Pioneers of Computing: Guido Van Rossum - <AUTHOR> http://www.thebitsource.com/pioneers-of-computing/

<comment><USER2> Why not just link to the original:

[http://python-history.blogspot.com/2009/01/personal- history-...](http://python-history.blogspot.com/2009/01/personal-history- part-1-cwi.html)</comment>


Why I am called "the Father of Visual Basic" (1996) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cooper.com/alan/father_of_vb.html <comment><USER3> Kids today probably don't realize, but for its purpose, VB pre dot net 2001 was really really good. Especially compared to the c plus plus alternative available at the time, atl, and so forth. I know the criticisms of basic as a language, technical snobbery, etc.. But for building stuff quickly, it worked. And for an ide, was really snappy and fast. That deteriorated when the VM was introduced, dot net.

You start a project, a form appears. You drop controls on it. You set their properties. You code their event procedures. Press the play button. Compile. Exe. Done. It was a great product in that it abstracted the messy stuff well, and presented a programming environment that was intuitive and powerful.

<comment><USER4> Not only that. Compilation was super fast, the debugger was pretty damn good, creating OLE objects was a breeze (every class had the full machinery to become an OLE object just by flipping a flag in the properties editor), writing networking code was super simple (VB's built in events would take care of the asynchronous nature of receiving data), installation builder... I could go on. It was light years ahead of the closest competitors (Visual C++ and Delphi.) People love to hate Visual Basic, but for its time it was revolutionary.

<comment><USER5> I agree with most of what you've said, except for it being light years ahead of Delphi. I used both tools extensively in both a hobbyist and professional capacity from 1997 onward (VB 5, Delphi 3) and I couldn't say that one tool was significantly ahead of the other. They were both hugely similar and fantastic for rapid development. In fact I'd go so far as to say I preferred Delphi as its database capabilities were better (at least, in my experience) and I liked not having to package my software with a set of run-times. Although the latter was more important to the hobbyist side of me. Commercially, demanding a client had the required VB run-time files was no problem.

<comment><USER4> Delphi was a great tool! The database support was way ahead of VB, specially support of MySQL and other third party databases. I guess I always preferred C/C++ over Pascal for low-level stuff though, so even though I played around with it for quite a bit, I never became too proficient.

I hoped C++ Builder would close that gap with Delphi, but then .NET took over and the rest is (kind of) history.

What's fascinating to me is that some countries (Brazil, for one) still have a very active Delphi community, while in a lot of places it was more or less forgotten.

<comment><USER5> That's right, Brazil, Russia and China still have huge amounts of Delphi developers. To a lesser extent so do South Africa and Australia.

Would you believe me if I told you I currently work in a software house whose main suite of desktop products is still in Delphi? We've been using .NET since the mid-2000s (before I started here) for a few of our products, and all new development for desktop products in the past few years has been .NET, but the company's bread and butter and highly successful products are Delphi applications through and through.

It's still a capable development tool but the language is showing its age. I very rarely have to touch it any more but when I do I always get mixed emotions of "argh, Delphi sucks ass, I wish it had <insert any .NET language feature here>", and "oh man I forgot how awesome Delphi was, I wish it was this straightforward in .NET!" Comments such as the latter are few and far between, these days.

<comment><USER4> That's not surprising! Some really good enterprise and POS software got developed in Delphi (and other desktop frameworks/IDEs) back in the day. In Brazil a lot of businesses were starting to adopt POS, and having someone building a billing program for you was all the rage. There's little incentive to update such systems as long as they work. Not everything needs to be a website! (shakes walking stick and shouts to kids to get off his lawn)

I remember hating .NET in the beginning. Performance was abysmal and anything mildly low-level took a lot of work. I made some good money as a freelancer writing COM libraries or C++ libraries with a thin C# wrapper so that they could be used by companies that had bought into the whole .NET thing.

Then C# introduced generics, and it started breaking away from the similarities to Java. Things improved and in time .NET became a very capable runtime/framework. I'm actually excited to see Microsoft finally opening it up. As much as I love Python, the cloud and all the fancy new stuff we have nowadays, I occasionally long for the good old days when desktop software reigned supreme.

OK, better go to sleep now. I'm starting to sound like an old fogy :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Take a computer user who hasn't written a single line of code ever. Fire up VB6-, drop a button, double click, write MessageBox "Hello Word" and press the play button. I have often got looks with amazement "Wow! Is creating applications that easy? I can do that!". I know of no other development tool or languages that demands same response from complete non-programmers. The minute people see angle/curly/curvy brackets, there is just too much explaining to do that would eventually end up in talking about how stack works.

Many of us thrive on complexities and are wired to handle large hierarchies of concepts that is required to make sense of things, but large majority apparently wants things to be simple and VB of an excellent way for them to experience the joy of programming. Professionally VB6- was however too limiting and its purpose seemed to be mostly churning out CRUD data entry screens faster than ever. So it's best used as introduction/launchpad in to programming with clear plan to weaning off after you had enough fun.

<comment><USER7> Borland Delphi was capable of the same feat.

<comment><USER8> (and the resulting executable is smaller and WAY FASTER then VB).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We were all a lot younger when that photo was taken 25 years ago! :-)

Happy to answer any questions about the early days of VB. Gary and Frank and Mark and I built most of the "visual" side of VB based on Alan's Tripod prototype. It was called Ruby at the time (no relation to the programming language) and was originally going to be a programmable shell for Windows 3.0 but turned into VB instead.

If you want something specific to blame me for, that would be the VBX interface...

Here's an article with more of the story of how Microsoft turned Ruby into VB:

[http://www.forestmoon.com/birthofvb/birthofvb.html](http://www.forestmoon.com/birthofvb/birthofvb.html)

<comment><USER10> Hi! I'll bite. Two questions for you.

VB and Hypercard get a lot of nostalgic love these days, and a lot of people (including ITT) maintain there aren't any real successors to them.

What would you consider to be the standout merits to Ruby/VB that ought to be reproduced now?

Second question, since plugins and dynamic extension are never out of style: in the VBX interface, what did you think worked well, and what did you think was a tremendous disaster?

Thanks!

<comment><USER9> Ah, if you're looking for _insights_ , I may not have too many of those. It was a long time ago! But let me see what I can remember.

The big thing about VB is the obvious one: it was really easy to get started using it, and despite the flaws in the visual environment and the language itself, it was good enough to get things done.

In fact, Basic was a lot better than the language we were originally going to put in, which was barely more than a glorified batch language (and not even as powerful as .bat).

The idea we had at the beginning was that you'd drag an arrow on the screen from one component to another, signifying that an event triggered on the first component would make an action happen on the other. This is where the phrase "fire an event" came from: I was looking for a verb for this, and "trigger" didn't sound right. I was frustrated and had a bunch of rubber bands on the table, so I started firing them at the screen. That didn't help. So I fired up a doobie, and between flicking the lighter and firing the rubber bands, "fire an event" seemed like the phrase to use.

What worked well in VBX? Well again it was fairly simple to use and easy for people to make extensions with. The big disaster was that it was pretty much tied into the Win16 programming model, so when Windows moved to 32 bits, VBX wasn't going to cut it and Microsoft developed OCX to replace it.

<comment><USER5> _So I fired up a doobie, and between flicking the lighter and firing the rubber bands, "fire an event" seemed like the phrase to use._

There's something strangely surreal and downright awesome about reading this comment from you, over 25 years later. Huge amounts of respect for what you and the team achieved.

<comment><USER9> Thank you! We always tried to have fun with the names.

Alas, my other favorite name didn't make it into the final product. VB Controls were called Gizmos in Ruby, and VBX was the Gizmo Interface.

I don't know what happened there - I think Gizmo was just not a serious enough name for the Microsoft of the day. But really, Control instead of Gizmo? Boring!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> \- A programming language with rudimentary OO

\- A complete IDE

\- A relational database with multi-user access and transactions

\- A visual form editor

\- Drag-and-droppable Components

\- A debugger that lets you mutate code and even the instruction pointer, while running.

\- A compiler that generates distributable EXEs in a single click

\- All of this inside 2mb.

vb3.exe, released in 1993, 22 whole years ago. We're still playing catch up.

<comment><USER12> And all of this existed in 1988 with NeXT Project Builder/Interface Builder. Which was used to write the first web browser.

<comment><USER13> Sure, but you needed several thousand dollars ($10k?) own a NeXT box or by a stroke of luck your college or university might have such a machine.

I'm sure there are many other great things that existed to do the same thing but VB was the tool that brought this type of capability to the masses on plain old PC hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you want to make the 'next big thing' then make a VB like environment for the web. It's going to make you rich, famous and hated in pretty much equal measures.

<comment><USER15> See Stamplay: [https://stamplay.com/](https://stamplay.com/) which is taking steps toward this.

<comment><USER16> There are about a zillion drag & drop web designer tools out there, all with varying angles and subtly different markets. The ones I know of are:

[https://divshot.com/features](https://divshot.com/features)

[http://www.appgyver.com/composer](http://www.appgyver.com/composer)

[https://polymer-designer.appspot.com/](https://polymer-designer.appspot.com/)

[http://www.weebly.com/](http://www.weebly.com/)

[https://webflow.com/](https://webflow.com/)

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

[http://www.google.com/webdesigner/](http://www.google.com/webdesigner/)

[http://sparkle.cx/](http://sparkle.cx/)

There's also a bunch of desktop software that does this too - <USER2> FrontPage and DreamWeaver?

