and the turnover time can be six months or more.

TL;DR - it's not worth it. Producing one tactile figure would cost twice the cost of the book. I don't know how many figures there are in total.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques to Build Intelligent Systems

[https://amzn.com/B06XNKV5TS](https://amzn.com/B06XNKV5TS) ($24.99 Kindle)

This book has picked up quite a bit of buzz as an intro to machine learning. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15772174](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15772174)

>cloverich: _The quality of the book (thus far) is so high that I immediately started Googling about the author to try and learn more_

>chillee: _He used to be the PM of youtube video classification too._

<comment><USER14> +1. I'm finding this book really useful for getting my head around machine learning and TensorFlow.

Also _Deep Learning: A Practitioner 's Approach_ by Patterson and Gibson.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Effective Java, 3rd edition is coming 28th of December!

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Effective-Java-Joshua- Bloch/dp/0134...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Effective-Java-Joshua- Bloch/dp/0134685997/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512745141&sr=8-1&keywords=effective+java)

<comment><USER16> plot twist: the book is actually on Kotlin

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Shameless plug: I've recently released an open source, online, interactive[1], little-prerequisite, plain language, introductory Computer Graphics textbook here: [http://gabrielgambetta.com/computer-graphics-from- scratch](http://gabrielgambetta.com/computer-graphics-from-scratch)

[1] Live demos with more interaction coming very soon!

<comment><USER18> You actually have a lot of really interesting stuff on your site. The Client- Server Game Architecture and Pathfinding Demystified articles also both look like really good reads. Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for your kind words :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Type-Driven Development with Idris: [https://www.manning.com/books/type- driven-development-with-i...](https://www.manning.com/books/type-driven- development-with-idris)

<comment><USER20> This looks like a nice book but I'm wondering if the overhead of learning Idris on top of Coq (which I'm familiar with) would have any benefits - <USER3> you say it's different enough from Software Foundations?

<comment><USER21> I haven't gone through SF yet, but I believe TDDwI and SF have very different goals. TDDwI is about hands-on development with a particular language, whereas SF uses Coq to investigate and formally verify broad theoretical topics, right?

TDDwI is also my pick for the year. It's really well done.

<comment><USER20> You're right that SF is more theoretical. I guess I was curious if the benefit of the book comes from being newly exposed to a dependently-typed language in general or the actual topics of the book, if that makes sense. It sounds like it's well-written though - I'll have to add it to my list. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Technically Wrong by Sara Wachter-Boettcher

A really interesting dive into looking at common apps and industry problems from alternate perspectives, as well as how bias affects technical and design decisions in software. Not super technical per se, but it's pretty short and raises great and timely questions.

[https://www.amazon.com/Technically-Wrong-Sexist- Algorithms-T...](https://www.amazon.com/Technically-Wrong-Sexist-Algorithms- Threats/dp/0393634639/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1512749679&sr=1-1&keywords=technically+wrong+by+sara+wachter- boettcher)

<comment><USER23> I loved that book too. What I especially liked is it wasn't just theory and rhetoric. There were specific examples of things that went wrong, backed with statistics on _why_ it went wrong, and actionable ideas for how to fix things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Efron and Hastie's CASI is an instant classic. Deep history for any ML researcher or enthusiast. And remarkably accessible ;)

Computer Age Statistical Inference: Algorithms, Evidence and Data Science

[https://web.stanford.edu/~hastie/CASI/](https://web.stanford.edu/~hastie/CASI/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Designing Data‑Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann

<comment><USER25> This is the book I wish I had 5 years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've been enjoying the in-progress "Crafting Interpreters" by Bob Nystrom: [http://www.craftinginterpreters.com/contents.html](http://www.craftinginterpreters.com/contents.html)

<comment><USER27> I found "Writing an Interpreter in Go" to be a much better read. It was actually completely portable to C++ and Rust, and that made it useful to pretty much anyone.

<comment><USER26> Presumably: [https://interpreterbook.com/](https://interpreterbook.com/) is what you mean?

(Also: I'm following along with "crafting interpreters" and not writing my interpreter in java, have had no troubles)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Looking forward a bit, there's an update to _The Reasoned Schemer_ due out in February: [https://www.amazon.com/Reasoned-Schemer-MIT- Press/dp/0262535...](https://www.amazon.com/Reasoned-Schemer-MIT- Press/dp/0262535513/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Any 2017 recommendations for the non-technical aspects of working as a programmer? I'll stretch the boundaries a bit mentioning an October 2016 book as an example of what I'm looking for:

Programming Beyond Practices: Be More Than Just a Code Monkey

[https://amzn.com/B01LYRCGA8](https://amzn.com/B01LYRCGA8) ($14.99 Kindle)

>"a sense of how a very experienced developer sees the world an[d] approaches decision making"

Maybe the ZenFounder book helping founders maintain their mental health will make it out before the end of this year!

