Extracting Colors With Colorific - <AUTHOR> http://99designs.com/tech-blog/blog/2012/05/11/color-analysis/

<comment><USER2> It would be nice if there was some acknowledgement of previous work in this area like the median cut algorithm <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_cut> the neuquant algorithm <http://members.ozemail.com.au/~dekker/NEUQUANT.HTML>

or the dozens of other image to palette services a google search away (including one that google uses itself for image search)

So, maybe an explanation of why this is better than those, different from those, a comparison of sorts. Or would it be better if some third party did this "benchmarking" work eh?

specifically, I am concerned that this approach is based on tiny micro- heuristics based on specific images and not a robust statistical model of human perception.

edit: here's another (I may use this comment to continue collecting existing algorithms) <http://www.springerlink.com/content/f002412013877333/>

<comment><USER3> I feel like k-means in in Lab color space would lend itself well here too. Either by picking a large k that you then narrow down by picking the highest contrast colors, or instead by running k-means multiple times with different k's until you get an error threshold that is tolerable and results that have a high enough contrast. K-means is also a pretty easy algorithm to understand/implement.

<comment><USER4> Google uses k-means clustering in Chrome on their new tab page (though they use RGB). The most visited section shows a color strip below each site, with a color chosen from the site's favicon.

Here's the code: [http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/ui/gfx/color_analysis....](http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/ui/gfx/color_analysis.cc)

<comment><USER4> It turns out the header file actually has a pretty nice explanation of the algorithm:

[http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/ui/gfx/color_analysis....](http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/ui/gfx/color_analysis.h)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is really neat. One of my favorite Windows design features (there aren't many) is the way icons in the taskbar are highlighted with their primary color when you mouseover. This seems like the perfect solution to replicate that effect elsewhere.

<comment><USER6> I noticed the other day that Ubuntu's Unity also does this. It's a very nice feature.

</comment></comment><comment> johnx123-up How is this different from ImageMagick? <http://valokuva.org/?p=72> (really asking)

</comment><comment><USER7> Very awesome.

Google's logo has 255 colors (including shades). With most other companies I might consider that to be a coincidence.

<comment><USER8> 255 is not because Google designers chose 255 specific shades but rather the limitation of 8-bit GIF color palette.

<comment><USER9> <https://www.google.com/images/srpr/logo3w.png>

<comment><USER10> 256 (not 255) color palette also applies to 8-bit PNGs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For problem 3: Why exclude all greys? If you asked me what colour that logo was I'd say black/red/white/grey, not red/dark red.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, you're right. It's difficult to differentiate greys that are important vs those that we don't care about. Our current solution works not too badly and gives us results that are more visually appealing, but I agree we could do better.

I'd like to try ranking greys lower somehow.. maybe some kind of weighting by saturation could help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd like to find or make a ruby version of this.

<comment><USER13> Are you actually working on this? Because if not, I'm tempted! Just don't want to duplicate effort here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14>
        $ echo myimage.png | colorific

Seems a slightly odd way to get filenames.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's because we're running this over millions of images. We don't want to pay the startup cost each time.</comment></comment>


Show HN: The Startup Spinwheel - <AUTHOR> http://mpjannuzzi.com/pages/ssw/ssw.html Randomness as a means of inspiration for products and startup ideas <comment><USER2> I love it :)</comment>


Show HN: Distraction-free SoundCloud music player right on menu bar - <AUTHOR> https://soundbar.app/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I used to listen to Youtube music on browser and Spotify.

I feel like these 2 platforms distract me while I am working.

Sometimes, I open them to switch song and I waste a few minutes to watch a recommend Youtube video or browse through the Global TOP 50 song on Spotify.

So that's why I want to create a menu bar app to eliminate distractions.

Why SoundCloud?

Soundcloud says it has over 125 million songs on its platform

With Soundcloud, I can:

\- Listen to mixes style songs and undiscovered charming artists

\- Listen to cover and remix music

\- Listen to lo-fi producers and up-and-coming rappers

\- Listen to focus calm music: Baroque, piano

\- Listen to podcast show

But, most of SoundCloud Mac apps required login to listen. I just like to paste a playlist url and then listen. No need to create account.

So I create the Soundbar app to fulfill my requirements first. If you feel like me, please give it a try.

[https://soundbar.app/](https://soundbar.app/)

WARNING: This app doesn't support authentication yet. You can not use the SoundCloud Go feature. That mean you can listen to a song that the uploading artist is offering this track to SoundCloud Go subscribers.</comment>


Keeping your private information private - <AUTHOR> https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/keeping-private-information-private/ <comment><USER2> "Privacy is at the heart of everything we do"

Really?

A more accurate statement is probably:

"Privacy is at the heart of everything we do. Unless we think we can make money off your data. Then it's a feature providing great targeted user experiences not a privacy issue. You know, how we block the 'bad' trackers in our products, just not our own. We make money off your data with our trackers so it would be silly of us to block those. But other than that sure, yeah, privacy is important. Our marketing people tell me I should keep saying that."

But you know, details.

<comment><USER3> Privacy as in, "we'll keep your data only with us and not share it with anyone else"

Which they don't do, don't need to do, and will not do. Since they serve ads themselves, it would work against their own business if the data spread to somewhere else

<comment><USER4> And this tradeoff is implicit in every attempt to move away from Google. For example, watching Youtube means that Google knows which videos I watch; watching Peertube means that some folks in the swarm know which videos I watch. Google is trying to establish a reputation as less likely to extort or ruin you than various advanced persistent threats.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Everyone is ripping on their opening statement, but it's because you've all missed the implied missing clause:

Privacy [of your data from other humans, except for people in the government] is at the heart of everything we do.

They have no problem sharing your data with machines though, especially their own machines.

I actually trust that Google doesn't have humans reading my email or looking at my location history. But I also know that their machine learning algorithms most certainly do.

And maybe a government agent here or there without telling me...

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes, "Privacy is at the heart of everything we do" \- Never expected this line from Google! Really google, do you want to have that as your opening statement for a blog post!

If the answer is yes, please make us feel confident about it!

Found it amusing because, the Privacy in Google is not straight forward (means not promoted by Google, like Apple), the users have to take the responsibility of their privacy by navigating the Settings maze and turn the knobs to attain the real Privacy!

</comment><comment><USER7> > Privacy is at the heart of everything we do

No it's not. Fucking outright lies.

* You can't use the google assistant without turning on location tracking or web history

* You can't use your podcast app without web history

* I can't disable Google scanning of my email for product purchases

* I can't disable Google tracking me across the web without arcane browser extensions

* On-device speech recognition doesn't exist

* On the linked page, where's the option to delete my information immediately rather than 3 months?

<comment><USER8> Look, I 100% agree with you but there's not much point in trying to fight the river on this one. Google considers Google a trusted entity with your data. From their perspective keeping your data private is about keeping it safe from others.

<comment><USER9> 100%. Privacy to them is not sharing your information outside of themselves. Honestly, they have a much better track record than many other companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >>Privacy is at the heart of everything we do

What an opening statement. An ingenuine statement (not to call it a lie) like this actually prevented me to read further.

Maybe a more genuine statement, like "Privacy is important to our users and the safety of our society, hence we want to improve" or whatever would have me read further.

First, you have to admit fault, then you get to offer a solution and I decide if I use Google or not. And I don't at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER11> Google's business model is antithetic with "privacy". This is by design and very much out in the open, they are an advertising company, their revenue is literally and as publicly as possible coming from _not_ keeping your data private. Expecting Google to give you privacy is like asking a funeral home to extend your life. It's just not their business model.

Wow, seconds to minutes after comments highlighted the crass hypocrisy of Google's "Privacy is at the heart of everything we do" they are all downvoted.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Control on your terms

Not really, my terms are that Google can take a hike.

</comment><comment><USER13> I sort of (very cynically) like FB's statement: "Sorry, invading your privacy is just our business model." At least it's honest.

</comment><comment><USER14> Sundar Pichai was personally responsible for google's in-depth user tracking strategy across services, sites and devices even in incognito mode and the overall spywarization of chrome and android.

He is dishonourable, untrustworthy and any privacy posturing made by him and google should only serve so as to make their often-involuntary users that much more wary.

</comment><comment><USER15> We moved some comments to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23642432](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23642432) which was on the front page at the same time.

Most remain here since they're reacting to a specific sentence in this post.

</comment><comment><USER16> > As always, we don't sell your information to anyone

Well, yeah, obviously. Why would they sell your data to competing ad networks?

</comment><comment><USER17> A thing is what it _does_ , not what it says.

</comment><comment><USER18> You have to establish trust before anyone will believe your claims on privacy. What is the trustworthiness of Google? Pretty damn low, I'd say.

</comment><comment><USER19> Reading about how to hold your data private on Google's blog feels like learning how to have a healthy romantic relationship from a porn site.

</comment><comment><USER20> > Privacy is at the heart of everything we do

Good god...

<comment><USER21> They don't expose how much information that they have about everyone, let alone what kinds of information. In that regard, they're not wrong.</comment></comment>


The Wally WHY: A $160 Million Solar Powered Self Propelled Island - <AUTHOR> http://solar.coolerplanet.com/News/3101001-the-wally-why-a-160-million-solar-powered-self-propelled-island.aspx <comment><USER2> Don't forget to check out Wally's 118' 16.000 horsepower carbon fiber poweryacht that looks like something Darth Vader would love.