I thought about getting into this market but it is so crowded that it's unlikely there'll be one clear winner. Instead, every designer seems to have their favorite tool.

<comment><AUTHOR> All of the products you listed just help with design. None of them let you add functionality using drag and drop.

<comment><USER16> They do, actually - all of the Polymer-based ones (the first three) let you drop full web components onto the page and wire up bindings. It very much is analogous to Visual Basic + COM.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's an interesting interview with Alan Cooper about the subject up on Channel 9 (and a lot of other stuff, Alan pulls no punches :).

I did find it odd that "Ruby" (what became VB) was suppose to be the "shell for windows " and allow user to "design their os". Maybe I misunderstood that part because it sounds like a recipe for disaster :)

[http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/VisualStudioDocumentary/The-...](http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/VisualStudioDocumentary/The- Visual-Studio-Documentary-Alan-Cooper-the-Father-of-Visual-Basic)

I give great kudos to Alan Cooper, his book "The Inmates are running the asylum" was a paradigm shift for me. Once you've read it you have a little Alan inside your head for the rest of your life, telling you how stupid, impolite and lazy most software is. It's annoying but highly effective.

Really recommend it for anyone who hasn't read it. He's a bit rabid in his aversion to developers designing, but if you can look past that it contains many gems

</comment><comment><USER18> I've been working with somebody else's .NET web application recently, written entirely in VB.NET. It works just fine and VB hardly seems like a toy. An interesting quirk I discovered, however, was that, with a VB.NET application, you can add individual classes as namespaces in web.config

This basically allows you to import classes from App_Code globally--something which my predecessor on the project had made significant use of. And it all worked, despite the fact that it's not technically "allowed" and C# naturally prevents you from doing it. I only noticed something was amiss when I tried creating a simple Web Service and the app kept falling over.

</comment><comment><USER19> I came across Visual Basic when Access 1.0 hit Office Depot for $99. Of course in the preWeb trying to learn VB on top of Database design in my spare time wasn't all that successful. But I still remember my wonderment at the ease with which the pieces went together. The drag and drop design paradigm for interfaces is near ubiquitous.

Reading an article like this and hitting the comment link and anticipating meeting one of the developers is, for me, what makes HN so amazing.

<comment><USER20> Access 1.0 was the first piece of software I paid for out of my own pocket. I'd been doing BASIC, VB, Pascal and Assembly for a few years then, so getting into JET and Access was easy. And the ease blew my mind. Before Access there was Borland Paradox, which was (if memory serves) the only database engine you could call from VB. It was really brittle though, which made the ease of using the JET engine all the more amazing.

<comment><USER21> Access's 1.0 code name was Cirrus, in the About box's easter egg you can see a bolt of thunder coming from a cloud striking two ducks in a pond. A pair of ducks...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There is a project called Gambas ([http://gambas.sourceforge.net](http://gambas.sourceforge.net)) that has tried to replicate what VB was. The project has been well maintained over the years and the latest release was 14.03.2015.

It support designing GUI applications visually just like VB, but the implementation of the runtime component exists for both Gtk and Qt. Same with database access (MySQL, Postgres, Sqlite). There are other components too like SDL.

The language is not 100% the VB language, but similar (with some modern features).

Not very different to the Delphi side. The Lazarus project is active and last update was also on March, 2015: [http://www.lazarus- ide.org](http://www.lazarus-ide.org)

</comment><comment><USER23> "Last updated April 22, 1996."

</comment><comment><USER24> I think Delphi most like Visual Basic.</comment>


New 3D depigmentation technique enables high-res imaging of intact organisms - <AUTHOR> https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/22/eaba0365 <comment><USER2> It should be considered malpractice to publish an article about a new technique and not include a detailed protocol for how to do it. It's understandable if the article is trying to show some effect, develops the new technique as a means to that end, and then publishes the result they found, but in cases where the article is "we can now do this in whatever organism we want", not telling people how they can do it themselves holds science back.

<comment><USER3> Most journals certainly have a separate Methods section where they describe the entire protocol. I believe this paper has the same section too. Can you be more specific what you think authors missed out in description of the methods?

I can imagine that for the sake of being concise (big Journals have text limits), they might have moved details to Supplementary sections.

Another reason one might find methods to be incomplete is when they refer to a previous paper and build on top of that, which is not entirely a bad strategy because this allows readers to go back to previous method in its original version than reading a duplicate version in new paper.

<comment><USER2> I'm looking for a detailed checklist that a reasonably well trained scientist in the field could follow. This should include equipment they used, and guidance on where variables should be adjusted for sample size.

See [https://www.protocols.io/view/human-colon-tissue-clearing- an...](https://www.protocols.io/view/human-colon-tissue-clearing-and- immunohistochemist-wyeffte) and compare to the amount of detail even in the supplemental methods.

Again, I think the concision and "refer to previous methods" approach is mostly* fine for discovery papers, but if the method is the thing, I want all the gory details in one place.

* but also, academics hate chasing down chains of references, some of which are in journals their university doesn't subscribe to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a shame that their downloadable "high res" images are so small. One of them is 250KB (0.4 megapixels), the same size as the one directly viewable on the site. Maybe that's a mistake.

<comment><AUTHOR> I clicked on the image directly viewable on the site:

F1.medium.gif 314x440

it downloaded to

F1.large.jpg 1050x1470

I'm using Chrome FWIW</comment></comment>


Imgur gets $40 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz - <AUTHOR> http://betabeat.com/2014/04/imgur-gets-40-million-investment-from-andreessen-horowitz/

<comment><USER2> Going way back on Reddit, I remember MrGrim modestly posting that he had created an image host just for Reddit, imgur.com. It's pretty wild to see him and imgur have come this far.

EDIT: Here it is--5 years ago. Great job MrGrim. [http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7zlyd/my_gift_to...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7zlyd/my_gift_to_reddit_i_created_an_image_hosting/)

EDIT2: Nevermind, I was beaten. :)

<comment><USER3> Crazy to think that all it would have taken is a few redditors to downvote that post and it would have been hidden and never seen.

Right place, right time perhaps.

<comment><USER4> I'm glad it worked out for Alan. When I post to Reddit about things I've built, I just get downvoted. hah

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very impressive to have bootstrapped this far, I'd imagine their hosting costs are fairly immense. Hopefully this doesn't affect their core value-proposition (simple image upload).

It's interesting that Reddit also made a modest investment. As Imgur's community has grown, I'd imagine that they're increasingly battling for the same audience as Reddit.

<comment><USER6> About Reddit and Imgur - I think they share a more synergistic relationship. A lot of imgur links make up the content on reddit, and by funding them, they ensure a better experience for their visitors. Meaning more ad revenue for reddit - makes sense to me.

<comment><USER7> imgur has had voting, comments and it's own little community for a while now. It could cannibalize the image macro based subreddits (like /r/pics /r/funny) which drive so much traffic to reddit.

imgur is also not getting as much money as it could from reddit because links are posted directly to content bypassing the ads.

I wonder how much longer the synergistic relationship will continue to exist.

<comment><USER8> If Reddit banned imgur, that would be very bad for it. They banned Quickmeme, which decimated its traffic.

<comment><USER9> Quickmeme was banned because they were manipulating the voting system. I don't think imgur would or needs to do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not super knowledgeable about image hosting or ad revenues. If you have a super populate photo, would the ads on that page pay enough for the hosting? If that is true, repeat by a million and Imgur has a great business. If not, seems like it will be difficult.

<comment><USER11> Most people that use Imgur share the direct link to the image. When the direct link is used no ads are displayed.

<comment><USER12> It's a wise choice - the comments are often terrifying.

<comment><USER3> In design or quality?

I commented on an image I posted once. I was horrified to find that you had to individually expand each child comment. Doesn't allow for much discussion.

<comment><USER13> There's an 'Expand all comments' link. Personally I find the community there to be a nice complement to HN. Less serious, less important issues, more usable when tired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Let's hope they use some of it to fix the mobile app (fatally broken on my 5s 7.1) and their mobile web experience (a catastrophe of hanging AJAX and appalling UX.)

Oh and hiring some moderators to control the flood of soft porn in user-sub would be nice.

(Although it does worry me - people taking money and board members from A16Z do seem to get acquired by the biggies rather more often than I'd like.)

<comment><USER14> I wonder if user-sub is _already_ moderated and they actually allow the 'soft porn' through? At least, there's quite a bit of hardcore pornography hosted on imgur but I don't see any on a browse through user-sub right now.

