Software on Steam - <AUTHOR> http://store.steampowered.com/software <comment><USER2> Some people seem to fail to understand that Steam is yet another package manager, but this time filled with only non-free stuff, in a way that has so much DRM it's unusable in any ways but the intended one.

Steam on linux is, I think, a big problem for us. There will be dpkg (or whatever your distro chose). This one will install apps in a way that is consistent with the system, and with POSIX. Then, there will be steam. Steam is used because it is the only way to get apps people want. I do not own a game I paid for on Steam. Not even in the way I own non-free apps like Alfred or Ableton Live. I don't have a right to use them, I am merely allowed to do so.

I understand that it is in Valves interest to lock us down like this. But in this case, their interest is against ours, the users.

<comment><USER3> That's just a side effect of their business model - it's fairly evident that it's a higher priority for them to provide a great user experience than to lock them down.

Just yesterday I was reminded of this, when reformatting my computer and reinstalling everything. I forgot to deactivate keys on some of my work software before doing so, and spent hours emailing to get them back. Meanwhile, the whole license/ownership concept of all my games on Steam was completely abstracted away through their install-anywhere-as-many-times policy and Steam Cloud.

<comment><USER4> One day I hope that I will be able to link all my DvDs and music and films into a steam style library, and stop caring about backing them up, and keeping the sodding disks.

Regardless of horror stories about banned accounts, the steam model is one I find infinitely more attractive than even itunes.

<comment><USER5> My cofounder lost about a thousand dollars worth of games when he bought Left 4 Dead 2 via PayPal.

PayPal, as it sometimes does, reversed the transaction due to its fraud detection systems, through no fault or instruction of my cofounder.

So Steam locked the entire account, permanently and irreversibly. It wasn't even an option to pay the $50 by another method.

I still buy Steam games, but only on sale.

<comment><USER6> This sounds extreme. What was the response from steam technical support?

<comment><USER5> That _was_ the response from Steam technical support.

They were basically assuming fraud; which is what buying a game, receiving the goods, then issuing a chargeback (or PayPal equivalent) would be.

He patiently explained to them that it wasn't initiated by him, but they pretty much stonewalled him.

Apparently having done a thousand dollars worth of business already without incident wasn't enough to get the benefit of the doubt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The most incredible thing about this is that these applications can have achievements, DLC, and _even Steam Workshop support_.

Check out Game Maker: <http://store.steampowered.com/app/214850/>

\- Different components sold as DLC (<http://store.steampowered.com/dlc/214850/>)

\- Achievements (<http://steamcommunity.com/stats/214850/achievements>) for things like "run a game on iOS" and "1000 debugs"

\- Created games can be put on the Steam Workshop (<http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse?appid=214850>), which is INCREDIBLE when you think about it!

<comment><USER8> What is incredible about achievements for anything? It's an interesting way to keep users engaged and committed. How is it "the most incredible thing" regarding Software on Steam?

<comment><USER9> Not to be too off-topic, but this sort of instant nasty cynicism is all that's wrong with HN of late. One of the rules of this place is 'be polite', would you respond like that to a stranger in person?

This kind of reaction makes me not want to read/comment/submit at all.

I'll take the inevitable hit in karma to say my piece. You probably didn't mean to be rude, but it comes off to me at least as very much so, intended or not.

<comment><USER10> His questions don't appear the least bit rude to me. They are certainly _direct_ , which some people confuse for rudeness, but it looks like an entirely honest line of questioning. Honestly, I'd like to know the answer too. What makes achievements incredible?

<comment><USER11> It's rude because avolcano is clearly excited about this premise and rodly is just ridiculing his/her excitement. There's no objective basis to what is incredible.

<comment><USER12> "Incredible: so extraordinary it seems impossible".

I do wonder what is so extraordinary about having achievements in apps and how this would be a very difficult thing to technically achieve.

<comment><USER11> I've got: "Incredible: difficult to believe; extraordinary"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Warning: read the Steam Subscriber Agreement (<http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/>) carefully. You don't own a license to any software you "buy" in Steam.

As nice as Steam is to use, being able to download software on any computer in a fairly simplistic manner and to get reduced prices from time to time, I'm not convinced that giving up the right to own things you purchase is a fair price for that convenience.

<comment><USER14> Simple solution: don't use steam if you don't like that tradeoff.

<comment><USER15> It used to be I could run some Steam related software offline, as in no internet connection. I seem to have lost that ability. I do not remember when the change was made but it makes me leery about buying ANYTHING through Steam and there are some games I want that are connected to them.

If I buy a BOXED copy of a game I expect it to work without any other need other than the machine I install it on. This crap about requiring an internet connection is ridiculous. I have the discs, I even have the key still. Yet it will not run because my connection is down or worse their server is? (and yes Steam has had authentication issues)

<comment><USER16> Someone on a different thread said that Steam developed a DRM rep due to having an online requirement that has since been removed.

I can't verify this at the moment, but no one has corrected the other poster yet.

<http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4604431>

<comment><USER17> Steam has (and has had for a while) an offline mode, but it doesn't work reliably for some. If you go through the release notes for the Steam client over the past few years, you can see instances of Valve "fixing" offline mode.

You also have to be online to download, install and launch a game for the first time.

<comment><USER16> There _are_ some games that require you to be online, but that's not universal enough to make it Steam's fault. Similarly, the notion that you have to be online to download from the Internet seems to... uh.. make sense.

That's a lot different from the DRM claim, I think.

<comment><USER18> those statements were not about specific games, they were about steam itself, offline mode is very broken for many people.

<comment><USER19> I had problems in the past but it seems to work correctly now. Has someone a close example of problems with it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am looking forward to buying hats for my photo editing software.

</comment><comment><USER21> And suddenly, for me, Steam turned from convenient to creepy.

Nobody's pulling anyone's hand now or was before, but imagine being locked out of your work suite because something happened to your Steam account. And there are plenty of horror stories about whole game libraries lost because of a single paypal transaction (or dispute).

No thanks Valve, I'll stick to harmless Christmas sale games.

<comment><USER22> In fairness, their policy changed (about 6-12 months back), that if there's a transaction dispute, you're locked out of only the game with the dispute (and temporarily banned from buying new games). You can still use your existing ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> ...in before "why gaben doesn't like windows 8" - he wants steam to be a direct competitor to microsoft's app store, google play, netflix, etc.

<comment><USER24> I don't think that's necessarily true. I think it's more that he sees the moral hazard in the OS vendor also being the only official store on the platform.

<comment><USER25> Newell has a store that is essentially competing with and which will probably feel pressure from the existence of a built-in Windows store. It's a pretty easy logical step to take to assume that he is mostly against it because of these things, and not because of some ephemeral high-mindedness about how things ought to be done morally, which he hasn't exhibited in any other way.

<comment><USER26> That's what debacle was saying. Moral hazard is a term from economic theory: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> now i can clearly see that why "windows 8 is a threat" statement come.

</comment><comment><USER28> Whoa, the shapes and layout of the content of the GameMaker screenshots/images brought back memories of Garry Kitchen's GameMaker[0] which I used to make a balloon racing game using the stock sprites from [1] and the background from [2]. The game might have been one of the instructional ones, because now, 27 years later, I can't conceive that I came up with the idea for a game like I remember it being.

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kitchen%27s_GameMaker>

[1] [http://www.gb64.com/Screenshots/G/Gary_Kitchen%27s_Gamemaker...](http://www.gb64.com/Screenshots/G/Gary_Kitchen%27s_Gamemaker_7.png)

[2] [http://www.gb64.com/Screenshots/G/Gary_Kitchen%27s_Gamemaker...](http://www.gb64.com/Screenshots/G/Gary_Kitchen%27s_Gamemaker_2.png)

</comment><comment><USER29> I find it interesting that nearly all the software listed, initially, seems to be art related. ArtRage Studio Pro just ended up on my wish list, because that looks like tremendous fun.

Now, if only I could easily install these apps outside the steam folder. My main drive is getting full.

<comment><USER30> > Now, if only I could easily install these apps outside the steam folder. My > main drive is getting full.

The current Steam beta has support for multiple installation folders. It's a little rough right now, but it seems like something they plan on polishing up and releasing eventually.

Source and more info: [http://www.neoseeker.com/news/20791-latest-steam-beta- allows...](http://www.neoseeker.com/news/20791-latest-steam-beta-allows-for- multiple-installation-folders/)

<comment><USER31> I can confirm that the new beta lets you select which directory/drive to install files on. It's a great change and let's me start filling up my 2 TB drive instead of my C drive!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wish they would split it though. Valve doing software is awesome, but Steam is pretty sweet right now & they shouldn't mess with it.

That being said, of all the only companies I probably trust Valve the most to not screw over people and/or mess it up.

