We need more data centers in Africa - <AUTHOR> http://newsletters.iafrikan.com/issues/we-need-more-data-centers-196682 <comment><USER2> You need a lot of stuff in Africa before data centers become a priority...

<comment><AUTHOR> That is true

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Better to run long line fibre optics than consume scarce power. When cheap reliable power and aircon is ubiquitous O hospitals and morgues and pharmacies it's time to have a local DC

</comment><comment><USER4> Need stable electricity in most of the countries

<comment><USER5> And infrastructure in general. And for that: governmental stability and continuity. Nobody wants to invest into building infrastructure when they can't be reasonably sure that they can still work there in five years.</comment></comment>


Loan startups in India flout harassment laws - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-backed-app-lenders-use-phone-data-to-hassle-borrowers-11574969095?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> All loan companies hassle borrowers (who don't pay). Either they do it themselves, or they sell the debt to the collections industry, which does it for them.

If you find a payday loan online in the US and don't pay it back, you might even end up receiving calls from collections agents who pretend to be your local sheriff and threaten you with arrest. Debt is an extremely dirty industry. The average or perhaps median cost of a debt second-hand is 4 cents on the dollar, so there's a ton of money to be made by getting people to pay up. Even worse, in the US, collections companies typically have no proof the debt is real, which also conveniently means you dont actually need to pay. IIRC/IANAL

<comment><USER3> What are the alternate ways this is done in other countries?

<comment><USER2> We have laws.. they just arent enforced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The number of loan startups in India nowadays is bewildering.

I really think this is a bubble in the making. Despite the stock market hitting highs all news I believe to be credible point towards slowing down and deterioration.

This isn't just about flouting laws but also ill-equipped (IMHO) expansion of loan providers</comment>


HP EVP Todd Bradley looking to jump ship for CEO role elsewhere - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2011/08/22/exclusive-hp-evp-todd-bradley-looking-to-jump-ship-for-ceo-role-elsewhere/

<comment><USER2> Reads like a subtle hatchet job. Here's an article saying he's been interviewing for every possible job, which implies that he's not spending a lot of time thinking about his work, and that he doesn't seem to be picky. It emphasizes his failures at HP, being passed over for the CEO job and leading the purchase of Palm (which could have been blamed on Hurd). And then it says his demands from prospective employers are "excessive."

Now this is public, his ability to lead within HP is very damaged, which will probably lead to him being fired if he hasn't already privately resigned. Now he absolutely _has_ to go.

How very convenient for anyone within HP—a rival executive, the new CEO, someone on the board who doesn't like him—who wants him out.</comment>


EFF Joins Coalition Opposing Dangerous CFAA Bill - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/eff-joins-coalition-opposing-dangerous-cfaa-bill <comment><USER2> Some ways we can help fight the CFAA bill and support the EFF beyond complaining in HN comments:

Learn: [https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act)

Call your representatives: TryVoices.com

Donate to the EFF: [https://supporters.eff.org/donate/](https://supporters.eff.org/donate/)

<comment><USER3> I just emailed my Senators. People routinely underestimate the value of calmly and briefly explaining to elected leaders why they should vote one way or another.

<comment><USER2> Yes! People seem to forget how we defeated SOPA in 2012.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> awinter-py holy crud! CFAA already allows TOS writers to define any behavior as unauthorized & therefore a felony. Congressmen need a way to look strong on security without completely breaking rule of law. We should issue them nerf guns or something.

<comment><USER4> No, it does not.

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

(Further: even without that case, CFAA never allowed TOS writers to invent their own felonies).

<comment><USER5> Wasn't that the very basis of the Aaron Schwartz case? That, by violating the terms of use of the MIT site, he was violating the CFAA thus charged with multiple felonies?

The linked case dealt with employees but I don't see why there should be a distinction. I would consider the general public to have even greater protections.

<comment><USER4> You've worded this vaguely, but I think the answer to your question is "no, that is not a good description of the Swartz case".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good news everyone, i hid a <img> to my server in this page, now you visited part of my site you were not authorized to! You are now all felons, see you in court.

</comment><comment><USER7> Direct link to bill referenced in title:

[https://www.eff.org/files/2016/05/25/114th_may_2016_whitehou...](https://www.eff.org/files/2016/05/25/114th_may_2016_whitehouse_graham_blumenthal_botnet_bill.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> Visitors are unauthorized to access this site. Your visit will be prosecuted.

<comment><USER9> Also in some cases. Smart psychologically Every click will help our site up to keep telling others that you're still unauthorized to view this site.</comment></comment>


Introducing Instagram Direct - <AUTHOR> http://blog.instagram.com/post/69789416311/instagram-direct <comment><USER2> Introducing Nothing New. All they did was copy half of Snapchat's functionality and add the instagram ability to "edit" pictures. I don't get the point of all of this stuff sometimes. Is this what super smart and savvy people are working on in tech? Another way to send pictures to friends that isn't text, fb messenger, snapchat, kik, whatsapp, etc?

Edit: I am really wondering if I'm missing something here with my above post, not just trying to be a dick for no reason.

<comment><USER3> People are doing this too. It looks dumb, but inside there're lots of interesting technical challenges.

Some of the awe inspiring breakthroughs are often extremely boring technically. I started my career in the computational chemistry and was looking over the shoulder of the guys doing some really bleeding etch research on organic compounds simulation. Oh, man, do you know how boring it is for a programmer? You're looking at the handwritten prototype of the research paper, filled with quantum physics formulae and encode all this greek language into FORTRAN-IV. Then you run it for a week and either go collecting Nobel prize or finding bugs in your "program".

<comment><USER4> Is it bleeding etch or bleeding edge? I cant keep up with stuff anymore.

<comment><USER3> leading edge (marketing bs) -> bleeding edge -> bleeding etch. It's a very old joke, I've read it in Dr. Dobbs sometime in mid-90s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does anybody know if they're planning on making this available via their third party API?

I've checked the current API docs [1] as well as the Google Group [2] and the StackOverflow Posts [3]. There's nothing mentioning it yet.

This would be an awesome feature to have available in third party apps, so that one could have it in other chat clients apart from the official iPhone app. Adium is one example, but there're probably even better solutions. After all, one of the most annoying things about WhatsApp is that I _have_ to use my phone to answer messages or read messages. It just feels stupid to tap away on a small screen to send a digital message while I have a 27" screen and a full keyboard right in front of me. That is something where iMessage and Facebook messages are way better.

Also, there were, for quite some time, third party Instagram messaging solutions [4], and I'm really happy that they're finally implementing this straight into Instagram. Beforehand, you'd see people having discussions that were bordering on being private by continuously posting comments to an image. This happened all the time. Now these discussions can move into private space.

[1] [http://instagram.com/developer/endpoints/](http://instagram.com/developer/endpoints/)

[2] [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/instagram-api- develo...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/instagram-api-developers)

[3] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/instagram/](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/instagram/)

[4] [http://instamessage.net/](http://instamessage.net/)

<comment><USER6> I'm pretty sure they won't make it available. They still don't allow uploading images to their service using an API, so I doubt they will allow to send messages.

After the Twitter example, APIs are not attractive to these kind of startups. If you give full capabilities to 3rd party developers, they're going to create clients for other systems and the startup will lose control over its content and how it's shown to users (ads).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think snapchat's timeout feature is a novelty that attracted users, but people ultimately just want to send private messages to their friends. Not everything needs to be broadcasted, and that's part of the OG instagram userbase - people that wanted an alternative to the facebook feed.

What's wrong with texting though? My friends and I have been texting and group texting images and short video for years. Why do people like having an app for this?

<comment><USER8> Snapchat's timeout feature is not just a novelty, is it allowing for a whole different type of digital communication. The sender does not have to worry about where their image might show up. It frees people to take goofy photos and act more naturally (as opposed to all the posed, staged shots on Instagram and Facebook).

<comment><USER9> I don't know why this misconception keeps getting propogated. If the motivation to save pictures is there then a person will save the pictures. I have to believe it's the fad. I mean poke had this same feature yet it never took off

<comment><USER10> > If the motivation to save pictures is there then a person will save the > pictures.

Considering most "snaps" are sent between friends and family these days, it's important to understand that friends aren't fucking each other over to save pictures of cats with finger-painted mustaches.

Of course, if someone is dead-set on saving a picture from Snapchat then it's possible... but Snapchat isn't about sending dick pics anymore. I believe it's outgrown that, the same way when Vine started with was essentially an amateur porn broadcasting app. For the general public, Snapchat images appear and then they go poof, but I agree with you... it's hard to stop dicks from being dicks no matter how you send your photos.

But the one objective fact about the situation is that Snapchat is still the most convenient way to send photos and videos that are reasonably guaranteed to virtually disappear. Saving them out of Snapchat secretly isn't a priority nor is it trivial for 99% of people using the service.

