Ask HN: iTunes vs Device Earnings? - <AUTHOR> Does anyone know how much Apple makes (earnings, not revenues) from iTunes vs the physical devices they sell? <comment><USER2> If you believe that they make $200 per iPhone and have sold 35M iPhones, that'd be about 7 billion in earnings. It's a bit weird because they take the earnings over 2 years per device (or something close to that). Most estimates on profit per song sold are around 10 cents ([http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/04/23/itunes_store_a...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/04/23/itunes_store_a_greater_cash_crop_than_apple_implies.html)), and they'd sold 6 billion songs by the beginning of this year. App Store sales are probably not significant here, although they're critical to why they sell so much hardware. I've read stuff that earnings to Apple are less than 100M.

So, say 7B for iPhone (alone, not counting iPods!!) earnings and 700M for iTunes.

EDIT: several people have suggested to me that in fact Apple makes closer to 400 than 200 per iPhone when you take into account revenue shares and all subsidies. strikes me as high.

<comment><USER3> * It's a bit weird because they take the earnings over 2 years per device*

That's not really weird, it's standard accounting. iPhone sales are linked to two year contracts. The sale isn't "complete" legally until all contractual obligations are satisfied, thus the deferred revenue recognition.

I had a sales person give 2 extra "free" years of hardware warranty, which in short caused that revenue recognition to be deferred until all contract obligations were met.

<comment><USER4> Fascinating - do you know if it's possible/feasible to do this if you're doing projects and contract work? Any ideas on what kind of view is taken of offering some long term support/warranty/guarantee and taking your earnings over two years? Any articles or insight would be very much appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Based on: [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/06/itunes- sells-6-billion-...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/06/itunes- sells-6-billion-songs-and-other-fun-stats-from-the-philnote/)

iTunes has sold 6 billion songs. That probably includes full album sales as well as singles. Guessing an average per-track price of 80 cents then, or 4.8 billion in revenue.

According to: [http://18.104.22.168/search?q=cache:OuySBgKhHGIJ:www.applei...](http://220.127.116.11/search?q=cache:OuySBgKhHGIJ:www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/04/23/itunes_store_a_greater_cash_crop_than_apple_implies.html+apple+itunes+profit+per+song&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

It looks like they make about 10 cents per song, so they've earned about 400-600million from iTunes sales.

Other online stats point to about 220million iPod/iPhone devices sold, the vast majority of that number being iPods.

I am going to _guess_ that they have a pretty decent margin on iPods, 50% at least. An average iPod is probably $200, figure $50-$100 in profit per iPod and they've easily made 10-20+ billion on iPod sales.

Even in the extreme best case/worst case scenario, they've earned at least 2x from hardware vs album sales.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's hard to tell where revenue comes from by looking at their earnings reports, since they aren't broken down by product/service (<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/07/21results.html>). Clearly they make more from selling Macs, but if you did a strict iPod/iPhone vs iTunes, it would be close.</comment>


LulzSec: Why we do what we do - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/HZtH523f <comment><USER4> OK, so for the remaining 3 people out there who were pathologically not paying attention, computer hacking is easy. The state of computer security is poor. Lulzsec deserves a medal and a chest to pin it on for breaking this news to all of the people who don't have a facebook account, have never been on irc, didn't see the movie wargames, don't know anyone who plays world of warcraft, has never read the new york times, has never heard of china and has never heard anyone utter the word "stuxnet".

For the rest of us, it's pretty tedious.

There's another situation that fits the general parameters of what they describe. Almost no one is protected against it. Being a gunshot victim.

At least in the US, pretty much anyone can get their hands on a handgun either legally or illegally. Almost anyone can use one with a bare minimum of instruction. And almost no one is protected - if you pick a name out of a hat of all america, pretty much any possible outcome will be dead easy to track down, stalk, find the right opportunity and shoot dead. And a vanishingly small numbers of shooters make an announcement about the whole incident on the Internet.

But, all that said, if you go around shooting people for no real reason and bragging about it you're assuredly a psycopathic asshole.

<comment><USER5> The gunshot analogy fails hard. LulzSec pre-empted at least half of it, by stressing how harm occurs quietly all the time. Data gets stolen or destroyed and we just don't know it.

Unlike gunshot wound, where a person lands in a hospital, or morgue, or goes missing, data can be, and indeed is, copied quietly. Of gunshots, people are informed most of the time; of security breaches, barely ever. Cops investigate most gunshots, but do they know of most security breaches?

The big hope is the press will at last start paying attention to (in)security of our data. Thus the headline-grabbing tactics.

The other half is that corporations don't shoot people, people shoot people. And to the wit, people don't store 200.000 bank accounts on a web server, corporations do. You can -- and should -- hold corporations to a somewhat higher standard when it comes to affording decent protection for customers. It's no coincidence LulzSec weren't after granny-loves-her-cat blogs, but after commercial services.

<comment><USER6> Corporations most definitely shoot people... <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military>

<comment><USER7> This is what I mean when I say that bad conversation drives out good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I agree with showing how poorly secured websites are and how easily our information is distributed even when we think it's private.

What I don't agree with is their use of DDoS attacks against sites like cia.gov.

DDoS attacks are pointless. All they point out is how a site has limited resources for dealing with so many concurrent connections.

Sites should deploy onto an infrastructure they feel is adequate to deal with the expected load plus some additional room for growth and spikes.

I'm sure the cia.gov doesn't get hit very hard on a normal day so they didn't go crazy on infrastructure which is understandable. A DDoS proves nothing and prevents people from accessing data.

If you're going to hack, please wear a white or grey hat.

<comment><USER9> There is a need to develop systems that aren't subject to DDOS (at least the current generation). It used to be very easy to DOS anyone's _network stack_ (think SYN flooding). If people hadn't shown that it was an issue by doing it, the Internet would still be running on stacks that were trivial to undermine many different ways. Saying that something is easy to do and has a tremendous impact is an engineering problem statement. Demonstrating it shows that it's also a business problem. This is how things get fixed, when people get tired of being instantly knocked of the Internet by .4% of the LulzSec DDOS capacity. The Internet still has some basic problems, ignoring them won't make it go away.

<comment><USER10> See, is there a practical way to "fix" the problem behind a DDOS? More specific attacks (slowloris, SYN flood, ping of death, smurf, and a laundry list of other stuff) can be fixed by simply introducing changes to the infrastructure that makes such things possible.

But a DDOS attack is, at heart, nothing more than a brute-force attack - flooding a single website / IP with so much traffic that it can't respond. No matter how much fancy technology you add, if you have a 100Mbps link, and someone's sending 1Gbps of data at you, you're out of luck.

And, yes, I realize that there are companies that specialize in protecting against DDOS attacks - generally, they move content to a CDN and use some intelligent filtering to drop packets (i.e. people that request multiple times in succession, etc.). But this still is reliant on the fact that their connections are large enough that they can actually process all this data.

If a large country decided to use all it's available Internet bandwidth to DDOS, there's not much anyone can do about it.

In short: DDOS attacks will likely always be around - they might require higher bandwidth (country-scale or thereabouts), but it's not "fixable".

<comment><USER9> So let's think about how traffic gets onto the network and what steps might make sense to limit that. I have some "crazy" ideas about this including per device reputation enforced as close to the device as possible. Yes, if we say that anyone with any sort of device can send data to anyone then this will be a problem. There are other options including different sorts of "darknet" type things. Are there no "outside the box" type solutions that you can think through the tradeoffs for? I think the underlying assumption you're working with, that anyone anywhere on the network should be able to drop an unlimited amount of data onto the link headed to me as a rule of how things must forever work needs to be justified.

<comment><USER11> It'd need the help of browsers or OS's (depending on where in the stack you put the logic), but one idea might be to require requests/packets to be signed by something that proves a sufficient amount of CPU work has been done (ala bitcoin). If the site comes under attack, they could turn this on (presumably with a middle-man service that can take high bandwidth) and up the amount of work required to reach the destination. This would no doubt slow things for the legitimate users, but it could make things much more difficult for the attackers.

<comment><USER12> This really doesn't solve the DDOS problem though. It's throwing more CPU time and bandwidth at a scenario that already requires both of those. It can slow a small group of script kiddies making a thousand requests to your server per second, but it doesn't stop an actual distributed attack using a botnet or large numbers of machines.

If you're adding the signatures, you presumably need to spend CPU time to authenticate it, and bandwidth to send the data, plus the actual content. Why not just have the middle-man soak up the extra requests, cache the data, and fan it out that way?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >People who can make things work better within this rectangle have power over others; the whitehats who charge $10,000 for something we could teach you how to do over the course of a weekend, providing you aren't mentally disabled.