[http://www.wally.com/jumpch.asp?idChannel=44&idUser=0...](http://www.wally.com/jumpch.asp?idChannel=44&idUser=0&attivo=2-7)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very cool project, but isn't this a yacht? I know the blog's headline is 'island' but I don't get it.

<comment><USER4> Same here. I was expecting a single mound of sand and a lone palm tree complete with coconuts and a monkey.</comment></comment>


The current price of 1 BTC should be $2.50 USD - <AUTHOR>

The real value of a currency depends on the value of the goods that can be purchased with it. If we assume the majority of bitcoin transactions for 'real' goods (not currency speculation) are on silk road we can do the following calculation.
The demand in USD is about 1.9 million per month (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/study-estimates-2-million-a-month-in-bitcoin-drug-sales/) which works out to be $63,333 per day (the demand)
There are currently 10118337 bit coins that have been created and each coin is spent on average once every 399.357 days (http://abe.bitcoinstats.org:2750/)
This means that each day there are 10118337 / 399 = 25,359 bitcoins available to use for transactions each day (the supply)
The price of 1 BTC should then be supply / demand = $63,333 / BTC 25,359 = $2.49 USD per coin
Does anyone have alternative suggestions for calculating the price? <comment><USER2> The method you've used is similar to ones that FOREX traders use to value traditional currencies, which would speak to its validity. A market-basket of goods is defined, and a relative exchange rate for two currencies is based on the price differences of the two market-baskets.

A potential issue with this analysis is that your market-basket only contains illegal items -- however, even if your final valuation isn't accurate, it suggests to me that there are likely other cross-market pricing inconsistencies. I assume those are what you're interested in finding.

<comment><AUTHOR> Pretty much, I'm simply trying to understand what the fundamental value of the currency is. The reason i'm using illegal goods is that they are the only ones i can find whose exchange must be in bitcoing (yes there are some other smaller goods but nothing on that scale).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What someone else will pay me for one?

<comment><AUTHOR> that's the current market value yes, i'm trying to estimate the fundamental value

<comment><USER4> All value is subjective and relative. There is no "fundamental value".

<comment><USER5> Precisely. The OP needs to read his Van Mises.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why don't Google/Facebook/apple setup satellite campuses around San Jose? - <AUTHOR> Rather than being concentrated in Mountain View/Menlo Park/Cupertino. Would that not help in keeping their costs low and improve the quality of life of their employees ( people are buying in the outer burbs and making hellish commutes). <comment><USER2> Isn't this what Google's trying to do in downtown San Jose?

[https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1Q8JPbI1GRBRztAAI1i...](https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1Q8JPbI1GRBRztAAI1iT-D8yAl31WmLlp&usp=sharing)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great project and a step in the right direction, but you need the rest of the companies to follow suit and create smaller satellite campuses in and around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why not create satellite campuses in Austin or Denver?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a larger question (they'll open sales offices in those areas but keep core engineering roles in the Bay Area).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How would buying real estate in expensive areas keep their costs low?

It might increase QoL for some employees in some ways, but that wouldn't necessarily improve the quality of the company.

<comment><AUTHOR> What I am trying to say is why do they keep expanding in areas which are already expensive ( Cupertino/Mountain View) and not move to cheaper areas (East San Jose etc). A majority of new home buyers can't afford the areas where they're located and making long commutes.</comment></comment>


Requests for Private Beta Are Now Open for Podfio - <AUTHOR> https://podfio.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, HN community!

I am Andriyas, founder of Podfio, subscription service for streaming ad free and original podcasts.

We currently opened registration for private beta access that is due in 2-3 months. As of today we are at a prototype stage. Any feedback on an idea and your suggestions on features you'd like to see will immensely help.

Sign up for private beta if interested to try out Podfio first and get other great perks. Spots limited.

Thank you!</comment>


AppFactory: fast-tracked seed funding for facebook apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.baypartners.com/appfactory/ I'd like to know more about Bay Partners, the VC firm behind this.  They don't appear on pg's Top VCs list (http://ycombinator.com/topvcs.html), and there aren't any names that jump out at me in their portfolio, but neither of those mean much.  Any info?
Also, if anyone has a personal contact there that they want to introduce me to, I would love that.  My email is in my profile.  Thanks. <comment><AUTHOR> I'd like to know more about Bay Partners, the VC firm behind this. They don't appear on pg's Top VCs list (<http://ycombinator.com/topvcs.html>), and there aren't any names that jump out at me in their portfolio, but neither of those mean much. Any info?

Also, if anyone has a personal contact there that they want to introduce me to, I would love that. My email is in my profile. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER2> this is the first sign of desperation from the VC world. the historical trends of the capital requirements of developing an "application" are becoming so low that venture capitalists will soon become obsolete. the launch of the facebook platform was the nail in the coffin for VCs. power to the hackers.

<comment><USER3> settle down there fast guy... i wouldnt exactly call the facebook platform the nail in the coffin for VCs.

this is also not desperation... they're testing the water, trying something new on the cheap. i think its a smart move.

<comment><USER4> > trying something new on the cheap.

Indeed. There is little risk given the dollar value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think there's been a Facebook app exit of more than $100,000, yet they're willing to provide up to $250,000 worth of funding. So why are they doing this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Facebook apps have only existed for about two months. Do you think they will continue to be (for the most part) valueless playthings? I don't. It looks like Bay Partners doesn't.

<comment><USER5> What kind of valued app do you think will emerge from facebook?</comment></comment></comment>


The Factory Floor: Picking (and Maintaining) a Partner - <AUTHOR> http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2794

<comment><USER2> Great article and great insights. Working with Chinese Manufacturers takes a lot of time and know how. For many hardware companies on HN, they quickly realize what a process manufacturing really becomes. Frequent trips to China and effectively communicating isn't always feasible.

Another option is HD Trade Services (YC S12). We help find factories, manage relationships (including communication and specs translation into Mandarin), and handle Quality Control (Factory Audits, Inspections) and Logistics (including fulfillment in the US). We are currently helping high profile start ups take their prototype to reality. We are based in the US but have boots in the ground in China to handle sourcing, communications, QC and more.

check us out! www.hdtradeservices.com

<comment><USER3> Hi, I tried to request an invite, and also tried "sending you a note" (bottom left of page). When i click 'send' on either one, nothing happens.

<comment><USER2> Hi, sorry about this. What browser are you using?

<comment><USER3> chrome on mac.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks so much for this article, it's really helpful. I'm currently setting up manufacturing in China using Seeed Studios for a prototype run of 1000 units, and it's really helpful to see that based on the advice here they're probably a decent partner =)

Maybe not the best match for a million unit run, but for this quantity, and at this stage of development, they seem to be doing a great job!

</comment><comment><USER5> You can also use objective sources of data like credit reports, inspections, and customs records to verify legitimacy and competence. Panjiva does a good job of presenting this information as well as helping you reach out to a partner. <http://panjiva.com/search/global-supplier?q=angle+brackets>

(Disclosure: I used to work for and am still friends with them.)

</comment><comment><USER6> It took a few starts on this to realize that it was really talking about factories, rather than being some kind of cute analogy for startups...</comment>


Cloudera and Hortonworks Announce Merger - <AUTHOR> https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181003005869/en/Cloudera-Hortonworks-Announce-Merger-Create-World <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18134451](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18134451).</comment>


Satanic temple unveils statue of goat-headed winged creature called Baphomet - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/satanic-temple-arkansas-state-capitol-little-rock-baphomet-jason-rapert-ten-commandments-a8495576.html?amp <comment><AUTHOR> 'Although the striking, eight-and-a-half foot tall icon was only allowed to be on display temporarily, Satanists argued they should be allowed to erect the winged goat effigy on a permanent basis under freedom of religion rights outlined in the US constitution.

Satanic Arkansas cofounder Ivy Forrester, one of the rally organisers, said: "If you're going to have one religious monument up then it should be open to others, and if you don't agree with that then let's just not have any at all."'</comment>


How to Write a Kickass Readme - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/scottydocs/how-to-write-a-kickass-readme-5af9 <comment><USER2> > For example, if it runs on the latest version of Python, tell them to > install Python.

The example given here assumes that the latest version (of Python) at the time the readme was written is the same as when it is being read - I think it's far better to be explicit about what version it was developed for/with.</comment>


Stand Up and Join the Urination - <AUTHOR> http://www.the-stand-up.com/

<comment><USER2> Unless they're going to start installing urinals in ladies' bathrooms I'm not sure I see the point.</comment>


TinyMOD (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kebby.org/?p=11 <comment><USER2> Funny, I just wrote one of these for the web. I don't oversample at 3.5MHz though. [http://www.a1k0n.net/2015/11/09/javascript- ft2-player.html](http://www.a1k0n.net/2015/11/09/javascript-ft2-player.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is just so awesome - back in the day it's this itch "how does the hw do it?" that makes you wonder, and then, some 25 years later, someone figures it out and now you know. Perhaps I'm misreading but one tiny inaccuracy perhaps: the 68K has MULS and MULU of course as well as even DIVS and DIVU.. It's quite capable though clearly not fast enough for this purpose..

<comment><USER4> The 68k has multiply instructions - but in the beginning he's talking about how the _sound chip_ modifies the volume of sound sample data.

He is however wrong about the 68k not having multiplication when he mentions avoiding it while writing his mod player.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can't figure out how to compile that asm-file... I guess I'm just too stupid with Visual Studio to get this to work :/</comment>


4 Years of College, $0 in Debt: How Some Countries Make Education Affordable - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/reader-center/international-college-costs-financing.html <comment><USER2> It at least makes sense to pay for doctors and nurses to go to school, right? If you want to care for others and you do the work to earn satisfactory grades, I think that investing in your education would have positive ROI.

