Mars Methane Hunt Comes Up Empty, Flummoxing Scientists - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mars-methane-hunt-comes-up-empty-flummoxing-scientists/ <comment><USER2> This made me go "huh, then how do they know their sensor is working at all?"

The answer is that the sensors are two spectrometers that detect all sorts of gases, not just methane:

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

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

</comment><comment><USER3> Subtitle is a better heading and less border-line click-bait:

"Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft did not find the gas in red planet's atmosphere during its first months of operation"

<comment><USER4> Flummoxed is pretty fair in this case. The expectation is that any methane released into the Martian atmosphere should persist on long timescales. Either there is a unknown process which scrubs it quickly or previous measurements were in error.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> But isn't that par for the course when it comes to methane on Mars?

It's been detected before at astronomical (heh) levels with subsequent readings the very next day indicating only trace amounts.

[https://earthsky.org/space/methane-spike-june-2013-both- curi...](https://earthsky.org/space/methane-spike-june-2013-both-curiosity- mars-express)

</comment><comment><USER6> At some point I'd love a developer to use 'flummoxed' in their status update :-)

The methane question is an interesting one and for me an example of how hard it is to re-purpose science missions when you don't have a human there to implement the new experiment. I feel that it illustrates the limits of robotic exploration for now.

<comment><USER7> Gas spectrometers are really very universal instruments. There's a lot of experiments you can do with one, especially if you're happy to use an arc to vaporise bits of solids and test the gasses that come off.

<comment><USER6> Hard to do that from orbit though, getting those solid bits up there takes some work. And when you're on the ground if you're relying on auto-navigation your average speed is less than 1km/day so hard to get a wide survey.

Take the current curiosity mission as an exemplar. It is coming up on having been on the ground for 7 years (August '12). A human team, with the same instruments, and a rover could have achieved all of the science results from Curiosity to date, in less than a month. Further they could have repaired instruments that have become non-functional from spares carried with them.

Opportunity and Spirit covered a combined 36 miles or so in 10+ years of operations, also doable in about a month by a human crew.

So we have nearly two decades of robotic exploration that we could do in about 3 months with a group of people and some transport. Plus they could do additional research that the robots can't because they could combine the instruments in ways the robots cannot, or use different processes the robotics cannot implement.

I realize this sounds like a dismissal of the huge accomplishment and contribution to science that the rovers have made. It is not my intent. Those are valuable things, and some science is always better than no science. What I'm trying to point out that putting people there would have 100x the science return for less than 100x the budgetary impact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The simplest explanation that I can think of is that some form of methane is trapped in geologic formations which periodically release (such as ice), but that the mentioned chemical/dust reactions end up sequestering (scrubbing) it in to more solid forms that are harder to detect.

Mars would be a much more interesting place if we'd send over enough infrastructure to get mostly autonomous robots going and scaling up local infrastructure for some kind of terra-forming effort.

<comment><USER9> A solid [heh] explanation. The methane could simply be absent because of seasons. It has very slightly larger axial tilt than Earth, and a far greater eccentricity. The sun could just be liberating methane from geological formations during the correct conditions (close to the sun, and in summer).

Seasons could also affect life (just like it does plants on Earth), but it's never aliens.

Mars is currently at its aphelion and the southern ice cap is not receiving sunlight, so anything liberating Methane might be inert.

> the mentioned chemical/dust reactions end up sequestering (scrubbing)

A good explanation, there is another possibility. Given that CO2 (the main component of the Martian atmosphere) is _so_ much heavier than methane, the minuscule concentration could have floated to the top of the atmosphere and could have been mostly blown away by solar wind. Methane could still be there, just far below the noise floor.

<comment><USER10> Both of you make good points, I just want to point out that since the mission has been observing mostly during a period of intense dust storm activity. If a dust scrubbing effect is real, the orbiter may still have a chance at detection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> That's funny... just a few days ago the Europeans (Mars Express) were "definitely finally confirming methane on Mars... now the Americans are saying "nope" without directly addressing the Mars Express findings?

See: [http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/04/astronomers-finally- co...](http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/04/astronomers-finally-confirm- methane-on-mars)

<comment><USER12> This back and forth about methane on mars has been going on for a while. Not divided politically either, the US has gotten both results over various missions. The speculation I've heard about this is that the methane isn't global and isn't being released constantly, leading to confusing readings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Methane and Mars story consumed India's MOM too:

[https://www.seeker.com/india-mars-orbiter-mission-methane- de...](https://www.seeker.com/india-mars-orbiter-mission-methane-detector- flaw-red-planet-2133861312.html)

[https://thewire.in/85859/methane-isro-msm- spectroscopy/](https://thewire.in/85859/methane-isro-msm-spectroscopy/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Aliens</comment>


Smart speakers detect signs of cardiac arrest - <AUTHOR> https://www.theengineer.co.uk/cardiac-arrest-alexa-smart-speakers/ <comment><AUTHOR> 97% accuracy claimed when agonal breathing occurs, which is 50% of cardiac arrests.

 _the most common locations for an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is in a patient's bedroom, where no one is likely around or awake to respond_

The system can call emergency services.

That's kind of huge. Fund my startup?</comment>


Want to improve your relationship with your co-founder? THE Guide... - <AUTHOR> https://healthybusinesspartnerships.com/keeping-your-partnership-healthy/ <comment><AUTHOR> My goal with this guide is to give entrepreneurs the tools to build and maintain a strong relationship with their co-founder. This guide is based on my own experiences as well as conversations with other co-founders. My hope is I can help co-founders avoid their business disintegrating or hitting big bumps because they can't get along or some type of personal crisis hits.

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions or ideas!</comment>


NoSQL First Impressions: Object Databases Missed the Boat - <AUTHOR> http://www.vancelucas.com/blog/nosql-first-impressions-object-databases-missed-the-boat/

<comment><USER2> NoSQL, ObjectDatabases ... all of these are just the ugly Cobol-era hierarchical databases trying to make a comeback. These things were so nasty that SQL seemed like a breath of fresh air, so just wait.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really sloppy article, about the only thing useful, and it is pretty obvious, is that your database schema shouldn't be strongly tied to an implementation language.</comment>


Ask HN: Can you ask why a company underwent a reorg? - <AUTHOR> I'm feeling out a company and I know they recently underwent a reorg, and I'd like to know what motivated it. Is this inappropriate to ask? <comment><USER2> Ask, but don't expect a very honest answer. Check them out on Glassdoor.</comment>


Should I Machine-Learn? (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nullspace.io/should_i_machine_learn.html <comment><USER2> Andrew Ng once tweeted about a 1-second heuristic:

> Pretty much anything that a normal person can do in <1 sec, we can now > automate with AI.

[https://twitter.com/andrewyng/status/788548053745569792?lang...](https://twitter.com/andrewyng/status/788548053745569792?lang=en)

And was summarily derided for it. Read the replies to his tweet to see some of the suggested counter examples.

I sympathize with Ng here because he's making an effort to describe the boundaries and capabilities of ML to non-technical people in a simple way, and the 1-second heuristic is about as good at that as any I've seen. Yet it's incredibly difficult to delinieate what ML is good and bad at because it's so _different_ than human or animal intelligence!

On the one hand, Modern ML is reasonably good at what Daniel Kahneman calls "System 1" thinking - fast, intuitive, stimulus-response stuff. However, for a lot of this stuff, the AI can do it MUCH faster, sometimes millions of times faster.

On the other, There are many tasks that modern ML can do that humans cannot do, such as learn to see digits even after the pixels have been scrambled in a deterministic way. To the human eye, it always looks like static, but (non- CNN) neural nets don't care and still achieve 99% accuracy on MNIST. A very broad category of things where ML is just plain better than humans is nuanced probability estimates. While human intuition into probability appears to be a pile of fallacies and broken rules of thumb, ML algorithms with appropriate loss functions can achieve very high "calibration" in the sense that the probability estimates they produce closely match the empirical conditional probabilities in real-world data.

<comment><USER3> _> Andrew Ng once tweeted about a 1-second heuristic [..] And was summarily derided for it. Read the replies to his tweet to see some of the suggested counter examples._

Fyi to add some extra context to that "1 sec heuristic"...