<comment><USER9> the point is that assumption should always be made that anything you share on any service will be saved our available. I have to believe it's more the fad and brand vs this false sense of security

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reasons to continue using Snapchat.

1\. They are the brand that reinvented the sharing model. They are more likely to stick to their core values 2\. Facebook/Instagram can use the information about who you send to to expand their already vast profile of you. 3\. Based on Snapchats word, your images are truly deleted from their servers after they've been viewed.

That said, I'll be testing out Instagram direct to see if it is truly a superior product but I imagine if they think of something good Snapchat will copy it and I will go back to my brand du jour.

</comment><comment><USER12> "I am going to write an app that allows the user to send pictures to their contacts!"

I guess one must have a fair bit of userbase karma + mystique to successfully reinvent the wheel, to make a funnier-to-use wheel that actually gets used.

<comment><USER13> Slightly related.

I don't really think we need social networks as they're now understood. About 10 years ago when MSN Messenger was popular, I had the idea of having an interactive contact list for one's cell phone. One where I could see that my friend is "in the shower, out in 10" or where I could send a picture to a contact, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm very interested to see how this goes against SnapChat. I think it could either ruin SnapChat for good, or not make any impact at all because of the fanbase loyalty to SnapChat. It will be interesting to see, that's for sure.

Also, I haven't seen a clear explanation on their implementation when you try to "direct" someone that has not updated their app (don't have the Direct feature) yet. Does it warn you, queue the Direct for when they finally do update, doesn't let you use the feature with them at all, or what?

AFTER UPDATING: It looks like you guys are right, it allows you to send Direct to people who have not updated, so I imagine it just queue's it for them. Also, you cannot set expiration timers, and if you do a group message everyone in the group can see who is in the group (both unlike SnapChat). So, it looks like this will not probably not harm SnapChat at all.

<comment><USER15> I don't think this will impact SnapChat at all.

I think people use SnapChat because it's a silo disconnected from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

<comment><USER16> Agreed, if anything, this seems to "compete" more with Kik Messaging.

<comment><USER17> I think this will pretty substantively impact Snapchat's moderate to less prolific users. Most people don't NEED their pictures to self-destruct, they weren't that embarrassing in the first place. This however, allows for more fun engagement after the initial picture sending and once users get a feel for that, people would opt for this I believe.

<comment><USER18> I agree, I think it will, at least somewhat, impact snapchat because the products are similar.

I'm sure that was the aim here, to create a product that took inspiration from snapchat. Given that it's one of the most popular apps out there with an insane amount of users, and we know that facebook already tried to buy it. I'm sure they didn't want to copy it outright, but if they can integrate some of it's features into their existing products, they may be able to steal some users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Instagram's beauty was its _simplicity._ You took photos, edited them, and shared them with friends.

Post-facebook acquire they've introduced "features" that add very little to the service, copy competitors, and degrade the overall experience of Instagram.

</comment><comment><USER20> Hipsters drive AMC Pacers these days? How not surprising:

[http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1...](http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1658533_1658042,00.html)

<comment><USER21> wanted to say the same thing. Great product and good marketing and all, but that video is so dripping of hipsterismn, they even have hipster cars in there.

<comment><USER22> What is "hipsterism"?

<comment><USER23> I guess you're being purposefully obtuse?

Hipster: [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hipster](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hipster)

Ism: highly active and well-understood suffix that means, among other things: "manner of action or behavior characteristic of a (specified) person or thing" [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/-ism](http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/-ism)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Actually this might have a minor impact on kik. Lots of Instagram users use kik to communicate, so this messaging tool could affect them more than snapchat. Snapchat still has the decaying images feature as it's main selling point,

</comment><comment><USER17> This will have a huge impact on Snapchat, IMO. Instagram Direct allows you to keep a conversation going with close friends, which is much more engaging and fun. Snapchat does not allow for that. One of the reasons that I'm not as prolific on Snapchat is that I just can't know what the hell I'm going to take a picture of next in response to someone's Snapchat. This addresses that issue by allowing just one picture to be the instigator for a conversation. Obviously loyal Snapchat fans will still stay there but I think the less prolific Snapchatters will opt to send a picture this way rather than thru Snapchat.

</comment><comment><USER25> Twitter DM vs Instagram Direct...

<comment><USER11> Versus Photostream!!!!! This is almost identical to Photostream which really is an under-appreciated iPhone product.

<comment><USER26> Interesting, I've not heard of this. How do I get started with this? (I'm using Android).

<comment><USER11> Well that's the downside. But honestly I'm not going to sympathize very much because over 80% of my friends have iPhones and I am already biased to sending messages to them because iMessage and Photostream are such good products.

On another point unrelated to this thread Apple and Google really should work together to develop a single messaging and sharing API hosted from either of their clouds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Everyone is comparing this to Snapchat or Twitter, but what about FB Messenger? Competing with another Facebook entity, but I guess FB wins either way now?

</comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone use the shared photostreams in iOS 7?

<comment><USER29> I do. Quite often, actually. Seriously the best way to share albums if both parties are on iOS. The only downside is it can definitely take up space as the device stores a copy of each image from each stream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> queue the mandatory hipster video ...

</comment><comment><USER31> The best thing about this update might be that we finally get pull-to-refresh on the home feed.

</comment><comment><USER32> Where is Twitter with Vine Direct?

<comment><USER33> it's coming. soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> so if facebook can't buy snapchat for 3 billion they'll just make their own

<comment><USER35> I suppose they already have the userbase. And it's not like there's much effort in copying a simple flow like Snapchat has. I'm pretty sure they (SC) have a patent on an app that goes straight to camera, amongst others though. Crazy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> So it's kinda like Snapchat, except your images can be viewed forever?

</comment><comment><USER37> Thanks but no thanks. I'll just keep tweeting those pics of my arse.

</comment><comment><USER38> Had to double check to make sure I wasn't on The Onion.

</comment><comment><USER39> did any one notice this "Instagram for Android version 5.0 is available today on Google Play." Android 5.0 ??

<comment><USER40> "Instagram for Android" is the name of the app, the version is now 5.0.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Will this create an impact on WhatsApp ?

</comment><comment><USER42> the blog's hosted on tumblr? hm..

<comment><USER43> The alternative was a Facebook Page, probably, so...</comment></comment>


A pitfall of golang scheduler - <AUTHOR> http://www.sarathlakshman.com/2016/06/15/pitfall-of-golang-scheduler <comment><USER2> Windows prior to 95 displayed the same problem, only the max procs was set to one, and instead of goroutines we had entire processes.

Like go now, it was fine most of the time. But anything with heavy computation time could be a serious problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good One !</comment>


Ask HN: Do we have to do everything by ourselves? - <AUTHOR>

Every time you created a new company, you worked on every aspect of starting a company. You and your team would code, design, copy-write, create marketing strategies and try to promote it by writing blog posts.
You would start each project with, as it seems at the moment, infinite amounts of energy. You would listen to customers to find out their problems, create well-designed products and receive great early feedback. But the thing is, you just can't get the ball rolling. You hit a wall. Getting the amount of customers you expected seems impossible.
You stop and try to start something new. You and your team fool yourselves thinking that in the next strategy or product everything's going to be all right and you are not going to fail again dealing with the same problem.
This story is my story and I can imagine lots of you have been through this.
We are a SaaS company. We are a team of 5 co-founders and we hired zero employees, zero PR agencies & zero social media managers.
We've received an angel investment from an incubator in Latin America and we have salaries below the market, so we burn our money slowly. I always thought -and still think - that one was one of our biggest strengths but recently I've been thinking that we are going nowhere slowly.
Marketing and promotion is not one of our strengths. It is very difficult for us to keep any strategy going on for more than two weeks. Maybe is our anxiety for quick results, maybe we are not doing things right or maybe we just don't have the necessary energy.
I really need you to help me understand what should we do. Should we keep trying to do everything on our own and keep learning or hire agencies or freelancers that could help us filling those gaps with their experience? <comment><USER2> You mention that marketing and promotion is not one of your strengths. I.presume none of the 5 cofounders is a marketing guy. Maybe getting a marketing guy on board can bring clarity to the process of bringing customers to your website. Having said that, its not necessary to having a marketing specialist. Make a list of all potential traffic sources - eg googladwords, facebook ads, stumble upon, ads on forums and test them all out to find which works for you.