We had plans here in the US to pay for two years of community college for whoever ("America's College Promise"). IDK what happened to that? We should have called it #ObamaCollege so that everyone could attack corporate welfare and bad investments with no ROI.

New York has the Excelsior scholarship for CUNY and SUNY. Tennessee pays for college with lottery proceeds. Are there other state-level efforts to fund higher education in the US such that students can finish school debt-free or close to it?

There are MOOCs (online courses) which are worth credit hours for the percentage of people that commit to finishing the course. [https://www.classcentral.com/](https://www.classcentral.com/)

Khan Academy has free SAT, MCAT, NCLEX-RN, GMAT, and LSAT test prep and primary and supplementary learning resources. [https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep](https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep)

Free education: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_education](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_education)</comment>


Whatever happened to labor? - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/09/whatever-happened-to-labor.html <comment><USER2> I think the point of this article is that simple things -should- be done by machines, and humans should be used for things that require originality. (Of course, there are still some manual labor tasks that we haven't invented the machines for, yet.) Those jobs let people actually contribute to society, instead of merely holding the line.

I'm not sure why this is such a hard concept.</comment>


Lawsuit from Ex-Google Engineer Says Pro-Diversity Posts Got Him Fired - <AUTHOR> http://www.valuewalk.com/2018/02/lawsuit-google-engineer-diversity-fired/ <comment><USER2> I stopped reading at "James Damore, who was sacked after he circulated the misogynist iniquitous 33,000-word memo" as it reveals this journalist has an overt agenda and doesn't mind lying to achieve it.</comment>


Introducing PayPal's open-source cross-domain JavaScript suite - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@bluepnume/introducing-paypals-open-source-cross-domain-javascript-suite-95f991b2731d <comment><USER2> One of the things they touch on in this post is the impact of deciding to use a popup window for the javascript implementation of express checkout, and the fact it needs to be triggered directly and immediately by the user clicking the PayPal button. I understand the motivation for going the popup window route, it ensures that the customer can see the full URL and the security of the PayPal connection. However, I do think they have made both their own lives and the lives of customers like me adding express checkout more complicated.

Due to the popup decision, there is no way to do any form of asynchronous validation on the page that the PayPal button is installed on (your cart or in our case the checkout page). The official recommendation is to perform any asynchronous validation in the background continuously while the form is being filled and then display the results when the PayPal button is clicked. For many people this can work, however, the minute you have to do anything on the server side such as calculating shipping costs or an address validation (using a service that costs real money) this cannot work.

The only other way around it for us is to completely redesign our checkout flow from a single page (from the users perspective) to a multi-stage process where we can do all the validation we need on a 'delivery' page before moving onto a 'payment' page that requires no validation as you just click the payment method needed. This takes a maybe one day project to add PayPal to at least a weeks worth of work and the added risk of a new checkout flow and the impact on the dropout rate.

Please PayPal, give us an iframe option, like stripe checkout!

<comment><USER3> A popup plan is the worst decision ever.

The popups will be blocked by all major browsers most of the time because of the aggressive popup blocking. Remember the 2000's when pop up were abused by all sort of evil ads and notifications. They've been blocked ever since.

<comment><USER4> > The popups will be blocked by all major browsers most of the time

That's incorrect. They default to blocking site instigated pop-ups, not user instigated pop-ups. Some versions of the Facebook & Twitter login systems for example rely on user instigated pop-ups.

PayPal wouldn't use this approach if you were right. They'd have a 0% use result. They have billions of dollars in transaction volume at stake, they're not going with an approach that guarantees a 0% outcome.

<comment><USER3> >>> PayPal wouldn't use this approach if you were right. They'd have a 0% use result. They have billions of dollars in transaction volume at stake, they're not going with an approach that guarantees a 0% outcome.

Doesn't mean anything. They could have not thought of it at all, or tested it on some platforms were it worked while some others don't.

Billions dollars companies are not immune to bugs and typo. I have seen some by my own eyes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is great, in enterprise software we often have to resort to a bunch of front-end integration using iframes and this set really helps.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just a general question but were there any unexpected vulnerabilities discovered through developing these tools? I haven't taken a look into the code but from the descriptions of the limitations with iframes and cross- domain windows it seems like your having to hack around the barriers and venture into unsettled territory.

<comment><AUTHOR> We didn't discover any new real browser vulnerabilities, thankfully -- mainly just browser's being overly protective in some cases.

Most of the hacks were just to get IE up-to-par with the other browsers. For example, to send a postMessage between a popup and the parent page, the only way is to place a hidden iframe on the parent page, with the same domain as the popup. post-robot abstracts most of that away.

The line we had to walk in terms of security was, on top of not introducing any new vulnerabilities ourselves, making sure we didn't make it too easy for people to accidentally introduce any security loopholes using what we've built.

For example -- the idea of passing a function over to a different window is a fairly novel concept. The idea is, if you want to give the other window control over something, say to log out a user, you can just pass a `user.logout` function directly in a message to the target window. But then there's a risk people will absentmindedly pass functions in messages that they didn't expect to.

But then, on top of that, there's a lot we can do automatically to protect users, that doesn't happen automatically with regular browser apis. For example, if you render an xcomponent with a certain url, xcomponent will (by default) ensure that only messages from that domain are allowed up from the iframe. Which is something you'd need to remember to do manually if you were just listening for post-messages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I want to be excited about this and plan to look into it... mostly I'm sincerely hoping PayPal hasn't taken their standard pile-of-garbage approach to documentation...

<comment><AUTHOR> If you see anything that's less than clear, or missing from the docs, please let me know! These tools only have a modest number of users right now, so we appreciate all the feedback we can get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> oh yea commonwealth!

</comment><comment><USER9> Paypal plus javascript? Pass.

<comment><USER10> Please don't post snarky dismissals here. We're hoping for a higher quality of discussion than that.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)</comment></comment>


Elon Musk Talkes to Sigmar Gabriel - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6B6AP86Zt8&feature=youtu.be&list=PL55721BECBAB606EC <comment><USER2> The Q&A is a mess. As a German I have to say that this is sadly rather typical: overengineering a process to optimize for some weird edge case (i.e. having to answer a lot of similar or uninteresting questions) rather than just doing it the way it works.</comment>


NFL players: height and weight over time  - <AUTHOR> http://noahveltman.com/nflplayers/ <comment><USER3> Anytime I see a post about football I wonder how it is different from rugby, so I'll just post this intresting article

"In rugby, the only collision (i.e., running at speed for the purpose of forcing a player to the ground) is when one has the ball. The other 29 lads on the pitch are there for support. In American football, 21 of the 22 players had better be colliding with someone on every down - at full speed. In gridiron, there is collision while blocking. In rugby, the equivalent is called "obstruction" and is illegal, thus there are far more opportunities - requirements - for player collision in American football."

[http://wesclark.com/rrr/pads_and_helmets.html](http://wesclark.com/rrr/pads_and_helmets.html)

<comment><USER4> Another factor is the lack of a helmet and padding. Because of this, players are much more careful when tackling. Eg:

* NEVER leading with the head, which is quite common in American Football

* There must be an attempt to wrap your arms around the player. Not doing so is a shoulder charge, and illegal.

* High tackles (above the shoulders) are illegal and can result in yellow or red card depending on severity.

* Spear tackles (picking the player up and driving him into the ground head-first) are grounds for a red card.

<comment><USER5> I'm an ex referee, used to ref first grade club and schoolboy rugby in SEQ. I've seen first hand _why_ those rules are in place. I will disagree with having the ball being the only collision points however: rucks, mauls and scrums (the latter of which are neutered now) involved any number of players but still don't quite compare to the one on one that NFL involves. Fascinating sports IMO :)

<comment><USER4> > the latter of which are neutered now

Only if you're talking about Rugby League.

<comment><USER5> *shrugs.

The current laws have definitely changed the feel and reduced the danger when it comes to scrums. I watch a kid taken off the field a paraplegic due to someones foot slipping on "engage", so I don't necessarily disagree with the laws, but you can't argue that they're not in place to slow it down and make it safer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Craig M. Booth has done some very nice visualizations on this subject [1]. I found this chart comparing height/weight of 2013 rosters by position [2] particularly interesting and this set [3] covers a question that anyone who has read _Outliers_ has probably wondered about.

1: [http://www.craigmbooth.com/category/nfl/](http://www.craigmbooth.com/category/nfl/)

2: [http://www.craigmbooth.com/height-and-weight-of-every- active...](http://www.craigmbooth.com/height-and-weight-of-every-active- football-player/)

3: [http://www.sportsballweekly.com/the-relative-age-effect- in-p...](http://www.sportsballweekly.com/the-relative-age-effect-in-pro- sports/)

<comment><USER7> Ugh, on [3], watch out for the non-zero axes. NHL and NBA start their axes at 0, while the others do not. Very tricky, and very deceiving. I think NFL would look very similar to NBA if plotted the same way (they're both within ~10-15% of the expected value).

<comment><USER8> The author points out in the text that the NFL result is statistically significant and the NBA result is not.

A larger random sample ought to fall closer to the line than a smaller sample: it would be statistically highly remarkable if the graphs did look similar with zeroed axes - the larger sample _should_ look _much_ flatter.

Starting both graphs from zero is unhelpful if the goal is correct visual interpretation.