<comment><USER12> [http://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/201738527-Gallery- Ru...](http://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/201738527-Gallery-Rules)

Since user-sub lives under imgur.com, I'm assuming it's covered by those guidelines (tl;dr: "no porn, work safe, or hellban")

I'm guessing they'd rather keep the porn under /r/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> good stuff that they're hanging on but still pretty big mystery how this sustains.... there was optimistic talk/posts about how the community _on imgur_ itself has grown and become sort of its own thing but of course the synergy with reddit is undeniable. Ad revenue while allowing all that direct linking is highly suspect IMO. Reddit enjoys huge dominance but lest we all forget it was all but headed for dead before Digg's big slip up. Surprised they have funds to throw at imgur but I guess it's a mutual interest thing.</comment>


Content Marketing For Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.amantalwar.com/content-marketing-for-startups/

<comment><AUTHOR> Would love to get people's thoughts on it?</comment>


Microsoft Files Patent Infringement Action Against Motorola (over Android) - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/oct10/10-01statement.mspx <comment><USER2> here's another take:

Patent protection key to Windows Phone 7 license

"Microsoft may be one of the only remaining mobile operating-system providers that charges handset makers a licensing fee, but in exchange vendors get at least one important benefit: protection from intellectual property worries.

That could be one reason that Samsung, HTC and LG are willing to pay to use Windows Phone 7, but it doesn't appear to be enough to convince other former Windows Mobile users, like Motorola, to commit to the operating system."

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9188964/Patent_protec...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9188964/Patent_protection_key_to_Windows_Phone_7_license)

<comment><USER3> Except that's not necessarily true. Counter suits could result in a) fast track import bans through the US International Trade Commission (Motorola started such a suit against RIM in January; the Onion reference is apropos) and b) in theory injunctions to stop making/selling/etc. the phones.

Of course, what was big for RIM (612.5 million US$) is Microsoft's cost of doing business in The Microsoft Way, but still, this sort of thing can get very nasty and can also absorb a _lot_ of time of important people in the sued company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard the billions of dollars we invest each year in bringing innovative software products and services to market."

The only problem is, MS is not bringing innovative software products and services to market. At least not in the cell phone space.

<comment><USER5> Have you seen their new Windows Phone 7 UI etc.? I would say it's innovative, instead of the standard icons on a desktop theme like iPhone and Android.

<comment><USER6> Yes, WP7 is great and what a great way to say to Motorolla, "hey, we would like you to build new handsets that use our great new WP7 OS" than by sueing them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would find it highly amusing if Microsoft manages to change the standard for patent lawsuits in their other case, and thanks to the changed standard they lose this one.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very interesting. Motorola is one of the big handset OEMs that Microsoft lost in favor of Android. A Microsoft executive was just talking about how the cost of a Windows Phone 7 license indemnifies handset makers from IP & legal claims that Android makes leaves them vulnerable too. Well this sure hammers home that point!

<comment><USER9> That does help to explain things, but this statement is pretty broad:

"The patents at issue relate to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola's Android smartphone devices that are essential to the smartphone user experience..."

So, um, why are they attacking only Motorola and not Apple, RIM, Samsung, or otherwise every single smart-phone manufacturer? Or even Google itself for Android? This seems to claim that Microsoft has a patent on "building a smart phone" which almost every single phone built in the last 5 years could fall under.

<comment><USER10> HTC reached a deal to license MS patents shortly after being sued by Apple. Presumable there were negotiations that included the threat of litigation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems unlikely that synchronising emails, calendar and contacts is carried out in exactly the same manner on a linux based Android device as to one based on a Windows OS.

<comment><USER12> A big deal was made when Apple licensed the "ActiveSync protocol" (which they used to allow iPhones to talk to Exchange servers via EWS). I never heard about Motorola licensing this, so perhaps that's the attack strategy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> <http://www.theonion.com/articles/august-5-1914,10615/>

</comment><comment><USER14> Why is Apple not being sued by Microsoft for the same things?

<comment><USER15> Because they were not former Windows Mobile license holders. This seems like a ploy to get former a license holder to continue being a license holder.

<comment> brown9-2 Is this a common big business practice? Suing your former partners so they'll do business with you again in the future?

Seems like a poor form of courtship.

<comment><USER16> I could see the line of thought being something like 'well, clearly you licensed our IP just long enough to learn our secrets, then stopped paying for the license and used those secrets in your Android product'.

<comment><USER3> That would be a trade secret lawsuit, though. E.g. akin to a Qualcomm licensee who had gotten both the rights to use their patented CDMA technology plus the trade secrets of their special sauce on radio power management. If this is just on the basis of patents then in theory the information is all in the public domain (which is what patents are supposed to be all about) and the lawsuit is over the right to use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sounds like someone is upset that someone else is cheating on them.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is this the Danger INC patents that were bought?</comment>


Looking to Prototype Without Wire? Introducing the Meta Board - <AUTHOR> http://www.metaboard.space/ <comment><USER2> \- Images are broken.

\- No idea what product actually is useful for.

\- Video only shows a corner of the board and doesn't make clear its use case.

\- No contact info except an email address that appears to be a generic placeholder for the template, because 'freesearch' isn't obviously the name of your company, though I see upon deep inspection it's the name of your youtube channel which has no published content (only the one unlisted video).

\- email host is free service but not well known one.

\- very new hacker news account.

\- very new reddit group dedicated to project hosted by 4 day old reddit account.

\- business web domain with unusual tld that appears unrelated to company and product concept.

\- web domain first created only a few days ago.

\- web domain is registered to anonymizing agent in Panama.

\- No record of business contact email address anywhere on internet.

\- No company info.

\- No payment options other than paypal.

Honestly it looks like you are trying to hide and the whole thing is some kind of scam.

To fix this, improve demos, describe better what board is and what it does and why it's worth the price, completely de-anonymize yourself by presenting verifiable business credentials including business addresses that are not mail drops or such, and name and photos of team members on your site, change to a site domain that makes more sense, and use a different email address, your normal one.

<comment><USER3> I wanted to write an answer but this covers almost everything that I wanted to say and more.

Just a few more things: the claims you make sound 'too good to be true' and the video you show is not clear. What are you showcasing? Where is your product in the video?

It's also not clear who the target audience is. You give an example, but I have never encountered a broken harddrive. The situation doesn't appeal to a lot of people. You might want to sketch more scenario's where your product would be helpful. You can even just aim the text directly to your target audience: "Are you an electronics hobbyist or engineer often struggling with X? Look no further!". You get the picture.

Also, you might want to consider contacting some techbloggers and sending them free prototypes (this can actually backfire if they don't like it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm heavily into this space as a co-founder of Pimoroni (a hobbyist electronics company based in the UK).

I've read your page and watched your video and I still don't really understand what the metaboard is meant to be - I think you have a communication issue here. :-)

The pitch primarily seems to be around simplifying the process of building circuits on a breadboard but it doesn't explain in detail how it does that.

I was also really hunting for a picture of the product itself, but that isn't visible anywhere (perhaps it's one of the broken image links?).

Since this page is a pre-order (for delivery in March 2017!) I think you'll struggle to get good conversion rate unless you already have an audience who trust you. I agree with guico that presenting the price in AUD will limit your market as well.

Feel free to contact me (e-mail in profile) if you want some help to highlight your key features and identify your market.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, let's see:

1) Looking at the description:

" _The Meta Board is a physical programmable circuit board that allows you to build physical circuits on a breadboard without wire or specific value resistors and capacitors using a host microcontroller, such as the Arduino Nano._ "

This is rather uninformative to say the least. In what way does it replace resistors / capacitors? How many does it replace? How is it programmed?

2) On watching the video, it seems as if this device lets a person turn on or off some pins under the control of a computer. That would make this device a digital I/O board, minus the I part, or a relay board, perhaps? (Both of which are readily available online already.) However, the description suggests that it does more than this?

3) The "Why use the Meta Board?" reasons are either not very compelling or have common solutions. For example, re: #2, resistors and capacitors costs a negligible amount and re: #7, it's not particularly clear what that means.

3) There is no description of the electrical characteristics of the inputs/output pins or anything else.

4) The image links on the metaboard.space page are broken, at least when viewed from North America. Manually opening the links returns an access denied message from the CDN.

<comment><USER6> images are broken in Australia too.

What is your target audience.. I'm not entirely sure if I even _could_ be interested in this.. the scenario displayed is clinical with no context around why i might want to buy one and say stick it into my Rpi...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I watched half the video -- it wasn't clear what was happening. It needs narration explaining what's going on.

Others have already mentioned the images are broken.

You've got a product priced in a currency that isn't my native one.

Your product isn't shipping for months. At least if this was on Kickstarter I'd know what I'm getting myself into.

And ultimately, I came away not understanding what the product is. So I'm not remotely interested in buying it, even though I generally throw money at funny dev kits and things possibly related in this space.

</comment><comment><USER8> This looks really cool, but I don't think it's presented in the best light.

Many have pointed out all the problems with the page as it is. I'd like to make some concrete suggestions that might help.

Firstly, you have invented this thing. You know more about it than anyone on the planet. So dumb it down more. Your video doesn't really show what the product is. How about wiring up a 555 timer with your board with no passives to an LED, and then demonstrate varying flash rate by changes in code that are changing resistor values (bonus points for writing a function to set resistors and cap for you based on frequency desired and duty cycle). That would seem like a real demo of what the board does.

I'd also cut the 8 stream of consciousness "why use metaboard" sentences into 3 concrete use cases of increasing but understandable complexity.