I've seen several Andrew Ng presentations over the last several years and in the live talks, he has more of a lead up to that "1 second" idea[0]. He was trying to help project managers at Baidu _think_ about the possibilities of _new_ AI products to build.

Unfortunately, the extreme brevity of that tweet removes all that surrounding context that so it makes him look like an AI crackpot instead of an AI realist. (E.g. The top tweet reply from Pedro Domingos seems to be based on the limitations of _current_ AI but Andrew Ng was trying to convey the idea to PMs of what _new_ AI to build.)

[0] deep link at 12m20s for context and 14m05s is the "1 sec heuristic": [https://youtu.be/21EiKfQYZXc?t=740](https://youtu.be/21EiKfQYZXc?t=740)

<comment><USER2> Thank you, good clarification, sorry if I made it sound I was dog-piling on Ng. Andrew Ng works harder at explaining ML in a non-technical way than anyone else I can think of, and the 1-second rule came out of that genuine desire to educate. I've been in the exact same boat: a senior executive who "used to code" trying to get me to explain to him in simple terms what kind of problems ML could solve; I sort of fumbled through it by mentioning the 1 second rule and giving some concrete examples. It's just absurdly hard to put it in non- technical terms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >In contrast, take music recommendations. If I give you a series of suggested songs, can you detect a pattern?

It seems to me that there has been a lot of success in recommendation engines (i.e. Spotify, the "Netflix Algorithm", etc). Maybe not so much on a smaller scale, but large companies are using recommendation engines all the time to keep user's engaged.

Other than that, I agree with the rest of the post. The eagerness to throw ML at any and everything can be kind of exhausting. When used right, it can be super powerful but sometimes a simpler method that achieves 80% of the results may be enough for certain use cases.

<comment><USER5> Spotify recommendation engine is half the reason I use Spotify.

<comment><USER4> Yeah same here! The daily mixes that Spotify makes and groups based on my different listening habits has been pretty great. I get a ton of value out of it.

<comment><USER6> They were great for me until we had a kid. Now it's unusable because they will mix 'real' music with annoying kid stuff all over the place.

<comment><USER7> Netflix had the same problem before they added profiles.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


OpenCV knows where you're looking with eye tracking - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/opencv-knows-where-youre-looking-with-eye-tracking/

<comment><USER2> I did this as part of a class project last year with opencv. It's actually not too difficult:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcEsDJA0CWE>

Edit: forgot to mention it was done with just a webcam...no fancy glasses

</comment><comment><USER3> Eye based window/input focus. I've been wanting this for years.

<comment><USER4> Some things are so obvious it's worth wondering why we don't have them yet. I mean, multitouch is the best we can do?

<comment> excuse-me ob Hitch-Hikers quote

For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive--you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope.

It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have there been any studies on the effect of shining IR LEDs in such a close proximity into the eye?

<comment> excuse-me There is a large scale research project using a 10^30mW IR source - the study has been run on land animals for the last 500MYr

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now if this can just be incorporated into Dasher, I can finally get rid of these pesky hands.

</comment><comment><USER7> That's pretty cool. It's been a fantasy of mine to control the mouse cursor with my eyes.

<comment><USER8> Imagine how annoying hover effects would be! New input modalities just can't be bolted on to existing UIs. That's why Windows tablets have always flopped and iOS looks nothing like Mac OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Awesome, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm working on in my PhD. Glad to see it's becoming mainstream.

<comment><USER2> really, what approach are you taking? I've written some stuff on eye tracking and have found basic methods like correlation work best</comment></comment>


[ShowHN] Determine your license obligations - my first rubygem - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Schwolop/deriving_license

<comment><AUTHOR> This came up at work where we needed to audit our code to check we weren't violating any open source licenses by keeping things closed source and/or using our software for profit. Seemed like a problem other people must have had too.

I've got a big list of improvements forthcoming (in an ideal world anyway). First up, for gems that don't list their licenses in their gemspec (like, ironically, this one...) try searching the repository for a LICENSE file. Then building the info list in a sensible manner, perhaps scraping the FSF's webpage? I'd also like to extend it to work for other languages' equivalent specifications, e.g. composer files for PHP, etc.

Would love to hear your thoughts!</comment>


Bigshot: The Camera for Education.  DIY Digital Camera Construction - <AUTHOR> http://www.bigshotcamera.com/

<comment><USER2> This is a really cool camera. The only thing that would make it "perfect" would be to have the firmware for the camera be hackable. If you have ever played with the Canon Hacking kit (CHSDK) for their point and shoot cameras, you can can do amazing things (like interesting time lapse things, or motion sensors different compression schemes etc etc)

<comment><USER3> Looking at the documentation, it seems shooting photos is exclusively automatic: there's no way to change EV, shutter speed or aperture, which is disappointing. The "educational" bit only extends as far as putting the camera together, once it's complete it's a total black box, like an older cellphone camera.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a really cool project from my former PhD lab. It's a camera kit that teaches kids how cameras work by letting them assemble one themselves. The website [1] includes a lot of educational material describing how and why each component works, along with interactive animations.

The camera itself is also interesting in that it contains a few different "computational imaging" lens-systems within: normal, wide-angle, and stereo, "all-in-one". See [2] for a description of what computational imaging means in general. I'm happy to try to answer any questions (this wasn't my project, but I did play around with one).

[1] [http://www.bigshotcamera.com/experience](http://www.bigshotcamera.com/experience)

[2] [http://www.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/projects/what_is/](http://www.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/projects/what_is/)

<comment><USER5> Hey apu,

Do you have any info on APIs available to use Bigshot camera features by programming?

Anything generic that doesn't use gphoto would be awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been dreaming about this for so many years. A DIY digital camera, back to the basics of lens and sensor.

They are shipping now? Has anybody purchased one?

[edit: I guess I should have googled a bit to see that this isn't the first DIY digital camera kit commercially available]

[edit: "Low battery? Just rotate the hand crank a few times and continue to shoot your photos!" \- that's also pretty cool if it works, I missed that feature in the OLPC that shipped]

<comment><USER7> I agree, the crank is really cool!

On the subject of DIY cameras, I always thought this guy had such a cool post: [http://www.collection- appareils.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37...](http://www.collection- appareils.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=8822&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&sid=b8f83b174e52cdb471abc0c001280570&start=25) ... making a film SLR from scratch basically. Though he appears to be very talented/handy to put together something like that heh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of another DIY digital camera project based around the raspberry pi camera module - [http://robofun.ro/create/the-sprite-raspberrypi- camera/](http://robofun.ro/create/the-sprite-raspberrypi-camera/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Could the same concept (DIY, education) be applied to many other regularly used gadgets at a similar pricepoint?

Bit like the Galileoscope: [http://galileoscope.org/](http://galileoscope.org/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Great project. It will help kids to increase there knowledge while playing. Great way to teach kids how camera works and giving them a great insight into the working of camera in a playful way.</comment>


Adobe pushes DRM for Flash - <AUTHOR> http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/02/adobe-pushes-drm-flash

<comment><USER2> Seth's post is a little vague, so here's a specific scenario: If a video is available only as an RTMPE stream, then the only way to capture a lossless copy of that video for fair use purposes is to write an unauthorized RTMPE client (ripper), which would probably violate the DMCA and get smacked down by Adobe immediately. Also, open-source Flash players probably won't be able to play RTMPE streams at all, for the same reason.

Adobe is planning to add even more DRM in AIR: [http://www.flashcomguru.com/index.cfm/2007/10/23/Flash- Video...](http://www.flashcomguru.com/index.cfm/2007/10/23/Flash-Video-DRM- Roundup)

</comment><comment><USER3> Adding DRM to Flash will lock out open and interoperable players. However, when Flash is used to play video, Flash itself is used as a crude form of DRM. This creates a "look but don't save" environment to which most people are already accustomed.

<comment><USER4> True, but adding DRM will make Flash the platform of choice for so much more. Why aren't there 50 competitors to Apple's movie rental product? Because DRM sucks and is expensive.

Maybe if Adobe can make flash DRM 'just work' then it will actually empower consumers rather than hinder their use of the content.