<comment><USER9> One could argue that the large difference in sample sizes (more than fivefold) justifies scale manipulation to bring the variances into line, but it doesn't appear to me that the author normalized on variance at all (the axis should be something like 800-2000).

<comment><USER8> I agree with what you say.

To correctly compare the variances, the scale should be adjusted according to the square root of the ratio of sample sizes.

The author has not done this correctly, but I claim that zeroing the axis would be further from the correct graph.

<comment><USER10> Ah, you are correct, thank you. Apparently I wasn't thinking clearly when I normalized the axes to have the same absolute ranges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd like to see how the general population changed in the same time, then maybe a revision of this graph keeping it in perspective of how the rest of the population changed.

<comment><USER12> I don't think general population changed at all.

<comment><USER13> [http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf)

> Conclusions: > Average weight has increased dramatically in the last 40 > years with the greatest increases seen in adults. Mean BMI has also > increased. Although height has also increased this increase has been much > more modest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if this has compounded the TBI and concussion issue over the years. I think sports medicine in general has gotten much better and the average player is probably bigger and stronger and thus able to hit harder than 20+ years ago...

<comment><USER15> Malcolm Gladwell has looked at this issue[1]. He sees football as being analogous to dogfighting. Popular at the time and with fans, but the science behind it is scary.

I've experienced a severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI), meaning I've seen many brain doctors. I have seen a neuro-omptomolgist (brain-eye doctor) who sees a football player who can't even add up his checkbook (meaning he can't add, not this his checkbook is too complex). I had a therapist who dated a college football player and eventually saw him as more of a patient than a boyfriend.

A concussion is now defined as seeing bright spots[2] and is classified as a mild TBI. The results from concussions are cumulative[3], and football is one of the sports most prone to concussion[3]. A football block is defined as being good if you see bright spots or having a concussion, and players often play through this[4].

I'll never let my children play football.

[1]:[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all)

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

[3]:[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673675...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673675902883)

[4]:[http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/dont-tell-coach- pla...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/dont-tell-coach-playing- through-concussions/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0)

<comment><USER16> When I was in high school I was a Division I football prospect. I had multiple schools after me: Alabama, Florida, LSU, etc. I really wanted Miami (this was the '80s) but deep down I really wanted to play basketball. I only got a little sniff of DI basketball interest but I went on a football visit to Florida and saw massive guys hitting each other and thought "I'm going to get killed" and never took the football scholarship. I'm a big guy - 6'4", 225, I was pretty close to that size in high school and I was a pretty angry teenager so hitting guys at full speed was in my...well, 'nature'.

So please consider this when I say that those college guys were jacked up on 'roids' and WAAYY too big for me. I didn't take steroids in high school but I was big enough and strong enough (and in truth, angry enough) to play against those kids on 'roids anyway. I knew in college, I wouldn't have been.

I walked away from a certain Division I college scholarship (at the time - <USER2> blew out my knee a year later) despite what my coaches were calling a 'no- brainer' to play football. I've NEVER regretted it and each year that has passed since has made me even more glad I did it.

<comment> at-fates-hands You sound remarkably similar to what Wayne Gretzky said after he retired. The last two years of his career, his Dad kept asking him if he was going to play another year.

He basically said, "I don't know. Every year I go back to camp, the guys are bigger, stronger and hit harder than last year."

When you look around the league, it's obvious how much bigger these guys have gotten. Look at some of the current LA KINGS forwards:

Jeff Carter - 6'4" \- 212lbs

Dwight King - 6'4" \- 230lbs

Anze Kopitar - 6'3" \- 224lbs

Jordan Nolan - 6'3" \- 221lbs

I'm assuming their heights are all reflected without wearing skates, which adds a good 2" to those heights. This is one of the reasons many pundits said LA won the cup in 2011. Big, strong forwards and a merciless forecheck. I still remember one of the announcers saying, "Imagine you're a defensemen and everytime LA drops the puck into the corner in your end and you have two of these guys hurtling towards you as you go for the puck. It's a defensemen's worst nightmare."

<comment><USER17> In hockey there's a strategy for this you both grab each other and slide in at the same time to avoid getting killed on the boards. When Gretzky played no other player could hit him because they didn't have the instigator rule, so if you clobbered him on the boards the biggest goons on his team would take your head off so the result was nobody touched Gretzky until late in his career when they put in that stupid rule.

Hockey also has the problem of players wearing body armor now so hits are even worse than what they used to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very interesting how you can definitely see 3 distinct groups emerge in recent years. I'm guessing linesmen are the majority of the group that really shifts over to the right.

<comment><USER19> That was my thought, too. I'm guessing the group on the far right are the linemen, the group on the far left are the receivers, and the middle group are those that cover the receivers.

What I find most interesting is that there's a clear gulf between the (probable) linemen on the far right and the others. That middle ground is probably not best suited for any role - if you're chasing the receivers, you're going to be too slow, and if you're trying to protect or attack the line, you're going to be too small.

<comment><USER20> Middle group is likely to be primarily made up of linebackers, running backs, with a few of the larger tight ends there as well.

These players, while having some responsibility in the passing game are primarily involved in either running the ball, or defending against the run. And having a bit more mass there is very beneficial, but they still need to be able to have the speed to be able to work horizontal across the field and sometimes be quite a ways away from the line of scrimmage by the end of the play.

<comment><USER21> incision's link, in a top level comment, has a plot that distinguishes positions. (Modern) Tight ends are heavier than linebackers, then quarterbacks, then running backs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like how in the 80s, height stopped increasing, but weight kept increasing, and a little blog of the highest weights just shot out to the right.

I live very close to one of the pro team's training camps, and see the players around town every once in a while. Professional athletes like this are truly in a league of their own. You can go to any random gym and look for the guys there in peak physical condition. The pro-NFL guys stand out easily in a crowd of gym guys. Not just the really huge guys, but you can spot one of the "smaller" players from a mile away. Their musculature and body motions are simply superhuman. It's something very very hard to see on TV when they're surrounded by their peers.

<comment><USER23> Not all of them though.

[http://theloveofsports.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2013/09/t...](http://theloveofsports.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2013/09/tom_brady_nfl_draft_combine_2000.jpg)

Been looking for a Sebastian Janikowski draft picture but couldn't find one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What's interesting is before the 1970's it appears as though there is just one group of players, at which point they become three. Then, over the following 40 years these groups seems to just get heavier - most likely a response by teams to maintain heavier players than their opponents in certain positions.

While the general growth over time makes sense, I wonder what caused the shift specifically in the 70's.

<comment><USER21> Everybody is saying steroids, but another thing that happened around the 1970-80s is that college football became a much bigger business:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_football_on_television#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_football_on_television#Decentralization)

<comment><USER24> Oh, that is very interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Fantastic viz.

So, they pushed up on the height parameter, but hit a ceiling.

Then they've started to push further on the weight parameter, where the "ceiling" is more flexible.

You can bulk up to some extent, but your height is pretty much a given.

</comment><comment><USER26> This article serves to illustrate how different America is from the rest of the world. Outside America nobody knows what NFL is beyond that it is some strange variant on the football theme, related to football in no more way than how a whale is related to a dog.

Then there are 'customary units'. Outside America nobody knows what a pound of weight is, is that pound of 'customary units' the same as an 'Imperial' pound? Nobody knows, particularly when applied to body weight. The height situation is better, there are places like the UK where Imperial measurements are used for height, but, in mainland Europe and beyond, I doubt anyone knows what 6' tall means.

I imagine that in America it is hard to see this perspective on how different America is, and, most of the time with most HN stories there is no cultural barrier to understanding things, yet this story is an edge case and reminds me how different American culture really is.

<comment><USER27> > Outside America nobody knows what NFL is beyond that it is some strange > variant on the football theme

I think this is _extremely_ misinformed. Did you know that there is a world cup for gridiron football? It's the IFAF World Championship. And believe it or not, Japan is ranked 1st right now, with the U.S ranked second. American football was pretty well known in Japan and before I left, was becoming increasingly more popular among high school and college aged kids.

The also continually sell out games in London every year. The broadcasts there get extremely high ratings. I think the "myth" that the rest of the world doesn't know what American football is died sometime in the 90s. It's been on the rise globally: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/sports/football/13iht- nflc...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/sports/football/13iht- nflchina13.html?_r=0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What sort of method would be used to cluster those, statistically speaking? Like, given a data set like that, how would you determine if the distribution is multi-modal or unimodal?

<comment><USER29> Mean shift clustering, for one. This short PDF provides better insight than wikipedia. Does NOT require you to specify the number of clusters like in K-means:

[http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/CVonline/LOCAL_COPIES/TUZE...](http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/CVonline/LOCAL_COPIES/TUZEL1/MeanShift.pdf)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean-shift](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean- shift)

Example python code using scikit-learn: [http://scikit- learn.org/stable/auto_examples/cluster/plot_me...](http://scikit- learn.org/stable/auto_examples/cluster/plot_mean_shift.html)

<comment><USER28> Awesome! Thanks for the knowledge

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'd be interested in a similar chart for rugby union where my guess is that the increase in height and weight has happened more quickly. It's just a hunch but I am guessing that overall size in rugby has increased dramatically since the sport went professional in 1995.

<comment><USER31> Here is an interesting article on the size of rugby players:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/tomfordyce/2012/03/land_of...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/tomfordyce/2012/03/land_of_the_rugby_giants.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> How accurate are these figures? I know that many teams will inflate the posted weight and height of their players. There is no regulation requiring that the publicly posted figures are accurate so they nudge them higher for psychological effect.