</comment><comment><USER33> It would be nice to see this potentially lead to an app store for Steam Big Picture[1]. At the moment, I think that's one huge thing it is lacking.

Sure, I can load up YouTube or Netflix in the browser. But the interface is clunky and buggy, the video playback is choppy and it often simply crashes Big Picture.

Adding apps, I think, will make it a must-have living room device for gaming, browsing the web and consuming media. And the possibilities from there are pretty much endless.

[1]: <http://store.steampowered.com/bigpicture/>

<comment><USER25> Steam / Big Picture will never be "must-have" for living room use until they can make it compelling and easy for people to use in that environment.

But that goes against the whole reason why they are popular in the first place - the fact that they are primarily a PC game store, and their customers like playing games with the devices typically attached to their computers, like mouse and keyboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I really don't feel this is a good fit. Steam is not particularly great software, it's just one of the best ways to get games onto your machine. It has a lot of competition in the general software market, and plus it doesn't really feel like we need another one.

What really kills it for me, though, is that Steam's model just does not fit software. Want to edit a document on your PC, but left Steam open on your laptop? Well, you've got to walk over to your PC and log out first. That's a (barely) acceptable trade-off for games, but for productivity software it's a ludicrous proposition.

<comment><USER35> I use Steam from about 5 computers in different physical locations, and it never asks me to log out the way you described. I just log in on the machine I'm currently using, that's all.

<comment><USER34> Oh, ok - this has changed since I last tried it. I still don't think it's brilliant that you can't have your software open on more than one machine (several years ago you could at least have Steam open on multiple computers if they had the same external IP).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's strange that at least one app in that list has a Mac version available, but it isn't supported on Steam.

</comment><comment><USER37> Pardon my ignorance, but I'm confused. I was under the impression that you could only make iOS apps on a mac, but the listing for Gamemaker: Studio iOS shows that it's only compatible for Windows PCs. Can someone explain this witchcraft??

</comment><comment><USER38> There are some rough spots, like on this page <http://store.steampowered.com/app/214850/> the different versions are labelled "Downloadable content for this game".

</comment><comment><USER39> what's steam's cut on these apps? 30%?

<comment><USER40> This information is not publicly disclosed and differs from developer to developer and is based on sales volume amongst other things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> As long as they sell software using their tremendous discounts usually found on Steam, they will have me as a customer. I doubt we'll see any mainstreams applications on there though.

</comment><comment><USER42> Clearly, Steam's web interface is not fully-prepared to handle non-games. They use the word "game" throughout the store page for all of these products.

</comment><comment><USER43> Why not? Makes sense. Can't wait to see the deals.

</comment><comment><USER44> Wow. That was quick. Good move Valve!

</comment><comment><USER45> So how do we submit our own software to Steam? Greenlight still appears to be games-only.

</comment><comment><USER46> Steam down right now?

</comment><comment><USER47> Achievements for software are actually quite clever. They encourage a person to learn and explore more areas and options than they normally would. Thus understanding the software better and getting more out of it.

I'm a bit excited because I'd really like steam to become a general digital marketplace for downloadables+installables. I've blabbed on about it over a year ago [http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/03/re-envisioning-steam- pa...](http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/03/re-envisioning-steam-part-1-an- all-in-one-digital-marketplace/) but never thought I'd in any way be accurate. I didn't really believe Steam would dabble in TV, Movies, Music, and Software a year ago. But now, after seeing source-filmmaker, and video, the rest might just follow. Valve may one day hold the keys to a digital empire similar in a way to how Amazon and ebay hold their own keys.

</comment><comment><USER48> Games getting bumped below the fold by software [1] is probably going to make some game devs upset. Hopefully Valve comes up with a solution for that.

I can see there being tension, though, because Valve wants to drive their traditional audience to software, but doing so may cannibalize impulse game buys that might have previously happened from a game being on the first page.

[1] <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1643240/newreleases.png>

<comment><USER49> New releases are listed in chronological order. So a dump of of non-game software would, naturally, push games down the queue.</comment></comment>


Announcing the Cover Art Archive - <AUTHOR> http://blog.musicbrainz.org/?p=1616

<comment><USER2> Perhaps someone more experienced can enlighten me; does this really constitute fair use under US copyright law?

Also, even if it meets the requirements for fair use in the US, is this project not still wide open to copyright infringement claims from abroad?

As far as I'm aware there are no fair use (or 'fair dealing' as it is here) provisions in the UK that permit the archiving and distribution of copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright holder.

<comment><USER3> The CAA is hosted and managed by archive.org; it is reasonable to expect that their lawyers greenlighted the project before hosting it. And for complains they already have a system in place to manage all the DMCA requests that they receive daily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article mentions Amazon, though last.fm also has this functionality on their API which I've used on a personal project before. I've not really found albums it doesn't have an image for[1]. For last.fm you have to apply for commercial use.

Does anyone know what the licensing will be here? I'm unsure from reading the article.

 _[1]<http://martinw.net/PutYourMoneyWhereYourEarsAre/> _

<comment><USER5> When I try that link, I get "The test API key has been deprecated. To use the Last.fm API you'll need to get an API account."

And believe me, lots of the albums that I have do not have covers on last.fm. Nor Amazon, for that matter -- and Amazon has had a bad habit of guessing very wrongly at cover art for some of them. It's bad enough I've started adding cover art on my own just to keep Amazon from making albums look ridiculous when I download them to my phone...

<comment><USER4> Whoops sorry about that, must have the wrong API key, I'll get that fixed. _(EDIT: now fixed)_

Well last.fm is user-uploaded content too, I'm unsure how the MB archive will be superior to their collection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I checked out Musicbrainz for a project recently, but found it to be lacking in a couple of areas.

Is anyone aware of a service that provides music metadata for tracks & artists with an support for an autocomplete API call, as well as artist thumbnails? I'm using Last.FM to get by as of now, but there are a couple of issues with that too.

<comment><AUTHOR> MusicBrainz would be really happy to help try and provide the information you want. You should open a ticket at our bug tracker and we'll see what can be done. I might be biased, but I don't think you'll find cleaner metadata information on the interwebs :)</comment></comment>


How To Sell Your Company - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/03/how-to-sell-your-company/

<comment><USER2> I like how he doesn't even entertain the notion that his success might come in spite of his "bad negotiation," not aided by it. Though I don't know very much about Altucher's past endeavors, in the absence of other information, the cases he brings up look like simple luck combined with abundant but far-from- fully-utilized talent...

</comment><comment><USER3> Since following this link, and the link from it to Altucher's blog, I've read quite a few of his blogposts. And every post on his blog is better than this article, and most of them are great reading. But relatively few of them are straightforward entreporn advice of the type HN so loves.

</comment><comment><USER4> that title has very little to do with the actual article

</comment><comment><USER5> On this discussion, I really recommend Jaques's post: <http://jacquesmattheij.com/How+To+Sell+Your+Company>

</comment><comment><USER6> It's impossible to read just one story from James's blog. He has to be one of the most entertaining writers online.

</comment><comment><USER7> I feel the title of this link is misleading. I think it should be titled "Follow your passion and the money will follow".</comment>


Living on a Self-Sufficient Sailboat for 10 Years - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/lk83N2u1ZmY <comment><USER2> [https://www.youtube.com/svdelos](https://www.youtube.com/svdelos)

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

</comment><comment><USER3> So, eating a lot of fish I would guess.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best customer service experience you've received? - <AUTHOR>

For a startup or a large company, what did they do that wowed you? <comment> xkcd-sucks Thorlabs-- they ship quickly, include food with the order, replace things quickly without hassle, provide lots of documentation+software sources without hassle, it's always easy to talk to a human with decision making ability, etc. I've never had a suboptimal experience with them. When I broke four $20000 machines in a month, sequentially, while using them "technically" in spec, I got four overnight RMAs and eventually a better/cheaper replacement. I met the CEO at a conference and he knew my name as a result of this incident. In general I don't do brand loyalty, but I fucking love thorlabs.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great story.

"In general I don't do brand loyalty, but I fucking love thorlabs." \- I think that sentiment is representative of the vast majority of companies. Brand loyalty is earned when companies go above and beyond to help you, when human attention is thrown at you.</comment></comment>


Anti-Pirates Caught Spying on Thousands of Torrents - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/anti-pirates-caught-spying-on-thousands-of-torrents-120829/

<comment><AUTHOR> "To put the spying activity in perspective, the BitTorrent activity of these two anti-piracy companies is three times greater than that generated by all customers of a smaller ISP such as Sonic.net. It is comparable to the BitTorrent activity of all Comcast Business clients combined."

You can protect yourself from spying (as it is an invasion of privacy) with a VPN.

[http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take- anon...](http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity- seriously-111007/)

<comment><USER2>
      > You can protect yourself from spying (as it is an
      > invasion of privacy) with a VPN.