If you can mention what your business is maybe others here can help you with a marketing strategy</comment>


Ashamed to work in Silicon Valley: how techies became the new bankers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/ashamed-to-work-in-silicon-valley-how-techies-became-the-new-bankers?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Add_to_Pocket <comment><USER2> If your reading this and it describes you, over at Security First (www.secfirst.org) we build open source mobile tech that helps activists, aid workers and journalists stay safe all over the world. We are looking for contributions to our code base, uaer testing (and we are also hiring for a full time Android dev).</comment>


CrunchyRoll.com is serving ransomware - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/7aq2s7/psa_dont_enter_crunchyrollcom_at_the_moment_it/ <comment><USER2> VirusTotal[1] and hybrid-analysis[2] info via [3].

It seems to be a very clearly targeted payload, named CrunchyViewer.exe. It could be served through a DNS hijack of some sort[8]. It's a modified version of Taiga[4], making it seem like a legitimate application and flying under many anti-malware programs' radars.

Apparently the exact malware strain is currently unknown. Most likely it is ransomware that activates on reboot[5]. Given there are traces of a command and control server[2] and the Lilith open source RAT[6], the ransomware payload may be supplied by the CnC server.

An overview can also be found at [7].

[1] [https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/eae53d89d7add187dfe6f4498c...](https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/eae53d89d7add187dfe6f4498c99144d7650c37a99792e0e40035d83f73cfb02/detection)

[2] [https://www.hybrid- analysis.com/sample/eae53d89d7add187dfe6f...](https://www.hybrid- analysis.com/sample/eae53d89d7add187dfe6f4498c99144d7650c37a99792e0e40035d83f73cfb02?environmentId=100)

[3] [https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/7aq2s7/psa_dont_ente...](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/7aq2s7/psa_dont_enter_crunchyrollcom_at_the_moment_it/dpbxlct/)

[4] [http://taiga.moe](http://taiga.moe)

[5] [https://twitter.com/Swaps4/status/926793261884125192](https://twitter.com/Swaps4/status/926793261884125192)

[6] [https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/926818116121841665](https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/926818116121841665)

[7] [https://doublepulsar.com/crunchyroll-serving-remote- access-m...](https://doublepulsar.com/crunchyroll-serving-remote-access- malware-dd774867c129)

[8] [https://twitter.com/Crunchyroll_de/status/926791185217269760](https://twitter.com/Crunchyroll_de/status/926791185217269760)

</comment><comment><USER3> >Our American Social Media colleagues aren't awake at the moment (it's 5 AM there)

That looks like a _very_ bad policy in this situation. Don't they have anyone on call for security/infrastructure? Or don't they have access to the social media accounts for these kind of situations? I know hindsight is 20/20 but really, whole Europe knows English and not even one person outside the Americas can access the official twitter account?

At least the banter on /a/ makes this tolerable

>>"don't torrent you will get virus!" >>"use CR instead!" >>use CR >>get hacked and virus

<comment><USER4> They basically fired their whole US engineering team from what I understand:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Crunchyroll/comments/5oug4a/apparen...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Crunchyroll/comments/5oug4a/apparently_there_have_been_layoffs/)

<comment><USER5> So for the umpteenth time, outsourcing to $CHEAP_COUNTRY sends the product straight down the shitter. You'd think people would learn, one of these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Their German Twitter account has more info:

[https://twitter.com/Crunchyroll_de/status/926782599460212736](https://twitter.com/Crunchyroll_de/status/926782599460212736)

        And for our English-speaking audience
        Please DO NOT access our website at the current time. We
        are aware of the issues and are working on it

         Update: We have NOT been hacked. At the moment, it appears to be DNS hijacking.

<comment><USER7> > At the moment, it appears to be DNS hijacking.

A google search for "crunchyroll" returns as the first result an HTTP link. Had they used HTTPS, would it have prevented the attack (turning it into a denial-of-service instead), or would the DNS hijack be enough for the attacker to obtain a valid certificate?

<comment><USER8> Control of DNS is enough to get a domain-validated HTTPS certificate in seconds.

<comment><USER9> well with HSTS most recurring users wouldn't have noticed it, at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, and to think I soured on them for lack of English-dubbed content!

<comment><USER11> CR partnered with Funimation, which serves up dubbed anime on Funimation Now. You can get both as channels on VRV, which is Ellation's (CR parent co) new platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> CR did start its life as an illegal streaming site before they were bought out. But I guess you can almost say the same thing about YT...</comment>


NASA Released Over 10,000 Photos from the Apollo Moon Mission - <AUTHOR> https://m.thevintagenews.com/2015/10/05/so-nasa-got-sick-of-all-that-conspiracy-thing-and-released-over-10000-photos-from-the-apollo-moon-mission/ <comment><USER2> The glorious fix during Apollo 13 mission, [https://flic.kr/p/zci7am](https://flic.kr/p/zci7am)

<comment><USER3> It's amazing this was decades ago. I really hope spaceX ends up landing man on Mars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've made a gif animation from one of the sequences of the photos. Enjoy: [https://giphy.com/gifs/moon-nasa- appolo-l46Cji1Q4PNq3kRBC](https://giphy.com/gifs/moon-nasa- appolo-l46Cji1Q4PNq3kRBC)

</comment><comment><USER5> Russia (or Soviet Union ) would never accepted the landing if they suspected it was an hoax.</comment>


US Apple iPad to be released in April - <AUTHOR> http://thecomputinggeek.com/us-apple-ipad-to-be-released-in-april/

<comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1169343>

Or:

<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/03/05ipad.html></comment>


Journey to the Center of Google (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/200502/google-larry-sergey

<comment><AUTHOR> Also wanted to let PG know to change the link for this article at <http://ycombinator.com/lib.html>

The current link is broken and it should be changed to: [http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/200502/google- lar...](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/200502/google-larry-sergey)</comment>


Sony Attempts to Trademark "Let's Play" – It's as Bad as It Sounds - <AUTHOR> http://ryanmorrisonlaw.com/scea-attempts-to-trademark-lets-play-its-as-bad-as-it-sounds/ <comment><USER2> Dell tried to trademark "cloud computing". Dell's application (serial number 77139082) was made in early 2007 to the US Patent and Trademark Office, apparently in connection with data center products and services that it was promoting around that time. Maybe if they'd trademark it, we could go back to calling servers "servers".

[http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77139...](http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77139082)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's the same crap like when King.com registered the trademark for "saga" and "candy"..

</comment><comment><USER4> Let's Play don't buy Sony then.

<comment><USER5> Been playing that ever since they tried to deliver a root kit to my PC. They were out of luck on mine because, of course, it was running Debian. But one of my children was not so lucky.

<comment><USER6> Details? I've never heard of this happening before.

<comment><USER7> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


When an experiment with existing technology does a "good enough" job - happy-go-lucky https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-i-replicated-an-86-million-project-in-57-lines-of-code-277031330ee9 <comment><AUTHOR> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15121020](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15121020)

</comment><comment><USER2> I attended a Cisco-sponsored IoT conference in 2014 where they showed a live demonstration of ANPR on the streets of Chicago, and actually managed to catch a stolen car during the demonstration. I had my car stolen in LA and would gladly sacrifice some vehicular privacy to give a network of dashcams the opportunity to recover it (it was eventually recovered many days later, ransacked and with a lot of damage).

<comment><USER3> Police in Toronto have been doing this for years. Specifically, some parking enforcement cars have plate scanners on them that look for stolen vehicles as they drive around.

Ontario Provincial Police also scans plates for cars with violations (stolen, expired registration, etc.).

The former (stolen car search) I don't have a problem with as long as the scanning is 100% limited to searching for stolen cars and destroyed as soon as the car is determined to be not stolen.

The latter (scanning for registration issues, etc.) is a different issue. I am not in favour of this kind of automated "law enforcement".

Data retention is a big issue with these kinds of systems. They might say they only use the data to find stolen cars, but if the data is stored or retained and then can be used in other investigations or for other types of enforcement via data mining...that's a slippery slope.

<comment><USER2> I like this perspective, it's the right balance between privacy and effective policing. If the data persisted over a long period of time, you could use it to determine where someone travels and subsequently what activities they engage in and who they are connected to.

As for automated law enforcement, I find it just creates a private market for subversion and doesn't really improve safety (e.g. many GPS systems will warn you about speeding cameras placed along the road so you can slow down in time).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Australian cop cars already have fixed cameras that do rego checks... how do I know this... I got pulled over for expired registration and the cops told me as soon as the camera saw them while they drove past me it flagged up on their onboard computer...</comment>


A Self-Taught Programmer's Journey - <AUTHOR> http://blog.webicity.info/2010/09/27/a-self-taught-programmers-journey/

<comment><USER2> By the way, the matrix image is 1600x1200 and 389K. You'd save on some bandwidth and download speed if you used a smaller image.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's on imageshack or photobucket or somewhere. It was a last minute google images addition. On a mobile so can't resize it ATM. Sorry.