<comment><USER33> That is a problem in college, but once they hit pro they've gone through the combine and they are measured.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Steroids. Relevant: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigger,_Stronger,_Faster*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigger,_Stronger,_Faster*)

<comment><USER35> Steroids don't make you taller. Also if you devote yourself to nutrition and weight lifting, as a 6 foot male it's not too hard to exceed 200 pounds. I don't doubt steroids play a part, but there are many other factors (in addition to just the fact that football became a national obsession so is attracting more potential players).

And prior to 1940, the same players played offense and defense, along with limited substitutions. These days, players not only play one position but are often substituted out depending on the particular play or formation. That lets players specialize and, I'd argue, put on body mass for their more limited role.

<comment><USER36> Also if you _habitually neglect_ nutrition and weight lifting, as a 6 foot male it's not too hard to exceed 200 pounds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It seems to become bimodal towards the last decade or two. Any idea as to why?

<comment><USER38> Separation between light and fast players/roles and heavy and powerful players/roles.

<comment><USER39> I'm mostly stuck thinking about this in terms of tanks and spellcasters thanks to PA:

[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/01/18](http://www.penny- arcade.com/comic/2013/01/18)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I find it interesting that a break appears in 1993 where the Extremely Huge (lineman) separate from those merely Very Large.

My old man once commented that he his Big 10 college alma mater once had someone on the football team whose only virtue was being 275 pounds.

</comment><comment><USER41> My biggest take-away: the smallest guys today are in the median of players from the 20s. The biggest players from the 20s would only be in the lower quartile of the players today. There is nobody today as small as the smallest players from the 20s.

</comment><comment><USER42> Fasinating, reminds me of a great TED talk about this: "Are athletes really getting bigger, faster, stronger?" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8COaMKbNrX0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8COaMKbNrX0)

tl;dr: no

<comment><USER12> Don't forget about steroid usage since 1950's. Even olympic athlete trainers don't hide this fact.[0]

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIiIKB7uDCc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIiIKB7uDCc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> The player equipment has also become much more advanced, but is it helping or hurting? They should go back to leather helmets and no pads (like rugby) and see what happens.

<comment><USER44> +1 this. My guess is one season of natural selection would be enough to change players behaviour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> One could probably bring the weight back down by strictly limiting substitution. Until the late 1950s a lot of players played on both sides of the line of scrimmage.

</comment><comment><USER46> The WWII years ('42-'45) have more of a range than before or after, presumably because of the draft.

</comment><comment><USER47> I wonder what the same animation would look like for sw developers. Im 6ft6 and 252lbs. Though being a Brit I'd say 6ft6 and 18 stone or even 2m and 114.5 kg.

</comment><comment><USER48> Interesting, by position would probably be more interesting. Or "position group" e.g. DB's, CB's & S's

<comment><USER49> If they position by color gradient, color 'darkening' with contraction. QB's blues, linesmen red, receivers green, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Anyone can recommend an API or tutorial on how I could create similar visualisations myself or use a third party tool?

<comment><USER51> Look at D3 or Raphael :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Seems like they don't have any use for 280 pounders nowadays.

<comment><USER53> too heavy for a TE, too light for an OL/DL

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> The visualization looks like Conway's game of life.

</comment><comment><USER55> Apparently the breeding program is working.</comment>


Check Out Facebook's Offices - <AUTHOR> http://www.themuse.com/companies/facebook

<comment><USER2> It seems a bit misleading that the article contains no more than two photos of Facebook's offices, considering the title.

<comment><USER3> This is my website, so apologies about the self-promotion, but I think it provides a lot of information and photos from Facebook's Menlo Park office for those interested: [http://officesnapshots.com/2013/02/04/facebook-menlo-park- of...](http://officesnapshots.com/2013/02/04/facebook-menlo-park-office- design/)

<comment><USER4> This is the page I was expecting to see

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The new campus is filled with beloved and familiar-looking restaurants, shops, banks, barber shops, and bike shares" --> anyone know how they decided which businesses got to open up shop inside?

</comment><comment><USER6> looks nice but not good for doing facebook, HN, Reddit at work with open monitors :P :D</comment>


Show HN: ClapChat – Instant messaging for HN users - <AUTHOR> http://www.clap.chat/ <comment><USER2> Hey everyone, todd3834 and I have been wanting this for awhile and decided to just start building it ourselves :-) The hope is it makes HN an even greater place to find people with similar ambitions so that we can build great things. This isn't meant to be the next coming of Facebook, it's just a super useful tool we like and want others to use with us.

Main features we think you'll like: \- frictionless signup. You don't need to manage another login combo. Works kind of like Medium's signup, but with less steps \- simple. Button next to comments, easy lookup. We wanted you to not have to think about it to use it \- backwords compatible. It works with people that haven't signed up yet

<comment><AUTHOR> Details on the tech stack: We are using React and friends for the front end and Programmable Chat by Twilio on the BE ([https://www.twilio.com/chat](https://www.twilio.com/chat))

Happy to go further into details on any of that if interested. We are considering open sourcing the entire project, is that something people would be interested in?

<comment><USER3> Will there be stickers? An SDK for apps to run inside your chat? Social graph widgets to invite my friends to chat? A pair of glasses that I can use for hands free HN chat? An Alexa skill for chat? :-P

All kidding aside congrats on your launch!

Look forward to your blog posts (and maybe source) with more detail as this has been a topic of interest for me off and on over recent years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does this differ from hnchat that was posted back in September, especially around user auth?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12431724](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12431724)

<comment><USER2> The main difference is that this enables private messaging between users, regardless if they are signed up or not. Next time you're in a thread, you'll see a button to send a message next to their username. Click, and it will start a message without you having to leave the page. HNChat on the other hand seems to be more of a separate place to have conversations as a group. I feel like there is a place for both, they just solve different problems

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just a thought on the auto-login functionality...

If I run an intercepting proxy and alter all instances of my username in the HTML response from HN servers to appear in every way to be logged in as 'dang'.... How would your extension detect the forgery?

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you asked! So here is a teaser on how it works: 1. ClapChat gives you a unique id, the extension posts the id in your profile, ClapChat independently verifies that your profile contains the correct ID so that we know you really do own the account, then we double check the ID vs the session that we gave the id to and we can validate the authorization.

I'm working on a blog post that goes into much further detail and will post soon.

<comment><USER2> Btw, we also plan on open sourcing all this. So everyone will be able to give feedback and contribute. The hope is it becomes a really useful tool for the community

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What happens if I want to PM someone but they're still not signed up for ClauChat?

You should probably also answer this on your page.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are considering a few things. Our first pass is to use mechanical turk so that we get the email address from the profile page and send an email with the message. We want to be sure not to bother people who truly don't want to participate so we are working on a solution to make sure this doesn't turn into a way to spam HN users.

<comment><USER7> Please don't do this I really would want this opt in . If I were you I would disregard the message .

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm very sensitive to this issue as a long time HN user I don't want to get spammed. However, as I was brainstorming this I came to this conclusion: If you put your email address in your HN profile you are opting in to people being able to reach you. ClapChat will just be a client for doing that easily and we will do everything to make sure a bot can't abuse this. For starters, you have to be authenticated to send a message so we can tell if someone is abusing the system and spamming people. Secondly, you can unsubscribe from ClapChat emails so that it will never bother you.

This is something I feel we can strike a balance with, open to any feedback and ideas people have.

<comment><USER8> I reiterate your parent: please don't do this. Scraping a resource for email addresses and sending unsolicited email would be understood by a lot of people as spam. This would be different if they put something like the following in their profile:

      clap.chat: firstname.lastname@example.com

Edit: spelling

<comment><AUTHOR> > Scrapping a resource for email addresses and sending unsolicited email would > be understood by a lot of people as spam

We don't even want to dance the line with spam. Thanks for the feedback.

What if when you try to message a user who hasn't signed up and it opens their profile page and the user can type in the email address manually if it is available. Then we don't have to pay for mechanical turk and the user is just using ClapChat as their email client in a way. I'm convinced we can crack this nut in a way that works and doesn't bother people :)

<comment><USER8> I appreciate the dilemma: you understandably want to limit the friction in connecting HN members, and one of the means by which you're considering doing so has historically been abused so people are sensitive to it. I think 'zitterbewegung still has the right idea: it needs to be opt-in.

<comment><USER9> I don't see an issue with having a user type in an email address from someone's profile. Like the parent says in this case they're basically just using clapchat as their email client. Perhaps they could even set-up an SMTP gateway such that hn users could receive clapchats from emails sent to them @clapchat.io or whatever. Then maybe in the email they send have a tasteful link to also sign-up for clapchat.

Edit: upon thinking about it more, it might be better to randomly generate an address used for each conversation, to prevent a spammer from sending email to someone's @clapchat address

<comment><USER8> Perhaps it's useful to approach this from the other side.

Say I want to be able to communicate with HN members via email, so I include my email address in my profile. clap.chat makes it easier for clap.chat users to send me email using the email address in my profile, though ideally they want to clap.chat with me. I don't want to use clap.chat. If I don't want to use clap.chat but am getting invitations to use clap.chat, the burden to deal with that is now on me, be it with a filter, or perhaps adding a note to my profile. Perhaps clap.chat includes a record of people who have opted-out.

All of these methods parallel the behavior and handling of spam. Whether or not there's daylight between these types of invites and spam depends on one's perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am not sure I would use this tool on an ongoing / regular basis but for Ask HN: Who's Hiring this would be nice for instant interviews, just a thought ...

