Mistakes made and addressed - <AUTHOR> http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1299

<comment><USER2> I have been pretty pissed at Canonical lately for a number of missteps they have made but a few of them do seem like legitimate mistakes. Mark is not really a PR guy and you can tell - a lot of what he has done has just kind of fanned the flames. I don't think I need to remind you, but even in a sarcastic tone, "open source tea party" and "we have root" are inflammatory things to say. I think he addresses some of these problems pretty well in this post, and I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt here. Think about all that he has accomplished and the amount that Ubuntu has helped the Linux community grow.

So kudos to him for having the balls to apologize. I accept that apology, and I think that a lot of people (including myself) have had some venomous things to say about him as well as Canonical which probably weren't fair. So we could probably all back off here and focus on the real issues.

...but...

He's still not talking about the two elephants in the room.

The Unity lens is fundamentally fucked up. It should be opt-in. Period. It's clearly an infringement on users' privacy and totally not in the spirit of libre software or Linux. I can't really trust Canonical - even though they've given us all so much - because of this issue. So long as they don't back down from this I'm going to look at everything they do with a critical and possibly cynical eye... it just _clearly_ looks like they're selling out their users. It is really just sad to see them selling out to Amazon like this, and I wish it didn't have to be this way. I can't really fathom the amount of money Mark has spent on Ubuntu. I don't really know how he can make it work as a business. But the Amazon search in the lens just seems like a morally wrong and short-sighted way to go.

The second issue which we all need to address is Mir. The technical arguments are _completely over my head_ , but I feel like Canonical hasn't fully made the case for why they've decided to fragment the community and do their own thing. This could just be me not understanding what's going on, but pretty much everyone who's developing this stuff seems to be on Wayland's side... why is that (and is that)? It's worth considering, but I feel like Canonical should be engaging the community, although with all the flaming that goes on I can see why they don't. We all want the best free software we can get, but some serious thought needs to be devoted to the ramifications and rationale for having two display servers.

So that's the end of this long rant - let me know what you think.

<comment><USER3> > It is really just sad to see them selling out to Amazon like this, and I > wish it didn't have to be this way.

I think many people confuse the smart scopes as "selling out to Amazon." The lenses integrate a bunch of online sources, some are commercial, some are not. You can try it by hitting the super key and doing something like `wiki:metallica` or `code:discourse` (which searches github for projects, etc.). There's something like 100 sources for information in the dash. Amazon is just one of them.

It's closer to something like Watson for the Mac or the integrated search in Android. Unfortunately people just assume that Ubuntu has "amazon spyware". If you don't like the integrated online search it's one switch to turn it off and Unity will revert to offline-only searches in the Dash.

<comment><USER2> How many of those sources have a "Buy for $x" button under them? And I don't necessarily want to send the context of searches for content on my own computer over the wire to Canonical's servers (especially these days).

I'm not saying the lens search is an awful thing for everyone. What I'm saying is that they should have the button set to "off" by default, let people know what is available to them, tell them about how it works, and then ask if they want it or not. That's it. That's all it would take.

But even if they do that... isn't it still like the Java installer asking you to install an Ask.com plugin or something? I mean... that's kinda the lowest of the low for free (as in beer) software. Searching Wikipedia and for .git repos online is one thing. Ads are different.

<comment><USER4> Google Desktop Search did a lot of things right. This was one of them. After(?) the normal EULA text they would pop another one, something like:

READ THIS CAREFULLY, THIS IS NOT THE NORMAL YADDA-YADDA: If you enable Google Desktop Search this and this will happen, which is most likely what you want but you need to be aware of it. Do you want to enable?

<comment><USER5> And what happened? Google Desktop Search was discontinued in 2011.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> OK, great. So Ubuntu only accidentally sent the nasty letter, and didn't mean to offend a lot of people who got offended with the tea party remark.

But no addressing of the privacy complaints the fixubuntu site had.

And explicitly only apologizing to non-technical critics just reinforces the validity of the complaints that [http://blog.martin- graesslin.com/blog/2013/10/thoughts-about...](http://blog.martin- graesslin.com/blog/2013/10/thoughts-about-the-open-source-tea-party/) had.

<comment><USER4> I too was puzzled about the very specific language to apologise non-technical people.

Isn't technical criticism what we want?

<comment><USER7> I'm a bit confused by that section as well. Is Martins feedback given this categorization technical feedback?

> _Unless critique is focused on improving the software in question it is > pretty much a waste of the time of the people who are trying to improve the > software in question._

The criticism was not focused on improving the software in question (Mir). That could mean he regards it as waste of time - or if we do the additional step and realize we are talking about the _software_ solution of the display- server as a whole, it might be not meant by that.

I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool how Shuttleworth also apologized for the tea party remark. Seemed kind of wrong for him to make it. Too bad he didn't address the gist of the fixubuntu site though, he didn't even link to it I think. Avoiding making the Streisand effect worse? Maybe he's already addressed the privacy issues?

<comment><USER9> The privacy issues were discussed in Sept. 2012, a month before Quantal was released.

22-Sept: Slashdot thread

[http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/22/1319216/ubuntu- will-n...](http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/22/1319216/ubuntu-will-now- have-amazon-ads-pre-installed/)

23-Sept: HN thread

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4558049](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4558049)

23-Sept: Shuttleworth blog post

[http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1182](http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1182)

<comment><USER10> >discussed.

that's a different concept than addressed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just don't understand all this hate towards Canonical. You can turn it off. Yes it was awkwardly rolled out but you can turn it off. What about google search as you type? Google Analytics, hell even the Ghostery plugin tracks data. Is this just the joy of supporting the underdog then hating them when they succeed? Now I don't work for Ubuntu, I don't use Ubuntu (I do use Mint which is derived from Ubuntu). When I think about the things that Apple and Microsoft have done and do I really think adding remote search is really low on the offense list. I mean they aren't making chemical weapons! Again most of this comment is I just don't get all the hate.

<comment><USER12> I can understand it. In these days of constant public and private surveillance, some people want a haven and want it to be consistently safe. One of the great selling points of Linux is that it was such a haven. Linux was supposed to be one of the few things left which wasn't trying to make a buck by watching you.

Ubuntu's little Amazon search wasn't very much compared to what Google, Facebook, or the NSA have been up to, but it was still a violation of the spirit of Linux and the unspoken rules and customs many people expect from OSS. For many people, this is a betrayal.

<comment><USER13> It's not as though they're trying to commit it into the kernel, though. There's about a million other Linux-based operating systems that can be used. Isn't it a healthy thing that they try to take different paths to success? Canonical is trying to monetize the consumer side of their OS. Red Hat sells support to enterprise. If you care about Linux, it should be a good thing that these companies are trying to make some money and be sustainable businesses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> At a high level, I accept Shuttleworth's apology. I do not believe that it is a company policy to use trademark law to silence complaints.

Some nuances: > Judge the policy. In this case Canonical has a trademark > policy that enables community members to use the marks > (good) and allows for satire and sucks sites even in > jurisdictions where the local law does not (great!). > Failing to have a policy would not be a bonus point in this review :)

In the US, anybody (not just community members) has a clear right to use the mark for satire and criticism. However, I'm sure there is some jurisdiction where this is not the case. Shuttleworth is not claiming that the license is needed in the US.

I was not aware of Shuttleworth's "tea party" comment; he was right to apologize for making it. Based on his post, he was making an analogy between certain types of unconstructive criticism of Ubuntu -- ad hominems, conspiracy theories, and racism -- and behavior he associated with the tea party. That behavior is, of course, not limited to just the tea party, nor is it true for everyone associated with the tea party.

</comment><comment><USER15> What was with the crack at Debian?[0]. Given how reliant Ubuntu is on Debian's work and the amount historical animosity that there's been (a lot of which Mark directly caused with the early interactions between the projects), fanning the flames just seems incredibly stupid.

[0] "Debian started arguing about whether it should remove all references to the distro-that-shall-not-be-named but then decided to argue about whether it should enforce its own trademarks which lead to an argument about… oh never mind."

<comment><USER16> Someone submitted patches for Debian that changed Ubuntu to 'the disto which shall not be name', and then it spiralled out from there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, I find it amazing how hard is for him to apologize for the "tea party" remark.

It took him almost a month, then he uses another person's mistake as an example, and then in a small remark at the end, he apologizes.