Then, and here I am making this up, if this thing is genuinely useful, make some prototypes and send them to electronics bloggers with a note like "I like your stuff. I made this cool thing and I think it could have helped you with $PROJECT_X. Try it out and see what you think. If you think others might find it useful, I'm starting a kickstarter on 15th November (or whenever)."

Use something like kickstarter because it helps create credibility – if I send you 20 AUD, and then just wait 6 months, I don't know what I'm going to get, but if I know 100 people have sent 20 AUD you at least have a chance of producing something.

Ship _something_ that is minimal but works to your early backers, and build from there. Not shipping, or delaying shipping to overcomplicate your product is a bad plan.

Good luck!

<comment><USER9> > You know more about it than anyone on the planet. So dumb it down more.

I personally don't like it when such information is dumbed down, in particular if the audience of the product is "smart people" (as hackers or makers like to be).

Just my 2 cents

<comment><USER10> "Dumb it down" here means you start with a transparently simple and very obvious example of USP, and then work up to more complicated stuff once you have the reader's attention.

<comment><USER9> > and then work up to more complicated stuff once you have the reader's > attention

The best way to get _my_ attention is to write some rather intelligent information. I often switch off when I feel that I get "dumbed down". That's how I am.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know if you already did this, but you might ask this question on [http://hackaday.com/](http://hackaday.com/) instead of Hacker News.

Hacker News might answer some questions about marketing, but your customers are on Hackaday. Why not ask your customers directly?

Edit: And as others already mentions: your images are missing. Fix that first.

Edit2: If I understand what this board is about, you might have a killer product here by the way! Am I right that this board is directly communicating with software so you can 'see' what is going on?

</comment><comment><USER12> you have two broken images in the homepage [https://d28w3xgz5vkvvm.cloudfront.net/images/000/157/652/ori...](https://d28w3xgz5vkvvm.cloudfront.net/images/000/157/652/original/6097bc9eb4a1f881cba1f1d138a88327ee032089.png)

and

[https://d28w3xgz5vkvvm.cloudfront.net/images/000/157/695/ori...](https://d28w3xgz5vkvvm.cloudfront.net/images/000/157/695/original/6097bc9eb4a1f881cba1f1d138a88327ee032089.jpg)

also a bad pointer to [http://www.metaboard.space/%22https://d28w3xgz5vkvvm.cloudfr...](http://www.metaboard.space/%22https://d28w3xgz5vkvvm.cloudfront.net/images/…0/157/168/large/6097bc9eb4a1f881cba1f1d138a88327ee032089.png?1476759208%22) Failed to load resource: the server responded with a

I guess that might kill confidence in buyers a bit.

Also, depending on where traffic comes from 300 visitors might have close to 0 interest in buying this.

</comment><comment><USER13> Does your page answer the question "why do I needed? why do I want it?" \- it seems to describe to product, but nothing about the "why".

This also means you have not defined your audience. Who should I be so that I would be interested in your product? An Arduino hacker? Building... what?

</comment><comment><USER14> I can't figure it out either.

There are devices which let you wire up digital and analog circuits under software control. Field Programmable Gate Arrays do this for logic, of course. There are also Field Programmable Analog Arrays. Those are not widely available, but might be fun to play with. Is this a board with an FPAA on it?

Or is the whole thing a hoax? What's with the line "Diagnose a hard drive issue by copying code from Stack Overflow"?

</comment><comment><USER15> "Oops, your Javascript is not enabled." _after_ page (consisting of static text and a few images) loads and renders correctly. Why?

<comment><USER16> The site appears to be created via this service[1]. Whether it enforces javascript, I'm not sure — couldn't find evidence either way on their website — but it's obviously a poor show if they do.

[1] [https://gospaces.co.uk/](https://gospaces.co.uk/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a good product and could be useful for a lot of people. A lot of the comments here are saying they don't understand what the product is for, but I think it should be obvious to people (like myself) who have used breadboards before in the past.

But you can't just make a good site and expect for the "if you build it they will come" theory to play out. You need press. Post it in some forums to get started. Reach out to some sites that post electronics news and reviews and ask them if you can send them a free sample. Get on Twitter. Most of your overall job may be ahead of you.

<comment><USER18> > _A lot of the comments here are saying they don 't understand what the > product is for, but I think it should be obvious to people (like myself) who > have used breadboards before in the past._

Please enlighten us then. What does this board do?

<comment><USER17> With all of these questions and nobody understanding it, I'm starting to doubt myself.

But my impression was that it's like a digital breadboard emulator, but in hardware. So you essentially have a digitally programmable hardware breadboard. So as one example, normally if you would need a resistor in a circuit, instead of physically putting a resistor there of the correct strength, you can do so digitally, and you dont have to physically mess around with a resistor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Estimated Delivery: March 2017" might have something to do with it, considering its only October 2016...

</comment><comment><USER20> I just looked at the page, but I'm not interested in a circuit board at all. Why would I buy it?

Where your visitors are coming from is extremely relevant to why you have or haven't sold anything, I think.

</comment><comment><USER21> I see the prices in AUD which is a turn-off because I immediately assume it's not available in Germany.

<comment><USER22> There are a lot of comments on this thread like this and I find them sort of bizarre. If I see a price for a product like this on the internet in Euros, or pounds, or US dollars, or New Zealand dollars, I always assume that they can probably ship it to my country...

Not to say the thing can't be optimised (put 'Ships Internationally' under the button perhaps) but the idea that availability of something on a web shop would necessarily be tied to the currency its sold in is just really strange to me.

The only things I don't expect to be able to buy from overseas are certain big brand items (where they have a distribution agreement with a local company) and media streaming services (which are often geoblocked)...

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't understand what it does, or how it does it. All I get is 'breadboard without wires', and a demo, but no explanation of how it works, what it's limits are, etc, etc.

<comment><USER24> Yes, that was my feeling too. It looks like it might be very cool, but even after watching the video, I still didn't get a good feeling for what it actually can do. Also, the command-line driven interface shown in the video didn't really seem very obvious. A GUI that let you wire up your circuit and interact with it would probably appeal to more potential buyers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> 'Without Wire' has capitalisation which makes me think Wire is a programming language, but the site's talking prototyping without wire, I think.

Presumably the AUD 20 pre-order woudl be paid up front but there's no way to see who you are - the address in the copyright tag doesn't even tie to the domain name - or what the roadmap is or how progress is going. Which makes me wonder why this isn't using one of the established starter platforms.

The whole page looks disposable.

Which is a shame, as I spent a few hours recently rerouting wiring to get a prototype out of a breadboard and feel like I should be in your target audience.

<comment><USER26> There is Wireworld: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireworld](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireworld)

And a really elegant esoteric language called Funciton: [http://esolangs.org/wiki/Funciton](http://esolangs.org/wiki/Funciton)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Apart from al the useful comments below, 366 just isn't that much. Expecting someone to buy after 366 views implies a 0.273% conversion ratio.

Clearly yours is currently lower than that.

</comment><comment><USER28> The page is down right now, so I can't doublecheck, but did it say twenty Australian dollars for an exotic hardware device? Pre-order, no less? If so, it's as well for you that nobody has taken you up on that. The price needs to be an order of magnitude higher. I strongly recommend adding an extra zero before doing anything else, in case people do start biting.

</comment><comment><USER29> And, like _any_ new, hip site, it wants me to enable Javascript: "Oops, your Javascript is not enabled. To use Spaces, you need to enable Javascript in your browser first." which would be fine to provide an "enhanced experience", but a plain text explaining what you sell would have been nice.

</comment><comment><USER30> Perhaps an idea to have somebody else, who doesn't have a clue about your product to make the website explaining what the product is and why people should consider buying it.

You know the product, and you will write differently about it then a person that is unfamiliar with the product.

Other then that, all the items droithomme pointed out :)

</comment><comment><USER31> So the general structure of your video seems okay: Show a long and annoying way of doing something, then show a better way using your product.

But without narration I don't understand well enough what's going on here or why your way is better.

Agree on the AU price thing. Immediately makes me think I can't order it anyway.

</comment><comment><USER32> The block diagram image and one below it don't show up. Here is roughly what trying to load an image shows:

<Error>AccessDenied<Message>Access Denied</Message><RequestId>...</RequestId><HostId>...</HostId></Error>

</comment><comment><USER33> "Estimated Delivery: March 2017" won't be helping

</comment><comment><USER34> I read your site, found it interesting, went to check the price, saw that it wasn't shipping for another 5 months and decided to check back in March.

<comment><USER35> Which suggests a "let me know when they're available" email box would be useful.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the feedback. I have a lot of work to do, obviously, but I appreciate it.

</comment><comment><USER36> Seems sketchy given that you seem to have been taking money, now the website 404s...

</comment><comment><USER37> Did they take out the site? Points to a 404 page.

</comment><comment><USER38> 366 unique views in three days is not that high.

</comment><comment><USER39> 404</comment>


Source Code Optimization (2009) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux-kongress.org/2009/slides/compiler_survey_felix_von_leitner.pdf

<comment><USER2> I like that this article shows the generated assembly for the same source with different compilers, and the same compiler with different optimization levels. Even with C programmers, there's a discouraging trend of treating the compiler's decisions as unimpeachable. Occasionally it does a great job, but if you make a habit of looking at generated code you will quickly realize it's anything but ideal.

