City of San Francisco says it's illegal to live in a box - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Box-living-Peter-Berkowitz-pod-San-Francisco-7243988.php <comment><USER2> First of all, why not build the walls to the top of the ceiling? Seems like so much vertical space could be used!

Second of all, how long can this last? People criticize the tech economy for causing displacement and surely that's happening. But even people making extraordinarily good livings can't afford to live alone. Eventually, people will be unwilling to spend more than 50% of income on rent isn't sustainable. It seems to already be happening:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11196718](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11196718)

I wonder if this is just the peak and soon there will be some form of return to rationality.

<comment><USER3> Building walls to the ceiling would require a building permit. Which the county wouldn't grant because it would be hazardous and violate the building code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Moving out from San Francisco would be a simpler solution..

This guy is having dificulty to think outside of the box..

<comment><USER5> It would if you could just take your job with you to mexico you could live for 1/3 the cost with better weather.

Here you go, just 8 hours away, only $450/mo. 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment Much better than a box. [http://www.vivanuncios.com.mx/a-renta- inmuebles/tijuana/se-r...](http://www.vivanuncios.com.mx/a-renta- inmuebles/tijuana/se-renta-departamento-en-la-colonia- juarez-450-dlls/1001179080920910691627409)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> More power to him! Saving money when you're young is a great attitude to have. When I hear that 50% of Americans have less than $1000 in their savings accounts, I can only shake my head in despair.

</comment><comment><USER7> It looks like that box would be a death trap if there was a fire.

</comment><comment><USER8> Japan has capsule hotels that reduce costs through better space efficiency and the weird hotel that reduces costs through automation. If someone were to make a startup that combines the two, they could solve San Francisco's problem of high rent.

<comment><USER9> Not exsctly the same. Those are for short over night stays mostly. Also you are sleeping a tube but the end is covered with a drape.

That being said, some micro apartment progress could be made in SF

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > And then Berkowitz mentioned his plan to a friend living in a three-bedroom > apartment with four other roommates and a spacious living room.

6 adults living in a 3 bedroom apartment? Seems crazy I don't think I could do it.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm kind of surprised people haven't built more dorm-like apartment buildings with more shared spaces, especially in NYC where people spend a lot of time out of their apartments.

<comment><USER12> In the US there are typically legal limits on how many people can be crammed into buildings and rooms. Those limits are based on experience in general and those of fire and rescue personnel in particular.

Unlike many laws and regulations, those governing buildings tend to be more data driven than is common. The trigger for technical and empirically driven building and land development regulations in the US was the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Much of the data on human safety in buildings was drawn from the insurance industry's actuarial and claims data. Many of the improvements in life safety driven by that industry, e.g. UL is "underwriters laboratories" and the National Fire Protection Association [NFPA] is funded by the insurance industry but it's technical documents are based on consensus with professional fire fighters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Rents in SF are out of control.

[https://medium.com/@TomPJacobs/what-housing- crisis-3c0568a5d...](https://medium.com/@TomPJacobs/what-housing- crisis-3c0568a5dd44)</comment>


How to Get Your Teammates to Follow Your Lead - <AUTHOR> https://www.workaguide.com/blog/2018/6/15/how-to-get-your-teammates-to-follow-your-lead <comment><USER2> Totally missing from the article is any notion that the tool or thing you're trying to push might not actually be a great idea. The assumption seems to be that the author was Right (TM) and all that remained to address was the challenge of getting others to see the one true path.

If you're trying to convince others to make a change, and they're pushing back, listen to those concerns and revisit whether or not the change you're advocating makes sense. Maybe it does and they will come to see that, but you should also be open to considering their points of view and might change your opinion once you do. It's a two-way thing.

<comment><USER3> The article addresses that in the starting paragraphs: there was no real opposition, just an unwillingness to compromise on _how_ to do it.

> Everyone agreed we should have Figlets, but nobody agreed about its > configuration.

<comment><USER4> Then Figlets was not a solution by itself. Just an implementation detail. By analogy, you can't say "we need a graph data structure", agree on python as a language, then consider the actual computer science an implementation detail that is being bickered over.

For a code review tool, "details" like CI integration, approval process, deployment integration, etc. _are_ the solution. Figlets is just a shortcut for a big piece of that. Figlets could even be a blocker for certain features (like being to review code without a VPN connection).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Or... first get the team to acknowledge the problem and agree that a fix is needed. Then have everyone research solutions. Propose your tool while asking what other solutions have been found. As a team, talk about the pros/cons of each option, and facilitate those discussions. Build consensus by listening and understanding what your team has to say. Once you agree on the solution, talk through the configuration questions. Then talk through a deployment and adoption plan.

Because if you just want the problem fixed, then it isn't an issue of manipulating corporate politics to support your lead... it is an issue of working together to come up with a shared solution.

<comment><USER6> But my co-workers might have strong emotional attachments to answers that I know are wrong. I might have a co-worker who promotes their favorite technology as the answer to all problems. I might already know, from previous battles, that particular people are going to distort the conversation in particular ways. If I'm going to go into a situation without trying to push a particular agenda, I'd have to be willing to let the wrong choice be made.

<comment><USER7> Yes and the biggest possible win you can make is to let go off your own "good solution". Beeing humble and dealing with problems later in lieu of beeing always right is correct choice.

You have to prevent only catastrophic decisions.

If you are working on CRUD web platform most decisions will not be catastrophic. Maybe inconvenient, maybe eat more budget but probably company will not go under because of some technical decision.

<comment><USER6> Your answer is idealistic in a very limited way. You are suggesting that their is moral value in being humble and accepting the input of other people. I'll point out that it is even more moral to fight for what you know is right, and it is not moral to retreat from the fight simply because it is exhausting or tedious or repetitive or badly managed or the odds are lopsided. Over the last 20 years I've run into people with your attitude many times. I believe I understand your argument -- that sometimes we have to accept outcomes that we disagree with. However, what my life has taught me is that their is no valor in being passive while bad decisions are made. When I'm hired, I've been hired as an experienced professional whose advice is valuable, therefore I have an ethical obligation to fight as hard as I possibly can to be sure what I've learned over the years ends up benefiting the company. That is what I'm paid for. Passive acceptance of bad outcomes is neither ethical nor moral. We each have an obligation to fight as much as we can for what we know to be right. In the professional context, that is what we are being paid for.

As a practical matter, "be humble and accept the input of others" quickly shades over into "be lazy and allow stupid people to dominate the meeting, because letting them dominate the meeting is easier than fighting them." I agree it is easier, but it is unethical to accept money while allowing bad decisions to be made.

<comment><USER8> You seem to be focusing on a situation where there is a proposed solution with an obvious bad outcome, and somehow you are the only one smart enough to realize it will lead to a bad outcome.

In my experience this is very rarely the actual case. Usually there are multiple viewpoints, multiple solutions, and while some may be slightly better than others, the effort of having the debate is much more time and resource- intensive than just accepting one of the solutions.

<comment><USER6> By definition the answer you think best is the answer that all of your skills and all of your experiences guide you to. I'm saying you have an obligation to fight for what you know is the right answer. There is nothing ethical about allowing people to make decisions that you believe will be catastrophic. You are being paid for your expertise — don't accept money if you are not willing to do what you can to ensure a good outcome.

This has nothing to do with having a debate in a meeting, indeed, often the best strategy is to avoid the meeting altogether.

<comment><USER7> Yes, agreed but that is what I also wrote, you should prevent catastrophic outcomes. I did not wrote anything what you implied in previous comment. I only implied that there is many technical decisions which are nowhere near to catastrophic.

Like picking tabs vs spaces, I am not going to fight about it, it is not a decision that will make any difference for product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Certainly agree with most of this. It has a couple of underlying ideas that I've also noticed.

1\. Use empathy to both overcome resistance and do the right thing. The strategy in Step 2 for reframing an interaction in a way that gets the person to understand that you're trying to help them, and also reminds you to remove your ego and that the goal is to improve things for everyone, is one I've used a lot. Not because people think you're trying to be difficult but because it overcomes defensive barriers and helps ease them into the context switch of thinking about the problem.

2\. Get a foothold with iterative progress. The author did this by splitting adoption and (the process for) configuration. Especially with tools and processes, people will often try to jump to the final state and if they can find any holes or issues with the proposal as is they'll be inclined to throw it all out at the start. If you instead make it clear that we're a) trying something new that will b) be improved as we learn more about it and c) can always be reversed if we decide it was a bad idea, people are usually much more open to it.

One thing the article mentions though is "spending" leadership capital. I like instead to think of it as "investing" capital. If the decision you invested it in ends up being bad, you lose it. If it ends up making people's lives better, you've gained more. Thinking about it this way also can get junior people, as mentioned in the article, to be more inclined to help with decision making. They don't have a lot of capital to spend but they can choose to invest the little capital they have in order to grow it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Curious if anyone here has seen success with the first step, "Get Approval From Leadership". I tend to favor "ask for forgiveness, not permission". Nobody is more resistant to change than middle management, so I tend to jump straight to small-scale adoption and coalition building.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello. Article author here. You can do this and it might be the appropriate approach in some situations, but you run the risk of degrading your reputation with management. Putting aside the personal risk, I tend to think of maintaining your reputation with your teammates as more important in the long run than accomplishing something or being right about any particular issue, since it preserves your ability to persuade them in the future.