This is a common complaint among blackhats: they see whitehats as being in the game for the money and taking advantage of the unenlightened as much as they [the blackhats] themselves do.

I don't really know what to make of it.

<comment><USER14> Blackhats can cost organizations way more than whitehats would charge in operating costs, personal identity theft, and reputation.

Whitehats are only taking advantage of the unenlightened as much as a mechanic is taking advantage of someone who doesn't know anything about cars - <USER2> provide experience and expertise and offer a service for a high price - <USER3> least, a higher price than if the client knew how to fix it themselves.

<comment><USER15> I love it when the economically illiterate attack others for "price gouging" as if the third party doesn't have a choice in the matter or they aren't "unenlightened" enough to properly appraise the value of what they are buying.

How do I know that my jeweler isn't gouging me on my fiancee's 2 caret diamond ring? Because I know that there's a fixed quantity of available diamonds, and almost everyone would buy them at a given price. And if I need to verify that, I can go to the jeweler down the street. Everyone would buy security consulting at a given price, but that quantity is even more limited than 2 caret diamonds.

Why is my house worth a third less than what it was 3 years ago? Because there's at least a third fewer potential buyers than there was when I bought it. I wasn't "price gouged" or fooled in either instance.

Whitehats specialize in security and it frees up our time to specialize and produce excess value for others. It's not a conspiracy. If Steve Jobs and LeBron James aren't tricking people into giving them money, neither are whitehats. It's the free market and, believe it or not, it produces wealth.

<comment><USER16> Funny that you use diamonds as an example, when the diamond market is one of the most rigged institutions on the planet.

Your jeweler is _always_ gouging you when you buy diamonds.

<comment><USER15> Just because a cartel exists somewhere in the supply chain doesn't mean I have to participate in the transaction or my perceived value of it is artificially inflated. The two caret ring was just hypothetical, but there are plenty men who value those rings more than the asking price, and their wives appreciate that. (at least the sensible ones do)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Adorable. They're bullies and proud of it. It's one thing to call out security exploits, and quite another to take great joy in causing others pain.

<comment><USER18> > to take great joy in causing others pain

This happens far more often than people realise.

<comment><USER19> Still does not make it okay.

<comment><USER20> What if you're a second-generation schaudenfreudist? I take pleasure in the pain of those that take pleasure in the pain of others.

<comment><USER21> I think that's called Schadenfreudefreude, or perhaps Schadenfreude^2

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> And I just realized what it is about LuLzSec that's bothered me. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but now I realize deep down they are nihilists.

That's a damn shame.

What seemed most admirable about Anonymous is that as much as they were also in it for lulz and pure chaos, underneath there seemed to be a kind of idealism. Idealism is seductive, nihilism is off-putting.

<comment><USER23> Or maybe that Anonymous idealism was a fraud and lulz, as peers, could see the hypocrisy much clearer, as everybody in their community likely do what they do because of the thrills and ignoring the pain caused. Lulz admitting it is likely taking the high road? or is that too tortured as twist.

<comment><USER22> Perhaps anon was also pure lulz with absolutely nothing else behind it. But I vaguely recall their writing to be strongly pro freedom. And their most prominent vandalisms seemed to be an attempt to make a point about basic rights and freedoms.

When LuLzSec state that they don't care, and don't even care if they get arrested, that's definitely nihilistic and kind of sad.

Certainly they too in their juvenile ways were close to making a good point. A point about shocking incompetence when handling and storing sensitive customer data. A point about unethical behavior in government. And I believe them when they say they have stuff that they've chosen not to release. So they are not in fact true sociopaths or true nihilists. I guess that makes it even sadder when they say they don't care about anything but lulz.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Raise your hand if you're hesitant to write what's on your mind for fear of receiving some special attention from Anonymous, LulzSec, and friends.

<comment><USER9> The impact of their attacks has more been a strong motivation to "get my house in order". I'd been using LastPass for some time but decided that I should get the YubiKey for two factor auth. I also started becoming quite a bit more vocal at work about the sorts of things it might be a good idea to take a closer look at. This is a wake up call for what's already happening. They just decided to do it and tell the public instead of sitting, waiting, and letting people continue to feel safe. If there's danger and it's at your doorstep, it's good to feel not safe.

<comment><USER25> Wasn't LastPass hacked earlier this year?

<comment><USER9> They saw some things they believed might be brute force attacks against weak passwords, so they reset the passwords of people who the attempts had been directed against. They also changed they way they handled repeated password failures to be even more strick. The basic database was not compromised and the passwords in the database are encrypted with the master password for the account so they'd have to be broken account by account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This smells to me like a hastily conjured rationalization for a series of attention-seeking acts wrought by a small group of disenfranchised industry workers who have something to say, but they're just not articulate enough to voice it so they blow shit up instead.

<comment><USER7> _a small group of disenfranchised industry workers_

Do you really think they're industry workers? I'd peg most of them as high school kids. Probably with the occasional creepy thirty-something thrown in for good measure.

<comment><USER27> exactly. high schools have a strong envy for anarchy - trying stuff for fun. I think most readers here went through that phase and forgot about it. Flirting with the borders is fun. We were not realizing the consequence of our acts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why we do what we do: We're 15, unsupervised, and behaving badly.

Do they really need a manifesto?

<comment><USER29> This missive strongly reeks of teen spirit. Guess we'll find out when the FBI perp walks them in front of the cameras.

<comment><USER30> No one that young would have the capacity to understand some of the contextual references required to write this piece. If you pay attention to the way LulzSec writes and words things, they aren't at all immature in their thinking or worldview. Ceasing to give a fuck about perceived trivialities is something that comes with age and seeing how the world really works. The confidence they have came with age as well. Neither is not a sign of youth whatsoever.

I'd guess mid-thirties for these guys, at least for whomever is putting out their twitter updates. This is someone who is basically immune to white- knighting and is a truly hard-core realist. It takes quite a while for someone reasonably intelligent to become that cynical, and then a while longer for them to act on it.

Anyway, I'm a fan of these guys. While I wouldn't do what they are doing myself, I certainly understand the mindset. I'm not quite sure I understand the arguments against what they're doing. The knee-jerk reactions of wanting to call them wrong frequently seem more immature to me than their recent campaigns. The real world is messy, and LulzSec's work is a valid reflection of that.

As far as the comparisons to sociopathic thinking, that's just ignorant. Sociopaths generally don't care about anyone but themselves and that's obviously not the case here. A sociopath would never release any of this data, and would simply use it for their own advantage, regardless of who was harmed.

LulzSec is gleaning entertainment here from the unwashed masses to be sure, but they aren't out there enslaving people with debt, indoctrinating them with religion, shooting them for protesting, putting them in cages for drug offenses, etc. All of which is completely legal, and in my opinion, far more sociopathic than releasing some bit personal data or playing a few practical jokes on people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Might want to change the title to something like "LulzSec actually had a point after all." They do, too, an even better one than I expected. Not only are they making a point about how terrible security is ("Do you think every hacker announces everything they've hacked?"), but they've also called out the internet on its generally abysmal attention span. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd had this written on day zero.

<comment><USER32> That's not the most important thing I took away from the submitted link.

To me, the important thing is that LulzSec says that it derives _pleasure_ from causing _harm_ to people -- like the people who used to add poison to bottles of Tylenol, package the Tylenol back up again and place it back on the supermarket shelf. Although they could be saying that to cover up their real agenda, most writers (and especially most writers who have the tech skills needed to do what LulzSec has done) could not fake an admission of this sort as well as this text would have to have been faked.

Since it is natural human behavior to rationalize an antisocial motivation with a more socially-acceptable cover story, you would expect LulzSec to say things like, "We are doing this to bring public attention to how terrible security is." But if it is a rationalization, and it sure seems that way to me, surely it would be a mistake to focus on it and not the true motivations.

>they've also called out the internet on its generally abysmal attention span.

What an surprizing interpretation! I interpreted the parts about boredom as a continuation of the author's honestly disclosing his own motivations, not anything about internet users in general.

<comment><USER33> Lets not overblow things. They don't kill random people, they carry out pranks which can cause emotional and maybe financial distress, that's all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Initially I thought the disclosure argument they made was weak (we hack stuff because when we announce it similar companies will be more careful) because unless they cause enough trouble to make security an immediate priority for a given non-targeted company, then it's unlikely that they will overcome that company's inertia.

However I realised that I have become significantly more careful with password reuse now because there are no companies I absolutely trust to keep my information from leaking out.