I admit, I love the concept of subscription DRM and really with Apple didn't make us all back up all the stuff we've purchased. I don't need the headache of backing up those episodes of "Lost" that I downloaded from the Apple Store, and now that I've had to have them reset the DRM once, if my backup drive fails, I've lost everything.

The solution isn't to eliminate DRM but to make it more flexible and simple to use. Yahoo Music's subscription store was awesome ($6 per month for unlimited music) but I'd give it only a 5 out of 10 on usability.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I've built a product - how do I take payments in the UK? - <AUTHOR>

	I am based in the UK and I have built a web application and now I want to charge people for a 'premium' account. I guess I have the following basic options:
1. Use an API from a bank and handle the payment processing myself (which one?)
2. Use a 3rd party payment system and don't have anything to do with the actual processing
3. Use PayPal
Does anybody have any experience (pros/cons) with these approaches? Any help would be REALLY appreciated (of course, I will research this myself and also publish my own findings). <comment><USER2> There are MANY consideration in addition to the technolgy:

1\. You'll get killed with currency conversions with PayPal. They're the equivalent of thieves in this regard. If you're expecting lots of non-GBP income, this could become a significant cost of running the business. But they're very convenient and easy to link to UK bank accounts.

2\. Don't get married to one provider. Use a "meta" API like Spreedly (<http://spreedly.com/> ) so that you can quickly/easily switch if something goes wrong. With all the "PayPayl is evil" stories of late, this is simply prudent. I haven't used Spreedly yet, but heard good things about them, and they answered a quick question I recently asked them.

3\. Google Checkout is not as well-known as PayPal. Funny anecdote I can't find the reference for now: A website was using PayPal and thought to add Checkout, with both icons next to each other on the page. Their _Paypal_ earnings shot up significantly, and Checkout got very little additional revenue.

4\. If you accept credit cards for payment, ne careful with PCI compliance, even if you don't accept credit cards on your own servers: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Industry_Data_Secu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Industry_Data_Security_Standard) . If you process the CC info yourself, PCI compliance can be very expensive for a sole hacker or small business, so consider off-loading the processing to a provider. You'll still need to have some level of compliance as I understand it, but it's easier. IANAL so get proper advice from your lawyer and accountant type friends.

5\. Taxes and HMRC. 'nuff said.

<comment><USER3> +1 for Spreedly. I'm going to be using it along with Paypal Payments Pro UK. Then later down the line I plan to swap out Paypal with someone more reliable, eg. Sagepay.

<comment><USER2> Would love to read about your experience when you go to production with Spreedly.

<comment><USER3> I'll make sure I post something once I get round to launching :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A couple of articles that might help you:

[http://danieltenner.com/posts/0006-how-to-get-a-merchant- acc...](http://danieltenner.com/posts/0006-how-to-get-a-merchant-account.html)

[http://blog.boxedice.com/2009/05/20/taking-payments- online-m...](http://blog.boxedice.com/2009/05/20/taking-payments-online- merchant-account-payment-processor-fees/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I have the same problem but I'm based on Italy. Banks can be really expensive but paypal is too evil for me to even consider it. If you've been here for more than two weeks you've seen how many horror stories about paypal are published.

I'm considering google checkout and I'm wondering if anyone has experience with them.

UPDATE: based on another response, I learned that google checkout is available only for USA and UK customers? That makes it pretty unusable in my opinion. Are there similar services?

<comment><USER6> > paypal is too evil for me to even consider it

I've never used PayPal (other than as a purchaser) so don't know what they're like to use for the average seller, but that statement seems a little strong. I imagine it's very much the case that the few percentage of people who have a bad experience make up a far larger percentage of the people writing blog posts about PayPal. So it might be that 2% of people have bad experiences with PayPal, and 80% of them write it up on their blogs, while 98% of people haven't had any problems with PayPal but only 1% of them write about their great experience. So something like 60% of the things you read about PayPal will be negative.

All those figures are pure speculation, and PayPal may be absolutely terrible to work with, but I think it's worth bearing in mind.

<comment><USER5> I've used them for selling physical products. With that I had no problems, because they could track the process, but I had to fax a lot of papers to them.

The problem is when you are selling non physical products, that's a different story because they can't guarantee security.

What is evil to me is that once you are blocked, they can't do nothing. A common point I hear from people who have problems with paypal is that although they have sent fax and spoken with real people, they can't re-abilitate their account. Another scaring thing is that most times (this is very common through ebay sellers, which I was one) is that they can keep your money! So imagine that you go live today and you sell 100 copies of your product for 30$ cad, and your account gets blocked and they keep your 3,000$, that's the reason I'd like to avoid dealing with them in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm based in the UK, and we use HSBC for payment processing on <http://kutoken.com/>

The API documentation is a bit frustrating, but the service itself is good and gives you the option of recurring payments. We can also accept payments in multiple currencies, which a lot of customers appreciate - if you bill people in GBP but they have a dollar card, how much they actually pay is an unknown.

</comment><comment><USER8> Check out merchant gateway products. You can start with something where they process payments on your behalf and then graduate to getting your own merchant account. (Join the FSB to get a good deal at Natwest Streamline.)

We use <http://www.paypoint.net/>

</comment><comment><USER9> I use <http://www.fastspring.com/>. I too am UK based and this solution works nicely. They're US-based, but it means anyone with a credit card (US, UK or whatever) can pay for your software and FastSpring just wire the earnings to your UK account.

I find this to be a far better experience than PayPal, Google Checkout and some of the others. They have great support and a really nice, intuitive backend admin interface. I think their fee (which can be 5.9%+$0.95 or 8.9% flat) is well worth it.

It's certainly a good starting point, even if you then build a custom solution later.

Good luck with your venture.

EDIT: Spelling :P

</comment><comment><USER10> For Tarsnap, I just use PayPal; I don't like it, but they're better than the alternatives.

Since you're in the UK, I'd recommend looking into Google Checkout -- I understand it's available in the US and UK, albeit not the rest of the world. Then you can offer your customers a choice.

EDIT: I'm also looking forward to using Amazon Payments -- so far it's US- only, but I'm sure they'll be expanding to the rest of the world any decade now...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That's a great idea - Google Checkout completely skipped my mind - I'll look into that.

<comment><USER11> I don't have a credit card, only a Maestro (used to be Switch) card. Google Checkout stopped accepting these a few months ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've had no problems with paypal, selling mostly in the UK; I charge £12.50 & get £11.87 from them. Overseas customers see whatever the paypal converted cost is in their currency. But if you're taking recurring payments (say monthly) then definitely look into setting up direct debits - zero or tiny transaction costs. The downside of this is that you'll have to get signed paper mandates until your bank sponsors you to automate this.

</comment><comment><USER13> We use <http://www.sagepay.co.uk>

You get the choice of using their servers to handle card details and processing, or you can do it yourself and hand the numbers off to them using an API. They were recommended by RBS.

</comment><comment><USER14> If your turnover exceeds or is expected to exceed £68,000 you'll need to be VAT registered. This means you'll need to charge VAT on all sales to customers in the EU and deal with loads more paperwork.

This makes taking payments in the EU even more complicated.

<comment><USER15> One slight correction - £68,000 of sales within the EU. Any sales outside the EU are VAT exempt and so do not count towards the threshold. If your marketing efforts are focused on the US you can help postpone the requirement to register for VAT.

For most web-based startups, VAT accounting should be relatively trivial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a buyer mostly, I would recommend having paypal/google checkout along with an alternate method so your site is still usable if paypal blocks you or goes down... I don't feel safe while handing out my credit/bank details to a new website.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, this is a good point - I dont want to risk a low conversion rate because users don't have confidence in my payment system.

<comment><USER17> Your mileage may vary, but I think that in many niches the portion of users you have who refuse to use Paypal/GC is small enough that spending engineering resources to integrate more payment options is not profit-maximizing compared to spending the same resources to just get more users.

Anecdote: in three years I've had six inquiries about alternate payment methods and _all_ of them were because "I don't or can't pay online".

<comment><USER10> _Anecdote: in three years I've had six inquiries about alternate payment methods and all of them were because "I don't or can't pay online"._

For Tarsnap, I've had all of four people say that they didn't want to use PayPal -- and of those, two ended up using it anyway, and one had a friend make a payment for him. Of course, I have no idea how many customers I'm losing who never complain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Depending on your product, have you considered taking payment from the purchaser's mobile phone (even if it's just an alternative payment route), that way people without Paypal can still make a payment without having to leave your site while they sign up.