The torrents are posted publicly. Each client is adding their own address to the list of participants, which is also public. Whenever I download a torrent, the list of other participants is available plainly in a tab in my torrent client.

If some client chooses to keep a record of public data, how is this in any way an invasion of privacy?

This is like complaining that your privacy has been invaded when someone takes a photo of a public street, and you happen to be in the frame.

<comment><USER3> If someone takes a photo of a public street and they happen to see me in the frame and don't do anything with it that's one thing. This is more like they are following me down the street taking photos of me just to report anything even slightly suspicious that I might do at some point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I worked at BayTSP for years (it's a dark scar on my soul really), and they have been DMCA crazy on torrent swarms for many years.

This is not something new. It's been SOP for a very long time. There was some recent activity in the last few years to get some lining up of ISPs along with a "graduated response" scheme (which from the looks of it transmogrified into "# strikes") but its also tied to other initiatives like trying to use data scraped from cyberlockers to derive knowledge about the migratory patterns (and marketability) of media...you can thank Movielabs and one buffoon from NBC that cooked up that laughable concept.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think people would rather pay than pirating anyway, I wish the film industry would finally come up with a distribution solution like itunes and quit wasting their efforts on crap like this.

</comment><comment><USER6> This kind of content and the carefully cultivated outrage it fuels belongs on Reddit and Digg.

</comment><comment><USER7> At some level, I would like to see how it goes when one of the anti-piracy groups accidentally codes their piracy-tracking bit-torrent client to join in the torrenting. If they're already involved in the torrenting of their own products... is it illegal anymore? I mean, they're seeding their own data, isn't that like giving permission? "Here's a file, download it!"

IANAL, I'm curious.

<comment><USER8> I don't see how. If you own the copyright, you can give it to whoever you like via whatever method you like, including bittorrent. That doesn't (absent a copyleft license) transfer a right to anyone else to do the same.

<comment><USER7> But if you're seeding the movie to others, wouldn't that be saying "yes, you can have the part of the movie that I gave to you." A thoughtful user could even strongly encourage their bit-torrent client to only download from, for example, Universal Studios Antipiracy Bot 1.2.

Did they acquire that movie illegally, now?</comment></comment></comment>


India passes tough new law for serious juvenile crimes - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35161193 <comment><USER2> Actually, I agree with such changes. It's not like India is now going to hang children for petty crimes, the change will only affect teens of 16-18 years old that committed really serious crimes (i.e. murder, rape). Seriously, do you think 3 years of imprisonment for brutal murder and gang rape(0) is adequate? In my point of view, a person capable of such actions (despite their age) is worth the maximum sentence.

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape)

<comment><USER3> >In my point of view, a person capable of such actions (despite their age) is worth the maximum sentence.

So what _is_ your age limit? If 16, why not 15? And if 15, why not 12, or 10, or 7, or 5?

The only thing we _can_ say with any certainty is that the Victorians tried and tested the hang-em-high method of crime reduction, with less than stellar results to show for it.

<comment><USER2> _" So what is your age limit?"_

Why should there be an age limit? If a person is capable of _consciously_ plan a crime and execute it, he/she should be able to take a responsibility and punishment for it. What I mean, is that such incidents should be decided case by case basis, not setting some hard limit just because a perpetrator is below a certain age. A person doesn't become somehow magically different at midnight he turns 18. Aand it's not like we have a problem of minors of 5 years old running around and killing people, so the bar sets itself naturally (I'd guess proposed 16yo is pretty accurate for the serious crimes).

<comment><USER3> >What I mean, is that such incidents should be decided case by case basis

OK, so it's bad bad phrasing on my part.

How would _you personally_ decide "if a person is capable of consciously plan a crime and execut[ing] it?"

> Aand it's not like we have a problem of minors of 5 years old running around > and killing people

Yeah, that was hypoerbole on my part. It's not unknown for 10-year-olds to commit hideous crimes, though.

<comment><USER2> I don't decide _personally_ , it's not in my authority. Even if it would, again, it depends on a certain case. There are specialists in court -- medics, psychologist etc. that decide if a tried person is sane, understands his actions, committed a crime consciously and is capable of prison sentence or other means better be taken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Many people wanted the juvenile to be retried retroactively as an adult, "because this case is special".

India should:

1\. Not pass knee-jerk laws, it takes a long time to undo the damage.

2\. Do away with the death penalty.

Mobs of 'concerned citizens' always turn into sadistic assholes when they know their anger is righteous. But once the punishment of death is off the table, there would be one less way to cause serious damage.

You should see how the discourse in India has become, with good people suggesting more and more creative ways of torturing the rapists; disembowelment, chemical castration, and reversed re-enactment of the original rape have all been suggested.

A national exercise in revenge is sickening. Good, kind people braying for blood is sickening.

<comment><USER5> This is no knee jerk reaction, it was tabled a good two years ago, the Lok Sabha had already passed the bill and today the Rajya Sabha. Though it might appear as a brash move to lower the age, the clause of being under age has been misused by organized crime as the least punishment was applicable.

Creative suggestions and covering those in detail is a media propaganda to keep the minutes running on their 24hr news channels.

<comment><USER6> If the real problem is misuse of clause of being underage by organized criminals, then laws against organized crime and even more importantly it seems in India's case the infrastructure to prosecute the guilty should be strengthened. Toughening the laws for under aged does not seem the appropriate response in that case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I understand where parents of victim are coming from adn most probably take the same stance of more harsh paunishment for these crimes. But entirely reducing the age for juvenile some how does not sound right. The reasons are 1\. While the kids are more clever now a days I see not much done to to improve morality in education -- Not even as much as physical education periods 2\. Internet in hand means lots of wrong things show as right, i personally know adults who beleive the news or forwarded news like items in WhatsApp is right (99% of them are wrong) and actual news website/new watching is redcuing close to zero with youngsters 3\. No vent out for youngsters i.e. not enough parks, parents pushing youngsters to money - no matter what. i.e. If you tell your kid it is ok to cheat govt or give bribe now-a-days and say that eve teasing is bad then they take either both bad (if they are intelligent) or both ok. 4\. There is a serious need for parent to know and teach kids about internet - about 60% parents know kids can watch nasty stuff on internet but they just dont know how bad it is and how to educate kid on what is right and what is wrong, i would even encourage indian telecom providers take ownership of teaching this to parents and kids

</comment><comment><USER8> The text on the placard that the girl is holding in the first picture of the article is exactly why more debate was needed on the issue.

</comment><comment><USER9> All was pretty straightforward until I got to acid attacks. Acid attacks? I'm assuming like, flinging it into a victim's face or something? That's just weird.

Edit: Not implying that rape or murder are "normal" but I would say they're more common...

<comment><USER10> It's pretty common in that part of the world, unfortunately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A very poor precedent has been set, unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER12> Cool. Adult responsibilities with child rights.

Older teens need to just be treated as adults with respect to both.</comment>


Emacs true color (24-bit) in terminal support - <AUTHOR> http://hoppsjots.org/?p=133 <comment><USER2> Cached version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qMHyxwR...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qMHyxwRxdDgJ:hoppsjots.org/%3Fp%3D133+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=br)

</comment><comment><USER3> I fixed the web server to deal with the load, so it's better than the cache probably (the diff link is better as well).</comment>


Former Oculus VP of Engineering Shows Long Range VR Tracking System - <AUTHOR> http://www.roadtovr.com/mts-virtual-reality-vr-tracking-system-jack-mccauley-oculus-vp-engineering/ <comment><USER2> Leap Motion's new SDK has also been getting positive reviews.

[http://blog.leapmotion.com/orion/](http://blog.leapmotion.com/orion/)

It has taken several years but it looks like this technology might finally be ready for general commercial use. Hopefully, we can use it for more than gaming.

<comment><USER3> That looks seriously amazing and its backwards compatible with original hardware.

I wish I hadn't thrown out Leap Motion in garbage .

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the article I could not figure out how it determines the full XYZ position of the retro-reflective object. Clearly it is possible to determine the ray along which the retro-reflective object will be, but how does it determine its depth? I do not see the article mention anything about time-of- flight measurements for the laser or that you need a stereo setup that will triangulate the position.

The article shortly mentions needing two retro-reflective objects to determine the XYZ. But do you then need two lasers, or does one laser quickly alternative between the two objects?

Edit: just re-read the article. The idea is indeed to use two base stations or a second marker.

That makes me wonder about the scalability of this solution. What about the typical HMD + 2 6DOF controller setup? 6 Base stations?

<comment><USER5> I was wondering the same things. He said that adding a second marker would be easy, so I suppose the idea must be to alternate between the objects.