I guess it is "better late than never". But it speaks about how little social skills some geeks have(he was programmer before billionaire).

</comment><comment><USER18> > Please accept my apologies if you [...] felt offended by the label.

That's not an apology for using the label, that's a [1].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non- apology_apology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology)

</comment><comment><USER19> Never Mark Shuttleworth's fault.

Someone playing politics with an open source project or some unknown staffer who made a "mistake" \- never the culture he built or his over the top response to said open source project not adopting the divine direction that he has taken.

Nope, not Mark Shuttleworth's fault.

</comment><comment><USER20> I tend to think favorably of Canonical and very highly of Shuttleworth, but in this case I'm already pissed of after reading only the first part of the post. This is just highly manipulative PR speak.

First there's the repeated suggestion that Canonical is "generous" in allowing all kinds of use of its trademark, where however that kind of use, like satire, is protected by law. It's like saying "look how generous I am to stop for pedestrians at a red light".

Second there's the ludicrous analogy between the a bug in the code and the incident. A bug in code, no matter how bad, doesn't compare to an _act of aggression_ aimed at a _specific party_. The internet did _not_ overreact, it was Canonical that _acted_ with disproportionate aggression. Shuttleworth fails to recognize that and still tries to cover it up by accusing his critics of being unreasonable. A better technical analogy would not be a bug, but deliberately installing malware.

This is not an apology. It's a defense combined with an underhanded attack an Canonical's critics.

I wasn't one of the "vocal non-technical critics". Now I am. This attitude stinks.

<comment><USER21> > _First there 's the repeated suggestion that Canonical is "generous" in > allowing all kinds of use of its trademark, where however that kind of use, > like satire, is protected by law. It's like saying "look how generous I am > to stop for pedestrians at a red light"._

Satire is not categorically protected by law and the usage in question was not clearly satire by usual definitions. You should investigate matters more carefully before getting "pissed," because your information seems to be coming from questionable sources.

> _Second there 's the ludicrous analogy between the a bug in the code and the > incident. A bug in code, no matter how bad, doesn't compare to an act of > aggression aimed at a specific party. The internet did not overreact, it was > Canonical that acted with disproportionate aggression._

All this was was words. To call a letter requesting that a site not infringe on Canonical's trademarks "an act of aggression" is a bit of an overstatement. Computer bugs have caused several orders of magnitudes greater harm.

<comment><USER22> A lawyer sending threats is by most people's definition a act of aggression.

Especially when it's very doubtful there was infringement.

<comment><USER21> It does not seem very doubtful to me. The site in question appropriated the two main Ubuntu marks, displayed them as prominently as possible, carried no other identifying marks of any kind and didn't include any kind of disclaimer†. If all of that isn't enough for you to say, "Y'know, maybe he was infringing," what exactly would he have to do for you to say that?

† It's worth noting that even officially sanctioned sites like UbuntuForums take care to explain that they are not Canonical.

<comment><USER22> He would have to be claiming to be officially ubuntu or leaving that impression with people. I dont think there was any doubt that the site was not a official ubuntu site. In my mind this falls under fair use as specifically allowed, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_\(U.S._trademark_law\)).

If it would be infringement to use a trademark like that it would be impossible to write about any trademarked product.

<comment><USER21> > _He would have to be claiming to be officially ubuntu or leaving that > impression with people._

Again, the word "Ubuntu" was the majority of the domain name and the majority of the page header, and in the header it was accompanied by the Ubuntu logo. Nowhere was any other branding used than Ubuntu's and he made no attempt to clarify that he was not associated with Canonical or Ubuntu. If that isn't enough to even be _potentially_ confusing, what is the bar you think he'd have to clear? Does the page need to literally include the words "THIS IS UBUNTU SPEAKING. I AM HEREBY CLAIMING TO BE UBUNTU"?

> _I dont think there was any doubt that the site was not a official ubuntu > site_

Please remember that there are many thousands of people who log into Facebook by Googling the phrase "Facebook login" and blindly clicking the first thing that comes up ([http://readwrite.com/2010/02/11/how_google_failed_internet_m...](http://readwrite.com/2010/02/11/how_google_failed_internet_meme)). You are more technically savvy than most people, so the fact that this does not confuse you doesn't mean it doesn't confuse anyone.

> _If it would be infringement to use a trademark like that it would be > impossible to write about any trademarked product._

Not at all, for example, here's an Ars Technica review of Ubuntu: [http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2013/10/ubuntu...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2013/10/ubuntu-13-10-review-the-linux-os-of-the-future-remains-a- year-away/)

Does the domain name substantially consist of the mark "Ubuntu"? No, and in fact it isn't even part of the domain name. Does the header at the top of the page say "Ubuntu"? No, it says "Ars Technica". Is the Ubuntu logo used as an identifying mark on the page? No, it isn't. This page has a clear identity besides "Ubuntu." It is clearly an article by Ryan Paul of Ars Technica about Ubuntu, and all of the Ubuntu trademarks are used illustratively, not as branding. The same is not true of FixUbuntu.

<comment><USER22> Two things, do you really think that most most people will think a fixubuntu site is a official ubuntu site? Does he in any way profit from the site?

The second thing, did you read my link about fair use? I think this pretty much falls into it.

<comment><USER21> > _Two things, do you really think that most most people will think a > fixubuntu site is a official ubuntu site?_

Most? Probably not. But I think the potential is there for many to do so.

> _The second thing, did you read my link about fair use? I think this pretty > much falls into it._

Yes, but as you have not explained why you think it applies here, I don't know what you expect me to get from that link. I have already explained why this use does not seem clearly nominative to me†, and he certainly wasn't using the term "ubuntu" in a generic sense.

† For starters, using the Ubuntu logo as the site's logo seems extremely superfluous. Do you believe visitors to the site will now have trouble telling what Ubuntu is since the logo has been removed?

<comment><USER22> It is this part i find especially relevant: A nonowner may also use a trademark nominatively—to refer to the actual trademarked product or its source. In addition to protecting product criticism and analysis

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The fact that Shuttleworth describes fixubuntu.com using the phrase "folks behind a "sucks" site" demonstrates his entirely dismissive attitude of a very important issue, here being raised by ONE person, not in a "sucks" style whatsoever.

<comment><USER24> That's not the point. He's saying the site is critical of Canonical and Ubuntu, and he's fine with that. "Sucks site" was just a shorthand.

<comment><USER23> Come on - 'a "sucks" site' implies one that is wholly, disproportionately, and/or subjectively critical. fixubuntu.com is none of those things. Shuttleworth's wording was - I think, intentionally - used to disparage and discredit it as a source of useful information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> ☑ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(public_relations)#Techni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_\(public_relations\)#Techniques)

</comment><comment><USER26> So, cheap pop at Debian in an apology? Ummm ...

<comment><USER26> Heh, quite fun watching the score on this go up and down, a controversial statement? I see @dlgeek has also commented on this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> 'Last week, the less-than-a-month-at-Canonical new guy sent out the toughest template letter to the folks behind a "sucks" site.'

This is not an excuse and reflects poorly on all management when you throw the new guy under the bus. The only response to this[1] is "I" not "the new guy". You are the captain of the ship and don't get to hide behind the new guy.

1) If there is legal consequences and not PR, then you probably shouldn't state anything about what happened inside and should only speak the absolute truth or the parts your lawyer let's you.

</comment><comment><USER28> Just stop reading this shit.

| I made a mistake myself when I used the label "open source tea party" to refer to the _vocal non-technical critics_ of work that Canonical does

He's still sticking with labelling vocal _technical_ critics as the open source tea party. Just read it carefully once again.

| That was unnecessary and quite possibly equally offensive to members of the real Tea Party (hi there!) and the people with _vocal non-technical criticism_ of work that Canonical does

| Please accept my apologies if you have been a _vocal non-technical critic_ of Canonical's software and felt offended by the label

Well this _non-apology apology_ completely insults the intelligence of anyone reading it.

Edit: Formatting

</comment><comment><USER29> thanks for the spin mark, lets talk about privacy as well

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this a mistake that was addressed or was this a tell of the policies of Ubuntu? I really doubt that Shuttleworth is going to destroy the trove of commercially-valuable personal information that is Unity and Zeitgeist.

Clearly, he didn't address anything. He just backtracked. This isn't about the Ubuntu logo, as much as Shuttleworth wishes it to be.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's cold in hell tonight.