</comment><comment><USER11> ...So, unlike HNchat, which was a live chatroom, this is like that PM system that we all want (so we can have PMs, and so people will stop posting HN messages that tell you to email them), but still don't have for a variety of reasons?

I'm sold.

<comment><USER2> That's the hope. Make it easy to take the conversation offline and help each other out :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Shame this is neither FOSS nor standards-based... Matrix-based HN chat would be awesome :) (i work on matrix so am probably biased though :D)

<comment><USER13> they say further up that they will be open sourcing it. my first thought was the same, but the twillio chat they've used seems super simple, so potentially matrix was just too heavy for their simple needs at the moment

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi yes! You are correct. We just wanted to go with the most simple backend service with the least amount of maintenance that we could use for starters.

<comment><USER12> guess we have our work cut out for us on Matrix then :D

<comment><AUTHOR> I know that I'll be checking it out for more details soon. Thanks for bringing it to my attention :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Quite interesting! Any thoughts for an XMPP or IRC bridge (similar to what Slack provides)?

<comment><AUTHOR> The primary focus is to get something that works well as a browser extension but since we plan to open source it there isn't any reason why the community couldn't add that. If there is demand for it then I'll be happy to work on it as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> serious question: why is this not open-source? I think serious tools to communicate in this community should as much open-source as possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> We plan to open source it once it is opened up to everyone.

<comment><USER16> Out of idle curiosity, why wait? Seems that is only delaying any improvements people might contribute.

<comment><USER2> To be honest, we'd just rather have more bugs knocked out before we share. We take pride in our code just like most people

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am sure someone said this already. But in case if not. That is basically unreadable with that light gray font

</comment><comment><USER18> Does it have an API?

<comment><AUTHOR> The front-end code uses an API, I suppose we could make it public. I'll make note of that, it would be cool to make it completely public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is this a refference to claptrap?

<comment><AUTHOR> It isn't but I wish I could say it was because that would make it much funnier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'd reconsider the name - nobody wants to give each other the clap.

</comment><comment><USER21> Android app yet?

<comment><USER2> No apps for android or iOS. For right now it's just a browser extension

<comment><USER22> hit me up if you want help with this. -android dev.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Some typos:

"Full Integration with you (sic) HN Account"

same section, last sentence: "Your (sic) welcome."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! fixed typos :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you read news? - <AUTHOR>

Do you use RSS, just Social Media, or read news in some other way? <comment><USER2> RSS -- specifically, I used Google Reader until its end was announced, now I use Feedly. Frankly I'm not crazy about Feedly -- it's a bit obtrusive and its layout is less appealing than Google Reader.

</comment><comment><USER3> First I use as a river of information... the ones I like I send to instapaper to read later with attention on my cellphone.

</comment><comment><USER4> maybe i'm just a geek who's a bit too obsessed but my news is really everywhere on every device from my PC to iPad to mobile phone to my television -- and even finds it's way on to social sites like facebook and twitter. so i feel like i live in a sea of news rather than it being something i must seek out.

</comment><comment><USER5> news.google.com</comment>


Calling Twitter's bluff - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunchit.com/2009/11/29/calling-twitters-bluff/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> It might just be me, but I found that to be one of the most baffling, mumbo- jumbo-laden things I've read. I honestly have no idea what he's talking about. The leaps in logic, the speculating and the unfounded assumptions, the inside- baseball jargon, the pulling bits from all over and smashing them together and calling it a theory -- sometimes you just have to shake your head at these folks who are so lost in the weeds.

<comment><USER3> The article is by Steve Gillmor. Every single article of his reads like that -- totally incomprehensible.

<comment><USER4> Every single statement of his reads like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had a really hard time following what the author was trying to convey (and it seems as though I wasn't the only one), but it does bring once concern to mind: Should we be worried that Twitter owns our tweets and is keeping almost exclusive access to them? I feel like we've all grown to depend on Twitter, and it's a shame that microblogging didn't evolve into something decentralized like the regular ol' blogging or (as a larger example) the Internet.

<comment><USER6> There is an open alternative - <http://identi.ca/> \- it hasn't really taken off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is incredibly speculative – it reads like a social media conspiracy theory. An interesting look into the mind of the author. The way this is written makes it seem like he wrote it furiously and wide-eyed.</comment>


Help me pick a name for my app - <AUTHOR>

I'm developing a simple service that converts timezones. Yes, I know this already exists, but the difference will be in the details.
I'm looking for a fun and remarkable (domain-)name for this app. Something around clocks, times, dates, timezones, different locations, etc.
I thought it would be cool to ask you guys as a kind of experiment, and hopefully something great will come along. So HN, could you help me out? <comment><USER2> whatsthetime.in

would be quite neat to go to <http://whatsthetime.in/London>

<comment><USER3> You win. Can't do better than that, I'd say.

<comment><USER4> You may want to look into possibilities of securing even shorter domain name, i.e. ideally it would be <http://time.in/London>

<comment><USER3> Lots of possibilities there: querytime.in, gettime.in, localtime.in, thetime.in. Godaddy actually offers .in domains. If I were OP I'd just register then all, and let the ones die that friends and family don't like.

<comment><USER2> either go super short or go memorable. I think whatsthetime.in works because its literally what you'd ask.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> jacktheticker, some variation of coo coo clock (cucuclock?), stophammertime, zonedrone, ticktockclock, ticktocktime, hourhand, hourglassfast, sundial, moondial,

Chron Jeremy -- has a built in mascot. a hedgehog

Didn't check them for availability at all, but that's a quick brainstorm...

</comment><comment><USER6> simpleservicethatconvertstimezoneswiththedifferenceinthedetails.com

<comment><USER7> Make sure you get the .net and .org before domain spammers steal it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You may want to see how Yandex did it: <http://time.yandex.ru> There are links for switching between analog and digital clock on top of the page.

I've found this service by pure accident. Once I've needed to know what time is it now in some other city and I thought "hasn't Yandex made a service for this already?" It turned out, they did!

IMO, that's the ideal version of this service. But if you invented something better (the details you mentioned) - more power to you!

<comment><USER4> One other service I discovered the similar way is <http://mirror.yandex.ru> \- it turned out that they maintain a comprehensive mirror of open source software, might be useful if you live in Russia; I actually get downloads at higher speeds because Yandex has special agreement with my ISP (Peterstar).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> timezo.ne is available.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> All very good submissions! No real winner yet thought, and not all are available domain names.

<comment><USER9> yourglobaltime.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> huntanelk.com

Is elk common in the us?

</comment><comment><USER11> whattheclock.com

What the clock!?

</comment><comment><USER12> outtati.me

(and many other *ti.me possibilities)

</comment><comment><USER13> time-ster! J/k. Maybe time2time?

</comment><comment><USER14> tickr

</comment><comment><USER15> timez, timeflip, timeside, timezoo

</comment><comment><USER16> chronvert.com is available...

</comment><comment><USER17> Tick-Tock!

</comment><comment><USER18> timeonspot

</comment><comment><USER19> how about just "cuckoo"?

</comment><comment><USER20> timezonal.com

</comment><comment><USER21> timeconv.com</comment>


Show HN: Nx-go, a plugin to use Go in a Nx workspace - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nx-go/nx-go <comment><AUTHOR> Hey there, today I created a plugin that enables using Go in a Nx Workspace.

For those if you unfamiliar with Nx: Nx combines a monorepo structure with CLI tools to develop and manage 1 or more applications and libraries in the same repo. It encourages code collaboration, unified testing, and optimizes builds and testing performance by caching.

I have been using Nx for most of my frontend and Node applications.

I'm now learning Go and having this plugin allows me to use it in a familiar structure.

Happy to answer any questions :)</comment>


YC Voting Incentives Problem - <AUTHOR>

If you post a comment on a recent thread, and there's only a couple other comments on about 1-4 points, then if you want your comment to be on top and get the most discussion and feedback (and maybe karma too), you have an incentive to downvote the competition to raise the relative score of your comment.<p>That is a bad incentive to have. Anyone have a good idea to fix it? <comment><USER2> It's fairly obvious when someone has done this, because comments don't often have 0 points here. And if a bunch of comments all have zero points, and someone else's comment is on top with one point, people can kinda guess who did it...

PG has been known to look at who did the downvoting in cases like this (yes, that information is on the server) and penalize them. So you do have an incentive not to be a tool. People take notice.

<comment><AUTHOR> So, as you point out, the strategy would work better if you don't downvote anything to zero. And don't downvote very many things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This isn't how I see the incentives. I am much more likely to game the system by voting up all surrounding comments if they are at a level of one. Then, I figure people will wonder why my comment only has one karma compared to a bunch of other good comments with two karma. And maybe a voting frenzy will start.

I usually vote up stories where I comment as well. I figure if they are worth discussing, they are worth voting up and it also makes my comment more likely to be voted higher.

<comment><AUTHOR> This story has a bunch of comments, including one with 4 points, but only has 2 points itself. I think it's actually common to comment on a story and not upvote it. I know I do that often.

One reason is people often comments on stories they dislike, so they can call the author a tool, or whatever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Easy: don't be a tool.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've never seen this. More common is if someone posts a comment on a mediocre article and then votes up the article.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't think this happens very often. But I'm writing some software now to fix various abuses involving downvoting (mainly karma-bombing, where one person tries to nuke another's karma by downvoting any comment by them), and will write more if necessary.

</comment><comment><USER7> Here's a question I've been pondering...

How exactly do you vote someone down anyway? I only have up-voting options. My guess is that you need some level of Karma first, but what's the threshold?