What this article implies, but doesn't really concentrate on, is that while one can write portable code that will produce correct results when compiled with different compilers, it's very difficult to write code that will have portable performance. A code construct that produces a 100% speedup with one compiler might just as well yield a 50% slowdown on another.

Even in C, optimizing code is largely an act of faith. One way around this, which I'm surprised is not more used, is to "lock the code down" to assembly after it is written. This doesn't mean you have to actually write anything in assembly. Rather, after you finally manage to get a compiler to produce the level of performance you want for the function that most impacts performance, you can extract the generated assembly and paste it into file, leaving your C code for portability to different processors. Given the stable x64 assembly ABI, you can usually even mix and match between compilers --- try several, and copy the code generated by the one that does best.

While this obviously won't work for different instruction sets, it works quite well for different generations of processors. CPU makers are properly concerned about making their new chips faster than the old, and thus do a fairly good job of avoiding regressions in performance. While there might be a faster method for the new chip, it's not that common find that the new chip executes identical code substantially slower. I'd usually rather bet on this than on assuming that future generations of the compiler will keep the same magic combination of instructions for the old chip while simultaneously generating new magic for the new chip.

<comment><USER3> Similarly, one can use the compiler as a CASE [0] tool and write in a HLL using the compiler and optimizer to generate assembly which can then be modified by the programmer. There are many instructions that the compiler won't use that can lead to speedups.

I used the above technique for some bit rotation code years ago, I couldn't figure out how to do it in C, so I wrote the function signature, dumped the whole thing to assembly using the compiler, removed the function body with my own routine which was trivial to write in assembler.

It would be interesting to have an application for this, that could be called as part of an optimizing build step:

* given a set of compilers (gcc,clang,icc,open64) * project the source to assembler as various optimization levels * benchmark all of them using supplied data * give a side by side view of the fastest assembly and HLL code * programmer optimizes assembly, does a benchmark test with historical runs tests for correctness and speed

The tool would be a combo text editor, historical benchmark and compiler driver. This feedback loop step could be broadcast on a website for lots of organic agents to optimize... ;)

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer- aided_software_enginee...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer- aided_software_engineering)</comment></comment>


Email may have tainted Stanford coronavirus antibody study - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Wife-s-email-may-have-tainted-Stanford-15225414.php <comment><USER3> Side question:

The very first comparison of covid-19 and seasonal flu I read (before covid-19 was called covid-19) said that covid-19 would have a mortality rate of 1.5% and seasonal flu of 3%, therefore covid-19 would be less deadly. In recent months I often read the same statement turned around, which is already confusing. Now here we talk about a tenth of the same numbers turned around.

I mean, either it's not standardized what "mortality rate" means or the numbers are all over the place and one can't really say which is more deadly.

Could someone with more knowledge in this area summarize the current status and maybe where the confusions might come from?

<comment><USER4> It's the difference between IFR and CFR. The IFR is the infection fatality rate meaning everyone in the population who has been infected. The CFR is the case fatality rate, those who are sick enough to show up at a hospital, or well, get tested and confirmed positive. Which nowadays is essentially the same and a small fraction of total cases.

We see here that flu seems to have an overall IFR rate of 0.002%. Many orders of magnitude smaller than COVID19.

[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm)

<comment><USER5> Where do you get IFR for covid19?

<comment><USER4> The IFR rate for covid-19 seems to be trending towards 0.1-0.5% based on the serological tests over entire population cohorts that are starting to be published.

<comment><USER6> I thought it was between 0.5% to 1.0%, at least according to the NYC study: [https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1253436656742305793](https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1253436656742305793)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > COVID-19 antibody testing - <USER2>

How did that email manage to get through any spam filter?

<comment><USER3> Sent by <name>@stanford.edu with host email server verifying the email came from there?

<comment><USER8> It sounds like it was sent from the researchers wife who did not work for stanford.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The problem with the Stanford study, as I understand it, is that the 95% confidence interval on the false positive rate includes 1.5%, meaning that it is not more than 95% certain that _anybody_ among the people tested was not a false positive.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972658](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972658)

</comment><comment><USER11> > A 0.35% mortality rate is still nothing to sniff at, however, as it is three > to four times deadlier than the seasonal flu (with a mortality rate of 0.1%)

Which means a response three to four times as strong as the one to the seasonal flu would be appropriate.

> and can be significantly higher for elderly residents and individuals with > underlying conditions.

Which doesn't make the pandemia any more dangerous because the risk is correspondingly lower for everyone else. In fact, it's a good thing because we could focus our efforts on protecting those who are in actual danger. We could use our functioning economy so they can avoid unnecessary contacts and to help them cope with the increased isolation, making sure they aren't part of the ~70% that will inevitably be infected.

Could.

<comment><USER12> >We could use our functioning economy so they can avoid unnecessary contacts

What economy?

[https://fortune.com/2020/04/23/us-unemployment-rate- numbers-...](https://fortune.com/2020/04/23/us-unemployment-rate-numbers- claims-this-week-total-job-losses-april-23-2020-benefits-claims/)

The US now looks worse than Greece did in 2008.

<comment><USER11> Because of the misguided response to Corona. So at least for the US, "could have" may be more correct.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: CareerCombo – Find careers that combine your different passions - <AUTHOR> http://www.careercombo.com <comment><USER2> Not giving you my email address without seeing some listings to prove this works first. I imagine others feel the same.</comment>


Explainer: the point of pure mathematics - <AUTHOR> http://theconversation.edu.au/explainer-the-point-of-pure-mathematics-2385 <comment><USER2> I am most fascinated by the topics which are at the borderline between pure and applied. Extremly pure math is a bit depressing to me: mostly extremely high amount of learning is needed to create anything interesting (math is extremely mature already) while there is no product to which you can point and say: it works! (Also, the working product can be appreciated by laymen, while a pure math paper can be appreciated by only those few who understand it.) At the other extreme of the spectrum: maintaining typical business applications in teams (originally programmed by other people) day by day is also demotivating.

That's why my personal heroes are people like John von Neumann (and Alan Turing), who both worked on pure and very practical things.

<comment><USER3> > math is extremely mature already

Though there's still enough left to be explored, even for a non-genius. But you have to find a virgin area, if you want to stand a good chance of doing something new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I kept think of Hardy's 'Mathematicians Apology' as I read this. Clearly one is a book the other is a blog, but they felt much the same to me. Enjoyed both.

</comment><comment><USER5> very nice article</comment>


Ask HN: How do you handle jealousy of well-compensated software engineers? - <AUTHOR> This post is mainly targeted at HN readers who are good at programming but are not professional software engineers, with a focus on academics and aspiring academics. I know there are plenty of us here.
Say you were exceptionally smart as a kid and dreamed of being the next Einstein, Gauss, etc. You went to a top college, by which point you should have realized that you're not really a child prodigy, but you're still among the brightest. Then you went onto a top grad school (in a non-CS field), by which point you realize you're now competing with equally smart people, and there are bound to be losers.
Meanwhile, you discovered programming at a young age and love it. By the time of your grad school career, you've been programming for north of a decade and you're pretty decent, but don't have flashy projects to show for since you've been focusing on your main academic area for the most part.
However, you have software engineer friends/acquaintances who started programming only in college, who are probably less technically capable and less passionate, who nevertheless got into FAANG or similarly well-compensated companies right out of college, pulling in six figures right off the bat.
You? Your grad school stipend is peanuts, and in a crowded field you're looking at multiple terms of postdoc even if you're modestly successful. You're nowhere near any achievement you dreamed of, the future is unclear and probably unexciting (statistically speaking), and your paycheck sucks. It's hard not to feel jealous, especially when research is going nowhere.
So, how do you deal with this? I'm interested in perspectives from both people who stayed in academia, and people who left. Other comments and observations are of course also welcome. <comment><USER3> I left academia (Computational Neuroscience) to work in Data Science.

Some of my best friends stayed in and are now postdocs (I left the PhD with the consolation master).

I'm in Europe so the difference in compensation is nowhere near as big (tech pays less here and grad school pays more) but really it's about what you want to do.

If the compensation is the most important thing then you won't be happy in grad school, equally if the research isn't fulfilling you then you might as well work in industry and earn more.

My friends who are happy in research are those who are working on things they really love (in High Energy Physics etc.) and wouldn't exchange it for the higher salaries (and less freedom) of industry.

For me, it wasn't the pay that turned me off academia but the insecurity - <USER2> can study it for years just to be cast out of the field when you can't get a permanent position and in the meantime you continually have to move which makes serious relationships very difficult.

Basically it's a compromise - I think I made the right choice, but perhaps had I better chosen my field in grad school (maybe if I had stayed in Phyiscs?) I would have preferred to stay - I certainly wouldn't say industry is always better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your point on insecurity is spot on. Your concerns are my concerns as well. Compensation is just (the most quantifiable) part of the insecurity formula that plays a greater part in my case.

