Unix Time 1500M – Friday July 14 02:40UTC - <AUTHOR> https://www.epochconverter.com/countdown <comment><USER3> I remember having a party for the billion seconds, which was on September 8, 2001 -- then overshadowed in my memory by the September 11 attack less than three days later.

I also remember another party for Unix time 1234567890, back in 2009, which got an impressive turnout.

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/estro/3304453623/in/photolist-...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/estro/3304453623/in/photolist-631bWk-635qTm) [https://www.flickr.com/photos/briankusler/3278099542/in/phot...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/briankusler/3278099542/in/photolist-5ZF7MC) [https://www.flickr.com/photos/estro/3305280994/in/photolist-...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/estro/3305280994/in/photolist-631bWk-635qTm)

At that party, I made some thyme tea, in honor of time_t. (Later on I learned that thyme tea is actually a thing... I felt like I was just making it up!)

<comment><USER4> But seriously thyme tea sounds pretty awful.

<comment><USER5> There are many kinds of thyme - one is good for tea (Thymus vulgaris) - <USER2> they get confused a lot.

<comment><USER6> Not only does it taste good (what might get debated) but it is said to help against the common cold and stuff like that. Is being used for centuries now as the "poor man's antibiotics".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This remembers me of "primetime" a "clock" which draws a green bar every time the timestamp is a prime.

[https://tessi.github.io/primetime](https://tessi.github.io/primetime)

Did it in my student years, looks awful today, but I was proud back then ;)

edit:

I just remembered that you can give it a timestamp to display (instead of just displaying the current time). Unix Time 1,500M would be

[https://tessi.github.io/primetime/?t=1500000000](https://tessi.github.io/primetime/?t=1500000000)

and is (obviously) not a prime number.

<comment><USER8> > looks awful today

I don't know what you don't like about it but I think not only that it looks great, but also to me that's a design that's got character.

<comment><USER7> * the green lines are somehow weirdly blurred (for god know what reason)

* it's hard to notice that the current timestamp is the most right (white or green) bar. Would be nice to have the current time in the center.

* It's hard to get the concept without explanation (at first glance people just see weird green bars moving).

But then, I never meant to make a perfectly polished clock. It's good for a quick experiment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Also, the PI date (3141592653) goes straight to Sunday July 21 2069; that's exactly 100 years from the 1st human step on the moon.

<comment><USER10> That's super weird.

<comment><USER11> I think it is just one of the millions of possible coincidences. Yes, it's fun, but nothing weird, because there are other millions of equally weird coincidences that could happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't get it, what's so special about 0x59682f00? 0x60000000, now that's a nice round number. See you on January 14th 2021!

<comment><USER13> Simias, we are surrounded by base 10 lovers in a binary world. These are the same people who gave us terabyte hard drives with 1,000,000,000,000 bytes which doesn't even make sense with sector sizes of 512 and 4096 bytes. I too will celebrate the hex flip and not some shady base 10 shenanigans.

<comment><USER14> > Friday May 15 2015 02:09:25 GMT

That was 0x55555555 or b01010101010101010101010101010101

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am irrationally excited about this.

I suspect it's because now I'll be able to quickly glance at timestamps, say in the logs or in data records, and estimate the time better without having to use a script to translate it.

<comment><USER16> When I watch the constant progress of Unix time and milestones like this, I really feel the passage of time in way I don't otherwise. Sometimes it freaks me out.

<comment><USER15> Ah interesting. I agree. Wonder if it is because typical 12 or 24 hour clock resets so we sort of get to "try again" during a new day. A continuously increasing value that never resets just has a more ominous feel to it.

<comment><USER17> It could be worse, it could be counting down.

<comment><USER18> I thought of drawing a life-to-page calendar on my lounge room wall.

Decided against it as it would make it obvious how many days I've wasted and how few I have left. Maybe that's all the more reason to do it.

<comment><USER17> Try printing this [http://abstrusegoose.com/51](http://abstrusegoose.com/51)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Although the point where we reach 1.5 Ms since the Epoch actually occurs slightly earlier at 2017-07-14 02:39:33 +0000 , as can be seen on a system using Arthur David Olson's "right" timezones.

        jdebp % TZ=right/UTC date +"%s %F %T %z" -d "@1500000000"
        1500000000 2017-07-14 02:39:33 +0000
        jdebp %

* [https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/327403/5132](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/327403/5132)

The timestamp in the headline is actually 1500000027 seconds since the Epoch.

<comment><USER20> POSIX time doesn't count leap seconds (i.e., "seconds since the Epoch" are not actually _elapsed_ seconds) and therefore POSIX time 1.5e6 is 2017-07-14T02:40:00 (UTC scale) _exactly_

right/UTC uses 1970-01-01 00:00:10 (TAI scale) epoch (it is slightly different from 1970-01-01 00:00:00 (UTC scale) -- the Epoch)

2017-07-14 02:39:33 (UTC scale) is 2017-07-14T02:40:10 (TAI scale) i.e., it is 1.5e9 seconds since the epoch used for "right" timezones, not the Epoch.

<comment><USER19> No. Read the output of the date command and the aforementioned Stack Exchange answer again. The Epoch was the same physical second in both the "right" and the "posix" systems. It is 1.5 Gs (not Ms as I mistyped) since that second at 2017-07-14 02:39:33 +0000.

The fact that you've got a difference of 37 between your two values should be a clue that you've got this wrong. The current difference between UTC and TAI-10 is 27 seconds. Again, read the Stack Exchange answer for details.

And 1.5 Gs since the Epoch will be 2017-07-14 02:39:33 +0000 on _both_ "posix" and "right" systems. A "right" wall clock _reads the same_ as a "posix" wall clock, except at leap seconds of course. 2017-07-14 02:39:33 "posix" is the same point in time as 2017-07-14 02:39:33 "right": 1.5 Gs since the Epoch. It is _not_ the same point in time as 2017-07-14 02:40:10 "right"/"posix", which is 1500000037 seconds since the Epoch.

        jdebp % TZ=right/UTC date +"%s %F %T %z" -d "@1500000037"
        1500000037 2017-07-14 02:40:10 +0000
        jdebp %

* [https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/294715/5132](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/294715/5132)

<comment><USER20> _wrong._ Don't confuse TAI and TAI-10. Don't confuse POSIX time [1] and seconds since epoch (time() value) in "right" timezones.

On the "difference of 37": the current TAI-UTC == 37s [2] (10s from 1972 + 27 leap seconds).

On "the same physical second": look at the value of TAI-UTC in the period before 1972 (if you plug the numbers then TAI-UTC is around 8 seconds at 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, not 10s. The epochs are not the _same_. They are "slightly different"). The _same_ physical second corresponds to 1972 (by definition), not 1970:

      1972-01-01 00:00:00 (UTC scale) == 1972-01-01 00:00:10 (TAI scale)

Note: :10, not :00, note: TAI, not TAI-10.

To reiterate:

POSIX time 1.5e9 corresponds to 2017-07-14T02:40:00 (UTC scale) _exactly_.

1.5e9 "seconds since epoch" (not the Epoch) for "right" timezones corresponds to 2017-07-14T02:40:10 (TAI scale) == 2017-07-14 02:39:33 (UTC scale).

[1] [http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_...](http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap04.html#tag_04_16)

[2] [http://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc/index.php?index=TAI- UTC_tab&la...](http://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc/index.php?index=TAI- UTC_tab&lang=en)

( _the_ authoritative source on leap seconds. It publishes Bulletin C ftp://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/BULLETINC.GUIDE )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This page answers a question I was thinking about in the shower this morning: what is the latest date (as a UNIX timestamp) you can store in a regular postgres integer column, which has a max value of 2147483647 per the postgres docs. It turns out that the answer is January 19 2038 03:14:07 GMT.

I'm working on a project that involves sync, and we're keeping track of action numbers by incrementing the last action number, but for various reasons I was thinking, "what if we replaced the action_number field with the corresponding timestamp integer?"

Then I began to ponder which integer format to use -- if I could get a way with just postgres integer, or if I needed to stop up to bigint. It turns out I should probably step up to bigint if I do this :-)

Anyway, I could've just done this in ruby, but by the time I saw this I had forgotten I was thinking about it, and this reminded me.

<comment><USER22> You've inadvertently discovered the "2038 Problem"[0]. This is the next iteration of the Y2K bug.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem)

<comment><USER21> Well well... TIL

If I thought we'd all still be here in 2038 I'd have something new to worry about :-/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> For the bay area crowd - is there anything going on to celebrate?

</comment><comment><USER24> 2147483647 (2^31-1) is worth watching as well.

A second later the first bit of any timestamp still handled as signed int32 will flip and the ride into the past begins.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem)

</comment><comment><USER25> Marked my calendar for subsequent dates..

> date -ud @2000000000

Wed May 18 03:33:20 UTC 2033

</comment><comment><USER26> A calendar of the upcoming 100M anniversaries:

        $ for x in {15..21}
        > do
        > printf '%2d %s\n' $x "$(
        >   env TZ=UTC date -d "@$(($x*100000000))"
        > )"; done
        15 Fri 14 Jul 02:40:00 UTC 2017
        16 Sun 13 Sep 12:26:40 UTC 2020
        17 Tue 14 Nov 22:13:20 UTC 2023
        18 Fri 15 Jan 08:00:00 UTC 2027
        19 Sun 17 Mar 17:46:40 UTC 2030
        20 Wed 18 May 03:33:20 UTC 2033
        21 Fri 18 Jul 13:20:00 UTC 2036

It's neat how they seem to roll around every pi years.

        >>> 1e8 / (3600 * 24 * 365.25)
        3.168808781402895
        >>> math.pi
        3.141592653589793

</comment><comment><USER27> Why is this milestone important?

<comment><USER28> Because many of us won't make it to 2 billion.