</comment><comment><USER35> LulzSec seems to be just a group of teenagers that have actually nothing special to say. As they want to be like the grown-ups, they try to add a message behind their acts, but there is no message, no morality. If they were real hackers and not only prepubescent teens, they would not justify their action by any manifest, they would just act, no matter what people say or think. Their vocabulary is also proper teen vocabulary : "bitches" "mentally disabled" "evil bastards" "we nom nom nom, we move onto something else that's yummier" "unimpressed zombie""Watching someone's Facebook picture turn into a penis and seeing their sister's shocked response is priceless" "Receiving angry emails from the man you just sent 10 dildos to because he can't secure his Amazon password is priceless.". They don't know how to write, their sentences are full of repetitiveness, the vocabulary is poor.

LulzSec is just a group of teenagers (or someone alone). And they are really really funny. (This is not a compliment..)

</comment><comment><USER36> When are the internet tough guys of the world going to tighten up their prose? This third-rate Patrick Bateman routine is so fucking old at this point. There is no easier way to mark yourself as a barely socialized child barely capable of any critical thought than to try out that ridiculous, outdated, unconvincing pose at being this cynical, wise, best-informed übermensch above all morals. It's not a good look.

</comment><comment><USER37> From what I've been reading the attacks were not sophisticated, mainly using SQL injection. Many here on HN understand that kind of threat but it seems lots of companies and important services don't. Is it possible that the attention shone on these simple/trivial hacks will cause those less security conscious admins to get rid of that low hanging fruit?

If so, it should help reduce the impact of a broad, simultaneous attack across many sites from much more dangerous foes. I am not saying it is right, but it may be more effective than the legislation our congress comes up with to protect us, with fewer nasty side effects.

</comment><comment><USER38> This thing must be fake. I thought they were doing it for the lulz.

</comment><comment><USER39> How do we enforce that these companies (such as banks) utilize proper security protocol (within reason of course)?

Some would say, "With your wallet!". But what happens when it's your wallet that gets stolen (electronically)?

What do you think?

<comment><USER40> Unfortunately, I've never seen "vote with your wallet" concept work[1], neither in the Internet, nor in real life. When a company misbehaves, there's usually a big group of their customers which doesn't know about it, and another (maybe little smaller) group, that doesn't care at all (or enough[2]). It's an interesting issue I have no idea how to fix...

[1] - if you know any examples, I'd be glad to hear them.

[2] - "Maybe this company is bad, but hell, the competition is 10 minutes further walking from me...", etc.

<comment><USER41> In real life: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinvestment_from_South_Africa>

<comment><USER40> Thank you for the example.

Still, it seems to have taken a lot of convincing of people and companies before it started to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> When it comes to security, you run into IT departments being the red headed step children of the corporation and NIMBY (not in my backyard). It's a lot easier and cheaper to stick your head in the sand and pretend nothing is happening or you have some mitigating factor that discourages people from going after you be it size (miniscule for instance), participating in a niche market, etc. It's a lot easier and cheaper to do an ostrich than actually spend the money on decent security.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is classic psychopathic behavior. Instead of torturing people physically to see them squirm they're doing it digitally, but the same lack of empathy is there.

</comment><comment><USER44> Why is this text the first one from Anonymous et al. that doesn't move me, at all? They sound odd, using a "we" to include all 'digital natives' while I never heard anyone under 25 use "we" before; they mention (two girlfriend's) faces on MSN, but I never heard of a webcam on MSN; I never heard of anyone actually enjoying a show call it "we want our shot of entertainment".

</comment><comment><USER45> Just a question: if all they were doing was manipulating URLs (and I know they've moved beyond that) would they be doing anything illegal?

<comment><USER46> Yes. If I leave the door to my house unlocked, it doesn't mean that it is ok for you to come in without my permission.

<comment><USER47> Morally, it's also not just _how_ you break in, but what you do afterwards. I.e. if you prevent more harm than you do.

If you enter the unlocked door and write "HI YOU FORGOT TO LOCK YOUR DOOR" with lipstick on the bathroom window, you're alerting the owner to a bad security practice by giving them a good scare. It is A Good Thing, because you likely prevented them losing their stuff.

If you enter the unlocked door and start smashing and stealing stuff, you are technically still alerting the owner to a bad security pracice, but it is now A Bad Thing. By "being" the worst case, you only guaranteed something that was only _likely_ to happen.

<comment><USER46> Morally, I agree completely. But I'm afraid that the legal system may not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This just reeks of arrogance

</comment><comment><USER49> They need to bring in someone who can write without seeming like a 12 year old who grew up on 4chan.

</comment><comment><USER50> Their campaign is about reaching out, eliciting a response, and then reveling in the emotional connection they've created with another anonymous soul across this tangled mass of copper and silicon.

In other words, for the lulz.

</comment><comment><USER51> This seems so fishy. Perfect timing considering the last 24 months events. I think it was unavoidable and we'll have to face it and get ready for the consequences.

</comment><comment><USER52> Who else has a hunch they don't yet have access to Brink accounts, but instead have access to log files that would reveal password when users now change them?

</comment><comment><USER53> whatever is their excuse to hack companies it is illegal , it is a crime and should be punished . if they want to pay attention for security, then they can establish organization and give away free courses about security and privacy in legal way instead of breaking laws and stealing people information . black hat methods would never be agreed to improve security and privacy ..

</comment><comment><USER54> I think we have found the LulzSec hacker manifesto.

</comment><comment><USER55> "This is the lulz lizard era"

Yes it is. What the fuck is it? Nightowl would be more believable, and true.

</comment><comment><USER56> > "suggests...our actions are causing clowns with pens to write new rules for > you. But what if we just hadn't released anything? What if we were silent? > That would mean we would be secretly inside FBI affiliates right now, inside > PBS, inside Sony... watching... abusing..."

Isn't that happening right now and by the people with pens?

</comment><comment><USER57> Hey, if people really want a secure internet I believe the government would be more than willing to lock it down for us.

That's all that's going to happen as kids like Assange and Lulzsec keep up with their criminal shenanigans. Governments are going to say, "Enough is enough!" and lock it down like in China.

</comment><comment><USER58> We don't care. Just stop please.

</comment><comment><USER59> The last line got me a giggle

</comment><comment><USER60> this kids should be punished by pulling their ear. or beating them with branch. they're too young for prison

</comment><comment><USER61> Any wall can be broken, but it doesnt mean that anyone who breaks a wall is a hero. What wonders me more why did China infiltrate the group ?

</comment><comment><USER62> They seem somewhat clueless..

If the NSA can partner with ISPs to scan internet traffic for phishing, viruses, etc ...the obvious next step is Lulzsec mentions or member mentions...in IRC, email, etc..

There is no such thing as hiding when attacking the internet, sooner or later you become the bitch

<comment><USER18> It's good for the NSA that there's no way to securely communicate over an insecure medium. It's also convenient that all Internet infrastructure exists inside the USA.

<comment><USER63> You are being ironic. It actually _is_ possible to communicate securely over an insecure medium, and not all the internet's infrastructure is in the USA. Am I right?

<comment><USER18> Your sarcasm detector is working normally. :) Not sure why your irony detector is going off, though.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What you should do in your first 5 mins of a new server install - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.timbrook.im/your-first-5-mins-with-a-new-server/ <comment><USER2> I'm a big proponent of changing the SSH port. That right there makes life a lot easier when dealing with brute force attempts.

You can also make an IP tables taste limit on that port.

<comment><AUTHOR> My only excuse for not changing port is workflow, needing to add the flag or : on the address is too much :P

<comment><USER3> that's what the .ssh/config file is for

<comment><USER2> Wow, I never knew that was possible from the SSH config [0]. Thanks for the pointer! Time to update all of my settings!

[0] - [http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/create-ssh-config-file-on- linux...](http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/create-ssh-config-file-on-linux-unix/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cliff Bleszinski's Game Developer Flashcards - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/175586/cliff_bleszinskis_game_developer_.php

<comment><USER2> That url doesn't work for me. Here is the google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dd1yD0u...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dd1yD0uTtvAJ:www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/175586/cliff_bleszinskis_game_developer_.php+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

<comment><USER3> The print version works for me, and it has all three pages: [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/175586/cliff_bleszinsk...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/175586/cliff_bleszinskis_game_developer_.php?print=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I found some of the titles very relatable.</comment>


Show HN: A tool that Preview and Prepare your Product Hunt submission - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/posts/preview-hunt <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN.

I with my friend made a tool called Preview Hunt. It's a 2-panel editor that can help you Preview and Prepare your Product Hunt submission. You can edit and preview all content in the real-time and download it when it will be ready. So now we can prepare content for our launches upfront.

Let me know what do you think. Could it be useful for your future launches?