<http://www.mxtelecom.com/uk/payforit#about> <http://www.mxtelecom.com/uk/tech/cta/webpfi>

Just a thought, I work for these guys, so I can't claim to be impartial.

</comment><comment><USER19> Check out <http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/> They've been recommended by quite a few people around here.

</comment><comment><USER20> Take a look on 2checkout.com. We are using it for more than a month already(moved from PayPal to accept customers who can't use PayPal).

</comment><comment><USER21> Any experiences with Amazon Payments? They look like a viable PayPal alternative to me as most people already have an Amazon account.

</comment><comment><USER22> Consider Moneybookers, too. They work pretty well within Europe.

<comment><USER23> Seconded. Ive never worked with them from the developers side. But as a consumer I quite like Money bookers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Plimus are good.</comment>


The near death experience that created a tech millionaire - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34349767 <comment><USER2> I'm sorry, but he did not invent emoji - DoCoMo did.

I'd say the BBC need better fact checkers, but they're no longer in the business of facts, just paid PR like this, and state mouthpiecing.

Edit: the "fingerprint scanner" they tout is not what it appears to be either. This guy doesn't make money from apps directly, rather from book and course sales - I.e. Selling false hope. [http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?162014-Chad-Mureta-App- Em...](http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?162014-Chad-Mureta-App-Empire)

Kinda thing that gives those of us who do have useful products a bad name.

<comment><USER3> He invented emoji, and the stock photo[1] of emoticons they included in the article proves it! /s Apparently this is one of his apps[2] (via his Wikipedia page's link to an app store charting site.) And the fingerprint app pivoted to a password safe[3].

[1] [http://www.thinkstockphotos.ca/image/stock-illustration- coll...](http://www.thinkstockphotos.ca/image/stock-illustration-collection- of-vector-smilies-with/185194947/popup?sq=undefined) [2] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/emoji-2-emoticons-art-app- fr...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/emoji-2-emoticons-art-app- free/id444304133) [3] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fingerprint-security- pro/id3...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fingerprint-security- pro/id312912865?mt=8)

<comment><USER4> Seriously, there is this thing called Google and Wikipedia, you might want to try it some time. This guy made a glossy version of something that had already been there for almost a decade.

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

<comment><USER5> > _Seriously, there is this thing called Google and Wikipedia, you might want > to try it some time._

Please don't make acerbic swipes on HN. This comment would be just fine without the first sentence.

<comment><USER4> OK boss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >>> Two months later, Fingerprint Security Pro was in the app store. >>> In the end, the app didn't actually offer any security - it was a gimmick that pretended to read someone's fingerprint and deny them access to the phone, with a hidden unlock button in its top corner. But it didn't matter. Users loved it. In its first month, it made $12,000. Mr Mureta was on his way.

Interesting ..</comment>


White House's unclassified computer network hacked - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/29/white-house-computer-network-hacked

<comment><USER2> Other submissions. Many votes, no comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8526843](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8526843)

        White House computer network hacked
        (mashable.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8526769](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8526769)

        White House computer network breached
        (bbc.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8525191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8525191)

        White House Computers Hacked
        (washingtonpost.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8524606](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8524606)

        Suspicious cyber activity at White House
            detected, addressed
        (reuters.com)</comment>


Google working on video chat for Chrome, Skype cowers in fear - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/22/google-working-on-video-chat-for-chrome-skype-cowers-in-fear/

<comment><USER2> Off topic question: HN generally frowns on "sensationalist" headlines, but here Garbage40 just took the headline from the original article. When we submit stories should we re-write the bullshit, or leave it in?</comment>


Show HN: KeywordSQL – Elagantly write SQL statements within your source code - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ivanceras/keywordSQL

<comment><USER2> This seems like a lot of work to avoid implementing the best practice of encapsulating database logic in user-defined functions, views, and stored procedures rather than hard-coding queries.

With that (probably controversial) criticism aside, does this library support multiple conditions in a JOIN predicate?

</comment><comment><USER3> Sorry to be so blunt, but this seems like something straight from TheDailyWTF. :/ Do you gain any abstraction over the underlying DBMS, like with using Doctrine?</comment>


Archive.org has an archive of old Byte magazines - <AUTHOR> http://archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Abyte-magazine&sort=-publicdate&page=1

<comment><AUTHOR> For example: the LISP edition [http://archive.org/details/byte- magazine-1979-08](http://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1979-08)</comment>


Attempting to Launch a Behavior-Change Revolution - <AUTHOR> http://freakonomics.com/podcast/launch-behavior-change-revolution/ <comment><USER2> Maybe, they should start with their fellow social scientists and change their behavior towards publishing garbage (ie non-reproducible, p-hacked) papers.

In truth, there is likely to be a massive selection effect, just like with charter schools. Basically, the people who want to change will enroll in the study. We basically know that a subset of people have enough motivation to make themselves better and that is whom the studies will select.

Finally, this improving human "frailty" has a horrible track record in terms of perpetrating horrible atrocities - from the Inquisition to the Soviet gulags. Often, the most evil people in their own eyes have only the purest motives for the good of humanity.

<comment><USER3> Social sciences may produce a lot of "garbage", but they do have at some point failed to avoid learning the most banal ideas about statistical thinking, which do include selection bias.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We know more than enough about good habits of health, education and finance. This project is completely astray of the actual problem. Humans are just so very weak for some reason. Ex.: I _know_ it's healthier for me to go to sleep, yet I'm writing this comment instead.

<comment><USER5> That's exactly what this project is attempting to tackle. As addressed in the podcast, we can do a pretty good job teaching knowledge of what good behavior is. This project is attempting to get beyond knowledge to action.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The project lead asks Kahneman for candid advice at around 36 minutes. So, Kahneman told the audience the truth about competing for the attention of business decision makers-- that they'll have to over-promise the benefits of a behavior lab partnership-- and David Laibson immediately calls him out on it.

Maybe Kahneman should have replied with, "look, I don't know how else to tell you this-- you're not really going to make a huge difference with this work so if you want to get anywhere you'll have to exaggerate the benefits"

</comment><comment><USER7> Lots of negative comments here, which is understandable given the problem. There's a company that has demonstrated success in one of these areas and is working on another. The trick is using behavioural economics to get customers to change their behaviour. If they won't work hard for health, make them work for karma, which they can use for real-world benefits. They get widgets, they get healthier as a side-effect, the insurance company benefits.

[https://www.discovery.co.za/vitality/how-vitality- works](https://www.discovery.co.za/vitality/how-vitality-works)

</comment><comment><USER8> "...who believed that his field should acknowledge that people rarely behave as rationally as economic models predict."

So, umm, maybe your models are bad?

If you base your economic model on the silly idea that all (or at least most) economic actors are inherently rational and act in their own self interest then perhaps the model will result in a different goal than planning every tiny detail of people's life like some Soviet Commissar.

I know, heresy...

<comment><USER3> Just like physicists know that an apple dropping from a tree will not perfectly follow Newton's laws, economists know, and have always known, that these models are idealised, and incomplete.

That's why they keep handing out Nobel prizes to people finding better frameworks approximating actual human behaviour. (i. e. Kannemann 2002, and this year's)

<comment><USER8> The difference is physicists don't try to change the behavior of apples unlike the quote that claims economic actors are irrational because they don't fit the models.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In the red corner, a rag tag bunch of scientists trying to get people to make choices in their own self interest.

In the blue corner Google, Facebook, Coke, Mars, every advertising agency, marketing guru, financial advisor, corrupt politician and dependable scientist with questionable funding.

Well good luck red corner.

</comment><comment><USER10> My attempt at a behavior-change revolution: when posting audio or video material, could the submitter please include a short summary? Thanks!

(Edit: I mean the submitter could leave a summary as a comment)

<comment><USER11> HN lets you submit a link or text, but not both. On the other hand, there's a full transcript at the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Good grief, can they even spell hubris. "...but Marcus Aurelius and St Augustine didn't have _the free market and technology_". These people are completely ideologically indoctrinated, they might as well be in North Korea.