<comment><USER29> 15 years time?

<comment><USER30> Surely you don't expect _everyone_ living now to be still alive in 15 years? ;)

But yeah, it might just indicate that parent got the ballpark estimate wrong... Unix time is not the most human-friendly format.

<comment><USER17> A simple mnemonic is that pi * 10 ^ 7 seconds is a year (~0.5% error) and e * 10 ^ 6 seconds is a month.

<comment><USER31> Simple indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I get that little popup on this website saying "you agree to our use of cookies to give you the best possible experience".

Why do I need cookies to maximize my unix time experience, exactly?

</comment><comment><USER33> If you want to avoid converting seconds into something more human readable, you can use [http://timestamp.online/countdown/1500000000](http://timestamp.online/countdown/1500000000)

What is the next timestamp you are looking for? [http://timestamp.online/countdown/1515151515](http://timestamp.online/countdown/1515151515) or is there something better sooner?

<comment><USER19> This one is sooner.

        jdebp % echo @400000005a00000000000000|TZ=UTC tai64nlocal
        2017-11-06 06:23:23.000000000
        jdebp %

This one is slightly later.

        jdebp % echo @400000005a5a5a5a005a5a5a|TZ=UTC tai64nlocal
        2018-01-13 19:12:53.005921370
        jdebp %

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've seen the Unix timestamp as One Four something since I started active coding since 2015. So I'm excited about this.

<comment><USER35> Twelve-billioner here (or was it 11-bil? hmm). Sounds like we're onto a new measure of work experience!

<comment><USER36> Actually, you would be either a 1.2 or 1.1-billioner. It's an order of magnitude less.

<comment><USER35> Oops, you're right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Obligatory link to macOS "epoch flip clock" screensaver: [https://github.com/chrstphrknwtn/epoch-flip- clock](https://github.com/chrstphrknwtn/epoch-flip-clock)

</comment><comment><USER38> My cars odometer is at 99910km's so by tomorrow I should be at 100000km's, not quite date -d @1500000000

</comment><comment><USER39> For anyone wondering, an increment like this happens about every three years.

</comment><comment><USER40> date +%s

To see current time

<comment><USER41> I used to find this syntax opaque/unfriendly until I simply looked into it. Here's a helpful cheat sheet for what follows the "+":

[https://gist.github.com/nikreiman/1408399](https://gist.github.com/nikreiman/1408399)

<comment><USER35> Or just use man date

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> What's everybody doing to celebrate?

<comment><USER43> Honestly, I'm going to shrug my shoulders. Not to dampen anyone else's celebrations and enthusiasm. That's just how I am about these kind of things. Like on most Birthdays, the orbital relationship of Earth to Sun isn't even within millions of miles of when I was born, so I'm like "meh". Except for my DD's birthday, but that's because it's special to her.

<comment><USER41> Thanks for eloquently putting in words how I feel about this. I yearn for a life so uneventful and devoid of stress that I could give two shits about such things.

<comment><USER44> And yet it piqued your curiosity enough to read comments on the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> 5.0E+96 count down to that lol... funny site tho :D for some reason i approve of this.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm going to be 1.5B seconds old! I mean, whenever $random_website demands my birthday, they get Start of Epoch. Easy fake birthday to remember :)

</comment><comment><USER46> yawn. is this the HN equivalent of a 4chan "GET"?

<comment><USER47> What's a 4chan GET?

<comment><USER48> All posts incrementally increase as posts accumulate on a board. Gets are normally reserved for when you approach a milestone. Example here [http://new3.fjcdn.com/pictures/Fj+gets+banned+from+4chan_660...](http://new3.fjcdn.com/pictures/Fj+gets+banned+from+4chan_660e83_5439181.png).

Classically you'd say something is true if you get dubs (the post id ends in doubles)

<comment><USER49> Why is it called GET?

<comment><USER50> Common English loanword in Japanese, or at least in anime - characters will excitedly say something like "prize GET" (with the "get" in English and shouted, the "prize" in Japanese, but rendered that way by fan translations).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Typed Functional Programming and Software Correctness - <AUTHOR> https://dimjasevic.net/marko/2018/10/23/typed-functional-programming-and-software-correctness/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm sure you've all heard Haskell programmers say that if their code compiles, you can be sure the program is correct. I'd found that hard to believe until I tried building something in Haskell: the type system lets you describe the properties of your data and _behaviour_. When you compile, the theorem prover inside GHC verifies that your code obeys the described properties.

This article does a good job of showing some flaws within the development experience of mainstream languages as well as showing how a typed functional languages can address them.

It does make me wonder why FP isn't more popular. Is it because of the high level of abstraction? Sure, you need to learn what a monoid, or an functor is. But once you do that, you can use the interface and behaviours described by these categories to interact with _any_ other monoid / functor, no matter who wrote it or what it achieves.</comment>


The Text of Feinstein/Burr Encryption Backdoor Bill - <AUTHOR> https://www.scribd.com/doc/307378123/Burr-Encryption-Bill-Discussion-Draft <comment><USER2> Actually that is pretty sane and toothless. It does nothing about strong codes, strong pass-phrases, oob exchanged keys and so on.

The design limitation clause is pretty strong.

If just enables removal of artificial security enhancements.

<comment><USER3> Zdziarski seems to think it is quite dangerous. Thoughts? [http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=6046](http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=6046)

I see the limitation clause and so forth, but some of the language still seems pretty broad and dangerous. In fact the way it is worded, it nearly contradicts itself, calling for "design limitation" yet requiring things that will inevitably require a design change. Which part of that contradiction would be upheld in the event this becomes law?</comment></comment>


VLANs and VPNs: PfSense Segmented Routing - <AUTHOR> https://philsheets.me/blog/multi-vlan-vpn-endpoint-pfsense-network/ <comment><USER2> Hey thanks for sharing. Feedback would be awesome!</comment>


How fashion startups get accepted into tech accelerators - <AUTHOR> https://www.voguebusiness.com/technology/fashion-startups-tech-accelerators-y-combinator-dream-assembly <comment><USER2> I'm surprised I haven't seen more fashion/clothing startups (maybe I have just missed them?).

Specifically I see great potential in just-in-time production of garments using 3D scanning, motion tracking, "curve" fitting algorithms and automatic manufacturing. I would LOVE to be able to walk into a store and buy a pair of jeans that actually had a great fit. Would definitely pay premium. Tailors doesn't scale well.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately this is probably further than many in tech realise. The tech is getting better but the manufacturing tolerances on most clothing is far too far off.

Typical manufacturing tolerances on "high street" clothing (not high end) will be about half a size. On budget clothing it could be as much as a whole size out between batches.

It's not until you get to much higher end than most people are willing to pay that you get to the good enough tolerances. a £50 shirt (which is pretty high end for most people) will still be out by a lot. A £150 shirt might have the potential to be close enough on the tolerances, but at that price point sizing isn't the factor that people care about, it's luxury brand names.

I'd be happy to pay a premium for good fits, but the premium I'd be willing to pay (and that I bet many/most would be willing to pay) is in the 10-30% range, not the 200-300% range that it would likely need to be.

<comment><USER4> One free trick to getting a better fit is to try on more than one of the "right" size for the same article of clothing.

<comment><USER5> Free business idea: Don't worry about loose manufacturing tolerances, but make a way of precisely measuring each individual finished garment, then match the specific garment to the specific customer.

<comment><USER6> Personal AR devices with 3D cameras will make it easy for someone to get precise measurements and re-scan after any weight change. On the manufacturing side, I think we need to combine cameras with clothing material data and robots that stretch the clothing in various directions to ascertain actual size. The output measurements could be matched up with the 3D scans of customers to make accurate size recommendations.

In addition, the manufacturer's measurements could be turned into a 3D model of the clothing that can be "worn" by a deepfake digital version of the customer. CGI footage would be generated of Deepfake Customer inhabiting a curated branded setting, showing how the clothing would fit on the customer from multiple angles. This wouldn't only be for the customer's viewing. An ML Aesthete would view Deepfake Customer catwalking in tens of thousands of permutations of the store's clothing, recommending the combination of merchandise that would be most attractive, adjusting for the customer's preferences.

If the customer is still undecided between several articles of clothing, photos from the deepfake catwalk could be posted on a website like Photofeeler.com, where human opinions would be rendered in minutes and compared with the customer's baseline attractiveness to compute an "attractiveness boost" score. ML Aesthete would be "punished" for differences between their score and the human scores, until their scores match up and human opinions are no longer necessary. Alternatively, the customer can post an Instagram story with a voting mechanism. If anyone with ML and/or robotics experience would like to work with me (I'm currently non-technical but have business acumen) on the whole system described above, even if perhaps as an aspirational side project, please reply below.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's to explain? Consumer tech is fashion products, not tools.

Or have you not noticed whenever you first start dating someone new your choices in app brands elicits the same kind of responses as your choice in clothing?

</comment><comment><USER8> Key takeaways:

Fashion companies are looking to invest in "enabling" startups that help them implement new business models or technologies.

Venture capitalists and incubator executives like founders who don't gloss over the challenges they face.

Founders should have concrete data on the competition and potential consumers, as well as preliminary results of having tested their idea.</comment>


Show HN: Typewriter, a text editor with no features - <AUTHOR> http://llllll.li/typewriter/

<comment><USER2> Hi David. This is a cool app. I'm hesitant to download and run it on my computer, as the domain name is pretty funky, and there's not a whole lot of explanation about it. But I like the idea. Have you tried out my typewriter- ish web-app — first draft? [http://beta.firstdraft.io](http://beta.firstdraft.io). Let me know what you think, and whether you'd like to collaborate. I've got a good start.