Three markers and one base station ought to be enough to get 6DOF tracking, but of course a practical system will need many more to handle the user facing the other way, and that may not be practical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I haven't yet tried a modern VR system, but that's some crazy low latency. I know Mr Carmack is all about low latency :)

<comment><USER7> here is another low latency solution that also tracks rotation of the object: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7IL0Gvux7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7IL0Gvux7U)

the Ishikawa Watanabe Laboratory have some crazy low latency setups

3D object rotation tracking demo: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrvAHh3-4qU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrvAHh3-4qU)

<comment><USER6> that second demo has considerable lag</comment></comment></comment>


Just for fun: Wikipedia entry about Ron Conway - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_conway <comment><USER2> that's for *rob* conway

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, it's mismarked -- i don't see any other entry for ron conway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=ron+conway&fulltext;=Search</comment></comment>


The Astronomical Math Behind UPS' New Tool to Deliver Packages Faster - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/business/2013/06/ups-astronomical-math/

<comment><USER2> Traveling Deliveryperson Problem

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm very interested to see if this pans out and how much exactly will this improve delivery times or the business in general. The writer says

"Called ORION, or On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation, UPS' data- drenched route optimization tool aims to deliver the best answer yet to the traveling salesman problem,"

However, do not travel agencies/airlines already tackle this problem every day albeit perhaps a different facet of this? I wonder if there is dialogue between delivery communities and travel agencies and such, it would no doubt be beneficial. Maybe the people at ITA(now at google) and shipping people should talk/do commerce?

Seems like a healthy idea to me.</comment>


Is the app-only economy going to kill the Internet ? - <AUTHOR> http://pranjan.blogspot.com/2015/04/is-app-only-economy-going-to-kill.html

<comment> i-was-a-penguin We already had native applications. C64 applications. MS-DOS applications. Windows applications. Mac OS applications. Linux applications. Java applications.

Slow to deploy. Insecure. Hard to tinker with. Not standardized. Tied to one OS.

Then came the web and won.

Why should apps suddenly come back and take over?

My bet is on the web.

<comment> i-was-a-penguin There currently are 2 issues the web has to overcome:

1) Via a manifest file, websites can be available offline. But currently, if people want a tool they "download an app". They don't add a website to their homescreen.

2) People can easily pay for an app. But not for a website.

<comment><USER2> Problem is phone manufacturers have a vested interest in making the web experience sub-optimal (and even limit developers' means of building a proper mobile browser, like Apple).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The internet != hypertext/www.

Title of this should have been: "Is the app-only economy going to kill the web?".

</comment><comment><USER4> If I ship an iOS or Android App, then my website will feature prominent graphical links to the app store and google play. I'll be passing on some of my pagerank to them. How much will the app store and google play pass back to me?

I don't see either the app store or google play as being in my long-term interest. It is very nearly impossible for app publishers to use alternative distribution channels such as direct mail.

I'm toying with the idea of rewriting my native Objective-C iOS App entirely in javascript, so it won't need to be in the app store. That would be a lot of work but I really do feel that, in the long run, Apple and Google are destroying the independent developers.

</comment><comment><USER2> Only one point to nitpick: let's stop spreading the "RSS is dead" meme. It's not. RSS/Atom are alive and well.

Google reader != RSS.

These standards are open and simple enough for everyone to implement on their site/blog, and they'll only die if we all start acting like they're dead because _one_ company decided to phase out a product that was not even living up to its full potential. I use [https://www.newsblur.com/](https://www.newsblur.com/) on a daily basis and it's a far superior piece of software.

</comment><comment><USER5> um, how will these apps work, without the internet?

</comment><comment><USER6> To me, this is like asking is replacing the hand-cranks with electric starters going to kill the car engine.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think the title is wrong, apps cannot kill the Internet but they can kill the Web.

</comment><comment><USER8> Apps are essentially a new form of the website as we know it now.

<comment><AUTHOR> They are not. Apps are not like websites. Thats what I am trying to say here.

<comment><USER8> Yes they are. Your complaints in your article hardly signal the "end of the Internet".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> interesting read. The app-only model is indeed locking users into a den from where they is no escaping.

<comment><USER10> I think a lot of us thought the same thing when AOL, CompuServe and Prodigy brought us into their walled gardens. Things are cyclical. If you're on the upswing of the cycle, it can look like you're going to go up forever. If you step back and watch the ebb and flow of the cycle, though, you get a much clearer picture of where things are headed in the long run.</comment></comment>


Diamonds are Forever - <AUTHOR> https://kirstenhacker.wordpress.com/2020/01/13/diamonds-are-forever/ <comment><USER2> I fail to see how the title here matches the title or the content of the linked article?

<comment><AUTHOR> oh, no. you are right. my mistake. I will delete it</comment></comment>


[Working] Get Google+ Invitations - <AUTHOR>

The invites system seems to be back, so if you're one of the guys who're still plusless, Email me at: email@example.com with the subject -
"[Google+] Invite"
I would love a dollar as a token of appreciation.
Email ID for the donation is the same as the current address, email@example.com <comment><USER2> One dollar?! Are you kidding? I'll do it for free, post your email as a comment here if you want one.

<comment><USER3> Received an invite. Many thanks. :)

EDIT: Removed email address after getting an invite.</comment></comment>


Show HN: PyPI server for serving Python packages out of GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/brettlangdon/pypihub <comment><USER2> how about an HG private repo?</comment>


Top 12 Things That Destroy Developer Productivity - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/top-12-things-that-destroy-developer-productivity-2ddf0abc190 <comment><USER2> From guidelines: If the original title begins with a number or number gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."

</comment><comment><USER3> Reading Top 12 lists when you should be working.

</comment><comment><USER4> But it's actually a pretty useful list.</comment>


In reply to contempt motion, Elon Musk gaslights SEC with an alternate reality - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-musk-sec-reply-20190312-story.html <comment><USER2> These arguments aren't going to sway a judge or the SEC, it almost feels amateurish. Of course I presume that Musk and Tesla's lawyer are very competent, but they have to work with what they're given. I suppose the brief can be seen as red meat for his most loyal base, but so what? This isn't a political campaign or a popularly contest, and it almost seems calculated to piss off the regulator that has Musk's balls in a vise.

Musk just confuses the hell out of me. On one hand he started SpaceX, which is a ballsy and amazing company on track to bring launch costs down over the long haul. He seems to have has the wisdom to put competent people in charge of it, and then stick to the PR game he sometimes excels at. On the other hand we have Tesla, which he burdened with SolarCity and his own bizarre behavior. It's a really weird situation, and if he didn't have such a favorably stacked board and s grip on the company it's hard to imagine he'd still be around.

Weirdly the only realistic way he loses his job at Tesla is if the SEC kicks him all the way off, and he's practically waving a red flag at them! What is the point of this? His ego can't possibly be thst fragile, and surely someone in his life can tell him to shut up.

<comment><AUTHOR> One possibility is that Musk recognizes Tesla is headed for disaster and wouldn't mind having his forced removal by a government regulator to blame for the outcome.

<comment><USER3> Single-issue accounts are not allowed here, and for weeks you've posted about nothing but this. If you would please stop, we'd be grateful. HN is for intellectual curiosity, not fixed agendas.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow gaslights and alternate reality. That's some very emotive language. That's a red flag to me that it's going to be more of an opinion piece rather than news.

It's very hard to get a balanced summary from a news outlet now days.

<comment><USER5> > That's a red flag to me that it's going to be more of an opinion piece > rather than news.

Well, yeah, it's explicitly tagged editorial ("column") content. Opinion columns have opinion pieces...not really surprising.

> It's very hard to get a balanced summary from a news outlet now days.

Yeah, it's too bad the same news outlet didn't carry a straight news piece on the same story.

Oh, wait, they did: [https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-elon-musk- tweets-s...](https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-elon-musk-tweets-sec- contempt-20190312-story.html)

<comment><USER6> That should probably be the story posted to this site, not the editorialized one.

<comment><USER5> Analysis pieces are no less on-topic and often mat least as appropriate for HN than bare news pieces, and I don't think that, obnoxious headline aside, that is untrue of the content here.

But if you think it's inappropriate you can and should flag it and move on, rather than making ludicrous complaints about it being a sign of a trend of outlets making it hard to find straight news when the same outlet that published the column also carried a straight news piece on the same event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And the demise of the distinction of the term "gaslighting" from "lying" is now complete.</comment>


ORMs Are Not Easier - <AUTHOR> https://blog.taylorwood.io/2019/05/08/orm-no-thanks.html <comment><USER2> They are never easier but they are convenient for serializing/deserializing from the DB to the data structures of the language. I'm currently working with Rails, Django and Phoenix. For a polyglot developer having to learn how to do SQL in many different languages is immediately a stupid thing to do.

I wish I could write my queries in SQL and the ORMs be smart enough to handle them without making me parse the results manually.