<comment><USER13> Please don't post unsubstantive rants here.

If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.

<comment><USER12> I felt it was both substantive and thoughtful. It addresses the issue directly that these researchers are tackling a topic that the greatest thinkers since antiquity have addressed and answered to varying degrees, and breezily wave it away by saying that it's different now because of technology. I consider that breathtakingly naive, arrogant, and indoctrinated.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: Immigration (wrt entrepreneurs) conditions in Canada? - <AUTHOR>

As far as I know Canada has an open immigration policy for educated workers (>= college degree).<p>Does anybody know how the immigration process works if one is trying to start a company? ie Is it viable for a non-Canadian citizen to start a company?  Has anyone tried this? <comment><USER3> The two (immigration / starting a business) don't have much to do with each other. Immigration is fairly easy if you have a technical education & are fluent in either english or french, but be prepared to wait. See <http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-who.asp> and take the self assessment at the bottom to see if you have enough points. (that's pretty much all they use to decide)

Immigration as an investor is a little different. This may apply to you, though Canada's definition of an entrepreneur is someone who will bring in C$300K into the country. You then _have_ to operate a business that employs people. See [http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/entrepreneur...](http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/entrepreneurs/apply- after.asp#conditions) for more info.

If you qualify on points, there's not much point in tying up your money, but this might get you quicker processing.

When we got our permanent resident status 4 yrs ago, the process took almost 3 years. ymmv.

Starting a business is similar to the US, though overall paperwork seems to be lower. There aren't as many options in corporate structure as in the US - <USER2> a sole proprietership or partnership can be set up in a couple days. Labor laws are definitely stronger here (in the employee's benefit). Health care is obviously cheaper. Definitely talk to a lawyer first.

Good luck.

<comment><USER4> Good post...

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but a few other things (from my own research / friends who've migrated):

I think the key to remember is that skilled migration in Canada isn't contingent on having a job (which is the case in many other countries) - it's not far off permanent residence. This is quite important if you want to startup, and one of the reasons I was curious about Canada.

Also, the Canadian point system isn't as biased against age as many countries. The maximum points for age is a very wide band.

As for starting a business, I couldn't see any impediment - even so, in many cases it might be just as easy to incorporate a company in the US (e.g. a Delaware Co).

<comment><AUTHOR> _I think the key to remember is that skilled migration in Canada isn't contingent on having a job (which is the case in many other countries)_

That is exactly why I'm asking. The key, indeed. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is probably not super relevant for your situation but you might find it interesting anyway :-)

I'm Dutch and I went through a family class immigration to Canada. My (canadian) wife and I moved from Amsterdam to Toronto last year in may. I'm a permanent resident now.

Family class is by far the easiest way. We did the paperwork ourselves without help from a lawyer. We simply did research online and listened to people who had gone through the same procedure.

I think the time between the first paperwork and me getting on the plane was about 10 months. We made one mistake on the forms which probably delayed the process by a month.

In Holland I was self employed and I'm doing the same here in Toronto. Being a permanent resident gives you the same opportunities as citizens.

Setting up your business here is so easy compared to Holland. I'm now a sole proprietorship but plan to incorporate later this year.

Canada is great. I love it here :-)

</comment><comment><USER6> Corporate taxes are in general becoming lower than the US.

Alberta is a good place to incorporate as any.

<http://www.albertacanada.com/economy/752.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> Just out of curiousity - if you were to relocate to CA, where would you go?

<comment><AUTHOR> I would aim to go, in this order, to Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto.

<comment><USER7> Tu es le bienvenue à Montréal! You're welcome in Montreal!

<comment><USER8> It's been a few years since I've spoken French on a daily basis, and I've always talked slang (from a francophone part of New Brunswick), but shouldn't you leave off the 'le'?

<comment><USER9> 'le' is akin to 'are' in this context, so yes, it's needed :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


IUDs Are More Affordable Than Ever, So Will More Women Get Them? - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/iuds-are-more-affordable-than-ever-so-will-more-women-get-them/ <comment><USER2> With the incredible efficacy of modern birth control, I'm surprised people are pushing the IUD just because it's technically one of the most effective forms of reversible birth control. I used an IUD for years, and finally took it out myself while I was drunk one night, because I was so fed up with the pain and constant mid-cycle bleeding. I delayed going to a doctor for a couple months afterwards, because I was embarrassed to admit I had removed my own IUD, but after I did was placed on a different form of birth control that was _so much better_ and only very slightly less effective than an IUD.

Yes, IUDs are effective, and they doctor only has to deal with you once every 10 years, but finding the _right_ BC is probably going to be better for everyone in the long run, and will have better compliance rates, than just putting everyone on an IUD. According to Wikipedia, 17% of nulliparous women on an IUD have significant pain that requires management (not including the incredible amount of pain during insertion and shortly afterwards, for many, if not most women), and copper IUDs frequently cause menstrual abnormalities.

The article really should be focusing on "It's great, everyone can get on the birth control of their choice if they want to!" not "Everyone should get an IUD!"</comment>


To Solve a Social Problem, You Need More Than a Theory - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/jpal-randomized-trials/?mbid=synd_gfdn_bgfb

<comment><AUTHOR> I really love that they had the strength of will to do science before they did philanthropy.

Often when trying to solve a hard social problem we just do what we think is intuitive. Raise the Minimum wage, cause the problem is people don't make enough, so if they make more it will be better. Then we find out that there is inflation and we only made the problem better in the short term.</comment>


Bank accounts with over $100K?  Make sure it is insured - <AUTHOR>

With the recent market turmoil, I looked to make sure our company's basic finances were properly protected.  FDIC insures up to $100K on checking accounts, and with some other allowances can go higher (joint accounts, retirement accounts, etc).  But this wasn't enough for us.
Just found this on the web: http://www.cdars.com
Supposedly it is a network of FDIC insured banks that work together so that all your accounts are FDIC insured -- up to $50MM.  And you only still work with that one bank.
There are probably other networks out there as well.  In this economic climate, make sure you're protected!
Anyone else with better strategies, speak up! <comment><USER2> Retail banks for the most part are doing fine. The recent crisis isn't really going to hurt First Bank of Wherever much. They generally weren't involved in CDS, and sold their mortgages to Fannie or Freddie long ago.

WaMu was really sort of an exception in retail banking. Most of them aren't sexy enough for the guys who really blow companies up by gambling on complex derivatives.

</comment><comment><USER3> Using individual accounts, joint accounts, CDs, and IRAs, it's possible to structure ~$900,000 in FDIC protection (see table: <http://home.ingdirect.com/faqs/faqs.asp?s=FDIC>)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd still want to diversify and put my money in more than one bank</comment>


Show HN: Async/Await example for passport.js and express.js - <AUTHOR> https://www.wlaurance.com/2018/09/Async-Await-PassportJs-Local-Strategy/ <comment><AUTHOR> I've been deep in the weeds building out a course. Today I wanted to share a snippet of building out an express + passport auth scheme using the latest async/await patterns. It's really nice to not be in callback hell. Even though passport mostly uses callbacks we can still do our app-specific code like looking up a user by email, de-serialization, and serialization in an async function if desired.

I have an email signup if you want to get the full working code same.

Thanks!

Will</comment>


HP explains why printer ink is so expensive - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworld.com/16162/hp_explains_why_printer_ink_is_so_expensive <comment><USER2> Nothing a printer has ever done has pissed me off more than the time an HP "all in one" printer _'expired'_ $180 worth of unopened ink cartridges we had on the shelf as spares so that we'd have no downtime.

Apparently for "quality reasons" a smart chip in the ink made the printer refuse to use it after an arbitrary expiration date set at the factory. It was only 6 months.

I don't even mind being robbed of the $180. The surprise downtime, however, landed the printer in the dumpster and a Xerox laser took its place.

Edit: I actually tore the scanner portion of the device open and harvested the 2 12-volt cold cathode lights in their beautiful extruded aluminum holders from the scanner bed before chucking it. I mounted them under the desk just over my keyboard drawer to light my keyboard and serve as a warning to other printers that might get any ideas about mishandling their ink...