<comment><USER3> In fact the whole app concept is already in the web page, try typing in the demo.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Stop making the same mistakes Track your time & improve your estimates - <AUTHOR> http://www.loggable.co.uk/?hn=120213

<comment><USER2> I saw this a few weeks ago and the layout is so much better. Love the new signup form and simple £10 per user

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, glad you like the updates. thanks for HN users for the constructive feedback

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good to see that you've fixed the mobile issues that were a problem last time. I'll sign up and have a look.

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks pretty cool.</comment>


Laser Projector via Audio Hardware - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEG68O6jpjo

<comment><USER2> This was a really great presentation. I love how he ate his own dogfood and did the entire presentation with his tool.</comment>


Venture Capital in Danger - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/opinion/31patricof.html?ref=opinion

<comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I'm a VC at Atlas Venture (<http://www.atlasventure.com/>).

The Patricof article echoes pretty much exactly the position of the National Venture Capital Association (its statement to congress is here: <http://bit.ly/M92Ux> [PDF]).

Essentially:

1\. Venture capital firms are not interdependent with the world financial system - we don't trade public markets, we don't rely on banks, we don't insure things

2\. The venture capital industry is small in size and thus not "systemic" in relevance

3\. Venture capital firms do not use long-term leverage or rely on short-term funding - i.e. we don't punch above our "equity" weight

4\. Regulation under the currently proposed act would significantly increase costs and change the way venture could operate - insofar the parallels drawn to SOX or anti-money laundering are correct

In particular, we'd have to add more administrative staff and would potentially face issues in performance-based contractual relationships with some of our investors (limited partners).

The argument in a nutshell is that the Act seeks to address problems caused by buy-out and hedge funds. We're being lumped into something because of our similar structures, not because of what we do. Transparency is a laudable goal and I think the venture capital industry as a whole would be more open to thinking about making itself more transparent if such regulation recognized that venture is actually not a part of the problem, but an essential catalyst for growth in our economies.

I am personally a subscriber to a libertarian, subsidiarist principle of legislation. There is no need to regulate VC in the way intended by congress: why should we erect barriers to entry, dissuade new investors into venture capital, make it less profitable (than it already is)?

<comment><USER3> Figure out and adapt a fundamentally different legal structure and this issue goes away. The cost of writing a law full of loopholes that allows hedge and PE funds to "look" like VC funds is higher than the added costs to firms like Atlas. (Let's be honest: this ain't gonna drive Atlas out of business, nor will it affect angel investors. It would only kill the crappy $20-50MM funds.)

And if anyone thinks I'm crazy, I want to point out that Mitt Romney has always described himself as a "venture capitalist," as far back as his 1994 Senate run, although everyone knows that Bain Capital is a PE shop.

Disclaimer: I did my time on the dark side at a healthcare VC firm, and now I'm on the entrepreneur side.

<comment><USER4> Couldn't a threshhold level of debt usage be a line of delineation?

Debt is a complex subject, but FASB has well-defined means to determine whether a security instrument is debt or equity.

<comment><USER3> You can have leverage without debt through the use of options and other derivatives. The leverage is the systemic structural issue, not the notional amount of debt.

<comment><USER4> True, leverage comes in many forms. But what form of leverage could a VC firm engage in that they could not easily be restricted from in order to qualify for less onerous regulation?

Restrictions on the use of derivatives is as easy to restrict as debt instruments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> People often don't consider how regulation decreases the number of new entrants into a field.

In the present case, we tend to spend all our time talking about how this will impact current VC firms. _Existing_ VC firms have the advantage. The real question is how this will impact VC firms yet to be formed (or even yet put on a napkin).

At some level of regulation, new competition will be completely thwarted (imagine having to spend the first $10M and the first year of your startup achieving regulatory compliance), but what is often missed is the marginal effect. _Any_ marginal increase in regulation will create a corresponding marginal decrease in new entrants just as assuredly as if you could artificially raise their expected cost to get to profitability (because that's exactly what regulation does).

This is why existing players in a market often lobby for regulation of their own market, or at least acquiesce to it without too much of a fight.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is there any reason to believe that regulators who can't figure out how to handle institutions that they've been regulating for decades will know how to handle VC firms?

We know how this is going to play out. VC firms with ties to congress critters are going to get special treatment, just like banks with such ties do. Firms that don't make such ties are going to be penalized.

<comment><USER3> Well, we have some decent regulators. The issue was one of regulator-shopping. You've got AIG, the world's largest insurer, under the Office of Thrift Supervision _exactly because_ AIG bent the rules to qualify for OTS oversight.

Reading Felix Salmon et al, the solution is for one large regulator with the sophistication to match the large and diverse financial institutions, to eliminate the turf wars and jurisdiction shopping of the past. Combine the SEC and the CFTC (which, guess what, knows how to regulate derivatives), and give the new SEC sufficient enforcement powers.

Furthermore, the regulation only makes VC shops (as well as PE and hedges, which all have the same GP/LP structure) file the _exact same stuff_ that Vanguard, Fidelity, and other mutual fund companies _already file_. I love how the VCs never once mention this. Probably because it sounds so reasonable.

<comment><USER6> > The issue was one of regulator-shopping.

Which will always be a problem, so you've just told us one of the mechanisms for regulatory failure.

> You've got AIG

Bzzt - AIG was not just under OTS, they were also under insurance regulation and a couple of others. And they were regulated in several countries, often in multiple ways, not to mention states. And these agencies cooperated.

AIG was pretty much a best case for regulatory success.

And now it's a conduit for payoffs to Goldman Sachs. (Yes, I know the collateral story. I'm hoping that someone will post the details so I can show how it doesn't mean what they think it does. GS should have been left holding the collateral.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What are they in danger from ? Having to open their books ?

That seems like a pretty stretchy way of using the word 'danger'.

If venture capital would truly be in danger then that would imply that funds would be forbidden to operate, but that is not the case at all.

There is simply a shifting of allowing funds to operate without oversight to one where the authorities have an inside view at what is going on.

Since the IRS and other arms of the government already have this insight what is wrong with allowing the SEC access to similar information ?

<comment><AUTHOR> It costs money to comply with regulations. SOX, for example, costs on average of $1.7 million/year.

[http://fei.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=204](http://fei.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=204)

While (hopefully) this regulation won't be as burdensome, it doesn't need to be that large to cause problems. VC funds aren't that large.

There is no benefit and potentially large cost to regulating VC.

<comment><USER7> The article you quote there to make your point clearly states that the 1.7 million dollar figure is an average taken over a group of companies, to make a meaningful statement about this you'd have to take in to account how big the revenue streams were in order to gage the impact.

taken by itself the 1.7 million figure is useless.

There is a cost to running a VC operation, reporting is part of that cost. _if_ \- and it remains to be seen if it really will go that way - these laws will be made to bear on VC companies then you can bet that the cost of compliance will be a small fraction of the size of the fund.

No need to start saying that 'venture capital is in danger'.

Venture capital companies _possibly_ slightly less profitable would be a better title.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem with SOX is that it has a large fixed cost component. This disproportionately hurts smaller companies. You may bet that costs will be proportional to the size of the fund, but I see no reason to expect that.

There are also knock-on effects: if VC becomes less profitable, some investors will put their money into other instruments. The problem isn't just that we might get smaller profits on existing VC funds, the problem is that we might get fewer investments into VC.

The sole benefit is that congress and the president get to pretend they are doing something about the financial crisis.

If you want to say my title was a little overblown, fine. But it doesn't change the fact that this proposed regulation poses a significant risk of reducing the amount of VC invested into startups.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Think Distributed: A Distributed Systems Podcast - <AUTHOR> http://thinkdistributed.io/ <comment><USER2> Nice, I'm always looking for new things to listen to during my too-long commute. Just one problem, unless I'm missing something, there's no RSS feed - a critical feature for a podcast series.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm working on resolving this right now.

<comment><USER2> Excellent, looking forward to this.

<comment><AUTHOR> This should be fixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Liking this so far. Can anyone recommend other good Computer Science podcasts as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> I recommend [http://realtalk.io/](http://realtalk.io/)

<comment><USER4> +1 to [http://realtalk.io](http://realtalk.io)

<comment><USER5> Hasn't been updated in a month. I hope the guys are OK and are coming back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh dear, can't listen to that on headphones. Built-in microphones and VoIP quality make my ears hurt. Listening to sophisticated podcasters definitely spoils you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry; as interest has picked up we'll try to improve quality as we go along. First episode was an experiment.

<comment><USER7> FWIW, I think I read that the gold standard is for each participant to record their audio, and then mix the different tracks together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good podcast. If anyone wants to know more about Rafl this is a good video: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbZ3zDzDnrw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbZ3zDzDnrw)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is also a link in the show notes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice to see a podcast about this. I'd love more technical/scientific podcasts... nowadays most of podcasts are either very "work" related (HanselMinutes and such) or web/mobile relates (Which I'm not interested about).

I just learned about Realtalk, which looks really nice.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great idea. This could be part of a larger trend. MOOCS are covering topics in undergraduate education, but there isn't an equivalent for graduate education. Podcasts/Webcasts discussing relevant papers could be a way to solve this.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly the goal. We will be covering CRDTs and things like linearizability in coming episodes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Sign up for our mailing list to be notified of new episodes.

No RSS feed?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is one at /rss.xml, and a meta tag pointing there. That said, we've also got the podcast submitted to iTunes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Any chance of publishing this on iTunes? I find that a very convenient way to listen to podcasts.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is in progress -- waiting for submission.

<comment><USER12> Awesome. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really interesting.. Bookmarked and I'll certainly be back..

That said .. the hat!

<comment><AUTHOR> Like the hat or dislike the hat? :)

<comment><USER14> do you even...

</comment></comment></comment><comment> jgannonjr</comment>


Spring cleaning for some of our APIs  - <AUTHOR> http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/05/spring-cleaning-for-some-of-our-apis.html <comment><USER2> Of note, the Wave API is getting tossed out. Final nail in the coffin, I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER3> I hope translate may be reconsidered. It's made navigating the worldwide web -- without shoving everything through the Translate web page interface -- more than just more convenient; it's made doing so possible/practical, for the first time.