Edit: Fixed. Along with an issue where wordpress for iPhone ate HTML entities for a canvas tag and the following paragraph.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As a child programmer I've always been slightly scared of the static keyword. It still feels odd 20 years later

Black magic I tell you!

</comment><comment><USER4> Strikingly similar to my journey! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I guess a lot of people have similar stories, certainly a few of my friends who code said they were similar :P</comment></comment>


Closure - <AUTHOR> http://refer.ly <comment><USER2> Slightly confused. Here: <http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2013/03/zombie- startups/> they had ~130k "active monthly users" yet in that post they say they had ~15k? Not trying to be snarky, just curious what they are using to define the two groups.

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem, only about 5% of our active users are contributors (this is pretty typical of user generated content sites as I understand it, although we always tried to make it higher). The rest are readers/subscribers

<comment><USER2> Makes sense, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> 1.2 Million page views, and $33k in revenue. That is a $30 CPM. Wow.

I wonder if they tried buying traffic for some of best performing articles. Probably not cost effective, but not far off.

<comment><USER4> 462,291/372,195 = $1.24 => Spend Per Visitor

33,883/462,291 * 100 = 7.30% => Commission Rate

33,883/372,195 * 100 = 9.10c => Value of Incoming Click

33,883/3,356,379 * 100 = 1.00c => Value of Outgoing Click

Required middleman amplification ratio: 9.1 => Hard but workable.

33,883/10 = $3883 => Monthly income => Not workable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't understand why a sudden closure. They were successful and were giving a tough competition to Amazon affiliates. Then why start an online magazine? They were receiving a massive amount of traffic just because they could earn better than Amazon affiliates. I might be wrong but were people writing articles? I mean who wants to be a paid freelancer when they can earn better thought a blog? Also, this Paid Freelance Contributor Program is kind of weird. We already have that!!

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm proud to be in a community this transparent. Best of luck with the next one.

</comment><comment><USER7> Pay attention, _this_ is how you handle the public aspects of a pivot.

<comment><USER8> I don't understand that sentence. What is a pivot?

<comment><USER9> A pivot is when a company (usually a smaller company) decides that their current business model/idea isn't working, and "pivots" to another idea. Though to be fair, I arrived at this definition only by seeing it enough times on HN and defining it via context.

<comment><USER10> The word originally came from Eric Ries and the Lean Startup (I think). Pivot does indeed mean changing to another idea, though the emphasis is on "change direction with one foot on the ground", ie, not just scrapping everything to do something completely new. Though nowadays it seems pivot can mean everything from "slight change in direction" to "completely give up".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Squidoo 2.0

Not that it's a good or bad thing. Just noting the similarities of two ideas pushed through by two strong personalities--love you, mean it, dmor--that approached the editorial process with a means of monetization.

I believe the trick, as Mahalo learned early, is that you need a lot of traffic to draw from for this kind of model to ramp up and then work out a win for everyone with their fingers in the pie.

For my own startup junkie datapoint would any Amazon engineer please dish about lessons learned while productizing of, and the lack thereof, Amazon wishlists or tangentially Amazon Vine?

With a massive database of products, reviews, actions, tastes, recommendations, and traffic, that's a great nexus to apply a referral model to.

<comment><AUTHOR> No offense taken, we looked to learn from Squidoo a great deal and Seth sent me a couple supportive notes along the way that meant a lot to me.

I still believe cost-per-action is the future of indirect revenue on the Internet and as fraud continues to climb in display and even CPC advertising I think things will head in this direction. But not yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems difficult to make good money with affiliate marketing. Example Amazon books: say I earn 1$ per book sale - that is about the same as for 10 clicks on an adwords ad on my site. If 10 people have clicked on an Amazon link, I haven't earned anything yet. So how can such things make sense? I guess you have to sell more expensive stuff, but I think Amazon has also capped the max affiliate reward now?

A pity, because I'd prefer to refer handpicked things to unpredictable AdWords on my site, but can't see it working.

</comment><comment><USER13> Absolutely love the transparency. It's nice for founders to know that everyone else (even some of the best!) aren't always crushing it...but I'm betting you'll crush it next time around :) Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a beautiful way to show everyone that you guys know what you're doing and to build brand loyalty. Best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER15> Man, startups are hard. B2C startups are really hard. Best of luck with the pivot!</comment>


Pee in Paris: Need an urgent pee in Paris? An Open Data mashup to the rescue - <AUTHOR> http://www.peeinparis.com This mobile website displays on a map all the public toilets in Paris. It is based on Paris Open Data, Google Maps API and Foursquare API. It aims to smile about Gérard Depardieu peeing in a plane, but I hope it might be helpful anyway. <comment><USER2> Something similar can be done for Australia:

<http://data.gov.au/dataset/national-public-toilet-map/>

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems that the xml file is full of FALSE values. Too bad...</comment></comment>


McKernel: OS for scalability on modern computers and with Linux compatibility - <AUTHOR> http://www-sys-aics.riken.jp/ResearchTopics/os/mckernel.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is basically an implementation of the multi-kernel design (like Barrelfish OS) for scalability and to make better use of modern hardware architectures, with the difference that this aims for full Linux compatibility.

To achieve some of this in current kernels, those usually have separate queues per each cpu like DragonflyBSD's network stack.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I focus on my strengths or compensate for my weaknesses? - <AUTHOR>

We all have a limited amount of time and willpower to spend. I remember reading here (can't find the post) that the really successful people focus on their strengths than compensate for their weaknesses.
I was talking to a founder of a company that was bought out for $100 million. I told him I wanted to do startups, was learning programming for about a year but did not like it. He suggested that I focus on what I was interested in instead. That might be growthhacking. I've studied it this week and find it much more interesting. I think I can come up with good ad copy.
My social skills aren't that good, possibly naturally. I'm just bad at reading social cues, have pretty bad social anxiety and frequently encounter awkward situations. However, my thought that there is a "low hanging fruit" I can seize. I'm going to start doing toastmasters. I think I could learn to network at a baseline level. The ability to coldcall is a huge asset to have in a startup, that might be a stretch though.
I've always felt I was creative person and have many ideas to write about. I'm not sure if it's something worth spending 1000 hours on improving. In the past I've tried writing but it's so painful. And the product is basically unusable. I know we live in the self help age where everyone can do anything they want, but how much is writing a skill vs a talent? <comment><USER2> You appear to have little confidence in yourself and that is the fundamental problem.

You are seeking direction from people who cannot understand your problem fully because it is internal. You are seeking instructions, solutions, answers and validation, all of which cannot take into account your key issues.

Where you are in terms of your skills, or your professional or career success is basically irrelevant. You would do well to strive for whatever you wish to strive for, whether you get there or not.

I would advise you to start a process that leads you to learn most about yourself as quickly as possible. Anything that turns your realisation inwards and shows you who you are will benefit you most. Do not run from yourself.

Now, what you do could be varied. They could be to face your fears (e.g. toastmasters), or they could be simply a discussion with a friend who can help you look at yourself.

The final decision about what you choose to do needs to be your own, for as is in your nature, you will always doubt whether you have chosen the right thing, and you will no doubt find excuses about why the advice you were given and attempted to follow might no longer be the right advice for you.

Good luck. I'm pretty sure this isn't supposed to be easy.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would strongly recommend to focus on your strengths as your friend suggested. Working on your weaknesses will only drive you toward areas you are not naturally suited for, which is a reliable recipe for mediocrity.

As for what you might be suited for, certainly, follow your excitement. Copywriting does not require you to use your muscle memory to project confidence, you can get the same effect by iterating over your wording. And it scales to boot!

Finally, you might actually have better social skills than you think, but might not be among people who value what comes natural to you.

I have found that to be common among people who value substance over talk: Talkers will be put off by your truthful analysis and define it as poor social skills because your insights make them uncomfortable. They might also consider you rude for not listening, while they simply have nothing of interest to say to you.

People of substance will be delighted by your insights, and be interesting enough to make you want to listen to them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Focus on whatever is missing for you to achieve your visions. If you know what you want to build, but are lacking some skills to execute on it, thats what you need to focus on.

"The Gap" by Ira Glass is a great little talk about will happen to you as you evolve - [http://vimeo.com/85040589](http://vimeo.com/85040589)

Also, try to actively "lean in" to discomfort. Discomfort (or light fear) is usually related to the unknown. The unknown is where you will find your greatest amount of personal growth. Every time you lean into discomfort, you will find that your personal sphere of possibilities will grow. More possibilities allows you to accomplish more through more avenues.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> Cold calling is one of the easier social skills. Write yourself a script with if then branches and read the thing when you get someone on the phone. You can write the scripts such that the questions you ask are reasonably close-ended and then write if then branches like a program.