Also I've found that if management is resistant to change they usually have good reasons, even if sometimes they can't or won't share them, so circumventing them can sometimes be counter-productive. Usually better to just be on the up-and-up.

<comment><USER11> Perhaps it's a subtle point but how do you contrast your comment with this part of the article:

>> When I explain this process to junior team members, an objection is often, "I don't feel like I have the authority to do this. This is a job for our leadership." They feel that a person must be empowered to make a change before they can venture to do so. That's not true. Team members become senior not because they are deemed senior and granted senior responsibilities, but rather because they show that they're capable of effectively taking and addressing senior responsibilities.

<comment><AUTHOR> You make a good point. The junior team members I'm thinking about felt they didn't have the authority and so didn't approach leadership with a plan. I'm not saying they should assume responsibilities without direction of leadership, but rather that they can follow step 1 in the article regardless of their level in the organization. Even a senior person must follow the direction of leadership, the difference is that the senior person knows that they can approach leadership with a plan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> An often-overlooked political tool is the one-on-one meeting. If you need to push a difficult decision, speak to decision-makers (this can include teammates) and convince them one by one. When it comes up for a group discussion, you will already have a winning proposal.

<comment><USER13> Isn't this just classic office politics? Imagine you're pushing for the opposite decision and some other person is going around having closed door meetings with everyone to convince them otherwise.

Maybe it's effective but man I'd rather not participate in an environment like that.

<comment><USER14> Ideally its more about preflighting - making sure you've acknowledged all the relevant concerns from the eventual attendees - but its also a way to leverage herd mentality for better or worse.

In the eventual group meeting folks will look around and notice that some portion of the attendees are on board already so they may be more inclined to agree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The goal should not be to have people follow your lead. The goal should be: get your team to follow good ideas, and not follow bad ideas. No matter who proposed them.

Smart people often have good ideas, but they can have bad ideas as well and a team needs to be prepared to reject them.

Likewise, the lowest ranking person in the organization can have a trillion dollar idea and your organization should be prepared to profit from it.

Then, no consensus building approach has a bulletproof guarantee that a consensus will happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello. Article author here. I agree, people should only follow good ideas. I didn't explicitly mention this in the article, but I believe that a person in a healthy work environment who genuinely follows the process of feedback as outlines will eventually turn their bad or mediocre ideas into good ideas as they integrate feedback, or else the leadership won't approve their change and the team will refuse to adopt the idea. After all, it's tough to get people to voluntarily adopt a bad idea.

<comment><USER16> Unfortunately I've seen people much more eager to adopt a bad idea that is easier in the short term than a good idea that involves hard or boring work - like "should we refactoring and build on our existing code or throw it out and start again?", where people vote for throwing it out because "I don't even understand this code!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > It's not your job to convince your coworkers that your tool should be > configured one way or another. That decision is owned by the team. It's only > your job to get them to adopt the tool...

"But lo! Men have become the tools of their tools..."

I feel the author has missed the concept of leadership and is still thinking of it like an engineer. The idea of your team's opinions as "dangerous," or as obstacles you need to overcome to get your way, is not indicative of a leader to me, nor is the concept of actions as just a way to earn your team's trust ("Leadership Capital") so you can order them around later. That's a pretty myopic view of leadership bordering on sociopathy IMO.

What is the point of influencing people? So much effort into convincing people, but why do you _need_ to convince them? If you do not have a clear answer, or if your answer describes something about _you_ and _your_ views, sorry but you aren't a leader - you are only an opinionated person.

</comment><comment><USER18> Good leaders know if you want others doing something to you, you come first.

If you want others following your lead, first you follow the lead of great leaders, listen to them, learn from them what makes them so great. Then you could be a great leader.

From my point of view, the article is egocentric. Ego is one of the biggest enemies of good work.

It should never be about following the leader blindly, specially if you manage(or co-work) smart, educated and experienced people, their opinions are of more value than yours in their areas of experience.

With ego over the table it is only about who wins the argument, and of course it is always the boss(who is up in the hierarchical level). Beware because this introduces resentment and procrastination on the team.

The article promotes this method, but this is not leadership, it is subjugation.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't like the term leadership capital because the analogy misses an important aspect: If the change turns out good, the leadership capital of the technical director increases to more than she had before. So she did not really "spend" it, but rather invest/bet it in/on Figlet.

Also, it is not a single value. For different people the technical director has a different amount of leadership capital. If Figlet turns out good for you, it increases. If you don't like Figlet you consider the technical directors capital as lower. So the amount of capital is actually specific to a relationship between two people.

<comment><USER20> At the end of the article, the author explains that leaders move slowly, more slowly than they otherwise could, to allow their small changes to pay off before asking for more, thereby earning them more leadership capital. Which I think makes your point.

Perhaps your disagreement is purely around the term capital. You may not realize that, in finance, the term capital implies that it is there to be invested.

Good point about differing levels of trust between individuals, as opposed to groups. It's a nuance the article doesn't really broach.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The most persuasive argument is no argument at all. Quality, speed and accuracy don't need advocates. If the idea is really good, just mentioning it is enough for the team to adopt it. If I think someone should adopt my style, my tool, my configuration, my editor or anything else, the first thing I ask myself is how does it compare to the most important thing that the team needs to advance on? If it's the most important thing, then I'll cajole the team to adopt the idea. A recent example of that for me is a particular way of running integration tests. But if it's not the most important thing, well then I'm just distracting myself and everyone else with another thing to do, and I try to get back to whatever is _really_ important to my own progress.

</comment><comment><USER22> To Further Reading I would add:

The Influential Mind By Tali Sharot

It was on FT's shortlist for Best Book of 2017.

[https://upliftconnect.com/tali-sharot-influential- mind/](https://upliftconnect.com/tali-sharot-influential-mind/)

\---

That aside, tools, I would think, are a function of culture; and culture a function of leadership and hiring. Whether a tool is good for any individual - as the author presented in this article - is irrelevant. Either it improves the end product and satisfies leadership's lead (and target ROI of adoption) or it does not.

That's not to say it will make adoption easy. But the less clear that foundation is the more friction there's going to be.

</comment><comment><USER23> > You can't gain the trust and respect of the entire team at once. You must > start in a small area of your team and work outwards. It's best to begin > with yourself. After all, how can you convince others to adopt your tool if > you don't use it yourself?

This is great if your proposed change is a workflow tool, but if it requires any code changes whatsoever (eg a new framework), the code review process reintroduces those strong opinions and you're back at square one, no matter how small the change.

<comment> v-yadli If, in the language of the article, you can crowdfund leadership capital from a few of them, you will have a much larger amount of spendable LC.

<comment><USER23> Often times leadership will ask for a demo before being convinced, which results in a catch-22. At least in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The point about leadership capital is excellent and stands very true.

<comment><USER25> I agree, the writer put this process into very nice wording. I've seen other people use this process to gain informal leadership but I never saw it described in quite this way. Very nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I feel like personal credibility is the only real way to get teammates to follow your lead. And that involves things like following your teammates lead as well.

Collaboration is an art form.</comment>


Portal Released For Steam On Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTM2Mzk

<comment><USER2> Steam is now the de-facto "app store" of the PC as far as games go, which was no small feat. It took them more than 10 years to get to this point and it's now in jeopardy.

With Google and Apple already controlling the mobile app stores, various console manufacturers controlling their own ecosystems, and Microsoft attempting to abandon their "open" Windows (so they can run their own app store) - the industry is shifting into a position of hardware/OS manufacturers/monopolies taking massive cuts (30%) from the software market. Valve, without any hardware of their own, but a very large PC app store with a significant user base, really has nowhere else to turn. Gabe himself has expressed quite a bit of dismay over Microsoft's recent decisions.

I expect them to use everything in their power to make Linux become a mainstream thing. They're going to port all of their own games to Linux, and I expect at some point there will be Linux-only discounts for their games.

I really hope Microsoft underestimated their power, and that Valve is capable of doing this. It'll be better for all of us. The software industry is heading in very bad directions, and this is at least a glimmer of hope.

<comment><USER3> I would sympathize with Valve if they didn't completely ignore Linux before acting like the Linux community's best friend when it became apparent that they had nowhere else to turn to [1]. Like many, I'm a fan of their games and their flat management, but they have a history of being as short-sighted and callous as EA and I wish more people would see that [2].

I have a lot more respect for the people behind Humble Bundle/Wolfire, who went out of their way to support Linux long before it was cool [3]. Plus they don't force DRM middleware on you.

[1] <http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/steamd-penguins/>

[2] <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/11/valve-tricked-h/>

[3] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugaru>

<comment><USER4> What? Humble BundLe totally sold out their integrity after they let THQ sell their games with the Humble Bundle brand, without linux versions and with DRM.

[1] [http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/the-humble-thq- bu...](http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/the-humble-thq-bundle-loses- indie-games-adds-drm-and-is-a-step-backward-for)

[2] [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/11/humble-thq-bundle- thre...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/11/humble-thq-bundle-threatens-to- ruin-the-brands-reputation/)

<comment><USER5> I think you're being very hyperbolic. They were very explicit saying the games were Windows only and had DRM (Steam). It was its own isolated bundle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now if we can only get semi-stable, long-term graphics driver support for Linux to be able to play these games. I think there may be light at the end of that tunnel, since hardware vendors seem to be providing more support for Linux now.

<comment><USER7> when that day comes, I am sure many would switch to Linux, especially among the developers. In the past few years using Windows, I have stopped thinking about device drivers at all, I just expected them to work. I am looking forward to the day where this comes to desktop Linux.