On the other side, I like ORMs for managing the databases with migrations.</comment>


Missing Internet Pioneer Phil Agre Is Found Alive - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/01/missing_internet_pioneer_phil.html <comment><USER2> May not be quite so simple, there's an update:

 _UPDATE, 1/31, 6:55pm: I received an email from one of the people who has actively been involved in the search for Phil, and she isn't satisfied with the information released by the police. "For several reasons we cannot provide details, but what we can tell you is that the police did talk with Phil for a few minutes," she said. "Police standards for removing a missing persons notice is quite minimal. Those of us guiding the search for Phil have more detailed information about the interaction between the officer and Phil that is not being made public. The information we did receive gave us no evidence that he is actually "safe". Therefore we are continuing to search for him."_

<comment><USER3> You'd think if they were continuing to search for him that they would tell the interwebz what the mystery information is as an aide to locating him, no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's the difference between a missing person and someone who wants to be missing?

<comment><USER5> How it hurts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Who?</comment>


Graphene Supercapacitors Ready For Electric Vehicle Energy Storage - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/521651/graphene-supercapacitors-ready-for-electric-vehicle-energy-storage-say-korean-engineers/ <comment><USER2> Note to reader: the supercaps in the article aren't being used for long-term energy storage.

When a car brakes using magnets, a huge quantity of power is generated by the magnets. In a typical setup, this power value is much higher than the maximum rate at which the lithium batteries can absorb charge.

From what I gather, what this article actually means is that these supercaps will be used as energy couplers between the regenerative brakes and the lithium batteries. They aren't actually replacing the lithium battery.

<comment><USER3> Presumably it'd work the other way, too? Supercaps that let you recover more of the energy produced by regenerative braking should also give you short bursts of acceleration, no? I imagine a system similar to the KERS system used in F1:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Put it in my phone, tablet and laptop ... if I have something that I could charge for 16 seconds I don't care how much it power source will last.

Also super-capacitors aren't that bad for medium term storage - they lose 10% of the charge per day which is not much.

<comment><USER5> I don't know much of the science, but I think if it can charge that quickly, it can probably discharge pretty quickly as well. I imagine I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that, so maybe there are drawbacks to putting it into a device you hold in your hands?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So is the idea here that you would use these supercapacitors as the primary energy store? Or is the case that you would use them to quickly capture the energy from regenerative breaking and then use it to slowly charge traditional batteries over time?

<comment><USER7> I think the idea is that you capture the energy from regenerative braking in the super capacitors and then drain them almost immediately when acceleration is called for (which means the batteries need to be used a lot less and thus last a lot longer).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been hoping for a supercapacitor laptop battery for some time. I'll gladly take a 3 hour battery life if I can get a 30 second recharge.

<comment><USER9> Not sure if I want to carry that kind of high power energy source in my bag, or on my lap... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoWMF3VkI6U](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoWMF3VkI6U)

<comment><USER10> I don't see how this video shows anything which supports your .. fears? Obviously, you shouldn't short-circuit capacitors. You shouldn't short-circuit _any_ power source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sounds interesting but how exactly is 64Wh/kg "almost comparable" with 100-200Wh/kg?

Personally, I'm all for supercaps for regenerative braking right now and will love to see a day when we can fully charge an EV in 30 seconds.

</comment><comment><USER12> How can something so small have more surface area than a basketball court?

<comment><USER13> Imagine a sheet of paper the size of a football field but infinitesimally thin. Now, fold it in half. Fold it in half again. Continue folding it in half until it's the size of a postage stamp. You now have something with the surface area of a football field that you can easily fit in your wallet.

<comment><USER14> Can the infinitesimally thin paper be folded more than 8 times?

<comment><USER15> Mythbusters folded it 11 times, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRAEBbotuIE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRAEBbotuIE)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The big question is how long they can retain the charge. Supercapacitors generally have a much higher self-discharge rate than batteries.

<comment><USER17> I think the first usage would be to recover energy from the brakes, energy that you can use almost immediately afterwords. You would still use another battery as the main storage.</comment></comment>


US identifies suspect in leak of CIA hacking tools - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/05/15/us-identifies-suspect-in-leak-of-ca-hacking-tools/ <comment><USER2> This is the complaint that led to Joshua Schulte's arrest for Child Porn charges:

[https://www.scribd.com/document/379346745/Joshua-Adam- Schult...](https://www.scribd.com/document/379346745/Joshua-Adam-Schulte)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> FTA:

> Joshua Adam Schulte, who worked for a CIA group that designs computer code > to spy on foreign adversaries, is believed to have provided the agency's > top-secret information to WikiLeaks, federal prosecutors acknowledged in a > hearing in January.</comment>


Show HN: Classalog – Next.js+Firebase – find the in-person classes around you - <AUTHOR> https://classalog.org <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

I realized there weren't really a platform making a good job for users when you are looking up classes (art & craft, languages, dance, etc.). You always end up visiting different website and having a hard time to compare the offering. Therefore, we launched classalog.org. First in San Francisco.

The app is using Next.js (good SEO for each page was important to us) + firebase for authentification, database and some serverless functions. Next.js is hosted on Zeit.

I'm passionate about this project because as we spend more and more time behind our screens, we also long real connections and taking in-person class is a good way to meet people. It also helps people who want to freelancer and become an instructor to find more clients.

Feel free to give it a try, and let your instructor friends now they can get more free visibility. It's far from perfect but let me know what you think as we'd appreciate helpful feedback.

Thanks, Deniz.</comment>


Browser cookies influence ticket prices - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1caomf/what_are_some_useful_secrets_from_your_job_that/c9es3w2.compact

<comment><USER2> I recall this being debunked (at least for airline tickets) completely in a stack exchange thread that was posted here a while back. I'll add the links if I can locate them.

Edit to add links:

[1] [http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/2952/flight- ticket...](http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/2952/flight-tickets-buy- two-weeks-before-even-during-holiday-seasons)

[2] [http://blog.getinvisiblehand.com/2011/04/08/ryanair- manipula...](http://blog.getinvisiblehand.com/2011/04/08/ryanair-manipulating- prices-with-cookies-it%E2%80%99s-an-urban-myth/)

</comment><comment><USER3> While I can not verify concretely whether or not airlines change prices tied to cookies, I know that it's outcome is suboptimal. Changing prices over a hunch that people will perceive the price as going up or down does not actually convert to more revenue.

Most price changes, even if they are minutes apart have to do with supply and/or time changes.

At ventata, we have an API for limit supply pricing strategies and time/supply are the biggest factors.</comment>


Why We Let Prison Rape Go On - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/18/opinion/why-we-let-prison-rape-go-on.html

<comment><USER2> Americans as a group seem to view ever-harsher conditions in prison and after release as being a necessary disincentive for criminal behaviour. Sexual assault in prison and its tacit support amongst the general population seems to me to just be another part of this "hang em high" mentality - how often do you hear people joking about dropping the soap or "sharing a cell with Bubba" when talking about criminals?

The fact that this sort of approach to criminality drives up recidivism does not ever seem to enter the conversation, with the possible exception of places like HN or Metafilter or other liberal-by-American-standards forums.

<comment><USER3> It even happened the other night on The Nightly Show - an otherwise wildly liberal show opened their panel with a recommendation that Tsarnaev should be raped in prison.

The amount of vengeance in the american system, at the total exclusion of anything else disgusts me. See-also the torture that is super-max [1].

[1]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/magazine/inside- americas-t...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/magazine/inside-americas- toughest-federal-prison.html)

<comment><USER4> White males being raped in prison does not figure very high in the liberal agenda. The prison rape elimination act was a result of lobbying by conservative and Christian groups.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This - and why do you let unjustified highest incarceration rates go on?</comment>


The Soviets Sponsored a Doomed Expedition to a Hollow Earth Kingdom (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-the-soviets-sponsored-a-doomed-expedition-to-a-hollow-earth-kingdom <comment><USER2> In 1923.

That was entirely reasonable at the time for a country like USSR to fund two persons to find out if that "telepathic revelation" on which many mediums seemed to agree had any grounds.

1923\. Realize how much fewer we knew about the Earth, the mind, space, at the time. Plate tectonics was a new theory, still hotly debated. The origin of human people were not clear and several people were buying into this Aryan theory that caucasians came from an advanced lost civilization. Hell, CIA sponsored research into medium activities until the 70s!

If there was an advanced civilization hiding underground, it was not crazy to think they had tech to send telepathic message, and it would have been irresponsible to not inquire a bit about the people who claimed knowledge about it.

<comment><USER3> >Plate tectonics was a new theory, still hotly debated

This always gets me. Well into the 1950's it was still contested, DNA wasn't discovered until the 1950's, gravitational waves weren't detected until 2015! Even just looking at my family's first personal computer in 1995 and comparing it to the Pixel 3 I carry as a phone and the Moto x4 ( _which was free!!!_ ) that I mostly just use for listening to YouTube videos at work and just how much more capability/processing power/storage they have compared to that Compaq Presario.