</comment><comment><USER31> OK everyone kiss each other. lets get this over</comment>


Finally somebody works on mobile games online testing - <AUTHOR> So tired to install and delete most games in minutes... really looking foward http://appcazelanding.strikingly.com/ <comment><USER2> Cool ! That's very interesting

</comment><comment><USER3> Literally nothing here to see.</comment>


How to Hire Geeks, Brand Your Shop, and Beat the Talent Shortage - <AUTHOR> http://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2012/12/03/hiregeeks/

<comment><USER2> "focusing too much on a narrow skill set contributes greatly to the perceived skills shortage"

I'd say not just contributes greatly, but is pretty much responsible for 90% of it. Employers aren't willing to find talented people and train them for a month or so -- they think everyone should have been self trained on their exact arbitrary technology stack and have a giant github of related projects.

This is how employers work: "Oh no! Talented applicant X doesn't have experience with arbitrary framework Z, we better import someone from India because we all know smart Americans can't learn something new in few weeks or a month. Unless they're tech celebrities."</comment>


Keith Devlin's Abstract Math site - <AUTHOR> http://www.abstractmath.org/

<comment><USER2> Why does the title to the submission refer to Keith Devlin when each page on the submitted site says "Produced by Charles Wells"?

<http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/math/wells/home.html>

<http://www.abstractmath.org/></comment>


Rate my startup: The easiest way to reply with step-by-step screenshots - <AUTHOR> http://storyteller.freshlog.com

<comment><USER2> Sequencing the captures as shown in your video is a great idea--allows the person making the screenshots to stay in storytelling flow.

After that, I find the easy publishing, commenting, and one click round trip annotation features of Skitch to be extremely compelling: <http://skitch.com/>

For the part that comes after taking the screenshot, Skitch offers a particularly slick workflow without the separate Preview app.

Since both your app and Skitch allow one click capturing with a history of captures, perhaps you could emphasize the storytelling aspect of your approach. Maybe they own the mindshare for annotated image discussions, but you own the category of screenshot sequences.

Ideas: Eliminate subsequent capture button clicks until clicking Done. Drag to select and snap, use a key to switch between marquee rectangle and gui control? Show frames as a filmstrip while capturing. Flow the other commenting and annotation steps.

PS. It's a different situation, but just yesterday I had to crop a dozen very high resolution JPEGs into 3 or 4 separate images each, and was disappointed that Preview couldn't just mark all the crops I wanted at once. Maybe yours could allow multiple rectangles at once, then "screenshot" them all at once.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have the idea of "screenshot sequences" in mind when I made Storyteller, but I wasn't sure how best to highlight the concept, so I used 'step-by-step', which may not be good enough, considering you highlighted it, was hoping creative HN folks like you could suggest some :)

Yup, continuously taking multiple screenshots without having to click the 'Capture' button, can be achieved by a global shortcut key (I've set it to Cmd+Alt+s for my current build).

I like the idea of floating previously capture screenshots like a filmstrip while capturing, I'm considering using a semi-transparent HUD for that, thoughts?

I'll be keeping Storyteller simple and easy to use, so I won't be implementing simultaneous image crops anytime soon .

Good thoughts! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like the project but I think you definitely need a new description for it. "The easiest way to reply" doesn't mean anything to me. Reply to what and to whom?

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I was confused at first. Maybe just call it "the easiest way to create step-by-step screenshots"? Or maybe something like: "Show them exactly what you mean: The easiest way to create animated, step-by-step screenshots".

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure about 'animated' unless you mean a powerpoint-like slideshow like what jasonkester suggested.

I like "Show them exactly what you mean".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks like a solid project. Just signed up.. looking forward to using it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words minalecs, I'll be sending out invitations real soon, watch out for it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> From your demo, I learned that Preview now has annotations that allows you to draw arrows and circles on images. Very handy -- don't know how I never saw that before.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I have step-by-step screenshots how to get the annotation toolbar in Preview.app, done by Storyteller:

[http://storyteller.freshlog.com/instructions/d290-How_to_ena...](http://storyteller.freshlog.com/instructions/d290-How_to_enable_annotations_in_Previewapp_in_Mac_OS_X)

Your friends might find this useful :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this is very cool. I could see myself using this to storyboard and document app flows. One thing that's not totally clear to me in the demo video is exactly what I can capture. It looks similar to Grab, where you can select any area you want and capture. It would be great if you could also capture an entire browser window by clicking on it, as with Grab.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Yeah I use Storyteller myself quite a bit to document user interface flows myself too :)

After you click the 'Capture' button, you can press spacebar to capture your entire browser window with a single click.

Is this what you were looking for?

<comment><USER7> Yes. As close to native Grab behavior as possible would be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, you'll be able to do Selection or Window capture just like Grab :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hey freshlog, I am doing a podcast about various ideas/projects/stuff that HN members are working on.

Interested in being on one of the episodes?

I put up the first episode and am pivoting based on the feedback I got from the HN community: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379942>

If you are interested, email me: marc {at} ideatin {dot} com

The same applies to anyone else doing anything productive, that would like to do the same.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sent you an email

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This looks like the perfect cute animal and story mail creator that my mother and her friends will send around, and I don't mean that in a bad way at all. You may want to look at that market.

<comment><AUTHOR> I made this image previously, I wonder if it makes the cut for cute animal:

[http://alvinlai.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/04/storyteller-i...](http://alvinlai.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/04/storyteller-icon-300x241.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice. Is it only available for the Mac? (and if so, why???)

The creation workflow looks really good. Pretty much everything you need without any excess features that nobody would actually use.

The presentation piece looks like it's still under construction. I'd expect to see a powerpoint-style slideshow instead of a simple HTML dump of the whole thing.

I also liked the irony of presenting the workflow for your screenshot workflow tool as a video!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I made the mac client first because I'm using a Mac, but if this takes off I'll make a Windows version too, so stay tuned.

Good suggestion for powerpoint-style slideshow transitions, it might help with focusing on one user interface screenshot at a time to better simulate it.

I might implement this down the road with Javascript.

Haha, a screencast video would pique your interest more than static images, wouldn't you agree? Yes irony :)

<comment><USER11> Why not just make a web client?

It wasn't obvious from the video that the desktop client does anything which can't be done in a browser window.

It could be pretty compelling since you can drag and drop media onto the browser window, mark it up, and be right on the results/sharing page without having to mentally context switch from your app to the browser window.

<comment><AUTHOR> dschobel,

You are right that it's possible to drag and drop media into a web browser and mark things up, but a web based implementation would miss out a ton of key benefits a native app can provide, in terms of uninterrupted flow and time savings.

Here's a workflow using Storyteller:

1\. Take multiple, consecutive screenshots (faster, with a shortcut key) 2\. Immediately view your screenshots for annotation/re-arrangement/description 3\. Click 'Create Story' 4\. Get URL of new story (copied to your clipboard automatically), ready to paste anywhere

With it, you'll be able to skip mundane steps like:

\- Locating where/which screenshot files to work with \- Juggling between local files to open for annotation (unnecessary decisions get painful after lots of repetition) \- Opening a browser window (Storyteller pops up when you need it) \- Locating the files to upload \- Waiting for the story to finish creating and copying the URL manually \- Closing the browser window/tab

I personally like the speed and general smoothness of a native app too.

I have been uploading step-by-step screenshots quite a bit to reply my customers for a previous product of mine called Freshlog, a tool that helps create screenshot-attached documents in project management services like Basecamp and issue trackers like Unfuddle, Github etc (<http://freshlog.com>).

My customers have found my step-by-step screenshot walkthroughs very helpful and it has always been a pleasure to go the extra mile to make these for them.

However, after doing this many, many times a day, it can get very time consuming and tiring, so I made Storyteller. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like it. This could give me a lightweight way to provide help to users that are having troubles on the site. Signed up!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep! This is one of the use cases I made Storyteller for :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like this, and would use it. Haven't researched your competitor's offerings, but you seem to have a good grasp on what I would need to quickly and efficiently create screen shots. My use case is creating a 'story' for task instructions involving multiple steps, one screen for each step. Nice work.

<comment><USER13> How about: "Explain stuff - one picture for each step"!

<comment><AUTHOR> I like this, will use this for my A/B test.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So what's the price point? Pay for the software or a web service? If the latter, any inclination to open source the app?