<comment><USER8> I've had the completely opposite experience. Windows is where I have to go hunting around for drivers on vendors crappy FTP servers.

Linux on the other hand, over the past 7 years I've been running it, works OOTB for all hardware I've ever thrown at it, especially lately.

Weird.

<comment><USER9> What area do you work in though?

<comment><USER8> These are my personal laptops I'm talking about :)

FWIW, I'm a web developer, but I've been playing with Linux since I was 11 years old (2001).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sweet. Now hopefully they bring DOTA2 over next. That game will lead to a ton of Linux switchers!

<comment><USER11> Indeed. However, it must be said that DOTA2 runs perfectly with OpenGL through wine on a decent machine . Thanks Valve!

use these options : "-gl -window -novid -noborder -w 1920 -h 1080"

<comment><USER12> O_O. You just obviated my last reason for having windows on my home desktop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The article is incorrect: Portal 2 is not available, only the original Portal.

</comment><comment><USER14> Yet another reason to lament the lack of decent mouse driver support in GNU/Linux. As long as I have to relearn how to move my mouse in order to play a game, I'm going to keep a Windows box handy for games.

<comment><USER15> I don't follow?

<comment><USER14> I play games at 1600cpi with a specific mouse with no acceleration. Even with the supposed fixes that disable acceleration in GNU/Linux, I don't get the same cursor response with my mouse that I would in Windows. In addition, my mouse's cpi can only be set to 1600 in software. This is especially problematic as I tend to play games where mouse accuracy is very important.

<comment><USER16> Watch out guys, we're dealing with a--

okay, just color me surprised that anybody needs that much accuracy. I stopped playing shooter games in ~2004.

<comment><USER17> You stopped playing shooter games in 2004.

<comment><USER16> Yes, I said that.

s/surprised/bemused/, I suppose. AAA games are srsbzns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I played portal via steam on Linux years ago!

(OK so that was wine, but it worked pretty well :)

<comment><USER19> I did too! In a little window in the middle of my screen. Sometimes the game would freeze for a second or two to load a sound effect.

Tonight I played the first half of the linux beta at 1920X1080 resolution and it just made me giddy. I'd been waiting a long time for this day.

<comment><USER18> Really?

I had it running fullscreen and pretty perfectly. Fullscreen was 1280x800, mind. But it worked fine. L4D and L4D2 I've had working too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> OK, it bothers me when people say "Steam on Linux".

It's really "Steam on Ubuntu". Some other distros are supported with 32-bit only packages, but if you're running a 64-bit OS you need .deb package support.

I haven't installed 32-bit support on any Linux system I've provisioned this decade. Even corporate IT at my job, who are normally borderline incompetent at providing a workable environment, have native 64-bit packages for everything I use.

So when Steam (and Skype, and so on) gets released "for Linux", I just sigh and shake my head.

I'm a Linux user. And I can't run your program. Don't tell me it's "for" me.

<comment><USER21> There has been some progress here. Steam has been repackaged for several other distributions.

<http://packages.debian.org/experimental/steam>

<https://www.archlinux.org/packages/multilib/x86_64/steam/>

<comment><USER20> Yes...for instance, I use Arch Linux. 64-bit. With no 32-bit support.

I want to support Steam on Linux because I think it's a good thing. But I don't want to install 32-bit support in order to do so.

I realize that I'm complaining about something that has an easy workaround I'm refusing to use. But it's weird that they'll support 64-bit Ubuntu and not 64-bit anything else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How long before Steam for Android? And Portal for Android?

<comment><USER23> Steam for Android? What for?

Android already has a game store. It doesn't make any business sense for Valve to try to compete with Google Play Store.

About Portal: It has to be profitable enough to justify the huge cost of porting the game to Android. The same for any other game.

<comment><USER24> Ubuntu also already has an app store (Which does support paid apps).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's the slow move from the Operating System to the GPU code; most games find Windows as much a hinderance as a help. I wonder if MS will try to do something useful to woo game developers more towards the Windows platform?

<comment><USER26> PC game developers could hardly be wooed any further in that direction. A game being released for Linux two years after Windows is hardly an imminent threat.

<comment><USER27> It's not a matter of when it was released, but that it's an indication that Valve is porting its Source engine to Linux. It looks like Future Valve games are going to be released on all three platforms simultaneously, which is a pretty big win for Linux.

<comment><USER26> That was my impression when Valve started porting Steam, but then Dota 2 came along and proved us wrong.

<comment><USER28> Dota2 hasn't even been released yet. People are still playing a test version. It's still possible (though unlikely) for a simultaneous Windows/Mac/Linux release!

<comment><USER26> Meh, that's a weird nomenclature game. It's beta like Google Maps was for the first six years of its life. Valve is selling and running international tournaments on this "open beta." Like, it may say "beta," but it is _definitely_ released. You can go on Steam and buy it right now. They even have a separate test client in addition to the nominally "beta" normal client.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Pretty cool! Thanks Valve!

</comment><comment><USER30> Excellent! Looking forward to this. As of 17:28 PDT it does not seem available.

<comment><USER31> It is available, they just haven't changed the store page to say it is yet.

<comment><USER30> I get "Portal 2 is not available on your current platform" which is Ubuntu.

<comment><USER31> Sorry, I had assumed you meant Portal 1. According to SteamDB Portal 2 is still only available for Windows and Mac.

Portal 2 page on SteamDB: <http://steamdb.info/app/620/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm shocked! Valve doesn't accept bitcoin as a payment option? :)

<comment><USER33> Oh gosh the speculative bubble money you could make off _that_ happening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm so GLaD !

</comment><comment><USER35> yum!

</comment><comment><USER36> finally!</comment>


10 Startups Launch in Chicago at Excelerate Labs - <AUTHOR> http://techcocktail.com/10-startups-launch-in-chicago-at-excelerate-labs-2010-08

<comment><USER2> It was a great day for Chicago startups!</comment>


Are publishers running scared? They should be - <AUTHOR> http://ipadwatcher.com/2010/03/30/are-publishers-running-scared-they-should-be/

<comment><USER2> It would appear that you are submitting every other article from your blog.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, not really. As I joined this community recently I submitted some articles that are not news related and which, as the welcome statement for the community says, stimulates deeper thinking about some issues.

The blog has had over 130 posts in the last two months, of which I've submitted 7.</comment></comment>


HP Ships Switches With Malware Infected Flash Cards   - <AUTHOR> http://www.securityweek.com/hp-ships-network-switches-malware-infected-flash-cards

<comment><USER2> A virus that the hardware it's shipped with cannot execute.

You have to take the CF card out of it, stick it into your Windows machine, then run the virus manually (assuming that anyone who's administering modular switches of this price class knows not to have autorun enabled, if it even uses that).

This isn't very newsworthy I'm afraid.

<comment><USER3> >A virus that the hardware it's shipped with cannot execute. You have to take the CF card out of it, stick it into your Windows machine...This isn't very newsworthy I'm afraid.

The fact that any potentially malicious software shipped on hardware (whether or not it directly affects the hardware it was shipped on) is indeed newsworthy and should be a red flag for HP's current and potential customers.

This was obviously a breach in security somewhere along the line and hopefully it will soon be fixed and steps are taken to prevent future issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In other news, Dell Ships Every Computer with Tons of Crapware</comment>


Flat V8 is now live - <AUTHOR> https://blog.flat.io/flat-v8-is-now-live/ <comment><USER2> What is Flat V8?

This isn't a problem isolated with your website, but it seems to be almost impossible to get a clear description of a product from any website other than Wikipedia these days.

Currently I'm assuming it's either a non carbonated vegetable juice, or some kind of horizontally scaled node implementation.

<comment><USER3> How to read half the posts that make it to the frontpage on HN:

1\. Click on the link on HN.

2\. Click on the logo/header of the page to go to their main site. If that fails, remove "blog." from the url.

3\. Read what the thing actually is about.

4\. Go back to the original link and read it (or alternatively just ignore it and comment about the thing itself on HN).

<comment><USER4> Even that doesn't work in this case ...

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the feedback, we changed the link of the logo + signup links to the homepage ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The product isn't my world, but your logo should link to your product homepage (www.flat.io) and the word "blog" to the blog front page - it was basically impossible for me to find out what Flat actually was without modifying the URL manually :)

</comment><comment><USER7> This release looks awesome. I remember when Flat first launched and I was really hoping to be able to use it as a replacement for Sibelius (which is the only reason I have to keep a Windows VirtualBox on my Ubuntu machine). In the early days it wasn't quite there yet and was missing some important features that I needed for arranging scores. I will definitely be giving it another try, the product has come a long way since then. Kudos to the team!

<comment><USER8> Thanks! Indeed we put a lot of energy into the V8 release. So excited about it and can't wait to work on the upcoming bunch of improvements :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can I make a small recommendation? Your product looks awesome, seriously. But the V8 through me for a huge loop. I was thinking it was some fork of the the Chrome V8 engine that used... I'm not sure what, but something flat. V8.0 might be a better name, even if it doesn't fit with the previous releases.

Seriously though, cool product, I'm impressed.

<comment><USER10> I don't think their target audience will have that problem.

<comment><USER9> Completely fair point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some minor things; A link to the product in your blog header wouldn't hurt, and your back-to-school offer link for the pricing page bounces me to a login. Not sure if that's exactly the flow you intended for showing a promotion.