That's what I did when I used to do door to door sales. You've got the time to plan, the person you're calling doesn't - you can offload a lot of the usual needs to be good at socialising by planning.

You can even use technical aids if you don't need to be near the person you're talking to. Make yourself a little program that notes changes in tone of voice, for instance. And then feed that into your plan's conditionals.

IME, the anxiety drops off after you've called on a few hundred people.

I'm not sure how that would work if you've got severe social anxiety though. That sounds like something it might be worth going to therapy or the like to deal with. After all, working with others is a pretty vital skill almost regardless of what you want to get done. But I can't comment on how to address the difficulties of that, not being a psychologist or having it myself.

#

The more general point as to whether to focus on your strengths or weaknesses. Three things spring to mind:

1) You need a wide familiarity with multiple areas to judge experts in those areas and to see how the things you're good at can be used to address them. It's usually worth investing enough in your areas of weakness, if you expect to run across a situation where they'd be relevant, to bring the skills up to a basic level of functionality.

2) You'll probably never be as good in that area as someone who loves it and getting to a deep level of knowledge requires considerable sacrifices in other areas. You can probably rent the strengths you need and be stronger that way than either of you would be alone.

3) I don't know I'd be focusing on talent as much as I would passion. Effort trumps intelligence for most things. I've known some _very_ smart failures in a wide range of areas. This week it'll be one thing, next week it'll be another. Since they don't sit down and do the work, since they're not really passionate about the work, just the idea of what they'll have at the end, it never comes to anything. They're not creators, they're just slightly smarter dreamers. To be a creator is to create. Just as to be a programmer is to program, or to be an (almost) anything is to practice that anything.</comment>


Upgrading Messaging on Android in the U.S. with RCS - <AUTHOR> https://www.blog.google/products/rcs/upgrading-messaging-android-us-rcs/ <comment><USER2> There was a time when I really thought Google was going to shake things up. Nexus Phones, Google Fiber, Google Fi, etc all sounded awesome. I bought a Nexus 5, switched to Fi, went through the super fun process of mixing around my google voice numbers, (breaking all kinds of stuff) but eventually I was mostly setup and functional. I'd lost some core parts of gVoice, but I figured it was just a matter of time before it was back up to a similar level.

Having Hangouts as a full featured SMS/Voice/MMS replacement, which also let you do all of those things from your computer was an awesome experience. GV features like Spam filter wasn't supported with Fi, and just accessing your GV account with a Fi subscription on your google account was difficult.

Then they split SMS/Hangouts (although Fi users were somewhat grandfathered in), which broke basically every text convo I had going on, and made it _more_ difficult to text Hangout friends compared with SMS only friends. Then they rolled back the gVoice/Fi plans, and made it clear that Hangouts was going away, and gVoice wasn't going to be an option. Then the Nexus phones started to get worse instead of better. The 6P was mediocre at best, and "Stock" Android was starting to make compromises, while somehow getting worse. The Pixels have continued this trend of decline, Hangouts can't really even send Gifs anymore (size limit of like, 3mb or something) Fi has made almost no progress, and when Hangouts goes away I'll be retiring the last of my Android devices.

Kind of a long rant, but my point is I don't trust google to do anything competent in this space, and even if they did, I wouldn't trust them not to fuck it up 6 months later.

<comment><USER3> Exactly my experience. I finally bit the bullet and switched to the Apple side. There are things I miss from android but I trust Apple not to self sabotage much more than I trust Google these days. Which is weird, and exactly the opposite of the feeling I had 5 years ago.

<comment><USER4> I'm in this situation right now - was just debating buying an iPhone yesterday after never owning anything from Apple. How do you like it so far?

<comment><USER5> Not the parent, but I recently switched to an iPhone and I'm liking it.

On Android, I was constantly using new Apps, looking at /r/android for release announcements, and getting excited about all the new releases. Then, at some point, I realized I just wanted a phone that works. That's when I switched to Apple. That's not to say my Pixel didn't do everything my iPhone does. It could do it all and in many cases it could even do it better or in a more customized way. But, it also required effort. Effort to learn the new apps, effort to change all the settings, and effort every time Google decided to change something that I thought was already working just fine.

Then I switched to Apple and I realized I didn't want necessarily want to spend all my time learning my phone, I wanted to spent my time USING it. To me, my iPhone is more like an appliance than a new tech gadget. It doesn't necessarily provide you with all the options and capabilities that an Android phone does, but it absolutely nails its core competencies and is very easy to use. I don't spend a single extra second trying to figure out HOW to use it, it just works.

<comment><USER6> Couldn't you use your Android phone as you are using your iPhone? It was your choice after all to go to /r/Android and try out new apps. I am pretty sure you are using the same 90% of apps on iPhone now that you used on your Android. And for the other 10% you could very well have settled on something and be done with it.

I bet you will be looking at /r/Apple in a few months.

<comment><USER7> I've used non-Google devices most of the time, now trying out an iPhone.

Just did a factory reset and restore via iCloud. My fear of loosing my phone, incomplete backups and messed up restore is gone. Works.

Might be possible with Google phones, too. For all the others it's just messy.

(I'd agree with you, until I tried it three weeks ago. Working with computers all day, I need others to take care of my personal and pocket computers...)

<comment><USER6> I have upgraded from Nexus 4 to Nexus 6p to Pixel 3 and have never started off fresh. Have factory reset my phone a couple of times and have been able to restore where I was. So I can't relate to you to what you are saying.

Sort of unrelated - I hate these kinds of comment chains. One clarifies something, other comes up - what about this though. And this whole chain itself when the article is about RCS.

Also disc that I am a Googler.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can anyone confirm the biggest issue (in my opinion) with RCS? It's not end- to-end encrypted.

Update: Confirmed it myself [1]. End-to-end encryption is not even an option. Which is perfect for the data addicts like Google. But honestly I would never ever recommend this as an avenue for people to use over something like WhatsApp.

[1]: [https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/14/20964477/googles-rcs- cha...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/14/20964477/googles-rcs-chat-android- rollout-us-ccmi-texting-sms)

<comment><USER9> It's almost certainly the carriers imposing this restriction. The reason these features took so long is because, as they did for SMS, every single carrier across the world has to get on board with this. , so I'm sure that's the reason it's not encrypted. The Messages app might be a Google product, but the underlying transport has to be implemented by carriers, and I'm sure there are many, many carriers who aren't interested in encrypting the messages that are carried across their networks (either because they don't have the technical competency, they want the data for themselves, or they have to comply with local law enforcement regulations about texting).

This is not to excuse the lack of encryption, but the finger should probably be pointed more at carriers (and maybe OEMs) than at Google.

One question I have is whether Google-account to Google-account messages will be encrypted, like how Apple does it with their iMessage/SMS boundary within the same app...

<comment><USER5> Is there any reason someone couldn't make an sms client that gives the option of encryption assuming the person you are conversing with was using a client following the same encryption protocol? It would require a few automated texts to exchange keys but would allow encrypted communication over sms easily.

I'm guessing there just isn't a big enough market for it given that people are willing to create an account with WhatsApp to get the same thing.

<comment><USER10> That's exactly what TextSecure (now Signal) used to do[0]. Since the code is open-source, somebody has forked the SMS code and apparently kept it alive[1]. (It's even on both F-Droid and Google Play.)

[0] [https://lwn.net/Articles/638621/](https://lwn.net/Articles/638621/)

[1] [https://git.silence.dev/Silence/Silence- Android/](https://git.silence.dev/Silence/Silence-Android/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A couple of weeks ago AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile announced that they had started working on their cross-provider RCS implementation - [https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/24/20931202/us-carriers- rcs...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/24/20931202/us-carriers-rcs-cross- carrier-messaging-initiative-ccmi-att-tmobile-sprint-verizon)

Does Google doing this essentially mean they've gotten sick of waiting for the carriers and decided to bypass them entirely? If so, the carriers can't be happy about that.

<comment><USER12> Google was trying to market Jibe as a service carriers could pay for to handle their RCS messaging for them. When carriers announced CCMI, they made it clear they weren't interested in paying for Jibe. [https://jibe.google.com/jibe- platform/](https://jibe.google.com/jibe-platform/)

Clearly, Google wants the data badly enough to provide said messaging services for free, and doesn't want carriers to keep the data to themselves. But they were hoping carriers would pay them and that they'd also get the data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Let me see if I understand the strategic landscape around RCS correctly...

* To the extent RCS:

a) makes it easier for users to switch between mobile providers and keep advanced features that used to be offered for lock-in or more $$, or

b) makes it easier for users to switch between the old SMS network and wifi - then, it's not good for mobile telco provider's business models.

* To the extent RCS increases privacy for users (E2E encryption, etc) - then, it's not good for Google's business models.