Funny you mentioned hep; I happen on work on hep-th. Do I love the subject? Absolutely. Is compensation the most important thing? Absolutely not. However, I've learned over the years that appreciating other people's successful work and actually trying to build on top of that are pretty different, and the handful of successful theories I love are really built upon the (life-long) failure of thousands and thousands of nobodies, and I'm very likely to be a nobody, given that I'm not thrown of the train of nobodies in the first place. It's just natural to think that if I'm going to be a nobody, I might as well be compensated well for that (and not making my head explode all the time), like _that guy_. The thought really puts a dent on the "love", and I'm personally (maybe just me) much more prone to exchanging pure passion for something more tangible.

> higher salaries (and less freedom) of industry.

Depending on the definition of freedom, when you have a "jobby" job it's at least easy to separate work and life, whereas in academia, at least in the theoretical branches, it seems much harder to draw boundaries. (I'm not saying people in the industry don't work hard.)

By the way, glad you're happy with your decision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, I suppose.

Yes, compensation is vastly better as a software developer, _if_ you don't mind working on uninteresting rubbish in a stultifying business environment for your entire career, which is what the vast majority does. Even if you decide to value money over intellectual stimulation (I won't judge; having creature comforts is indeed comforting), there's no guarantee that compensation is going to stay that nice forever; people are literally flooding into software and that's bound to drive wages down at some point.

Personally, I'd give a lot to be in academia; I'm damned sick of the rat race.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's very stressful competition in academia, especially in early academic careers, so depending on the place and person the experience could be stultifying as well. You could also work on uninteresting (or at least unimportant) rubbish in academia, or you could work on interesting stuff that doesn't deliver; in either case you're heavily published for that. No one gives a damn about "ten years of experience" if you weren't producing quality papers on a regular basis within that period (actually, in that case ten years of experience might be worse than no experience).

> that's bound to drive wages down at some point.

Yeah. But at least in my field, the pay is guaranteed to suck in the early career (we're talking close to a decade here), and won't get that much better afterwards, assuming you're successful. Kinda hard to fall that low.

I guess it does boil down to grass greener on the other side of the fence for the most part.</comment></comment>


Show HN: We made a low-budget 'how it works' video. What do you think? - <AUTHOR>

http://youtu.be/nT8xXIdwDGo <comment><USER2> My critiques (as a film professional).

1\. The first 3 shots are very warm, then the 4th shot, a wide in the same location is cool, followed by another warm shot. Not a huge mistake, but annoying for me as it's jarring.

2\. The storytelling is a bit lacking. She seems annoyed at having no laundry, but I don't get the feeling that she's too busy for it. I'd rather see her rushing around in the morning trying to find something clean to wear. Also, once the laundry is picked up, show how busy her day is. She gets home, the laundry is delivered, then she can collapse on the couch in front of the tv or with a good book, or conversely she pulls out the little black dress from newly delivered laundry for a night out on the town. Considering the most likely customer they are either a very busy professional or someone who doesn't have to work. The latter would typically not be attracted to a representation that shows them to bored to do laundry, they imagine themselves as busy (and if children are involved often are).

And I agree that the cookie should be a surprise, don't give it away in the video.

All in all for probably very little money, you have a nice video. Nothing that's going to win awards or go viral, but it gets the point across.

<comment><USER3> #1 is above my head as a layman but #2 is right on.

<comment><USER2> Basically one shot looks to be a different color than the shots surrounding it (tending toward blue as opposed to orange or vice versa). Since they are supposed to be in the same place at the same time, they all should have the same color hue or temperature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like the video, reminds me of a porn scene with a really hot mom and hunky delivery guy, even the soundtrack sounds like a 70's porn tune. She is bored and unsatisfied with the domestic chores, but the Washio-man is coming over to deliver and put her at ease! With the innuendo of the deed in progress and completion in the form of a iPhone Washio in-progress and completion indicator. Very well done, I think it appeals a lot to the unconscious mind.

<comment><AUTHOR> no intent to do that. but now we know whats on your mind

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Congrats on the vid.

I'm interested in the use of 477 key phrases in the keywords meta tag. Is keyword stuffing no longer penalized by Google?

FYI [https://www.getwashio.com/](https://www.getwashio.com/) brings an "Insecure information" / "Connection Partially Encrypted" warning in Seamonkey / Firefox. Not a major issue but might irk some visitors.

<comment><AUTHOR> should we cut down on the tags?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Clickable link @ [http://youtu.be/nT8xXIdwDGo](http://youtu.be/nT8xXIdwDGo)

For anyone interested, this is about Washio ([https://www.getwashio.com/](https://www.getwashio.com/)), a Dryclean and Laundry Delivered service, and the video is about How it Works.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah thought of putting it in before... fixed now ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> the video, if it is self-made, is really good. possible the one or another scene i would make a little different, but generally it´s awesome.

some further thoughts: the cookie should be a surprise, and nothing which is getting usual... with such small things you can surprise your customer again and again.

when it comes to your landing page:

\- please make the button clickable.

\- make the "try now"\+ zip code entry above the fold + video smaller

\- add a price table which looks more professional

\- add a discount / free trial to the first order

\- add the notify me directly after zip input, if service not available. if you get featured somewhere in a huge magazine, you will use thousands of potential leads here.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for then input.. working to implement em.

<comment><USER7> try to dive a little deeper into usability / conversion rate optimization. I am just writing my thesis about web usability evaluation. there are tons of easy applicapable methods out there, do get a "customers view" on your own project.

Think about which questions a skeptical client could have and try to answer them.

e.g. what if my something is washed-out? satisfaction guarantee?

<comment><AUTHOR> we are big optimizely fans. New site should be release soon with much improvements. new web app and iOS coming soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When the url flashed up on screen at the end, I felt compelled to go to your site, so I'd say it worked. Very since production quality for a low-budget video. I would be highly tempted to use this service if I lived in the areas you are servicing. Nice job!

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the <3

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The video is good, but I would strongly suggest changing your brand to something whose domain you can buy. Hopefully you can get washio.com, because to be honest getwashio.com is really not a good domain. It's arguably worse than thefacebook.com.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, my first thought was to go to washio.com, then to wash.io. I would've never made the jump to getwashio.com without being told about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice job, but I thought it had a peculiar choice of music. It doesn't seem to fit the demographic or setting shown in the video.

</comment><comment><USER12> Shouldn't it read "En route" @0:35?

<comment><AUTHOR> It should, just didnt get a chance to update codebase pre shooting

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good promo video. I clicked through after I saw the cookie. Nothing like eating a cookie while someone else does your laundry lol.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks... we are taking away your stuff, so we figured enjoy something sweet till we get back 24 hrs later.

<comment><USER14> awesome. little things like this differentiate companies a lot. this can be the difference on whether they remember your brand or not! good job over all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think it's pretty professional and clear. I don't know much about video editing, but as a normal person it looks nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the input

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Slick! I'm curious, how much time and money did you spend for making this video?

<comment><AUTHOR> A few hours of filming and a few hours of edits. Our amazing ninjas graced us with their acting skills. David, the cameraman loaned us his house, camera and his mad skillz. Nicky Blitz is also a friend and was nice enough to let us use the track. All in all, there were some costs, but very minimal. Concept to youtube in one week.</comment></comment>


NSW Digital Driver Licence - <AUTHOR> https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/campaign/nsw-digital-driver-licence <comment><USER2> Can I use this without having a Google or Apple account? I guess the answer is no. It's crazy that we are allowing these duopolies to be the arbiters of so many critical functions.

Arguments like this are the strongest for forced regulation and split up IMHO.

<comment><USER3> And - just to underline this point - drivers license is the de-facto Australian ID card.

I can't think of an actual complaint against embedding US companies into what is in practice an important part of NSWs local governance; we might already do that credit and finance to some degree. But it just looks like another little step at creating a delicate system with single points of failure and unreasonably influential power-brokers.

<comment><USER4> As of the moment, the digital version can't be used as ID

<comment><USER5> "The NSW Digital Driver Licence is accepted by most pubs and clubs, and NSW Police."

Literally paragraph 3 of the article.

<comment> munk-a These are pretty informal usages, I'd be more curious if you could renew your passport using the digital driver's license.

<comment><USER6> Or open a bank account.

<comment><USER7> You can

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just happened to randomly stumble across a reverse engineering talk about this very app a couple of hours ago:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oux3tI2V0sY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oux3tI2V0sY)

<comment><USER9> The crux of the issue is that the verification only tells you if the barcode is valid. However, there are no strong relationships between the barcode and the rest of the visual content (photo, numbers, dates, etc). Therefore, one can overlay malicious data around the barcode.

The fix would be to allow the verifier to independently retrieve the license details after scanning the barcode, instead of just seeing a valid/invalid message.

<comment><USER10> In Queensland, our Police carry iPad. They can basically look you up and get your details on that iPad. I would imagine NSW Police would have something similar: scan the barcode, it verifies it's correct, and then they compare the face on the phone to the one they get on their iPad.

<comment><USER11> What is the point of each person holding a driver license at all (digital or otherwise) if the only thing that is trusted is the device of a police officer looking up an individual in a database and confirming a face match and/or passcode match?