<comment><USER3> In the same vein, Brother laser cartridges will work reliably for months after they are "empty" according to the printer.

In fact, I never managed to actually get it to show any signs of low toner. I just got sick of taking the cartridge out and putting it back in to reset the "out of ink" setting.

<comment><USER4> +1, I have been printing for months with an "empty" Brother cartridge. Just stick on a little tape on the side of the cartridge to block the laserbeam that "measures" the ink, that way you can leave it in.

Crooks!

<comment><USER5> There is no reason to keep using a (visibly) empty toner cartridge, in fact, it can cause 2 issues:

a) When the cartridge has no toner, there is still a 'buffer' of toner that is in the developer roller that transfers the toner to the drum.

Now, it will last for quite a few copies, until it becomes completely depleted, and then developer itself starts transfering to the drum; Best case it causes premature wear, worst case it does serious damage and you end up with a costly repair bill.

b) When a laser detects low toner density, it ups the voltage bias to compensate, this too is bad for the drum, but more importantly, when you finally add that new toner cartridge, the printer will be suddenly 'overtoned' and has to get rid of the excess toner from the developer roll somehow. The way it does this is to print black copies (which get cleaned off the drum, straight into the waste toner container).

I'm not saying don't use the toner cartridge until it's completely empty, since sometimes the sensors do misdetect the toner level and report it empty when there is a small amount left - just don't over do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Of course HP and other printing companies are trying to make money by any means necessary, that is how companies stay alive. But what I find interesting is that by making printing prohibitively expensive, they are rewarding paperless information consumption. This ironically aligns their profit motive with other motives for saving paper like reducing deforestation.

<comment><USER7> Actually, it turns out that trees for paper come from tree farms. They're domesticated. Hence, reducing deforestation by using less paper is like saving the bald eagle by eating less chicken.

<comment><USER2> Also, if you were to see the trees that are cut from these farms for the purpose of making paper products, you'd be much more inclined to call them "brush" than trees.

When people say "recycle to save the trees" they have redwoods pictured in their minds, they should probably be thinking more along the lines of the stuff you clear away to have an earth-day sing and a tree planting.

<comment><USER7> I don't know about "brush". Where I live (in the pacific northwest), when I pass tree farms on the highway, they look like aspens to me. Very tall and pole-like, with white bark. Tons of trees planted in very neat rows -- fun to watch them form lines as you drive by.

A bit of googling gets me this:

<http://oregonwild.blogspot.com/2007/12/tree-farm-color.html>

That's what they look like.

<comment><USER8> I've seen primarily poplar and birch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "He backed up those assertions with an HP-sponsored Qualitylogic study showing that its cartridges last longer than refilled ink cartridges (no study of cost per page, however) and an HP focus group of 17 people, half of whom Brown says were unhappy with "bargain ink.""

Not a statistician. But it seems that if half the participants were unhappy with the bargain ink (and in such a small sample, no less), people were just as likely to like the bargain ink better? In which case, given that these were likely joe schmoes off the street (instead of, say, doing a highly technical analysis of the quality and durability of the final print - the other study only says the cartridges last longer), the study was essentially meaningless, and they're adding spin?

<comment><USER10> Regarding ink, I find that I get equally good results on my Epson Stylus Photo when using OEM ink vs. el cheapo -- _in conjunction with the right paper_. The el cheapo ink does not work well with all paper. Through experimentation I've found a combination that does work well. The conclusion to this may be that print quality is at least as dependent on paper as on ink.

On my Brother color laser, output quality has been _highly_ dependent on toner quality. The one time I tried to use el cheapo toner, the results weren't simply "less good" but so bad as to be unusable.

Statistically, of course, my two anecdotes do not constitute data. But it may be so some interest.

(And as another poster said, Brother can be outsmarted with the "tape on the toner cartridge" trick)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I object to my HP printer using color ink to print black text. Its a "load leveling" maneuver that conveniently uses up the expensive ink faster. It doesn't do it all the time, just when the printer thinks it can get away with it.

<comment><USER12> My old Canon does the same thing. I select 'gray scale' in the print settings to force the printer to stick to the black ink only.

<comment><USER11> There is no way to defeat this HP feature that I have found.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Oh, so _that's_ why it's so expensive. I'd always presumed we were being charged for the ground-up unicorn horn.

</comment><comment><USER14> I haven't bought OEM ink in like a decade.

Started off by buying one of those refill kits....but then after one of those exploded...I just get prefilled ones.

If you go on ebay you can get a pack of 10 for like 10-15 bucks. Is the quality worse? I don't know, looks the same to me, doesn't run...maybe it dries out faster. I mean it's just ink, who cares really?

And if the crappy ink ends up clogging up the printer faster, so what, printers are the cheap part...it's the ink that's expensive.

</comment><comment><USER15> HP ink is expensive to pay for studies showing why HP ink is so expensive?

</comment><comment><USER16> "Twelve of 17 people [in the focus group] didn't think Kodak lowered cost,"

The opinion of a focus group on what something costs is meaningless. It's not hard to measure the cost-per-page and determine whether Kodak printers cost less to operate than HP.

</comment><comment><USER17> We have a Canon IP4600 - now fitted with a continuous ink system - 500ml of ink for GBP 30. Opposable thumbs and a bit of patience will save you a fortune.

Caveat - We don't archive the output (it may be fine, but ..).

</comment><comment><USER18> If you care /at all/ about cost per page, a laser printer (used, if you don't use it much) is nearly always a better deal.

</comment><comment><USER19> My CIS costs 1/10 of cartridges.

<comment><USER20> CIS?

Edit: thanks, handy to know.

<comment><USER21> Continuous Ink System such as:

<http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cis.shtml></comment></comment></comment>


Coca-Cola just invented a way to save the soda machine from Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/video/coca-cola-just-invented-way-150423094.html <comment><USER2> Non-video link: [https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/coca-cola-just-invented-a- wa...](https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/coca-cola-just-invented-a-way-to-save- the-soda-machine-from-covid-19-120031011.html)

TL;DR: Those fancy restaurant soda machines will have QR codes on them that you can scan with your phone, and it will take you to a web page where you can control the machine from your phone.</comment>


British Airways smashes record for quickest subsonic flight New York to London - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/british-airways-fast-flight-scli-intl-gbr/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> 4:46 at up to 825 mph, carried along by the storm</comment>


The Supervolcano Under Yellowstone Is Alive and Kicking - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/the-supervolcano-under-yellowstone-is-alive-and-kicking <comment><USER2> Our family just visited Yellowstone a couple of weeks ago. What surprised me apart from the geysers and hot springs which I never grow tired of, is the variety of the landscape from stunning water falls, to mountain peaks, and lush valleys full of wildlife. We saw plenty of bison, and even a grizzly and her two cubs from a safe distance in Hayden Valley. But all is not well in Yellowstone. The park is being overrun by tourists. At the main sites, it feels more like Yellowstone City than Park. There are literally people jams on the boardwalks. There is a fair bit of trash at most of the hot springs sites, not out of neglect (we saw plenty of park volunteers cleaning up after the tourists, and we even chatted with one to talk about his techniques — he uses a fishing pole), but simply because of the sheer number of people visiting the park. There are tourists getting airlifted all day out of Old Faithful Village (we must have seen five helicopters land and take off) because, with that many people, there are bound to be medical emergencies. Morning Glory pool is not what it once was because tourists feel the need to throw coins and whatnot in the pool [1]. Last year someone crashed a quadcopter in Grand Prismatic which is still at the bottom of the pool [2]. There is now a ban on quadcopters in the park.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Glory_Pool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Glory_Pool) [2] [http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/tourist-crashes- dro...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/tourist-crashes-drone- popular-yellowstone-hot-spring-possibly-damaging/)

<comment><USER3> I feel I need to balance this post somewhat: I live 1h north of The Park (as the folks here refer to Yellowstone) and we visit frequently, and have been visiting frequently for 15 years. We're first in line to be vaporized then the eruption comes.

Honestly I don't recognize your description above. Yes in the high summer the park will be busy, but we were there three weeks ago and I wouldn't say it was so busy that our visit was affected. I've been to The Louvre and The Vatican Museum and those are at least two orders of magnitude more busy!