OH I also didn't realise if I looked at the education page i'd then see different edu. pricing.

<comment><USER5> Indeed, our signup link in the header + fixed to the our auth page, we will change it to our homepage :) Thanks for the feedback for the back to school, we will check that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is awesome. I've been looking for a Guitar Pro alternative for years, and this is preeeetty dang close. Copy-pasting measures could be simpler, and manipulating note length via keyboard would make it precisely what I need - maybe i just need to figure out how to do that.

Great work, Flat!

</comment><comment><USER13> Why don't you guys look into creating a marketplace for the scores created by your users? Or make it way more prominent if it exists. I want scores, but I don't want to make them myself.

<comment><USER8> Hi, That's a suggestion that comes more and mores. This a way we may go in the future however that a strong move that requires ressources and a bigger team :) Moreover there is still so much to do on the editor is self.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Feedback: After clicking the link, editing the url to find the real site, clicking everything, I still don't know what this is besides something that has to do with music and collaboration.

Suggestion: let a friend (or a professional tester) try out your site and listen carefully to their comments, before you go boosting, and frustrate a lot of people that probably will not bother again.

A serious tester would probably have told you that you are missing info on the site.

</comment><comment><USER15> Congrats on the new release! As somebody who has built his own web-based music renderer (soundslice.com), I know how big of a project it is. :-)

</comment><comment><USER16> What web technologies were used to build Flat? I'd be particularly interested to know how the music editor was built. It looks gorgeous!

<comment><USER8> We use SVG and Angular.js for the editor and the engraving. WebMidi & WebAudio APIs for the playback. WebSocket for the realtime collaboration. You can find our stack on our AngelList page.

<comment><USER16> I have a friend who's a fairly famous pianist. He played Carnegie Hall a couple of years ago, even. He's always dabbling on his Steinway at home, but he's not to good with technology. Will Flat V8 be useful for someone like that? Just thinking of whether I should mention this to him.

<comment><USER8> We try to make the use of Flat the easiest possible. I think it can give it a try anyway. Really depends if he is used to music notation softwares :)

<comment><USER16> He's never used any type of music notation software - he's very traditional. Still, would be interesting if something like this could spark his interest and he'd change his working methodology over the next years.

<comment><USER17> At the end we aim to break the frontier between real world instruments and the software itself, using real-time transcription through microphone. It will still take a few months to get there but you got the vision ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Excited that this exists. I'd love to spend some time playing with it.

However, I was disappointed that the one of the first things I tried to do (play the "Super Mario Bros. Coin Noise" sheet) worked in Chrome but not Firefox. Maybe it was just a blip (another sheet worked fine), but I wanted to call it out anyways!

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the report! I couldn't reproduce it though, I guess a network error happened while downloading the soundfont.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The first and only feedback I can give you is that I can't find a link on your homepage that actually shows me what your product looks like, or even how it works. Consider adding an intro video or having a demo that doesn't require me to log in and give you my personal information.

</comment><comment><USER20> As others have said, V8 in the title is confusing.. v8.0 would be better. Also, the website at a glance was very confusing to me. I feel the top should have a section about what "Flat" is and what it solves. I should know your mission statement right away.

It looks like a very nice piece of composing software but I fear most of your visitors will close your website before figuring that out.

<comment><USER8> you refer to the blog as well?</comment></comment>


How We Found New Patterns in LA's Homeless Arrest Data - <AUTHOR> https://source.opennews.org/articles/how-we-found-new-patterns-la-homeless-arrest/ <comment><USER2> A link in the OPs article that supposedly supports the conclusions derived from the data says:

 _...from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. Homeless population in the city of LA is up 48% just since 2013. The reporters data shows a 31% increase in the amount of arrests of homeless people. So, per-capita arrests have gone down. That 's basic statistics._

That would indicate that the headline of the article supported by the data...

 _Huge increase in arrests of homeless in L.A. — but mostly for minor offenses_

..is misleading.

I lived in Santa Monica during the same time period. The homeless population has skyrocketed along with homeless crime. We moved further south because of the problem. The LA Times is a joke.

The LAPD are not the best police department in the country, but I do believe they're doing their best with a complex problem the rest of our society has chosen to ignore since the 1980s.

The homeless problem is not due to the police, but they are the ones we unfairly expect to deal with it.

<comment><USER3> I was having dinner with a buddy last week, and we were discussing the issue, as he lives in Mar Vista and I live in Beverly Grove (just recently having moved from Santa Monica). It's become a remarkable problem for the city, and it's hard to convey the impact if you don't live here.

One thing I wondered was how we properly incentivize the city to take steps to manage the situation. Right now, the city brings in $6B in annual revenue (almost 25% of its budget) in property taxes. Despite the remarkable climb in homelessness, property tax revenue continues to climb, because property values are seemingly skyrocketing despite the issue.

As an example, I live on a street where one half of a 100 year old duplex would run > $1M, with dozens of homeless people living within a hundred yards of my house. It's not uncommon for one to walk up and down the street, ringing doorbells asking for assistance, or harassing you as you walk down the street. Never mind the piles of trash & excrement left on the street. I've learned not to drive down the alleyway that runs perpendicular to my street, as it's not uncommon to have people sleep in the middle of the road.

If property values were sinking because of the issue (which in a normal housing market would happen because of safety concerns), the city would be more well incentivized to come up with solutions. But, outside of just citizen complaints, city hall doesn't really have any skin in the game.

Now, you could say, "You're part of the problem. If people like you are willing to move there, you cause the property values to rise." Well, yep, you're right. However, I WANT the city to solve this problem responsibly, and moving away doesn't help me be a part of this solution. I'm hopeful that the sales tax we self-imposed to raise funds to address the issue begin to help, but I'm mostly unimpressed with the changes thus far.

<comment><USER4> One of the problems is people get interested in "helping the homeless" which often goes bad places, instead of _reducing incidence of homelessness._ One of the things we need to solve the latter issue is more housing being built, especially entry level housing.

Some stats:

[https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-...](https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california- statistics-on-homelessness.html)

[https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/seattle- sta...](https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/seattle-statistics- on-homelessness-and.html)

<comment><USER5> It may be the right place, if lack of home is not the person's biggest problem.

<comment><USER4> Some of the ways it goes bad places:

1\. Defining the help based on their status as _homeless._ This means they need to be on the street to get help. Getting off the street can disqualify them for ongoing services.

2\. Many programs to help people with serious problems come with a lot of strings attached. They are often highly controlling. Jumping through the hoops involved can be a huge burden in its own right.

3\. Terrible, terrible "concentration of poverty" effects.

One of the problems with living in, for example, public housing projects is that everyone you know is poor. You lack access to human capital, to people in the know, to people with connections and power.

Homeless programs take that issue and cube it. You are standing in line with addicts and people who are seriously ill, who are smoking while you wait or who smell strongly of cigarette smoke or of marijuana and who are very germy, coughing and sniffling constantly. It's a great way to make sure you stay sick and get sicker. It's also a very challenging social environment to crowd together a bunch of people who are very stressed out and who typically lack good coping mechanisms for dealing with social friction.

4\. Some of the worst programs charge money to participants and/or use them as free labor to help sustain the service. These services typically have a very poor track record of actually helping people solve their personal problems.

Anyone's personal problems are always a combination of two factors: Them and the rest of the world. If you are the wrong gender in a sexist environment or the wrong color in a racist environment or the wrong socioeconomic class in a classist environment, other people can be an active barrier to you being able to solve your problems.

I have about six years of college. I was homeless because I have an incurable medical condition and I was clear that working a corporate job and living in a mold filled apartment were barriers to me being healthy and solving my problems. I'm not mentally ill and I don't take drugs. I chose to go sleep in a tent while figuring out how to make money online so I could get myself healthier.

The one thing I consistently asked in various online forums was for help figuring out how to make money online. I mostly didn't get any such help. I got pissed all over and told I was "panhandling the internet" and just a charity case.

I did eventually figure out how to make a little money online. That plus paying off my student loan helped me get off the street. My income is still incredibly low. I still have an incurable medical condition. I still deal with sexism and classism as barriers to my income goals.

If I had been treated with the same respect as anyone else on Hacker News who is trying to figure out how to create a profitable online business and taken seriously in my goal of developing an earned income, I believe I would have developed that income much quicker and would be making a lot more money. Having to figure it all out myself with no one willing to toss me a clue and people actively pissing on my efforts has been quite the uphill battle.

So when I hear you say that things going what I describe as "a bad place" _may be the right place_ if lack of a home is not their biggest problem, what I hear is justification for intentionally keeping people's problems alive out of prejudice. What I hear is the assumption that people who are currently very poor or who have mental health issues or an addiction don't really deserve the kind of help that would give them a shot at getting a good life.

Because that's how I got treated and it actively made it harder to resolve my issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "An XLSX file is just a zip of xml files" is definitely a useful tidbit I will keep in my toolbox. I have clients at my day-job who send us Excel files all the time, even after explicitly cautioning them that the software only works with CSV.

<comment><USER7> I know that at least .docx is a zip of xml also. As far as I know all of the . __*x microsoft office formats are

<comment><USER8> Came to say something similar. There was a discussion a couple of weeks back on Metafilter about using this technique to modify comments within Word files. Handy knowledge to have: [https://ask.metafilter.com/320606/Removing- timestamps-from-c...](https://ask.metafilter.com/320606/Removing-timestamps- from-comments-in-Word-2016)

<comment><USER9> At my previous job we were working on a project that had a "propertiary" format that was just an XML file with a different file extension. At some point they asked to GZIP that XML before saving, though.