</comment><comment><USER2> This couldn't come at a better time as I plan to launch something pretty soon on PH. My last launch was a disaster where my post was just, erm, substandard for hours before I realised. Suffice to say it didn't do well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Direct link [https://previewhunt.com/](https://previewhunt.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Great stuff. Will use it for my next launch.</comment>


Startup Quote: Dave McClure, founder, 500 Startups - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/2874167960

<comment><AUTHOR> For the most effective pitch, focus 80% on the problem, 20% on the solution.

\- Dave McClure (@davemcclure)

<http://startupquote.com/post/2874167960></comment>


Buy, sell, send and receive Bitcoin Cash on Coinbase - <AUTHOR> https://blog.coinbase.com/buy-sell-send-and-receive-bitcoin-cash-on-coinbase-65f1b2c7214b <comment><USER2> Why is anyone surprised by this? Coinbase sent an email out months ago saying they'd do this by Jan 1, 2018.

        Dear Coinbase customer,

        ...
        We are planning to have support for bitcoin cash by
        January 1, 2018, assuming no additional risks emerge
        during that time.
        ...

        Thank you,

        Coinbase Team

Am I crazy?

Edit: let me answer those who think I am crazy. BTC literally tripled overnight a few weeks ago when there was "speculation" about futures contracts. Price swings in the crypto world happen over the least sensible things. My assumption was that the news from Coinbase was actually helping prop up BCH all this time, and that may have been true. I guess I took for granted that it was a sure thing.

<comment><USER3> > assuming no additional risks emerge

The letter was simply a possible notion. No guarantee. Why not send out another letter saying they were going to release it on this day?

I know why, because they wanted to manipulate the market.

<comment><USER2> I thought it was pretty obvious if they committed to giving people their BCH balance they'd have to at least halfway support it. Plus, they never reported any setbacks. The people I talk crypto with and myself are already busy trying to guess what will make it on Coinbase/GDAX after BCH. If this development is any indicator, we're wasting our time since we can just wait until they announce and buy in the period between announcement and launch (assuming they announce the next one before launching it).

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure that they'll announce the next one. I think BCH was a bit of an anomaly i this regard. At the time of the fork, Coinbase announced that they wouldn't support BCH, and then in response to the outcry, changed course and said that they would.

I'm not so sure they'll do the same with upcoming additions. I do definitely see the merit of trying to guess their next move though, as there seems to be a lot of money in Coinbase just chasing whatever comes up in hopes that it will also go to 20,000/coin

<comment><USER5> There is an interview with the new CEO saying that they have a formal review process for adding new 'currencies' and BCH is simply first in line. Having many cryptos adds legitimacy, whether there is one underneath or not.. THey can say oh BTC, BCH, LTC all crashed, but ETH only crashed by 150% so cryptocurrencies are still viable (even when they are not)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So if I sell my newfound BCH today, which was birthed from thin air a few months ago, but originates from BTC I bought years ago, is it short term capital gains or long term?

<comment><USER7> [https://bitcoin.tax/blog/how-to-tax-bitcoin-cash- bch/](https://bitcoin.tax/blog/how-to-tax-bitcoin-cash-bch/)

What if you had no interest in BCH but you owned 1,000 BTC. Do you suddenly have a $277,000 income tax bill?

Yes, as discussed by Tyson Cross, tax attorney at BitcoinTaxSolutions.com. Since you have accession to wealth then this is taxable income.

<comment><USER8> Here is a counter point I would argue. Anyone can make a Bitcoin fork, in fact Bitcoin forks are being made every week now. Is every Bitcoin holder now liable for that?

Also these forks often collapse, so when was the income gain? The same day? You'd have people owing more tax than their entire net worth. (Forks often pump in the first day/week then drop to nothing.)

If this is possible then you could attack every Bitcoin holder by making millions of forks each day and making lots of trades to give each fork real value. If you don't declare each fork you end up getting penalties.

I would imagine a more sane way to deal with this is like how the ATO deals with Bitcoin mining. You mine Bitcoin but it's not realized until transferred to a third party.

I would argue the same for forks.

A fork is made, you have coins. But it's not like you received those coins. Technically you always had them as they are old coins just now on a different chain. If you sell the coins then it's a gain that you owe tax on.

But forcing each user to track every fork as income is impractical and not viable. You'll see more of this as thousands of forks come into existence over the coming years.

This is something I would actually look into getting a private ruling about.

<comment><USER9> Wouldn't it not count as income until you sold it for USD? In which case you wouldn't be liable for every fork, just the ones you benefitted from.

<comment><USER10> That's the way it's treated in UK law, but apparently in the US, you're liable for the tax as soon as you have access to the asset. I think the same thing causes people problems with stock options. Seems like an odd bit of legislation.

<comment><USER9> Hmm, are you sure? I thought that if you held bitcoin for over a year, it would be taxed as capital gains? Meaning you don't realize the value until you sell it?

<comment><USER11> I think the key difference is that the initial value is not gains, it's much more like income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It is interesting to see all the people up in arms here. Everyone here is assuming that no one knew that Coinbase was going to add Bitcoin Cash. That simply isn't true.

For the last two months, they have said they plan to add it. In fact, Bitcoin Cash was about 280 dollars and it was common knowledge Coinbase was going to support it. You, the employees, and everyone else could have loaded up if you wanted to.

Lastly, there is no real incentive for employees to load up on BCH to make a quick buck. In the first seconds of trading a massive sell wall of 12,000 orders emerged and that would drive the price down dramatically.

<comment><USER13> I was watching the sell wall, and it built up to 12,000 slowly over the period of at least 45 minutes, probably because the ticker price said $8499 on Coinbase.

Where this all starts to smell a little funny is how badly and strangely this was rolled out, how they allowed some trades, and how the price crept up 50-100% before the announcement. Someone said they accidentally released some bitcoin cash UI feature that tipped people off a few days ago. More incompetence.

<comment><USER14> They did release an API for BCH, which makes sense to release early, for merchants.

I don't know of UI slips, but that'd be incompetente, yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I sent out my bictoin cash to a wallet and the transaction url gives me a 404. Coinbase posted this message on their page : "Partially Degraded Service: Outgoing Bitcoin Cash transactions are currently not being sent. Our team is investigating."

</comment><comment><USER16> Coinbase announces support for a cryptocurrency and the price skyrockets. I can't believe people just start to buy a cryptocurrency because they suddenly can more easily.

<comment><USER17> It's also a vote of confidence. Many people, including me, assumed that Bitcoin Cash would rapidly become worthless and sold it off immediately. Having the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world support it means it may actually hang around for a while.

<comment><USER18> If I may ask... Why did you have this assumption? I'm asking you specifically because like you said many sold their Bitcoin Cash.

I suspect those who didn't were mostly the ones with deeper insight of the underlying technology. When the fork occurred full blocks had already been a problem for well over a year. Segwit was not the solution and overcomplicated the blockchain. This is not debatable anymore. Bitcoin Cash abolished this "overengineering" and simply increased the block size. Disabled RBF making 0-confirmations a thing again. And lastly just recently fixed the DAA. Many think that Bitcoin Cash is closer to the original whitepaper by Satoshi. I'd argue that is true.

Currently the Bitcoin has had 100k+ unconfirmed transactions for weeks... and a ever growing mempool. You cannot transact or move your coins confidently without paying large fees. 500 satoshis/byte or about 30 dollars. The original vision is completely destroyed. Sentences like "store of value" are now the term used to describe Bitcoin. Very far from what the Bitcoin used to be. [https://bitcoin.org/en/](https://bitcoin.org/en/) is little more but a lie now.

<comment><USER19> Increasing the block size doesn't seem to me like a long-term solution for Bitcoin's scalability problem. From the tone of your post though, it seems like you're mind is unlikely to be changed about Bitcoin Cash.

<comment><USER20> Can you elaborate on why you think that increasing the block size doesn't seem like a solution for scaling?

<comment><USER21> For the same reason we do not make bigger cars when we want to go to space.

<comment><USER20> That is not a good comparison to the situation. Cars and outer space have nothing to do with each other at all. Whereas the number of transactions is directly impacted by the available size on the block that they consume.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I suspect they have some fixing to do yet... common prices listed on indexes are ~$3,539.82 USD at the moment. Coinbase UI has the UI pegged at $8,499.03 .. with console errors, and ssl to be distrusted errors.

<comment><USER23> The UI's prices were/are accurate as far as I can tell. I think the trading was just that unstable. When it opened at 17:20 PST, the price was indeed ~$3.5k, then shot up and down violently until they pulled the plug three minutes later at ~$9.5k.

<comment><USER24> They screwed it up badly. If you checked BTC/BCH, there were open orders buying 1 BCH for 3 BTC, which is totally ridiculous. Obviously there was some effort on pumping it a lot.