It's truly amazing how much we've done and discovered in the past 100~ years.

<comment><USER4> As powerful as our phones are, I feel they are incredibly under-utilized. There is this super computer in my pocket and I use it to check 3 websites and play some games.

<comment><USER3> >and I use it to check 3 websites

That is a powerful use. You're connecting to a source of data that is likely weeks of travel by foot away, if not on another continent. If even one of them is a social site, like HN/Reddit/Facebook, it grants you access to the collective thoughts and works of thousands to millions of people.

"I wonder what other movies so and so was in" used to be something you'd have to ask multiple individuals.

"I wonder how a nuclear reactor works" was something that would have required a trip to a library and might have left you unsatisfied, now you can go on YouTube and actually see a tour of a reactor at a university and find many articles (some from nuclear/energy organizations on the first page of Google) that contain descriptions that even someone plucked form a random grade school could understand.

"How do I _change my oil_ / _hang a door_ / _learn to program_ / _knit a scarf_ / _sew something_ / _plan for my retirement_ / _order illicit goods on the darknet_ / _repair my item_ " now brings you more articles and videos than you could possibly want for countless topics.

While you might do these things on a daily basis, or a monthly basis, many people do use that nifty pocket computer that is their smartphone to find such things.

I learn more from listening to YouTube videos and podcasts at work in a month of work days about history than I did in all of my k-12 education. For that matter I probably learn more just during my commute in a month than I did in all of my k-12 education.

I can also whip that phone out and learn all sorts of things via Khan Academy, I can fire up Duolingo and TALL Drill and practice foreign language skills. I can chat with friends all over the world in real time via text, via image and video video thanks to Marco Polo/Skype/ FB Messenger/FaceTime etc.

That phone is my planner, my own personal weather forecaster, my full-time navigator, a camera and a video capture device, grants me access to all manner of data I've stored in Drive/Evernote/Sheets/Docs, can give me basic translation of foreign languages in real time with the camera, allows me to manage my investments/credit cards/bank accounts and get instant notification of transactions, grants me access to insane amounts of music, let's me get a very good estimate of my dietary deficiencies via cronometer.

I'd call that quite a technological accomplishment. That little black rectangle gives me the same abilities and conveniences that someone might have required an entire staff to have even 30 years ago.

<comment><USER5> Still, most are things that old Presario could do with a dial-up connection. Sure, some might require a Pentium 4 and ADSL, but the smartphone isn't a revolution. The Personal Computer and the Internet were.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There was also Sannikov Land [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sannikov_Land](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sannikov_Land) \- a ghost island in the Arctic Ocean, claimed to be seen in 19 century by Russian explorer Sannikov. A few expeditions to find it were organised by baron von Toll, who eventually died there.

There were attempts to find the land in Soviet time (1930s) with no results.

Russian geologist Vladimir Obruchev wrote a pretty entertaining fiction novel "Sannikov Land", where he described the land populated by dinosaurs and Onkilons, ancient Siberian humans.

<comment><USER7> I know we are not here for a movies links, but here is the movie link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYENPwgfJqE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYENPwgfJqE) (legal)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The hollow earth theories are actually a lot more embedded in human history than people realise, for example 'Shangri-La' is a phrase that most people will recognise, and is an alternative name for the Kingdom/City of Shambahala myth at the basis of this expedition. The myth also mutated into a competing form as 'Agartha' which is said to be a large internal kingdom protected by many mythical beasts that inhabit the caves of Tibet.

Verne's novel is _mostly_ based on the Agartha version of the myth.

<comment><USER9> The Odyssey, a couple of Plato's dialogues, The Aeneid, Dante's Inferno, and the Bible speak of a land of the dead that is within the earth. Probably based on the older cosmology that associated the elements with moral status of souls. Bad = earthy = go down. Good = fire = go up. In the earth is down, in the heavens is up. Souls go somewhere when the body dies, so bad souls go down into the earth and good souls go up into the heavens with the stars.

Also the reason for earth centered universes. Not because ancient thinkers thought humans were so great, but because they thought humans were so bad. Saying the earth (ball of dirt and badness) orbits the Sun (ball of fire and goodness) made no sense in that context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm confused at the title. It seems like the Americans sponsored it outright and there is evidence the Soviets sponsored it as well.

</comment><comment><USER11> The article briefly mentions Roerich as a painter, but it's worth noting that he really was an amazing and important painter. It's worth an image search to see some of his work. Also, there's a small museum dedicated to his work on 107th street in NYC and it's one of my favorite places.

</comment><comment><USER12> A few high ranking Nazis were also believers in Hollow Earth theory. Though it's complete bunk, it is much more fun to think about than the "earth is flat" nonsense. At least this has made for good science fiction.

<comment><USER8> The nazi's mostly believed in the _concave_ hollow earth theory as proposed by Cyrus Teed/Koresh and known as the religion of Koreshanity, there is some evidence Hitler himself believed in it, sending an expedition to the island of Rugen with the goal of setting up telescopes to look over the interior of the earth to spy on British fleet movements around Scapa Flow.

<comment><USER13> I feel like this is one can of worms I don't want to jump into very far... Concave means we're "on the inside" already? How did this theory deal with basic observable things like the stars moving at night?

<comment><USER14> You could define some kind of coordinate transformation that would switch interior and exterior, with appropriate changes to physical laws. It would be impossible to empirically distinguish it from the Euclidean representation we're used to using.

The weirdest part of that would be that it'd seem like light doesn't travel in straight lines, which is just crazy talk.

<comment><USER15> Light is affected by gravity, and affected by the medium it travels through, in fact it's only straight in a vacuum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The building Roerich built on the Upper West Side as a center for his movement was rumored by some conspiracy cranks as one resting place of the holy grail until the 1970s. I love Roerich lore.</comment>


First Work Experience as a Completely Self-Taught Software Developer - <AUTHOR> http://gkayaalp.com/2014/01/30/first-work-experience-as-a-completely-self-taught-software-developer.html

<comment><USER2> humble and beautiful.</comment>


Record Low Number of Startups in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/sv4ie/record-low-number-of-tech-startups-will-be-created-in-2019-why-4c6788a17e08 <comment><USER2> Possible factors:

\- Too many people are struggling to repay their student loans

\- Too many people are one paycheck away from homelessness

\- People may be more risk averse than previously thought

\- The fact that health care is tied to employment deters people from starting a business. Indeed, countries with strong social safety nets have more entrepreneurs ([https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/541413/))

<comment><USER3> I think these are all factors.

Tyler Cowen talks about this issue quite a bit. The stat he often quotes is that new business creation is down by about half since 50 years ago.

Here's an interesting post he had on it: [https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/08/wi...](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/08/will- the-recent-decline-in-entrepreneurship-be-reversed-by-demographic-forces.html)

It could be as simple as demographic shifts (which would explain its long slow and consistent decline), or the other factors you and him mention might also be playing an outsized role.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article summary is that since we're in an economic boom, it's more comfortable for now for people to work for the man than do a startup.

Although this is true, the other factors (high debt, health insurance, and rent) will manifest themselves in the next recession.

For example, the 40 year-old US entrepreneur has to decide whether to work for an established company, or do a startup and eat the $2,000/month health insurance for his family. Or just move to Toronto. :)

Tyler's article has some provocative comments, but there's some nuggets in there. The corner orange vendor might not be sightly, but within a block of there is cheap rent.</comment>


Scrcpy: Display and control of Android devices connected on USB - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy <comment><USER2> dupe/former discussion (52d ago): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16544977](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16544977)

Edit: This is about the author's originial blog post introducing the tool, he works at genymobile on this. It's awesome they FOSS'ed it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice, now I can finally automate all the games that require me to grind through levels.

... as soon as I write something to recognize what's on screen, to write an engine to play well, and leave my phone and computer on overnight...

</comment><comment><USER4> I've installed this, it's amazing, the tool I've been looking for forever. Thank you!

<comment><USER5> I tried it with an older Nexus 4 and it works great. However, I am not able to control the display after a while. Closing and opening scrcpy works but is it possible to not have to do that? What am I doing wrong?

Fedora 27, Nexus 4 stock

<comment><USER6> There is a phone setting to leave screen on while debugging.

<comment><USER5> Thank you. I tried it. The device is awake. The screen is on. It takes my input from the mouse on my computer but the display on the computer (the window that shows the nexus 4 screen) stops updating after a bit.

Is there a way to turn debugging on or something so I can see what causes it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I first read about this I tried to compile it and it bogged down my work device (MacBook Pro 15in 2015, max buyable specs) and I had to kill it after 20+ minutes since I was at a meeting.