So one day, I'm sitting at customer's office, working on something different, when they come and tell me they have this problem when the application is fed this particular file. I say to one of their devs, show me the file in text editor. They open it, and seeing garbage, say "it's no use". I immediately recognized the ZIP header, so I tell them, unzip it and open the output. Lo and behold, an XML content that let me debug their problem without running the application. Their _technical_ people were impressed by my "wizardy".

(Probably one of the reasons why they later asked my colleague to "encrypt" the file by running some binary transformation on the zipped XML before saving it.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reading this, I wondered whether this database maintained by the LA Times would be illegal anywhere that fell under the new EU GDPR regulations. It doesn't look anonymised.

</comment><comment><USER11> Deep domain knowledge required to extract value from data.... Not such a surprise!

<comment><USER12> Not a surprise, but the story is a good small example of the problem, written out with enough detail for non-experts to follow. Answering a very simple question necessitated the use of a mix of skills like interviewing the homeless, persuading a government agency to release data and hacking the structure of Excel documents.

<comment><USER11> Agree. I guess that I should amend to :

"getting the data, ingesting the data, using deep domain knowledge". My point is/was that the super duper ML and visualisation is secondary (initially). What I've seen is that the above list is table stakes, after which (quite a long time after) someone realises that they can do something interesting with analysis. The next step is that we realise that. everything. we. thought. about. this. is. wrong.. Then much interesting thing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Local police departments are using that Broken Window theory to harass the Homeless so they leave, or end up in jail.

In my county, we don't have much crime, but Homlessness was inching up there.

Hell, I live in Marin County. The enclave to the successful Founders. They make their wad, and many end up here. They like to "act" liberal.

Well, the cops basically harass the homeless. I have an aqqaintance who lives basically in a Scotch Broom thicket.

He told me the how the Coos are ticketing for everything. If you claim you didn't do one of these alleged crimes, they just come down on you harder. He said, I live in fear. I used to worry about dying on the streets with pneumonia; now I worry I will end up in San Quentin. 'Hell--maybe, I'd be better off?'

Marin County dosen's have a big crime problem, but Homlessness was inching up.

I recently saw a middle aged women commit the crime of sitting on a sidewalk. She just sat down. I thought she must be tired.

Well five cops came raining down on her.

A big female cop, picked her up, threw her against a wall, and frisked her aggressively. The cop appeared to enjoy treating this women terribly? Yes--the cop seemingly enjoyed her job too much?

Cops, "I don't recognize her? She must be homeless?"

They then emptied her purse on the sidewalk. A tampon, and a stick of Chapstick rolled into the wet gutter. Her well worn journal/phone book was face down getting wet. It was a depressing scene.

It seemed like they were all asking her questions at the same time. They warned her to, "just get on that bus!"

They took digital pictures of her.

The whole ugly incident was out of a Spielberg picture.

I couldn't believe the way she was being treated. Most of us would be taliking to a lawyer after an incident like that?

This is America's new way of dealing with Homlessness.

My county has basically one homeless shelter. It's usually filled up, and has a arms list of rules.

Again, my county has very little crime. We just have people who were inched out of the game. Some had mental breakdowns. Some were screwed over by family members--"loved ones". Sone just lost their job.

Many were former Programmers, or at least the one's I'm familiar with. Yes--it seems like a lot of Programmers end up homless?

It makes sence in a way. You turn forty/fifty, and you're expendable. No unions. Usually--far from family. No options? And no real skills. You spent your best days thinking everything will be o.k., until that day. You show up to interviews, but no call backs. Your skills get rusty. The bank account dwindles.

I'm really appalled at how cites are taking care of the Homeless problem. All I can do is write about what I see.

And yes--I'm very close to being harassed by some cop too. Great feeling?

Let me repeat, my county has very little crime. So little, newspapers use police logs as humor. For instance,"Woman reported ugly man picking lemons off the ground. We couldn't find perpetrator after a lengthy search of the neighborhood."

I guess Rudy's way of cleaning up New York is the new norm? Harass, and use the system to get them to move?

The problem is my county has virtually no crime? We just can't afford another rate increase, and many if us have no social network to fall back upon.

<comment><USER14> > Again, my county has very little crime. We just have people who were inched > out of the game. Some had mental breakdowns. Some were screwed over by > family members--"loved ones". So[m]e just lost their job.

I'm sure that many homeless "were inched out of the game". Homelessness was a huge problem in the 1930s. And many homeless do have mental problems. Also substance abuse, which is partly self-medication for mental problems. All exacerbated by being "inched out of the game".

Back in the 80s, homelessness exploded after funding for psychiatric institutions got cut during the Reagan administration. Many people hit the street, with virtually no support. But which is worse, really? Being stuck in a ward, over-medicated into passivity? Or dumped on the street?

It's a hard problem.

<comment><USER15> Although you are right that the Republican - Democratic struggle about which level of government should be responsible for the patients did play a part, it was not just not about defunding. There was a growing public opposition against institutionalization. The 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is just one example of criticism against the contemporary pshycatric care model.

Also, in the 60-70s there was (and there still is?) an over-belief in how medication could solve the problem.

<comment><USER14> Yes, I remember the debate over institutionalization. And I recall visiting a _humongous_ facility on Long Island. It was almost a small city.

Also, I'm seriously into "live free or die fighting", so institutionalization is distasteful. I was technically homeless for several years, back in the day. I lived with friends, in group squats, in remote forest cabins, in tents and tipis, in vans, etc. But I was young and crazy, and it was fun and romantic. And it was entirely voluntary. Now, however, it wouldn't be so much fun.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Writing my first Rust crate: jsonwebtoken - <AUTHOR> https://blog.wearewizards.io/writing-my-first-rust-crate-jsonwebtoken <comment><USER2>
      > I think the main thing missing for me is built-in
      > vendoring, to not be dependent on a third party
      > (crates.io).

You can use git dependencies if you'd prefer, which can go to whatever domain you'd like.

(Also, you only need to hit crates.io to fetch the packages you don't have, after that initial download, it shouldn't need to touch the network again until you've modified your dependencies.)</comment>


Berkeley eliminates gendered words from municipal code - <AUTHOR> https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/07/16/city-council-to-consider-abolishing-gender-specific-pronouns-in-berkeley-municipal-code <comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_(technology)#Term...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_\(technology\)#Terminology_concerns)

</comment><comment><USER3> I get the intent, but wow guys. This is just becomming a new euphanism treadmill.</comment>


Ask HN: Help Is it worth rebranding (trademark infringement)? - <AUTHOR>

I'm one of the Cofounders of a startup called Super Owl and we are busy working on an iPhone app which delivers spoken word content weekly to subscribers.  We have recently been featured as part of a Next Web article about 'How Startups Choose their names' - http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/12/03/9-startups-explain-how-they-chose-their-names/
This was a nice bit of early press for us and we were surprised but delighted to be approached. However, very soon after this article went out we received a letter from a company stating that we have "breached their trademarks".  This company is another startup, yet to launch their app publicly, however they claim that they are an established business - see their first letter to us here - https://skitch.com/aishay/guy25/letter1
I e-mailed the following reply:
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--
"Hi ,
I haven't heard of * before - just looked at your website and it looks like a great service.
I'm slightly confused about the letter attached as you state that Super Owl breaches your trademarks - have you registered a trademark for the name 'owl', '' or 'super owl'?  Obviously, if it's the latter I can appreciate your concern.
First of all to clarify Super Owl is not a streaming service for audiobooks so it's quite different from what you're doing (we are aggregating spoken word audio podcasts for download). As yet, we also are not related to anything in the book space and our future plans don't include audiobooks.
Owls and audio are what we appear to have in common and I hope we can agree to differentiate ourselves in the market through product, logo, marketing, service etc.  A quick search in the iTunes store reveals several apps with the word 'owl' included and I haven't seen this as a major setback or concern.
I hope this puts your mind at ease, however do feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss anything further.  You can get in touch by e-mail or give me a call directly on *.
Best of luck on your launch.
Regards,
Aisha Yusaf"
</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--
I have now received the following letter as a reply to my e-mail - https://skitch.com/aishay/guy2a/letter2
So, here's my dilemma, do we change our name?... I don't feel like we are infringing any trademarks even though we do share the word 'owl' in both our business names.  As we haven't even got a product out as yet we don't want to waste our time or money on legal fees or petty issues but rather concentrate on building, selling and promoting what we make.
The business that has been pursuing us on the trademark issue also doesn't have a product out (even though they speak as though they have) and although we can rebrand what we're doing, as it's not going to make or break our app, I am concerned that by doing so we are being bullied or coerced into doing something which is not even necessary.
At this stage no one really cares about our product and if we're lucky some people might care once its available to use and buy, so we don't have time or energy to spend on the wrong things (such as this).
Any advice, help or suggestions would be most appreciated.
Thanks :) </comment><comment><USER2> Hi Aisha, Craig asked me to drop you a line.

There is not enough info here to look at the specifics of the issue, although I do note that you are seeking general advice as to the line you should take - in short what degree of pragmatism you should exercise.

That is a difficult one to answer. You mention lack of time. It is always difficult to ascertain at the start of a problem how much time an issue will take, simply because it is impossible to determine how far the other party are willing to push things. If they dig their heels in, the time expenditure could be considerable. If they are flying a flag, they may simply go away after an email or two - the problem is, you just never know.