Coinbase basically did one of the most basic mistakes for new markets (or any newly-online market), to not allow orderbooks to be filled before trades can take place. And so people took advantage of it. I just hope inexperienced people didn't get caught in the middle of it.

<comment><USER25> That's ludicrous. Do people not know what a limit order is? Do I walk into a car dealership and say, "Please sell me a car now. Here are all my personal and banking details. There is no price limit." What do you think is going to happen? How is this idiocy the exchange's fault?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Based on data from the gdax trades api, in the approx. 2 minutes and 40 seconds this was live on gdax yesterday, about $15.5 million USD of trades occurred, at a volume weighted average price of $5,080.

<comment><USER5> is it possible to sign up for GDAX instead of coinbase if you don't have a US based company? I'd much prefer programmatic access and coinbase hardly ever works at times like these...

<comment><USER26> I think if you can sign up for a coinbase account, you automatically get gdax access as well - I don't think there's any additional requirements for gdax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've had the worst customer support experience with coinbase. I'd advise not using their service. They aren't equipped to support their customers. I'm out of pocket $1000 and have been in a "queue" for the last couple of months.

<comment><USER28> Same

Unfortunately if you want timely support from cb you have to behave kind of unsavory.

Look up their higher level staff on LinkedIn, then email them. You can also do some creative Google searches to find their personal email and contact them there.

Contact them and they will transfer you to priority people who can actually do stuff.

<comment><USER29> You can also submit a complaint to the CFPB. I did this and got my money back within a week.

<comment><USER30> I have done this. I will suggest the same process to others who have been locked out despite providing positive identification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does anyone else find it highly suspicious that Coinbase goes down whenever there is any major movement in prices?

You can explain this as just the natural result of too much traffic, but that's not convincing. This is a business valued at over 1 billion dollars that has been operating for years. If this is still a problem, it's either unbelievable incompetence, or because they see no reason to fix it.

And here is a worst-case theory, by way of speculation not accusation. Being down whenever there is a lot of movement lets them beat all of their customers. When there is a crash, they can sell before their customers can. When there is a boom, they can buy before before their customers can. And because such a big portion of the market trades through them, this is more than trivial gains.

I have no way of knowing if this is what's happening, but it seems to be worthy of discussion, given how many people are placing trust in them. They don't really have an adequate explanation for the constant downtime, and I think they owe one to their customers.

<comment><USER32> They aren't frontrunning their customers. Their whole brand is being the one trustworthy option in a world of scammers; they already make a fuckload of money off of transaction fees, no reason to throw out that trust and ruin their cash cow. It's just a scaling problem, turns out it's hard to make Ruby on Rails handle their needs.

<comment><USER31> They could be doing it to make up shortfalls in their own BTC holdings relative holdings promised to customers, either in actual quantity, or in price actually acquired vs. price paid by the customer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> _All customers who held a Bitcoin balance on Coinbase at the time of the fork will now see an equal balance of Bitcoin Cash available in their Coinbase account._

Pardon the naive question, but does this mean Coinbase users who held Bitcoin have essentially "doubled their money"?

<comment><USER34> An "equal balance of Bitcoin Cash", as in 1000BTC becomes joined by 1000BCH. BCH is right now worth about 1/10th the value of BTC, so people have 110%ed their money.

Also, people who just had money sitting around in a private wallet on the blockchain—that is, outside of any exchange—have _also_ 110%ed their money; there's nothing special about Coinbase, it happened for any and all BTCs that existed on 2017-08-01.

(What _is_ special is the accounts at the _other_ exchanges, who have thusfar mostly _not_ provided their users with access to their equivalent BCH gains. It can be argued that the gains were made to the exchange's float, rather than to the users' accounts, so the BCH isn't "inherently" owned by the depositors, any more than capital gains of leveraged investments using a bank's liabilities are owed to the depositors of said bank. Really, since this "debt" has no (legal or smart-) contractual existence, it's up to social norms whether individual exchanges capitulate and hand over the BCH gains they've accrued.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Maybe focus on fixing the broken bits of your site, like ID verification.

<comment><USER36> Coinbase customers probably prioritize receiving an extra 10%+ value on their accounts above those features.

<comment><USER37> It's all good until you actually have a problem, and then you're just stuck emailing someone who never replies.

<comment><USER36> Agreed it would suck to hold a bank account (Paypal, Coinbase) and then get deprioritized because your account isn't important enough.

It would be interesting to see what fraction of accounts have a "serious contention" with them on the order of not being able to move substantial funds. If any institution showed a figure even has high as 5% I would be seriously dissuaded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> For other exchanges that support large numbers of other coins, how are they able to do this and Coinbase cannot? I'm assuming there's some development and risk involved but what work is involved in adding a new coin?

<comment><USER26> Exchanges that offer trading on hundreds of currency pairs have to deal with UI clutter and consumer confusion. For Coinbase, that's a much bigger deal than the arguably small technical cost to add the currency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Now getting error message: Bitcoin cash purchases temporarily disabled.

</comment><comment><USER40> I wonder if they're accepting the fork because transaction issues that core has. I mean, neither can handle the transaction load right now. I wonder how long till another fork.

</comment><comment><USER41> Would anyone know why a small purchase from Coinbase would still be pending two full weeks or more after funds had left my checking account? Their support isn't too helpful. I've made other successful buys and sells, but one transaction is just stuck pending it seems and they're not being very helpful.

<comment><USER42> This happened to me twice on GDAX, had them clear it out for me within 24 hours via support. No explanation given.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Best chance to buy Bitcoins in weeks ;-)

</comment><comment><USER44> I wonder what will be the next asset they will launch on coinbase. I sure can buy up now and wait :-)

</comment><comment><USER45> All this cryptocurrency talk has inspired me to understand the innerworkings of exchanges -- so how does a company like Coinbase scale to meet the demands of new customers? Surely they're not the first company to deal with this problem.

<comment><USER46> I don't think the problem is scale, the problem is there are multi-exchanges for the same asset. You can't trade GOOG, or TSLA on both NYSE and the NASDAQ for precisely this reason - a run up on one exchange will cause the entirety of money to shift for arbitrage. This is the real problem they are facing, imho.

<comment><USER47> Actually, these stocks are traded on both NYSE and NASDAQ (and 10 other exchanges, including IEX), but Reg NMS promises the customer to get the best price on any exchange

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Up 50% from past 24hs. Previous ATH was ~2500, now at USD 3100 at Coinbase. I was wondering what triggered it. This morning was already at a high price ~2100. It was somewhat stable around ~1700 just two days ago.

<comment><USER49> I'm pretty sure simply being available on Coinbase/gdax triggered it. There are tons casuals like me who just use that.

<comment><USER50> The commenter you're replying to is saying that he "was wondering." My reading of his comment is that earlier today he was wondering why Bitcoin Cash was up so much (prior to the Coinbase announcement).

Now the price action makes sense. There were insiders who knew today was the day that Bitcoin Cash was coming to Coinbase and the price was up on that info. It's really a comment on the nature of unregulated crypto markets and insider trading.

<comment><USER51> there were other BCH related announcements like Bitpay this week...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Insider crypto trading is a giant issue and it's extremely fucked up.

<comment><USER53> FYI: « _Coinbase maintains a strict trading policy and internal guidelines for employees. Coinbase employees have been prohibited from trading in Bitcoin Cash for several weeks._ » [https://mobile.twitter.com/coinbase/status/94329039141917491...](https://mobile.twitter.com/coinbase/status/943290391419174912)

<comment><USER54> Or what? They get caught (highly unlikely) and if so, fired (very wealthy now, and quite employable)? Hard to see a downside to breaking that "strict" rule.

<comment><USER55> They get to graduate to running a hedge fund or an ICO for being a former Coinbase employee :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Yesterday it was hell as I was caught on the other side of a trade.

I've been successfully day trading making $300/400 a day, and it's great. But I missed out.

Missed out.

And had to hold overnight.

</comment><comment><USER57> they say trading BCH in EURO is available immediately but on GDAX it says it's not available yet... Anyone knows when we can expect this to be available?

</comment><comment> matt-attack Anyone know what happens if I return coins I had pulled out before the fiasco this summer? Will my acct reflect a balance from both coins?

<comment><USER58> No. Use your wallet to split out your BCH.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Edit: I was able to login after several minutes of downtime.

I would urge others to buy a hardware wallet and not store your coins with Coinbase.

</comment><comment><USER60> Haha just not yet, been trying all day to buy it

</comment><comment><USER61> I wonder how much money Coinbase employees, friends and family made by insider trading on this announcement. Gotta love unregulated markets!

<comment><USER3> Exactly the first thought that came to my mind.

BCH up 30%. I wonder how many Coinbase employees bought BCH throughout this past month.