I'll try it again soon, though, as this tool can be immensely useful for demos on real devices.

</comment><comment><USER8> Awesome. I have two otherwise perfectly fine Android phones that just happen to have broken screens. When I needed them, I was managing to do something similar using Vysor and later some simple screencapping script, but both sucked.

</comment><comment><USER9> I hope they will release a new version soon, including the fixes for the wifi connection. With the 1.1 version the wifi connection still fails for me. Nevertheless, quite a nice move by genymotion to open source scrcpy :-)

</comment><comment><USER10> Damn awesome. I didnt even know i needed this!</comment>


Show HN: The World is Tired of Bad News. Meet SentiNews - <AUTHOR> http://www.sentinewsmob.ml/ <comment><USER2> Just installed. Very little content, only like 5 articles from each newspaper. The Good/Bad/All bar steals a lot of usable space even tho it's probably going to be used only once to set up. All news are mostly political. I just hate so much that the headline is above the picture. Article frame should be split vertically, so that the picture is on the left, and the headline and summary on the right. The good/bad news algorithm is not very precise. You can also add discuss on reddit/hn button. Otherwise it's a pretty nice newsreader with 3.3MB installation size and it works very fast even on my old nexus5.

Will use it for couple more days.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for your recommendations about the UI and the app in general. I'll update it in a near future. It's my first Android project ("just for fun") and I hope you will use SentiNews from time to time.

> Very little content, only like 5 articles from each newspaper. All news are > mostly political.

You can swipe beetwen pages and see different news topics (not only politic news). SentiNews includes a lot of categories (Sport, Technology, Science and etc.) from the most popular news sources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I really like the concept of this app! Could you explain how the app determines whether a news article is good or bad? What kind of algorithms do you use?

<comment><AUTHOR> The app uses algorithms of sentiment analysis [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentiment_analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentiment_analysis) All news classify by their positive/negative features. A lot of news sources for different languages were analyzed to automatically extract the typical "good" or "bad" patterns for classification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > first intelligence news reader.

I doubt that.</comment>


Show HN: Auto-ping stale issues on GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://datafire.io/editor/56814e990fe29f7d179f6bf4 <comment><USER2> The service definitely looks interesting and I see how it could come in handy.

One remark: it would be great if each of the steps had a title/description. That way, the author can make clear what each of the steps is doing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! We're hard at work on v2, and will definitely include something like this.</comment></comment>


Is Quora Becoming What Google Buzz Should Have Been? by ScepticGeek - <AUTHOR> http://www.skepticgeek.com/socialweb/is-quora-becoming-what-google-buzz-should-have-been/ <comment><USER2> Since I've never really used either, I would say no. That's just my personal opinion, and not backed by any facts. I will say, however, that none of my friends and family use Quora, and most of them do not use Buzz. I sit in the camp that thinks Google created Buzz just to get something out there, and not to gain traction. If they wanted to do that they would have used the Wave- esque system.</comment>


Wifi Cat - <AUTHOR> http://blog.weatherby.net/2009/02/wifi-cat-out-of-the-bag.html <comment><USER2> Can someone post a summary? I couldn't understand more than about 30% of what he said - terrible sound quality.

Is this something about tracking a feline with WiFi?

I sort of got the idea at the end that it was actually a joke?

I could barely understand/hear what he was saying. Is it just me?

<comment><USER3> Wifi Cat is the world's first WiFi repeater integrated into a cat collar. It uses patent pending energy harvesting, the cat's movement recharges battery the battery. It spread's WiFi throughout your home and enable you to track your cat using your browser in real time.

<comment><USER4> That could make sense if cats weren't the type of pets who absolutely need to be on your lap when you're trying to use your laptop. Not a good location for a repeater.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The most promising startup pitched at Atlanta's StartupRiot! Every second of this presentation taught me something :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Only at a great event like Startup Riot will you see great deals like WiFi Cat. :-)

<comment><USER7> agreed. more startup riot coverage - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=486925>

<comment><USER8> It's a bit reddity to see the joke presentation so high on the front page while an actually informative coverage of the even is in obscurity.

When I browse Slashdot I turn funny posts off. If you turn them on, you'll see +5 funny all over the place, and they are indeed funny, I would just rather get information then jokes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can haz WiFi? It actually sounds like a good idea to me. Is there a reason this is a joke instead of a legitimate business idea?

</comment><comment><USER10> The buildup on this company was absolutely EPIC.

</comment><comment><USER3> At this point it's all about execution.

</comment><comment><USER11> Wifi Cat is wiiiiiiiifi.

</comment><comment><USER12> Voted up</comment>


Facebook creates fact-checking exemption for climate deniers - <AUTHOR> https://popular.info/p/facebook-creates-fact-checking-exemption <comment><USER2> > After the quiet decision by Facebook, the coalition says it and other groups > that attack consensus climate science can share content that climate > scientists have labeled as misleading because Facebook will consider it > "opinion" and therefore immune to fact-checking.

Is this like some news organization recently argued in court that it's actually "entertainment" so it doesn't have to be factual?

</comment><comment><USER3> You have to wonder where the line should be drawn. Why shouldn't someone be allowed to share an opinion? Despite common misconceptions, most of climate discussion is _not_ settled objective fact, but projections and models about whats probably going to happen in 100-200 years given constant assumed inputs. Most of these models are changing quickly as well. They are not what they were 10 years ago for instance. Should facebook really be expected to hire people to be deleting every opinion that doesn't perfectly match whatever the (always evolving) IPCC's opinion? At that point why not just ban any comment with certain keywords?

This forum has an extreme bias against facebook, so I doubt this decision by them will be popular here, but I can completely understand that facebook would like to prevent echo-chambers.

<comment><USER4> This feels like a strawman to me. There are lots of things shared on Facebook which are unambiguously misinformation, no matter what model or IPCC opinion is the current state of our understanding. Sharing those things which are unambiguously misinformation creates the appearance of debate where none really exists (such as, "humans are causing a problem for ourselves").

<comment><USER3> Yes, but this is not what of those instances.

Besides, you must think about it from the mile-high view for a moment. "Vaccines give you autism" and "Vaccines could cause harm" are both statements put forth by the anti-vaccine crowd. One is false. One does have some level of truth behind it. Most of this site would prefer they ban the second comment as well as the first even though in strict technical terms, it is a factual statement.

The simple truth is that Facebook has to practice a lot of policing, and they're going to be stepping on a lot of toes. Just because all the content on facebook is not 100% aligned with your personal views does not mean it should come down. I think that is perfectly acceptable of facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Click "Let me read it first" to see the article without subscribing. It's a pretty nice flow for a newsletter site.

> According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook found that the misinformation > about climate models was an "opinion" and, therefore, not eligible for fact- > checking.

> Now, the CO2 Coalition has announced its intention to exploit this loophole > to spread climate misinformation on Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is why we shouldn't push a climate change narrative. There's too much of a gray area. Just say what we've observed- there is a great extinction event occurring today, excess carbon is a big part of the problem.</comment>


Lyft City Works - <AUTHOR> https://www.lyft.com/city <comment><AUTHOR> > Lyft will provide free or reduced price rides to nonprofit organizations > doing critical work to improve life in cities. Apply here to be considered > to receive a one-time grant of Lyft ride credit to be used to support your > community and further your impact.

This seems like a good way to mix benefiting non-profits but also directly benefiting lyft by gaining market share. If you use lyft for free at work you're definitely more likely to use it in your personal life.</comment>


Subscription Model Likely for Apple iPad Access to Hulu - <AUTHOR> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100219/will-you-pay-for-hulu-on-the-ipad-it-may-be-your-only-choice/ <comment><AUTHOR> > To these TV executives it makes sense to block Boxee from supporting Hulu > because Boxee is for "TVs" and Hulu is only intended for "computers". Now > they're stuck trying to figure out which arbitrary slot the iPad fits into.

My guess is Hulu web will be slaughtered and only a few (the latest?) episodes will be available.</comment>


The blog is running EXTREMELY slow. Can you find out why? - <AUTHOR>

This blog has been running EXTREMELY slow for the last few hours.
I've tried it with CURL and everything is working quick, so server is working OK.
Something else is delaying it. I've tried checking on Chrome Console and Network just takes forever between the logo and the next thing but the logo itself takes no time, so I don't know what's going on.
Can you please check?
http://blogeek.com.ar/ <comment><USER2> This is Wordpress, install the BlackBox Debug Bar plugin and then load the site.

A black bar will appear that will track queries and DNS requests being made on the site.

I once had a custom hook that I had copied from a site online to do some random function and for some reason it was SUPER ineffective and caused a 10 second delay when loading a new page.

Try it, you should be able to find what's going on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks!

I finally found what was going on. And fixed it!

Thanks so much for the help. I actually used that tool :D.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> More importantly, why do you have all those services (including ftp and mysql) open to the world?