<comment><AUTHOR> I intend this to be a monthly subscription service for 2 reasons:

1\. Reliability

I want to use the stories generated and hosted by Storyteller for FAQ, customer support, prototyping and storyboarding purposes, which would remain on a company's website for a long while, requiring a good level of reliability.

I'm hosting the images off Amazon S3 so huge traffic spikes for one member's image wouldn't affect other people's stuff.

2\. No fuss

I made Storyteller to be a no-fuss and easy solution, so users wouldn't have to bother with FTP, HTML, Dreamweaver or a web interface, hence I intend this to be a pay as you go service, for minimal configuration fuss.

Unless of course the user explicitly deletes unwanted stories.

Since I'll be paying the bill for S3, and actively maintaining the service for good level of reliability, that's my plan for billing.

\- Open sourcing

I'm not sure about open sourcing everything but I do intend to open source parts of the project, because I agree with 37signals that when you make something, you can't just make one thing :)

<comment><USER15> I would also consider the idea of having some kind of 'export' feature - export to an HTML file and a folder of images, upload to an FTP server, create HTML snippets, etc.

I know a lot of people that would use something like this for a knowledgebase app for their companies, but would run it on their corporate intranet and wouldn't want to have to go to the outside world to fetch data (or, for that matter, have screenshots of their internal applications floating around on the internet).

Perhaps this could be an enterprise version, an internally-hosted service, or some other pricing model (e.g. purchase a corporate license for a higher price, free upgrades for life).

Once a corporate user makes the purchase, that's a lump sum in your pocket, and since they're using their internal systems to manage everything (rather than using your S3 account), there's little further cost to you (other than support, which should be minimal).

What this gets you is larger one-time income (until the next paid upgrade), but lower costs. There would be no real change to your workflow, other than that you'd occasionally get big cheques from people you'd never hear from again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm aware that some companies prefer to have their content available only within their private networks but different big enterprises have pretty different requirements.

Right now, I want to focus my efforts to create a great product for folks like myself, who would enjoy and benefit from easy and no-fuss storytelling with screenshots.

I might consider an enterprise version down the road, but creating a great product to scratch my own itch and help others like me comes first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Think about allowing powerpoint uploading. turn it into a way for various people to collaborate around specific slides

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you mean opening a powerpoint file on the native client and reordering/annotating the slides before uploading?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> You should try to tell the story of Storyteller using the product itself instead of the video.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, I did!

"Let's use Storyteller to teach you how to use Storyteller"

If you have 1 minute to spare, watch this earlier screencast I made:

<http://vimeo.com/11276904>

The new user interface has changed quite a bit though :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How is it different to Adobe Captivate?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi dalore,

I created Storyteller to scratch my own itch.

I wanted a quick, no-fuss way to send step-by-step screenshots to customers and co-workers without having to waste time or bother with complicated application-switching, picture-annotation and uploading steps.

I just needed to send step-by-step screenshots to other people and wouldn't need all the features in Adobe's 10 pound gorilla :)

<comment><USER18> Cool I might give it a try when I need to next. I've used Captivate in the past just wanted to know what is different.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> freshlog are you a singaporean?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I am.

<comment><USER19> nice.. me too.. love your product btw.. will be spreading the words :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks bro!

You recognized my Singaporean accent eh? :D

<comment><USER19> lol.. living in China in a year allows me to detect singaporean accent from a mile away~~

<comment><AUTHOR> I knew it! =)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Node-based a/v composition: programs as graphs and graphs as compositional tools - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kousun12/eternal/blob/master/background/README.md <comment><USER3> If someone's interested in moving the node-based media software status quo, I've been developing ossia score for the past few years : [https://ossia.io](https://ossia.io)

A big difference with other similar environments, is that the dataflow graph evolves dynamically based on a timeline which is useful for interactive shows, etc. I've recently been working on doing the same for shader-based stuff : [https://twitter.com/jcelerie/status/1211354889873510400](https://twitter.com/jcelerie/status/1211354889873510400)

<comment><USER4> Intriguing. Very surprised I've never heard about this before, and refreshingly different from most other tools in this field. I look forward to trying it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> He didn't mention a few other big ones with good demo versions: Nuke, Touch Designer and Digital Fusion (much more awkward, but free).

Figuring out why programs like these work well and what gaps are between them and general programs is interesting because many of the reasons come down to pragmatic workflow and not technical limitations.

They all operate on a very limited set of data types (just images, images + geometry, etc.) and don't have to deal with state, branching, or loops. Results can be viewed easily at each stage and each operation can be isolated and iterated with real time interactivity.

This project tries to use message passing nodes as a backbone and data flow as the heavy lifting to get to visual C++ programs:

[https://github.com/LiveAsynchronousVisualizedArchitecture/la...](https://github.com/LiveAsynchronousVisualizedArchitecture/lava)

<comment><USER6> > Digital Fusion (much more awkward, but free)

Small nitpick, only applies to Fusion 9 and below. Fusion 16 only comes in the Studio variant, otherwise you need to use DaVinci Resolve 16 to access the embedded Fusion for free.

> Figuring out why programs like these work well and what gaps are between > them and general programs is interesting because many of the reasons come > down to pragmatic workflow and not technical limitations.

In the case of Nuke, the pragmatic workflow is a large part of it, but not the only one. When it comes to digital compositing, it is very easy to get up and running with layer based solutions quicker (such as Adobe products), but they hit a wall very quickly on memory usage, process duplication, and general difficulty of navigation and organization as the composite becomes more complex.

Nuke is in a different class of its own, being developed originally at Digital Domain (a VFX studio) before eventually sold to Foundry (then The Foundry). Nuke's success was a technical one, being far more memory aware and efficient (a scanline renderer and processor), as well as catering directly to the user base it served. It is still the only specialist compositing tool that has support for modern deep data, has proper handling and support for multi- layer/multi-part EXRs, and has a clean and proper handling of channels and layers throughout the comp. It has some modernization to undergo nowadays, but it is still the most trusted tool in VFX.

Software in computer graphics to note as being primarily node based that expose that directly to the user:

      - Autodesk Maya (is node-based)
      - SideFX Houdini (formerly Prism)
      - Foundry Nuke (originated from Digital Domain)
      - Foundry Katana (originated from Sony)
      - Substance Designer
      - Isotropix Clarisse BUiLDER
      - <USER2>
      - Blackmagic Design Fusion (an in-house tool to Eyeon Fusion -> Blackmagic Design)

Other tools that integrate node based workflows into their application:

      - Autodesk 3DS Max
      - Foundry Mari (originated from Weta Digital)
      - Maxon Cinema 4D
      - Blender (personally unsure of Blender and being nodal-based)
      - Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve

There are a smattering of others I haven't gotten the chance to use, from other imaging tools to those specializing in tracking (e.g. PfTrack) and in- house non-commercialized tools.

<comment><USER7> The most trusted tool since Apple shitcanned Shake, that is.

It's too bad that Shake couldn't be open-sourced. Several big post facilities (ILM, Weta, and others) bought the source code and have probably done great things with it.

<comment><USER5> No one really did much with it. Nuke is actually much better than shake by a wide margin, using shake feels like going back to the stone ages due to interactivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From a creative perspective the modular/node-based way of thinking has always been a niche, having seen many attempts such as this to place it into a broader model of creativity (including my own [1]). Its telling that the enduring musical instruments of the electronic age have been relatively fixed- function (Minimoog, Yamaha FM synths, 808/909) with constrained options for patchability, rather than modular synths highlighted by the article. The metaphor is further strained by modular synthesis' lack of basic affordances a programmer would expect, such as a memory model, data types, composability/reusability of "code", etc.

These issues translate to digital node-based systems- dealing with structured data in e.g. Max or TouchDesigner becomes an exercise in patience, and their mechanisms for composing and reusing code are somewhat baroque as well.

The other major creative limitation of flow-based programming (and in fact, most computational art systems) is the absence of a timeline (as mentioned by another commenter). This is a showstopper for many creative pros Ive talked to. But it grazes on topics that are interesting purely from a computer science perspective- imagine if you could freely jump to any point in a program's execution?

To be clear, having spent my doctoral studies in this space I find these to be interesting problems to solve rather than indictments of node-based programming as a whole. Im interested to see how eternal and other efforts mentioned in the comments here tackle these and other challenges.