Could a police officer just ask "I need to look up your license in the database. What is your name, date of birth and passcode so I can find your face in the database and confirm you gave me the correct passcode?"

<comment><USER12> I take it you're one of those lucky people who don't need to have the NATO phonetic alphabet rendering of their first, middle and last names memorized, because otherwise _nobody_ will get them right.

<comment><USER10> To be fair though, how do you even pronounce the name, "9nGQluzmnq3M"? ;-)

<comment><USER13> The numbers are silent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have had one of these for years in South Australia (app store release data may 2017). Our car rego is all digital as well which used to cause confusion interstate as we don't have rego stickers. I don't adopt a lot of digital technology like social media because I think it is of dubious value with potential risks but nfc payments and a digital licence lets me travel with just my phone which suits me really well. I hate carrying a wallet.

One potential issue with having this on your phone is that you are unlocking your phone and handing it to the police which could be a problem for some people. Though people can still carry a card.

<comment><USER15> The worst thing about this system is that if your battery dies, well you can't prove your identity.

I guess cops carry chargers now ?

<comment><USER16> Do you have to show your license in NSW?

In the UK we have to give our name and address, then turn up to a police station within 7 days with our license.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There was talk the permissions used were a bit worrying: [https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2019/10/nsws-digital-driver- li...](https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2019/10/nsws-digital-driver-licence-has- some-worrying-permissions/)

On Google Play it included access to Calendar, Camera, Photos, Location, Storage...

<comment><USER18> And for some strange reason, the ability to pair with Bluetooth devices. Which I have no idea why it exists, I can't find a single service that the app has access to which would require that feature.

<comment><USER19> This probably has something to do with the ISO 18013-5 standard.

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com/mobile-driver-licenses-mdl- how...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com/mobile-driver-licenses-mdl-how-to-use- iso-18013-5-5a1bbc1a37a3)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> kube-system Sounds like a creative way for law enforcement to get people to hand them their unlocked devices during a search.

<comment><USER20> There's an opportunity for mobile OSs to support this usecase with a "guest" account: lock the phone to a single app so you can hand it to a less trusted person. Also useful for toddlers gaming.

The last Android version had a weak guest mode; the current one does not seem to.

<comment><USER21> iOS has had "Guided Access" since almost forever.

Not quite a guest account, but you can use the Accessibility shortcut (from the Control Center or triple-clicking the sleep button) to quickly prevent app switching before handing a device to someone.

You can even use it to disable interaction with parts of the screen by drawing regions, or disable the hardware buttons, and set an autosleep timer.

What operating systems really need though, is a "fake OS" mode. It should display an alternative launchpad with some random apps with random photos, notes, messages etc. When someone tries to do something it should stall with poor network connectivity dialogs or other fake issues.

Maybe someone can make an app like that? :)

<comment><USER22> There's various tweaks that enable this if you're jailbroken.

<comment><USER21> Wouldn't that just shift the burden of trust upon the jailbroken apps?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Some say that New Orleans is so far behind, that it's ahead. Definitely true. The information systems in SF all feel like they were built in 2010. I've had a digital ID ([https://apps.apple.com/us/app/la- wallet/id1386930269](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/la-wallet/id1386930269)) for over a year now and it's so much more convenient when I lose my actual ID -- about 4x/year. The LA wallet has a verification system that anyone can use to verify anyone else's ID. I was in SF for blockchain week last week and I misplaced by physical ID on the way to the airport. I wanted to see a friend of mine perform at a bar in Berkeley and they wanted a physical ID. I ended up eating tasty Nepalese food next door and met up with my friends after the show because there's no digital ID in California. Once I got back to New Orleans, no-one ever batted an eye when I showed them my digital ID. I'm hoping the next step is issuing a public/private key along with the ID. It would come in handy for so many blockchainy/dapp possibilities.

I might be less ecstatic if I had a car and got pulled over and asked to show my ID. I wouldn't be comfortable handing my unlocked phone over to the state. I trust the internal walls of the mobile walled gardens more than I trust a cop.

<comment><USER24> You lose your ID 4x per year?! I lost my (British) passport once and later that same year it was in a bag that was stolen - I was warned that I wouldn't be issued with another one if it happened again. I am now super paranoid when I have to carry it, in fact now that I type this I realise I'm extra edgy because I'm about to leave for a trip in a few minutes with my passport :-O

<comment><USER25> Most countries will forgive two lost passports within a 10 year period. After that they may refuse or give you limited duration documents. This is of course at the discretion of the country issuing the documents - but if they are overly generous it will cause problems with other countries expected to accept the documents.

The main concern is they don't want a bunch of unaccounted for passports lying around. It dramatically increases the risk of fraud.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > It's illegal to access your Digital Driver Licence when driving, including > when stationary, unless you're asked to do so by a police officer. Penalties > apply.

"We made this thing you only need while driving, especially when stationary and stopped by the police, but it's illegal to do so _unless specifically requested_."

I wonder how this will be applied in reality. Will individuals stopped have to wait for the police to ask before readying their documentation without being cited in addition to whatever they were stopped for?

<comment><USER27> >We made this thing you only need while driving

Drivers licences in Australia are the de-facto ID. Including proof of age to purchase cigarettes/alcohol, many bars scan IDs as you enter in case you cause damage or start a fight. To proving identity for a variety of things including (but not limited to) new phone plans, bank accounts, etc.

Most Aussies carry their drivers licence with them everywhere.

Regarding the stationary part. Though it varies state by state, my state (Victoria) considers it an offence to use your phone while stationary. If the vehicle is legally parked and engine off you're fine. This is to cover those using their phone while stuck in traffic.

<comment> jor-el I am curious to know how the Uber/Lyft drivers operate with such laws. Often they need to access maps, how does the law apply to such drivers?

<comment><USER28> Concessions exist for operating a mounted GPS device or phone.

[https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/safety-and-road- rules/driver...](https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/safety-and-road-rules/driver- safety/mobile-phones-and-driving)

That's Victoria, similar laws in NSW. Technically though, using NFC to buy Mcdonalds in the drive through is illegal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Cool! Norway recently launched this as well [https://www.vegvesen.no/en/driving-licences/driving- licence-...](https://www.vegvesen.no/en/driving-licences/driving-licence- holders/digital-driving-licence)

</comment><comment><USER30> Is this a step towards more surveillance? I get that it doesn't have to be, but surely it brings it closer, and easier to get there.

<comment><USER31> I feel like I am pretty security conscious and thought the same thing at first. but realistically isn't all this just data the government already has on us?.

<comment><USER30> Sort of, it depends if they ask for extra permissions at some point in the future and there is not alternative option. I saw an Android screenshot showing requests for an insane amount of access - it may have been faked though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> For a moment a read NSFW Driver Licence, it would be beautiful <3

<comment><USER33> NSW stands for the New South Wales, an autonomous state in Australia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Non-rhetorical question: What's the point of this?

For many years it has been possible in many countries for a police officer to enter a vehicle's number plate and get details of the registered owner, including a photo, on the screen of their own device, one which they trust. If I'm driving a friend's car I could tell the police officer my name, the number plate of a vehicle that I am linked to or some other identifier and the officer could then look me up. Why should a driver need anything beyond a good enough memory to recite some kind of identifier?

Someone who can't remember their own name arguably shouldn't be driving.

I'm looking forward to the day when we won't need passports either. (I'm sure my great-grandchildren will find it much more convenient.)

Perhaps the point of this is that it lets you give someone else, not a police officer, temporary read-access to a subset of the data on the server. Is that it perhaps? That could be useful. For example, to a club bouncer I might choose to reveal my photo and the fact that I'm over 18 without giving away my date of birth and my address, which would be shown on my physical driving licence.

Potentially some interesting technical questions about how to stop people from using someone else's licence with the other person's collaboration: an older sibling's licence, for example.

<comment><USER35> One benefit is ultimately there would be a few million less plastic cards produced. If it successful, perhaps others states / countries rollout something similar. That could be hundreds of millions fewer plastic cards produced.

Admittedly this is unlikely a significant factor in the state governments decision making. Yet it's a benefit all the same.

<comment><USER36> That sounds nice but is it really meaningful to cut such a small amount of waste?

Consider all the other various cards which also might be digitized. Gov ID doesn't seem like the place to start, seems like maybe the one that should always have a physical form even if everything else has become digital.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've tried this out so I can report the experience. First, I can confirm the only permission requested is camera, and that's only when I first try to use the "scan a license" function. It seems like a Google Play bug that the play store allegedly shows legacy information if you click "permissions"[0] on the website, as these aren't reflected in the actual store.

Secondly, being able to press a button and get shown my current demerits is extremely useful. Last time I wanted to check this I spent a good two hours on hold on the phone.

My license expires in two weeks and this is the first I found out about it. Undoubtedly due to some bungle in the traditional system.

I can see why people are concerned, and it's not going to be accepted in clubs for a while as the scanners physically won't fit a phone.

(Having deployed those scanners a few years back, I'm frankly more concerned about their privacy situation than this app).

[0] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.gov.nsw.ser...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.gov.nsw.service&hl=en_AU)

<comment><USER14> Yes, I like being able to see my licence expiry, demerit and rego expiry all on one place.