Also. it's easily predictable that introducing a new currency will temporarily affect the other currencies negatively.

Very gray area.

<comment><USER62> Thought experiment: Just say Citibank adds the Mexican pesos to their products, USA & international, side by side to all their USD products. If citibank bought pesos before the announcement, would they be engaging in insider trading? (Pesos are just for illustrative purposes, replace with your local currency)

If so, would every bank need to halt trading in a currency before adding it?

<comment><USER61> Pesos are already widely available to retail investors so it isn't really comparable to the situation with BCH. The average US crypto investor is only buying what is available on Coinbase (note that its one of the top apps in the iOS app store...), not jumping through the hoops needed to use Bitfinex, etc.

Here's a more appropriate analogy. A penny stock with the symbol BCH is lightly traded over the counter by institutional investors via pink sheets. The New York Stock Exchange decides to list the stock for trading, making it easily available to everyone with a TD-Ameritrade/Robinhood/ETrade account but does so with no pre-announcement. Should NYSE prevent their employees from buying the pink sheet over the counter prior to the announcement?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Seems so perfectly timed for the latest drop and issues with bitcoin its self

</comment><comment><USER64> Why was this banned from the front page?

</comment><comment><USER65> it's hilarious how many suckers will get drawn to this scam over and over.....

1.) omg this cryptocurrency is so transactional/rare

2.) nope. this isn't transactional at all! it costs me $350 to send $350!

3.) nope. it's not rare, coinbase just added ANOTHER transactional/rare crytocurrency!

4.) time to lose 80% on another cryotocurrency!

<comment><USER66> You and I seem to have had very different differences in crypto currency.

1) Rarity does play a factor in some currencies. Others less so. You get to choose what is important to you.

2) Transaction fees for BTC are hovering at $30 last I checked. Still huge but other coins have low to no fees.

3) There is only one vitalik. Some resources are scarce.

4) The only way you could have lost money in the last year was by day trading. Don't do that unless you are ok with extreme risk/reward scenarios. You can easily lose 80% with a few bad trades.</comment></comment>


Rround - <AUTHOR> http://rround.me rround is a fun and simple way to discover people and things happening rround you! <comment><USER2> I don't particularly 'get' social media, but I can see myself using this, it's frictionless or whatever the word is.

Geolocation works fine for me, I'm in Australia.

<comment> dorian-graph I'm on my Macbook Pro at uni and it has my position perfectly. I'm way impressed with this website.

<comment><USER3> I'm in the same situation, but I guess being at a university would give better geo ip location data...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very slick! And I agree with the others, this gets location quite well (except it put me north of the Thames).

There are so many location apps, so it's good to see something simplified.

Now the one thing you need to do is give me a reason to keep coming back to the site.

Add chat maybe? There are lots of location-based chat apps now, that allow you to chat with people in the same location as you. What I would love is an app that let me chat with people in different parts of the city. "Hey Jenny, how's Oxford street this morning?" "Anything fun going on in Trafalgar square right now?". You get the idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I've been thinking about what I can do with this, but a location based chat has been done before. I was thinking of keeping it simple. A mobile version maybe, I use CSS3 Media Queries to show different "versions" of the app on different devices but I was thinking of doing dedicated mobile app... When I find the time of course lol

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> rround is a simple HTML5 experiment I built to discover people and things happenings around you. What do you guys think?

<comment><USER5> Please tell me this took you a long time? The design is I impeccable and I can barely make fonts stick (hnnotify.com)

You designers are an enigma to me, you make beautiful seem so easy :(

Oh yea, and the app is very cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> It took me like a month? I really don't know lol. I'm not that good of a designer so I was shocked when I read your comment. Thanks!

<comment><USER5> > I'm not that good of a designer so I was shocked when I read your comment.

<sigh> now I am infinitely more sad... apparently it comes so easily to you, that you don't even realize how nice this site looks.

I should show you some of my designs sometimes... after you are done laughing you'll have some better perspective on your own work ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I get a "Retrieving position timeout" error, even though I accept to share my location (on both Firefox and Google Chrome on OS X; geosharing works otherwise, for instance on this: <http://slides.html5rocks.com/#geolocation.>)

EDIT: Additionally, it would be nice to have a short description with screenshots of what it is supposed in the case that you cannot get through the location stage...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the geolocation API can act weird sometimes :( try to clear you cache or try a different browser. You can alway enter your location manually (not the same but it's something). I'm sorry if the app didn't worked for you :(

<comment><USER7> Tried on Safari, it timed out. Cleared my cache, tried again. Same thing. Tried Chrome, timed out.

I'll enter my location manually, it seems like a really awesome idea!

<comment><AUTHOR> That sucks :( Maybe if you try on an ipad or smartphone (devices with gps)?

<comment><USER8> My Android smarphone gets a timeout too :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting so many people here are surprised at the precision of it, which shows HTML5 geolocation is doing well. (Though it comes down to how the browser gets geo data, I think some beyond Chrome are using Google, but not sure).

I notice its using the enableHighAccuracy flag, which probably helps. I've been told you also might be able to get better precision with watchPosition(), as the precision will get better with each call, though it's not used here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I've been thinking of using watchPosition. Maybe on the next update?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, it nailed my location. Generally, HTML5 location never really works and thinks I'm about 50 miles away.

The design is really great too. Any plans for an API?

</comment><comment><USER11> I have an idea for an app that needs to know user's physical location. I have planned on using HTML5 geolocation api to access user's location (Using HTML5 will save me effort in porting the app to various mobile devices). I was little skeptical on the accuracy of geolocation api. But looks like it is doing pretty good work, and I think I can go ahead with using geolocation for my application :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Cool. I feel like having to click on the icons for them to show up on the map is too expensive. Perhaps just a hover over? And it looks like spots are already categorized; how about having a category that you can click (or hover!) to see all the nearby ones. Anyway, fun! Thanks for sharing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestions! As I said, this is an experiment and I will continue to change and add new things. So stay tuned!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How do you get the data? I assume none of these people have added rround; I also assume you don't have access to the Twitter firehose...

<comment><AUTHOR> Am using the APIs from twitter, instagram, foursquare and youtube to get the data. Google maps api to display the map, user locations, directions, etc. and the yahoo placefinder api for geocoding and reverse-geocoding. Everything is done client side with jquery, backbone.js and handlebars.js

EDIT: You don't need an account from none of these services. rround just uses your location and the rest is magic ;)

I forgot to mention that it also uses local storage to show you the people that were rround you on your last visit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Whoa some of my own tweeted photos showed up after locating me.

Small town livin' I guess ...

Looks really good btw.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Very nice. Reminds me of what <http://ban.jo/> is doing on mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey ban.jo looks great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looks like you've maxed out your API calls for the current hour. Seems you're getting quite some traffic ;)

</comment><comment><USER17> The expand map appears to be broken, not displaying anything. I'm using Chrome in Windows 7.

</comment><comment><USER18> Doesn't seem to have my location right - off by quite a few clicks

<comment><USER19> Puts me on the opposite end of the country. Sigh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Awesome!

</comment><comment><USER21> Why your site no work?

I refresh three times before it find location.

Then, it finally find me, and all I get is a spinner arrow.

I am disappoint :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, there's a lot of factors here... HTML5 Geolocation is not very accurate if the device doesn't have a GPS. You can always enter your location manually from tne settings pane (the more specific you are the better). If the app got stuck at "looking for data around you" then one of the services (twitter, instagram, foursquare or youtube) failed and the app tries to get results from the services again. Sorry if your expirience wasn't good :(

<comment><USER22> Being stuck in an endless loop is not a good way of informing the user of what's gone wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your'e right... I'll work on this as soon as I can!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Could someone make a contact tracing app - <AUTHOR> Singapore has a contact tracing app, but we all could use one, if we get into proximity with someone else (with the app) for a number of seconds and close distance it logs it, if a person gets sick he logs it in the app and all people who got into contact the last x days receive a warning. as far as i know it does not exist yet. Companies could ask all employees to install the app. <comment><USER2> A, I'm not going to install such an app that tracks me

B, Privacy, I am not willing to give it up so liberally because of a bad flu.</comment>


GOG offering Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics for free - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/12/psa-gog-offering-fallout-fallout-2-and-fallout-tactics-for-free/ <comment><USER2> GOG is also currently under such high load, it fails to work most of the time. Ah well, I already own all three games.

The Fallout series is pretty fantastic though and worth a play (or revisit)

</comment><comment><USER3> Highly recommended! Fallout 2 made me "jump" from JRPGs to WRPGs.

Too bad I already have the games... twice.

<comment><USER4> I already have the games on physical format, but there's no downside to having digital copies of them, for free and legally :).