Visitor numbers are up in recent years (supposedly a reaction to the recession since fewer people could afford airline-based vacations outside the US, in combination with increasing affluence in parts of Asia leading to more visitors from that part of the world), but since the various road improvements made after Tom Brokhaw's appeal, in my experience it feels less busy than 10 years ago.

Lastly, visit in Winter. You'll hardly see anyone!

For the HN crowd, remember there's almost no cell service in the park so bring your sat phone to keep up with Nagios alerts...

<comment><USER4> >For the HN crowd, remember there's almost no cell service in the park so bring your sat phone to keep up with Nagios alerts...

Heh. I've just spent 2 out of the past 3 weeks in Rainier and adjacent national forests. Yep. No cell phone reception for essentially the whole time. Probably will be going to Yellowstone this coming winter; I was there a decade+ ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Good science is nothing more than a progress report. It's what we know at a certain time with the data that we have."

That is the best definition of scientific knowledge I have read.

</comment><comment><USER6> _And Farrell isn't convinced another super-eruption will happen at all. "The system might be dying," he said. "The Yellowstone hot spot is moving into thicker, colder continental crust. And it takes a lot more energy to burn through that crust than it did the thinner crust that it's been burning through for the last 17 million years."_

I wonder what imaging we will be able to see in the years ahead.

</comment><comment><USER7> I always think we are going to have some hard times in the future when one of the big volcanos (ok maybe not supervolcano, but a big one) explodes and we get a ash cloud for a few years. Apart from the natrual issues caused, what happens to our electrical grid if we accomplish moving most of our infrastructure to renewable energies...

<comment><USER8> It's far more dangerous than that. If we had an ash cloud significant enough to dim the sun then plants would receive less sunlight, which means a poorer growing season, which means worldwide famine. If that thing erupts, renewable electrical supply will be the least of our worries. I would say we'll spend most of our time trying to grow enough food.

<comment><USER9> But given enough electricity, we could easily grow enough food to feed the entire planet in a relatively small amount of space. Plants don't care if they're growing under the sun or under a UV bulb, if they're growing in earth or hydroponic, if they're growing on land or vertical. At that point it's merely a distribution issue. Existing distribution channels wouldn't necessarily be interrupted, with the possible exception of air travel (and of course, all of the area that is now a crater from the super volcano). The problem really starts if all of our electricity is generated by the sun, and then the sun goes away for a bit.

It's not actually an "alternative power" problem, it's just a solar problem. Wind, nuclear, and hydro power wouldn't be affected.

<comment><USER10> Just to replace the wheat crop would require 11x our current total electrical production. We would need All Teh Powerz!

<comment><USER9> I'm sure in such an emergency we could find a way to switch to a crop that is more calorie dense for the amount of energy it takes to grow it. Wheat is in a lot of products we eat, but not as the main ingredient with just a few exceptions. Just like corn, it's not a terribly efficient crop to grow so we probably wouldn't grow it anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And it's moving, eastward. Old Faithful is getting a bit less faithful, and shorter, as the years pass, while new hotpots and geysers appear east of it's location.

On the plus side, it appears that we will have a fair bit of warning before Yellowstone goes off, for all the good it will do humanity.

<comment><USER12> Actually, the Yellowstone hot spot is stationary. It's the North American continental plate that is moving westward over the hot spot. If you look at a geological map, you can trace the path. It's similar to the Hawaiian island chain in the pacific and it's hot spot. Older islands trend to the northwest as the pacific plate has moved eastward.

<comment><USER13> The Pacific plate is moving northwest, which is why the older islands are there... the hotspot stays in the same place, which is why the newer Big Island Hawai'i emerged southeast of the older islands. I think you had it right but just miswrote.

<comment><USER12> D'oh! Absolutely correct, kissickas. My fingers engaged before my brain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you are ever looking for geyser data, I helped build an ODbL database of observations -- [http://geysertimes.org](http://geysertimes.org) ; API: [http://www.geysertimes.org/api/v3/docs/index.html](http://www.geysertimes.org/api/v3/docs/index.html). We use the data to predict geyser eruptions when enough data are available. For instance, here's the next prediction for Old Faithful (JSON / unix epoch): [http://www.geysertimes.org/api/v3//predictions_latest/2](http://www.geysertimes.org/api/v3//predictions_latest/2) -or- (cleaned up): [http://geysertimes.org/predictions.php](http://geysertimes.org/predictions.php)

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if eventually in the future it would be possible to tap into the hot spots, and use the heat as a source of geothermal energy. This would also have the advantage of gradually cooling down the volcano and preventing another eruption.

<comment><USER16> Ironically the plot of a season 2 episode of Stargate Atlantis.

<comment><USER17> That's coincidental, but how is it ironic?

<comment><USER18> The small civilization living on top of the caldera drew energy from the supervolcano to power a defensive shield around the clock.

The irony is that this caused pressure to build under the caldera and an eruption to wipe out life on the surface.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There is a great section about the Yellowstone super volcano in Bill Bryson's book "A brief history of everything". Pretty much no spot on Earth would be safe if this one erupted - probably an extinction event.

<comment><USER20> Lots of places would be safe during the eruption - just probably not the United States or southern Canada. Humans have survived many super volcanic eruptions before.

The real problem if you survive the eruption would be the decade or so of crazy weather and food shortages, not to mention general unrest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I do wonder if it's possible to cool Yellowstone artificially and reduce the risk? Could be possible to get geothermal energy out of it too.

</comment><comment><USER22> So they imaged it - I would love to 1) see some images and 2) understand their technique/instruments/etc.</comment>


5 Startups Graduate From New York's Answer To Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/seedstart-2010-2010-7

<comment><USER2> As one of the founders involved (from Reducify), it would be great to get some feedback from the HN community on our startups!</comment>


Esquire (UK) Responsive Redesign - <AUTHOR> http://www.esquire.co.uk/

<comment><AUTHOR> We've been incredibly busy working away at a new version of Esquire.co.uk.

I think we've really done big things with a small team of just two core developers.

Take a look at the site and let us know what you think!</comment>


Startup Fever: College Students Have It Bad - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/111066/college-students-have-startup-fever

<comment><USER2> I wonder how much of this "fever" is coming from the sense they have that the typical job path is becoming less and less of a dependable option.

<comment><USER3> Or because they're finding that typical companies actually suck to work in, and they're not happy to make do with that?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Programming on Mobile Phone. - <AUTHOR>

I just bought the Samsung Corby touchscreen phone. While playing games on it, it just struck me that if we can edit texts files and view pdfs on a mobile why cant we program on it?Ok not like actual major programming work, but lite tests for the time u have a brain wave and just need to test it. I searched for it and found some non mainstream scripting languages like hecl[1], mathpro [2] and mobilebasic [3].<p>I was wondering if anyone knows implementation of a mainstream(er) language. I think something like lisp would be good also as jRuby can be run on JVM cant a java enabled mobile act as JVM?<p>[1]http://www.hecl.org/ [2]http://www.mobile-sciences.com/ [3]http://www.mobilebasic.com/ <comment><USER2> I wrote Hecl, and think you should give it another look:-)

The problem is that 'mainstream' languages are awfully big. The initial versions of Hecl ran on my Nokia 3100, which had a limit of 64K for applications. Also, most mainstream languages that run on top of Java run on 'regular' Java, not Java ME, which lacks things like reflection. This means that porting them to Java ME is not trivial. Android might be a better bet, but it's still tricky, and it's still an environment where you don't want to be wasteful with space.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey I didn't dismiss your lang, actually its the best bet for a java phone. I just discovered it so will take some time.Why I am asking for more mainstream languages is because I would like to try things in a language in which I would implement the algo.

<comment><USER2> > I would like to try things in a language in which I would implement the > algo.

Err... I'm not quite parsing this. It's very easy to try things in Hecl, you can even write mobile applications on line, entirely in a browser:

<http://www.heclbuilder.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The Nokia N900 smartphone is currently the mobile programmer's paradise. Underneath its Maemo OS veneer is a fairly standard Linux. A terminal is part of the standard install, and there's no jailbreaking needed to install whatever you want.

There are packages for Python, Perl, GCC... And of course you can run pretty much anything by building it from source. The ARM A8 Cortex CPU is fast enough that it actually makes sense to do this.