* To the extent it allows feature-rich messaging to work across ALL major platforms (Android, Web & iOS)- then, it's not good for Apple's platform lock-in.

While I agree that an open, extensible, feature-rich, privacy-aware, cross- platform, cross-network messaging standard is highly desirable - is it correct that RCS (as currently formulated) is a non-starter and, from a strategic perspective, always was?

<comment><USER14> I remember this the last time around, with MMS 20 years ago. It was a non- starter then and I've seen little this time around to give me confidence this will be different. The Google thing is a novel digression, but from where I'm sitting it looks like they're just trying to fence off a section of the market for themselves and adding little else besides.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have a Pixel 3XL on Google Fi. Every time I try to enable Chat Features on Messages, it just grays out on "Setting up ...". If I try too many times in a day, it locks me out for 24 hours.

If Google can't figure out how to make it work _on their own phone carrier_, I really do not have much hope for Android's messaging strategy.

</comment><comment><USER16> The blue bubbles in the GIF example look exactly like iMessage on iOS, coincidence?

<comment><USER17> Except unlike in iMessage where blue bubbles basically mean end-to-end encrypted messaging, Google's version is completely unencrypted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> New protocol in 2019 with no support for encryption, this is not acceptable.

<comment><USER19> The protocol is from 2008. None of the carriers were getting around to supporting it (since it's federates to AT&T and Verizon have to have their own servers that talk to each other), so Google is publishing a "universal profile" so Android can talk to Android at least. This is really just Google kicking the carriers kicking and screaming into 2010 level technology. As a standalone protocol, it's not great. As an upgrade to SMS it's _long_ overdue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> RCS has completely blown up in Google's face. They should have just copied Apple and created gMessage

<comment><USER21> They did: Google Talk/gChat, Hangouts, Allo, Duo, Wave (I think it did messaging, I don't really know). There's probably more I forgot.

Google Talk notably supported tons of mobile platforms and was XMPP based and had federation, before they started down their path of reinventing messaging over and over.

<comment><USER22> Sure they created a lot of apps but they never replicated THE key feature of iMessage which is seamless SMS fallback within the same app. You don't have to even think about "Oh this person doesn't use such and such app"

Allo came the closest but messages sent to phone numbers not on Allo were sent through some proxy number so the recipient ended up getting the message as from some random google phone number.

RCS is the closest Google has ever come to the effortlessness of iMessage in terms of having a single app you can message anyone with, and incidentally there are some benefits if the other person is using a compatible app but regardless the message will get through (and from your number) one way or another.

<comment><USER23> > Sure they created a lot of apps but they never replicated THE key feature of > iMessage which is seamless SMS fallback within the same app. You don't have > to even think about "Oh this person doesn't use such and such app"

To be fair, while Google certainly could have had a better strategy, replicating Apple's would probably have been a failure.

For several reasons, iMessage's success is very US-centric. SMS fall-back is really not an option in countries where unlimited SMS isn't the norm. Google should have tried harder to acquire Whatsapp, or at least grab another big fish in this space (like Viber).

RCS is going to benefit carriers more than Google, since they might claim back some of the IM traffic. Google realizes it can at least try to control the app (Messages) which will be deployed to most low and mid-range Android phones, that are running stock or close to stock Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm guessing this is what borked names being attached in SMS Hangouts chat in Gmail. Anyone else having this issue?

<comment><USER25> Yep, just noticed that today as well.

</comment></comment><comment> m-p-3 No E2EE is a dealbreaker for me, no reason for me to use that or old-fashioned SMS.

</comment><comment><USER26> iMessage was launched in 2011. It's been 8 years and still no real solution for Android phones. RCS isn't encrypted, which is insane, and there's still massive infighting between carriers and Google. And even _if_ RCS actually launches in the next year or so in the U.S., there's zero mention of iMessage interop (and zero interest from Apple), which means 45% of your contacts will still fall back to basic SMS/MMS. And who knows what the international situation will be like.

This realistically means the current crazy messaging situation is going to remain for the next 5 to 10 years.

</comment><comment><USER27> Isn't RCS invented to let mobile carriers take back the market of mobile messaging from messengers like Telegram or Whatsapp? There will be no encryption, it won't work without Internet and users can be charged for every message.

Of course, no sane person will want to use it so Google will have to add something that will be available only to RCS and not to other messengers.

</comment><comment><USER12> I am very curious how carriers will respond to Google deciding to preempt them by pushing an app update to redirect all text messaging straight to Google servers versus the carriers. Google seemed like it was respecting the carriers' involvement, right up until carriers announced plans to build their own RCS system that didn't give Google the data. Suddenly, Google is turning on RCS?

Presumably Google was hoping it could convince carriers to pay Google to host their messaging platforms, and when Google lost that gamble, they decided they still wanted the data either way.

This is the sort of coup I half-wonder if carriers would drop the Android platform over. (At the very least, I think four more large companies will be vocally supporting the DOJ's antitrust investigation.)

<comment><USER28> To be honest, I think they might find after it's turned on that the limitation to the Google Messages app (which is not the default on Samsung devices and hence represents very little in terms of market share) doesn't move the needle at all and makes very little difference. Certainly, the impact of turning it on on the UK market seems to have been zero.

If Google follows through by enabling it system wide in future OS versions that might change a little, but Android being as it is that will take a long, long time, and the carriers probably suspect their own RCS implementations will have worked before then, or Whatsapp will just take over the US too and RCS will be dead.

<comment><USER29> I _do_ use the Google Messages app, but I don't plan to enable RCS any time soon. The main reason is that I use the "SMS Backup & Restore" app to back up my SMSes & MMSes, and it's unable to back up RCS messages because they're stored in a separate DB that currently has no system API access.

So chalk that up as perhaps another reason why some people won't "upgrade".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've only got a cursory understanding of RCS, but in what way is this good for consumers? I can understand how it's good for Google, but aside from Google it's unclear how anyone benefits.

<comment><USER31> > _I 've only got a cursory understanding of RCS_

Try `man rcs`. Heh.

I hate name collisions.

<comment><USER32> Something something naming things.. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I use PulseSMS. Unless Google quickly allows third party apps to integrate, third party apps are all doomed. Isn't this an anti-trust problem?

<comment><USER33> Given that lots of people use the SMS app that comes with their phone (which often isn't Android Messenger) I suspect it is more the case that if Google doesn't allow 3rd party apps to integrate then Google's RCS is doomed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Would this work where mobile internet is slow or non existent? Would this break dependence on having Firebase as the power-efficicent centralized push system? Will this have delivery receipts? Can this be used as a transport for E2EE apps?

</comment><comment><USER35> How is there not an uproar over the lack of E2E encryption? With all the headlines lately around Cambridge Analytica and Snowden and Facebook - who in their right mind is okay with letting Google read their text messages? It's insane.

</comment><comment><USER36> No, thanks.

I really, really, really don't want SMS "upgraded" in this way. If I wanted something like RCS, I'd be using a messaging app.

Here's hoping that everything remains compatible with old-school SMS.

<comment><USER37> Why use SMS instead of a messaging app? Why is the call network side channel the ideal cellular messaging protocol?

<comment><USER36> The call network side is universal. Messaging apps aren't. It's really that simple for me.

With SMS, I don't have to agree with the other parties about what app we're going to use. We can just exchange messages without a hassle.

The only downside is the lack of encryption, but I can live with that.

Another consideration, and this is why I'm resistant to RCS, is that I actively don't want all the bells and whistles that messaging apps have. All I want to do is be able to exchange short plain text messages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> And still no RCS support in Google Voice. Brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER39> Those are nice features, but half the people I talk to use iOS so I'm not going to use any of them. Trying to remember who has what is too much hassle.

</comment><comment><USER40> phone are running android os isn't it? carriers still can roll their rcs on ios

<comment><USER12> Apple has shown no interest in supporting RCS, because the features it adds are basically akin to iMessage... which iPhones already have.

<comment><USER16> And RCS has no support for E2E encryption, it would be actually a downgrade from iMessage.

<comment><USER41> Not for iOS users sending messages to Android users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Uh huh. "Upgrading" to plain text completely unencrypted data that can be monetized by google and carriers. A+.

</comment><comment><USER43> Is this basically an Android-only version of iMessages?

<comment><USER44> No, it's an industry agreed standard of an implementation similar to iMessage without end to end encryption.

It was created by many of the carriers as an upgrade to SMS.

<comment><USER45> It's an industry standard, but if Apple doesn't implement it in iOS then it's only useable from one Android device to another.

That effectively makes it into crappy iMessage for Android. Only works within one OS ecosystem, but it's unencrypted, managed by your carrier, and limited to the one cellular device itself instead of also working directly on your wifi-connected tablet and computer.