[1] [https://purl.stanford.edu/mf249vj6694](https://purl.stanford.edu/mf249vj6694)

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree on most of this; most systems I've used so far feel a bit clunky (Houdini has by far been the most sophisticated system I've worked in), and my sense is that if it had more mindshare / attention, the paradigm could actually be pretty fluid. Using most node-based tools today (including eternal), I get the admonition that it's like using text edit to write python compared to a pro at using pycharm.

The timeline thing is really key. Houdini does it in a sort of clever way where "time" as a variable is exported globally to any node that wants to use it, and the timeline feature is a consequence of using the time variable in any of your functions. i.e. it's not jumping you to a point in the program's execution, but rather acting as a controller for all time-dependent functions. sort of like exporting a time uniform to graphics shader

<comment><USER8> Agreed- a lot of the issues people bring up with node-based programming have promising solutions, its just a matter of exploring the space and finding successful implementations.

As far as timeline, I also think the digital audio workstation model is interesting- modules export parameters that can be assigned to an automation channel and dragged/tweaked visually on some hierarchy of timelines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> this is a great project, i am interested to see more competitors to pd, vvvv, and max matthews little program. a lot of great work has been made on tools like this.

<comment><USER10> I've never found pd nor max to be productive.

<comment><USER11> why not? i use neither but they both have rich histories as audio programming tools. autechre are/were heavy max/msp users at the forefront of IDM, max for (ableton) live is a popular thing, and i have several friends who write pd things that then get run on their eurorack modules.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This eternal project is crazy crazy crazy good.. Achieved in the space of only a year.. This is incredible.

Beautiful. Really.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! appreciate it. would loved to have spent some more time on it / made it more of a primary thing for me, but i suspect it's a sort of all or none kind of work && i hope someone can get a team together and do a version of it for real

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A git or otherwise nice version control with diffs and such for a visual language would be killer.

</comment><comment><USER14> For a flow-based programming DSL, check out FlowNote

[https://emblem21-opensource.github.io/flownote/docs/02-featu...](https://emblem21-opensource.github.io/flownote/docs/02-features.html)</comment>


HTTP Server in MIPS assembly - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/brenns10/yams <comment><AUTHOR> For reference, here was our rendered final report: [https://github.com/thomasrussellmurphy/thomasrussellmurphy.g...](https://github.com/thomasrussellmurphy/thomasrussellmurphy.github.io/raw/master/data/yams_report.pdf)</comment>


What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (2004) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/business/yourmoney/what-walmart-knows-about-customers-habits.html <comment><USER3> > Three years ago, Wal-Mart summarily announced that it would no longer share > its sales data with outside companies, like Information Resources Inc. and > ACNielsen, which had paid Wal-Mart for the information and then sold it to > other retailers.

Anyone have more information on these types of data feeds? What PII is usually in them? They're an opaque, behind-the-scenes practice that I'd like to know more about. Wal-Mart may not have given them anything for a decade, but I'm sure tons of other retailers do.

<comment><USER4> Zero PII. On occasion there are loyalty programs and IDs but there is no link back to the consumer. Companies like IRI and Nielsen recruit their own panelists and build models of the consumer that they then project into census style data.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, i don't know about that. There is a data feed I know of that contains the last 4 credit card digits...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > By its own count, Wal-Mart has 460 terabytes of data stored on Teradata > mainframes, made by NCR, at its Bentonville headquarters. To put that in > perspective, the Internet has less than half as much data, according to > experts.

~15 years later, 460TB are about 10.000 euros in cheap over-the-counter hard disks.

or 70k € in SSDs.

<comment><USER7> I find this statistic dubious at best, given that by 2004 the internet had hundreds of millions of users. Even if we're generous and assume they mean public data on the internet, that'd be less than 1MB of data per person.

<comment><USER8> How many people were passive consumers then though? Also, hough much lighter weight was the content? This is before smartphone videos were being uploaded after all, 2004 was still an era where you might have a page on your personal site for your dog and everything was static html + css.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hey guys! WM Associate here. Let me know if you have questions about our data storage practices (or anything else).

I'm wanting to shed some light on our practices, as we aren't as sketch as most believe.

Throw-away account for obvious reasosns.

<comment><USER10> Purchase data sharing with 3rd parties and facial recognition,how rampant are they? And do you know anything about how they track cell phone's wifi mac as a customer goes around the store?

<comment><USER9> Data Sharing Agreements: None that I know of. That bit is a little out of my range.

Facial Recognition: Very, Very Little. Only in one store at the moment, and it's designed for Asset Protection and tracking a thief around the store.

As for tracking MAC addresses, we track Enterprise devices that associates use, but not customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe it was an attempt to ward off Amazon, also Target.

</comment><comment><USER12> Walmart has spent a shit ton of money on their analytics systems including open source and Teradata. They have agreements with various cell companies for geo-fenced info. So they have location analytics and your "market basket" data to slice and dice. Yet the results are mediocre and Amazon is kicking their ass with strategy. They have no loyalty program (Sam's has membership) to provide compelling packaged deals to shoppers, they have their Every Day Low Price pretense but check Neighborhood Market prices that vary wildly from super-center prices especially for grocery. In reality, WMT is a quasi- monopoly that is dying under its own obesity - it needs to split up. eCommerce at $16B is a joke considering it doesnt make any profit and has take billions in overpriced investment. The management, especially in tech, barely see projects through and has lately removed several long-time employees for "fresh blood". Add turnover in SV and other places, it is chaos.

<comment><USER9> This'll be fun to dissect.

> Walmart has spent a shit ton of money on their analytics systems including > open source and Teradata.

This is true! More specifically, we're using Teradata and Hadoop.

> They have agreements with various cell companies for geo-fenced info.

First that I've hear of it. If we actually did have this, it would be a major invasion of privacy. There was a pilot to be able to track expensive inventory (Like TVs) around the store to prevent theft, but it was shutdown due to privacy concerns.

> Yet the results are mediocre and Amazon is kicking their ass with strategy.

Go look at our year-over-year for e-commerce and you'll see that we're actually doing very well.

> They have no loyalty program (Sam's has membership) to provide compelling > packaged deals to shoppers, they have their Every Day Low Price pretense but > check Neighborhood Market prices that vary wildly from super-center prices > especially for grocery.

This is where it gets interesting. Most of the variation you'll see is taxes from zone to zone. As well as logistical challenges for certain locations. Given actual places, I could get a breakdown of costs, but alas.

> In reality, WMT is a quasi-monopoly that is dying under its own obesity - <USER2> > needs to split up. eCommerce at $16B is a joke considering it doesnt make > any profit and has take billions in overpriced investment.

Do you watch out our financial calls?

> The management, especially in tech, barely see projects through and has > lately removed several long-time employees for "fresh blood". Add turnover > in SV and other places, it is chaos.

Management is terrible, I'll agree to that. But HR isn't ageist, and we have thousands of associates that are > 25 year tenure with Walmart and hundreds of those over 35 year tenure.

Turnover in SV is because we meet the bare minimum to compete in the market, not because of management, otherwise you'd see the similar numbers to our offices in Reston, Virginia.

Thanks!</comment></comment>


AOL Shuts Down Software Blog Download Squad - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/04/12/aol-shuts-down-download-squad/ <comment><USER2> Its a shame you can't "open source" things like this, seems a shame to kill such a successful resource.</comment>


Silicon Valley CEOs pay little mind to shareholder rights - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/04/in-silicon-valley-chieftains-rule-with-few-checks-and-balances/?ref=business

<comment><USER2> Personally, I'd like to see long term elements of a company have more power than transient ones (e.g. companies that are buying up big chunks of stock). A stock holder would be happy to raise the stock high and then sell it off. If the place goes bankrupt after that, who cares. As much as I dislike Zuckerberg I'd trust him to care more about the long term success of his company than I would a share holder.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nobody forces investors to put money in these companies. If poor governance impacts the price more than the long term benefits of keeping the central vision, then the shares will drop in price. This will in turn hurt the founders.

The issue is more nefarious when there are poor governance provisions (example: poison pills) and the CEO isn't a large shareholder.</comment>


How To Encourage Women in Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/

<comment><USER2> Talk about gender stereotyping. This may be shocking but I'm a woman who can sew and use linux.

Guess what? so can my boyfriend!