If you want a more desktop-like programming environment, it's even possible to install Debian on the N900.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why not Python? Maemo, Android and Nokia's s60 (at least) support it fairly well. Also, if you have a decent idea, have a look at <http://ycombinator.com/rfs5.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> I find the Android Scripting Environment to be quite cool: <http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/>

And it offers quite a few languages to play with, including Python, JRuby and Javascript (via Rhino).

Now if it would only have a better development environment...

<comment><USER6> Thanks for this! Just installed on my Droid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You can run python on windows mobile; I even found some kind of IDLE version for it - there's a bunch of links here: <http://www.awaretek.com/pymo.html#win> I thought it was pretty good, but typing symbols was a pain. I wrote some twitter data mining stuff with it while waiting for a plane with it once.

If you want to do anything else with your phone, you don't really want a windows mobile, though :-(

</comment><comment><USER8> The T-Mobile G1 has an excellent, 5 row hardware keyboard, and I made use of it on many occasions to SSH into my server and make some modifications to code that I had ideas for, but didn't want to wait to get home to work on. Because the keyboard actually had multiple alt/shift and hardware keys, ConnectBot could remap them as tab, control and escape keys, so I could actually use Vim without any problems. Can you say that about your phone? :P

</comment><comment><USER9> Well, if you want a challenge, there's Pocket APL, which offers a complete IDE for APL on Windows Mobile:

[http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-and- Shell/Developm...](http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-and- Shell/Development/Pocket-APL-18478.shtml)

<comment><USER10> APL would seem to offer a solution to the challenges of programming on a 240-pel-wide device. Unfortunately, WinMo doesn't offer any way of extending its HR. So Pocket APL users must enter APL characters by hunt and peck on a soft on-screen input panel.

I personally find this heartbreaking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Okay, testing, trying... something just to spend time and learn instead of playing games. But I doubt you can do any work on it (if you have a project with databases and that needs lot of programs to execute).

As long as it's for fun then it can be!

</comment><comment><USER12> I believe this is one of PG's requests for YC applications.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> all these options you people give are good but work on either s60 or windows mobile, anything for java?</comment>


U.S. State Dept Releases 108 Volumes of "Foreign Relations of U.S." as eBooks - <AUTHOR> http://www.infodocket.com/2013/01/07/u-s-state-department-108-volumes-of-foreign-relations-of-the-united-states-now-available-in-two-ebook-formats/

<comment><USER2> <http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/ebooks>

</comment><comment><USER3> Background - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Relations_Series>

</comment><comment><USER4> From 1945 to 1976; as powertower said, <http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/ebooks>

</comment><comment><USER5> Well this should be fun to data mine.

<comment><USER6> Guess we'll see if the data is as interesting as American football...</comment></comment>


How come Hackernews don't have Emacs reader/client? - <AUTHOR>

I use Emacs alot and just got hooked to this Hackernews website. I searched over the internet for a way to interact with HN inside Emacs and found no good way but this one:
https://github.com/clarete/hackernews.el
which is very bad and opens articles in default browser or embedded lynx browser inside Emacs.
The question is: How Emacs guys interacts with Hackernews?
Regards,<AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Because people who get work done don't read HN in their code editor :P

</comment><comment><USER3> > which is very bad and opens articles in default browser or embedded lynx > browser inside Emacs.

The readme implies you can use `t` to open inside emacs. Did that not work?

<comment><AUTHOR> the `t` opens the article in the embedded lynx browser. I thought there's a complete client for HN to brwose and interact/comment.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I guess I will try to write a client and publish it on Github

</comment><comment><USER4> It does. But you can't have it.

</comment><comment><USER5> 'cos you haven't made it yet</comment>


Spira: a complete meal supplement you can grow in your home - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@elliotroth/spira-a-complete-meal-supplement-that-you-can-grow-in-your-home-96afeb36091d <comment><AUTHOR> While I do actually drink Soylent occasionally as a replacement for Oatmeal when I need a quick breakfast, I'm not a "food replacement" guy. Still, I find this project fascinating and Elliot is a passionate scientist and entrepreneur who would probably love any feedback HN has.

</comment><comment><USER2> Isn't the neurotoxin β-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) an issue with Spirulina [0], though?

[0]: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4130116/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4130116/)

<comment><USER3> But that study didn't seem to find a problem in procured supplements:

"Using two advanced LC-MS/MS techniques, we were _unable to detect_ BMAA to a level of 80 ng/g in any of the product samples. Although reassuring, the small sample of pure spirulina and spirulina-containing retail products can only be considered as a preliminary step toward larger investigations..."

<comment><USER2> I liked that as a background for the BMAA concern, but from here [0], it looks like BMAA is actually caused by contamination and is not directly produced by spirulina itself, which I didn't know.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplement)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_\(dietary_supplement\)#Quality- related_safety_issues)</comment></comment></comment>


Patients with drug-resistant malaria cured by plant therapy - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170424141222.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Ftop_news%2Ftop_science+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Top+Science+News%29 <comment><USER2> it's interesting that the dried leaf formulation was more potent than the extract alone:

 _...dried leaves of the Artemisia annua plant delivers 40 times more artemisinin to the blood than does the drug based on the chemical extract of the plant._

<comment><USER3> Curiously, Absinthe (which is made from Artemisia - aka Wormwood) was a malaria preventative for the French Foreign Legion[1] which presumably did increase the willingness of patients to take it, at least.

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe#Rapid_growth_of_Frenc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe#Rapid_growth_of_French_consumption)

<comment><USER2> interesting to learn that. sounds like the French had a more effective approach than the British (i.e. Gin and Tonic).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let's hope this doesn't get patented by the big guys.

<comment><USER5> It won't. There's no money in malaria.

<comment><USER6> Some African countries subsidize the price of malaria drugs. And NGOs who distribute these drugs are backed by big money such as Bill's foundation, WHO...

<comment><USER5> Big NGO money isn't on the same scale as big industry money, and it comes with a lot more strings.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A cell phone made for an ignored set of consumers - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/29/jitterbug-because-cell-phones-scare-old-people/ <comment><USER4> It seems as if you have to press "Yes" to start a phone conversation - <USER3> THAT intuitive, if you ask me. I don't see the advantage over other phones green button with a telephone receiver on it. Although thinking about it, the receiver is weird because it soon will not even exist anymore, so how will future generations understand the symbol?

I also think the complexity of modern phones is a bit of a myth. It is true that any extra features are unusable, but making basic phone calls works well enough with the average mobile phone.

What would really impress me would be if the iPhone would make it easy to create call conferences. I never figured out how to do it with other phones (mobile or stationary).

<comment><USER5> "It seems as if you have to press "Yes" to start a phone conversation - <USER3> THAT intuitive, if you ask me."

I agree on that part.

"I also think the complexity of modern phones is a bit of a myth. "

But average cell phones are still scary. I recall the first time someone handed me a cell phone to make a call, I felt worried that I was going to do something wrong. It was a pretty mild worry and I certainly have no issues now. But for many older people, such as my grandmother, the hassle of overcoming even a mild fear is so much greater than the percieved value of using the device that they simply do not bother.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> With easy-to-feel buttons and a soft earpiece they could probably sell to people who dial while driving. They would get sued if they marketed that way, though.

(I pull over if I need to call someone. If I didn't, I'd probably fall off my bicycle.)</comment>


Ask HN: What if the internet goes down? What's plan B? - <AUTHOR> Given the Covid-19 situation, what if the internet goes down? Behind the servers and infrastructure are real people. Sure, many of them are working remotely now, but many tech places have shut shop. I'm wondering, what if the internet goes down? Is there something out there, peer to peer that the common people can afford - to either buy or build, that will allow them to communicate peer to peer, without the internet? I was thinking of maybe FM transmitters. Those are pretty cheap. And almost everyone has in some way, access to an FM radio. So they can in the very least receive information. But, what are our options for duplex communication?<p>P.S - this is not to induce panic, or to promote some sort of conspiracy theory, I'm genuinely interested to know the technological possibilities that we can use to help humanity. This is a technical forum after, all. <comment> java-man there is no plan B.</comment>