I think this may be an instance of "baby with the bathwater". (In other words, there's a cultural mission/service here that deserved continued support, even if it takes some more neurons devoted to beating the abuse.)</comment>


Why is Sweden not recommending face masks to the public? - <AUTHOR> https://www.thelocal.se/20200514/explained-why-is-sweden-not-recommending-face-masks-to-the-public <comment><USER2> They are partly correct. Wearing face mask provides little protection for the user.

The reason to use them in public is to protect others.

<comment><USER3> "The reason to use them in public is to protect others." Good enough reason for me.</comment></comment>


The Subprime Ad Crisis Is Here - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@robleathern/the-subprime-ad-crisis-is-here-6ac028133c93#.fb7h5cuac <comment><USER2> I think it is a stretch to compare the Mortgage crisis to the online advertising business, but I don't disagree with the basics of this article. There is a huuuuge (as Bernie would say) problem with online advertising. It is way too easy to defraud the advertiser and so the whole space is filling up with really (and I mean _really_ ) sleezy characters. And you know they are sleezy when they try to get you to use their tech on a web site but you have to sign an NDA which says you won't disclose to anyone where you got your tech or how much money changes hands?

When a company offers technology that, when installed, intercepts Google pages and inserts an ad on that page at the top you have to ask yourself, really? And while its clear how this rips off both Google and Advertisers you wonder why there are squads of people out hunting these folks. And then you ask, who would hunt them? the IAB?

Build an advertising platform that cuts out the sleeze balls and guarantees non-Bot traffic and you'll do well.</comment>


Maven gets partially absorbed by modern JVM languages … - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jonasbandi.net/2009/12/maven-gets-partially-absorbed-by-modern.html The absorption of Maven by JRuby and Groovy is an impressive demonstration how the Java platform grows and how good ideas and concepts are adapted and evolved. <comment><USER2> You can add Clojure's "Leiningen" to that list.

<http://github.com/technomancy/leiningen>

Description: A build tool for Clojure designed to not set your hair on fire.</comment>


Lightroom $4K iMac VS $4K PC performance test - <AUTHOR> https://www.slrlounge.com/lightroom-mac-vs-pc-speed-test-4k-imac-vs-4k-custom-pc-performance-test/ <comment><USER2> A lot of that iMac's cost is its retina display, and you didn't bother buying a retina display for the PC. Running a speed test is silly, there are already major differences in the build.

To make this remotely more scientific, you'd either need to buy a 4k monitor for the PC, or use a Mac Pro and just take the monitor out of the equation.

<comment><USER3> That's true. They should have gotten a 5k screen with 5120‑by‑2880 resolution for the PC like the Mac. This Dell costs 2000 which would have reduced the available for the PC components. On the other hand if you don't care for such resolution the PC may be the better choice.

<comment><USER4> If they wanted a more apples to apples comparison in the hardware department, they probably should have added $600 to the monitor price[1] and paid for it by using the same CPU as the iMac (i.e. a 6700k)

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Monitor-UP2715K-27-Inch-LED- Lit/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Monitor-UP2715K-27-Inch-LED- Lit/dp/B00OKSFXZU)

Honestly, though, I don't think the point was to do an apples-to-apples hardware comparison. This was on a cost basis only.

<comment><USER5> The article also leaves out the cost of their IT guy's time to assemble the custom PC components. How much does an hour of Joseph WU's time cost? How many hours did it take for him to order, receive, unpack, and then assemble the components?

<comment><USER6> My guess would be most of Wu's time was spent researching which components to order, probably several hours. On the other hand, if he's a full time employee, then it does not cost anything extra to have him do his job.

<comment><USER7> If he is a full time employee then the time he spent researching and assembling this computer was time he didn't spend doing the job he was paid for.

<comment><USER8> Unless 'researching, building and supporting the IT environment' is his job, as their IT guy

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not a Apple fan, but I find most of these tests are counting seconds and then extrapolating that to actual work time, which I don't think actually maps as well as the author thinks.

The exception to this is 'smart previews' test which shows a 6.5 minute difference.

I've asked the creator of fileloupe ([http://www.fileloupe.com/](http://www.fileloupe.com/)) if his app would improve the performance of this one test. I know nothing about photos, so I don't even know what this 'smart preview' thing is...

<comment><USER10> Right. His mapping it 1-to-1 implies that most of the time is bound by computer tasks. So there would be almost no viewing/decision/input task time, just some rapid input, then walking away from the computer.

<comment><USER11> This is so often the flaw with business upgrades. Its much easier to blame it on old kit than to struggle through improving workflow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm surprised by HN's response here. I always thought it was common knowledge that a custom PC would be faster than a mac. You don't pay for speed with Apple, you pay for user experience.

<comment><USER13> Not just user experience, lots of things people don't immediately appreciate: construction (e.g. unibody sturdy metal), backlit keyboards, multi-touch trackpads, newest ports, mag safe, better battery life, thinnes, less weight, hi-dpi high quality monitors, seamless "sleep/wake" behavior, etc -- not to mention high resale value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This guy managed to edit a 4k video on last years Macbook faster than a much beefier Windows computer:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnapaZYD2cU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnapaZYD2cU)

I think that speaks to the "quality" of the software more than anything. I'm wiling to bet that Adobe Premiere would render that macbook useless. I wonder how much more(I can't imagine how difficult it is to write their software cross-platform) amazing the Adobe suite would be if they only focused on Windows (which allow for these super powered machines).

</comment><comment><USER5> They could have saved some money on the iMacs by simply buying and installing the RAM themselves. If they opted for the 8GB Apple RAM they'd take $600 off the iMac price.

And the 1TB flash storage option they chose can also be questioned. I mean, 1TB of the iMac's internal flash storage is super expensive, but it's also WAY WAY faster than the Samsung 850 EVO in terms of read/write times. (Samsung 850 EVO has the SATA bottleneck.) My point is that if you know your process is constrained by CPU speed, don't put so much of your budget into fast storage. If they had opted for the 256 GB flash storage option in the iMac they'd take $700 off the price.

OTOH, I don't see a way around the inability to overclock the iMac's cpu. Stuck with 4.0 GHz (or 4.2 in Turbo boost).

</comment><comment><USER15> > Speaking conservatively, a 25% difference in performance would turn an 8 > hour wedding edit into 10 hours.

That's only true if all 8 hours are 100% spent waiting on the machine, which doesn't seem likely. This doesn't seem like a CPU-bound task. Most of the time is probably spent by the human actually looking at the photos and making decisions.

</comment><comment><USER16> 4000USD is a lot of money. That seems like an odd setup.

Not having ever wanted to buy a machine for that amount of cash, I'd expect to do better with multi-socket systems.

Anyone care to chime in? I struggled to spend over 1K GBP with my latest machine. (I think 'Extreme Edition' is basically like buying the S version of a car, mind). i7-5820K, 64GB ram.

One thing that does stick out is an odd monitor comparison. There's an expensive color repro "low" (in comparison) res monitor for the PC, against the standard iMac retina. Aren't there cheaper 4K monitors/TV's about?

<comment><USER11> Lightroom has a single core CPU bottleneck, multisocket is pointless for the this use case.

The rest is on the GPU

<comment><USER16> I suspected that, but what's with the monstrous 8 core thing then? Couldn't you equally overclock a 4 core CPU and save hundreds of dollars?

Basically, is the whole article just nonsense? :)

<comment><USER11> Absolute nonsense.

This stinks of a cross between attempting to do PR and having someone who didn't make a spending decision justify it.

As I said elsewhere, the place to improve is in their human workflows, or there is no improvement to get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> These comparisons are silly. Now imagine it's a BMW vs someone's project car both with the same $$$ invested.

Yeah, the project car will probably smoke it. But not everyone wants a project car.

<comment><USER18> They should be doing this test against a Mac Pro if they want a fair comparison. And yes, the Mac Pro would likely be more expensive, but I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that building your own overclocked PC is cheaper.

<comment><USER19> Why would it necessarily be cheaper? After all Apple has both economy of scale and the capacity to buy up the entire manufacturing run of many of the components. They _should_ be able to assemble a system as tightly integrated as a Mac much cheaper than somebody could go out and buy all the parts for.

A better example might be the cost delta between buying a car from the manufacturer and buying all the parts to make the same car separately and putting it together. The direct from manufacturer car will be far cheaper.

<comment><USER20> Apple probably doesn't 'get out of bed' for a profit margin smaller than X%.

That number is probably an order of magnitude higher than the profit margin of component makers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder what would be the test results if they used a 4k display in Windows as well. Moving those many pixels has an extra cost.

Other than that, I find the review centered around their use case and well explained. Well done.

<comment><USER22> The video card in question should handle it without issue...

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Final Thoughts > "... Apple is simply adding new products and updating product lines often times without much thought it seems. This can be seen in the horrid pen solution found in the iPad Pro where charging it requires you to have a spear sticking out of your iPad."

The above seem like a non-sequitur, but seems apt. I switched from Windows to OSX in 2007 to work exclusively on iOS. In the past year: I abandoned WatchOS due to artificial constraints, discovered that the Apple Pencil has an annoying skid/squeak, and an Auto-update from Xcode 7.2 to 7.3 broke my C++ toolchain. The last, of which, Apple QA has decided not to fix, even though XC 4 thru 7.2 worked just fine. Meanwhile, can't run Cuda on my year old MBP AMD Chipset. I may be switching platforms. Hence the interest in OP's article, including the tangental Final Thoughts.

<comment><USER22> I bought my current rMBP in late 2014, and it may well be my last Apple product... I've mainly been a fan because of the ootb unix support, and the touchpad (that's a huge deal for me). The screens are nice too, but others have caught up, and I can't see detail that well anymore.