It would be nice of Apple to support this if it's an improvement over SMS/MMS, but Apple drags their feet on supporting any sort of standards that they didn't create. And even some that they _did_ (pour one out for OpenCL).

<comment><USER46> I don't see Apple supporting this if end-to-end encryption isn't in place, they've been more and more positioning privacy as a competitive advantage for their services.

<comment><USER47> Apple already supports SMS to their Messages app. Those communication threads fall back to SMS rather than their proprietary protocol, I imagine. RCS equipped message apps will probably fall back to regular SMS when sending to Apple Messages equipped phones, maybe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Can't wait for no one to use it ever

<comment><USER49> " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is very exciting for the 8 people still using SMS I suppose.

<comment><USER51> I'm a 20 something in tech circles in the West Coast of the US and I use SMS at least some of the time to communicate with:

* Brother

* Mother

* Father

* Uncle 1

* Uncle 2

* Roommate 1

* Roommate 2

* Friend of roommate

* Cousin

* Business partner

All of that is in just the last week. SMS is the first messaging system softened mentioned when meeting new people. Because it's a lowest common demoninator.

Why am I not cool enough to hang out with Whatsapp-using people? Joking....

<comment><USER52> The reason you don't use WhatsApp is that the people you communicate with don't use WhatsApp. The reason _they_ don't use WhatsApp is that the people _they_ communicate with (this includes _you_ ) don't use WhatsApp.

This is called "network effect", where the value of the product for you is amplified as more and more other people use the same product. You can get a value out of a microwave oven, even if no other people ever use it; you can't get a value out of WhatsApp if other people don't use it, since there's not much value in WhatsApp-ing yourself.

The question, then, becomes: Why the US doesn't get value out of WhatsApp?, and this has to do with history.

As people started to use messaging (only SMS existed at that point) instead of calling, the US carriers responded by increasing the basic subscription price while including unlimited messaging (SMS). The relatively rich US population could bear this added cost. This, however, was not the situation in pretty much the rest of the world, where the SMS was either an expensive "added value service" (not good for the customer), or "unlimited within provider" (again, not good for the customer who has to guess whether their SMS is going to be free or not).

As of 2010, when WhatsApp started gaining popularity, its value in the US was questionable, since no-additional-price unlimited SMS was a viable alternative (as it still is). The rest of the world have seen a tremendous value in unlimited and free alternative to the expensive SMS. (WhatsApp pricing was $0 for unlimited messaging in the first year, and $1 per year after that.) With that value, the rest of the world switched swiftly. Not all of them went to WhatsApp, as Viber seems to be the most popular in Eastern Europe and LINE in Japan.</comment></comment></comment>


Zen and the art of statefulness - <AUTHOR> http://skilldrick.co.uk/2011/02/zen-and-the-art-of-statefulness/

<comment><USER2> "The above code uses an IIFE (Immediately-invoked function expression) to produce a function with additional data"

I'm probably being a mindless pedant, but...

Having read the linked (Alman) article, I think this terminology is iffy at best. This is just a closure. You are using a second function to create a lexical scoping, but a closure without lexical scope is just an anonymous function. (Full name of a closure being a lexical closure).

If JavaScript had a 'let' construct to allow for lexical scoping without creating anonymous functions, this would be fairly easy to see.

But I think adding new terminology such as 'IFFE' obscures what a closure actually is.

<comment><AUTHOR> The point of an IIFE is that it is immediately invoked, i.e.: `(function () { })()` - the outer function is used to return the inner function at that point. So you're returning the inner function, and it's this function, a closure, that is returned.

I'm not sure what's iffy about the terminology here...</comment></comment>


Sell water to people who are thirsty - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2018/02/looking-for-seekers-who-are-looking-for-you.html <comment><USER2> I know what the author is trying to say, but given the news about the people in Detroit whose water was cut off for lack of payment (UN experts said it "constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights"), the Flint water crisis, Day-0 in Cape Town, and the privatization of once public water supplies, the proposal to sell water to people who are thirsty, well, leaves a dirty taste in my mouth.</comment>


The US Is Now in the Longest Bull Market in American History - <AUTHOR> http://thesoundingline.com/the-us-is-now-in-the-longest-bull-market-in-american-history/ <comment><USER2> Do the people who still want more tax cuts really think this can go on forever? It's really scary that deficits are going up while the market is booming. In the 90s at least the deficit went down during the bubble.

<comment><USER3> Depends if we plan on invading somewhere or not to my eye—it's how our ridiculous level of defense spending will actually provide returns.

<comment><USER4> Extremely unlikely that we would unilaterally invade another country under President Trump. That Bush-era hawkish interventionist doctrine is pretty much dead. The diplomacy with North Korea is a good example of the new way. I'm quite certain that we would be fighting some kind of conflict with them if people like Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney were in the White House today.

Say what you want about Trump and his policies but the America-focused policies of his administration aren't going to squander this economy by starting a new fraudulent and unnecessary war on the other side of the world.

<comment><USER5> > I'm quite certain that we would be fighting some kind of conflict with them > if people like Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney were in the White House today.

Did they discover oil since the last time Wolfowitz was in a position if influence. Because that was expressly cited as the reason Iraq was invaded and North Korea not then, by Wolfowitz.

GWBush-era foreign policy had the kind of focus on domestic economic interests that Trump pretends to have, the main difference is that it had some substantive coherence rather than focus only as a PR veneer over a group of incompetently managed competing interests seeking personal advantage. That's not to say the say the execution of Bush foreign policy wasn't grossly incompetent, but and it's formulation wasn't grossly immoral, to be sure.

Now, Venezuela might be a target of active intervention if the Bush team were still in charge.

<comment><USER6> Venezuela has generally been in crisis in the 20th (and start of the 21st century).

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_crisis_(disambigu...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_crisis_\(disambiguation\))

If the US hadn't brokered a debt repayment deal by threatening naval force against Britain, Germany, and Italy's blockade in 1903, there would likely still be a European-controlled port in Venezuela.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Serious Q: if you expect the stock market to crash (but aren't sure enough to start shorting it) and think housing is also overvalued, what should you invest in?

<comment><USER8> If you're super conservative, there are high interest savings, checking, and money market accounts, just requires a little homework to find the right one (and meet requirements if it's a checking account). I'm currently getting 2.26% in a money market account.

<comment><USER9> We wouldn't need to do research if you just told us which money market you chose to invest in.

<comment><USER10> No idea where the parent poster is getting 2.26% but best guess is Customers Bank [1] that comes with a 25K minimum. However, you can get 1.8% on a normal savings account at Ally [2].

[1] [https://www.customersbank.com/ascent/](https://www.customersbank.com/ascent/)

[2] [https://www.ally.com/bank/savings-account- rates/](https://www.ally.com/bank/savings-account-rates/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is a significant increase in overall productivity in last few years. Expectations of continuing growth are pushing market higher. Better automation of many processes, faster unlimited access to any information, connectivity. The first iphone was released 11 years ago, Android 10 years ago. A lot of disruptive innovations since then.

<comment><USER12> But many of those innovations have the potential to reduce large numbers of jobs, like taxi and truck drivers. When people aren't earning money, they can't spend money, and it's the _movement_ of money through the economy that makes it function. I don't think productivity gains will offset that loss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> While my 401(k) is thankful, I'm wondering how much longer this can go on. Obviously the stock market got a big boost due to the tax cuts which lead to companies repatriating a bunch of overseas profits, but what happens next year when there's a lot less money to bring back?

</comment><comment><USER14> _...As the following chart from Statista shows, the current bull market is now 'older' than the previous record holder, the 1990's bull market and Dot-com Bubble._

The boom is just capitalism's way of setting up the next bust. Too few people seem to understand this.

The current bull market and tight labor market were amplified by the largest outpouring of easy money by the world's central banks in history.

All eyes on the yield curve.

</comment><comment><USER15> Shhhh! You're going to jinx us!

I am very curious where we are in the curve. I've made a lot of money off stocks, but I'm getting anxious that nothing _ever_ goes on forever.</comment>


Fullproof: a javascript search engine library for the browser - <AUTHOR> http://reyesr.github.com/fullproof/ <comment><USER2> This is actually pretty impressive. I might try and have a play with it in one of my ideas I plan on executing this weekend which involves search, would be a good test.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is a presentation of the library made @ParisJS 22: <http://kornr.net/prez/paris.js22/></comment>


Ask HN: How much can I make with 20k users - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys,
I have a little side project that aggregates a small community of gamers. I am currently getting about 20k uniques per month, but can potentially grow much more
If i was to sell ads on the website, how would the revenue model work? How much would i make? Any suggestions for other revenue models? <comment><USER2> Well, it's a space with a lot of competition and the top paying ads go to the sites with millions of pages views. Ads are paid by CPM (cost per thousands) and the best paying ads are 10$ to 20$ CPM. So if you have 3 page views by Uniates, you can expect to make 600$ per month at most. In reality it would probably be a fraction of this. The ad market, especially in the US is trending towards lower CPMs even if the overall industry is investing more money.