These random things are what make me love GOG (I have like 50-60 games there, and counting); I'd rather have more GOGs and less Steams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What? This news made my day. Thanks :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Thanks, man! :)</comment>


Microsoft to warn email users of suspected hacking by governments - <AUTHOR> http://www.foreigndesknews.com/world/us/exclusive-microsoft-to-warn/ <comment><AUTHOR> It must be a difficult point for governments and customer-security-minded companies to come to settle on.

I can understand the perspective of a government's intelligence agency feeling like a company is breaching some form of national secrets information by divulging that a request came in.

But the stronger concern for me is that there is some implicit expectation that, if you're a tech company, you by default must agree with and be a part of your incorporated nation's national military and intelligence complex. I don't understand how that squares.

<comment><USER2> > implicit expectation that, if you're a tech company, you by default must > agree with and be a part of your incorporated nation's national military and > intelligence complex

this shouldn't be the norm. Replace software with property, and it makes no sense. Gov't does not have the right to just appropriate a citizen's private property, unless it's war time. A gov't does not have the right to install surveylance in your private property, nor search your property, unless they have a warrant. Why does this not extend to the cyberworld?

<comment><USER3> But haven't we always been at war with eastasia?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The UK is about to pass a bill in Parliament that will make this kind of notification illegal if the user is being monitored by the police, GCHQ, MI5 or MI6.

<comment><AUTHOR> The trend toward total passive intelligence aggregation is troubling enough... making overt moves to force companies to, by existing in your country, be a part of your intelligence infrastructure feels downright wrong.</comment></comment>


Inside Elon Musk's $1.4B score - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/inside-elon-musks-billion-dollar-gigafactory

<comment><USER2> The image here of all the states falling over themselves to impress the popular kid seems straight out middle school, and I don't see much for the supporters of Tesla or the state to be proud of. The fact is that if all of these states had just told Tesla to screw off and not offered anything, the factory would be built in the most economically efficient spot in the US, boost the national economy, and provide jobs. And if Nevada didn't win this factory, it would win the next one - without paying $1.4B to do it.

Instead, Tesla used their outsize market influence to shake down the state for as much cash as possible. In the absence of these payoffs, states would have to compete on 'business-friendliness' by changing their tax structure or building permit process - improvements which would be good for all businesses. Instead we have one set of rules for those at the top of the pyramid and one set for everyone else.

<comment><USER3> More likely, they would end up buying from a Chinese supplier, and the US would miss out on all that business. And two decades from now, China would be the center of the electric car world, instead of the western US.

And perhaps the extra expense and inefficiency of overseas manufacturing would've stopped the electric car industry from getting off the ground at all.

<comment><USER4> Do you have an idea of the economics of US vs. foreign production for a factory like this? I've been searching around a bit this morning but the articles don't discuss that.

<comment><USER5> Not shipping heavy batteries halfway around the world should help. But labor costs will be significantly higher in the US. Not sure if it'll come out to a wash or not.

<comment><USER3> Indeed -- if the batteries were being made in China, perhaps they'd start manufacturing the cars there too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Musk's response[0]:

> A casual reader of stories about the Gigafactory might assume that the $1.3 > billion number in the headlines means that the state wrote Tesla a huge > check for that amount. In fact, Tesla has received no money from the state > at all.

0: [http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/house-always- wins](http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/house-always-wins)

<comment><USER2> He leaves out the part about how they unsuccessfully tried to demand such a payment with the old "I'll just take my toys and leave" play.

>Then Musk talked to Sandoval about two weeks later, and the deal was suddenly off. Musk had changed his demands. He now wanted a staggering $500 million in cash upfront instead of some of the tax abatements. This was simply impossible for Nevada. The state didn't have that kind of money—its entire budget is just $6.5 billion—and it wasn't about to write a half-billion-dollar check.

>For a second time, Nevada's team braced itself and said no. "The conversations got pretty darn tense," says Hill. "Tesla was not happy."

>The company made its pique apparent: On July 23 it shut down the grading work outside Reno, abruptly sending 240 construction workers home. O'Connell explains Tesla's attitude this way: "Okay, fine, if it's not going to work in Nevada, we'll take our shovel and go somewhere else."

<comment><USER7> That's just negotiation—read _Bargaining for Advantage_ (or _Getting to Yes_ ) if this is even remotely surprising to you.

<comment><USER2> The negotiation tactic isn't surprising, no. I was commenting on the fact that he was using the fact that he didn't win the concession in order to claim the moral high ground.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There are so many people drooling over Musk - his brilliance, his determination to make the world better and more interesting. Not to downplay him as very few people could accomplish what he has, but it is a bit bizarre to me that all these things in which so many people seem to think are great, can't get done unless some billionaire takes them on. Is capitol really the biggest barrier to moving the world forward at this point? It seems that we the only way to move and shake things is to have an individual with a ton of capitol so that people can't get in the way, which is rather stark.

<comment><USER9> > Is capitol really the biggest barrier to moving the world forward at this > point? It seems that we the only way to move and shake things is to have an > individual with a ton of capitol so that people can't get in the way, which > is rather stark.

Why would you expect otherwise? I have no training in economics or finance, but it seems to me that affecting such large markets is usually going to take huge amounts of capital. I'm not convinced it's always about artificial barriers to entry, but rather the natural barrier to entry: the economies of scale mean viable competition is expected to take some amount of capital to bootstrap. When the scale is global, it's probably going to require a lot of capital.

Now, if you just mean it's disappointing how challenging it seems to be for non-billionaires to obtain sufficient capital from banks, VCs, etc. to undertake such high risk/high reward ventures, you may be right in your disappointment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The comparison to gm is misleading because their valuation is crushed by a $71B pension liability. It's estimated to be underfunded by $27B.

[http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/07/why- general...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/07/why-general- motors-company-progress-on-its-pension.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER11> I see the whole process as Musk hedging his huge bet on attaining mass-market sales for the Model 3. He has brand equity along the lines of an Apple and he's leveraging that equity to the greatest extent he can.

Lower operating costs for the factory means lower manufacturing cost for the cars means greater sales and/or profitability, therefore, increased chances that Tesla succeeds in becoming a major global automotive force.

Very appropriate that this bet be made in Nevada.

</comment><comment><USER12> It is not Teslas fault that Nevada offered them a good deal. You can expect nothing less from a private company, then for them to get as good deal as possible.

It is irrational for states to compete for individual businesses, instead of competing with general good business rules. This is the way it is in the U.S nowadays. Big companies let states compete for their largest investors. When big companies, politicians and unions stand side by side you have every reason to worry. But pointing the finger at the big company is useless, because they are not under your control. It is the political side that is under democratic control, and should respond to the interests of the people. The company will to it's best to advance its own goals and interests.

As it happens, in Tesla's case, that goal is pretty decent. So I'm not that distraught in this particular case.

</comment><comment><USER13> Although in theory I'm a huge support of greater local governance, things like these are why I'm a bit skeptical in practice.

When companies can force states to bid in exchange for jobs, or to lower labour regulation/environmental restrictions, etc, it's a very dangerous slippery road.

<comment><USER14> > When companies can force states ...

I must've missed something, but where was "force" applied? Did Tesla threaten to sue Nevada (or Texas)? Did they send in teams of lawyers, threatening to shut the state down?

No. All that happened was a bit of aggressive negotiation with adult parties, who were more than willing to play the game. Nobody "forced" anybody to do anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Tesla and Musk masterfully executed this deal. They used competition, timing, threats, promises, misdirection, PR, and showmanship to unbalance state governments and bend them to their will. Companies that can execute on this level have a huge advantage in the market.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8610781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8610781)

</comment><comment><USER17> honestly, I'd make an exception of those vicious tactics because it's tesla and that electric cars are for the public good. the automotive industry never developed it and would never have, so I don't care about those tactics at all. GM already is quite in the red anyways, so why should tesla be any better ?

<comment><USER18> Ends justify the means?

<comment><USER17> It's despicable, but I don't see many business bringing innovation like tesla does. Plus I'm sure the rest of the automotive industry is trying to make it fail, so I think tesla should use all the means necessary.</comment></comment></comment>


Ship It - Tales from the Trenches - <AUTHOR> http://trenchescomic.com/tales/post/ship-it

<comment><USER2> Why not just delay the manual save until the auto-save is done ? That'd take just a few hours to implement and test...

<comment><USER3> If your answer to a bug like this, a week from the deadline, is that the only way to fix it is to rewrite the entire file structure instead of putting in a workaround... you probably deserve to be fired. I do wonder if they had someone else code up a workaround before shipping though.

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's clear, but it seems like the person who wrote the article is a QA tester and the developer who suggested the fix was another person.