The SMB/CIFS change from samba is what caught me, that was kind of painful. I finally upgraded to El Capitan, and not sure I like it much better. For the most part, OSX is the one that stands out in terms of how I use my computer... Ubuntu and Windows are closer to each other (with bash) than OSX, and once windows has native Linux subsystem in general availability, I may wind up using it more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is a qualitative analysis at best. I live in both the PC and Mac world and I'll say this, Some of what you pay apple for is quality. I understand that many cannot fathom this, but their customer service net promoter score is very admirable. You get a quality machine. Style does matter, and you get style with a Mac as well. If style isn't important, explain to me why builders spend hours deciding on cases, lighting, and cable management. At the end of the day, these types of comparisons aren't going to sway anyone.

</comment><comment><USER25> Of _course_ a purpose-built PC will outperform an iMac, dollar for dollar. That's not exactly news. The iMac also has a severe price-to-performance disadvantage here by including an expensive 5K panel, while the PC is tested with a much cheaper 2560x1440 monitor.

However, the disappointing thing to me here is that you can't reach performance parity with the iMac by throwing more money at it. The iMac tested here is a completely maxed out machine.

<comment><USER5> Yes!

The Skylake processor in the iMac is something the end user cannot overclock (without doing something extreme). And none of the Mac Pro cores are as fast. And Apple doesn't water cool their machines. They simply don't offer robust overclocking options to us. So, for a single-core, the 4.0 GHz Skylake in the iMac is the fastest thing Apple offers.

If there is an underlying, valid core criticism in this article, it's the same one everybody already knows about: Apple doesn't offer their end users a truly competitive array of system configurations. Instead, they force their users into carefully defined and limited product tiers, each one costing significantly more than the last.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Apple is delivering a turnkey hardware solution with the 5K iMac. They will also provide an upgrade path with future hardware generations. This article is the same-ole myopic view of DIY specifications and IT enterprise management. Macs are not built for people who can or want to do it themselves. Macs are built for people who ONLY want to focus on the task at hand.

</comment><comment> r-w Surprise, surprise. A custom-built, overclocked machine with more of its cost invested in its CPU was faster than one that wasn't overclocked and is sold for looks and stability over raw performance. It's not like the choice of almost all the components had absolutely no impact on the final result.

</comment><comment><USER27> Isn't this more a test of lightroom's performance on a mac vs a PC ? May not really indicate the performance difference between the two.

</comment><comment><USER28> $630 for the graphics card is a waste of money for Lightroom.

Should have spent it on PCIe SSD or Xeon CPU.

<comment><USER22> I don't think you'll get higher single core speeds on a Xeon...

<comment><USER28> Some operations is Light room scale rather well with the number of cores, and some do beyond 8 cores.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> ryan-allen I haven't looked at it yet but I'm putting my money on the 4K PC kicking the crap out of the Mac, unless the screen kills the PC budget...

EDIT: Yep, for what it's worth, if you are doing retouch for print, pro studios use EIZO screens and they are usually around 2k-3k+ per unit.

</comment><comment><USER29> The PC system is overclocked 50%! What a pointless article.

</comment><comment><USER30> That spec iMac is currently $3879 at MacMall [1], To save money, you could easily spec a 4.0GHz/8GB/1TB FUS/M390 for $2299 from B&H [3], add the same SSD ($300) and ram from OWC ($328 for 32GB / $667 for 64GB). Bringing the total to $3266. We also need to go to a 5K 27 inch monitor on the PC side for a fair price comparison; the cheapest I could find was $1042 HP Z27q [4]. Add $42 to the PC price to make up for this.

Now, the PC price comes out to $4370+42=$4412, so we need to drop $1146 of from the PC to get a realistic price comparison. The RAM, Screen, SSD, and graphics card are anchored due to our Apples to Not Apples comparison. That leaves the motherboard, case, CPU, power supply and water cooler to drop in price.

I don't know water cooling particularly well, but lets say we leave that in to continue overclocking the CPU, but drop to a lesser model, same with the Power Supply and Case. So revised budget for each is:

Case: $125 -> $80 Power Supply: $140 -> $80 Water cooling: $120 -> $80

Now a gaming motherboard was selected because it's stable for overclocking, but let's throw caution to the wind and drop our budget to half that and hope it still overclocks stable. $480 -> $240

That leaves $261 for the CPU, which buys an i5-6600K (3.5GHz), or we drop the water cooling and run everything at stock to get to an i7-6700K (4GHz). In other words, the same processor in the iMac. If this benchmarks any differently, it's the Lightroom developers fault, not the hardware.

So, the upshot is, spending the same amount on a Mac will get you the same specs in a much better looking equivalent device.

[1] [http://www.macmall.com/p/product~dpno~13697228~pdp.jhffibb?s...](http://www.macmall.com/p/product~dpno~13697228~pdp.jhffibb?source=APPLEINSIDER02)

[2] [http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1190421-REG/apple_z0sd...](http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1190421-REG/apple_z0sd_mk47218_bh_27_imac_with_retina.html)

[3] [http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1190421-REG/apple_z0sd...](http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1190421-REG/apple_z0sd_mk47218_bh_27_imac_with_retina.html)

[4] [http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=11429...](http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=1142990&gclid=CMmWqobdrMwCFYo2gQodE6ACrg&Q=&ap=y&m=Y&c3api=1876%2C92051677802%2C&is=REG&A=details)

</comment><comment><USER31> if you buy apple, you pay the extra tax, and the anodized aluminum finish.

<comment><USER32> And the aluminum body connected to that finish. Why not say the tax is for sturdy, light, consistent (if not attractive) construction?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> 60 hours is easily lost when some piece on your custom rig dies and you don't have apple care.

<comment><USER12> From the article:

"The honest truth is, I have spent just as much time in a Apple store at the Genius Counter getting my Apple machines repaired as I have maintaining my well built PCs."

<comment><USER34> Apple Care does take sweet time, but you don't need to go to the store. They'll pick your machine up by courier to fix, at least they did for my iMac when the hard drive died.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I won't TurnItIn - <AUTHOR> http://readmorewritemorethinkmorebemore.blogspot.com/2010/09/why-i-wont-turn-it-in.html

<comment><USER2> My college has used TurnItIn for (at least) a few years now. At least, some departments do. I've only had to take one class that used it, Introduction to Psychology.

I went and spoke to the professor about this, asking if I could email her the paper, rather than using this service. She said that if it was up to her, I could but it wasn't and I would have to talk to the head of the department. I went and spoke to the head of the department and she accused me of wanting to cheat, due to my objections to the policy. I pointed out that I objected to the service keeping the rights to my paper to use for checking against anyone else's paper. She all but said that she didn't care and that my choices were to use the service or to fail the class -- it was too late in the semester to drop the class without approval from the dean.

I ended up using the service, I was a freshman and didn't want to fail the class. Especially not so late in the semester. At the top of each paper was a notice saying that the work was copyrighted to myself and that I didn't give TurnItIn permission to use it. I doubt the service noticed, it is automated, after all.

I've since made a point to ask every professor in a class where I would have to write a paper if the department uses such a service. They've all said basically the same thing: "We don't use that service, don't worry," and one even mentioned the concerns I had as a reason why they didn't want to use it either.

<comment><USER3> What ownership claims does the service take over your work? Is it simply to hold a copy to check for future plagiarism, or is it some larger copyright claim?

My wife employs some rudimentary checks for cheating in her classes (accounting). Simply checking the author field in excel documents turns up a cheating rate in the 15% range. I'm actually rather shocked (and alarmed) that so few professors apparently choose to use these services. They absolutely should. As a student, I'd demand that they do. After all, kids coasting through college only serve to damage your degree.

<comment><USER2> As to what the service does, please see my response to kenjackson for a bit more on this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1741731>

I dislike the accusation and assumption that I'm going to cheat. I resent the fact that by voicing an opinion on the matter, I was accused of having a desire to cheat. I loathe being accused of lying because of someone else's actions. Especially when I've never met, encountered or so much as heard of this person before. And in my experience, using TurnItIn implies all of the above.

When it came to talking about the paper and research, every professor started off by talking about academic trust, don't plagiarize and so on. It seems hollow to follow that with "Okay. Now that thats said, I don't personally believe any of it. I think that you're all liars and cheats. So, you have to use this service."

<comment><USER4> No one is accusing you of cheating. Do you refuse to let professors grade your papers, because if they do they're implying that you have gotten every question wrong?

And any professor who talks about academic trust is someone you should avoid, because they're lying. Part of academia is about verification and refutation. If you can't validate work, you don't believe it. Now it may be the case that you choose not to validate it, maybe due to trust of the author, but that trust has been gained not something granted to all academics.

<comment><USER2> _No one is accusing you of cheating. Do you refuse to let professors grade your papers, because if they do they're implying that you have gotten every question wrong?_

Well, the head of the department all but accused me of cheating because I went and spoke to her about the use of TurnItIn. If I had to guess, I'd say that the only reason she didn't do so outright was because I hadn't turned in (or written, at that) anything yet. Nor is it like I refused to have my work graded; I tried to find alternate methods of handing my work in.

 _And any professor who talks about academic trust is someone you should avoid, because they're lying. Part of academia is about verification and refutation. If you can't validate work, you don't believe it. Now it may be the case that you choose not to validate it, maybe due to trust of the author, but that trust has been gained not something granted to all academics._

"Academic Trust" is usually mentioned in the context of "school policy" and something thats required on the syllabus. I've never had a professor say "Well, I trust you. You don't have to use any sources." (However nice that would be.)

I'm not saying to not verify or validate the work. I am saying that if I take the time to cite my sources in whatever format the professor specifies, the professor should be able to determine if I plagiarized or not on their own. Really now, if someone _doesn't_ cite their work, that should be a giveaway that there is a potential problem.