In terms of costs, again, it could be a simple matter and cost a few hundred pounds and be resolved by a few letters. They may dig their heels in and you then face either spending more, or finding a work around. Again it comes down to whether they are simply flying a flag, or whether they are prepared to push matters.

Realistically, I would suggest you need to ascertain your legal position in terms of: a) Whether they do have a trademark; b) If so, whether your name/logo is close enough to breach that;

Taylor Wessing run free events, both on their own account <http://www.taylorwessing.com/twtechfocus/events.php> and through the new Tech hub initiative of the Start-up resource centre [http://www.techhub.com/magazine/read/techhubs-startup- resour...](http://www.techhub.com/magazine/read/techhubs-startup-resource- centre_198.html)

I would try to speak with them - they may offer an initial free appointment for a start up, and take specific advice on your problem, then decide the way you want to go.

Milly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Milly. I think the tricky bit would be how to establish if our logo / name is close enough to theirs to breach their trademarks. I wonder if there are any guidelines on this or if it is based on opinions / review?

At this stage I am looking for general advice, as you mentioned and the replies posted here, including yours, are useful.

<comment><USER2> Also, it is worth firing of a quick email to ask if they have registered anything, and specifically, what they have registered. I wouldn't enter into any other correspondence until that information were given.

<comment><USER3> They have listed the 2 trademarks in letter 1. I guess thats what you are asking for advice about?

<comment><USER2> So they have, I only skimmed it. My bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How important is the name to you? That's what you got to decide.

If you decide you'd like to keep the name, then don't worry. These guys will have to get serious and actually follow legal protocol before even filing for any case. Such a case would be held in the high court, and this will cost them tens of thousands.

What they have sent you does not appear to be a protocol letter and if they do send you one, they must explore resolving the dispute amicably before they can file for a case. You will get at least 30 days after receiving a protocol letter to respond.

I'd check out what exact trademarks they hold and research a bit into case law surrounding this. Find out if they have a strong case, if they don't, I highly doubt they will spend tens of thousands on taking this to the high court.

Just my 2 cents, i'm not a lawyer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - you make good points here. Weighing up the importance of our name / brand is definitely worth thinking about. Unlike the company approaching us, luckily we haven't spent all our efforts on branding, registering trademarks etc!.... since we believe in working in a lean, agile and speedy way up until launch (having learnt from previous failures!) we are open to change things when necessary. We need to establish how much of a case there is here, as you've mentioned.

<comment><USER5> To that end, I think you should start by doing a search here:

<http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-os/t-find/t-find-prop.htm>

If they hold the mark, I would re-brand. If they do not, I would try to launch as soon as possible with an MVP.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, they do have registered trademarks. Do you think we should rebrand even if we both have different names (with only thw 'owl' part in common), different branding (colour, design etc) and a completely different owl mascot / logo?

<comment><USER4> What's the company's name? Can't give you specific advice without knowing this. Also, take a look at the company's accounts (buy a digital copy via companies house for £10) - see if they are even in a position to take legal action.

However, just bare in mind, even if you are 'right' and you are not in violation of their trademark, if they have the money there is nothing stopping them from taking you to court after they have tried amicable means to solve the dispute to no avail.

Just to give you an example, I learnt the hard way that even when you are right, it is often better to settle than spend thousands trying to fight - especially if the other party has deep pockets.

I had a legal dispute before where I was legally in the right - 99% chance of success in court, but we decided to settle as going to court usually means everyone loses but the lawyers. It's also pretty stressful. Pick your battles.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see you have experience of the 'picking your battles' thing and that is exactly what we need to do. This has been very useful and given me valuable perspective. I'll research as necessary and definitely post back here as to how we proceeded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think it's worth calling out and appreciating the fact that they are approaching you in a calm and reasonable manner instead of through a huffing and puffing lawyer nastygram.

It reads a lot to me like they are willing to negotiate a mutually beneficial agreement. Go meet them face to face (if practical, I think you're both in London?) and bring a list of the key features of your owl, logo and name and how it differs from theirs and see if you can give them some guarantees to keep yours different enough from theirs to avoid confusion going forward.

</comment><comment><USER7> If the UK company are who I think they are (begins with a B) then I can understand where they're coming from - you're both offering audio content on demand and their monthly subscription model overlaps with your monthly new product model.

Realistically, they might have to spend vast sums to win a trademark law case, but they only need to write a letter to Apple to jeopardise your business...

</comment><comment><USER8> (note, I am not a lawyer)

I've dealt with this exact issue before, although through US law and not UK law. One thing I found is that a lot of places who have trademarks have to send out notices like this in order to maintain their ownership of the trademark.

That said, it's hard to get context on this with the information you've given us. Did this message come from a lawyer, or just an executive working there? A name change can kill a company, and the burden is likely on them to demonstrate that you are directly impacting them, which is hard to say without knowing anything about them. Do you think they have the resources to bring an infringement suit on you?

Trademark infringement can be hard to establish. A quick example: in the US, there are over 30 trademarks on the letters "AMD", for all kinds of different purposes. Trademarks are more than just a name, an infringement has to meet multiple standards.

I would look at the law on the books (in the US it's at uspto.gov, I don't know about the UK) and proceed from there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply. In answer to some of your questions - no, this letter is not from a lawyer, it's from the company's chairman. Their trademark was registered in 2010 and I can not confirm if they have the resources for an infringement suit, although I do know that they have not actually launched their product as yet.

I appreciate that the information is a bit limited but my intention is not to publicly name and shame so I have tried not to divulge too many specific details. I can say though, that what we share in common is the word 'owl' in our names, we are both building apps for audio content (in their case audiobooks) and in our case radio programmes / podcasts. Our owl logos also look very distinctly different.

The company who is pursuing us, from their letter, seem to feel that we should rebrand and I am wondering if they really have any grounds or are just being a bit pushy. As you mentioned there are several trademarks for 'AMD' in the US and I've found there are also several trademarks that include the word 'owl'. Of course if we had unknowingly named and branded our company exactly the same name as another registered trademark then we would be seriously considering a change. I am not convinced if it is warranted in this case though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My first question would be why either of these companies would choose an owl as a mascot when owls are known for good eyesight or wisdom, but not auditory abilities (I suppose this is my viewpoint).

With that said, I have personal experience with trademark law in the US (not the UK), and I don't think they have a leg to stand on if US and UK law is the same with respect to trademarks. For example, in the US, one must have a product and product literature publicly available and in use for at least one year, and one must register for the mark(s) with industry/ product -specifically noted. From the redacted letter, it appears this company is claiming to already have been granted a mark, so this should be a matter of simply looking it up.

<comment><AUTHOR> For us wisdom is a positive connotation and also due to the owl's hearing range: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl#Hearing>

But, that's probably a bit off topic - our name and the mentioned company's name has the word 'owl' in common, in our case alongside the word 'super' in their case alongside other word(s) so I am investigating how much, if at all, there are any breach of trademark grounds here.</comment></comment>


AsK HN : Is it a good idea to write an ebook on MVP development? - <AUTHOR>

I am thinking about writing an ebook as my next side project. I see many people who have a startup idea but don't know how to actually implement it. Would it be nice to have an ebook that teaches how to quickly develop a MVP? It will be a step-by-step guide to develop MVP of an actual product e.g., HN Clone.
Is there a demand for such ebooks? What are some similar books? Which web application one should choose as an example project?
As of now, I think I will go with HN Clone as project and HTML/CSS/jQuery/Bootstrap/Python/Flask/SqlAlchemy/MySQL as technology stack. What are your suggestions?
P.S. : I don't know Ruby/Rails. I'm basically a Python/PHP guy. <comment><USER2> Your story developing an MVP could be interesting. A book which pretends that a non-project is an MVP probably won't be.

The passion of execution is what makes _Getting Real_ interesting. <http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php>

</comment><comment><USER3> It sounds like you want to write an ebook sample application tutorial and just piggyback on a lean startup keyword.

The most complicated and most mysterious part of creating an MVP is using your customer feedback loop to determine what the MVP needs to look like. Merely creating a HN clone without also outlining your feedback loop and why you determined an HN clone to be your MVP would not hold much value.

</comment><comment><USER4> I hope so: <https://leanpub.com/idea-to-income/> :o)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha nice. So you already started working on it? How many signups you got? :)

<comment><USER4> Not that many, really - though I'm not promoting it anywhere yet

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like a tiny market of poor people.

</comment><comment><USER6> It helps. Each product can now be viewed as a general scientific hypothesis; so publishing your work is essential.

You wouldn't be writing _on MVP development_ but rather exposing to everyone just how well you are at executing it. In my mind, your question seems like asking, "Is it a good idea to write an ebook on the scientific method?"

You have to manage what kind of philosophical posturing you're going to make. What you will write about may not necessarily translate to other projects, and that'll be for the fact that your hypotheses will be defined by the nature of your product. I believe what I'm saying is consistent with "don't choose your tech stack first" since the product's nature determines what the tech stack will be.</comment>


Unofficial MySQL 8.0 Optimizer Guide - <AUTHOR> http://www.unofficialmysqlguide.com/ <comment><USER2> I was conflicted when I read "3\. Most selective columns to the left":

[http://www.unofficialmysqlguide.com/composite- indexes.html#d...](http://www.unofficialmysqlguide.com/composite- indexes.html#determining-the-order-for-composite-indexes)

Because I had previously read that it was a myth:

[https://use-the-index-luke.com/sql/myth-directory/most-selec...](https://use- the-index-luke.com/sql/myth-directory/most-selective-first)

Both this guide and Use The Index Luke seem to be good resources. Later I realized that maybe the guide had listed this optimization tips in order of importance. After all "1\. Leftmost rule" and "2\. Ranges to the right" are the ones that affect the most the usability of the index. Then the seemingly opposite viewpoints converge.