Our rego is all digital in SA and we don't have rego stickers. I have been getting text reminders for years but sometimes you just want to check when things expire without logging into a website and navigating through lots of layers.

I expect NSW is the same but our app also takes boat licences, heavy vehicle licences, occupational licences as well as vehicle reg. I get that it isn't for everyone but it is a convenience.

For comparison: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.gov.sa.my](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.gov.sa.my)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Here in the States, Delaware and other states have also been trying mobile driver's licenses. Alarmingly to me, it seems police officers might eventually be able to remotely access the driver's license information of a person with a mobile license when the officer is physically nearby the phone, though perhaps that is less bad than having to hand over and unlock the phone outright.

You can learn more about the Delaware experiment from the same places I did:

\- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FYUU4wP9s8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FYUU4wP9s8)

\- [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation- now/2018/03/14/mo...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation- now/2018/03/14/mobile-drivers-license-allow-police-ping-cellphones-delaware- pilot-study/423336002/)

</comment><comment><USER39> Why on earth would you install an app provided by a nation/state?!

<comment><USER40> Because it's obviously more secure than letting someone access a webpage with the same functionality. /s

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I can see digital imitations coming in 3,2,1... Starting by reversing and modifying the official app. The QR might not verify (assuming network connectivity), or it might be someone else, but will it be checked? Doubtful, because it only returns a name, not a photo.

It is disappointing this is an online-only system. There is a continuation of a number of privacy violating practices, such as giving your DOB and driver's licence number to bars/clubs/venue security (often run by criminals, esp OLMCs). It should only show 18+ and a photo.

NSW Govt will now know exactly who goes to which venue, in real time. Insane surveillance of the citizenry.

Can't wait to see what data is in the real QR codes. Almost sounds like a TOTP code and a user/device serial number. Malware that rips these TOTP codes will be made and available to criminals in short order.

<comment><USER28> I'm not sure it is online-only? They do say to carry your card as a backup but also say it works offline after initial setup:

"The NSW Digital Driver Licence is available offline as long as you are logged into the Service NSW app"

[https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/campaign/nsw-digital- driver-l...](https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/campaign/nsw-digital-driver- licence/licence-holders-and-nsw-digital-driver-licence#conditions)

<comment><USER41> I took that to mean that your licence app will work offline, but not that it will validate offline.

<comment><USER28> I've set it up now just to check.

The initial setup is online. All you need to do is make an account (verified via an emailed code), log in, and enter your surname and 2 numbers on the physical license and it will download the information.

You can then go offline and still view it. There's a QR code which doesn't directly contain a URL or anything, so I'm not sure if the police need to be online to validate using it, I didn't look into it much.

It also says the last refresh time and pulling down will refresh the information however this fails when offline (the app doesn't seem to check network availability, it just tries to load forever). So I'm not sure if this is a problem.

It also seems to be really poorly optimised on Android, the UI is basically unresponsive on my phone and slows the whole system down.

Regardless needing to carry the real license as a backup is a problem, since it sounds like they'll make no concessions if you left it at home for a short drive and your phone dies.

<comment><USER41> Depressingly poor engineering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> From the rules linked here:

[https://roadsafety.transport.nsw.gov.au/stayingsafe/mobileph...](https://roadsafety.transport.nsw.gov.au/stayingsafe/mobilephones/know- the-rules.html)

> Restricted licences holders including learner, P1 and P2 drivers and riders > are not permitted to use their phone at all while driving or riding. This > includes use of hands-free and Bluetooth functions.

Am I misunderstanding this? Are they saying that teenagers with a learner's permit are prohibited from using their phones while riding in the passenger seat?

<comment><USER43> I think that refers to bicycle (and/or motorcycle?) riding - not being a passenger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I imagine it's really trivial to download the Android APK, decompile it into it's source code, modify the code, and then push the modified app back on to the phone. You can be anyone you want to be. This idea does fall apart after the officer looks up the license number on his device. Do you think this would work at taverns?

<comment><USER45> In the US I've been to plenty of bars and grocery stores with ID scanners. I'd imagine this would be no different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Wonder if this can be used as ID to get into clubs, etc? The page doesn't seem to mention it, but I doubt it would be.

<comment><USER47> YES it can be. It's there in the 3rd paragraph.

"The NSW Digital Driver Licence is accepted by most pubs and clubs, and NSW Police."

<comment><USER46> Missed that completely, thank you! Now for a certain backwards northern state to implement this so I don't have to take my wallet into gigs and nights out at all...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Colorado launched one recently as well, apparently the first US state to do it: [https://mycolorado.state.co.us/](https://mycolorado.state.co.us/)

As a CO resident I haven't really found a use for it yet. There's even a disclaimer to take your physical ID with you wherever you go.

<comment><USER49> My state has digital insurance and registration cards. I guess this is the next logical step.

But I do worry about when people get used to using these digital identification and then get pulled over after their phone battery dies or when their phone breaks on vacation or something.

A simple traffic stop with a warning suddenly becomes a day in jail while the police "verify"a person's identity.

<comment><USER50> There was a case in the UK recently where some one got a £500 fine on the train because their phone died and they could not show their electronic ticket.

I was only after the press got involved that it was over turned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> One problem I have personally encountered is I am unable to obtain a digital form of identification while my license is suspended for a speeding offence. This is more annoying than not being able to drive as I still have to carry a wallet for the 1 remaining card I can't get on my iPhone.

<comment><USER52> I have no problem with someone suspended for speeding having an extra piece of annoyance.

<comment><USER53> Really? I mean they already are suspended for driving, that is the punishment. This feels petty to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I originally read this as "NSFW Drivers License" and thought it was going to be a funny link.

</comment><comment><USER55> > The NSW Digital Driver Licence is accepted by most pubs and clubs

How to get user acceptance 101

</comment><comment><USER56> Drivers License as ID is used at a number of places in Australia including as age proof for venues serving alcohol, for phone connections and widely as a key KYC document. Carrying one less card is certainly welcome to remove the need for a wallet.

<comment><USER57> That's great until your phone gets broken or runs out of battery. Personally, I like to keep my phone, wallet, and keys as three separate things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> India has something similar for driving licenses and many other documents: [https://digilocker.gov.in/](https://digilocker.gov.in/)

</comment><comment><USER59> Looking at the conditions, this one is a bit odd:

> It's illegal to access your digital driver licence when driving, including > when stationary, unless you're asked to do so by a police officer. Penalties > apply.

So, does that mean that an officer can ask to see the license _while driving_? That's such a weird scenario!

And the part "including when stationary", does that mean that you're allow to check your digital license if you're in your care, alone, parked somewhere, without any police officer around?

Source: [https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/campaign/nsw-digital- driver-l...](https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/campaign/nsw-digital-driver- licence/licence-holders-and-nsw-digital-driver-licence#conditions)

<comment><USER52> Are you confused by phone use when driving?

<comment><USER59> What part of my comment are you answering to? I didn't express confusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Seems pretty easy to fake. Make an app that shows a photo and QA code.

<comment><USER61> The code changes continually. Also the background moves when you tilt the phone.

<comment><USER18> In this [0] PyCon talk the app is reverse-engineered, and a version that produces a fake QR code that gets verified successfully is created.

It would seem the current approach is fundamentally broken.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oux3tI2V0sY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oux3tI2V0sY)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Accepting digital licences as identification in nightclubs in QLD is entirely optional. Seems counterproductive to have a half valid form of ID.

<comment><USER63> Isn't accepting any ID in a nightclub already optional and at the discretion of the licensee? They can always turn people away as long as it's not based on a protected category can't they? How's it any different to before?

<comment><USER62> I get that, I was sober on a Wednesday at 4pm and the casino wouldn't let me in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Am I the only one who read the title in HN and saw "NSFW Digital Driver Licence"?

</comment><comment><USER65> The QR code updates - is that online or using a "secret" stored on the phone?

Sounds fun for the <18 kids.

<comment><USER66> May I ask what this would make easier for <kids?

I can think of clubs scannings IDs, but scanners only store identification details for some period of time, until they're deleted, and not compared against a database. [0] A spoofable/transferable QR code could contain all the information normally scanned on a license plus information unique to each code refresh.

I'd love to hear what the other implications of this could be if I'm missing something.

[0] [https://www.liquorandgaming.nsw.gov.au/operating-a- business/...](https://www.liquorandgaming.nsw.gov.au/operating-a- business/liquor-licences/liquor-licence-conditions-and-precincts/id-scanners)

<comment><USER65> I was thinking if they're used offline at a bottle shop, it's a lot easier to seamlessly alter a date of birth or photo on a phone app than a physical license.

Also makes it easier to share an older sibling's ID.

<comment><USER67> Not really. If the offline license is in a digital format (QR code, etc) it can still be checked whether it's been signed by a trusted authority (the state's digital certificate, etc).

So you can very well have an offline system where the documents are signed during enrolment but then stored offline.

<comment><USER41> Unfortunately that does not seem to be what they have done, i.e. no signatures involved.

<comment><USER67> In this case it's a problem with the current implementation, but does not prevent a proper implementation from existing in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_Australia)</comment>