Some models where you have a very targetted niche involve sponsoring content, reviews, videos, contests or events. But usually, you need a niche advertisers can't easily reach to make good money.

In general, don't expect to make a living unless you invest a lot of time in deals and grow your page views.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you, really appreciate the insights.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> While it varies from case to case, have you considered running affiliate offers instead of just regular banner ads? Might be worth testing - if you could get banners up advertising the next big game, you can earn a commission if they pre-release through your ad. I've found that can often earn more than regular display ads, but might be worth testing. (By the way, while Amazon converts well, it only has a cookie length of 1 day, while most others have a cookie length of around 30 days, so you could also try testing different affiliate merchants).

</comment><comment><USER4> This question can't really be answered as asked. Different industries yield different CPC/CPM rates. Additionally, how your users interact with the ads would also effect your revenue.

If you can monetize your user base through other means, such as creating a paid Pro version of your service, or a SaaS app marketed to your users, you have the opportunity to make more money than just advertising.

</comment><comment><USER5> You might make more money selling physical or virtual goods than from ads. As jeromeparadis pointed out, you need millions of pageviews and a good CPM to make even a decent sum.</comment>


Please review my web app (network integrity monitoring) - <AUTHOR> http://sucuri.net/?

<comment><USER2> Another vote for no scribd on the landing page -- it looks foreign and distracts from the sign up button (your "call to action").

"How it works?" isn't really a question. Either "How does it work?" or "How it works:"

This might just be me, but WIGS is a strange thing to see on the header. I get that it's the name of the product, but it wasn't obvious from the main page that Sucuri made WIGS. Something more descriptive, like "about" or "about WIGS" or "about the product" would be better.

If you want me to check out the demo, don't make me type in the username and password. A form with some hidden fields and a button requires way less user effort.

Style looks good, says "security company." The (BETA) in the title doesn't really jive with that message, though.

Why is it free, by the way? I think any businessperson looking at a service like yours would be _less_ likely to use it for free than for pay if something of value is on the line.

<comment><AUTHOR> The WIGS is an additional service to try to get traction to the site, since it is a one scan tool that people might try to see if their site is secure. I will probably move that to the "tools" page to avoid too much noise.

It is going to be free, and once we are out of beta, we will start with premium accounts with more features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Pretty good service, is this going to be a free app?

One suggestion I can give is make this service active. At the moment, the only big advantage I see from using this is the knowledge really quickly that something has gone wrong through email/sms, after which I need to do something about it. My idea is that if you implement some sort of a web-hook or callback mechanism to it, I think the use of this service can really shine.

For example, if a defacement or a DNS change occurs, you can have it alert you AND take a certain actions until you fix it, such as shutting down the servers or taking down the DNS servers (these examples are extreme, but just for example sake). Just a though.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are going to use the "freemium" model. What is now free, will continue free, but additional modules/features are going to be added only for the paid accounts.

The call back idea is very good and we will put it in our todo/research list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I agree with some of the others about the scribd slideshow on the front page. Maybe link to it instead? I have no problem with you using scribd/slideshow instead of a video. I believe scribd allows you to customize the player and potentially remove some of the excess buttons that others mentioned are irrelevant. Then again maybe simply moving it to another "feature tour" type of page would be sufficient to remove that complaint.

For me, in FF on OSX, the padding around the scribd player was hosed. The word "exactly" in your pitch-text actually runs UNDER the player for me.

Towards the bottom of your main page you have "What information is your web site is leaking?" That sentence needs to be reworded.

I am not a huge fan of the disabled versions of your icons once you sign in. For example, the email/twitter disabled icons look like you opened the original/enabled version in Paint and just drew a red diagonal line across the icon with your mouse.

I'm a bit confused by your graph when you are logged in as well. You are using what almost look like random symbols on the graph. For example, I see a red plus, blue diamond, and green diamond. Is there a corresponding red minus? Are there blue pluses? I just found that a bit confusing.

Other than those few complaints I think the site looks really well done. I like the design and think it's a pretty cool idea. I like how you take snapshots of the site's HTML to see if something was changed that should not have been. I guess I'm curious what happens when something was changed intentionally? Do I still get an alert that I have to then ignore?

Hopefully this won't be out of line but I would like to suggest that you try out my newly launched site, <http://www.launchly.com> to get additional feedback on your new site and track your launch. Launchly is all about getting you the feedback you need to succeed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will check that.. On FF/Ubuntu it is working well. I should have tested it on multiple browsers before.

As for the disabled buttons, that exactly what i did, but on Gimp :)

For the snapshots, you get alerts on intentional and unintentional changes. We have some algorithms to ignore common/normal changes (like polls, number of visitors, # of comments, etc), but it is almost impossible for us to detect if a change is authorized or not, that's why we alert on all of them.

*I will check out launchly now. the idea sounds great.

<comment><USER4> I use the Gimp too for my graphics work since I'm not a designer really. One suggestion would be to download one of the free icon sets out there like crystal or such and find a transparent bg png of a standard no/delete symbol and overlay that on top of your other email/twitter symbols in a new layer in Gimp. Here's a link that has some pretty good free icon sets: [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/05/24/freebies-round- up...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/05/24/freebies-round-up-icons- buttons-and-templates/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't like the embedded slideshow on the page. Try getting that information on the page in a different manner.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are the second person that says that. You don't like it because it is from scribd or the layout/design itself?

I was between the slide show and a video, but thought the slide would be more accessible.

<comment><USER6> Because it has a bunch of buttons that are irrelevant, which basically add too much unnecessary visual "noise" to the page.

Between the slideshow and the video, I would suggest going with simple screenshots of the control panel and a short summary of what the service is. Then have a separate longer page that explains features in a bit more length, and also have detailed description available in the Documentation section. Currently, the page simply has "too many characters".

Also the color scheme should not be white on dark. This is purely a perception thing. You are pitching clarity, reliability and simplicity - the color for these is white.

Also the page looks a bit sloppy layout-wise. The "exactly" from ".. showing exactly what .." actually sits on top of the slideshow.

The "NOW" part from "Try out monitoring _NOW_ " sounds tacky. Also the dark- on-gray is not a very good color choice for an action button. It's gotta be bright and it should look visually pleasant.

The "WIGS" is effectively another source of the noise that detracts from your primary service. I would consider renaming it into something a bit more human- friendly or taking it out completely. The same goes for "security videos of the academy" link at the bottom. Why the heck would I care about some academy.

All in all, the site needs to be simplified and streamlined to focus on just one thing - your primary service. The service itself appears to be valuable, but (a) it's going to be a tough sell (as its value is in detecting abnormal conditions, i.e. its value is not tangible under normal conditions) (b) make damn sure it respects robots.txt, because otherwise with a one-minute polling interval you will be blacklisted in no time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestions.. lots to work for on Monday :) That's exactly what I wanted...

Also, on the page having too many characters, I agree with you. I spend hours adding and removing messages from there trying to make it clean, but at the same time explaining what it does.

<comment><USER7> i don't think too much text is necessarily bad. it is possible to convey a lot of information and details on one page. look at most apple product pages or a page like <http://www.agile42.com/cms/pages/agilo/>. use the space on the page. use white space. go deep and let users scroll. keep the typography and graphics as simple as possible. be systematic with your typography and layout grid. keep the text columns narrow to make them easier to read. your home page is a good start. did you work with a designer or just draw on good influences?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just a bit of feedback on it. I submitted it for review a few months ago when it was on early alpha and didn't get much feedback. Now we improve the app/site a lot and would love to hear what you think.

There is a demo account available too, with user email@example.com and pass demo.

*I am from a security/engineering background, so my design skills are still lacking..

<comment><USER8> You are either fishing for compliments or off base; I think the design looks pretty good.

Some notes:

* While doing the scan an animated graphic showing that something is happening would be nice user feedback.

* The front page claims the scan runs "every minute", but page=nbi says "As often as every 10 minutes". Which is it?

* Flash on homepage, sigh.

It seems well done and is potentially useful. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response. Not looking for compliments, but comparing to most sites around (specially from startups that I see here) I couldn't get to a design that I really liked.

-Good point on the animated graphic. I will see how to add it.

-The scan right now is every 10 minutes (during beta), but we will allow every minute in the future.

-The flash (from scribd) was an attempt to make it more friendlier... will see how to improve it.

Thanks,

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You spelled "immediately" wrong. Instead it says "immediatly".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, just fixed it. I don't know how my auto-corrector let is slip...</comment></comment>