And honestly, for undergraduate work, the issue of validation isn't exactly going to be important. An overwhelmingly large majority of the time, no original research is being conducted.

<comment><USER4> "I am saying that if I take the time to cite my sources in whatever format the professor specifies, the professor should be able to determine if I plagiarized or not on their own. Really now, if someone doesn't cite their work, that should be a giveaway that there is a potential problem."

Do you expect people who plagiarize to site: "Cheap A+ Essays" in their references? No, you buy an essay from an essay mill. Change a few things here and there to make it fit for the class, and turn it in.

You actually expect the professor to subscribe to every essay service in the world? If I was a professor the only way I could deal with this problem is to write a program that catalogued all essays from this service and do some type of text match against them. Essentially I'd write TurnItIn, but as a "theoretical" History professor with no programming skills, this is probably not easy.

I just don't get how students expect professors to actually detect plagiarism in most cases otherwise.

I used to grade papers in high school of my peers and while I could often spot cheating, I could almost never prove it. How did I spot cheating? I could often tell from within the context of a single paper the writing goes from horrible to exceptionally good.and then back to horrible. Likewise, I'd sometimes get 2 or 3 really poor papers and then get a paper where the student is John Hawkes. In the first couple of papers, no citations or horrible citations. In this paper the citations are perfect, page numbers, referencing hard to find journals and the whole nine. But yet, you're still often left with your hands tied.

<comment><USER2> How people actually cheat is beyond me; I've never had the inclination to do so.

I do expect the papers to be read by a real person. And in the case you described, that should be enough for the professor to call the student in and talk to them. Whats the difference between a person going "I think you're plagiarizing" and a machine doing the same? Besides a machine doing it faster.

Keep in mind what my objection is here: the storage and use of my works, not the service itself. Why can't TurnItIn do what you suggested (perhaps in a sarcastic manner) and subscribe to these services instead?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not a big fan of this business but I take issue with the "Teachable Moment" image seemingly created for this post. How does what TurnItIn is doing constitute an "IP Rights" violation?

Surely in the contract that the school signed they gave TurnItIn permission to use these data in this way, and asserted that the teacher, by uploading the document, is ensuring that he or she has the right to grant that permission. At the very least this pushes the IP issues onto the school, as far as TurnItIn knows they have every right to use this content in that way.

It seems probable that the admissions paperwork for the school probably granted the school the right to make limited use of the work the student turns in. I know when I had to complete a "Bachelor Thesis" the school retained the right to use that content, at least for publication and probably for sale if they chose to. Is that uncommon?

Also, I think the problem TurnItIn is trying to solve is less about copyright violation and more about plagiarism/intellectual dishonesty in an academic context. You could readily buy a paper or essay from someone to obtain the copyright permissions, but if you submit that as your own work to the professor you've violated academic ethics.

<comment><USER6> Pretty sure it is vastly uncommon for schools to retain publishing rights to your papers.

My university has publishing rights (which they purchased) to a single paper of mine to publish in a journal.

<comment><USER3> Not in my experience. I'm quite sure my wifes PhD thesis belongs, for all intents and purposes, to her granting University. I believe that is standard at least at the Doctoral level.

By the same token my honors college undergrad thesis also granted publishing rights to my University (which is comical given the quality).

<comment><USER2> A thesis is quite different from a random two page paper on a few chapters reading from last week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had no idea TurnItIn checked submitted papers against previously submitted papers.

Today begins my quest to get all of my papers removed from TurnItIn.com's database.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious how that works out for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My university computer programming class is using this to check source code for assignments.

What irked me is that there's entire buildings full of computer scientists and engineers, but they can't develop their own plagiarism detection algorithm for internal use, and thereby safeguarding the works of their students.

It just doesn't make sense to me.</comment>


You should feel pain when unclear - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/unclear

<comment><USER2> For the email situation, why wouldn't you just send it out to 100 customers to get a sample of confusion? Reply to the 10 people who were confused, fix the problems, repeat.

Same goes for websites. People send in "HN please review my site" all the time.

<comment><USER3> That's a trial and error process of proof reading your writing. Inefficient IMHO. A solid approach would be clarity of writing through _lucid_ and _cogent_ thought; if your thinking is clouded so is your writing.

It never hurts to read aloud your email to be sure it "sounds" right but that is, I assume, something everyone practices before they post, email, or submit.

<comment><USER4> That's basically using an audience of 1. Starting with yourself and checking if it sounds right. After that, you'd probably bounce it to a few people in the office, see what they think. They might pick up on something that sounds clear to you, but doesn't make sense to other people.

Finally, you would want to bounce it to a few customers. Everyone inside the company is going to have a similar set of knowledge and assumptions when they look at the email, the only way to really be sure is to send it out.

I don't think he's saying you should write down some random thoughts and test them, but rather as a final proof-reading step before sending it out to everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are cases when you don't need a huge audience to feel pain when unclear.

 _'An old blacksmith realized he was soon going to quit working so hard. He picked out a strong young man to become his apprentice. The old fellow was crabby and exacting. "Don't ask me a lot of questions," he told the boy. "Just do whatever I tell you to do." One day the old blacksmith took an iron out of the forge and laid it on the anvil. "Get the hammer over there," he said. "When I nod my head, hit it real good and hard." Now the town is looking for a new blacksmith.'_

</comment><comment><USER6> As Ben Franklin said, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".

<comment><USER7> Also, "Fart proudly."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ah! This finally explains why Sivers' posts are never more than about 100 words long :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to post longer pieces that looked at a subject from a few different angles. They didn't seem to be getting through to many people.

Maybe because a quick glance at a longer article make you say, "I'll read that later when I have more time." (At least that's what I often do.)

When I started breaking up each point into its own separate short post, they started getting more response, retweets, comments, etc. Maybe because it passes the GTD "under 2 minutes" test?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have often though this in work project emails to a much smaller audience (under 20 people). If I get one person replying back to me asking to clarify something, then I have failed in some way or another in my explanation, so I always read everything more than once.

I have noticed that many of our off-shore contractors, where English isn't their first language are prone to sending unclear emails - it's actually quite frustrating going through several replies to get to the bottom of it, and it often causes things to be delayed unnecessarily. If only everyone thought so carefully before sending the email!

<comment><USER10> > _where English isn't their first language_

> _If only everyone thought so carefully before sending the email!_

Those specific unclear emails be be due less to lack of care, and more easily attributed to their having English as a second language.

<comment><USER11> However excess care can compensate for English as a second language.

<comment><USER12> And this goes both ways. _You_ should take excess care when writing to someone in a language in which they are not completely fluent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good points, but...

 _You should feel pain when unclear_

I had to follow the link to find out what he meant by "when unclear." It's ambiguous between "express yourself unclearly" and "perceive something unclearly," which is a pretty big difference.

Actually, my first thought was the character in some Woody Allen (?) movie who just won't come into focus. It jeopardizes his career as an actor.

</comment><comment><USER14> It aids clear thinking to habitually demand immaculate precision in your speech. It's not just for mass-emails or public-facing websites--it helps you, too.</comment>


Ask HN: Please Review My Project (TrepsNation) - <AUTHOR>

Hi Everyone,
My name is Anthony Lawrence, this is the first time that I've submitted anything here, but I read HN daily. I just launched a project that I've been working on and would really love your feedback. http://www.TrepsNation.com
Briefly: I was bit with the entrepreneurial bug from an early age but this is my first attempt as an internet entrepreneur. With no prior startup, design, or development experience I was able to teach myself using the same resources found on my site.
Being self-taught, one of the pains I've experienced is finding helpful resources without having to waste an entire day doing so. I wanted to create something that would help budding entrepreneurs avoid the same pitfalls and hassles I encountered.
Right now the site is a working prototype and I am planning on launching more features in the coming months. Right now I'm at a point where I would really appreciate any and all feedback for improvement purposes. As excited as I am about being able to learn from the ground up and apply what I've learned, I'm more excited to see what HN can do!
Anthony <comment><USER2> For someone with no dev experience it's clean and looks decent, if it is a bit plain. Using google fonts can go a long way to make a minimalist site look better.

Take what I am about to say with a grain of salt, but... I have to ask what are you selling people, or why are they coming to your site? Who is your target audience? Having hung around hacker news long enough, it appears that most of the links you have posted are very familiar because they've been on hacker news before.

If you are appealing to those who don't typically read hacker news then maybe you have a chance, but who are those people and how are you going to reach them?

If you are appealing to hacker news readers I don't know why I am going to go to your site as opposed to hacker news. Are you going to create more compelling content or are you curating content?

ALSO one more thing - you have some links under HOW TO VIDEOS and select javascript, but the first 4 links are for Java. Java != Javascript. If you are going to provide tutorial info you need to be a credible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! The initial idea for the site is to help anyone interested in learning more about startups/entrepreneurship be able to do so. Instead of posting "new news" I wanted to focus more on curating educational articles, videos, and tutorials from around the web. So I definitely wanted the site to be more about curation vs. producing new content. I really appreciate your feedback, some of the best I've received anywhere!

<comment><USER2> Fix the java vs. javascript thing, credibility is very important. I have not looked at your whole site but you may need to do some research to make sure you have your content properly organized under the right category.

Think about who your target audience is, I don't think you have that determined just yet. Once you get that down figure out how you are going to get them to your site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely will do, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like the way the tutorials are on the right side there. I'd work extra hard on building an awesome "tutorial ladder" designed to take people from "What is HTML?" all the way up to monetizing a working site with Stripe et al.