<comment><USER3> Awesome situation. I can't do either, but I'd sure rather learn Linux. More power to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is really overly sensitive. The word "bitch" is offensive to women? I talk to women all the time that use the word. They don't seem offended by it.

Anyway, I don't think anyone on the Internet cares what gender you are. Women just don't seem to be that interested in programming.

<comment><USER3> It's all in _how_ you use the word, I'm sure.

As for, "Women just don't seem to be..." types of generalizations... not a place _I'd_ like to go. The same is sometimes generalized about people of my ethnicity; but that doesn't reduce my wish to be received with respect and consideration.

Do take a look at all the (women) signatories at the bottom of one of the linked articles in original post. [Several links seem to have gone dead in just the last half hour.]

<comment><USER4> _As for, "Women just don't seem to be..." types of generalizations_

If they were interested, they would be actively participating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Women already get enough special treatment. If you register for a computer forum with a female avatar, the amount of attention you get and rapidity with which your questions get answered is inordinate.

<comment><USER6> Coming up next - how to get more men interested in sewing.

<comment><USER4> Whenever I join a sewing-related IRC channel, I am inundated with sexual advances because of my obviously-male nickname. This needs to stop, or men will never have a fair shake at being sew-ers. (sewers?)

Oh wait, sorry. I was confusing a situation I made up in my mind with reality.</comment></comment></comment>


Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/comcast-xfinity-down-outage-not-working-internet-my-area-1002278 <comment><USER2> Comcast's confirmed the fiber cut: [https://twitter.com/comcastcares/status/1012767042158510080](https://twitter.com/comcastcares/status/1012767042158510080)

> One of Comcast's large backbone network partners had a fiber cut that we > believe is also impacting other providers. It is currently affecting our > business and residential internet, video and voice customers. We apologize & > are working to get services restored as soon as possible

They seem to be at least starting to route around it now; I was having intermittent connectivity issues to various sites here all morning, but as of ~45 minutes ago, I'm not having any issues reaching the sites I couldn't reach earlier.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like it was 2 cuts, which likely means it was intentional IMHO:

NY| Manhattan| _Communication Failure_ | 30 Rockefeller Plaza (Comast)| Comcast is experiencing a National outage due to 2 fiber line cuts. One between NYC & Chicago, the second between Ashburn & South Carolina. customers urged NOT TO CALL 911, no ETA on a fix, police monitor

Edit: source below. Thank you dfee.

<comment><USER4> > customers urged NOT TO CALL 911

Do people really do this? I can't even comprehend this.

<comment><USER5> Yes. [http://komonews.com/news/offbeat/bothell-police-dont- call-91...](http://komonews.com/news/offbeat/bothell-police-dont-call-911-to- tell-us-facebook-is-down)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On Comcast here in the bay area. Some sites are fine. Some are just gone. Luckily, my corp VPN endpoint is accessible, and if I VPN out, I can get to everything again.

<comment> gm-conspiracy This leads me to believe they are testing to see what they can get away with for fastlane access.

<comment><USER7> If what you're saying turns out to be true, it would be very disturbing.

Disrupting your paying customer's access with unannounced 'tests' is a sure- fire way to torpedo your brand value and rating.

<comment><USER8> "Comcast" and "brand value" do not go together very well as it is.

<comment><USER9> This is true.

When your company name is so hated by the public that you have to re-brand your flagship product "Xfinity" to distance it from yourself, you know you're running a crappy company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Customers were also taking to Twitter to reach out to the company about the > possible outage. The company recommended that some users try checking the > status center online, which would require an internet connection of some > kind.

Got to love you need internet to check the status of your internet :)

<comment><USER11> To be fair those customers were reaching out online via Twitter.

<comment><USER12> People have phones.

<comment><USER13> Phones have browsers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's that NANOG .sig about 'always carry a piece of fiber, that way if you get lost just bury it and when the backhoe comes by to dig it up you can get directions back to civilization.'

"I always bring a length of fiber with me while backpacking. If I find myself lost, I just bury the fiber and a backhoe should be along shortly to dig it up." \--Sean Lally

Similar, not the one I'm thinking of though.

ah-HA! We'll string it up on poles, no way the backhoes can get it up there!

</comment><comment><USER15> This is why it would be better to pay by bit consumed, like most do for electricity. This would encourage carriers to build more infrastructure. It would also create an economic incentive for the ever increasing number of Internet connected devices to be more conscientious of data usage. Of course, we can't have that in the oligopoly situation in the United States.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure that makes sense - bit consumed neither reflects the value of the service to the customer, nor the unit economics of the provider.

You want a service level guarantee (99.9% available, with some extra wiggle room for peak hours and degradation. With electricity, you're paying for energy generation, plus grid maintenance. With internet, you're only paying for grid maintenance.

<comment><USER15> It reflects value to me. I want my connection to be as fast as possible. If I pay a fixed monthly fee, the incentive to the ISP is to throttle my connection at some point. If they have no unit economics, why do some ISPs throttle and cap after hitting a maximum?

<comment><USER17> The OP didn't say they have no unit economics--just that bits consumed doesn't reflect their unit economics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Allegedly the outage due to a utility truck in North Carolina knocking down a few power lines. When I heard this, I realized it could've been what happened in my hometown!

There was a video going around Facebook of a truck taking down several utility lines in Wilmington, NC.

[https://www.facebook.com/110795228128/posts/1015572616317812...](https://www.facebook.com/110795228128/posts/10155726163178129/)

<comment><USER19> In case you don't want to go to Facebook:

[http://www.wect.com/story/38541106/video-accident-with- crane...](http://www.wect.com/story/38541106/video-accident-with-crane-snarls- power-lines-shuts-down-nc-road)

<comment><USER18> Thanks! Wasn't sure where to find the non-facebook link!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Been ongoing for us for almost an hour - was surprised to see it not posted here. We cannot reach any of our US-East AWS resources at the moment. Getting about a 50% success rate on other sites - Facebook (& Co.) pages load but no media displays.

<comment> gm-conspiracy You have to pay extra for fastlane access if you want to go from Comcast -> AWS.

<comment><USER21> Thanks Ajit!

<comment> gm-conspiracy Serious question, anybody try VPN, and then connect to AWS?

<comment><USER21> I didn't notice for a while because my primary Amazon Workspace wasn't affected, but when various requests weren't working on wifi but were working from my cell phone, that's when I figured out something was up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I work for an ISP, seems the issue was localized to Comcast's AS. Probably a network engineer made a change that went bad :)

<comment><USER23> A backbone fiber was cut, lots of ISPs are going to be making network changes!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Seems to be caused by third party fiber cut

<comment><USER25> Good thing that the internet was built for redundancy so single cuts don't affect the connectivity.

<comment><USER26> It actually looks like two simultaneous cuts in this instance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I use them at work and home (no choice). From a technical perspective, Comcast is usually rock-solid for me. Sure it's expensive, and an absolute joke that I have to call every year to keep the discounts and a TV plan that I don't use, but I'll give credit where they have actually done a good job. I'd much rather a stable service that's a bit of a pain on the billing side than a terrible service that has a nice website.

<comment><USER28> Yes, everyone loves to complain about the cable company but in my experience Comcast's network, technicians, and support people are the best in the business. You could not pay me to use CenturyLink, for instance.

<comment><USER29> > in my experience Comcast's network, technicians, and support people are the > best in the business.

in the context of US based ISP 'businesses', that's like saying 'the smartest kid on the short bus'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Heroku is currently very, very slow loading. This is the traceroute:

      traceroute dashboard.heroku.com
      traceroute to dashboard.heroku.com (18.104.22.168), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
       1  router.home (192.168.xxx.xxx)  0.355 ms  1.103 ms  1.074 ms
       2  96.120.4.xxx (96.120.4.xxx)  9.575 ms  14.987 ms  15.859 ms
       3  ae113-rur01.d9chamblee.ga.atlanta.comcast.net (22.214.171.124)  18.802 ms  18.846 ms  18.882 ms
       4  ae-29-ar01.b0atlanta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net (184.108.40.206)  15.913 ms  15.978 ms  15.733 ms
       5  be-7725-cr02.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast.net (188.8.131.52)  19.719 ms  19.659 ms  19.528 ms
       6  be-11486-pe03.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast.net (188.8.131.52)  16.524 ms  17.280 ms  16.821 ms
       7  * * *
       8  * * *
       9  * * *
      10  * * *
      11  * * *
      12  * * *
      13  * * *
      14  * * *
      15  * * *
      16  * * *
      17  * * *
      18  * * *

<comment><USER30> I think this is consistent with backbone / fiber cuts. Local networks in the Atlanta area are pretty consistently okay. Other stuff is just down or slow, very slow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> At least this outage is not local. It took me months to get them to replace the coaxial aerial run from the pole to my house that had been compromised and had liquid water inside the cable and enough pressure to force said water around the cable loops, inside my house, and into the splitter. Water-caused signal attenuation was making for some bad service quality.