[https://zenfounder.com/entrepreneurs-guide-keeping-st- togeth...](https://zenfounder.com/entrepreneurs-guide-keeping-st-together)

Edit: just got an email - nope, delayed til 2018!

</comment><comment><USER29> Mastering Linux Kernel Development

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1785883054/ref=ox_sc_act_t...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1785883054/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1)

<comment><USER30> I'm interested in this. Can you list the prerequisites for working through this? I know a bit of C programming. What else do I need besides this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If you'll forgive the self-promotion, 'Working with Coders: A Guide to Software Development for the Perplexed Non-Techie' came out over the summer and is designed for project/product managers and others who have to deal with programming on a daily basis but don't actually code: [https://www.amazon.com/Working-Coders-Development- Perplexed-...](https://www.amazon.com/Working-Coders-Development-Perplexed- Non-Techie/dp/148422700X/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

<comment><USER32> I actually bought this because of this comment, enjoying it so far!

<comment><USER31> Boom! My December sales just doubled.

<comment><USER33> Just grabbed one! With tons of non technical product people floating around, I figured this would be nice a fun gift for the office.

<comment><USER31> Tripled!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Fundamental Proof Methods in Computer Science, by Konstantine Arkoudas and David Musser.

<comment><USER35> Amazing, can't believe I missed this one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Somewhat on topic I'd like to ask what a good device is to read these books on? I'd like to grab a couple books to read over the holidays.

For example someone else mentioned this book. [https://www.manning.com/books/deep-learning-with- python](https://www.manning.com/books/deep-learning-with-python)

It's available as two options...

combo $49.99: pBook + eBook + liveBook

eBook $39.99: pdf + ePub + kindle + liveBook

Personally, I prefer paperback books, but I'm willing to try out something digital. Do any digital options allow me to take notes? I currently own a Lenovo X1 Yoga which folds completely into tablet mode and has a very nice stylus. Does any Windows software allow me to read one of those digital formats and take notes?

Thanks, ~Eric

<comment><USER37> I like my Kindle Paperwhite. I think it allows you to take notes too. It's soooo much better than an LCD screen with a backlight shining in your face.

<comment><USER36> Is it good for reading technical books which may have diagrams and source code excerpts?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Writing an Interpreter in Go is a very elegant book for learning how to write an interpreter from scratch using Go. Worth every cent: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/300055808X](https://www.amazon.com/dp/300055808X)

[2] [https://interpreterbook.com/](https://interpreterbook.com/)

</comment><comment><USER39> I wonder if there's been a new groundbreaking book in the recent years

</comment><comment><USER40> _Races to suggest 'Hitchhikers Guide To Python' but then sadly realises it was from 2016_

</comment><comment><USER41> +1 for Designing Data‑Intensive Applications.

</comment><comment><USER23> I _wanted_ to read Tim O'Reilly's "WTF", but haven't gotten to it yet.

<comment><USER42> I'm currently reading it. It's been pretty good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Another shameless plug: I also released my first programming book this year.

Professional PHP: Building maintainable and secure applications

[http://patricklouys.com/professional- php/](http://patricklouys.com/professional-php/)

</comment><comment><USER44> Query: Any good free books on C# and/or ASP.net ? I'm looking more from a perspective of an experienced C++ developer who's looking to learn C#.

</comment><comment><USER45> I liked Sams Teach Yourself C++ in One Hour A Day, it goes over C++14 and C++17 and it was really informative.

</comment><comment><USER46> _Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D_ is one of the better ones I've read this year. It's a fun nostalgia trip, if you played it, and it covers some interesting stuff about historical low-level game programming and quirks of early PC gaming.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0768B3PWV/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0768B3PWV/)

<comment><USER47> I bought that about two weeks ago. It really is a good read. I wasn't around for the game itself, so it's nice that the book introduces the target hardware.

<comment><USER48> It really was a fun read. Highly recommend to any programmer!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Designing Data‑Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable and Maintainable systems - Martin Kelppmann [https://dataintensive.net/](https://dataintensive.net/)

I have recommended this to everyone.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you learn a new topic/domain - <AUTHOR> Would like to hear strategies you use to:<p>- create a learning plan on the topic that you know nothing about.<p>- tools you use to synthesize the learning; like a "lab notebook", diary or a log. What is it's structure.<p>- how do you incorporate feedback loops.<p>- anything else <comment><USER2> If you are trying to pickup a lot of new, unfamiliar terminology, concepts, acronyms, etc. you might look into Anki which is a computerized flash card system. It won't help you with the planning or strategy but spaced repetition might help you commit the new knowledge to memory faster once you have a plan of attack.</comment>


From Scaler Academy to Cyware Labs: Review by Our Scaler Saurav Gupta - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/scaleracademy/from-scaler-academy-to-cyware-labs-scaler-academy-review-by-saurav-gupta-sde-cyware-2l1j <comment><AUTHOR> Our Scaler Saurav Gupta shares his journey of how he managed to chase his dream despite coming from a humble background and his prep tips on bagging a job offer from Cyware Labs.</comment>