It did however take me a few to figure out wtf a 'trep' was. Guess I'm slow but I kept wanting to think it was a football player from the University of Maryland. (Note: I'm both old-ish and ridiculously dyslexic.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi There! The tutorial ladder is definitely a plan in the works. I considered working on that more in the initial version of the site but decided to right now to just put a simple prototype to gather feedback. Thanks you for your input!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Click: <http://trepsnation.com></comment>


Show HN: Stremio – watch movies, series, YouTube channels, live TV - <AUTHOR> http://www.strem.io <comment><USER2> Heads up for any one grabbing the Linux dist -- this tarball just took a shit all over my homedir.

It's 2016. Why do we still suck at distributing software?

<comment><USER3> I'd say we mostly suck at distributing Linux software. I'm not sure if improvements have been made recently, but I remember reading the docs on how to create .deb bundles a couple years ago, and the impression I got was that it had a somewhat steep learning curve. Considering not everyone runs Debian or Ubuntu, you also either need to provide other package formats as well, a tarball with instructions or (even worse) a weird install script for them to `curl | sh`.

OS X doesn't have this problem: .app bundles are just directories following a convention of where to put binaries/resources.

Windows is a mess under the hood with all the registry fiddling an installer has to do, but there are dozens of existing alternatives out there already, both free and commercial which abstract that away.

<comment><USER4> > ...I remember reading the docs on how to create .deb bundles a couple years > ago, and the impression I got was that it had a somewhat steep learning > curve

Checkinstall makes building debs pretty easy if you're using make to build the app.

[https://www.debian- administration.org/article/147/Installing...](https://www.debian- administration.org/article/147/Installing_packages_from_source_code_with_checkinstall)

<comment><USER5> checkinstall installs the software in order to build the .deb, so it is sort of dangerous in that regard. It would not keep your home dir safe. I would recommend running it in a virtual machine.

Building .debs is not all that difficult, just sort of an archaic and not particularly well-documented process. fpm (Ruby Gem) is worth looking into if you want a quick'n'dirty way to create packages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It looks quite nice, but I am wondering if this is like a popcorn time kinda thing where I can stream any show that may not even be on my harddrive, or if this is a product meant for indexing my harddrive and streaming it to any device like Plex?

<comment><USER7> yes you can steam any tv show or movie without it being on you HDD to be honest its hell of a lot better than popcorntime and safer as it uses add-on's for the torrents and if the movie or tv show you want is not their simply drag the magnet link into stremio :-) and the team on facebook are very responsive if you ever need help or have any questions :-)

<comment><USER6> And from the sounds of this peer to peer networking is being used. Does that mean that when I use the program I am acting as a peer? Or did I misread this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Windows version : virus alert reported. Artemis!F9DDCC2E5FB8

</comment><comment><USER9> This reminds me a lot of Boxee. It basically did what it looks like Stremio did- aggregates video content from multiple streaming services. Maybe this will be more popular though because we definitely have more streaming options than we did back in 2008.

But why is it a desktop app? It looks like most of the content is available on the web. I think I'd rather just use that than download some app like this.

</comment><comment><USER10> Are you planning to get the Android version compatible with Android TV? I bought an amazon fire TV for my dad, who can't handle tech very well, and a running streamio with subtitles working would be the greatest Christmas gift ever for a movie aficionado.

</comment><comment><USER11> What's with disabling pinch zoom on mobile devices?

<comment><USER12> Site design probably did not take mobile zoom into consideration, so it's to prevent reflow and layout issues. Granted, reflow issues are usually preferred over the inability to see/read something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if the iOS app is made with React Native. It's scroll performance is horrible. iPhone 5, iOS 9.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is it totally legal?

<comment><AUTHOR> Stremio is a 100% legal, unlike Popcorn Time it's not designed and distributed only for infringement use cases.

Of course, just like Plex, you can use torrent add-ons with it.

Something to point out is that we do suggest to the users add-ons which are popular in the area, so it makes any experience very streamlined.

<comment><USER15> How does it compare to Plex? Seems very similar.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you test it out, you'll find out. It's much easier to setup & use.

Besides the usability and ease of use, it's pretty much the same concept :)

Plex cannot solve these issues easily, because of it's technical design, the add-ons system / concept itself and the server architecture that is so important for their users

Think of Stremio as a possible Plex for the masses.

<comment><USER15> Installed it. Works well. Comes up with a list of movies/shows similar to how popcorn time did. If you click on one, it shows you options for viewing like netflix/amazon, but also a link to JC Torrents to stream it.

So my quick review: It's like Plex with popcorn time built in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> this release is for 64bit assholes, i need 32bit</comment>


Physicists show neutrinos have mass; what does this say about dark matter? - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-neutrino-20100601,0,1778648.story <comment><USER2> This is dated 31 May 2010 but flavour shifting (e->µ), evidence for neutrino mass, has been confirmed for some years. Indeed I did a mini-dissertation on the subject for my undergrad degree and the question was solved soon after, about 2000 IIRC, by the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory group and later confirmed by others like Super-K in Japan.

The answer then, as I expect it to be now with this detail about the tau- neutrino is that neutrino mass is not considered to be enough to answer "dark matter" issues alone.

These headlines appear to originate with CERN as they are common to most stories I've seen but this is not the first evidence for neutrino mass nor the first evidence for flavour shifting (mixing).</comment>


Co-founder questions. - <AUTHOR>

After reading PG's articles, and similar advice on the OnStartups blog, I am convinced of the value of a co-founder. But having a co-founder raises some questions, and I am wondering how other people have dealt with these issues.
1) I came up with the initial idea for my startup, and even did some ground work. Should I still give my co-founder a 50% share of the company? If not, what's a good way to think about allocating shares to a co-founder?
2) With two co-founders, should all decisions related to product development, funding, exit strategy etc., be consensus decisions, or can I assert a special decision-making privilege, by virtue of being the 'first' co-founder. <comment><USER2> To me these both address the same issue. I have heard a lot of different takes on this situation, and I myself have dealt with it.

1) You should both get 50%. This is just my opinion, but it applies well to most scenarios. Having an unequal allotment causes lots of motivational and mentality issues for founders. This is the last thing a venture needs in the turbulent early stages. It generally leads to better dedication and like minded decisions between to two people.

A positive way to look at it would be this: by giving up, say 10% more than you wanted to, the company has a better shot at success through two absolutely driven founders.

2) This draws from the same motivation as the first. Cofounders lose value quickly if one person always has the final word. You want them there to even things out. Disagreements are to be expected and the process of compromise is what makes the best decisions in many cases. Two minds working toward the same goal are usually helpful, even if they are not always striking a chord.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it boils down to: do you want an employee for "your" (singular) start- up, whom you will pay (at first) in shares, or do you want a co-founder for "your" (plural) start-up?

I think either choice is valid, if you can find the right person. But you should decide how much control you want to keep for yourself, and what that implies for the other person's motivation and initiative.</comment>


2 Senators Accuse Justice Dept. of Twisting Patriot Act - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/us/27patriot.html

<comment><USER2> _"I want to deliver a warning this afternoon: When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry," Mr. Wyden said._

 _Another member of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, backed Mr. Wyden's account, saying, "Americans would be alarmed if they knew how this law is being carried out."_

That's two _senators_ who are on the select committee, so they really know the nuts and bolts of whats going on, basically shouting from the roof tops. And they're even the same party as the executive branch that's using it. And they aren't even allowed to tell us what the problem is.

Something seriously bad is going on.

<comment><USER3> New & Improved! USA PATRIOT Act, now with 30% more Bill of Rights violations!

This damn thing just needs to die (expire), already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please, no politics.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

You can go to reddit to talk about that stuff if you want.

<comment><USER5> Politics is reps vs dems, liberals vs conservatives, and so on. Partisan nonsense.

This is a warning and discussion about the misuse of government power.

Yes, it is totally off-topic, like patents are, in that they're arbitrary legal nonsense. But, they're enforced nonsense and thus relevant.

<comment><USER4> > Yes, it is totally off-topic, like patents are, in that they're arbitrary > legal nonsense. But, they're enforced nonsense and thus relevant.

So... by that definition, pretty much anything is fair game.

You're playing "7 degrees of hacker news".

How do "nonsense" laws being enforced make them "hacker news". Does it just apply to nonsense laws? I think a drinking age of 21 in the US is nonsense, and it's enforced - does that expand the purview of this site to articles about that, too?

<comment><USER5> It's hacker news because it's about high-tech spying. And it's discussion- worthy because it's a secret, a huge tech project, and fundamentally flawed in multiple ways. I thought that went without saying.

What I'm talking about is how an otherwise relevant story is still relevant even if it is also a political or otherwise off-topic. A story about a cool new location tracking tech is hacker news even if the specific example is tracking hockey pucks or real-time overlaying of ads in stadiums or whatever.