I need to consider my plans for obtaining backup Internet. The only real choice is 4G and the only way to pull that off is to somehow run a hoist up into one of the very old, mature oak trees on my property to get an antenna way up above the house (thinking like we do with ham radio antenna runs). I have no usable cell signal in the house except through the personal cell that uses the comcast connect to get back to the carrier.

<comment><USER31> Before letting one's walls fill with water, one might have made a small hole in the jacket just before the cable entered the house, to let it run out where it couldn't do any damage...

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Good to know its just not me. I finally had to call it quits and head to Starbucks with the laptop. My home office is in a no-cell signal black hole so when this outage hit, my cell phone goes out too until I drive up the street at least a few houses.

</comment><comment><USER32> I just realized the huge downside to having moved my cell phone from Verizon to xfinity mobile. Although neither my wired Comcast or my cell service is out right now, I would be screwed if these both went out.

<comment><USER33> Xfinity Mobile is just an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) of Verizon. So it is Verizon's towers/networks that would be providing your connectivity, not Comcast. Comcast basically just handles your billing and customer service.

<comment><USER32> Good point about using the Verizon network. They also use their own access points for internet service, which could have an impact.

I'd be more worried if they take Verizon traffic and route it across their own network, which most MVNOs don't — but Comcast might for data collection purposes. Hopefully not!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I sincerely hope this is a technical malfunction and not a co-ordinated to attempt to take down Comcast's infrastructure by malicious actors, domestic or foreign.

Non-localized outages (especially a coast-to-coast one) are signs of deep faults with the network architecture -- not surprising given the way Comcast is run.[0]

[0] [https://www.pcmag.com/news/350979/comcast-is-americas- most-h...](https://www.pcmag.com/news/350979/comcast-is-americas-most-hated- company)

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm on Comcast and cannot get to Twitter and a few other places... But Netflix and YouTube work just fine. I wonder why I can get to some stuff but not others...

<comment><USER35> Netflix and YouTube have caches inside Comcast's network. That'll probably be why they are still serving?

[https://openconnect.netflix.com/en_gb/](https://openconnect.netflix.com/en_gb/)

[https://peering.google.com/#/options/google-global- cache](https://peering.google.com/#/options/google-global-cache)

<comment><USER34> I'm on HN...seeing your update...I an connect to my employer remotely... Feels like Comcast is not the whole story...

<comment><USER35> HackerNews is served from Cloudflare, which employs caches close to you as well. Seems like Comcast has a problem routing over distance.

<comment><USER34> Seeing talks about 2 separate fiber cuts... Lots of issues all over the US. Chicago to NY and also another cut that goes south to SC. r/sysadmin has good info

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Discussion here reminds me of Rule #3 in Richard Cook's classic "How Complex Systems Fail": Catastrophe requires multiple failures – single point failures are not enough. [http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Sys...](http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER37> My Comcast internet has been flakey for a good week.

Sadly the alternate provider offers "up to 100Mbps" ....and in my area that means 5Mbps... maybe.

I hate a lack of competition.

</comment><comment><USER38> Here in Atlanta I had a comcast outage on this Sunday and Monday evenings last for 4-5 hours each. I wonder if the current outage is related.

<comment><USER30> About two months ago, they took the Internet down for the whole neighborhood 3 days in a row like clockwork to "split the node" (because I went and talked with the crews out on the road to see what was up). No notification, not even for business class customers. Completely bonkers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Switching my DNS to 22.214.171.124 alleviated some of the problems (access to Google/YouTube)

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm picturing plenty of bundled optical fiber cut in two. How big are these bundles ? How can they repair the optical fiber (i.e. how to reconnect each single fiber to its previous half ?) Do they have to reinstall a section of cable ?

<comment><USER41> My dad used to do this for AT&T (mainly for train derailments if I remember right). As I understood it, he would cut/polish the ends of the glass and glue together. The process may have changed since then, it's been about a decade.

<comment><USER40> What I don't get is how they match each individual fiber on the left with its right one, as I imagine there are probably thousands and individual fibers inside a bundle. When they installed the fiber at my home they had some laser to check the fiber correspondence. Is it just that, pick left illuminated by laser fiber, pick right illuminated by laser fiber, put in a glueing/fusing machine, and doing it n times (where n is huge)? Where do they get some slack to access the fiber bundled inside ? (Do they need to add a patch section and do the above work two times, or is there some neat trick ?)

<comment><USER42> Fibre buffer is standard colours, you just match and splice.

Service loops in the run provides slack to take up, else you just cut and splice in a short segment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Coworker in Colorado can connect to slack but certain websites fail. Weird.

<comment><USER21> Confirming from S.Florida. I can get to some/most of my AWS workspaces and GCE instances, but not to wikipedia.org... unless I turn on my VPN in which cases they block some traffic or make me go through JS verification, but then at least wikipedia works. :-(

<comment> gm-conspiracy Is your VPN IPSec or SSL or other?

<comment><USER21> I'm using PIA

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Well, good thing we had our scheduled maintenance last night.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm not having any issues with Comcast in San Jose. Been using every normal website for approximately the past hour and a half. Odd.

</comment><comment><USER46> try changing your DNS. I got mine working after switching to the Level3 DNS server IPs : 184.108.40.206 & 22.214.171.124

Listed here : [https://www.lifewire.com/free-and-public-dns- servers-2626062](https://www.lifewire.com/free-and-public-dns-servers-2626062)

Seems like the list is legit but do verify.

</comment><comment><USER47> downdetector.com isn't even working for me: [https://twitter.com/davywtf/status/1012778410714812416](https://twitter.com/davywtf/status/1012778410714812416)

</comment><comment><USER27> Most stuff has worked today. GitHub hasn't. IPv6 has been hit-or-miss as well.

<comment><USER30> First thing I noticed failing was Github. Then nothing for a while. I'm not home, but was able to VPN back into my home and run traceroute and it seems to have healed with the route to Github at least.

      traceroute github.com
      traceroute to github.com (18.104.22.168), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
       1  router.home (192.168.xxx.xxx)  0.455 ms  1.454 ms  1.431 ms
       2  96.120.4.xxx (96.120.4.xxx)  10.247 ms  16.604 ms  15.646 ms
       3  ae113-rur01.d9chamblee.ga.atlanta.comcast.net (188.8.131.52)  17.851 ms  17.839 ms  17.810 ms
       4  ae-29-ar01.b0atlanta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net (220.127.116.11)  16.559 ms  16.673 ms  16.660 ms
       5  lag-5.ear2.b0atlanta2.Level3.net (184.108.40.206)  17.321 ms  17.411 ms  17.353 ms
       6  * * *
       7  GITHUB-INC.bear2.Washington111.Level3.net (184.108.40.206)  128.508 ms  122.411 ms  120.312 ms
       8  * * *
       9  * * *
      10  * * *
      11  * * *
      12  * * *
      13  * * *

<comment><USER48> > 5 lag-5.ear2.b0atlanta2.Level3.net (18.104.22.168) 17.321 ms 17.411 ms 17.353 > ms

> 6 * * *

Obviously Comcast is trying out a nefarious scheme to give their own routers Level3 hostnames, to throw us off their trail, and not, say, a fiber cut. /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> It started last night. Luckily I had two other modems and kept switching them out. Each modem would work for roughly 30 mins and then the service would go down. I gave up and went to sleep.

</comment><comment><USER50> Some of you conspiracy theorists are insane. No Comcast didn't purposely do this. I can guarantee it was just a backhoe digging around. Happens more often than anyone would care to admit.

</comment><comment><USER51> The fiber-seeking backhoe strikes again

<comment><USER52> Backhoes. The internet's natural predator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Well, we all know they'll learn to do better because of this: they'll take all that money from monthly fees and make sure to improve quality of service! Right?