I doubt they would fire a QA tester just for finding a bug. He might have been laid off with a bunch of other people or he might have been getting a big head about his prize defect. Granted, it is kind of a big defect. But some people can be sore winners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We had a tester/QA person like this for a project, an older lady who knew the domain at hand, but not so much about computers. She'd find the craziest bugs and produce amazing stack traces, mostly in the last week before a release was to go out. By the last week before release, it took the program manager 2 minutes to see that the bugs were not worth fixing...

</comment><comment><USER6> I worked with a dev who was assigned to a full-time QA duty by the management. Sort of development pre-QA tester if you will. Guess what? He filed over 200 ( _two hundred_ ) bug reports within a couple of weeks. _Major_ ones. Other devs never complained, the management was ecstatic, but the guy still quit few months later because they refused to release him from QA duty and back into the development.

<comment><USER7> Curious if you can expand on your thoughts / experience related to Developers on QA duties, versus a "Developer in Test" designing the frameworks for automation (or, would that be company dependant?)

The difficulty in recruiting SDET'S / SET's is...ridiculous (though some companies don't different between a strong automation QA and a mid-SDET), however, as a single EG, a top-3 financial firm's Developer in Test positions (agnostic on languages) were the highest paid developers in the company (sans HFT). They were also held to the most strict of hiring standards (target school, Masters, 3.+ GPA, summa cum laude, stable work history of 3-5 years at a time with companies, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Rest of the stories on the page should be printed out as a reminder for everyone not to ever work in the games industry.

<comment><USER9> I agree, but I also think that to a certain extent no matter where you work in the software industry there is always a certain amount of this going on.

People just tend to get screwed over more often in the games industry because people think it's the holy grail of jobs, so you have 10 more poor saps lining up to replace every 1 who gets fired over something like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> i'd hire that guy

<comment><USER11> yes, curious why he was fired for? Maybe he reported it too late ...

<comment><USER12> Sounds like they shotthe messenger

<comment><USER13> Embarrassing business practices.

<comment><USER14> Which happens a lot more than you think.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


New pocket projector for your iOS devices - <AUTHOR> http://www.gadgetlite.com/2012/02/02/wowee-vue-pico-projector-ios-devices/

<comment><USER2> I read this as "new pocket protector" which would be a really awesome case. I'm disappointed.</comment>


Inside Pics of the Zappos Office - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.openforum.com/2008/12/02/the-sole-of-a-new-machine/ <comment><USER2> Forgive me...17th pic: [http://blogs.openforum.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/12/zappos...](http://blogs.openforum.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/12/zappos18.jpg)

Granted, it's low-res, but "Damn."

<comment><USER3> Thought the same thing. We need to get out a lot more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great inside view of a hyper-successful company. You know what impresses me more than all the shiny/fun stuff? The abundance of natural light.

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://blogs.openforum.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/12/zappos...](http://blogs.openforum.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/12/zappos6.jpg)

"It is likely men, women and children will wear shoes for the foreseeable future."

<comment><USER6> Interesting.. I wonder if there is a viable alternative or major improvement to shoes in general. We haven't had too much innovation in that area, or at least I can't think of many.

<comment><USER7> <http://www.vibramfivefingers.com> \- The only footwear innovation I've seen recently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, was not expecting their office to be so lively and fun. Also very cool that the CEO of a company with $1 billion worth of sales works in a cubicle like his employees. Looks like a great place to work!

<comment><USER8> It looks lively, but it also looks like they stuffed every single fun and lively object they could find inside their doors.

Maybe it's just the pictures but their office seems really visually crowded:

[http://blogs.openforum.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/12/zappos...](http://blogs.openforum.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/12/zappos13.jpg)

[http://blogs.openforum.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/12/zappos...](http://blogs.openforum.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/12/zappos29.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I find it cool they give away free books to their employees (4th picture). Just another example of how Zappos does things their own way.

Another cool site featuring office pictures from Apple, Adobe, Craigslist, etc...: <http://www.officesnapshots.com/>

</comment><comment><USER10> The disorder of their office is matched by the disorder of their website. A billion links, banner ads for unrelated things right in the middle of the website, two search boxes near each other... it's terrible.

<comment><USER11> and yet they're a billion dollar business. :) so much for usability and graphic design...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Are employees encouraged to display "flair" or is that honestly spontaneous?

</comment><comment><USER13> When I saw the pictures from inside Pixar, I wasn't too surprised, but.. this is awesome for a company like Zappos. We know they're progressive, but behind closed doors progressive companies are often anything but.

The Zappos offices seem only a foot step away from a surf shack - what a stimulating environment!

</comment><comment><USER14> What. A. Mess.

<comment><USER15> I honestly started feeling anxious just looking at all that clutter. I couldn't work there a week without a complete mental breakdown. At least the website reflects the office space.

<comment><USER16> Me too; it was like apartment hunting all over again.

We should post pics of TS world headquarters. ;p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Their website [ <http://www.zappos.com/> ] looks like their office space... ...cluttered.

<comment><USER13> I expect their bank balance is also somewhat more cluttered than yours, however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> looks like a supermarket to me !

</comment><comment><USER19> What is it with these offices that look like some sort of nursery school? Nobody has adult tastes?

<comment><USER13> Insulting someone's sense of style or taste is not insightful or good commentary - just an ad hominem fallacy.

<comment><USER20> An insult it may be, but it is definitely not an ad hominem fallacy. Please be a little less liberal with that overused term.

<comment><USER13> Since it was not in response to an initial argument, you are formally correct. However, a more common, less rarefied definition of _ad hominem_ is _"appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason."_ In this sense, any insult based on personal taste with no logical basis is an ad hominem attack, which by definition is a fallacious rhetorical device. In either case, I am not open to prescription.

<comment><USER13> If someone who voted this down could explain how my post was in anyway "spam", "offensive" or otherwise incorrect, please do. You are opposing HN moderation standards by voting down to below zero something that does not match any of those criteria.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Fire hazard, much?</comment>


What is causing Bitcoin price to drop from the start of 2018? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> It's quarter one. Everything usually drops during this time.</comment>


"The End" – Limit Theory shuts down after six years of solo development - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joshparnell/limit-theory-an-infinite-procedural-space-game/posts/2270873 <comment><USER2> it's good he'll release the content into the community since they funded it. Someone might pick it up and finish it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah...maybe. It sounds like a huge very-custom engine. Easily could be faster to start over using Unreal or Unity.</comment></comment>


Ask YC: How many forums do you use? - <AUTHOR>

I have an idea I have been toying with for a long time and wonder if you guys still used forums in this day and age of social sites like this one etc.
So
How many other forums do you use?
Are you very active on them? What forum software are they running if you know?
thanks in advance guys. <comment><USER2> Once in a while I visit:

<http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com> (custom ASP forum)

<http://www.webhostingtalk.com> (vBulletin)

<http://wordpress.org/support/> (bbPress)

And a few others that I can't seem to recall right now :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Back when I had more free time (no wife, no kids, no business) I used to participate in a few forums. Now, I usually stay updated with the topics via Google Reader and the # of forums I keep up with have dropped to maybe a handful. They mostly come in handy for when I'm searching for specific tech related subjects and certain good threads show up high ranking in the search engine.

List of forums: VMWare's VMTM Forums, Ubuntu's Forums, and Webmaster Forum at Digital Point are the top ones that come to mind.

</comment><comment><USER4> I frequent www.wickedfire.com and www.offtopic.com (their webmaster section). I'm more involved in marketing and advertising than hacking and these are places I go to get and give information and insights (respectively).

I try to stay away from forums since they can turn into mega time drains, but they allow for quick transfer of information and ideas, which is always great.

They both use vBulletin.

</comment><comment><USER5> ubuntuforums.org - they have a very nice feature where you can see unanswered questions from beginners that you can take care of. I genuinely want Windows to die and try to contribute to Ubuntu in any way I can.

</comment><comment><USER6> I still use forums a lot especially for subject related issues. It's a total different medium then a social network so I don't think it's fair to compare. I still think that forums are a huge part of the internet.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah I have to agree I often think they are over looked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm a big gamer so most other sites I peruse are usually specific to that topic.

<http://www.evilavatar.com> (vBulletin)

\- Sure, it's a news site, but the best part is the forums behind the scenes.

<http://vnboards.ign.com> (custom ASP)

\- The first board system I stuck with. Been around for a while. I've actually been moderating there for over 4 years.

</comment><comment><USER8> _...if you guys still used forums in this day and age of social sites like this one..._

I consider this (news.yc) to be a forum. Why would it not be?

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah I wasn't sure. I think its kinda a forum more of a hybrid.

I would love some for forum like features if I was honest. Split the questions, news and cool links and I think it would be more forum like.</comment></comment>