Almost anything is relevant if it has a complex or interesting impact on our lives. Some political wind-bagging, no. A new law, especially a far-reaching one contrary to existing law or policy, very much so. That you think the drinking age is nonsense does seem like a worthy topic, whether you support party X, does not. Tie that to tech or traditionally hacker-related topics such as privacy or freedom to tinker and it seems relevant to this site, even if tainted with a dash of politics.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Forking HTML into a Static Language Doesn't Make Sense - <AUTHOR> https://robert.ocallahan.org/2020/05/why-forking-html-into-static-language.html <comment><USER2> Also posted over here at about the same time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23597834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23597834)</comment>


Caffein - Nota Inc.  launches revolutionary free Web-based P2P group video chat - <AUTHOR> http://www.caffein.tv/ Nota Inc. has released caffein.tv on March 31st. http://www.caffein.tv
Caffein brings P2P group video chat to the web. Users can engage in simultaneous peer to peer group video chatting for free.
Each chatroom is given a unique short URL so that users can easily share it across their favorite social networks or in any text format, however the short URL is not listed anywhere so that chat rooms default to private.
Combining web-based chat with a short link creates the revolutionary experience of seeing friends by video chat casually and quickly throughout the course of regular web browsing and without the need for additional software.
For example, as soon as users see an IM, tweet, or status update come up in their feed, they can instantly jump into a video chat with up to 15 peers who see that same message. <comment><USER2> Cool and all, but.. revolutionary?</comment>


Boston Based Startup Goes Live with app that gives Job applicants an edge - <AUTHOR> Boston, MA:  This week, Jobgator Inc, a startup focused on giving candidates an edge in the job application process will launch their software live to the world.  Three months ago, Jobgator was accepted to MassChallenge, one of the world's best small business accelerator programs.  Jobgator aims to disrupt the way applicants apply for jobs, and the way recruiters recruit by providing candidates an edge in the application process.  Jobgator provides an easy way to evaluate and improve their resume based off of several different levels of feedback given by Jobgator's predictive platform prior to applying thus increasing chances of an interview.
Jobgator's innovative software uses predictive algorithms to provide candidates a chance to tailor their resumes for each job, and include necessary keywords and job skills prior to applying for jobs.  Jobgator software also ranks top job results by taking into account top keywords and skills in the individual's resume and then uses those top words to deliver more relevant jobs to the candidates. Jobgator will also provide candidates with a summary of how they will fit in culturally at the company they are applying to in order to tell them how the company fits in with their beliefs, ideals, and previous experience.  This will help inform and empower candidates to choose jobs that they will be more effective and happy in!
As a former college student who struggled to find a job after graduation, CEO/Founder Ben Gelb hopes to not only build a thriving business but also have a strong social mission focused on helping disadvantaged and frustrated job applicants. One of his social mission is to eradicate discrimination and promote gender equal pay!
Jobgator is currently in the process of raising a funding round and is excited to see their business launch and begin to grow. Jobgator has just launched! Check out Jobgator's website at https://www.jobgator.io and email firstname.lastname@example.com for more information! <comment><USER2> I think you should introduce yourself through a Show HN, focused on features, instead of a press release.</comment>


Ask HN: Google Translate Clone - <AUTHOR>

I want to create a open-source clone of Google Translate. So what are the technologies I need to learn. Python, HTML, CSS, C, C++, JavaScript, Ruby...... What should I learn, where should I start from ? I want user to be able to contribute more than in Google Translate. I want to have a real time collaboration web app for translation along with machine translation. <comment><USER2> Tell us more about what you want to do.. Do you have a library with the translations? Or do you have the funds to aggregate them? If not then basically that is never going to happen.

If you just want to make a nicer looking Google Translate Page you could do that with HTMl, CSS, JavaScript. You would end up talking to this: [http://code.google.com/intl/de/apis/language/translate/v2/ge...](http://code.google.com/intl/de/apis/language/translate/v2/getting_started.html)</comment>


College student expelled for discovering network security flaw - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/01/21/montreal-dawson-college-hack-hamed-al-khabaz.html?cmp=rss

<comment><USER2> The discussion is here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5090007>

Currently #3 on the front page, 447 points, 169 comments.

Here are some other versions of the story that you might like to check out:

* <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5091766>

* <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092064></comment>


Show HN: Trader Mood Index ($MIX) - <AUTHOR> https://psychsignal.com/mood-index

<comment><USER2> The way to look at the charts is that the underlying mood about a particular stock or financial security leads the eventual direction of the price movement. It's pretty obvious from a common sense standpoint that when the public doesn't like a stock, its price goes down... when everyone absolutely hates that stocks guts, it's usually an indication that it's undervalued in relation to its fundamentals and it might be a good time to pick it up while it's on sale... Likewise, when everyone is enamored with a stock, it's probably overhyped and a good time to sell into it... By looking at this simple graph, you can clearly see that there's a distinct connection between the two, and that sentiment leads price movement for sure. The ECB recently came out with a study that confirms the concept of sentiment leading price... PsychSignal has an algo here that shows it plain as day! :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We built a Trader Mood Index. The oscillation between periods of bearishness and bullishness is intended to precede market turns. If you're a Quantopian user and want to play around with the raw data in an algo feel free to access the raw data here: [https://psychsignal.com/data/mood- index](https://psychsignal.com/data/mood-index)</comment>


Facebook leaks user's IP addresses - <AUTHOR> http://www.binint.com/2010/05/facebook-leaks-ip-addresses.html <comment><USER2> Someone commented on that page that leaking user's IP address is a common spam-prevention practice. I just checked gmail and Yahoo Mail, and they both include my IP address in the header of outgoing messages

For instance, Yahoo Mail puts my IP address in a line like this

Received: from [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]

<comment><USER3> How did you send it using gmail? I just sent two via the web interface, one to a gmail account and another to a non-gmail account, the originating ip is 22.214.171.124 (a google ip address) and my current IP doesn't show up anywhere in the headers.

Edit: it doesn't show up base64 encoded, either.

<comment><USER4> gmail reveals the sender's IP address only when sending mail via (authenticated) SMTP. The IP address is hidden when sending mail via the web interface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yep. Confirmed. Command line example:

Take the Base64 string from this line in the headers:

X-Facebook: from zuckmail ([OTguMTgzLjI0Ny4yMTg=])

      $ ruby -rbase64 -e "puts Base64::decode64('NzQuMTI1Ljk1LjEwNA==')"
      188.8.131.52

<comment><USER6> That confirms that it's a IP address, not that it's his.

<comment><USER7> I did the same for two Facebook notifications, from different friends, and both tagged their city (Tuscaloosa, AL didn't surprise me, but Blountstown, FL? That's fairly targetted).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone know of a site that tracks all of these privacy problems (and potential problems) with Facebook? Following up and keeping track is the best way to keep FB accountable, and I'm sure a lot of media people would use such a site.

<comment><USER9> there might be a facebook group for it...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Not speculation. I just tried this with a few folks, and it works as advertised.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm just... not concerned? Anything you do online leaks your IP address. If a friend embeds a photo from Flickr into their feed, and you load it, consider your IP leaked. etc, etc, etc

<comment><USER11> Leaked to Flickr, not to a Flickr user, unless I am missing something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _but not when a wife is trying to hide from an abusive husband and assumes Facebook is the best form of communication_

Is this the best scenario they could come up with where this is a problem?

<comment><USER13> This might have been a reference to a similar scenario regarding a Google privacy leak:

<http://bit.ly/bCrVll>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> They changed it. The new header is:

X-Facebook: from zuckmail ([MTI3LjAuMC4x])

(127.0.0.1)

So I guess, nothing else to see here. Move along.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd be surprised if someone really wanted my IP they couldn't get it just by getting me to visit something off facebook.

</comment><comment><USER15> Your computer may be broadcasting an IP address!!

</comment><comment><USER16> Why does this matter? I get others IPs and send my IP all the time (e.g. IRC). If I was worried about my IP, I would use something like tor when doing everything. But worrying about IPs seems... silly An IP is just so uninformative, unless somebody subpoenas my ISP or something.

<comment> rm-rf "unless somebody subpoenas my ISP or something"

And in addition to your secure wireless SSID, you have an open SSID at your house that you maintain just for that reason, right?

Mine's named Free_Porn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Leaks IP address" as a dramatic headline is an indicator that the poster is not-so savvy about networks and security. Seriously, this is the level of knowledge I observed in the typical high school student 3 years ago or so.

</comment><comment><USER18> I just did this on an email about a comment on my wall post by someone at a nonprofit. Sure enough, it came up with not just an IP, but a subdomain listing that nonprofit's domain name.

Yes, it works.

</comment><comment><USER19> Perl 1-liner: <http://bit.ly/cNHkzQ> Every other day I see facebook and privacy in the same sentence..

<comment><USER20> _"Every other day I see facebook and privacy in the same sentence.."_

That's because Facebook-bashing has become fashionable. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the behavior described in the article. It's how email is supposed to work. There is no way to accidentally include the IP address in an email header. They (presumably) do it on purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Note: I havent experimented with this yet.

Are we sure this is the ip address of the user and not just the ip address of one of facebook's servers?

If it is a user's address... is that a problem? This seems like very easy to obtain online information... for example, by sending an email to the person im trying to talk with via facebook...

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the user (I tested with 2 friends to verify). Here's a scenario we talked about in my house: Once potential problem: friends-of-friends. A friend-of- friend comments on something your mutual friend put out, you then comment, the first friend (whom you don't know) can use this trick to ballpark your location.

<comment><USER21> Right. But you're all talking to each other. It seems to me this same info would still be available to everyone if you were emailing each other. I don't really see this one as a huge security risk...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> And so does every popular webmail provider. I remember learning about this when I was 12.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is not new _at all_.

Here's a segment of an email header from 2006:

      X-Facebook: from zuckmail ([220.127.116.11])
              by washington.facebook.com with HTTP (ZuckMail);
      Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 12:31:27 -0800

</comment><comment><USER24> It must suck for the one user who has had all their IP address's leaked.

</comment><comment><USER25> Your computer is broadcast an IP address!

</comment><comment><USER26> Can someone write a GUI in Visual Basic to track these IPs please?

<comment><USER27> will do after i finish my logowriter script

LEFT 90 UP 90

move turtle move!

<comment><USER28> It's turtles all the way left and up then ? I thought they only went down ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Seems Facebook users are born in 2009 or after wards. Every email service sends your IP address with the email. The exception is Google.

<comment><USER30> 1) Someone tagged me in a photo and it leaked their IP address.

2) Someone who is not even my friend commented on someone's status, and I got a notification because I made a comment before her. It leaked her IP address to me.

These situations are not comparable to e-mail, and I seriously doubt these people reasonably expected their IP address to be sent to me based on these actions.</comment></comment>


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A Google Analytics Alternative That Doesn't Exploit User Data - <AUTHOR> https://pulsemetrics.io/blog/google-analytic-alternative/ <comment><USER2> Hmm, you need to sign up before they reveal pricing. But they won't exploit that data, eh?

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