Nope. They'll probably raise prices if anything, and receive no ill effects as a company for basically failing to provide what they happily accept money for. (Buried somewhere in an "update" to Terms of Service, they probably pardon themselves from exactly this type of outage.)

There ought to be strict laws around long service outages, resulting in automatic multiple months of free service, etc. as a deterrent for allowing things to just collapse for hours at a time. This isn't just Internet anymore; entire businesses can be affected for example.

<comment><USER54> Of course nothing will happen. Comcast is too good at lobbying and Internet still doesn't get treated with the same legal importance as other infrastructure like road, running water or even snail mail.

<comment><USER55> Snail mail is handled by one designated quasi-private firm, the USPS. Roads are often handled by contractors on a per-job basis. How would handling it like roads and USPS help?

<comment><USER56> The USPS (at least in my neighborhood) does a far better job than Amazon+OnTrac?

<comment><USER57> I prefer USPS now. I order a lot from California, and it's to me in Ohio in two business days generally. That's with Priority Mail, which is similar to UPS and FedEx Ground. Both of those are 4-5 business days.

<comment><USER58> Beyond that it's way more economical to use, in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> How could they tell?

</comment><comment><USER60> I know that other commenters are being flippant, but could this legitimately be them testing their throttling ability for specific types of traffic?

<comment><USER61> No.</comment></comment>


Compaq and Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2020/compaq-and-coronavirus/ <comment><USER2> The underlying message is simple. Willingness to do the work, make hard decisions, and be productive, leads to success. A history of success without that underlying willingness, leads to failure. The West got where it was by being on the winning side of that equation, but has lost it. Taiwan is on the winning side of that equation.

The first example was the rise of Compaq (in the West) when it had that willingness, followed by its fall when it didn't. And the rise of other companies in Taiwan that were willing to do the actual work.

The second example is coronavirus, where Taiwan's current success stands in stark contrast with the unwillingness of western countries to even consider taking effective action. Taiwan shows what it is possible. The USA can only consider which tragedy to choose. And has gone about it so badly that it is effectively choosing both.

<comment><USER3> I guess Taiwan's inherent mistrust of China helped in making the right decisions - while the thoughts of politicians in the West were something along the lines of "China is saying it has things under control, the WHO is saying the same, so there is no need for drastic actions right now - and if it turns out later that we were wrong, we can shift the blame to China and the WHO".

<comment><USER4> Even after China's (self?)deception became uncovered, most countries still didn't act effectively, or (even more bizarre) performed their own form of denial.

Wasting many weeks of runway, then suddenly discovering an emergency due to lack of foresight.

Many citizens knew what was happening, yet somehow our political organisations failed us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was in S. Korea from around Feb 1 - 20. US and S. Korea had the first case of COVID at the same time, Jan 20.

As of the first week of February, emergency SMS alerts in S. Korea were sent out daily, sometimes several times per day. These alerts told everyone to wear masks, stay inside, wash hands, and exercise caution. S. Korea was already mobilizing government resources when there were very few cases. I remember there were only 20 cases at this point and all the efforts seemed overkill, but now we know they were necessary.

Meanwhile in the US none of this was taking place and the president is publicly saying everything is under control, when it was not.

It's comically easy to see why the US is failing to contain COVID if you have been watching how governments in Asia have been handling the outbreak.

<comment><USER6> we received one single sms in NL via our fancy alert system that gave a warning I don't even remember. we're definitely not doing all that much altogether, other than slowly ramping up the quarantining as things get worse (with a 2+ week lag that we don't seem to take into account, I guess?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article feels like what you get when you feel obligated to write _something_ , drawing grand meanings out of disjointed realities.

Taiwan was relatively recently an autocracy. It still can resort to its historical behavior overnight. In the West the sort of actions that Taiwan took _absent an emergency_ are politically unpalatable.

This is a political/ideological reality. Comparing that with empires that have lost their way is intellectually devoid of any basis and just seems incredibly lazy.

From a purely functional perspective it's worth noting that much of the West has a much closer intertwining with China than Taiwan does. This seems counter-intuitive -- China is right beside it, after all -- but multiples more Chinese nationals live in _Canada_ than Taiwan. There were magnitudes more flights between the US and China (purely from a flight # perspective, and certainly much larger from a passenger perspective) than between China and Taiwan. That Taiwan has been somewhat spared thus far is partly explained by this reality.

<comment><USER8> > Taiwan was relatively recently an autocracy. It still can resort to its > historical behavior overnight. In the West the sort of actions that Taiwan > took absent an emergency are politically unpalatable.

The difference is that Taiwan saw the emergency coming and decided to make a decision early instead of dithering.

Falling back on "we just can't do stuff like that BECAUSE DEMOCRACY" is intellectually lazy and self-sabotaging.

Arguing about principles instead of considering specific circumstances is exactly how organizations lose their way.

<comment><USER9> Giving up on some principles can also be a starting point for erosion of more principles. It's a very slippery slope that needs to constantly be reconsidered. See the slow building up of surveillance states where the principle of privacy is slowly being eroded because of profit and safety.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel like this would have been perfectly suitable as two posts. (Taiwan and the coronavirus, and the analogy with compaq).

But the latter part, about how Taiwan is handling the situation, I thought was pretty interesting.

<comment><USER11> I also found it difficult to suss out the general point connecting the two events, but I suppose broadly speaking the outsized role of largely unspoken (and undiscussed) choices in both seems significant.

<comment><USER12> The point is that we outsourced everything. Being on the top of a hollowed out value chain, while efficient, is a precarious place to be, because the bottom of the chain can just flip you on your head. A good brand will allow you to release one flop, but not three. The name of Compaq's supplier in Taiwan? Asus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When all you have is a hammer everything looks like an IBM clone, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't see the argument here. It is too disjoint.

<comment><USER15> my best attempt:

\- too much compromising and not enough dynamic effort leads to death

<comment><USER16> "Taiwan is good in the same way that Compaq was good"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> TLDR: He advocates more government control to do what needs to be done.

Unfortunately, the government doesn't always know what needs to be done, and some of his examples (e.g., response of local businesses) don't actually require government control, but a societal attitude shift. Add in the desire of some parties to use the crisis to further their agendas, and government control gets worrisome.

Article summary:

The analogy: "the West feels like Compaq in the 1990s, relying on its brand name and partnerships with other entities to do the actual work, forgetting that it was hard work and determination that made it great in the first place."

Important points:

""" look more closely at what Taiwan has done to contain SARS-CoV-2 to-date — you can reframe everything in a far more problematic way:

Restrict international movement and close borders (including banning all non- resident foreigners this week) Integrate and share private data across government agencies and with hospitals. Track private individual movements via their smartphones. Even the mask production I praised required requisitioning private property by the government, and the refusal of local businesses to serve customers without masks or insist on taking their temperature """

</comment><comment><USER18> This article feels like it was written out of panic and anxiety. The analogy feels pretty weak.

</comment><comment> c-smile TL;DR: Korea, Taiwan, China are fighting COVID effectively avoiding country- locked-at-home mode.

Major tool for that is the total control on population, e.g. using smartphones and other technical means.

The fact: people and society in general there have different mentality historically. Population density was significantly more high there in thousands of years.

And so, in these thousands of years, population agreed on far smaller "privacy radius" by giving up personal privacy, generation by generation.

As of "privacy radius", consider population of Korea - 52 mln and population of Canada - 38 mln. While territory of Canada is 100,000 times larger.

So in East Asia you can _technically_ implement total control of each person. Countries have infrastructure and acceptance of population already.

Therefore they can fight such problems effectively.

But on other hand high density of the population is a breeding bullion for next such COVIDs ...</comment>


J2ObjC: A Java to iOS Objective-C translator - <AUTHOR> http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2012/09/j2objc-java-to-ios-objective-c.html

<comment><USER2> what about library support? are libraries i use in java translated as well? performance?

<comment><USER3> It appears to work on Java code, not JVM bytecode (similar to GWT), so you'd have to decompile/disassemble the JVM bytecode first.

IT appears to follow GWT in other ways as well such as JSNI-ish interface (can even combine JSNI and native ObjC) and some optimized runtime classes for the ObjC environment.</comment></comment>


Which Programming Languages Get Used Most at Hackathons? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/28/which-programming-languages-get-used-most-at-hackathons/#.querse:2Hvh

<comment><USER2> I would guess Python is pretty high on the list</comment>