<comment><USER3> You get the downvote arrow for comments when you have 20 karma.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do you really down vote on other comments to be on top?

Maybe if YC comments could be arranged by points or time in which they were posted (of course keeping the conversational style).

<comment><AUTHOR> It isn't good to design systems with bad incentives, whether people follow them or not.

<comment><USER8> Im not talking about looking who have more points, but looking for the recent comments, in that way you can keep track of the thread. Also most pointed comments tend to be very good.

Sometimes you see threads with a huge amount of comments, sure, you read it 2 hours ago and you want to see if there are new comments, that's why it would be great to arrange the comments that way.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was responding to the personal question.

You're right that sorting by time would change that incentive, and that it'd be a useful option sometimes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I didn't think someone would go to such lengths to seek attention... kinda sad.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Oh this reminds me, there is a similar incentive to upvote stories you commented on so more people see the story and potentially join in the comments discussion.

<comment><USER8> Thats a good point, maybe adding the number of unique visitors who viewed that thread into the description like:

Thread Title

(x points by YCusername, Y views, Z comments).

Its just an idea but it may work.

<comment><USER3> I'm a fan of view counters on forums and elsewhere but I know they usually aren't enabled because they are a strain on the server resources.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Need to generate 3D models of simple shapes for training - <AUTHOR> I need to generate thousands of instantiations of simple 3D model shapes like a cone or cylinder.  What can I use to automate this? <comment><USER2> [1] Openscad would be the first thing that comes to mind for this. Some random parameters or an evolutionary algorithm could produce some viable results.

1 [http://www.openscad.org/](http://www.openscad.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Math?

Like, you gotta give some more deets than that, language and so forth.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. I need to generated images of 3d models but need to control the look parameters. [http://exchangedownloads.smarttech.com/public/content/38/382...](http://exchangedownloads.smarttech.com/public/content/38/382a170c-78a0-4839-9c34-be90bc903c4d/previews/medium/0001.png)

<comment><USER3> Processing has some basic stuff: [https://processing.org/reference/](https://processing.org/reference/) .

You might also want to look into POVRay ([http://www.povray.org/](http://www.povray.org/)). It can be automated pretty easily.

I'm guessing you are autogenerating something to train a camera on?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Koch Executive's Harassment in China Adds to Fears Among Visitors - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/business/american-businesses-china.html <comment><USER2> American living in China, here for 10 years now. Even before the current tensions, as an American visiting China, you'd be likely to feel like you've stepped into another planet on entering. China is just so utterly different, and if you are non-Asian, you attract a lot of Chinese eyeballs from everyone from young children to Grandpa's, as they are just generally curious about foreigners. Everyone openly refers to you as "foreigner", like "hey look at that foreigner over there". On top of that, they are security conscious here in China. In 10-years in China, I've never found myself in a place where I've felt unsafe. Frankly, having personally been in serious danger in America a few times and further, my little brother got robbed, shot and killed and died in the middle of a street. I can't say the security here in China is a bad thing. The society in China prefers to be secure and have cameras everywhere, and it seems to be working for them.

So, I think those factors I mentioned above can naturally magnify incidents which are probably just going to happen to a foreigner here in China regardless, especially if the foreigner is already a bit concerned about anti- American sentiment. As far as the anti-American sentiment. I can remember it happening a few times and this is probably the worst it's been for Americans. But, I can remember times where anti-sentiment for Japanese appeared much worse. Locally to where I live, some Chinese nationals vandalized a few Japanese cars and stores. I don't feel like it's come close to getting that bad for Americans, yet. And largely, I feel like the Anti-American sentiment from Huawei and trade tension stuff hit a spike a few months ago, and people have pretty much moved on now.

<comment><USER3> I lived in Taipei for a while - I am a white blonde woman - and everywhere I went kids yelled HEY WHITE LADY. It was, as you describe out of shock as there were few other white women there. I saw none in my time there. I have never felt so safe as I did there, and, because I am a woman, having people stare or comment was nothing new. What was new was that most of the attention was positive and coming from women and children who wanted to come and look at me up close. It was very instructive for me, especially upon return to Toronto. The white men I know who have traveled to Asia all complained/were shocked by the attention because they are not used to it. In this context, alongside the current trade/media-war going both ways, I expect more and more stories like this to counteract the stories of Chinese folks in America being treated differently, tho I would argue they are nothing the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Two plainclothes officers asked him to go with them to answer questions. They asked him about his diplomatic status and whether he had diplomatic immunity, the people said. They demanded to see his passport, which he refused to show._

What is the best way to deal with something like this? Not that I'm going back to China any time soon. Just from a curiosity standpoint.

<comment><USER5> comply? It isn't weird to have to show identity to authorities in any country; having to provide a passport on demand is a given when traveling in China.

Strange that this guy attracted black Audi cop interest, I've only ever seen them when they were hauling away a North Korea student from a Haidian Starbucks.

<comment><USER6> What is the significance of an expensive car cop? Does it means they are from some top paid government agency?

<comment><USER5> A Black Audi has symbolism in China, it means mid grade official at least (Audi beijg in China much longer than anyone else). Normal police don't have access to that of course, if you see police in a black Audi wearing suits and sunglasses, they are very elite and are often involved in political crimes (Eg Party enforcement).

As an example, normal police in Beijing walk on egg shells since many people have lots of connections to bare. So a bunch of rich kids smoking weed isn't something they will go near, so those are busted by the Black Audi people (who have strong enough connections to resist whatever).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Like how the CFO of Huawei has been detained in Canada since December of last year?

[https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/05/tech/huawei-cfo- arrested-...](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/05/tech/huawei-cfo-arrested- canada/index.html)

<comment><USER8> She was credibly accused of a crime. The Koch executive wasn't formally accused of anything, according to the article, not that such formalities matter in a system such as China's.

<comment><USER9> > She was credibly accused of a crime.

The "crime" of breaking sanctions against Iran, which happened after the US left JCPOA to reinstate said sanctions against Iran.

Which was a very convenient way to manufacture the "formalities" to arrest the Huawei CFO.

<comment><USER10> Sorry, this is bullshit. Huawei structured the Iran deal to obfuscate that they were providing the equipment in question.

Not only did they know they weren't allowed to sell telecom equipment to Iran, they intentionally tried to do so while hiding it.

Don't pretend this was a secret post facto play by the US to strike at China. It wasn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is very short sighted behaviour on the part of China. Clearly world business will avoid the country if they feel their personal security is at risk due to political interference in the judicial system. International supply chains will now seek to avoid China if at all possible.

</comment><comment><USER12> Chances are this is only part of the story.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm no fan of authoritarian regimes, but given Koch Industries history of spreading FUD for profit I am reluctant to take this at face value.</comment>


EC2's M3 Instances Go Global; Reduced EC2 Charges and Lower Bandwidth Prices - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/02/ec2s-m3-global-reduced-ec2-bandwidth.html

<comment><USER2> I wonder how many people actually use the on-demand instances on a regular basis. For me, I purchase reserved instances in the marketplace and I never touch the on demand pricing. The past two price "reductions" have not affected me because the reserved pricing remains the same. For someone who does not want to sign 1/3 year lease, I find spot pricing to be more attractive than on demand. For the small chance that your instance will get terminated, you get to enjoy the same performance at 1/10 the on demand price. What if you need reliability / short term lease? I would use the amazon marketplace and find other people selling their reservation in the 1-11 month range (not guaranteed)

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I've moved my projects to reserved instances

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is a reason why Amazon is one of the most "overpriced" companies out there as according to the stock market. Every decision is made for the user. And I just LOVE Amazon!

</comment><comment> ezequiel-garzon This is a pet peeve of mine, and I wonder how many HNers share this feeling. Why doesn't Amazon provide hard spending limits? Back in 2006 [1] this feature was supposed to be "in the works", but clearly it's not.

Just as with the low security of many domain registrars, I guess there are not as many horror stories as my paranoid mind would lead me to believe. Any thoughts?

PS: Yes, I understand the dangers of enabling these limits, which ideally should be accompanied by previous alerts, etc.

[1] <https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=10532>

<comment><USER5> This is one of those ideas that makes all the sense in the world in practice, and then someone turns on the limits and you hear about how "NewHotness.com" goes down on Black Friday because of the Hard Limits feature in a big news story and how AWS should never offer a feature like this because "you never know how much you might scale in a flood of users" and "that is the whole point of cloud computing!"

Amazon is just saving themselves the heartache of all the irony :)

<comment> ezequiel-garzon I imagine that must be their thinking. Clearly a lack of technical resources it's not. Moreover, Amazon has already shown [1] good will when negligence led to an unexpectedly high bill.

I'm surprised (though empirically without much reason) not to hear stories from NewHotness et al about "how AWS burned five times our monthly budget in one day of frenzy". Even if those new visitors may very well be welcome for the business, I imagine there are many folks who would like _some_ control (say, to double the limit), maybe at the risk of leaving the site offline for a few minutes.

[1] [http://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2012/04/google- attack-...](http://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2012/04/google-attack-how-i- self-attacked.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do these price drops ever trickle down to, say, users of heroku? I've not used heroku for very long, but this is the 2nd time since I started that AWS has dropped their prices, however I've heard nary a tale from heroku.

<comment><USER7> Heroku is a big enough user to negotiate their own prices with Amazon, so I'd guess not.