<comment><USER3> The example given for selective columns on the left is bogus, though; of course a composite index can't be used if the first column in the index isn't used by the predicate - and this has nothing to do with the selectivity of the column.

Selectivity of the column in principle matters to reduce the time spent doing comparisons to find the right slot in each btree page; if more selective columns are at the end, the comparison function will have to scan through more of the index data to determine ordering.

Much more important, IMO, is reuse of the index. If you frequently use predicates referencing N-1 columns and have an index on N columns, you're better off if the least used column is in the Nth position. I think this is what the article was trying to get at, if somewhat hamfistedly.

<comment><USER4> Author here - Yes, I agree with you on re-use of the index. This is sort of left-most rule, but I should really break it out into its own point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Author here. Thanks for linking to my guide :)

I'll be expanding it in the coming months as the new features in MySQL 8.0 are released. On my TODO is descending indexes, improvements to OPTIMIZER TRACE, Window functions, CTEs and expanding the info on character sets.

Suggestions/comments welcome!

<comment><USER5> Are Window functions definitely coming in 8.0?

<comment><USER4> It has not passed New Feature Qualification[1] yet, which has to be done before it can be merged to trunk. You can see the state of it from a presentation earlier this month:

[https://www.slideshare.net/DagHWanvik/sql-window- functions-f...](https://www.slideshare.net/DagHWanvik/sql-window-functions- for-mysql)

[1] [http://mysqlserverteam.com/new-feature- qualification/](http://mysqlserverteam.com/new-feature-qualification/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone have a good comparison between MariaDB 10.x and MySQL 8.0? Also, when will MySQL 8.0 be out? (The current version is "Not yet released, Development Milestone").

<comment><USER4> Author here (and product manager for MySQL).

We do not have a date yet for MySQL 8.0, but it is coming closer. We are on a ~2-3 year release cycle with 5.7 released Oct 2015.

Many of the features of this guide are now specific to MySQL. MariaDB diverged from MySQL 5.5 (2010).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's some great info, thanks for the effort.

</comment><comment><USER8> Thank you for posting this, I've been wanting to further my knowledge of databases and database design.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yeah nice try Oracle, MySQL will not gain its community traction back.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great write-up! Which of these features are new in 8.0 and not in 5.7?

<comment><USER4> My goal is to explicitly state something as "new" when it is first in 8.0; but not mention the version when referring to older (mostly because it makes readability harder).

So you can see the invisible indexes page does this (8.0 only): [http://www.unofficialmysqlguide.com/invisible- indexes.html](http://www.unofficialmysqlguide.com/invisible-indexes.html)

But there are subtitles where I don't go into full detail. For example here it didn't seem right to say that descending indexes are 8.0 only:

[http://www.unofficialmysqlguide.com/composite- indexes.html#d...](http://www.unofficialmysqlguide.com/composite- indexes.html#determining-the-order-for-composite-indexes)

(In my next update I'll have a section on descending indexes and I'll be specific here.)

The format of OPTIMIZER_TRACE looks different around things like sorting data. I'll always use the newer diagnostics which are more verbose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm guessing this may also apply to MariaDB (MySQL fork) as well?

<comment><USER4> Author here - some of it applies to all databases generically (performance characteristics of a B+tree and cost-based optimization).

But MariaDB diverged from MySQL 5.5 (2010); so there is a lot which is different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I expected to see a postgresql migration guide</comment>


Is That Scientific Heretic a Genius—or a Loon? - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204554204577023893088328710.html?grcc=88888Z0

<comment><USER2> I was surprised that the culminating example was a climate change guy. Until I realized which newspaper this was.</comment>


The Document Base URL Element - <AUTHOR> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/base <comment><USER2> This feature was recently used to bypass email link filtering systems: [https://www.securityweek.com/phishers-use-new-method- bypass-...](https://www.securityweek.com/phishers-use-new-method-bypass- office-365-safe-links)

If you want you can disallow its usage on your website with a Content- Security-Policy directive: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Co...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Content-Security-Policy/base-uri)

</comment><comment><USER3> We've (the boomerang dev team) seen many frameworks do this. For many parts of boomerang, we need to get the url of an object (img, a, iframe, anything that could have a url), and just looking at the object's `src`/`currentSrc` or `href` attributes is insufficient.

What we need to do is create a new `link` element, attach it to the window, assign the url to the link's `href` attribute, and then read that attribute back out. This process converts all relative URLs to absolute URLs, taking BASE into consideration.

Note, that you MUST add the link to the document of the correct window. Adding it to the document of an anonymous iframe will not work because while anonymous iframes inherit a lot of things from the parent, the baseURI isn't one of them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Completely off-topic, but seeing the Firefox logo in B&W makes me realize for the first time that you can sort of see an upside-down Godzilla in the negative space surrounded by the firefox. They should make it more intentionally lizard-like.

<comment><USER5> s(l)ick!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ember used to use <base> tags but moved away from the due to user confusion and problems with svg: [https://www.emberjs.com/blog/2016/04/28/baseURL.html](https://www.emberjs.com/blog/2016/04/28/baseURL.html)

My personal use case: my company built a system where developers could build html/css/js "apps" that semi-technical end users could deploy into their accounts. Those end users could tweak the html/css/js in limited ways and just the modified part would be deployed to a different location, but would have an injected <base> tag to point back to the developer's app so that end users could reference the original app's images and other static assets. If I were to build it again I might choose an actual templating system instead, but it would be one extra thing our users would have to learn.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've always seen <base> as somewhat analogous to _with_ in JavaScript, whose usage is strongly discouraged [1]. Recent exploits using <base> seem to confirm that a bit.

[1] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Statements/with)

</comment><comment><USER8> It is interesting to read the web developer perspective on this element. Perhaps it is of little use to them.

As an end user who prefers using a non-graphical http client to retrieve web content to a file (then view the file in another program -- often a browser), I use this element every day.

When I know I will use a browser to view the file, I use a client that writes the base href according to the target domain to beginning of the file.

<comment><USER9> "As an end user who prefers using a non-graphical http client to retrieve web content to a file"

Awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Years ago I worked on a proprietary framework that depended on the base tag. Let me say in my experience you are far better off just having a decent router that builds URLs from the root for you. Far far fewer wired pathing problems.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's invaluable when you want to prototype or verify something from "production" without access to the backend and dev tools are "not enough": 1) save HTML of any page (you know, view-source:URL, ctrl+s), 2) put <base href="URL"> there, 3) open it from localhost or even as a file:///, 4) if you want to make changes to say CSS, again save the original and (absolutely) link your local duplicate. You have to rewrite url()s there, though: sadly, there is no @base for CSS.

Saved me some time of waiting for credentials or slow preview from backend.

</comment><comment><USER12> As some other comment points out, this element has been used to bypass security checks of web based email clients [0]:

> Avanan says cybercriminals have found a simple way to bypass this security > feature by using a <base> tag in the HTML header – basically splitting the > malicious URL. Using this method, Safe Links only checks the base domain and > ignores the rest – the link is not replaced and the user is allowed to > access the phishing site.

To me, this seems more an overlook, if not a bug, of the email link protection system.

[0] [https://www.securityweek.com/phishers-use-new-method- bypass-...](https://www.securityweek.com/phishers-use-new-method-bypass- office-365-safe-links)

<comment><USER13> It's an outright bug and probably a regression: 90s spam filters checked it but since <base href> has fallen out of style I'd bet most of the developers were unaware that this corner of HTML existed.

<comment><USER14> both of the frontenders I work with didn't know it existed until I was talking about having to take care of it in the crawler I was writing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This breaks relative anchor links. I wouldn't recommend using it unless you really have to

</comment><comment><USER16> I found this useful when writing a webproxy for fun. You normally need to rewrite all the links to feed back into the webproxy, but this is useful for relative links that slip by because they were added dynamically by Javascript.

</comment><comment><USER17> I remember finding the base element very useful back in the days of hand writing the HTML of my Geocities page, what with its ridiculously long base URL.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've pretty much always found that the added difficulty in doing same-page anchor links is reason enough to avoid the base tag.

</comment><comment><USER19> When is this every useful?

<comment><USER20> We have a system where all of our static assets are prefixed with the SHA1 of the git commit that produces them. It's a great cache-busting technique for CDNs. But this also means we cannot use paths like /img/background.jpg but rather /<insert 40 hex chars here>/img/background.jpg when we refer to such assets. Of course most of the time we can compute this by JavaScript on the client side but it's often easier just to use <base> and get rid of that piece of JavaScript.

Another use class is to change all links to open in a new tab by setting only "target" on the <base>. This happens on marketing sites with a lot of third party links so the marketing department naturally wants those links to open in a new tab instead of the current tab.

<comment><USER21> Some websites do use <base target="_blank"> to make links open in a new tab by default.