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean? Can you access the MySQL account and FTP account without User + Password?

<comment><USER3> If you're comfortable with that, then who am I to blow against the wind?</comment></comment></comment>


How facebook managed growth from 30 to 200 engineers - <AUTHOR> http://algeri-wong.com/yishan/engineering-management.html

<comment><USER2> Thanks Gary and Michael for emailing me about the broken links.

Gotcha: It turns out that quoting links using """ (say, if you had previously run a script to do a bunch of search/replaces) works in Safari, which apparently just fixes it for you, but does not work in Firefox (and presumably other browsers).

</comment><comment><USER3> Excellent stuff - having taken our startup from 4 to 50 people, I can say that in my experience, these observations are absolutely bang on.</comment>


Would a milestone release checklist be useful? - <AUTHOR>

I'm considering building an OS app so you can manage a checklist for things to do before a milestone release. When ready, it will automatically import them into GH issues. Would this be useful for you? <comment><USER2> This would be crazy useful -- if I used iOS. ;) Why not a webapp (aside from the obvious reasons). A responsive UI that does the same with a nice jQuery twist would be workable on most webkit browsers and would work on Android, iOS, and the new Blackberry 10.

Sounds good, no?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. By "OS" i mean "open-source" not "iOS". I was thinking it'd be a web app where you can manage multiple lists each one with categories and items. When you are ready to release you just select the repo and milestone from Github and it creates issues for each of the checkbox items.

<comment><USER2> Ahh, my mistake. (I assumed!) This is most certainly something that I, and many people I know would use! I'll look forward to it.</comment></comment></comment>


Younger Americans less trusting of other people, institutions - <AUTHOR> https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/06/young-americans-are-less-trusting-of-other-people-and-key-institutions-than-their-elders/ <comment><USER2> We've had 20 years of "Please report any unattended luggage", "If you see something, say something", "Watch out for suspicious people", bankers blowing up the economy and getting bailed out for it, non-stop wars, governments spying on their own people, companies selling our personal data, identity theft, unfunded pensions, democratizing technologies that came to naught, social movements that came to naught, and fake news. What the hell did they expect was gonna happen?

<comment><USER3> They also are not indoctrinated into some of the big myths. Ask a young person what this is: [http://s3.amazonaws.com/nasathermalimages/public/video/prete...](http://s3.amazonaws.com/nasathermalimages/public/video/pretext.mov)

(win users might need VLC from videolan.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To what extent did people and institutions deserve our trust?

Speaking as a younger American, I was raised with a lot of bad science, corporate bullshit, and Government subsidized propaganda. The Internet just amplified contrarian voices and revealed certain truths for everybody to see. Today I feel wary, hopeful, and motivated to make it better.

<comment><USER5> > I was raised with a lot of bad science

What are some examples of this bad science?

<comment><USER6> The food pyramid pushed in all the elementary/middle schools comes to mind

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_(nutrition)#Contr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_\(nutrition\)#Controversy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Okay, okay, okay, hold on.

These same people who distrust the average american and institutions, according to the chart, are more likely to trust politicians and business leaders. Literally the two fields that are known to produce lying, self serving assholes (I have a small business, I'm in that group).

No, young Americans don't have a trust issue, they have a wisdom issue. What's next, they decide that voting rights should only be given to the clergy and nobles because they know better than the every day person?

Politicians have historically been know to be dishonest, self serving, lazy bastards since Socrates time. Read Plato's the Republic. Or hell Caesar and the other two in the triumphant.

Do I need to prove business leaders? Really? Do I? And I'm one of them... eh, minus the leader part. But I wont step forward as a saint anytime soon. Businesses are inherently self serving and will gladly lie to achieve that. Let's see, wall street in general, Theranos, Apple's sweat shop practices, well any big tech firm when it comes to privacy.

COME ON! Am I taking crazy pills? Maybe it's TRUE. Democracy is a bad idea. The average person is an idiot and shouldn't have the right to govern themselves. At least a dog eventually bites you back if you beat 'em too many times. It seems like the average 30 year old American prefers to be lied to and will gladly follow and lie to themselves as long as they have a pretty new phone.

<comment><USER8> >These same people who distrust the average american and institutions, according to the chart, are more likely to trust politicians and business leaders. Literally the two fields that are known to produce lying, self serving assholes (I have a small business, I'm in that group).

Just the opposite. The graphs are kind of swapped in the direction that means "more trusting". The first one is proportion of people who agree with the statements (which are based on distrust) so right is less trusting. The second one is proportion of people who have a great or fair amount of confidence in that group, so right is more trusting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was born in the mid 1980s and pretty much 90% of the junk that was taught to me turned out to be false. It's part of why it took me so long to accept global warming. Just nothing was credible.

* Food Pyramid

* Sex "Education"

* Paper Products come from the rainforest being cut down

* Just get any degree in college and you can get a job

* Don't do well in High School and you will be doomed for life.

* Go to a 4-Year university

* There are tons of scholarships if you are smart

* Recycling is good for the environment (Instead they just shipped it to China)

* ...and more ad-nausium

</comment><comment><USER10> Age between 25-28, exact date I won't share to maintain a bit of privacy through obscurity.

I can definitely think of a few reasons why Americans 18-29 are less trusting overall. I would pin it to a several factors. I think the people who experienced the mid 2000s recession during their formative years are less confident in government's ability to solve problems and the stability of government services. Witnessing a significant number of government agencies downsizing (read: the government laying people off), and reduced services will do that. I, and many of my friends are believe that social security will be gone or effectively gone by the time we retire (this is also probably a factor in why concern for the elder is reduced). Restricted job opportunity instills a more competitive approach to life, and higher prioritization of one's own security before others. Less concern for elders is a secondary effect of this.

Part of me wonder whether this is just as shifting in the baseline expectation of trustworthiness. For example, "most of the time, people just look after themselves" is something I'd not only agree with, but I'd also question why it's being portrayed as demonstrating a lack of trust. A lot of our social mechanisms operate off the assumption that people are mostly self interested, and it works because most people _are_ self interested. I'd not only openly say that I mostly look after myself, I'd tell other people to look after themselves first and foremost - taking care of others is a secondary goal that comes after securing your own wellbeing.

Similarly, I think we don't really trust people as much because we have less need for trust. Back in the day, if you wanted to know whether or not a product was good you had a couple sources like a magazine and some acquaintances. Nowadays you have a plethora of information and you can form an effective opinion without allocating too much trust into any individual source.

Personally I think that lower amounts of trust is not necessarily a bad thing. Trust allows people to collaborate without an effective means of ensuring commitment to obligations. But on the flipside the more trustworthy a society is, the easier it is to abuse that trust. There's a good reason why scammers disproportionately go after the elderly, as they're the most trusting on average. The fact that we have built technologies and institutions that can function effectively with little or no trust is a good achievement.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a map of all Covid-19 cases shown as points? - <AUTHOR> I'm unable to find any global map of all cases of Covid-19 cases displayed as point features. Most maps show distribution by countries, which is pretty useless when making travel plans. Thanks! <comment><USER2> [https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...](https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest- coronavirus...](https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus- cases/)

Scroll down

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, thanks!</comment></comment>


How MemCachier went from a favor for a friend to cloud ubquity - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/cloud/how-memcachier-went-from-a-favor-for-a-friend-to-cloud-ubquity/

<comment><USER2> I've used MemCachier and I like what I've seen. It's really easy to set up as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Way to go Alex!</comment>


A Guide to Spam Traps and How to Avoid Them - <AUTHOR> https://litmus.com/blog/a-guide-to-spam-traps-and-how-to-avoid-them <comment><USER2> TL;DR: Don't send email to people unless they specifically solicit email from you and confirm their identity.

I.e., don't send unsolicited email.

I.e., don't send spam.

<comment><USER3> The more interesting for me was Recycled Traps. Often you want to reactivate old users and companies have legitimate reason/access to do so. This part is the more grey area and interesting to see the ISP inactivity rules.

<comment><USER4> > This part is the more grey area and interesting to see the ISP inactivity > rules.

How is it a gray area? The ISP is telling you to stop sending to the address by using hard bounces. If you continue to send to it, you are spamming.

<comment><USER5> Unless, like their example, you only send email occasionally. In the case that you send 1 email per year, you could hit every one of the listed providers without ever seeing a bounce.

<comment><USER3> Exactly this. A typical scenario for those not familiar is often a company has historic lists a year+ old. The company has never sent regular emails and then something interesting happens and you want to inform people that signed up for news some time ago. These inactivity dates are absolutely useful for managing this type of situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just signed up for their newsletter from a few spamtraps. I'm a nice person.

<comment><USER7> Unless you have access to those spamtraps to complete the opt-in, I doubt they will actually be subscribed.</comment></comment>