<comment><USER8> Just to expand on this, if you spend $2-5 million on reserved instances, you get a standard 20% discount[1]. If you spend more than $5 million, Amazon just say "Contact Us". Heroku certainly qualify for the "Contact Us" discount: at an average of $1,000 per reserved instance, they only need 5,000 servers, yet they're hosting well over 1 million sites.

Heroku provide a service that significantly simplifies the deploy experience, though you pay a premium for that privilege. If you're willing to take the complexity hit of deploying to EC2 instead of using Heroku due to price, you're not really Heroku's target market. I'd expect a price decrease eventually, though likely in reaction to direct competitors rather than the drop in cost of the EC2 infrastructure itself.

[1]: <http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/#reserved-volume-discounts>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It would be really useful if you included the M1 and M3 on the pricing page. It's annoying the way information and pricing are kept so separate.

<comment><USER10> Like <http://www.ec2instances.info/> ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The massive drop in inter-region pricing is going to be really nice for folks running apps with failover to other regions. We're working on cross-region replication for our new infrastructure, so this comes at a perfect time for us...

<comment><USER12> This drop in inter-region data transfer prices is huge, and frankly, long overdue. Distributing across regions might actually be viable for companies that don't have money coming out of their ears.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I do a lot of number crunching on the CPU. I dont need security or reliability.

Is EC2 a good choice if you just want to do that? Or what would you guys use for that?

<comment><USER14> In my experience CPU of cloud servers is generally... bad.

If you do regular CPU work (24/7), you may be better off getting dedicated servers (with raw CPU grunt) for far cheaper cost per month.

<comment><USER13> dedicated hardware. common. that might have been an option in the 90s. i want to be able to use as many cpus as i want when i need them. not have a bunch of machines rotting away idle.

<comment><USER15> I would actually recommend a hybrid approach. If you don't need too much memory there is a cpu heavy Amazon instance that you should scale up and down and have a VPN between a dedicated co-lo machine that handles the base load. If you need memory and cpu, its going to be costly to use EC2 unless you pay upfront for dedicated instances. In this case though the economics are probably not as favorable as getting some co-lo servers and letting them rot away. In short you will need to do a cost benefit analysis to see what makes sense.

For our service we are going to use a co-lo server for our processing with an Elastic Beanstalk frontend and use a VPC + OpenVPN setup to bridge the two. We will incur some bandwidth charges because of this, but the cross talk between the boxes is actually minimal, since the client will post directly to the co- lo box(es) when it needs to upload, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> very excited for the lower S3 -> CloudFront prices. that change alone is going to save my site probably 25-35% on our CDN bandwidth charges.</comment>


Bodhi Linux 3.0.0 Release - <AUTHOR> http://www.bodhilinux.com/2015/02/17/bodhi-linux-3-0-0-release/

<comment><AUTHOR> If you are looking to install Linux on an Acer C720 or HP 14″ Chromebook this is the right distro for you. More info here – [http://www.bodhilinux.com/w/selecting-the-correct-iso- image/](http://www.bodhilinux.com/w/selecting-the-correct-iso-image/)

</comment><comment><USER2> I like the all Enlightenment stack - the ideas are all good. But, everytime I install it, I run into some issue or other.</comment>


How a Toronto professor's research revolutionized artificial intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/04/17/how-a-toronto-professors-research-revolutionized-artificial-intelligence.html

<comment><USER2> Highly glorifying, badly credited article that reads like a state propaganda piece. Hinton's work is amazing and his contribution has been immense, but this article is a joke.

Such science "journalism" is seriously hurting the field, including the researchers that are lionized in these articles. It also makes large groups of researchers who've been working hard on advancing the field think they don't matter in the eyes of the public, and that can be quite demoralizing.

That "unsupervised cats" paper from 2012 had nothing new in it at the time, although it was a feat of parallelization on a cluster of CPUs. Three years later its (uninteresting) results are not used anywhere. But Google used it as a PR piece at the time, and hundreds of journalists have been presenting it as some kind of game-changing breakthrough. It continues to this day.

<comment><USER3> Keep in mind that this is the Toronto Star. A local paper here in Toronto for obviously a broad audience outside of tech.

For a country and city that has a heavy inferiority complex and suffers greatly from the "Brain Drain" of technical talent to the US, this is one of those articles that's meant to inspire. Not an article for Canadians/Torontonians to puff their chests.

So I wouldn't be so critical about it's so called "propaganda" aspect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The course he taught on Coursera in 2012 is archived if anyone's interested.

[https://www.coursera.org/course/neuralnets](https://www.coursera.org/course/neuralnets)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm surprised about all of the backlash on here against the article. Look at the ImageNet competition - when it first started out the algorithms being used were very different hand-designed algorithms, then all of a sudden backprop dominated.

If you're interested in this area, my company is designing hardware accelerators for these algorithms. Our versions of the algorithms have a few extra twists to them to account for the analog nature of the hardware. I'm probably a bit biased, but I think this is a really interesting place to be working right now

Below is what posted on this month's Who is Hiring:

Isocline - Austin, TX - Software Engineer for High Performance Computing and Modeling

We are looking for two people - one interested in neural networks and one interested in GPS.

We are developing microchips that yield a 10-1000x improvement in performance & energy-efficiency compared to digital ASICs, GPUs, and FPGAs. We are a bootstrapped company and are fully funded through mid 2016. Patents pending.

$70K – $120K Salary

0.5% – 1.2% Equity

Full Job Description: [https://angel.co/isocline/jobs/38767-software- engineer](https://angel.co/isocline/jobs/38767-software-engineer)

Company website: [http://isoclineengineering.com/](http://isoclineengineering.com/)

Email me directly if you do not have an AngelList profile

</comment><comment><USER6> Who is going to click on an article that isn't super hyped now a days anyways?

Toronto Professor, contributes to computer science subfield AI.

Vs

How a Toronto Professor, changed the world with Deep Learning.

Which one would you click ? This article is framed towards an audience that doesn't exactly care about technical details.

</comment><comment><USER7> Incredible. It is exciting to see which areas of life AI will optimize in the future. The medical company which is focusing on teaching AI to interpret patient charts and etc, is an excellent example. I wonder if it would be possible to build a deep AI for interpreting law, effectively replacing research work which lawyers do. It seems law has a methodical structure that AI could learn to navigate recognizing past precedents, performing wide cross referencing, exploiting existing loop holes in the system, and validating judicial decisions.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is this news because "neural networks" now has a new buzzword "deep learning" and Google is paying attention to it?

<comment><USER9> It's news because that's the cold place neural networks went to wait out the "AI winter".

It's amazing that neural networks actually work now. They've been around since the 1960s, and for four decades, they sucked. They're only a little smarter; it's mostly sheer compute power applied to algorithms that fit on one screen of Matlab.

<comment><USER10> Not so much the computing power as a few tricks:

\- proper initialization of weights (should have been obvious, but no one really saw it)

\- rectified linear units and dropout

<comment><USER11> Also, a lot more data to train on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can somebody point good(and up to date) resources to learn more about neural networks?</comment>


Soviet Microsoft: How Resistance to Free Markets and Open Ideas Will the Unravel Software Superpower - <AUTHOR> http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/12/13/soviet-microsoft-how-resistance-to-free-markets-and-open-ideas-will-the-unravel-the-software-superpower/ <comment><USER2> Beware extended metaphors. They are a royal road to stupid.

I couldn't keep reading after this bit:

"Windows promised to replace the risk and uncertainty of a world splintered by different platforms under just one operating system. Anyone who didn't play along with the official party line was ostracized to a Siberian gulag, or at least ridiculed as an enemy of compatibility and a threat to low Total Cost of Ownership."

As a Mac owner throughout the '90s, I've seen my share of deranged, over-the- top anti-Microsoft rhetoric, but this makes Apple's _1984_ commercial look like a Ken Burns film.

</comment><comment><USER3> This guy makes a similar case:

[http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/10/in-search-of- stupi...](http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/10/in-search-of-stupidity- over-twenty-years-of-high-tech-marketing-disasters-second-edition)</comment>


Just Got Fired From Yahoo?  Have A Taco.  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/10/just-got-fired-from-yahoo-have-a-taco/ <comment><AUTHOR> Part Brilliant. Part Sleezy. 100% Taco.

</comment><comment><USER2> Interesting way to get [most likely] good job applicants. Also love the picture of Jerry Yang at the end of the article.

<comment><USER3> I'm not so sure the applicants are that good. Usually the ones getting laid off are the ones from the bottom of the barrel.

Of course there might have been some jewels, those who got fired due to politics or some other BS reason, and not because of competence

<comment><USER4> I think you have a valid point that Yahoo! is probably not laying off their top performers. However, the job cuts were large, and there is enough randomness in the HR process to assume that the startup could find 5 good employees there. Not to mention, an employee in the bottom half at Yahoo would probably be an excellent employee anywhere else. Also, there are factors other than competence that play in to decisions like these, like tenure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Big hat, no cattle.

</comment><comment><USER6> "You just lost your job. Have a taco!"

Seriously, I find this pretty distasteful.

</comment><comment><USER7> Google did that after the first dot-com bubble burst. I've heard Tim Sanders, who worked at Yahoo, talk about how demoralizing it was for Yahoo employees to see their employees get lured over to the new, new thing.

</comment><comment><USER8> The sheriff might even swing by himself for a taco ... and a job application.

<comment><USER9> Or he might turn them down hoping for a better deal down the road...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe there is an opportunity for someone to create a mobile job fair inside a tractor trailer that goes around to companies laying off employees...

</comment><comment><USER4> Those tacos look yummy.</comment>