However, this can create a vulnerability as the linked website now has a reference to your site through window.opener and can take the user away from your site:

[https://www.jitbit.com/alexblog/256-targetblank---the- most-u...](https://www.jitbit.com/alexblog/256-targetblank---the-most- underestimated-vulnerability-ever/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This was useful in the area of a frameset.</comment>


The Rendition Vérité 1000 - <AUTHOR> http://fabiensanglard.net/vquake/index.html <comment><USER2> My first 3D card was a Diamond Stealth II S220 (?), which used the Verite 2200, the second generation chip

It ran vQuake, and it had a DirectX driver so it also played most other 3D games at the time, assuming they supported Direct3D

I liked it because you didn't need an additional 2D card, like with the 3Dfx (it basically layered the 3D image onto a 2D image with an extra cable)

However, the Verite had another flaw: it was slow in one of the VGA modes, 320x200x256 if I remember. So games like Doom would run like crap!

Imagine that, you buy a card to make Quake faster, but them Doom runs slower. DOS games were dead at that point, but it was still dissappointing.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://fabiensanglard.net/vquake/v1000_drawing.svg](http://fabiensanglard.net/vquake/v1000_drawing.svg)

>5 The heart of the card, a.k.a, the clock generator.

is mislabeled, 5 is bios chip.

<comment><USER4> Fixed. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish GPUs had evolved to be, essentially, CPUs with some specialized graphics-related instructions instead of the fixed-and-parallel soup that modern GPUs are (and i see Nvidia's RTX cores as a regression on that front, GPUs should become more generic, not more specialized). I am sad that Intel's management screwed Larrabee.

The only hope i have for the future is that CPUs will evolve to manycore designs that can realistically support software rendering on hundreds of threads. But we're still far from this.

</comment><comment><USER6> Again excellent article

one small typo : "Stefan Podell fron Vérité"

<comment><USER4> Fixed. Thanks.</comment></comment>


Feedback on a search engine app am building for crypto trader - <AUTHOR> https://www.tradeplan.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I am working on a crypto scanner app for a trader to help them scan the market for an opportunity based on technical indicators. For example, if you wanted to find any crypto whose volume jumped up 10 times in 5 minutes or whose price crossed below SMA or both. Finding such crypto in the market filled with 2000+ crypto can be a challenge. We are focusing on -Users can create scans for multiple conditions and multiple time frames in a single scan. -The user gets notified when any new crypto matching the scan is found. -Users can set Technical indicator alert on an individual coin and get alerts.

I am working on this idea and looking for feedback on how I can improve. I appreciate it if any trader can share there pain point in discovering and tracking crypto.</comment>


Decipher the YouTube spokesperson - <AUTHOR>

A few days ago I sent Liz Gannes of NewTeeVee the following question to ask Google/YouTube:
"On July 7th 2008 Google made an unannounced change to the YouTube API ToS, which introduced a new restriction on commercial use. Can you positively confirm that this ToS change was NOT initiated or modeled in relation to a YouTube API powered website called Totlol (totlol.com) which has launched two months prior?"
Background story is here: http://www.totlol.com/t/story Discussion is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1019360
Today a YouTube spokesperson sent an official response:
"Updates to our API Terms of Service generally take months of preparation and review and are pushed out primarily to better serve our users, partners and developers. When new Terms of Service are ready, we notify our developers through as many channels as possible, including on our developer blog."
See here: http://newteevee.com/2009/12/29/totlol-creator-learns-the-hard-way-he-cant-build-a-business-on-youtube/
Is this an answer to the question? I'm not sure.
My attempt to decipher the YouTube spokesperson looks like this:
Question:
"2 is a prime number that when divided by 2 will result is an integer. Can you positively confirm 2 is not the only such prime number?"
YouTube spokesperson answers:
"Prime numbers are generally odd numbers and most are fairly big. When divided by 2 the result is not an integer."
Any other deciphering suggestions? <comment><USER2> Your question is well phrased: you have asked for a confirmation, which Youtube has not supplied. That amounts to a tacit admission.

I would suggest using it in a story where you clearly outline your question as well as the answer, and point out that the response does not answer the question. Or you could send out a follow up email:

"Your response, does not contain a confirmation that this ToS change was NOT initiated or modeled in relation to a YouTube API powered website called Totlol (totlol.com).

In the absence of a confirmation, or response to this email, we will go ahead and accept your response as a tacit acceptance that the ToS change was modeled in relation to Totlol.com.

Again: Can you positively confirm that this ToS change was NOT initiated or modeled in relation to a YouTube API powered website called Totlol (totlol.com) which has launched two months prior?

Warm regards, etc."</comment>


AWS Greengrass – Local compute, messaging & data caching for connected devices - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/greengrass/ <comment><USER2> After AWS hit 20 products or so, there was a feeling that cutesy names were becoming difficult to learn and that new products should have descriptive names (e.g. AWS IoT, AWS ML, AWS IAM) rather than codenames. I guess that idea has lost favor?

</comment><comment><USER3> Amazon seems to be trying to build a 100% proprietary global mainframe that runs everywhere.

Up side: ease of use, ubiquity, big backer, scalability, etc.

Down side: absolute lock-in of everything to Amazon, privacy nightmare, and if Amazon screws up the world grinds to a halt.

I predict their next move to be building their own fiber between all their data centers, effectively creating a proprietary managed Internet that they can defend against DDOS and similar attacks. Then they can also start partnering with ISPs, sidelining the mainstream Internet and pushing their own proprietary one.

<comment><USER4> There was a re:invent talk earlier this week that said they have private fiber between DCs already. It sounds like it happened a long time ago.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, James Hamilton discussed this in his tuesday night keynote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The race for the smart home "IoT" is in full swing, and once again Amazon is ready to sell Levis to the prospectors. They don't even need to win, so long as they can make themselves the most convenient backend solution.

<comment><USER7> That's not just Amazon's strategy, that's most cloud providers.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is there so little discussion of the MPL 2.0 license on HN? - <AUTHOR> The license appeals to me as a good middle ground between GPL and MIT but I am unable to find a high quality debate about its merits or flaws on HN or anywhere else for that matter. <comment><USER2> It isn't a middle ground; it's a copyleft, like the GPL. Distribution of executables requires source code.

It's hard to imagine what a middle ground between GPL and MIT would look like, because the key difference (the requirement that modifications must be shared in source code form) is a yes-no proposition.

(One idea is a license which allows redistribution without source code for some limited time period, after which the source must be provided to the users.)

<comment> open-source-ux It is a middle ground of sorts for certain types of situations.

It requires your modifications of MPL-licensed code to be released publicly if you distribute your product or service outside your company.

However, if your changes to MPL-licensed code are only distributed inside your company, you do not need to release those changes publicly.

The MPL 2.0 FAQ states:

> "The MPL fills a useful space in the spectrum of free and open source > software licenses, sitting between the Apache license, which does not > require modifications to be shared, and the GNU family of licenses, which > requires modifications to be shared under a much broader set of > circumstances than the MPL."

The above taken from: [https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/MPL/2.0/FAQ/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0/FAQ/)

Like other copyleft licenses, the license text isn't particularly easy to read as the lengthy FAQ above attests.</comment></comment>


One-line node modules - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sindresorhus/ama/issues/10#issuecomment-117766328 <comment><USER2> Not gonna lie...I misread that as online nude models >.<

Great read though! :P</comment>


The Polygons of Another World: Amiga 500 - <AUTHOR> https://www.fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_amiga500/index.html <comment><USER2> Previous discussion here on yesterday's non Amiga specific post. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21937607](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21937607)

<comment><USER3> Further, when this was previously submitted, the Amiga 500 page (linked here) existed but the Atari ST page did not. It appears to have been released by the author. Submitter would have done more service by submitting that page.

[https://www.fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_atariS...](https://www.fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_atariST/index.html)

<comment><USER4> It's an ongoing series, of course they're going to cover plenty of other platforms.

<comment><USER3> Not sure about the downvotes. I thought the point was obvious. A day had passed and the newest page had been released. Instead of re-posting the previous page, he could have posted the latest one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's Eric Chahi explaining his decision to use polygons - he mistakenly thought that the Amiga version of Dragon's Lair used them!

[https://youtu.be/JFaOYYSxSEA?t=245](https://youtu.be/JFaOYYSxSEA?t=245)

Very cool video, wherein Chahi demonstrates his rotoscoping system, where he could use the Amiga's genlock to trace live video in his (extremely impressive) homemade animation/code tool.

The polygons in Another World are a bit different from today's games.

In a modern game, game models would contain fully 3D representations of each model. Each polygon vertice would have X, Y, and Z coords. The CPU/GPU then render these out.

In Another World, the polygons are 2D representations only, like paper cutouts. The animations are precalculated, and then at runtime they basically just need to be blitted out using some of the clever techniques mentioned in the linked article. You wouldn't really be able to alter the animations at runtime or change the perspective, but that was OK - it was a smart compromise to hit Chahi's stated target of about 20fps.

This "2D polygon" approach was a brilliant way to overcome the limitations of CPUs at this time. There _were_ fully 3D polygon games at the time, but they run at a fraction of the frame rate as Another World and contain only a fraction of the detail. The 2D polygon world of Another World felt fluid and real (well, relative to the competition at the time) and some convincing pseudo 3D effects could even be faked.

</comment><comment><USER6> I just acquired a IBM PS/1, and it's been really fun tinkering with it and learning about it. The next article is about PC-DOS, so I'm looking forward to it.</comment>